C. 10, the Act of Supply; c. 25, Martial Law, and this Act, c. 29, were a code of defence. The supply was proportioned to their abilities: every exertion was made, and all efforts were needed. Plowden puts the effect of this c. 29 not ill:—
"Although James were averse from passing the acts I have already mentioned, he probably encouraged another which passed for the advance and improvement of trade and for encouragement and increase of shipping and navigation, which purported to throw open to Ireland a free and immediate trade with all our plantations and colonies; to promote ship-building, by remitting to the owners of Irish-built vessels large proportions of the duties of custom and excise, encourage seamen by exempting them for ten years from taxes, and allowing them the freedom of any city or seaport they should chuse to reside in, and improve the Irish navy by establishing free schools for teaching and instructing in the mathematics and the art of navigation, in Dublin, Belfast, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. If James looked up to any probability of maintaining his ground in Ireland he must have been sensible of the necessity of an Irish navy. No man was better qualified to judge of the utility of such institutions than this prince. He was an able seaman, fond of his profession; and to his industry and talent does the British navy owe many of its best signals and regulations. The firmness, resolution and enterprise which had distinguished him, whilst Duke of York, as a sea officer, abandoned him when king, both in the cabinet and the field."
Thus, then, this Parliament exercised less severity than any of its time; it established liberty of conscience and equality of creeds; it proscribed no man for his religion—the word Protestant does not occur in any Act—(though, while it sat, the Westminster Convention was not only thundering out insults against "popery," but exciting William to persecute it, and laying the foundation of the penal code); it introduced many laws of great practical value in the business of society; it removed the disabilities of the natives, the scars of old fetters; it was generous to the king, yet carried its own opinions out against his where they differed; it, finally—and what should win the remembrance and veneration of Irishmen through all time—it boldly announced our national independence, in words which Molyneux shouted on to Swift, and Swift to Lucas, and Lucas to Flood, and Flood and Grattan redoubling the cry; Dungannon church rang, and Ireland was again a nation. Yet something it said escaped the hearing or surpassed the vigour of the last century; it said, "Irish commerce fostered," and it was faintly heard, but it said, "an Irish navy to shield our coasts," and it said, "an Irish army to scathe the invaders," and Grattan neglected both, and our coast had no guardian, and our desecrated fields knew no avenger.
We have printed the king's speech at the opening of this eventful parliament, the titles of all its Acts, and all the statutes summarized in full detail which we could in any way procure—sufficient, we think, with the scattered notices of the chief members, to make the working of this Parliament plain. We are conscious of many defects in our information and way of treating the subject; but we commenced by avowing that we were not professors but students of Irish history; trying to come at some clear understanding on a most important part of it, communicating our difficulties and offering our solutions, as they occurred to us, in hopes that some of our countrymen would take up the same study, and do as much or more than we have done, and possibly that one of those accomplished historians, of which Ireland now has a few, would take the helm from us, and guide the ship himself.
We have no reason to suppose that we succeeded in either object; yet we cling to the belief that, owing to us, some few persons will for the future be found who will not allow the calumnies against our noble old Parliament of 1689 to pass uncontradicted. It might have been better, but this is well.
II.
Literary and Historical Essays.
MEANS AND AIDS TO SELF-EDUCATION.