owing the English ascendency and effecting a reform of parliament
of a democratic kind. While religious animosity was dying out among the
upper classes, it was rife among the peasantry, and catholic "defenders"
and protestant "peep of day boys" were at constant war. The catholics
still suffered from many disabilities. Their hopes of relief were
encouraged by the English relief act of 1791, and by the advocacy of
Burke, who in his _Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe_ (1792), argued
against the monopoly of power by the protestants, and allowed his son to
act as the professional adviser of the catholic committee. The English
ministers favoured the catholics, and dreaded an alliance between them
and the democratic party among the protestants, which would bring them
over to join in the demand for parliamentary reform.

Dundas urged the Irish government to assent to the enfranchisement of
the catholics on grounds both of justice and expediency. Westmorland and
his advisers objected. Pitt recommended them to give way, and wrote that
in any case they must not deprive the catholics of hope. In a letter to
Westmorland he pointed out that no danger could possibly arise from
enfranchisement if Ireland were united to England, a plan which, he
said, had long been in his mind.[255] The Irish government yielded, and
a bill granting the catholics the suffrage and other relief became law
in April, 1793. They were still shut out from parliament and from high
offices of state. The measure was ill-conceived, for while it conferred
political power upon the poor and ignorant catholics, it left the
catholic gentry, a loyal and conservative body, debarred from exercising
the influence to which their position entitled them. On the outbreak of
the war Grattan supported the government; and parliament voted liberal
supplies for the army and navy, and passed a bill establishing an Irish
militia of the same kind as that of England. The country was disturbed
by troubles over the compulsory enlistment for the militia and by the
lawlessness of the defenders. A period of comparative quiet, however,
followed the relief act, and the rejection of a moderate reform bill in
1794 created no disturbance. Nevertheless secret disloyalty increased,
and Tone and some of his allies held seditious correspondence with
France.[256] The United Irishmen grew in numbers, for while the leaders,
Tone, Emmet, and Rowan were protestants, they were joined by many
catholics. On th