As might be expected, the new cry created a commotion. Patriots there were both in Lords and Commons, who were prepared to sacrifice part of their income for the general good, but they were few. If pensions were withdrawn and mortgages foreclosed and proprietors in prison, what mattered to these last a national liberty? The notion was an insult, and parliament stood at bay. But the ardour of the Volunteers would brook no dallying. Ulster, as usual, took the lead. Sharpwitted, frugal, Scotch, the battalions of the North convened a general assembly. On Feb. 15, 1782, one of the most impressive scenes which Ireland ever witnessed took place at Duncannon, where two hundred delegated volunteers marched two and two, calm, steadfast, virtuous, determined to pledge themselves before the altar of that sacred place to measures which might save their motherland or kill her. After earnest thought, a manifesto was framed-a dignified declaration of rights and grievances, a solemn statement of the people's will, a protest against English craft and Irish corruption-inviting the armed bodies of other provinces to aid in the process of regeneration.
Can you conceive anything more glorious and touching than the quiet gathering on the promontory of Duncannon? A towering fort frowns down upon the harbour, commanding a spacious basin formed by the waters of three rivers. Imagine the simple country gentlemen, the homely squires, the traders of Belfast, abandoning for a while their vices and their quarrels, to deliberate sword in hand over the grievous shortcomings of their brethren. I see them in the gloaming, with high-collared coats and anxious faces, puzzling their poor brains over a way out of the labyrinth. The lovely land, stretched out on either side in a jagged line of coast, whose slopes had been watered to greenness with blood and tears, must haply be soaked again in the stream of war. For the last time. Once more-only once-a final sanctifying baptism which should leave it clean and sweet for evermore. They penned a temperate document-a dignified manifesto. Could they be single-minded to the end, or would discord fling her apple among them?
So soon as the delegates of the North received the concurrence of the provinces, the senate in Dublin changed its tone, for no immediate succour could be hoped from England. It affected a complete patriotism, and made believe to go all lengths with the Volunteers. Patriots-real and sham-thundered in the House, and were applauded to the echo. It was impossible to tell who was in earnest and who was not. First, said the wily senators, make it clear that we are free, and then by remodelling the Senate we will prove ourselves worthy of the gift you have bestowed. Grattan towered above all others. He spoke as one inspired, and the meshes of the web seemed to shrivel before his breath.
The army patrolled the streets, and review succeeded review in the Phœnix Park; the national artillery lined the quays. Loyalty, Dignity, Forbearance, were grouped round the god of war. All the virtues, posing around Mars, hovered in ether over Dublin. Never was a city so happy or so proud. But the English Viceroy, though outwardly perturbed, was laughing in the Castle while the ignorant people jigged.
'Fools!' he scoffed. 'The meeting at Duncannon, of which you are so vain, was but the thin end of the wedge which we were looking for. You shall be played one against the other-people against parliament and parliament against people-till you break your silly pates. We stoop to conquer, as your own Goldy hath it. A little more and you will be undone. A little, little more!'-and he was right. The Commons, with mortgages before their eyes, wavered and prevaricated. The Volunteers, exasperated, openly denounced the senate. The people, taking fire, vowed they would obey no laws, whether good or bad, which were dictated under the rose by the perfidious one. The statute-book was rent in pieces; anarchy threatened to supervene; England prepared to take possession again. But the Volunteers, sublime at this moment, came once more to the rescue. They chid the weak and reproved the strong; even formed themselves into a night-police for the security of the capital. This hour was that of pride before a fall.
In prosperity they gave way to indiscretion. Enjoying as they did an unnatural existence, for which the only excuse was transcendent virtue, it was the more needful for them to be of one mind as to a chief. But they split on this important point. One party declared for the Earl of Charlemont, an amiable nobleman of whose mediocrity it was said that his mind was without a flower or a weed; another was for my lord of Deny, a bold, unsteady prelate, who, sincere or not, was but too likely to lead his flock into a quagmire.
They wavered, when to hesitate was to be lost. They did worse; they dirtied their own nest in a public place. Each rival chief, in his struggle for supremacy, lost more than half his influence. Tongues wagged to the discredit of all parties. Sir Galahad, feeling that he was in the toils of sirens, made a prodigious effort to escape with dignity. If parliament were not remodelled the fire would end in smoke. Coûte qui coûte, this must be done at once, or England would step in triumphant, and dire would be the vengeance. All hands were quarrelling. Was it already too late? A wild and desperate effort must be made to regain ground, lost by infirmity of purpose. The Volunteers, all prudence cast aside, determined to strike a blow in sledge-hammer fashion. They deliberately decided to send three hundred of their number in open and official manner to Lords and Commons, bidding them reform themselves at once; offering even to teach them how to do it. And so the extraordinary spectacle came to be seen in Dublin, of two governments-one civil, one military-sitting at the same moment in the same city-within sight of each other-each equally resolved to strain every nerve in order that the other might not live.
Sir Galahad blundered woefully! He had concentrated his attention with all his muddled might and main on the lesser instead of the greater plague-spot. 'Free Trade' had been his shibboleth, then a 'Reformed Parliament,' though how it was to be reformed he did not know. It escaped the shortness of his vision that 'Freedom of Conscience' would have been the nobler cry. Had he first freed the three million slaves from the bondage of the half million, the air would have been cleared for the disinfecting of his senate. But no. He was blind and tripped, and England saw the stumble. Well might the Viceroy laugh, while he made believe to tremble, as he thought of the Kilkenny cats.
CHAPTER III.
SHADOWS
As day waned, the Volunteers perceived that they must pass the night as watchmen if they wished the capital to be sufficiently peaceful on the morrow to attend to the parliamentary tournament. What the gownsmen intended for a frolic developed into a riot, thanks to the national love of a row and the complicated feuds which were continually breaking forth. No sooner had the undergraduates pumped upon the Graces and driven the English detachment into Castle Yard than they found themselves hemmed in by their natural enemies, the butchers of Ormond Quay, who owed the college gentlemen a grudge because they invariably took up the cudgels of the Liberty-lads when these sworn foes thought fit to have a brush.
The weavers were every bit as pugnacious as the butchers. Dulness of trade, hot weather, a passing thunder-shower, were excuse sufficient for a breaking of the peace; and then shops were closed and business suspended along the Liffey banks, as bridges were taken and retaken amid showers of stones, till one or other of the belligerents was driven from the field. It was one of the singular contradictions of the time that youths of high degree should always be ready to join the dregs of the city in these outrages; that members of an intensely exclusive class should unite with coal-porters or weavers against butchers, to the risk of life and limb. But so it was, and frightful casualties were the result sometimes; for the butchers were playful with their knives, using them, not to stab their opponents, which they would have considered cowardly, but to hough or cut the tendon of the leg, thus rendering their adversaries lame for life. Sometimes they dragged their captives to the market, and hung them to the meat-hooks by the jaws until their party came to rescue them. Not but what the aristocratic gownsmen were quite capable of holding their own, as had been proved, a few weeks before the commencement of this history, by the result of a conflict on Bloody Bridge, on which occasion a rash detachment of the Ormond Boys was driven straight into the river, where many perished by drowning before they could be extricated. The butchers vowed vengeance for this feat, yet were kept quiet for a while by the attitude of the Volunteers; but now they sprang blithely to arms with marrow-bone and cleaver upon hearing that their foes were on the war-path.
At