38 Chapter II
land. Here the turning point came in the 1760’s and gives weight to the old idea of
an Industrial Revolution setting in at about that time. Before 1761 only 60 or 70
of the members had any financial interest in commerce, as had been true as far
back as Elizabeth. By the 1780’s the figure was 110, and it continued to rise.
The distinctive thing about the British Parliament, in contrast to similar bodies
on the Continent, was, first, its very real power, since it governed the country, the
King’s ministers being part of it; and, second, the mixing of commercial and landed
interests in it, even sons of peers sometimes having some activity in business, so
that class lines were blurred, with gentry not altogether scorning the marts of
trade, and the greater businessmen sometimes mixing with or even related to gen-
try. The easy exchangeability of landed and commercial property, and the attitude
toward productivity and profit through rational management, shared by landown-
ers and businessmen, gave a common ground of understanding. Nevertheless, the
land and the aristocratic outlook continued to dominate.
Ireland was constitutionally a separate kingdom from Great Britain, having an
autonomous though subordinate parliament of its own. “Everything was sweetly
and harmoniously disposed through both islands,” according to the somewhat
visionary picture drawn by Edmund Burke, “for the conservation of English
liberties.” Hence, wishing well to the Americans, he could offer Ireland “as my
model with regard to America.” The Irish Parliament, like the English, had two
Houses, Lords and Commons. The Lords consisted of 142 temporal peers and 22
Anglican bishops, though the population was of course mainly Catholic. The
Commons consisted of 300 members from counties and boroughs, as in England;
some of the boroughs were in even worse shape than those of England, that of
Tulsk being described as a cluster of mud huts. In the Commons of 1775 the Duke
of Leinster owned 11 seats, Mr. John Ponsonby 22. About 100 persons, 50 peers
and 50 commoners, controlled two- thirds of the seats in the Irish Commons. No
Catholic could be elected, and after 1727 no Catholic could vote. In any case most
of a lifetime might pass without an election, since an Irish parliament lasted (until
1768) for a whole reign without renewal. In the reigns of George I and II there
were no general elections except at the accession of those sovereigns.^24
British America, and especially New England, as John Adams remarked in
1774, had “a hereditary apprehension of and aversion to lordships, temporal and
spiritual.”^25 There were no lords in the British, except occasional Englishmen visit-
ing or stationed there; and no bishops. But there was a good deal of hereditary
standing, with an apparent trend, as in Europe, toward its increase.
Each colony had a governor’s council and an elected assembly. The councils were
very important: they sat as supreme courts of law, they advised the governor, and
they acted as upper chambers in legislation. Individual councillors often had great
influence upon elections to the assemblies. Councillors, usually twelve in each col-
ony, were appointed by governors; and the governors, normally Englishmen ap-
pointed in England and strange to the colony, naturally chose the leading local
24 W. Hu nt, The Irish Parliament: 1775 (London, 1907), vii- xii, 54. Burke, Writings (1901), II, 171
(Conciliation with America, 1775). Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (London, 1903), I, 78.
25 Work s (Boston, 1851), IV, 54, “Novanglus.”