me had been forgotten at
Jonathan's and Garraway's.

Not content with prospective legislation, the Commons unanimously
determined to treat the offences which the Committee had brought to
light as high crimes against the State, and to employ against a few
cunning mercers in Nicholas Lane and the Old Jewry all the gorgeous and
cumbrous machinery which ought to be reserved for the delinquencies of
great Ministers and Judges. It was resolved, without a division, that
several Frenchmen and one Englishman who had been deeply concerned
in the contraband trade should be impeached. Managers were appointed;
articles were drawn up; preparations were made for fitting up
Westminster Hall with benches and scarlet hangings; and at one time
it was thought that the trials would last till the partridge shooting
began. But the defendants, having little hope of acquittal, and not
wishing that the Peers should come to the business of fixing the
punishment in the temper which was likely to be the effect of an
August passed in London, very wisely declined to give their lordships
unnecessary trouble, and pleaded guilty. The sentences were consequently
lenient. The French offenders were merely fined; and their fines
probably did not amount to a fifth part of the sums which they had
realised by unlawful traffic. The Englishman who had been active in
managing the escape of Goodman was both fined and imprisoned.

The progress of the woollen manufactures of Ireland excited even more
alarm and indignation than the contraband trade with France. The
French question indeed had been simply commercial. The Irish question,
originally commercial, became political. It was not merely the
prosperity of the clothiers of Wiltshire and of the West Riding that was
at stake; but the dignity of the Crown, the authority of the Parliament,
and the unity of the empire. Already might be discerned among the
Englishry, who were now, by the help and under the protection of the
mother country, the lords of the conquered island, some signs of a
spirit, feeble indeed, as yet, and such as might easily be put down by a
few resolute words, but destined to revive at long intervals, and to be
stronger and more formidable at every revival.

The person who on this occasion came forward as the champion of the
colonists, the forerunner of Swift and of Grattan, was William Molyneux.
He would have rejected the name of Irishman as indignantly as a citizen
of Marseilles or Cyrene, pro