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FLOOD, HENRY (1732-1791) , Irish statesman, son of Warden Flood, chief
gift of eloquence which had been cultivated and developed by study of classical oratory and the practice of elocution. Flood therefore possessed every personal advantage when, in 1759, he entered the Irish parliament as member for Kilkenny in his twenty-seventh year. There was at that time no party in the Irish House of Commons that could truly be called national, and until a few years before there had been none that deserved even the name of an opposition. The Irish parliament was still constitutionally subordinate to the English privy council; it had practically no powers of independent legislation, and none of controlling the policy. of the executive, which was nominated by the ministers in London (see GRATTAN, HENRY). Though the great majority of the people were Roman Catholics, no person of that faith could either enter parliament or exercise the franchise; the penal code, which made it almost impossible for a Roman Catholic to hold property, to follow a learned profession, or even to educate his children, and which in numerous particulars pressed severely on the Roman Catholics and subjected them to degrading conditions, was as yet unrepealed, though in practice largely obsolete; the industry and commerce of Ireland were throttled by restrictions imposed, in accordance with the economic theories of the period, in the interest
opinion with definite intelligible aims.The chief
list
establishment of a national militia, and, above all, the complete legislative independence of the Irish parliament. For some years little was accomplished; but in 1768 the English ministry, which had special reasons at the moment for avoiding unpopularity in Ireland, allowed an octennial bill to pass, which was the first step towards making the Irish House of Commons in some measure representative of public opinion . It had become the practice to allow crown patronage in Ireland to be exercised by the owners of parliamentary boroughs in return for their under-taking to manage the House in the government interest
' Walpole's George III., iv. 348. 525 of powerful letters after the his collaborators being Henry Flood contributed a series manner of Junius, one of Grattan. The success which had thus far attended Flood's efforts had placed him in a position such as no Irish politician had previously attained. He had, as an eminent historian of Ireland observes, proved himself beyond all comparison the greatest popular orator that his country had yet produced, and also a consummate master of parliamentary tactics. Under parliamentary conditions that were exceedingly unfavourable, and in an atmosphere charged with corruption, venality and subserviency, he had created a party before which ministers had begun to quail, and had inoculated the Protestant constituencies with a genuine spirit of liberty and self-reliance."' Lord Harcourt, who succeeded Townsend as viceroy, saw that Flood must be con-ciliated at any price " rather than risk
Flood continued in office for nearly seven years. During this long period he necessarily remained silent on the subject of the independence of the Irish parliament, and had to be content with advocating minor reforms as occasion offered. He was thus instrumental in obtaining bounties on the export of Irish corn to foreign countries and some other trifling commercial concessions. Qn the other hand he failed to procure the passing of a Habeas Corpus bill and a bill for making the judges irremovable, while his support of Lord North's American policy still more gravely injured his popularity and reputation. But an important event in 1778 led indirectly to his recovering to some extent his former position in the country; this event was the alliance of France with the revolted American colonies. Ireland was thereby placed in peril of a French invasion, while the English government could provide no troops to defend the island. The celebrated volunteer movement
movement
2 W. E. H. Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., 1903), I. 48. 3 nee Hardy
and by increasing signs of popular disaffection, led at last in 1782 to the concession of the demand, together with a number of other important reforms (see GRATTAN, HENRY). No sooner, however, was this great success gained than a question aroseknown as the Simple Repeal controversyas to whether England, in addition to the repeal of the Acts on which the subordination of the Irish parliament had been based, should not be required expressly to renounce for the future all claim to control Irish legislation. The chief historical importance of this dispute is that it led to the memorable rupture of friendship between Flood and Grattan, each of whom assailed the other with unmeasured but magnificently eloquent invective in the House of Commons. Flood's view prevailedfor a Renunciation Act such as he advocated was ungrudgingly passed by the English parliament in 1783and for a time he regained popularity at the expense of his rival. Flood next (28th of November 1783) introduced a reform bill, after first submitting it to the Volunteer Convention. The bill, which contained no provision for giving the franchise to Roman Catholicsa proposal which Flood always opposedwas rejected, ostensibly on the ground that the attitude of the volunteers threatened the freedom of parliament. The volunteers were perfectly loyal to the crown and the connexion with England. They carried an address to the king, moved by Flood, expressing the hope that their support of parliamentary reform might be imputed to nothing but a sober and laudable desire to uphold the constitution . . . and to perpetuate the cordial union of both kingdoms." The convention then dissolved, though Flood had desired, in opposition to Grattan, to continue it as a means of putting pressure on parliament for the purpose of obtaining reform. In 1776 Flood had made an attempt to enter the English House of Commons. In 1783 he tried again, this time with success. He purchased a seat for Winchester from the duke of Chandos, and for the next seven years he was a member at the same time of both the English and Irish parliaments. He reintroduced, but without success, his reform bill in the Irish House in 1784; supported the movement for protecting Irish industries; but short-sightedly opposed Pitt's commercial propositions in 1785. He remained a firm opponent of Roman Catholic emancipation, even defending the penal laws on the ground that after the Revolution they " were not laws of persecution but of political necessity "; but after 1786 he does not appear to have attended the parliament in Dublin. In the House at Westminster, where he refused to enrol himself as a member of either political party, he was not successful. His first speech, in opposition to Fox's India Bill on the 3rd of December 1783, disappointed the expectations aroused by his celebrity. His speech in opposition to the commercial treaty with France in 1787 was, however, most able; and in 1790 he introduced a reform bill which Fox declared to be the best scheme of reform that had yet been proposed, and which in Burke's opinion retrieved Flood's reputation. But at the dissolution in the same year he lost his seat in both parliaments, and he then retired to Farmley, his residence in county Kilkenny, where he died on the 2nd of December 1791.When Peter Burrowes, notwithstanding his close personal friendship with Grattan, declared that Flood was " perhaps the ablest man Ireland ever produced, indisputably the ablest man of his own times," he expressed what was probably the general opinion of Flood's contemporaries. Lord Charlemont, who knew him intimately though not always in agreement with his policy, pronounced him to be " a man of consummate ability." He also declared that avarice made no part of Flood's character. Lord Mountmorres, a critic by no means partial to Flood, described him as a pre-eminently truthful man, and one who detested flattery. Grattan, who even after the famous quarrel never lost his respect for Flood, said of him that he was the best tempered and the most sensible man in the world. In his youth he was genial, frank, sociable and witty; but in later years disappointment made him gloomy and taciturn. As an oYator he was less polished, less epigrammatic than Grattan; but a closer reasoner and a greater master of sarcasm and invective. Personal ambition often governed his actions, but his political judgment was usuallysound; and it was the opinion of Bentham that Flood would have succeeded in carrying a reform bill which might have preserved Irish parliamentary independence, if he had been supported by Grattan and the rest of his party in keeping alive the Volunteer Convention in 1783. Though he never wavered in loyalty to the British crown and empire, Ireland never produced a more sincere patriot than Henry Flood. See Warden Flood, Memoirs of Henry Flood (London, 1838) ; Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. H. Grattan (5 vols., London, 18391846) ; Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and some of his Contemporaries (London, 1822); The Irish Parliament 1775, from an official and contemporary manuscript, edited by William Hunt (London, 1907) ; W. J. O'Neill Daunt, Ireland and tier Agitators; Lord Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament (2 vols., London, 1792) ; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in tke Eighteenth Century (8 vols., London, 1878189o) ; and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., London, 1903); J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland, vols. ii. and iii. (London, 1881) ; Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III. (4 vols., London, 1845, 1894) ; Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (London, 1833) ; Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878) ; F. Hardy
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