Page:The Irish Parliament; what it was, and what it did.djvu/45

 to secure the complete legislative independence of Ireland, and the House inclined to this view. Lord Mansfield, in Michaelmas term, 1782, and after this discussion pronounced judgment in an Irish appeal. The case, however, had been carried to England long before the repeal of the Act 6 George I. Increased force was thus given to Air. Flood's contention, which Lord Chief Justice Whiteside has pronounced to be well founded. Complaints were made of Lord Mansfield's decision in the British House of Commons. On the 22nd January, 1783, Mr. Secretary Townshend moved accordingly for leave to bring in a bill, which subsequently became law, "for removing and preventing all doubts which have arisen or may arise concerning the exclusive rights of the Parliament and Courts of Ireland in matters of legislation and judicature, and for preventing any writ of error or appeal from any of his Majesty's Courts in that kingdom from being received, heard, or adjudged in any of his Majesty's Courts of the kingdom of Great Britain. "Between 1782 and 1800 Ireland was," in the words of Sir G. C. Lewis, " legally an independent state, the king of which was also King of Great Britain, and its political relation to Great Britain was precisely similar to that which subsisted between England and Scotland in the interval between the union of the two crowns and the union of the two kingdoms."