CH A P. to Ireland, and not to Britain, be committed by

XXXV1.

patent to individuals for private emolument? Deeply affected with the wretched poverty of his countrymen, occasioned by an absurdly cruel system of government, Swift had in other publications expressed ideas offensive to the ruling party. To alleviate the distress, he had in one of these, in 1720, strongly recommended to the people of Ireland to save the great national expence of purchasing English manufactures, by resolving to make use of none except those which were of Irish fabrication. This pamphlet was declared seditious: its printer, named Waters, was arrested and brought to trial : Whitshed, the chief justice, laying his hand on his heart, and solemnly protesting that the author's design was to bring the pretender into the country, remanded the jury nine times, until he wearied them into what was called a special verdict, by which the matter was left to the mercy of the judges: but the invidious business was deferred from term to term, till the duke of Grafton, in his viceroyalty, prevented farther proceedings by granting what is termed by lawyers a noli prosequi. The letters under the signature of the draper, which for some unknown reason Swift thought proper to spell drapier, were also declared seditious, and a reward of three hundred pounds for the discovery of their author was offered by a proclamation of lord Carteret, the lord lieutenant. The great popularity of the cause frustrated both the proclamation, and the prosecution of Harding, the printer, the bill against whom

was

XXXVI.

was rejected by the grand jury. Carteret, a noble- CHAP. man of politeness and liberality, when afterwards the dean expostulated with him concerning the affair, answered pertinently in the words of Virgil, Rcs dura, & regni novitas me talia cogunt moliri.

neous tran

Lord Carteret, who convened the parliament in Miscella1725, retained the viceroyalty till 1731; but the sactions. chief manager of the Irish government, from 1724 to 1742, was Boulter, the primate of Ireland, whose primary object appears, from the publication of his letters, to have been to maintain the ascendancy of an English Interest, an interest for the effectuating of all the measures of the British cabinet, with little or no regard to the welfare of the country governed. Among the laws enacted in this period are two in favour of the quakers, one in 1723, another more explicit in 1727, admitting their mode of affirmation as a legal oath. The latter was passed by a new parliament after the accession of George the second, as the old, which had continued from 1715, was dissolved by the decease of George the first, who died in the June of 1727. By an amendment, in the same session, to an act for the regulation of parliamentary elections, the catholics, who had before been very narrowly restricted in it, were totally deprived of the elective franchise. They had, for the first attempt to approach the throne since the revolution, voted an address of congratulation to the new sovereign, which was presented to the lords justices, with an humble request for its transmission to his Majesty; but whether it was transmitted or suppressed

XXXVI.

CHAP is totally unknown, as no account of it was ever given. This address, by which the catholics might seem to be laying claim to political existence, is supposed by some to have been the cause of the act for their exclusion from voting at elections, as the partizans of the English interest would be afraid of any accession of weight, howsoever small, to the scale of the patriots. A scarcity of corn, generally prevalent from the discouragement of industry, amounted, in 1728 and the following year, almost to a famine, especially in Ulster, where agriculture has been always more confined in proportion to the number of people. To prevent the exportation of corn from the south for supply of the northerns, riots were committed by the people of several towns, who dreaded a dearth among themselves, particularly Cork and Limerick. Emigrations to America, which have since increased, were observed in Boulter's time to draw above three thousand people annually from Ulster alone. These emigrations, caused by distress from restricted commerce and exorbitant rents, were confined to protestants; nor till a later period, nor ever in equal numbers, was American colonization embraced by Irish catholics, as they were more resigned to hardship, more attached to their native soil, less enterprizing, and less connected with foreign establishments where predominated religious opinions widely different from their

own.

The commons in their first session had voted resolutions against the interference of noblemen in par

liamentary

XXXVI.

liamentary elections, and against the reversal of out- CHAP. lawries for the rebellions of sixteen hundred and forty-one and sixteen hundred and eighty-eight. For the latter purpose they transmitted to his Majesty an address, by which was defeated a petition for the restoration of the estates of his family, presented to his sovereign by the earl of Clanricarde, who had conformed to the established religion in the reign of Anne, and had taken his seat in the house of peers. In their address to the chief governor, at their dismissal by prorogation, in May 1728, they notice as "a happiness peculiar to this session," that all the public bills, which had passed the two houses of parliament, had been sanctioned into laws by the royal assent. Among these were several useful acts, particularly for the encouragement of agriculture and the manufacture of linen, and for the better maintenance of the clergy. In the second session also, which ended in the April of 1730, a law was enacted for the forwarding of tillage, and the better employment of the poor, which was highly assisted by his Majesty's bounty, who remitted his hereditary duties on wool and yarn exported to England,

first ad

tion.

In the administration of the duke of Dorset, Dorset's which commenced in the latter part of 1731, the ministra strength of the patriots appeared to be in a state of -encrease. The supplies for the gradual payment of the principal, as well as the interest, of the national debt of Ireland, had been voted only from session to session, notwithstanding an attempt made in the late viceroyalty for the grant of them for ever to the

crown,

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ment,

of one.

CHAP. crown, under the condition of their being redeemable by parliament. A motion was now made by the courtiers for the vesting of this revenue for twentyone years in the crown; but on a division of the commons, the question was negatived by a majority The casting voice on this occasion was given by colonel Charles Tottenham, member for Ross in the county of Wexford, who had ridden with his utmost speed to Dublin for the purpose, and arrived barely in time to determine the contest, on which account" Tottenham in boots" became a Tythe agist- toast. In 1735 the commons exerted their power to the deprivation of ecclesiastical property. The emigrations of protestants to America, the main cause of which was exorbitant rents, were artfully represented by owners of estates, of which class the house of commons consisted, as caused by the oppression of tythes, particularly that of agistment for dry cattle, which was affected to be considered as a new and unfounded claim, though the courts of law had determined in favour of the clergy. Petitions and examinations on the subject were received by a committee, a report made, and such resolutions voted by the house, as deterred all persons in future from engaging in suits for the recovery of other tythes than the produce of sheep and tillage, to the encouragement of grazing, and the consequent discouragement of agriculture.

Devon

shire's go

The duke of Devonshire, who succeeded Dorset vemment. in 1737, was the most magnificent of the viceroys of this kingdom since the time of the great Ormond,

1737-1745.

expending