XXXVIII.

offices of truft under the crown. The opinion of CHAP. Henry Flood, abetted at first by fo few, gained ground with rapidity in the public mind, and feemed to receive confirmation from events. A caufe, removed by a writ of error from the king's bench of Ireland to that of Great-Britain, was retained and adjudged by lord Mansfield, the chief justice of the latter, fubfequently to the first of June 1782, a limit prescribed by the Irish parliament, beyond which no fuch caufes were to be determined out of this kingdom. The encreafing difcontents became alarming to government; and earl Temple, who, on a change of the British miniftry, by the death of the marquis of Rockingham, fucceeded the duke of Portland in the viceroyalty, on the fifteenth of September 1782, was earnest for procuring fatif faction to the Irish. With a magnanimity becoming the great council of a great nation, all caufe of complaint on the fubject was removed, by a bill introduced, and unanimoufly paffed, on the twentyfecond of January 1783, in the British parliament, "for removing and preventing all doubts, which have arifen, or may arife, concerning the exclufive rights of the parliament and courts of Ireland in matters of legiflation and judicature, and for preventing any writ of error, or appeal, from any of his Majesty's courts in that kingdom, from being received, heard, and adjudged, in any of his Majefty's courts in the kingdom of Great-Britain." The pecuniary fortunes of the two great rival pa

triots

CHAP. triots and orators, Flood and Grattan, in their XXXVIII exertions in favour of Irish emancipation, were

very different. The latter, who carried the bufinefs to a certain ftage, and oppofed its further pro. grefs, received as a reward fifty thousand pounds: the former, by whofe exertions it was brought to a confummation, was deprived of a place under government of three thoufand five hundred pounds a year.

CHAP.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Reflexions on the American war- Mifcellaneous tranfactions-Knights of Saint Patrick-Abortive fcheme of a Genevan fettlement-Proceedings of the volunteers-Defects of the national representation -Meeting of a new parliament-National convention -Miscellaneous tranfactions-Outrages—Addreffes -Congrefs-Commercial propofitions-Mifcellaneous transactions-Rightboys-Wretchedness of the peafantry-Death of the duke of Rutland Change of manners by his example-Reflexions on late hoursEnormous peculation detected by Buckingham-Offer of regency to the prince of Wales-Reinstatement of affairs-Fitzgibbon-Proceedings of the oppofitionists

-Parliamentary tranfactions.

THE councils, by which the British cabinet had CHAP. been influenced to enter on a war with the British XXXIX. colonies in America, were hardly more impolitic Reflexions than those by which that war was conducted. Re- rican war.

peated offers of conciliation, with augmented conceffions in each new propofal, were made, in the midst of hoftilites, to the revolted ftates; but never till it was too late; when the condition of affairs. had become fuch as to cause them to be rejected;

while

on the Ame

XXXIX.

CHAP. while many of the inftruments, employed to fubdue the colonies, were more fitted to procure the hatred than the fubmiffion of the colonists to the British government. Tribes of favages, American Indians, ufelefs in battle, butchered the unarmed in their tranfitory incurfions. The German mercenaries, too flow for American warfare, and regarding spoil as their primary object, marked every where their progrefs with mercilefs rapine. Even the British, the only effective troops employed on this lamentable occafion, were not fo obfervant of falutary dif cipline, but that in places, where they were at first received as friends by the inhabitants, they were af terwards oppofed and detefted as enemies. Of the acts of devaftation and maffacre in this war the most atrocious recorded was committed at Wyoming, a new and most delightfully flourishing settlement of about a thousand families on the river Sufquehanna, which was reduced completely to a defert by a body of Indians and American royalists, denominated tories, under two leaders named Butler and Brandt, who put to death all the inhabitants of every age and both fexes by various kinds of torture. The refentment of the Americans, fired by fuch atrocities, was fo ably directed by the admirable George Washington, a leader not lefs cautious of affording advantages to the enemy than alert to feize opportunities in his own favour, that the independence of the revolted ftates was established by arms, and explicitly acknowleged by the British court in a final treaty of peace in the beginning of the year 1783. Conduct

ed

XXXIX.

ed to its completion with a spirit of order glorious CHAP. to the character of the Americans, this revolution, when we except the expenses of the war, was ultimately advantageous even to Great-Britain; fince, rapidly augmented in wealth and population by an admirable fyftem of government, thefe colonies afford a more gainful market than ever to British traders, without expenditure of British revenue for their defenfe. Their fubjugation might have involved the ruin of British liberty, together with their own impoverishment and decay.

ous tranfactions in Ire

1783.

Of the American revolution the emancipation of the Irish legislature was a confequence, acquired by the exertions of the volunteer affociations, exertions land. fo far glorious, but, like all human affairs, liable to be carried beyond the limit which true policy would prescribe. If, after the attainment of their great object, these patriot bands had refigned their arms, when, on the conclufion of a general peace, they were no longer neceffary, they would forever have ftamped their paft tranfactions with the feal of honour. But, mifled by defigning or mistaken men, and influenced by the example of fome very eminent perfons in England, who afterwards proved recreant, they turned their attention to a new object, a reform of parliament, or a more equal reprefentation of the people in the houfe of commons, an object indeed defirable, in Britain, but of extremely difficult adjustment, and doubtlefs in Ireland of problematical utility. After the commencement of a difcuffion on this fubject, two events occured

of