Two Parliaments Escape Reform 229
Henry Flood, an officer of the Volunteers, proceeded the short distance through
the Dublin streets from the session of the convention to the Parliament building,
where he forthwith introduced these proposals as a bill. He appeared in uniform,
with a few other members, and so gave a welcome opening to the opponents of
reform, since he did in fact raise the question of the propriety of a parliamentary
body yielding to men in arms. After long speeches, the bill was voted down, 150 to
- The year 1784 saw even more hectic agitation. Catholics were increasingly ad-
mitted to the Volunteer companies. The beginnings of the United Irishmen could
already be seen. The Volunteer Journal and other radical newspapers grew more ex-
cited, demanding a protective tariff for starving workers, pointing enthusiastically
to America, printing cartoons in which gibbets for traitors were featured, or vari-
ous notables were tarred and feathered. The Dublin reformers called together a
new national body, which this time they called a “congress.” This American word
aroused unbounded hopes and wild apprehensions. The Congress assembled
through more or less legal channels, by the summons of sheriffs for election of
delegates in their counties. Most sheriffs refused to comply, but several did, includ-
ing the sheriff of Dublin. The Attorney General arrested him, and also suppressed
the radical newspapers, so that the freedom of the press enjoyed for the past several
years in Ireland was now permanently restrained. The Congress met behind closed
doors, but did nothing except to pass resolutions, and faded away early in 1785.
It is clear that the Irish reform movement, though its most advanced leaders
were already very radical, commanded a wide support throughout the country. All
three members of the Stewart family then in the Irish Commons, including the
father of the future Lord Castlereagh, voted for the bill brought from the Conven-
tion by Henry Flood in 1783. Even the Congress of 1784 could boast of a peer and
four baronets. A moderate writer estimates that the upper and middle classes of
Ireland, except for those profiting or hoping to profit from the existing system
(who were indeed numerous), favored a reform of Parliament at this time, though
not at the cost of civil struggle, and, for many, not at the dictation of uniformed
men in the House of Commons.^15
It is the arguments of the antireformers that are most interesting, since those
of the reformers are familiar enough, and those of conservatives, who were the
successful party, were soon to spread throughout Europe. The grand debate in the
Irish Parliament took place at the time of the National Convention and Flood’s
bill at the end of 1783. Some of the speeches resemble those of Edmund Burke,
who was in habitual correspondence with Ireland, but whether Burke influenced
Irishmen like Sir Hercules Langrishe, or was influenced by them, is impossible
to say.
The first crushing oration was delivered by Yelverton, who turned the whole
discussion from the merits of reform to the merits of the convention from which
Flood had unwisely brought the bill. The truth seems to be that the Irish govern-
ment and Parliament did not really fear the convention. Both General Burgoyne,
its reform bill, see Memoirs of the Life and Times of Henry Grattan by his Son (London, 1849), III,
143– 46.
15 McDowell, op.cit., 110.