against corruption, and court influence, further sum, moning a meeting of volunteer delegates from the province of Ulster, to assemble at Dungannon. Here the delegates of 143 corps, numbering among them Lord Charlemont, Mr. Grattan, and Mr. Flood, formed and published a set of propositions, claiming for themselves the right to act, denouncing the parliamentary supremacy of Great Britain, declaring Poyning's law, restrictions on trade, and the perpetual mutiny bill, to be grievances, and pledging themselves to relax the penal laws against Roman Catholics.

In the midst of these demonstrations, the ministry of the king and Lord North went to pieces (Feb., 1782), and since the administration of Lord Rockingham professed conciliation, an address went up unopposed, from the Irish commons, expressing the sentiments of Grattan and the volunteers. The English parliament conceded every point at issue (May, 1782), the offensive acts were repealed (1783), and the Irish house resolved (by 211 to 2), that there will no longer exist any constitutional question between the two nations that can interrupt their harmony!' While this ardour for liberty lasted, the bills before mentioned, for taking part of the load off the heads of the Roman Catholics, became law. To celebrate their triumph, the parliament voted a gratuity of fifty thousand pounds to Grattan, on account of his services, and the money was accepted.

Agitation being now dead, Mr. Flood attempted to revive it by declaring himself unsatisfied with the mere repeal of obnoxious statutes, and requiring from England a formal renunciation of her imperial pretensions. This proposal came to nothing. Then the volunteers started a subject, which probably was suggested by the unpopularity of the Coalition Ministry, -reform in parliament. Addresses, resolutions, letters, and protests multiplied. The House of Commons consisted of three hundred members, and the first meeting

of the volunteer delegates (8th Sept., 1783), stated that of these only 72 were returned by the free election of the people, since 53 peers nominated 123 members and influenced the choice of 10, while 52 commoners nominated 91 and influenced the seats of 3. After parlia ment had assembled (14th Oct.), a great meeting of volunteer delegates was held in Dublin (10th Nov.), Lord Charlemont presiding, and Mr. Flood advising; they arranged in due time a plan of reform, which they forwarded to the house as a bill. The commons considered their own functions usurped by the volunteer convention; after a tempestuous scene, they refused to receive the bill by 158 to 49, and proceeded to resolve, that it is now become necessary to declare that this house will maintain its just rights and privileges against all encroachments whatsoever.' Under the prudent auspices of Lord Charlemont, the armed volunteers gradually permitted their scheme to sink into oblivion. It is to be observed that the most enthusiastic patriots proposed little relief to the Roman Catholics, and Mr. Flood expressly negatived a plan of the eccentric bishop of Derry, for granting them the elective franchise.

Great

A scheme for introducing a Genevese colony (1783) proved impracticable. Some democrats, driven from their native country, were invited to settle at Passage, near the confluence of the Suir and Barrow. results were expected from the importation of industrious Switzers, and £50,000 voted to make them comfortable. But the foreigners, not content with so much, demanded that they should be governed by their own laws, and on this the whole purpose was necessarily abandoned. In 1783, the order of St. Patrick was instituted.

Political agitation commonly leaves some restless spirits at work when the time for effort is past. In Dublin the populace raised tumults, attacked the members of the legislature (1784), and forced the gallery of the House of Commons. On one occasion, the

soldiers being called in, used more than necessary rigour, and revenge was taken on them by houghing. To such a length was the practice carried, that an act passed to prevent houghing of soldiers.' The reform question yet lived, and the high sheriff of the county of Dublin having presided at a meeting displeasing to the government, now Pittite, was prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned (1784).

Commerce still flagged in Ireland, and some endeavour was made to awaken it. But William Pitt's system of laws presented such a complexity of customs, excises, drawbacks, repayments, bounties, and the like, that the Irish very sensibly thought it quite as well not to participate in it, and the bill brought in for the purpose died a natural death (1785).

Right boys, so called from their leader, Captain Wright, disturbed, as formerly, the peace of the rural districts in Munster (1787), and waged a hearty war against tithe and parish cess. The attorney-general, Fitzgibbon, declared he was well acquainted with Munster, and would assert that it was impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable peasantry in this province. Armagh produced (1788) the Peep o'day Boys, Protestants who visited Roman Catholic houses to search for arms; and the aggrieved party established in opposition the Defenders: in process of time whole districts quarrelled, and fights took place in which a thousand combatants ranged on each side, the killed and wounded sometimes amounting to fifty.

Earl Temple, marquis of Buckingham (1788), laboured in the correction of abuses, seized the keys of the government clerks, examined their papers, and demanded instant payment of their outstanding balances. Some defaulters fled, one committed suicide, and some stood the brunt of a court of inquiry. Gross frauds came to light; arms, ammunition, and military accoutrements, condemned as useless, were carried out at one gate, but brought in at another, and charged anew to

the public account. Journeymen seldom went home to their meals without conveying away a musket, a sword, or a brace of pistols.

When King George III. became deranged in mind. (1788), William Pitt induced the parliament of Great Britain to limit the powers of the regent; but in the Irish house, Grattan defeated the Pittite government in naming a day for debate, and carried an address to the prince of Wales, in the Foxite sense, desiring his royal highness to exercise all the regal powers. No division took place in the commons, and a similar motion by Lord Charlemont in the lords, was carried by a majority of nineteen. The lord lieutenant refused to transmit the address; then Grattan again moved and carried it, that it should be presented by members. It was so presented, but the king's convalescence put an end to these factious struggles, and to the majorities of Grattan.

The marquis of Buckingham increased the pension list by £13,000, and the expenses by £2,800 per annum. The representation was not only limited to Protestants, but corrupt; in 1790, Mr. Forbes asserted without contradiction, in the House of Commons, that 104 members, holding places or pensions, were members of the house.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE REBELLION OF 1798.

THE influence of the French Revolution soon made itself felt in Ireland. The Roman Catholics, calculating probably on the weakness of an assaulted government, convened meetings (11th Feb. 1791), and came to the resolution of applying to parliament for relief. The Society of United Irishmen took its birth at Belfast (June, 1791), and soon reached Dublin (Nov.), where Napper Tandy was secretary. From this time till the suppression of the actual rebellion, quiet departed from Ireland, and society subsisted in a fermentation, which at length reached anarchy. Many claims, in themselves equitable, but alarming and unspoken of at that period, were wholly withdrawn and condemned by the Roman Catholics: they had not yet learned to ask for equality. Yet lords and landowners of their own creed already seceded from them, lest their movements should appear tinctured with revolution. They procured opinions from the universities of Paris, Douay, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca, Valladolid, on the civil jurisdiction of the Pope, on dispensing with the oath of allegiance, and on not keeping faith with heretics. These opinions were calculated for publication. The administration so far noticed the efforts of the Roman Catholics as to pass the bills before mentioned for their relief: one concession admitted them to the military service. But the progress of revolutionary principles could not be stopped by gentle means. In the north, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastile, a gala day among revolutionists, was celebrated, with attending troops of volunteers: and the Roman Catholics, choosing delegates, began to hold assemblies