Part 42 (2/2)

This political open-air contest lasted two years, and, on the receipt of the news that the British army had capitulated at Yorktown, and that the American War had come to a successful termination on the side of the colonists, the Ulster volunteers decided to hold a national convention of delegates from every city in the province. On Friday, February 15, 1782, the meeting took place at Dungannon, County Tyrone, and there the delegates swore allegiance to a new and as yet unwritten charter, refusing to acknowledge ”the claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind this kingdom.”

The same resolution was adopted in successive meetings of volunteer delegates, munic.i.p.al corporations, and citizens generally, all over the island.

The English Government could not resist the pressure. After some attempt at temporizing and delaying the concession, on April 15, 1782, by the firmness of Grattan and his supporters in the Dublin House of Commons, the great measure was finally carried unanimously:

”That the kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom, with a Parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof; that there is no body of men competent to make laws to bind the nation, but the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, nor any Parliament which has any authority or power of any sort whatever in this country, save only the Parliament of Ireland; that we humbly conceive that in this right the very essence of our liberty exists, a right which we, on the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birthright, and which we cannot yield but with our lives.” The italics are our own.

”The news,” says Sir Jonah Barrington, ”soon spread through the nation; every city, town, or village, in Ireland blazed with the emblems of exultation, and resounded with the shouts of triumph.”

Within a month the whole had been accepted by the new British administration. ”The visionary and impracticable idea had become an accomplished fact; the splendid phantom had become a glorious reality; the heptarchy-the old Irish const.i.tution-had not been restored; yet Ireland had won complete legislative independence.”

Thus does the kind-hearted author of the ”Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation” commemorate the great event. It is a pity that it so soon ended, as it deserved to end, in smoke; for the ”unanimous vote” of the Dublin House of Commons was not sincere, but intended to exclude from the benefit of the newly-acquired liberty the great ma.s.s of the people; that is, all Catholics, without exception.

Already, during the volunteer excitement, Catholics had looked on at the movement with pleasure and hope that, at least, some relaxation of the barbarous code enacted against them might ensue. Unable to take an active part in the movement, the laws not allowing them to bear arms and enlist, they willingly brought such muskets as they possessed to give to their Protestant neighbors. When the final burst of enthusiasm came at the news that a free and independant Parliament was to meet at Dublin, surely they were justified in expecting that, at last, their natural and civil rights might be restored them in an age so enlightened. They had heard too of the success of the American colonies in winning those rights for all in their happy country, beyond the Atlantic; and we may be sure that not a few of them had heard how, at the conclusion of the War of Independence, the chief officers of the American army had gone in state with their French allies to the Catholic Church in Philadelphia, there to join in thanksgiving to the Almighty, before a Catholic altar. Moreover, they had Grattan and many of the volunteers on their side.

The all-comprehensive phrase, too, had been inserted in the resolution so unanimously carried, and made law by the British Government: ”We humbly conceive that, in this right, the very essence of our liberty consists, a right which we, on the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birthright, and which we cannot yield but with our lives.”

Was it possible for the originators and successful promoters of this great change in the government of the nation to interpret such a phrase in a restricted sense? Did not the Irish Catholics, the great bulk of the people, form a part, at least, of ”all in Ireland?” One would imagine so: yet what followed soon after showed the preposterousness of such an idea.

The new Parliament met; several measures favorable to the trade and manufactures of the island had been carried; but it was soon found that the electoral law, as it stood, failed to correspond with the altered circ.u.mstances of the time. The legislative body was returned by an antiquated electoral system which could not be said to represent the nation. Boroughs and seats were openly and literally owned by particular families or private persons; the voting const.i.tuency sometimes not numbering more than a dozen. As a matter of fact, less than one hundred persons owned seats or boroughs capable of const.i.tuting a majority in the Commons!

As everywhere else in revolutionary times, the question of parliamentary reform was not debated in the Parliament only; every man in the nation, each in his own sphere, took part in the stormy contest which began to rage all over the island. The volunteers were still in their glory. Flushed with victory, they did not cease from their political agitations. In September, 1783, they met once more in convention at Dungannon, the specific object of which, Dr. Madden tells us, was parliamentary reform, and they then determined ”to hold another grand national convention of volunteer delegates in Dublin, in the month of November following.”

In that extraordinary a.s.sembly, the question of the rights of Catholics was naturally brought up, and, to his honor be it said, the Protestant Bishop of Derry proposed to extend the elective franchise to them.

That some fanatics would oppose this motion was only to be expected; and it would have caused no surprise to find the opposition confined to a number of men of inferior station, still deeply imbued with narrow Protestant ideas. But when the leaders of the movement for national independence, Lord Charlemont and Mr. Flood, appeared in the ranks of the determined opponents of the proposition, it was cause for wonder indeed. It was chiefly owing to the exertions and influence of Lord Charlemont that the efforts of the revolution had been finally turned to the side of freedom; while Flood was a greater nationalist than Grattan himself, whose eloquence was so memorable in the last momentous debates of the Irish House of Commons. Flood carried his patriotism so far as to suspect the British Government of not being sincere in its concessions, when Grattan thought that ”nothing dishonorable and disgraceful ought to be supposed in motives until facts render them suspicious.”

Nevertheless, it was Charlemont and Flood who stood firm for the exclusion of Catholics from the franchise demanded for them by a Protestant bishop; and Flood's plan was the one finally adopted.

In order to make a stronger impression on the public mind, a number of delegates, who were also members of Parliament, proceeded, on November 29th, directly from the convention to the House of Commons, some of them dressed in their volunteer uniforms, for the purpose of supporting the plan of Mr. Flood to exclude the Catholics from the franchise.

In the midst of the tumult, the bill of reform failed, seventy- seven voting for, and one hundred and fifty against it. There was therefore no change in the Parliament, and Catholics remained in their old position, in consequence of the blunders of the chiefs of the volunteer movement for independence.

It is true that, at the same time, the whole volunteer movement itself fell to the ground. From that moment it dragged on a doomed life. ”One would have thought,” says Dr. Madden, ”there was national vigor in it for more than an existence of fifteen years, and power to effect more than an ephemeral independence which lasted only eighteen years.”

But the Catholics had their eyes opened; they saw that the day of resurrection was not yet come for them. It was not to be brought about by any Irish Parliament. So far, therefore, we were right in stating that the parliamentary record for Ireland is a sad one. It should be said, however, that, from that time, many Protestants, like the Bishop of Derry, Grattan, and others, have always been firm in their demand for freedom to all, and have remained the stanchest supporters of Catholic rights. What we have hitherto called James I's Ulster colony, thus was reduced to the Orange party; and, in that sense, the volunteer movement was a real and permanent benefit to the country. There is no need to mention the names of many distinguished Protestants of our own times, whose whole life has been devoted by act, or speech, or both, to the service of all. All honor to them!

But it is alleged that the Irish Legislature, as framed by the Const.i.tution of 1782, gave to the country an uninterrupted flow of prosperity for eighteen years, and hence the volunteer movement was of great benefit to the race, at least temporarily.

We will present the case in the strongest light possible contrary to our own opinion, and for this we can do no better than borrow the arguments of Mr. W.J. O'N. Daunt, in his pamphlet on the ”Irish Question” (1869):

”Accustomed as we are,” he says, ”since the Union-in 1800-to the national distress and chronic disturbance attested by the Devon Commissions, Famine Reports, and other official sources of information, there seems something scarcely credible in the account of Irish pre-Union prosperity-a prosperity which contrasted so strongly with the condition of Ireland under a Parliament which is called 'Imperial,' but which is essentially and overwhelmingly English. But the accounts are given on unimpeachable authority.

”Mr. Jebb, member for Callan in the Irish Parliament, thus speaks of the advance of the country in prosperity, in a pamphlet published in 1798:

”'In the course of fifteen years, our commerce, our agriculture, and our manufactures, have swelled to an amount that the most sanguine friends of Ireland would not have dared to prognosticate.'

”The bankers of Dublin, tolerably competent witnesses, held a meeting on the 18th of December, 1798, at which they resolved, 'that, since the renunciation of Great Britain, in 1782, to legislate for Ireland, the commerce and prosperity of this kingdom have eminently increased.'

”The Dublin Guild of Merchants did the same on the 14th of January, 1797.”

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