ments, which every day's observation confirms me in wishing to avoid. The Ministers, I understand, are come round to join with the most violent in condemning the policy, and I suppose will not be less ready to join them in upholding Poynings' Act, and all the old doctrine of the dependence of Ireland upon England, in all cases whatsoever. I shall therefore be very anxious to know how far the reservation I have stated meets your Lordship's idea, as I expect whatever debate occurs will turn upon that, or some other distinction which may be offered in favour of the supreme authority of the mothercountry."[1]
If the opinion of Shelburne was clear on the injustice and impolicy of any interference on the part of the English House of Commons, the views of Chatham were not less distinct. "Allow me to say," he writes in reply to Shelburne, "that any question, resolution, proposition or declaration in Parliament here, censuring, branding or forbidding in future, a tax laid, in a Committee of Supply, upon Ireland, in the Irish House of Commons, appears to me to be fatal. Were my information less authentic, I should think it impossible that the axe could be so laid to the root of the most sacred fundamental right of the Commons by any friend of liberty. The justice or the policy of the tax on absentees is not the question; and on these, two endless arguments may be maintained, pro and con: the simple question is, have the Commons of Ireland exceeded the powers lodged with them by the essential constitution of Parliament? I answer, they have not, and the interference of the British parliament would in that case be unjust, and the measure destructive of all fair correspondence between England and Ireland for ever. Were it possible for me to attend the House of Lords, I would, to the utmost of my power, oppose any interference of Parliament here upon this matter, and enter my protest upon the journals against it.
"Thus, my dear Lord, I have with abundant temerity sent your Lordship an insignificant, solitary opinion: it
- ↑ Shelburne to Chatham, January 8th, 1774.
