stand that the insertion of the clause had been made deliberately, and was to be insisted on. Great Britain was indubitable. The right of The assertion of it was considered indispensably necessary to the King's honour and the vindication of the prerogative. The bill must be laid before Parliament in the form in which it had been sent over. If it failed, Halifax would not be held responsible.1 The storm which Halifax anticipated would have certainly risen but for peculiar conditions under which the new members had been returned. The corruption with which the Government had secured a majority on the appropriation of the surplus had suggested to the constituencies that they might themselves obtain a share in the plunder. Seats in Parliament had been hitherto virtually for life. More frequent elections would compel the representatives to divide their spoils with their supporters. At the elections, to their general surprise, the candidates had been called on for a promise to support a Septennial Act; pledges to that effect having been especially exacted from the servants of the Crown as the price of their return.2 Embarrassed with the prospect of a change which they secretly disliked, while they were themselves afraid to oppose it, to the surprise of Halifax they declined the challenge on the money bill. They passed the supplies by a large majority. They ventured a resolution that the Pension List had been increased without sufficient reason,3 and seemed to threaten an 1 Egremont to Halifax, October 20.' S. P. O. 2 Halifax to Egremont, October 1761, and December 4, 1761.' 3 The Civil Pension List had grown from 54,4977. in 1759, to 64,1277. in 1761. Commons' Journals, Ireland, 1761. CHAP. BOOK V. attack upon it. The Viceroy lectured the Lords Justices. Egremont wrote that the King was amazed and offended at so extraordinary a demonstration, and insisted that there should be no repetition of it.1 The excitement was unnecessary; the real attention of the Commons was absorbed in the Septennial Bill. Dr. Lucas, the patriot member for Dublin, introduced the heads at the opening of the session. In December, when the Pension storm had abated, the subject came forward for discussion. Halifax had received no instructions. He expressed no opinion and offered no opposition. If the ministry considered the measure objectionable, he said he could stop it in Council, but he was evidently uncertain in what light it would be regarded. Could the Commons have been assured that the bill would be rejected in England they would have passed it with acclamations. The neutral attitude of the Viceroy alarmed them. They were afraid to turn it out. They were afraid that if sent over it might be returned unopposed. They escaped from the difficulty by attaching to it a property qualification as a condition of eligibility so heavy, that so encumbered the most ardent patriot could only desire that the bill might fail. It was presented to the Viceroy, but without the forms which were observed usually with popular measures. When the House desired to signify a special desire that a bill should be returned to them, the heads were carried to the Castle by the Speaker, attended by the entire body of members. A motion that the heads of the Septennial Act should 1 Halifax and Egremont Correspondence, November 1761.' S.P.O. 2 For a county seat the qualifi cation was to be an estate of 6001. a year, for a borough seat 3001. เ be so presented was defeated by a majority of two to 6 The ministry, playing with their fears, replied that the King could make no engagements beforehand. The Dublin merchants held a meeting to protest against the clandestine arts' by which an important reform was obstructed. The heads were at last transmitted, passing the Council only, however, by a majority of one. 'The popularity of the Bill has diminished,' wrote Halifax, as the probability of its being carried into law has increased. Nobody wishes for it. It is unacceptable to those who seemed most sanguine in its favour. Unanimous as they were at first, they will now throw it out rather than pass it.' it.' With a curious consciousness that if the Irish Parliament became a reality it would cease to exist, the patriot members began to fear that the agitation had been set on foot by English treachery, as a preliminary step towards a Union.' 2 They might have spared their terrors. Either by 1 'Halifax to Egremont, December 11 and December 23, 1761.' S. P. O. 2 Halifax to Egremont, February 18, 1762.' CHAP. I. V. BOOK design or accident, the draftsman had added a condition which made the bill into an absurdity, and relieved the government of the necessity of bestowing the most transient consideration on the subject. The heads of the Septennial Act were submitted as usual to the English law officers of the Crown. They returned it to the Lords of the Council with the following report : 'We have examined the Act for limiting the duration of Parliament transmitted from Ireland. So much thereof as limits the duration to a term of seven years, imports a most essential alteration in the constitution of Ireland. The fitness or unfitness of this provision is a matter of State of so high a nature that we submit the same entirely to the wisdom of your lordships. 'For the qualification of members we doubt how far such provisions are expedient for Ireland — whether the qualification be not too high, and the exceptions too few. 'An amendment, however, is absolutely necessary. No member is to sit, according to the Act, till his qualification is proved, while a full House is sitting, with the Speaker in the chair. The law, therefore, can never be executed, nor any business at all, because no Speaker can be chosen before the members have a right to vote; and no member can exercise his right of voting till such Speaker is chosen.'1 SECTION II. THE penal laws had failed to coerce the Catholics into conformity. The Charter schools had failed to convert them. The penal laws had failed because the English Government had interposed to protect the Catholic clergy. The Charter schools had failed, having been choked in Irish society, as wholesome vegetables are choked in a garden when the weeds are allowed scope to spring.1 Celtic Ireland was reviving from the stupor into which she had been thrown by the Revolution. Exclusion from the land had driven the more energetic of the Catholics into trade. Protestants who had to seek their fortunes had gone to countries where they were more fairly dealt with, and had left the field open. A commercial Catholic population, ambitious and wealthy, was springing up in Dublin, Limerick, and Cork; and a time was visibly approaching when their relations to the soil would have to be reconsidered. Liberal English politicians were already looking to the Catholics as a convenient counterpoise to the Protestant colonists, whom ill 1 Within a few years of their establishment the Charter schools had ceased to grow. Private benefactions fell off; and though Parliament made no difficulty in voting money, the annual grants were swallowed up by peculation. The industrial training, so excellent in conception, degenerated by negligence into a system in which the children became the slaves of the masters, and grew up in rags and starvation. As the numbers fell off, infant nurseries were esta- CHAP. I. |