at

of the corps adopted the "non-importation agreement" by resolution, and encouraged men of a like opinion to do the same. This new and unforeseen apparition was naturally distasteful to the men in power. In order, therefore, to draw the teeth of trade reformers, the Government in the beginning of 1779 granted new bounties to linen and hemp, and permitted the cultivation of tobacco in Ireland. But this policy of chaining a thirsty man within reach of the spray of a delicious fountain only exasperated the sufferers, and the cry for reform became more menacing than ever. The Government now became thoroughly alarmed at the determined aspect of this armed confederacy, and the result was that in 1779 a further alleviation was afforded to Irish trade. North, melting under the genial influence of intimidation and generously recoiling before the necessities of the hour, introduced on the 13th of December 1779 three propositions-to permit the export of glass, to permit the export of woollen goods, and to allow the Irish free trade with the English Settlements in America, the West Indies and Africa. These propositions were passed, and with Foster's resolutions were made the basis of a Bill which was successfully carried a few months later. Under its provisions the Acts which had prohibited the exportation of the Irish glass and woollen manufactures were repealed: and the trade of the Colonies was length thrown open to the Irish, on the condition that their Parliament should impose duties on their exports and imports equal to those paid in British harbours. The Acts prohibiting the carrying of gold and silver coin into Ireland were likewise repealed. The Irish were, moreover, to be allowed henceforth to import foreign hops and to receive a drawback on the duty on British hops. They were also to be permitted to become members of the Turkey Company and to carry on a direct trade between Ireland and the Levant Sea. Thus manna was scattered amongst them, as has always been the case in the history of their country, not with the open-handed largesse of a loving protector but by the grudging hand of fear. The benefit derived from the removal of the restrictions upon the export of woollen manufactures was soon apparent. In three years the export of woollen stuffs increased from 8,000 to 538,000 yards of old, and from 494 to 40,000 yards of new draperies, an increase which represented the employment of a large amount of additional labour, and consequently greater prosperity among the working population of the country. The same year the Tenantry Act was passed to protect property which legally belonged to one person, but which "the old custom" of the country has always regarded as morally and equitably vested in another. The Irish Parliament thus interfered

to prevent the harsh application of legal principles and the confiscation of property, and under the Act a large portion of Irish land was transfered to those to whom it rightfully belonged.

In 1780 the Irish Dissenters were relieved of the Sacramental Test. Their history had been a chequered one. There had been no Toleration Act passed for the Irish Dissenters, as had been the case with their English co-religionists after the Revolution. The Regium Donum, re-introduced and augmented by William III, had amounted to only £1,200, and as a permanent instrument of relief was insignificant, but it involved the whole principle of legal recognition. In 1704 the Test clause became law in Ireland, and remained on the Statute Book for more than seventy years, the Presbyterians being excluded by it from all civil and military offices under the Crown. In 1719 Toleration and Indemnity Acts were passed in favour of Irish Nonconformists, and in 1737 a further Act was carried for the benefit of Irish Presbyterians, which, without authorizing the celebration of marriages by them, secured them from persecution in the ecclesiastical courts. In 1778, on the same day that relief for the Roman Catholics had been moved in the Irish Parliament, a motion was brought forward by Sir Edward Newnham for the relief of Dissenters; but the Bill which was prepared by him and Sir Boyle Roche1 was remitted to another session. The repeal of the old law in 1780 drew one more fang from the jowl of injustice.

During the course of the same year Bushe's Irish Perpetual Mutiny Bill was also passed, which added a perpetuity clause to the English Act, that had been found insufficient as it stood. There was a proposal too at this time to create an Irish navy for the protection of the coast against foreign invasion, but the discussion of the project was postponed at the desire of the Irish Government until a more convenient season. In 1781 Ireland was granted the protection of a Habeas Corpus Act which had been withheld for so long. This act of grace was undoubtedly due to the dangerous state of affairs in America. It would have been unwise to irritate Ireland at such a moment, with her force of Volunteers and her determination to get justice, and soon afterwards this danger became even more apparent. For the English Government were decisively defeated and their armies captured at Saratoga and Yorktown. In fact, the War of Independence was over and the rulers of Ireland had lost a continent.

In the memorable year 1782 the Dungannon meeting of the Volunteer delegates was held. They had elected Charlemont as their commander-in-chief in 1780, and, flushed with their 1 Sir Boyle Roche (1743-1807). He was master of the ceremonies at the Irish Viceregal Court.

success in carrying the commercial reform in 1779, were determined to strike yet another blow for freedom. Grattan1 had made his first great speech declaratory of the independence of the Irish Parliament in 1780, but his motion was rejected, and in December of that year Carlisle, who succeeded Buckingham 3 as Lord-Lieutenant, had been instructed by his Government to oppose the several attempts to carry a declaration of independence, the repeal of Poyning's Act, and the limitation of the Mutiny Act. Flood's motion on the IIth of December, 1781, for an inquiry into the operation of Poyning's Law was, therefore, defeated by 139 to 67. On the 28th of December, 1781, the officers and delegates of the First Ulster Regiment met at Armagh, and resolved to hold a Convention of the Ulster delegates at Dungannon; and on the 15th of February, 1782, the celebrated Dungannon Meeting took place. The delegates claimed complete independence for the Irish Parliament, passing resolutions to the effect that the power exercised by the Privy Council of both kingdoms under Poyning's Law was unconstitutional and a grievance, and that a Mutiny Bill, not limited in point of duration from session to session, also laboured under the same defects.4

These resolutions formed a remarkable document; they were the first real national expression of the Irish mind. Had the Irish Volunteers had a man of iron to lead them, had they held together for a few more years, they might have swept the Augean stable clean and obtained the independence of the Irish Parliament, but an Irish Parliament loyally attached to the English Crown and the British Constitution, and which might have lasted possibly to this day. But there was no man to show them the way. Indecision, lack of a settled policy, the want of cohesion that characterizes all political and military bodies which are without a rallying point and a trusted protagonist, rendered them useless for any sustained effort and determined persistency after they had once gained their immediate object. Flood appreciated the situation, and Grattan did not; but Flood had not the authority, nor perhaps the ability to follow up in practice the prescient reasonings of his

common-sense.

North's Administration had now fallen, and the weak but conscientious Rockingham, the patron of Burke, succeeded to power, the Duke of Portland' taking Carlisle's place as Lord

1 Henry Grattan was born on July 3, 1746. In 1775 he entered the Irish Parliament as member for the borough of Charlemont through the favour of his patron, the Earl. He died on June 4, 1820.

2 Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825).

3 John Hobart, second Earl of Buckinghamshire.

4 Appendix XIIB, Resolutions.

5 William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, third Duke of Portland (1738-1809). Twice Prime Minister.

Lieutenant. Soon after the Dungannon meeting, Grattan, backed by all the authority of the Volunteers, delivered himself of the most celebrated of all his celebrated speeches, which was in substance a demand for an Irish Bill of Rights. This was to include the repeal of the Act of George I, which declared the right of the King and Parliament of Great Britain to make laws binding the kingdom and people of Ireland; the repeal of that portion of Poyning's Law which reserved the initiation of Irish legislation to the English Council; the repeal of the Perpetual Mutiny Act; and the recognition of the Irish House of Lords as a Court of Appeal in the last resort. The great oration was a landmark in Irish history, and such was the power of Grattan's eloquence and the enthusiastic determination which he was able to infuse into the breasts of his followers, that opposition melted at the reformer's touch and the Act of Irish Independence was finally passed. On the 17th of May, 1782, Lord Shelburne in the Lords and Fox in the Commons, having read the Address, moved, "That it is the opinion of that House that the Act of the 6th of George I entitled 'An Act for the better securing the dependency of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain' ought to be repealed"; and repealed the Act accordingly was. Parliament then proceeded on Yelverton's motion to repeal Poyning's Law, and Grattan introduced and carried a Bill to punish mutiny and desertion, which had the effect of repealing the Perpetual Mutiny Act and restoring to Parliament a due control over the army. A further Bill was also passed to reverse erroneous judgments and decrees, a measure which was introduced with a view of taking from the English House of Lords and the King's Bench their usurped appellate jurisdiction. By this great reform, the last corporate act of the patriotic Volunteers, the custom of suppressing, altering, or rejecting Irish Bills or heads of Bills in the English and Irish Privy Councils was swept away, whilst the duration of the Mutiny Act was at the same time limited to two years. English Acts of Parliament were hereafter not to bind Ireland; the Irish House of Lords regained its rights over appeals, and Poyning's Law being rescinded, the Viceroy's initiative in legislation was taken from him. The Irish Parliament was henceforth to be free to discuss and to make laws in the same way as the British Legislature; but it was provided that any Bills it might pass should be returned to Ireland under the Great Seal of England-a proviso which subjected it to a kind of Ministerial veto in addition to the

1 Barry Yelverton, first Viscount Avonmore (1736-1805), Irish Attorney-General and later on Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. He was a man of simple and ingenuous nature. As a speaker he was remarkable for figurative language equally powerful and beautiful.

Constitutional veto of the Crown. On the passing of this reform Grattan's grateful countrymen, wishing to show their sense of the value of his labours, offered him £100,000 as a gift from the nation, but he refused it, and was with difficulty persuaded to accept half that sum, an amount which henceforth enabled him to devote himself exclusively to political affairs without the daily anxiety of having to earn his livelihood at the bar. Grattan deserved this tribute. He had worked hard for his country, had sorrowed much for her, and hoped much; as he himself said

"I found Ireland on her knees; I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift! Spirit of Molyneux!1 your genius has prevailed! Ireland is a nation. In that character I hail her, and, bowing in her august presence, I say, esto perpetua!"

The work of the Volunteers, in the absence of an unflinching and sagacious leader of the Cromwellian type, was now practically done.2

The Irish had wrung from their rulers, almost at the point of the bayonet, a great concession, which was granted with a very poor grace, but earned by a single week of the centuries of intolerable subjection under which they had lain. There was no cause to grudge them this tardy modicum of justice, and there was no danger in doing so, for on the passing of the Bill of Independence Grattan proposed in the Irish Parliament that they should show their loyalty to Great Britain and their gratitude for the measure by voting £100,000 to raise and equip 20,000 Irish seamen for the common defence of the Empire, and his proposal was adopted with the greatest enthusiasm. If the monarchs of Ireland had been wise in their generation, they would have cried out as a king formerly exclaimed of the same people-"Cursed be the laws that rob me of such subjects."

This celebrated year also witnessed the removal of one of the last grievances of the Irish Dissenters, their Ministers being placed upon the same footing as the Anglican clergy in regard

1 William Molyneux, the friend of John Locke. He wrote the Case of Ireland, an interesting little book describing various Acts of Parliament, and was the first to formulate Ireland's constitutional claim to independent existence.

2 W. N. Massey says of them

"This noble body, which, for purity and loftiness of purpose, may be advantageously compared with any patriotic association of ancient and modern times, seems to have exhausted for the time all that was wise, generous or true in the political character of their country. . . . It was not for the purpose of a brawling agitation or to barter their country to a foreign power, that the bravest and noblest of the land by a spontaneous impulse sprang to arms. It was the defence of their country from foreign aggression; and her liberation from those fetters and badges of servitude which her imperious sister had imposed, that the Volunteers of Ireland had resolved to effect. These great ends accomplished, their mission had been fulfilled."