Bermuda. It will be seen by the correspondence between non-commissioned officers and COLONIES. privates in different regiments of the line, and of the artillery at Bermuda, Gib- Appendixes, No. 23. raltar, Malta and Corfu, and the deputy grand secretary of the institution, Gibraltar, that Orange Lodges have not only been held in regiments in these Colonies, with Malta. the knowledge of the grand officers of the institution, but that the soldiers have Corfu. been encouraged by them to hold such lodges under the most suspicious circum- See Appendix, stances. The books of the institution show also that money (1) has been received No. 23. from them, from time to time, for the warrants, and there are a great many letters () Appendix, No.2, demanding the dues owing to the Grand Lodge by the members of these lodges; and, it is difficult to comprehend how all this could be done, and continued for so many years, without the knowledge of the grand officers of the institution in London, to whom, it may fairly be presumed, that the books of the secretary and treasurer have been always accessible. p. 79. New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land appear to be deeply imbued with New South Wales, the system of Orangeism. Your Committee refer to several letters which have and Van Diemen's come before them, and which will explain the progress of the system there; but Land. Your Committee consider it of importance to place prominently before The House Appendix, No. 23, one letter dated January 1833, in which it appears that the then deputy grand secre- P. 204. tary of the institution in London induced the writer, a soldier, to disobey the orders of his commanding officer; and did actually exchange an Irish for an English warrant to hold a lodge in the regiment, contrary to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief; and at the time he knew that the military orders were in force against such grant. Sidney, 13 January 1833. Sir and Brother, I BEG leave to lay before you the following account of 260 Loyal Orange Association, who are increasing rapidly in the 17th regiment at present; our number of members at present is 73 regular good members; our fund is not strong at present, for we allow our sick 1 s. per week and our entering charge is only 2 s.6 d. We held a No. from the Benevolent Orange Systery of Ireland in 1828, but I thought better to exchange the same which I did in 1829, shortly after I was ordered to embark for New South Wales. I was ordered, previous to embarkation, if I had or held a warrant of the Orange system, to send it back to the Grand Lodge, which I did not think proper to do; this, I must own, was direct disobedience of orders to my commanding officer; but I wrote to Mr. Chetwoode Eustace, then deputy grand secretary, and he informed me not to be the least afraid, for no harm would be done me. I knew there was an order issued in 1829 prohibiting Orange Lodges in the army, but this was only as I believe to satisfy our most bitter enemies; but if our beloved Sovereign was depending on them for the support of his Crown, he would find the result; but I hope God will keep them from further power, for they are getting too much in power, both in the army and public. I am of opinion that if Orange Lodges were established in this country it would increase the welfare of the community, for there is numbers of free respectable inhabitants and discharged soldiers would support the same; but we are not allowed to make inhabitants Orangemen under our warrant held as a military one, but if there was a warrant granted to me, I am assured it would increase rapidly, as I intend to stop in this country by purchasing my discharge, when I shall make communication to you on the same. N.B.-Direct to Corporal Wm. M'Kee, Wm. McKee, Corporal 17th Regiment, When every endeavour on the part of Government to put an end to Orange Efforts to suppress Lodges in the army, has been met by redoubled efforts on the part of the Orange Lodges in the Army Institution, not only to uphold, but to increase them, evidently violating the military unavailing. law; and aggravating its violation, by concealing from the officers of the different Q. 261, 262. regiments, and from the Commander of the Forces,- from all, in fact, but Orangemen, the fixed determination of fostering their institution. When soldiers are urged in official letters from the deputy grand secretary of the society to hold meetings, notwithstanding the orders of the Commander-in-Chief to the contrary; Appendix, No. 21. but with instructions to act with caution and prudence, it is surely time for Government to take measures for the complete suppression of such institutions. In a letter, dated 30th July 1833, addressed to the master of a lodge at Ports- Complaint against mouth, Lieutenant-Colonel Fairman writes, "it is a lamentable thing that the the Government. "Government is so short-sighted, or so wilfully blind, as not to encourage Appendix, No. 21, Orangeism in the army, which would operate as an additional security for the P.154. 66 allegiance and fidelity of the soldier on all occasions; but the Ministers of the present day are holding out premiums for disloyalty to subjects of every class." Although, by an arrangement between the Grand Orange Lodge in Dublin and Upper and Lower the Loyal Orange Institution of Great Britain, the lodges in Upper and Lower Canada. Canada are to be under the Irish jurisdiction, yet considerable correspondence Vide Circular of Minute book. P. 182 of MS. Orangemen in Clergy of Church of England. (') Report of Grand Lodge of 15 June 1829. App. 18, p. 131. of Rules. Demonstrations of physical force. has passed between the soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the army there, and the deputy grand secretary of the Loyal Orange Institution in England; and strong encouragement appears to have been given at one time, by the Imperial Grand Lodge in London to the establishment of new lodges, and to the extension of Orangeism, amongst the troops in those provinces. Your Committee refer to the correspondence with those colonies for the state of Orangeism there; and they refer to extracts in the reports of the proceedings of the Grand Lodge in London, for further information on that subject. Meeting of Grand Lodge, 8th January 1827.-A letter from Sir Harcourt Lees, bart. was read to the meeting, "strongly recommending the object of Brother John Montgomery West's mission, relative to the organization of the Orange system in the Canadas, to the serious consideration of the Grand Lodge, as a subject of great and material importance." "A letter was also read from Alexander Matheson, esq. of Perth in Upper Canada, in which he states that many thousands of Orangemen at present in the Canadas, are without any regular lodge, the benefit that would result from a regular system to those provinces and to the rising generation would be incalculable.'' Although there are policemen in London entered in the returns of some of the Orange Lodges, Your Committee have not been able to learn the numbers of Orangemen now in the police. Your Committee have to observe that the clergymen of the church of England appear to have engaged, to a considerable extent, in the affairs of the Orange Institution. The Right Reverend Thomas, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, is lord prelate and grand chaplain of the order. There are also twelve or thirteen deputy grand chaplains of the institution. (') Some clergymen have warrants as masters of lodges, and conduct their affairs. No dissenting clergymen in England, and only two clergymen of any persuasion in Scotland, appear to have joined the institution. The reverend functionaries of the institution are directed to appear in the Grand Lodge in canonicals; their insignia consist of a purple velvet scarf with gold binding, gold fringe at the ends, and lined with orange silk. In the printed report of the proceedings of the Imperial Grand Lodge, on the 4th of June 1835, amongst the notices for circulation to the Orangemen of Great Britain and the Colonies, there is the following paragraph, copied from the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. "The Grand Lodge of Dublin thought proper to thank their Orange brethren, for having assembled in large numbers in one place, to the number of 75,000 Orangemen at Hillsborough, and the Loyal Orange Institution of England, in the same circular, call the attention of their Orange brethren, by re-publishing the resolutions of the Grand Lodge of Dublin, as follows: "And lastly, we beg to call the attention of the Grand Lodge, and through them return our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to our brethren through various parts of Ireland, who, at the late meetings of the three thousand in Dublin, five thousand at Bandon, thirty thousand at Cavan, and seventy-five thousand at Hillsborough, by their strength and numbers, the rank, respectability, and orderly conduct of their attendance, the manly and eloquent expressions of every christian and loyal sentiment, vindicated so nobly the character of our institution, against the aspersion thrown on it as the paltry remnant of an expiring faction.' And we ardently hope that our brethren in the other parts of the kingdom, who have not yet come forward, will do so, and not forget the hint given to us in our Sovereign's last most gracious declaration, to speak out."" Letters to Marquis Appendix, 21. p. 182. In the letters from the deputy grand secretary to the Marquis of Londonderry and to the Duke of Gordon and others, there is a general reference to the advantage of increase of numbers, of boldness of attitude, and even of physical force, to support the views of the Orange Institution. IN (Copy.) My Lord Marquis, Cannon-row, Westminster, 30 July 1832. In my letter of Saturday, I omitted to mention that we have the military with us as far as they are at liberty to avow their principles and sentiments; but since the lamented death of the Duke of York, every impediment has been thrown in the way of them holding a lodge. The same observation that was applied to the colliers might be attached to the soldiery. As Orangemen, there would be an additional security for their allegiance and analterable fidelity in times like the present, when revolutionary writers are striving to set them them up to open sedition and mutiny. In trespassing thus upon the attention of your I have the honour to be, my Lord Marquis, To the Marquis of Londonderry. Extract LETTER to the Duke of Gordon. Cannon-row, Westminster, 11 Aug. 1832. "Our institution is going on prosperously, and my accounts from all quarters are of the most satisfactory kind. By our next general meeting we shall be assuming, I think, such Appendix, No. 21, an attitude of boldness as will strike the foe with awe; but we inculcate the doctrine of P. 183. passive obedience and of non-resistance too religiously by far." "I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, "W. B. Fairman." In June 1833 Lieutenant-Colonel Fairman, writes to Lord Longford in these Appendix, No. 21. words, "We shall speedily have such a moral and physical force, I trust, as will p. 186. "strike with terror and sore dismay the foes of our country." It appears, by a paper indorsed by Lieutenant-colonel Fairman that he had received on the 8th June 1834, from Randal E. Plunket, esq., M. P., (grand master of county Meath, deputy grand master in Ireland, and member of the Grand Committee of the London Orange Institution), the draft of an address to the members of the Carlton Club, to be printed and circulated in the name of, and by the Orange Institution. The following is the first paragraph, "The Appendix, No. 14. Orange Institution is the only society peculiar to Great Britain and Ireland which " already includes individuals of every rank and grade, from the nearest to Your Committee could not keep out of sight the incidents that took place in Ireland at that gentleman's election, by the interference of large bodies of armed Orangemen, as detailed in the evidence on the table of The House. Letter of R. E. The following paragraphs of the Address to the Members of the Carlton Club Efforts for extension and the Conservatives of England, as circulated, are worthy of attention. "The day has passed when a debate and a vote of either House could settle, even for a time, a vital question. To restore that day, a large portion of the community must be bound in union for the support of the institutions of the country. Their ostensibility would give physical weight to those spirited and truly patriotic members of both Houses, who should have the moral courage to oppose the will of bold innovators, and the rash measures of wild experimentalists. Where then is this union to be found? Where is the nucleus around which may be arrayed the advocates of our social system, who are now disheartened, passive lookers-on at the march of Radicalism, since they are without leaders on whom they can rely? "Such an union, such a nucleus, has (to a very limited extent in England) some years existed, and requires only to be well understood and adopted by the Conservatives generally, to become so expanded as to present the happiest means not only of preserving the vessel of the state from wreck, but of carrying her in safety clear of all the rocks, shoals and 605. in England. Powers of the Activity of the shallows which at present peril her navigation; that union, that nucleus, noble Lords, gentlemen and fellow countrymen, is the The Loyal Orange Institution.' "This is the only society peculiar to Great Britain and Ireland, which already includes persons of every rank and grade, from the first male subject in the realm, down to the humblest individual." "It is not an occult society; it is not one of concealments; it is not bound by oaths; although every member has either taken, or is willing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; but it is a society, every member of which pledges himself to support to the utmost of his ability, and by all legal means, our Protestant establishment, and ancient institutions in church and state." "It is governed by a grand master, the first prince of the blood, who, with the aid of noblemen and gentlemen, eminent for loyalty, wisdom and sound discretion, will be able (when the institution shall become more extensively ramified) to muster, in every part of the empire, no small portion of all that is sound in the community, and thus present, in every quarter, a phalanx too strong to be overpowered by the destructives, which will give a moral as well as a known physical strength to the government of the King, and will enable it to set at defiance the tyrannous power that has been so madly called into existence.” Your Committee submit that such publications indicate the importance which is attached to the increase of numbers in the Orange Institution with the view to the effects likely to be produced by a display of physical force. In the printed proceedings of the Grand Lodge, 4th June 1833, the Duke of Cumberland is reported to have stated, that "if the Grand Lodge have not confidence in the Grand Master "it is better perhaps that I should know it; but if it have confidence its members must be aware that it is my wish to simplify the proceedings of the institution as much as possible. "Individual opinion is not to be consulted upon vital and important arrangements, involving "the welfare and best interests of the Institution."" It must always be kept in mind, that the power of calling out the members of all the Orange Lodges in Ireland rests with the grand master and his deputy, on the application of 12 members of the grand committee; that the same person is grand master of Great Britain and of Ireland, having the same powers, which are stated to be uncontrolled and arbitrary, of bringing together large bodies of armed and unarmed men, to make a demonstration of physical force, which might prove highly dangerous. The activity of the institution may be judged of from the declaration of Lieutenant-Colonel Fairman, that he has been in the habit of receiving a multiplicity of communications (') from all parts of the world; and that he now has a cart-load of correspondence in his house at Lambeth. (2) The obvious tendency and effect of the Orange Institution is, to keep up an exclusive association in civil and military society, exciting one portion of the people against the other; to increase the rancour and animosity too often unfortunately existing between persons of different religious persuasions-to make the Protestant the enemy of the Catholic, and the Catholic the enemy of the Protestantby processions on particular days, attended with the insignia of the Society, to excite to breaches of the peace and to bloodshed-to raise up other secret societies among the Catholics in their own defence, and for their own protection, against the insults of the Orangemen-to interrupt the course of justice; and to interfere with the discipline of the army, thus rendering its services injurious instead of useful, when required on occasions where Catholics and Protestants may be parties. All these evils have been proved by the evidence before The House in regard to Ireland, where the system has long existed on an extended scale, rendered more prejudicial to the best interests of society, by the patronage and protection of so many wealthy members, high in office and in rank, taking an active part in the proceedings of these lodges, though in Great Britain in a more limited way. The Orange Lodges have also interfered in various political subjects of the day, and made Orangeism a means of supporting the views of a political party, to maintain, as they avow, the Protestant ascendancy. The Orange Lodges have addressed His Majesty, and individuals, on special occasions of a political nature-have patronized and supported, by subscriptions, votes of thanks, &c., parts of the public press which advocated their opinions and views in politicshave interfered in the course of justice, by subscriptions to defend and protect parties of Orangemen, and to prosecute the magistrates for interfering with them, (as in the case of Liverpool in 1819, when the mayor of Liverpool interrupted the Orange procession on the 12th of July in that year)-and have also interfered with with the elective franchise, by expelling members of their body, as at Rochdale Appendix, No. 2, in 1835, for voting for the liberal candidate. The following are some of the p. 62. many instances recorded in the Minute books and in the printed circulars of the society, and will support the statements of Your Committee: At Moston, Committee Meeting, 11th August 1819. Resolved, "That an immediate Minute book, p. 4. subscription be entered into by the Loyal Orange Institution, to defray the great expense attending the late prosecution in Liverpool, which expenses amount to a serious sum of money in consequence of the great number of witnesses and the exertions required to collect evidence for the support of the prosecution; the amount of expenses attending the prosecution and amount of property destroyed are upwards of 200 l." 7th August 1820.--Resolved at a special meeting of the Committee in Manchester," That from the conduct adopted by Sir John Tobin, knt., Mayor of Liverpool, towards the members of the institution, when walking in procession in that town on the 12th July last, and his seizing and illegally imprisoning Mr. Tyrer, this Committee deems it highly necessary Minute book, p. 18. for the honour of the Institution that Mr. Tyrer should immediately adopt proceedings against the mayor, unless a proper explanation and apology be made by the mayor to Mr. Tyrer for such outrage." Committee Meeting, 13th October 1819, Manchester.-Thanks to Lord Kenyon for his M.S. Minute book, subscription towards the prosecution in Liverpool, and to the lodges who have subscribed p. 5. and transmitted their subscriptions for the same purpose. Committee Meeting, 26 July 1823.-The following Resolution, recommended to the Grand Minute book, p. 77. Lodge by the grand committee, "That the several deputy grand masters and secretaries constantly report to the grand committee the increase or decrease of our enemies and their proceedings, as well as the increase or decrease of our friends, with any suggestions for the good of our constitution in Church and State, and that brothers who reside where either Popery or disloyalty prevail be especially on the alert." At an annual meeting of the Grand Lodge in Manchester, 26th and 27th June 1820, it Newspapers. was resolved, "That this meeting strongly recommends to the notice of all lodges the news paper called the Hibernian Journal,' published in Dublin by our excellent Brother, John Burke Fitzsimmons, esq., as the only paper which has avowed spiritfully, and undauntedly Minute book, p. 16. maintains the Orange principles in defiance of all Popish attempts to stifle the swelling chorus of loyalty to our King and sincere attachment to our glorious constitution." Meeting at Lord Kenyon's, 27 April 1821.-Resolved, "That the grateful thanks of this Minute book, p. 35. meeting be given, on behalf of the Loyal Orange Institution of Great Britain, to the proprietors and editors of the True Briton' and the Hibernian Journal,' for the constitutional part which they took on theintroduction into Parliament of the late Bills for the destruction of the Protestant religion and glorious constitution of this country." At a meeting of the Grand Lodge, 16 June 1823.-Thanks were given to the editor of Minute book, p. 75. the "John Bull" Sunday newspaper, "for his advocacy of constitutional Orange principles on a recent occasion." 16th June 1823.-Thanks to Sir A. B. King, bart." For the gentlemanly, firm and Minute book, p. 75. "conscientious conduct he displayed at the bar of the House of Commons during his exami"nation on the subject of oaths and constitution of the Orange Society, whereby we consider "him to have completely established its entire coincidence with the true principles of our "glorious constitution." Thanks to Mr. Secretary Peel were given for his support of Protestant principles. "That D. G. M. French do ascertain what Orangeman of warrant No. 60, authorized P. 248, Minute attendance on the Birmingham Political Union, and that he transmit the list of Orangemen book, 4 June 1832. who so attended and who have not sufficiently testified their regret and contrition for such un-orange and improper conduct." Thanks moved by the Duke of Gordon in the Grand Lodge, on 4 June 1833, to the editors of the "Edinburgh Evening Post," "Glasgow Courier," and other papers. 298. cannot reconcile the Your Committee, in reviewing all the facts brought before them, and taking The Committee into consideration the mode in which they have been proved, are unable to recon- ignorance of the cile those facts with the ignorance professed by the Imperial Grand Master, Grand Officers of the deputy grand-master of England and Wales, and by other grand officers of the existence of the institution, of the existence of lodges in the army. The books of the institution have been, from time to time, neglected; but the business of the grand lodge has been very regularly conducted; the evidence of every witness proves that the deputy grand secretary and grand committee prepare the business for the grand lodge; and that every proposition for its deliberation is considered by the lodge in the order entered on the Rota; and a report of the proceedings of every grand lodge, detailing the business therein transacted, is printed and circulated soon after the meetings, to every grand officer of the grand lodge. No minutes of the proceedings of the Grand Lodge are entered from 1829 to 1831. Lodges in the Books regularly |