This marriage led to a close intimacy with Flood, who resided at Farmly, not far from Bushe's house. Flood was useful to Grattan in many ways, and, above all, in encouraging him to enter political life. With Flood he contributed to the series of political papers in the ‘Freeman's Journal’ afterwards collected together and published under the title of ‘Baratariana.’ Grattan's contributions were the dedication to Lord Townshend, the letters signed ‘Posthumus’ and ‘Pericles,’ and the well-known description of Chatham, which was appended as a note to the ‘Ballad on the rejection of the altered Money Bill.’ In Hilary term 1772 Grattan was called to the Irish bar. Writing to his friend Broome in February 1772, he says: ‘I am now called to the bar, without knowledge or ambition in my profession. The Four Courts are of all places the most disagreeable; the lawyers in general are an ardent, rather than an eloquent society. My purpose is undetermined; my passion is retreat; I am resolved to gratify it at any expense’ (Grattan, Life, i. 258). He now tried to apply himself seriously to the law, and went circuit, where he lost a case in which he had been specially retained, and was so chagrined at his failure that he returned to the client half the fee. Politics, however, continued to have a greater attraction for Grattan than the law, and whenever he was in Dublin he was a frequent attendant at the club known as ‘The Society of Granby Row,’ to which Lord Charlemont and others of the popular party belonged.
In November 1775 Francis Caulfeild, one of the members for the borough of Charlemont, was drowned with his wife and two daughters on their passage to Dublin, and Grattan, accepting Lord Charlemont's offer of the vacant seat in the Irish parliament, was returned for the borough in the following month. Flood had but a few weeks previously accepted the post of joint vice-treasurer, and the popular cause was in want of an eloquent leader. Grattan quickly made his mark in the house. On 15 Dec., only four days after he had taken his seat, Grattan made his maiden speech, and opposed the grant of 3,600l. a year to the three vice-treasurers, two of whom were absentees. In February 1776 Grattan supported Walter Hussey Burgh [q. v.] in his attack upon the government for laying an embargo by proclamation on the export of provisions from Ireland. In the session of 1777 Grattan again unsuccessfully attacked the embargo, protested against the improper grant of pensions, and condemned the English policy in America. In February 1778 Grattan's motion for an address to the king in favour of economical reform was opposed by Flood, and rejected by 143 to 66 votes. On 12 Oct. 1779 Grattan moved an amendment to the address, declaring that the only effectual remedy for the existing distress in Ireland was ‘to open its ports for exportation of all its manufactures.’ After a long and animated debate, a shorter amendment affirming the necessity of ‘free trade’ was, at the suggestion of Hussey Burgh and Flood, unanimously adopted, and the address thus amended was presented to the lord-lieutenant by the house in a body, the volunteers lining the streets, and presenting arms to the speaker and the members as they proceeded to the castle. On 24 Nov. Grattan followed up his success by carrying a resolution ‘that at this time it would be inexpedient to grant new taxes,’ by 170 to 47, and on the following day supported Trench's motion for granting the loan duties for six months only, which was carried by a majority of thirty-eight. But though in consequence of these remonstrances several bills were passed by the English parliament abolishing many of the restrictions on Irish trade, Grattan felt that these commercial boons, which Lord North had described as ‘resumable at pleasure,’ were exceedingly precarious without legislative independence. In spite of the fears of Charlemont and the remonstrances of Burke [q. v.], Grattan now made up his mind to obtain the repeal of the Irish act, known as Poynings' Law, by which all bills passed in the Irish parliament, excepting money bills, were subject to revision by the English privy council, and of the English Declaratory Act (6 Geo. I, c. 5), which formally asserted the right of the English parliament to legislate for Ireland. On 19 April 1780 he introduced his resolution declaratory of Irish legislative independence, in a speech of wonderful fire (Speeches, i. 39–53). ‘The oration which he made on that occasion,’ says Hardy, ‘can never be forgotten by those that heard it. The language of Milton or Shakespeare can alone describe its effects’ (Life of Lord Charlemont, i. 394). After a debate of fifteen hours the question was indefinitely postponed, and no record of any decision was made in the journals of the house. In the same year Grattan attempted, without success, to limit the duration of the Perpetual Mutiny Bill. On 13 Nov. 1781 Grattan renewed his attack on the Mutiny Act in the house, and at the same time published a pamphlet attacking its provisions, entitled: ‘Observations on the Mutiny Bill, with some Strictures on Lord Buckinghamshire's Administration in Ireland’ (Miscellaneous Works, pp. 11–39), which went through several editions. At a meeting
