island was the general demoralization of all classes.  Mr. Fronde gives George III. himself the credit of being the first person who resolutely desired to see a change of the system, and to “try the experiment whether Ireland might not be managed by open rectitude and real integrity."[128] But his first efforts were baffled by the carelessness or incompetency of the Viceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office.  And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but that of controlling the Castle and engrossing the patronage of the government, and in not a few instances of also procuring large grants or pensions for themselves, each seeking to build up an individual influence which no Viceroy could ever have withstood, had they been united instead of being separated by mutual jealousies, which enabled him from time to time to play off one against the other.

But the war with the North American Colonies, which broke out in 1774, by some of its indirect consequences brought about a great change in the affairs of Ireland.  The demand for re-enforcements to the armies engaged in America could only be met by denuding the British islands themselves of their necessary garrisons.  No part of them was left so undefended as the Irish coast; and, after a time, the captains of some of the American privateers, learning how little resistance they had to fear, ventured into St. George’s Channel, penetrated even into the inland waters, and threatened Carrickfergus and Belfast.  In matters of domestic policy it was possible to procrastinate, to defer deciding on relaxations of the penal laws or the removal of trade restrictions, but to delay putting the country into a state of defence against an armed enemy for a single moment was not to be thought of; yet the government was powerless.  Of the regular army almost every available man was in, or on his way to, America, and the most absolute necessity, therefore, compelled the Irish to consider themselves as left to their own resources for defence.  It was as impossible to levy a force of militia as one of regular troops, for the militia could not be embodied without great expense; and the finances of the whole kingdom had been so mismanaged that money was as hard to procure as men.  In this emergency several gentlemen proposed to the Lord-lieutenant to raise bodies of volunteers.  The government, though reluctant to sanction the movement, could see no alternative, since the presence of an armed force of some kind was indispensable for the safety of the island.  The movement grew rapidly; by the summer of 1779 several thousand men were not only under arms, but were being rapidly drilled into a state of efficiency, and had even established such a reputation for strength, that, when in the autumn the same privateers that had been so bold in Belfast Lough the year before reached the Irish coast, in the hope of plundering Limerick or