364 



GRATTAN 



Grattan, HENKY, one of the greatest of Irish 

 patriots and orators, and, like Curran, Flood, Isaac 

 Butt, and Parnell, a Protestant, was born in Dublin, 

 July 3, 1746. His father was recorder of the city, 

 and one of its members from 1761 till his death in 

 1766 ; his mother was daughter of Thomas Marlay, 

 Chief-justice of Ireland, one of whose sons lived to 

 become Bishop of Waterford. At seventeen he 

 entered Trinity College, Dublin, and here gave 

 himself with remarkable eagerness to the study of 

 classics. Already Henry Flood had been forming 

 a regular party of opposition in the Irish House 

 of Commons, and young Grattan embraced his 

 reforming principles with such impolitic ardour 

 that his irate father disinherited him from such 



Eroperty as he could alienate. At twenty-one 

 e entered the Middle Temple, London, and read 

 law in a desultory fashion, nourishing his peculiar 

 ambition the while by listening to the debates 

 in the House of Commons and by constantly 

 declaiming in set terms to imaginary audiences 

 in the privacy of his chamber. In 1772 he was 

 called to the Irish bar, and three years later, 

 through the influence of the genial and enlight- 

 ened Earl of Charlemont and by the advice of Flood, 

 entered the Irish parliament as member for the 

 borough of Charlemont. It was but two months 

 before that Flood had thrown away his popu- 

 larity by accepting office under government, and 

 the young orator leaped at one bound into his 

 place. He found the nation fast drifting to bank- 

 ruptcy and ruin from the loss of market that 

 followed the war with America, and the odious 

 restrictions upon Irish trade that had come down 

 from the days of William III. ; and he at once 

 flung himself with all the vehemence of his nature 

 into the cause of retrenchment and reform. 



Meantime, in the dread of French invasion, 

 the volunteer movement spread from Belfast over 

 Ireland, and ere long the attitude of the people 

 in their demand for free export became so for- 

 midable that Lord North, whose own inclina- 

 tions had formerly been thwarted by the interested 

 opposition of the English manufacturers, granted 

 in 1779 a total repeal of all the restriction acts. 

 This gained, Grattan plunged into a greater 

 struggle for nothing less than legislative independ- 

 ence. On the 19th April 1780 he made perhaps 

 his greatest speech, concluding with a memor- 

 able series of resolutions to the effect that while 

 the crown of Ireland was inseparably annexed to 

 that of England, the king with the consent of 

 the parliament of Ireland was alone competent to 

 enact laws to bind Ireland. After fifteen hours 

 the debate was adjourned indefinitely, but all men 

 felt that Grattan had gained a great moral victory. 

 The popular demands were formulated at the Con- 

 vention of Dungannon (February 15, 1782), and 

 asserted by Grattan in a famous speech (April 16), 

 which began with the words, ' I am now to address 

 a free people.' A month later the Rockingham 

 ministry, which numbered among its members 

 Grattan's friend Fox, surrendered apparently un- 

 conditionally, and the Irish parliament in grati- 

 tude voted Grattan a reward of 50,000. Un- 

 fortunately the question was soon raised whether 

 the mere repeal of the Declaratory Act ( 6 Geo. I. 

 chap. 5) was sufficient as a renunciation of the 

 principle of England's right to legislate for Ire- 

 land. G rattan wished his countrymen to trust 

 to the generous instincts of English honour, and 

 accept the gift without factious Avrangling about 

 the manner of its giving, but Flood put himself 

 at the head of the malcontents, demanding ' simple 

 repeal ' and renunciation rather than concessions 

 granted merely to the exigency of the moment. 

 He carried the mass of his countrymen with him, 

 and what was perhaps the historic moment for 



the reconciliation of England and Ireland was lost. 

 The quarrel between the two leaders culminated 

 in one dramatic scene on the floor of the house, 

 when Grattan overpowered his antagonist with a 

 tornado of rhetoric that has perhaps never been 

 surpassed for the ruthless energy of its invective. 



The history of 'Grattan's parliament,' as it has 

 deservedly been called, did not correspond to the 

 patriotic dreams of its great founder. It was im- 

 possible for a parliament so little really represent- 

 ative and so much subject to corruption and undue 

 influences from without to rise into the region of 

 real statesmanship. In his ideas about the rights 

 of his Catholic fellow-countrymen Grattan was far 

 more advanced than most of his own followers. 

 Apart altogether from the fact that the Roman 

 Catholics, comprising two-thirds of the whole popu- 

 lation, were entirely without representation ; out of a 

 house of 300 members no fewer than two-thirds were 

 nominated by but a hundred patrons. The urgent 

 need of parliamentary reform and the remedy of 

 domestic abuses soon occupied the minds of all Irish 



Sitriots, the high-minded and the self-seeking alike, 

 nee more at Dungannon there assembled on Sep- 

 tember 8, 1783, as many as 500 delegates to formulate 

 the demands for parliamentary reform, which were 

 presented to the house by Flood and rejected, while 

 Grattan looked on in a kind of neutrality that 

 was perhaps a consequence of the recent quarrel. 

 He devoted himself to advocating the reform of 

 special abuses, but his Place and Pension Bill, as 

 well as his bills to prevent revenue officers from 

 voting at elections, and offices of state being given 

 to absentees, and for the commutation of ecclesi- 

 astical tithes, were in turn rejected. 



Meantime continued commercial depression had 

 produced a strong counter-feeling in Ireland for 

 protection, which was yet unable to prevent the 

 Secretary Orde's remedial measure for absolute 

 free trade from being carried. This measure, 

 however, Pitt found himself unable to carry in 

 the English House of Commons, except subject 

 to a number of stipulations, one of which was 

 that all English navigation laws now and here- 

 after were to be adopted as such by the Irish 

 parliament ; and to this Grattan and the Irish 

 patriots found themselves unable to accede, as 

 an outrage upon the freedom of the Irish parlia- 

 ment. Pitt's mortification at this and his dis- 

 pleasure at the independent attitude of the Irish 

 parliament in the regency dispute of 1789 helped 

 to confirm his determination that union was the 

 only effective means of final pacification. Grattan 

 was returned for the city of Dublin in 1790, and 

 by this time he had definitely taken up the cause 

 or Catholic emancipation. T^he corruption of the 

 Castle government and of a parliament venal be- 

 yond all precedent ; the persistent repression of the 

 agitation for Catholic relief, changed for a moment 

 into hope at the appointment of Fitzwilliam as 

 Lord-lieutenant, only to be dashed to the ground 

 again by his withdrawal ; and the spirit of dis- 

 content generated by the French Revolution that 

 was now everywhere in the air had fomented 

 the movement of the United Irishmen, which was 

 to be extinguished in the bloodshed of 1798. Hope- 

 less of his country and broken by ill-health, Grattan 

 retired to his house at Tinnehinch on the eve of the 

 rebellion, but returned to take his seat for Wick- 

 low in the last session of the Irish parliament. 

 Weak as he was he fought the bill for the Union 

 with an heroic courage that would have overcome 

 everything but the gold and the coronets of Pitt, 

 pouring his showers of invective upon the head 

 of Corry the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who 

 retorted with a challenge, and in the duel was 

 wounded in the arm. Once more Grattan re- 

 tired to private life, from which he emerged in 



