A History of Ireland.

Volume 2

by Eleanor Hull

1931

XIV.—GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT

The grant of independence did not suffice to check the corruption of Parliament. It was still formed of a purely Protestant oligarchy, whose boroughs were regarded as private property, generally of considerable money value, and who sold their interest, when it suited their convenience, to the Government. There was no real or open election; seats were purchased from their owners for large sums of money. In 1790, eight years after the grant of independence, Grattan, speaking in the Commons, had still to confess that "above two-thirds of the returns to the House are private property; of those returns, many actually are sold to the minister; the number of placemen and pensioners sitting here equals near one-half of the whole efficient body, the increase of that number within the last twenty years is greater than all the counties in Ireland. The country is placed in a sort of interval between the cessation of a system of oppression and the formation of a system of corruption."[1]

[1] Speeches of Grattan, p. 154.
If English dominance over Parliament had ceased with the passing of Grattan's Bill, ministerial influence was as active as ever in corrupting Members. During 1783 a number of meetings of delegates of the Volunteers held in Cork, Lurgan and Belfast, formulated plans for the prosecution of Parliamentary reform, the shortening of the duration of Parliaments, a tax on absenteeism, the exclusion of pensioners, and the limiting of the number of placemen. All these were useful proposals but so varied that, as Lord Charlemont feared, the principal measure was likely to be lost sight of in the multitude of subjects to be attacked. At his suggestion the secondary measures were dropped, and at a meeting at Dungannon which was called to organise a Convention in Dublin, a resolution was taken to call Members from the provinces to digest and publish a plan for Parliamentary reform. A proposal to demand the concession to Catholics of the elective franchise was brought forward and, though it was postponed, it was a plain indication of the unifying influences of the late measures that such a proposition should have been discussed at a representative meeting almost entirely composed of Ulster Presbyterians. But for Lord Charlemont's opposition it might have gone further, but on this point he held the strong prejudices of his day. A number of influential delegates were chosen as representative of different opinions, and on November 10, 1783, the Convention met in Dublin. The Royal Exchange proving to be too small for the number of delegates, they marched across to the Rotunda with Lord Charlemont, as their Chairman, leading the way, while the streets were lined by Volunteers. The city presented a splendid and stirring aspect, the detachments of county corps which accompanied their respective delegates having new accoutrements and ensigns of great variety, and the streets being full of well-mounted cavalry officers.

The most remarkable figure was that of Frederick, Bishop of Derry and Earl of Bristol, son of Lord Harvey, one of a family equally noted for talents and for eccentricity. He had applied at different times for the diverse posts of the Bishopric of Durham and the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland; he was now chagrined that he had not been elected president of the Convention. It was said of him that "he preferred the Church Militant to any other form of church," and his progress from his diocese was made at every stage with warlike honours. He rode up to the Rotunda in a coach and six, dressed in purple, and escorted by a troop of dragoons on magnificent horses. Trumpets announced his coining, and the Bishop passed along the streets bowing like a potentate on every hand. He entered the Rotunda just as the members of the Convention were proceeding to business, saluted them with dignity, took his seat, and then retired in the same majestic style, leaving the house breathless at the apparition. But on the ensuing days he acted with the zealous and earnest attention of a man of business. Anxious to make his influence felt in opposition to Charlemont and Grattan, he put forward Flood, whose eloquence soon gained for him a paramount influence in the assembly. The chairman was besieged by plans of reform from "every speculatist, great clerks or no clerks at all" throughout the country, but eventually Flood's proposals were adopted and a number of delegates who were possessed of borough properties declared, from a variety of motives, that they were ready to relinquish them for the benefit of the nation. The Bishop of Derry wished the Catholics to be included, but was resisted by Flood and the friends of Lord Charlemont.

Before the Convention began, the Irish Parliament had assembled and was then actually sitting. Flood, impatient of delay, rose in the Convention to propose that he and the other members should at once present their plan of reform in the shape of a Bill, adding to this proposition the suggestion "that the Convention should not adjourn till the fate of his motion was ascertained." It was to be a demand made as from one equal authority to another, backed by a display of armed force. As such, the Chairman strongly resisted it; he felt that it would put the Volunteers in the wrong; nevertheless, Flood gained his point and on the night of November 29 he carried his motion down to the House. A scene of tremendous agitation followed. Flood led the attack with fire and fearlessness, and was replied to by the Attorney-General, Barry Yelverton, later to become Viscount Avonmore, who had been a zealous Volunteer, and who now, at the close of a speech of great argumentative power, appealed to that body to rest on the honours they had gained and the good work they had done. Sir Hercules Langrishe argued in the same strain, and even Grattan, though he prayed that leave might be given to Flood to bring in his Bill, did not speak with his wonted assurance. The Convention, through Flood's hasty action, had succeeded in placing itself in antagonism to its own Parliament, and this the Members were determined to resist. The motion "that the House will maintain its just rights and privileges against all encroachments whatsoever" was proof of this feeling, and the refusal to bring in the Bill was carried by a two-thirds majority, the numbers being 159 to 77. Lord Charlemont, torn by indecision and timidity, two days later determined to dissolve the Convention, after passing a hasty address of loyalty to the King. That the questions which had proved so agitating within the walls of Parliament and of the Rotunda found little echo in the country was shown in the elections which had preceded the Convention by only three months, when members of the party which had so recently won independence had great difficulty in finding seats. Even Flood could hardly secure election, and Grattan was returned as before for the private borough of Charlemont. The great moment of the Volunteers was passed, though it was long before they were dissolved. But the Parliament that they had helped to render more free passed a number of useful measures, of which the independence of the judges, the limiting of the Mutiny Act to two years, the repeal of Poynings' Law, and the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act were among the most important.

In the following years, 1784-85, Parliament discussed the important commercial propositions in a spirit of liberty which had long been absent from the debates of the House, and they showed considerable mastery of the subject and dexterity in dealing with it. But on the point of greatest importance no advance was made. It proved impossible to induce the Houses of Parliament, even under the new conditions, to reform themselves. Strong as was the desire for reform in every part of the country, the vested interests were too powerful to be overcome. In vain Flood introduced his Reform Bill and the counties presented petitions pointing out that the existing Parliament in no way represented the people but was for the most part "illegally returned" by a few large borough-holders, who sold seats for prices "as well ascertained as those of the cattle in the fields." Neither the great body of the Catholics or of the Presbyterian yeomanry of the North, who formed the bulk of the Volunteers, were represented within the walls of the Parliament they had helped to liberate. Flood had to withdraw his motion. His Reform Bill of March, 1785, though supported by petitions from twenty-six counties and defended with moderation and good sense, was rejected almost with contempt by a majority of seventy-four. It began to be felt that reform could only be attained by means of revolution.

Even more than Parliamentary Reform the subject of the commercial relations between England and Ireland and trade protection agitated the country. Though Irish manufactures were reviving consequent on the liberty of colonial trade recently granted, there had still been severe distress in 1783-84, and a proclamation that oats, oatmeal, and barley were not to be exported led to riots and unemployment owing to the rise in food prices. Resolutions in favour of protecting duties were now introduced, supported by Sir Edward Newenham and argued with great ability. There was no sign of hostility to England, the promoters stating that their interest arose from commiseration for the condition of the poor inhabitants and not from any party spirit or factious motive whatsoever. "There was, in the eyes of the Irish merchants, a radical error in their commercial system, which it was necessary for their legislature to remove. If England and all Europe adopted protective duties it was essential for Ireland, if she were to hold her place in the world's markets to adopt the same policy." Foster, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, opposed the motion, but he was the author in the same year of an Act which, by granting large bounties on the exportation of corn and imposing heavy duties on its importation, had a most beneficial effect on agriculture in Ireland, and turned it in large part from a pastoral into an arable country, thus increasing employment and stimulating trade. Newenham describes Foster's Corn Law of 1784 as incomparably the most beneficent Irish measure of the eighteenth century, especially to small farmers and labourers. To it was chiefly ascribed the increasing prosperity of the country districts and the cessation of acute distress.[2]

[2] Newenham, View of the Natural, Political, and Commercial Circumstances of Ireland (1809), pp. 215-216; Lecky, History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1892), ii, 384-390.
The whole question of the commercial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, however, awaited fuller consideration, especially in reference to the new relations subsisting between the two Parliaments. The increasing extravagance with which the expenditure of the country was conducted, particularly during the term of office of the Duke of Rutland as Viceroy, made the matter more than ever urgent. Pitt had come into office in 1783, when the coalition of Fox with North came to an end, and Rutland was sent to Ireland with Thomas Orde as Chief Secretary. In spite of the changed position of the Irish Parliament ministers were, as before, appointed by the English Government to express their views and were entirely devoted to the interests of their superiors; Irish officials and Members of Parliament looked to them as much as ever for favour and preferment, and the long hand of English authority stretched over every department of the State. The change had, at best, been only the triumph of a party; it could in no way pretend to be a national gain. The country at large was still unrepresented and the habit of "supporting the King's Government" was common enough among the Members to ensure on all ordinary occasions a large Government majority. Sinecures and jobbing were increasing to a frightful extent. Fitzgibbon, who believed that there was no other method of government for Ireland, openly confessed that on one occasion half a million had been expended to secure an address to Lord Townshend. The pension for life bestowed on "single-speech Hamilton" of £2,500 on the Irish funds, in return for his resignation of the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he had treated purely as a sinecure, was only one of the worst examples of scandals that were constantly occurring. The pension list now amounted to £94,000 a year; considerably more than that of England. In spite of the increasing prosperity of the country the expenditure largely exceeded the revenue. The magnificent establishment set up in Dublin by the new Viceroy, an amiable and convivial but incompetent man, increased the extravagance of the courtiers, and was reflected in the habits of the general body of the citizens; the splendour of the city and the profuse indulgence of the gentry in pleasure ill accorded with the pecuniary condition of the inhabitants.

With the change in the ministry the question of the commercial relations came prominently to the front. Thomas Orde, the new Chief Secretary, had brought over with him the basis of a commercial treaty, the result of a previous correspondence with Pitt, which was laid before the Irish Parliament on February 7, 1785, in the form of eleven articles. It was Pitt's view that a perpetual free trade between the two countries was the only certain way of avoiding constant wars of hostile tariffs. His proposals led in this direction; they included the abolition of prohibitions and the equalization of duties, with the discontinuance of bounties on goods intended for either country, except foodstuffs. In return for these benefits the final article of the treaty provided that, whenever during times of peace the revenue produced more than the sum of £656,000, the surplus should go toward the support of the Navy, in whose protection Ireland participated without any liability for its cost. Grattan amended this article in accordance with his principle that this contribution should only be made when income exceeded expenditure. In this sense he added the clause: "After the expense of the nation is paid, to contribute to the general expenses of the Empire." But the treaty was accepted with little opposition, the Irish having in commercial dealings with the neighbouring country shown themselves consistently fair and reasonable. Foster at the same time moved for a reduction in expenditure, and additional taxes were voted to enable Ireland to carry out its part in the transaction.

The country had suffered so much from restrictions that a considerable party welcomed the idea of free trade with England. But in England the proposals, which were introduced by Pitt on February 22, encountered the most formidable opposition from the party of Fox and North, who denounced them as the ruin of English commerce, and from the manufacturing cities and Chambers of Commerce all over the kingdom. Petitions, led by Lord Liverpool, poured in, and amendments were made which increased the original propositions from eleven to twenty. These additions debarred Ireland from trading directly with any part of the world beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, and from importing any goods from India except through Great Britain. All Navigation Laws, of the past or future, in force in England, were to be accepted in Ireland without modification. Such proposals were clearly incompatible with the independence of the Irish Parliament and were very far from giving her equal trade rights, for the conditions in the two countries were so different that the operation of the laws would be most unequal. Sheridan and Fox denounced Pitt's proposals on the double ground of their danger to British commerce and to Irish liberty. "I will not," exclaimed Fox, "barter English commerce for Irish slavery; that is not the price I would pay, nor is this the thing I would purchase." The propositions were returned to Dublin in their amended form only to meet with a fiery resentment. Grattan, Flood, and Curran, the latter a young barrister soon to be better known, denounced a measure which in Grattan's words involved "a surrender of trade in the East and of freedom in the West." The Bill had to be withdrawn amid public illuminations which testified to the public anxiety. Ireland continued to make her own trading regulations; and Lord Westmoreland, who became Lord-Lieutenant in 1790, testified that since the failure of Pitt's propositions "no restraint or duty has been laid upon British produce or manufacture to prejudice their sale in this country or to grasp at any advantage to articles of Irish manufacture...The utmost harmony subsisted in the commerce of the two kingdoms." [3]

[3] Westmoreland to W. Grenville (private) November 10, 1790.
A question even more important to Ireland than the commercial one stimulated the determination to reject the propositions. From time to time the ominous word "Union" had been heard in the discussions of statesmen and mentioned in their correspondence; even in letters of ministers like Rockingham which dealt with legislative independence, words of ambiguous meaning had been dropped, and some passages in Pitt's commercial speeches could hardly have any other interpretation. Phrases like "the fundamental principle and the only one on which the plan can be justified...in that for the future the two countries will be to the most essential purposes united," were watched and repeated with a natural apprehension. Another matter forced the question to the front. In the autumn of 1788 the King's mind gave way, and the question of the regency came under discussion in both Parliaments. In England it was disputed whether or not the Prince of Wales should be appointed Regent or had an inherent right to the position. The question became a party matter between Pitt and Fox, and their dissensions were transferred to Dublin, accompanied by liberal offers of place and payment to those who would sell their influence.

The Irish Members seem to have thought it a fair opportunity to assert their right to an independent opinion, and without waiting for the English Parliament to act they moved an address to the Prince in both Houses, praying him to accept the Regency of Ireland "during the continuation of his Majesty's present indisposition and no longer...under the style and title of Prince Regent of Ireland." The Viceroy having refused to transmit their petition, they appointed a deputation to wait on the Prince and present the address. The speedy restoration of the King to health and the good sense of the Prince averted further difficulties; the Members returned with a feeling that the Irish legislature had been premature but that their reception had been kindly. Into the numerous subtle questions of constitutional practice involved by the regency question it is unnecessary to enter here; party leaders wished to snatch from the position advantages each for his own side. That the Irish Members exceeded their constitutional powers seems clear; they used the occasion as an opportunity to enforce their claim to act independently of any decision come to in England, and fought out this claim with excited feeling. The fact that to the Irish the person of the Sovereign was the sole acknowledged link between the two kingdoms made the matter of the regency one of special importance to Ireland, and the traditional loyalty of the Irish gentry was shocked at the proposals that were being made in England to limit the powers of the Regent or to assert that any other but the Prince of Wales was eligible to occupy that office.

In this discussion a leading part on the Government side was taken by Fitzgibbon, who had in 1783 been appointed Attorney-General,[4] and who later, as Lord Clare, was to become the leading figure in Ireland in the carrying of the Union. Fitzgibbon was the second son of a merchant in Dublin who had been educated as a priest, but who "verted" and became a barrister and made a large fortune in that profession. The son had been educated as a Dublin University man at the same time as Grattan, Foster, and Robert Day. Grattan at this time liked him and spoke of him as "good-humoured and sensible, improving much upon intimacy."

[4] Largely through the personal influence of Grattan, who had cause afterwards to regret his advocacy of Fitzgibbon. Life and Times of Henry Grattan, by his son, iii, 202, and n.
It is perhaps the best point in a strange character that Fitzgibbon seems to have formed a high opinion of Grattan, "whom," he says, in a speech in 1785, "I am proud to call my most worthy and honourable friend; the man to whom this country owes more than, perhaps, any state ever owed to any individual; the man whose wisdom and virtue directed the happy circumstances of these times and the spirit of Irishmen to make us a nation." The fact that he could appreciate Grattan's honesty of purpose might predispose us to think Fitzgibbon honest; but his acts show him to have been willing to barter his principles and ruthlessly to crush his friends when the incitements of promotion and place allured him to oppose them. Thus the man who did most to force the Union upon the people he called his nation, had exclaimed in 1785 when the Union was mentioned: "Who will talk of Union now? If such a thing were proposed to me, I would fling my office in the man's face." Though coming of a Catholic family, he spoke and acted like the incarnation of the Protestant ascendancy party, and until 1793, when he argued against but voted for the franchise for Catholics, he opposed every measure brought forward for their relief. It was chiefly his obstruction that brought to an end Pitt's intention to carry Catholic emancipation concurrently with the Union. As a young Parliamentarian, Fitzgibbon had supported Grattan's independence policy and he had declared in 1782 that "he had always been of opinion that the claim of the British Parliament to make laws for this country is a daring usurpation of the rights of a free people." "That little man that talked so big would vote for a Union, aye, to-morrow," was the remark of a prescient friend who listened to his protest against the measure. Dr. Hill, Regius Professor of Medicine in Trinity College, Dublin, says of him: "I watched Fitzgibbon's conduct for years, in court and out of it, to friends and foes, to sycophants and expectants; and I came to a clear conclusion that he hated and strove to hurt any man who had any pretensions to honesty and ability." Sir Jonah Barrington thought him "the greatest enemy Ireland ever had."[5] This was the man whose influence was to be almost supreme in Ireland during the years of the rebellion and the Union. That he was a man of ability there is no doubt. Frequently, his judgments of contemporary events and persons were more far-seeing and just than those of his companions in the Ministry, and his speeches, in particular his speech on the passing of the Union, are worthy of careful consideration; but he held in an extreme form the corrupt political notions of his day, and he viewed the prevalent system of governing for the exclusive benefit of "the Protestant garrison" as the only sound method of rule in Ireland. He was the main cause of the withdrawal of Fitzwilliam in 1795, and of the rebellion which followed his recall.[6]

[5] Sir Jonah Barrington, Personal Sketches of his own times, 3rd Ed. (1869), i, p. 183n.
[6] Clare was not liked in England. His support of torture and his arrogant bearing were not approved of. Pitt, on one occasion, after hearing him speak, exclaimed to a friend beside him "Did you ever hear such a rascal!"
Meanwhile, opinion was advancing in various parts of the country, and with particular rapidity in Ulster, on the question of Catholic relief. It was powerful enough to distract attention from the urgency of reform. Recent events had worked in favour of the Catholic claims. "Their uniform peaceable behaviour during a long series of years" had been the acknowledged cause of the removal of disabilities in 1778, and their interest in Irish independence and in the Volunteers had aroused a general feeling that it was unjust that the largest part of the population should be excluded from all participation in the affairs of their own country. The fact that they formed the great majority of the population, which should have been felt to be a reason for special consideration, had been made the pretext for their exclusion from political influence. Fear and jealousy on the part of the ruling class had brought about this perversion of justice. Even Sir Hercules Langrishe, who was in favour of full religious and educational equality, of throwing open the profession of the law, of removing the limits placed on the number of their apprentices in order to allow them to undertake large industrial businesses, and of permitting intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants, and full and equal land-ownership, hesitated to admit them to the franchise or to seats in Parliament; and, though all other measures of relief were granted by Luke Gardiner's [7] Bill in 1782 and by Langrishe's own Bill in 1792, the question of the franchise was still fiercely contested. The leaders of the patriotic party themselves were deeply divided on the point. Charlemont maintained a conservative attitude of the most unbending character; but led by Grattan and Curran, and supported by an increasing part of the best intellect of the country, the feeling of the Protestants made rapid strides toward a solution of the problem. The leading part taken by the Presbyterians of Belfast should never be forgotten. They had stood at the head of the demand for legislative independence in 1782 and had won it for Ireland; they now showed themselves equally enlightened and broad-minded in regard to their Catholic fellow-subjects.

[7] Afterwards Lord Mountjoy.
In 1792 John O'Neal presented a petition signed by six hundred men of position in Belfast praying for the repeal of all penal and restrictive laws against the Catholics, and asked that Catholics should be placed on the same footing as their Protestant fellow-countrymen. Co. Antrim sent up a similar petition signed by 350 Protestant gentlemen and clergy. Help came from unexpected quarters. The eccentric Bishop of Derry, who had made himself conspicuous in volunteering and in the struggle for independence, came forward as a vigorous partisan of Catholic relief, He would have admitted Catholics to all offices, including Parliament. He spoke of himself as an example of "the rare consistency of a Protestant bishop, who feels it his duty and has made it his practice to venerate in others that inalienable exercise of private judgment which he and his ancestors claimed for themselves." His views, energetically announced, made themselves felt in Derry among all classes, and the Presbytery in 1784 had expressed "their perfect approbation of the liberality of his Lordship's religious sentiments." The Protestant Bishop of Killala, Dr. Law, was of the same opinion and denounced the Popery Laws. The powerful advocacy of Burke, which had from his early years been always raised against the monstrosity of the Penal Laws, had found expression in 1782 in his Letter to a Peer in Ireland; in 1792, when the matter was again attracting public attention, he wrote his celebrated Letter to Sir Hercules Langrish. Nor was Dublin University behindhand. When Grattan, in 1792, discussed in Parliament the admission of Catholics into Trinity College and their right to become professors of non-controversial subjects the motion was supported by the Hon. Denis Browne and other officials of the College, and the question was debated with moderation and good feeling The Provost, John Hely Hutchinson, went even farther, and supported John Egan's motion for giving them the franchise.

But, in the towns especially, there was a violent party whose resistance had to be overcome. When Grattan took up the matter he was met by protests from the Dublin Corporation. They said they would have "a Protestant king of Ireland, a Protestant Parliament, a Protestant hierarchy, Protestant electors, and a Protestant Government; the benches of justice, the army and revenue through all their branches and details Protestant; and this system supported by a connexion with the Protestant realm of England."

Against such a blank wall of public opinion progress had necessarily to be slow. In 1792 resolutions were passed all over the country against giving the elective franchise to Catholics. Petitions went up from the grand juries of Mayo, Sligo, Meath, Cork, and many other counties, largely through the efforts of the boroughmongers. "To give the franchise was to give everything, for everything follows the franchise," was the general sentiment. Yet it was to the Protestants, especially of the North, that emancipation was eventually due. The remarkable fact is that the Catholics of the upper classes at this time, both clergy and laity, stood absolutely aloof. They seemed to dislike any sort of agitation and to distrust any appeal. During the Whiteboy riots of 1779 the Catholic Church had supported all efforts of the Government to put down the rioters; the bishops had sharply denounced the disturbers of the peace and admonished them to return to their homes. A sentence of excommunication was pronounced in the churches of Ossory against "those deluded offenders, scandalous and rotten members of our Holy Church," by Dr. Troy, then Catholic Bishop of the diocese, and others of the bishops adopted the same attitude. He used the same threat in 1784.[8] In the early agitation for their own liberties the Catholics remained absolutely quiescent. There was, in fact, no cohesion between the different classes of the Catholic population. The Catholic lords were high Tories, aristocratic and almost obsequiously loyal, hating the middle classes, and resisting all attempts made to induce them to coalesce with them for public purposes.

[8] Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland, vol. ii, Pt. II, Appendix lxxiv.
Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, Co. Roscommon, complains bitterly of the "more than Protestant severity" of the Catholic landowners. He despaired of getting them or the hierarchy to help the Catholic Association to struggle for the rights of their people. "Despair or indifference or unmeaning motives have arrested their hands," he writes despondingly to Dr. Curry in February 1761. As to the clergy, "Will it be overlooked," he complains, "that our ecclesiastics to a man have been entirely passive in the prosecution of this measure?"[9] In the meantime, the Catholics were pouring out addresses of loyalty expressive of their gratitude for the relaxation of the laws already given, and disclaiming, evidently with perfect sincerity, any wish to press further measures other than "the circumstances of the time and the general welfare of the Empire shall render prudent and expedient." Lord Fingall, the leading Catholic nobleman of Ireland and one who was respected by all classes, writes in 1803: "The Catholic is ready at this moment to sacrifice his life, his property, everything dear to him, in support of the present constitution...He wishes no other family on the throne; no other constitution; but certainly he wishes to be admitted, whenever it may be deemed expedient, to a full share in the benefits and blessings of that happy constitution under which we live..."[10] This was the farthest that he would go.

[9] Thomas Wyse, Historical Sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (1829), 72, note, 59-60.
[10] Correspondence between Lord Redesdale and the Earl of Fingall on the Catholic question (1804). John F. Mitford, Lord Redesdale, became Lord Chancellor of Ireland on the death of Lord Clare. He was severely and justly criticized in the House of Commons by Canning and Fox for the tone of his letters to Lord Fingall.
To us to-day, Catholic devotion to a Constitution from the benefits of which they were rigidly excluded seems a piece of cynicism, particularly when we recall the view taken by George III. on Catholic Emancipation; but it undoubtedly expressed the opinion of the leading Catholic gentry of that day. They had no wish to see the franchise given to the ignorant and easily misled peasantry. Already in 1784 a number of men of low type were entering the Volunteer Corps, with the immediate effect of loosening its hitherto strict discipline, and causing the rank and file to fall out of control. The "Liberty Corps" enlisted from Lord Meath's "Liberties," a district which was a centre of the woollen manufacture, admitted about two hundred of these low-class recruits, with the result that several other corps refused to join with them.

Nevertheless, a remarkable unanimity prevailed among large sections of the people during the early years of the short life of the Irish independent Parliament. For a brief period, Ireland showed that the conception of an Irish nation was one not incapable of being realized. Grattan's question "whether Ireland shall be an English settlement or an Irish nation" was, indeed, only half answered, for the reins of authority were still held by English hands; but among the bulk of the inhabitants, old Irish and new Irish, there arose a feeling of unity which might well be hailed as the birth of a true national sense hitherto unknown in the country.

Where Grattan led, the people were ready to follow, North and South alike. Catholics and Protestants were interested in the extension of freedom to Catholics. The appointment in August, 1790, of Edmund Burke's son as secretary of the Catholic Committee greatly strengthened their hands, not on account of any energy or talent he showed in carrying through its plans but for the influence which his father's high moral position in England brought to bear on its interests. In that country Burke's strong Protestant sympathies and his conservatism of mind, combined with his frequently expressed horror of the lines of development now being taken by the French Revolution, made his espousal of the cause of the Catholics all the more effective, for it accentuated the expressions of devotion to the English Constitution so frequently put forth by the Catholic party. The debate in the House in 1792, though it did not result in a favourable vote, had led a large number of the Protestant gentry to examine the subject more gravely than they had ever done before, and many who had previously opposed now supported the Catholic cause.

The Catholic Committee, taking advantage of this modification of public opinion, now sent in a number of documents stating their views. They had produced a report in February, 1791, couched in moderate terms and praying "in all humility, that the justice, liberality, and wisdom of Parliament, and the benignity of our most gracious sovereign would relieve them from their degraded position and no longer suffer them to continue like strangers in their native land."[11] They published also a general exposition of their tenets, repudiating the notion, so commonly believed at the time, that they held that "no faith was to be kept with heretics" or that princes excommunicated by the Pope or by any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever might be deposed by their subjects. They also declared that they upheld the Acts of Settlement and made no claim to lands now possessed by Protestants, and that before any Catholic was admitted to the franchise he should be obliged to take an oath to uphold and defend the property of the country as now established.[12] Their dignified and constitutional action was not without effect. Lord Kenmare, Lord Fingall, Lord Gormanston and Lord ffrench, who had withdrawn from the Association, fearing that it was likely to adopt a disloyal attitude, rejoined the Committee, which was reorganized in 1793. Unfortunately, they seldom appeared at its meetings. It fell into the hands of the steadily growing wealthy middle-class of merchants, with John Keogh as their leader. It was estimated that the Association represented a million of money; one member alone paid £100,000 a year to the revenue.

[11] F. Hardy, Life of Charlemont, ii, 261.
[12] Ibid., ii, 288.
The Presbyterians of Ulster steadily supported their proposals, and, despairing of any response from the Government in Dublin, it was decided to appeal direct to the King and his English advisers. When the deputation passed through Belfast on their way to London the Protestant populace drew their carriages through the streets, and the chief inhabitants offered them hospitality. It was an inspiring moment and the country at large felt it to be so. Their reception in London, where Grattan and Lord Moira were working in their behalf, was gracious, and when the Irish Parliament met in January 1793 the members were electrified to hear the Viceroy read out a command from the King recommending them to give serious attention to the condition of his Catholic subjects.[13] The debate was opened by an address of loyalty to the King, after which Grattan made a strong speech attacking the corruption of the Government. While thanking his Majesty for having come forward at a critical moment "to heal the political dissensions of his people on account of religion," he held that reform in Parliament must accompany the concession of the Catholic claims. The Chief Secretary reported after the debate that "concessions to the Catholics will certainly be acceded to by all parties to an extent which last year nothing could have effected," and he ascribed this startling change in opinion to the passing of similar laws of relief in England, to the fears inspired by the advance of revolutionary ideas in France, and to the success of French arms and the probability of war. In Ireland the time was propitious.

[13] Parliamentary Register, xiii, 3, 94.
The country at large now supported emancipation and felt that the perils which they had always associated with the idea of Popery were to all intents and purposes extinct; that, on the contrary, the Catholics as a whole were shewing themselves to be a conservative body, strongly averse to the new and, as they believed, dangerous teachings that were heralding the birth of the French Revolution across the Channel. Such sentiments as those expressed by Colonel Hutchinson: "The Catholics will forget to be bigots as soon as the Protestants cease to be persecutors," found an echo among large sections of the population. On February 4 Chief Secretary Hobart brought in a Bill proposing to give an equal franchise to the Catholics as to the Protestants both in town and country; to admit them to grand and petty juries; to give them the right to sit as civic magistrates and of voting at their election; to give them authority to endow schools and colleges and to take degrees at Dublin University; to allow them to carry arms and to hold all posts and offices, military and civil, with a few specified exceptions. For more than five weeks this important measure was debated in the House. Its most violent opponent was Dr. Duigenan, who belonged to a Catholic family, but now held the post of Professor of law in Dublin University, a coarse but able man who all his life through viciously attacked the religion of his birth. George Ogle and David La Touche also opposed; and Speaker Foster took the same side, though rather as a question of expediency than from any ill-feeling toward his fellow-countrymen. He thought the time not ripe, and declared that "the race for the Catholics" between the English and Irish Parliaments was merely a political move, in which the Irish Parliament had been outrun.

Sir George Ponsonby's contention that the Catholics would not rest content with half measures, but if relieved at all must receive full equality, even if it were resisted by the Catholic aristocracy themselves, carried weight in the House. His appeal that the Government measure should be put aside and a full measure of equality be introduced ended with the words: "They are Irish and I am Irish, and with the prosperity or adversity of our common country will I rise or fall." This determined attitude from a man of great influence in the House aroused the indignation of the Ministerial party, whose hands had been forced by the declaration in the King's speech, but who had nevertheless been busily occupied before Parliament met in sowing seeds of suspicion toward the Catholics in the counties and corporations in order to induce resistance to the efforts for their relief. But the question had passed out of the hands of the oligarchy who had controlled it for so long. "Give the Catholics the pride of privilege," cried Sir Hercules Langrishe, "and you will give them the principle of attachment; admit them within the walls of the constitution, and they will defend them."[14] Among those who in the Upper House were in favour of the bestowal of full rights were Lord Abercorn and the Duke of Leinster. The question became inseparably mingled with the struggle for reform, no reform of the House of Commons being complete, as was felt by an increasing section of the party, without the admission of representatives of the bulk of the population. Though this final step was to be reserved for a future day the Catholic gentry received at this time, along with the franchise, very substantial relief which affected all parts of their lives and opened to them avenues of education, influence, and position to which they had long been strangers. But the measures were conceded only with what Langrishe called an "acrimonious unanimity"; and moderate men lamented that so great an Act of liberty should have been accompanied by every expression of distrust toward the people whom it was designed to relieve.[15] It was impossible that such an attitude should not rankle in the minds of the emancipated Catholics.

[14] These debates are fully reported in the Parliamentary Register, vol. xiii. For the general history of Catholic Emancipation in England and Ireland, the works of Monsignor Bernard Ward are of the first importance. A smaller book by Denis Gwynn deals more definitely with the Irish side of the question.
[15] F. Hardy, Life of Lord Charlemont, ii, 299. He was probably referring to the speech of the Chancellor, Lord Fitzgibbon.
The effect of giving the vote to every forty-shilling freeholder, without bestowing at the same time the power of Parliamentary representation on the Catholic gentry was in the first instance to increase enormously the elective influence of the Protestant landlords, whose whole tenantry became voters without the possibility of returning one of their own faith to Parliament. The dangers of so low a franchise had been pointed out in the course of the debates. It practically gave the vote to every cottier and most of these were Catholics. In three provinces out of four they numbered nearly six times the Protestant inhabitants, thus giving them an overwhelming majority and the power of turning the scale in elections in a large number of the constituencies. The Act was said with some justice "to court the Catholic rabble and insult the Catholic gentry."[16] The measure, however, was hailed with joy by the Catholic population, by their bishops, and by the Catholic Committee. The latter voted £2,000 for a statue of the King and £1,500 to Wolfe Tone, who had acted as their Secretary; after which the Committee dissolved itself. The members, however, recommended their followers to "co-operate by all loyal and constitutional means to obtain Parliamentary reform." Had it been possible to add the much-needed purification of the Houses of Parliament to the Acts already obtained, and to incorporate with it the right of representation to Catholics in both Houses, they might have become, under their new status, and with their then prevailing sentiments, a source of strength to the Empire; but the influence of vested rights and traditional fears sedulously nourished by the party in office brought the era of reconciliation to an end. A short-lived harmony was brought about by the tidings that the all-powerful junto at the Castle was to be displaced, and that Lord Fitzwilliam, then President of the Council in London, was to be sent over as Lord-Lieutenant.

[16] Speech of Sir Lawrence Parsons, Parliamentary Register, xiii, 203-219.
The recent passing of the Place Bill and the Pensions Bill led to the hope that a new rêgime might be established and that the Augean Stable of Government might be cleaned out. It was universally believed, and with good grounds, that there was to be an entire change of system. This belief was strengthened by Pitt's inclusion of the Duke of Portland, Lord Spencer, and Wyndham in his remodelled ministry. Portland was appointed to the Home Department which comprised the Irish Secretaryship, but the Viceroyalty was refused by the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Spencer, and was only accepted with reluctance by Fitzwilliam on the understanding that there was to be a change in the method of Government. Both Portland and Fitzwilliam were advocates of larger measures for the Catholics, and the policy of admitting them to political power was the professed aim of Pitt. It had been thwarted, not in England, but by the Dublin politicians. "I have the best grounds for believing," wrote Fitzwilliam, "that on the day of the Duke of Portland's kissing hands it was determined to bring (the measure) forward this session." The new Viceroy was a well-meaning man, personally much liked in Ireland, where he had property, but hasty and wanting in judgment. Even before his appointment was confirmed he began offering posts and making promises in Ireland. He certainly outran his instructions. But he did well in endeavouring to secure the promise of support from Grattan, who, with the two Ponsonbys and Sir John Parnell, the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, had conferences with Pitt and Portland in London, though Grattan adhered to his original resolution to accept no office under Government, but to keep his hands free.

"The New System," so much talked of, seemed to mean quite different things to several of the most influential of Pitt's ministers; and Pitt himself refused to remove Chancellor Fitzgibbon on any terms, though the latter had shown himself the most violent and unsparing opponent of every measure of advance and the determined enemy of the Catholic claims. He supported quite openly Government by corruption and the retention of all power in English and Protestant hands, and his growing arrogance was seen in the withering and cynical contempt that he poured on all who differed from him. To retain him in his high post was to secure beforehand the destruction of all measures of reform. Yet he retained his office and, to the great anger of the friends of Grattan and the Irish Whigs, Pitt gave away other Irish posts of emolument as though he were dealing with a party change in England. People began to ask which of the two, Fitzwilliam or Fitzgibbon, was to govern Ireland.

To Burke, who, in his old age, watched the Irish situation with the same steady interest that he had shown when he was young, it seemed that there were in the country "a set of men who...by their innumerable corruptions, frauds, oppressions, and follies were opening a backdoor for Jacobinism to rush in." This was exactly what was happening, and Pitt's unfortunate indecision added the last spark that was wanting to set the country aflame. It is not difficult to suggest causes for his indecision. The flood of warnings and threats of danger which flowed over to him from Ireland might in itself have been sufficient to make him hesitate in committing himself to the course he had marked out; but he undoubtedly felt that in the middle of a war with France, in which the English had just been driven out of Toulon and were being thrown back in Holland by the triumphant troops of the new Republic, it was not a time for experiments at home. All measures of reform in England were brought to a stand from the same causes; and in the rising terror of the methods of revolution that England saw proceeding in France the most harmless efforts for social or political reform were put down with a heavy hand. Moreover, there was always at the back of Pitt's mind the still obscure vision of a Union which should draw the fangs of Irish discontent and make her part of and subservient to English policy. For this, Fitzgibbon was indispensable, and to let Fitzgibbon go was to kill the plan untried. If the party of the Chancellor and that of the Viceroy could not agree it must be Fitzwilliam, and not Fitzgibbon, who must give way.

In the meantime Fitzwilliam had arrived in Dublin on January 4, 1795. He had been welcomed as a harbinger of good and had met Parliament on January 22. From the moment of his arrival the Catholic question had forced itself on his attention with the greatest urgency. The whole country was expectant. For the first time the Catholic gentry took a leading part in the negotiations, while from all parts of the country petitions poured in. No corporate and few private objections were made by the Protestants; such expressions of opinion as came from them were in favour of a full repeal of all disqualifying laws, a sentiment which was in agreement with the Viceroy's own strongly expressed wishes. Local controversies and quarrels had little echo in the House, and only the old stalwarts put up any opposition. Meanwhile, the Commons heard the King's serious speech on the dangers of the war with their accustomed loyalty and a vote of £200,000 for the British navy, moved by Grattan, was carried, the army and militia being at the same time raised to over forty thousand men. They desired no harassing stipulations, "all subjects of bargain between the countries being kept out of sight." The progress in industry, which had been marked, and the flourishing state of the revenue were commented upon. Some useful bills were passed, especially one abolishing the oppressive hearth-tax, and the Police Act was remodelled.

But as time passed the Viceroy became more and more uneasy at receiving no instructions from London on the pressing subject of the Catholic claims. The letters arriving from Portland ignored the Viceroy's urgent requests for instructions; and Pitt, immersed in the conduct of the war, only turned "from the many important considerations of a different nature to which all our minds ought to be directed" to upbraid Fitzwilliam for his dismissal of Beresford, whose family had monopolized posts and pensions to such a degree that it seemed to Fitzwilliam to make them a danger to the State. He had found Beresford "filling a situation greater than that of the Lord-Lieutenant" and he refused to be associated with a person under "universal heavy suspicions" of maladministration. This dismissal of a powerful servant seems to have occupied Pitt's mind almost to the exclusion of any other Irish question, and the Viceroy attributed his own recall not to the Catholic Bill but to the pensioning off of Beresford, whom Pitt wished to retain.[17] It was, in fact, a struggle to the death between the upholders of the old system of corruption against the introduction of a better order; and, for the moment, the old corrupt order prevailed. Behind this lesser question lay the yet more urgent one of the satisfaction of the Catholic hopes.

[17] Letters from Lord Fitzwilliam to the Earl of Carlisle, published in 1795.
Pitt's mind was slowly working towards the project of a possible Union between the two countries as a solution of all difficulties; and his growing inclination for Union undoubtedly was accompanied by the feeling that it was only after that step was accomplished that the admission of Catholics to Parliament could be safely given. But he was either ignorant of the urgency of the feeling in Ireland or he refused to be influenced by it. Fitzwilliam in vain warned the English Ministers that they must face the practical certainty of driving that country into rebellion. Portland, now ready to sacrifice the policy which some time ago he had concurred in without any sign of dissent, wrote urging the postponement of the Catholic question "as a means of doing a greater service to the British Empire than it has been capable of receiving since the Revolution, or at least since the Union (with Scotland),"[18] to which Lord Fitzwilliam had replied, with a quick perception of the drift of Portland's remark, as intended to encourage confusion with the aim of a Union with Ireland: "It will be union, not with Great Britain, but with France." The recall of the Viceroy, in little more than two months after his landing, confirmed the belief of the expectant people that their hopes were useless and that the country had been deceived. Fox remarked that "Common sense seemed to be totally lost out of the councils of this devoted country," and Dr. Hussey, one of the Catholic bishops, wrote that with the disastrous news of Fitzwilliam's recall Ireland stood on the brink of civil war.

[18] The Act of Union with Scotland was passed in 1707.
END OF CHAPTER XIV