Above : Painting Of Lord Charlemont, On Of Chief In The Great Convention

A great Convention of the Ulster Volunteers had been arranged, and on February 15th, 1782, 243 delegates, representing 143 corps, met at Dungannon. The resolutions to be placed before them had been drawn up chiefly by Charlemont, Grattan and Flood. The most important, politically, were those which asserted ” that the claim of any body of men, other than the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland to make laws to bind this Kingdom is unconstutional, illegal and a grievance,” and that ” the powers exercised by the Privy Councils of both Kingdoms, under, or under colour, or pretence of the law of Poynings, are unconstitutional and a grievance.” Last of all came a resolution, drafted by Grattan alone, that “as men and as Irishmen, as Christians and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation of the Penal Laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects (i.e., by the two Relief Bills), and that we conceive the measure to be fraught with the happiest consequences to the union and prosperity of the inhabitants of Ireland.”

Above : Picture Of Lord Caslisle

After the first burst of triumph and rejoicing over their victory with regard to the trade restrictions had passed, the Irish Parliamentary leaders began to consider that neither the liberties which they had won nor any others could be regarded as really secure as long as the Irish Houses remained in their present state of subordination to the English Privy Council, which had power to alter or suppress their decrees, or as the Lords and Commons of England considered themselves entitled to legislate for Ireland.

Above : Portrait Of Henry Flood

The triumph which had been achieved by gaining the independence of the Irish Parliament was, at best, but a partial one, and might prove of little practical use, if that Parliament remained unreformed, and so liable to be swayed by bribery in whatever direction might suit the party then in office in England. The Volunteers, after considering the matter in local assemblies, decided to hold a great Convention of the whole body in Dublin in the November of 1783.