COMMISSION OF INQUIRY 



REMARKS*. 



This mode of inquiry, by Commission, had no 

 precedent. Ireland had formerly her own separate 

 Parliament, the forms of which were the same as 

 those of the Parliament of England: but in 1800 

 that country was united to England, as Scotland 

 had been a century before, and since that period 

 the Inquiries which related to her were instituted 

 at London before a Committee, chosen for this 

 purpose by one of the Houses of Parliament, and 

 to which the Irish were cited as witnesses. These 

 kinds of inquiry, however, together with their re- 

 sults, were almost unknown to the Irish public, and 

 this was much to be lamented, for the proceed- 

 ings of the English Parliament were less marked 

 with partiality than those of the Irish Parliament 

 had been. It is true that they were both exclu- 

 sively composed of Protestants ; but the English, 

 naturally more dispassionate, were not liable to en- 

 tertain the animosities, or to be parties to the mea- 

 sures of injustice, oppression, or revenge, which 

 Protestants, all of whom were landholders in Ire- 

 land, exercised against the Catholics, despoiled and 

 necessarily irritated. 



* All the Remarks are by the Editors. 



