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"On the old Irish volunteers I desire to be understood not to convey

trade

her far in the path of national life. the inscription, "Free Trade or Few bodies have been the subject this." In the winter of 1779-80 of more extravagant laudation; of this imperious and just demand few is it harder to form a just was conceded, and complete free opinion. Perhaps the fairest teswas granted by Lord timony on the subject is that of North. In the autumn of 1781 Lord Clare, who, at any rate, had came the final blow of the Amerno undue bias in their favour. In ican war, in the surrender of his great speech in support of the Lord Cornwallis, the only efficient Union, he says:British general, with his army at York Town. This was followed up by the volunteers of the Dungannon Convention of February 1782, formed by delegates from all the Ulster corps, and representing a force of 23,000 armed men. After grave and decorous debate, this assembly declared that other than the King, Lords, and "The claim of any body of men, Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this country, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance." After a series of resolutions upon all the burning questions of the day, they concluded, Protestant as they were, by affirming—

anything like censure. Their con-
duct will remain a problem in his-
tory; for without the shadow of
military control, to their immortal
honour it is known, that from their
first levy till they disbanded them-
selves, no act of violence or outrage
was charged against them; and they
certainly
did-on every occasion
where their services were required
exert themselves with effect to main-
tain the internal peace of the country.
The gentlemen of Ireland were all in
their ranks, and maintained a decided
influence upon them. But I shall
never cease to think that the appeals
made to that army by the angry poli-
ticians of that day were dangerous
and ill-judged in the extreme; and
that they established the precedent
for rebellion, which has since been
followed up with full success." 1

"That we hold the right of private judgment in matters of religion to be equally sacred in others as in ourselves. That as men and as Irishmen, as Christians and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation of the penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subject, and that we conceive the measure to be fraught with the happiest consequence to the union and prosperity of the inhabitants of Ire

land." 2

In 1779 this force had grown to very large dimensions, and was variously estimated at from 40,000 to 100,000 strong. They were a vehemently loyal and wholly Protestant body. They devoted their full strength to political agitation. Their aims were free trade in the first place, and constitutional liberty in the second. Their demands for free trade were couched in no measured terms. At the celebration in Dublin of the birthday of William III., among the most prominent features in the demonstration were two cannon with bilities.

It is to be observed in passing, that this resolution as to the Catholics is simply retrospective. It rejoices in the relation of the penal laws which had already taken place, but by no means implies a desire for the removal of all the remaining Catholic disaWithin a week Flood

1 Speech of Lord Clare in the Irish House of Lords, 10th Feb. 1800, p. 21— republished by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union.

2 Mitchell, History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 138.

was labouring the distinction as possible from satisfying the between rights of property and views of the Nationalists. rights of power; and to the concession of these last the leaders of the volunteers were for long after opposed.

A few days after Grattan, in the Irish House of Commons, moved an address, declaring the independent legislative rights of Ireland. A postponement was carried by the Government, but the principle of the motion was strenuously upheld even by the most zealous of their supporters, and it was obvious that the motion itself could not be resisted. In the following month came the resignation of Lord North and the accession to power of Rockingham, Shelburne, and Fox.

It was little use for the new Government to consider whether the concession of legislative independence was wise or not. It was impossible even to dwell on terms and conditions. Great Britain, in her then state of prostration, was unable to resist a demand put forward by an overwhelming majority of the Protestants of Ireland, and backed by the only organised force in the kingdom. Wise or unwise, the wishes of Ireland had to be complied with; and the merits which Fox and Shelburne can claim is, that they put a good face upon a necessity, and yielded with a good grace in a case where effective resistance was hopeless.

We often hear nowadays of the wisdom and beneficence of Grattan's Parliament; we sometimes hear sighs for its restoration. I have no wish to abuse it. If I had, I could find no bitterer language that that of patriot and Nationalist writers. The truth is, that it was an anomally which could not be restored; and if it were restored, it would be as far

Grattan's Parliament was, during its whole existence, a purely Protestant Parliament. Till 1793 Roman Catholics had no vote in elections, and till the end of its existence no Roman Catholic could sit in it. It was composed almost exclusively of the English and the landed interest, and was in general wholly subservient to the Viceroy and his Executive. Neither was this a mere accident, which could have been remedied by Reform Bills, or have been altered by anything short of a complete alteration of the Constitution.

If the Parliament had not been subservient to the Executive, there would have been a deadlock. The Irish Parliament was not supreme. It could not, like the Imperial Parliament, get rid of a Minister with whom it differed. The Irish Viceroy and the Irish Government did not depend on the confidence of the Dublin Parliament, but retained office during the pleasure of the Parliament at Westminster. The Irish Parliament was even independent in legislation. Measures passed by the Irish Parliament had to be sent over to London to be confirmed by the British great seal, which was only affixed by the Crown on the advice of his British Ministers, supported by the British House of Commons.

not

Such a system was only workable on condition of the complete subordination of the one party to the other, of the legislature to the executive.

The history of the period is full of instances of this subordination, but the treatment of the Catholic question by the Irish House of Commons is perhaps the best example. In 1792, following their own instincts, they rejected, by an

overwhelming majority, a petition for Catholic emancipation. In 1793, at the express bidding of Pitt and Dundas, they passed almost as large a measure with only three dissentients to the second reading.

In February 1795, when the feeling of the country was certainly not more liberal than in 1793, they were prepared at the bidding of Lord Fitzwilliam to vote for absolute Catholic equality. A month later, on his departure, the same proposals were thrown out by a majority of a hundred. Obedience such as this was the only condition on which the clumsy system would work, and obedience such as this is hardly what modern Home Rulers desire. At the same time, the executive was hampered and weakened at every turn by having to secure the conformity of a nominally independent body, and the methods adopted for the purpose were not always such as would bear the light.

The friction between Westminster and the Castle, between the Castle and the Parliament House, was overpowering. The question of commercial relations with Ireland is an example of this. The matter had been left open in 1782, when the Duke of Portland had been anxious to settle these relations on a firm and permanent basis; but Grattan most unwisely declared that the rights of Ireland were not subjects to be haggled over in a treaty.

In 1784 Mr Pitt took up the question. The spirit in which he approached both the commercial problem and that of parliamentary reform will be best shown by an extract from his confidential

despatch to the Duke of Rutland, the then Lord Lieutenant :—

"I own to you the line to which my mind at present inclines (open to whatever new observations or arguments may be suggested to me) is to give Ireland an almost unlimited command of commercial advantages, if we can receive in return some security that her and that she will contribute from tie strength and riches will be our benefit, to time in their increasing proportions to the common exigencies of the empire; and having, by holding out this, removed, I trust, every temptation to Ireland to consider her interests as separate from England, to be ready— while we discountenance wild and unconstitutional attempts which strike at the root of all authority-to give real efficacy and popularity to Government by acceding (if such a line can be found) to a prudent and temperate reform of Parliament, which may guard against, or gradually cure, real defects and mischiefs; may show a sufficient regard for the interests, and even prejudices, of individuals who are concerned; and may unite the Protestant interest in excluding the Catholics from any share in the representation or the government of the ."1 country."

While this passage proves the generous views which Mr Pitt held towards Ireland, the last lines show that he had not yet reached the liberal spirit of Catholic emancipation which distinguished him a few years later. The instructions to the Duke of Rutland are summed up in the following striking passage which occurs in the same despatch:—

"Let me beseech you to recollect that both your character and mine for consistency are at stake, unless there are unanswerable proofs that the case of Ireland and England is different, and to recollect also that however it is our duty to oppose the most determined spirit and firmness to unfounded clamours and factious pretensions,

1 Pitt to Duke of Rutland, 7th Oct. 1784. Mahon's liistorical Essays, P. 253. Quarterly Review, Sept. 1842, p. 299.

it is a duty equally indispensable to take care not to struggle but in a right cause."1

Acting in this spirit, he brought forward in the beginning of 1785 a set of propositions which were justly regarded in Ireland as a most liberal and favourable solution of the questions at issue. But for this very reason they were vehemently opposed on high Protectionist grounds by the whole mercantile and manufacturing interests of Great Britian. Pitt found it impossible to carry them without considerable concessions to these interests. The English opposition at once shifted their ground, and declared that the resolutions in their new form compromised Irish independence. The cry was taken up by indignant Irish patriots, and thus was rejected the best offer which Ireland ever had, and no commercial arrangement was arrived at till after

the union.

The failure of this negotiation is made the occasion of the bitterest accusations of treachery against Mr Pitt; but there is not the smallest ground for these attacks, or for questioning the plain fact that Pitt was a strong Free Trader, genuinely anxious to make a more liberal bargain with Ireland than he could induce the British Parliament to endorse.

known. The Irish Parliament, on the other hand, were anxious to appoint the Prince regent instantly and without any limitations. Fitzgibbon, the future Chancellor, and the Earl of Clare, alone opposed. The Crowns of the two countries had heen declared inseparable, but this was to separate them. Constituted as it was, the government of the country could never go on unless they followed Great Britian implicitly in all regulations of imperial policy.

"Do you suppose," he said, "the British nation will submit to the claim now set up by the Irish Parliament? If the address of both houses

can invest the Prince of Wales with royal power in this way, the same address could convey the same powers to Louis XVI., or to His Holiness the Pope, or to the right honourable mover of this resolution.

"We are

against the law and against the committing ourselves constitution, and in such a contest Ireland must fall."2

He warned them that such a course must lead to the alternative of separation or union, and therefore would be more effectual in forcing forward a union that if all the sluices of corruption were opened at once.

The House of Commons refused to listen to this reasoning, and declared the Prince of Wales Regent with full kingly powers. Fortu nately, however, by the time the deputation from Dublin reached. London, the king was already recovered, and the Prince of Wales could only thank the Irish Parliament for their kindness. The danger of the situation is stated

In 1789 a still more acute difficulty arose. The one link between the countries was the Crown and the administration. But in consequence of the illness of George III., it became necessary to elect a regent. The Prince of Wales was the proposed regent. In England, Government thought by no one with more clearness it necessary in various ways to and cogency than by Mitchell, limit his powers, and the history the honest though bitterly antiof the conflict that ensued is well English historian:

1 Massey, Hist. of England, iii. 275.

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2 Froude, English in Ireland, ii. 507.

"This dangerous dispute was thus ended for that time. Its dangers were twofold. First, the Prince might have refused the regency with limited powers; in that case, the English Parliament would certainly have made the Queen regent, and the Prince might have accepted the Irish regency with unlimited powers; there would then have been two regents, and two separate kingdoms. Secondly, the Prince might have accepted the regency precisely on the terms offered him in each country; he would then have been a regent with limited powers in England, and with full royal prerogative in Ireland; unable to create a peer in England, but with power to swamp the House with new peerages in Ireland; unable to reward his friends with cer

tain grants, pensions, and offices in England; but able to quarter them all upon the revenue of Ireland. The peril of such a condition of things was fully appreciated, both by Mr Pitt and by his able coadjutor in Ireland, Mr Fitzgibbon. They drew from it an argument for the total annihilation of Ireland by a legislative union. Others who watched events with equal attention, found in it a still sounder argument for total separation."1 Mitchell's position is inexpugnable, and no fact went further to convince British statesmen that separation or union were the only possible alternatives.

After a pause, during which Europe watched the progress of the French Revolution, the next critical question that came to the front was that of Catholic Emancipation. The worst of the penal laws had been removed in 1778, but abundant disabilities remained. The question had hitherto lain like a sunken rock, on which schemes of parliamentary and other reform had suffered shipwreck, but it now showed above water. In the end of 1791 the claims of the Catholics were being pressed on the Irish Government by Pitt and Dundas. Burke threw his whole weight into

the same scale, and sent his sonan alley only tolerated for the sake of his father-to Dublin. Grattan and his friends supported the same view, but the Protestant party at large were opposed to it. Pitt and Dundas tried argument and advice, but the relations between Catholics and Protestants were too embittered to be revolutionised peaceably without the intervention of direct force. In 1792 a small measure in favour of the Catholics was carried by Sir H. Langrishe, but a petition asking more complete relief aroused most violent opposition from the Ascendancy party through the kingdom, and was rejected by a majority of 208 to 23, though it had the countenance of the British Government. The following year, however, witnessed a marvellous change. Mr Pitt and the British Government by no means shared the views of the Ascendancy party and the Irish Executive. By their direct orders (Dundas to Westmoreland, 23d January 1793; Froude's English in Ireland,' iii. 73) a large measure of emancipation was early in 1793 introduced and carried through both Houses by the votes of the Court party, Dr Duigenan and Lord Clare alone, protesting audibly.

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By this measure the parliamentary franchise was given to Roman Catholics, and all the more oppressive restrictions that lay on them were removed. The chief disability that remained was that the right to sit in Parliament was still withheld. Pitt and Dundas were not anxious to maintain even this restriction; and there can be little doubt that, if the course of British affairs had continued smooth, this also would have been removed in no long time, and complete legal equality introduced.

But now began the most severe

1 Mitchell, Hist. of Ireland, i. 177.

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