ts. If the base influence of the Executive allied itself
with the patriotic party, everything might be hoped. For we must bear in
mind not only the direct influence of this expenditure on those who were
in possession, but the enormous power of expectancy on those who were
not. Conversely, when the Government were determined to do wrong, there
were no means commonly available of forcing it to do right, in any
matter that touched either religious bigotry or selfish interest. With
so miserable an apparatus, and in the face of the ever-wakeful Executive
sustained by British power, it is rather wonderful how much than how
little was effected. I am not aware of a single case in which a measure
on behalf of freedom was proposed by British agency, and rejected by
the Irish Parliament. On the other hand, we have a long list of the
achievements of that Parliament due to a courage and perseverance which
faced and overcame a persistent English opposition. Among other
exploits, it established periodical elections, obtained the writ of
Habeas Corpus, carried the independence of the judges, repealed the Test
Act, limited the abominable expenditure on pensions, subjected the
acceptance of office from the crown to the condition of re-election, and
achieved, doubtless with the powerful aid of the volunteers, freedom of
trade with England, and the repeal of Poynings's Act, and of the British
Act of 1719.[96]

All this it did without the manifestation, either within the walls or
among the Roman Catholic population, of any disposition to weaken the
ties which bound Ireland to the empire. All this it did; and what had
the British Parliament been about during the same period, with its
vastly greater means both of self-defence and of action? It had been
building up the atrocious criminal code, tampering in the case of Wilkes
with liberty of election, and tampering with many other liberties;
driving, too, the American Colonies into rebellion, while, as to good
legislation, the century is almost absolutely blank, until between 1782
and 1793 we have the establishment of Irish freedom, the economical
reform of Mr. Burke, the financial reforms of Mr. Pitt, the new libel
law of Mr. Fox, and the legislative constitution of Canada, in which
both these great statesmen concurred.

But we have not yet reached the climax of Irish advancement. When, in
1782 and 1783, the legislative relations of the two countries were
fundamentally rectified by the formal