lators, by purchasing up the raw material; and the needy crowd that thronged the upper Castle yard, pacing the narrow precincts in hopes of reward, were said to be employed in "ploughing the half acre;" for so much did its area contain.

A. D. 1768.-The first great change made in the government of Ireland was the limitation of the duration of parliament; a measure pressed on the legislature by the unanimous voice of the people during seven years, and finally granted in consequence of a dispute between the Irish oligarchy and the English government. To increase their own popularity, and at the same time to bring odium on Lord Townshend's administration, the Irish parliament, during several successive sessions, presented the heads of a septennial bill to the privy council, certain that the measure would never be sanctioned by that body. The privy council at length became weary of this annual farce, and in a fit of ill-humour transmitted the bill to England. The English ministry, justly enraged at the fierce opposition which the measures of government received from the leaders of the Irish aristocracy, returned the bill, with the single alteration of substituting eight for seven years; and the Irish parliament, caught in its own toils, was forced to pass the bill into a law. Nothing can be conceived more ludicrous than the consternation of the pretended patriots who had clamoured for the bill, when they learned that the English government had deter

mined to make the concession. They had for years declared that the measure was essential to the salvation of the country, and poured out the fiercest invectives against the statesmen by whom it was opposed; but they never dreamed that their labours would have been successful; and when an event so contrary to their wishes and expectations occurred, they could not conceal the bitterness of their mortification. The nation in general was well aware of the hypocrisy to which it owed its success, and with creditable forbearance, abstained from overwhelming the authors of the measure with unwelcome thanks and gratulations.

The new parliament had scarcely assembled, when the House of Commons became involved in a dispute with the viceroy, on a point of constitutional privilege. A money-bill, which had been planned in England, was rejected by the Commons after the first reading, because it had not originated in their house. Lord Townshend, in a rage, sent an angry protest against their proceedings, which the Com mons refused to enter on their journals. The Lords were more submissive; and after a fierce but brief struggle, allowed the viceroy's protest to be inserted in their records. The court having suffered several other defeats on questions of less moment, Lord Townshend determined to prorogue the parliament, after a brief session of two months, and to try if, during the recess, any impression could be made on the bands of Irish patriots. After an interval of fourteen months, the parliament was reassembled, and the partisans of the court were found to possess an overwhelming majority. The Commons, in their address, returned thanks to the king, for continuing Lord Townshend in the government. Mr. Ponsonby, the speaker, indignant at witnessing this degradation, resigned the chair, rather than carry up such an address. He was succeeded by Mr. Edmond

Sexton Pery, who had been converted from a patriot into a courtier, by a process of manufacture not unfrequently used in the Irish parliament.

The rapacity of the agent of an absentee nobleman, the Marquis of Donegal, produced a fierce agrarian insurrection in the county of Antrim, which soon extended over the greater part of Ulster. The insurgents named themselves Hearts of Steel, to show the firmness of their resolution. They determined not to pay the extravagant rents and fines demanded by the landlords and their agents, and to destroy the cattle and houses of any tenants who should take the land "over their heads." By the exertions of the military, several of the steel-men were arrested and brought to trial at Carrickfergus; but they were acquitted, from the supposed partiality of the witnesses and the juries. The Irish aristocracy, enraged at being disappointed of the expected vengeance on their revolted vassals, passed a law, that trials for insurrectionary offences should be held in counties different from those in which the crimes had been committed. Some of the insurgents were, in consequence, brought to trial in Dublin; but the juries, disgusted at such an arbitrary and unconstitutional proceeding, acquitted the prisoners without hesitation. This infamous law was repealed during the administration of Lord Harcourt, and the juries in the disturbed districts were at the same time induced to do their duty with firmness. After several of the insurgents had been convicted and executed, the disturbances were suppressed; but an immense number of the Ulster Protestants sought refuge from the rapacity of their landlords in the wilds of America.

A. D. 1776.-The haughty and oppressive spirit which the British government had so long displayed to the British colonies and dependencies at length produced the dire effects which every man of sense had long predicted. The states of North America, justly irritated at the insane attempt of the British

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parliament to tax them without their own consent, took up arms, and set the mother country at defiance. The history of the eventful struggle, which, at the end of six years, terminated in the acknowledgment of the American republic, belongs not to this work. We must however remark, that the war for the subjugation of the Americans was at first decidedly popular in England. From the habit of using the phrase our colonies," there was not an English peasant who did not regard the colonists as rebels against himself, and as enemies to some fancied authority and power, which he deemed the privilege of every Englishman by his birthright. Ireland was regarded as a province even more completely at the disposal of England; and, after the American war had been formally commenced, the dangerous effect of such an example on a nation still more grievously oppressed, was a circumstance that quite escaped the notice of the statesmen to whom the destinies of the country had been intrusted. They remained in a state of ignorant apathy, until they had brought the government to the very brink of ruin, and exposed the country to the horrors of civil war, from which it was saved almost by accident. The American colonies had afforded the most extensive and profitable markets for the sale of Irish linens; but the war closed the trade, and the linen manufactures At the same soon experienced a severe decline. time, by an unusual and scarcely constitutional exertion of the prerogative, an embargo was laid on the exportation of Irish provisions, under pretence of preventing supplies to the revolted colonies, but in reality to enable certain powerful contractors to fulfil their engagements with ease and profit. The consequence of this profligate job was general misery throughout the nation, at the very moment that it was called upon to make unusual exertions to suppress the American revolt. So manifest were the distresses of Ireland, that on the motion of Earl

Nugent, the British parliament, in April, 1778, passed several resolutions, declaring the expediency of removing many of the restrictions which had been imposed on Irish commerce. The commercial jealousy of England was, however, unfortunately aroused; petitions against opening the trade of Ireland poured in from every side; and those from Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow menaced rebellion in no very obscure terms, if the parliament should persevere in its proposed course of wisdom and justice. The English premier, Lord North, had sense enough to perceive that these concessions were demanded by sound policy, but he had not firmness to withstand the popular clamour. The bills founded on Lord Nugent's resolutions were rejected; and Ireland, so far as the British parliament was concerned, sentenced to hopeless misery. Lord North showed more firmness on another question. Acts for repealing some of the penal laws, and for permitting Catholics to acquire property in land, so far as a lease of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, were sanctioned by the British and Irish parliaments, but not without encountering a fierce and vehement opposition.

A. D. 1778.--The resistance of the English merchants to the opening of the Irish trade spread general dissatisfaction--the more dangerous as Ireland had lately obtained a species of national guard, an army composed of citizen-soldiers, whose remonstrances could not be neglected with impunity. There are few Irishmen of the present day who can speak of those celebrated men, the Volunteers, without-feelings of enthusiastic admiration; for they, without bloodshed, raised their country from a degraded province to the dignity of a nation, and created the first sources of the little prosperity that Ireland has been permitted to enjoy. Though a volunteer corps had been formed some years previously in the county of Wexford for suppressing the