But though the Parliament which sat in Dublin, and was misnamed Irish, was quite willing to put down Popery and to take the property of Catholics, it was not so willing to submit to English rule in other matters.  In 1698 Mr. Molyneux, one of the members for the University of Dublin, published a work, entitled The Case of Irelands being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated.  But Mr. Molyneux’s book was condemned by the English Parliament; and after a faint show of resistance, the Irish members succumbed.  The next attention which the English Houses paid to this country, was to suppress the woollen trade.  In 1698 they passed a law for the prevention of the exportation of wool and of manufactures from Ireland, “under the forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of L500 for every such offence.”  The penal laws had made it “an offence” for a man to practise his religion, or to educate his children either in Ireland or abroad; the trade laws made it “an offence” for a man to earn[550] his bread in an honest calling.  The lower class of Protestants were the principal sufferers by the destruction of the woollen trade; it had been carried on by them almost exclusively; and it is said that 40,000 persons were reduced to utter destitution by this one enactment.  In addition to this, navigation laws were passed, which prohibited Irish merchants from trading beyond seas in any ships except those which were built in England.  The embargo laws followed, of which twenty-two were passed at different periods during forty years.  They forbade Irish merchants, whether Protestant or Catholic, to trade with any foreign nation, or with any British colony, direct-to export or import any article, except to or from British merchants resident in England.  Ireland, however, was allowed one consolation, and this was the permission to import rum duty free.  I am certain that none of the honorable members who voted such laws had the deliberate intention of making the Irish a nation of beggars and drunkards; but if the Irish did not become such, it certainly was not the fault of those who legislated for their own benefit, and, as far as they had the power to do so, for her ruin, politically and socially.

William had exercised his royal prerogative by disposing, according to his own inclination, of the estates forfeited by those who had fought for the royal cause.  His favourite, Mrs. Villiers, obtained property worth L25,000 per annum.  In 1799 the English Parliament began to inquire into this matter, and the Commons voted that “the advising and passing of the said grants was highly reflecting upon the King’s honour.”  William had already began to see on what shifting sands the poor fabric of his popularity was erected.  He probably thought of another case in which his honour had been really pledged, and in which he had been obliged to sacrifice it to the clamours of these very men.  He had failed in the attempt to keep his Dutch Guards; his last days were embittered; and had not his death occurred soon after, it is just possible that even posterity might have read his life in a different fashion.