acts of
ethnology and geography seemed to have been recognized. Ireland and
England, united by a Crown which both reverenced, stood together, like
Britain and the Dominions of to-day, as sister nations, with the old
irritating servitude swept away, and the bonds of natural affection and
natural interest substituted. That the close proximity of the two
nations, however marked the contrast between their natural
characteristics, made these bonds far more necessary and valuable than
in the case of America, stood to reason, and, again, the fact was
recognized in Anglo-Irish relations. America had fought rather than
submit to a forced contribution to Imperial funds. Nobody in Ireland, in
or out of Parliament, had ever objected in principle to an indirect
voluntary contribution in troops, and now that the American War was
ended, non-Parliamentary objections to one particular application of the
principle had no further substance. Nor, as was shortly to be shown in
the reception given in Ireland to Pitt's abortive Commercial
Propositions of 1785, was there any objection to a direct contribution
in money on a fixed annual scale in return for a mutual free trade.[16]
The sun had surely risen over a free yet loyal Ireland.

Never was there a more complete delusion. It would have been far better
for Ireland if she had never had a Parliament at all, but had had to
seek her own salvation in the healthy rough-and-tumble of domestic
revolution. The mere name of "Parliament" seems perpetually to have
hypnotized even its best members, and the illusion was at its highest
now. Nothing essential had been changed. Commercial freedom was the most
real gain, because it involved the definite repeal of certain trade-laws
and the permission to Ireland to make what she liked and send it where
she liked; but it was a small gain without some means of finding out
what Ireland really liked, and translating that will, without external
pressure, into law. The Parliament was neither an organ of public
opinion nor a free agent. It was even more corrupt and less
representative than before. It was as completely under the control of
the English Government as before. The modern conception of a Colonial
Ministry serving under a constitutional Governor selected by the Crown,
but acting with the advice of his Ministry, was unknown. The English
Government, through its Lord-Lieutenant, still appointed English
Ministers in Ireland, and in the hands of these Minister