Part 3

He kept an electioneering agent inside the walls, a spy and a corrupter,--"in short, the Blacquiere of Mr. Hutchison." Duigenan gives a long list of the Provost's insolences to himself and to other members of the body. He resisted marriage dispensations to the Fellows who were his opponents, while he procured them for his creatures--Leland and Dabzac.

On the death of Shewbridge the Fellow, which was attributed to Hutchison's refusing him leave to go to the country for change of air, the students defied the Provost's order for a private interment at 6 o'clock in the morning. They had the bell rung, had a night burial and a torchlight procession, attended the funeral in mourning, and afterwards broke into the Provost's house.

In the first year of his office the Provost dispersed a meeting of the Scholars and some of the Fellows that was held by advertisement at Ryan's in Fownes-street, "the principal tavern in the city," for the purpose of nominating candidates for the representation of the University against the Provost's nominees.

Duigenan goes on to relate how Hutchinson discharged the various duties of the high office which he had acquired by the traffic above stated. He made an exhibition of his ignorance at a Fellowship Examination by suggesting that Alexander the Great died in the time of the Peloponessian War; but ridiculous a figure as he made in the Scholarship and Fellowship Examinations, he would not withdraw from them, because unless he examined he could not vote or nominate at the election of the Scholars and Fellows. This nomination power was with him a darling object in the execution of his electioneering projects of making the College a family borough, and he abstained from no methods to effectuate his scheme.

We are told at length how the Provost, with the consent of a majority of the Board, deprived Berwick of his Scholarship for absence, because Berwick would not vote for his son, and how the Visitors, on appeal, restored him. How he deprived Mr. Gamble of the buttery clerkship, and replaced him, on the threat of an appeal, suggested and drawn up by Duigenan. How the Provost refused Mr. FitzGerald, a Fellow, leave to accompany his sick wife to the country, and tried to provoke FitzGerald's hot temper. The Provost's cruelties and injuries to Duigenan himself knew no limits. He says, that for the purpose of keeping him from being co-opted, the Provost had the Board Registry falsified, that he set the porters to watch him, that he persecuted him, and mulcted him in the buttery books, for sleeping out of college without leave. He relates that he was attacked by the Provost's gang, and was obliged in consequence to wear arms; and that, finally, Hutchinson compelled him to go out on the Laws' Professorship on a salary which was raised to L460 a year.

The "Lachrymae Academicae" shows how Duigenan spent the leisure hours of his enforced retirement.

It was dedicated to King George III. Duigenan had "dragged this Cacus (the Provost) from his den," and he appealed to the Duke of Gloucester as Chancellor, and to the archbishops of Armagh and Dublin as Visitors, to rescue the college out of the hands of this worse than Vandalic destroyer, this molten calf, and pasteboard Goliath. As this remedy might fail, from the uncertainty of all events in this world, Duigenan pointed out two other remedies, the application of which lay with the King. One was to have the Provost's patent voided by a scire facias, and the other was to deprive him of all power, authority, or revenue in the college, during his life. His authority was to be transferred to the Board, and his revenue to be appropriated to pay for the new building. These suggestions were not adopted, but the Lachrymae did not by any means fall still-born from the press. It produced a powerful sensation within the walls and in outer circles.

On the 19th of July it was censured by the Board in the following resolution:--

"Whereas, a pamphlet hath lately been published in the city of Dublin, with the title of "Lachrymae Academicae," to which the name of Patrick Duigenan, LL.D., is prefixed as author, traducing the character of the Right Honourable the Provost and some respectable Fellows of this society, and misrepresenting and vilifying the conduct of the said Provost and Fellows, and the government of the said college, without regard to truth or decency.

"Resolved by the Provost and Senior Fellows that the author and publishers of the said pamphlet shall be prosecuted in the course of law, and that orders to that purpose be given to the law agent of the college.

"Ordered that the said resolution be published in the English and Irish newspapers."--[Extract from College Register, July 19, 1777.]

The censure was officially published in the Dublin Journal, and in Saunders' News Letter; whereupon Duigenan inserted in the Freeman the following advertisement:--

"Whereas, a false and malicious advertisement has been inserted in the Dublin Journal, and in Saunders' News Letter, containing a resolution of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, relative to a book written and published by me, entitled, 'Lachrymae Academicae; or, the present deplorable state of the College of the Holy and undivided Trinity, of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin.' It is necessary to inform the public that the said resolution was carried at the Board by the votes of Drs. Leland, Dabzac, Wilson, and Forsayeth (the very same persons who voted for the unstatutable deprivation of Mr. Berwick), against the opinions of Mr. Clement, the Vice-Provost, of Dr. Murray, and Dr. Kearney. It is also necessary to observe that three of these gentlemen who voted for the above resolution are persons whom I have declared my intention, in my book, of accusing, before the Visitors, of having committed unstatutable crimes; which intention I shall most certainly execute. And I do hereby pledge myself to the public that I will effectually prosecute at law every one of the junto for the said scurrilous advertisement, and the resolution therein contained.

"PAT. DUIGENAN,

"Chancery Lane, July 21st, 1777."

"N.B.--Dr. Murray signed the said advertisement officially as Registrar of the College, who is obliged to sign resolutions of the majority of the Board. He strenuously opposed the resolution therein contained, and the insertion of it in the Public Prints."

Besides these Board proceedings, the "Lachrymae" led to a plentiful crop of litigation in the Courts. In Michaelmas Term, 1777, in the King's Bench, Serjeant Wood moved for an information against Duigenan at the suit of the Provost on account of the defamation in the "Lachrymae," and the application was granted. The same time Barry Yelverton, on the part of Dr. Arthur Browne, Fellow, and Member for the University, moved for an information against the Hibernian Journal, and Fitzgibbon moved for informations against two persons for challenging Duigenan. Applications granted.

In 1778 Counsellors Smith, Burgh, &c., showed cause on behalf of Dr. Duigenan against making absolute the Rule for information against the "Lachrymae," when Judge Robinson dismissed the case, saying that it had already taken up fifteen days of the public time, and that he "left the School to its own correctors."

In 1776, Duigenan insulted the Provost in the Four Courts, and the Provost, disdaining Duigenan, called upon Tisdall to make him responsible for his follower's conduct. He told Tisdall to consider that he had insulted him with a view to provoke a challenge. This was the occasion on which Duigenan threatened to bulge the Provost's eye. Tisdall at once applied for an information against him in the King's Bench. Seventeen counsel were engaged in the cause.

Hutchinson argued his own case before the Court with consummate ability. He delivered a most masterly speech, and offered an apology for calling Tisdall an old scoundrel and an old rascal. He did not recollect having used these expressions, but if he did use them, it was out of Court. He referred pathetically to all the annoyance and ridicule that he was undergoing by pamphlets and in the public press; and he excused his appearing in his own defence by the circumstance that his lawyers were harassed in attendance on the six different suits promoted against him on very unaccountable motives.

The Court of King's Bench made the rule against him absolute, but the proceedings collapsed in consequence of Tisdall's death.

Duigenan says that Hutchinson was once publicly chastised by a gentleman whom he had affronted, but we have no other account of the circumstance. Duigenan makes out that he was a coward as well as a tyrant and impostor, and he compares him to "Cacofogo," the usurer in Beaumont and Fletcher's play.

In 1789, the Provost supported Grattan in the Regency Bill, and in the motions connected with it. For this he was liable to be dismissed from the lucrative offices which he held under the Crown, and to save himself from this penalty he signed the "Round Robin" of the twenty peers and thirty-seven commoners who were in a similar predicament. This famous instrument which was drawn up in the Provost's house, pledged the co-signers to stand or fall together, and bound them as a body "to make Government impossible" if the Viceroy, Lord Buckingham, were to venture to punish any of them. Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General, mercilessly crushed and humbled the "Parliamentary Whiteboys;" he made the synagogue of Satan come and worship before his feet, and the most abject of the recreants was the Provost.

To secure the control of the parliamentary representation of the University was, as has been said, one of Hutchinson's dearest plans. The pursuit of it led him, according to all accounts, into some of his most dishonourable and vindictive actions, and after all he won but temporary and chequered success in the ambitious experiment. In the prosecution of these election aims, the Provost stuck at nothing. He had agents and emissaries everywhere; and through them as well as by his own direct efforts he instituted an all-pervading system of corruption. He knew how to make subtle but palpable advances to the voters that were under his eye, and to tamper at the same time with their friends and parents at a distance. He ransacked every department of Academic life so as to be expert at turning the whole system of collegiate rewards and punishments into an organised instrumentality for bribery. All the emoluments, rewards, and conveniences of the college were reserved for those who promised their vote to the Provost, and all the obsolete and vexatious disciplines were enforced against those who were disposed to assert their independence in exercising the franchise. By an unscrupulous use of both his patronage, and his powers as Returning Officer, he was enabled to get two of his sons returned for the University, but he saw powerful and damaging petitions against both of them. In 1776, he returned his eldest son Richard against Tisdall, the Attorney-General. Tisdall lodged a petition in June, which the House ordered to be considered in July, but before that day the Parliament was prorogued, and did not meet again till October in the following year. Meanwhile, Tisdall died; the petition was moved by Madden and King, and ultimately, in March, 1778, the Select Committee unseated Hutchinson. John Fitzgibbon conducted the petition, and thereby established his position as a lawyer. He was elected for the University in Hutchinson's room, and the foundation of his coming greatness was laid.

Richard Hutchinson, it maybe observed, fell back on Sligo, to which he had been elected at the same time that he was elected for the University, and where he seems to have escaped another petition by choosing the University constituency. In the debate as to whether a new writ should be issued for Sligo, in 1778, the Provost took a forward part, and bewailed that he "was forced to go there out of his sick bed to defend his son." The Gravamina of the College petition of 1778 were almost identical with those of the petition of 1790, and while Parliament was unseating the Provost's son, the Court of Common Pleas was dealing with the Provost himself. The Rev. Edward Berwick, whose case is related in the "Lachrymae," took an action against the Returning Officer for refusing his vote. The Court, overruling the Provost's objection, made an order that the Plaintiff should have liberty to inspect all the College books that could be of use to him in his suit. The verdict was against the defendant, without costs.

After the disastrous parliamentary petition of 1778, the Provost took no family part in the College elections until the year 1790, when his second son Francis was returned. His return led to a parliamentary inquiry; and the case, which is fully reported, is a very interesting passage in the history of the College and of Hutchinson.

The committee, consisting of fourteen members, besides the chairman, W. Burston, Esq., was chosen on the 14th day of Feb., 1791, and on it sat, amongst the others, the Hon. Arthur Wesley (Duke of Wellington), Right Hon. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Right Hon. Denis Daly.

There were two petitions, one by Laurence Parsons, Esq., the defeated candidate, and the other by some scholars and other electors of the borough. The sitting member was the Hon. Francis Hely Hutchinson, and the returning officer was his father the Provost. There was a powerful bar. Beresford Burston, Michael Smith (afterwards Master of the Rolls), Peter Burrowes, and William Conyngham Plunket, were for the petitioners; Tankerville Chamberlain (afterwards Judge of the Queen's Bench), and Luke Fox (afterwards judge), were for the sitting member; and Robert Boyd (afterwards Judge of King's Bench), and Denis George, Recorder of Dublin (and afterwards Baron of the Exchequer), were for the Provost. The total constituency was 92, and out of these "84 and no more" tendered their votes. Arthur Browne was returned at the head of the poll by 62 votes, Parsons had 43, and Hutchinson 39. The Provost, on the scrutiny, reduced Browne's votes to 51, Parsons' to 34, and his son's to 36, thus returning his son by a majority of two over Parsons. Against this return the petitioners set forth that the Provost received for his son the votes of several persons who had no right to vote; that he refused for Parsons the votes of several who were legally entitled to vote; that on the scrutiny, he received illegal evidence; that he acted as agent for his son, and by undue means procured votes for him; that he exerted his prerogative antecedently to the election for the purpose of illegally influencing the electors; and that by illegal and partial scrutiny he reduced the number of the votes for Parsons below the number of the votes for his son. Burston stated the case, and referred to the election of 1776, when the Provost's eldest son was unseated for undue influence. He gave numerous instances of the Provost's abuse of his powers in the matters of "non-coing" and leaves of absence. He complained of his rejecting votes on the ground of minority on the evidence chiefly of the Matriculation-book. Amongst the witnesses examined were the Very Rev. Wensley Bond, Sch., 1761, Dean of Ross; G. Miller, Fellow (and afterwards Master of Armagh Royal School); William Magee, Fellow and Junior Dean (and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin); Toomy, a scholar (and afterwards Professor of Medicine); Dr. Marsh, Fellow, and Registrar of the college; Whitly Stokes, Fellow (and afterwards Professor of Physic), &c. &c.