not conceive that he was bound to abstain longer from exercising his undoubted prerogative.  But, though it could hardly be denied that he had literally fulfilled his promise, the general opinion was that such a promise ought to have been more than literally fulfilled.  If his Parliament, overwhelmed with business which could not be postponed without danger to his throne and to his person, had been forced to defer, year after year, the consideration of so large and complex a question as that of the Irish forfeitures, it ill became him to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewd attorney.  Many persons, therefore, who were sincerely attached to his government, and who on principle disapproved of resumptions, thought the case of these forfeitures an exception to the general rule.

The Commons had at the close of the last session tacked to the Land Tax Bill a clause impowering seven Commissioners, who were designated by name, to take account of the Irish forfeitures; and the Lords and the King, afraid of losing the Land Tax Bill, had reluctantly consented to this clause.  During the recess, the commissioners had visited Ireland.  They had since returned to England.  Their report was soon laid before both Houses.  By the Tories, and by their allies the republicans, it was eagerly hailed.  It had, indeed, been framed for the express purpose of flattering and of inflaming them.  Three of the commissioners had strongly objected to some passages as indecorous, and even calumnious; but the other four had overruled every objection.  Of the four the chief was Trenchard.  He was by calling a pamphleteer, and seems not to have been aware that the sharpness of style and of temper which may be tolerated in a pamphlet is inexcusable in a state paper.  He was certain that he should be protected and rewarded by the party to which he owed his appointment, and was delighted to have it in his power to publish, with perfect security and with a semblance of official authority, bitter reflections on King and ministry, Dutch favourites, French refugees, and Irish Papists.  The consequence was that only four names were subscribed to the report.  The three dissentients presented a separate memorial.  As to the main facts, however, there was little or no dispute.  It appeared that more than a million of Irish acres, or about seventeen hundred thousand English acres, an area equal to that of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire together, had been forfeited during the late troubles.  But of the value of this large territory very different estimates were formed.  The commissioners acknowledged that they could obtain no certain information.  In the absence of such information they conjectured the annual rent to be about two hundred thousand pounds, and the fee simple to be worth thirteen years’ purchase, that is to say, about two millions six hundred thousand pounds.  They seem not to have been aware that much of the land had been let very low on perpetual