from whence they took confidence to proceed in their purchases and improvements, and (with submission be it spoken), if this Bill pass, are deluded.'[210] [Sidenote: Parliamentary independence.] [Sidenote: Violence of the Commons.] A Bill for recognition of the King's title received the royal assent on the fourth day of the session. No difficulty was made about declaring the Irish Parliament independent, nor about annulling all patents conferring office during life or good behaviour, but the Commons would do nothing further until the Act of Settlement had been repealed; and many of the old proprietors seized upon land without waiting for the legal sanction. A Bill introduced into the Lords by Chief Justice Nugent provided that half of the land disposed of by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation should be restored to the old proprietors, but the Commons would have none of it, and insisted on total repeal. A Bill for the desired purpose brought in by Sir Ulick Bourke, member for Galway county, was received with loud huzzas, and read a first and second time on the same day. One member moved that anyone who opposed the repeal was an enemy to King and country; another that the horrid and barbarous law should be burned by the common hangman. But James saw clearly enough that to annul the legislation of his father and brother would be fatal to his chances in England. After consulting Avaux, who saw how Ireland, which he hoped to make a dependency of France, would be impoverished, the King conferred privately with some members of both Houses, and found that he could struggle no longer, but it was agreed that purchasers under the Settlement should have reprisals out of forfeited land. Bishop Dopping made a gallant but vain effort to stem the tide. The King, he said, would have no regular revenue, for the Protestants were already stripped by the Rapparees of all but the bare walls. It was now proposed to take them also, and improving Catholics would be in no better case. 'The old proprietor comes poor and hungry into his estate, and can pay nothing until his tenants raise it; and the present possessor loses the benefit of his purchases and improvements, and who then is able to supply the necessities of His Majesty? Besides this, in many parts of the kingdom the land is hardly able to pay the King's quit-rent by reason of the universal depredations that reign everywhere; and can it be imagined but that things will grow far worse when the ablest Catholic merchants, and the most wealthy purchasers of that communion are ruined and undone?'[211] [Sidenote: The Act of Settlement repealed.]