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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1366: BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE LORD-LIEUTENANCY OF IRELAND.
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE LORD-LIEUTENANCY OF IRELAND.

On the 18th of May, the premier moved for leave to bring in a bill for this purpose. This was one of the many ill-digested and inconsiderate measures by which Lord John Russell’s government was characterised. The Irish people almost unanimously opposed it, and so did their representatives. Mr. Shiel, however, who had become a mere ministerial hack, took part with the government against the known feeling of his countrymen. He was chastised by Mr. Disraeli in one of that gentleman’s most eloquent and happy orations.

The second reading was carried by a large majority, but it was so obvious that if the bill were proceeded with, it would be by virtue of an English majority on an Irish question, against the feeling of the Irish members and their constituents, that the government abandoned it. Much evil was inflicted by its introduction in the temper it evoked in Ireland; and much evil was also accomplished by abandoning it, for it exposed the vacillation of the premier and the government, so as to lessen their moral influence in both Great Britain and Ireland.