452 RESULTS OF THE RECORD COMMISSIONS. 



ness and activity in comparison with that of Ireland, originally 

 appointed in 1810. According to the terms of the commission, the 

 commissioners named in it being the great officers of state and some 

 of the first nobility of the kingdom were authorized to appoint a 

 clerk or secretary, and likewise such persons of ability, care, and 

 diligence, as they might think fit, as sub-commissioners. This they 

 accordingly did; and, in addition, created another board, under 

 the name of a " Committee of Observation," totally irresponsible 

 to government, and not one member of which belonged to their own 

 body. To this committee, however., they delegated the whole powers 

 of the commission, although two out of the five composing it were 

 interested as sub-commissioners deriving emolument from the tasks 

 thus set by themselves, and to ensure the due execution of which, this 

 committee possessed the sole controlling power ; the only check on 

 possible peculation under such a system being that of the board of 

 accounts to examine the expenditure. Such a proceeding showed 

 that the enlightened and generous feeling of the Imperial Parliament 

 had never reached the hearts of the commissioners; and by this 

 measure, all hope of the national character of the undertaking was 

 annihilated : its legality, even, is doubtful ; for the delegation of 

 such power to the fulfilment of such important duties by five irre- 

 sponsible individuals, was surely never contemplated by the commis- 

 sion. Be this as it may, can it be wondered, that under such an arrange- 

 ment, the sums drawn by the Irish commission should be enormously 

 extravagant, and its labours small in an inverse proportion ? Even 

 the reports which were made to the Commons' House of Parliament, 

 and which, until within these few years, were all it had given to the 

 public, were so slovenly, that the second volume ordered by the 

 House to be printed, was subjected, while at press, to such extensive 

 alterations, as actually, when re-produced, not to be the same that 

 had been laid before Parliament. 



At the present moment, after more than twenty years of labour, 

 and at an expense of upwards of 100,000/., the Irish Record Com- 

 mission has produced to the public, besides its crude, inaccurate, and 

 undigested reports, with their appendices, only two volumes of 

 Records ; the one containing a repertory to the Inquisitiones Post 

 Mortem, in the Rolls Office, relating to the several counties in the 

 province of Leinster, and the other composed of an abstract calendar 

 of the Rolls in Chancery. And where are these " monuments of our 

 history, laws, and government/' to be seen in England by the public, 

 who have paid so extravagantly for their production ? Not even in 

 the British Museum ; so that, if to consult them it be necessary to 

 make a voyage to Dublin, the additional trouble of searching the 

 methodized records themselves would be very trifling, and the ex- 

 pense of editing and printing might have been saved. 



The public repositories of Ireland contain no great masses of 

 documents, the publication of which would tend in any important 

 degree to the illustration of national history; the greater portion 

 consisting of dry records of the acquisition, possession, and trans- 

 mission of lands, and the mere every-day affairs of government, as 

 the appointment and swearing in officers, &c. &c. &c. This, indeed, 



