The true revolution to you, that which most intrinsically and
substantially resembled the English Revolution of 1688, was the Irish
Revolution of 1782. The Irish Parliament of 1782 bore little resemblance
to that which sat in that kingdom after the period of the first of these
revolutions. It bore a much nearer resemblance to that which sat under
King James. The change of the Parliament in 1782 from the character of
the Parliament which, as a token of its indignation, had burned all the
journals indiscriminately of the former Parliament in the
Council-Chamber, was very visible. The address of King William's
Parliament, the Parliament which assembled after the Revolution, amongst
other causes of complaint (many of them sufficiently just) complains of
the repeal by their predecessors of Poynings's law,--no absolute idol
with the Parliament of 1782.
Great Britain, finding the Anglo-Irish highly animated with a spirit
which had indeed shown itself before, though with little energy and many
interruptions, and therefore suffered a multitude of uniform precedents
to be established against it, acted, in my opinion, with the greatest
temperance and wisdom.
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