Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the
First
Dominion
105
and
without
any
legal
obligation
submitted
to
strict
military discipline.
Until
the end
of
the
war
only
Protestants
were
enrolled,
for
they
alone
could
legally
possess
arms;
but
the
Catholics
who
could afford
it
gladly
bore
their share
of
the
expense.
Such
were
the
famous
Volunteers,
an
intensely
patriotic
army,
which
sprang
into
being spontaneously
to
meet an
urgent
need that
the
government
could not
supply.
From
the
rise
of
the
Volunteers
to the
close
of the
war,
when their
numbers
reached
eighty
thousand,
the
maintenance of
law
and order in Ireland
was
really
in
their
hands,
and
it
was
better than
it
had ever been before
or
was to be
for
generations
afterward.
This
large
unofficial
military
force,
which
had virtual control of the
country,
inevitably
became
also a
political
organization,
to whose
demands
London was
obliged
to
bow.
That was
why
an Irish bill was
passed
to
relieve
Protestant
dissenters
from the
Anglican
sacramental
test
for office
and
allowed
to
become law
in
1780,
almost half
a
cen-
tury
before their
coreligionists
in
England
got
political
equality
with
members of
the
established
church.
By
1780, also,
the British
govern-
ment
passed
legislation
which,
though
not
establishing
free
trade be-
tween the
two
countries,
gave
Ireland
equal
rights
with Britain in
imperial
and
foreign
trade
and
without
requiring
anything
in return.
This
presents
a
striking
contrast
to the
price
England
had
exacted
from
Scotland,
which
was the
surrender
of
her
separate
parliament.
Instead
of
being
swallowed
up,
the
Irish
parliament
proceeded
on
a
motion
by
Grattan
to
debate its
own
independence
under
the British
Crown.
Though
the
question
was
shelved
by government
influence,
it
was
significant
that
during
the
discussion
scarcely
a
member
defended
the
supremacy
of the British
parliament.
Then the
Volunteers
spoke
out,
and
the result
was
decisive. In the
spring
of
1782
Grattan
again
moved
his declaration of
independence,
the
Irish
House
passed
it
unanimously,
and London
yielded
to
the Irish
demand for
legislative
independence.
Poynings'
Laws,
which had made the Irish
parliament
a
puppet
of the
English government,
were
repealed
in
Dublin;
and the
British
parliament
renounced
its
right,
formally
asserted
early
in the
century,
to
legislate
for Ireland.
Thus
was launched
a
constitutional
experiment
of an
association
between
equals;
but
it was
only
an
experiment
and,
as
frequently
happens
with
experiments,
it
posed
problems
that had to be
solved
if
it
was
going
to work.
At the
very
outset the British
ministry
faced the
problem
of how to
effect
an
imperial
coordination of the
two
realms.
Like
Scotland before
1707,
and unlike
the
distant
dominions
that
arose
106
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
generations
afterward,
Ireland
was
too
close
a
neighbor
for
the
govern-
ment
in
London
to
contemplate
the
possibility
of
complete
independ-
ence under the
same
Crown.
Another
tie
still
connected
the
governments
of
the
two
countries.
This,
however,
was
too
precarious
to serve
as
anything
more
than
a
temporary
solution.
Though
in
legal
theory
the
legislature
of Ireland
had now become
independent,
the executive
had
not.
It
had
never
been
responsible
to
the
parliament
in Dublin
and
was
still
under
the
government
in
London.
Yet
this
legal
theory
of
legislative
independ-
ence
and
administrative
dependence
was
only
partly
operative
because
it did
not
fit some
important
political
facts.
The
Irish
parliament
was
not
a free
body,
and
Irish
officialdom
enjoyed
a
large
measure of
independence.
The
great
majority
in
the Dublin
Commons
sat
for
pocket
boroughs
in the
possession
of
local
magnates
or
the
Crown,
or
held
government
jobs,
or
were
otherwise
bought.
The result
was
that
the
executive
could
pass
anything
with the
cooperation
of
the Under-
takers
and
nothing
without
it,
which
meant
that
the old
ruling oligar-
chy
still
held
a
strong
position
against
dictation
from
London.
These
men controlled
enough
seats
in
their
parliament
to
give
them
a
veto
over
legislation
and,
in
addition,
a
strangle
hold on
office.
They
would
serve
British
interests,
but
not
beyond
the
point
where
these interests
would
override
their own.
When
conceding
the
supremacy
of
the
Irish
parliament
in
Irish
affairs,
the
ministry
in
London
announced
the
necessity
of
placing
the
connection
between
the
two
countries
"by
mutual
consent
upon
a
solid
and
permanent
footing."
The
plan
was to
negotiate
a
treaty,
to
be
adopted
by
both
sovereign
legislatures,
which would
recognize
and
define
the
right
of
Great
Britain to
regulate
all
foreign
and
imperial
affairs.
In otter
words,
it was
assumed that
Ireland,
assured
of
auton-
omy,
would
voluntarily accept
British
authority
in matters
that were
not
specifically
Irish. But no
treaty
was
forthcoming.
The
mere
sug-
gestion
of
it
roused Irish
suspicions
of British
sincerity
in
granting
independence,
and
the
government
in London
postponed
the
project
for
a more
auspicious
occasion. Irish
gratitude
for
the new
freedom
recovered
its first enthusiasm
and
expressed
itself in a
parliamentary
grant
of
100,000
toward
supplying
twenty
thousand
additional
sailors
for
the British
navy
and
in
pledges
of the
Volunteers to
help
in
recruiting
them.
The more
auspicious
occasion seemed
to
be
at
hand in
the
spring
of
1784,
when
Irish
manufacturers,
particularly
of
woolens,
were in
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the First
Dominion
107
such
a
distressed
state
that the
Irish
House of
Commons
unanimously
called
for relief
by
a
liberalizing
of
commercial
relations
with Britain.
In
response
to this
request,
negotiations
were
opened
in
London,
and
there
Pitt
offered
what
amounted
to an
imperial
treaty
between
the
two countries.
In
return
for
perpetual
free
trade between
them,
which,
while
benefiting
both,
would
be
a much
greater
boon to Ireland
than
to
Britain,
Ireland
was to
contribute to the
defense
of
the
empire.
The
agreement
was
to
be
implemented
by
parallel
legislation,
and
early
in
1785
it
was
accepted
by
the
Irish
parliament
only
to encounter such
a
storm
in
the
British
Commons,
blown
up by protectionist
manufac-
turers,
that
Pitt
had to
withdraw
it
to avoid
outright
rejection.
Still
hopeful,
he
redrafted the
conditions to make
them more
favorable to
Britain,
and in
spite
of
fierce
opposition
he
carried
them,
only
to find
that his
altered
proposals
could
not
be
got through
the Irish House
and
that
the
whole
project
had
therefore
to be abandoned.
This
failure
was
ominous.
It
was
more than the
collapse
of an
attempted permanent
solution
for the
basic
problem
in
the relations
between the
two countries.
It was
also the breakdown of the
coopera-
tion of the
Undertakers,
the
temporary
solution
and
the
only
means
of
reaching
a
permanent
solution. Three
years
later,
in
1788,
the inherent
danger
in
die
situation
was
thrust forward
by
an
unexpected
domestic
crisis.
George
III
suddenly
went insane
and the Prince
of
Wales,
an
irresponsible
fellow,
was
impatient
to assume the
full
exercise of the
royal
power
that he
might
turn
out
the
government
and install his boon
companion
Fox
as
prime
minister. Pitt
therefore
passed
a
Regency
Bill,
which
recognized
the Prince as
Regent,
but with
greatly
curtailed
prerogatives;
and the
Irish
parliament
was
called
upon
to
do
the
same.
But
again
the
managers
of
the
Irish
House
balked,
insisting
on
a
re-
gency
for Ireland without
these
new
limitations. Ireland and Britain
were
approaching
the
parting
of the
ways,
like Scotland
and
England
in the
beginning
of the
century,
when the
providential
recovery
of
the
king
terminated the crisis.
The
immediate
effect
of the
episode
was
a
marked
extension
of
the
corruption
that
characterized
the
Irish
par-
liament.
By
distributing
more
places, pensions,
and
titles,
and
by
new
bargains
with
borough
owners,
the
government
consolidated its
shaky
following among
the members.
Meanwhile the
grant
of
legislative
independence,
into
which this
process
of
corruption
was
eating,
had raised the
question
of
parlia-
mentary
reform.
It
did not
matter
very
much
what Irish
hands
pulled
the
strings
that
made
the
Dublin
puppet
dance,
so
long
as
the
motions
108
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
Were
imprisoned
in
an
English groove;
but
the
passing
of
this
condi-
tion in
1782
made
the
control
of the
Irish
House
a
pressing
issue. The
manipulating
hands had
suddenly acquired
a
power
over Ireland
that
they
had
never
possessed,
the
power
to dictate
all Irish
legislation.
According
to
a
contemporary
calculation,
124
borough
seats
in
the
Irish Commons
were at
the
absolute
disposal
of
53
peers,
and
another
91
were
the
property
of
52 commoners.
In other
words,
105 indi-
viduals returned
215
of
the 300
members,
the
remainder
being
the
only representatives
of
real
constituencies
in the
counties
and
larger
towns. As
might
be
expected,
there was
quite
a
traffic
in
this artificial
representation.
The
ordinary price
of
a
borough
seat
was
2,000
a
parliament,
and four or five
times
this
amount
if
the seat
was
sold
out-
right.
Could Irish
freedom
be
safely
entrusted
to
the
guardianship
of
an
assembly
so
composed? Might
not the Irish
parliament
be
induced
to sell
its
independence,
or even
its
separate
existence?
Patriotic
Irish-
men
who asked such
questions
had a
gloomy
foreboding
of what
was
actually
to
happen
in
1800,
and
they
strove
to
make it
impossible by
a
thoroughgoing
reform.
There
is
a
suggestion
of
Greek
tragedy
in the
way
the ancient reli-
gious
division of the
country
divided
the
reformers and
thereby
para-
lyzed
their
strenuous
efforts to
rescue
the national
legislature
from
the
clutches
of
the
little
group
of
Irishmen
who were to
betray
it. To effect
the
rescue,
it
was
necessary
to substitute
genuine
elections
by
real
con-
stituencies
for nomination
by
borough
owners;
the fatal
disagreement
was
over
how
representative'
the new
parliament
should
be. The
larger
body
of
active
reformers
would
extend the electoral
system
to include
the
whole
of Protestant
Ireland,
Presbyterian
as well
as
Anglican,
and
there
they
would
stop.
Though they
were
willing
to
treat Roman
Catho-
lics
as
equals
in
other
respects,
they
would
never allow them
to
share
political
power.
Grattan,
on the other
hand,
would heal
the
deep
schism
of the
nation
by
granting
political rights
to Roman
Catholics
on
equal
terms with
Protestants.
He
realized,
of
course,
that
it
would
be
suicidal
folly
to
give
the vote
to
the
ignorant peasantry
of those
days,
so he advocated
a
rather limited
franchise.
All the
Roman Catho-
lics
whom
he would
have embraced in
the
political system
were
too
discreet
to take
any
part
in the
agitation
for
reform,
and none
of
the
lower
classes who
belonged
to
the
same
faith
showed
the
slightest
interest
in the
agitation.
The debate
was
wholly
between
Protestants.
If
the
reforming
minority
in the Irish House
had been
united on
either
program,
and had
proceeded
cautiously,
they
might
have carried
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became the
First
Dominion
1 09
it
with one more
push
from
the
Volunteers.
The
latter were
impatient
for
reform,
and
they
looked
to this
minority
of
parliamentarians
to
lead
them in the
way
they
should
go.
Many
of
them,
even
of the
Ulster
Presbyterians,
who
were
the
backbone
of the
organization,
de-
cried
the
bigotry
of
the
past
and talked
of
a
united nation that knew
no
religious
discrimination.
But Grattan
would
not
pull
them his
way.
A
scrupulous
constitutionalist,
he
saw
grave
danger
in the
pressure
of
armed
force
upon
the
sovereign
parliament
of
Ireland.
Therefore the
Volunteer
movement
was
easily
captured by
the
leaders
who
would
reform
parliament
on a
strictly
Protestant
basis and were less
squeam-
ish about
the
means of
accomplishing
their end. It
was
not
long
before
the sword
broke
in
their
hands.
Toward
the
close of
1783
these
leaders
got
a convention of
Volun-
teer
delegates
elected from
the
whole
country
and
assembled
in
Dublin
to dictate
a
drastic
reform
bill
to
parliament.
This
open
attempt
at
intimidation
defeated
itself,
in
spite
of
the fact that it was
directed
by
some
of the
most
respectable
men in
the
land
including
not
a few
members of
parliament,
lords as
well
as
commoners.
It alarmed Grattan
and
his
friends,
it
emboldened the
Commons to
reject
the
measure
forthwith
by
a
vote of
157
to
77,
and it
destroyed
the
political
influ-
ence of
the
Volunteers.
The
convention
was
persuaded
to
adjourn
sine
die,
and in
the
following
March the
reform
bill was
again presented
to
parliament,
this
time without
any
suggestion
of
armed force behind it.
Instead it was
backed
by
petitions
from most of the
counties,
and
again
it
was
thrown
out,
by
almost as
large
a
majority.
Most of the
little
group
of
borough
owners were no
exception
to
the
general
rule
that
those who
possess
power
will
not
surrender it
except
under
compulsion.
Thenceforth,
said
Lecky,
"the
conviction
sank
deep
into
the
minds
of
many
that
reform in
Ireland could
only
be
effected
by
revolution,
and
the rebellion of 1798
might
be
already
foreseen."
1
But
he
also
admitted
that
if the course of the
world
for the
next
fifty
years
"had
been as
peaceful
as
it
had been
during
the first three
quarters
of
the
century,
reforms
might
probably
have been introduced
by
slow
steps,
and no
great
catastrophe
would have occurred."
2
What made this
evolution
impossible
was the French
Revolution,
which
was a
curse
to
Ireland even more
than to
England.
In
both countries it
inspired
hopes
and fears that clashed and led
to a stern
reaction;
but in
Ireland
1
W.
E. H.
Lecky,
History
of
Ireland
in
the
Eighteenth
Century,
II,
377.
.
381.
110 CHAPTER
SEVEN:
the
disturbance and the
repression
were much
more
violent,
the conflict
inflamed
racial and
religious passions
that
had
long
been
dying
down,
and
the
awakening
nation lost even
the
symbol
of
its
independence.
The
spirit
of the
French Revolution
entered
Ireland
in
Ulster,
a
province
of
strange
contradictions and
explosive
elements.
There
the
American
Revolution had roused
much
sympathy
for
the
colonial
cause and
not a little
republican
feeling,
and
then
had
given
rise
to the
main
movement
of
the
loyal
Volunteers,
many
of
whom,
now
Catholic
as well as
Protestant,
were still under
arms,
the
government
having
shrunk
from the
danger
of
attempting
to
dissolve
them.
There, too,
some
Protestants
were now
fighting
with Roman Catholics
while other
Protestants were
reaching
out
for
political
union
with
them.
This
fighting,
which
began
in 1785 and seems to
have
originated
in
a
pri-
vate
quarrel
that had no
religious
flavor,
was
between
bands of
Peep-o'-
Day Boys, mostly Presbyterians,
who terrorized Catholic
peasants
by
bursting
into
their
cottages
in the
early
hours of
the
morning
to
search
for and
seize
illegally
possessed
arms,
and
bands
of
Defenders,
Catholic
peasants
organized
professedly
to
check such
outrages.
Furious
as
was
the hatred on
both
sides of this
sporadic
rural
strife
among
the
poorest
classes,
it
did
not
infect
their
betters.
They
were
inoculated
against
it
in that
age
of
"enlightenment,"
and
they
realized
that
they
had com-
mon
interests that
should draw them
together.
The
compulsory
pay-
ment of the tithe to
support
the
Anglican
Church was as
objectionable
to
Presbyterians
as
it was
to Roman
Catholics,
and so was the
political
monopoly
of
the
ruling
clique.
Though
the
Roman Catholic
leaders
were still
shy
about
demanding
emancipation,
they
were
encouraged
by
the
politically-minded Presbyterians,
who
were not at
all
shy.
They
were
more
than ever
impatient
for the reform of
parliament,
but
saw
little chance of
getting
it
except
in
alliance with the
Roman
Catholics
and
on
equal
terms with them.
Great was
the
encouragement
that
came
from
Paris
in
the
news that the
French had
abolished
all
religious
disqualifications
and the
whole tithe
system,
and the
revolutionary
example
of France
awakened ominous
echoes in
the
north
of
Ireland.
In
July
1791,
the
second
anniversary
of
the
taking
of the
Bastille
was
the occasion of
a
great
celebration
in
Belfast.
Democratic
toasts
were downed
with
enthusiasm,
an
address
of
fulsome
flattery
was
sent
to
France,
a resolution in
favor of
religious
equality
was
passed
by
Presbyterian
Volunteers,
and
Catholic
bodies
formally
returned
their
warmest
thanks.
In
September,
a
startling pamphlet
appeared
and
gained
wide
circulation. It
summoned
the
whole
nation
to
unite
in
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the
First
Dominion
111
demanding
a
parliament
that
would
truly represent
it and
redress all
Irish
grievances.
The
author
was
Wolfe
Tone,
an able
young
lawyer
of
Dublin,
a
nominal
Presbyterian
and
a
real free thinker. In
October,
at
Belfast,
he
launched
the
Society
of
United
Irishmen,
which soon
had
branch
organizations
in
every part
of
Protestant
Ulster.
Its
original
purpose
was
to
combine
Protestants
and Roman Catholics
in
such
a
powerful
political
organization
that it would
compel
parliament
to reform itself
in
accordance
with
tie
national
will.
Before
long,
how-
ever,
despair
of
achieving
this
end
by
constitutional
methods,
and the
contagious example
of
France,
began
to drive the
movement
along
the
road
that
Tone
wanted
it
to
follow,
toward
the
establishment of
an
independent
Irish
republic
by
armed
rebellion
supported by
a
French
invasion;
Catholic Ireland was
repelled
rather than
attracted
by
the
French
Revolution,
which
confiscated
all church
property
and
essayed
to re-
organize
the
church
as
a
democratically
governed
national institution
having
no ties with
Rome.
This
being
so,
it is
not
surprising
that the
United Irishmen
won
scarcely any
Catholic recruits
until
1795,
a
fateful
year
in
Irish
history.
Nevertheless,
there
was
meanwhile a
growing
ferment
among
the
Catholics. Defenderism
was
spreading
to
other
parts
of
Ireland
and
it
was
changing
in
character,
becoming
an
organized
anarchic
movement of
desperate poverty-stricken
peasants
who knew
nothing
and
cared
nothing
about
politics.
Of much more
concern
to the authorities in Dublin
and London was the novel
politi-
cal
activity
of
educated Catholics.
Their old aristocratic
leaders,
whose
loyalty
to
the Crown
was
unquestioned
and whose
shyness
of
politics-
was
proverbial,
were
nudged
out
by
new men
of less
certain
loyalty
and
more
aggressive
disposition
born
of success
in
commerce.
They
were
greatly
encouraged
by
Protestant
sympathy
and
the
general
unrest
of
the times.
In
1791
they
openly
demanded
equal
rights
for
Roman
Catholics.
In
1792,
under
their
guidance
and
against
the
opposition
of
prelates
and
priests,
elected
delegates
from all over the
country
held
a Catholic
Convention
in
Dublin,
which
appealed
over
the
heads
of
the
Irish
government
to
the
king
in London. It was an
astoundingly
bold
step
for Irish
Roman
Catholics
to
take.
They
had never
dared do
anything
like
this before.
If
they
did not
get
satisfaction
by
constitu-
tional
means,
would
they
not fall
into the embrace
of the
republican
United
Irishmen,
and
with
them
throw Ireland
into a
wild
revolution?
To
avert
this
danger,
Pitt's
government
pressed
the
Irish
administra-
tion to
buy
off
the Catholics
with
concessions and
urged
that
these
112
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
should
include
the franchise
because
without
it all other
concessions
would
be
unavailing.
But the
ministers
in
Dublin
objected
so
vehe-
mently
to
anything
that
threatened Protestant
ascendancy
by
which
they
meant their
own
that
they persuaded
London
to be
satisfied
for
1792
with a relief
bill that
opened
the
legal
profession
to
Roman
Catholics and
repealed
restrictions on their
intermarriage
and
educa-
tion.
Before the
end
of
that
year,
which saw the
European
war
begin
and
spread
until it
was on the
point
of
dragging
Britain
in,
London
recognized
more
clearly
than
ever
the
urgent
necessity
of
granting
the
vote
to the Irish
Catholics
and
again pressed
Dublin to
yield.
There
was a
bitter
argument
between the
two
governments,
the
Irish
accusing
the
British of
stirring
up
the
Catholics,
and
the
British
blaming
the
Irish for
antagonizing
the
Catholics
by
resisting
their
just
demands,
and each
believing
that
the other
would
betray
its interests.
As
the
Dublin
ministers,
with
almost all
Ireland
against
them,
had
to
rely
on
British armed
force
in
the event
of an
uprising, they
had
to
obey
the
dictate of London.
Early
in
1793,
just
after
France
had
declared
war
on
Britain,
a
sullen
Irish
parliament
passed
a
bill
that
extended
the
franchise to
Roman
Catholics,
removed the
legal
ban on their
posses-
sion
of
arms,
and
admitted them
to
grand
juries
and
the
magistracy.
There
was a
fatal flaw
in
this
relief
bill
of
1793.
Though
Catholics
then
got
the
vote,
they
could not use
it
to
elect
Catholics.
Their
admis-
sion
to
parliament
was
moved
as
an
amendment,
opposed
by
the
gov-
ernment,
and
defeated
by
163
to
69.
In
the
light
of
what
followed,
it
seemed an
almost
insane
thing
to
give political
equality
to
Irish
democ-
racy,
the
possessors
of
forty-shilling
freeholds,
most
of
whom
were
too
ignorant
to
realize the
value
of
their
new
right,
and
at
the
same
time
to
withhold
political
equality
from the
Catholic
gentry,
who,
if
allowed
to
sit
in
the
House
of
Commons,
would
have
exerted
a
most
whole-
some
influence
there
and in
the
country
generally.
The
number
of
independent
members
who
favored
their
admission
leaves
little
doubt
that
official
pressure
could
have
carried
it
easily.
Why
did
not
London
insist
upon
it?
There
were
several
reasons.
The
Catholic
spokesmen
themselves
had
intimated,
apparently
to
avoid
prejudicing
their
cause,
that
they
would
be
content
without
it;
the
Irish
ministers
asserted
that
their
parliamentary
following
would
revolt
if
required
to
pass
it;
and
the
British
government,
becoming
involved
in
the
European
war,
was
reluctant
to
renew
a
long
controversy
with
Dublin
over
a
new
Irish
question.
Much
evil
was
also
done
during
the
passage
of
the
bill
when
the
How
Ireland
Nearly
Became
the First
Dominion
113
Irish
chancellor,
3
who
loathed it
but
had to vote
for
it,
explained
his
position
to
the
House
of
Lords
over which
he
presided.
After
a fierce
denunciation
of
Catholic
claims
and
principles,
he said:
If
Papists
have
a
right
to
vote
for
representatives
in a
Protestant Parlia-
ment,
they
have
a
right
to
sit
in
Parliament
they
have a
right
to fill
every
office of the
State
they
have
a
right
to
pay
tithes
exclusively
to
their
own
clergy
they
have a
right
to
restore
the ancient
pomp
and
splendour
of their
religion
they
have
a
right
to
be
governed exclusively
by
the
laws of
their
own
Church
they
have a
right
to
seat their
bishops
in this House
they
have a
right
to seat a
Popish prince
on
the throne
they
have
a
right
to
subvert
the
established Government and to
make this
a
Popish country,
which
I
have little
doubt
is
their ultimate
object.
Sheer
madness!
That
was
what
he
thought
the
bill
was,
and that was
what
his
making
such
a
speech
was. It was an
incendiary
utterance.
Other
passages
were a
thinly
veiled attack
on
the
British
government
for
driving
such
a
measure
through
the
Irish
parliament.
The
obvious
inference,
that the
legislative
independence
of Ireland was a
fraud,
was
insulting
to Irish
sensibilities;
and
nothing
could have
been
more
cleverly
contrived to
poison
Irish
minds,
of whatever
party,
against
the
British
government
as
directly
responsible
for
everything
that was
done
or
not done
in
Ireland.
The
following
year
saw
the
United
Irishmen
forcibly suppressed
as
definitely
treasonable,
because
they
were
conspiring
with
the
French
enemy.
It also saw
the
rise of a
vigorous agitation
for
the
admission
of
Roman
Catholics,
who
as
a
body
were
still
solidly
loyal,
to
the
legis-
lature
in Dublin. The
movement
had
strong
Protestant
as well as
Catholic
support.
Grattan and his
reforming
friends
in
the house were
all for
it,
and the
government
in
London
seemed to be back of it
too.
The leader
of the
Whigs
who
joined
Pitt
in that
year
was
known to
favor this
completion
of
Catholic
emancipation;
so was one
of
his
group,
Lord
Fitzwilliam,
who
went
to Ireland as
the new
lord lieu-
tenant
in
January
1795. He was
instructed to avoid
encouraging
it
and
to
postpone
it,
if
possible,
until the
end of
the
war;
but
if the
pressure
was
too
great,
he
was to
accept
and
support
it.
What
Fitzwilliam
found
on his arrival
was that the
Catholic
ques-
tion could not
be
put
off.
The
Catholic
leaders,
old as
well as
new,
had
their hearts set on
full
emancipation
and
were
looking
to
Grattan
8
John
Fitzgibbon,
later Earl
of Clare.
Quoted
in
Lecky,
op.
tit., Ill,
172.
114
CHAPTER
SEVEN:
to
champion
it in
parliament.
Protestant
Ireland
as
a
whole
believed
that it
should
be
granted. Though
borough
owners disliked
it,
they
were
prepared
to
yield
if the
government
declared
for
it;
and
the
Protes-
tant
gentry
feared
that
unless
their Catholic
brethren
got
it
the
restless
masses
would
be
swept
away
by
revolutionary
leaders
and
ideas.
Defenderism
was
not
yet political
in
character,
but
it
was
spreading
anarchy
throughout
the
countryside
and
the
government
lacked
means
to
cope
with
it.
The lord lieutenant
was
convinced,
and
on
this the
chancellor
agreed
with
him,
that the
only remedy
for such
a
dangerous
condition was the
organization
of
"an
armed
constabulary
composed
of the
better orders
of the
people,"
which
in
three of the
four
provinces
of Ireland meant
Roman Catholics. But
this
force
would be
unreliable
and even
dangerous
unless the
government
first
granted
Catholic
emancipation.
Quick
action was also
necessary
because the war
took
an
ugly
turn in this
January,
when the
French swarmed
over
Holland
and
captured
the Dutch fleet.
As
Ireland
was
the
Achilles'
heel of
Britain,
Fitzwilliam
had
to
face
the
prospect
of
an
early
invasion,
and
he saw little
chance of
successful
defense
unless
he
could
rally
the
Irish as one
people,
which
would
be
impossible
without
Catholic
emancipation.
Ireland seemed to be on the
point
of
becoming
a
united
nation
with the
passage
of the bill introduced
by
Grattan
and
backed
by
Fitz-
william,
when the
noble work of these
two statesmen
was
shattered
by
a
bolt of
lightning
from London. Pitt's
government
ordered the
bill
stopped
and Fitzwilliam home
only
seven weeks
after his
landing
in
Dublin.
The
reason
for this
stunning
blow is
still
somewhat
obscure.
By
interfering
with the
shameless
political jobbery
that
characterized
the Irish
administration,
he
had incurred
the
wrath
of
powerful
inter-
ests. He
was
also
the
victim of
political
differences
within
the
cabinet
arising
from the coalition of the
previous year.
Apparently
the
Catholic
question
was
only
a
secondary
consideration and
may
have
been
merely
a
pretext.
But
whatever the
causes,
the
effects
were
undoubtedly
disastrous.
The British
repudiation
of
Fitzwilliam
let the
revolutionary
move-
ment run wild
in
Ireland. The
United
Irishmen,
reconstituted
as
a
conspiratorial society
that
aimed
at a
general
rebellion in
conjunction
with
a French
invasion,
set out to
capture
the
Catholic
peasantry,
without whose
support
no such
rising
was
possible.
The
blow
from
London
paralyzed
the
political
influence
of
the
Catholic
gentry
and
clergy
over
the
masses,
who were
thereby
exposed
to the
appeals
of the