The affociation of the Steelmen extended into CHAP. XXXVII the neighbouring counties, augmented by distressed or difcontented peasants, who were not affected im mediately by the original grievance. By the exertions of the military fome were taken, and tried at Carrickfergus. As they were acquitted from the supposed partiality of the witneffes and jury, an act of parliament was paffed in March 1772, ordering their trials to be held in counties different from thofe in which their offences were committed. Some in confequence were carried to Dublin, but were there acquitted from prejudices entertained against a law fo unconftitutional. In the December of 1773, in the administration of Earl Harcourt, the obnoxious act was repealed. From a sense of the evil confequences of diforder, infurgents, tried in their respective counties, were now condemned and executed. The infurrection was totally quelled, but its effects were long baneful. So great and wide was the discontent that many thousands of protestants emigrated from those parts of Ulfter to the American settlements, where they foon appeared in arms against the British government, and contributed powerfully, by their zeal and valour, to the feparation of the American colonies from the empire of Great-Britain. CHAP. CHAP. XXXVIII. XXXVIII. Retrospect Retrofpect of British affairs--George the thirdBritish colonies of North America-American war ---Parliamentary tranfactions-Troops tranfported from Ireland-National diftrefs-Petitions against Irish trade-Indulgence to catholics-National poverty-Refolutions of non-importation-Volunteers. -Parliamentary tranfactions-Relaxation of commercial restraints- -Demands of an independent legiflature-Proceedings of parliament-Proceedings of the volunteers-Refolutions of Dungannon-Parliamentary transactions-State of public affairsChange of measures--Irish revolution-Diffention of Patriots-Confummation of the revolution. CHAP. THE acceffion of a new family, the house of Hanover, to the British throne, to the perpetual of Britain. exclufion of the peftilent race of Stuart, on the firmeft principle of geniune liberty, the choice of parliament, recommended by the general wish of men of property throughout the nation, was an event most propitious to the profperity of Britain, the independence of Europe, and the general melioration of the human species. More happy still would it have been, if the princes of this new dynasty had possessed exalted XXXVIII. exalted intellect, and cordial affection to the people CHAP. of the British ilands. George the first, whofe reign commenced in 1714, attached to the electorate of Hanover, as his native principality, and confining his views to German politics, regarded, in his tranfactions with foreign potentates, the wealth and power of Britain as only fubfervient to the interests of the electorate. His fon, George the second, who - fucceeded him in 1727, having been educated in Germany, purfued the fame plan with fuch injudicious conduct, that, befide many other proofs, the princes, who received from him annually regular subsidies, in time of peace for the protection of his German dominions in time of war, arranged themfelves on the fide of his enemies when their affiftance was required. By expenditures of the public money in ufelefs foreign fubfidies, ill managed wars, and the fecuring of minifterial majorities in parliament, the national debt of Great Britain, which had commenced in the reign of William the third, and amounted in his time to ten millions, encreased before the death of George the first to fifty, and before that of George the second to a hundred. the third, In 1760 to George the fecond fucceeded his grand- George fon, George the third, fon of Frederick, prince of Wales, who had departed from life in 1751. Born and educated in England, this monarch entertained not for Hanover the impolitic predilection of his predeceffors, a predilection injurious to Hanover itself, which was thus rendered an object of attack to the enemies of Britain; but he was foon perceived to CHAP. have imbibed a decided partiality for men of tory XXXVIII. principles, in preference to the whigs, who, as the British co lonies of North affertors of those national rights by which his family had been called to the throne, had hitherto, fince the acceffion of George the first, with a partiality too ftrongly marked, been exclufively intrusted with the administration of government. Entering on his reign, however, at a time when Britain was in a career of fuccefs, by the councils of the great William Pitt, earl of Chatham, he was enabled to finish with honour the war against France and Spain, yet much less gloriously than he might have concluded it by availing himself of the wifdom of the former miniftry. From a fyftem purfued by the favourites, who were faid to have formed an interior cabinet, and thence directed the acting minifters, the British empire was in a few years brought to the brink of diffolution. In the feventeenth century several English colonies had been fettled on the eastern coafts of the immense America. peninsula of North America, as in Virginia in 1610, in New Hampshire in 1623, in Maffachusets' bay in 1628, in Connecticut in 1635, South Carolina in 1669, and Pennsylvania in 1682. Thefe and other colonies, rapidly augmented by emigrations from the British ilands and elsewhere, from religious or civil difcontents, formed a chain of fettlements above a thousand miles in length, containing in the year 1765 near three millions of inhabitants. Governed internally by their several affemblies of elected reprefentatives, in which prefided governors nominated by his Britannic Majefty, thefe dependant ftates had XXXVIII. never been taxed otherwise than by their own repre. CHAP. fentative bodies, in like manner as Ireland by its own parliament. External taxation, on the fyftem of commerical reftrictions, the right of which was not difputed, had been exercised by the parliament of Britain, with refpect to her dependencies in America, moderately till after the year 1762, when it was carried to a pitch impolitic and abfurd, by destroying a contraband commerce with the Spanish colonies, a commerce which brought much wealth into the American settlements of Britain, and mediately in courfe of traffick, into Britain itself. A scheme of internal taxation, by authority of the British parliament, was next adopted, to draw a direct revenue from the American colonies into the British exchequer, and in 1765, an act to inforce the use of ftamped paper in thefe colonies was paffed, fo ignorantly framed as to be scarcely practicable in countries fo circumftanced. But its practicability remained untried, as the Americans denied the right of fuch taxation; and, combining univerfally to refift this infringement of their liberties, they deftroyed the ftamps as foon as landed from Europe, while the merchants entered into folemn engagements to import no more merchandize from Britain till the obnoxious act fhould have been repealed. Their joy at its repeal, which took place in the following year, was not of long duration, when to introduce taxes by indirect means was discovered to be a determined plan of the British government, in which a great part of the Bri |