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CHAPTER II.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The House of Commons for nearly a century previous to the Union consisted of three hundred members. Addressing that assembly on the question of Reform in 1793, Mr. Grattan thus described in its very presence its history and constitution.
"I will advert to the state of your representation; it is short. Of three hundred members above two hundred are returned by individuals, from forty to fifty are returned by ten persons; several of your boroughs have no resident elector at all; some of them have but one; and, on the whole, two-thirds of the representatives in the House of Commons are returned by less than one hundred persons." "In 1613 the members returned to Parliament were two hundred and thirty-two, since which time sixty-eight members have been added, all by the House of Stuart, one by Anne, four by James II., most of the remainder by Charles I. with a view to religious distinctions, and by Charles II. with a view to personal favour." "The form of your Constitution was twelve counties, established in the reign of King John. Henry VI 1 1, added one, Mary two, and Elizabeth seventeen, since which time your counties received
