The latter remark shows how polarised politics were amongst well-to-do Protestants, even in a relatively small town like Newry. Martha warned him not to reveal himself as Sidney for, in her view, ‘Newry or its people are not to be trusted.’18
Stewart ran a very lacklustre and disorganised campaign. Martha, William and their friends, who were Stewart’s natural supporters, were appalled when, after promising to stay independent, he tried to do a deal and made commitments to Lord Kilwarlin. Martha regarded those commitments as ‘full of madness and folly’ and she believed that he had no right to give them. Stewart’s conduct was such that Martha felt he deserved to lose the election.19
Drennan was also disgusted at Stewart’s behaviour:
I sicken at the Down elections. I like none of the candidates. Stewart as little as any. Had it not been for his nauseous neutrality which is not to be forgiven he and Ward, I believe would have had the country. I don’t believe he regards the independent interest a fig and his whole ambition was to please both parties and to be returned by both. He has nearly met with his merited punishment.20
In the event, Kilwarlin and Ward defeated Stewart and Sam was left disappointed and unemployed but not greatly surprised.
While sister and brother shared their dismay regarding the conduct of the Down election, Martha reported on what she felt were more interesting political goings on in Belfast. In preparation for yet another Volunteer convention in Dungannon, a committee was sitting to consider appropriate resolutions that might form the subject for deliberation at the forthcoming convention. Letters were sent to prominent reformers both at home and abroad. Amongst those whose advice was sought were the Duke of Richmond, Dr Price, Dr John Jebb and Christopher Wyvill in Britain, Dr Franklin and Abbé Raynal in Paris and Charlemont, Flood and Grattan in Ireland. Martha thought the responses of Richmond and Dr Price were very satisfactory and useful. They had not heard from Paris by the time she reported but she felt that the Irish responses were poor, trifling, polite, short and unsatisfactory.21
The reason the Irish responses were so cool was because Charlemont and Grattan had no enthusiasm for further political involvement of the Volunteers. Flood was anxious to keep the Volunteers onside as part of his rivalry with Grattan but he had never been a supporter of reform or broadening the franchise, much less the extension of political rights to Roman Catholics. The third Dungannon Convention was held on 8 September and 272 corps attended, as did fifteen MPs. Charlemont and Grattan stayed away. Flood started out for Dungannon but never made it due to an attack of gout. In the event, the Convention ‘achieved little beyond issuing the summons for a National Reform Convention in Dublin for 10th November’.22
In November, the National Reform Convention of the Volunteers met in the Exchange Rooms in Dublin but, because of the large attendance, it had to move to the much larger venue at the Rotunda. The earlier successful convention in Dungannon in 1782 ended in one day, having agreed several resolutions and a way forward. The Dublin Convention ran for three weeks with no such positive outcome. Many factors contributed to making this a chaotic and confused failure. Grattan was not prepared to help on this occasion as he now wanted the Volunteers to leave politics to the parliamentarians. Charlemont and his allies attended the Convention only to ensure that Frederick Hervey, the Bishop of Derry, who they regarded as an extremist and a maverick, should not unduly influence the proceedings. The bishop was an unequivocal supporter of Catholic rights. The government took the precaution of having several of its friends, including the staunch Protestant George Ogle, attend with a view to sowing division, particularly on the Catholic question.23 One of Ogle’s spoiling tactics was to mislead the Convention by stating falsely that the Catholic leadership had told him they were not seeking any relief of grievances at this time.
The Bishop of Derry tried to keep the rights of Catholics to the forefront but he was frustrated by the Charlemont moderates and the Ogle spoilers, and it looked like the Convention might have to adjourn having agreed to nothing. In desperation, the Bishop suggested that Henry Flood, who had stayed away from the Convention, should be called in to help mediate an agreed programme. Flood duly arrived and saved the day by convincing the Convention to adopt a superficial reform programme that said nothing about the Catholic question. Charlemont was hoping that Flood’s programme would be referred back to the country which could then petition parliament through constitutionally convened county meetings.24 However, Flood suggested that he and another MP, William Brownlow, would go straight over to the House of Commons and present the programme in the form of a Bill.
When Flood stood up in the House to introduce his Bill wearing his Volunteer uniform, he gave the government just the opportunity they were waiting for. The Attorney General set the tone for the government response by declaring, ‘I do not intend to go into discussion of this Bill ... if it originates with an armed body ’tis inconsistent with the freedom of debate for this House to receive it. We sit here not to register the edicts of another assembly, or to receive propositions at the point of a bayonet.’25
When Flood reported back to the Convention, the more radical element within it wanted to denounce the House of Commons. Charlemont managed to convince the majority that the Convention should adjourn and refer the reform programme to the county committees. The Volunteer movement never recovered from the fiasco that was the Dublin National Reform Convention of 1783.
Drennan did not attend the Convention but he was apparently given a comprehensive report on the proceedings from William Bruce. No record of Bruce’s report seems to have survived but Drennan’s trenchant reaction prefigures differences that would later emerge between his radicalism and Bruce’s moderation. Drennan told Bruce:
You have been wise dearest friend, very wise and you admire Flood because you are a transcript, not a faint one, of his prudence and wisdom but I almost fear to say it – times of reformation require impetuosity of spirit. Our religious reformation required such a man as Luther. Flood is too wise, to cool, perhaps too selfish to be a Luther in civil reform.
I was going to say that your assembly would have been less wise by adopting the passions as well as the reason that characterize every popular assembly but perhaps more successful than it has been as Mr. Flood’s convention. – I am presumptuous in saying so to anyone but a friend – It is the people which government fear – the rude illiterate voice of the people not Mr. Flood. You have not represented the people.
When Mr. Flood said ‘stay here in solemn convention until I return from Parliament’ was there not one high sounding enthusiastic voice to cry aloud ‘and why not go along with you – let us in the name of the just God – Let us the delegates of the people go up to the House of the People – Let us go up in slow and peaceable procession, and let the acclaim of the surrounding multitude re-echo the justice of our cause and their cause in the ears of our enemies – Let us march unarmed but undaunted into that House which is our own and in awful and terrible silence wait until the voice of the People and the voice of God was uttered by that man and then with a shout that would reverberate thru’ those polluted walls call upon them to give us our rights – I am sometime so enthusiastic as to think that more might have been obtained by some showy method as this without losing one drop of blood. We are the slaves of our eyes and our ears – The hearts of the ministers would have withered within them and 60,000 Volunteers would not have been insulted by quondam usher of a boarding school.’26
The final barb was directed at Barry Yelverton the Attorney General who had once been an assistant master at the Hibernian Academy.
Just how much damage had been done to the morale and status of the Volunteer movement by the debacle that was the National Reform Convention of 1783 became all too apparent a year later when yet another Volunteer Convention gathered in the Exchange Rooms, Dublin, on 25 October 1784. There was no need to adjourn to a bigger venue on this occasion. There were only thirty-six delegates present. Just fourteen counties and eight towns were represented. Even more indicative of decline was the lack of interest from Ulster. Only two counties, Antrim and Donegal, and two towns, Belfast and Lisburn, sent delegates. The small delegation from Ulster included ‘Rev. Sinclair Kelburn of the Belfast Third Congregation, Rev. William Bruce of Lisburn and William Drennan’.27 The best