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CHAP. three important bills to be prepared by the council, and tranfmitted to England according to the form of Poyning's law.

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The firft, for an equality of weights and measures throughout Ireland.

The fecond, for encouraging the herring fishery in the harbour of Dublin.

And the third, for repairing and improving the port of Dublin, at the charge of any private perfon who would undertake it.

But the termination of the feffion fuperfeded thofe bills.

And on the fame day a committee of twenty-two were named to reply to a paper from the lord lieutenant, containing an addrefs from the lords about the violation of their privileges at a conference. The duke of Ormond had perfonally endeavoured to reconcile the two houfes, and to moderate thofe difputes which had arifen about the most trivial and frivolous forms and infignificant

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nificant ceremonies, of being covered or un- CHAP. covered, fitting or ftanding, at a conference;

he had laboured to perfuade them of the 1666. abfurdity of the difpute, and to settle thofe forms from his own long parliamentary experience of between thirty and forty years in the parliaments of England and Ireland, but all to no purpose.

Upon the 6th of Auguft it was refolved, that in regard to the poverty of the kingdom, the members should freely remit all wages due in confequence of former orders; and thus ended these allowances in Ireland, which are not to be traced after the Revolution.

I shall reserve for a separate chapter a short account of conferences, which form a principal article in the proceedings of the Irish parliament from the commencement of the journals till the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-feven, when the two houses conferred for the laft time. A great part of the journals of this feffion was L 2 occupied

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CHAP. occupied with those frivolous and uninteresting disputes, which at last rose so high that parliament was diffolved, after the royal affent had been given to eight bills by the lord lieutenant in perfon. How much to be lamented was that idle difpute, which not only caused a diffolution, but was one cause alfo, of parliament not meeting for twentyfive years, till the year one thousand fix hundred and ninety-two, after the Revolution!

The great business of the parliaments which were held in Ireland in the reign of Charles the second, was the appropriation of all the forfeited lands, which form the far greater part of the Irish territory.

In confequence of this appropriation, an actual furvey was made by the surveyor general, fir William Petty, of which a general rental was formed, which was depofited in the auditor general's office, and

other

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other public offices in Ireland; this rental CHAP. is called the Down Survey

the

All these forfeited lands are fubjected by the act of fettlement to quitrents, which may be considered as a species of land-tax, of about fivepence in the pound; total of which, in one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, amounted to about £. 64,158 t.

Many difputes and claims about these quitrents were filenced, and questions about certain lands being fubjected to them were annulled, by a quieting act in one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four; by which, if it should be proved that no quitrents had been

*The best copy of the Down Survey which I have seen is in the valuable library of the earl of Effex at Cashioberry, whose ancestor was lord lieutenant in 1677, to whom fir William Temple addreffed his valuable letter upon the improvement of the trade of Ireland.

+ Public Accounts of Ireland for 1788, No. 1. Under this head also were comprehended Crown and Compofition Rents.

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CHAP. paid for twenty years before the claim was made, upon a petition to the Court of Exchequer, ftating this and their agreement to pay the growing quitrent, or that which fhall become due in future, the lands are to be liberated from arrears.

Maps were alfo delineated of every county in Ireland according to the Down Survey from fir William Petty's observations*: some copies of these maps were depofited in the

* Sir William Petty's ftate of Ireland was very ac curate and fatisfactory; and it is to be lamented that that great master of political arithmetic did not propose a system for the progreflive enumeration of the people. This fyftem prevails in the United States of America, and alfo, it is faid, in China. A bill for eftablishing annual returns by a parochial cenfus, was introduced in 1754 by Mr. Potter, fon of the learned archbishop; but it did not pass: a copy of the bill which I have seen in the parliament office contained an admiral plan for those returns from the different parishes and counties in England. Various statements have prevailed of the population of Ireland, which are ftill conjectural; but from fome late extenfive and ingenious enquiries of Mr. Bufhe, the population of Ireland may be stated at three millions and an half, with a reas fonable approximation to truth.