rejected by 118 against Sir Edward Newnham and Colonel Sharman. The attorney-general boasted of his indulgence in not moving a censure against the petitioners: but should not again be so gentle, if the offence were repeated. This was the most important bill passed during the session. Several gentlemen on the treasury bench wished to bring in a bill for securing the persons, houses and properties of vicars, rectors, and cus rates, actually resident within their respective parishes; the introduction of which bill gave to several members an opportunity of giving vent to the feelings either of zeal for the hierarchy, or indignation against those, who were not of the establishment. But as the attorney-general considered them as effectually secured by the law, as other subjects, the bill was reluctantly dropped. On the 8th of May, 1786, the parliament was prorogued; when his grace the lord-lieutenant, in his speech, assured them, that the determined spirit, with which they had marked their abhorrence of all lawless disorders and tumults, had already made an useful impression; and the salutary laws enacted in that session, and particularly the introduction of a system of police, were honourable proofs of their wisdom, moderation, and prudence. He moreover assured them, that his majesty beheld with the highest satisfaction the zeal and loyalty of the people of Ireland: and that he had his majesty's express commands, to assure them of the most cordial returns of his royal favour and parental affection.

When the parliament met according to the last adjournment, on the 18th of January, 1787, the lord lieutenant particularly applied to them for their assistance, in the effectual vindication of the laws and the protection of society: and reminded them,

their own licentious dispositions, force themselves into the peaceful retreats of our families, and, under the pretence of protecting us from the depredations of others, commit the most indecent and cruel irregularities, that the debtor, to whom the law has afforded in his house a sanctuary, cannot be secure; and the infirm and invalid, let their situation be ever so deplorable, cannot be at rest; our wives, children, and friends, will find their domestic enjoyment cease, the ultimate wish of life, retirement, done away: that the petitioners are of opinion, that the powers granted by the bill to the commissioners, of raising bodies of armed men, although limited in number, together with that of levying money to support the same, are dangerous expedients, and directly militate against the principles of the constitution: that the petitioners perceive with sorrow a certain and numerous body of their fellow-subjects obliged to submit to an ignominious distinction, and marked suspicion, by a partial registry of their names, occupations, and abodes, which regulation from any matter that has been set forth in the bill, or we can devise, we cannot but consider as oppressive and unnecessary: that the petitioners consider the clause, which includes that part of the county of Dublin within the circular road in the district of the metropolis, as highly oppressive upon the inhabitants of the county of Dublin residing therein, as it subjects them to a twofold taxation; and therefore praying to be heard by themselves, or their council, at the bar of the house against the said bill.”

that their uniform regard for the rights of their fellow subjects, and their zealous attachment to the religious and civil constitution of their country, would stimulate their attention to their inseparable interests, and would ensure their special support of the established church and the respectable situation of its ministers. He also informed them, that he had ordered a copy of the treaty of commerce with the French king to be laid before them, and he hoped, that the adoption of it in Ireland, by such laws as would be requisite to give it effect, would be attended with the most beneficial consequences to the country. These objects of recommendation formed the bulk of the business of the session.

Mr. Conolly made some observations upon that part of the address, which alluded to the disturbances in the south; he could by no means admit, that they were as extensive as represented by government. He wished not to make any reflection upon the worthy chief governor, whom, he said, he knew to be an honest man and the friend of both countries; he did not suspect him, but the administration: and against them he made the most serious, and at the same time the most important charge, that could be laid at the door of the most wicked administration. It is the more necessary to advert to the nature of this charge, as it has been almost uniformly objected from this time for wards to the measures of every administration, down to the close of the union, but with what justice, subsequent events will disclose. A charge of such intense malevolence, and of such incalculable mischief ought not to be even imagined without the strongest presumptions and grounds.* Mr. Conolly adyerted to the proclamations that had been issued, stating, that the greatest meetings ever known had been convened in the south; and that they were all in arms. Why then did not government suppress them in their infancy? Why not punish the

7 Par. Deb. p. 21. Supposing, said Mr. Conolly, that these disturbances are as extensive as have been represented, but I hope in God they are not.... supposing they are as formidable as government have represented them in their proclamations, are not the laws at present in being sufficient to restore order? They are abundantly so, if properly enforced. And hence, Sir, my suspicion is excited, when I behold administration attempting by insinuation, to establish the necessity of new laws for unnecessary purposes, or for something worse. I am convinced that had administration been active, they might have checked these disturbances in embryo. I will ask can any man entertain a doubt of it? and when they did not, what can we infer from it, but that there was some dark design in suffering them to come to maturity?

And why do I suspect administration? Because of their conduct on the propositions; when they wished to prove, and to have us believe, that the returned propositions were identically the same as the original ten, and were ready to pass them with the same alacrity and vigour, although every man in the nation was convinced, that they coerced the commerce, and invaded the constitution of this kingdom.

supineness of the magistrates, which was complained of and admitted on all hands? But he considered it as a measure to intimidate the Protestants of that kingdom, and to furnish an immediate pretext for an unconstitutional police bill. If those turbulences were not exaggerated, government was highly censurable for not having prevented them in time: if they were so, they were more criminal for having created ill-founded alarms. Mr. Longfield, who lived near Cloyne in the county of Cork, wholly disclaimed the existence of such turbulence as had been represented under the desperate auspices of a Captain Right, whence his followers were called Right Boys. He informed the house, that his demesnes bordered the town of Cloyne: that although he had heard much of these disturbances last session, he had observed nothing of them in the course of the summer: the bishop of that diocese had not applied for any military assistance, but lived quietly secure at home, in the protection of the neighbouring gentlemen. The first thing that could be called a disturbance, induced him to think government had a hand in it. Some very respectable people of Cloyne came to him, and told him that a bailiff belonging to the high sheriff had been sent amongst them, with notices to provide a quantity of arms and ammunition, and a number of horses, by the following Sunday, for the use of Captain Right. It appeared odd, that a sheriff's bailiff should be employed on such a business, and, as a magistrate, he sent for him. He confessed the fact of having served the notices, and said he was employed by Captain Right. He was desired to give information against Captain Right, which he refused; upon which the honourable member committed him to gaol, returned the bills against him, and brought persons of credit, who had sworn examinations, and were ready to prosecute; but to his astonishment, the grand jury threw out the bills. Mr. Kemmis, the crown solicitor said, he could do nothing without an order from government, and as he was not in the habit of asking favours from government, there the matter dropped.

This was the first disturbance he had heard of; the next was that Captain Right swore some of the people in his neighbourhood to observe his regulations; yet another gentleman and he, attended by a single servant, had made this formidable Captain Right a prisoner, and safely lodged him in gaol. Such being the case, there ought not to be a general charge of delinquency against the county of Cork, because some of its magistrates were supine. After what he mentioned, government sent forces down to that part of the country; two of their officers were Englishmen, one a Scotchman; the people could not be supposed to have any very great partiality for them, or

they for the people, yet they lived unmolested in good quarters, and never had occasion to be called out to quell any disturbance.

A nobleman of great talents, knowledge, experience and sagacity, had the chief command of the troops sent into the province of Munster. If they had his report, were there any way of coming at it, it would shew that none but the lowest wretches, who groaned under the most intolerable oppressions, were engaged in any disturbance. If that noble lord were present, he would make them shudder at the account of the miseries of that wretched people.

Sir James Cotter said, he came very lately from that county, and to his knowledge, great disturbances did exist, and his report was confirmed by Mr. Warren. He had often been an eye witness to the violences of the deluded people. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Longfield) who had a great estate, and lived in the midst of his tenants, with a number of servants and dependants about him, might feel no apprehension; but he, who had but a small fortune and few servants, had not, he said, for nine months last past gone to bed a single night that he was sure of rising in the morning with his life. He then related to the house an account of his having once been fired at by the insurgents, and of his being stopped by a number of armed men, who, as a very great favour, suffered him to depart unhurt.

Mr. Curran observed, that had this address been, as all addresses that he had ever read or heard of were, composed of unmeaning stuff, he should not now rise to speak to it. But it was an address, that tended to inspire the mind of the chief governor with indignation for the wretched people of that country; an address tending to impress the father of his people with the idea of their being in open revolt, to divert the royal mind from listening to the complaints of afflicted subjects, or alleviating their miseries; it was a gross invective. To say it was necessary, was adding irony to invective.

The people were oppressed, and before they poured the last drop into the vessel, and caused the waters of bitterness to overflow on them, they should well consider if the representatives of the nation had been remiss, if the magistrates throughout the kingdom had criminally been supine; let them lay the blame at the right door; cease to utter idle complaints of inevitable effects, when they themselves have been the causes. The man who would say, that the constitution in church and state was in danger, from the simple insurrection of a parcel of peasants, without order, without a head, without a leader, undisciplined, unarmed, or only partially so, he would not take to be a very wise man; and the man who would say so from any

thing, save an error in judgment, he would not take to be either a wise or an honest man.

Is it any wonder, said he, that the wretches whom woeful and long experience has taught to doubt, and with justice to doubt, the attention and relief of the legislature, wretches, that have the utmost difficulty to keep life and soul together, and who must inevitably perish, if the hand of assistance were not stretched out to them, should appear in tumult? No, Sir, it is not. Unbound to the sovereign by any proof of his affection, unbound to government by any instance of its protection, unbound to the country, or to the soil, by being destitute of any property in it, 'tis no wonder that the peasantry should be ripe for rebellion and revolt: so far from matter of surprise, it must naturally have been expected.

The supineness of the magistrates, and the low state of the commissions of the peace throughout the kingdom, but particularly in the county of Cork, should be rectified. A system of vile jobbing was one of the misfortunes of that country: it extended even to commissions of the peace: how else could the report of the four and twenty commissions of the peace, sent down to the county of Clare in one post be accounted for? Even the appointment of sheriffs was notoriously in the hands of government; and through jobbing, sheriffs themselves could not be trusted: two sheriffs ran away last year with executions in their pockets, and the late high sheriff of the county of Dublin had absconded.

He concluded by moving the following amendments, viz. "Though it is a great consolation to us to think, that these outrages have not originated in any disaffection in your ma"jesty's subjects of this kingdom to your majesty's government, "or in any concerted design of disturbing our present happy con"stitution either in church or state, but have been wholly con"fined to some individuals of the lowest class of the people, "whose extreme indigence and distress, may be the occasion, "though they cannot be a justification of such illegal proceed"ings; and it is a further consolation to us to know, that the "ordinary powers of the law now in being are fully adequate, "if duly exerted, to punish and restrain such excesses.

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"At the same time we humbly beg leave to represent to your "majesty, that the public expences of this country have en"creased to a degree so far beyond the ability of the people to bear, that we feel ourselves called upon by our duty to our "constituents, to reduce those expences by every mode of re"trenchment, consistent with such honourable and necessary support to your majesty's government, within such limits as may "be compatible with the very exhausted resources of a distress"ed people; and we do not doubt of having your majesty's