Adverting to the state of public affairs, it may seem needless to say that Dr. Parr, like all other reflecting persons, continued to watch, with intense and often painful anxiety, the course of events, both at home and abroad, during the whole momentous period of the French Revolution. Whilst he approved, after close and serious examination, many parts of that Revolution, and especially the limitation set to the French monarchy in 1789; he deplored the rapid and turbulent changes which followed afterwards; marked, as they were, with extravagances which scared the common reason, and attended with crimes and cruelties which shocked the common feelings of mankind. The spirit of humanity sighed to see her very name and nature forgotten, or remembered only to be outraged; and the genius of liberty wept to behold her sacred cause at once dishonoured and betrayed.
On the death of the amiable, and, in many respects, virtuous, though, it
must be added, feeble and faithless monarch of France, Dr.
Parr, in de-
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Of many of the Brissotine party, one of the first which bore sway in revolutionary France, Dr. Parr had conceived a favourable opinion.2 He called them that determined phalanx of moderate men, whose wisdom and whose vigour were destined to uphold the state; whose virtues were set in motion, and in appearance brought into being by the shock of empires; and who will, in the midst of havoc and disorder, by their authority, strike down bad citizens; and, by their counsels, hush the warring elements of passion and interest into peace.3 The encomium on their merits and intentions might be no more than just; but the augury of their success proved too favourable. In the political hurricane
1 Fox’s Characters, vol. i. p. 293. 2 Of one of these Dr. Parr thus speaks: “Viewed on the fairer side of his character, M. Condorcet seems to have been worthy of happier times than those in which he lived, of better colleagues than many of those with whom he acted, and of enemies far nobler than those by whom he was destroyed. His knowledge was various and recondite; his genius was vigorous and comprehensive; and upon one atrocious deed, to which he was impelled by the frenzy of political resentment, and the waywardness of philosophical fanaticism, who does not wish that the accusing angel may drop a tear?”—Spital Sermon, Notes, p. 143. 3 Sequel, p. 67. |
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The reign of tyranny and terror followed under Robespierre and the Jacobins; but fortunately it was of short duration. Within a few months after he had gained the perilous ascendancy, the tyrant fell; and those who had been the instruments of his oppressions and his cruelties perished with him, to the number of twenty-one, on the scaffold. “I congratulate France, Europe, and the whole civilised world,” said Dr. Parr, speaking of this event, “on the extinction of such restless and remorseless enemies to the human race.”1
But whilst he looked with dismay and with horror on the poisonous maxims broached, and on the dreadful outrages committed, in a neighbouring country, “I felt no obligation,” as he said, “to speak smooth things upon all that is passing at home.” Indeed, he not only condemned the anti-gallican war, in its principle and in its object; but all the great and leading measures of the Pitt-administration, he utterly disapproved and vehemently reprobated. The arbitrary maxims of government, too openly avowed—the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, on the slightest pretences, five or six times, in the course of a few years—the long and rigorous confinement of vast numbers of persons, not one of whom was afterwards brought to trial—the extreme severity, with which prose-
1 Reply to Combe, Pref. p. 4. |
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But of all the proceedings of the Pitt-administration, there was none which struck the minds of men of all parties with amazement and fearful apprehension, more than the attempt to fasten the charge of high-treason upon those, who might, perhaps, have been justly regarded as wild or visionary reformers; but whose utmost offence could not, by the law of England, have been pushed one step beyond the crime of sedition. Dark, indeed, and disgraceful is the page of British history, which records that such persons as the respectable Thomas Hardy, the celebrated Horne Tooke, the upright and ingenious Jeremiah Joyce, and nine or ten others, most or all of them men of irreproachable characters, were brought to the bar [of justice] accused as traitors, for engaging in a plan, openly and peaceably, of which the only object was, to introduce a purer system of representation, in the very spirit, once professed by the prime minister himself, and on the very principles once avowed and recommended by another distinguished member of His Majesty’s government.1—Proh patria, inversique mores!
It was, on this occasion, that the late Lord
1 Duke of Richmond, in his famous letter to Col. Sharman. |
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In the universal admiration, which followed the glorious defender of English
law and liberty, none participated more largely than Dr.
Parr. It was for a long time afterwards his delight to talk of him to every
one, as an advocate, raised up, it might almost be thought, by a special Providence,
exactly suited to the magnitude and importance of the occasion—coming intrepidly forward at
an awful crisis in the fate not only of many individuals, but of the whole nation—exerting
efforts, which for courage, perseverance, ardour, and ability, seemed almost supernatural;
completely baffling, and, at length, triumphantly defeating, one of the boldest and the
basest machinations, which had ever yet been formed against the dearest rights and
liberties
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The high opinion which Dr. Parr entertained of Lord Erskine’s public services, and his grateful sense of some private obligations conferred upon himself, he has thus expressed in his “last will.” “I give to the Right Honourable Lord Erskine a mourning ring, as a mark of my unfeigned respect for his noble exertions, in defending the constitutional rights of juries, and the freedom of the press; and for his vigorous and effectual resistance to the odious principle of constructive and accumulative treason: and I thankfully add, for his disinterested acts of kindness to my sister and to myself.”
On the publication of “Lord Erskine’s Speeches at the Bar,” in five octavo volumes, a
splendid copy was sent to Dr. Parr; accompanied with
a letter, which conveyed, in the most gratifying manner, assurances from the noble donor,
of his veneration and his affection for the scholar and the friend, to whose acceptance
they were presented, and to whose favourable attention they were submitted.
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Disappointed in their attempt, by the perversion of law, to crush the
spirit of reform and of freedom, the Pitt-administration next endeavoured to effect their
purpose, by introducing great and ominous changes into the laws themselves. With this view,
they brought forward two tremendous bills; one in the Upper House, by Lord Grenville, called “The Treason Bill;” which
went the length of throwing down some of the best securities, provided, by the wise and
venerable law of Edward III., for the safety of the
subject; and which, also, defined the crime of sedition, in words so vague, as to include
every action which ministers might please to term seditious. The punishment, too, for this
last offence, before severe enough, was now extended, on a second conviction, from fine and
imprisonment, to the barbarous punishment of transportation for seven years. Not less
objection-
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It cannot be denied, that the Pitt-administration was long supported by a large majority, not only of the two Houses, but of the nation; whose fears were powerfully acted upon, by many terrifying events in the progress of the French Revolution—by the astonishing success of the French arms—by the dread of a threatened hostile invasion, and by the perpetual alarm of domestic plots and conspiracies, which it was the aim of a detestable policy to excite and propagate.
But at length the ruinous effects of a protracted and unsuccessful war produced in the public mind strong feelings of dissatisfaction with the conduct of government; and early in the year 1797, meetings for the purpose of obtaining a change of men and measures were held in many parts of the kingdom; the metropolis spiritedly leading the way.
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1 A kind of hatchet with a hooked point. |
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Amongst others, a meeting of the county of Warwick was convened, under the authority of the high-sheriff, Robert Knight of Barrels, Esquire, which was so numerously attended, that it was necessary to adjourn from the Shire-hall in Warwick to the race-ground. Here, a petition to the king, stating the causes of complaint, and praying for the dismission of ministers, was moved by Sir John Throckmorton, seconded by Bertie Greatheed, Esq., and supported by some other gentlemen, and particularly by Sir Francis Burdett—who, on that occasion, almost for the first time, assumed the public character, which he has since sustained, with so much honour to himself, and so much benefit to his country. In the great object of this meeting Dr. Parr entirely concurred; and he exerted all his efforts to promote it. He was not only present; but it was also his intention, though he afterwards relinquished it, to deliver a speech, previously written, which he read to the writer; who has still a clear recollection of it, as a vehement and powerful remonstrance against the maxims and the measures of an administration, so long possessing, and so ill-requiting the public confidence. The proposed petition to the throne was approved and adopted, by a large majority, amidst the loudest acclamations.
The whole history of Ireland, since its first connexion with England, in
the reign of Henry II., consists of little but accounts
of public disturbances, arising from the most deplorable misrule; and proceeding, in the
usual course, from discontent to disaffection—and from secret disaffection to open
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Dr. Parr, who respected the patriotism, and pitied the fate of the unfortunate O’Coighley, was soon afterwards in company with a young barrister, a native of Scotland, who had greatly distinguished himself by his powerful writings in favour of civil and religious liberty. At that time, however, he was suspected of the intention of immolating his principles on the shrine of his ambition; though whatever may have been his temporary errors and inconsistencies, an admiring and grateful nation will acknowledge, that, by a splendid course of
1 “Observations on the Trials of O’Coighley, Admiral Byng, Fenning, Perreau. I think that O’Coighley was harshly treated. I hold that Byng was murdered. I hold with the utmost confidence that Elizabeth Fenning was innocent. I doubt the innocence of Robert Perreau, but I always pitied him.” |
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After the commencement of the revolutionary war, a royal proclamation was issued every year for the observance of a fast; and a service for the occasion, composed by the bishop, was ordered to be read in churches. Many of these services were such as Dr. Parr could not approve, because, in his opinion, they were calculated to flatter national pride, and to offer unmanly insult to the feelings, or unjust reproach to the character, of the nation with which we were at war. But, whilst he was careful, as he himself has stated, “from motives of decorum, not incompatible, he trusted, with integrity, and in conformity to the obligations imposed upon him, not so much by his personal conviction, as by his clerical office, without any addition, any diminution, or any alteration whatever, to read every sentence, every word, every syllable, and every letter, which his civil and ecclesiastical superiors had been pleased to prescribe for common use on these days;”1 he was careful, at the same time,
1 In the passages here quoted from a Ms. sermon by Dr. Parr, some nice distinctions are drawn, which the writer con- |
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On the 19th December, 1797, in consequence of the late naval victories, a day of national thanksgiving was appointed, when his majesty, the members of the two houses of parliament, and the great officers of state, went in grand triumphal procession to St. Paul’s; and when the flags taken from the Spanish, the French, and the Dutch, were borne in solemn pomp, and deposited with holy exultation on the altar of that cathedral. A remarkable sermon, of which a Ms. copy now lies before the writer, was delivered by Dr. Parr, on this occasion, at Hatton, from which the following extracts are subjoined:—
That he did not sympathise in the spirit of self-gratulation, and of exultation over the defeated enemy, in which the nation at that time too much indulged, appears from the following passage:
“I cannot think that a man fulfils the most im-
fesses he cannot admit; and the whole, considered as an apology for reading with the lips, in the solemn services of religion, what the heart disapproves, he must own, is to him unsatisfactory. |
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The self-flattery of nations is thus exposed:
“In reality, the current and favourite language of states is a
very precarious rule for distinguishing either their comparative
or their absolute deserts. All refuse to others, what each
arrogates to itself. All disavow ambition, and none resist it. All are ready to deplore
the evils of sanguinary contention, and none are reluctant to inflict them, where pride
is to be flattered, or revenge is to be inflicted. All impute the miscarriages of their
enemy to the in-
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The following is an awfully striking picture of the calamities of war, accompanied with a powerful appeal to the moral responsibility of all who encourage or promote it:
“When fields are desolated—when ancient and towering cities are
torn from their deep foundations—when the tempest pours its undistinguishing and
unrelenting rage alike against the throne of the monarch and the cottage of the
peasant—when all the harmless enjoyments which solace, and all the useful arts, which
adorn social life, are at a stand—when industry droops, without the
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That Dr. Parr seriously disapproved the custom of depositing the trophies of war on the altars, or of suspending them within the temples of a holy and benevolent religion, appears from the following passage:1
“In all probability there was more good sense, more good nature, more tenderness towards man, more humility before God, in a compact between certain heathen nations, by which it was stipulated, that, in order to prevent any arrogant, lasting, and insulting memorial of the contests, which might arise between neighbouring countries, no armour should be hung up, no pillars should be erected, but an inverted spear only should be
1 “The placing military banners in cathedrals was highly censured by my preceptor, who said, ‘It is a pagan custom. The temple of the God of peace ought not to be polluted with the blood-stained trophies of war.’”—New Monthly Mag. Aug. 1826. |
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