decree, are, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever.” * The English government found no better method of counteracting this rising spirit of independence than by bestowing the chief posts in the state and church on strangers, in order to keep up what was called the English interest. This wretched policy united the natives of Ireland in jealousy and discontent, which the latter years of Swift were devoted to inflame. It was impossible that the kingdom should become, as it did under George II., more flourishing through its great natural fertility, its extensive manufacture of linen, and its facilities for commerce, though much restricted, the domestic alarm from the papists also being allayed by their utter prostration, without writhing under the indignity of its subordination; or that a house of commons, constructed so much on the model of the English, could hear patiently of liberties and Growth of a patriotic party in 1753. privileges it did not enjoy. These aspirations for equality first, perhaps, broke out into audible complaints in the year 1753. The country was in so thriving a state that there was a surplus revenue after payment of all charges. The house of commons determined to apply this to the liquidation of a debt. The government, though not unwilling to admit of such an application, maintained that the whole revenue belonged to the king, and could not be disposed of without his previous consent. In England, where the grants of parliament are appropriated according to estimates, such a question could hardly arise; nor would there, I presume, be the slightest doubt as to the control of the house of commons over a surplus income. But in Ireland, the practice of appropriation seems never to have prevailed, at least so strictly; and the constitutional right might per 6 G. 1. c. 5. Plowden, 244. [There was some opposition made to this bill by lord Molesworth, and others not SO much connected as he was with Ireland: it passed by 140 to 83. Parl. Hist. vii. 642.-1845.] The Irish house of lords had, however, entertained writs of error as early as 1644, and appeals in equity from 1661. Mountmorres, i, 339. English peers might have remembered that their own precedents were not much older. The + See Boulter's Letters, passim. His plan for governing Ireland was to send over as many English-born bishops as possible. "The bishops," he says, "are the persons on whom the government must depend for doing the public business here." I. 238. This of course disgusted the Irish church. Mountmorres, i. 424. haps not unreasonably be disputed. After long and violent discussions, wherein the speaker of the commons and other eminent men bore a leading part on the popular side, the crown was so far victorious as to procure some motions to be carried, which seemed to imply its authority; but the house took care by more special applications of the revenue, to prevent the recurrence of an undisposed surplus.* From this era the great parliamentary history of Ireland begins, and is terminated after half a century by the Union: a period fruitful of splendid eloquence, and of ardent, though not always uncompromising, patriotism; but which, of course, is beyond the limits prescribed to these pages. * Plowden, 306. et post. Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont. INDEX. *.* The Roman Numerals refer to the Volumes the Arabic Figures to the Pages of Abbot (George, archbishop of Canter- his Calvanistic zeal, 474.- Popish of its penalties, 342.-not carried Act of Settlement, ii. 343.— limitations Act of Toleration, a scanty measure of Act against wrongous imprisonment in Act for settlement of Ireland, ii. 555.- Act of explanation, ibid. Acts, harsh, against the native Irish in Alva (duke of), his designed invasion of vilege examined, ibid. note. note. Anglican church, ejected members of, Anjou (duke of), his proposed marriage Anne (princess of Denmark), her re- - Appeals in civil suits in Scotland lay Aristocracy, English, in Ireland, ana- Army, conspiracy for bringing in, to note. Army of Scotland enters England, 1.586. 600.- advances towards London, 625. - Army disbanded, ii. 12. — origin of the Army, great, suddenly raised by Charles Army, intention of James II. to place - Army, standing, Charles the Second's Array, commissions of, i. 552. Articles, lords of the, their origin and abolished, 496. - Articles of the church of England, real - ministers deprived for refusing, Articles, thirty-nine, denial of any of Articles of the church on predestination, Articuli Cleri, account of the, i. 323. |