CHAPTER VI.

THE REVOLT OF THE COLONY. A.D. 1775-1779.

ENGLAND had done her best to ruin her Protestant colony in Ireland. She had starved its manufactures, destroyed its trade, made a farce of its legislature, billeted all her disreputable dependants upon its revenues; and in order to maintain her grasp, she had shamefully plundered it and spent the money in corrupting the guardians of its interests.

She had, besides the colony in Ireland, a colony planted on the eastern shores of the North American continent which had come into existence principally through the misconduct of the mother country. New England was the outcome of the bigotry of the Established Church, and was peopled by Puritan and Quaker emigrants, who had fled from persecution. The flow of emigration had been largely fed from Ulster. From the Restoration onward in an intermittent stream, thousands of Presbyterian families had been driven by the bishops from the Irish colony to the colony across the Atlantic, and more recently the numbers had been augmented by the farmers who had been evicted

by their greedy absentee landlords. Notwithstanding bygones, the North American colonists were loyal subjects of King George, and had rendered material assistance in the reduction of the neighbouring French colony of the Canadas in the late war. That war had rolled up the English national debt to the figure of one hundred and fifty millions, and George Grenville and Charles Townshend had not unreasonably expected that the colonies, in whose defence a large part of the expenditure had been incurred, should contribute towards the payment of the interest. Had they asked them to make a grant for the purpose they would have cheerfully complied, but the pride, prejudice, prestige, and what not, of Great Britain required the acknowledgment of the principle that the mother country had the right to lay her taxes on her colonies, without consulting them or their representatives; and the quarrel thus begun in 1764 culminated in 1775 in an appeal to arms.

The English colony in Ireland were watching the issue with intense interest. Their position was in many respects similar to that of the Americans; only their case was far harder. Close under the elbow of England, their chances of successful resistance were slender, for England could pour in troops at a moment's notice, and blockade their harbours with her fleet. But as events moved on the scene began to shift. The Americans, beaten at first as had been expected, carried on a Fabian war, and then the surrender of Burgoyne took place at Saratoga. France, who was burning to revenge herself for the loss of her colonies, came to the assistance of the

revolted Americans, and declared war against England. Spain soon after joined the league, and every ship and man which England could spare was doubly wanted in this formidable struggle.

The

It never seems to have occurred to English statesmen that the English colony in Ireland could be dangerous. Up to the last moment their interests were sacrificed to those of the stronger island. Upon the pretence of overawing the Whiteboys, the army had been raised from twelve to fifteen thousand men; but the extra three thousand had never been employed in Ireland. The troops quartered there, numbered on paper twelve thousand men, but of these over four thousand had been drafted off to America, and the actual strength of the depleted regiments which remained was but three thousand men in all. army serving against the colonists was to be victualled from Ireland, and in order that the Government should be able to buy salted meat cheap, the Irish farmers were deliberately excluded from any other market by the laying of an embargo upon the export of provisions from all the Irish ports. The consequence of the embargo was that wide-spread ruin fell upon the farmers, and that the trade in cured beef was transferred to other countries. The American war had put a stop to the declining linen trade between Ireland and the colonies, and this brought disaster upon the operatives of the north. England had broken her engagements, even in respect to the linen trade. For when she destroyed the manufacture of woollen cloth, she promised that the manufacture of hemp and flax should be encouraged

and protected; and yet she had done her best to cripple it by giving bounties to her own linen manufacturers and levying duties on imported Irish sail-cloth, which had simply had the effect of driving the trade elsewhere. The artisans in the towns and the labourers in the country were alike starving and supported on charity. Rents were unpaid, and land offered at fourteen years' purchase found no buyers. The revenue dwindled. The exchequer was empty. The projected loans were not responded to. The pension-list, which exceeded the whole charge of the civil establishments, had doubled in twenty years and now stood at £90,000. The coast was wholly unprotected. Paul Jones was swooping down upon the Irish harbours, pillaging, sinking, and cutting out vessels. The fortifications were crumbling to pieces. The channel was swarming with swift French and American privateers, which captured merchantmen and plundered the mail vessels with impunity.

Amidst all this misery and insolvency the fortunes of the American rebels were eagerly watched; and freedom of trade, as the only remedy for the deplorable state into which Ireland had sunk, was beginning to take shape as a popular demand. At the general election in 1775, the Government had striven hard to extend its influence. Five viscounts were advanced to earldoms, seven barons to viscounties, and no less than eighteen new barons were made in one day, who promised to support the Government in the Upper House, and to secure pliant voters in the scats which they vacated. But the importunity of public opinion was becoming too

strong to be resisted. The excitement of the people grew day by day more formidable. The cry out of doors was emphasized in Parliament by the purified Patriot party, now led, since Flood's defection, by the unsullied Henry Grattan.

The war was carried into England; and Lord Nugent and Edmund Burke, in the English House of Commons, moved that a committee of the whole House should consider the trade of Ireland. Five resolutions in favour of allowing certain relaxations were carried, but when a bill was brought in to give them effect, so great was the clamour of Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, and Bristol, that nothing remained of it but the removal of the embargo, and permission to export to Africa and the West Indies all home products except wool, woollen and cotton goods, hats, glass, hops, gunpowder, and coals!* Lord North, however, was alarmed at the rising storm. He cast his eyes upon the Roman Catholics in hopes of finding a counterpoise to the mutinous Protestants, and endeavoured to draw the people off the scent by promoting in the Irish Parliament some bills for Roman Catholic relief. In 1764, leave to bring in a bill to enable Roman Catholics to advance money on a mortgage of frecholds had been summarily rejected; and in 1771 the magnificent concession was made to them of permission to hold long leases of fifty acres of bog for reclamation provided it was not within a mile of any city or town. And now, in 1778,‡ a more substantial act English Statutes, 18 Geo. III., c. 55.

† 11, 12 Geo. III., c. 21.

17, 18 Geo. III., c. 49.