The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

The terms of tenure in Ireland were quite different from the terms of tenancy in England, except in the north of Ireland, where was the custom of tenant-right. In the south and west, the majority of tenants had a yearly tenancy, and were liable to six months' notice, known as "the hanging gale." When a landlord desired to get rid of a tenant, he "called in the hanging gale." And a tenant habitually owed six months' rent.

I stood for Waterford at the request of my brother Lord Waterford. That I was elected was due to his great personal popularity as a landlord and as a sportsman and also to the powerful influence of a certain prominent supporter of Home Rule, which he exercised on my behalf because, although I was opposed to Home Rule, I supported denominational education. I believed then, as I believe now, that a man's religion is his own affair, and whatever it may be, it should be respected by those who own another form of faith. I have always held (in a word) that the particular form of a man's religion is necessarily due to his early education and surroundings.

But when in the House of Commons I publicly declared that conviction, I received about four hundred letters of a most violent character, most of which were written by clergymen of my own persuasion. I have never asked a man for his vote in my life. When I stood for Marylebone, in 1885, there was a controversy concerning the Sunday opening of museums and picture galleries. I was in favour of opening them, upon the ground that people who were hard at work all the week might have opportunities for recreation, which I would have extended beyond museums and galleries. But I was waited upon by a solemn deputation of clerical gentlemen of various denominations, who desired to make their support of me conditional upon my acceptance of their views.

"Gentlemen," I said, "has it ever occurred to you that I have never asked you for your vote? Let me tell you that if you disapprove of my opinions, your only honest course is to vote for my opponent."

They were so astonished that they withdrew in shocked silence.

When I was in Parliament, Isaac Butt, who was failing in his endeavour to promote an agitation, begun in 1870, in favour of Home Government, or Home Rule, did his best to persuade me to join the Irish party, and to obtain for it Lord Waterford's influence, because, he said, Lord Waterford was so universally popular and so just. Although I was unable to join the Irish party, I was much impressed with Butt's arguments in so far as the land question was concerned; and I discussed the whole matter with Lord Waterford. I suggested to him that he should form a league of landlords pledged not to rack-rent their tenants; pointing out that if the Irish landlords failed to take the initiative in reform, it was certain that the people would eventually prevail against them, and that the reforms which would be enforced by law would bear hardly upon the good landlords.

Lord Waterford sympathised with my view of the matter; but after long consideration he came to the conclusion that the course I proposed might do more harm than good. The question was inextricably complicated by the fact that many of the landlords who had raised their rents, had been compelled to raise them by force of circumstances; as, for instance, when they had been obliged to pay very high charges upon succeeding to their estates. In his position, Lord Waterford shrank from associating himself with a scheme which must inflict hardship upon landlords poorer than himself. Events took their course, with the result I had foreseen. My proposal was inspired by that sympathy with the demands of the Irish people, and that recognition of their justice, which had been accorded by both great political parties in turn, and which ultimately found expression in the Wyndham Land Purchase Act.

Not long ago I asked one of my tenants, who had bought his holding under the Wyndham Act, and who was a strong Home Ruler:

"Now you own the farm, are you still for Home Rule?"

"Faith, Lord Char-less," said he, "now I have the land behind me, shure if it was a choice I could be given between Home Rule and a bullock, I'd take the bullock."

In recording the beginning of my Parliamentary career, I may say at once that I have always disliked politics, as such. I entered Parliament with the desire to promote the interests of the Service; and in so far as I have been successful, I have not regretted the sacrifices involved.

But in 1874 my approval of denominational education – in other words, my support of the right of every parent to have his child educated in his own religion – outweighed my opposition to Home Rule. One of my principal supporters, himself a Home Ruler, suggested as an ingenious compromise that I should so print my election address that the words Home Rule should appear large and prominent, and the qualification "an inquiry into," very small: a proposal I declined.

My opponents were Mr. J. Esmonde and Mr. Longbottom, who was celebrated for his achievements in finance. He stood for Home Rule. Concerning Mr. Longbottom, a certain parish priest, who was also a Home Ruler, addressed his congregation one Sunday morning as follows: —

"Now, boys," says he, "a few words about th' Election that's pending. First of all, if ye have a vote ye'd give ut to a genuine Home Ruler, if ye had one standing. Ye have not. Secondly, ye'd give it to a good Conservative, if ye had one standing. Well, ye have one in Lord Char-less Beresford, the gr-reat say-captain. And thirdly, ye'd vote for the Divil, but ye'd never vote for a Whig. But as for this Mr. Long-what's-'is-name, I wudn't be dhirtying me mouth by mentioning the latter end of him."

One of my opponent's supporters retorted by urging the boys to "Kape th' bloody Beresford out, for the Beresfords were never known to shmile except when they saw their victims writhin' on th' gibbet": an amiable reference to John Beresford, First Commissioner of Revenue at the period of the passing of the Act of Union, and de facto ruler of Ireland.

Other incidents of that cheery time occur to my recollection. There was the farmer who, ploughing his field, cried to me as I rode by, "Hurroo for Lord Char-less."

I went up to him and asked him whether he really meant anything, and if so, what.

"Will you do anything?" said I.

Said he, "Lord Char-less, if 'tis votes you want me to collect, begob I'll quit th' plough an' travel for a fortnight."

There was the car-boys' race I arranged on Waterford quay. Ten of them started, and I won, because I had taken the precaution to stuff some hay under the pad, which I lit with a match. The horse was stimulated but quite uninjured.

Then there was the affair of the bill-poster. I had been driving round the country all day in a side-car, seeing the boys, and late at night we stopped at a small inn. I was standing in the doorway smoking a pipe, and feeling cold and rather jaded, when I noticed a bill-poster hard at work, pasting placards upon the wall of an adjacent building. I could see that they were the green placards of my opponent, my own colours being blue and white.

I strolled across, and sure enough, there was my bill-poster sticking up "Vote for Longbottom, the Friend of the People."

"And what are ye doing, my fine peacock?" said I.

"Sure I'm posting the bills of Misther Longbottom, the Friend of the People," said he.

"'Tis a grand occupation," said I. "Vote for Longbottom, the Friend of the People, and to hell with Lord Char-less," said I.

"To hell with Lord Char-less," says he.

"Come," says I, "let me show ye the way to paste bills, ye omadhaun."

"And what do ye know about pasting bills?"

"Haven't I been a billposter all me life, then?" says I. "Here, let me get at it, and I'll shew ye the right way to paste the bills of Longbottom, the Friend of the People."

He handed me his long hairy brush, and a pailful of a horrible stinking compound, and I pasted up a bill the way I was born to it.

"Sure," says he, "ye can paste bills with anny man that God ever put two legs under. 'Tis clear ye're a grand bill-poster," says he.

"Didn't I tell ye?" says I.

And with that I caught him a lick with the full brush across the face, so that the hairs flicked all round his head, and with a loud cry he turned and fled away. Armed with the pail and the brush, away I started after him, but my foot caught in the lap of the long coat I had on, and down I came, and knocked my nose on the ground, so that it bled all over me, and I had to go back to the inn. I took the rest of the placards, and the pail and the brush, and drove home, arriving very late. My brother Bill was in bed and sound asleep. Without waking him, I pasted the whole of his room with bills, "Vote for Longbottom, the Friend of the People." I pasted them on the walls, and on the door, and on his bed, and on his towels, and on his trousers, and on the floor. Then I went to bed.

In the morning he awakened me, wearing a pale and solemn countenance.

"Charlie," said he, "there's some bold men among the enemy."

"What do you mean?" said I.

"They are great boys," says he. "Why, one of them got into my room last night."

"Impossible," said I.

"Come and see," said he. "When I woke this morning I thought I had gone mad."

Upon the eve of the election, a man whom I knew to be a Fenian, came up to me and said, "I shall vote for ye, Lord Char-less. I don't agree with your politics, but I shall vote for ye."

"And why would you?" I said. "You that's a Fenian, you should be voting for Mr. Longbottom, the Friend of the People, like an honest man."

"Not at all," says he. "When ye go to the market to buy a horse, or a cow, or a pig, what is it ye look for in 'um? Blood," says he. "An' it's the same in an iliction. Ye are well-bred, annyway," says he, "but as for this Mr. Longwhat's-'is-name, he's cross-bred."

When I was holding a meeting, one of the audience kept interrupting me; so I invited him to come up on the platform and have it out.

"Now what is it, ye old blackguard," I said. "Speak out."

"Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're no man."

"We'll see about that," says I. "Why do you say so?"

"Lord Char-less," he said solemnly, "I remimber the time one of your family stood for th' county of Waterford, I was up to the knees in blood and whisky for a month, and at this iliction, begob, devil a drop of eyther have I seen."

The old man referred to the election of 1826, in which Lord George Beresford was beaten by Lord Stewart de Decies, an event which was partially instrumental in bringing about the emancipation of the Roman Catholics in 1829.

I have always preferred a hostile political meeting to a peaceable assembly; nor have I ever failed to hold a hostile audience except upon one occasion, during the York election. I had sent a speaker to occupy the attention of an audience, largely composed of my own countrymen, till I came, and by the time I arrived he had succeeded in irritating them beyond the power of pacification.

But one can hardly save oneself from one's friends. During the Waterford election I came one evening to Youghal and went to the hotel. I was peacefully smoking outside the inn, when a party of the boys came along, hooting me, and presently they began to throw stones. When I advanced upon them they ran away and were lost in the darkness. As I turned to go back to the hotel, a large missile caught me behind the ear, knocking me over.