upon abuses, which did not exist; and upon charges employed against the late administration, which deserved and possessed the grateful regards of that kingdom. With respect to the biennial accounts of 1767, which had been compared with the biennial accounts for 1781, in order to shew an exceeding in the latter to the amount of 520,000l. he said, that when proper deductions were made for the parliamentary bounties, the loan duties, the vice-treasurer's salaries, and the absentee taxes, the exceeding was less than 100,000l. which was matter of fact, not of calculation: and it should be also recollected, that the latter being a period of war, must necessarily be attended with various expenses, from which the former period was exempt. With regard to the Portugal business, which had been incidently mentioned as decided, Mr. Eden said, that it was not yet brought to a conclusion, but had every appearance of ending in the most satisfactory manner. At twelve o'clock the house divided upon Mr. Grattan's motion; when there were 65 for it, and 143 against it.

On the 11th of December, 1781, *Mr. Flood entered upon the important subject of Poynings' law, with great erudition and eloquence. He said, that it was highly unconstitutional for any of the three estates, king, lords, or commons, to intrench upon the privileges of either of the other: that each had its separate and distinct province. The deliberate authority of the state resting with the houses of lords and commons, the executive with the king. That the constitution had invested the two houses with the deliberate authority of propounding and framing laws, by which the people were to be governed; because they themselves were the people's representatives, and had given the king only a negative on the laws when proposed; because he was the executive officer, and had no occasion for any right of interference in the business of legislation, but just so much as was necessary to defend his own prerogative from the encroachments of the other estates, which he was sufficiently enabled to do, from a power of negativing any law which he thought might be injurious to that prerogative, But this, which was the beauty and strength of the British constitution, and to which the people of Ireland were fully entitled, as participating in that constitution, had been wrested from them, not by the act of the 10th of Henry the VIIth, commonly called Poynings' law, nor by the explanatory acts of Philip and Mary, but by the corrupt and vicious construction and interpretation given to those acts, by the twelve judges of England, but more especially by the decision of nine judges of Ireland,

Parl. Debates, p. 153. Mr. Flood's speech on this important law to Ire, land, is a most solid and explicit statement of the nature, spirit and operation of it; and the best historical clue to the developement of the many political manœuvres carried on under its sanction.

whose names that decision had consigned to everlasting infamy. Yet corrupt and venal as that decision was, there were two subsequent authorities generally urged in support of this false construction of the law, that went further than even the judges had ventured to go. Here, he observed, that the reigns antecedent to the coming of the family of Stuart, had produced the worst precedents for the English, and the reigns since, the worst for the Irish constitution. The first warp and perversion was given in the reign of James I, who came from the throne of Scotland to that of England and Ireland, filled with Scottish prejudices, and entertaining a very exalted notion, indeed, of royal prerogative. In very early times the Scottish parliaments enjoyed the full pow er of enacting all laws; the king only put them in execution, but had not even a negative on their passing. This was much less power than a king ought to have; and in time the Scottish kings contrived to acquire more; for at the period that parliament enjoyed this plenitude of power, attendance on public business' was thought a very great hardship. There are many instances of boroughs, &c. praying to be eased of the burden of sending representatives. This reluctance and disinclination to attend, gave rise to an alteration in the constitution; for in order, as much as possible, to ease the members of parliament, that their term of attendance might be shortened, and that they might only have to decide upon such laws as were to be passed, a committee was selected under the name of Lords of Articles. The office of this committee, was to prepare all the laws which the parliament was to pass, consequently it became an object of great importance to the Scottish kings to have the selecting of the persons who were to sit in this committee; and this object they found means to attain. Then began that favourite doctrine, "that the parliament "could not take any matter into consideration till it had been "propounded on the part of the crown ;" and though in the worst times, it was never fully obeyed, so as to make the king absolute master of the parliament, yet the power acquired by the king in nominating the Lords of Articles, put the parliament down as much below its natural dignity as the king had formerly been. King James attempted to introduce this practice into Ireland, and with but too much success; for when some opposition was made to it in parliament, he sent over for a committee of the members, whom he ordered to attend him in England; and having lectured them upon the sublime authority of kings, and the mysterious art of legislation; and having informed them, that it was a subject above the capacity of parliament, those gentlemen came home much better courtiers than they went, and consented to a resolution soon after proposed, "that parliaments were but "humble remembrancers to his majesty." Another attempt was

made to divest parliament of their authority, which, indeed, had no weight as a precedent, being under the infamous administration of Lord Strafford. The Lords of Ireland he had reduced so low, as to make their own journals the record of their shame ; and the Commons, (whom at his first coming he had called together, and from whom he had demanded a supply) pleading the poverty and inability of the nation; he told them, that he stood there in the person of the king, not to supplicate, but demand his right; and if it were refused, he would think himself bound to use the army to enforce it. Mr. Flood then went back to an early period of the English history, and proved the manner of originating laws in parliament, on which the king had only a negative, and that even during the most despotic reigns, till the pernicious principles brought in by the Stuarts, were attempted to be enforced against the people's rights; and the unfortunate Charles fell a victim to his own ambition; as did Lord Strafford to the corrupt and tyrannic disposition which influenced his conduct in Ireland.

He then returned to the law of Poynings itself, part of which he read, to shew that it was never intended to take away the right of the parliament, but merely to prevent the governors of Ireland from giving the royal assent to laws, that might be injurious to the king. That during the civil wars of York and Lan caster, this had frequently happened: that the adherents of the York family were numerous in Ireland, having been planted there chiefly in the reign of Henry VI. who sent the Duke of York, with great power and great revenue, to govern the kingdom for no less than ten years, during which time, and afterwards, it became an asylum to the partizans of that house. That Lord Gormanstown, who preceded Poynings, had given great cause for suspicion; nay, it was even thought, that when Symnel was crowned in Dublin, if there had been a parliament sitting, that parliament would have acknowledged him as rightful king, That voyages between England and Ireland in those days, were much less frequent than between Europe and America at present, consequently many things happened there that were not known till long after in England, for which reason, Henry VII. who derived his right from the house of Lancaster, when he chose that trusty servant, Poynings, to be his deputy in Ireland, though he had the utmost reliance on his fidelity, yet would not entrust even him with the power of giving the royal assent to laws, till they had been notified to the king himself in England, under the sanction of the great seal of Ireland; but, that this was considered only as a restraint on the governor, not on the parliament of Ireland; which, by making authentic records, he proved had been the constant practice of originating such bills as they thought proper, and send

ing them engrossed on parchment, sometimes through the viceroy, sometimes by special messengers of their own, to receive the royal assent. He also produced the evidence of the par-. liamentary roll, in the reign of Elizabeth, to confirm this opinion, and to shew the sentiments the parliament then entertained of the law of Poynings', by the reluctance with which they consented to a temporary suspension of its effects in favour of Lord Sydney, and the great compliment they paid that nobleman in the words of that consent. From this he inferred, that parliament had considered this as a popular law, guarding the nation against evil governors, but in no wise restraining the power of either house of parliament. He said, that a very unjust stigma had, therefore, been affixed to the name of Poynings, who was an able and upright governor, and from whose administration that kingdom. had derived the greatest advantages, and whose laws were intended for its defence, till perverted by the corrupt opinions of the judges. It was no wonder, that people had received an ill impression of the law of Poynings', as the very text of that law had been falsified, by those who had the charge of its publication: for instead of saying that the imperial crown of Ireland was inseparably annexed, and appendant to the imperial crown of England; they had used the words, dependant on, the most invidious perversion that could possibly be introduced. Lord Bacon, who wrote the history of the reign of Henry VII. and who particularly mentioned Poynings, would not have let so great a matter, as a total inversion of our constitution, pass by the accuracy of his penetrating genius. He mentions the law of Poynings', indeed, but not this law. He says of Poynings, "But in parliament "he did endeavour to make amends for the meagreness of his "service in the war, for there was made that memorable act, "called Poynings' Act," (not the act they were then debating on) but that "whereby all the statutes of England were made to "be of force in Ireland, for before (says Lord Bacon) they were not, neither were any so that had been made in England "since."

It was astonishing, that the law of Poynings' should ever have received such a false and vicious interpretation. Its meaning could not be understood at the distance of three hundred years, better than by the people in whose days it was passed, or those who succeeded for an hundred years after. By them it was considered as a boon and a favour; but its operation now destroyed the constitution of Ireland: that constitution, which growing on the same stem with the constitution of Britain, it was formed to protect. The law was not in fault: the vile interpreter only was to blame. An interpreter placed between the king and people: a monster unknown to the constitution, whose office was to stifle

the voice of the people, and to prevent the king from hearing; to render the people dumb, and the king deaf. He would therefore, in order to restore the constitution to its native vigour, and to obviate the evil effects of misinterpretation, move two resolutions, the first of which he then proposed, viz......

"That a committee be appointed to examine the precedents "and records that day produced, and such others as might be "necessary to explain the law of Poynings'."

If this were granted, he would follow it with another, to declare from the report of that committee, what the law of Poynings', and what the constitution of that country actually were.

The Provost answered Mr. Flood in a very learned and temperate speech, but insisted chiefly on the adyantages of that law having been so long practised, not only without abuse on the part of England, but infinitely to the benefit of Ireland. He considered it a great blessing to his country, to be united to England by three bands; the law of Poynings', as explained by the statute of Philip and Mary, united the constitution of both realms: the statute of Henry VIII. united the regal crowns of both realms: and the practice of appeals, united the jurisprudence of both realms. The attorney general opposed the resolution with more than his usual vehemence. At a late hour Mr. Flood's resolution was negatived, by a majority of 139 against 67.

It may be observed, that from the time the public mind had expanded itself so largely to the contemplation of civil freedom, little had been attempted to be done for the great mass of the Irish people, who were Roman Catholics. The necessary effect of the Protestants and Catholics uniting in the common pursuit of national freedom and independence, was, that ancient prejudices*

It may be imagined by some, that religious prejudices had long ere this time been eradicated from Ireland, as well as from most other countries of Europe. The existence of the unnatural and ferocious code of popery laws, at this time almost in their whole extent, proves the reverse: and although the increasing liberality of the higher orders had for some time, particularly under the happy reign of a most mild and indulgent monarch, greatly discountenanced the rigorous execution of those laws yet the general habits of education, and the still more powerful workings of self interest, had, for more than a century, sown, fed, and fostered, fear and hatred, rather than unanimity, affection, and charity, amongst the inhabitants of that unfortunate country. The legislative code of laws, religious and civil institutions, annual exhortations from the pulpits, daily catechistical instructions at school and at home, taught Protestants of every denomination from their earliest youth, to understand the terms Popery and Papists, as terms of enmity, reproach, contempt, guilt, horror and detestation. The wonder is, that these first impressions, inculcated into the pliancy of youth, as civil and religious duties, should, at any period of life, wear out or be laid aside; more especially in a country where it is painful to avow the slightest elevation above the lower order of the community, has at all times been attended with an unwarrantable spirit of tyrannical domination and despotic rule over their fellow creatures. It is the keenest policy of perverted man, from Mahomet to Machiavel, to render sacred the maxims, that