300 MR. GRATTAN RESOLVES TO RETIRE: [CH. IX. the kingdom, and prove fatal to their continuance in office, resolved at once to stop them. On the 17th of May, Government issued a proclamation* against the United Irishmen, and by it they prohibited all persons from meeting in unusual numbers, under any pretence whatever, and ordered the military to suppress them. The proclamation was sent to Lord Carhampton†, (the commander-inchief), who immediately issued a general order to the military to act without waiting for directions from the civil magistrate. In consequence of this, several counties that were about to assemble, countermanded the meetings. Mr. Pelham, the Secretary, wrote to the High Sheriff of the King's County, and the county of Kildare, that the military would act, and that the Lord Lieutenant would direct His Majesty's forces to prevent an assembly so unusual as the meeting of the inhabitants of a county; and accordingly an armed party of soldiers took post in the room, where the freeholders of one of the counties were to assemble! Such were the measures pursued by Lord Camden, Lord Clare, and Mr. Pitt!-such was the mode to stifle the voice of the nation! Mr. Grattan, finding that his exertions were no longer of any avail,—that he could not support the measures of Government consistently with his duty or his feelings, nor oppose them with any hope of success; and unwilling by further opposition to countenance the united party, whose principles he entirely disapproved of, determined not merely to secede along with Mr. Ponsonby and other members of that party, but to retire from parliament altogether. As the general election now approached, a meeting of the freemen and freeholders of Dublin was held on the 29th of July, 1797, when it was resolved * Report of Secret Committee, No. 11, p. 120. CHAP. IX.] DUBLIN RESOLUTIONS THEREON. 301 "That by right and the principles of the constitution, the people are entitled exclusively to appoint the third estate of the Legislature, and that the security of her civil and political liberty depends upon the uninterrupted enjoyment of that indefeasible right. "That as the Commons House is at present constituted, the return of more than two-thirds thereof is usurped by a few individuals as private property, and that as to the remainder, any attempt to exercise the popular right is rendered fruitless, through the corrupt and enormous influence of the Crown, and hazardous through the recent introduction and violent exercise of a military power, by which great numbers of our unfortunate countrymen, on the slightest suspicions of their entertaining political opinions different from those of the present Administration, have had their houses burned, or been themselves transported or put to death without even the form of accusation or trial! "That not wishing to have any exercise of the elective suffrage that is not free, nor any representation of the people that is not full, fair, and adequate, we will abstain from any interference whatever at the ensuing election, and, as far as in us lies, leave to the King's Ministers the appointment of the King's Parliament. "That we do heartily approve of the principles and sentiments contained in the Address of our late excellent representative the Right Hon. HENRY GRATTAN; and that we are sensible he has not retired from that post which he so eminently filled as long as any hope remained that the Parliamentary exercise of his virtues and talents could be of advantage to his country. But we trust he will recollect that his public duty does not cease with his representative situation." "V. B. LAWLESS, Chairman."* To these resolutions Mr. Grattan replied in the following manner : MY FELLOW-CITIZENS,-A slight indisposition has prevented me from giving your resolution an immediate answer. When the country is put down-the press destroyed-and public meetings, for the purpose of exercising the right of petition to remove Ministers, are *Afterwards Lord Cloncurry, created a peer of England during the administration of Lord Anglesey, September, 1831. 302 MR. GRATTAN'S ANSWER TO [CHAP. IX. threatened and dispersed by the military, I agree with you that a general election is no more than an opportunity to exercise, by permission of the army, the solitary privilege to return a few representatives of the people to a House occupied by the representatives of boroughs. "When the Irish Parliament was perpetual or provincial, it was of little moment how that Parliament was constituted; but becoming independent, it became essential that it should become constitutional; and in order to be constitutional, it was necessary that the Commons should form an integral part thereof; fourteen years you gave to the experiment, and having failed, withdraw. You refuse to take a small portion of that representation, the whole of which belongs to you; you will not confirm an unjust distribution of your property, by becoming a poor rentcharger on a poor portion of your inheritance; you refuse to give your sanction to your exclusion, and will not attend a ceremony which has proved the trade of the individual and the ruin of the country. While I entertain such an opinion, I beg to express my profound respect for some enlightened and valuable individuals who differ from me; opposed to their opinion, I should suspect my own if it was not fortified by yours. I think the people of this country are perfectly right when they insist to be nothing less than the whole of the third estate: the people are in contemplation of the constitution only a part of the Legislature; but they are the whole of the Commons. Is that too much? They gave the Crown-they ask the representation: they ask the representation of that Prince to whom they gave the Crown. Without derogating from any of those rights which exist, independent of any artificial formation, the people claim under the general constitution of the land, and under their own particular declaration of right, to be an integral part of the Legislature. The constitution tells them that their liberty exists in their exemption from any laws save those to which by representation they consent; their declaration of right tells them that the King, the Lords, and the Commons of Ireland, are the only body competent to make her laws, by which it is not only asserted that the Irish Parliament is exclusively the Irish Legislature, but that the people are an integral part thereof. If then the people are not suffered to form that integral part, the constitution of the realm and the claim of right are evaded and defeated. The Minister stands in CHAP. IX.] THE DUBLIN RESOLUTION. 303 the place of Parliament-he becomes the arbiter of your lives and fortunes, and transfers that dominion to the British Cabinet, on whom he depends; and thus re-imposes on this realm the legislative power of another country. When your Ministers tell you that the reform of Parliament was only a popular pretence, I cannot believe them to be in earnest. I wish they had made the experimenthappy had it been for the country-happy had it been for themselves-they would then indeed have possessed but one-third of the constitution, but they would not have lost the whole of the empire. "Foreign disgrace leads naturally, and of course, to the subject of domestic oppression. I cannot here omit that part of your resolution which adverts to the barbarities committed on the habitations, property, and persons of the people and I beg to join with yours my testimony against such repeated, wanton, savage, abominable, and permitted outrages-barbarities and murders, such as no printer will now dare to publish, lest he should be plundered or murdered for the ordinary exercise of his trade. "I beg to take this opportunity of returning my thanks to the Aldermen of Skinner's-alley, who have expressed their approbation of my conduct. I do believe our measures were agreeable to the sense of the nation-I lament they were not seconded by the majority of Parliament-if that majority, whose motives I do not discuss, whose infatuation I lament;-if that majority, instead of attaching itself to the Court, had considered itself as part and parcel of the people, they had consulted their dignity better. Why am I superior to Ministers or Viceroys? Because I do not assume to be superior to my fellow-citizens. Had that majority taken a proud post, and identified with the people had they seized the opportunity of doing justice to Ireland, and instead of voting millions without getting anything for the country, supported us in our motion to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry-in our motion in an equal trade-in our attempts to emancipate the Catholics, and to reform the Parliament, their country would now have liberty and peace instead of distraction at home and negociation abroad-where the British negociator remains with 110 Irish boroughs about his neck to pay for every felony the Minister has committed on the Irishso many Erics in empire. "You express a wish that my public duty shall not cease 304 RETIREMENT FROM THE YEOMANRY. [CHAP. IX. with my representative capacity. In that idea I entirely concur. My seat in Parliament was but a part of my situation; my relation to my country was higher and more permanent-the duty of a citizen is commensurate with his powers of body and mind. "I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, your most humble servant, "H. GRATTAN." The military measures of the Government were now coming into operation, and were carried to such extremes, that men left the service in disgust. Lord Bellamont had retired from the command of the Cavan militia, owing to his not approving of General Lake's proclamation. The Duke of Leinster now gave up the command of the Kildare militia; his brother, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, retired from the representation of the city of Dublin; and Mr. Grattan, who had joined a yeomanry corps, also sent in his resignation; his health having suffered, and his mind worn by politics, he retired to Castle Connell, a watering place, in the county of Limerick, on the borders of the Shannon, famed for the salubrity of its waters: prior to this, he addressed "A Letter to his Fellow Citizens,"* that excited a considerable sensation, and drew upon him the anger and attack of the Government party. It forms almost an epitome of Irish history, and is remarkable for its ability, its spirit, and its constitutional principles. Many persons, however, disapproved of its appearing at such a crisis, and, though replete with sound doctrine and sage advice, yet in the agitated state of the public mind, it was considered injudicious to publish to the nation such a detail of national grievance and ministerial delinquencies; the danger, however, did not come from the statement of the grievance, but from the evils that caused it; and it must be remembered that the opposition party had been *Grattan's Miscellaneous Works, vol. v. p. 40. |