There can be but one measure either for dignity or safety, and that measure, from Sergeant Adair's reports, I am now led to hope could be taken. I mean a declaration against taking into consideration the request of persons met in arms in Dublin for the avowed purpose of obtaining their ends by force. It is a crisis, you may depend upon it, I believe that a proper spirit exerted now is the only possible chance of sav ing us from total separation or civil war, between which two evils I have not the firmness to choose.' 1 CHAP. I. 1783. October. 14. In 1780 free trade was to have bound the two countries together for ever.. In 1782 it was to be the repeal of the 6th of George I. and the new constitution. Now, when the ink was scarcely dry upon the parchment on which the Acts of Liberation had been enrolled, England and Ireland were further apart than before. The Irish Parliament had met before Fox's October letter was written. The Viceroy had opened the session with a speech which said nothing. The address was carried without opposition, and also a vote of thanks to the Volunteers, whose convention was still three weeks distant. The stillness was not of very long duration. The question had to be tried in the new House of Commons which of the two competing champions for popular favour was the recognised leader of Irish patriotism. On the 28th Sir Henry Cavendish moved a resolution for a reduction of expenditure. Flood, whose mysterious mission to England had led to nothing, sprung to the front, and violently advocated a diminution of the military establishment. The meaning was obvious. A collision was possible between the Volunteers and the regular army. There 1 Mr. Fox to General Burgoyne, November 7.'-Abridged. Life of Grattan, vol. iii. VII. BOOK were now 12,000 British troops in the island, and the Government might rely upon them to resist the dictation intended to be exercised. 1783. October. Fox and Portland depended on Grattan to support them in their present difficulty. They had stood by him in his early struggles with Lord North. They had received distinct assurances from him that the concessions of '82 should not be followed by fresh demands, and had made themselves responsible to the British Parliament that Ireland would be satisfied. They expected him to assist them in resisting an alarming proposal pressed unconstitutionally by a body of men who had discovered their power, and were prepared to abuse it. Grattan knew their feelings, and recognised his obligations. He had himself once encouraged the Volunteers to interfere with Parliament. It was on him that the duty rested of now bringing their presumption within bounds. He was himself an ardent reformer; but, enthusiastic as he was, he did not conceal from himself that in a country like Ireland a redistribution of political power, precipitated by the bayonets of the Volunteers, would lead to the wildest confusion. In spite of his good nature, he had resented the attempt of Flood to steal from him the laurels of the last campaign. He distrusted his rival's honesty. He did not respect his intellect. Flood, whose manner was affected, had commenced his speech on the reduction of the army with an apology for an illness which did not appear to be serious. Grattan rose after him to oppose this motion. He would not occupy the time of the House, he said, with speaking of his personal infirmities. He reminded Flood that when he accepted office under Lord Har court, he had supported him in unbounded extravagance. At a time when England had acted justly and even generously towards Ireland, when she was still feeling the wounds of the late war, and comforting herself with the belief that she had secured Ireland's friendship, he thought it inopportune, unbecoming, ungracious, to press upon her retrenchments in the army. Grattan's conduct was signally creditable to him, for it was certain to be unpopular. Flood saw his advantage. Now was the time to make himself first in the affection of the Volunteers. 'It requires but little candour,' he said, 'to make a nocturnal attack on my infirmity. I am not afraid of the right honourable gentleman. I will meet him anywhere on any ground, by night or day. I would stand poorly in my own estimation and in my country's opinion if I did not stand far above him. I do not come dressed in a rich wardrobe of words to delude the people. I am not one who, after saying Parliament was a Parliament of prostitutes, made their voices subservient to my interest. I am not the inendicant patriot who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt payment. I was never bought by the people, nor ever sold them. Give me leave to say if the gentleman enters often into this kind of colloquy he will not have much to boast of at the end of the session.' The Speaker did not interfere with this harangue. The cries of Order!' if such cries were raised, were drowned in the applause of the little band who had resented the elevation of Grattan above their own idol. Flood, who had sued for the Castle livery, even under Lord Townshend; Flood, who had CHAP. I. 1783. November. BOOK 1783. November. whined to Lord Harcourt that he had parted with his popularity to please him; Flood, whose vanity was dissatisfied with the best office in the Crown's gift, and now at last had only stepped to the front of the patriots when he found Portland would not be duped into restoring him to his seat in the Privy Council; Flood, of all public men in Ireland, could least afford to challenge a retrospect into his political history. Grattan, though his sins were many, had not deserved to be taunted with the name of mendicant patriot. If Grattan, in his reply, laid on the lash too heavily, never was chastisement more wantonly provoked. He rose among the cheers of his friends in the House, and cheers and gibes mingled from the galleries. 'I will suppose,' he said-affecting at the outset to put a hypothetical case, but speedily dropping the effort and speaking directly at his antagonist-'I will suppose a public character, a man not now in this House, but who formerly might have been. I will suppose it was his constant practice to abuse any man who differed from him, and to betray every man who trusted him. I will begin from his cradle, and divide his life into three stages. In the first he was intemperate, in the second corrupt, in the third seditious. Suppose him a great egotist, his honour equal to his oath, and I will stop him and say (here looking full at Flood) Sir, your talents are not so great as your life is infamous. You were silent for years, and you were silent for money. When affairs of consequence to the nation were debating, you might be seen passing by these doors like a guilty spirit waiting for the moment of putting the question that you might hop in, and give your venal I. 1783. November. vote; or at times, with a vulgar brogue, aping the CHAP. manners and affecting the infirmities of Lord Chatham, or like a kettledrummer lathering yourself into popularity to catch the vulgar. Or you might be seen hovering over the dome like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral note, a cadaverous aspect, and broken beak, ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey. You can be trusted by no man. The people cannot trust you. The Ministers cannot trust you. You deal out the most impartial treachery to both. You tell the nation it is ruined by other men, while it is sold by you. You fled from the embargo; you fled from the sugar bill. I therefore tell you, in the face of the country, before all the world, and to your beard, you are not an honest man.' Those who have witnessed an Irish row in its wildest form may imagine the scene which followed. Floor and galleries were full, and every Irishman was on fire. Flood sate for a moment, as if stunned. He rose at last, stared about him, and stammered a few words which were lost in the tempest of noise. The Speaker, finally compelling some kind of silence, said that he had listened to the contest between two such distinguished men with inexpressible pain, and entreated Flood to sit down. Flood obeyed, and presently walked out. Grattan followed. Each consulted their friends, and a duel was arranged for the next morning. The Sergeant-at-Arms took them both into custody, and they were bound over to keep the peace. The storm, as brief as it was furious, died away; but a Parliament in which two leading members could rate each other like fishwomen was unlikely to command authority in Ireland, or confidence in the sister country. |