rovince." The
supporters of law and order were naturally divided in opinion as to
the course to pursue. Some were in favour of a policy of conciliation.
Grattan induced his friend Ponsonby to bring forward another Reform
Bill, abolishing the religious test and the separate representation
of boroughs, and dividing each county into districts; and when he saw
that the motion could not be carried, delivered an impassioned speech,
declaring that he would never again attend the House of Commons, and
solemnly walked out. It was a piece of acting, too transparent to
deceive anybody. Grattan was a disappointed man--disappointed not
so much because his proposals were not adopted, as because his own
followers were slipping away from him. They had begun to realize that
he was an orator but not a statesman; his ideas were wild, fanciful
dreams. Whilst vehemently upholding the English connection he was
playing into the hands of England's opponents by reminding them that
England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity; whilst hating the
very idea of a Union, he was making the existing system impossible
by preventing the passing of a commercial treaty; whilst passionately
supporting Protestant ascendancy, he was advocating a measure which
at that moment would have brought about the establishment either of a
Roman Catholic ascendancy or more probably of a Jacobin Republic.
He saw his supporters dwindling slowly from seventy-seven in 1783 to
thirty in 1797. Men were now alive to the fact that the country was in
an alarming condition. They saw what had happened in France but a few
years before, and how little Louis XVI had gained by trying to pose
as a liberator and a semi-republican; and, knowing that the rebellion
with which they were faced was an avowed imitation of the French
Revolution, they were coming to the opinion that stern measures were
necessary. In almost every county of three Provinces conspirators were
at work, trying to bring down on their country a foreign invasion, and
stirring up the people to rebellion and crime by appealing to their
agrarian grievances and cupidity, their religious passion, and the
discontent produced by great poverty. For a second time it appeared
that Wolfe Tone would succeed in obtaining aid from abroad--this time
from Spain and Holland; and the rebel party in Ireland were now so
well organized, and Jacobin feeling was so widespread, that had he
done so, it was almost inevitable that Ireland would ha