And yet the circumstances which eventually led to the destruction of the Irish Parliament were almost contemporary with, and to a certain degree grew out of, our own Revolution. The causes that effected the severance of the North American colonies from the mother country, [pg 055] and facilitated the consummation of our aspirations for independence, operated, paradoxical as it may seem, to bind Ireland firmer in the chains of alien thraldom, as well as to extinguish the last spark of her freedom.
It is generally conceded that the Irish Parliament, from its inception in the XIVth century till 1782, was not only not the legitimate legislative representative of even a moiety of the people of that country, but was actually a very efficient instrument in the hands of their enemies. At first it was merely an irregular gathering of the nobles and chief men of the “Pale”—a term applied for hundreds of years after the invasion to four or five counties on the eastern and southeastern sea-board, over which the Anglo-Normans held sway. Whenever a raid on the native chieftains was projected, or a scheme of spoliation to be adopted, it had long been the custom of the lord deputy, or other representative of English authority, to summon the heads of Anglo-Irish houses and a few of the principal burghers of the larger towns and cities within his jurisdiction, to meet him at Dublin, Drogheda, or Kilkenny, and, having given the motley gathering the sonorous title of parliament, to demand the enactment of new statutes against the “Irish enemy,” or to extort fresh levies of men and money for his incursions into the interior.
Gradually, however, those erratic assemblies began to assume form and regularity, and even to display a certain independence of action distasteful to the governing power. As English conquest in Ireland gradually widened its sphere, particularly in Leinster and Munster, the number of members who attended those sessions increased; and as the descendants of the invaders, having lost the attachment of their forefathers to England, naturally evinced a desire to legislate for themselves, it was thought desirable in London to nip in the bud a flower which might insensibly expand into national independence. Accordingly, in the reign of the seventh Henry, the Irish Parliament being still weak and yielding, a bill was passed by it acknowledging the dependence of that body on the king of England and his council. This act, called after its originator, Poynings, most effectually repressed the aspirations of the only representative body in the kingdom, and produced the desired results. But as if this were not enough, we find subsequently, in the reign of William and Mary especially, instances of the English Parliament legislating directly for Ireland; and in the sixth of George I. there was passed a declaratory act which, if any vestiges of freedom or manhood yet remained in the Irish Parliament, most effectually destroyed them. These efforts, thus made from time to time to destroy the liberty and efficiency of the Parliament, naturally disgusted a great many of its members who had the least spark of self-respect or personal honor left, and drove them from the nation's councils; those who remained being almost without exception government officials or newly-arrived and needy adventurers, ignorant of the character, wants, and wishes of the people, who hoped, by the display of extraordinary zeal and sycophancy, to push their fortunes and find favor in the eyes of the Castle authorities. It is not surprising, then, that a body composed of such elements should have unhesitatingly voted away the royalty of the ancient [pg 056] kingdom to Henry VIII., whose predecessors never claimed a higher title than that of lord; that at the bidding of the same monster, it officially and almost unanimously declared for the Reformation, and with equal alacrity, in the reign of his daughter Mary, explicitly repudiated everything it had done a few years previously.
Yet it still bore the semblance of a national legislature; and, gradually yielding to the influence of a growing public opinion, some good men, Catholics as well as Protestants, were again to be found among its members in the subsequent reigns, until that of William III., when, by an unconstitutional law of the English Parliament, the former were for ever excluded, and never during its existence was one of that proscribed faith allowed to sit on its benches. From this reign also may be dated the many cruel penal enactments, over one hundred in number, which disgraced its statute-books; though, to do its members justice, they never went so far in ferocity and ingenuity as did their brethren of London at the same period and even long previously.
But though four-fifths of the people were disfranchised and their co-religionists denied a seat in the Parliament, that body was again gradually approaching the assertion of its right of self-legislation. A new generation had sprung up during the later half of the XVIIIth century who knew not William of Orange nor the bitter anti-Irish prejudices that characterized his followers. The bold, incisive, and satirical writings of Swift, the learned disquisitions of Molyneux, and the homely but vigorous appeals of Lucas, had not been without their effect on the young students of Trinity and other colleges, fresh from the study of the lessons of human liberty so frequently found in classic lore; and the consequence was that when they entered the Parliament as members, confident in their position as gentlemen of fortune, and self-reliant, not only from their aristocratic connections, but from their innate sense of mental superiority, language began to be heard and applauded which, for elegance, grace, and manliness, had never been equalled in that hall before. The outbreak of our Revolution, the broad principles of justice and humanity laid down in the speeches and writings of our ancestors, and the trumpet-toned Declaration of Independence occurring at the same time, gave an impetus and a clarity of ideas on questions of government which, up to that time, had assumed neither form nor consistency.
The first symptoms of active agitation for their political rights may be said to have sprung up at this period among the Irish of all conditions and creeds, but more especially in Ulster and the cities of Dublin, Cork, and Limerick—the homes of manufactures and the centres of produce, exports, etc. Their grievances were of two classes: restriction on foreign trade, and parliamentary dependence and corruption. Under the first head, it was charged, and with great truth, that Irish merchants were prohibited by English laws from trading with France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, many of the West India Islands, and the whole of Asia, for the purpose of benefiting their rivals in England; thus utterly crippling the manufacturing interests of the country, and completely stopping the exportation to these markets of farm products, of which she had [pg 057] even then a superabundant supply. This limitation of commerce had long been not only the principal cause of the impoverishment of the nation, but a fruitful source of clamor and popular discontent, which had invariably been unheeded by the dominant power as long as it was able to repress them by the strong arm. At length, however, a change was about to take place. Soon after our War of Independence broke out and the French alliance was cemented, England was obliged to withdraw from Ireland nearly the whole of her military and naval forces, thus leaving the latter undefended by either regulars or militia, and at any moment open to attack from the allies. Indeed, Paul Jones several times appeared on the coast, and in 1779-80 the Franco-Spanish fleets were absolute masters of the Channel. The people, kept in a constant state of alarm, at last determined to arm for mutual protection; and thus was originated that short-lived but remarkable body of citizen soldiery known as the Irish Volunteers.
The movement began in Belfast in August, 1778, and before two years elapsed it had spread over the whole country, and counted on its muster-rolls nearly one hundred thousand men, fully armed and equipped at their own expense. Noblemen, judges, magistrates, and prominent members of Parliament were proud to serve in the Volunteers as company or field officers; and Lord Charlemont, one of the most accomplished and liberal members of his order, accepted the office of commander-in-chief.
The external security of the island having thus been amply provided for, attention was naturally turned to internal evils. Various meetings of Volunteers were held in the several counties, and strong resolutions passed in favor of the freedom of foreign trade. The Castle authorities were not in a position to resist a demand so made; the Irish Parliament, led by such men as Grattan, Flood, and other nationalists, voted in favor of the immediate emancipation of commerce; and the British premier, Lord North, in December, 1779, submitted three propositions to the English Parliament to permit the export of glass and woollens from Ireland, and permission for her to trade with the American colonies, Africa, and the West Indies. During the following February, a bill embodying these provisions was introduced by the ministry, and passed with little opposition.
This point gained, the Volunteers set to work to free the Irish Parliament itself from all dependence on the London Privy Council and the Parliament of the sister kingdom. In April, 1780, Grattan moved his Declaration of Rights, which avowed, among other truths, “that his most excellent majesty, by and with the consent of the lords and commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to enact the laws to bind Ireland.” This resolution was, however, opposed on technical grounds, and withdrawn. During the following year, Mr. Yelverton asked leave to bring in a bill virtually repealing Poynings' law, which was granted by a vote of 167 against 37, though later in the session Flood's motion of a similar purport was defeated by a majority of 72. The people, who had anxiously watched the action of their representatives, were now in a ferment of excitement, and numerous meetings of civilians and Volunteers were held throughout the provinces, the most noteworthy of which was the [pg 058] convention of the Ulster Volunteers at Dungannon, February 15, 1782. This powerful assembly passed a series of manly resolutions in favor of the right of the subject to bear arms, to express his opinions freely on political affairs, and to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience; but the one most to the point read as follows: “Resolved, unanimously, That a claim of any body of men other than the king, lords, and commons of Ireland to make laws to bind this kingdom is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance.” This was followed up by like meetings in the other sections of the country, at which similar resolutions were adopted. A few days after there was a change of ministry in England, and of course a change of policy. Messages were sent in the name of the king to both Parliaments, ordering them to take into their most serious consideration “the discontents and jealousies prevailing among his loyal subjects of Ireland, in order to such a final adjustment as may give mutual satisfaction to both kingdoms.” The answer of the Irish Parliament to this demand met with no opposition on the question of its adoption, though it declared emphatically “that there is no body of men competent to make laws to bind this nation except the king, lords, and commons of Ireland; nor any other parliament which hath any authority or power of any sort whatever in this country save only the Parliament of Ireland.” There was no mistaking or avoiding this expression of public opinion, endorsed as it had been by a national army able and willing to second their demands; so in May, 1782, the act of sixth George I. was repealed in the English Parliament, and the old objectionable law of Poynings simultaneously suffered a similar fate in that of Ireland.
Irish trade was now free, and Irish legislation independent at least of alien dictation; but another great task lay before the Volunteers, which unless accomplished, their well-won victories were likely to prove barren indeed. This was the purification of their own House of Commons, and the right of representation for the people at large. That the popular branch of the legislature wanted reformation badly may be judged from the status of its members as given by contemporary writers. Only seventy-two of them were returned by vote; one hundred and thirty-three sat for “nomination” or “close” boroughs, absolutely controlled by a few peers; ninety-five were similarly sent to the Parliament by about fifty commoners; so that, out of the three hundred members of the house, two hundred and twenty-eight were wholly and solely dependent for their seats on less than half their own number. When we consider, also, that of those creatures at least one-half were officials, pensioners, or expectants of pensions and government favors, we can well imagine how little reliance could be placed on their integrity or honesty in a struggle between a hostile, inimical power and the people; and it must also be remembered that at that time neither the right of representation nor of suffrage was allowed to the Catholics, who comprised seventy or eighty per cent. of the entire population.