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MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH.

[CHAP. II. Mr. Grattan's remarks: they apply to later times also, than those in which they were made.

"Sir, those gentlemen have most ignorantly foretold what would be the Government under this bill. I will tell these gentlemen most truly what is now the Irish Government without it. What is their situation? A set of men excluded in their native land from power and control, privileged only to submit their objections, without any authority to stop the crime they complain of. This exclusion from all control in the disbursement of money, makes them a cypher. That control, exclusively placed in the Lord-lieutenant's secretary, his Excellency and certain English officers, makes them your masters, and the Secretary on that bench your idol. It is no longer control,-it is command: it is this command that makes him more formidable than the thunder of Demosthenes, and more persuasive than Tully; or, if the name of Solomon delight him more, Solomon in all his glory, sitting among his state concubines. See at the feet of a young lad the tributes of a degraded court. See prostrate at his feet the wisdom of age and the flame of youth,-the grey head of experience, the country gentleman's shattered mask, and the veteran Crown lawyers' prostituted conscience and howling remorse. Even the virtues which this man don't entirely destroy, he disgraces-he humbles the energies of your mind, and contracts the exertions of your talents. He not only humbles your virtues, he degrades your vices, and gives them a poorer cast; so that you lose the high mettle which sometimes mixes with human infirmity, dignifies the nature of vice, and makes ambition virtue. You do not make this man a Colossus; but he makes you pigmies, and both lose your natural proportion-he, his natural inferiority, and you, your natural superiority in your native land. Thus you stand on your own hills blasted by a shrub which scalds your growth, and diminishes and dwarfs what else might become the tree of the forest, and make the realm illustrious."

The session of 1791 concluded on the 5th of May, and Parliament was shortly after prorogued. The Opposition seemed disposed to give every fair opportunity to Government; they had made no violent motions, nor suggested any new or

CHAP. II.] CHARACTER OF LD. WESTMORELAND.

31

extravagant questions; nor had they incited the Roman Catholics to urge on their claims. They did not seek to embarrass the Government; but having set forth their principles, they left to those in power the carrying into effect such measures as might appear to be of public utility. No friendly disposition was manifested, however, by the Ministry. They delayed all their concessions* till the time had passed in which they would have been received by the people with gratitude and satisfaction.

Lord Westmoreland, who should never have been sent to Ireland, was a person quite incompetent to hold the reins of power, and seemed more fitted to guide a chariot than to govern a country. His mind was of an inferior grade; it belonged not to the Court-not to the drawingroom—not even to the parlour. When he was clean, washed, dressed, and powdered, and put on his blue riband, he looked as if he had stolen it from some gentleman, and taken refuge in fright in the House of Lords. Certain it is, that he met there company much above him, and to which, as he shewed by his manners and principles, he did not belong. He seemed quite forgetful of his situation as representative of Royalty, and heedless of the approaching storm which was gathering around him, his object seemed to be to degrade the House of Commons, as his predecessor's (the Marquess of Buckingham) to corrupt it, and both to effect its destruction. He stooped to gratify the low passions of others; he possessed nothing that was noble of his own, and never would have been taken for the Lord-lieutenant, if it had not been for the star and riband that he wore. He insulted Lord Charlemont, and thereby offended the Protestants of the north and the Volunteers.

* These were very few-Place Bill and Pension Bill

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66

WHIGS OF THE CAPITAL."

[CHAP. II. He soon after proceeded to insult the Catholics of the south; so that he lost all support among the people, and stripped the Royal station of everything that could command respect or love. În place of these, he set up a new party, and gave birth to an unconstitutional and illegitimate conception" monstrum horrendum, ingens, cui lumen ademptum"-the high church party,-that origin of evil,-that assumed the name of "Protestant ascendancy," and sought to divide the people under the pretence of upholding the church and state; in other words, a civil and ecclesiastical tyranny.

Such a proceeding was mischievous in the extreme, and the more deserving of censure, because at this period a friendly and conciliatory disposition pervaded all classes throughout the country. There existed discontent but not disaffection,there was some disturbance but no treason; the only hostility that prevailed was against the corruption and abuses of the Government.

The sentiments of the Whig leaders were constitutional as well as patriotic,-safe for the Government and serviceable for the state, and almost universally approved of by the people. Their spirit and character may be judged of from the account of a public dinner given by a society called the Whigs of the Capital, composed of the public-spirited citizens of Dublin, which took place early in 1791; * and when at the close of the year, an attempt was made to excite divisions

* On Monday, the Whigs of the Capital dined at the Eagle in Eustacestreet, to which were invited the Lord Mayor, his Grace the Duke of Leinster, Lord Charlemont, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Curran, Mr. Ponsonby, and several other noble and eminently patriotic characters.

The following, among a variety of other toasts, were drunk :—

The King. Prince of Wales.-The House of Brunswick; may it ever regard Ireland, as the Parliament of Ireland regarded it, on the Regency question.-Rights of the people.-Friends of freedom.-Glori

CHAP. II.] PUBLIC FEELING IN IRELAND.

33

among the people, and kindle a religious war by recommending that legal steps should be taken against Roman Catholics who carried arms contrary to the existing laws,*-the Protestant members of the Volunteer Corps assembled to protest against such a proceeding, and condemned the publication that recommended it. In their resolutions they quoted a decree of that ill-fated monarch, Louis XVI. of France, almost one of his last acts, and which, great as his faults and his weakness may have been, reflects upon his memory the highest honour.†

In England also, bigotry seemed on the decline, and a spirit of liberality had arisen. In the month of March, 1791, Mr. Mitford brought forward his Bill to relieve Roman Catholic Dissenters, opening to them the magistracy, the profession of the bar, legalizing their places of worship, and conferring eligibility to certain minor offices in the state. It passed quickly and quietly through its

ous and immortal memory.-May the connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, founded on equal constitution, last for ever.-Volunteers of Ireland; three cheers.-The Whig Club of Ireland.-Duke of Portland, and Whigs of England.-Unceasing opposition to the system of a pensioned Magistracy.— Majority of the Commons of the Common Council; three cheers. His Majesty's counsellors who advised the court not to trample on the city. The free electors of the city of Dublin; may they ever choose well, and ever return the objects of their choice. The liberty of the press.-The rights of Ireland.-Glorious revolution of 1782.-The General of the Volunteers of Ireland; may he live long and be happy; three cheers.-Lord Charlemont then gave the following toast, viz. May the Volunteers of Ireland never want a General that loves them as I do! three cheers. General Washington; three cheers.— Memory of John Hampden.-Memory of Doctor Franklin.-The immortal memory of Doctor Charles Lucas.-The late Earl of Chatham, his Hawke, his Wolfe, and all the heroes of his day.-Charles J. Fox, a British Senator, who would not bribe Ireland to sell her Constitution.R. B. Sheridan, and when Ireland celebrates her glorious 110, may she never forget the friend who maintained her rights in England.

* The resolutions of the county of Armagh Grand Jury, in the spring of 1791, stated that a rage for arming existed amongst the Catholics, and to stop it, they ordered a reward of five guineas for the conviction of each of the first twenty persons so arming.

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FRENCH REVOLUTION.

[CHAP. II. various stages in both Houses without opposition, and without a single division.

Such were the generous sentiments and the liberal spirit which animated both countries and all classes of people. How it happened that this spirit disappeared, that these fine sentiments changed, and that, while America and Europe had progressed in civil and religious freedom, England and Ireland should have retrograded: how, in place of harmony, discord appeared, and in place of religion, bigotry; and why the people were driven into violent courses, and induced to follow extreme principles and measures ;-all this is a matter of surprise as well as sorrow, and can only be accounted for by that fatality which overhung the destinies of Ireland, and swayed those councils which had for so long misruled the realm.

Unfortunately for the peace of Europe, and in particular for Ireland, a direful and portentous event now occurred, which, baffling all conjecture, spread dismay and destruction far and wide. This was the French Revolution.

At the commencement of this astonishing political drama, every lover of freedom must have rejoiced, and ought to have rejoiced at seeing a bad Government destroyed, an insolent and oppressive nobility humbled, and a rapacious clergy restrained. But the people did not stop there; they went to the opposite extreme; they rushed headlong into all sorts of extravagance and madness; they became fanatics, starting aside from the course pointed out by reason and right, like wild men; debating everything-altering everything-inverting everything-giving everything a new name-investing all with a ridiculous affectation; and in seeking to prove that they possessed a better understanding of what a Government