Hamilton Rowan1 and Napper Tandy. The spirit that fired them was that of the French Revolution, and the Castle junto therefore looked upon them all with undisguised disfavour.

In 1793 the great Catholic Relief Bill was passed, admitting Catholics to the franchise. One of the results of this measure, which will be discussed later, was the increase of small Catholic freeholders, who were purposely created by the great landlords for the sake of political power. This new feature in the Irish land system contributed to further aggravate the relations between landlord and tenant, for on the disenfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders in 1829, many of these mushroom occupiers having served their purpose were driven from their homes. Several other events were included in the history of this notable year. Various measures of redress were granted by the Irish Government with a view to conciliate the more violent reformers and thus postpone the cure of the paramount malady -the destruction of the corrupt influence of the nomination boroughs. The sop took the form of a Responsibility Bill, which brought the signatories of money warrants under control of Parliament. Henceforth no money could be disposed of by the sole order of the King; for Irish officers were to sign all warrants and every warrant and officer came before Parliament. The consequence was that the so-called hereditary revenue was voted annually. An Irish Board of Treasury was also created and the Civil List reduced and fixed. A Pension Bill, too, was passed, excluding from Parliament all future pensioners at will or for years, and reducing the total amount of pensions from £120,000 to £80,000, and a Place Bill was carried, excluding revenue officers whose duties required their absence from Dublin, and vacating the seats of members who should henceforth accept Government offices. A Barren Land Bill, introduced by Grattan, was passed to encourage the cultivation of the great tracts of barren land that still existed in Ireland by exempting them for a period of seven years from the burden of tithes, and the East India trade was at length thrown open to Irish enterprise. A Libel Act, corresponding to Fox's Libel Act, provided that juries in libel cases might give their verdict upon the whole matter at issue, instead of being confined to the bare questions of publication and meaning; and a Hearth Tax Bill rearranged the impost, providing that all cottages that had only one hearth and tenancies of a not greater value than five pounds a year should be wholly exempt from the tax.

These measures of reform, so salutary for the country, were odious to the Castle pack, who forthwith proceeded to direct their ordnance against Volunteers, Conventions, and Catholic

1 He was a very majestic-looking man and always on the look out for a cause to champion, preferably a female cause.

Committeemen, and to pass a Gunpowder Bill which not only forbade the importation of arms and ammunition, but the removal or keeping of gunpowder, arms, and ammunition without a licence, and authorized magistrates and police to search for arms. The Convention Act, introduced into the Irish Upper House by Lord Clare, followed for the purpose of gagging inconvenient discontent. It forbade the assemblage of large and therefore possibly dangerous bodies of men to discuss political affairs. After reciting that the election of assemblies, purporting to represent the people, under pretence of preparing or presenting petitions, etc., for redress of alleged grievances in Church and State, might be made use of for seditious purposes, it proceeded to enact that all such gatherings were unlawful, and that all persons giving or publishing notice of the election to be made of such persons were guilty of a high misdemeanour.

One more measure of 1793 may be mentioned. The army had been raised to 20,000 men, and a Militia Bill, which caused great discontent among the Catholics, was now introduced by Lord Hillsborough and passed into law. It provided for the raising of 16,000 men, upon a rough estimate of 500 for each county. In spite of the Convention Act, which was passed in order to stifle the efforts of the Reformers, the good legislation of this year largely predominated over the bad. The dark pall of degradation had lifted in Ireland and every gaze was turned to the morning light in expectation of a bright future. But on the horizon was a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and these several acts of grace of 1793 were only the treacherous unveiling of the heavens before the approaching storm.

In 1794 Ponsonby's Bill to reform the abuses of the nomination boroughs was rejected by the Irish Parliament, notwithstanding the unquiet social state of Ireland and the simmering of the political cauldron, troubled as it was by the energy of the United Irishmen and the levelling principles of the French Revolution. The same year also witnessed the secession of Portland, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, Wyndham, and other Whig statesmen from their old party, Portland seceding on the understanding that he should be allowed the management of Irish affairs. Fitzwilliam became President of the Council; Lord Spencer, Privy Seal; Portland, Secretary of State; and Wyndham, Secretary of War. On the 4th of May in the same year the Tailors' Hall in Dublin, where the meetings of the United Irishmen were held, was raided by the Government and the papers belonging to the society seized. From this time the less violent members of the Association began to secede from the United Irish League, and in the course of the following year the society was reorganized on a military and more revolutionary basis. A few days before this raid took

place the Reverend William Jackson was apprehended in Dublin on a charge of high treason. He had come with revolutionary instructions from France and was tried, convicted, and condemned to death. But the thought of execution unnerved him, and, determined to elude the clutches of the hangman, he swallowed poison in court. Hamilton Rowan was convicted for the publication of an address from the United Irish Society to the Volunteers of Ireland, after being defended by Curran. However he neither wrote nor distributed the address. Willis, who did distribute it, and who resembled him, was never indicted. Its actual author was Drennan, who was prosecuted and acquitted. Rowan contrived to escape from prison. The Government offered a reward of £1,000 for his apprehension, the City of Dublin £500, and certain individuals £500 more. But the bribe of £2,000 failed to sap the loyalty of three fishermen, two of them of the name of Sheridan, who, though aware of his identity, proved true to him and carried him abroad in a fishingsmack. Dr. Reynolds, another plotter, also escaped.

In 1795 occurred the Fitzwilliam incident, a curious mixture of imposture and misunderstanding, and pregnant with future Irish calamity. It had been expected that Lord Fitzwilliam would succeed Westmorland as Lord-Lieutenant; in fact the former had been offered and had accepted the post, although it had not yet been officially declared vacant, and the mere rumour of the change raised the hopes of the Irish Catholics, who looked primarily to the Whigs for a measure of emancipation. Grattan had, a short time before, been to London, where he had had an interview with Pitt, who informed him that while the Government were desirous of postponing the Catholic question and would not bring it forward at present on their own responsibility, they would not oppose it, if brought forward by others. On the strength of this declaration, which they read between the lines, Grattan and his followers naturally imagined that they had a free hand in the matter, and that though they could expect no direct help from Ministers, they at least had their secret good-will and authorization. But before many weeks had elapsed a quarrel broke out between Pitt and the Whig seceders. Pitt stipulated that Fitzgibbon and others of the same political colour should retain their posts under the new administration at the Castle, and complained that Fitzwilliam and his Whig friends had exceeded their powers in prematurely making promises and committing themselves to various engagements in regard to the Catholics in Ireland without his knowledge and without his sanction. This spleen on the part of Pitt and his sudden change of front in regard to a conciliatory policy naturally incensed the Irish Catholics and Irish Whigs, who loudly protested that they had been fooled, and that he had obtained the benefit of their

alliance under false pretences: and their complaint was not unfounded. They had indeed been the dupes of a superior intelligence.

This estrangement, however, was bridged over for the time being. Fitzwilliam arrived in Ireland on January 4, 1795, jubilantly hailed by the expectant Catholics as their deliverer; for they knew him to be, unlike Portland, strongly in favour of complete emancipation; and they determined to bring the question of their rights of citizenship to an issue on the first opportunity. Every description of Catholic petitioned for emancipation, and as the bulk of the Protestants of Ireland were on their part ready to concede it, the English Government, had it been willing, might have carried the great measure that year instead of in 1829 and thereby earned the gratitude of the Irish people. The Parliament of 1795 met in Dublin just as the war between England and France was breaking out. Fitzwilliam was determined to inaugurate an independent policy, and perceived that the great bar to reform was the implacable bigotry of the Ascendency. He, therefore, commenced by boldly removing some of the members of it from the Administration. Arthur Wolfe, the Attorney-General, was elevated to the peerage,1 and his place given to George Ponsonby; John Toler, the callous and good-tempered Solicitor-General, was also removed and provided with a sop; Edward Cooke, the UnderSecretary to the Military Department, was pensioned off; and the powerful Chief of the Beresford family, a Commissioner of Revenue, retired on full pay. No word of remonstrance came from England in regard to these proceedings. The silence of Ministers could have no other meaning but acquiescence, and it appeared as though the Home Government not only fully concurred but almost rejoiced in the liberal spirit of the new arrangements. Meanwhile the hearth-tax was abolished, duties being imposed upon the wealthier classes in order to make up for loss of revenue. On February 12, 1795, Grattan moved for leave to bring in a Bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics, and there were but three dissentient voices. Enfranchisement was within reach, it almost lay like an adored mistress in the 1 As Baron Kilwarden; appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1798. Murdered in 1803.

2 Toler, afterwards Lord Norbury, was a curious study for any one interested in human nature. He had a heart of flint and an angelic temper. To show the sort of character this man bore among his contemporaries two anecdotes are appended. Travelling one day with John Parsons, one of the Irish Commissioners of Insolvency, in a carriage, they passed a gibbet. Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, "where would you be now if every one had his due?" Alone in my carriage,' replied the literal and imperturbable Parsons.

Harry Grady irritated by Norbury once said to him in court, "The incident reminds me, my lord, of a judge I once heard of, who was never known to weep but once, and that was in a theatre." "Deep tragedy, I suppose, Mr. Grady?" 'No, indeed, my lord; it was at the Beggar's Opera, when Macheath was reprieved."

arms of Catholic Ireland. Then, suddenly, like a bolt from heaven, came two letters from England, one from Pitt rebuking Fitzwilliam for the dismissal of Beresford, the other from Portland urging a postponement of the Catholic Relief Bill. Fitzwilliam in despair summoned all his eloquence to demonstrate the extreme gravity of the situation and the danger of disappointing the expectations of the Irish, but in vain. The arbiters of Ireland's fate were proof against argument, although endowed with a large measure of political cunning. After several months of shuffling they had at length shown their hand, and having peremptorily bidden Fitzwilliam do all in his power to prevent a Catholic Relief Bill from coming before the Parliament and censured him for his previous philo-Catholic attitude, recalled him the same year. Camden 1 was appointed in his place and directed to stifle, if possible, the growing vitality of the Catholic cause.

1

The reason of this sudden change of policy has never been fully elucidated, but it is not improbable that Pitt had been startled into this decision by letters from high officials in Ireland, who were enraged with Fitzwilliam on account of his well-known desire to get rid of Fitzgibbon and curb the Ascendency, and on account of the actual dismissal of the Chief of the Beresfords from his employment, who assured Pitt with practised duplicity of the strong anti-Catholic feeling prevalent in the country and the danger of making further concessions to the Irish Catholics. However that may be, the die was cast, and there will always be those who believe that the accumulated horrors of 1798 were the direct outcome of his policy. For this unpardonable piece of folly, to call it by the gentlest name, which was followed by the rejection of the Bill for Catholic Emancipation in the Dublin Parliament and which showed that there was nothing more to hope for by constitutional means, drove the most energetic of the Catholics into the arms of the United Irishmen and may be regarded as the fatal turning-point in Irish history.

We have now reached the events which led directly to the rebellion of 1798. The agrarian system, as we have seen, was radically unsound. The actual owner of the soil seldom made or directly paid for any improvement on his land-a custom which constituted one of the fundamental differences between Irish and English land-tenure-but left the work of making them to large tenants, who, in return, received great tracts at very low rents on leases for lives, sometimes renewable for ever on the payment of a small fine at the fall of each life, but more frequently extending over fifty, sixty, seventy, or even eighty years. By a series of "Timber Acts" the Irish Parliament

1 1 John Jeffreys Pratt, second Earl and first Marquis of Camden (1759-1840).