Above : Illustrating Picture Of Henry Flood

The Irish Pension List had long been grievous scandal. The British Government had placed on the Irish Establishment the burden of great numbers of pensions to be paid to persons who had no connection whatever with Ireland. Some were members of the Royal Family; others, officers in the army; others, foreign princes who had helped England in her Continental wars. Not a few were persons of character more than doubtful, whom the Ministers felt that they dared not recommend to the English Houses as worthy objects for the nation’s bounty. During the latter part of the century, in spite of frequent complaints in the Commons, the Pension List had grown with increased rapidity. In 1757 the total amount was £51,583 a year. In 1786 it was £94,000, actually exceeding that of England by £4,000. In 1789 £ 13,000 more was added. In 1793 the Government, perceiving that it was absolutely necessary to do something to allay the growing discontent, itself proposed a measure by which the pension list was to be reduced to £80,000 a year. This was passed without difficulty, but various means of evading its provisions, by the creation of sinecure offices and so forth, still remained open. With the exceptions mentioned, nothing was done by that Independent Irish Parliament during the eighteen years or its existence to reform the abuses which existed within itself; abuses which, when the Government chose to purchase from it its own destruction, rendered the attainment of that object comparatively easy.