HISTORY OF IRELAND.

Looking back over these events, one cannot resist the conclusion that if the Convention had generously and at once thrown open the door of the Constitution to the Catholics, Lord Charlemont might at this juncture have marched down to that den of corruption in College Green, cleared it out, locked the door, and thereafter dictated his Reform Bill by way of general orders: but Charlemont was not the man to strike such a blow; and besides, he and the Convention had alienated, or, at least, left in a state of indifference, the great body of the nation which would else have borne them triumphantly to the goal of perfect and permanent freedom.

Flood had gone to England, either fired
with new ambition, or in despair of effect-
ing his great objects at home. The bishop
was a bad adviser, too bold and unguarded,
and the Government, amazed at an extra-
ordinary reply which he gave to an ad-
dress of the Bill of Rights' Battalion, a
northern corps, seriously canvassed the
His reply con-
propriety of his arrest.
cluded with a memorable political aphor-
ism, "Tyranny is not government, and
allegiance is due only to protection."
But he was not prosecuted, nor arrested.
It would have been a rash-it was a use-
less step. The natural progress of events
effected what a measure of severity would
probably have retarded, or rendered im-
possible-the destruction of the Volun-
teers. Division of opinion gained ground
amongst them, yet they continued their
reviews, they published their proceedings,
they passed their resolutions. But, month
by month, and year by year, their num-
bers diminished, their military gatherings
became less splendid, their exposition of
political opinion was less regarded by the
nation, or feared by the Government.

The Convention adjourned, to meet next day. Mr. Flood moved a tame address to the House, declaring that seeking parliamentary reform "was not to be imputed to any spirit of innovation in them." They adjourned again; but next morning Lord Charlemont repaired somewhat earlier than usual to the Rotunda, with several of his friends, and, after some formal resolutions, pronounced the "From this Convention dissolved. The Reform Bill presented by the Contime," says Dr. Madden, "the power of the Volunteers was broken." The vention having failed, Flood, after his reGovernment resolved to let the institution turn from England, determined to test the die a natural death; at least, to aim no sincerity of the Parliament in the alleged blow at it in public; but when it is cause of its rejection. The legislature deknown that the Hon. Col. Robert Stewart clared that they had spurned the bill be(father of Lord Castlereagh) was not only cause it emanated from a military body. a member of the Convention-a delegate In March, 1784, ho introduced another from the County Down-but chairman of measure of parliamentary reform, backed a sub-committee, and that he was the by numerous petitions from the counties. intimate friend of Lord Charlemont, the The bill was read a second time, but was nature of the hostility that Government rejected, on the motion for its committal, put in practice against the institution will by a majority of seventy-four. Grattan be easily understood. While the Volun- gave a cold support. It became now clear teers were parading before Lord Charle- that the opposition was given to reform, mont, or manifesting their patriotism in not because it was the demand of a milideclarations of resistance to the Parlia-tary body, but because the principle was ment, perfidy was stalking in their camp, and it rested not till it had trampled on the ashes of their institution.

odious to a corrupt Parliament. A meeting of the representatives of thirty-one corps took place at Belfast to make preThe Volunteers through the country parations for a review, and they adopted received the accounts of their delegates a resolution that they would not associate with indignant amazement. They beat to with any regiment at the ensuing demonarms-they met-and resolved. But the stration which should continue under the binding principle was relaxed; doubt, command of officers who opposed parliasuspicion, and alarm pervaded the ranks mentary reform.* However natural was that had been so firmly knit; their reso- their indignation at the coolness of some, lutions, though still warmed with the and the hostility of other professing Paspirit of fiery eloquence, were but sound-triots to the great measure of constituing words, unheeded by a government tional change, the effect of this resolution which had planted too securely the seeds of disunion, to fear the threats of men without leaders, without mutual confidence, without reliance on themselves. The Bishop of Derry became their idol; but it was beyond his power to restore them to their commanding position.

was unfortunate. It yielded a plausible excuse to many of the officers to secede from the Volunteer body; it worked out wonderfully the policy of division which Government was in every way pursuing; it defined the distinctions which existed

* Historical Collections relative to Belfast, p. 200

in the Volunteer associations, and widened property; were they to become the armed the fatal breach.

We may here anticipate a little in order to close the story of the Volunteers. The rejection of the Reform Bill was followed by an attempt to get up a national Congress by Flood, Napper Tandy, and others. They addressed requisitions to the sheriffs of the counties, calling on them to summon their bailiwicks for the purpose of electing representatives. Some few complied with the requisition; most of them refused. The attorney-general (Fitzgibbon) threatened to proceed by attachment against those who had obeyed the mandate, and by a mixture of personal daring and ability succeeded in preventing Mr. Reilly, the sheriff of Dublin, from taking the chair of an intended electoral meeting. Delegates were, however, selected in some quarters, and in October a few individuals assembled in William Street to hold the Congress. The debate was with closed doors; the Bishop of Derry was not present; Flood attended, and detailed his plan of reform, in which the Catholics were not included. The omission gave offence to the Congress, and Flood, indignant at the want of support, retired. After three days' sitting, the Congress adjourned. It vanished as if it were the melancholy ghost of the National Convention.

beggary?" To the Congress, to the parties who had presented petitions for reform, he addressed indignant reproof. They had, he said, been guilty of the wildest indiscretion; they had gone much too far, and, if they went on, they would overturn the laws of their country.

It was an unfortunate period for the interests of Irish liberty which Grattan selected thus to dissever the ties between the Volunteers and him. They had begun to perceive that, without the co-operation of the Catholics, it would be unreasonable to expect to obtain a reformed Parliament independent of England. The men of the Ulster Plantation were the first to recognise and act upon this obvious truth. They carried their toleration so far as to march to the chapel and to attend mass. Had proper advantage been taken of these dispositions of the people, the result would have been the acquisition of a measure of parliamentary reform which would have insured the stability of the settlement of 1782. But they were left without guides when most a ruling mind was required; nor is it surprising that ulterior views began to influence the ardent temperament, and to excite the angry passions of a disappointed people. But these considerations belong to the history of a later period, when the Volunteers had merged into that great and wonderful confederacy which within a few years threatened the stability of the English dominion in Ireland.

These proceedings were alluded to in the speech which opened the session, January, 1785. They were characterised as "lawless outrages and unconstitutional proceedings." The address in reply applied the same terms to the transactions in connection with the National Congress; and this drew from Grattan a memorable speech, and one which, with reference to the Volunteers, is historic. It marks the transition-point when the old Volunteers ceased, and a new body, composed of a different class of men, and ruled by politicians with very different views, commenced a career which terminated only in the establishment of the United Irishmen. Grattan, in the debate on the address, after defending the reform party and principles generally from the attacks contained in the viceroy's speech, said,* "I would now wish to draw the attention of the House to the alarming measure of drilling the lowest classes of the populace, by which a stain had been put on the character of the Volunteers. The old, the original Volunteers, had become respec-ever, not left undefended. Curran, Hardy, table because they represented the property of the nation, but attempts had been made to arm the poverty of the kingdom. They had originally been the armed Grattan's Speeches, vol. i., p. 212.

The regular army had been increased to fifteen thousand men, with the approbation of the most distinguished founders of the constitution of 1782; the next act of hostility was one in which Gardiner, who had been an active officer in the Volunteers, took the leading part. On the 14th of February, 1785, he moved that £20,000 be granted to his majesty for the purpose of clothing the militia. This was intended to be a fatal blow. It was aimed by a treacherous hand. The motion was supported by Langrishe, Denis Daily, Arthur Wolfe, and Grattan. Fitzgibbon assailed the Volunteers with official bitterness. He reiterated the charges of Grattan that they had admitted into their ranks a low description of men; their constitution was changed; they had degenerated into practices inimical to the peace of the country. They were, how

and Newenham stepped forward to their vindication. These men pointed out the benefits of the institution-the Volunteers in time of war had protected the country, and preserved internal quiet-no militia

was then needed-why was it required in was necessary to maintain the authority peace? The proposition was a censure on the Volunteers.

Grattan replied:-"The Volunteers had no right whatsoever to be displeased at the establishment of a militia; and if they had expressed displeasure, the dictate of armed men ought to be disregarded by Parliament.

of Parliament, that therefore the House was ungrateful!"

The Volunteers lingered some years after this. They held annual reviewsthey passed addresses and resolutions-but, henceforward, their proceedings were without effect. The details of their decay do not belong to the history of the Volun

expired with the Convention of Dublin. Their old leaders fell away-the men of wealth abandoned them, and new menmen, not without generous qualities and high ambition, but with perilous and revolutionary views-succeeded to the control. And when, at length, the Volunteers having come in direct collision with the regular army, and wisely declined the contest, the Government issued its mandate, that every assemblage of the body should be dispersed by force, even the phantom of the army of Ireland had passed away from the scene for ever.*

"The right honourable member had in-teers of 1782. That body practically troduced the resolution upon the most constitutional ground. To establish a militia-he could not see how that affected the Volunteers; and it would be a hard case indeed, if members of Parliament should be afraid to urge such measures as they deemed proper, for fear of giving offence to the Volunteers. The situation of the House would be truly unfortunate if the name of the Volunteers could intimidate it. I am ready to allow that the great and honourable body of men-the primitive Volunteers, deserved much of their country; but I am free to say, that they who now assume the name have much degenerated. It is said that they rescued the constitution, that they forced Parliament to assert its rights, and therefore Parliament should surrender the constitution into their hands. But it is a mistake to say they forced Parliament: they stood at the back of Parliament, and

CHAPTER XXII.

1784-1786.

supported its authority; and when they Improvement of the country-Political position

thus acted with Parliament, they acted to their own glory; but when they attempted to dictate, they became nothing. When Parliament repelled the mandate of the Convention, they went back, and they acted with propriety; and it will ever happen so when Parliament has spirit to assert its own authority.

"Gentlemen are mistaken if they imagine that the Volunteers are the same as they formerly were, when they committed themselves in support of the state, and the exclusive authority of the Parliament of Ireland, at the Dungannon meeting. The resolutions published of late hold forth a very different language.

"Gentlemen talk of ingratitude. I cannot see how voting a militia for the defence of the country is ingratitude to the Volunteers. The House has been very far from ungrateful to them. While they acted with Parliament, Parliament thanked and applauded them; but in attempting to act against Parliament, they lost their consequence. Ungrateful! Where is the instance? It cannot be meant, that because the House rejected the mandate which vile incendiaries had urged the Convention to issue; because, when such a wound was threatened to the constitution, the House declared that it

anomalous.-Rutland, viceroy.-Petitions for Parliamentary Reform.-Flood's motion.-Rejected. -Grattan's bill to regulate the revenue.-Protective duties demanded.-National Congress.-Dissensions as to rights of Catholics.-Charlemont's intolerance.-Orde's Commercial Propositions.New propositions of Mr. Pitt.-Burke and Sheridan.-Commercial propositions defeated.-Mr. Conolly. The national debt.-General corruption. -Court majorities.-Patriots defeated.-Ireland after five years of independence.

IRELAND was now in many respects an independent nation. Enjoying for the first time in her history an unrestricted trade, a sovereign judiciary, the writ of Habeas Corpus, and a Parliament acknowledged to be the sovereign legislature, free from the dictation of an English privy council, the country did certainly begin almost immediately to make a rapid advance in material prosperity. Many absentees returned and spent their incomes at home; the revival of other branches of industry retrieved in some degree the unwholesome competition for farms, which had left the unfortunate and friendless peasantry at the absolute mercy of their landlords.

Besides all this, the very proud feeling| of national independence seems to have kindled a sort of vital energy throughout the farthest extremities of the land. On the whole, although there was still much distress among the poor, and appeals to Parliament for their relief, there was soon visible a dawn of prosperity in Ireland.

It was now on the 13th of March that Mr. Flood made his renewed motion for a parliamentary reform; not now as a member of the dictatorial Volunteer Convention, but as an individual member. A few sentences of his speech may be given to show the notoriety of the rotten borough system; and how audaciously it was defended as a right of property. He admitted it would be thought by certain gentlemen injurious to their private inter

Yet the political situation was evidently anomalous and insecure. Ireland had not, like England, a responsible body of cabinet ministers accountable to her own Par-est, if the constitution were restored to liament. The lord-lieutenant and Irish secretary ruled as before; and although they were appointed, it was said, by the King of Ireland, they really held their offices and received their instructions from the ministers of England; and their whole care was expected to be, and was, in fact, to maintain by every possible means the paramount ascendency of that more powerful kingdom. This could only be accomplished by the creation of more and more places, the still greater extension of the pension list, and more direct and shameless bribery. In short, we shall soon see that organised corruption developed itself during the era of "independence" with more deadly power than ever before, until it swelled at last to that deluge of corruption, that perfect paroxysm of plunder, which bore down everything before it at the era of the "Union." Lord Northington, on a change of ministry in England, resigned his viceroyalty on the 7th of January, 1784; and on the 24th of February was succeeded by the Duke of Rutland. Just before this change, the revenue of Ireland being again, as usual, inadequate to the expenditure, £300,000 was ordered to be borrowed to meet the deficiency.

On the 26th of February Parliament met. Mr. Gardiner moved the address to the Duke of Rutland; and then there came pouring into the House thirteen petitions for a "Reform in Parliament." It was on this measure the people's minds were now chiefly bent. They were irritated and disappointed at the manner in which the House of Commons had flung out the Reform bill introduced by Mr. Flood in the name of the Volunteer Convention. They began to perceive that with a Parliament so constituted Ireland could not really be said to control her own destinies; and they did not yet sufficiently comprehend that for this precise reason England would always steadily oppose all reform-and would be able to oppose it with success because the very corruption of Parliament which was an injury and scandal to Ireland was the great arm and agent of British domination here.

its original security; but they must also admit, that it was contrary to every principle of right and justice that individuals should be permitted to send into that house, two, four, or six members of Parliament, to make a traffic of venal boroughs, as if they were household utensils. It seemed a point agreed upon in England, that a parliamentary reform was necessary; he should mention, he said, the opinion given by Lord Chatham, upon whose posthumous fame the present administration so firmly stood defended by the nation, though that great and illustrious man had been neglected for ten years by the public, and so large a portion of his valuable life was suffered to be lost to the community. What were his sentiments on that important matter? His words most strongly enforced its necessity, in his answer to the address of the city of London, in which he said that a reform in Parliament was absolutely necessary in order to infuse fresh vigour into the constitution, and that rotten boroughs ought to be stricken off."

This measure, opening the franchise to Protestant freeholders, was by several members opposed as being oppressive to the Catholics. Sir Boyle Roche, the very man who had but lately hurried to the Convention to carry Lord Kenmare's slavish, self-denying message, refusing all electoral rights for the Catholics-this Sir Boyle, only anxious to defeat the reform by any means, used this argument against it :

Sir Boyle Roche said the design of the bill was to transfer the franchise of election from the few to the many; or, in other words, to deprive the present possessors of the patronage of boroughs, and give it to another set of men; while they were endeavouring to gratify one set of men, they should not act as tyrants to another. This bill would be a proscriptive act against the Roman Catholics, who would be all turned out of their farms to make room for forty-shilling freeholders. There was an animated debate, but its issue could not be one moment doubtful

at the Castle. At four o'clock on Sunday restraints under which they still labour, morning, the division took place-ayes, we consider not only as equitable, but 85; noes, 159. It was clear that the Go-essentially conducive to the general union vernment had still its steady-working and prosperity of the kingdom." majority in that corrupt assembly on all And in the address to the king, they questions which were not left open ques-say-"We farther entreat your majesty's tions, and that there was no measure so permission to condemn that remnant of little likely to be left an open question as the penal code of laws which still opparliamentary reform. presses our Roman Catholic fellow-subTwo other subjects of great national im-jects-laws which tend to prohibit educaportance were brought before Parliament tion and liberality, restrain certain priviin this session-a bill for regulation of the leges, and proscribe industry, love of revenue by Mr. Grattan, and a bill to lay liberty, and patriotism." protective duties on the importation of manufactured goods. This latter measure seems to have been greatly needed; and the anxiety of the public for its success is a still further proof of the real meaning which in the Volunteering times was attached to the cry, “Free trade, or else -" that is to say, freedom for the legislature of Ireland to regulate, protect, tax, admit, or prohibit all branches of Irish trade for Ireland's own benefit.

In view of the continual rejection of all projects of reform, it is no wonder that men's minds turned away from Parliament, and that plans of a revolutionary character began to be agitated. Such was the idea of a National Congress. The sheriffs of Dublin were requested to convene a preparatory meeting; they did so for the 7th of June, 1784; but as this project eventuated in nothing important, we might omit all mention of it, were it not that the resolutions at this meeting, while denouncing the venality of Parliament introduced into their resolutions, and their addresses to the king, very strong expressions of their desire to emancipate the Catholics. In the resolutions we read-"We call upon you, therefore, and thus conjure you, that in this important work you join with us as fellow-subjects, countrymen, and friends, as men embarked in the general cause, to remove a general calamity; and for this we propose that five persons be elected from each county, city, and great town in this kingdom, to meet in National Congress at some convenient place in this city, on Monday, the 25th day of October next, there to deliberate, digest, and determine on such me sures as may seem to them most conducive to re-establish the constitution on a pure and permanent basis, and secure to the inhabitants of this kingdom peace, liberty, and safety.

And while we thus contend, as far as in us lies, for our constitutional rights and privileges, we recommend to your consideration the state of our suffering fellow-subjects, the Roman Catholics of this kingdom, whose emancipation from the

L

The very introduction of these liberal and tolerant ideas into the preliminary proceedings frightened off the leading men of the old Volunteers.

In an address presented by the Ulster corps to the general, the Earl of Charlemont, after some strong expressions of their detestation of aristocratic tyranny, they hinted at the necessity of calling in the aid of the Catholics, as the most just as well as effectual means of opposing it with success. In answer to this address, the Earl of Charlemont lamented that, for the first time, he felt himself obliged to differ from them in sentiment. He was free from every illiberal prejudice against the Catholics, and full of goodwill towards that very respectable body, but he could not refrain from the most ardent entreaties, that they would desist from a pursuit that would fatally clog and impede the prosecution of their favourite purpose.

As this nobleman was highly and deservedly respected, his opinion was eagerly embraced, both by the timid, whose apprehensions were alarmed at the bold extent of the project, and by a great number whose prejudices against the Catholics appear to have been suspended from conveniency or fashion though never conquered by principle. In the month of October, the thanks of the corporation of the city of Dublin were voted him for his conduct on that occasion.

The meeting of a National Congress was a measure of too alarming a nature not to attract the most serious attention of Government; and it appears to have been their resolution to take the most vigorous steps for preventing it if possible. A few days previous to that which was fixed for the election of delegates for the city of Dublin, the attorney-general addressed a letter to the sheriffs, expressing his very great surprise at having read a summons signed by them calling a meeting for the purpose in question. He observed, that by this proceeding they had been guilty of a most outrageous breach of their duty; and that if they proceeded, they