which he described as ‘the prodigality, jobbing, misapplication and corruption of every Irish minister since 1727’ (ib. i. 288). In the following year, though he gave the Riot Bill, which was introduced by the government, his general support, he endeavoured at the same time to mitigate its stringency, and obtained the withdrawal of the most outrageous clause. In order to relieve the intolerable distress of the peasantry, and to remove the chief cause of the Whiteboy disturbances, Grattan, in this year, and also in 1788 and 1789, brought forward the question of tithe commutation. But though his speeches on this subject, the minutest details of which he had thoroughly mastered, were among the best which he ever made, his proposals, excepting those which exempted barren lands from tithes, were invariably rejected. On the meeting of the Irish parliament in February 1789, the question of the regency was immediately discussed. The proposal of the government to proceed by bill was rejected. Grattan insisting that the proper course was to request the Prince of Wales to exercise the full royal authority during the king's illness, supported Connolly's motion to that effect, which was agreed to without a division. In consequence of the lord-lieutenant's refusal to transmit the address, Grattan on 20 Feb. moved a series of resolutions appointing a deputation from the two houses to present the address to the Prince of Wales, asserting the privileges of the House of Commons, and censuring the conduct of the lord-lieutenant. In June, Grattan, with Lord Charlemont, Ponsonby, and Forbes, founded the Whig Club in Dublin, the objects of which, as Grattan afterwards explained, were ‘to obtain an internal reform of parliament, in which they partly succeeded,’ and ‘to prevent an union, in which they failed’ (Sir J. Barrington, Memoirs, ii. 146, note). Hitherto Grattan since the legislative independence of the Irish parliament had given a general but independent support to the government. Disgusted with the system of wholesale corruption pursued by the Castle, he now went into opposition. His motion for a select committee to inquire into the corrupt agreements for the sale of peerages and the purchase of seats in the House of Commons was rejected, on 20 Feb. 1790, by 144 to 88 votes. At the general election in this year Grattan and Lord Henry Fitzgerald were returned at the head of the poll for the city of Dublin. In February 1791 Grattan again brought forward the question of parliamentary corruption without success, and in a speech of great power delivered in the debate on the address in January 1792 once more referred to the subject in the most scathing terms (Speeches, ii. 340–57). In the following month he supported Langrishe's Roman Catholic Relief Bill, asserting that ‘the removal of all disabilities is necessary to make the catholic a freeman, and the protestant a people’ (ib. p. 376). In 1793 he unsuccessfully submitted his resolutions on parliamentary reform and for promoting commercial equality between England and Ireland. Though regretting that it did not go far enough, he supported Hobart's Roman Catholic Bill, but strenuously opposed the Convention Bill which passed at the end of the session, pronouncing it to be ‘an anti-whig and unconstitutional measure, and the boldest step that ever yet was made to introduce a military government’ (ib. iii. 109). At the opening of the session of 1794 he supported the government on the question of the war with France, asserting that whenever Great Britain ‘should be clearly involved in war, it is my idea that Ireland should grant her a decided and unequivocal support; except that war should be carried on against her own liberty’ (ib. iii. 117). He again brought forward the subject of the commercial regulations between England and Ireland, and supported W. B. Ponsonby's Reform Bill, which was rejected by 142 to 44 votes. In the autumn of 1794 Grattan had an interview with Pitt, from whom he understood that the ministers intended to make a change in their policy towards Ireland, and that though they would not bring forward a roman catholic relief bill as a government measure, they would yield it if pressed.
Lord Fitzwilliam, who had failed in persuading Grattan to accept office, arrived in Ireland on 4 Jan. 1795 as the new lord-lieutenant, and immediately set about the work of reform. On 12 Feb. Grattan obtained leave to bring in a bill for the further relief of the Roman catholics. On 24 March Fitzwilliam, who had approved of Grattan's measure, was recalled, and on 21 April Grattan moved for a committee to inquire into the state of the nation, and severely animadverted on the conduct of the ministry. Though defeated by 158 to 48 he determined to proceed with his bill, which was rejected after a long debate in the morning of 5 May by 155 to 84. In the following year he twice brought the question of Irish commerce before the house without any success, and also vainly attempted to amend the Insurrection Bill. In the autumn session he supported Ponsonby in his opposition to the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, while his own resolution in
