"We know," they said, "our duty to our sovereign and our loyalty; we know our duty to ourselves and are resolved to be free." "As Irishmen, as Christians, and as Protestants" they rejoiced in the relaxation of penal laws and upheld the sacred rights of all to freedom of religion. A week later Grattan moved in the House of Commons an address to the king--that the people of this country are a free people; that the crown of Ireland is an imperial crown; and the kingdom of Ireland a distinct kingdom with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof. The battle opened by Molyneux a hundred years before was won. The Act of 1719, by which the English parliament had justified its usurpation of powers, was repealed (1782). "To set aside all doubts" another Act (1783) declared that the right of Ireland to be governed solely by the king and the parliament of Ireland was now established and ascertained, and should never again be questioned or questionable. On April 16, 1782, Grattan passed through the long ranks of Volunteers drawn up before the old Parliament House of Ireland, to proclaim the victory of his country. "I am now to address a free people. Ages have passed away, and this is the first moment in which you could be distinguished by that appellation.... Ireland is now a nation. In that character I hail her, and bowing in her august presence, I say _esto perpetua!_" The first act of the emancipated parliament was to vote a grant for twenty thousand sailors for the English navy. That day of a nation's exultation and thanksgiving was brief. The restored parliament entered into a gloomy inheritance--an authority which had been polluted and destroyed--an almost ruined country. The heritage of a tyranny prolonged through centuries was not to be got rid of rapidly. England gave to Ireland half a generation for the task.