ciation was accepted as a proof that the reasoning of Flood was correct, that nothing had before been secured, that the Irish Parliament, in maintaining the adequacy of simple repeal, was betraying the liberties of the country, and that those liberties had once more been saved by the volunteers. To the pressure exerted by that body, it was said, Ireland ultimately owed her free trade, the concessions of 1782, and the final charter of 1783, and had Parliament been her sole representative, no one of these things would have been obtained. Irish freedom was now established as far as words could settle it, but could it be safely entrusted to the guardianship of an assembly, in which twenty or thirty great borough-owners could always control a majority? Might not such a parliament, it was asked, be induced to sell to an English minister its independence, or even its separate existence? Flood strenuously maintained that one more great battle must be fought before the Irish Constitution could be secure. The volunteers must induce or coerce Parliament to pass such a reform bill as would make it a true representative of the Protestant section of the nation.

The question was not altogether a new one, nor was it exclusively of home growth. In England, as we have seen, parliamentary reform had acquired a foremost place among political topics, and there was scarcely any other which stirred so strongly the popular sentiment. Chatham had strenuously advocated it, and he had predicted that, 'before the end of the century, either the Parliament will reform itself from within, or be reformed with a vengeance from without.' The question was brought before the English Parliament with great elaboration by Wilkes in 1776, by the Duke of Richmond in 1780, by the younger Pitt in 1782 and in 1783. Propositions for disfranchising the rotten boroughs, for enfranchising the great manufacturing towns, for adding to the electors and to the members of the counties, for annual parliaments, for universal suffrage, and for equal electoral districts, had been eagerly discussed both in Parliament and beyond its walls. Powerful democratic societies had been formed in the great cities, and they were already in close correspondence with the Irish volunteers, and extremely anxious to induce them to make the attainment of parliamentary reform a capital object of their policy. It was

obvious that a victory in one country would accelerate a victory in the other, and the arguments in favour of reform were much stronger in Ireland than in England. Among the English reformers who corresponded with the Irish volunteers were the Duke of Richmond, Price, Cartwright, and Lord Effingham. In June 1782 Portland, when forwarding to the Government an address from the volunteer delegates of Ulster, thanking the English Parliament for the concessions that had been made, mentions the appearance in their resolutions of 'some new matter respecting the state of the representation in this country, which . . . has been endeavoured of late to be brought into discussion by a very active emissary, who has come from England expressly for that purpose;' but it was not until the simple repeal question was raised that the subject of reform acquired real importance. In March 1783 a provincial meeting of volunteers at Cork passed resolutions in favour of parliamentary reform, and on July 1 following, delegates of forty-five companies of Ulster volunteers assembled at Lisburne, resolved to convoke for the ensuing September a great meeting of volunteers at Dungannon, to consider the best way of obtaining a more equal representation in Parliament.

In truth, even putting aside the great anomaly that the Roman Catholics were wholly unrepresented, it was a mockery to describe the Irish House of Commons as mainly a representative body. Of its 300 members, 64 only represented counties, while 100 small boroughs, containing ostensibly only an infinitesimal number of electors, and in reality in the great majority of cases at the absolute disposal of single patrons, returned no less than 200. Borough seats were commonly sold for 2,000l. a parliament, and the permanent patronage of a borough for from 8.000l. to 10,000l. The Lower House was to a great extent a creation of the Upper one. It was at this time computed that 124 members of the House of Commons were absolutely nominated by 53 peers, while 91 others were chosen by 52 commoners.2

1 Portland to Shelburne, June 25, 1782.

: Gordon's Hist. of Ireland, ii. 286. Letter to Henry Flood on the Representation of Ireland (Belfast, 1783). See, too, a full report, by the committee appointed by the delegates

at Lisburne to collect evidence about

parliamentary reform. Proceedings relating to the Ulster Assembly of Volunteer Delegates (Belfast, 1783); and also the detailed analysis of the Irish representation in Grattan's Life, iii. 472-487.

It needs no comment to show the absurdity and the danger of such a condition of representation. In Ireland, it is true, as in England, borough influence was not always badly used, and the sale of seats, and the system of nomination, neither of which carried with them any real reproach, introduced into Parliament many honourable, able and independent men, who were thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the country. But the state of the Irish representation was much worse than that of the English, and incomparably more dangerous to the Constitution of the country. England was at least her own mistress. The strongest minister only kept his power by a careful attention to the gusts of popular feeling, and no external power desired to tamper with her Constitution. But the relation of Ireland to England was such that it was quite conceivable that an Irish parliament might act in violent opposition to the wishes of the community which it represented, and quite possible that an English minister might wish it to do so. As long as the volunteers continued, public opinion possessed such a formidable and organised power that it could act forcibly on Parliament. But once that organisation was dissolved, the reign of a corrupt oligarchy must revive. However independent the Irish Parliament might be in the eyes of the law and in the theory of the Constitution, it could not fail to be a dependent and subordinate body holding a precarious existence, as long as a full third of its members were placemen or pensioners, and as long as the English Minister could control the election of the majority of its members. Some borough seats were at the disposal of bishops appointed by Government. Some were in the hands of great English noblemen. It was only necessary to secure a small number of great native borough-owners, to obtain a compact majority independent of all fluctuations of popular feeling. The lavish distribution of peerages had proved the cheapest and most efficacious means of governing Parliament, and a pamphleteer in 1783 reminded his countrymen that since 1762 inclusive, the Irish peerage had been enriched or degraded by the addition of thirty-three barons, sixteen viscounts, and twenty-four earls.'

During the short Administration of Lord Temple, which lasted only from September 1782 till the following spring, and Seward's Rights of the People Asserted (Dublin, 1783), p. 34.

corresponded with the Shelburne Ministry in England, the Reform agitation scarcely appeared. This Lord Lieutenant was son of George Grenville, and with a double share of the unhappy temper, he inherited much of the industry and something of the financial ability of his father. He succeeded in detecting and punishing several instances of great peculation in administration, and he announced to Lord Charlemont his firm intention of reducing that impolitic and unconstitutional influence which has been the bane and ruin of both countries.' During his government the order of the Knights of Saint Patrick was created, and Charlemont was one of its first members, and a scheme was adopted for establishing in Ireland a colony of refugees from Geneva, who desired to expatriate themselves on account of the aristocratic revolution which had just taken place in that city. It was hoped that they might introduce into Ireland some valuable industries and their excellent system of education, and a sum of 50,000l. was assigned for establishing the settlement at a place near the confluence of the Barrow and the Suir. A few refugees came over, but the plan ultimately failed on a dispute about terms. It is remarkable as showing how little the Irish Government dreaded the introduction into the country of extreme forms of continental democracy, and if it had succeeded it is probable that it would have brought to Ireland some men who bore a conspicuous part in the French Revolution.1

On the resignation of Shelburne, and the triumph of the coalition of Fox and North, Temple at once resigned his post, and Lord Northington was appointed to succeed him. English politics were, however, for some weeks in a state of extreme uncertainty and confusion, and although the resignation of Temple was sent in on March 12, it was not until June 5 that he was allowed to leave Ireland. He complained bitterly of the delay as a personal injury, and added that it was exercising a most dangerous influence in Ireland. 'The very uncertain state of Government in England,' he wrote, 'has operated very strongly upon Irish Government, by unsettling the confidence and opinions which I have so eagerly laboured to impress.' 'The Government of this kingdom suffers by this interregnum to an

1 Plowden, ii. 23–27.

extent which I cannot describe, and which will materially affect its political situation.''

A dissolution, which immediately followed the arrival of Northington, contributed to maintain the political excitement. It was a significant indication of the relations between the King and his new Ministers, that some of the bishops refused to take the ordinary course of placing their borough patronage at the disposal of the Government; 2 and among the lower classes a very bad harvest, followed by great commercial depression, prepared the way for political disaffection. The last letters of Lord Temple and the early letters of Lord Northington were full of complaints of the intensity of the distress. In November 1782, the Irish Parliament had laid an embargo on the export of corn, flour, and potatoes, and about six months later the Lord Lieutenant complained that in all parts of the kingdom the prices were so high that the industrious poor could barely support their families by their labours. In the North, oatmeal, on which the poor chiefly depended for their food, in a short time trebled in price. A proclamation was issued authorising the Custom-house officers to accept bonds for the high duties imposed by law on foreign corn imported into Ireland, on the understanding that Parliament as soon as it met would pass an Act to cancel these bonds; a bounty was offered for the importation of wheat, oats, and barley, and in several parts of Ireland tumultuous risings interfered with the removal of food.3

Peace had been signed, but there was no prospect of a dissolution of the volunteer body. The last reviews had been the most splendid hitherto celebrated, and the institution had become a great recognised national militia, discharging many important police functions, and bringing the Protestant gentry and yeomanry into constant connection with each other. An attempt of the Administration under the Duke of Portland to draw off a portion of the volunteer force into some newly organised regiments, called Fencibles, proved very unpopular and met with little success. between the volunteers and

1 Temple to Townshend, March 12. Temple to North, May 9, 1783.

2 (Secret and confidential) July 4, 1783, Northington to North.

Constant interchanges of civilities the ordinary troops marked the

Temple to North, May 23, 30 Proclamation, June 9. Northington to North, June 10, 26, 1783. Irish Parl. Debates, ii. 346, 347.