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the House at once imposed additional taxation which was estimated to produce 140,000l. a year, and cut down some of the grants that had been made from the Exchequer.

Ireland had done her part, but when the propositions came before the British Parliament they were at once met by an outburst of commercial jealousy very similar to that which had defeated the commercial clauses of the Peace of Utrecht. It seems to have spread through almost the whole circle of English manufacturing opinion, and it was fanned to the utmost by the English Opposition in Parliament. Fox at the same time did his utmost to excite Irish jealousy by representing the contribution of Ireland to the navy as of the nature of a tribute. I will not barter English commerce for Irish slavery,' he said, in a sentence which was constantly repeated; that is not the price I would pay, nor is this the thing I would purchase.'

The battle was long and fierce. There is not, I believe, the smallest ground for the charge which Irish writers have brought against Pitt of having acted with treachery towards Ireland. He found the overwhelming force of English manufacturing opinion against his scheme, and although he at last succeeded by his large and disciplined majority in carrying it through the House of Commons, he only did so by making concessions which materially altered its character, and altered it in almost every instance to the disadvantage of Ireland. It is not necessary here to examine those alterations in detail. The most important were provisions compelling the Irish Parliament to enact without delay or modification all present or future British laws relating to navigation and to the trade with British or foreign colonies, and giving the British Parliament full power of regulating the terms on which goods could be exported from Ireland to the British colonies

of America and the West Indies, and even in part to the United States of America.

It was impossible to question that the amended resolutions proposed materially to abridge the legislative powers of the Irish Parliament; to place that Parliament in a large field of legislation in a subordinate position to that of Great Britain; and to restrict some of the trade rights which, under Lord North's legislation, Ireland had been already granted. It is certainly not surprising that they should have been received in Ireland with an irresistible outburst of disapprobation, though it is probable that even in the new form it would have been to her advantage to have accepted them. The scheme opened the English market, and gave additional security to the Irish colonial market which might at present be at any time withdrawn by England. Foster and Pitt maintained that it was a mere treaty arrangement between two independent countries, and that Ireland, if she thought fit to relinquish the benefits, might at any time abolish the restrictions. The Chief Secretary himself, however, saw at once that in the amended form the measure could not be carried, and Grattan was now as strenuously opposed to it as Flood. After long and very brilliant debates, leave to bring in the Bill was only granted by 127 to 108. So small a majority in the first stage, and in a House in which Treasury influence was so great, was plainly a defeat. The Government at once abandoned the Bill.

Considering the position of Grattan as the author of the independence of the Irish Parliament, and considering the manifest state of public opinion in Ireland, he is hardly, I think, to be blamed for the part which he took, though the failure of the policy of Pitt is certainly to be regretted. It must, however, be remarked that none of the divergences on commercial questions which the English ministers feared

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ever took place. In the commercial treaty with France in 1786 some of the same questions revived, but Ireland cordially supported the policy of Pitt. Whatever other complaint may be brought against Grattan's Parliament, it cannot be accused of having in the smallest degree interfered with the commercial interests of England, and by several isolated measures it did much to achieve in detail the commercial union which was the desire of Pitt. The language of Lord Westmorland, who was Lord Lieutenant in 1790, in a private despatch to his Government is on this matter decisive. 'Since the failure of the propositions for a commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland no restraint or duty has been laid upon British produce or manufacture to prejudice the sale in this country, or to grasp at any advantage to articles of Irish manufacture; nor has any incumbrance by duty or otherwise been laid on materials of manufacture in the raw or middle states upon their exportation to Great Britain. At the same time, in everything wherein this country could concur in strengthening and securing the navigation and commerce of the Empire, the Government has found the greatest readiness and facility. The utmost harmony subsists in the commerce of the two kingdoms, and nothing has arisen to disturb it or give occasion for discontent.' More than once, indeed, the Irish Government expressed the willingness of the Irish Parliament to renew negotiations for a general commercial treaty with Great Britain, but they met with no encouragement.

From this time, however, Pitt seems to have acquiesced in the views of the Irish Government that the Executive must maintain a complete ascendency over the Irish Parliament, and that all serious parliamentary reform must be resisted. There can, I think, be little doubt that the prospect of a legislative union was already in his mind,

as it was certainly in the minds of some other English statesmen, and it was probably the real key to much of his subsequent policy. A measure which was in itself so unpopular in Ireland could only be carried if the Government possessed an overwhelming influence over the Irish Parliament; it could only be made in some degree palatable to the Irish people if a great object of popular desire was withheld until it was accomplished, and conceded as its result.

Several years of great prosperity followed the struggle of 1784. The revenue rose rapidly. The credit of the nation greatly improved, and there were all the signs of a growing and steady advance. Whiteboy disturbances and combinations against tithes frequently took place, but they were usually very local, and on the whole the best authorities pronounced Ireland to be both more tranquil and more prosperous than they had ever known it. Several measures of considerable utility were carried at this time, and perhaps not the least valuable were the severe and drastic police measures for the suppression of disorder. A scheme of national education, which might have proved of vast advantage to the country, was proposed by the Chief Secretary Orde.' It was to a large extent a revival of the system which had been established by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and which had been suffered to fall into shameful neglect. He proposed new taxation for the establishment of a school in every parish, and also the establishment of four great schools, one in each province, diocesan schools, two great academies in the metropolis, and finally another university. The education was to be equally imparted to all, though those scholars only who were of the Established religion were to be maintained at the public expense.

See Mant's Hist. of the Church of Ireland ii. 702. Grattan's Life, iii. 295-296. Irish Parliamentary Debates, 1787.

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Resolutions founded on this plan passed the House of Commons, but on the death of Rutland and the change of Government in Ireland it was unfortunately abandoned. But during these tranquil years nothing was done to correct the glaring abuses of the Irish Parliament, and on the contrary places and pensions were steadily multiplied.

The disposition of Grattan had generally been to support the Government in order that by doing so he might draw the two countries more and more together; but, as the influence of the Attorney-General Fitzgibbon in the Irish Government became supreme, as it became evident that the Government were determined to resist the most necessary and most moderate parliamentary reform, he gradually gravitated to opposition, and endeavoured to form a party which could exercise some pressure in the direction of reform. Personal friendship and political sympathy drew him closer to the Whig Opposition in England, and he began to feel that a change of ministry in England was the best if not the only chance of obtaining reform in Ireland. At the same time he was very far from being an indiscriminate opponent. His strong sense of the necessity at all hazards of repressing the organised disorder which was the special vice of Irish life never left him, and the stringent coercive measures which were at this time carried by the Irish Parliament, found in him a warm general supporter, though on a few points he endeavoured to mitigate their severity or to limit their duration; and he procured the withdrawal of one clause in Fitzgibbon's Whiteboy Act which would certainly have had the most mischievous effects. It provided that every Catholic chapel in which or adjoining which an illegal oath had been tendered should be razed to the ground and its materials sold, and that for three years no new Catholic chapel should be erected in the same parish.