royal proclamation, calling out part of the
militia. Ministers took this step partly as a retort to the seditious
addresses of English Radical clubs to the French Convention,[124] partly
in order to repress tumults. There had been rioting in a few towns, and
the reports from Scotland were alarming. On 22nd November Dundas,
writing to Pitt from Melville Castle, N.B., stated that sedition had
spread rapidly of late in Scotland, and he estimated that five regiments
would be needed to hold down Dundee, Perth, and Montrose. He added that
the clergy of the Established Church and their following were loyal, the
others far otherwise.[125]

Still worse was the news from Ireland. Early in 1792 the Dublin
Parliament repealed one or two of the most odious statutes against Roman
Catholics; but later in the year contumeliously rejected their petition
for the franchise. Consequently the mass of Irishmen was ready to join
the Society of United Irishmen, a formidable association founded in
Ulster in 1791 by Wolfe Tone. This able young lawyer, fired with zeal
for the French Revolution, conceived the statesmanlike notion of banding
together both Presbyterians and Catholics in a national movement against
the exclusive and dominant English caste. The conduct of the Dublin
Parliament made his dream a reality. At once the ultra-Protestant
traders of the North clasped hands with the Catholic gentry and peasants
of the Centre and South. This unheard-of union was destined to lead Pitt
on to a legislative experiment which will concern us later. Here we may
notice that the clubs of Irish malcontents proceeded to act on a plan
already mooted in the English societies, that of sending delegates to
form a National Convention in Dublin. The aim was to constitute a body
far more national than the corrupt Protestant clique that sat in
Parliament, and, after overawing that body, to sunder the connection
with England. The precedent set by the Ulster Volunteers in their
meeting at Dungannon in 1782 warranted the hope of an even completer
triumph than was then secured. The correspondence that passed between
Pitt and the Lord-Lieutenant, Westmorland, reveals the concern which
they felt at the news. Pitt advised the early meeting of the Dublin
Parliament, the proposal of concessions sufficient to allay discontent,
and a determined resistance to all attempts at intimidation. He also
suggested the keeping a close watch on the importation of arms, and
levying a M