V.

CHAP. penditure of public money by government; and the two laft were from another country.

Upon this, a motion being made for the production of the civil and military eftablishment, and a ftate of the revenue of the nation, Mr. Pulteney *, one of the private fecretaries of lord Sydney, the lord lieutenant, informed them, that the papers in queftion had been put into his hands by his excellency; upon which they were ordered to be received the next day, and they were prefented accordingly.

The commons had only time in that feffion to make a short report about the mif

* This is the first instance of a private fecretary to a lord lieutenant acting as minifter in the house of commons. In the preceding feffion, in the reign of Charles the fecond, fir Paul Davis, the fecretary of state, was the minifter. This employment had been after the Revolution granted to fir Robert Southwell for life, and was afterwards made hereditary for three generations in his family, till the death of his grandíon Edward Southwell efq. in 1755,

conduct

.V.

conduct of the commiffioners of the re- CHAP, venue relative to forfeitures, on the 3d of November one thoufand fix hundred and ninety-two, the very day on which they were prorogued after they had fat only twenty-two days, and they were shortly af terwards diffolved.

But when parliament affembled in one thousand fix hundred and ninety five, after an interval of three years, the lord-deputy Capel informed them in his fpeech, that a ftate of the revenue would be laid before them; and on the 5th of June it was referred to a committee, which gave rife to the prefent mode of proceeding in the committees of accounts, fupply, and ways and means; a method which has been regularly. adopted fince this laft period, at the commencement of every feffion.

THE various inftances which occur in the early Journals of iffuing writs for new elections, in the room of members at their

own

V.

CHAP. own defire, have been accurately and minutely noticed in the foregoing remarks, from the first precedent of fir Barnaby Brien in one thousand fix hundred and thirtyfour. Numerous inftances, without any example of a negative, occur, of the compliance of the house, in this refpect, till the year one thousand seven hundred and four, when it was made a ftanding rule of the house, that writs fhould not iffue any more at the defire of the members in their own room.

This rule was made in confequence of Mr. Caulfield, an ancestor of the earl of Charlemont, defiring that a writ might iffue for that borough, as he wished to travel into foreign countries; of this order the houfe feem to have been ever afterwards remarkably tenacious ; infomuch that when the borough of Sligo in one thousand fix hundred and forty-three, petitioned for a new writ in the room of Mr. Ormfby, who attested his own bad ftate of health, and enforced their defire, though they had excufed

V.

his non-attendance, and his refufal to com- CHAP. ply with their order, on account of indifpofition, the motion for a new writ was negatived by a large majority; and the fame principle prevailed in one thousand feven hundred and feventy-nine-eighty, when the election for the university of Dub lin was declared void, in the cafe of Mr. Hutchinson, who wished to vacate his feat for Sligo, that he might be a candidate in opposition to Mr. Fitzgibbon, the present chancellor.

It would be a prefumption to decide, whether the ancient or modern practice were most desirable; perhaps the former mode was more convenient than the latter custom, to members, to government, and to the community. If it be a wish of parliament to accommodate their own members, the shortest and most direct, seems to be the moft obvious and defirable mode of proceeding. Employments in Ireland do not vacate feats; and in England the Chiltern Hundreds appear to have been offices de

CHAP. vifed to carry a point by a manœuvre, and

V.

a circuitous procefs, which might be effected by a plain, direct, and more convenient method. And this cuftom of ifsuing writs at their own defire seems to be countenanced by early practice in the English, as well as in the Irish parliament.

PROXIES were more prevalent, and their powers more extensive in the Irish, than in the British house of peers in early periods.

The privilege of protesting by proxy originated from this extenfive agency or representation, as the deputy enjoyed all the powers of the principal *.

The

In 1764 the earls of Grandifon, Tyrone, and Charlemont, divided and protested against a corn-bill. A queftion arofe whether lord Grandifon could fign a proteft by proxy; and a reference having been made to the earl of Hertford, then lord lieutenant, he decided, That, according to the practice of the lords of Eng land, he could not. But a committee having been ap pointed to fearch for precedents, they reported five

inftances