Note 250 — 597.

The French Revolution had stirred the political spirit of the Irish nation as, ten years before, it had been aroused by the American War. It appealed most strongly to the people by the abolition of tithes and all religious disqualifications. The Presbyterians of the North were Republican in their sympathies, and ready to make common cause with the Roman Catholics for the repeal of all penal laws and the extension of the franchise. The United Irishmen were the growth of this approximation of parties. Among the Roman Catholics also there was a rapid spread of the democratic spirit. The English Government was ready to grant a liberal measure of Catholic relief and to extend the suffrage to the Roman Catholics. At first the Irish Government strongly opposed any change which threatened the maintenance of Protestant ascendency. But the danger of union between the Protestant Republicans and the Catholic democrats became apparent, when the Catholic Convention met at Dublin in December, 1792, and a Relief Bill, repealing many oppressive enactments and conceding the franchise, was carried, almost without opposition, in the beginning of 1793. The Roman Catholics, it may be added, were excluded from the Irish Parliament in the reign of William III. (3 W. & M. c. 2) and deprived of the franchise in that of George II. (1 Geo. II. c. 9). Lord Sheffield, as a later letter shows, agreed with the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Westmorland, in advocating resistance to the Catholics "in limine and in toto," and in thinking that the suspicion, that the "British Government means to take up the Catholics, and to play what is called a Catholic game," would disastrously weaken the hold of the Government upon the country. Burke (Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 32) seems to suggest that Lord Sheffield was prejudiced by the possession of Irish property in the county of Louth.