In 1695, a new parliament was assembled, which, among other things, explained and confirmed the act of settlement, and confirmed the articles of Limerick, but not without such modifications and alterations as were by no means conso nant to their spirit, and therefore were not justifiable : this parliament also passed some penal statutes against the Ca tholics. The great majority of its members were by no means disposed to question the authority of the English parliament ; but some of the members of the commons stood resolutely up, not merely for the independence of the Irish upon the English parliament, but even for the inde pendence of the kingdom of Ireland upon the kingdom of England. These doctrines were maintained with great spirit, acuteness, and reason, in a work published by Mr. Molyneux, one of the members from the university of Dub lin, which so incensed the English House of Commons, that it was burnt by the common hangman.
So jealous and sensitively alive did the English govern ment appear to be to the rivalship of Ireland in manufac tures, that whenever, by being rendered tranquil, she was in a state to carry them on, it immediately interfered to in jure such kinds of manufacture, as could in the smallest. degree compete with those of England. Against the wool len manufacture their decrees were most violent and fre quent ; and the linen manufacture, which the English go vernment professed to encourage, was suffered to languish, till formidable rivals to it arose both in England and Scot land. The climate of Ireland, and the richness of her pas tures, especially near the Shannon, pointed out the rearing and fattening of cattle, as her most proper and profitable species of agriculture ; and yet embargoes were laid on the exportation of Irish provisions. In short, Ireland was treat ed not only as a conquered country, bet as a country so formed by nature, that if left to itself, it must unavoidably get the start of England ; and these two considerations, in the opinion of the English government, appeared to justify its conduct towards her.
William, in his conduct towards Ireland, does not de serve so much censure as the English parliament, which forced these measures upon him ; they were jealous of al most every thing he did ; sometimes because they thought the liberties of the people might be injured, but more fre quently from regard to their own privileges. In order to reward some of his favourites, the king had made several grants of the forfeited estates in Ireland ; this displeased the English parliament, which passed a bill to resume these grants, on the ground that they ought to have dis posed of them, and that the money they produced ought to have gone to the public ; and the king most reluctantly was obliged to give his assent to this bill, and thus annul his own measure.
The reign of Queen Anne, so far as it regards Ireland, was distinguished principally by the severe penal statutes which were passed in the Irish parliament against the Ca tholics. It never seems to have occurred, that excessive severity only tended to increase the bigotry and ignorance against which it was directed, and that mild measures, aid ed by endeavours to enlighten the Catholics, and adopted in the spirit of charity, without a constant reference to the state of Ireland as a conquered country, would much more effectually have promoted the object which the British government, and, under their influence, the Irish parlia ment, professed to have in view. But, besides the irrita
tion which was thus produced among the Irish Catholics, the Irish nation in general were constantly reminded, in the most galling and unnecessary manner, of the dependence of their parliament upon that of England ; and the violence of party—always great in Ireland, was augmented by the English government, to serve the paltry purposes of poli tical intrigue.
In the year 1719, a circumstance occurred which point ed out the pertinacity with which the British parliament were resolved to crush every symptom of an independent spirit in the parliament of Ireland. It was necessary to take the judges' opinion, whether, by the laws of the land, an appeal could be made from the Court of Exchequer in Ireland to the King in Parliament in Great Britain. The answer was in tne negative. This point afterwards came before the British House of Peers, who were highly indig nant at the determination of the question, and at the conduct of the Irish Peers, in resolving to support the indepen dence of their country ; they even brought in a bill, which passed into a law, entitled an Act for the Better Securing the Dependency of Ireland on the Crown of Great Britain, in which the British Parliament was declared to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the people of the kingdom of Ire land.
In 1724, Swift distinguished himself by the Drapier's letters, the object of which was to point out the consequen ces that would result from a patent granted to a man of the name of Wood, for supplying Ireland with a copper coinage. Such was the ferment occasioned by these let ters, that the patent was revoked next year. It is now pretty well ascertained that Swift was not the patriot he was then considered, and that Wood's coinage (though the granting him a monopoly was improper and unjust) would by no means have been the source of profit to himself, or so prejudicial to the people, as was represented in the Dra pier's letters. But Ireland, at this period, was admirably adapted 'to be the scene of every kind of political impos ture and intrigue. She was miserably governed ; her in terests were never consulted, but always sacrificed either to the interests of England, or, what was worse, and more provoking, to the interests of such individuals as the Bri tish ministry wished to oblige. The viceroy only came over once in two years : The effective power was with the lords justices, and their time and thoughts were occupied in forwarding the plans of the British cabinet, and promot ing their own private interests.