Part 40

Of course, every school boy has read of the exploits of the youthful and enthusiastic Lafayette, and knows that Rochambeau with his army and De Grasse with his fleet were conspicuous in bringing about the surrender of Cornwallis and his forces at Yorktown. Only by the powerful co-operation of the French army and navy at the siege was the crowning victory of the war achieved, and that victory forced from the English king and his ministers the recognition of American independence. All this is well known, but the magnitude of the French aid all through the war is less familiar to the general reader.

[Illustration:

HON. HENRY GROVES CONNOR,

of Raleigh, N. C.

An Eminent Jurist and Learned Historian.

Member of the Society. ]

The army and navy registers in the French archives show that sixty-three ships of war, mounting 3,668 guns, manned by 32,600 officers and seamen, were employed in the naval operations on the American seaboard, and upward of 12,000 land forces. The financial cost to France of the fleets and armies and the loans and gifts in money to the colonies have been computed by a competent authority at $50,000,000.

My present design in this sketch is to emphasize the part the Irish brigades in the French army had in the American war. I do not need to recall to mind the historic renown of the Irish Brigade.

Almost every battlefield in Europe during the seventeenth century was flamed by their valor and crimsoned with their blood. In France, in Italy, in Spain and in the Low Countries these exiled soldiers fought with such furious impetuosity that even the bitterest enemies of their race were forced to pay them the reluctant tribute of their admiration.

King George II. is said to have exclaimed after witnessing the bravery of the Irish brigade at the battle of Dettingen: “Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects.”

When the colonies had declared their independence of Great Britain and the aid of France was eagerly invoked the Irish troops in the French army pressed their request on the war office in Paris that they should be sent to America to fight the British, who were, they declared, their hereditary enemies. A copy of the French original of this document may be seen in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. In 1779 several Irish regiments were embarked in the French fleets for service against the English forces in the West Indies and on the American coast. Included in this contingent were the regiments of Dillon, Walsh, Berwick and Fermoy. These regiments being so designated in compliment to the colonel in command as the “Colonel Proprietaire.” In the fleet of the Count d’Estaing there was carried a considerable land force—mostly of the Irish brigade. Count Dillon was second in command to the admiral and at the siege of Savannah, then held by the British, he led his own regiment in the attack on the defenses.

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There was, also, on the land side, an American co-operating force commanded by General Lincoln. The assault ended disastrously for both the French and Americans with severe loss in killed and wounded. Upward of 1,200 of the assaulting columns fell in the space of fifty minutes; of these 821 were of the French forces and the rest of the American. The utmost bravery was shown, both in the attack and in the defense, but the storming column, led by Count d’Estaing and Dillon, could not withstand the terrific fire of the batteries and were forced to abandon the assault.

D’Estaing was wounded and carried off the field. The gallant Pole, Count Pulaski, who served with the American forces, was killed. He was in command of a small force of regular cavalry of lancers. Among the list of the killed and wounded of the French attacking column I find the names of Brow, major in Dillon’s regiment; Moran and O’Neill, captains; Tauffe, lieutenant, and many other familiar Irish names; officers and subofficers of the brigade. The names of the rank and file are not given, but it is not difficult to surmise what must have been the gallantry of the assault when we see the heavy list of the killed and wounded.

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The particulars of the memorable attack on Savannah are given with great fullness in a publication issued many years ago by the Georgia Historical Society, compiled from original sources. The gallantry of Sergeant Jasper, an Irishman, at the siege and his heroic death on the battlements while attempting to raise thereon the flag of his regiment, has immortalized his name and his bravery. A statue of Jasper in one of the public squares of Savannah fittingly commemorates the deed and memory of the gallant patriot.

Following the abandonment of the siege the French fleet withdrew and undertook the reduction of several of the English possessions in the West Indies. It is not my purpose to follow the subsequent career and fortunes of the fleet and forces under d’Estaing except to remark that the diversion made by these attacks on the islands under the British flag were naturally important aids to the cause of the colonies, since the English forces employed in their defense would otherwise have been in service, doubtless, in the attempt to subdue the colonies.

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I am tempted to relate another incident in Count Dillon’s career of glory in the expeditions that followed the failure at Savannah. He had

## part in the attempts made by the French fleet and forces on several of

the English possessions, notably in the attack made on the Island of St. Eustache.

The frigates being unable to approach sufficiently near to the fortifications to land aid, Dillon, with only 377 men, landed and in person led the assault. The Irish were at the head of the column, and such was the impetuosity of the attacking force that 840 regular troops of the English army laid down their arms and were made prisoners of war by less than half their number! Later on the Dillon regiment was employed in the siege of the important fortress and Island of St. Christopher, and the place was finally carried, Count Dillon remaining in command of the island as governor.

After the treaty of peace with France and the colonies, the island, under the terms of the treaty, was yielded back to Great Britain. Shortly afterward Dillon paid a visit to London in the train of the French embassy.

He was presented at the court and, having paid his respects to the king, George III., the lord chancellor, Loughborough, who was in attendance, crossed over to Dillon and said to him, after some preliminary compliments: “I must thank you for the equity and fairness of your decisions given whilst you were acting as governor of the island. My court has had occasion to pass on some of the cases you decided and we found no occasion to dissent from your judgments.”

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Sad to say, this gallant soldier met his death on the scaffold, at the hands of the ruffians who were in the ascendance during the French revolution, as did so many thousands of the noblest and best of French men and women.

At the last moment, as he stood at the foot of the fatal guillotine, a lady who preceded him and who, like Dillon, was to meet her doom by the order of the same furies, turned to the count, saying: “Would you not oblige me by going first?”

“Certainly, madam,” was the answer of the chivalric Irishman, and ascending before the lady, in a moment the horrible instrument had ended the career of the heroic Count Arthur Dillon.

A namesake, Colonel Theobald Dillon, who had been with Rochambeau at Yorktown, was another of the victims of the French Revolution, under circumstances even more revolting. But I must stay my pen on this subject.

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The erection of the monument or statue of Lafayette in Paris a few years back, as a token and testimony of America’s gratitude to France, has since then been supplemented by the installation of a fine statue of Rochambeau in Washington—a like tribute to the value and importance of the aid given by France in the critical period of the Revolutionary War.

The inauguration of the Rochambeau statue, which is one of the finest and most impressive in the nation’s capital, was made the occasion of ceremonies and exercises of the highest dignity and importance. Of course, these were reported with great fullness at the time, and I have no need to dwell on the details now.

The government, by the action of Congress, has since published a large volume in which is given, I may say, not only a full narrative of all the proceedings in connection with the statue, but also a comprehensive story of French aid and services in the war for colonial independence.

The volume includes the “roster” of the French naval and military forces. The Irish regiments to which I have referred, of course, are given due notice, like the others; that is to say, the name of the regiment, together with the list of the chief officers, etc. Count Dillon’s regiment was present at the surrender of Cornwallis and the British army at Yorktown. The count himself was not there, being occupied at his post as governor of the island already referred to. His cousin, Colonel Theobald Dillon, was there, and many other French-Irish officers of the brigade.

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It will be of interest to many to learn that efforts have been made to obtain from the French war office a full list of the officers and soldiers of the Irish brigades who served in the war of the American revolution. I am happy to state that a volume will soon be issued by the French government containing these names. The search for the necessary data was instituted at the request of M. Jusserand, the learned and accomplished French ambassador at Washington.

I trust I am not betraying a secret in stating that the initiative in the task of Irish historic interest has been due to Archbishop Ireland, who was himself a conspicuous figure in the ceremonies attending the celebration for Lafayette in Paris, and in the Rochambeau exercises at Washington and New York.

BISHOP BERKELEY AND HIS PLANS FOR A GREAT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY.

The records of Yale College bear testimony to the beneficence and liberality of an Irish bishop who, early in the eighteenth century, gave proof of his zeal for learning by bestowing on that institution, then lately founded—its charter is dated 1701—the dwelling house and farm in Rhode Island which he had purchased and occupied during his strange visit and sojourn in America.

The bishop likewise gave to the college on his departure the best and largest collection of books—nearly one thousand volumes—that had ever up to that time been brought over. The catalogue, or list of these works, is preserved in the Yale College library. Harvard is likewise indebted to the same benefactor for a collection of textbooks.

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Bishop George Berkeley was a remarkable character in his day. An account of his career cannot but possess a certain interest for the general reader. He was the friend and associate of many of the literary celebrities of the time, Dean Swift, Addison and Steele, who esteemed his friendship and appreciated his amiable character and qualities.

Berkeley was born in the County Kilkenny, Ireland, the same year that James II. succeeded to the British crown. His early education was acquired in the same school in Kilkenny which Dean Swift had attended, and his subsequent studies were pursued at Trinity College, Dublin. It was said of him while at college that he was regarded by some of his fellow students as the greatest dunce in the institution, while others thought him a prodigy of learning and goodness, but all agreed that he was full of simplicity and enthusiasm—indeed, these latter characteristics remained with him through life. The results of his application to study is shown by his college record. He was elected “scholar” in 1702, a B. A. in 1704, and obtained his master’s degree in 1707, and the same year was admitted to a fellowship. The drift of his mind and of his studies was shown in the formation of a college society “to promote investigations in the new philosophy of Boyle, Newton and Locke,” a subject upon which he wrote many papers.

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Before leaving college to enter on his career in London, Berkeley had already acquired some reputation as a writer on philosophical subjects. It was Dean Swift who introduced his fellow countryman to the circles of influence in the British capital. In the “Journal to Stella,” the dean jots down under date of April 12, 1713: “I went to court today on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of our fellows of Trinity College. This Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man and great philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favor him as much as I can. This, I think, I am bound to—in honor and conscience to use all my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world.”

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Swift introduced Berkeley to the Earl of Peterborough, then one of the most extraordinary characters in Europe. He had amazed the country a few years before by his wonderful achievements in Spain, during the war of the succession. Soldier, scholar and diplomatist, this singular man was eccentric in all his movements and actions—indeed, his career and character is still a favorite study and an enigma for the historian and biographer. The introduction obtained for Berkeley, the post of the chaplain and secretary to Peterborough, who had been appointed ambassador to the King of Sicily. It was little use the eccentric earl had for a chaplain, since he was himself a well-known skeptic and freethinker!

The post to which he had been appointed gave Berkeley the opportunity of making acquaintance with the continent—he had taken “orders” before Trinity College—and he now saw France and Italy for the first time. His letters describing his experience and observations in these countries are exceedingly interesting, but my limits will not admit of quotations. The death of Queen Anne during his sojourn abroad and the accession of George I. caused a change in his prospects and position. Peterborough was recalled by the new administration, and consequently Berkeley returned to England in August, 1714.

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The change of administration in England blighted for a time Berkeley’s prospects of preferment. His friend, Dean Swift, was no longer in the ascendant, and his late patron, the Earl of Peterborough, had been deprived of place and influence. He was, nevertheless, a welcome guest and visitor in literary circles and in general society. He possessed a charm of address and manners that won friends to him on all sides. He shortly had the opportunity again to revisit the continent—this time as companion and tutor to the son of Sir George Ashe. While in Paris he had an interview and carried on a discussion with the celebrated Malebranche on points of philosophy and metaphysics which, it is said, became so animated and exciting that the Frenchman brought on himself a violent disorder which prostrated him and resulted in his death within a few days.

After an absence this time of five years Berkeley returned to England in 1720. He found the country in turmoil over the collapse of the South Sea bubble. The speculative mania which had spread widely in England led as usual to an era of extravagance and corruption. The disorders of society consequent on these conditions was general. Berkeley gave vent to his feelings on the situation by an essay that attracted wide attention, in which he sought to point out a remedy for the prevailing evils.

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His suggestions may be briefly quoted as bearing equally on certain conditions not altogether unfamiliar to us in the United States. He argued that the persons who compose society must become individually industrious, frugal, public-spirited and religious. Sumptuary laws, he thought, might do something toward mitigating existing distress, and public amusements might be regulated, and masquerades prohibited. The drama, too, should be reformed. But the prime necessity was that sensuality must give way to religious love and reverence. “Let us be industrious, frugal and religious, if we are to be saved at all,” was his counsel.

In 1721 he returned to Ireland, from which he had been so long absent. He had retained all along his post in Trinity College, and was now shortly installed as chaplain to the Duke of Trafton, the viceroy.

There occurred in 1723 a curious and romantic incident in which Swift was concerned, or rather “Vanessa”—one of the two unhappy women whose passion for and devotion to the cynical dean have become familiar to all readers. Vanessa, like Stella, the other victim of unrequited affection, followed the dean to Dublin, and there learned of Swift’s connection with Stella—to whom he had been secretly married. Heart-crushed by the revelation, she revoked a will she had made in favor of the man she loved, and substituted Berkeley as the beneficiary and legatee. This is all the more curious and unaccountable as Vanessa (Esther Vanhumrigh) seems to have met Berkeley but once, and that only by chance. At all events he was the gainer by some 4,000 pounds.

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Fortune had begun to favor him. He was appointed dean of Derry (Londonderry), an important ecclesiastical dignity in the Irish church, said to be worth £1,100 a year. While in possession of this lucrative position the project of the great university in the new world seems to have taken root in his mind, and quickly became a passionate enthusiasm. This is the project which links Berkeley’s name with America—indeed it was to recall his romantic initiative and devotion to this early scheme for higher education that I venture on this sketch.

Swift says the design had been long in Berkeley’s mind. His generous aim involved the surrender of his opulent position as dean, and the employment of his means, including the Vanessa legacy, in promoting this project, on which he had evidently set his heart, and it also necessitated other sacrifices as we shall see. Of course, it was not possible for him unaided to carry out or even to begin his undertaking. He relied on obtaining aid from sympathizers, and an indispensable charter from the king, George I.

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It is a curious fact that he was indebted to a Catholic—the Abbe Gualteri, whom he had met in Italy—for the opportunity of making his application to the king under favorable conditions. The abbe was a distinguished Venetian scientist, who had the ear of court circles, and he interested himself warmly in Berkeley’s behalf, with the result that a charter was granted in June, 1725, for a college in the Island of Bermuda, and constituting “Dr. Berkeley, Dean of Londonderry, principal of said college.”

Berkeley’s enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence enlisted promise of support in other powerful quarters. The prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, promised a grant of £20,000; the private subscriptions seem to have aggregated about £5,000.

All this took time and extensive preparation. The doctor or dean had secured the co-operation of several of the Trinity College fellows, who agreed to go out with him, and there was to be another addition to the party who was to intimately share the principal’s life and fortunes thenceforth—Mrs. Berkeley!

He had married during the progress of his negotiations for the university scheme, a daughter of the speaker of the Irish house of commons. The marriage took place August 1, 1728. It was said of Mrs. Berkeley that “she shared his fortune when he was about to engage in one of the most romantic moral movements of modern times, and when, in love with an ideal academic life in the Bermudas, he prepared to surrender preferment and social position at home in order to devote the remainder of his life to the great continent of the West.”

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In the fullest confidence that he would be able to carry out successfully his favorite designs, Berkeley, with his wife and college companions, set sail for the sunny isle in the golden West, of which he had so long dreamed. He was then in his forty-fourth year. The voyage occupied four months, and the landing was made at Newport, R. I., where he had planned to sojourn until he should receive from England the promised grant from the government. It was necessary also that the good will and practical interest of the New England colonies should be enlisted in his efforts.

The population of Newport at this time is said to have been curiously cosmopolitan. As religious freedom prevailed there, thanks to the Quaker, Roger Williams, and was unknown in the other New England colonies, religious refugees found an asylum, as they did in the Catholic colony of Maryland under Lord Baltimore. The merchants of Newport appear to have been active and successful in the slave trade, so we shall be less surprised at the statement that Berkeley purchased several for service on the farm which he speedily acquired and settled on for the time being.

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Berkeley was quite in demand for sermons. He preached in Trinity Church, Newport, three days after his arrival, and many times afterward. The Rhode Island aristocracy of those days maintained, according to accounts, a good deal of the style and manner of life of the English gentry, and we can read of fox hunting, and races, and festivities of various kinds as commonly indulged in. The delays reported from London, in carrying out the promises of aid gave Berkeley many anxious hours in his new world home. He found it expedient to build a house on the farm in the interior, at Whitehall, which he continued to occupy with his family until he sailed back to England. His house became the resort of the ministers and gentry of Rhode Island, who delighted in the society and conversation of the accomplished Irish dean.

Nearly three years passed in waiting and in expectation of the promised means which never materialized, beyond the sum of private subscriptions—which he afterward scrupulously returned. Meantime two children were born to him; one of these, a girl, died and was buried in Trinity churchyard, Newport. Three of Berkeley’s slaves, according to the records of the same church—“Philip Berkeley, Anthony Berkeley and Agnes Berkeley, negroes, received into the church, June 11, 1731.”

All his plans for the utopia he had nourished in his imagination faded utterly when authoritative news from London convinced Berkeley that the project must be abandoned. The grant of £20,000 assured by Walpole, and other important concessions, could not be realized. The prime minister had given up the project, and employed the proposed grant and concessions for other purposes. So in the fall of 1731 the disappointed philanthropist bade farewell to the new world and sailed homeward.

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