"If conciliation be a pledge of national tranquillity and
contentment; if it be a spell to allay popular ferment; there
is not a nation in Europe in which it has had so fair a trial
as in the Kingdom of Ireland. For a period of nearly twenty
years a liberal and unvaried system of concession and
conciliation has been pursued and acted on by the British
Government. Concession and conciliation have produced only a
fresh stock of grievances; other discontents of Ireland have
kept pace with her prosperity; for I am bold to say there
is not a nation on the habitable globe which has advanced in
cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and in manufactures
with the same rapidity in the same period. Her progress is now
retarded, and it is a heart-breaking spectacle to every man
who loves the country to see it arrested only by the perverse
and factious folly of the people, stimulated and encouraged by
disappointed statesmen."

Within a few months after that speech was made, Ireland was well-nigh
ruined. All the progress in material prosperity which had taken place
in the years immediately following 1782 was swept away. The national
debt, which in 1791 had stood at £2,442,890, involving an annual
charge of £142,716, had risen to £26,662,640, with an annual charge of
£1,395,735; the exports of woollen goods had almost ceased, and those
of linen gone down by more than a third; other industries showed
a decay nearly as lamentable; public bankruptcy seemed inevitable.
Though the violent outbreak of rebellion had been put down, many parts
of the country were in a state of anarchy. In the west, armed bands
went about every night houghing the cattle and murdering all who dared
to oppose them. If any man prosecuted one of the offenders, he did