The police bill had been petitioned against by several public bodies; and on the 4th of March Mr. Grattan again introduced it to the consideration of the house. After having proved by the experience of a number of years, that no institution was more obnoxious to the citizens; that no institution could be more extravagant; and that no institution could be less productive of advantages to the public; it remained for the wisdom of the house to correct the system, which had neither answered the ends of public peace, of private protection, or of any necessary œconomy. He would therefore propose a resolution, carrying on it no edge that could injure, no severity that could offend any man; but which, without imposing any humiliation, might be adopted, even by those, who had originally voted for the police, or who had since supported it. He then moved, "That the establishment of the police in the city of Dublin, "had been an experiment attended with considerable expence, "without producing adequate advantages: and that it was then necessary to establish a guard under the direction of the dif"ferent parishes, and subject to the superintendance of the lord "mayor."

If that motion were not resisted, he should follow it up with another, for leave to bring in a bill to give it effect. Mr. Mason said, he for one would certainly oppose it, as he thought it utterly unfounded. Immediately Mr. Grattan entered upon a most vehement invective against the measure.* The moEngland: nor could he suppose the eloquence of any Englishman there could injure that kingdom; it was of the Irish, and not of the Englishmen that he was afraid in that house. In the latter end of last parliament, a place bill, a pension bill, a responsibility bill, had been refused to that kingdom, by a majority of Irishmen, although the kingdom of Great Britain had shewn by experience the necessity and use of such laws: and he had in that house declared himself ashamed of having his name enrolled in such a society. That if he could guess, by the complexion of the house that night, it would soon be guilty of a self-denying ordinance in respect to its foreign trade, although the sister country did not pretend to deny the right of that kingdom to trade uncontrolled to those parts, where no British settlements were established. If that were the case, as there was no other mode established, by which a member could quit that house, he must wish to be called to its bar, and expelled. The British House of Commons consisted of 558 members, 67 only of which were placemen, and no pensioners could sit, nor placemen, unless originally chosen as such, or upon getting a place, on being re-chosen. In their house, consisting of 300 members, 110 were placemen or pensioners. They had adopted the whole power of the privy council before the repeal of Poynings' law, and literally appeared to be determined not to let any law pass that was not agreeable to the English minister or to the English merchant; and that therefore he was seriously in earnest in his wish to be expelled from a society that he conceived to be acting in direct contradiction to the constitution and trade of Ireland.

* 11 Parl. Debates, p. 263. Ministers had, he said, resorted to a place army and a pensional magistracy: the one was to give boldness to corruption in parliament, and the other to give the minister's influence patronage in the city. Their means were, this police establishment: the plan, they did not

VOL. 111.

tion met with its former fate, having been rejected by 135 against 87.

The 15th of March was the day appointed for the second reading of the bill "to disable any person who shall have in his "own name, or in the name of any person or persons in trust "for him, or for his benefit, any office or place of profit what"soever under the crown, created after a certain time, [the "year 1788] from being chosen a member of, or from sit"ting or voting in the present, or any future House of Com"mons."

And when Mr. Forbes rose to second it, Mr. Mason said, that having opposed this bill every session for thirty years he would not weary the house with fresh arguments against it: his decided opinion was, that the influence of the crown was barely sufficient to preserve the constitution, and to prevent it from degenerating into the worst of all possible governments, a democracy. Another gentleman on the same side of the house, thought government must have a majority to support them in their necessary measures, and to extinguish the squibs that were thrown against them; and the cheaper that majority was procured, so much the better for the country: and being arraigned by Mr. G. Ponsonby for using such unconstitutional language, he repeated it, and added, if they had not, they must cease to govern. The bill was lost by a similar majority. The division of the Irish House of Commons was not precisely formed upon the principles which divided the parliament of Great Britain : for on this night, Mr. C. O'Neile, who was one of the most forward in the opposition in Ireland, paid many handsome compliments to Mr. Pitt, whom he believed to be as honest a minister as ever governed England: but he must say, that he prescribed a very different mode of conduct to his deputies in that kingdom. Equally violent and equally unsuccessful were the four remaining attacks made by the gentlemen of the opposition: viz. Mr. Grattan's motion for the encouragement of the reclaiming of barren land: on the first reading of the pension bill: the second reading of the responsibility bill; and Mr. G. Ponsonby's motion respecting fiats for levying unassessed damages upon the parties affidavits of their own imaginary losses.*

entirely frame: they found it. A bill had shewn its face in the British House of Conimons for a moment, and had been turned out of the doors immediately: a scavenger would have found it in the streets of London; the groping hands of the Irish ministry picked it up, and made it the law of the land.

* 11 Parl. Debates, p. 359. This motion was, "That it is the opinion of "this committee, that the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, in "ordering a capias ad respondendum to issue against John Magee, on the affida"vit of Richard Daly, marked 4000 acted illegally."

Mr. G. Ponsonby entered into an able disquisition of the law of actions on tort, liquidated, and uncertain damages, which rest with a jury, and special

The year 1791 brought the political fever, then raging on the continent to a crisis alarming to the British empire, and particularly to Ireland. No wonder, that a country, which had so lately obtained a constitution for itself, should find extensive subject for reflection upon the revolutions and new constitutions of France and Poland. The sympathy, which several of the armed corps and other public bodies exultingly expressed with the assertors of civil freedom in those countries, was obnoxious to government, and it became the system of the castle to affix a marked stigma upon every person, who countenanced or spoke in favour of any measure, that bore the semblance of reform or revolution. Even the ardour for commemorating the æra of 1688, was attempted to be damped; the word liberty

and excessive bail. The debate was very long, and not very interesting to others than lawyers. The question was of the highest consequence to the liberty of the press and of the subject. It had been worked up more into a party question, than probably it otherwise would have been, on account of the two persons principally concerned, viz. Francis Higgins, the proprietor and conductor of a government newspaper, and John Magee, the printer and editor of an opposition newspaper. The motion was vehemently opposed by the attorney and solicitor general, and prime serjeant: and ultimately rejected by a majority of 125 against 65. The leading facts upon which the motion was bottomed, were according to Mr. G. Ponsonby's statement: that in that case, Magee, the printer, had most grossly abused the noble lord himself in his paper; it was therefore incumbent on his lordship to proceed with the most guarded circumspection, that no enemy might attribute his severity to personal motives: his conduct should have been such as the law, in its strictest sense, would warrant and justify. But what was his lordship's conduct? Instead of proceeding with that caution, and that disregard to vulgar abuse, which would have done him honour, he granted against Magee one fiat at the suit of Daly for 40007. one fiat at the suit of Higgins for 20007. one fiat at the suit of Tracy for 10001. and one fiat at the suit of Brenan for 8007. making together. a sum of 78007. and this at a time when the man was under a criminal infor mation in his own court.

Magee after many delays and long imprisonment, was brought to trial upon Daly's fat of 40007. In this trial a variety of newspapers and letters, not alleged in the original affidavit, were allowed to be read as evidence against him; yet fter all, twelve honest men, upon their oaths, awarded Daly but 2007. damages, the twentieth part of the fiat for which he was thrown into jail. If any proof of the enormity of the proceedings was wanting, here it was: Magee had offered 500/ bail, which was refused, not by Lord Clonmel alone, but by the whole court: he did not, however, want to criminate the other judges, nor would this criminality justify the chief justice: no partnership in wrong can produce innocence: he would therefore take no notice of them, but confine himself to the chief justice alone, and his charge against him was, that he had illegally deprived a ficeman of his liberty.

This was no question of party. He did not take it up as measure of opposit.on; every man knew, that before he was fixed on that side of the house, he declared he would follow it up: therefore let it not be considered as a question of party; the true motives, on which he urged it were stronger than any party motives could be; a regard for the laws and liberties of the country; a regard for the most invaluable blessings the subject could possess; personal liberty; a blessing, without which all earthly blessings were vain and useless.

always carried with it suspicion, often reprobation. As all the efforts and struggles of the opposition in the late sessions of parliament, were for the attainment of those rights, which principally form the freedom of the British constitution, the assertors of them were branded with the now odious term of democrats, and holden out by government as factious disturbers of the old constitution, with a view to introduce the new fangled principles of revolutionary doctrines. In proportion to the progress of the French revolution to those scenes, which at last outraged humanity, were some efforts in favour of the most constitutional liberty resisted in parliament, as attempts to introduce a system of French equality. Such was the general panic, such the real or assumed execration of every thing, that had a tendency to democracy, that comparatively few of the higher orders through the kingdom retained, or avowed those general whig principles, which two years before that man was not deemed loyal, who did not profess.

Mr. Burke by his book on the French revolution, published in the year 1790*, had worked a stupendous change in the public mind, and the few in the upper walks of life, who did not become his proselytes, merely retaining their former principles, were astonished to find their ranks thinned and their standard

The political change of the public mind about this period, was evidently productive of the most unprecedented system of strong and coercive measures, known since the Revolution within the British empire. A very decided majority both within and without the parliament of Great Britain favoured that system in Ireland the people more generally resisted its introduction and influence than in Great Britain. Mr. Burke had the merit, if merit it were, of causing the great defection from the Whig Party: he and his friends, who went over to government on that occasion, were the most forward and zealous in holding out the dwindled phalanx of opposition, as enemies to their country and constitution. The fervor of the new converts for proselytizing their old associates was unbounded; the old leaders of the court party triumphantly indulged in the easy decomposition of their opponents: both concurred in stamping the few, who steadily retained their principles with all the odium, contempt and malevolence, that ingenuity could affix to the new terms, Jacobins and Democrats. From thenceforth a new and sable tinge was thrown upon every attempt in parliament to urge any popular measure, that would lately have been considered patriotic and constitutional. It is not a little remarkable, that the first time Mr. Burke publicly avowed his new creed, and seceded from the opposition, was on the occasion of Mr. Flood's motion in the British House of Commons for enquiring into the state of the popular representation in parliament. Much as Mr. Burke had formerly inveighed against the want of confidence and sympathy between the constituents and representatives in Great Britam, yet evidently at this time they were perfectly identified, when compared with the relations of the people and the parliament in Ireland. That publication of Mr. Burke's gave occasion to Mr. Payne's Rights of Man. A book fatally calculated to seduce and poison the minds of an irritable and empoverished people, emerging from what they considered a state of oppression and slavery, into the possession of a free constitution, to the right of which their title had been acknowledged, but of the enjoyment of which, they had as yet been insensible.

deserted by some of their most zealous leaders and supporters, who of course carried off with them the numerical strength of the party.

The change of political sentiment in Ireland did not keep pace with that in Great Britain. The defection from the ranks of opposition in parliament was comparatively trivial: and the general disposition of the people to civil liberty appeared to be sharpened by the encrease of coercion and intimidation. Some ill-minded and artful demagogues availed themselves of the popular fever, which had never totally abated from the year 1782: the pernicious doctrines and conclusions of Mr. Payne, artfully mixed up with the most popular truisms were circulated at the lowest price, distributed gratis, and imbibed with insatiable avidity: the castle-gates were trebly barred against concession and indulgence: it was published, that every effort towards their attainment at a time so critically awful, would be deemed hostile, and a future bar, even to seasonable application.

It may appear singular, that several years had now gone over, since Ireland had become independent in her legislature, and free in her trade; that the great body of the Irish people, who were still oppressed with a grievous code of penal statutes, should have attempted no public measure to be admitted to the enjoyment of that constitution, which their countrymen so triumphantly boasted of having asserted and obtained. The voice of the nation had been loud and unanimous for universal toleration, and indiscriminate participation of civil rights by every Irishman. Publications were circulated upon the tendency of the Catholic religion, to render its followers loyal, dutiful, and peaceable subjects; pastoral instructions were published by the Roman Catholic bishops through their dioceses, and read in all their chapels to dehort their congregations from imbibing the pernicious doctrines so sedulously attempted to be spread amongst them, and to enforce subordination, peace, and loyalty in their conduct.*

The Catholic body had not altogether remained inactive or inattentive to their concerns: the most liberal and friendly declarations in their favour had been made by the different bodies of volunteers; and out of respect to those gentlemen, who had so disinterestedly espoused their cause, they held back an

*

In this year, 1791, the author in his Case Stated, (p. 19 ) professed an opinion, which his observation and experience have since confirmed, that circumstanced as the Irish are, their strict observance of the Catholic religion is supereminently calculated to preserve them from anarchy and confusion, and keep them docile, quiet and loyal. "It is in this, and this above every thing "else, in which under Providence we shall find an antidote against the poison thus "traitorously attempted to be spread amongst them."

Although several of these opinions, have appeared in the foregoing pages; yet there was one declaration made by a Protestant bishop, to which