Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/61

Rh flatter the Patriots, yet determined to thwart every scheme of reform, if the opportunity offered, and ready to return to his old allegiance, if he could at the same time secure his ancient power and patronage. Meanwhile the commercial grievances and religious inequalities of Ireland remained unredressed. The only encouraging circumstance was the steady increase within the walls of Parliament of the small number of men who could be patriotic without being factious, and were too pure-minded to sell their country for a pension, or abandon her cause for a place.

How long this state of affairs might have continued but for the American War it is difficult to say. It lasted through the remainder of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Townshend, and through that of his successor Lord Harcourt. In some respects a change was even made for the worse, for in defiance of the arrangement by which the woollen trade of Ireland had been sacrificed to that of England, heavy import duties were laid in England upon Irish linens, with the immediate effect of depressing the one remaining Irish manufacture. An immense emigration at once began from Ulster to America, and in the ranks of the American army were found ranged many of those who by race and religion ought to have been the best friends of England in Ireland. A Bill to enable the King's subjects of whatever persuasion to testify their allegiance upon oath, served only to remind the Catholics of the other and graver disabilities under which they laboured.

The war with America by closing the American market to Irish linens still further increased the distress in the North. The condition of the South of the island was even worse. An embargo laid upon the export of provisions sent down the value of cattle and wool, and of land; rents were everywhere in arrear; the taxes could not be collected; the Budget showed a constant deficit; the funded and the unfunded debt went on increasing; public credit was destroyed. Meanwhile French and American privateers rode unmolested off the coast. An invasion was looked for, but neither a fleet nor an army existed to