irs of Ireland. The demand for re-enforcements to the armies engaged
in America could only be met by denuding the British islands themselves
of their necessary garrisons. No part of them was left so undefended as
the Irish coast; and, after a time, the captains of some of the American
privateers, learning how little resistance they had to fear, ventured
into St. George's Channel, penetrated even into the inland waters, and
threatened Carrickfergus and Belfast. In matters of domestic policy it
was possible to procrastinate, to defer deciding on relaxations of the
penal laws or the removal of trade restrictions, but to delay putting
the country into a state of defence against an armed enemy for a single
moment was not to be thought of; yet the government was powerless. Of
the regular army almost every available man was in, or on his way to,
America, and the most absolute necessity, therefore, compelled the Irish
to consider themselves as left to their own resources for defence. It
was as impossible to levy a force of militia as one of regular troops,
for the militia could not be embodied without great expense; and the
finances of the whole kingdom had been so mismanaged that money was as
hard to procure as men. In this emergency several gentlemen proposed to
the Lord-lieutenant to raise bodies of volunteers. The government,
though reluctant to sanction the movement, could see no alternative,
since the presence of an armed force of some kind was indispensable for
the safety of the island. The movement grew rapidly; by the summer of
1779 several thousand men were not only under arms, but were being
rapidly drilled into a state of efficiency, and had even established
such a reputation for strength, that, when in the autumn the same
privateers that had been so bold in Belfast Lough the year before
reached the Irish coast, in the hope of plundering Limerick or Galway,
they found the inhabitants of the district well prepared to receive
them, and did not venture to attempt a descent on any part of the
island. And, when the Parliament met in October, some of the members,
who saw in the success that could not be denied to have attended their
exertions an irresistible means of strengthening the rising pretensions
of Ireland to an equality of laws and freedom with England, moved votes
of thanks in both Houses to the whole body of Volunteers. They were
carried by acclamation, and the Volunteers of the metropolis lined the
streets betwe