Page:Home rule; Fenian home rule; Home rule all round; Devolution; what do they mean?.djvu/33

29 of a Loyalist Parliament in Ireland seized the opportunity of sending secret emissaries into the country, with results which subsequently led on to the actual invasion by that power of Ireland, is it improbable that if a disloyal Irish Parliament is now created foreign powers may again send in their welcomed emissaries and be ready for invasion when " England's difficulty means Ireland's opportunity"?

Ireland was twice invaded by the French during the period of the Irish Parliament. A storm indeed scattered their fleet, carrying Hoche's formidable army, in Bantry Bay at Christmas, 1796; but in 1798 they successfully landed a body of troops under Humbert at Killala, who, after routing General Lake at Castlebar, and winning another engagement near Sligo, penetrated across the Shannon, and were only ultimately defeated by greatly superior numbers under Cornwallis.

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All this took place while the Irish Parliament was but the instrument of the Protestant gentry of Ireland. Is it to be supposed that an Independent Nationalist Parliament, representing the peasantry and tenement houses of Ireland, would be more submissive than Grattan's Parliament?