Tea at Trianon: Commodore John Barry

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Commodore John Barry

From English Historical Authors:

Ireland of the mid 18^th century smouldered with resentment against the ruling class and government, many of whom were descendants of the Cromwellian “settlement” of Ireland of the previous century. This and subsequent imposition of anti-Catholic Penal Laws of the early 18^th century, meant that families like the Barrys were seriously disadvantaged in terms of civil rights, land ownership, access to education and many professions. The town of Wexford itself had recent bitter memories of Oliver Cromwell’s visitation to the area in 1649, when some 3,000 unarmed men, women and children had been slaughtered by Roundhead soldiers in the aftermath of the capture of the town in what was an extension of the English Civil War to Ireland. Before the end of the 18^th century (during the United Irishmen’s rebellion of 1798), continuing resentment in the rural population would manifest itself in a bloody conflict which affected South-eastern Ireland more than any other part of Ireland, resulting in thousands of deaths among John Barry’s friends and neighbours in Wexford and its hinterland.

In 1761, aged 15, John left Ireland as a cabin-boy on a ship bound for Jamaica. One version of his life-story tells that his first landfall in North America was his arrival in Philadelphia as second mate on a trading ship sometime in 1762. Due to the city’s relatively liberal attitude towards Catholicism and the fact that it was the foremost maritime centre of the colony, John made Philadelphia his home. (Read more.)