lunteers appeared in arms in 1779.
The force was wholly a Protestant one, commanded by Protestant officers,
and it was turned to account by the Protestant oligarchy. Threats of an
armed revolt backed the eloquence of two Parliamentary leaders, Grattan
and Flood, in their demand for the repeal of Poynings' Act, which took
all power of initiative legislation from the Irish Parliament, and for
the recognition of the Irish House of Lords as an ultimate Court of
Appeal. But the Volunteers were forced to bid for the support of the
native Catholics, who looked with indifference on these quarrels of
their masters, by claiming for them a relaxation of the penal laws
against the exercise of their religion and of some of their most
oppressive disabilities. So real was the danger that England was forced
to give way. The first demands were in effect a claim for national
independence. But there were no means of resisting them, for England was
without a soldier to oppose the Volunteers, while she was pressed hard
by the league of Europe and America against her. In the face of such a
rising close at home, it became plain even to the most dogged of Tories
that it was impossible to continue a strife across three thousand miles
of sea; and to deal with the attitude of Ireland became even a more
pressing need of the Ministry which followed that of Lord North than the
need of dealing with America.

[Sidenote: End of the war.]

The blow which had shattered the attempt of England to wield an
autocratic power over her Colonies had shattered the attempt of its king
to establish an autocratic power over England itself. The Ministry which
bore the name of Lord North had been a mere screen for the
administration of George the Third, and its ruin was the ruin of the
system he had striven to build up. Never again was the Crown to possess
such a power as he had wielded during the past ten years. For the moment
however there was nothing to mark so decisive a change; and both to the
king and his opponents it must have seemed only a new turn in the
political game which they were playing when in March 1782 the Whigs
returned to office. Rockingham was still at the head of the party; and
on Rockingham fell the double task of satisfying Ireland and of putting
an end, at any cost, to the war with the United States. The task
involved in both quarters a humiliating surrender; for neither Ireland
nor America would be satisfied save by a full concession of thei