Address by the Volunteers to the Minority in both
Houses of Parliament— The Minority make a Move—Lord Carlisle succeeded
as Viceroy by the Duke of Portland—Grattan's Motion for a Declaration of
Rights—Grattan's Views and those of Flood opposed—Parliament sides with
Grattan, and the Volunteers with Flood — The Belfast First Volunteers
address Grattan — Review held in Belfast—Popular Clamour for
Parliamentary Reform.
The spirit in which the Ulster Volunteer corps acted
may best be gauged by the following address to the Minority in both
Houses of Parliament, which was adopted at the Convention of Dungannon:
"We thank you for your noble and spirited, though ineffectual efforts,
in defence of the great and commercial rights of your country. Go on!
the unanimous voice of the people is with you, and in a free country the
voice of the people must prevail. We know our duty to our sovereign, and
are loyal; we know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be free.
We seek for our rights, and ho more than our rights; and in so just a
pursuit, we should doubt the being of Providence if we doubted of
success."
Four members from each county of Ulster having been
appointed as a committee until the next general meeting, one of the
first acts of the Ulster Committee was to publish an address to the
electors of members of Parliament in the province.
"Delegated by the Volunteers assembled at Dungannon,"
reads this document, "we call on you to support the constitutional and
commercial rights of Ireland; to exert the important privileges of
freemen at the ensuing election, and to proclaim to the
world that you at least deserve to be free. Regard not the threats of
landlords or their agents, when they require you to fail in your duty to
God, to your country, to yourselves, to your posterity. The first
privilege of a man is the right of judging for himself, and now is the
time for you to exert that right. It is a time pregnant with
circumstances, which revolving ages may not again so favourably combine.
The spirit of liberty is gone abroad, it is embraced by the people at
large, and every day brings with it an acquisition of strength. The
timid have laid aside their fears, and the virtuous sons of Ireland
stand secure in their numbers. Undue influence is now as despised as it
has ever been contemptible; and he who would dare to punish an elector
for exerting the rights of a freeman, would meet what he would
merit—public detestation and abhorrence.
"Let no individual neglect his duty. The nation is an
aggregate of individuals, and the strength of the whole is composed of
the exertions of each part; the man, therefore, who omits what is in his
power, and will not exert his utmost efforts for the emancipation of his
country because they can at best be the efforts of but one man, stands
accountable to his God and to his country, to himself and to his
posterity, for confirming and entailing slavery on the land which gave
him birth. Vote only for men whose past conduct in Parliament you and
the nation approve. Do your duty to your country, and let no
consideration tempt you to sacrifice the public to a private tie, the
greater duty to a less.
"We entreat you, in the name of the great and
respectable body we represent; we implore you, by every social and
honourable tie; we conjure you as citizens, as freemen, as Irishmen, to
raise this long-insulted kingdom, and restore to her her lost rights.
One great and united effort will place us among the first nations of the
earth, and those who shall have the glory of contributing to that event,
will be forever recorded as the saviours of their country."
The Minority lost no time in responding to the
address of the Volunteers. On the 22nd of February, 1782, one week after
the Dungannon Convention, Henry Grattan moved an address to the King
embodying the resolutions. Grattan's motion was lost by a majority of
137 to 68. The Irish Parliament was adjourned from the 14th of March to
the 16th of April. In the meantime Lord North's Administration fell and
the Marquis of Rockingham returned to office. Charles James Fox and
Edmund Burke were members of this Administration. On the fall of Lord
North's ministry, Lord Carlisle retired and was succeeded by the Duke of
Portland, who was sworn into office as Lord-Lieutenant on the 14th of
April. Fox communicated to the English Parliament a royal message,
recommending to their immediate consideration the adjustment of the
questions which produced so serious an agitation in Ireland, in order
that there might be made "such a final adjustment as may give mutual
satisfaction to both Kingdoms".
The new Viceroy met the Irish Parliament on the 16th
of April, when Grattan moved as an amendment to the address his original
motion for a Declaration of Rights, pointing out the principal causes of
the discontent in Ireland, and declaring that to remove those causes,
the VI George I c. 5, which asserted the
dependency of the Irish Parliament on that of England, should be
repealed, the appelate jurisdiction of the Lords of Ireland should be
restored, the unconstitutional powers of the Privy Council should be
abolished, and the perpetual Mutiny Bill repealed. This amendment, which
embodied the Resolutions of the Dungannon Convention, was unanimously
adopted.
Grattan in his speech referred to the rapid strides
which the Irish people had recently made on the road to constitutional
independence, and, declaring that he entirely approved of the meeting at
Dungannon, he compared the proceedings of the Ulster Volunteers to those
of the English barons, which resulted in the securing of Magna Charta.
In the course of his speech he said: "If England wishes well to Ireland,
she has nothing to fear from her strength. The Volunteers of Ireland
would die in support of England. This nation is connected with England,
not by allegiance only, but by liberty—the crown is a great joint of
union, but Magna Charta is a greater—we could get a King anywhere; but
England is the only country from which we could get a constitution. We
are not united with England, as Judge Blackstone has foolishly said, by
conquest—but by charter; Ireland has British privileges, and is by them
connected with Britain—both countries are united in liberty."
In addition to these expressions of loyalty,
Grattan's motion contained passages which assured His Majesty that "his
subjects of Ireland are a free people,
that the crown of Ireland is an Imperial Crown, inseparably annexed to
the crown of Great Britain, on which connection the interests and
happiness of both nations essentially depend; but," he added, "the
kingdom of Ireland is a distinct kingdom, with a Parliament of her own,
the sole legislature thereof. That there is no body of men competent to
make laws to bind this nation, except the King, and Lords and Commons of
Ireland; nor any other Parliament which hath any authority or power, of
any sort whatsoever, in this country, save only the Parliament of
Ireland."
The proceedings of the Irish House of Commons had
been interrupted by the sudden change of Viceroy, and it was now too
busily occupied with the great questions which it was called upon to
decide to trouble about minor matters. So great was the change which had
taken place in the House that many of those who had supported the most
objectionable measures of the late Government now upheld the popular
side with enthusiasm.
On the 17th of May the Earl of Shelburne in the
Lords, and Fox in Commons, moved the consideration of the Irish
question, which was entered upon with the greatest calmness and good
feeling. A part of what was demanded lay entirely between the Irish
Parliament and the King, and therefore two motions were made and passed:
the first that the Act of VI George I,
entitled: "An Act for the better securing the Dependency of Ireland upon
the Crown of Great Britain", should be repealed; and the second: "that
it was the opinion of the House, that it was indispensable to the
interests and happiness of both kingdoms, that the connection between
them should be established by mutual consent, upon a solid and permanent
footing, and that an humble address should be presented to His Majesty,
that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to take such measures as
His Majesty in his royal wisdom should think most conducive to that
important end."
These resolutions passed the Lower House unanimously;
and in the Upper the only dissentient voice was that of Lord
Loughborough. Ten days later the Irish Parliament met after an
adjournment of three weeks, and the Duke of Portland announced in his
opening speech the unconditional concessions made to Ireland by the
Parliament of Great Britain. The news was received with an outburst of
gratitude. These concessions, as expounded by Grattan, amounted to the
giving up by England, unconditionally, of every claim of legislative
authority over Ireland. They were grounded not merely on expediency, but
on constitutional principles. They were yielded magnanimously, and all
constitutional differences between the two countries were thereby
terminated. A warm discussion followed, in which Grattan's great rival,
Flood, Sir Samuel Bradstreet, Recorder of Dublin, and others took part.
They took a different view of the concessions; but Grattan's arguments
prevailed and the Address was carried by a division of 211 to 2. The
House then, as an evidence of its gratitude, voted that 20,000 Irish
seamen should be raised to supplement the British navy, and a grant of
£100,000 be made to carry out that object. Nothing was heard but mutual
congratulations. A great and bloodless victory had been won by the
Volunteers.
The death of Rockingham in July, 1782, broke up the
Ministry. Lord Shelburne became Premier, with William Pitt as Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Earl Temple succeeded the Duke of Portland as
Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland.
Two parties now arose among the patriots, led by the
rival orators, Grattan and Flood. In the first essential difference
between these two men Flood was clearly in the right. He held that a
simple repeal of the Declaratory Act of George I by England was not a
sufficient security against the resumption of legislative control.
Grattan, on the other hand, maintained that Ireland had not gone to
England for a charter but with a charter, and had requested her to
cancel all declarations in opposition to it. It must be admitted that
Ireland had no charter. Her Declaration of Right was not a Bill of
Rights, and Flood demanded a Bill of Rights. Whatever were the merits of
the controversy it had the worst effects. Parliament adopted the views
of Grattan; the Volunteers sided with Flood. The opinion of the Lawyers'
corps of Volunteers was in favour of Flood's interpretation of the
constitutional relations of the two countries. They considered that
repealing a declaration was not destroying a principle, and that a State
renouncing any pre-existing right was an indispensable guarantee for
future security. They appointed a committee to enquire into the
question, which reported that it was necessary that an express
renunciation should accompany the repeal of the VI
George I.
The Belfast First Volunteer company addressed Grattan
on this important subject. Doubts, they said, had arisen whether the
repeal of VI George I was a sufficient
renunciation of the power formally exercised over Ireland. They thought
it advisable that a law should be enacted similar to the address which
had been moved to His Majesty, and which embodied the declaration of the
Rights of Ireland. Grattan's answer was laconic but explicit. He said he
had given the fullest consideration to their suggestions; he was sorry
he differed from them; he conceived their doubts to be ill-founded. With
great respect for their opinions and unalterable attachment to their
interest he adhered to the latter. They received a different answer from
Flood, whom they admitted as a member of their corps.
Trouble now arose in Ulster caused by public
expressions of dissatisfaction made by two Volunteer corps in Belfast.
The Belfast review, the most important held in Ireland, was made the
occasion for a striking demonstration. The first Belfast company, which
took the lead in this movement, published on the 18th of July, 1782, an
address to the different corps that were to be present at the review on
the 31st, in which they made a declaration of their cause of discontent.
They put forward as the grounds of their proceeding: "that the rights of
this kingdom are not yet secured, nor even acknowledged by Britain,
partly owing to the delusions of many sincere friends, to the perfidy of
pretended ones, and to an error committed through precipitancy by our
representatives in the senate". "Unless", said the framers of this
address, "a spark of that sacred flame which but a few days ago glowed
in every breast in Ulster be again excited, the glorious attempt of this
country to procure its emancipation, instead of producing any real
permanent good, will too probably be the means of depriving us of our
rights for ever."
On the 31st of July about 4000 Volunteers, well armed
and accoutred, assembled at Belfast to be reviewed by Lord Charlemont.
Delegates assembled on the 3rd of August and proceeded to make a
declaration of their sentiments in the form of an address to Lord
Charlemont, as their reviewing general. Major Dobbs, as
exercising-officer, moved the address, and inserted in it a clause
expressing their full satisfaction with the concessions granted by Great
Britain. This clause was opposed by the discontented party, who moved as
an amendment that it should be expunged; and after a debate of eleven
hours the amendment was carried by a majority of two.
Parliamentary reform became now the supreme question
of the day. On the 1st of July, 1783, delegates from forty-five
companies of Volunteers in the province of Ulster met at Lisburn, in
pursuance of a public requisition, and determined to call a general
meeting of the Volunteer delegates at Dungannon on the 8th of September
to consider the great question of the hour. On the date agreed the
meeting was held at Dungannon as arranged, when it was resolved to hold
in the capital a grand national convention in the month of November
following, and this great convention accordingly took place.
In the meantime the question of retrenchment in the
national expenses, and particularly in the military department, had been
brought before the Irish House of Commons. On the 3rd of November Flood
recommended the disbandment of the Volunteers, which caused not a little
commotion in that body, and led to the Volunteer movement in its later
manifestations of activity being regarded with popular suspicion and
distrust.