who were driving the country he had liberated into rebellion. Avoiding both sides, he soon came to be suspected and shunned by both, and his life was actually in danger. At this juncture he was fortunately called to England to give evidence in the trial of Arthur O'Connor. In his absence Tinnehinch House was attacked, and Mrs. Grattan was at last obliged to leave it. Anxiety began to prey on his health, and to make matters worse he now plainly saw the government determination to bring about the union at all costs. This conviction induced him to return to Ireland in the latter part of 1799, despite the personal risk he ran. He was put in nomination for Wicklow, and though unable to attend per

over the Irish parliament. Grattan and all the moderate men of the country opposed this; but Flood was determined, and finding himself backed by the rabble and volunteers, he moved for leave to bring in his Bill of Rights, and was refused. After this for some time the rivalry between the two leaders continued, until, in a few months, Grattan, lately the idol and deliverer of his country, became the most unpopular statesman in it. His great mental exertions, and the excitement of public life, now began to tell on his health, and he was advised to try the waters of Spa for a time. On his return home he married Miss Fitzgerald, a lady of ancient family and great beauty, and for a short while they lived a life of quiet and repose at Tinnehinch. The mar-sonally, and the government had delayed the riage proved a happy one, Mrs. Grattan, in spite of infirm health, worthily sustaining her husband in all the difficulties of his career.

At the general election of 1783 Grattan was again returned for Charlemont, and his feud with Flood continued. In this year he delivered his celebrated philippic against that statesman in a debate on retrenchment. In the debate on Mr. Orde's commercial propositions he made a speech which to a great extent restored his popularity. His speech on the title question had also much the same effect. In the regency question Grattan took the side of the Whigs; and the lordlieutenant refusing to forward the address he had carried, it was placed in the hands of a committee of both houses as a deputation to carry it to the prince, and a motion of censure on the lord-lieutenant passed by a large majority. In 1790 Grattan became a member for the city of Dublin, and once more for a time assumed his position as leader of his party. In 1794 he went over to London, where he had several interviews with Pitt, who made believe he was friendly to reform, and who, if pressed on the Catholic question, promised to yield to the pressure, but not to introduce a bill. Pitt, however, deceived Grattan grossly, the idea of the union having already taken hold of his mind, and his promises were of course never fulfilled. Indeed, instead of any sign of relief to the Catholics, repression became the order of the day, and "vigour beyond the law," when exercised against them, was approved instead of punished. In 1796 "The Bloody Code," as Curran called it, was passed, and soon Grattan began to feel himself alone, a single man between extremes. He could not become a United Irishman; he would never soil his hands by joining with those

election to the last moment in hope of defeating him, he was returned in time to take part in the union debate. At five in the morning he was roused from his bed, informed of his election, and though almost in a dying state he proceeded in a sedan-chair to the house. As the first ray of daylight entered the building the doors were opened and Grattan entered, supported by two friends, and looking like a spectre. His speech, which was spoken sitting, was marked by all his old fire and vehemence.

We need not detail here the measures which resulted in the union. So soon as it became an accomplished fact, Grattan retired to Tinnehinch, and, though frequently pressed, it was not till 1805 that he consented to enter the British parliament as member for Malton. Unlike Flood his first speech in the new house was a great success, and his reputation continued high during all the time he remained a member. In 1806 he again refused office, and on the election of a new parliament he stood for Dublin, and was elected one of its members. In 1812 he presented the Roman Catholic petition for emancipation, and moved for a committee. In the same year he and his friends met at Tinnehinch to prepare a bill for emancipation, and after the meeting of parliament he moved that the Catholic claims should be taken into consideration. motion was carried by a majority of forty; but on the second reading of the resulting bill, through certain intrigues, there was a majority of four against him on some clauses to which it was said the Roman Catholics objected. Chagrined and weary Grattan withdrew his bill. For some time longer, however, he continued to advocate the Catholic cause and to work for it. In 1818, on refusing to support

The

DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS.

(SPEECH IN IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL, 1780.)

Sir, I have entreated an attendance on this day, that you might in the most public manner deny the claim of the British parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it.

If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woollen manufacture, or when the 6th of George the First declared this country to be dependent, and subject to laws to be enacted by the Parliament of England, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience to seize the first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have administered to him an oath that he would consider himself a person separate and set apart for the discharge of so important a duty; upon the same principle am I now come to move a declaration of right, the first moment occurring

could be made with any chance of success, and without aggravation of oppression.

the unqualified repeal of the window-tax, he was assaulted on Carlisle Bridge and narrowly escaped being thrown into the Liffey. In 1819 his health became seriously impaired, but in the following spring he revived somewhat, and determined to visit parliament to make one more motion on the Catholic question, in which he had fought bravely for twenty years. His physicians tried to dissuade him from going, but he had taken his determination, and left the quay at Dublin amidst the cheers of the people. Mortification set in on the journey, and after reaching London he was told it would cost him his life to visit the house. "It is a good death," he answered twice. He was unable to go, however; but had drawn up a paper on the question so near his heart -that of Catholic emancipation, which he desired his friend Plunket to read in the house. On June 4, 1820, he passed away almost with these words on his lips, "I die with the love of liberty in my heart, and this declaration in favour of my country in my hand." He had himself desired to be buried in the church-since my time in which such a declaration yard of Moyanna, in Queen's County, where he had bought an estate, but this was overruled, and his remains rest in Westminster Abbey. "The eloquence of Grattan in his best days," says Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, who has studied him carefully, "was in some respects perhaps the finest that has been heard in either country since the time of Chatham. Considered simply as a debater he was certainly inferior to Fox and Pitt, and perhaps to Sheridan; but he combined two of the very highest qualities of a great orator to a degree that was almost unexampled. No British orator except Chatham had an equal power of firing an educated audience with an intense enthusiasm, or of animating and inspiring a nation. No British orator except Burke had an equal power of sowing his speeches with profound aphorisms, and associating transient questions with eternal truths. His thoughts naturally crystallized into epigrams; his arguments were condensed with such admirable force and clearness that they assumed almost the appearance of axioms; and they were often interspersed with sentences of concentrated poetic beauty, which flashed upon the audience with all the force of sudden inspiration, and which were long remembered and repeated."

Grattan's Speeches in the Irish and in the Imperial Parliament, edited by his son, were published in 1822; and Memoirs of his Life and Times, also by his son, appeared in five vols. in 1839-46.]

Sir, it must appear to every person, that, notwithstanding the import of sugar and export of woollens, the people of this country are not satisfied-something remains; the greater work is behind; the public heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our satisfaction; to stop the throats of millions with the votes of parliament; to preach homilies to the volunteers; to utter invectives against the people under pretence of affectionate advice,—is an attempt weak, suspicious, and inflammatory.

You cannot dictate to those whose sense you are intrusted to represent; your ancestors, who sat within these walls, lost to Ireland trade and liberty; you, by the assistance of the people, have recovered trade; you still owe' the kingdom liberty; she calls upon you to restore it.

The ground of public discontent seems to be, "we have gotten commerce, but not freedom:" the same power which took away the export of woollens and the export of glass may take them away again; the repeal is partial, and the ground of repeal is upon a principle of expediency.

Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and tyrannical import; expedient is an ill-omened word, selected to express the reservation of authority while the exercise is mitigated; expedient is the ill-omened expression of the repeal of the American stamp-act. England

thought it expedient to repeal that law; happy | world; you are at the head of an immense

army; nor do we only possess an unconquerable force, but a certain unquenchable public fire, which has touched all ranks of men like a visitation.

Turn to the growth and spring of your country, and behold and admire it; where do | you find a nation who, upon whatever concerns the rights of mankind, expresses herself with more truth or force, perspicuity or justice? not the set phrase of scholastic men, not the tame unreality of court addresses, not the

had it been for mankind, if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not reserved the right! To that reservation she owes the loss of her American empire at the expense of millions, and America the seeking of liberty through a sea of bloodshed. The repeal of the woollen act, similarly circumstanced, pointed against the principle of our liberty: present relaxation, but tyranny in reserve, may be a subject for illumination to a populace, or a pretence for apostasy to a courtier, but cannot be the subject of settled satisfaction to a free-vulgar raving of a rabble, but the genuine born, an intelligent, and an injured community. speech of liberty and the unsophisticated oraIt is therefore they consider the free-trade as tory of a free nation. a trade de facto, not de jure, a license to trade See her military ardour, expressed not only under the parliament of England, not a free-in 40,000 men, conducted by instinct as they trade under the charters of Ireland as a tribute were raised by inspiration, but manifested in to her strength; to maintain which she must the zeal and promptitude of every young continue in a state of armed preparation, member of the growing community. Let dreading the approach of a general peace, and corruption tremble; let the enemy, foreign or attributing all she holds dear to the calami- domestic, tremble; but let the friends of liberty tous condition of the British interest in every rejoice at these means of safety and this hour quarter of the globe. This dissatisfaction, of redemption. Yes; there does exist an enfounded upon a consideration of the liberty lightened sense of rights, a young appetite for we have lost, is increased when they consider freedom, a solid strength, and a rapid fire, the opportunity they are losing; for if this which not only put a declaration of right nation after the death-wound given to her within your power, but put it out of your freedom had fallen on her knees in anguish, power to decline one. Eighteen counties are and besought the Almighty to frame an occa- at your bar; they stand there with the comsion in which a weak and injured people might pact of Henry, with the charter of John, and recover their rights, prayer could not have with all the passions of the people. "Our lives asked, nor God have furnished, a moment are at your service, but our liberties-we remore opportune for the restoration of liberty ceived them from God; we will not resign than this in which I have the honour to ad- them to man." Speaking to you thus, if you dress you. repulse these petitioners, you abdicate the privileges of parliament, forfeit the rights of the kingdom, repudiate the instruction of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and reject that good which not a minister, not a Lord North, not a Lord Buckinghamshire, not a Lord Hillsborough, but a certain providential conjuncture, or rather the hand of God, seems to extend to you. Nor are we only prompted to this when we consider our strength; we are challenged to it when we look to Great Britain. The people of that country are now waiting to hear the Parliament of Ireland speak on the subject of their liberty. It begins to be made a question in England whether the principal persons wish to be free: it was the delicacy of former parliaments to be silent on the subject of commercial restrictions, lest they should show a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the violation; you have spoken out, you have shown a knowledge of the fact, and not

England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; the doctrine of imperial legislature she feels to be pernicious; the revenues and monopolies annexed to it she has found to be untenable; she lost the power to enforce it; her enemies are a host, pouring upon her from all quarters of the earth; her armies are dispersed; the sea is not hers; she has no minister, no ally, no admiral, none in whom she long confides, and no general whom she has not disgraced; the balance of her fate is in the hands of Ireland; you are not only her last connection; you are the only nation in Europe that is not her enemy. Besides, there does of late a certain damp and spurious supineness overcast her arms and councils, miraculous as that vigour which has lately inspirited yours; for with you everything is the reverse; never was there a parliament in Ireland so possessed of the confidence of the people; you are the greatest political assembly now sitting in the