points of difference in the laws and practice of the English and of the Irish Constitutions (chapter viii.). In this inquiry I will, as far as possible, quote the remarks of contemporary statesmen on the workings of a Constitution with which they were familiar. Such remarks are always interesting; addressed to popular audiences they are not likely to be misunderstood; spoken in the presence of persons well acquainted with the facts, and without fear of contradiction, they are presumably correct. THE RELATION OF THE CROWN OF IRELAND TO THE CROWN PAGE 13 24 31 CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF THE IRISH TO THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT 35 CHAPTER V. THE RELATION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT TO THE ENGLISH AND IRISH PRIVY COUNCILS BEFORE 1782 CHAPTER VI. THE RELATION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT TO THE ENGLISH PRIVY COUNCIL AFTER 1782 41 53 CHAPTER VII. THE IRISH ADMINISTRATION CHAPTER VIII. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LAWS AND PRACTICE OF THE ENGLISH AND THE IRISH CONSTITUTIONS 60 69 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. CHAPTER I. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF LORDS. THE Irish House of Lords consisted at the time of the Union of 228 temporal and 22 spiritual peers. In the reign of Elizabeth the total number of Irish temporal peers was 32. In 1681, at the close of the last administration of the Duke of Ormond, their number had increased to 119, making with the bishops a total of 141 lords. In 1790 the number of Irish peers, with the bishops, amounted to 200.* During Lord Cornwallis's Viceroyalty, 29 Irish peers were created; of these only 7 were unconnected with the question of the Union.† Many of the Irish temporal peers were Englishmen and Scotsmen, who had no connection with Ireland either by property or family. Some had never taken their seats in the House of Lords, and, indeed, had never been in Ireland. When Mr. Yelverton introduced the heads of a Bill for the modification of Poynings' Law, the measure was opposed, on the ground that it would diminish the * Mountmorres's "Irish Parliament," vol. ii. pp. 215-220. A list of these creations is given in "The Cornwallis Correspondence," vol. iii. p. 318. power of the Privy Council and increase the power of the House of Lords. More confidence, it was urged, should be placed in the Privy Council, "who were all men firmly attached to the country, than in the House of Lords, many of whom were strangers, and had not a foot of estate in it; and yet could by proxy defeat the best-intended acts of the Commons."* Mr. Grattan, too, bitterly complained of the foreign element in the House of Lords, and asked in the House of Commons whether Roman Catholic Irishmen were to be excluded from privileges to which strangers were admitted. "Look to your Peerage," he said, "how many English and Scots are daily made your law-givers. Have you remonstrated against this periodical list, which the breath of a British Minister qualifies to give law and judgment in Ireland without any connection with this country whatever ? "+ The foreign element in the House of Lords was, with all its grievances, less objectionable than the native accessions to the Irish peerage. It was the system of the Government "by the sale of peerages to raise a purse to purchase the representation, or rather, the misrepresentation, of the people of Ireland." + "Will any man say," says Flood, "that the Constitution is perfect, when he knows that the honour of the 1797, * See Mr. Gamble's speech," Irish Debates," vol. i. p. 168. See Fox's speech in the British House of Commons, March 23, "Irish Debates," vol. xvii. p. 212. peerage may be obtained by any ruffian who possesses borough interest ?" Grattan accuses the ministers of the Crown of having "introduced a trade or commerce, or rather brokerage of honours, and thus establishing in the money arising from that sale a fund for corrupting representation."+ "The sale of peerages," says Curran, “is as notorious as the sale of cast-horses in the castle-yard; the publicity the same, the terms not very different, the horses not warranted sound, the other animals warranted rotten." "The Minister," says Mr. Grattan in another debate, "sells your Lords and he buys your Commons." § "The Irish Minister has taken money for seats in the peers under contract that it should be applied to purchase seats in the Commons." "I have good reason to believe," says George Ponsonby, "that peerages have been sold for money, nay more, I have proof; give me a Committee, and if I do not establish my charge degrade me, let me no more enjoy the character of an honest man. I dare you to it, and I risk my reputation on establishing the fact." Edmund Burke, in a second letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, speaks of the sale of peerages as a matter of notoriety. "I like Parliamentary reforms," he remarks, "as little as any man who has boroughs to sell for money or for peerages in Ireland.”** The sale of peerages and the purchase with the pro || *"Irish Debates," vol. ii. p. 230. "Irish Debates," vol. x. p. 266. "Irish Debates," vol. x. p. 290. "Irish Debates," vol. xi. p. 133. || "Irish Debates," vol. xi. p. 135. T "Irish Debates," vol. xi. p. 143. **Burke on Irish Affairs," p. 340. |