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in that kingdom, to address his Majesty on the great increase of pensions on the Irish establishment, amounting to the sum of 158,685 l.----in the last two years.
Attempts have been made to gloss over these gross encroachments, by this specious argument----“That expending a competent part of the public revenue in pensions, from a principle of charity or generosity, adds to the dignity of the crown; and is therefore useful to the public.” To give this argument any weight, it must appear, that the pensions proceed from “charity or generosity only”----and that it “adds to the dignity of the crown,” to act directly contrary to law.----
From this conduct towards Ireland, in open violation of law, we may easily foresee what we may expect, when a minister will have the whole revenue of America in his own hands, to be disposed of at his own pleasure: For all the monies raised by the late act are to be “applied by virtue of warrants under the sign manual, countersigned by the high treasurer, or any three of the commissioners of the treasury.” The “residue” indeed is to be “paid into the receipt of the exchequer, and to be disposed of by parliament.” So that a minister will have nothing to do, but to take care, that there shall be no “residue,” and he is superior to all controul.
Besides the burden of pensions in Ireland, which have enormously encreased within these few years, almost all the offices in that poor kingdom, have been, since the commencement of the present century, and now are bestowed upon strangers. For tho’ the merit of persons born there, justly raises them to places of high trust when they go abroad, as all Europe can witness, yet he is an uncommonly lucky Irishman, who can get a good post in his native country.
When I consider the[1] manner in which that island has been uniformly depressed for so many years past, with this pernicious
- ↑ In Charles the second’s time, the house of commons, influenced by some factious demagogues, were resolved to prohibit the importation of Irish cattle into England. Among other arguments in favor of Ireland it was insisted----“That by cutting off almost entirely the trade between the kingdoms, all the natural bands of union were dissolved, and nothing remained to keep the Irish in their duty, but force and violence.”
“The king (says Mr. Hume, in his history of England) was so convinced of the justness of these reasons, that he used all his interest to oppose the bill, and he openly declared, that he could not give his assent to it with a safe conscience. But the commons were resolute in their purpose.”----“And the spirit of tyranny, of which nations are as susceptible as individuals, had animated the English extremely to exert their superiority over their dependent state. No affair could be conducted with greater violence than this by the commons. They even went so far in the preamble of the bill, as to declare the importation of Irish cattle to be a nusance. By this expression they gave scope to their passion, and at the same time barred the king’s prerogative, by which he might think himself intitled to dispense with a law, so full
