William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

At the same time the cause of religious toleration gained an equally signal triumph. The strength of the Ulster Volunteers and the abatement of religious bigotry brought the Irish Parliament to pass a measure for relieving the Protestant Dissenters of that land from the sacramental test which had been looked on as one of the bulwarks of the Established Church; and in the spring of 1780 the British Parliament gave its grudging assent to that boon for Ireland which for nearly half a century longer it persisted in withholding from Nonconformists in England and Wales. As was stated in Chapter V of this work, the Irish Volunteers in the year 1782 gained another most important concession, namely, the recognition of the legislative independence of the Irish Parliament. Fortunately the British Government on this occasion acted with grace and dignity. The Rockingham Ministry advocated the change, which passed both Houses with but a single adverse vote, that of Lord Loughborough. The disagreeable fact, that this last boon, like the others, was extorted by force, was thus tactfully glozed over; and when the suspicions of the good faith of England aroused in Ireland by that restless demagogue, Flood, were laid to rest by the Renunciation Act of the year 1783, the relations of the two islands became almost cordial.

Causes of friction, however, remained. The royal veto might, and probably would, still tell against the Irish Legislature, even though the veto of the British Parliament and of the Privy Council had lapsed. The influence of the Lord Lieutenant and of his Chief Secretary on the Irish Ministers was also great; and his influence was distinctly British. Dublin Castle could also generally determine the votes of a majority in both Houses of Parliament. Further, it was quite possible that on commercial questions the Irish Parliament would differ sharply from that of Westminster. This seemed so in the early months of Pitt’s Ministry. The beginning of the year 1784 found Ireland depressed by a very inclement winter; and the cry was raised that her Parliament should “protect” her industries, especially that of wool, from English competition. The exertions of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Rutland, aided perhaps by the reluctance of the more moderate members to enter on a commercial war with England, sufficed to defeat these proposals; but the Irish House of Commons, in May 1784, unanimously passed an address to the King, emphasizing the need of “a wise and well-digested plan for a liberal arrangement of a commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland.” This was the friendly challenge which Pitt determined to take up. From the outset he made the Irish commercial question peculiarly his own. More than once in his correspondence with the Duke of Rutland he describes it as the nearest to his heart.[326]

No problem could have been more tangled. Ireland was still in a very restless state. Despite the warnings of that uncrowned King of Ireland, Grattan, the Volunteers began to enroll Catholics and to threaten the coercion of the Dublin Parliament. But, as the Duke of Rutland wrote to Pitt, Parliament “does not bear the smallest resemblance to representation”; and a petition from a great meeting held at Belfast in July 1784 declared that “the [Irish] House of Commons has degenerated into a fixed body so little connected with the people that it ceases to be a guardian of their property, and hath become the representative of an overbearing aristocracy.” The petitioners asserted that the delegates of the Volunteers were a representative body, and urged the King to dissolve the Irish House of Commons.[327] This demand was widely echoed. The Volunteers, having already through their delegates exerted on Parliament a pressure which was semi-national, refused either to let politics alone, or to disband. Ultimately their recklessness and the efforts of Grattan undermined their influence, and they gradually dwindled away; but, for the present, they seemed able to extort all their demands, prominent among which was that for the “protection” of Irish industries and products. In his first long communication to Pitt, the Duke of Rutland dwelt on the urgent need of investigating Irish claims, though he frankly declared that he could not understand the commercial question. Open-handed to ostentation, and devoted to the pleasures of the table, this affable young aristocrat occasionally showed signs of political foresight, as when he ventured to predict “that without an union Ireland will not be connected with Great Britain in twenty years longer.”[328]

Far abler and more painstaking was his chief secretary, Orde, on whom was to fall the burden of work connected with the proposed Reform. The letters which passed between him and Pitt in the summer of 1784 show the care taken by both of them to master the facts of the situation. Orde (the future Lord Bolton) warned Pitt that a resolute effort would soon be made to effect the entire separation of the two Kingdoms, and urged him to “act towards Ireland with the utmost liberality consistent with your own safety: it must in the long run be the wisest policy.” Above all he insisted, as the duke had also done, on the need of a firm decision, which even the malcontents must regard as final.[329]

Pitt on his side sought to procure the fullest information on all points. In regard to the Reform of the Irish Parliament he deprecated any extreme measure such as the admission of the Roman Catholics then appeared to be; but he advocated the extension of political rights to Protestant Dissenters; for, as he forcibly put it, “we may keep the Parliament, but lose the people.” As for the fiscal question he required first of all a satisfactory knowledge of the facts, so that some general principles of action could be agreed on; and he urged that the financial relations of the Kingdoms should be regulated according as the prosperity of Ireland increased with her enlarged commercial opportunities. Justice required that Ireland should then take her share of the imperial burdens, which at present rested almost entirely with Great Britain. Finally they must seek some means calculated to bestow on Ireland that permanent tranquillity which the late commercial concessions had failed to secure.[330]

In this letter, dated 19th September 1784, we see not only an outline of the scheme which took definite form in the Irish Propositions, or Resolutions, of the session of 1785, but also an instructive example of Pitt’s methods of procedure. He began by collecting all the ascertainable facts, including the causes of previous failures, and, by sifting these data, he sought to arrive at general principles which would illuminate the whole question. In a word, his method was inductive. It begun with facts and ended with principles. Unlike the French legislators of 1789–93, who first enunciated principles and then sought to square the facts of life to them, he started with a solid basis and reared on it a structure from whose summit the toiler might take a wide survey. The Revolutionists built symmetrically and grandly, but without foundations.

In order thoroughly to master details, Pitt summoned from Ireland not only Orde but also Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Beresford, Chief Commissioner of the Revenue. Both were able and masterful men, the former the doughtiest opponent, the latter the staunchest champion, of Pitt’s Act of Union. Beresford did much to beautify Dublin, and his name lives on in Beresford Place. With these experienced officials Pitt had many conferences at Downing Street, or at the house on the north side of Putney Heath, which he rented for the latter part of 1784. They confirmed Orde’s advice as to the wisdom of granting to Ireland complete liberty and equality in matters of trade, but warned him as to the difficulty of drawing from Ireland any contribution to the imperial funds. Here it should be remembered that Ireland supported 15,000 regular troops, 3,000 of whom were at the disposal of the British Executive in Ireland, while the others could be moved from Ireland with the consent of her Parliament.

Converse with Foster must also have strengthened Pitt’s resolve to press on the Reform of the Irish Parliament; for he now warned the Duke of Rutland, who stoutly opposed Reform, not to confuse peaceable efforts in that direction with subversive or treasonable schemes; and in a notable phrase of his letter of 4th December, he declared that Parliamentary Reform must sooner or later be carried in both countries. As regards procedure, he thought it best to postpone a change in the Irish franchise until a similar measure came forward at Westminster; for this, if successful, would impart to the movement in Ireland an irresistible force. In the meantime it would be well to take up the commercial problem.

Pitt’s sanguine temperament here led him into a tactical mistake. The Irish Resolutions were destined to arouse in Great Britain a storm of opposition which swept away the hopes of the Reform Associations; and the collapse of their efforts told unfavourably on the Irish political movement. Probably also he erred in bringing forward his proposals first in Dublin—a matter on which Fox readily aroused resentment at Westminster. Yet, where the issues were so tangled, it is difficult to say whether success could have crowned Pitt’s efforts had they been put forth in a different order.[331] From his letter of 7th October 1784 to the Lord Lieutenant we see that he looked on the Reform of the Irish Parliament as simpler, but yet “perhaps more difficult and hazardous,” than the commercial questions then at stake.

Here again he calculated wrongly. Ireland’s demand for equality of trading advantages with Great Britain was certain to meet with vehement opposition from our manufacturers, as the events of the year 1778 convincingly showed. His mistake is the more remarkable as he proposed “to give Ireland an almost unlimited communication of commercial advantage, if we can receive in return some security that her strength and riches will be our benefit, and that she will contribute from time to time in their increasing proportions to the common exigencies of the Empire.”[332] How buoyant was Pitt’s nature to cherish the hope that British merchants would concede commercial equality to Ireland, or that the factions at Dublin would take up the burdens of Empire!