Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/426

 of delegates from the Ulster volunteers, held at Dungannon on 15 Feb. 1782, the resolutions in favour of legislative independence were unanimously adopted, and an additional resolution approving of the relaxation of the penal laws, which had been drawn up by Grattan without consultation with Charlemont or Flood, was carried with only two dissentients. Strengthened by the adoption of these resolutions, Grattan on 22 Feb. brought forward a motion for an address to the king declaring the rights of Ireland. ‘His speech,’ wrote Carlisle, the lord-lieutenant, ‘was interwoven with expressions of loyalty to the king, and with sentiments of affection to, and inseparable connection with Great Britain, of a disposition to give her every possible assistance, yet with a determination never to yield to the supremacy of the British legislature.’

The attorney-general's motion for the adjournment of the debate was, however, carried by 137 to 68, and the question was once more postponed. On the overthrow of Lord North's ministry, Grattan was offered office, but refused on the ground that ‘office in Ireland was different from office in England; it was not a situation held for Ireland, but held for an English government often in collision with, and frequently hostile to Ireland’ (, Life, ii. 225). On 16 April Grattan, though hardly recovered from a severe illness, in a magnificent speech for the third time moved the Declaration of Rights (Speeches, i. 123–30). This time it was carried unanimously in both houses, and on 27 May the lord-lieutenant (Duke of Portland) announced that the ‘British legislature have concurred in a resolution to remove the causes of your discontents and jealousies.’ Shortly afterwards the Declaratory Act was repealed by the English parliament, and bills for regulating the passing of Irish acts, repealing Poynings' Law, and the Perpetual Mutiny Bill, and for securing the freedom of election and the independence of the judges were introduced into the Irish parliament and speedily passed. On 31 May a grant of 50,000l. ‘to be laid out in the purchase of lands in the kingdom, to be settled on Henry Grattan, Esq., and his heirs in testimony of the gratitude of this nation for his eminent and unequalled services to this kingdom’ was unanimously agreed to by the House of Commons, and subsequently the Moyanna estate, near Stradbally in Queen's County, was purchased with the money. By his will Grattan left the estate, in the (unfulfilled) event of all his children dying without issue living at the time of their death, ‘in trust to form a foundation for the annual support of unprovided gentlewomen, daughters of poor and meritorious citizens of Dublin’ (Gent. Mag. vol. xc. pt. i. p. 640).

Legislative independence having been obtained, Grattan became anxious that the country should have rest after the fierce political excitement it had undergone, and insisted that it was the duty of all Irishmen to extinguish any remaining animosity, and to set about the task of internal administrative reform. In June, however, Flood took up the question of ‘simple repeal,’ and maintained that nothing but a final renunciation of the principle of Irish dependence would give Ireland adequate security. In this view he was strenuously opposed by Grattan, who argued that the principle of Irish dependence was embodied in the Declaratory Act; that consequently its repeal was a resignation of the pretended right, and that to require an express renunciation was ungenerous and distrustful. The lawyer corps and the larger portion of the volunteers supported Flood in his contention, and Grattan's popularity suddenly waned. At the general election in 1783 he was again returned for the borough of Charlemont, and on 28 Oct., shortly after the meeting of the new parliament, the famous parliamentary battle between Grattan and Flood occurred [see ]. In the following month Grattan supported Flood's motion for leave to bring in the Reform Bill, which had been adopted by the convention of delegates from the volunteers. The motion was rejected, and Grattan, being in favour of the immediate disbanding of the volunteers subsequently voted for Yelverton's resolution for supporting the house ‘against all encroachments whatsoever.’ Early in 1785 Orde introduced Pitt's commercial propositions into the Irish House of Commons, which were agreed to after an alteration had been made in them at Grattan's suggestion. Owing to the opposition with which they met in England, the resolutions were so materially altered in the English parliament that when Orde moved for leave to bring in his bill on 12 Aug. 1785, Grattan in a magnificent speech denounced it as fatal to the Irish constitution (Speeches, i. 231–49). The Duke of Rutland, writing to Pitt on the following day, said: ‘The speech of Mr. Grattan was, I understand, a display of the most beautiful eloquence perhaps ever heard, but it was seditious and inflammatory to a degree hardly credible.’ As the Government only obtained a majority of 19, the bill was afterwards withdrawn, and Grattan, owing to the successful opposition which he had made, was restored to his former popularity. In 1786 he vainly attacked the Pension List,