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. 

 James's 

 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 £200 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 and cannon roared. Our greatest soldiers, M'Carthy and Tyrconnell, and, indeed, most of the Colonels of the Irish regiments, sat in Lords or Commons;—not that the Crown brought in stipendiary soldiers, but that the Senate were fearless patriots, who were ready to fight as well as to plan for Ireland. Theirs was no qualified preference for freedom if it were lightly won—they did not prefer 'Bondage with ease to strenuous liberty.' 

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