THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For DECEMBER, 1795. ART. 1. An Hiftorical Differtation upon the Origin, Sufpenfion, and Revival of the Judicature and Independency of the Irish Parliament. With a Narrative of the Transactions in 1719, relative to the cele brated declaratory Law; extracted from the Papers of the late Earl of Egmont; and a Comment on his Lordship's Opinion, upon the Legislative Union of thefe Kingdoms. To which is annexed the Standing Orders of the Houfe of Lords. Transcribed from a Copy printed by Authority the 11th of Feb. 1790. Accurately compared with the leading Cafes; the Dates and Caufes of their Origin, Construction, and Application, extracted from the Journals of Parliament in Great Britain and Ireland. By Hervey Vifcount Mountmorres, F. R. S. and M. R. I. A. 8vo. 3s. 6d. fewed. Debrett. 1795. WE have more than once offered our tribute of merited praise to Lord Mountmorres. While frivolity and diffipation mark the conduct of fo many others of the patrician order, it gives us pleasure to find that his pursuits have for their objects the inftruction and the happiness of mankind. His intentions being thus humane and generous, though we cannot always commend the means that he employs in fuch laudable purposes, we feel ourselves bound not to treat them with harshness. PP. 111. Lord M. may probably deem it an honour to have been born in Ireland: but, to a man of his liberal mind, that circumftance was unquestionably a misfortune. In no other country does truth find it fo difficult to make its way on certain points: prejudice feems to have fixed there its favourite refidence, and to have involved fome particular topics in fuch mifts of error, as to blind and deceive even the most liberal men; who are found combating under its banners, at the very time when they fondly imagine that they are fupporting the cause of truth. Lord M. undoubtedly means well, but Irifh prejudices ftill hang about him: fome of them indeed he has caft away; and perhaps we might take fome credit to ourselves, as having been the inftruments of his political converfion in one inftance. VOL. XVIII. Some С с Some time ago, in one of his publications, he contended that the exclufion of Catholics from both houfes of parliament ought to be maintained as the palladium of the conftitution of Ireland. We took the liberty of attacking the principle of that exclufion, and of fhewing that it was completely unneceffary to the end for which it was faid to have been adopted, viz. the fupport of the Proteftant establishment in Ireland. We did not aim fo hard a blow at prejudice as to fhew how politically prepofterous and abfurd fuch an eftablishment was, in a kingdom circumftanced as that was; we contented ourselves with quoting the authority of hiftory to shew that, from the period of the reformation, or more particularly from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of King William, Catholics not only were not incapable of fitting in parliament, but that many of them actually did fit in both houfes, the Proteftant ftill continuing the established religion of the country: we fpeak not of periods of war and confufion, fuch as thofe which occurred in the days of Charles 1. when the Catholics, confederated at Kilkenny. Lord M. on a review of his opinion refpecting the exclufion in queftion, appears to have completely abandoned it as untenable, and as incompatible with hiftorical truth. We with that his Lordship, for his own fake, had done it in a more manly manner, becaufe we with that he had not let flip an opportunity of doing himself great honour; for, in our judgment, nothing can be more honourable to a liberal-minded man, than a public abjuration of an error, as foon as he is convinced of it. We fhall have occafion to refume this fubject, when we come to a particular part of the work before us. What we have already faid about prejudice is extremely applicable even to his Lordfhip's dedicatory addrefs to the Marquis Cornwallis, which he has prefixed to his Differtation. He there launches out into the most unbounded praise of a nobleman from whom the truly noble Marquis is defcended, and who has been emphatically called the great Duke of Ormond. It is furely in the annals of party alone, that our author could have difcovered grounds for his lofty panegyric of this celebrated Duke. The praife of talents, indeed, cannot be denied to him but the ufe to which he applied them was fufficient to damn them, had they been ten times greater. It had long been the fashion to admire, nay to idolize him: but history has ftripped him of thofe plumes, and holds him up as a man true to a particular party, not to the general interefts of his country; of doubtful loyalty to his fovereign, but of fteady attention to the accumulation of wealth. His eftate in 1641 did not exceed 7000l. a year, and was then faddled with mortgages and with the jointure of his mother, Lady Thurles :-but, after the refto ration, ration, it was fwelled to an enormous fize by inordinate grants from the crown, fuch as a faithful fervant and honeft patriot would not have been forward to accept, and would have ad- ` vifed his royal mafter not to bestow. Had this hero of the prefent eulogium been what Lord M. reprefents him, a mirror of patriotism and loyalty,-poffibly, perhaps probably, he might have preferved his unfortunate fovereign from the block:-but, in ferving his king, he must have taken into the protection of the law a vast body of men, who had immenfe property to lofe, and which, in cafe of a cordial, treaty, must have been fecured from confifcation. The unfortunate Charles was extremely willing to confent to meafures, which would have quieted the minds of men in Ireland, reftored tranquillity to that distracted kingdom, and procured a military reinforcement which might have given him a chance of preventing his own ignominious execution, and the extinction of royalty in England, by enabling him to conclude a treaty with his parliament, which fhould clearly afcertain the true bounds of the conftitution, and fecure to the crown and to the people their respective rights and privileges :-but the Duke of Ormond thwarted him in the bufinefs; and he, who for fuch a length of time. refused to treat with, or trifled with, the king's friends, found no difficulty in treating with the avowed enemies of his fovereign, and furrendering to them the government of Ireland; as if it were fafer in the hands of the parliamentarians, than in those of the avowed fupporters of the royal cause and of a constitutional monarchy. This furrender, he could not but know, would blaft his mafter's hopes, and deluge his country with blood yet he made it! Who will not, after this, be surprised to find that Lord M. fhould have fingled out this excellent nobleman as a mirror of patriotifm and loyalty? We think that his Lordship was uncommonly unlucky in bringing within the fame point of view the Duke of Ormond's adminiftration in Ireland, and that of his illuftrious defcendant, the prefent Marquis Cornwallis, in Hindoftan; for furely no two administrations form more complete contrafts to each other. One maintained a bloody war, carried on in the face of justice; a war into which the great bulk of the land-owners of the country were driven for the prefervation of their eftates, which they faw the minifters of government tearing from them after ages of poffeffion, on a pretence that the titles were defective: thofe titles the king was willing to confirm, and the parliament of Ireland was as willing to concur with him in the act: but the Lords Juttices fruftrated the royal intention, and the people, driven to despair, broke out into exceffes which the good difpofition of the king, had it been fuffered to operate, would have prevented. Proclamations of pardon indeed were iffued by the Lords Juftices, then in the intereft of the long parliament: but the pardon was limited to fuch as were not freebolders; for, had it not been thus limited, it might have deftroyed the harveft of confifcations to which thefe iniquitous governors were looking. The confequences were fuch as might have been and no doubt were foreseen the fword was drawn, and the fcabbard thrown away. It was under such rulers that Ormond began his career; it was under fuch aufpices that he first ferved; and thus did he contribute to let loofe the horrors of war in a devoted country, which might with a word, with one act of justice, have been foothed into peace. Not fuch was the conduct of his defcendant, the illuftrious Cornwallis. He drew the fword in India to prevent the invafion of property; to maintain the Rajah of Travancore in the poffeffion of his eftates, of part of which, at leaft, Tippoo wanted to difpoffefs him. It was not the wellbeing of merely a part of the people under his government, of this or that favoured caft of men, that the Marquis ftudied to promote he viewed all with the eye of a father, and to all he extended a father's care: inftead of founding the hopes of revenue on infecure or defective titles, he laboured to cut up fuch hopes by the root; and he ceafed not till he procured the adoption of a fyftem, which has confirmed to the landholders of British-India the quiet and undisturbed poffeffion of their lands, as long as they fulfil the covenants specified in the deed by which they hold them. Ormond left Ireland amid the execrations of the loyalifts; and when he again returned to it, he contrived to make himself perhaps the most opulent fubject in the king's dominions. Lord Cornwallis left India loaded with the bleffings of every defcription of men, and came back to England richer than when he left it, only in reputation. His principles refpecting the country under his government were noble, juft, and humane; they were his own; or if they were hereditary, it certainly was not from the Duke of Ormond that they defcended. From that duke he indeed derived a noble and royal defcent: but he has reflected on him infinitely more honour than he ever could have inherited from him. In his introduction to the work, Lord M. fays that Though the apparent defign of this compilation is to trace the origin, fufpenfion, and revival of the jurifdiction of the Irish Parlia ment; a fubject however interefting it might have been in 1782, now of lefs moment, because it is no longer a queftion of novelty: yet, it will be found to lead to a differtation of the greatest importance, that naturally fprings from the fources of information, of which the author author has been poffeffed; viz. the legislative incorporation of Great Britain and Ireland.' An union between England and Ireland is a measure of immenfe importance to both, and ought to occupy the thoughts of the best informed men in the two kingdoms. Should it ever be a fubject of difcuffion in the two legiflatures, we fear it will not be debated coolly and rationally, but that paffion and prejudice will have too much influence on the decifion, If Lord M. really entertains hopes that an union may be effected, he is more fanguine than we are. The period, we think, is gone by, the occasion has been loft, and we apprehend that it will never occur again, until an event fhall have taken place, which on various accounts every man ought to deplore and deprecate, a bloody war in Ireland, fuccefsfully terminated by British arms, and ending in the complete conqueft of that kingdom. Chap. 1ft of this work treats of the jurifdiction of the Irish parliament, and gives an account of the origin, progress, fufpenfion, and renewal of the Appellant Jurifdiction of the House of Lords of Ireland. There being now no difpute about the jurisdiction of the Irish parliament, and the fupreme judicial authority of its House of Peers, this chapter can be interesting only to Antiquaries, whom the noble Lord improperly calls Antiquarians. It may not be amifs, however, to correct fome hiftorical mistakes, and to point out fome errors which might not have been expected in an author of Lord Mountmorres's accuracy and reading. He takes for his guides Sir Edward Coke, Sir John Davis, and the Lord Chancellor Euftace; men who poffeffed great knowlege of law, but, with fubmiffion be it faid, they are not recognized as authorities in matters of hiftory. Coke knew little of Ireland; Davis knew more, but he was a novus homo there, and moft certainly was not acquainted with many important tranfactions which had taken place in that country above 400 years before his time. Lord M. ftates that Sir John Davis, in his fpeech as fpeaker of the Irish parliament in 1313 (this date is by an error of the prefs, we prefume, given for 1613,) afferts that the first parliament, regularly convened in Ireland, was in the declining years of Edward II. Might not a man, who was unacquainted with the hiftory of that monarch, be led by the expreffion "declining years" to think that he died in an advanced age? when in reality he was cut off in the very vigour of manhood, in his 43d year. · The noble Lord farther makes Sir John Davis affert, as a general propofition, that, before that period, Ireland was reprefented in the English parliament.' The fpeaker difplayed, Cc 3 on |