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patriotic party, and every question received a new impulse from his advocacy.

I have already enumerated the principal objects of the party with which Grattan was connected. He assisted Burgh and Flood in carrying the free-trade question to a triumphant issue. He endeavoured, though for a time unsuccessfully, to place the Irish army under the control of the Parliament; and, above all, he gave an unprecedented impulse to the great cause of parliamentary independence. In April 1780 he moved that no person on earth, save the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland, has a right to make laws for Ireland.' This motion he introduced with a speech of splendid eloquence, and the effect produced by it was very great. Flood, however, perceived that it was premature and would have been defeated, and at his suggestion it was withdrawn, but the true sentiments of the Parliament are sufficiently shown in the letters of Lord Buckinghamshire, who was then Viceroy, to the Government in England. 'It is with the utmost concern,' he wrote, 'I must acquaint your lordship that, although so many gentlemen expressed their concern that the subject had been introduced, the sense of the House against the obligation of any statutes of the Parliament of Great Britain within this kingdom is represented to me to have been almost unanimous.'

Shortly after this debate the Volunteer Convention assembled at Dungannon to throw their influence into the scale. Grattan, in co-operation with Flood and Charlemont, drew up a series of resolutions which were adopted unanimously, asserting the Irish independence; and Grattan, alone, drew up another resolution expressing the gratification with which the volunteers had witnessed the relaxation of the penal code. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of this last resolution. It marked the solemn

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union between the two great sections of Irishmen for the purpose of obtaining the recognition of their political claims. It showed that the old policy of governing Ireland by the division of her sects had failed; and that if the independence of Parliament were to be withheld, it must be withheld in opposition to a nation united and in arms.

The Government at length yielded. The Duke of Portland was sent over as Lord Lieutenant, with permission to concede the required boon. At the last moment an effort was made to procure a delay, but Grattan refused to grant it; and on the 16th of April, 1782, amid an outburst of almost unparalleled enthusiasm, the declaration of independence was brought forward. On that day a large body of the volunteers were drawn up in front of the Parliament House of Ireland, and it was through their parted ranks that Grattan passed to move the emancipation of his country. Never had a great orator a nobler or a more pleasing task. It was to proclaim that the strife of six centuries had terminated, and that a new era had dawned upon Ireland. In the eyes of the Irish patriot the promised land seemed reached. The dream of Swift and Molyneux was realised. The blessings of independence were reconciled with the blessings of connection; and in an emancipated Parliament he saw the guarantee of the future prosperity of his country and the Shekinah of liberty in the land.

The colours have now faded from the picture, and after all the deceptions and changes of later Irish history it is difficult to conceive the hopes that at this time centred in Ireland on a Parliament which was purely Protestant and essentially aristocratic. It was impossible, indeed, not to perceive that there was still much to be done-disqualifications to be removed, anomalies to be rectified, corruption to be overcome; but Grattan, at least, firmly believed that Ireland possessed the vital force necessary for all this; that

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the progress of a healthy public opinion would regenerate and reform the Irish Parliament; and that every year the sense of independence would quicken the sympathy between the people and their representatives. It was, indeed, a noble triumph, and the orator was worthy of the cause. In a few glowing sentences he painted the dreary struggle that had passed, the magnitude of the victory that had been achieved, and the grandeur of the prospects that were unfolding. I am now,' he exclaimed, to address a free people. Ages have passed away, and this is the first moment in which you could be distinguished by that appellation. I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often that I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by what heaven-directed steps you have proceeded until the whole faculty of the nation is braced up to the act of her own deliverance. I found Ireland on her knees; I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation. In that character I hail her, and, bowing in her august presence, I say Esto perpetua!'

The concession was made with an ungrudging hand, and in a few years most of the badges of subserviency which the Irish Protestants had worn were discarded. Between 1768 and 1782 the duration of Parliament was limited to eight years; the commercial restrictions which excluded Ireland from foreign and from colonial trade, and which crippled her most important manufactures, were almost all abolished; the judges were made immovable ; the perpetual Mutiny Act was repealed, and the Irish army placed under the full control of the Irish Parliament; the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, which had been destroyed in 1719, was restored; the Act asserting

the right of the British Parliament to make laws for Ireland was repealed. The power of the two Privy Councils to suppress or alter Irish Bills was also given up, and the principle that the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland were alone competent to make laws for Ireland was fully recognised. Immediately after the concession of independence a day of thanksgiving was appointed to consecrate the triumph, and a vote for the support of twenty thousand sailors for the English navy was agreed upon. This last was almost the first measure of the emancipated Parliament. In this, as in every other period of his career, Grattan was anxious to show in the most unequivocal manner the sympathy of Ireland with England, and the compatibility of an ardent love of independence with a devoted attachment to the connection. He said himself, 'I am desirous above all things, next to the liberty of the country, not to accustom the Irish mind to an alien or suspicious habit with regard to Great Britain.' The House of Commons, in the address to the Throne, warmly acknowledged the completeness of what had been done. We do assure his Majesty,' it said, 'that no constitutional question between the two nations will any longer exist which will interrupt this harmony, and that Great Britain, as she has approved of our firmness, so may she rely on our affection.' The address was carried with only two dissentient votes.

While the greatest Irishmen in Ireland were thus working out the freedom of their country, the greatest Irishman in England wrote to encourage them and to express his approval of the work. I am convinced,' wrote Burke to Lord Charlemont, that no reluctant tie can be a strong one, and that a natural, cheerful alliance will be a far more secure link of connection than any principle of subordination borne with grudging and discontent.' The

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Whig Party, who were for a brief period in power, appeared to have concurred in this view; and Fox, in one of his speeches in 1797, expressed it very unequivocally. I would have the Irish Government,' he said, 'regulated by Irish notions and Irish prejudices, and I am convinced that the more she is under Irish government the more she will be bound to English interests.'

The Parliament at this time determined to mark its recognition of the services of Grattan by a grant of 100,000l. Grattan, however, refused to receive so large a sum, and was with some difficulty induced to accept half. This grant enabled him to devote himself exclusively to the service of the country without practising at the Bar, to which he had been called.

Grattan

I need not revert at length to the question of Simple Repeal, which I have already so fully considered. The arguments on each side of that controversy must be admitted to have been very nicely balanced, and the authorities were also very evenly divided. reckoned among the supporters of his view Charlemont, Fox, the Irish chief justices and chief baron, and several other Irish legal authorities. He had, however, injured his cause greatly by bringing forward a resolution declaring that all who asserted that England had authority over Ireland were enemies to the country-a resolution which was wholly indefensible, which Flood triumphantly assailed, and which, after a short discussion, was withdrawn. A dangerous reaction of opinion had undoubtedly set in. Two or three unfortunate incidents in England strengthened the suspicion that the English Government did not mean to accept loyally the new Constitution of Ireland, and the attitude of Flood and of the Volunteer Convention excited just alarm. The British Government, however, dealt most wisely and most liberally with the question. Though