aring the Volunteer dress. It
was rejected on the first vote. No doubt the circumstances were
humiliating, and if there had been any serious inclination in Parliament
towards self-reform and the relinquishment of an odious and mischievous
monopoly, we should freely forgive rejection. But there was little or
none, as after-events proved, and the real humiliation lay, not in the
dictation of the Irish Volunteers, but in the fact that the Volunteers
themselves were overawed by a strong body of British regular troops,
mustered for the occasion under General Burgoyne. The vicious circle was
complete. Forced to choose between reform and dependence on England,
Parliament chose the latter. And only a year and a half before Grattan
had dazzled his hears with the words: "Ireland is now a nation ... _esto
perpetua_."

There are very few critical dates in Irish history, and of those few the
night of November 29, 1783, was the most critical of all. It marked the
climax of a brief and bright renaissance from the long stagnation of the
eighteenth, and heralded a decline into the long agony of the nineteenth
century, a decline concealed by the fictitious lustre which still hangs
over the first decade of Grattan's unreformed Parliament, but none the
less already present. The Volunteers, their grand opportunity lost,
slowly broke up. Should they have used force, even under the threat of
Burgoyne's guns? It would have been infinitely better both for England
and Ireland if they had. Nothing but force could avail. Never would
force have been better justified, for the very soul of a people "rang
zwischen Tod und Leben."

It is hard, nevertheless, to blame the Volunteers for not appreciating
the full magnitude of the crisis and acting accordingly. They were ahead
of their time as it was in the political instinct which taught them the
vital importance of a reformed Parliament. They were far ahead of
England, where the younger Pitt had failed to carry Reform a few months
before, and was to fail again two years later when he urged reform for
Ireland. They were even ahead of their time in religious
tolerance--witness the Gordon riots in London two years before. Their
Parliament wore the crown and spoke the regal language of a patriot
Assembly. For five years they themselves had glorified justifiably in
the perfect discipline and sobriety with which they had used their
irregular power. Their most trusted leaders suggested that they would
yet ach