The Earl of Sunderland, Lord-Lieutenant—The Method of
governing Ireland in the Time of George I—Hugh Boulter, Primate of all
Ireland—An Exodus to enlist in Foreign Service—Ship seized at Killybegs—Wretched
State of the Country—Swift's Pamphlets on Irish Manufactures—Lack of
Copper Coins— Wood's Halfpence—Clamour raised against them—Swift's
Drapier's Letters— The Patent granted Wood withdrawn—Steady Stream
of Emigration—3000 Protestants leave Ulster—Swift on the Condition of
Ulster—Death of George I.
One of the first acts of the regency in England,
appointed by King George I pending his arrival from Hanover, was to
remove the Lord Chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, from his position of
Lord Justice (1714), and appoint William King, Archbishop of Dublin;
John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam; and Robert FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare,
to govern the kingdom of Ireland as Lords Justices. The vacant
chancellorship was given to Alan Broderick, Speaker of the Irish House
of Commons. In the same year Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, was
declared Lord-Lieutenant. It was then the custom of the Viceroy to
reside in England, and visit Ireland every second year while Parliament
was sitting, the government being carried on by Lords Justices.
The English Government having determined to make as
much as they could out of Ireland with as little trouble as possible,
the methods of ruling the country were peculiar. One of the Lords
Justices was, as a rule, the special confidential agent of the English
ministry, and he generally contrived to manage affairs through some of
the magnates who owned the major portion of the Parliamentary
representation, and who were known as undertakers. At that time
Parliamentary representation was a kind of property, and it therefore
did not reflect the opinions of the people. The chief business of the
managers of the King's concerns was to get supplies passed, to oppose
any tendency displayed at independence, to prevent any interference with
English trade interests, and to discourage the growth of "Popery". One
of the most successful of the managers of the undertakers was Hugh
Boulter, an English bishop, who, in 1724, was translated from Bristol to
be Primate of all Ireland. For the eighteen years he was resident in
Ireland, during which he was thirteen times Lord Justice, he was
practically the ruler of the country.
After the accession of George, prosecutions for
enlisting in foreign service were carried on with great vigour, but,
although many recruiting agents who were caught were hanged, it was
found that the practice still continued. A large number of active agents
were employed raising recruits, who appear for the most part to have
been driven to enlist by the distress to which the population had been
reduced. Some of these recruits were sent to Spain, where the Duke of
Ormonde, who had joined the Pretender, was preparing an expedition
against King George. Others were sent to France. Towards the close of
the reign this enlistment was carried on with increasing activity, and
seems to have alarmed the Government. On one occasion a ship which
entered the harbour of Killybegs to carry away some of those who had
thus enlisted was seized, and Boulter wrote to the Duke of Newcastle
concerning the incident: "We have daily new accounts from several parts
that the lusty young fellows are quitting the country on pretence that
they are going to England for work. Such as have occasion to employ many
hands, begin to feel the effects of this desertion, and nobody here
questions but that all these really are going into foreign service." The
destruction of manufacturing industry, the restrictions
on trade, the falling of the land out of cultivation, the conversion of
arable land into pasture, the drain from absentee rents and pensions,
had gradually impoverished Ireland to an alarming extent. The peasantry
were almost on the brink of starvation.
A potent voice was now to be raised on behalf of the
wretched country. In 1720 Swift published his first pamphlet on Irish
affairs: A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures.
Swift became Dean of St. Patrick's in 1713, but he had lived seven years
in Dublin as an undergraduate of Trinity College, and though he left
Ireland when he was twenty-one, and took his M.A. at Oxford, he returned
in 1694 to become Vicar of Kilroot, near Carrickfergus, becoming, five
years later, Rector of Laracor, in the Diocese of Meath, so that he was
well qualified by residence in the country to call attention to its most
urgent needs. In a letter to Pope he gives an interesting account of the
events connected with the pamphlet referred to, which throws much light
on the government of Ireland at the time. "I have written in this
kingdom", he said, "a discourse to persuade the wretched people to wear
their own manufactures, instead of those from England. This treatise
soon spread very fast, being agreeable to the sentiments of the whole
nation, except those gentlemen who had employments or were expectants.
Upon which a person in great office here immediately took the alarm; he
sent in haste for the chief justice, and informed him of a seditious,
factious, and virulent pamphlet, lately published, with a design of
setting the two kingdoms at variance; directing at the same time that
the printer should be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. The
Chief Justice has so quick an understanding, that he resolved if
possible to outdo his orders. The grand juries of the county and city
were effectually practised with to represent the said pamphlet with all
aggravating epithets, for which they had thanks sent them from England,
and their presentments published for several weeks in all the
newspapers. The printer was seized, and forced to give great bail. After
his trial the jury brought him in not guilty, although they had been
culled with the utmost industry. The Chief Justice sent them back
nine times, and kept them eleven hours; until, being perfectly tired
out, they were forced to leave the matter to the mercy of the judge, by
what they call a special verdict. During the trial, the Chief
Justice, among other singularities, laid his hand on his breast, and
protested solemnly that the author's design was to bring in the
Pretender, although there was not a single syllable of party in the
whole treatise; and although it was known that the most eminent of those
who professed his own principles publicly disallowed his proceedings.
But the cause being so very odious and unpopular, the trial of the
verdict was deferred from one term to another, until, upon the Duke of
Grafton's, the Lord-Lieutenant's, arrival, His Grace, after mature
advice and permission from England, was pleased to grant a nolle
prosequi." The reference to the jury having been "culled" proves
that jury-packing in political trials is by no means a recent
institution in Ireland.
In 1723 the value of all the coin in circulation in
Ireland did not exceed about £400,000; the copper coinage was deficient,
debased, and in great part counterfeit. Owing to the high standard of
gold in relation to silver, the latter decreased in proportion, with the
result of a lack of small change. Bishop Berkeley alludes to this in the
Querist when he asks: "Whether £4 in small cash may not circulate
and enliven an Irish market which many £4 pieces would permit to
stagnate?" He also enquired in a later number: "If we had a mint for
coining only shillings, sixpences, and copper money, whether the nation
would not soon feel the good effects thereof?"
In Ulster trade was hampered, on account of the lack
of small coins, to such an extent that weavers were frequently paid
their wages in cloth, which they were occasionally compelled to exchange
for half its value. The great want of small money at this time is
further proved by the common use of raps, a counterfeit coin of
such base metal that what passed for a halfpenny was not worth half a
farthing; which raps appear to have obtained a currency out of
necessity, and for want of better small money with which to give change.
Under these circumstances application was made on more than one occasion
to the English Government for permission to supply the deficiency, but
on every occasion it was refused. At last, in 1724, a patent under the
broad seal was granted to one William Wood, a large ironmonger and
mine-owner, to coin £108,000 (Irish) worth of halfpence and farthings.
No sooner did the news of Wood's patent get abroad
than a violent clamour was raised against his coin. Both Houses of
Parliament voted addresses to the Crown accusing the patentee of fraud,
affirming that the terms of the patent had been infringed as to the
quality of the coin, and that its circulation would be highly
prejudicial to the revenue and commerce of the country. The Commons
asserted "that the said William Wood had been guilty of a most notorious
fraud and deceit in coining the said halfpence, having, under colour of
the powers granted unto him, imported and endeavoured to utter great
quantities of different impressions and of much less weight than was
required by the said patent".
There is little to be gained by following the history
of Wood's halfpence save to learn how much political capital can be made
out of a small matter. The flame of controversy on the subject was
fanned by Swift, who in his Drapier's Letters roused the public
ire to fever-pitch. The first of the series of letters was addressed:
"To the Tradesmen, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Country People in General
of the Kingdom of Ireland". Under the fictitious character of a draper
he began by assuring his illiterate audience that the subject to which
he called their attention "is, next to your duty to God and the care of
your salvation, of the greatest concern to yourselves and your children:
your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life, entirely
depend upon it".
"Now you must know", said Swift, "that the halfpence
and farthings in England pass for very little more than they are worth;
but if you should beat them to pieces, and sell them to the brazier, you
would not lose much above a penny in a shilling. But Mr. Wood made his
halfpence of such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones,
that the brazier would hardly give you above a penny of good money for a
shilling of his; so that this sum of £108,000 in good gold and silver,
must be given for trash that will not be worth eight or nine thousand
pounds real value. But this is not the worst; for Mr. Wood, when he
pleases, may by stealth send over another £108,000, and buy all our
goods for eleven parts in twelve under the value. For example, if a
hatter sells a dozen of hats for 5s. a-piece, which amounts to £3,
and receives the payment in Wood's coin, he really receives only the
value of 5s."
After a long delay, and only after an intimation that
no Money Bill would be passed, an answer came to the petition of
Parliament asking for the withdrawal of the patent. The answer was
evasive. An enquiry was promised, which was entrusted to a Committee of
the English Privy Council; samples of the halfpence were assayed by Sir
Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint, who reported them to be in
accordance with the patent. The Committee reported that the King had
acted within his prerogative, and that the patent could not legally be
withdrawn. The report was sent to Dublin and circulated, but had no
effect. The whole country got into a state of wild excitement; no one
would take the halfpence.
The Duke of Grafton was not considered strong enough
to cope with such a storm, so he was recalled, and in 1724 Lord Carteret
was sent in his place; but, the storm continuing with unabated violence,
the Government, under the advice of Primate Boulter, withdrew the patent
and compensated Wood.
The steady stream of emigration caused by the unhappy
condition of the country threatened to become a cataract. The
Restoration had driven the greater number of sturdy, energetic Puritans
out of three-fourths of Ireland. The disabilities under which the
Dissenters laboured, joined to economic causes after the Revolution,
were now doing the same thing with the Presbyterians of Ulster. In one
year, according to Primate Boulter, 3100 Protestants emigrated from
Ulster. They repaired chiefly to Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and
North Carolina, which were in a great measure peopled by them. The
effect of this emigration upon the emoluments of the Presbyterian clergy
was very serious. In a letter to Sir Robert Walpole the Primate stated
that, owing to the emigration to America, the scarcity of corn, and the
consequent loss of credit, Presbyterian ministers were in a very bad
way, some who used to get £50 a year from their congregation not
receiving £15.
The evils of absenteeism and the exaction of
landlords aroused the wrath of Swift. "The landlords," he says, "either
by their ignorance, or greediness of making large rent-rolls, have
performed ... so ill, as we see by experience, that there is not one
tenant in 500 who has made any improvement worth mentioning; for which I
appeal to any man who rides through the kingdom, where little is to be
found among the tenants but beggary and desolation; the cabins of the
Scotch themselves in Ulster, being as dirty and miserable as those of
the wildest Irish."
Swift then proceeds to deal with the condition of the
clergy in Ulster and the exodus to America, incidentally remarking that
"the Ulster tithing-man is more advantageous to the clergy than any
other in the kingdom". He says that in his opinion "the directions for
Ireland are very short and plain, to encourage agriculture and home
consumption and utterly discard all importations which are not
absolutely necessary for health or life".
Such was the state of affairs in Ulster at the close
of the reign of George I. The King was seized with apoplexy while
travelling in his coach to Osnabruck, and died on the nth of June, 1727.
