[12] Lecky, "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," vol. ii.,
pp. 124-126.

[13] Trevelyan, "The American Revolution," vol. i., p. 16.

[14] See "The Irish Race in America," by Captain Ed. O'Meagher Condore.

[15] "History of the British Army," vol. iii.




CHAPTER III

GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT


We left Ireland in 1782 apparently in possession of a triumph as great
as that of America, though won without bloodshed and without the least
tincture of sedition; for the Volunteers of 1782 were as loyal to the
Crown as the most ardent American royalists. In the light of political
ideas developed at a much later period, we know that the American
Colonies might have remained within the Empire, even if their utmost
claims had been granted. Had the idea of responsible government been
understood, it would have been realized that their exclusive control of
taxation and legislation was not inconsistent with Imperial Union, but
essential to it. Grattan and his Irish friends, ignorant of the true
solution, honestly thought, in the intoxication of the moment, that they
had solved the problem so disastrously bungled for America. The facts of