this did not suffice; for an Act was passed in that year to supply the Viceroy with authority to grant further pensions for secret service to the amount of 1,500l. per annum, which I take as equivalent to a further sum of 30,000l. So that in lieu of 5,000l. for the year 1799, we have thus a total of 88,000l. When we pass on to 1800, and when, as we are told by this pseudo-history, all occasion for illegitimate expenditure had now passed away, the facts become yet more astonishing. The sum voted in Dublin for secret service in that year was 175,000l.; and even this did not suffice to clear the account, for no less than 75,000l. was voted in 1801. There is not a single statement in this paragraph which is true. There was not an ordinary Irish provision for secret service of 53,000l., or even a tenth of that sum. I need hardly say that Mr. Gladstone borrows this allegation from the younger Grattan. (1) In his frantic rush against the Irish Union Mr. Gladstone is so blind that he does not see that the plethora of wealth which he attributes to the Irish Government is absolutely inconsistent with the fact upon which he himself dwells, viz. that that Government applied on several occasions in 1799 and 1800 to the English Treasury for the advance of small sums. As Mr. Gladstone is here talking about things he does not understand, I will state the true position of the Irish Government with regard to secret service money. Previous to 1793 there was no provision in Ireland for such a fund in the real sense of the expression. There was indeed (says Mr. Lecky) a small fund, varying from 1,2001. to 2,000l. which bore this name, but its title was altogether a misnomer, for it was merely a fund for paying extra packet-boats, donations to foreigners in distress, illuminations, beer to the populace on the King's birthday, and such like expenses. 36 And Mr. Eden, the Irish Secretary, tells us why no such fund existed in Ireland. As we have not the constitutional pretext of foreign service, we have not any means of carrying into Parliament a demand for a sum without accounting for its use.' 37 In 1793, two years after the foundation of the United Irishmen Society, an Act 38 was passed for the establishment of a secret service fund, limited to the amount of 5,000l. in any one year,' which sum was charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund. By another section of this Act, any sum might be paid to the principal secretary of the Lord-Lieutenant for secret service in detecting, preventing, or defeating treasonable or other dangerous societies.' But we may leave this latter section out of account; for (1) the secretary could only discharge himself from sums received under it by oath before one of the Barons of the Exchequer, 39 and (2) the record of every item received, and every payment made under this section happily survives. Its title is Account of Secret Service Money applied in detecting treasonable Conspiracies, pursuant to the provisions of 35 History of England, iv. 519. 38 33 Geo. III. c. 34. 87 Ibid. 520. 39 Sec. 10. the Civil List Act, 1793.' It runs, after reference to former accounts, from the 21st of August, 1797, to March 1804, that is until after Emmett's rebellion." The next Act is the 39 Geo. III. c. 65, passed in June 1799, after the rebellion. It provided that His Majesty might grant secret annuities to the amount of 3,000l. to the under-secretaries, in trust for certain persons who had 'rendered essential service by making discoveries of the traitors concerned in contriving, and fomenting, and acting in the said rebellion.' The Act states that it was desirable to grant the annuities to the under-secretaries in trust, in order to secure the recipients from being objects of traitorous revenge.' In two subsequent sections it was provided that these annuities should be charged on the Consolidated Fund, and that no payments should be made except on the oath of the under-secretaries, or one of them. It is evident that the Irish Government had no power over these sums. The last Act is the 40 Geo. III. c. 49 (1800), which provided that a further sum of 1,500l. per annum might be granted to His Majesty for secret annuities,' as the words of the Committee of Supply express it, to reward persons who, by their exertions in the discovery of the rebellion which has prevailed in this kingdom, have been instrumental in the preservation of the loyal inhabitants from massacre, and the state from destruction, and who by their services have exposed their persons to danger and sustained much injury in their properties."1 Every penny of this grant was expended as the Act directs, as will be seen by referring to the Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 321. We thus see that the only secret service money at the disposal of the Irish Government during the years 1793-1800 was the annual sum of 5,000l. appointed by the Act of 1793, and charged on the Consolidated Fund. In fact it was impossible that it should be otherwise, for, as Mr. Eden tells us, the Government had not the excuse of foreign service, and therefore no means of bringing before the Parliament a demand for such a fund. And we can now understand why it was that the Irish Government was obliged to apply for the advance of small sums from the English Treasury during the years 1799 and 1800. (2) It is not true that the sum of 175,000l., or any other sum whatever, was voted for secret service in Dublin in 1800. We have seen that the Irish Government had no pretext for approaching Parliament with a demand for such a fund. We must also remember that there was at this time a powerful opposition nightly declaiming on the 40 This MS. is to be found in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. Dr. Madden makes great use of it, and quotes lengthy extracts from it in his Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, first series, Appendix. 41 Commons Journals, June 19, 1800. corruption of the administration, and ready to seize on any excuse for an accusation. The Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, Corry, introduced his budget on the 28th of February, 1800. This budget was approved of by the Anti-Unionists. Sir J. Parnell said he liked the aspect of the taxes.' Colonels Barry and Wolfe 'made a few remarks principally levelled against the duty on wines.' No others spoke. In the report of the debate which is to be found in the Anti-Union of the 1st of March, or in the estimates given in that report, there is not a word of secret service. I have carefully gone through the resolutions of the Committee of Supply in the Commons Journals, and there is no mention of such a fund in any of them. (3) It is not true that 75,000l., or any other sum, was voted for secret service in Dublin in 1801. This was impossible, as the Irish Parliament had ceased to exist. But it may be said, surely Mr. Gladstone had good authority for making such statements respecting enormous sums like 175,000l. and 75,000l. An ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer is not likely to blunder about money, nor is a statesman capable of misleading his hearers. The answer to this objection is simple. Mr. Gladstone had no authority at all. To prove his extraordinary statements about these two sums, Mr. Gladstone refers us to the Cornwallis Correspondence, iii., 359. On turning to that page we find an extract from a letter, and a note appended to that extract. The extract and note are as follows :— ... Alexander Marsden, Esq., to John King, Esq. Dublin Castle: May 6, 1801. I am again under the necessity of entreating your aid to have our money matters settled. I have already informed you how distressingly I am, more than any one, embarked in this business, and since I wrote to you nothing has been received. I wonder to see Mr. A.'s secret service money so limited this year.* 6 *The note appended is made by Mr. Ross: The sum voted in 1800 for secret service money was 175,000l.; in 1801, 75,0007.; in each case including 25,000l. from the Civil List.' The Mr. A. of the letter is of course Mr. Addington, who was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer in England on the 10th of February, 1801, three months before this letter was written. It is evident at once that the two sums of 175,000l. and 75,000l. were voted, if voted at all or anywhere, in the Parliament in London, and had no reference to Ireland. What takes place in effect is this. Marsden, writing from Dublin at a time when there was no Irish Parliament in existence, says, I wonder your Chancellor of the Exchequer has so small a secret service fund this year; and Mr. Ross, to show that this fund was really small, compares it with that for the previous year in England, for it would be absurd to compare it with an Irish one. Here, then, we have the blunder of a schoolboy, for I do not wish to consider it a deliberate misrepresentation. But I must add that morality draws but a slender line between the sin of him who makes a statement knowing it to be false, and that of him who does so, not knowing or careless whether it be true. I confess I find some difficulty in extending the mantle of charity over one who scatters about his allegations with an audacity which is only equalled by the unveracity of the assertions. It would be impossible within the bounds of this article to expose the numerous misstatements which Mr. Gladstone has made. I shall therefore limit myself to those contained in a single page (460). I have stated in my book that only seven officials were dismissed during the long period of the Union contest. Mr. Gladstone endeavours to show that ten were dismissed on account of their opposition to the Union. To establish this he gives what he considers three additional names, but one of these, Colonel Wolfe, was already mentioned by me as having been dismissed from his Commissionership in the Revenue. To prove his case Mr. Gladstone furnishes us with the following remarks: But he [Mr. Ingram] is wrong in his 'only seven ;' he has omitted to state that there were other dismissals of members of the Opposition which were in principle even far worse than these. We read in the well-known Red and Black Lists that Lord Corry was dismissed from his regiment in the army, and Colonel O'Donnell and Colonel Wolfe from their respective colonelcies of militia in Mayo and Wicklow. Mr. Gladstone does not even understand the meaning of the expression Red and Black Lists.' It was the custom in the Irish Parliament, on every important division, to publish lists of the Ayes and Noes, and in the Union debates of 1799 and 1800 this custom was observed. These lists were invariably printed in red and black. Barrington has compounded the several lists of 1799 and 1800 into two, which he impudently calls Original Lists. That they are not original is seen at once from the fact that they speak of events which did not take place for more than twenty years after the Union. Thus they speak of Charles Bushe as now Chief Justice of Ireland,' and of Colonel Barry as now Lord Farnham.' Bushe was not appointed Chief Justice till February 1822, and Barry did not become Lord Farnham till July 1823. These lists of Barrington were adopted by Grattan junior, and transferred into his Life of his father. It is from these lists that Mr. Gladstone composes the paragraph just quoted. Let us see what truth there is in it, and what credit is due to the statements of the respectable trio of Barrington, Grattan, and Gladstone. (1) Lord Corry was not dismissed from his regiment in the army. He was never in the army at all. Lord Corry succeeded in 1798 Lord Abercorn in the command of the Tyrone Militia. He was never dismissed from this command, which he resigned in 1804.42 (2) Colonel O'Donnell was not dismissed from the command of the Mayo Militia for his opposition to the Union. He was dismissed for having made a most seditious speech in the House of Commons on the 22nd of January, 1799. In this speech Colonel O'Donnell' threatened, that if the Union was passed, he would take the field at the head of his regiment to resist rebels in rich clothes with as much energy as he had ever resisted rebels in rags.' Even Barrington states this in the body of his work,43 though in the well-known Red and Black Lists' we only find this notice, dismissed from his regiment.' (3) Colonel Wolfe was not dismissed from the command of the Wicklow Militia. He was not colonel of the Wicklow, but of the Kildare Militia,44 and was not dismissed from the latter command. A little lower down in the same page Mr. Gladstone tells us that Colonel Cole was member for Louth, and then goes on to misrepresent the refusal of the Irish Government to grant this gentleman the escheatorship of Munster to enable him to vacate his seat. Colonel, afterwards General Sir Lowry Cole, was not member for Louth, he was member for Enniskillen.45 When he applied for the escheatorship he informed Lord Castlereagh that he intended to have his seat transferred to Mr. Balfour." 46 Mr. Balfour was his brother-in-law and was the gentleman who at a public meeting moved the following resolution: "That if a union be enacted by the legislature of this kingdom, either contrary to, or without the advice of the assembled freeholders and burgesses, the submission of the people of Ireland thereto will be a matter of prudence and not of duty.' 47 The escheatorship was at first refused to Colonel Cole, because Lord Cornwallis thought it unreasonable that Colonel Cole should desire to bring into Parliament a person who had laid down 'a recurrence to first principles as justifiable if the Parliament should adopt a measure which had been recommended from the throne.' Colonel Cole could not have been a very strong opponent of the Union, for on the 18th of January, 1800, he vacated his seat on being appointed to the office of Gentleman at Large.48 After dealing in the way I have described with my six propo 42 Parliamentary Memoirs of Fermanagh and Tyrone, p. 313 [by Lord Belmore, a grandson of Lord Corry]. 43 Rise and Fall, one vol. edition, p. 417. 45 Parliamentary Memoirs, &c., p. 74. 47 Ibid.; and Parl. Memoirs, 75. 44 Corn. Corr. iii. 30. 46 Corn. Corr. iii. 97. 48 Parl. Memoirs, 75. |