Charlemont's efforts to maintain its dignity. 431 should cease to feel as patriots, or even for their own body, was nothing extraordinary; but that, as Irish gentlemen, they should not feel when the rights of ladies, and their own countrywomen too, or the wives of their countrymen, were concerned, is passing strange. At last Lord Charlemont found one nobleman, Lord Middleton, whom this piteous stupor did not reach. He attended Lord Charlemont to Bushy-park, (the residence of the Earl of Halifax,) and stated the matter to his lordship. The viceroy met their wishes with a politeness equal to their own, and immediately waited on his majesty, to whom he humbly sub. mitted the claims of the Irish ladies. His majesty's answer, as might be expected, was most gracious and condescending. But the note of Lord Halifax, which stated the king's benignity as it deserved, stated also, that a council was ordered to be summoned next day, before whom precedents to establish the claim should be laid; and Lord Charlemont was, to his great astonishment and distress, ordered to furnish such precedents. A young nobleman of fashion was not, as may easily be conceived, the most expert individual in the world to provide these documents. With the assistance of Lord Egmont, however, who was profoundly versed in all the minutia of heraldic ceremonies and records, and who had written a book on the rights of the Irish peerage, he obtained them, and they were transmitted to Lord Halifax in order to be laid before the council. 432 Result of this transaction. The claim, however, was opposed, not only with pertinacity, but even with virulence. The old Lord Delawar was furious against it; Lords Halifax and Talbot were for it. The council broke up, and nothing was decided. His majesty at length put an end to the mighty discord by issuing an order, that at the ensuing ceremonial the Irish nobility should walk according to their respective ranks; that is, Irish marquisses or earls after British marquisses, and so on. Upon this subject, the principal facts of which are derived from Mr. Hardy, that gentleman has made the following observations. "This contest, according to Lord Charlemont, clearly evinced the propensity of some English statesmen, in those days, to dispute the rights of Ireland in every instance, even in comparatively unimportant matters. The recollection of it was never effaced from his mind, and had some influence on his parliamentary conduct at a subsequent period. The unwise opposition to so slight but just a claim of the Irish peeresses was thus, in soine measure, the foundation of the independeace of Ireland. It is not the first time that the claims of ladies, whether ill or well founded, and their dissatisfaction at being excluded from honours and distinctions which others of their sex, or of birth more illustrious than their own, were in possession of, have caused no slight changes in the countries to which they belonged. When the young Fabia, as we learn from Livy, Appearance of the white boys. 433 accidentally discovered that, though married into a noble family, she was not permitted to enjoy distinctions and rank similar to those of her sister, her mortification was only terminated by a most considerable change in the Roman state, the admission of plebeians to the consulate: and thus have great alterations often arisen from events not the least likely, at first sight, or to a common observer, to be any way capable of producing them." When a patriot like Lord Charlemont, and a grave historian like Mr. Hardy, concur in asscribing such effects to this event, it ought to receive the more of our attention and respect. One of the first events that distinguished the administration of Lord Halifax was the appearance of the white boys in several parts of Munster. These insurgents were so called because they commonly appeared in frocks or shirts; they committed their outrages at night; they seized arms and horses, houghed the cattle, levelled the enclosures of commons, turned up new-made roads, and perpetrated various other acts of outrage and violence. The causes of this insurrection were to be found in the increased price of provisions, the decay of trade and manufactures, and some other public events. An epidemic disorder had also spread from Holstein, through Holland, into England, where it raged for some years, and consequently raised the prices of beef, cheese, and butter to exorbitancy. Pasturage became hence more profitable Ff VOL. I. 434 Commit the most shocking atrocities. than tillage, and in the south of Ireland numerous families, which were fed by the labours of agriculture, were turned adrift without means of subsistence. This effect was further produced by the exemption of grazing-grounds from tythe, which operates as a bounty for the dereliction of agriculture. The catholic cotters, being tenants at will, were every where dispossessed of their little tenements, and large tracts of land let out to wealthy monopolizers for the purposes of pasturage. These persons were enabled to pay higher rents, because few hands were required in the feeding of cattle. Meanwhile the starving peasantry sought the large towns, in the miserable hope of begging that bread they could no longer earn; while the affluent bestowed upon them the only benefit they could, that of facilitating their emigration to other countries. Numbers, however, assembled at nightfall, and vented their fury on those objects which they conceived to be the cause of their misery *. They committed the most shocking atrocities upon persons whom they suspected. Sometimes they placed them naked on horseback, on saddles covered with skins of hedgehogs; at others, they left them standing many hours buried to the chin in holes in the ground, with branches of thorn trodden closely The absolute inability of the oppressed tenants to pay their tithes, besides their landlord's rent, made them feel the exaction and levying of them by the proctors as an insupportable grievance. Assisted clandestinely by France. 435 round their bodies. These insurrections became daily more alarming, and it was soon bruited abroad by the protestants, that the insurgents (be ing all catholics) were acting from political motives, and in secret concert with the courts of France and Spain. There seem to be some good reasons for believing that at least French intrigue assisted to foment the prevailing discontents; for Lord Charlemont, in his posthumous papers, mentions one fact, which strongly confirms this suspicion. During the course of these insurrections a very considerable number of French crowns were received at the custom-house, which could not well have been the result of trade, since little or no specie was imported from France in exchange for commodities; and more especially since they were, all of them, new crowns, of the same date, and coined after every possible importation could be made by the course of com merce. If, however, the disaffected did receive aid from, or correspond with, France, they concealed their practices so as to elude the vigilance of government; for when a commission was sent into the disturbed districts to examine into the causes of the tumult, they reported "that the authors of those riots consisted indiscriminately of persons of different persuasions, and that no marks of disaffection to his majesty's person or government appeared in any of these people," which report was confirmed by the judges of the Munster cir |