always has and ever will be made in all cafes of riot of this nature.

"There " is one reflection these poor wretches have not made, that by their riots the country are deterred from bringing them in provifions, which will make "things dearer in those places, than the exportation they are fo angry at.” Government generally may fecure the mob from forenefs and irritation; it never can give them reflection under thofe impreffions. Boulter had given orders to the feveral magiftrates and the judges of affize to have the rioters profecuted and feverely punished in the South. In the North, the humour of going to America ftill continued, and the fcarcity of provifions certainly made many quit them: there were then seven ships lying at Belfast, that were carrying off about 1000 paffengers thither: and if, faid his grace, we knew how to ftop them, as most of them could neither get victuals or work at home, it would be cruel to do it. The diffenting minifters at this time prefented a memorial of the grievances their brethren had affigned, as the caufes in their apprehenfions of the great defertion in the North, which were chiefly the oppreffion of the ecclefiaftical courts about tythes, the whole of which his grace denied or juftified in a special letter to the Bishop of London.* Another matter of complaint was of the facramental teft; in relation to which his grace told them: the laws were the fame in England. The other grievances they mentioned were the raising of the rents unreasonably, the oppreffion of the juftices of the peace, fenechals and other offices in the country. We learn alfo, that the Primate was fenfible of more difcontent from another caufe, which has not hitherto been touched upon. "I very much fear, (faid his grace on the 10th of June, 1729) that notwithstanding all precautions, we are in danger of having a troublesome feffion, as the debts of "the nation are very much encreased within a few years.'

Nothing can convey a more adequate idea of the financial state of the nation, than to confider the progrefs of the national debt, and trace the effects, which it gradually produced on the nation. The poverty of Ireland appeared in the year 1716 by the unanimous addrefs of the House of Commons to George I. This addrefs was to congratulate his majefty on his fuccefs in extinguishing the rebellion; an occafion moft joyful to them, and on which no difagreeable circumstances would have been stated, had not

* Vide the letter in the Appendix, No. LVI.

+1 Vol. p. 313.

Com. Reftr. p. 38.

truth

truth and the neceffities of their country extorted it from them. A small debt of 16,1061. 11s. Od.* due at Michaelmas 1715, was by their exertions to strengthen the hands of government in that year, increased at Midfummer 1717, to a fum of 91,5371. 178. 1d. which was confidered as fuch an augmentation of the national debt, that the lord lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton, thought it neceffary to take notice in his fpeech from the throne, that the debt was confiderably augmented, and to declare at the fame time, that his majesty had ordered reductions in the military, and had thought proper to leffen the civil list.

There cannot be a stronger proof of the want of refources in any country, than that a debt of fo fmall an amount fhould alarm the perfons entrusted with the government of it. That thofe apprehenfions were well founded, will appear from the repeated diftreffes of Ireland, from time to time, for many years afterwards. In 1721, the fpeech from the throne, and the addreffes to the king and to the lord lieutenant, ftate in the strongest terms, the great decay of her trade, and the very low and impoverished state, to which the was reduced; that though the debt of the nation were no more than 66,3181. 8s. 3 d. and were in fact lefs than in the laft feffion, yet the commons thought it neceffary to present an addrefs to the king, to give fuch directions as he, in his great goodness fhould think proper, to prevent the increase of the debt of the nation.

The debt of the nation in the enfuing feffion of 1725 was nearly doubled. In the fpeeches from the throne in 1727, Lord Carteret takes notice of our fuccefs in the linen trade, and yet obferves in 1729, that the revenue had fallen fhort, and that thereby a confiderable arrear was due to the establishment. In the year 1731, there was a great deficiency in the public revenue, and the national debt had confiderably increafed. The exhaufted kingdom lay under great difficulties by the decay of trade, the fcarcity of money and the univerfal poverty of the country, which the speaker represented in very affecting terms, in offering the money bills for the royal affent. For above forty years, after making feveral reftrictive laws upon the trade of Ireland, fhe was always poor and often in great want, diftrefs, and mifery; though the linen manufactures had made great progress during that time. In the war which terminated in the treaty of Aix la Chappelle, fhe was not

*Com. Reftr. p. 38.

able

able to give any affiftance. The Duke of Devonshire, in the year 1741, takes notice from the throne, that during a war for the protection of the trade of all his majesty's dominions, there had been no increase of the charge of the establishment; and in the year 1745 the country was fo little able to bear expence, that Lord Chesterfield difcouraged and prevented any augmentation of the army, though much defired by many gentlemen of the House of Commons, from a sense of the great danger that then impended. An influx of money after the peace, and the further fuccefs of the linen trade, increased the national wealth, and enabled Ireland to reduce by degrees, and afterwards to difcharge the national debt. This was not effected until the 1ft of March, 1754. This debt was occafioned principally by the expences incurred by the rebellion in Great Britain in the year 1715: an unlimited vote of credit was then given. From the lowness of the revenue, and the want of refources, not from any farther exertions on the part of the kingdom in point of expence, the debt of 16,1061. 118. Ožd. due in 1715, was increased at Lady-day 1733, to 371,3121. 13s. 24d. That government and the Houfe of Commons fhould, for fuch a length of time, have confidered the reduction and discharge of this debt as an object of fo great importance, and that near forty years should have paffed, before the constant attention and strictest œconomy of both could have accomplished that purpose, is a very strong proof of the weakness and poverty of Ireland during that period.

Lord Carteret was fucceeded in the lieutenancy by the Duke of Dorset: a man of amiable private character: his government however was too closely managed by the primate, not to have created enmity in Ireland on account of his zealous and fyftematic fupport of the English intereft in contravention to the native intereft of Ireland. Under this system of government the patriot party acquired fo much ftrength, as to command a majority in the commons on a most important queftion. During the late administration the court party had moved in the commons, that the fund, which had been provided for the payment of the principal and interest, should be granted to his majefty, his heirs, and fucceffors for ever; redeemable by parliament. The patriots infifted fuccefsfully, that it was unconftitutional and inconfiftent with the public fafety to grant it for a longer term, than from feffion to feffion. An attempt was afterwards made to veft it in the crown by continuing the fupplies for twenty-one years. When the affair came to be

agitated,

agitated, the strength of the minifterialists or court party, and the patriots or country party, was fo nearly equal, that the former loft the queftion by a fingle vote.*

The Duke of Dorfet, who was naturally humane, and very fenfible of the extreme hardships, which the Catholics of Ireland then fuffered from the exifting laws, relaxed fo far from the ufual ftile of addreffing the parliament on this fubject, that he no longer recommended it from the throne to provide for further severities upon the Catholics; but, as if the crown fatiated with rigor, benignly wished to put a stop to this unceafing fyftem of galling its faithful fubjects, though ftill leaving them to the merciless difpofition of those, whofe afcendancy depended upon their depreffion, told them that he should leave it to their confideration, whether any further laws might be neceffary to prevent the growth of Popery, and to fecure them against all dangers from the great number of Papists in that kingdom. The commons in addreffing his majefty did no more on this occafion, than to keep alive the general alarm

This patriotic queftion was carried by the voice of Colonel Tottenham, member for New Rofs, who had ridden poft to town to be prefent at the debate, and arrived immediately before the house divided. The great fupporter of the patriots at this time in Ireland, was Mr. Henry Boyle. Mr. Conolly the speaker of the House of Commons died in 1730: he had very unexpectedly rifen to this exalted station: and at firft was under a fort of neceffity to temporize with the men in power, to whofe influence he owed his rife: and he frequently fo far complimented his patrons, as to concur in things he did not approve of, in order to keep up his intereft with the court: however when once the patriot intereft, to which he naturally inclined, had been established in parliament on a firm and respectable footing, he added to it his support, and ever after acted up to it even in direct opposition to the court or English intereft. On Mr. Conolly's death, the patriots generally looked up to Mr. Boyle as the perfon most worthy of filling this important office: he in the fincere fervor of his primitive patriotifm, regarding preferment only as a more efficient mean of ferving his country, reminding the house of Mr. Conolly's frequent declarations, that Sir Ralph Gore was a proper person to succeed him in the chair, propofed Sir Ralph Gore, whose perfonal merits eminently qualified him for that station; and he was elected speaker: but he did not fill the chair two years. Upon his death in 1732, Mr. Boyle was elected to the honorable fituation, which he filled with dignity and uprightnefs for many years. Sir Robert Walpole was fo convinced of the powerful intereft Mr. Boyle commanded in the Irish Houfe of Commons, that he had previously to his election to the chair, declared, that he was a man of as much penetration as intereft, and that whatever scheme he was adverse to, it was no easy matter to carry in the House of Commons of Ireland: and although that minifter ever looked upon Mr. Boyle with an envious eye, yet he generally spoke of him in his facetious humour as the King of the Irish Com

mons.

† 4 Journ. Com. p. 9.

N N

1

which

which the number of Papifts muft at all times give to his loyal Proteftant fubjects, and enfuring to his majesty their beft endeavours to prevent all dangers, which might arife from the Papifts to the government or peace of the kingdom. At the opening of the parliament in 1733, his Grace of Dorfet again relapfed into the ancient ftyle, by calling upon the parliament of Ireland to fecure a* firm union amongst all Proteftants, who have one common intereft and the fame common enemy. This however appears to have been preparatory to a measure, which had met with the confent of the British cabinet, though it had not been fo ftrongly recommended to the Irish government, as to enfure the cordial co-operation of the fupporters of the English intereft in carrying it. It appears alfo, that the patriots were not then difpofed to that measure of toleration, in favor of the Proteftant Diffenters, which the Duke of Dorfet had it in his inftructions to propofe: and which from the decifive oppofition, that was prepared againft the measure, the government thought proper to drop. It may however be strongly furmifed, that Primate Boulter's difinclination to the repeal of the test in favor of the Diffenters may have magnified the oppofition to it in his own eyes, and exaggerated it to the British minifter, in order to enfure the dropping of the measure in the first instance or its failure in the laft. The honorable

teftimony

* 4 Journ. Com. p. 70.

+ In order that the candid reader may judge of the archbishop's earneftness to fecond these infructions from England, I lay before him his grace's account of the transaction to the Duke of Newcastle.

"MY LORD,

Dublin, Dec. 18, 1733. "AS an affair of great confequence is just over with us, I mean the push for repealing the teft in favor of the Diffenters, I thought it my duty to acquaint your grace

"how that affair ftands.

46

"When my lord lieutenant first came hither this time, he let the Diffenters and others know, "that he had inftructions, if it could be done, to get the teft repealed, and he has fince spoke to all any ways dependant on the government as well as to others, whom he could hope to influence, to "difpose them to concur with the defign, and so have others done that have the honor to be in his majefty's service. But it was unanimoufly agreed, that it was not proper to bring that affair into "either house of parliament till the supply was fecured. However as the design could not be kept “fecret, and as the Diffenters fent up agents from the north, to folicit the affair among the mem"bers of parliament, it foon occafioned a great ferment both in the two houses and out of them, "and brought a greater number of members to town than is ufual. There came likewise many of "the clergy from the feveral parts of the kingdom to oppose the defign, and a pamphlet war was car