99 15

General Cockburn, it was a subject of public boast in Ireland, that "full half of the army that drove the French out of Egypt were IRISH." In 1807, year before the Peninsular War, Dr. Mac Neven states the proportion of Irish in the British

or the

15 Military Observations respecting Ireland, and its Attack and Defence, p. 12.-Dublin, 1804. This instructive pamphlet, printed without the writer's name, is attributed to Gen. Cockburn.

The

From the county of Wexford, in particular, which Dr. Mac Neven supposed to have supplied 40,000 men to the insurrec tion of 1798, great numbers, after its extinction, volunteered into the British force, preparing against the French in Egypt. Numbers, also, who were sentenced to transportation, preferred joining that expedition; and, with regard to Irish recruits in general, it need scarcely be remarked, that the government of that day would be anxious to have as many of them as possible in such a service, or any where, rather than in Ireland. subsequent distinguished bravery in Egypt of those Wexford representatives of the "British heart and the British arm," is briefly adverted to by Hay, in his History of the Wexford Insurrection. The insurgents, according to the continuator of Tone's life, were also considerably influenced to join the British expedition against Egypt, by a wish to revenge, on the French, the apparently faithless desertion of Ireland by the Republica desertion, however, which was principally, if not wholly owing to Buonaparte, who, when told, previous to his wild-goose-chase expedition to Egypt, that the Irish were prepared to rise and ought to be assisted, basely replied, that nothing more was to be desired from the Irish, than that their movements should operate as a powerful diversion in favour of France. Never was a narrow and selfish policy more signally and deservedly punished. First, the fine fleet of France, consisting, besides frigates, &c. of 13 ships of the line, was destroyed by Nelson at the Nile. Secondly, a large portion of the picked veterans of France perished in Africa and Asia, uselessly, because for no ultimately available purpose. Thirdly, the French were beaten and expelled from Egypt by a British army, one-half of which consisted, as we have seen, of Irishmen, and the commander of which army, at the time of the French capitulation, was an Irishman. Fourthly, the French and Napoleon's brother Joseph, whom he made king of Spain, were likewise driven from that country, and France

army as "about one half" 16and that the estimate was not exaggerated, may be inferred from the following circumstances. On the motion of thanks to Sir Samuel Auchmuty, for the capture of Monte Video, the General, who proposed it, said, that the 7th regiment, which had so gallantly fought there, under Sir Edmund Butler, was composed altogether of Catholics that is, Irish-and, that he himself knew, that of the 4,000 men who attacked that fortress, 3,000 consisted of Catholics17-or, in other words, Irishmen. In 1810, Sir John Cox Hippes

itself invaded, through similar means, directed by the "retributive genius" of an Irishman. Fifthly, Napoleon himself was irretrievably defeated and dethroned, and France conquered by the same Irishman, who, had Napoleon, in 1798, landed his Egyptian army of 40,000 men in Ireland, would, in all probability, have been unknown, except as a refugee " Irish loyalist.' Sixthly and lastly, this overthrow of Napoleon was, to a very considerable extent, effected by Irish taxes, as well as by Irish troops, both of which England would have been deprived of, had Napoleon done "justice to Ireland.' "A victory," says Bourrienne, "on the Adige (in Italy) would have been far better for France than one on the Nile." But, how much better still, for France, would have been a victory on the Shannon and the Liffey? This Napoleon himself acknowledged, when too late, to Las Cases, at Saint Helena. "Si, au lieu de l'expédition d'Egypte," said he, "j'eusse fait celle d'IRLANDE, que pourrait l'Angleterre aujourdhui ?" Napoleon but too well deserved the fate he met with.

16 Pieces of Irish History, p. 6.

17 Speech of Sir J. C. Hippesley, on the Catholic Question, May 18th, 1810, p. 50. "In this glorious storm," says Mr. Alison, "the loss of the British was about 600, but twice that number of the enemy fell, and 2,000 were made prisoners, besides 1,000 who escaped in boats, so that the numbers of the garrison at first, had been GREATER than that of the BESIEGING FORCE! (History, vol. vI. p. 150.) All very well, Mr. Alison, but why is all this "glorious storm" set down to the credit of ONE thousand BRITISH, and nothing at all said of their THREE thousand IRISH companions? "Fair play is a jewel," as we say in Ireland; and, please God, we MUST soon get it!

ley, (from whose speech, in the Catholic Question, in that year, the foregoing confirmatory particulars are cited,) mentioned in Parliament, that, of his own knowledge, out of two levies of 1,000 men each, made a few years before, only 160 men were not Catholics; that in another regiment of 900 in the south of England, 860 were Catholics; and he added, that it was then a well-established matter, that the proportion of Catholics (or Irish) exceeded that of Protestants (or British) in the English army! It is a generally-affirmed fact, for which, as such, it is unnecessary to cite an authority, that at the Battle of Waterloo, at least two out of three parts of the "British heart and the British arm" there were IRISH. From the demonstrations of sympathy evinced towards Mr. O'Connell, on his route to the Clare election by bodies of the soldiery, and from the results of an enquiry as to the disposition and feelings of the army with respect to Emancipation, before the passing of the Relief Bill in 1829, it was "shrewdly suspected" by "men in office," that the "British heart and the British arm" in THAT army would not be sufficient to arrest the settlement of that IRISH question.18 And, in fine, at present, according to Sir Edward Litton Bulwer, "two thirds of the army are

18 See, on this point, an able article on " O'Connell and the Catholic Association," in Tait's Magazine for 1835, p. 307 and 9.

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Irish!"19 "The reason for this proponderance of Irish in the British service is contained in Mr. Tone's assertion, that "the ARMY of England is supported by the misery of Ireland;" or, as the more loyal Duke of Richmond said, during the war, on being told, as Lord Lieutenant, of the distress of the Dublin tradesmen,—“ A high-priced loaf and low or scarce wages are the best recruiting serjeants for his Majesty." In fact, "les privations, la pauvreté, la misere," as Napoleon observed, "font l'ecole du bon soldat," or, to cite the more pointed remark adverted to by General Cockburn-not only fighting, but MARCHING and STARVING, are, at times, the soldier's lot, and the army that excels in these three points will probably, (if decently commanded,) ultimately succeed."20 The admitted superiority of the Irish, in these qualifications for a military life, as contrasted with the general mass of their insular neighbours, proceeds from the greater health, vigour, and hardiness of constitution produced by agricultural than by mechanical or manufacturing pursuits; and, in England and Scotland, we know, that there are at least two mechanics or manufacturers for one agriculturist, while, in Ireland, the proportion of the former to the latter is so small as to be, comparatively, not worth men

91 Sir E. L. Bulwer's words are: "Two thirds of the army, too, are Irish, and the lowest of them :-the dregs of an Irish populace! What a reflection !"—(England and the English, vol. i. p. 87.)-Yes, indeed, "what a reflection !"

20 Military Observations respecting Ireland, and its Attack and Defence, p. 12.

21

tioning. The Irish have, accordingly, been recently found and acknowledged, on English authority, to be better calculated for soldiers than the English and the Scotch. "The company to which I belonged," says an English officer of the British Legion, in the Spanish service, "when it first landed in San Sebastian, was above 100 strong on parade; six weeks after its arrival at Vittoria, the utmost it could muster was fifteen files or thirty men. The regiment, in like manner, which originally was between 7 and 800 strong, dwindled down, in the space of two months after the fever broke out, to not more than four hundred. All the other regiments, with the exception of the IRISH, were cut up in like manner; and two

21 On the 13th of May, 1830, Mr. Slaney, M. P., called the attention of the House of Commons to "the increase which had taken place in the number of those employed in manufacturing and mechanical occupations, as compared with the agricultural class." From his calculations it appears, that, in ENGLAND, the manufacturers or mechanics, as compared with the agriculturists, were 6 to 5 in 1801; 8 to 5 in 1821; and, in 1830, they were as 2 to 1. In SCOTLAND, the increase of the former over the latter class was still more rapid. The former were as 5 to 6 in 1801; as 9 to 6 in 1821; and, in 1830, as 2 to 1. While the general advance of the popula tion of England and Scotland for twenty years, down to 1830, was 30 per cent, the augmentation of their manufacturers had been 30 per cent, and, in some cases, as at Leeds and Glasgow, as high as 54 per cent, in one town, and no less than 100 per cent, in the other. (See Combe's Constitution of Man, p. 61.) How suitable to the formation of a military population the avocations of the great majority of those manufacturers are, will be best seen by a perusal of the debilitating or destructive effects of their pursuits upon their constitutions, and those of their offspring, as detailed in the horrible picture of human suffering and human avarice presented in the parliamentary evidence on the factory system. In Ireland, on the