CHAPTER 9.
The British Government seem to have thought it best at this time to pursue a laissez faire policy in Ireland, in order to convince the Irish of their weakness, and to show them that, although a bundle of sticks when loosened allows each stick to be used for beating, and it may therefore be argued that sticks, being meant for fighting, should never be bound in a bundle, yet each single stick may easily get broken. Of course the Government intended to intervene before it was too late, and to suggest to the Irish that it was time to think of a union with their stronger neighbours.
On this subject, Maria remarks: ‘It is certain that the combinations of the disaffected at home and the advance of foreign invaders, were not checked till the peril became imminent, and till the purpose of creating universal alarm had been fully effected. As soon as the Commander-in-Chief and the Lord-Lieutenant (at the time joined in the same person) exerted his full military and civil power, the invaders were defeated, and the rebellion was extinguished. The petty magisterial tyrants, who had been worse than vain of their little brief authority, were put down, or rather, being no longer upheld, sank to their original and natural insignificance. The laws returned to their due course; and, with justice, security and tranquillity, were restored.
‘My father honestly, not ostentatiously, used his utmost endeavours to obliterate all that could tend to perpetuate ill-will in the country. Among the lower classes in his neighbourhood he endeavoured to discourage that spirit of recrimination and retaliation which the lower Irish are too prone to cherish, and of which they are proud. “Revenge is sweet, and I’ll have it” were words which an old beggar-woman was overheard muttering to herself as she tottered along the road. . . .
‘The lower Irish are such acute observers that there is no deceiving them as to the state of the real feelings of their superiors. . . .
‘It was soon seen by all of those who had any connection with him, that my father was sincere in his disdain of vengeance — of this they had convincing proof in his refusing to listen to the tales of slander, which so many were ready to pour into his ear, against those who had appeared to be his enemies.
‘They saw that he determined to have a public trial of the man who had instigated the Longford mob, but that, for the sake of justice, and to record what his own conduct had been, he did not seek this trial from any petty motives of personal resentment.
‘During the course of the trial, it appeared that the sergeant was a mere ignorant enthusiast, who had been worked up to frenzy by some, more designing than himself. Having accomplished his own object of publicly proving every fact that concerned his own honour and character, my father felt desirous that the poor culprit, who was now ashamed and penitent, should not be punished. The evidence was not pressed against him, and he was acquitted. As they were leaving the courthouse my father saw, and spoke in a playful tone to the penitent sergeant, who, among his other weaknesses, happened to be much afraid of ghosts. “Sergeant, I congratulate you,” said he, “upon my being alive here before you — I believe you would rather meet me than my ghost!” Then cheering up the man with the assurance of his perfect forgiveness, he passed on.
‘The malevolent passions ‘my father always considered as the greatest foes to human felicity — they would not stay in his mind — he was of too good and too happy a nature. He forgot all, but the moral which he drew for his private use from this Longford business. He kept ever afterwards the resolution he had made, to mix more with general society.
‘His thoughts were soon called to that most important question, of the Union between England and Ireland, which it was expected would be discussed at the meeting of Parliament.
‘It was late in life to begin a political career — imprudently so, had it been with the common views of family advancement or of personal fame; but his chief hope, in going into Parliament, was to obtain assistance in forwarding the great object of improving the education of the people: he wished also to assist in the discussion of the Union. He was not without a natural desire, which he candidly avowed, to satisfy himself how far he could succeed as a parliamentary speaker, and how far his mind would stand the trial of political competition or the temptations of ambition.
‘On the subject of the Union he had not yet been able, in parliamentary phrase, to make up his mind: and he went to the House in that state in which so many profess to find themselves, and so few ever really are — anxious to hear the arguments on both sides, and open to be decided by whoever could show him that which was best for his country.
‘The debate on the first proposal of the Union was protracted to an unusual length, and when he rose to speak, it was late at night, or rather it was early in the morning — two o’clock — the House had been so wearied that many of the members were asleep. It was an inauspicious moment. No person present, not even the Speaker, who was his intimate friend, could tell on which side he would vote. Curiosity was excited: some of the outstretched members were roused by their neighbours, whose anxiety to know on which side he would vote prompted them to encourage him to proceed. This curiosity was kept alive as he went on; and when people perceived that it was not a set speech, they became interested. He stated his doubts, just as they had really occurred, balancing the arguments as he threw them by turns into each scale, as they had balanced one another in his judgment; so that the doubtful beam nodded from side to side, while all watched to see when its vibrations would settle. All the time he kept both parties in good humour, because each expected to have him their own at last. After stating many arguments in favour of what appeared to him to be the advantages of the Union, he gave his vote against it, because, he said, he had been convinced by what he had heard in that House this night, that the Union was at this time decidedly against the wishes of the great majority of men of sense and property in the nation. He added that if he should be convinced that the opinion of the country changed at the final discussion of the question, his vote would be in its favour.
‘One of the anti-Unionists, who happened not to know my father personally, imagined from his accent, style, and manner of speaking, that he was an Englishman, and accused the Government of having brought a new member over from England, to impose him upon the House, as an impartial country gentleman, who was to make a pretence of liberality by giving a vote against the Union, while, by arguing in its favour, he was to make converts for the measure. Many on the Ministerial bench, who had still hopes that, on a future occasion, Mr. Edgeworth might be convinced and brought to vote with them, complimented him highly, declaring that they were completely surprised when they learned how he voted; for that undoubtedly the best arguments on their side of the question had been produced in his speech. Lord Castlereagh found the measure so much against the sense of the House that he pressed it no further at that time.
‘This session my father had the satisfaction of turning the attention of the House to a subject which he considered to be of greater and more permanent importance than the Union, or than any merely political measure could prove to his country, the education of the people. By his exertions a select committee was appointed, and they adopted the resolutions drawn up by him. When the report of this committee was brought up to the House, my father spoke at large upon the subject.
‘In his speech he said: It was impossible, when moral principles are instilled into the human mind, when people are regularly taught their duty to God and man, that abominable tenets can prevail to the subversion of subordination and society. He would venture to assert, though the power of the sword was great, that the force of education was greater. It was notorious that the writings of one man, Mr. Burke, had changed the opinions of the whole people of England against the French Revolution. … If proper books were circulated through the country, and if the public mind was prepared for the reception of their doctrines, it would be impossible to make the ignorance of the people an instrument of national ruin.
‘There is, he contended, a fund of goodness in the Irish as well as in the English na
ture. Did God give different minds to different countries? No, the difference of mind arose from education. It therefore became the duty of Parliament to improve as much as possible the public understanding — for the misfortunes of Ireland were owing not to the heart, but the head: the defect was not from nature, but from want of culture.
‘During this session my father spoke again two or three times, on some questions of revenue regulations and excise laws: of little consequence separately considered, but of importance in one respect, in their effect on the morality of the people. He pointed out that nothing could with more certainty tend to increase the crime of perjury than the multiplying custom-house oaths, and what are termed oaths of office. … In Ireland the habits of the common people are already too lax with regard to truth. The difference of religion, and the facilities of absolution, present difficulties so formidable to their moral improvement as to require all the counteracting powers of education, example, public opinion, and law. . . . Multiplying oaths injures the revenue, by increasing incalculably the means of evading the very laws and penalties by which it is attempted to bind the subject. Experience proves that this is a danger of no small account to the revenue; though trifling when compared with the importance of the general effect on national morality, and on the safety and tranquillity of the State, all which must ultimately rest, at all times and in all countries, upon religious sanctions. “It was not,” my father observed, “by increasing pains and penalties, or by any severity of punishment, that the observance of laws can be secured; on the contrary, small but certain punishments, and few but punctually executed laws, are most likely to secure obedience, and to effect public prosperity.”’
He writes to Darwin in March 1800: ‘The fatigue of the session was enormous. I am a Unionist, but I vote and speak against the union now proposed to us — as to my reasons, are they not published in the reports of our debates? It is intended to force this measure down the throats of the Irish, though five-sixths of the nation are against it. Now, though I think such union as would identify the nations, so as that Ireland should be as Yorkshire to Great Britain, would be an excellent thing: yet I also think that the good people of Ireland ought to be persuaded of this truth, and not be dragooned into the submission.
‘The Minister avows that seventy-two boroughs are to be compensated — i.e. bought by the people of Ireland with one million and a half of their own money; and he makes this legal by a very small majority, made up chiefly by these very borough members. When thirty-eight country members out of sixty-four are against the measure, and twenty-eight counties out of thirty-two have petitioned against it, this is such abominable corruption that it makes our parliamentary sanction worse than ridiculous.
‘I had the honour of offering, for myself, and for a large number of other gentlemen, that, if a minister could by any means win the nation to the measure, and show us even a small preponderance in his favour, we would vote with him.
‘So far for politics. I had a charming opportunity of advancing myself and my family, but I did not think it wise to quarrel with myself, and lose my good opinion at my time of life. What did lie in my way for a vote I will not say, but I stated in my place in the House, that I had been offered three thousand guineas for my seat during the few remaining weeks of the session.’
In 1817 he writes:—’The influence of the Crown was never so strongly exerted as upon this occasion. It is but justice, however, to Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh to give it as my opinion, that they began this measure with sanguine hopes that they could convince the reasonable part of the community that a cordial union between the two countries would essentially advance the interests of both. When, however, the ministry found themselves in a minority, and that a spirit of general opposition was rising in the country, a member of the House, who had been long practised in parliamentary intrigues, had the audacity to tell Lord Castlereagh from his place, that “if he did not employ the usual means of persuasion on the members of the House, he would fail in his attempt, and that the sooner he set about it the better.”
‘This advice was followed; and it is well known what benches were filled with the proselytes that had been made by the convincing arguments which had obtained a majority.
‘He went in the spring of 1799 to England, and visited his old friends, Mr. Keir, Mr. Watt, Dr. Darwin, and Mr. William Strutt of Derby. In passing through different parts of the country he saw, and delighted in showing us, everything curious and interesting in art and nature. Travelling, he used to say, was from time to time necessary, to change the course of ideas, and to prevent the growth of local prejudices.
‘He went to London, and paid his respects to his friend Sir Joseph Banks, attended the meetings of the Royal Society, and met various old acquaintances whom he had formerly known abroad.’
Maria writes:—’In his own account of his earlier life he has never failed to mark the time and manner of the commencement of valuable friendships with the same care and vividness of recollection With which some men mark the date of their obtaining promotion, places, or titles. I follow the example he has set me.
‘My father’s and Mrs. Edgeworth’s families were both numerous, and among such numbers, even granting the dispositions to be excellent and the understandings cultivated, the chances were against their suiting; but, happily, all the individuals of the two families, though of various talents, ages, and characters, did, from their first acquaintance, coalesce. . . . After he had lost such a friend as Mr. Day . . . who could have dared to hope that he should ever have found another equally deserving to possess his whole confidence and affection? Yet such a one it pleased God to give him — and to give him in the brother of his wife. And never man felt more strongly grateful for the double blessing. To Captain Beaufort he became as much attached as he had ever been to Lord Longford or to Mr. Day.
‘His father-in-law, Dr. Beaufort, was also particularly agreeable to him as a companion, and helpful as a friend.’
Consumption again carried off one of Edgeworth’s family: his daughter Elizabeth died at Clifton in August 1800.
The Continent, which had been practically closed for some years to travellers, was open in 1802 at the time of the short peace, and Edgeworth gladly availed himself of the opportunity of mixing in the literary and scientific society in Paris, and of showing his wife the treasures of the Louvre — treasures increased by the spoil of other countries. The tour was arranged for the autumn, and Edgeworth was looking forward to visiting Dr. Darwin on the way, when he received a letter begun by the doctor, describing his move from Derby to the Priory, a few miles out of the town, and sending a playful message to Maria: ‘Pray tell the authoress that the water nymphs of our valley will be happy to assist her next novel.’
A few lines after, the pen had stopped; another hand added the sad news that Dr. Darwin had been taken suddenly ill with fainting fits: he revived and spoke, but died that morning. The sudden death of such an old and valued friend was a great shock to Edgeworth.
Some months later, his daughter mentions that, ‘in passing through England, we went to Derby, and to the Priory, to which we had been so kindly invited by him who was now no more. The Priory was all stillness, melancholy, and mourning. It was a painful visit, yet not without satisfaction; for my father’s affectionate manner seemed to soothe the widow and daughters of his friend, who Were deeply sensible of the respect and zealous regard he showed for Dr. Darwin’s memory.’
CHAPTER 10
Mr. and Mrs. Edgeworth, with their daughters Maria and Charlotte, travelled through the Low Countries—’a delightful tour,’ Maria writes — and at length reached Paris, where they spent the winter 1802-3. They soon got introductions, through the Abbe Morellet, into that best circle of society, ‘which was composed of all that remained of the ancient men of letters, and of the most valuable of the nobility; not of those who had accepted of places from Buonaparte, nor yet of those emigrants who have been wittily and too justly described as returning to France after the
Revolution, sans avoir rien appris, ou rien oublie.’ . . . ‘We felt,’ Maria writes, ‘the characteristic charms of Parisian conversation, the polish and ease which in its best days distinguished it from that of any other capital.
‘During my father’s former residence in France, at the time when he was engaged in directing the works of the Rhone and Saone at Lyons, as he mentions in his Memoirs, he wrote a treatise on the construction of mills. He wished that D’Alembert should read it, to verify the mathematical calculations, and for this purpose he had put it into the hands of Morellet. D’Alembert approved of the essay; and my father became advantageously known to Morellet as a man of science, and as one who had gratuitously and honourably conducted a useful work in France. His predominating taste thus continued, as in former times, its influence, was still a connecting link between him and old and new friends. On this and many other occasions he proved the truth of what has been asserted, that no effort is ever lost: his exertions at Lyons in 1772, after an interval of thirty years, now becoming of unexpected advantage to him and to his family at Paris. . . .
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 775