, was
now frightened out of them again by the menaces of England, and he cut
down his original proposals till the Irish thought he was merely
trifling with their troubles, and their whole island was aflame.
Associations were formed, commotions broke out; a great meeting in
Dublin in April 1779 pledged itself to buy nothing of English or
Scotch manufacture; many of the county meetings instructed their
representatives in Parliament to vote no money bill for more than six
months till Irish grievances were redressed; and the Lord-Lieutenant
wrote the Government that popular discontent was seriously increasing,
that French and American emissaries were actively abroad, that the
outlook was black indeed if next session of Parliament passed without
giving the Irish a satisfactory measure of free trade, and that
"nothing short of permission to export coarse woollen goods would in
any degree give general satisfaction."

As soon as the Irish Parliament met in October a new member of the
House, who was presently to become a new power in the country, Henry
Grattan, rose and moved an amendment to the address, urging the
necessity for a free export trade; and the amendment was, on the
suggestion of Flood, extended to a general demand for free trade,
including imports as well as exports, and in this form was carried
without a division. The reply to the address, however, seemed
studiously ambiguous, and inflamed the prevailing discontent. On King
William's birthday the statue of that monarch in Dublin was hung over
with expressive placards, and the city volunteers turned out and
paraded round it; a few days later a mob from the Liberties attacked
the house of the Attorney-General, and proceeding to Parliament, swore
all the members they found to vote only short money bills till free
trade were conceded; and then Grattan, in his place in the House,
carried by three to one a resolution to grant no new taxes and to give
only six months' bills for the appropriated duties.

The Government was now thoroughly alarmed; they must at last face the
question of free trade for Ireland in dead earnest, and applied
themselves without delay to learn from all who understood the subject
what would be the real effect on England of removing the Irish
restrictions. They requested many of the leading public men whom they
trusted in Ireland--Lord Lifford, Hely Hutchinson, Henry Burgh, and
others--to prepare detailed statements of their views on the
commerc