ame Lord North's government had ceased to exist, and
had been replaced by Lord Rockingham's, one most influential member of
which was the most distinguished of living Irishmen, Mr. Burke, who,
while in opposition, had always shown himself a warm supporter of the
claims of his countrymen, and was not likely to have his ardor in the
cause damped by being placed in a situation where he could procure a
friendly hearing to his counsels. Once more they had increased their
demands, requiring, besides the removal of the purely political
grievances, a surrender of the right of appeal from the Irish to the
English courts of law. But their new masters were inclined to grant
everything which seemed requisite to the establishment of complete
equality between the two kingdoms; and though the new ministry was
dissolved in a few months by the premature death of its chief, he lived
long enough to carry the repeal of Poynings' Act, the retention of which
was now admitted to be not only senseless but mischievous, since the
existence of a body invested with nominal dignity, but practically
powerless, was calculated not only to provoke discontent, but to furnish
a lever for agitation.

The repeal was, however, nothing less than the establishment of an
entirely new constitution in Ireland. The Irish Parliament, the meetings
of which had hitherto been a mere form and farce, was installed in a
position of absolute independence, to grant money or to make laws,
subject to no other condition than that their legislation should be of a
character to entitle it to the royal assent, a condition to which every
act of the British Parliament was likewise and equally liable.
"Unhappily, as an Irish patriotic writer exclaims on this occasion, it
was written in the book of fate that the felicity of Ireland should be
short-lived."[129] And a similar shortness of existence was to be the
lot of the separate independence of her Parliament. Even while framing
instructions for the Lord-lieutenant, in his honest desire to inaugurate
a system of just government for Ireland, George III. had warned him on
no account to "summon a Parliament without his special command."[130]
And, regarded by the light of subsequent events, it can hardly be denied
that the prohibition displayed an accurate insight into the real
difficulties of the country, and also into the character of the people
themselves as the source of at least some of those difficulties. We
ought not to judge it