less complacency, and, at the general election which was the consequence of the accession of George III., pledges were very generally exacted from the candidates that, if elected, they would endeavor to procure the passing of a septennial act like that which had been the law in England ever since the early years of George I. A bill with that object was introduced in 1761, and reported on not unfavorably as to its principle by the English law advisers to whom the Privy Council referred it.  But, as if it had been designed to exemplify in the strongest possible manner the national propensity for making blunders, it contained one clause which rendered it not only impracticable but ridiculous.  The clause provided that no member should take his seat or vote till his qualification had been proved before the Speaker in a full house.  But the Speaker could not be chosen till the members had established their right of voting, so that the whole was brought to a dead-lock, and the bill, if passed, could never have been carried out.

In the ministry of 1767, however—­that of the Duke of Grafton and Lord Chatham—­Lord Halifax was replaced at Dublin Castle by Lord Townsend, who, among his other good qualities, deserves specially honorable mention as the first Lord-lieutenant who made residence in Dublin his rule on principle; for till very lately non-residence had been the rule and residence the exception, a fact which is of itself a melancholy but all-sufficient proof of the absolute indifference to Irish interests shown by all classes of English statesmen.  And under his government a bill for shortening Parliaments was passed, though it fixed the possible duration of each Parliament at eight years instead of seven, the variation being made to prevent a general election from being held at the same time in both countries, but, according to common belief, solely in order to keep up a mark of difference between the Irish and English Parliaments.  And those who entertained this suspicion fancied they saw a confirmation of it in the retention of the regulation that the Irish Parliament should only sit in alternate years, a practice wholly inconsistent with any proper idea of the duties and privileges of a Parliament such as prevailed on this side of the Channel; since a Parliament whose sessions were thus intermittent could not possibly exercise that degree of supervision over the revenue, either in its collection or its expenditure, which is among its most important duties.  And the continued maintenance of this practice must be regarded farther as a proof that the English legislators had not yet learned to consider Ireland as an integral part of the kingdom, entitled in every particular to equal rights with England and Scotland.  Indeed, it is impossible for any Englishman to contemplate the history of the treatment of Ireland by the English legislators, whether Kings, ministers, or Parliaments, for more than a century and a half, without equal feelings of shame at the injustice and wonder at the