THE CONSTITUTIONAL
AND PARLIAMENTARY
HISTORY OF IRELAND
B8TILL THE UNION EB1
J.G.SWIFT MAcNEILL.MP
^tUL 'JjU
'
THE
CONSTITUTIONAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY
HISTORY OF IRELAND
TILL THE UNION
THE
CONSTITUTIONAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY
HISTORY OF IRELAND
TILL THE UNION
BY
J. G. SWIFT MAGNETIC, M.P.
M.A.. Christ Church, Oxford.
One of His Majesty's Counsel in Ireland.
Dean of the Faculty of Law,
Professor of Constitutional Law and the Law of
Public and Private Wrongs, and
Clerk of Convocation, National University of Ireland,
Formerly Professor of Constitutional and
Criminal Law in the Honourable
Society of the King's Inns
Dublin
DUBLIN
THE TAL,BOT PRESS
(LIMITED)
89 TALBOT STREET
I LONDON :
;IT.\FISHER UNWIIST
'ff G«l (LIMITED) ,r^>;3
TERRACB .}
1917
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
To MY SISTER,
MARY COIPOYS DEANE MACNEII.I,
PREFACE
I purpose in this book to give a general view
of the leading facts and characteristics of Irish
Constitutional and Parliamentary History be-
fore the passing of the Act of Union.
I have endeavoured to present, in a compara-
tively small compass, such a description of the
Irish Parliament and the working of governing
institutions in Ireland as will place within easy
reach and in handy form information of the
salient features of the rise and progress of the
Irish Constitution, just as information of the
salient features of the rise and progress of the
British Constitution, of which the Irish Consti-
tion was first a counterpart and subsequently
an inversion, is within easy reach and in handy
form.
Persons well informed in public affairs are
not infrequently lacking in knowledge, however
2066251
VI. PREFACE
superficial, of the Constitutional and Parlia-
mentary History of Ireland — a subject of the very
highest interest in itself, acquaintance with which
is moreover certain to be of incalculable value in
the successful working of the Irish Legislative
System of the future. Mr. Gladstone's advice
in a letter in 1886 addressed primarily to
a public man of the time, "Study Irish History"
is of the very widest application. It has not
lost its force, nor has the need of its adoption
been modified after the lapse of upwards of a
generation.
While I hope that these pages, written with
the object I have indicated, may be useful to the
student and to the general reader alike, I indulge
in a still higher ambition — that the perusal of
this work, in which references to the authorities
which form its basis have been carefully given,
may induce a taste for historical research, or
may at least encourage and foster a zeal for the
systematic study of Mr. Lecky's writings on
Irish History, which will in itself be an epoch
in the reader's intellectual life.
PREFACE vii,
The scheme of the book is very simple.
Having set to myself the task of endeavouring
to narrate the principal representative facts of
Irish Constitutional and Parliamentary His-
tory, I have thus attempted to achieve my object.
1 have reproduced in the Introduction Mr.
Butt's speech addressed to a popular but highly
representative audience, and avowedly designed
as an exposition to the whole English speaking
world of the constitution and powers of the
Irish Parliament, and of the epochs of Irish
Constitutional and Parliamentary History.
That speech I have taken for my text, and on
that text I have enlarged in the succeeding
chapters of the book.
I recognise fully that readers of an historical
treatise in the formation of their judgments
should use as a corrective the ' ' personal equa-
tion" of the writer. In this connection the
trend of thought and the bias, however uncon-
scious, of one who, like myself, has been for
upwards of thirty years closely associated with
a political movement founded on past history as
Vlll. PREFACE
much as on present conditions, cannot be
ignored. ' There is nothing," a great man once
observed to me, ' ' less difficult than to be fair,
"but nothing more difficult than to appear so."
In my endeavour not only to be. fair but to
appear so I have, eschewing originality,
largely allowed the facts and the authorities
by which they are supported to speak for
themselves. I have moreover, as the frequent
references to Mr. Lecky's writings show,
stated on many occasions facts in Mr.
Lecky's own words and reproduced his judg-
ments upon them, judgments which, if pro-
nounced by me might be discounted as the
utterances of a party man committed to certain
political doctrines, but must be considered from
a far different point of view as the mature
judicial conclusions formed, to use a favourite
expression of Mr. Lecky's, ' ' in the cool light of
history," by one of the foremost protagonists of
his generation in the defence and maintenance
of the Union.
I have aspired, despite the tyranny of space,
PREFACE IX.
by quoting from Parliamentary debates, con-
temporary authors, the correspondence between
Lords Lieutenant and Chief Secretaries on the
one hand, and the representatives of the British
Cabinets on the other, at presenting the views,
characters and moral environment of men
actually conversant with the practice of the
Irish Constitution in whose working they were,
or had been, actively engaged.
The limitations which I have imposed on my-
self have prevented the inclusion of matters not
directly affecting the Constitutional and
Parliamentary History of Ireland. In the
Appendix, however, I have transgressed these
narrow bounds in some instances. In Note A.
I have stated some points of the law, custom
and etiquette of the Irish Parliament; in Note
B. I have sketched the efforts of that Parlia-
ment, despite appalling discouragements, to pro-
mote the material prosperity of the country; and
in Note C. I have reproduced an Address I de-
livered in 1911 to the Eighty Club in the Irish
Parliament House in Dublin on Irish Parlia-
mentary life.
X.
PREFACE
// these pages, written at intervals and amid
many distractions, contribute in any degree to
the promotion of the study of Irish History,
with the great benefits to the people, not of these
countries only, but of the whole British Empire,
accruing therefrom, I shall be content and
thankful.
Dublin, September, 1917.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGB
INTRODUCTION (INCLUDING ISAAC BUTT'S SPEECH) xiii.
I. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE CLAIM OF
THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT TO LEGISLATE
FOR IRELAND ... ... ... M. 1
II. POYNINGS' LAW AS AFFECTING THE IRISH
PARLIAMENTS ... ... ... ... 15
III. THE COMPOSITION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT 30
IV. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE IRISH LAND
SYSTEM ... ... ... ... ... 37
V. EARLY STRUGGLES IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT
FOR POPULAR RIGHTS ... ... ... 47
VI. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689 ... ... 59
VII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AS AFFECTED BY PUBLIC
OPINION ... ... ... ... ... 67
VIII. THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PARLIAMENTARY
OPPOSITION IN IRELAND ... ... ... 88
IX. THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION 103
X. THE METHOD OF SECURING A PARLIAMENTARY
MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT ... ... 119
XI. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND A SINISTER AD-
MINISTRATION ... ... ... ... 127
XII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND PRESSURE FROM
WITHOUT ... ... ... ... ... 147
XIII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AS AFFECTED BY THE
VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT ... ... ... 157
XIV. THE TRIUMPH OF GRATTAN AND THE
VOLUNTEERS ... ... ... ... 171
XV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782 179
Xll.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAOB
XVI. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE VOLUNTEER
CONVENTION ... ... ... ... 190
XVII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND "ORDE'S COM-
MERCIAL PROPOSITIONS" ... ... ... 206
XVIII. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE REGENCY
QUESTION ... ... ... ... ... 218
XIX. THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
AND THE REMOVAL OF CATHOLIC DISABILITIES 227
XX. THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE ... ... ... 249
XXI. THE OPPOSITION OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND
CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION ... ... ... 271
XXII. AN UNREFORMED AND CORRUPT PARLIAMENT
AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION ... ... 282
XXIII. THE INSURRECTION OF 1798 AND ITS BEARING
ON THE UNION ... ... ... ... 305
XXIV. PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE
UNION ... ... ... ... ... 818
XXV. DEFEAT OF THE PROPOSAL OF THE UNION IN
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, 1799 ... ... 333
XXVI. MAKING A PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY FOR THE
UNION ... ... ... ... ... 355
XXVII. THE CARRYING OF THE UNION THROUGH THE
IRISH AND THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTS . 883
NOTE A — Laws, Customs, Usages, and Etiquette of the
Irish Parliament ... ... ... ... 399
NOTE B— The Irish Parliament and Material Prosperity 487
NOTE C— A Sketch of Irish Parliamentary Life ... 453
APPENDICES ... ... ... ... ... ... 485
INDEX ... .... ... ... ... , SOT
INTRODUCTION.
WRITERS of historical treatises have not infrequently
concluded their works by a summary of the results of
their studies. I propose to adopt a different course, and
to present to my readers an outline of the period to which
I will invite their attention in detail in the following
pages. That outline gives a brief but comprehensive
view of the rise and development of Parliamentary
institutions in Ireland, of the relations of the Parlia-
ments of Ireland to the Parliaments of England, and
subsequently to the Parliaments of Great Britain ; and of
the relations of the Irish and British Governments to
each other till the Legislative Union. A summary of such
a character is ready to my hand. It is contained in the
sketch of the rise and progress of the Irish Constitution
by the late Mr. Isaac Butt in his statement at the Home
Rule Conference in Dublin on the i8th November, 1873,
in which he proposed the scheme for the re-establishment
of a Parliament for Ireland to which the Home Rule
movement in its present form owes its existence. Mr.
Butt, who was a man of profound political genius, and
one of the greatest constitutional lawyers of his own
or of any generation, was, no doubt, in this outline of
XIV. IIUSH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Irish Parliamentary and Constitutional history, speaking
as a political leader, not as an historical student. His
statement, however, deals with facts and not with
theories, and his description of the history, constitution,
and powers of the Irish Parliament, in his speech at the
Home Rule Conference in 1 873 , is in remarkable accord with
his description of the history, constitution, and powers
of that Parliament, when speaking, not as an advocate
of the restoration of Parliamentary institutions in Ireland,
but as the leading opponent of Mr. O'Connell, in 1843, in
the debate on Repeal of the Union in the Corporation of
Dublin. I examined both speeches very carefully,
and directed Mr. Butt's attention to their absolute agree-
ment in exposition of the history of the Irish Parliaments,
which he acknowledged with gratification, stating that Mr.
O'Connell had said openly in the course of debate that
Ireland would, in the future — Mr. Butt was then only
in his thirtieth year — have in Mr. Butt a defender of
Irish National rights, while he said to him in private
that he would sooner or later be a great leader of the
Irish Nation. Mr. Butt's outline of the history of the
Irish Parliaments, which is unaffected by his political
position in 1 843 as an opponent of the Repeal of the Union,
and in 1873 as an expounder of Home Rule, may be safely
accepted as accurate and as an introduction to this work.
" From the very earliest introduction," said Mr. Butt,
of the power of the English Kings in Ireland, the Irish,
who submitted to the rule of those Kings, had a right to
ISAAC BUTT S SPEECH. XV.
the same Parliamentary constitution as that which England
enjoyed. No matter how that power was established,
whether by right of conquest, as English writers
have chosen to assert, or, as Irish writers have said,
by the voluntary submission of some Irish chiefs —
from the day when, first at Lismore, and afterwards in
Dublin, King John declared that the Irish people were
to have the benefit of the great Charter and of English
law — it became an essential part of the Union between
Ireland and the English Crown, that the Sovereign
should govern us — as in England — by the advice of a
National Assembly. English power but slowly reduced
the whole island to submission. During the process our
Parliaments were but Parliaments of the English Pale. It
was not until the reign of James I. that the constitution
of the Irish House of Commons was settled on a basis
professing to embrace the entire island. At that time
the English Sovereigns had not surrendered the power
which, in the early times of Parliamentary history, they
certainly possessed — that of enfranchising towns, and
conferring on them the right, or rather imposing the
duty — it was once deemed a burdensome duty — of
sending representatives to the House of Commons.
King James, after the Settlement of Ulster, exercised
this power of enfranchising boroughs. These boroughs
were in its last struggle the weakness — they were always
the corruption — of the Irish Parliament. But, at all
events, they completed the Parliamentary system of
Ireland, a system which continued unaltered until, by the
Act of Union, it was finally destroyed. In the iyth
century, from the accession of James to that of William
III., the action of Irish Parliaments was more or less
interrupted by wars and revolutions. From the Battle
XVI. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of the Boyne to the Union, an Irish Parliament regularly
met upon the basis that was settled in the days of James.
It was constituted according to English law. It had,
like the English Parliament, its hereditary House of Peers.
Its House of Commons was elected exactly like the
English Houss of Commons, by the freeholders of the
counties and by cities and towns, deriving their right
to return Members from the Charters of Kings. In
the two countries the laws regulating the Parliamentary
Franchise were exactly the same. The Freehold
Franchise was the same in both ; and the Royal Charters
had exactly the same effect, and were construed and tried
by the same rules of law. Close boroughs had existed
in England as in Ireland, although not so numerously
in proportion to the other elements of representation.
" The Irish Parliament consisted of three hundred
Members. Of these, sixty-four were returned by the
forty-shilling freeholders of the thirty-two counties ;
two were sent by the University of Dublin ; sixty-two
were elected by the counties of the cities or towns in
which the Freeholder Franchise existed, or by boroughs
possessing more or less of popular franchises. Of the
three hundred Members, only one hundred and twenty-
eight were chosen by the shadow of a popular election.
The remaining one hundred and seventy-two were
absolutely the nominees either of the English Govern-
ment or of persons who held the power of nomination
as their private property — in some instances, of English
noblemen ; in many instances, of absentee proprietors ;
in four instances, at least, of the Bishops of the Irish
Established Church ; not by Irish Bishops, but by
Bishops sent here to serve the English interest, like
Cleaver at Kilkenny, or Boulter and Stone at Armagh.
ISAAC BUTTS SPEECH. XVII.
" The records of the awards of compensation to private
proprietors for boroughs extinguished at the Union
abundantly established these facts. Eighty-four
boroughs were treated as private property, and compen-
sation given for that property to their patrons.
" Such was the constitution of the Irish Parliament.
Let me briefly glance at its position and its powers.
" It was always an admitted principle of the Con-
stitution that the Crown of Ireland was appendant and
inseparably annexed to the Imperial Crown of England.
Mr. O'Connell stated this, in very strong, but, after all,
scarcely exaggerated, language when he said that whoever
was King de facto in England was King dejure in Ireland.
This much, at least, is unquestionable, that if, by any
legitimate authority, a right was acquired to the Crown
of England, the person who became King of England
was de jure Sovereign of Ireland. When the succession
to the English Crown was altered by the Act of the
English Parliament, excluding the heirs of Charles I.,
and setting the Crown upon the descendants of the
Princess Sophia, no corresponding Act was ever passed
by the Irish Parliament. It was admitted that the
English Parliament, in disposing of the English Crown,
disposed, at the same time, of the appendant Crown of
Ireland. Their power to do so was never questioned
— it was distinctly recognised. The title of the House
of Hanover to the Crown of Ireland rested solely on a
statute of the English Parliament.
" From this admitted dependence of the Crown of
Ireland upon that of England arose the claim of the
English Parliament to legislate for Ireland. Over all
the colonies and dependencies of the British Crown,
the British Parliament had exercised the right of legis-
XV111. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
lation. Over Ireland they asserted the same right. I
need not tell you how fiercely it was contested, and that
it was finally abandoned in 1782. But up to 1782 the
right was asserted and occasionally exercised.
" This claim was disputed. But there was another
consequence of the dependence of the Irish Crown,
which was not so. The Sovereign of England, in all
matters of his foreign relations, in all questions of peace
and war, was advised solely by his English Privy Council,
by his English Parliament, and by English Ministers,
responsible only to that Parliament, but all his acts done
under this advice bound Ireland. I will presently ask
your attention more particularly to the effect of this
under the arrangement of 1782.
" To complete our view of the position of the Irish
Parliament, we must remember that by an Act of Par-
liament itself, a most important restriction was placed
upon its legislative powers. By an Irish Act of Parlia-
ment, passed in the reign of Henry VII., in the year 1495,
it was enacted that no Bill should be presented in the
Irish Parliament until the heads of that Bill had been
submitted to the English Privy Council, and certified
as approved of under the Great Seal of England. This
law is known as Poynings' Law, from the name of
the person who was Lord Deputy when it was passed.
This law was a matter entirely distinct from any claim
of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland ; it
was a law of the Irish Parliament itself, passed by the
King, Lords and Commons of Ireland, deriving its
authority from a source entirely independent of the
English claim, and continuing in force when that claim
was abandoned. The original law required the assent
of the English Privy Council to be given to the intended
ISAAC BUTT'S SPEECH. xix.
Bill before Parliament met. In the reign of Queen Mary
it was modified so as to admit of that assent being given
while Parliament was sitting ; but that assent was still
necessary to authorise the introduction of the Bill.
With this modification the Law of Poynings continued
in force up to 1782.
" Such was the position of the Irish Parliament in
the interval between the Revolution and 1782. I trust
I am not wearying the Conference by dwelling on these
historic details ; attention to them is absolutely necessary
to the right understanding of our position, to the deter-
mination of the course we should pursue.
" I have now to ask the attention of the Conference
to the change which was made in the position of the Irish
Parliament by that which has been somewhat inaccurately
called the Constitution of 1782. In the proper sense
of the word there was no new Constitution established
in that year. Grattan and the Volunteers compelled
England to renounce the claim of legislating for Ireland,
and it was solemnly declared that no power on earth
could make laws to bind Ireland except the King, Lords,
and Commons of Ireland. It is impossible to exaggerate
the importance and the value of that great achievement.
It placed the liberties of Ireland in the keeping of her own
Parliament ; it removed the galling sense of subjection
and dependence ; while its immediate practical impor-
tance was chiefly felt in freeing the trade and commerce
of Ireland from restrictions which the claim of the right
to legislate for Ireland had enabled the English Parlia-
ment, under one pretence or other, to impose. The
commercial as well as the civil freedom of the country
was placed under the guardianship of the Irish Parliament
XX. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
itself. The truth is, that in the purely internal affairs
of Ireland the instances of direct and actual interference by
English legislation had been but few and comparatively
unimportant.
" The only change which was then made in the Par-
liamentary constitution of Ireland was by a modification
in the Law of Poynings. The Irish Parliament was
authorised to consider and to pass Bills without the
previous sanction of the English Privy Council. But
that assent — the approval of the English Privy Council
— was still made necessary to their becoming law. In
all other respects the Parliamentary system of Ireland
was left untouched. The absolute dependence of the
Crown of Ireland upon that of England was absolutely
reaffirmed. The House of Commons was elected
exactly in the same manner as before, and its legal and
constitutional powers were unchanged.
" It is strange, Sir, how little the real constitutional
history of this period is understood. There are many
persons I know who have been under the impression that
in 1782 all control over Irish legislation in the English
Privy Council was removed. Far from it ; the consent
of the Sovereign under the Great Seal of England was
still necessary before any measure could become law.
This arrangement was expressly made part of the
Declaration of Rights moved by Mr. Grattan in the Irish
House of Commons. On the i6th April, 1782, Mr.
Grattan moved the Address to the King which denied
the power of the English Parliament to make laws for
Ireland. But, after solemnly making that denial, and
after affirming the inseparable annexation of the Crown
of Ireland to that of Great Britain, on which connection,
ISAAC BUTTS SPEECH. xxi.
in the words of the address, ' the interests and happiness
of both nations essentially depend,' that address pro-
ceeded—
' To assure his Majesty that his Majesty's Commons of Ireland
do most sincerely wish that all Bills which become law in Ireland
should receive the approbation of his Majesty under the Great
Seal of Britain, but that yet we consider the practice of suppressing
our Bills in the Councils of Ireland, or altering the same anywhere,
to be a just cause of jealousy and discontent.'
" These are the words of the celebrated Declaration
of Rights — the claim of the legislative independence of
Ireland — solemnly put forward by Mr. Grattan and the
Irish Parliament of 1782. In reply to this address, the
Duke of Portland, on the 2yth May, conveyed to both
Houses of the Irish Parliament a message from the King,
telling them that in addition to the renunciation by the
British Parliament of the claim to bind Ireland —
' The concessions so graciously offered by our Sovereign are
the modification of Poynings' Law, and not only the abridgment
of the Mutiny Bill in point of duration, but the formation of it
on the model of the English Mutiny Bill, and prefacing it with a
Declaration of Rights.'
" Nothing can be more distinct than the deliberate
intentions of the men who led the Irish Nation in 1782
to retain a portion of the subjection to the English
Privy Council in which the Law of Poynings placed the
Parliament of Ireland. The restrictions of that law had
been imposed by an Act of the Irish Parliament. An
Act of the Irish Parliament could remove them. Accord-
ingly, a Bill was brought in by Mr. Yelverton,
modifying the Law of Poynings. Mr. Flood alone
objected to that Bill as falling short of that which Ireland
had a right to demand. The measure of Mr. Yelverton
provided that the Bills which passed both Houses of the
Irish Parliament should be certified by the Lord Lieu-
XX11. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
tenant under the Great Seal of Ireland to his Majesty,
and should not pass until they were returned under the
Great Seal of Britain. It also provided that they should
be returned without alteration, but it left untouched
the requirement of Poynings' Law that Irish Bills must
be sent over to England and returned with an appro-
bation certified under the Great Seal of that country —
that it is approved of by the advice of English Ministers
and the English Privy Council. This provision was
wholly distinct from the constitutional necessity of
obtaining the royal assent. That assent was subsequently
given by the Lord Lieutenant in the name of his Majesty
in the Irish House of Lords. The certifying of the Bill
under the Great Seal of England was a condition precedent
to the King of Ireland giving his assent. Mr. Grattan
pointed this out very clearly in the Regency debates.
Lord Clare illustrated it very strongly, but not more
strongly than truly, by the statement, that if his Majesty
came to Ireland, appointing a Regent for England in his
absence, the King could not have given the royal assent
to any Bill in his Irish Parliament until his Regent had
certified it to him under the English Great Seal. The
provision virtually gave to the English Privy Council the
power of negativing any Irish measure of legislation ;
and it would be easy to show how strongly this veto was
relied upon by the National Party in the Irish Parliament
as a real and practical security for the connection between
the countries.
" The real concession which was obtained on this
point — and it was a most important one — was that
measures might be passed in both Houses of the Irish
Parliament without the previous assent of the English
Privy Council. That assent was now required, not
ISAAC BUTTS SPEECH. XX11I.
before their introduction, but after they had passed.
The restriction was no longer on the deliberative, but
solely on the legislative power of the Irish Parliament.
But let it be remembered that from 1782 to 1800 there
did exist that restriction on its legislative power which
consisted in requiring an assent under the Great Seal of
England before any measure passed by it could become
law.
" But under the arrangements which existed during the
same period there was no such thing as an Irish adminis-
tration responsible to the Irish Parliament. In modern
times it is considered essential that the Ministers of the
Crown should possess the confidence of Parliament, and
that when they cease to do so they should resign. This
is now established as the constitutional practice in
Canada and in the Australian colonies. You will find
it remarkably established in papers recently laid before
Parliament, connected with the retirement from office,
in the colony of Victoria, of the ministry of Sir Charles
Duffy. But no such practice had ever been established
in Ireland. If it had been, Irish liberty could never have
been destroyed. In 1799, when Lord Castlereagh first
introduced the measure of the Union, it was defeated.
Had the constitutional practice prevailed he must have
resigned, and a Minister opposed to the Union must have
taken his place ; but in Ireland the Ministers were the
mere creatures of the English administration, changing
when that administration changed, and therefore really
dependent for their continuance in office on the votes,
not of the Irish, but of the English Parliament. I have
marked some extracts from the books before me, intended
to show the importance of this subject. But that impor-
tance is so manifest, and I have so many matters to go
XXIV. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
over, that I am unwilling to dwell upon this. I will only
ask you to remember that before the Union there was no
such thing as an Irish administration responsible to an
Irish Parliament, even for the management of purely
Irish affairs.
"But while Ireland, even after 1782, was thus left without
any real responsible administration of her internal affairs,
in all that concerned her external relations she was
absolutely subject to the action of the English Sovereign,
taken under the advice of English Ministers, controlled
by an English Parliament, in which Ireland had no voice.
It was the King of England who entered into treaties
with foreign nations by the advice of his English Privy
Council. It was the King of England who, by the same
advice, declared war or made peace. By those treaties
Ireland was bound . A declaration of war involved Ireland
in that war. A treaty of peace bound Ireland by its
terms. In all these things Ireland was the subject
country, just as much bound by the Acts of the English
Government as Canada or Australia are now bound.
When George III., by the advice of his English Ministers,
declared war against France, the King of Ireland was at
war with that country, and every Irishman who aided
or held intercourse with his French enemies was guilty
of high treason. This is not matter of theory. It
was the actual and literal state of fact. The army was
the army of England ; the navy was the navy of England ;
the ambassadors to all foreign courts were the ambassadors
of the King of England. All the colonies were depen-
dencies of the English Crown ; and over their government
Ireland or the Irish Parliament did not exercise the
slightest control.
ISAAC BUTT'S SPEECH. xxv.
" I have asked your attention to the real position of
the Irish Parliament even after the concessions of 1782.
Let me carry you back for a moment to the period of
the Revolution, and ask you to observe what was accom-
plished by that Parliament in the century which followed.
If I desired to point to an illustration of the value and
power of the most enfeebled Parliamentary institution,
I could not find one more striking than that which is
supplied in the history of the Irish Parliament. It was
not the Parliament of the whole people — it was chosen
exclusively by the representatives of the Protestant
minority, while the Catholic majority were excluded
from all share of political power. It was not chosen
by the voice even of the Protestant people. Nearly
two-thirds of its Members were sent in by a system of
nomination from which all popular influence was
excluded. It had no Irish administration through which
it could bring its influence to bear directly on the counsels
of the Sovereign — Irish Ministers were the irresponsible
agents of English parties. It was hampered in all its
movements by the law, which, in its strict interpretation,
forbade even the consideration of measures which had
not been previously sanctioned by an English Privy
Council — without any real possession of the powers,
even in financial matters, which enabled the English
House of Commons to assert the rights of the English
people. It is impossible to conceive a more disadvan-
tageous position than that in which the Irish Parliament
was placed. Yet see what it accomplished. In the
beginning of the last century its Members were elected
virtually for life ; they could not be disturbed except by
the death of the sovereign or a dissolution. They
extorted from the English Privy Council a reluctant assent
XXVI. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to a measure which shortened the duration of Parliament
to eight years. 1 am not sure that the Members of the
present House of Commons, if we felt ourselves virtually
secure of our seats for life, would make a similar sacrifice
to public liberty. We can scarcely avoid noticing the
contrast between the legislatures of the two countries.
In England, a House of Commons elected for three years
passed a statute extending its tenure to seven. In Ireland,
a House of Commons elected for the life or during the
pleasure of the Sovereign abridged its tenure to seven
years — it was in the English Privy Council that the term
was altered to eight years, in the hope that the Irish
Parliament would reject the Bill, when so altered, as a
violation of their privileges. It was the same Parlia-
ment which established the Volunteers. It wrung from
England the solemn renunciation of her usurped claim
of legislating for Ireland — it modified the Lav/ of
Poynings — it established, after years of conflict, the
necessity of an annual Mutiny Bill to be passed by the
Irish Parliament — it asserted for itself the right of
originating and appropriating supplies. When its
existence was put an end to by violence and corruption
and fraud, it was gradually establishing the same con-
stitutional privileges of Parliament which have been the
safeguards of English freedom. But more than this. A
Protestant Parliament, elected exclusively by Protestants
— it had repealed the Penal Laws which ground down the
Catholic people. In 1793 it admitted the mass of the
people to share political power with their Protestant
countrymen. In that year it gave Catholics the elective
franchise, long before the exclusion was removed in
England ; and in the same year the degrees in the
University of Dublin were opened to Roman Catholics,
ISAAC BUTT S SPEECH. xxvn.
a measure of liberality which the English universities
have imitated within the last few years. It was the
same Protestant Parliament that established and endowed
a Catholic seminary for Catholic priests. It is hard for
us now, in the advance of liberal opinions, to realise all
that was involved in these measures. But when we
remember that a Parliament representing a portion of
the people who enjoyed a monopoly of political power,
of the learned professions, and of the landed property of
the country, had gone thus far in admitting their Catholic
countrymen to a share in all these, we may well believe,
with Mr. O'Connell, that if that Parliament had not been
extinguished, a very few years would have seen the
removal of every religious disability, and the admission
of the Catholic people to a full participation in all the
privileges of the Constitution.
" These triumphs of the principles of civil and religious
liberty were achieved in a Parliament hampered and
enfeebled by defects and difficulties such as I have
described. Need I remind you of what it did for the
material prosperity of the country in the eighteen years
during which the renunciation of all claims on the part
of England to legislate against Irish commerce left us
free to foster the industry and enterprise of Ireland.
' There is not,' said Lord Clare, speaking in 1798, ' a
nation on the face of the habitable globe which has
advanced in cultivation, in agriculture, and in manufac-
tures with the same rapidity as Ireland.' I will not
weary you by quoting testimonies with which many of
us are familiar. Our sea fisheries, now decaying and
perishing, before the Union had driven the Scotch and
English trade out of the Continental markets. They
were a source of wealth to the country and employment
XXV111. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to our population. Everywhere our manufactures
flourished, in streets, in villages, in districts where all
manufacturing industry is now extinct. All testi-
monies bear out the statements of Lord Grey in the
English House of Lords, of Mr Foster and Mr. Plunket
in the Irish House of Commons, that, in the words of
Plunket, ' Ireland's revenue, her trade, her manufac-
tures had thriven beyond the hope or the example of
every other country of her extent within the few years
before the Union with a rapidity astonishing even to
herself.'
" But there are in the Irish heart other and higher
memories associated with that Parliament. Every
Irishman is proud of its glory and its fame. No one
will say that he is not justly so. In the proudest and
noblest days of English Parliamentary history, in the
days of Pitt, of Fox, and of Erskine, when Ireland,
indeed, contributed to the splendour of the English
senate the grand additions of her Sheridan and her
Burke, our Irish Parliament suffered nothing by a
comparison with the great — it was a great — assembly
at Westminster. Never, perhaps, was there an assembly
which produced so many men destined to be great within
the same period as that Irish Parliament. The name of
Arthur Wellesley, or, as he then called himself, Wesley,
was upon its rolls. Among its prominent Members was
Castlereagh, afterwards the director of the foreign policy
of England, and thus to some extent the arbiter of the
destinies of Europe. Fitzgibbon, although, like Castle-
reagh, the enemy of his country, was in intellect equal to
the greatest of his rivals. The walls of our Senate House
echoed to the voices of Bushe and of Plunket. The fame
of our own Parliament, the memories of Grattan, of
ISAAC BUTT S SPEECH. XXIX.
Curran, and of Flood, are some of the precious inheri-
tances with which a nation may not part, and wherever
in any other country or in any clime there is an Irishman
who has a pride in the glories of his country, his heart
turns in passionate remembrance to that Senate House
which threw a lustre on our land — -the Senate House which
he fondly remembers as ' the Old House in College
Green.'
" I resume my narrative, and come to the passing of
the Act of Union. I have shown you what the Irish
Parliament had done — how it had asserted civil and
vindicated religious liberty — how it had promoted the
material prosperity of the country — how its genius and
intellect had thrown lustre on the national annals. We
must give a few minutes' attention to the means by which
it was destroyed.
" Let me read for you the words in which Lord
Plunket, then Mr. Plunket, resisting the Union in the
Irish House of Commons, described those means. He
spoke at a time when the atrocities of the French revolu-
tion were not, as they are with us, the transactions of the
far-off past, but when they were visibly present to the
minds of the generation in which they were enacted.
It was at such a time that he said : —
' I am bold to say tliat licentious arid impious France, in all the
unrestrained excesses to which anarchy and atheism have given
birth, has not committed a more insidious act against her enemy
than is now attempted by the professed champion of the cause
of civilised Europe against a friend and ally in the hour of her
calamity and distress — at a moment when our country is filled
with British troops, when the loyal men of Ireland are fatigued
and exhausted by their efforts to subdue the rebellion — efforts
in which they had succeeded before those troops arrived — whilst
the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended — whilst trials by courts-
martial are carrying on in many parts of the kingdom — whilst the
people are taught to think they have no right to meet or deliberate ;
and whilst the great body of them are so palsied by their fears
XXX. IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and worn down by their exertions, that even this vital question
is scarcely able to rouse them from their lethargy — at a moment
when we are distracted by domestic dissensions — dissensions
artfully kept alive as the pretext of our present subjugation and
the instrument. of our future thraldom.'
" ' The country,' said Mr. Plunket, ' is filled with
British troops.' Before the English Government
ventured to propose the Union, they passed an Act
giving a bounty of £10 to every Irish militiaman who
would enlist for foreign service. This appeared to be
an Act influenced only by the desire to invite Irish valour
to the defence of the empire in its foreign wars ; but
mark what followed. Ten regiments of Irish militia
accepted the bounty and volunteered for foreign service.
They were instantly replaced by ten English regiments ;
so that it was manifest that it was not for the purpose
of taking troops abroad that this was done. While
England was engaged in a desperate Continental struggle
Ireland was held by 130,000 armed men — troops that had
free quarters on the people, and on whose use of that
privilege I do not choose to dwell. Let it be told in the
burning words of their commander-in-chief.
" I have read to you the testimony of Mr. Plunket.
I will cite one more. It is an extract from the protest
in the House of Peers against the passing of the Act
of Union — a protest signed by two Bishops and eighteen
lay peers. The signature of the Duke of Leinster was
the first. Twenty Members of the Irish House of Lords
have left on record, in its journals, the protest in which,
among other reasons, they objected to the act of Union
in these words : —
' Because when we consider the weakness of this kingdom
at the time that the measure was brought forward, and her
inability to withstand the destructive designs of the minister,
and couple with the Act itself the means that have been employed
to accomplish it — such as the abuse of the Place Bill — for the
ISAAC BUTTS SPEECH. XXxi.
purpose of corrupting the Parliament ; the appointment of
sheriffs to prevent county meetings ; the dismissal of the old
steadfast friends of the constitutional Government, for their
adherence to the Constitution, and the return of persons into
Parliament who had neither connexion nor stake in this country,
and were therefore selected to decide upon her fate — when we
consider the armed force of the minister, added to his power and
practices of corruption — when we couple these things together,
we are warranted to say that the basest means have been used to
accomplish this great innovation, and that the measure of the
Union tends to dishonour the ancient peerage for ever, to disqualify
both Houses of Parliament, and subjugate the people of Ireland
for ever. Such circumstances, we apprehend, will be recollected
with abhorrence, and will create jealousy between the two Nations,
in place of that harmony which for so many centuries has been
the cement of their union.'
;' With these testimonies — with the testimony of all
history — I may assume that the Union was carried
by a system offeree, and fraud, and corruption, for which
no parallel is to be found in the history of a nation which
was even nominally free."
The
Constitutional and Parliamentary
History of Ireland till the Union.
i.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE CLAIM
OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT TO
LEGISLATE FOR IRELAND.
ONE of the great representative facts which must always
be borne carefully in mind in an attempt to obtain
a knowledge of the true inwardness of Irish Parlia-
mentary history has been admirably enunciated by
Mr. Butt. " From the very earliest introduction," he
writes, " of the power of the English Kings into Ireland,
the Irish who submitted to the rule of these kings had
the same Parliamentary constitution as that which
England enjoyed." To this may be added as a corollary
the statement that, wherever English rule prevailed,
the English Constitution became the birthright of the
Anglo-Irish colonists. " Ireland," said O'Connell, " had
a Parliament as old as England. It rose as spon-
taneously from the congregation of freemen until the
2 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
representation was much increased in the reign of
James I. It had so existed, not as a favour, but as the
inherent right of freedom, without which freedom was
but a name."* In the parts of Ireland which Henry II.
reckoned as his own, it was his aim to establish the
English laws to render the lesser island, as it were, a
mirror in all its civil constitutions of the greater. " The
Colony from England was already not inconsiderable,
and likely to increase ; the Ostmen who inhabited the
maritime towns came very willingly, as all settlers
of Teutonic origin have done, into the English customs
and language, and, upon this basis, leaving the acces-
sion of the aboriginal people to future contingencies,
he raised the edifice of the Irish Constitution. He
gave charters of privilege to the chief towns, began
a division into counties, appointed sheriffs and judges
of assize to administer justice, erected Supreme Courts
in Dublin, and, perhaps, assembled Parliaments. His
successors pursued the same course of policy ; the
great Charter of Liberties, as soon as granted by John
at Runnymede, was sent over to Ireland, and the whole
common law, with all its forms of process and every
privilege it was deemed to convey, was established "
(see Hallam, III., p. 350). The regular Constitution
of Ireland was as nearly as possible the counterpart
of the English Constitution. The administration was
invested in an English Justiciary or Lord Deputy, assisted
by a Council of judges and principal officers, mixed with
some prelates and barons, but subordinate to that of
England, wherein sat the immediate advisers of the
sovereign. The Courts of Chancery, King's Bench,
Common Pleas, and Exchequer were the same in both
* Debate on the Repeal of the Union in the Dublin Corporation,
1843.
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 3
countries, but Writs of Error lay from judgments given
in the second of them to the same Court in England.
For all momentous purposes, as to grant a subsidy
or enact a statute, it was as necessary to summon a
Parliament in the one island as in the other. " An Irish
Parliament, originally like an English one, was but
a more numerous Council to which the more distant as
well as the neighbouring barons were summoned, whose
consent, though dispensed with in ordinary acts of
state, was both the pledge and the condition of their
obedience to legislative provisions " (Hallam, III., p. 355).
Irish Parliamentary assemblies, such as they were,
constituted under the English Kings, were simply
imitations of English precedents. " It is not clear whether
the introduction and confirmation of English law in
Ireland was with the sanction of Councils in Ireland, or
merely founded upon the royal authority." " Under
John and Henry III., Councils enacted that the English
laws and customs should be in force in Ireland " (Ball's
Irish Legislative Systems, p. 4). The question whether
the power of the English Kings was established by
right of conquest, as English writers have chosen to
assert, or, as Irish writers have said, by the voluntary
submission of some Irish Chiefs, which would now be
regarded as of an interest purely academic, was in
times past a subject of the fiercest controversy in con-
nection with the assertion of authority by the English
Parliament to make laws binding on Ireland. It was laid
down, according to the judgment in Calvin's case, which
was the composition of Lord Coke, and, although not the
subject for the decision of the Court, had, despite its being
a mere obiter dictum, a profound importance owing to
the authority by whom it was delivered, that, " albeit
4 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Ireland was a distinct dominion, yet the title thereof
being by conquest, Ireland might by express words be
bound by the Acts of the Parliament of England."* The
early Councils of nobles and prelates and other magnates
summoned to advise the King, and to grant a subsidy,
have been dignified by the name of Parliaments, but
to these assemblies the name of Parliaments, as we
understand the term, did not in reality apply, inasmuch
as that form of legislative council to which we give the
name of Parliament did not for several generations
develop itself. Sir John Davies, the Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons in 1613, in the Parliament
of James I., in his address to the Lord Deputy, Sir
Arthur Chichester, gives a concise account of the previous
Parliaments of Ireland. He was eminent in law and
in literature, and, at the time of his death in 1626, had
just been appointed Lord Chief Justice of England.
" And as there is now," he says, " but one common law,
so for the space of 140 years after Henry II. had taken
possession of the Lordship of Ireland, there was but
one Parliament for both kingdoms. But the laws made
in the Parliaments of England were, from time to time,
transmitted hither under the Great Seal of that kingdom,
to be proclaimed, enrolled, and executed as laws of this
nation." This view is supported by Lord Coke in his
chapter on Ireland in the Fourth Institute, where he
states : " Sometimes the King of England called his
nobles of Ireland to come to the Parliament of England,
and, by special words, the Parliament of England may
bind the subjects of Ireland." He then sets out the
entry on the Parliamentary Roll, reciting the Writ
by which the Irish nobles were summoned to
Westminster to a Council, not to a Parliament in our
* Ball's Irish Legislative Systems, p. 23 ; Coke's Reports, " Calvin's
Case," Part VII.
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 5
sense of the term. Even after the establishment of
Parliamentary institutions in Ireland, there is an instance
of Irish representatives being summoned to England
in 1376 by Edward III., who, on his failure to obtain
money from Ireland, had recourse to a Parliament at
Westminster, attended by representatives from Ireland,
not, however, without protests (Ball's Irish Legislative
Systems, p. 19 ; iLid., pp. 224-225). In the reigns of
Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., the English and
the Irish Parliaments advanced conflicting claims respect-
ing their jurisdiction in Ireland. The former passed
Acts expressly naming Ireland, and designed to bind its
inhabitants. The latter, on the other hand, declared
that Statutes made in England should not be of force in
Ireland unless they were allowed and published in
that Kingdom by Parliament. In the twentieth year
of Henry VI., however, the English Judges in Pilkington's
case had discussed the power of the English Parliament
to tax Ireland, and had resolved against it.* But, in the
reign of Richard III., eventually in the Merchants of
Waterford's case, the English Judges decided that Statutes
made in England did bind the people of Ireland. When,
in 1459, Richard, Duke of York, appeared again in
Ireland, where he had been previously Lord Lieutenant,
and resumed his former office, several Statutes were
passed, all tending to assert the legislative independence of
Ireland. To these conflicting decisions, to the conflict
of jurisdictions between the two Parliaments, probably
to the fears entertained that, in a period of insurrection
in England, an ambitious and unscrupulous Irish Lord
Deputy might, for his own purposes, take advantage
of troublous times to establish his own Sovereignty,
* Ball's Legislative Systems, pp. 16-17.
6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in 1495 the second of the Statutes narmed from Sir
Edward Poynings, the Lord Deputy in whose term of
office they were passed, was placed on the Irish Statute
Book, whereby "it is enacted that all Statutes late
made within the realm of England, concerning or
belonging to the common or public weal of the same,
from henceforth be deemed good and effectual in the
law, and over that be accepted, used, and executed within
the land of Ireland on all points at all times requisite,
according to the tenor of the same. And if any Statute
or Statutes have been made within the same land here-
tofore to the contrary, that they and every one of them
be made void and of none effect in the law." Some
question might be made whether the word " late "
was not intended to limit this acceptation of English
law, but, in effect, by this comprehensive and summary
enactment, all the general fundamental laws previously
in existence in England were transferred, without
argument or opposition, exactly as they stood, into
Ireland. This Act of Poynings referred only to English
Statutes then existing ; it had no effect upon future
legislation. " The question of the jurisdiction of the
English Parliament to make laws for Ireland remained
in the same position as it was before."* It was probably
considered that the Statute peculiarly known as Poynings'
Law, which will be dealt with hereafter, would prevail
sufficiently to effect the complete subjugation of the
Irish to the English Parliament. The question, how-
ever, of the paramount authority of the English Par-
liament over the Irish Parliament was not yet settled.
One of the articles of Strafford's impeachment, in which
delegates from the Irish House of Commons were sent
* Ball's Legislative Systems, p. 22.
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 7
over to offer assistance to the Lawyers, was " that the
realm of Ireland, having been time out of mind annexed
to the Imperial Crown of England, and governed by
the same laws, the Earl (being Deputy in that Realm)
to bring His Majesty's liege subjects into a dislike of
His Majesty's Government, and intending the sub-
version of the fundamental laws and settled government
of that Kingdom, and the destruction of His Majesty's
liege people there, did declare and publish that Ireland
is a conquered nation, and that the King might do with
them what he pleased." Strafford, in reply, defended
the proposition that " Ireland was a conquered country "
as being true. Indeed, in 1640, very soon after
Strafford's recall from the Government of Ireland,
the Irish House of Commons, imitating the precedent
set by the English House of Commons, prepared a list
of grievances, and, in order to ascertain whether these
practices, which they asserted to prevail, were in accord-
ance with the Constitution, drew up twenty-one queries,
which were presented to the House of Lords, with a
request that they should be submitted to the Irish
Judges for their consideration and formal reply. The
Lords did as desired, and the Irish Judges, very reluc-
tantly, in May, 1641, sent in their cautious and elaborate
replies. One of the queries so submitted was :
" Whether the subjects of this Kingdom (Ireland) be
a free people, and to be governed only by the common
law of England and the Statutes in force in this King-
dom ? " The answer of the Judges was not relished.
The Commons desired a Conference, and, in the end,
the House thereon resolved to promulgate its own
ideas on the questions that had been sent to the Judges,
which it embodied in a series of resolutions, of which
8 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the following was one : " That the subjects of His
Majesty's Kingdom of Ireland are a free people, and
to be governed only according to the Common Law
of England and Statutes made and established by
Parliaments in Ireland, and according to the lawful
customs of the same."*
The English Parliament, however, soon afterwards
passed an Act — the Adventurers' Act — which pro-
fessed to dispose of the lands of the disloyal in Ireland
in favour of persons who would advance money for
quelling the rebellion in consideration of the lands
to be thus allotted to them. This Statute, which plainly
infringed upon the resolution of the Irish House of
Commons, affirming the exclusive jurisdiction of the
Irish Parliament, was the subject of protest to the Com-
missioners of Charles I., on the ground of its being
legislation by the English Parliament for Ireland — the
Acts of the Irish Parliament being alone binding on the
King's Irish subjects. A treatise defending the rights
claimed by the Irish Parliament, attributed to the pen
of Sir Richard Bolton, Lord Chancellor of Ireland from
1638 till 1650, was brought under the notice of the
House of Lords, and was sent by the Lords to the House
of Commons for consideration. The attention of
Parliament was, however, distracted from constitutional
questions by civil war.
After the Restoration, in May, 1661, a Parliament was
called by Charles II. in Ireland. The great business
of the Parliament and the Government was to carry
the National Measure called the Act of Settlement,
and afterwards to maintain it by the Act of Explana-
tion (14 & 15 Car. II., c. 2 ; 17 & 18 Car. II., c, 2).
These Statutes were passed by the Irish Parliament
* Ball's Legislative Systems, pp. 25-27. Whiteside's Irish Parlia-
ments, p. 64.
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 9
without any concurrence or assistance from the Parlia-
ment of England. This difficult, painful, and laborious
undertaking of conferring possessions and settling,
as far as could be done, the land question in Ireland,
was carried on by Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Lord
Nottingham, Lord Chancellor of England. It was
hotly debated whether the settlement of Ireland should
be transacted by the English or the Irish Parliaments.
Finch seems in favour of the Irish Parliament, assign-
ing as his reason that, if they did the business in
England, the laws of the English Parliament would
only be binding by sufferance, and vested by adoption
in Ireland. The Irish Parliament placed on record
its grateful sense of the labours of Sir Heneage Finch.
The claim of the English Parliament to legislate for
Ireland, although not asserted in the momentous
work of the settlement of property in Ireland, was,
nevertheless, not suffered to lie dormant. " That
the English Parliament of Charles II.," writes Dr.
Ball, " abstained from interfering with the redistribution
of land, which, during his reign, was arranged in Ireland,
did not arise by reason of its having relinquished the
legislative claims of former English Parliaments ; on
the contrary, the claims were persisted in, and among
other enactments of this period which related to Ireland
the tobacco plant there was prohibited " (Ball's Legis-
lative Systems, p. 33).
With the Acts of the English Parliament excluding Irish
ships from the plantations and colonies of England,
and Irish goods from England herself, we are not for
the present concerned. These laws did not control
Irish legislation, nor interfere therewith, and were,
however harsh and iniquitous, well within the powers
10 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of the English Parliament. England had an un-
questioned power over her own plantations, colonies,
and ports.* In many cases, moreover, after the Revo-
lution, the Irish Parliament acquiesced in legislation of
the English Parliament affecting Ireland. In 1690,
by an English Statute, the Acts and proceedings of the
Irish Parliament of King James II., 1689-1690, were,
declared null and void (i Wm. & M., c. 9, et seq.). In
1695 an Irish Statute declared the Acts and proceedings
of James' Irish Parliament null and void, and added
that the records of them should be burnt (7 Wm., c. 3,
Irish). Until 1691 Roman Catholics were admissible
by law into both Houses of Legislature in Ireland. Their
exclusion was effected by an English Statute of this year
(3 Wm. & M., c. 2, Er.g.), by which the provisions of a
former English Act (30 Car. 2, pp. 2, c. i) were declared
to extend to Ireland. That the Irish Parliament
acquiesced in this Statute is partly evident from an
Irish Statute of 1697 (9 Wm. III., c. 3, sec. 2), whereby
a Protestant marrying a Catholic was disabled from
sitting or voting in either House of Parliament. This
Act would have placed the Protestant so married to a
Catholic in a worse position than that of a Catholic
Peer or Commoner, if he had not been deemed already
excluded by the English Statute (Scully's Irish Penal
Laws, pp. 65-66). The Act for the resumption of the
enormous grants of land bestowed out of forfeited
estates in Ireland by William III. on his mistress,
Elizabeth Villiers, and other persons of like merits
and character, was an English Act (n & 12 Wm. III.,
c. 2), and an instance — perhaps the most remarkable
of all — the measures hindering the export of wool from
Ireland, which caused the production of Molyneux'
* Ball, pp. 33-34.
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. II
celebrated treatise, entitled, The case of Ireland, being
bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated, in 1698,
were due, not merely to English legislation, but to the
legislation of the enfeebled Irish Parliament, passed
that year, which, in the words of Froude, " was invited
to put the knife to its own throat," under circumstances
which will be stated.*
Although the Irish Parliament made no protest
against the legislation of the British Parliament affecting
to bind Ireland, and even to cripple her trade with
countries other than England, there was, no doubt, a
feeling of the very deepest indignation in Ireland in
reference to this policy, which would have found its
expression in the legislature itself, if that corrupt body
were amenable to pressure from without. The treatise
of Molyneux, which produced so profound an im-
pression, was published in 1698 — the very year which
witnessed the destruction of the Irish woollen trade
by the enactments of the English and the Irish Par-
liaments. The high notions of Parliamentary
sovereignty, which were of the essence of the Revo-
lution, strengthened the pretensions of the English Par-
liament to legislate for Ireland. Mr. Hallam has well
observed that, while sovereignty and the enacting powers
were supposed to reside wholly in the King, and only
the power of consent in the two Houses of Parliament,
it was much less natural to suppose a control of the
English legislature over other dominions of the Crown
having their own representation for similar purposes
than after they had become in effect and general
sentiment, though not quite on the Statute Book, co-
ordinate partakers of the supreme authority .f The
* FrouJe's English in Ireland, I., p. 297.
f Ilallatn's Constitutional History, III., p. 406.
12 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
English House of Commons passed resolutions against
the treatise of Molyneux, directed that it should be burnt
by the common hangman, and addressed the King in
condemnation of its doctrines, denying the authority
of the King and people of England to bind the kingdom
and people of Ireland, and the subordination and
dependence that Ireland has, and ought to have, upon
England, as being united and annexed to the Imperial
Crown of that realm. Legislation on the subject would,
of course, be a still more decisive mode of asserting a right.
At that time the English House of Lords was the ultimate
appellate tribunal from the English Courts of Chancery
and Common Law. It assumed the same jurisdiction
over the Irish Courts. In 1719 the case of Sherlock
v. Annesley was tried in the Irish Court of Exchequer,
in which Annesley obtained a decree against Sherlock,
which, on appeal to the Irish House of Lords, was
reversed. From this sentence Annesley appealed to
the English House of Lords, who confirmed the judgment
of the Irish Exchequer, and issued process to put him
into possession of the litigated property. Sherlock
petitioned the Irish Lords against the usurped authority
of England, and they, having taken the opinion of the
judges, resolved that they would support their honour,
jurisdiction, and privileges, by giving relief to the
petitioner. Sherlock was put in possession by the
Sheriff of Kildare ; an injunction issued from the Court
of Exchequer, pursuant to the decree of the English
Lords, directing him to restore Annesley. The Sheriff
refused obedience. He was protected by the Irish
Lords, who addressed the Throne, recapitulating the
rights of Ireland, her independent Parliament and
peculiar jurisdiction. The Irish House of Lords sent
THE CLAIM OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT. 13
the Barons of the Irish Court of Exchequer to jail.
The address of the Irish House of Lords to the King was
laid before the English House of Lords. That House
re-affirmed their proceedings, and supplicated the
Throne to confer some mark of special favour on the
Barons of the Exchequer. This contest produced
the Act so well known as the sixth of Geo. L, c. 5, which
was passed by the English Parliament, by which the
entire dependence of the Irish on the English Par-
liament was thus declared : " Whereas attempts have
lately been made to shake off the subjection of Ireland
upon the Imperial Crown of this Realm, which will be
of dangerous consequence to Great Britain and Ireland :
And Whereas the Lords of Ireland in order thereto have
of late against law assumed to themselves a power and
jurisdiction to examine, correct, and amend the judgments
and decrees of Courts of Justice in the Kingdom of
Ireland, therefore for the better securing of the depen-
dency of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain, may
it please Your Majesty that it may be enacted, and it
is hereby declared and enacted by the King's Most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent
of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in
the present Parliament assembled, and by the authority
of the same, that the said Kingdom of Ireland hath been
and of right ought to be subordinate unto and dependent
upon the Imperial Crown of Great Britain as being in-
separably annexed and united thereunto, and that the
King's Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons of
Great Britain in Parliament assembled, both hath had of
right and ought to have full powers and authority to make
laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind
14 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the people and kingdom of Ireland. And be it further
enacted and declared by the authority aforesaid that
the House of Lords have not nor of right ought to have
any jurisdiction to judge, affirm, or reverse any judgment,
sentence, or decree given or made in any Court within
the same Kingdom, and that all proceedings before the
said House of Lords upon any such judgment, sentence,
or decree are and are hereby declared to be utterly null
and void to all intents and purposes whatever."* In
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, which
was published in 1765, and attained an extraordinary
reputation, the right of the British Parliament to bind
Ireland by its laws was maintained without any qualifi-
cation or restriction.
* In the Introduction to MacNevin's History of the Volunteers
there is a very succinct account of this incident.
POYNINGS' LAW. 15
II.
POYNINGS' LAW AS AFFECTING THE IRISH
PARLIAMENT.
HAVING dealt with the claim of the English Parliament
to legislate for Ireland embodied in the Act of George I.,
to complete our view of the constitution of the Irish
Parliament we must remember that by an Act of that
Parliament itself a most important restriction was placed
on its legislative powers. In 1495 the famous Act,
emphatically called Poynings' Law, was passed, which
regulated the mode of summoning Parliaments, and of
passing laws. By this Statute it is enacted that no
Parliament shall in future be holden in Ireland till the
King's lieutenants shall certify to the King under the
Great Seal the causes and considerations, and all such
acts as it seems to them ought to be passed thereon, and
such be affirmed by the King and his Council, and his
licence to hold a Parliament be obtained. Any Par-
liament holden contrary to this form and provision should
be deemed void. Thus, by securing the initiative power
to the English Council, a bridle was placed in the mouth
of every Irish Parliament. We can thus understand
the reason that English Statutes were not in conflict
with Irish since Poynings' Lav/ gave the King and his
Council in England control over the legislation of the
Irish Parliament, which could not without licence and
assent under the Great Seal of England either alter
or make laws. " It is probable that Poynings' Law was
1 6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
designed as a check on the Lords Deputy, sometimes
powerful Irish nobles, whom it was dangerous not to
employ, but still were dangerous to trust" (Hallam's
Constitutional History, III., p. 362). Mr. Flood, who
stated that he had devoted close attention to the con-
struction of this Statute for twenty years, contended
that Poynings' Law, which had been framed for the
purpose of controlling the power of the Lords Deputy,
and reserving the prerogative of assent or dissent in
Irish legislation to the King, was tortured into an engine
for depriving the Irish Parliament of any initiative in
legislation by the corrupt and vicious interpretation of
its provisions by the Irish and the English judges, by
opinions delivered by the Irish judges to Lord Sydney
as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in February, 1692, and
by the English judges of King William III. on June
22nd, 1693. James I., according to Mr. Flood, kept
the Irish Parliament from all initiative in legislation.
When some effort at independent legislation was made
by that Parliament, the King "sent over for a con-
vention of the Members, whom he ordered to attend
him in England, and, having lectured them on the
divine authority of kings and the mysterious art of
legislation, and having informed them that it was a
subject above the capacity of Parliament, these gentlemen
came home much better courtiers than they went, and
consented to a resolution, soon after proposed, that
Parliament was but the humble remembrancer to His
Majesty." In his argument in support of the con-
tention that Poynings' Law was never intended to take
away the right of Parliament, but merely to prevent the
governors of Ireland from giving assent to laws that
might be injurious to the King, Mr. Flood said that
POYNINGS' LAW. IJ
during the civil wars of York and Lancaster this had
frequently happened : that the adherents of the York
family, very numerous in Ireland, having been planted
there chiefly in the reign of Henry VI., also sent the
Duke of York with great power and great revenue to
govern the Kingdom for no less than ten years, during
which time and afterwards it became an asylum to the
partisans of that House ; that Lord Gormanston,
who had preceded Poynings, had given great cause of
suspicion ; nay, it was even thought that when Simnel
was crowned in Dublin, if there had been a Parliament
sitting, that Parliament would have acknowledged him
as rightful King ; that voyages between England and
Ireland in those days were much less frequent than
between Europe and America at present, consequently
many things happened here that were not known till
long after in England, for which reason Henry VII.,
who derived his right from the House of Lancaster
when he chose that trusty servant Poynings to be his
deputy here, though he had the utmost reliance in his
fidelity, yet would not entrust even him with the power
of giving the royal assent to laws till they had been
notified to the King himself in England under the
sanction of the Great Seal of Ireland ; but that this was
considered only as a restraint on the Governor, not
on the Parliament of Ireland, which he proved had
constantly pursued the practice of originating such
Bills as they thought proper, and sending them engrossed
on parchment, sometimes through the Lord Deputy,
sometimes through special messengers of their own, to
receive the royal assent. He said that Lord Bacon, who
wrote the history of the reign of Henry VII., and who par-
ticularly mentions Poynings, would not have let so great
D
1 8 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
a matter as the total perversion of our Constitution pass
by the accuracy of his penetrating genius. He mentions
the law of Poynings, indeed, but not this law. Speaking
of Poynings, he says : " But in Parliament he did
endeavour to make awards for the meagreness of his
services in the war, for there was made that memorable
Act called Poynings' Act, not the Act that we are debating
on, but that ' whereby all the Statutes of England were
made to be of force in Ireland,' for before (says Lord
Bacon) they were not " (Irish Debates, I., pp. 149-153).
The original law required the assent of the English
Privy Council to be given to the intended Bill before
Parliament met. In the reign of Queen Mary it was
modified, so as to admit of that assent being given
while Parliament was sitting, but that assent was still
necessary to authorise the introduction of the Bill,
although by contrivances of extraordinary ingenuity
legislative proposals had been brought into both Houses
of the Irish Parliament at different times ; sometimes
they were called petitions, and sometimes heads of
Bills.* With these modifications, which we will describe,
the Law of Poynings continued in force till 1782. A Bill,
introduced into the Irish Parliament after it had been
manipulated first by the Irish and then by the English
Privy Council, could not be altered by the Irish Par-
liament, by whom it could only be passed in the exact
words in which it was framed, or absolutely rejected.
The workings of Poynings' Act and the Explanation
Act of Philip and Mary in the Irish legislative system
was thus described in the Irish House of Commons by
Sir Frederick Flood : " Every man must acknowledge
that before the tenth of Henry VII. and the third and
fourth of Philip and Mary, our Parliamentary Consti-
* 3 and 4 Philip and Mary (Ireland), c. 4,
POYNINGS' LAW. 19
tution and the mode of passing Bills and making laws
were the same as it is in England this day. Every man
will acknowledge that the ancient Parliamentary Con-
stitution of Ireland knows no persons but the King,
Lords, and delegates of the people. Every man will
acknowledge that the Privy Council is a body of men
not even known to our ancient Constitution, in whom
the Constitution placed no confidence, and yet they
assume a power under misconstrued Acts of Parliament
of throwing themselves between the Parliament of Ireland
and their Sovereign. They delay, they stop and stifle,
they mutilate, castrate, and misrepresent the acts of
both Houses. All we desire is to be suffered to lay our
petitions before the Royal Courts in our own words, and
to remove that pale or barrier which obstructs the free
communication between His Majesty and his subjects
of Ireland, as it must be admitted on all hands that
before the tenth of Henry VII. and the third and fourth,
of Philip and Mary we enjoyed the English Constitution
here " (Irish Parliamentary Debates, I., p. 160).
On April i6th, ^782, Mr. Grattan thus described in
the Irish House of Commons the effects of Poynings'
Law on Irish Parliamentary measures : " As to the
legislative powers of the Privy Councils, I conceive them
to be utterly inadmissible against the Constitution,
against the privileges of Parliament, and the dignity of
Parliament. Do not imagine such power to be
theoretical ; it is in a very high degree a practical
evil. I have here an inventory of Bills altered or injured
by the interference of the Privy Council, Money Bills
originated by them, protests by the Crown in support
of these Money Bills, prorogations following these pro-
tests. I have here a Mutiny Bill of 1780, altered by
20 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the Council, and made perpetual ; a Catholic Bill in
1778, when the Council struck out the clause repealing
the Test Act ; a Militia Bill, when the Council struck
out the Compulsory Clause requiring the Crown to
proceed to form a militia, and left it optional to His
Majesty's Minister whether there should be a militia
in Ireland. I have the Money Bill of 1775, when the
Council struck out the Clause enabling His Majesty
to take part of our troops for general service, and left
it to the Minister to withdraw the forces against Act
of Parliament. I have to state the altered Money Bill
of 1771, the altered Money Bill of 1775, the altered
Money Bill of 1780 — the day would expire before I
could recount their ill-doings. I will never consent
to have men (God knows whom) — ecclesiastics, etc.,
etc. — men unknown to the Constitution of Parliament,
and only known to the Minister who has breathed into
their nostrils an unconstitutional existence, steal to their
dark divan, to do mischief, and make nonsense of Bills
which their Lordships, the House of Lords, and we,
the House of Commons, have thought good and fit for
the people. No, these men have no legislative quali-
fications ; they shall have no legislative powers."
On the 1 7th May, 1782, Mr. Fox, speaking in the
English House of Commons, as Secretary of State,
thus explained the influence of Poynings' Law on
Irish legislation, and its effect on votes in the Irish
Parliament, which he described with plainness of speech :
" It must be admitted," he said, " that by this law a
strange alteration has been made in the form of the
Constitution of Ireland by making the Privy Council of
that kingdom a branch of the legislature, and those who
were acquainted with the nature of the interference of
POYNINGS LAW. 21
that Privy Council know very well that it was of the
greatest detriment to the State, for not only it some-
times suppressed Bills which had passed the House of
Lords or Commons nemine dissentiente, but such was
the nature of it that Bills were sometimes passed according
to the form indeed, but, in fact, nemine dissentiente, when
it was contrary to the intention of any man in the House
that such Bills should pass ; they were, nevertheless,
supported by all in confidence that in the Privy Council
they would be thrown out. This kind of conduct was
purely to gain popularity ; so that men who did not wish
to oppose popular opinions which they did not approve
should nevertheless unanimously give way to these
opinions merely because they knew they would be
rejected in the Privy Council.* For his own part, he
was free to confess that the interference of that body,
and their power to stop Bills in their progress from
Parliament to the King, appeared to him improper, and
therefore he could have no objection to advise His
Majesty to the modification which they required of that
law, from which the Privy Council derived that power.
But the jealousies of the Irish went farther ; they were
jealous of the interference of the English Privy Council,
and he admitted that the alterations which had some-
times been made by it in Irish Bills had given but too
just cause for jealousy. It was generally understood
in Ireland that Irish Bills were frequently altered in
England, with very little consideration, and sometimes
by a single person — the Attorney-General-^-which single
person, the Irish imagined, made alterations without
giving that attention to the Bills which the importance
of the subjects required. He would not say that these
opinions were, in general, well founded, but this he was
* Appendix I.
22 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
convinced of, that this power of altering might have still
remained if an improper use had not been made of it ;
but, to his knowledge, • it had been grossly abused — in
one instance, in particular, a Bill had been sent over to
England two years ago, granting, and very wisely and
very justly granting, indulgences to the Roman Catholics ;
in that same Bill there was a clause in favour of the
Dissenters for repealing the Sacramental Test. This
clause was struck out, contrary, in his opinion, to sound
policy, as the alteration tended to make an improper
discrimination between two descriptions of men, which
did not tend to the union of the people. It was by such
conduct that the Irish were driven to pronounce the
interference of the English Privy Council in altering
their Bills a grievance, though, in his opinion, the
power would never have been complained of if it had
never been abused."*
Lord Mountmorres, writing in 1792, with a Parlia-
mentary experience of the working of Poynings' Law,
both before and after its modification, gives an account
of this Statute as a factor in Irish legislation of which
the following is a summary : Till 1495 lawrs were
passed, and the Lords Lieutenant gave the Royal Assent
from their own power and authority, as the King did
in England ; but, a bad use having been made of this
power in the disputes between York and Lancaster —
particularly by Richard, Duke of York — it was enacted
by Poynings' Law that no Parliament should be held
in Ireland till the Chief Governor and Council should
certify to the King the causes and considerations for
holding the same, or, in other words, all the Acts which
were intended to be passed in the ensuing Parliament.
This law appears to have been rigidly enforced in the
* Appendix II.
POYNINGS' LAW. 23
subsequent Parliaments of Henry VII. and in the earlier
Parliaments of Henry VIII., but, in the twenty-eighth
and thirty-third years of that monarch's reign, two
Parliaments were held which were licensed, notwith-
standing the prescriptions of Poynings' Law had not
been observed, by two laws which repealed Poynings'
Act, and the last of them declares any person guilty of
felony who should dispute the validity of that Parliament,
notwithstanding it had been held contrary to the tenor
of that Law. Probably the impossibility of fore-
seeing all the provisions which the exigencies of the State
might render necessary to be passed into laws, rendered
these temporary repeals unavoidable. Thus the Statute
of 1541, raising Ireland from a Lordship into a Kingdom,
was passed by a Parliament during the temporary
suspension of Poynings' Law. In the third and fourth
of Philip and Mary an Act was passed for the ex-
planation of Poynings' Law, by which permission was
given to the Lord Lieutenant and Council, while Parlia-
ment was sitting, to certify to the King such provisions
as they might deem expedient to be formed into laws
during a session of Parliament — a regulation which,
naturally, arose from the fluctuating state of the times.
In the second session of the eleventh of Elizabeth- an
Act was passed for suspending the provisions of Poynings'
Law in consequence of unforeseen difficulties which had
arisen in the collection of the revenue. Lord Mount-
morres considers this Act, which was opposed by a
considerable section in the House of Commons, from
which the " Country Party " was to spring, to have
been unnecessary, as provision had been made for
such laws as were necessary to be made while Par-
liament was sitting by the Statute of Philip and Mary.
24 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Lord Mountmorres, however, has overlooked the fact that
a very considerable time must have elapsed between the
transmission of a Bill to England to be certified under
the Great Seal and its return to Ireland for introduction
in one of the Houses of the Irish Parliament. From a
subsequent law of another session in the same year
(1569), it appears that this Act was probably carried in
a thin House, and by surprise, for it was thereby enacted
that any proposition for suspending Poynings' Law
should be agreed upon by the greater number of the
Lords and Commons, which, taken in a literal sense,
appears very extraordinary, as that is the case of every
proposition and of every law which passes in Parliament.
But the true meaning of this law probably was that the
major part of the Lords and Commons who were sum-
moned to Parliament, not those who were present on a
given day, should consent to such a proposition. This
regulation, Lord Mountmorres naively remarks, was
strictly complied with in 1782, as the present (1792) happy
alteration in the mode of holding Parliaments and of
passing laws was passed unanimously.
Various were the disputes and infinite were the
jealousies which were engendered by this pernicious law
till the last happy period in the Irish Parliament. It
was usual, at the beginning of every new Parliament,
for the Council to send to England a short Money
Bill, which the House of Commons constantly rejected.
This was the cause of a dissolution of Parliament in
1692, and of a prorogation in 1769. On both these
occasions the Lords Lieutenant, Lords Sydney and
Townshend, entered protests upon the Lords' Journals
against the votes of the House of Commons, measures
which were insolent, impolitic, and contrary to the usages
of Parliament.
POYNINGS LAW. 25
This law was regarded by some as a sacred palladium
of the English Government, which it was almost sacri-
legious to touch, and to propose its repeal was considered
as a political profanation. Even doubts seem to have
been entertained of the propriety of such a proposition
by the following entry on the 2nd December, 1757, in
the Commons' Journal : " Resolved — That it is the
undoubted right of every Member to declare his opinion
touching the construction of Poynings* Law, and to
move for its repeal without incurring any pains or
penalties for the same, and any threat to deter a Member
from so doing is a breach of the privilege of this House."
This truism, for such it certainly was, has a very
extraordinary aspect upon the Journals. But the
following account of it, which Lord Mountmorres had
from Lord Pery, afterwards Speaker of the House of
Commons, who was the Member alluded to in this reso-
lution, contains not only a curious Parliamentary
anecdote, but also throws a fresh light on the resolution.
Mr. Pery had made a proposition relative to the construc-
tion of Poynings' Law, which had produced a debate, in
the course of which Mr. Malone happened, unguardedly,
to say, " That the gentleman would do well to take care
of what he said or what he proposed, because he might
be involved in the penalties of felony." This odd
assertion from a man of the greatest weight, knowledge,
and character, and who was then, confessedly, the leading
Member of that Assembly, had a most extraordinary
effect, and, after some warm altercation, Mr. Trench, the
Member for Galway, moved the foregoing resolution,
upon which the House divided, and, as the current flowed
strongly in its favour, and a large body passed through
the bar, the Government did not choose to be left in a
26 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
small minority, and Mr. Rigby, the Secretary, followed
the affirmatives, and, last of all, Mr. Malone himself,
upon which it was declared that the motion was unani-
mously carried. Mr. Malone, on being asked sub-
sequently how he came to make so extraordinary an
assertion, explained it by saying he had made a mistake,
and had unguardedly alluded to a provision in the law
of 1541, by which those who called in question the
validity of that particular Parliament were declared to
be liable to the penalties of felony. Lord Mountmorres
gives the following short view of the former (between
1495 and 1782) method of passing laws and holding
Parliaments in Ireland, and the practice in this respect
of his own time :
Before a Parliament was held, it was expedient,
antecedent to 1782, that the Lord Lieutenant and
Council should send over an important Bill as a reason
for summoning that Assembly. This always created
violent disputes, and it was constantly rejected, as a
Money Bill which originated in the Council was contrary
to a known maxim, that the Commons hold the purse
of the nation, as all grants originate from them, since
in early times they were used to consult with their
constituents upon the mode, duration, and generation
of the supply. Propositions for laws, or Heads of Bills,
as they are called, originated indifferently in either
House. But it was not till after the Revolution of 1688
that the Heads of Bills were presented. These resembled
Acts of Parliament, or Bills, with only this small differ-
ence— " We pray that it may be enacted," instead of
" Be it enacted." After two readings and a committal,
they were recommended to the Privy Council. As,
however, 'they were recommended by one House only,
POYNINGS' LAW. 27
it was desirable to induce the two Houses to confer,
and to give efficiency to these propositions by a joint
recommendation. When the Heads of Bills were
peculiarly popular, they were presented by Parliament
in a body to the Lord Lieutenant, with a request that he
would recommend the measure to the King. In practice,
the origination of Bills in the Privy Council was confined
to the case of the summoning of a New Parliament.
After two readings, and a committal, these Heads of
Bills were presented to the Irish Privy Council, and
then sent by the Council to England, and were sub-
mitted usually by the English Privy Council to the
Attorney and Solicitor-General, and they were returned
thence to the Irish Privy Council, by whom they were
sent to the Irish House of Commons, if they originated
there (if not, to the Lords), and after three readings
they were sent to the House of Lords, where they went
through the same stages, and then the Lord Lieutenant
gave the Royal Assent in the same form which is observed
in Great Britain. In all these stages in England and
Ireland it is to be remembered that any Bill was liable
to be rejected, amended, or altered, but that when a Bill
had passed the Great Seal of England no alteration
could be made by the Irish Parliament.*
By the modification of Poynings' Act, in 1782, known
as the Yelverton Act, it was not necessary for the Irish
Privy Council to certify a Bill under the Great Seal of
Ireland as a reason for summoning a Parliament, but
it was ordered to be convoked by the proclamation from
the Crown as it is summoned in England. Bills, how-
ever, originated in either House, and went from one to
another, as in England. They were then deposited in
the Lords' office, when the Clerk of the Crown took
* Appendix III,
28 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
a copy of them, and this parchment was attested to be
a true copy by the Great Seal of Ireland on the left
side of the instruments. Then they were sent to England
by the Irish Council, and, if they were approved of by
the King, the transmiss, or copy, came back with the
Great Seal of England on the right side, with a com-
mission to the Lord Lieutenant to give the Royal Assent.
All Bills, except Money Bills, remained in the Lords'
office, but Bills of Supply were sent back to the House
of Commons to be presented by the Speaker at the Bar
of the House of Lords for the Royal Assent. It is
accordingly manifest that no alteration could be made
in Bills except in Parliament, as the record and original
roll remains in the Lords' office till it obtains the Royal
Assent.
Lord Mountmorres states that it is said that there are
very few instances of the rejection of Irish Bills, or
of their not being returned from England since 1782,
though, doubtless, the royal negative is effective.*
Lord Mountmorres thus, in my judgment, correctly
sums up the various alterations in the Irish Constitution,
the mode of holding Parliaments in Ireland, and of
passing laws.
In early times the Lord Lieutenant gave the Royal
Assent, as the King does in England, without any com-
munication with him, or any particular licence.
In the reign of Henry VII. it was provided that all
Bills should be previously sent by the Lord Lieutenant
and Council to England, which were intended to be
passed in any Parliament as a reason for holding the
Parliament.!
The extreme inconvenience of this necessary pre-
liminary caused two* temporary suspensions of this
* Appendix IV. f Appendix V.
POYNINGS' LAW. 29
law in the reign of his successor, and, in the reign of
Philip and Mary, it was enacted that propositions for
laws or heads of Bills might be transmitted from the
Irish Council during the sitting of Parliament.
This practice, till 1782, founded upon these laws, was
that the Council sent over a Bill every new Parliament
as a reason for its convention, and also such propositions
as were made to them from the two Houses while the
legislature was sitting for Acts of Parliament.*
But, in consequence of a law in the said year (Yelver-
ton's Act, passed in 1782), no law could be transmitted
to the Council before the meeting of Parliament, Bills
passed in Ireland as they do in England, and the Royal
Assent was given by the Lord Lieutenant in consequence
of a commission similar to that which is made when the
King does not think it expedient to give the Royal
Assent in person in England. (See Mountmorres' Irish
Parliaments, I., pp. 47-65.) (See also Appendix V.)
* Appendix VI.
30 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
III.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE IRISH
PARLIAMENT.
THE composition of the Irish Parliament, restrained by
Poynings' Law, rendered subordinate to the Parliament
of Great Britain by the Statute of George I., and domi-
nated by the master passion of maintaining the " landed
interests," may now be sketched in outline. The
number of Irish temporal Peers was of a changing
character. The Lords Spiritual were 22 in number, 18
Bishops and 4 Archbishops. In the reign of Elizabeth
the total number of Irish Temporal Peers was 32. In
1 68 1 the number had increased to 119, but in 1751 the
number of Lords Temporal had dwindled down to 28.
It was not until the reign of George III. that the Irish
Peerage became a factor in the work of government by
corruption.* Between 1751 and 1790 the number of Irish
Temporal Peers had increased from 28 to 178, and,
at the time of the Union, there were no fewer than
228 Temporal Peers. Irish Peerages were generally
conferred as the rewards of political services, and of
manipulation of the representation of nomination
boroughs in the interests of the Administration of the
day. It was, indeed, not unusual to confer Irish Peerages
on men who had no connection with Ireland, but who,
by becoming Irish Peers, could retain their seats in the
British House of Commons. The origin of the Irish
* Mountmorres' 7mA Parliaments, II., pp. 215-220.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 31
Peerages of Hotham, Galway, Sheffield, Muncaster,
Clive, and many others is due to this practice. It was,
moreover, customary to make Irish Peerages the rewards
for naval or military services, as in the cases of the
Peerages of Hood and Teignmouth, Graves and Rad-
stock. The attendance in the House of Lords was never
large. The Englishmen and Scotchmen of the Irish Peer-
age did not attend, but, strange to say, before the taking
of the Oath of Supremacy and the Oath in repudiation
of cardinal doctrines of the Roman Catholic Faith
were enforced in 1692, Peers could be introduced by
proxy. In Strafford's Parliament in 1634, the Lords
who had proxies were severally introduced personating
those whose proxies they had, and taking their seats
according to their relative precedency. " This," says
Lord Mountmorres, " is particularly mentioned, because
the right of protesting by proxy, which is a custom
peculiar to the House of Lords of Ireland, seems to
depend upon this circumstance, for, as they personated
those Lords, so it seemed to follow that they should act
in every respect for their proxies as if they were present,
and, among other privileges, had a right to protest "
(see Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., pp. 321-322). In
Ireland Peerages were conferred avowedly as rewards
for support in the Irish House of Commons, and were
not infrequently sold for money which was subsequently
expended by the Government in bribes to Members of
the Irish House of Commons. The conflicts between
the Government and the Country or Opposition Party
in the House of Commons were followed by profuse
creations of Peerages bestowed on Government sup-
porters, to some of which I will subsequently direct atten-
tion. To give one or two instances : in 1776, as the
32 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
result of a contest between the Irish Government
and the advocates of popular rights, no fewer than 18
Irish Peers were created in a single day, and 7 Barons
and 5 Viscounts were, on the same day, raised a step
in the Peerage. " The terms of the bargain were well
known to be an engagement to support the Government
by their votes in the House of Lords, by their substitutes
and their influence in the House of Commons " (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 441).
Peerages to the Irish gentry were always a peculiar
object of ambition, and they had long been given in
Ireland with a lavishness which materially degraded
the position. In England the simultaneous creation of
12 Peers by Harley had been regarded as a scandalous
and unprecedented straining of the prerogative, but
no sooner had the Union been carried than Lord Corn-
wallis sent to England the names of sixteen persons to
whom he had expressly promised Irish Peerages as
rewards for their support of the Union. But these
promotions were but a small part of what was found
necessary. Twenty-nine Irish Peerages were created ;
6 Peers received English Peerages on account of Irish
services, and 20 Peers received higher titles.* The full
list of these " honours " is reproduced in the Cornwallis
correspondence.
The House of Lords of Ireland was never in conflict
with the House of Commons on cardinal matters of
public policy. No Bill of first-class importance before
the modification of Poynings' Law in 1782, passed by
the House of Commons, was rejected by the House of
Lords. The powers of the Irish and the English Privy
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII.,
p. 398.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 33
Councils, by whom the Bills were not returned unless
approved by the Government, rendered their rejection
unnecessary. Again, after 1782, Bills passed by the
House of Commons were not rejected by the House
of Lords, because both Houses were of similar, not of
contrasted, character, and a majority of the Members
of the House of Commons was actually returned to
that House by the influences of Peers, who were the
patrons of nomination boroughs. Peerages, when con-
ferred on Irishmen, were almost exclusively given to
large borough owners, and it was stated in 1783 that 53
Peers nominated 123 Members of the Irish House of
Commons, the Lower House being to a great extent the
creation of the Upper one (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 323).
In the first Parliament of Elizabeth, in 1560, the number
of Members of the House of Commons was 76, ten only
out of the twenty counties which had then been formed
receiving a writ of summons (Hallam's Constitutional
History, III., p. 367). In the last Parliament of Elizabeth,
in 1585, there were 126 Members of the House of Com-
mons . I n the Parliament of James I . , in 1 6 1 3 , the number
of Members of the House of Commons was 232. In
Strafford's Parliament, in 1634, ti16 Members of the House
of Commons numbered 246. In 1666 the number of
Members had increased to 276, and shortly after the
Revolution the number of Members was 300, at which it
remained till the Union. Of these 300 Members, 72
only could be regarded, however faintly, as having been
returned by a semblance of popular election. The
composition of the Irish House of Commons was never
better described than by Mr. Hely Hutchinson, who
was Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and holder of
34 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the position of Secretary of State, in a speech delivered
in the Irish House of Commons in 1793, in which,
speaking without fear of contradiction to an audience
which had special means of information on the subject,
in reply to a question he had put to himself : " What is
the history of representation in this country ? " he said :
" In the first Parliament of James I., held in 1613, the
numbers of the House of Commons were 232 ; the last
creation of a borough was by Queen Anne, who created
one only. For the difference between the number of
representatives at the accession of James and the present
number of 300, the House of Stuart is responsible. One-
half of the representatives was made by them, and made
by the exertion of prerogative ; of these James made
40 at one stroke, most of them on the eve of a Parliament,
and some after the writs of summons had been issued.
The Commons, in that Parliament, expressed their
doubts whether these boroughs had the power of
returning Members to sit in Parliament, and reserved
that subject for future consideration. Complaints were
made to James I. of those grants, but what was his
answer ? — ' I have made 40 boroughs : suppose I had
made 400 — the more the merrier ! ' Charles I. followed
the example of his father in exercising this prerogative,
but not to so great an extent. Complaints were also
made to him, and he gave assurances that the new
Corporations should be reviewed by Parliament. The
grants made by these two monarchs appear, by the
histories and correspondences of those times, to have
been for the purpose of giving the Protestants a majority
over the Roman Catholics. The grants by Charles II.,
James II., and Queen Anne proceeded from motives of
personal favour. Thus it would appear, if the facts
THE COJvIPOSITION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 35
were investigated, that one-half of the representation of
Ireland had arisen from the exertion of the prerogative,
influenced by occasional motives, disputes among
religionists, and inducements of personal favour, but
had not been derived from any of those sources which
had produced the English Constitution. Had he the
honour of being a member of the British House of
Commons, he would never touch the venerable fabric of
their representation, but in this Kingdom the part of
the representation universally complained of had
originated in party or private motives, and he did
not believe there was one prescriptive borough in the
whole Kingdom. He believed some boroughs were
called so, but he believed, unjustly, eleven of the grants
which had been mentioned did not appear at the Rolls
Office, but most of them were modern in the time of
the House of Stuart." Mr. Hely Hutchinson, had he
been as well versed in the history of the British as of
the Irish nomination boroughs, would scarcely have
expressed his admiration for " the venerable fabric of
British representation." In 1785, Pitt himself had
proposed a reform of that representation, in which he
had made the suggestion of according compensation for
their disfranchisements to the owners of nomination
boroughs. Mr. Hallam, writing in 1816 of the accessions
to the British House of Commons of members for
boroughs enfranchised by Edward VI., Mary, and
Elizabeth, says : " The design of the great influx
of new Members from petty boroughs, which began in
the short reigns of Edward and Mary, and continued
under Elizabeth, must have been to secure the authority
of the Government, especially in the successive revo-
lutions of religion. Five towns only in Cornwall made
36 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
returns at the accession of Edward IV. ; twenty-one
at the time of Elizabeth. It will not be pretended that
the wretched villages which corruption and perjury
still hardly keep from famine were seats of commerce
and industry in the sixteenth century " (Hallam's
Constitutional History of England, III., pp. 38-39). A
very remarkable document, entitled, " Table of Parlia-
mentary Patronage for Ireland, 1793," published in a
periodical of the highest merit in its day, describes
concisely, without fear of contradiction, the state of
Irish Parliamentary representation within a few years of
the passing of the Act of Union. It states that the
number of Members of the Irish House of Commons
who owed their seats to Peers who were patrons of
nomination boroughs was 134, and the number of
Members who owed their seats to Commoners who were
patrons of nomination boroughs was 94 ; so that, in the
Irish House of Commons, which consisted of 300 Mem-
bers, no fewer than 228 Members (196 of whom were
returned for 98 boroughs) were returned either by
Peers as their nominees, or obtained their seats by the
influence of patrons who were Commoners, while the
remaining 72 Members, like the others, represented
Protestant constituencies exclusively, the great mass of
the population, who were Roman Catholics, being
wholly unrepresented in the Irish House of Commons
(Anthologia Hibernica, October, 1793, p. 268 ; see also
Madden's United Irishmen, First Series, p, 194).
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM. 37
IV.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE IRISH
LAND SYSTEM.
IT is essential, in estimating the work of the Irish Par-
liament, and in considering its occasional attacks on the
principles of national liberty, and fair dealings between
man and man, to bear in mind that that Parliament
was composed exclusively of men who were, directly or
indirectly, interested in the maintenance of the land
system, popularly, but incorrectly, known as the Crom-
wellian settlement in Ireland, which, by a series of con-
fiscations, placed the land of the country in the hands of
a few, and had despoiled its former owners of their
proprietary rights. This land settlement has been the
chief cause of the political and social evils of Ireland is
accountable for the deep and lasting division between
the English and Scotch settlers and the native popula-
tion from the period of the Reformation to that of the
Revolution, and for the religious intolerance which
found its expression in the Penal Code. Burke, who
studied Irish history with much care, has noticed how
its "real clue," from the accession of Elizabeth to the
Revolution, is to be found in the confiscation of Irish
land by English and Scotch adventurers, and the rooting
out from the soil of the native inhabitants and of the
descendants of the old Anglo-Norman families who had
settled in Ireland from the time of Henry II. In a letter
38 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to Sir Hercules Langrishe, in 1791, Burke says : " We
cannot miss the true genius and policy of the English
Government in Ireland before the Revolution, as well as
during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth
The original scheme was never deviated from for a single
hour. Unheard-of confiscations were made in the
Northern parts upon grounds of plots and conspiracies,
never proved, upon their supposed authors. The
war of chicane succeeded to the war of arms, and of
hostile statutes, and a regular series of operations was
carried on, particularly from Chichester's time, in
the ordinary Courts of Justice and by special com-
missions and inquisitions, first under the pretence of
tenures, and then of titles in the Crown, for the pur-
pose of the total extirpation of the interests of the
natives in their own soil, until this species of subtle
ravage, being carried to the last excess of oppression
and insolence under Lord Strafford, it kindled the
flames of that Rebellion which broke out in 1641. By
the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl of
Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the
total reduction of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1691,
the ruin of the native Irish, and, in a great measure,
too, of the first races of the English, was completely
accomplished."* The causes which produced the
Rebellion of 1641 were agrarian and religious. " It
had become clear," writes Lecky, " beyond all doubt,
to the native population, that the old scheme of ' rooting
them out ' from the soil was the settled policy of the
Government, that the land that remained to them was
marked as a prey by hungry adventurers, by the refuse
* Edmund Burke on Irish Affairs, edited by M. Arnold, pp. 241-
242. See Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II.,
pp. 102-103.
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM. 39
of the population of England and Scotland, by men who
cared no more for their rights and happiness than they
did for the rights and happiness of the worms which
were severed by their spades."* Not only their land,
but their religion was in peril. The overwhelming
majority of the old English settlers and whole native
population remained attached to the Roman Catholic
Faith. The property of the Roman Catholic Church
had been confiscated, and all religious worship, except
the Anglican, was made illegal ; but the Roman Catholic
worship had, in practice, been tolerated. The
strengthening of the Protestant interest in Ireland was
the one great object of the Plantation in Ulster. Irish
Protestant Prelates preached vehemently against
toleration, and the English House of Commons supported
them by a remonstrance to Charles I., complaining
bitterly that the Popish religion was publicly professed
in every part of Ireland, and that . monasteries and
nunneries were then newly erected. " The primary
causes of the rebellion are to be found," writes Hallam,
" in the two great sins of the .English Government in
the penal laws as to religion, which pressed on almost
the whole people, and in the systematic iniquity which
despoiled them of their possessions."! The effect of
the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, whereby the
title to lands in Ireland was settled, as a sequel to the
Rebellion of 1641, the Cromwellian regime and the
Revolution, was that, at the end of the seventeenth
century, the Irish and Anglo-Irish Roman Catholics
hardly possessed above one-seventh of the Kingdom.
They were, however, very formidable from their numbers,
* History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 117-118.
t Hallam's Constitutional History, III., p. 390.
4<D IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and the victorious or Protestant Party saw no security
for their land but in a system of oppression contained
in a series of laws during the reigns of William and Anne,
which has no parallel in European history * What
powerful factors the Cromwellian settlement and the
fear of its disturbance proved themselves to be in
resistance to Irish rights and liberties, may be seen from
the manner in which they were utilised by Lord Clare,
the principal machinator after Lord Castlereagh in
Ireland of the Union, in his celebrated speech in advocacy
of the Union, delivered in the House of Lords, when
Lord Chancellor of Ireland, on the loth February,
1800. The pronouncement is most valuable to the
student of history as an exposition of the effect of the
" Cromwellian settlement" on the trend of Irish politics,
and justifies the reproduction of a lengthy quotation
therefrom :
" Cromwell's first act," says Lord Clare, " was to
collect all the native Irish who survived the general
desolation, and remained in the country, and to transplant
them into the Province of Connaught, which had been
completely depopulated and laid waste in the progress
of the Rebellion. They were ordered to retire there
by a certain day, and forbidden to rep ass the Shannon
on pain of death, and this sentence of deportation was
rigorously enforced till the Restoration. Their ancient
possessions were seized and given up to the conquerors,
as were the possessions of every man who had taken
part in the Rebellion or followed the fortunes of the
King after the murder of Charles I. And this whole
fund was distributed amongst the officers and soldiers
of Cromwell's army in satisfaction of the arrears of their
pay, and adventurers who had advanced money to
* Hallam's Constitutional History, p. 430.
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM. 4!
defray the expenses of the war. And thus a new colony
of new settlers, composed of the various sects which
then infested England — Independents, Anabaptists,
Seceders, Brownists, Socinians, Millenarians, and
Dissenters of every description — many of them infected
with the leaven of democracy, poured into Ireland, and
were put in possession of the ancient inheritance of its
inhabitants. And I speak with great personal respect
of these men when I state that a very considerable
portion of the opulence and power of the Kingdom of
Ireland centres at this day in the descendants of this
motley collection of English adventurers.
" It seems evident, from the whole tenor of the
declaration made by Charles II. at his restoration, that
a private stipulation had been made by Monk in favour
of Cromwell's soldiers and adventurers, who had been
put into possession of the confiscated lands in Ireland,
and it would have been an act of gross injustice on the
part of the King to have overlooked their interests.
The civil war of 1641 was a rebellion against the Crown
of England, and the complete reduction of the Irish
rebels by Cromwell redounded essentially to the advan-
tage of the British Empire. But, admitting the principle
to its fullest extent, it is impossible to defend the Acts of
Settlement and Explanation, by which it was carried
into effect, and I could wish that the modern assertors
of Irish dignity and independence would take the
trouble to read and understand them.
14 I will not detain the House with a minute detail of
the provisions of this Act, thus passed for the settlement
of Ireland, but I wish gentlemen who call themselves
the dignified and independent Irish nation to know
that seven million eight hundred thousand acres of
42 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
land were set out under the authority of this Act to a
motley crew of English adventurers, civil and military,
nearly to the total exclusion of the old inhabitants of the
island, many of whom, who were innocent of the
Rebellion, lost their inheritances as well, for the diffi-
culties imposed upon them by the Court of Claims
in the proofs required of their innocence, or from a
deficiency in the fund for reprisal to English adven-
turers arising principally from a profuse grant made
by the Crown to the Duke of York ; and the Parliament
of Ireland, having made this settlement of the island in
effect on themselves, granted an hereditary revenue to
the Crown. It is a subject of curious and important
speculation to look back to the forfeitures of Ireland
incurred during the last century. The superficial
contents of the island are calculated at 11,420,682
acres. Let us now examine the state of forfeitures :
Confiscated in the reign of James I.,
the whole Province of Ulster,
containing 2,836,837 acres.
Set out by the Court of Claims at
the Restoration 7,800,000 acres.
Forfeitures of 1688 1,060,792 acres.
Total ii ,697,629 acres.
" So that the whole of your island has been confiscated,
with the exception of the estates of five or six old families
of English blood, some of whom had been attainted
in the reign of Henry VIII., but recovered their posses-
sions before Tyrone's rebellion, and had the good
fortune to escape the pillage of the English Republic
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM. 43
inflicted by Cromwell, and no inconsiderable portion
of the island has been confiscated twice or, perhaps,
thrice in the course of a century. The situation of
the Irish Nation at the Revolution stands unparalleled
in the history of the inhabited world.
" What, then, was the situation of Ireland at the
Revolution, and what is it to-day ? The whole power
and property of the country has been conferred by
successive monarchs of England upon an English
Colony composed of three sets of adventurers who
poured into this country at the end of three successive
rebellions ; confiscation is their common title, and,
from the first settlement, they have been hemmed in
on every side by the old inhabitants of the island,
brooding over their discontent in sullen indignation."
The speech of Lord Clare, which was a most forcible
Unionist appeal, both to the self-interest and to the
fears of the Protestant population of Ireland, who
were apprehensive of the resumption of the confiscated
lands by the mass of the people, who, having been
admitted to the Parliamentary elective franchise since
1793, were clamouring for a comprehensive scheme
of Parliamentary Reform, and for securing the eligibility
of Roman Catholics to sit and vote in Parliament —
measures that could not long be deferred. It
is, moreover, a skilful and accurate statement of the
position of the Irish Parliament, subject to galling
restrictions by the British Government and the British
Parliament, and, while humiliated by this lack of inde-
pendence, fearful of making common cause with their
Catholic fellow-countrymen, owing to the enjoyment
of privileges founded in injustice and secured them by
the English Government, to whom, in the words of
44 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Shiel, they " knelt on the necks of their Roman Catholic
fellow-countrymen."
The fact that most of the country was held by the
title of recent confiscations was itself a deterrent to
every project for the amelioration of the condition of
the people. To give an illustration : In 1709 the Irish
House of Commons presented an address to Queen
Anne, strongly urging the fatal consequences of reversing
the outlawries of any persons who had been attainted
for the rebellions either of 1641 or of 1688, on the ground
that any measure of clemency would shake the security
of property. " The titles of more than half the estates,"
they said, " now belonging to the Protestants, depend on
the forfeitures of the two last rebellions, wherein the
generality of the Irish were engaged." Mr. Lecky
well observes that this fact lies at the very root of the
social and political history of Ireland (History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 286).
The Irish Land Question has now been happily settled
by the transfer of the land to the occupiers thereof,
but dread of the disturbance of the Cromwellian Settle-
ment was, for upwards of two centuries, a powerful
factor in opposition to Irish rights and liberties, and a
specious plea for religious intolerance. So recently
as November, 1873, Mr. Isaac Butt, in formulating his
proposal for the establishment of an Irish Parliament
on a Federal basis, placed in the series of resolutions in
which that proposal is embodied a declaration of
readiness to insert in the Federal Constitution
" guarantees against any disturbance of the present
settlement of property, or any establishment of a religious
ascendancy." That resolution, it is of interest to record,
was proposed by the late Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P.,
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM. 45
the father of the Leader of the Irish Parliamentary
Party. Mr. Butt then said : " The settlement of
property is a phrase familiar to all who are acquainted
with the Irish Statute Book. It has reference to the
Act passed in the reign of Charles II., confirming the
titles of the forfeited estates. Immediately before that
Statute there had been a great and a very violent
transfer of property from the old Catholic proprietors
to the Protestant adventurers who fought under Crom-
well. This was, in fact, the Cromwellian Settlement
of Ireland — a settlement which is the origin of the title
to a large portion of the landed property in Ireland.
Something of the same kind, but to a more limited
extent, occurred in the reign of William III. After
the Revolution the new proprietors had an apprehension,
perhaps not an unnatural one, that if ever the Catholics
obtained power their forfeitures would be reversed.
They had, in fact, been so by the Catholic Parliament
of King James. With every relaxation of laws against
Catholics, with every concession that admitted them
to civil rights, an oath was demanded of them that
they would not interfere with ' the settlement of property
now existing by law.' That oath was continued till
within the last few years, and there are gentlemen
in this room who have taken it as their title to be members
of a Corporation. Two hundred years have passed
away since these confiscations. Property has changed
hands ; Catholic gentlemen are themselves the proprietors
of the forfeited estates, and it is almost childish to talk of
protecting ' the Act of Settlement and Explanation.'
But prejudices remain long after the cause which
has excited them has passed away."
The dread of the disturbance of the Cromwellian Settle-
46 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ment, which produced the atrocious Penal Code, is, no
doubt, accountable for the harsh and reproachful epithets
of ' Papist/ ' Popish,' ' Romist,' ' Romanist,' etc., etc.,
which appear in the Statute Book. From the time of the
introduction of the Protestant creed into Ireland, the
appellation of Roman Catholics used by the Statutes
appears to have been merely that of ' persons in com-
munion with the Church of Rome.' From 1692, in the
commencement of the reign of William III., when the
Catholics were expelled from the Irish Parliament,
a more hostile and contemptuous phraseology then
appeared. From that time till 1792 the Statutes describe
them as ' Papists,' ' Popish People,' etc." The later
Statutes, notably the Relief Act of 1792, drop the harsher
phrases altogether, and term them " Roman Catholics "
only. " In the first Viceregal speech in 1793 the qualifi-
cation was dropped, and for the first time since the Par-
liament of James II. the term ' Catholic ' was employed
from the Throne " (Scully's Irish Penal Laws, Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 563).
EARLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 47
V.
EARLY STRUGGLES IN IRISH PARLIAMENT
FOR POPULAR RIGHTS.
MR. LECKY has stated that it has always seemed to him
one of the. most striking instances on record of the
facility with which the most defective Parliament
yields to popular impulses, and acquires an instinct for
independence, that the Irish Parliament, which was
so completely subservient to English influence, so wholly
dependent on the Parliament of England, should have
ever constituted itself on any single subject a faithful
organ of public opinion, or succeeded in winning any
concessions to the cause of popular rights and liberties.
As in England, so also in Ireland ; popular rights were
established by the power of the purse. The English
Parliament, though it assumed and repeatedly exercised
the right of binding Ireland by its legislation, refrained
from imposing taxation on that country. The early
struggles of the Irish Parliament in the assertion of its
independence turned on questions of finance, although
the larger part of the revenue was entirely beyond the
control of Parliament. The insufficiency, however, of the
revenue, which laid, as we shall see, from the first, the
foundation of the power of the Irish Parliament, rendered
it necessary to ask for supplies, and, in this manner,
conferred power on the Irish Parliament. In Ireland,
as in England, Parliaments were convened by the Crown
48 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to obtain money, of which the Government stood in
need, although in Ireland, as in England, attempts
were made — some of them successful — for considerable
periods of time to govern Ireland without Parliament,
by financing the administration of the Crown out of
the hereditary revenue. Mr. Lecky, in his account of
the Irish revenue after the Revolution, explains clearly
the relationship between the deficiency of that revenue
and the convening of Parliaments, which can be seen
to prevail throughout the history of the Parliaments of
Ireland. This hereditary revenue of the Crown in
Ireland, as it existed after the Revolution, rested, he
tells us-, substantially on the legislation of Charles II.
(the Acts of Settlement and Explanation with the Quit
Rents, and the Act for the Abolition of Feudal Tenures),
and it grew in a great measure out of the confiscations
after the Rebellion. " The lands which had then been
forfeited by the Irish, and which were not restored
by the Act of Settlement, had been bestowed during the
Commonwealth on English soldiers. If the Crown, at
the Restoration, had exercised its legal right of appro-
priating them, it would have obtained a great revenue,
but, as such a course would have been extremely difficult
and dangerous, it was arranged by the Act of Settlement
that the Crown should resign its right to these forfeitures,
receiving in compensation a new hereditary revenue.
The older forms of Crown property were, at the same
time, either incorporated into this revenue, or abolished
with compensation, and the new hereditary revenue,
as settled by Parliament, was vested for ever in the
King and his successors. It was derived from many
sources, the most important being the Crown rents,
which were chiefly from the confiscations of Henry VIII.,
EARLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 49
and from the six counties which were forfeited after
the Rebellion of Tyrone ; the quit rents, which had
their origin in the confiscations which followed the
Rebellion of 1641 ; the hearth money, which was first
imposed upon Ireland under Charles II. ; licences for
selling ale, beer, and strong waters, and many Excise
and Customs House duties. For many years the
revenue was sufficient for all the civil and military
purposes of the Government, and no Parliament, with the
exception of that which was convoked by James II.,
after his expulsion from England, sat in Ireland for
the thirty-two years that elapsed between the Restoration
and the Parliament which was summoned by Lord
Sydney in 1692."*
In Ireland, as in England, the Tudors laid great
stress on obtaining, for the objects of public policy on
which they had set their hearts, a formal Parliamentary
sanction. The Reformation, accompanied with the
abjuring of their ancient religion, was hateful to the
people of Ireland. That movement had in England
undoubtedly a considerable measure of support, whereas
in Ireland it was without a friend. The Bishops,
with the Primate, Cromer, at their head, and the Lords
and Commons, in a Parliament held in Dublin in 1536,
resisted the Act of Supremacy, which was, nevertheless,
carried by the force of the Crown, absolutely coercing
the Parliament. In the reign of Edward VI., however,
it appeared dangerous to summon a Parliament, and the
English liturgy was ordered by a royal proclamation,
while, in Mary's reign, with the willing aid of an Irish
Parliament, the old system was restored. In the first
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 223-
224.
F
50 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Parliament of Elizabeth, in 1560, the Protestant Church
was established by Statute, care having been taken by
the enfranchisement of boroughs and the manipulation
of the county representation to procure a Parliamentary
majority for that purpose. Ten only out of the twenty
counties which had then been formed received the Writ
of Summons, and the number of seventy-six repre-
sentatives of the Anglo-Irish people was made up by
the towns, many of which were avowedly under the
influence of the Crown, which had been enfranchised for
the purpose of placing in the House of Commons
dependants and henchmen of the Crown, by whom
the compulsory establishment of the Protestant Church
was secured (Hallam's Constitutional History, III., pp.
366-367). In the next Parliament of Elizabeth, held in
1569, there is a distinct formation of a Parliamentary
opposition. A strong Country party was formed in
opposition to the Crown, and that opposition made itself
effective in the domain of finance, while keenly alive
to other grievances. They complained of the manage-
ment by which irregular returns of Members had been
made, and that some mere English strangers had been
returned for places which they had never seen. The
Judges, on reference to their opinion, declared that in
cases in which the towns were not incorporated, and in
which sheriffs had returned themselves, the elections were
illegal, but confirmed the non-resident burgesses, which
still left a Court majority. After this preliminary discus-
sion the Country party opposed unsuccessfully a Bill for
the suspension of Poynings' Law, an incident which shows
that upwards of seventy years after its enactment that
measure was still regarded as a bulwark of Parliamentary
liberty, and a new tax on wines. The assertion of the
EAKLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 51
power of the purse was met by a Mr. Hooker, who sat for
Islevrorth in the English and for Athenry in the Irish
House of Commons, and to whom we are indebted for one
of the earliest records of Parliamentary practice and pro-
cedure by the statement that " Her Majesty, of her own
royal authority, might and may establish the same without
any of your consents, as she hath already done the
like in England, saving of her courtesy it pleaseth her
to have it pass with your own consents by order of law,
that she might thereby have the better trial and assurance
of your dutifulness and good will towards her." This
language produced an uproar which rendered it
necessary that the House should be adjourned, and
that Mr. Hooker should be protected by a guard. The
duty on wines was laid aside for a time, but was carried
in a subsequent Session.*
Closely connected with the acquisition of the power of
the purse is the doctrine that no tax can be imposed or
levied without the consent of Parliament. This doctrine
was boldly advocated in 1576, not in Parliament, but from
without. " It had long been usual to obtain a sum of
money for the maintainance of the household and of the
troops by an assessment settled between the Council and
the principal inhabitants of each district. This, it was
contended by the Government, was in substitution of the
contribution of victuals which the Queen, by her preroga-
tive of purveyance, might claim at a fixed rate, much lower
than the current price. It was maintained, on the other
side, to be a voluntary benevolence. Sidney, the Lord
Deputy, now devised a plan to change it for a permanent
composition for every plough land, without regard to
those who claimed exemption from the burden of pur-
* Hallam's Constitutional History, III., pp. 372-373.
52 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
veyance, and imposed this new tax by Order in Council
as sufficiently warrantable by the royal prerogative. The
landowners of the Pale remonstrated against such a
violation of their franchise. They refused compliance
with the demand, and alleged it was contrary both to
reason and to law to impose any charge upon them
without the consent of Parliament. A deputation was
sent to England in the name of all the subjects of the
English Pale. After some demonstrations of resentment
in committing the delegates to the Tower, Queen
Elizabeth compromised the matter by the acceptance of
a voluntary composition in the accustomed manner for
seven years (see Hallam's Constitutional History, III.,
PP- 373-374)-
In the reign of James I. a fear of Parliamentary
opposition to the policy of the Crown is plainly per-
ceptible. The King's Writ was obeyed at least in
profession throughout Ireland, and English law was
established in every quarter of the country. The
difficulty, however, of obtaining the sanction of Parlia-
ment to the settlement of Ulster was very serious. Sir
John Davies, the Speaker of the Parliament convened
by James I. in 1613, gave in his speech to the Lord
Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, a history of the Par-
liaments of Ireland, and stated that in seventeen counties
out of the thirty-two into which Ireland was finally
parcelled, there was no town that returned burgesses
to Parliament before the reign of James I., and the whole
number in the rest was about 30. James I. took the
short and easy course of making the Irish Parliament
answerable to " regal influence " — to use the term
in vogue in a later generation by the enfranchisement of
nomination boroughs for the purpose of swamping
EARLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 53
honest representation. In James's Parliament of 1613
there were 106 more Members of the House of Commons
— which consisted of 234 Members — than in its im-
mediate predecessor, Perrot's Parliament, of 1585. Of
these, upwards of 80 were from the new boroughs created
by James. Without the new boroughs the Irish, as dis-
tinguished from the Recusants, would have had a .majority
— as it was. they numbered 101 (Ball's Legislative Systems,
p. 223). Forty boroughs, as we have seen, were created
in a single day, consisting for the most part of
townships where towns were projected but not built,
or of groups of three or four houses inhabited by a dozen
or so of new settlers, to whom, in some cases, a charter
had not been issued. " These boroughs were authorised
to select two Members each, and, when the new Parlia-
ment met, 200,000 English and Anglo-Irish of the
religion of the Court were found to have more repre-
sentatives than the Irish nation six times their number.
The Members for the new boroughs were not likely
to be troublesome to the Crown ; they were chosen
from the Lord Deputy's servants, attorneys' clerks,
bankrupts, outlaws, and other persons in a servile
or dependent condition (Davis 's Patriot Parliament ,
edited by Sir C. G. Duffy, Introduction, pp.
xix.-xx.). This proceeding was the subject of the
protest of the authentic representatives of the people,
who sent agents to James to complain of the abuse of
the Royal Prerogative, while the Lords of the Pale,
in a letter to the King, couched in highly-constitutional
language, expressed their apprehension that the erecting
of so many insignificant places to the rank of boroughs
was calculated to frustrate the general scope and insti-
tution of Parliament, they being ordained for the
54 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
assurance of the subjects, not to be pressed with any
new edicts or laws, but such as should pass with their
general consents and approbations. " What is it to
you," replied the King, " whether I make many or few
boroughs ? My Council may consider the fitness if
I require it. But, what if I had created 40 noblemen
and 400 boroughs ? The more the merrier ; the fewer
the better cheer " (Hallam's Constitutional History,
III., p. 383). The subject of the new boroughs was
brought under the notice of the House of Commons.
but Sir John Davis, the Speaker, whose election to the
Chair was bitterly contested by the Patriot Party,
devised a diplomatic method of shelving the thorny
question. " Under his direction," writes Sir Charles
Gavan Duffy, " the House of Commons confessed
the wrong, but evaded the remedy. It was true that
many Members were ' unduly elected ' ; some (as the
resolution recited) for ' not being estated in their
boroughs, some for being outlawed, excommunicated,
and, lastly, for being returned for places whose Charters
were not valid.' It would greatly prejudice public
business, however, to create a delay just then ; therefore,
the returns should not be questioned, but this resolution
must not, of course, be drawn into a precedent. The
native Members withdrew in a rage (a notable instance
of the secession from the House of Commons of an
Opposition), and the representatives of the boroughs
' whose Charters were not valid,' the bankrupt,
outlawed, and excommunicated nominees of the Castle,
declared the territory of O'Neill and O'Donnell for-
feited to the Crown." " Such a Parliament," Sir C. G.
Duffy proceeds, " could scarcely be improved upon, and,
when leisure came, the fraudulent boroughs were
EARLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 55
never called in question. They were not called in
question, indeed, but carefully maintained by successive
Sovereigns and Governments as a means of keeping
Parliaments in order " (Davis's Patriot Parliament,
edited by Sir C. G. Duffy, Introduction, pp. xxi.-
xxii.). The fraudulent boroughs were even increased,
for the House of Commons was subsequently augmented,
and reached its full complement, as I have said, shortly
after the Revolution. These grants of the elective
franchise Hallam considers to have been made, not,
indeed, improvidently, but " with very sinister intents
towards the freedom of Parliament, two-thirds of an
Irish House of Commons, as it stood in the eighteenth
century, being returned with the mere farce of election
by wretched tenants of the aristocracy." (See Hallam 's
Constitutional History, III., pp. 383-384.)
In the Parliaments of Charles I., despite their crippled
powers and essentially corrupt constitution, there
is evidence of strong opposition to the iron hand of
power, and deep-seated resentment at the breaches
of faith by the King and his Ministers with the people.
The Parliament of 1634 struggled to secure the Par-
liamentary confirmation of the " Graces " concessions
to liberty, which Hallam terms the analogue of the
Petition of Right in England, which had already been
paid for by the people, in reliance on the promise of
Charles I. that these concessions — reformations of
unquestionable and intolerable grievances — would be
secured by Act of Parliament.* The Parliament
assembled by Strafford in 1640, after his recall from
the Lord Lieutenancy, made a manful assertion of Irish
Parliamentary independence, of which, as I have
mentioned, one of the articles of Strafford's impeach-
* Hallam 's Constitutional History, III., pp. 383-384.
56 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ment is an echo, and a remonstrance of the Irish House
of Commons presented to .the Long Parliament exhibits
in the catalogue of grievances therein detailed, in the
words of Hall am, a true picture of the misgovernment
of Ireland at all times, especially under Strafford.
As both Parties — the Country or National Party and
the Party of the Settlers — acted together in the framing
of this remonstrance, temporarily waiving religious
differences, it may be regarded as an evidence of the
power of a body, despite the drawbacks to which the
Irish Parliament was subject, being the semblance of
the mouthpiece of a nation's will to unite in defence
of the liberty of its citizens of every creed and race and
party which was threatened with extinction. Mr.
Lecky strongly censures the conduct of Parsons and
Borlace, the Lords Justices, in proroguing the Irish
Parliament on the outbreak of the rebellion of 1641,
" contrary to the strong remonstrances both of Ormonde
and of the Catholic Party at a time when its continuance
was of vital importance to the country." It contained
a large proportion of those who were subsequently
leaders of the rebellion, but " it showed itself strongly and
unequivocably loyal, and at a time when the Puritan
Party was rising into the ascendant, and when there
was a great and manifest disposition to involve as many
landed proprietors as possible in the guilt of the rebellion,
the Catholic gentry regarded this Parliament as their one
means of attesting their loyalty beyond dispute, and
protecting in some degree their properties and their
religion " (History of England in the Eighteenth Cenfurv,
II., p. 126).
After the Restoration, on the 8th May, 1661, a Par-
liament was called by Charles II. in Ireland, whose
EARLY STRUGGLES FOR POPULAR RIGHTS. 57
first business was, as I have mentioned, to carry the
comprehensive measure — the Act of Settlement — and
to maintain it by the Act of Explanation. To the
carrying of this legislation, not by an English, but by
an Irish Parliament, owing to the sapient counsel of Lord
Chancellor Nottingham, that the laws of England would
only be binding by sufferance and protest by adoption
in Ireland, I have previously called attention, as a
significant pronouncement by one of the most acute
and profound lawyers of his time of Ireland's exclusive
right to legislate for herself. The Corporations of
Ireland had been filled with Protestants by Cromwell,
and the Irish House of Commons, at the Restoration,
was purely Protestant. That House had, however, a
keen but mistaken sense of its dignity, and a jealousy
of its privileges, which, indeed, was a uniform charac-
teristic of every Irish House of Commons, however
unrepresentative of the people it may have been, and
became in itself a very powerful factor in the achieve-
ment of the liberty of the people. The Parliament of
Charles II. — the only Parliament of his reign — was
dissolved in 1666, and no Parliament (with the exception
of the Parliament of James II., after his deposition from
the Throne in 1689) was summoned till after the Revo-
lution in 1692. The dissolution of 1666 was occasioned
by a squabble between the two Houses on points of idle
etiquette and worthless ceremony with respect to the
formalities to be observed by Members of both Houses
respectively, in sitting down, in standing up, the place
for the Commons to approach, whether the Peers should
be allowed to sit covered while the Commons were to
be allowed to stand uncovered. When Str afford was
Lord Lieutenant, a stupid quarrel of a similar nature
58 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was adjusted by his tactful suggestion that the usage
of the English Parliament, with which, as an old Member,
he was well acquainted, should be followed. In 1666
the Duke of Ormonde, who was then Lord Lieutenant,
through inability to compose the differences between the
Houses, dissolved the Parliament. In a later generation,
in 1737, Conferences between the two Houses were dis-
continued owing to quarrels on points of etiquette and
ceremonial. This morbid sensibility of the House of
Commons in the assertion of its privileges, ridiculous as
it may seem to us, was not, as I have said, without
benefit to the people at large. Privilege can only be
maintained by power, and it was early perceived that
the power of the House of Commons waned or waxed
in accordance with the favour in which it was held by
the people.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. 59
VI.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689.
THE accurate constitutional historian would be con-
strained to record that from 1666 till 1692 no Parliament
was convened in Ireland. Just as in England, the
later proceedings of the Long Parliament and the
Parliaments of the time of the Commonwealth are
regarded as nullities, so the Parliament convened in
Ireland by James II., which sat in Dublin from May yth
till July 20th, 1689, after the flight of James from England
on December 23rd, 1688, and after the declaration of
the Convention Parliament against James and his
family, and for William and Mary on the i2th February,
1689, was likewise a nullity. All the Acts and other
official documents of this Parliament were ordered by
William's Parliament to be burned by a clause in an
Act unmaking its legislation.
It is, however, absolutely essential to a true under-
standing of the trend of Irish constitutional history to
bear in mind the profound effect produced by the pro-
ceedings of this Parliament in increasing the hostility
of the Landed Interest to any measure of reform under
the belief that reform would be calculated to weaken
that interest, and, likewise, in forecasting Irish Legis-
lative Independence, which was not attained till 1782,
and universal religious toleration, with the relief of all
religious disabilities, which, even at the present time,
60 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
•has not been completely achieved. This Irish Parlia-
ment of 1689, nullity though it was according to the
letter of the Constitution, held up to execration and
misconstruction as it has been for upwards of two
centuries, has been thus, in my judgment, correctly
described :
" It was the first and the last Parliament which ever
sat in Ireland since the English invasion possessed
of national authority and complete in all its parts.
The King, by law and in fact, the King who, by his
Scottish descent, his creed, and his misfortunes, was
dear (mistakenly or not) to the majority of the then
people of Ireland, presided in person over that Parlia-
ment. The Peerage consisted of the best blood, Milesian
and Norman, of great wealth and of various creeds.
The Commons represented the Irish septs, the Danish
towns, and the Anglo-Irish counties and boroughs. No
Parliament of equal rank, from King to Commons, sat
here since — none sat here before or since so national in
composition and conduct " (Davis's Irish Patriot Par-
liament of 1689, pp. 39-40).
The Lords who sat in this Parliament were 54 in
number, of whom six were Protestant Bishops — no
Catholic Prelate was admitted at all — and 4 or 5 Protestant
Temporal Lords. The Members of the House of
Commons were 224, of whom 6 were Protestants. The
Corporation Boroughs, which were created originally
for the purpose of maintaining royal influence, were, no
doubt, tampered with in the interests of James, and most
of the important Protestant landlords had either gone
over to the Prince of Orange, or fled to England, or,
at least, resolved to withdraw themselves from public
affairs till the result of the struggle was determined.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. 6l
' The Members of the House of Commons were, in many
cases, the sons of the 3,000 proprietors who, without
trial and without compensation, had been deprived by
the Act of Settlement of the estates of their ancestors.
To all of them the confiscations of Ulster, the fraud
of Strafford, the long train of calamities that followed,
were cruel and recent events."* A main object of
the Parliament was to re-establish, at all costs, the
descendants of the old proprietors in their land, and to
annul the spoliations of the past. The repeal of the
Acts of Settlement and Explanation by this Parliament
must, writes Mr. Lecky, be judged "in the light of the
antecedent events of Irish history, and with a due
allowance for the passions of a civil war, for the peculiar
position of the legislators, and for the extreme difficulty
of all legislation on the subject. "f It was enacted that all
persons who had possessed landed property in Ireland
on October 22nd, 1641, and who had been deprived of
their inheritance by the Act of Settlement, should
enter at once into the possession of their old properties.
The owners, who were the adventurers or soldiers of
Cromwell, were to be dispossessed without compensation,
but persons who came into possession of the lands after
the Act of Settlement for good and valuable considera-
tions, and not considerations of blood, affinity, or
marriage, were to be compensated out of the forfeited
estates of Irish proprietors who did not acknowledge King
James, or who aided, abetted, or corresponded with
the rebels. Davis, while allowing the justice of this
restoration of the Irish, admits that the Act contains no
provision for the families of these adventurers who,
however guilty when they came into the country, had
*Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 181-182
t Lecky, II., p. 187.
62 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
been "in it for from thirty to forty years, and had
time and some citizenship in their favour." " Yet,"
he proceeds, " let anyone who finds himself eager to
condemn the Irish Parliament on this account read
over the facts that led to it, namely, the conquest of
Leinster before the Reformation, the settlements of
Munster and Ulster under Elizabeth and James, the
governments of Strafford and Parsons and Borlace,
Cromwell's and Ireton's conquests, the effects of the
Act of Settlement, and the false plot of the reign of
Charles II. — let them, we say, read these, and be at
least moderate in censuring the Irish Parliament of
1689 " (Patriot Parliament, pp. 72-73).
I have dwelt at length on this legislation which the
triumph of the Williamite cause rendered futile, because
it was a powerful factor in the formation of the attitude
of obstinate resistance to every movement likely to
endanger or even to weaken the landed interest, as
established by the Act of Settlement. When, in the
'forties of the eighteenth century, Lord Clancarty
succeeded in inducing the English Cabinet to consent
to a Bill for reversing his attainder, and restoring pro-
perty of the estimated value of £60,000 a year, the
indignation of the Irish landowners led to the abandon-
ment of the measure by the Government, while the
Irish House of Commons showed its feelings by angry
resolutions.* The Act of Attainder, by which more
than 2,000 men were conditionally attainted unless they
appeared during an assigned interval before the law
courts for trial, was really designed for the purposes
of confiscation, and was passed by a Parliament com-
posed of the representatives of the 3,000 men who had
* Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 429.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. 63
been absolutely deprived of their possessions without
trial in 1665. " It is indeed," writes Mr. Lecky, " a
curious illustration of the carelessness or partiality
with which Irish history is written, that no popular
historian has noticed that five days before this Act,
which has been described as without a parallel in the
history of civilised countries, was introduced into the
Irish Parliament, a Bill, which appears in its essential
characteristics to have been precisely similar, was
introduced into the Parliament of England, that it
passed the House of Commons, that it passed with
slight amendment the English House of Lords, and
that it was only lost in its last stage by a prorogation.
This fact will show how far the Irish Act of Attainder
was from bearing the unique character that has been
ascribed to it " (see Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 193-195 ; see also Davis's
Patriot Parliament of 1689, pp. 142-146).
The Act of Attainder, under whose operation it is not
alleged that even one person lost his life, must be
regarded as a corollary of the Act repealing the Act of
Settlement, its true aim being a complete overthrow
of the existing land system in Ireland, and as one of
the series of circumstances which made landlords
regard themselves as engaged in a life and death struggle
in defence of a threatened and hated institution.-
Although a terrible Penal Code was enacted as a prop
and stay of landlordism, it is safe to say that into what
we may call the land legislation of James II. the spirit
of religious animosity did not enter. To give an illus-
tration : " One Gerard Dillon, a most ferocious
papist," writes Archbishop King, " a serjeant-at-law,
was Recorder of Dublin, and he stood to be chosen one
64 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of the burgesses of the City (for the Parliament of
1689), but could not prevail, because he had purchased a
considerable estate under the Act of Settlement, and
they feared lest this might engage him to defend it."
Little value was set on " furious Popery " in comparison
with the desire for the resumption of the property
plundered by the Act of Settlement.* The Parliament
of 1689, though convened in open defiance of Poynings'
Law, and, therefore, illegal, with all its Acts null and
void, because unsanctioned by success, was, nevertheless,
an epoch-making Assembly, because it enunciated
the principal parts of a code of religious and civil liberty
needful for the permanent freedom and prosperity
of Ireland. James II., in the Speech from the Throne
at the opening of the session, said : " I have always
been for liberty of conscience, and against invading
any man's property, having still in my mind that saying
in Holy Writ, ' Do as you would be done to, for that is
the Law and the Prophets.' . . . ." Nothing shall
ever persuade me to change my mind as to that, and,
wheresoever I am the master, I design (God willing)
to establish it by law, and have no other test or distinction
than that of loyalty. I expect your concurrence in so
Christian a work." The Parliament, accordingly, by
an Act entitled " An Act for Liberty of Conscience
and Repealing such Acts and Clauses in any Act of
Parliament which are inconsistent with the same,"
which was far in advance of the age, established perfect
religious liberty in Ireland. Although a Roman Catholic
Parliament, it proscribed no man for his religion — the
word " Protestant " does not occur in any Act, though,
while it sat, the Convention Parliament at Westminster
was not only thundering out insults against Popery,
* Davis's Patriot Parliament, p. 32.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. 65
but inciting William to persecute it, and laying the
foundation of the Penal Code, which was so soon to be
enacted by the Parliament of the Revolution regime.*
" The Act establishing Liberty of Conscience," writes
Mr. Lecky, " in the full flush of the brief Catholic
Ascendancy under James II., exhibits very remarkably
the tolerant aspect of the Irish character." By yet
another Act the Parliament boldly announced Irish
Legislative Independence. By the Act declaring that
the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland, and
against Writs of Error and Appeal to be brought for
removing judgments, decrees, and sentences given in
Ireland into England, it " anticipated the doctrine of
Molyneux, Swift, and Grattan," and claimed that the
English Parliament had not, and never had, any right
to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King
and Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind
Ireland. The Houses of Lords and Commons passed
a Bill expressly repealing Poynings' Law, which the
veto of James II. alone precluded from reaching the
Statute Book. That Parliament, too, established
religious equality. The voluntary system had no
supporters then, and the Irish Parliament did the next
best thing — they left the tithes of the Protestant people
to the Protestant Ministers, and of the Catholic people
to the Catholic Priests. Pensions, not exceeding £200
a year, weie given to the Catholic Bishops. No
Protestant Prelates were deprived of stipend or honour.
They held their incomes, and they sat in the Parliament
(Davis's Patriot Parliament, Introduction, p. xciii.).
Several other measures were passed for the developing
of the resources of the country or the remedying of some
great abuse. "Among them were Acts for encouraging
* Davis's Patriot Parliatnent , pp. 151-152.
66 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
strangers to plant in Ireland, for the relief of distressed
debtors, for the removal of the incapacities of the native
Irish, for the recovery of waste lands, for the improve-
ment of trade, shipping, and navigation, and for the
establishing of free schools" (Lecky, II., pp. 183-184).
The episode of the unacknowledged Irish Patriot Par-
liament of 1689 most powerfully affected the trend of
public opinion in Ireland in the eighteenth century,
and must have influenced the course of public men,
and moulded their views, whether they happened to
belong to the " Court " or to the " Country " or Patriot
Party. A general knowledge of the proceedings of
this Assembly is, accordingly, essential to an adequate
conception of the development of the Irish Constitution,
and of the causes which forwarded or retarded its
growth.
PUBLIC OPINION. 67
VII.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AS AFFECTED BY
PUBLIC OPINION.
THE Irish Parliament which met in 1692 was the first
Parliament to be legally convened after the Revolution.
The legislation altering the succession of the Crown in
England was not re-enacted in Ireland. By the pro-
visions of an Irish Statute (33 Hen. VIII., p. c. i)
the King of England is, ipso facto, King of Ireland.
The Irish Parliament, by the Act of Recognition (4
William & Mary, c. i), practically acknowledged
England's right in this respect. " The Irish Parliament
had never adopted the Act passed in the fifth of
Elizabeth, imposing the oath of supremacy upon
Members of the Commons. It had been full of Roman
Catholics under Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles
I. In the second Session of 1641, when the Rebellion
was at its height, the House of Commons was induced to
exclude, by a resolution of their own, all who would not
take that oath. In the Parliament of 1661 no Roman
Catholic, or only one, was returned, but the House
addressed the Lords Justices to issue a commission
for administering the oath of supremacy to all its
Members. A Bill passed the Commons in 1663 for
imposing that oath in future, which was stopped by a
prorogation."* An Act, as I have mentioned, of the
English Parliament, in 1691 (3 Wm. & Mary, c. 3),
* Hallam's Constitutional History, III., pp. 401-402.
68 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
reciting that great disquiet and many dangerous attempts
have been made to deprive their Majesties and their
royal predecessors of the said realm of Ireland by the
liberty which the Popish recusants there have had, and
taken to sit and vote in Parliament, requires every
Member of both Houses to take the new oath of allegiance
and supremacy, and to subscribe the declaration against
transubstantiation before taking his seat. To this
Statute there was cheerful submission on the
part of the Irish Parliament. It was not, however,
confirmed by the Irish Parliament till 1782, although it
had uniformly been observed. The Irish Parliament
seems to have very cheerfully acquiesced in English
legislation, which was after its own heart. That Parlia-
ment, however, soon came to realise that the Parliament
of England had no intention of foregoing or weakening
its assumed control over Irish legislation, which was
exercised, while the sovereignty was supposed to reside
wholly in the King, now that that Parliament had become,
in effect and general sentiments, though not quite on the
Statute Book, co-ordinate partakers of the supreme
authority. Ireland was, for instance, carefully excluded
from the chief benefits of the Revolution. An Irish Bill,
containing the principal provisions of the Bill of Rights,
was sent to England under the Viceroyalty of Sydney in
the first Irish Parliament after the Revolution, but was
never returned. In fact, Ireland never had a Bill of
Rights.* An effort of the Irish Parliament, in 1692, to
obtain the same control over the Irish finances as the
English Parliament possessed over the finances of
England failed. The jealousy of the English House of
Commons at all periods in asserting the absolute right
to originate all grants of money and Money Bills is a
* Lecky, IIr, p. 226.
PUBLIC OPINION. 69
representative fact in English constitutional history.
The Irish House of Commons contended that Money
Bills should originate in their House, although all other
Bills must have been certified by the Privy Council.
That House, in 1692, rejected a Money Bill which was
sent over from England on the ground that it did not
take its rise in the House, and, although on account
of an urgent financial necessity, it consented to pass
a similar Bill, it accompanied it with a resolution that
the other Bill was rejected because it did not take its
rise in the House of Commons, and explicitly asserted
that " it was the sole and undoubted right of the
House of Commons to propose heads of Bills for
raising money." The Judges, however, to whom the
matter was referred, pronounced adversely to the
claim of the House of Commons, while Lord Sydney
entered a protest against the proceedings of the
House of Commons in the House of Lords' Journals,
and prorogued the Parliament, which was soon after-
wards dissolved. In the short life of this Parliament
there are several indications of the trend of opinion
towards legislative independence.*
The Parliament which met in September, 1698, is
signalised by a tragic episode in the history of Ireland.
That Parliament was convened for the express purpose of
destroying, in the interest of the English commercial
classes, the Irish woollen trade, which was the staple
industry of the country. There was an important
woollen manufacture in England, and the English manu-
facturers earnestly petitioned for the total destruction
of the rising industry in Ireland. Their petitions were
speedily considered. Both Houses of the English
* Lecky, II., p. 418. Froude, I., pp. 253-256.
70 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Parliament addressed William III. on this subject on
the Qth June, 1698, urging him, in the words of the address
of the English House of Commons, " to enjoin all those
you employ in Ireland to make it their care and use
their utmost diligence to hinder the exportation of
wool from Ireland, except to be imported hither, and
for the discouraging of these woollen manufactures."
The King promised to do as he was requested. An
Irish Parliament was summoned, being, as we have
seen from the nature of its constitution and the circum-
stances of the country, without power to resist English
influence. The Lords Justices, in their opening speech,
urged the Parliament to encourage the linen and hempen
manufacture instead of the woollen manufacture, which
England desired to monopolise. The Commons, in
reply, promised their hearty endeavours to establish a
linen and hempen manufacture in Ireland, expressed
a hope that they might find "such a temperament" in
respect of the woollen trade as would prevent it from
being injurious to that of England, and proceeded, at
the instance of the Government, to impose heavy
additional duties on the export of Irish woollen goods.
They were in dread of abolition if they refused, and
unable to help themselves. This is, however, one of
the few instances in which the Irish Parliament was
prevailed on to pass laws in restraint of Irish trade.
Even in this case the destruction of the woollen industry
was not considered complete until English legislation
gave it a final blow. The English were still unsatisfied.
The Irish woollen manufactures had already been
excluded by the Navigation Act from the whole colonial
market. They had been virtually excluded from
England itself by duties amounting to a prohibition. A
law of crushing severity enacted by the British Parlia-
PUBLIC OPINION. 71
ment in 1699 completed the work, and prohibited the
Irish from exporting their manufactured wool to any
other country whatever (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 210-211. Froude, I., pp.
292-293).
Submission to the authority of the English Parliament,
which was rendered most reluctantly by the Irish Parlia-
ment, did not extend to the portion of the Irish people who
concerned themselves with public affairs. They were
however, almost absolutely helpless, cut off from the
great body of the nation, excluded from the highest
political and judicial offices, which were all but invariably
filled by Englishmen, and, being in a poverty-stricken
country, they could do little but utter a few barren
protests. William Molyneux, however, in his celebrated
treatise, which appeared in 1698, amid the downfall of
Irish commerce through English legislation, voiced the
discontent of the period, the apprehension of what the
jealousy of English commerce might ordain, and the
reluctance to admit an authority in the English Parlia-
ment which had on previous occasions been repudiated
in Ireland.* In his Case of Ireland's being bound by
Acts of Parliament in England stated, he set up the claim
of his country, based on strong historical arguments, for
the absolute legislative independence which was
eventually achieved in 1782. The House of Commons
at Westminster came to resolutions against this book,
and directed that it should be burned by the common
hangman. Molyneux died in October, 1698. Macaulay
thinks that if he had lived a few years longer he would
have been impeached. His treatise bore good fruit in
the fostering of a public opinion in Ireland in opposition
to the subordination of the Irish to the English Parlia-
* Ball's Legislative Systems, pp. 40-41.
72 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ment, and in stimulating intelligent criticism of the
results produced by that subordination. When we
remember the date of the publication of Molyneux's
treatise — February, 1698 — and the date of the convening
of the Irish Parliament, in the September of that year,
we may, I think, confidently surmise that the legislation
of the Irish Parliament in restraint of the woollen trade
was, in its true inwardness, an effort to maintain the
semblance of the power of that Parliament to legislate
for Ireland, from the knowledge that, if the Bill were
rejected, it would have been passed by the English
Parliament, and that Ireland would be powerless to
resist its operation. From the time of this prohibition
of the woollen manufactures no Parliament was held
in Ireland tor five years, till 1703. There is, moreover,
evidence of the fear of public opinion at the effects —
widespread poverty and destitution— produced by
the deliberately devised ruin of the staple industry of
the country. In 1701 pensions to the amount of £16,000
were struck off.* In 1703, 1705, and 1707 the House
of Commons resolved unanimously that " it would
greatly conduce to the relief of the poor and the good
of the Kingdom that the inhabitants thereof should use
none other but the manufactures of the Kingdom in
their apparel and the furniture of their houses, and, in
the last of those sessions, the Members engaged their
honours to each other that they would conform to the
said resolution. "f The consequences of the prohibition
are recorded in the Parliamentary Journals. In 1703
the House of Commons laid before Queen Anne a most
affecting representation, containing, to use their own
wrords, " a true state of our deplorable condition,"
protesting that no groundless discontent was the motive
* Lecky, II., p. 237.
t Hely-Hutchinson's Commercial Restraints, p. 143.
PUBLIC OPINION. 73
for that application, but a deep sense of the evil state of
their country, and of the further evils they have reason to
fear will fall upon it if not timely prevented. They set
forth the vast decay and loss of the country's trade, its
being almost exhausted of coin, that they are hindered
from earning their livelihoods, and from maintaining
their own manufactures, that their poor have thereby
become very numerous, that great numbers of Protestant
families have been constrained to move out of the
Kingdom, as well into Scotland as into the dominions
of foreign Princes and States, and that their foreign trade
and its concerns are under such restrictions and dis-
couragements as to be thus become, in a measure,
impracticable, although that Kingdom hath, by its
blood and treasure, contributed to secure the plantation
trade to the people of England. In a further address
to Queen Anne, laid before the Duke of Ormonde, then
Lord Lieutenant, by the House of Commons with its
Speaker, they mention the distressed condition of that
Kingdom, and more especially of the industrious
Protestants, by the almost total loss of trade and decay
of their manufactures, and to preserve their country
from utter ruin, apply for liberty to export their linen
manufactures to the Plantations. In a subsequent part
of this session the Commons resolved that, by reason
of the great decay of trade and discouragement of the
manufactures of this Kingdom, many poor tradesmen
were reduced to extreme want and beggary. The
resolution was agreed to, nem. con., and the Speaker,
Mr. Broderick, then Solicitor- General, afterwards Lord
Chancellor, in his speech at the end of the session, informs
the Lord Lieutenant that the representation of the
Commons was, as to the matters contained in it, the
74 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
unanimous voice and consent of a very full House, and
that the soft and gentle terms used by the Commons in
laying the distressed condition of the Kingdom before
Her Majesty showed that their complaints proceeded
not from querulousness, but from a necessity of seeking
redress. He adds, it is to be hoped they may be allowed
such a proportion of trade that they may recover from
the great poverty they now lie under, and, in presenting
the Bill of Supply, says the Commons have granted it
" in time of extreme poverty " (see Hutchinson's Com-
mercial Restraints of Ireland, pp. 15-17).
The tendency to throw land into pasture became so
general after the peace in 1715, owing to the destruction of
industries, that the House of Commons, in 1716, passed a
resolution against covenants or leases forbidding tenants to
break up or plough their land.* The position of the
Irish Parliament towards the people at large made
any efFcits on their part to prevent the utter ruin of
the country by restraints on its trade all but futile.
Thus, in 1709, a year in which the House of Commons
made some show of independence in rejecting a Money
Bill because it had been altered in England, they pre-
sented the address to which I have referred to Queen
Anne, urging strongly the fatal consequences of
removing the outlawries of any persons who had been
attainted in the rebellions either of 1641 or 1688, on the
ground that any measure of clemency would shake
the security of property. " The titles of more than
half the estates," they said, " now belonging to the
Protestants depend on the forfeitures of the two last
rebellions, wherein the generality of the Irish were
engaged " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, II., p. 286).
* Froude, I., p. 442.
PUBLIC OPINION. 75
The absence of any approach to the spirit of nationality
in the Irish Parliament at this time may be gauged
from the fact that " in 1703, four years before the Scotch
Union was completed, both Houses of Parliament
in Ireland concurred in a representation to Queen
Anne in favour of a Legislative Union between England
and Ireland, and, in 1707, the Irish House of Commons,
while congratulating the Queen on the consummation
of the Scotch measure, expressed a hope that God
might put it into her heart to add greater strength and
lustre to her Crown by a yet more comprehensive
Union." " The spirit," writes Lecky, " of commercial
monopoly triumphed. The petition of the Irish
Parliament was treated with contempt, and a long
period of commercial restrictions and penal laws and
complete Parliamentary servitude ensued " (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp.
268-269). There were, however, occasional attempts
at the assertion, not, indeed, of independence, but of
some slight control over the Executive. In 1709, as I
have mentioned, a Money Bill was rejected because it
had been altered in England, and, in the last days of
Queen Anne, the vehement Whig policy of the Irish
House of Commons, who feared alterations in the
Land Acts of Settlement and Explanation, and, perhaps,
the repeal of these enactments, so seriously impeded the
Tory, if not Jacobite, policy of the Government, that
Sir Constantine Phipps, an English lawyer, who was then
Irish Lord Chancellor, appears to have contemplated the
possibility of reducing the expenditure of the country to
the limits of the hereditary revenue, whose sources
have been explained, and governing without a Par-
liament.* The increase of the army, the erection of
* I,ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 418.
76 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
barracks, and other expenses resulting from the Revolu-
tion, had made the hereditary revenue insufficient, and it
became necessary to ask for fresh supplies. " This insuffi-
ciency of the hereditary revenue laid the foundations of
the power of the Parliament, and that power was increased
when the Government found it necessary, in 1715, to
borrow ,£50,000 for the purpose of taking military
measures to secure the new dynasty. The National
Debt, which before this time had been only £16,000,
became now a considerable element in the national
finances. It grew in the next fifteen years to rather
more than £330,000, and a series of new duties was
imposed by Parliament for the purpose of paying the
interest and principal."*
The helplessness, however, of the Irish Parliament
is thus demonstrated by Hely-Hutchinson. He states
that in 1721, during a period of great distress, the
Speech from the Throne and the Addresses to the
King and Lord Lieutenant declare in the strongest terms
the great decay of trade and the very low and im-
poverished state to which the country was reduced.
" But," he says, " it is a melancholy proof of the
desponding state of this kingdom that no law whatever
was then proposed for encouraging trade or manufactures,
or, to follow the words of the Address, for reviving
trade, or making us a flourishing people, unless that
for amending laws as to butter and tallow casks deserves
to be so called And why ? Because it was well
understood by both Houses of Parliament that they
had no power to remove those restraints which prohibited
trade and discouraged manufactures, and that any
application for that purpose would at that time have
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 224.
PUBLIC OPINION. 77
only offended the people on one side of the Channel
without bringing any relief to those on the other "
(Commercial Restraints, pp. 25-26).
And then, as so often happens when all things seem
invested with impenetrable gloom and hopelessness,
a light came unexpectedly to illumine the darkness.
In 1720 — the year after the Parliament of England had
passed the Statute to which I have referred, asserting
in the most express terms the subjection of the Irish
Parliament, and denying all appellate jurisdiction to the
Irish House of Lords — the Government felt themselves
bound to endeavour to suppress a powerful appeal made,
not by Parliament or to Parliament, but to the people
at large. The House of Commons had passed, again
and again, resolutions urging the exclusive use of Irish
manufactures, but the tract of Swift, in 1720, with the
same object in view, exercised a more powerful influence
than any resolution of the House of Commons. The
institution of proceedings for the prosecution of the
printer of this tract was, in itself, an acknowledgment of
the impression it had produced on the public mind.
The failure of that prosecution may be regarded as the
first popular triumph over the system of English mis-
government and oppression in Ireland, and that triumph
came, not from within the Parliament, but from without.
The battle was fought and won, not in the Irish House
of Commons, but in a Law Court, where a jury proved
themselves the champions of the liberty of the subject.
" Nine times the jury desired to return a verdict of not
guilty, and nine times they were sent back by the
presiding Judge, Chief Justice Whitshed, who placed
his hand on his breast and declared his belief that the
pamphlet was written in the interests of the Pretender " —
78 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
a statement calculated to have a prevailing weight with
men who believed the advent of the Pretender would
mean their undoing by the repeal of the Act of Settlement.
He prolonged the disgraceful scene for eleven hours,
till the jury brought in a special verdict, leaving the
matter to the Judge himself. The unpopularity of the
prosecution was so great that the Government did not
venture to proceed further. A second trial was con-
templated, but more prudent counsels prevailed, and a
nolle prosequi was entered.*
The rise of the movement which culminated in Irish
Parliamentary Independence, established in 1782, may
be dated from 1724. In 1722 a Memorial was presented
to the Lords of the Treasury, complaining of the base
quality of the copper coinage then in circulation, and
in that year it was determined to issue a new coinage.
The privilege of supplying that coinage was given
by royal prerogative to the Countess of Kendal, one of
the mistresses of George I., who had an Irish pension
of the annual value of £2,500, anc* whose daughter,
Lady Walsingham, had another Irish pension of £1,500.
The Duchess of Kendal sold the patent thus obtained
to one William Wood, an English ironmonger. By
the terms of the patent, one pound avoirdupois of
copper was to be coined into halfpence and farthings
to the nominal value of 2$. 6d., while it was acknowledged
that the market price of this quantity of uncoined
copper was only i2d. or i^d. In order that the profits
should be very large, a sum of no less than £108,000
was to be coined. In England the copper coinage served
only for the convenience of change, and its intrinsic
value was a matter of indifference. In Ireland the whole
current coin was believed to be not more than £400,000,
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 420.
Froude's English in Ireland, I., pp. 561-562.
PUBLIC OPINION. 79
and the proposal to coin in copper more than a fourth
part of that sum made the question of value vitally
important, for the new coins would necessarily enter
into all large payments, gradually displacing gold and
silver, which, it was found, would all, or nearly all,
pass to England in the shape of rents, leaving but
a debased copper coinage at home. Both Houses of
Parliament, and most of the Corporations, voted addresses
against the coinage, and there was a general resolution
to refuse it, although the patent obliged no one who
was unwilling to receive the coin, and the reduction of
the sum to be coined from £108,000 to £40,000 by no
means assuaged the intense indignation at its appearance,
which was increased by the boast of Wood, that he would
ram the coin down the throats of the people. When the
agitation was at its highest, Swift, in 1724, under the
assumed name of M. B. Drapier, addressed a series
of letters to the people of Ireland, attacking Wood and
his patent with all his powers of ridicule and invective,
and demanding the annulling of the patent. The
national spirit was at last aroused, and it was finally
irresistible. In the fourth of the Drapier's letters, Swift,
with unerring tact, changed the controversy from
Wood's halfpence into an examination conducted with
remorseless bitterness of the manner in which the
Government of Ireland was carried on in regard to the
social and political condition, and, in the plainest terms,
claimed for the Irish Legislature the right of self-
government.*
The creed of the Irish Patriot Party is enunciated in
the following words of Swift : —
" Those," he writes, " who come over hither to us
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp.
420-424.
80 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
from England, and some weak people among ourselves,
whenever in discourse we make mention of liberty
and progress, shake their heads and tell us that Ireland
is a depending Kingdom, as if they would seem by this
phrase to intend that the people of Ireland is in some
state of slavery or dependence different from those of
England, whereas a depending Kingdom is a modern
term of art unknown, as I have heard, in all ancient
civilians and writers upon governments, and Ireland is,
on the contrary, called in some Statutes an Imperial
Crown as held only from God, which is as high a style
as any Kingdom is capable of receiving. Therefore, by
this expression — a depending Kingdom — there is no
more understood than that by a Statute made here in
the thirty-third year of Henry VIII., the King and his
successors are to be Kings Imperial of this Realm,
as united and knit to the Imperial Crown of England. I
have looked over all the Irish and English Statutes
without finding any law which makes Ireland depend
on England any more than England doth upon Ireland.
We have, indeed, obliged ourselves to have the same
King with them, and, consequently, they are obliged to
have the same King with us. For the law was made
by our own Parliament, and our ancestors were not
then such fools (whatever they were in the preceding
reign) to bring themselves under, I know not what
dependence, which is now talked of without any ground
of law, reason, or common sense. Let whoever think
otherwise, I, M. B. Drapier, desire to be excepted. For
I declare next, under God, I depend only on the King,
my sovereign, and on the laws of my own country.
And I am so far from depending on the people of
England, that if they should ever rebel against my
PUBLIC OPINION. 8l
Sovereign (which, God forbid), I would be ready at
the first command from His Majesty to take arms
against them, as some of my countrymen did against
theirs at Preston. And, if such a rebellion should prove
so successful as to fix the Pretender on the throne of
England, I would venture to transgress that Statute so
far as to lose every drop of my blood to hinder him from
being King of Ireland. It is true, indeed, that within
the memory of man the Parliaments of England have
sometimes assumed the power of binding this kingdom
by laws enacted there, wherein they were at first openly
opposed (as far as truth, reason, and justice are capable
of opposing) by the famous Mr. Molyneux, an English
gentleman born here, as well as by several of the greatest
patriots and best Whigs in England, but the law and
torrent of power prevailed. Indeed, the arguments
on both sides were invincible. For, in reason, all
government without the consent of the governed is the
very definition of slavery. But, in fact, eleven men
well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his
shirt."
Swift makes no secret of the motive which urged him
to enunciate these constitutional principles. " The
remedy," he writes, " is in your own hands, and, there-
fore, I have digressed a little in order to refresh and
continue that spirit so reasonably raised among you,
and to let you see that, by the laws of God, of Nature,
and of your own country, you are, and ought to be, as
free a people as your brethren in England."
The chord thus struck " vibrated through every class
in Ireland," more especially as the question was uncon-
nected with creed or party. The Government, in alarm,
offered a reward of £300 for the apprehension of the
H
82 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
writer of the letter, but, although he was generally known,
no evidence could be obtained. A prosecution was insti-
tuted against the printer, but the Grand Jury, in spite of
the strenuous exertions of Chief Justice Whitshed,
ignored the bill, and, not content with this, presented all
who consented to receive the money.* The Government
bent before the storm. The coins were withdrawn from
circulation, the patent was revoked, and Wood received as
compensation a pension of £3,000 a year, payable for eight
years.f When the question of Wood's halfpence was
decided, the larger controversy of the subordination of
the Irish to the English Parliament was suspended for
a season, to be revived at a later and more opportune
period. To Swift, however, belongs the credit of having
sown the seed which afterwards matured and yielded
fruit in due season. The best tribute to Swift's work
in this episode, which occupies so conspicuous a place
in Irish history, is that given by Mr. W'hiteside, an
eminent Conservative lawyer, in the middle of the last
century, who, having represented Dublin University
in the Imperial Parliament, where he achieved a high
reputation as a Conservative leader, was afterwards
Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. " Had there been," he
writes, " a few in the Irish Parliament possessed of the
originality, energy, honesty, and capacity of Swift,
the management of political affairs and the true interests
of the country would have speedily been improved
instead of being shamefully neglected. Swift created
a public opinion ; Swift inspired hope, courage, and a
spirit of justifiable resistance in the people ; Swift
taught Irishmen they had a country to love, to raise,
* L/ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 420-
425-
f Proude's English in Ireland, I., pp. 582-608.
PUBLIC OPINION. 83
to cherish. No man who recalls the affectionate respect
paid by his countrymen to Swift while he lived — to his
memory when dead — can impute political ingratitude
to be amongst the vices of the Irish people " (Whiteside's
Irish Parliament, p. 89).
" This contest," writes Mr. Lecky, " deserves to be
placed in the foremost ranks in the annals of the Irish
race. There is no more momentous epoch in the history
of a nation than that in which the voice of a people has
first spoken, and spoken with success. It marks the
transition from an age of semi-barbarism to an age of
civilisation, from the government of force to the govern-
ment of opinion. Before this time rebellion was the
natural issue of every patriotic effort in Ireland ; since
then rebellion has been an anachronism and a mistake.
The age of Desmond and O'Neill had passed ; the age
of Grattan and O'Connell had begun."*
" Swift," writes Mr. Redmond, " now became the
idol and the leader of the Irish people. He taught them
their first lessons in self-reliance. He led them to victory
when oppression had well nigh broken their spirit,
and when the exile of all their leaders had robbed them
of hope, he held up before their eyes the possibility —
soon afterwards in part to be realised — of the fusion of
the two sections into one nation, "f
The great constitutional victory in the matter of
Wood's halfpence, impressed on the English. Government
the wisdom of provoking no controversy which might
have a tendency to unite all classes of the Irish people by
a community of interest in determined opposition to
misrule. For the next few years the contests between
* Leaders of Public Opinion, p. 49.
f Irish Protestants and Home Rule, p. 10.
84 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the Country Party and the Government were confined
to matters of finance. Thus, in 1731, during the first
Administration of the Duke of Dorset, a new financial
question arose about a fund which had been provided
for paying the principal and interest of the National
Debt. " The Court Party, ever desirous of withdrawing
the control of the finances from Parliament, desired that
this sum should be granted to His Majesty, his heirs, and
successors for ever, redeemable by Parliament. The
Opposition insisted that it should be granted in the usual
constitutional fashion from session to session. The
Court Party proposed, as a compromise, to vest it in the
Crown for twenty-one years, and this proposition was put
to the vote. The numbers were at first equal, but, at the
last moment, Colonel Tottenham, the Member for New
Ross, who had ridden over in haste to be piesent at the
division, appeared in boots and in a riding attire splashed
with mud in the midst of an assembly which then always
met in full dress, and his vote turned the balance
against the Government."* Again, in 1749, " under the
Administration of Lord Harrington, there had been a
very unusual gleam of prosperity ; the Peace of Aix-la-
Chapelle had been followed by a sudden increase of Irish
commerce ; a surplus of over £200,000 appeared in the
Exchequer, and it was resolved to appropriate £120,000
towards the payment of the National Debt. Heads of
a Bill for this purpose were sent over to England, but
the English authorities maintained that the surplus
belonged to the Crown, and that the Irish Parliament
could not even discuss its disposition without the previous
consent of the King. To establish this principle, the
Duke of Devonshire opened the Session of 1751 by a
* Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 428.
PUBLIC OPINION, 85
speech signifying the royal consent to the appropriation
of a portion of the surplus to the liquidation of the
National Debt. The House, on the other hand, passed
such a Bill, but carefully omitted to take any notice
of the consent. The Bill, when it was carried in Ireland,
was sent over to England, and returned with an alteration
in the preamble signifying that the royal consent had
been given, thus establishing the principle. The House
succumbed, and passed the Bill in its altered form. In
1753 the contest was renewed. The speech from the
Throne again announced the consent of the Sovereign
to the appropriation of the new surplus towards the
payment of the National Debt. The opposition,
however, was now stronger. The reply to the Address
took no notice of the consent of the Sovereign. The
Bill was sent over as in the previous Session, omitting
to notice it, and this time, after an excited debate,
the House, by a majority of five, rejected the Bill on
account of the alteration. The Government dealt
with the subject with a very high hand. All the servants
of the Crown who voted with the majority were dismissed,
and a portion of the surplus was applied by royal
authority to the payment of the debt."* This question,
which regarded the right of the House of Commons
to superintend and control the expenditure of public
money, was quickly perceived to be one of vital magni-
tude to the liberty and prosperity of the country. A
serious Parliamentary organisation was at last organised
as the result of these proceedings, and their effect on
the public was evidenced by the extraordinary interest
taken in Parliamentary matters by the formation of
patriotic societies, and by petitions, addresses, and reso-
lutions supporting the Speaker. The conduct of the
*Lechy, II., pp. 431-432.
86 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Government in dealing with the surplus was such that
the Opposition resolved that no further surplus should
exist, and began, accordingly, to appropriate public
money largely to local improvements.
The struggle in reference to the disposition of the
surplus communicated life and heat to the Irish House
of Commons. So rapid was the importance it gave
to that assembly, that a borough sold in 1754 for three
times as much as in 1750. " Supposing," writes Hardy,
the biographer of Lord Charlemont, " the speculation
a corrupt one, it proves the rising consequence of the
popular branch of the legislature when such a speculation
could be made at all. There was much private cor-
ruption, but there was also a lofty public principle and
liberty altogether predominant and progressive "
(Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp. 81-82).
We have seen that, on the destruction of the Irish
woollen manufacture, there were resolutions of the Irish
Parliament in favour of a Legislative Union passed, no
doubt, in the hope that such a measure wTould have the
effect of removing the restraints on trade, and securing
the maintenance of the system whereby, under the
Act of Settlement, the land of Ireland was possessed by
its present holders. The events of half a century, how-
ever, had inspired all classes of the community with a
national sentiment, and with a love for the Irish resident
Parliament, from which, notwithstanding all its im-
perfections, great things were hoped. Swift had taught
the lesson that the voice of a united people could not
be silenced, and that the power which that voice called
into being was at the last irresistible. When, in 1759,
a rumour that a Union, which was prayed for in the
first decade of the century, was in contemplation, the
PUBLIC OPINION. 87
people were lashed into uncontrollable fury, and a riot
broke out in Dublin, which was the fiercest ever known
in the metropolis. The mob burst into Parliament
House, seated an old woman on the Throne in the
House of Lords, placed a pipe in her mouth, and insisted
on her smoking. They searched for the Journals which
they desired to burn, stopped the carriages and killed
the horses of the Members. They insulted the Lord
Chancellor and some of the Bishops, erected a gallows
on which they intended to hang Rigby, the Chief
Secretary, who had been made Master of the Rolls, and
to whom they attributed the machination of a scheme
for the destruction of the Irish Parliament, and compelled
all who fell into their hands to swear that they would
oppose the measure (Lecky, II., pp. 435-436 ; Froude,
I., pp. 698-704).
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY,
VIII.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PARLIA-
MENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND.
FROM the contest with reference to the disposal of the
surplus in 1753, we may date the rise of a Parliamentary
Opposition in Ireland. It must, however, be borne in
mind that the Country Party, as it was termed, to dis-
tinguish it from the Court Pary, was, in its personnel, as
changing as the colours in a kaleidoscope. An eminent
politician in fierce opposition might be found in the
very same session, or in the next session, a supporter
through thick and thin of the Government. The
Opposition, whose criticism of the Government and of
Government measures was speciously declared to be for
the public good, had not infrequently its true motive
in desire for place or power or title or pension, in
disappointment at the failure in attaining such objects, and
in the exercise of unpleasant and sometimes dangerous
tactics to acquire Parliamentary importance, which
it would be well worthy of the pains of the Government
to conciliate with the desired reward. " The work of
patriotism," writes Lord Charlemont, who was for
upwards of forty years a prominent figure in Irish
public life, " is often assumed to disguise self-interest
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 89
and ambition, and the paths of violent opposition are
frequently trod as the nearest and surest road to office
and emolument. These frequent apostasies have been
used by the corrupt as an inexhaustible source of ridicule,
and even of argument, against true patriotism ; the same
species of false wit and false reasoning have been
repeatedly urged against religion itself. But such
flowery prattle does not merit a serious confutation.
As well might we say, because there are many hypocrites,
men ought not to be moral or religious " (Hardy's
Life of Charlemont, I., p. 94).
Amid the corrupt bargains for peerages, pensions,
sinecure offices, promotions in the Church and the
Law, and management of the Houses of Parliament by
powerful owners of nomination boroughs, some of whom
in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, who only resided
in Ireland in a Parliamentary Session, which was
biennial, were Lords Justices, and known as " Under-
takers," the controversies in the House of Commons
reached the Commons at large, whose hearts and minds
had been well prepared to appreciate the merits and
demerits of a faction by the formation of that educated
public opinion to which the writings of Molyneux,
of Berkeley, and of Swift so powerfully contributed.
The system, however, of government by " Undertakers,"
or, in other words, by a few great personages who
possessed an extraordinary Parliamentary influence, and
who undertook to carry the King's business through
Parliament on condition of obtaining a large share of
the disposal of patronage, obtained.* That system,
however, although not controlled, was restrained and
arrested by an active press, and by an Opposition who
aspired "to make the Irish Parliament in Irish affairs
* Lecky, II., p. 435. See also ibid., p. 453, and Appendix. VII.
90 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
what the English Parliament was in English affairs, and
to secure for the Irish Protestants all those constitutional
rights which the Revolution of 1688 had established
in England, and of which the English people were
so justly proud."* The first forty years of the reign of
George III., from 1760 till 1800, was the period of the
great Parliamentary history of Ireland which was
terminated by the Union. The Parliament of Ireland
lasted an entire reign, unless dissolved by the exercise
of the prerogative, and the Irish Parliament of George II.,
which was dissolved by his death, had sat for thirty-
three years, the entire period of his reign. A whole
generation had grown up which had not witnessed
a general election. Flood, who entered the House
of Commons in 1759, at the age of seven and twenty,
sat in a Parliament which had been convened some years
before he was born. The persons in charge of the
Irish Administration were not inobservant of the signs
of the times, and of an element of opposition to anoma-
lies, abuses, and denials of constitutional liberties,
which would certainly make its power felt in the new
House of Commons and on Parliamentary candidates.
On the eve of the election which took place on the acces-
sion of George III., public meetings were held, and
stringent tests imposed upon candidates, chiefly in
reference to the securing of an Act for the shortening of
the duration of Parliament, and to the abatement of the
scandals of the Pension Lists .j-
The Lords Justices and the Irish Privy Council, on
the accession of George III., strongly contended that
a Money Bill should not be certified from the Privy
Council as the cause for the summoning of a Parliament,
* "Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 352,
t Lecky, IV., pp. 359-360.
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 91
and that to the Irish House of Commons should be left
the privilege of originating Money Bills themselves.
A Money Bill, it was said, is, by the theory of the Con-
stitution, a free grant made by the Commons to the
Sovereign, and it was, therefore, plainly unconstitutional
that it should take its rise in a body such as the
Privy Council, which is neither virtually nor pro-
fessedly representative. They stated, in a very able
and elaborate representation to the Lord Lieutenant,
the Duke of Bedford, that such a Bill would be surely
rejected in Parliament, and that, in the existing con-
dition of men's minds, it would create a ferment at
the beginning of a new reign which would speedily
be diffused throughout the whole Kingdom. A
motto was prefixed to this document, being the words
spoken by Strafford before he had joined the Royalist
side : " This hath not been done by the King, but
by the projectors who have extended his prerogative
beyond its just bounds. They have introduced a Privy
Council ravishing at once the spheres of all ancient
government." The English Privy Council, however,
refused to depart from the former precedents. After
considerable discussion, the Lords Justices consented to
certify and support the Money Bill, which was carried
without difficulty through Parliament.* William Gerard
Hamilton, so well known in England as " Single-speech "
Hamilton, was Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and
accordingly defended, in the Irish House of Commons,
the Money Bill procedure.! His argument is very able
and instructive, as explaining the difference and contrast
between British legislation and Irish legislation under
the provisions of Poynings' Law : " As to the analogy
between this and the British House of Commons, every
* Lecky, IV., p. 359. Whiteside's Irish Parliaments, p. 112
t Appendix VIII.
92 x IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
argument must be incomplete which means to assimilate
things which are in their very form and origin — in
their very first concoction — not only different, but
opposite. The two Constitutions were once, indeed,
upon the same model. The plan of Poynings' Act
was to remove the Irish Constitution from the ground
on which it stood, to change the model of it, and to
make it not only different, but, in some respects, the very
reverse of the House of Commons."*
At the General Election to the Irish Parliament, which
took place in October, 1761, pledges as to Parlia-
mentary action were enforced for the first time on
candidates — a course which was followed in England
some years later, in 1769. The Irish House of Commons
in this Parliament had a new experience — the exercise
of pressure from without. The limitation of the duration
of Parliament to a reasonable length was, as I have
said, a cardinal object of policy with the reformers.
The creation of a strong public opinion in favour of this
measure was due to influence which was at first brought
to bear upon Parliament from without. That influence
was acquired by Charles Lucas, a Presbyterian apothe-
cary, without means or any adventitious advantages,
a cripple in ill-health, but a man of high principles,
absolute fearlessness, indomitable energy, and super-
abounding enthusiasm. In 1743 Lucas came into
public notice in an attempt to reform the Dublin Cor-
poration, of which he was a member, then labouring
under gross mismanagement. He detected and exposed
serious encroachments that had been made in the
electoral rights of the Dublin citizens, and, by an easy
transition, applying his attention to higher matters of
* Wluteside's Irish Parliament, p. 113.
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 93
public interest, became the most popular writer in the
Dublin Press, advocating the principles of Molyneux
and Swift, and urging especially the necessity of
shortening the duration of Parliament.* In 1747 he
commenced the publication of the Citizen's Journal in
Dublin in the viceroyalty of the Earl of Harrington, by
whom, at first, he had been favourably received. He
dedicated the first number of the paper, a weekly organ,
in which the abuses of the Irish system of government
and of Irish society were denounced, to the King.
Lucas then appeared at a viceregal levee, intending
to ask Lord Harrington if he had transmitted the dedi-
cation to the King. The Lord Lieutenant sent an officer
to desire him to leave the reception room. A full
account of the incident was published in the next number.
Lucas became, like Swift, the idol of the people, and
in a Parliamentary vacancy occurring for the City of
Dublin, Lucas came forward as a candidate — his election
being regarded as an absolute certainty. " The
incendiary," wrote the Lord Lieutenant, "had gained
eo many converts that it was absolutely necessary to
put a stop to his proceedings. "f
Before the writ for the city election could be issued,
at the opening of the Parliamentary Session, Lord
Harrington denounced him in his speech from the
Throne. On the second day of the Session of 1749
complaint was made to the House of Commons of
certain seditious writings of Dr. Lucas, which were,
after some fruitless opposition, voted highly criminal.
Lucas, when he had been induced before the starting of
the Citizen's Journal to have an interview with the
Lord Lieutenant, was so cordially listened to that he
left with the Lord Lieutenant, for his own justification,
* Lecky, II., pp. 429-430. -j- Froiide, I., pp. 677-680.
94 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
some pamphlets which had been much censured by the
Government dependents. When he was summoned
to the Bar of the House of Commons, he was merely
asked whether he was the author of such-and-such papers.
It would have been scarcely possible to prove the author-
ship, the printer was not to be found, and no evidence
was forthcoming, when Mr. Weston, the Chief Secretary
of the Lord Lieutenant, who was a Member of the
House of Commons, produced, with cunning treachery,
the very papers which Lucas had left at the Castle
for the perusal of the Lord Lieutenant. Lucas withdrew
to England, and, to prevent his return to Ireland,
he was voted by Parliament an enemy to his country,
and thus compelled for some years to go into exile.
Mr. La Touche, who was returned for the vacant Dublin
seat, was unseated on petition, on the sole accusation
of having been joined to and influenced by Lucas, and
a supporter of the Government placed in his stead.
" A more infamous proceeding," writes Hardy, " never
disgraced any House of Commons " (Life of Charlemont,
I., pp. 299-303).
Lucas, who at first fled to the Isle of Man, pursued
his profession in London, and wrote an Essay on Waters,
which was reviewed by Dr. Johnson, who thus recom-
mended him to the notice of the British public : " The
Irish Ministers drove him from his native country by
a Proclamation, in which they charged him with crimes
which they never intended to be called to the proof,
and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by
guilt or innocence. Let the man thus driven into
exile for having been the friend of his country be received
in every other place as a confessor of liberty, and let
the tools of power be taught in time that they may
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 95
rob, but cannot impoverish." At length he was enabled,
by the interposition of some powerful interest, to return
to Ireland, where he was, in 1761, elected a Member
of the House of Commons for the City of Dublin — a
position from which he had been twelve years previously
debarred. He sat in the Irish House of Commons till
his death in 1771.
I have dwelt at such length on the career of Lucas,
whose memory is fast sinking into oblivion, as the head
of a political agitation organised and directed outside
the House of Commons, which prevailed to place
the Octennial Bill, which was the nidus from which all
the subsequent popular measures sprang, on the Statute
Book. As in the case of many other men, whose influence
in the Press, on the platforms, in the management of
party, has been great, Lucas, as a Parliamentarian,
was ineffective. He is thus described by the biographer
of Lord Charlemont, who evidently reproduced the
estimate formed of Lucas by Lord Charlemont, who
held him in great personal esteem and affection : " As
a politician, Lucas was, as Due de Beaufort was called
during the time of the Fronde at Paris, un rot des halles
— a sovereign of the Corporations. In the House of
Commons his importance was withered, and, com-
paratively, shrunk to nothing .... Lucas had,
in truth, little or no knowledge as a leader in Parliament,
and his efforts there were, too often, directed against
men whose perfect disregard of him left them at full
liberty to pursue their argument as if nothing had
disturbed them. Self-command, whether constitutional
or arising from occasional contempt, is a most potent
auxiliary. His opponents were sometimes, indeed,
rendered indignant, but, whether calm or angry, the
96 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
battle always left him worse than before. Yet, with
all his precipitancy, and too frequent want of knowledge,
he annexed a species of dignity to himself in the House
of Commons which was not without its effect. His
infirmities — for he was always carried into and out of
the House — being so enfeebled by the gout that he
could scarcely stand for a moment, the gravity and
uncommon neatness of his dress, his gray and venerable
locks, blending with a pale but interesting countenance,
in which an air of beauty was still visible, altogether
excited attention, and I never saw a stranger come into
the House without asking who he was. The surest
proof of his being in some way or other formidable
to Ministers was the constant abuse of him in their
papers. . . . He had certainly talents, but talents
unaided by cultivation. Originality is merit. He raised
his voice when all around was desolation and silence.
He began with a Corporation, and he ended with a
Kingdom, for some of the topics he suggested, such as
the Octennial Bill, were of vital magnitude to Ireland "
(Hardy's Life of Charletnont, I., pp. 302-305).
The various methods by which the legislation of the
Irish Parliament was liable, before 1782, to be destroyed,
mutilated, and spoiled by crippling amendments or
postponements, which I have already sketched, cannot
be better illustrated than in their application to the
proposal for the shortening of the duration of Parliament,
which, although immediately brought forward in the
Parliament which met in October, 1761, failed to reach
the Statute Book in any form, despite the pledges given
to vote in its favour for seven years, till an Act was
passed which fixed eight years as the utmost period of
life for an Irish Parliament. The Heads of a Bill for
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 97
a Septennial Parliament were brought forward on the
very first day on which the new Parliament sat, on
22nd October, 1761. If the Irish House of Commons,
who, in their hearts, hated this measure, which they
were pledged to support, could have been assured that
it would be rejected in England, they would gladly
have passed it. They united it with a property quali-
fication for Members of Parliament — £600 a year in
real estate for a county seat, and £300 for a borough
seat — hoping that, by this addition, the Bill would be
less acceptable to the other branches of the legislature.
The English Property Qualification Act, passed in the
reign of Queen Anne, never became law in Ireland until
after the passing of the Act of Union. A measure
similar to the English Act had frequently been passed
in the Irish House of Commons, but it was invariably
rejected by the House of Lords, owing to the fact that
the proprietors in that Assembly of rotten boroughs in
the House of Commons desired to have the power of
putting into these boroughs penniless men, who would
naturally be more dependent on their patrons, more
amenable to their wishes in voting in the direction
dictated by the interests of the " owners " of the boroughs,
and in accordance with the bargains for Parliamentary
support between them and the Government. When,
on the gth December, it was moved that the Lord
Lieutenant would be pleased to recommend the measure
in the most effectual way to His Majesty, the motion
was negatived by a large majority in the House of
Commons, who also refused to present it in a body
to the Lord Lieutenant. The public indignation pro-
voked by these proceedings, which demonstrated the
insincerity of the House of Commons, elicited the
9« IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
following undignified resolution of that body on 26th
April, 1762 : " Resolved — That the suggestions con-
fidently propagated that the Heads of a Bill for limiting
the duration of Parliament, if returned from England,
would have been rejected by this House, are without
foundation." The Heads of the Bill were eventually
transmitted to England by the Irish Privy Council,
which assented to this course after a decision carried by
a majority of one. The Heads of the Bill were not
returned from England. Lord Halifax was succeeded
in the Viceroyalty by the Earl of Northumberland,
when the same disingenuous and discreditable tactics
obtained. Leave was given to bring in the measure on
1 5th October, 1763 ; it was not presented till the i4th
December, nor reported till the middle of February.*
The House of Commons, with the object of making a
specious atonement for their conduct in the Viceroyalty
of Lord Halifax, assumed an attitude of seriousness, and
addressed the King through the Lord Lieutenant, asking
him to assent to it. Northumberland answered that he
had received information of the most authentic nature
that the Bill for limiting the duration of Parliament
would not be returned this Session. For the present,
accordingly, the English Ministers took upon themselves
the responsibility of rejecting it, much to the secret
gratification of the Irish House of Commons and the
Irish Privy Council.
This policy of deception and prevarication increased
the determination of the Irish people not to permit
themselves to be fooled by such manoeuvres. The
High Sheriffs, and more than 800 of the Protestant
merchants and traders of Dublin, signed a paper of
instructions to their Members enjoining them to vote
* Hardy's Charlemont, I., pp. 250-251.
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. 99
for no Money Bill of a longer duration than three
months until a Septennial Bill had become law. *' It
was a serious thing," writes Mr. Lecky, " to resist
the strongest and most persistent wish of the electoral
body in Ireland, and the attitude of Parliament on
the question already showed that, in spite of all the
defects in the Constitution, the popular voice had a real,
if not a controlling, influence within its ranks " (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
367-370 ; Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 7-11).
The ultimate triumph of this measure is thus related
by Mr. Hardy : " Once more the people petitioned,
and once more the House of Commons sent the Bill to
their good friends, the Privy Council, enjoying in public
the applause of the nation for having passed it, and in
secret the notable triumph that it would be soon
destroyed. But here matters assumed a different
aspect ; the Privy Council began to feel that this scene
of deception had been long enough played by the
Commons, and being, with some reason, very much
out of humour that the plaudits of the nation should be
bestowed on its representatives, whilst His Majesty's
Privy Council, by the artifice of some leaders, was
rendered odious to the country, resolved to drop the
curtain at once, and certified the Bill to the English
.Privy Council, satisfied that it would encounter a much
more chilling reception there than it had met with
even from themselves. The aspect of affairs was again
changed. The Irish Privy Council had disappointed
the Commons, and the English Cabinet now resolved
to disappoint and punish both. Enraged with the
House of Commons for its dissimulation, with the
aristocracy for not crushing the Bill at once, and, amid
IOO IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
all this confusion and resentment, not a little elated to
have it in their power completely to humiliate that
aristocracy, which, in the true spirit of useful obsequious
servitude, not only galled the people, but sometimes
mortified and controlled the English Cabinet, itself
afraid of popular commotions in Ireland, feeling as
English gentlemen that the Irish public was in the right,
as statesmen that it would be wise to relinquish at once
what in fact could be but little longer tolerable, they
sacrificed political leaders, Privy Councillors, and
Parliament to their fears, their hatred, their adoption of
a new policy, and though last, not the least motive,
it is to be hoped, their just sense of the English Consti-
tution."* They returned the Bill changed from a
Septennial to an Octennial one. The charge frequently
made, that this change was a manoeuvre intended to
induce Parliament to reject it, is unfounded. The pro-
vision was inserted in order to suit the special circum-
stances of Ireland, when Parliament only sat every second
year, and also to prevent the inconvenience which would
arise if general elections in England and Ireland were
spontaneous (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century,IV., p. 381). The Bill was once more, according
to the mode of passing Bills in those days, to appear
before Parliament. The Parliament House was sur-
rounded by many thousands of men who compelled
the Members, as they entered, to promise that they
would vote for the Bill, and all over the country the
excitement was such that it would have been madness
to have resisted. The Bill quickly passed through
both Houses, while the House of Lords consented to its
passage through all its stages on the same day, and
* Hardy's Life of Chavlemont, I., pp. 252-253.
PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION IN IRELAND. IOI
passed a resolution declaring that this course, which is
not to be drawn into a precedent, was adopted as
a distinguishing mark of the approbation of the House
of the Bill. The carriage of the Lord Lieutenant
was drawn by the crowd from the Castle to Parliament,
when he went to pronounce the royal assent to a Bill
which may be said, in the words of Lord Charlemont,
to have first unlocked the political energies of Ireland,
and which, in the opinion of Mr. Lecky, laid the foun-
dation of Irish Parliamentary influence and independence.*
Dr. Ball thus sums up the effects of the Octennial
Act : " The Act unquestionably effected great changes
in the character of the Irish House of Commons ;
previously its Members had practically only one im-
mediate source of insecurity in their seats to fear —
the Crown might dissolve Parliament. Their interest,
therefore, led them to support the King's Ministers,
since this was the way to avert a dissolution. Inde-
pendence could be expressed in debate, but, in voting,
the Government were not to be placed in a minority,
since defeat would lead to a general election. Now,
instead of a possible undisturbed tenure for the reign,
it might be of a youthful sovereign, a representative
of the Commons had the certainty, in the case of a
county or city, of meeting his constituents, or, in the
case of a small borough, the patron who nominated
him, at the latest, eight years after his return. The
electors, not the Crown, became the task-master to be
obeyed. And, as a consequence, if a policy were popular
outside Parliament, it soon came to be popular within it,
at least so far as the votes of Members were concerned.
. . . . Contemporaneously with the passing of the
Octennial Act, Parliament was dissolved, and a new
* Lecky, IV., p. 382.
102 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
House of Commons was elected. The influences which
the Act brought into operation were apparent in the
character and subsequently in the conduct of its
Members. From this period may be traced an increased
manifestation of the sentiments popular among the
people generally. At the same time, more zeal for the
public service, greater political knowledge, and improved
capacity in the management and discussion of affairs
became perceptible" (Ball's Irish Legislative Systems,
pp. 88-89).
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. 103
IX.
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST
CORRUPTION.
THE Parliament of Ireland, by which the Octennial
Act was passed, was dissolved on May 28th, 1768.
The new Parliament, owing to the fact that Parliaments
in Ireland up to this period were convened, not annually,
but biennially, did not meet till October i7th, 1769,
although the General Election had taken place long
previously. The impulse given by the Octennial Act
to the movement in favour of popular rights and liberties
may render it of interest to sketch what were the aims
at this period of the " Country " or, in other words,
of the Patriot Party in and out of Parliament. I have
outlined the defects of the Irish Constitution. The
objects of the Patriot Party were to obtain for Irish
Protestants the laws which were regarded by Englishmen
as the safeguards of their liberty. Their object, likewise,
was to abolish the scandals of the Irish pension list,
and the system under which the great Irish offices of
State were bestowed as sinecures on Englishmen non-
resident in Ireland. The constitution and powers of
the Irish Parliament being such as I have attempted
to describe them, and Members of that Parliament
being themselves in the very necessity of things in many
cases amenable to Government influence, and exercised
in the securing of titles, places, pensions for themselves
or their proteges, the difficulty of the struggle for the
establishment of a free Constitution may be appreciated,
104 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
more especially when the Patriot Party were far from
unanimous on the subject of the admission of the Roman
Catholics, who were the overwhelming majority of the
population, into a participation of the liberties for
which they themselves were struggling. Again, the
absence of the Lord Lieutenant, before the Viceroyalty
of Lord Townshend, from the country, when Parliament
was not in session, placed the administration in the
hands of the Lords Justices, a Lord Primate — a noble-
man with powerful interest in election to nomination
boroughs — and a Speaker of the House of Commons,
who, sometimes themselves, sometimes with the assistance
of others, managed to maintain a Ministerial, as opposed
to a Patriot Party, for the smooth working of the Govern-
ment machine, and for the bringing of the Parliament,
when it met, into harmonious relations, not with the
people, but with the Castle. The very composition of
the Irish House of Commons tended to give some three
or four large borough owners a prevailing power over
that assembly. They, in conjunction with the Lords
Justices, who frequently had borough influence them-
selves, perhaps in imitation, albeit unconscious, of
the English ruling families who governed Great Britain,
owing to the ignorance of the country, and the language
of George I. and George II., governed Ireland in the
absence of the Lord Lieutenant, and, during his short
stay in the country, were powerful factors in the direction
of his policy, which they undertook to carry out in
Parliament, the consideration open and avowed being a
large share in the disposal of public patronage. To the
influence of these " Undertakers " may be attributed the
strange and sudden changes from opposition to support
of the Government, followed quickly by recognition of
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. 105
services to the Government in the form of honours or
emoluments. These startling political tergiversations
were likewise in part attributable to the fact that the
Party system had not in Ireland reached even its very
imperfect development in England at that time. Above
all, it should be remembered, in order to form a correct
estimate of the powers of the " Undertakers," and
subsequently of the Lords Lieutenant over the Irish
Parliament, that in Ireland there never was Responsible
Government, that is to say, an executive responsible
to the Irish House of Commons, and, through them,
to the Irish people. Motions of no confidence, of
censure, framed in scathing terms, and rejections with
contumely of cardinal measures of Government policy,
were frequently passed by the Irish House of Commons.
They effected no change in the Irish Government, who
held office at the pleasure of an English Ministry, and
vacated office on the resignation of that Ministry. The
Irish Parliament could, no doubt, have taken the extreme
measure of refusing to vote the supplies — a course not
infrequently threatened, but never adopted, owing to
the influences to which the House of Commons was
subject.
Let us then consider the programme of a Patriot
Party hampered by such conditions. In addition to
the assimilation of the Irish to the British Constitution,
reforms in administration claimed their attention in
attacks on the Irish pension list, the tenure of great
offices by absentees, and economy in the public expendi-
ture. The revenue of Ireland was, as I have shown,
so ample that its unconscionable disposal alone rendered
it necessary to convene Parliament for taxation purposes.
The chief of these abuses lay, no doubt, in the pension
IO6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
list and in the creation of sinecure offices. " The habit
of quartering on Ireland," writes Mr. Lecky, " persons
who could not be safely or largely provided for in England ,
was inveterate. The Duke of St. Albans, the bastard
son of Charles II., enjoyed an Irish pension of £800
a year ; Catherine Sedley, the mistress of James II.,
had another of £5,000 a year. William III. bestowed
confiscated lands, exceeding an English county in
extent, on his Dutch favourites, Portland and Albemarle,
and a considerable estate on his former mistress, Elizabeth
Villiers. The Duchess of Kendal and the Countess
of Darlington, the two mistresses of George I., had
pensions of the united annual value of £5,000. Lady
Walsingham, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal,
had an Irish pension of £1,500. Lady Howe, the
daughter of Lady Darlington, had a pension of £500.
Madame de Walmoden, one of the mistresses of George
II., had an Irish pension of £3,000. The Queen Dowager
of Prussia, sister of George II.; Count Bernsdorff, who
was a prominent German politician under George I., and
a number of less-noted German names may be found on
the Irish pension list" (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, II., p. 228). In 1701, when the de-
struction of the woollen trade had ruined Ireland, pensions,
as I have stated, to the amount of £16,000 were struck
off, and, in 1729, at the time of the great famine, a
measure was carried by which all the salaries, employ-
ments, places, and pensions of those who did not reside
six months of the year in Ireland were taxed 45. in the £,
but the unfortunate qualification was added, " unless
they shall be exempted by His Majesty's sign manual "
(History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 237).
In 1753 this law had been suffered to drop, for it was
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. IO7
found that the clause enabling the Sovereign to grant
exemptions rendered it wholly nugatory. When Lord
Townshend became Lord Lieutenant in 1767, the
pension list had increased to £86,741. In 1757 the
House of Commons had passed resolutions denouncing
the increase of pensions as alarming, and compelled
the Duke of Bedford, the Lord Lieutenant, by threat
of withholding supplies, to forward them to the King.
In 1763 the House agreed that pensions were an in-
tolerable grievance, and in that year the Government of
Lord Northumberland gave a distinct assurance that
the King would not grant any more pensions for lives
or years upon the establishment, except on extraordinary
occasions (History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
IV., pp. 365-367). George III. was cognisant of the
bribery which was in England systematically used to
secure Parliamentary support, and even personally
advised and recommended " gold pills for an election "
(see May's Constitutional History of England, I., p. 341).
He was, however, at the commencement of his reign,
anxious to discourage corruption in Ireland. In a letter
of instructions addressed to Lord Hertford, as Lord
Lieutenant, in 1765, the King writes : " Give no orders
upon any letters of ours, either for pensions, money,
lands, or titles of honour, unless such letters have been
entered at our Signet Office. If warrants come to you
contrary to these instructions, do not execute them.
Should the revenue fall short of the cost of the establish-
ment, you will take care that the same is not applied to
the payment of pensions till the rest is first paid off.
If there be not enough, you will abate the pensions "
(Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 45-46). George III.,
who was alive to the impropriety of granting pensions
108 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in Ireland, was less scrupulous with his own disgraced
relations. In 1774 he imposed a pension of £3,000 per
annum on the Irish Exchequer for the benefit of his
sister, the Queen of Denmark, who had just been banished
for adultery with the Count Struensee. *
Then, again, the system which prevailed in full force
of making lucrative sinecures, paid out of Irish revenues,
rewards for English politicians living in England, and
filling lucrative offices, not sinecures, by Englishmen,
constituted a well-grounded grievance. Swift, in his
" Fourth Drapier's Letter," published in 1724, gives a
catalogue of the great Irish offices, some of them perfect
sinecures, which were then distributed among English
politicians. Lord Berkeley held the great office of
Master of the Rolls, Lord Palmerston that of First
Remembrancer, with a salary of nearly £2,000 a year ;
Dodington was Clerk of the Rolls, with a salary of
£2,500 a year ; Southwell was Secretary of State, Lord
Burlington was Hereditary Lord High Treasurer, Mr.
Arden was Under Treasurer, with an income of £9,000
a year ; Addison had a sinecure as Keeper of the Records
in Birmingham Tower, and four of the Commissioners of
Revenue lived generally in England. In the legal
profession, every Chancellor till 1789, and in the early
years of the eighteenth century every Chief of the
three Law Courts, was an Englishman. In the Church,
every Primate during the eighteenth century was an
Englishman, as were also ten out of the eighteen Arch-
bishops of Dublin and Cashel, and a large proportion
of the other Bishops (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 227-228). Sir Hercules
Langrishe, a distinguished Member of the Irish Parlia-
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 403.
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. 109
ment, writing in 1769, says : " The heads of the
Church, the State, the Army, and the Law in Ireland
have for a course of years been of another country.
Of the twenty-two right reverend Prelates, the natives
only furnish seven of the seven chief
judicial offices two only are occupied by Irishmen. Of
the fourteen great officers of the staff five only are of
that country, and, besides all this, several of the principal
employments are granted in reversion out of the
Kingdom " (Considerations on the Dependencies of Great
Britain, 1769, p. 46). The office of the Chief Secretary
to the Lord Lieutenant owed its importance to the fact
that the position of Principal Secretary of State was
granted as a sinecure to representatives of three genera-
tions in the Southwell family — father, son, and grandson.
Rigby, who had been Chief Secretary to the Duke of
Bedford in 1759-1761, was given the sinecure offices of
Master of the Rolls and Vice-Treasurer, which he
held, living in England, till his death in. 1789. " Single
Speech " Hamilton was Chief Secretary to Lord Halifax
and Lord Northumberland from 1761 till 1763, when he
was given, as a sinecure, the Irish Chancellorship of
the Exchequer for life, with a salary of £1,500 per
annum, being allowed to treat it as an absolute sinecure.
In 1784, after a long negotiation, he consented to sell it
to the Government for the grant of a life pension in
Ireland of £2,500 a year, which he was empowered to sell.*
The excessive expenditure in public works, with which
the Irish Parliament was charged, was owing to the
failure, in 1753, to gain authority over the surplus which
had accumulated, which made succeeding Parliaments
determine that no such surplus should occur again. It
* L,ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 373.
IIO IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was stated in the Irish Parliament that in the two sessions
before 1753, £400 in each session was thought a sufficient
bounty for public works, but that, in the succeeding ten
years, not less than £400,000 had been voted for this
purpose. During the four succeeding years the grants
continued to increase (Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 356). One of the most
wholesome rules of Parliamentary practice in England,
embodied in a Standing Order of the House of Commons,
dating so far back as the nth June, 1713, that the House
will not proceed upon any motion for a grant or charge
upon the public revenue unless recommended by the
Crown, did not obtain in Ireland. The absence of such
a rule accounts for the following episode, recorded in
the reports of Sir James Caldwell, who was himself a
Member of the House of Commons, of the debates of
that body in 1763 and 1764, illustrative of the temper
and tone of the Irish Parliament of this period. It
was moved that a Petition of the widow of a calico printer,
praying aid to enable her to carry on her business,
which was presented and read, be referred to a
Committee. A discussion arose on the principle of
political economy involved in grants for such purposes
of public money. The mover of the Petition said he
thought it very hard that he should be the first to be
refused, and that he failed to see why he should not
have his job done as well as another. The word job
grated on the House, and the following description of a
" job " was given in debate : " The monosyllable
Job is the name of a certain illegitimate child of Public
Spirit, whom the world has agreed to call Job. He is
well known in this House, and, I am sorry to say, has not
been ill-received in it. Let me give an account of his
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. Ill
descent and family character and qualifications. Self-
interest was the father by whom Public Spirit has
numerous issue distinguished by the name of Job.
Many of them have come over here from a neighbouring
country, and have, with great success, played both
upon our weakness and our virtue. They very often
assume their mother's name, and pretend that their
father was Integrity, a gentleman of very honourable
descent, who, having of late years been much neglected
by persons of power and interest, has fallen into mis-
fortune, and having been long in obscurity, nobody
knows where he is. Of late, they (Jobs) have con-
descended to amuse themselves with great guns, howitzers,
and mortars, with powder, ball-fire, and smoke, with
warlike peace and peaceful war. As to the places
where they are to be found, they have good company,
and associate much with those in whom you place confi-
dence. They are found at the Treasury Board, the Linen
Board, the Barrack Board, and, in short, at every other
Board. Nor are they ever to be missed at Grand Juries or
Societies that have the disposal of money " (see White-
side's Irish Parliament, pp. 119-120). This humorous
description of the corruption of the time may well be
read in connection with some passages from a letter
addressed by Lucas to Lord Halifax, one of Lord Town-
shend's immediate predecessors in the Viceroy alty,
in which the scandals of Irish Administration and of
the Irish Parliament are scathingly denounced. He
thus refers to the Lords Lieutenant : " Your Excellency
may easily look back and see the splendid figures
some of the most necessitous of men put into this
employment (the Lord Lieutenancy) have been able
112 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to render on their return home after enjoying this place
for a session or two. See some of them and their worst
tools loaded with excessive pensions for a number of
years. Take a view of the favourites they have provided
for in the Church, in the State, and in the Army. Your
Excellency will often find the most infamous of men —
the very outcasts of Britain — put in the highest employ-
ments, or loaded with exorbitant pensions, while all
that ministered or gave sanction to the most shameful
and destructive measures of such Viceroys never failed
of an ample share in the spoils of a plundered people."
He accounts for this appalling state of things in the
constitution of the Irish Parliament. " Its Members
are," he says, " a packed convention," and, further,
so far from being elected by the people, that they are
confessedly appointed in opposition to the sense of
the electors, and held in servile bondage by some one
man or junto of a few crafty persons grown rich and
powerful by the spoils of a plundered and abused
nation." " Serving the Crown," he adds, " is a phrase
which in Ireland has been frequently extended to
the giving money to a Minister for the erecting of forts,
that, perhaps, were never intended to be founded, for
arms that never were or will be made, or for raising
funds upon any other frivolous pretence to enable a
Viceroy to gratify himself and his no less mercenary
minions with the most immoderate douceurs and bound-
less pensions. These are what have usually passed
with us for serving the Crown, the King's business, and
the like — and in long-lived Parliaments (the Octennial
Act had not then been passed) a supple majority was
seldom wanting to give sanction to the sordid deed,
while a sufficient number of the Members were gratified
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. 113
with a share of the spoils " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 238-239).
Mr. Lecky has thus tersely summed up the apparent
hopelessness of the political situation before the passing
of the Octennial Act : " The attempt to resist (the regime
of corruption) was almost hopeless. With the immense
majority of the Nation wholly unrepresented, with the
immense preponderance of legislative power concen-
trated in the hands of a few great men, who could be
easily bribed by peerages or pensions, or of officials
who were directly interested in the continuance of
corruption, there was no real safeguard " (History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, II., pp. 237-238).
The policy of Lord Townshend in Ireland was, like
the policy of George III. in Great Britain in the early
part of his reign, to overthrow the power of an oligarchy
which had exceedingly flourished in the reigns of George
I. and George II., and to substitute for it the power
of the Crown. In each case the oligarchical leaders, to
maintain their power, posed as the friends of popular
rights and liberties, and in each case more corruption
was employed to overturn their ascendancy than had
ever been required to maintain it (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 354). Imme-
diately after the passing of the Octennial Act, the group
of influential persons who had ruled the country in the
absence of a Lord Lieutenant, and to whose power
and influence a Lord Lieutenant in continuous residence
would be fatal, showed their appreciation of the
struggle between the Viceroy and the former Under-
takers, which was imminent by the defeat of the
Government through their influence in the House of
Commons of an address acceding to a request embodied
K
114 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in a King's message laid before Parliament for a measure
augmenting the number of soldiers en the Irish estab-
lishment from 12,000 to 15,255 men.* The Parlia-
ment was dissolved in a few days afterwards. Town-
shend, in a letter to Shelburne, early in his Viceroyalty
in December, 1767, as one " being on the spot, and
seeing the general disposition of the House of Commons,"
writes : "I know His Majesty did not mean to grant
more pensions, nor could I give them hopes, though
I could not help listening to their proposals. But,
when I observed how very weak this Government had
become, I thought it my duty to submit the matter
again to His Majesty, being convinced that, until the
system of government here can be totally changed,
and the true weight and interest of the Crown brought
back to its former channel, there must be some relaxa-
tion of this rule."f Immediately after the disso-
lution of 1768 he wrote to the Cabinet that the constant
plan of " these men of power " — speaking of the Under-
takers— " is to possess the government of this country
and to lower the authority of English government,
which must, in the end, destroy that dependence which
this Kingdom — Ireland — has upon England. The aris-
tocratic party must be broken. Every place, office,
and honour must depend exclusively upon the favour
of a resident Viceroy, so as to concentrate an over-
whelming political influence in the Crown." After the
Dissolution of 1768, in recognition of services to the
Viceroy, four Peers were raised a step in the Peerage, four
new Peers, four Baronets, and four Privy Councillors were
made, and Townshend urged the propriety of creating an
Irish Order like that of the Thistle or the Bath, as a
method of rewarding those members of the nobility
* Lecky, IV., p. 384. Froude, II., pp. 72-73.
•f- Froude, II., p. 69.
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. 115
who were foremost in supporting the Government
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
IV., p. 385). This suggestion was, fifteen years later,
adopted by the establishment, from similar motives,
of the Order of the Kinghthood of St. Patrick. " The
Octennial Bill," wrote Lord Townshend on August iyth,
1769, " gave the first blow to the dominion of aristocracy
in this Kingdom, and it rests with the Government to
second the good effects of it."* Corruption was to be met
by corruption, places and offices were multiplied, and
pensions, notwithstanding royal prohibitions, lavishly
conferred, while strong inducements were offered to the
minor borough owners to dissociate themselves from
the Undertakers, who were, however, still left undisturbed
in their offices. The new Parliament met on October
lyth, 1769, after nearly eighteen months' elaborate
preparation by the Government to secure a majority,
which proved to be unsuccessful.
Ponsonby, one of the Undertakers, who was the Chief
Commissioner of the Revenue, with the patronage of
the Customs Offices, in which, by various peculations,
the Government was losing over ,£150,000 a year, was
re-elected Speaker without opposition. In the first
trial of strength the Government was decisively beaten.
The scheme of Army Augmentation, which had, in the
last Parliament, been defeated by 108 to 104, was now
defeated by 104 to 72 — a defeat which, like many
another defeat on questions of Ministerial policy of
highest moment, was not, for reasons I have attempted
to explain, followed by the resignation of the Government.
Then the pension list, with all its scandals, was censured
at the instance of persons who were aggrieved at not
having themselves a share therein, but who, in this
* Lecky, IV., p. 386.
Il6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
attack, had with them public opinion, to which that list
was justly abhorrent. A Money Bill, moreover, which
took its origin in the Privy Council, and had been sent over
to England under the provisions of Poynings' Act, as
one of the causes of the summoning of the new Parlia-
ment, was rejected, and a resolution was carried, stating
that the Money Bill was rejected because it did not take
its rise in the House of Commons. A course was here
adopted which varied from that of the House of Commons
of 1692, which was immediately prorogued, and not
allowed to sit again by Lord Sydney. It was not
denied that the Privy Council had the right to originate
a Money Bill. It was only denied that it fell within
the provisions of Poynings' Act, and that the Privy
Council had the exclusive right. It was claimed that
the House of Commons had the right of origination
also, and their right to reject a Money Bill or any other
Bill was, of course, incontestable. The House of
Commons carefully abstained from passing a resolution
similar to the resolution of the House of Commons of
1692, that " it is the sole and undoubted right of the
Commons to propose Heads of Bills for raising money."
In this case it was not stated whether the objection to
the Money Bill, as not originating in the House of
Commons, was on the ground of its being unconstitutional
or inexpedient. The rejection of the Money Bill took
place on November 2ist. Townshend was directed
to follow the course of Lord Sydney — to prorogue
Parliament, and not suffer it to sit again, if it were
possible out of the hereditary revenues, as Lord
Chancellor Phipps had hoped in the reign of Queen
Anne, to carry on the civil and military establishments.
The Lord Lieutenant, however, reported that the
THE FIGHT FOR LIBERTY AGAINST CORRUPTION. I I*J
necessary expenses of the Government, even if pared
down to the narrowest limits, were in excess of the
revenue by £34,000 per annum, and that, if the establish-
ment were maintained as at present, with the pension
list included, the excess would be £260,000. The
House of Commons, in order to checkmate any scheme
of the kind, thwarted measures for a proposed reduction
of the expenditure, and even introduced a motion carried
by the casting vote of the Speaker, himself the head
of the Revenue Department, on December 5th, 1769,
the effect of which, if carried into execution, would have
largely reduced the fixed and permanent duties (see
Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 84-88 ; see also
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
IV., pp. 390-392.)
The Lord Lieutenant, accordingly, restrained his
resentment for the time. The House of Commons, having
rejected the Money Bill, proceeded immediately to draw a
Bill of their own, in which practically the whole sum
demanded by the Government was granted for the
usual period of two years, while a vote of credit to the
extent of £100,000 was given to the Government.
They also passed the Army Augmentation Bill. This
studied moderation, after the striking of an effective
blow, was one of the peculiarities of the Irish House of
Commons, which may be explained by a knowledge of
the conditions of Parliamentary and public life in Ireland
which I have mentioned. Mr. Bowes Daly, a great
Irish Parliamentary orator, sitting in the Irish House
of Commons beside Mr. Hardy, the biographer of Lord
Charlemont, thus commented on the moderation in
the emphasising of triumphs in the Irish Parliament :
" Bowes Daly," writes Mr. Hardy, " once made an
Il8 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
observation to me which showed such a general know-
ledge of the Irish House of Commons, that I never
shall forget it. On some question, no matter what,
the Court was either left in a minority or obliged to
withdraw it. Some Member attempted to pursue this
apparent triumph by a more decisive resolution. ' How
little is he acquainted with this House,' said Mr. Daly.
' Were I a Minister, and wished to carry a very untoward
measure, it would be directly after we had passed some
strong resolution against the Court. So blended is the
good nature of Irish gentlemen with their habitual
acquiescence, that, unless Party or the times are very
violent indeed, we always wish to shrink from a second
resolution against a Minister, and to make, as it were,
some atonement for our precipitant patriotism by as
rapid a return to our original civility and complaisance '
(Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp. 282-283). On the
2oth December, 1769, the Lord Lieutenant went down
to the House of Lords, and, having summoned the
House of Commons, he thanked them for their liberal
supplies, and then delivered a solemn protest against
their resolution as an infringement of Poynings' Law,
directed that his protest should be entered on the Journals
cf each House, and at once prorogued Parliament,
which was not allowed again to sit for fourteen months,
but was prorogued at intervals from three months to
three months. The protest was entered on the Journals
of the House of Lords, but the House cf Commons,
before separating, forbade their Clerk to enter it in their
Journals.*
* Lecky, IV., p. 392.
SECURING A MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. 119
X.
THE METHOD OF SECURING A PARLIAMEN-
TARY MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT.
THE Parliament of Ireland which had been prorogued
on December 26, 1769, under the circumstances I have
endeavoured to sketch, was not convened till February
26, 1771. The prorogation of a Parliament which
had sat for a period little exceeding two months before
it had any opportunity of serving public interests, but,
as it appeared, had only been called to vote supplies to
the exclusion of every other business, was a matter of
severe stricture both in England and Ireland, and Lord
Townshend and his Administration were the subjects
of able and acrimonious attacks in the Press, to which
Flood, Grattan. and Langrishe were powerful contribu-
tors. Lord Townshend did not follow the precedent of
1692, when the Parliament was dissolved. He was deter-
mined to bring a recalcitrant assembly into subjection
by coarse metallic corruption, and to cause the Irish
Parliament which bitterly opposed him in 1769 to stultify
itself by its servile adulation of him in 1771. The four-
teen months of the Parliamentary recess were spent by
the Viceroy, who was resident in Ireland during that
recess, in purchasing a majority for his Government,
and turning a House of Commons opposed to that
Government into supporting the Administration by
means akin to the methods whereby at a later period
the Parliament which rejected the Union in 1799 carried
that measure without a dissolution in 1800.
120 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Townshend's methods were simple but profound.
He aimed at the overthrow of the Undertakers by
detaching their supporters, and bringing them into
subjection to his influence. On the 23rd December,
1769, three days before the prorogation, the Lord
Lieutenant wrote asking for leave to remove Lord
Shannon, who was Master of the Ordnance, and Ponsonby ,
the Speaker, who was head of the Revenue Board, from
their positions under the Crown, and for liberty to
remodel the Irish Privy Council. In due course the
permission sought for by the Lord Lieutenant was
granted, and "the unworthy servants of the Crown " were
dismissed from office with all their subordinates and
dependents — the entire Departments of the Ordnance
Board and the Revenue Board being changed to a man.
At this time there was no Place Act in Ireland, and
Parliamentary status was unaffected by the acceptance of
office under the Crown. Many of the large borough
owners were brought into political alliance under the
Lord Lieutenant by fear of loss of office or by promise
of appointment to office and of promotion in the peerage,
while on their nominee Members in the House of
Commons, who were bound by the etiquette of the time
to vote on cardinal questions of public policy in accord-
ance with the wishes of their patrons, offices and titles
and in many cases large sums of public money were
bestowed. It was indeed openly stated in the Irish House
of Commons in 1 789 that half a million sterling had been
expended in bringing this Parliament into harmony with
the Government. Seven peerages were instantly con-
ferred. The Prime Sergeant, Hely-Hutchinson, obtained
an addition of £ i ,000 a year to the salary of his sinecure
office of Almoner, and it is said that pensions amounting
SECURING A MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. 121
to £25,000 per annum were promised. All patronage,
legal, ecclesiastical, military, and political, was employed
to the same end. " The gentlemen of the House of
Commons were taught to look up to the Viceroy, not
only as the source, but as the dispenser of every gratifi-
cation " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, IV., pp. 395-396 ; Campbell's Philosophical
Survey, p. 58).
Nor was it merely to the " trade of Parliament " the
entering into sordid arrangements whereby favours
were promised for support in Parliament that Townshend
applied his energies. He knew well how powerfully
the attractions of a Court, levees, drawing-rooms, profuse
hospitality, and lavish expenditure can prevail in bringing
popularity and in gaining an influence which will re-act
on politicians. Mr. Froude thus describes this aspect
of Townshend 's campaign in securing a majority in
Parliament : " He gave masquerades, he gave fancy
balls, in which the costumes, with a skilful compliment
to Ireland, were made only of Irish manufacture. The
Members of the Opposition sneered and would have
stayed away ; the wives and daughters refused to exclude
themselves from assemblies of which the capital of
Ireland had never seen the equal, and forced their
husbands and fathers into submission " (Fronde's English
in Ireland, II., p. 98). He likewise displayed considerable
political foresight in making suggestions to the English
Cabinet for a partial relaxation of the commercial restric-
tions which weighed so heavily on Ireland, and were
destined a decade later to be removed by the force of the
Volunteer Movement.
At length, on the 26th February, 1771, the Irish
Parliament, whose Members had been in training for
122 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
upwards of a twelvemonth in a course of corruption, met.
Wide was the change in tone of a body which was
practically composed of the same men who had passed
the celebrated Money Bill resolution of December, 1769.
The Ponsonby-Shannon group were minisheci and
brought low, and the converts to the Lord Lieutenant's
powers of gentle suasion were in the ascendant. An
Address to the King was moved by the younger Ponsonby
in reply to the Speech from the Throne, from which the
usual words of compliment to the Lord Lieutenant,
thanking the King for retaining him in the Lord Lieu-
tenancy, were studiously omitted. An amendment
inserting the words " To return our most humble thanks
to His Majesty for continuing His Excellency Lord
Townshend in the Government of this Kingdom " was
proposed and carried by 132 to 107. The ex- Undertakers,
when expelled from the management of the country,
posed, like many other disappointed place-mongers and
place-beggars, as friends of popular rights. The amend-
ment to the address was used to excite the clamour of the
people, and was the occasion of a furious riot outside
Parliament House next day, which was quelled by the
military, who remained guarding the building while the
Houses were sitting. A resolution moved by Flood, that
the House was being overawed, was defeated by 99 to
51 ; another resolution likewise moved by him, to declare
the undoubted rights of the House of Commons to
originate Money Bills, was defeated by 128 to 105. The
Address to the Throne was agreed on, with the addition
of a paragraph moved, by Sexton Pery, that while the
Commons were incapable of attempting anything against
the rights of the Crown, they were tenacious of the
honour of being the first movers in granting supplies,
SECURING A MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. 123
and they besought His Majesty not to construe their
zeal into an invasion of his authority. The address to
the Lord Lieutenant, the double ceremony being invari-
ably observed, was then moved and carried. It devolved
upon Ponsonby, as Speaker, to present it, but he, in a
very dignified letter announcing his resignation of the
Chair, declined to submit to what he regarded to be a
humiliation. " He had desired," he wrote, " to preserve
ancl transmit to his successors the rights and privileges
of the Commons of Ireland. In the last Session it had
pleased the Lord Lieutenant to accuse the Commons of
a great crime. In the present Session it had pleased the
Commons to take the first opportunity of testifying
their approbation of His Excellency by voting him an
address of thanks. Respect for their privileges prevented
him from being the instrument of delivering such address,
and he must request them to elect another Speaker."
Pery was elected in his place by the narrow majority of
four votes in the Session which lasted till May. Heads of
a Bill for the encouragement of Agriculture passed by
the House of Commons were rejected by the English
Privy Council, because the Bill would add to the
expenditure, while the Heads of a Bill likewise passed
by the House of Commons, devised to prevent corn
from being wasted on whisky-making, was also, not-
withstanding the earnest recommendation of the Lord
Lieutenant that it should be returned, rejected by the
English Privy Council because it would be a loss to the
revenue. The representations of the Lord Lieutenant to
the Cabinet on the impropriety of restraints on Irish trade
in favour of English merchants were renewed, but failed
to make any impression.* This Parliamentary majority
* Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 110-114.
124 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was only maintained by the most constant and lavish
corruption. We find the Lord Lieutenant in March, 1771 ,
asking for commissions for the relations and dependents
of his Parliamentary friends on hearing that a regiment
for the East India Service is to be recruited in Ireland.*
And in May, 1771, he seeks for eight more promotions
to the Peerage and recommends three or four Members
of the House of Commons as Peers. He added to the
number of Commissioners of Account, notwithstanding
the passing of a resolution by the House of Commons
that the existing seven Commissioners were sufficient, and
divided the Customs and Excise Department ; five new
places of £500 a year being created, and all of them being
bestowed on Members of Parliament.f The Viceroy,
however, was wholly unable to satisfy the cupidity of
his venal supporters, who, on the meeting of Parliament
in October, 1771, renewed their attacks upon his Adminis-
tration. A proposed addition to the Address to the
Throne, moved by Lord Kildare, that " we lament that
we cannot enumerate among our blessings the continu-
ance of Lord Townshend in the Government of Ireland,"
was rejected by a much diminished majority, whilst Flood
carried by a majority of no less than forty-six a resolution
condemning the alteration in the constitution of the
Revenue Board. A vote of censure was passed on the
Government for the conferring of a pension on one
Jeremiah Dyson and his three sons of £1,000 a year on
Irish establishment. A clause introduced among the
additional duties protecting Irish linen from the impor-
tation of cotton manufactures from the Continent was
struck out by the English .Privy Council. The Bill
* Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV. , p. 396.
f Ibid., p. 397-
SECURING A MAJORITY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. 125
so altered was rejected. Heads of a new Bill with the
clause inserted were passed and sent back without a
moment's delay. The Government only succeeded by
a majority of 12 in defeating a vote of censure directed
against the King's letters, reimbursing by a fresh grant
in the case of a few eminent persons the tax of 45. in the
pound which the Irish Parliament had imposed on all
places or pensions held by absentees. When the reply
came from the King in February, 1772, stating that he
regarded it as his duty to maintain the charges made on
the Revenue Board, notwithstanding the objections of the
House of Commons, several angry motions — one that the
rr aintenance of the new Commissioners was an indignity
to Parliament, another that the House should record
its dissent from the message from the Throne— were
carried, while on the iQth February a resolution was
carried by the casting vote of the Speaker that whoever had
advised the increase in numbers of the Commissioners
had advised a measure contrary to the sense of the
Legislature.* Then there came an astonishing change in
the temper of the House of Commons. In the very
same assembly which had passed votes of censure
repeatedly on the Lord Lieutenant, by a startling volte
face, an address was carried to him declaring entire
satisfaction with his Administration. The change was
brought about by an overture made by the Lord Lieu-
tenant to Lord Shannon, who consented for place and
power to break away from Ponsonby and to support
him with his enormous Parliamentary influence.f At
last, in September, 1772, the British Cabinet determined
to bring this disgraceful administration to a close.
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 399.
Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 116-123.
f Froude's English in Ireland, II., p. 124.
126 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Nearly the last letter of Lord Townshend before he left
Ireland asked for a peerage for the wife of Hely-
Hutchinson, and for peerages and baronetcies for seven
Members of Parliament in return for their votes. The
following proposed amendment to the Address of thanks
to Lord Townshend, voted by the House of Commons
at the conclusion of the Session in May, 1772, presents,
in my judgment, a picture of his administration in
Ireland despite the passing of the Octennial Act : " And
we cannot sufficiently congratulate your Excellency on
your prudent disposition of lucrative offices among the
Members of this House, whereby your Excellency has
been enabled to excite gratitude sufficient to induce this
House to bear an honourable testimony to an adminis-
tration which, were it not so beneficial to individuals,
must necessarily have been represented to His Majesty as
the most exceptionable and destructive to this kingdom of
any that has ever been carried on in it. The carrying
into execution the division of the Revenue Board, contrary
to the sense of this House, we should have considered and
represented as a high contempt of Parliament. But
from the distribution of the multiplied seats at the two
Boards now instituted among Members of this House,
we entertain a very different sense of that measure, and
conceive that it was carried into execution not from
contempt, but the highest veneration of Parliament, the
indignation of which you dreaded, and therefore thus
averted. And we assure your Excellency we are very
much obliged to you for the offices which you have
bestowed upon us. We also return you thanks for
instituting offices for us at a new Board of Accounts,
which, however unnecessary for the public service, we
find very serviceable to ourselves."*
* Froude's English in Ireland, II., p. 124.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 127
XI.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND A SINISTER
ADMINISTRATION.
LORD TOWNSHEND'S Viceroyalty began the period of
the Irish resident Viceroy instead of the Irish migratory
Viceroy, whose residence in Ireland was confined to
the Parliamentary Session, which was then held bien-
nially. In his Viceroyalty, likewise, the regime of the
Undertakers was terminated and the regime of the Lord
Lieutenant as a dispenser of patronage began. The
system of governing the country by Undertakers was one
of hopeless corruption, and the system of Viceregal
Government by which it was succeeded was even more
corrupt and more expensive. George III. had, as we
have seen, early in bis reign, given personal instructions
to Lord Hertford on his appointment to the Viceroyalty
to put down corruption. Instructions of the same
character had been given to Lord Townshend by the
English Cabinet. We have seen that in his Viceroyalty
offices, pensions, peerages, had been lavishly bestowed
avowedly as the rewards of corruption, by which alone
the work of the Government could be carried on. Lord
Harcourt, who had the advantage of succeeding imme-
diately a most unpopular predecessor, had also received
instructions to discourage all applications for new
peerages and promotions, additional pensions and
salaries, new offices, employments for life, and all grants
1 28 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of revenue, as well ~s the sale of offices, places and employ-
ments. He was also instructed to do his utmost to
regain for the King the full control of the hereditary
revenue by inducing the Parliament to make good by
taxation the many charges which had been thrown upon
it in the form of pensions and bounties. (See Lecky's
History oj England in the Eighteenth Century, IV.,
p. 402.) Lord Harcourt arrived in Ireland in November,
1772. Parliament was not to meet till the October
following. He received in March the direction to
which I have previously referred from Lord North,
the Prime Minister, who, like George III., was alive
to the impropriety of granting pensions, to the effect
that the King had determined to place his disgraced
sister, the unfaithful wife of the King of Denmark,
on the Irish establishment as the recipient of a pension
of £3,000 per annum.* The Administration of Lord
Harcourt, which has been characterised by a writer so
little disposed to form a severe judgment as Hardy, as " a
sinister administration," carried the system of corruption
established by Townshend to a still greater excess.
Hardy, who may be regarded as reflecting the sentiments
of Lord Charlemont, thus described the methods of
Government in the Harcourt regime from 1772 till 1776 :
41 The recall of Lord Townshend," he writes, " was
grateful to some gentlemen who indulged the hope that
his successor's Administration might proceed on more
constitutional principles. They did not, therefore, join
Lord Harcourt 's Government, but were prepared to give
him such support as, in their opinion, he might be justly
entitled to. Too many, however, laid hold on Lord
Townshend's departure not as an apology for but an
* Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 403.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 129
entire justification of their abandonment of the party
to which they had hitherto adhered. In the true cant
of political hypocrisy and tergiversation they said :
' It is highly indecorous that every Lord Lieutenant
should be indiscriminately opposed. We could
not conscientiously join Lord Townshend, but we
may certainly support Lord Harcourt.' This was
abstractedly fair, had they upheld Lord Harcourt's
Government upon principles of candour and dis-
interestedness. But how did they support it ? As all
such apostates have ever supported any Viceroy 1
Besieging his doors, besieging those of the Secretary
night and day, soliciting every employment, courting
«very service at the Castle, unresisting sycophants in
the House of Commons, adventurous braggadocios
hourly insulting the public whom they robbed, and by
their rapacity hourly weakening the royal authority
which, with an audacious temerity, they affected exclu-
sively to maintain. It is deeply to be deplored that any
Secretary should be obliged to enlist such mercenaries,
and had this Administration aspired to any loftiness
of station or measures of great and permanent utility
it might have laughed their mendicancy to scorn. But
it was soon discovered it was a Government of patronage,
of multiplied arrangements. Such a Government
will always be weak, though it appears to superficial
observers exactly the contrary. But having no public
measures to rest on, no confidence of the people to resort
to, it will be always upheld by the servile and the venal ;
their solicitations are necessarily complied with, their
numbers pass for strength, their misdeeds for spirit, but
all is hollow " (Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp
130 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
I have quoted this passage at considerable length,
because, in my judgment, it is a very admirable descrip-
tion, by a writer who had the experience of a member
who sat in the three last Parliaments of Ireland in the
House of Commons, of a system of conducting the
government of the country which he actually saw.
It, moreover, gives a sketch in all its salient features of the
typical corruptionist Member of the Irish Houses of
Lords and Commons, who was at all times the weakness
and disgrace, and eventually the ruin, of the Irish
Parliament. No less than £80,000 was added in this
Administration to the public expenditure of Ireland.
Several thousands of pounds were spent in creating new
offices or annexing new salaries to old ones, and, in the
words of Grattan, " there was scarcely a sinecure
whose salary Government had not increased." It was
no longer possible to urge that the public revenue was
largely wasted in private grants for stimulating private
enterprises. Most of the new expenses emanated from
the Government itself. " Candid men," writes Mr.
Lecky, " were obliged to confess that the old system
of Undertakers was much more economical and was
certainly not more corrupt than that which had succeeded
it." (History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
IV., pp. 441-442.)
Lord Harcourt, as we have said, came to Dublin in
November, 1772, and Parliament was not to meet till
October, 1773. The Lord Lieutenant had accordingly
ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
friends of Administration, and of being introduced,
in the words of Mr. Froude, to the " mysteries of
corruption" in which his Chief Secretary, Sir John
(Lord De Blaquiere) Blaquiere actually revelled.* The
* Appendix IX.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 131
possessors of powerful borough influence in the House
of Commons and the Members of that body who repre-
sented themselves exceedingly well were prepared to
give Lord Harcourt a fair trial. Lord Shannon very
plainly stated his terms. He asked for one peerage,
one pension, and four appointments — the Governorship
of Cork, the position of Prime Serjeant, a Commissioner-
ship of Revenue, and a Bishopric for his proteges. In
the first Session of Parliament after his appointment to
the Lord Lieutenancy, Harcourt obtained great popu-
larity by re-uniting the Boards of Excise and Customs,
whose division under Lord Townshend, with the creation
of a large number of Parliamentary offices, had created
great indignation. The economy, however, thus effected
was more apparent than real. Five Commissioners and
four Surveyors-General were compensated by pensions
for the extinction of their posts. *
Lord Harcourt 's Administration is mainly to be
remembered for the defeat, by a cunning contrivance, of
the Absentee Tax, which was apparently favoured by the
Government, and would have enormously lightened the
burdens of the people and eased the financial difficulties
of the country ; the winning over of Flood, who was then
the leader of the Country party, to the Castle interest,
by his appointment to the sinecure post of Vice-Treasurer
of Ireland with a salary of £3,500 a year, and the purchase
of a Parliamentary majority in favour of the war of Great
Britain against her American Colonies, to which the Irish
people were wholly opposed .j-
The Irish Treasury was over £300,000 in arrear, and
the revenue was falling off owing to the stoppage of the
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
402-403. Froude's English in Inland, II., p. 160.
f Appendix X. Appendix XI.
132 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Colonial trade. A reduction in the Pension List, which
had nearly doubled in the last twenty years, was con-
sidered, having regard to the methods of Iri&h Govern-
ment, unthinkable. In these circumstances, Harcourt
determined to recommend, and Lord North agreed to
accept, if it were carried in Ireland, a tax of 2s. in the
pound on the rents of absentee proprietors. The drain
on the resources of the country, from vast sums of money
being deported to be expended elsewhere, had always
been in Ireland an all but intolerable grievance, and many
efforts were made to lighten that grievance, to some of
which reference has been previously made. These pro-
ceedings may be briefly stated. In 1729, at the time
of great famine, a measure was carried by which all the
salaries, employments, places, and pensions of those
who did not reside six months in the year in the country
w7ere taxed four shillings in the pound, but the unfor-
tunate qualification was added : " unless they shall be
exempted by His Majesty's sign manual."* In 1751
this statute was repealed, the exemptions to which
it was subject having made it practically a dead letter.
In 1767 the Government consented to accept a re-
enactment of the old law imposing a tax of 45. in the
pound on absentee placeholders and pensioners, with
the omission of the clause authorising the Sovereign
to exempt those whom he pleased from its operation.
In 1770 a vote of censure directed against the Kind's
Letters reimbursing by a fresh grant in the case of a few
eminent persons the tax of 43. in the pound imposed
on all places or pensions held by absentees, was repelled
by 12 votes only in the Irish House of Commons, the
contention being unanswerable that the Act was a
mockery if a new grant of 43. in the pound v ere to be
* Lecky, II., p. 237.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 133
made to the pensioners out of the Irish revenues in order
to compensate them for the tax.* The great Irish
absentee Whig Peers, represented by the Duke of Devon-
shire, the Marquis of Rockingham, the Earl of Bess-
borough, Lord Milton, and Lord Upper Ossory, issued
a public letter in opposition to the proposal. The
manifesto, which is one of the most powerfully written
State documents of the time, is the composition of
Edmund Burke, who, on this occasion, acted rather as
a mouthpiece of an English party than an advocate of
Irish rights, and was well aware that the measure, which
was the subject of a denunciation written by him, but
signed by titled personages who were deeply personally
interested in the matter, was consonant with the wants
and wishes of the Irish people. " If," he wrote to the
Marquis of Rockingham, " Government here (in England)
peisists in countenancing such a plan, I have no sort of
doubt that it will pass the Parliament and Privy Council
of Ireland not only without difficulty, but with the
greatest satisfaction and applause, "f The great English
Companies, who were also large owners of Irish property,
likewise joined in fierce opposition to the measure, and
arrangements were made by all the absentee land-owners,
whether individuals or Corporations, to appear before
the English Privy Council by the most eminent members
of the Bar in resistance to the Heads of the Bill in the
event of its transmission to England. The Absentee
Tax Bill was defeated in the Irish House of Commons
by the treachery of the Irish Lord Lieutenant himself
in the adoption of a course which he thus explained
in a letter written on November Qth, 1773, to the English
Cabinet : " The decided opinions," he wrote, " of
some of the wisest and most experienced men in this
* Lecky, IV., p. 399. | Fronde, II., p. 169.
134 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Kingdom, and the general wishes of the people for half
a century past, added to the exigencies of Government,
led me to press it on your Lordship. This, however,
like every other mode of taxation, must naturally irritate
those whose hitherto untaxed estates would principally
be affected by it, and be attended with inconveniences,
though inadequate to the advantages it must produce.
Not to embarrass your Lordship, as soon as I saw how
things were going, with the help of our friends here I
have obstructed the progress of the tax. We mean to
allow it to be moved by a certain wild, inconsistent
gentleman, who has signified such to be his intention.
This will be sufficient to damn the measure, though no
other means be employed against it. Opposition are
first made to startle and by degrees grow alarmed
at it, as an approach to a general land tax. As to our
own people, by speaking indecisively and equivocally
to those who seem to wish (sic) against it, and by setting
those at defiance who wish to extort favours by a com-
pliance with any requisition of the Government, men in
general have been brought to hold themselves in suspense
with regard to it."* The letter of the five Lords, Lord
Harcourt said he could have used with effect if he had
wished the Bill to pass to create exasperation against the
absentees. " Having, or at least wishing to give up the
object, I will endeavour to make these letters a means of
condemning the tax in the House of Commons. It will
in course grow a topic of general observation and discus-
sion, and, from a capricious instability observable in
the opinions of the people of this country, I imagine that
by leaving men now totally to their own inclinations this
now so much sought for boon may die in a few days,
and if it should not of itself, very little addition to what
* Froude, II., pp. 166-167. Lecky, IV., p. 411.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 135
has already been done on our part shall be made to
destroy it."*
Before the measure came formally before the House of
Commons, there was an incidental reference to it which
Sir John Blaquiere, the Chief Secretary, co-operating
with the Lord Lieutenant, turned to good account by
damning the projected legislation with faint praise.
He had heard, he said, the Absentee Tax very lately
described as the salvation of the country, and he had not
yet quite given up the idea, though his faith may have
been somewhat staggered by the variety of opinions
which now obtain. They had not convinced him. He
adhered to his own impression, but he desired the House
to understand that the Administration would be guided
entirely by the judgment of the Irish Parliament. " I
will lay my heart upon your table," he concluded.
" Under the strange revolution of sentiment which this
subject has already undergone, let it surprise no man
if upon this occasion my best friend and I divide on
different sides of the House. "f On the 25th November
the question came directly before the House of Commons.
The debate lasted till two o'clock in the morning. The
proposal was that a tax of two shillings in the pound
should be laid on all net rents and profits payable to
persons who did not reside in Ireland for six months in
the year. The equity of the tax was universally admitted,
but Lord Harcourt's treacherous suggestions, as related
by himself, were not forgotten. " They did unani-
mously," he says, writing to Lord North on the day the
division was taken, " and in the most violent manner
*Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
411-412. Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 166-167.
t Froude's English in Ireland, "II., pp. 167-168. Becky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp. 412-415.
136 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
inveigh against the insidious and deep designs of the
English Government to introduce by these means a
general Land Tax." Some of the leading interests turned
against the measure, and it was rejected by 120 to 106.
" Thus," wrote Lord Harcourt to Lord North, " the long
expected measure which for ages has been the subject
of their discourse, the warmest object of their complaints
and wishes, and still within these three months con-
sidered as too important an acquisition ever to be hoped
for by their country, has been rejected by a majority
of fourteen." An attempt was made next day to
reconsider the question, but after a debate of nine hours'
duration, the motion for reconsideration was, "by most
dexterous management " — to use the words of the Lord
Lieutenant — rejected without a division. Lord North
congratulated Lord Harcourt on having defeated an Irish
measure of priceless service to Ireland, but prejudicial
to the personal and pecuniary interests of a few individuals
and corporations, " without any promises of peerage or
pension." Lord North's letter of congratulation to
Lord Harcourt was one of grateful acknowledgment.
" Your Excellency's campaign," said the Prime Minister,
" has been most glorious and successful. The Irish
Government will now be carried on with credit and tran-
quillity. His Majesty is extremely pleased with you."*
I have related this episode at considerable length owing
to the fact that it throws light on the duplicity which
characterised the dealings of the English Government
with the Irish Parliament, and the caprice and instability
of the self-seekers who were in so large a majority in the
Irish Parliament.
The Absentee Tax, having been rejected, the Customs
* Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 169-174.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 137
— >
Duties had been raised to cover the deficit. The Heads
of three Supply Bills had been sent to England, but the
irritating practice of making alterations in them was
again pursued. Two of these Bills were unanimously
rejected. Harcourt warned the Government that the
alterations were regarded as " wanton, unnecessary, and
unkind," and that, if the Bills were altered again, they
would not be passed. The Commons proceeded to
re-enact the Bills with new titles, and they came back
from the English Privy Council without alteration.*
The rejection of the Absentee Tax naturally turned
public attention to the commercial restrictions to which
Irish trade was subjected by English Governments,
and to the enforced emigration from Ireland of the most
highly-trained artisans. Ireland had manufactured
hemp and flax, to whose manufacture she had been
restricted by English legislation, to such good purpose
as at one time to supply sails for the whole British Navy.
England had now laid a disabling duty on Irish sail cloths,
which had injured Ireland without conferring any benefit
on English trade. The British market was supplied
from Holland, Germany, and Russia, while to the Empire
the result was only the ruin of Ulster and the flight of
the Protestant population to America. Mr. Pery, the
Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, in presenting
the Supplies to the Lord Lieutenant at the Bar of the
House of Lords on December 26th, 1773, made a formal
representation of the impropriety and injustice of
English interference with Irish industries, which is a
proper sequel to the history of the Absentee Tax. All
the subsequent proceedings in favour of the extended
* Froude's English in It-eland, II., pp. 175-176. L,ecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp. 413-4:4.
138 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
commerce of Ireland were founded on this representa-
tion, to which reference is made in a note among the
papers of Lord Charlemont, the Leader of the Volunteer
Movement, by which trade restrictions were removed
from Ireland. " In Lord Harcourt's time the liberty
of trade was begun by a speech of the Speaker's."
(Hardy's Life of the Earl of Charlemont, I., p. 343.)
" The Commons," said Mr. Speaker Pery,* " have
exerted their utmost efforts to answer your Excellency's
expectation, not only in providing for the discharge of an
arrear of £265,000, but also in making an addition to the
revenue of near /ioo,ooo a year. Difficult as this task
appeared in a Kingdom so destitute of resources as this,
yet it was undertaken with cheerfulness and prosecuted
with vigour, but if the means which they have employed
shall prove inadequate to the liberality of their intentions,
it must be imputed to the inability of the Kingdom, not
to any disinclination or unwillingness in them to make
ample provision for His Majesty's service to which they
have sacrificed their most favourite objects. The
moderation and temper with which all their proceedings
have been conducted during the course of this Session
afford the most ample proof not only of gratitude for His
Majesty's attention and condescension to their wishes,
but also of the just sense they entertain of Your Excel-
lency's intercession in their favour, and they have the
fullest confidence that the same humane and benevolent
disposition will induce Your Excellency to represent
to His Majesty in the strongest light not only their duty
and affection to him, but also the state and circumstances
of this Kingdom, from which they conceive the most
sanguine hopes that those restrictions which the narrow
and short-sighted policy of former times, equally injurious
* Appendix XII.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 139
to Great Britain and to us, imposed on the manufactures
and commerce of this kingdom will be remitted. If
Great Britain reaped the fruits of this policy, the
Commons of Ireland would behold it without repining,
but it aggravates the sense of their misfortunes to see the
rivals, if not the enemies of Great Britain, in the undis-
turbed possession of these advantages to which they think
themselves entitled upon every principle of policy and
justice. It is the expectation of being restored to some, if
not to all, of those rights, and that alone, which can justify
to the people the conduct of their representatives in laying
so many additional burdens upon them in the course of
this Session, and no time can be more favourable to their
wishes than the present, when the public councils are
directed by a Minister who has judgment to discern and
courage to pursue the common interest of the Empire,
and when the Throne is filled by a monarch the sole
object of whose ambition is to render all his people
happy." (Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, I., pp.
34I-343-)
In a very few years the line of policy thus advocated
was enforced by the Irish Parliament, backed by the Irish
Volunteers.
And then again the Harcourt Viceroyalty was marked
by the acceptance of office under the Crown by Mr.
Flood, who had, in a Parliamentary career of great
brilliancy, been for upwards of seventeen years the fore-
most advocate in the House of Commons of popular rights
and liberties, including in his programme the shortening
of the duration of Irish Parliaments, which was achieved
in 1768 ; the removal of the scandals of the Pension List,
the modification — if not the repeal — of Poynings' Law,
the establishment of an Irish Militia, and had opposed
140 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the increase of offices and the Government influence in
Parliament thereby secured, and come forward as the
protagonist of the Absentee Tax. In 1775, after a long
negotiation with the Government, Flood accepted the
sinecure office of Vice-Treasurership of Ireland at an
annual salary of £3,500 a year. The Irish Vice-
Treasurerships, of which there were three, had invariably
been filled by Members, not of the Irish but of the
English Parliament. Lord Harcourt, in announcing the
conclusion of his negotiation with Flood to Lord North,
speaks of the true inwardness of Flood's appointment
to office with an exquisite directness and candour which
leave no room to doubt that His Excellency regarded his
conduct in the matter as a diplomatic triumph of the
same character as his success in strangling the Absentee
Tax while posturing as the friend of that measure.
" Since I was born," wrote the Lord Lieutenant to Lord
North, " I never had to deal with so difficult a man,
owing principally to his high-strained ideas of his own
great importance and popularity. But the acquisition
of such a man, however desirable at other times, may
prove more than ordinarily valuable in the difficult
times we may live to see, which may afford him a
very ample field for the display of his great abilities."*
" For seven years," writes Lecky, " Flood was silent
in office while the questions which he had first brought
forward were rising rapidly to the front, and when at last
he broke from the Government he found that his place
was filled and that he was no longer trusted and followed
as of old. In the very session in which he accepted office
(October, 1775), his great rival, Grattan, took his seat
in the Irish Parliament."f
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
427-428.
t Lecky, IV., pp. 428-429. Fronde's English in Ireland, II., pp.
184-189.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 141
And then Lord Harcourt, by resort to the corrup-
tionist agencies and influences by which he had defeated
the Absentee Tax Bill, and had placed in official harness
the greatest leader of Opposition who had yet appeared
in Irish Parliamentary history, achieved a triumph
on whose accomplishment he declared in a confidential
letter to the British Cabinet on October n, 1775 :
" I have never passed moments so happy as these
have been since the question was determined." The
matter to which the Lord Lieutenant thus alluded
was the sanction and support of the Irish Parliament
in the attitude of the British Government in relation
to the American Colonies in the War of the American
Independence, although, in the great words of Lord
Chatham, whose advocacy of American rights made
him a hero in Ireland, and gave his name to two streets
in the City of Dublin, " Ireland was with America to
a man."* The controversy between Great Britain and
the North American Colonies had been watched at its
every stage with a microscopic eye in Ireland, whose
history, associations, and circumstances invested the
question with an absorbing national interest. The
American colonists were largely composed of Irishmen —
Protestants who had been driven from Ireland by the
restrictions placed by English legislation on Irish trade
and industry, and by the rapacity of Irish landlords, and
Catholics who, in their own land, had been subject to
the oppression of which their Protestant fellow-country-
men were victims, with the additional tyranny of the
atrocious Penal Code system. Their fellow-countrymen
in Ireland knew that the Irish and American questions
were attended with so many parities of circumstance
* Thackeray's Life of Chatham, II., p. 286.
142 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
as to be practically identical. " The question in both
countries," writes Froude, " was substantially the same,
whether the Mother Country had a right to utilise her
Dependencies for her own interests, irrespective of their
own consent." (English in Ireland, II., p. 189.) English
lawyers had sometimes asserted and sometimes denied
the existence of the right of the English Parliament to
make laws for Ireland, but the first explicit Act in its
favour was the Declaratory Act of George I., by which
the English Parliament asserted its own right of legis-
lating for Ireland. It was precisely parallel to the
Declaratory Act which was passed when the Stamp Act
was repealed, affirming the right of Parliament to make
laws binding the British Colonies " in all cases what-
soever," and condemning as unlawful the votes of the
Colonial Assemblies which had denied to Parliament the
right of taxing them.
" In both cases," writes Mr. Lecky, " the right was
denied, but in both cases the great maiority of politicians
was practically ready to acquiesce, provided certain
restrictions and limitations were secured to their. The
Americans did not dispute the power of the English
Legislature to bind their commerce and regulate their
affairs as members of an extended Empire as long as they
were untrammelled in their local concerns, and were
not taxed except by their own representatives. The
position of most Irish politicians was very similar. The
Irish Parliament legislated for the local concerns of
Ireland, and it still retained with great jealousy a certain
control over the power of the purse." (See Lecky 's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, III.,
PP- 339-34-2.) (See also Ibid., IV., pp. 430-432.)
When, in 1771, Benjamin Franklin, who, four years
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 143
later, when leaning on the Bar of the British House of
Lords, was denounced in his own hearing by Lord
Sandwich as the most mischievous and bitterest enemy
England had ever known, visited Ireland, he was received
in the Irish House of Commons with conspicuous respect
and honour. " I supposed," he writes, " I must go to
the gallery, when the Speaker stood up and acquainted
the House that he understood there was in town an
American gentleman of (he was pleased to say) dis-
tinguished character and merit," and he asked that
Franklin should be admitted to sit among them, which
was unanimously granted. {Franklin's Works, VII., pp.
557-558.) Franklin has recorded his impressions of the
Irish Patriot Party and of their attitude to America.
" I found them," he said, " disposed to be friends of
America, in which I endeavoured to confirm them with
the expectation that our growing weight might in turn
be thrown into one scale, and, by joining our interests
with theirs, a more equitable treatment from this nation
(England) might be obtained for themselves as well
as for us."* The cause of Ireland was, indeed, identical
with the cause of America. The treatise of Molyneux
was the text-book of Irish liberty. The assertion of
Blackstone in his Commentaries, published in 1765,
the year of the passing of the Stamp Act, of the right
of the British Parliament to bind Ireland by her laws
without restriction or qualification, applied with equal
if not with greater force to America. " It was plain
to demonstration," writes Mr. Lecky, " that if the
English Government could establish its right to tax
the Colonies without their consent, it must possess
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Centum, I\'., pp.
434-435-
144 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
a similar power in Ireland."* Lord Harcourt, who had
succeeded in attaching to his Government by the
methods I have described every man who possessed
considerable Parliamentary influence, was well aware
that in the Irish Legislature the universal feeling of
the country on the American question would be only
feebly represented. He knew, however, that the Irish
Patriot body were acting in union on this subject with
the Opposition in the English Parliament, and that the
troubles in America must, on the meeting of the Irish
Parliament, be quickly the subject of discussion. He
accordingly introduced the matter in the Speech from the
Throne in October, 1775, by noticing the rebellion
existing in America and by complimenting Ireland on
her good behaviour. " I saw," he wrote to the British
Cabinet, " the moment approaching when this important
question would have been pressed upon me by the
Opposition to the King's Government in this country,
who were daily gaining strength upon this ground with
such advantages that I should have had great difficulty in
resisting it." An address was at once drawn up in reply
to the Speech from the Throne inviting the House of
Commons to assure the King " that while his Government
was disturbed by a rebellion of which they heard with
abhorrence and felt with indignation, they would them-
selves be ever ready to showr the world their devoted
attachment to his sacred person."
An amendment moved by Mr. Ponsonby, strongly
urging the necessity of " conciliatory and healing
measures for the removal of the discontent which prev?ils
in the Colonies," was defeated by 92 to 52, and an
amendment expunging the words which stigmatised
the conduct of the Americans by 90 to 54, and the original
* Lecky, IV., p. 432.
A SINISTER ADMINISTRATION. 145
Address was carried. The discussion lasted without
interruption till the evening following, and the Irish
cause was openly identified with the American in speeches
which the Lord Lieutenant considered to be " of great
violence." Mr. Daly said that if America was beaten,
30,000 English swords would impose the Irish taxes,
while Mr. Hussey Burgh declared that England meant
to reduce her dependencies to slavery. Shortly after
the Address had been passed, the House of Commons
agreed by 103 to 58 to the proposal of the Government
to permit 4,000 of the troops who were appointed by
Statute to remain in Ireland for its defence to be with-
drawn for active service in America as " armed nego-
tiators " — a description of these forces by Flood which
was long remembered. The absence on occasions of
such importance of more than half the Members of the
House of Commons is very significant, and may well be
ascribed to the American sympathies of many members
who owed their seats to great borough owners in alliance
with the Government, and who were therefore precluded,
according to the usual code of Parliamentary honour,
from voting against the Minister.*
The methods by which the votes in favour of the English
Government on the American question in the Irish House
of Commons were secured when a general election was
imminent may be surmised by a letter from Sir John
Blaquiere to Mr. Robinson, the Secretary to the Treasury :
' You must by pension or place sink a sum of not less than
£9,000 per annum, exclusive of the provision that may be
found requisite for rewarding and indemnifying those who
are connected by office with His Majesty's Administration.
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp
436-439- Fronde's English in Ireland, II., pp. 142-144.
M
146 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
.... There are several gentlemen who, holding not
a shilling under the Crown, have assisted or are now
engaged to support the measures of the Government
upon expectation given them of a suitable provision at
the end of this Session."* A step, to which fre-
quent reference has been made, was, moreover, taken,
which, in England, Mr. Lecky thinks, would probably
have been followed by an impeachment. Eighteen
peers were created in a single day, and seven barons and
five viscounts were, at the same time, raised a step in the
peerage. The terms of the bargain were well known
to be an engagement to support the Government by their
votes in the House of Lords, and by their substitutes
and their influence in the House of Commons. Four
baronets were also made about the same time for corrupt
Parliamentary services. Having remained in office till
after the General Election of 1776, Lord Harcourt retired
from the Irish Government in November of that year.f
* Lecky 's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 440.
1 Ibid., p. 441.
PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. 147
XII.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND PRESSURE
FROM WITHOUT.
DURING the "sinister" regime of Lord Harcourt in
Ireland and that of his successor, Lord Buckinghamshire,
the country was sunk in the lowest depth of wretchedness,
and national bankruptcy was imminent. The National
Debt amounted to one million sterling, while the nation
was burdened with life annuities of £6 per cent, for the
sum of .£444,000 ; the pension list had risen between
March, 1773, and September, 1777, from £79^99 to
£89,095 ; the establishment was loaded with sinecures
such as the Mastership of the Rolls, the Chancellorship
of the Exchequer, the three Vice-Chancellorships,to which
enormous salaries were attached, and which, with one
exception, Mr. Flood's Vice- Chancellorship, was filled
by English absentee politicians. £600,000 per annum
went out of the country to absentee landlords. To
crown all, the direct legislation of the British Parliament,
avowedly contrived to hinder the development of Irish
trade and manufactures, had, despite the despairing
efforts of the Irish Parliament to modify its effects, laid
the country prostrate. The War of the American Inde-
pendence had closed one of the chief markets for Irish
linens, while the provisions trade was annihilated by an
embargo on the exports of provisions from Ireland.
The rupture, moreover, with France inflicted dreadful
financial injury on Ireland, for one of the effects of the
148 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
aws of the British Parliament restricting Irish commerce
with Great Britain and her Colonies had been to establish
a close commercial connection between Ireland and
France (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, IV., pp. 441-442). At every opportunity great
numbers were flying across the sea, and the extension
of pasture, which diminished the price of labour, raised the
price of bread. The coasts were threatened on every side
by enemy ships of the line, which insulted the British
flag, captured or destroyed vessels in the passage between
England and Ireland, and threatened a descent upon
the country, which was wholly unprotected. Such being
the position of affairs in Ireland, the struggle between
Great Britain and the American Colonies was watched
with intense interest in Ireland, from the fact that the
analogies between the American and the Irish questions
were, as we have seen, very close. Lord Townshend,
who, during his Viceroy alty, had repeatedly and vainly
urged the British Cabinet to take measures for liberating
Ireland from the commercial restraints imposed on her
by British Parliament through the influence of selfish
and rapacious English traders, speaking in the English
House of Lords, thus contrasted Ireland with America,
and foretold the consequences of refusal to remove from
Ireland the trade shackles imposed upon her : " The
Irish, he said, were patient under misery which might
have driven a wiser people into madness. The Americans
were rebellious in the midst of plenty and prosperity.
Ireland, he declared, perishing in fetters which had
chained her industry, had petitioned humbly for partial
release, and England had answered insolently, ' Break
your chains if you can.' The Americans had leagued
themselves with England's inveterate enemy, for her
PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. 149
total destruction. To them England had said, ' You
shall be free, you shall pay no taxes, we will interfere
with you no more, remain with us on your own terms.'
If these replies were persisted in, then the Irish, when
peace was made, would emigrate to a land where honest
labour would receive its due reward. While the war
continued they would be held down by force, and at
any moment they might refuse after all either to buy
manufactures or export their own produce, and fleets
and armies would preach to them in vain." (Froude's
English in Ireland, II., pp. 238-239).
Lord Buckingham hsire on his appointment to the
Lord Lieutenancy had little experience in public affairs,
but had filled some years previously the position of
British Ambassador at the Russian Court. He selected
as his Chief Secretary, at a most difficult and critical
time in the relations between Great Britain and Ireland,
whose delicacy was enhanced by a war of enormous
magnitude, in which England was fighting for her
existence, a gentleman who is thus described by one
who knew him. " Posterity," he writes, " will hardly
believe that at a juncture so critical and alarming the
Cabinet should not have insisted on the nomination
of the Secretary as well as the Viceroy. But the
choice was left to Lord Buckinghamshire. And what
opinion he formed of the difficulties he was to encounter
in the Irish Parliament may be gathered from the
person he selected — a worthy man undoubtedly — Mr»
Richard Heron, his law agent, and supervisor, I believe,
of his estates. Now, let the reader conceive an antique
scrivener or laborious conveyancer from Gray's Inn
transplanted at once to such a scene as Ireland presented
at that time ! When he arrived there, what was expected
150 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
from him or what were the duties, even in part, he was
to perform ? To raise the manufactures, the revenue,
the commerce of the country, all drooping, all withered !
To combat the prejudices of the mercantile interests in
England, to soothe clamours at home, to reconcile the
minds of men to a desolating civil war with America, to
balance parties, to manage the leaders of the House of
Commons, and win the high debate. Alas ! good man,
he was not only inadequate to all this, but to any part of
it, nor was he to be blamed. Neither his species of
knowledge nor habits of life were in the slightest degree
assimilated to his situation. What right had the British
Cabinet to complain when they committed the interests of
both countries in truth to such a well-meaning but
inefficient personage ? "*
The Parliament which had been elected when the
Viceroyalty of Harcourt was drawing to an end met for the
first time in the autumn of 1776. The methods by which
Lord Harcourt had prevailed in securing a majority in that
Parliament, which was destined for the establishment of
the Constitution of 1782, have been already sketched, and
for the first few weeks of its sittings matters proceeded
smoothly, and public attention was directed more to the
developments of the American War than to purely
domestic affairs, more especially as the realities of warfare
had been brought home very painfully to the people of
Ireland by the danger of enemy raids upon her coasts. In
a few months, however, this lull was broken, and the year
1 778 was one of the most memorable in the constitutional
history of Ireland, as it witnessed the first and most sub-
stantial relaxation of the laws in restraint of trade, the first
important modification of the Penal Code, and the rise
of the Irish Volunteer Movement. These great events
* Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp. 366-367.
PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. 151
must be regarded as closely associated and allied with
each other. The demand for the removal of galling
trade restrictions, the protest against the infliction of this
grievous wrong in the interests of Great Britain and to the
prejudice of Ireland, to be effective should have been made
by a united people, and not by a privileged section, who,
while complaining of injustice and violation of national
rights, were themselves inflicting the most serious
political and civil disabilities on the vast majority of their
own fellow-countrymen. The Volunteer Movement,
moreover, being a movement of an extra Parliamentary
character and claiming for its support public opinion,
found that support not merely from the Protestant but
from the Catholic population of Ireland. The epoch
in Irish history inaugurated in 1778 owed its existence
to the spirit of resistance to injustice, and the deter-
mination to abate all wrongs which animates an entire
nation, and is not the perquisite of any mere section of
the community. On the 7th February, 1778, Mr.
Grattan moved in the House of Commons an address
to the Crown that the condition of Ireland was no longer
endurable. He laid stress on the lavish expenditure on
a Military establishment, while the country was un-
defended, and its coasts insulted by enemy ships. The
sinecures and the pension list were subjects of strongest
reprobation. The motion, as might have been expected
in an assembly whose composition was so thoroughly
affected by Harcourt's corruption, was defeated by 143
to 66, but the Lord Lieutenant in his letters to the
Cabinet and to the Prime Minister states very plainly
that the Parliamentary majority on this occasion was far
from representing the feelings of the country. The
Lord Lieutenant stated that the supporters of the Govern-
152 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ment after this division expressed to him their hope that
the privileges which were to be granted through the
medium of Lord Carlisle, then on a mission to America
to the American Colonies in revolt, would be extended to
Ireland, and that the restrictions on Irish trade would be
relaxed or abolished. (Froude's English in Ireland,
II., pp. 225-226.) Lord Norch cordially adopted the
view of Lord Buckinghamshire, that an enlargement of the
trade of Ireland had become absolutely necessary for
the support of the country, and Lord Nugent brought the
question of the relaxation of the Irish Commercial Code
before the English Parliament in April, 1778. The
propositions that Ireland, with the exception of the
restrictions on wool and the woollen manufacture, might
send all her products to the English settlements and
plantations, and might receive those of the Colonies,
with the exception of tobacco, in return, without their
first being unladen in England, and to repeal a pro-
hibitory duty which excluded from England cotton
yarn made in Ireland, were at first well received as being
founded on justice and a liberal policy required by the
circumstances of the time. Subsequently, however, the
jealousy of English manufacturers and traders was so
strongly expressed, and so much influenced the conduct
of many of the representatives of those interests in
Parliament, that in the Bill giving effect to the propositions
it was thought necessary to give up most of the advantages
originally intended for Ireland. " Vessels made in Ireland
were no doubt henceforth to be considered British built,
and were to be entitled to receive the bounties in fisheries
of every kind, but the Irish were forbidden absolutely to
export to the Colonies wool, woollen and cotton manu-
factures, hats, glass, hops, gunpowder, and coals. They
PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. 153
were forbidden to export iron or iron wares till the Irish
Parliament had imposed a prescribed duty upon them.
They were obliged in like manner to charge duties and
taxes on all their exported manufactures equivalent to
those paid on similar articles of British fabric, and they
were still forbidden to import goods direct from the
Colonies. Cotton yarn homespun in Ireland might,
however, now be imported into England free of duty
18 Geo. III., Ch. 55-56). The concession was
plainly insufficient for the necessities of Ireland, and
at a time when commerce with America was wholly
suspended, it was almost nugatory. It marked,
however, the gradual subversion of the old policy of
restriction."* Edmund Burke, whose advocacy of
the cause of Ireland on this occasion was the subject
of severe stricture by his constituency — the commercial
city of Bristol — in letters in defence of his action says :
" Is Ireland united to the Crown of Great Britain for
no other purpose than that we should counteract the
bounty of Providence in her favour, and in proportion
as that bounty has been liberal that we are to regard
it as an evil which is to be met with in every sort of
corrective ? " (Burke on Irish Affairs, edited by M.
Arnold, p. 101.) Again, " Ireland, having received no
compensation, directly or indirectly, for any restraints
on her trade, ought not in justice or in common honesty
to be made subject to such restraints. I do not mean
to impeach the rights of the Parliament of Great Britain
to make laws for the trade of Ireland — I only speak
of the laws it is right for Parliament to make." (Edmund
Burke on Irish Affairs, edited by M. Arnold, p. in.)
The wretched condition of the finances (the Treasury
*Lecky, IV., pp. 447-451.
154 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was literally empty) — the Government that had obtained
a loan of .£20,000 from La Touche's Bank, on further
application were told by the heads of that Bank " that it
was not in their power to lend, though very much in
their inclination " ;* the corrupt disposal of patronage, the
refusal of the English Parliament to grant that commercial
freedom which was essential to Irish prosperity, and,
above all, the example of America, had engendered a
strong aspiration towards legislative independence, and
a conviction that it could only be obtained with the hearty
goodwill of the Catholics. Sir George Savile carried
through the British Parliament in 1778 the first Roman
Catholic Relief Act which was passed in England. The
penalties which were then repealed were imposed in 1700.
They were the perpetual imprisonment of priests for
officiating in the services of their Church, the forfeiture of
the estates of Roman Catholics being educated abroad in
favour of the next Protestant heir, and the prohibition to
acquire land by purchase.f This Act, which passed
unanimously through the Parliament, gave rise to the riots
of 1780 which were associated with the name of Lord
George Gordon. J Such legislation presented an object
lesson to the Irish Parliament if inclined to modify the
disqualifications imposed by the Irish Penal Code. The
Irish Catholics had been uniformly loyal to the Crown,
despite the horrible grievances under which they suffered.
In March, 1778, when the Catholic Committee had
presented to Lord Buckinghamshire a statement of the
civil and political disabilities from which they sought
relief, he was amazed at the comprehensive character of
their demands, which, he informed the British Cabinet,
amounted to a repeal almost of the whole of the Penal
Laws.§ The substance of the Catholic demands was that
* MacNevin's History of the Irish Volunteers, p. 67.
t 1 8 Geo. III., c. 60.
j May's Constitutional History, III., pp. 96-99.
§ Froude, II., p. 226.
PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. 155
no person who had taken the Oath of Allegiance in its
latest form, in accordance with a Statute of 1774 an(^ a
Form of Declaration thereby prescribed, renouncing
allegiance to the Stuarts and denying the temporal and
civil jurisdiction of the Pope within the Realm, should be
counted a Papist according to the meaning of the Popery
Acts. The Lord Lieutenant, as the result of enquiries
then made, came to the conclusion that, although a
relaxation of the Penal Laws was desirable, the present
time was unfavourable for its proposal. In the summer,
however, Lord North, who was fully aware of the dis-
appointment and discontent which the failure of the
total repeal of the Commercial Code was certain to pro-
duce, hoped that a relaxation of the Penal Laws might
prevail to soothe an irritation which was highly justifiable.
When the Lord Lieutenant wrote that, in consequence
of the recent measures in favour of Roman Catholics
in the English House of Commons, " measures of a
similar tendency were in agitation in Ireland," the
Viceroy was directed by Lord North, who, in the debate
on Irish commerce, had taken occasion to say a few
sympathising words in favour of the Catholics, " to urge
the friends of the Government to forward some measure
of expedient relief." The Bill was introduced by Mr.
Luke Gardiner, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, who fell
in the battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798. His proposal was
to repeal the gavelling clauses of the Act of Anne, to allow
the property of Catholics to descend unbroken, to take
from the eldest son the power of making his father tenant
for life by effecting concessions to enable Catholics to
purchase freehold property, and to relieve them from
the vexatious limitations on their leases which had led
so many of the larger tenants to affect to be Protestants.
156 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
An amendment to withhold from Catholics the right of
buying freeholds, and to enable them instead to take leases
for 999 years, was carried after a long debate by a majority
of three — in to 108. A clause proposed by Sir Edward
Newenham for relieving Presbyterians from the Sacra-
mental Test was added to the Bill. That clause was,
however, struck out by the English Privy Council, and
the enemies of the Catholics hoped that the Irieh House
of Commons would be so exasperated at the mutilation
that they would throw out the whole measure. They
acted, however, more wisely, and the first great Relief
Bill for the Irish Catholics was carried through th2
Commons by 127 to 89, through the Lords by 44 to 28.*
This great remedial measure was a source of genuine joy
to Henry Grattan, whose first principle was that " the
Irish Protestant would never be free till the Irish Catholic
had ceased to be a slave." Burke, in a letter written to
the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in reference
to this measure, says : " The Irish House of Commons
has done itself infinite honour You are now
beginning to have a country, and I am convinced that when
that thing called a country is once formed in Ireland quite
other things will be done than were done whilst the zeal
of men was turned to the safety of a party, and whilst
they thought its interests provided for the distress
and destruction of everything else."f
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
477-479. Froude's English in Ireland, II.. pp. 232-236.
f Lecky, IV., pp. 479-480.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 157
XIII,
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AS AFFECTED BY
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.
MR. GRATTAN, who had a genius for epigram, in moving
in the Irish House of Commons on April i6th, 1782.
the declaration of Irish rights and grievances, tersely
described the methods by which Irish Legislative Inde-
pendence had been secured, and sketched accurately
the rise and progress of the Volunteer Movement which
had been so powerful a factor in that great achievement.
He narrated the career of the Irish nation from " injuries
to arms and from arms to liberty," till the whole faculty
of the nation was braced up to the act of her own deliver-
ance. The country, reduced by the circumstances I
have endeavoured to state to a condition of abject poverty
artificially produced, was left undefended from foreign
invasion. The English fleet was occupied elsewhere
and the Irish coast was unprotected. It was said that
little more than a third part of the 12,000 men who were
considered necessary for the defence of their country
were there, and they were concentrated chiefly in one or
two encampments.* The Government were quite unable
to discharge the primary duty of protecting the country.
When official information came that an invasion of
Belfast by the French was imminent, application was
* I/ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV.g p. 482.
158 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
made for troops for its defence. The reply to that appli-
cation, embodied in the letter of Sir Richard Heron, the
Chief Secretary and former estate agent of the feeble
Lord Lieutenant, was the direct cause of the Irish Volun-
teer Movement, and its effect was so momentous that it
may well be reproduced in its entirety. The letter
was addressed to the " Sovereign " of Belfast, and is as
follows : —
" DUBLIN CASTLE,
AUGUST i4TH, 1778.
SIR, j
My Lord Lieutenant, having received information that
there is reason to apprehend that three or four privateers in company
may in a few days make attempts on the northern coasts of this
kingdom, by His Excellency's command I give you the earliest
account thereof in order that there may be a careful watch, and
immediate intelligence given to the inhabitants of Belfast in case
any party from such ships should attempt to land. The greatest
part of the troops being encamped near Clonmel and Kinsale, His
Excellency can at present send no further aid to Belfast than a
troop or two of horse, or part of a company of invalids, and His
Excellency desires you will acquaint him by express whether a
troop or two of horse can be properly accommodated in Belfast,
Bo long as it may be proper to continue them in that town, in addition
to the two troops now there.
I have, etc.,
RICHARD HERON." *
Under these circumstances the people of Ireland,
at a time when a pauper Government was unable, in the
words of Dr. MacNevin, " to furnish the country with a
hundred men," determined to defend themselves. The
Belfast men, who had eighteen years previously proved
their mettle under Lord Charlemont, when Thurot
had landed at Carrickfergus, and were thanked for
their services by the Lord Lieutenant of the day, rushed
to arms and formed associations for defence against
the foreign enemy. Their example was quickly followed
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Military
discipline was acquired under the instruction of
* MacNevin's Volunteers, p. 72.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 159
seasoned veterans in the American campaigns. The
Volunteers chose their own officers, who were generally
the leading noblemen and the gentlemen of their respective
localities. They submitted to the most rigorous
military discipline. Huge sums were subscribed for the
various munitions of warfare. The Roman Catholics,
who were not yet enrolled, contributed most liberally
to the funds of the Association — those of the County of
Limerick alone subscribed £800 — and their enthusiasm
was undamped by the fact that on the i2th July, Orange
Volunteer Companies paraded in their uniform with
Orange cockades and fired three volleys in commemoration
of the Battle of the Boyne. Meetings were held in every
county, and resolutions adopted enthusiastically for the
raising of Volunteer Companies.*
Lord Buckinghamshire, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
did not view the rise of the Volunteer Movement with
any particular favour. He writes to the English Cabinet
on 1 2th December, 1778, explaining that the conditions
of the finances had rendered it impossible to raise troops
for the protection of the country, and that the idea then
was among the people that they must defend themselves.
He could not, he said, comply with the request made to
him to supply them with arms and ammunition — such
associations, however justifiable in extreme danger,
not being allowable by law — but he did not attempt
to suppress them, and he now finds that they are
spreading into the interior of the kingdom. In another
letter Buckinghamshire writes that discouragement has
been given on his part as far as might be without offence
at a crisis when the aim and goodwill of every individual
* Lecky's History of England -in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp
484-485.
l6o IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
might have been wanting for the defence of the State,
while in the interior and remote parts of Ireland the mode
of " suppressing " the Volunteers would have been
" difficult and delicate."* In April, 1779, he writes :
" The Grand Juries represented that the fields and high-
ways were filled with crowds of wretched beings, hal
naked and starving; that foreign markets were closed
to them, and they besought the King to interfere in their
favour for the removal of the restrictions on Irish trade."
In February, 1779, the Sheriffs of Dublin informed
the Lord Lieutenant that in that city alone more than
19,000 persons connected with the weaving trade, besides
many other poor, were on the brink of starvation, and
that nothing but an extension of trade and a free export
of their manufactures could save them.f At last, as
Lord Townshend had foreseen, the advice of Swift, given
half a century before, was taken. On April aoth, 1779,
a great meeting was held at the Tholsel in Dublin, at
which all present pledged themselves to exclude from
the Irish markets every article of British manufacture
which could be produced at home. The Lord Lieutenant
was anxious to prosecute the organisers of the meeting,
but the Law Officers of the Crown deprecated the taking
of such a course, which would have led to an insurrection. J
The Volunteers themselves, to whom the Viceroy had
eventually in September, 1779, upon the urgent advice
of the Privy Council, given 16,000 stands of arms,
originally designed for a militia which there was no money
to support, favoured Irish manufacturers by clothing
their regiments and troops in materials of Irish produc-
tion, and by the passing of resolutions promising assistance
* I<ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 486.
i Lecky, IV., p. 487.
$ Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 234-240.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. l6l
to the non-importation movement, and urging the exten-
sion of the commerce of Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant,
in his letter to the British Cabinet describing the Tholsel
meeting, warned them that if the session of the English
Parliament closed without some favour to Ireland, he
looked forward to a formidable opposition when the Irish
Parliament met.* Lord Weymouth, on the part of the
Cabinet, admitted the very serious character of the non-
importation movement, but advised the Viceroy to be
conciliatory in manner, to express the sympathy of the
King with the sufferers from the prevailing distress, and
obtain the opinions of prominent persons on the causes of
the impoverished condition of the country to be laid before
the Cabinet. The Lord Lieutenant accordingly requested
the Lord Chancellor (Lord Lifford), the Lord Chief
Justice (Lord Annaiy),the Speaker (Mr. Pery),the Prime
Serjeant (Mr. Hussey Burgh), the Provost (Mr. Hely-
Hutchinson, and Sir Lucius O'Brien to state their views,
which were given in writing with great detail and elabora-
tion, and when presented in July, 1779, embodied the
unanimous conclusion that the removal of the trade
restrictions was essential to the very existence of the Irish
people. f The Lord Lieutenant did not fail to apprise
the Cabinet of the effect of the Volunteer Movement
in relation to the economical condition of the country.
Writing in May, 1779, he speaks of the insinuations
which are daily circulated in the public prints that the
idea of the number of the Volunteers may conduce to the
attainment of political advantages for their country.^
In the same month a letter from Lord Weymouth on
behalf of the Cabinet, directing Lord Buckinghamshire
* Lecky, IV., pp. 487-488.
f Fronde's English in Ireland, II., pp. 240-241.
t Lecky, IV., p. 488.
N
1 62 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to prevent the Volunteers from assembling and to take
their arms from them, elicited the immediate reply
that it was too late for such steps, which in the absence
of a militia were impossible ; that the movement had spread
as if the whole country had in it a purpose already pre-
pared ; that to interfere there must be a British Army,
and there were not 3,000 British soldiers in the island.*
.The loyalty of the Volunteers and their devotion to the
connection between England and Ireland were regarded
as beyond question, and there can be no doubt whatever
that the existence of this organisation prevented in August,
1779, a most formidable descent on the Irish western
coast.f In the words of Mr. Lecky, " a sincere loyalty to
the Crown and a firm resolution to defend the country
from invasion were blended with a resolute determina-
tion to maintain a distinctively Irish policy" (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
49S-496)-
The Session of the Irish Parliament from October 12,
1779, till September 2, 1780, was one of the most pro-
longed and important Parliamentary Sessions ever held.
The speech from the Throne was designedly vague and
colourless. An amendment to the Address moved by
Grattan, that it was not by temporary expedients,
but by a free export, that the nation was now to be
saved from impending ruin, was carried, with an alteration
at the instance of Flood, who insisted that the amendment
should go to Free Trade. Votes thanking the Volunteers
for their spirited and necessary exertions in the defence
of their country were carried unanimously in the House
of Commons, and with two dissentient voices in the
House of Peers. The reply from the King of ist
* Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 251-252.
f Froude, II., pp. 253-254.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 163
November, that he would be always ready to concur in
" measures which on mature consideration should be
thought conducive to the general welfare of all his
subjects," produced great discontent, and was interpreted
as a refusal to entertain the policy of free trade. The 4th
November, which was celebrated as the birthday of
William III., was the occasion of a Volunteer demon-
stration in front of Parliament House and round the
statue of William 1 1 1., which was hung on all sides with
very significant emblems," The Volunteers of Ireland,"
" A Short Money Bill," while two cannon bore the label
" Free Trade or This." The populace, who were
incensed by a remark of Scott, the Attorney- General,
in reference to the Volunteer Demonstration, as to whether
Parliament existed to register the pleasure of the
Volunteers, assailed his house, went in search of him
to the Four Courts, and finding that he had taken refuge
in Dublin Castle, went to College Green and compelled
members as they were about to enter Parliament House
to swear that they would vote for Free Trade and a
Short Money Bill. The military were summoned to
disperse the crowd, but the Lord Mayor of Dublin in
terror refused to order them to act. The House of
Commons, by a resolution on the day following, con-
demned the assembling of mobs to coerce debate, and the
Lord Mayor and Sheriff were summoned to the bar to be
reprimanded for their cowardice. A motion by Grattan,
that it was inexpedient in the presence of so much general
poverty to grant new taxes, was carried by 170 votes to
47, and a Six Months' Money Bill was carried by 138 to
100. It was on this occasion that Hussey Burgh used the
memorable words in reply to a statement that Ireland was
at peace : " Talk not to me of peace,, it is smothered war.
164 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
England has sown her laws in dragon's teeth, and they
have sprung up in armed men." A few days later he sent
in his resignation of the position of Prime Serjeant.
'* The gates of promotion," said Grattan, " are shut, and
the gates of glory are opened."'*
In December, 1779, the repeal of the Sacramental Test,
which had been added as a clause to the Catholic Relief
Bill of 1778, and had been eliminated by the English Privy
Council, was brought in as a distinct measure, and, having
passed the House of Commons, was returned unchanged
by the Irish and English Privy Councils, and became law.
The placing of this measure on the Statute Book was a
distinct acknowledgment by the English Government of
the power of the Presbyterians, which had been enor-
mously augmented by the Volunteer Movement. There
is little doubt that the failure of the efforts for the repeal of
the Test Act in 1778 was largely due to the fact that the
Presbyterians were as a body open and avowed sympa-
thisers with the American Colonies in their struggle for
independence.
The proceedings of the Irish Parliament, which were
beyond all doubt approved by the Irish nation as a
whole, strengthened the Lord Lieutenant in his urgent
request for the removal of the commercial restrictions
— a project to which Lord North was very favourable,
but refrained from accomplishing through the pressure
and terrorism of the English trade interests. At the
close of 1779 and the beginning of 1780 a series of
measures was carried in England wholly repealing the
Acts which prohibited the Irish from exporting their
woollen manufactures and their glass, and the great trade
* Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, IV., pp.
498-499. Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 256-264.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 165
of the Colonies was freely thrown open to them on the
sole condition that duties equal to those paid in British
ports be imposed by the Irish Parliament on the imports
and exports of Ireland.* The Heads of a Bill giving Irish
judges the security of tenure enjoyed by English judges
under the provisions of the Act of Settlement were sent
over to England, but rejected by the Privy Council,
although a measure of this nature had been promised by
Lord Townshend many years previously in his first
speech from the Throne. The Heads of a Habeas
Corpus Bill were likewise not returned by the English
Privy Council .f
The Lord Lieutenant very clearly saw that the
abolition of the restrictions on Irish trade by no means
completed the programme of the Volunteers. In 1780
the detached bands were organised into a regular
army, and consolidated into an efficient body under the
command of officers, Lord Charlemont himself becoming
the Commander-in-Chief. It was clear that the people
were determined to secure the extension to Ireland of
all the popular rights and privileges guaranteed to
England by the Revolution of 1688 and the legislation
resulting therefrom. To this great and inspiring move-
ment the Lord Lieutenant was only able to offer a
resistance based on Parliamentary corruption. " Beyond
a certain line," he writes, in February, 1780, to Lord
Hillsborough, who had succeeded Lord Weymouth in
the Secretaryship of State, " you cannot press, for the
intended conduct of independent gentlemen and even
positive assurances may not be able to resist popular
clamour. Upon the whole, it is my private opinion
* Lecky, IV., pp. 500-501.
t Lecky, IV., p. 504. Fwudc, II., p. 209.
1 66 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
that, barring insurrection, or something nearly resembling
it, I shall go through the business of the Session with
success."* He tells Lord Hillsborough that he has already
secured his majority, and could count on the support of
154 out of the 300 members of the House of Commons,
and of these 154, 78 had already places or pensions.f
On March i, 1780, in discussion on a resolution expressing
gratitude for the repeal of the trade laws, Mr. Grattan,
with exquisite directness of language, announced that the
wants and wishes of the people had not yet been satisfied.
" Poynings' Act," he said, " must be modified, and the
Declaratory Act passed by the British Parliament,
asserting the powers of that Parliament to make laws
binding on Ireland, must be repealed. "J Grattan, sub-
sequently, gave notice that he would move on the igth
April a declaration of rights, and Mr. Bushe on the i8th
April, the day before the time fixed for Grattan 's motion,
asked leave at a later period to bring in a Mutiny Bill,
on the ground that the English Mutiny Bill did not
extend to Ireland. This leave, which was opposed by the
Government, was granted .§ Mr. Grattan's declaration of
independence consisted of a series of resolutions which
formed the basis of the Irish Constitution of 1782. They
asserted that while the Crown of Ireland was inseparably
annexed to that of Great Britain, no power on earth but the
King, Lords and Commons of Ireland was competent to
make laws for Ireland. After fifteen hours the debate was
indefinitely adjourned. The Lord Lieutenant, however,
thus records his impression of its effects : " It is with the
utmost concern that I must acquaint your Lordship (Lord
Hillsborough) that, although so many gentlemen expressed
* Fronde, II., p. 274 ; Lecky,IV. pp. 502-503. -j- Lecky, IV., p. 505.
| Froude, II., pp. 275-276. § Froude, II., p. 278.
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 167
their concern that the subject had been introduced, the
sense of the House against the obligation of any Statutes of
the Parliament of Great Britain within this kingdom is
represented to me to have been almost universal."*
When Bushe introduced his motion proposing the
Heads of a Mutiny Bill, Sir Richard Heron, the Chief
Secretary, moved that it should be postponed for a
fortnight, in order that instructions should be received
from England. That motion was carried by 146 to 75 .f
Bushe's Bill, with an additional clause moved by Foster,
to the effect that the Army should be regulated by such
laws as the King has made or may make not extending
to life or limb, passed through the House of Commons
and through the Privy Council, and was transmitted
to England. It was, however, returned from the English
Privy Council, altered by the omission of the words
limiting its duration, altered in other words into a per-
petual Mutiny Bill. A motion for restoring the original
words was defeated by 114 to 62, and thus the govern-
ment of the Army in Ireland was placed beyond Parlia-
mentary control. The Supply Bill was also returned
altered, the English Privy Council having refused to
sanction a prohibition duty against British loaf sugar,
and the Bill thus altered passed through the Irish Par-
liament. | Three bodies of Dublin Volunteers passed
resolutions denouncing the conduct of the majority in
Parliament, which they ordered to be published in the
papers. The Session ended on September 2nd, and
nearly the last act of the House of Commons was to
censure the Volunteer Resolutions as seditious and
libellous, and to call upon the Lord Lieutenant to institute
* Lecky, IV., pp. 508-510. ^ Lecky, IV., p. 511.
%Lecky, IV., pp. 511-514. Fronde, II., pp. 281-287
1 68 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
prosecutions against the printers and publishers.* The
securing by the Lord Lieutenant of a Parliamentary
majority was an achievement for which the price paid
must be regarded as excessive. Immediately after the
conclusion of the Session he wrote to the English Cabinet
recommending eight members of the House of Commons
for peerages, thirteen peers for advancement in the
peerage, five appointments to the Privy Council, seven-
teen persons for civil pensions, and several others for
favours of other kinds. The English Ministry refused
at first to acknowledge the claims of any one of the
persons whose names appeared in the Viceroy's detestable
list. At last five peerages were granted, and eleven
steps in the peerage and many places and pensions. " I
had not," said the humiliated Lord Lieutenant, " con-
tracted any absolute engagements of recommendation
either to peerage or pension till difficulties arose which
necessarily occasioned so much and such forcibly com-
municated anxiety to His Majesty's Cabinet that I must
have been culpable in neglecting any possible means of
securing a majority in the House of Commons. "f The
letters of the patriots who were cheated out of the
bribes promised for votes given against the interests of
.their country are extant. One of the disappointed
legislators, Sir Henry Cavendish, actually challenged Lord
Buckinghamshire to a duel.J A period was put to Lord
Buckinghamshire's disgraceful tenure of the office of
Lord Lieutenant very shortly after the end of this
Session of the Irish Parliament, whose history was thus
sketched by Edmund Burke himself, speaking in 1780 :
" Forty thousand men were raised and disciplined
without commission from the Crown. Two illegal
* Froude, II., pp. 286-290. Lecky, IV., pp. 512-514.
t Lecky, IV., pp. 515-516. % Froude, II., pp. 292-294-
THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 169
armies were seen with banners displayed at the same
time and in the same country. No executive magistrate,
no judicature in Ireland, would acknov/ledge the legality
of the Army which bore the King's commission, and no
law or appearance of law authorised the Army (of Volun-
teers) commissioned by itself. In this unexampled state
of things, which the least error, the least trespass on the
right or left, would have hurried down the precipice into
an abyss of blood and confusion, the people of Ireland
demand a freedom of trade with arms in their hands.
They interdict all commerce between the two nations.
They deny all new supply in the House of Commons,
although in time of war. They stint the grant of the old
revenue given for two years (the Irish Parliament had not
annual but biennial sessions) to all the King's predecessors
to six. months. The British Parliament in a former
Session (1778), frightened into a limited concession by
the menaces of Ireland, frightened out of it by the
menaces of England, was now frightened back again, and
made a universal surrender of all that had been thought
the peculiar reserved uncommunicable rights of England
— the exclusive commerce of America, of Africa, of the
West Indies, all the enumerations of the Acts of Naviga-
tion, all the manufactures — iron, glass — even the last
pledge of jealousy and pride, the interest hid in the
secret of our hearts, the inveterate prejudice moulded
into the constitution of our frame, even the sacred fleece
itself all went together (in 1779). No reserve, no excep-
tion, no debate, no discussion. A sudden light broke
in upon us all. It broke in not through well-curtained
and well-disposed windows, but through flaws and
breaches, through the yawning chasms of our ruin.
We were taught wisdom by humiliation. No town in
170 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
England presumed to have a prejudice or dared to
mutter a petition. What was more, the whole Parliament
of England, which retained authority for nothing but
surrender, was despoiled of every shadow of its super-
intendence. It was without any qualification denied
in theory as it had been trampled upon in practice.
This scene of shame and disgrace has, in a measure,
whilst I am speaking, ended by the perpetual establish-
ment of a military power in the dominions of the Crown
(the Irish Perpetual Mutiny Act) without the consent
of the British Legislature, contrary to the policy of the
Constitution, contrary to the declaration of rights, and
by this your liberties are swept away along with your
supreme authority — and both linked together from the
beginning have, I am afraid, both together perished for
ever." (Edmund Burke on Irish Affairs, edited by M.
Arnold, pp. 130-131.)
GRATTAN AND THE VOLUNTEERS. iyi
XIV.
THE TRIUMPH OF GRATTAN AND THE
VOLUNTEERS.
THE appointment to the Lord Lieutenancy in succession
to Lord Buckinghamshire, with Sir R. Heron as his
Chief Secretary, of Lord Carlisle, with Mr. Eden as his
Chief Secretary, was calculated to generate well-founded
hopes of a full concession of Irish demands, having
regard to a very recent incident in the careers of the new
Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary, and the
admittedly analogous character of the Irish and the
American Questions. Lord Carlisle and Mr. Eden,
afterwards raised to the Peerage as Lord Auckland, were
the two Commissioners sent out by the British Cabinet
to America after the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga
— the pretension to tax the Colonies having been totally
abandoned by statute — with power to offer free trade,
to offer seats in the British House of Commons if America
wished to be represented there, to offer even in the name
of England to share the debt which the Colonists had
incurred in maintaining the war. The offer, however,
now that France had entered into an alliance with
America, which a few months previously would have
been accepted with gratitude, came too late — Congress
replied that if Great Britain desired to negotiate with
America she must withdraw her fleets and armies and
recognise American Independence.* Although Lord
* Froude, II., pp. 220-221.
172 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Carlisle and Mr. Eden did their best to resist popular
measures in Europe, their correspondence with the
Cabinet, more especially the correspondence of Lord
Carlisle, warning the Government against the folly of
meeting the Irish claims with a definite refusal, shows
how strongly they had been impressed by their American
experience. Lord Carlisle informed the Cabinet
repeatedly that Ireland could not be governed by English
Laws. "It is beyond a doubt," he writes, " that the
practicability of governing Ireland by English laws is
become utterly visionary. It is with me equally beyond a
doubt that Ireland may be well and happily governed by
her own laws. It is, however, by no means so clear that if
the present moment is neglected this country will not
be driven into a state of confusion, the end of which
no man can foresee or limit." (Lecky, IV., pp. 540-541.)
The policy of Lord Carlisle was as far as it was feasible
in antagonism to the National Movement, whose strength
and intensity he was quick in apprehending. He
arrived in Dublin in December 1780 ; the Parliament
was not to meet till October, 1781. The Lord Lieu-
tenant and his Secretary prepared to tread in the path
of their predecessors by overbearing opposition in the
accustomed way. The brother of Mr. Pery, the Speaker,
was appointed to a Bishopric, while we find the Chief
Secretary complaining of the want of a secret service
fund, and imploring that the Lord Lieutenant should
be allowed to draw the sum of £3,000 a year at least
from the King's Privy Purse to be applied to His Majesty's
service and the effective conduct of Government.* The
Volunteers in the meanwhile increased and multiplied,
and, of course, emphatically supported the popular
* Lecky, IV., pp. 519-520. Fronde, II., pp. 311-313.
GRATTAN AND THE VOLUNTEERS. 173
demands. It has been computed that towards the close
of 1781 they numbered no fewer than 80,000 men.
When in September, 1781, Ireland was again threatened
with invasion on her southern coasts, the City of Cork
being the principal objective, Lord Charlemont waited
on Lord Carlisle and proposed that the Volunteers should
act under the Commander-in- Chief of the Forces to
assist the regular troops. It was computed that 15,000
men could be spared from Ulster for the defence of
Munster. The offer was accepted in what Mr. Lecky
calls grateful but guarded terms. The word " Volun-
teers " does not occur in his Excellency's reply. " I
have ever," said the Lord Lieutenant, " placed the most
unbounded confidence in the attachment and loyalty
of all His Majesty's subjects in this kingdom to His
Majesty's person and government, and I receive with
particular pleasure these early and spirited offers of
services of which I shall think it my duty to avail myself
to the fullest extent if either the events of war or further
intelligence should make it expedient to have recourse
to them."*
The instructions given to the Lord Lieutenant for the
guidance of the administration during the Session of
Parliament which opened on the 9th October, 1781,
were to divert the Parliament from all constitutional
questions and to oppose with all his power any attempt
to carry a declaration of independence, the repeal of
Poynings' Act, and the limitation of the Mutiny Act.
The Lord Lieutenant wished in his speech to refer in
special terms to the loyalty of the Volunteers. He was,
however, restrained from so doing by the English
Cabinet. The Address to the Throne from the House
* Lecky, IV., pp. 521-524. MacNevin's Volunteers, p. 147.
174 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of Commons was accompanied with a vote of thanks
to the Volunteers. A motion by Mr. FitzGibbon, that,
before the thanks of the House were voted to the Volun-
teers, the censure passed on them at the close of the last
Session should be read, was received with very great indig-
nation as an effort to stir up forgotten controversies.*
The Heads of a Habeas Corpus Bill were introduced
and passed in all their stages. These Heads of a Bill
were subsequently returned from England and became
law.
A limitation of the Perpetual Mutiny Act, moved by
Grattan, seconded by Flood, who was dismissed from
the Privy Council and anticipated dismissal from the
Vice-Chancellorship by resignation, was rejected by a
large majority .f An address of sympathy with Great
Britain on the occasion of the surrender of Lord Corn-
wallis was carried by 167 to 3 7, although both Flood and
Grattan urged in vain that it should include a demand
for Irish Independence .J The Committee which Flood
desired on the administration and working of Poyninga'
Law was rejected by 66 to 135, but the Heads of a Bill
introduced by Yelverton, restricting the Irish Privy
Council to sending over to England the proceedings
of the Irish Parliament without alteration, passed through
all its stages, and had the warm recommendation of the
Lord Lieutenant for its acceptance by the Irish and the
English Privy Councils. §
The failure, however, of all attempts to repeal or
modify Poynings' Law. and to abolish the usurped
power of the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland,
* Froude, II., pp. 317-318.
t Froude, II., p. 321. Lecky, IV., pp. 524-526.
j Lecky, IV., p. 527.
§ Lecky, IV., pp. 528-529. Fronde, II., 326-327.
GRATTAN AND THE VOLUNTEERS. 175
concentrated attention on the essentially corrupt and
unrepresentative character of the Irish Parliament, and
the urgent need of bringing pressure from without, the
product of public opinion, to bear on that assembly.
The Volunteers well knew that the achievement of Free
Trade rendered the establishment of an unfettered Irish
Parliament easily within their reach.
On December 21, 1781, the officers and delegates of
the first Ulster Volunteer Regiment, commanded by
Lord Charlemont, assembled to take into consideration
the state of the country and the prospects of the national
cause. They invited the Volunteer Regiments of Ulster
to assume the functions virtually abdicated by Parliament,
and to send delegates to a Convention to be held in
Dungannon on the i5th February, 1782, to deliberate
on the alarming condition of public affairs.* On the i5th
February, 1782, the representatives of the regiments
of Ulster — one hundred and forty-three Corps — marched
to the Church at Dungannon, two and two, attired in their
various uniforms and fully armed. The fact that five
measures passed quite recently by the British Parliament
were extended to Ireland gave a most powerful impetus to
the work of the Convention (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 540). They passed
resolutions, as the representatives of 25,000 armed men,
and in the truest sense a Parliament, declaring that the
claim of any body of men other than the King, Lords
and Commons of Ireland to make laws to bind that
kingdom is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance ;
in favour of Free Trade ; the independence of the Judges ;
the freedom of Irish legislation from interference by the
* MacNevin's History of the Volunteers, pp. 153-154. Lecky, IV.»
P- 532.
176 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Privy Councils of England and Ireland ; an Annual
Mutiny Bill — pledging themselves only to support those
candidates who would seek a redress of those grievances ;
appointing an Executive Committee to act for the Ulster
Volunteer Corps, and to call general meetings of the
Province as occasion shall require ; nine members of
this Executive Committee to be a Committee in Dublin
in order to communicate with other Volunteer Corps
in the other Provinces. They passed, moreover, two
memorable resolutions which had been drawn up by
Grattan. They resolved that " We hold the right of
private judgment in matters of religion to be equally
sacred in others as in ourselves ; that as men, as Irishmen,
as Christians and Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation
of the penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow
subjects, and that we conceive the measure to be fraught
with the happiest consequences to the union and pros-
perity of the inhabitants of Ireland." All Ireland
adopted these resolutions, and meetings were held in
every county for their formal endorsement. The
delegates of Munster, Connaught, and Leinster met in
pursuance of the respective invitations of Lord Kings-
borough, Lord Clanricarde, and Mr. Flood.* A motion,
however, of Mr. Grattan in the Irish House of Commons
on February 22, 1782, for an Address to the King
declaring the rights of Ireland, was lost by a majority
of 137 to 68. His speech is memorable for the tribute
to the work of the Irish Volunteers. " You have an
immense force, the shape of much greater of different
religions, but of one political faith, defending the Govern-
ment. I say aiding the Civil power and pledged to
* MacNevin's History of the Volunteers, pp. 154-160. Lecky, IV.,
PP- 532-534-
GRATTAN AND THE VOLUNTEERS. 177
maintain the liberty of Ireland to the last drop of their
blood. Who is this body, the Commons of Ireland, and
you at the head of them ? It is the property, it is the
soul of the country armed ; that self-armed association
this age has beheld, posterity will admire, will wonder."*
The Lord Lieutenant well knew the trend of public
opinion in Ireland. In reference to the discussion on
Grattan's address to the King in February, 1782, enun-
ciating the independence of the Irish Legislature, Lord
Carlisle wrote — " I must not omit to inform your Lord-
ship that through the whole course of the debate the
principle of Ireland not being bound by Acts of the
British Legislature was most strenuously supported by
every man who spoke on either side, even by those the
most zealous in support of the Government, except only
the Attorney- General, who, duly respecting his official
situation, avoided declaring his opinion on the question
of law, though repeatedly and urgently called upon by the
Opposition."!
The Irish Parliament was adjourned for a month on
March I4th. Before the separation, Grattan moved that
a summons be issued by the Speaker ordering Membera
to attend on April i6th, the day following the Easter
recess, as they tender the rights of the Irish Parliament.
A few days after the adjournment of the Irish Parliament,
Lord Carlisle, writing to the British Cabinet, as repre-
sented by Lord Hillsborough, bore a very striking testi-
mony to the increasing influence of public opinion on the
Irish Parliament. On March 28th, he writes : " I wish
to know whether my Chief Secretary is expected to make
any opposition to the motion which will be made by Mr.
Grattan declaratory of the independence of the Irish
* MacNevin's Volunteers, p. 166. | Lecky, IV., pp. 535-536.
O
178 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Parliament. I have in former letters observed to your
Lordship (Lord Hillsborough) that my Government on
every other point has the support of a most respectable
and very large majority, and even resisted this particular
question in several shapes in the course of the present
session, but that under the universal eagerness throughout
the kingdom to have this claim decided I cannot expect
the friends of the Administration to sacrifice for ever their
weight among their countrymen by a resistance which
would probably lead to serious consequences. . . .
The friends of the Government who might be supposed
to support tenets contrary to the principle of inde-
pendent legislation would lose their weight in this
country if that point should remain long undecided.
The Volunteer Associations (already in some places
made use of in electioneering purposes) have set the
example in the County Galway by withdrawing them-
selves from the command of Mr. Daly and of other
gentlemen who have shown themselves well-wishers of
administration. ... It is my serious opinion that if
the first day of the next meeting of Parliament does not
quiet the minds of the people on that point, hardly a
friend of the Government will have any prospect of
holding his seat for a County or popular Corporation,
and, what is more immediately interesting, they will also
lose their present subsisting influence over armed asso-
ciations.*
*Lecky, IV., pp. 541-542-
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. 179
XV.
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782.
THE representations of Lord Carlisle in reference to
the state of the country, and, in view of the popular feeling,
the absolute impossibility of maintaining with effect
the power assumed by the British Parliament of legis-
lating for Ireland, were rendered futile by the resignation
of Lord North's Government on the 20th March, 1782,
just four days after Lord Carlisle had written a letter
reviewing very fully the position of the Irish Administra-
tion and the principal incidents in his term of office, and
strongly suggesting reforms in accordance with the trend
of Irish public opinion . The Government of the Marqu is
of Rockingham, whose head and members, notably Mr.
Fox, had been favourable to Irish claims, had not entered
into office before, as we have seen, the Habeas Corpus
Act had become law in Ireland, and the heads of a Bill,
giving to the Judges the security of tenure guaranteed
to Judges in England under the provisions of the Act
of Settlement, had been returned from England, and were
rapidly passing as a Bill through the Irish Parliament.
Mr. Eden, Lord Carlisle's Chief Secretary, had gone
over to England with Lord Carlisle's resignation, but,
on hearing that Lord Carlisle had been removed from the
Government of Ireland under circumstances which he
conceived to amount to personal discourtesy, took
advantage of his position as a Member of the British
Parliament to move for the repeal of the principal pro-
I.8o IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
visions of the Act of George I., asserting the power of
the British Parliament to make laws binding on Ireland.*
This proceeding was deeply resented as an effort to
bring the Ministry into a declaration of their Irish policy
by a gentleman who, when in office, had carried out the
Irish policy of the Government of which he was a
member in resisting, as far as he could do with prudence,
Irish popular demands. It, however, produced the
desired effect, since, on the very next day (April Qth, 1782)
a Royal message was sent to both Houses of the British
Parliament deploring the discontent in Ireland, calling
on Parliament to take it into consideration " in order to
effect such a final adjustment as may give mutual satis-
faction to both Kingdoms." The Irish Parliament was
to meet after its adjournment on April i6th, the day
for which Grattan had given notice of moving the
Declaration of Irish Independence. The Duke of
Portland, who had been appointed to the Lord Lieu-
tenancy, and Mr. Fitzpatrick, his Chief Secretary, an
Irish gentleman, arrived in Dublin on April i4th. Great
pressure was brought on Mr. Grattan and on Lord
Charlemont to secure the postponement of Grattan's
motion in order to enable the new Government to become
familiar with the situation. They were both firm in
resisting that proposal, and they both refused to accept
office which was pressed upon them.f Accordingly,
on the meeting of Parliament, Portland, while refusing
to adopt the Declaration of Independence, sent a message
to the effect that " His Majesty, being concerned to find
that discontents and jealousies were prevailing among
his loyal subjects in Ireland upon matters of great weight
and importance, recommended the House to take these
* Leckv, IV., p. 544. Froude, II., pp. 348-349.
•\Lecky, IV., pp. 544"545-
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. l8l
matters into their most serious consideration, in order
to effect such a final adjustment as might give mutual
satisfaction to his Kingdoms of Great Britain and
Ireland." George Ponsonby moved a formal reply,
and then Grattan rose to move as an amendment a
declaration of rights and grievances. In a speech of
unrivalled eloquence and high-wrought enthusiasm he
moved the amendment, asserting that, while the Crown
of Ireland was inseparably united to that of England,
Ireland was by right a distinct Kingdom ; that the King,
Lords and Commons, and these alone, had a right to
bind her, and that the discontents and jealousies of the
nation were chiefly due to three great infringements of
her freedom : (i) the claims advanced by the British
Parliament in the Act of George I. to legislate for Ireland
and exercise a right of final judicature ; (2) the power
exercised under Poynings' Law by the Privy Council
to suppress or alter Irish Bills, and (3) the Perpetual
Mutiny Act, which placed the Irish Army beyond the
control of the Irish Parliament. * This address passed
unanimously. An address of congratulation to the new
Lord Lieutenant was passed likewise unanimously, and a
resolution of thanks to Lord Carlisle, the late Lord Lieu-
tenant, was carried " without a division, there being about
five noes." Portland was surprised to observe that the
Irish Parliament attributed little if any importance to
the change of Government, and were of opinion that he
and Fitzpatrick " were only carrying out the plan which
they had forced their preceding Governor to adopt."
He told the British Cabinet in the plainest terms that the
demands embodied in the Addresses of both Houses
were irresistible, and that every point must be conceded.
" It is," he wrote, " no longer the Parliament of Ireland
* Lecky, IV., pp. 545-548-
182 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
that is to be managed or attended to. It is the whole
of this country. It is the Church, the Law, the Army
(I fear when I consider how it is composed), the merchant,
the tradesman, the manufacturer, the farmer, the labourer,
the Catholic, the Dissenter, the Protestant, all sects,
all sorts and descriptions of men, who, I think mistakenly
on some points, but still unanimously and most audibly
(the Volunteers were sending up declarations thanking
Grattan and the Parliament, and the Grand Juries were
adopting a similar course), call upon Great Britain for
a full and unequivocal satisfaction."* The Irish Par-
liament adjourned a few days after the carrying of the
Declaration of Rights on April 2jih till May 4th, and from
May 4th till May zyth, when the King's reply to the
Addresses was awaited.
In the meanwhile the opinions of the Lord Lieutenant
had prevailed with the British Cabinet, and on May lyth
resolutions were brought forward in both Houses of
the British Parliament — in the House of Lords by Lord
Shelburne, and in the House of Commons by Mr. Fox
— in concession of the Irish demands. The decision of
the Government was announced to repeal the Declaratory
Act of George I. ; to abandon the appellate jurisdiction
of the English House of Lords ; to consent to such a
modification of Poynings' Law as would annihilate the
exceptional powers of the two Privy Councils, and to
limit the Mutiny Act.* The resolutions passed unani-
mously through the House of Commons and, with one
dissentient voice — that of Lord Loughborough — through
the House of Lords. A Bill repealing the Act of George I.
was immediately introduced and quickly placed on the
English Statute Book, and when the Irish Parliament
*Lecky, IV., pp. 548-550. Froude, II., pp. 359-36°-
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. 183
met on the zyth May, the Duke of Portland announced
that the King was prepared to give his assent to Acts
to prevent the suppression of Bills in the Privy Council
of this Kingdom, and the alteration of them anywhere,
and to limit the duration of the Mutiny Act to two years.
The idea of Fox was indeed realised, " to meet Ireland
on her own terms and give her everything she wanted
in the way in which she seemed to wish for it." Ireland
was not slow in showing her gratitude. A sum of £ 100 ,000
was voted on the motion of Grattan himself towards
furnishing 20,000 additional troops to the British Navy.
The Irish Parliament, notwithstanding the pledge given
by Lord Townshend, that 12,000 of the troops in the
Irish Establishment should always be kept in Ireland
for its defence, except in the case of actual invasion or
rebellion in England, authorised the King to withdraw
from Ireland at any time before December 25th, 1783,
an additional force of 5,000 men. This proceeding was
by no means pleasing to Portland, who was afraid of the
Volunteers, although ostensibly a protagonist of the
popular movement, but ultimately 3,245 troops out of
the 5,000 were sent over to England.*
It has often been noticed that the Irish Parliament
became the exponent of toleration in proportion to its
increasing freedom. The Constitution of 1782 had only
just been established when Bills, introduced by Colonel
Gardiner, the author of the Catholic Relief Act of 1778,
eventually became law — one enabling Catholics who had
taken the oath of allegiance and declaration enacted under
Lord Harcourt's administration to purchase and bequeath
land like Protestants, provided it was not in a Parliamen-
tary borough, and abolishing obsolete provisions of the
* Lecky, IV., pp. 552-555- Froude, II., pp. 369-371-
184 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Penal Code ; another allowing Catholics to become
schoolmasters, teachers, and private tutors, provided they
took the oath of allegiance and subscribed the declaration
and took no Protestant pupils. In the same Session an
Act was passed to give retroactive legal validity to mar-
riages of Protestant dissenters celebrated by their Ministers
in their meeting-houses, and to give dissenting Ministers,
so far as their co-religionists were concerned, the same
rights of celebrating valid marriages as Anglican Church-
men. Acts, moreover, were passed modifying Poynings*
Law in such a manner as to render the legislative inde-
pendence of the Irish Parliament subject to the veto of
the Crown absolute, confirming a large number of British
Statutes relating to Ireland, for the most part dealing with
title to land and religious questions, limiting her Mutiny
Acts, and establishing the rights of final judicature and the
independence of the Irish Judges. A grant was made to
Grattan of £50,000. The House of Commons wished
him to be the recipient of £100,000 — a proposal he
positively refused to entertain. The £50,000, with a
residence, he accepted, at the same time pledging himself
to devote his life and energies exclusively to public affairs
and not to resume the practice of his profession at the Bar.
This promise he kept to the letter.*
The business of the Irish Parliamentary Session was
wound up by an Address to the Duke of Portland, which
was written by Grattan himself, thus describing the merits
of the newly-established Irish Constitution :
" We have seen the Judges rendered independent of
the Crown, the Mutiny Law abridged in duration, the
jurisdiction of the hereditary Judges of the land restored,
the vicious mode of passing laws in this land reformed,
* Lecky, IV., pp. 55S-558-
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. 185
the sole and exclusive right of legislation, external as
well as internal, in the Irish Parliament firmly asserted
on the part of Ireland and unequivocally acknowledged
on the part of Great Britain. We have seen this great
national arrangement established on a basis which secures
the tranquillity of Ireland and unites the affections as
well as the interests of both Kingdoms."*
The Constitution of 1782, notwithstanding this glowing
description, was as yet without its coping-stone, to
use Mr. Lecky's termf — the Renunciation Act of 1783.
For the purpose of a more succinct narration, the circum-
stances of the enactment of this measure may here be
given by way of anticipation. The English Act of 6th
George I., which was a complete assertion of authority
over the legislature and Kingdom of Ireland, and a
practical denial of its Parliamentary independence,
was, as we have seen, repealed in 1782 by the British
Parliament. The mere repeal of this Statute did
not satisfy Mr. Flood, who contended, with the support
of some eminent lawyers in the House of Commons
and with the cordial approbation of the Volunteers,
that there should be a complete and absolute renun-
ciation by the English Parliament of all claims to legislate
for Ireland. " It is," he said, " an undeniable principle
of law that the mere repeal of a declaratory Act does not
renounce the principle of it, and it is clear to common
sense that nothing but a final renouncing of the principle
of this law is adequate to our security. With regard to
this law of George I., the maxim I have mentioned
obtains with peculiar force. What is the title of the law ?
It is an Act for the better securing of the dependency of
Ireland. On the face of it, therefore, it imports expressly
* Fronde, II., p. 380. ^ Lecky, VI., p. 313.
1 86 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
that dependency did before exist, and that, by conse-
quence, it must continue till expressly renounced. It
had, indeed, too strong an antecedent existence to be
destroyed by any weak implications. The first authority
known to the English law is that of the great Lord Coke.
His authority is expressly against us and in favour of
the English Parliament. Will any lawyer say that the
clear and decided opinion of Lord Coke in a matter of
law is to be contemned ? Add to this a number of
Statutes made by the English Parliament and acquiesced
in by the Irish Nation antecedent to the declaratory law
of George I., and will any man be so rash, so foolish, or
so corrupt as to say that such pretension is to be over-
looked ? or that it can be rationally stated to be so void of
principle and colour as that a bare repeal of a subsequent
and declaratory Act can annihilate it ? "* Grattan, on the
other hand, contended that the simple repeal of the
Statute was abundantly sufficient to secure the complete
legislative independence of Ireland, and the Irish Parlia-
ment inclined to this view, although the public opinion
of the country at large was averse thereto. Lord
Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England, in Michael-
mas, 1782, and after this question of renunciation as
distinguished from simple repeal had been raised, pro-
nounced judgment in an Irish appeal. The case,
however, had been carried to England long before the
repeal of the Act of George I. Complaints were made
of Lord Mansfield's decision in the British House of
Commons. On the 22nd January, 1783, Mr. Secretary
Townshend introduced a Bill in the British House of
Commons, which William Grenville, the Secretary to
Lord Temple, who was then Lord Lieutenant, came over
* 7mA Debates, I., pp. 417-418.
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. 187
to explain and support in that assembly, for removing
and preventing all doubts which may have arisen or may
arise concerning the - exclusive rights of the Parliament
and Courts of Ireland in matters of legislation and
judicature, which was carried without difficulty (23
George III., c. 8). In a remarkable letter to the British
Cabinet urging the immediate necessity of this legislation,
the Lord Lieutenant writes : " Two Irish causes are
now before the English House of Lords. If it should
decide them I will not answer for the effect of such a
judgment twenty-four hours after it is known."*
The death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the British
Prime Minister, in July, 1782, brought to a close the
Viceroy alty of the Duke of Portland, who, with his Chief
Secretary, Colonel Fitzpatrick, left Ireland — Earl Temple
succeeding the Duke in the Lord Lieutenancy. The
Portland Administration must always be had in remem-
brance for the establishment of the Irish Constitution of
1782, of which the British Act of Renunciation in 1783
was the completion. The arrangement of 1782, to which
the British Cabinet, of which Mr. Pitt, the author of the
Union, was a prominent supporter, was no provisional
plan, but a final and determinate settlement between the
legislatures of the two countries. Speaking in the English
House of Commons on nth February, 1799, against Mr.
Pitt's Union proposals, General Fitzpatrick made this
memorable statement : "He was in Ireland, and had a
seat in the House of Commons there, when the resolutions
(in relation to Irish Parliamentary independence) passed
in 1782. He held at that time an official situation. The
whole of that assembly almost was well disposed to these
resolutions, but there was one member of that House,
* Lecky, VI., p. 312.
l88 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
who was afterwards a member of this, who was not very
well disposed to them — he meant Mr. Flood. He called
upon him as an official person in that House to say
whether there was any other measure to be grounded on
that resolution, to which he answered and assured
that gentleman, from the authority of those with
whom he acted, there was no constitutional measure
to be brought forward. There were some measures
to be brought forward on commerce and he knew not
what, but, strictly speaking, there was nothing remaining
of a constitutional point to be settled. Surely the Union
was a constitutional point, and therefore was so far incon-
sistent with the settlement of 1782, which he assured
Mr. Flood was not to be followed by any measure what-
ever. This he assured that gentleman. He would
venture to say that, for the fifteen years following this
resolution, there had been no doubt entertained upon the
independence of the Irish Legislature in a constitutional
point of view. He confessed, therefore, he was
surprised to hear the right honourable gentleman (Mr.
Pitt) say anything of a slighting nature against the settle-
ment of 1782. He must consider him as a party to that
settlement. He was a strenuous supporter of the Rock-
ingham Administration. He was a very active Member
of Parliament ever since he came into that House.
He would go further and say it was a settlement which
not only had the approbation of the right hon. gentleman,
but was a measure that was universally approved of. It
had the approbation of many of those who were now the
friends and adherents of the right hon. gentleman, some
who had been called into another place for changing
their political sentiments, while he remained where he
was, because he had not changed them." General
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1782. 189
Fitzpatrick himself had in June, 1782, as Irish Secretary
in the Irish House of Commons, stated that he had been
authorised publicly to disavow any intention of bringing
forward further measures in reference to the settlement
of the constitutional relations between Great Britain and
Ireland, which were final.* Stung by General Fitz-
patrick's speech, Mr. Pitt stated that the arrangement
of 1782 was not final and not considered to be final by
the Duke of Portland, and that he could, by documentary
evidence, convince him of his error. Mr. Pitt consented,
in the event of General Fitzpatrick adhering to his view,
to produce this evidence to the British House of Commons.
The documents — seven letters, the first dated 6th May,
1782, and the last 22nd June, 1782 — were produced,
from which it appeared that the Duke of Portland, who,
eighteen years afterwards, was one of the principal
machinators by corrupt methods of the Union, when
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1782, without the know-
ledge of the Chief Secretary, had been attempting to
regain a large part of the legislative supremacy which
England had surrendered in 1782 under the arrangement
of which the Duke was the avowed supporter as the Lord
Lieutenant in a Government by which that arrangement
had been effected.!
* Parliamentary Register, VIII., pp. 11-15.
t Parliamentary Register, VIII., pp. 535-541.
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
XVI.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE
VOLUNTEER CONVENTION.
THE Constitution of 1782 was, as I have endeavoured
to explain, subject to defects which were fatal to its
efficiency as a legislature and as a control of the Executive.
The House of Commons was, in the first instance, essen-
tially unrepresentative, only 128 of its three hundred
members being returned by a semblance of popular
choice. In an overwhelmingly Catholic country no
Catholic was competent to be elected or even till 1793
to vote for a Parliamentary candidate. In Ireland there
never was an Executive responsible to the Parliament
or through that Parliament to the people. The Irish
Government, the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secre-
tary, owed their position to the British Government,
and on a change of that Government vacated their offices,
whether they possessed the confidence of the Irish House
of Commons or otherwise. There was no serious
conflict between the Irish House of Lords and the Irish
House of Commons, because in truth the Lower House
was to a great extent the creation of the Upper one. It
was computed in 1783, as I have previously stated, that
124 Members of the House of Commons were absolutely
nominated by 53 Peers, while 91 others were chosen by 52
Commoners. The Irish Parliament, we have seen, did
not reflect the views even of the Irish Protestant popula-
tion on the questions involved in the War of the American
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. IQI
Independence. Grattan's Constitution, as it has been
termed, was achieved not by the Irish Parliament proprio
motu as the exponent of the views of the people, but by
pressure from without by the Volunteer Movement,
which was the outcome of public opinion, bringing
irresistible influence to bear on the Irish Parliament.
The confidential correspondence of the Lords Lieu-
tenant to the English Cabinet, in which the loyalty and
devotion of the friends of Administration are admitted
and praised, and the fact of their impotence to resist the
clearly expressed will of the nation is admitted and
deplored, are conclusive proof that the Constitution of
1782 was not the independent work of the Irish Parlia-
ment, but the product of pressure from without which
that Parliament could neither resist nor control. The
Duke of Portland, whose short Viceroyalty was termi-
nated by the death of Lord Rockingham in July, 1782,
brought in June, 1782, to the notice of the Cabinet the
fact that Parliamentary reform had become the subject
of serious discussion.* Earl Temple, afterwards Marquis
of Buckingham, the Duke of Portland's successor, in his
first Viceroyalty, which lasted from September, 1782,
till the following March, and corresponded with the
Shelburne Ministry in England, was quick in perceiving
the signs of the times. A few days after his landing
in Ireland he writes to the British Cabinet — " No Govern-
ment exists. Those to whom the people look up with
confidence are not the Parliament, but a body of armed
men, composed chiefly of the middling and lower orders,
influenced by no one, but leading those who affect to
guide them."f He strenuously supported the policy of
the Renunciation Act of 1783 , with a desire of strengthen-
* Lecky, VI., p. 323. t Lecky, VI., pp. 309-310.
192 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ing the sham Irish Parliament in a contest \vith the
people. He instituted the Order of the Knights of
St. Patrick, the first Knighthoods being in many cases
purchased, the proceeds forming a fund for the bribing
of Members of the House of Commons. In his secret
correspondence he avows his desire " to foment that
spirit of disunion, among the Volunteers, on which alone
I found my hopes of forming a Government." Again —
" Nothing but a Parliament can recover the Government
and be opposed to the Volunteers."* Although Lord
Temple resigned the Viceroyalty in March, 1783, on the
fall of Shelburne and the formation of the Coalition
of Fox and North, he was not permitted to leave Ireland
till June, when Lord Northington, who had been
appointed his successor, came into residence. The
circumstances connected with the passing of the Renun-
ciation Act, a measure which was at first regarded as
unnecessary and invidious by the Irish Parliament, gave
a powerful stimulus to the agitation for Parliamentary
reform. A dissolution for which Temple had been
preparing took place immediately after the arrival of
Lord Northington, and it seemed clear that the life of
the new Parliament would be signalised by the struggle
for Parliamentary reform which sooner or later was
recognised as inevitable. The Viceroyalty of Lord
Northington, which commenced on June 3rd, 1783, and
terminated in February, 1784, forms a most important
epoch in the constitutional history of Ireland. Shortly
after his arrival the Parliament of 1776, in whose existence
G rattan's Constitution was established, was dissolved,
and followed by a general election, the new Parliament
meeting in October, 1783. Among the measures which
* Lecky, VI., p. 310.
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 193
were announced in the speech from the Throne were
the establishment of a separate Post Office and Court of
Admiralty in Ireland, and at this time the system of annual
sessions was substituted for the system of biennial
sessions, and, as a corollary of the change, the Mutiny Act
was passed for one year instead of for two years. An
annual session of Parliament was strongly urged as a
constitutional antidote to the effect of Conventions, and
likewise as a means of expediting the decisions of Appeals
by the Irish House of Lords, which had now become the
final tribunal.* But the great issue was the question of
reform, or, in other words, the contest between the
Volunteers, on one hand, who were pressing for the
comprehensive reform of the Irish Parliament, by making
that body the exponent of the wants and wishes of the
people, and the effective means of carrying out those
wants and wishes, and the Parliament itself, on the other
hand, two -thirds of the Members of whose House of
Commons were the nominees of influential individuals.
On March ist, 1783, a provincial meeting of Volunteers
at Cork passed resolutions in favour of Parliamen-
tary reform, and on July ist, 1783, delegates of forty-
five companies of Ulster Volunteers assembled at
Lisburn, who met at Belfast on July iQth, resolved to
convoke for the ensuing September a great meeting
of Volunteers at Dungannon to consider the best way
of obtaining a comprehensive measure of Parliamen-
tary reform .f The general meeting of the delegates
of the whole Province of Ulster, which was held in
Dungannon on September 8th, 1783, passed resolutions
declaring that inasmuch as a majority of the House of
* Lecky, VI., p. 327.
* Hardy's Life of Lord Charlcmont, II., p. 94.
194 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Commons were elected by the mandates of a few Peers
and Commoners, that House was in no sense a repre-
sentation of the people ; that the franchise ought of right
to extend to all those and those only who are likely to
exercise it for the public good, and that the present
imperfect representation and long duration of Parliament
were intolerable grievances. They at the same time
called on the few representatives of free constituencies
to refuse to vote any but short Bills of Supply till their
grievances were redressed ; expressed the warmest
sympathy with the English and Scotch reformers, and
summoned the Volunteers of all four provinces to meet
together to elect a Convention of delegates chosen by
ballot from each county in Ireland. This Convention
was to meet in Dublin on November loth, shortly after
Parliament had assembled and while it was still sitting,
to frame a plan of reform and to demand those rights
without which " the forms of a free nation would be a
curse " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VI., p. 336). The Lord Lieutenant was under
no delusion as to the result of a contest between the
Volunteer Convention and the Irish Parliament on the
subject of Parliamentary reform. A few days after the
Dungannon meeting he writes on September lyth,
1783, to Lord North — "A Parliamentary reform is the
grand subject intended to be proposed by the delegation
of the Volunteer Corps. There can be no room for
apprehension with regard to the fate of this question
when the present constitution of the House of Commons
in this country is referred to."* On November loth,
1783, the opening meeting of the Volunteer Convention
was held in Dublin. The delegates being very numerous
* Fi-oudc, II., p. 404.
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 195
the place of meeting was altered from the Royal Exchange ,
the rooms of which were too small, to the Rotunda.
Lord Charlemont, in response to a Committee appointed
for the purpose of arranging the meeting at Dungannon,
which he did not attend, who requested him to indicate
such specific method of reform as appeared most suitable
to the condition of Ireland, strongly urged the policy
of pressing for a measure of reform exclusively, and
advocating the adoption of the principle of Parliamentary
Reform, leaving the details of the measure to the dis-
cretion and deliberation of Parliament.* Lord Charle-
mont had considerable doubts as to whether he should
offer himself for election as a delegate to the Convention,
and at last came to the conclusion that it was better that
he should be a member of the Convention of which
he disapproved, in the hope that his presence might have
a moderating influence on the proceedings and serve
as a check on the policy of the Earl of Bristol, who was
Bishop of Derry, and had openly proclaimed his desire
for the admission of Roman Catholics to the Parliamentary
franchise and to seats in Parliament. Many friends
and supporters of Lord Charlemont became delegates
with a similar object. Lord Charlemont was unani-
mously chosen President of the Convention. " The
same reason," he writes, " which induced me to accept
the nomination from Armagh and to persuade many
moderate friends of mine much against their wishes to be
delegated, namely, that there should be in the assembly
a strength of prudent men sufficient by withstanding
and preventing violence to create moderate measures,
induced me now to accept the troublesome and dangerous
office of President, which was unanimously voted to me.
* Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, II., pp. 96-98.
196 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Further reasons also concurred to prevent my refusal.
The Bishop of Derry had, I know, done all in his power
to be elected to that office, and I found that, if I should
refuse, the choice might fall on him, which would, indeed,
have been fatal to the public repose."* The Convention
adopted, so far as it was practicable to do so, the rules,
orders, and customs of Parliament. Having passed
resolutions declaring that the Protestant inhabitants of
this country are required by statute law to carry arms
or have the use of them, and are not by their compliance
with the law excluded from their civil rights, and asserting
their attachment to the Sovereign and the Constitution,
they resolved themselves into a committee of which
Mr. Brownlow was appointed Chairman, and then a
Sub-Committee, consisting of one member from each
county, was appointed to frame a plan of reform for the
approbation of the Convention. f The Committee was
embarrassed by a multiplicity of plans of reform, in
many instances introduced by the friends of the Govern-
ment, in the words of Lord Northington, " to perplex its
proceedings and to create confusion," and above all to
kindle dissension in reference to the Catholic question,
which was at last settled by the exclusion of Catholics
from the proposed scheme of reform, owing to a state-
ment made by Sir Boyle Roche, for which there was
no foundation, that he had been commissioned to say
that the Catholics did not wish to press their claims
to the franchise and disavowed a desire for an immediate
alteration in their position ,| Little progress was made
under such conditions till Flood, who was not on the
Committee, was, on the motion of the Bishop of Derry,
* Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, II., p. 105.
t Hardy's Life of Charlemont, II., p. 107. Lecky, VI., pp. 342-343.
j Lecky, VI., pp. 367-368. Froude, II., pp. 418-419. Hardy's
Life of Lord Charlemont, II., pp. 107-1 1 1.
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 197
nominated as an assessor. He soon obtained a complete
ascendancy in the proceedings. The Bishop more than
once endeavoured to bring forward the question of the
Catholic franchise, but was defeated by the opposition
of Flood and Charlemont. So rapid and decisive was
the superiority which Flood obtained that without his
concurrence nothing was approved of. At last Mr.
Flood produced his own plan for new-modelling the
House of Commons. It was adopted by the Sub-
Committee, and was then submitted to the Grand Com-
mittee, as it was called. Having passed the ordeal of
the two Committees, it was finally reported to the Con-
vention, when the proposal of the Bishop of Derry in
support of Catholic claims was once more defeated.
Mr. Flood's Reform Bill proposed to restrict the right
of voting except in the case of electors who possessed
freehold or leasehold property of £20 a year ; to men
who had actually resided in the constituency six months
out of the preceding twelve ; to throw open the decayed
boroughs by extending their franchise to the neighbouring
district ; to annul by Act of Parliament the bye-laws by
which any Corporation had contracted the right of
franchise ; to give votes to all Protestants resident in any
city or borough who possessed freeholds or leaseholds
of a specified value and duration ; to incapacitate all who
held pensions during pleasure from sitting in Parliament ;
to compel every Member of Parliament accepting a
pension for life or any place under the Crown to vacate
his seat and submit to a new election ; to oblige all
Members to swear that they had not given money for their
seats, and, finally, to limit the duration of Parliament to
three years.* A proposition to recommend vote by
* Lecky, VI., pp. 343-344-
190 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ballot was rejected, and Flood's plan of reform was
agreed upon. Charlemont and five other borough
proprietors who sat in the Convention declared their
readiness to surrender their patronage. Flood rose in
the Convention about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of
Saturday, November aQth, and proposed that he, accom-
panied with such Members of Parliament as were then
present, should immediately go down to the House of
Commons and move for leave to bring in a Bill exactly
correspondent in every respect to the plan of reform
which he had submitted to and was approved by the
Convention. To this proposition he added another :
" That the Convention should not adjourn till the fate
of his motion was ascertained." Both motions were
carried. " A more complete designation and avowal,"
writes Hardy, " of a deliberative assembly, co-existing with
Lords and Commons and apparently of co-extensive
authority, could scarcely be made. It was in truth like
bringing up a Bill from the Bar of one House of
Parliament to that of another." (Life of Charlemont, II.,
p. 133.) Mr.Lecky is of a similar opinion. " It would be
impossible," he writes, " to assert more strongly the
position of the Convention as a kind of rival Legislature,
and to bring it more directly into conflict with Parlia-
ment " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VI., p. 343)- It should not, however, be for-
gotten that the Convention was more truly represen-
tative of the people of Ireland than the corrupt rotten
borough Parliament. " If," wrote a member of the
Sub-Committee, " property and fortune are the criteria
of consequence, the members of the Convention were
of equal importance and possessed an equal interest in
the public welfare as the Members of the House of
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 199
Commons. . . . There cannot be a more irrefragable
argument in favour of a reform of Parliament than,
originating with the people, that it should be embraced
by almost every man of rank and fortune in the kingdom
except the individuals whose respective interests and
occupations were supposed to be affected by a more
equal representation " (History of the Last Session of
Parliament, by a Member of the Sub-Committee of the
Convention, pp. 9-1 c). A record of the reception in the
House of Commons of Mr. Flood's motion for leave to
introduce the Reform Bill has been given by a Member
of that Assembly who was an eye-witness and participator
in the proceedings, Mr. Hardy, the biographer of Lord
Charlemont, who was then in the first year of his highly
honourable Parliamentary career. " Whoever was
present," he writes, " in the House of Commons on the
night of the 29th November, 1783, cannot forget what
passed there. I do not use very disproportionate
language when I say that the scene was almost terrific.
Several of the minority and all the delegates who had
come from the Convention were in (Volunteer) uniform,
and bore the aspect of stern hostility. On the other hand,
Administration, being supported on this occasion by
many independent gentlemen, and having at their head
very able men such as Mr. Yelverton (the famous framer
of the Yelverton Act, afterwards Viscount Avonmore
and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer), and Mr. Daly
(an eminent Parliamentary orator who died in early life),
presented a body of strength not always seen in the
ministerial ranks, looked defiance to their opponents,
and indeed seemed almost unassailable. They stood
on most advantageous ground, and that ground was given
to them by their adversaries. Mr. Flood, flushed
2OO IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
with his recent triumph in another place, and enjoying
the lofty situation which his abilities always placed him
in, i'earlessly led on the attack. Mr. Yelverton answered
him with great animation, great strength of argument,
and concluded with a generous, dignified appeal to the
Volunteers, whom he applauded for every part of their
conduct, the present alone excepted. Some speeches
followed in a similar tone, but the minds of men became
too heated to furnish any regular debate whatever. It
was uproar, it was clamour, violent menace and furious
recrimination. If ever a popular assembly wore the
appearance of a wild and tumultuous ocean it was on
this occasion ; at certain and then very short intervals
there was something like a calm, when the dignity of
Parliament, the necessity of supporting the Constitution,
and the danger of any military assembly were feelingly
and justly expatiated on. The sad state ot the repre-
sentation was with equal truth depicted on the other
side. A denial of Volunteer interference and the neces-
sity of amending the representation, whether Volunteers
existed or not, was in the first instance made with very
imperfect sincerity, and in the latter with genuine
candour. To this again succeeded tumult and con-
fusion, mingled with sad and angry voices of many who,
allied to boroughs, railed at the Volunteers like slaves,
not gentlemen, and pretended to uphold the Constitution,
whilst they were in truth appalled at the light that now
began, as their terror suggested, to pervade their ancient
and ambiguous property. But the imprudence of the
Volunteers was of more service to such men than all their
array of servile hostility. On that night, at least, it
proved their best safeguard, and placed them not within
the shadowy uncertain confines of a depopulated borough,
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 2OI
wbere they could find no safety, but under the walls of
the Constitution itself. The tempest (for towards
morning debate there was none) at last ceased ; the
question was put and carried, of course, in favour of the
Government ; their number 159, those of the Oppo-
sition 77. This was followed, and wisely, too, by a
resolution ' declaratory of the fixed determination of
the House to maintain its privileges and just rights
against any encroachments whatever,' and that it was
then indispensably necessary to make such a declaration.
An address to be carried to the Throne as the joint
Address of Lords and Commons was then moved for, in
which, after expressing their perfect satisfaction in His
Majesty's Government, they declared their determined
resolution to support that Government with their lives
and fortunes. This Address was carried to the Lords,
and immediately agreed to " (Hardy's Life of Charlemont ,
II., pp. 135-138). Grattan, who absolutely disapproved
of the Convention and of its proceedings, supported the
proposition to consider the Bill on its merits, but he
voted silently for the resolution declaring the deter-
mination of the House to maintain its rights and privileges
against all encroachments. The Convention had
remained in Session till long after midnight, awaiting
the result of the division in the House of Commons on
Flood's motion in accordance with their resolution,
when Charlemont with some difficulty induced them
to adjourn till the Monday following. On Sunday he
held a meeting of his own friends in Charlemont House,
and they agreed together that the Convention should
be dissolved. On Monday, December ist, the Con-
vention again met. The moment Lord Charlemont
took the chair, Captain Moore began to speak in denun-
2O2 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ciation of the House of Commons for the treatment
accorded to Mr. Flood's motion and for disparaging
remarks in debate with reference to the Convention.
Lord Charlemont promptly called him to order, and said
" that one of the wisest things in Parliament was never
to take notice in one House of what was said in another."
The observation of such a rule he then begged particu-
larly to recommend to the Convention. A resolution
wras passed asserting anew the manifest necessity of a
Parliamentary reform. The delegates agreed to forward
the plan of reform to their several districts and to endea-
vour, by public meetings, petitions, instructions to
members and the publication of abuses, to obtain for it
a great weight of civil support. At the request of the
Bishop of Derry, Mr. Flood, while earnestly deprecating
violence, proposed that there should be an Address from
the Irish Nation to the King, which he composed and
moved himself, embodying a protestation of loyalty to
the Sovereign, a recital of the services to the Realm of
the Volunteers, and concluding with these wrods : "And
to implore your Majesty that our humble wish to have
certain manifest perversions of the Parliamentary
Representation of this Kingdom remedied by the Legis-
lature in some reasonable degree may not be imputed to
any spirit of innovation in us, but to a sober and laudable
desire to uphold the Constitution, to confirm the satis-
faction of our fellow-subjects, and to perpetuate the
cordial union of both Kingdoms."*
The Convention was then peacefully dissolved. Its
failure to secure a measure of Parliamentary Reform
may be regarded as the death-warrant of the Irish Parlia-
* Lecky, VI, pp. 345-346. Froude, II., 406. Hardy's Life of
Lord Charlemont , II., pp. 138-142.
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 203
ment, which was put into execution seventeen years later.
No fewer than 138 of the majority of the Irish House of
Commons who refused to give leave for the introduction
of Mr. Flood's Reform were placemen, or the very
persons on whom the reform was intended to operate.
The House of Commons was not afraid to flout the Con-
vention because they knew that many of its Members
sought and secured election not to promote its aims,
but with the view, in the words of Lord Charlemont in
respect to his own attitude, of being useful towards
guiding and moderating those efforts which they could
not with efficiency oppose. The Reform Bill was essen-
tially a half measure, the proposal of one million of
divided Protestants in their own interests, as they
conceived, to the exclusion of three millions of united
Catholics. If Flood's measure of reform had extended
to the enfranchisement of Protestants and Catholics alike,
if it had been proposed in the name and with the support
of a United Nation, the demand would have been irresis-
tible, the rotten boroughs wxmld have been swept away
in a storm of contempt and indignation, and, in the
words of an address to the Bishop of Derry, who was the
exponent of this policy, " the Augean stable — the
noisome stalls of venality and corruption — would have
been cleansed," and the Union would never have been
carried. The historian of the Volunteer Movement
thus sadly sums up the effect of the Convention which
sealed the fate of the old Volunteers, as Grattan used
to call them : " The Dublin Convention was an error.
It was a rival Parliament, and as such it violated the
spirit of the Constitution. It was the Parliament of a
minority, for it excluded Catholics from the benefits it
proposed to confer. The nation was indifferent to the
204 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
contests of two rival assemblies, one the organ of a
Government, the other the organ of a faction. As a
great measure of revolution the Convention would have
been all-powerful if the Volunteers were ready to back
its mandates with their arms and the people with their
sympathies. But the Volunteers were irresolute — the
people were apathetic. It was a madness to suppose
that a mere oligarchy could contend with the forces of
England That fatal disunion — that mixed
feeling of religious hatred, personal suspicion and
contempt with which the Catholics of Ireland were
regarded by the Protestant people — gave way for a while
to the enthusiasm of volunteering, and seemed to be
exorcised by the Convention of Dungannon. But it
revived after the concessions of Parliamentary indepen-
dence. The aristocratic party, the nobility of the Par-
liament, were contented with their own triumph and
jealous of all participation in their glory. They
churlishly refused to the Catholics their political rights.
It became an easy task for the dark and evil genius of
the greatest of English Ministers (Mr. Pitt) to ripen
the seeds of division. The Catholics were disgusted and
the Protestants deceived. If Grattan had gone on
with the movement, his tolerant genius would possibly
have influenced the timid spirit of Charlemont and
rendered his bigotry as harmless as it was contemptible.
The Volunteers would have become a national body,
not an aristocratic institution, and the Constitution of
1782 would have withstood every effort of England to
destroy that ' final adjustment ' ' ' (MacNevin's History
of the Volunteers, pp. 217-218). The Volunteers practi-
cally expired with the Convention. They held annual
reviews, they passed addresses and resolutions, but
THE VOLUNTEER CONVENTION. 205
henceforward their proceedings were without effect.
When at length they came into direct collision with the
military, they wisely declined the contest. A few
country corps had fixed upon holding a review at Duah,
in the County of Antrim. The military marched to the
spot to disperse them, but the Volunteers avoided
assembling, and when the Government issued its
mandate that every assemblage of the body should be
dispersed by force, " the phantom of the Army of
Ireland had passed from the scene for ever."
(MacNevin's History of the Volunteers, p. 215 ;
MacNevin's Pieces of Irish History, p. 58.)
20 6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
XVII.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND " ORDE'S
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS."
THE successful resistance of the Irish Parliament to the
demand for its reform advanced by the Volunteer Con-
vention of 1783 was, in reality, equivalent, as I have said,
to the signing of the death-warrant of that assembly. In
the very session which witnessed the discomfiture and
dissolution of the Volunteer Convention, a signal proof of
the reactionary spirit which a successful resistance to
popular demands inevitably generates was afforded by the
rejection of the Bill imposing a tax of four shillings in
the pound on all rents remitted out of the Kingdom to
non-resident landowners. In the time of the Harcourt
Administration in 1774, this very measure had been all
but carried. It was then rejected by the narrow majority
of 14, whereas the minority became in 1783 a minority of
162, the Absentee Tax Bill being rejected by 184 to 22.*
The fall of the Coalition Ministry of Lord North and Mr.
Fox, and the succession of Mr. Pitt to power, led to the
resignation of Lord Northington and the appointment
of the Duke of Rutland to the Lord Lieutenancy, with
Mr. Orde, who had filled the position of Secretary to the
Treasury, as Chief Secretary, and had the reputation of
being the possessor of expert knowledge in matters of
finance. Pitt had, at this time, two great objects in mind
* Froudc, II., pp. 429-430.
" ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS." 207
in reference to Ireland — a reform of the Irish Parliament,
which he knew must accompany or quickly follow a
reform of the Parliament of Great Britain, on which he
had set his heart, and now that the artificial restraints
laid by English legislation on Irish commerce had been
removed, a treaty of commerce establishing for the future
a perfect free trade between Great Britain and Ireland.
On the question of Irish Parliamentary Reform the Duke
of Rutland, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, written from Dublin
on June i6th, 1784, had expressed himself with great
directness of language : " The question of reform,
should it be carried in England, would tend greatly to
increase our difficulties, and I do not see how it will be
evaded. In England it is a delicate question, but in this
country it is difficult and dangerous to the last degree. . .
Your proposition of a certain proportionable addition of
the county members would be the least exceptionable,
and might not, perhaps, materially interfere with
the system of Parliament in this country, which, though
it must be confessed, does not bear the smallest resemblance
to representation. I do not see how quiet and good
government could exist under any more popular mode "
(Ashbourne's Pitt, pp. 72-73).
Pitt, writing to Orde on September iQth, 1784, refers
to the questions of Irish Parlaimentary Reform and of
the commercial plan: "The Government can never
be carried on to any good purpose by a majority in Par-
liament alone if that Parliament becomes generally or
lastingly unpopular. We may keep the Parliament but
lose the people. . . . The people, by having to a certain
degree a confidence in Parliament, will go to less excess
than left to the guidance of every impulse without doors.
At all events, even if the Parliament of Ireland should be
208 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
brought to invent or countenance new demands which
we could not grant, a stand must be made against them.
Nor do I think this country (Great Britain) would be less
able to make a stand on good ground even against Par-
liament than with a Parliament on questionable ground
against the people." With reference to the proposed
commercial plan Pitt writes : " It is certainly, on general
principles, desirable (though with some reservation arising
from the actual circumstances) that the system of com-
merce should be so arranged as to extend the aggregate
wealth of Great Britain and Ireland to its utmost limit
without partiality or preference to one part of the Empire
or the other. But for this purpose two things seem
fundamentally requisite: One, that Ireland, which will
thus gain upon England in relative strength and riches,
should proportionately relieve her of the burden which
she now sustains exclusively. The other, that this in-
crease of strength and riches in Ireland may really prove
either a positive addition to that of the Empire at large,
or, at least, a transfer from one member of it to the other,
and may not, in the end, be so much taken from ourselves
and given to a separate country " (Ashbourne's Pitt,
pp. 85-91). With the attitude of Pitt towards Parlia-
mentary Reform I shall subsequently deal. The
commercial relations between the two countries were
the subject which first engaged the more immediate
attention of the Government, and, as it formed one of the
two great differences between the English and the Irish
Parliaments, it may be entered into somewhat fully.
The Irish Government, which was, as we have seen,
carried on through the instrumentality of a corrupt
oligarchy, of a large compact body of members holding
places and pensions at the pleasure of the Government,
" ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS." 209
and removed by the system of rotten boroughs from all
effectual popular control, had little, if any, difficulty or
danger of friction in its relation with the Parliament.
" On the whole, no legislative body could be found which
was less troublesome to the Executive. There was one
subject, and one only, on which it was recalcitrant.
It was jealous in the very highest degree of its own
position as an independent Legislature, and any measure
which appeared even remotely to restrict its powers and
to make it subordinate to the British Parliament produced
a sudden and immediate revolt." (See Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp.
442-443, and pp. 371-372.) The plan of the
commercial relations between the two countries in 1785,
and the Regency questions in 1789, fell within this
category, and were the cause of explosions of passionate
jealousy, resentment, and intolerance of any inferiority
of the Irish Parliament in power and independence to
the British Parliament. The practical boon which had
been won for the Irish Nation by the Volunteers was the
right of the Parliament of Ireland to control Irish harbours
and to regulate Irish trade. Of course, the trade of
Ireland was subject to the interference which England
could exercise by her dominion over the colonies and
dependencies of the Imperial Crown. A law which
would have prohibited the exportation of Irish goods
either to England or France or Canada would have been
beyond the power of the English Parliament to pass,
but it was perfectly competent to that Parliament to
prohibit the importation of these goods into England or
Canada, just as the French Government might have
prohibited their importation into France. The English
Parliament was the supreme legislature for England
210 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and the Colonies, and had just the same power of legis-
lating against the importation of Irish products as they
would have had against those of Holland or Russia (Butt's
Irish Federalism, pp. 38-39) " The very liberal legislation
of Lord North had granted to Ireland the full right of
direct trade with the English plantations of Africa and
America on the sole condition of establishing the same
duties and regulations as those to which the English
trade with the plantations was subject, and also a full
participation of the English trade with the Levant, while
the subsequent establishment of her legislative indepen-
dence had left her absolutely free to regulate her trade by
treaty with all foreign countries. The monopoly of the
East India Company still excluded Ireland from the
Asiatic trade. The commercial relations between
England and Ireland were, of course, regulated by the
Acts of their respective Parliaments. Ireland admitted
all English goods either freely or at low duties ; she had
not imposed any prohibitory duty on them, and whenever
she laid heavy duties on any article which could be pro-
duced in Great Britain, she had all but invariably excepted
the British article. The British Parliament had excluded
most Irish manufactures, and especially Irish manu-
factured wool, by duties amounting to prohibition, but
in the interest of English woollen manufacturers it freely
admitted Irish woollen yarn, and in the interests of
Ireland it admitted linen, which was the most important
article of Irish manufacture, without any duty whatever,
and even encouraged it by a small bounty " (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp.
388-389). Ireland, before 1782, being bound by the
chain of Poynings' Law, was unable to protect her own
industries, and it was very natural that, in the words of
ORDE S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 211
Mf. Pitt, with an independent legislature, she should
now look for perfect equality. The distress which had
been severe in 1783 continued in 1784 ; proposals,
however, for protecting duties, for which there was much
clamour outside Parliament, were rejected on the ground
that measures of such a character would inevitably
throw England into an attitude of hostility and produce
reprisals which would probably work the ruin of the linen
industry.* Pitt's proposal of a treaty establishing for the
future perfect free trade between the two countries, and
securing to Ireland the benefit of the colonial trade,
subject to a fixed contribution by Ireland in time of
peace and war for the general defence of the Empire,
was presented to the Irish Parliament on February 7th,
1785, in the form of ten resolutions. " Their most impor-
tant provisions were that all foreign and colonial goods
might pass from England to Ireland and from Ireland to
England without any increase of duty ; that all Irish
goods might be imported into England and all English
goods into Ireland either freely or at duties which were the
same in each country ; that where the duties in the two
countries were now unequal they should be equalised
by reducing the higher duty to the level of the lower ;
that except in a few carefully specified cases there should
be no new duties or bounties on exportation ; that each
country should give a preference in its markets to the
goods of the other over the same goods imported from
abroad, and that whenever the hereditary revenue
exceeded a sum which was as yet not specified, the surplus
should be appropriated towards the support of the naval
forces of the Empire in such a manner as the Parliament
of this kingdom shall direct " (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 395-396).
* Lecky, VI., pp. 353-354-
212 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Grattan insisted that no additional contribution should
be paid to the general defence of the Empire till the
Government put an end to the ruinous system of annual
deficits and loans. To meet this objection a new reso-
lution was introduced which made the contribution in
time of peace contingent upon the establishment of a
balance between Revenue and Expenditure. The here-
ditary revenue was now £652,000, and was steadily rising.
The new resolution provided that whatever " surplus it
produced above the sum of £656,000 in each year of
peace wherein the annual revenue shall equal the annual
expense, and in each year of war without regard to such
equality, should be appropriated towards the support
of the naval force of the Empire in such manner as the
Parliament of this Kingdom shall direct." These reso-
lutions, although they were impugned by Mr. Brownlow
as " tending to make Ireland a tributary nation to Great
Britain,"* and were fiercely denounced by Mr. Flood,
passed through the Irish Parliament with a general
concurrence. f
One of the first consequences of the resolutions was
a motion which was introduced by Mr. Foster, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and carried by a large
majority, imposing restrictions on the grants to manu-
facturers, charities, and public works, which had hitherto
been lavishly and often corruptly voted, and the Parlia-
ment then imposed additional taxes, estimated to produce
£140,000 a year, for the purpose of enabling Ireland
to fulfil her part of the transaction, and showing that she
had no desire to evade the obligation of a contribution
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI.,
pp. 397-398). The resolutions passed to England, and
* Fronde, II., p. 462. f Lecky, VI., pp. 396-397
" ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS.' 213
were introduced by Mr. Pitt on February 22nd, 1785.
They encountered a fierce opposition, were denounced
by North and Fox as ruinous to English trade, excited
the fears of the English commercial classes, who presented
petitions against them, while twelve weeks were expended
in hearing the evidence of trade experts as to the pernicious
effect the legislation, founded on these resolutions, would
be calculated to have on English commercial prosperity.
It became certain that the resolutions in their present
form could not be carried in the English Parliament,
and when Pitt again brought forward the scheme in
May, 1785, the original resolutions were re-digested and
extended to twenty.*
The resolutions now proposed for a treaty of commerce
between the two Kingdoms withdrew privileges con-
tained in the former series of resolutions, and interposed
stipulations which undoubtedly encroached on Irish
Parliamentary independence. It was provided that,
whatever Navigation Laws were adopted by the British
Parliament, the Irish Legislature must bind itself
to re-enact. " Under the terms first offered Irish trade
was unrestricted by local limitation, and the East and the
West Indies would have been equally open to them.
Though they might still trade freely for themselves with
the Dutch, Spanish, and French Colonies in the West
Indies, they were allowed to re-import into England only
the produce of the English West Indian Colonies, and
they ' were debarred from countries east of the Cape
of Good Hope,' so long as the Charter of the East India
Company continued. "f These resolutions were carried
through the English House of Commons on the 2Oth May,
after an impassioned debate, which continued till past
* Lecky, VI., p. 399. | Froude, II., pp. 477-478.
214 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
8 a.m. The opponents of the resolutions, while exciting
English commercial jealousy against them, denounced
them as a surrender of Ireland's Parliamentary indepen-
dence. Sheridan insisted that the resolutions were a
proposal on the part of the British Parliament that Ireland
should upon certain conditions surrender her now
acknowledged right of external legislation, and return, as
to that point, to the situation from which she had emanci-
pated herself in 1782.* " I will not," said Fox, " barter
English commerce for Irish slavery — that is not the price
I would pay, nor is this the thing I would purchase." f
On the 1 2th August Mr. Orde introduced the pro-
positions so widely altered from their original form in
the Irish House of Commons. They encountered a
strenuous resistance. Grattan characterised them as a
revocation of the Constitution. " We are," he said,
".to agree to subscribe whatever laws the English
Parliament shall prescribe respecting navigation — we
are to have no legislative power. Here, then, is an end
to your free trade and free constitution." He also
curiously objected that the measure was " an union,
an incipient and creeping union — a virtual union estab-
lishing one will in the general concerns of commerce
and navigation, and reposing that will in the Parliament
of Great Britain. "J Flood was in his element. " The
Irish Parliament," he said, " will not become the register
of the English Parliament. Freedom of the Constitution
is necessary to freedom of trade. Liberty is the nurse
of commerce. I will not give up an atom of it." Leave
to bring in a Bill based on the resolutions was only granted,
after a debate which lasted 17 hours, by 127 to 108.
This was accepted as a virtual defeat of the Government
* Whiteside's Irish Parliament, p. 144.
•\Lecky, VI., pp. 401-402.
j Whiteside's 7mA Parliament, p. 145.
" ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS." 215
proposal. Two days after the Bill was produced.
Flood moved a resolution, which was defeated by a still
smaller majority, " that we hold ourselves bound not to
enter into any engagements to give up the sole and
exclusive right of Parliament to legislate for Ireland in
all cases externally, commercially, or internally."* Mr.
Orde announced that the Bill would not be pressed further.
Dublin was illuminated, and the people exulted in the
abandonment of the scheme.
On August i3th, 1785, the Lord Lieutenant wrote an
account of the defeat to Mr. Pitt, who replied on August
i yth, calmly and with dignity, not, however, concealing
the poignancy of his feelings : " I confess myself not a
little disappointed and hurt on your account by your
letter and Mr. Orde's of the event of Friday. I had
hoped that neither prejudice nor party could have made
so many proselytes against the true interests of the
country, but the die seems in great measure to be cast,
at least for the present. Whatever it tends to we have
the satisfaction of having proposed a system which, I
believe, will not be discredited even by its failure, and
we must wait times and seasons for carrying it into
effect " (Ashbourne's Pitt, p. 145). The conduct of
the Opposition in the British Parliament, in taking
advantage, for Party purposes, of the jealousy of the Irish
Parliament of all that savoured of external legislation
in relation to Irish affairs, has been severely reprobated
by Chief Justice Whiteside (Life and Death of the Irish
Parliament, pp. 145-146), with whose views Lord Morley
is in agreement. He says that the course of the (English)
Opposition was factious, and, as Burke followed Fox
as his leader, he found it hard to vindicate him from the
* Froude, II., pp. 477-485. I.ecky, VI., pp. 402-403.
21 6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
charge of factiousness. " For once he allowed his
political integrity to be bewildered " (Edmund Burke, by
John Morley, p. 125). The abandonment of the Com-
mercial Propositions led to no complications nor friction
between the Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland.
This fact assumes a present-day importance in view of
the many prophecies which have been so freely and so
confidently made in reference to the absolute certainty
of differences in reference to commercial relations
between Great Britain and Ireland under a Home Rule
system, notwithstanding provisions how well devised
so ever to prevent them. Mr. Lecky thus states the
sequel of the rejection of the Commercial Propositions :
" No positive evils appear to have followed from the
rejection of the commercial propositions. Ireland, as
a distinct country, continued to legislate independently
for her commerce, and her Parliament did not show the
faintest disposition to interfere with English commercial
interests. The commercial treaty which Pitt negotiated
with France in 1786 included Ireland, and it was
vehemently opposed by the Whig Party in England,
but, the Address approving, it was carried in Ireland
without a division, and the resolutions for making
the necessary alterations in Irish duties passed without
the smallest difficulty. A new Irish Navigation Act,
proposed by the Government, and adopting almost
the whole of the English Navigation Act of Charles
II., was soon after carried with equal facility (27
Geo. III., c. 23). A few years later some resolu-
tions were moved resenting the exclusion of Ireland
from the Asiatic trade, but nothing was done, and,
as far as commercial matters were concerned, England
had certainly no reason to distrust or complain
" ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS." 21 7
of the Irish Parliament (Lecky's History of England in
\he Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 404-405).
Lord Westmorland, writing as Lord Lieutenant to
the English Government in 1790, thus describes the
atttude of Ireland towards Great Britain in trade arrange-
merts- " Since the failure of the propositions for a
commercial intercourse between Great Britain and
Irelaad, no restraint or duty has been laid upon British
produce or- manufacture to prejudice the sale in this
country, or to grasp at any advantage to articles of Irish
manufacture, nor has any incumbrance by duty or
otherwise been laid on materials of manufacture in the
raw or middle state upon their exportation to Great
Britain. At the same time in everything wherein this
country could concur in strengthening and securing the
navigation and commerce of the Empire, the Government
has found the greatest readiness and facility. The
utmost harmony subsists in the commerce of the two
Kingdoms, and nothing has arisen to disturb it or give
occasion for discontent."*
* Lecky, VI., p. 405.
21 8 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
XVIII.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE
REGENCY QUESTION.
THE second of the great differences between the Par-
liaments of Great Britain and Ireland arose four years
subsequent to the rejection by the Irish Parliament of
the commercial propositions. As, however, the attitude
of the Irish Parliament was, as in the former case, based
on a jealous care for its supremacy, and an intolerance
of all approach to subordination to the English Par-
liament, an account of this incident may, by anticipation
in the order of events, be given in immediate sequence
to the sketch of the history of the commercial propo-
sitions. Mr. Grattan, who was on terms of the closest
personal and political intimacy with the leaders of the
Whig Opposition in Great Britain, had visited England
in 1788, and was at Chester on his way home to Ireland
in the October of that year when he was overtaken
by a message which recalled him instantly to London.
King George III. had been wholly deprived of reason,
had been placed under restraint, and Parliament, which
had been prorogued till the 20th November, could not
be opened, nor the causes of summons declared in a
speech from the Throne, formalities always held to be
essential to enable Parliament to proceed with its legis-
lative business. The Irish Parliament had been pro-
rogued till the 5th February, 1789. Grattan had
THE REGENCY QUESTION. 2ig
accordingly ample time to return to London and watch
the proceedings rendered necessary for the conduct of
public business in England in the case of the mental
incapacity of the sovereign, a contingency for which no
provision had been made by law, with a view to the
guidance and direction of public affairs in Ireland on
the meeting of the Irish Parliament. On the 2Oth
November both Houses of the English Parliament
assembled, but agreed, under the circumstances, to adjourn
for a fortnight, all members being summoned by circular
letters to attend at the next meeting of the Houses to
which they respectively belonged. Then, although
Parliament, without being summoned by the Crown,
had no authority to deal with any business whatever,
it, owing to the necessity of the occasion, proceeded to
deliberate on the questions to which the King's illness
gave rise. It was admitted by Pitt that the moral claim
of the Prince of Wales to exercise the office of Regent
was overwhelming, but that Parliament had a right to
select a Regent and to define and limit his powers. Fox,
on the other hand, maintained that the English monarchy
being hereditary and not elective, and the eldest son of the
King being of age, he had a right to enter into the full
exercise of the royal power during the incapacity of his
father, but that the two Houses of Parliament, as the organs
of the nation, were alone entitled to pronounce when the
Prince ought to take upon himself this power. Pitt met
Fox's claim of right by proposing and carrying a reso-
lution that it was the duty of the Lords and Commons
to provide a substitute pending the incapacity of the
Sovereign. If the Prince, according to the theory of
Fox, had an inherent right to assume the royal power in
all its plenitude, it was a simple thing for the two Houses
22O IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to carry an address inviting him to do so. But if limita-
tions were to be imposed it could only be done by Act
of Parliament, and no Act of Parliament could exist
without the Royal Assent. The proposal was accord-
ingly made that a Commission should be appointed by
the two Houses for the purpose of keeping the Great
Seal, the impress of which was the formal expression
of the King's Assent; that this Commission might be
presumed to act as the representative and by the direction
of the King, and that under this fictitious authority it
might affix the Great Seal and give validity to the Regency
Bill. This plan, which was described as a " phantom "
of Royalty, a " fiction," and a " forgery," was adopted,
as there appeared to be no other way of limiting the
Regency, by large majorities in the British Parliament
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., pp. 416-418). " The simplest and most direct
course," writes Sir Erskine May, " would undoubtedly
have been for both Houses to agree upon an address
to the Prince of Wales praying him to exercise the Royal
authority, subject to conditions stated in the address
itself, and on his acceptance of the trust to proceed to
give legal effect to these conditions by a Bill to which the
Royal Assent would be signified by the Regent on behalf
of the Crown. Either in earlier or later times such a
course would probably have been followed. But at that
period, above all others, lawyers delighted in fiction,
and Westminster Hall was peopled with legal phantoms
of their own creation " (May's Constitutional History of
England, I., pp. 191-192). Grattan remained in London
till January, when the establishment of the Regency,
which would have been immediately followed by a change
of Government, with Fox as Prime Minister, was thought
THE REGENCY QUESTION. 221
to be a question of days. He had received an assurance
of the recall of the Irish Lord Lieutenant, Lord Bucking-
ham, who had made himself very unpopular, and that his
measures of reform should not be opposed by the
incoming Government, while he in turn had undertaken
that the Irish Parliament would elect the Prince of Wales
Regent, dispensing with the ungenerous restrictions
with reference to dealings with royal property, granting
of offices for life and creation of peerages, and acknowledg-
ing Fox's views of his position. The Lord Lieutenant
was well aware of the sensibilities of the Irish Parliament
with reference to its own powers. On November 23rd,
1789, in a " most secret " letter to the Cabinet, he warned
them of the extreme jealousy which might be looked
for in the most loyal hearts if England should appear to
encroach on their Constitution by dictating their action,
while he, at the same time, assured them that " any
measures taken in England would be adopted without
difficulty."* On January 29th, 1789, a few days before
the meeting of the Irish Parliament, the Lord Lieutenant
took a widely different view of the situation. " I have
very little hope," he writes, " to be able to stem, on
February 5th, the address that will be moved by both
Houses to His Royal Highness to take upon himself
the Regency of this Kingdom." When Parliament
met, a motion to postpone the question till the English
Parliament had decided on the Regent was rejected by
128 to 74. The plan of proceeding by Bill, which was
proposed by the Government, was rejected, und, after
a long debate, and chiefly under the guidance of Grattan,
who utterly denied that an English Regent made by an
English Statute could have any authority in Ireland
* Fronde, II., p. 5^0.
222 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
unless he was also made Regent by the Irish Parliament,
and contended that limitation of the power of a Regent
was an attack on the King of Ireland, both Houses
agreed to address the Prince of Wales to take upon
himself " the government of this nation during the con-
tinuance of His Majesty's present indisposition, and no
longer, and under the style and title of Prince Regent
of Ireland, in the name and on behalf of His Majesty, to
exercise and administer, according to the laws and
constitution of this Kingdom, all regal powers, jurisdic-
tion, and prerogatives to the Crown and Government
thereto belonging."* In the House of Commons the
Government attempted no division. In the House of
Lords the resolution was carried by a large majority, 45
contents, 26 non- contents .f The address was carried
by the two Houses to the Lord Lieutenant on the following
day for transmission to the Prince. The Lord Lieu-
tenant refused to receive the Roll. " Under the impres-
sion," he said, " which I feel of my official duty, and of
the oath which I have taken as Chief Governor of Ireland,
I am obliged to decline transmitting this address into
Great Britain. I cannot consider myself warranted to
lay before the Prince of Wales an address purporting
to invest His Royal Highness with power to take on him
the government of this realm before he shall be enabled
by law to do so."J Mr. Grattan moved that the Lord
Lieutenant, having refused to transmit the address to
the Prince, a deputation should be chosen from the Lords
and Commons to carry it over, and this being assented
to, he proposed next a formal resolution that, in addressing
His Royal Highness, the Parliament of Ireland had
exercised an undoubted right. Grattan moved and
*Lecky, VI., pp. 419-420. ^Fronde, II., p. 549. %Frondet II., p. 550.
THE REGENCY QUESTION. 223
carried yet another resolution, that Lord Buckingham's
refusal to submit the address was " ill advised and
unconstitutional." A similar resolution was passed by
the House of Lords. In order to secure that Parliament
should be sitting during the continuation of the case,
the chief supplies were only granted for two months, and
the two Houses appointed six Commissioners, including
the Duke of Leinster and Earl Charlemont, to present
the address. They went to England and discharged
their task, but at this critical moment the recovery of the
King put an end to the question that was pending.* The
Prince of Wales, in reply to the address, having thanked
the Parliament of Ireland for their loyalty and affection,
stated that he trusted the King would soon be able to
resume the personal exercise of Royal authority which
would render unnecessary any further answer except
a repetition of his thanks .f
This collision between the British and the Irish Par-
liaments on the Regency question was made one of the
pretexts of the Union. It was always an acknowledged
principle of the Irish Constitution that whoever is King
de facto in England is King de jure in Ireland. A Bill,
when the measure of the Union was in progress, was
introduced by the Anti-Unionists to enact that whoever
was Regent de facto in England should be Regent de jure
in Ireland. Lord Castlereagh, on the part of the Govern-
ment, opposed it. He did not wish the difficulty to be
obviated. With reference to this Bill, Lord Cornwallis,
the Lord Lieutenant of the Union, writing to the Cabinet,
mentions " several possible cases of difficulty between
the British and the Irish Cabinets which Lord Castlereagh
*Lecky, VI., pp. 428-429. Froude, II. pp. 550-555.
f May's Constitutional History of England, I., pp. 194-195.
224 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
will urge. And as many possibilities of this kind may
be stated, Lord Castlereagh will endeavour to insinuate
that the only complete measure for putting an end
to the difficulties which arise from the present situation
in Ireland is a Parliamentary Union " (Castlereagh
Correspondence, II., p. 181). Professor Dicey is of
opinion that this Regency question " had been treated
as possessing more importance than from a constitutional
point of view belonged to it" (Case of England against Home
Rule, page 222). Mr. Lecky, in one of his earliest works,
says : " The difference which arose between the English
and the Irish Parliaments concerning the Regency was
undoubtedly a very serious embarrassment, but its
constitutional importance has been greatly exaggerated "
(Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 190). To this
view he adheres with a more matured judgment. " I am
entirely unable," he writes in 1887. "to concur with
those who have represented the action of the Irish
Parliament as seriously endangering the connection.
It is quite certain that none of the leading actors in Ireland
was disloyal to that connection, and it appears to me to be
absurd to suppose that a measure, investing the acknow-
ledged heir of the British Throne with regal power in
Ireland during the incapacity of his father, should have
tended to produce a permanent separation of the two
countries. It was constantly repeated that under the
Constitution of 1782 the hereditary monarchy was the
sole bond of union, but in the difference between the two
Parliaments it was the Irish Parliament which most exalted
the principle of heredity, which was most anxious to
preserve the executive power unimpaired in its pre-
rogatives, and which formed the most modest estimate
of the capacity of Parliament. It was morally certain
THE REGENCY QUESTION. 225
that the same Regent would preside over both countries,
though with slightly different powers. It is probable
that if the Regency had continued, a change of Ministers
would, in both countries, have placed the executive and
legislative powers in harmony. In the worst case,
either the death or the recovery of the King, or a turn
in his illness which made his recovery hopeless, would
have replaced the two nations in their former relation,
and an express enactment might then have been easily
made preventing the possible recurrence of a difficulty
which was serious only because it "was unprovided for
by law " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VI., pp. 427-428). Two great English lawyers
have placed on record their well-considered judgments
that in the Regency question the course adopted by the
Irish Parliament, in contrast with the action of the British
Parliament, was in accordance with the spirit of the
Constitution. Lord Campbell, who filled the position
of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Chief Justice, and
Lord Chancellor of England, writes : " After the con-
sideration I have repeatedly given to the subject, I must
ever think that the Irish Parliament proceeded more
constitutionally by considering that the heir apparent
was entitled to exercise the Royal authority during the
King's incapacity, as upon a demise of the Crown, and
by presenting an address to him praying him to do so,
instead of arrogating to themselves, in Polish fashion,
the power of electing the supreme magistrate of the
Republic, and resorting to the palpable lie of the pro-
ceeding being sanctioned by the afflicted Sovereign"
(Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, IX., p.
185). Lord Brougham, another Lord Chancellor of
England, writing in 1861, in his closing years, says:
226 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" Of all the sovereign's attributes none is more important
than his independent and hereditary title, nor can a
greater inroad be made upon the fundamental principles
of the Constitution than the bringing of this into any
doubt or any jeopardy. Hence, in the event of his
infancy, illness or other incapacity, it is a serious defect
in the system that no ground has been provided for
supplying his place, because this leaves the question to
be discussed and debated each time that the Royal
Authority fails, and in the midst of all the passions sure
to be engendered by the adherents of contending parties
and the advocates of conflicting opinions. There can
be no manner of doubt that Mr. Fox's opinions (on
which the Irish Parliament acted) in 1788 were more in
accordance than those of Mr. Pitt with the spirit of a
Constitution which abhors all approach to election in
the appointment of the Chief Magistrate " (Brougham's
British Constitution, pp. 262-263).
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 227
XIX.
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY
REFORM AND THE REMOVAL OF
CATHOLIC DISABILITIES.
THE jealousy of external influence manifested by the
Irish Parliament on two memorable occasions — the
questions of the Commercial Propositions in 1785 and
of the Regency in 1789 — seems curious to the historian
who is aware of the composition of the Irish House of
Commons ; the relations of that House to the House of
Lords, by whose Members so many of the representatives
of the nomination boroughs were returned, and of the
hostility of the Irish Parliament to a comprehensive
measure of reform which would have rendered it truly
representative of the country, and an exponent of its
wants and wishes. The dissolution of the Volunteer
Convention in 1783, with an Irish Parliament still
unreformed, rendered the Union possible. Mr. Lecky
has well said that the experience of all countries shows
that a monopoly of power as complete as that which was
possessed by a small group of borough owners in Ireland
is never, or scarcely ever, broken down except by
measures bordering on revolution ; that while the great
Catholic population were wholly unrepresented in the
Irish Parliament, the Protestant yeomen of the north
and the great bulk of the Protestant gentry found them-
228 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
selves either unrepresented or most inadequately repre-
sented— classes which combined most of the intelligence
and a great preponderance of the property of the country.
(See Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., p. 348.)
"The accumulation of borough interests at the disposal
of the Treasury, and the habitual custom of ' supporting
the King's Government,' gave the Government, on
nearly all occasions, an overwhelming strength in the
Irish Parliament, while the majority had certainly no
desire to carry any measure of reform which would alter
their own very secure and agreeable position, or expose
them to the vicissitudes of popular contests" (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 371).
The system of corruption " enabled a small oligarchy
to resist the most earnest and most legitimate demands
of Irish opinion, and, as Grattan vainly predicted, it
taught the people to look elsewhere for their represen-
tatives, and exposed them to the fatal contagion of the
revolutionary spirit that was then circulating through
Europe" (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VI., p. 443)- On the question of granting the
suffrage to the Catholics, the Ministers in England were
in favour of concession, being deeply influenced by the
war in revolutionary Europe against the Catholic faith,
which stood for reverence for law and stability of
institutions, while the administration in Ireland, largely
influenced by the corruptionist ascendancy and
borough-mongering party, were opposed to such con-
cessions, which they feared would go hand in hand with
Parliamentary Reform and the abatement of class
privilege and monopoly. To both the British Cabinet
and the Irish Administration the overtures made by the
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 229
revolutionary Protestants in the North to the Catholics
seemed very alarming. After the dissolution of the
Convention a very serious agitation began. A corre-
spondent, writing to Lord Charlemont, says that a 'rage
for supporting the Convention has seized on the
Yeomanry. The Bishop of Derry urged the Volunteers
to make the political emancipation of the Catholics their
first object. The Government, for a time, contem-
plated the possibility of prosecuting him. Pitt, writing
on August 2Oth, 1784, to Orde, the Irish Secretary in
the Duke of Rutland's Viceroyalty, says : " The madness
of the Bishop of Derry, though certainly not innocent,
has not yet, I think, reached the legal guilt of such
magnitude as to admit of any vigorous or decisive pro-
ceedings. I am clear, as I am persuaded you are, that
no blow should be menaced till it can be struck." Mr.
Pitt then, in the next sentence, shows that he is not
unfamiliar with Castle methods of government.
" I hope," he says, " you will be as successful as you
expect in interesting the oracles of modern times —
the newspapers — in your favour. Though not the most
glorious, they are, I am sure, both here and in Ireland,
the most effectual, and, perhaps, both the cheapest and
most harmless engines that Government in such circum-
stances can employ " (Ashbourne's Pitt, pp. 80-81).
Soon after the Convention episode the Bishop of
Derry left Ireland on the plea of ill-health, and spent the
remaining years of his life in Italy, where he died in
1803. He on one occasion only interfered in Irish
politics by writing a letter in 1800 in favour of the Union.
The rejection in 1784, and again in 1785, of Flood's
measure for reform in the Irish Parliament showed that
in the Irish Parliament, if unaffected from without, there
230 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was little hope that progress in this direction could be
made. The Corporation drew a petition to the King
complaining that the Reform Bill had been denied a
hearing, and imploring that the penal laws which
oppressed the Roman Catholics should be abolished.
The Lord Lieutenant, while complying with the request
that the petition should be transmitted to the Throne,
stated that he would convey to the King his entire
disapprobation of it.* Fitzgibbon, by a strained and
unusual construction of law, treated the conduct of Mr.
Hugh Reilly, High Sheriff of Dublin, in summoning a
meeting to elect delegates for a Reform Congress, as a
contempt of the Court of King's Bench, proceeded
against him by " attachment," and, without the inter-
vention of a jury, caused him to be condemned to a
small fine. Pitt took a serious view of this zeal beyond
the law. " The business of the County meeting," he
writes to Orde on August 20th, 1784, " you will, I am
sure, have attended, is an object of great delicacy. It
seems to me, on the one hand, necessary to cherish the
spirit of any friends of Government who will stand forth,
and not to give the friends to disorder any advantage
by encouraging anything that can be construed into
an attack on the legal rights of petitioning " (Ash-
bourne's Pitt, p. 80). Again, in another letter to Orde,
January i2th, 1785, Pitt refers to this incident : " I think
it a matter of great delicacy and caution, and enough has
been done already " (Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 365). The House of
Commons supported Fitzgibbon's view, which was
challenged by Flood and Curran, by a majority of two to
one. Erskine, who was consulted on the subject, wrote a
* Fronde, II., p. 446.
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 23!
remarkable letter, in which he asserted that the conduct of
the King's Bench Judges would justify their impeachment,
and that the precedent, if acquiesced in, would be fatal in
the highest degree to liberty in both countries. In July,
1784, an address in favour of Parliamentary reform and
the extension of the franchise to Catholics was presented
to Lord Charlemont by the Ulster Volunteers in Belfast,
but he, while expressing himself in favour of Parliamen-
tary reform, pronounced himself strongly against Catholic
suffrage.* The nature of the petitions for Reform
may be gauged from a petition which came from Belfast
in 1784. It stated "that the majority was illegally
returned by the mandates of Lords of Parliament and
a few great Commoners, either for indigent boroughs
where scarcely any inhabitants exist, or for considerable
towns where the elective franchise is unjustly confined
to a few .... that the House of Commons is not the
representative of a nation, but of mean and venal
boroughs ; that the price of a seat in Parliament is as well
ascertained as that of the cattle in the fields, and that
although the united voice of the nation had been raised
in favour of substantial reform, yet the abuse lying in
the very frame and disposition of Parliament itself,
the weight of corruption crushed with ignominy and
contempt the temperate petitions of the people." Under
these circumstances, said the petitioners, the repeated
abuses and perversion of the representative trust
amounted to a virtual abdication and forfeiture in the
trustees, and they had summoned " a civil convention
of representatives to be freely chosen by every county,
city, and great town in Ireland .... with authority
to determine in the name of the collective body on such
* Lecky, VI., p. 364.
232 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
measures as are likely to establish the Constitution on
a firm and permanent basis." They accordingly asked
the King to dissolve Parliament and to. " give efficacy
to the determination of the convention of actual delegates
either by issuing writs agreeably to such plan of reform
as shall by them be deemed adequate, or by co-operating
with them in other steps for restoring the Constitution "
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., pp. 365-366). The Congress, however, which met
in October, 1784, and again in November, 1785, was not
a success. The Catholic question divided the members,
and little resulted from the Congress except some decla-
matory addresses in favour of Parliamentary reform.
Grattan, who, as we have seen, co-operated with
Flood in 1784, and again in 1785, in his unsuccessful
efforts for Parliamentary reform, was himself, with his
immediate following, disposed to devote an undivided
energy to the active reform of Parliament. His proposals
were of the most moderate character. "A ' Place Bill,'
limiting the number of placemen who sat in the House
of Commons, copied from that which had existed for
more than eighty years in the English Statute Book;
a Pension Bill, limiting the number of pensioners ; a
Responsibility Bill, giving additional guarantees for the
proper expenditure of different branches of the Revenue,
and a Disfranchisement of income and custom house
officers, like that which had been carried in England under
Rockingham, would, at this time, have met Grattan's
demands, but all these measures were steadily resisted."
(See Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., p. 387.) In March, 1786, it was stated that the
Pension List amounted to .£100,000 per annum. Grattan
wound up his speech by the declaration that if he should
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 233
affirm the Pension List was not a grievance, he would
" affirm, in the face of his country, an impudent, insolent,
and public lie." It was in this debate that Curran
uttered his celebrated denunciation of the Pension List
as "that polyglot of wealth, that museum of curiosities,
which embraces every link in the human chain, every
description of men, women, and children, from the exalted
excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the debased situa-
tion of a lady that humbleth herself that she may be
exalted " (Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 504-505). In
1790 the House of Commons was told in language of
exquisite directness that the Constitution of 1782 was
wholly ineffective so long as Parliament itself remained
unreformed and subject to corrupt influence. " The
acquisitions of 1782," said Sir Lawrence Parsons, " freed
this country from external power, but not from internal
machination. On the contrary, this country has been
governed worse since then than it ever was before, and
why ? Because of those very acquisitions It
has been the object of English Ministers ever since to
counteract what we obtained at that time and to establish
a surreptitious and clandestine influence for the
open power which the English Legislature was thus
obliged to relinquish."* The French Revolution affected
Irish politics just as the War of the American Indepen-
dence ten years previously had affected Irish politics.
In 1791 the anniversary of the French Revolution was
celebrated at Belfast with great enthusiasm, and in
September of that year Wolfe Tone published his
pamphlet, under the signature of " A Northern Whig,"
urging Parliamentary reform through the exertions of
the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians working
* I.ecky, VI., p. 460.
234 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
together.* In October, 1791, Wolfe Tone founded in
Belfast the first Society of United Irishmen, which
consisted of thirty-six original members, and was intended
to aim at " an equal representation of all Irishmen."
Very soon a branch of this Society was established in
Dublin. The Society was originally constituted for
the purpose of forming a political union of Protestants
and Catholics, and thus obtaining a liberal measure of
Parliamentary reform. Wolfe Tone's reform scheme,
which embodied the proposal that Ireland should be
divided into 300 equal electoral divisions, each returning
one member, with universal suffrage, pa37ment of members,
and annual Parliaments, was widely different from
Grattan's mild Reform programme — a programme based
on the assumption " that the Constitution of Ireland was
essentially a good one, and might be amended without
subverting any of its fundamental principles." Tone
made no secret of his contempt for Grattan's Reform
Party. " They are not," he wrote, " sincere friends
to the popular cause ; they dread the people as much
as the Castle does."f
The birth of the United Irish Movement, with its aim of
obtaining a reform of Parliament of the most comprehen-
sive character, was signalised by the rise in the Catholic
Committee of a party headed by John Keogh, a Dublin
tradesman, who determined that the Catholic Cause
would be more effectually promoted by demands couched
in precise language and backed by the people at large
than by the gentler and more diplomatic measures of the
Catholic Bishops, noblemen, and landed gentlemen
who had previously directed the Catholic agitation.
Several circumstances were conspiring to make this
* Lecky, VI., pp. 462-463. t Lecky, VI., pp. 465-468.
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 235
party ascendant in the Catholic Committee. " Towards
the close of 1790 the Catholic Committee waited on
Major Hobart, the Chief Secretary in Lord Westmor-
land's Viceroyalty, requesting him to support a petition
to Parliament which asked for nothing specific, but
simply prayed that the case of the Catholics should be
taken into consideration, but their request was refused,
and they could not find a single member to present
their petition to Parliament. In the course of the same
year an address of loyalty, intended to be presented to
Lord Westmorland by the Catholics on the occasion of
a visit of the Lord Lieutenant to Cork, was returned to
them because it concluded with a hope that their loyalty
would lead to a further relaxation of the Penal Code.
In the beginning of 1791 a deputation from the Catholic
Committee went to the Castle with a list of the Penal
Laws which they were anxious to have modified or
repealed, but were dismissed without even the courtesy
of an answer." (See Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 472-473.) The members
of the Catholic Committee, who were reluctant to any
course transgressing the limit of deference and obedience
to authority, headed by Lord Kenmare, viewed with great
aversion the tendency of Catholics to unite with Presby-
terians of the revolutionary school of politics for the
purpose of achieving Parliamentary reform in which
Catholic emancipation would be included, and seceded
from the Catholic Committee when defeated in a proposal
that the extent of the future relaxations of the Penal
Code should be left wholly to the Legislature. In
October, 1791, the month of the founding in Belfast of
the Society of the United Irishmen, the Catholic Com-
mittee issued a declaration demanding in strong terms
236 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
a complete abolition of all parts of the Penal Code. They
shewed their conviction that the Irish Administration
was determined to make no concession, with reference
to the removal of Catholic disabilities, of their own free
will, by sending in January, 1792, a deputation to England
to lay their petition before the Throne (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp.
476-477). The attitude of the Catholic Church in the
revolutionary war, the fact that, by Mitford's Act in
1791, English Catholics who took the oath provided by
the Statute were relieved from all the laws against
recusancy, were restored the full rights of celebrating
their services and educating their children, were admitted
to be barristers, solicitors, clerks and notaries, and freed
from petty and vexatious restrictions — above all, the fear
that Irish Catholics, alienated by denial to them of their
just demands, might make common cause with the
revolutionaries — all powerfully contributed towards the
adoption by the Cabinet of a friendly attitude on the
subject of Irish Catholic claims.* On October 20th, 179 1 ,
Lord Grenville wrote to Lord Westmorland : " I cannot
help feeling a very great anxiety that such measures
may be taken as may effectually counteract the union
between the Catholics and the Dissenters, at which the
latter are evidently aiming. I may be a false prophet,
but there is no evil I would not prophesy if that union
takes place at the present moment, and on the principles
on which it is endeavoured to bring it about. "f The
English Cabinet, in deference to the remonstrances of
Lord Westmorland and Major Hobart, who were
terrorised by the prophecies of the friends of the Govern-
ment, as the borough-mongers termed themselves,
* Lecky, VI., p. 479. | Lecky, VI., p. 484.
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 237
abandoned their first scheme of extending in 1792 the
suffrage to the Roman Catholics, although they were
careful to impress on the Lord Lieutenant and his
Secretary that there must be no pledge as to the future
conduct of the Government on the Catholic question.
" Any pledge," wrote Pitt to Westmorland on June
29th, 1792, " against anything more in the future seems
to me to be in every view useless and dangerous, and it
is what on such a question no prudent Government
can concur in. I say nothing on the idea of resisting
all concession, because I am in hopes there is no danger
of that line being taken. If it were, I should think it the
most fatal measure that could be contrived for the
destruction ultimately of every object we wish to
preserve."*
That the concession of the franchise to the Roman
Catholics in 1792 could have been made without the
expense of a great social and political convulsion pre-
dicted by the Irish Government, is proved by the fact
that the concession of the Catholic franchise was carried
without the smallest difficulty in 1793, and that nothing
but the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795 prevented
the admission of Catholics into the Irish Parliament
in that year. Although the Irish Government, which had
placed itself completely in the hands of the corruptionist
and ascendancy faction, could not, having regard to the
decided wish of the British Cabinet, prevent the intro-
duction of the Relief Bill in 1792, they succeeded in
greatly limiting its provisions, and in depriving it of the
grace and authority of a Government measure. It was
seconded, indeed, by Hobart, but it was introduced by
Sir Hercules Langrishe, a private member, though a steady
* Lecky, VI., p. 500.
238 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
supporter of the Government. It enabled the Catholics
to be attorneys, solicitors, notaries and attorneys' clerks,
and to practise at the Bar, though they could not rise
to the position of king's counsel or judge. It repealed
the laws prohibiting barristers from marrying Catholics,
and solicitors from educating their children as Catholics,
the laws of William and Anne against the intermarriage
of Catholics and Protestants, the obsolete Act against
foreign education, and the equally obsolete clause of the
Act of 1782 which made the licence of the ordinary
necessary for Catholic schools, and, finally, it removed
all restrictions on the number of apprentices permitted
to Catholic trade. " The concessions fell far short of
the Catholic expectations, but the ascendancy spirit,
which had been evoked, stimulated, and supported by
the Administration, now rose very high. A petition of
the Catholics asking for some share of the elective
franchise, and a petition of the Protestant United Irish-
men of Belfast asking for the repeal of all the anti-Catholic
laws, were received at first by the House of Commons,
but after they had been laid on the table they were
rejected by large majorities " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 503-504). The
Catholic Committee did not permit feelings of irritation
and disappointment to get the better of cool judgment.
"They endeavoured to allay the ferment by publishing
a declaration of belief, similar to that which had lately
been published in England, abjuring some of the more
obnoxious tenets ascribed to them and corroborated by
opinions of foreign Universities, and they also published
in February, 1792, a remarkable address to the Protes-
tants, denying formally that their application for relief
extended to unlimited and total emancipation, and that
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 239
their applications had ever been made in a tone of menace."
They asked only, they said, for admission to the pro-
fession and practice of the law, for capacity to serve as
county magistrates, tor a right to be summoned and to
serve on grand or petty juries, and for a very small share
of the county franchise. They desired that a :.Catholic
should be allowed to vote for a Protestant county member,
but only if, in addition to the forty-shilling freehold,
which was the qualification of the Protestant voter, he
rented and cultivated a farm of £20 a year, or possessed
freehold of that value. The disfranchisement of the
Catholic farmers was, it was said, a most serious practical
grievance, for, in the keen competition for political power
which had arisen since the Octennial Act, and still more
since the Declaration of Independence, landlords, in
letting their farms, constantly gave a preference to tenants
who could support their interests at the hustings.
Catholic leaseholders, at the termination of their leases,
were continually ejected in order to make room for
voters, or they were compelled to purchase the renewal
of their leases on exorbitant terms (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 504-505).
They, moreover, issued a circular letter inviting the
Catholics in every parish in Ireland to choose electors,
who, in their turn, were in every county to choose
delegates to the Catholic Committee in Dublin, in order
to assist in procuring " the elective franchise and an equal
participation in the benefits of trial by jury." This
step excited the greatest alarm in Government circles,
and the grand juries in most of the counties passed
resolutions strongly censuring it, but its legality was
considered to be unquestionable (Lecky's History : of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 505-506).
240 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
So far back as November i8th, 1792, we find Mr. Pitt
contemplating whether the admission of the Catholics
to the franchise might not be utilised for the destruction
of the Irish Parliament. " The idea," he writes to the
Lord Lieutenant, " of the present fermentation, gradually
bringing both parties to think of an union with this
country, has long been in my mind. I hardly dare
flatter myself with the hope of its taking place, but I
believe it, though itself not easy to be accomplished, to
be the only solution for other and greater difficulties.
The admission of Catholics to a share of the franchise
could not then be dangerous. The Protestant interest,
in point of power, property, and Church establishment,
would be secure, because the decided majority of the
supreme Legislature would necessarily be Protestant, and
the great ground of argument on the part of the Catholics
would be done away with, as, compared with the rest of
the Empire, they would become a minority. You will
judge where and to whom this idea can be confided. It
must certainly require great delicacy and management,
but I am heartily glad that it is at least in your thoughts"
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., p. 513). The Lord Lieutenant writes to Mr. Pitt
on November 24th, 1792 : " The Protestants frequently
declare that they will have a Union rather than give the
franchise to the Catholics; the Catholics that they will
have a Union rather than submit to their present state
of degradation. It is worth while turning in your mind
how the violence of both parties might be turned on this
occasion to the advantage of England " (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 529).
The successes of the French Revolution had power-
fully affected the situation in Ireland. In July a great
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 24!
meeting of Volunteers and inhabitants of Belfast voted
unanimously an address to the French Nation congratu-
lating them on the capture of the Bastile, and also an
address in favour of Catholic claims (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp. 535-536).
The Catholic Convention met on December 3rd, 1792.
In October twenty-two counties and most of the cities
had already elected delegates according to the prescribed
form, and the other counties in a more irregular way,
and instructed them to maintain "guarded language, but
to petition for the elective franchise and trial by jury."
The proceedings of the Convention were loyal and
moderate, but it showed its sense of the hostility of Dublin
Castle to its objects by petitioning the King directly,
five delegates, including Keogh and Byrne, being selected
to present the petition. The Catholic Convention with
great prudence declined to receive a deputation of the
United Irishmen. The Lord Lieutenant in his com-
munications with Pitt admits that Protestant opinion was
not altogether hostile to Catholic claims. " Every step,"
he writes, " of conciliating the two descriptions of people
that inhabit Ireland diminishes the probability of that
object to be wished — a Union with England. Before
the present panic it was a good deal in the thoughts of the
people as preferable to being overwhelmed by the
Catholics, as Protestants termed concessions, or con-
tinuously slaves in the Catholic phrase. That conver-
sation, since Protestants have been persuaded that England
either could or would not help them, has subsided"
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI., pp. 548-549). The Convention, although they
did not admit the United Irish deputation, passed a warm
vote of thanks to Belfast; they determined, contrary to
242 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
their first intention, not to restrict the petition to votes
or juries, but to ask a full admission to all the rights and
privileges of the Constitution, and they sent the delegates,
who carried the petition to London, by way of Belfast
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VI, p. 550).
' The temper of the people," writes Westmorland to
Pitt on December i8th, 1792, " with exception to our
leading Cabinet friends, is grown much more concilia-
tory." On December iyth, 1792, Dundas, on behalf
of the British Cabinet, directs the Lord Lieutenant " to
hold a language of conciliation " towards the Catholics,
and he announces his positive conviction that "it is for
the interest of the Protestants of Ireland, as well as the
Empire at large, that the Catholics, if peaceable and loyal,
should obtain participation on the same terms with
Protestants in the elective franchise and the formation of
juries." The Lord Lieutenant deferred to the direction
of the British Cabinet, and stated that he would endeavour
to carry out their views, a course not unattended with
risk, but " the circumstances of Europe, which have their
effect in this country, make such a risk expedient, and
perhaps unavoidable" (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 556). The intended speech
from the Throne, as sent over to England, contained no
allusion to the Catholics, but the English Ministers
inserted a clause in their favour and peremptorily
enjoined that it should be read. The Session of 1793,
which opened on January loth, was signalised by a war-
like speech from the Throne, which contained the
following paragraph which had been inserted in England :
" I have it in particular command from His Majesty to
recommend it to you to apply yourselves to the con-
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 243
sideration of such measures as may be most likely to
strengthen and cement a general union of sentiment
among all classes and descriptions of His Majesty's
subjects in support of the established Constitution ;
with this view His Majesty trusts that the situation of
His Majesty's Catholic subjects will engage your serious
attention, and in the consideration of this subject he
relies on the wisdom and liberality of his Parliament."
The address was moved in the House of Commons by
Lord Tyrone, and seconded by Mr. Arthur Wesley,
as the name is always spelt in the Irish Parliamentary
Reports, subsequently as Duke of Wellington, the Prime
Minister of the Catholic Emancipation era. There was
no division on the Address, and an amendment moved
by Grattan, thanking the King for " taking a leading part
in healing the political dissensions of his people on account
of religion," was carried unanimously.* The fact of the
Irish Government favouring a policy to which they
expressed themselves as utterly opposed a year previously,
and to which they had not changed their personal
hostility, and presenting that policy without fear of
defeat to the same House of Commons who, in the last
Session, had refused to entertain it and had ordered a
perfectly respectful petition in its favour by an immense
majority to be removed from the table, presents an object
lesson of the Irish Parliament as a parody of a represen-
tative institution as we understand the term under a
system of responsible Government. Mr. Hobart, the
Irish Secretary, thus accounts for this astonishing change
of front, which would be unthinkable in a Government
which retained its position, and in the same House of
Commons, according to the constitutional practice which
now obtains and has been long established : " Conces-
* Le cky, VI., pp. 561-563.
244 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
sions to the Catholics," he writes, " will certainly be
acceded to by all parties to an extent which last year
nothing would have effected, but it is perfectly under-
stood that the concession has become irresistible by the
encouragement which has been given in England and
promoted by the success of the French arms and proba-
bility of war. French or levelling principles have been
reprobated by every man who has spoken in the House
of Commons, and every expression of loyalty, conveyed
in the strongest terms by Mr. Grattan particularly,
whose praises of the monarchial part of the Constitution
can only be equalled by his desire to cripple the Executive
Government" (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 564).
On February 4th, Hobart moved for leave to bring in
his Catholic Relief Bill, and stated the nature of its pro-
visions. It was of a kind which only a year before
would have appeared utterly impossible. "He proposed
to give Catholics the franchise both in towns and in
country on exactly the same terms as Protestants, to
repeal the laws which still excluded them from grand
juries, except when there was not a sufficient number of
Protestant freeholders, and from petty juries in a cause
between Protestants and Papists; to authorise them to
endow colleges, universities, and schools, and to obtain
degrees in Dublin University, and to remove any pro-
visions of the law which might still impose disabilities
upon them respecting personal property. He proposed,
moreover, to enable them to become magistrates, to
vote for magistrates in corporations, and to carry arms,
subject, however, to a property qualification. They were
also, with the concurrence of the English Government,
to be admitted to bear commissions in the Army and
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 245
Navy, and, with a few specified exceptions, all civil
offices were to be thrown open to them."* This great and
comprehensive measure passed through Parliament
almost entirely unmodified and without any serious
opposition. The clause giving unlimited franchise to
Catholics, which was most contested, was carried by
141 to 72. f A motion to introduce into the Government
Bill a clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was
proposed by Mr. George Knox and seconded by Major
Doyle, who claimed to have been the earliest advocate
in Parliament of complete emancipation, which he
recommended in a speech in the debate on Flood's
Reform Bill in 1784, in which he objected to any Parlia-
mentary Reform in Ireland which excluded Catholics
as wholly inconsistent and insufficient. Mr. Knox's
proposal was defeated by 163 to 69, the whole might of
the Government being thrown against him. Mr.
Arthur Wesley, the future Duke of Wellington, was
put forward as the chief opponent of the proposal. " It
would be curious," writes Mr. Lecky, " to know whether
Wellington remembered this speech in 1829, when the un-
settled question of Catholic Emancipation had brought Ire-
land to the verge of civil war, when the agitation it aroused
had ranged the main body of the Irish Catholics under
the guidance of demagogues and priests, and had given
a death-blow to the political influence of the landlords
over their tenantry, and when he was himself obliged
to set the fatal example of yielding to the fear of rebellion
a measure which he had pledged himself to oppose. If
the Catholic question had been settled in 1793, the whole
subsequent history of Ireland would have been changed.
The rebellion of 1798 would almost certainly either
have never taken place, or have been confined to an
* Lecky, VI., p. 566. f Lecky, VI., p. 567.
246 !R.r.SH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
insignificant disturbance in the North, and the social
and political convulsions which were produced by the
agitations of the present century might have been wholly
or in a great measure averted" (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 575). The
Catholic Relief Bill received the Royal Assent in April,
1793, and in the same month the Catholic Convention
dissolved itself. Before doing so it passed a resolution
recommending the Catholics to co-operate in all loyal
and constitutional means " to obtain Parliamentary
reform." *
Against a Reform Bill, however, the Cabinet was firm.
The question was brought before the House of Commons
by Grattan and Ponsonby. Hely-Hutchinson, in the
course of debate, gave in a short compass the genuine
state of Parliamentary representation at the time, which
is of great historic interest, and is incorporated in another
part of this work. The Government, however, carried
without difficulty an evasive amendment, asserting "that
under the present system of representation the privileges
of the people, the trade and prosperity of the country
have greatly increased, and that if any plan be produced
likely to increase these advantages and not hazard what
we already possess, it ought to be taken into the most
serious consideration" (Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 598).
It was evident that unless the borough system was
reformed no great change in the character of the House
of Commons could be expected, but the strength of the
Government was concentrated in resisting Reform,
because Reform would have been fatal to the Union
(Froude's English in Ireland, III., p. 117). On all else
the rule was to give way. A series of measures of
*Lecky, VI., p. 59?-
THE AGITATION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 247
secondary reform was accordingly carried. " The pension
list was to be gradually reduced to £80,000 a year, which
was not hereafter to be exceeded, and no single pension
amounting to more than £1,200 a vear was to De granted
except to Members of the Royal Family, or on an address
of either House. It was computed that in this manner
a saving amounting to £30,000 a year would be ultimately
effected. The King, at the same time, surrendered his
ancient power over the hereditary revenue, and a fixed
Civil List, which was not to exceed £145,000, exclusive
of the Pension List, was granted to him. It was part
of the arrangement that an Irish Board of Treasury was
to be created, wholly responsible to the Irish Parliament,
and this necessarily involved some considerable expense,
especially as two Vice-Treasurers, being in England,
had to be compensated for the loss of their offices,
but it was hoped that the enormous expense of the
collection of the Irish revenue would be materially
reduced, and, by the abolition of the old hereditary
revenue, the finances of the country were for the first
time brought completely under the control of Parliament.
This measure was very important as assimilating the
Irish Constitution to that of England. In addition to
this great measure, the Government accepted with little
modification the Bill so frequently brought forward
in the House of Commons for incapacitating most
placemen and some pensioners from sitting in that House.
No person who held any place of profit created after the
passing of that Act, or who enjoyed a pension for years
or during pleasure, might sit in the House of Commons.
Several existing functionaries were excluded ; members
of Parliament who accepted places of profit already in
existence were obliged to vacate their seats as in England,
248 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
though they might be re-elected ; the number of commis-
sioners for the execution of offices was limited, and every
Member of Parliament, before taking his seat, was obliged
to swear that he did not hold, either directly or indirectly,
any pension or office which incapacitated him from
sitting" (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VI., pp. 559-600).
This Statute, intended to guard the purity of Parlia-
ment against the corruption of Ministers, was, seven years
later, used, under circumstances which will be described,
to destroy the Irish Parliament. It will be observed
that the Catholic Relief Act of 1793 was not followed,
in accordance with constitutional practice when the
electorate is appreciably enlarged, by a dissolution of
Parliament, which ran on for four years longer. It is all
but certain that Pitt, when he consented to the passing
of measures of secondary reform, while he left the
preponderance of nomination boroughs untouched,
had already determined that the days of an independent
legislature were numbered (Froude's English in Ireland,
III., p. 118).
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 249
XX.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE.
AMONG the measures of the Parliamentary Session of
1793, which, as we have seen, was remarkable for remedial
legislation of great importance, must be recorded the
passing of the Convention Act, declaring that assemblies
of men calling themselves representatives under any
pretence whatever to be henceforth illegal (33 Geo. III.,
c. 29). This measure, coupled with the rejection of
all proposals for Parliamentary reform, which, if the
Convention Act had not been carried, would have
rendered Parliamentary reform irresistible, indicates
the determination of the reactionary clique of the
upholders of ascendancy in Ireland, of whom FitzGibbon,
the author of the Convention Act, was at once the ablest
and the most unscrupulous, to accomplish the destruc-
tion of the Irish Parliament, which could not have been
destroyed if it had been reformed. The Volunteer
Convention in 1783, for whose premature dissolution
the caution of Lord Charlemont and the too sensitive
constitutional instincts of Henry Grattan,with the reform
scheme of Flood, which did not include the Catholics
within its province, were responsible, had shown what
an elected body, determined and in the confidence of an
armed people, could do in terminating a system of
Parliamentary corruption, and a Parliament, two-thirds
of whose House of Commons were not the represen-
250 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
tatives of the people, but the nominees of influential
personages. If the Irish Parliament had been reformed
the Union could not have been carried, and the Conven-
tion Act was aimed at the prevention of such reform
with a view to the accomplishment of the Union.
This measure, during the agitation for Catholic
Emancipation, was a hindrance to O'Connell, who
evaded its provisions with extraordinary ingenuity, at the
risk of criminal prosecution therefor.* The Act for the
disestablishment and disendowment.of the Irish Protes-
tant Church, whereby elections are allowed to Diocesan
and General Synods, constitutes a repeal for such
purposes of the Convention Act, which prevailed before
the disestablishment of that Church to render such
representative bodies illegal. When the Convention
Act was repealed in 1878 (42 & 43 Viet., c. 28), a curious
section was inserted in the repealing Act showing the
fear of an assembly of Irishmen elected by the Irish
people for the discharge of quasi-parliamentary functions.
It provides for the punishment of persons taking part in
elections or proceedings of assemblies arrogating to them-
selves the functions of Parliament or aiming or tending
to bring Parliament into hatred and contempt.
The contrast between the attitude of the Irish Parlia-
ment and the Irish people, which was so marked in the
episode of the American War, was as pronounced in
1793, when the Irish Parliament supported Great Britain
at the outbreak of the Great French War, Grattan pro-
nouncing it to be the absolute duty of Ireland, when
Great Britain is at war, to go to all lengths in befriending
her,f while without the walls of " The Borough Parlia-
ment," as the Irish Parliament was contemptuously
called, there were many significant demonstrations in
* Fitzpatrick's Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, I., p. 21.
\Lechy, VII., p. i. Ibid., pp. 22-23.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 25!
favour of France. "An Alien Bill guarding against the
danger of foreign emissaries, a severe Bill preventing
the importation, removal, or possession of arms or
ammunition without licence, an augmentation of the
military establishment from 15,000 to 20,000 men,
and a Bill directing the enrolment, for the space of four
years, of a militia force of 16,000 men, raised, according
to the English model, by conscription, passed rapidly
and with little discussion" in the Session of i793(Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 596).
The new system of compulsory enlistment was fiercely
resisted and resented. In three or four months, it is
true, the military riots, the results of the Militia
Act, were allayed by a measure encouraging voluntary
enlistments and making some provisions for the families
of those who were drawn by lot, but they contributed
largely to the growing disaffection and to swell the
ranks of the Defenders — an organisation which had its
rise in factious hatred between the poorer Catholics and
the poorer Presbyterians in the County of Armagh.*
The Presbyterian Party were named " Peep of Day
Boys " and the Catholic Party " Defenders," which
implies that the Protestants were the aggressors. It
was through the Defender movement, which was at
first purely Catholic and local, with no political object,
but for the protection of families from outrage or of homes
from destruction, that the poorer ranks of Roman Catholics
became absorbed in the United Irish Brotherhood, of
which they eventually formed so potent a factor.f
Towards the end of 1793 disturbances of all kinds in
Ireland had greatly diminished, and the quiet continued
in 17944
The Irish Parliamentary Session of 1794, which Mr.
* Lecky, VII., pp. 14-15. f Lecky, VII., pp. 18-19.
$ Lecky, VII., pp. 21-22.
252 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Froude terms "a blank," commenced on January 2ist and
ended on March 28th.* Grattan enunciated his position
most clearly in the discussion on the Address, and his
authority in the House of Commons among the Members
of the Patriot Party in the House was decisive. He said,
to use the words of Mr. Douglas, the newly-appointed
Chief Secretary, in his report to the British Cabinet,
" that the errors of the Government in this Kingdom had
been in a great degree corrected by laws of the last session ;
that he deemed other measures of reform, and particularly
a proper reform of Parliament, to be necessary, and he
trusted the servants of the Crown would concur in them ;
that he did not, however, mean to propose such measures
as matters of stipulation, but should give his uncon-
ditional support to the assistance of Great Britain, engaged
in a war with our natural enemy, France, without
questioning the merits or conduct of that war."f A motion
subsequently moved by Grattan, asserting the necessity
of establishing a definite and final commercial understand-
ing between the two countries on the basis of perfect
reciprocity, was most favourably received by the Govern-
ment, who pleaded, however, for delay, and was at their
request withdrawn. Ponsonby again introduced the
same measure for Parliamentary reform he had proposed
in the last Session, whose moderation hardened the
United Irishmen in their conviction that the case of
reform, if left in the hands of the Irish Parliament, was
quite hopeless. The Government resisted the Bill,
which was rejected by 142 votes to 44.^ Sir Lawrence
Parsons, in his speech on this occasion, said : "A
majority of this House never go back to their constituents ;
they do not know them ; they do not live amongst them ;
many of them never saw them — no, not even the places
* Froude, III., pp. 132-133.
\Lechy, VII., pp. 21-23. J Lecky, VII., pp. 25-26.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 253
they represent. What a mockery is this of representa-
tion ! Do you think that in this enlightened age such
an imposture can long continue ? Impossible." Grattan
enunciated the position very concisely in these terms :
" Before the Revolution, with the rights and the name,
Ireland had not the possession of a Parliamentary Con-
stitution, and since the Revolution she has no constitu-
tional Parliament." *
From the prorogation of the Irish Parliament on the
25th March, 1794, till the opening of the next Session on
the 22nd January, 1795 — an interval of ten months —
there were in foreign and British politics developments
which profoundly affected Irish affairs. The alarming
events of the French Revolution, the decree of fraternity
issued by the French Convention, the execution of the
King, the success of the revolutionary war, and the
extravagance of the English democrats, had powerfully
tended to alienate from the Whig Party some of its most
enlightened and wisest leaders. In July, 1794, the Duke
of Portland, the Lord Lieutenant of the Rockingham
Administration in 1782 ; Lord Fitzwilliam, a nobleman
of large estates in Ireland and England, the intimate
friend of Burke and Grattan, who both at different
periods were Members of the British Parliament for the
borough of Malton, of which he was the patron ; Lord
Spencer, who was to have succeeded the Marquis of
Buckingham as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if King
George III. had not recovered from the mental aberration
with which he had been afflicted in 1789, and Mr.
Windham, an eminent leader of the Whig Party in the
House of Commons, became the adherents of Mr. Pitt,
into whose Government they entered as holders of
various offices. Lord Fitzwilliam was at first appointed
* Irish Debates, XIV., p. 103.
254 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
President of the Council, while the Duke of Portland
became Secretary of State for the Home Department,
and, by virtue of his office, the Cabinet Minister respon-
sible for the conduct of Irish affairs and the medium of
communication between the British Cabinet and the
Irish Lord Lieutenant. It was clearly understood that
the Duke of Portland, whose liberal sentiments on the
question of Catholic Emancipation and Irish Parliamen-
tary Reform were well known, entered office under con-
dition of having the general management and superin-
tendence of Ireland, with the control of the Lord Lieu-
tenant, under that Department. The retention in the
Lord Lieutenancy of Lord Westmorland, who was, as
we have seen, opposed to Catholic Emancipation and
Reform, was to be of a temporary character, pending
his appointment to another office, when the Viceroyalty
would be filled by a nobleman in agreement and sympathy
with the Duke's views, and ready and willing to carry out
his Irish policy, and Earl Fitzwilliam, ?.s early as August,
1794, consented eventually to accept the position of Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, for which he was to vacate Cabinet
office. Catholic Emancipation was the pressing question
of the hour. Pitt himself, Portland and Fitzwilliam
were well known to be in favour of the measure. It was
also no secret that the Irish Government could, through
their power over the borough interests, procure the passage
through the Irish Parliament of any Bill on which it had
set its heart. Grattan went over to London in September,
1794, to see the leading statesmen with reference to the
contemplated changes in the Irish policy of the Govern-
ment. Mr. Pitt sought a private interview with him in
a letter reproduced by Grattan 's son and biographer:
"Mr. Pitt presents his compliments to Mr. Grattan.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 255
He wishes much, if it be not disagreeable to Mr. Grattan,
to have an opportunity of conversing with him confi-
dentially on the subject of an arrangement in Ireland,
and for that purpose would take the liberty of requesting
to see him either at 4 to-day or at any time to-morrow
morning most convenient to Mr. Grattan." Mr.
Grattan's son gives the following account of this inter-
view " on the authority of his father, which there is
no reason whatever for thinking inaccurately reported " :
" At the meeting between Mr. Grattan and Mr. Pitt,
the latter was very plain and very civil in his manner.
Mr. Grattan stated to him what his party desired, and
mentioned the measures that he thought Ireland required —
the essential one was the Catholic question. Mr. Pitt,
upon this, remarked : ' Ireland has already got much.'
Mr. Grattan did not tell him how she had got it (by her
armed volunteers). They did not enter into the details
of the question, but Mr. Grattan put it down upon paper,
in reply to which Mr. Pitt used these words : ' Not to
bring it forward as a Government measure, but if Govern-
ment were pressed, to yield it.' This unquestionably
was a concession of the Catholic question, for Mr. Pitt
knew well that the question would be pressed ; it was
certain to be brought on. All parties, Protestant,
Presbyterian, and Catholic, had asked for it, and at their
meetings had passed resolutions in its support. Nothing
would keep it back : it was not an opposition question,
nor did it stand in need of any instigation, and of this
Mr. Pitt was well aware. This was the arrangement
that he made with Mr. Grattan, and, as the latter often
mentioned, such were the identical expressions."
(Grattan's Life, by his son, Henry Grattan, Esq., M.P.,
IV., p. 177.)
256 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
In the middle of October, 1794, a very serious difference
arose between Pitt and his new colleagues from the
Whig Party. The Duke of Portland and Lord Fitz-
william had accepted the management of Irish affairs
on the understanding that the Members of the Irish
Administration should be in sympathy with them
personally and politically. The claim that a Home
Secretary and a Lord Lieutenant, who were the exponents
of a definite policy with reference to Ireland, who had
already formed close associations with leading statesmen
in Ireland, should not have the selection of subordinate
Members of the Irish Administration, with whom they
could cordially co-operate, but should be cumbered by
gentlemen with official positions in an Administration
to whose policy they were admittedly opposed, would
seem intolerable at the present day. Pitt, nevertheless,
insisted that FitzGibbon, the Irish Chancellor, one of
the greatest living opponents to the removal of Catholic
disabilities, should be retained in office, and that no general
change should be made in the personnel of the Irish
Administration. Here again we see yet another poignant
contrast between constitutional practice in England and
in Ireland. " The system," wrote Grenville, " of
introducing English party into Ireland, the principle
of connecting changes of Government here with the
removal of persons high in office there .... is so
utterly irreconcilable with any view I may have of the
state of that country, that I should be inexcusable if I
could make myself a party to such a measure, and in this
opinion Pitt entirely concurs " (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 44). Lord
Fitzwilliam accepted the Viceroyalty subject to the
retention of Lord FitzGibbon in the Chancellorship,
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 257
while he continued to act fairly in support of such a
system as should be approved in England. The circum-
stances of Lord Fitzwilliam's appointment were the
subject of discussion in the English House of Lords on
the 1 9th March, 1799, when his recall from the Lord
Lieutenancy was stated very plainly to have been a most
powerful factor in the outburst of disturbance which
came to a climax in the Rebellion of 1798. In that
debate Lord Fitzwilliam gives an account of the circum-
stances under which he assumed the Irish Viceroyalty,
which exactly agrees with Mr. Pitt's statement to Mr.
Grattan in October, 1794 :
" I have understood that it has been stated in another
place that during my administration in Ireland I was
never required to retract what I had been directed by
the Government to propose. If it had been stated I
never received orders to bring forward the question of
Catholic Emancipation on the part of the Government,
I admit that statement to be true. But in justification
of the part I took at the period, and as in my conscience
I believe the events that occurred have led to the evils
which now exist, and have stamped the doom of that
ill-fated country, it is necessary to these statements I
should add a short history of the transaction. Yielding
to the argument of not wishing to entangle the Govern-
ment in difficulties upon the subject at that period, I
admit that, under orders clearly understood by me not
to give rise to or bring forward the question of Catholic
Emancipation on the part of the Government, I assumed
the government of Ireland. But in yielding to this
argument, I entered my protests against resisting the
question if it should be brought from any other quarter,
and I made most distinct declaration that in case of its
258 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
being brought forward it should receive my full support.
With these declarations, I assumed the government of
Ireland. This I state upon my honour. I should not
have introduced it had I not thought it necessary to give
this explanation." Lord Fitzwilliam took the oath in
the King's presence on December loth, 1794, Grattan
being present at the ceremony. It was, as Mr. Froude
well says, to be presumed, from the selection of a man
whose opinions were so well known, that in some degree
he was to be allowed to act on them (English in Ireland,
III., p. 143).
Lord Fitzwilliam arrived in Dublin on January 4th.
The Parliamentary session was to open on January 22nd.
Petitions from the Catholics poured in asking for emanci-
pation, while there was not even one petition from Pro-
testants against it. "I was no sooner landed," he after-
wards wrote to the English Cabinet, " and informed
of the real state of things here, than I found that this
question would force itself on my immediate considera-
tion." Fitzwilliam was most explicit and candid in
his communications with the Cabinet. He acquainted
them as to the minutest details of his public conduct
and of the state of the country. The Cabinet, who had
given Fitzwilliam discretion to support Emancipation
if he believed it to be necessary, received in silence,
week after week, his representations that Emancipation
could not be deferred, and that he intended, unless he
received directions to the contrary, to accept it. When
Parliament met, although in accordance with the wishes
of the English Cabinet nothing was said on the Catholic
question in the speech from the Throne, the good feeling
towards Lord Fitzwilliam's Government and policy was
emphasised by Grattan in the moving of the address.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 259
Loyal addresses to the King and Lord Fitzwilliam were
carried with enthusiasm. ' ' Greater provisions for carrying
on the war were made by Ireland than on any previous
occasion in her history. The combined force of regulars
and militia was raised to a little more than 40,000 men,
and a vote of £200 ,000, moved by Grattan,for the British
Navy, was speedily carried " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 63). " It was only on
February 8th and 9th,when Parliament had been sitting
for nearly three weeks, when the extraordinary supplies
had been voted, when Catholic hopes were raised to
the highest point, and when petitions for Emancipation
were pouring in from every part of Ireland, that a dis-
cordant note was struck" (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 71). On the 8th
February the Duke of Portland, as representing the
British Cabinet, for the first time touched in his corre-
spondence with the Lord Lieutenant on the Catholic
question, of whose progress in Ireland the Lord Lieu-
tenant had given him such full accounts, describing
his own attitude in reference thereto, and laying stress
on the supreme importance of the Emancipation move-
ment. The Duke cautioned Fitzwilliam not to commit
himself to " engagements," and even by encouraging
" language " to giving his countenance to the immediate
adoption of the measure. The deferring of it, he said,
would be " the means of doing a greater service to the
British Empire than it has been capable of receiving
since the Revolution, or at least since the Union."* Lord
Fitzwilliam 's reply to this suggestion, coming from the
nobleman who was, as we have seen, endeavouring to
destroy the Irish constitution of 1782, in the very first
week of its existence, was highly dignified and humane.
* Lccky, VII., p. 72.
260 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" I am at a loss," he wrote, " to conjecture what those
benefits are which it is expected will accrue to the British
Empire by deferring the consideration of this question.
. . . Can it be in the contemplation of any man that
a state of disturbance or rebellion with her will tend to
the desirable end (which I think I discover to be alluded
to in your letter) of a union between the two kingdoms ?
Doubtless, the end is most desirable, and perhaps the
safety of the two kingdoms may finally depend on its
attainment ; but are the means risked such as are justifi-
able or such as any man would wish to risk in hope of
attaining the end ? Through such a medium I look for a
union, I am ready to grant, but it is not the union of Ire-
land with Great Britain, but with France. . . . But, sup-
posing the object may be thought attainable in the end by
such means, still, it must be allowed to be at a distance, and
must be admitted not to be a moral certainty. Who will
then advise to be hunting after a distant and contingent
good at the evident and admitted price of a certain and
immediate evil ? "* In this letter we see a clear indica-
tion of the horrible suspicion passing in the mind of the
Lord Lieutenant of the scheme of promising Catholic
Emancipation, of breaking that promise, of irritating
the people into a rebellion which would be suppressed
by bloodshed, and of utilising the terror produced by
that rebellion, in conjunction with bribes of peerages,
offices, pensions, and gross metallic corruption, for the
passing of the Union.
The Catholic Relief Bill was introduced by Mr.
Grattan in the House of Commons on iath February,
1795. Duigenan and Ogle were its sole opponents.
" One fact," writes Mr. Lecky, " is as certain as anything
in Irish history — that if the Catholic question was not
* Lecky, VII., pp. 75-76.
iHE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 26l
settled in 1795, rather than in 1829, it is the English
Government, and the English Government alone, that was
responsible for the delay " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 70). On February
1 4th Lord Fitzwilliam wrote to the Duke of Portland
positively refusing to attempt any postponement of the
Catholic Bill. "All I have to add," he says, " is that I
will not be the person so to put it off on the part of the
Government. I will not be the person who I verily
believe by so doing would raise a flame in the country
that nothing short of arms would be able to keep down "
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VII., pp. 72-73). In the plainest and most direct terms
Fitzwilliam was, on the i8th February, ordered by the
Duke of Portland, on behalf of the Cabinet, to take the
most effectual means in his power to prevent any further
proceedings being taken on the Bill before the House
till the King's pleasure was signified. The next day the
Cabinet agreed to recall him, and on the 23rd February
he was directed to appoint Lords Justices to conduct
the Government till the arrival of his successor. Mr.
Lecky, speaking of this transaction, says that the corre-
spondence between the Lord Lieutenant and the English
Cabinet discloses on the part of the English Ministers
a neglect of duty which is simply astounding.* Mr.
Froude comes to a similar conclusion, which is
strengthened by the fact that till the 5th February, when
the Cabinet had been themselves for three weeks at least
aware of what Fitzwilliam was doing, the King, who
was to their knowledge bitterly opposed to Catholic
Emancipation, had been kept in ignorance that any
immediate step in favour of Catholics was in contempla-
tion. He thinks it impossible " to acquit the Cabinet in
* Lecky, VII., p. 70.
262 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
allowing Fitzwilliarn to commit himself so deeply if they
were themselves still undecided ; still less can they be
acquitted for having kept in complete ignorance of the
contents of Fitzwilliarn 's despatches a person (the King)
whose consent was indispensable to any intended
change" (Fronde, III., p. 148). "If," said Sir Lawrence
Parsons in the House of Commons on March 2nd,
" the Irish Administration has encouraged Catholics in
their expectations without the countenance of the British
Cabinet, they have much to answer for. If the British
Cabinet had assented and afterwards retracted, the
demon of darkness could not have done more mischief
had he come from hell to throw a fire-brand among the
people. Let the Ministry persevere, and the Army must
be increased to myriads, and five or six dragoons must
be quartered in every house in the kingdom " (Froude's>
English in Ireland, III., pp. 156-157).
The dismissal of Lord Fitzwilliam was ascribed al
the time by Lord Fitzwilliam himself, by Grattan, by
Edmund Burke, and by the Ponsonbys, not so much to a
volte face by the Cabinet on the Catholic question as to
Lord Fitzwilliam 's determination that his work in Dublin
should not be paralysed by Castle officials, the creatures
of influence who were bitterly opposed to his policy,
and determined, as far as in them lay, to render it futile.
Lord Fitzwilliam had, on his arrival in Dublin, relieved
John Beresford of his office as Commissioner of the
Revenue, but had provided th..t his salary should be
paid to him in full. He contemplated making arrange-
ments for the removal of the Law Officers of the Crown,
with compensation satisfactory to themselves. He had,
moreover, removed two Castle officials, Cooke and
Sackville Hamilton, who were notoriously opposed to
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 263
the concession of Catholic claims. These gentlemen
placed themselves in communication with Mr. Pitt,
the late Viceroy Lord Westmorland, and Lord Auckland,
who, as Mr. Eden, had been Chief Secretary for Ireland,
and was on terms of intimacy with Beresford, who was
closely connected with Lord FitzGibbon. Mr. Pitt,
in a letter of February 2ist, censuring Lord Fitzwilliam,
stated, it is true, that he concurred in the general desire
of the Cabinet that Grattan's Bill should not be allowed
to make further progress, but he places the dismissal of
Fitzwilliam mainly on the ground of his conduct to
former supporters of the Cabinet. When we bear in
mind the letter of Portland to Fitzwiiliam, stating that he
would render an incalculable service to the Empire in
delaying the question of Catholic Emancipation ; Pitt's
own confessions in his correspondence of a desire for
the Union; his knowledge that Catholic Emancipation
and the reform of Parliament, which would be its neces-
sary sequel, would render the accomplishment of the Union
difficult, if not impossible ; the certainty that, under the
conditions then obtaining in Ireland, the disappoint-
ment of the popular hope in respect of Catholic Emanci-
pation and Parliamentary reform would render an insur-
rection inevitable, it is all but certain that the dismissal
of Fitzwilliam was not due to the family influence of
jobbish Castle cliques, but to a deep-laid plan of paving
the way for the Union by promoting an insurrection
which could be crushed, but which could be used as a
factor for the destruction of an Irish Parliament, which
was all the more assailable because unreformed.
" It is probable," writes Mr. Lecky, " that Mr. Pitt
was already looking forward to the Union. The steady
object of his later policy was to corrupt and to degrade
264 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in order that he ultimately might destroy the legislature
of the country. Had Parliament been made a mirror
of the national will, had the Catholics been brought
within the pale of the Constitution, his policy would
have been defeated " (Leaders of Public Opinion in Ir eland >
p. 146).
Mr. Froude, who, in trend of thought, was very diver-
gent from Mr. Lecky, comes to the same conclusion.
" Pitt," he writes, " was thinking of a Union, and could
he have seen that the Union could be secured, the venture
(of Catholic Emancipation), though a hazardous one,
might still have been risked without extreme imprudence ;
but the companion measure of Emancipation would be
almost necessarily Reform, and Pitt's ignorance of the
country must have been extraordinary, even in an English
Prime Minister, if he could dream that Catholic Ireland,
in constitutional possession of the powers which the
majority of members would confer on the Catholic party,
would then be persuaded to part with her independence "
(English in Ireland, III., pp. 141-142). It is not, perhaps,
unworthy of observation that in 1795, as in 1800, at the
time of the Union, the King was kept in ignorance of
negotiations between leading Catholics and the Ministers
in reference to Catholic Emancipation, to which, on both
occasions, when the matter was brought before him,
he gave, as his Ministers knew well when duping the
Catholics he would do, a decisive opposition. Four
years later, in the British House of Commons, in a Union
debate, Mr. Sheridan, without fear of contradiction,
thus explained the true inwardness of Lord Fitzwilliam's
appointment to the Irish Lord Lieutenancy as a pro-
nounced protagonist in the cause of Catholic Emancipa-
tion, and of his recall.
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 265
Speaking on February nth, 1799, Mr. Sheridan said :
" The natural inference was that when Mr. Pitt appeared
to countenance the scheme of Emancipation, he never
entertained any idea of carrying it into execution, and
that he sent over Lord Fitzwilliam merely to dupe the
Irish Catholics for a time to suit his own purposes. The
primary object of Lord Fitzwilliam 's administration was,
from the first moment of his landing in Ireland, avowed
to be the complete emancipation of the Catholics. It
was known by every member of the Irish Parliament, and
to every man in the country it was equally well known,
that it constituted the avowed ground of Lord Fitz-
william's recall, and yet, so far was it from exciting their
displeasure, there never was a Lord Lieutenant who
left Ireland accompanied with testimonies of more
general regret for his departure than Lord Fitzwilliam.
Again, Mr. Pitt had argued that it was unsafe to
grant Catholic Emancipation without Union. He (Mr.
Sheridan) would then ask why he had authorised Lord
Fitzwilliam to promise it, why he had raised the expec-
tation in the minds of the Catholics, of the fallacy of
which he had since endeavoured to convince them by a
system of cruel massacre and torture of every denomina-
tion. He repeated it that he considered the right honour-
able gentleman, and those who supported him with a
mercenary confidence, as the authors of all calamities
which had befallen that unhappy country." " Mr. Pitt,"
writes Grattan's biographer, clearly indicating the con-
clusion at which Grattan himself, with special means
of information, had arrived, " abandoned his principles,
his promises, and his professions. He first deceived, and
then recalled, Lord Fitzwilliam, and committed the
basest breach of public faith that had occurred since the
266 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
days of Lord Strafford (in the matter of the Graces), and
not very dissimilar from it. By so doing he gave the
country over to the United Irishmen, and prepared the
way for the insurrection and the Union. His measures
were fatal for British character, and the Irish people
henceforth lost all confidence in the British Government"
(Grattan's Life, IV., p. 195).
Mr. Lecky, who has modified his earlier judgments
on some Irish questions, held all through life his first
view of the Fitzwilliam episode, whose disastrous effects
on the whole course of subsequent Irish history the
researches of later years still more forcibly impressed
upon him. Writing in 1861, Mr. Lecky says : " It is
certain that the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam arrested a
policy which would have made the Union at that time
impossible. By raising the hopes of the Catholics
almost to a certainty , and then dashing them to the ground,
by taking this step at the very moment when the inflam-
matory spirit engendered by the Revolution had begun
to spread among the people, Pitt sowed in Ireland the
seeds of discord and bloodshed, of religious animosities
and social disorganisation, which paralysed the energies
of the country and rendered possible the success of his
machinations. The rebellion of 1798, with all the
accumulated miseries it entailed, was the direct and pre-
dicted consequence of his policy " (Leaders of Public
Opinion in Ireland, pp. 146-147). Writing thirty years
afterwards, in 1890, Mr. Lecky feels strengthened in
this view. " The recall of Lord Fitzwilliam," he says,
" may be justly regarded as a fatal turning point in
Irish history. For at least fifteen years before it occurred
the country, in spite of many abuses and disturbances,
had been steadily and incontestably improving. Religious
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 267
animosities appeared to have almost died away. Material
prosperity was advancing with an almost unprecedented
rapidity. The Constitution, in many important points,
had been ameliorated, and the lines of religious disability
were fast disappearing from the Statute Book. The
contagion of the French Revolution had produced a
dangerous organization in the North and a vague rest-
lessness through the other Provinces, but up to this time
it does not appear seriously to have affected the great
body of Catholics, and Burke was probably warranted
when, in estimating the advantages which England
possessed in her struggle with France, he gave a prominent
place to the loyalty, the power, and the opulence of
Ireland. With the removal of the few remaining dis-
abilities, a settlement of tithes, and a moderately reformed
Parliament, it seems still probable that Ireland — under
the guidance of her resident gentry — might have con-
tributed at least as much as Scotland to the prosperity
of the Empire. But from the day when Pitt recalled
Lord Fitzwilliam the course of her history was changed.
Intense and growing hatred of England revived, religious
and class animosity, a savage rebellion, savagely repressed,
a legislative union prematurely and corruptly carried,
marked the closing years of the Eighteenth Century,
and, after ninety years of direct British Government, the
condition of Ireland is universally recognised as the
chief scandal and the chief weakness of the Empire "
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VII., p. 98).
O'Connell has explained the whole Fitzwilliam episode
on the hypothesis that the English Government deli-
berately promoted the rebellion for the purpose of
carrying the Union. He dwelt on the fact that the
268 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Government, before the outbreak of the rebellion, had
secret information furnished by a traitor named Maguan
to the Reverend Dr. Clelland, Lord Londonderry's land
agent, pointing out its most active leaders, and that,
in spite of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act,
these leaders were suffered to remain at large. " The
Irish House of Commons," said O'Connell, " in 1798
had a Secret Committee to enquire into the facts and
circumstances connected with the rebellion. The Report
of that Committee was published, and I take my authority
from it. I say the Irish Government cherished and
fomented treason at that dreadful period, and allowed
the traitors to go at large with impunity at that dreadful
time in order that the treason might ripen into an
extinguishable rebellion " (Debate in the Dublin Cor-
poration on Repeal of the Union, 1844, p. 38). Mr.
Gordon, a Protestant clergyman in the County of
Wexford, the historian of the rebellion, some of whose
horrors he witnessed, and himself in favour of a Union,
admits that the Union could not have been carried if
there had not been an insurrectionary outbreak. " So
odious," he writes, " was the measure to multitudes
whose pride or private interests, real or imaginary, were
engaged, that it could not, with the smallest probability
of success, be proposed until prejudice was in some
degree overcome by the calamities and dangers of the
rebellion" (Gordon's History of the Irish Rebellion, pp.
295-296).
Miss Edgeworth, whose father was a distinguished
Member of the Irish House of Commons , has a similar view
of the calculated effect of the rebellion upon the Union.
" Government," she writes, " having at this time the
Union between Great Britain and Ireland in contem-
THE FITZWILLIAM EPISODE. 269
plation, was desirous that the Irish aristocracy and country
gentlemen should be convinced of the kingdom's insuffi-
ciency to her own defence against invasion or internal
insurrection. With this view it was politic to let the
different parties struggle with each other till they com-
pletely felt their weakness and their danger It
is certain that the combination of the disaffected at home
and the advance of foreign invaders were not checked till
the peril became imminent, and till the purpose of
creating universal alarm had been fully effected " (Life
of R. L. Edgeworth, II., pp. 217-218).
Mr. Lecky thus deals with the charge, of which the
Fitzwilliam episode, even if taken alone, supplies cogent
evidence, that the English Government, desiring a
Union, and perceiving it could not be effected without a
convulsion, deliberately forced on the rebellion as a
means of effecting it : " Fluctuating and unskilful
policy has often the effects of calculating malevolence,
and mistakes of the Government, both in England and
Ireland, contributed undoubtedly very largely to the
hideous scenes of social and political anarchy, to the
religious hatreds and religious panics which alone rendered
possible the legislative Union. Nor can it, I think, be
denied that it is in a high degree probable that a desire
to carry a legislative Union had a considerable effect in
dictating the policy which, in fact, produced the rebellion,
and that there were politicians who were prepared to
pursue that policy even at the risk of a rebellion, and who
were eager to make use of the rebellion when it broke
out for the purpose of accomplishing their designs.
The following striking passage from a work which I have
often quoted shows the extreme severity with which
the situation was judged by a perfectly loyal writer who
270 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was in general one of the most temperate and most
competent then living in Ireland : ' To affirm.' writes
Newenham. ' that the Government facilitated the
growth of the rebellion for the purpose of effecting the
Union would be to hold language not sufficiently war-
ranted by the facts. But to affirm that the rebellion was
kept alive for that purpose seems perfectly warrantable.
The charge was boldly made in the writer's hearing
during one of the debates on the Union by an honourable
gentleman who held a profitable place under the Crown.
And to affirm that that measure never would have been
carried into effect without the occurrence of a rebellion
similar in respect of its attendant and previous circum-
stances to that of 1798, is to advance what nineteen or
twenty men who were acquainted with the political
sentiments of the Irish people at that time will feel little
difficulty in assenting to.' ' (Newenham's State of
Ireland, pp. 269-270. Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 285-286.)
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 271
XXI.
THE OPPOSITION OF THE BRITISH GOVERN-
MENT TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.
THE successful resistance to Parliamentary Reform in
1783, followed by the indefinite adjournment of the
Volunteer Convention, sealed the fate of the Irish Parlia-
ment, for that Parliament, if reformed and truly repre-
sentative of the people, could never have been destroyed.
The withdrawal of the Commercial Propositions in 1785,
and the substitution therefor, after a great increase of
taxation had been voted on the faith of these propositions
becoming law, of a series of proposals which could not
be accepted by the Irish Parliament consistently with the
preservation of its independence, and ten years later the
recall of Lord Fitzwilliam from the Lord Lieutenancy after
his announcement of a full measure of Catholic Emanci-
pation as the cardinal policy of the Government, and yet
another large increase of taxation had been voted on the
faith of that announcement, produced that absolute
distrust in the promises of English statesmen which
precluded all hope of the wants and wishes of the people
being satisfied under the established regime, and that
feeling of intense contempt for constitutional methods
272 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
which caused the rebellion on which the Government
had relied as a means of paving the way for the Union.
Lord Fitzwilliam was himself under no delusion with
respect to the effect of his recall. He wrote to Lord
Carlisle that the English Ministers must face " almost
the certainty of driving this Kingdom (of Ireland) into
rebellion." * Sir Lawrence Parsons moved a short Supply
Bill in the House of Commons, which was, of course,
negatived by an assembly to whose composition I have
so often adverted, and, at the instance of Grattan, a
resolution by Mr. Connolly, protesting against the
prorogation of Parliament before the grievance complained
of was removed, was withdrawn .f Lord Fitzwilliam,
at the entreaty of his friends, postponed his departure for
a fortnight, dreading that, if the Government were left
in the hands of Lords Justices before the arrival of his
successor, there would be a popular outburst. He only
consented to the adjournment of Parliament on the
strong representation that such a measure was absolutely
necessary to the preservation of the public peace. J Great
meetings of the Catholics, summoned by the Catholic
Committee, and meetings of Protestant freeholders
petitioned for the retention of Fitzwilliam in office,
and in favour of the complete removal of Catholic dis-
abilities. Delegates were sent to London to lay the
petition on behalf of the Catholics before the King, and
on their return to Dublin, after an unsuccessful mission,
the Catholic Committee convened another great meeting,
at which the following resolutions were unanimously
passed, which showed that the true inwardness of Fitz-
william's recall was a desire to promote a Legislative
Union between Great Britain and Ireland : — " That we
are sincerely and unalterably attached to the rights,
* Le cky, VII., p. 90. f Lecky, VII., p. 93. \Lecky, VII., p. 96.
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 273
liberties, and independence of our native country ; that
we pledge ourselves, collectively and individually, to
resist even our own emancipation, if proposed to be
conceded on the ignominious terms of an acquiescence
in the fatal measure of a Union with the sister kingdom ;
that, while we make this undisguised declaration of our
sentiments in order to satisfy the public mind, we are
of opinion that a measure so full of violence will never
be hazarded, convinced as we are that no set of men
will arrogate to themselves a power which is contrary to
the ends and purposes of all government, a power to
surrender the liberties of their country and to seal the
slavery of future generations." (See Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century p, VII., pp. 94-95).
The attitude of the great mass of the Catholic popula-
tion on the question of the Union was that of uncompro-
mising resistance. The resolution of the great meeting
convened by the Catholic Committee to oppose to the
utmost a Union, even if accompanied with Catholic
Emancipation, embodied to the very last the policy of
all that was best and highest in Irish Catholic public
life. Mr. Froude, whose hatred of Catholicism and
admiration for the Union are among the most indubitable
characteristics of his writings, admits, while he endea-
vours to disparage, the hatred of the Catholics to the
Union. " At one time," he writes, " Lord Cornwallis
(the Lord Lieutenant of the Union) hoped to overcome
and weaken the opposition (to the Union) by the help
of the Catholics, but the Catholics would not listen to his
blandishments. They trusted, if the separate Parliament
were maintained, to make their way into it eventually,
and though England had saved them from extermination
by their Protestant countrymen, yet as long as there was a
274 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
hope of success they preferred to join the Protestant
opposition in defence of their natural independence "
(English in Ireland, III., pp. 549-550).
The testimony of Mr. O'Connell, who had grown to
man's estate and had been called to the Bar while the
Irish Parliament was in existence, is, on this matter, I
think, conclusive. Speaking in the discussion on the
Repeal of the Union in the Dublin Corporation in 1843,
Mr. O'Connell said : " The first time I ever addressed
a public assemblage, when I shuddered at the echo of my
own voice, was on the i3th January, 1800. That was
my ' maiden speech,' and it was made against the Union.
I wish to show what my sentiments then were by reading
a paragraph from my published speech. I can bear
testimony to the accuracy of the report, because I wrote
it myself. The original is in the hands of a member
of my family. This is what I said : ' There was
another reason why they (the Catholics) should come
forward as a distinct class — a reason which he confessed
made the greatest impression upon his feelings. Not
content with falsely asserting that the Catholics favoured
the extinction of Ireland, that their supposed inclination
was attributed to the foulest motives, motives which
were repugnant to their judgments and most abhorrent
to their hearts, it was said that the Catholics were ready
to sell their country for a price, or, what was still more
depraved, to abandon it on account of the unfortunate
animosity which the wretched temper of the times had
produced. Can they remain silent under so horrible
a calumny ? This calumny was flung on the whole body
— it was incumbent on the whole body to come forward
and contradict it. Yes, they will show every friend of
Ireland that the Catholics are incapable of selling their
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 275
country ; they will loudly declare that if their emanci-
pation was offered for their consent to the measure —
even if emancipation after the Union were a benefit —
they would reject it with prompt indignation.' (This
sentiment met with loud approbation.) * Let us,' said
he, ' show to Ireland that we have nothing in view but
her good ; nothing in our hearts but desire of mutual
forgiveness, mutual toleration, and mutual affection ;
in fine, let every man who feels with me proclaim that if
the alternative were offered to him of Union or the re-
enactment of the Penal Code, with all its pristine horrors,
that he would prefer, without hesitation, the latter as the
lesser and more sufferable evil ; that he would rather
confide to the justice of his brethren, the Protestants of
Ireland, who have already liberated him, than lay his
country at the feet of foreigners.' (This sentiment met
with much and marked approbation.) I added : ' If
there was any man present who could be so far mentally
degraded as to consent to the extinction of the liberty,
the constitution, and even the name of Ireland, he would
call on him not to leave the direction and management
of her commerce and property to strangers over whom
he has no control.' That," said Mr. O'Connell, " was
my first speech, and the tenor of my public life shows
that I have never varied from the sentiments it con-
tained. "
Fitzwilliam left Ireland on March 25th, 1795, amid
demonstrations of affection and regret which have seldom,
if ever, been produced by the departure of an Irish
Lord Lieutenant. Lord Camden, his successor, whose
Secretary, Mr. Pelham — who had filled that office in
Lord Temple's administration in 1783 — was already in
Ireland, arrived in Dublin on March 3ist, 1795. His
276 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
entry was signalised by a fierce riot, in which two lives
were lost, and the houses of FitzGibbon, Beresford, and
Foster, the Speaker — to whose influence the change in
the personnel of the Viceroy was attributed — were
attacked. The Lord Lieutenant's instructions to set
Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against
Catholic were plain in their wicked cynicism. The Duke
of Portland, on behalf of the Cabinet, tells him that he
must do his best to rally the Protestant interests against
concessions to Roman Catholics. He must hold a firm
and decided language of hostility to them, but he must
also tell the Protestants that, without their concurrence,
the Government cannot effectually resist ; that, with their
concurrence, the Government will be ready to make every
exertion they can desire to prevent the admission of Catho-
lics to seats in the legislature. While the Duke of Portland
was instructing the Lord Lieutenant to revive religious
animosities, which had all but disappeared in Ireland,
he was equally emphatic in urging him to discountenance
the idea of Ministerial responsibility to the Irish Par-
liament. " A notion," he writes, " has arisen within
these few years, and has latterly but too generally pre-
vailed, of the propriety of the existence of an Irish
Cabinet. I, therefore, think it necessary to protest and
caution your Lordship against it in the strongest and
most explicit terms, for to me it appears unconsti-
tutional in the highest degree, and directly subversive
of English Government and of the unity of the British
Empire. It would annihilate the responsibility of the
Lord Lieutenant to the English Government, and would
more immediately tend to the separation of the two
countries and the introduction of anarchy into Ireland
than any other means that could be devised " (Lecky's
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTAPvY REFORM. 277
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., pp.
101-103).
Parliament met on April i3th, 1795, the day to which
it had been adjourned. On April zist, Grattan moved for
a Committee on the State of the Nation, in which the whole
question of the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam was discussed.
Grattan, who was confirmed in his statements by the
Ponsonbys, detailed the terms under which he and the
gentlemen who acted with him had agreed to support
the Fitzwilliam administration. The Government did
not attempt to traverse the account of the transaction,
either generally or in its details, as told by Grattan,
which have been summarised in these pages. They
simply relied on the royal prerogative as conferring an
undoubted right to recall a Viceroy. The motion, after
a speech in reply from Grattan, was negatived by 158
1048.
On May 4th the second reading of the Catholic Bill
came on ; the debate lasted till ten the following morning,
when the majority in the House of Commons who, a few
months before, had been perfectly ready to carry the Bill,
were now equally ready to reject it, and it was thrown out
by 155 votes to 89. This incident shows, in the words
of Mr. Lecky, with a painful vividness, the character
of the Irish House of Commons — " a body which con-
tained a group of statesmen who, in ability, patriotism,
and knowledge, would have done honour to any legis-
lature, but also a body on which eloquence and argument
dashed uselessly and impotently against a great pur-
chased majority." (See Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 108.)
It was repeatedly asserted throughout this debate,
and not even indirectly denied, that the Irish Parliament,
278 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
if left to itself, and uninfluenced by the English Adminis-
tration, would have granted Catholic Emancipation, and
that the boon was refused by the English Government
with a view to a Union. "In 1792," said Parsons, " a
majority decided against giving any further privileges
to the Catholics. In 1793 the same majority passed the
Catholic Bill. At the beginning of the Session everyone
believed that a majority would have voted for this Bill.
Everyone believes that a majority will vote against it
now, and should the English Ministers in the next
Session wish it to pass, who does not believe that a
majority will vote for it ? Besides, if the English Ministry
should be changed — an event perhaps not very remote —
this Bill would be immediately adopted."
" The Protestants," said Grattan, " of a number of
counties, of all the great cities, and all the mercantile
interests have petitioned in favour of the Catholics.
With the single exception of the Corporation of Dublin,
there has been no application against them. Nothing
prevents their success but the influence of the Govern-
ment. Catholic Emancipation ceases to be a question
between the Irish Protestants and Catholics, and is now
a question between the Ministers of another country and
the people of Ireland." The opposition to the measure
with a view to the Union was openly denounced. " Take
your choice," said Mr. Knox, one of the members for
Dublin University — "re-enact your penal laws, risk a
rebellion or separation or a Union, or pass this Bill, for
the hour is nearly arrived when we must decide. The
hour is already come when we ought to decide."
" You," said Mr. Arthur O'Connor, subsequently a
United Irish Leader — " you who shall on this night vote
for the rejection of the Bill will appear in the eyes of the
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 279
Irish Nation not only as men voting in obedience to the
British Minister against the voice of the people, but as
men voting for a Union with England by which this
country is to be everlastingly reduced to the state of an
abject province." " The Roman Catholic," said Mr.
Grattan, in reference to the resolution passed at the Dublin
meeting, " far from being ungenerous, has borne his
testimony in favour of the institution of the Irish Par-
liament, for he has resolved to relinquish his emancipation
rather than purchase his capacities by a Union. He has
said, 'Let the Catholic be free, but if his freedom is to
be bought by the extinction of the Irish Parliament, we
waive the privilege and pray for the Parliament.' ' (See
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VII., pp. 108-115.)
Lord Camden, who was not deficient in obeying his
instructions to rally the Protestant interest, emphasised
the rejection of the Catholic Emancipation Bill by recom-
mending, in a letter which was written to the Duke of
Portland on the very day that Bill was under discussion,
the conferring of an Earldom on FitzGibbon, the most
envenomed enemy of Catholic rights in his generation,
and one of the principal machinators of the recall of Lord
Fitzwilliam and the defeat of his policy, who was even
at that time intriguing for the destruction of the Irish
Parliament.*
A very great measure, however, characterised the
Session of the Irish Parliament, which Chief Justice
Whiteside happily describes as " a Session short, but
exciting." In Lord Fitzwilliam's speech from the
Throne, at the opening of the Session, new measures for
Catholic education were promised, and with this object
an ecclesiastical seminary was founded at Maynooth.
* Lecky, VII., p. 116.
28o • IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
"A Catholic college," writes Mr.Lecky, "on a small scale
had been established at Carlow in 1793. It was intended,
however, for the education of laymen, and the College of
Maynooth was the first Irish establishment since the
Revolution for the education of the priesthood. Though
instituted primarily for the education of that body,
there was at first some question of including Catholic
lay students in the establishment, and, although this
project was dropped, no further restriction was intro-
duced into the Bill than that the College was to be for
the better education of persons professing the Popish
or Roman Catholic religion. Its government was
placed in the hands of a body of trustees, to which the
Chancellor and the three other Chief Judges officially
belonged, but which consisted mainly of the Catholic
Bishops, who, however, were elected as individuals and
not as enjoying any titular rank or dignity. They were
empowered to purchase lands to the annual value of
£i,ooo,and to receive private subscriptions and donations
without limit for the purposes of the College. There was
at first no Government endowment for the education of
the students, but an immediate Parliamentary grant
of £8,000 was voted to purchase a house and other
necessary buildings for their accommodation. Dr.
Hussey was appointed President." (See Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., pp. 126-127.)
The establishment by an Irish Protestant Parliament
of a seminary for the education of Roman Catholic
priests cannot be regarded as other than an irrefragable
proof that that Parliament, if free from borough members,
would have completely emancipated the Roman Catholics
of Ireland, which it was prepared to do if the English
Government, who was the paymaster of the bribed
OPPOSITION TO IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REEORM. 281
members, had consented, or rather had not withdrawn
a consent which had been given. There can be little
doubt that the main object of founding the College at
Maynooth was to preserve the Irish priesthood, who
were educated abroad, from imbibing the doctrines of
the French Revolution. Wolfe Tone welcomed the
project r>n far different grounds, which shows he was
superior in foresight to the English Cabinet and its advisers.
" This country," he writes, " never will be well until the
Catholics are educated at home and their clergy elective.
Now is a good time, because France will not receive
their students, and the Catholics are afraid of the Revo-
lution." *
* Lecky, VII., p. 121.
282 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
XXII.
AN UNREFORMED AND CORRUPT PARLIA-
MENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION.
THE scope of this work is not to deal with the general
history of Ireland, but rather to sketch the history of the
Parliament of Ireland, which was, of course, in the nature
of things, profoundly affected by external influences, on
which I have merely touched in their relation to the
proceedings of Parliament, and to the attitude of Par-
liament in respect of public movements out of doors. In
a sketch of the period between the recall of Lord Fitz-
william and the Union, I only aim at attempting to
describe the closing days of the Irish Parliament, as it
was affected by religious and political animosities
purposely fomented by the English Government. The
persecution of Catholics by the Peep of Day Boys,
which took its origin in Armagh, and spread throughout
a large part of the Kingdom, and was opposed by the
Defenders, a Catholic organisation for the protection
of the lives and liberties of members of the Catholic Faith
against their Protestant assailants ; the Battle of the
Diamond, in Armagh, in September, 1795, which was
the origin of the Orange Society as we know it ; the
struggle of the United Irishmen for the establishment
of Irish independence, when all hopes of Parliamentary
reform were at an end ; the gradual union of the United
Irish with the Defenders in a great national association,
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 283
irrespective of creed and party, for the regeneration
of Ireland ; the promise of assistance from France, and
the hopes and fears, and trend of thought produced
by the imminence of French invasion, which were not
ended by the Bantry Bay Expedition ; the free quarters,
the search for arms, the filling of the country with
troops, the military excesses ; the murders in cold blood
by the yeomanry, who were Protestants and Orangemen
to a man, numbering upwards of 50,000 men, in the
Insurrection ; burnings, rapes, murders ; the seizure by
magistrates of persons suspected of being disloyal, without
trial, without sentence, without even a colour of legality,
and sending them to serve in the King's Fleet ; the
floggings, half hangings, pitch-cap torture — all these
methods ostensibly for the restoration of order, in
reality for terrorising the Irish Parliament into the
passing of the Union, must be left unrecorded by me, and
can only be referred to as their effects are seen in the
proceedings and legislation of the doomed Irish Parlia-
ment, which was not permitted to reform itself, but was
only allowed to assist and legalise the system of military
terrorism which alone rendered its destruction practicable.
The short Session of Parliament, which began on January
2ist and ended on April i5th, 1796, was mainly occupied
by an Act of Indemnity for such persons as had in the
preceding half-year exceeded their legal powers, and by
an Insurrection Act. An amendment to the Address
to the Throne was moved by Grattan, demanding free
trade between Great Britain and Ireland on the basis
of equalisation of duties. He was defeated in the division
by 122 to 14, and in another division by 82 to 16.
The Insurrection Act, with which the Indemnity
Act was accompanied, can, having regard to its pro-
284 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
visions, be only regarded as an incitement on the part of
the Government to an armed resistance which would in
its turn be savagely defeated, while the terror thereby
produced could be utilised for the destruction of the
Parliament. " This Act (36 Geo. III., c. 20) made it
death to administer, and transportation for life volun-
tarily to take, a seditious oath. It compelled the produc-
tion of arms for registration, and enabled the Lord
Lieutenant and Council, upon a memorial from the
magistrates, to proclaim particular districts as in a state of
disturbance. In proclaimed districts the inhabitants
were forbidden to be out of their houses from an hour
after sunset till sunrise, and justices of the peace were
empowered to search all houses during the prohibited
hours to ascertain whether the inmates were abroad or
whether arms were concealed. They might also demand
the surrender even of registered arms, and there were
stringent clauses against ' tumultuous assemblies by day
time,' against meetings by night in public houses, against
men and women who sold seditious and unstamped
papers " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VII., p. 197). A clause, very strenuously
opposed by Grattan and Sir Lawrence Parsons, actually
legalised one of the worst excesses of legal powers in the
preservation of the public peace, whose previous perpe-
tration had been condoned under the Indemnity Act.
By this clause magistrates in the proclaimed districts
were enabled to send men, whom they considered dis-
orderly characters, untried to the fleet. " Under this
comprehensive category," writes Mr. Lecky, " were
comprised all who were out of doors in the prohibited
hours, and who could not give a satisfactory account
of their purpose, all who had taken unlawful oaths, all who
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 285
could not prove that they had lawful means of liveli-
hood " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VII. , p. 197). The conduct of the Government
in directing their measures solely against the class of
crime by which the Defender movement was at times
accompanied, and preserving a complete silence in
reference to the outrages of Orangeism, whereby families
had in terror been compelled to abandon their homes,
was the subject of Grattan's bitter comment.
This atrocious enactment, whose savage administration
was a main factor in the production of the Insurrection
which produced the Union, was regarded in England as
a regrettable necessity. The facility of its passage
through the Irish Parliament was held to be its justifi-
cation by the Duke of Portland, who, as a former Lord
Lieutenant, was well acquainted with the constitution
and composition of that Parliament, and the methods by
which it was made amenable to English influences, who
was, at the very time, planning its destruction, and who
had ridiculed its pretensions to a control of the Irish
Government. " Of your Insurrection Act," writes the
Duke of Portland to Lord Camden, " I will only say that,
though the necessity of such a measure is but too well
established by the facility of its passage through Parlia-
ment, my astonishment at the existence of such a necessity
in a country enjoying the same form of government as
this is not abated by the event."* The Session ended on
April 1 5th, 1796. Parliament sat again for a few weeks
in October and November, 1796. The principal measure
was a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which was
carried with rapidity, there being only seven dissentients,
among whom, however , was Grattan . A resolution , moved
by Grattan, in favour of Catholic Emancipation, was
* Lecky, VII., p. 199.
286 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
defeated by 143 to 19. This was the last occasion on which
the question of Catholic Emancipation was raised in the
Parliament of Ireland. An Act making conspiracy to
murder a felony of the same nature as murder itself,
substituting the punishment of hanging for that of
burning in the execution of women, preventing the
importation and regulating the sale of arms, and raising
the salaries of the judges, were the principal legislative
measures of 1796.* Mr. Lecky thus sums up the political
situation in Ireland at the end of the Wolfe Tone Expedi-
tion : " Anarchy and organised crime had greatly
extended, and they were taking a more political form,
while Grattan and other really able, honest, moderate,
and constitutional reformers had lost almost all their
influence. The discredit which was thrown on the
Constitution of 1782, and the utter failure of Grattan to
procure either Parliamentary reform or Catholic Emanci-
pation, had combined, with the influences that sprang
from the French Revolution, to turn many into new and
dangerous paths, and to give popularity and power to
politicians of another and baser type. Still, the mass of
the people seem to have been but little touched, and the
problem of making Ireland a loyal and constitutional
country was certainly not an impossible one. But the
men in whose hands the direction of affairs was placed
were determined to resist the most moderate and legiti-
mate reforms, and they made the perpetual disqualifica-
tion of the Catholics and the unqualified maintenance
of all the scandalous and enormous abuses of the repre-
sentative system the avowed and foremost objects of
their policy. Their Parliamentary majority was over-
whelming, and, with the existing constituencies, there
seemed no prospect of overthrowing it. Very naturally,
* Lecky, VII., pp. 205-206.
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 287
then, the reforming energy of the country ebbed more and
more away from the constitutional leaders, and began to
look to rebellion and foreign assistance for the attainment
of its objects " (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VII., pp. 270-271).
When Parliament met on the i6th January, 1797, the
Speech from the Throne dealt with the foreign situation,
congratulated Ireland on the failure of the Bantry Bay
Expedition, and expressed grateful acknowledgments
of the loyalty of the people. An amendment, moved by
Grattan, in favour of an early conclusion of the war, had
only six in its support. A motion of Sir Lawrence
Parsons for increasing the Yeomanry to 50,000 was
rejected, but a proposal of Sir John Blaquiere to raise
10,000 for service in the British Isles exclusively was
embodied in legislation, Grattan's suggestion that the
service of this force should be restricted to the defence
of Ireland being defeated. On February 2ist, Pelham,
introducing the estimates of the year, stated that the
military expenses amounted to a million more than in the
preceding year, and he proposed to borrow £2,800,000
and to raise £305,000 of additional taxes to pay the
interest. This sum was to be obtained by increased
duties on sugar, tea, wines, and salt, by imposing licences
on malt houses, and by some slight changes in the Post
Office and in the import duties. In the course of this
Session the bounty on the inland carriage of corn to
Dublin, which had continued since 1759, was abandoned.
The revived proposal of an imposition of two shillings
in the pound on the estates of absentees was rejected
by 122 to 49, and this is said to have been the best
division obtained by the Opposition during the whole
Session (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
288 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Century, VII., pp. 276-277). Lord Camden's orders
from England were to prevent the passing of a measure
which would have irritated powerful interests in both
Houses of the British Parliament. " Ireland," writes
Mr. Froude, in reference to this incident, " was sacrificed
that Pitt's majority might not be weakened, and the
supporters of the Castle, with bitterness at heart, were
required to vote against their consciences and against
what they knew to be right" (Froude's English in
Ireland, III., p. 267).
On the Qth March, 1797, Camden wrote to the Duke
of Portland announcing the determination of the Irish
Government to place the whole of Ulster under martial
law. He stated that he had ordered General Lake to
disarm the districts where outrages had been com-
mitted, to establish patrols for the arrest of all persons
assembling by night, and for the prevention of meetings.
" If," he adds, significantly — although armed with the
powers of the Convention Act, the Insurrection Act,
the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act — " the urgency of
the case demands a conduct beyond what can be
sanctioned by law, the General has orders from me not
to suffer the cause of justice to be frustrated by the
delicacy which might possibly have actuated the magis-
tracy." Lake was, in fact, fully empowered to act as
in a country under martial law. Lord Camden, in his
letter to the Duke of Portland, very clearly shows that
the choice of the Government lay between the reform
of the Irish Parliament and the granting of Catholic
Emancipation on the one hand, and government by force
on the other hand, and that in the supposed interests
of Great Britain the resolution had been taken of govern-
ing Ireland by force. " If," said the Lord Lieutenant,
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 289
" I thought the United Irishmen's measure of reform
in Parliament was really the remedy, and if reform could
be made without shaking the connection between the
Kingdoms, it might be wiser in the King's Ministers
to consider whether the attempt should be made. But
reform is only a popular question under which to shelter
the treason which they are plotting and executing, and
it would be weakness to be deceived by the pretended
cause of their discontent. If Reform is resisted the
kindred subject of Catholic Emancipation must be
resisted also. The success of either of these questions
would shake to the foundation the English interest, and
as long as the present system of governing Ireland is
adopted they ought not to be entertained. If a better can
be devised, and there are many grievances to which the
peculiar situation of this island is subject, it will have to
be considered how these grievances should be remedied ;
but while the war lasts great and alarming discontent
will appear and must be assuaged by the vigour of the
Government and attention of the gentry " (Froude's
English in Ireland, III., pp. 269-270). The Lord
Lieutenant was under no delusion as to the momentous
character of the step he was taking, and of its certain
consequences. On the i3th March, 1797, Lake issued a
proclamation at Belfast, whose palpable illegality was
vehemently impugned in both the British and Irish
Houses of Commons, ordering all persons in that district
who were not peace officers or soldiers to bring in their
arms and ammunition, and inviting information about
concealed arms. Beresford, whose dismissal from office
by Lord Fitzwilliam had been one of the proximate
causes of that nobleman's disastrous recall from the
Viceroy alty, openly avowed the policy of driving the
290 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
people into an armed resistance. " They must," he said,
" have recourse to arms he wished they were
in open rebellion, then they might be opposed face to
face." *
Grattan severely reprobated this language, and on
March 2Oth, 1797, strongly urged that the irritation of
Ulster would never have risen to its present height but for
the flagrant corruption of the Irish Parliament and the
obstinate resistance of the Government to the most mode-
rate reform. In the Irish Parliament he was at last con-
vinced that nothing could be done. Notwithstanding his
jealousy of any proceeding calculated to encroach on the
independence of the Irish Parliament, and evidenced in
days past in the Commercial Propositions controversy and
the Regency crisis, he now encouraged, having regard to
the gravity of the situation and the hopelessness of a
reform of the Irish Parliament from within, the policy
of bringing Irish affairs under discussion in the British
Parliament. He justified as constitutional an inquiry
by a British Parliament into a conduct which tends to
bring the connection into danger, the connection being
a question of Empire, and a question of Empire being a
question for a British Parliament. Sixteen members
alone supported Grattan in a division against the Govern-
ment policy, which he described as "law-making in the
spirit of law-breaking " (Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, VII., pp. 288-289). A motion
a few days later, instituted by George Ponsonby for the
repeal of the Insurrection Act, though supported by
Grattan and Curran, was equally unsuccessful. Fox, in
the British House of Commons, already acting in concert
with Grattan and his friends in the Irish House of
* Lecky, VII., p. 288.
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 291
Commons, strongly demanded the Reform of the Irish
Parliament and Catholic Emancipation. He moved an
Address to the King, praying him to take into considera-
tion the disturbed state of Ireland, and to endeavour to
tranquillise and conciliate it by healing measures. Pitt,
with grim irony, opposed the motion for the Address as
a violation of the independence of the Irish Parliament,
whose corruption was every hour brought home to him in
the course of Irish Administration, as explained to the
British Cabinet by the Lord Lieutenant and the Duke of
Portland. " To assent to the Address," he said, " would
be highly unconstitutional with respect to Ireland, an
unwarrantable interference in the duties of the legis-
lature and executive government of that nation." " It
was," writes Mr. Lecky, " a singular thing to see the
founder of the Constitution of 1782 so eager to induce
the British Parliament to intervene in Irish legislation,
while the men who had originally opposed that Consti-
tution, and the men who at last strangled it with corrup-
tion, stood forward as the champions of the Parliamentary
independence of Ireland " (Lecky 's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 291).
As in the American war, so also in the system of
military outrage which goaded the people into resistance,
the Irish Parliament, which was so subservient to the
English Government, did not reflect the views and senti-
ments of the Irish Protestant people. The correspon-
dence of Lord Camden with the English Cabinet abounds
in evidence of a strong desire on the part of the unbribed
Irish Protestant gentry to end the reign of terror by
Catholic Emancipation and a comprehensive Parliamen-
tary reform. Lord Camden, in a " most secret " letter
to the Duke of Portland, written on April i3th, 1797,
2Q2 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
writes : "It is melancholy to observe that the most
respectable part of the inhabitants of the Northern
Counties are blind to their own interests .... that
they are beginning to talk the language of encouragement
to the pretended principles of the United Irishmen."
An address to the King, carried at a large meeting con-
vened by the High Sheriff of Armagh, is, Mr. Lecky
thinks, a type of a great number of addresses and reso-
lutions of a similar character. This address, which sum-
marised the condition of the country, declared that the
British Constitution in Ireland was enjoyed only in name ;
that a system of organised corruption had been estab-
lished which made the Irish Parliament a mere passive
instrument in the hands of the English Cabinet; that the
people were being goaded to madness by accumulated
oppressions ; that in the richest and most prosperous
provinces in Ireland military coercion had taken the place
of common law, and useful citizens were dragged to the
fleet without trial by jury, like the most atrocious felons.
Most of the evils, the petitions said, would have been
prevented if the people had been fairly and adequately
represented in Parliament, and they added that the
restrictions still maintained upon the Catholics were
disgraceful to the age, and that the Government had
been deliberately propagating religious animosities and
persecutions (Lecky 's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 321).
It was amid these surrounding circumstances that on
May 1 5th the question of reform was once more intro-
duced in the Irish House of Commons by Mr. Ponsonby
in a series of resolutions embodying a scheme of reform
of the representation by the removal of all religious
disabilities, the abolition of the present form of returning
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 293
Members for cities and boroughs, the division of counties
into districts consisting of 6,000 houses each, and return-
ing two members, a property qualification, and the enfran-
chisement of all freemen of cities and of all who had
resided a certain number of years following a trade. The
Government met these proposals by an adjournment,
urging that they were inopportune in a time of war and
social disturbance. Grattan, in a luminous speech,
exposed for the hundredth time the abuse of the Irish
Administration, the travesty of representation presented
by the Irish House of Commons as then constituted,
and stated plainly that the choice must be made between
reform of Parliament and coercion, with all its attendant
horrors. He knew he was pleading to an insensate
audience, and that the Parliament whose legislative
independence he had secured and established was
rendered impotent by corruption. " We have," he said,
" offered you our measure. You will reject it. We
deprecate yours. You will persevere. Having no hopes
left to persuade or dissuade, and having discharged our
duty, we shall trouble you no more, and after this day
shall not attend the House of Commons."
The adjournment was carried by 1 17 to 30, and Grattan
and his immediate followers left the House of Commons.*
He refused to seek re-election at the ensuing general
election, and came back to the House of Commons in
January, 1800, when the measure of the Union had
made such progress that all resistance to it was hopeless.
In after years Grattan admitted that his secession from
Parliament was a mistake, that he had acted in anger, and
that in a long political career errors of judgment were
inevitable. His secession was planned in concert with
the secession from the English House of Commons of
*Lecky, VII., pp. 324-328.
294 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Fox on the rejection there of a measure of Parliamentary
reform. Fox, however, retained his seat, but dis-
continued his attendance in Parliament. Grattan's
" sticking to his guns," to use the words of Mr. Gladstone,
might have changed the course of events. It would, in
any case, have made the task of the destroyers of the
Irish Parliament more difficult, and would have exposed
to the contempt of the civilised world, before, perhaps,
such exposure was too late, the depths of pollution in
which the machinators of the Union sank in the perpetua-
tion of that stupendous crime. Mr. Gladstone says that
Grattan retrieved his error by his return to Parliament
two years later. He could not, however, then remove the
fatal effects of that error. The Irish Parliament, without
Grattan, lost not only its most brilliant ornament, but
its chief redeeming feature. His departure was an
acknowledgment to his own heart-break of the failure of
Parliamentary government in Ireland, to whose promo-
tion he had devoted the best energies of his supreme
political genius. Grattan's secession from Parliament
was rapidly followed by a fresh proclamation issued by
the Lord Lieutenant in Council placing the whole
country more strictly under martial law. The proclama-
tion, while empowering and ordering tioops to suppress
the conspiracy by the exertion of the utmost force, offered
a free pardon to all persons who were members of the
conspiracy not guilty of certain specified crimes, provided
they went to a magistrate of a county before June 25th,
took the oath of allegiance, and, if required to do so, gave
recognisances for their future good behaviour (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 338).
The Parliament, which, as we have seen, had been
reduced by habitual corruption to a condition of despicable
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 295
subserviency to the Government, involving self-stultifica-
tion, was prorogued on July 3rd, 1797, and shortly
afterwards dissolved. Lord Camden's " list of honours,"
which he recommended the Government to confer on
the supporters of the Government, in order, in his own
words, " to carry into execution those promises which
Government was under the necessity of contracting in the
course of that Parliament," is in itself a clear proof of
the methods by which Irish government was conducted.
He recommended that three viscounts should be made
earls, three barons viscounts, that two ladies whose
husbands had been strong supporters of the Government
in the House of Commons should be raised to the peerage,
while six new peers and five baronets were created
(Lecky 's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII.,
pp. 412-413).
Grattan, who regarded a general election in Ireland as
no more than an opportunity to exercise, by permission
of the Army, the solitary privilege to return a few repre-
sentatives of the people to a House occupied by the repre-
sentatives of the boroughs, refused to stand for the new
Parliament, or to change his attitude in reference to
abstention from all participation in Parliamentary
proceedings. In a "Letter to the Citizens of Dublin "
he gave a summary of past Irish history, and repeated
the arguments for Catholic Emancipation and Parlia-
mentary Reform. He declared that since the establish-
ment of Irish Parliamentary Independence in 1782, the
deliberate aim of the Government had been to render
abortive, by methods of corruption, the Parliamentary
rights which had then been nominally conceded. " The
historian of these melancholy and alarming times," he
said, " will, if a candid man, close the sad account by
296 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
observing that on the whole the cause of the Irish dis-
traction of 1797 was the conduct of the servants of
Government endeavouring to establish, by unlimited
bribery, absolute power ; that the system of coercion
was a necessary consequence, and part of the system of
corruption, and that the two systems in their success
would have established a ruthless and horrid tyranny,
tremendous and intolerable, imposed on the Senate by
influence and the people by arms " (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 419).
The general election of 1797 to the last Parliament of
Ireland passed off quietly. The Roman Catholics who
had been admitted to the franchise had, except at by-
elections, no opportunity of voting for the return of
candidates to the House of Commons till four years after
they had been made legally entitled to do so. In accord-
ance with the practice of the Constitution, as observed
since the Reform Act of 1832, the admission to the
franchise of a large contingent of new voters is invariably
followed by a general election, in order to enable the House
of Commons to be a reflection of the wants and wishes
of the electorate. It should, moreover, be borne in
mind, at a time when the doctrine of the Parliamentary
mandate is much pressed, that the House of Commons
of the Irish Parliament which carried the Union had
no mandate from the electors of any kind with reference
to that question, which was not mooted during the
election, and never mooted as a measure of Government
policy till November, 1798. It is, moreover, no exag-
geration to say that the General Election in 1797 to the
Irish House of Commons of the Irish Parliament by
which the Union was carried, in those constituencies in
which there was even a semblance of representation, took
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 297
place in a period of disturbance amounting to civil war.
" The Great Irish Rebellion of the eighteenth century is,"
writes Mr. Lecky, " always called the Rebellion of 1798,
but the letters from Ulster in the spring and summer of
1797 habitually speak of the province as in a state of real
though smothered rebellion, and the measures super-
seding civil by military law were justified on that ground "
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VII., p. 294). Mr. Lecky's description of the state of
Ulster in 1797 is applicable, with very slight modifications
in the case of strictly limited areas, to all Ireland at that
time.
So far back as May, 1797, the great post of Commander
of the Forces in Ireland was pressed on the acceptance
of Lord Cornwallis, who, however, declined it, and would
not be induced to change his mind by the desire of Lord
Camden to resign the Lord Lieutenancy so as to enable
the position of Lord Lieutenant and Commander of the
Forces to be held by' Lord Cornwallis in conjunction.
Lord Camden, while not in any way deprecating the
dreadful military excesses which marked the regime of
Lord Carhampton as Commander of the Forces, assisted
by General Lake, in Ireland, felt that the Command
should be filled by a soldier of more military capacity and
administrative power than Lord Carhampton, who had
become a very hateful figure in Irish public life. He
was accordingly transferred to the position of Master of
Ordnance in England, and Sir Ralph Abercromby
succeeded him in the Irish Command in November, 1797.
He was a gentleman of the very highest military distinc-
tion, and, like Sir John Moore and Sir John Burgoyne,
was a Member of the British House of Commons. He
was proud of the Army, and determined to uphold its
298 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
traditions. In a tour made through the south of Ireland
almost immediately after his appointment, he was shocked
at the lack of discipline shown by the troops, and at the
timidity of the Irish gentry, who, instead of utilising the
Yeomanry for such purposes, " ruin the troops by calling
on them upon every occasion to execute the law and to
afford them personal protection." He came to the con-
clusion that the state of the country was not so alarming
as he had been led to believe, and he expressed his
determination to stop the military outrages, which in
some cases had been perpetuated at the instigation of
Government officials, by issuing an order reminding
officers that though they might sometimes be called on
to aid the magistrates, they must not forget that they
are only called on to support the laws of the land, and not
to step beyond the bounds of them. Any outrage or excess,
therefore, on their part he deemed to be highly culpable,
and they are strictly enjoined to preserve the greatest
moderation and the strictest discipline when they are
called on to exercise this part of their duty (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., p. 428).
f The new Irish Parliament met on January 9th, 1798.
Grattan,Ponsonby,and Curran were no longer members.
The defence of popular rights and liberties was well
maintained by Sir Lawrence Parsons and Messrs. Knox
and Brown, the members for Trinity College, Dublin,
who were magnificently aided by Plunket, whose name was
destined to be associated with the cause of Catholic
Emancipation in the Imperial Parliament, and by Charles
Kendal Bushe, eventually Lord Chief Justice of Ireland,
a very brilliant and powerful orator. Abercromby's
determination to put down the system of military out-
rages gave increased emphasis to the strong representations
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 299
of the friends of the people in both Houses of Parliament
with reference to these outrages and the state of terror
thereby produced. Lord Moira, in the Irish House of
Lords, gave a description of the horrors he had himself
witnessed in Ireland, which was in large measure a repe-
tition of his speech in the British House of Lords in the
November previous. Mr. Lecky regards in a serious
light the charges brought against the military in Ireland
by Lord Moira, who was himself a distinguished military
man, who had held an important command in the
American War, and was subsequently, as Marquis of
Hastings, Governor- General of India. " We have,"
he writes, " abundant evidence that great numbers of
poor men's houses were at this time burnt on slight reasons
and without a shadow of legal justification, and there is
much reason to believe that in the midnight raids many
persons were shot at by soldiers, or more probably by
yeomen, in a manner that differed little, if at all,
from simple murder " (Lecky 's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, VII., pp. 300-307).
The strong condemnation of military insolence by Lord
Moira in the Upper House had its echo in the Lower
House of the Irish Parliament. Sir Lawrence Parsons
moved for a Committee of the House to inquire into the
state of the Nation, a motion which was rejected by
156 to 19. In his speech made in support of that motion
he said that to make the people respect the laws the
Government should itself obey them. Such had not
been the conduct of the Government, and to that mis-
conduct were the outrages and assassinations, which had
disgraced the country, to be traced. A general officer had,
in a certain district, taken out of the gaols a number of
prisoners, whom the law would perhaps have pronounced
300 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
innocent, and by his own authority transported them
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VII, p. 442).
The attitude of the Irish Patriot Party found most
powerful support and confirmation in an unexpected
quarter — the famous general orders issued on February
26th, 1798, at Sir Ralph Abercromby's instance from
the Adjutant General's Office : " The very disgraceful
frequency of Courts Martial, and the many complaints
of irregularities in the conduct of the troops in this
Kingdom," they said, " having too unfortunately proved
the Army to be in a state of licentiousness, which must
render it formidable to everyone but the enemy, it had
become necessary to enjoin all commanding officers ' to
compel from all officers under their command the strictest
and most unremitting attention to the discipline, good
order and conduct of their men, such as may restore the
high and distinguished reputation the British troops have
been accustomed to enjoy in every part of the world.
' It becomes necessary,' the writer added, ' to recur, and
most pointedly to attend, to the Standing Orders of the
Kingdom, which, at the same time that they direct
military assistance to be given at the requisition of the
civil magistrate, positively forbid the troops to act (but
in case of attack) without his presence and authority, and
the most clear and precise orders are to be given to the
officer commanding the party for the purpose.' '
These orders, which were in direct conflict with the
proclamation of May i8th, 1797, by which the military
were instructed to act without waiting for the civil
magistrate, created great distress and indignation in
Irish official circles. No immediate stricture, however,
was made on the action of Sir Ralph Abercromby, which
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 301
was severely reprobated in private. Pelham, the Irish
Chief Secretary, justified Abercromby completely in
Parliament, but the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker, Mr.
Beresford, and the official clique who had procured the
recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, determined that they would
likewise get rid of Abercromby. The Speaker, standing
at the Bar of the House of Lords to deliver the Money
Bills, took occasion in his Address to the Lord Lieu-
tenant to commit the House of Commons against Aber-
cromby by expressing the full confidence of the House
in the high discipline of the Army. Lord Auckland,
who, as Mr. Eden, had been Chief Secretary for Ireland
in Lord Carlisle's Viceroyalty in 1781, had formed
intimacies and lasting associations with Lord Clare, the
Lord Chancellor, Mr. Beresford, and Mr. Cooke, the
Under Secretary, with whom he was in constant corre-
spondence. The substance of their communications was
given to Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Portland for the
purpose of affecting their minds, independently of the
representations of Lord Camden and Mr. Pelham. Lord
Camden told Sir Ralph Abercromby the gist of an angry
letter written to him by the Duke of Portland in reference
to these orders. The Lord Lieutenant, who wished
Abercromby to remain in command, endeavoured to be
conciliatory, and to render the situation less acute. He
did not wish Abercromby to resign, knowing the effect
on public opinion of such a step. Sir Ralph Abercromby,
the moment he received Lord Camden's letter, sent in his
resignation, and was proof against all efforts, however
earnest, to induce him to re-consider his position.
Camden urged that the proclamation of the i8th May,
under which the military received orders to act without
waiting for a magistrate, was, contrary to Abercromby's
3O2 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
opinion, still in force. Abercromby, though he refused
to withdraw his resignation, spoke with great personal
warmth and respect of Lord Camden, and consented,
before leaving the country, to revoke the chief part of
his general orders, and himself to go armed with the full
forces of martial law to quell certain disturbances which
had arisen in some counties of Leinster and Munster
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century \
VIL, pp. 430-436).
' The struggle," wrote Abercromby, in a private letter,
" has been, in the first place, whether I was to have the
command of the Army really or nominally, and then
whether the character and discipline of it were to be
degraded and ruined in the mode of using it, either from
the ferocity of one man or from the violence and oppres-
sion of a set of men who have for more than twelve
months employed it in measures which they durst not
avow or sanction Within these twelve months
every cruelty that could be committed by Cossacks and
Calmucks has been transacted here. The words of the
order of February 26th were strong : the circumstances
required it " (Lecky's History of Englandin the Eighteenth
Century, VIL, pp. 433-434.)
" Many and various influences," writes Mr. Lecky,
" concurred to produce, accelerate, and extend the
insurrection of 1798, but among them the burning of
houses and other lawless acts of military violence, which
were countenanced by the Government, had an undoubted
part. The resignation of a Commander-in- Chief, mainly
because he endeavoured to repress them, and because
he had been censured for that endeavour, was one of the
most calamitous events that could at this time have
happened" (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
CORRUPT PARLIAMENT AND COERCIVE LEGISLATION. 303
Century, VII., pp. 435-436). Again : " Abercromby
is nearly the last figure of any real interest that
in the eighteenth century flitted across the troubled
scene of Irish politics. He left Ireland before the end of
April, 1798, just a month before the Rebellion broke
out, and he was replaced by Lake, who, more perhaps
than any other military man, was associated with the
abuses which Abercromby had tried to check. The
reign of simple force was established beyond dispute,
and the men whose policy had driven Lord Fitzwilliam
from Ireland and Grattan from Parliament were now
omnipotent " (Lecky's History ofEnglandin the Eighteenth
Century, VII., p. 438).
The efforts of the Opposition in the Irish House of
Commons to impose some restraints on the military
violence reprobated by Sir Ralph Abercromby were, of
course, futile. A new Indemnity Act (37 Geo. III., c. 39)
was carried, which sheltered all magistrates and other
persons employed to preserve the peace from the con-
sequences of every illegal act they had committed since
the beginning of the year 1797 with the object of suppres-
sing insurrection, preserving peace, and securing the safety
of the State. A clause, of which Plunket was the proposer,
for granting compensation to the innocent victims of
military violence, was opposed and rejected (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VII., pp.
445-446). An Absentee Tax, for the purpose of pre-
venting the exemption of the great absentee proprietors
from all taxation for Irish purposes, was defeated by
104 to 40, while the salt tax and the leather tax were falling
with great severity on the poor, and in the City of
Dublin no fewer than 37,000 persons were in a
state of extreme destitution. The Government, who,
304 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in obedience to the peremptory orders of the Duke
of Portland, opposed the Absentee Tax, deemed it neces-
sary to raise nearly four millions by loan, and found the
operation exceedingly difficult. They were obliged to
issue five per cent. £100 debentures at 63, and they
obtained, with some difficulty, a loan of a million and a
half from England (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VII., pp. 447-448).
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 305
XXIII.
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798 IN ITS BEARING
ON THE UNION.
THE history of the Insurrection of 1798 does not, as I
have said, come within the scope of this work, except in
relation to the effect produced thereby on the Irish Par-
liament. That the Rebellion was one of the principal
factors in the accomplishment of the Union is universally
admitted. A matter which is, however, sometimes
traversed — that the people were deliberately goaded by
a series of military severities into an insurrection which
could have been instantly suppressed, but was allowed
to develop into a movement extinguishable only by
bloodshed, so that the terror produced by that bloodshed
should be utilised for the destruction of the Irish Parlia-
ment— is, in my judgment, likewise unquestionable. On
the 22nd April, 1834, Mr. O'Connell, who had grown up
to manhood in the life of the Irish Parliament, made,
without fear of contradiction in the House of Commons,
entering into details, the terrible charge, which he repeated
in Dublin in 1843 in a speech to which I have previously
referred, that the English Government had intentionally
stimulated the Irish people into rebellion in order to pave
the way for the Union. " He would," he said, " establish
to demonstration that there would have been no rebellion
if it were not to carry the Union. That rebellion was
purely Jacobinical in its origin, but at its close it was
disguised by religious rancour and made the instrument
of splitting the people into hostile factions. It at first
306 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
originated with the Presbyterians of the North, it then
spread over the country, embracing men of all parties
and creeds, and it was for the sake of carrying the Union
that it was made to explode. What was the proof ? The
Government had clear evidence of what was going on,
and could at any time check it, but no ! in place of
arresting the chiefs and seizing their papers, they allowed
things to ripen and the people to be goaded by petty
tyranny into open revolt, and what, then, was the terrible
consequence ? He had heard of such things, as who had
not, of free quarters, of torture, and of picketing. All
these were the work of the Irish Government of those
days, in order that they might enslave the country.
In the year 1797 the military command was entrusted to
the gallant Abercromby, who was no party man, and from
whom, therefore, truth might be expected. He found
the Army demoralised and disorganised, and on the 26th
February of that year he published his famous General
Orders, in which he stated the memorable fact that ' the
Army was formidable to all but to the enemies of the
country.' That was a fact which was not denied, and was
undeniable. Against a foreign foe they were contemptible,
though to the Irish people they were a dreadful scourge.
The facts, he knew, had been asserted in the Irish House
of Commons. He asserted in that House that the
object of the Government was to make the Irish Rebellion
explode for the purpose of carrying the Union. His
authority was not common report, but a Report of the
Secret Committee of the Irish House of Commons in
1798. In Section 19 it was stated that a man named
Nicholas Maguan, who was a Colonel of the Insurgent
Army and a member of the Provincial Committee,
attended the meetings and regularly entered into the
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 307
debates, and, after the business of the meeting, went
to a neighbouring magistrate, the Rev. Mr. Clelland,
who was now alive, and gave the names of the parties,
with an account of all the proceedings. This was in
1797. This information was duly transmitted to the
Government, who did not act on it, but allowed matters
to go on till 1798, when they were ripe for their purpose.
The Ministers then had all the necessary information
in their possession for twelve months, yet they made no
effort to check the march of rebellion, but, on the con-
trary, many efforts to expedite and facilitate it. They
had a large army, but they did not, however, apprehend
the danger to be as great as it was. They miscalculated
grossly the amount of physical force and the popular
energy and moral intelligence arrayed against them,
and were nearly falling into the pit they prepared for
the people. The outbreak in Wexford was not the result
of the concerted scheme of the leaders of the Rebellion,
but was caused by wanton and premeditated cruelties
practised in order to precipitate things to a crisis before
the schemes of the leaders were matured. There would
have been no Union but for the Rebellion, and no
Rebellion but for the Union. The Rebellion was destined
to usher in the monster of the Union, that engine of
English domination. But a rebellion was necessary to
excite bigotry and foster religious animosity. It was a
measure that was floated into the temple of the British
Constitution on the blood of Irishmen. How was the
Union procured but by the familiar use of torments, by
the terror inspired by a military force amounting to
129,000 men, each of whom was judge, sheriff, and execu-
tioner, and by drum-head courts-martial ? Let the
House hear what Lord (Chancellor) Plunket said on that
308 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
subject : ' I will be bold to say that licentious and
impious France, in all the unrestrained excesses which
anarchy and atheism have given birth to, has not
committed a more insidious act against her enemy than
is now attempted by the professed champion of civilised
Europe against a friend and an ally in the hour of her
calamity and distress, at a moment when our country
is filled with British troops, when the loyal men of Ireland
are fatigued and exhausted by their efforts to subdue
rebellion — efforts in which they had succeeded before
these troops arrived — whilst our Habeas Corpus Act
is suspended, whilst trials by courts-martial are carrying
on in many parts of the Kingdom, whilst the people are
taught to think they have no right to meet or to deliberate,
and whilst the great body of them are so palsied by their
fears and worn down by their exertions that even the
vital question is scarcely able to rouse them from their
lethargy, at a moment when we are distracted by domestic
dissensions — dissensions artfully kept alive as the pretext
of our present subjugation and the instrument of our
future thraldom.' It might be asked, why did not the
people oppose the Union ? why did they concur in the
measure ? He (Mr. O'Connell) would put it to English
gentlemen to make it their own case, and then make
allowance for the people of Ireland, especially the
Catholics. If they opposed it, they would be accused
as rebels ; if, as Catholics, they resisted it, then they
would be stigmatised as setting themselves against the
Protestants. He implored the House not to dismiss
this part of the case from their minds until they under-
stood it. Here the Government had all the information
in their power necessary to crush the Rebellion in its
infancy, yet they did not crush it. Why not arrest
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 309
the leaders in time and strike a timely blow for the
restoration of allegiance ? Merely that they wished to
foster it to a certain extent, that they might make dis-
affection an excuse for robbing the country of its freedom."
The Life of Grattan, by his son, who was himself an
eminent Member of the House of Commons, Mr. Lecky
regards as the very best history of Ireland of the period
to which it relates. This work was published in
volumes, which were produced between the years 1839
and 1846, long after O'Connell's statement. The
younger Grattan relates the following anecdote of John
Scott, first Earl of Clonmell, who was Lord Chief Justice
of Ireland from 1784 till his death in 1798 : " Shortly
before his death," writes Mr. Grattan, " Lord Clonmell
sent for his nephew, Dean Scott ; got him to examine his
papers, and destroy those that were useless. There were
many relating to politics that disclosed the conduct of the
Irish Government at the period of the disturbances of
1798. There was one letter in particular which fully
showed their duplicity, and that they might have crushed
the Rebellion, but that they had let it go on on purpose
to carry the Union, and that this was their design. When
Lord Clonmell was dying he stated this to Dean Scott,
and made him destroy the letter ; he further added that
he had gone to the Lord Lieutenant (Lord Camden) and
told him that, as they knew of the proceedings of the
disaffected, it was wrong to permit them to go on, that
the Government, having it in their power, should crush
them at once and prevent the Insurrection. He was
coldly received, and found that his advice was not relished.
That of Lord Clare, Mr. Speaker Foster, and Archbishop
Agar (Lord Normanton) had predominated, and, in con-
sequence, he was not summoned to attend the Privy
310 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Council on business of State (his health not being good
was advanced as the excuse). On ordinary affairs, how-
ever, he still received a summons." "Dean Scott," the
younger Grattan adds in a note, " was married to Mr.
Grattan's niece, and he (Dean Scott) communicated this
statement with the knowledge that it would be made use
of in a work of this nature, but he would neither disclose
the name of the person who wrote this letter nor more
of its contents " (Grattan's Life, II., pp. 145-147).
Sir Jonah Barrington, who was a King's Counsel, a
Judge of the Court of Admiralty in Ireland, a member
of the Irish House of Commons, and a vehement opponent
of the Union, writing in testimony of what he had seen,
says : " Mr. Pitt counted on the expertness of the Irish
Government to effect a premature explosion. Free
quarters were ordered to irritate the Irish population ;
slow tortures were inflicted under the pretence of forcing
confessions ; the people were goaded and driven to mad-
ness Mr. Pitt's object was now effected, and
an insurrection was excited." " Free quarters,' 'writes
Sir Jonah Barrington, " is a term not yet practically known
in England. Free quarters rendered officers and soldiers
despotic masters of the peasantry, their houses, food and
property, and occasionally their families. This measure
was resorted to with all its attendant horrors throughout
some of the best parts of Ireland previous to the Insur-
rection, and for the purpose of exciting it."
Mr. Lecky says that it has often been asked why the
Irish Government, with all the information at its disposal,
and at a time when the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended,
did not arrest the leading members of the conspiracy
before it had attained its height. He palliates this con-
duct by the statement that, while most of the schemes of
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 3! I
the United Irishmen were communicated to the Govern-
ment, and while they had a general knowledge of the lead-
ing members of the conspiracy, they appear to have known
little about the Supreme Executive, and they were con-
scious they could produce no evidence against the leaders
which was the least likely to lead to a conviction. If
this were the case, and the evidence seems to be strongly
against this supposition, with the Habeas Corpus Act
suspended, with a Parliament which had passed an
Insurrection Bill and an Indemnity Bill, which was pre-
pared to give them any power for which they asked,
and to sanction any illegality with free quarters, house
burnings, tortures, military executions, deportations
to the fleet, which were the unceasing accompaniment
of their regime, it is quite certain their failure to arrest
the leaders till the time at which the Rebellion was ripe
for explosion was due to some deep and premeditated
purpose, and is only explicable on the ground that an
outburst of rebellion, deliberately provoked and savagely
repressed, was regarded by the terrorism and confusion
thereby created as a condition precedent to a successful
effort for the destruction of the Irish Parliament. Lord
Camden, who was considered by Lord Clonmell to
receive coldly his remonstrances at not crushing the con-
spiracy when it was in his power to do so, was at first
inclined to take this course, which was approved by his
advisers in Ireland, but he was peremptorily precluded
from taking such action by the English Cabinet.
On February 8th, 1798, Lord Camden informed the
Duke of Portland that the confidential friends of the
Government in Ireland had unanimously agreed that it
was very advisable to crush at once the leaders of the
conspiracy, even though it was probable that no sufficient
312 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
evidence could be produced to justify a trial. Such an
arrest, they contended, would dislocate the conspiracy,
and, if it produced an insurrecton in some parts of the
kingdom, the event might not be unpropitious, as it
would be more in our power to crush it than if such an
event happened when the enemy were off the coast.
Portland, however, answered that such a policy would
be rash and dangerous, and he positively forbade it
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 9). When the leaders were, in some cases,
arrested, matters had reached a crisis at which armed
resistance by the people to the Government, whose decep-
tion and persecution had maddened them, had become
inevitable.
The Rebellion broke out on May 23rd, 1798. Edward
Cooke, the Under Secretary in Dublin Castle, who was
one of the principal machinators of the Union, writing
three days afterwards, on the 26th May, 1798, said : " I
consider this insurrection, however distressing, as really
the salvation of the country. If you look at the accounts
that 200,000 men are sworn in a conspiracy, how could
that conspiracy be cleared without a burst ? Besides,
it will prove many things necessary for the future settle-
ment of the country when peace arises " (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII.,
p. 63). Lord Cornwallis, who succeeded Lord Camden
in the Irish Viceroyalty as Lord Lieutenant, and united
with that office the position of Commander of the Forces
in Ireland, arrived in Dublin on June 20th. He had been
only a few days in Dublin when he gave the following
description of the tone of feeling between class and class
produced by the Rebellion, and of its probable influence
in the achievement of the destruction of the Irish Parlia-
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 313
ment : " The violence of our friends," he writes, " and
their folly in endeavouring to make it a religious war,
added to the ferocity of our troops, who delight in
murder, most powerfully counteract all plans of concilia-
tion. The minds of the people are now in such a state
that nothing but blood will satisfy them, and, although
they will not admit the term, their conversation and con-
duct point to no other mode of concluding this unhappy
business than that of extirpation. The conversation
even at my table, where you will suppose I do all I can to
prevent it, always turns on hanging, shooting, burning,
etc., etc., and if a priest has been put to death the greatest
joy is expressed by the whole company. So much for
Ireland and my wretched ' situation.' The life of a
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland comes up to my idea of perfect
misery, but if I can accomplish the great object of
consolidating the British Empire, I shall be sufficiently
repaid " (Cornwallis Correspondence, II., pp. 355-357,
Mr. Lecky observes that these last lines, which were
written as early as July ist, 1798, probably, I should say
most positively, point to a design which was already
formed of pushing forward a Legislative Union. (See
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 183.)
The Rebellion, which was excited for the destruction
of the Irish Legislature, and which contributed so
powerfully to that destruction, rendered the Irish Par-
liament still more subservient to the British Government,
on which it relied for the preservation not only of its own
corrupt constitution, but of the property, more especially
the land, of the privileged ascendancy class, of which its
members were composed. The Rebellion had its origin
314 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in the change in the Society of United Irishmen from a
constitutional organisation, framed for the purpose of
gaining popular rights and privileges, into a revolutionary
organisation, owing to the persistent denial of concessions
whose justice was unquestionable, and the promise of
Catholic Emancipation, made only to be broken. The
Irish Parliament, amenable at all times to the British
Government, except when their pride in being an inde-
pendent legislative body was in any degree wounded,
now, in what they regarded as a matter of life or death to
their own class, vied with the Government in the adoption
of a policy of the utmost severity in dealing with the in-
surgents, and enthusiastically accepted every Government
suggestion for the suppression of the Rebellion. The
feelings of the insurgents towards the Irish Parliament
were well known. They had been inherited from the
United Irishmen. On the i8th May, 1798, the trial
of the Earl of Kingston by the House of Peers for wilful
murder, which terminated in an acquittal, would have
been the occasion for an attack on the Chamber and
assembled Peers if the proposal had not been defeated
by the casting vote of an informer in the pay of the
Government. The seizure of Dublin Castle was then
resolved on — a plan which was instantly betrayed by
the same informer. On the 22nd May, Lord Castlereagh
announced to the House of Commons the discovery of
a plot for placing Dublin in the hands of a rebel force and
for seizing the Executive. The House responded with
a loyal address, and all the Members, with the Speaker
and the Serjeant-at-Arms at their head, walked two and
two through the streets to present it to the Lord Lieu-
tenant (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., p. 52). The proclamation issued by the
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 315
Lord Lieutenant, commanding His Majesty's forces to
punish all persons acting, aiding, or in any way assisting
in the Rebellion according to martial law, " either by
death or otherwise as they shall deem most expedient,"
was laid before the House of Commons and unanimously
sanctioned. One Member even spoke of giving it a
retrospective action and executing under it the political
prisoners who were now under arrest, but the atrocious
suggestion, though it was received with some applause,
was not pressed to a division (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 61).
The clemency of General Dundas in allowing a body
of insurgents to lay down their arms and disperse was
vehemently denounced in the Irish House of Commons,
while a vote of thanks was moved to Sir James Duff,
whose troops had killed, at a place called Gibbet Rath,
in the Curragh of Kildare, between 200 and 300 men
who had surrendered their arms to General Dundas. On
June zyth the Irish Parliament voted £500,000 for the
maintenance of British troops in Ireland. On July 3rd
a proclamation was inserted in the Dublin Gazette autho-
rising the King's Generals to give protection to such
insurgents as, having been guilty merely of rebellion,
deserted their leaders and took the oath of allegiance.
On the 1 7th July a message from the Lord Lieutenant,
signifying His Majesty's pleasure to that effect, was
delivered to the House of Commons, and an Act of
Amnesty was speedily carried in favour of all rebels,
with certain specified exceptions, who complied with
these conditions (Geo. III., c. 55). (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 185-186.)
The vindictive tendencies of the section of the Irish
House of Commons who more particularly were asso-
316 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ciated with the maintenance of privilege and of corrup-
tion were manifested in the motion of Mr. John Claudius
Beresford for leave to bring in a Bill to confiscate the
properties of men convicted of high treason before a
court martial, as if such a conviction had taken place
before a civil tribunal. Lord Castlereagh opposed the
motion on the ground that the measure contemplated
would more properly be introduced on the initiative
of the Government. A Bill of Attainder was subse-
quently introduced by the Government confiscating the
property of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had died of
wounds inflicted on him when resisting arrest on a charge
of high treason, and of Bagenal Harvey and Cornelius
Grogan, gentlemen of large estates, who had been tried
by court martial and executed. The thanks of Parlia-
ment were voted to the yeomanry, the militia, and the
other troops, and a sum of £100,000 was voted to the
loyalists who had suffered during the Rebellion. The
claims sent in by the loyalists amounted to £823,517.
Between December, 1797, and August, 1798, Ireland
borrowed no less than £4,966,666, nearly all of it at more
than £6 per cent., and a large proportion at more than
£7 per cent (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., p. 254). The ferocious passions evoked
by the Rebellion in the combatants on both sides, and
the mutual hatred between Protestants and Roman
Catholics, which were its calculated results, were pain-
fully apparent. That the Irish Parliament represented
the views of the ascendancy party throughout the country,
and was amenable to its pressure, irrespective even of the
influences of the Government, is, I think, demonstrated
by its conduct and legislation during the Rebellion of
1798, and at its conclusion. Lord Cornwallis's lenity
THE INSURRECTION OF 1798. 317
to rebels was the subject of severe reprobation in loyalist
circles, both in England and Ireland ; on the one hand,
because it was calculated to make the position of Protes-
tants so unpleasant as to make them anxious for a Union,
and, on the other hand, because it was likely to retard
that measure. The Lord Lieutenant's condemnation
of a court martial presided over by Lord Enniskillen,
which acquitted a yeoman clearly guilty of an atrocious
murder, was the subject of scathing criticism. " Lord
Cornwallis's severe censure on Wollaghan's court martial,"
writes Sir George Hill, an Irish place-beggar and Castle
sycophant, " is universally brought against him in
all companies as indicating a determination on his part
to render the kingdom upon system uncomfortable for
the Protestants and thereby to force them to become
solicitors for a Union. The devil of this language is
that it is held by the most approved friends of the
Government " (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 252-253).
Lord Camden, Lord Cornwallis's predecessor in the
Lord Lieutenancy, in a letter to Lord Castlereagh, con-
demns Lord Cornwallis's censure on the Wollaghan
court martial as calculated to injure the prospects of
the Union. " That the violence of some of the partisans
of the Protestant interest should be repressed I believe
you know I sincerely think, but that a condemnation
of them should take place will infinitely hurt the English
interest in Ireland The great question of
Union will be hurt by this measure, as, however unjustly,
it will indispose, I fear, a very important party to whatever
seems to be a favourite measure of Government "
(Castlereagh Correspondence, I., pp. 425-426 ; Lecky's
History ofEnglandin the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 241).
318 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
XXIV.
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR
THE UNION.
I HAVE endeavoured to sketch in outline the condition
of Ireland at the time the measure of Union was proposed
to the Irish Parliament by the English Cabinet. Lord
Cornwallis, writing to Lord Castlereagh on the i4th
January, 1801, after the Union had come into operation,
bears testimony to the fact that the Rebellion, by the
terrorism it had created, " assisted the Union." " Timid
men," he proceeds, " will not venture on a change of
system, however wise and just, unless their fears are
alarmed by passing dangers " (Cornwallis Correspon-
dence^ III., pp. 331-332). On the yth September, 1798,
before any authoritative announcement of the adoption
by the Government of a policy of Union, Lord Castle-
reagh informed Mr. Pitt in a letter marked " private " :
" The force that will be disposable when the troops
from England arrive cannot fail to dissipate every alarm,
and I consider it peculiarly advantageous that we shall
owe our security so entirely to the interposition of Great
Britain. I have always been apprehensive of that false
confidence which might arise from an impression that
security had been obtained by our own exertions.
Nothing could tend so much to render the public mind
impracticable with a view to that future settlement,
without which we can never hope for any permanent
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 319
tranquillity." During the whole of the eighteenth
century, before the war of 1793, Ireland had
contributed largely and liberally, and much beyond
the stipulated proportion, to the support of Eng-
lish wars undertaken for objects of English policy,
while crowds of Irish recruits had filled the British Army
and the British Fleet. " For the first time," writes
Mr. Lecky, " the parts had been reversed. The Irish
loyalists had been compelled to ask for English assistance
upon land, and this obligation was at once pressed on
them as an argument for demanding the surrender of
their legislature " (Lecky 's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 299-300). In reality,
the suppression of the Rebellion had been left to Irish
resources ; the English troops did not arrive till after the
Rebellion had been effectively broken, and these troops
were then utilised for the purposes of the Union. " There
is something," says Mr. O'Connell, " which bespeaks
a foregone conclusion with reference to the carrying of
the Union when we look to the military force in Ireland.
In 1797, when Ireland was threatened with a rebellion,
the military force was but 78,995 ; in 1798, when a
rebellion actually raged, it was 91,995 ; in 1799, after
the rebellion was over, it was 114,052 ; and in 1800, two
years after the rebellion, when the Union was carried,
it increased to 129,258 soldiers, or what Lord Strafford
called ' good lookers on ' ' (Debate in the Dublin Cor-
poration on Repeal of the Union, p. 43).
" It is not possible," said Mr. Sheridan in the English
House of Commons on January 23rd, 1799, " that, in
the present state of Ireland, the people can declare and
act upon their genuine sentiments ; and let any man who
has a head to conceive and a heart to feel for the miseries
32O IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of Ireland put this memorable question to himself :
' Is it possible that the fair and unbiassed sense of the
people of Ireland can be collected at this time on this
question ? ' The English force in the country is at once
an answer to this question." In the tracing of the princi-
pal steps taken to carry the Union, some facts governing
the whole situation must be carefully borne in mind.
A Parliament elected in 1797, " when there was no question
of a Union, transferred its own rights and the rights of its
constituents to another Legislature, and the act was
accomplished without any appeal to the electors by a dis-
solution " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII. , p. 321). The disposition of the people is,
moreover, conclusively proved by the prominent features
of the correspondence of the period, of which one was the
acknowledged necessity of keeping an immense English
force in Ireland for the purpose of guarding not merely
against a foreign enemy, but also against the dangers to
be apprehended in carrying the Union. " All thoughts,"
writes Lord Cornwallis, " of uniting the two kingdoms
must be given up if that force should now be withdrawn,"
and the other feature of this correspondence was the
confession of Lord Castlereagh, that " nothing but an
established conviction that the English Government
will never lose sight of the Union till it is carried would
give the measure a chance of success." (See Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp.
327-328.)
The proposal, moreover, of a Union came not from
Ireland, but from England. The Union was essen-
tially the policy of English statesmen, aided in Ireland
by Lord Clare and Lord Castlereagh. A rumour that
a measure of Union was in contemplation led to a
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 32!
serious riot in Dublin in 1759, which was signalised
by the invasion of the mob into Parliament House
Grattan, in 1785, denounced, as we have seen, the
Commercial Propositions as "an incipient and creeping
Union." The scheme of carrying the Union was con-
sidered impracticable till the rebellion brought it within
the domain of practical politics. On June 4th, 1798, Pitt
wrote to Lord Auckland, who, as Mr. Eden, had been
Chief Secretary in 1781, that he had been discussing
with Lord Grenville the expediency of taking steps for
the carrying of a Union after the suppression of the
rebellion. Auckland, according to his custom, seems
to have communicated on this subject with Lord Clare,
who states, in a letter in reply, that he had pressed the
project on Mr. Pitt's consideration since 1793. " I
pressed it," he said afterwards in his speech on the Union,
" without effect, until British Ministers and the British
nation were roused to a sense of their common danger
by the late sanguinary and unprovoked rebellion."*
Lord Clare, with the knowledge of the Lord Lieutenant,
left Dublin for London on October 8th, 1798, to discuss
with Pitt the question of the Union, and came back to
Ireland, having convinced Pitt of the necessity of the
measure, and of its being brought forward " unencumbered
with the doctrine of emancipation, "f Rumours of these
interviews and negotiations and of their objects could
not fail to reach the public. On October i6th, 1798,
Faulkner's Journal, the official organ of the Government,
whose proprietor was a Mr. John Giffard, a person of
tarnished reputation, notoriously in the pay of the
authorities at Dublin Castle, and known to the populace
as the " Dog in Office," published — no doubt by order — •
the following paragraph embodying a deliberate falsehood :
* Lecky, VIII., p. 287. f Lecky, VIII., p. 293.
322 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" A most insidious and unadvised rumour of an intended
Union with Great Britain has been set afloat by the
Jacobin prints of this city in order to do the little mischief
which remains in their power to achieve Perilous
and perplexed would be the discussion of so momentous
a question at any period, but at this time of convulsion the
dangers with which it would be attended are too fearful
for contemplation." *
On October i6th, 1798, the very day on which this denial
that any scheme of Union was in contemplation appeared
in the official organ of the Irish Government, Lord
Clare wrote from London to Lord Castlereagh : " I have
seen Mr. Pitt, the Chancellor, and the Duke of Portland,
who feel very sensibly the critical position of our damn-
able country, and that the Union alone can save it. I
should have hoped that what had passed would have
opened the eyes of every man in England to the insanity
of their past conduct with respect to the Papists of
Ireland, but I can very plainly perceive that they are as
full of their Popish projects as ever. I trust, and I hope
I am not deceived, that they are fairly inclined to give
them up and to bring the measure forward unencumbered
with the doctrine of emancipation. Lord Cornwallis
has intimated his acquiescence on this point. Mr. Pitt
is decided upon it, and I think he will keep his colleagues
steady. If I have been in any way instrumental in
persuading the Ministers here to bring forward this
very important measure unencumbered with a proposition
which must have swamped it, I shall rejoice very much
in the pilgrimage which I have made " (Castlereagh
Correspondence, I., pp. 393-394). A month later, on
November jyth, although the scheme had then been
revealed to leading persons in Ireland, including the
* Lecky, VIII., pp. 297-298.
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 32$
Speaker, Sir John Parnell, Mr. Beresford, Lord Pery (a
former Speaker), Lord (Chief Baron) Yelverton, the Chief
Justices of the King's Bench and the Common Pleas,
and several other persons, Faulkner's Journal again
expressed its entire disbelief in the rumours of a Union,
but on November ayth it inserted a notice, which had
appeared in The Times of November 22nd, stating that a
Union would be brought forward, and added that it
had reason to believe this paragraph to be true. (See
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 298.)
The Government calculated that if they pressed on the
Union with the exercise of the usual means of influencing
votes in Parliament, they would have in its favour a
large section of Protestant support owing to the terror
produced by the rebellion, and a large measure of Catholic
support owing to the resentment the treatment of the
great mass of the inhabitants of the country by an
ascendancy party, once termed by Lord Clare *' a puny
and rapacious oligarchy," had most naturally produced.
The success of the measure, Pitt thought, would largely
depend on the conduct of a few individuals in Ireland.
He recommends Lord Cornwallis, for instance, in a
secret letter dated November iyth, 1798, to endeavour
to bribe Mr. Foster, the Speaker of the House of Com-
mons, who was, however, proof against temptation.
" It would," he writes, " as it seems to me, be well worth
while for this purpose (of making the Union palatable
to the Speaker personally) to hold out to him the prospect
of an English Peerage, with, if possible, some ostensible
situation and a provision for life, to which he would be
naturally entitled on quitting the Chair." In this letter
there are the following precise directions from Mr. Pitt to
324 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
)
bribe the rank and file of the House of Commons : "In
the interval previous to your Session there will, I trust,
be full opportunity for communication and arrangement
with individuals on whom I am inclined to believe the
success of the measure will wholly depend " (Cornwallis
Correspondence, II., p. 440). The bribery of the Press
and the hiring of pamphleteers in advocacy of the Union
were vigorously undertaken. Lord Castlereagh writes
in November, 1798 : " The principal provincial papers
have been secured, and every attention will be paid to
the Press generally."* On January and, 1799, he writes :
" Most secret. Already we feel the want and, indeed,
the absolute necessity of the primum mobile. We cannot
give that authority to the Press which is requisite. We
have good materials among the young barristers, but we
cannot expect them to waste their time and to starve
into the bargain. I know the difficulties, and shall respect
them as much as possible in the extent of our expenditure,
but, notwithstanding every difficulty, I cannot help most
earnestly requesting to receive £5,000 in bank notes by
the first messenger " (Cormuallis Correspondence, III.,
p. 27). I give in full the reply to this communication :
" Private and most secret. Whitehall, January 7th,
1799, 20 minutes past 5. My dear Lord,— Immediately
on receipt of your Lordship's letter of the 2nd instant, I
waited on the Duke of Portland at Burlington House,
who, without loss of time, wrote both to Mr. Pitt and
Lord Grenville on that part of the letter which seemed
to press the most, and I have the satisfaction to be able
to inform your Lordship that a messenger will be sent
off from hence in the course of to-morrow with the
remittance particularly required for the present moment,
and that the Duke of Portland has every reason to hope
* Cornwallis Correspondence., II., p. 444.
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 325
that means will soon be found of placing a larger sum at
the Lord Lieutenant's disposal. Believe me, etc.,
William Wickham." The editor of the Cornzvallis Corre-
spondence states that the numbers of the notes, amounting
to £5,000, are still preserved in the State Paper Office.
A few days later Castlereagh acknowledged the reply :
" The contents of the messenger's despatches are very
interesting ; arrangements with a view to further com-
munications of the same nature will be highly advan-
tageous, and the Duke of Portland may depend on their
being carefully applied " (Cornzvallis Correspondence, III.,
p. 34 ; Castlereagh Correspondence, II., p. 82).
The public discussion which was invited on the subject
of the Union took place in the interval between November,
1798, and the meeting of the Irish Parliament on January
22nd, 1799. The pamphlet of Mr. Edward Cooke, the
Irish Under Secretary, entitled Arguments for and against
a Union between Great Britain and Ireland, is the ablest
exposition of the policy of the Government, and furnished
most of the advocates of the Union with the substance
of their speeches. The subject at once absorbed public
attention almost to the exclusion of all others, and it
is stated that before the end of 1798 no less than twenty-
four pamphlets relating to it had already appeared,
of which the ablest was a pamphlet entitled Cease your
Funning, written in reply to that of Mr. Cooke, by Charles
Kendal Bushe, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
To the historian, however, the notes of Mr. Cooke " in
favour of the Union," preserved among Lord Castle-
reagh's papers, written for the private use of Ministers
by this gentleman, who was actively employed in the
direct bribery of Members of Parliament, supply one
at least of the points in favour of the Union which could
326 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
not be brought before the public. " Will the Union,"
he asks, " render Ireland quiet ? Who can judge for
the future ? Yet, although we cannot command futurity,
we are to act as if futurity were in our power. We must
argue from moral causes to moral effects. If, then, we
are in a disadvantageous position, we must, of course,
look to the causes which have brought us into that
situation. What are they ? " He then enumerates six
causes, placing second on the list " The general pros-
perity of the country, which has produced great activity
and energy " (Castlereagh Correspondence, II., p. 45).
Commenting on this passage in the year 1849, when it
was for the first time revealed to the public, Lord Clon-
curry thus writes : " When the contrivers of the Legis-
lative Union in 1799 avowed to each other in their most
secret communications the great object of their work
to be a stoppage of the growing prosperity of Ireland,
they probably did not dream of so complete an attainment
of that end as their successors have achieved in 1849.
Their high vaulting ambition has o'erleaped its selle "
(Personal Recollections of Valentine, Lord Cloncurry, pp.
471-472).
In this month of November, 1798, Lord Castlereagh,
who had been acting for Mr. Pelham as Chief Secretary
owing to his absence in England from ill-health, was
appointed, on Mr. Pelham 's resignation, as his successor.
The appointment, which encountered much opposition,
chiefly on the part of the King, who clung to the old
rule that this office should never be held by an Irishman,
was strongly supported by Lord Cornwallis, who saw,
as appears from his own words, in Lord Castlereagh one
specially fitted for the work of procuring votes and
influence for the Union. In a letter to the Duke of
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 327
Portland on November 20th, 1798, Lord Cornwallis
writes : " Lord Castlereagh's appointment gave me
great satisfaction, and although I admit the propriety
of the general rule, yet he is so unlike an Irishman, I think
he has a just claim to an exception in his favour.
When I, therefore, found a man in actual execution
of the duty, possessed of all the necessary qualifications,
with a perfect knowledge of the characters and con-
nections of the principal personages in this country,
I felt it to be my duty, at this very important moment, to
press his appointment in the very strongest terms "
(Cornwallis Correspondence, II., p. 439).
Before the meeting of Parliament there were some
notable indications of public opinion, in addition to
pamphlets and newspaper articles, on the question of the
Union. On December 9th, at a meeting of the Irish
Bar, a resolution was carried by 166 to 32 condemning
the Union as an innovation which it would be highly
dangerous and improper to propose at the present
juncture. " Your Grace," writes Lord Cornwallis to
the Duke of Portland in a " secret and confidential "
letter on the i5th December, 1798, " will probably have
seen in the papers an account of the violence which
disgraced the meeting of the barristers, and of the
miserable figure which the friends of the Union made in
the division." The editor of the Cornwallis Corre-
spondence informs us that " the Union was violently
opposed by almost all the barristers except such as those
who held ofHce under the Crown or were in expectation
of preferment. Of the thirty-two who composed the
minority at this meeting, all but five had, before the close
of 1803, obtained their reward. Among them were
numbered five Judges, sixteen County Court Judges,
328 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
two Officers in Chancery, three Commissioners of
Bankrupts, and one Commissioner of the Board of Com-
pensation (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 18).
The opposition of the Bar was strenuously supported.
A large and representative meeting of the bankers and
merchants of all religious opinions was held in Dublin
on December i8th, and resolutions were unanimously
passed acknowledging the great increase of Irish commerce
and prosperity since 1782, expressing the strongest
sentiments of loyalty to the King and the Constitution,
but at the same time condemning in emphatic terms as
highly dangerous and impolitic any attempt to deprive
the Irish people of their Parliament. " If opinions,"
writes Mr. Lecky, " were to be weighed as well as counted,
the significance of this meeting could hardly be over-
estimated." (See Lecky 's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII, pp. 323-324.)
It was considered a great triumph when some of the
leading supporters of the Union induced the chief Orange
lodges both in Dublin and the North to come to an
agreement that they would not, as a society, take any part
in the discussion, but would leave each Orangeman in
his individual capacity free to adopt what line he pleased
(Lecky 's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 323).
The attitude of the Catholics is thus described by
Lord Cornwallis in the beginning of January, 1799 :
" Certain it is that they now hold off. . . . What line
of conduct they will ultimately adopt, when decidedly
convinced that the measure will be persevered in on
Protestant principles, I am incapable of judging. I will
endeavour to give them the most favourable impression
without holding out to them hopes of any relaxation
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 329
on the part of the Government, and shall leave no effort
untried to prevent an opposition to the Union being
made the measure of that party " (Cornwallis Corre-
spondence, III., pp. 28-29). It must have been clear to
Lord Cornwallis and the British Cabinet that the general
sense of the Irish people was opposed to the project of
the Union. As, however, we have so often seen in the
record of the Irish Parliament, owing to its constitution,
that Parliament was frequently far from being a reflection
of the wants and wishes of the people, and was reduced
by the corrupt influence of the owners of the nomination
boroughs to the position of a subservient drudge of the
British Cabinet. The Government relied on the borough
interest for carrying the measure through Parliament, and
on the fear of dismissal from office as a penalty for voting
against it. On the 2ist December, 1798, a few days after
the manifestations of public opinion averse to the
measure, to which attention had been directed, the Duke
of Portland wrote to Lord Cornwallis authorising him
formally to assure all persons who had political influence
that the King's Government was determined to press on
the Union " as essential to the well-being of both
countries, and particularly to the security and peace of
Ireland as dependent on its connection with Great
Britain," that they would support it with their utmost
power, that even in the event of present " failure " it
would be " renewed on every occasion until it succeeds,
and that the conduct of individuals upon the subject will
be considered as the test of their disposition to support
the King's Government " (Cornwallis Correspondence,
III., p. 20 ; Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., p. 336).
Three days later the Duke of Portland, anxious to
330 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
make his meaning plainer, writes to Lord Cornwallis
thus : " I desire to assure your Excellency, in the most
explicit and unqualified terms, that every one of the
King's servants, as well as myself, will consider
themselves indissolubly obliged to use their best
endeavours to fulfil whatever engagements your
Excellency may find it necessary or deem it expedient
to enter into with a view of accomplishing the Union
of Great Britain and Ireland " (Castlereagh Correspon-
dence, II., p. 60). There was, however, a difficulty in
the way of dismissals from office, which Lord Cornwallis
explains with amusing naivete to the Duke of Portland
in a secret letter on January nth, 1799. " I have
already," he says, " felt it a question of considerable
delicacy to decide in what instances and at what period
it was expedient to remove from office persons who have
taken a decided tone against the measure, or who, without
acting publicly, hold a language equally prejudicial
to its success and equally inconsistent with their con-
nection with the Government. In the instance of Mr.
J. C. Beresford, whose conduct has been very hostile
at many of the Dublin meetings, the difficulty has been
peculiarly felt. With a view of impressing our friends
with the idea of our being in earnest, his dismissal seemed
desirable ; on the other hand, as we profess to encourage
discussion, and neither to precipitate Parliament nor the
country in the decision, much less to force it against
public sentiment, there seemed an objection to a very
early exercise of Ministerial authority on the inferior
servants of the Crown." The letter goes on to state that
Lord Cornwallis thought it expedient to proceed in the
first instance with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
John Parnell (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 35).
PREPARING THE IRISH PARLIAMENT FOR THE UNION. 331
Sir John Parnell was dismissed on January i6th, and
replaced by Isaac Corry, a staunch Unionist. The dis-
missal of the Prime Serjeant, James Fitzgerald, imme-
diately followed, and he was replaced by St. George Daly,
one of the minority who had supported the Union at
the Bar debate. The holder of the office of Prime
Serjeant, unknown in England, in Ireland took precedence
of the Attorney- General and the Solicitor- General,
and the emoluments were very great. St. George Daly
was incompetent to discharge the duties of the office,
never having been in any considerable practice at the
Bar. It was indeed wittily observed that the Union was
the first brief from which he had spoken. A meeting of
the Bar was called to express to Mr. Fitzgerald the thanks
of his profession for his disinterested patriotism. The
Bar also determined that precedence in the Courts should
be continued to Mr. Fitzgerald. To this, however,
Lord Clare, as Lord Chancellor, would not accede.
George Knox, one of the Commissioners of Revenue,
resigned his office ; John Claudius Beresford shortly
afterwards took a similar course. The fate of Sir John
Parnell and of Mr. Fitzgerald was, of course, a clear
intimation of what the other place-holders had to expect
in opposing the Government. Mr. Sheridan, a few days
after these incidents, asked in the British House of Com-
mons on February yth, 1799, " Did the right hon.
gentleman (Mr. Pitt) not know that there were (out of
300 members) 116 placemen in the (Irish) House of
Commons, and that, having made two great examples
by dismissing the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the
Prime Serjeant, the others would be sure to remain
staunch and true out of fear ? "
On the day before the measure of Union was first
332 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
proposed to the Irish Parliament, Lord Cornwallis,
in a letter of the zist January, 1799,10 his life-long friend,
General Ross, thus unbosoms himself and laments his
position and the course of conduct repellent to anyone
with the feelings of a man of honour, to which, as he
conceives, his public duty coerces him. His words, if
they stood alone, would furnish abundant evidence of
the baseness of the methods by which the Irish Parliament
was destroyed : " Here I am embarked in all my troubles
and employed in a business which is ill-suited to my
taste, and for which I am afraid I am not qualified. We
think ourselves tolerably strong as to numbers, but so
little confidence is to be placed in professions, and people
change their opinions here with so little ceremony, that
no man who knows them can feel his mind quite at ease
on that subject. The demands of our friends rise in
proportion to the appearance of strength on the other
side, and you, who know how I detest a job, will be
sensible of the difficulties which I must often have to
keep my temper, but still the object is great, and perhaps
the salvation of the British Empire may depend upon it.
I shall, therefore, as much as possible, overcome my
detestation of the work in which I am engaged, and march
steadily on to my point " (Cornwallis Correspondence,
III., pp. 39-4°)-
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 333
XXV.
DEFEAT OF THE PROPOSAL OF THE UNION
IN THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, 1799.
I HAVE endeavoured to describe the various contrivances
of extraordinary ingenuity and cynical wickedness
adopted to prepare the Irish Parliament and the Irish
people for the proposal of the destruction of the legis-
lative independence of the country. I now desire to
trace the stages in the processes of force, fraud, and
metallic corruption by which the abolition of the Irish
Constitution was effected, from the meeting of the Irish
Parliament on January 22nd, 1799, till August ist,
1800, when the Act of Legislative Union received the
Royal Assent. The speech of Lord Cornwallis at the
opening of the Parliamentary Session which produced
the debate in the House of Commons on the Union,
which lasted for two and twenty hours, did not expressly
mention that absorbing topic. It simply stated "that
the unremitting industry with which our enemies perse-
vere in their avowed design of endeavouring to effect
a separation of this country from Great Britain must have
engaged your particular attention, and His Majesty
commands me to express his anxious hope that this
consideration, joined to the sentiments of mutual affection
334 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and common interest, may dispose the Parliaments in both
kingdoms to provide the most effectual means of main-
taining and improving a connection essential to their
common security, and of consolidating, as far as possible,
into one firm and lasting fabric the strength, power, and
resources of the British Empire." The address to that
speech was moved by Lord Tyrone, the eldest son of the
Marquis of Waterford, who delivered a speech written
by his friends, which he concealed in the crown of his
hat, taking frequent glances at it to refresh his memory.
The address was seconded by Mr. Robert Fitzgerald,
a country gentleman, in a short and feeble speech. He
had been won over to the cause of the Union by Lord
Cornwallis's promise that, if the measure were carried,
a royal dockyard would be built near Cork, which would
double the value of his estates (Barrington, Rise and Fall
of the Irish Nation, pp. 234-235). An amendment to the
address, which was opposed in limine toto by Sir John
Parnell, was moved and seconded by Mr. George
Ponsonby and Sir Lawrence Parsons, which pledged the
House of Commons to enter into a consideration of what
measures might best strengthen the Empire, " maintain-
ing, however, the undoubted birthright of the people of
Ireland to have a resident and independent Legislature
such as it was recognised by the British Legislature in
1782, and was finally settled at the adjustment of all diffi-
culties between the two countries." The arguments for
and against the Union were very brilliantly set forth and
expounded by the various speakers. The Opposition
confidently asserted that the feeling of the country wa»
overwhelmingly against the destruction of the Irish
Parliament, while Mr. Plunket boldly declared that
" within these last six weeks a system of black corruption
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 335
had been carried on within the walls of Dublin Castle
which would disgrace the annals of the worst period of
the history of either country." It was stated in the House
of Commons, without fear of contradiction, that one
gentleman, a Member of that assembly, had received his
commission as colonel the day before the division.
An incident occurred during that debate on which, if
it stood alone, the charge of shameless and avowed
corruption as the basis of the Union could be abundantly
sustained. " One Member," says Mr. Lecky, " near the
close of the debate, after an ambiguous and hesitating
speech, announced his intention of voting for the amend-
ment of the Opposition. Shortly before the division
he arose again to say that he was convinced that he had
been mistaken and would now vote for the Ministers.
Barrington states that it was well known in the House
that in the interval he had received from Lord Castie-
reagh the promise of the peerage he afterwards obtained "
(Lecky 's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 343). The person whose conduct is thus
described was Mr. Frederick Trench, of Woodlawn, the
first Lord Ashtown, whose name, with the date of the
creation of his peerage, December 2yth, 1800, appears in
the list of the peerages conferred for " services " in
connection with the Union, which is preserved in the
Cornwallis correspondence. Sir Jonah Barrington, who
was a member of the House of Commons at the time,
spoke in this debate and took part in the division. He
thus describes the conduct of Mr. Trench, of which he was
an eye-witness : " It was suggested," he writes, " that
Mr. Trench had been long in negotiation with Lord
Castlereagh, but it did not, in the early part of that night,
appear to have been brought to any conclusion ; his con-
336 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ditions were supposed to be too extravagant. Mr. Trench,
after some preliminary observations, declared in a speech
that he would vote against the Ministers. This appeared
a stunning blow to Mr. Cooke, who had been previously in
conversation with Mr. Trench. He was immediately
observed sidling from his seat nearer to Lord Castlereagh.
They whispered earnestly, and, as if restless and un-
decided, they both looked wistfully towards Mr. Trench.
At length the matter seemed to be determined on. Mr.
Cooke retired to a back seat and was obviously endeavour-
ing to count the House, probably to guess if they could
that night dispense with Mr. Trench's services. He
returned to Castlereagh. They whispered again, looked
most affectionately at Mr. Trench, who seemed uncon-
scious that he was the subject of their consideration.
But there was no time to lose — the question was approach-
ing. All shame was banished. They decided on the
terms, and a significant and certain glance, obvious to
everybody, convinced Mr. Trench that his conditions
were agreed to. Mr. Cooke then went and sat down by
his side. An earnest but very short conversation then
took place ; a parting smile completely told the House
that Mr. Trench was that moment satisfied. These
surmises were soon verified. Mr. Cooke went back to
Lord Castlereagh — a congratulatory nod announced
his satisfaction. . . . This change of ideas, and the
majority of one, to which it contributed, were probably
the remote causes of persevering in a Union."
Sir Jonah Barrington refers to the fact that the amend-
ment to the Address was rejected by a majority of one,
being supported by 105 votes and opposed by 106.
If Mr. Trench had voted as he originally intended, there
would have been a majority of one for the amendment.
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 337
If he had abstained from voting, there would have been
an equality of votes, and the amendment would have been
carried by the casting vote of the Speaker. The original
Address was then carried by 107 to 105. When we
remember the composition of the Irish House of Com-
mons, the number of placemen who were Members of
that body, and the number of Members who abstained
from voting, these votes were equivalent to a severe
defeat on a cardinal matter of Government policy. In
the House of Lords the Address to the Throne was carried
by 52 votes to 16, including one proxy.
When the report of the Address came before the House
of Commons on the afternoon of January 23rd, Mr.
Ponsonby moved an amendment to omit the clause
relating to the intended Union, which was carried after
a prolonged and angry debate, in which no fewer than 60
members participated, by 6 votes — in to 105. In the
division the Opposition withdrew, according to practice,
from the Chamber of the House to the Court of Requests,
and were counted as they re-entered the House, in which
the supporters of the Government had remained, and
had been counted, their number being ascertained. As
the anti- Unionists walked deliberately in one by one to be
counted, when their number exceeded the number of
the adherents of the Government, their exultation was
unbounded, and the announcement of the numbers from
the Chair was the occasion of a scene of almost unparalleled
enthusiasm. Mr. Ponsonby wished to push still further
his great triumph by proposing a substantive resolution
pledging the House for ever " to maintain the undoubted
birthright of Irishmen by preserving an independent
Parliament of Lords and Commons resident in this
kingdom as stated, and approved by His Majesty and
I A
338 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the British Parliament in 1782." Just as the Speaker
was about to put the question finally, Mr. Fortescue
said that he was averse to the Union, and had given his
decided vote against it, but he did not wish to bind
himself for ever ; possible circumstances might hereafter
occur which might render that measure expedient for the
Empire, and he did not approve of any determination
which for ever closed the doors against any possibility
of future discussion. Several country gentlemen
expressed agreement with Mr. Fortescue in his view.
Mr. Ponsonby, who saw that these seceders would give
a majority to the Government, and that a division could
not be risked, begged leave, which was given, to withdraw
his motion — a proceeding which was acutely characterised
by a cynical Member as " a retreat after victory." The
Address, without the passage relating to the Union, was
agreed to by the House and presented to the Lord
Lieutenant, and the House adjourned for a week.
The joy in Dublin over the defeat of the Union project
was highly demonstrative. On the Speaker's coming
out of Parliament House, the horses were taken from his
carriage and he was drawn in triumph through the
streets by the people, who conceived the whimsical idea
of tacking the Lord Chancellor to the coach and (as a
captive General in a Roman triumph) forcing him to
tug at the chariot of his conqueror. " Had it been
effected," writes Sir Jonah Barrington, " it would have
been a signal anecdote, and would, at least, have immor-
talized the classic genius of the Irish " (Rise and Fall
of the Irish Nation, page 255). The populace pursued
the Lord Chancellor for this extraordinary purpose, who
escaped with great difficulty. Orders were given for
a general illumination ; even the General Post Office,
UXTOX PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 339
though a Government establishment, was illuminated.
The windows of those who refused to illuminate were
broken, and among them those of the Lord Chancellor.
His servants fired on the mob, and he expressed his hope
to Lord Auckland that they had wounded some of them.
Prominent Members who had voted for the Government
were molested in the street. " A view of these enemies,"
writes Sir Jonah Barrington, " as they came skulking front
behind the corridors, aroused the mob to no very tranquil
temperature.' Some members had to try their speed,
and others their intrepidity " (Rise and Fall of the Irish
Nation p. 256). Men shook their neighbours heartily
by the hand, as if the Ministers' defeat were an event
of individual good fortune. The character of the
composition of the division was very remarkable. Lord
Castlereagh acknowledged that " what seemed to operate
most unfavourably was the warmth of the country gentle-
men, who spoke in great numbers and with much effect
against the question." " The Opposition," he said,
" exclusive of the Speaker, Sir J. Parnell, and the Pon-
sonbys, is composed of country gentlemen. No fewer
than thirty-four county Members voted against the
Government, while only seventeen supported them "
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 348). Of the eighty-four absent Members from
the division, Sir Jonah Barrington tells us that twenty-
four were kept away by absolute necessity, and of the
residue, there can be no doubt they were not friends to
the Union, for this plain reason, that the Government
had the power of enforcing the attendance of absent
members and the Opposition had no power ; they had
none but voluntary supporters, of whom Lord Castle-
reagh was enabled to seduce 43 during the prorogation,
34° IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and by that acquisition outvoted the anti- Unionists on
the 5th February, 1800 (Rise and Fall of the Irish
Nation, pp. 252-253).
Mr. Sheridan, in the British House of Commons, thus
disposed of Mr. Pitt's assertion that an equal proportion
of the Irish House of Commons was favourable to the
Union : " If he (Mr. Pitt) would but look of what the
division against the Union in the Irish House of Commons
was composed, he would discover that it contained almost
all the country gentlemen, while, if he examined who
composed that on the other side of the question, they
would almost all be found to be under the influence of
the Crown ; if, besides this, the dismissals which had
taken place, in spite of the fair character of those who
were removed — thus unjustly removed from office — it
was a shame to speak of anything like an equality between
those who opposed and those who supported the Union
(Parliamentary Debates, VII., p. 668). The vexation of the
promoters of the Union in Ireland at the defeat of the
proposal in the House of Commons was very great.
Clare spoke of Ponsonby as "a malignant knave," " but,"
he said, " allowing for the villainy and treachery which
might have been expected, I always understood there was
a certain majority of thirty in support of the Govern-
ment." "Will it not be fair for me," writes Cooke, "to
ask that I may be allowed to change my situation into
England ? I am disgusted here " (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 349).
" I have now only," writes Lord Cornwallis to the Duke
of Portland, " to express my sincere regret to your Grace
that the prejudices prevailing among the Members of the
House of Commons, countenanced and encouraged as
they have been by the Speaker and Sir John Parnell,
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 341
are infinitely too strong to afford me any prospect of
bringing this measure with any chance of success into
discussion in the course of the present Session " (Corn-
tvallis Correspondence, III., p. 45). Mr. Pitt likewise was
much disappointed, and desirous, if the penalties of
dismissal could be inflicted without ultimate injury to the
cause of the Union, to dismiss the placemen who voted
against the Union proposal in the Irish House of Commons,
and more especially to make the Speaker feel the sense
of his displeasure. His words in a private letter to
Lord Cornwallis on the 26th January, 1799, written
immediately on hearing of the division in the Irish House
of Commons on January 23rd, are in glaring contrast
with his assertion in the English House of Commons on
January 3ist, that it was " within the full right and com-
petence of the Irish Parliament to accept or reject a
Union." Mr. Pitt thus takes Lord Cornwallis into his
confidence in his choice of making the persons who
opposed his Irish policy victims. " It seems very
desirable," he writes, " if Government is strong enough
to do it without too much immediate hazard, to mark
by dismissal the sense entertained of the conduct of
those persons in office who opposed. In particular it
strikes me as essential not to make an exception to this
line in the instance of the Speaker's son. No Government
can stand on a safe and respectable ground which does
not show that it feels itself independent of him. With
respect to persons of less note, or those who have been
only neutral, more lenity may, perhaps, be advisable.
On the precise extent of the line, however, your Lord-
ship can alone judge on the spot, but I thought you would
like to know from me directly the best view I can form
of the subject " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 57).
342 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
The measure having been ostensibly submitted to the
Irish House of Commons for discussion, it seemed incon-
sistent to dismiss those who had given a candid opinion
against it. In process of time, as we shall see, the moment
came for Lord Castlereagh to announce unequivocally
that the Irish Ministry were engaged in a contest in which
they had " the whole weight of the British Government
at their back."
Lord Cornwallis, it is quite evident, acknowledged the
defeat of the Government in the Irish House of Commons
on a subject of primary importance. In accordance with
the practice of the Constitution, as we understand it,
the duty of a Ministry under these circumstances would be
either to resign or to appeal by a dissolution from the
decision of Parliament to the decision of the country.
The Irish Administration, however, looking for support,
not to Ireland, but to England, recognised no such
principle of action. They knew an easier plan, which
was to proceed with redoubled energy to corrupt and
degrade the Parliament of Ireland with a view to its
eventual extinction. This episode affords a very striking
illustration of the cardinal defect in the Irish Constitution
to which I have so frequently directed attention in these
pages. Ireland never had an Irish Cabinet responsible
to the Irish Parliament, and through that Parliament
to the Irish people. With such a Cabinet the Irish
Parliament, unreformed though it was, and with a Roman
Catholic population unemancipated, would still have
preserved the liberties of its country. If Ireland, not-
withstanding all those disadvantages, had possessed the
blessings of a responsible Government, the Union could
never have been carried.
Mr. Pitt, who at first was resolved that the Union, if
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 343
carried, should be associated with a measure of Catholic
Emancipation, was inclined, as we have seen, by the
representations of Lord Chancellor Clare, to promote a
measure of Union unaccompanied with Catholic Emanci-
pation. Mr. Pitt, whose proposal of a Union was defeated
in the Irish House of Commons, had at first, by a private
dispatch to Lord Cornwallis, desired that the measure
should not be pressed unless he could be certain of a
majority of fifty. " The Lord Chancellor," writes Sir
Jonah Barrington, " on learning the import of that
dispatch, expostulated in the strongest terms at so pusil-
lanimous a decision. His Lordship never knew the
meaning of the word ' moderation ' in any public pursuit,
and he cared not whether the Union was carried by a
majority of one or one hundred. The original dispatch
I saw and read ; it was brought from Mr. Cooke's office
secretly, and shown to me for a particular purpose, and
completely deceived me, but I could not obtain posses-
sion of it. I afterwards discovered that it had not been
replaced in the office. It was subscribed by Mr. Pitt
himself, and the name of Mr. Banks occurred more than
once in it ; it did not compliment him. I have reason
to believe that that dispatch, with some important papers,
was afterwards accidentally dropped in College Green, and
found by Dr. Kearney, then Provost of Dublin Univer-
sity (subsequently Bishop of Ossory, an anti-Unionist).
He told me he had found such papers, and promised to
show them to me at a future day, when the question was
decided, but never did " (Rise and Fall of the Irish
Nation, pp. 263-264). Lord Clare's furious condem-
nation of the Lord Lieutenant on having contributed
by his conduct in releasing dangerous rebels and repres-
sing Orange zeal to the defeat of the Union, may have
344 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
been inspired by a desire of protecting himself from
censure in pressing forward the question of the Union,
with a result so disastrous. Mr. Pitt divested himself
of his former scruples against the carrying of a Union
through the Irish Parliament otherwise than by a
decisive majority. His Cabinet had determined that the
measure would not be abandoned whatever the result
of the vote of the Irish House of Commons might be. It
was the unanimous opinion of Ministers. Portland
wrote that nothing that had happened should make
any change in their intentions or plans. " I am autho-
rised to assure you," he wrote, " that whatever may be
the fate of the Address, our determination will remain
unaltered and our exertions unabated, and that, though
discretion and good policy may require that the measure
should be suspended by you during this Session, I am to
desire that you will take care that it shall be understood
that it neither is nor ever will be abandoned, and that the
support of it will be considered as a necessary and indis-
pensable test on the part of the Irish to their connection
with this country" (C ostler eagh Correspondence, II., p.
137).
On January 22nd, the same day on which the Session
of the Irish Parliament was opened, a King's message had
been sent down to the British Parliament in similar terms
to the Viceregal speech, recommending a complete and
final adjustment of the relations between Great Britain
and Ireland. Sheridan moved an amendment, but found
no supporters, and, after speeches by Canning and Pitt,
the amendment was negatived without a division. On
January 3ist, after the news had arrived of the refusal
of the Irish House of Commons to entertain a proposal
in relation to a Union, Pitt rose in the British House of
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 345
Commons to move resolutions for a Union, despite the
attitude of the Irish House of Commons thereto. In
1797 it will be remembered that Pitt deprecated the
proposal of Mr. Fox to consider the state of Ireland on
the ground that the Irish Parliament was an independent
legislature, and that, accordingly, the affairs of that
country should not be discussed in the British Parliament,
as such discussion would be an unwarrantable interference
with matters within the purview and jurisdiction of the
Irish Parliament, and an attack on its independence.
Mr. Pitt, however, had now no scruples in urging on the
acceptance of the British Parliament a series of resolu-
tions for the destruction of an Irish Parliament by the
method of a Legislative Union between Great Britain
and Ireland. This speech, of which it is said no fewer
than 10,000 copies were circulated at the public expense,
is a comprehensive statement of the case for the Union,
and is of interest at the present time as replete with
ludicrous miscalculations as to the effect which a measure
of Union would produce on the conditions both of Great
Britain and Ireland. The sincerity of some of Mr.
Pitt's assertions may perhaps be gauged by his assertion
that the scheme which he was proposing, with the full
knowledge of its rejection by the Irish House of Commons,
could only come into operation by its ultimate adoption
by the Irish Parliament, and that he was confident that
all that was necessary to secure that ultimate adoption
was " that it should be stated distinctly, temperately,
and fully, and that it should be left to the dispassionate
and sober judgment of the Parliament of Ireland " — the
Parliament of Ireland whose members at that very moment
he was conspiring with the Irish Government to terrorise,
to coerce, to penalise for their votes, and to bribe by
346 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
honours and by coarse metallic corruption. The reso-
lutions proposed by Pitt were for nearly three weeks
under discussion in the British House of Commons,
where they were subjected to the strictures of Sheridan,
supported by a very few friends, notably Dr. Laurence,
the intimate friend of Edmund Burke, and the repository
of his most confidential political ideas, and by Mr. Grey,
afterwards as Earl Grey, the Prime Minister of the
Reform epoch. The minority in this hopeless fight,
which was sustained with supreme political ability and
courage, was never above twenty-four. In the British
House of Commons the resolutions in their final form
were carried by 149 votes to 24, and in the British House
of Lords without a division. The proceedings in this
connection in the British Parliament are chiefly of
interest as conclusive evidence of the fixed determina-
tion that the destruction of the Irish Parliament should
be accomplished with utter disregard to the wishes of
the Irish people. In a letter written by Lord Cornwallis
to the Duke of Portland, to be laid before the Cabinet two
days after the defeat of the Union proposal in the Irish
House of Commons, which Mr. Pitt must have seen and
considered before his speech, the Lord Lieutenant says :
" The late experiment has shown the impossibility of
carrying a measure which is contrary to the private
interests of those who are to decide upon it, and which
is not supported by the voice of the country at large "
(Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 52). Mr. Pitt, with
this knowledge of the feeling of Ireland on the subject
of a Union, described it in the House of Commons as a
Union " by free consent and on just and equal terms."
The Irish Parliament was prorogued on June ist, 1799.
The proceedings of that assembly, subsequent to the
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 347
rejection of the Union proposal, were marked by its
wonted subserviency to the Government. The disturbed
state of the country was made the occasion of the passing of
Indemnity Acts, and of a Coercion Act of extraordinary
severity, placing Ireland, at the will of the Lord Lieu-
tenant, formally and legally under military law — an Act
which seems to have been part and parcel of the system
of terrorism established in Ireland for the purpose of
passing the Union. Past transgressions of the law which
had taken place since October 6th, 1798, for the purpose
of suppressing the rebellion, preserving the public peace,
and for the safety of the State, were condoned by the
very comprehensive Indemnity Act which received the
Royal Assent on March 25th, 1799 (39 Geo. III., c. 3),
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 320). The Coercion Act, 1799 (39 Geo. III.,
c. 1 1 ), investing the Lord Lieutenant with the powers
of a despotic ruler, if not actually passed for the purpose
of prolonging a reign of terror with the object of passing
the Union, was administered for that purpose and in that
spirit. Lord Cornwallis, writing on December 26th,
1798, says : "I am strongly pressed to use the
same coercive measures which so totally failed last year,
but I cannot be brought to think that flogging and
free quarters will ever prove good opiates " (Cornwallis
Correspondence, III., p. 24). He was, however, prevailed
on to support the legislation embodied in the Coercion
Act of 1799. " The preamble of this Statute noticed that
Lord Camden, on March 3Oth, 1798, had, with the advice
of the Privy Council, directed the military commanders
in Ireland to employ all their forces to suppress
rebellion ; that the order of May 24th, commanding them
to punish by death or otherwise according to martial
348 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
law all persons assisting in the rebellion, had received
the approbation of both Houses of Parliament ; that
although this measure had proved so far efficacious as to
permit the course of common law partially to take place ,
very considerable parts of the kingdom were still deso-
lated by a rebellion which took the form of acts of savage
violence and outrage, and rendered the ordinary course
of justice impossible, and that many persons who had been
guilty of the worst acts during the rebellion, and had been
taken by His Majesty's forces, had availed themselves
of the partial restoration of the ordinary course of the
common law to evade the punishment of their crimes.
The Bill accordingly empowered the Lord Lieutenant, as
long as the rebellion continued, and notwithstanding the
opening of the ordinary Courts of Justice, to authorise
the punishment, by death or otherwise, according to
martial law, of all persons assisting in the rebellion or
maliciously attacking the persons or properties of the
King's loyal subjects in furtherance of it ; the detention of
all persons suspected of such crimes and their summary
trial by court martial. No act done in pursuance of
such an order could be questioned, impeded, or punished
by the courts of common law, and no person duly
detained under the powers created by this Act could be
released by a writ of Habeas Corpus " (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 370-371).
The method in which the Coercion Act was admin-
istered can be told in the words of Lord Cornwallis
himself, who was accused of lenity, and to whose lenity
in dealing with rebels the blame of the defeat of the
Union measure was imputed. " You write," he says to
his bosom friend, General Ross, on April i5th, 1799, " as
if you really be^eved there was any foundation for all
UNION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 349
the lies and nonsensical clamour about my lenity. On
my arrival in this country I put a stop to the burning of
houses and murder of the inhabitants by yeomen or any
other persons who delighted in that amusement, to the
flogging for the purpose of extorting confessions, and to
the free quarters which comprehended universal rape and
robbery throughout the whole country " (Cornwallis
Correspondence , 1 1 1 . , p . 89) . We are given some glimpses
by the Lord Lieutenant himself of the operation of the
Coercion Act. In a letter written to Lord Castlereagh,
dated September 26th, 1799, he thus speaks of the state
of the country : " The same wretched business of
courts martial, hanging, transporting, etc., attended by
all the dismal scenes of wives, sisters, fathers, kneeling
and crying, is going on as usual, and holds out a pleasant
prospect for a man of my feelings " (Castlereagh Corre-
spondence, II., p. 406). On November i6th, 1799, Lord
Cornwallis writes to General Ross : " The greatest
difficulty which I experience is to control the violence of
our loyal friends, who would, if I did not keep the strictest
hand upon them, convert the system of martial law (which,
God knows, is of itself bad enough) into a more violent
and intolerable tyranny than that of Robespierre. The
vilest informers are hunted out from the prisons to
attack by the most bare-faced perjury the lives of all who
are suspected of being or of having been disaffected,
and, indeed, every Roman Catholic of influence is in
great danger. You will have seen by the Addresses
(relative to the Union) both in the North and South, that
my attempts to moderate that violence and cruelty which
have once driven, and which, if tolerated, must again
soon drive, this wretched country into rebellion, is not
reprobated by the voice of the country, although it has
35° IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
appeared culpable in the eyes of the absentees" (Corn-
walUs Correspondence, III., p. 145).
It is interesting to note that Lord Cornwallis, whose
character can be most favourably contrasted M'ith other
promoters of the Union, both in England and Ireland,
refuses the shocking invitation of the British Cabinet, made
through the Duke of Portland, to place 5,000 Russian troops
at his disposal. " If," he replies on October i4th, 1799,
" the Russians were to be sent over to us, their soldiers
would be told they were going to a country which was
in a state of rebellion, and if any parties of them should be
called upon to support some of our loyal, but, in my
opinion, indiscreet, magistrates, who see no remedy for
our evils but that of scouring the country and hunting
down rebels (forgetful that they are creating more than
they can possibly destroy), these troops, unacquainted
with our language and with the nature of our Govern-
ment, would give a loose to their natural ferocity, and a
scene of indiscriminate plunder and murder must ensue."
He also stated that the presence of these troops would
countenance the suggestion " that the Union was to be
forced on the kingdom by the terror and the bayonets
of barbarians " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., pp.
137-138). " It was maintained," writes Mr. Lecky,
" with much reason, that a time when martial law was in
force was not one for passing through a vast constitu-
tional change unasked for by the country, and violently
opposed by a great section of the people " (Lecky 's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII.,
P- 372)-
On March 7th a series of resolutions brought in by Mr.
Dobbs in favour of Parliamentary Reform, Catholic
Emancipation, the commutation of tithes and other
UNION* PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 35!
popular questions, was met by the previous question,
and as Mr. Dobbs appears to have acted without any
concert, the previous question was carried by 68 to i.
Lord Corry moved that the House should at once resolve
itself into a Committee on the state of the nation, the
mover announcing his intention to move an address
to the King representing a separate independent Parlia-
ment to be essential to the interest of Ireland. The
motion, which was opposed by Lord Castlereagh on the
ground that there was no present intention to press the
Union, was defeated by 123 votes to 103. A Regency
Bill, moved by Mr. James Fitzgerald, the dismissed
Prime Serjeant, enacting that the person who was ipso
facto Regent of England should be always with the same
powers de jure Regent of Ireland, passed successfully
through its earlier stages and through the Committee,
but in the report Castlereagh moved its rejection, and it
was ultimately postponed till the Session had closed.
This Bill, which the Government disliked as destroying
part of their case for the Union, when in Committee,
gave Mr. Foster, the Speaker, the opportunity of deliver-
ing, on April 1 2th, 1799, a speech against the Union in
reply to the speech of Mr. Pitt in the English House of
Commons on the 3ist January, which took more than
four hours in its delivery, and was afterwards published
in a pamphlet of no less than 113 closely printed pages.
It is regarded as the very ablest exposition of the case
in all its features against the Union.
The passing of yet another Indemnity Act (39 Geo.
III., c. 50), chiefly for the protection of Thomas Judkin
Fitzgerald, who, as High Sheriff of Tipperary, had with
his own hands flogged the peasantry to extort confession,
is a curious object lesson of the ferocious temper of the
352 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
times, and the morbid nervousness of the members of the
Irish Parliament, who desired to condone any enormity,
however outrageous, if perpetrated to suppress rebellion.
A man named Wright, of Clonmel, was suspected of
connection with the United Irishmen. On searching
him a letter in the French language, of which he was a
teacher, was found in his pocket. Fitzgerald ordered
him to be flogged and then shot. Next day Wright was
dragged to a ladder in one of the streets to undergo his
sentence. He knelt down to pray, with his hat before
his face. Fitzgerald snatched the hat from him, trampled
it on the ground, struck Wright on the forehead with his
sword, kicked him, and dragged him by the hair. He
was then stripped naked, tied to the ladder, and fifty
lashes were administered. An officer came up and asked
Fitzgerald the reason of the punishment. Fitzgerald,
who did not know French, handed the officer the note,
who read it and found it to be perfectly harmless. He
explained this to Fitzgerald, who ordered the flogging
to proceed . One hundred more lashes were administered ,
leaving the man a mass of bleeding wounds. Wright
was flung into prison, where he remained some six or
seven days without medical assistance, in a cell with no
other furniture than a straw pallet without covering
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
pp. 25-28). Wright, notwithstanding the Indemnity
Act, carried his case in March, 1799, into the Law
Courts, contending that the indemnity only applied
to cases in which the magistrates had acted on clear or
at least serious evidence of treason, had taken all possible
means of ascertaining the truth of the persons they
punished, and had exercised their power with common
humanity. This view was fully supported by the two
IN ION PROPOSAL DEFEATED. 353
Judges, Lord Yelverton and Mr. Justice Chamberlain.
Wright was awarded £500 damages ; the Judges fully
concurred in the verdict, expressed their belief in the
perfect innocence of Wright, and added that if much larger
damages had been given they would not have been
excessive. It was under these circumstances that the new
and fuller Indemnity Act was so drawn as to make such
prosecutions as that of Fitzgerald impossible. It pro-
vided that in all cases in which sheriffs or other officers
or persons were brought to trial for acts done, in sup-
pressing the rebellion, a verdict for the plaintiff should
be null and void unless the jury distinctly found that it
had been done maliciously and not with an intent of
suppressing rebellion, preserving public peace, or pro-
moting the safety of the State, and that even where
juries did find that the act was malicious, the judge or
judges who tried the case should have the power of
setting such verdicts aside (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 30).
Lord Cornwallis, in May, 1799, showed his ruthless
determination that, so far as his power could prevail, no
one opposed to the Union should be allowed to sit in the
Irish House of Commons. Writing on May i6th, 1799,
he gives the following account of an extraordinary viola-
tion of constitutional practice ; " Lieutenant-Colonel
Cole recently applied to Lord Castlereagh that he might
be appointed Escheator of Munster in order to vacate
his seat upon his going abroad. It appeared in conver-
sation that he had intended to have his place supplied
by Mr. Balfour, who moved the resolutions against the
Union at a County Louth meeting, and suggested a
recurrence to first principles if that measure should be
carried. Mr. Tighe had before applied for the same office
IB
354 1RISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
for one of his members, with a view to sell the seat on
condition that the purchaser would not support a Union.
These requests appeared to me of such a nature as to
render it necessary to withhold my acquiescence from
him" (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 97). The
incident created intense irritation in the House of
Commons. An address to the Crown was moved by John
Claudius Beresford, requesting the grant of a pension
to Colonel Cole, which, by disqualifying him from sitting
in the House, would vacate his seat. The Government
succeeded in defeating it by a motion for the adjournment,
but their majority was only fifteen, and the Duke of
Portland intimated that for the future it would be better
to follow the rule adopted in England (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., pp. 390-391).
The Lord Lieutenant, in his speech in proroguing the
Irish Parliament on June ist, did not refer to the rejec-
tion of the proposal of a Union in the Irish House of
Commons, but stated that he had received the particular
commands of the King to acquaint them with the addresses
and resolutions of the two Houses in England in favour
of a Union. He added that the King would receive the
greatest satisfaction in witnessing the accomplishment
of the Union, and that for his own part, if he were able
to contribute in the smallest degree to the success of
this great measure, he would consider the labours and
anxieties of a life devoted to the public service amply
repaid (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., pp. 392-393).
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 355
CHAPTER XXVI.
MAKING A PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY FOR
THE UNION.
PAXUAMENT was prorogued on June ist, and the new
Session did not begin till January I5th, 1800. It will
have been observed by the reader of these pages that
the periods in which the Irish Parliament was not actually
in Session were on several occasions utilised by the
Government in procuring by corruption a Parliamentary
majority. To give a single illustration : Immediately
after the Session of 1768, in which the Octennial Act
had been passed, four Peers were raised a step in the
Peerage, four new Peers, three Baronets, and four Privy
Councillors were made as an earnest of the favours
which were to be expected in supporting the Government
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
IV., p. 385).
When the Parliament, which met in October, 1769,
was prorogued in December, 1769, as a protest by the
Viceroy against the rejection by the House of Commons
of a Money Bill, because it did not take its rise in the House
of Commons, the interval between the prorogation, on
December 27th, 1769, and the opening of the next Session,
on February 26th, 1771, was spent in open and avowed
corruption with the object of making Parliament amenable
to the Executive Government. The deprivation of per-
sons, who had opposed Government, of their offices,
the bestowal of peerages and steps in the peerage, the
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
creation of places and pensions, and dispensation of
patronage, were all exerted to the utmost to the conver-
sion of a Government minority into a Government
majority, by which an address was carried, thanking the
King for continuing Lord Townshend, the Lord Lieu-
tenant, to whom Parliament had been previously recal-
citrant, in office. Lord Clare, when Attorney-General,
speaking in the House of Commons in the Regency
discussions, thus alluded to this episode on the 25th
February, 1789 : " I recollect," he said, " Lord Town-
shend proroguing the Parliament, and I recollect when
next they met they voted him an address of thanks,
which address cost this nation half a million of money.
I hope to God I shall never again see such effects from
party ; I hope to God I shall never again see half a million
of the people's money employed to procure an address
from their representatives."
In Lord Harcourt's Viceroyalty, in addition to the
grant of pensions, eighteen Irish Peers were created in
a single day, and seven Barons and Viscounts were at the
same time raised a step in the Peerage. The terms of
the bargain were well known to be an engagement to
support the Government by their votes in the House of
Lords, and by their substitutes and influence in the
House of Commons (Lecky's History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 441).
In opposition to the Volunteer agitation in 1780,
Parliamentary influence was carefully collected and
fostered by the old plan of lavishing promises of peerages,
baronetcies, and pensions, and in February, 1780, Lord
Buckingham, the Lord Lieutenant, wrote that he had
secured his majority (Lecky's History of England in
the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 505).
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UXIOX. 357
The Regency crisis in 1789 was marked by wholesale
corruption, Seven Peers were created, nine others were
promoted, several Baronets were made, and £13,000 a
year more was expended in pensions. In a speech in
February, 1790, Grattan stated in Parliament that in
the course of less than thirteen months fourteen new
Parliamentary places and eight or nine Parliamentary
pensions had been created.
I have referred with reiteration to these circumstances,
with which I have previously dealt incidentally, with
the object of laying stress on the fact to which Mr. Glad-
stone has called attention : that the corruption which
characterised the Union was not an exceptional and
deplorable incident in Irish Parliamentary history, but
was merely the continuation, although in an aggravated
form, of the methods of corruption to which the English
Government uniformly resorted in dealing with the Irish
Parliament.
" It seems to me," writes Mr. Lecky, " idle to dispute
the essentially corrupt character of the means by which
the Union was carried " (History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 395). Again : " There are
indeed few things more discreditable in English political
literature than the tone of palliation and even of eulogy
that is usually adopted towards the authors of this trans-
action. Scarcely any element of political immorality
was wanting, and the term ' honour,' if it be applied to
such men as Castlereagh cr Pitt, ceases to have any real
meaning in politics. Whatever may be thought of the
abstract merits of the arrangement, the Union, as it was
carried, was a crime of the deepest turpitude ; a crime
which, by imposing with every circumstance of infamy
a new form of Government on a reluctant and protesting
358 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
nation, has vitiated the whole course of Irish opinion "
(Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 182).
Mr. Fox, in 1806, characterised the Union as " atrocious
in its principle and abominable in its means. It was," he
said, " a measure the most disgraceful to the Government
of the country that was ever carried or proposed "
(Morning Chronicle, February 4th, 1806).
Earl Grey, speaking in the House of Lords on Novem-
ber 2nd, 1830, a generation after the passing of the
Union, proclaimed his conviction that there were never
worse means resorted to for carrying any measure
than those by which the Union was accomplished. Lord
Cornwallis, the Lord Lieutenant, writing in the midst of
the Union negotiations, says : " How I long to kick those
whom my public duty obliges me to couit." Again :
" I despise and hate myself for engaging in such dirty
work " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., pp. 100-102).
When there was some opposition on the part of the
Cabinet to the conferring of some of the peerages which
had been promised as rewards for Union services, Lord
Castlereagh, in a secret letter of June 2ist, 1800, gives
his opinion of the methods by which the Union, of which
he himself was one of the principal machinators, was
carried : "It appears that the Cabinet, after having
carried the measure by the force of influence, of which
they were apprised in every dispatch sent from hence
(Dublin) for the last eighteen months, wish to forget all
this ; they turn short round and say it would be a pity
to tarnish all that has been so well done by giving any
such shock to the public sentiment. If they imagine they
can take up popular grounds by disappointing their
supporters and by disgracing the Irish Government, I
think they will find themselves mistaken ; it will be no
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 359
secret what has been promised or by what means the
Union has been secured. Disappointment will encourage,
not prevent, disclosure, and the only effect of such a
proceeding on their part will be to add the weight of their
testimony to that of the anti- Unionists in proclaiming
the profligacy of the means by which this measure was
accomplished " (Castlereagh Correspondence, III., pp.
The details of these negotiations have been for the most
part destroyed. The authors of the measure have pur-
posely destroyed the evidence which would have revealed
in clear light the full depth of its iniquity. Mr. Ross,
the editor of the Cornwallis Correspondence, while acknow-
ledging his obligations to the persons who had placed
materials for the work at his disposal, makes the following
observations : " Many other collections have been as
cordially submitted to my inspection, but it appeared
upon investigation that such documents as might have
thrown additional light on the history of those times,
and especially of the Union, have been purposely
destroyed. For instance, after a search instituted at
Welbeck by the kindness of the Duke of Portland, it was
ascertained that the late Duke had burnt all his father's
political papers from 1780 to his death. In like manner
the Chancellor, Lord Clare, Mr. Wickham, Mr. King,
Sir Herbert Taylor, Sir Edward Littlehales, Mr. Marsden,
the Knight of Kerry, and, indeed, almost all the persons
officially concerned in carrying the Union, appear to have
destroyed the whole of their papers. Mr. Marsden, by
whom many of the arrangements were concluded, left
a MS. book containing invaluable details, which was
burnt only a few years ago by its then possessor. The
destruction of so many valuable documents respecting
360 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
important transactions cannot but be regarded as a serious
loss to the political history of those times " (Cornwallis
Correspondence, L, Preface, p. vi.). We discover, too,
from a note by Mr. Ross, accounting for the non-appear-
ance of a document, that " it must have been destroyed
with the great mass of Lord Cornwallis' papers relating
to the Union, as it cannot be found " (Cornwallis
Correspondence, III., p. 197).
Marsden, who was at the time of the Union Assistant
Secretary in the Law Department of Dublin Castle, and
who succeeded Cooke as Under Secretary, was, with
Cooke, chiefly entrusted with these negotiations. The
fear and hatred felt towards Marsden by the persons
of whose baseness and perfidy he was cognisant have been
graphically described in a letter written by Wickham to
the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, in 1803, when an
attack in Parliament on Marsden was in contemplation.
" In writing," says Wickham, " to Mr. Yorke on the
subject of the personal attack that it is intended to be
made on Marsden, your Excellency will perhaps do well
to call his attention to these points : (i) Marsden was
the person who conducted the secret part of the Union.
Ergo, the price of each Unionist, as well as the respective
conduct and character of each, is well known to him.
Those who figure away and vapour in so great a style
in London are well known to him. They live in hourly
dread of being unmasked, and they all consider him as the
person who opposes their interested views and jobs by
his representation of the whole truth. (2) Marsden, as
a lawyer, is supposed to be the person who gives the
Government the opinion which is acted on as to legal
promotions. He is, therefore, supposed to be the man
who has stood in the way of our filling the Bench and
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 361
the confidential law situations under the Crown with
improper persons by giving a fair and right interpretation
to the Union engagements. (3) Many of the persons
who make a great figure at the levee and on the benches
of either House in London really dare not look Marsden
in the face. I have often witnessed this, and have been
diverted by it. With your Excellency and with me they
have an air of uncomfortable greatness, but with him they
quite shrink away." (Irish State Paper Office quoted
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 407.)
Before the rejection of the proposal for a Union by the
Irish Parliament in January, 1799, Lord Cornwallis very
clearly perceived that the Irish Parliament could not be
destroyed without the lavish bribery of the borough
owners and of the men who had used the Irish Parliament,
by the sale of their votes to the Government, for selfish
personal purposes. Two letters written by the Lord
Lieutenant to the Duke of Portland before the meeting
of the Irish Parliament in 1799 demonstrate the conclu-
sion at which he had arrived. On January 5th, 1799, he
writes to the Duke of Portland : " There are two classes
of men in Parliament whom the disasters and sufferings
of the country have but very imperfectly awakened to
the necessity of a change, viz., the borough proprietors
and the immediate agents of the Government " (Corn-
wallis Correspondence, III., p. 31).
Again, on January nth, 1799, he writes: "There
certainly is a very strong disinclination to the measure in
many of the borough proprietors, and a not less marked
repugnance in many of the official people, particularly
in those who have been longest in the habits of the current
system " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 34.) The
362 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
main power in Parliament rested with the great borough
owners. It was accordingly determined to reconcile
them to the scheme by honours and by compensation
for the disfranchisement of the boroughs of which they
were the owners, while places, pensions, titles, were to
be lavishly disposed on the men who had a vested interest
in what Grattan aptly designated as " the trade of Par-
liament." Twenty-nine Irish peerages were created,
of which seven only were unconnected with the Union ;
20 Irish peers were promoted, and six English peerages
granted for Union services (Cornwallis Correspondence,
III., p. 318). The position, moreover, of representative
peer was to be enjoyed by twenty-eight members of the
Irish peerage, and was to place them for life in the
Imperial House of Lords, and the first representative
peers were virtually nominated by the Lord Lieutenant,
and they consisted exclusively of the supporters of the
Union (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., pp. 286-287).
" The Irish borough owners," writes Mr. Lecky,
" should be judged by no high standard, and it may be
admitted to their faint credit that in some few instances
their peerages did not determine their votes and their
influence. In the majority of cases, however, these
peerages were simply palpable open bribes intended for
no other purpose than to secure a majority in the House of
Commons " (History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., p. 399).
Honours, however, would not in themselves compensate
for the loss of interests so valuable to their owners as
nomination boroughs. Two days after the defeat of the
Union proposal in January, 1799, Lord Cornwallis, in a
" secret and confidential " letter to the Duke of Portland,
says : " The late experiment has shown the impossi-
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 363
bility of carrying a measure which is contrary to the private
interests of those who are to decide upon it, and which
is not supported by the voice of the country at large "
(Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 323).
" I have no difficulty," writes the Duke of Portland,
in another " secret and confidential " letter dated March
8th, 1799, " in authorising your Excellency to hold out
the idea of compensation to all persons possessed of that
species of property (nomination boroughs), and I do not
scruple to advise that the compensation should be made
on a liberal principle. ' ' The purchase of boroughs was no
new scheme, having been proposed by Mr. Pitt himself as
the basis of his measure for Parliamentary reform in 1785.
At the time of the Union the sale of seats in the House of
Commons, both in Great Britain and Ireland, was open
and notorious. In 1809 an Act was passed which imposed
penalties for corrupt agreements for the return of Members,
whether for money, office, or other consideration. Not-
withstanding, the traffic in seats seems to have continued,
but necessarily secretly. From the time of the Act of
1809 public opinion went with its policy, and in 1832 so
completely coincided with it that the Reform Bill was
carried without compensation to the owners of disfran-
chised boroughs. (See Ball's Irish Legislative Systems,
p. 243.) The Government accordingly determined that
the purchase of boroughs should form portion of the
Union Scheme. The patrons of the boroughs received
£7,500 for each seat, and eighty-four boroughs were
disfranchised. The total compensation amounted to
£1,260,000. The same Statute — for whose purposes
£1,400,000 was granted — provided also that full com-
pensation should be granted to all persons whose offices
were abolished or diminished in value by the Union
364 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
(40 Geo. III., c. 34), while rather more than £30,000 a
year was granted in annuities to officers and attendants
in the two Houses by a separate Statute. The sum paid
for the purchase of the nomination boroughs was added
to the Irish National Debt, and thus made a perpetual
charge upon the country. Several of the close boroughs
were allowed to send one Member to the Imperial
Parliament, and, one Member in the British House of
Commons being considered equal to two in the Irish
House of Commons, no compensation was given. Of
the thirty-four boroughs returned, nine only were open.
Till the Reform Act, the great majority of the Irish
boroughs which were retained after the Union were under
the patronage of noblemen and landowners, and places
of more consideration than the small nomination boroughs
were reduced by restricted rights of election to a similar
dependence.
I have called attention to the fact that the Parliament
which carried the Union was elected in 1797, when the
subject of the Union had not been broached as a matter of
Government policy. We have, moreover, seen that
proposals to dissolve Parliament and take the sense of
the constituencies on the subject of the Union were resisted
by the Government with the utmost determination. At
the same time the Government desired to change the
composition of the House of Commons which in 1799 had
so decisively rejected the measure. " A Place Bill,"
writes Mr. Lecky, " intended to guard the purity of Par-
liament against the corruption of Ministers, by compelling
all who accepted offices to vacate their seats, had been
recently passed, and the Ministers ingeniously availed
themselves of this to consummate the triumph of corrup-
tion. According to the code of honour which then pre-
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 365
vailed, both in England and Ireland, the Members of
nomination boroughs who were unwilling to vote as
their patrons directed, considered themselves bound to
accept nominal offices and thus vacate their seats, which
were at once filled by staunch Unionists, in some instances
by Englishmen and Scotchmen, wholly unconnected
with Ireland " (Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,
p. 180).
As early as the i6th May, 1799, we find Lord Corn-
wallis refusing these nominal appointments to gentlemen
when those who were to succeed them in Parliament were
opposed to the Union. " Lieutenant- Colonel Cole,"
he writes, " recently applied to Lord Castlereagh that
he might be appointed Escheator of Munster in order
to vacate his seat upon his going abroad. (He had been
ordered to join his regiment serving abroad.) It appeared
in conversation that he intended to have his place supplied
by Mr. Balfour, who moved the resolutions against a
Union at the County of Louth meeting, and suggested a
recurrence to first principles if that measure should be
carried. Mr. Tighe had before applied for the same
office for one of his members with a view to selling the
seat on condition that the purchaser would not support
a Union. These requests appeared to me of such a
nature as to render it necessary to withhold my acqui-
escence from them " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p.
97.) Lord Cornwallis, however, was able to utilise
these nominal offices when the cause of the Union was
likely thereby to be promoted. In the few months that
elapsed between the prorogation of Parliament on June
ist, 1799, and the Union debates of 1800, no fewer than
sixty-three seats in a House of Commons of 300 members
became vacant. In this manner, without a dissolution,
366 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
more than a fifth part of the House was renewed. Mr.
Grey, in the British House of Commons on April aist,
1800, thus stigmatised this fraud on the Constitution:
" A Bill," he said, " framed for preserving the purity
of Parliament, was abused, and no less than sixty-three
seats were vacated by their holders having received
nominal offices " (Woodfall's Parliamentary Debates,
II., p. 370).
Lord Cornwallis, indeed, tries to take credit to himself
for pursuing the policy of overcoming corrupt interests
by corruption, ignoring the fact, which has been so
frequently demonstrated in these pages, that the Irish
Parliament was precluded from reforming itself by the
British Cabinet and Irish Administration. " There
cannot," he writes on July ist, 1799, " be a stronger
argument for the measure (of the Union) than the over-
grown Parliamentary power of five or six of our pampered
borough-mongers, who can become most formidable to
government by their long possession of the entire patron-
age of the Crown in their respective districts " (Corn-
wallis Correspondence , III, p. no).
The patronage of the Crown was most powerfully,
indeed almost exclusively, used at this time for the pro-
motion of the Union. "It is," writes Mr. Lecky,
" scarcely an exaggeration to say that anything in the
gift of the Crown in Ireland, in the Church, the Army,
the Law, the Revenue, was uniformly and steadily
directed to the single object of carrying the Union "
(History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII.,
p. 405). To give a few illustrations : Dr. Agar, the
Archbishop of Cashel, agreed to support the Union on
being promised the reversion of the See of Dublin and
a permanent seat in the Imperial House of Lords. In
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 367
a " private " letter written to the Duke of Portland on
July 8th, 1799, Lord Cornwallis states his method of
managing the Archbishop : "It was privately intimated
to me that the sentiments of the Archbishop of Cashel
were less unfriendly to the Union than they had been,
on which I took an opportunity of conversing with his
Grace on the subject, and after discussing some pre-
liminary topics respecting the representation of the
Spiritual Lords and the probable vacancy of the See of
Dublin, he declared his great unwillingness at all times
to oppose the measures of the Government." Again, Lord
Cornwallis writes : " His Grace the Archbishop of Cashel
had my promise when we came to an agreement with
respect to the Union that he should have « seat in the
House of Lords for life." Archbishop Agar was made
at the time of the Union an Irish Representative Peer.
He also obtained promotion in the Irish peerage for his
Union services. He had been created Baron Somerton
in 1795. He was made Viscount Somerton in 1800
and Earl of Normanton in 1806, and became eventually
Archbishop of Dublin. On the death of the Archbishop
of Armagh in 1800 the Lord Lieutenant strove with all
his might to secure the appointment for Dr. Agar. " I
think," he writes, on the nth March, 1800, " it would
have a very bad effect at this time to send a stranger to
supersede the whole Bench of Bishops, and I should
likewise be much embarrassed by the stop that would be
put to the succession amongst the Irish clergy at this
critical period when I am above measure pressed for
ecclesiastical preferment " (Cornwallis Correspondence,
III., pp. 209-210).
A few days afterwards Lord Cornwallis writes again :
" Lord Clifden, to whom we stand indebted for seven
368 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Union votes ; Lord Callan, who has two friends in the
House of Commons, and Mr. Preston, member for
Navan (who became a Union Peer as Lord Tara), all
nearly related to the Archbishop of Cashel, came to me
this day to request that I would agree to submit his name
to His Majesty's consideration for the succession to the
Primacy " (Cornzcallis Correspondence, III., pp. 217-
218). In this case the corruptionist interest on the other
side of the Channel prevailed. A Dr. William Stuart,
the fifth son of the Earl of Bute, the notorious Prime
Minister of George III. in the early years of his reign,
was appointed. Twenty-three practising barristers
voted for the Union in the Irish House of Commons. In
1803 six of them were on the Bench, while eight others
had received high honours under the Crown. Thirty-
two barristers voted for the Union at the Bar debate in
December, 1798. In 1803 not more than five of them
were unrewarded. On February i9th, 1801, Lord
Cornwallis thus writes to the Duke of Portland, with
reference to the " engagements which he thought it his
duty to enter into on the part of His Majesty's Govern-
ment, and by the directions of His Ministers repeatedly
conveyed by His Grace " : " Much anxiety is daily
manifested by these gentlemen, whose expectations I have
not yet been enabled to fulfil, and though I endeavour
to impress on their minds an assurance that their just
hopes will not be disappointed by any change in His
Majesty's Councils, they intimate a wish to receive that
assurance from the authority of those with whom the
future administration of Ireland may be connected. I
am, therefore, to request your Grace will take the earliest
opportunity of conferring with His Majesty's Ministers
on the subject, and that you will furnish me with an
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 369
official authority to assure all those gentlemen who
have any promise of favour in consequence of the Union
that they will be fully provided for according to the extent
of the engagements made with them, and that no new
pretensions will be allowed to interfere with their prior
or superior claims " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p.
339). To this letter the editor of the Cornwallis Corre-
spondence has appended the following remarks : " The
promises alluded to in the foregoing letter were recorded
in a list enclosed, which it is not considered advisable
to publish in extenso. Of these engagements seven were
for pensions, one of which, to Mrs. Young, the widow of
the Bishop of Clonfert, had no connection with politics.
Thirteen were legal appointments, five of which were
completed before Lord Cornwallis left Ireland ; four were
for promotions in the peerage ; thirty were promises
of places varying from £400 to £800 per annum, or
of pensions from £300 to £500. Thirty-five of the
persons mentioned in this list were members of the Irish
House of Commons who had voted for the Union, and
three of the pensions, though granted nominally to
persons not in Parliament, were actually to be received
by Members. Some of these pensions and places, on
account of the change of Government in 1806, never were
conferred, but the Member of Parliament for whose
benefit one in particular was intended came to Sir Robert
Peel, when Secretary in Ireland, and claimed the arrears
of the pension, amounting to several thousand pounds.
It is unnecessary to add that such an application was not
successful. Lord Hardwicke, when he assumed the
government, recognised the engagements made by Lord
Cornwallis, and as far as he was able fulfilled them, but he
also resigned before the claimants had been satisfied, and
1C
370 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the Duke of Bedford, who succeeded him, did not con-
sider himself bound by antecedent promises " (Corn-
wallis Correspondence, III., p. 349).
The bestowal of peerages, pensions, places, did not
exhaust the resources of corruption in the work of carrying
the Union. Grattan, who had unusual opportunities
of judging, expressed his opinion that of the members
who voted for the Union only seven were unbribed
(Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 181).
Mr. Hardy, who sat in the three last Irish Parliaments,
refrained from writing the history of the Union, and
confined himself to the biography of Lord Charlemont,
whose death in 1799 was due to an illness superinduced by
heart-break at the approach of the Union, giving as his
reason that he did not care to bequeath enmities to his
children, and that but seven of those who composed the
majority in favour of the Union were unbribed (Grattan 's
Life, V., p. 113).
Mr. O'Connell, speaking in 1843 with reference to the
Union, from a personal knowledge of the circumstances
of the time, said : " Bribery was unconcealed. The
terms of the purchase were quite familiar in those days.
The price of a single vote was £8,000 in money, or an
office worth £2,000 a year if the parties did not choose
to take ready money. Some got both for their votes "
(Discussion in Dublin Corporation on Repeal of the
Union in 1843, p. 36). A year later Mr. O'Connell,
when speaking in his own defence in the Irish State
Trials in 1844 to a jury composed exclusively of Unionists,
said : " You know that there were near three millions
expended in actual payment of the persons who voted
for the Union " (R. v. O'Connell, p. 638).
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 371
The destruction of the documents relating to Union
engagements, to which I have referred, precludes precise
knowledge of the incidents of coarse metallic corruption
by which it was accompanied. Of the existence of that
corruption there can be no doubt, despite the efforts taken
to conceal it. Mr. Abbot (Lord Colchester), afterwards
Speaker of the House of Commons, was the immediate
successor of Lord Castlereagh as Irish Chief Secretary.
In his Diary for May, 1801, there is an entry : " The
money for engagements of the Union as authorised to
be taken out of the privy purse to be settled between Mr.
Pitt and Lord Castlereagh " (Lord Colchester's Diary,
I., p. 268). The Cormvallis Correspondence abounds in
passages which admit the money bribery by which the
Union was effected and the acts and stratagems by
which it was accompanied. The extracts I cite in this
connection are all taken from the Cornwallis Correspon-
dence and are given in their chronological order. On the
1 7th December, 1799, Lord Castlereagh writes to the
Duke of Portland : " Your Grace, I trust, will not be
surprised at my requesting that you will assist us in the
same way and to the same extent as you did previous to
Mr. Elliot's leaving London. The advantages have been
important, and it is very desirable that this request should
be complied with without delay " (Private and " Most
Secret " Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 151). The
Editor of the Cornwallis Correspondence tells us that the
assistance required was a further sum of £5,000. A few
days afterwards, on December 28th, Lord Cornwallis
writes to General Ross : " My opinions have no weight
on your side of the water, and yet I am kept here to
manage matters of a most disgusting nature to my feel-
ings " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 153).
372 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" I am impatient," writes Lord Castlereagh to Mr.
King, on January and, 1800, " to hear from you on the
subject of my letter to the Duke. We are in great
distress, and I wish the transmiss was more considerable
than the last. It is very important that we should not
be destitute of the means on which so much depends "
(Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 156). On this
letter there is a memorandum in Mr. King's handwriting :
" It was sent this day to Lord Castlereagh. I ventured
so far as to observe to Lord Castlereagh that the fund was
good security for a still further sum, though not imme-
diately, if it could be well laid out and furnished on the
spot. I think I did not go too far." When we remember
that the opening of the Session was to take place within
a few days, on the i5th January, the dates of these letters
are not without their significance. On February 4th
Lord Cornwallis seems more disgusted than ever with
" his dirty business." " I must," he says, " confess that
my spirits are fairly worn down, and the force which I
am obliged to put on them in public renders me more
miserable when I retire " (Cornwallis Correspondence,
III., p. 177).
" We require your assistance" writes Lord Castlereagh
to Mr. King on February 27th, " and you must be pre-
pared to enable us to fulfil the expectations which it was
impossible to avoid creating at the moment of difficulty.
You may be sure we have rather erred on the side of
moderation " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., pp. 200-
201). " When," enquires Mr. Cooke of Mr. King, " can
you make the remittance promised ? It is absolutely
essential, for our demands increase. Pray let Lord
Castlereagh know without delay what can be done by
you " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p. 202). On
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 373
the 5th April, 1800, Mr. Cooke is able to send cheering
intelligence to Lord Castlereagh : "I have seen the
Duke of Portland and Mr. Pitt a second time. The Duke
is anxious to send you the needful. Mr. Pitt was equally
disposed, but fears it is impossible to the extent. He will
continue to let you have £8,000 to £10,000 for five years.
I hope to find out to-night what sum can be sent. Mr.
Pitt approves of your taking advantage of the vacancies
in the Civil List here. Will the law allow you to increase
the Commissioners of Boards ? " (Cornzvallis Corre-
spondence, III., p. 226).
In a letter to Lord Castlereagh, dated London, May 6th,
Mr. Cooke says : " I set out for Ireland to-rnorrow
morning. I do not come quite empty-handed " (Corn-
walk's Correspondence, III., p. 276). On the loth July,
1800, Mr. Marsden writes to Mr. Cooke : " Lord Castle-
reagh wishes me to remind you of the necessity of supplies.
We are in great want " (Cormvallis Correspondence, III.,
p. 276). " I hope," writes Lord Castlereagh to Mr.
Cooke on i2th July, 1800, " you will settle with King
our further ways and means. From the best calculation
I can make we shall absolutely require the remainder
of what I asked for, namely, fifteen, to wind up matters,
exclusive of the annual arrangement, and an immediate
supply is much wanted. If it cannot be sent speedily,
I hope we may discount it here " (Cormvallis Corre-
spondence, III., p. 228).
In a letter of Mr. Marsden to Mr. King, dated Decem-
ber gth, 1800, the following passage occurs : " I am
induced to write to you from the great degree of incon-
venience which I am subjected to by the delay in sending
over the King's letter for putting into our hands the money
saved in the Civil List in this country to be applied to
374 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the Secret Service here. It has fallen to my lot to make a
considerable number of the engagements which this money
was to discharge, and I am pressed in some instances
in the most inconvenient degree to make good my
promises. There has besides been borrowed from a
person here a considerable sum which he is extremely
anxious to have repaid. The King's letter for this
purpose is, I know, in the Treasury Department, but, as
you have a superintending concern for our distresses
here, I beg leave to entreat that you will have enquiry
made at the Treasury about it. There are some other
King's letters which our friends here are looking for
rather anxiously, but money is the general desideratum."
We may indeed conclude with Mr. Lecky that " direct
money bribes were given " (History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 409).
The indignation of Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castle-
reagh at the conduct of some leaders of Opposition who
appear to have attempted to meet corruption by corrup-
tion, by subscribing a large sum for the purchase of votes,
is amusing when viewed in the light of their own per-
formances. " If we had the means," writes Lord Corn-
wallis, on the 8th March, 1800, " and were disposed
to make such vile use of them, we dare not trust the credit
of the Government in the hands of such rascals. The
enemy, to my certain knowledge, offer £5,000 ready
money for a vote " (Cornwallis Correspondence, III., p.
184). Lord Castlereagh, in a letter to the Duke of
Portland, writes with pity, not unmingled with contempt,
of the men who were believed to have received bribes
to vote, not for the Union, but against it : " Sir R.
Butler, Mahon, and Featherstone were taken off by
County cabals during the (Parliamentary) recess, and
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 375
Whaley (a brother-in-law of Lord Chancellor Clare)
absolutely bought by the Opposition stock purse. He
received, I understand, £2,000 down, and is to receive
as much more after the service is performed. We have
undoubted proofs, though not such as we can disclose,
that they are enabled to offer as high as £5 ,000 for an
individual vote, and I lament to state that there are indi-
viduals remaining among us that are likely to yield to this
temptation " (Cormvallis Correspondence, III., p. 182).
Mr. Pitt, on January 30th, 1799, a few days after the
rejection of the project of the Union on its first introduc-
tion in the Irish House of Commons, although he had
advised the dismissal from office of anti-Unionists, and
expressed his fixed determination that the measure should
not be dropped, but pressed forward with all the influence
at the disposal of the Government, had the temerity in the
British House of Commons to describe the measure as
a Union " by free consent on just and equal terms."
He was very anxious, although he had been apprised by
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that " the Union was not
supported by the people at large," to make it appear in
Great Britain that the mass of the people of Ireland
were favourable to the measure. It was accordingly
determined by the Government to make every effort to
obtain signatures to declarations and petitions in support
of the Union. The venerable institution of Petition,
the oldest of Parliamentary forms, the fertile seed of all
the proceedings of the House of Commons, has but little
life at the present day. Petition as a means for calling
attention to public affairs, and eliciting the expression
of the views of the people thereon, has lost much of its
importance with the modern growth of the Press and the
freedom of combination and assembly which now exists.
376 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
The diminished importance of petitions is one of the most
important characteristics of Parliamentary government
at the present time, as contrasted with that government in
the eighteenth century and in the early decades of the
nineteenth century. (See Redlich's Procedure of the
House of Commons, II., p. 239.)
In the Parliament of Ireland, as in the Parliament of
Great Britain at the same period, great weight was
attached to petitions as evidence of the trend of public
opinion. Accordingly, one of the methods adopted
by the Irish Government during the Parliamentary
recess from June ist, 1799, till January i5th, 1800, was
to endeavour to secure largely signed petitions in favour
of the Union. " I am preparing," writes Lord Corn-
wallis on July 2ist, 1799, " to set out to-morrow on a
tour for three weeks to the South for the purpose of obtain-
ing declarations, etc., in favour of the Union " (Corn-
zvallis Correspondence, III., p. 118). In October the
Lord Lieutenant made a journey through Ulster for the
same purpose. The signatures the Government could
obtain in favour of the Union amounted to no more than
about 7,000, although the signatures to the petitions
against the Union were no fewer than 107,000. The
history of these petitions has been recorded by Mr. (Lord)
Plunket in the Irish House of Commons, and by Mr.
(Earl) Grey in the British House of Commons, without
fear of contradiction. Mr. Plunket, speaking in the Irish
House of Commons on the i6th January, 1800, thus
described the Lord Lieutenant's progress through the
country for the purpose of obtaining signatures in
favour of the Union: " The representative of Majesty
goes out on his mission to court the Sovereign Majesty
of the people. It is painful to dwell on that disgraceful
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 377
expedition. No place too obscure to be visited, no
rank too low to be courted, no threat too vile to be
employed ; the counties not sought to be legally convened
by their sheriffs ; no attempt to collect the unbiassed
suffrage of the intelligent and independent part of the
community ; public addresses begged for from petty
villages and private signatures smuggled from public
counties. And how procured ? By the influences of the
absentee landlords, not over the affections, but over the
terrors of their tenantry, by griping agents and revenue
officers. And after all this mummery had been exhausted,
after the lustre of royalty had been tarnished by this
vulgar intercourse with the lowest of the rabble, after
every spot had been selected where a paltry address
could be procured, and every place avoided where a
manly sentiment could be encountered, after abusing
the names of the dead and forging the signatures of the
living, after polling the inhabitants of the gaol and calling
out against Parliament the suffrages of those who dare not
come in to sign them till they got their protection in their
pocket, after employing the revenue officer to threaten
the publican that he should be marked as a victim,
and the agent to terrify the shivering tenant with the
prospect of his turf bog being withheld if he did not
sign your addresses, after employing your military
commanders, the uncontrolled arbiters of life and death,
to hunt the rabble against the constituted authorities,
after squeezing the lowest dregs of the population of near
five millions, you obtained about five thousand signatures,
three-fourths of whom affixed their names in surprise,
terror, or total ignorance of the subject " (Plunkefs
Life, I., pp. 187-188).
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Mr. Pitt seems to have laid much stress on these peti-
tions. Thus, in a letter from Mr. Cooke to Lord Castle-
reagh, marked " Secret," and dated 5th April, 1800, we
find this statement : " He (Mr. Pitt) is anxious that if
there be a run of petitions to the King against Union,
counter declarations should be renewed if you saw it
could be done with success. He is afraid that if the
petitions should become very numerous and not be
counteracted, an impression will be made as to the sense
of the people being against the measure. He wishes
much for counter declarations from our friends."* Mr.
Pitt was, in this instance, doomed to disappointment.
A few weeks after that letter 'had been written, on April
2ist, 1800, Mr. Grey, speaking in the English House of
Commons, proved conclusively that " the sense of the
people " was against the measure. " It is stated/' he
said, " in a speech of the Lord Lieutenant to the Irish
Parliament, and more clearly and positively in the speech
of the Minister, that five-sevenths of the country and all
the principal commercial towns except Dublin had
petitioned in favour of the Union. This statement I
controvert, and shall disprove. The way in which it is
attempted to be made out that five-sevenths of the country
had petitioned for the Union is by saying that nineteen
counties had, and that these counties constitute five-
sevenths of the surface of Ireland. That petitions were
presented from several different counties I will not deny,
but by what means are they obtained, and by whom are
they signed ? The Lord Lieutenant, who, besides being
chief civil magistrate in the Kingdom, is commander of
a disciplined army of 170,000 men, who is able to pro-
claim martial law when he pleases, and can subject whom
he pleases to the military trial of a court-martial in his
* Castlereagh Correspondence, III., pp. 260-261.
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 379
progress through the kingdom, procured these petitions,
which are signed by a few names, and those by no means
the most respectable. It has been said that all were
Jacobins who opposed the Union. It might be said
with more truth that a great proportion of those who
signed these vaunted petitions in favour of it were men
in the power of the Lord Lieutenant, who were obliged
from the fear of punishment to come forward and put
down their names. These petitions, however, dis-
respectable as they are, were clandestinely obtained ; not
one of them was voted at a meeting called together by the
High Sheriff legally constituted, of which there was a
reasonable notice. They can with no propriety be called
petitions of counties. They are merely those of a few
worthless individuals. Yet the right hon. gentleman
tells us that they prove the whole Irish nation to be
decidedly in favour of the measure Fortunately,
there were many petitions on the other side — petitions
which were not obtained by solicitation and at illegal
meetings, but at public assemblies, of which legal notice
had been given. Twenty-seven counties have petitioned
against the measure. The petition from the County
Down is signed by upwards of 17,000 respectable inde-
pendent men, and all the others are in similar proportion.
Dublin petitioned under the Great Seal of the city, and
each of the Corporations in it followed the same example.
Drogheda petitioned against the Union, and, far from
Drogheda and Dublin being the only towns which did so,
almost every other in the kingdom in like manner testified
its disapprobation. Those in favour of the measure,
possessing great influence in the country, obtained
a few counter-petitions, and had great opportunities of
procuring signatures to them ; yet, though the petition
380 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
from Down was signed by 17,000, the counter-petition was
signed only by 415. This instance might be taken as a
very fair standard for the whole kingdom. Then there
were 107,000 (by an error in the report the number is
given as 707,000) who signed petitions against the
measure ; the total number of those who declared them-
selves in favour of it did not exceed 3,000, and many of
those only prayed that the measure might be discussed.
I wish I could have spoken from official information.
Had the motion I made for the Lord Lieutenant been
directed to transmit all addresses and counter-addresses
which have been received [been carried] I should then
have this in my power ; at present I must speak from
private authority, which, however, 1 believe, will be found
to be pretty correct. If the facts I state are true, and
I challenge any man to falsify one of them, could a nation
in more direct terms, or in a more positive way, express
its disapprobation of a political measure than Ireland
has of a Legislative Union with Great Britain ? In fact,
the Nation is nearly unanimous, and this great majority
is composed not of fanatics, bigots, or Jacobins, but of the
most respectable in every class in the community "
(Woodfall's Parliamentary Reports, II., pp. 396-398).
Mr. Grey estimates the number of signatures in favour
of the Union to amount to 3,000 only. Mr. Sheridan,
in the same debate, computes them to be 5,000. The
larger figure may include the signatures of those who
petitioned not for the passing of the Union, but merely
for its discussion. Mr. Lecky, on the authority of Mr.
Grattan, states the number of these signatures to be 7,000.
It is quite clear that Mr. Pitt would have produced those
petitions for which he expressed his anxiety if he con-
sidered such a proceeding would have helped his cause.
MAKING A MAJORITY FOR THE UNION. 381
Their non-production when actually called for by Mr.
Grey proves conclusively their worthlessness. The
expression of public opinion against the Union was
suppressed by means as base as those by which petitions
in its favour were courted.
" It may be said," says Mr. O'Connell, speaking in
1843, of matters of which he was an eye-witness, " why
did not the Irish people resist the fatal measure ? How
could they ? When the Sheriff of the Queen's County
called a meeting of his bailiwick in the town of Mary-
borough to petition against the Union, he was met by
Colonel Connor with two regiments of infantry and
detachments of cavalry and artillery, by whom the
meeting was instantly dispersed, as the Sheriff was about
to take the chair. Again, the High Sheriff of Tipperary
convened a meeting of the nobility, gentry, and freeholders
of his county. He took the chair, but had been hardly
ten minutes in the court-house when it was filled with
armed soldiery, who dispersed the meeting at the point
of the bayonet. That was the conduct pursued at this
eventful period — corruption, bribery, force, fraud, and
terror were used, but still the people of Ireland struggled
in every mode they possibly could " (Report of the
Discussion in Dublin Corporation on Repeal of the
Union, 1843, p. 41). As Mr. Lecky has truly observed,
"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the whole
unbribed intellect of Ireland was opposed to the Union "
(Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 166).
The following lines, ascribed to the pen of the late
Right Hon. Mr. Justice O'Hagan, who was Judicial
Commissioner of the Irish Land Commission, and one
of the members of the High Court of Justice in Ireland,
summarise the methods by which the Union was carried,
382 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and indicate the passionate resentment with which the
Irish race at home and abroad regard this stupendous
crime, which Mr. Gladstone characterised on June
a8th, 1886, as " the blackest and foulest transaction in
the history of man " :
" How did they pass the Union ?
By perjury and fraud,
By slaves who sold their land for gold,
As Judas sold his God ;
By all the savage acts that yet
Have followed England's track—
The pitch-cap and the bayonet,
The gibbet and the rack ;
And thus was passed the Union
By Pitt and Castlereagh.
Could Satan send for such an end
More worthy tools than they ? "
THE CARRYING OF THE UiNION. 383
XXVII.
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION THROUGH
THE IRISH AND THE BRITISH
PARLIAMENTS.
I HAVE dwelt at some length on the steps taken outside
Parliament to secure a majority in Parliament for the
carrying of the Union. When that majority had been
secured by the series of fraudulent transactions recorded
in these pages, the Parliamentary proceedings for the
consummation of the crime so craftily planned are com-
paratively of a diminished interest, as there could be no
uncertainty as to their result. There was a strict con-
formity to Parliamentary forms and usages. The Irish
Parliament was destroyed in accordance with the letter
of the law. One of the most earnest advocates of the
maintenance of the Union, in a work specially written
in its defence, says : " The miserable tale of the trans-
actions which carried the Treaty of Union teaches at
least one indisputable lesson — the due observance of legal
formalities will not induce a people to pardon what they
deem to be acts of tyranny, made all the more hateful by
their combination with deceit " (Dicey 's Case of England
against Home Rule, p. 251). These words are an echo
of the sentiments of Mr. Bushe, afterwards Lord Chief
Justice of Ireland, in a speech of protest against the Union
in the Irish House of Commons. " If," he said,
" posterity were to believe that frailty and human
necessities were so practised on that the private senti-
384 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ments and public conduct of several could not be recon-
ciled, and that when the Minister could influence twenty
votes he could not command one ' Hear him ' — I say, not
that these things are so, but I ask you, if your posterity
believe them to be so, will posterity validate this trans-
action, or will they feel themselves bound to do so ? I
answer, when a transaction, though fortified by a seven-
fold form, is radically fraudulent, that all the forms and
solemnities of law are but so many badges of the fraud, and
posterity, like a great court of conscience, will pronounce
its judgment " (Plunkefs- Life, II., p. 336).
The last Session of the Irish Parliament, for which these
dishonourable preparations had been made, opened on
January i5th, 1800. The speech from the Throne made
no reference to the matter of the Union, which was
uppermost in the public mind. This omission vras due
to the fact that the vacancies created by the abuse and
perversion of the Place Act in the Recess could not be
filled till the meeting of Parliament. In the first four
days of the new session no fewer than thirty-nine writs
were issued for new elections. Sir Lawrence Parsons,
having directed the Clerk to read the speeches of the Lord
Lieutenant at the opening and the closing of the last
session in relation to the Union, moved an amendment
to the Address pledging the House of Commoms " at all
times, and especially at the present moment, to maintain
an independent resident Parliament." The debate
extended through the whole night, and lasted for not less
than eighteen hours. The conduct of the Government
was subjected to the very severest strictures. It was
fiercely denounced by Plunket, Burke, Ponsonby, Fitz-
Gerald, and Arthur Moore. " You have," said Plunket,
" essayed every means to corrupt Parliament, if you
could, to sell their country ; you have exhausted
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 385
the whole patronage of the Crown in the execution of
that system, and, to crown all, you openly avow, and
it is notoriously a part of your plan, that the Consti-
tution of Ireland is to be purchased for a stipulated sum "
(Plunket's Life, I., p. 189). The debate was memorable
for the reappearance of Grattan in the House of Commons,
from which he had been absent since his secession in May,
1797. Yielding to the pressure of friends, he came back
to Parliamentary life, to defend till the last the Consti-
tution in whose creation his character and genius had been
such powerful factors. One of the members for the
nomination borough of Wicklow had just died, the seat
was purchased, the election was hurried through on
January i5th, and early on the following morning, while
the House was still sitting, Grattan entered the Chamber.
His form was emaciated by illness, and he was obliged
to lean on Arthur Moore and George Ponsonby as he
advanced to the table to take the oath. The debate
was suspended, in accordance with the practice of the
time, in order to enable a new member to be sworn —
the taking of the oath being a matter of Parliamentary
privilege. Castlereagh rose at the head of the Treasury
Bench, and remained standing and uncovered when
Grattan took the oaths. Grattan then moved slowly to
his seat, and selected a place beside Plunket. He rose
to speak, but was obliged to ask permission of the House,
owing to physical weakness, to speak sitting. His speech,
which lasted for two hours, was marked by all his old
fervour and brilliancy. The House divided at 10 o'clock
in the morning, and the Ministers had a majority of 42,
the numbers being 138 to 96. On the breaking up of the
House a riot took place in the streets, and some of the
advocates of the Union were assailed by the populace.
ID
386 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
The hostility of the City of Dublin to the measure was
unmistakable. An aggregate meeting, with the Sheriff
at its head, presented addresses to both Grattan and
Foster. The Guild of Merchants passed resolutions
condemning the Union in the strongest terms, calling for
a coalition of all sects against it, and offering warm thanks
to their Roman Catholic fellow-citizens of Dublin for their
manly and patriotic conduct. A circular, signed by Lord
Downshire, the new Lord Charlemont, and Mr. W.
Ponsonby, the leader of the regular Opposition, somewhat
absurdly described by Cornwaliis and Clare as a " con-
sular edict," was issued for the express purpose of
obtaining addresses and declarations in favour of the
Union, with the results which I have sketched. (See
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., pp. 441-442.) Mr. Lecky draws attention to the
fact that few things are more curious than the many resolu-
tions of Orange lodges protesting against the Union.
" The Grand Lodge, which passed a resolution in favour
of neutrality on the question of the Union, was accused
of having betrayed the country under the influence of a
few great place-holders. Representatives of no less than
thirty-six lodges assembled at Armagh, declared it made
no material difference whether the Constitution was
robbed by open and avowed enemies or by pretended
friends, who were, in reality, the deadliest enemies of
the country, and that it was the duty of all Orangemen to
stand forward in opposing the impending measure. The
representatives of thirteen Orange lodges in the County of
Fermanagh at once echoed this language, and very
similar resolutions were passed by many other lodges in
different parts of Ireland. A large proportion of the
lodges, it is true, obeyed the direction of the Grand
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 387
Lodge, and kept silence on the subject, and some indi-
vidual Orangemen were conspicuous supporters of the
Union, but there is not, I believe, a single instance of an
Orange resolution in its favour " (Lecky's History of
England in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 443). Sir
Jonah Barrington records, among " some very serious
facts which occurred during the progress of the discus-
sions " on the Union, that the Parliament House " was
surrounded by military under the pretence of keeping
the peace, which was not in danger, but, in fact, to excite
terror " (Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, p. 278). Lord
Cornwallis, in his letters to the British Government
between the meeting of the Irish Parliament and the date
fixed for the introduction of the Union resolutions, 5th
February, begs for the sending over to Ireland of British
troops. On the i8th January he warned the Duke of
Portland that dangerous tumults might arise, as a large
number of militia-men had been induced by high bounties
to volunteer into English regiments. On the 2ist
January, the Commons, on the motion of Lord Castle-
reagh, voted that 10.000 men of the Irish Militia should
be allowed to volunteer into the line on a bounty of six
to ten guineas per man, and it was afterwards ascertained
that their place in Ireland should be supplied by English
militia regiments (Castlereagh Correspondence, III., pp.
210-211). It was manifest from this step that the pur-
pose of the Government was not to invite Irish valour
to the defence of the Empire in its foreign wars, but to
take Irish soldiers from Ireland lest their loyalty might
be too severely strained by the destruction of their
Parliament by force and fraud, and to have an overwhelm-
ing force of British troops in Ireland to quell any dis-
turbance caused by anger at the Union.
388 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
At length, on February 5th, a message was delivered
from the Lord Lieutenant to both Houses of Parliament
recommending on the part of the King a Legislative Union.
Lord Castlereagh, in moving that the message be taken
into consideration, in a long and very able speech,
unfolded and defended the whole scheme of the Union,
but into the details of that scheme it is not within the
scope of this work to enter with minuteness. The financial
arrangements of the Union, which, to the present hour
have borne such pernicious fruit in the artificially-created
impoverishment of Ireland, demand more than a passing
notice. Mr. O'Connell, throughout his whole long
career, insisted that the motive of the Union was an
intolerance of Irish prosperity. " I openly assert," he
said, when speaking in his own defence in the Court of
Queen's Bench in Ireland during the State Trials of
1844, " I openly assert that I cannot endure the Union,
because it is founded on the greatest injustice and based
on the grossest insult from an intolerance of Irish pros-
perity. These were the motives that induced the male-
factors who perpetrated that iniquity, and I have the
highest authority — an ornament for years of that Bench
(Lord Chief Justice Bushe), now, although recently, in his
honoured grave — for saying that the motive for carrying
the Union was an intolerance of Irish prosperity " (R.
v. O'Connell, p. 601). Mr. Gladstone, writing in 1888,
says : " Ireland loudly and bitterly complains that we
have fleeced her, as Dr. Johnson predicted that we should.
And I am compelled, after some enquiry into a very
intricate subject, to say that, as respects the share of the
National Debt charged on her under the arrangements
of the Act of Union, her complaint is, in my opinion,
one the substance of which it will be found impossible
to confute " (Contemporary Review, March, i!
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 389
When the Irish Constitution of 1782 was established,
the taxation of Ireland was not more than one million a
year, and her National Debt was under two millions.
At the time of the Union the Irish National Debt, which
amounted to £7,000,000 in 1794 and £14,000,000 in
1799, had increased to £28,000,000, and her taxation had
increased to £2,500,000, which was due to the expenses
of the French War, to the expenses incurred in suppress-
ing the Insurrection in 1798, and to the expenses incurred
in the carrying of the measure of the Union by the
grossest corruption through the Irish Parliament. Under
the provisions of the Union it was arranged that Ireland
was, for a fixed number of years, to contribute taxation
in the proportion of 2 to 15 as compared with Great
Britain, and that when the National Debts of the two
countries, £450,504,984 British, and £28,545,134 Irish,
came to the same proportion as contributions, the
Exchequers might be amalgamated, and a system of
indiscriminate taxation established. But the measure of
the Union provided that under no circumstances was
Ireland to be taxed more than her fair proportion, having
regard to her taxable capacity, and that she was to have
the advantage of exemptions and abatements as her cir-
cumstances demanded. There is also a clause in the
Union Treaty which provides that if any surplus revenue
should remain after defraying the proportional contri-
butions and the separate National charges of Ireland, the
surplus was to be applied to Irish purposes exclusively,
and taxes were to be taken off to its amount. It is now
admitted that the proportion of 2 to 15 was an unjust
proportion, and that the clauses of the Treaty of Union,
by which the taxable relations of Great Britain and Ireland
were established were framed on the basis of years, not
390 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of normal, but of abnormal, expenditure. (See Ireland,
by Michael F. J. MacDonnell, p. 21 .) In a protest against
the Union by Members of the Irish House of Lords, to
which the Duke of Leinster was the first signatory,
the Irish proportion was estimated as i to 18 British, and
Mr. Speaker Foster, in the Irish House of Commons,
showed that Lord Castlereagh's proportion of 2 Irish to
15 British was based on the value of selected items, while
others of essential importance were omitted, which, if
included, would have greatly lowered his estimate of
Irish comparative ability. The profligate proposal that
whenever Irish debt should be swollen up to the given
standard, then Irish taxes were to be raised to the British
level, was softened by Lord Castlereagh's suggestion that
the given proportion might be worked partly by the
increase of the Irish debt, but partly also by the decrease
of the British debt. The given ratio, however, was
reached solely by the augmentation of the Irish debt
without any diminution of the British, and in sixteen years
from the Union the Irish debt had increased till it came
into the proportion of 2 to 15, and then the Exchequers
were amalgamated. " If the Union," said O'Connell,
" had been a just and equitable compact, the respective
debts should have been continued in the same proportion.
This, however, was an arrangement too manifestly
upright and honest to find countenance with them for
a moment, and, accordingly, Ireland was afflicted by
such an indecent spoliation as exposed her to the ridicule
of the world. If, when I was a practising barrister,
a deed of partnership was brought to me for legal perusal,
and that on looking over it I found that the party who was
assenting to the deed was a man owing £21,000, who pro-
posed going into partnership with a man owing £446 ,000,
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 391
and that he was to undertake the liabilities of that partner
by virtue of the deed, would I not be inclined to enquire of
the attorney in a confidential tone, ' Is our poor client on
his way to Swift's Hospital ? ' And shall it be said that
what is insanity in private life is to be regarded as a
rational action when the parties are two countries ? "
Lord Castlereagh thus summed up the benefits of the
proposal of Union made by Great Britain to Ireland.
It is scarcely necessary to say that every one of his pre-
dictions has been falsified. " The proposal," he said,
" is one which will entirely remove those anomalies from
the Executive which are the perpetual sources of dis-
content and jealousy. It is one which will relieve
the apprehensions of those who fear that Ireland was,
in consequence of the Union, to be burdened with the
debt of Great Britain. It is one which, by establishing
a fair principle of contribution, goes to release Ireland from
an expense of £1,000,000 in time of war and of £500,000
in time of peace. It is one which increases the resources
of our commerce, protects our manufactures, secures to
us the British market, and encourages all the products of
our soil. It is one that, by uniting the Church establish-
ments and consolidating the Legislatures of the Empire,
puts an end to religious jealousy, and removes the possi-
bility of separation. It is one which places the great
question which has so long agitated the country upon the
broad principles of Imperial policy, and divests it of all
its local difficulties. It is one which establishes such a
representation for the country as must lay asleep for
ever the question of Parliamentary reform, which, com-
bined with our religious divisions, has produced all our
distractions and calamities " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VIII., p. 455).
392 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
The debate lasted from four o'clock in the afternoon of
the 5th February till one on the following afternoon.
The division is said to have been the largest ever known
in the Irish House of Commons — 278 Members, including
the Speaker and the tellers, being present. Eight
Members only were absent and unpaired. Although the
present majority of forty then exceeded by one vote
that of January i6th, it in reality marked a serious
retrogression, for on the former occasion a considerable
number of seats at the disposal of the Government had
been vacant, and no fewer than twelve of the former
supporters passed to the Opposition (Lecky's History
of England in the Eighteenth Century, p. 457). In the
House of Lords the motion, which was moved by the Lord
Chancellor and supported by Lord Yelverton, the Lord
Chief Baron, who had been so conspicuous a figure on
the popular side in the House of Commons in 1782, was
carried by seventy-five votes to twenty-six.
On the 1 4th February there was a preliminary dis-
cussion in the House of Commons on the advisability of
postponing the question pending the acquisition of
further information. On the i7th February the Union
passed into Committee. A personal attack on Grattan by
Corry was met with a crushing reply, which led to a duel,
in which Corry was wounded. The Speaker, Mr.
Foster, delivered a very closely-reasoned and powerful
attack on the measure. After a debate, which lasted for
twenty hours, the resolution, declaring that there shall be
a Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland,
was carried by a majority of forty-six. On February
24th the resolution of the relative contribution of the
two countries was debated and agreed to. On March 4th
the introduction by Ponsonby of a series of resolutions
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 393
declaring that it was the duty of the House to lay the
petitions against the Union before the King, and to repre-
sent to him the true wishes of the people, were met by
a motion for adjournment, which was carried by 155 to
107. On the i3th March a motion by Sir John Parnell,
that an address should be presented to the King asking
him to dissolve Parliament and take the sense of the
constituencies before the Legislative Union was concluded,
was defeated by 150 to 104. In the debate on March igth
on the commercial clauses, which was very full, there were
two divisions carried by Government majorities of 42 and
47. On March 28th the articles of the Union had passed
through both Houses, and they were transmitted to
England, accompanied by the resolutions in favour of
the measure and by a joint address of both Houses to
the King, and then the Irish Parliament adjourned for
six weeks to enable them to be carried through the English
Parliament, after which they were to be turned into a Bill
(Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
VIII., p. 482).
In the British House of Commons the opposition to
the Union was of a very languid character. The reso-
lutions passed by the Irish Parliament with reference to
the Union were adopted by 208 votes to 26, and a motion
by Mr. Grey, to pray the King to suspend his Ministers'
proceedings until the sentiments of the people of Ireland
could be ascertained, was defeated by 236 votes to 30.
The clause which permitted the importation of English
wool into Ireland was fiercely resisted by the English
woollen manufacturers, but was carried by 133 to 58.
In the House of Lords the Opposition never exceeded
twelve, and only once attained that number. The reso-
lutions agreed to by the English Houses, and their joint
394 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
address to the King, arrived in Ireland on May i3th.
The Union resolutions were cast into the form of a Bill,
and on May 2ist the House of Commons, by 160 votes
to 100, gave leave for its introduction, and it was at
once read a first time. On the 26th May the Bill was read
a second time, and on the motion for its committal
Grattan made his concluding speech on the Union in the
Irish Parliament, which was a very terrible indictment
oi the Government. In tones of touching eloquence he
uttered his last words against the Union : " The Con-
stitution may for a time be so lost, the character of the
country cannot be so lost. The Ministers of the Crown
may at length find that it is not so easy to put down for
ever an ancient and respectable nation by abilities, how-
ever great ; by power and corruption, however irresistible.
Liberty may repair her golden beams, and with redoubled
heart animate the country. Neither the cry of loyalty,
nor the cry of the connection, nor the cry of disaffection
will in the end avail against the principle of liberty.
I do not give up the country. I see her in a swoon, but
she is not dead ; though in her tomb she lies helpless and
motionless, still there is in her lips a spirit of life, and in
her cheeks a glow of beauty.
Thou art not conquer 'd ; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there."
In the two divisions that were taken on the committal
the Government carried their points by 118 to 73 and by
124 to 87. The Opposition drew up an Address to the
King embodying the case against the Union. This
address was moved in the House of Commons by Lord
Corry on June 6th, and defeated by 135 to 77. The
Bill then passed quickly through its remaining stages.
THE CARRYING OF THE UNION. 395
In the House of Lords strong protests were made against
the excessive amount of the contribution to be paid
by Ireland under the Union arrangements, and there
were two divisions, in which the Government had majori-
ties of 59 and 52. The Bill was then sent to England,
where it passed rapidly through both Houses, and it
received the royal sanction on the ist of August. (See
Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
viii., pp. 483-493)-
Mr. Lecky pronounces this terrible condemnation of
the Act of Union : " In a time of such national peril as
England was passing through in the great Napoleon War,
when the whole existence and future of the Empire were
trembling most doubtfully in the balance, History would
not, I think, condemn with severity any means that were
required to withdraw the direction of Irish resources
from disloyal hands. In such moments of agony and
crisis, self-preservation becomes the supreme end, and
the transcendent importance of saving the Empire from
destruction suspends and eclipses all other risks. But
it cannot be too clearly understood, or too emphatically
stated, that the Legislative Union was not an act of this
nature. The Parliament which was abolished was a
Parliament of the most unqualified loyalists; it had shown
itself ready to make every sacrifice in its power for the
maintenance of the Empire, and from the time when
Arthur O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald passed
beyond its walls it probably did not contain a single man
who was really disaffected. The dangers to be feared
on this side were not imminent, but distant, and the war
and the rebellion created not a necessity, but an oppor-
tunity " (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, VIII., p. 495).
NOTES
ON THE
INNER LIFE
OF THE
IRISH PARLIAMENT.
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 399
NOTE A.
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE
OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
RULES OF PROCEDURE.
IN the reign of Elizabeth a Mr. Hooker was member in
the Irish House of Commons for Athenry, and in the
English House of Commons for Isleworth. Mr. Hooker
had, in debate in the Irish House of Commons, incurred
much unpopularity by a speech in exaltation of the royal
prerogative as opposed to the legislative powers of the
Irish Parliament, and as transcending there powers and
independent of them. Having regard to his Parliamen-
tary experience in England, he was invited to write, for
the guidance of the Irish Parliament, a description of
the internal English Parliamentary procedure. His
rules, which are set forth in Lord Mountmorres' Irish
Parliaments, are of singular interest, since they enable
us to understand how business was conducted in the
English Parliament in the sixteenth century, and how it
was conducted in the Irish Parliament, subject, of course,
to the very far-reaching differences in procedure, the
results of Poynings' Law and of its statutory modifica-
tions (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., pp. 87-152).
One passage from Hooker is of great historical and con-
stitutional value as showing that the relations between
the Houses of Lords and Commons in his time were
closely analogous to the relations between those Houses
40O IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
as established by the provisions of the Parliament Act,
1911. His description of those relations supplies yet
another illustration of the theory of Professor Freeman,
that in the progress and evolution of the British Constitu-
tion we are returning to the old state of things.
" King, Lords and Commons (the three estates of
Parliament) may jointly and with one consent and
agreement establish or grant any laws, orders, or statutes
for the Commonwealth, but being divided and one
swerving from another, they can do nothing. For the
King, though he be the head, yet alone cannot make
any law, nor yet the King and the Lords only, nor yet
the King and his Commons alone, neither yet can the
Lords and Commons do anything of avail. And yet,
nevertheless, if the King in due order have summoned
all his Lords and Barons and they will not come, or if
they come and appear, yet will not do or yield to anything,
then even the King, with the consent of his Commons
(who are represented by his knights, citizens, and bur-
gesses), may ordain and establish any acts or laws, which
are as good, sufficient, and effectual as if the Lords had
given their consent.
" But, on the contrary, if the Commons be summoned
and will not come, or coming will not appear, or appear-
ing will not consent to do anything, alleging some just,
weighty, and great cause, the King (in these cases) cannot
with his Lords devise, make, or establish any law ; the
reasons are these : When Parliaments were first begun
and ordained, there were no prelates or barons of the Par-
liament, and the temporal lords were very few or none,
and then the King and the Commons did make a full
Parliament, which authority hitherto never was abridged.
Again, every baron in Parliament doth represent but
his own person and speaketh on behalf of himself alone.
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 40!
" But in the knights, citizens, and burgesses aie repre-
sented the Commons of the whole realm, and every one
of them doth consent, not only for himself, but for all
those also for whom he is sent. And the King, with the
consent of his Commons, hath ever a sufficient authority
to make, ordain, and establish good and wholesome laws
for the Commonwealth of this realm. Wherefore, the
Lords, being lawfully summoned and yet refusing to
come, sit, or consent in Parliament, cannot, by their folly,
abridge the King and the Commons of their lawful
proceedings in Parliament " (Mountmorres' Irish Par-
liaments, I., pp. 136-138).
This description of the distribution of powers between
the Houses of Parliament in England, with a view to the
adoption of a similar distribution of powers between the
Houses of Parliament in Ireland, is an object lesson
that in the reign of Elizabeth the relations between the
Houses of Lords and Commons were not in practice
dissimilar to the position of to-day as established by
statute.
THE COSTUMES OF MEMBERS OF THE IRISH
PARLIAMENT.
IN the Irish Parliament much attention seems to have
been given to matters of costume. In Hooker's rules
it is stated, evidently as a practice to be adopted by
members of the Irish Parliament, that in the English
Parliament in times past none of the members was other-
wise than in his gown. In October, 1613, a very curious
discussion took place about the wearing of gowns by
members of the Irish House of Commons. Sir John
Everard said that the wearing of gowns was fit, alleging
IE
402 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the example of Julius Cassar and of Sir John Norris in
the last Parliament, which was, however, so long ago as
1585. Sir Christopher Nugent said that a Mr. Hartpole
borrowed a short gown in the last Parliament, and then
it was agreed upon by the House that, touching the
several motions for wearing gowns, the Grand Committee
shall peruse and consider of the testimonies and pro-
ceedings of the last Parliament (Mountmorres' Irish
Parliaments, I., pp. 167-168). In both Houses the
members appeared in levee costume. Lord Strafford,
indeed, when Lord Lieutenant, issued a proclamation
forbidding the entrance of any member of either House
with his sword. All obeyed except the young Earl of
Ormonde, who told the Usher of the Black Rod, on
demanding his sword, that he should have no swoid of
his except through his (Black Rod's) body. Equally
concise and determined was Lord Ormonde's reply to
the inquiry of the Lord Lieutenant as to the reasons for
his insolent behaviour. He laid on the Table of the House
the writ of summons enjoining his attendance " cinctum
cum gladio " or " per cincturam gladii " (Mountmorres'
Irish Parliaments, I., p. 219). A very trifling circum-
stance marks the exactness and gravity of the dress
insisted on in the Irish House of Commons. Colonel
Tottenham was called " Tottenham in boots," because,
having just arrived in Dublin, and hearing of the impor-
tant question under discussion — a proposal to continue
the supplies for twenty-one years, which was in 1729
defeated by one vote only — he hurried down to the House
of Commons without giving himself time to take his boots
off. The members stared, and the older ones, according
to Mr. Thomas Hardy, who served himself in three
Parliaments, muttered sadly and loudly at this crying
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGEC, AND ETIQUETTE. 403
innovation, as they termed it. The Lord Chancellor,
as Speaker of the House of Lords, and the Speaker of the
House of Commons were always attired in their robes
of State. In the later years of the Irish Parliament the
brilliant uniforms of the Volunteers, worn as Court attire,
were conspicuous. The dress of the ordinary members
of the House of Commons may be imagined from the
description of the dress of Mr. Rigby, who, having been
Irish Chief Secretary from 1759 till 1761, was a member
of the English House of Commons with the sinecure
office of Master of the Robes in Ireland till his death ia
1788. " When in his place " (in the English House of
Commons, writes Wraxall), " he was invariably attired
in a full dress suit of clothes commonly of a purple or
dark colour, with lace or embroidery, with his sword
thrust through the pocket." The members of the Irish
House of Lords always wore their robes when in attend-
ance in that House. De Quincey, who was one of the
spectators in the Irish House of Lords when the royal
assent to the Act of Union was given, in a graphic account
of the scene which moved him to " unaffected sorrow
and solemn awe," says, in his Autobiographical Sketches :
" The Peers, having no further title to their robes (for
which I could not help wishing that a party of Jewish
old clothes men would at this moment have appeared and
made a loud bidding), made what haste they could to lay
them aside for ever."
MEMBERS OF IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS
RAISED TO PEERAGE— INTERESTING
CEREMONIAL.
IN the Irish Parliament, as in the case of the wearing of
gowns by members of the House of Commons, old Par-
404 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
liamentary practices were observed long after they had
fallen into desuetude in England. Thus the custom
which was dropped in England in the reign of Henry VII.,
which seems to have been a remnant of the making of
Peeis in Parliament, and with the consent of Parliament,
the accompanying of a member of the House of Commons
who had been raised to the Peerage by his colleagues
in the House of Commons to present him to the House
of Lords, was in vogue in Ireland at a much later date.
In April, 1615, Mr. Farnham moved, upon precedents,
that when a member was called by writ or otherwise
to the Lords that the House should accompany him
thither, which rule was adopted in the case of Walter,
Earl of Ormonde, late member for Tipperary. Upon
that occasion, Mr. Treasurer St. John told the Lords that
they came to present a new member to them as a Peer.
The Commons then retired and were recalled to the House
of Lords and thanked by the Lord Chancellor, who,
however, took care to explain that the new Peer had
become a member of the House of Lords, not by reason
of " their presentment," but by virtue cf the King's
Writ (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments , I., p. 173). On
7th August, 1662, Lord Ossory, being summoned to the
House of Lords by writ, took leave of the House of
Commons, and the House, taking into consideration the
precedent of the Earl of Ormonde in 1615, accompanied
and presented him at the Bar of the House of Lords
(Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II., p. 127). On the
i2th September, 1662, Sir William Temple informed
the House that as Colonel Trevor was created Viscount
Dungannon, according to ancient precedent as well as
a recent example, the House should accompany him to
the Bar of the Lords (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments,
II., p. 128).
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 405
Mr. Porritt in his Unreformed House of Commons, which
is a monument of patient research and learning, to which
I acknowledge my obligations, says : "In the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries the relations of the Commons
and Lords in Ireland were marked by a usage of which
I can find no trace of a counterpart at Westminster.
When a member of the Irish House of Commons became
a Peer it was customary for the Commons to grace their
late fellow member to the Upper Chamber " (The
Unreformed House of Commons, II., p 456). Lord
Mountmorres, however, in stating that the custom was
dropped in the reign of Henry VIII. in England, adds :
" Till which time it is argued in his able treatise by the
Chancellor West that all Peers were made by the King
and Parliament " (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I.,
pp. 273-274).
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE HOUSES.
THE differences between the Houses of Lords and
Commons in Ireland were seldom if ever on matters of
public policy. The influence of the Crown, the immense
power over legislation placed in the hands of the Execu-
tive by Poynings' Act, the fact that the two Chambers
were Houses not of contrasted but of similar origin, and
that a large proportion of the Members of the House of
Commons were the nominees of the Peers — all prevailed
to avert collisions on matters of legislation. The con-
tests and quarrels between the two Houses were on
matters of idle etiquette and worthless ceremony. Free
Conferences between the two Houses, in which the
managers, instead of by formal communication of
reasons, attempted by discussion to effect a compromise
between the two Houses, were common in Ireland. In
406 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
England no Free Conference has been held since 1836, nor
previous to that date since 1740. The Free Conferences
in Ireland were due to a desire to come to a common
agreement with reference to legislation to be introduced
under the provisions of Poynings' Law, and tc influence
the Government in the promotion of that legislation and
in the settlement of its details. The ceremonial obser-
vances at these Conferences about sitting down and
standing up, as to the place for the Commons to approach,
as to whether Peers should be allowed to sit covered,
while the Commons were to be obliged to stand uncovered,
produced bitter quarrels of a personal chaiacter between
the two Houses. Lord Strafford, when Lcrd Lieutenant
in 1634, adjusted the controversy by inducing the
disputants to submit to the usage of the English Parlia-
ment, with which, as an old Member, he was well
acquainted. The Duke of Ormonde in 1666 tried to
settle the quarrel by deciding that the Lords should sit
covered and the Commons stand uncovered in accordance
with the English practice. He failed, however, in his
efforts as a mediator, and accordingly dissolved the
Parliament on August yth, 1666, another Parliament not
being convened till 1692. In 1737 there was yet another
violent quarrel between the two Houses, arising out of
a slight, actual or imaginary, to which the managers, on
behalf of the Commons, were, or believed themselves
to be, subjected, from the managers on behalf of the
Peers, and thereafter the method of coming to an agree-
ment by Conference was abandoned. Mr. Serjeant
Bethsworth, who instigated the House of Commons
to persist in this idle quarrel with the House of Lords,
is remembered by the sarcasm of Swift : —
" So at the Bar the Booby Bethsworth,
Whom half-a-crown o'erpays his sweat's worth,
Who knows in law nor text nor m argent.
Calls Singleton his brother Serjeant."
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 407
The fact that the differences between the Houses of
Lords and Commons were on matters of ceremony,
rather than on cardinal measures of public policy, is
emphasised by the circumstance that in 1792 and 1793
the Irish House of Lords passed all but unanimously
measures which admitted the Roman Catholic population
to the Parliamentary franchise, and relieved them of all
property disqualifications.
WHERE THE PARLIAMENTS OF IRELAND MET.
THE Parliaments of Ireland in early times, like the
Parliaments of England, met in various places. Two
of the most celebrated of the Irish Parliaments, the Par-
liament of 1367, which passed the famous Statutes
known as the Statutes of Kilkenny, and the Parliament
of 1495, which passed Poynings' Law, the most important
enactments in the whole history of Ireland, met respec-
tively at Kilkenny and Drogheda and not in the metro-
polis of Ireland. Drogheda seems to have been a
favourite place for the meeting of Parliaments. In the
reign of Henry VI. six Parliaments met in Dublin, one
in Trim, two in Drogheda, and one in Naas. In Edward
IV. 's reign five Parliaments met in Dublin, one in Trim,
one in Drogheda, and one in Naas. Henry VII. con-
vened two Parliaments in Dublin, one (the famous
Poynings' Law Parliament) in Drogheda, and one in
Castledermot. In Henry VIII. 's reign six Parliaments,
one of which was adjourned to Drogheda, met in Dublin
and one in Limerick. In Philip and Mary's reign one
met in Dublin, which was adjourned to Limerick. The
meetings of Parliament in Naas and Castledermot clearly
indicate the great power and influence of the Fitz-
Geralds, then Earls of Kildare, and subsequently Dukes
408 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of Leinster. From the time of Elizabeth all subsequent
Parliaments were convened in Dublin (with the excep-
tion of Cromwell's Parliament, if it may be termed by
the name of Parliament, which was summoned to meet
in Westminster for the three Kingdoms, the members
allotted to Scotland being twenty-one and to Ireland
thirt}). From the meeting of Elizabeth's first Irish Par-
liament in 1560 till 1641, the Parliaments met in Dublin
Castle in rooms arranged for the purpose. From 1641
till 1648 the Parliaments met, not in Dublin Castle, but in
the Tholsel, with an occasional meeting in the old Custom
House, situate on the banks of the Liffey, at the end of
Parliament Street, the reason of the change from the
Castle being the fear that some of the members, of whom
no fewer than forty were expelled, might be disaffected
and their presence in Dublin Castle a source of
danger. From 1692 till 1728, the Parliaments met in
Chichester House, on the site of Parliament House,
with the exception of the Parliament of James II.,
which met on the site of the Four Courts, then the
King's Inns, a former Augustinian Monastery. From
1728 till 1731, when the present Parliament House
was in course of construction, Parliament met in the
old Blue Coat Hospital, since destroyed by fire, in
Oxmantown Green, now Blackball Street (see Mount-
morres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 390 ; II., pp. 97-99 ;
Whiteside's Irish Parliaments, p. 74. ; Porritt's Unreformed
House of Commons, II., pp. 375-377).
HOURS OF MEETING.
As in England, so in Ireland, the House of Commons
formerly met at a very early hour. The House of Com-
mons of England generally in Tudor times met at 8 a.m.
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 409
and continued till n, the Committees being appointed
to meet in the afternoon. At a later period 10 a.m.
was the ordinary time of meeting, and the practice of
nominally adjourning the House until that hour con-
tinued until 1806, though so early a meeting had long
been discontinued. The Irish House of Commons,
according to Hooker's rules, sat from 8 a.m. till u a.m.,
while in the afternoon Committees sat (Mountmorres'
Irish Parliaments, I., pp. 130-131). In those old times
the House itself had frequently two sittings, one before
and the other after dinner. As in England, so also in
Ireland, the hours for the meeting of the House were
fixed at a later time in the day and the sittings were
prolonged. In 1763, on a motion of a member that in
consequence of the increase of business Monday should
no longer be kept as a holiday, it was urged in debate
that the House should meet earlier, that it might not
be obliged to sit so late, for that the attendance of that
House till 7 or 8 o'clock at nights was a very great fatigue.
Mr. Speaker Onslow, in 1759, complained of the late
hour of commencing Parliamentary proceedings in the
English House of Commons. " This," he writes, " is
shamefully grown of late even to two of the clock ; I have
done all in my power to prevent it, and it has been one
of the griefs and burdens of my life." In the period
of Ireland's Parliamentary independence the hours of the
Irish House of Commons were as late as those of the
English House of Commons, and all-night sittings were not
unknown ; thus in 1800 the debate on the amendment to
the Address to the Throne deprecating a Union lasted from
4 p.m. on January i5th till 10 a.m. on January i6th, so
the debate on the motion that the question of a Legislative
Union be taken into consideration lasted from 4 o'clock
410 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
in the afternoon of the 5th February till i in the following
afternoon. It is of interest to record that O'Connell,
in the first year of his Parliamentary career, on the 2nd
August, 1830, addressed a letter to the Duke of Wellington,
who was then Prime Minister, urging on him the desir-
ability of the meeting of Parliament at an early hour.
The Parliamentary Session in early times was of short
duration. On the 22nd April, 1615, a Mr Sutton, one
of the Pioneers of Parliamentary Opposition, in moving
that, as it tended to the King's benefit, the subsidy Acts
might be deferred till other Acts for the benefit of the
Commonwealth were read, quoted the old lines " Little
said, soon amended, a subsidy granted Parliament ended "
(Mountmorres' 7mA Parliaments, I., p. 172). To the
details of that great measure, the Act of Settlement, is
due the longest Parliamentary session in Irish history.
The Irish Parliament sat without interruption from the
25th April, 1662, till the iyth April, 1663. During this
session the House of Commons sat 208 days, or five days
per week. They sat, however, for twenty days, both in
the morning and the afternoon. Till the end of its
existence, the Sessions of the Irish Parliament were
generally of short duration. Thus, in 1794, the Session
opened on November 2ist and ended March 25th. The
Session for 1795 began January 22nd and ended 5th June,
while the Session for 1796 began 2ist January and ended
1 5th April. The Session of 1799 lasted from January
22nd till June ist, and the Session of 1800, in which the
Union was carried, from January i5th till August ist.
PROXIES AND PROTESTS.
IN the House of Lords of the Imperial Parliament, not
only those Peers who are present may vote by proxy,
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 41!
but on certain questions absent Peers are entitled by
ancient usage regulated by several Standing Orders to
vote by proxy. In 1868, however, by Standing Order,
the House of Lords agreed to discontinue the practice
of calling for proxies. In the Irish House of Lords the
first vote by proxy was given in 1634 (Mountmorres'
Irish Parliaments, II., p. 191). In Strafford's Parliament
29 proxies were entered, of which 4 or 5 were assigned to
one Lord. In 1641 it was ordered that no Peer having
estates could vote by proxy without leave of absence
from Crown or Select Committee. In 1661 an order
was made that no Peer could hold more than two
proxies. This order was grounded on an order of
1640 which had been contravened by Strafford. In
Ireland, moreover, Peers were introduced by proxy, with
all the formalities of an introduction in person. This
custom, however, ceased at the Revolution, owing to the
necessity of taking the Parliamentary oath which was
enjoined, not by an Irish, but by an English Parliament,
by legislation to which no opposition was raised in Ireland.
In the Irish Parliament, as in the Imperial Parliament,
Peers had the right, without asking leave of the House,
to record their opinion and the grounds of it by a protest
which is entered on the Journals, together with the names
of all the Peers who concur in it. The first protest with
reason was recorded in England in 1641, and in Ireland
in 1662. In Ireland Peers had the right of protesting
by proxy. In 1765 Lord Hertford, as Lord Lieutenant,
expressed a view adverse to the entry of a protest by
proxy in the Irish House of Lords, having regard to the
English practice, but many precedents having been
cited by a Committee, among the rest one of Lord
Conway, Lord Hertford's father, the House confirmed
412 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the privilege (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 322 ;
II., p. 190). The Irish House of Lords till the last
claimed and exercised the right of protest by proxy,
which in England had fallen into desuetude. In the
protest of the Irish House of Lords against the Union —
an important State document, of which Grattan is stated
to be the author — out of twenty signatures five are stated
to be " by proxy."
TACKING.
THE practice of tacking private grants to Money Bills
which the House of Lords, in accordance with consti-
tutional practice, had either to accept or to reject, pre-
vailed in Ireland. Thus, in the Act of Settlement grants
to private individuals, each of these grants being virtually
in itself an Act of Parliament, were tacked to the Money
Bill, and in 1697 a grant to the representatives of Sir
Audley Mervyn, a Speaker of the House of Commons
in the Parliament of the Restoration, was tacked to a
Money Bill. In 1783, however, a series of very strong
resolutions was passed by the House of Lords, by Lord
Carysfort condemning this unconstitutional practice
with such effect by the House of Lords that every private
grant was subsequently sent up from the House of
Commons in a distinct and separate Bill (Mountmorres'
Irish Parliaments, II., pp. 150-152). The English House
of Lords, by a resolution of the 9th December, 1702,
upwards of eighty years before the resolution of the Irish
House of Lords, thus deprecated tacks to Bills of Supply :
" That the annexing any clause or clauses to a Bill of
Aid or Supply, the matter of which is foreign to or
different from the matter of the said Bills of Aid or Supply,
is unparliamentary and tends to the destruction of the
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 413
constitution of the Government." The practice adopted
in 1 86 1 of the presentation of the financial scheme of
the year to the House of Lords for acceptance or rejection
as a whole, and the curtailment of the powers of the Lords
in respect to Money Bills under the provisions of the
Parliament Act 1911, invest the relations between the
Irish House of Parliament in respect to Money Bills
with an actual interest at the present time.
CHARGES ON PUBLIC REVENUE.
THREE Standing Orders of the British House of Commons,
made in the early years of the eighteenth century,
which for upwards of a hundred years were the only
Standing Orders ordained for their self-government,
whose regulations have been from time to time extended
and applied, have established the practice, which has been
faithfully maintained, that every motion which in any
way creates a charge upon the public revenue must
receive the recommendation of the Crown. By this
practice the great constitutional principle has been
established and maintained, that the Sovereign having
the executive power is charged with the management of
all the revenue of the State and with all payments for
the public service. Thus, the Crown demands money,
the Commons grant it, and the Lords, subject to the
provisions of the Parliament Act, 1911, assent to the
grant ; but the Commons do not vote money unless it
is required by the Crown, nor do they impose or augment
taxes unless such taxation be necessary for the public ser-
vice as declared by the Crown through its constitutional
advisers. (See May's Parliamentary Practice, p. 545 ; see
also ibid., p. 558.) In the Irish House of Commons
this salutary practice did not obtain. Thus, after the
414 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
establishment of Irish Parliamentary Independence,
Mr. Bagenal, an unofficial member, without the know-
ledge of the intimate personal friends of Mr. Grattan,
moved that a grant of £100,000 should be made to
him, and the proposition was unanimously accepted,
but Mr. Grattan's particular friends, at his instance,
interposed and declared that nothing would induce him
to accept such a grant. At last, however, after some dis-
cussion, and acting on the advice of his friends, and upon
the urgent wish of the Parliament, he agreed to accept
£50,000, and from this time devoted himself exclusively
to the service of his country (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, IV., p. 559).
THE EFFECT OF ROYAL ASSENT TO BILLS ON
DURATION OF SESSION.
IT was formerly a matter of doubt both in England and
Ireland whether a Session was not concluded by the Royal
Assent being signified to a Bill. So far back as 1554
the English House of Commons declared against this
construction of law, and yet in 1625 it was thought
necessary to pass an Act to declare that the Session
should not be determined by the Royal Assent being
given to that and certain other Acts, and again in 1670
a clause to the same effect was inserted in an Act, but
since that time the law has become modified by usage
without any express enactment, and the Royal Assent
is now given to every Bill shortly after it has been agreed
to by both Houses without any interruption of the
Session. The idea that a Session was concluded by the
Royal Assent being signified to a Bill has ceased to exist
more than two centuries ago. Hooker, in his rules for
the Irish Parliament, shows very clearly the prevalence
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 415
of the view that the giving of the Royal Assent to a Bill
closed the Session. " If any Bill," he writes, " do pass
with their (the Lords') consent the same must be sent to the
lower House unless it came first from them (the lower
House), and in that case it must be kept to the end of
Parliament " (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 105).
In July, 1634, a Bill was brought up from the Irish House
of Commons to the House of Lords which provided that
Parliament should not determine by His Majesty's
assent to certain Bills, and in 1642 yet another Bill was
passed to secure that the Session then in existence should
not terminate by the giving of the Royal Assent to Bills
(Mountmorres' 7mA Parliaments, I., pp. 319-320 ;
II., p. 3). "It appears," writes Lord Mountmorres,
" from Cotton's Records that the Commons and Lords
severally and jointly presented short memorandums
of their desires to the King to be framed into laws, to
which, if they agreed, they were to be deposited among
the records of Parliament till the end of the Session, when
the Judges were ordered to draw them up in the regular
form as Acts of Parliament, and the completion and
passing of these Acts concluded the Session. When this
practice was changed by the Royal Assent being given
to laws in the middle of the Session it was thought
expedient to continue Parliament by an express law, as
the doctrine was then prevalent that the Royal Assent
to the Bill terminated the Session, and of this there are
many instances in early times both in England and
Ireland."
41 6 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
LORD LIEUTENANT'S IRISH STAR-CHAMBER
AND JOURNALS OF HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
STRAFFORD, who had a very large Parliamentary experi-
ence in England, first as an advocate of popular rights
and subsequently as a thorough-going upholder of the
prerogative of the Crown, was doubtless well aware that
James I., having sent for the Journal of the House of
Commons during an adjournment, and on the eve of
a dissolution, erased with his own hand the famous
protestation of December i8th, 1621. As Lord Lieu-
tenant of Ireland, he evidently desired to follow in the
footsteps of the Stuart King. An entry on the Journals
of the Irish House of Commons, dated iQth November,
1640, runs thus :
" Memorandum : By virtue of His Majesty's letters,
we, the Lord Deputy, have at the Council Board had
two Orders of the House of Commons, in presence of
divers of the late members, torn out of the Journals."
These Orders related to presenting ways and rates to
be observed in taxing the growing subsidies, and this
Memorandum is signed by Christopher Wandesford,
who was the Lord Deputy.
On the loth February, 1641, the Order of the 2Oth
October, 1640, which had been erased, was restored.
A few days afterwards, on the iyth February, the House
of Commons further vindicated their rights and privileges
against the encroachments thereon of StrafTord. In a
protestation against the preamble to an Act of Subsidies
of the last Session, which they declared was foisted in
and entered without their knowledge by Lord Strafford
and his abettors, they state a proclamation of the King
in 1625, prohibiting all applications to the Lord Deputy
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES AND ETIQUETTE., 417
or Council for justice, and referring law suits in all cases
to the ordinary Courts of Law. The references to the
Council will remind us that a Council Chamber in
Dublin Castle had been established on the same lines,
for the same purposes, and with the object of exercising
the same jurisdiction by the same methods as the Star
Chamber in England. On the 30th January, 1641, a
decree of the Council Chamber against George, Earl of
Kildare, was declared by a resolution of the House of
Commons to be extra-judicial and contrary to the Great
Charter, and this resolution was followed, in July, 1641,
by a declaration of the Charter of liberty of the subject
(Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II., pp. 40-42).
The Council Chamber of Strafford's time in Dublin
Castle, like the Star Chamber, fell into disrepute. The
Heads of a Bill for its abolition passed by the House of
Lords in 1698, were not returned from the English Privy
Council. No attempt, however, was made after the
Restoration to exercise its jurisdiction, and although
not pronounced to be illegal and formally abolished by
Statute, like its sister body in England, it ceased to have
an active existence. The records of the Irish Star
Chamber are out of the reach of the investigation of the
historian. Its records of iniquity were destroyed in
the great fire in Dublin Castle in 1713. The Viceroys
of Ireland on more than one occasion were guilty of
the impropriety of placing on the Journals of Parliament
their opinions of its proceedings — a flagrant violation
of Parliamentary privilege. Thus, when in 1692 Par-
liament rejected a Money Bill because it did not take
its rise with itself, and passed a resolution explicitly
asserting that it was the sole and undoubted right of the
Commons to propose Heads of Bills for raising money,
IF
41 8 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Lord Sydney, the Lord Lieutenant, entered a protest
against the proceedings of the House of Commons in the
House of Lords, prorogued the Parliament, and did not
suffer it to sit again. In 1769 Lord Townshend, the
Lord Lieutenant of the day, in proroguing Parliament,
directed that his protest against the action of the House
of Commons in rejecting a Money Bill " because it did
not take its rise in the House of Commons " should
be inserted in the Journals of each House. The protest
of Lord Townshend was duly entered in the Journals
of the House of Lords, but the Commons, before separat-
ing, forbade their Clerk to enter it in their Journals. In
the House of Lords a resolution in anticipation of the Lord
Lieutenant's protest had been brought forward to the
effect that no protest should be entered on its Journals
which did not emanate from a member and relate to the
business of that House. The resolution was, however,
rejected.
THE SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF
LORDS.
IN Ireland, as in England, the House of Lords had a
Speaker, who, however, at times, as in England, was not
a Peer, but a Commoner. Sir Charles Porter and Sir
Constantine Phipps, the founder of the Normanby family,
were promoted to the Irish Chancellorship from the
Outer Bar of England. On ceasing to hold the Great
Seal of Ireland and the Speakership of the Irish House
of Lords as Commoners, they returned to England and
resumed their position at the Outer Bar of that country
in stuff gowns. When a Lord Chancellor is not a Peer,
he, as Speaker of the House of Lords, has no more right
than to put the question. He has not so much as the
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 419
right to come into the House, for the woolsack is techni-
cally outside the House, and a Lord Chancellor who is
a Peer advances from the woolsack to a place within the
House when he desires to speak in debate. In Ireland,
howevei, there is an instance oi a Lord Chancellor — Sir
Richard Bolton — who was not elev?ted to the Peerage
speaking in the House of Lords in 1641 on the question
of the position of the Bishop of Killala as a signatory of
the Scotch Covenant (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments,
I., p. 336) ; and again in April, 1644, moving that a
Writ of Error was illegal without the King's warrant.
" The Chancellor," says Lord Mountmorres, " was a
very able lawyer, but it appears odd that he should move
and speak as a Peer" (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I.,
p. 359). The union in the same individual of two such
important and laborious offices as those of Lord Chan-
cellor and Speaker of the House of Lords had probably
its origin in the fact that the Chancellor generally sat
as the King's Steward in his great Court Room or in the
assembly of the principal tenants of the Crown, of which
the Upper House was composed before it was divided
into two Chambers of Parliament, as the Lord of the
Manor sat in the Manorial Court merely for the purpose
of assembling the members without having a voice or
taking part in their deliberations, a power with which
he was not invested unless he were created a Peer. The
intervention in debate of a Lord Chancellor who was not
a Peer was probably permitted by the indulgence of the
House to admit of an explanation of some particular
matter, just as the intervention of a Steward in a Manorial
Court would, under similar circumstances, be allowable
at the pleasure of the tenants (Mountmoires' Irish Par-
liaments, I., p. 415).
420 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
The offices of Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the
House of Lords, which are inseparable in England — the
Lord Chancellor being ex-officio Speaker of the House
of Lords — were in Ireland capable of severance. In
1 66 1, in the first Session of the Irish Parliament after
the Restoration, Archbishop Bramhall, the Irish Lord
Primate, was Speaker of the House of Lords ; the reason
assigned for the filling of the office in this manner was
the appointment of Sir Maurice Eustace, the Lord
Chancellor, to be one of the Lords Justices for the adminis-
tration of the Government of the country during the
absence from Ireland of the Lord Lieutenant. In the
other Parliaments, and from the commencement of the
Journals in both Kingdoms, the offices of Lord Chancellor
of Ireland and Speaker of the House of Lords in Ireland
have been united. The theoretical severance of the
offices is brought very prominently before us by the Duke
of Rutland , in 1 784 , as'Viceroy , wishing to create a Speaker -
ship of the House of Lords with a salary distinct from the
Chancellorship.
THE SPEAKER OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF
COMMONS.
THE CHAIR AND OTHER RELICS OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF
COMMONS.
THE Speaker of the Irish House of Commons was, as has
been shown in these pages, like the Speaker of the
British House of Commons, at the opening of the nine-
teenth century, an active member of the House, belonging
to a definite party, repeatedly taking a prominent part in
the discussions in Committee, as in the cases of Speakers
Boyle, Ponsonby, Pery, and Foster. Mr. Speaker
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 421
Foster, the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons,
was a great and acknowledged political power in the
country, and his speeches in Committee against the
Union are regarded as the ablest contributions to the
debates on that question. Boyle and Ponsonby were
not only Speakers but eminent political leaders, and Boyle
was, at one period of his career, while an occupant of the
Chair, an Undertaker. Ponsonby, after his resignation
of the Speakership in 1771, remained, like Sir Edward
Seymour in the English Parliament, a prcminent member
of the House of Commons, and was an unsuccessful
candidate for the Speakership in a subsequent Parliament.
To Boyle was largely due the defeat of the Court Party
in 1753, and Ponsonby in 1769, and Pery in 1772, by
casting votes in the Chair, caused defeat of the Adminis-
tration on cardinal questions of policy, which under a
system of responsible government would have entailed
an appeal to the country or immediate resignation.
The holding cf high offices of state, as in the case of
Harley in England, who, while occupying the Speaker's
Chair, at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century,
became Secretary of State and Leader of the Tory
Party, was not regarded in Ireland as incompatible with
the retention of the Speakership. The delightful old
custom which has fallen into disuse in England since 1832
— the taking away by the Speaker at the close of each
Parliament of the armchair in which he sat as president —
prevailed in Ireland till the Union. The armchair in
which Mr. Speaker Foster sat is an heirloom in the
possession of his descendant, Viscount Massereene and
Ferrard, as is also the Mace of the Irish House of Com-
mons, which Mr. Foster refused to surrender to any but
the constituted authority by whom it had been entrusted
422 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to his keeping. The Speaker of the Irish House of
Commons, who was usually a prime favourite with the
people, and regarded as a friend of popular rights and
liberties, resided not in the environment of Parliament
House, but in a private mansion in the city. In fine
weather he used to walk in his robes from his residence
to the House of Commons, preceded by the Serjeant-at-
Arms bearing the Mace, and as he passed through the
streets was received with honours of which Royalty
itself might well be proud. The mention of the Chair
of the House of Commons may perhaps be supplemented
by the statement that several other relics of the Irish House
of Commons are still to be traced. I saw some years
ago, in an exhibition in Dublin, the exquisitely-bound
prayer-book used by the Chaplain. A magnificent
candelabrum was suspended from the centre of the
ceiling of the Irish House of Commons. When that
Chamber, a few years after the Union, was demolished as
part of the conditions under which Parliament House
was sold to the Bank of Ireland, the candelabrum was
transferred to St. Andrew's Church, Dublin, which
bore in former years the same relation to the Irish House
of Commons that St. Margaret's, Westminster, bears
at present to the British Parliament. On the destruc-
tion of St. Andrew's Church by fire in 1860, the precious
relic was saved, and found a place in the Examination
Hall of Trinity College, where it still remains. The
benches on which the Members of the Irish House of
Commons sat are now in the rooms of the Royal Irish
Academy, Dawson Street, and are sometimes occupied
by the members of that learned body. The destiny
of the division bell of the Irish House of Commons is
remarkable. It found its way, after the Union, to the
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 423
Theatre Royal, Dublin, and was in use in that estab-
lishment for over half a century, sharing its fate when
destroyed by fire in February, 1880.
PROVISION IN THE EVENT OF ABSENCE OF
SPEAKER OF IRISH HOUSE OF
COMMONS.
IN the English House of Commons till 1855 no provision
was made for supplying the place of the Speaker by a
Deputy Speaker or Speaker pro tempore, and when he was
unavoidably absent no business could be done, but the
Clerk acquainted the House of Commons with the cause
of his absence and put the question for the adjournment.
When the Speaker was, by illness, unable to attend
for a considerable time, it was necessary to elect another
Speaker, with the usual formalities of the permission
of the Crown and the Royal approval. In the Irish
House of Commons, in the unavoidable absence of the
Speaker, a Deputy Speaker was elected so far back as
September, 1661, when, at the opening of a new
Session, Sir Audley Mervyn, the Speaker, being in
England as a member of a Commission, the House chose
Sir John Temple, the Solicitor- General, as Deputy
Speaker. " This," writes Lord Mountmorres, " is the
solitary instance of a Deputy Speaker in the Irish Journals,
and when I went through the Journals of the Commons
on England I remember to have seen only one instance
of a similar proceeding during the Protectorate of Oliver
Cromwell (the case of Long, Speaker pro tempore, vice
Mr. Chute) (English Commons Journals, VII., p. 612).
That it should not be constantly provided for, and that
the House might not, according to the convenience of
424 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
Parliament, supply his place upon any occasional illness,
has often surprised me " (Mountmorres' 7m/? Parlia-
ments, II., pp. 107-108).
PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.
IN the earlier history of the Irish, as of the English, Par-
liament, Members of the House of Commons were paid
wages for their attendance and services in Parliament. The
old system of the payment of Members differed from the
system of payment recently established. In times gone
by the charge was entailed on local funds, the Members
being paid by their constituents, whereas at present the
charge falls not on local but on Imperial funds. In
England and in Ireland alike Knights of the Shire
(Members for counties) were paid on a higher scale
than citizens and burgesses (the Members for the cities
and boroughs), inasmuch as the Knights of the Shire
were really persons of higher rank and lived in a more
expensive manner. Until 1872 the ancient terms of
Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, Barons of the Cinque
Ports, the Burgesses of the Universities, were used in the
writs and returns, but by the Parliament and Municipal
Elections Act, 1872, these distinctions were discontinued,
and all are alike termed Members in the writs and returns.
For more than a century in England the wages of Members
of the House of Commons were sometimes higher and
sometimes lower, but at length, in the time of Edward
III., they became fixed at 45. a day for a Knight of the
Shire and 2s. a day for a citizen or burgess, and continued
at that rate, with an allowance of a certain number of
days' pay for the journey to and fro between their homes
and the place of meeting of Parliament. In Ireland the
wages of Members of the House of Commons were
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 425
higher than in England. In the time of Elizabeth,
according to Hooker, Knights of the Shire were paid
133. 4d. per diem — the payment being subsequently
reduced to IDS. per diem ; while burgesses were paid 55.
per diem — the payment being subsequently reduced
to 33. 4d. Allowance, moreover, was given from the first
day of the journey towards Parliament, the distance
to be traversed in a day being 20 miles in winter and 30
miles in summer (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments \ L,
p. 95). In the Parliament of James I. the wages of
Members of the House of Commons were fixed at 135. 4d.
per diem for knights, IDS. per diem for citizens, 6s. 8d.
per diem for burgesses, with an allowance of ten days'
pay before the meeting of Parliament and the same
allowance after a prorogation (Mountmorres' Irish Par-
liaments, II., p. 170).
The practice of payment of Members of the Irish
House of Commons terminated under the following
circumstances : On the 8th July, 1662, Sir John Ponsonby
reported the precedents since 1634, by which it appeared
that there was a considerable abatement in the rate of
these allowances. This was the last Parliament in which
wages were allowed, for in the next Session, on I2th
March, 1665, an order was made stating that many
inconveniences had arisen from the collection of wages,
and that no warrants should issue for any wages due since
2yth September, 1662, or that should be due hereafter.
This was accordingly the last time that wages were
allowed in Ireland (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II.,
pp. 122-123). The abolition of the system of the payment
of Members may be traced in Ireland, as in England, to
the enfranchisement of small boroughs under the influence
of the Crown, whose Members, so far from being anxious
426 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to obtain wages for service in Parliament, were eager to
buy seats in the House of Commons, by which to enrich
themselves by the methods of Parliamentary corruption
then in vogue. In 1560, in the Parliament of Sussex,
ten counties, each returning two Members, were
represented ; the remaining fifty-six Members, out of a
House of Commons of 76, were returned for boroughs
or cities, of which many were merely the creations of the
Crown, which had called them into existence. In
Porritt's Parliament of 1585 there were, out of 126
Members of the House of Commons, 72 Members for
cities and boroughs. In the next Parliament, convened
in 1613 , in the reign of James I., there were 232 Members,
of whom 64 alone were county Members, while in the
Parliament of 1661 — the Restoration Parliament — there
were 246 Members, who, with the exception of 64 repre-
sentatives for the counties, sat for cities and boroughs.
The system of nomination boroughs was always the
weakness, and it eventually proved the destruction, of
the Irish Parliament. Members of the House of
Commons were no longer paid by their constituents,
because they were paid for their votes by the Crown.
After the Revolution the payment to Members had
ceased, and by 1692 the landed aristocracy of Ireland had
the boroughs almost as completely under their control
as in 1800, when £1,260,000 was divided among the
borough owners at the Union as compensation for the
disfranchisement of 84 boroughs (Porritt's Unreformed
House of Commons, II., p. 186 ; pp. 197-198).
In England the payment of Members of the House
of Commons ceased almost at the same time as in Ireland,
and for the same reasons. In March, 1676, a Bill for
the abolition of payment of Members, introduced by
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 427
Sir Harbottle Grimstone, which produced an animated
discussion, was read a second time and silently dropped.
It was, however, admitted in debate that the practice
of payment of Members was virtually a thing of the past.
Andrew Marvell, who sat in that House of Commons,
was one of the last Members who were paid wages by
their constituents. The last formal payment of wages to a
Member of the English House of Commons occurred in
1 68 1, when Thomas King, who had been Member for
Harwich, obtained from Lord Chancellor Nottingham a
writ de expensis after notice to the Corporation of Harwich.
Lord Chancellor Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors,
quotes this case, and expresses the opinion that the writ
might still (in 1844) be claimed.
QUALIFICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP— ABSENCE
FROM PARLIAMENT— RESIGNATION OF
SEATS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS-
TAKING OF HOLY ORDERS— EXPULSION.
THE constitutional obligation of every Member to
attend the Session of the House to which he belongs was
in early times enforced in Ireland, not merely on Members
of the House of Commons, on whom the penalty of loss
of wages could be inflicted with other punishments,
but also on Members of the House of Lords, to whom
wages were never paid for attendance. Thus, in July,
1634, a resolution of the House of Lords was passed and
placed on record that Lords must be called to their Par-
liamentary attendance, and, if not in attendance, pay
fines. On the i5th February, 1641, four Members
of the House of Lords were fined very severely for non-
attendance : the Archbishop of Tuam was mulcted in
428 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
£300, Lord Brittas in £150, Lord Mountgarret in
£100, and Lord Dunsany in £20, for non-attendance
(Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 344) ; while on
the 1 8th April, 1644, four Lords were fined £100 each
and four other Lords 100 marks each for failure to attend
the House (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 360)
In the Irish House of Commons absence from Parlia-
mentary duties was not merely visited by forfeiture of
wages. In May, 1615, fifteen Members of the House
of Commons were fined by the loss of their wages
(Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 126) ; but in
April, 1644, Philip Lord Lisle (a Member of the English
House of Peers who was a Member of the Irish
House of Commons) and Colonel Crawford were
actually expelled for absence without leave (Mountmorres
Irish Parliaments, II., pp. 82-83), while in October, 1665,
writs were issued in room of four Members absent
without leave (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II., p.
137) ; and in December, 1665, a writ was issued in the
room of one Member who had stated he could not soon
return to Ireland (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments,
II., p. 138). Disobedience to a call of the House was in
1666 punished by the infliction of a fine of £10 each in
the case of no fewer than 84 Members (Mountmorres'
Irish Parliaments, II., p. 139). The punishment, how-
ever, for non-attendance in either House became obsolete
when in both Houses votes grew valuable with the
increase of what Grattan has finely termed " the trade
of Parliament."
In May, 1662, a rule, which can only be regarded as
a rule of perfection, was made by an Order which forbade
any Members to record a vote on a question without
having heard the debate thereon (Mountmorres' Irish
Parliaments, II., p. 119).
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 429
It is a settled principle of Parliamentary law that a
Member, after he has been chosen, cannot relinquish
his seat. Technically, a Member of Parliament has
no power of voluntary retirement. That a man, after he
is chosen, cannot relinquish his seat was definitely laid
down by a resolution of the British House of Commons
on 'the 2nd March, 1623. ^n tne Irish House of Com-
mons, however, till 1704, a Member could vacate his
seat whenever he so desired — an anticipation of the
provision of the Home Rule Act, 1914, that a Member
by writing under his hand may resign his seat, and the
seat shall thereupon become vacant. In the Irish House
of Commons in August, 1634, it was ordered that Sir
Barnaby Bryan should have the leave of the House to go to
England, but that if he did not return within one week after
the next Session of Parliament, then by his own consent
a writ should issue for a new election — a course which was
eventually adopted. This is the first precedent of
issuing a writ by a Member's own desire, of which so
many instances occur in the early Journals of the House
of Commons (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II., pp.
7-10). It was a constant practice till 1704, when, upon
the occasion of Mr. Caulfield desiring to vacate his seat
to travel for pleasure, a Standing Order was made that
writs should not issue any more upon the desire of
Members to choose others in their places, and by a further
resolution of 1743 the principle so well established in
England, that a Member, when once chosen, cannot
relinquish his seat by the passing of a Resolution declaring
that seats can only be vacated by death, elevation to the
Peerage, appointment to the Judiciary, or the taking of
Holy Orders. The exclusion of clergy from the House
of Commons was long a rule of that assembly, confirmed
43O IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
by the Irish Statute, 28th Henry VIII., c. 12. In
Hooker's regulations of 1569 it is declared that laymen
only are eligible for election. That rule, however,
was at least on one occasion contravened, since, in 1628,
William Bedell (Bishop of Kilmore), then Provost of
Trinity College, was returned at the Irish Election of
Members for the University of Dublin. In England
it was a moot question as to whether persons in Holy
Orders were eligible for election to the House of Com-
mons. In 1 80 1, Home Tooke, a Clerk in Holy Orders,
entered the House of Commons as Member for Old
Sarum. On the loth March following a Committee
was appointed to inquire into the eligibility of persons
in Holy Orders to sit in the House. The result was the
passing of a Bill to prohibit it, and, in consequence, Home
Tooke was unable to offer himself for re-election although
he retained his seat during the existence of the Parliament
to which he was elected. By the 33rd and 34th Vic.,
c. 91, s. 4, when a person has relinquished in due form
his office of Priest or Deacon in the Church of England,
he is discharged from all disabilities and disqualifications,
including that of 41 George III., c. 63 (Home Tooke's
Act), and is, therefore, eligible to sit in Parliament.
Ireland never had an Act of Settlement — the provision,
therefore, in that Act, excluding placemen or pensioners,
which was not to come into operation till the accession
of the House of Hanover to the Throne, and, in fact,
was repealed before that event, would not have applied
to Ireland. The Place Act of Anne (6th Anne, c. 7) —
whereby it is provided that every Member of the House
of Commons accepting an office under the Crown,
except a higher commission in the Army or Navy, must
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 431
vacate his seat, but may be re-elected, while persons
holding offices created since the 25th October, 1705, are
incapacitated from being elected or re-elected Members
of Parliament — had no counterpart in Ireland till 1793,
although many efforts were made to obtain a Place or
Pension Act similar to the English Statute. When the
Parliament of Ireland adopted the principles of the
English Act, the Irish Statute only disqualified for seats
in the Irish House of Commons the holders of all offices
under the Crown or Lord Lieutenant created after the
date of its enactment — there being at that time no fewer
than 116 placemen out of the 300 Members of the Irish
House of Commons. Writing in 1793, a year before
that enactment, Lord Mountmorres said : " Employ-
ments in Ireland do not vacate seats, and, in England,
the Chiltern Hundreds appear to have been devised to
carry a point by a manoeuvre." In order to evade the
restriction placed upon leaving Parliament by a Member
elected thereto, a method of effecting a retirement was
devised by the acceptance of a nominal office under the
Crown, whereby, under the provisions of the Place Act,
a seat is vacated. The offices usually selected for this
purpose are the offices of Steward or Bailiff of His
Majesty's three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough,
and Burnnham, and the Steward of the Manor of North-
stead, which, though the offices have been refused, are
ordinarily given by the Treasury to any Member who
applies for them. This method of resigning a seat in
the House of Commons is still in vogue, and its anomalous
character was thus described by Sir William Harcourt,
speaking as Leader of the House of Commons on 3ist
January, 1893 : " The whole proceeding is merely a
constitutional fiction, equivalent to a resignation. It is
432 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
certainly an anomalous and inconvenient fiction. A
former Member of this House, Sir Henry Drummond
Wolff, in 1880, intimated that he would move for a Com-
mittee to alter the system. I am sorry he did not do so,
because I think it would be very desirable that another
form of resignation should be established by this House."
In Ireland, after the passing of the Place Act in 1793,
appointments to four nominal offices under the Crown
were used as a method of resigning a seat in the House of
Commons, just as appointments to the Chiltern Hundreds
and the other kindred nominal offices under the Crown
are used in England. By means of these offices Lord
Castlereagh packed the Irish House of Commons in 1880,
and succeeded thereby in the carrying of the Union.
By order of the Irish House of Commons on the 26th
May, 1641, when a writ was issued for a Member to serve
for Augher in the room of Captain Paisley, the election
of any one under age is forbidden (Mountmorres' Irish
Parliaments, II., p. 60). In England the election of
any one who is not twenty-one years of age is made void
by a Statute of William III. (7 & 8 Wm. III., c. 25).
Hatsell, in his Precedents, remarks that the poet Waller
sat in Parliament in 1622 before he was twenty-one
years of age, and it is certain that members were occa-
sionally admitted in despite of the provisions of the
Statute. Charles James Fox was returned and sat at the
age of nineteen, but Chesterfield (then Lord Stanhope),
under similar circumstances, received from the Ministry
of the day, whom he had attacked, a hint, on which he
acted, that he must withdraw.
On the 1 9th July, 1634, there is a record of the expul-
sion of Sir J. Bramston, Sovereign of Belfast, as his own
returning officer. That a returning officer cannot be
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 433
himself elected for the constituency of which he is a
returning officer is a well-known principle of Parliamen-
tary law (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, II., p. 2).
Thus, in 1874, Mr. Parnell, at the General Election of
that year, wished to be a candidate for the representation
of Wicklow County in Parliament. He happened, how-
ever, to be High Sheriff of that County, and as such its
returning officer, and was accordingly disqualified. In
the representation in the Irish House of Commons of
Trinity College, in two instances at least, Provosts who
were themselves the returning officers were elected. In
1613 William Temple, then Provost, was returned as
one of the Members for Trinity College, when it became
for. the first time enfranchised. In 1628 William Bedell,
the Provost, who was also a Clerk in Holy Orders, was
elected as one of the Members for Trinity College—
a position which he subsequently vacated. So far back
as 1569, in a Parliament summoned by Sir Henry Sidney,
the judges, on reference to their opinion, held that the
election of returning officers was illegal.
TONE OF THE IRISH HOUSES OF
PARLIAMENT.
4' LORD POWERSCOURT for some time attended the (Irish)
House of Lords. But he soon discovered that although
he wished to engage in business, the Upper House of
the Irish Parliament was, of all places on earth, the most
unpropitious to any such laudable pursuit. An ungenerous
and unwise policy had withered almost all the functions
of that assembly, and the ill-omened Statute of George I.
hung on it like an incubus. He was much mortified
at finding himself in the company of such august but
imbecile, inefficient personages, who moved almost
IG
434 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
more like the shadows of legislators than genuine and
sapient guardians of the realm or counsellors to Majesty.
He soon grew weary of them. To an intimate friend
of his, who often repeated the circumstance to me,
he lamented that he was not born a commoner, and
some time after he proved that he was not affectedly
querulous or insincere in the regret which he expressed,
for he procured a seat in the English House of Com-
mons. While he sat there he spoke not infrequently ;
his speaking was much approved of, and he began to
relish the new scene of life into which for the best purposes
he had now entered. But procrastination renders
our best efforts ineffectual — a severe malady soon over-
took him ; he resigned his seat in the House of Commons,
and, after struggling with uninterrupted ill-health for
some time, he died, universally beloved, in the prime
of life, having scarcely passed his thirty-fourth year "
(Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp. 213-214).
Mr. Hardy, the biographer of Lord Charlemont, thus
describes the House of Lords of Ireland in the fifties of
the eighteenth century, when Lord Charlemont began
to take an active interest in Irish public life :
" Lord Chesterfield thought proper to term the House
of Lords in England an hospital of incurables, but by what
application he would have distinguished the Irish House
of Lords at this juncture I cannot well conceive. How-
ever, it reflects no discredit on their Lordships that,
borne down as they were by a power they could not
resist, their journals, session after session, present nothing
but an unvaried waste of sterility or provincial imbecility.
The proceedings of many a solemn day in the first
assembly of the Kingdom are recorded in the following
brief chronicle, ' Prayers. Ordered that the Judges be
LAWS, CUSTOM:, USAGES, AND ETIQUETTE. 435
covered. Adjourned.' But whatever their unimportance,
they seem in the shreds and patches of their political
capacity to have been the most versatilely civil, obsequious
noblemen that could possibly exist. On the approaching
departure of the Duke of Devonshire in 1756, they
address His Grace in the following manner : ' We shall
esteem ourselves greatly favoured by His Majesty (whom
God long preserve) in the continuing of your Grace in that
high station you now so eminently fill. For we are
convinced that your frequent appearance in that office
will add new lustre to the reign of our royal sovereign,
stability to our power, etc.'
" The next year, 1757, the Nation was engaged in war,
and His Majesty had, according to their account, ' an
unnatural conjunction of powers to contend with.' What
was their Lordships' consolation ? Let us attend to their
address to His Majesty : ' When such formidable designs
are laid to deprive us of all our constitutional rights and
liberties, it must raise the highest and greatest confidence
as well as the warmest returns of gratitude and loyalty
in every Protestant bosom to know that they are com-
mitted by His Majesty's great wisdom and goodness to
the care of ' — not the Duke of Devonshire, whose
frequent appearance among them was to add such lustre
to the Throne — but to the Duke of Bedford, a most
respectable nobleman, certainly very dissimilar, however,
in many points to his predecessor. But any Viceroy
would at that time, or indeed long after, have been equally
complimented : such unvarying adulation can excite no
unity, it inspires far other sentiments " (Hardy's Life of
Charlemont, I., pp. 103-104).
Speaking of the Irish Parliament of the early years of
George III.'s reign, Mr. Hardy writes :
436 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
" Refinement of language was not to be found in Par-
liament at this time, nor for many years preceding.
So far from it, that an unlettered style almost approaching
to coarseness and vulgarity was the only one permitted
by the House of Commons. Some of the old Members
(such is the force of habit) insisted that business could
not be carried on in any other, and the younger Members,
till Mr. Hutchinson appeared, would not venture to con-
tradict them. The genuine business of the House will
always remain in the hands of a few, but Parliamentary
speaking in those days was also confined to a few, the
Secretary, the leading Commissioners of the Revenue,
the Attorney-General, and one or two grave Serjeants-
at-Law. If a contested election or some such question
called for the exertions of the gentlemen last mentioned,
they never thought of closing their speeches till repeated
hints from their Party obliged them to do so. If, to
the dismay of the House, they rose near midnight, they
were as certain, though sad, harbingers of day as ' the bird
of dawning ' ever was. The House was astonished at
the laborious constancy of such men, and often resigned
all speaking to them in a kind of absolute despair "
(Hardy's Life ofCharlematit, I., pp. 140-141).
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 437
NOTE B.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND MATERIAL
PROSPERITY.
IT has not fallen within the scope of this work to treat
of the efforts of the Irish Parliament to promote the
prosperity of their country, except in the cases in which
these efforts form part and parcel of the constitutional
history of Ireland. The struggle of that Parliament,
under the most disheartening circumstances, to develop
Irish resources, reflects credit on its extraordinary
ingenuity and its patriotism. It should never be
forgotten that Ireland was the victim of the direct legis-
lation of the English Parliament, avowedly contrived to
hinder the development of her commerce and manu-
factures. Mr. Balfour, speaking at Alnwick on July iQth,
1895, admitted that England had destroyed Irish indus-
tries. " There was," he said, " a time, an unhappy time,
when the British Parliament thought they were well
employed in crushing out Irish manufactures in the
interests of British commerce. It was a mad, and
it has proved to be a stupid, policy." Till the Restora-
tion no legislative disability rested upon Irish industry.
The English landowners complained that Irish rivalry
in the cattle market lowered English rents, and legislation
enacted between 1663 and 1680 absolutely prohibited
the importation into England from Ireland of all cattle,
sheep, and swine, of pork, bacon, and mutton, and even
of butter and cheese. An English Act passed in 1663
438 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
(15 Char. II., c. 7), entitled " An Act for the Encourage-
ment of Trade," prohibited the importation of Irish
cattle into England, and imposed a penalty on every
head of such cattle imported. It likewise prohibited
all exports from Ireland to the Colonies except victuals,
servants, horses, and salt for the fisheries of New England
and Newfoundland. A subsequent English Act declared
the importation of Irish cattle into England to be a
" publick and common nuisance," and forbade the
importation of beef, pork or bacon (18 Char. II., c. 2).
The exportation to Ireland from the English Plantations
of sugar, cotton wool, tobacco, indigo, ginger, fustian,
or other dyeing wool, the growth of the plantations, was
forbidden by Statute (22 and 23 Char. II., c. 26).
Being forbidden to export their cattle to England,
the Irish landowners turned their land into sheep walks,
and began on a large scale to manufacture the wool.
The exportation of Irish woollen goods to England had
already been subject to a duty equal to a prohibition (12
Char. II., c. 4), but this did not at the time inflict material
injury on Ireland, as there was an important woollen
manufacture in England. After the Revolution, however,
the English manufacturers urgently petitioned for the
total destruction of the woollen industry in Ireland. An
English Statute of 1698 (10 & n Wm. III., c. 10) recites
that " wool and woollen manufactures of cloth, serge,
bags, kerseys, and other stuffs, made or mixed with
wool, are the greatest and most profitable commodities
of the kingdom, on which the value of land and the trade
of our nation do chiefly depend, and that great quantities
of the like manufactures have of late been made and are
daily increasing in the Kingdom of Ireland and in the
English Plantations of America, and are exported from
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 439
hence to foreign markets heretofore supplied from
England, all which inevitably tends to injure the value of
lands and to ruin the trade and woollen manufactures
of the Realm, and that for the prevention thereof the
export of wool and of woollen manufactures from Ireland
be prohibited under forfeiture of goods and ship, and a
penalty of £500 for every such offence." In reply to
Addresses presented to King William III. by both
Houses of the English Parliament on Qth June, 1698,
his Majesty said : "I shall do all that in me lies to dis-
courage the woollen manufacture in Ireland and encourage
the linen manufacture there, and to promote the trade
of England " (English Commons' Journals, XII., p. 539).
Ireland's woollen manufacture was thus sacrificed to
England's commercial jealousy, and the promise solemnly
made to foster the linen manufacture was, in the words
of Lord North, speaking in the English House of
Commons as Prime Minister on December i3th, 1779,
nearly a century later, when proposing the removal of
some of the restraints placed by English legislation on
Irish trade, " no sooner made than it was violated by
England," for, instead of prohibiting foreign linens,
duties were laid on and necessarily collected, so far from
amounting to a prohibition on the imports of the Dutch,
German, and East Country linen manufacturers, that
these manufacturers have been able, after bearing duties
imposed on them by the British Parliament, to meet,
and in some instances undersell, Ireland, both in Great
Britain and the West Indies, and several other parts of
the British Empire (Parliamentary Debates, XV., p. 181).
In 1750 heavy taxes were laid on the imports to England
of sail cloth made of Irish hemp, contrary, of course, to
the express stipulation of 1698. Every industry or trade
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
to which the Irish people had recourse was crushed in
a similar manner — cotton, glass, iron, hats, sugar-refining,
ship-building — every industry to which Ireland turned
was destroyed by England, by the imposition of prohibi-
tive duties and by the closing of the ports. The Colonial
and Indian markets were closed absolutely against Ireland,
while prohibitive duties were placed on all Irish manu-
factures so as to keep them out of the English markets.
Lord DufTerin has admirably summed up English inter-
ference with Irish industries, which I have thus sketched
in faint outline. " One by one," he writes, " of each of
our nascent industries was either strangled at its birth or
handed over, gagged and bound, to the jealous custody
of the rival interests of England, until at last every
fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed, and even the
traditions of commercial wealth have perished through
desuetude." This code, atrocious as it was, still failed
to come up to the mark in the judgments of the selfish
and unscrupulous profiteers in whose interests it was
established. " In the year 1698," writes Hely Hutchin-
son, " two petitions were preferred from Folkestone
and Aldborough stating a singular grievance that they
suffered from Ireland ' by the Irish catching herrings
at Waterford and Wexford and sending them to the
Streights, and thereby forestalling and ruining petitioners'
markets,, but these petitioners had the hard lot of having
motions in their favour rejected " (Commercial Restraints,
pp. 125-126).
Mr. Fox, speaking in the British Parliament on
May iyth, 1782, as a responsible Minister of the Crown,
thus stated the nature and effect of the legislation of that
Parliament with reference to Irish trade : " The power
of external legislation had been employed against Ireland
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 44!
as an instrument of oppression to establish an impolitic
monopoly in trade to enrich one country at the expense
of the other " (Parliamentary Register, p. 7).
The English Government was, previously to the
Revolution of 1782, able to dominate the legislation of
the Irish Parliament under the provisions of Poynings'
Law. While the British Parliament placed prohibitory
duties on Irish goods, it was quite impossible for the Irish
Parliament to exercise a similar power. No Irish Bills
could before 1782 become law, or indeed in strictness be
introduced into the Irish Parliament, without the sanction
of the English Privy Council, which would, of course,
in the case of Bills of this character, be withheld.
The Irish Parliament, bound thus hand and foot, by
a rapacious tyranny, did all that lay in its power to be
a vigilant and intelligent guardian of the national interests
of the country. " The system of (Irish) Government,"
writes Mr. Lecky, " though corrupt, anomalous, and
exposed to many dangers, was not one of those which are
incompatible with a great measure of national prosperity.
There were unfair monopolies of patronage ; there was a
pension list of rather more than £100,000 a year, a great
part of which was grossly corrupt ; there was a scandalous
multiplication and a scandalous employment of sinecures,
but these were not the kind of evils that seriously affect the
material well-being of the community. In spite of much
corrupt expenditure, the Government was a cheap one.
Ireland was amongst the most lightly-taxed nations in
Europe, and, with the exception of the tithe system, which
was unjust in the exemption of pasture (an exemption not
legalised but secured in practice by a resolution of the
House of Commons in 1735), and which in some parts
of the country fell with a most oppressive weight upon
442 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the poor, there was little to complain of in the apportion-
ment of public burdens " (Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 444).
Mr. Foster, the last Speaker of the Irish House of
Commons, who had previously filled the office of Chan-
cellor of the Irish Exchequer, who subsequently to the
Union was, before the amalgamation of the British and
Irish Exchequers in 1816, Irish Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and was admittedly one of the greatest
financial experts of his generation, spoke thus in the Irish
House of Commons on izth April, 1800, in a Union
debate : " The British Minister wants a Union in
order to tax you and take your money when he fears your
own representatives would deem it improper, and to
force regulations on your trade which your own Parlia-
ment would consider injurious or partial. I never
expected to have heard it so unequivocably acknowledged,
and I trust that it will be thoroughly understood that it is
not your Constitution he wants to take away for any
supposed imperfection, but because it keeps the purse of
the nation in the honest hands of an Irish Parliament."
The Irish Parliament had at first but little power
except that of protesting against laws crushing Irish
commerce and of making feeble efforts to develop the
resources of the country and to guard them from unjust
taxation. What little that Parliament could do it appears
to have done, as its journals show a minute attention to
industrial questions, to the improvement of means of
communication, to the execution of public works. In
1703, 1705, 1707, the House of Commons, when the
country was reduced to the very lowest state by the
destruction of the woollen trade, resolved unanimously
that it would greatly conduce to the relief of the poor and
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 443
the good of the Kingdom that the inhabitants thereof should
use none other but the manufactures of this Kingdom
in their apparel and the furniture of their houses, and in
the last of these Sessions the Members engaged their
honour to conform themselves to this resolution (Lecky's
History of England in the Eighteenth Century , II., p. 214).
In 1708 spinning schools were established in every county,
and premiums were offered for the best linen, and a
Board of Trustees was appointed in 1710 to watch over
the interests of the capital. In 1701, moreover, pensions
to the amount of £16,000 were struck off owing to the
pressure brought to bear upon the Government by a
Parliament indignant at the ruin of the woollen trade.
The helplessness of the Irish Parliament during this
period is demonstrated by Hely Hutchinson, who states
that in 1721, during a period of great distress, the Speech
from the Throne and the Addresses to the King and the
Lord Lieutenant declare in the strongest terms the great
decay of trade and the very low and impoverished
condition to which the country was reduced. " But,"
he says, " it is a melancholy proof of the depending state
of this Kingdom that no law whatever was then proposed
for encouraging trade or manufacture, or, to follow the
words of the Address, ' for reviving trade and making us
a flourishing people/ unless that for amending laws as
to butter and tallow casks deserves to be so called. And
why ? Because it was well understood by both Houses
of Parliament that they had no power to remove those
restraints which prohibited trade and discouraged
manufactures, and that any application for that purpose
would at that time have only offended the people on one
side of the Channel, without bringing relief to those on
the other " (Commercial Restraints, pp. 40-41). In 1727
444 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the Privy Council allowed a Bill, framed on the model of
an English Statute, to become law, entitled " An Act to
encourage Home Consumption of Wool by Burying in
Wool only," providing that no person should be buried
in any stuff or thing other than what is made of sheep
or lambs' wool only. The custom, now grotesque and
unmeaning, of wearing linen scarves at funerals was
recommended by the Irish Parliament in the interests
of the linen manufacture, and was first introduced
in 1729 at the funeral of Mr. Conolly, Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons. In 1729 also a measure was
carried by which all salaries, employments, places, and
pensions of those who did not live in Ireland six months in
the year were taxed four shillings in the pound, but the
unfortunate qualification was added, " unless they should
be exempted by His Majesty's sign warrant." The
Statute thus rendered useless had become, in 1753, a
dead letter. It was re-enacted in 1767 without the
provision for exemption, but it was evaded by grants from
the public funds equivalent to the taxes imposed.
The Irish Parliament, moreover, when the trade of
their country had been destroyed, endeavoured to provide
means of subsistence for their people by the encourage-
ment of tillage. In 1716 the House of Commons unani-
mously passed a resolution that covenants which pro-
hibited the breaking of the land with the plough were
impolitic, and should have no binding force. They,
moreover, passed heads of a Bill enjoining that for every
hundred acres which any tenant held he should break
up and cultivate five, and, as a further encouragement,
that a trifling bounty should be granted by the Govern-
ment on corn grown for exportation. The Bill came back
from the Privy Council, but a clause had been slipped in
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 445
empowering the Council to suspend the premiums at
their pleasure, and the House of Commons in disgust
refused to take back a measure which had been mutilated
into a mockery. It became law in 1727 (i Geo. II., c. 10),
but was wholly ineffective. Among the Irish papers
at the English Record Office there is one sent from
Ireland, April i6th, 1774, enumerating the different
Acts that have been passed relating to Irish tillage. To
the Statute of 1727 the following note is appended :
' This law, though a perpetual one, has never been
observed nor attended to in a single instance."* The
desire of the Irish Parliament to encourage tillage in the
interests of the people was most marked. In 1759 a law
was passed granting bounties charged on the hereditary
revenue on the land passage of corn and flour to Dublin.
In 1774 the burden of these perpetual duties in the Lord
Lieutenancy of Lord Harcourt was partially removed
from the hereditary revenue of the Crown by a resolution
of the House of Commons to the effect that whenever the
burden on the inland carriage of corn exceeded £3 5,000
in the year, Parliament should impose fresh taxes to make
good the excess (Lecky's History of England, II., p. 435 ;
IV., p. 415). In 1797 the bounty on the inland carriage
of corn to Dublin was abandoned by the House of
Commons, which had then become absolutely subser-
vient to the Government. In 1771 the heads of a Bill
were introduced to prevent corn from being wasted in
making whiskey, and to put some restraint on the vice
of drunkenness, which was then increasing. The Bill
was warmly recommended by Lord Townshend, the Lord
Lieutenant of the day, to the Privy Council, but was
rejected " because the Treasury," in the words of Mr.
* Becky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, II., p. 248 ;
IV., p. 312. See also Froude's English in Ireland, I., pp. 441-446.
446 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Froude, " could not spare a few thousand pounds which
were levied upon drunkenness." *
English influence, notwithstanding the struggles of
the Irish Parliament in the interests of the Irish people,
dominated in Irish legislation, and would suffer no
measure that would interfere with the English corn
trade before the establishment of Irish Parliamentary
Independence in 1782. Some bounties on corn exporta-
tion were granted in 1707, but they were far smaller
than those in England, and they only came into operation
when the price had come to a level it scarcely ever
reached. They were slightly increased in 1756, in 1765,
and in 1774, but were still too low to have any considerable
effect. The Act making it compulsory to till five acres in
every hundred was little more than a dead letter, and no
good result can have followed from an Act of 1765,
which offered premiums to the landlord and farmer
in each county who had the largest quantity of corn on
stands four feet high with flagstones at the top. Some
considerable effect, however, is said to have been pro-
duced by these various Acts, which offered bounties on
the inland carriage.-}- To the establishment of Irish
Parliamentary Independence in 1782 is due the memorable
Statute known as Foster's Act (23 and 24 Geo., Ill, c. 19),
which proved an inestimable benefit to the Irish Nation.
This Act, named from the Speaker of the House of
Commons, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1784,
introduced it in the House of Commons, has been
described by writers who have examined the economical
condition of Ireland as incomparably the most beneficent
measure of the Eighteenth Century. It was modelled
on the English Corn Laws as they had existed since the
Revolution. A bounty of 35. 4d. a barrel on the export
* English in Ireland, II., p. 114.
t I.ecky, VI., pp. 356-357-
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 447
of wheat was granted as long as the home price was not
above 275. a barrel, and other very considerable bounties
on the exportation of flour, barley, rye, oats, and pease,
and it at the same time laid a duty of IDS. a barrel on
imported wheat when the home price was under 308.,
and a number of other duties varying according to the
home price on the importation of the other articles that
have been mentioned. Mr. Lecky, from whom I have
taken this description of Foster's Act, quotes the appre-
ciation by Newenham of that measure with evident
approval. Newenham mentions, writing in 1809, that
since the passing of that Act acute distress in Ireland
ceased, manufactures flourished, in consequence of
increased profits in agriculture, and while population
rapidly augmented, the well-being of all classes steadily
rose. " Those views," writes Mr. Lecky, " appear to
have been very generally held, and the corn bounties
received the warm and almost unanimous approbation
of Parliament. It is impossible, indeed, to question the
magnitude of the change that followed them — vast
pasture lands were rapidly broken up into small tillage
farms, corn ricks were erected in every quarter of the land,
and a great corn trade was produced. The quantity of
corn, meal, and flour exported in twelve years after the
passing of the Act exceeded that which was exported
in the eighty-four years that preceded it. Its value in
the years after 1785 was almost four millions and a quarter.
It may, I think, be truly claimed for Foster's Act that in
a country where there was very little capital and enter-
prise, it turned agriculture decisively and rapidly in this
profitable direction. It was enacted at a time when the
growth of the manufacturing population in England had
begun to press heavily on the nation's means of subsis-
448 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
tence. England ceased to be a wheat-exporting country
—the vast market was thrown open to Irish corn, and a
few years later the French War raised the price of wheat
almost to a famine rate, and made the profits of corn
culture proportionately large."*
The efforts of the Irish Parliament to promote agricul-
ture, both before and after 1782, which I have thus
outlined, are typical of the work of a body of men who
took a real interest in the material welfare of their country
which was too strong to be repressed by enervating
hostile influence. Many measures of practical, unobtru-
sive utility were passed, and an effective check was placed
on the extravagance of the Executive. The English
poor law of Elizabeth was never applied to Ireland, but
in 1703 in Dublin, and in 1735 in Cork, workhouses and
corporations for the management and the relief of the
destitute were established by Statute (Lecky, II., pp. 253-
254). The Royal Dublin Society was assisted by con-
siderable grants from the Irish Parliament, as was also
Trinity College, Dublin, to the erection of whose library
three sums, each of £5,000 were voted, and sums amount-
ing in all to £43,000 were granted for the repair of
chambers and the rebuilding of the College squares.
An Act was passed in William III.'s reign (10 Wm. III.
2, c. 12) enforcing the planting of a certain number of
trees in each county. In 1737 severe resolutions were
passed for the protection of Fisheries. The grave abuses
of the system of charging pensions on the Civil List
frequently occupied the attention of the Irish Parliament.
The Parliament threw itself with zeal into the establish-
ment of a system of inland navigation by means of canals
with locks, which was one of the most important events
in industrial history in the Eighteenth Century. In
* See I^ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Cf*t«ry, VI.,
PP-, 355-358.
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 449
1761 it voted a sum of £15,500 to the corporations of
several inland navigations, and made special grants for
a canal from Dublin to the Shannon, and for improving
the navigation of the Shannon, the Barrow, and the Boyne.
Among the votes of the Irish Parliament for 1763 we find
grants for the construction of a canal between Dublin
and the Shannon, for a canal from Nevvry to Lough
Neagh, for a canal connecting Lough Swilly and Lough
Foyle, for a canal which, together with improvements
on the River Lagan, was intended to complete the naviga-
tion between Lough Neagh and the sea at Belfast, and
for four other inland navigations by canals.*
Lord Macartney has observed—as Chief Secretary under
Lord Townshend (1767-1773) he had special opportu-
nities of obtaining information — that for the space of
fifty years from 1727 the only additional taxes imposed
upon Ireland were some inconsiderable duties appro-
priated to the payment of the interest and principal
of the debt, and some small duties the produce of which
was specifically assigned to the encouragement of tillage
or of some particular branch of Irish trade or manufac-
ture (Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century,
II., pp. 313-314). In the last years of the Irish Parlia-
ment, and at all events from the concession of free trade in
1779 till the Rebellion of 1798, the material progress of
Ireland under the fostering care of the Irish Parliament
was rapid and uninterrupted. In ten years from 1782
the exports had more than trebled. Lord Sheffield, who
wrote about Irish commerce in 1785, said : " At present
the improvement of Ireland is as rapid as any country
ever experienced." At the end of the Session of 1787,
Foster, who was then Speaker, in presenting his Money
Bills to the Lord Lieutenant for the Royal Assent, said :
* See Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, p. 1 88.
IH
450 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
' The wisdom of the principle which the Commons have
established and persevered in under your Grace's
auspices, of preventing the further accumulation of
National Debt, is now powerfully felt throughout the
Kingdom by its many beneficial consequences. Public
credit has gradually risen to a height unknown for many
years, agriculture has brought in new supplies of wealth,
and the merchants and manufacturers are each encouraged
to extend their efforts by the security it has given them
that no new taxes will obstruct the progress of their works
or impede the success of their speculations."* In
1790 Sir John Parnell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
stated in Parliament that he did not think it possible for
any nation to have improved more in the circumstances
since 1 784 .... than Ireland had done from that time ;
the debt of the nation had decreased £96,000, and the
interest on the debt still remaining had deer eased £17,000,
which was precisely the same thing at 4 per cent, as if
the principal had been reduced £425,000. " Add to this
the great increase of trade, our exports alone having
increased £800,000 last year beyond the former period,
and he believed it would be difficult in the history of the
world to show a nation rising faster in prosperity."
" I am bold to say," said Lord Clare, speaking of the
preceding twenty years in the speech which he delivered
and published in 1798, " there is not a nation on the
habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation and
commerce, in agriculture and manufactures, with the
same rapidity in the same period." Cooke, who was the
chief official writer in favour of the Union, uses similar
language. " What is meant," he asked in a pamphlet
published in 1798 to advance the Union, " by a firm and
steady administration ? Does it mean such an adminis-
* Ivecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI.,
P- 354-
MATERIAL PROSPERITY. 451
tration as tends to the increase of the Nation in population,
its advancement in agriculture, in manufactures, in wealth
and prosperity ? If that is intended we have had the
experience of these twenty years, for it is universally
admitted that no country in the world has made such
rapid advances as Ireland has done in these respects "*
" The Irish Parliament," writes Mr. Lecky, " was
a body consisting very largely of independent country
gentlemen, who, on nearly all questions affecting
the economical and industrial development of the
country, had a powerful, if not a decisive, influence.
The lines of party were but faintly drawn ; most questions
were settled by mutual compromise and general con-
currence, and it was in reality only in a small class of
political questions that the corrupt power of the Govern-
ment seems to have been strained." f The very moment
Grattan achieved the independence of the Irish Parlia-
ment, Irish industries, owing to the quiet and unobtru-
sive work and influence of that Parliament, revived all
over the land. A recent writer thus expounds this
position :
" The Irish Commons did much to foster new pros-
perity. They could not spend large sums of money like
England in promoting trades and manufactures, but
the sums they did spend were wisely allotted. The
industrial aspect of Ireland rapidly changed. Ruined
factories sprang into life and new ones were built, the
old corn mills which had ceased working so long were
everywhere busy, the population of the towns began to
increase, the standard of living among the artisan class
rose, and even the condition of the peasantry changed
slightly for the better. Dublin, instead of being sunk in
decay, assumed the appearance of a thriving town. In
* I<ecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., p. 437-
438.
t Ibid., p. 443.
452 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
fact, the independent Irish Legislature set itself to promote
the material prosperity of the country in every possible
way, and there is no doubt its efforts had much to say
to the really surprising commercial progress which was
made from 1780 until the years immediately preceding
the Union. The Irish fisheries became the envy and
admiration of Great Britain, and agriculture increased
rapidly. Various manufactures in Ireland began to
revive — the manufacture of hats, of boots and shoes, of
candles and soap, of blankets and carpets, of woollens,
of printed cottons, of fustians, and of glass, all sprang
into importance, while the linen manufacture, which had
decayed during the American War, quickly revived, and
in ten years the exports of the various kinds of linen
doubled."*
* A. E. Murray's History of the Commercial and Financial Rela-
tions between England and Ireland from the Period of the Revolution.
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE- 453
NOTE C.
A SKETCH OF IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE.
ADDRESS BY MR. SWIFT MAcNEILL, M.P.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE EIGHTY CLUB IN THE CHAMBER
OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF LORDS, PARLIAMENT HOUSE,
IN SEPTEMBER, 1911.
" IN your tour in Ireland," said Mr. Swift MacNeill,
" your attention will, in the main, be directed to practical
work. You will examine the present conditions of this
country — conditions so changed from the year 1880, from
which this Club takes its name in commemoration of the
illustrious triumph for the cause of human freedom won
by Mr. Gladstone at the General Election of that year,
that we may almost say that we have in Ireland a new
heaven and a new earth. You will be asked to look
forward with hope and confidence to a prosperous,
contented, self-governed Ireland, while your hearts
will be stirred to take each one a part in so glorious an
achievement. To-day for a few moments I shall urge
on you something different from this. I invite you to
take with me a glance not at the present, but at the past.
The roots of the present lie deep in the past, although
we must bear in mind Lord Bacon's caution, which
Lord John Russell has prefixed to a chapter on the
unreformed English Parliament, and which is certainly
applicable to what relates to the Irish Parliament —
454 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
' They that venerate old times too much are lost in
scorn to the new.' My main purpose is to describe to
you very generally some aspects of parliamentary life
in Dublin before the Union, and, above all, to give you
an account of this historic building, which I love and
admire more and more every day, which I have
known as long as I can remember, and which was the
home of the old Irish Parliament, that Irish Parliament
which, despite all its defects and limitations, supplies
an illustration of the value and power of the most
enfeebled Parliamentary institution. You know its com-
position, and the restrictions to which it was subject. Of
its three hundred members of the House of Commons,
only one hundred and twenty-eight were selected by a
semblance of popular election, while the House of Lords,
which consisted at the time of the Union of two hundred
and twenty-eight Temporal and twenty-two Spiritual
Peers, was a body hopelessly out of sympathy with the
people. The Lords Temporal were in many cases
Englishmen and Scotchmen, some of whom had never
been in the country, while the native Peers were men
who, themselves or their predecessors, had purchased
their peerages with sums of money paid to the Govern-
ment to be expended on corruption of the members
of the Irish House of Commons, had then become
subservient Government drudges and obtained peer-
ages, the consideration being to vote for the Government
against the people in the House of Lords and to put
nominees in the House of Commons in the rotten
boroughs they vacated to pursue the same course. Still
that Parliament, because it was a resident Parliament,
repealed the Penal Lav s, freed itself from legislative
control of the English Parliament, admitted the Catholic
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 455
masses to the Parliamentary franchise, founded a
seminary for Catholic priests at Maynooth, and would,
had it not been destroyed by a combination of force
and fraud without a parallel, have extended to all their
fellow-countrymen the fullest religious and political
equality.
" What the Irish Parliament did tor the material pros-
perity of Ireland has been testified by Lord Clare, the
Lord Chancellor of the Union, speaking in support of
the measure of the Union, on February loth, 1800. on
the very spot on which I now stand. ' There is not,'
he said, * a nation on the face of the inhabitable globe
which has advanced in cultivation, in agriculture, in
manufactures with the same rapidity within the same
period as Ireland in the eighteen years of her Parliamen-
tary independence.' ' [Mr. MacNeill stepped down from
the rostrum to the exact spot where Lord Clare had
stood. He went on] — " On the means by which the
Union was carried I will not dwell. I will only remind
you of the words of Professor Dicey, a protagonist for
the maintenance of the Union, in his work, ' The Case
of England Against Home Rule ' : ' The remarkable
tale of the transactions which carried the Treaty of
Union teaches at least one indisputable lesson — the due
observation of legal formalities will not induce a people
to pardon what they deem to be acts of tyranny, made all
the more hateful by their combination with deceit.'
Standing here in the ancient Senate House of Ireland,
with all its memories, this ' Old House at Home,' the
spell of whose glories is throwing its splendour over the
memory of us all, I say solemnly that the Irish people
have never given their assent to the surrender of their
Parliamentary rights, and that the authority of the United
456 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Parliament rests to-day, so far as Ireland is concerned,
on crimes as great as that which caused the disruption
of Poland. So long as a Parliament for the management
of her own affairs is withheld from Ireland, although
Parliaments of this character have been given, with
the happiest results, to no fewer than eight-and-twenty
States within the ambit of the British Empire, Ireland is
the only stigmatised and degraded country under
British dominion, in direct violation of every constitu-
tional principle. The Irish claim is strengthened by the
fact that the grant of responsible government to the
Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, only a few years
ago at war with Great Britain, which has been followed
so soon by the establishment of the Union of South
Africa, accentuates the denial of responsible government
to Ireland, when it is remembered that Ireland had a
Parliament of her own, a Parliament as old as the Parlia-
ment of England. You know, ladies and gentlemen,
the Irish claim enunciated by Mr. Redmond — an Irish
Parliament for the management of Irish affairs, with an
Irish Executive responsible to that Parliament, and,
through it, to the Irish people at large — a claim of whose
success I am as certain as that to-morrow's sun will rise.
The pathetic story of the old men who remembered the
splendour of the former Temple weeping, while the
young men rejoiced at its successor, will not be repeated,
The new Irish Constitution will give to Ireland what
she never had before, an Executive responsible to
her own Parliament, and which will give to Ireland
another inestimable privilege which she never had
before, an Irish representation in the Imperial Par-
liament for the management of the affairs of the
Empire, which has been constructed, consolidated,
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 457
secured, extended, not merely by British, but by Irish
statesmanship, genius, energy, sendee, and sacrifice.
Having said this much on the great and absorbing question
of Home Rule, I will for a few moments endeavour to
sketch in very faint outline the tone and habits and sur-
roundings of Irish Parliamentary life before the Union,
Irish Parliaments were not uniformly held in Dublin, no
more than English Parliaments were uniformly held in
Westminster. As in England Parliaments have been held
in various places — in Winchester, in York, in Gloucester,
in Oxford, so in Ireland Parliaments have often been held
in places other than the capital — in Kilkenny, in Naas,
in Drogheda, in Limerick. From the reign of Elizabeth,
however, Dublin was the place in which the Parliaments
of Ireland met. In the reigns of Elizabeth, James I.,
Charles I., these Parliaments were generally held in
Dublin Castle, with an occasional meeting in the old
Custom House or the Tholsel. From 1692 till 1728 the
Irish Parliament met in Chichester House, which stood on
the site of the building in which we now are. Chichester
House, which was the home for upwards of a hundred
years of the Irish Parliament, had in itself a strange
history. It was originally designed to be an hospital,
and was erected for this purpose by Sir George Carew,
who succeeded Essex as Lord Deputy in the last year
of the reign of Elizabeth. It was then for a few years
the seat of the Courts of Law . It eventually became the
Dublin mansion of Sir Arthur Chichester, who was Lord
Deputy of Ireland from 1604 till 1615. He was a native
of Devonshire, who had fled from justice for the robbery
of one of Queen Elizabeth's purveyors in that county.
He, however, re-established his lost character by public
45 ^> IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
robberies in this country, called, with conventional
insincerity, confiscations. He eventually became the
agent by which the Plantation in Ulster was canied out,
and he procured enormous grants of land in that pro-
vince which had been taken from the old inhabitants.
He was the founder of the Donegall family, and through
him Lord Shaftesbury, on whom has devolved by
inheritance the property of that family, including,
according to a recent decision of the House of Lords,
all the fish in Lough Neagh, owns his vast estates in
Ireland. Chichester House, having been the residence
of other Lords Deputy, eventually came into the posses-
sion of the Government, and was assigned by the
Crown in 1673 to be a Parliament House. Chichester
House had long fallen into a ruinous condition,
and had become quite unfit for the requirements of a
Parliament House, and even by reason of its dilapi-
dations dangerous to life, when at long last the Irish
Parliament, having expended large sums on temporary
repairs, determined vhat a fitting House of Parliament
should be built on the site of Chichester House, which
was demolished in December, 1728. While Parliament
House was being built from 1728 till 1731, when it was
opened, the Parliament sat in the Blue Coat Hospital
at Oxmanstown Green, now Blackball Street, which was
once covered by a wood, from whose timber William
Rufus in 1098 had the roof of Westminster Hall con-
structed. You see here a curious association of the Palace
of Westminster with the seat of the Irish Parliament. The
architect of this building, which is unrivalled in its
beauty and exquisite proportions, was himself a Member
of the Irish House of Commons, Captain Edward Lovet
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 459
Pearce, who had served with distinction in a cavalry
regiment, and had then turned to the profession of an
architect. He was a high-minded, honourable gentle-
man, to whom votes of thanks for his excellent work,
which he did not live to see completed, were on more
than one occasion passed by Parliament, and grateful
acknowledgments made ' for the uncommon order,
beauty, and contrivance in the building,' and for the
great frugality with which the money had been expended.
Parliament House was not completed till 1739, while
the porticoes in Westmoreland Street and Foster Place
were added many years later, but the first Session in
the new edifice commenced on the 5th October, 1731.
Pearce died in 1733, having been re-appointed Director-
General, and having received the honour of Knighthood.
No descendants of his name are now in existence, but his
lineal descendant in the distaff line and his personal
representative is Mr. George Wolfe, of Forenaughts,
Co. Kildare, the head of the Wolfe family, which he
represented at the Quebec commemorations, and a
gentleman who is as anxious for the restoration of the
Irish Parliament as the descendant of the architect of
the Irish Parliament House ought to be. Here is a
description of Parliament House given by James Malton,
an English artist of the last century, writing in 1792 : —
' The Parliament House of Ireland is, notwithstanding
the several fine pieces of architecture since recently
raised, the noblest structure Dublin has to boast, and it
is no hyperbole to advance that this edifice in the entire
is the grandest, most convenient, and most extensive of
its kind in Europe. The inside of this admirable building
corresponds in every respect with the majesty of its
external appearance. The middle door under the
460 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
portico leads directly intc the Commons' House, passing
through a great hall called the Court of Requests, where
people assemble during the sittings of Parliament, some-
limes large deputations of them with and attending
petitions before the House. The Commons' Room is
truly deserving of admiration. Its form is circular,
55 feet in diameter, inscribed in a square. The seats
whereon the Members sit are disposed around the centre
of the room in concentric circles, one rising above the
other. About 15 feet above the level of the floor, on a
cylindrical basement, are disposed 1 6 Corinthian columns,
supporting a rich hemispherical dome, which crowns
the whole. A narrow gallery for the public, about 5 feet
broad, with very convenient seats, is fitted up, with a
balustrade in front, between the pillars. The appear-
ance of the House assembled below from the gallery
corresponds with its importance, and presents a dignity
which must be seen to be felt. The strength of the
orators' eloquence receives additional force from the
construction of the place and the vibration in the dome.
All round the Commons' Room is a beautiful portico,
which communicates by three doors with the House
and to all the departments attendant thereon, which
are conveniently disposed about Committee Rooms,
Rooms for Clerks, Coffee Rooms. The House of Lords
is situated to the right of the Commons, and is also a
noble apartment. The body is 40 feet long, by 30
feet wide, in addition to which at the upper end is a
circular recess, 13 feet deep, like a large niche, wherein
the Throne is placed under a rich canopy of crimson
velvet, and at the lower end is a Bar 20 feet square. The
room is ornamented at each end with Corinthian columns
with niches between. On the two long sides of the room
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 461
are two large pieces of tapestry, now (in 1794) father
decayed. One represents the famous Battle of the
Boyne, the other the Siege of Derry. Here, again,
the House assembled, from below the Bar a high scene
of picturesque splendour is presented, and the Viceroy
on the Throne appears with more splendour than his
Majesty himself on the Throne of England.' Now
Malton wrote 120 years ago, and some changes in this
Chamber of the House of Lords have been made since
his time. The Bar has disappeared, but we can exactly
fix the place which it occupied by looking at patches
in the two pillars which now fill the apertures made on
either side of the House for the support of the Bar, which
of course went clean across the House. The two pieces
of tapestry of which Malton speaks as ' rather decayed '
have not suffered in the interval of 119 years since he
wrote. They are exquisite works of art, the products of
the genius ot the Huguenot Colony in the Liberties of
Dublin, who fled to Ireland after the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, and whose descendants we recognise
in the honoured names of La Touche, La Trobe,
De Lavel, D'Olier, and many others. A Mr. Baillie
was employed to furnish tapestry for the House of Lords,
and in July, 1728, while this Parliament House was in
building, entered into a bond with the Lords Justices
to make six pieces of tapestry at £3 per ell. Of these only
two — the ones we see — were perfected. The subjects
of the olher tour intended tapestries were the landing
of William III. and his army at Carrickfergus, the entry
of William III. into Dublin ; the Battle of Aughrirr, and
the attacking of Cork and Kinsale by the Duke of Marl-
borough. All these historic events which were thus
to be commemorated were, like the Battle of the Boyne
462 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
and the Siege of Derry, closely associated with what may
be called the politics of the Revolution, and were subjects
of fierce differences of opinion which divided Ireland
into two hostile camps — the Ascendancy Party and the
Catholic population of this country ground down by
penal laws and reduced in their own land to absolute
serfdom. The date of the tapestry is in the period when
the Penal Law regime was at the very zenith of its
atrocity, and the tapestries thus reflect the sentiments
of the Ascendancy Anglo-Irish Parliament of the day.
A friend observed to me humoiously the other day that
a National Parliament elected on a popular basis would
make quick work with the demolition of these tapestries.
I assured him he was mistaken. They will be preserved,
I believe, when our Irish Parliament is re-established,
with care, as interesting relics of a bygone time when the
mists of strife and passion have been dissipated for ever
by the sun of union between all classes and creeds of
the community. This is no visionary prospect, but
a certainty. Sir William Harcourt, in the House of
Commons in 1895, made the Catholic Corporation of
Dublin the subject of a noble panegyric for their restora-
tion of the statue of King William III. in College Green,
once an object of angry political passion, now an old
historic landmark with which every citizen of Dublin is
familiar from his earliest years. We will, I am sure,
preserve these tapestries. I do not think we will leave
the statue of King George III. where it is, although it
is a fine work of art. It was placed in 1812 where the
old Throne once was. It will be removed elsewhere to
make room foi the Throne from which his Majesty King
George V. will open his Irish Parliament, and the old
Irish House of Lords will have what it never had before,
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 463
not one but two Thrones — the second Throne to be graced
by her Majesty the Queen. This leads me to make a
remark about that exquisite mantelpiece over the fire-
place. It is made of Kilkenny marble. The old Irish
Parliament in its worst days always encouraged native
industries. When the King was visiting a great public
institution in Dublin last July, an illustrious lady asked
whence some marble which adorned the building had
come, and was informed. ' Why,' was the quick reply,
' was it not Irish marble ? Is there not excellent marble
in many parts of Ireland ? ' The Chamber of the
House of Lords we see, but where is the Chamber of the
House of Commons ? The Chamber of the House of
Commons after the Union was deliberately destroyed.
It is a curious and significant fact that the Government,
in consenting to the sale of Parliament House to the
Bank of Ireland, made a secret stipulation that the pur-
chasers should sub-divide and alter the Chambers in
which the two Houses had met so as to destroy as much
as possible their old appearance. Among the Colchester
papers there is a draft dispatch to Lord Pelham on the
proposal of the Bank of Ireland to buy the Parliament
House. At the end there is added : ' Private — I am
given to understand confidentially that the Bank of
Ireland would in such case sub -divide what was the
former House of Commons into several rooms for the
check offices, and would apply what was the House of
Lords to some other use which would leave nothing of
its former appearance.' The secret stipulation in
reference to the House of Commons was observed. The
secret stipulation with reference to the House of Lords
was not observed, and accordingly we can see it to-day
pretty n.uch as it was a century and a decade ago.
464 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
The Government evidently feared that disquieting
ghosts might still haunt the scenes that were consecrated
by so many memories. Shortly after the passing of
the Union, Curran, the great Parliamentary and forensic
orator, a thorough anti-Unionist, was setting his watch
at the General Post Office, which was then opposite the
Parliament House, when a member of the House of
Lords who had voted for the Union for a bribe said to
him with an unblushing jocularity, ' Curran, what do
they mean to do with that useless building ? For my
part, I hate even the sight of it.' ' I do not wonder at it,
my Lord,' replied Curran, contemptuously ; ' I never
yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost.'
We have seen that the Parliament of Ireland was sur-
rounded, at least outwardly, with certainly as much
splendour as the Parliament of England. On the opening
of an Irish Parliament by the Viceroy it was usual for
the Members of the Houses of Lords and Commons to
take part in the procession from the Castle to Parliament
House in magnificent coaches and in levee costume —
the costume which was always worn in the Irish Parlia-
ment and in the English Parliament till the end of the
second decade of the last century. Infantry lined the
streets, while cavalry formed an important and pictur-
esque feature of the Viceregal procession. On arriving
at Parliament House, the Peers, being robed, awaited the
advent of the Lord Lieutenant, who appeared in regal
robes, attended by chief nobles bearing the Sword of
State and Cap of Maintenance, and by the Lord Chan-
cellor. The Viceroy did not wear a crown, but he wore
royal robes. Till 1777 the robes worn on these occasions
were the robes worn by King James II. when he opened
the Irish Parliament of 1689. He bowed to the Throne
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 465
before he ascended it. The Commons were summoned
by Black Rod, who intimated that it was the ' pleasure '
of the Lord Lieutenant — in the case of a King the inti-
mation is that it is his Majesty's 'command' had been
given — that they should attend in the House of Peers.
When the Commons appeared at the Bar they were
directed to elect a Speaker in their own House. The
formalities of an election of a Speaker were precisely
identical with the formalities of the election of a Speaker
in the English House of Commons. The election was
at times unanimous. When there was a contest the
candidates did not retire, as in the English House of
Commons, behind the Speaker's Chair, but remained
in the House standing at either side of the Chair. Thus
when in 1771 there was a contest for the Chair, Mr.
Pery, who was elected by 118 votes against 114
cast for his opponent, Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Pery
stood at one side and Mr. Brownlow at the other
side of the Speaker's Chair. The Speaker, with the
Members of the House of Commons in attendance, on a
day subsequent presented himself at the Bar of the House
of Lords to receive the approval of the Lord Lieutenant,
and to demand, on behalf of the Commons, the recog-
nition of their rights and privileges. The office of the
Speaker had not then in the English or the Irish House
of Commons assumed its strictly judicial character.
The Speaker, like Mr. Ponsonby, who was a Treasury
Commissioner, was always a political power in the House
of Commons. He frequently was a large borough
proprietor. He took part at times with vehemence in
debates in Committee of the House of Commons. The
Speaker had not an official residence, like the Speaker
of the English House of Commons. He had a private
466 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
residence in Dublin. It was the custom on the opening
of a Session, other than the first Session of a new Parlia-
ment, for the Members of the House of Commons to v ait
on the Speaker in his private residence and accompany him
in procession to the House of Commons. On fine days
the Speaker, in his robes, with his train-bearer, and the
Serjeant- at- Arms with the Mace, and attended by his
Secretary and Chaplain, used to walk through the streets
to Parliament House, and his presence was always the
signal for the uplifting of hats. When the proposal for
the Union was on its first introduction defeated, Mr.
Speaker Foster was accorded a great ovation as he left
the House of Commons. The horses were taken from
his carriage, and a very serious and all but successful
effort was made to tie to the carriage Lord Clare, the
highly obnoxious Unionist Lord Chancellor. The
salary of the Speaker was £4,500 a year, and £500 for
each Session.
" In England the Lord Chancellor is ex-officio Speaker
at the House of Lords. In Ireland the offices of Lord
Chancellor and Speaker were usually held by the same
individual, but they were quite distinct. Lord Clare,
the Lord Chancellor of the Union, was Speaker of the
Irish House of Lords. He obtained a pension as an
ex-Speaker of the House of Lords after the Union
of £3,978 33. 4d., but he retained at its full salary the
office of Lord Chancellor. The Chancellor's seat
in the Irish House of Lords was called the Woolsack.
It was a gilt chair, which was fixed below the Throne
in the House of Lords, technically outside the House,
and when the Chancellor, if a Peer, took part in debates
he advanced a few paces so as to speak from within the
precincts of the House. Irish Chancellors, like the
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 467
English Chancellors, were not themselves necessarily
Members of the Irish House of Lords. Two Irish Lord
Chancellors of the early eighteenth century — Sir Con-
stantine Phipps, the founder of the Normanby family,
and Sir Charles Porter — were never Peers. They were
appointed from the English Bar, and on resigning the
Irish Lord Chancellorship went back to the English
Bar and resumed their practice there as stuff gownsmen.
The Chancellor's Chair of the House of Lords is
preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. The Wool-
sack has become the Presidential Chair of that
learned body. The Chair of the Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons was, like the Chair of the
speaker of the English House of Commons before
1832, a very richly carved armchair. It was not
the throne-like structure of the present Chair of the
House of Commons, which has now become a fixture.
At the end of a Parliament it became, as in England,
the perquisite of the Speaker, and was generally regarded
as an heirloom.
" The Chair of Mr. Speaker Foster, the last Speaker
of the Irish House of Commons, who presided over that
Assembly from 1785 till 1800, is now in the National
Museum. It is allowed to remain there, with the Mace,
by the courtesy of Mr. Foster's descendant, Lord
Massereene and Ferrard, who is also the owner ot the
Mace of the Irish House of Commons, which he has
likewise deposited in the National Museum. Mr.
Foster refused to surrender the bauble to any but the
constituted authority by whom it had been entrusted
to his keeping, and consequently it has descended to
Mr. Foster's descendant and heir, the present Lord
Massereene. I am not quite sure if Lord Massereene
468 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
is a Home Ruler. I am, however, quite certain that in
the new Irish House of Commons he would not refuse
a request to allow the Mace and the Speaker's Chair
to be restored. I ground this opinion on the fact that
he has for a father-in-law our excellent friend, Mr.
Ainsworth, M.P., who sils in the Radical interest for
Argyllshire, and is a thorough-going Home Ruler.
Some other relics of the Irish House of Commons can stih
be traced. I saw a few years ago in an exhibition here in
Dublin the exquisitely bound prayer-book used by the
Chaplain. A magnificent candelabrum was suspended
from the centre of the ceiling of the Irish House of
Commons. When that Chamber was demolished the
candelabrum was transferred to St. Andrew's Church,
which bore in former years the same relation to the
Irish House of Commons that St. Margaret's, West-
minster, bears to the British House of Commons. On
the destruction of St. Andrew's Church by fire the
precious relic was saved and found a place in the Exami-
nation Hall of Trinity College, where it still remains.
The benches on which the Members of the Irish House
of Commons sat are now in the rooms of the Royal Irish
Academy, and are sometimes occupied by the Members.
We are so accustomed to electric bells that we forget that
in the English House of Commons before the develop-
ment of electrical science there was actually one loud-
toned division bell which was rung in the Lobby. What
has become of this bell I know not. The destiny of
the division bell of the Irish House of Commons is
remarkable. It was very large, and made of silver,
and its tones were singularly sweet and penetrating.
It found its way into the Theatre Royal, Dublin, and
was used in directing the work of the scene-shifters.
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 469
When that theatre was destroyed by fire the bell was
melted in the flames. The silver, however, was re-cast
into another bell, which is, I believe, preserved in the
Gaiety Theatre of this city. When the bell of the Irish
House was rung for a division, the fact was instantly
communicated to Daly's Club, where the Members both
of the Lords and Commons largely congregated. Daly's
Club occupied the site of the block of buildings between
Foster Place and Anglesea Street, and the Members had
ample time to be in their places. Parliament House
itself, however, was well provided with means of refreshing
the inner man. This is what an observer, no less acute
than John Wesley, writes in his journal after a visit to
the Irish Parliament : ' The House of Lords at Dublin,'
he writes in his Diary, on the 3rd July, 1787, ' far exceeds
that at Westminster, and the Lord Lieutenant's Throne
as far exceeds that miserable Throne so called of the King
in the House of Lords. The House of Commons is
a noble room indeed ; it is an octagon, wainscotted
round with Irish oak which shames all mahogany, and
galleried all round for the convenience of ladies. The
Speaker's Chair is far more grand than the Throne of
the Lord Lieutenant. But what surprised me above all
was the kitchens of the House and the large apparatus
for good eating. Tables were placed from one end of a
large hall to the other, which, it seems, while Parliament
sits, are daily covered with meats at four or five o'clock
for the accommodation of members.' There used,
moreover, to be large dinner parties in the Committee
Rooms. When the Union was in progress it was actually
proposed by the supporters of the Union that there should
be a dinner for twenty or thirty each day in one of the
Committee Rooms, where they could be always at hand
470 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
for any emergency. This idea was developed, and
originated a pretended convivial society, but an actual
political duelling club.
" A much more pleasing feature of the House of
Commons on the social side was a time-honoured
custom to which I would respectfully solicit the
sympathetic attention of our revered and distinguished
friend, the Speaker of the House of Commons. On the
opening day of the Budget the Speaker invariably invited
all the Members of the House of Commons and many
members of the House of Lords to dinner. These
festivities were repeated each evening until the routine
Budget business had been gone through and effective
work and serious discussion began. These gatherings
were, of course, non-political, and political opponents
and political friends temporarily forgot all differences
and animosities. I have referred to John Wesley's
appreciation of the Irish Parliament to show you, ladies
and gentlemen, that while that Parliament was in existence
it was favoured with distinguished visitors. In these
days of Arbitration Treaties with the United States it
will interest you to be reminded that Benjamin Franklin
visited Dublin in 1771 in his diplomatic efforts to secure
some basis of agreement between Great Britain and the
Colonies. In a letter to his friend, Thomas Cussing,
written in January, 1772, he gives the following account
of his visit the preceding year to the Irish Parliament
House : ' Their Parliament House makes a most respect-
able figure, with a number of good speakers in both
parties, and able men of business. And I ought not to
omit acquainting you that, it being a standing rule to
admit Members of the English Parliament to sit, though
they do not vote, among the Members, while others are
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 471
only admitted into the gallery, my fellow-traveller, being
an English Member, v.-as accordingly admitted, but I
supposed I must have gone to the gallery, when the
Speaker (Pery), having been spoken to by some of the
Members, stood up and acquainted the Members that
there was in town an American gentleman of character,
a member and delegate of some of the Parliaments of
that country, who was desirous of being present at the
debates of this House, that there was a standing rule of
the House for admitting Members of the English Parlia-
ment, that he did suppose the House would consider
the American Assemblies as English Parliaments, but
this being the first instance he had chosen not to give
any order without receiving their directions. On this
question the whole House gave a loud, unanimous ' Aye,'
when two Members came to me without the Bar and
led me in and placed me very honourably. This I am
the more particular in to you, for I deemed it a mark wf
respect for our country and a piece of politeness in which
I hope our Parliament will not fall behind them when
occasion will offer.' The Irish Parliament and the Irish
people were in full sympathy with American claims,
and the name of the elder Pitt, the great protagonist
of American claims in the English Parliament, is pre-
served in Pitt Street and Chatham Street in this city,
which were built at this period. Chatham was, as
everyone knows, a friend of the Irish Parliament. It
is not, however, so generally known that Grattan, the
very greatest of Irish Parliamentary orators, and the
founder in this country of a school of eloquence dis-
tinctly her own, obtained his earliest lessons in public
speaking from being a diligent hearer and observer of
Chatham in the English Parliament when he himself
472 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
was serving his terms as a law student in London. The
reference to the admission by courtesy of members of
the English Parliament to the floor of the Irish House of
Commons will render it of interest to note that a like
courtesy was extended to members of the Irish Parliament
in England.
" A good story in reference to this courtesy was told
in a Reform debate in the Irish House of Commons by
Mr. Thomas Sheridan. ' Are there not many of us,'
he said, ' who could not find the way to the place they
represent, who never saw a constituent, who never were
in a borough, who at times cannot recollect the name of
it ? ' He said he did not much relish or deal in anecdotes
on serious subjects, but there was one which was very
true and very apposite. By a courtesy of the House
of Commons in England members of the Irish Parliament
are admitted to hear the debates. A friend of his, then
a Member, wishing to avail himself of the privilege,
desired admittance. The doorkeeper desired to know
what place he represented. ' What place ? Why,
I am an Irish Member.' ' Oh, dear sir, we are obliged
to be extremely cautious, for a few days ago Barrington,
the pickpocket, passed as an Irish Member.' ' Why,
then, upon my soul, I forget the borough I represent,
but if you get me Watson's Almanack I will show it to
you.'
" Very frequently Irish Peers, as in the case of Lord
Clive, who obtained an Irish Peerage on his return
from India, although he was never in this country, were
Members of the English House of Commons. Many
noblemen were Peers both of Great Britain and of
Ireland, and had seats in both Houses. Several Members
of the Irish House of Commons were also Members of
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 473
the English House of Commons. The Irish Secretary
was almost invariably a Member also of the English
House of Commons, in order, if need be, to explain in
that assembly the Irish policy of the Government. Thus
Addison, when he was Chief Secretary in Ireland to
Lord Wharton, was Member for Cavan in the Irish House
of Commons and Member for Malmesbury in the
English House of Commons. In your visit to Glasnevin
to-day you were on classic ground. It was the residence
of Addison when in Ireland, who there conversed with
his intimate political and personal friends, Parnell and
Swift. The mention of the name of Addison reminds us
that the Irish Secretaryship is now filled by a gentleman
(Mr. Birrell) whose name, like Addison's, will be imperish-
able in the literature of England. Castlereagh was one of
the only Irish Secretaries without a seat, while holding
that office, in the English House of Commons. He was
appointed to the position not from the English but from
the Irish Parliament, and his appointment was supported
on the ground that, although an Irishman, he was in every
respect quite unlike an Irishman. Mr. Birrell, the
present Chief Secretary, has declared amid cheers in the
House of Commons that his sympathies with the Irish
cause are so intense that he feels as if Irish blood were
bubbling in his veins. This casual allusion to the office
of Chief Secretary leads me to speak of a little matter
which may interest English politicians. If you were to
endeavour to place a question on the paper of the House
of Commons addressed to the Irish Secretary or to the
Chief Secretary for Ireland, the style of that functionary
would appear in the question, as corrected by the Clerks,
as that of ' Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.'
There was in the days of the Irish Parliament a Secretary
474 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
of State, but the Secretaryship was made a job and a
sinecure, and on one occasion given to a family named
Southwell for three lives. The office of Secretary of
State in later times was held by Hely-Hutchinson, a
pluralist Leviathan, who is now principally remembered
by the witticism of Lord North, that ' if you were to give
him the whole of Great Britain and Ireland for an estate
he would ask for the Isle of Man for a potato garden.'
This good man was Prime Serjeant, Alnager, an officer
for measuring cloth in the woollen trade, major in a
cavalry regiment, Provost and Secretary of Strangford,
Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and Principal
Secretary of State all in one. In this jobbery of the
Principal Secretaryship the Lord Lieutenant's principal
Private Secretary began to do the work in the Irish House
of Commons so far back as 1692. The Cabinet Minister
ordinarily responsible for advising the directing of the
conduct of the Lord Lieutenant was at one time the
Secretary of State for the Home Department, and it is
presumed that theoretically the responsibility still
attaches to him, but in practice it has now devolved
wholly, and, considering his somewhat subordinate title,
somewhat anomalously, on our friend the Chief Secretary.
" As I have said, the Members of both Houses always
attended Parliament in levee costume, and in the Houses
of Lords and Commons the Lord Chancellor and the
Speaker invariably appeared in their State robes. The
departure on one occasion from this practice has produced
a term which still lives in Parliamentary history,
' Tottenham in his boots.' In 1731 a financial question
arose about a fund which had been provided for paying
the interest and principal of the National Debt. The
Court Party, ever desirous of withdrawing the control of
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE 475
the finances from Parliament, desired that this sum
should be granted to his Majesty, his heirs and successors
for ever, redeemable by Parliament. The Opposition
insisted that it should be granted in the usual consti-
tutional manner, from session to session. The Court
Party proposed a compromise, to vest it in the Crown for
twenty-one years, and this proposition was put to the
vote. The Members were at first equal, but at the last
moment Colonel Tottenham, the Member for New Ross —
the seat for which my distinguished friend, Mr. Redmond,
was first returned to Parliament a century and a half
later — having ridden over in haste to be present at the
division, appeared in boots and in a riding attire, splashed
with mud, in an assembly which then always met in full
dress, and his vote turned the balance against the Govern-
ment. ' The Members stared.' writes Mr. Hardy,
the biographer of Lord Charlemont, himself a dis-
tinguished Parliamentarian, ' and the older ones, I have
been well assured, muttered sadly and loudly at this
crying innovation, as they termed it.' Tottenham is
long in his grave, but the ' boots ' are preserved and
treasured as a precious heirloom in his family. The
reference to divisions brings me to mention that divisions
in the Irish Parliament, as in the English Parliament
before the destruction of the Palace of Westminster by
fire in 1834, were taken, not by Members going into
Aye and No Lobbies respectively, but by Members
voting for the affirmative of the proposition remaining in
the Chamber of the House, and being counted there,
while the Noes went into the Lobby, and, after the Ayes
had been counted, were counted on their return to the
Chamber in the face of the House and of the strangers
in the Gallery. Long before Division Lists were
476 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
published in England the lists of Members who voted
Aye or No were published in Ireland, printed in red and
black respectively. A memorable incident in one fateful
division may be recorded of a gentleman who might well
be called a real, as contrasted with a bogus, die-hard. In
the Irish Parliament there were poor men. In days
gone by Irish Members were paid by their constituencies,
just as English Members were paid, but far more liber-
ally. The payments ceased when Members began to
pay constituencies for electing them, and, having paid
for their seats, to utilise their position in Parliament not
for the country but for themselves. In Ireland, till the
Union, there was no Property Qualification Act debarring
poor men from the House of Commons. The statute
passed in England in Queen Anne's reign, and not
abolished in its entirety till 1858, requiring £500 a year
landed property for a county Member, and £300 a year
landed property for a Member for a city and town, was
extended to Ireland for the first time by the Union itself.
In 1799 Mr. John Egan, a poor man, was a Member of the
Irish House of Commons. He was a Member of the
Bar, and was promised a Judgeship in the Superior
Courts if he would vote for the Union, and threatened
with dismissal from a small office, the Chairmanship of
Kilmainham, whose salary was almost his sole means
of livelihood, if he ventured to oppose that measure. In
1799 the proposal for the Union was defeated. The Ayes
who were in the House numbered 106. The Noes, who
were counted as they came into the House, numbered 1 1 1 .
As Egan, who was the last to be counted, came up to the
Tellers he shouted at the top of his voice ' I am in ;
Ireland, Ireland for ever, and damn Kilmainham.'
When Egan died his entire stock-in-trade consisted of
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 477
three shillings found on his mantelpiece. Had all acted
with his honourable bluntness and ' damned the conse-
quences,' the Irish Parliament would never have been
destroyed. ' Let,' said a little bagatelle published after
his death,
' L.et no man arraign him
That knows to save the realm he damned Kilmainham.'
" I would wish to give you some further illustrations of
Irish Parliamentary life, but the time does not admit
of it. The ingenuity of Irish politicians in that Parlia-
ment in exposing the misconduct of the Executive was
extraordinary, but one great instrument of effective
opposition to the Government was overlooked, and that
is the power of Parliamentary interrogation. The
questioning of Ministers, which is one of the most
powerful factors in the practice and working of the
Constitution of to-day, was never, so far as I am aware,
exercised in Ireland, and has only reached its prominence
as a method of Parliamentary action in the British
Parliament within living memory. I vould have dearly
liked to have given you some account of the difference
between the style ot speaking in the Irish Parliament and
the style of speaking at present in vogue in the Imperial
Parliament — to state the reasons of their differences,
to have given you some sketch of the life of the Duke
of Wellington, as Mr. Arthur Wellesley , in this Parliament,
and to show how his subsequent career was powerfully
affected by the lessons he learned and the close and
intimate friendships he formed within these walls, and
to have referred with pride to the fact that Mr. George
Ponsonby, an Irish patriot leader in this House of
Commons, was from 1807 till his death in 1816 the leader
01 the Opposition in the English House of Commons —
478 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
above all, I would have wished to describe the profound
impression made on the English House of Commons by
the genius, the eloquence, and the lofty character of
Henry Grattan. From this I must forbear. I have,
however, said enough. I do hope to arouse your
sympathies, and to touch your he?rts with affection for
Ireland's cause and for Ireland's aspirations. I cannot
but think that this occasion will be one worthy cf record
in Ireland's political history. One hundred and eleven
years almost to the day have elapsed since the voice
of an Irish public man has been heard within this palace
of Parliaments. The very last occasion on which the
Irish Parliament met was on the third day of August,
1 8o<- , the day after the Royal Assent had been given to
the Act of Union, which was to come into operation on
January the first following. De Quincey was here in
this very Chamber on that occasion, and has described
in imperishable words, as an English visitor, with ' what
unaffected sorrow and solemn woe ' he witnessed the
political extinction of Ireland. You, ladies and gentle-
men, are here to witness, as English visitors with generous
hearts, the glad sunrise of the day of Ireland's restoration
to her long- lost rights and liberties. Some forty years
ago Mr. Whiteside, who was afterwards Lord Chief
Justice of Ireland, delivered two lectures on the Irish
Parliament, at which Sir Robert Staples, Bart., Q.C.,
then in the advanced 'eighties, and the last survivor of
the Members of the old Irish Parliament, took the chair.
Referring to this Parliament House, the Lord Chief
Justice said : — ' While we pause to admire the building
we may exclaim : Could these walls speak, what might
we not expect to hear ! But the passions, the hatreds, the
ambitions, the sallies of wit, the flashes of humour, the
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 479
flights of eloquence, the eager conflicts of intellects con-
tending for fame and power, the fervid orators, the
sagacious statesmen, slumber in the dust. Within these
walls the voice of eloquence is hushed for ever.' The
voice of eloquence has, no doubt, been hushed, but,
thank God, not for ever. It will soon break forth again.
Grattan was keener in his foresight than Mr. Whiteside.
In his great speech against the Union he predicted
accurately the period in the far distant future, which is
close at hand, in which even now we may be said
to live. You recollect that when Romeo descends into
ihe tomb of Juliet he persists in believing that she still
lives, and that, though prostrate in apparent death, she
will be re-animated with the bloom of life. ' I do not,'
said Grattan, ' give up my country. Although in her
tomb she lies helpless and motionless, still there is in her
lips a spirit of life and in her cheeks a glow of beauty.'
Thou art not conquer'd : beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.'
The long swoon is at an end. The Irish Parliament is
coming back to life again. Be it ours to join in rolling
away the stone from the sepulchre from which will
emerge Ireland's native Legislature in fresh strength and
beauty, a Legislature in which Ireland's sons will enact
Ireland's laws on Irish soil, and will, while promoting
the happiness and prosperity of their own land, unite
with the British democracy, with whom they have no
quarrel, in every good word and work. May Mr.
Gladstone's prayer, repeated each night and morning,
that the Almighty God might grant to Great Britain
and Ireland the enormous favour of being joined
together in a new compact, carried not by fraud or force,
480 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
but founded on the free sanction of both peoples — a
blessing withheld in his time, be not denied in ours. You
desire to make us sharers in the free institutions which
have made your own land so great and glorious, to
give us our share in the greatest and best of all free insti-
tutions, a free Parliament representing indifferently
the whole people. With such a Parliament we will
gladly accept our rightful place, and join you loyally
in the service of a glorious, brilliant, free and united,
Empire. Our cause is a sacred one, and I say from my
heart, and with deepest reverence, ' Prosper Thou the
work of our hands, O Lord. Yea, prosper Thou our
handiwork.' '
[" Perhaps," writes the Freeman's Journal, " the most interesting
incident in connection with tue visit of the members of the
Kighty Club was the gathering in the old Irish House of Lords
on Saturday, at noon. The visitors — all Home Rulers — were
naturally anxious to inspect the Old House, but, from the mere
gratification of the tourist and the politician, the arrangements
happily developed into a unique function. The governors and
officials of the Bank of Ireland — which is now, as everybodv
knows, in possession of the Irish Houses of Parliament — rose to
the occasion most cordially, and not only gave the visitors
every facility for the inspection of the famous building, but kindly
agreed that a meeting should be held in the House of Lords, which
has been but little altered in the last in years, and that an address
on the history of the Irish Parliament should be delivered by Mr. J .
G. Swift MacNeill, M.P., who is the greatest living authority on the
subject.
When the visitors had assembled, they were just numerous enough
to fill the Chamber comfortably. The long mahogany table, with
the chairs around it ; the tapestried walls, the bright and eager faces
of the assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, the voice of the orator
bringing into life again the names and words of Speaker Foster,
Lord Clare, Grattan, and others — all touched the imagination ;
and, for an Irishman, the scene was a memorable one. Mr. MacNeill
spoke from a rostrum in front of the statue of George III., where
the Woolsack of the Irish Lord Chancellor was formerly placed.
At the beginning of his address, he said he would be a man of very
steely nerves if he were able to speak in that House — the ancient
home of the Irish Parliament — without emotion when he remem-
bered that that was the very first time for in years on which
IRISH PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. 481
the voice of an Irish public man had ever been heard within those
walls. He wished, at the outset, on their behalf and on his own,
to express his grateful acknowledgments to the Governors of the
Bank of Ireland, and the other authorities of the Bank, for their
courtesy in extending to them that privilege. That they should do
so was a glorious sign of the times, of happy reconciliation and
better understanding between all classes of the community in this
country."] — Sept. l&h, 1911.
IK
APPENDICES.
APPENDICES 485
APPENDIX I.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND THE ENGLISH
PRIVY COUNCIL.
THE Octennial Bill whose history I have sketched presents
a remarkable illustration of the failure of an attempt, often
successful, of leading Members of the Irish Parliament
to throw on the English Privy Council the odium of reject-
ing the heads of a Bill which had been sent from the Irish
House of Commons in the hope that it would not be
returned, or, if returned, would be so mutilated as to
destroy its efficiency as a popular measure. Mr. Hardy,
the biographer of Lord Charlemont, gives the following
description of the reception of the news in Irish Parlia-
mentary circles that the Septennial Bill (altered into an
Octennial Bill) had been returned from England : "It
is impossible," he writes, " not to mention in this place
the anecdote which I heard from Lord Charlemont, as
well as others. He happened at this time to dine with
one of the great Parliamentary leaders. A large
company, and, as Bubb Dodington says of some of the
dinners with the Pelhams, much drink and much good
humour. In the midst of this festivity the papers and
letters of the last English Packet, which had just come,
were brought into the room and given to the master of the
house. Scarcely had he read one or two of them when it
appeared that he was extremely agitated. The company
was alarmed : ' What's the matter ? Nothing, we hope,
has happened that . . . .' ' Happened ! * exclaimed
486 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY .
their kind host, swearing most piteously. ' Happened
The Septennial Bill is returned ! ' A burst of joy from
Lord Charlemont and the very few real friends of the
Bill who happened to be present ! The majority of the
company, confused, and, indeed, astounded, began, after
the first involuntary dejection of their features, to recollect
that they had, session after session, voted for this Bill,
with many an internal curse, heaven knows. But still
they had uniformly been its loudest advocates, and that
therefore it would be somewhat decorous not to appear
too much cast down at their own unexpected triumphs.
In consequence of these politic reflections, they endea-
voured to adjust their looks to the joyous occasion as
well as they could. But they were soon spared the
awkwardness of assumed felicity. ' The Bill is not only
returned,' continued their chieftain, ' but the Parliament
is dissolved.' ' Dissolved ! Dissolved ! Why dis-
solved ? ' ' My good friends, I can't tell you why or
wherefore, but dissolved it is, or will be directly.'
Hypocrisy far more disciplined than theirs could lend
its aid no further. If the first intelligence which they
heard was tolerably doleful, this was complete discomfi-
ture. They sunk into taciturnity, and the leaders began
to look in fact what they had been so often politically
called — a company of Undertakers. They had assisted
at the Parliamentary funeral of some opponents such as
Mr. Arthur Jones Nevil, who had been expelled from
the House of Commons for supposed delinquency as
Surveyor- General of Public Works, of whom the Par-
liamentary wits said on his expulsion that he was not
Inigo Jones but Outigo Jones, and now, like Charles V.,
though without his satiety of worldly vanities, they were
to assist at their own. In the return of this fatal Bill
APPENDICES 487
was their political existence completely inurned. Lord
Charlemont took advantage of their silent mood and
quietly withdrew from the group of statesmen, than whom
a more ridiculous, rueful set of personages in his Life
he said he never beheld. The city, in consequence,of the
intelligence of the evening, was in a tumult of gratitude,
and applause ; illuminations were everywhere diffused,
and our unintentionally victorious senators were obliged
on their return home to stop at the end of almost every
street and huzza, very dismally with a very merry, very
patriotic, and very drunken populace " (Hardy's Life of
Charlemont, I., pp. 253-256). Mr. Fox, who was in Dublin
a few years afterwards, in 1777, where he must have heard
and enjoyed this story, had probably the incident in his
mind's eye when describing in the English House of
Commons the iniquities of Poynings' Law.
APPENDIX II.
MISTAKES IN HEADS OF BILLS CORRECTED
BY THE OPERATION OF POYNINGS' LAW.
IN 1762 the heads of an Irish Septennial Bill sent over
to the English Privy Council were submitted as usual
to the English Law Officers of the Crown. They returned
the heads of the Bill to the English Privy Council with the
following report :
" We have examined the Act for limiting the duration of
Parliaments transmitted from Ireland. So much thereof
as limits the duration to a term of seven years imparts
a most essential alteration in the constitution of Ireland.
The fitness or unfitness of this provision is a matter of
State of so high a nature that we submit the same entirely
to the wisdom of your lordships.
488 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" For the qualification of members we doubt how far
such provisions are expedient for Ireland — whether the
qualification be not too high and the exceptions too few.
An amendment, however, is absolutely necessary. No
member is to sit, according to the Act, till his qualification
is proved, while a full House is sitting, with the Speaker
in the Chair. The law, therefore, can never be executed,
nor any business at all, because no Speaker can be chosen
before the members have a right to vote, and no member
can exercise his right of voting till such Speaker is chosen."
(See Froude's English in Ireland, II., pp. 10-11.)
APPENDIX III.
POYNINGS' LAW AND IRISH PARLIAMENTARY
DEPUTATIONS TO ENGLAND.
THE provisions of Poynings' Law, by which the legis-
lative powers of the Irish Parliament were hampered and
controlled by the English Privy Council, rendered
necessary the sending of deputations or Commissions
from the Irish Parliament to England for the purpose of
conferring with the Privy Council, representing to them
the wants and wishes of the Irish Parliament, and endea-
vouring to come to an amicable understanding and
agreement with them in reference to Irish measures of
a complicated and difficult character. In May, 1615,
at the time of the Ulster Settlement, Commissions were
sent from the House of Commons " recommended to be
charged with the affairs of the Commonwealth before
the King and the English Privy Council " (Mountmorres*
Irish Parliaments, I., p. 177). So, too, in 1640, in the
troublous period in the era of the War of the Rebellion,
APPENDICES 489
Commissioners were sent to England with instructions
to apply to the Privy Council to secure the introduction
of a Bill in the Irish Parliament for the modification of
Poynings' Law, and to obtain for the Irish House of
Commons liberty to draw Bills by their own Committee
during a session — the custom of the introduction of
Heads of Bills was not devised till after the Revolution —
asking that expensive licenses for the importation of
goods be prohibited, and that the printed regulations of
the Courts of Justice might be established by law. When,
after the Restoration, the great transaction of the Act of
Settlement of the lands of Ireland, which was drafted
by Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Lord Chancellor of
England, and Lord Nottingham, was under consideration,
Commissioners from the Irish Parliament were sent to
London in order that the views of that assembly should
be authoritatively presented to the Privy Council (Mount-
morres' Irish Parliaments, I., p. 386). When, in 1782,
the legislative independence of the Irish Parliament
was so far established that the control of Irish legislation
was limited to a discretionary power in the affixing of
the Great Seal of Great Britain to a Bill which had passed
both Houses as a condition precedent to its receiving the
Royal Assent, deputations were seldom sent from the
Irish Parliament to the English Government. In 1789,
however, delegates from the Irish House of Lords and the
Irish House of Commons went over to London to present
an address of the Irish Parliament to the Prince of Wales
(George IV.) asking him — owing to the mental aberration
of the King (George III.), which, however, was merely
of a temporary character — to accept the Regency with
full regal powers.
490 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
APPENDIX IV.
IRISH LEGISLATION AND THE ENGLISH
PRIVY COUNCIL AFTER 1782.
44 THE old practice of submission of Irish Bills to the
English Privy Council for the purpose of obtaining the
Royal Assent still persisted, though this usage appears
to have escaped the knowledge or notice of Irish historians.
Thus, on February ist, 1785, it was ordered by the King
in Council that a committee of thirteen members of the
Privy Council, including the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President, the great
officers of State, and Mr. Pitt (but no Irish Privy Coun-
cillor or Peer), or any three of them, should be appointed
a Committee to consider the Bills which shall be trans-
mitted from Ireland during the present Session of Par-
liament, together with the reports to be made thereupon
by His Majesty's Attorney- General and Solicitor-General,
and all petitions relating thereto. And by an order at
the same date is was directed that the Attorney- General
and Solicitor- General (of England) should report and
examine upon all Bills transmitted from Ireland and the
letters from the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council
accompanying the said Bills, together with such petitions
as shall be referred to them by the Lords' Committee.
These references were not a mere matter of form. On
March 7th twenty-three Irish Bills were referred to the
Law Officers. One of them related to the duties payable
upon the importation of sugar. It was pointed out that this
Bill was inconsistent with the lower duties imposed by
several English Acts of Parliament, although the duties
ought to be equal, and that the high duties imposed by
APPENDICES 491
the Irish Bill amounted to a prohibition of that descrip-
tion of sugar. But as there was no time to correct the
mistake their lordships allowed the Bill to be returned,
hoping that the error would be remedied by a short Bill
in the next Session of Parliament. There were other
cases in which the Bills were ' respited ' upon the advice
of the Lords of the Council. In most cases they were
of course approved It appears, therefore, that
the legislative independence of the Irish Parliament
was still under the control of the Privy Council and the
Law Officers, and in point of fact some of the Bills were
not returned. Thus, a Bill for granting bounties on the
manufacture of gunpowder was detained for various
reasons set forth in a minute, and the Lord Lieutenant
was recommended to have it altered (May 2yth, 1785).
In like manner the important Act of the Irish Parliament,
entitled ' An Act for preventing doubts concerning the
Parliamentary Privy Council and Officers, civil and
military, on the demise of the Crown,' was respited and
not returned to Ireland. The cases quoted are from the
year 1785, but similar proceedings were taken in each
year during the existence of Grattan's Parliament " (The
Edinburgh Review, April, 1886, pp. 578-580).
APPENDIX V.
POYNINGS' LAW AND JAMAICA.
IN 1678 a measure was introduced into the Legislative
Assembly of Jamaica embodying the main provisions
of Poynings' Law. Two-thirds of the settlers of Jamaica
were Irish by birth or descent, which may account for
the rejection of the proposal. " In Charles II. 's time,"
says Mr. Long, the historian of Jamaica, " the Earl of
4Q2 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Carlisle was sent here as Governor, and brought with
him a body of laws fashioned after those in Ireland
pursuant to Poynings' Act, with instructions to get them
passed here. But the Assembly rejected them with
indignation; no threats could frighten, no bribes could
corrupt, no act nor argument could persuade them to
consent to laws that would enslave their posterity "
(Long's History of Jamaica, I., p. 11. See also ibid., pp.
15, 197-208). Sir G. C. Lewis refers to this incident
in his Essay on Government of Dependencies , p. 156.
APPENDIX VI.
EDMUND BURKE AND THE IRISH CONSTI-
TUTION BEFORE 1782.
EDMUND BURKE, who was Private Secretary to Single
Speech Hamilton as Chief Secretary for Ireland, gives
in his speech, on moving his resolution for conciliation
with the Colonies, on March 22nd, 1775, the following
glowing description of the Irish Constitution as it was
before 1782 :
" Ireland, before the English conquest, though never
governed by a despotic power, had no Parliament. How
far the English Parliament itself was at that time modelled
according to the present form is disputed among anti-
quarians. But we have all the reason in the world to be
assured that a form of Parliament such as England then
enjoyed she communicated to Ireland, and we are equally
sure that almost every successive improvement in con-
stitutional liberty, as fast as it was made law, was trans-
mitted thither. The feudal Baronage and the feudal
Knighthood, the roots of our primitive constitution, were
APPENDICES. 493
early transmitted into Irish soil and grew and flourished
there. Magna Charta, if it did not give us originally the
House of Commons, gave us, at least, a House of Commons
of weight and consequence. But your ancestors did not
churlishly sit down when to the feast of Magna Charta
Ireland was made immediately a partaker. The benefit
of English laws and liberties, I confess, was not at first
extended to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. English
authority and English liberties had exactly the same boun-
daries ; your standard could never be advanced an inch
beyond your privileges. Sir John Davis shows beyond
a doubt that the refusal of a general communication of
these rights was the true cause why Ireland was five
hundred years in subduing, and, after the vain projects
of a Military Government, attempted in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, it was soon discovered that nothing
could make that country English in civility and alle-
giance but your laws and your forms of legislation. It
was not English laws, but the English Constitution, that
conquered Ireland. From that time Ireland has ever had
a general Parliament, as she had before a partial Parlia-
ment ; you changed the people, you altered the religion,
but you never touched the form or the vital substance
of free government in that Kingdom." The poignancy
of contrast between the Irish Constitution in theory, as
depicted by Mr. Burke, and in its working, must strike
the student of Irish Parliamentary history. Three years
after the delivery of the speech on conciliation with
America, in which Burke gives this roseate description
of the Irish Constitution as it was before 1782, in a letter
written in 1778 to gentlemen in Bristol he denounced,
in terms which lost him his seat in Parliament for that
city, the destruction of Irish industries by England.
494 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" Is Ireland," he asked, " united to the Crown of Great
Britain for no other purpose than that we should
counteract the bounty of Providence in her favour, and
in proportion as that bounty has been liberal, that we arc
to regard it as an evil which is to be met with every sort
of corrective ? " (Burke on Irish Affairs, p. 261).
APPENDIX VII.
"THE UNDERTAKERS."
" LORD NORTHUMBERLAND (Lord Lieutenant from 1763
till 1765) was consigned to the care of our leaders here,
as too many of his predecessors had been, for a length
of time. ' These leaders were,' says Lord Charlemont,
' as everyone knows, styled " undertakers," and justly
were they so, as from education and from habit they were
well fitted to preside at the funeral of the common weal.'
Whatever their imbecility, however, in point of talents
(though surely with regard to some of them at least that
has been much misstated), or, however great their usurpa-
tions, their misrule, if it may be so termed, arose very
naturally from the political situation of Ireland, from
the situation of political parties in England, and the
predominancy of one great party, the Whigs, who, at
the period we now have arrived at, had ruled England
with little interruption " (Hardy's Life of Charlemont,
I., p. 217).
APPENDIX VIII.
SINGLE SPEECH HAMILTON -THE IRISH
SECRETARYSHIP.— SINECURE OFFICES.
" MR. GERARD HAMILTON was as much distinguished by
his speech as his silence in the House of Commons. The
APPENDICES. 495
uncommon splendour of his eloquence, which was
succeeded by such inflexible taciturnity in St. Stephen's
Chapel, became the subject, as might be supposed, of
much and idle speculation. The truth is that all his
speeches, whether delivered in London or Dublin, were
not only prepared but studied with a minuteness and
exactitude of which those who are only used to the
carelessness of modern debating can scarcely form any
idea. Lord Charlemont, who had long been intimately
acquainted with him previous to his coming to Ireland,
often mentioned that he was the only speaker amongst
the many he had heard of whom he could say with
certainty that all his speeches, however long, were
written and got by heart. A gentleman well known to
his Lordship and Hamilton assured him that he had
heard Hamilton repeat no less than three times an oration
which he afterwards spoke in the House of Commons,
and which lasted about three hours. As a debater he
became as useless to his political patrons as Addison
was to Lord Sunderland, and, if possible, he was more
scrupulous in composition than even that eminent man.
Addison would stop the press to correct the most trivial
error in a large publication, and Hamilton, as I can assert
on most indubitable authority, would recall the footman
if, on recollection, any word, in his opinion, was mis-
placed or improper in the slightest note to a familiar
acquaintance. Painful pre-eminence ! " (Hardy's Life of
Charlemont, I., pp. 118-119).
The subordinate title of the Cabinet Minister ordinarily
responsible for advising or directing the conduct of Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, whose strict official style is that of
Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is one
of many instances in the constitutional development of
496 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
these countries in which positions, which were at first
of a comparatively lowly character, have grown into
great offices of State, while they have retained their
former designations. Mr. Gladstone, writing in 1878
of the office of First Lord of the Treasury, usually
held by the Prime Minister, to whom the Sovereign, by
sign manual so recently as December, 1905, granted place
and precedence after the Archbishop of York, says :
" Nothing can be more curiously characteristic of the
political genius of the people than the present position
of this most important official personage. Depart-
mentally he is no more than the first-named of five
persons by whom jointly the powers of the Lord Trea-
surership are taken to be exercised ; he is not their master,
nor otherwise than by mere priority their head, and he
has no special function or prerogative under the formal
constitution of the office. He has no official rank except
that of Privy Councillor. Eight members of the Cabinet,
including five Secretaries of State, and several other
members of the Government, take official precedence
of him. His rights and duties as head of the Adminis-
tration are nowhere recorded. He is almost, if not
altogether, unknown to the Statute Law " (Gleanings of
Past Years, p. 240).
So, too, during the greater part of the last century, the
great office of Chancellor of the Exchequer was not
necessarily a Cabinet office, nor was the post of First
Lord of the Admiralty, which has been accepted recently
in exchange for that of Secretary of State for the Home
Department, associated with a seat in the Cabinet till
the beginning of the eighteenth century. The rise in
importance of the Irish Secretaryship was owing to the
reduction to a sinecure of the position of Irish Secretary
APPENDICES. 497
of State. After the Revolution, Sir Robert Southwell,
the successor of Sir Isaac Newton as President of the Royal
Society, had been invested with the office of Irish Secre-
tary of State, which was granted to him for life as a sine-
cure. No Parliament had been held in Ireland during
the interval between 1666 and 1692. Sir Paul Davis,
all through the reign of Charles II., was Principal Secre-
tary of State, and discharged in the House of Commons,
as Minister, the duties of his office. The post which
was given for life as a sinecure to Sir Richard Southwell
was granted to his son, and then to his grandson, who
died in 1755. It was then given to Mr. Tisdal, who held
the office of Attorney- General, and on his death to Mr.
Hely-Hutchinson, the Provost of Trinity College, Dublin,
who held it till his death in 1794. The case of Mr.
Pulteney supplies the first instance of a Secretary to the
Lord Lieutenant acting as Minister in the House of
Commons, and discharging the duties of a Secretary of
State. On a motion being made for the production of
the accounts of the civil and military establishment and
a state of the revenue, Mr. Pulteney, one of the private
secretaries of Lord Sydney, the Lord Lieutenant,
informed the House that the papers in question had been
placed in his hands by His Excellency, and they were
presented accordingly (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments,
II., p. 110-112 ; ibid., p. 186).
The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant before the
Union was all but invariably a Member of the English
House of Commons, who, on coming over to Ireland,
was provided with a seat for a nomination borough in
the Irish Parliament. He, like the Viceroy, held office
at the pleasure of the English Government, and a change
in that Government was followed by the resignation
IL
498 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
of the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary. Before
the Union the Lord Lieutenant was advised by the Secre-
tary of State for the Home Department, and theoretically,
indeed, the responsibiHty for advising the Lord Lieu-
tenant still attaches to him, although in practice it has
devolved wholly on the Chief Secretary. The mode of
communication in pre- Union times between the Govern-
ment in London and the Irish Administration was by
letter. The dates show that the letters took four or even
five days in their journey, and that a favourable passage
across the Channel would occupy some twelve hours.
Writing in 1792, Lord Mountmorres declares that there
is now no necessity for the appointment, on the death of
a Lord Lieutenant, as in the case of Lord Capel, who
died in 1695, of a Deputy Lord Lieutenant — a precedent
which was not followed on the death of the Duke of
Rutland in 1787. " The facility," he writes, " of
communication now between these countries seems to
make such a provision for an Executive Government
almost unnecessary, as the mail goes and returns to
Ireland in 120 hours, 60 to go and 60 to return, which
is five days' interval, in which time the summons or
notice for the meeting of the Privy Council for the
appointment of a Deputy Lord Lieutenant would almost
elapse, so that the King's appointment to the Lord
Lieutenancy would probably anticipate the meeting of
the Privy Council " (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments, I.,
p. 410-411).
The origin of the importance of the office of Chief
Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, which was, as we have
seen, the disposal of the Secretaryship of State as a sine-
cure, irresistibly directs attention to the fact that great
Irish offices of State were held by absentees, who took
APPENDICES. 499
the salaries attached to these offices, which they treated
as sinecures. Many efforts were made during the period
of Irish Parliamentary independence to bring back these
great offices to the country. In the beginning of the
reign of George II. it was noticed that among the habitual
absentees were officers of the Irish Post Office, whose
salaries amounted to £6,000 a year ; the Master of
Ordnance, the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Treasurer
and three Vice-Treasurers, the four Commissioners of
the Revenue, the Secretary of State, the Clerks of
the Crown for Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, the Master
of the Mint, and even the Secretary of the Lord Lieu-
tenant. Some of these great sinecure offices were
bestowed on ex-Irish Secretaries, who held them long
after they had severed all their connection with Ireland,
as appears from the cases of Rigby and Single Speech
Hamilton. The history of the great office of Master
of the Rolls as a sinecure is typical of this aspect of gross
scandal in Irish Administration. In the tenth year of
Henry VII. the Mastership of the Rolls in Ireland was
established as a judicial office. The last efficient judicial
holder of the office was Christopher Wandesforde, who
died in 1640, whereupon first Sir John Temple and
subsequently Sir William Temple were appointed to
the office, to be held as a sinecure. When, on the 23rd
February, 1641, a petition to the House of Lords was
presented by Lord Lambert for the appointment of a
duly qualified person to be Master of the Rolls, the Lord
Chancellor informed the House of the Temple appoint-
ment. The post remained a sinecure, and two Bills
presented to the House of Lords in 1771 and in 1783 for
the purpose of making it a judicial office failed to pass
(Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments^ I., pp. 314-315). In
500 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
1784 there was a curious discussion in the House of
Commons on the habitual absence of the Master of
the Rolls, and it was defended by FitzGibbon (Lord
Chancellor Clare), who was then Attorney- General, on
the very grotesque ground that it was conducive to the
good administration of justice. " If the Master of the
Rolls," he said, " was compelled to become a resident
and efficient officer, it would render the business of the
Court of Chancery more prolix and tedious than it is
at present. There would be another appeal in Chancery
suits, and this would be attended with great delay and
inconvenience to suitors, and would give great additional
reason to curse the law's delay." On the death of Rigby,
in 1788, the office was brought back to Ireland, but it
was still treated as a mere lucrative sinecure, and was
given to the Duke of Leinster. Immediately after the
Union, the Mastership of the Rolls was re-established
as a judicial office on the alleged ground of avoiding the
inconvenience likely to arise from the absence of the Lord
Chancellor in England. It was conferred on Sir William
Smith, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, who had been
raised to the Bench and made a Baronet for his services
in the Irish House of Commons to the cause of the Union.
The post of Lord Treasurer, which had been placed in
commission in England since the reign of Queen Anne,
was maintained in Ireland as a sinecure office, made here-
ditary in the family of the Earl of Cork, and continued
to his heirs, the family of the Duke of Devonshire. The
three Vice-Treasurers for Ireland only held their offices,
which were also sinecures, at pleasure, but their position
was one of great emolument and dignity, and it carried
with it the rank of Privy Councillor in both countries.
The system, however, of making lucrative sinecure
APPENDICES. 501
offices, paid out of the Irish revenues, rewards for English
politicians, so strongly prevailed, that the appointment of
Henry Flood, the great Irish Parliamentary orator, in
1775, to an Irish Vice-Treasurership, placed the adminis-
tration of Lord North in very considerable difficulty with
its supporters. The reduction of the great offices of
the Treasury to sinecure posts extended the grave public
mischief accruing from the farming out of the revenue,
which was an undoubted grievance and a subject of
strong protest. Amongst the instructions of the Parlia-
mentary Commissioners to the King in 1640 was included
the making of an earnest representation that the farming
of the revenue be discontinued. On the gth March,
1666, a resolution was passed by the House of Commons
against the farming out of the revenue of the Hearth
Tax. The whole of the revenue, despite this resolution,
was farmed out at first to Lord Ranelagh and subsequently
to Sir James Shaen (Mountmorres' Irish Parliaments^.,
pp. 140-141).
APPENDIX IX.
AN ADROIT CHIEF SECRETARY.
" THE Chief Secretary ofEarl Harcourt, and sole Minister
on whom the whole burden of public affairs lay, attended
with a proportionable share of unpopularity, except
during the agitation of the Absentee Tax, was Colonel
(now Lord) de Blaquiere. A stranger in this country,
he caught its manners, " living as they rose," or, at least,
the manners of those whom he was obliged to cultivate,
with peculiar and rapid discernment — he courted them,
he fed them. But he knew the importance of a table,
especially in this country, and distributed his best
Marsoux with a very becoming profusion " (Hardy's Life
of Charlemont, p. 317).
502 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
APPENDIX X.
IF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT HAD SUPPORTED
AMERICAN CLAIMS.
IN a letter to Lord Charlemont, dated Westminster,
June 4th, 1776, Edmund Burke deplores the opposition
of the Irish Parliament, as distinguished from the Irish
people, to the cause of Independence. " Your Lordship,
he writes, " will think it odd that I can conclude a letter
to you without saying a word on the state of public
affairs. But what can I say that will be pleasing to a
mind formed like yours ? Ireland has missed the most
glorious opportunity ever indulged by Heaven to a
subordinate State — that of being the safe and certain
mediator in the quarrels of a great Empire. She has
chosen, instead of being the enlister of peace, to be a
feeble party in the war waged against the principle of
her own liberties " (Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp.
361-362). Mr. Hardy thus comments on Mr. Burke's
letter, and incidentally gives an estimate of the power of
the Irish Parliament on the destinies of Great Britain,
in the opinion of statesmen fully competent from ripe
experience to form an accurate judgment :
" What might have been the consequences at that time
of Ireland acting in the manner Mr. Burke suggests, or,
in other words, opposing the American War (supposing
such an opposition), it is not easy to say. Could such an
interference have been effected, it would, perhaps, have
prevented a lamentable waste of blood and treasure,
and possibly for some time longer have kept together
the mother country and her colonies. Such a connection,
however, could not have been permanent. The dread
APPENDICES.
503
of such an interposition on the part of Ireland, and the
possibility of our differing from England at some period
or another, was unquestionably one of the principal
arguments made use of at the time of the Union. It
may not be superfluous to state what was partly said in
the Irish House of Commons on the subject of the pro-
position that any person had an equal right with the
Prince of Wales to the Regency. It never became a
matter of direct debate there, but was constantly alluded
to during the Regency question. It was said, considering
the possible effects of such a resolution, it was well for
both countries that their Parliaments stood as they did,
for their material independence might act as a material
check on the possible intemperance of either, and had
there been any protracted control of the Prince of Wales
the independence of the Irish Parliament might shelter
the people of England from the effects of party ambition,
for no Minister could continue to act upon that reso-
lution with the certainty of direct opposition to him on
the part of the Parliament of Ireland. That, therefore,
the independence of the two Parliaments constituted, if
the phrase might be allowed, a sort of fourth estate,
which would not suffer the possible occasional misconduct
of either, was, in fact, the best preservative of the connec-
tion between the two countries. All this may, by those
who are in the habit of disregarding Ireland, be con-
sidered as visionary, and the idea of any control at any
time from the Parliament of this country laughed at as
extravagant. Their general proceedings encouraged no
such speculations, but I can, with truth, assert that this
mode of reasoning was approved of by Mr. Burke, being
assented to in private by Mr. Fitz Gibbon, and to the
acquiescence of these two eminent men may be added
504 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
the following historical document. It is now, I believe,
very generally admitted that the Ministers, during the
last four years of Queen Anne, were resolved, if possible,
to bring back the son of James II. ?nd place him on the
Throne of these Kingdoms. From Ireland they expected
everything, but the Parliament opposed them. Lord
Midleton, a party man certainly, but a most able and
upright senator and magistrate (he was Chancellor),
writes in this manner of the Parliamentary proceedings
in Dublin at that time : ' What effect that Session of
Parliament had on the English Councils was visible in
the succeeding Session of the British Parliament, at
which time it was generally believed the Court intended
to have brought in a Bill to empower the Queen to have
appointed her successor, but the vigorous proceedings
of the Irish Parliament in favour of the Protestant
succession cast such a damp on these proceedings, etc.'
In short, they abandoned the scheme. Such was the
opinion of Lord Midleton with regard to the superior
efficacy which particular conjunctures might give to the
Parliament of Ireland. Let it be remembered, too, that
this opinion was given, not in the heat of party or debate,
but in a private letter-, long after the event, to a particular
friend, and never, I presume, intended to meet the eye
of the public. If such, therefore, was the power of
the Irish Parliament, according to Lord Midleton, at the
beginning of the Eighteenth Century, when it was nothing
compared to the Parliament in 1789, it will not be said
that too fond an opinion of its powers was entertained
by Lord Charlemont or his friends " (Hardy's Life of
Lord Charlemont, II., pp. 451-453).
APPENDICES, 505
APPENDIX XI.
THE IRISH PARLIAMENT AND FOREIGN
POLICY.
THE effect of the relationship between the Irish and
the English Crowns on the position of Ireland as regards
foreign policy has been fully and accurately described
and expounded by Mr. Butt in the speech I have repro-
duced in the preface of this work. It is thus summed up
by Mr. Lecky : " In foreign policy the position of
Ireland was completely subordinate. The whole subjects
of peace and war, alliances and confederacies, lay beyond
her domain She had, however, one power which
might be very efficient, and also very dangerous, to the
Empire. The actual participation of Ireland in the
common cause could only be effected and sustained by
the independent action of the Irish Parliament. If that
Parliament, disapproving of the policy which led to the
war, desiring to make its power felt in the only possible
way in foreign policy, disliking the Ministry which made
the war, and convinced that Ireland had no interest in its
issue, thought fit to withhold its assistance, the Empire
might, in the most critical periods, be deprived of a
great portion of its strength, and Ireland, by a tacit
agreement with the Empire, might be at peace,
while England was at war. ... I hasten to add that
these things never occurred. Nothing is more con-
spicuous in the history of the Irish Parliament than the
discretion with which it abstained from all discussions
on foreign policy, and the loyalty and zeal with which
it invariably supported England in time of war " (Lecky 'a
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, VI., pp.
3*9-3**)'
IM
506 IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
APPENDIX XII.
A GREAT SPEAKER.
"MR. (LORD) PERY was, perhaps, one of the best Speakers
that ever sat in the Chair of any House of Commons.
His mind seemed to keep pace with every question and
follow the debate in all its various forms. It was not
an anxiety for a particular motion, but a general parental
care of and solicitude for the well-being, the dignity
of the House of Commons, and the wisdom of its delibera-
tions. Hence, though always remembering that he was
the servant of the House and not its dictator, it was
perfectly easy for those who were accustomed to him,
and took a part in the business, to know at once, from his
looks whilst they were speaking, whether their speeches,
in his opinion, gave an additional light or interest to the
debate. There was no interruption, no impatience,
but to make use of a dramatic allusion ; he so blended
himself with the entire business of the scene that an
intelligent debater, by observing him, almost instantly
felt where he was most right, or discovered where he
was most wrong. He preserved order without encroach-
ing on the popular nature of the House of Commons.
He suffered no usurpation or Ministerial legerdemain
from the Treasury Bench. The old Members were
respected, the young were encouraged, all were attended
to. When Mr. Fox was in Dublin during part of the
winter of 1777, he was much struck with and spoke in
the most favourable terms of Mr. Pery's conduct in the
Chair of the House of Commons, which he considered
as a model. In private life, notwithstanding his grave
and serious demeanour, no man was ever more friendly,
more benign, and, to the young people, more accommo-
dating or more pleasing, instructive and indulgent "
(Hardy's Life of Charlemont, I., pp. 162-163).
INDEX
507
INDEX.
ABBOT, MR., 371.
Abercromby, Sir R.. 297, 300, 303,
306.
Absentee Tax, 125, 131, 133, 140,
303-
Act of Explanation, 8.
,, for Irish Legislative Indepen-
dence, 65.
„ ,, Legislative Union receives
Royal Assent, 333.
,, ,, Liberty of Conscience, 64.
„ of Settlement, 8, 61, 86, 179.
,, „ „ and Explana-
tion, 39, 41.
Addison, 108, 473.
Adventurers Act, 8.
Africa, Trade with, 210.
Agar, Archbishop, 309, 366, 367,
368.
Ainsworth, Mr., 468.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 84.
Albemarle, Duke of , 106.
Alien Act, 251.
Allegiance, Oath of, 155.
Almoner, Office of, 120.
American Claims, 502.
America, Trade with, 210.
American Colonies, War with, 131,
141, 147.
Amnesty, Act of, 315.
Anabaptists, 41.
Anglo-Irish Colonists, i.
Annaly, Lord, 161.
Anne, Queen, 34, 44, 72, 74, 75, 504
Arden, Mr., 108.
Armagh Address to the King, 292,
282, 386.
,, Archbishop of, 367.
Armed negotiators, 145.
Army Augmentation Bill, 1 1 7.
Artirans Emigrate from Ireland,
137-
Ascendancy Party, 462.
Ashtown, Lord, 335.
Attainder, Act of, 62.
Attorney-General, 21.
Auckland, Lord, 171, 263, 301, 321.
Aughrim, Battle of, 461.
Avonmore, Viscount, 199.
BACON, 17. His dictum on old
times, 454.
Baillie, Mr., supplied tapestries for
House of Lords, 461.
Balfour, Mr., 353, 365.
Ball, Dr., 9, 101.
Bank of Ireland, 463.
Bankers and Merchants oppose
Union, 328.
Banks, Mr., 343.
Baiitry Bay Expedition, 283, 287.
Barrington, Sir J-onah, 310, 335, 339,
343-
Barristers oppose Union, 328.
Bedford, Duke of, 91, 107,109, 370.
Belfast, 157, 241, 289.
Bell used for divisions, 468, 469.
Beresford, 262, 276, 289, 301, 323.
J- C., 330, 331, 354.
Berkeley, Bishop, 89.
„ Lord, 108.
Bernsdorff, Count, 106.
Bessborough, Earl of, 133.
Bethsworth, Serjeant, 406.
Bills, procedure respecting, 27.
Birrell, Mr., 473.
Blackstone's Commentaries, 14 v
Blue Coat Hospital, 458.
Board of Treasury, 247.
Bolton, Sir R., 8.
Borlace, Lord Justice, 56, 62.
Boyne, Battle of the, 159.
Bristol, 153,.
„ Earl of, 195.
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Broderick, Speaker, 73.
Brougham, Lord, 225.
Brown, M.P. for Trinity College,
298.
Brownists, 41.
Brownlow, Mr., 196, 212, 465.
Buckingham, Marquis of, 191, 221,
223, 253.
Buckinghamshire, Lord, 147, 149,
154, 159, 168.
Burgh, Hussey, 145, 161, 163.
Burgoyne, Sir J., 171, 297.
Burke, 37, 133, 153, 156, 215, 253,
262, 267, 384, 492, 502.
Burlington, Lord, 108.
Bushe, Mr., 166, 298, 325, 383, 388.
Bute, Earl of, 368.
Butler, Sir R., 374.
Butt, Isaac, Speech, xiii-xxxi ;
Proposal for Irish Parliament,
44 ; Settlement of Property,
45-
Byrne, 241.
CAI/DWEU,, SIR J., no.
Callan, Lord, 368.
Calvin's Case, 3.
Camden, Lord, 275, 279, 285, 288,
291, 295, 297, 301, 309, 311,—
312, 317, 347-
Campbell, Lord, 225.
Candelabrum in Parliament House,
468.
Canning, 344.
Carew, Sir G., 457.
Carhampton, Lord, 297.
Carlisle, Lord, 177, 179, 181, 272.
Commissioner to American Colonies,
171, 152.
Carlow, Catholic College at, 280.
Carrickfergus, 158.
Castlereagh, Lord, 40, 223, 314, 316,
317, 320, 324, 335, 339, 342,
349, 351, 357, 358, 37i, 372-4,
385, 387, 388, 391, 473.
Catholic Convention dissolved, 246.
Catholic Emancipation, 250 ; last
raising of question in Irish
Parliament, 286.
Catholic Relief Bill passed, 246.
Cavendish, Sir H., 168.
Cease your Funning, 325.
Chair, the Chancellor's, and the
Speaker's, 467, 468.
Chamberlain, Mr. Justice, 353.
Chancellorship of Exchequer, 109.
Charlemont, Lord, 86, 88, 95, 101,
128, 138, 158, 165, 173, 175,
180, 195, 197, 201, 229, 231,
249, 370, 386.
Charles I., 8, 34, 39, 40, 55.
„ II., Grants by, 34 ; Legisla-
tion of, 48 ; Irish Par-
liament of 1 65 1 , 8, 56, 57 ;
False plot in reign of, 62.
Chatham, Lord, 141.
Chichester, Sir A., 4, 38, 457.
Chichester House, 458.
Chief Secretary, an adroit, 50 1 .
Citizen's Journal, 93.
Clancarty, Lord, 62.
Clanricarde, Lord, 176.
Clare, Lord, 40, 301, 309, 320, 331,
340, 343, 359, 386, 455, 466.
Clarendon, Earl of, 38.
Clelland, Dr., 268.
„ Rev. Mr., 307.
Clifden, Lord, 367.
Clive, Lord, 472.
,, Peerage, 31.
Cloncurry, Lord, 326.
Clonfert, Bishop of, 369.
Coercion Act of 1799, 347.
Coinage, debased state of, 78 ;
new, 78, 79.
Coke, Lord, 3, 4, 186.
Colchester, Lord, 371.
„ Papers, 463.
Cole, Lieut.-Col., 354, 365.
Colonial Trade, 132.
Commercial Code, Irish, 152.
„ Restrictions, 75.
Commissioners of Account, 124.
Commons, members of raised to
peerage, 403.
Congress replies to Britain's offer,
171.
Connaught, 40, 176.
Connolly, Mr., 272.
INDEX.
5<>9
Constitution, Irish, 2.
„ of 1782, 179.
Convention, The, 229.
,, Act, 249 ; Repeal of,
250.
„ Catholic, 241.
,, Dissolution of, 202.
French, 253.
,, Parliament at West-
minster, 64.
Cooke, 262, 301, 312, 325, 336, 340,
360, 372, 373.
Cork, 193, 461.
Corn and Whiskey -making, 123.
Cornwallis, Lord, 32, 174, 223, 273,
297, 312, 3i6, 317, 320, 322,
326, 330, 332, 340, 342, 346,
350, 353, 358, 361, 362, 365,
366, 367, 368, 371, 372, 374,
376, 386, 387.
Corruption by Government, 355-
357-
Corry, Isaac, 331.
„ I,ord, duel with Grattan,
351, 392, 394.
Costumes of Members, 40 1 .
Court of Claims, 42.
Courts of Chancery, King's Bench,
Common Pleas, Exchequer, 2.
Cromer, Archbishop, 49.
Cromwell: his soldiers, 41 ; Regime
of, 39, 57, 62.
Crown Rents, 48.
Curran, 230, 233, 290, 298 ; his
jeu d' esprit, 464.
Cussing, Thomas, 470.
Customs Duties, 49, 1 36 ; pecula-
tions in, 115.
DAI.Y, Bowes, 117, 145, 178, 199.
„ St. George, 331.
Daly's Club, 469.
Darlington, Countess of, 106.
Davies, Sir J., 4, 52, 54.
De Beaufort, Due, 95.
De Blaquiere, Lord, 130, 135, 145,
287, 501.
Declaration of Rights, 182.
Defenders, 251, 282, 285.
Denmark, Queen of, 108 ; pen-
sioned, 128.
De Quincey, 403, 478.
Derry, Bishop of, 195, 202, 229.
Desmond, 83.
Destitution in Ireland, 160.
Devonshire, Duke of, 84, 133.
De Walmoden, Mdme, 106.
Diamond, Battle of the, 282.
Dicey, Professor, 224, 455.
Differences between the Houses,
405-
Dillon, Gerard, 63.
Dinner Parties at Parliament House,
469.
„ „ given by the Speaker,
470.
Disestablishment of Irish Protes-
tant Church, 250.
Dissenters, 22, 41; their marriage,
184.
Divisions, methods of taking, 475,
476.
Dobbs, Mr., 350.
Dodington, 108.
D'Olier, De Lavel, 461.
Donegal family, 458.
Dorset, Duke of, 84.
Douglas, Chief Secretary, 252.
Down, County, 379, 380.
Downshire, Lord, 386.
Doyle, Major, 245.
" Drapier " letters, 79, 108.
Drogheda, 379.
Duah, 205.
Dublin, City of, 386.
,, Corporation of, 278.
Duff, Sir J., 315.
Duffy, Sir C. G., 54.
Duigenan, 260.
Dundas, 242, 315.
Dungannon, 175.
Duration of Session, 414.
Dyson, Jeremiah, 124.
EAST INDIA COMPANY, 210 ; Service,
124.
Eden, Chief Secretary, Commis-
sioner to American Colonies,
171, 179.
Edgeworth, Miss, 268.
Edward III., 5.
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Edward IV., 36.
VI., 35, 49.
Egan, John, 476, 477.
Eighty Club, 453.
Elizabeth, Queen, 23, 33, 35, 36, 50.
Elliott, Mr., 371.
English Companies, 133.
,, manufactures tabooed, 160.
Englishmen put into important
offices, 108.
Enniskillen, Lord, 317.
Erskine, 230.
Escheator of Munster, 365.
Exchequer, Chancellorship of the,
147.
Excise and Customs, 131.
Explanation Act, 57.
FAMINE of 1729, 132.
Featherstone, 374.
Fermanagh, 386.
Feudal Tenures, Act for abolition
of, 48.
Finch, Sir H., 9.
Fitzgerald, Lord E., 316, 395.
„ James, 331.
„ Robert, 334.
T. J., 351.
Fitzgibbon, 174, 230, 249, 256, 263,
276, 279, 500.
Fitzpatrick, Chief Secretary, 180.
„ Colonel, 187, 189.
Fitzwilliam, Lord, 237, 253, 256,
279, 282, 301, 303.
,, Episode, 249.
Flax, 137-
Flood, Mr., 1 6, 501.
„ Sir F., 18, 90, 119, 122, 131,
139, M5, H?, 162, 174, 176,
185, 188, 196, 201, 202, 212,
214, 230, 232, 249.
Foreign Policy, 505.
Forfeitures and Confiscations, 42.
Fortescue, 338.
Foster, 167, 212, 276, 309, 323, 351,
390, 392, 466, 467.
Fox, 20, 179, 182, 192, 213, 214, 215,
219, 226, 290, 294, 345, 358
France, Rupture with, 147.
Franklin, Benjamin, 142.
Freeman, Professor, his Constitu-
tional Theory, 400.
Free Trade, 162, 175 ; Riot, 163.
Freeman's Journal, Report of Meet -
ing of Eighty Club, 480.
French Revolution, 233, 240.
Fronde, The, 95.
Froude, u, 130, 142, 261, 264, 273.
288.
GATEWAY PEERAGE, 3 1 .
,, and Volunteer Association
178.
Gardiner, Colonel, 183.
George I., 104, 113; Declaratory
Act, 142 ; Act of, Sub-
ordinates Ireland to
Crown of Great Britain,
13 ; his mistresses, 106.
,, II., 90, 104, 106, 113.
,, III., 90 ; cognisant of
bribery, 107 ; pensions,
107, 113, 127, 128 ; his
indisposition, 218; Statue
of, 462.
Germany supplies England with
sail cloths, 137.
Gibbet Rath, 315.
Giffard, John, 321.
Gladstone, 294, 357, 382, 388, 453,
479 ; Article in Contemporary
Review, 388.
Glasnevin, 473.
Glass, Trade in, 164.
" Gold Pills for an Election," 107.
Gordon, 268.
Gordon Riots, 154.
Gormanstown, Lord, 17.
" Graces," The, 55.
Grattan, 19, 65, 83, 119, 140, 151,
156, 157, 162, 163, 166, 174,
176, 177, 180, 184, 186, 201,
203, 212, 214, 218, 220, 228,
232, 234, 243, 246, 249, 254,
265, 272, 279, 284, 293,
298, 303, 321, 362, 370, 380,
471, 478, 479 ; the volunteers,
171 ; proposes Vote for British
Navy, 183 ; his reappearance
in Parliament, 385 ; duel with
Corry, 392, 394.
INDEX.
Graves Peerage, 31.
Grenville, Lord, 236, 256, 321, 324.
„ William, 186.
Grey, Mr., 366, 378, 380, 393.
Grogan, Cornelius, 316.
Guild of Merchants, 386.
HABEAS CORPUS ACT, 179. Sus-
pended, 285,
,, Bill, 165, 174.
Halifax, Lord, 98, 109, in.
Hallarn, 1 1 , 56.
Hamilton, " Single Speech," 91,
109, 494.
,, Sackville, 262.
Harcourt Administration, 206.
„ Lord, 127-130, 134, 141,
144, 146, 150, 356.
,, Sir \V., 462.
Hardwicke, Lord, 360, 369.
Hardy, 86, 94, 99, 128, 198, 370.
Harley, 32.
Harrington, Lord, 84, 93.
Harvey, Bagnal, 316.
Hastings, Marquis of, 299.
Hawke, 233.
Heads of Bills, 26.
Hearth Money, 49.
Hely-Hutchinson, Prime Serjeant,
33,35,76, 120, 161,246,474.
Hemp, Hempen Manufactixre, 70,
137
Henry II., 2, 4.
' HI., 3, 37-
IV., 5-
V., 5.
VL, 5-
VII., 17-19, 23, 28.
VIII., 23, 42, 80 ; Confisca-
tions of, 48.
Hereditary Revenue, 128, 212, 247.
Heron, Rirhard, 149, 167, 158.
Hertford, Lord, 107, 127.
Hill, Sir G., 317.
Hillsborough, Lord, 165, 177.
Hobart, Major, 235, 243 ; Catholic
Relief Bill, 244.
Holland supplies England with
sail cloths, 137.
Hood Peerage, 31.
Hooker, Mr., 51, 399.
Hotham Peerage, 31.
Hours of Meeting, 408.
Howe, Lady, 106.
Huguenot Colony, 461.
Hussey, Dr., 280.
INDEMNITY, Act of, 283, 303, 347
351-
Independents, 4 1 .
Industries (Irish) interfered with,
137-
Insurrection Act, 283.
Ireland in the Fourth Institute, 4.
Ireton, 62.
Irish Legislation and the English
Privy Council after 1782,
490.
„ Parliament and American
claims, 502.
,, ,, early struggles in
for popular rights
47-
,, ,, and the English
Privy Council,
485-
,, „ and Foreign
Policy, 505.
and Material Pros-
perity, 437.
,, ,, Composition of
before the Union,
454-
,, „ meeting at various
places, 457.
,, Parliamentary Life, Address
by Mr. Swift MacNeill,
453-481.
,, Patriot Parliament, 60.
» Party, 143.
JACOBINS, 380.
James I., 2, 4 ; Parliament of, 33 ;
Parliamentary Opposition,
52-
,, II., Proceedings of Irish
Parliament declared null
and void, 10 ; Grants by,
34 ; for Liberty of
Conscience, 64 ; at open-
ing of Parliament, 464.
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
" Job," description of a, no.
John, King, 2, 3.
Johnson, Dr., 94 ; his prediction,
388.
Juries, Grand, 182.
KEARNEY, Dr., 343.
Kendal, Countess of, 78, 106.
Kenmare, 235.
Keogh, John, 234, 241.
Kerry, Knight of, 359.
Kildare, Lord, 124.
„ Sheriff of, refuses obedi-
ence to Irish Court of
Exchequer, 12.
Kilkenny marble, 463.
King, Archbishop, 63.
„ Mr., 73, 359, 372.
Kingdom of Ireland, 23.
Kingsborough, Lord, 176.
Kingston, Earl of, 314.
Kinsale, 461.
Knox, George, 245, 331.
„ Mr., 278, 298.
LAKE, General, 288, 297.
Land Question, 44.
,, thrown into pasture, 74.
Langrishe, Sir Hercules, 38, i<>8.
119.
LaTouche, 94, 154, 461.
La Trobe, 461.
Laurence, 346.
LAWS, CUSTOMS, USAGES, AND
ETIQUETTE, 399-435-
Lecky, 130, et passim.
„ on Corrupt Practices, r 1 3 .
Leinster, Conquest of, 62, 176, 302.
„ Duke of, »23, 390.
Levant, Trade with, 210.
Liberty against corruption, the
fight for, 103.
Licences, Excise, and Custom?, 49.
Llfford, Lord, 161.
Linen and Cotton Manufactures,
70, 124.
Littlehales, Sir E-, 35Q.
Liturgy, English, 49.
Lord Deputy, 2.
Loughborough, Lord, 182.
Lucas, C., 92.
„ Lord, in.
MACAUI^AY, 71.
Mace, the, 467, 468.
MacNevin, Dr., 158.
Magna Charta, 2.
Maguan, 268, 306.
Mahon, 374.
Malone, 25.
Malton, John, his description of
Irish Parliament House, 459-
461.
Mansfield, Lord, 186.
Manufactures, decay of, 76 ; exclu-
sive use of Irish, 77 ; duties
on, 210 ; resolution in favour
of home products, 77.
Marble, Irish, 463.
Marlborough, Duke of, 461 .
Marriages, Protestant and Catholic,
10.
Marsden, Mr., 359-361, 373-
Mary, Queen, 18, 35.
Maryborough, 381.
Massereene and Ferrard, Lord, 467.
May, Sir E-, 220.
Maynooth, 279, 455.
Membership of Parliament, Qualifi
cation, Absence, Resignation,
Holy Orders, Expulsion, 427.
Militia, Irish, 139 ; soldiers trans-
ferred to the line, 387.
Millenarians, 41.
Milton, Lord, 133.
Mitford's Act, 236.
Moira, Lord, 299.
Molyneux, 65, 91, 81, 87, 73 ; The
Case of Ireland, u.
Money Bills, 24, 68, 90, 99, 1 1 6 .1 1 7,
122.
Monk, General, 41.
Moore, Arthur, 384, 385.
„ Captain, 201.
Sir J., 297.
Morley, Lord, 215.
Mount joy, Lord, 155.
INDEX,
5*3
Mountmorres, Lord, 22.
Muncaster Peerage, 31.
Munster, 173, 176, 302 ; Settlement
of, 62.
Mutiny Act, 166, 173, 174, 183.
NANTES, Revocation of Edict of, 461 .
National Debt, 76, 84, 147.
National Movement, 172.
„ Museum, 467.
Navigation Act, 70, 216.
Navy, British, sails made in Ire-
land, 137.
Neagh, Lough, fish in, 458.
Newenham, Sir E., 156, 270.
Normanby family, 467.
Normanton, Lord, 309, 367.
North, Lord, 128, 132, 135, 152, 155;
162, 210, 213 ; resigns, 179,
his jeu d' esprit, 474.
Northington, Lord, 192, 196.
Northumberland, Earl of, 98, 107,
109.
Nottingham, Lord Chancellor, 9, 57.
Nugent, Lord, 152.
OAK, Irish, 469.
O'Brien, Sir L-, 161.
O'Connell, i, 250, 267, 274, 305,
3*9, 370. 38i, 388, 389, 390.
O'Connor, A., 278, 395.
Octennial Bill, 95, 113, 115.
O'Donnell, Territory of, 54.
Ogle, 260.
O'Hagan, Mr. Justice, lines by, 382.
O'Neill, Territory of, 54, 83."
Orange Lodges, 386, 387.
Orangemen, 328, 343 ; and the
Volunteer Movement, 159.
Orange Society, 282, 285.
Orde, 206, 214, 229.
Order, a new, proposed by Town-
shend, 114.
Ormonde, 56, 58, 73.
Ostmen, 2.
Outlawries of 1641 and 1688, 74.
PALE, Landowners of the, 52, 53.
Palmerston, Lord, 108.
Parliament of 1698, 59.
,, duration of, 100 ; effect
of legislation, 101 ;
origin of i ; compo-
sition of, 30 ; and
Land System, 37 ; as
affected by public
opinion, 67 ; septen-
nial, 97 ; duration of,
98 ; A vSinister Ad-
ministration, 127 ;
etiquette of, 57 ; in-
dependence of, 78 ;
opposition, 88 ; Volun-
teer movement, 157,
190 ; Orde's Commer-
cial Propositions, 206;
Reform and Catholic
Disability, 227 ;
Catholic Emancipa-
tion, 271 ; majority
for Government, 119;
corrupt legislation,
282 ; hours of meet-
ing, 407, 408 ;
charges on public
revenue, 413 ; Royal
Assent and duration
of session, 414 ;
Proxies and Protests,
410 ; Tacking, 412 ;
processions on open-
ing day, 464, 466 ;
tone of, 433.
,, and Material Prosperity,
437-
Parnell, Sir J., 323, 331, 334, 339,
393, 473-
Parsons, Lord Justice, 56, 233, 252,
262, 272, 278, 284, 287, 298,
334, 384-
Parties, the Court and Country, 86.
Pasture, Extension of, 148.
Patrick, Saint, Order of, 115, 192.
Payment of Members, 424, 476.
Peel, Sir Robert, 369.
" Peep of Day Boys," 251, 282.
Peerage, Promotions to, 124.
Peers, created and advanced, 114.
Pelham, 275, 287, 301, 326, 463.
IN.
IRISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Penal Code, 63, 150, 154, 235.
Pensions, go, 132, 139; for Catholic
Bishops, 65 ; struck off, 72,
1 06 ; increase of, 107 ; of
non-residents taxed, 106 ;
to be reduced, 247.
Perrot, Unreformcd House of Com-
mons, 405.
Pery, 25, 122, 137, 161, 172, 323,
465, 4?i, 5o6.
Petition, oldest Parliamentary
Form, 375, 376.
Philip and Mary, Explanation Act,
1 8, 19, 23, 29.
Phipps, Sir C., 75, 116, 467.
Pilkington's Case, 5.
Pitt, the elder, 471.
Pitt, 35, 187, 204, 207, 211, 215, 219,
226, 229, 237, 240, 248, 253,
263, 291, 301, 310, 318, 321,
331, 340, 344, 35 *, 357, 363,
371, 373, 375, 378, 38o.
Planting in Ireland, Act to encou-
rage, 66.
Pledges, Parliamentary, 92.
Plunket, 298, 303, 308, 334, 376,
384, 385-
Ponsonby, 115, 120, 123, 125, 144,
181, 246, 252, 262, 277, 290,
292, 298, 334, 337, 339, 340,
384, 385, 386, 392, 465, 477.
Ponsonby -Shannon Group, 122.
Porter, Sir C., 467.
Portland, Duke of, 106, 180, 183,
187, 189, 253, 256, 259, 261,
276, 279, 285, 291, 301, 304,
312, 322, 324, 327, 329, 340,
344, 34<5, 350, 351, 359, 361,
362, 363, 367, 368, 371, 373,
387-
Preston, Mr., 368.
Poynings' I<aw, 6, 15, 17-20, 22, 24,
32,50,64,91,92, 1 1 6, 1 1 8, 139,
166, 173, 181, 182, 184, 210,
399, 487, 488, 491.
Prayer Book, the Chaplain's, 468.
Presbyterians, 156, 164, 233, 235,
251-
Pretender, The, 77-81.
Prime Serjeant, Office of, 231.
Privy Councils, 19-22, 27, 32, 99,
120, 123, 133, 156, 167, 174,
183.
Protestant and Catholic Mar-
riages, 10.
„ Church, establishment
of, 50.
Protestantism affected, 155.
Protestants flee to America, 137.
„ and Roman Catholics,
33-
Property Qualification, 97.
Proxies and Protests, 410.
Prussia, Queen Dowager of, 106.
Public Works, Expenditure on, 1 10.
Puritan Party, The, 56.
Purse, Power of the, 51.
QUALIFICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP,
429.
Queen's County, 381.
Questioning of Ministers, 477.
Quit Rents, 48.
RADSTOCK Peerage, 31.
Rebellion of 1641, 38.
1798,297,305.
Redmond, W. A., 44.
Mr., 83.
Reform Bill, 197.
Reformation, The, 49
Regency, The, 209, 218, 351.
Reilly, Hugh, 230.
Relief Bill carried, 156, 237.
Renunciation Act, 185, 187, 191.
Revenue Board, 108, 124, 125.
,, Hereditary, 75.
Revolution of 1688, 90.
„ the French, 253, 267,
286.
Richard III., 5.
Rigby, 26, 87, 109.
Riots of 1 759, 87.
Robinson, 145.
Roche, Sir Boyle, 196.
Rockingham, Marquis of, 133, 170,
187, 188, 191, 232.
Rodney, 233.
Rolls, Mastership of the, 147.
INDEX.
515
Roman Catholics, epithets applied
to, 46 ; excluded from Par-
liament, 10. ; indulgences to,
22 ; Relief Act, 154.
Ross, Mr., 359, 360.
„ General, 332, 348, 371.
Royal Irish Academy, 467, 468.
Rufus, William, 458.
Russia supplies F,ngland with sail-
cloths, 137.
Russian Troops, proposal to
employ, 350.
Rutland, Duke of, 206, 207.
SACRAMENTAT, Test, 156, 164.
Saint Albans, Dvtke of, 106.
,, Andrew's Church, 468.
,, Margaret's, Westminster,
468.
Sandwich, I<ord, 143.
Saville, Sir George, 154.
Scandals of Irish Administration,
in.
Scotland, 267.
Scott, Attorney-General, 163.
„ Dean, 309.
,, John, Earl of Clonmel, 309,
3"'
Seceders, 41.
Secretary to Lord Lieutenant, 473 ;
jobbery, 474.
Sedley, Catherine, 106. i
Sessions, Annual and Biennial, 193.
Settlement, Act of, 57.
,, Cromwellian, 46.
,, and Explanation, Acts
of, 48.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 458.
Shannon, Lord, 120, 125, 131.
„ native Irish driven
beyond, 40.
Sheffield Peerage, 31.
Shelburne, 114, 182, 191.
Sheridan, 214, 264, 319, 331, 340,
344, 346. 3go, 472-
Sherlock v. Annesley, 12.
Shiel, 44.
Simnel, 17.
Socinians, 41.
Soldiers on Irish Establishment,
114.
Somerton, Viscount, 367.
Southwell, 108, 109, 474, 497.
Speaker of Irish House of Commons,
420, 423,
465, 466.
» » „ Lords, 418.
Spencer, Lord, 253.
Stamp Act, 142.
Staples, Sir Robert, 478.
Star Chamber and the Journals of
Parliament, 416.
Strafford, 6, 38, 55, 57, 62, 91, 266,
319-
,, Parliament, 33.
Straensee, Count, 108.
Stuart, House of Representation
under, 34.
„ Dr. William, 368.
Sugar Duty, 167.
Supply Bills, 137.
Swift, 65, 77, 79, 86, 89, 93, 108,
1 60, 406.
Sydney, Lord, 16, 24, 49, 51, 68,
116.
" TABI.E of Parliamentary Patrou»
age," 36.
Tacking, 412.
Tapestries in House of Lords, 461,
462.
Tara, Lord, 368.
Taxation of America and Ireland,
507-
,, „ Ireland, 389.
Taylor, Sir Herbert, 359.
Teignmouth Peerage, 31.
Temple, Lord, 186, 191, 275.
Theatre Royal, Dublin, 468.
•Thurot, 158.
Tighe, Mr., 353, 365.
Tipperary, 381.
Tithes, Appropriation of, 65.
Tobacco Plant, Prohibition of, 9.
Tone, Wolfe, 233, 281, 286.
Tone of Irish House of Parliament,
433-
Tooke, Home, 430.
IPvISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
Tottenham, Colonel, " in boots,"
84, 402, 474, 475.
Townshend, Lord, 24, 104, 107, 113,
114, 116, 119, 121, 124, 126,
127-129, 148, 160, 165, 183,
i 86, 356.
Trade, Irish, Restraints on, 123.
„ and Manufactures, 147.
„ of Ireland, 209.
Transubstantiation, Declaration
against, 68.
Trench, 25, 335.
Trinity College, 468.
Tudors, The, 49.
Tyrone's Rebellion, 42, 49.
Tyrone, Lord, 243, 334.
ULSTER, 173, 297, 458 ; plantation
of, 39 ; settlement of, 52, 62 ;
ruin of, 137 ; Volunteer regi-
ment, 175 ; under martial
law, 288.
"Undertakers," 89, 104, 113, 120,
122, 127, 130, 494.
Union, The, 75, 266, 318, 338;
carrying through Parlia-
ment, 383-395.
Act, of, 97, 478.
United Irish Brotherhood, 251.
„ Irishmen, 234, 266, 282,
3", 3M-
Upper Ossory, Lord, 133.
VICEREGAL Government, 127.
i Vice-Treasurership, 140.
Villiers, Elizabeth, 10.
Vinegar Hill, Battle of, 155.
Volunteer Movement, 121, 138, 150,
'57) 175, !82, 183, 185,
192, 200, 231.
,, Convention, 190, 249.
WAI.SINGHAM, Lady, 78, 106.
Wandesford, ,Chr., 499.
Waterford, Marquis of, 334.
„ Case of the Merchants
of, 5-
Wellesley, Arthur, 243, 245, 477
Wellington, Duke of, 477.
Wesley, John, his description of
the Parliament House, 469.
Westminster, Council at, 4 ; Par-
liament under Edward III., 5.
Westmorland, Lord, 217, 235, 242,
254,263.
Weston, 94.
Wexford, outbreak in, 307.
Weymouth, Lord, 161.
Whaley. 375.
Wharton, Lord, 473.
Whiteside, 82, 215, 279, 478, 479.
Whitshed, Chief Justice, 77, 82.
Wickham, Wm., 325, 359, 360.
William III., 10, 16, 46, 70, 106,
163 ; Statue of, 462.
Windham, 253.
Wines, Duty on, 51.
Wolfe, Mr. George, 459.
Wollaghan Court-niartial, 317.
Wood, Wm., 78, 82.
"Woollen Trade, 10, 69, 72, 106, 164.
Woolsack, The, 466, 467.
Wright of Clonmel, brutal treat-
ment of, 352 ; obtains
damages in the law-courts,
353-
Writs of Error, 3.
YEI/VERTOX, 174, 199, 323, 353,
392.
,, Act, 27.
YORK, Richard, Duke of, 22, 42.
„ family in Ireland, 17.
,, and Lancaster, 22 ; Wars of,
17-
Yorke, Mr. 360.
Young, Mrs., 369.
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