Grattan, HENRY, one of the greatest of Irish patriots and orators, and, like Curran, Flood, Isaac Butt, and Parnell, a Protestant, was born in Dublin, July 3, 1746. His father was recorder of the city, and one of its members from 1761 till his death in 1766; his mother was daughter of Thomas Marlay, Chief-justice of Ireland, one of whose sons lived to become Bishop of Waterford. At seventeen he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and here gave himself with remarkable eagerness to the study of classics. Already Henry Flood had been forming a regular party of opposition in the Irish House of Commons, and young Grattan embraced his reforming principles with such impolitic ardour that his irate father disinherited him from such property as he could alienate. At twenty-one he entered the Middle Temple, London, and read law in a desultory fashion, nourishing his peculiar ambition the while by listening to the debates in the House of Commons and by constantly declaiming in set terms to imaginary audiences in the privacy of his chamber. In 1772 he was called to the Irish bar, and three years later, through the influence of the genial and enlightened Earl of Charlemont and by the advice of Flood, entered the Irish parliament as member for the borough of Charlemont. It was but two months before that Flood had thrown away his popularity by accepting office under government, and the young orator leaped at one bound into his place. He found the nation fast drifting to bankruptcy and ruin from the loss of market that followed the war with America, and the odious restrictions upon Irish trade that had come down from the days of William III.; and he at once flung himself with all the vehemence of his nature into the cause of retrenchment and reform.
Meantime, in the dread of French invasion, the volunteer movement spread from Belfast over Ireland, and ere long the attitude of the people in their demand for free export became so formidable that Lord North, whose own inclinations had formerly been thwarted by the interested opposition of the English manufacturers, granted in 1779 a total repeal of all the restriction acts. This gained, Grattan plunged into a greater struggle for nothing less than legislative independence. On the 19th April 1780 he made perhaps his greatest speech, concluding with a memorable series of resolutions to the effect that while the crown of Ireland was inseparably annexed to that of England, the king with the consent of the parliament of Ireland was alone competent to enact laws to bind Ireland. After fifteen hours the debate was adjourned indefinitely, but all men felt that Grattan had gained a great moral victory. The popular demands were formulated at the Convention of Dungannon (February 15, 1782), and asserted by Grattan in a famous speech (April 16), which began with the words, 'I am now to address a free people.' A month later the Rockingham ministry, which numbered among its members Grattan's friend Fox, surrendered apparently unconditionally, and the Irish parliament in gratitude voted Grattan a reward of £50,000. Unfortunately the question was soon raised whether the mere repeal of the Declaratory Act (6 Geo. I. chap. 5) was sufficient as a renunciation of the principle of England's right to legislate for Ireland. Grattan wished his countrymen to trust to the generous instincts of English honour, and accept the gift without factious wrangling about the manner of its giving, but Flood put himself at the head of the malcontents, demanding 'simple repeal' and renunciation rather than concessions granted merely to the exigency of the moment. He carried the mass of his countrymen with him, and what was perhaps the historic moment for the reconciliation of England and Ireland was lost. The quarrel between the two leaders culminated in one dramatic scene on the floor of the house, when Grattan overpowered his antagonist with a tornado of rhetoric that has perhaps never been surpassed for the ruthless energy of its invective.
The history of 'Grattan's parliament,' as it has deservedly been called, did not correspond to the patriotic dreams of its great founder. It was impossible for a parliament so little really representative and so much subject to corruption and undue influences from without to rise into the region of real statesmanship. In his ideas about the rights of his Catholic fellow-countrymen Grattan was far more advanced than most of his own followers. Apart altogether from the fact that the Roman Catholics, comprising two-thirds of the whole population, were entirely without representation; out of a house of 300 members no fewer than two-thirds were nominated by but a hundred patrons. The urgent need of parliamentary reform and the remedy of domestic abuses soon occupied the minds of all Irish patriots, the high-minded and the self-seeking alike. Once more at Dungannon there assembled on September 8, 1783, as many as 500 delegates to formulate the demands for parliamentary reform, which were presented to the house by Flood and rejected, while Grattan looked on in a kind of neutrality that was perhaps a consequence of the recent quarrel. He devoted himself to advocating the reform of special abuses, but his Place and Pension Bill, as well as his bills to prevent revenue officers from voting at elections, and offices of state being given to absentees, and for the commutation of ecclesiastical tithes, were in turn rejected.
Meantime continued commercial depression had produced a strong counter-feeling in Ireland for protection, which was yet unable to prevent the Secretary Orde's remedial measure for absolute free trade from being carried. This measure, however, Pitt found himself unable to carry in the English House of Commons, except subject to a number of stipulations, one of which was that all English navigation laws now and hereafter were to be adopted as such by the Irish parliament; and to this Grattan and the Irish patriots found themselves unable to accede, as an outrage upon the freedom of the Irish parliament. Pitt's mortification at this and his displeasure at the independent attitude of the Irish parliament in the regency dispute of 1789 helped to confirm his determination that union was the only effective means of final pacification. Grattan was returned for the city of Dublin in 1790, and by this time he had definitely taken up the cause of Catholic emancipation. The corruption of the Castle government and of a parliament venal beyond all precedent; the persistent repression of the agitation for Catholic relief, changed for a moment into hope at the appointment of Fitzwilliam as Lord-lieutenant, only to be dashed to the ground again by his withdrawal; and the spirit of discontent generated by the French Revolution that was now everywhere in the air had fomented the movement of the United Irishmen, which was to be extinguished in the bloodshed of 1798. Hopeless of his country and broken by ill-health, Grattan retired to his house at Tinnelinch on the eve of the rebellion, but returned to take his seat for Wicklow in the last session of the Irish parliament. Weak as he was he fought the bill for the Union with an heroic courage that would have overcome everything but the gold and the coronets of Pitt, pouring his showers of invective upon the head of Corry the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who retorted with a challenge, and in the duel was wounded in the arm. Once more Grattan retired to private life, from which he emerged in 1805 as member for Malton in Yorkshire, and for Dublin the following year. His first speech in the English House of Commons fully sustained his oratorical reputation. It contained the well-known passage about the Irish parliament: 'Of that assembly I have a parental recollection. I sat by her cradle; I followed her hearse.' The remaining energies of his life were devoted to the cause of Catholic emancipation, which he reiterated was the price of the union, apart altogether from the intrinsic justice of the demand. 'A great majority cannot overcome a great principle. God will guard his own cause against rank majorities. In vain shall men appeal to a church cry, or to a mock thunder; the proprietor of the bolt is on the side of the people.' Instead of one-sided 'securities' he demanded from his opponents adequate reasons for their opposition—'some apology to after ages for inflicting on one-fourth of their fellow-subjects political damnation to all eternity.' Despite all his eloquence and the support of Canning and other statesmen, he was not to see triumph in his lifetime. In December 1819 his health began finally to give way; but as he grew weaker his responsibility to this question weighed the more upon his mind. On the 20th of the following May he crossed from Dublin, a dying man, to speak once more for the cause, and, unable to bear the motion of a carriage, was carried to London from Liverpool by canal. But his voice was never to be heard again. A day or two after his arrival he sank, a prayer for his country on his lips, June 4, 1820. He was buried in Westminster Abbey beside the grave of Fox.
Grattan's figure was small and spare; his face long, thin, and slightly marked by smallpox. His gestures in speaking were violent and eccentric, and his voice of no great volume, yet he wielded his listeners at will by his energy and passion, his overpowering earnestness and enthusiasm. He was a consummate master of epigram, and few orators have had his rapidity and vigour. His description of Flood as standing 'with a metaphor in his mouth and a bribe in his pocket' is but one among a hundred phrases that will never be forgotten. His patriotism was enlightened and incorruptible, and his honour remains without a stain.
The best collection of his Speeches is that made by his son, Henry Grattan, M.P. (4 vols. 1822), who also edited in the same year his Miscellaneous Works. The standard Life is also that by his son (5 vols. 1839-46), but this is far from being a satisfactory work. See also the sympathetic essay in W. E. H. Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (2d ed. 1872); Dunlop's excellent study in the 'Statesmen' series (1889); and Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century, vols. vii and viii.