Charles Lucas (politician) - Return To Ireland

Return To Ireland

In view of the general election at the accession of George III, Lucas published in November 1760 a pamphlet entitled Seasonable Advice to the Electors... of Ireland in general, to those of Dublin in particular. In the same month he determined to offer himself as a candidate for the city of Dublin, notwithstanding the consequent loss of his practice in London. After assuring himself that the electors of Dublin "were warmed with the same sentiments in which he left them," he obtained a personal interview with the king in order to petition for pardon, and being favourably received was enabled to return to Dublin, 15 March 1761, on a nolle prosequi. His return was the occasion of great popular rejoicing; the order for his disfranchisement was annulled at the midsummer assembly of the corporation; and in July the degree of Doctor of Physic was conferred upon him by Trinity College, Dublin. During the election Lucas's colleague, Colonel Dunn, withdrew his candidature in order to insure Lucas's return, which was strongly opposed by the aldermanic party. After a thirteen days' poll he and Recorder Grattan, father of Henry Grattan, were elected, and he continued to represent Dublin City till his death in 1771.

In parliament Lucas does not appear to have shone as an orator; but by assiduously bringing every question of importance before the public, he had the merit of reviving "that constitutional connection which ought to subsist between the constituents and their representative." On the first day of the session, 22 October 1761, he obtained leave to bring in the heads of a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments, which he presented to the house on 28 October; but on a motion to have it transmitted to England it was defeated by a majority of sixty-five. Shortly afterwards he presented the heads of two new bills for securing the freedom of parliament. In 1763 the Freeman's Journal, a biweekly newspaper, was started by three Dublin merchants under the management of Henry Brooke (1703?-l783). Lucas contributed to it from its commencement, sometimes anonymously, but generally under the signature of "A Citizen" or "Civis." Small as were its literary merits, the paper enjoyed at first great popularity, owing to the gratuitous contributions of Lucas and its strenuous assertion of Irish Protestant privileges.

In 1766 Lucas unsuccessfully opposed a bill to prevent the exportation of grain, on the ground that certain alterations made in it by the English privy council were detrimental to the rights of the Irish parliament. He justified his conduct in An Address to the Lord Mayor and Citizens of Dublin, and replied to further censure in A Second Address to the Lord Mayor. Several guilds, and among them the Guild of Merchants, presented addresses of thanks to him, and it was even proposed to grant him a salary of £365 a year out of the city treasury as a public acknowledgment of his services in parliament. The proposal was rejected by the Aldermen, and its rejection led to a renewal of the old quarrel between them and the commons, and to fresh manifestations of public sympathy with Lucas.

In 1768 Lucas strongly opposed the scheme for the augmentation of the army, on the ground partly that he favoured the establishment of a national militia, but chiefly because in his opinion, "Standing parliaments and standing armies have ever proved the most dangerous enemies to civil liberty." In this year he caused considerable sensation by trying to institute a parliamentary inquiry into the case of a soldier whom he regarded as the victim of military discipline. His efforts in parliament proving unsuccessful, he published a pamphlet entitled A Mirror for Courts-Martial: in which the Complaints, Trial, Sentence, and Punishment of David Blakeney are examined. It is probably to his conduct on this occasion that Lord Townshend referred in a letter to the Marquess of Granby, "Here is a Doctor Lucas, the Wilkes of Ireland, who has been playing the devil here and poisoning all the soldiery with his harangues and writings; but I have treated this nonsensical demagogue as he deserves, with his mob at his heels." Lord Townshend's protest against the right of the Irish House of Commons to originate money bills, and his sudden prorogation of parliament in December 1769 drew from Lucas early in 1770 a pamphlet entitled The Rights and Privileges of Parliament asserted upon constitutional Principles. It was announced in the newspapers that an answer, "published by authority," entitled The Usage of holding Parliaments and of preparing Bills of Supply in Ireland, stated from Record, would shortly appear. The book appeared on the day announced, but was instantly suppressed. A copy, however, came into Lucas's possession, and finding that it told more against than for the government he immediately republished it, with a sarcastic introduction and commentary.

From his earliest years Lucas had been a martyr to hereditary gout, which rendered him a complete cripple, and latterly obliged him to be carried to the House of Commons. Nevertheless, says an eye-witness, "the gravity and uncommon neatness of his dress, his grey, venerable locks, blending with a pale but interesting countenance, in which an air of beauty was still visible, altogether excited attention, and I never saw a stranger come into the house without asking who he was." He died at his residence in Henry Street, Dublin, on Monday 4 November 1771. His remains were honoured with a public funeral of imposing solemnity. He was interred in the family burial-ground in St. Michan's churchyard. Lucas’s son Henry and other relatives were in attendance at his funeral, as were his friends Lord Charlemont, Flood and Adderley. The mourners also included officers and many hundred brethren of the guilds and the Lord Mayor with representatives of the Corporation and the Vice-Provost and scholars of Trinity College.

There are several engraved portraits of Lucas, but the best is a mezzotint from a half-length by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the National Gallery of Ireland.