fubftitution of a foreigner, all amount, in a great degree, to excuse and extenuate the conduct of Ireland in its refiftance to the new government, which appears from the conduct of King William himself, who carried on the war in Ireland not as with traitors and rebels, but as with fair and ligitimate enemies; yet important inftruction is conveyed to us by these transactions, which fuggest the imperative neceffity of now fixing the conftitutional relation of the two countries in fuch a way, that it shall ever be understood, and put beyond controverfy, that Ireland cannot in any cafe decide, or at all difcufs the queftion of title to the common executive of thefe kingdoms; that her crown cannot be feparately confidered, or abstractedly become the fubject of public argument; but that, to every poffible purpose, there is a legal and conftitutional merger of it in that of Great Britain. And it is manifeft, that, as long as human affairs proceed in their natural progrefs, great occafions may arife, in which the policy or liberties of Great Britain may require, that the rights of perfons claiming title to her crown, fhould be modified, and even extinguifhed; and, that as long as Ireland fhall have a feparate legiflature, fhe will have the means of difcuffion and determination of fuch rights; she will have no phyfical impediment to the exercife of her own free will; and as to her propriety in its exercife, that will depend on the views, public and individual, of the members of her legislature. Speculations of the probable nature of her public carriage in thofe trials, will be confiderably aided by reference to her hiftory, and all her former conduct; and as the moft aggravated evils peculiarly attend difputes and contefts for royal fucceffion; and that in Ireland there would be religious difcord to add to their invetera cy; it neceffarily refults from enlarged and humane policy, that Ire

land

land should not, by the form of her government, bet Teft expofed to the intrigues of the royal claimant, who should happen to be disfranchised and depofed; and that a way fhould not be left open which must lead to her own convulfion, and the diftreffes of the empire.

In the reign of William, the queftion of the dependency of Ireland, and the authority of the Englith Parliament to interfere in her concerns, to the exclufion of her own legiflature, was publicly agitated. In 1544, the power of binding Ireland by an English ftatute was argued on legal grounds by Sir Richard Bolton, and ably anfwered by Serjeant Mayart; both arguments may be feen in Harris's Hibernica. The oppofition which uniformly had been made in Ireland to the dominion of England, now openly queftioned and denied the control of her legiflature. Soon after the Revolution, feveral acts had paffed in England, in which Ireland was exprefsly named and included. To obviate the effect of thefe ftatutes, and establish their incompetence to bind Ireland, her Parliament tranfmitted acts of their own, enacting and confirming the matter of the British statutes; and in 1698 an ingenious writer published a fubtle and popular refutation of the claims of England, in which he freely and openly contended for the freedom of the Irifh Parliament. But, to my conception, a great part of the general doctrine and argument of Mr. Molyneux tends as Arongly to difprove the authority of the English Crown, as of its Parliament, over Ireland; but whether his reafoning was legitimate or not, was immaterial; it became the ftandard of political orthodoxy in Ireland.

The English Commons, however, were attentive to the public intereft. There then exifted no national difficulties or embarraffment to extort from them conceffions repugnant to the conftitution of

the

the empire. They addreffed the throne on the pernicious affertions of this publication, and the dangerous tendency of the late conduct of the Irish Parliament; and affured the King of their determination to maintain and preferve, in a parliamentary way, the dependence and fubordination of Ireland to the imperial crown of the realm.

In the reign of Anne and George, the rival claims of the throne of England, and the prevalent Catholicifm of Ireland, produced feveral acts of Parliament, certainly of a very penal nature, against perfons of the Romish communion. The Revolution was the era of British liberty; it undermined the antiquated and prieftly notions of paffive obedience and hereditary right, and ufhered into thefe kingdoms a fober, falutary, rational, and ufeful freedom. The Catholic religion had connected itfelf with these political errors, and was the faith of the banished Monarch and his adherents in both kingdoms. And hence in England arofe the neceffity of discouraging, by civil difabilities, a profeffion of men, whofe doctrines were hoftile to its new civil arrangement, and whofe minds were attached to the fortunes of a family whofe claims of power were incompatible with the political and religious liberty of England. But the popery laws in Ireland were marked with peculiar and inconceivable feverity. Not only the reasons for thofe acts of penalty which existed in England applied to Ireland; but there were others peculiar to herself, which fharpened her refentment, and produced a series of ftatutes by no means creditable to her legislative code. A very confiderable change had taken place in the poffeffion of lands in Ireland, in confequence of repealed forfeitures, and particularly the immenfe confifcation which followed the triumph of the Houfe of Orange in 1688, when 1,050,000 plantation acres fell to the difpofal of the Crown; fo that in Ireland the jealoufy

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jealousy of property was added to the virulence of her religious diffenfion. Befides, the great difpro portion of Catholic to Proteftant made it alfo necefsary to supply paucity of numbers by additional muniments from the legiflature; and indeed the meafures of the Irish Parliament during this period went the whole extent that the moft jealous proprietary or moft bigoted fanatic could require for the fecurity of their acquired lands, and the afcendancy of the Proteftant faith. We have lived, however, to see a complete feparation of divinity and politics, and the country of the Moft Catholic King become the metropolis of irreligion and paganism; the triple crown has fallen, and by means of that very power, whofe head once gloried in being eldeft fon of the church, the fame nation whofe enthufiaftic Christianity once covered the Eaft with her legions, now embraces the infidelity the then perfecuted, and paganifes the land fhe went to reclaim. The Houfe of Stuart is no more; its misfortunes are nearer our recollection than its power. The rights of property in Ireland are confirmed by length of time, by prefcription, by alienation, and acqui efcence.

The proportion of numbers in Ireland between Catholic and Proteftant is now much varied in favour of the latter; hence the penal laws have furvived the neceffity which created them, and the reasoning by which they were juftified. The danger to modern government arifes, not from the theory of religionifts, but from the enemies of all religion; and therefore the laws which neceffity and prudence demand for the prefervation of government, and the fecurity of the public, fhould have a free and general operation; not applying to diftinct defcriptions of fubjects, but making one divifion only, that of the juft and unjuft; that all, may

be

be enjoined the great precept of religion and policy ol -Fear God, and honour the King,

t

5 romeg In 1719 the Irish Houfe of Peers afferted a right of final judicature over all judgments and decreesom given in courts within the kingdom, and committed to the cuftody of their Black Rod the Barons of the Exchequer, who, in oppofition to their order, en forced the decree of the English Peers in the cafe of Annesley and Sherlock. This attempt produced the act of George the Firft, which declares, that the Irish Lords have not the appellant jurifdiction, and again repeats the dependency of the Crown of Ireland, and the supremacy of the British Parliament.

In 1751 an appropriated furplus remained in the Irish Treasury, which the Duke of Dorfet, then Lord Lieutenant, confented, in the King's name, to apply to the discharge of the national debt. The Irish Parliament forbore ftating in the act which they tranfmitted, this previous confent of the Crown: the claufe, however, was introduced in England, and afterwards received in Ireland with much diffatisfaction, as it was infifted there, that their own Parliament was competent to appropriate the refiduum without the King's previous confent, notwith standing that the King had an independent hereditary revenue in Ireland, and that the furplus in the Exchequer refulted as well from the branches of that revenue as from any other parts of the public income; which is a power that the Parliament of England, under fimilar circumftances, could not claim against the Crown. And in 1753, on the recurrence of this queftion, the amended act from England was rejected. However, the prerogative of the Crown was vindicated, and the money was iffued at the Treafury under the authority of a King's letter only.-Thefe diftinct facts, at different periods in the hiftory of Ireland, are enumerated to fhew the rife and growth of a difpofition for weakening

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