even for the commercial prudence of the predominant partner, and her one remaining industry was allowed to stand. On the 6th of March, 1785, Forbes moved in the Irish Lower House for a consideration of the Pension List, urging a reduction in the amount of those allowances, which were not only devoted to the reward of merit, but lavished on the ministers of vice. But his motion was lost, and the Bill which he subsequently introduced for the purpose of effecting his object was rejected by a majority of fifty-six.1

A Police Bill was passed in 1786 to remedy the scandalous state of the administration of justice in Dublin, and the Crimes Bill and Whiteboy Act were carried during the course of the following year in consequence of the increase of Whiteboy outrages, which were directed against the payment of tithes. That the tithe system was a brutal and exasperating one in face of the misery of the Irish people and the enormous preponderance of Catholics over Protestants, not even the vilest parasite that ever licked the boots of Castle patronage could venture publicly to deny. Even Clare, the hard, unyielding man of the Ascendency, of whom it might be said, as Marlborough said of James II, that a marble mantelpiece was not so hard as that man's heart, admitted that the poverty of the Irish peasant was indescribable, and the tyranny of the landlords a disgrace to humanity.2

In October 1787 the hair-brained Rutland 3 died; and the Marquis of Buckingham, of whom more anon, succeeded him as Lord-Lieutenant. In the early part of the following year Grattan submitted eight resolutions for the modification of the tithe system, but they were stifled by a prorogation. Such a reform was, as may be supposed, unpalatable to the English interest, and the Irish Parliament refused to accept the principle of commutation, the old system of fleecing the poorest of the

1 Appendix XIIIA, extract from speech by John Philpot Curran.

2 In 1787 (circ.) he said "I agree with the right honourable gentleman (Grattan) that the lower order of the people in Munster are in a state of oppression, abject poverty, sloth, dirt and misery, not to be equalled in any other part of the world.

I am very well acquainted with the province of Munster, and I know that it is impossible for human wretchedness to exceed that of the miserable peasantry in that province. I know that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder by relentless landlords. I know that far from being able to give the clergy their just dues, they have no food or raiment for themselves-the landlord grasps the whole.

Clare was a malignant and petty foe and an execrable bad shot. In his duel with John Philpot Curran, after the latter had fired, he took aim at him for nearly half-aminute, and even then missed. One day when it was known that Curran was to make an elaborate speech in Chancery, Clare brought a large Newfoundland dog into Court with him, and during the progress of the argument ostentatiously concentrated his attention upon fondling the animal. Curran upon perceiving this stopped. "Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said Clare.: "Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, my Lord," replied Curran, "I really took it for granted that your Lordship was employed in consultation.'

3 His trull was the shameless and impudent Peg Plunket.

George Nugent Temple Grenville, first Marquis of Buckingham (1753–1813).

poor continuing to be the chief source of Irish crime until it was eventually strangled in 1838. Pension reform was in a like predicament, the disclosure of gross abuses merely hardening the official heart, and rendering more obdurate than ever the determination of the Court to brook no interference with its darlings. On January 1, 1788, the Pension List had swollen to the unsightly bulk of £96,289, exclusive of military pensions and additions to salaries. In 1789 sixteen peers were created or promoted, whilst the Pension List was increased by £13,000 a year. Ponsonby declared that there were 110 placemen in the Irish Lower House, and that one-eighth of the revenue of the country was divided between members of Parliament. But Forbes' motions in 1788 to remedy this state of affairs were rejected. A motion was also made at this time for a return of the hearth-money, an impost long since abolished in England and pressing heavily upon the poorer classes; but this request likewise was treated with contempt.

In 1788 arose the question of the Regency during the imbecility of George III. Pitt argued, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution of 1782, that the English Parliament had a right to select a Regent and define the scope of his powers. Fox, on the contrary, and with him the Irish Parliament, held that the heir to the throne alone had a right to enter into the full exercise of Royal power in such circumstances, but that Parliament was entitled to pronounce what time the Prince ought to assume this power. The controversy, which was beginning to arouse great bitterness, and might have caused a serious difference in Ireland between the views of the Parliament and those of the Castle, was finally hushed by the King's recovery.

Several other noticeable features of the time may be glanced

In view of the corruption shamelessly indulged in by the Government, such as the buying of votes and the sale of peerages and office, as well as the intimidation employed against those persons whose courage and virtue were alike superior to the sinister ill-will of a court or the suggestions of a political procurer, a "Round Robin" was signed by the leading Peers and Commons denouncing the licentious attempts to compel honour to doff her cap at the shadow of the Castle. Out of this "Round Robin" sprang the Whig Club. The Duke of Leinster, Charlemont, Grattan, Ponsonby, and John Philpot Curran 1 were among its members; and James Napper Tandy, and the

1 It was Curran who wrote the poem, The Deserter. His wit was spontaneous and never ill-natured. An instance of it was his reply to a learned judge in court who asked him what a laugh without a joke was like. "A laugh without a joke,' said Curran, "is like a contingent remainder without any particular estate to support it." He was Grand Prior of a social club, called "The Monks of the Screw," which numbered among others, Flood, Grattan, Father O'Leary, Lord Charlemont, Judges Day, Chamberlaine, and Metge, Bowes, Daly, George Ogle, Lord Avonmore, and Mr. Keller,

majestic and quixotic Archibald Hamilton Rowan soon joined it. The Club, which professedly acted in concert with the Whig Club in England, declared its object in 1789 to be to maintain in its integrity the Constitution of 1782, and to agitate for a Place Bill, a Pension Bill, a Bill for the abolition or modification of the Dublin Police, and Bills for the disqualification of revenue officers, and the curtailment of unnecessary offices which had been recently created and distributed among various accommodating members of Parliament. The same year that these attempts were made to stem the tide of knavery that welled from Dublin Castle, Buckingham died, and was succeeded in Ireland by the Earl of Westmorland. We promised to return to the Marquis of Buckingham and we now keep our promise. Grattan said of him in a speech delivered in Parliament on January 22, 1790, whilst the former was still alive—and we recommend the criticism to the attention of those who would form an idea of what an Irish Viceroy could be like in those days

"This was the man; you remember his entry into the capital, trampling on the hearse of the Duke of Rutland, and seated in a triumphal car, drawn by public credulity; on one side fallacious hope, and on the other many-mouthed profession; a figure with two faces, one turned to the treasury, and the other presented to the people; and with a double tongue, speaking contradictory languages.

"This minister alights; justice looks up to him with empty hopes, and peculation faints with idle alarms; he finds the city a prey to an unconstitutional police-he continues it; he finds the country overburdened with a shameful pension list-he increases it; he finds the House of Commons swarming with placemen-he multiplies them; he finds the salary of the Secretary increased to prevent a pension-he grants a pension; he finds the kingdom drained by absentee employments, and by compensations to buy them home-he gives the best reversion in the country to an absentee, his brother! He finds the Government, at different times, had disgraced itself by creating sinecures to gratify corrupt affection-he makes two commissioners of the rolls, and gives one of them to another brother; he finds the second council to the commissioners put down, because useless-he revives it; he finds the boards of accounts and stamps annexed by public compact-he divides them; he finds three resolutions declaring that seven commissioners are sufficient-he makes nine; he finds the country has suffered by some peculations in the ordnance-he increases the salaries of offices, and gives the places to members-Members of Parliament !"

The picture was not overcharged, but he spoke to deaf ears. The Castle nominees were not going to cut their own throats, and three motions which were brought forward respectively by Forbes, Ponsonby, and Grattan in 1789, to investigate the state

1 John Fane, tenth Earl of Westmorland (1759-1841), held office of LordLieutenancy from 1790 to 1795.

of the Pension List and the action of Buckingham's administration in regard to the granting of places and peerages were rejected, the last by a majority of sixty-two. In 1791, Grattan and Ponsonby made another attempt. On the 3rd of February, the latter moved for a Select Committee to inquire into the Pension List; whilst Grattan asked for an investigation into the practice of selling peerages; but both motions were lost, the former by a motion for adjournment and the latter by a majority of fifty.

Another movement had also made itself felt about this time. The Peep of Day Boys (known also by the name of " Protestant Boys" or in some places as "Wreckers") and the Defenders (the latter of whom had organized a new Whiteboy agitation, which aimed especially at the reduction and abolition of tithes, and the general redress of grievances) had gradually merged more or less into Orangemen and United Irishmen respectively. The first sign of the formation of the United Irish Society, the idea of which originated with Samuel Neilson,2 was the union in 1791 of the Presbyterians with Roman Catholics. In that year Wolfe Tone, the son of a coachbuilder and born in Dublin in 1763, founded and organized the first society of United Irishmen in Ulster for the promotion of Parliamentary Reform, with Napper Tandy as Secretary of the Dublin Branch, and Hamilton Rowan one of his principal coadjutors. Keogh, of the Catholic Committee, also lent him his invaluable help in bringing over the Catholics to his scheme. Grattan, whose Bill of 1789 for the disfranchisement of officers employed in the collection or management of the Irish revenue had been defeated, was likewise in favour of Parliamentary Reform and the enfranchisement of the Catholics, but, unlike Tone and the United Irishmen, who were persuaded that Ireland could flourish, if necessary, as a separate state, vehemently urged the necessity of the maintenance of the English connection. In order to disseminate the principles of their league the United Irishmen now established a paper of their own under the name of the Northern Star, of which Samuel Neilson was chosen editor, its object being to promote the co-operation of all Irishmen, Protestant as well as Catholic, in the cause of National Independence.

1 Appendix XIIIB, quotation from G. Cornewall Lewis.

* Samuel Neilson (1761-1803). Died in America.

The United Irishman's oath was as follows-" I, A B, in the presence of God, do pledge myself to my country, that I will use all my abilities and influence in the attainment of an adequate and impartial representation of the Irish nation in Parliament; and as a means of absolute and immediate necessity in the attainment of this chief good of Ireland, I will endeavour, as much as lies in my power, to forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a community of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions, without which every reform in Parliament must be partial, not national, inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insufficient for the freedom and happiness of this country."

By 1792, although much remained to be done and much had been illiberally refused her, Ireland had wrung from her rulers by uninterrupted agitation and an importunity bred of prolonged distress, an Octennial Act, free trade, a full participation in the commercial intercourse with the British Colonies, a Habeas Corpus Act, the benefit of all the English treaties, the independence of her Legislature and of her judges, and the reestablishment of the final judicature. The Test Act had also been repealed; the validity of Dissenters' marriages had been fully recognized; and by far the greater part of the accursed Penal Code had been blotted from the Statute Book. Agitation, pure and simple, had effected these reforms. The officials at Dublin Castle had taught the Irish that no other method was of any use, that their taskmasters were sanguine cowards, that, although they never gave way to reason, they were always ready to yield to fear; and the Irish had learnt their lesson well. Other reforms were to be obtained on the same principle-that a poltroon understands a horsewhip better than an argument.

The problem of Parliamentary Reform was again discussed in the Irish Parliament, and the solution of it again rejected in 1792, Forbes' Place and Pension Bills suffering the same fate they had undergone before. The efforts of the Volunteer Convention of 1783 in this direction had been prejudiced by the endeavours of Flood, its representative, to overawe the Government and Parliament by too menacing a display of military force; and Grattan and the more moderate reformers had been deterred from participating in an agitation that might possibly become treasonable and had already become dangerous. The same danger indeed still existed; for the subtle influence of the French Revolution on men's minds had begun in 1792 to assert itself in the conduct of Irish affairs, and the new spirit of volunteering had gradually assumed a menacing republican shape. French agents began to conspire with Irish agitators, and the Catholics, the United Irishmen, and the Volunteers, recognizing the expediency of co-operation, had insensibly drawn nearer together. The Association of the "Friends of the Constitution" was formed by Grattan in 1792, as the Whig Club, whose fundamental principle was the maintenance of the Constitution of 1782, was unable to agree with his view as to Catholic Enfranchisement and Parliamentary Reform. The new Association faithfully embodied his policy and differed from that of the United Irishmen, amongst whom a seditious spirit was rapidly spreading, in not countenancing hazardous or illegal methods of agitation and in resisting all subversive republican innovations. In 1792 the National Guard was formed in Dublin. They wore green uniforms with buttons engraved with a harp under a cap of liberty instead of a crown, and their leaders were