against it. He showed that the {177} measure would, alter the
whole constitutional position of the House of Lords, whether as a
legislative chamber or a court of appeal. "The restraint of the Peers
to a certain number will make the most powerful of them have all the
rest under their direction, . . . and judges so made by the blind order
of birth will be capable of no other way of decision." The
prerogative, as Steele put it very clearly, "can do no hurt when
ministers do their duty; but a settled number of Peers may abuse their
power when no man is answerable for them, or can call them to account
for their encroachments." The Bill was rejected by a majority of 269
votes against 177.

In March, 1720, was passed an Act with a pompous and even portentous
title: it was called "An Act for the better securing the Dependency of
the Kingdom of Ireland upon the Crown of Great Britain." The preamble
recited that "attempts have been lately made to shake off the
subjection of Ireland unto and dependence upon the Imperial Crown of
this realm, which will be of dangerous consequence to Great Britain and
Ireland." The reader would naturally assume that some fresh designs of
the Stuarts had been discovered, having for their theatre the Catholic
provinces of Ireland. Was James Stuart about to land at Kinsale? Had
Alberoni got hold of the Irish Catholics? Was Atterbury plotting with
Swift for an armed insurrection in Munster and Connaught? No; nothing
of the kind was expected. The preamble of the alarming Act went on to
set forth that the House of Lords in Ireland had lately, "against law,
assumed to themselves a power and jurisdiction to examine, correct, and
amend the judgments and decrees of the courts of justice in the kingdom
of Ireland;" and this alleged trespass of the Irish House of Lords was
the whole cause of the new measure. The Act declared that the Irish
House of Lords had no jurisdiction "to judge of, affirm, or reverse any
judgment, sentence, or decree given or made in any court within the
said kingdom." This was an enactment of the most serious {178} moment
in a constitutional sense. It made the Parliament of Ireland
subordinate to the Parliament of England; it reduced the Irish House of
Lords from a position in Ireland equal to that of the House of Lords in
England, down to the level of a mere provincial assembly. The occasion
of the passing of this Act was the decision given by the Irish House of
Lords in