VIII. BOOK would have answered, ten years before, from her glorious Protestant Volunteers. Francis Hutchinson said, 'We found it in the support of three millions of our fellow-citizens, in the spirit of our national character, in the virtue of our Catholic brethren.' 1792. February. The burning eloquence of the House was all on the side of emancipation, but it was based as usual upon illusion. There was no longer Fitzgibbon to show folly its proper figure. The defence of truth and common sense was left to less articulate advocates. General Cunningham said it was as plain as any proposition in Euclid that to give the franchise to Catholics implied a Catholic Parliament, and that a Catholic Parliament meant a revolution.' The Catholic Committee offered pledges on dangerous subjects. They renounced all claim to the forfeited estates. They promised that they would not meddle with the Protestant Establishment. Mr. Ogle, of Wexford, pointed out that such engagements would bind none but those who made them. The Catholics must become supreme in the State by mere weight of numbers, and when the power was in their hands it was idle to suppose that they would not use it in their own interest. 'The House had heard much,' said Mr. Pery, of the enlightened liberality of the time— what was it but a wild democratic spirit aiming at universal impossible equality?'' 1 'Sir Boyle Roche was the buffoon of the Conservative party. He amused the House with analysing the signatures to the Catholic petition. The first name was that of Mr. Edward Byrne, one of the largest merchants in Dublin, who paid 100,000l. a year to the revenue. Roche described him as "a sugar baker, seller of wine and other commodities." Keogh, the Committee's ambassador to Pitt, he called "a retailer of poplins in Dame Street." In this not eminently wise spirit he went through the list, and enquired whether a meeting of turbulent shopkeepers and shoplifters, a repetition of the tarring and feather CHAP. I. 1792. The House refused to receive the Catholic petition by 208 voices to 23, so heavy was the preponderance of opinion against granting political power to a body February. whom the nature of things forbade to be other than their enemies. Langrishe's Bill was passed unwillingly to please the English Cabinet, but the friends of order in Ireland flattered themselves that they had heard now the last of concession, and Charles Sheridan gave a definition of Protestant ascendancy which was universally accepted, and which the immense majority of the members declared themselves determined to uphold. By Protestant ascendancy he meant a Protestant King, to whom only, being Protestant, they owed allegiance; a Protestant House of Peers, composed of Protestant Lords Spiritual in Protestant succession; of Protestant Lords Temporal with Protestant inheritance; and a Protestant House of Commons elected by Protestant constituents, a Protestant legislature, a Protestant judiciary, a Protestant executive, in all and each of their varieties, degrees, and gradations.' Three days after the Bill had been read the last time, the House of Commons itself, the building which had witnessed Grattan's triumph, and for beauty had been the admiration of Europe,' was burnt to the ground. The session in consequence came to a premature end, and closed in the middle of April. Before the curtain fell there was a mock-heroic passage at arms with the United Irishmen. Napper Tandy, not liking the language in which the society and ing committee of 1784, was to be taken as a representation of the Catholic nobility and gentry of Ire land.'-Irish Debates, February BOOK VIII. 1792. April. its himself had been spoken of, sent Toler, the SolicitorGeneral, a challenge. The Irish laws of honour allowed a gentleman to refuse such invitations from a tradesman. Toler brought the letter before the House, and an officer was sent to arrest the offender and bring him to the bar for breach of privilege. Napper slipped through a window and escaped. The society was on its trial. To show the white feather would be fatal. Tone, who had been watching over progress, himself keeping in the background, saw the moment come when he must act. He consulted Hamilton Rowan, a young hot-blooded associate who had become lately a member. They extemporised an irregular meeting. Rowan took the chair, with Tone for secretary. They passed a resolution that the House of Commons had treated them with insolence,' printed five thousand copies of it, which they sent flying through the country, with their names attached, and they gave notice that if they were again interfered with they would challenge the Speaker. In other countries such proceedings would have passed for idle bombast. In Ireland Tone and Rowan became the heroes of the hour. As the session approached its end Napper, too, appeared to challenge martyrdom when it would be unattended with inconvenience. The authority of the House would determine with the prorogation. On the last day he was seen strutting through the streets towards College Green, intending to present himself to the House. He was encountered by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and was brought to the bar, Tone and Rowan sitting conspicuous in the uniform of the Whig Club in the front of the gallery. At the motion of the Attorney General, Napper was committed to Newgate, to which he was escorted by an adoring crowd. His imprisonment lasted but an hour or two. On his release he commenced a prosecution against the Viceroy, by which Dublin was entertained and excited for the remainder of the year. CHAP. I. 1792. April. BOOK 1792. SECTION VII. So far the Catholic Committee had trusted to expectations held out by England, and had turned a deaf ear to the blandishments of Tone. Their petition. had been flung back into their faces. Pitt, if still in their favour, was unwilling or unable to force his wishes on the Parliament. Further pressure was evidently necessary. Their difficulty hitherto had been from the secession of the moderates. The claim of the Committee to represent the Catholics of Ireland had been disallowed; they had been termed in contempt shopkeepers and shoplifters,' and Keogh and Byrne, the principal leaders, resolved on a bold stroke. The Volunteer Convention of '83 had failed because it was a body in arms and illegal. The Congress of '84 could not get itself chosen, for the High Sheriffs were afraid to hold the elections. If the Catholic bishops would assist, a Catholic Convention could be elected to which no valid objection could be made, and of the right of which to speak for the general body there could be no uncertainty. There would be difficulty. The Protestant gentry would do their utmost in opposition. The Bishops were timid, accustomed many of them to depend on the Castle, and unwilling to offend the leading Catholic nobility. It was unlikely that they could be brought to act without support from other quarters, and Keogh now boldly called in Wolfe Tone, and with Tone the alliance with the United Lodges. Keogh himself was more or less serious in his religious |