Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan

by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  “In addition to what I have said respecting the consequences of the subordinate situation of this country, you are to take into consideration how peculiarly its inhabitants are circumstanced. Two out of three millions are Roman Catholics — I believe the proportion is still larger — and two-thirds of the remainder are violent rank Presbyterians, who have always been, but most particularly of late, strongly averse to all government placed in the hands of the members of the church of England; nine-tenths of the property, the landed property of the country I mean, is in the possession of the latter. You will readily conceive how much these circumstances must give persons of property in this kingdom a leaning towards government; how necessarily they must make them apprehensive for themselves, placed between such potent enemies; and how naturally it must make them look up to English government, in whatever hands it may be, for that strength and support, which the smallness of their numbers prevents their finding among themselves; and consequently you will equally perceive that those political or party principles which create such serious differences among you in England, are matters of small importance to the persons of landed property in this country, when compared with the necessity of their having the constant support of an English government. Here, my dear Dick, is a very long answer to a very few lines in your postscript. But I could not avoid boring you on the subject, when you say ‘that we are all so void of principle that we cannot enter into your situation.’

  “I have received with the greatest pleasure the accounts of the very considerable figure you have made this sessions in the House of Commons. As I have no doubt but that your Parliament will be dissolved, God send you success a second time at Stafford, and the same to your friend at Westminster. I will not forgive you if you do not give me the first intelligence of both those events. I shall say nothing to you on the subject of your English politics, only that I feel myself much more partial to one side of the question than, in my present situation, it would be of any use to me to avow. I am the happiest domestic man in the world, and am in daily expectation of an addition to that happiness, and own that a home, which I never leave without regret, nor return to without delight, has somewhat abated my passion for politics, and that warmth I once felt about public questions. But it has not abated the warmth of my private friendships; it has not abated my regard for Fitzpatrick, my anxiety for you, and the warmth of my wishes for the success of your friends, considering them as such. I beg my love to Mrs. Sheridan and Tom, and am, dear Dick,

  “Most affectionately yours, C. F. Sheridan.”

  With respect to the Bill for the better government of India, which Mr. Pitt substituted for that of his defeated rival, its provisions are now, from long experience, so familiarly known, that it would be superfluous to dwell upon either their merits or defects. [Footnote: Three of the principal provisions were copied from the Propositions of Lord North in 1781 — in allusion to which Mr. Powys said of the measure, that “it was the voice of Jacob, but the hand of Esau.”] The two important points in which it differed from the measure of Mr. Fox were, in leaving the management of their commercial concerns still in the hands of the Company, and in making the Crown the virtual depositary of Indian patronage, [Footnote: “Mr. Pitt’s Bill continues the form of the Company’s government, and professes to leave the patronage under certain conditions, and the commerce without condition, in the hands of the Company; but places all matters relating to the civil and military government and revenues in the hands of six Commissioners, to be nominated and appointed by His Majesty, under the title of ‘Commissioners of the Affairs of India,’ which Board of Commissioners is invested with the ‘superintendence and control over all the British territorial possessions in the East Indies, and over the affairs of the United Company of Merchants trading thereto.’” — Comparative Statement of the Two Bills, read from his place by Mr. Sheridan, on the Discussion of the Declaratory Acts in 1788, and afterwards published.

  In another part of this statement he says, “The present Board of Control have, under Mr. Pitt’s Bill, usurped those very imperial prerogatives from the Crown, which were falsely said to have been given to the new Board of Directors under Mr. Fox’s Bill.”] instead of suffering it to be diverted into the channels of the Whig interest, — never, perhaps, to find its way back again. In which of these directions such an accession of power might, with least mischief to the Constitution, be bestowed, having the experience only of the use made of it on one side, we cannot, with any certainty, pretend to determine. One obvious result of this transfer of India to the Crown has been that smoothness so remarkable in the movements of the system ever since — that easy and noiseless play of its machinery, which the lubricating contact of Influence alone could give, and which was wholly unknown in Indian policy, till brought thus by Mr. Pitt under ministerial control. When we consider the stormy course of Eastern politics before that period — the inquiries, the exposures, the arraignments that took place — the constant hunt after Indian delinquency, in which Ministers joined no less keenly than the Opposition — and then compare all this with the tranquillity that has reigned, since the halcyon incubation of the Board of Control over the waters, — though we may allow the full share that actual reform and a better system of government may claim in this change, there is still but too much of it to be attributed to causes of a less elevated nature, — to the natural abatement of the watchfulness of the minister, over affairs no longer in the hands of others, and to that power of Influence, which, both at home and abroad, is the great and ensuring bond of tranquillity, and, like the Chain of Silence, mentioned in old Irish poetry, binds all that come within its reach in the same hushing spell of compromise and repose.

  It was about this time that, in the course of an altercation with Mr. Rolle, the member for Devonshire, Mr. Sheridan took the opportunity of disavowing any share in the political satires then circulating, under the titles of “The Rolliad” and the “Probationary Odes.” “He was aware,” he said, “that the Honorable Gentlemen had suspected that he was either the author of those compositions, or some way or other concerned in them; but he assured them, upon his honor, he was not — nor had he ever seen a line of them till they were in print in the newspaper.”

  Mr. Rolle, the hero of The Rolliad, was one of those unlucky persons, whose destiny it is to be immortalized by ridicule, and to whom the world owes the same sort of gratitude for the wit of which they were the butts, as the merchants did, in Sinbad’s story, to those pieces of meat to which diamonds adhered. The chief offence, besides his political obnoxiousness, by which he provoked this satirical warfare, (whose plan of attack was all arranged at a club held at Becket’s,) was the lead which he took in a sort of conspiracy, formed on the ministerial benches, to interrupt, by coughing, hawking, and other unseemly noises, the speeches of Mr. Burke. The chief writers of these lively productions were Tickell, General Fitzpatrick, [Footnote: To General Fitzpatrick some of the happiest pleasantries are to be attributed; among others, the verses on Brooke Watson, those on the Marquis of Graham, and “The Liars.”] Lord John [Footnote: Lord John Townshend, the only survivor, at present, of this confederacy of wits, was the author, in conjunction with Tickell, of the admirable Satire, entitled “Jekyll,” — Tickell having contributed only the lines parodied from Pope. To the exquisite humor of Lord John we owe also the Probationary Ode for Major Scott, and the playful parody on “Donae gratus eram libi.”] Townshend, Richardson, George Ellis, and Dr. Lawrence. [Footnote: By Doctor Lawrence the somewhat ponderous irony of the prosaic department was chiefly managed. In allusion to the personal appearance of this eminent civilian, one of the wits of the day thus parodied a passage of Virgil:

  “Quo tetrior alter Non fuit, excepto Laurentis corpore Turni.”]

  There were also a few minor contributions from the pens of Bate Dudley, Mr. O’Beirne (afterwards Bishop of Meath), and Sheridan’s friend, Read. In two of the writers, Mr. Ellis and Dr. Lawrence, we have a proof of the changeful nature of those atoms, whose concour
se for the time constitutes Party, and of the volatility with which, like the motes in the sunbeam, described by Lucretius, they can

  “Commutare viam, retroque repulsa reverti

  Nunc huc, nunc illuc, in cunctas denique partes.”

  Change their light course, as fickle chance may guide,

  Now here, now there, and shoot from side to side.

  Dr. Lawrence was afterwards a violent supporter of Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Ellis [Footnote: It is related that, on one occasion, when Mr. Ellis was dining with Mr. Pitt, and embarrassed naturally by the recollection of what he had been guilty of towards his host in The Rolliad, some of his brother-wits, to amuse themselves at his expense, endeavored to lead the conversation to the subject of this work, by asking him various questions, as to its authors, &c., — which Mr. Pitt overhearing, from the upper end of the table, leaned kindly towards Ellis and said,

  “Immo age, et a prima, dic, hospes, originc nobis.”

  The word “hospes,” applied to the new convert, was happy, and the “erroresque tuos,” that follows, was, perhaps, left to be implied.] showed the versatility of his wit, as well as of his politics, by becoming one of the most brilliant contributors to The Antijacobin.

  The Rolliad and The Antijacobin may, on their respective sides of the question, be considered as models of that style of political satire, [Footnote: The following just observations upon The Rolliad and Probationary Odes occur in the manuscript Life of Sheridan which I have already cited:— “They are, in most instances, specimens of the powers of men, who, giving themselves up to ease and pleasure, neither improved their minds with great industry, nor exerted them with much activity; and have therefore left no very considerable nor durable memorials of the happy and vigorous abilities with which nature had certainly endowed them. The effusions themselves are full of fortunate allusions, ludicrous terms, artful panegyric, and well-aimed satire. The verses are at times far superior to the occasion, and the whole is distinguished by a taste, both in language and matter, perfectly pure and classical; but they are mere occasional productions. They will sleep with the papers of the Craftsman, so vaunted, in their own time, but which are never now raked up, except by the curiosity of the historian and the man of literature.

  “Wit, being generally founded upon the manners and characters of its own day, is crowned in that day, beyond all other exertions of the mind, with splendid and immediate success. But there is always something that equalizes. In return, more than any other production, it suffers suddenly and irretrievably from the hand of Time. It receives a character the most opposite to its own. From being the most generally understood and perceived, it becomes of all writing the most difficult and the most obscure. Satires, whose meaning was open to the multitude, defy the erudition of the scholar, and comedies, of which every line was felt as soon as it was spoken, require the labor of an antiquary to explain them.”] whose lightness and vivacity give it the appearance of proceeding rather from the wantonness of wit than of ill-nature, and whose very malice, from the fancy with which it is mixed up, like certain kinds of fireworks, explodes in sparkles. They, however, who are most inclined to forgive, in consideration of its polish and playfulness, the personality in which the writers of both these works indulged, will also readily admit that by no less shining powers can a license so questionable be either assumed or palliated, and that nothing but the lively effervescence of the draught can make us forget the bitterness infused into it. At no time was this truth ever more strikingly exemplified than at present, when a separation seems to have taken place between satire and wit, which leaves the former like the toad, without the “jewel in its head;” and when the hands, into which the weapon of personality has chiefly fallen, have brought upon it a stain and disrepute, that will long keep such writers as those of the Rolliad and Antijacobin from touching it again.

  Among other important questions, that occupied the attention of Mr. Sheridan at this period, was the measure brought forward under the title of “Irish Commercial Propositions” for the purpose of regulating and finally adjusting the commercial intercourse between England and Ireland. The line taken by him and Mr. Fox in their opposition to this plan was such as to accord, at once with the prejudices of the English manufacturers and the feelings of the Irish patriots, — the former regarding the measure as fatal to their interests, and the latter rejecting with indignation the boon which it offered, as coupled with a condition for the surrender of the legislative independence of their country.

  In correct views of political economy, the advantage throughout this discussion was wholly on the side of the minister; and, in a speech of Mr. Jenkinson, we find (advanced, indeed, but incidentally, and treated by Mr. Fox as no more than amusing theories,) some of those liberal principles of trade which have since been more fully developed, and by which the views of all practical statesmen are, at the present day, directed. The little interest attached by Mr. Fox to the science of Political Economy — so remarkably proved by the fact of his never having read the work of Adam Smith on the subject — is, in some degree, accounted for by the skepticism of the following passage, which occurs in one of his animated speeches on this very question. Mr. Pitt having asserted, in answer to those who feared the competition of Ireland in the market from her low prices of labor, that “great capital would in all cases overbalance cheapness of labor,” Mr. Fox questions the abstract truth of this position, and adds,— “General positions of all kinds ought to be very cautiously admitted; indeed, on subjects so infinitely complex and mutable as politics and commerce, a wise man hesitates at giving too implicit a credit to any general maxim of any denomination.”

  If the surrender of any part of her legislative power could have been expected from Ireland in that proud moment, when her new-born Independence was but just beginning to smile in her lap, the acceptance of the terms then proffered by the Minister, might have averted much of the evils, of which she was afterwards the victim. The proposed plan being, in itself, (as Mr. Grattan called it,) “an incipient and creeping Union,” would have prepared the way less violently for the completion of that fated measure, and spared at least the corruption and the blood which were the preliminaries of its perpetration at last. But the pride, so natural and honorable to the Irish — had fate but placed them in a situation to assert it with any permanent effect — repelled the idea of being bound even by the commercial regulations of England. The wonderful eloquence of Grattan, which, like an eagle guarding her young, rose grandly in defence of the freedom to which itself had given birth, would alone have been sufficient to determine a whole nation to his will. Accordingly such demonstrations of resistance were made both by people and parliament, that the Commercial Propositions were given up by the minister, and this apparition of a Union withdrawn from the eyes of Ireland for the present — merely to come again, in another shape, with many a “mortal murder on its crown, and push her from her stool.”

  As Mr. Sheridan took a strong interest in this question, and spoke at some length on every occasion when it was brought before the House, I will, in order to enable the reader to judge of his manner of treating it, give a few passages from his speech on the discussion of that Resolution, which stipulated for England a control over the external legislation of Ireland: —

  “Upon this view, it would be an imposition on common sense to pretend that Ireland could in future have the exercise of free will or discretion upon any of those subjects of legislation, on which she now stipulated to follow the edicts of Great Britain; and it was a miserable sophistry to contend, that her being permitted the ceremony of placing those laws upon her own Statute-Book, as a form of promulgating them, was an argument that it was not the British but the Irish statutes that bound the people of Ireland. For his part, if he were a member of the Irish Parliament, he should prefer the measure of enacting by one decisive vote, that all British laws to the purposes stipulated, should have immediate operation in Ireland as in Great Britain; choosing rather to avoid the mockery of enacting wit
hout deliberation, and deciding where they had no power to dissent. Where fetters were to be worn, it was a wretched ambition to contend for the distinction of fastening our own shackles.”

  * * * * *

  “All had been delusion, trick, and fallacy: a new scheme of commercial arrangement is proposed to the Irish as a boon; and the surrender of their Constitution is tacked to it as a mercantile regulation. Ireland, newly escaped from harsh trammels and severe discipline, is treated like a high-mettled horse, hard to catch; and the Irish Secretary is to return to the field, soothing and coaxing him, with a sieve of provender in one hand, but with a bridle in the other, ready to slip over his head while he is snuffling at the food. But this political jockeyship, he was convinced, would not succeed.”

  In defending the policy, as well as generosity of the concessions made to Ireland by Mr. Fox in 1782, he says, —

  “Fortunately for the peace and future union of the two kingdoms, no such miserable and narrow policy entered into the mind of his Right Honorable friend; he disdained the injustice of bargaining with Ireland on such a subject; nor would Ireland have listened to him if he had attempted it. She had not applied to purchase a Constitution; and if a tribute or contribution had been demanded in return for what was then granted, those patriotic spirits who were at that time leading the oppressed people of that insulted country to the attainment of their just rights, would have pointed to other modes of acquiring them; would have called to them in the words of Camillas, arma aptare atque ferro non auro patriam et libertatem recuperare.”

  The following passage is a curious proof of the short-sighted views which prevailed at that period, even among the shrewdest men, on the subject of trade: —

  “There was one point, however, in which he most completely agreed with the manufacturers of this country; namely, in their assertion, that if the Irish trader should be enabled to meet the British merchant and manufacturer in the British market, the gain of Ireland must be the loss of England. [Footnote: Mr. Fox also said, “Ireland cannot make a single acquisition but to the proportionate loss of England.”] This was a fact not to be controverted on any principle of common sense or reasonable argument. The pomp of general declamation and waste of fine words, which had on so many occasions been employed to disguise and perplex this plain simple truth, or still more fallaciously to endeavor to prove that Great Britain would find her balance in the Irish market, had only tended to show the weakness and inconsistency of the doctrine they were meant to support. The truth of the argument was with the manufacturers; and this formed, in Mr. Sheridan’s mind, a ground of one of the most vehement objections he had to the present plan.”