The reign of George IV. began with resolute efforts of the Parliament not to lengthen, as in England under his grandfather, but to shorten its own commission, and to become septennial.  Surely this was a noble effort.  It meant the greatness of their country, and it meant also personal self-sacrifice.  The Parliament which then existed, elected under a youth of twenty-two, had every likelihood of giving to the bulk of its members a seat for life.  This they asked to change for a maximum term of seven years.  This from session to session, in spite of rejection after rejection in England, they resolutely fought to obtain.  It was an English amendment which, on a doubtful pretext; changed seven years to eight.  Without question some acted under the pressure of constituents; but only a minority of the members had constituents, and popular exigencies from such a quarter might have been bought off by an occasional vote, and could not have induced a war with the Executive and with England so steadily continued, unless a higher principle had been at work.

The triumph came at last; and from 1768 onwards the Commons never wholly relapsed into their former quiescence.  True, this was for a Protestant House, constituency, and nation; but ere long they began to enlarge their definition of nationality.  Flood and Lucas, the commanders in the real battle, did not dream of giving the Roman Catholics a political existence, but to their own constituents they performed an honourable service and gave a great boon.  Those, who had insincerely supported the measure, became the dupes of their own insincerity.  In the very year of this victory, a Bill for a slight relaxation of the penal laws was passed, but met its death in England.[87] Other Bills followed, and one of them became an Act in 1771.  A beginning had thus been made on behalf of religious liberty, as a corollary to political emancipation.  It was like a little ray of light piercing its way through the rocks into a cavern and supplying the prisoner at once with guidance and with hope.  Resolute action, in withholding or shortening supply, convinced the Executive in Dublin, and the Ministry in London, that serious business was intended.  And it appeared, even in this early stage, how necessary it was for a fruitful campaign on their own behalf to enlarge their basis, and enlist the sympathies of hitherto excluded fellow-subjects.

It may seem strange that the first beginnings of successful endeavour should have been made on behalf not of the “common Protestantism,” but of Roman Catholics.  But, as Mr. Lecky has shown, the Presbyterians had been greatly depressed and distracted, while the Roman Catholics had now a strong position in the commerce of the country, and in Dublin knocked, as it were, at the very doors of the Parliament.  There may also have been an apprehension of republican sentiments among the Protestants of the north, from which the Roman Catholics were known to be free.  Not many years, however, passed before the softening and harmonizing effects, which naturally flow from a struggle for liberty, warmed the sentiment of the House in favour of the Presbyterians.