учебный год 2023 / 2638261

276

J. C. D. CLARK

all

involved

both in the Irish crisis of

the

I750S

and

in the

English

ministerial

controversies

of the

1760s.

The

English

ministry

was kept

fully

informed

about

Irish

politics

through

both

formal

and informal

channels.

Even

statesmen

not directly

concerned

had

links which

encouraged

them

to

keep

in

touch

with events

in

Dublin.

Fox,

in

Ireland

in the

summer

of

1750

visiting

his brother-in-law

the earl

of

Kildare,

sent

Henry

Pelham

perceptive

accounts

of

the

crisis

to

date

in

which

he

argued

for

the

necessity

of eventual

legislative

union

between

the two countries;4

Charles

Townshend

was aware of Irish problems

at

the

same

time

as

he

was

preparing,

for

Newcastle,

his

'Remarks

upon

the

Plan

for

a

General

Concert'

of the American

colonies.5

The

lieutenancy

was not a backwater,

but was

held

by

peers

of

the

first political

rank: until

1760, Shrewsbury,

Sunderland,

Townshend,

Bolton,

Grafton,

Carteret,

Dorset

(twice),

the

third

and

fourth

dukes

of

Devonshire,

Chesterfield,

Harrington

and

Bedford.

Many

lesser

offices

in the Irish

government

were

held

at some

stage

of

their

careers

by

English

M.P.s.

Again,

an

education

at Trinity

College,

Dublin,

must have

conferred

some

appreciation

of

the

politics

of the capital: Barre was in residence

1740-5

and

Burke

1744-50.

Yet

modern

students

of

Burke

have

ignored

the

tactical

characteristics

of

Irish

politics,

preferring

like

others

to

see

there

merely

an

arena of

corruption

and English tyranny; and, through

neglecting

to enquire

into

the

political

function

of

patriot

discourse

in England

and

Ireland,

have

failed

even

to establish

whether

Burke

wrote

for or against

Charles

Lucas,

an early

patriot

active

in Dublin

in I 7439.6

Barre

has been

no better

served

in

respect

of

his

understanding

of Irish

government.7

Moreover,

Dublin

witnessed

in the

1750S

political

events

of the utmost

drama

and

importance.

It is the

aim of this article

to show,

for this crisis,

both

that

the

detailed

course

of

events

in

the

two

capitals

must

be

explained

together

and

in parallel

if it is to be

understood

in either,

and

that many of the long-term

developments

in English

politics

can be found

echoed

in

Dublin

in

such

a way as to suggest

that

it was

very often

the

Irish

example

which

served

as

the

unacknowledged

precedent

for

English

innovations.

Historians

have

yet

to

attend

to

the

lessons

drawn

by English

ministers

from

the way in which

an Irish

faction

or opposition

might

be

controlled,

resisted

or

accommodated;

to

the

developing

opinions

within

the

English

ministry

on

Irish policy, and the different

4Cf.

esp. Fox to Pelham,

28

May and

i6 June

I750:

Newcastle

(Clumber)

MSS, Not-

tingham University Library.

5Charles

Townshend

to Lord Townshend,

[2

May I 754],

microfilm of the Townshend

MSS at Raynham in the Norfolk

Record Office; cf. Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke,

Charles Townshend(London, 1964),

p. 40.

6

C. B. Cone, EdmundBurkeand thenatureof politics (Lexington,

I957),

pp. I0-I3;

T. H. D.

Mahoney,

Edmund Burke and

Ireland (Harvard,

I960),

pp.

6-7, ii;

G. L. Vincitorio,

'Edmund

Burke

and

Charles

Lucas',

Publications of the Modern Language Association of

America, LXVIII

(953),

I047-55-

pp.

7P.

Brown,

The Chathamites(London, I967),

I89-227.

THE

ENGLISH

MANAGEMENT

OF

IRISH

POLITICS

277

approaches

advocated

by

Dorset

and

Hartington;

or

to

the

changing

directions

in

which,

during

that

decade,

the

course

of

events

in either

country

shaped

and

led

that

in

the other.

Yet

Ireland

in

1753-6

was

in

a ferment

of

the

sort

which

has

frequently

focussed

the

attention

of

Englishmen

on

its problems.

Between

those

years

two

lords

lieutenant

-

the

duke

of

Dorset

and

the

marquis

of

Hartington

- were

aligned,

together

with

the

supporters

of

the Dublin

Castle

executive

in the legis-

lature,

against

the remainder

of

the

Irish

Commons

in a political

and

constitutional

crisis.

The

nature

of that

confrontation,

considered

as a

domestic

Irish

phenomenon,

is

still

disputed.

Earl

Macartney,

a

con-

temporary,

thought

Dorset's

tactics

involved

him

unknowingly

in

sup-

porting

the

primate's

illegitimate

ambition,

and

that 'the

personal

contest

between

the

Speaker8

and the

primate9

was

the real

source

of

national

division '.' The earl of Charlemont

endorsed

the view that it was a merely

personal

struggle

for

power,

but

explained

it as an

attack

by Boyle

on

Stone

and

the

Ponsonbys

(the

other

leading

faction

in

Parliament)

disguised

in the

language

of

patriotism

and

obscured

by the issue of the

king's prerogative.1"

To

Litton

Falkiner,

it seemed

an attempt

to reassert

the

power

of

the

lord

lieutenant

against

the

encroachment

of

a native

Irish oligarchy;12

but

J. C. Beckett

denied

the

existence

of any conscious

policy

on

the

part

of

Dublin

Castle

to

extend

its

control

over

the

Commons.13

J. L. McCracken

reasserted

Macartney's

view

of

the contest

as

an

assault

on

the

Boyle

connexion

by Stone

in

alliance

with

the

Ponsonbys;14

yet

E. M. Johnston

stressed

the

prior

importance

of

the

resentment

of two Irish

leaders,

Carter15 and

Malone,16

at Stone's refusal

to accommodate

their

families'

ambitions

for

place,

and

argued

that

they

and Boyle,

not

George

Stone,

constituted

the new

opposition.17

A study

of the evolution

of English

policy

endorses

none

of these views

as

a sufficient

answer.

Rather

than seek

to

do

so,

it is here

argued

that

the

crisis

reveals

the

existence

of

an

Anglo-Irish

political

dimension

on

8 Henry Boyle (i682-I764),

Speaker

of the Irish Commons

I733-56; chancellor of the

Exchequer I733-54,

I755-7.

of the Earl Macartney(London, I807),

II,

I30: 'A

short sketch of the political history of

Ireland.'

"

H.M.C. I 2th Report, Appendix,

Part X, Manuscriptsand correspondenceof James, first

earl of Charlemont(London,

I89I), I, 5.

12

C. Litton Falkiner, 'Archbishop

Stone', in Essaysrelating to Ireland (London,

I909).

13

J. C. Beckett, The making of modernIreland i603-i923

(London, I966), pp. I90,

I93.

14

J. L. McCracken, 'The

conflict

between the

Irish administration and parliament,

1753-6', I.H.S. III (1942-3),

159-79.

15

Thomas

Carter (d. I763), master of the Rolls I73 I-54,

secretary of state I755-63.

16

Anthony

Malone (I 700-76), prime

serjeant

I740-54,

chancellor or the Exchequer

I 757-6 I.

17

E. M. Johnston, Ireland in the eighteenthcentury(Dublin, I974), p. I I5. I was unable to

consult Dr Declan O'Donovan's Ph.D. thesis, 'The

Money Bill dispute of I753' (University

College, Dublin, I977).

278

J. C. D. CLARK

the levels both of day-to-day

management

and of longer-term

trends.

Most

importantly,

the

relationship

between

the

Irish

Commons

and

the

lord

lieutenant

at times

reflected

and

at times

anticipated

the

changing

balance

between

George

II and

George

III,

and

the English

legislature.

For

until

the

crisis

of

the

1750s,

successive

lords

lieutenant

had

enjoyed

a relatively

secure

hold

over the

Dublin parliament

not

by constructing

a Castle

party,

as

was

to be the case from Townshend's

lieutenancy

(1767-72),

but

through

tacit arrangements

with the

'undertakers',

the

Irish

leaders

of a whig

elite

of

Commons

managers:18

Conolly

and

Gore

under

Carteret;

Henry

Boyle

and

his

associates

from

1733.19

Just

as, in

England,

the

1750S

saw

the

dissolution

of party

alignments

of

long

standing,20

so

in

Ireland

that

decade

witnessed

the

breakdown

of

the

undertaker

system

into

factional

conflict

publicly

defined

in terms

of

patriot

zeal or

support

for

the prerogative

and

the king's government.

T. J. Kiernan,

reviewing

the

constitutional

precedents,

wrote

percep-

tively

that

'taken

as an isolated

instance

of

parliamentary

encroachment

on

the

prerogative

of

the

Crown,

there

is strong

evidence

on

the

side

of those

who

regard

the

dispute

as having

been

engineered

by a factious

opposition';

though

he

added

that, in the

light

of previous

events

in the

Irish

parliament,

the

rejection

of

the

Money

Bill

'cannot

be

treated

so

lightly ',21

the

contribution

of

that

episode

to

the

constitutional

law

on

Irish

finance

will

not

be

discussed

here.

The

present

aim

is

not

to

apportion

the

blame among

the

protagonists

in Dublin22

but

to account

for

the

English

ministry's

handling

of

the

crisis

primarily

with

reference

to its

impact

on

events

at

Westminster.

What

emerges

in

such

a per-

spective,

it is argued,

is a view

of

Irish

disturbances

which

presents

the

pattern

of

their

parliamentary

politics

as,

variously,

a

mirror

of,

a

re-

sponse

to,

and

a precedent

for

the

English

equivalents

in the

sessions

of

1754-5 and 1755-6; but

which

reveals

also

the

terms

in

which

the

Irish

parties

were

described

and

countered

as prefiguring

not

the

nature

of

18

J. L. McCracken,

'The

undertakers

in Ireland

and their relations with the lords

lieutenant,

I724-7I'

(M.A. thesis,

Queen's

University,

Belfast,

I94');

Dr Henry to Arch-

bishop Herring,

2 I Dec. I 753:

35592,

fo. 225

(numerical references

are to Additional

MSS,

British Library, unless otherwise specified). The same name was

sometimes

used of

English Whig managers under George

I and George

II; cf. Dodington

to Bute,

26

Nov.

I760

in J. Carswell and

L. A. Dralle

(eds), The political journal of George Bubb Dodington

(Oxford,

I965),

p.

40I.

19 The hitherto accepted

view that lords lieutenant

before Carteret (I724-30)

organized

their

own

proprietary

party

in

the

Commons

and

that a radically different

system of

parliamentary management

grew

up

c.

1724-33

has

been ably criticized

in

Dr

David

Hayton's D.Phil. thesis (cited above) and in 'The

beginnings

of the "Undertaker system"'.

I am grateful to Dr Hayton

for a copy of this as yet unpublished

paper. In it he argues

for the earlier existence

of an undertaker

system, of which events in c. I 7I5-25

produced

only a rephrasing.

xciii (1978).

20

Cf. my article 'The

decline

of party,

I740-I760',

E.H.R.,

21

T. J. Kiernan, History of thefinancial administration of Ireland to i817

(London,

I930),

p. I56.

22

For which, see McCracken in I.H.S. (cited above).

THE

ENGLISH

MANAGEMENT

OF

IRISH

POLITICS

279

factional

disorder

in England

in the

four

years

after

the

death

of Henry

Pelham

(whose

characteristics

were

derived

from

its

central

outcome,

the

destruction

of

whig

and tory

parties

which

no

longer

had

an Irish

parallel),

but

rather

the

professedly

'constitutional'

crises

of

the

early

1760S.

II

In November

1753 a committee

of the Dublin

Commons

drafted,

and the

House

approved,

the

heads

of

a

bill

for

appropriating

part

of

the

surplus

in

the

Exchequer

to the

redemption

of

the

Irish national

debt.

The form of words used deliberately

omitted

any reference

to the

king's

'gracious

intentions'

or 'previous

consent'

to the

step,

despite

precedents

for

both

in the

original

text

of a similar

bill in

1749 and

in words

inserted

by

the

English

privy

council

in

another

of 1751.

The

heads

of

the

bill

of

I 753,

thus

phrased,

posed

a challenge

to what was

now

held

to be

a

royal

prerogative:

that

the

king's

consent

was

required

for

a

surplus

arising

from

revenue

already

voted

to

be

applied

to

the

liquidation

of

public

debt.

When

returned

from

the

English

privy

council,

the

bill had

accordingly

been

altered

to include

an

acknowledgement

of

the

king's

previous

consent

to the

appropriation.

Once

returned,

it was

not open

to the

Irish

parliament

to amend

the

bill,

but

only

to

accept or reject

it

as it stood;

and

on

I7

December

1753

it was defeated

in the

Commons.23

That vote was the culminating

success

of

a campaign

of

opposition

by

the

self-styled

patriots.

Although

the

precedents

were

debatable

(and

the

constitutional

question

was

argued

at length

in the pamphlet

press),

and

although

there

was

a

long

history

of

intermittent

rivalry

between

the

Castle

and

the

Dublin

Commons

over

the

control

of

the

budget,24

a

constitutional

crisis developed

in

I753

as an

episode

in

a political

cam-

paign of great heat and bitterness.

That

campaign

was

conducted

in

a parliamentary

world

in which

the

organized

groups,

and

the

identities,

of

whig

and tory

had

long

before

ceased

to exist.25

Their

place

was

taken

by

the

appearance

of

a polarity

between

'Court'

and

'Country',

an alignment

of attitudes

loose

enough

for

personal

groups

to be distinguished

within

it. Walpole

described

the

Irish

Commons

in

1757 as

divided

into

four

factions:

those

of

the

primate;

Lord

Kildare;

the

Speaker,

John

Ponsonby,

'who

were

in truth

a defection

from

Kildare';

and

a smaller

'flying

squadron'

of

patriots.26

In

1753

the

politically

active

in the

House

could

similarly

be divided

into

23

The debate is summarizedin the Newcastlepapers:33034,

fo. I57.

24

Cf. James, Ireland, pp.

32,

34-5,

I49-5I-

25

Hayton,

'Ireland

and the English

ministers',

p. vi: 'The terminal dates of this thesis

coincide with the life span of "party" politics in Ireland.'

Cf. James, Ireland, pp. I05,

109

suggests

I 7 I5-20

for their demise.

26

Horace

Walpole,

Memoirs of the reign of King George the Second (London,

i846),

iii,

280

J. C.

D.

CLARK

the four

factions

of

the primate

and Sackville,

in the

Castle

interest;

Kildare;

the

Speaker,

Boyle; and Malone and other patriots, the

two last

being

closely

though

equivocally

linked.27 With

the rise of an opposition

drawn

from

Castle supporters, the

language

of

politics

changed

again;

patriot

rhetoric acted

upon a Court-Country

alignment

to give it, to some,

the appearance

of a simple choice

between

English

and Irish

national

interests:

The

element

of tactical

evasion

behind

such

assertions

made

it impossible,

at the

time,

accurately

to

anticipate

the

nationalist

implications

of

the

crisis.

But

the

defection

of Boyle

to the

opposition

suspended

the

under-

taker

system

and

temporarily

modified

the

party

pattern

it entailed.

It

was

not

until

the

176os

in

England

that

Old

Corps

fragmentation,

following

the

end

of

a

whig-tory

polarity,

revealed

the

Court

and

Treasury

element

as basically

loyal to the executive;

a Court'party'

rather

than

the undertakers'

'party ' it had

seemed

to be. In England

in the

1760s

and

Ireland

in the

1750S,

the

crossing

over

of some

groups

to opposition

produced

the misleading

impression

that both Houses

of Commons

were

to be

ruled

through

the use

of

a narrow

and

tightly

disciplined

Court

group;

that,

as

Macartney

put

it,

Dorset

was

'obliged

to

form

a

new

party'.29

In

reality,

the

emergence

of

a Castle

party was a different

and

distinct

process,

the

origins

of which

are rooted

in the

events

of the

early

6os.30

In

1753,

by

contrast,

the

lord

lieutenant

still

sought

to

govern

through

a single

party

in

the

old

sense,

though

backed

now

by

the

primate

and

marshalled

in

parliament

by Lord

George

Sackville;

it was

the

opposition

which,

as

Conway

later

observed,

was

'an

unnatural,

temporary

coalition

'.31

Dorset's desire

in I 753-4

to accommodate

the truly

repentant

as

individuals,

on

their

renunciation

of

opposition,

reflected

that broad bottom

willingness

to incorporate

the well disposed

which

was

common

to English

administrations,

in different

configurations

of party,

in both

the

1750S

and

1760s.

27

Primateto Andrew Stone, 24

Dec. I753:

32733

fo. 54I-

28

Dr Barry to earl of Orrery, 4 Mar. I752,

in Countess

of Cork and Orrery (ed.), The

Orrerypapers(London, I903),

II,

I03.

I89I),

p. 239-

31

Conway to Hartington, 7 Aug.

I755:

Dev[onshire MSS, Chatsworth] 4I6/8. I am

grateful to his grace the duke of Devonshire

and the trustees of the Chatsworth settlement

for permission to consult, and quote

from, the Devonshire MSS.

THE ENGLISH

MANAGEMENT

OF IRISH POLITICS

28I

He reacted, however,

to parliamentary opposition from

within the

Newcastle sought from

late 1754 to construct

ministerial systems based

on conciliation and comprehension - including,

that is, whig frondeurs

in both

countries.

But

Dorset's replacement

was based on a forward-

looking

calculation,

and was undertaken equally

for

English and Irish

reasons:

in particular,

to inhibit the revival

of

the

Fox-Cumberland

cisely because he, too, would not accept that the constitutional

conflict

was genuine: '. . it cannot

be seriously

said, much less proved,

that the

preservation of the rights and

liberties

of

the

people

was the cause of

this

notable

stand,

but

on the contrary,

'tis most

certain,

'twas inten-ded

as a trial of

their

skill and

strength

to overpower

Government

and

retain

that

share,

if not

the

whole

of

it,

which

had

been

so

long

in

their

possession'32

Chesterfield

summed

it up: 'the

question

is by

no means

how

Ireland

shall be governed,

but by whom'.33

Dorset received

the same

impression:

whatever

the

issues

at stake,

the opposition's

conduct

showed

him

that

'peace

and

quiet

could

only

be

obtained

by his

[the

primate's]

being

removed

from

the

share

he had in the administration,

though

no

crime

(upon

enquiry)

could

be imputed

to him '.3

The objections

levelled

at the primate - the

faults

of

ambition,

an

excess

of

power,

and

the

derivation

of that

power

from

the

arbitrary

support

of

the executive

in

the

person

of the lord

lieutenant

-

were

analogous

to the cries later

raised

against

Bute.35

For

although

Newcastle

feared

the

dispute

would

become

one

'between

the

two

kingdoms,

and

for the independency

of

Ireland',3f

that

aim was

not openly

voiced

by

Irish

leaders;

the

points

32

Sir William Yorke to Hardwicke,

I2

Nov. I754:

35593, fo. 54.

33 Chesterfield to Bishop of Waterford,

I4

Nov. I754,

in B. Dobree

(ed.),

The lettersof

Philip Dormer Stanhope,4th earl of Chesterfield(London,

I932),

V,

2I25.

34

Maxwell to Holdernesse,

i i

Oct. I753:

Eg[erton

MSS, British Library] 3435, fo. 22.

35

For Armagh's sense of that analogy, cf. Primate to Bute, 23

June I 763:

Btite MSS iI

/ I18,

Cardiff Central Library.

36

Memo,

i i

Sept. 1754:

32995,

fo. 31 1 -

282

J. C. D. CLARK

at issue

were

ostensibly

the

king's

prerogative

in the application

of funds

arising from duties already voted,37

and

the

free

discretion

of

the

lord

lieutenant, as the

king's

representative,

to choose

ministers

in

Ireland

uncoerced

by the

Dublin

parliament.

Hartington's

policies

contrast

markedly

with

Dorset's,

and

the current

state

of

scholarship

would

seem

to

invite

a

comparison

between

the

former's

plans

and the

corpus

of

moralizing

political

aspirations

shared

by Prince

Frederick's

opposition

in

the

late

I740s.

Near

the

end

of

the

Irish

sessions

of

I 755-6,

Devonshire38

claimed

that

'by impartiality

I have

got the

business

of the

session

through',

though

without

finding

in that

notion

a permanent

solution.

From

a hope

that

he

might balance

and

play

off

the

factions,

he

had

been

drawn

to

a

stronger

line:

'I have

therefore

wished

to

get the better of and

break

the

parties

here.'39

Horatio

Walpole

applauded

the

final

settlement

precisely

because

he

supposed

that it 'must

certainly

crush

the hydra

of Party-Faction

'.40 The

difference

was partly

one

of degree, for Hartington's

manouevres

of May

I 755 to February

I 756 were

eventually

directed

to breaking

parties which

he had

earlier

sought

to suppress

by more gentle

means.

But

an original

and

deliberate

policy

lay behind

the views

he expressed after

five months

By

the end

of the session

he attached

particular importance

to the

Speakership,

whose

holder

was at least the nominal

head of the

patriots:

my view is to reduce

the power of that office42and to suffer no person or party

to grow so powerful

as to presume to dictate to government, and in order to do

so, I would break the present

parties and then keep a strict eye to prevent any

others from growing too powerful...

His

opinions

were

vigorously seconded by those of

his chosen

secretary,

H.

S. Conway,

an efficient

and loyal army

officer

who was later

to lead

Dec.

I.755-

3I Jan. I756: 32862, fo. 303.

39

Devonshire

to Newcastle,

40

Horatio Walpole to Devonshire,

I I Mar. I756: Dev I80/46.

41

Hartington

to Newcastle,

4 Oct.

1755: 32859, fo. 376.

42

This he achieved. John Ponsonby, Boyle's successor as Speaker, was not appointed

a lord justice.

43

Devonshire

to Newcastle,

3 Feb. I756: 32862, fo. 32i.

THE

ENGLISH

MANAGEMENT

OF IRISH

POLITICS

283

the English

Commons

in the

ministries

of Rockingham and

Chatham.

From the outset, he anticipated

the tactics

which were

to prove

effective:

The

fission

of

the

Irish

whigs,

in

the

absence

of

an

Irish

tory

party,

presented

Hartington

with

a novel

situation

in

which

government

both

could

not

and

need

not be

based

on

party

qua whig

and

tory -

as it still

was,

until

the

I750s,

in

England.

In

these

circumstances

the

primate

expressed

a vague

sense

that

the

largest

party

in

the

Dublin

Commons

inherited

some partial claim to form the

administration;46

but

this

doc-

trine was not openly

advanced

or recognized,

and

Lord

George

Sackville

corrected

Henry

Pelham's

misapprehension

that

Irish

groupings

pos-

sessed

the

coherence

and solidity

of

English

parties.47

Rather,

in

both

countries,

it was

tactical

devices

for

the

destruction

of

party

and

the

executive

rationale

of

disinterested

government,

the

official antithesis

of

proliferating

opposition

'patriot'

rhetoric,

which

henceforth

found

increasing

expression

in

the

complexities

of

high

politics.

Few

of

these structural

changes

were

quickly

appreciated.

Fox,

suc-

cessively

Hartington's

promoter,

supporter

(via

Kildare)

and

client,

welcomed

an even

balance

of parties48

without

apparently

appreciating

Hartington's

hopes

for their

elimination:

to Fox,

such

forces

were to be

manipulated

and

exploited,

not

destroyed.

Lord

Waldegrave

had

no

means

of

knowing

the

internal

history

of

Irish