the people, however, was so great, that many out of fear, and many out of love for popularity, were forced to counterfeit a great zeal in its behalf; and the bill was ultimately passed through the Houses of Parliament, by the votes of those who secretly relied upon its being arrested in its way to England, by the of ficial terrors of the Privy Council. In this reasonable expectation, too, they were gratified for two successive sessions;-but the Privy Council at last thought it prudent to yield to the voice of the people, and transmitted the bill to England ;-hypocritically trusting, in their turn, as Mr Hardy assures us, that it would never be returned by the Cabinet of that country. Other views, however, had in the mean time suggested themselves to the Government. Enraged with the House of Commons for its dissimulation-with the aristocracy for not crushing the bill at once; and, amid all this confusion and resentment, not a little elated, to have it at length in their power completely to humiliate that aristocracy, which, in the true spirit of useful obsequious servitude, not only galled the people, but sometimes mortified, and controlled the English cabinet itself;afraid of popular commotions in Ireland;-feeling, as English gentlemen, that the Irish public was in the right;-as statesmen, that it would be wise to relinquish at once what, in fact, could be but little longer tenable, they sacrificed political leaders, privy councillors, and parliament, to their fears, their hatred, their adoption of a new policy, and though last, not the least motive, it is to be hoped, their just sense of the English constitution. They returned the bill, and gave orders for the calling of a new parliament; which was dissolved the day after the Lord Lieutenant put an end to the session of 1768. '—p. 130, 131. We are not disposed, we confess, to place a perfect reliance on this secret history of the great measure in question ;-but that its ultimate success produced a general sensation of surprise, as well as of joy, and occasioned no little mortification to many who had affected to be most zealous in the cause, we cannot allow ourselves to doubt. The following anecdote, we think, is worth extracting. It is impossible not to mention, in this place, an anecdote which I heard from Lord Charlemont, as well as others. He happened, at this time, to dine with one of the great parliamentary leaders. A large company, and, as Bubb Dodington says of some of his dinners with the Pelhams, much drink, and much good humour. In the midst of this festivity, the papers and letters of the last English packet, which had just come in, were brought into the room, and given to the master of the house. Scarcely had he read one or two of them, when it appeared that he was extremely agitated. The company was alarmed. "What's the matter?-Nothing, we hope, "Happened! (exclaimed their kind host, has happened that and and swearing most piteously,) Happened! The septennial bill is returned." A burst of joy from Lord Charlemont, and the very few real friends of the bill, who happened to be present! The majority of the company, confused, and, indeed, almost astounded, began, after the first involuntary dejection of their features, to recollect that they had, session after session, openly voted for this bill, with many an internal curse, Heaven knows! But still they had uniformly been its loudest advocates; and that, therefore, it would be somewhat decorous, not to appear too much cast down at their own unexpected triumphs. In consequence of these politic reflections, they endeavoured to adjust their looks to the joyous occasion as well as they could. But they were soon spared the awkwardness of assumed felicity. The bill is not only returned," continued their chieftain, "but-but-the parliament is dissolved!" "Dissolved! Dissolved! Why dissolved?" "My good friends, I can't tell you why, or wherefore; but dissolved it is, or will be directly." Hypocrisy, far more disciplined than theirs, could lend its aid no further. If the first intelligence which they heard was tolerably doleful, this was complete discomfiture. They sunk into taciturnity, and the leaders began to look, in fact, what they had been so often politically called, a company of Undertakers. They had assisted at the parliamentary funeral of some opponents (Jones Nevil, for instance); and now, like Charles the Fifth, though without his satiety of worldly vanities, they were to assist at their own. In the return of this fatal bill was their political existence completely inurned. Lord Charlemont took advantage of their silent mood, and quietly withdrew from this group of statesmen, than whom a more ridicu lous, rueful set of personages in his life, he said, he never beheld. The city, in consequence of the intelligence of the evening, was in a tumult of gratitude and applause ;-illuminations were every where "diffused, and our unintentionally victorious senators were obliged, on their return home, to stop at the end of almost every street, and huzza, very dismally, with a very merry, very patriotic, and very drunken populace. '-p. 131, 132. A Catholic bill was afterwards carried in 1778; and about the same time, the whole strength and independent spirit of the nation was directed towards the obtaining a free trade, and the abolition of those laws by which the kingdom and Parliament of Ireland had been rendered entirely dependent upon the Parliament or Cabinet of England. It is now universally admitted, however, that neither of these great objects would have been obtained, had it not been for the formidable array, and patriotic resolutions of the Associated Volunteers, who then covered the country. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, to explain, in a few words, the origin of this singular institution, which, to speak it in plain terms, effected a Revolution in Ireland not less momentous and radical, than that which was accomplished in VOL. XIX. No. 37, England H England in 1688; and a revolution which, though carried through by the instrumentality of an armed force, was yet conducted with a temperance and moderation unexampled in the history of any such transaction. About the year 1777, a considerable alarm had been excited by the report of an invasion meditated by France upon several parts of the Irish shore; and as the country had been almost entirely stripped of its regular force, by the exigencies of the foreign service, very urgent applications were made to Government for the means of defence. To these applications the Government was constrained to reply, that it had no forces to spare for such a purpose; and that it trusted in a great degree to the vigilance of the navy, and to the valour and loyalty of the inhabitants. The inhabitants, thus left to their own exertions, were not slow in showing that these were sufficient for their security. Under the direction of a number of public-spirited gentlemen, a great variety of volunteer companies were raised, and trained to arms, in all the districts on the coast; and as they multiplied, and became better organized, were reunited into battalions and brigades. In a country overflowing with an 'ardent, idle, and spirited population, it is easy to conceive with what rapidity an institution of this kind was likely to diffuse itself. Independent of the patriotic motives which suggested the attempt, the gentry were vain of the numbers and discipline of those they could engage to serve under them;-and the peasantry were vain of their uniform, their band, the admiration they excited, and the importance to which they were raised. The institution spread from the coasts to the centre of the country; and before the end of the year 1780, there were upwards of 42,000 men arrayed and embodied in Ireland-commanded by officers of their own election; and free to lay down their arms, as they had taken them up, from the impulses of their own sense of duty, or of honour. Important as the services were which this body rendered to the government and the country at their first institution, it is not possible that they should not have been regarded with considerable distrust and apprehension, from the moment that they began to communicate, and be organized in large bodies,-to form encampments, and assemble for reviews, with a splendour, and in numbers, far exceeding any thing that had ever been displayed by the regular army in that country. Such, however, s their popularity-such the unquestioned loyalty of all the men who possessed the chief influence among them-and such, for a good while, the utter inoffensiveness of their deportment, that, whatever jealousy was felt, none was manifested by any party in the state. The thanks of the Government, and of both Houses Houses of Parliament, were repeatedly voted to them, in terms of the highest approbation. They lined the streets through which the members proceeded to their places of assembly; and escorted with their unbought battalions the Lord Lieutenant on his arrival or departure from the scat of government. Persons holding the first offices in the state, intrigued for commissions in their body;--and a vast self-created military force, seemed for a while to be regarded as a safe and ordinary ingredient in the frame of the constitution. It has been already observed, however, that just about the time when the exigencies of national defence led, accidentally as it were, to the formation of this great force, the body of the nation had been roused to an extraordinary degree of zeal for the recovery of their commercial and political freedom. The sense of the country was so decidedly in favour of those claims, that it was not without great difficulty that the government could command a majority, even in the Houses of Parliament, where Flood and Grattan displayed an eloquence and a courage, of which there was no example in the recent annals of their country;-while, out of doors, the sentiments of the nation were not only unanimous, but keen and enthusiastic, even beyond the common pitch of Irish impetuosity. It could not but happen, therefore, that the Volunteers should participate in this spirit. Being taken indifferently from all ranks and descriptions of the community, and from all parts of the country, and commanded by officers who had been raised to that station, not by the favour of the court, but by their individual and local popularity and influence, from whatever source these might be derived, they could not fail to represent very faithfully whatever sentiments or opinions were really prevalent among the body of the people, and to share in all the emotions by which they might happen to be inspired. It was almost as inevitable, that, when assembled in large bodies, the leading men among them should communicate and converse together upon those great topics of national interest; or that, when they had once felt their power and their popularity, they should not think of employing them in the support of this good cause. In those days, it was not illegal for persons associated for lawful purposes, to appoint delegates to take charge of their common interests, or for any body of men to petition Parliament, or to express, in public resolutions, their determination to seek, by all constitutional means, an amelioration of their political condition. Those important points were accordingly discussed, with various degrees of temper, in various local assemblages; till, at last, one of the Armagh battalions, commanded by Lord Charlemont, appointed a full H 2 meeting meeting of delegates from all the Volunteer corps within the province of Ulster, to take place at Dungannon on the 15th of February 1782, then and there to deliberate on the present alarming situation of public affairs; and to determine, and to publish to the country, what may be the result of such meeting.' On the day appointed, the representation of 143 corps accordingly assembled; and after a good deal of discussion, adopted a variety of resolutions, by which they condemned, as grievances, and unconstitutional, the powers exercised by the Privy Council, or Parliament of England, under the law of Poynings, or of George I.; and also the various remaining obstructions that had been allowed to cramp the trade of Ireland ;-and declared, that they were determined to seek redress of these grievances by all constitutional means;—and ⚫ pledged themselves, at every ensuing election, to support those only who had supported, and would support them therein.' They appointed a committee to call future meetings, and to act for them in the interim; and to communicate with such other Volunteer Associations as might think proper to adopt similar resolutions;—and, finally, they voted the following short and emphatic address to the minority in both Houses of Parliament, who had unsuccessfully supported the claims which they had then asserted. My Lords and Gentlemen-We thank you for your noble and spirited, though hitherto ineffectual efforts, in defence of the great constitutional rights of your country. Go on! The almost unanimous voice of the people is with you; and in a free country, the voice of the people must prevail. We know our duty to our Sovereign, and are loyal. We know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be free. We seek for our rights, and no more than our rights; and, in so just a pursuit, we should doubt the being of a Providence, if we doubted of success.' p. 211. The spirit of these resolutions spread like flame into every part of the island. They were adopted and seconded by all the volunteer corps in the kingdom; and the principles upon which they were founded were almost admitted by the regular official supporters of the government, who still headed the timid and decaying majorities in parliament. The people, in fact, were now openly arrayed against the government ;-and it is painful even to imagine what might have been the result of a more protracted resistance. But it happened most providentially, that Lord North's administration was dissolved within little more than a month after this period; and a Whig ministry, with Lord Rockingham and Mr Fox at the head of it, was appointed, to deliver this empire from the disgrace and danger both of a foreign and of a civil war. The Duke of Portland was sent over as Lord Lieute nant, |