There is a good deal to be said for the assertion that after the rebellion of 1798 the continuance of the experiment of 1782 was a source of danger to Great Britain in her life and death struggle with France. But there is no ground for the contention that the constitution itself was intrinsically unworkable. Its congenital weakness was that the Executive was responsible not to the Irish but to the British Parliament. Friction between the Legislature and the Executive was thus inevitable; but with tact and goodwill even this anomaly need not have stopped the working of the machine. What would have happened had the British Ministry unselfishly co-operated with Grattan and the moderate Nationalists to secure urgent political and economic reforms we can but conjecture. But we know only too well the effect of withholding such co-operation. There is scarcely a trace in the voluminous correspondence of the Viceroys, except perhaps the Duke of Rutland, of any consideration for the good of the country over which they ruled. Their mandate was to watch the interest of England. When Cornwallis proposed in 1798 that Castlereagh should become Chief Secretary, the King objected that the post ought to be held by a Briton; but his scruples were allayed by the Viceroy’s assurance that his candidate was “so very unlike an Irishman” that the appointment would be perfectly safe. There is no ground whatever for the notion that the Parliament was a wholly corrupt and reactionary body. That Grattan was not prepared to endanger the Protestant Ascendency is true but irrelevant; for he was ready to champion such measures of Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation as would have transformed Parliament into a tolerable mirror of Irish opinion. There can be little doubt that if the Executive had lent its aid, such measures could have been carried as easily as the Relief Bill of 1793.