Plunket was described by Tom Macaulay* in 1831 as ‘very ugly, but with a strong expression of intellect in his strong coarse features and massy forehead’.
In the 1818 Parliament Plunket, whose principal political interest lay in the peaceful promotion, in association with his hero and friend Henry Grattan I*, of the cause of Catholic emancipation, acted with the Grenvillite wing of the Whigs, though many of his oldest personal connections were with Foxites. His political instincts were essentially conservative, however, and in the emergency session of late 1819 he disgusted some of the leading Whigs by conspicuously supporting the Liverpool ministry’s coercive legislation to deal with popular unrest in the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre. His immediate reward, thanks to the unbidden intervention of Lord Grenville, was a government assurance that the opposition which he had encountered in his Dublin University seat at the general election of 1818, when John Croker*, a junior minister, had run him close, would not be repeated on the next occasion. Plunket, who correctly surmised that Croker’s acquiescence was ‘very reluctantly’ conceded, was gratified, as he told Grenville, to be relieved
not only ... of ... any serious apprehension as to the result of a contest, but ... from a state of incessant contention with persons under the influence of bad and angry feelings, which ... had become so hateful to me that, independently of the injury done to the College, I began to apprehend that the return was too dearly purchased. I have great pleasure in assuring your Lordship that the course which has been adopted in Parliament affords very general satisfaction on this side of the water, and that in acting under my entire conviction of the soundness of your ... views, I have no reason to think that I have forfeited the approbation of any one individual whose good opinion was worth preserving.
Add. 58963, ff. 36, 38; NLW, Coedymaen mss 576; Croker Pprs. i. 157.
He was nevertheless given ‘a great deal of trouble’ by the persistence of rumours that Croker would stand at the general election of 1820, and asked his fellow Grenvillite Charles Williams Wynn* to try to secure from him an authoritative disclaimer. In the event, he was returned unopposed.
to give strength to the Protestant connection, and security to the empire. It is the basis of liberty, and I shall therefore be ... [the Catholics’] advocate. They are not storming the constitution by wild theories and dangerous innovations, but are calmly, temperately and constitutionally seeking for their rights ... I am probably shortly to lay their claims before the legislature.
Dublin Evening Post, 24, 27 June 1820.
In a brief visit to London the following month, he spoke retrospectively in support of the bill to exclude from Parliament Irish masters in chancery, one of whom, Thomas Ellis, had defeated young Grattan, 12 July; he privately thought Ellis’s return had been ‘shameful’.
At the end of 1820 Brougham told Lord Holland and George Tierney* that he was confident that Plunket was ‘decidedly against the ministers on the queen’s business’ and would ‘take an active part’ when Parliament met; and a story to that effect was still current, to the evident ‘dismay’ of government, in mid-January 1821.
Feeling strongly, I should express without reserve what I feel. I know by some experience the intolerant construction to which such conduct would expose me, and I am quite certain that I should have the mortification of returning to this country with the hostility of both parties, without having reason to console myself by the conviction of having effected or contributed to any public good.
He noticed Grey’s reported reference to him in the autumn as an apostate; reviewed and defended his political conduct since entering public life, claiming to have been consistent throughout; asked Newport to show this vindication to Holland and Lord Lansdowne, and declared that ‘all intercourse and connection’ between himself and Grey was at an end. Lansdowne, alerted by Newport, sought to mollify Plunket, assuring him that he had been misinformed about Grey’s attitude and exhorting him not to rule himself out of participation in any future Whig ministry.
I wrote to ... Newport with a mind deeply wounded, and with a temper ... much exasperated. Your ... letter ... has taken the sting out of everything which had excited or offended me ... I am perfectly satisfied that the expression [by Grey] reported to me has not been uttered deliberately or recently ... It is quite a relief to me to be convinced that, however I may have been opposed to a passing resentment in Lord Grey’s mind, when my public conduct may have surprised or disappointed him, I have not to resent ... his continuing to harbour an opinion that my conduct has been swayed by unworthy motives ... I regret the warmth with which I expressed myself ... [and] any unpleasant feeling is dismissed from my mind ... On the proceedings against the queen, I ... have the misfortune, in some respects, to differ from ... Lord Grenville. Without pretending to know exactly his opinions, my own are ... that the proceedings ... have been unwise and impolitic, as in the course of the business the feelings of the people of England have been roused in no ordinary degree. But all this, so far as the queen is concerned, is a mere passing cloud ... In six months hence ... the matter will ... be important, only in so far as it may have given strength to the revolutionary party ... The terror of this growing monster will ... determine the judgement of that portion of the community whom I consider as the public, and in whose confidence the claims of all parties, as well as the safety of all parties must rest ... The measures which a great portion of the opposition have been, for some time, pursuing do not address themselves to this portion of the people, and ... I do not see any immediate prospect of their doing so ... I do not mean to go over until the ... Catholic question calls me. It grieves me to anticipate that when I do, I cannot look for the probability of that co-operation in public measures which I should find so honourable and so desirable.
Lansdowne mss, Plunket to Lansdowne, 29 Jan. 1821.
On 28 Feb. 1821, after presenting several Irish Catholic petitions and paying tribute to Grattan,
I have not for many years heard such an astonishing display of talent. His style is quite peculiar; for its gravity and severity, I prefer it to all others of which I ever heard a specimen. If he had been bred in Parliament I am inclined to think he would have been the greatest speaker that ever appeared in it.
Hatherton diary, 6 Oct. 1838; Torrens, Melbourne, i. 163; Cent. Kent. Stud. Camden mss U840 C530/8; Add. 51564, Brougham to Lady Holland [8 Mar.]; Ward, Llandaff Letters, 279-80; Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 28 Feb. [1821]; HLRO, Hist. Coll. 379, Grey Bennet diary, 28.
The anti-Catholic Member Henry Bankes, however, thought the speech was ‘more praised than it seemed to me to deserve, being inferior to some of his other very able exertions’.
This piecemeal course of proceeding seems to me not to have anything of statesmanship; it has no principle; it leads to the final accomplishment of the R. C. claims, but not in a course of conciliation and confidence, or with the prospect of binding up the question in a way calculated to promote public peace, or to afford security to our establishments.
Buckingham, i. 141-2; Lady Holland to Son, 4-5; Coedymaen mss bdle. 17, Plunket to Williams Wynn, 4 Apr., 2, 11 May 1821; Add. 58963, ff. 54, 56; Buckingham, i. 156-7.
Before he returned to Ireland he was sounded by Lord Liverpool about joining the administration as Irish attorney-general. He was strongly tempted, but on Grenville’s advice stipulated that he must be allowed a free hand as to the timing and method of dealing with the Catholic question. Williams Wynn informed Grenville’s nephew Lord Buckingham, the active head of the Grenvillites, whom ministers were also courting, of his
conversation with Plunket ... about his views, and I am sorry to find him most disinclined - indeed I might say almost resolved - against taking any office which would fix him in England, and looking only to the attorney-generalship and great seal of Ireland, but thinking that he could, while in the former office, give considerable attendance in the House of Commons. He appeared to feel that there was no longer any obstacle to his taking office under the present government, as now constituted, and to be well disposed to accept the offer of the attorney-generalship of Ireland whenever they can make room for him, though he would much prefer coming in with us.
Buckingham, i. 135-6, 233; Plunket, ii. 85, 87.
In the summer, when the king’s particular attentiveness to Plunket on his visit to Ireland did not pass unnoticed, Liverpool tried to have him installed as Irish attorney-general in the room of the long serving Saurin, a Protestant bigot. The Protestant lord lieutenant, Lord Talbot, made difficulties, and evidently did so in November, when Liverpool again raised the matter, which he had pressed on the Irish lord chancellor Lord Manners as one of urgency.
That the ... question cannot, for any great length of time, be kept back, appears to me evident, but it seems equally clear that there is great occasion for caution, and much room for accommodation, as to the time of bringing it forward; nothing could be more injurious than the risking the loss of the vantage ground which we have taken possession of during the last session; and ... such might be the consequence of bringing the measure forward, without some better prospect of good sense and good temper on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy than they displayed on the late occasion. Of improvement in that quarter I am led to entertain some hopes, as well as on the part of those of the laity who were least manageable; and all these are arguments for delay. At the same time this should be certainly kept open for discussion, and above all, must not be liable to be considered as the result of contract or stipulation, especially with any portion of the government, which would undoubtedly tend to throw the Roman Catholic body into dangerous hands. Under these circumstances, and reserving this perfect freedom, I am quite disposed to attend in Parliament, and render what services I can to the general measures of administration.
Croker Pprs. i. 218; Plunket, ii. 85, 87-95; Buckingham, i. 233, 235-6, 240-3, 250-1, 253, 255, 262, 277; Geo. IV Letters, ii. 971, 973; BL, Fortescue mss, Buckingham to Grenville, 30 Nov., 2, 6 Dec., memo. 30 Nov., Williams Wynn to Grenville [4, 5 Dec.] 1821; Add. 38290, f. 155; 38743, f. 72; 40328, f. 1.
The problem of providing for Saurin, who eventually resigned without compensation, delayed the ratification of Plunket’s appointment until January 1822. He was quietly re-elected for the university the following month, when he claimed to have accepted office ‘without compromise of any principle whatever’.
The Foxite Whig Lord John Russell* regretted the loss of Plunket, but reflected that ‘he is not yet formidable - new, and provincial, and no gentleman, no character’.
The parliamentary storm has I think spent its force, and the exposition of the resources of the country has inspired very general confidence. The retrenchments adopted have also ... given satisfaction to the great portion of the public mind which is capable of listening to reason. I rejoice to think that there is some reason to look to returning tranquillity in Ireland, and that the alarmists cease to call for martial law, and begin to acknowledge the efficacy of the measures which have been resorted to.
Like Williams Wynn, who was now in the cabinet, he was averse to pressing the general question of Catholic relief in present circumstances, and was ‘sorry to say that many of the opposition Members are desirous of bringing it forward this session. Such a course would, in my opinion, be ruinous, and I trust that we may be able to prevent it’.
Plunket sprang upon his prey. I have never seen such a chastisement. He fixed his eye on Ellis and treated him with a degree of scorn, disgust and contempt which I scarcely thought possible from one man to another. The invective was worthy of Demosthenes. P[lunket] was really angry as well as desirous of making his first official speech as an advocate of the Catholics rather than as an adversary of his old friend [Newport]. His success was complete. We who had prepared groans for him received his speech with raptures of clamorous applause. Even our Mountaineers were delighted and began to suspect that he may be honest.
Fox Jnl. 113; Add. 52445, f. 79.
Hudson Gurney* thought the attack was ‘strong but very coarse; his words disjointed like broken bones; his sentences very incomplete. It is not eloquence but a style that fixes attention’. Phillimore felt that the speech was ‘everything that could be wished, and set us quite right with the House as to Ireland’; but Agar Ellis, while acknowledging that Plunket spoke ‘admirably’, could not ‘say his explanation of his own political conduct was equally successful’. Buckingham preferred Grant’s speech as showing ‘more real practical desire to remedy the grievances of Ireland’, but he acknowledged that Plunket ‘fights in fetters owing to his official situation’.
Towards the end of the session Fox wrote that Plunket ‘has quite fallen this year, and has behaved most shabbily in a true Hibernian manner. Everybody gives him up’. Buckingham was also evidently out of humour with him, for Williams Wynn commented:
I think you quite right in your plan of writing a letter to Plunket to explain your general views with respect to Ireland. He must remember he is attorney-general, and from his character ought to be House of Commons minister for that country, besides being representative of that shabby body called Trinity College. He cannot conceal from himself the resolution of the Irish Members, and indeed of the House, to force the tithe question, and that the only thing in his power to determine is, whether the government will take the conduct and management of the business to themselves or leave it to the opposition’.
Fox Jnl. 126; Buckingham, i. 351-2.
Had Peel become leader of the Commons after Londonderry’s suicide in August 1822 Buckingham, so he told the duke of Wellington, would have insisted on Plunket’s admission to the cabinet.
from Plunket, except on Irish affairs, I do not think much could be expected. I do not think he has either the versatility, information, or boldness necessary for a general debater; besides, I hear he is dissatisfied, and if he be sulky, nobody is so sulky. In short, if he and Goulburn manage Ireland and keep Spring Rice, Lord Wellesley and Kit Hutchinson in check, it is as much as can be expected; but I ought to add that some of our friends here, and particularly the peers, talk sanguinely of Plunket’s assistance.
Add. 40319, f. 57; Croker Pprs. i. 230.
He was said to be ‘very unpopular’ in Ireland in the autumn of 1822.
Plunket, who told Williams Wynn in late November that Wellesley’s ‘system of government affords satisfaction to all reasonable people’, still planned to bring on the Catholic question early in the next session, but he was distracted and delayed in his departure for London by the consequences of the Dublin theatre riot of 14 Dec. 1822, when disgruntled Orangemen threw wood and bottles at Wellesley’s box. Plunket indicted the rioters, but the Dublin grand jury threw out the bills, and he then filed ex-officio informations. These proceedings outraged not only their partisans, but many Whigs, while Peel and other ministers were in private highly critical of Wellesley and Plunket, and even Williams Wynn thought that they had acted ‘absurdly’, though he agreed with Buckingham as to the necessity of supporting them in public.
The triumph of Plunket was complete. He addressed a House evidently unfavourably disposed to him, and for the first hour we could scarcely raise a decent cheer to encourage him. It then became evident that he was making progress, and he proceeded till the applause fairly rung from every part of the House, and his adversaries, who had every reason to expect a majority, found it impossible even to venture on a division.
Agar Ellis considered it ‘a most able and ingenious speech’. Plunket told Grenville:
There is a very active party at work against me, but I trust matters are now in such a state as to secure me against them. Had the question been met by a direct negative, I believe we should have succeeded by a great majority. However, I have no right to complain, as I am convinced the support of ministers was cordial and sincere.
His personal success was confirmed when it emerged, as he smugly reported to the House, 2 May, that Saurin, a principal instigator of the attack, had himself used ex-officio informations during his attorney-generalship.
You must not wonder that Plunket did not stop to visit you in his way. He has now been four months absent from Ireland, suffering all the while from vexation and indifferent health, which have produced the effect of making him low and hypochondriac about himself. He was convinced that nothing but the native breeze of the potatoes could revive him, and he was besides not a little uneasy as to the consequences of his absence upon his professional business, and very anxious again to see his family. Nothing else could, I will not say justify, but excuse his turning his back upon the tithe bill ... but he is thoroughly dejected, and often talks of the probability of his being obliged to retire.
Hobhouse of the home office reckoned that during the session Plunket had ‘made shipwreck of the weight he possessed in the country’.
In late August 1823 Goulburn informed Peel that Wellesley understood that Plunket would resign if Lord Farnham, who, as Member for Cavan, had been one of his Orange tormentors earlier in the year, was elected an Irish representative peer.
Depend upon it that if our government here is carried on without grudge or suspicion, and if the Roman Catholics are led to believe that we are disposed to deal with them fairly on the principles announced two years ago, we may indulge in every prospect of governing this country in such a way as not to create disturbance or annoyance to the ... government in England; but otherwise I cannot answer for it. I need not tell you that in speaking thus hopefully, I do not underrate the necessity of the final settlement of the great question, without which I am convinced the true foundations of tranquillity in Ireland never can be effectually laid.
In response to Buckingham’s exhortation to secure ‘the admission of the Roman Catholics to their fair proportion of the offices to which they are by law admissible’, he admitted that ‘various circumstances (and I freely own not sufficient to afford a satisfactory explanation) have concurred to prevent it hitherto’, but gave assurances that Wellesley and Liverpool were determined to redress the balance:
The Roman Catholics ... are on the whole in good humour, and strongly disposed to place confidence in ... [Wellesley’s] government ... Their entire confidence in myself is not without its share in producing this disposition.
Yet Williams Wynn perceived in this a symptom of ‘a want of energy’ in Wellesley and Plunket, ‘which must almost disqualify them for coping successfully with the exterior and interior enemies they have to deal with’.
Williams Wynn pressed Plunket to go to London in time for Newport’s Catholic burials motion of 19 Feb. 1824, on which subject ministers were all at sea; but as his doing so would have been ‘attended with very serious inconvenience’, Plunket persuaded Newport to postpone the matter. After his arrival, 1 Mar., he assisted the cabinet in deciding to take over the question and to introduce a bill to repeal obsolete regulations and empower the Protestant clergy to permit the performance of Catholic and Dissenting burials by their respective ministers. He introduced this, 23 Mar., and explained it at length, 29 Mar. It passed the Commons on 1 Apr. and, after amendment by the Lords, became law on the 15th (5 Geo. IV, c. 25). O’Connell publicly attacked it and privately damned Plunket, who was ‘as bad as any of the king’s ministers’.
In mid-September 1824 Lord Redesdale told Lord Colchester that Manners ‘talks of resigning’, but that ministers now had ‘little disposition to make Plunket chancellor, fearing he would not be very manageable’.
the appearances of tranquillity in ... [Ireland] become more promising. There is certainly a considerable share of agitation amongst the Roman Catholics, and a correspondent apprehension on the other side that the measure is advancing to a consummation. The alarm ... which grows out of this, many of them pass on themselves as a fear of insurrectionary movements ... for which, so far as the Roman Catholics are concerned, there does not appear to me to be any rational ground.
Add. 51832, Plunket to Holland, 14 Oct. 1824.
Williams Wynn believed in late November that Plunket, who was required to submit to ministers his professional opinion on the legality of the Catholic Association, was still of the opinion that it had not broken the law.
On his slightly belated arrival in London Plunket, backed by Wellesley’s representations, carried his argument in favour of a bill to put down the Association without mentioning it by name.
Why do you imagine that I should be shocked at your enjoying Plunket’s society? There is no one more agreeable, and nobody feels his good qualities more sensibly than I do ... I am told that he has made the most powerful, convincing and eloquent speech ever heard in favour of the Catholic claims ... To be sure as a politician he is something of a rogue, but perfect honesty is a very rare quality in his class of men.
Bedford subsequently wrote:
I am glad that you have done me justice with respect to Plunket. You may recollect that [Lord] John [Russell] was not the only one amongst your friends, who thought they were breathing an infectious air by being in the same room with Mr. Plunket. I have always liked him, and always shall like him. All the harm I wish him is to see him out of office, and no longer insulted and trampled upon by such men as the chancellor and Peel.
Add. 51669, Bedford to Lady Holland [6, 8 Mar. 1825].
With Burdett and an accommodating O’Connell, who now thought him ‘quite sincere in his desire to emancipate the Catholics in the most conciliatory manner possible’, Plunket framed a relief bill and, dispensing with the veto, measures to provide for the payment of Catholic priests and to disfranchise Irish 40s. freeholders.
The revival of the Catholic Association and renewed violence in Ireland in the autumn compelled Plunket to acquiesce in Canning’s insistence on setting aside the Catholic question for the remainder of the current Parliament; but he argued that it must not be put into abeyance. As he wrote to Williams Wynn, ‘if we can tide through the remainder of the present Parliament without spreading any sails, and I hope without the dangerous aid of steam, we may look for everything favourable at the commencement of the new one’. In mid-December he wrote to Canning:
Abstracting myself from all angry feelings growing out of the gross provocation of these mob leaders ... I am more than ever sensible of the necessity and urgency of the measure, but its urgency must wait on its practicability, and that must depend on circumstances which no man can anticipate. Should it be brought forward in the first session I do not look to any possible state of things in which I would not support it strenuously, but I can readily suppose circumstances under which I should strongly advise against its being brought forward. At the same time ... I cannot shut my eyes to the danger of the question assuming this position, namely, that a measure principally and substantially affecting Ireland, passionately desired by all the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and sought for or acquiesced in by the majority of the Protestants of that country, still must be indefinitely postponed in deference to the feelings of the people of England ... I see no rational solution of these difficulties, but by carrying the question, and by carrying it soon.
Plunket, ii. 213-17, 220-6; Camden mss C202/11/12; Wellington mss WP1/832/13.
Plunket was as partial to jobbery as the next Irishman, and at the end of 1825 he persuaded Wellesley to agree in principle to give the vacant deanery of Clogher, worth over £1,000 a year, to his eldest son Thomas Span Plunket (1792-1866), who had been ten years a curate. He was, however, required to consult Goulburn, who vetoed the appointment as a gross job which would discredit the Irish government. This view was endorsed by Peel, who recalled that during his time as Irish secretary ‘every official man, not content with the favour of government to himself, thought he had a right to quarter his family on the patronage of government’.
In reply to Canning’s questions, Plunket agreed, 10 Oct. 1826, that ‘the golden opportunity is gone by’ to implement the disfranchisement of Irish 40s. freeholders, and that although the payment of priests was perhaps still attainable, the prospects were less good than in 1825. He went on:
If ... you ask me, am I as sanguine ... of the efficiency of the Roman Catholic measure, if carried, in tranquillizing Ireland, I candidly answer I am not, and every year more of a postponement renders me less so. I do at the same time seriously believe that the measure, if soon carried and honestly acted on, will give a fair chance of tranquillity ... Until this takes place the task of governing Ireland becomes every day more difficult.
While he was unsure as to the best technical way of proceeding in the forthcoming session and had ‘an anxious desire to prevent this question pressing too heavily on the government’, he was willing to take it up if ministers had no objections, for he was sure that ‘things cannot long continue in their present state’. Canning made it clear that his colleagues would not make emancipation a government measure.
When Canning formed his ministry soon afterwards Plunket was expected to become Irish chancellor, but the king intervened to thwart this. In compensation Canning offered him the mastership of the rolls in England and a British peerage. He accepted, but the great hostility of the English bar to the appointment of an Irishman forced him to renounce it.
the greatest orator of the age. I place him quite on a level with Pitt, Fox, Chatham, and in many respects above them, and his eloquence has not one single Irish fault of taste in it. He is accused of want of firmness in council. I never saw it. He is charged with nepotism; he is an Irishman no doubt. He can be believed on his word though an Irishman.
Brougham mss, autobiog. fragment.
Russell remembered him as ‘the most perfect orator’ of the 1820s, who ‘so restrained his brilliant fancy that it was ever ready to help, to adorn, to illustrate, while it was never used to eclipse or encumber his argument’.