to the voice of the Irish nation, was granted to the in- 1724. trigues of William Wood. He obtained a patent for coining copper halfpence and farthings for the use of Ireland, to the amount of 108,000l. They were cast of such base alloy, that the whole mass was not worth 80001. Of this base coin he poured an immense infusion into Ireland. Brass multiplied beyond example: was not only used in change, but attempted to be forced in payments. The Irish nation took the alarm, and made it a national cause: and it may be said to have been the first, in which all parties in Ireland had ever come to issue with the British cabinet. The Irish parliament, in an address to the throne, told the King, they were called upon by their country to represent the ill consequences to the kingdom likely to result from Wood's patent: that the prospect, which it presented to view was the diminution of the revenue and the ruin of trade. An application from the privy-council of Ireland to the King spoke the same language: and addresses to the like effect from most of the city corporations throughout the kingdom were handed up to the throne. At the quarter-session the country gentlemen and magistrates unania mously declared against it. And the grand jury of the county of Dublin presented all persons, who ate

, tempted to impose upon the people of Ireland the base coin, as enemies to government, and to the safety, peace, and welfare of his Majesty's subjects. It was

, not to be expected, that an individual speculator, who could raise an interest with the British cabinet more

1725. powerful than the united voice* of the whole people

of Ireland, should forego all his golden prospects from the opposition of those, whom he had in the first instance baffled and defeated. He still commanded such influence with his patrons, as to bring forth a report from the privy-council of England in his favour, which cast very severe (not to say indecent) re. flections

upon the parliament of Ireland, for having opposed his patent. After the nation had been kept in turbulent agitation for a year by the real or imaginary effects of this job, tranquillity was restored by his Majesty's revocation of the patent, which put an end to the currency of this base money, and opened to Ireland a dawn of confidence, that their sovereign's ear would not be for ever shut against the united voice of his Irish people.

Little else worth recording happened during the 1727. remainder of George's reign, that affected Ireland. Death of

George I. His Majesty was suddenly taken ill in his carriage, as he was travelling through Holland to visit his electoral dominions. The attendants, that were in his carriage, perceived in the morning after he had left Delden, where he had supped heartily and slept soundly, that one of his hands was motionless: they chafed and rubbed it with spirits without effect: his tongue soon began to swell, and he had barely strength to order them to hasten to Osnaburgh. His senses failed him, and he died the next morning, in the 68th year of his age, and in the 13th of his reign.

The violence of political bias, under which the cha- Character racter and reign of this monarch have been handed of George I. to posterity has palmed upon the public a very unfaithful portrait of both. The inclination of the nation to favour the Whig party, which, during the whole of this reign, governed the King, senate, and people with a despotism little congenial with their avowed principles of civil liberty, and the crushing of the rebellion in favour of the Pretender, who more from his religion than politics, was disrelished by the nation, encouraged the successful party to flatter, and deterred the depressed party from publishing even a faithful representation of that portion of our history. George, from his arrival in England, threw himself without reserve into the arms of the

1727. him on the throne. Throughout his reign he may

be said to have been rather governed by the leaders of party, than to have governed a free people. To their passions and interests, rather than to their council and advice, he was totally subservient. They commanded a majority in parliament, and George too well knew, that his title to the British throne was wholly parliamentary, He came to the throne at the mature age of fifty-four years: his comportment was reserved and formal, and

: little reconcileable with the liberty he allowed himself with the sex. The Duchess of Kendall, his lefthanded wife or avowed mistress, and the Countess of Darlington, enjoyed at the same time the royal protection: and latterly Mrs. Ann Brett, an English lady, was formally admitted into the seraglio of St. James's, with the promise of a title, which the King lived not to grant. They were constant food for the venom of the Jacobites, and systematically supported by the Whig party. The influence, which these ladies exercised upon the royal mind, opened and kept up during the whole of the reign, a regular system of ministerial intrigue, which ever must accompany such predilections of the monarch. The various plots and counterplots of Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, and others of the Jacobitical party, which were generally defeated by the address of Sir Robert Walpole, scarcely produced even a remote effect on Ireland. George had the good fortune to have the merit of his reign attributed personally to himself, and its defects thrown upon the corruption and false principles of his ministers,

a

CHAPTER IV.

The Reign of George II,

UPON the demise of George the First, his son 1727. ascended the throne without disturbance or opposi- Accesion

of George tion. Now, for the first time since the revolution, Il. Ad did the catholics of Ireland venture to approach the the cathe

dressed by throne by a public act of their body. The penal laws had been somewhat multiplied, and rigorously executed during the late reign. It was still fresh in their minds, that the severe laws of Queen Ann were said to have been passed against them, as a punishment for their having neglected to address her on her coming to the throne. The extreme virulence, with which they were calumniated from the press, the pulpit, and the senate, on the demise of that Queen, had deterred them from offering any address upon the accession of the Hanover family. At this juncture, however, they drew up an address of congratulation, which in a dignified manner expressed loyalty to their sovereign, and pledged them to a continuance of their peaceful and quiet demeanour. It was presented to the lordsjustices by Lord Delvin and several respectable catholic gentlemen; bụt it was received with silent con. tempt. The lords-justices*, who were humbly en