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On the 19th February, 1810, finding his health to be in a very impaired state, our officer was obliged to strike his flag, and come on shore. Since that period, we believe, he was not employed.

In the month of June, 1813, Rear-Admiral Bertie received the honour of knighthood, and the royal licence and permission to accept and wear the insignia of a Knight Commander of the Order of the Sword, which the late King of Sweden had been pleased to confer upon him, in testimony of his merits and services. He was advanced to the rank of ViceAdmiral, December 4th, in the same year.

Sir Thomas Bertie died on the 13th June, 1825, at Twyford Lodge, in Hampshire, the residence of his brother, George Hoar, Esq.

The foregoing memoir has been taken from Marshall's "Royal Naval Biography."

374

No. XVI.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

RICHARD HELY HUTCHINSON, EARL OF

DONOUGHMORE,

VISCOUNT SUIRDALE, BARON DONOUGHMORE; VISCOUNT HUTCHINSON OF KNOCKLOFTY, IN THE PEERAGE OF GREAT BRITAIN; A PRIVY-COUNCILLOR IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND; A GOVERNOR OF THE COUNTY OF TIPPERARY; SECOND REMEMBRANCER OF THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER IN IRELAND; A LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, AND F. S. A.

THE

HE late Earl of Donoughmore was the eldest son of the Right Honourable John Hely Hutchinson, who was called to the bar in 1748, returned to parliament for Lanesborough in 1759, and in 1761 for the city of Cork (which he continued to represent until his death); appointed Prime Serjeant at Law in 1762, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1774, and Principal Secretary of State for Ireland in 1777; and who married in 1754 Christiana, daughter of Lorenzo Nixon, of Murny, county of Wicklow, Esq., and niece and heir of Richard Hutchinson, of Knocklofty, county of Tipperary, Esq., decended from an ancient family of English origin; of whom Christopher Hutchinson, Esq. the first of the family in Ireland, had a grant from Queen Elizabeth of the priory of Cahir, and its possessions. On the 16th of October, 1783, Mrs. Hutchinson was created Baroness Donoughmore.

The Right Honourable John Hely Hutchinson was the first statesman in Ireland who, both in the cabinet and out of it, was the avowed and uncompromising advocate of Catholic emancipation, as well as a repeal of those baneful commercial restrictions which, while they paralyzed the energies of Ireland, diminished the general resources of the

British empire. In his work called "Commercial Restraints," Mr. Hutchinson developed all those great commercial principles which are now, after an interval of seventy years, acted upon by the enlightened policy of the Imperial government.

The late Earl of Donoughmore was born January 29, 1756. He received his early education at Eton; whence he went to Oxford; but he graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, as a mark of respect to his father, the provost. As soon as his age qualified him, he obtained a seat in the Irish House of Commons; and the first occasion on which he addressed the House was in support of the bill introduced in 1778 by Mr. Gardiner, for the purpose of permitting the Roman Catholics to take long leases of land. This speech was considered a very fine composition, and made a great impression on the House. One sentence in particular produced a powerful effect. The young orator was speaking in answer to those who had been dwelling on the danger which might arise from allowing the Roman Catholics to obtain landed property:-"If the Catholics are still formidable," he observed, "let them be chained. Chain them to the land. The links of that chain will bind them no less closely to the state!" It is a remarkable fact, that from the very commencement of the relaxation of the penal code against the Roman Catholics to the last hour of his life, Lord Donoughmore was present on every occasion when the question was agitated in parliament, and maintained, by his vote, and in most instances by his eloquence, the justice and necessity of the entire repeal of that code.

In the year 1781, Lord Donoughmore was appointed a commissioner of the customs in Ireland, which situation he his retained till the year 1802. On the 24th of June, 1788, mother, Baroness Donoughmore, dying, after a long life passed in the discharge of every moral and religious duty, he succeeded to her titles.

In 1794, the noble Lord raised, in an incredibly short space of time, the 94th regiment, for his distinguished brother, Lord, then Colonel, Hutchinson; and soon after the late

112th regiment, of which, on the 21st of July 1794, he was himself appointed lieutenant-colonel commandant, receiving full pay.

Early in the year 1795, Lord Donoughmore's father died, leaving him at the head of a numerous family, to whom the noble lord's conduct has ever been that of a most kind and affectionate brother; and bequeathing to him that cause, the support of which had formed one of the most earnest objects of Mr. Hutchinson's public life. The following address was soon after presented to Lord Donoughmore, by a delegation from the Roman Catholics of the city of Dublin:

:

"To the Right Hon. Lord Donoughmore. My Lord,

"The Catholics of Dublin have instructed us to express to your Lordship the sentiments of sincere and ardent gratitude which they feel to you and your family; and in discharging this duty we assume to ourselves no small degree of pride, because we know that in addressing your Lordship we address the hereditary advocate of Catholic emancipation.

"Your late illustrious father had attentively considered the whole code of Popery laws, not only as far as they related to the persons who unfortunately were the victims of their severity, but also as far as they affected the interests of this kingdom in general; and never was the Catholic question the subject of parliamentary discussion that he did not forcibly reprobate the impolicy of imposing penalties on opinions, and classifying people according to their creeds.

"He was too great a statesman to think that four-fifths of a nation could be politically degraded, without the degradation, in a great measure, of the remaining part of its inhabitants; and that civil disabilities could be added to political restraints, without the ruin of many of the arts that are useful to life, and the total extinction of all those sentiments of national honour and pride which give rank and dignity to one country in the mind of another.

"You, my Lord, are heir not only to the fortunes, but to

the talents and opinions of your father; and, in conjunction with your liberal and enlightened brothers, are endeavouring to complete the work which he was among the first to begin.

"You feel, in common, with the reflecting and disinterested part of the community, that the slavery of Catholics is not necessary to the freedom of Protestants. The genius and character of the times in which you live have not escaped your observation. You know that neither superstition nor enthusiasm, in matters of religion, are among the maladies of the present day; and that, whatever might have been the delusions of former ages, nothing is now less likely than contests among sectaries to procure legal and temporal preferences for their clergy and their respective creeds. You are sensible that a change of circumstances will produce a change of tastes and opinions; that bigotry in one age may be succeeded by liberality in another; and you have too much penetration not to perceive that Catholics, instead of being fixed to an immovable anchor of prejudice and passion, have floated with the times, and caught the manners of their contemporaries.

"Influenced by these considerations, your Lordship has uniformly laboured to purify the statute-book from the taint of penal laws, and to unite all descriptions of your countrymen in a bond of common interest. Animated by the recollection of your father's example, and aided by that immortal man who restored to Ireland its constitution, your Lordship cannot fail of success; and it is with the highest satisfaction we anticipate the day when there shall be no distinctions in this country, but those of subjects and rulers, and when churches, dedicated to different modes of worship, shall give rise to as little popular animosity and contention, as academies instituted for teaching the different branches of human learning.

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"As soon as this auspicious event shall obtain, several abuses, now existing, will be removed, and an end will be put to the insults which Ireland now receives, and is forced to bear in silence, from sordid and unworthy men, who have not candour enough to make allowances for the causes of her depression,

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