"I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over her with an eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her, and bowing in her august presence, I say, Esto Perpetua."[141]
[121] Reg. _v._ O'Connell, p. 533. This observation was made by Mr. (afterwards Chief Justice) Whiteside in his speech in defence of Mr. (now Sir C. Gavan) Duffy, in the State Trials, 1844.
[123] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., p. 448.
[124] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 89.
[125] "Commercial Restraints," pp. 211-213.
[126] "Commercial Restraints," re-edited, with sketch of the author's life, introduction, notes, and index, by Rev. W. G. Carroll, M.A. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son.
[127] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., p. 275.
[129] "Tracts and Treatises" (Ireland), 2, p. 161.
[130] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 125.
[131] "English in Ireland," ii. 239, 240.
[132] The dissentient voice was that of Sir R. Heron, Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant.
[133] "Parliamentary Debates," 14, pp. 83-85.
[134] 20 Geo, III. (Eng.), cc. 6, 10, 18.
[135] "Eighteenth Century," iv. 500, 501. Some commercial concessions which were, however, manifestly insufficient, had been previously granted. See "Eighteenth Century," iv., pp. 429, 430, 451.
[136] Edmund Burke on "Irish Affairs," edited by M. Arnold, pp. 129, 130.
[137] "English in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 104.
[138] "An Argument for Ireland," by J. O'Connell, M.P., p. 171.
[140] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 126.
CHAPTER VI. THE COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND IRELAND, 1782-1800.
The commercial relations between England and Ireland in the interval between 1782 and 1800 should be clearly understood.
Ireland had, by the Acts of 1779 and 1780, obtained the freedom of foreign and colonial trade, both of export and of import.
By an Act of 1793, she had obtained liberty to re-export foreign and colonial goods from her own shores to England.[142]
She had, by an English Act of the same year, got the illusory privilege of having an eight-hundred-ton East Indiaman to make up a cargo for the East in her ports. But she had not free trade to the East, nor had she the admission to English ports for her goods.[143] "The practical boon," says Mr. Butt, "that was won for the Irish nation (by the Volunteers), was the right of the Parliament of Ireland to control our own harbours, and to regulate our own trade. Of course the trade of Ireland was subject to the interference which England could exercise by her dominion over the colonies and dependencies of the Imperial Crown. A law which would have prohibited the exportation of Irish goods either to England or France or Canada, would have been beyond the power of the English Parliament to pass, but it was perfectly competent to that Parliament to prohibit the importation of these goods into England or Canada, just in the same manner as the French Government might have prohibited their importation into France. The English Parliament was the supreme legislature for England and the colonies, and had just the same power of legislating against the importation of Irish products, as they would have had against those of Holland or of France."