He disbanded the Volunteers.
Grattan trusted that once the Irish Parliament was endowed with full
powers, the Catholic question would settle itself. He could rely with
certainty on his own Protestant followers. He persuaded them to repeal
the penal laws. He prevailed upon them to extend the franchise to the
Catholic peasant. Both those great reforms were passed through the
Irish Parliament in the fulness of its strength and power, and the
British Government were compelled to acquiesce. But there Grattan
reached the limit of his authority. There was one more great step which
had to be taken before the Catholic claims could be satisfied. It was
necessary to concede the right to a Catholic, as to a Protestant, to
sit in the Irish Parliament. When Grattan made that proposal, he found
himself faced with new forces. The British Government and the
Ascendancy Party in Ireland had already begun to regain their hold over
the Irish Parliament. The forces of patronage and corruption were
already at work.
If those had been the only powers Grattan might have defeated them.
Neither he nor his admirers were perhaps wholly aware of what we now
know to be the centre of this resistance--the dogged, almost insane,
obstinacy of George III.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136