ts found themselves at the head
of an army of disciplined volunteers they naturally claimed that the
country which was able to defend herself should be allowed also an
independent Parliament with which to make her domestic laws. They
obtained their end, at least for the moment, and at least to all
outward appearance, and Grattan was enabled to declare that for the
first time he addressed a free Parliament in Ireland and to invoke the
spirit of Swift to rejoice over the event. Catholic emancipation,
however, had not yet been secured, although Grattan and those who
worked with him did their best to carry it through the Parliament in
Dublin. The obstinacy of King George still prevailed against every
effort made by the more enlightened of his ministers. Pitt was in his
brain and heart a friend of Catholic emancipation, but he had at last
given way to the King's angry and bitter protests and complaints, and
had made up his mind never again to trouble his Sovereign with futile
recommendations. It so happened that a new Viceroy sent over to
Ireland in 1794, Earl Fitzwilliam, became impressed with a sense of the
justice of the claims for Catholic emancipation, and therefore gave
spontaneous and honorable encouragement o the hopes of the Irish
leaders. The result was that after three months' tenure of office he
was suddenly recalled, and the expectations of the Irish leaders and
the Irish people were cruelly disappointed.

From that moment it must have been clear to any keen observer in
Ireland that the influence of Grattan and his friends could no longer
control the action of Irish nationalists in general, and that the
policy of Grattan would no longer satisfy the popular demands of
Ireland. Short {309} as had been the Irish independent Parliament's
term of existence, it had been long enough to satisfy most Irishmen
that the control of the King's accepted advisers was almost as absolute
in Dublin as in Westminster. To the younger and more ardent spirits
among the Irish nationalists the setting up of a nominally independent
Irish Parliament had always seemed but a poor achievement when compared
with the change which their national ambition longed for and which the
conditions of the hour to all appearance conspired to render
attainable. These young men were now filled with all the passion of
the French Revolution; they had always longed for the creation of an
independent Ireland; they insisted that Grattan's compromise h