Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
this or that venture; and even those who gambled on the eventful fortunes of a ministry were fain to be guided by his wise predictions. “Dunn has got me the money on reasonable terms;” “Dunn has managed to let me have five per cent;” “Dunn assures me I may risk this;” “Dunn tells me that they ‘ll carry the bill next session,” – such and such things were the phrases one heard at every turn, till his opinion became a power in the land, and he grew to feel it so.
This first step led to another and higher one. Through the moneyed circumstances of men he came to learn their moral natures: against what temptations this one was proof; to what that other would yield; what were the goals for which each was striving; what the secret doubts and misgivings that beset them. What the doctor was to the world of sickness and infirmity did he become to the world of human passion and desire. Men came to him with the same unreserve; they stripped before him and laid bare the foul spots of their heart’s disease, as though it were but repeating the story to themselves. Terrible and harrowing as are the tales which reach the physician’s ears, the stories revealed to his were more terrible and harrowing still. They came to him with narratives of reckless waste and ruin; with histories of debt that dated a century back; with worse, far worse, – with tales of forgery and fraud. Crimes for which the law would have exacted its last expiation were whispered to him in that dreary confessional, his private office, and the evidences of guilt placed in his hands that he might read and reflect over them. And as the doctor moves through life with the sad knowledge of all the secret suffering around him, – how little that “flush” indicates of health, how faintly beats the heart that seems to swell with happiness, – so did this man walk a world that was a mere hospital ward of moral rottenness. Why should the priest and the physician be the only men to trade upon the infirmities of human nature? Why should they be the sole depositaries of those mysteries by which men’s actions can be swayed and moulded? By what temptations are men so assailable as those that touch their material fortunes, and why not make this moral country an especial study? Such were his theory and his practice.
There is often a remarkable fitness – may we call it a “pre-established harmony”? – between men and the circumstances of their age, and this has led to the opinion that it is by the events themselves the agents are developed; we incline to think differently, as the appearance of both together is rather in obedience to some over-ruling edict of Providence which has alike provided the work and the workmen. It would be a shallow reading of history to imagine Cromwell the child of the Revolution, or Napoleon as the accident of the battle of the sections.
Davenport Dunn sprang into eminence when, by the action of the Encumbered Estates Court, a great change was operated in the condition of Ireland. To grasp at once the immense consequences of a tremendous social revolution – to foresee even some of the results of this sweeping confiscation – required no common knowledge of the country, and no small insight into its habits. The old feudalism that had linked the fate of a starving people with the fortunes of a ruined gentry was to be extinguished at once, and a great experiment tried. Was Ireland to be more governable in prosperity than in adversity? This was a problem which really might not seem to challenge much doubt, and yet was it by no means devoid of difficulty to those minds who had long based their ideas of ruling that land on the principles of fomenting its dissensions and separating its people. Davenport Dunn saw the hesitation of the moment, and offered himself at once to solve the difficulty. The transfer of property might be conducted in such a way as to favor the views of a particular party in the state; the new proprietary might be selected, and the aim of a government consulted in the establishment of this new squirearchy. He thought so, at least, and, what is more, he persuaded a chief secretary to believe him.
Nothing reads more simply than the sale of an encumbered estate: “In the matter of Sir Roger O’Moore, Bart, Brian O’Moore, and Margaret Halliday, owners, and Paul May-bey, petitioner, the Commissioners will, on Friday next, at the hour of noon,” – and so on; and then come the descriptive particulars of Carrickross, Dummaymagan, and Lantygoree, with Griffith’s valuation and the ordnance survey, concluding with a recital of all the penalties, reservations, covenants, clauses, &c., with the modest mention of twenty-odd pounds some shillings tithe-rent charge, for a finish. To dispossess of this a man that never really owned it for the last forty years, and invest it in another, who never saw it, was the easy operation of the auctioneer’s hammer; and with a chief commissioner to ratify the sale, few things seemed easier than the whole process. Still, there are certain aspects in the transaction which suggest reflection. What were the ties, what the relations, between the original owner and the tenantry who held under him? What kind of social system had bound them, – what were the mutual services they rendered each other? For the reverence and respect tendered on one side, and for the thousand little charities and kindnesses bestowed on the other, what was to be the compensation? How was that guidance and direction, more or less inherent in those who are the heads of a neighborhood, to be replaced? Was it quite certain that the incoming proprietor would care to study the habits, the tastes, and the tempers of the peasantry on his estate, learn their ways, or understand their difficulties? And, lastly, what new political complexion would the country wear? Would it become more Conservative or more Whig, more Democratic or more Saxon?
Davenport Dunn’s opinion was that the case was precisely that of a new colony, where the first settlers, too busy about their material interests to care for mere speculative questions, would attach themselves heartily to any existing government, giving their adhesion to whatever afforded protection to their property and safety to their lives. “Take this new colony,” said he, “into your especial care, and their sons and grandsons will be yours after-wards. A new regiment is being raised; write your own legends on their colors, and they are your own.” He sketched out a system by which this new squirearchy was to be dealt with, – how courted, flattered, and rewarded. He showed how, in attaching them to the State, the government of the country might be rendered more easy, and the dreaded influence of the priest be antagonized most effectually; and, finally, demonstrated that Ireland, which had been the stereotyped difficulty of every administration, might now be turned into a stronghold against opposition.
To replace the great proprietary whose estates were now in the market by a new constituency in accordance with his views was, therefore, his general scheme, and he addressed himself to this task with all his peculiar energy. He organized the registry of all the encumbered estates of Ireland, with every detail which could illustrate the various advantages; he established an immense correspondence with English capitalists eager for new investments; he possessed himself of intimate knowledge of all the variations and fluctuations which attend the money market at certain periods, so that he knew the most favorable moments to suggest speculation; and, lastly, he had craft enough to carry his system into operation without any suspicion being attached to it; and was able to say to a Viceroy, “Look and judge for yourself, my Lord, whose influence is now paramount in Ireland.”
Truly, it was not easy for a government to ignore him; his name turned up at every moment. From the stirring incident of a great county election to the small contest for a poor-law guardianship, he figured everywhere, until every question of policy became coupled with the inevitable demand, “What does Dunn think of it?”
Like all men of strong ambition, he encouraged few or no intimacies; he had actually no friendships. He wanted no counsels; nor would he have stooped to have laid a case for advice before any one. Partly in consequence of this, he was spoken of generally in terms of depreciation and discredit. Some called him lucky, – a happy phrase that adapts itself to any fancy; some said he was a commonplace, vulgar fellow, with certain business aptitudes, but quite incapable of any wide or extended views; some, again, went further, and said he was the mere tool of certain clever heads that did not care to figure in the foreground; and not a few wondered that “a man of this kind” should have ever attained to any eminence or station in the land.
“You ‘ll see how his Excellency will turn him to account; he knows how to deal with fellows of this stamp,” said a private secretary in the Castle.
“I have no doubt, sir, Mr. Davenport Dunn would agree with you,” said the Attorney-General, with a sneer; “but the opinion would be bad in law!”
“He ‘s not very much of a churchman, I suspect,” whispered a bishop; “but we find him occasionally useful.”
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