ri 
 
 ^^£jB^'^'^i^«fi&.£^^^^;!.::^i;;^;^ 
 
 ^;.;:V^ 
 
 >v\\\\\NX\Ww^VW 
 
 ^^ 
 
J I.WILLIAMS 
 
 ^^ p>eARi_ CUT 
 worcester'-mass. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
.^^^ 
 
 HENEY GEATTAN: 
 
 g l^istorical Stuti2. 
 
 O" 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GEORGE MAC CARTHY. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE Ubr^hS^ 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., 104 GRAFTON ST. 
 
 London : Simpkin, Marshall, & Co, 
 1886. 
 
ff 
 

 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 Having been entrusted by successive Governments 
 with duties of a judicial character, I feel myself pre- 
 cluded from the present political controversy ; but I 
 gladly consent to a new Edition of the following 
 Memoir of Henry Grattan — a man to whose 
 ority the controversialists at both sides appeal, 
 .; .d who was, at the same time, a valiant vindicator 
 ^ of National Rights and a firm supporter of Imperial 
 Unity. 
 
 19 Aylesbury Road, Dublin, 
 15/// Majy, 1886. 
 
 159L 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Intro "■ *** *** *** *** -^ 
 
 ' CHAPTER I. 
 
 qj^^;Ttan's Early Life [1746 to 1775] ... ... 12 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HiJs Struggle for Commercial Freedom and 
 
 ^National Independence [1775 to 1782] ... ... 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I pis Struggle for Catholic Emancipation and 
 i Parliamentary Reform [1782 to 1797] ... ... 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 His Struggle against the Union [1800] ... ... 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 His Last Years and Death [1800 to 1820] ... ... 63 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 INTELLIGENT Irishmen of every creed and class 
 honour Grattan. Irish Protestants honour him 
 as the greatest of Irish Protestant statesmen. Irish 
 CathoHcs honour him as one of the earhest, boldest, 
 
 . and most successful advocates of Irish Catholic rights. 
 Friends of order know that order had never a 
 stauncher ally. Friends of liberty know that liberty 
 had never a stouter asserter. Those who like the 
 
 I British connexion are aware that he was its steadfast 
 supporter. Those who love Irish independence know 
 that he was the only Irishman who ever actually 
 achieved it. We are all more or less proud of a man 
 whose genius shed lustre on our common country, 
 and, however we may doubt about the present, or 
 differ amongst ourselves, we all feel within us a chord 
 that vibrates sympathetically to the name of him who 
 helped to win some of the greatest liberties we ac- 
 tually enjoy, and who, for a brief period, gave Ireland 
 a place amongst the nations. 
 
 Nevertheless, little is specifically known about him. 
 V/hen I came to review my own stock of knowledge 
 
 B 
 
lo HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 on the subject, I found it to be meagre. I could have 
 made a speech about Grattan any time these twenty 
 years. Most Irishmen can make a speech on any 
 subject whatever. But I had no clear portrait of the 
 man in my mind's eye. I found it to be the same 
 way with other people. They could talk fluently 
 about Grattan ; but they really did not kfiow much 
 about him. Turning to literature, I found the case 
 not much better. We have an admirable paper about 
 him in Mr. Lecky's "Leaders of Public Opinion:" 
 but it is rather an essay than a portrait. We have a 
 solid and masterly argument in Mr. O'Neill Daunt's 
 lecture ; but it does not aim at personal or biographi- 
 cal delineation. In order to find out for myself the 
 manner of man Grattan actually was, to get a clear 
 conception of his individuality, to judge whether he 
 was honest or a humbug, to know what he aimed at, 
 what he failed in, what he succeeded in, what were his 
 virtues, what were his foibles, what were his faults, 
 how he looked, spoke, and worked, what was his 
 private life, and what, on the whole, was the true 
 tenor of the man's existence in this world, I had to 
 ransack, and get ransacked, the dustiest shelves of a 
 dozen libraries in Cork, Dublin, and London, to read 
 scores of books long since out of print, and to seek 
 traces of him through all sorts of old memoirs, mag- 
 azines, newspapers, and parliamentary reports. I now 
 respectfully submit the result of this investigation. 
 
 But I must ask my readers' forbearance. The sub- 
 ject is what is called a "touchy" one. How shall I 
 deal with it ? Shall I try to please everybody ? Shall 
 I cut, and trim, and hedge ? Shall I tell only what 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. ii 
 
 I suppose my readers would like to hear? Must I think 
 of them rather than of Grattan ? Of course not. His- 
 tory loses all value if so dealt with ; and it is history 
 we are dealing with, not present or party politics. 
 The times of which we are to think have passed for 
 nearly a hundred years. Of all the busy brains and 
 hearts throbbing then within the four seas of Ireland, 
 I suppose that not one throbs now. Let us then look 
 back on those times with historic calmness. Let us 
 forget ourselves for an hour. Let us hush the clam- 
 orous present. Let us try to make '* the Dead Past " 
 live again. Let us seek truth, not ammunition for 
 party warfare. Thus shall History give us its lesson : 
 and thus, I trust, shall we obtain distinct ideas of the 
 chief events in the life, and the chief lineaments in 
 the character, of Henry Grattan. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HIS EARLY LIFE. 
 
 [1746 TO I775-] 
 
 THE date of Grattan's birth is the 3rd of July, 1746. 
 The place of his birth was his father's mansion 
 of Belcamp, in DubUn. His father's family were good 
 old civic people, honest traders, stout Protestants, hot 
 haters of Papists. One of them had been Senior 
 Fellow of Dublin University. Another had been 
 Lord Mayor of Dublin. They must have been peo- 
 ple of some culture, for the Sheridans were their 
 friends, and Dean Swift had been an intimate at their 
 house. The father of Henry Grattan was a bar- 
 rister of good character and good practice, handsome, 
 honest, and kindly, but a bad speaker, impatient of 
 contradiction, violent in temper, and narrow-minded 
 in political views ; one of those toriest of Tories who 
 believe themselves Liberals. He was at this time 
 Recorder of Dublin. Henry Grattan's mother came 
 of a Norman stock, the De Alerlys, or, as they came 
 to be called, Marlays. Her ancestor, Sir John 
 Marlay, was a distinguished Royalist officer in the 
 Cromwellian wars. Her father, Chief Justice Marlay, 
 was a friend of the famous Lord Chesterfield when 
 the latter was here as Lord Lieutenant; and Mary 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. 13 
 
 Marlay had been a belle in Chesterfield's brilliant 
 court before she married Recorder Grattan. She was 
 a woman of spirit, culture, and accomplishm.ents. 
 
 In childhood Grattan was sickly. Nevertheless, in 
 due time he was sent to day-schools in Ship-street and 
 Abbey- street, where he was duly, or as he himself 
 considered, unduly, threshed. The first notable thing 
 told about him was the way he got over his fear of 
 ghosts. Some nursery stories had made the lad ner- 
 vous on such subjects. But he knew that his appre- 
 hensions were absurd, and he took a bold way to 
 conquer them. He was missed from his home at 
 midnight. He was discovered seated alone on a 
 tombstone in a graveyard. " What on earth are you 
 doing there, sir ? " shouted his choleric father. *' Only 
 learning not to be afraid of ghosts, papa," quietly an- 
 swered the boy. I hope he did not get threshed for 
 that. It was a significant circumstance — presage of 
 the pluck that faced and conquered many a '' bogy" 
 in after days. 
 
 In his seventeenth year, Henry Grattan was sent to 
 Trinity College. Most universities of that time were 
 wild places enough : but it must be confessed that in 
 few could be found a wilder set than in *' Old 
 Trinity " during Grattan's college days. The pranks 
 of this set were the talk of the town, and are the 
 subject of many memoirs. They drank, swore, fought 
 duels, nailed the ears of yelling bailiffs to the College 
 pump, had pitched battles in the streets with the 
 Ormond-quay butchers, and, under the name of 
 " Pinkindindies," swaggered about in all places of re- 
 sort, pricking or " pinking " with their swords, from 
 
14 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 the points of which the scabbards had been cut, any 
 one of whom they were not very much afraid. One 
 must not be too strait-laced in teUing of the sports of 
 boys. Allowance must be made for the wild ways of 
 the time. More than one of these swaggering scape- 
 graces became distinguished men. In one of their 
 sprees Oliver Goldsmith got knocked down near where 
 his statue now stands ; and even the grave and lofty 
 Flood at another time joined their pranks. But Gold- 
 smith's fault was only a frolic ; Flood's aberration was 
 brief; and the plain truth remains that, with few ex- 
 ceptions, these "Bucks" and " Pinkindindies" were 
 nuisances — graceless scamps who never did any good 
 for themselves or their country. It is a fact to be re- 
 membered about Grattan, that from first to last he 
 kept clear of them and their ways. 
 
 " Old Trinity " had a better set than this : a set of 
 hard students, sober-living and honest gentlemen ; 
 young fellows with the " vis vivida animi " of intel- 
 lectual prowess : men who afterwards became famous 
 in Church, Bar, and Senate. With this nobler set 
 Grattan allied himself. Of it he became in his time 
 the chief. He evinced talent, industry, ambition, and 
 self-respect. He took high collegiate honours. We 
 now discern the first note of his oratorical tendency in 
 his devoted study of the great orators of antiquity. 
 It is fair to add that in these college contests Grattan's 
 chief competitor was a handsome, but dark and sullen, 
 youth, known as "Black Jack Fitzgibbon;" known 
 afterwards as Lord Chancellor Clare. 
 
 Grattan's collegiate triumphs, and indeed all his 
 early years, were shadowed by one trouble. Of affec- 
 
HENRY G RATTAN, 15 
 
 tionate nature, intensely fond of his choleric and 
 dictatorial old father, he completely differed from him 
 in political views. It was just at the time when the 
 dormant intellect of the country had been thoroughly 
 awakened by the trumpet-note of Flood's eloquence. 
 Nearly all generous hearts had begun to throb with 
 the thought of retrieving the fortunes of Ireland, and 
 achieving the national autonomy. This was already 
 fast becoming the master-thought of young Grattan's 
 life. In Dublin, it was the talk of all circles, the 
 test-question of all political contention. The Re- 
 formers were led by vehement, coarse old Dr. Lucas, 
 member for Dublin, founder of the ''Freeman's 
 Journal," friend of Flood, friend of Dr. Johnson, 
 fearless advocate of national liberty. The leader of 
 Dr. Lucas' opponents was — Recorder Grattan, now 
 also member for Dublin. The two vehement old 
 men thundered at each other from all platforms, all 
 Dublin taking sides with one or other. Whose side 
 was young Grattan to take ? His love was with his 
 father : his principles were with Lucas. It was a 
 hard problem. The young fellow solved it reason- 
 ably enough. He did not openly oppose his father ; 
 but he did not conceal his political sympathies. Ve- 
 hement old Mr. Grattan, however, would " stand no 
 nonsense " of this kind. He was one of those lovers 
 of liberty who are so fond of it that they must have 
 it all to themselves ; one of these autocrats of the 
 dinner-table who, at their own board, allow none but 
 their own opinions. He insisted on a conformity 
 which his son's self-respect could not yield. Thus 
 came about estrangement, trouble to both men, and 
 
1 6 HENRY G RATTAN, 
 
 young Grattan's virtual exclusion from his father's hos- 
 pitable and well-frequented board. 
 
 Two other houses, however, were open to him : 
 those of his uncles, Dean Marlay and Colonel Marlay. 
 The Dean sat, not without grace, in the chair of 
 Swift. He had not Swift's genius, but he had Swift's 
 love of learning and love of liberty : like Swift, he 
 was a scholar and a wit ; and he had the bright and 
 easy temper that Swift lacked. In after days, sitting 
 with the Peers as Bishop, he did stout battle for his 
 country's freedom. At this time (as Rogers the Poet 
 tells us) "Dean Marlay gave the nicest little dinners 
 and kept the best company in Dublin."^ His house 
 was the favourite resort of Flood, Charlemont, Denis 
 Daly, Barry Yelverton, Hussey Burgh, and other 
 leaders of national opinion. It was there Henry 
 Grattan first met these men. They recognised th« 
 talents of the pale, shy collegian : they little dreamed 
 he was to be their leader in many a day of glory and 
 of peril. 
 
 The first who really did recognise Grattan's capa- 
 bilities was his uncle Colonel Marlay, of Marlay 
 Abbey, near Dublin : a shrewd, kindly, gallant old 
 man, who had fought well in German wars and knew 
 much of men in many Courts and Camps. He soon 
 saw, as he said, the stuff of which the lad was made, 
 and he "swore" by him from the first. I am afraid 
 he very literally " swore " by him. To find any fault 
 with Henry was to arouse Colonel Marlay's wrath, 
 if not to bring his fingers near the sword with which 
 
 I (( 
 
 Table Talk," p. 178. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 17 
 
 Prince Ferdinand had presented him in the field 
 of Minden. Throughout all the vicissitudes of 
 Grattan's career, brave old " Uncle Tom " was his 
 staunch backer: backing him unstintingly with money, 
 influence, counsel, confidence, sympathy : backing 
 him in the Volunteer time with military skill : ready 
 to back him with Prince Ferdinand's sword " in any 
 good cause at all." Grattan spent much of his ear- 
 lier time in the Colonel's pleasant home on the banks 
 of the Liffey, the very place, as it happened, where 
 Swift had written the " Drapier's Letters," and where 
 he and Vanessa had strangely, if blamelessly, loved 
 and studied. 
 
 Grattan's University course ended, he prepared to 
 go to the Bar. The chief evidence then required of 
 fitness to practise as an Irish Barrister was the proof 
 that a certain number of bad dinners had been eaten 
 in a London tavern. Partly on this account Grattan 
 resided for the greater part of the next five years in 
 London. He had introductions to the " best people " 
 there, and was welcome to the house of the Prime Min- 
 ister, Lord Shelbourne. He availed of such opportu- 
 nities sufficiently to make himself acquainted with Lord 
 Chatham, Edmund Burke, Fox, Wilkes, and the most 
 notable Englishmen of the day. But he kept clear of 
 London dissipations, and lived for the most part a 
 retired life at Sunning Hill, near Windsor Forest — a 
 romantic spot which Pope had celebrated in verses 
 then well known. His " chum " was Robert Day, a 
 clever Kerry man, then a law-student, afterwards a 
 judge. Grattan did not read much law : soon finding 
 it and its profession uncongenial. He followed freely 
 
1 8 HENRY G RATTAN, 
 
 his natural bent of oratory. His f^xvourite resorts were 
 the gallery of the House of Commons and the bar of 
 the House of Lords. Night after night he listened ; 
 returning home, not to rest, but to wander through 
 the Forest, revolving and declaiming what he had 
 heard. Day after day he transcribed and recited 
 passages from Chatham, Bolingbroke, Burke, and the 
 great orators of antiquity. His landlady thought he 
 was mad. What else would make a gentleman wan- 
 der about at night talking to himself, and sometimes 
 getting into awful passions with an imaginary com- 
 panion whom he called "Mr. Speaker"? She once 
 piteously asked his friends to take him home, and 
 offered, if they did so, to forgive the rent. On an- 
 other occasion, wandering by moonlight in Windsor 
 Forest, he happened to come across a gallows. His 
 poetical and oratorical faculties were aroused by the 
 incident, and he addressed to it a brilliant apostrophe. 
 In the midst of this, a hand touched him on the 
 shoulder. His old fear of ghosts must have returned, 
 for Grattan jumped a yard high. But the stranger 
 was as much frightened as himself. Trembling all 
 over, glancing alternately from the gallows to the 
 orator, he said : "How the D — 1 did you get down?" 
 
 In January, 1772, Grattan was called to the Bar. 
 But he continued to dislike it, and he soon gave it 
 up. " I am now," he wrote at this time, " a Barris- 
 ter, but without knowledge or ambition in my pro- 
 fession. The Four Courts are, of all places, the most 
 disagreeable to me." He lost his first case, and re- 
 turned the fee. 
 
 The next three years were the least worthy, and the 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. 19 
 
 least happy, of Grattan's life. He had failed at the 
 Bar : he had not succeeded in anything else. The 
 cause of Ireland seemed hopeless, and Grattan was 
 amongst those who deemed it so. His father, whom 
 he had never ceased to love, had died in mortal feud 
 with him ; bequeathing away from him all the family 
 property, except some three hundred a-year over 
 which he had not bequeathing power. His mother, 
 whom he also tenderly loved, had died. His favourite 
 sister had died. The lady to whom he was affianced 
 died. His own health was so bad that he believed 
 himself dying. He wished himself dead. The clouds 
 of a great sorrow closed over him. He lost heart 
 and hope, gave up study and society, and wrote to 
 his friends a series of the most lugubrious letters I 
 have ever read. But these letters show the real 
 cause of his morbid depression : Grattan had become 
 an infidel. This was the age of Bayle, Rousseau, and 
 Voltaire. Their thoughts were in all minds : their 
 words on all lips. The brilliant Bolingbroke had re- 
 vived in England the refined infidelity of classic 
 times, and Pope had made its false philosophy the 
 key-note of his greatest poem. It was hard to es- 
 cape such influences. For a while, Grattan yielded 
 to them. We derive this information from confiden- 
 tial letters written by him to two of his most intimate 
 friends. I doubt his son's wisdom in publishing 
 these letters. But there they are, not to be blinked ; 
 and their confidential character renders them only the 
 more plainly indicative of his real mind. " I have 
 become," Grattan expressly wrote in one of them, 
 *'an epicurean philosopher. I consider this world 
 
20 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 our 7ie plus ultra ^ and happiness our greatest object 
 in it."^ Not to speak of the folly of it, one could not 
 do a drearier thing than become an " epicurean phil- 
 osopher." As in common life, those who are always 
 seeking their own comfort are generally the most 
 comfortless of mortals, so in philosophy, the pursuit 
 of one's own happiness drives men to the verge of 
 despair ; sometimes over the verge — to madness or 
 suicide. Given a sensitive, noble soul, like Grattan's, 
 what drearier creed could man - or devil preach than 
 that this hard, mean, fussy world is all : that our 
 business in it is to try to be " happy " for a few days 
 before we die ; that truth, love, justice, eternity, God, 
 are dreams ; that there is " no golden goal in the 
 distance dim " to brighten the paths of common life ? 
 Not to madness only, or to suicide only, do such 
 doctrines lead, but to worse — to the meanest and 
 most reckless licentiousness. They led Grattan to 
 sorrow \ they embittered the best days of his life ; 
 they impressed his character, his features, and his 
 very voice, with a sadness that never wholly left 
 them ; but they did not lead him to dissipation. In 
 an age of licentiousness, his private life was without a 
 stain. As " Uncle Tom " had said, there was stuff 
 in the lad. After a while his better nature asserted 
 itself. He shook off this ignoble nightmare. As he 
 recovered his faith in God and man, he recovered the 
 elasticity of his spirit, the resources of his splendid 
 faculties, the heroic hope of his youth — to do and 
 dare something for Ireland. He resumed his poli- 
 
 1 (( 
 
 Life," vol. I, p. 115. 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 2 1 
 
 tical and oratorical studies. He returned to society, 
 and became the friend of some of the best men in 
 both countries. In England, Rogers the poet be- 
 came his chief companion, and conceived an enthusi- 
 astic, life-long love for him. Rogers introduces his 
 Irish friend by name in his noblest poem (that on 
 Human Life), and thus addresses him : 
 
 " A walk in Spring, Grattan, like those with thee 
 By the heath-side, who had not envied me ? 
 When the sweet limes, so full of bees in June, 
 Led us to meet beneath their boughs at noon : 
 And thou did'st say, which of the great and wise, 
 Could they but hear and at thy bidding rise, 
 Thou would'st call up and question."* 
 
 In Ireland he made a more important friendship. 
 At this time Ireland was full of the fame of Flood. 
 Flood's residence was in the County Kilkenny, and 
 Grattan's sister had married in that neighbourhood. 
 The two men were thro^vn much together. They 
 played in the private theatricals that were the fashion 
 of the day ; Grattan writing brilliant prologues for 
 the reigning belles of that gay and graceful Kilkenny 
 society. They published a series of witty political 
 sketches under the name of "Baratariana." They 
 formed a club in Dublin known as "The Society of 
 Granby Row," where the chiefs of the popular party 
 met during the Parliamentary session. They walked 
 in the groves of Swift and Vanessa at Marlay Abbey. 
 When opportunity offered, Flood insisted on Grattan 
 entering'Parliament. Thus it happened that some of 
 
 * " Human Life," p. 12. 
 
2 2 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 the best men and women in both countries rejoiced 
 when, in the month of December, 1775, Grattan, 
 then in the thirtieth year of his age, became member 
 of the Irish Parhament for the borough of Charle- 
 mont. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HIS STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL FREEDOM AND 
 NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 [1775 TO 1782.] 
 
 THE first great Parliamentary work to which 
 Grattan applied himself, was the removal of 
 the restrictions on Irish trade. To understand the 
 importance of this work we must look back a little. 
 
 In early times Ireland had considerable commerce 
 and manufactures. Before a loom stirred in Lanca- 
 shire Irish linens and woollens were known in Euro- 
 pean markets. Before a ship sailed from the Mersey 
 Irish merchants had brisk trade with French and 
 Italian ports. But in the long wars which followed 
 the Norman invasion commerce and manufactures 
 almost died out. The first revival occurred in the 
 comparative calm of the early Staart reigns. It was 
 in the cattle trade. Irish pastures were rich ; Irish 
 industry grew and exported vast numbers of sheep 
 and beeves : and Ireland began to thrive again. 
 This was just what a good government would have 
 encouraged ; but it was just what the English govern- 
 ment of Ireland prohibited. The prohibition was ex- 
 plicit and direct, by express laws still to be read» 
 There was no concealment about the motives of the 
 prohibition j the laws themselves state that they are 
 
24 HENRY GRATTAN, 
 
 for the purpose of injuring Irish trade lest it should 
 interfere with English trade. Accordingly the export 
 of Irish cattle to England was forbidden. It was 
 proposed to make it a felony. One English legislator 
 proposed that it should be considered — adultery ! 
 
 Forbidden to export cattle to England, the Irish 
 began to export to the colonies. A good colonial 
 trade, especially with America, was growing, when 
 the English Parliament again intervened, and pro- 
 hibited export of cattle from Ireland to the colonies. 
 
 Driven from English trade, driven from colonial 
 trade, the Irish turned to foreign trade. They were 
 beginning to thrive again when English jealousy 
 again intervened; and the Irish were forbidden to 
 export to foreign countries, or to keep a ship at sea, 
 or even to fish Irish rivers with Irish boats. 
 
 Driven from the cattle trade at all sides, Irish 
 industry turned to the woollen trade. This trade 
 seems never to have quite died out. In the seven- 
 teenth century it revived. In Dublin, Cork, Water- 
 ford, and throughout the South and West, thousands 
 of looms sped merrily, and exports were large and 
 lucrative. But in 1698 and 1699, this industry was 
 deliberately destroyed by statutes of the EngHsh 
 Parliament. The Irish were forbidden to export 
 woollens to any country whatever, except to England : 
 and to England only on terms which practically 
 amounted to prohibition. 
 
 We may trust Mr. Froude not to exaggerate the 
 case against England ; and it is Mr. Froude who tells 
 us that English manufacturers at this time considered 
 it fair and politic to say to Irish manufacturers \-^ 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 2 5 
 
 " You shall not weave your wool at home : you shall 
 not sell your woollen cloth either here or abroad : 
 we will put you under such disadvantages that it shall 
 not be worth your while to supply your own neces- 
 sities ; you shall buy our cloth and frieze to clothe 
 your own backs ; you shall sell your fleeces only to 
 us ; and as it is our interest to have them on easy 
 terms, you shall take whatever price we are pleased 
 to offer."^ ''The effects of these measures," says 
 Mr. Lecky, " were terrible beyond conception. The 
 main industry of the country was at a blow completely 
 annihilated. A vast population was thrown into des- 
 titution. Thousands of manufacturers carried their 
 skill and enterprise to Germany, France, and Spain. 
 . . Thus by a simple act of authority, at a time 
 when the Irish Parliament was not even sitting, the 
 English Parliament suppressed the chief form of Irish 
 commerce, solely and avowedly because it had suc- 
 ceeded in becoming a formidable competitor to 
 English trade." 2 
 
 The same policy was pursued with other trades. 
 " Ireland," says Mr. Lecky, " was prohibited by 
 express enactments, or by prohibitory duties, from 
 exporting either beer or malt to England ; from im- 
 porting hops from any country but England ; from 
 exporting glass to any country whatever, and from 
 importing it from any country but England."^ The 
 only exception made was as to the linen trade, and 
 this exception was made grudgingly, slowly, and 
 imperfectly. 
 
 1 " The English in Ireland," p. 265. 
 ' " Leaders of Irish Opinion," p. 37. 
 * " Leaders of Irish Opinion," p, 41. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIR.V.pv 
 
26 HENR V GRA TTAN. 
 
 " With their shipping destroyed," says Mr. Froude, 
 " by the Navigation Act, their woollen manufactures 
 taken from them, their trade in all its branches 
 crippled and confined, the single resort left to those 
 of the Irish, who still nourished dreams of improving 
 the unfortunate country, was agriculture."^ Hence 
 they began to grow corn extensively. But the grow- 
 ing of corn was impeded. In fact, industry after 
 industry was strangled at its birth, or so shackled as 
 to die of inanition. 
 
 Some relaxations had been obtained by Swift and 
 Flood : but such, in the main, was the commercial 
 condition of Ireland when Grattan entered the Irish 
 Parliament, in 1775. That he freed Irish trade from 
 such trammels was, surely, a service sufficient, of it- 
 self, to render any man illustrious in the annals of his 
 country. We may differ about his services in other 
 respects, but about his services to Irish trade there 
 can be no room for difference. In freeing it from 
 trammels so ruinous and so ignoble, Grattan made 
 every man and woman in Ireland then, since, and 
 now, his debtor. 
 
 Grattan, however, was not long labouring at the 
 commercial question when he found that it inevitably 
 led him into a larger, an older, and a deeper ques- 
 tion, one to which beyond all others the heart of the 
 country]: vibrated, that of the legislative and adminis- 
 trative independence of Ireland. Whatever may be 
 thought of the present arrangements between Great 
 Britain and Ireland, there can be no reasonable 
 
 1 (( 
 
 The English in Ireland," p. 374. 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 2 7 
 
 doubt that the arrangements between the two coun 
 tries, when Grattan took up the task of rectifying 
 them, were very bad indeed. Here were two islands 
 lying side by side, but separated by many miles of 
 stormy sea, identical in some interests, not identical 
 in others, peopled by the same races, but in different 
 proportions, with different antecedents, and in dif- 
 ferent conditions of social life. A hundred years 
 ago, one of those islands insisted on ruling the other 
 island with iron despotism. Ireland, indeed, pos- 
 sessed a Parliament of its own : but not all the Lords 
 and Commons of Ireland could pass a law, even 
 about an Irish turnpike gate, without leave expressly 
 asked and expressly given from London. Ireland 
 had not a single representative in the English Parlia- 
 ment : and yet the English Parliament bound Ireland 
 by any laws it liked. This legislative power was, as 
 might be supposed, used ignorantly. It could 
 scarcely be otherwise, in those days when a Yorkshire 
 squire knew far less about Ireland than such a squire 
 now knows about Timbuctoo. But, as we have seen 
 in one instance amongst many, it was used w^orse 
 than ignorantly — it was used malignantly. Whenever 
 Irish interests clashed, or seemed to clash, with 
 English interests, England remorselessly sacrificed 
 the former to the latter, and laws were passed with 
 the avowed object of prejudicing the entire popula- 
 tion of Ireland. Moreover, England not only made 
 laws for Ireland, she sent over Englishmen to admi- 
 nister them. As a general rule no Irishman of any 
 rank or creed was allowed to hold high office in 
 Ireland. Lords Lieutenant, Secretaries, Chancellors 
 
28 HENR V GRA TTAN. 
 
 Judges, Bishops, were nearly all sent over from Eng- 
 land. Some of these were honest and respectable 
 men. Most of them were greedy adventurers. Not 
 a few were utter scamps. Pious and moral divines, 
 said Swift, were appointed in London for Irish sees. 
 They started with their robes and patents. But out- 
 side London they were waylaid by highwaymen. 
 The highwaymen murdered them, stole their patents, 
 put on their robes, and were installed bishops in their 
 stead ! This saucy sarcasm points to the fact that, 
 badly as England's legislative power over Ireland was 
 used, her administrative power over Ireland was used 
 even worse. The policy of the English administra- 
 tors, cynically avowed in scores of letters still to be 
 read,^ was to keep up animosities between different 
 races and religions in Ireland, in order to keep all 
 divided, distracted, and weak. Who knows how 
 many of our subsequent troubles have grown from 
 the seeds thus sown ? Another maxim was that 
 Ireland should be kept poor lest she should " wax fat 
 and kick." One day while an Irish gentleman, Sir 
 Hercules Langrishe, was riding in Phoenix Park with 
 a new Lord Lieutenant, his Excellency asked his 
 companion : " Why is it that my predecessors have 
 left this Park so damp and marshy ? Why did they 
 not drain it?" " Because," said Langrishe, " your 
 Excellency's predecessors \vere too much engaged in 
 drai7ii7ig the rest of the Kingdom." They did 
 *' drain " it in all sorts of ways, except the right way. 
 The Irish pension list was made a sort of appanage 
 
 ^ For instance, see "Primate Boulter's Correspondence," p. 172. 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN, 2 9 
 
 of English male and female rascality ; and even the 
 Irish peerage was sometimes dishonoured for similar 
 purposes. Of course nothing could thrive under 
 such a system. No country not lost to self-respect 
 could tolerate it. No patriot worthy of the name but 
 should have struggled against it. What was the use 
 of proving that free trade, or free anything, was for 
 the advantage of Ireland, while Ireland was ruled by 
 those who' did not desire her advantage ? Thus it 
 was that Grattan " took up in grave and noble earnest 
 the great quarrel of Irish Legislative Independence." 
 " Along the banks of that river," he said in after 
 years, speaking of the Liffey as it passed his uncle 
 Tom's place at Marlay Abbey, " amidst the groves 
 and bowers of Swift and Vanessa, I grew convinced 
 that I was right ; argument unanswerable came to 
 my mind ; a^great spirit arose amongst the people ; 
 and what I then planned, I afterwards accom- 
 plished." 
 
 The chief thing, therefore, to be remembered about 
 this second period of Grattan's life [that which com- 
 menced with his entering Parliament in 1775, and 
 ended with the Declaration of Rights in 1782] , is his 
 extraordinary success. He completely and perma- 
 nently achieved the commercial freedom of Ireland. 
 He completely and permanently overturned the miser- 
 able system under which Ireland had been previously 
 governed. He completely, though not permanently, 
 achieved Irish legislative independence. 
 
 How did he accomplish these great things ? I 
 shall not attempt to go through the details of his 
 parliamentary campaigns. I shall only note briefly 
 
30 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 what appear to have been the elements of his suc- 
 cess. 
 
 The first and greatest element of Grattan's success 
 was his sincerity. He was " honest to the back- 
 bone." He wanted to do good for Ireland : he 
 wanted nothing more : he wanted nothing less : he 
 wanted nothing else. Then, as now, the generality 
 of men, especially of political men, were playing 
 their own little games, seeking office, or emolument, 
 or popularity, or power, or fame : Grattan was always 
 guilelessly thinking of Ireland. He never took office. 
 He despised wealth. Though dearly loving popu- 
 larity and fame, he never hesitated to peril them for 
 Ireland. His own interest, fortune, health, or life, 
 seemed to be the last thing he thought of. One of 
 his first legislative triumphs was that of securing the 
 holders of leases for lives renewable from eviction on 
 technical grounds. He carried this reform by a 
 great effort, with a majority of three. When it was 
 all over, people discovered that there was no man in 
 Ireland more interested in the maintenance of the 
 abuse he had abolished than Grattan himself, and 
 that its abolition cost him over a thousand pounds 
 a-year, at a time when the rest of his income did not 
 exceed three hundred pounds a-year. Thus it was 
 throughout his life. " The character of Grattan," 
 said Lord Russell, " should be drawn with a pencil of 
 light. A purer or more upright statesman never 
 adorned any country." " I never knew a m.an," 
 said Wilberforce, "whose patriotism and love for his 
 country seemed so completely to extinguish all 
 private interests, and to induce him to look invariably 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. -^ i 
 
 o 
 
 and exclusively to the pnblic good." There was 
 something in Grattan of the quaint, high simplicity 
 which Thackeray delineates in Colonel Newcome 
 And so, after tricksters, schemers, slanderers, self- 
 seekers, and humbugs of all kinds were forgotten, 
 Ireland took this honest man to her heart of hearts 
 for ever. 
 
 Another element of Grattan's success was the 
 charm of his personal character. He was not a saint : 
 far from it. In some respects he was a sad sinner. 
 He was always ready to fight any man in deadly 
 duel — to "blaze," as the phrase went — at an hour's 
 notice. He was equally ready and relentless in the 
 duel of oratorical invective. These were the ways of 
 the time. Even Grattan knew no better; and this 
 very personal courage and ferocity, so oddly com- 
 bined with his habitual gentleness, added to his 
 popularity. But there was no falseness in the man — 
 no dirt to alloy his greatness. What he did he did 
 openly. He never " struck beneath the belt." He 
 never smiled in a man^s face and slandered him 
 behind his back. He never professed friendship and 
 proved a traitor when friendship came to be tested. 
 He was one of the least rancorous of men, the 
 readiest to forgive, the most just and generous even 
 to enemies. As a friend, he was true, thoughtful, 
 tender. As a companion, he exercised quite a fasci- 
 nation. Men said that Grattan never showed half so 
 great in the hours of his most splendid public 
 triumphs as in the hours of his most unreserved 
 private intercourse. Every one knew that Grattan 
 had nothing to conceal. There were no skeletons in 
 
3 2 HENR V GRA TTAN. 
 
 his closet. His private life was stainlessly pure ; and 
 in an age when bishops drank their dozen bottles, 
 and great statesmen came down to Westminster more 
 than ''half-seas-over," no one ever saw Grattan 
 other than sober. He was, in the best sense of the 
 word, a gentleman. 
 
 Another element of Grattan's success is to be 
 found in his intellectual powers and resources. We 
 must not, however, over-estimate these. They were 
 not of the very highest kind. Burke was a far 
 greater thinker ; the elder Pitt seems to have been a 
 greater orator. But Grattan combined much of Pitt's 
 oratorical power with much of Burke's philosophical 
 depth. 
 
 Moreover, Grattan had made statesmanship his 
 study from boyhood. He had thought out all the 
 great questions of politics. He had at his tongue's 
 tip the political learning of every age. He had the 
 large views which come of large knowledge. He was 
 the first to deal with Irish affaiis, not as a party 
 politician, but as a statesman. 
 
 The greatest of Grattan's powers, however, was his 
 oratory. This was admittedly fine. We have to 
 take it, as we have to take the oratory of most men 
 of his time, chiefly on tradition. His reported 
 speeches do not justify his fame. The reporters of 
 that age were sad bunglers, and left us little but 
 tradition to support the fame of Grattan any more 
 than that of Pitt, or Fox, or Mirabeau. Even tradi- 
 tion deals hardly in some respects with Grattan. It 
 tells us that his voice was shrill, his action ungraceful, 
 his manner outrageously odd. O'Connell used to 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 33 
 
 relate that Grattan almost swept the ground with his 
 gestures, and that the motion of his arms was like 
 the rolling of a ship in a heavy sea. Curran used to 
 mimic him, bowing almost to the ground, and thank- 
 ing Heaven that he had no peculiarities of manner. 
 Byron said his delivery was that of a harlequin. 
 Nevertheless, O'Connell, Curran, and Byron concur 
 in representing Grattan as one of the greatest orators 
 that ever lived. 
 
 Byron describes him as being : 
 
 " With all that Demosthenes wanted endowed, 
 And his rival or victor in all he possessed." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute ; 
 With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind ; 
 Even Tyranny, listening, sate melted and mute, 
 And Corruption shrunk, scorched, from the glance 
 of his mind." 
 
 And Moore : 
 
 " An eloquence rich, wheresoever its wave 
 
 Wandered free and triumphant, with thoughts that 
 shone through 
 '' As clear as the brook's ' stone of lustre ' that gave, 
 
 With the flash of the gem, its solidity too." 
 
 Lord Mahon says that whenever the occasion was 
 greatest then was Grattan greatest. His speeches 
 were not merely graceful compositions ; they had 
 the elevation, the unity, the symmetry, the splendour 
 of consummate works of art. Each speech had its 
 
34 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 own clear thesis. This thesis was enforced with 
 keen, hard-headed logic, and illustrated with a 
 stately affluence of illustrations. Thesis, logic, argu- 
 ments, and illustrations were embodied in a style 
 startling for its terseness, its rapidity, its pictur- 
 esqueness, and its brilliancy ; a style sparkling with 
 gems of wit that became " mots," and felicities of 
 concentrated wisdom that became proverbs. Over 
 all there reigned a lofty imaginative power which gave 
 it a kind of poetic beauty, a sort of heroic elevation ; 
 while every thought, w^ord, argument, and illustration, 
 were animated by an intellectual power and a moral 
 enthusiasm which made a great speech of Grattan's 
 a great political and historical event. No wonder 
 that in after days many a noble soul yearned as 
 Gavan Duffy yearned — 
 
 " Oh ! to have lived as Grattan lived, in the glow of his manly 
 years ; 
 To thunder again those iron words, that thrill like the clash 
 of spears ! " 
 
 To the clashing of Grattan's arguments there soon 
 answered the clash of arms — the arms of the Volun- 
 teers. A hundred thousand men of every rank from 
 the loveliest peasant to the proudest peer, of every 
 creed and political party, rose in loyal defence of 
 their native land, which the exigencies of foreign war 
 had left unprotected, and in no less loyal resolve to 
 assert its commercial freedom and its legislative inde- 
 pendence. The people sympathised from sea to sea. 
 The Parliament rose as one man. The ministry 
 yielded. The English Parliament yielded. Commer- 
 
HENRY GRATTAN, 35 
 
 cial freedom was granted. Legislative freedom was 
 achieved. On the i6th of April, 1782, Ireland's 
 independence was declared. Early on that memor- 
 able day, College Green was thronged by thousands 
 from all parts of Ireland. In front of the old Par- 
 liament House, and far as the eye could reach, 
 with gleaming arms and glancing banners, and nod- 
 ding plumes, were the long lines of the Volunteers. 
 Within, Parliament had assembled. Never did that 
 noble dome rise over a more brilliant assembly. 
 In the Gallery were the Peers, with their stars, and 
 orders, and swords; the ladies radiant in varied 
 beauty and attire ; the University students in gowns 
 of silk and velvet ; the Corporations in their quaint 
 splendour. Every member was in his place, and in 
 full court dress. Many were the cheers for Flood 
 and Yelverton, and Hely Hutchinson, and Philpot 
 Curran. But the moment was too solemn for cheers, 
 every heart beat, every eye filled, as, with voice trem- 
 ulous from emotion, but soon rising into his loftiest 
 eloquence, Henry Grattan rose to move the De- 
 claration of Irish Independence. His speech was 
 equal to the occasion : the orator was worthy of the 
 cause. Rarely, if ever, were orator or audience more 
 moved than when Grattan uttered his famous apos- 
 trophe : 
 
 " I am now to address a free people : ages have passed away, 
 and this is the first moment in which you could be distinguished 
 by that appellation. 
 
 '' I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, that I 
 have nothing to add, and have only to admire by what Heaven- 
 
36 HENR Y GRA TTAJV. 
 
 directed steps you have proceeded until the whole faculty of the 
 nation is braced up to the act of her own deliverance. 
 
 " I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with a 
 paternal solicitude j I have traced her progress from injuries to 
 arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift ! spirit of Moly- 
 neux ! your genius has prevailed ! Ireland is now a nation ! in 
 that new character I hail her ! and bowing to her august pre- 
 sence, I say, Esio perpetua ! " 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HIS STRUGGLE FOR CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION AND 
 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 
 
 [1782 TO 1797.] 
 
 HENRY GRATTAN was "the man of 1782." 
 This was declared at all sides then. It may 
 be taken to be certain now. Swift growled and 
 witticised : Molyneux pleaded : Lucas toiled and suf- 
 fered : Flood argued : but Grattan achieved. Before 
 his dauntless courage difficulties vanished. From 
 his enthusiasm the country took heart. :. His marvel- 
 lous eloquence gave voice to the voiceless purpose of 
 all. His wisdom guided ail to peaceful victory : " a 
 victory," says Lord Brougham, " which stands at the 
 head of all triumphs won by patriots in modem 
 times." 
 
 The glory of this great achievement was unstint- 
 ingly acknowledged at the time of its occurrence. 
 The English Premier, Charles James Fox, offered 
 Grattan his choice of offices. Parliament voted him 
 a hundred thousand pounds. The Crown presented 
 him with the viceregal palace in Phoenix Park. The 
 people of all degrees and every creed hailed him as 
 the National Deliverer. Edmund Burke, then in the 
 
38 HENRY GRATTAN, 
 
 meridian of his own fame, declared that '* Great 
 Britain and Ireland" ought to "join in wreathing a 
 never-failing garland for the head of Grattan." 
 
 About the same time that Grattan thus reached the 
 height of his public fame, he obtained a blessing of 
 far more importance to a man himself than any fame 
 — a good wife. Henrietta Fitzgerald, descended 
 from the old Desmond stock, proved herself a true 
 helpmate, sharing her husband's aspirations, presiding 
 over his hospitalities, tending him in sickness, cheering 
 him in sorrow, encouraging him in all that was 
 noble, gentle, and heroic. They took a charming 
 residence at Tinnehinch, in one of the loveliest of tlie 
 Wicklow valleys ; and there, for nearly forty years, 
 Grattan had a happy home. 
 
 Let us now pause ; and, looking back through the 
 mists of years, try to get an idea of Grattan's physi- 
 cal appearance. Two good portraits of him are 
 extant. Both were in the National Gallery of the 
 Dublin Exhibition, and deserved study as well as any 
 in that memorable collection. One is the full length 
 portrait, belonging to the Hall of Trinity College. 
 It represents Grattan attired as Colonel of Volunteers, 
 moving the celebrated Declaration of National Inde- 
 pendence. He is "in the pride of his manly years;" 
 small, slight, with dark glancing eye, and delicately- 
 cut features, but so instinct with energy that it gives 
 the idea of commanding presence. The second por- 
 trait is even more characteristic. It represents 
 Grattan as an old man : his face " craggy" with the 
 deep lines of many cares ; his hair white ; his eyes 
 keen and bright ; his aspect full of the quaint, exqui- 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 39 
 
 site benignity which exercised such a fascination over 
 noble and gentle hearts in both countries. 
 
 Happily married — splendidly famous — Grattan re- 
 turned to public life. He felt that he had only part 
 of his great task done, and he set to work at the rest 
 with characteristic energy. But almost immediately 
 troubles fell thick on him. Rightly declining office, 
 he somewhat estranged Fox. Rightly refusing the 
 palace in*. Phoenix Park, he offended the Crown. 
 Rightly declining to receive more than half the Par- 
 liamentary Grant, he displeased Parliament. And he 
 soon came to open rupture with the Volunteers them- 
 selves, and with his old and illustrious friend, Flood. 
 
 The quarrel with the Volunteers was as to their 
 assumption of a dictatorship over the legislature. 
 Grattan knew that there was no tyranny worse 
 than a military dictatorship. Hence he peremptorily 
 resisted and put down this perilous pretension on the 
 part of the Volunteers. It is now quite clear that he 
 was right ; but it was not so clear then to that famous 
 body, flushed with victory and gorgeous in warlike 
 panoply. That the resistance should come from their 
 own chosen spokesman and favourite, was mortifying 
 in the extreme. To Grattan himself the position was 
 full of difficulty and unpleasantness. But seeing what 
 was right with a statesman's insight, he did it with a 
 patriot's straightforward courage. As usual, while 
 other men were thinking what was good for them- 
 selves, and what would please the fancy of the hour, 
 Grattan was thinking what was best for Ireland, and 
 what would most conduce to her true honour and her 
 ultimate peace. 
 
40 HENRY GRAT7AN. 
 
 His quarrel with Flood was about the question of 
 " simple repeal." The point was this : By an old 
 Act known as Poynings' Act, the Irish Parliament was 
 subjected to English control. Some doubts having 
 arisen as to the construction of this Act, the English 
 Parliament, by a Declaratory Act of George I., ex- 
 pressly declared and established such subjection. In 
 1782, the Irish Parliament declared its independence, 
 and the English Parliament repealed the Declaratory 
 Act on the motion of the Prime Minister, who said 
 he proposed to make " a full, complete, absolute, and 
 perpetual surrender of the British legislative and 
 judicial supremacy over Ireland." Grattan argued 
 that this was enough. Flood maintained that all right 
 of England to legislate over Ireland should be ex- 
 pressly renounced. It was accordingly renounced by 
 Statute, reciting that "doubts had arisen as to the 
 exclusive rights of the Parliament and Courts of Ire- 
 land on matters of legislation and judicature," and 
 enacting that such exclusive right was " ascertained 
 and established for ever," and should be at no time 
 thereafter "questioned or questionable." It seems to 
 me that in this dispute Flood was right and Grattan 
 in error. 
 
 Both men were in error, and Grattan notably so, 
 in the hideous scolding match between them, which 
 is to be found in all elocutionary manuals. I loathe 
 these brilliant passages. It is sad to think of two 
 men, illustrious in genius and in services, old friends 
 and comrades, turning their great powers against each 
 other. Of the two, Grattan was the more to blame. 
 He was the younger man. He owed much to Flood's 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 41 
 
 friendship. He commenced the quarrel. He con- 
 ducted it with absolute ferocity. Let us turn over 
 the sad page quickly ; but as a matter of historical 
 fairness, let us admit that it was a distinct and in- 
 effaceable blot on Grattan's fame. There is reason to 
 believe that in after years he felt it to be so. He 
 wrote and spoke of Flood in terms of generous praise. 
 Flood also appears to have regretted the contest, and 
 shortly after it joined in some compliments to Grattan. 
 But the two old friends were never reconciled — 
 
 " They stood aloof, the scars remainuig, 
 Like cliffs which had been rent asunder." 
 
 The decline of Grattan's popularity at this time 
 had; however, another and a nobler cause — his advo- 
 cacy of Catholic Emancipation. This appears so 
 manifestly right now that it seems hard to understand 
 how it couldjhave made a man unpopular then. But 
 it did. With a few splendid exceptions, the whole 
 current of opinion in both countries ran the other 
 way. Even Swift, Lucas, Charlemont, and Flood 
 himself, were opposed to Catholic Emancipation. 
 Grattan from the first took the larger and nobler 
 view. As Lord Mahon says, ''he loved with his 
 whole heart the whole of Ireland — not merely one of 
 its parties or one of its creeds."^ Two days before 
 moving the Declaration of Rights, he supported 
 a Bill for the relief of Catholics. "I would be 
 ashamed," he said, " of giving freedom to six hundred 
 thousand of my fellow-countrymen, if I could not 
 
 * Mahon's " History of England," vol. vii., p. 223. 
 
 D 
 
42 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 extend it to two millions more." He got a resolution 
 in favour of Catholics passed at the Convention of 
 Dungannon. In his speech on the Declaration of 
 Rights, in February, 1782, he told the Irish House of 
 Commons : " The question of Catholic Emancipation 
 involves the question whether we are to be alProtest- 
 ant Settlement or an Irish Nation." He wrote to the 
 Volunteers in December, 1782, that so long as the 
 barbarous penal laws continued, there was " a radical 
 weakness in the community." " I conceive it," he 
 said, "a sacred truth that the Irish Protestant will 
 never be really free until the Irish Catholic ceases to 
 be a slave." He felt that Nationality would be a frail 
 edifice indeed — 
 
 " So long as Ireland did pretend, 
 
 Like sugar-loaf turned upside dowTi, 
 To stand upon its smaller end — " 
 
 And it was even so at this time. With all the talk 
 of civil freedom, four-fifths of the population were still 
 debarred from all franchises, from all professions, from 
 all magistracies, from all juries, from both Houses of 
 Parliament, and, so far as the law could debar them, 
 from holding land, from education, and from worship. 
 There was a special statute against " Papist solicitors," 
 who were statutably declared to be " common dis- 
 turbers of the peace and tranquillity of his Majesty's 
 subjects in general." It is only within the last hun- 
 dred years that an Irish Catholic got power to recover 
 money lent on mortgage to an Irish Protestant. Just 
 a hundred years ago a Catholic gentleman of Ros- 
 
HENR Y GRA TTAN, 43 
 
 common got a hint of its being "discovered" that he 
 had an estate. He knew that he should give up 
 either his reh'gion or his lands. He promptly, if not 
 heroically, determined that he would keep the lands. 
 So he galloped to Dublin and conformed. At a ban- 
 quet given to him on the occasion he was asked for 
 the grounds for his conversion. "Grounds!" he 
 said, " they are good grounds, excellent grounds — 
 two thousand acres of as good grounds as there are 
 in Roscommon ! " About the same time Lady 
 O'Donnell defended her change of religion, by the 
 plea that it was better one old woman should be 
 damned, than that the whole House of O'Donnell 
 should be ruined. Scarcely a century ago the 
 Catholic Bishop of Cork was riding in from a visita- 
 tion of his diocese. He was stopped near South 
 Gate bridge by a Protestant butcher, who demanded 
 his nag, offering him at the same time five pounds. 
 What was the poor old Bishop to do ? The nag was 
 a sorry one enough ; but it had borne him well on 
 many a journey. It was certainly worth more than 
 five pounds, and therefore should be given up to any 
 Protestant who tendered that sum. But the Bishop 
 was equal to the occasion. He turned his bridle into 
 the residence of the Protestant bishop at St. Barry's 
 hard by. I don't know how their lordships settled 
 the theology of the case ; but the result was that the 
 Protestant bishop bought the horse for five pounds ; 
 the greedy butcher was sent off growling ; the Catholic 
 bishop got five pounds, his dinner and claret " galore :" 
 and thenceforward he rode in peace round his diocese 
 on the horse which thus legally belonged to his Pro- 
 
44 HENR V GRA TTAN. 
 
 testant^rival. This episcopal " dodge " was adopted 
 in larger matters ; and some Catholic gentlemen pre- 
 served their properties by their being kept in trust for 
 them with chivalrous honour by some Protestant 
 friends. Relaxations of this kind were frequent. The 
 people were nobler and gentler than their laws. But 
 the laws were shamefully, inexcusably, diabolically 
 bad, as "well fitted," says Burke, " for the oppression, 
 impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and 
 the debasement in them of human nature itself, as 
 ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." 
 It was against this system that Grattan set himself 
 with all his might, with all his enthusiasm, with all 
 his genius. Month after month, year after year, in 
 Parliament and out of it, he assailed this system. 
 His speeches were, by universal testimony, of splen- 
 did power. Only imperfect scraps of them have 
 come down to us. Here is one : — 
 
 "The part of the subject which I shall now press upon you 
 is the final and eternal doom to which some gentlemen propose 
 to condemn the Catholic. Some have said they must never get 
 the elective franchise. What ! never be free ? Three millions 
 of your people condemned by their fellow-subjects to an ever- 
 lasting slavery, in all changes of time and increase of knowledge. 
 .... Never be free ! Do you mean to tell the Roman Catholic, 
 It is in vain you take oaths and declarations of allegiance, . . . 
 it will make no difference as to your emancipation. Go to 
 France — go to America — carry your property, industry, manu- 
 factures, and family, to a land of liberty. This is a sentence 
 which requires the power of a God and the malignity of a 
 demon. You are not competent to pronounce it ; believe me 
 you may as well plant your foot on the earth, and hope by that 
 resistance to stop the diurnal revolution which advances you to 
 that morning sun which is to shine alike on the Protestant and 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 45 
 
 the Catholic, as you can hope to arrest the pro_^ress of that 
 other light — the light of justice — which approaches to liberate tlie 
 Catholic and to liberalize the Protestant. Even now the ques- 
 tion is on its way, and making its destined and irresistible pro- 
 gress — a progress which you, with all your authority, will have 
 no power to resist, no more than any other great truth, or any 
 great ordinance of nature, or any law of nations, which mankind 
 is free to contemplate, but cannot resist." 
 
 Grattan's efforts succeeded to a large extent. As 
 the spirit of nationality strengthened, the spirit of 
 sectarianism declined. Ciirran, Plunket, Ponsonby, 
 and Burrowes, gave Grattan steady and able help : 
 and thus, despite the persistent resistance of the 
 English interest, Irish Protestants admitted their 
 fellow-subjects, by successive enactments, to freedom 
 of worship, to tenure of land, to the jury box, to the 
 professions, to the franchise, and to the magistracy. 
 The great Relief Bill of 1793 was carried by Grattan 
 with the enthusiastic support of several Protestant 
 bishops and the majority of the Protestant clergy. 
 It seems also quite clear that the Irish Protestants at 
 this time were willinsf to admit Irish Catholics to full 
 participation in civil liberty. In 1794, Grattan pre- 
 pared a bill for their complete emancipation. It was 
 drawn up by him, in concert with the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant and the Cabinet. When it was brought into 
 the House of Commons, there were but three dissen- 
 tients in the whole house. The Bill certainly would 
 have passed, had no external influence intervened. 
 The Viceroy reported that " Catholic Emancipation 
 was ardently desired by Roman Catholics, asked for 
 by very many Protestants, and cheerfully acquiesced 
 
46 HENR V GRA TTAiY. 
 
 in by nearly all." But the Viceroy was suddenly and 
 peremptorily recalled to England ; the Bill had to be 
 withdrawn ; the Parliament, which, with all its faults, 
 was so ready to pass this great measure of justice, 
 was itself soon afterwards extinguished : and Catholic 
 Emancipation was deferred for a generation. 
 
 Another grea t question of the time was that of the 
 Regency. George III., whose intellect was always 
 more or less imperfect, went mad outright in 1789. 
 Pitt proposed an arrangement which would have 
 virtually vested the royal power in himself. Grattan 
 proposed and carried, in the Irish Parliament, the 
 more constitutional arrangement of making the Prince 
 of Wales Regent. The controversy was at its height 
 when the King recovered. While it was going on 
 the Prince (afterwards George IV.) made all sorts of 
 protestations of gratitude to the Irish leaders. "Tell 
 Grattan," he said to Mr. Pelham, " that I am a most 
 determined Irishman." When Grattan went over, he 
 talked of his heart, and swore eternal friendship. 
 Grattan's guileless nature was no match for that royal 
 rascal. Thackeray, in one of his lectures on the 
 Georges, implies wonder that Grattan should have 
 wasted on the Prince or his associates any of his 
 " wondrous eloquence, fancy, feeling." Grattan him- 
 self naively and characteristically lets out the reason 
 in a letter to his friend Brougham : " I thought," he 
 wrote, " I could make the Prince a friend to Ireland." 
 Others knew " the first gentleman in Europe " better. 
 " If that man ever comes to the throne," said Lord 
 Moira, " he will deceive his friends." " I am sure," 
 said Thomas Moore, '*that the powder on his Royal 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 47 
 
 Highness' hair is more settled than anything in his 
 Royal Highness' head or in his Royal Highness' 
 heart." And so it was. He used his friends, and 
 then he threw them over. When he got into power, 
 he became one of the worst enemies of Ireland, not- 
 withstanding Moore's witty reminders : 
 
 " You told us this ; you told us that — 
 
 Oh ! wirra strue. Oh ! wirra strue ! 
 
 How long you'd be a friend to Pat — 
 
 Oh ! wirra strue. Oh ! wirra strue ! 
 
 And Oh ! you told us not to fret, 
 
 And said you'd make us happy yet. 
 
 Remember that you don't forget — 
 Oh ! wirra, wirra, wirra strue !" 
 
 Another great question to which Grattan devoted 
 himself was that of Parliamentary Reform. Whatever 
 were the faults of the Irish Parliament of 1782, it had 
 some great merits. It helped to achieve legislative 
 independence. It freed the country from commercial 
 restrictions. It partially effected Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion. It was ready to complete it. It vigilantly 
 watched and promoted the material interests of the 
 country, improved navigation, opened canals, deve- 
 loped fisheries, established tontines, and in ten years 
 trebled the exports of Ireland. In Lord Plunket's 
 great speech of January, 1800, he thus describes the 
 progress of Ireland under this Parhament : — " Irish 
 revenues, trade, and manufactures prospered under it 
 beyond the example of any other country of equal 
 extent. Within these few years Ireland advanced 
 with a rapidity astonishing even to herself." Lord 
 
48 HENR V GRA TTAN. 
 
 Plunket's antagonist, Lord Clare, admitted that there 
 was not a " nation in the habitable globe which had 
 advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture 
 and manufactures, with the same rapidity in the same 
 time." Nor was this progress only material — it was 
 intellectual also. We may say of Grattan, as the 
 "Spectator" recently said in another connexion: — 
 " The man who founds a nation with its distinctive 
 life, and special aim, and separate development, does 
 more to make that nation great and happy, than he 
 who effects any material improvements whatever." 
 At this time the heart and brain of the whole com- 
 munity began to pulsate with national life, and to 
 throb with aspirations after excellence in all depart- 
 ments. Dublin became one of the most brilliant 
 capitals in Europe ; its society amongst the most 
 graceful, witty, and refined. A taste for Kxt arose. 
 Fine public buildings were erected. Painting and 
 Sculpture were successfully cultivated. You still find 
 in nearly every old Dublin house, traces of carvings 
 worthy of the best Italian art. Trinity College be- 
 came a really notable seat of learning. " It was a 
 period," says Hallam, "fruitful of splendid eloquence." 
 Parliament had a dozen men any of whom would 
 have won honour and distinction in any assembly of 
 Europe. Where, before or since, will you find such 
 a group of Irishmen as Anthony Alalone, John Perry, 
 Hussey Burgh, John Forster, Barry Yelverton, Hely 
 Hutchinson, Denis Daly, Charles Kendal Bushe, 
 Philpot Curran, WiUiam Plunket, Henry Flood, and 
 Henry Grattan ? Nor was this intellectual stir con- 
 fined to Parliament or to the metropolis. Every pro- 
 
HENR V GRA TTAN. 49 
 
 vincial city had its groups of intellectual notables, and 
 all social intercourse benefited by the example of 
 men who strove to express themselves with accuracy 
 and eloquence, and who brought to the discussions 
 of politics every aid that culture and refinement could 
 bestow. 
 
 But in this bright picture there were deep shadows. 
 Hard drinking prevailed terribly. Dinner parties 
 were too often scenes of shameful drunkenness. 
 Fathers used to exhort their sons : " Boys, if you 
 want to get on in the world, make your heads while 
 you are young." " Drunk as a lord," became a pro- 
 verb. Judges were sometimes tipsy on the Bench. 
 Curran said of one : '' If he does not exactly weep in 
 passing sentence, he very often has a drop in his 
 eye." A French traveller tells that having asked a 
 Mayo gentleman to join him at luncheon, the Mayo 
 gentleman asked for punch : punch being produced, 
 he drank twelve tumblers : then he gracefully bowed 
 himself off, asking to be excused from taking more, 
 because having to dine with the parish priest, he 
 would not like to have the slightest appearance of 
 liquor. Duelling had also grown, into a fearful abuse. 
 It prevailed in nearly all ranks and reached even the 
 Bar, the Bench, and the Senate. " Does he blaze ? '' 
 used to be the question preliminary to a man's ad- 
 mission to some Clubs. Until a man had " smelt 
 powder," he was scarcely considered a gentleman in 
 some Clubs. There were two leaders of fashion in 
 Dublin, one of whom had shot his friend named 
 Kelly, and the other had shot his coachman. They 
 were playfully called '' Kilkelly " and '' Kilcoachee." 
 
5 o HENR Y GRA TTAN. 
 
 Bagenal Harvey, in his old age, sent a courteous 
 apology to his antagonist for not being able to fight 
 him before the afternoon. "Time was," he said, 
 I " when I used to rise before day-break to fight at 
 sun-rise, but we cannot do these things at seventy- 
 eight." He piously added, " Heaven's will be done! " 
 One morning at an early hour, Curran was found 
 getting his hair dressed. " How is this ? " said a 
 friend. " I am dressing for the Provost's Ball," 
 answered Curran ; the fact being that he was going 
 to meet the Provost of Trinity College in mortal 
 combat at the Phoenix Park. Sir Jonah Barrington 
 gives a long Hst of barristers and judges who, like 
 Toler, " shot up " to preferment. At one election in 
 the county of Cork, Mr. Egan, a distinguished bar- 
 rister, fought fourteen duels. Another excused him- 
 self for not fighting on the ground that he had not 
 got the fighting fee. In Parliament, after almost 
 every keen debate, there was, at least, one adjourn- 
 ment to " the fifteen acres." As we have seen, 
 Grattan was no exception to this brutal code : but 
 in this sad connexion a trait of his gentleness is told. 
 He had a famous duel with Corry, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. Shortly afterwards a friend, calling at 
 Corry's house, found Corry lying sick and wounded 
 in a dark room. "Hush ! " said Corry, " speak low, 
 Henry [meaning Grattan] is asleep, he never left me 
 since it happened, and the poor fellow is worn out 
 with watching." Nor was all eloquence and bril- 
 liancy in Parliamentary debate. Much of the 
 speaking was poor stuff enough. There was a liberal 
 sprinkling of " bulls " to garnish most debates. We 
 
HENR Y GRA TTAN. , 5 1 
 
 Cork folk, who somehow always have a " character " 
 on hands, sent up for a while one famous Sir Vivian 
 Peek, whose very name used to set our fathers in 
 *' roars/' " As I write these words," said Sir Vivian, 
 in a report to the Castle, " I hold a drawn sword in \ 
 one hand and a cocked pistol in the other." But' 
 Sir Boyle Roche, Chamberlain of the Castle, was 
 " the fun of the House." It was he who uttered the 
 memorable aphorism : — " Single misfortunes never 
 come alone : the greatest of all possible misfortunes 
 is generally accompanied by one infinitely greater." 
 In advocating the suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, he used his famous argument : " Sir, it is 
 better to give up a part, nay, it is better to give up 
 the whole of the Constitution, in order to preserve 
 the remainder ; " and again, addressing the Speaker 
 on the dangers of democracy, he warned him : "A 
 time may come. Sir, when you will walk down to this 
 house to find your own head, Sir, flung on that table, 
 staring you in the face." But, as Grattan deeply 
 felt, there underlay nearly all the anomalies and 
 defects of Irish life the anomalous and defective 
 character of the House of Commons itself. In theory 
 it represented the whole community : in reality 
 (Catholics being excluded from it), it represented 
 only one-fifth of the community. Even as a repre- 
 sentation of this fifth, it was utterly defective. More 
 than one-third of its members were nominees for 
 close boroughs, bound to vote whichever way their 
 patrons bid them. Thus the Duke of Leinster com- 
 manded seven votes, the Ponsonbys fourteen, Lord 
 Shannon sixteen, the Crown forty. Country gentle- 
 
5 2 HENR Y GRA TTAN. 
 
 men who commanded two or three votes, bought up 
 more, disposed of the votes as the Minister of the 
 day directed, and got to be made Peers : thus carry- 
 ing corruption into both branches of the legislature. 
 
 It was for the reform of this system that Grattan 
 strove. It was precisely this system the British 
 Ministers were determined to uphold, extend, and 
 make use of. Reform of Parliament ! That was the 
 very last thing Pitt would allow. On the contrary, it 
 is beyond all doubt that at the time he sent over 
 Castlereagh with distinct instructions so to corrupt 
 and degrade the legislature, in order to bring about 
 its extinction. " The ministry, " said Grattan, 
 " founded its authority on moral depravity, and 
 formed a league and covenant with an oligarchy, to 
 transfer for hire, virtually and substantially, the power 
 of legislation to the Cabinet of another kingdom." " It 
 is," says Mr. Lecky, *' a simple and unexaggerated 
 statement of the fact, that, in the entire history of 
 representative government there is no instance of 
 corruption having been applied on so large a scale, 
 and with such audacious effrontery." " ]\Iy occupa- 
 tion," wrote Lord Cormvallis, the Lord Lieutenant of 
 the time, " is negotiating and jobbing. How I hate 
 myself every hour from being engaged in this dirty 
 work ! how I long to kick those I am obliged to 
 court ! "^ The Union was ultimately carried even in 
 a legislature so exposed to corruption by a majority 
 of only 162 out of 300 Members. Lord Corn- 
 wallis wrote that he believed half of this majority 
 
 ^ *' Cornwallis's Correspondence," vol. iii. 
 
HENR Y GRA TTAN. 5 3 
 
 would be as much delighted as then* opponents 
 if the measure were defeated. Of this 162, no fewer 
 than 116 were placemen; and amongst them, a few 
 who were induced to absent themselves, and the sub- 
 servient peers, Castlereagh distributed in corruption 
 twenty peerages, twenty advances of rank in the 
 peerage, seven judgeships, over two hundred salaried 
 places, and over two millions of pounds sterling, in 
 *' ready money, cash down." 
 
 While this work of corruption was proceeding, \ 
 another horror was added — that of civil war. To in- ' 
 surrection Grattan was no less opposed than to cor- 
 ruption. The boldest champion of liberty, he was, at 
 the same time, the firmest friend of order. An advo- 
 cate of Irish legislative independence, he was no less 
 an advocate of natural and healthy alliance with 
 England, and cordial co-operation for every common 
 end. " Next to the liberty of my country," he often 
 said, " I am anxious not to accustom the Irish mind 
 to an alien and suspicious habit towards England." 
 Moreover, to this particular insurrection ^he was op- 
 posed on special grounds. He believed that it was 
 deliberately provoked and encouraged by the English 
 ministry, in order to bring about the Union, and he 
 deemed its leaders dupes of the ministers and invo- 
 luntary co-operators in the destruction of the very 
 liberties they were risking fortune and life to achieve. 
 We cannot pause here to discuss whether Grattan was 
 right or wrong in this view. It is enough to state it 
 was his view \ that he had the best opportunities of 
 judging ; that he was incapable of intentional misre- 
 presentation ; and that of his chivalrous personal 
 courage no one, friend or enemy, ever doubted. 
 
54 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 In face of this combination of corruption and in- 
 surrection, both promoted, as Grattan believed, not 
 by the people or the legislature, but by the unscrupu- 
 lous agents of foreign domination, Grattan and some 
 of his friends withdrew from Parliament. With his 
 usual frankness he told the reason. " The reason we 
 seceded was, that we did not approve of the conduct 
 of the united men, and we could not approve of the 
 conduct of the Government. We were afraid of en- 
 couraging the former by making speeches against the 
 latter ; and we thought it better in such a case, as we 
 could support neither, to withdraw from both." It 
 was, no doubt, an additional reason that about this 
 time his health again almost utterly broke down. His 
 spirits sunk. His nerves became shattered. He re- 
 tired to Castle-Connell on the Shannon, then to the 
 Isle of Wight, ultimately to his home in Wicklow. 
 Thus, in sorrow and sickness closed the third period 
 of Grattan's career, and the last days of the last 
 century in Ireland. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HIS STRUGGLE AGAINST THE UNION. 
 [1800.] 
 
 THE 15th day of January, 1800, was one of the 
 most anxious days Dublin ever saw. It was 
 the day of the opening of the last Session of the Irish 
 Parliament, and of the commencement of the great 
 debate on the Union. In the preceding Session, the 
 Government Bill for the Union had been defeated, 
 and Dubhn, Cork, and most Irish cities had been 
 illuminated. The popular majority, however, was 
 only five. Meantime the Government made immense 
 exertions. Cornwallis promised at all sides ; Castle- 
 reagh offered gold, pensions, and peerages with both 
 hands. A pistolling club was formed in Castlereagh's 
 house to shoot down those who could not be bribed. 
 Astonishing changes of opinion, wonderful achieve- 
 ments of corruption, were rumoured. 
 
 Nevertheless the popular leaders held high heads, 
 and had high hopes. The honesty, sense, spirit, wit, 
 worth, education, disciplined intellect, and genius of 
 the country, were with them ; so was the popular 
 feeling everywhere. Though the Government spent 
 immense sums on getting up petitions in favour 
 of the Union, and took the very prisoners out 
 
56 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 of gaols to sign them, they could get only seven 
 thousand such signatures. More than seven hundred 
 thousand citizens voluntarily petitioned against it. 
 
 After a day of feverish anxiety, as the chill wintry 
 clouds closed in, and the Members were assembling, 
 College Green became covered with a sea of upturned 
 faces, lit by the flickering of a thousand torches — by 
 the flashing of a thousand emotions. Many were the 
 comments, grave and gay, of praise and scorn : — 
 *' Come, Mr. M — , you were paid this morning ; give 
 us a tenpenny bit to drink your health." " Success 
 
 to you, my Lord . It was you made the good 
 
 bargain, and it's a credit to us all : you did not sell 
 your country too cheap." " Three cheers for Sir 
 William, boys ; he bargained to be a Lord when 
 there's to be no Lords at all." " Here's Harry 
 
 D G , boys. How much did they mark on 
 
 your brief, Harry ? " Castlereagh was almost shielded 
 from popular scorn by the superb beauty of his wife ; 
 but when Lord Clare appeared, many a fist was 
 clenched, and groans reverberated like muffled thun- 
 der. The groans were changed to cheers, wild, loud, 
 and high, as Plunket reared his noble front, and glo- 
 rious little Curran flashed his dark eyes, and Kendal 
 Bushe, and Saurin, and Gould, brought the greatest 
 names at the Bar of Ireland. But there were sad 
 gaps in the popular ranks. Lucas had long since 
 passed away. Flood's tall form was mouldering in 
 the grave. Charlemont's princely presence would 
 never again meet mortal eye. And the greatest of 
 them all — first in genius, first in services, first in the 
 heart of Ireland — Henry Grattan, was not even 
 
HENRY GBATTAM. 57 
 
 entitled to enter the House of which he was the 
 pride. He was believed to be lying on his death-bed 
 in Wicklow. Some wild rumours had, indeed, run, 
 that he had been on that very day returned Member 
 for Wicklow, and that, before the debate was over, 
 he would appear to save, if man could save, the 
 liberties of his country. But this rumour was deemed 
 too wild to be seriously believed. 
 
 Inside the House all was tenfold excitement. The 
 students of Trinity College held their accustomed 
 places, serried rank on rank in young enthusiasm. 
 The galleries were thronged with the beauty and 
 fashion of a capital where beauty and fashion were 
 famous ; and the ladies themselves showed by the 
 colours they wore that they were not only spectators 
 but partisans. Behind these rose many a row of 
 eager faces, and many a form on which shone the 
 stars of the Peerages of both islands. The Members 
 thronged the House below in the splendid full dress 
 of the time. 
 
 At first, the ministry did not show their hands. 
 The Viceregal speech from the throne made no 
 mention of the one subject which was on all lips. 
 The mover and seconder of the address were equally 
 reticent. But Sir Laurence Parsons forced the 
 ministerial hand. In a stirring speech he moved an 
 amendment declaratory of the resolution of Par- 
 liament to support the independence of the nation. 
 Then came the debate. " Every man," says Barring- 
 ton, "seemed on that night inspired by his subject." 
 Gentle George Ponsonby astounded friends and foes 
 by display of intense power and passion. Even 
 
 E 
 
58 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 Castlereagh was eloquent. Bushe and Plunket made 
 speeches which have become historical. The gray 
 morning began to dawn, and the debate to languish, 
 when a great sound of popular tumult was heard from 
 outside : the debate stopped : cheer rung above 
 cheer, until all Dublin seemed to be cheering. George 
 Ponsonby and Arthur Moore (afterwards Judge) 
 glided out. They soon reappeared, supporting a 
 man in the uniform of the Volunteers, but wasted by 
 illness, pale with suffering, white as a ghost. It was 
 Henry Grattan. It was indeed he. Government 
 had kept back the writ for Wicklow until the very 
 day on which Parliament had met. But that very 
 day it had been sped by willing hands to Wicklow ; 
 the voters were ready ; the return was made after 
 midnight : Grattan sprung from his bed ; his wife 
 parted him believing they would never meet again ; 
 fleet horses bore his carriage fast ; and he was there : 
 there to fight his last battle for the land he loved. 
 As he entered, the whole House rose and uncovered. 
 As he tottered to the table and took the oaths, Lord 
 Castlereagh and all the Ministers bowed low and 
 remained standing. For a while no sound broke the 
 silence, except the sounds of convulsive sobs from 
 the galleries. But as the grand old tribune rose to 
 address the House, there burst forth a long wild 
 cheer that answered well the cheer without, and was 
 well re-answered back again. Scarcely, however, had 
 he risen when he fell back again into his seat 
 exhausted. Then he asked leave to address the 
 House without rising. "And then," says Mr. Lecky, 
 *'* was witnessed that spectacle, amongst the grandest 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 59 
 
 in the whole range of the mental phenomena, of 
 mind asserting its supremacy over matter, of the 
 power of enthusiasm, and the power of genius nerv- 
 ing a feeble and em.aciated frame. As the fire of 
 oratory kindled, as the angel of enthusiasm touched 
 those pallid lips with the living coal, as the old scenes 
 crowded on the speaker's mind, and the old plaudits 
 broke on his ear, it seemed as though the force of 
 disease was neutralized, and the buoyancy of youth 
 restored. His voice gained a deeper power, his 
 action a more commanding energy, his eloquence an 
 ever-increasing brilliancy. For more than two hours 
 he poured forth a stream of epigram, of argument, 
 and of appeal. He traversed almost the whole of 
 that complex question : he grappled with the various 
 arguments of expediency the Ministers had urged ; 
 but he placed the issue on the highest grounds ; ' the 
 thing (he said) the Ministry proposes to buy is what 
 cannot be sold — Liberty.' When he at last concluded, 
 it must have been felt, that if the Irish Parliament 
 could have been saved by eloquence, it would have 
 been saved by Henry Grattan." But it could not be 
 so saved, and the vote was adverse. 
 
 The debate was adjourned, and continued at 
 intervals during several weeks, the popular party 
 hoping against hope, and contending against despe- 
 rate odds. Grattan made a series of his most brilliant 
 efforts. The whole nature of the man was aroused. 
 He shook off illness. He seemed to have grown 
 young. He put forth all his resources. As usual, 
 the reports of these addresses are obviously imperfect ; 
 but despite all imperfections, their surpassing force 
 
6o HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 and beauty appear. What can be finer in its way 
 than this apparently improvised answer to the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Corry, who had accused 
 him of inciting to rebellion ? 
 
 " Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done? He 
 was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his 
 speech. There was scarce a word he uttered that was not a 
 violation of the privileges of the House ; but I did not call him 
 to order — Why? Because the limited talents of some men 
 render it impossible for them to be severe without being unpar- 
 liamentary. But before I sit down,. I shall show him how to be 
 severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any other 
 occasion I should think myself justifiable in treating with silent 
 contempt anything that might fall from that honourable 
 Member ; but there are times when the insignificance of the 
 accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know the 
 difficulty the honourable gentleman laboured under when he 
 attacked me, conscious that, on a comparative view of our cha- 
 racters, public and private, there is nothing he could say which 
 would injure me. The public would not believe the charge. I 
 despise the falsehood. If such a charge were made by an honest 
 man, I would answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit 
 down. But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest 
 man. 
 
 " The right honourable gentleman says I fled from the country 
 after exciting rebellion, and that I have returned to raise 
 another. No such thing. The charge is false. The civil 
 war had not commenced when I left the kingdom ; and I 
 could not have returned without taking a part. On the one 
 side there was the camp of the rebel ; on the other the 
 camp of the Minister, a greater traitor than that rebel. The 
 stronghold of the Constitution was nowhere to be found. I 
 agree that the rebel who rises against the Government should 
 have suffered ; but I missed on the scaffold the right honour- 
 able gentleman. Two desperate parties were in arms against 
 the Constitution. The right honourable gentleman belonged to 
 one of those parties, and deserved death. I could not join the 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 6i 
 
 rebel — I could not join the Governmenc — I could not join tor- 
 ture — I could not join half-hanging — I could not join free 
 quarter — I could take part with neither. I was therefore absent 
 from a scene where I could not be active without self-reproach, 
 nor indifferent with safety. 
 
 " Many honourable gentlemen thought differently from me : 
 I respect their opinions, but I keep my own ; and I think now 
 as I thought then, tliat the treason of the Minister against the 
 liberties of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of 
 the people against the Minister. 
 
 *' I have returned, not as the right honourable Member has 
 said, to raise another storm — I have returned to discharge an 
 honourable debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred a 
 great reward for past services, which, I am proud to say, was 
 not greater than my desert. I have returned to protect that 
 Constitution, of which I was the parent and the founder, from 
 the assassination of such men as the honourable gentleman and 
 his worthy associates. They are corrupt — they are seditious — 
 and they, at this very moment, are in a conspiracy against their 
 country. I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is 
 malicious, given to the public under the appellation of a Report 
 of the Committee of the Lords. Here I stand ready for impeach- 
 ment or trial : I dare accusation. I defy the honourable 
 gentleman ; I defy the Government; I defy their whole 
 phalanx : let them come forth. I tell the Ministers I will 
 neither give them quarter nor take it. I am here to lay the 
 shattered remains of my constitution on the floor of this House 
 in defence of the liberties of my country." 
 
 However, the end came at last, and with it these 
 last words of Grattan on the Irish Parliament : — 
 
 " The Constitution may be for a time so lost ; the character 
 of the country cannot be lost. The Ministers of the Crown will 
 find that it is not so easy to put down for ever an ancient and 
 respectable nation, by abilities, however great, and by power 
 and by corruption, however irresistible. Liberty may repair 
 her golden beams, and with redoubled heat animate the country. 
 
 E 2 
 
62 HENRY G RATTAN, 
 
 The cry af loyalty will not long continue, against the principles 
 of liberty. Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capacious 
 principle : but in these countries loyalty, distinct from liberty, 
 is corruption, not loyalty. 
 
 "The cry of the connexion will not, in the end, avail against 
 the principles of liberty. Connexion is a wise and a profound 
 policy; but connexion without an Irish Parliament is connexion 
 without its own principle, without analogy of condition, without 
 the pride of honour that should attend it ; is innovation, is peril, 
 is subjugation — not connexion. 
 
 *' The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against the 
 principles of liberty. 
 
 " Identification is a solid and imperial maxim, necessary for 
 the preservation of freedom, necessary for that of empire ; but 
 without union of hearts — ^with a separate government, and with- 
 out a separate parliament — identification is extinction, is dis- 
 honour, is conquest — not identification. 
 
 " Yet I do not give up the country. I see her in a swoon, 
 bttt she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies, helpless and 
 motionless, there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek 
 a glow of beauty — 
 
 ' Thon art not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks. 
 And death's pale flag is not advanced there.' 
 
 While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave her. 
 Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light bark 
 of his faith with every new breath of wind : 1 will remain 
 anchored here with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faith- 
 ful to her freedom, faithful to her fall." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HIS LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 
 [1800 TO 1820.] 
 
 WITH the fall of the Irish Parliament all that was 
 historically characteristic in Grattan's career 
 ended. He retired into private Hfe for some years. 
 In Carr's " Stranger in Ireland " there is a pleasant 
 glimpse of him in his Wicklow home. " I had," says 
 the writer, " the peculiar happiness of seeing this great 
 man in the bosom of his family ; and finding in one 
 of the greatest orators of the age an affectionate hus- 
 band, a fond father, a hospitable gentleman." Thus, 
 too, Moore pictures him in one of the " Melodies :" 
 
 "Who that ever approached him, when, free from the crowd, 
 
 In a home full of love, he delighted to tread 
 'Mong the trees which a nation had given, and which bow'd, 
 
 As if each brought a new civic crown for his head. 
 That home, where — like him who, as fable hath told, 
 
 Put the rays from his brow that his child might come near — 
 Ev'ry glory forgot, the most wise of the old. 
 
 Became all that the simplest and youngest hold dear." 
 
 In 1805 he was induced to enter the Imperial 
 Parliament. He took his seat on a back bench. 
 But Charles Fox said, " That is no place for the Irish 
 Demosthenes;" and he drew his friend to his own 
 
64 HENRY G RATI AN. 
 
 bench. There was much doubt as to whether Grattan, 
 at his advanced years, and with his pecuHarities, would 
 succeed in the British ParUament. But such doubts 
 were ended by his very first address. The " Annual 
 Register " of the day declared it " one of the most 
 briUiant speeches ever heard within the walls of 
 Parliament." Pitt vied with Fox in acclamation and 
 congratulation. Byron, Rogers, Campbell, and the 
 chief literary notables of the time who had assembled 
 in the gallery to hear it, were enthusiastic in their 
 admiration. It was in this speech Grattan said of the 
 Irish Parliament, " I sat by its cradle ; I followed its 
 hearse." 
 
 In 1806, Fox becoming Premier, Grattan was asked 
 to take office : but he declined. About the same 
 time he refLised;2{^4ooo which the Catholics of Dublin 
 had subscribed to defray the expenses of his election 
 for that city. He could never speak of the Union 
 without indignation. Believing, however,- -that its 
 repeal was hopeless until Catholic Emancipation was 
 achieved, he devoted his remaining years to the latter 
 object, rarely addressing the House on any other sub- 
 ject, and working for it with unflagging energy. In 
 the course of these labours he had some strange alter- 
 nations of success and failure, of popular enthusiasm, 
 and even one sad sudden instance of popular dis- 
 favour. But all that was good and generous at any 
 side of Irish life honoured the grand old tribune. 
 Even in the Imperial Parliament he was treated with 
 exceptional respect. Lord Mahon tells us, on the 
 authority of the late Sir Robert Peel, that such of the 
 Members who had sat with him in the Irish House of 
 
HENRI GRATTAN. 65 
 
 Commons were accustomed to address him with a 
 " Sir," as they would address the Speaker or a Royal 
 Duke. In 1819 he almost carried Catholic Emanci- 
 pation, the majority against him being only two. In 
 1820, while seriously ill, he went to London, contrary 
 to the advice of his physicians and the entreaties of 
 his friends, to renew the motion. But the hand of 
 death was upon him. It had nearly happened to him 
 as it happened to Lord Chatham — to sink in his 
 death-sickness while addressing the House. He 
 lingered for a few days. As he lay on his deathbed 
 he spoke tenderly of Flood. He said to Lord Clon- 
 curry, " Keep knocking at the Union." He received 
 the last religious rites calmly. He died on the 6th of 
 June, 1820. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
 near where Pitt and Fox were afterwards laid. 
 
 Such was the career of Grattan. Of the four great 
 objects of his life, three — Free Trade, Parliamentary 
 Reform, and Catholic Emancipation — are now the 
 law of the land. The fourth — the legislative 
 Independence of Ireland, is again a question of pre- 
 sent politics. However good men rnay differ about 
 it, all may agree in their estimate of Grattan himself. 
 He was not without serious faults. He committed 
 some not inconsiderable errors. But he devoted his 
 long life and every faculty of his fine intellect to a 
 sincere, unselfish effort to serve Ireland. As Lord,_ 
 Mahon said, " he loved with all his heart the whole \ 
 of Ireland, not merely one of its parties or one of its-^ 
 creeds." He rendered to all solid, splendid, and 
 permanent services. He gave all the example of a 
 career of stainless purity. He dignified and ennobled 
 
66 HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 the public life not only of Ireland, but of the world. 
 Guizot reverenced him. Montalembert was inspired 
 by his oratory, and intended to have written his life. 
 Calhoun loved to quote him. Owing to the generous 
 initiative of one distinguished citizen of Dublin, and 
 the cordial co-operation of many others, Dublin has 
 obtained a fine public statue of him. Other cities 
 may soon follow this example. But, however that 
 may be, I trust that this quaint, gentle, heroic figure 
 may long live in the hearts of Irishmen, teaching 
 mutual forbearance, large-hearted tolerance, wise co- 
 operation for common purposes, and unselfish love of 
 the land of which all are sons. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 C. VV. GiBBS, Printer, Dublin. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Third Edition. Price One Shilli7ig. 
 
 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1792: 
 
 ITS CAUSES, EVENTS, AND RESULTS. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "The publication of this excellent Treatise will be eagerly 
 welcomed, not only by students of Histoiy, but by the general 
 reading public who may wish to have a concise, reliable, and 
 thoroughly well-written History of the great French Revolution. 
 It is one for which we anticipate a large circulation. We can- 
 not too strongly recommend this little Work." — Daily Express. 
 
 " A real want has been supplied in this brief but brilliant 
 volume, which leaves absolutely nothing to be desired in point 
 of lucidity or comprehensiveness." — Cork Examiner. 
 
 " This brochure is evidently the result of wide reading and 
 careful reflection, and the sketches are narrated with great force 
 and beauty of style. " — Dublin Mail. 
 
 " Mr. Mac Carthy writes, as he always does, in a style emi- 
 nently clear, concise, and forcible ; many of his passages are the 
 concentrated result of wide reading, and deep and conscientious 
 thought ; the characters of the prominent actors in the great 
 drama of 1792 are sketched with epigrammatic fidelity." — The 
 Nation. 
 
 " The merit of this Historical Study lies in the complete 
 manner in which it covers the period and events comprehended, 
 and in a perfect lucidness of style that makes it most easy and 
 agreeable reading. We could wish it very largely circulated 
 among our countrymen." — Irish Times, 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, AND CO., 
 
 J04 Grafton Street, Dublin. 
 
Just Ready ^ Cloth, Gilt Edges. Price 3s, 6d. 
 
 HEINRICH AND LEONORE: 
 
 Jin lllpinc §ioi'g, hx ^lanfe ^crsc ; 
 
 COEEEGGIO: 
 
 Jl pramatic ^kdc^ ; 
 
 WITH OTHER MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 AND TBANSLATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL JOSEPH BARRY. 
 
 HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., 
 104 GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN. 
 

 Date 
 
 Due 
 
 
 JAN 1^^ 1^ 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 
 A\JG 1 1 
 
 1000 
 
 
 
 
 Ijjj 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f) 
 
 
 
 
BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 3 9031 
 
 01645152 8 
 
 t^?^ 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 Books may be kept for two weeks and may be 
 renewed for the same period, unless reserved. 
 
 Two cents a day is charged for each book kept 
 overtime. 
 
 If you cannot find what you want, ask the 
 Librarian who will be glad to help you. 
 
 The borrower is responsible for books drawn 
 on his card and for all fines accruing on the same.