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As a matter of fact, the power of taxation was rigorously maintained at Westminster with a reduced Irish representation of two-thirds. And this was the measure which was proclaimed to be greater than Grattan's Parliament or than any of the previous Home Rule Bills!
Bills were immediately afterwards passed by the Irish one embodying the Declaration of Rights, also a biennial Mutiny Act, and an Act validating the marriage of Dissenters, while, above all, Poynings' Act, which had so long fettered its free action, was once for all repealed. This was the happiest moment of Grattan's life.
An address in favour of Grattan's Declaration of Rights was carried enthusiastically in April by the Irish Parliament, and so impressed was the Government by the determined attitude of the country that, by the 27th of May the Viceroy was empowered to announce the concurrence of the English legislature. The Declaratory Act of George I. was then repealed by the English Parliament.
Grattan's prophecy of retribution for the destruction of Irish liberty has often been quoted: "We will avenge ourselves," he said, "by sending into the ranks of your parliament, and into the very heart of your constitution, one hundred of the greatest scoundrels in the kingdom"; but it is generally forgotten that he had in mind the kind of members nominated by peers and borough-mongers to represent them in an unreformed House of Commons.
Grattan's best friends had urged upon him in vain that refusing to assent to a commercial treaty made the permanent government by two independent legislatures impossible, and would bring about separation; he refused to be guided by their advice, and at that time he still had supreme power in the House.
The government divided the House, but to their mortification found only 47 supporters; for Grattan's amendment there were 170. A subsequent amendment against granting duties for the support of the loan fund, was also carried by 138 to 100. These adverse votes were communicated with great trepidation, by the Lord Lieutenant, to the British administration.
About a third of the population of Ireland, on the other hand, regard Home Rule as the greatest catastrophe that could befall themselves, their country, or the Empire; and it is worthy of notice that they include almost all the descendants of Grattan's Parliament, and of the volunteers and of those classes who in the eighteenth century sustained the spirit of nationality in Ireland.
He defended with rare insight, eloquence, and patriotism those who were accused of complicity in the rebellion of 1798. As a member of Grattan's parliament, he voiced the most liberal principles, and, though a Protestant himself, he worked hard in the Catholic cause. He held the great office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland from 1806 to 1814.
"Man!" he exclaimed fervently, "I wish to Heaven it was!" For it led to the ruin of the Tenant Right agitation in Ireland, in which the Irish people, Protestant as well as Catholic, had been united as they had not been since 1798 and the days of Grattan's Parliament.
Perceval and Lord Eldon, he at once constituted himself the principal opponent of Grattan's annual motion in favour of Catholic Emancipation.
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