all their boasted menaces will vanish in the air. But if parliament recede one step now, it will fall into a gulph of inevitable destruction. Upon a division, there appeared For receiving the bill 49 158 Then Mr. Attorney-General moved the following resolutions : Resolved, That it is now become necessary to declare, that this house will maintain its just rights and privileges against all encroachments whatsoever. And then Mr. Conolly made the following motion, which was carried unanimously. Resolved, That an humble address be presented to his majesty, to declare the perfect satisfaction, which we feel in the many blessings we enjoy under his majesty's most auspicious govern ment, and our present happy constitution; and that at this time we find it peculiarly incumbent upon us to express our determined resolution to support the same with our lives and fortunes. Notwithstanding, Mr. Flood, the great leader of the opposition, immediately after this debate went over to England, several matters were brought before parliament by his adherents. Mr. Molyneux introduced to the house once more the ques. tion of an absentee tax: he complained, that before the business wanted support, many were prominently forward in offering their assistance; now that it was before them, they excused themselves, saying, the time was improper. Thus, after a long debate, the motion was lost by a division of 184 against 22. On the 9th of December, 1783, Mr. D. Browne prefaced a motion for an address to the crown, with a most distressful picture of the kingdom at that period. He represented those, who lived on the spoils, like wasps, sucking their blood, and smiling at their ruin; he represented the farmer, ruined by the calamitous times, the lower order of people starving, and obliged to sell their provision to satisfy the landlord, who himself could barely get the means of existing from his lands! The avenues to the capital beset with starving manufacturers, and at the very doors of that house, begging of the members to avert, by a small donation, the miseries of impending famine: their necessities made them bold; they even ventured into the Castle yard: their complaints were heard, though but seldom heard before, and proper steps were taken to relieve them; the privy council were summoned, the doors were barred, and the guards of the city were doubled; the garrison ordered to hold themselves in readiness to massacre people already conquered by hunger! Such is the situation of your country. Yet this was the time when you were to keep up an useless and expensive army, and minister to the useless pageantry of a court. The hour of ripe iniquity had arrived; the hour of retribution would speedily follow. He then moved the following resolutions : "That an address be presented to his majesty, humbly to lay themselves at his majesty's feet, to assure his majesty of "their inviolable attachment to his majesty's person and governแ ment, and of the grateful sense they felt of his majesty's pa"ternal goodness and attention to his subjects of Ireland; and to declare their readiness and zeal to support, in the most "honourable manner, at all times, the necessary expences of "his majesty's government, and the dignity of his crown. 66 "That they thought it, however, incumbent on his faithful "commons, humbly to lay before his majesty, that for a series. "of years past, the expences of his majesty's government had "constantly far exceeded the net produce of the revenue, where"by the nation had incurred a great and accumulating debt; "and in order to discharge the interest thereof, his majesty's "faithful commons had been under a necessity of diverting a "considerable part of those revenues, which formerly served "towards defraying the current services of his majesty's go "vernment. "That in the year 1773, his majesty's faithful commons did grant several new duties, and had since, from time to time, "increased them. "That they were induced thereto, upon the faith of promises "made to his majesty's commons, by his majesty's minister, "that the expences of government should be retrenched, so "that the new grants of the people, and the promised retrenchment by the minister, should concur in a system of equali"zation, and put an end to the ruinous practice of running in "debt. 66 "That his majesty's faithful commons had fully performed "their part of the engagement; but that their bounty had been "so far from being answered on the part of his ministers, that "in no period of time had the debt of the nation advanced with แ so rapid a progress as since that period; insomuch, that his 66 majesty's commons then found themselves burthened with a "debt enormously greater than it was at that period: vastly greater than the nation was ever before loaded with, and still "accumulating; besides being also loaded with those new "taxes, which were granted for the sole purpose of putting an "end to so ruinous a practice. "That his majesty's present ministers, finding themselves "unable to support the charges of government without increas "ing the debt of the nation, although aided by all the new taxes, "and an increase of produce in the revenues; and although a "very great proportion of the army were not upon their esta"blishment, did in that session apply for 300,000l. to supply "the deficiency of the revenues, so that his majesty's faithful "commons could not even then see any end to the ruinous ac"cumulation of their debt. "That such a practice, if suffered to continue, must exhaust "the resources, and check the trade of that country, and must "end in the impoverishment and ruin of the nation, and ulti"mately disable his majesty's faithful commons from those ex"ertions, which might become necessary thereafter, and which "they should ever be most willing and desirous to make in support of his majesty's government. “That they had long confided in the repeated assurances of œconomy given them from time to time, by his majesty's mi"nisters; but at length finding it in vain any longer to wait for "redress from that quarter, they thought it inconsistent with "their duty to his majesty, and those, whom they represented, "any longer to refrain from applying for redress at the foot of "the throne, and imploring his majesty's protection against his "ministers." Mr. Parsons seconded the motion. It was violently opposed by the attorney-general. It was, said he, a question, upon which the sense of the house had been already taken three times that session; it looked extraordinary, to have it introduced at that time, after a committee had been appointed to take into consideration, the only plan practicable, which was a plan for the reduction of the civil establishment; and after the house had passed a resolution for all practicable retrenchments. He was as much an enemy as any man to the accumulation of debt, session after session; but the increase of the revenue afforded. a prospect of their being soon able to put an end to it, by its reaching the amount of their expences. It consequently followed, that an address of that nature was never less necessary than at that time. Mr. Corry replied to the attorney-general in a most animated speech. After having taken a view of the country from the arrival of the Duke of Portland into it, he lamented that those flattering prospects had proved all delusion, and there was the most decided reason, in reviewing the conduct that had been holden for withdrawing their confidence from the present administration, and agreeing in an address, which contained in itself an undeniable train of facts; and concluded with stating, that they could not confide in the promises of his majesty's ministers, and therefore implored his majesty's assistance against them, upon the subject of economy; the truth of that must ap pear, whether the eyes of the nation were turned to their military establishment, to their commercial system, or to their internal economy. At a late hour the question was disposed of, by the secretary's moving the order of the day, without a division. In consequence of the commons having tacked some clauses to the money bills sent up to the lords, the House of Peers, on the 4th of December, 1783, came to two strong and pointed resolutions, which on the next day they ordered to be added to the standing orders of their house. *I. Resolved, by the lords spiritual and temporal in parlia"liament assembled, nemine dissentiente, that all grants for the encouragement of particular manufactures, arts, and inven❝tions, or for the construction or carrying on of any public or "other works, ought to be made in separate acts; and that "the practice of annexing such grants to bills of aid or supply, "for the support of his majesty's government, is unparliamen66 tary, and tends to the destruction of the constitution. II." Resolved, by the lords spiritual and temporal in par❝liament assembled, nemine dissentiente, that this house will reject any bill of aid or supply, to which any clause or clauses, the matter of which is foreign to, and different from the "matter of the said bill of aid or supply; or any clause or clauses "for the granting of any sum or sums of money for the encour"agement of particular manufactures, arts, or inventions, or for "the construction or carrying on of any public or other works, "shall be annexed." Mr. Curran took up this matter as an insult and injury offered to the dignity and rights of the House of Commons; and gave notice, that on the 16th of that month he should bring it before them; and on that day, there being a very thin house, he entered upon the subject, by observing, that while he reflected, that the motion he was going to make was of the utmost importance to the honour, and even existence of that house; and that he had given full notice of his intention, he was much surprised at the little regard that seemed intended to be paid to it, as was manifested from the emptiness of those benches. It was a question of party; he was of no party; he despised the principle: he never did, nor never would attach himself to party: the question went to assert the privileges of the people of Ireland represented in the House of Commons, and every description of men in that house was equally concerned in supporting it. It was the sole and exclusive right of the commons of Ireland to originate and frame money bills in such manner, as they should think proper, and the resolution he intended to propose, was 5 Lords Journal, p. 409. only to vindicate that privilege from the encroachments of a neighbouring assembly, which had lately, by certain resolutions, invaded that right, that palladium of the constitution, which he trusted every man in the house would think himself bounden to defend. He was sorry to say, that the constitution of Ireland was so young, that he needed not go back to a very remote period, to prove that the exclusive right of originating and framing money bills had always resided in their house; but for thirty years back, it certainly had, and in England, from whence they derived their constitution, it always had been the practice. The peers and the crown possessed an undoubted right of rejecting such bills in toto, but, in the commons alone resided the power of originating or framing them; the very mode of giving the royal assent to such bills, demonstrated that the commons alone was the source from whence they flowed. His majesty thanks his faithful commons, accepts their benevolence, and wills it to be so, and this mode obtained both in Britain and Ireland. To whom should the people of Ireland look for the redress of grievances, for the encouragement of arts, for the promotion of commerce, but to their representatives in that house? What powerful engine had that house, by which it could obtain the redress of grievances, the encouragement of arts, for the promotion of commerce, but by including those objects in the bill of supply? And if the right be once given up, or wrested from the commons, they ceased to be the patrons and representatives of the people; another assembly would assume that power, and the people would learn to look for that encouragement and support from the aristocratic, which they received from the democratic branch of the state, and that house would become a very cypher, and its members instead of possessing the power of encouraging arts, rewarding merit, or in a word, of serving the country, would become the humble solicitors of another assembly. From the reign of Henry III. the power of annexing the redress of grievances to money bills, had been the constitutional privilege of the commons of England; the practice of inserting such clauses as the commons deemed proper, had obtained in Ireland for more than thirty years, and to any person acquainted with their constitution, must at the slightest view appear to be their inherent right: he could not therefore suppose that house would be silent, when that privilege was invaded by another assembly; no man entertained an higher opinion of that assembly than he did, and he was persuaded, that so great was their lordships' wisdom, that when that matter should be duly considered by them, they would see the impropriety of the two resolutions, which appeared upon their Journals. It remained |