had enlisted under their banners. They support the cause of their promoters by looked to more steady submission in a their individual votes in the House of future Parliament, and dissolved the Peers, and by those of their substitutes present. Mr. Perry was re-elected Speaker in the House of Commons, whose seats by a majority of 141 to 98. The lord- are usually settled and arranged before lieutenant did not meet the new Parlia- they vacate them upon their promotions. ment, which was convened in June, 1776, In short, every possible precaution was pro forma, and by several prorogations adopted to secure a subservient Irish went over to the 14th of October, 1777. Parliament in the crisis which had been This Parliament now dissolved is memor- created by the American war. But in able for ever in the history of Ireland the very month of October, in which the for the first appearance of one of the new viceroy, Lord Buckinghamshire, met greatest patriots who ever arose for the the new Parliament, General Burgoyne salvation of any people-and the word was surrrendering his army of 7,000 men patriot is not here used in its merely to the Americans at Saratoga. The next colonial sense. This was Henry Grattan. year France declared for America. The He was the descendant of a powerful and administration, therefore, of this new influential family, of whom Dean Swift lord-lieutenant dates a new era in the had said, "the Grattans can raise ten history of Ireland and of the earth. The thousand men." His father was recorder English colony in Ireland suddenly, and of Dublin. Henry Grattan entered Par- for a short time, takes the proportions of liament as member for Lord Charlemont's a nation. borough of Charlemont, on the borders of Armagh and Tyrone; he was then under thirty years of age, and in his first Parliament had been modest and retiring, acquainting himself with the details of public business, and with the forms of the House. It was not until the meeting of the new Parliament, under the administration of Lord Buckinghamshire, that Grattan's lofty character and splendid, genius became known to his countrymen and to the world. The British cabinet was little satisfied with the administration of Lord Harcourt; the easy and delicate turn of his mind ill qualified him to support, much less to improve upon, the system of his predecessor, but by which alone, to the infamy and misfortune of Ireland, the legislators of that kingdom were to be kept steady in their ranks under the command of the Castle. Although Government, upon the whole, still retained a majority, yet several of their adherents had occasionally, during the last session, proved recreant from their instructions; some had deserted their ranks, many amongst them wavered, menaced, and complained of the terms of their engagements. It was therefore resolved to invigorate the new system by the election of a new Parliament. For this purpose an unusual, and till that time unprecedented, number of promotions in the peerage took place in one day. It far exceeded the famous promotion of twelve in the days of Queen Anne. Five viscounts were advanced to earldoms, seven barons to be viscounts, and eighteen new barons were created in the same day. The usual terms of such modern peerages are well understood to be an engagement to CHAPTER XVIII. 1777-1779. Buckingham, Viceroy.-Misery, and Decline of THE earlier years of Lord Buckingham's Thus, a petition was presented to the House of Commons from the merchants and traders of Cork, setting forth that about the month of November, 1770, an embargo was laid on all ships laden with provisions, and bound from Ireland to foreign countries, which was still continued by Government, and had been very strictly enforced: that in consequence of that long embargo, an extensive not pay her forces abroad, and was obliged to borrow money from England to pay those at home. The Parliament was necessitated to raise money at an exorbitant interest; the expenses in 1777 having amounted to above £80,000 more than the revenue: £166,000 were therefore borrowed, and attempted to be raised in the old manner upon debentures at £4 per cent. beneficial trade, carried on for several years by that kingdom to France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland, for the supply of provisions, had been not only interrupted, but was in danger of being entirely lost; the petitioners being informed that the merchants of these countries were respectively stocked and provided from Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and Hamburg, whereby the usual returns to that kingdom were discontinued, new enemies to our com- So truly desperate was the financial merce were raised, and our commodities state of Ireland, that, like desponding rendered useless and unprofitable. That bankrupts, the Commons undertook to great quantities of salt beef, not fit for grant what they knew they had not the the use of Government or the sugar means of paying. Even the ministerial colonies, being made up in that city, and party could not be blind to their situation. also great quantities of beef and butter They would not, however, permit any being annually brought to that market, question to be brought forward on the these commodities of a perishable nature state of the country in the Commons, lest were there decaying for want of a free too strong resolutions upon it should be export, to the great injury of the proprie- carried, or their opposition to them should tors in particular, and of the kingdom in appear even too rank for their own sysgeneral. That in support of these asser- tem. They accordingly had again recourse tions, there then remained on hand, since to the half-measure of conveying their the preceding year, a very considerable imperfect sense of the distressful state of quantity of provisions, the property of the country through their Speaker, who, several merchants in that city, not wanted in presenting the first four money bills by Government, and therefore without passed in that session, addressed himself opportunity of sale; and although a con- to the lord-lieutenant in very general siderable part of the season in which terms, expressing the unbounded confithose articles were made up and exported dence of the House in his majesty's wishad already elapsed, no demand whatso-dom, justice, and paternal care, and relying ever then existed for them, except for on the viceroy's "candour and humanity such quantities as were required by to make a faithful representation to his Government alone. That his majesty's majesty of their unshaken loyalty, duty, revenue, which before had received large and affection." and constant supplies from the customs of the city of Cork, had decreased in proportion to the decay of their trade. That the embargo, therefore, at that time not being warranted by any great substantial necessity, but, on the contrary, restraining and preventing the diffusion of trade, was pregnant with the most ruinous consequences, not only to the commercial, but also to the landed interests of the nation; and therefore the petitioners prayed redress. The Dublin manufacturers, in their petition, had a still sadder narrative to give. For example, they declared that there were at that moment no fewer than twenty thousand persons in that one city, artisans, out of work, together with their families, whom they, the petitioners, were supporting for charity by means of a relief association established among themselves; nor was Government able to make grants, either to promote industry or to relieve the national calamities. Every branch of the revenue failed, and such was the poverty of the nation, that the militia law could not be carried into effect. Ireland could Thus the pitiful and hopeless contest went on upon these questions of the money bills, the pension list, and general extravagance of Government. The Patriots saw well that they could not now hope to carry any really important measure, resolution, or address, that should be distasteful to the Castle. Yet they resolved to put on record. at least once in each session, their own theory of the evils of the country. Therefore, after the speech of the lord-lieutenant, a motion was made for a humble address to his majesty, setting forth that the civil list had doubled in twenty years; that one great cause was "the rapid and astonishing growth of the pension list;" that ministers had repeatedly promised retrenchment, but had, on the contrary, continually increased their demands, and other the like topics. This address was negatived by a majority of 77-so well drilled were the ministerial members. The alarming news of the French alliance with the Americans was communicated to Parliament by the lordlieutenant, in a special message; and this was instantly followed by a demand of a new loan of £30,000 at six per cent. A few days after, came a new message, to apprise them that the loan (which they had at once voted to raise) could not be affected at six per cent., and to demand further action upon their part. Thus, as the American war was drawing to a close, Ireland had neither money nor creditwas absolutely ruled by placeholders and pensioners, and was made to contribute her last shilling and contract further debt, to defeat and ruin a cause which nine-tenths of her people felt to be Ireland's own cause as well as America's. enforced against two priests, a Mr. Malony and Mr. Talbot, the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury. These proceedings had been resorted to by a solitary individual, one Pain, a carpenter, who having two daughters, little business, much bigotry, and more covetousness, had formed a singular speculation of acquiring £20,000 apiece for his daughters' fortunes by informations under the penal statutes against the Catholics. The English bill passed without opposition;* but when the new policy of ministers came to be applied to Ireland, it was a different matter. In this island the proprietors of confiscated estates did not yet feel quite secure. They had always been accustomed to believe that the "Protestant Interest"—that is, their own exclusive possession of all the lands and of all the profitable professions and tradesdepended upon keeping the Catholics completely under foot. There was now, indeed, no apprehension of "bringing in the Pretender;" for the Pretender was dead, and had left no heir of the Stuarts: but the settlement of property, the exclusive access to the professions-these were the truly momentous and sacred interests of Protestantism. In Ireland, therefore, though the measure came recommended by the example of England, and the express wishes of the administration, it was warmly contested at every point. On the 11th day after the universal assent to Sir George Savile's motion in favour of the Roman Catholics of Eng Lord North, who was not wanting in sagacity, understood the state of Irish affairs very well: he saw the rising impatience of the Patriot party in the colony, and knew that the contagion of American ideas was fast growing and spreading. It was at this time, therefore, that the British Ministry resolved to take a more important step towards conciliation of the Catholics than had yet been ventured upon, with the hope of actually making the Catholic people a kind of English interest, against the Protestant Patriots. It was not, indeed, contemplated to repeal the whole Penal Code-very far from this -but to admit certain slight relaxations only in certain parts of that elaborate system. In the English Parliament, first, with the full consent of the minister, a motion was made for leave to bring in a "Bill for repeal of certain of the penalties and disabilities provided in an Act of William the Third," etc. On this English debate, it seemed that the Parlia-land, Mr. Gardiner, on the 25th of May, ment was tolerable unanimous in ap- 1778, made a motion in the Irish House probation of a very modest and limited of Commons, that leave be given to bring measure in this direction; but it must be in heads of a bill for the relief of his remembered that the Catholics in England majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of were but one in ten of the population; Ireland, and that Mr. Gardiner, the Hon. and there could not be the slightest Barry Barry, and Mr. Yelverton, do predanger, either to the settlement of pro- pare and bring in the same; and it was perty or to what Englishmen call the carried in the affirmative. At the same freedom of the country, in relieving them time the Presbyterians of Ireland, bearing from at least a few of the most dreadful in mind that the sacramental test had penalties to which they were every day been imposed upon their ancestors by exposed. Indeed in England there had their lying by, when new severities were been long a practical toleration of Cath-imposed upon their Roman Catholic bretholic worship; yet, as Lord Ashburton ob-ren, came forward on this occasion to served, on seconding the motion of Sir George Savile, "the mildness of Government had hitherto softened the rigour of the law in the practice, but it was to be considered that the Roman Catholic priests were still left at the mercy of the lowest and basest of mankind; for on the complaint of any informing constable, the magisterial and judicial powers were bound to enforce all the shameful penalties of the act." In fact, some time before this period the penal laws had been avail themselves of the first symptoms of tolerance in an Irish Parliament. Sir Edward Newnham on the same day moved that leave might be given to bring in heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's subjects the Protestant Dissenters of that kingdom: and Sir Edward Newnham and Sir Boyle Roche were ordered to * A circumstance which excited the enlightened Protestants of London to make their famous No Popery Riot, break jails and burn houses, under the saintly Lord George Gordon. prepare and bring in the same. But Marquis of Rockingham amongst the whether from a conviction that the relief to the Dissenters was not of equal urgency with that proposed to be granted to the Roman Catholics, or that the British cabinet had hitherto expressed no opinion or inclination in their favour, the measure was remitted to another session. number, pressed on the Parliament of England the propriety of granting to the Irish nation the liberty of exporting their produce, with the extraordinary exception of their woollens, which formed a principal ingredient. Lord Weymouth, however, resisted so dangerous a concession to the claims of Ireland; and the only compromise which was effected was an Export Bill, with the special exceptions of woollens and cottons. The Bristol merchants, who appear through the whole history of English avarice and tyranny to have been influenced by a policy pre-eminently mean, selfish, and grasping-the genuine spirit of paltry trade-went so far as to heap insults on their representative, Edmund Burke, for supporting the measure. The Catholic Bill did not propose to let the Catholics have arms, horses, education, a seat in Parliament, a vote at elections, a right to sit upon juries, or entrance into municipal corporations; but, slender as was the concession, it was bitterly opposed, and that even by "Patriots," who had no wider idea of Patriotism than the measure of the Protestant interest. On the 5th June. 1778, five divisions were had upon the bill in the Irish House: each was carried in the affirmative, by a small majority; and on the 15th In the meantime the Irish Parliament, of the same month there were three in its session of 1788, had passed a "militia divisions. The Protestants throughout bill," to authorize the formation of volunthe kingdom were taking the alarm, and teer forces for defence of the country petitions were pouring in from the French and American privateers were corporations. On this 15th of June, for sweeping the seas and the British chanexample, a petition from the mayor, nel; the wide extent of the Irish coast sheriffs, common council, freemen, free-was left exposed without defence, and holders, and other Protestant inhabitants of the city of Cork, was presented against the bill. there began to be very general alarm in the seaport towns. Mr. Flood had formerly proposed a national militia, but the On the 16th, on motion to resolve into idea was not then favoured by the Governcommittee of the whole to take the heads ment, and it failed. The militia bill of of the bill into further consideration, the this year was not opposed by the adminiHouse divided, and the motion was stration; probably they little thought to defeated. On the 18th, the House sat in what proportions the militia would develop committee over these heads of a bill till itself, and how far it would extend its three o'clock in the morning, and on the aims; but it immediately occurred to the 19th till four o'clock. At last, on the Patriots, that while the English Parlia20th, Mr. Gardiner was ordered to attend ment was peddling and higgling over the his excellency the lord-lieutenant with miserable and grudging relaxations of the said heads of a bill, and desire the Ireland's commercial restraints, here was same might be transmitted into Great a gracious opportunity presenting itself Britain in due form. Thus, after the for exercising such a resistless pressure severest contest, with the full and un- upon England, in her hour of difficulty equivocal approbation of the Government, and danger (England's difficulty being the general support of the Patriots, and then, as always, Ireland's opportunity), the unanimous accord of the British as would compel her to yield, not only a legislature in a similar indulgence to the Roman Catholics of England, were these heads of a bill carried through the Irish House of Commons by the small majority of nine. Upon the third reading of this bill in the House of Lords, the contents with their proxies were 36, and the not contents were 12. On the 14th of August the lord-lieutenant put an end to the session. The British ministry soon saw cause to extend their policy of conciliation, and to assent to some very trifling relaxations of the restrictions upon Irish trade and commerce. Some intelligent and patriotic Englishmen, Lord Newhaven and the free-trade, but a free Parliament: and the former, they knew, would never be fully assured without the latter. It was now that public spirit in Ireland, instead of colonial, began to be truly national, and this chiefly by the strong impulse and inspiration of Henry Grattan, who saw, in the extension of the volunteering spirit, a means of combining the two discordant elements of the Irish people into one nation, and elevati, the Catholics to the rank of citizens, not by the insidious boons" of the English, but through the cordial combination and amalgamation of the Irish for their common defence. It was for some months anxiously considered and debated at the Castle whether the forces which were to be raised, under the new law, were to be a true militia, and therefore subject to martial law, or to be composed of independent volunteer companies, choosing their own officers. But this question was soon settled by the people themselves, who were rapidly forming themselves into the latter kind of organization, and who evidently felt that they were arming, not so much against the foreign enemy as against the British Government. The volunteering began at Belfast. In August, 1778, the people of that town were alarmed by stories of privateers hovering near: they remembered their imminent peril at the time of Thurot's expedition, and at once began to organize and arm volunteer companies, as they had done before on that memorable occasion. At the same time the "sovereign" of the town, Mr. Stewart Burke, wrote to the Irish Secretary, urging that some troops should be sent down. He received this naced with invasion; and therefore quite as little in a condition to resist a great national military organization, no matter what form that might assume. In fact, after the example of Belfast, the whole country now rushed to arms. It was a scene of wild and noble excitement. Crowds thronged the public places of resort, anxious and resolved: in every assembly of the people the topic was "defence of the country;" and if there were many who from the first felt that the country had but one enemy in the world from whom it needed defence (that is, England), the reflection only heightened their zeal in promoting the national armament. On the 1st December, 1778, the people of Armagh entered into voluntary armed associations, and offered the command to Lord Charlemont. He at first refused; because, as lord-lieutenant of the county, he might at any time be called on to command the militia: but his lordship soon saw that volunteering was the irresistible order of the day; and that not to be a Volunteer would soon amount to being nobody at all in Ireland. Probably, also, he was influenced by the more powerful will and deeper sagacity of his friend Grattan ; and in January, 1779, he assumed command of the Armagh Volunteers.* The Government of the day soon saw itself powerless to resist this potent movement. It, however, concealed its apprehensions for the present, under the mask of gratitude for the loyal zeal of the people. Loyal as undoubtedly the institution was-loyal even to the prejudices which Government must have wished to foster, for one of their earliest celebrations' was the Battle of the Boynet-the English interest trembled, at what their appalled ima. gination seemed to be the infancy of revolution. Thus, whilst the wretched Government, unable to discharge its functions, and resigning the defence of the country to the virtue and valour of her children, looked on in angry amazement at the daily increasing numbers of the Volunteers, their training into discipline, their martial array and military celebrations, the great officers of the executive were planning how best they might settle *Stuart's History of Armagh. MacNevin's Volunteers. Plowden. Hardy's Charlemont. Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall, etc. The authorities for the history of the Volunteers are innumerable, and will only be cited for some special fact. † July 1, 1779.-" Our three volunteer companies paraded in their uniform with orange cockades, and fired three volleys with their usual steadiness and regularity, in commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne." Hist. Collections relative to the Town of Belfast. |