466 Anne. Distresses of the country. Five' viscounts were advanced to earldoms, seven barons to be viscounts, and eighteen new barons were created on the same day. Ministerial majorities in parliament, however, could not conceal the distress of the nation, which was perpetually augmented by decreasing trade and increasing expenditure. In Dublin the manufacturers would have perished but for contributions and charity. Such was the poverty of the nation that the militia law could not be carried into effect. Ireland could not pay her forces abroad, and was obliged to borrow money from England to pay those at home. Excluded by war from America, where they had formerly found an extensive market, the manufacture of Irish linen sustained a severe decline. Thus, while the influx of money was precluded on the one hand, the efflux of it was accelerated by augmented remittances and the interest of a rapidly increasing national debt. One cause of this increasing debt was the decided part taken by France with America against England, in consequence of which, when it was communicated to the Irish comnons by Lord Buckinghamshire, a motion was immediately made for an address of thanks, followed by a resolution and an order to raise 300,000l. by a tontine at 61. per cent. The pa triots contended that the country was too poor to raise this loan; the government was confident on the other side. The former were right, however, for the scheme failed. 2 Hostility of the English and Scotch merchants. 467 So forcibly evident were the distresses of Ire-t land, that, on the motion of Earl Nugent in April, 1778, in a committee of the British house of commons, to take into consideration the acts of parliament relative to the Irish trade, resolutions were passed, that, with the exception only of wool and woollen manufactures, the Irish might be permitted to export directly to the foreign plantations of Great Britain all sorts of merchandize the property of the British islands, and foreign goods, legally imported and certified; to import directly, except tobacco, the products of those plantations; and to export glass to any place except Great Britain. Alarmed at these resolutions, the mercantile people of Britain, with all the illiberality and ignorance characteristic of trade, sent petitions to parliament, and instructions to their representatives to oppose the extension of Irish trade. The towns of Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow were foremost in this sordid hostility. to the just claims of Ireland; and so zealous were they in the dishonourable warfare, that the tone and language of their petitions seemed almost to threaten disloyalty if government conceded the proposed indulgence to Ireland. The illiberality of these petitioners is exhibited by their proceedings, and requires no comment; their ignorance the following will testify. Mr. Burke had moved, that sailcloth might be imported into this kingdom duty free. The motion passed nem. con. But the petitioners declared that the permission to export 1 468 Concession to the Catholics. wrought iron and sailcloth from Ireland to Britain would be ruinous to the trade of the latter, when Ireland was well known to be, by positive law, in actual possession of this very privilege, but so far from being able to avail herself of it, she was in great part furnished with these articles from Britain. Such influence, however, had these representations on parliament that they ultimately negatived the bill founded on their own resolutions, and only a few trivial privileges were conceded. At the time the English house of commons was Occupied with considering the distressed condition of the Irish trade, a relaxation of the penal statutes against the catholics was also proposed. The policy of relaxing this penal code was acknowledged on all hands, and not one voice was raised in the cabinet or the senate against the emphatic declaration of Burke, on Lord Nugent's first motion for a committee," that Ireland was now the chief dependence of the British crown, and that it particularly behoved this country to admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British citizens " A bill for the relief of the British ca tholics had passed through parliament without opposition, and eleven days after, on the 25th March, 1778, leave was moved by Mr. Gardiner in the Irish house of commons for heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's Roman catholic subjects of Ireland; and it was carried in the affirmative. Concession to the Catholics. 469 The preamble of Mr. Gardiner's act asserted, that the severities of the act of Anne ought to be relaxed; that the catholics of Ireland were excluded from, and ought to be admitted to, the blessings of our free constitution; and that it would promote the prosperity and strength of all his majesty's dominions that the catholics should be bounden to the protestants by mutual interest and affection. The purport of the act was, that any catholic, subscribing the oath of allegiance and declaration prescribed by the 13th and 14th Geo. III. c. 35, might take, enjoy, and dispose of a lease of 999 years certain, or determinable on the dropping of five lives; that the lands then possessed by catholics should in future be descendible, deviseable, or alienable, as fully as if they were in the possession of any other subject of his majesty; and that it should no longer be in the power of a child to fly in the face of his parent by demanding a present maintenance out of the father's personal estate, or by depriving him totally of the inheritance of his real estate, as he before had been enabled to do by the 2d Anne. After a very severe contest of eight divisions it was carried through the commons by a majority of nine. In the lords it was carried by a majority of two-thirds. The session closed in August (1778), and thus was achieved the first important concession to the persecuted catholic. May we, before we conclude this history, have · |