tance of
the one acknowledges a foreign supremacy, and in the instance of the
other anathematizes the religion--is one of the grossest acts that
faction ever committed, or that feebleness in government ever complied
with. Self-defence is the first instinct of nature; the defence of the
constitution is the first duty of society; the defence of our religion
is an essential act of obedience to Heaven. Yet the permission given to
individuals, hostile to both, to make laws for either, was the second
triumph at which Irish action aimed, and which English impolicy finally
conceded.

As an evidence of the royal satisfaction at the arrangements adopted by
the lords and commons of Ireland, the king founded an order of
knighthood, by the title of the Knights of the Illustrious Order of St
Patrick, of which the king and his heirs were to be sovereigns in
perpetuity, and the viceroys grand masters. The patent stated as the
general ground of this institution, "that it had been the custom of wise
and beneficent princes of all ages to distinguish the virtue and loyalty
of their subjects by marks of honour, as a testimony to their dignity,
and excellency in all qualifications which render them worthy of the
favour of their sovereign, and the respect of their fellow-subjects;
that so their eminent merits may stand acknowledged to the world, and
create a virtuous emulation in others to deserve such honourable
distinctions." All this may be true, and marks of honour are undoubtedly
valuable; but they can be only so in instances where distinguished
services have been rendered, and where the public opinion amply
acknowledges such services. Yet, in the fifteen knights of this order
appointed in the first instance, there was not the name of any one man
known by public services except that of the Earl of Charlemont, an
amiable but a feeble personage, who had commanded the volunteers of
Ireland. The Earl of Mornington was one of those, and he had but just
come into public life, at the age of three-and-twenty; before he had
done any one public act which entitled him to distinction, and when all
his political merits were limited to having taken his seat in the House
of Lords.

In the course of the year we find the young lord occupying something of
a neutral ground in the House, and objecting to the profusion of the
Irish government in grants of money for public improvements; those
grants which we see still about to be given, which are always cla