in which not only was the power of taxation given up and freedom of internal legislation established, but all power of the Parliament of Great Britain over America was renounced; and began to ask whether England could withhold from loyal Irishmen the boons which she offered to rebellious Americans. The claims were urged in Parliament and at meetings of the volunteers and other public bodies; the English Government for some time refused to grant any concession; but at length, fearing an Irish Revolution, gave way on every point. They granted, in fact, as an Irish statesman expressed it, "everything short of separation." First (in spite of the opposition of the English manufacturing classes) all restrictions on trade were swept away; then, in 1782, the Declaratory Act of George I, by virtue of which the English Parliament had claimed the right to legislate for Ireland, was repealed, and with it went the right of the English House of Lords to act as a court of final appeal for Ireland; the restrictions imposed by Poyning's Act on the legislative powers of the Irish Parliament were abolished; and the Irish Executive was made practically dependent on the Irish Parliament by the Mutiny Act, which had previously been perpetual, being limited to two years. Thus Ireland became a nation in a sense she had never been before. The only tie to any power beyond sea was that the King of England was also King of Ireland; Ireland could legislate for itself, and enter into commercial treaties with foreign powers; but, on the other hand, it had to pay its own debts and provide its own army and navy.