The era of concessions was approaching. The first were granted to Ireland, which had violently risen up against the restriction placed upon its commerce, and against the act of George II., which attributed to the English Parliament, in conjunction with the king, the right of legislating on the condition of Ireland without the participation of the Irish Houses. {311} The eloquence of Henry Grattan potently served the national cause; oppressive or arbitrary laws were abrogated. The king at the same time announced his intention of entering on the path of economic reforms. Already young and ardent spirits foresaw other reforms, but Burke, who was a passionate friend of the retrenchment of expenses and pensions, was beside himself with anger when parliamentary privileges appeared in question. Fox had with difficulty restrained him on the subject of a motion of young Pitt, who had recently entered the House, noticed and esteemed by all. He soon blazed forth with all the customary transport of his character and talent. "Burke has at last unburdened his heart with the most magnificent improvidence," wrote Sheridan to Fitzpatrick. "He attacked William Pitt with cries of rage, and swore that Parliament was and had always been what it ought to be, and that whoever thought to reform it wished to overturn the constitution." In the midst of parliamentary discords and shocks of power, other preoccupations continued to weigh upon the nation, saddened and humiliated by the state of affairs in America, and daily more convinced that peace, however sorrowful, was indispensable. A brilliant success of Admirals Rodney and Hood against the Count de Grasse had for an instant reanimated the pride and the hopes of the English. Although a good sailor, and for a long time fortunate in war, the French admiral had at various times shown himself short-sighted and credulous. He let himself be driven away from St. Christopher, which he was besieging, and of which the Marquis de Bouillé took possession some days later. He was embarrassed by his ships, which had suffered heavy damages. {312} The two fleets met between St. Lucia and Jamaica; the combat lasted ten hours without stoppage of cannonading; the French squadron was cut up; one after another the captains were killed. "We passed near the _Glorieux_," wrote an eye-witness; "it was almost completely dismasted; but the white flag was nailed to one of the shattered masts, and seemed in its ruin to defy us still. Henceforth incapable of action, the enormous mass presented a spectacle which struck the imagination of our admiral. As he spends his life reading Homer, he exclaimed that he was now working to raise the body of Patrocles." The vessel of the French Admiral, the _Ville de Paris_, was attacked at once by seven hostile ships; his own could not succeed in approaching him. The Count de Grasse, full of sorrow and anger, still fought when all hope was long since lost. "The admiral is