r pleasure, acts passed as well to the dishonour of
the prince, as to the hindrance of their subjects" ("Irish Statutes,"
vol. i., p. 346).

"By Poyning's Law," says Lecky, "a great part of the independence of
the Irish Parliament had indeed been surrendered; but even the servile
Parliament which passed it, though extending by its own authority to
Ireland laws previously enacted in England, never admitted the right of
the English Parliament to make laws for Ireland." ("Hist. Ireland," vol.
ii., p. 154; 1892 ed). [T.S.]]

The Report farther asserts, that "the precedents are many, wherein cases
of great importance to Ireland, and that immediately affected the
interests of that kingdom, warrants, orders, and directions by the
authority of the King and his predecessors, have been issued under the
royal sign manual, without any previous reference or advice of His
Majesty's officers of Ireland, which have always had their due force,
and have been punctually complied with, and obeyed." It may be so, and I
am heartily sorry for it, because it may prove an eternal source of
discontent. However among all these precedents there is not one of a
patent for coining money for Ireland.

There is nothing hath perplexed me more than this doctrine of
precedents. If a job is to be done, and upon searching records you find
it hath been done before, there will not want a lawyer to justify the
legality of it, by producing his precedents, without ever considering
the motives and circumstances that first introduced them, the necessity
or turbulence or iniquity of times, the corruptions of ministers, or the
arbitrary disposition of the prince then reigning. And I have been told
by persons eminent in the law, that the worst actions which human nature
is capable of, may be justified by the same doctrine. How the first
precedents began of determining cases of the highest importance to
Ireland, and immediately affecting its interest, without any previous
reference or advice to the King's officers here, may soon be accounted
for. Before this kingdom was entirely reduced by the submission of
Tyrone in the last year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, there was a period
of four hundred years, which was a various scene of war and peace
between the English pale and the Irish natives, and the government of
that part of this island which lay in the English hands, was, in many
things under the immediate administration of the King. Silver and copper
were often co