their clergy were working hand in hand with the Castle to detect anything like disaffection.

Ireland was not for the Irish, but for the Protestant English colony, or the Protestant garrison, as they called themselves. Taxes were laid upon, and collected from, the whole island, and laws were passed by the Protestant Parliament elected by the Protestant minority only. The political history of Ireland during the eighteenth century is the history of the Protestant colony. All the jealousy, the bitterness, the heartburnings, the Whig and Tory quarrelling, the rising spirit of independence, the Patriotism, as it was called, exhibited in the Parliament of Ireland, were the jealousy, the bitterness, the heartburning, the quarrelling, the independence, the patriotism, of the English colony. The Irish nation lay all the while in sullen stupor, only roused now and again, and here and there, into ineffectual resistance.

Even the Protestant colony was not allowed to govern itself its own way. The English Government, sick to death of Irish wars, embraced the selfish, hopeless, fatal policy of keeping Ireland poor in order to keep her from being troublesome; and its plan was to maintain a tight hold on her by means of Poynings' Act, and all its anachronistic machinery; and to render the Irish Parliament a pliant tool in its hands by a frightful system of corruption, which converted the Irish revenues into one vast fund of secret-service money.

When Anne came to the throne, the country had fairly settled down after the last war of independence; trade was beginning to revive; but the jealousy exhibited

by England led the English in Ireland to look to a more close connection with the mother country, as the only way to secure prosperity. They were strongly in favour of the abolition of the Dublin Parliament, and of a legislative union with England. In 1703 the Irish Parliament went so far as to petition the queen for an union between the two countries. But the English Government determinedly rejected the proposal. The English colony was accordingly thrown back upon itself, with the certain consequence that in time it would coalesce with the subject Irish. A contemporary writer says that "there was scarcely an Englishman who had been seven years in the country, and meant to remain there, who did not become averse to England and grow something of an Irishman." But as yet they felt the injustice of being ranked with "a disloyal and turbulent people who could only be rendered harmless so long as they were disabled by poverty;" and were inclined to exhibit a spirit the reverse of subservient.

There was a strong party in the Parliament, who, so long as it existed as a separate body, opposed all attempts to invade its independence. Mr. Molyneux, one of the members for Dublin University, published a book called "The case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated," which was savagely condemned by the Parliament of England, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman; but the opposition soon died out under the judicious manipulation of the Castle; and from time to time English statutes were passed binding Ireland, without remonstrance or protest.

Even the judicial functions of the Irish peers were denied, and a quarrel arose between the English and Irish Houses of Lords on the question of jurisdiction. The Irish peers having reversed a judgment of the Irish Court of Exchequer Chamber, a counter-appeal was taken to the English House, which affirmed the judgment; and the dispute was eventually put an end to by the English Parliament passing an Act "for the better securing the dependency of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain," which not only formally deprived the Irish House of Lords of any appellate jurisdiction whatsoever, but also went on to declare that "The English Parliament had, hath, and of right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the people and kingdom of Ireland."

"

The sixth of George I. was the last rivet which fixed the chain upon the Irish legislature. Poynings' Act,† which was an Irish Act, said that no bills should be passed by the Irish Houses which had not been approved in England and transmitted thence before the opening of Parliament. The Act of Philip and Mary, also an Irish Act, which "explained" the Act of Poynings, was passed to enable the Irish Houses to pass all bills which should at any time during the session be certified to the king by the viceroy and Privy Council as expedient for the kingdom, and be returned under the great seal of England. Under these statutes the practice which grew + 10 Hen. VII., c. 4.

* English Statutes, 6 Geo. I., c. 5.

3 and 4 Philip and Mary, c. 4.

up was as follows. A' member of either House might bring in "heads of a bill," which, if agreed to by both Chambers, were carried to the viceroy. He referred them to the Irish Privy Council, who made such alterations as they desired, and certified them to the king under the great seal of Ireland. The English Privy Council referred the document to the English attorneygeneral, who altered it as he thought advisable; and the approval of the English Privy Council being then obtained, it was returned to Ireland under the great seal of England. The Irish Houses could thereupon either accept it or reject it in toto, but had no power of alteration. The bill, which was liable both to summary rejection and unlimited alteration by either the English or the Irish Privy Council, having then a second time passed the House from which it had emanated, received the royal assent and became law.

CHAPTER II.

THE STATUTORY DESTRUCTION OF IRISH TRADE.

A.D. 1692-1727.

THE infatuation of England in respect to the economic laws by which Ireland was to be hindered from growing wealthy was the more extraordinary inasmuch as the mischief was inflicted, not so much upon the beaten-. down native population, as upon the thriving English citizens in the towns and seaports, who were intended to be the mainstay of the English ascendency. The English commercial world had always been absurdly jealous of the least prospect of Irish prosperity. Strafford had done his best to ruin the rising woollen manufactures in order to protect English clothiers. Cromwell had indeed conferred the same commercial privileges on Ireland as were enjoyed by England; but in 1663 the English landed interest became alarmed lest the rents of their grazing land should fall by reason of the imported Irish cattle diminishing the growth of English beasts. For Ireland was always a great pasture country, and cattle her chief source of wealth. A hasty bill * * English Statutes, 18 Car. II., c. 2.