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Updated: June 4, 2025
The rebellion had been put down, the principal rebels had been done to death, Grattan's troublesome and tiresome Parliament had been extinguished, Ireland had been merged into complete identification with England, and surely nothing would be heard of the Irish question any more.
Meanwhile the immediate economic effect of liberation from the direct restrictions on Irish foreign trade, already conceded in 1779, and helped in various directions by judicious bounties, was undoubtedly to give a new impetus to production in Ireland. The first ten years of Grattan's Parliament were, on the whole, years of growing prosperity.
The brilliancy of Grattan's parliament never fulfilled national aspirations. Bristol was succeeded by another recruit from the aristocracy Lord Edward Fitzgerald. With Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet he has become legendary. All three attained popular canonization, for all three sealed their brief leadership with death.
Fox by letter, the new Viceroy and Secretary in person, had urged every argument for adjournment and delay, but Grattan's ultimatum was sent over to England, and finally and formally accepted. The demands were five. I. The repeal of the 6th of George I. II. The repeal of the Perpetual Mutiny Act. III. An Act to abolish the alteration or suppression of Bills.
Grattan's resolution was to the effect that in addressing the Prince to take upon himself the government of the country the Lords and Commons of Ireland were exercising an undoubted right and discharging an indispensable duty to which in the emergency they alone were competent. By the Act of Henry VIII the King of England was ipso facto King of Ireland.
We may, however, suspect that Grattan's estimate of the two men was in some degree colored by his personal feelings. With Lord Chatham he had never been in antagonism. On one great subject, the dispute with America, he had been his follower and ally, advocating in the Irish House of Commons the same course which Chatham upheld in the English House of Peers.
This debate in the Commons was remarkable in many respects, but most of all for Grattan's debut. A lively curiosity to hear one of whom so much had been said in his own country, pervaded the whole House, as Grattan rose.
Grattan's object was to anticipate the decision of the English Parliament, so as to avoid every appearance that the Irish Parliament was only following it; and he therefore proposed that the House of Commons should instantly vote an address to the Prince, requesting him to take upon himself the Regency of the kingdom of Ireland, by his own natural right as the heir of the crown; making sure not only that his advice would be taken by those whom he was addressing, but that the House of Lords would not venture to dissent from it.
The law officers and other officials who had been displaced were thereupon restored to their former places. Grattan's Bill was hopelessly lost, and all the elements of rebellion and disaffection at once began to seethe and ferment again. What strikes one most in studying these proceedings is the curious folly of the whole affair!
In 1775 he entered Parliament sixteen years, therefore, later than Flood being brought in by his friend Lord Charlemont. The struggle with America was then beginning, and all Grattan's sympathies went with those colonists who were battling for their own independence.
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