The Irish statesmen would have no dealings with
the English Whigs in their pro-French policy. Like that other great
Irishman, Edmund Burke, Grattan was opposed to the spirit of the French
Revolution. In that great European crisis Ireland showed herself what
she really is--a nation inclined in all essentials to conservative
rather than revolutionary ideas.
"CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION"
But it was the existence of a separate external executive, gradually
limiting the legislative powers of the Irish Parliament, that finally
brought out the gravity of the other signal defect in the settlement of
1782. That defect was the failure to effect a complete settlement of
the Catholic question. For the Irish Parliament, even after 1782, was
still confined to Protestants. Could any reasonable man call that a
final solution of the problem of government in a country where
four-fifths of the people were Catholics? With a truer foresight than
Grattan, Flood desired that the Volunteers should refuse to lay down
their arms until the Catholic question had been settled. But Grattan,
still filled with that spirit of generous trust which has been the
undoing of so many noble Irishmen, refused to use the military power
for any further exaction of terms.
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