by the civil law, 'if a man should separate from his wife, desert and abandon her for seven years, another might then take her and give her his protection.' " The next occasion upon which Flood prominently came before the public was on the question of " simple repeal." He asserted that the simple repeal of the Acts that had fettered Ireland was not enough — that there should be a formal renunciation of them by the British Parliament. Grattan was willing to confide in the honour of the British Government; Flood declared that Great Britain would upon the first opportunity endeavour to reassert her lost supremacy. The conflict that ensued between Flood and Grattan was most unfortunate. Having gained so much, mainly by the influence of the Volunteers, it was desirable that the country should settle down into the old paths of constitutional action. But Flood's declamations threw Ireland into a state of fresh unsettlement. In October 1783 occurred a deplorable altercation between Flood and Grattan in Parliament. An uncalled-for allusion to Flood's illness escaped from Grattan in the heat of a debate. "Flood rose indignantly, and after a few words of preface, launched into a fierce diatribe against his opponent. His task was a difficult one, for few men presented a more unassailable character. Invective, however, of the most outrageous description, was the custom of the time, and invective between good and great men is necessarily unjust. He dwelt with bitter emphasis on the grant the Parliament had made to Grattan. He described him as ' that mendicant patriot who was bought by his country, and sold that country for prompt payment;' and he dilated with the keenest sarcasm upon the decline of his popularity. He concluded in a somewhat exultant tone : 'Permit me to say that if the honourable gentleman often provokes such contests as this, he will have but little to boast of at the end of the session.' Grattan, however, was not unprepared. He had long foreseen the collision, and had embodied all his angry feeling in one elaborate speech. Employing the common artifice of an imaginary character, he painted the whole career of his opponent in the blackest colours, condensed in a few masterly sentences all the charges that had ever been brought against him, and sat down, having delivered an invective, which for concentrated and crushing power is almost or altogether unrivalled in modern oratory. Thus terminated the friendship between two men who had done
more than any who were then living for their country, who had known each other for twenty years, and whose lives are imperishably associated in history. Flood afterwards presided at a meeting of the Volunteers where a resolution complimentary to Grattan was passed; Grattan, in his pamphlet on the Union, and more than once in private conversation, gave noble testimony to the greatness of Flood; but they were never reconciled again, and their cordial co-operation, which was of such inestimable importance to the country, was henceforth almost an impossibility."
212 Flood and Grattan attempted a hostile meeting at Blackrock, but were interrupted by sheriffs officers, and were bound over to keep the peace towards each other for two years. In the Volunteer Reform Convention of 1783, Flood took a leading part, and the result of its deliberations was the preparation of a Reform Bill giving votes to all Protestant forty-shilling freeholders, and to leaseholders for thirty-one years of which fifteen were unexpired ; extending the franchise in decayed boroughs to the adjoining parishes; excluding from Parliament pensioners who held pensions during pleasure, while those who accepted pension or place should vacate their seats; prescribing that each member was to take an oath that he had not been guilty of bribery; limiting the duration of Parliament to three years. The Bill was sadly one-sided, in not extending the political power to the Catholics, a point upon which Flood and Charlemont were equally firm. Flood brought this Volunteer Reform Bill before Parliament in a speech of singular vigour and brilliancy; his recovered popularity dispelled the gloom that had so long hung over his mind. It was, however, strenuously opposed by a majority of the members, declared to be insulting to the House as emanating from an armed convention, and was defeated by 150 to 77. Grattan voted in the minority. A resolution followed tantamount to a vote of censure on the Volunteers. Next year Flood made another effort for reform, and, failing in it, carried into effect his purpose of leaving Ireland, and entering the British Parliament. Although ofiered a seat by the Duke of Chandos, he preferred independence, and purchased one at a cost of £4,000. Grattan's surmise proved correct, that "he was an oak of the forest too great and too old to be transplanted at fifty." He made little impression in the British Parliament. We are told that "the slow, measured, and sententious style of enunciation which I characterized his eloquence — however cal-
