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sixth of December, after a session little longer than CHAP two months.

XXXVII.

session of

On the re-assembling of the parliament, after an Second, &c. interval of fourteen months, on the twenty-sixth of the oftennial parliament, February 1771, a majority for the court was found! 1771. to have been secured by the strenuous exertions of the chief governor. When, in their address to the king, the commons gave their humble thanks for his Majesty's continuance of lord Townshend in the government, John Ponsonby, the speaker, resigned his place, declaring that, as the chief governor had at the end of the last session passed a censure on the commons, he could not perform the office of con. veying such thanks as might imply a relinquishment of their privileges. Edmond Sexton Perry, who from a patriot had become a courtier, was elected speaker by a majority of four. The oppositionists, or patriots, so far as arguments and words could avail, maintained a vigorous contest in this and the following session, and caused on various questions divisions of the house, in which they were constantly out-numbered. In 1771 died Doctor Lucas, who had proved to the last an incorruptible patriot, when all opposition to the influence of the court proved fruitless, Lord Townshend, having established the preponderancy of an English interest in Ireland, at a vast expence of Irish revenue, abdicated the viceroyalty in 1772, and was succeeded by Earl Harcourt, a man of a different character, fitted quietly to follow the directions of the British

ministry,

CHAP. ministry, and to leave to his secretary the whole ac tive labour of administration.

XXXVII.

Hearts of In the government of lord Townshend a part of 1771-1773. Ulster began to be disturbed by an insurrection,

Steel.

which, originating from a local cause, yet a severe grievance, was much less extensive, but vastly more bloody, and of longer duration, than that of the Hearts of Oak. An estate in the county of Antrim, a part of the vast possessions of an absentee nobleman, the marquis of Donegal, was proposed, when its leases had expired, to be set only to those who could pay large fines; and the agent of the marquis was said to have exacted extravagant fees on his own account also. Numbers of the former tenants, neither able to pay the fines, nor the rents demanded by those who, on payment of fines and fees, took leases over them, were dispossessed of their tenements, and left without means of subsistence, Rendered thus desperate, they maimed the cattle of those who had taken their lands, committed other outrages, and, to express a firmness of resolution, styled themselves Hearts of Steel. To rescue one of the number, confined on a charge of felony in Belfast, some thousands of peasants, who neither before nor after took any part in the insurrection, marched with the Steelmen into the town, and received the prisoner from the military guard, the officers of which were fortunately persuaded, by a respectable physician, to his liberation, to prevent the ruinous consequences of a desperate battle.

The

XXXVII.

The association of the Steelmen extended into the CHA P. neighbouring counties, augmented by distressed or discontented peasants, who were not affected immediately by the original grievance. By the exertions of the military some were taken, and tried at Carrickfergus. As they were acquitted from the supposed partiality of the witnesses and jury, an act of parliament was passed in March 1772, ordering their trials to be held in counties different from those in which their offences were committed. Some in consequence were carried to Dublin, but were there acquitted from prejudices entertained against a law so unconstitutional. In the December of 1773, in the administration of Earl Harcourt, the obnoxious act was repealed. From a sense of the evil consequences of disorder, insurgents, tried in their respective counties, were now condemned and executed. The insurrection was totally quelled, but its effects were long baneful. So great and wide was the discontent that many thousand of protestants emigrated from those parts of Ulster to the American settlements, where they soon appeared in arms against the British government, and contributed powerfully, by their zeal and valour, to the separation of the Amerifan colonies from the empire of Great-Britain.

СНАР.

XXXVIII.

Retrospect

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Retrospect of British affairs-George the thirdBritish colonies of North-America-American war -Parliamentary transactions-Troops transported from Ireland-National distress--Petitions against Irish trade-Indulgence to catholics-National po¬ verty—Resolutions of non-importation-Volunteers -Parliamentary transactions Relaxation of commercial restraints Demands of an independent legislature Proceedings of parliament Proceedings of the volunteers-Resolutions of Dungannon Parliamentary transactions-State of public affairs -Change of measures-Irish revolution-Dissention of Patriots-Consummation of the revolution.

CHAP. THE accession of a new family, the house of Hanover, to the British throne, to the perpetual of Britain, exclusion of the pestilent race of Stuart, on the firmest principle of genuine liberty, the choice of parliament, recommended by the general wish of men of property throughout the nation, was an event most propitious to the prosperity of Britain, the independence of Europe, and the general melioration of the human species. More happy still would it have been, if the princes of this new dynasty had possessed

exalted

XXXVIII.

exalted intellect, and cordial affection to the peoplé CHA P. of the British islands. George the first, whose reign commenced in 1714, attached to the electorate of Hanover, as his native principality, and confining his views to German politics, regarded, in his transactions with foreign potentates, the wealth and power of Britain as only subservient to the interests of the electorate. His son, George the second, who succeeded him in 1727, having been educated in Ger many, pursued the same plan with such injudicious conduct, that, beside many other proofs, the princes, who received from him annually regular subsidies, in time of peace for the protection of his German dominions in time of war, arranged themselves on the side of his enemies when their assistance was required. By expenditures of the public money in useless foreign subsidies, ill-managed wars, and the securing of ministerial majorities in parliament, the national debt of Great-Britain, which had commenced in the reign of William the third, and amounted in his time to ten millions, increased before the death of George the first to fifty, and before that of George the second to a hundred.

third.

In 1760, tó George the second succeeded his grand-George the son, George the third, son of Frederick, prince of Wales, who had departed from life in 1751. Born. and educated in England, this monarch entertained not for Hanover the impolitic predilection of his predecessors, a predilection injurious to Hanover itself, which was thus rendered an object of attack to the enemies of Britain; but he was soon perceived to

have

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