Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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CHAPTER
VII
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the
First
Dominion
of
the
British
Commonwealth
of
Nations
IRELAND
WAS
England's
oldest
overseas
possession,
the senior
depend-
ent
member of
the
empire;
and
toward
the
close
of the
eighteenth
century
it
gained
such
a
large
measure
of
independence
within
the
empire
that
it
showed distinct
promise
of
becoming
the
first
dominion
of
the British
Commonwealth
of Nations.
Then occurred
one of the
greatest
tragedies
in
the
history
of Ireland
and of
the
empire.
The
curse of
the
French
Revolution descended
upon Anglo-Irish
relations.
The
emergence
of the
modern British Commonwealth was
postponed
for
generations,
until
the
Dominion of
Canada
grew
into the
position
that Ireland
had so
nearly
attained;
and
Ireland
was
thrust back into
subjection,
to become the
festering
sore of British
politics.
To
understand the
Irish
problem,
it
is well to
compare
Ireland with
Wales
and
Scotland
in
their relations
with
England,
which
incorpo-
rated all
three of
them to
form
the
United
Kingdom
under
one
govern-
ment seated in London.
Wales
and Scotland were
no
more
English
than
was Ireland.
Why,
then,
have there not been
corresponding
Welsh
and Scottish
problems?
Obviously
Wales
and
Scotland
were
as
reconciled to
union with
England
as
Ireland
was not.
Why
this
striking
difference?
Much of
the
explanation
lies far in
the
past,
and a
swift
glance
back
at
each of the
three in turn
is
very
enlightening.
Wales,
the
nearest and
weakest,
was
the first to
fall under
English
control,
by
a
piecemeal
conquest
in
the
middle
ages.
But
the
Welsh
were
not
treated
as a
subject
race.
They kept
their
own
language
without
ques-
tionand
they
still do and
only gradually
were
English
laws
and
96
CHAPTER SEVEN:
institutions introduced
among
them.
It
was
characteristic
of the official
English
attitude
that in 1301
the
title
"Prince
of
Wales"
was
conferred
upon
the eldest son
of
the
king.
Wales
turned
Protestant
with
England,
and
at the
same time
it was
formally
merged
with
England,
whose
parliament
was
enlarged
to include
Welsh
members. Welshmen
then
became
the
political
equals
of
Englishmen.
It is
also worth
noting
that the
Tudor
line,
which
ruled
England
at
that
time,
was
Welsh in
origin
and
this was
flattering
to
Welsh
pride.
Scotland
at
that time
was still
an
independent kingdom,
and for
several
hundred
years
had
been
a
nasty
thorn
in the flesh
of
England,
as Ireland
was later
to
become.
Ever
since
the twelfth
century
Scot-
land
had
been
the
ally
of
France,
England's
chronic
foe.
England
had
tried
to
conquer
both
enemies but
had
been
less successful
in Scotland
than
in
France.
It
was
the
triumph
of the
Reformation
in
Scotland
that severed
the
historic Franco-Scottish
alliance
and first drew the
two
kingdoms
of
Great
Britain
together
in defense of
their
common
Protestantism,
which in turn made
it
possible
for
the
king
of Scotland
to
ascend the
throne
of
England
when the Tudor line
died with
Elizabeth
I
in 1603.
This
union
of
the
two
crowns was
acceptable
to
both
kingdoms
because
it
catered to
the
national
pride
of Scotland
without
offending
that
of
England.
The latter
country
was so much
greater
in
wealth,
power,
and
development
that it could have no fear
of
being
annexed
by
Scotland.
Each
country
still
had
its
own inde-
pendent government,
and more than a
century passed
before
they
were
finally
joined
to
form one
realm,
and
then not
by
conquest
but
by negotiated
agreement.
Meanwhile
they
were
associated as consti-
tutional
equals
under the common
Crown,
like the dominions
and
the
mother
country
today.
But
the modern British
Commonwealth could
not
grow
out of this loose
Anglo-Scottish
connection because the two
kingdoms,
sharing
one
little
island,
found that
they
had
to unite
as
one
on
terms
that
were
mutually satisfactory.
Englishmen
were
able to
plant
flourishing
colonies,
to
develop
a
great
shipping
interest,
and to
build
a rich commerce
foreign
as well as
colonial
for
the
benefit
of
England,
while
the
people
of
Scotland could not
do the same
for their
country
because
it
was
relatively poor
and weak.
Scotland,
therefore,
wanted
to share
England's larger
life.
England,
on
the
other
hand,
was alarmed
by
Scottish threats
to choose a
separate
king,
which
would have revived
the
mediaeval
danger
to
England's
rear.
Hence
the
bargain
of
1707,
by
which
the
two countries
were
united
under
a
common
parliament
and
a
common
government
as
well as a
common
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the
First
Dominion
97
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
IRISH
SEA
Hill
St.
George's
Channel
ip ap
30
.o
50
Stole
of
Miles
BOUNDARY
BETWEEN
NORTHERN
IREUNDj
AND
EIRE
(IRISH
FREE
STATE)
"""
Ireland
sovereign,
each,
however,
retaining
its
own
church
and its
own
legal
system.
Ireland
became
an
English
possession
by
conquest.
This
began
in
the
twelfth
century,
and
an
Irishman
was
at the bottom
of
it. He
98 CHAPTER
SEVEN:
was
Dairmait
MacMurchada
(which
in
plain
English
is
Jeremiah
Murphy),
a
wild tribal chief
who,
by
war and
intrigue,
won
recog-
nition
'as
king
of Leinster. His
many
misdeeds,
which
included
the
abduction
of
die
wife of
a
neighboring
chief
whose
territory
he
coveted,
raised
up
such a
swarm
of
enemies
as
drove
him
from the
island.
Seeking
out
the
king
of
England,
he offered his
allegiance
in
return
for aid in
recovering
his
kingdom.
What he
got
from the
king
of
England
was
merely permission
to
raise
recruits from
among
the
latter's
subjects;
but
he
had little
difficulty
in
enlisting many,
who
were
spoiling
for
such
a
chance to
use
their
swords
in
carving
out
for
them-
selves
broad baronial
estates.
They
had been
doing
this
very
thing
in
Wales,
and
they
found
it easier in
Ireland,
where the terrain
was
less
difficult and the natives
had no
experience
in
meeting
such
well-armed
foes. The
sequel,
however,
was not the
same in the
two
countries.
The
Anglo-Norman
feudal
conquest
of
little
Wales
became
com-
plete,
whereas that
of much
larger
Ireland did
not;
and the
king
of
England
was
able
to
keep
a
tighter
rein
on
his
baronial vassals
in
nearer
Wales
than he could
on their
fellows in distant
Ireland.
Because the
latter
had to live with
hostile native
tribes
as
neighbors,
and
were
freer
to take
the
law into their
own
hands,
their
relations
with
the
Irish
developed
a
bitterness that
was
unknown in
Wales.
Thus in
Ireland
were
"sown
the
seeds of
racial
hatred
which
were
to strike
their
roots
deeper
and
deeper
in
proportion
as
the
differences
of
language,
blood,
and
civilization,
which had
originally
separated
tie
two
populations,
melted into
insignificance."
The
English
colony
in
Ireland
introduced
English
civilization
into
the island.
English
civilization had
also
entered
Scotland,
but much
earlier and
in such a
different
way
that it
greatly helps
to
explain
the
contrast
between Scottish
and
Irish
history.
It
was
by
a
Scottish
conquest
of the northern
part
of
England
in
the
beginning
of
the
tenth
century.
Edinburgh
was
originally
an
English
town,
and
most
of
the
Lowlands
an
English
district.
An
English
block
was
thus
incorporated
into
Scotland,
and
within a
few
generations
the
cruder
and
poorer
Highlands
ceased to be the
predominant
part
of the
northern
kingdom.
Ireland
began
to
be
a
threat
to
England
at
the
close
of
the
middle
ages,
when rival
claimants
to
the
English
throne
got
active
support
from
the
semi-independent
Anglo-Irish
barons.
The
king
then
dis-
patched
Sir
Edward
Poynings
with
an
army
to
establish
the
royal
authority
in
Ireland,
but the
forces
at
the
disposal
of
this
official
were
barely
sufficient
for
the
task
of
confirming
the
English
government's
Haw
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the
First
Dominion
99
control
of the
Pale,
an
English
district
around
Dublin.
Beyond
lay
the
great
estates of
the
Anglo-Irish
magnates
who were
accustomed
to
wage
private
war
among
themselves
and
with their
Irish
neighbors.
All
Poynings
could do
to
check
them
was
to restrict
their
power
over the
Irish
parliament,
which
had
been
set
up
in
the
English colony
after
the
English
pattern,
by
having
it
pass
what
came
to
be
known,
and
in
later
generations
execrated,
as
Poynings'
Laws.
These
subjected
all
Irish
legislation
to the
will
of
the
English
government.
The
Irish
tragedy
deepened
in the
sixteenth
and
seventeenth cen-
turies. The
Tudor
rulers
of
England
forced
the
Reformation
on Ire-
land.
At
first
this
caused
little
trouble,
for
in
Ireland the
old
church
had
fallen
into sad
decay.
But
during
Elizabeth I's
reign
Roman
Catho-
lic
missionaries,
mostly
Jesuits,
poured
into
Ireland,
effecting
a
revival
which
injected
a
religious
fervor
into the
hatred
between the Irish
and
the
English.
Meanwhile
the
English
government
tried
to
assimilate
the
Irish
tribal
system
by
transforming
the
chiefs into
great
landlords,
like
the
descendants of the
Anglo-Norman
conquerors,
with
their clans-
men as
simple
tenants
toiling
for them.
Supported by
grants
of
nobility
and
of
confiscated church
property,
the
attempt
was
more
or less
suc-
cessful,
but
it
produced
some
fierce
uprisings.
Another
novelty
of
the
time
was
the
resumption,
under the
Roman
Catholic
Queen
Mary,
of
English
colonization
in
Ireland.
Lands
swept
clean of Irish
rebels
were settled
with
an
English population
for the
express
purpose
of
strengthening
the
English
interest
in the
island. This
was the
begin-
ning
of
the
plantation policy
which
was to be
carried much
further
in lie
next
century.
As Elizabeth
I's
reign
wore on and
England
drifted into
an
unde-
clared
war
with
Spain,
the
turmoil
in
Ireland
increased
and
disclosed
a
new
menace
to
England.
The
hands of
Spain
and
Rome
became
more
and
more
evident
in
Ireland,
seeking
to
use
it
as a
convenient
base
from
which
to
effect
the overthrow of Protestant
England.
After
the
destruction
of
the
Spanish
Armada,
Philip
of
Spain
relied
chiefly
on
Ireland
to
encompass England's
fall;
and the
old
tribal
Ireland,
for-
getting
the bitter
feuds that had
always
divided
it,
united
in
a
flaming
revolt.
At last
the
English government
did what it
had
never
done
before.
It
sent
to Ireland
sufficient forces
to
complete
the
conquest
of
the
island,
which
was
essential for
England's security.
Though
Spain
backed
the
Irish
with
a
promise
of
aid,
this was
slow
in
coming.
In
1601
a
Spanish
fleet landed
a
Spanish
army
in
Ireland.
It
was
too late.
The back
of
the rebellion
was
already
broken.
The
conquest
of
Ireland
100
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
had
also come too
late,
having
been
postponed
until it
entailed
a
terrific
struggle
in which both
sides
fought
with
savage
ferocity.
Government
troops
even
destroyed crops
with
the
express
purpose
of
reducing
the
peasants by
starvation.
The
present
division
of
Ireland
dates
from
the settlement
that
fol-
lowed
this
subjugation
of
Ireland from
the
great
Ulster
plantation
of 1608 on lands forfeited for treason.
A
company
of
Londoners
got
the town of
Derry,
which
then
became
Londonderry,
and
thousands
of dour
Presbyterians
from
Scotland
were
settled
as tillers of the
soil
in this
part
of Ireland.
These Scots
therefore
took
much firmer
root
than
English
landlords
who lived
on the
rents
paid by
Irish tenants.
It
was then too
that
the
Irish
parliament
received
the
shape
it
preserved
until
it
disappeared
with
the Union
of
1800. It was
enlarged
and
packed
with a
majority
of
Protestants to
bridle
the
political
power
of
the
Catholic
nobility
and
gentry,
Anglo-Irish
as well
as
Irish.
In
1641,
fearing
further confiscations
of land
and
religious perse-
cution,
Catholic
Ireland
rose in arms and fell
upon
the
Protestants,
massacring
many
of them.
England
was horrified but
helpless,
for
she
was
trembling
on the brink
of
her
own civil
war,
which this
Irish
rebellion
precipitated.
Charles I
vainly
tried
to draw
a
Catholic
army
from
Ireland
to
crush the
Puritans
and establish his
despotism
in
England,
but
his
efforts
only
hastened his own
execution
and then
visited an
additional
English
curse
on Ireland. There
Cromwell
and his
fanatical veterans
crushed
the rebels
mercilessly,
killed all
the
priests
they
could
lay
their
hands
on,
and
sought
to
drive the whole
Celtic
population
into
Connaught
so
that the
rest of the
land
might
be
settled
by
English
Protestants.
Though
he
failed to
achieve
this
wholesale
removal,
he
planted
large
numbers of his
own
soldiers
as
yeomen,
and
he
well-nigh completed
the
destruction of the
Irish
gentry,
whose
estates were
turned
over
to
Englishmen.
Outside
Ulster,
which
be-
came
more
intensely
Protestant,
Cromwell's
soldier
settlers
were
geo-
graphically
too
scattered
and
socially
too
cut off from
the
Protestant
gentry
to
preserve
their
English
character
and
their
religion
for
more
than
a
generation,
and the
destruction of
the
native
gentry
delivered
the
Irish
peasants
wholly
into
the
hands
of the
persecuted
priests.
Cromwell's
conquest
of
Ireland
was
more
thorough
than
Elizabeth's,
and
again
was the
price
that
Ireland
had
to
pay
for
England's
secu-
rity,
this
time
against
the
danger
of
a
royalist
reconquest
of
England
from
Ireland,
which
would
have
destroyed
liberty
in
England.
Scot-
land
likewise
threatened
England
at
this
time,
and,
as a
consequence,
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became the First
Dominion
101
experienced
its
only
real
conquest
by
England.
But
the
English
army
was
soon
withdrawn,
when
the
Stuarts were
peacefully
restored
in
1660,
and
Scotland
recovered
its
independence
under the
same
crown.
Ireland,
on
the other
hand,
suffered new disabilities.
It was
regarded
as
a
colony,
whose
economic interests should be sacrificed
for
those
of
England.
This,
of
course,
was a
basic
principle
of
the
old
colonial
system,
which was then
being developed;
but Ireland
was
singled
out
for
special
treatment because it
was
the
only
colony
that
offered
serious
economic
competition
with
England.
Selfish
interests
in the
English
parliament
insisted on
excluding
Ireland
from
the
benefits
of the
navi-
gation
laws,
thereby
ruining
a
promising
Irish
shipping,
and
on
pro-
hibiting
the
importation
of
livestock,
meat,
butter,
and cheese
from
Ireland,
to
the
infinite
damage
of
producers
in
that
unhappy
island.
Much
worse
was the fate that befell
Ireland on
the morrow
of
the
English
Revolution
of
1688,
because
England's
security
was
again
at
stake
in
Ireland.
King
James
II,
driven
from
his throne
because
he
tried
to
force
Roman Catholicism
and
despotism
upon
England,
fled
to
France
for
aid,
and with French
troops
turned
up
in Ireland
to
rally
that
country
for the
reconquest
of his
throne.
He
called
a
Roman
Catholic
Irish
parliament
that
enacted
a
wholesale attainder
of Protes-
tants
and the
confiscation
of
their
property;
and he
made
war
upon
them
to
extirpate
them,
as
a
preliminary
step
to his
invasion
of
England
with
a Roman
Catholic
army
at
his back.
The
Protestants
were cor-
nered
in
a
little
bit
of
Ulster
and
were
nearly
exhausted
before
they
were
saved
by
relief from
England.
William
of
Orange,
the
new
king
of
England,
followed
with a
strong
army
to
reconquer
Ireland before
he
could
turn
on
his
principal
foe,
which
was
France.
For
a while
the
issue
was
in doubt
because
the
French
defeated
the
English
fleet
and
were,
therefore,
free
to
land
a
French
army.
It
came
in 1691
but,
like the
Spanish
army
of
ninety years
before,
it was
too
late,
for William
had
already
won
a decisive
victory
over
the Irish.
Before the
year
was
out
the
Irish
war
was
over,
and
for
a third
time,
out
of
self-defense,
England
had
completely
conquered
Ireland.
The
fright
that
Ireland
had
again
given
England,
and
the
nightmare
of
terror
from
which
Irish
Protestants
had
just
recovered,
inspired
a
grim
determination
to
crush
Catholic
Ireland
forever;
to this
end,
law
was
piled
upon
law
during
the
next
half
generation.
The Roman
Catholics,
who
formed
at least
three
quarters
of
the
population,
were
deprived
of
all
civil
rights,
their
property
was
confiscated,
their
educa-
tion
was
proscribed,
and
their
clergy
were
outlawed.
These
penal
laws
102
CHAPTER SEVEN:
were
almost as monstrous
as the
measures
that had
recently
harried
the
Huguenots
out
of
France. Catholic
Ireland
was
so
prostrate
that
it
did not stir
during
the
rest
of
England's
long
struggle
against
Louis
XIV or her wars with France
in
the middle
of
the
eighteenth century.
Even
Irish
Protestants
suffered,
though
much less
severely,
from
legislation passed by
the
newly
sovereign
parliament
in
London,
under
the influence
of
Anglican
religious
intolerance
and
English
commer-
cial
jealousy.
It
excluded from
every public
office
the
loyal
Presby-
terians
of
Ulster,
who
were
reinforced
by immigration
from
Scotland
until
they
perhaps
equalled
in
number the
Episcopalian
Protestants in
Ireland;
and
it
forbade
the
export
of Irish
woolen
goods
to
any
country
except England,
which had
earlier
imposed prohibitive
duties
upon
them. Irish
landowners,
mostly
members of
the established
church,
when
hit
by
the
closing
of
the
English
market to
their
livestock
and
meat,
had
turned
to
the
production
and manufacture of wool on
a
large
scale,
which
profitable
business was
now
strangled.
The
only prosperous
part
of
Ireland
was Protestant
Ulster,
the
home
of
the linen
industry,
which
England
encouraged, having practically
none
of
her
own. The rest of the
country
was
in
a
deplorable
state,
and
the
economic
plight
of the Irish
peasants
was
the worst
of
all.
Crowded
on diminutive
holdings
and without
any security
of
tenure,
they
had to
pay
rackrents forced
up
by
their own
competition
for
land,
the
only
thing
that
stood between
them
and
certain
starvation.
They
also had
to
support
two
churches,
their own and a
hated
one,
hated
all
the more because
the
tithe-jobbers,
who
bought
the
rights
of the
clergy,
were a race of
harpies.
Already
"Raleigh's
fatal
gift"
was the
staple
food,
which
meant
three
"meal
months" or
"hungry
months"
before
there were new
potatoes
to
dig.
The
blight
of absentee
proprietorship
rested
heavily upon
the
country.
Jonathan
Swift
declared that at
least
one third
of all
the
Irish
rent was
spent
in
England.
Rarely
was
any
revenue from an estate
put
back
into it. The
land was
usually
leased
and
subleased
by
Protestant
middlemen who
battened on
the half-
starved,
half-naked
peasants
living
in mud
hovels of their
own
con-
struction.
English
colonization
exhibited no
more
concern for the
Irish
natives
than it did for the red
men it
encountered in
North
America
or
the
black men it
imported
into
the
Caribbean
colonies.
By
the time of
the
American
Revolution new life
was
stirring
in
Ireland.
The
previous
decade
had
seen
the
beginning
of
two
move-
ments
that were
to
color
Irish
history
down to our
own
day.
Though
later
they
ran
together,
there
was
yet
no
connection
between
them.
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the First
Dominion 103
One
was
organized
agrarian
violence,
which
then had
no
religious
or
political
motive but
was
simply
the
blind outburst of
a
wretched
peasantry
against
the
extension of
pasture
land and
the exactions
of
the
tithe
collectors.
Bands
of
men,
often
several hundred
strong,
marched
around,
usually
by
night,
destroying
enclosures,
cutting
up
grass
lands,
killing
or
maiming
cattle,
burning
houses,
breaking
open
jails
where their
fellows
were
incarcerated,
and
otherwise
practicing
intimidation,
but
generally
stopping
short of
murder,
a
crime
their
nineteenth
century
successors
frequently
committed. Catholic
priests
opposed
the
outbreaks,
and
in
the
North
they
were
chiefly
the
work
of
Protestant
tillers
of the
soil. These
disturbances were
pretty
well
sup-
pressed
before the
American
revolt
began.
The other
movement
was
purely political
and Protestant. Even
so,
it
sought
to embrace
Roman
Catholics rather than to
oppress
them.
Its
object
was
to
emancipate
the
country
from
English
control,
to make
Ireland
a
self-governing
dominion;
and the seat of the movement was
the
Irish
parliament,
the
preserve
of the Protestant
minority
who
belonged
to the
established church. The fear of a Catholic
uprising,
which
had made
their
grandfathers
feel the need of
English
supremacy,
was
dying
out. Since
the
beginning
of the
century,
the
subject
race
"had
done
nothing
more
dangerous
than endure
wrong."
The
local
atmosphere
of
security
and the
general
spirit
of
the
age encouraged
the
growth
of
religious
tolerance or
indifference,
and the
penal
laws that
were most
iniquitous
had fallen
into desuetude. The Catholic
popu-
lation,
once
regarded
as
steeped
in
disloyalty,
was now free
of that
taint.
The Catholic
clergy
were
no
longer
molested,
the
Catholic townsfolk
were
quite
a
respectable
body,
and the
surviving
Catholic
gentry
and
nobility
were
coming
out
of retirement
to attest their attachment
to
the Crown,
When
this relaxation of tension
between
religions
had undermined
the
ruling oligarchy's
reliance on
English supremacy,
a
new influence
made
that
oligarchy
wish
to throw
off the
English yoke.
Their
en-
trenched
position
was
endangered
by
George
III,
who,
having
broken
the
power
of
the
Whigs
at
home,
was anxious
to do the
same
to the
little
group
who
ran the
government
of Ireland
by
monopolizing
the
spoils
of
office and
controlling
a
majority
of the
three
hundred seats
in
the
Dublin
House of Commons. The
lord
lieutenant,
who
repre-
sented
the
king
in
Ireland,
had been little
more
than
a
figurehead,
visiting
Ireland
only
for
the
sessions
of
parliament,
held once
in two
years.
Now
he was
required
to reside there
during
his term
of
office,
104
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
to take
the
business
of
patronage
out
of
the hands
of the
Undertakers,
as
they
were
called
because
they
had
"undertaken"
to
manage
parlia-
ment,
and
to
manage
the
government
himself
under
direction from
London.
Thus
the
problem
of
imperial
control
was
coming
to
a
head
in
Ireland
at
the
same
time
as in
the
American
colonies.
The
American
Revolution
had
a
profound
effect
upon
Ireland. Yet
there
it
produced
no
sign
of a
revolutionary uprising,
even
among
the
Presbyterians
in
Ulster,
who were
"fiercely
American."
The
Catholics
were
never
quieter;
their
principal
noblemen
responded eagerly
to a
government
request
for
aid in
raising troops,
the old
ban on
Catholic
enlistments
having
been
ignored
for
many years;
and
their
gentry
seized
the
occasion
to
present
addresses
of
loyalty
condemning
the
violence
of the
Americans.
The
Anglican
minority,
however,
were
far
from
unanimous in
backing
British
authority
in
America,
for
many
of
them
realized
that
the
American
cause was
theirs
too.
Still
they
would
use
only
constitutional
means to
get
rid
of
British
authority
in
Ireland.
The
strength
of the
Irish
parliamentary
opposition
grew,
reinforced
by
the
election of
Henry
Grattan,
under
whose
eloquent
leadership
it
concentrated
upon
the
removal
of
trade
restrictions
and
the
establish-
ment
of Irish
legislative
independence;
and the
Irish
political
struggle
led
both
sides to
cultivate
the
favor
of the
Catholics.
Grattan
would
grant
them
the
same
legal
and
political
rights
as
Protestants,
and
the
government
of
Lord
North
was not
unfriendly
to
Catholic
claims,
with
the
result that an
Irish
act of
1778
repealed
invidious
limitations
upon
Catholic
purchase
and
inheritance
of
land,
and
the
preamble
of
the
new law
enunciated
the
general
principle
"that
all
denominations
should
enjoy
the
blessings
of
our
free
constitution."
It
was a
good
augury
that
real
reform
began
in
Ireland with
a
concession to
Catholics
and
a
promise
of
more
to
come.
In
the
same
year
a
British
act
admitted
Irish
vessels
to
the
privileges
of
British
vessels
under
the
navigation
laws.
Ireland
was
drawing
together
and
becoming
a
nation.
When
the
American
war
widened
into
a
European
one
with
the
entry
of
France and
Spain,
and
their
navies
qualified
the
British
com-
mand
of
the
sea,
a
hostile
invasion
of
Ireland
seemed
imminent.
Neither the
British
nor
the Irish
government
could
provide
the
forces
to meet
it,
while
the
French
government
hoped
for
an
Irish
rebellion
to aid the
invasion;
but
the
nascent
Irish
nation
rallied
to the
defense
of
the
country.
Under
the
direction
of
the
leading
gentry,
the
people
flew
to
arms,
elected their
own
officers,
met
regularly
for
military
drill,