The commercial privileges thus obtained would have been practically valueless unless accompanied with legislative independence. I have explained the system by which measures proposed by the Irish Parliament were robbed of their efficiency by the action of the English and Irish Privy Councils. "To prevent," says Mr. Froude, "the Irish Parliament from being troublesome, it was chained by Poynings' Act; and when the Parliament was recalcitrant, laws were passed by England over its head." At this time the English Privy Council actively exercised its influence on the commercial legislation of the Irish Parliament. "The business of sugar-refining had recently taken great head in Ireland, and the Irish Parliament sought to defend it against the English monopoly by an import duty on refined sugar; while they sought to give it a fair stimulus by admitting raw sugar at a low rate. This the Privy Council reversed, reducing the duty on refined sugar 20 per cent. under the drawback allowed in England to the English refiner on export, and thereby giving the latter a virtual premium to that amount, and also increasing the duty on the raw sugar. The time was ill-chosen for further invasions on Irish rights."[138] "Several minor circumstances concurred to exasperate the Irish people still further, and to render irrevocable and, soon after, irresistible, their determination to have a free Parliament, without which they said they never could obtain the extension of their trade amongst other benefits sought, nor even be sure of preserving what had been conceded to them."[139] Chief Justice Whiteside has given, in a few words, this spirited and accurate description of the attainment of Irish legislative independence--"Down went Poynings' Law, useful in its day; down went the Act of Philip and Mary; down went the obnoxious statute of George I.; the Mutiny Bill was limited; restrictions on Irish trade vanished; the ports were opened; the Judges were made irremovable and independent. I cannot join in the usual exultation at the proceedings of the volunteers; on the contrary, I regret their occurrence. Not that I think the resolutions carried at Dungannon were in themselves unjust; not that I would hesitate to claim for Ireland all the rights possessed by our English fellow-subjects; but because all these inestimable advantages were not granted by the wisdom of the Government, through the recognised channel of Parliament, and were carried at the point of the bayonet. The precedent was dangerous. Had Walpole been alive he would have repented his blunder in listening to Primate Boulter, and refusing to be advised by the counsels of Swift. But the deed was done."[140] On the 16th of April, 1782, in the Irish House of Commons, Grattan thus expressed his high-wrought enthusiasm:--