But the jealousy of the English and Scotch
manufacturers was still as bitter, and, unhappily, still as influential,
as it had proved in the time of William III. And, to humor the grasping
selfishness of Manchester and Glasgow, Lord North met the demands of the
Irish with a refusal of which every word of his speech on the
propositions to America was the severest condemnation, and which he
sought to mitigate by some new regulations in favor of the linen trade,
to which the English and Scotch manufacturers made no objection, since
they had no linen factories. The Irish, in despair, had recourse to
non-importation agreements, of which the Americans had set the example,
binding themselves not to import nor to use any articles of English or
Scotch manufacture with which they could possibly dispense. And the
result was, that Lord North yielded to fear what he had refused to
justice, and the next year brought in bills to grant the Irish the
commercial equality which they demanded. Some of the most oppressive and
vexatious of the penal laws were also relaxed; and some restrictions
which the Navigation Act imposed on commerce with the West Indies were
repealed. But, strange to say, the English ministers still clung to one
grievance of monstrous injustice, and steadily refused to allow judicial
appointments to be placed on the same footing as in England, and to make
the seat of a judge on the bench depend on his own good conduct, instead
of on the caprice of a king or a minister.
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