entitled to vote.

The duration of Parliament was to be reserved for further consideration.

The Government met these proposals by an adjournment, arguing that a time of war, and tumult, and seditious conspiracy, was very unsuitable for their discussion, and that no constitutional measures could meet the demands of a party which was plainly revolutionary and republican. On the other hand, it was contended that nothing but a measure of reasonable reform, which might satisfy the moderate reformers, could check revolutionary propagandism, and save the country from the horrors of rebellion. In the course of the debate, one member quoted these pregnant lines, from a private letter, which he had received two years before, from Burke. Against Jacobinism, this grand and dreadful evil of our times (I do not love to cheat myself or others), I do not know any solid security whatsoever; but I am certain that what will come nearest to it, is to interest as many as you can in the present order of things; to interest them religiously, civilly, politically, by all the ties and principles by which men are held.'

Grattan spoke on this subject with great power and with great bitterness. Most of his speech consisted of a restatement of facts, which, by this time, must have become very familiar to my readers-that in a Parliament of 300 members, more than 200 were returned by venal and close boroughs; that of all the towns and cities of Ireland, not more than twelve were free; that, by means of the nomination boroughs, the minister, who was himself the representative of the Cabinet of another country, had a permanent and overwhelming ascendency in the Parliament of Ireland; that this borough system was not a part of the ancient Constitution, but had been mainly created by the Stuarts for the express purpose of securing the subserviency of Parliament, and that it was largely responsible for the

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commercial disabilities, the penal laws, and the long extinction of parliamentary liberties. The plan before the House, he said, goes to the root of the evil, and is no half measure. It would make the House of Commons what it ought to be—a real representation of the people. But if it gave votes to population, it was only to population mixed with property and annexed to residence.' If Parliament thought fit to give votes to 40s. freeholders, why should they exclude from the franchise farmers for years, householders and leaseholders of a higher amount, and established and resident tradesmen ? There are members, who seem to think that the mass of property should be as little represented as the mass of population; that representation should be founded on neither, but should itself be what it is a property and a commerce.'

Turning to the objections that were drawn from the war and insurrection, he reminded the House that reform had been equally resisted when it was brought forward in time of peace. There are two periods, it seems, in which reform should not be agitated; one is the period of war, and the other is that of peace. You will never persuade a borough majority that it is seasonable for them to surrender their borough interest.' 'With respect to insurrection, the original cause of discontent is to be found in the inadequate representation of our people,' and that discontent can only be removed by a removal of the cause. The ministers argued from the report of the Secret Committee, that the real object of the United Irish leaders was not reform, but separation and a republic, and that reform could, in consequence, have no pacifying effect. Grattan admitted the premise, but denied the conclusion. In that report, and from the speeches of gentlemen, we learn that a conspiracy has existed for some years; that it was composed, originally, of persons of no powerful or ex

tensive influence, and yet, these men, under prosecution and discountenance, have been so extended, as to reach every county in the kingdom; to levy a great army; to provide arms and ammunition, and to alarm, as the report states, the existence of the Government with the number of its proselytes procured by these two popular subjects-parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. They have recruited by these topics, and have spread their influence, notwithstanding your system of coercion, everywhere. . . . You have loaded Parliament and Government with the odium of an oppressive system, and with the further odium of rejecting these two popular topics, which are the most likely to gain the heart of the nation.' By reversing this policy, Parliament may not reconcile all, but it will reconcile the bulk of the nation, and if the leaders of the conspiracy remain unsatisfied, they will, at least, have lost their proselytes.

It was said that no Reform Bill which was not purely democratic, and founded on the new French model, would now satisfy the people. The answer was, that Ponsonby's plan had been sent to different persons who were much in the confidence of the people, and who had a leading influence among the different sects; and arter a full discussion had been approved by them.

I have in my hand,' said Grattan, a paper signed by 900 persons, considerable men of business and northern merchants, containing the following resolutions in substance. "That they conceive the cause of the present discontent to be the miserable state of the representation; that the discontent and suffering will continue until Parliament shall be reformed; and that they will persist in the pursuit of that object, and will not lose sight of it by cavils at the plan, but will expect and be satisfied with such a plan as does substantially restore to the community the right of electing the House of Commons, securing its independence against the in

fluence of the Crown; limiting the duration of Parliament, and extending to his Majesty's subjects the privileges of the Constitution without distinction of religion."'1

The concluding passages of Grattan's speech were in a tone of solemn warning, and they appear to me to breathe an accent of the deepest patriotism and sincerity. Recalling the precedent of the American war, he said that there were now also, but two possible policies, a policy of reform and a policy of force. By adopting the latter, Parliament was losing the people while it sought to strengthen the Throne. 'Suppose you succeed, what is your success? A military government! a perfect despotism! . . a Union! But what may be the ultimate consequence of such a victory? A separation! Let us suppose that the war continues, and that your conquest over your own people is interrupted by a French invasion, what would be your situation then? I do not wish to think of it, but I wish you to think of it. . . . When you consider the state of your arms abroad, and the ill-assured state of your government at home, surely you should pause a little. Even in the event of a peace, you are ill secured against a future war, which the state of Ireland under such a system would be too apt to invite; but in the event of the continuation of the war, your system is perilous indeed. I speak without asperity or resentment. I speak perhaps my delusion, but it is my heartfelt conviction; I speak my apprehension for the immediate state of our liberty, and for the ultimate state of the Empire. I see, or imagine I see, in this system everything which is dangerous to both. I hope I am mistaken; at least, I hope I exaggerate, possibly

See on these discussions Grattan's Life, iv. 285-287; Narrative of the Confinement and

Exile of W. S. Dickson, D.D., pp. 36, 37.

I may. I cannot, however, banish from my memory the lesson of the American war. . . If that lesson has no effect on ministers, surely I can suggest nothing that will. We have offered you our measure. You will reject it. We deprecate yours; you will persevere. Having no hopes left to persuade or dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no more, and after this day shall not attend the House of Commons.'

The House was deaf to this appeal; the adjournment was carried by 117 to 30,' and Grattan fulfilled his promise. Accompanied by Ponsonby, Curran, and a few others, and following the example of Fox and his immediate followers in England, he seceded from parliamentary life, and did not again appear upon the scene till the stirring debates upon the Union. This secession, among other effects, had that of taking away almost all public interest from the proceedings of the Irish House of Commons. From 1781 to the close of the session of 1797 there are excellent reports of its debates, which were evidently revised by the speakers, and which are of the greatest possible value to every serious student of this period of Irish history. They are a source from which I have drawn largely in this work, and there are even now few books on Irish politics which are either so interesting or so instructive. From this period to the period of the Union debates, our knowledge of what passed in the House of Commons is of the vaguest or most fragmentary character, derived chiefly from short newspaper reports, and we almost wholly lose the invaluable check which parliamentary criticism imposes on the extravagances of partisan

statements.

Of the conduct of Grattan himself at this time, there is little more to be said. I have stated that since the

1 Irish Parl. Debates, xvii. 551-570; Grattan's Speeches, iii. 332-343.