S'S time. "There's a specimen," they said, "of
what an Irish Government would be--unruly, rash, rapacious, and
bloody." But the King, Lords, and Commons of 1689, when looked at
honestly, present a sight to make us proud and hopeful for Ireland.
Attached as they were to their King, their first act was for Ireland.
They declared that the English Parliament had not, and never had, any
right to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King and
Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind Ireland.

In 1698, just nine years after, while the acts of this great Senate
were fresh, Molyneux published his _case of Ireland_, that case which
Swift argued, and Lucas urged, and Flood and Grattan, at the head of
70,000 Volunteers, carried, and England ratified against her will.
Thus, then, the idea of 1782 is to be found full grown in 1689. The
pedigree of our freedom is a century older than we thought, and Ireland
has another Parliament to be proud of.

That Parliament, too, established religious equality. It anticipated
more than 1782. The voluntary system had no supporters then, and that
patriot Senate did the next best thing: they left the tithes of the
Protestant People to the Protestant Minister, and of the Catholic
People to the Catholic Priest. Pensions not exceeding L200 a year were
given to the Catholic Bishops. And no Protestant Prelates were deprived
of stipend or honour--they held their incomes, and they sat in the
Parliament. They enforced perfect liberty of conscience; nor is there
an Act of theirs which could inform one ignorant of Irish faction to
what creed the majority belonged. Thus for its moderation and charity
this Parliament is an honour and an example to the country.

While on the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the
Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all
innocent persons--while they strained every nerve to exclude the
English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish--while they
introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus
showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the People,
they were not unfit to grapple with the great military crisis. They
voted large supplies; they endeavoured to make a war-navy; the leading
members allowed nothing but their Parliamentary duties to interfere
with their recruiting, arming, and training of troops. They were no
timorous pedants, who shook and made homilies when sabres flashed a