whose names that decision had consigned to everlasting infamy. Yet corrupt and venal as that decision was, there were two subsequent authorities generally urged in support of this false construction of the law, that went further than even the judges had ventured to go. Here, he observed, that the reigns antecedent to the coming of the family of Stuart, had produced the worst precedents for the English, and the reigns since, the worst for the Irish constitution. The first warp and perversion was given in the reign of James I, who came from the throne of Scotland to that of England and Ireland, filled with Scottish prejudices, and entertaining a very exalted notion, indeed, of royal prerogative. In very early times the Scottish parliaments enjoyed the full power of enacting all laws; the king only put them in execution, but had not even a negative on their passing. This was much less power than a king ought to have; and in time the Scottish kings contrived to acquire more; for at the period that parliament enjoyed this plenitude of power, attendance on public business was thought a very great hardship. There are many instances of boroughs, &c. praying to be eased of the burden of sending representatives. This reluctance and disinclination to attend, gave rise to an alteration in the constitution; for in order, as much as possible, to ease the members of parliament, that their term of attendance might be shortened, and that they might only have to decide upon such laws as were to be passed, a committee was selected under the name of Lords of Articles. The office of this committee, was to prepare all the laws which the parliament was to pass, consequently it became an object of great importance to the Scottish kings to have the selecting of the persons who were to sit in this committee; and this object they found means to attain. Then began that favourite doctrine, "that the parliament "could not take any matter into consideration till it had been "propounded on the part of the crown ;" and though in the worst times, it was never fully obeyed, so as to make the king absolute master of the parliament, yet the power acquired by the king in nominating the Lords of Articles, put the parliament down as much below its natural dignity as the king had formerly been. King James attempted to introduce this practice into Ireland, and with but too much success; for when some opposition was made to it in parliament, he sent over for a committee of the members, whom he ordered to attend him in England; and having lectured them upon the sublime authority of kings, and the mysterious art of legislation; and having informed them, that it was a subject above the capacity of parliament, those gentlemen came home much better courtiers than they went, and consented to a resolution soon after proposed, "that parliaments were but "humble remembrancers to his majesty." Another attempt was

made to divest parliament of their authority, which, indeed, had no weight as a precedent, being under the infamous administration of Lord Strafford. The Lords of Ireland he had reduced so low, as to make their own journals the record of their shame ; and the Commons, (whom at his first coming he had called together, and from whom he had demanded a supply) pleading the poverty and inability of the nation; he told them, that he stood there in the person of the king, not to supplicate, but demand his right; and if it were refused, he would think himself bound to use the army to enforce it. Mr. Flood then went back to an early period of the English history, and proved the manner of originating laws in parliament, on which the king had only a negative, and that even during the most despotic reigns, till the pernicious principles brought in by the Stuarts, were attempted to be enforced against the people's rights; and the unfortunate Charles fell a victim to his own ambition; as did Lord Strafford to the corrupt and tyrannic disposition which influenced his conduct in Ireland.

He then returned to the law of Poynings itself, part of which he read, to shew that it was never intended to take away the right of the parliament, but merely to prevent the governors of Ireland from giving the royal assent to laws, that might be injurious to the king. That during the civil wars of York and Lancaster, this had frequently happened: that the adherents of the York family were numerous in Ireland, having been planted there chiefly in the reign of Henry VI. who 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 partizans of that house. That Lord Gormanstown, who preceded Poynings, had given great cause for suspicion; nay, it was even thought, that when Symnel 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 there 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 in Ireland, though he had the utmost reliance on 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, by making authentic records, he proved had been the constant practice of originating such bills as they thought proper, and send

ing them engrossed on parchment, sometimes through the viceroy, sometimes by special messengers of their own, to receive the royal assent. He also produced the evidence of the parliamentary roll, in the reign of Elizabeth, to confirm this opinion, and to shew the sentiments the parliament then entertained of the law of Poynings', by the reluctance with which they consented to a temporary suspension of its effects in favour of Lord Sydney, and the great compliment they paid that nobleman in the words of that consent. From this he inferred, that parliament had considered this as a popular law, guarding the nation against evil governors, but in no wise restraining the power of either house of parliament. He said, that a very unjust stigma had, therefore, been affixed to the name of Poynings, who was an able and upright governor, and from whose administration that kingdom had derived the greatest advantages, and whose laws were intended for its defence, till perverted by the corrupt opinions of the judges. It was no wonder, that people had received an ill impression of the law of Poynings', as the very text of that law had been falsified, by those who had the charge of its publication: for instead of saying that the imperial crown of Ireland was inseparably annexed, and appendant to the imperial crown of England; they had used the words, dependant on, the most invidious perversion that could possibly be introduced. Lord Bacon, who wrote the history of the reign of Henry VII. and who particularly mentioned Poynings, would not have let so great a matter, as a total inversion of our constitution, pass by the accuracy of his penetrating genius. He mentions the law of Poynings', indeed, but not this law. He says of Poynings, "But in parliament "he did endeavour to make amends for the meagreness of his "service in the war, for there was made that memorable act, called Poynings' Act," (not the act they were then 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 neither were any so that had been made in England

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66 not,
"since."

It was astonishing, that the law of Poynings' should ever have received such a false and vicious interpretation. Its meaning could not be understood at the distance of three hundred years, better than by the people in whose days it was passed, or those who succeeded for an hundred years after. By them it was con sidered as a boon and a favour; but its operation now destroyed the constitution of Ireland: that constitution, which growing on the same stem with the constitution of Britain, it was formed to protect. The law was not in fault: the vile interpreter only was to blame. An interpreter placed between the king and people: a monster unknown to the constitution, whose office was to stifle

the voice of the people, and to prevent the king from hearing; to render the people dumb, and the king deaf. He would therefore, in order to restore the constitution to its native vigour, and to obviate the evil effects of misinterpretation, move two resolutions, the first of which he then proposed, viz......

"That a committee be appointed to examine the precedents "and records that day produced, and such others as might be "necessary to explain the law of Poynings'."

If this were granted, he would follow it with another, to declare from the report of that committee, what the law of Poynings', and what the constitution of that country actually were.

The Provost answered Mr. Flood in a very learned and temperate speech, but insisted chiefly on the advantages of that law having been so long practised, not only without abuse on the part of England, but infinitely to the benefit of Ireland. He considered it a great blessing to his country, to be united to England by three bands; the law of Poynings', as explained by the statute of Philip and Mary, united the constitution of both realms: the statute of Henry VIII. united the regal crowns of both realms: and the practice of appeals, united the jurisprudence of both realms. The attorney general opposed the resolution with more than his usual vehemence. At a late hour Mr. Flood's resolu tion was negatived, by a majority of 139 against 67.

It may be observed, that from the time the public mind had expanded itself so largely to the contemplation of civil freedom, little had been attempted to be done for the great mass of the Irish people, who were Roman Catholics. The necessary effect of the Protestants and Catholics uniting in the common pursuit of national freedom and independence, was, that ancient prejudices*

* It may be imagined by some, that religious prejudices had long ere this time been eradicated from Ireland, as well as from most other countries of Europe. The existence of the unnatural and ferocious code of popery laws, at this time almost in their whole extent, proves the reverse: and although the increasing liberality of the higher orders had for some time, particularly under the happy reign of a most mild and indulgent monarch, greatly discountenanced the rigorous execution of those laws: yet the general habits of education, and the still more powerful workings of self interest, had, for more than a century, sown, fed, and fostered, fear and hatred, rather than unanimity, affection, and charity, amongst the inhabitants of that unfortunate country. The legislative code of laws, religious and civil institutions, annual exhortations from the pulpits, daily catechistical instructions at school and at home, taught Protestants of every denomination from their earliest youth, to understand the terms Popery and Papists, as terms of enmity, reproach, contempt, guilt, horror and detestation. The wonder is, that these first impressions, inculcated into the pliancy of youth, as civil and religious duties, should, at any period of life, wear out or be laid aside; more especially in a country where it is painful to avow the slightest elevation above the lower order of the community, has at all times been attended with an unwarrantable spirit of tyrannical domination and despotic rule over their fellow creatures. It is the keenest policy of per verted man, from Mahomet to Machiavel, to render sacred the maxims, that

wore out, familiarity bred confidence, and patriotism diffused a general ardour for the emancipation of every loyal Irishman, that suffered hardship, oppression, or servitude. A spirit of religious toleration pervaded every rank of those who had enlisted under the banners of civil freedom and Irish independence; and as many had engaged in that cause as commanded the means of arming and equipping themselves for the rank of volunteers.

Mr. Luke Gardiner, (afterwards Lord Mountjoy) who had lately returned from his travels on the continent, had often lamented, that Ireland was the most intolerant country in all Europe, which he considered as a high disgrace to the reformed religion. *On the 13th of December, 1781, a conversation took place on the heads of a bill for giving further relief to his majesty's subjects of Ireland professing the Roman Catholic religion, when Mr. Gardiner said that he was taking the utmost pains to bring it forward in such a shape as he hoped would render it acceptable to every gentleman in the house, as in a case of such great importance unanimity was earnestly to be desired.

Sir Richard Johnson declared he would oppose any bill by which Papists were permitted to carry arms. It was a matter in which the nation was deeply concerned, and it was too late in the session properly to consider it.

The attorney general (Scott) found the subject so connected with religion, with interest, with prejudice, with all the most inflammable passions of the human breast, that it ought to be spoken of with the utmost coolness and moderation; that it was necessary, in the present temper of affairs, to use such means as would conciliate and draw together in closest union, the minds of all

are most congenial with the vicious inclinations of those, on whom they are meant to operate, as meritorious services, or obligatory duties. Through the greatest part of Ireland, the lowest class of the people were Catholics; they were therefore not only subject to the native despotism of their superiors in rank, but the privileges of the Protestant ascendancy bore heavy upon them, from the peer to the squire, and down through every gradation of trade and mechanics to the forty shilling freeholder or common soldier. The national Just for rule was shamefully encouraged by abuse; and impunity, for most misdemeanors and assaults against Papists, was generally and in practice considered as a part of the privilege of the ascendancy. Long after the senate had ceased to call and treat the Catholic as a common enemy, was the term Popish retained in the country by the squire archy and other abusers of their rank and fortune in society as the head of the climax of contempt, contumely, and indignation. This is not said ad invidiam, but to convince the most numerous part of the Irish nation, that they receive by the Union the incalculable blessing of seeing that much abused ascendancy removed, and themselves raised to a level with their neighbours in social life. The historian is not entitled to claim credit for general assertion upon long past facts: and to prove modern abuses by particular charges is too ungracious a task for him to attempt. Experientia doceat.