parently in revenge
for their discourteous treatment of Carlisle. Without consultation with
them, he proposed the repeal of the act of 9 George I. which asserted
the right of the king and parliament of Great Britain to legislate for
Ireland. Fox opposed the motion and it was withdrawn. The next day,
April 9, the ministers brought a royal message to parliament
recommending to its consideration means of satisfying Irish discontent.
The spirit manifested in the Dungannon meeting overcame the resistance
of the Irish parliament, and the nation was united in its demands.
Rockingham and Fox tried in vain to persuade Grattan to give them time
for consideration.[165] On the 16th he moved an address to the king in
the Irish parliament asserting independence, and it was carried
unanimously. The ministers, misled by Portland, believed that the Irish
demands might be modified, and proposed negotiation. Grattan refused,
and they yielded everything. On May 17 resolutions, afterwards followed
by statutes, were carried without division in both houses, conceding
legislative independence to Ireland, restoring the appellate
jurisdiction of the Irish house of lords, and limiting the mutiny act.
Ireland thus became almost an independent state. It remained connected
with Great Britain by the tie of the crown, it had no executive
dependent on its parliament, and its legislation was subject to a
ministerial veto. The revolution of 1782, pressed on by Grattan, set up
relations between the two kingdoms which were anomalous and fraught with
danger.

[Sidenote: _THE "BATTLE OF THE SAINTS"._]

Negotiations for peace were in progress, but the war still went on, and
its last great events were glorious. The navy was far stronger than in
1778; the dockyards were busy during the war, and the number of ships
was much larger. Improvements of various kinds were adopted; ships were
coppered, the rapidity and accuracy of their fire was increased by new
inventions, and carronades--light guns with a large bore mounted on the
upper deck, for use at close quarters--not yet adopted by the French,
were added to their armament. The discipline and ardour of the
_personnel_ of the navy reached a high pitch. The British sailor was
keen to fight the Frenchman, and 93,168 seamen and marines are entered
as borne during the present year. We left the French and Spanish fleets
in the West Indies preparing to conquer Jamaica (p. 227). Grasse was at
Fort Royal, and was to jo