Before the Irish parliament met after the Easter recess the Rockingham ministry came into office; Carlisle was abruptly removed, and the Duke of Portland was appointed to succeed him. Rockingham, Fox, and Burke were anxious to satisfy Ireland, but the ministry seems not to have determined its exact line of policy. An attempt was made to embarrass the ministers by Eden, Carlisle's chief secretary, apparently in revenge for their discourteous treatment of Carlisle. Without consultation with them, he proposed the repeal of the act of 9 George I. which asserted the right of the king and parliament of Great Britain to legislate for Ireland. Fox opposed the motion and it was withdrawn. The next day, April 9, the ministers brought a royal message to parliament recommending to its consideration means of satisfying Irish discontent. The spirit manifested in the Dungannon meeting overcame the resistance of the Irish parliament, and the nation was united in its demands. Rockingham and Fox tried in vain to persuade Grattan to give them time for consideration.[165] On the 16th he moved an address to the king in the Irish parliament asserting independence, and it was carried unanimously. The ministers, misled by Portland, believed that the Irish demands might be modified, and proposed negotiation. Grattan refused, and they yielded everything. On May 17 resolutions, afterwards followed by statutes, were carried without division in both houses, conceding legislative independence to Ireland, restoring the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish house of lords, and limiting the mutiny act. Ireland thus became almost an independent state. It remained connected with Great Britain by the tie of the crown, it had no executive dependent on its parliament, and its legislation was subject to a ministerial veto. The revolution of 1782, pressed on by Grattan, set up relations between the two kingdoms which were anomalous and fraught with danger. [Sidenote: _THE "BATTLE OF THE SAINTS"._]