The Court was not less triumphant in Ireland, where the Parliament had at last been suffered to meet. Lord Townshend during its long vacation, had employed such effectual corruption, that when the Opposition injudiciously contested an usual address to the King to thank him for their Lord-Lieutenant (the more likely to pass as no money was asked), the Court had a majority of twenty-five votes. Next morning, a body of weavers rose and assaulted the complaisant peers,[162] on which the Lords would not report the address, but sent to the Lord-Lieutenant to demand guards, that their members might attend and vote in safety. The like address having passed the Commons, Mr. Ponsonby, their Speaker, resigned the chair, rather than carry it to the other House. This step was imputed to a panic he was believed to have felt, from an idea that Lord Townshend had got evidence of his having instigated the tumult, though he himself ascribed it to the Viceroy’s having reflected on the House of Commons the last year. Lord Townshend not having interest enough to name a Speaker to his mind, was forced to prefer Perry to a more obnoxious man, though Perry was a very able man, not well-disposed to the Court, but thoroughly attached to the interests of Ireland. These clouds obliged the Lord-Lieutenant,--though he had declared the Parliament was called to carry on private business, not for the purpose of giving money,--to determine that it should rise in a fortnight. As the King of France was more despotic, he at this time annihilated the Parliament of Paris, and established six superior councils in its room. Dowdeswell, on the 7th, moved for a bill to ascertain the duty of juries, but Dunning and others of his own party opposed it, apprehending danger from meddling with that great palladium of liberty; so that, except General Conway, who out of candour said a few words, not a man in the Administration spoke, and the motion was rejected by 160 to 40.