V/ 
 
 THE SPEECHES 
 
 RIGHT HON. HENRY GRATTAN ; 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 HIS LETTER ON THE UNION, 
 
 A COMMENTARY ON HIS CAREER AND CHARACTER. 
 
 DANIEL OWEN MADDEN, ESQ., 
 
 OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 
 
 To *\ 
 
 Inniiii tfititioir. u$.. 
 
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 v." % mm 
 
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 DUBLIN: r 
 PUBLISHED BY JAMES D'tJi'W 
 7 WELLINGTON QUAY. 
 
 \ 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRAKf 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS, 
 
PRINTED BY PATTISON JOLF/V 
 32, ANGLESEA STREET- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Few things are more calculated to give pleasure to those interested 
 in the welfare of our country, than the rapid progress which 
 education has made amongst the people within the last few years. 
 
 In the Memoir of Grattau, prefixed to this volume, I have 
 confined myself to indicating the growth of his character and genius, 
 to commenting on the most important crisis of his life, concluding 
 with a general review of his career, and with some plain remarks 
 on the inestimable value of his example. I might have gone 
 seriatim through all the facts of his life ; but, within the limited 
 space assigned to me, there would have been room for scarcely 
 more than a meagre abridgment of his biography. The course I 
 have adopted seemed to be more useful. 
 
 This edition having been designed for the public, and not for 
 students of oratory, 1 have refrained from extended criticism on 
 Grattan's eloquence. The topic has been treated of by Lord 
 Brougham, Sir James Mackintosh, the Rev. George Croly, the late 
 
 6 4 4 O 
 
IT PREFACE. 
 
 Chief J ustice Bushe, William Taylor (of Norwich), and by a host 
 of other eminent persons. Upon a critical subject so beaten it 
 would be impossible to grow a blade of fresh thought. In the 
 following Memoir, therefore, I have principally regarded the man 
 and his life, rather than the orator and his style. 
 
 The valuable edition of G rattan's Speeches (published by his son 
 in 1822) has long since been out of print. It was very carefully 
 edited, and I have freely availed myself of some of Mr. H. Grattan's 
 prefatory notes. I have also to acknowledge my obligations to that 
 gentleman's interesting life of his parent ; but it will be seen that 
 our views are not exactly in concurrence. In reverence for his 
 father's memory, however, I believe all rational Irishmen of every 
 party have long since been agreed. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Memoir of Henry Grattan 
 
 
 Page. 
 
 • vii 
 
 Declaration of Irish Eights, April 19, 1780 
 
 . 37 
 
 Catholic Question, Feb. 20, 1782 
 
 
 . 52 
 
 PtiGHXs of Ireland, Feb. 22, 1782 
 
 
 . 54 
 
 Triumph of Irish Independence, April 16, 1782 
 
 . 70 
 
 Simple Repeal, July 19, 1782 . 
 
 
 . 78 
 
 Philippic against Flood, Oct. 28, 
 
 1783 . 
 
 . 91 
 
 Commercial Propositions, August 
 
 12, 1785 . 
 
 . 95 
 
 Irish Feelings, Sept. 6, 1785 . 
 
 
 , 105 
 
 Tithes, Feb. 14, 1788 
 
 
 . 107 
 
 The same, April 14, 1788 
 
 
 . 130 
 
 Corruption by Government, Feb. 
 
 1, 1790 
 
 . 138 
 
 The Same, Feb. 11, 1790 . 
 
 
 . 151 
 
 The Same, Feb. 26, 1790 . 
 
 
 . 155 
 
 Spirituous Liquors, Feb. 2, 1791 
 
 
 . 160 
 
 Sale of Peerages, Feb. 8, 1791 
 
 
 . 167 
 
 Speech on The Address, Jan. 19, 
 
 1792 . 
 
 . 172 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Catholic Question, Feb. 22, 1793 . . . . 189 
 Anti-Jacobin War, Feb. 5, 1791 . < . .209 
 
 Whig Reform, March 4, 1794 213 
 
 Anti-Union Speech, Jan. 15, 1800 .... 225 
 
 The Same, Feb. 5, 1800 246 
 
 Invective against Corry, Feb. 14, 1800 . . . 256 
 
 Anti-Union Speech, March 19, 1800 . . . 259 
 
 The Same, May 26, 1800 272 
 
 Catholic Question, May 13, 1805 .... 286 
 
 The Same, May 25, 1808 ...... 308 
 
 The Same, May 31, 1811 327 
 
 The Same, April 23, 1812 . . . . . 341 
 
 The Same, Feb. 25, 1813 355 
 
 The Same, March 2, 1813 370 
 
 The Same, March 9, 1813 ..... 372 
 
 The Same, May 11, 1813 378 
 
 The Same, May 24, 1813 388 
 
 Corn Laws, June 23, 1815 ..... 391 
 
 Downfall of Buonaparte, May 25, 1815 . . 397 
 
 Catholic Question, May 21, 1816 . . . . 407 
 
 The Same, May 9, 1817 . . . .. . . 413 
 
 The Same, May 3, 1819 421 
 
 Appendix. — Character of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham), 438 
 , Answer to a Pamphlet of Lord Clare 439 
 
A 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 HEN 
 
 R 
 
 Y GRATTAN. 
 
 Few things in the perusal of history are more striking than the total dissimi- 
 larity in character of ages that closely succeed each other. In one country, 
 and within the space of a single century, it is possible to observe a remarkable 
 contrast between the successive passions and prejudices, tastes and manners of 
 the same people. The English of the times of James the First and Lord Bacon, 
 were as unlike their countrymen in the days of Cromwell and Milton, as these 
 again were totally dissimilar from the contemporaries of King William and 
 John Locke. So also in the eighteenth century the dissimilarity between the 
 age of Walpole and Bolingbroke, and the era of Pitt and Fox, was as marked 
 as the difference in Irish politics between the days of Swift and those of Flood 
 — between the times of Grattan and those of O'Connell. 
 
 "When, therefore, we examine the character of any public man, it is abso- 
 lutely necessary to consider closely the nature of that society in which he 
 existed, and the influence of the passions of his age. A political leader is not 
 like the poet or philosopher, who lead isolated lives, remote from the passions 
 of their contemporaries. The existence of a public man is necessarily blended 
 with that of the community at large ; between him and the people around him 
 there is an active reciprocating influence, which is influential on the character 
 of the leader as well as his followers. Of course, the really great public man is 
 not the creature of his own times. If he were, his life would hardly be worth 
 studying: but neither can he have a character totally at variance with that of 
 his contemporaries. His life is a compromise between his own individuality 
 and that of the public whom he strives to govern and direct. In proportion as 
 he sympathizes with the aspirations of his own times, does he obtain present 
 and popular authority; in the same degree as he rises superior to the transient 
 prejudices of his age, and guides his course by general principles and exalted 
 views, will he obtain posthumous fame. And in apprehending with intuition 
 the exact confines between theory and practice, between the far-sighted views 
 which reach to posterity, and those which regard the pressing claims of the 
 passing hour, may be said to consist the art of all great and genuine states- 
 manship, as distinguished from the charlatanism, which, grovelling in the pre- 
 sent, is sure to meet with the contemptuous oblivion of future ages. 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 It will be particularly necessary to keep these considerations in mind when 
 we are estimating the character of the illustrious subject of the present memoir 
 
 Hsitry Grattan, was born in Dublin on the 3rd of July, 17 46. His father, 
 James Grattan, was for many years Recorder of Dublin, and represented the 
 city in Parliament from 1761 to 1766. His family was eminent and respec- 
 table, and more than one of its members was held in high regard by Dean Swift. 
 
 The mother of Henry Grattan was Mary, daughter of Chief Justice Marlay; 
 and there are reasons for believing that (as in the case of other celebrated men) 
 it was to his mother that our great patriot was indebted for his natural genius. 
 The family of Marlay claims to be of the race of the De Merlys of Normandy ; 
 and if their physical appearance were admitted as evidence in support of the 
 pedigree they exhibit, it would be readily conceded that the Marlays were 
 Norman in their origin. The immediate ancestor of the family was Sir John 
 Marlay, one of the Royalists of 1640, and a distinguished officer amongst the 
 Cavaliers. His son Anthony was captain in the Duke of Ormond's regiment in 
 1667, and settled in Ireland, where his grandson Thomas rose to be Chief Jus- 
 tice of the Queen's Bench. He was a man of talents and literary accomplish- 
 ments. He prided himself on being an expert swordsman, and a very droll 
 anecdote is recorded of his having run an opponent through the body with a 
 long sword, on which were stamped the Twelve Apostles! The wound was not 
 mortal; and the Chief Justice, who was a man of humour, remarked that his 
 adversary had "got the benefit of the trial by jury, and that the twelve had 
 allowed him to escape I" 
 
 Chief Justice Marlay had several children, of whom the most eminent was 
 Colonel Marlay, who distinguished himself at the battle of Minden. He was 
 held in the highest respect by his celebrated nephew, who had recourse to his 
 advice on more than one trying occasion. Another son of the Chief Justice 
 was Richard Marlay, afterwards Bishop of Waterford. He was a man of lively 
 mind and genial character. His intellect was highly cultivated, and he was 
 held in deserved esteem by his contemporaries. Indeed, few families in Ireland 
 could boast of a greater union of talent, learning, and virtue, than were to be 
 found in the Marlays. 
 
 Young Grattan was sent to school to one Ball, who lived in Great Ship 
 Street. At his very first school he gave a striking indication of the native 
 energy of his character. On his master having subjected him to a degrading 
 punishment, which he did not merit, the boy was so outraged that he insisted 
 on his father sending him to another school: he was then sent to Mr. Young's 
 in Abbey Street, where Anthony Malone and Hussey Burgh had been educated. 
 At this latter school he was held to be a boy of great spirit, and in after times 
 his schoolfellows loved to dilate upon the early development of his fine character. 
 
 In his eighteenth year he was seized with severe illness, which repeatedly 
 returned to him at the most critical periods of his life. His physical organization 
 bore little proportion to the remarkable ardour of his temperament. His body 
 was rather a frail tenement for a spirit so eminently aspiring. 
 
 At this period of his life, his uncle, Colonel Marlay, appears to have discerned 
 the character of hi3 young nephew. In their correspondence the Colonel 
 addresses Grattan in a tone more suited to a grown man than a forward youth. 
 
 In the year 1763, Grattan entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he became 
 acquainted with John Foster (afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Com- 
 mons, and representative of the high Trotestant National Party), Robert (after- 
 wards Judge^ Day, and John Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare. 
 
HENEY G RATTAN. 
 
 ix 
 
 His most intimate companion was young Broome, who was not a member of 
 the University. Their friendship seemed to have been based upon a community 
 of taste and feeling. They had a strong love of poetry and rural scenery, and 
 a decided taste for literature. It was odd enough that Broome was a military 
 man ; he was a cornet of horse when he made the acquaintance of young 
 Grattan. The two friends became voluminous correspondents; and the letters 
 of young Grattan to Broome are remarkably suggestive of the writers cha- 
 racter, and require particular notice. 
 
 Through all those letters, written in the twentieth year of his age, traces of 
 the same style as that which he preserved through life are visible. In tone 
 rather affected, they are uniformly artificial in their composition ; they abound 
 in expressions often incorrect, but often most forcible, and even picturesque. 
 They are all formed on the model of style set by the letters of Pope, whose genius 
 was much admired by Grattan. It may be needless to remind the reader that 
 in 1765 (when we get the first samples of Grattan's style) Pope was regarded 
 as the poet. Polished, clear, and artificial — seldom abandoned to enthusiasm — 
 exhibiting more care in finishing, than genius in inventing; sceptical without 
 impiety — and caustic without coarseness — the poetry of Pope, the bard of pru- 
 dence, possessed a soit of complexional resemblance to the character of English 
 society during the latter part of the lifetime, and for twenty years subsequent 
 to the death, of the author of the "Essay on Man". It was an age of modish, 
 town-bred philosophy ; of manners elaborately artificial; of a certain conven- 
 tional elegance, which was constantly aspiring after the Beautiful in taste, and 
 as constantly violating in practice the principles of natural grace. It was an 
 age of the Theatre — but the Drama was indebted to incomparable actors rather 
 than to original authors for support. It was Garrick, and not Shakspeare, who 
 obtained the admiration of the town ; and the Maeklins, Mossops, Quins, were 
 more thought of by an elegantly finical public, than the Massingers, Ben 
 Jonsons, and Shirleys of the old English Drama. The manners of the time 
 were favourable to luxury rather than to enjoyment. The fine gentleman of 
 that day aspired to an artistic refinement of manner, but never thought of 
 attaining ease. The woman of fashion was all powder and toupee — hoops and 
 high-heeled shoes. Everything was modish, artificial, and unreal. Even the 
 pulpit partook of that character. The great divines of England were extinct, 
 and a race of petit maitre prelates, of neat, shallow, sparkling, superficial 
 preachers, occupied the places of the Barrows and Tillotsons of former times. 
 The genteel had prevailed over the grand ; the elegantly small was everywhere 
 visible; and the sublime was nowhere to be seen in English life, save in one 
 conspicuous instance — the great Lord Chatham, whose grandeur was heightened 
 by contrast with the petty objects around him ; like a forest tree amidst the 
 shrubs of a trim suburban garden. 
 
 The character of that age (between the close of the Jacobite contest and the 
 American Revolution) had considerable effect on the mind and style of Grattan. 
 Its effects on the development of his genius were decidedly injurious. The 
 young orator was naturally given to emotion ; his cast of mind was melancholy, 
 poetical, and rather vague ; he was besides eager, passionate, and withal reflec- 
 tive in his habits. He loved others intensely, and the warmth of his friendship 
 was universally reciprocated. He delighted in wandering in the open country, 
 and his love of rural scenery had the nature of a passion. He was also fitful, 
 rather wayward, and subject to abrupt transition of feelings. On the whole, 
 the poetical element largely entered into his composition. 
 
 But never was there an age less favourable to the poetical spirit than the 
 
X 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 period (1766) when Grattan was attaining to manhood. Yet it so happened 
 that the times influenced Grattan's mind, and accordingly we find that he re- 
 strained the expression of his natural emotions; became modish, affected, 
 and finical ; gave up racy originality for striking affectation, and tortured his 
 powerful genius into the painful adoption of unnecessary epigrams and fantas- 
 tical antithesis. But his genius was too strong for him ; the artificial culture 
 on false principles which would have destroyed an ordinary mind, was only able 
 to spoil but not to smother Grattan's splendid powers. 
 
 On a cool and critical contemplation of his original mind and charater, it 
 may be fearlessly asserted that he was far more a poet than an orator or states- 
 man. It is confessedly admitted on all sides that he is the most poetical of 
 orators, ancient or modern. Nor does his failure in the poems he wrote contra- 
 dict in any degree the theory now put forward, namely, that Grattan is to be 
 considered rather as the poet of Irish political passion and national ambition, 
 than as the statesman expounding her wants, and providing for her necessities. 
 It will be found that the facts of his life and the subsequent character of his 
 eloquence, go far to corroborate this mode of estimating his character. 
 
 In 1767 he became a member of the Middle Temple, and repaired to London 
 during the period required for eating his way to the Bar. "When he arrived in 
 London, it was but natural that so susceptible a mind would have partaken of 
 whatever was most exciting in its nature, and accordingly polities soon aroused 
 him. His glowing intensity of mind found an object for admiration in Lord 
 Chatham, who was the idol of Grattan. The commanding powers of Chatham 
 — his vast moral influence — his vivid, electrical eloquence — all these combined 
 with his brilliant deportment to fascinate the young Irishman, who became an 
 habitual attendant at the Bar of the House of Lords. 
 
 Sorrow for the death of a sister whom he passionately loved, drove him from 
 London, and in conjunction with his friend, Robert Day, he took a house in 
 Windsor Forest. Here he led a desultory life, more congenial with the un- 
 settled reverie of a poetical mind, than with the hard ambition of a politician. 
 His ways it must be admitted were rather eccentric. The common part of man- 
 kind would have believed him out of his senses. He spent whole nights 
 rambling about the forest ; and delighted to lose himself in the thickest plan- 
 tations. The scenery had all the charms of poetical association, besides its own 
 natural beauties, to engage the cultivated mind and impassioned nature of 
 young Grattan. He seems to have intensely enjoyed the liberty of wandering 
 by himself through the forest on the moonlight nights; now startling a herd 
 of' deer from their bed of fern, or anon losing himself in some shadowy thicket. 
 During these poetical rambles, his mind we may be well assured was not idle, 
 and the habit of indulging in poetical sensations may be said to have coloured 
 his whole existence. If he had in those days bravely relied upon nature and 
 given us his own sympathy with her charms, the world might have had some 
 fine poetry. But the moment he came to write verse, he only could see with 
 the eyes of " Mr. Pope". With an impetuous temperament and ardent imagi- 
 nation, he chose for his model a poet, whose style, admirably suited for a mind 
 of keen social perception, was little suited for the rapturous expression of 
 exquisite emotion. Instead of choosing a model congenial with his own mind, 
 he selected one adapted for a totally different nature, and soon became disgusted 
 with his attempts. He says of the productions of his muse — "that they are the 
 efforts of her mind rather than the nature of it". But in truth, the greatest 
 poetical genius has often been destroyed by the adoption of uncongenial models. 
 Dryden would not be remembered by posterity, if he had continued to write 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 rhyming tragedies on the French models ; and would Walter Scott ever have 
 been known, if, instead of pouring forth his inspiration in the picturesque form 
 of the aucient ballad, he had written upon a severely dramatic model ? 
 
 During his occasional residence in London, Grattan's mind was a good deal 
 unsettled. He did not appear to enter into sympathy with the social character 
 of the metropolis. Although very far from being a "puritan" in his habits, he 
 was (unlike most Irishman) not given to conviviality. His existence was com- 
 paratively isolated ; nor did he show any decided inclination to mingle with 
 much company. In those times, society was more open to strangers than it is 
 at present. Clubs were not established, and the men of letters — the actors — 
 the gay and clever loungers upon town — were all to be met with at the 
 fashionable taverns. The Grecian Coffee-house was at that time the favourite 
 lounge for young Irishmen. But though Grattan occasionally visited it, he was 
 not one of its habitual frequenters. He had an early rencontre there with the 
 odious Duigenan. That person, on hi3 first introduction to young Giattan, . 
 like a mean varlet thought that senility would ingratiate him with his new 
 acquaintance. It so chanced that Recorder Grattan and the celebrated Doctor 
 Lucas were political foes ; and accordingly the sycophant Duigenan launched 
 into vituperation of Lucas. But Grattan, to Duigenan's surprise, espoused the 
 cause of the popular champion with considerable warmth. High words ensued, 
 and Robert Day was apprehensive of a quarrel on the spot. In the evening Grattan 
 again repaired to the Grecian with a long sword by his side ; but Duigenan did 
 not appear, though he wrote a comic poem on Grattan's droll appearance upon 
 that occasion. 
 
 Of Grattan's habit of declaiming to himself numerous stories are presented. 
 His landlady in London wrote to his friends requesting that he should be 
 removed, as he was always pacing her garden, addressing some person whom he 
 called "Mr. Speaker", and she was in doubt of the sanity of her lodger! 
 Judge Day records an anecdote of Grattan's having in one of his moonlight 
 rambles in Windsor Forest, stopped at a gibbet, whose chains he apostrophized 
 in his usual animated strain. He was suddenly tapped upon his shoulder, by a 
 very prosaic personage, who inquired, " How the Devil did you get down?" 
 
 In 1768, Grattan's eldest sister was married to Mr. Genase Parker Bushe, 
 and a very brilliant circle of society was thereby opened to the young Templar. 
 The county of Kilkenny was then inhabited by a very gay and spirited gentry, 
 characterized not merely by their love of sport, but of refined and elegant plea- 
 sures. Private theatricals were maintained amongst them with considerable 
 spirit, and foremost in that joyous company was Henry Flood, with whom 
 Grattan then for the first time made acquaintance. For the next four or five 
 years of his life he led a very gay existence, and was a member of the most 
 brilliant circles of Irish society. He was naturally, like all Irishmen, very fond 
 of the theatre, and he took a prominent part in the private theatricals of those 
 days. He does not seem to have been well adapted tor histrionic excellence. 
 His manner was abrupt and violent; his nature <oo vehement and not suffi- 
 ciently mercurial ; his delivery disagreeable from a redundancy of uncouth ges- 
 tures ; and his voice without agreeable modulation. Indeed, from his acting, 
 no one would have augured the presence of an orator. But Grattan was more 
 deficient in the mechanical parts of public speaking than any orator of his age. 
 
 In 1774, at Marlay, the seat of the La Touche family, he acted in the Mask 
 of Comus, in company with Hussey Burgh, Gervase Bushe, and seventeen (/) 
 La Touches. The epilogue, spoken by Miss La Touche, afterwards Countess of 
 Lanesborough (so celebrated for her beauty), was written by Grattan, and 
 
MEMOIR OF 
 
 exhibits more social liveliness than might have been expected from the tone cf 
 his mind. It contains some very nervous couplets: — 
 
 But why choose Comus? Comus won't go down ; 
 Milton, good creature ! never knew the town. 
 Better a sentimental comedy, 
 That leads the soul unconsciously astray — 
 Where, about good, fierce rakes are always ranting, 
 And fond, frail woman so divinely canting — 
 And sweet, sad dialogue, with feeling nice. 
 Gives flavour and variety to vice / 
 
 The state of Grattan's mind during the first years of his manhood, may be 
 imagined from one of his early letters to his friend Broome. He writes of 
 himself in the following terms : " A breast the slave of a thousand discordant 
 passions; now intoxicated with company— now saddening in solitude; some- 
 times disturbed with hope — sometimes depressed with despair, and equally 
 ravaged with each ; disgusted often, and often precipitately enamoured—all this 
 makes me poor in my own esteem". 
 
 From the time that he had first become a Templar, up to his thirtieth year, 
 he lived a great deal in London : and as he increased in years, he appears to 
 have acquired considerable relish for the public amusements of the metropolis; 
 he was naturally fond of music, and his ear was most susceptible to the beauty 
 of cadence. The Italian Opera was one of his great enjoyments ; and when- 
 ever he was not indulging in meditation, he was either listening to some Italian 
 syren, or intently watching the course of politics in the Houses of Lords and 
 Commons. In fact, with all his moodiness and wayward impulses, he appears 
 to have led a most delightful existence, and gradually to have become a more 
 brilliant and accomplished man of the world, than might have been anticipated 
 from one who had lived in self-imposed seclusion. His acquaintances might 
 have taken him for an idle man, but the " strenua inertia" of Grattan was not 
 to be confounded with the habitual indolence of a loitering dandy. He read 
 many of the first-rate authors with attention, and the text writers on politics 
 appear to have been studied by him with much care. By study and observa- 
 tion he became well qualified to offer an opinion in grave matters, his discern- 
 ment of character was generally correct, and his descriptions of men and things 
 we*-e vivid and characteristic, though tinged with his singular mannerism. 
 The reader must be referred to his correspondence with Broome and others, for 
 many suggestive traits of his character. 
 
 Few circumstances, however, had more effect on the life of Grattan, than his 
 close intimacy with the famous Henry Flood. It will be necessary to mark 
 this acquaintance, which was attended with very important results. 
 
 In the year 1770, and thereabouts, Flood was unquestionably the first man 
 in Ireland, possessed of public fame. By birth and property he was amongst 
 the first Irish Commoners, and by character he was raised above them all. He 
 may have had his equals in talent, but there was, from his first entrance to 
 public life, a decided moral purpose in Henry Flood. He was bold, intractable, 
 austere; ambitious both of power and popularity, and though "a candidate for 
 contradictory honours", in the main he contrived to make his personal ambition 
 subservient to his patriotic purposes. He was the first Irishman who obtained 
 a reputation as a great parliamentary leader. In mere debating talent he was 
 equalled, if not surpassed, by John Hely Hutchinson ; but this latter person, 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 xiii 
 
 with all bis accomplishments, was a mere conventionalist — a courtier by his 
 tastes, and a waiter on Providence by profession. Flood was, however, a man 
 remarkable for much moral enthusiasm and ardent attachment to Ireland, 
 Throughout all his life he laboured to raise his native land. 
 
 Intimacy with such a man as Flood produced great effect on Grattan. 
 Previously he had been merely a lounging politician — a virtuoso in matters of 
 state importance. He had surveyed public questions from too remote a 
 position, to share in their excitement; but he appears to have become an 
 eager politician from his intercourse with Flood. The brilliant success which 
 Flood had obtained as a public speaker, joined with his popularity and fame, 
 naturally had effect on Grattan, who had been distinguished by Flood in social 
 intercourse with a most marked complimentary attention. They read together 
 a great deal ; declaimed with each other, and acted in the same plays. In 
 short, their personal friendship soon ripened into political sympathy. 
 
 In this brief memoir the writer cannot diverge into a general narrative of the 
 Irish politics of the last century; yet, it is hardly possible to understand the 
 career of Grattan without comprehending the state of politics when he entered 
 upon the public stage. Hence, a few additional words upon Henry Flood are 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 In the progress of Irish Protestant Nationality, or Irish Legislative Inde- 
 pendence, five persons chiefly attract the notice of the political historian. These 
 are, first, Molyneux, who, in his "Case of Ireland", impeached the legal 
 authority of British Legislative power in Ireland ; secondly, Swift, who created 
 an Irish feeling amongst the English interest planted in Ireland, and by his 
 mingled wit, public spirit, and literary talents, diffused Irish sentiments; 
 thirdly, Doctor Lucas, who, imbibing the sentiments of Swift, practically 
 asserted and maintained the legal principles of Molyneux ; fourthly, Henry 
 Flood, who first raised an Irish political party, on principles analogous to those 
 on which the rival parties in England have been founded ; and lastly, Henry 
 Grattan, the most splendid and dazzling, though some have thought, not the 
 most politically effective of them all. 
 
 Of Molyneux and Swift it is needless to speak. Of the importance of Lucas 
 in Irish politics, it is enough to say, that after having maintained the principles of 
 Irish Independence, he was prosecuted by government, and compelled to quit 
 Ireland, after which the House of Commons voted him to be an enemy to his 
 country. The great Johnson honoured him after the following fashion, in a 
 review of some medical publications of Lucas : "The Irish ministers drove him 
 from his native country by a proclamation, in which they charged him with 
 crimes which they never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed him 
 by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence. Let the man thus 
 driven into exile for having been the friend of his country, be received in every 
 other place as a conferrer of liberty ; and let the tools of power be taught in 
 time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish''. 
 
 The first movement measure which gradually led to Irish Independence, was 
 the Octennial Bill of 1768, and the original steps which led to that measure 
 were, in the opinion of Lord Charlemont, due to the influence of Lucas. It has 
 been said of him that " he raised his voice when all around was desolation and 
 silence. He began with a corporation, and he ended with a kingdom". So much 
 for the influence on politics which a virtuous and courageous citizen can obtain. 
 
 Flood's great public effect on Irish politics was from 1761 to 1770 — during 
 the successive Viceroyalties of Lords Halifax, Northumberland, Weymouth, and 
 Townshend. In those times he raised a powerful opposition party — a sort of 
 
MEMOIR OP 
 
 national opposition, intended as a lasting depository of fixed public principles— 
 which " should not fluctuate with the intrigues of the court, nor with capricious 
 fashions amongst the people". Previously, the British minister had been 
 encountered in Ireland by a desultory opposition. The technical hostility of a 
 Molyneux he did not fear, and the powers of a Swift could not be handed down 
 to posterity with his principles. The order to which the Lucases belonged neces- 
 sarily cramped the extent of their social importance, though it could not forbid 
 the exercise of their abilities. And the opposition offered to government by the 
 Boyle3, Ponsonbies, and Fitzgeralds, was of a personal character, and not of a 
 public importance ; in objects factious, and in results futile. 
 
 But Henry Flood laid the basis in Ireland for a hereditary parliamentary 
 opposition. He may have been very inconsistent with his own principles — that 
 is a matter of dispute ; but it is matter of certainty that he founded an enduring 
 Irish party, which, aided by events and the genius and patriotism of Grattan, 
 obtained the legislative freedom of Ireland. Flood rallied to his political standard 
 some of the first commoners in the country. He gave to his principles the 
 advantage of aristocratic support. He proposed broad measures, in which all 
 the public took interest, and labouring to make parliament tell upon the nation, 
 he also sought out of doors to make popular influence react upon the House of 
 Commons. If Lucas had the merit of starting the claim of an Octennial Bill, 
 Flood had the honour of advocating it with great oratorical power, and of 
 wringing it from the administration of Lord Townshend in 1768. On two other 
 publie subjects of first-rate importance, he was strenuous, able, and convincing. 
 These were — the permanent erection of a constitutional military force in addition 
 to the standing army — a kind of national militia ; and the third subject to which 
 he applied himself was the exposition of the law of Poyning, on which he 
 maintained the principles of Molyneux. 
 
 These questions were treated by Flood with great ability ; and he acquired 
 considerable popularity by his vigorous opposition to the Townshend Viceroyalty. 
 But, in the succeeding Harcourt Viceroyalty, Flood, to the surprise of his party, 
 consented to accept a Vice-treasurership, one of the principal State Offices at that 
 time existing in Ireland. He complained that he had been betrayed by many 
 of his friends; that they had deserted him in his most important movements; 
 and roundly asserted that he could serve his country more effectually in office 
 than out of it. He maintained that the Irish patriots could do nothing without 
 power — that power in Ireland depended on office, because the influence of the 
 crown was so great, that it was not possible to oppose it effectually, and the 
 only way to serve the country was in office. It may be added that the Har- 
 court Administration was a very different one from Lord Townshend's — and that 
 Flood appears to have made his office useful to the public. Posterity has 
 acquitted him of having acted from mean or paltry motives. 
 
 A constructive view has frequently been taken of Flood's career, in which it 
 has been dexterously urged that the honour of the Revolution of 1782 belongs 
 as much to Flood as to Grattan. But such an opinion, however ingeniously 
 supported, is preposterous. A Revolution of that nature could not be conducted 
 by one man, and its honour carried off by another, in the face of a whole nation. 
 The voice of that age — the tradition of posterity — and historical examination of 
 the period — all concur in indicating Grattan as the man of 1782. Nevertheless, 
 it is matter of certainty, that Flood produced vast political effect in favour of 
 Ireland, previous to the entrance of Grattan into parliament. Indeed, it is not 
 improbable, that the great success which Flood obtained in working the Irish 
 cause, induced Grattan to look to the Irish parliament as the scene of his labours. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 XV 
 
 He was not fond of Dublin society, and possibly dreamed of entering the English 
 House of Commons. But Flood seems to have sucked him into the vortex of 
 Irish politics. In Barataniana Grattan wrote several pieces (amongst others 
 his celebrated character of Lord Chatham) ; and, in fact, he was one of that 
 party of which the ostensible leader was Henry Flood. In short, to sum up in 
 a sentence, the influence of Flood upon Grattan appears to have been of this 
 nature — viz., to determine Grattan 's mind strongly towards Irish politics — to 
 give him the notion that something great might be done in Ireland — and that 
 a man of powers might win an European name on the comparatively restricted 
 ground of Irish politics. The example, rather than the teaching of Flood, 
 suggested to Grattan what he himself might do. 
 
 Thus far have we traced the early development and formation of his per- 
 sonal character. We see that originally he was of a poetical nature, and that 
 his affections were of exquisite sensibility. His passionate love of nature — the 
 vagueness of his early purpose — his wayward moods, reveal to us much of his 
 interior structure. A certain lofty mien is also visible in his youthful character. 
 We see also how he contracted the mannerism which adhered to him to the last, 
 and how much influence was produced on him by the age in which he was 
 educated. Other thing3 also attract our notice. These are his exchange of 
 poetry for politics, and the fascinating influence of the great Chatham, whose 
 sublime and soaring eloquence appears to have made Grattan feel that the 
 career of a mighty orator was as grand as the rapturous existence of a poet. 
 And lastly, we perceive, that if his style was influenced by the last century in 
 England, and by the oratory of Chatham, that his purposes were materially 
 affected by the career of Henry Flood. But if Pitt helped to make him an 
 orator, and if he were partly trained into politics by Flood — in eloquence or 
 statesmanship Grattan was the copyist of neither. He was eminently original, 
 as we will clearly observe in examining his public and historical career, to 
 which we will now proceed. 
 
 The public life of Grattan naturally resolves itself into two periods — from 
 17 . 75 to m \8W, in the Irish Parliament, and from 1801 to his death in 1820. 
 His political course in the Irish Legislature may be examined under three 
 heads, namely, 1. From his entrance on the public scene till the conclusion of 
 the Revolution of 1782. 2. From 1783 to the declaration of war against 
 France. 3. From 1793 to the Union. 
 
 1. On the 11th of December, 1775, he took his seat in the Irish House 
 Commons, as member for the borough of Charlemont, to which he was nomi- 
 nated by its noble owner. At that time Grattan was very well known in 
 society, and his reputation for ability and eloquence was the cause of his intro- 
 duction to Lord Charlemont. With that nobleman he continued to act for 
 many years, and though their friendship was terminated abruptly, their respect 
 for each other was not diminished. Lord Charlemont was more fitted to be the 
 ornament of any cause than its support. He was a most amiable and worthy 
 private character, but for the conduct of great affairs he was little suited. His 
 historical reputation rests on his connexion with the party that brought about 
 the events of 1782, and his claim to the gratitude of Irish posterity depends on 
 his having given a conspicuous example of an Irish nobleman, with ardent local 
 affections — a love for the people of his native land, and a desire to raise its 
 honour and celebrity amongst nations. Of the liberal and useful arts he was 
 a munificent patron and judicious supporter; with men distinguished for talent 
 and probity he delighted to associate ; his mind and manners proved the 
 humanizing and elevating influence of the intellectual pursuits which he culti- 
 
xvi 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 vated with ardour. His character has been as ridiculously exalted by the idle 
 panegyrists of his own times, as it has been unjustly depreciated by harsh cen- 
 sors of our own days. He was an Irishman by affection, as well as by the 
 accident of birth, and, despite that he was born and bred amongst the aristo- 
 cracy, had a heart for his country. So let us qualify the adulation of which he 
 was the object during his life, and mitigate the censure which has been often 
 passed upon his memory. 
 
 But Lord Charlemont was not a statesman in any sense. He had not even 
 the secondary accomplishments required by one who aspires to manage great 
 affairs. He was a miserable speaker, and was a weak, though elegant writer 
 on political matters. He wanted breadth of view — boldness of character — and 
 energy of constitution. The nervousness of his physical system attacked his 
 mind, and weakened his moral resolution. Nevertheless his association with 
 Grattan was attended with most important consequences to both of them : for 
 they were men peculiarly necessary to each other. Lord Charlemont gave to 
 Grattan the great advantage of political connexion, in return for which he re- 
 ceived an alliance and support of the most gifted intellect in the country. 
 There was no Charlemont party in Ireland, until Grattan called it into existence; 
 and the party which is to be honoured for the success of the Revolution of 1782, 
 and which by many is held responsible for the subsequent failure of that political 
 experiment, dates its formation from the appearance of Henry Grattan in 
 Parliament. 
 
 No time could have been better chosen for his entrance to the House of Com- 
 mons. Flood had become silent and ywa«-ministerial, and though there was a 
 host of talent in opposition, its leaders were rather desultory in their mode of 
 warfare against the ministry. Many things contributed to render the Irish 
 cause dangerous to England. The contest of the Americans with the mother 
 country; the decided hostility of the French and Spanish houses of Bourbon ; 
 the distracted state of England during the government of Lord North : all 
 these combined to make any Irish party formidable to the British power. But 
 in addition to these sources of trouble, the Irish cause was in those days parti- 
 cularly to be feared from the peculiar sources of the Irish discontent then pre- 
 vailing. Hitherto, the battle between England and Ireland had been upon the 
 point of honour (as far as the latter country was concerned) ; but, in addition 
 to old and transmitted causes of feuds, the struggle between the countries on 
 the appearance of Grattan was fiercer, because the trading interests of Ireland 
 were grossly depressed by the monopolizing policy of England. The British 
 manufacturers and their representatives in Parliament .cared just as much for 
 the interests of Irish Protestant traders and Irish capitalists, as the English 
 peers and Anglo-Irish absentees for the Roman Catholic families who had lost 
 all their estates at the Revolution. For in all countries and in all ages, 
 national ambition is little affected by sectarian sympathy ; it is at once the most 
 selfish and impartial of the passions. Confession of the same creed will never 
 restrain a powerful empire from striking down its weaker rival. 
 
 The Protestant traders and manufacturers of Ireland desired Free Trade as a 
 means of extending their commerce and emerging from their depressed con- 
 dition ; but they were told that their wishes could not be granted, because the 
 British Parliament was supreme. The Protestant gentry of Ireland were ambi- 
 tious of a nobler theatre of exertion, where they might obtain power and fame 
 — but they were told that their Irish Houses of Lords and Commons should 
 remain a degraded provincial assembly, because the British Parliament was 
 supreme. Mr. Flood and his friends, who had desired to govern for Irish pur- 
 
 * 
 
HENBT GRATTAN". 
 
 xvii 
 
 pose3, were told tliat their suggestions could not be adopted, because the British 
 Parliament was supreme. Whether propositions in favour of Ireland were 
 made by the friends or foes of the ministry, the answer was, "Impossible! 
 The British Parliament was supreme". 
 
 The English minister of the time was Lord North, opposed by the Rocking- 
 ham party — by the Shelburne interest — by Charles Fox — and, greatest of all, 
 by Edmund Burke. In Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant was Lord Bucking- 
 hamshire, a man of notable political talents, who had acquired distinction as a 
 diplomatist. His chief secretary was Mr. Richard Heron, who had been selected 
 for that post, because he had been law agent and manager of Lord Bucking- 
 hamshire's estates. He was the nominee of the Lord Lieutenant, who had 
 chosen him as his creature, and for his own convenience. 
 
 Meantime the Irish Opposition plied the administration with various mea- 
 sures, and attacked the British government in all directions. The law of Poy- 
 nings (involving the whole question of Irish right to govern itself) was dis- 
 cussed in a surpassing style of legal ability by Yelverton : the iniquities of the 
 Penal Code against the Catholics were denounced by Mr. Gardiner and Sir 
 Hercules Langrishe: Mr. Gervase Bushe applied himself to the question of an 
 Irish Mutiny Bill (involving the existence of the volunteer force) : Mr. Brown- 
 low and the celebrated Denis Daly attacked the supremacy of the British Par- 
 liament. Events favoured their exertions. The government of Lord North 
 was an "Iliad of blunders" General Burgoyne's army had surrendered to the 
 Americans — on all sides England was menaced with danger. 
 
 Still there was something wanted to make the Irish question more formidable. 
 The constitutional quarrel with England had been of a character not altogether 
 uncompromising, and very litigious in its mode of procedure. The question 
 hitherto had been like a wrangle between a colony and the parent state. There 
 had been little in its nature that was grand and aspiring. Its domestic sources 
 were physical misery, manufacturing discontent, and a sense of many local 
 wrongs. But there was now about to be flung into the political caldron an 
 ingredient of magic influence for exciting the most violent commotion; and the 
 wizard was to appear, who by the spell of a passionate and romantic eloquence 
 was to disenchant Ireland of her moral subservience to England, and make her 
 aspire to political independence and national fame. 
 
 The Irish feeling of nationality, which had been appealed to by Molyneux, 
 Swift, Lucas, and Flood, was of a character rather negative. Their patriotism, 
 in its style, was little coloured with the sentiment of country. They seemed as 
 if fhey had resolved not to be English, rather than to be positively Irish. 
 There was little in the fashion of their writings or eloquence that could be 
 esteemed as distinctively national. There was no traditional feeling roused by 
 them, and indeed on a close examination of their speeches and writings it would 
 be difficult to discern the vestiges of genius " racy of the soil". Flood's oratory 
 flowed in that style most affected by British parliamentary debaters ; there 
 was too much of the spirit of a common-councilman in the speeches and tracts 
 of Lucas ; and Molyneux was legal and didactic. Swift, indeed, exhibited abun- 
 dance of the humour that one looks for in an effective popular writer on Irish 
 matters, and occasionally displayed genuine pathos. But who could have 
 assimilated the writings and speeches of those men with the national character 
 of the Irish people ? Where can we find in the political writings of the Dean 
 of St. Patrick's that genial nature and sensibility to emotion — in short, the 
 enthusiam of the Irish ? The Swifts and Floods had been most useful to the 
 Irish in the work of resistance, but there was not enough of creative political 
 
xviii 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 genius in their public manifestations. The pile which they had raised would, 
 perhaps, never have been wrapt in flame from the combustibles whicn they 
 applied. A more subtle and brighter element than they had thought of, was 
 required. 
 
 Now, while the Irish Opposition was teazing Lords North and Bucking- 
 hamshire with the harassing methods common in ordinary political warfare, 
 Henry Grattan was musing by the banks of the Liffey. The old and natural 
 character of the man had broken out. He who had wandered through Windsor 
 Forest, meditating on the dryads and fawns of the sylvan scene, was now in 
 early manhood transformed into the patriot reflecting on Irish regeneration. 
 His excellent uncle, Colonel Marlay, then lived at Celbridge Abbey, and there, 
 in the bowers of Vanessa, Grattan meditated on creating the political indepen- 
 dence of Ireland. In those very bowers, where 
 
 The stern satirist, and the witty maid, 
 Talked pretty love, nor yet profaned the shade,* 
 
 the regenerator of Ireland mused upon the liberty of his native land. He was 
 perfectly true to his disposition — the imaginative and romantic prevailed in the 
 development of his mind. He was bent upon doing something great and glo- 
 rious, which would transmit his name to remote ages. He was not satisfied 
 with the proceedings of the Yelvertons, Bushes, Dalys, Brownlows, and others of 
 the principal leaders of the Irish party. He thought something bolder, grander, 
 and more aspiring was necessary ; in short, he believed that the freedom of Ire- 
 land was to be obtained. 
 
 But to venture upon declaring the independence of Ireland, was a bold mea- 
 sure. There were many unprepared for a scheme so full of risk and uncertainty. 
 Those who held the property of the country were afraid of all political convul- 
 sion. And there was a large portion of the timid, hesitating public, not in 
 favour of measures which the originators called "bold", and which many 
 thought desperate. Still, however, there were circumstances peculiarly favour- 
 able to the policy which Henry Grattan was about to unfold. 
 
 Foremost amongst those circumstances was the existence of the Volunteer 
 force, a body which had been originally marshalled for the defence of the 
 country against the continental invasion, but which it was evident might now 
 be turned against the British power. The Volunteers had originally sprung up 
 about 1777. A large corps of them had been assembled at Armagh by Lord 
 Charlemont, who in spirited style had placed himself at their head. Those 
 troops, curiously enough, had been banded together after application to the 
 government for military assistance ; but the secretary, Sir Richard Heron, 
 declared that government could render no help. In such a state of affairs a 
 Volunteer force was rapidly raised ; a military ardour seized on all classes, and 
 the gentry marshalled in the same ranks with the traders of the country. 
 
 The presence of such a force greatly aided the objects of Grattan. The plot 
 began to thicken, and the English government gradually became more embar- 
 rassed day after day. Throughout the whole island the Volunteers had sprung 
 up — a vast army — equipping themselves, and nominating their own officers. 
 The Opposition, in the meanwhile, did not relax in its exertions. In the ses- 
 sion of 1779, Grattan moved an amendment to the address in favour of Free 
 Trade. Upon his motion, Hussey Burgh, a man of brilliant talents and 
 
 * From lines addressed to Dean Marlay, from Grattan 's pen. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 xix 
 
 upright character, moved a direct resolution that " nothing but a Free Trad*! 
 could save the country from ruin". The motion of Burgh was carried without 
 opposition. 
 
 England determined upon a change of Irish ruler3, and sent over the Ear] 
 of Carlisle in place of Lord Buckinghamshire, and Mr. Eden (afterwards Lord 
 Auckland), in the place of Sir R, Heron. The latter change, so far as regarded 
 the British interests, was decidedly for the better, as Mr. Eden was a remark- 
 ably clever man — shrewd, sagacious, and observant. But it would have been 
 a difficult matter for any ministers to have repressed the advance of the Irish 
 party. 
 
 Meanwhile, Grattan resolved to assert, by a resolution in the House of Com- 
 mons, the right of Ireland to legislate for herself. Most of his friends and 
 party dissuaded him from the project. He was not, however, to be turned from 
 his purpose, and his imagination was excited by the glowing hopes of giving 
 freedom to his country. He has himself said, " Along the banks of the Liffey, 
 amid the groves and bowers of Swift and Vanessa, I grew convinced that I was 
 right. Arguments unanswerable came to my mind, and what I then presaged 
 confirmed me in my determination to persevere". 
 
 On the 19th of April, 1780, he made the memorable motion of a declaration 
 of Irish right. His speech upon that occasion was the most splendid piece of 
 eloquence that had ever been heard in Ireland, and it vies with the greatest 
 efforts ever made in the English House of Commons. He argued the whole 
 question of Irish right with great ability — setting forward the most convincing 
 proofs of its justice : but, in that department of the subject, he might probably 
 have been equalled by more than one of his contemporaries ; in what he sur- 
 passed them all, was the superior splendour of his style and the impassioned 
 vehemence of his spirit. He not merely convinced, but he dazzled and 
 inflamed. A great part of his audience caught the fire of his enthusiam, and 
 when his speech was circulated throughout the country, the effect was prodi- 
 gious. The mind of the country felt that it was addressed in a style congenial 
 with its own character. The enthusiasm and imagination of the speaker was 
 warmly sympathized with by tens of thousands. 
 
 The great success of his splendid effort was to be principally attributed to his 
 invoking the soul of the nation. He raised the spirit of the public far beyond 
 the height to which his predecessors had carried it. Swift made the Irish sore, 
 dissatisfied, angry ; but Grattan, in moving for Independence, introduced 
 into the public mind a feeling of glowing, impassioned patriotism. Swift had 
 often cast his contemporaries into fits of political wrath ; but Grattan made the 
 quarrel with England a subject of sublime moral emotion amongst his country- 
 men. He did not so much push the question of Irish freedom beyond the prin- 
 ciples asserted by Molyneux and laboured for by Flood, as raise it into a loftier 
 region of thought and sentiment. With bold and masterly hand he sketched a 
 brave design of Irish liberty, and coloured the picture with the hues of his own 
 impassioned fancy. 
 
 Nor was he merely superior to those patriots who had toiled before his time, 
 in the brilliancy and splendour of his imagination. His character was less 
 insular, and his intellect less hampered with provincial modes of thought. If 
 he was an Irish genius, he had given his mind an European education ; and 
 with the writings of the philosophers, who for good and eril affected the eigh- 
 teenth century, Grattan was intimately conversant. Amongst his contemporary 
 statesmen, he ranked next to Burke, in knowledge of the speculative writers 
 who haye treated of human nature, and of Man in society. Inferior to Charles 
 
XX 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Fox in acquaintance with the details of historical transactions and with the 
 beauties of polite literature, Grattan was incontestably superior to his English 
 Whig contemporary in profound and valuable philosophical accomplishments. 
 For Fox* had the English dislike to all speculation that is abstract and remote 
 from immediate application to affairs ; Grattan, on the other hand, loved to 
 soar into those realms of thought which have been explored by the metaphysical 
 politicians. 
 
 The influence produced on Irish affairs in 1780 by such a man as Grattan, it 
 is easier to conceive than pourtray. Space is wanting in this memoir to enume- 
 rate all the effects of which he was the producer ; but briefly it may be said, 
 that at the conjuncture of Irish politics during the latter years of Lord North's 
 government, Grattan was hailed by his countrymen as the prophet of Irish 
 redemption. He became a popular idol and the object of the enthusiastic 
 affections of the people, who invested him with a popularity and applause, eclips- 
 ing the fame of all his contemporaries in the Irish Parliament. As Grattan intro- 
 duced into Irish affairs an element of lofty moral enthusiasm, springing from 
 his own impassioned and romantic mind, so was he in turn acted upon by the 
 ordinary public passions of those around him, and in but a few months from 
 his first motion for Irish independence, he reached the giddy and dazzling height 
 of being recognised before the world as the man who impersonated the cause of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The cause of Ireland ! Words of singular significance, fraught with historical 
 recollections of "deep interest, and still portentous to all English and Irish minds 
 which reflect upon the future government of these kingdoms. If ever that cause 
 was to have died away, it ought to have been in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. Many of the old sources of Irish hatred to England were extinguished. 
 There was no religious quarrel to exacerbate the Irish feelings, for the Catholics 
 crawled on without political existence, without civil rights, or even the hopes of 
 gaining freedom. There was no question of disputed succession, for the Jacobite 
 contest was at an end. The right to property was acknowledged to lie in the 
 Protestant proprietors. The Houses of Lords and Commons were Protestant, 
 and their members professed political adherence to the principles of the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688. In short, one would have supposed that the country was assimilated 
 with England, and that they formed the same political power. After the total 
 downfall of the Catholics one might have thought that England was never to 
 hear again of the Irish nation. And yet the cause of Ireland, as a nation dis- 
 tinct from England, was never stronger or more prosperous than in those very 
 times when (without any Catholic assistance) the Protestant and Anglican 
 inhabitants of Ireland proceeded to demonstrate the existence, and vindicate the 
 undying principles of that old historical quarrel. " Nation", says the profound 
 Burke, " is amoral essence, and not a geographical arrangement, or a denomina- 
 tion of the nomenclator". That essence of nationhood was as intensely existing 
 in the Protestants of Ireland, as in the Catholics whom they had trampled into 
 
 * According to Sir James Mackintosh, the three works which have most influenced the 
 politics of modern Europe, are " De Jure Belli et Pacis" (Grotius) ; A dam Smith's 4 ' Wealth 
 of Nations" ; and Montesquieu's " Spirit of Laws". The second of these great works was 
 never read by Fox, and he considered the last of them full of nonsense. The fact was, 
 that the mode of his mind did not suit the study of such treatises : his understanding was 
 powerful and sagacious, rather than acute and subtle, better fitted for appreciating the 
 actual and historical, rather than examining the abstract and speculative. He would 
 probably have applied to Metaphysicians, what a celebrated scholar said of the Basque peo- 
 ple: 41 It is asserted that they understand one another, but I do not believe it". 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 dust. Time had only changed the champions of the cause of Ireland , the his- 
 torical strife was continued with unabated ardour by the Protestants. 
 
 One cannot pass those times without remarking that much of Grattan's force 
 in Irish politics was to be attributed to the conformity between his mind and 
 the genius of his countrymen. He may be considered as the first great repre- 
 sentative of Irish eloquence, and though Burke possesses the superiority as a 
 statesman, Grattan carries the palm as the greater orator. The eloquence of 
 Burke in the British senate has often been characterized (and with justice) as 
 Irish oratoiy. Indeed, any one that consults the English ministerial writers, 
 who drudged in the service of George Grenville, may be amused by the mode in 
 which they attack Burke as an Irishman. But Grattan was not, as many hare 
 idly said, a pupil of Burke in oratory. His style was far more dramatic, more 
 Btartling, more picturesque, and much less prolix. It was not prone to run into 
 dissertation, and was always calculated to move the passions, while it appealed to 
 the judgment of the audience. As a public speaker, it must be confessed, with 
 all admiration for his intellect, that Burke was frequently wearisome. His 
 speeches were made to be read, and not to be spoken. But Grattan contrived 
 with singular genius to be always original, generally profound, and never 
 tiresome. 
 
 It would be a trite subject nowadays to enter into the critical merits of the 
 eloquence of those great men who illustrated the close of the eighteenth century, 
 but it may be enough here to say that Grattan was original and creative, and 
 was the tame follower of no man in his eloquence and politics. He was himself 
 at all times. 
 
 Amongst the moral qualities that we can trace as having contributed to 
 Grattan's vast public success, there was one deserving particular notice. 
 
 He appears to have had more vigour of will than most of his patriotic con- 
 temporaries. His physical and moral courage were of a very high order. Even 
 when he was most dispirited and shattered in his physical frame, he seemed to 
 have retained a certain fierce audacity of spirit, which rather courted danger 
 than shrunk from it. Indeed, if one may be permitted to criticise his personal 
 courage, he had too much of the dare-devil. Though brilliant, cultivated, and 
 polite, there was a latent audacity in his character, which made him formidable 
 even to the execrable bullies who then infested Irish society. At that time the 
 ferocious and bloodthirsty principles of the " Fire-eating code " were recognised in 
 Irish society, and to those principles Grattan lent all the influence of his example. 
 His position in Iri^h politics was in some respects rather singular. Without 
 great property or very high social connection, he affected to lead the Irish 
 parliament. In any age of Irish history, no other Irishman of the same 
 moderate sccial pretensions aspired to such a leading part as Grattan. To play 
 that part, the Chatham of Ireland required no ordinary resolution. Mere political 
 genius or proficiency in parliamentary eloquence would not have sufficed. A 
 vigorous will, and a capacity for self-assertion, were required ; and with those 
 qualities Grattan was eminently endowed. 
 
 It is the province of the historian, and not of a commentator, to detail the events 
 of the Irish Revolution of 1 782. It is enough here to remark, that though the 
 thought of Irish liberty did not proceed from the Volunteers, yet unquestionably 
 the ideas were realised only by the means of exhibiting force. Everywhere 
 throughout the island, the public spirit was wrought up to extraordinary 
 excitement. Indeed the political proceedings of the years that immediately 
 preceded 1782, chiefly consisted in the enlistment and frequent reviewing of 
 the Vciunteers, who had chosen Lord Charlemont as their general The 
 
xxii 
 
 JIEMOIR OF 
 
 Volunteers became, if not dejure, at least de facto, a national standing army ; 
 they assisted in the maintenance of public order, escorted the J udges of Assize, 
 conveyed prisoners to gaol, and moved from place to place. The first noblemen 
 of the country were at their head : in the North, Lords Charlemont and Erne ; 
 in Connaught, Lord Clanricarde ; in Munster, Lords Kingsborough, Inchiquin, 
 and Shannon, commanded large bodies of armed militia, which existed without 
 the concurrence of the Crown. Yet, neither morally nor technically could 
 disloyalty have been imputed to them. They were not republicans, like the 
 insurgent Americans : with the exception of a few corps in the North, they had 
 as little of the anti-king feeling in their composition, as they had of the 
 irreligion of the French Revolutionists. Their intensity was Irish, and not 
 democratic ; their purpose national rather than convulsive. They aimed at a 
 redistribution of political power within these islands ; but, unlike the revo- 
 lutionists of France or America, they did not embody ideas calculated to spread 
 through society, and influence the moral character of mankind. Considered 
 discursively, their political principles were those of the Revolution of 1688 ; 
 their leaders did not differ from those views of political liberty entertained by 
 the English Whigs. They put forward doctrines which came under the ban of 
 an imperial rather than a social Alarmist, and rendered themselves obnoxious 
 to the authority of a William Pitt, representing English will and administering 
 the British empire, rather than to the moral censure of a Burke, philosophising 
 upon politics. It cannot be too distinctly maintained, that whatever moral 
 power was in the volunteers and their leaders, was derived from a national 
 source. The " moral essence" of nationhood was their vivifying spirit. 
 
 For uttering the feelings of such a party, Grattan was exactly the man 
 required. He had an enthusiastic passion for Ireland, and at the same time he 
 desired connexion with England. He was himself what is called in politics 
 " a Whig of the Revolution", equally opposed to the absolutism of the Tory, or 
 the ultra-liberalism of the Radical. He was a stanch enemy of Lord Chatham's 
 great bugbear, " the House of Bourbon". He did not wish the British power 
 should diminish, except in Ireland, for then Europe would have been at the 
 mercy of France. He wished that Irish society should be moulded into the 
 same society as that existing in England, but that its colour should be Irish, 
 and its spirit " racy of the soil". He desired that Ireland should have a 
 nationality, moral and historical, distinct from that of England ; but he placed 
 bounds upon its political ambition. He would have had Irish manners, Irish 
 traditions, Irish affections, Irish literature, Irish art, but he would not have had 
 an Irish sovereign, except in conjunction with England. 
 
 This is not the place to examine whether such ideas could ever be permanently 
 realised : it is not within the narrow limits of this memoir that we can examine 
 whether such splendid aspirations for objects apparently contradictory, ought to 
 be called ideas, or whether they were the phantoms of a poetical fancy kindled 
 by a patriotic heart. Be it enough to say here, that they were Grattan's views 
 on Ireland ; they were the aspirations of the Irish statesmen of 1782 * "but they 
 were as totally distinct from the ideas subsequently put forward by Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone, as from those of Lord Castlereagh. Grattan was the national 
 Whig of Ireland, and thus in politics he must be judged. 
 
 After the country had been thoroughly roused by Grattan and his friends, it 
 was evident that war should soon take place with England, unless the Irish 
 claims were conceded. The Volunteers held their famous meeting at Dungan- 
 non on the 15th of February, 1782, and the celebrated Resolution, drawn up 
 by Grattan, was passed unanimously : — " Resolved, that a claim of any body 
 
HENBT GRATTAN. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 of men other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to 
 bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance". 
 
 The next resolution, directed against Poyning's Law, originated with Flood. 
 But there was a third resolution, started by Henry Grattan, that made less noise 
 at the time, but which must not be forgotten: it was one in favour of the 
 oppressed Catholics, and ran in the following terms : — " Resolved, that we hold 
 the right of private judgment in matters of religion to be equally sacred in others 
 as well as in ourselves ; that we rejoice in the relaxation of the Penal Laws 
 against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, and that we conceive the measure 
 to be fraught with the happiest consequences to the union and prosperity of the 
 inhabitants of Ireland". 
 
 These resolutions spread throughout all Ireland, and were adopted not merely 
 by shouting thousands, by assemblages numerically formidable, but by armed 
 regiments of Protestants and owners of the soil, and by the Grand Juries 
 assembled at the Assizes. What never before (or since) was seen in Ireland, 
 then took place — namely, unanimity amongst all parties and creeds in the 
 cause of their common country. 
 
 In the spring of 1782, the Ministry of Lord North fell amidst universal 
 unpopularity. Lord Rockingham, after some delay, was made Prime Minister, 
 and all the sections of the Whig party became united. Fox and Lord Shel- 
 bourne were made Secretaries of State ; Burke was appointed Paymaster of the 
 Forces ; the Duke of Portland was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and 
 t Colonel Fitzpatrick was made Chief Secretary. The new Lord Lieutenant was 
 a shuffling, vacillating, insincere nobleman, of much infirmity of purpose, but 
 not destitute of low cunning.* Fitzpatrick, the Chief Secretary, was a spirited 
 and accomplished person, of open and manly character, and well deserving to 
 be popular. But though British interests were served by the dismissal of Lord 
 North from power, the new Government found hopeless difficulties to contend 
 with in Ireland. There were not five thousand of the King's troops in the 
 island, and there were nearly one hundred thousand Volunteers, filled with a 
 passion for liberty, whose hopes too had been long deferred, and who eagerly 
 demanded their freedom. 
 
 In such circumstances, Charles Fox, the principal man of the new Whig 
 Government, determined to see what skilful diplomacy might accomplish. He 
 saw that there was nothing to be done, except to resist the Irish by arms, or to 
 master them by policy, and he was not without hopes of doing the latter. For 
 that purpose he resolved to gain time upon the Irish leaders, and trust to the 
 providence of events for giving him some means by which he might save Eng- 
 land from the concession of liberty to Ireland. For both he and Edmund Burke 
 considered the Irish claims as most dangerous to England. 
 
 And it is not to be denied that Fox was very near triumphing over the Irish 
 leaders ; in fact, he would have done so but for Henry Grattan. The English 
 Whig Government had numerous personal friends amongst the Irish patriots. 
 Fitzpatrick was a scion of an Irish family, that for centuries had been Lords of 
 Upper Ossory. Burke had many leading friends in the Irish House of Com- 
 mons, and several of Fox's adherents in England were Irishmen, as, for example, 
 Sir Philip Francis, Colonel Barre, Mr. Sheridan, Courtney, and many others. 
 All the force of party connexion and personal friendship was immediately put 
 in action by Fox. He saw the difficulty of his position, and like a strong man 
 rose with the emergency. 
 
 * This character of the Duke of Portland receives painful confirmation from the recently 
 published memoirs of Lord Malmesbury. 
 
MEMOIR OP 
 
 On the 14th of March, 1782, Henry Grattan had given notice that he would 
 again bring before the Irish House of Commons the question of Legislative Inde- 
 pendence ; and he moved further for a call of the House for the 16th of April, 
 the day on which members " were to tender the rights of the Irish Parliament". 
 It therefore became a paramount object with Fox to interpose delay. He sought 
 to play upon the good nature of Lord Charlemont, and endeavoured to amuse 
 the Irish leaders with various kind speeches and compliments. He partially 
 succeeded. Denis Daly was favourable to giving " time" to the English Govern- 
 ment : so also was Hussey Burgh, and so was Mr. Yelverton — three men of 
 unquestionable spirit and ability. 
 
 The 16th of April drew near, and public expectations were greatly excited. 
 There were symptoms of some of the patriot leaders faltering in their course. 
 Grattan, who had been suffering after a life of three years' continuous excite- 
 ment, was breaking down in health, but not in resolution. He was confined to 
 his bed from physical debility, though his mind was full of nerve. On the 13th 
 of April, three days before that appointed for the Declaration of Irish Indepen- 
 dence, Lord Charlemont wrote to Flood requesting him to come to town and 
 give his advice upon the emergency of affairs ; but Mr. Flood declined to do so. 
 Charlemont went to the bedside of Grattan, and told him of the letters he had 
 received from Fox and Lord Rockingham. He told him also of the opinions of 
 their fellow-patriots ; but Grattan vehemently cried : " No time !— no time !" 
 and Lord Charlemont was obliged to write a letter to the English Government, 
 " that they (the Irish leaders) could not delay — that they were pledged to the 
 people — that they could not postpone the question — for that it was public pro- 
 perty". Such were the words dictated by Grattan. 
 
 At length the 16th of April, 1782 — the most memorable day in Irish history 
 — arrived ; and Grattan, to the surprise of all who knew his physical weakness, 
 appeared in his place in Parliament. His looks told his sufferings ; he was 
 emaciated and careworn ; and an ordinary man in his state would not have been 
 fit to enter, much less to address, a public assembly. But Grattan was no 
 ordinary man ; and he electrified his audience with a speech distinguished, hi 
 the words of an English critic, "for its fire, sublimity, and immense reach of 
 thought". Lord Charlemont used often to say, when alluding to that day, " if 
 ever spirit could be said to act independent of body, it was on that occasion". 
 The speech was in every respect equal to the occasion • and Grattan won 
 universal admiration by the power of mind and character he showed when mov- 
 ing his resolutions of Independence. He stated the three great causes of com- 
 plaint upon the part of Ireland : the Declaratory Statute of George the First ; 
 the Perpetual Mutiny Bill ; and the unconstitutional powers of the Irish Privy 
 Council. The repeal of the two statutes, and the abolition of the sway of the 
 Privy Council, were the terms on which he would support Government. 
 
 His resolutions were triumphantly carried. Chief Secretary Fitzpatrick found 
 it useless to make resistance. The House of Lords concurred with the House of 
 Commons in the famous Address to the King, stating " that the Crown of Eng- 
 land is an Imperial Crown, but that Ireland is a distinct Kingdom, with a Par- 
 liament of her own, the sole Legislature thereof". The English Government 
 then placed the Resolutions before the King, who directed copies to be laid before 
 the British Parliament ; and on the 17th of May the English House of Com- 
 mons resolved itself into a Committee for the consideration of the whole ques- 
 tion. Mr. Fox determined to yield with a good grac^. He stated that he would 
 rather see Ireland wholly separated from the Crown of England, than kept in 
 subjection by force. u Unwilling subjects", he said " are little better than 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 XXV 
 
 enemies". He then moved a repeal of the 6th George the First, and his motion 
 was adopted by parliament. 
 
 The Irish parliament then met upon the 27th of May ; and the Lord 
 Lieutenant officially noted in his speech the concurrence of the English govern- 
 ment with the resolutions of the Irish parliament. Mr. Grattan moved the 
 address in answer to the speech, and only two members voted against the address. 
 Notices of several Irish bills were then given by Grattan, Yelverton, and Forbes; 
 and the Irish parliament entered upon its independent existence. 
 
 Thus was carried the Revolution of 1782 — in the achievement of which Henry 
 Grattan played a part that would preserve his memory in history, even if his 
 eloquence had not immortalized his name. In the 36th year of his age he stood 
 before the world as the leading statesman in a national Revolution, pregnant 
 with vast consequences to the authority of England, and to the politics of 
 Ireland. Aided by a number of able men, and backed by a national army, he 
 had brought about the most singular state of political relations between the 
 countries. His ideas may be simply stated thus : — First, he wished that Ireland 
 should own the sovereign of England as her king. Secondly, that she should 
 deny the legislative power of England upon Irish matters. Thirdly, that the 
 Irish should live in affection with England, while they should preserve a 
 passionate nationality. And such also were the views of his contemporary 
 statesmen. On one important point, however, Grattan widely differed from 
 many of the leading patriots. He was the earnest and unswerving supporter of the 
 whole claims of the Catholics — he was for their emancipation from the odious 
 bondage in which they had been held. As a matter of sentiment he was in 
 favour of religious liberty and freedom, and also as a matter of opinion ; for, 
 looking at the whole question as a statesman, he saw that it was utterly absurd 
 to suppose that Irish independence could exist, when half the country was 
 enslaved. It reflects much credit on his political sagacity that he prophesied 
 the Union, unless the Catholics were emancipated by the Irish Protestants, who 
 in those times monopolised all political power. Upon the great question of the 
 liberty of the Irish Catholics, Grattan was completely right from first to last ; 
 and it must be admitted that his devotion to their cause was not merely the cold 
 dictate of political prudence, it was also the impulse of his manly, generous 
 nature. Throughout his whole life, and in all seasons, to the cause of the Irish 
 Catholics he " clung (to use his own words) with desperate fidelity". 
 
 In return for Grattan's services a vote of .£100,000 was proposed in parlia- 
 ment, for the purpose of giving him an estate. His first impulse was to decline 
 the grant ; he disliked to receive public money for services which had been 
 voluntarily offered to his country. Yet if he declined an estate his difficulties 
 were considerable. His patrimony was far from being sufficient to support the 
 station to which he had raised himself. He could not turn to the bar after 
 having devoted so much time to politics. He should therefore be compelled 
 either to retire from the public scene, or become a placeman. His uncle, 
 Colonel Marlay, so strongly represented to him the nature of the latter dilemma, 
 that Grattan acquiesced in the wisdom of becoming independent of party. He 
 consented to accept half of the sum voted to him by parliament ; and probably 
 then formed his inflexible resolution never to take office, as during his long 
 life he repeatedly declined official position, though tendered him by various 
 administrations. 
 
 The second period of Grattan's Irish parliamentary life commenced with the 
 agitation of the question of " Simple Repeal". 
 
 Mr. Flood had evidently been much mortified with the splendid success of 
 Grattan, and felt considerable chagrin at having been surpassed by his political 
 pupil : he seemed to have resolved on recovering his former popularity, even at 
 the expense of destroying Grattan's reputation. His conduct from first to last 
 
 2 
 
xx vi 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 in the events of '82 was very singular and inconsistent : at first he had dissuaded 
 Grattan from bringing on the question of Irish right, and affected a part of 
 caution and moderation ; but when independence had been declared by the Irish, 
 and assented to by the English parliament, he suddenly became the boldest, 
 most vehement, and anti-English of all the Irish patriots. He declared thai 
 England's repeal of the 6th George the First effected nothing for Ireland, and 
 contended that " simple repeal " of that statute was not enough to effectuate 
 Irish independence, unless the English parliament passed a special act positively 
 renouncing all claim to legislate for Ireland. 
 
 It should have been an object of supreme importance to have avoided 
 vexatious questions and idle discussions, and to have united all Irish parties in 
 a vigorous support of the new constitution of the country. Mr. Flood, however, 
 succeeded in completely discrediting the Revolution of 1782, and in making the 
 Irish public suppose that nothing effectual had been accomplished by Grattan. 
 With childish credulity they attached extravagant importance to the idle 
 doubts of Mr. Flood, and placed faith in scandalous calumnies which the 
 malignant and envious propagated against the character of Grattan, who was 
 held up to public odium as a mercenary adventurer " bought by that country 
 which he had sold for prompt payment". In two months, from being the idol 
 of the nation, he had sunk to be the object of public reprobation — the victim of 
 slander and falsehood. 
 
 It is an easy thing now to dispose of the idle question of Simple Repeal. In 
 truth, there was nothing whatever deserving of attention in the point raised by 
 Mr Flood. The security for the continuance of Irish freedom did not depend 
 upon an English act of parliament. It was by Irish will and not at English 
 pleasure that the new constitution was to be supported. The transaction between 
 the countries was of a high political nature, and it was to be judged by political 
 reason and by statesmanlike computation, and not by the petty technicalities of 
 the courts of law. , The Revolution of 1782, as carried by Ireland, and assented 
 to by England (in repealing the 6th George the First), was a political compact — 
 proposed by one country, and acknowledged by the other in the face of Europe: 
 it was not (as Mr. Flood and his partisans construed the transaction) of the 
 nature of municipal right, to be enforced or annulled by mere judicial exposition. 
 
 The question of Simple Repeal was two-fold in its nature — legal and political. 
 Mr. Flood contended, in his own words, " that the simple repeal of a declaratory 
 law (unless it contains a renunciation of the principle) is only a repeal of the 
 declaration, and not of the legal principle" (June 11, 1782). No such position 
 as Mr. Flood here asserted could be maintained by sane lawyers unless (as was 
 the case in 1782) several of them had their minds inflamed by spleen, or excited 
 by fanaticism. If a legal principle survives the repeal of a declaratory law, 
 where does it exist ? How is it operative ? In what case can it be applied ? 
 It may have a metaphysical existence in the head of an abstract speculator or 
 a fanciful politician, but where does it exist in tangible shape? A legal prin- 
 ciple is cognizable; but when the law containing a principle is erased from the 
 statute book, where is the principle to be sought for? In truth, if Mr. Flood's 
 mode of construing the effects of a repeal of a statute were correct, a most fatal 
 analogy would be established for those high prerogative lawyers who favour 
 constructive doctrines of all crown law. Several of the worst laws of the Stuart 
 times were annulled by simple repeal : if the views put forward by Flood were 
 right,. :those principles still survive. Innumerable laws were swept from the 
 statute book by Romilly and Mackintosh, but do the principles of those enact- 
 ments remain ? 
 
 Again, treating Mr. Flood's question according to the principles of Irish con- 
 stitutional law (as it existed in June, 1782), his views were ridiculous and incon- 
 sistent. What was the principle of the Revolution of 1782 other than " that 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 xxvii 
 
 Ireland was a distinct kingdom from England, with aa Imperial Crown, but a 
 parliament of its own, the sole legislature thereof"? These are the words of 
 the Declaration ot Rights, unanimously assented to in the Irish House of Com- 
 mons. The Revolution asserted the supremacy of the Irish parliament in 
 Ireland — 44 the king, lords, and commons of Ireland should alone make laws foe 
 Ireland ". How truly absurd then to have sought Irish liberty by a renunciatory 
 act of the English parliament ! Seeking for an English law on such a subject 
 was calling in question the right and power of Ireland to legislate for herself. 
 A3 Mr. Grattan aptly said, " we went to the sovereign with and not for a charter". 
 
 As a question of legal security and British constitutional law, the absurdity 
 of itfr. Flood's views was admirably exposed by Grattan. u "What is the 
 authority of the parliament of England ? Omnipotence within the realm of 
 England. It makes law — it unmakes law— it declares law, and whatever it 
 enacts the king must execute — the judges declare — and the subject obey. 
 Against whom have you sought security ? Against the parliament of England. 
 What security does the member propose ? The statute law of England, which 
 does not bind the parliament of England ! the law against the law-maker : a 
 security which ends where your danger begins ; which is essentially defective 
 in the very point where you want to be secured ; which is the very reverse of 
 a specific for your disorder. With peculiar sagacity, he rejects the faith of 
 nations, which alone can bind the power of parliament ; and he calls for a law, 
 which is the creature of parliament, to restrain it; he calls for English statutes, 
 which secure you, I allow, against the individual, the corporation, and the 
 king, and everything, except the British parliament ". 
 
 But to all such reasoning the public were deaf. Thousands of persons fancied 
 that nothing had been obtained by the Revolution, and that England still had 
 legislative power. The Irish public lost its sense, and, in a couple of months, 
 Grattan was denounced in various quarters. His popularity vanished; his 
 character was unjustly abused ; Mr. Elood became again the favourite leader. 
 The friends of Mr. Grattan were disgusted, but he himself determined to punish 
 Mr. Flood for the course which he had pursued. In 1783, they stood before 
 the public as rival leaders, and each had many friends and enemies. Flood 
 thought that Grattan had been ungrateful, and Grattan considered that Flood 
 had not behaved fairly. In short, a bitter animosity subsisted between them. 
 Grattan could not contain his wrath, and seized the opportunity to provoke 
 Flood by some very harsh taunts at " his affectation and infirmity". To the 
 moroseness of Grattan's speech. Flood replied with savage truculency, denouncing 
 Grattan as 44 a mendicant patriot, subsisting upon the public accounts — who, 
 bought by his country for a sum of money, then sold his country for prompt 
 payment". He followed up this personality with some withering sneers at 
 Grattan's aping the style of Lord Chatham — tauntingly contrasting him with 
 44 the great commoner"; and, pretending to commiserate him shorn of reputation 
 and bereft of popularity, he contemptuously concluded, by condoling with him on 
 the calamities suffered in his fame, as, doubtless, 4 ' he was still so great that the 
 Queen of France would probably have a song made on the name of Grattan ! " 
 
 To be thus roused was all that Grattan wanted. He had artfully drawn 
 Flood out — the House had lUtened to the attack — it was now bound to hearken 
 to the reply. Indeed, honourable members desired nothing better than to behold 
 the rival champions mangling each other's character. The more savage the 
 sarcasm — the more galling the taunt — the more cruel the imputation used by 
 each orator — the more pleased was the House of Commons, which delighted in 
 exhibitions of rhetorical pugnacity, followed up by the excitement of hostile 
 meetings out of doors. Any other man would have been crushed by Fl< 4. 
 But Grattan wa3 admirably prepared. "With artful affectation of temper, lie 
 dtood up to deliver his rejobr and, after addressing himself to the general question, 
 
xxviii 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 then gave a long critical account of Flood's entire life, in which he ingeniously 
 distorted every feature of his rival's character, and, with malign skill, darkened 
 every shade that rested on his reputation. He stooped even to satirize his 
 person, " hovering about the Senate, like an ill-omened bird, with sepulchral 
 note, cadaverous aspect, and a broken beak, watching to stoop and pounce upon 
 his prey". He continued at great length to work out an elaborate character of 
 Flood, presenting the most artistic specimen of invective that has disfigured the 
 parliament debates. It cannot be denied that there was remarkable talent in 
 the composition of the philippic. The form and outlines of the character intended 
 for Flood were drawn with masterly firmness; and the closeness, as well as 
 variety of sarcasm, was remarkable. The force of the whole invective was in- 
 creased by the spirit of personal vengeance that animated the virulent performance. 
 
 " Can you believe", wrote General Burgoyne to Charles Fox, " that the 
 House heard this discussion for two hours without interfering ? On the contrary, 
 every one seemed to rejoice as his favourite gladiator gave or parried a stroke, 
 and when the Chair at last interfered, they were suffered by an inattention, 
 which seemed on purpose, to withdraw themselves". A hostile meeting was agreed 
 upon between the parties, but Flood was arrested. While a duel was pending, 
 Grattan made his will, by which he left his grant of £50,000 to the public, 
 merely charging it with a life annuity for his wife.* 
 
 The evils which followed from the contest on " Simple Repeal" were very 
 great. The Irish public was distracted, and a distrust sprung up in England of 
 the wish of Ireland to remain in the Imperial connexion. The odious per- 
 sonalities between Grattan and Flood led to a general rupture in the national 
 part}', and all these evils were compensated by no real advantage. Mr. Flood 
 was technically the victor in the dispute ; he succeeded in carrying the public 
 with him, but his triumph was barren. The Renunciation Act was passed, and 
 well may it be asked, " cut bono? " when we remember that in seventeen years 
 after the Union was carried with such ease! 
 
 The course of conduct pursued by Grattan at this period of his life is very 
 open to political criticism. There were really only two parties amongst the 
 Irish Protestants — namely, the Aristocracy and the Democracy : the former 
 were excessively selfish and arrogant, and the latter were equally violent and 
 reckless. They had each the faults that political philosophers have always attri- 
 buted to the privileged few and to the excluded many ; and thus it has been 
 always in the history of Ireland. She has suffered much from external mis- 
 government, and scarcely less from her own internal discord. When her states- 
 men have triumphed over the Imperial rulers, they have oftentimes found them- 
 selves vanquished by homebred hostility. The " Irish difficulty" exists to baffle 
 not only the "foreign statesman", but the "native" patriot, "racy of the soil". 
 
 Thus it was after the Revolution of 1782. Ireland had obtained the right of 
 internal government. The next question was as to the application of the power. 
 It was evident that the vast authority obtained by the Irish parliament could be 
 used for legislative purposes. What system of government was to be put into 
 practice? What measure should be carried for the public welfare? 
 
 The Aristocracy wished that nothing more should be done. They had been 
 very willing to demand from England that they (the Irish Aristocracy) should 
 " alone make laws for Ireland" ; but they were very unwilling that their own 
 privileges and hereditary influence should be invaded. The Democracy was 
 equally determined that a more popular system should be adopted. Thus, in 
 1783, the Irish Aristocracy wanted to govern as a national, but virtually 
 irresponsible body; the popular party desired not merely that parliament 
 
 * He married in 1782 — during the very crisis of the age — Miss Henrietta Fitzgerald, a 
 lady of beauty and virtue, to whose character her son has paid a most touching tribute, 
 while recording his father's career. — Vide Grattau'« Life, chapter 1, vol. Ill, 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 should be national, but that it should also be responsible. So the first question 
 before the free Irish parliament was one of Radical Reform. 
 
 It was in this state of affairs that Grattan acted with weakness, or perhaps 
 indiscretion. He resolved to side with no party, and to remain a neutral. He 
 adopted no means for building up a party to carry out his own views, and vigor- 
 ously maintain his principles. He voluntarily assumed the part of a critic and spec- 
 tator, instead of a governor in the cabinet, or a guide of the popular passions He 
 refused to accept office, and he declined to act as a popular leader for Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. His views were certainly inconsistent. He demeaned him- 
 self towards the British Government as if he sided with the popular party, and 
 towards the Reformers he acted as if he had been the partizan of Administration. 
 
 It is evident, from the published letters and speeches of Grattan, that he was 
 utterly mistaken on the nature of political power. He confounded fame with 
 authority — celebrity with influence — the respect and admiration of the en- 
 lightened few, with the obedience and submission of general society. He had 
 been the statesman of Ireland for three years previous to 17S3. and he thought 
 that he could always remain powerful. He seemed to think also that the 
 system of government, which he had been the means of giving hi3 country in 
 1782, would govern it, without the necessity of any more intervention of public 
 passions. He had evidently too much faith in the lords and commons of Ireland. 
 His mind was tolerably easy on the problem of Irish government. The country 
 had now its own parliament — that should govern it. 
 
 But mankind, after all, have been, and must be, governed by men. Given 
 the best system and the happiest people, it will still be a problem how to govern. 
 In vain have ingenious theorists — men of subtle minds and intellectual accom- 
 plishments, tasked themselves in constructing plans of perfect government. 
 Try the best system, and when it is carried out, there will always be passions to 
 resist, interests to be controlled, order to be maintained, and liberty to be 
 cherished and preserved. The best system can only modify the operation of 
 those passions, for the effective control of which government is instituted Thns 
 let the Humes and Montesquieus — the Adam Smiths and Benthams — devise 
 the most perfect schemes ; there will always be plenty to do for the Chathams 
 — the Mirabeaus — the Foxes, and the Cannings. For man is not a merely 
 thinking being, he is also an active one ; prone to the adoption of habits, but 
 subject to the domination of dangerous impulses. Government, in short, 
 requires governors; a self-evident truism, one might suppose, if the learned and 
 ingenious had not given the world voluminous tomes treating the government 
 of the human race as a mere matter of system. u Presiding principle, and pro- 
 lific energy", was Burke's fine idea of government. But the theorists, occasion- 
 ally admirable upon " principles", blind their eyes to the M energy" inherent in 
 society ; that vital energy which can only be swayed by living men, and not 
 by formal systems. For you may rule, but not root out public passions. 
 
 The fault of the theorist in exaggerating the value of mere systems, is often 
 seen in the man of action, who has himself founded an institution. Thus Grat- 
 tan placed too much value upon a national Parliament, without considering 
 sufficiently the species of the Legislature. These remarks will be confirmed by the 
 examination of his conduct, after the " Simple Repeal" question had been settled. 
 
 When the Irish public found that the right of Ireland to legislate for herself 
 was firmly established, they next determined to reform the Hou3e of Commons. 
 Their resolution was wise, and merited approval : for never surely did any 
 Parliament require a more thorough reform. To obtain that reform a Conven- 
 tion of the Volunteers was established. Five hundred delegates, from two hun- 
 dred and seventy- two corps, met together at Belfast. They pa.>sed resolutions, 
 and addressed the Volunteers of Leinster, Mnnster and Connanght, and cxh^rtc 1 
 tiiem to demand those rights, deprived of which u the forms of a free govern- 
 
XXX 
 
 MEMOIR OP 
 
 ment would be a curse, and existence cease to be a blessing". Thus called 
 upon, the Volunteers of Ireland responded, and one hundred and sixty delegates 
 from all parts of Ireland assembled at the Rotundo. They marched to the 
 Convention through ranks of Volunteers, who lined the streets, with arms pre- 
 sented, and standards flying. Persons of the greatest social weight, and of the 
 most distinguished public character, adorned their assembly. It comprised, 
 amongst others, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Flood, Lord Farnham, Mr. Ogle, 
 Mr. Stewart of Killymoon, Mr. Edgeworth, Mr. Bagnall, and Sir Edward 
 Newenham. Lord Charlemont himself has vouched for the constitution of the 
 Convention. " It presented", he says, " a numerous and truly respectable body 
 of gentlemen. For though some of the lower class had been delegated, by far 
 the majority were men of rank and fortune, and many of them Members of 
 Parliament, both Lords and Commoners". Of the public feeling entertained 
 towards it, his Lordship adds, " Though I never cordially approved of the meet- 
 ing, yet as 1 found it impossible to withstand the general impulse towards it , I 
 did not choose to exert myself against it". 
 
 In such a state of aflairs, there was great anxiety to know what Grattan 
 would do. The Ministers of England, and the Protestant Reformers of Ireland, 
 looked for his decision with equal anxiety. It was a critical moment, not less 
 important than that when he cried, " no time ! no time !" Mr. Fox was in- 
 tensely excited by the occasion. He saw what the Irish might achieve, and felt 
 the greatest interest upon the whole question of Irish Parliamentary Reform. 
 " I want words to express to you how critical?, he wrote to the Lord-lieutenant 
 (Northington) "in the genuine sense of the word, I conceive the present moment 
 to be ; if the Volunteers will not dissolve in a reasonable time, government, and 
 even the name of it, must be at an end". Again he wrote to his friend General 
 Burgoyne: " If Grattan, or any others, feel any difficulty in treating the Vo- 
 lunteers in this tone (that is, not to consider the request of persons assembled 
 with arms), from the use they formerly made of them, I must say, their feelings 
 are not only different from mine, but are diametrically opposite. Those who 
 have used dangerous weapons for good purpose, are most bound to take care, 
 when the object is attained, that no bad use is made of those weapons". 
 
 The whole question was, whether "the object" had been attained? In a 
 technical sense, the Irish national liberty had been procured, but the real ques- 
 tion was, whether it was secure in the hands of a virtually irresponsible Parlia- 
 ment? Mr. Fox evidently believed that it was possible to govern Ireland by 
 influencing its Parliament ; and he thought, if the Irish House of Commons 
 were reformed, that the English Government would have no power over it. 
 Upon the other hand, several Irish politicians thought that Irish liberty was 
 not secure, unless the Parliament was made virtually responsible. 
 
 Grattan on this most important occasion did nothing. 
 
 He did not become a member of the Convention — nor did he support the 
 government. When Mr. Flood, having carried a plan of Reform through the 
 Convention, brought forward his measure in the House of Commons, Grattan 
 voted in its favour (without committing himself to Flood's scheme) ; but, at the 
 same time, Lord Northington wrote to Fox, "Grattan voted against us, and 
 spoke ; but his speech evidently showed that he meant us no harm". In short, 
 he elaborately acted the part of a mere neutral. 
 
 His conduct has been frequently censured in relation to this important ques- 
 tion. It has been ingeniously defended by his son, Mr. Henry Grattan, who 
 has shown a most graceful and filial regard for his illustrious father's memory. 
 But even Mr. II Grattan is compelled to admit — " It cannot be denied that 
 the Volunteers had an argument. The Parliament of Ireland was a borough 
 Parliament ; and it was the Volunteers alone who roused the spirit of that body 
 and forced it to act, and when they had accomplished their purpose they could 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 XX? i 
 
 not be certain that Parliament would not relapse, and wndo all that bad been 
 already done" — Grattan's Life, vol. III. p. 155. 
 
 So formidable and powerful were the Volunteers that Government had re- 
 course to every means of weakening them. " Divide et impera", was the policy 
 acted on by Lord Northington in relation to the Convention. " Our next step", 
 he wrote to Fox, " was to try, by means of our friends in the assembly, to perplex 
 its proceedings, and to create confusion in its deliberations". And again, " Another 
 desirable step was to involve them, if possible, with the House of Commons". 
 
 Thus the English ministers clearly saw how very formidable was the Con- 
 vention. Fox's anxiety about Grattan's conduct sufficiently attests the amount 
 of moral power which the latter could, at that time, biing to bear. Fcr 
 G rattan might have carried everything before him in the Convention, which 
 was wretchedly in want of leaders. The men of property who belonged to it 
 were not vers* earnest in their wishes for Reform ; and there were several secret 
 enemies to the popular party amongst its ranks. For want of controlling 
 power — in short, for want of a judicious and vigorous leader — the Convention 
 fell to pieces ; its members quarrelled ; the whole body became distracted ; it 
 ran foul of Parliament : those who had promised to guide it, took fright at the 
 velocity of its progress, and abandoning their stations, left the Convention to 
 dash itself to pieces. 
 
 From that time the moral power of the Irish Volunteers was at an end. And 
 it is remarkable that with the fall of the Volunteers terminated Henry Grattan's 
 direct influence over Irish affairs. He ceased from that time to sway events, 
 and wield political power. 
 
 He had obtained the independence of the Irish Parliament ; in doing so he 
 had displayed not only splendid talents, but great moral courage. So also, 
 when Flood sought to blast his character and tarnish his glory, Grattan showed 
 much resolution, courage, and self-reliance. He was right in all the thorny 
 discussions of u Simple Repeal". But he was wrong on the question of the 
 Convention for Reform. He was morally bound by his position to take some 
 side or other. For Charles Fox justly said " the real crisis " of the Irish 
 Revolution arrived, when it was proposed to reform the Irish House of 
 Commons. The experiment of Irish legislative freedom was virtually at 
 stake — the necessity for Reform was admitted — Grattan himself voted for it. 
 The Parliament was notoriously venal ; of three hundred members of the House 
 of Commons, fully two-thirds were the nominees of about a hundred persons. 
 
 Grattan had right views upon Reform, but he took no steps for making those 
 views prevalent in Irish politics. After the Volunteers were gone, he took up 
 the question of Parliamentary Reform, and he saw all its important relations to 
 the permanence of Irish Parliamentary Independence. But he was too late ; 
 the minister had bought up the House of Commons, and Grattan, after the 
 Volunteers were dissolved, was always admired, but never obeyed in Irish politics. 
 He kept his genius, eloquence, and speculation — he lost his political power. 
 
 Grattan has been harshly censured for his inaction in Volunteer Reform. But 
 though it is right to point out the error, it is very wrong to blame him as 
 culpable. He believed that the aristocracy of Ireland were more patriotic than 
 they really were. He committed the glorious mistake of a noble and lofty 
 nature — that of believing the rest of mankind as pure, as unselfish, as enthusiastic 
 as himself. He thought that Irish gentlemen would have the same sense of 
 national honour as he himself possessed, and he was deceived. He thought that 
 he could- enforce his views on Reform, without employing the questionable 
 authority of a domestic army employed for i?tternal changes in his country. 
 Besides, he considered, not unreasonably, that the Whig party in England would 
 have lasted. He did not foresee (who could ?) all the results of the coalition 
 of Fox and Lord North. He did not foresee (who could?) the quarrel between 
 
xxxii 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 Fox and Burke — the dissolution of the great Whig party by the fearful 
 progress of the French Revolution. He did not foresee (who could?) the 
 abandonment by William Pitt of all his early Reform principles. He did not 
 foresee (who could ?) that the youthful Whig would become the most formidable 
 Tory Statesman that England ever produced. 
 
 Grattan wanted no moral foresight in politics. It is only those shallow persons, 
 who judge by the event, who blame him for not having been more democratic. 
 If any one doubt his foresight, let him read the following prophecy (for such it is), 
 delivered in 1790 (February 11). Addressing the Irish Parliament, he said : 
 
 " The country is placed in a sort of interval between the ceasing of a system 
 of oppression, and the formation of one of corruption. Go on for ten or twelve 
 years as you have done for the last five ; increase in the same proportion your 
 number of Parliamentary places ; get every five years new taxes, and apply 
 them as you have done, and then the Minister will find that he has impaired the 
 trade and agriculture, as well as destroyed the virtue and freedom of the country". 
 
 Again, on the same occasion, his words were full of warning : — " There is no 
 object which a course of corrupt government will not ruin — morality, constitu- 
 tion, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, industry. A corrupt minister issues 
 forth from his cabinet like sin and death, and Senates first wither tinder his 
 footstep ; then he consumes the treasury, and then he corrupts the capital, and 
 the different forms of constitutional life, and the moral system, and at last the 
 whole isle is involved in one capacious curse from shore to shore, from the nadir 
 to the zenith". 
 
 The charge to which he is really obnoxious characterised all his life. He was 
 too much of a neutral. But the distracted state of his country is sufficient to 
 account for his occasional inaction. It is certain, however, that throughout all 
 his life, both before and after the Union, he was placed between two cross fires. I 
 cannot help thinking that there were three or four occasions when he might have 
 accepted office with real advantage to the best interests of his country. 
 
 But in offering any criticism on Grattan's mistakes, let us remember that we 
 are judging after the event. It has been foolishly said that Ireland wanted a 
 soldier-statesman in 1782. But such a man could never have created and in- 
 spired the feelings, which the original and poetical mind of Grattan first intro- 
 duced amongst the English colonists and planters in Ireland. There are flippant 
 critics who blame Grattan for not having done everything for his country. 
 The truth is, that his views were immeasurably above his country and his age. 
 The public could not follow him. For it was his peculiarity in politics to have 
 a zeal for social and national progress, perfectly free from all that was anarchical 
 and disorderly. 
 
 Thus to enumerate the facts of his early life — I. He introduced into Irish 
 politics an element of lofty moral enthusiasm, which sprung from his own 
 mind and character. II. He raised provincial squabbles into national passions ; 
 and, distancing the Floods and Dalys, he snatched Irish Legislative Indepen- 
 dence from England. III. His power fell from the internal dissensions of the 
 island : he could not persuade the Protestants to emancipate the Catholics ; he 
 could not prevent the rise of the United Irishmen, nor save the Irish Democracy 
 from the infection of Jacobinical principles ; and, on the other hand, he could 
 not retain the Irish Aristocracy in that love of country which they had exhibi- 
 ted in 1782. IV. Without influence or power he was a spectator of the Union. 
 He was compelled to look on, while Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh extinguished 
 the Parliament of Ireland. Thus, as a man of action, his career virtually ter- 
 minated with the fall of the Volunteers. If in 1784, he had joined the popular 
 party, he might have moderated its tone and rationalized its opinions ; or, 
 upon the other hand, if he had accepted office when tendered him, he might 
 have wielded much influence, and gradually raised a patriotic and governmental 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 xxx iii 
 
 party. In either case he would have clothed himself with that power which 
 was denied to him in his isolated position. 
 
 I pass on to make some general remarks on his public character. 
 
 Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the nature of his powers, 
 it is admitted, upon all sides, that Henry Grattan must be classed in the first 
 rank of those famous persons who, partly by extraordinary eloquence, and 
 partly by capacity for affairs, have been the real governors of these islands, 
 from the Revolution of 1688 down to the present time. And not one of all that 
 celebrated band, from Bolingbroke to Canning, was more eminently original both 
 in character and genius. The boldness and grandeur of his imagery ; the flight 
 of his imagination, as well as the gorgeous richness of his language, attest the 
 vigour as well as the beauty of his mind. The mere critic may note many 
 blemishes of style throughout his speeches : he may often be justly displeased 
 with incongruous metaphors — with vehemence tending to the bombastic — and 
 with an excessive use of epigram and antithesis. But, admitting that his 
 speeches contain faults, which are interwoven with their beauties, enough of ex- 
 cellence will remain to win the admirers of intellect and genius. " His elo- 
 quence", said a distinguished living poet, lt was a combination of cloud, whirl- 
 wind, and flame" — a striking description of the partial obscurity, but startling 
 energy and splendour of his style. 
 
 Of all the great parliamentary orators, whose speeches have been preserved, 
 those of Grattan are most worthy of perusal by the reflective and the studious. 
 He may have been surpassed in parliamentary eloquence by some, and in political 
 philosophy by others of his contemporaries ; but none of them, like Grattan, 
 addressed at the same time two distinct classes of persons — namely, the audience 
 before him, and a certain higher tribunal of the thoughtful few, whom he always 
 kept before his mind's eye. The speeches of Pitt and Sheridan read in the 
 study as so much rhetoric : Fox's orations are the massive remains of a wonderful 
 debater : the purpose of the hour — the interests of his party — occupy too large 
 a space in all his speeches, which, after all, were " made to be spoken, and not 
 to be read". Burke had two distinct styles — one grave and didactic, as in his 
 American speeches (which are spoken essays), when he wearied his hearers, 
 though he delighted his readers. In the other style he was diffuse, and essen- 
 tially rhetorical. But Grattan blended two styles into one, and dazzled those 
 who listened to him, while he spoke so as to instruct even posterity. He was 
 never surpassed for the union of philosophical principles and oratorical energy. 
 "No orator of his age is his equal", says a great authority on eloquence 
 (Lord Brougham), " in the easy and copious flow of most profound, sagacious, 
 and liberal principles, enunciated in terse and striking, but most appropriate 
 language". Thus it may be said with truth, that the speeches of Grattan are a 
 valuable contribution to political philosophy, well meriting the best attention of 
 the statesman, the historian, and the philosopher. The thinking power, to be 
 found in all his speeches, combined with his vivid imagery, his singular mastery 
 over rhythm, and the impassioned spirit pervading them, form their distinctive 
 characteristics. The " Esprit des Lois" does not more differ from all other 
 treatises of politics, than the speeches of Grattan from those of other orators. 
 For it is only in manner that they resemble the fragments of Chatham. There 
 is more of philosophy and moral thoughtfulness — more of the inquiring spirit of 
 the eighteenth century, in the eloquence of Grattan. There never was such an 
 union of the orator and sage. 
 
 But, enough of his eloquence ; and in Ireland we have placed preposterous 
 value upon mere oratory, which, after all, is valuable only as an instrument. 
 There was a mind in Grattan, a moral power far more valuable than the vaunted 
 art of the public speaker. In addition to a wonderful imagination, nature had 
 given him a strong and clear understanding, which he vigorously exercised on 
 
xxxiv 
 
 MEMOIR OP 
 
 most ofthe great questions in morals and politics. He read the best and deepest 
 authors on political science with interest, and pondered much upon their prin- 
 ciples. This habit he carried too far for a man of action ; he became somewhat 
 too professional and didactic in his public life ; and he occasionally fell short of 
 the wants of the age, by refusing to be an energetic leader, and assuming the 
 part of an impassioned essayist. 
 
 The idle caviller may say that much of what he obtained for his country, has 
 reverted to the English empire. It may be said that after all he did not save 
 his country (as if any one man could put to rights such a country as Ireland !). 
 It may be asked, what did he actually do for Ireland, that we should revere his 
 character and venerate his name? 
 
 He was the first Irishman who ministered intellectually to the national 
 character of his country. There were plenty of Irishmen like the Desmond, the 
 O'Neills, and Sarsfield, who vindicated the valour and hardihood of the Irish 
 race. So also there were many Irish patriots before Grattan. But Swift, 
 though he had both Irish humour and Irish purposes, was essentially an 
 English author. So also Flood was an Englishman in his style and character. 
 But Henry Grattan invented an eloquence to which the moral temperament of 
 his country responded. His speeches are as much in conformity with its genius 
 and its mental characteristics, as the pensive and wildly beautiful, yet alternately 
 gay and exciting, music of the island. You may trace in his eloquence the vivid 
 nature, the eager mind, the cordial sj^mpathy, and aspiring soul of the 
 Irishman. In short, Grattan was the first powerful assertor, as he is certainly 
 the most splendid illustrator, of Irish genius. 
 
 He was the first Irishman who treated of Irish politics on a grand scale, tvith 
 breadth of view and liberal judgment. In an age of Protestant prejudice, he 
 bravely unfurled the standard of religious liberty. When he pleaded for the 
 Catholic there was no popularity to be gained by such a course. On the 
 contrary, he injured his influence by his adoption of the Catholic cause. He 
 not merely was content, like certain statesmen, to have his views in favour of 
 the Catholics made known : he laboured also by his pen, his tongue, by personal 
 exertion, and by political sacrifices of power and popularity, to have those views 
 prevail over the public mind. 
 
 There may have been those who loved the Protestant nation of Ireland, and 
 who served it more zealously than Grattan. So also there may have been 
 patriots who loved the Catholics and " lower nation " of Ireland more enthusi- 
 astically : but never surely did any Irishman, before or since, love both nations 
 with so much affection. Never did any Irishman toil with such ardour for the 
 best and most enduring interests of both ; for though he boldly defended the 
 interests of property against revolution and anarchy, he vindicated also the 
 liberties of the Catholic against the sordid pride and selfishness of an un- 
 generous oligarchy. His patriotism made no unhappy distinctions between 
 religious creeds or hereditary races. He wished for the happiness of all Irish- 
 men. He was free from the Protestant prejudices of Flood, and opposed to the 
 sanguinary principles of Tone. 
 
 In the annals of a land so torn with discord, it is perfectly delightful to meet 
 (as we do in Grattan's speeches) with the unmistakable evidence of there having 
 been once a man in Ireland who could take large views of his countrymen, 
 and who, while cordially preserving his enthusiasm for his native soil, would 
 not allow himself to be the mere creature Of either party. He showed that 
 though he was intensely Irish, he was not merely insular. 
 
 He was not only a national patriot — he ivas also a herald of civilization. 
 While he retained the charm of local colour in his character, he was also much 
 of the enlightened cosmopolite. He cherished large and inspiring views of life : 
 his mind, in its philosophical excursions, was not manacled by a wretched 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 faith in formula : he believed in a moral progress of the human race, and 
 possessed a strong sympathy with mankind. Thus he deserved not only the 
 affections of Ireland, but the regard of civilized Europe. It was well observ ed 
 by Sir James Mackintosh in the House of Commons : " When the illustrious 
 dead are gathered in one tomb, all national distinctions fade away ; and, not even 
 the illustrious names of Burke and Wellington were more certainly historical, 
 or more sure to be remembered by posterity, than that of Grattan ". 
 
 More than any Irish patriot of his age, Grattan was cautious as to the 
 means he employed. It was not enough to have glorious ends — he strenuously 
 insisted, throughout his life, on the necessity of worthy means. His moral 
 character stands out in prominent relief amidst the venality and selfishness of 
 his contemporaries. " I never knew a man ", said Wilberforce (talking of 
 Grattan), " whose patriotism and love for his country seemed completely to ex- 
 tinguish all private interests, and to induce ifcin to look invariably and exclu- 
 sively to the public good ". 
 
 It is curious to note what vicissitudes were in his popularity. 
 He was idolized by the people at the era of Free Trade and Independence ; — 
 he was cashiered by them within a few months on the question of Simple 
 Repeal. He was denounced by the authorities as an enemy to his country in 
 1798— in two years afterwards, on the Union question, he was exalted as the 
 most strenuous champion of Irish liberty. When he voted for the Insurrection 
 Act, and advocated strong measures against anarchists and praedial disturbers, 
 he was traduced as the deserter of the civil liberties of his countrymen. Upon 
 the question of the Veto, he was dismissed as the betrayer of the civil liberties 
 of the Catholics; but in 1818 he was elected for the city of Dublin by the 
 general consent of the people, when, strange to say, he was nearly stoned to 
 death in his native city ! 
 
 On this last occasion, a scene took place in which he revealed all his personal 
 character. It is well worthy of notice. 
 
 After the election had terminated, the members, according to usage, were 
 chaired. Because he had been favourable to the Insurrection Act, and because, 
 in some comparatively unimportant particulars, his conduct had not satisfied the 
 ultra-popular party, it was determined to assail Grattan, and fling him into the 
 Liffey. A plot, which happily was defeated, was formed against the venerable 
 patriot. After passing Carlisle Bridge, a base and execrable gang assailed him 
 with ferocity. His friends around him were greatly alarmed ; but, though Grattan 
 was stricken in years and shattered in his constitution, he displayed his charac- 
 teristic personal courage. One of the wretches was but too successful, and 
 succeeded in giving him a fearful blow, which cut open the old man's face. He 
 jumped up from the chair, caught the missile which had fallen at his feet, and 
 fiercely looking defiance, hurled it back, with his failing strength, in the direction 
 of the dastards whence it came. " Never — never (it has been said by one who 
 saw the scene) did he appear to such advantage 
 
 Yes ! he did — he appeared to much greater advantage afterwards. For though 
 it was a fine and exciting thing to see the old man displaying the high spirit of 
 his youth, it was far finer to witness his calm and serene deportment afterwards. 
 Efforts were made to exasperate him against the popular party. All the public 
 bodies of Dublin crowded round him, and tendered him their respects. He 
 6aw the use to which the incident would be turned by the evil-minded, and, 
 true to the leading principles of his life, never to criminate his country, what- 
 ever he might suffer from its momentary injustice, he thus replied to the public 
 address of Dublin, in the following most beautiful and touching words : — 
 
 "My Friends and Fellow-Citizens, — A few individuals — a sudden and 
 inexplicable impulse - a momentary infatuation — anything — everything — 
 might account for that violence of which you complain. It is not worth your 
 
xxxvi 
 
 MEMOIR OF HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 investigation. My friends and electors have nothing to say to it. I receive 
 the unanimous expression of congratulation from my fellow-citizens, not as a 
 congratulation for such a trifle as that, but as an inestimable testimony, which 
 I shall endeavour to merit and ever preserve. 
 
 " I remain, gratefully, your faithful humble Servant, 
 
 " HENRY GRATTAN". 
 
 Thus, after having passed through a stormy age, and having experienced all 
 the vicissitudes of public life, his brave and manly nature remained tender and 
 genial to the last. He died in the public service. Though warned by his me- 
 dical attendants of the consequences, he insisted upon going to London to pre- 
 sent the Catholic Petition. Exhausted by the journey, he expired there. The 
 best and noblest spirits in England gathered round his sons, and entreated that 
 his remains should lie where Fox and Chatham are interred. His grave is hi 
 Westminster Abbey. ^ 
 
 Reader ! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh prejudices against 
 your Catholic countrymen — study the works and life of Grattan — learn from 
 him, for none can teach you better, how to purify your nature from bigotry. 
 Learn from him to look upon all your countrymen with a loving heart — to be 
 tolerant of infirmities, caused by their unhappy history — and, like Grattan, 
 earnestly sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character. 
 
 Reader ! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the Protestant 
 religion with tyranny — learn from Grattan, that it is possible to be a Protestant, 
 and have a heart for Ireland and its people. Think that the brightest age of 
 Ireland was when Grattan — a steady Protestant — raised it to proud eminence ; 
 think also that in the hour of his triumph, he did not forget the state of your 
 oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life, that both you and 
 your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of conscience. 
 
 But, reader ! whether you be a Protestant or Catholic, and whatever be your 
 party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the spirit and principles 
 which governed the public and private life of Grattan. Learn from him how 
 to regard your countrymen of all denominations. Observe, as he did, how very 
 much that is excellent belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is 
 divided. If (as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect 
 that any country, containing such elements as those which roused the genius of 
 Grattan, never need despair. Sursum corda. Be not disheartened. 
 
 Go — go — my countrymen — and, within your social sphere, carry into prac- 
 tice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught, and which he so 
 remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will teach you to avoid hating 
 men on account of their religious professions or hereditary descent. From him 
 you will learn principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of 
 society in Ireland. For it is not from the senate, as some, or from the battle- 
 field, as others, will tell you, that the regeneration of Ireland can arise. It 
 must begin at home in our social life. It must spring from the domestic circle 
 — from social affections expanded — from enmities disregarded — from views ex- 
 alted beyond petty sectarianism — in short, from Irishmen consenting to live and 
 work together, and using, for their public purposes, none but humane and civi- 
 lizing means. Go, then, and imitate the noble example of our Grattan, for 
 though to none shall it be given to obtain his genius, to copy his noble spirit is 
 within the power of all. Let that spirit spread through society, and our lovely 
 island will become, like the fame of our venerated countryman, not only a 
 source of just national pride to ourselves, but an object of interest and respect 
 to all mankind. 
 
THE SELECT SPEECHES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 HENRY GRATTAN. 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 April 19, 1780. 
 
 On this day came on the most important subject that ever had been discussed 
 in the Irish Parliament, — the question of independence — the recovery of that 
 legislative power, of which, for centuries, Ireland had been so unjustly deprived. 
 
 Her right to make laws for herself was first affected by the act of the 10th of 
 Henry the Seventh, in a parliament, held at Drogheda, before the then Deputy, 
 Sir Edward Poynings. It was there enacted that no parliament should be 
 holden in Ireland, until the Lord-lieutenant and Privy Council should certify 
 to the King, under the great seal of Ireland, the causes, considerations, and acts 
 that were to pass; that the same should be affirmed by the King and council in 
 England, and his license to summon a parliament be obtained under the great 
 seal of England. This was further explained by the 3d and 4th of Philip and 
 Mary, whereby any change or alteration in the form or tenor of such acts to be 
 passed after they were returned from England, was prohibited. Thus, by these 
 laws the English privy council got the power to alter or suppress, and the Irish 
 parliament were deprived of the power to originate, alter, or amend. 
 
 By these acts were the legislative rights of Ireland invaded: her judicial 
 rights, however, remained untouched, till, in 1688, a petition and appeal was 
 lodged with the House of Lords of England, from the English society of the new 
 plantation of Ulster, complaining of the Irish House of Lords, who had decided 
 in a case between them and the Bishop of Derry. Upon this the English House 
 of Lords passed an order declaring, that this appeal was coram non judice. To 
 this order fourteen reasons and answers were written by the celebrated Molyneux, 
 and the appeal gave rise to his famous work, entitled " The Case of Ireland", 
 which excited the hostility of the English House of Commons, and was 
 burned by the hands of the common hangman! The Irish House of Lords then 
 asserted their rights, passed resolutions, and protested against the English pro- 
 
 3 
 
38 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 ceedings; thus matters remained until 1703, when came on the case of the Earl and 
 Countess of Meath against the Lord Ward, who were dispossessed of their lands 
 by a pretended order of the House of Lords in England, on which the Irish 
 House of Peers adopted the former resolutions, asserting their rights, and restored 
 possession to the Earl and Countess. In 1703, the appeal of Maurice Annesley 
 was entertained in England, and the decree of the Irish House of Lords was 
 reversed ; and the English House of Lords had recourse to the authority of the 
 Barons of the Exchequer in Ireland to enforce their order ; the Sheriff refused 
 obedience; the Irish House of Lords protected the Sheriff, and agreed to a repre- 
 sentation to the King on the subject. This produced the arbitrary act of the 
 6th of George the First, which declared, that Ireland was a subordinate and 
 dependent kingdom; that the King, Lords, and Commons of England had power 
 to make laws to bind Ireland ; that the House of Lords of Ireland had no juris- 
 diction, and that all proceedings before that Court were void. Under this act, 
 and to such injustice, the Irish nation were compelled to submit, until the spirit 
 of the precent day arose, and that commanding power which the armed volun- 
 teers gave to the country, encouraged the people to rise unanimously against 
 this usurped and tyrannical authority. The efforts of the nation to obtain a free 
 trade , the compliance of the British Parliament with that claim , the British act 
 passed in consequence thereof, which allowed the trade between Ireland and the 
 British colonies and plantations in America and the West Indies, and the British 
 settlements on the coast of Africa ; had raised the hopes of the Irish people. 
 The resolutions and proceedings of the volunteers, and the answers to their 
 addresses by the patriotic members, had still further roused the people to a sense 
 of their rights and their condition, and the hour was approaching which was to 
 witness the restoration of their liberty. Mr. Grattan had, on a preceding day, 
 given notice that he would bring forward a measure regarding the rights of Ire- 
 land ; and in pursuance of that notice he rose and spoke as follows : 
 
 Sir, I have entreated an attendance on this day, that you might, in 
 the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to 
 make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it. 
 
 If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woollen ma- 
 nufacture, or when the 6th of George the First declared this country 
 to be dependent, and subject to laws to be enacted by the Parliament 
 of England, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience 
 to seize the first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy 
 of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have administered 
 to him an oath that he would consider himself a person separate and 
 set apart for the discharge of so important a duty ; upon the same 
 principle am I now come to move a declaration of right, the first mo- 
 ment occurring, since my time, in which such a declaration could be 
 made with any chance of success, and without aggravation of 
 oppression. 
 
 Sir, it must appear to every person, that, notwithstanding the im- 
 port of sugar and export of woollens, the people of this country are 
 not satisfied — something remains ; the greater work is behind ; the 
 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 39 
 
 public heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our satisfaction ; to 
 stop the throats of millions with the votes of Parliament; to preach 
 homilies to the volunteers ; to utter invectives against the people, 
 under pretence of affectionate advice, is an attempt, weak, suspi- 
 cious, and inflammatory. 
 
 * You cannot dictate to those whose sense you are entrusted to re- 
 present ; your ancestors, who sat within these walls, lost to Ireland 
 trade and liberty ; you, by the assistance of the people, have reco- 
 vered trade, you still owe the kingdom liberty ; she calls upon you 
 to restore it. 
 
 The ground of public discontent seems to be, " we have gotten 
 commerce, but not freedom": the same power which took away the 
 export of woollens and the export of glass, may take them away 
 again ; the repeal is partial, and the ground of repeal is upon a 
 , principle of expediency. 
 
 Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and tyrannical import ; 
 expedient is an ill-omened word, selected to express the reservation 
 of authority, while the exercise is mitigated ; expedient is the ill- 
 omened expression of the Repeal of the American stamp-act. Eng- 
 land thought it expedient to repeal that law ; happy had it been for 
 mankind, if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not reserved 
 the right ! To that reservation she owes the loss of her American 
 empire, at the expense of millions, and America the seeking of liberty 
 through a sea of bloodshed. The repeal of the woollen act, similarly 
 circumstanced, pointed against the principle of our liberty, present 
 relaxation, but tyranny in reserve, may be a subject for illumination 
 to a populace, or a pretence for apostacy to a courtier, but cannot be 
 the subject of settled satisfaction to a freeborn, an intelligent, and an 
 injured community. It is therefore they consider the free trade as a 
 trade de facto, not de jure, a license to trade undei the Parliament 
 of England, not a free trade under the charters of Ireland, as a tri- 
 bute to her strength; to maintain which, she must continue in a state 
 of armed preparation, dreading the approach of a general peace, and 
 attributing all she holds dear to the calamitous condition of the 
 British interest in every quarter of the globe. This dissatisfaction, 
 founded upon a consideration of the liberty we have lost, is increased 
 when they consider the opportunity they are losing; for if this nation, 
 after the death-wound given to her freedom, had fallen on her knees 
 in anguish, and besought the Almighty to frame an occasion in which 
 a weak and injured people might recover their rights, prayer could 
 not have asked, nor God have furnished, a moment more opportune 
 for the restoration of liberty, than this, in which I have the honour 
 to address you 
 
40 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; the 
 doctrine of Imperial legislature she feels to be pernicious ; the reve- 
 nues and monopolies annexed to it she has found to be untenable; 
 she lost the power to enforce it ; her enemies are a host, pouring 
 upon her from all quarters of the Earth ; her armies are dispersed ; 
 the sea is not hers; she has no minister, no ally, no admiral, none in 
 whom she long confides, and no general whom she has not disgraced ; 
 the balance of her fate is in the hands of Ireland ; you are not only 
 her last connection, you are the only nation in Europe that is not her 
 enemy. Besides, there does, of late, a certain damp and spurious 
 supineness overcast her arms and councils, miraculous as that vigour 
 which has lately inspirited yours; — for with you everything is the 
 reverse ; never was there a parliament in Ireland so possessed of the 
 confidence of the people ; you are the greatest political assembly now 
 sitting in the world; you are at the head of an immense army; nor 
 do we only possess an unconquerable force, but a certain unquench- 
 able public fire, which has touched all ranks of men like a visitation. 
 
 Turn to the growth and spring of your country, and behold and 
 admire it ; where do you find a nation who, upon whatever concerns 
 the rights of mankind, expresses herself with more truth or force, 
 perspicuity or justice ? not the set phrase of scholastic men, not the 
 tame unreality of court addresses, not the vulgar raving of a rabble, 
 but the genuine speech of liberty, and the unsophisticated oratory of 
 a free nation. 
 
 See her military ardour, expressed not only in 40,000 men, con- 
 ducted by instinct as they were raised by inspiration, but manifested 
 in the zeal and promptitude of every young member of the growing 
 community. Let corruption tremble; let the enemy, foreign or do- 
 mestic, tremble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these means 
 of safety and this hour of redemption. Yes ; there does exist an en- 
 lightened sense of rights, a young appetite for freedom, a solid 
 strength, and a rapid fire, which not only put a declaration of right 
 within your power, but put it out of your power to decline one. 
 Eighteen counties are at your bar ; they stand there with the compact 
 of Henry, with the charter of John, and with all the passions of the 
 people. u Our lives are at your service, but our liberties — we received 
 them from God; we will not resign them to man". Speaking to you 
 thus, if you repulse these petitioners, you abdicate the privileges of 
 Parliament, forfeit the rights of the kingdom, repudiate the instruc- 
 tion of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, palsy thev 
 enthusiasm of the people, and reject that good which not a minister, 
 not a Lord North, not a Lord Buckinghamshire, not a Lord Hillsbo- 
 
DECLARATION OP IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 41 
 
 rough, but a certain providential conjuncture, or rather the hand of 
 God, seems to extend to you. I Nor are we only prompted to this 
 when we consider our strength ; we are challenged to it when we 
 look to Great Britain. The people of that country are now waiting 
 to hear the Parliament of Ireland speak on the subject of their liberty : 
 it begins to be made a question in England whether the principal 
 persons wish to be free : it was the delicacy of former parliaments to 
 be silent on the subject of commercial restrictions, lest they should 
 show a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the violation ; you 
 have spoken out, you have shown a knowledge of the fact, and not a 
 sense of the violation. On the contrary, you have returned thanks 
 for a partial repeal made on a principle of power ; you have returned 
 thanks as for a favour, and your exultation has brought your char- 
 ters as well as your spirit into question, and tends to shake to her 
 foundation your title to liberty : thus you do not leave your rights 
 where you found them. Yoli have done too much not to do more ; 
 you have gone too far not to go on ; you have brought yourselves 
 into that situation, in which you must silently abdicate the rights of 
 your country, or publicly restore them. It is very true you may feed 
 your manufacturers, and landed gentlemen may get their rents, and 
 you may export woollen, and may load a vessel with baize, serges, 
 and kerseys, and you may bring back again directly from the plan- 
 tations, sugar, indigo, speckle-wood, beetle-root, and panellas. But 
 liberty, the foundation of trade, the charters of the land, the inde- 
 pendency of Parliament, the securing, crowning, and the consumma- 
 tion of everything, are yet to come. Without them the work is 
 imperfect, the foundation is wanting, the capital is wanting, trade is 
 not free, Ireland is a colony without the benefit of a charter, and you 
 are a provincial synod without the privileges of a parliament, 
 j I read Lord North's proposition ; I wish to be satisfied, but I am 
 'controlled by a paper, I will not call it a law, it is the sixth of George 
 the First. [The paper was read.] I will ask the gentlemen of the 
 long robe is this the law? I ask them whether it is not practice? 1 
 appeal to the judges of the land, whether they are not in a course of 
 declaring that the Parliament of Great Britain, naming Ireland, binds 
 her? I appeal to the magistrates of justice, whether they do not, from 
 time to time, execute certain acts of the British Parliament? I ap- 
 peal to the officers of the army, whether they do not fine, confine, and 
 execute their fellow-subjects by virtue of the Mutiny Act, an act of 
 the British Parliament; and I appeal to this House whether a couutry 
 so circumstanced is free. Where is the freedom of trade? where is the 
 security of property ? where is the liberty of the people ? I here, in 
 
42 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 this Declamatory Act, see my country proclaimed a slave! I see 
 every man in this House enrolled a slave ! I see the judges of the 
 realm, the oracles of the law, borne down by an unauthorized foreign 
 power, by the authority of the British Parliament against the law ! I 
 see the magistrates prostrate, and I see Parliament witness of these in- 
 fringements, and silent (silent or employed to preach moderation to 
 the people, whose liberties it will not restore) ! I therefore say, with the 
 voice of 3,000,000 of people, that, notwithstanding the import of su- 
 gar, beetle-wood, and panellas, and the export of woollens and ker- 
 seys, nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honourable, nothing except a 
 declaration of right. What! are you, with 3,000,000 of men at your 
 back, with charters in one hand and arms in the other, afraid to say 
 you are a free people ? Are you, the greatest House of Commons 
 that ever sat in Ireland, that want but this one act to equal that Eng- 
 lish House of Commons that passed the Petition of Eight, or that 
 other that passed the Declaration of Right, are you afraid to tell that 
 British Parliament you are a free people ? Are the cities and the 
 instructing counties, who have breathed a spirit that would have done 
 honour to old Rome when Rome did honour to mankind, are they to 
 be free by connivance ? Are the military associations, those bodies 
 whose origin, progress, and deportment have transcended, equalled at 
 least, anything in modern or ancient story — is the vast line of northern 
 army, are they to be free by connivance ? What man will settle 
 among you ? Where is the use of the Naturalization Bill ? What 
 man will settle among you ? who will leave a land of liberty and a 
 settled government, for a kingdom controlled by the Parliament of 
 another country, whose liberty is a thing by stealth, whose trade a j 
 thing by permission, whose judges deny her charters, whose Parlia- 
 ment leaves everything at random ; where the chance of freedom de- 
 pends upon the hope, that the jury shall despise the judge stating a 
 British act, or a rabble stop the magistrate executing it, rescue your 
 abdicated privileges, and save the constitution by trampling on the 
 government, by anarchy and confusion ? 
 
 But I shall be told, that these are groundless jealousies, and that 
 the principal cities, and more than one half of the counties of the 
 kingdom, are misguided men, raising those groundless jealousies. 
 Sir, let me become, on this occasion, the people's advocate, and your 
 historian; the people of this country were possessed of a code of 
 liberty similar to that of Great Britain, but lost it through the weak- 
 ness of the kingdom and the pusillanimity of its leaders. Having 
 lost our liberty by the usurpation of the British Parliament, no wonder 
 we became a prey to her ministers ; and they did plunder us with all 
 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 43 
 
 the hands of all the harpies, for a series of years, in every shape of 
 power, terrifying onr people with the thnnder of Great Britain, and 
 bribing onr leaders with the rapine of Ireland. The kingdom became 
 a plantation, her Parliament, deprived of its privileges, fell into con- 
 tempt ; and, with the legislature, the law, the spirit of liberty, with 
 her forms, vanished. If a war broke ont, as in 1778, and an occasion 
 occurred to restore liberty and restrain rapine, Parliament declined 
 the opportunity ; but, with an active servility and trembling loyalty, 
 gave and granted, without regard to the treasure we had left, or the 
 rights we had lost. If a partial reparation was made upon a principle 
 of expediency, Parliament did not receive it with the tranquil dignity 
 of an august assembly, but with the alacrity of slaves. 
 2 The principal individuals, possessed of great property but no inde- 
 pendency, corrupted by their extravagance, or enslaved by their 
 following a species of English factor against an Irish people, more 
 afraid of the people of Ireland than the tyranny of England, proceeded 
 to that excess, that they opposed every proposition to lessen profusion, 
 extend trade, or promote liberty; they did more, they supported a 
 measure which, at one blow, put an end to all trade ; they did more, 
 they brought yon to a condition which they themselves did unani- 
 mously acknowledge a state of impending ruin ; they did this, talking 
 as they are now talking, arguing against trade as they now argue 
 against liberty, threatening the people of Ireland with the power of 
 the British nation, and imploring them to rest satisfied with the ruins 
 of their trade, as they now implore them to remain satisfied with the 
 wreck of their constitution. 
 
 : The people thus admonished, starving in a land of plenty, the 
 victim of two Parliaments, of one that stopped their trade, the other 
 that fed on their constitution, inhabiting a country where industry 
 was forbid, or towns swarming with begging manufacturers, and be- 
 ing obliged to take into their own hands that part of government 
 which consists in protecting the subject, had recourse to two measures, 
 which, in their origin, progress, and consequence, are the most extra- 
 ordinary to be found in any age or in any country, viz. a commercial 
 and a military association. The consequence of these measures was 
 instant ; the enemy that hung on your shores departed, the Parliament 
 asked for a free trade, and the British nation granted the trade, but 
 withheld the freedom. The people of Ireland are, therefore, not sa- 
 tisfied; they ask for a constitution; they have the authority of the 
 wisest men in this House for what they now demand. What have 
 these walls, for this last century, resounded ? The usurpation of the 
 British Parliament, and the interference of the privy council. Have 
 
44 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 we taught the people to complain, and do we now condemn their in- 
 satiability, because they desire us to remove such grievances, at a time 
 in which nothing can oppose them, except the very men by whom 
 these grievances were acknowledged ? 
 
 )Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken 
 with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor will 
 her heart be well at ease — never! so long as the Parliament of Eng- 
 land exercises or claims a legislation over this country : so long as 
 this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a perpetual 
 attachment, will be the cause of new discontent ; it will create a pride 
 to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a strength to bite your 
 chain, and the liberty withheld will poison the good communicated. 
 
 The British minister mistakes the Irish character : had he intended 
 to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar; there is 
 no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or 
 cut off the nation's right hand ; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally 
 destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she ex- 
 ercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state 
 of war ; the claims of the one go against the liberty of the other, and 
 the sentiments of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop 
 of her bloocl. The English opposition, therefore, are right ; mere 
 trade will not satisfy Ireland — they judge of us by other great na- 
 tions, by the nation whose political life has been a struggle for liberty ; 
 they judge of us with a true knowledge of, and just deference for, our 
 character — that a country enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ire- 
 land, armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with 
 nothing less than liberty. 
 
 I admire that public-spirited merchant (Alderman Horan), who 
 spread consternation at the Custom-house, and, despising the example 
 which great men afforded, determined to try the question, and ten- 
 dered for entry what the British Parliament prohibits the subject to 
 export, some articles of silk, and sought at his private risk the liberty 
 of his country ; with him I am convinced it is necessary to agitate 
 the question of right. In vain will you endeavour to keep it back, 
 the passion is too natural, the sentiment is too irresistible; the ques- 
 tion comes on of its own vitality— you must reinstate the laws. 
 
 There is no objection to this resolution, except fears ; I have 
 examined your fears ; I pronounce them to be frivolous. I might 
 deny that the British nation was attached to the idea of binding 
 Ireland ; I might deny that England was a tyrant at heart ; and I 
 might call to witness the odium of North and the popularity of 
 Chatham, her support of Holland, hev coutributions to Corsica, an4 
 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 40 
 
 the charters communicated to Ireland; but ministers have traduced 
 England to debase Ireland ; and politicians, like priests, represent the 
 power they serve as diabolical, to possess with superstitious fears the 
 victim whom they design to plunder. If England is a tyrant, it is 
 you have made her so: it is the slave that makes the tyrant, and then 
 murmurs at the master whom he himself has constituted. I do allow, 
 on the subject of commerce, England was jealous in the extreme, and 
 I do say it was commercial jealousy, it was the spirit of monopoly 
 (the woollen trade and the act of navigation had made her tenacious of 
 a comprehensive legislative authority), and having now ceded that 
 monopoly, there is nothing in the way of your liberty except your 
 own corruption and pusillanimity ; and nothing can prevent your being 
 free except yourselves. It is not in the disposition of England ; it is 
 not in the interest of England ; it is not in her arms. What ! can 
 8,000,000 of Englishmen, opposed to 20,000,000 of French, to 
 7,000,000 of Spanish, to 3,000,000 of Americans, reject the alliance 
 of 3,000,000 in Ireland? Can 8,000,000 of British men, thus out- 
 numbered by foes, take upon their shoulders the expense of an expe- 
 dition to enslave you? Will Great Britain, a wise and magnanimous 
 country, thus tutored by experience and wasted by war, the French 
 navy riding her Channel, send an army to Ireland, to levy no tax, to 
 enforce no law, to answer no end whatsoever, except to spoliate the 
 charters of Ireland, and enforce a barren oppression ? What ! has 
 England lost thirteen provinces ? has she reconciled herself to this 
 loss, and will she not be reconciled to the liberty of Ireland ? Take 
 notice, that the very constitution which I move you to declare, Great 
 Britain herself offered to America : it is a very instructive proceeding 
 in the British history. In 1778 a commission went out, with powers 
 to cede to the thirteen provinces of America, totally and radically, 
 the legislative authority claimed over her by the British Parliament, 
 and the Commissioners, pursuant to their powers, did offer to all, or 
 any, of the American States, the total surrender of the legislative 
 authority of the British Parliament. I will read you their letter to 
 the Congress. [Here the letter was read, surrendering the power a? 
 aforesaid.] What ! has England offered this to the resistance ol 
 America, and will she refuse it to the loyalty of Ireland? Your fears 
 then are nothing but an habitual subjugation of mind ; that subjuga- 
 tion of mind which made you, at first, tremble at every great mea- 
 sure of safety; which made the principal men amongst us conceive 
 the commercial association would be a war ; that fear, which made 
 them imagine the military association had a tendency to treason ; 
 w hich made them think a short money-bill would be a public convul- 
 
46 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 sion ; and yet these measures have not only proved to be useful, but 
 are held to be moderate, and the Parliament that adopted them, 
 praised, not for its unanimity only, but for its temper also. You now 
 wonder that you submitted for so many years to the loss of the woollen 
 trade and the deprivation of the glass trade ; raised above your former 
 abject state in commerce, you are ashamed at your past pusillanimity; 
 so when you have summoned a boldness which shall assert the liber- 
 ties of your country — raised by the act, and reinvested, as you will 
 be, in the glory of your ancient rights and privileges, you will be 
 surprised at yourselves, who have so long submitted to their violation. 
 Moderation is but a relative term ; for nations, like men, are only safe 
 in proportion to the spirit they put forth, and the proud contemplation 
 with which they survey themselves. Conceive yourselves a plantation, 
 ridden by an oppressive government, and everything you have done 
 is but a fortunate phrenzy: conceive yourselves to be what you are, 
 a great, a growing, and a proud nation, and a declaration of right is 
 no more than the safe exercise of your indubitable authority. 
 
 But, though you do not hazard disturbance by agreeing to this re- 
 solution, you do most exceedingly hazard tranquillity by rejecting it. 
 Do not imagine that the question will be over when this motion shall be 
 negatived. No ; it will recur in a vast variety of shapes and diversity 
 of places. Your constituents have instructed you in great numbers, 
 with a powerful uniformity of sentiment, and in a style not the less 
 awful because full of respect. They will find resources in their own 
 virtue, if they have found none in yours. Public pride and conscious 
 liberty, wounded by repulse, will find ways and means of vindication. 
 You are in that situation in which every man, every hour of the day, 
 may shake the pillars of the state ; every court may swarm with the 
 question of right ; every quay and wharf with prohibited goods: what 
 shall the Judges, what the Commissioners, do upon this occasion ? 
 Shall they comply with the laws of Ireland, and against the claims of 
 England, and stand firm where you have capitulated ? shall they, on 
 the other hand, not comply, and shall they persist to act against the 
 law ? will you punish them if they do so ? will you proceed against 
 them for not showing a spirit superior to your own ? On the other 
 hand, will you not punish them ? Will you leave liberty to be tram- 
 pled on by those men ? Will you bring them and yourselves, all con- 
 stituted orders, executive power, judicial power, and parliamentary au- 
 thority, into a state of odium, impotence, and contempt ; transferring 
 the task of defending public right into the hands of the populace, and 
 leaving it to the judges to break the laws, and to the people to assert 
 them? Such would be the consequence of false moderation, of irri- 
 
^DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 47 
 
 tating timidity, of inflammatory palliatives, of the weak and corrupt 
 hope of compromising with the court, before you have emancipated 
 the country. 
 
 I have answered the only semblance of a solid reason against the 
 motion ; I will remove some lesser pretences, some minor impedi- 
 ments; for instance, first, that we have a resolution of the same kind 
 already on our Journals, it will be said ; but how often was the great, 
 charter confirmed ? not more frequently than your rights have been 
 violated. Is one solitary resolution, declaratory of your right, suffi- 
 cient for a country, whose history, from the beginning unto the end, 
 has been a course of violation ? The fact is, every new breach is a 
 reason for a new repair; every new infringement should be a new 
 declaration; lest charters should be overwhelmed with precedents 
 to their prejudice, a nation's right obliterated, and the people them- 
 selves lose the memory of their own freedom. 
 
 I shall hear of ingratitude : I name the argument to despise it and 
 the men who make use of it : I know the men who use it are not 
 grateful, they are insatiate ; they are public extortioners, who would 
 stop the tide of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel of their 
 own emolument : I know of no species of gratitude which should pre- 
 vent my country from being free, no gratitude which should oblige 
 Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of robbery and usurpa- 
 tion, nothing is an object of gratitude except the thing stolen, the 
 charter spoliated. A nation's liberty cannot, like her treasures, be 
 meted and parcelled out in gratitude : no man can be grateful or 
 liberal of his conscience, nor woman of her honour, nor nation of her 
 liberty : there are certain unimpartable, inherent, invaluable proper- 
 ties, not to be alienated from the person, whether body politic or body 
 natural. With the same contempt do I treat that charge which says, 
 that Ireland is insatiable ; saying, that Ireland asks nothing but that 
 which Great Britain has robbed her of, her rights and privileges ; to 
 say that Ireland will not be satisfied with liberty, because she is not 
 satisfied with slavery, is folly. I laugh at that man who supposes that 
 Ireland will not be content with a free trade and a free constitution ; 
 and would any man advise her to be content with less ? 
 
 I shall be told that we hazard the modification of the law of 
 Poynings' and the Judges' Bill, and the Habeas Corpus Bill, and the 
 Nullum Tempus Bill; but I ask, have you been for years begging 
 for these little things, and have not you yet been able to obtain then; ? 
 and have you been contending against a little body of eighty men in 
 Privy Council assembled, convocating themselves into the image of a 
 parliament, and ministering your high office ? and have you been 
 
48 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 contending against one man, an humble individual, to you a Levia- 
 thian — the English Attorney-general — who advises in the case of Irish 
 bills, and exercises legislation in his own person, and makes your 
 parliamentary deliberations a blank, by altering your bills or sup- 
 pressing them? and have you not yet been able to conquer this little 
 monster ! Do you wish to know the reason ? I will tell you : because 
 you have not been a parliament, nor your country a people. Do you 
 wish to know the remedy ? — be a parliament, become a nation, and 
 these things will follow in the train of your consequence. I shall be 
 told that titles are shaken, being vested by force of English acts ; 
 but in answer to that, I observe, time may be a title, acquiescence a 
 title, forfeiture a title, but an English act of parliament certainly 
 cannot: it is an authority, which, if a judge would charge, no jury 
 would find, and which all the electors in Ireland have already dis- 
 claimed unequivocally, cordially, and universally. Sir, this is a good 
 argument for an act of title, but no argument against a declaration of 
 right. My friend, who sits above me (Mr. Yelverton), has a Bill of 
 Confirmation ; we do not come unprepared to Parliament. I am not 
 come to shake property, but to confirm property and restore freedom. 
 The nation begins to form; we are moulding into a people ; freedom 
 asserted, property secured, and the army (a mercenary band) likely to 
 be restrained by law. Never was such a revolution accomplished in 
 so short a time, and with such public tranquillity. In what situation 
 would those men who call themselves friends of constitution and of 
 government have left you? They would have left you without a title, 
 as they state it, to your estates, without an assertion of your constitu- 
 tion, or a law for your army ; and this state of unexampled private 
 and public insecurity, this anarchy raging in the kingdom for eighteen 
 months, these mock moderators would have had the presumption to 
 call peace. 
 
 I shall be told, that the judges will not be swayed by the resolution 
 of this House. Sir, that the judges will not be borne down by the 
 resolutions of Parliament, not founded in law, I am willing to believe ; 
 but the resolutions of this House, founded in law, they will respect 
 most exceedingly. I shall always rejoice at the independent spirit of 
 the distributors of the law, but must lament that hitherto they have 
 given no such symptom. The judges of the British nation, when they 
 adjudicated against the laws of that country, pleaded precedent and 
 the prostration and profligacy of a long tribe of subservient predeces- 
 sors, and were punished. The judges of Ireland, if they should be 
 called upon, and should plead sad necessity, the thraldom of the times, 
 and above all, the silent fears of Parliament, they, no doubt,, will be 
 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 excused : but when your declarations shall have protected them from 
 their fears; when you shall have emboldened the judges to declare 
 the law according to the charter, I make no doubt they will do their 
 duty ; and your resolution, not making a new law, but giving new life 
 to the old ones, will be secretly felt and inwardly acknowledged, and 
 there will not be a judge who will not perceive, to the innermost 
 recess of his tribunal, the truth of your charters and the vigour of 
 your justice. 
 
 The same laws, the same charters, communicate to both kingdoms, 
 Great Britain and Ireland, the same rights and privileges ; and one 
 privilege above them all is that communicated by Magna Charta, by 
 the 25th of Edward the Third, and by a multitude of other statutes, 
 " not to be bound by any act except made with the archbishops, 
 bishops, earls, barons, and freemen of the commonalty ", viz. of the 
 parliament of the realm. On this right of exclusive legislation are 
 founded the Petition of Right, Bill of Right, Revolution, and Act of 
 Settlement. The King has no other title to his crown than that 
 which you have to your liberty ; both are founded, the throne and 
 your freedom, upon the right vested in the subject to resist by arms, 
 notwithstanding their oaths of allegiance, any authority attempting to 
 impose acts of power as laws, whether that authority be one man or a 
 host, the second James, or the British Parliament ! 
 1 Every argument for the House of Hanover is equally an argument 
 for the liberties of Ireland : the Act of Settlement is an act of rebel- 
 lion, or the declaratory statute of the 6th of George the First an act 
 of usurpation ; for both cannot be law. 
 
 ^ ^1 do not refer to doubtful history, but to living record ; to common 
 charters ; to the interpretation England has put upon these charters ; 
 an interpretation not made by words only, but crowned by arms ; to 
 the revolution she had formed upon them, to the king she has deposed, 
 and to the king she has established ; and above all, to the oath of 
 allegiance solemnly plighted to the House of Stuart, and afterwards 
 set aside, in the instance of a grave and moral people absolved by 
 virtue of these very charters. 
 
 And as anything less than liberty is inadequate to Ireland, so is it 
 dangerous to Great Britain. We are too near the British nation, we 
 are too conversant with her history, we are too much fired by her 
 example, to be anything less than her equal ; anything less, we 
 should be her bitterest enemies — an enemy to that power which smote 
 f us with her mace, and to that constitution from whose blessings we 
 were excluded : to be ground as we have been by the British nation, 
 bound by her parliament, plundered by her crown, threatened by her 
 
50 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 enemies, insulted with her protection, while we returned thanks for 
 her condescension, is a system of meanness and misery which has 
 expired in our determination, as I hope it has in her magnanimity. 
 
 There is no policy left for Great Britain but to cherish the remains 
 of her empire, and do justice to a country who is determined to do 
 justice to herself, certain that she gives nothing equal to what she 
 received from us when we gave her Ireland. 
 
 • With regard to this country, England must resort to the free prin- 
 ciples of government, and must forego that legislative power which 
 she has exercised to do mischief to herself ; she must go back to free- 
 dom, which, as it is the foundation of her constitution, so is it the 
 main pillar of her empire ; it is not merely the connection of the 
 crown, it is a constitutional annexation, an alliance of liberty, which 
 is the true meaning and mystery of the sisterhood, and will make both 
 countries one arm and one soul, replenishing from time to time, in 
 their immortal connection, the vital spirit of law and liberty from the 
 lamp of each other's light ; thus combined by the ties of common 
 interest, equal trade and equal liberty, the constitution of both 
 countries may become immortal, a new and milder empire may arise 
 from the errors of the old, and the British nation assume once more 
 her natural station — the head of mankind. 
 
 That there are precedents against us I allow — acts of power I would 
 call them, not precedent ; and I answer the English pleading such 
 precedents, as they answered their kings when they urged precedents 
 against the liberty of England : Such things are the weakness of the 
 times ; the tyranny of one side, the feebleness of the other, the law of 
 neither ; we will not be bound by them ; or rather, in the words of 
 the declaration of right, " no doing judgment, proceeding, or anywise 
 to the contrary, shall be brought into precedent or example ". Do 
 not then tolerate a power — the power of the British Parliament over 
 this land, which has no foundation in utility or necessity, or empire, 
 or the laws of England, or the laws of Ireland, or the laws of nature, 
 or the laws of God, — do not suffer it to have a duration in your mind. 
 
 Do not tolerate that power which blasted you for a century, that 
 power which shattered your loom, banished your manufactures, dis- 
 honoured your peerage, and stopped the growth of your people ; do 
 not, I say, be bribed by an export of woollen, or an import of sugar, 
 and permit that power which has thus withered the land to remain in 
 your country and have existence in your pusillanimity. 
 
 Do not suffer the arrogance of England to imagine a surviving hope 
 in the fears of Ireland ; do not send the people to their own resolves 
 for liberty, passing by the tribunals of justice and the high court of 
 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS 
 
 51 
 
 parliament ; neither imagine that, by any formation of apology, you 
 can palliate such a commission to your hearts, still less to your chil- 
 dren, who will sting you with their curses in your grave for having 
 interposed between them and their Maker, robbing them of an im- 
 mense occasion, and losing an opportunity which you did not create, 
 and can never restore. 
 
 Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age of thral- 
 dom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and 
 miraculous armament, shall the historian stop at liberty, and observe 
 — that here the principal men among us fell into mimic trances of 
 gratitude — they were awed by a weak ministry, and bribed by an 
 empty treasury — and when liberty was within their grasp, and the 
 temple opened her folding doors, and the arms of the people clanged, 
 and the zeal of the nation urged and encouraged them on, that they 
 fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold. 
 
 I might, as a constituent, come to your bar, and demand my liberty. 
 I do call upon you, by the laws of the land and their violation, by 
 the instruction of eighteen counties, by the arms, inspiration, and 
 providence of the present moment, tell us the rule by which we shall 
 go, — assert the law of Ireland, — declare the liberty of the land. 
 
 I will not be answered by a public lie, in the shape of an amend- 
 ment ; neither, speaking for the subjects' freedom, am I to hear of 
 faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe, in this our island, in 
 common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no 
 ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain, and contem- 
 plate your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as the meanest 
 cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his 
 rags ; he may be naked, he shall not be in iron ; and I do see the 
 time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted ; 
 and though great men should apostatize, yet the cause will live ; and 
 though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall out- 
 last the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the 
 word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him. 
 
 I shall move you, "That the King's most excellent Majesty, and 
 the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent 
 to make laws to bind Ireland". 
 
52 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 Februanj 20, 1782. 
 
 On this day the House went into a committee on the bill, when the privileges 
 proposed to be restored to the Roman Catholics were gone into at length : they 
 went, 1st, to the enjoyment of property ; 2dly, the free exercise of their religion ; 
 3dly, education ; 4thly, marriage ; 5thly, self-defence. The first amendment 
 moved was, That Catholics should be empowered to take, purchase, hold, and 
 inherit estates in fee-simple. This clause was opposed by Mr. Rowley, Mr. St. 
 George, and Mr. Wynn ; it was supported by Mr, Denis Daly, Sir Hereukl 
 Langrishe, and Mr. Flood, who said, that although the Catholics should be 
 allowed to purchase lands, they should not be allowed to possess auy power in 
 the state j that the House should distinguish between the rights of property and 
 the rights of power ; " though I would extend toleration to the Roman Catholics, 
 yet I would not wish to make a change in the state, or enfeeble the government". 
 
 Mr. Grattan said: I object to any delay which can be given to 
 this clause. We have already considered the subject on a larger scale, 
 and this is but part of what the clause originally contained. We 
 have before us the example of England, who, four years ago, granted 
 Catholics a right of taking land in fee. The question is merely 
 whether we shall give this right or not; and if we give it, whether it 
 shall be accompanied by all its natural advantages. Three years ago, 
 when this question was debated in this House, there was a majority 
 of three against granting Catholics estates in fee, and they were only 
 allowed to take leases for 999 years. The argument then used against 
 granting them the fee was, that they might influence electors. It has 
 this day been shown, that they may have as effectual an influence by 
 possessing leases of 999 years as they can have by possessing the 
 fee. At that time we might have been somewhat prejudiced against 
 granting Roman Catholics estates in fee ; but their conduct since that 
 period should fully convince us of their true attachment to their 
 country. When this country had resolved no longer to crouch beneath 
 the burden of oppression that England had laid upon her, when she 
 armed in defence of her rights, and a high-spirited people demanded 
 a free trade, did the Roman Catholics desert their countrymen? No; 
 they were found among the foremost. When it was afterwards 
 thought necessary to assert a free constitution, the Roman Catholics 
 displayed their public virtue; they did not endeavour to make terms 
 for themselves, but they entered frankly and heartily into the cause of 
 their country, judging by their own virtue that they might depend 
 upon your generosity for their reward ; but now, after you havo 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 53 
 
 obtained a free trade, after the voice of the nation has asserted her 
 independence, they approach the house as humble suppliants, and 
 beg to be admitted to the common rights of men. Upon the occasions 
 I have mentioned, I did carefully observe their actions, and did then 
 determine to support their cause whenever it came before this House, 
 and to bear a strong testimony to the constitutional principles of the 
 Catholic body. Nor should it be mentioned as a reproach to them, 
 that they fought under the banner of King James, when we recollect 
 that before they entered the field, they extorted from him a magna 
 charta, a British constitution. 
 
 In the reign of Charles the First, a Committee, consisting of 
 Papists, Protestants, and Presbyterians, were sent from this country 
 to prosecute Lord Strafford. We find them perfectly agreeing in the 
 object of their mission, and, indeed, when men begin to differ upon 
 principles of religion, it is because they have no other great object to 
 engage their attention. We cannot give the people of Ireland a, 
 common faith, but we can give them a common interest. 
 
 In 1779, when the fleets of Bourbon hovered on our coasts, and 
 the Irish nation roused herself to arms, did the Roman Catholics 
 stand aloof? or did they, as might be expected from their oppressed 
 situation, offer assistance to the enemy? No; they poured in sub- 
 scriptions for the service of their country, or they pressed into the 
 ranis of her glorious volunteers. 
 
 It has been shown that this clause grants the Roman Catholics 
 no new power in the state. Every argument, therefore, which goes 
 against this clause, goes against their having leases for 999 years ; 
 every argument which goes against their having leases of 999 years, 
 goes against their having leases at all; and every argument which 
 goes against their having property, goes against their having exis- 
 tence in this land. 
 
 The question is now, whether we shall grant Roman Catholics the 
 power of enjoying estates — whether we shall be a Protestant settle- 
 merit or an Irish nation? whether we shall throw open the gates of 
 the temple of liberty to all our countrymen, or whether we shall con- 
 fine them in bondage by penal laws? So long as the penal code 
 remains, we never can be a great nation. The penal code is the 
 shell in which the Protestant power has been hatched, and now it 
 has become a bird, it must burst the shell or perish in it. 
 
 In Holland, where the number of Roman Catholics is comparatively 
 small, the toleration of their religion is an act of mercy to them ; but 
 in this country, where they form the great bulk of the inhabitants, it 
 is an act of policy, an act of necessity, an act of incorporation. The 
 
54 
 
 EIGHTS OF IRELAND, 
 
 question is not, whether we shall show mercy to the Roman Catholics, 
 but whether we shall mould the inhabitants of Ireland into a people : 
 ; for so long as we exclude Catholics from natural liberty and the coni- 
 tmon rights of men, we are not a people: we may triumph over them, 
 %ut other nations will triumph over us. If you love the Roman Ca- 
 tholic, you may be sure of a return from him ; but if you treat him 
 with cruelty, you must always live in fear, conscious that you merit his 
 just resentment. Will you then go down the stream of time, the Ro- 
 man Catholic sitting by your side unblessing and unblessed, blasting 
 and blasted ? or will you take off his chain, that he may take off 
 yours? will you give him freedom, that he may guard your liberty? 
 
 In Ireland, as connected with England, the indulgence we wish to 
 give to Catholics can never be injurious to the Protestant religion — 
 that religion is the religion of the state, and will become the religion 
 of Catholics if severity does not prevent them. Bigotry may survive 
 persecution, but it never can survive toleration. But gentlemen who 
 speak of the enormities committed by Catholics groaning under a 
 system of penal laws, do not take into account the enlightening and 
 softening of men's minds by toleration, nor do they consider that as 
 they increase in wealth they will increase in learning and politeness. 
 
 I give my consent to the clause in its principle, extent, and boldness; 
 I give my consent to it as the most likely means of obtaining a victory 
 over the prejudices of Catholics, and over our own; I give my con- 
 sent to it, because I would not keep two millions of my fellow-sub- 
 jects in a state of slavery, and because, as the mover of the declara- 
 tion of rights, I would be ashamed of giving freedom to but six 
 hundred thousand of my countrymen, when I could extend it to two 
 millions more. 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 February 22, 1782. 
 
 On this day Mr. Grattan, in pursuance of the notice which he had given, 
 brought forward his motion for an address to His Majesty, declaring the rights of 
 Ireland. [It is to be regretted that the commencement of this speech is wanting.] 
 
 Sir, Before Ireland goes into her title, let us hear the title of Eng- 
 land; for the question is not, whether Ireland has a right to be free, 
 bat whether Great Britain has a right to enslave her: when the latter 
 country asks, what right have the Irish to make law for themselves? 
 
RIGHTS OF IRF.L.AJND. 
 
 55 
 
 Ireland will not answer, but demands, what right has England to 
 make laws for Ireland? — from nature she has none. Mature has not 
 given any one nation a right over another. Has she that right from 
 covenant ? — let her show the covenant. In what roll do we find it ? in 
 what history is it recorded? there is no such thing in legislation. 
 Ireland, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, gave up her propounding 
 and deliberative power : so it has been construed. Ireland, in the 
 reign of King Charles the Second, by granting customs and excise in 
 perpetuity, gave up in a degree the purse of the nation, but Ireland 
 never gave up her legislation ; there is a covenant most certainly — a 
 covenant recognised by lawyers, and set forth by historians, but it is 
 a covenant (with Henry the Second) that secures to the King the 
 government, and to Ireland the laws, that is to say, the liberties of 
 England, in which is included a right to Ireland not to be bound 
 without her own consent, and to have her own legislative assemblies. 
 This covenant, then, excludes the English legislature : and thus the 
 title of the King precludes the claim of the Parliament : there is, then, 
 no covenant regarding the legislature of England, except one, which 
 is against her : are we then to search for her right in usage ? her act 
 sets forth no such title ; but usage is a continuation of precedent exer- 
 cised from the beginning, and exercised without opposition or counter- 
 claim from a people in a condition to oppose, and whose laws on the 
 subject of this right are silent. Where is such usage ? England 
 puts forth two great instances, which she denominates laws ; the 
 statutum Hibernke is one, the Ordinatiojies, 17th of Edward the 
 First, the other : there are no such laws : these instruments are orders 
 of the King, touching things to be done in Ireland in consequence of 
 her adoption of English laws by her covenant with Henry the Second ; 
 they are evidence of compact, and the reverse of evidence of conquest. 
 The statutum Hibernice was as follows : the judges of Ireland conceiv- 
 ing a doubt regarding inheritances devolved on sisters, viz., whether 
 the younger should hold under the elder, and do homage to her, or hold 
 under the lord, and do homage to him ; the chief justice of Ireland 
 despatched four knights to the King of England, to bring a certificate 
 from thence of the practice there used ; whereon the King sent his 
 rescript to inform the chief justice what the law and custom was in 
 England: the rescript concludes, "that the said custom that be used 
 in this case be proclaimed throughout our dominion of Ireland, teste 
 meipso". What they call a statute is nothing more than this rescript. 
 The other instance is equally erroneous. The ordinatio pro statu Hi- 
 bernian was never received as law. The first article of the ordinatio 
 prohibits the justices or other of the King's servants to purchase 
 
56 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 land in Ireland; but that has been ever otherwise, besides, it is no 
 act of Parliament, but an ordinance of the King and Privy Council 
 which is evident from the preamble, and from this fact, that Edward 
 held no parliament in England in the year in which that ordinance 
 was made. Thus the two first great precedents fail, and the case 
 stumbles at the outset. England has mistaken orders of govern- 
 ment for acts of parliament. 
 
 With diminished authority she then resorts to certain of her laws, 
 which in the generality of their expression cover Ireland; the former 
 instances were not laws, and these laws are not precedents ; they are 
 principally the acts of appeals, Henry the Eighth ; act of first fruits, 
 Henry the Eighth ; act of faculties, Henry the Eighth ; act of ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction, Elizabeth. But these acts were never put in force 
 in Ireland, nor was any attempt made for that purpose; on the 
 contrary, because they were not in force in Ireland, and because 
 their power did not extend to that country, it was necessary that 
 the Parliament of Ireland should pass acts to the same purpose, and 
 such acts were passed accordingly, and form a precedent, not for 
 the claim of England, but an argument and precedent against it ; 
 for the general words of these statutes had no operation in Ireland, 
 and for no other reason than because the English Parliament had 
 no jurisdiction : the general terms of her acts stood controlled by 
 the limits of her power, and the non-execution of the acts is a co- 
 temporary evidence against her jurisdiction, and so was the point 
 decided. The case was as follows: the 1st of Elizabeth gave a 
 power to erect a court of high commission ; the general words of the 
 act extended to Ireland, but no court of high commission was erected 
 there; then followed the Irish act of the 2nd of Elizabeth, which 
 gave the Queen the same power in Ireland, and a court of high com- 
 mission was erected accordingly ; then followed the bill of rights, 
 which put down all such courts: the bill of rights is declaratory, and 
 its terms universal. A person was deprived of his bishopric in Ire- 
 land by virtue of a court of high commission sitting after the bill 
 of rights had passed ; and the question was, whether such English 
 bill acted on Ireland, or repealed the Irish act? the judges and chan- 
 cellor of Ireland determined that it did not: thus it appears, that an 
 English statute, however general in its terms, does not act on Ireland, 
 and for no other reason, but because the English Parliament is not her 
 legislature: she next produces an order of acts which passed in the 
 reign of the Edwards, and which did bind Ireland : but these are 
 not acts of the English Parliament, but of the English and Irish 
 Parliament sitting in conjunction, that is to say, with members sent to 
 
RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 57 
 
 England to represent Ireland: there are writs extant to that pur- 
 pose. Now acts that passed conjointly do not prove that the English 
 Parliament has a right to pass acts for Ireland separately; they prove 
 the contrary: they prove that when it was intended to bind Ireland, 
 it was necessary to send for Irish representatives: and here again, the 
 instances she quotes are authorities against her : next advances a de- 
 scription of English acts, which in the opinion of lawyers, though 
 not adopted by Ireland, do bind her: they are acts declaratory of the 
 common law of England, which Ireland by her compact with Henry 
 the Second adopted, and of which she received the interpretation 
 from lime to time from England, not as legislative provisions, but as 
 judicial decisions; and these interpretations obtain, not by the autho- 
 rity of the English Parliament or English courts, but of the Irish as- 
 sembly that passed the compact adopting those English laws : then 
 is introduced another description of English statutes, wherein Ireland 
 is specially named. The principal are, the 4th of Henry the Fifth, 
 relative to Irish servants; the 1st of Henry the Sixth, relative to 
 ecclesiastical benefices; the 19th of Henry the Seventh, relative to 
 Perkin Warbeck's confederates ; the 8th of Henry the Seventh, re- 
 garding tithe; and the 2nd of Henry the Sixth, or the staple act. 
 You will observe that these are the only ancient precedents set forth, 
 that the latter instances are practices which require to be supported 
 by precedents; they are proceedings against a country exhausted; 
 they are not in themselves precedents ; they are not, as Vaughan ab- 
 surdly suggests, their own precedents : these, I say, are not prece- 
 dents, and the ancient precedents are too few to amount to a usage. 
 Besides, it does not appear that they were carried into execution, 
 and it does appear they were denied by Ireland: there are five pro- 
 tests against their legality ; there is the Irish act of the 10th of 
 Henry the Fourth, declaring that no law should be of force in Ire- 
 land until it should be confirmed by the Irish Parliament; there is 
 the 29th of Henry the Sixth, declaring that no act should be of force 
 in Ireland unless it was confirmed by the Irish Parliament. You 
 know the early rolls of Ireland are lost, but the exemplifications of 
 these acts were found in the treasury of Waterford, and cannot be 
 questioned, and do exclude expressly the Parliament of England, 
 .aid settle the case, even though they stood alone ; add to these their 
 wonted claim and their protest: there is also the act of faculties in 
 the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was as follows : 
 
 "This your Grace's realm, recognizing no superior under God but 
 your Grace, hath been, and yet is free from subjection to any man's 
 laws, but such as have been devised and ordained within this realm, 
 
58 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 or to such other as, by sufferance of your Grace and your progenitors, 
 the people of this realm have taken at their free liberty by their own 
 consent". What now becomes of precedent? there is the declaration 
 of right, their counter-claim by the House of Commons in Ireland, 
 declaring that His Majesty's subjects in Ireland are a free people j 
 and to be governed only accordiug to the common law of England, 
 and statutes made and established by Parliament in this kingdom 
 of Ireland, and according to the lawful customs used in the same : 
 there is the protest of the lords of Ireland in 1721, with five instru- 
 ments of counter-claim — and these, protestations from a people un- 
 able to resist. 
 
 The few instances of ancient acts naming Ireland, do not amount 
 to a usage, and therefore I submit that England has not made out her 
 title by nature or by contract; she has made out no title; she has not 
 put Ireland upon her case : and we might here stop, but we choose to 
 go on, and we observe, that three of the instruments we have stated 
 among these protests are acts of parliament; they are not evidence 
 of the law, but the law: the Parliament that declares the law, makes 
 it: and what is that law? It declares that no statute has force in 
 Ireland until confirmed by the Irish Parliament. What now becomes * 
 of the precedents? supposing that they were in point, which they are 
 not; supposing they were numerous, and amounted to a usage; yet 
 precedent cannot repeal act of parliament, but act of parliament sets 
 aside precedent : I say, the claim of England is then set aside by the 
 authority of Parliament; moreover, you will observe, that the Irish 
 acts referred to, namely, the 10th of Henry the Fourth and the 29th 
 of Henry the Sixth, were befoie most of the precedents quoted, and 
 one of the acts before any usage is pretended or could have existed ; 
 besides, the common law of England was introduced into Ireland the 
 9th of King John, that is before any precedent. But Parliament, or 
 such a legislative assembly, is a part of the common law, and two 
 parliaments are against the common law, but these precedents cannot 
 set aside the common la w, no more than it can repeal the statute. So 
 that the claim of England is not a title established by usage, and then 
 set aside by Irish statute, but an attempt to overturn existing statutes, 
 acts of parliament, by acts of power, and to set up violation in the 
 place of law. I might stop here, but Ireland is not confined to the 
 statutes I have mentioned. She has other titles to her freedom in 
 abundance; and first, she has the original compact of Henry the Se- 
 cond with the Irish princes, giving to Henry the crown, to the princes 
 their governments, and to the Irish settlers the English laws. The 
 evidence of that compact are the two historians Giraldus Cambrensis 
 
BIGHTS OF IRELAND, 
 
 59 
 
 and Mathew Pari?, the latter of whom was present when it was made: 
 the matter of that compact was, that Ireland should possess the laws 
 and customs of England; and this convention was confirmed by the 
 solemnity of an oath, leges Anglice gratanter acceptce et juraioria so- 
 \emnitate confirmatce. Other compacts between kings and their people 
 are not to be found: the compact of England with William the First 
 does not appear to exist in form, and is founded justly, and fairly I 
 think, on a principle that the Crown is a commission ; but the Irish 
 compact is an historic transaction. And what is the compact? the 
 laws of England. And what were the laws of England at that time? 
 the laws of the Confessor, the laws which Magna Charta declared, and 
 among them, the great law of liberty, namely, to be bound only by 
 your own assemblies. Then follows the charter of John, and then 
 Magna Charta, the first of Henry the Third, 1216, and in this it is 
 recited, "the city of Dublin shall have her ancient privileges, and all 
 towns, and cities, and boroughs, their free customs". What liberties? 
 what free customs ? Was the power of the legislature of another 
 country to shut up their harbours and stop their commerce, one of 
 their free customs? "The King shall not take aids but by the con- 
 sent of the realm": then the British Parliament cannot tax Ireland. 
 Such is the 29th of the great charter, such the 25th of Edward the 
 First, such the 27th, such the 34th of the same, acts which Ireland 
 adopted after the charter: the 29th of the great charter says: "Xo 
 freeman shall be taken or disseized of his freehold or free custom, or 
 be outlawed, banished, or destroyed; nor shall the King pass upon 
 him but by the lawful judgment of his peers and the law of the land". 
 
 Was the authority of the English Parliament at this time, the time- 
 of the charter of Henry the Third, the law of Ireland? Where is the 
 law of conquest now? I appeal to the guilty spirit of the Earl of 
 Strafford, who argued that the word conquest used in the act of the 
 Irish Parliament, was a legislative enactment, enacting the right of 
 conquest by the authority of Parliament. All these acts amount to 
 this position, that the subject who claims these provisions shall not 
 be taxed but by his own parliament or legislature, nor affected in 
 property, life, or limb, but by the laws of his own country. The 
 British Parliament then cannot punish you; it cannot fine you; it 
 cannot tax Ireland; it cannot punish Ireland: then it cannot legis- 
 late for Ireland. You will observe that the rights and privileges 
 above mentioned are not securities against the King only, they are 
 certain properties annexed by the laws of these countries to the per- 
 son of the subject; he is clothed with immunities and privileges: the 
 words are possessive ; he is protected against royal oppression, and he 
 
60 
 
 RIGHTS OF IKELAND. 
 
 walks the conscious proprietor of the great charter. These laws form 
 a condition for the subject, irreconcilable to the law of conquest, and 
 utterly incompatible with what is set up under pretence of the law — 
 the power of the British Parliament over Ireland. 
 
 There is another act I wish to mention ; it is the 34th of Edward 
 the First: "all clerks and laymen shall have their liberties as when 
 they had them the best". Was the power of the English Parliament, 
 that is, of another country over us, our best law? Was conquest 
 our best law? And do not imagine that this act is inoperative be- 
 cause general, or that a franchise need be penned with the subtilty 
 of a penal law; indeed, the Attorney- general of Charles the First 
 thought so, and when he argued against the liberties of the people of 
 England at a conference with the Lords, on the petition of right, said 
 that the statutes of the great charter and other franchises are con- 
 ceived in general to be expounded, that is to say, to be done away, 
 by precedents: but he lived to feel, in his own impeachment, the 
 vanity of that argument, and found the laws of his country, which he 
 imagined dead to her protection, were alive to his punishment. 
 
 I have mentioned certain laws and charters in support of the free- 
 dom of Ireland; are they the whole? no, there are more of them, 
 namely, all the laws by which England claims her liberty ; they were 
 enacted in Ireland by the 10th of Henry the Seventh. You will ob- 
 serve, that the petition and declaration of right were declaratory of 
 the ancient privileges of England, and that by the Irish act of the 
 1 0th of Henry the Seventh, all those are communicated to Ireland ; 
 and I beg to set forth these rights and privileges, together with those 
 mentioned before, not only as instruments of freedom, but links of 
 connexion. Ireland has another title in support of her liberty , a Parlia- 
 ment of her own. Parliament is exclusive legislature, it is so ex vi 
 termini; such is the construction by England herself; the modus te- 
 nendi parliamentum is in both countries the same ; but it is not ne- 
 cessary to establish the modus in order to ascertain the power: the 
 competency of the Parliament of Ireland stands on the same base 
 within this realm as that of the English Parliament within the realm 
 of Great Britain. Like that of England, our legislature is composed 
 of King, Lords, and Commons ; but the word king is exclusive, the 
 word lords exclusive, and the word commons exclusive ; when you say 
 you are governed by a king, you mean one king, when you say you 
 are governed by a parliament, you mean one parliament: when the 
 judges said that the laws of England did not extend to Ireland be- 
 cause she had a parliament of her own, they said by necessary con- 
 struction, that the English legislature was not her parliament: it i& 
 
RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 GJ 
 
 true, if the English legislature choose to name Ireland and usurp legis- 
 lative authority, the judge cannot question the legislature of his own 
 country; but such a proceeding does not become a matter of right 
 because the judge cannot relieve against it. 
 
 I have shown the claim of England is not a case of precedent ; 
 violation is not legislation; robbery unpunished does not repeal the 
 decalogue ; precedent cannot prevail against an act of parliament ; 
 it is a parva consuetude*, not a law; and a course of precedent is a 
 course of violation. Could precedent repeal the great charter? it 
 was thirty times violated ; but such violation did not cancel the great 
 charter, but proved so many challenges to re-affirm, re-instate, and 
 glorify that inviolable instrument of public liberty. The reign of 
 Henry the Eighth was a precedent against the privilege of Parlia- 
 ment; forced loans had their precedents; ship money had its prece- 
 dents. Charles the First imposed a loan by his own authority ; five 
 gentlemen refuse to pay it; they are imprisoned by a warrant from 
 the council; they are brought up on their habeas corpus; they pro- 
 duce six laws beside the charter in their favour: the judges rely on 
 precedent,, and remand the prisoners: these judges despise the old 
 laws to which they and their predecessors were sworn, and stood on 
 precedents on which those predecessors were perjured; but these fran- 
 chises survived those pliant judges, and afterwards sat in judgment 
 upon them, a # nd left, in their punishment, a precedent better than 
 their example — the triumph of the law over the perjury of the judges. 
 What has been the conduct of the people of England on the subject 
 of precedent? You are armed with her laws — be animated by her 
 example: her declaration of rights, after reciting precedents against 
 the liberty of the subject, says, " all such doings, and so forth, shall 
 be utterly void"; her great charter had set forth that any judgment 
 given to the contrary shall be utterly void; she formed her petition 
 of right upon her birth-right — your birth-right against precedent ; 
 she formed her declaration of right on the same ground ; she consi- 
 dered the right of kings as defeasible, and the birth-right of the sub- 
 ject as indefeasible, and she deposed a king who had, under the 
 authority of precedent and adjudication, invaded the indefeasible 
 right of the subject, out of which right she formed not only a revo- 
 lution but a dynasty, that had and has no other foundation than that 
 which depends on the abolishment of every arbitrary maxim in 
 church and state — the venal judgment, the violent precedent, and the 
 barefaced impudence of the law of conquest. Has then the birth- 
 right of the British subject — your birth-right — been sufficient against 
 precedent (the precedent of the Plantagenets, the precedent of the 
 
 4 
 
02 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 Tudors, the precedent of the Stuarts), to form a petition of right, r. 
 declaration of right, a revolution, cancel the oath of allegiance, de- 
 pose James, establish William, royalize the house of Hanover? 
 has our common birth-right done all this for England, and given se- 
 curity to her meanest subject, and clothed her beggar with his 
 sturdiness ? and has it left Ireland naked, subject to be bound without 
 your consent, taxed without your consent, with your commerce re- 
 stricted, an independent army, and a dependent parliament, and your 
 property adjudged by the decisions of another country ? 
 
 We have done with precedent. She then resorts to authority; to 
 what authority ? to her judges. To do what? to repeal acts of 
 parliament by interpretation. What act ? Magna Charta — the act 
 that forms the security of the realm. I respect the judges ; but in 
 this case I object to their authority, first, because they are partial, 
 being of the country whose power they are to discuss ; secondly, be- 
 cause they are dependent, being punishable by the Parliament whose 
 claims they are to arbitrate; thirdly, because they are incompetent, 
 being, by their office, obliged to pronounce the law as Parliament 
 declares; fourthly, because they are inadmissible, being in this case 
 called upon to repeal an act of parliament under the colour of inter- 
 pretation. The great charter, the 10th of Henry the Fourth, the 
 29th of Henry the Sixth, the act of faculties, do not want an inter- 
 preter; these say, no English statute shall be executed in Ireland 
 till confirmed by the Irish Parliament — no Irish subject to be bound 
 by statutes except ordained within the realm ; to say they may, is 
 to repeal, not to interpret ; such explanation is violation, not inter- 
 pretation, and the judge not an authority, but an offender. Besides, 
 the judges are bad arbiters of public liberty; there is no act of 
 power for which you have not a precedent, nor any false doctrine 
 for which you have not an adjudication. Lord Bacon maintained a 
 dispensing power, Lord Coke maintained a dispensing power, Lord 
 Chief Justice Fleming affirmed the power of the King to lay port 
 duties, Judge Blackstone maintained the power of the House of Com- 
 mons to disqualify by the vote of its own body: when the Attorney- 
 General of Charles the First filed an information against three 
 members of Parliament for their speeches in the House of Commons, 
 the judges of the King's Bench fined and confined them all: there is 
 no adjudication which the judges of England can make against Ire- 
 land, that they have not made against their own country. Now, as 
 the people of England have disregarded such authority when urged 
 against their own liberties, so shall we disregard the same authority 
 when urged against ours : we cannot allow England to plead her 
 
RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 03 
 
 magna charta against the authority of her judges, and set up the au- 
 thority of her judges against the magna charta of Ireland; nor must 
 she answer her judges with the principles of the revolution, and an- 
 swer Ireland with the principles of the jacobites; for neither judgments, 
 nor judges' opinions, nor precedents, are laws; still less can they re- 
 peal laws, still less franchises, and least of all, charters : these things 
 read themselves without a judge, and in despite of him ; they put 
 forth a subterranean voice even against kings, and, though buried for 
 ages, like the blood of the murdered man, they rise up in judgment, 
 and call for justice. 
 
 Let them now produce their judges. There are four remarkable 
 adjudications on this subject; one has been against us, and three 
 have been in our favour : the one against us, is the case of the staple 
 act, the English act of the 2nd of Henry the Sixth; it was a case 
 where Ireland was specially named and forbidden to export woollen 
 to Calais; the first decision adjudged that Ireland was not bound by 
 this act; the decision was made in the time of Richard the Third by 
 all the judges of England assembled in the Exchequer Chamber; 
 this case afterwards, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, was, by 
 Lord Chief Justice Hussey, decided against us, his brethren not 
 much dissenting; the reporter (Brooke) doubts the legality of his 
 opinion, and Lord Coke approves of the contrary opinion, namely, 
 of the original determination of the judges assembled in the Exche- 
 quer Chamber. Under these circumstances stands the decision 
 which is against us: of the three decisions which were for us, I have 
 stated one already (the case of the Court of High Commission in Ire- 
 land); another was the case of a patent given to one Pilkington, of 
 an office in Ireland, which he discharged by deputy. A. got a pa- 
 tent for the same office, and Pilkington brought a scire facias to the 
 court in England, 20th of Henry the Sixth, against A., to show 
 cause why the patent should not be repealed. A. pleaded that the 
 Irish Parliament had by an act required that the said office should 
 be discharged in person, or forfeited, and then he prescribed for the 
 Irish Parliament, and the prescription was allowed. The third de- 
 cision is that of the judges of Ireland on queries put to them by the 
 Lords at the request of the Commons; the first query was as follows: 
 Whether the subjects of Ireland be a free people, and to be governed 
 only by the common law of England and statutes of force in this 
 Kingdom? To which query all the judges answered in the affirma- 
 tive : they point out where the common law, in some instances, 
 differs from that of England, and where equity interferes; but with 
 respect to the question, whether the subjects of Ireland be a free peo- 
 
64 
 
 RIGHTS OF 1KELAND. 
 
 pie, to be bound only by the common law of England and the Irish 
 statutes, their assent is unqualified: such is the answer; and this 
 the answer of the seven judges of Ireland given in writing with their 
 names affixed. The other authorities are the opinions of judges 
 given in their books ; one of these opinions is that of • Mr. Justice 
 Blackstone ; a very considerable name : but what are his arguments ? 
 what has this oracle pronounced? namely, that the Parliament of 
 England has settled her own right by her own ipse dixit; she has 
 settled the matter, he says, by the declaratory act of the 6th of 
 George the First ; certainly she has settled the matter for this Rha- 
 damanthus ; but his remark proves only, that the Parliament of 
 England had authority over her judge, but it does not prove 
 that she had authority over Ireland: certainly the judge cannot 
 question the legislature, and therefore ought not in such a case to be 
 an arbiter, and of course is not an authority. Having settled the 
 question by the authority of Parliament, he adds his own reasons: 
 they are worse than that authority: Ireland, he says, is a kind of 
 colony planted by England, and then he rests the right of England 
 on conquest: to which we answer, she is not a colony, she is not a 
 kind of colony; that she was not planted by England, that she was 
 not conquered, and that, if she were, she has compacts, charters, and 
 laws to do away what is called the right of conquest. I must ob- 
 serve, this grave and learned judge does not in this case exert him- 
 self within his own science, craft, or mystery ; he speaks on the 
 history of Ireland and the laws of nations, and is erroneous in both. 
 Next is introduced the thunderbolt of the law, the English Minos — 
 Lord Coke; — a great authority, a friend to liberty, and the principal 
 framer of the Bill of Bights ; but this Leviathan does not combat 
 here in his own waters; he moves in another element; and, though 
 in every element portentous and prepollent, is not omnipotent here: 
 he declares that Ireland is not bound by the English Parliament, 
 and gives his reasons, viz., because she has a parliament of her own, 
 and does not send representatives to the Parliament of England; and 
 then he adds, not bound " except when she is especially named"; 
 which does not, however, remove the force of his reason, but leaves 
 it to act against the exception as well as against the general propo- 
 sition, for she has not, when named, a parliament the less, nor a re- 
 presentative the more : he then quotes a precedent — it is where 
 England bound Ireland when Ireland sent representatives to Eng- 
 land : and he infers from thence, that England can bind Ireland when 
 she does not; and, finally, he rests his opinion on a law which goes 
 to overturn the liberty of his own country as well as of ours — the 
 
KIGIITS OF IRELAND. 
 
 65 
 
 law of conquest. So is Vaugh'an: he sets in the gulf in which his 
 learned brethren, the other lights of the law, are extinguished — the 
 law of conquest : so are they all — they all rest on this law. 
 
 I have shown that England has no title by the law of nature, no 
 title by the law of covenant, no title by the law of usage ; the best 
 authorities, Locke, Burlemachi, Hooker — independent philosophers — 
 better authority than dependent judges, have pronounced it so. Will 
 she claim by conquest ? It only extends to a certain description of 
 the generation conquered, and it is extinguished by pacts, charters, 
 and laws ; let nae add, that Ireland was not conquered, and supposing 
 her to have been so, I have produced pacts, charters, and laws innu- 
 merable. Further, I beg to say, that the authorities quoted, even 
 those quoted against us, refute the idea of conquest. The judges in 
 Pilkington's case, w r ho allow the prescription for the Irish Parliament, 
 give up the idea of conquest. My Lord Coke himself, who affirms 
 that Ireland has a parliament of her own, precludes the idea of con- 
 quest ; the seven judges of Ireland, who acknowledged that the Irish 
 were a free people, and to be governed only by the common law of 
 England and the statutes of Ireland, preclude the idea of conquest. 
 Henry the Second, who professed to take Ireland by the grant of the 
 Pope, renounced thereby the idea of conquest. He made a covenant 
 with the Irish chieftains ; they acknowledged him their sovereign, 
 and he confirmed to them their petty governments. He made a cove- 
 nant with the English settlers, they swearing allegiance to him, and 
 he communicating to them the laws and liberties of England. 
 
 " Nothing obtained except in a just war ; no right over the pos- 
 terity of the conquered". Such is Locke. " Conquest cannot give 
 title ; it is a means to obtain ; and that title cannot be good except 
 by the consent, express or tacit, of the people". Such is Burlemachi. 
 "If the people do not voluntarily submit, a state of war exists". Such 
 is Vattal. What says England ? Mr. Pym, in Lord Strafford's im- 
 peachment, speaks as follows : " The law is the safeguard of all pri- 
 vate interests ; without this every man has a right to do everything. 
 And this is the case to which the Irish were reduced by the Earl of 
 Strafford ; and the reason he gave hath more mischief than the thing 
 itself, viz., that they were a conquered nation. There are few nations 
 in the world that have not been conquered ; but if pacts and agree- 
 ments do not restrain that, what people can be free? England hath 
 been conquered, Wales hath been conquered, and by this reason will 
 be little better than Ireland". Thus speaks Mr. Pym. W r hat says 
 the English House of Commons ? It says, " that the realm of Ire- 
 land having been time out of mind annexed to the imperial Crown of 
 
66 
 
 EIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 England, and governed by the same laws, the said Earl being deputy 
 in that realm, to bring His Majesty's liege subjects of that realm into 
 a dislike of his Majesty's government, and intending the subversion 
 of the fundamental laws and settled government of that kingdom, and 
 the destruction of His Majesty's liege people there, did declare and 
 publish — that Ireland was a conquered nation". Thus spoke the 
 English House of Commons. What said the English Parliament ? 
 The bill of attainder is before you. " Whereas the knights, citizens, 
 and burgesses, have impeached Thomas Earl of Strafford for endea- 
 vouring to subvert the ancient and fundamental government of Eng- 
 land and Ireland, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical govern- 
 ment against law in the said kingdoms ; be it enacted that he shall 
 suffer the pain of death". Thus did the Parliament of England act on 
 this question with regard to her minister. How has she acted with 
 regard to her King ? I know it will be said that she revoked the act 
 of attainder : true, she revoked the attainder, but did not restore the 
 doctrine of conquest ; on the contrary, in the face of the law of con- 
 quest, she resolved as follows : " that there is an original compact 
 between the King and the people; that James the Second had broken 
 that original compact, and that the breach of compact, with his other 
 offences, was an abdication of his crown": and she deposed him accor- 
 dingly, and she called on the Irish to aid her in the deposition. Eng- 
 land called on the Irish to shed their blood, and they shed it accor- 
 dingly, in deposing James the Second for having broken his compact 
 with England. Aud will she now break her compact with Ireland, 
 and set up here the law of conquest? Has she attainted the Irish for 
 the treason of aiding James, who broke the original compact with 
 England ? and will she punish the Irish for not aiding England in 
 breaking the compact with themselves ? will she employ her King 
 who owes his crown to one compact to break the other? will she con- 
 fiscate the property of James's abettors in Ireland on the principles 
 of compact, and seize on the liberties of the whole realm on the 
 principles of conquest, and commit herself that very crime ? A pro- 
 digy in the annals of mankind incredible, and an exhibition of the 
 thirst of power in the frenzy of the human race unimaginable I 
 Commit herself that very crime for which she beheaded her minister 
 and deposed her king ! 
 
 This brings the claim of England to a mere question of force: it is 
 a right which Swift, I think it is Swift, has explained — the right of 
 the grenadier to take the property of a naked man. I add, this man 
 has now gotten back his arms, and begs to get back his property. 
 Thus the question remaining is a question of ability ; and in consider- 
 
BIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 67 
 
 ing this, you are not to contemplate alone the difficulties in your front; 
 yov are to look back too on the strength in your rear. The claim by 
 conquest naturally leads to the subject of the volunteers. You have 
 an immense force, the shape of a much greater, of different religions, 
 but of one political faith, kept up for three years defending the country ; 
 for the government took away her troops and consigned her defence 
 to the people ; — defending the government, I say, aiding the civil 
 power, and pledged to maintain the liberty of Ireland to the last drop 
 of their blood. Who is this body ? the Commons of Ireland ! and 
 you at the head of them: it is more — it is the society in its greatest 
 possible description ; it is the property — it is the soul of the country 
 armed. They — for this body have yet no adequate name — in the 
 summer of 1780, they agree to a declaration of right ; in tiie summer 
 of 1781, they hear that the French are at sea; in the heat and 
 hurricane of their zeal for liberty, they stop ; without delay, they 
 offer to march ; their march waits only for the commands of the Cas- 
 tle : the Castle, where the sagacious courtier had abandoned his 
 miiform, finds it prudent to receive a self-armed association : that 
 self-arnied asssociation this age has beheld : posterity will admire — 
 will wonder. The delegates of that self- armed association enter the 
 mansion of the government, ascend the steps, advance to the pre- 
 sence of the Lord-lieutenant, and make a tender of their lives and 
 fortunes, with the form and reception of an authenticated establish- 
 ment. A painter might here display and contrast the loyalty of a 
 courtier with that of a volunteer ; he would paint the courtier hurry- 
 ing off his uniform, casting away his arms, filling his pockets with the 
 public money, and then presenting to his sovereign naked servitude ; 
 he would paint the volunteer seizing his charters, handling his arms, 
 forming his columns, improving his discipline, demanding his rights, 
 and then, at the foot of the throne, making a tender of aimed alle- 
 giance. He had no objection to die by the side of England ; but he 
 must be found dead with her charter in his hand. 
 
 Stationed as you are, and placed as you are in relation to the com- 
 munity and these great objects, how do you mean to proceed ? sub- 
 mit, and take the lead in the desertion ? impossible ! The strength 
 which at your back supports your virtue, precludes your apostacy ; 
 the armed presence of the nation will not bend ; the community will 
 not be sold ; nor will a nation in arms suffer the eternal blessing of 
 freedom and renown to depend on the experiment, whether this vil- 
 lain shall be a pensioner, or that pickpocket shall be a peer. Before 
 you decide on the practicability of being slaves for ever, look to 
 America. Do you see nothing in that America but the grave and 
 
€3 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 prison of your armies ? and do you not see in her range of territory, 
 cheapness of living, variety of climate, and simplicity of life, the 
 drain of Europe ? — Whatever is bold and disconsolate, sullen virtue 
 and wounded pride ; all, all to that point will precipitate ; and what 
 you trample on in Europe will sting you in America. When Phila- 
 delphia or whatever city the American appoints for empire, sends 
 forth her ambassadors to the different kings of Europe, and manifests 
 to the world her independency and power, do you imagine you will 
 persuade Ireland to be satisfied with an English Parliament making 
 laws for her ; satisfied with a refusal to her loyalty of those privi- 
 leges which were offered to the arms of America ? How will indi- 
 viduals among you like this ? Some of the gentlemen whom I now 
 see in their places, are the descendants of kings ; the illustrious 
 gentleman on the far bench [Mr. O'Hara] ; my illustrious friend 
 near me [Mr. O'Neill] — will they derogate from the royalty of their 
 forefathers, bow their honoured heads, or acknowledge the crown of 
 their ancestors, or more than regal power on the brow of every forty- 
 shilling freeholder in England, or on any front except that of His 
 Majesty ? Are the American enemies to be free, and these royal 
 subjects slaves ? Or in what quality does His Majesty choose to con- 
 template the Irish hereafter? His subjects in Parliament, or his 
 equals in congress ? Submission, therefore, will not do : there 
 remains, then, but one way ; assert the independency of your Par- 
 liament. What do you wait for ? Do you wait for a peace till 
 the volunteer retires, and the minister replies by his cannon ?— the 
 Stag frigate is now in your harbour. Or do you wait for more cala- 
 mities in the fortunes of England, till the empire is a wreck, and the 
 two countries go down together ? or do you delay till Providence, 
 beholding you on your knees, shall fall in love with your meanness, 
 and rain on your servility constitution like manna ? You go to the 
 house of God when you want heat or moisture, and you interfere 
 with God's providence by your importunities. Are the princes of 
 the Earth more vigilant than the Almighty, that you should besiege 
 the throne of mercy with your solicitations, and hold it unnecessary 
 to admonish the King ? Or do you wait till your country speaks to 
 you in thunder ? Let me conclude by observing, that you have the 
 two claims before you ; the claim of England to power, and of Ire- 
 land to liberty : and I have shown you, that England has no title 
 to that power to make laws for Ireland ; none by nature, none by 
 compact, none by usage, and none by conquest ; and that Ireland 
 has several titles against the claims of England ; — a title by nature, 
 a title by compact, and a title by divers positive acts of parliament j 
 
RIGHTS OF 'IRELAND. 
 
 69 
 
 a title by charter, and by all the laws by which England possesses 
 her liberties ; by England's interpretation of those laws, by her 
 renunciation of conquest, and her acknowledgment of the law of 
 original compact. 
 I now move you, 
 
 That an humble address be presented to His Majesty, to assure 
 His Majesty of our most sincere and unfeigned attachment to His 
 Majesty's person and government. 
 
 To assure His Majesty that the people of this country are a free 
 people. 
 
 That the crown of Ireland is an imperial crown, and the kingdom 
 of Ireland a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her own, the sole 
 legislature thereof. 
 
 To assure His Majesty, that, by our fundamental laws and fran- 
 chises (laws and franchises which we on the part of the nation do 
 claim as her birth-right), the subjects of this kingdom cannot be 
 bound, affected, or obliged by any legislature, save only by the King, 
 Lords, and Commons of this His Majesty's realm of Ireland, nor is 
 there any other body of men who have power or authority to make 
 laws for the same. 
 
 To assure His Majesty, that His Majesty's subjects of Ireland 
 conceive that in this privilege is contained the very essence of 
 their liberty, and that they treasure it as they do their lives, and 
 accordingly have with one voice declared and protested against the 
 interposition of any other parliament in the legislation of this 
 country. 
 
 To assure His Majesty, that we have seen with concern the Par- 
 liament of Great Britain advance a claim to make law for Ireland ; 
 and that this anxiety is kept alive, when we perceive the same 
 Parliament still persists in that claim, as may appear by recent 
 British acts which affect to bind Ireland, but to which the subjects 
 of Ireland can pay no obedience. 
 
 To assure His Majesty, that, next to our liberties, we value our 
 connexion with Great Britain ; on which we conceive, at this time 
 most particularly, the happiness of both kingdoms intimately de- 
 pends, and which, as it is our most sincere wish, so shall it be our 
 principal study, to cultivate and render perpetual : that under this 
 impression, we cannot suggest any means whereby such connexion 
 can be so much improved and strengthened, as by a renunciation of 
 the claim of the British Parliament to make laws for Ireland — a 
 claim useless to England, cruel to Ireland, and without any founda- 
 tion in law. 
 
70 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 That with a high sense of the magnanimity and justice of the 
 British character, and in the most entire reliance on His Majesty's 
 paternal care, we have set forth our rights and sentiments, and with- 
 out prescribing any mode to His Majesty, we throw ourselves on 
 his royal wisdom. 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 April 16, 1782. 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose, and spoke as follows : 
 
 I am now to address a free people : ages have passed away, and 
 this is the first moment in which you could be distinguished by that 
 appellation. 
 
 I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, that I have 
 nothing to add, and have only to admire by what Heaven-directed 
 steps you have proceeded until the whole faculty of the nation is 
 braced up to the act of her own deliverance. 
 
 I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with a paternal 
 solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and 
 from arms to liberty* Spirit of Swift ! spirit of Molyneux ! your 
 genius has prevailed ! Ireland is now a nation ! in that new cha- 
 racter I hail her ! and bowing to her august presence, J say, Esto 
 perpetua / 
 
 She is no longer a wretched colony, returning thanks to her go- 
 vernor for his rapine, and to her king for his oppression ; nor is she 
 now a squabbling, fretful sectary, perplexing her little wits, and 
 firing her furious statutes with bigotry, sophistry, disabilities, and 
 death, to transmit to posterity insignificance and war. 
 
 Look to the rest of Europe, and contemplate yourself, and be 
 satisfied. Holland lives on the memory of past achievements ; Swe- 
 den has lost liberty ; England has sullied her great name by an 
 attempt to enslave her colonies. You are the only people — you, of 
 the nations in Europe, are now the only people who excite admira- 
 tion, and in your present conduct you not only exceed the present 
 generation, but you equal the past. I am not afraid to turn back 
 and look antiquity in the face : the revolution — that great event, 
 Wj s ether you call it ancient or modern I know not, was tarnished 
 with bigotry : the great deliverer (for such I must ever call the 
 
TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 71 
 
 Prince of Nassau) was blemished witn oppression ; he assented to, 
 he was forced to assent to, acts which deprived the Catholics of 
 leligious, and all the Irish of civil and commercial rights, though the 
 Irish were the only subjects in these islands who had fought in his 
 defence. But you have sought liberty on her own principle : see the 
 Presbyterians of Bangor petition for the freedom of the Catholics 
 of Munster. You, with difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a 
 few, have done what your ancestors wished, but could not accom- 
 plish, and what your posterity may preserve, but will never equal : 
 you have moulded the jarring elements of your country into a nation, 
 and have rivalled those great and ancient commonwealths, whom 
 you were taught to admire, and among whom you are now to be 
 recorded : in this proceeding you had not the advantages which were 
 common to other great countries ; no monuments, no trophies, none 
 of those outward and visible signs of greatness, such as inspire man- 
 kind, and connect the ambition of the age which is coming on with 
 the example of that going off, and forms the descent and concatena- 
 tion of glory: no, you have not had any great act recorded among 
 all your misfortunes, nor have you one public tomb to assemble the 
 crowd, and s^eak to the living the language of integrity and 
 fieedom. 
 
 Your historians did not supply the want of monuments ; on the 
 contiaiy, these narrators of your misfortunes, who should have felt 
 for your wrongs, and have punished your oppressors with oppres- 
 sions, natural scourges, the moral indignation of history, compro- 
 mised with public villainy and trembled ; they excited your violence, 
 they suppressed your provocation, and wrote in the chain which 
 entrammelled their country. I am come to break that chain, and I 
 congratulate my country, who, without any of the advantages I speak 
 of, going forth as it were with nothing but a stone and a sling, and 
 what oppression could not take away — the favour of Heaven, accom- 
 plished her own redemption, and left you nothing to add and every- 
 thing to admire. 
 
 You want no trophy now ; the records of Parliament are the evi- 
 dence of your glory : I beg to observe, that the deliverance of Ireland 
 has proceeded from her own right hand ; I rejoice at it, for had the 
 great requisition of your freedom proceeded from the bounty of Eng- 
 land, that great work would have been defective both in renown and 
 security: it was necessary that the soul of the country should have 
 beeu exalted by the act of her own redemption, and that England 
 should withdraw her claim by operation of treaty, and not of mere 
 grace and ' condescension ; a gratuitous act of Parliament, however 
 
72 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 express, would have been revocable ; but the repeal of her claim 
 under operation of treaty is not : in that case, the legislature is put 
 in covenant, and bound by the law of nations — the only law that can 
 legally bind Parliament. Never did this country stand so high. Eng- 
 land and Ireland treat ex aequo. Ireland transmits to the King her 
 claim of right, and requires of the Parliament of England the repeal 
 of her claim of power, which repeal the English Parliament is to 
 make under the force of a treaty which depends on the law of 
 nations — a law which cannot be repealed by the Parliament of 
 England. 
 
 I rejoice that the people are a party to this treaty, because they 
 are bound to preserve it. There is not a man of forty shillings free- 
 hold that is not associated in this our claim of right, and bound to 
 die in its defence; cities, counties, associations, Protestants and 
 Catholics ; it seems as if the people had joined in one great national 
 sacrament ; a flame has descended from Heaven on the intellect of 
 Ireland, plays round her head, and encompasses her understanding 
 with a consecrated glory. 
 
 There are some who think, and a few who declare, that the asso- 
 ciations to which I refer are illegal : come, then, let us try the charge, 
 and state the grievance. And first, I ask, What were the griev- 
 ances ? an army imposed on us by another country, that army ren- 
 dered perpetual ; the privy-council of both countries made a part of 
 our legislature ; our legislature deprived of its originating and pro- 
 pounding power ; another country exercising over us supreme 
 legislative authority ; that country disposing of our property by its 
 judgments, and prohibiting our trade by its statutes : these were not 
 grievances, but spoliations, which left you nothing. When you 
 contended against them, you contended for the whole of your con- 
 dition ; when the minister asked, by what right ? we refer him to 
 our Maker : we sought our privileges by the right which we have to 
 defend our property against a robber, our life against a murderer, 
 our country against an invader, whether coming with civil or 
 military force — a foreign army, or a foreign legislature. This is a 
 case that wants no precedent ; the revolution wanted no precedent ; 
 for such things arrive to reform a course of bad precedents, and, 
 instead of being founded on precedent, become such : the gazing 
 world, whom they come to save, begins by doubt and concludes by 
 worship. Let other nations be deceived by the sophistry of courts : 
 Ireland has studied politics in the lair of oppression, and, taught by 
 suffering, comprehends the rights of subjects and the duty of kings. 
 Let other nations i i agine that subjects are ma e for the monarch ; 
 
TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 73 
 
 but we conceive that kings, and parliaments like kings, are made 
 for the subjects. The House of Commons, honourable and right 
 honourable as it may be ; the Lords, noble and illustrious as we pro- 
 nounce them, are not original, but derivative. Session after session 
 they move their periodical orbit about the source of their being, the 
 nation ; even the King's Majesty must fulfil his due and tributary 
 course round that great luminary ; and, created by its beam and 
 upheld by its attraction, must incline to that light, or go out of the 
 system. 
 
 Ministers, we mean the ministers who have gone out (I rely on the 
 good intentions of the present), former ministers, I say, have put 
 questions to us ; we beg to put questions to them. They desired to 
 know by what authority this nation has acted. This nation desires 
 to know by what authority they have acted. By what authority 
 did Government enforce the articles of war ? By what authority 
 does Government establish the post-office ? By what authority are 
 our merchants bound by the charter of the East India Company ? 
 By what authority has Ireland for near one hundred years been de- 
 prived of her export trade? By what authority are her peers de- 
 prived of their judicature ? By what authority has that judicature 
 been transferred to the peers of Great Britain, and our property in 
 its last resort referred to the decision of a non-resident, unauthorized, 
 and unconstitutional tribunal ? Will ministers say it was the au- 
 thority of the British Parliament ? On what ground, then, do they 
 place the question between the Government on one side, and the 
 volunteers on the other ? According to their own statement, the 
 Government has been occupied in superseding the lawgiver of the 
 country ; and the volunteers are here to restore him. The Govern- 
 ment has contended for the usurpation, and the people for the laws. 
 His Majesty's late ministers imagined they had quelled the country 
 when they had bought the newspapers; and they represented us as 
 wild men, and our cause as visionary; and they pensioned a set of 
 wretches to abuse both: but we took little account of them or their 
 proceedings, and we waited and we watched, and we moved, as it 
 were, on our native hills, with the minor remains of our parliamentary 
 army, until that minority became Ireland. Let those ministers now 
 go home, and congratulate their king on the redemption of his peo- 
 ple. Did you imagine that those little parties whom three years ago 
 you beheld in awkward squads parading in the streets, should have 
 now arrived to such distinction and effect ? What was the cause ? 
 for it was not the sword of the volunteer, nor his muster, nor his 
 spirit, nor his promptitude to put down accidental disturbance or 
 
74 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 public disorder, nor his own unblamed and distinguished deportment. 
 This was much; but there was more than this: the upper orders, 
 the property, and the abilities of the country, formed with the volun- 
 teer ; and the volunteer had sense enough to obey them. This united 
 the Protestant with the Catholic, and the landed proprietor with the 
 people. There was still more than this; there was a continence 
 which confined the corps to limited and legitimate objects; there was 
 a principle which preserved the corps from adultery with French poli- 
 tics ; there was a good taste which guarded the corps from the affbc- 
 tion of such folly : this, all this, made them bold ; for it kept them 
 innocent, it kept them rational: no vulgar rant against England ; no 
 mysterious admiration of France ; no crime to conceal — no folly to 
 be ashamed of. They were what they professed to be ; and that was 
 nothing less than the society asserting her liberty according to the 
 frame of the British constitution, her inheritance to be enjoyed in 
 perpetual connection with the British empire. 
 
 I do not mean to say that there were not divers violent and un- 
 seemly resolutions; the immensity of the means was inseparable 
 from the excess. 
 
 Such are the great works of nature; such is the sea: but, like the 
 sea, the waste and excess were lost in the advantage : and now, 
 having given a parliament to the people, the volunteers will, I 
 doubt not, leave the people to Parliament, and thus close, specifi- 
 cally and majestically, a great work, which will place them above 
 censure and above panegyric. These associations, like other insti- 
 tutions, will perish : they will perish with the occasion that gave 
 them being, and the gratitude of their country will write their epi- 
 taph, and say : " This phenomenon, the departed volunteer, justified 
 only by the occasion, the birth of spirit and grievances, with some 
 alloy of public evil, did more public good to Ireland than all her 
 institutions; he restored the liberties of his country, and thus from 
 the grave he answers his enemies". Connected by freedom as well 
 as by allegiance, the two nations, Great Britain and Ireland, form a 
 constitutional confederacy as well as one empire ; the crown is one 
 link, the constitution another ; and, in my mind, the latter link is 
 the more powerful. 
 
 You can get a king anywhere, but England is the only country 
 with whom you can participate a free constitution. This makes 
 England your natural connexion, and her king your natural as well 
 as your legal sovereign. This is a connexion, not as Lord Coke has 
 idly said, not as Judge Blackstone has foolishly said, not as other 
 judges have ignorantly said, by conquest; but, as Molyneux has 
 
TKIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 75 
 
 said, ami as I now say, by compact; and that compact is a free 
 constitution. Suffer me now to state some of the things essential to 
 that free constitution; they are as follow: the independency of the 
 Irish Parliament; the exclusion of the British Parliament from any 
 authority in this realm; the restoration of the Irish judicature, and 
 the exclusion of that of Great Britain. As to the perpetual mutiny 
 bill, it must be more than limited — it must be effaced; that bill must 
 fall, or the constitution cannot stand; that bill was originally limited 
 by this House to two years, and it returned from England without 
 the clause of limitation. What ! a bill making the army indepen- 
 dent of Parliament, and perpetual! I protested against it then, I 
 have struggled with it since, and I am now come to destroy this 
 great enemy of my country. The perpetual mutiny bill must vanish 
 out of the statute book. The excellent tract of Molyneux was 
 burned— it was not answered; and its flame illumined posterity. 
 This evil paper shall be burned, but burned like a felon, that its 
 execution may be a peace-offering to the people, and that a declara- 
 tion of right may be planted on its guilty ashes : a new mutiny bill 
 must be formed after the manner of England, and a declaration of 
 right put in the front of it. 
 
 As to the legislative powers of the Privy Councils, I conceive 
 them to be utterly inadmissible, against the constitution, against the 
 privileges of Parliament, and against the dignity of the realm. Do 
 not imagine such power to be theoretical ; it is in a veiy high degree 
 a practical evil. I have here an inventory of bills altered and in- 
 jured by the interference of the Privy Councils ; money bills origi- 
 nated by them, protests by the Crown in support of those money 
 bills, prorogation following these protests. I have here a mutiny 
 bill of 1780, altered by the Council, and made perpetual ; a Catholic 
 bill in 1778, where the Council struck out the clause repealing the 
 test act ; a militia bill, where the Council struck out the compulsory 
 clause requiring the Crown to proceed to form a militia, and left it 
 optional with His Majesty's minister whether there should be a mi- 
 litia in Ireland. I have the money bill of 1775, where the Council 
 struck out the clause enabling His Majesty to take a part of our 
 troops for general service, and left it to the minister to withdraw the 
 forces against act of parliament. I have to state the altered money 
 bill of 1771, the altered money bill of 1775, the altered money bill 
 of 1780: the day would expire before I could recount their ill - 
 doings. I will never consent to have men (God knows whom), 
 ecclesiastics, etc., etc., men unknown to the constitution of Parlia- 
 ment, and known only to the minister, who has breathed into their 
 
76 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 nostrils an unconstitutional existence, steal to their dark divan to 
 do mischief and make nonsense of bills, which their Lordships, the 
 House of Lords, or we, the House of Commons, have thought good 
 and fit for the people. No ; those men have no legislative qualifica- 
 tions; they shall have no legislative power. 
 
 1st, The repeal of the perpetual mutiny bill, and the dependency 
 of the Irish army on the Irish Parliament. 
 
 2nd, The abolition of the legislative power of the Council. 
 
 3rd, The abrogation of the claim of England to make law for 
 Ireland. 
 
 Ath, The exclusion of the English House of Peers, and of the 
 English King's Bench, from any judicial authority in this realm. 
 
 5th, The restoration of the Irish Peers to their final judicature. 
 The independency of the Irish Parliament in its sole and exclusive 
 legislature. 
 
 These are my terms. I will take nothing from the Crown. 
 
 Mr. Grattan then moved, by way of amendment : 
 
 That an humble address be presented to His Majesty, to return 
 His Majesty the thanks of this House for his most gracious message 
 to this House, signified by His Grace the Lord-lieutenant. 
 
 To assure His Majesty of our unshaken attachment to His Majes- 
 ty's person and government, and of our lively sense of his paternal 
 care in thus taking the lead to administer content to His Majesty's 
 subjects of Ireland. 
 
 That, thus encouraged by his royal interposition, we shall beg 
 leave, with all duty and affection, to lay before His Majesty the 
 causes of our discontents and jealousies. To assure His Majesty 
 that his subjects of Ireland are a free people. That the crown of 
 Ireland is an imperial crown inseparably annexed to the crown of 
 Great Britain, on which connection the interest and happiness of 
 both nations essentially depend : but that the kingdom of Ireland is 
 a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her own — the sole legisla- 
 ture thereof. That there is no body of men competent to make laws 
 to bind this nation except the King, Lords, and Commons of Ire- 
 land; nor any other parliament which hath any authority or power 
 of any sort whatsoever in this country, save only the parliament of 
 Ireland. To assure His Majesty, that we humbly conceive that in 
 this right the very essence of our liberties exists ; a right which we, 
 on the part of all the people of Ireland, do claim as their birth-right, 
 and which we cannot yield but with our lives. 
 
 To assure His Majesty that we have seen with concern certain 
 claims advanced by the Parliament of Great Britain, in an act enti- 
 
TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 77 
 
 tied " An act for the better securing the dependency of Ireland": an 
 act containing matter entirely irreconcilable to the fundamental 
 rights of this nation. That we conceive this act, and the claims it 
 advances, to be the great and principal cause of the discontents and 
 jealousies in this kingdom. 
 
 To assure His Majesty that His Majesty's Commons of Ireland do 
 most sincerely wish that all bills which become law in Ireland 
 should receive the approbation of His Majesty under the seal of 
 Great Britain ; but that yet we do consider the practice of suppres- 
 sing our bills in the council of Ireland, or alteriug the same any- 
 where, to be another just cause of discontent and jealousy. 
 
 To assure His Majesty that an act entitled "An act for the better 
 accommodation of His Majesty's forces", being unlimited in duration, 
 and defective in other instances, but passed in that shape from the 
 particular circumstances of the times, is another just cause of discon- 
 tent and jealousy in this kingdom. 
 
 That we have submitted these, the principal causes of the present 
 discontent and jealousy of Ireland, and remain in humble expecta- 
 tion of redress. 
 
 That we have the greatest reliance on His Majesty's wisdom, the 
 most sanguine expectations from his virtuous choice of a Chief 
 Governor, and great confidence in the wise, auspicious, and constitu- 
 tional councils which we see with satisfaction His Majesty has 
 adopted. 
 
 That we have, moreover, a high sense and veneration for the 
 British character, and do therefore conceive that the proceedings of 
 this country, founded as they were in right, and tempered by duty, 
 must have excited the approbation and esteem, instead of wounding 
 the pride, of the British nation. 
 
 And we beg leave to assure His Majesty, that we are the more 
 confirmed in this hope, inasmuch as the people of this kingdom have 
 never expressed a desire to share the freedom of England, without 
 declaring a determination to share her fate likewise, standing and 
 falling with the British nation. 
 
78 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 July 19, 1782. 
 
 On the 17th Mr. Flood expressed himself dissatisfied with what had been done 
 regarding the independence of the country. He said that his object was to 
 obtain legal security ; he gave notice that he would bring forward a question on 
 the subject on the 19th, and this day he made his promised motion. He reca- 
 pitulated the arguments that he had used before, and considered that legal 
 security was the best security that could be obtained. The crowns of the two 
 kingdoms were already united by an Irish law, declaring that whoever wore the 
 imperial crown of England should also wear the imperial crown of Ireland : his 
 object now was, to secure the rights of Parliament as well as those of the Crown, 
 as he thought the late transactions totally inadequate to the security of the 
 rights of Ireland ; the 6th of George the First was a declaratory law ; and a 
 declaratory law only stated what the law previously was, but did not enact a 
 new law, and therefore left the law as it stood before : he accordingly moved, 
 " That leave be given to bring in heads of a bill for declaring the sole and 
 exclusive right of the Irish Parliament to make laws in all cases whatsoever, 
 internal and external, for the kingdom of Ireland". This was supported by Mr. 
 English, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Walsh ; it was strongly opposed by Mr. Bagenal, 
 Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Ogle, Mr. Bushe, Mr, Hartley, and Mr. Yelverton ; they 
 said that Mr. Flood had very properly called it the shadow of English legislative 
 authority, and that his bill would go to admit, that the right to legislate for 
 Ireland had existed in England, and to deny that the right of self-legislation was 
 inherent in Ireland. The ablest lawyers were of opinion that the repeal of the 
 Gth of George the First was sufficient ; Mr. Flood himself had admitted it by bis 
 votes of the 16th of April and 27th of May ; that it was idle to call for the re- 
 nunciation of a power that was abandoned ; the bill which he suggested was a 
 most injurious measure; it went to excite discontent and create doubts when the 
 people were satisfied, when a universal joy existed throughout the country, and 
 after they had obtained all that England could give, and all that Ireland had 
 demanded. 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose, and said : I wish the subject had not been re- 
 newed. Whatever was the original question, that question exists no 
 longer ; to renew it makes this House the theatre of envy, ostenta- 
 tion, and egotism, and wastes the public time by reviewing a subject 
 which liberty does not determine, because liberty did not excite, and 
 which is continued by the passions that engendered it — rancour and 
 disappointed ambition. 
 
 I enter on it, therefore, with peculiar reluctance, but with this 
 justification, that, were I to decline the question, I should betray the 
 defence — the defence of myself and others, who took an early, active, 
 and uniform part in the recovery of your liberties, when those who 
 have been clamorous of late were silent. 
 
SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 79 
 
 I will state why this House and the whole nation did at first ex- 
 pect that Great Britain should relinquish her claim of legislative 
 supremacy over the kingdom of Ireland, by the repeal of the act 
 wherein that claim was advanced, namely, the 6th of George the 
 First, because this act contained the principle expressly, because the 
 act of course put the claim in issue, because the repeal was then the 
 natural and technical manner of doing away the claim. 
 
 (fentlenien will please for a moment to recur to four very im- 
 portant periods, first, when Mr. Eden, in the British House of Com- 
 mons, moved for a repeal of the 6th of George the First, without a 
 preamble, and with a reserve of that part which went to the judica- 
 ture. Mr. Eden was in fact no longer secretary ; his friends were 
 no longer ministers : he went to England to give to the fallen, and 
 to take from the new ministry the glory of relinquishing the legislative 
 supremacy of England over Ireland ; and what method did he take ? 
 — Repeal without preamble. 
 
 It has been said, that the repeal was not argued on the principle. 
 The assertion is totally unfounded : almost every man of eveiy party 
 spoke on that day who speaks on any day ; and they argued the 
 motion on the principle only. " He is come over post (they said), 
 to cede the dearest rights of the British nation". How ? By the 
 repeal — repeal without preamble. Nobody then said it was doing 
 nothing; no man on either side said so: the proposition was received 
 in the British House of Commons, as the account of it was received 
 by the Irish nation — as a proposition to cede the legislative poAver 
 of England over the kingdom of Ireland : the principle was thus 
 conceived to be put in issue. 
 
 The next period to which I refer was a few weeks after this motion ; 
 the 16th of April, 1782. I remember well the debates of that day: 
 I ventured to recite a certain list of measures ; I have that identical 
 paper now in my hand, from one tittle of which I have not departed. 
 Such a modification of the law of Poynings as took froni one Council 
 the power to suppress, and from both the power to alter Irish bills ; 
 a mutiny bill limited to two years, with the articles of war recited, 
 and the declaration of right prefixed ; the restoration of final judica- 
 ture, both at law and equity ; the repeal of the 6th of George the 
 First in toto. Did any man then say that the repeal would do nothing ? 
 Has any man who sat silent then, a right to tell us, that the repeal 
 did nothing? but of all, that man who afterwards said, " the repeal 
 liberated the hands of the king", — expressly in so many words — 
 " liberated the hands of the king" ? Has any man a right to sit on 
 the watch, and wait the event of measures with a malignant reserve, 
 
80 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 if measures fail, to condemn their extravagance ; and if they succeed, 
 to exclaim at their inadequacy ? Did any man then talk of renun- 
 ciation ? Had any man then said that an express renunciation was 
 necessary, why then, indeed, some further clause might have been 
 pressed — not to give you liberty, but to prevent such a man from 
 giving you discontent, after others had given you liberty. 
 
 But no such objection was made ; the repeal was stated tlmn as 
 the mode of doing away the claim of England ; and in that mode 
 there was a most entire acquiescence. 
 
 I come now to the third period, the 17th of May. When the 
 repeal w^as proposed by Mr. Fox in the House of Commons, it was a 
 general debate, and every man admitted that repeal was a derelic- 
 tion of the power. Those who had before in high strain asserted 
 the authority of the British Parliament over Ireland, read their re- 
 cantation then • Mr. Fox was much misrepresented ; he argued on 
 the principle entirely ; he ceded the authority as entirely, in as ex- 
 press terms as the declaratory act had maintained it : he did not re- 
 serve external legislature : he said no such thing : he said that the 
 Parliament of England might have so exercised its legislative 
 authority over Ireland in external cases to serve the empire at large, 
 but had abused her power in external as well as internal cases : he 
 never made two distinct rights, one internal and the other external; 
 nor conceived external cases as any else but the exercise of one and 
 the same principle of legislation, which, he said, was not founded in 
 natural right. I have heard accounts of the debate from many of the 
 Irish then present, and all have united in the account I have stated. 
 
 Mr. Fox published an address to the freeholders of Westminster 
 about the time of the repeal, and defending the propriety of acknow- 
 ledging the independency of America, he writes: "See the advantage 
 you have reaped from acknowledging the independency of the Irish 
 Parliament : she gave you 20,000 seamen". Mr. Fox, in his speech 
 on the Jurisdiction Bill, asserted the same principle. Lord Lough- 
 borough spoke also in this debate : he opposed the repeal ; he gave his 
 reason, "because the authority of the British Parliament fell by it" — 
 by it fell the act of navigation, and several others formerly enacted 
 by the British Parliament over the Irish realm. I do not state these 
 as records, but as facts ; and I am the more warranted to state these 
 debates, because they have been misstated as facts, and then argued 
 from as records, and conclusions drawn as impudent as the stating was 
 disingenuous ; but if debates are an illustration at all of law, that 
 illustration should arise from a true, not a fallacious account of them. 
 
blMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 81 
 
 I now come to the fourth period — when the account came that 
 the 6th of George the First was to be repealed, and the resolutions 
 of Mr. Fox and the Earl of Shelburne were transmitted. 
 
 You have not forgotten the joy of that moment, nor the anxiety of 
 the moment before, when reports were circulated, and when doubts 
 were entertained, whether we had not asked too much, chiefly by 
 those who were afterwards ready to say we had asked too little. Let 
 me suppose at that moment I had opposed the general sentiment, and 
 on the 27th declared that the repeal did nothing; I appeal to the 
 candour of gentlemen, whether they would not have left me in a 
 wretched minority ? Would they not have said, that by calling for 
 express renunciation or express recognition, you bring on a question 
 of original right, about which we cannot agree, and you embarrass 
 the question of present liberty, about which we are agreed ? 
 
 Would they not have added, that the restoration of final judicature 
 made it a matter of still less consequence whether England expressly 
 renounced the claim of making law for us, because Ireland became 
 the only judge of what law bound her ? that the final judicature in 
 the Irish Parliament was a constant subsisting living security against 
 the legislative claims of Great Britain, and rendered the dead security 
 of a renunciation nominal ? and that, by refusing to accept of the 
 repeal, we stopped a system of measures, mutiny bill, etc., etc., and 
 risked the living security for the dead letter ? that if express renun- 
 ciation were eligible words, they would follow things, and a more 
 flattering form would come after the substance ? Would not gentle- 
 men have added, that this nation would not be committed every 
 day, nor the public mind, already thrown into a fever, tortured once 
 more ? But the question was tried : the objection to the repeal was 
 started on the 27th, when it appeared that the objection was relied 
 on by two only ; some, who have been more loud since, were silent 
 on this subject then, and vanished. I did most heartily acquiesce in 
 the opinion of an almost unanimous House. 
 
 It is easy now for men to express their zeal when the difficulty is 
 over, and to contend for us on the ground which we have made for 
 them. They who lamented the bringing on a declaration of right, 
 may, after that declaration and after the repeal, call for a renuncia- 
 tion: when the breach is made, the coward may enter, and is most 
 likely to be the most licentious, but his activity is a proof that the 
 business is done, and the danger is over. 
 
 It is necessary, before I proceed farther, to take notice of a pam- 
 phlet attributed to a noble lord in the English House of Commons, 
 
82 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 and addressed to a high-spirited corps of volunteers, on the legal 
 subject of repeal and renunciation. The whole of the pamphlet may 
 he reduced into two positions ; one of them is as follows : That if a 
 renunciation had been asked by those who had authority to do so on 
 the part of Ireland, it had been acceded to. What renunciation? 
 not a disclaimer of the right ; the author does not attempt to say it, 
 nor could he say it with truth ; for the fact is notoriously otherwise, 
 that renunciation could not have been obtained then, nor have you 
 obtained it now : no ; but the author states an act of the British 
 Parliament, renouncing her right to bind Ireland; her right, a renun- 
 ciation which you would refuse. His first position then amounts to 
 this, that England was ready to give what you would not and ought 
 not to have accepted. 
 
 His second proposition states, that the second resolution, declaring 
 that the connexion of the countries ought to be placed on a solid base, 
 intended as follows: That Great Britain would secure by acts of her 
 own the liberties of Ireland, and in the meantime would prove her 
 sincerity by the repeal. This is not founded; it is a strange concep- 
 tion; England may covenant to restrain her usurpation by her acts, 
 but England cannot by her acts secure our liberties : but England had 
 no such idea. The second resolution intended a treaty between the 
 two countries, with a view to secure their cooperation in peace and 
 war, and the foundation of that resolution, the necessity of some 
 combining power. The control of the British Parliament being at 
 an end by the repeal, the motion did not mean to secure the liberty 
 of Ireland by further acts, but her union ; her dependency being at 
 an end by the repeal, and a congress or treaty being rendered expe- 
 dient as a substitute for a power that was no more, that scheme died 
 in its difficulties. 
 
 I ask pardon for taking up so much of your time on the subject of 
 an electioneering pamphlet. My apology is, that I have reduced the 
 whole to two positions; a fallacious security, and an unfounded as- 
 sertion. 
 
 I shall be always happy when the corn-tiers of the crown become 
 courtiers of the people: it is a proof of your strength, if not of their 
 sincerity, crepat ingens Sejanus — idem popidus, hcec ipsa Sejanum 
 dicerit hora Augustum; it is a decided signal of your triumph, when 
 you behold the old servants of the court among the worshipping cap- 
 tives of the people. The people of Lisbum have shown admirable 
 sense on this occasion: they took the noble advocate for liberty at his 
 word, thanked him for his services, applauded him for his zeal, and 
 turned him out of his borough and his couuty. I have heard of 
 
SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 83 
 
 many practical jokes, but I never heard of one that more abounded 
 in justice. 
 
 I have stated the reason why the mode of relinquishment was by 
 repeal. I shall now trouble you with a few observations on that 
 mode : and first, I must observe, that the question has been falsely 
 stated. The repeal has been called simple: nothing can be more 
 false ; the records of both countries give the lie to such a statement : 
 it was hazarded, in the first instance, with much effrontery; that 
 gabble was afterwards circulated with industry, and became the ready 
 cant in every wretched and ignorant publication. The repeal is not 
 simple ; the messages of the King and the resolutions of the English 
 Parliament, the addresses of the Irish Parliament, and the resolutions 
 of the British, are, of necessity, connected with it, and make it a 
 part of a great and manifold transaction. 
 
 First, a message from the King to the respective Houses of the 
 British Parliament, stating that certain discontents had prevailed in 
 Ireland, and proposing them to then* most serious deliberation. 
 
 Secondly, the. message of the King to the respective Houses of the 
 Irish Parliament, desiring to know the causes of then discontents and 
 jealousies. 
 
 Thirdly, the address of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, pro- 
 testing against the claim of legislative power in the British Parlia- 
 ment, and the act wherein that claim was declared as the principal 
 cause. 
 
 Fourthly, a message from His Majesty to the respective Houses of 
 the British Parliament, referring that protest of Ireland to the consi- 
 deration of the Parliament of England. 
 
 Fifthly, a motion in the respective Houses of the British Parlia- 
 ment, referring that protest to then committees appointed to sit on 
 the affairs of Ireland. 
 
 Sixthly, the report of these committees thereupon, that the 6th of 
 George the First ought to be repealed. 
 
 Seventhly, the message of His Majesty to the respective Houses of 
 the British Parliament, informing you that he had referred your pro- 
 test to the Parliament of Great Britain. 
 
 And lastly, copies of the English resolution, that the 6th of 
 George the First should be repealed; laid before you by His Majesty's 
 command. 
 
 This is the transaction which has been called simple, and every 
 part of it is a record: — the message of the King to his English Par- 
 liament, to consider the state of Ireland, is a record. 
 
 The laws of England are not the measure in this case, nor are they 
 
84 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL* 
 
 admissible, for a variety of reasons ; they are the peculiar custom of 
 England to be explained by her judges, who are under the control of 
 her Parliament: this standard is local, and therefore not presumed to 
 be known any where else, and therefore not promulgated, and, of 
 course, defective in the essence of law; it is dependent on the expla- 
 nation and comment of the party, and therefore arbitrary and partial ; 
 it is dependent on her explanation of the science of her own laws ; a 
 subject in whose inscrutable mysteries she has the greatest latitude 
 for her partialities ; its extent is the realm of Great Britain ; its du- 
 ration the will of her Parliament. I say, the municipal law of Eng- 
 land is a standard inadmissible, for it is the peculiar science of that 
 country, subject only to her own comment; and to refer a covenant 
 between Ireland and England to such a standard, would be to refer 
 it to herself — to herself in her most questionable character — the 
 mystery of her law, and the subtlety of her lawyer. 
 
 Let me suppose the French Court should refer a treaty with Eng- 
 land for the opinion of the judges of France, to be measured by the 
 principles of the law of France. Would not England exclaim, "We 
 do not understand your laws, nor their principles, nor do we submit 
 to their authority"? 
 
 Let me suppose the law of Ireland to be as different from that of 
 England, as the law of England differs from that of France ; would 
 you, in that case, refer a treaty or compact between Great Britain 
 and Ireland to be governed and explained by the law or the lawyer 
 of England — a law differing from your own, and unintelligible 
 to you ; or would you refer it to the laws of Ireland ? The laws of 
 Ireland will tell you, that England never had any right, and that the 
 6th of George the First was not declaratory of law, but declaratory 
 of robbery under the name of statute: so that the laws of one coun- 
 try would tell you, that the right had never an existence, as those of 
 the other might tell you, it never could have an end, at least, except 
 so long as the Parliament was so pleased, "against whose will and 
 power you meant to provide. To whom then refer it? to the judges? 
 What judges? The judges of England do you say ? They will tell 
 you, that the power of Parliament cannot be bound by statute law, 
 and that they are no judge of the law of nations. Will you refer it 
 to the judges of Ireland? Would England agree that a transaction in 
 which she has a joint concern should be referred to the judges of Ire- 
 land? If you do refer to them, they will tell you, I know they will tell 
 you, that England has recognized your rights by the repeal; so that 
 your judges would be discordant in their respective partialities and 
 
SIMILE REPEAL. 
 
 85 
 
 fears; the Irish attached to the liberty of Ireland, the English to the 
 power of Great Britain. Therefore, I say, a covenant of this sort 
 is not to be adjudged by cither the municipal laws of the respective 
 countries, nor the municipal judges, neither by the local custom nor 
 the partial commentator. The municipal law, or the principles of 
 the municipal law, are no standard ; but the law of nations is : it is 
 known to both countries, supersedes the particular customs of both 
 nations, binds the respective states with regard to each other ; is 
 above their judges, and above the legislature: the Parliament makes 
 the municipal law, but is itself bound by the law of nations : it is, with 
 respect to the municipal law, the law maker, the sovereign ; with 
 respect to the laws of the nation, the subject ; it is bound by faith, 
 though it cannot be bound by statute. This is more irresistible when 
 you consider the principle of the municipal law r of England, which is 
 the omnipotence of her Parliament. From hence it follows, that there 
 is no principle in that law which can secure you against the Parlia- 
 ment of England : if its omnipotence has a limit, that limit is found 
 in another supposed principle still more hostile to you — that Parlia- 
 ment cannot cede the fundamental rights of England, such as her 
 supremacy over you was conceived by her to have been. From hence 
 it follows, that by the municipal law of England, you cannot have a 
 lasting, and may not perhaps have a momentary, security against 
 her Parliament : the standard, therefore, is not the municipal law, 
 but the law of nations. 
 
 Your legal security is not repeal, nor renunciation, nor recogni- 
 tion, nor the laws of England, but the laws of Ireland; your 
 seenrity consists in, that you are not dependent for liberty on the 
 laws of England or the Parliament of England ; your legal security 
 is, that you do not require legal security in the Parliament of Eng- 
 land, and have nothing to do with her judges or their comments, 
 nor dependent on the laws, construction, comment, power, or quibble 
 of a foreign land. Your legal security is the law of Ireland ; the 
 repeal has given every moral security, that on the part of England 
 the laws of Ireland will not be invaded by the power of England : 
 this assurance from England we measure by jthe law of nations, 
 which binds Parliament : we know that no statute can bind Parlia- 
 ment : but the law of nations may : we know an English judge may 
 comment away the force of statute ; but the law of nations is, like 
 the contracting nations, above him ; we therefore do not measure the 
 transactions whereby England does away her claim by any such 
 standard, but by another, a higher — the law of nations, which does 
 nut depend on the riddle of the common law, nor the comment of 
 
 5 
 
86 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 the judges, nor the will of the legislature, but is above them all, and 
 above the states to which such things are subject. 
 
 It has been unfortunate that a certain trick of expression, with- 
 out foundation in things, " simple repeal ", " remote and dubious 
 construction", "legal security", "unequivocal emancipation", things 
 either inapplicable or inadmissible, should, with a glib expedition and 
 easy jingle, have run through the mouths of several. The chime of 
 artificial words, the gabble of a party, running off the tongue with- 
 out touching the intellect, and constantly dinned into the public ear, 
 were received as oracles of truth, when they should have been 
 rejected as watch-words of rancour and symbols of party. They 
 who fell under the influence of these words, they who talk of simple 
 repeal, rejected a material part of the transaction to argue falsely 
 upon the remainder ; they rejected that part which made the trans- 
 action a treaty, that by its nature bound the British Parliament, and 
 confined themselves to the legal part, which, by its nature, could not 
 bind the legislature ; they simplified Ireland totally out of the trans- 
 action ; they simplified the law of nations and the faith of nations 
 totally out of the transaction ; they simplified every thing into clauses 
 of the British statute, whose operation could not bind the British 
 Parliament, against whom your claims were directed, except by 
 taking into consideration those Irish transactions which they, in their 
 temerity, called "transitory", and which they in particular rejected, 
 and except by taking into consideration the law of nations and of 
 treaties, which they despised. 
 
 They called for legal security : like slaves, they desired manumis- 
 sion from the British Parliament : moriatur frigore ni reduces pan- 
 num. Away with doubtful construction and inexplicit security ! We 
 are enslaved unless we are freed by an English act of Parliament ! 
 Away with the charters of Ireland, and the distinct inherent rights 
 of the land : let us have the English Parliament expressly legalize 
 the independency of the Parliament of Ireland ; establish the liberty 
 of Ireland by virtue of an English act ! Away with the flimsy bubble, 
 security of a covenant between nation and nation ! let us bind the 
 Parliament of England by its laws ! 
 
 Such men, while they think they are committing the very ex- 
 cesses of liberty, talk in the very sense and spirit of slavery ; they 
 neither are free, nor can they be free : for, as they will admit of no 
 legal security except in the laws of another nation, they are to that 
 nation tenants-at-will for liberty, not freemen : men manumitted, 
 with a power of revocation reserved to the ancient lords ; and there- 
 fore their imaginary condition of liberty is of as abject and base a 
 
SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 87 
 
 tenure as their metaphysical arguments are absurd. The reason 
 why they argue so is, that their mind has not grown to their con- 
 dition ; they do not feel that Ireland is a nation, though they talk at 
 random about her liberty, accustomed to think that Great Britain 
 had a right, though, in talk, they denied it. Bred, perhaps, under 
 the lore and influence of Westminster-hall, and those false oracles on 
 Irish subjects, which you have silenced, the old superstitions of a per- 
 nicious and naiTOw education still hung about them ; the rapid 
 progress of the country had outrun them, and they felt like the sub- 
 jects of a province when Ireland became a nation : they therefore 
 still plod back again to the quibble and comment of their ancient 
 guides and oppressors, who had cramped their youth, and were de- 
 luding their understanding. "What! the opinion of Westminster! 
 that England may make law for any country she can conquer". The 
 idea of coordinate nations, or of measuring a transaction between 
 England and Ireland by any but the municipal maxims of the 
 superior, was above them : the Irish charter, like happiness, was in 
 their hand, but they did not know it : they went to Westminster to 
 look for it. 
 
 The honourable member held out a false standard in the principles 
 of the municipal law, and having held out a false security in the 
 laws of England, attacks the only security the nature of the ca^e 
 admits of — the faith of nations ! He attacks it with the habits of 
 declamation : what is it but to perpetuate warfare, an everlasting 
 appeal to Heaven ? What the ethics of the member may be I know 
 not ; but this I know, that the good faith which he repudiates is the 
 great bond of civil society, and the only bond of nations. What is 
 it that preserves peace for an hour, but the faith of nations ? What 
 preserves all the treaties of the globe, but the faith of nations ? The 
 faith of nations is supported and enforced by a sense of interest : a 
 nation noted for infidelity can have no alliances, no credit, no 
 strength : between nation and nation, character is power ; between 
 man and man, the honourable gentleman knows that a w r ant of cha- 
 racter is weakness. But he has found out two species of security for 
 Irish liberty, very different indeed from faith, and very weak in 
 themselves : the one is, the liberality of England ; the other, her law ; 
 and he argues very gravely on both ; he reduces your safety to a 
 dilemma, and gives this gross and weak conception the form and 
 affectation of logic. " You had but two ways to proceed : to rely 
 on the liberality of England, and suffer the declaratory act to re- 
 main, or take legal security"; and on the legs of this hungrv 
 dilemma he stands a Colossus in argument. That the liberality of 
 
88 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 England is a security for liberty, is a position too absurd and des- 
 picable to be answered ; that the statute law of England is a control 
 on the Parliament of England, and a legal security for the liberties 
 of Ireland against the Parliament, is a position which has already 
 been answered and exposed : both the positions answer themselves ; 
 the term liberality precludes security ; and the term law imports a 
 legal dependence upon, and not a security against, the law maker : 
 so both the legs of the dilemma are struck away ; the honourable 
 member must descend. He has still a halt in a distinction where he 
 asserts that legal security cannot be had between unconnected 
 nations, but may be had between nations connected by civil govern- 
 ment. The grounds of this distinction he is not pleased to discover; 
 but we must suppose, by the words, countries connected by civil 
 government, he means dependent, like Guernsey on England, or 
 independent of each other, like England and Ireland. If the former, 
 his observations do not apply ; and if the latter, to state the connec- 
 tion will be sufficient to show that the consequence he has stated 
 does not proceed from it : the connexion in question is, the annex- 
 ation of the crown, but the legislatures are distinct and independent. 
 Now, if the member means, that the Parliament of England can in 
 anywise affect Ireland by the legal operation of its laws, or if he 
 means, that the Parliament of England cannot repeal an English 
 act affecting to give legal security to Ireland, because the king is 
 the same, he argues in both equally wrong and equally illogical. 
 Does the annexation of the crown, which is the connection by her 
 civil government, give the Parliament of England authority over 
 Ireland ? or does it take from that Parliament its authority over Eng- 
 land — the power of repealing its own laws ? How then does legal 
 security exist in the connection — a connection which leaves Ireland 
 incapable of being affected by the statutes of England, and leaves 
 England perfectly free to repeal them ? 
 
 I think I have shown the folly of that argument which measured 
 the transaction of 1782 by principles of municipal law, and which 
 would make a legal security for Ireland under the statute law of 
 England ; and this transaction, when measured by what is the real 
 measure, and what, if liberty had been the original principle, would 
 have been the measure, no man can deny to have been, on the part 
 of England, a complete dereliction. 
 
 The Irish nation protest against the claim of supremacy ; England 
 considers the protest, and then repeals the act declaratory of that 
 claim ; such a repeal is an assent to your protest. What clause in 
 an act could be more express or memorable than such a national 
 
SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 89 
 
 compact ? Parliaments may repeal laws ; kings have invaded clear 
 and express laws ; but when laws have been environed and sancti- 
 fied by a revolution, kings do not choose to meddle with them : the 
 solemnity of the transaction gives a security to the law : a national 
 compact between Great Britain and Ireland is higher than law, more 
 awful, and the breach of it more dangerous ; for transactions are 
 understood by men who cannot understand law. The national con- 
 vention being made in 1782 to remove the discontents of Ireland, 
 by relinquishing the supremacy of the British Parliament, the revi- 
 val of the power is a breach of which every man can judge, without 
 resorting to the laws or lawyers of England ; and the nation would 
 rise as one man, not on the point of law, but of fact. I do acknow- 
 ledge, that this security is not impregnable ; there is one body that 
 might shake it ; the Irish themselves ; England could not ; but Ire- 
 land might waive the covenant, and then England is free ; and when 
 a party in this country pervert the sense of that covenant, they 
 make the mischief they affect to tremble at ; they endeavour to ren- 
 der your condition as uncertain as possible, and the faith of England 
 as low as possible, and there they leave you. It was mischievously 
 said, that England was now free to bind Ireland ; it was said with 
 all the affectation of enthusiasm, and the real spirit of rancour ; it 
 was said, that if she did, she would find an advocate. The very per- 
 sons who asserted that the repeal did nothing, refuted their own 
 arguments, falsified their own assertions, and discovered their real 
 sentiments, by acknowledging that it liberated the hands of the King 
 to pass a declaration of right, denying the supremacy of the British 
 Parliament. 
 
 I now come to the last ground, that the judicature was not sur- 
 rendered by an English act. Before I proceed on this head, let me 
 state the difficulties. The claim of judicature was a surprise on both 
 kingdoms. Ministry, prepared for a volume of grievances, were not 
 prepared for that requisition. Several of the gentlemen of this 
 country were afraid of the experiment — afraid, lest the judicature 
 should be refused — afraid, lest it should be abused, and the collec- 
 tive body of the nation had not stirred the subject. Since the point 
 is obtained, the difficulty is forgotten. Notwithstanding the difficulty, 
 I was determined never to yield that point ; for, carrying that point, 
 you made yourselves the sole and exclusive judges of the pretensions 
 of the British Parliament, and, of course, rendered those pretensions 
 totally nugatory : you became the repository of your own charters ; 
 and until you proved false to yourselves, they could not be taken 
 from you. The judicature being restored, I am condemned, because 
 
CO 
 
 SIMPLE REPEAL. 
 
 it was not restored by an English act of Parliament. My answer is, 
 that an Irish act was necessary and competent ; necessary, because 
 the practice of Ireland had been long to appeal to England, and the 
 property of the kingdom dependent on the legislation of that past prac- 
 tice ; and, as we thought the interposition of the Irish necessary, we 
 thought it expedient. What is your claim of right ? That you 
 are the only body competent to make law for this realm in any case 
 whatsoever. If competent in any case whatsoever, are you not com- 
 petent in this — competent to regulate your courts of justice ? I, 
 therefore, thought an Irish act, in point of law, adequate ; and I am 
 sure it was adequate in point of security. The nation says, that 
 the Parliament of Ireland is solely and exclusively competent to make 
 laws for this realm in all cases whatsoever ; and I am now condemned 
 for having taken her at her word. 
 
 I come now to the last charge, that Parliament was concluded by 
 the address of the 27th, and the nation not freed by the transac- 
 tion. The clause is, " gratified in these particulars, we conceive no 
 constitutional questions will any longer exist to interrupt the har- 
 mony of the two nations". Do you repent that clause ? Sir, the 
 rejection of that would have stopped everything. Irish satisfaction 
 was the price of Irish liberty, Do you think it dear at such a 
 price? There was a time when you could have given millions ! 
 Do you seriously imagine that Great Britain would have acceded to 
 the requisition of the 16th of April, if she had been left to appre- 
 hend a host of grievances in reserve ? that we were only talking 
 plausibly to England, when we enumerated the causes of our discon- 
 tent and jealousy, but cherished a growing demand — a growth pro- 
 ceeding from the gracious reception which that demand had received? 
 It was not a fanciful clause, as was observed with a ready facetious- 
 ness, but one on which British accommodation hung. Individuals 
 might refuse satisfaction, whose object was something other than 
 liberty, but the nation could not. What ! do you imagine that the 
 sense or interest of the nation was the declaration of one person, 
 who said, we were pledged to go so far, and free to go on ? Indi- 
 viduals may reserve certain latitudes, which would disgrace a nation. 
 You were to reject the little policy of knavish latitudes and imprac- 
 ticable duplicity, and consider your own character, and that of the 
 great nation you accosted, and to apply yourself to her magnani- 
 mity, as well as her justice, so that her passions might take part 
 against her power. Believe me, there was a splendour in your mo- 
 deration, and a force in your fidelity. You prescribed to yourself a 
 aacred precinct ; and when England yielded, you scorned to ad- 
 
PHILimC AGAINST FLOOD. 
 
 91 
 
 vance : your spirit did not depend on the concession of England ; it 
 was an inherent quality of the mind. 
 
 Thus have you sealed a treaty with Great Britain. On the one 
 side, the restoration of the final judicature, the extinction of the le- 
 gislative claim of her privy council, of her perpetual mutiny bill, the 
 repeal of the act of legislative supremacy: on your side, satisfaction : 
 and thus are the two nations compacted for eVer in freedom and in 
 peace e 
 
 PHILIPPIC AGAINST FLOOD. 
 
 October 28, 1783. 
 
 It was said "that the pen would fall from the hand, and the foetus 
 of the mind would die unborn",* if men had not a privilege to maintain 
 a right in the Parliament of England to make law for Ireland. The 
 affectation of zeal, and a burst of forced and metaphorical conceits, 
 aided by the acts of the press, gave an alarm which, I hope, was 
 momentary, and which only exposed the artifice of those who were 
 wicked, and the haste of those who were deceived, 
 
 But it is not the slander of an evil tongue that can defame me. I 
 maintain my reputation in public and in private life. No man, who 
 has not a bad character, can ever say that I deceived ; no country can 
 call me a cheat. But I will suppose such a public character. I will 
 suppose such a man to have existence ; I will begin with his character 
 in his political cradle, and I will follow him to the last state of politi- 
 cal dissolution. 
 
 I will suppose him, in the first stage of his life, to have been in- 
 temperate; in the second, to have been corrupt; and in the last, 
 seditious: that, after an envenomed attack on the persons and mea- 
 sures of a succession of viceroys, and after much declamation against 
 their illegalities and their profusion, he took office, and became 
 a supporter of Government, when the profusion of ministers had 
 greatly increased, and then crimes multiplied beyond example ; when 
 your money bills were altered without reserve by the council ; when 
 an embargo was laid on your export trade, and a war declared against 
 the liberties of America. At such a critical moment I will suppose 
 this gentleman to be corrupted by a great sinecure office to muzzle his 
 declamation, to swallow his invectives, to give his assent and vote to 
 the ministers, and to become a supporter of Government, its measures, 
 
 * Mr. Flood's expression. 
 
PHILIPPIC AGAINST FLOOD, 
 
 its embargo, and its American war. I will suppose that he was sus- 
 pected by the government that had bought him, and in consequence 
 thereof, that he thought proper to resort to the arts of a trimmer, the 
 last sad refuge of disappointed ambition ; that, with respect to the 
 constitution of his country, that part, for instance, which regarded 
 the mutiny bill, when a clause of reference was introduced, whereby 
 the articles of war,, which were, or hereafter might be, passed in 
 England, should be current in Ireland without the interference of her 
 Parliament; when such a clause was in view, I will suppose this 
 gentleman to hare absconded. Again, when the bill was made perpe- 
 tual, I will suppose him again to have absconded. But a year and a 
 half after the bill had passed, then I will suppose this gentleman to 
 have come forward, and to say, that your constitution Jiad been de- 
 stroyed by the perpetual bill. With regard to that part of the con- 
 stitution that relates to the law of Poynings, I will suppose the 
 gentleman to have made many a long, very long, disquisition before 
 he took office, but, after he had received office, to have been as si- 
 lent on that subject as before he had been loquacious. That, when 
 money bills, under colour of that law, were altered year after year, 
 as in 1775 and 1776, and when the bills so altered were resumed 
 and passed, I will suppose that gentleman to have absconded or ac- 
 quiesced, and to have supported the minister who made the altera- 
 tion; but when he was dismissed from office, and a member 
 introduced a bill to remedy this evil, I will suppose that this gentle- 
 man inveighed against the mischief, against the remedy, and against 
 the person of the introducer, who did that duty which he himself for 
 seven years had abandoned. With respect to that part of the con- 
 stitution which is connected with the repeal of the 6th of George the 
 First, when the adequacy of the repeal was debating in the House, 
 I will suppose this gentleman to make no kind of objection; that he 
 never named, at that time, the word renunciation; and that, on the 
 division on that subject, he absconded; but, when the office he had 
 lost was given to another man, that then he came forward, and ex- 
 claimed against the measure; nay, that he went into the public 
 streets to canvass for sedition, that he became a rambling incendiary, 
 and endeavoured to excite a mutiny in the volunteers against an 
 adjustment between Great Britain and Ireland, of liberty and repose, 
 which he had not the virtue to make, and against an administration 
 who had the virtue to free the country without buying the members. 
 
 With respect to commerce, I will suppose this gentleman to have 
 supported an embargo which lay on the country for three years, and 
 almost destroyed it; and when an address in 1778, to open her trade 
 
PHILIPPIC AGAINST FLOOD. 
 
 ^3 
 
 was propounded, to remain silent and inactive ; and with respect to 
 that other part of her trade, which regarded the duty on sugar, when 
 the merchants were examined in 1778 on the inadequate protecting 
 duty, when the inadequate duty was voted, when the act was re- 
 committed, when another duty was proposed, when the bill returned 
 with the inadequate duty substituted, when the altered bill was 
 adopted, on every one of those questions I will suppose the gentle- 
 man to abscond : but a year and a half after the mischief was done, 
 he out of office, I will suppose him to come forth, and to tell his 
 country, that her trade had been destroyed by an inadequate duty on 
 English sugar, as her constitution had been ruined by a perpetual 
 mutiny bill. With relation to three-fourths of our fellow-subjects, the 
 Catholics, when a bill was introduced to grant them rights of property 
 and religion, I will suppose this gentleman to have come forth to 
 give his negative to their pretensions. In the same manner I will 
 suppose him to have opposed the institution of the volunteers, to 
 which we owe so much, and that he went to a meeting in his own 
 county to prevent their establishment ; that he himself kept out of 
 their associations; that he was almost the only man in this House 
 that was not in uniform ; and that he never was a volunteer until he 
 ceased to be a placeman, and until he became an incendiary. 
 
 With regard to the liberties of America, which were inseparable 
 from ours, I will suppose this gentleman to have been an enemy 
 decided and unreserved ; that he voted against her liberty ; and 
 voted, moreover, for an address to send 4,000 Irish troops to cut the 
 throats of the Americans ; that he called these butchers " armed ne- 
 gotiators", and stood with a metaphor in his mouth and a bribe in 
 his pocket, a champion against the rights of America, the only hope 
 of Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind. 
 
 Thus defective in every relationship, whether to constitution, com- 
 merce, toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private 
 improbity to public crimes ; that his probity was like his patriotism, 
 and his honour on a level with his oath. He loves to deliver pane- 
 gyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say : Sir, yon are mnch 
 mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your 
 life has been reprehensible ; you began your parliamentary career 
 with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified 
 only by a supposition of virtue : after a rank and clamorous opposi- 
 tion you became on a sudden silent; you were silent for seven years: 
 you were silent on the greatest questions, and you were silent for 
 money! In 1773, while a negociation was pending to sell your 
 talents and your turbulence, you absconded from your duty in parMa- 
 
n 
 
 PHILIPPIC AGAINST FLOOD, 
 
 ment, you forsook your law of Poynings, you forsook the questions of 
 economy, and abandoned all the old themes of your former declama- 
 tion ; you were not at that period to be found in the House ; you 
 were seen, like a guilty spirit, haunting the lobby of the House of 
 Commons, watching the moment in which the question should be put, 
 that you might vanish ; you were descried with a criminal anxiety, 
 retiring from the scenes of your past glory ; or you were perceived 
 coasting the upper benches of this House like a bird of prey, with an 
 evil aspect and a sepulchral note, meditating to pounce on its quarry. 
 These ways — they were not the ways of honour — you practised pend- 
 ing a negotiation which was to end either in your sale or your sedition : 
 the former taking place, you supported the rankest measures that ever 
 came before Parliament; the embargo of 1776, for instance. " 
 fatal embargo, that breach of law and ruin of commerce!" You 
 supported the unparailelled profusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's 
 scandalous ministry — the address to support the American war — the 
 other address to send 4,000 men, whom you had yourself declared 
 to be necessary for the defence of Ireland, to fight against the liberties 
 of America, to which you had declared yourself a friend ; — you, Sir, 
 who delight to utter execrations against the American commissioners 
 of 1778, on account of their hostility to America; — you, Sir, who 
 manufacture stage thunder against Mr. Eden, for his anti- American 
 principles; — you, Sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal 
 Hampden; — you, Sir, approved of the tyranny exercised against Ame- 
 rica ; — and you, Sir, voted 4,000 Irish troops to cut the throats of 
 the Americans fighting for their freedom, fighting for your freedom, 
 fighting for the great principle, liberty; but you found at last (and 
 this should be an eternal lesson to men of your craft and cunning), 
 that the King had only dishonoured you ; the Court had bought, 
 but would not trust you ; and having voted for the worst measures, 
 you remained for seven years the creature of salary, without the 
 confidence of Government. Mortified at the discovery, and stung 
 by disappointment, you betake yourself to the sad expedients of 
 duplicity ; you try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress 
 to the acts of an incendiary ; you give no honest support either to 
 the Government or the people ; you, at the most critical period of 
 their existence, take no part, you sign no non-consumption agreement, 
 you are no volunteer, you oppose no perpetual mutiny bill, no altered 
 sugar bill ; you declare that you lament that the declaration of right 
 should have been brought forward ; and observing, with regard to 
 prince and people, the most impartial treachery and desertion, you 
 justify the suspicion of your Sovereign by betraying the Govern- 
 
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 96 
 
 ment, as you had sold the people : until at last, by this hollow con- 
 duct, and for some other steps, the result of mortified ambition, being 
 dismissed, and another person put in your place, you fly to the ranks 
 of the volunteers, and canvass for mutiny ; you announce that the 
 country was ruined by other men during that period in which she 
 had been sold by you. Your logic is, that the repeal of a declara- 
 tory law is not the repeal of a law at all, and the effect of that logic 
 is, an English act affecting to emancipate Ireland, by exercising 
 over her the legislative authority of the British Parliament. Such has 
 been your conduct, and at such conduct every order of your fellow- 
 subjects have a right to exclaim ! The merchant may say to you — 
 the constitutionalist may say to you — the American may say to you 
 — and I, I now say, and say to your beard : Sir, you are not an 
 honest man. 
 
 Mr. Flood rose to reply, but after having proceeded some length in his defence, 
 he fell so much out of order, that the Speaker interfered. He declared how- 
 much pain he had suffered in permitting this contest to proceed, and that nothing 
 but the calls of the House to hear the two members, should have made him sit 
 so long silent. He requested Mr. Flood would sit down, with which request he 
 complied, and shortly after retired. The speaker issued his warrant to appre- 
 hend the parties, and Mr. Flood was shortly after taken into custody. The 
 House then directed that search should be made for Mr. Grattan ; and the 
 parties were bound over. It was then moved that the motion of Sir Henry 
 Cavendish be taken into consideration, immediately after a report be made from 
 the committee of accounts ; and it passed in the affirmative. 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 August 12, 1785. 
 
 However, lest certain glosses should seem to go unanswered, I shall, 
 for the sake of argument, waive past settlements, and combat the rea- 
 soning of the English resolutions, the address, His Majesty's answer 
 and the reasoning of this day. It is here said, that the laws res- 
 pecting commerce and navigation should be similar, and inferred that 
 Ireland should subscribe the laws of England on those subjects ; 
 that is, the same law, the same legislature. But this argument goes a 
 great deal too far : it goes to the army, for the mutiny bill should be 
 the same ; it was endeavoured to be extended to the collection of 
 your revenue, and is in train to be extended to your taxes ; it goes 
 
96 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 to the extinction of the most invaluable part of your parliamentary 
 capacity ; it is a union, an incipient and creeping union ; a virtual 
 union, establishing one will in the general concerns of commerce and 
 navigation, and reposing that will in the Parliament of Great Britain ; 
 a union where our Parliament preserves its existence after it has lost 
 its authority, and our people are to pay for a parliamentary estab- 
 lishment, without any proportion of parliamentary representation. 
 In opposing the right honourable gentleman's bill, I consider myself 
 as opposing a union in limine, and that argument for union which 
 makes similarity of law and community of interest (reason strong for 
 the freedom of Ireland !) a pretence for a condition which would be 
 dissimilarity of law, because extinction of constitution, and therefore 
 hostility, not community of interest. I ask on what experience is this 
 argument founded ? Have you, ever since your redemption, refused 
 to preserve a similarity of law in trade and navigation ? Have you 
 not followed Great Britain in all her changes of the act of naviga- 
 tion during the whole of that unpalatable business, the American 
 war ? Have you not excluded the cheap produce of other planta- 
 tions, in order that Irish poverty might give a monopoly to the dear 
 produce of the British colonies ? Have you not made a better use 
 of your liberty than Great Britain did of her power ? But I have an 
 objection to this argument, stronger even than its want of foundation 
 in reason and experiment ; I hold it to be nothing less than an into- 
 lerance of the parliamentary constitution of Ireland, a declaration that 
 the full and free external legislation of the Irish Parliament is incom- 
 patible with the British empire. I do acknowledge that by your ex- 
 ternal power, you might discompose the harmony of the empire, and I 
 add that by your power over the purse, you might dissolve the state : 
 but to the latter, you owe your existence in the constitution, and to 
 the former, your authority and station in the empire: this argument, 
 therefore, rests the connection upon a new and a false principle, goes 
 directly against the root of Parliament, and is not a difficulty to be 
 accommodated, but an error to be eradicated ; and if any body of men 
 can still think that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the 
 British empire — doctrine which I abjure as sedition against the con- 
 nection ; but if any body of men are justified in thinking that the 
 Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire, perish the 
 empire! live the constitution! Reduced by this false dilemma to 
 take a part, my second wish is the British empire, my first wish and 
 bounden duty is the liberty of Ireland. 
 
 But we are told this imperial power is not only necessary for England, 
 b at safe for Ireland. What is the present question ? what but the abuse 
 
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 07 
 
 of this very power of regulating the trade of Ireland by the British 
 Parliament, excluding you and including herself by virtue of the same 
 words of the same act of navigation ? And what was the prornovent 
 cause of this arrangement? what but the power you are going to sur- 
 render — the distinct and independent external authority of the Irish 
 Parliament, competent to question that misconstruction? What is the 
 remedy now proposed ? — the evil. Go back to the Parliament of Eng- 
 land. I ask again, what were the difficulties in the way of your eleven 
 propositions ? what but the jealousy of the British manufacturers on 
 the subject of trade? And will you make them your parliament, and 
 that too for ever, and that too on the subject of their jealousy, and in 
 the moment they displayed it? I will suppose that jealousy realized ; 
 that you rival them in some market abroad, and that they petition 
 their Parliament to impose a regulation which shall affect a tonnage 
 which you have and Great Britain has not: how would you then feel 
 your situation, when you should be obliged to register all this? And 
 how would you feel your degradation, when you should see your own 
 manufacturers pass you by as a cypher in the constitution, and de- 
 precate their ruin at the bar of a foreign parliament ! Whence the 
 American war ? Whence the Irish restrictions ? Whence the mis- 
 construction of the act of navigation ? Whence but from the evil of 
 suffering one country to regulate the trade and navigation of another, 
 and of instituting, under the idea of general protectress, a proud do- 
 mination, which sacrifices the interest of the whole to the ambition 
 of a part, and arms the little passions of the monopolist with the 
 sovereign potency of an Imperial Parliament : for great nations, when 
 cursed with unnatural sway, follow but their nature when they invade ; 
 and human wisdom has not better provided for human safety than by 
 limiting the principles of human power. The surrender of legislature 
 has been likened to cases that not unfrequently take place between two 
 equal nations, covenanting to suspend, in particular cases, their re- 
 spective legislative powers for mutual benefit; thus Great Britain and 
 Portugal agree to suspend their legislative power in favour of the wine 
 of the one and the woollen of the other; but if Portugal had gone 
 farther, and agreed to subscribe the laws of England, this covenant 
 had not been a treaty, but conquest. So Great Britain and Ireland 
 may covenant not to raise high duties on each other's manufactures ; 
 but if Ireland goes farther, and covenants to subscribe British law, 
 this is not a mutual suspension of the exercise of legislative power, 
 but a transfer of the power itself from one country to another, to be 
 exercised by another hand. Such covenant is not reciprocity of trade ; 
 it is a surrender of the government of your trade, inequality of trade, 
 
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 and inequality of constitution. I speak, however, as if such transfer 
 could take place; but in fact it could not : any arrangement so cove- 
 nanting is a mere nullity ; it could not bind you, still Jess could it 
 bind your successors ; for a man is not omnipotent over, himself, 
 neither are your parliaments omnipotent over themselves, to accom- 
 plish their own destruction, and propagate death to their successors. 
 There is in these cases a superior relationship to our respective creators 
 — -God and the community, which, in the instance of the individual, 
 arrests the hand of suicide, and in that of the political body, stops the 
 act of surrender, and makes man the means of propagation, and par- 
 liament the organ to continue liberty, not the engine to destroy it. 
 However, though the surrender is void, there are two ways of at- 
 tempting it ; one, by a surrender in form, the other, by a surrender in 
 substance ; appointing another parliament your substitute, and con- 
 senting to be its register or stamp, by virtue of which to introduce 
 the law and edict of another land, to clothe with the forms of your 
 law foreign deliberations, and to preside over the disgraceful cere- 
 mony of your own abdicated authority. Both methods are equally 
 surrenders, and both are wholly void. I speak on principle, the prin- 
 ciple on which you stand — your creation. We, the limited trustees of 
 the delegated power, born for a particular purpose, limited to a par- 
 ticular time, and bearing an inviolable relationship to the people who 
 sent us to parliament, cannot break that relationship, counteract that 
 purpose, surrender, diminish, or derogate from those privileges we 
 breathe but to preserve. Could the Parliament of England covenant 
 to subscribe your laws? could she covenant that young Ireland should 
 command, and old England should obey ? If such a proposal to Eng- 
 land were mockery, to Ireland it cannot be constitution. I rest on 
 authority as well as principle — the authority on which the revolution 
 rests — Mr. Locke, who, in his chapter on the abolition of govern- 
 ment, says : " that the transfer of legislative power is the abolition 
 of the state, not a transfer". Thus, I may congratulate this House and 
 myself, that it is one of the blessings of the British constitution, that 
 it cannot perish of rapid mortality, nor die in a day, like the men 
 who should protect her. Any act that would destroy the liberty of 
 the people is dead-born from the womb. Men may put down the 
 public cause for a season, but another year would see old Constitu- 
 tion advance the honours of his head, and the good institution of 
 Parliament shaking off the tomb to reascend, in all its pomp, and 
 pride, and plenitude, and privilege ! 
 
 Sir, I have stated these propositions and the bill, as a mere transfer 
 of external legislative authority to the Parliament of Great Britain 
 
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS, 
 
 99 
 
 but I have understated their mischief; they go to taxation ; taxes on 
 the trade with the British plantations, taxes on the produce of foreign 
 plantations, taxes on some of the produce of the United States of 
 North America ; they go to port duties, such as Great Britain laid on 
 America ! The mode is varied, but the principle is the same. Here 
 Great Britain takes the stamp of the Irish Parliament; Great 
 Britain is to prescribe, and Ireland is to obey ! We anticipate the 
 rape by previous surrender, and throw into the scale our honour as 
 Avell as our liberty. Do not imagine that all these resolutions arc 
 mere acts of regulation ; they are solid, substantial revenue, a great 
 ,part of your additional duty. I allow the bill excepts rum and to- 
 bacco; but the principle is retained, and the operation of it only kept 
 back. I have stated that Great Britain may by these propositions 
 crush your commerce, but I shall be told that the commercial jealousy 
 of Great Britain is at an end : but are her wants at an end? are her 
 wishes for Irish subsidy at an end? No; and they may be gratified 
 by laying colony duties on herself, and so raising on Ireland an im- 
 perial revenue to be subscribed by our Parliament, without the con- 
 sent of our Parliament, and in despite of our people. Or, if a minister 
 should please to turn himself to a general excise — if wishing to re- 
 lieve from the weight of further additional duties the hereditary re- 
 venue now alienated — if wishing to relieve the alarms of the English 
 manufacturers, who complain of our exemption from excises, parti- 
 cularly on soap, candles, and leather, he should proceed on those 
 already registered articles of taxation, he might tax you by threats, 
 suggesting that if you refuse to raise an excise on yourself, England 
 will raise colony duties on both. See what a mighty instrument of 
 coercion this bill and these resolutions ! Stir, and the minister can 
 crush you in the name of Great Britain ; he can crush your imports ; 
 he can crush your exports ; he can do this in a manner peculiarly 
 mortifying, by virtue of a' clause in a British act of Parliament, that 
 would seem to impose the same restrictions on Great Britain ; he can 
 do this in a manner still more offensive, by the immediate means of 
 your own Parliament, who would be then an active cypher and noto- 
 rious stamp in the hands of Great Britain, to forge and falsify the 
 name and authority of the people of Ireland. 
 
 I have considered your situation under these propositions with respect 
 to Great Britain : see what would be your situation with respect to the 
 crown. You would have granted to the King a perpetual money bill, or 
 a money bill to continue as long as the Parliament of Great Britain shall 
 please, with a covenant to increase it as often as the British Parliament 
 shall please. By the resolutions a great part of the additional duty would 
 
100 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 have been so granted ; the trade of the country is made dependent on 
 the Parliament of Great Britain, and the Crown is made less depen- 
 dent on the Parliament of Ireland, and a code of prerogative added to 
 a code of empire. If the merchant, after this, should petition you to 
 lower your duties on the articles of trade, you answer, " trade is in 
 covenant". If your constituents should instruct you to limit the bill 
 of supply, or pass a short money bill, you answer, " the purse of the 
 nation, like her trade, is in covenant", No more of six months' money 
 bills ; no more of instructions from constituents ; that connection is 
 broken by this bill. Pass this, you have no constituent ; you are not 
 the representative of the people of Ireland, but the register of the 
 British Parliament, and the equalizer of British duties. 
 
 In order to complete this chain of power, one link, I do acknow- 
 ledge, was wanting — a perpetual revenue bill, or a covenant from 
 time to time to renew the bill for the collection thereof. The twen- 
 tieth resolution, and this bill founded upon it, attain that object. 
 Sir, this House rests on three pillars : your power over the annual 
 mutiny bill ; your power over the annual additional duties ; your 
 power over the collection of the revenue. The latter power is of 
 great consequence, because a great part of our revenues is granted 
 for ever. Your ancestors were slaves ; and for their estates, that 
 is, for the act of settlement, granted the hereditary 'revenue, and 
 from that moment ceased to be a parliament. Nor was it till many 
 years after that parliament revived ; but it revived, as you under 
 this bill would continue, without parliamentary power. Every evil 
 measure derived argument, energy, and essence from this unconsti- 
 tutional fund. If a country gentleman complained of the expenses 
 of the Crown, he was told a frugal government could go on without 
 a parliament, and that we held our existence by withholding the 
 discharge of our duty. However, though the funds were granted 
 for ever, the provision for the collection was inadequate ; the smug- 
 gler learned to evade the penalties, and parliament, though not ne- 
 cessary for granting the hereditary revenue, became necessary for its 
 collection. Here then we rest on three pilkirs : the annual mutiny 
 bill, the annual additional supply, and the annual collection of the 
 revenue. If you remove all these, this fabric falls ; remove any one 
 of them, and it totters ; for it is not the mace, nor the chair, nor 
 this dome, but the deliberate voice resident therein, that constitutes 
 the essence of parliament. Clog your deliberations, and you are no 
 longer a parliament, with a thousand gaudy surviving circumstances 
 of show and authority. 
 
 Contemplate for a moment the powers this bill presumes to per- 
 
COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 101 
 
 petuate — a perpetual repeal of trial by jury; a perpetual repeal of 
 the great charter ; a perpetual writ of assistance ; a perpetual felony 
 to strike an exciseman ! 
 
 The late Chief- Baron Burgh, speaking on the revenue bill, ex- 
 claimed : 44 You give to the dipping rule what you should deny to 
 the sceptre". 
 
 All the unconstitutional powers of the excise we are to perpetu- 
 ate; the constitutional powers of parliament we are to abdicate. Can 
 we do all this ? can we make these bulky surrenders, in diminution 
 of the power, in derogation of the pride of parliament, and in viola- 
 lion of those eternal relationships which the body that represents 
 should bear to the community which constitutes ? 
 
 The pretence given for this unconstitutional idea is weak indeed : 
 that, as the benefits are permanent, so should be the compensation. 
 But trade laws are to follow their nature, revenue laws to follow 
 theirs. On the permanent nature of commercial advantages depends 
 the faith of trade; on the limited nature of revenue laws depends 
 the existence of parliament. But the error of argument arises from 
 the vice of dealing. It is a market for a constitution, and a logic, 
 applicable to barter only, is applied to freedom. To qualify this 
 dereliction of every principle and power, the surrender is made 
 constitutional ; that is, the British market for the Irish constitution 
 — the shadow of a market for the substance of a constitution! You 
 are to reserve an option, trade or liberty ; if you mean to come to 
 the British market, you must pass under the British yoke. I object 
 to this principle in every shape, whether you are, as the resolution 
 was first worded, directly to transfer legislative power to the British 
 parliament ; whether, as it was afterwards altered, you are to 
 covenant to subscribe her acts ; or whether, as it is now softened, 
 you are to take the chance of the British market so long as you 
 waive the blessings of the British constitution — terms dishonourable, 
 derogatory, incapable of forming the foundation of any fair and 
 friendly settlement, injurious to the political morality of the nation. 
 I would not harbour a slavish principle, nor give it the hospitality 
 of a night's lodging in a land of liberty. Slavery is like any other 
 vice — tolerate, and you embrace. You should guard your constitu- 
 tion by settled maxims of honour, as well as wholesome rales of law; 
 and one maxim should be, never to tolerate a condition which 
 trenches on the privilege of parliament, or derogates from the pride 
 of the island. Liberal in matters of revenue, practicable in matters of 
 commerce ; on these subjects I would be inexorable. If the genius 
 of old England came to that bar with the British constitution in one 
 
102 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 hand, and in the other an offer of all that England retains, or all 
 that she has lost of commerce, I should turn my back on the latter, 
 and pay my obeisance to the blessings of her constitution ; for that 
 constitution will give you commerce, and it was the loss of that 
 constitution that deprived you of commerce. Why are you not now 
 a woollen country ? because another country regulated your trade. 
 Why are you not now a country of reexport? because another 
 country regulated your navigation. 
 
 I oppose the original terms as slavish, and I oppose the condi- 
 tional clause as an artful way of introducing slavery, of soothing a 
 high-spirited nation into submission by the ignominious delusion, 
 that she may shake off the yoke when she pleases, and become 
 once more a free people. The direct unconstitutional proposition 
 could not have been listened to, and therefore resort is had to the 
 only possible chance of destroying the liberty of the people, by hold- 
 ing up the bright reversion of the British constitution, and the spe- 
 culation of future liberty, as a consolation for the present submission. 
 But would any gentleman here wear a livery to-night, because he 
 might lay it aside in the morning ? or would this House substitute 
 another, because next year it might resume its authority, and once 
 more become the Parliament of Ireland ? I do not believe we shall 
 get the British, but I do not want to make an experiment on the 
 British market, by making an experiment likewise on the constitu- 
 tion and spirit of the people of Ireland. But do not imagine, if you 
 shall yield for a year, you will get so easily clear of this inglorious 
 experiment : if this is not the British market, why accept the adjust- 
 ment ? and if it is, the benefit thereof may take away your deliberate 
 voice. You will be bribed out of your constitution by your commerce : 
 there are two ways of taking away free will, the one by direct com- 
 pulsion, the other by establishing a prcpollent motive. Thus, a 
 servant of the Crovni may lose his free will, when he is to give his 
 vote at the hazard of his office ; and thus a parliament would lose its 
 free will, if it acted under a conviction that it exercised its deliberate 
 function at the risk of its commerce. No question would stand upon 
 its own legs, but each question would involve every consideration o. 
 trade, and, indeed, the whole relative situation of the two countries. 
 I beseech you to consider that situation, and contemplate the powers 
 of your own country, before you agree to surrender them. Recollect 
 that you have now a right to trade with the British plantations, in 
 certain articles, without reference to British duties ; that you have a 
 right to trade with the British plantations in every other article, 
 subject to the British duties ; that you have a right to get clear of 
 
C MMEK C I AL PROPO SITI O N S . 
 
 103 
 
 each and of every part of that bargain ; that you have a right to 
 take the produce of foreign plantations, subject to your own unstipu- 
 lated duties ; that you have a right to carry on a free and unqualified 
 trade with the United States of North America ; that you have a right 
 to cany on an experimental trade in countries contiguous to which 
 Great Britain has established her monopolies : the power of trade 
 this, and an instrument of power, and station, and authority, of the 
 British empire ! Consider that yon have likewise a right to the ex- 
 clusive supply of your own market, and to the exclusive reserve of 
 the rudiment of your manufactures ; that you have an absolute 
 dominion over the public purse and over the collection of the revenue. 
 If you ask me how you shall use these powers, I say : For Ireland, 
 with due regard to the British nation. Let them be governed by the 
 spirit of concord, and with fidelity to the connexion. But when the 
 mover of the bill asks me to surrender tho^e powers, I am astonished 
 at him. I have neither ears, nor eyes, nor functions, to make such 
 a sacrifice. What ! that free trade, for which we exerted every 
 nerve in 1779 ; that free constitution, for which we pledged life and 
 fortune in 1782 ! Orr lives are at the service of the empire ; but 
 — our liberties ! No ; we received them from our Father which is 
 in Heaven, and we will hand them dowu to our children ! But if 
 gentlemen can entertain a doubt of the mischief of these propositions, 
 are they convinced of their safety — the safety of giving up the 
 government of your trade ? No ; the mischief is prominent, but the 
 advantage is of a most enigmatical nature. Have gentlemen considered 
 the subject ? have they traced even the map of the countries, the 
 power or freedom of trading with whom they are to surrender for 
 ever ? Have they traced the map of Asia, Africa, and America ? 
 Do they know the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish settle- 
 ments ? Do they know the neutral powers of those countries, their 
 produce, aptitudes, and dispositions? Have they considered the 
 state of North America — its present state, future growth, and every 
 opportunity in the endless succession of time attending that nurse of 
 commerce and asylum of mankind ? Are they now competent to de- 
 clare on the part of themselves and all then- posterity, that a free 
 trade to those regions will never, in the efflux of time, be of any 
 service to the kingdom of Ireland ? If they have information on 
 this subject, it must be by a communication with God, for they hare 
 none with man : it must be inspiration, for it cannot be knowledge. 
 In such circumstances, to subscribe this agreement, without know- 
 ledge, without even the affectation of knowledge, when Great Britain, 
 with all her experience, and every means of information from East 
 
104 
 
 COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 Indies, West Indies, America, and with the official knowledge of 
 Ireland at her feet, has taken six months to deliberate, and has now 
 produced twenty resolutions, with a history to each, amounting to 
 a code of empire, not a system of commerce : I say, in such circum- 
 stances, for Ireland to subscribe this agreement, would be infatuation 
 — an infatuation to which the nation could not be a party, but would 
 appear to be concluded, or indeed huddled, with all her posterity, 
 into a fallacious arrangement, by the influence of the Crown, without 
 the deliberation of Parliament or the consent of the people ! This 
 would appear the more inexcusable, because we are not driven to it ; 
 adjustment is not indispensable ; the great points have been carried ! 
 An inferior question about the home market has been started, and a 
 commercial fever artificially raised ; but while the great points re- 
 main undisturbed, the nations cannot be committed ; the manufac- 
 turers applied for protecting duties, and have failed ; the minister 
 offered a system of reciprocity, and succeeded in Ireland, but has 
 failed in England : he makes you another offer, inconsistent with the 
 former, which offer the English do not support, and the Irish de- 
 precate. 
 
 We can go on; we have a growing prosperity, and as yet an ex- 
 emption from intolerable taxes ; we can from time to time regulate 
 our own commerce, cherish our manufactures, keep down our taxes, 
 and bring on our people, and brood over the growing prosperity of 
 young Ireland. In the mean time we will guard our free trade and 
 free constitution, as our only real resources : they were the struggles 
 of great virtue, the result of much perseverance, and our broad base 
 of public action! We should recollect that this House may now, 
 with peculiar propriety, interpose, because you did, with great zeal 
 and success, on this very subject of trade, bring on the people; and 
 you did, with great prudence and moderation, on another occasion, 
 check a certain description of the people, and you are now called 
 upon by consistency to defend the people. Thus mediating between 
 extremes, you will preserve this island long, and preserve her with a 
 certain degree of renown. Thus faithful to the constitution of the 
 country, you will command and insure her tranquillity ; for our best 
 authority with the people is protection afforded against the ministers 
 of the Crown. It is not public clamour, but public injury that should 
 alarm you ; your high ground of expostulation with your fellow-sub- 
 jects has been your services; the free trade you have given the mer- 
 chant, and the free constitution you have given the island! Make 
 your third great effort — preserve them, and with them preserve un- 
 altered your own calm sense of public right, the dignity of the parlia- 
 
IRISH FEELING. 
 
 105 
 
 mcnt, the majesty of the people, and the powers of the island ! Keep 
 them unsullied, uncovenanted, uncircumscribed, and unstipendiary ! 
 These paths are the paths to glory, and, let me add, these ways are 
 the ways of peace : so shall the prosperity of your country, though 
 without a tongue to thank you, yet laden with the blessings of consti- 
 tution and of commerce, bear attestation to your services, and wait on 
 your progress with involuntary praise ! 
 
 IRISH FEELING. 
 
 September 6, 1785. 
 
 There are gentlemen who will call England the whole empire, and 
 her exclusive power and domination the general welfare ; and the 
 servants of government in Ireland may, if they would stoop to it, on 
 such a principle, advance a pretence for abjuring every prejudice of 
 their nativity, every special advantage of their own country, and for 
 preferring the power of another land. Regard, I acknowledge, should 
 be constantly had to the general welfare of the whole empire, when- 
 ever it is really concerned ; but let me add, that general welfare 
 should never be made a pretence, nor be artificially and wantonly 
 introduced ; and in an arrangement where Irish trade is professedly 
 the subject, that trade ought to be expressly the object. I laugh at 
 those Irish gentlemen who talk as if they were the representatives of 
 something higher than then* native land — the representatives of em- 
 pire, not of Ireland ; but so talking and so acting, they will be in 
 fact the representatives of their salary. Let me tell those gentlemen, 
 if they are not Irishmen, they are nothing ; and if we are not the 
 representatives of Ireland, we are nothing. I am the more averse to 
 the revival of this bill or its principle, because such revival must be 
 accompanied with a new negotiation — a negotiation wherein the 
 British minister would be the ambassador for England and Ireland, 
 or rather, the British minister would be the ambassador for England, 
 and the servant of that minister would be the ambassador for Ireland ; 
 and where there is no personal equality in the negotiators, there can 
 be no political equality in the result of the treaty. If anything 
 could render the revival of this business still more alarming, it would 
 be the doctrines which have been advanced to defend it. We have 
 been gravely, positively, and dogmatically assured, that this country 
 is, for the comforts and necessaries of life, for the rudiments of manu- 
 facture, and even for the element of fire, absolutely dependent on 
 
106 
 
 IRISH FEELING. 
 
 Great Britain ; we have been assured that we can find no coals, nor 
 bark, nor salt, nor hops, anywhere, save only in Great Britain ; in 
 short, that Ireland has no coals, nor the continent salt, bark, or hops, 
 to the astonishment, and indeed laughter, of every merchant who 
 heard such assertions. We have been told this, and we have been 
 thus argued down into a state of physical slavery. 
 
 Ireland has been represented as the slave of England by the laws 
 of nature, in order to justify a system which would have made us her 
 slave by force and operation of covenant. We have been further 
 told in debate and in public prints, that our trade has no claim to 
 the protection of the British navy. Sir, you pay for that protection ; 
 you paid for it long ago ; I tell you that payment was the crown of 
 Ireland. You annexed the crown of Ireland to that of Great Britain, 
 and have a right to the protection of her navy, as much as she has a 
 right to consider you as part of the empire. Protecting you with her 
 navy, she protects her own balance and weight in Europe, and pre- 
 serves an empire which would else be reduced to an island. But if 
 you are protected by an English, not an Irish navy, it is not that 
 you have not granted taxes, but that Great Britain naturally chooses 
 to have but one navy in the empire, and very naturally wishes that 
 navy to be her own. You are prevented from having an Irish navy, 
 and should not be reproached with the protection of the British ; as 
 gentlemen have triumphantly displayed the dependency of their na- 
 tive land on Great Britain, they have most anxiously concealed her 
 value and importance — the importance of her linen yarn, bay yarn, 
 hides, provisions, and men ; the importance of her assent to the mo- 
 nopolies of Great Britain, East and West, and to the continuation of 
 the act of navigation. Under such false impressions, then, in those 
 who are perhaps to act on the part of Ireland, an ignorance or con- 
 cealment of her real consequence and resources, and the false per- 
 suasion of her insignificance and dereliction — nay, I will add, a zeal 
 to display an offensive catalogue of her wants and wretchedness, I 
 ask, what treaty will be made under these circumstances, that shall 
 be to your advantage ? Let me therefore caution my country against 
 the revival of this bill, and against those arguments which have 
 a tendency to put down the pretensions of Ireland, and humble the 
 pride of the Irish nation. Public pride is the best champion of public 
 liberty ; cherish it, for if ever this kingdom shall fall in her own 
 esteem, shall labour under a prepossession of impotence, shall con- 
 ceive she cannot have the necessaries of life or manufacture, but from 
 the charity of another country, in short, that God and nature have 
 put her in a state of physical bondage, I say, if once this becomes her 
 
TITHES. 
 
 107 
 
 sentiment, your laws are nothing, your charters are paper, and Ire- 
 land is a slave with magna chart a in her hand. Let us not then put 
 down our native land, and rob her of her pride, to rob her of her 
 constitution. 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 February 14, 1788. 
 
 A tenth of your land, your labour, and your capital, to those who 
 contribute in no shape whatsoever to the produce, must be oppression; 
 they only think otherwise who suppose that everything is little which 
 is given to the parson; that no burden can be heavy, if it is the 
 weight of the parson ; that landlords should give up their rent, and 
 tenants the profits of their labour, and all too little. But uncertainty 
 aggravates that oppression ; the full tenths ever must be uncertain 
 as well as oppressive ; for it is the fixed proportion of a fluctuating 
 quantity, and unless the high priest can give law to the winds, and 
 ascertain the harvest, the tithe, like that harvest, must be uncertain. 
 But this uncertainty is aggravated by the pernicious motives on which 
 tithe frequently rises and falls. It frequently rises on the poor ; it 
 falls in compliment to the rich. It proceeds on principles the re- 
 verse of the Gospel; it crouches to the strong, and it encroaches on 
 the feeble, and is guided by the two worst principles in society — 
 servility and avarice united against the cause of charity and under 
 the cloak of religion. 
 
 Here let me return to and repeat the allegations, and call on you 
 once more to make the inquiry. It is alleged, that in certain parishes 
 of the south, tithe has been demanded and paid for what by law 
 was not liable to tithe; and that the ecclesiastical courts have coun- 
 tenanced the illegal exaction ; and evidence is offered at your bar to 
 prove the charge on oath. 
 
 Will you deny the fact ? Will you justify the fact ? Will you 
 inquire into it ? 
 
 It is alleged, that tithe proctors, in certain parishes of the south, 
 do exact fees for agency, oppressive and illegal ; and evidence to 
 prove the charge is offered on oath. Will you deny the fact ? Will 
 you justify the fact ? Will you inquire into it ? 
 
 It is alleged, that in certain parishes of the south, tithes have 
 been excessive, and have observed no equity for the poor, the hns- 
 
108 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 bandman, or the manufacturer ; ana evidence is offered to prove this 
 charge on oath ! 
 
 Will you deny the fact ? Will you justify the fact ? Will you 
 inquire into it ? 
 
 It is alleged, that in certain parishes of the south, the ratages for 
 tithes have greatly and unconscionably increased ; and evidence is 
 offered io prove this charge on oath. Will you deny the fact ? Will 
 you justify the fact ? Will you inquire into it ? 
 
 It is alleged, that in certain parishes of the south, the parishioners 
 have duly and legally set out their tithe, and given due notice ; but 
 that no persons have attended on the part of the proctor or parson, 
 under expectation, it is apprehended, of getting some new method of 
 recovery, tending to deprive the parish of the benefit of its ancient 
 right, that of setting out their tithe ; and evidence is offered to prove 
 this charge on oath. 
 
 It is alleged, that in certain parishes of the south, tithe-farmers 
 have oppressed, and do oppress His Majesty's subjects, by various 
 extortions, abuses of law, or breaches of the same ; and evidence is 
 offered to prove this charge on oath. Here, once more, I ask you, 
 will you deny the fact? Will you justify the fact? Will you in- 
 quire into it ? 
 
 This being the state of the church in certain parishes in the south, 
 I wish to know, what in the mean time within those districts be- 
 comes of religion ? Here are the parson and parish at variance 
 about that which our religion teaches us to despise —riches. Here 
 is the mammon of unrighteousness set up to interrupt our devotion to 
 the true God. The disinterested, the humble, the apostolical cha- 
 racter, during this unseemly contest — what becomes of it ? Here are 
 two powers, the power in the tenant to set out his tithe, the power 
 in the church to try the matter in dispute by ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion ; two powers vested by the law in the respective hands of 
 church and laity, without any effect but to torment one another. The 
 power of setting of tithe does not affect to defend the tenant against 
 unconscionable demand, and if attended with combination, secures 
 him against any effectual demand whatsoever. The power of trying 
 the matter in dispute by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, does not take 
 place, except in cases of subtraction, and when it does take place, is 
 a partial trial. Thus, as the law now stands, combination is the 
 defence of laity, and partiality of the church. 
 
 The equity in favour of the tiller of the soil (a very necessary 
 equity indeed) becomes a new source of disturbance, because the par- 
 ties are not agreed what that equity should be ; the countryman not 
 
TITHES. 
 
 109 
 
 conceiving that any one can in equity have a right to the tenth of 
 his land, labour, and capital, who does not own the land, nor plough, 
 nor sow, nor reap, nor contribute, in any degree whatsoever, to the 
 produce ; the tithe-farmer having no idea, but that of iniquity on 
 the subject ; the parson, perhaps, conceiving that a tenth on tillage 
 is a bare compensation in equity, for what he deems the greatest 
 of all iniquity, your vote of agistment. Thus, the two parties, the 
 parson and his parish, the shepherd and his flock, with opposite 
 opinions, and mutual powers of annoyance, in the parts I have 
 alluded to, seem to go on in a rooted animosity and silent war. 
 
 Conceive the pastor looking over the hedge, like a spy, to mulct 
 the extraordinary labours of the husbandman. 
 
 Conceive him coming into the field, and saying : " You are a 
 deserving husbandman ; you have increased the value of your field 
 by the sweat of your brow ; Sir, I will make you pay me for that "f 
 or conceive a dialogue between a shepherd and one of his flock : " I 
 will take your tenth sheaf, and if you choose to vex me, your tenth 
 hen, and your tenth egg, and your tenth goose " (not so the apos- 
 tles) ; or conceive him speaking to his flock by parable, and saying: 
 " The ass stopped with his burthen ; and his burthen was doubled ; 
 and still he stopped, and his burthen was still increased ; and then 
 the perverse animal, finding his resistance in vain, went on ; so 
 even you shall find resistance but increase your load, until the num- 
 ber of acts of Parliament shall break your back". 
 
 These pastoral discourses, if they have taken place, however well 
 intended, will not, I fear, greatly advance the cause of the faithful, 
 particularly in a country where the numbers remain to be converted to 
 the Protestant religion, not only by the superior purity of its doctrine, 
 but by the mild, disinterested, peace-making spirit of its teachers. 
 
 Will not the dignitaries of the church interpose on such an occa- 
 sion ? How painful it must have been to them, the teachers of 
 the Gospel, and therefore enemies to the shedding of blood, to have 
 thought themselves under the repeated necessity of applying to Par- 
 liament for sanguinary laws! The most sanguinary laws on your 
 statute-books are tithe-bills ; the Whiteboy act is a tithe-bill ; the 
 riot act, a tithe-bill. 
 
 How painful to those dignitaries must it be, to feel themselves in 
 the office of making perpetual complaints against their own flock, 
 and to be conscious, in some instances, of having jaded and disgusted 
 the ears of the court by charges against the peasantry ! How pain- 
 ful for them to have repeated recourse to the military in their own 
 case, and to think that many of their sinful flock, but their flock 
 
 6 
 
110 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 notwithstanding, were saved from the indiscriminating edge of the 
 sword, and ecclesiastical zeal tempered and withheld, and in some 
 cases disappointed, by the judicious mercy of military command ? 
 
 We, the laity, were right in taking the strongest measures the last 
 session : it was our duty to assert ; but of these churchmen, it is the 
 duty, and I suppose the nature, to deprecate, to incline to the mild, 
 the meek, the dispassionate, and the merciful side of the question, 
 and rather to prevent by moderation than punish by death. 
 
 Whether these exactions were in themselves sufficient to have pro- 
 duced all the confusion of the last year, I know not ; but this I do 
 believe, that no other cause had been sufficient without the aid of 
 exaction ; if exaction had not existed, the south would not, I believe, 
 have been convulsed. A controverted election alone could not well 
 have been an adequate cause ; the objects of attack must, in some 
 cases, have been something more than partizans, and the flames 
 spread by contagion : the first touch must have been an accident, but 
 the people were rendered combustible by oppression. 
 
 The Whiteboy should be hanged ; but I think the tithe-farmer 
 should be restrained : I would inflict death on the felon, and impose 
 moderation on the extortioner ; and thus relieve the community from 
 the offences of both. 
 
 But do not let us so far mistake the case, as to suppose it a ques- 
 tion between the parson and the Whiteboy ; or that the animosity 
 which has been excited is confined to felons : no ; it is extended far 
 more generally ; it is extended to those who have been active in 
 bringing those felons to justice ; and men will appear at your bar 
 who have suffered under excess of demand, and have acted to re- 
 store peace, the instrument of quiet, and the objects of exaction. 
 Let us, therefore, examine the subject, and having already with great 
 propriety taken the most decisive steps against the insurgent, let us 
 inquire now into the cause of the outrage, and see whether exaction 
 might not have had some share, at least, in the origin of it ; and if 
 so, let us strive to form some plan which may collect the riches of 
 the church, without repetition of penal laws or of public disturbance. 
 
 In forming a plan for the better privision of the church, the first 
 thing to be considered is the quantum of provision ; the second con- 
 sideration is the funds from whence that provision is to arise. 
 The quantum of provision should be the usual net income on an 
 average of years, except in some parishes of great exaction ; I say 
 usual, because 1 would not materially alter their allowance ; I say 
 on an average of years, because I would not make recent encroach- 
 ment on property ; I say net, because when the public shall become 
 
TITHES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the tithe proprietor's agent, the public will have a right to the benefit 
 of the agency. 
 
 That their income is discoverable I affirm, and I affirm it under 
 the authority of their own act and their own practice. Without 
 going farther back than the last session, you will rind the compen- 
 sation-act requires the person suing on the act to make a discovery 
 of his customary income, and in some cases discovery of his ratages 
 for three years back, on oath ; it requires that he should, in his affi- 
 davit, set forth that the valuation of 1786 is made, as near as 
 possible, the ratage of the three former years ; it requires that where 
 a valuation of the tithe of 1786 could not be made, a valuation of 
 the customary tithe for three years back should ; it enables the court 
 to appoint persons to inquire into the fact, and call for parties and 
 papers, and thus establishes two principles which were denied ; that 
 the annual income of benefices is discoverable, and that the particu- 
 lar ratage is discoverable also. I might go back to the act of Weary 
 VIII., which requires that a commission should be directed to 
 inquire into ecclesiastical benefices, and to report the value of the 
 same ; and I might further adduce the act of William III., which 
 gives to the ecclesiastical person who builds, two-thirds of the sum 
 expended, which sum is to be ascertained by a certificate ; which 
 certificate, by the 12th of George II., shall contain an account of 
 the clear yearly income of the benefice. After these instances, I 
 hope no man will deny that the income of the clergyman is discover- 
 able ; particularly, when the compensation-act of the last winter 
 requires such a discovery to be made on the oath of the parson. 
 That act was supported by the whole bench of bishops ; it was pro- 
 bably framed with their advice and suggestions. They would not 
 require their clergy to report on their oath what they them selves 
 conceived or had maintained to be impossible ; as if it was impos- 
 sible to make a discovery for the purpose of commutation, but, for 
 the purpose of compensation, easy and obvious. Thus, when I 
 affirm the discoverability of the clergyman's income, I have not only 
 the authority of the church, but its oath. The net return should be 
 the parson's perpetual income, subject to the exception stated above; 
 but in order to guard him against the fluctuation of currency, C 
 would fix the value of that income in grain ; it should be the value 
 of so many barrels of wheat, to be estimated every seven years by 
 the corn-office or the clerk of the market, who now quarterly stiikes 
 the average value of corn throughout the kingdom. Tims, hi in- 
 come should not be absolutely either corn or money ; but the value 
 of so much corn to be paid in money. 
 
112 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 As to the fund from whence these receipts should arise, that fund 
 should be a charge on the barony, to be levied like other county 
 charges. This method is easy, for it is already in use ; the head 
 constable should be the parson's collector, and the county should be 
 security. 
 
 To this I know the objection, and it is an objection which can be 
 best answered by those who make it. It will be said that this scheme 
 prevents the division of the unions, and the increase of poor livings. 
 Apply the first fruits as they ought for the increase of poor livings 
 and the repairs of the church, and then you will answer your own 
 argument : but a fictitious and remote valuation for the benefit of 
 the rich clergy has been made of these charitable funds, frustrating 
 the purpose of the charity equally to the neglect of the church and 
 the poor. The luxury of the priest has usurped the funds of the 
 poor and of the church, then sets up against both a miserable modus, 
 and prescribes in this instance against charity and religion. 
 
 However, if the dignitaries of the church will not, Parliament may 
 answer this argument, and provide for more clergy as occasion shall 
 permit. You imparish by act of Parliament ; with proper provision, 
 when you see the necessity, you may divide. The care of religion 
 is placed nowhere better than in the legislature. Popery will tell 
 you, that when it was entirely left to the care of the priesthood, it 
 was perverted and destroyed. 
 
 But, if objections should be made to this plan, and in order to 
 give the church the growth of the country, there is another plan — a 
 modus. Let every article which shall be subject to tithe be set forth 
 in a tithing table, with certain ratages annexed; let those ratages be 
 taken, and set forth in the tithing table as now equivalent to so 
 many stone of bread corn. 
 
 Let the act provide, that there shall be a septennial valuation of 
 bread corn by the clerk of the market, or the proper officer. 
 
 Let there be an exemption for the rudiments of manufacture, and 
 a saving for all local customs and exemptions : such as potatoes in 
 most places, hay in several, and such like. 
 
 In order to form this modus, which should be provincial, not uni- 
 versal, let four provincial committees be appointed. You will see a 
 precedent in your journals ; on the report of these provincial com- 
 mittees form your bill. In your bill you will probably think proper 
 to give agistment, or a certain sum for head-money, not in addition 
 to, but in case of ratages on tillage. 
 
 In forming your ratages, you will probably inquire into the acre- 
 able ratages now established, and adopt them where they are 
 
TITHES. 
 
 113 
 
 reasonable, and reject them where they are exorbitant: where there 
 are no acreable ratages established, the contiguous parish or county, 
 where they are established, will furnish you with a rule. 
 
 If once you appoint committees, the parson and parish will both 
 come forth with information ; and from both you will collect the pre- 
 sent ratages, and be enabled to make a rule. In forming this rule, 
 you will probably think proper to exempt the poor man's garden in 
 the south from the tithe of potatoes. 
 
 The true principle, with respect to your peasantry, is exoneration ; 
 and if I could not take the burden entirely off their back, I would 
 make that burden as light as possible ; I would exempt the peasant's 
 cow and garden from tithe ; if I could not make him rich, I would 
 do the next thing in my power ; I would consider his property as 
 sacred, and vindicate against an extortioner the hallowed circle of 
 his little boundary. The loss to the church might be easily compen- 
 sated, particularly if you give agistment or head-money in case of 
 tillage. 
 
 I would also relieve the north from small dues, as I would relieve 
 the poor of the south from the tithe of potatoes ; and where these 
 small dues had long obtained, I would make the parson compensa- 
 tion, either by giving him head-money, or by making an estimate of 
 these dues, and raising them in the way of other county charges. 
 
 Should it be said, that we should as well exempt the peasant from 
 rent as well as from tithe, to that uncharitable and unchristian 
 observation, I answer, no. The land is not his own, but his labour 
 is his own. The peasant is born without an estate ; he is born with 
 hands, and no man has a natural right to the labour of those hands, 
 unless he pays him : thus, when you demand of the peasant rent, 
 you ask for your own estate ; when you demand tithe, you ask for a 
 portion of the peasant's estate, the poor man's only estate, the inheri- 
 tance which he has in the labour of his hands and the sweat of his 
 brow. 
 
 Human laws may make alterations, and when made must be ob- 
 served ; but it should be the policy of human laws to follow the wis- 
 dom of the law of nature. 
 
 The result of these principles, and of these committees, proceeding 
 on the rules I have submitted, would be the benefit of the church, as 
 well as the relief of the farmer ; for establishing a modus on the ave- 
 rage ratages of a certain number of years, except in cases of exaction, 
 you would give the church as much as they have at present, except 
 in those instances of unconscionable demand ; and as the ratages 
 would come net to the owner of the tithe, you would, in fact, on this 
 
114 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 principle, give the church more ; the spoil of the tithe-farmer would, 
 therefore, enable you even to lower the ratage, and yet give more to 
 the church ; so that the result would probably be, that the moderate 
 clergyman would get more, and the uncharitable clergyman would 
 get less, which would be a distribution of justice, as well as of 
 property. 
 
 Having once agreed on the modus, 1 would wish to give the 
 clergy, or lay impropriator, for the recovery of their income, any 
 mode they chose to appoint, civil bill, or any other method, and then 
 you will save them the charge and disgrace of an expensive agency, 
 which expense arises from the difficulty of the recovery and the 
 uncertainty of the demand ; and if you add the facility and cheap- 
 ness of collection, with the certainty of income, to the quantum 
 under the modus, on the principles I have stated, you will find the 
 value of the church property would, even in the opinion of a notary 
 public, be increased, though the imaginary claim would be circum- 
 scribed and diminished. This is no commutation, no innovation ; 
 here is only a regulation of tithe and an abolition of tithe farmers, 
 and of those abuses which have grown out of the uncertainty of 
 tithe ; it takes from tithe its deadly sting — uncertainty, and makes 
 it cease to be a growing penalty on extraordinary labour, and it puts 
 the question directly to the moderation of the church. Will you 
 insist on an indefinite demand and unconscionable ratage, as an 
 essential part of the Christian religion or the Protestant establish- 
 ment ? The Bible is the answer to this question, even though the 
 clergyman should be silent ; and therefore it is that I press this 
 method the more, because it does not involve the subject in specu- 
 lation, nor rest the redress of the peasantry on the ingenuity of sys- 
 tem, but makes that relief a matter of moderation and of Christian 
 charity. Were you disposed to go further, you might form, on this 
 regulation, a commutation, which should more effectually relieve the 
 plough, and should, at the same time, give the benefit of the growth 
 of the country to the church. Let a person in each parish be ap- 
 pointed in vestry by the parson and parishioners, and if they do not 
 agree, let each appoint their own, who shall every year make a 
 return of acres under tillage to applotters, who shall make a valua- 
 tion of same according to a tithing table such as I have stated, to 
 be established by act of parliament, and that valuation to be raised 
 in the manner of other baronial charges. Thus the parson's income 
 would increase with the extent of tillage, without falling principally 
 on the j. lough. 
 
 The principle of this plan, if you choose to go beyond a modus, 
 
 L 
 
TITHES. 
 
 115 
 
 i3 obvious. The mechanical part of this and of the other regulation 
 which I have submitted, will be best detailed in the provincial com- 
 mittees, if you shall choose to appoint them; for, in fact, jour plan 
 must arise out of the inquiry and the resolutions of these commit- 
 tees ; and the great difficulty on the subject is your aversion to the 
 inquiry. There are other difficulties, I allow : the difficulties of 
 pride, the difficulties of passion, the difficulties of bigotry, contrac- 
 tion of the head, and hardness of the heart. 
 
 " Tithes are made more respectable than, and superior to, any 
 other description of property. The high priest will not take a par- 
 liamentary title ". That is, in other words, he thinks they have a 
 divine right to tithe. 
 
 Whence? None from the Jews: the priesthood of the Jews had 
 not the tenth ; the Levites had the tenth because they had no other 
 inheritance; but Aaron and his sons had but the tenth of that 
 tenth. That is, the priesthood of the Jews had but the hundredth 
 part, the rest was for other uses —for the rest of the Levites, and 
 for the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the temple. 
 
 But supposing the Jewish priesthood had the tenth, which they 
 certainly had not, the Christian priesthood does not claim under 
 them. Christ was not a Levite, nor of the tribe of Levi, nor of the 
 Jewish priesthood, but came to protest against that priesthood, 
 their worship, their ordinances, their passover, and their circumci- 
 sion. 
 
 Will a Christian priesthood say, it was meet to put down the 
 Jewish, but meet likewise to seize on the spoil ? as if their riches 
 were of divine right, though their religion was not ; as if Christian 
 disinterestedness might take the land and the tithe given in lieu of 
 land, and, possessed of both, and divested of the charity, exclaim 
 against the avarice of the Jews ! 
 
 The apostles had no tithe ; they did not demand it. They, and 
 He whose mission they preached, protested against the principle on 
 which tithe is founded. "Carry neither scrip, nor purse, nor shoes; 
 into whatsoever house ye go, say peace". 
 
 Here is concord, and contempt of riches, not tithe. " Take no 
 thought what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor for your 
 bodies, what ye shall put on ". So said Christ to His apostles. 
 Does this look like a right in His priesthood to a tenth of the goods 
 of the community ? 
 
 " Beware of covetousness : seek not what you shall eat, but seek 
 the kingdom of God". 
 
 " Give alms, provide yourselves with bags that wax not old ; a 
 
116 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 treasure in Heaven which faileth not ". This does not look a right 
 in the Christian priesthood to the tenth of the goods of the commu- 
 nity exempted from the poor's dividend. 
 
 " Distribute unto the poor, and seek treasure in Heaven". 
 
 " Take care that your hearts be not charged with surfeiting and 
 drunkenness and the cares of this life". 
 
 One should not think that our Saviour was laying the foundation 
 of tithe, but cutting up the roots of the claim, and prophetically ad- 
 monishing some of the modern priesthood. If these precepts are of 
 divine right, tithes cannot be so ; the precept which orders a con- 
 tempt of riches, the claim which demands a tenth of the fruits of the 
 Earth for the ministers of the GospeL 
 
 The peasantry, in apostolic times, had been the object of charity, 
 not of exaction. Those to whose cabin the tithe-farmer has gone for 
 tithe of turf, and to whose garden he has gone for the tithe-pota- 
 toes, the apostles would have visited likewise ; but they would have 
 visited with contribution, not for exaction : the poor had shared with, 
 the apostles, though they contributed to the churchman. 
 
 The Gospel is not an argument for, but against the right-divine of * 
 tithe ; so are the first fathers of the church. 
 
 It is the boast of Tertullian, " Nemo compellitur sed sponte conferi 
 hcec quasi deposita sunt pietatis". 
 
 With us, men are not under the necessity of redeeming their reli- 
 gion ; what we have is not raised by compulsion ; each contributes 
 what he pleases ; modicum unusquisque stipendium vel cum velit, e+ 
 si modo velit, et simodo posset; what we receive, we bestow on the 
 poor, the old, the orphan, and the infirm. 
 
 Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, tells you, the expenses of the 
 church are frugal and sparing, but her charity is great ; he calls the 
 clergy his fr aires sportuluntes ; a fraternity living by contribution ! 
 
 " Forsake", says Origen, " the priests of Pharaoh, who have 
 Earthly possessions, and come to us who have nonp ; we must not 
 consume what belongs to the poor ; we must be content with simple 
 fare, poor apparel". 
 
 Chrysostom, in the close of the fourth century, declares, that there 
 was no practice of tithes in the former ages ; and Erasmus says, that 
 the attempt to demand them was no better than tyranny. 
 
 But there is an authority still higher than the opinions of the fa- 
 thers, there is an authority of a council, the council of Antioch, in 
 the fourth century, which declares, that bishops may distribute the 
 goods of the church* but must take no part to themselves, nor to th<$ 
 
TITHES. 
 
 117 
 
 priests that lived with them, unless necessity required them justly : 
 " Have food and raiment ; be therewith content". 
 
 This was the state of the church in its purity ; in the fifth cen- 
 tury, decimation began, and Christianity declined; then, indeed, the 
 right of tithe was advanced, and advanced into a style that damned 
 it. The preachers who advanced the doctrine, placed all Christian 
 virtue in the payment of tithe. They said, that the Christain reli- 
 gion, as we say the Protestant religion, depended on it. They said, 
 that those who paid not their tithes, would be found guilty before 
 God ; and if they did not give the tenth, that God would reduce the 
 country to a tenth. Blasphemous preachers ! gross ignorance of 
 the nature of things ! impudent familiarity with the ways of God ! 
 audacious, assumed knowledge of His judgments, and a false denun- 
 ciation of His vengeance ! And yet even these rapacious, blasphe- 
 mous men, did not acknowledge to demand tithes for themselves but 
 the poor ; alms ! the debt of charity, the poor poor's patrimony. 
 " We do not limit you to a precise sum ; but you will not give less 
 than the Jews" ; decimce sunt tributa egentium animarum, redde tri- 
 buta pauperibus. Augustine goes on and tells you, that as many 
 poor as die in your neighbourhood for want, you not paying tithe, of 
 so many murders will you be found guilty at the tribunal of God ; 
 tantornm homicidiorum reus ante tribunal Eterni Judicis apparebit. 
 " Let us", says St. Jerome, " at least follow the example of the 
 Jews, and part of the whole give to the priest and the poor". To 
 these authorities we are to add the decree of two councils, the pro- 
 vincial council of Macon, in the close of the sixth centmy, and the 
 decree of the council of Nantz, in the close of the ninth. The first 
 orders that tithes may be brought in by the people, that the priest 
 may expend them for the use of the poor and the redemption of 
 captives. The latter decrees that the clergy are to use the tithes, 
 not as a property, but a trust ; non quasi sais sed commendatis. 
 
 It was not the table of the priest, nor his domestics, nor his ap- 
 parel, nor his influence, nor his ambition, but a Christian equipage 
 of tender virtues, the widow, the orphan, and the poor ; they did 
 not demand the tithe as a corporation of proprietors, like an East- 
 India Company, or a South-Sea Company, with great rights of pro 
 pcrty annexed, distinct from the community and from religion ; but 
 as trustees, humble trustees to God and the poor, pointed out, 
 they presumed, by excess of holiness and contempt of riches. Nor 
 did they resort to decimation, even under these plausible pre- 
 tensions, until forced by depredations committed by themselves on 
 
118 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 one another. The goods of the church, of whatever kind, were at 
 first in common distributed to the support of the church and the 
 provision of the poor ; but at length, the more powerful part, those 
 who attended the courts of princes, they who intermeddled in state 
 affairs, the busy high priest, and the servile, seditious, clerical poli- 
 tician and particularly the abbots who had engaged in war, and 
 had that pretence for extortion, usurped the funds, left the business 
 of prayer to the inferior clergy, and the inferior clergy to tithe and 
 the people ! 
 
 Thus the claim of tithe originated in real extortion, and was pro- 
 pagated by affected charity ; at first, for the poor and the church, 
 afterwards subject to the four-fold division, the bishop, the fabric, 
 the minister, and the poor ; this in Europe ! 
 
 In England, tithe is not founded on divine right, but was said to 
 be introduced by murder, A king of Mercia, in the seventh century, 
 assassinates another prince in a most barbarous manner, and grants, 
 with what power I know not, the tenth of his subjects' goods for 
 absolution ; but in England, as elsewhere, the four-fold division took 
 place. So says Blackstone. 
 
 Nay, the preamble of the grant of Stephen recognises tithe to be 
 alms : 
 
 " Since it is divulged, far and near, by the Church, that souls may 
 receive absolution by the grant of alms, I, Stephen, to save my own 
 soul, that of my father's, and that of my motner's, and my relations". 
 
 Then he goes on, and grants or confirms tithes and other things. 
 
 Nay, there are two acts of Parliament express, one, the 13th 
 Richard II., providing that, for the appropriation of benefices, there 
 shall be provision made for the vicar and the poor.* 
 
 The cause of this act of Parliament was benefices given to persons 
 who did not or could not preach, lay persons, sometimes nuns (as 
 we give them to non-residents), to the neglect of the poor's portion. 
 
 These principles were departed from, and the trust most undoubt- 
 edly buried in oblivion ; but, let me add, the Christian religion was 
 forgotten likewise. 
 
 Hence, the Reformation bringing back Christianity to its old purity; 
 
 * Because divers damages and hindrances have oftentimes happened by the 
 appropriation of benefices in some places, it is agreed, that in every license it shall 
 be expressly compromised that the diocesan of the place shall ordain according to 
 the value of such churches, a convenient sum of money shall be paid and dis- 
 tributed yearly, out of the fruits and profits of some churches, to the poor 
 parishioners of some churches, in aid of their sustenance for ever ; likewise, that 
 the vicar be well and sufficiently endowed. Statute Henry IV. confirms this act. 
 
TITHES. 
 
 119 
 
 and hence the superior and milder order of priests, who purged the 
 spiritual and some of the temporal abominations, but did not entirely 
 relinquish the claim to the tithe ; though I must own great numbers 
 have too much purity to insist on it ; a claim which I have shown to 
 have been in its creation an encroachment on the laity, and in its 
 application an encroachment on the poor. No divine right ; no, nor 
 natural right : the law of nature and the law of God are the same; the 
 law of nature doth not give property, but the law of nature abhors that 
 disproportion of property which is to be found in the claim of 900 or 
 1000 men to the tenth of the goods of 3,000,000 ; a claim in the 
 3000th part of the community to the tenth of its property ; surfeit 
 on the part of the few ; famine on the part of the many ; a distri- 
 bution of the fruits of the Earth, impossible, beastly, shocking, in 
 itself, and, when accompanied with a claim to extravagant modera- 
 tion and purity, ridiculous and disgusting ! a claim against the pro- 
 portions of nature and the precepts of the Gospel ! 
 
 I know there are acts of Parliament on this subject. The act of 
 Henry VIII., winch requires the setting out of the tithe ; an act of 
 collection, not creation ; an act which had the lay impropriator in 
 view, and which seems to take for granted a claim of superstition, 
 founded on the pretence of charity. I know there are many subse- 
 quent acts (which are called tithe-bills) intended to assist the collec- 
 tion of customary, not full tithe, and in that confidence granted by 
 Parliament. 
 
 I am not now inquiring whether the claim to the full tithe is 
 legal, but whether the application of that tithe, for the sole purpose 
 of supporting the priest, is usurpation. And I have shown you that 
 tithe was a charity, subject to the support of the poor in the first 
 place, and the priest in the last. I have shown you that tithe^ does 
 not stand on the delicate ground of private property. I have shown 
 you that it was a trust, converted into a property by abuse ; which 
 abuse the legislature may control without sacrilege or robbery. If a 
 right to the full tenth is yet insisted on, give them the full tenth, on 
 the principles on which alone they at first ventured to demand it — - 
 subject to a poor-rate. Let the trust be executed; let widows and 
 orphans share it; let the house of industry, and the various hospitals 
 and infirmaries share it. Let the house of God (now an hovel re- 
 paired at the expense of Parliament, though, by the canon law, it 
 should be repaired by the priesthood) share it ; let the poorer order 
 of the peasantry share it. If the clergy will insist on taking the full 
 tithes of his potatoes, if they take the staff out of his hands, they 
 must carry the peasant on their shoulders. 
 
120 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 Thus, the clergy, insisting on the summum jus, and the laity cm 
 the summa justitia, the former would not be richer by the change. 
 I should, on such a change, condole with the church, and congratu- 
 late the poor ; and I should applaud the discretion as well as the 
 moderation of those excellent pastors, who did not rake up from the 
 ashes of superstition this claim to the tenth, but were satisfied with 
 competence and character and brotherly love, and a right to live by 
 their ministry ; a right set forth in the Gospel, and which nature had 
 set forth, even though the Gospel had been silent. 
 
 Impracticable! impracticable! impracticable! a zealous divine will 
 say ; any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of Parliament; 
 above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900 clergy- 
 men, who despise riches ! Were it to raise a new tax for their pro- 
 vision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how various 
 the means ! but, when the proposal is to diminish a tax already es- 
 tablished, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a measure so 
 contrary to our practices both in church and state. 
 
 If you think the property of the church divine, and that when you 
 affect it at all, you touch on holy things, then call the proposal pro- 
 fane, sacrilegious, blasphemous ; but never call the proposal imprac- 
 ticable. How are the clergy paid in Holland ? by fixed salary ; how 
 in Scotland? by fixed salary ; never less than 1000 marks, nor more 
 than 3000. Are the clergy in Scotland deficient? Has history no 
 obligation to the clergy of that sagacious people ? How are the civil, 
 military, and revenue establishments paid in Ireland? by fixed salary. 
 You have not found it difficult, but fatally facile to create such sala- 
 ries. In these last twenty years, you have created not a few, and 
 you have done this for laymen, to whom salary was the principal ob- 
 ject ;«but for the church, where the provision, the temporal consi- 
 deration, is but secondary — a moderate means for the support of the 
 great duty of prayer; to suppose the regulation of that provision im- 
 practicable, annexes a most transcendent importance to what is gross 
 and temporal, and a comparative insignificance to what is pure and 
 spiritual, and throws a certain complexion of grossness, and inabsti- 
 nence, on certain devout and most learned controversionalists. If, in- 
 deed, you conceive what is given in commutation should be equal to 
 the tenth of your produce, the impracticability is admitted. While I 
 admire the enormity of the suggestion, I acknowledge the impracti- 
 cability of the execution of it. I believe the legislature will never 
 agree to give them the tenth either in commutation or tithe ; both are 
 impracticable; such a claim, and such a commutation! that 900 men 
 should have the tenth of the property of 4,000,000, and you will find 
 
TITHES. 
 
 121 
 
 we avc much more. The custom of the country, the modus of several 
 places, your own vote of agistment, and above all, the interest of reli- 
 gion and of frugal piety, forbid it; give them the tenth, and you give 
 away your religion. But if you mean a commutation for customary 
 profits, not extravagant claims, I think I have shown you that commu- 
 tation is not impracticable ; I have shown you how their present liv- 
 ings can be discovered, and can be commuted. The value is not an 
 impenetrable mystery ; there is hardly a parish in which you could 
 avoid to find twelve respectable parishoners who would ascertain their 
 ratages and their income ; nor is there a clergyman who could not tell 
 you, nor a tithe-farmer, nor a tithe-proctor, nor a bishop, for he, in 
 his traffic with the minister about translation, generally gives in a 
 schedule of the value of the livings in his diocess. I think it un- 
 necessary to add, that there are several acts, and one of the last 
 session, requiring such a discovery, and the ratages in certain cases 
 to be made on oath. 
 
 Men are apt to argue as if an error in that discovery might be fatal, 
 as if the essence of religion was in the quantum of solid food, and 
 as if £30 a year more, or £30 less, would be a difference decisive 
 as to the propagation of the Gospel. The inaccuracy that may 
 attend the various ways of information on this subject cannot be 
 much, and if it shall, in a small degree, lower the great livings, and 
 raise the small, cannot be fatal. 
 
 I should not wish to give the ministers of the Gospel less than they 
 have at present, except in some cases of hardship and extortion; but 
 suppose some of them did receive less, would the church fall? The 
 importance and the difficulty of accuracy on this question are both 
 overrated. 
 
 This objection of impracticability, therefore, against the commuta- 
 tion is but a pretence, and against a modus is not even a pretence ; 
 or is it impracticable to inquire into the present ratages, and on that 
 information to proceed ? If so, if this step is impracticable, the 
 abuses that grow out of tithes are incurable ; and then you ought to 
 reject the system of tithe as an incorrigible evil, and recur to another 
 mode of paying your clergy. If a modus ii impossible, a commu- 
 tation is necessary. 
 
 We are apt to conceive public cares impracticable ; everything 
 bold and radical in the shape of public redress, is termed imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 I remember when a declaration of right was thought impractica- 
 ble ; when the independency of the Irish Parliament was thought 
 impracticable ; when the establishment of a free trade was thought 
 
222 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 impracticable; when the restoration of the judicature of our peers 
 was thought impracticable; when an exclusion of the legislative power 
 of the council was thought impracticable ; when a limited mutiny-bill, 
 with Irish articles of war in the body of it, and the declaration of 
 right in its front, was thought impracticable ; when the formation of 
 a tenantry bill, for securing to the tenantry of Ireland their leasehold 
 interest, was thought impracticable ; and yet those things have not 
 only come pass, but form the base on which we stand. Never was 
 there a country to which the argument of impracticability was less 
 applicable than Ireland. 
 
 Ireland is a great capacity not yet brought into action ; much has 
 been civilized, much has been reclaimed, but something is to be re- 
 dressed ; the lower orders of the people claim your attention ; the best 
 husbandry is the husbandry of the human creature. What ! can 
 you reclaim the tops of your mountains, and cannot you improve 
 your people ? Every animal except the tiger, as I have heard, may 
 be tamed ; the method is to feed, to feed after a long hunger ; you 
 have with your own peasantry began the process, and you had better 
 complete the experiment. 
 
 Inadequate ! inadequate ! interposes the advocate for exaction, the 
 rich will intercept the relief intended by Parliament. 
 
 This objection supposes the condition of the peasantry to be poor 
 in the last degree ; it supposes that condition to arise from various 
 complicated causes — low price of labour, high price of land, number 
 of absentees, and other causes ; and it refers the poor to the hangman 
 for regulation, and to Providence for relief ; and it justifies this 
 abandonment of one part of the community by a crimination of the 
 other, on a surmise that the upper orders of men in this country are 
 complete extortioners, and would convert abatement of tithe into in- 
 crease of rent, and thus intercept the justice of Parliament. Here I 
 must absolutely and instantly deny the fact ; the landlords are not 
 as described ; expensive frequently, I allow, but an hospitable, a 
 humane, and affectionate people ; the genius of the Irish nation is 
 affection ; the gentlemen are not extortioners by nature, nor (as the 
 tithe-farmer is) by profession. In some cases they do set their land 
 too high, in many not ; and on that head they are daily becoming 
 more reasonable. 
 
 Your magistracy bill, your riot act, your compensation bill, what 
 becomes of the authority of these laws with the lower orders, if you 
 argue them into a conviction that the landlords of Ireland, that is, 
 th c landed interest, who passed these acts in their collective capacity, 
 are, in their individual capacity, but so many extortioners ? Look to 
 
TITHES. 
 
 123 
 
 the fact, to their leases for thirty-one years, or three lives ; look to 
 their lands. See the difference between the lands of laymen who 
 have an interest in the inheritance, and of churchmen, who have only 
 the esprit de corps, that is a false and barren pride, in the succes- 
 sion ! Look to the landlords' conduct — they pass a tenantry bill ; 
 the bishops rejected a lease bill, and have almost uniformly resisted 
 every bill that tended to the improvement of the country, if, by the 
 remotest possibility, their body could be in the smallest degree pre- 
 judiced in the most insignificant of its least warrantable pretensions. 
 But if still you doubt, call forth the tenantry, and put the question to 
 them ; do not take your opinion from the oppressor; ask the oppressed, 
 and they will tell you what we know already — that the great op- 
 pression is tithe ; the middleman's overreaching, as in many instances 
 I acknowledge he is, compared to the tithe-farmer's, is mercy. 
 Suppose him as destitute of compunction, he is not armed with the 
 same powers of torture ; though he had the same genius for oppression, 
 he has not his own tribunals, nor can he put the countryman to ex- 
 pense of attending on vicars' courts, nor of watching his crop, nor of 
 delaying his harvest-home, nor of notices, nor summonses, nor of 
 drinking at his alehouse while the value of the tithe is computed, 
 nor of all that train of circumstances and charge with which the un- 
 certain dues of the church are now collected, at the expense of the 
 I morals of the people. 
 
 But if the charge was founded in fact, it is not an argument, and 
 has nothing to say to the question, where similar exertions of oppres- 
 sion, if morally probable, are rendered legally impossible. The land- 
 lord cannot, in consequence of exemption from tithe, raise his rent on 
 his lessees during the continuance of the term. Now, do you imagine 
 that it is the cottager only, and not the lessee also, that complain of 
 tithe? they are both aggrieved ; the tenantry of Ireland are aggrieved ; 
 the lessee, therefore, must be relieved by the plan, and the cottager 
 cannot be equally oppressed, because he agrees for his rent before he 
 sows his crop, but pays his tithe afterwards ; the latter of course 
 must be, and the former cannot be, a charge for his extraordinary 
 labour. Rent is a charge on land, tithe on labour; the one definite, 
 the other indefinite ; they are not convertible. Increase your rent 
 under any pretence, still it must avoid the essential evil of tithe ; the 
 evil of being arbitrary ; a tax rising with industry. Suppose the 
 severest case — one pound an acre advanced rent for potato ground — 
 the cottager, by extraordinary labour works himself comparatively 
 out of his rent, and into a greater tithe ; thus extortion by rent is 
 but a cruel compulsion on extraordinary labour, but tithe a penalty. 
 
124 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 There are certain arguments, which, leading to something absurd 
 and nonsensical, are stricken out of the tribe of logic ; those argu- 
 ments should meet the same fate which lead to something that is worse 
 than either nonsense or absurdity, to cruelty and to oppression. Of 
 this tribe is the reasoning I now combat, an argument which would 
 leave the landlords without character, to leave the common people 
 without redress. I condemn the premisses, but I abhor the conclusion. 
 What ! should the clergy oppress the poor because the landlords, as is 
 alleged, do so already ? Because the latter, as is alleged, overvalue 
 land, shall the church overcharge labour ? Because the peasant pays, 
 as is alleged, sometimes five or six pounds per acre for his land, shall 
 he pay twelve or twenty shillings to the parson for his potatoes? The 
 premisses of this argument impeach the character of the higher order v 
 and the conclusion would steel one order against the other, and the 
 result of such reasoning would leave you, what it affects to find you, 
 wicked and miserable; and common sense and Christian charity lift 
 up their hands against such an opprobrious premiss, and such a per- 
 nicious conclusion. 
 
 If such were the state of our country, the church should interpose 
 and give a good example, and not follow a bad one ; they should 
 say : We will take the lead ; we will ourselves moderate the exac- 
 tions which oppress the poor ; if the rich take advantage, and frus- 
 trate our pious intention, we are not in fault ; the character of reli- * 
 gion is free ; her ministers do not participate in the plunder of the 
 people. The vote of agistment left the measure I propose practi- 
 cable, and made it necessary. By that vote you sent the parson 
 from the demesne of the gentleman into the garden of the cottager ; 
 by that vote you said : You shall not tax us : it remains for you to 
 say : You shall not tithe ^the poor unconscionably. But going as 
 far as that vote and no farther, you declare to the proprietors of 
 tithe : Tithe the poor as you please, provided we do not pay you : 
 and this is what some mean by their zeal in support of the church. 
 This is the more exceptionable, when you recollect that, of the poor 
 who pay your clergy, there are numbers of a different religion, who 
 of course receive no consideration from your clergy, and must pay 
 another clergy. The Protestant interest may require that these 
 should contribute to the Protestant establishment ; but the propor- 
 tion and the manner in which you now make them contribute, re- 
 dound but little to Protestant honour, either in church or state. 
 
 Ay; but will you encourage tumult? Will you reward the 
 Whiteboy? Will you give a premium to disturbance? Sir, do not 
 advert so lightly to the state of this country, nor pass so superciliously 
 
TITHES. 
 
 125 
 
 over general distress, as to think that the Rightboy or "Whiteboy, or by 
 whatever other vagrant denomination tumult delights to describe 
 itself, are the only persons who sutler by the present state of tithes; 
 there are two other descriptions who are oppressed by them ; those 
 who did nothing in the late disturbances, and those who took part to 
 quell them. Can you suppose so many would be neutral in the sup- 
 pression, if they had not been a party to the oppression ? And have 
 you complained of the languor of your magistracy, and the supineness 
 of the Protestant country gentleman, without adverting to the reason? 
 The tumult was confined, but the suffering was extensive. But there 
 is another body of men who suffer ; they who took part to suppress. 
 Have they any pretensions ? Do you deny that they are sufferers ? 
 They will come to the bar and prove it : they will prove two things 
 very material, very worthy your attention — their merit and their 
 suffering. 
 
 Yes ; but will you innovate ? Admit this argument, and we sit 
 here to consecrate abuses. The statutes of mortmain were innova- 
 tions ; the suppression of monasteries innovation ; the Reformation 
 innovation ; for what is the Protestant religion but the interposition 
 of Parliament, rescuing Christianity from abuses introduced by its 
 own priesthood ? 
 
 Institutions, divine and human, corrupt by their nature or by ours; 
 the best human institution — the British constitution — did so corrupt, 
 that at different periods it was anarchy, oligarchy, despotism, and 
 was restored by Parliament. 
 
 The only divine institution we know of — the Christian religion — 
 did so corrupt as to have become an abomination, and was rescued 
 by act of Parliament. 
 
 Life, like establishments, declines ; disease is the lot of nature ; we 
 oppose its progress by strong remedies ; we drink a fresh life at some 
 medicinal fountain, or we find a specific in some salubrious herb ; 
 will you call these restoratives innovation on the physical economy ? 
 Why then, in the political economy, those statutes which purge the 
 public weal, and from time to time guard the infirm animal, man, 
 against the evils to which civil society is exposed — the encroach- 
 ments of the priest and the politician ? 
 
 It is then on a false surmise of our nature, this objection ; we five 
 by a succession of amendments ; such is the history of man ; such, 
 above all, is the history of religion, where amendment was even op- 
 posed ; and those cant expressions, the supporting church and state, 
 were ever advanced to continue the abuse of both. On those oc- 
 casions, prejudices, from the ragged battlement of superstition, ever 
 
126 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 screened innovation. When our Elizabeth established the Protestant 
 religion, she was called an innovatress ; when Luther began the Re- 
 formation, he was called an innovator ; nay, when Herod and the 
 high priest Caiphas (and high priests of all religions are the same) 
 heard that one had gone forth into the multitude preaching, gather- 
 ing the poor like the hen under her wing; saying to the rich: Give 
 unto the poor, and look for treasures in Heaven, and take heed that 
 your hearts be not overcharged with luxury, surfeit, and the eases 
 of this life: I say, when Herod and the high priest saw the Author 
 of the Christian religion thus giving countenance and comfort and 
 hope to the poor, they were astonished; they felt in His rebuke of 
 their own pomp and pride and gluttony and beastliness, great inno- 
 vation : they felt in the sublimity of His morals, great innovation ; 
 they saw in the extent of His public care, great innovation ; and, 
 accordingly, they conspired against their Saviour as an innovator, 
 and under the pretence of supporting what they called the church 
 and state, they stigmatized the redemption of man, and crucified 
 the Son of God! 
 
 If we were desirous to retort on the church the argument of inno- 
 vation, its own histoiy is fertile. What is the idea of property in 
 the church but an innovation ? their conversion of property from the 
 great body of Christians to their own use? — innovation: their tem- 
 poral power? — innovation : their application for donations equal to 
 a tenth? — innovation : their conversion of those donations to their 
 own use ? — innovation : their excluding the fabric of the church, as 
 well as the poor, from the benefit of those donations ? — innovation : 
 their various tithe bills ?— innovation : their riot act ?— innovation : 
 their compensation act? — innovation. 
 
 To judge of the objection of innovation against my plan, see 
 what that plan does not do. 
 
 It does not affect the doctrine of our religion ; it does not alter the 
 church establishment; it does not affect the constitution of episco- 
 pacy. The modus does not even alter the mode of their provision ; 
 it only limits the quantum, and limits it on principles much less 
 severe than that charity which they preach, or that abstinence 
 which they inculcate. Is this innovation ? As if the Protestant 
 religion was to be propagated in Ireland, like the influence of a mi- 
 nister, by bribery ; or, like the influence of a county candidate, by 
 money ; or, like the cause of a potwalloping canvasser, by the 
 weight of the purse. As if Christ could not prevail over the Earth 
 unless mammon took Him by the hand. Am I to understand that 
 if you give the parson twelve shillings in the acre for potatoes, and 
 
TITHES. 
 
 127 
 
 ten shillings for wheat, the Protestant religion is safe on its rock; 
 but if you reduce him to six shillings the acre for potatoes and 
 wheat, then Jupiter shakes the Heavens with his thunder, Neptune 
 rakes the deep with his trident, and Pluto leaps from his throne ! 
 
 See the curate. He rises at six to morning prayers ; he leaves 
 company at six for evening prayers ; he baptizes, he marries, he 
 churches, he buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow-creature 
 from the cradle to the grave, for what immense income — what riches 
 to reward these inestimable services ? Do not depend on the penury 
 of the laity, let his own order value his deserts ; £50 a year! £50 
 for praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying, 
 for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from cradle to 
 grave — so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion, so easy the 
 terms on which man may worship his Maker, and so small the income, 
 in the opinion of ecclesiastics, sufficient for the duties of a clergy- 
 man, as far as he is connected at all with the Christian religion. 
 
 I think the curate has by far too little ; bloated with the full tenth, 
 I think the church would have abundantly too much. 
 
 The provision of the church is not absolute property, like an estate, 
 but payment for a doty — it is a salary for prayer, not the gift of 
 God independent of the duty. He did not send His Son to suffer on 
 Earth to establish a rich priesthood, but to save mankind ; it is the 
 donation of the laity for the duty of prayer. The labourer deserves 
 hire for doing his duty ; he is paid not as a high priest, but a pastor, 
 in his evangelic, not his corporate capacity. When 'he desires to 
 live by his ministry he demands his right ; when he demands the 
 tenth of your wealth he demands your right, and he presumes riches 
 to be the right of the church, instead of supposing what he ought — 
 the Gospel to be the right of the people, and competency for preach- 
 ing the Gospel, not luxury, to be the right, as it is the profession 
 of the church. A provision for the ministers of the Gospel on its 
 own principles, keeping clear of the two extremes — poverty on the 
 one side, and riches on the other ; both are avocations from prayer — 
 poverty, which is a struggle how to live, and riches, which are an 
 occupation how to spend. But of the two extremes I should dread 
 riches, and above all, such indefinite riches as the tenth of the in- 
 dustry, capital, and land of 3,000,000 would heap in the kitchens of 
 900 clergymen — an impossible proportion, but if possible, an avoca- 
 tion of a very worldly kind, introducing gratifications of a very 
 temporal nature — passions different from the precepts of the Gospel — 
 ambition, pride, and vain-glory. Add to this acquisition of the tenth ; 
 the litigation which must attend it, and the double avocation of 
 
128 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 luxury and law ; conceive a war of citations, contempts, summonses, 
 civil bills, proctors, attorneys, and all the voluminous train of dis- 
 cord carried on at the suit of the man of peace, by the plaintiff in 
 the pulpit, against the defendants, his congregation. It is a strong 
 argument against the tenth, that such claim is not only inconsistent 
 with the nature of things, but absolutely incompatible with the ex- 
 ercise of the Christian religion. Had the apostles advanced among 
 the Jews pretensions to the tenth of the produce of Judea, they 
 would not have converted a less perverse generation ; but they were 
 humble and inspired men ; they went forth in humble guise, with 
 naked foot, and brought to every man's door in his own tongue the 
 true belief. Their word prevailed against the potentates of the 
 Earth ; and on the ruin of barbaric pride and pontific luxury, they 
 placed the naked majesty of the Christian religion. 
 
 This light was soon put down by its own ministers, and on its 
 extinction a beastly and pompous priesthood ascended — political 
 potentates, not Christian pastors, full of false zeal, full of worldly 
 pride, and full of gluttony, empty of the true religion ; to their 
 flock oppressive, to their inferior clergy brutal, to their king abject, 
 and to their God impudent and familiar; they stood on the altar as 
 a stepping-stool to the throne, glozing in the ear of princes, whom 
 they poisoned with crooked principles and heated advice, and were a 
 faction against their king when they were not his slaves, the dirt 
 under his feet, or the poinard in his heart. 
 
 Their power went down — it burst of its own plethory — when a 
 poor reformer with the Gospel in his hand, and with the inspired 
 spirit of poverty, restored the Christian religion. The same princi- 
 ple which introduced Christianity guided reformation. What Luther 
 did for us, philosophy has done in some degree for the Roman Ca- 
 tholics, and that religion has undergone a silent reformation ; and 
 both divisions of Christianity, unless they have lost their under- 
 standing, must have lost their animosity, though they have retained 
 their distinctions. The priesthood of Europe is not now what it was 
 once ; their religion has increased as their power has diminished. In 
 these countries particularly, for the most part they are a mild order of 
 men, with less dominion and more piety, therefore their character 
 may be, for the most part, described in a few words — morality, en- 
 lightened by letters and exalted by religion. Such, many of our 
 parochial clergy, with some exceptions however, particularly in some 
 of the disturbed parts of the kingdom — such, some of the heads of 
 the church — such, the very head of the church in Ireland. That 
 comely personage who presides over a vast income, and thinks he has 
 
TITTIES. 
 
 129 
 
 great revenues, but is mistaken, being in fact nothing more than the 
 steward of the poor, and a mere instrument in the hand of Providence, 
 making the best possible distribution of the fruits of the Earth. 
 
 "Of all institutions", says Paley, " adverse to cultivation, none 
 so noxious as tithe, not only a tax on industry, but the industry 
 that feeds mankind". 
 
 It is true, the mode of providing for the church is exceptionable, 
 and in some parts of Ireland has been, I apprehend, attended with 
 very considerable abuses : these are what I wish to submit to you. 
 You will inquire whether, in some cases, the demands for tithes have 
 not been illegal, the collection of them oppressive, the excess of de- 
 mand uncharitable, and the growth of it considerable and oppressive. 
 Whether, in all cases, the tithe-farmer has been a merciful pastor, 
 the tithe-proctor an upright agent, and even the vicar himself an 
 unbiassed judge. 
 
 In this inquiry, or in forming some regulations for this inquiry, 
 you will not be withheld by the arguments of pride, bigotry, and 
 prejudice. That argument which, reflecting on God, maintains the 
 sacred rights of exaction ; that other argument which, reflecting on 
 Parliament, denies your capacity to give redress ; that other argument 
 which, reflecting on human nature, supposes that you inflame man- 
 kind by redressing their grievances ; that other argument which 
 traduces the landed interest of Ireland as an extortioner, and belies 
 one part of the community to continue the miseries of the other — an 
 argument of calumny, an argument of cruelty. Least of all should 
 you be withheld by that idle intimation stuffed into the speech from 
 the throne, suggesting that the church is in danger, and holding out 
 from that awful seat of authority, false lights to the nation, as if we 
 had doted back to the nonsense of SacheveraFs days, and were to 
 be ridden once more by the fools and bigots. Parliament is not a 
 bigot ; you are no sectary, no polemic ; it is your duty to unite all 
 men, to manifest brotherly love and confidence to all men. The pa- 
 rental sentiment is the true principle of government. Men are ever 
 finally disposed to be governed by the instrument of their happiness 
 - — the mystery of government, would you learn it ? Look on the 
 Gospel, and make the source of your redemption the rule of authority; 
 and, like the hen in the Scriptures, expand your wings and cover all 
 your people. 
 
 Let bigotry and schism, the zealot's fire, the high priest's intole- 
 rance, through all their discordancy tremble, while an enlightened 
 Parliament, with arms of general protection, overarches the whole 
 community, and roots the Protestant ascendency in the soverei<r: 
 
ISO 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 mercy of its nature. Laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly 
 severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine of power 
 you have hitherto kept back ; that engine, which the pride of the 
 bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the ambition of the high priest, 
 nor the arsenal of the conqueror, nor the inquisition, with its jaded 
 rack and pale criminal, never thought of; the engine which, armed 
 with physical and moral blessing, comes forth and overlays mankind 
 by services — the engine of redress ; this is government, and this the 
 only description of government worth your ambition. Were I to 
 raise you to a great act, I should not recur to the history of other 
 nations ; I would recite your own acts, and set you in emulation 
 with yourselves. Do you remember that night when you gave your 
 country a free trade, and with your own hands opened all her 
 harbours ? — that night when you gave her a free constitution, and 
 broke the chains of a century, while England, eclipsed at your glory 
 and your island, rose as it were from its bed, and got nearer the 
 sun ? In the arts that polish life, the inventions that accommodate, 
 the manufactures that adorn it, you will be for many years inferior 
 to some other parts of Europe ; but to nurse a growing people, to 
 mature a struggling though hardy community, to mould, to multiply, 
 to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt a young nation, be these your 
 barbarous accomplishments ! 
 
 I speak this to you, from a long knowledge of your character, and 
 the various resources of your soil, and I confide my motion to those 
 principles not only of justice, but of fire, which I have observed to 
 exist in your composition, and occasionally to break out in flame of 
 public zeal, leaving the ministers of the crown in eclipsed degrada- 
 tion. Therefore I have not come to you furnished merely with a 
 cold mechanical plan, but have submitted to your consideration the 
 living grievances, conceiving that anything in the shape of oppression 
 made once apparent — oppression too, of a people you have set free — 
 the evil will catch those warm, susceptible properties which abound 
 in your mind, and qualify you for legislation. 
 
 April 14, 1788. 
 
 The next resolution relates to the sustenance of the poor, as the 
 two others relate immediately to their industry. It is proposed to 
 put the poor of the south on the same footing with the poor of the 
 north, east, and west, by exempting his potato-garden from tithe. 
 
TITHES. 
 
 131 
 
 When we state that potatoes are the food of the poor, we understate 
 their importance ; they are more, they are the protection of the rich 
 against a poor-rate, and therefore invaluable to you as well as to 
 the peasant. 
 
 " Resolved — That potatoes are the principal subsistence of the 
 poor in Ireland, and are, in a great part of the kingdom, most fortu- 
 nately exempt from tithe". 
 
 " Resolved — That it would much contribute to relieve the poor of 
 the south of this kingdom, if the benefit of said exemption was ex- 
 tended to them ; and if it shall be made to appear that the owners 
 of tithe shall suffer thereby, this House will make them just com- 
 pensation". 
 
 In three-fourths of this kingdom potatoes pay no tithe — in the 
 south they not only pay, but pay most heavily. They pay frequently 
 in proportion to the poverty and helplessness of the countryman ; for 
 in the south it is the practice to crouch to the rich, and to encroach 
 upon the poor; hence, perhaps, in the south, the mutability of the 
 common people, What so galling, what so inflammatory, as the com- 
 parative view of the condition of His Majesty's subjects in one part of 
 the kingdom and the other. In one part their sustenance is free, 
 and in the other tithed in the greatest degree ; so that a grazier 
 coming from the west to the south shall inform the latter, that with 
 him neither potatoes nor hay are tithed ; and a weaver coming from 
 the north shall inform the south, that in his country neither potatoes 
 nor flax are tithed ; and thus are men in the present unequal and 
 unjust state of things, taught to repine, not only by their intercourse 
 with the pastor, but with one another. 
 
 To redress this requires no speculation, no extraordinary exercise 
 of the human faculties, no long fatiguing process of reason and cal- 
 culation, but merely to extend to the poor of the south the benefits 
 which are enjoyed by His Majesty's subjects in the other parts of 
 Ireland — it is to put the people of the south on a level with their 
 fellow-creatures. If it shall be said that such an exemption would 
 cause a great loss to the parson, what a terrible discovery does that 
 objection disclose ! that the clergy of the south are principally sup- 
 ported by the poor — by those whom they ought, as moral men, to 
 relieve, and Christian men, support, according to the strictest dis- 
 cipline of the church. 
 
 To excite a certain quarter to this principle, perhap the best 
 method would be the stimulation of example. I shall accordingly pro- 
 duce two examples — one example drawn from the country supposed 
 to be the most bigoted in Europe, and the other from that man 
 
132 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 supposed to be the most prone to clerical avarice and ambition. 
 The first, the kingdom of Spain, the latter is the Pope. In 1780, 
 Pope Pius VI. sends a brief to the King of Spain, enabling him to 
 dispose of one-third of ecclesiastical estates and benefices in his pre- 
 sentation, to which no cure of souls was annexed, in charity ; and 
 further sets forth in his brief this reason, that the relief and succour 
 of the poor was particularly incumbent on him. The King of Spain, 
 in 1783, pursuant to this brief, published his edict, reciting the 
 brief, and appointing a commission to dispose of the third, as above 
 recited, in the support of the poor, and then he specifies the objects : 
 endowments of all kinds of retreats and receptacles for the poor, 
 such as hospitals and houses of charity, foundations for orphans and 
 foundlings. The better to enforce the execution of the first edict, 
 the King of Spain publishes another, commanding in a peremptory 
 manner the execution of the first ; and he adds — a principle insepa- 
 rable from the claims of tithes — that such charitable aids peculiarly 
 belong to ecclesiastical rents, according to the most sound and con- 
 stant discipline of the church. 
 
 Here are the Sovereign Pontiff of the Catholic faith and the 
 Catholic King of Spain distributing one-third of a part of the revenr.es 
 of their church for the poor ; and here are some of the enlightened 
 doctors of our church deprecating such a principle, and guarding 
 their riches against the encroaching of Christian charity. I hope 
 they will never again afford such an opportunity of comparing them 
 with the Pope, or contrasting them with the apostles. I do not 
 think their riches will be diminished ; but if they were to be so, is 
 not the question directly put to them, which will they prefer? their 
 flock or their riches ? for which did Christ die, or the apostles suffer 
 martyrdom, or Paul preach, or Luther protest ? Was it for the 
 tithe of flax, or the tithe of barren land, or the tithe of potatoes, or 
 the tithe-proctor, or the tithe-farmer, or the tithe-pig ? Your riches 
 are secure ; but if they were impaired by your acts of benevolence, 
 does our religion depend on your riches ? On such a principle your 
 Saviour should have accepted of the kingdoms of the Earth and 
 their glory, and have capitulated with the Devil for the propagation 
 of the faith. Never was a great principle rendered prevalent by 
 power or riches ? low and artificial means are resorted to for the 
 fulfilling the little views of men, their love of power, their avarice, 
 or ambition ; but to apply to the great design of God such wretched 
 auxiliaries, is to forget His divinity and to deny His omnipotence. 
 What ! does the word come more poAverfully from a dignitary in 
 purple and fine linen, than it came from the poor apostle with nothing 
 
TITHES. 
 
 133 
 
 but the spirit of the Lord on his lips, and the glory of God standing 
 on his right hand ? What ! my Lords, not cultivate barren land ; 
 not encourage the manufactures of your country ; not relieve the 
 poor of your flock, if the church is to be at any expense thereby ! 
 Where shall we find this principle ? not in the Bible. I have adverted 
 to the sacred writings, without criticism, I allow, but not without 
 devotion ; there is not in any part of them such a sentiment ; not in 
 the purity of Christ, nor the poverty of the apostles, nor the prophecy 
 of Isaiah, nor the patience of Job, nor the harp of David, nor the 
 wisdom of Solomon ! Xo, my Lords ; on this subject your Bible is 
 against yon; the precepts and practice of the primitive church against 
 yon; the great words increase and multiply, the axiom of philosophy, 
 that nature does nothing in vain ; the productive principle that 
 formed the system, and defends it against the ambition and encroach- 
 ments of its own elements ; the reproductive principle which continues 
 the system, and which makes vegetation support life, and life adminis- 
 ter back again to vegetation ; taking from the grave its sterile quality, 
 and making death itself propagate to life and succession ? the plenitude 
 of things, and the majesty of nature, through all her organs, manifest 
 against such a sentiment ; this blind fatality of error, which, under 
 pretence of defending the wealth of the priesthood, checks the 
 growth of mankind, arrests his industry, and makes the sterility of 
 the planet a part of its religion. 
 
 As I have proposed three measures for the benefit of the people, 
 I shall now submit a fourth for the benefit of the church. It is 
 a resolution which is as follows : 
 
 " Resolved, That this House will be ready to relieve the owners 
 of tithes from the necessity of drawing the same, and to give said 
 owners a power of recovering the value of the same, in all cases, by 
 civil bill, or otherwise, provided said owners of tithe shall conform 
 to certain ratages to be ascertained by act of Parliament". 
 
 The resolution will be best explained by a bill, which I have 
 drawn, and which I mean to propose hereafter ; the brief of which I 
 will now state to you. The bill enacts, that every owner of tithe 
 shall be relieved from the difficulty of drawing the same, by civil 
 bill, for any sum whatsoever, provided said owner of tithe shall 
 conform to certain ratages in the bill set forth ; these ratages will be 
 such as Parliament shall think proper, different, perhaps, according 
 to the different provinces, and the result of the inquiry of provincial 
 committees. 
 
 I have set forth, in the bill for Munster, such a rat age as was 
 lately stated by learned authority, as the average ratage of the 
 
 7 
 
TITHES. 
 
 richest diocess therein ; the principal articles of which are, potatoes, 
 the Irish acre, 6s., wheat, 6s., barley, 5s., meadow, 3s., oats, 3s. 
 
 The bill enacts, that, in the neighbourhood of a city, the tithe of 
 meadow shall be increased ; it further enacts, that the owner of 
 tithe shall have a power, on due notice, to enter in order to survey ; 
 it enacts that the above ratages shall be estimated as worth so many 
 stone of bread corn, which is every seven years to be valued by the 
 clerk of the market, who strikes the averages for the kingdom ; that 
 septennial valuation of the corn to be the septennial ratage for tfee 
 owner of tithe. 
 
 The bill enacts, that all small dues shall cease, and that instead 
 thereof, in parishes where small dues shall have been paid for these 
 last ten years, a valuation shall be made of such, by a person 
 appointed in vestry ; said valuation to be levied, not off the poor, 
 nor the particular individual, but generally after the manner of 
 baronial charges ; my idea and fixed intention being to relieve the 
 poor of the south from the tithe of potatoes, and the north from 
 small dues; an endeavour which, however opposed, will by perseve- 
 rance succeed ; it is rational, it is just. 
 
 The bill contains a proviso, which saves and confirms all kinds of 
 moduses or exemption ; so that what has not hitherto paid, shall 
 not pay now ; thus potatoes and other articles, where they have not 
 usually paid, shall not become titheable. 
 
 The next resolution is to compel residence. It is strange that 
 such a resolution should ever become necessary. 
 
 " Resolved, That, the better to secure the residence of the clergy, 
 a moderate tax on non-residence would be expedient". 
 
 In the long contest of the clergy on the subject of tithe, I do not 
 find that residence has been much insisted on, as useful to the 
 Protestant interest, though tithe has been thought indispensable. 
 Provided tithe shall be paid, it seems what is done for the tithe, the 
 preaching and the praying, is not material, in the opinion of the 
 grave and reverend personages.'' The army do not act by proxy ; 
 the commissioners, the judges, do not act by deputation. I have 
 never heard of virtual redemption, salvation by remote and magneti- 
 cal operation. Residence is required by canon, common, and statute 
 law ; by the canon law, a parson, who left his living without leave, 
 was deprived. By the common law it appears that residence was 
 necessary ; for when an action was brought against the rector of B., 
 he pleaded that he was commorant in D. The plea was overruled, 
 because he had not denied himself to be the rector of B., and his pa- 
 rish determined his locality necessary by several statutes. Tire act of 
 
TITHES. 
 
 135 
 
 Henry VIII. , after forty days' non-residence, imposes a fine. The 
 act of Edward VI. after eighty days' absence, disables the parson 
 from recovering on his own leases. The act of Henry VI. subjects 
 the parson who leaves the country to the forfeiture of his annual 
 income. But though the law were silent, decency on this occasion 
 is loud. 
 
 What a cast and complexion are thrown on this question, and 
 those who so strenuously insist on the law for tithes, and so com- 
 monly transgress the body of law that requires them to attend the 
 duties of religion ! In England, residence is better observed and 
 enforced. The practice of England has shown a greater regard both 
 for husbandry and prayer ; and yet in England residence is not more 
 necessary, because our lower people want more instruction, and our 
 country can less afford any addition to the absentee drain, to which 
 an absentee tithe, and absentee Gospel, are sad aggravations. Talk 
 not of a want of glebe-houses, nor even of churches. Has the pres- 
 byter a glebe-house? Has the priest a glebe-house? Does the 
 latter preach the errors of the Church of Rome from a straw-built 
 hovel? And do our clergy, to preach the truth of the Protestant 
 religion, require a mansion? Had the first-fruits been, by the 
 richer parts of their own order, and particularly the bishops, faith- 
 fully and justly valued, and applied to the building of churches aid 
 the increase of poor livings, the advocates for non-residence wMfc! 
 want their voluptuous apology. But it has happened that the first- 
 fruits, by a remote and antiquated valuation, are rendered of no 
 account ; they do not, by that valuation, which was made in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., produce more than £430 ; at this day the 
 bishoprics alone amount to near £70,000 a-year, the first-fruit of 
 which, without going farther, w r ould be a great fund for building of 
 churches and glebe-houses, and increasing poor livings. You see 
 that, in fact, first-fruits are now a most miserable modus. And it 
 is very remarkable, that the very men who object to any modus, 
 however rational, in favour of the manufacturer, have themselves 
 set up a modus against the church ; a modus, the most irrational 
 and illiberal, against the poor of their ow r n order, and the house of 
 their own God! "We cannot reside, because we have neither 
 house nor church"; that is, the richer part of your order have taken 
 to themselves the funds of the church, and now you have no place to 
 pray in ! 
 
 But though I would compel residence, I would compel it by a 
 moderate process — a moderate tax, to commence after absence for 
 a certain time. I would not leave the dispensing with residence to 
 
136 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 the bishop, because I would not put into his hands the talents and 
 suffrages of the parochial clergy. I would not enable him to say: 
 " Sir, you have written too freely on constitutional subjects, you 
 must reside": or, " Sir, you have voted for the popular candidate, 
 and must reside I would not make residence an instrument of 
 undue influence, nor would I wish to make the parochial clergy 
 mean and subservient to their bishop. I would compel residence 
 by a tax, and that should be moderate, with certain allowances ; 
 my principle, with respect to the residence of the minister being 
 this — his parish ought to be his home, but not to be his prison. 
 
 I have submitted the resolutions — I mean to put the House in 
 possession of them. All I desire is, that they may have a fair ex- 
 amination. Of government, all I ask is impartiality ; all I deprecate 
 is predetermination. I do not desire that they should assent to 
 either my facts or principles, but I desire a fair trial for both. I 
 desire, moreover, that in holding their deliberation, they may not 
 take into their cabinet the enemy. If these principles are false, 
 they will die of themselves, without the interposition of government. 
 If right, they will at last prevail, and then government would be 
 obliged to retract a resistance precipitately made. As to the south- 
 ern peasantry, all I ask on their part is peace. If the Whiteboys 
 break out again, I give up this business. I will be the first to 
 support strong measures of coercion. The gentlemen of the south 
 should inform them, that if they had originally represented the 
 oppressions they suffer under tithe, by humble petition to Parlia- 
 ment, they must have been redressed. The parson and the tithe- 
 farmer would not have chosen to have defended, or to continue, 
 demands publicly stigmatised for extortion and avarice. In a free 
 countiy, the mere promulgation of injury is the certainty of redress. 
 But those desperate wretches had not the courage to apply to the 
 legislature, and had the despair to apply to outrage ; the conse- 
 quence was, as always must be, they consigned their bodies to the 
 hangman, and left to their families a continuation of the grievances, 
 and involved in their disgrace a great part of the peasantry, who 
 were equally oppressed and entirely innocent. The truth is, the 
 tithe-farmer had no case but the Whiteboy ; they both stood on 
 the crimes of the other, and murder was a greater offence than 
 extortion. 
 
 With respect to a right reverend bench, I mean a part of that bench, 
 all I ask is temper. I stated several allegations — I am ready to 
 prove them. I stated that in some parts of the south the demands 
 of tithe had exceeded the bounds of law ; I repeat that allegation. 
 
TITHES. 
 
 137 
 
 I stated that the proctor had in many places demanded and received 
 a certain per-centage called proctorage, against law and charity ; I 
 repeat that allegation. I stated that in parts of the south, certain 
 ministers or their proctors had been guilty of exactions which were 
 unconscionable, and I stated also that they had recently and greatly 
 and unconscionably increased their ratages ; I repeat that allegation, 
 I stated that the tithe-farmers did very generally, in the parts dis- 
 turbed, oppress the common people, and had exceeded their legal 
 powers, or had most grossly abused them ; these allegations I repeat 
 now, and am ready to go into proofs whenever gentlemen choose to 
 give me such an opportunity. 
 
 I am not responsible for the precise quantity of every return stated 
 to me. Some of the statements are official, and cannot be disputed, 
 and are enormous ; others come from the oppressed, and may be 
 sanguine. I am not responsible for the precise quantities in such a 
 case ; but I am responsible for this allegation, that there exists great 
 oppression ; I repeat it again, there exists great oppression. 
 
 As to the resolutions which I now submit, and which, next ses- 
 sion, I shall move, the right reverend quarter will consider, that 
 some of those propositions are in their principles already the law of 
 England. With what justice can they attempt to deprive Ireland of 
 the right of such laws ? Ireland, a country requiring so much more 
 encouragement, and paying abundantly more to the Church. A cele- 
 brated bishop in England has calculated that the income of the church 
 in England, including all bishoprics, and even the estates of the uni- 
 versities, would, if distributed, amount to £150 for each clergyman. 
 A learned bishop in Ireland has calculated that, excluding bishoprics 
 and universities, the income of the church in Ireland would amount 
 to £148 for each clergyman. Thus, by this calculation, excluding 
 their great riches — I mean the bishoprics — the ministers of the Pro- 
 testant church of Ireland have within £2 as much as in England ; 
 and, including bishoprics, must have, beyond all comparison, more 
 than in England, where the extent of the cures is incomparably less, 
 even supposing our clergy were all to reside, and while this kingdom 
 has two other orders of priesthood to support. Such of our bishops 
 who came from another country, and have intercepted the views of 
 some of the younger branches of our best families here, will naturally 
 wish to make some compensation. The laws of the country to which 
 they owe their birth, they, I suppose, will not object to communicate 
 to this country, to which they owe their situation. 
 
 Some of the resolutions are not only founded on principles of hus- 
 bandry, but maxims of Christianity. These, I hope, will not meet 
 
138 
 
 COHRUPTTON BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 with inveterate opposition from any of the right reverend bench ; 
 those of them the most adverse and inveterate will soften, when they 
 consider the Christianity of clothing the naked and feeding the 
 hungry, or rather, indeed, of suffering the naked and the hungry to feed 
 and clothe themselves by encouraging their manufacture, giving certain 
 privileges to their infant labours, and by leaving in their principal 
 food the poor unoppressed by avarice and exaction under any pre- 
 tence whatsoever. However, if this shall not be the 4 - case — if these 
 sound doctrines and these charitable principles are received by some 
 of a certain quarter with hardness of heart, and their author with 
 clerical scurrility, I cannot help it. I shall persist, notwithstanding, 
 in making my solemn appeal against such men to their own Gospel ; 
 which, as it is the foundation of their power, so must it be the limits 
 of our veneration. 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 February 1, 1790. 
 
 Mr. Gr attan said : We combat a project to govern this country 
 by corruption : it is not like the supremacy of the British Parliament 
 . — a thunderbolt ; nor like the twenty propositions — a mine of arti- 
 fice ; but, without the force of the one or the fraud of the other, will 
 answer all the purposes of both. 
 
 I have read books on the subject of government — I have read 
 books on the subject of British government ; I have heard of the 
 different principles or foundations of authority — the patriarchal right, 
 the martial right, the conventional rights of kings, the sacred rights 
 of the people. I have heard of different principles applicable to dif- 
 ferent forms of government — virtue to a republic, honour to a mo- 
 narchy ; but the principles of our ministry, or rather, indeed, their 
 policy, which is a dissolution of all principles, can only be read in 
 the ruin of the nation ! You have too lately recovered your liberties 
 not to know wherein exists their virtue : it is not merely in the 
 laws ; these the lawyers may pervert to the jargon of slavery ; these 
 the lawyers may explain away ; they did so in England ; they did 
 so in the case of arbitrary arrests of members of Parliament ; in the 
 case of ship-money ; they did so in Ireland ; they did so in the case 
 of embargoes, without authority from Parliament ; in the case of 
 
CORRUPTION BT GOVERNMENT. 
 
 139 
 
 the British supremacy, and in the case of the regency ; for great 
 lawyers, on constitutional questions, have given not legal but politi 
 cal opinions in favour of their great and mighty client, the Crown. 
 But if you attend to them, you may sit in that chair, the mace before 
 you, the clerks at your feet, the members all around, and the Serjeant 
 of arms at your back, and yet not be a parliament ; for you will 
 want the spirit and energy of a parliament. No ; it is the vital 
 spirit that inspires, the independency that actuates. This principle 
 of independency which is implied in your constitution, is re- 
 gistered in your laws passed in England in the time of William ; 
 they were conceived to guard the rights of the electors against the 
 influence of the revenue, and the purity of the elected against the 
 inundation of the treasury ; they were conceived to preserve the 
 popular balance of the constitution, and to form a sort of fence or 
 barrier against those rank majorities, which not seldom swarm 
 from the hive of the treasury, and blacken the seats of the 
 senate ; and yet these were feeble laws. Lord Bolingbroke com- 
 plains of them ; he expostulates with the framers of the revolution ; 
 they had, says he, guarded liberty against open force ; they had se- 
 cured her against the assaults of prerogative, but not against a secret 
 enemy — against clandestine influence; here she was left naked ; this 
 was her vulnerable part. Parliamentary integrity is your palladium, 
 With it " yon need not fear the force of an enemy ; no Agamemnon, 
 no Ulysses can invade you ; without it, Thersites himself will be 
 sufficient for the purpose". Had he seen our policy, what had he 
 said? a minister like the last forming his faction, and prolonging his 
 government by the mere arts of bribery and corruption, or rather, 
 indeed, by bribery and corruption, without any art whatsoever; then 
 had his lordship exclaimed : " Thersites himself is sufficient for the 
 purpose". 
 
 Mr. Locke, who established and rooted the revolution in the minds 
 of the English, maintains that an attempt on the part of the exe- 
 cutive power to corrupt the legislature, is a breach of trust, which, 
 if carried into system, is one of the causes of a dissolution of the 
 government. " The executive", says he, " acts contrary to its 
 trust, when it uses the force, the treasure, or the offices of the so- 
 ciety to corrupt the representatives and to gain them over to its 
 purpose. To prepare such an assembly, and to endeavour to set 
 them up as the real representatives of the people, and the law- 
 makers of the society, is surely as great a breach of trust, and as 
 perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government as can 
 possibly be". To which, if we add rewards and punishments visibly 
 
140 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 employed to the same end, what had Mr. Locke thought of your 
 policy ? A set of men possessing themselves of civil, military, and 
 ecclesiastical authority, and using it with a fixed and malignant in 
 tention to corrupt the morals of the people, in order to undermine 
 the freedom of the community, and to make the nation individually 
 base, in order to make her collectively contemptible. How soon must 
 such proceedings accomplish the prediction of Montesquieu, who 
 says, that when the legislative is as corrupt as the executive (as 
 corrupt, for more is scarcely possible), then there is an end of the 
 constitution. 
 
 Blackstone having summed up the array of court influence, stops 
 to tremble at it. " Surely this never could have been the design of 
 our patriot ancestors, who abolished the formidable parts of the pre- 
 rogative, and by an unaccountable want of foresight, established this 
 system in their place". He concludes with a pious wish, that this 
 influence may be diminished, and with a parental admonition to the 
 youths of England to guard their country against that monste: 
 which, in the hands of the present government, shakes this realm— 
 the servile and corrupt influence of the minister. The late Lord 
 Chatham, bending over the corrupt decline of England, confesses 
 this influence. Give her a more popular representation ; pour in a 
 new portion of health to enable her to sustain her infirmities : pour 
 in a new portion of poison, says the Irish minister, that she may 
 sink under the accumulation of her infirmities. This danger of ex- 
 travagant influence the Commons of England have confessed. Ex- 
 asperated by defeat, exhausted by war, the effect of twelve years' 
 implicit compliance under that very influence, they at last proclaim, 
 " It is true, the influence of the crown is too much ; it ought to be 
 diminished". Here I shall be stopped and told that the fact has 
 falsified the prophecy, and that the constitution of England has 
 stood ; but let us not therefore infer, that it is not much impaired, 
 nor confound the slow decline of a state with the rapid mortality of 
 a man, nor forget what moral symptoms she has given, both when 
 the people, as in 1769, appealed to the Crown against their Parlia- 
 ment, and when the Crown, as in 1783, appealed against Parlia- 
 ment to the people. Let them further recollect that the constitution 
 of Great Britain has been, from time to time, shocked back to her 
 original principle, by a number of acts, some of which I have re- 
 ferred to ; acts which disable the crown from splitting commissions 
 to multiply placemen ; acts which disqualify all persons holding 
 offices created since a certain period from sitting in Parliament; acts 
 which disable all commissioners of customs, of excise, stamps, col- 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 141 
 
 lectors — in short, the whole tribe of "the revenue, from sitting in Par- 
 liament ; acts which disqualify all pensioners during pleasure from 
 sitting in Parliament, all pensioners during years from sitting in 
 Parliament ; acts which disable the Crown from exceeding a certain 
 sum in grants of pensions ; acts which disqualify from voting at 
 elections the whole tribe of the revenue. Let them further recollect 
 that there are in England certain counteracting causes ; and first, 
 the majesty of the people, a great, authoritative, and imperious 
 public — their voice interferes, their instructions overawe, not the de- 
 liberations of the body, but frequently the deliberations of that in- 
 dividual of the body that hesitates between his vote and his venality. 
 Let them recollect that there is in England such a thing as responsi- 
 bility : the public malefactor there cannot always retire from public 
 mischief to triumphant impunity. Let them recollect further, that 
 in England there is a check in great connexions, formed on a public 
 creed ; party founded on principle, supported by ambition, cemented 
 by honour, and exalting the component parts above the dominion of 
 salary and the impulse of famine — political famine — of too many in 
 this country the epidemic disease. This has served as a secondary 
 cause of public safety, and whether you call it a higher order of in- 
 firmity, or a lower order of virtue, has helped to preserve the life or 
 prolong the euthanasia of the British constitution. How far all 
 these causes actually at this time flourish in England I shall not 
 pretend to decide, but I fear they do not exist, or are in danger of 
 being lost in Ireland. First contemplate your state, and then con- 
 sider your danger. Above two-thirds of the returns to this House 
 are private property ; of those returns, many actually this moment 
 sold to the minister ; the number of placemen and pensioners sitting 
 in this House equal near one-half of the whole efficient body ; the 
 increase of that number within the last twenty years greater than 
 all the counties in Ireland. The bills that do exist in England, and 
 should have shocked you back to your original principles, and are 
 necessary to purge the public weal, and to defend you not only 
 against the minister, but yourselves— a pension bill, a place bill, 
 and others — are systematically resisted. The corruptions these laws 
 would guard against, in a most extraordinary manner resorted to 
 by the present ministers of the Crown, and not only resorted to, but 
 made the sole instrument of their government. The laws which de- 
 part from the first principles of the constitution — excise, riot act, 
 police bill — readily adopted and obstinately maintained ; the coun- 
 teracting clauses — the responsibility of the minister — a shadow; 
 the majesty of the people, like the constitution, frittered out of your 
 
142 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 court. Some of the populace have gone too far ; the court availed 
 itself of popular excesses, to cry down constitutional principles ; they 
 began with a contempt of popularity, they proceeded to a contempt 
 of fame, and they now vibrate on the last string, a contempt of 
 virtue ; and yet these were checks not only in a constitutional pub- 
 lic, but in certain connexions ; these generally supported the minister, 
 and occasionally checked his enormities. Against this refuge, 
 against the power of the Irish community in general, and this force 
 in particular, is the present policy directed — it is a policy which 
 would govern this country by salary distinct from power, or by 
 power distinct from responsibility — no sturdy tribunes of a consti- 
 tutional public, no check in an independent nobility. 
 
 The runner, the scribe, the stipendiary, the political adventurer, 
 or where the confidential list ascends, men amiable in their manners, 
 and in their private life not only amiable, but even respectable, but 
 men who have no public mind — men somewhat too ready to support 
 any government — men whose characteristic it is to stand by any 
 government, even though that government should stand against Ire- 
 land — men who have been, not only the supporters of the minister's 
 power, but the instruments of his passion, his violence, his venality, 
 and his revenge. 
 
 The advocates for undue influence, who have appeared in Eng- 
 land, have admitted it to be a defect, but a defect that would mix 
 with the constitution. The ministers of Ireland have made that de- 
 fect the only engine of their government ; our ministers have picked 
 up from the British constitution nothing but the most corrupt part 
 of her practice, and that they have carried into the most daring 
 excesses. No constitutional bills to heal; no popular bills to pacify. 
 The currency, the pure poison unmixed, unquenched, unqualified ; 
 or if qualified, tempered only with revenge. On this principle did 
 the ministers take into their venal and vindictive hand the table of 
 proscriptions ; on this principle did they remove, not because the 
 place was unnecessary — they have made unnecessary offices; on this 
 principle did they deprive, not because the pension list was overbur- 
 dened — they have augmented that list ; but because the placemen 
 so removed, and the pensioners so deprived, had voted against the 
 will of the minister in question, wherein that minister was pro- 
 nounced to be unconstitutional, and convicted to be corrupt. On 
 the same principle did the ministry try the paltry arts of division, 
 holding out the aristocracy to the people as the old accomplices of the 
 minister, and to the country gentleman, as the monopolizers of 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 143 
 
 emolument ; as if by the spoil of the aristocracy the minister could 
 bribe away the independency of the country gentlemen, and rob the 
 people of that small, but respectable support, and sink that body into 
 the herd of the Castle. On the same principle did the minister 
 attack the dignity of the peerage, by the sale of honours, and the 
 dignity of this House by the application of the money to purchase 
 for the servants of the Castle seats in the assembly of the people. 
 On the same principle did they attack the purity of this House by 
 the multiplication of office, and division of establishment. 
 
 I will not say the ministers went into the open streets with cock- 
 ades in their hats, and drums in their hands ; but I do say, they 
 were as public, and had as openly broken terms with decorum, as if 
 they had so paraded in College Green, with their business lettered 
 on their forehead. 
 
 Such has been their practice ; and such practice has been defended. 
 Merciful Heaven ! defended ! We have been taught to believe the 
 Irish viceroy is not to be affected in his situation by the sense of the 
 people of this country. The English minister stands in a diffe- 
 rent situation with respect to his own. We have been told, that he 
 has been an excellent governor — a friend to this country ; that he 
 would defend it from a destructive cabal, who are leagued together 
 for their own selfish purposes ; and to do this, it is contended, that 
 he should resort to the treasury to buy the people with their own 
 money. We have been taught to believe, that in order to keep his 
 station, the Irish viceroy may resort to any measures, and that hav- 
 ing lost the support of Parliament by offences, he may strive to 
 regain it by corruption ; and this doctrine has been extended to the 
 case of a viceroy leaving the government, and employing those mo- 
 ments to gratify his corrupt affection, or to extend his corrupt influ- 
 ence ; and the deputy so employed, with his accomplices, have been 
 called the government ; and those who would shield the country from 
 such a dark and desperate cabal, have been called a faction ; and 
 on this principle it was, that the ministry resisted a pension bill and 
 a place bill, contending for in precept, and committing in practice, 
 all the corruption those bills would guard against. They have laid 
 on us an establishment of very extensive corruption ; they contend 
 for in argument the indefinite power of corrupting, that, if constitu- 
 tional and popular questions, such as the regency address, the pen- 
 sion and place bills, the repeal of the police bill, should occur, and 
 find support in the united strength of the nobles and people, in such 
 a case the servants of the Castle should have a power, under colour 
 
144 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of new offices, to resort to the treasury, to rob the people, in orcfar 
 to buy the gentry to sell the community, and so defeat popular and 
 constitutional bills by bribery and corruption. 
 
 Such a policy and principle I will not call criminal ; I will not 
 call it repugnant to the doctrines of all the great authors that ever 
 wrote on government ; but it is that very policy, and that very prin- 
 ciple, which all of them have pronounced to be the destruction of 
 liberty, and one in particular, such a crime as to amount to a breach 
 of trust, tending towards a dissolution of the state. Never were the 
 excesses of the mobs of 1783 and 1 784 more condemned by the Castle, 
 than this Castle principle and practice are condemned by every re- 
 spectable authority that ever wrote on government ; nor were those 
 excesses of the mob against law, in point of danger, to be compared 
 to those excesses of the court; in reference to these they were tri- 
 fling offences. You then told the populace they jostled parliament, 
 and attacked the laws. They will now reply to you in your own 
 language : you have jostled parliament, for you have questioned its 
 privileges, and defied its resolutions. You have attacked the law, 
 for you have attacked the law-maker, and therefore have attempted 
 to poison the source of the law ; and whatever advantage that as- 
 sassin who takes off by poison has over that other assassin who 
 takes off by the dagger, such, and such only, in their present 
 policy, have the ministers of the crown over the dregs of the people. 
 Thus some of the people may retaliate upon our court. 1 will only 
 say this, that if their principles had existed at a former period, the 
 great events from which these islands derive their liberty could not 
 have taken place ; and if their principles prevail and propagate, the 
 blessings which this island derives from those events must be the 
 victim. 
 
 Sir, gentlemen have called on us to specify the charges against 
 the administration. We will specify, and begin with the appointment 
 of two additional commissioners. Sir, this measure posts itself on 
 ground uncommonly hollow and defective; against it there are three 
 resolutions of this House, and those resolutions have three aspects : 
 1st, That seven commissioners were sufficient. 2dly, That the 
 House will not assent to render practicable the multiplication of the 
 number, or the division of the boards. 3rdly, That they who ad- 
 vised the increase of the number and the division, advised a measure 
 against the sense of the House. After this, it was necessary that 
 some great and solid inconvenience should be felt ; that the people 
 should generally acknowledge the insufficiency of the old number of 
 commissioners ; that the commissioners themselves should report the 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 145 
 
 difficulty to government ; and that government should lay the "whole 
 before this House, before such a measure as this should be resorted 
 to. On the contrary, no such complaint, no such report, and no 
 such reference have existed ; and this no complaint, and this no re- 
 port, and this no reference, is a proof that government knew that the 
 cause assigned was a vile pretence, too flimsy to be stated, and too 
 ludicrous to be discussed. 
 
 A further argument, that additional trouble was the pretence, not 
 the motive, will be found in the direction of the choice of the minis- 
 ter to members of parliament, so that the two tables of commis- 
 sioners, who have hardly time, it seems, to do the business of the 
 revenue, can, however, sit every day in this House to do the busi- 
 ness of the minister ; and it is a further proof of the insincerity of 
 this pretence, that, if the minister was to employ none but members 
 of parliament, there were two other persons, extinct commissioners, 
 who now receive each a pension of £600 compensation, capable 
 surely of discharging the business of the revenue, if the business of 
 the revenue, and not the influence of the minister, had been the ob- 
 ject. It is a further refutation of this pretence, that the public 
 complaint was not the delay of the commissioners, but the great 
 balances in the hands of the collectors, which this appointment does 
 not go to prevent ; and also the great expense in the collection of 
 the revenue, which this new appointment goes to increase. 
 
 Sir, the argument urged in support of this measure is decisive 
 against it. It is urged, your taxes have increased; but this argu- 
 ment would seem a sarcasm, as if the bounty of the nation was to 
 be made a means of influence and an instrument of destruction ; but 
 the case is stronger. Part of these taxes have their specific officers, 
 as post-office and stamps ; part of these taxes are additional on the 
 same old subject matter of tax, and can be collected at the same 
 time and with equal ease. The case is still stronger : a principal 
 part of these taxes were granted on an express public stipulation, 
 that the boards of customs and excise should be united, and the 
 number of commissioners reduced to seven. It was in 1773, when 
 the minister wanted new taxes and also a tontine : there were great 
 grievances on the part of the country, and great wants on the part 
 of government. The minister proposed to redress that grievance 
 which was the most prodigal and profligate — the division of the 
 boards of customs and excise : this was the public stipulation. "The 
 biennial excess is above £170,000 : give us taxes to equalize, give 
 us £265,000 tontine, including the arrear of a fifth half-year, and 
 we, on our part, entitle ourselves to such confidence by uniting the 
 
146 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 boards and reducing the number of commissioners ; and further, to 
 make the new taxes as cheap as possible in the collection, to pre- 
 vent their being the cause of new salaries, we agree that the stamp 
 tax which we propose shall be collected by the commissioners of the 
 board of accounts, without any new salary. The reduced commis- 
 sioners must get a compensation, but that will only be a temporary 
 charge". 
 
 Such was the public statement, and such the compact. The minis- 
 ter now retains the tax, and withdraws the consideration. He re- 
 vivers the obnoxious measure in part, and he lays the foundation of 
 a revival in toto. The boards will be hereafter completely divided 
 because there are so many commissioners, and then the minister will 
 order three more commissioners because the boards are divided. 
 
 There is another circumstance which has taken place since the re- 
 solutions to which I refer, which is decisive against the measure. 
 By your money bill, all customs inwards are liable to five per cent., 
 which is collected by the laws of excise ; it follows, that all the offi- 
 cers of the custom department who collect these duties must have 
 commissions empowering them to search for exciseable goods; it 
 follows, that they must have commissions both from the commis- 
 sioners of customs and excise ; it follows, that the power of the 
 commissioners of excise and customs is now rendered indivisible 
 by your own laws, otherwise there must be two distinct boards with 
 equal jurisdiction, presiding over one and the same set of officers ; 
 but when the excise laws are to be extended, then it seems the 
 business is rendered inseparable ; when undue influence is to be ex- 
 tended, then the business is made separate. 
 
 These arguments are strong against this measure, but the strongest 
 argument of all is, the Lord-lieutenant's letter recommending it. 
 In stating this letter, if I seem to depart from the gravity of the 
 subject, let it not be imputed to my levity, but to the letter's 
 absurdity. It states delay and trouble, and it offers a remedy ; it 
 states that the patent has appointed nine commissioners, four com- 
 missioners of customs only, two commissioners of excise only, and 
 three commissioners of both ; it orders that these nine commissioners 
 shall remain in one room, but divide themselves, and sit at different 
 tables, with their respective secretaries, and do the business of 
 excise and customs at one and the same moment, in one and the 
 same apartment. 
 
 The commissioners of customs only are to sit at their table for 
 the conduct of the port business ; the commissioners of excise only 
 are to sit at their table for the conduct of the inland business, pro- 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 147 
 
 ccecling at the same time and in the same room, and the commis- 
 sioners of excise and customs may apply themselves to either as 
 they shall think proper. That is, they are placed in a situation in 
 which they must interrupt one another, and are under a physical 
 impossibility of doing business. Two courts are placed in a situa- 
 tion in which it is impossible to attend to themselves, and some of 
 the judges are left free to attend to either or both. Suppose the 
 Court of Exchequer was to divide itself into two courts, sitting in 
 the same chamber, and proceeding, one on the business of equity, 
 the other of law, at one and the same moment, with a floating 
 privilege to cue or more barons to attend to either. This letter of 
 the Marquess having thus disposed of the port and inland business, 
 by putting it in a state of interruption and confusion, proceeds to 
 regulate trials, and orders that trials may go on in another chamber, 
 under the cognizance of a sufficient number of commissioners of 
 excise, while at the same moment the other commissioners shall 
 go on, at their separate tables, with the business of the port and 
 inland. So that in the words of the letter, in future, instead of only 
 one business being carried on at a time by this new arrangement, 
 the port and inland business, and trial, may go on all at once, with- 
 out interfering or interrupting one another. Can we possibly 
 imagine that the public, of whose satisfaction this letter speaks, can 
 be satisfied in a species of institution, which superintends near 
 £1,500,000, under a physical impossibility of doing public justice ? 
 Can you persuade the public, of whose satisfaction this letter speaks, 
 to be satisfied in a regulation which draws off part of the commis- 
 sioners of excise from the trial of their property, under laws that 
 require and puzzle the whole force of all the understanding of all 
 those who compose that most absolute board? Can you imagine, I 
 say, that the public v/ill receive satisfaction from a regulation, the 
 virtues of which rest on that paradoxical perfection, that superna- 
 tural domination, supposed to be possessed by the commissioners, of 
 shutting their ears to one subject which is discussed before them, 
 and confining the whole force of their understanding to another ? 
 But there is not only a physical ignorance in the letter of instructions, 
 there is also an official confusio'h. The officers of the ports, perhaps 
 not less than 1500, have commissions, both from the commissioners 
 of excise and customs, and are, it follows, controllable by both. 
 Here, then, are two tables of equal and coordinate jurisdiction pre- 
 siding over one and the same set of officers. Suppose the commis- 
 sioners of customs think proper to dismiss an officer — they no^ 
 have a right; suppose the commissioners of excise think proper to 
 
148 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 continue the same officer — they now have a right; suppose the 
 table of excise, to stop smuggling, order a cruiser to Cork; suppose 
 the table of customs order him at the same time instantly to Deny. 
 But there is another mischief in this letter of instruction. The com- 
 missioners of excise are responsible for the whole excise, and they 
 are, in cases of improper and illegal seizure, liable to damages ; all 
 import excise is collected by port officers, and all their correspon- 
 dence is in the department of the secretary of the other table—the 
 board of customs. Thus, by the new regulation, the commissioners 
 of the table of excise are responsible for a revenue collected by 
 officers whose correspondence is deposited with another board, and 
 only comes before the board of excise by accident, or good nature, 
 or personal civility. Would there not be a confusion of responsi- 
 bility, if the board of customs, to whom all such papers come, were 
 to order a vessel to be seized, when the board of excise, in that 
 case, would be responsible for perhaps £10,000, incurred by dama- 
 ges. As the regulation now stands, the commissioners of excise 
 are to collect a great revenue by officers whose conduct they have 
 little opportunity to know, and on whose conduct they cannot exclu- 
 sively decide. 
 
 I have dwelt enough on this particular measure, I have shown 
 it to be a defiance of the advice of this House, without the pretence 
 even of expediency, and that nothing since that advice was given 
 has taken place in the laws to justify the minister in disregarding 
 it ; on the contrary, that it is now necessary, in order to conform to 
 the law, to disregard the instruction of the minister. I say, I have 
 shown this measure to be a disregard to the sense of this House, 
 for the purpose of extending influence; this leads me from the par- 
 ticular subject to the general policy — the nature of this policy I 
 have described — the ultimate consequences I shall not now detail, 
 but I will mention one which seems to include all. I know you 
 say — Union; no; it is not the extinction of the Irish Parliament, 
 but its disgraceful continuation. Parliament, under the success of 
 such a project, will live, but live to no one useful purpose. The 
 minister will defeat her attempts # by corruption, and deter the 
 repetition of her attempts by threatening the repetition of the 
 expenses of corruption. Having been long the bawd, corruption 
 will become the sage and honest admonitress of the nation. She 
 will advise her no more to provoke the minister to rob the 
 subject — she will advise her to serve in order to save; to be a slave 
 on the principles of good housewifery. Then will parliament, instead 
 of controlling the court, administer to its licentiousness, provide 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 140 
 
 villas and furniture for the servants of the Castle, afford a place 
 army to obnoxious members, accommodate with cruel and contradic- 
 tory clauses the commissioners of the revenue, or feed on public 
 rapine the viceroy's clanship ! Parliament, that giant that purged 
 these islands of the race of tyrants, whose breed it was the misfor- 
 tune of England to preserve, and of Ireland to adopt — parliament, 
 whose head has for ages commerced with the wisdom of the gods, 
 and whose foot has spoken thunder and deposition to the oppressor, 
 will, like the sacred giant, stand a public spectacle shorn of h'19 
 strength, or rather, like that giant, he will retain his strength for 
 the amusement of his enemies, and do feats of ignominious power 
 to gratify an idle and hostile court. And these walls, where once 
 the public weal contended, and the patriot strove, will resemble the 
 ruin of some Italian temple, and abound, not with senators, but 
 with animals of prey in the guise of senators, chattering their pert 
 debates, and disgracing those seats which once belonged to the people. 
 
 Here you will stop to consider, and demand, why all this ? why 
 this attack on Ireland? The minister will tell you what caused, but 
 I will tell what contributed; it was impunity! impunity! You 
 have no adequate responsibility in Ireland, and politicians laugh at 
 the sword of justice which falls short of their heads, and only preci- 
 pitates on their reputation. Sir, this country has never yet exerci- 
 sed herself in the way of vindictive justice; in the case of Strafford, 
 she was but an humble assistant; and yet in this country we have 
 had victims — the aristocracy at different times has been a victim ; 
 the whole people of Ireland, for almost an entire century, were a 
 victim. But ministers, in all the criminal successions ******* here is 
 a chasm, a blank in your history. Sir, you have in Ireland no axe- 
 therefore no good minister. 
 
 Sir, it is the misfortune of this country, that the principles of her 
 constitution have not yet become entirely the maxims of all those 
 who take a lead in her government. They have no public mind — 
 their maxims are provincial: and this misconception of our situation 
 is not a little assisted by a prudent sense of their own interest. 
 They know that Ireland does not punish, and they see that the 
 British court rewards. This will explain why the Irish court prefers 
 a strong corrupt government, to a good sound constitution ; why 
 peculations of the most scandalous nature, if the English court do 
 not appear to be affected thereby, are represented as trifles; and 
 why corruptions of a most flagitious nature, if the British court can, 
 by any misinterpretation, be represented as benefited thereby, are 
 sdvauced as pretensions. This will explain why, under the same 
 
150 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 British minister, on the same subject, the powers of the two Houses 
 of the British Parliament shall be asserted, and those of the Irish 
 denied — why the extraordinary powers of the two Houses of the 
 Parliament of Britain shall be advanced, and the ordinary powers of 
 the three estates of Ireland denied. 
 
 , This will explain the phenomena of the times. A Prince of 
 Wales, laden in England with unconstitutional restrictions — a British 
 subject gratified in Ireland with unlimited corruption. This will 
 explain the meanness of our court, as well as its mysteries — when 
 your viceroys, under the present system, for the purpose of reducing 
 the expenses or redressing the evils of the state, are puppets, and 
 the men who serve under them are mere machines moved by wires, 
 held by these puppets; themselves active agents, indeed, for the 
 purpose of incumbrance, and their magic castle the reign of men 
 imp'd with inferior privileges in these descending times of meanness 
 and of mischief. 
 
 This will elucidate the present policy ; — a policy against which we 
 remonstrate. Let us suppose the various descriptions of society to 
 approach the Irish minister, and deprecate his project. And, first, 
 the moderate man. He will tell him: 
 
 " Sir, give up this system. We were quiet. Why innovate? 
 Why commence an attack? Why make us first the dupes of pro- 
 fession, and afterwards the victims of corruption? why a system in 
 which we cannot perceive or principle, or prudence, or temper?" 
 Let the financier approach him: "Sir, give up this system. You 
 have exceeded the old duties, and you have exceeded the new, and 
 you have exceeded the estimate of expense, as well as the produce 
 of the revenue, and you have been obliged to draft £70,000 from 
 the public creditor, and you have been obliged to bolster up the 
 state by lottery subscriptions ; and nothing remains but to attempt 
 new loans, or to proceed to new taxes, or to fall on the bounty". 
 Let the modest virtues of private life approach him: "Sir, give up 
 thi system; we do not enter into political discussion, but may we 
 be permitted to fear, lest the very great degree of public corruption 
 at this time, for reasons best known to yourself adopted, and the 
 ribaldry cast by your government on public virtue, may at last ex- 
 tend their poison to the purity of private life". Or let us bring 
 forth the institution of parliament itself to expostulate with the 
 Irish minister! Or, if there is yet her spirit resident in this dome, 
 let that spirit rebuke him! I cannot hear it3 voice, but I think I 
 feel its dictates. I obey, and I move you: 
 
 "That the resolutions of this House against increasing the number 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 151 
 
 of the commissioners of the revenue and dividing of the boards, be 
 laid before His Majesty, with an humble address that His Majesty 
 will be graciously pleased to order to be laid before us the particu- 
 lars of the representations, in consequence of which two new com 
 missioners of the customs have been added, notwithstanding the 
 resolutions of this House ; and also that His Majesty will be graciously 
 pleased to communicate to his faithful Commons the names of the 
 persons concerned in recommending that measure". 
 
 February 11, 1790. 
 
 I think it necessary to rise, to make some few observations on 
 what fell in this debate from some gentlemen on the other side, on 
 the subject of party. We have been called "the tail of a British 
 faction" ; by whom? By those, or the followers of those, who owe 
 their livelihood, or their first elevation, to what they call "the 
 British faction" ; by those who have received one, two, or three 
 thousand pounds a-year from that British faction ; whose numerous 
 family have been fed by that British faction ; or whose introduction 
 into political life was first due, and the consequences, therefore, in 
 some degree to be attributed to that British faction. There is not- 
 one of the gentlemen in the present Irish administration who is really 
 confidential, that is not bound either by the closest relationship or 
 the greatest political pecuniary obligations to that British faction ; 
 nor is there any one of them, or of those who act under them, that 
 would not be the humble sen-ant of that British faction, if the 
 keys of the treasury were once more in those hands; nor is there 
 any one of them who would not, and does not now, for his private 
 interest, personally and privately court that British faction. When 
 euch men revile that body, and instigate their friends and fol- 
 lowers and retainers to revile that body, such men do not acquit 
 themselves of the charge of party, but convict themselves of the 
 basest ingratitude and vilest adulation. They prove themselves 
 willing to offer their wretched incense to whomsoever shall be in 
 power ; to those from whom they now receive wages, and therefore 
 fawn on, at the expense of those from whom they did receive wages, 
 from whom they are ready to receive wages, but from whom, at this 
 particular moment, they receive wages no longer; and, therefore, 
 such men are not above parly, but so very mercenary and menial, as 
 to be below faction. Just so, the coachman who drives the minister : 
 
152 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 he serves secretary after secretary — he is handed down from master 
 to master, and he inquires not into the principles of any, but receives 
 wages from all; and his justification is, that he is a servant. But 
 should he, servant as he is, like some of you, revile those masters 
 who have paid him, then he would be a faithless hireling, and not 
 an honest servant. 
 
 Sir, I will tell gentlemen what description of party is beneficial : 
 party united on public principle bv the bond of certain specific public 
 measures, which measures cannot be carried by individuals, and can 
 only succeed by party. 
 
 I will state some of our's : a pension bill ; a place bill ; a repeal 
 of the present Dublin police bill; a responsibility bill ; that is, a bill 
 requiring the acts of the executive power to be signed by certain 
 officers resident in Ireland, who shall be, with their lives and for- 
 tunes, responsible to this kingdom in the measures and expenses of 
 government ; also a bill to preserve the freedom of election, by dis- 
 qualifying revenue officers ; and further, a total demolition of the 
 new charges created by the Marquess of Buckingham. 
 
 These are some .of the measures which we, if we should have 
 power, are pledged to the public to carry into specific execution. I 
 read them the rather, because, littera scripta manet 9 the public hears 
 and will record. 
 
 These are some of our measures. I now turn to administration, 
 and call upon them to state their measures ; what bills for the public 
 good? State them; come forth. I pause to give them time to con- 
 sider. Well, what are they? not one public, constitutional, or wise 
 regulation ; there they sit under the public eye — a blank, excavated 
 and eviscerated of any one single constitutional or economic bill, or 
 principle, or project, for the good of the community. 
 
 Sir, I will give these gentlemen of administration, on this topic of 
 party, the greatest advantage they can in their situation receive. I 
 will draw a veil over the past, and forget the specific services which 
 we have performed, and those which we are pledged to perform for 
 the good of the country. I will also forget the injuries which they 
 and their abettors have at different times inflicted, and are at this 
 hour inflicting on the community. Let us start as it were anew ; set 
 name against name, and we will beat them down by character. 
 
 I have submitted a description of party which I conceive to be a 
 public benefit. I will state to you a description of party which I 
 conceive to be a public curse ; if party it can be called which is 
 worse than a faction, and nothing more than an impudent phalanx 
 of political mercenaries, coming from their little respective offices to 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT* 
 
 153 
 
 vote for their bribe and vapour for their character, who have neither 
 the principles of patriotism, nor ambition, nor party, nor honour; 
 who are governed not by deliberation, but discipline, and lick the 
 hands that feed, and worship the patron who bribes them. De- 
 graded men, disgraceful tribe ; when they vote for measures, they 
 are venal ; when such men talk against party, they are impudent ! 
 
 As to the complaint before you, contained in the address of my 
 friend, I can only say what has already been said better by others. 
 
 This complaint is not incompatible with the bill. It states the 
 grievance of the excess of pensions, and applies for redress; the bill 
 purports to prevent the repetition of that excess by operation of law. 
 The pension list is not now less than the latitude of the bill ; they 
 have not read the bill who talk so. The establishment of the bill, 
 including royal pensions, parliament pensions, military pensions, and 
 incidents, was £80,000. The latitude of the list with these, about 
 £110,000. There was, indeed, in the bill a latitude for future 
 royal and parliament pensions, but the present were and are included 
 in the bill of £80,000 — you will be certain of this, because we will 
 try the bill again. They say we have no evidence — of what ? that 
 the Irish pension list is excessive and corrupt. What ! do they 
 want to be convicted as w r ell as confuted ? Had you the evidence 
 they demand, it would not be sufficient to proceed against the mea- 
 sure, it would be incumbent on you to proceed against the men. 
 
 What evidence had this House in 1757, which resolved a string 
 of resolutions against pensions ? W T hat evidence had this House in 
 1771 and 1773, that resolved against Mr. Dyson's pension? In 
 these cases you act as an inquest — notoriety is evidence here — no- 
 toriety of corruption in the present case is ample evidence. Do you 
 demand more evidence ? The men who have supported these mea- 
 sures are evidence ; the reason, or rather the want of reason, they 
 adduced, is evidence. They have attempted to tell you, that 
 you have no right to complain to the king on the exercise of his 
 prerogative ; and, in telling you so, they talk like school-boys, unfit 
 to be members of the legislature, and still more unfit to be ministers 
 of the crown. You are the great council of the nation, and obliged 
 to remonstrate with the king on the improper exercise of his prero- 
 gative, unless you have abdicated that situation, and, instead of be- 
 ing the great council of the nation, under the present ministers, have 
 become the pensioners of administration. 
 
 Gentlemen tell you, that your debt has decreased, and therefore 
 bey infer, you may increase corruption. Sir, the fact is not so; the 
 :uded debt, indeed, has decreased, and without any merit in govern- 
 
154 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ment ; but there is another debt, the unfunded debt, which has not 
 only increased, but which, when added to the other debt, makes in 
 the whole, on a comparative view of 1789 with 1787, an increase 
 of debt £113,000; for those reductions of fictitious charges are to 
 be taken off the debt of 1787, as well as off 1789, and there will be, 
 notwithstanding your new taxes and your unfounded argument, an 
 increase of debt from 1787 to 1789, in the sum of £11 3,000. But 
 there is another position which they cannot deny, and which is fatal 
 to that argument that supports the pension list, presuming on the 
 ability of the nation. Sir, you this moment exceed your income ; 
 you exceed it in the sum of near £100,000, notwithstanding this 
 casual payment to the minister for New Geneva. What becomes 
 of the argument of those gentlemen now ? Sir, there is another 
 position which they cannot deny, and that is, that they now want a 
 loan of near £200,000, which they wish to postpone; but ;hey ad- 
 mit the fact. Their argument, therefore, founded on the prosperity 
 of your revenue, is a false confidence founded on a fallacious state- 
 ment. Their other argument, founded on the prosperity of the 
 nation, let us examine that. 
 
 The country is rising in prosperity ! it is true. We prevailed — 
 we, on this side of the House, with the assistance of the people, got 
 for the country a free trade and a free constitution, without the 
 assistance, and in direct opposition to some of the gentlemen on that 
 side of the House now in her government — gentlemen who took no 
 part, or took a most hostile and wicked part on those great occasions. 
 Yes, Sir, we prevailed against these deserters of the pretensions of 
 their country, of her trade, and her constitution. The consequence 
 of their defeat and of our victory was, that the country, free from 
 restrictions, shot forth in prosperity and industry, not by the virtue 
 of her present ministers, but by her own native vigour, which their 
 oppression is no longer able, and which their corruptions have not 
 yet been able, to subdue. 
 
 This country is placed in a sort of interval between the cessation 
 of a system of oppression, and the formation of a system of corruption ; 
 the former affects her no longer; the latter has only began within 
 the walls of certain august bodies, and will take time to propagate 
 all its poisons into the mass of the country ; but go on for ten or » 
 twelve years as you have done in the last five ; increase in the same 
 proportion your number of parliamentary places; increase, as you have 
 done, your annual charge, every five years of peace, £183,000 ; get 
 every five years new taxes, and apply them as you have done, and 
 then the minister will find that he has impared the trade and agri- 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 155 
 
 culture, as well as destroyed the virtue and the freedom, of the 
 country. 
 
 There is no object which a course of corrupt government will not 
 finally ruin — morality, constitution, commerce, manufacture, agricul- 
 ture, industry. A corrupt minister issues forth from his cabinet like 
 sin and death, and senates first wither under his footsteps ; then he 
 consumes the treasury ; and then he corrupts the capital, and tho 
 different forms of constitutional life, and the moral system ; and at last, 
 the whole island is involved in one capacious curse from shore to shore 
 — from the nadir to the zenith. 
 
 Yes; the country is a great and growing kingdom; but were the 
 physical blessings as sparingly dealt out as those which proceed from 
 her present government — were she as much cast off by Providence 
 as by her ministers, I own I should think her a country too lost to 
 be defended. 
 
 Yes ! Ireland is a great country — 4,000,000 of men, and near 
 £5,000,000 of export. Look at yom* ministers ; there they are ; I 
 do not ask them — but I ask you, are they, are they such men — the 
 public eye beholds them — are such men fit to govern such a country ? 
 Contemplating with due reverence, as they ought, the majesty of the 
 people of Ireland, men such as they are, should feel in her growing 
 consequence a sense of their own unworthiness, and a lesson to their 
 presumption. 
 
 February 26, 1790. 
 
 Sir, those country gentlemen who have declared a general confi- 
 dence in his Majesty's ministers, should have stated some ground 
 for that confidence ; for general opinion must be founded on parti- 
 cular facts. What are the fourteen new parliamentary salaries, and 
 a new pension list of £13,000 a year, added or supplied, whereof you 
 will fiud eight or nine pensions mediately or immediately parliamen- 
 tary ? Will the frankness of country gentlemen call these fourteen 
 new parliamentary salaries, and these eight or nine parliamentary 
 pensions, anything more than measures of corruption ? What do 
 they think of these peerages, sold for money to be laid out in the 
 purchase of seats for the servants of the Castle to sit among the re- 
 presentatives of the people ? It follows, that the country gentlemen, 
 such of them as now step forward in support of the administration, 
 must cither withdraw their coufidence, or acknowledge that they 
 
156 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 give their confidence without any ground whatsoever, and notwith- 
 standing the criminal attempts made by his Majesty's ministers, at- 
 tempts which these country gentlemen cannot deny, and which they, 
 according to their own principles, must abhor. Sir, those gentle- 
 men may for a time afford their countenance to such an administra- 
 tion ; but, in order to keep their credit with their country, they 
 must soon withdraw their confidence from such a government, or 
 forfeit their reputation. 
 
 Sir, it is impossible that the gentlemen and yeomen, and the peo- 
 ple of this country, must not soon discern the wicked designs of such 
 a government, and resist them by every constitutional means. The 
 spirit of the country is too high to suffer such a set of men, upon 
 such principles, to predominate, to insult, to corrupt, and to enslave. 
 Sir, an honourable gentlemen (Mr. S. Moore) has been pleased to 
 reassert what he said on a former occasion; what he said on that 
 occasion was nothing more than a correct and faithful statement of the 
 principles of the present government — corruption ! His indiscretion 
 was great ; he has fallen a victim to that indiscretion, and to the 
 profligacy of the government to which he belongs. But he has done 
 no more than discover their corrupt principles, with the rattling 
 manners of a country gentleman, but without the principles. He has 
 advanced and asserted the most desperate tenets of a most desperate 
 courtier. He is a fatal friend, and a useful enemy. Were he on our 
 side, I should have deprecated his candour and implored his silence ; 
 being against me, I hope he will go on, and not be deterred by the 
 general and just indignation which attends the promulgation of his 
 unconstitutional and shocking opinions. Countenanced as he is by 
 government, what he delivers is what he collects; and, therefore, he 
 betrays their system of governing by corruption. After delivering 
 principles sufficient to damn the party which he supports, he pro- 
 ceeds to condemn the men and the measures of the body he opposes, 
 — that body with which I have the honour to be connected, and in 
 his condemnation he is (all he can be) a negative testimony in fa- 
 vour of our principles and proceedings; for, after making such decla- 
 rations as he has done in favour of a corrupt government, he has left 
 himself no means of serving us except by condemnation. The mea- 
 sures that meet with his disapprobation are, a place bill, a pension bill, 
 a responsibility bill, and the repeal of the police. He tells us, that 
 the people do not wish for these necessary measures, and he chal- 
 lenges the people to come forth in order to declare their sentiments 
 whether they are desirous to support such measures. He appeals to 
 the people. I have no objection to know their sentiments on these 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 157 
 
 subjects ; but I must observe, that it is he and his friends on that 
 side of the House who now appeal to the great collective body of the 
 people, and call upon them to declare their political sentiments on 
 the present emergencies. They certainly are challenged by the ad- 
 vocates of administration to come forth and declare whether they 
 are the friends to a place bill, a pension bill, a responsibility bill, 
 and a repeal of the present police. For these admonitions we are 
 indebted to the gentlemen on the side of government, and particu- 
 larly the honourable member pleading for all the corrupt practices of 
 a bad government with the thorough principles of a courtier, con- 
 veyed with the frank temerity of a country gentleman. That frank- 
 ness which only befits the cause of truth and liberty, the honourable 
 gentleman unfortunately applies to the cause of venality and corrup- 
 tion. After him another gentleman has come forth, a learned ser- 
 geant (He wit) from the ranks of the other side, with weak artillery, 
 and abundance of little zeal, and he has condemned much, and he has 
 reviled much, and this little, gentle, gentleman thinks himself severe; 
 and he has talked of my appetite for power, and my lust of dominion. 
 There is much inoffensiveness in this gentleman, accompanied with a 
 great wish to be severe. Never was a man more innocent in 
 effect. We never had the power he mentions; and when we ap- 
 peared to have that power, he passed upon us a most unnecessary 
 panegyric ; though now when he sees we have no power, he dis- 
 creetly utters his little invective, just as well received by us as his 
 little encomium. Having thus displayed himself in a most harmless 
 way, had he not better retire into the ranks to which he belongs ? 
 
 Sir, gentlemen in opposition to the bill under your consideration, 
 have told you that it was rejected before, and therefore ought to be 
 rejected now. They add, that nothing has happened to make the 
 bill more expedient now than at the time when it was rejected. Sir, 
 they forgot what has happened since the rejection of this bill — 
 the great abuses of power by his Majesty's ministers, in the creation 
 of new employments or of new salaries, for the purpose of extending 
 the influence this bill would restrain. They forgot the fourteen new 
 parliamentary salaries for members of this House, created since the 
 last rejection of this bill ; they have by then* misconduct made this 
 bill no longer a matter of speculation, but of absolute and immediate 
 necessity. They tell us that we have done veiy well without such 
 a bill, and therefore need not adopt it ; as well might they say., that 
 we have existed well under the present laws, and therefore need not 
 .make any more laws whatsoever. They forget that society exists 
 by annual provisions for its own preservation, and that no ft«e 
 
 3 
 
158 
 
 CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 people can long exist in a state of freedom, unless they shall, from time 
 to time, repair their constitution, and restore and shock back (as is 
 termed) that constitution to its primeval principles. Such has been 
 the conduct of all free nations, and such the sentiments of all learned 
 men who have written on the history of nations. But gentlemen 
 tell us, that the influence of office is nothing ; that no member of 
 parliament is influenced by his place in the vote he gives in this 
 House. That is an argument which they themselves have repeatedly 
 denied. What have they meant by saying that this country was 
 sold, at first, they told you for half a million, and afterwards 
 they increased the sum, and told you she was sold for £1,500,000, 
 and that she must be sold again, in order to combat a prevalent op- 
 position ? What, 1 say, did they themselves mean by this threat, 
 unless to confess this very influence of place and pension, which, it 
 seems, they now deny ? What did they mean when it was acknow- 
 ledged on their part that these new parliamentary salaries were, in 
 fact, political expedients ? Will the country gentlemen listen to any 
 man on the side of government, when he roundly asserts to them, 
 that no member of parliament is influenced in the vote he gives by 
 the place or pension he enjoys ? But gentlemen are aware of the 
 folly of that argument, and they say that the placemen and pension- 
 ers are influenced to support the government in general, but when a 
 great constitutional question, when the existence of the country was 
 at stake, then they would turn out and support the realm ! What 
 a fallacious security this ! All the intermediate, all the leading 
 questions, according to this, shall be determined by an undue and 
 sinister influence, but the being of the constitution shall have a chance 
 for a fair discussion. Are gentlemen aware how much the being of 
 the constitution must be affected in its strength and its health by all 
 those intermediate questions, and how unable, when the last ques- 
 tion comes, it may be to make an exertion for its preservation ? 
 Political mortality is gradual, and if you admit the access of death 
 to all its members, the heart will not revive their functions, but 
 must lose its own. 
 
 Sir, 1 am free to allow that some placemen will run great risks 
 and make great sacrifices, but, let me add, that they are never for- 
 given for so doing, and that they are discountenanced by government, 
 when they are not dismissed for so doing. Let me also add, that it 
 is the principle of the present government to destroy that spirit in 
 the servants of the Crown, and to enforce the severest discipline, and 
 to destroy those aristocratic bodies from whence such occasional re- 
 sistance may be expected, by reducing and mincing everything into 
 
CORRUPTION BY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 159 
 
 small, insulated, and abject individuals, who have no confidence in 
 one another, nor respect for themselves. 
 
 Sir, in the course of this debate we have been told, that this law, 
 however well suited to England, is inadmissible here. I have wished 
 to hear the reason ; I have heard none. We know well that the 
 gentlemen of this country are in principle not more constitutional, 
 nor in fortune so independent, as the gentlemen of England. If we 
 are to pay attention to the secretaries who have governed this coun- 
 try, we must suppose that the gentlemen of it have much less virtue 
 and much more want ; for these secretaries have not scrupled to de- 
 clare, that they have found a venality in the gentlemen of Ireland, 
 which has astonished them ; they have not only kept a shop for cor 
 ruption, but they have proclaimed the secrets of it, and, in so doing, 
 have furnished us with an additional argument in favour of this bill, 
 and to the refutation of those who tell you that it is not calculated 
 for the meridian of Ireland. Sir, I cannot avoid observing, that in 
 this day's debate, gentlemen on the other side of the House have 
 adopted a certain tone of power, I presume in consequence of a very 
 indecent and disorderly interposition on the part of one who does 
 not belong to this House, though he has lately interfered in its pro- 
 ceedings. Sir, I am not uninformed to what length that person 
 went within these walls, even during the debates of this House;* it 
 seems to me somewhat strange, that gentlemen on the other side 
 should dwell so much on the necessity of parliamentary decorum, 
 when they have been evidently spirited up by an interposition, 
 which in itself was the grossest violation of parliamentary decency. 
 Sir, I have been told it was said, that I should have been stopped, 
 should have been expelled the Commons, should have been delivered 
 up to the bar of the Lords, for the expressions delivered that day. 
 
 I will repeat what I said on that day. I said that his Majesty's 
 ministers had sold the peerages, for which offence they were im- 
 peachable. I said, they had applied the money for the purpose of 
 purchasing seats in the House jf Commons for the servants or fol- 
 lowers of the Castle, for which offence, I said, they were impeach- 
 able. I said they had done this, not in one or two, but in several 
 instances ; for which complication of offences I said his Majesty's 
 ministers were impeachable as public malefactors, who had conspired 
 against the commonweal, the independency of parliament, and the 
 fundamental laws of the land ; and I offered, and dared them to put 
 this matter in a course of inquiry. I added, that I considered them 
 
 * Mr. Fitzgibbon (Earl of Clare). 
 
160 
 
 SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 as public malefactors, whom we were ready to bring to justice. I 
 repeat these charges now; and if anything more severe was on a 
 former occasion expressed, I beg to be reminded of it, and I will 
 again repeat it. Why do not you expel me now ? Why not send 
 me to the bar of the Lords ? Where is your adviser ? Going out 
 of this House I shall repeat my sentiments, that his Majesty's minis- 
 ters are guilty of impeachable offences, and, advancing to the bar of 
 the Lords, I shall repeat those sentiments ; or, if the Tower is to 
 be my habitation, I will there meditate the impeachment of these 
 ministers, and return, not to capitulate, but to punish. 
 
 Sir, I think I know myself well enough to say, that if called forth 
 to suffer in a public cause, I will go farther than my prosecutors, 
 both in virtue and in danger. 
 
 SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 February 2, 1791. 
 
 On the 26th of January, Mr. David Latouche stated the great and alarming 
 increase in the use of spirituous liquors, so prevalent, not only in the city of 
 Dublin, but throughout the kingdom, that the industry and morals of the in- 
 habitants were severely affected by it, and parliament was called on to inter- 
 fere. He therefore moved the following resolution : " That it is the opinion of 
 this House, that the excessive use of spirituous liquors is highly injurious to 
 the health and morals of the people ; that a committee be appointed to take this 
 subject into consideration". 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose to second the motion ; but Mr. Hobart (secretary) having 
 caught the Speaker's eye first, was called on. He expressed himself sensible of 
 the great injury resulting to the country from the immoderate use of spirits, and 
 gladly seconded the motion. 
 
 Mr. Grattan : I have great pleasure in giving my approbation to 
 the motion, and did rise to second it ; but the right honourable gen- 
 tleman (Mr. Hobart) has stepped before me. I am, however, happy 
 to see the right honourable gentleman show any activity in any case, 
 where this country is to be benefited. I shall always be happy to 
 give him the way — let the country receive the benefit, and let him 
 receive the applause. 
 
 I am happy, Sir, at the mode the House has taken ; by adopting 
 the resolution, you make it indispensable on the House to proceed to 
 the destroying of this poison, which now destroys the health, the 
 
SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 1G1 
 
 morals, and the industry of the people ; and which, notwithstanding 
 the variety of interests, which seem to place insurmountable ob- 
 stacles in the way, I doubt not to see effected. It is imagined the 
 growth of corn and the revenue will be checked. I do not think 
 this can happen ; but even if it should, I would sacrifice both to the 
 human species. Cora and revenue were made for the benefit of 
 man — not man to be sacrificed to the increase of these ; but tillage 
 or revenue can lose nothing by correcting this abuse. Consider the 
 time lost in intoxication ; consider the riots, the disorders, the liti- 
 gations that arise from this plenteous source of evil ! It is absurd 
 to suppose, that healthy, laborious men will not consume more corn 
 as food, at the moment when they are by their industry contribu- 
 ting to the benefit of the state, than poor enervated wretches, 
 poisoned and debilitated by the use of spirits. 
 
 As to the revenue, the real objection against reforming the abuse 
 )f spirits (and the only objection that ever I heard which had any 
 real weight) is, that if you raise the duty beyond a certain point, 
 you hold out an encouragement to the clandestine distiller ; but even 
 this, I think, is not beyond the ability of parliament to obviate. 
 Whatever is done to promote sobriety in this country, must be done 
 by parliament. Parliament, by the gin act in England, sobered 
 England ; and why may not we do the same in Ireland? Though 
 there are local differences between the countries, yet there cannot ex- 
 ist such essential ones as would bespeak in the people of Ireland 
 an indomitable dissoluteness, or in the Parliament of Ireland total 
 incapacity. 
 
 There are four measures, by the combination whereof I think this 
 may be effected: a tax on the malt ; a further tax on the distillery, 
 and the disallowance of drawbacks ; a very heavy expense for 
 license ; and a tax upon retailers. 
 
 The first of these measures it may be feared would injure the 
 brewery; but to guard the brewery from injury, and to promote its 
 interest, is, in my opinion, a primary object of the reform. 
 
 It will be for the consideration of the committee, whether it is not 
 advisable to take away the present excise on beer and ale totally and 
 entirely, and throw the whole duty which either is to pay on the 
 malt, making that duty less than what is now paid by the brewer, 
 so as to give your brewery a decided encouragement and advantage 
 over any foreign brewery, or any home-made spirit. In so doing, 
 you free your brewery, which I think indispensably necessary, from 
 the injudicious restraints now imposed on it. You free the brewer 
 from ail restraint as to price or quantity of material, and yon 
 
162 
 
 SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 permit him to make 'the most of his materials, by selling both beer 
 and ale if he chooses ; by lowering the duty, you give a spirit to a 
 trade which now declines, and you will thereby give to the consu- 
 mer a cheaper and better beverage, and furnish nourishment in the 
 place of poison, which is one way of preventing its consumption. 
 Your committee will then consider of some further measure to check 
 the consumption of whiskey, beside the encouragement of malt 
 liquors. It may possibly appear eligible to have, without draw- 
 back, and in addition to the malt tax as above stated, a certain ex- 
 cise on the distiller, and to add further a very high tax on the 
 license, and, perhaps, another tax on the retail. 
 
 Besides the measures which I have mentioned, I would endea- 
 vour to interest the magistrates and gentlemen of the country. The 
 revenue can never be collected by any number of officers, if the gen- 
 tlemen of the country do not countenance and support them. I 
 would have in every district superintending magistrates, with power 
 to inflict immediate penalties ; to report to the quarter sessions (per- 
 il aps on oath) the number of stills and of retailers in their district ; 
 and I would give to the sessions a power of punishing with severity 
 crimes committed against the revenue. 
 
 In settling the excise on spirits, it should be raised so high, if 
 possible, as to put them out of the reach of the mechanic and the la- 
 bourer, taking care, at the same time, to provide him with a cheap 
 and wholesome beverage ; in order to which, the excise and every 
 restriction should be taken off the brewery ; no tax on brewing 
 should be suffered to remain, save only that paid on the malt. The 
 brewer, like every other manufacturer, should be left to himself to 
 prepare his goods in the best manner his skill could suggest ; neither 
 should he be tied to any price. All this ' may be done with the 
 utmost safety ; his profits may always depend on the quantity of his 
 manufacture consumed ; the consumption will depend on the quality 
 of that manufacture, and therefore it would become his interest that 
 the quality should be the best. 
 
 By adopting these measures, Sir, you would have an opportunity 
 of reducing the number of excise-officers. By the return made to 
 this House last year, it appeared that their number exceeded 800 ; 
 which, reckoning their salaries and fees (fees more oppressive to the 
 subject than salaries) cannot be estimated at less than £100 per 
 man, or £80,000 in the whole. If to these you add the incidents 
 and the expense of check officers, you cannot suppose the gross 
 amount to make less than £100,000 paid for collecting £270,000. 
 This, I think, is the strongest case that can be made out to induce the 
 
SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 163 
 
 House not only to remove the evil of poisoning the people, but the 
 evil of collecting a revenue from that poison. 
 
 If, Sir, those measures, after being well matured and digested by 
 the House, shall be adopted, and if any defalcation shall happen in 
 consequence, the House is not without a remedy — a lottery (if such 
 be in contemplation). Let the lottery which is applied to the cur- 
 rent service of the year, be applied to make good any defalcation in 
 the revenue ; but while I recommend this application of a lottery, I 
 would not be supposed to be a friend to insurance. I believe the 
 city has suffered as much by insurance as the country has by 
 whiskey. 
 
 The motion was supported by Sir Lucius O'Brien, Mr. Denis Browne, and 
 Mr. J. Beresford, and unanimously agreed to. 
 
 On this day (2nd February) the committee sat, Mr. David Latouche in the 
 chair. Mr. Grattan brought forward the plan he had in contemplation, and 
 spoke as foUows : 
 
 We are agreed that no false alarm for revenue or agriculture shall 
 stand in the way of the proceedings in this committee. We are agreed 
 to banish the present excessive use of spirituous liquors, without re- 
 gard to the pretended interests of the crown, the farmer, or the dis- 
 tiller. We must also be agreed that the principal cause is, the low 
 price, and that the only remedy Parliament can interpose is, to raise 
 that price by augmentation of duty. It was weakly suggested, that 
 the use of spirituous liquors was decreasing under the operation of 
 the present laws ; and that, in the course of time, the present laws 
 could correct the evil. 
 
 But what are the papers before you ? A consumption of 3,000,000 
 of gallons of whiskey, above 1,000,000 of gallons of rum, and near 
 300,000 of gallons of brandy, beside a great indefinite quantity of 
 the first of these liquors that is not comprehended in your papers, 
 because illicit. It appears from those papers, that the number of 
 licenses to sell spirits is about 8,000; the number of houses in Ireland, 
 by the best returns, is calculated at 640,000, and by returns of dif- 
 ferent parishes, it appears that nearly every seventh house is a 
 whiskey shop ; that is about 90,000. The license is £5 in cities, 
 and £3 in counties. Now, if every one of the houses selling spirits 
 paid for their license, the revenue would be near £300,000 for li- 
 censes only ; it is now £32,000. Hence, judge what a quantity of 
 spirit is sold against law ; and you have already seen what a quan- 
 tity is sold under law. It is, therefore, weak and fallacious to hold 
 out the present laws as likely to correct the excessive use of spiri- 
 tuous liquors. It becomes therefore necessary to interfere, and in- 
 
164 
 
 &PIIUTUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 terfere by laying high duties. The object of those duties must be 
 to prohibit the lower orders of the people from the consumption of 
 spirits, and the quantum of those duties at least, in the first instance, 
 such as may approach to, but not equal the duties on foreign spirits. 
 The excise is now fourteen pence per gallon, of which six pence is 
 drawn back on account of the malt tax. If you stop the drawback, 
 you add at once six pence per gallon to the spirit, which will, with 
 the malt tax, make the whole duty amount to about twenty pence ; 
 add to that, such further excise as the committee shall think neces- 
 sary to raise the price too high for ordinary consumption. But it 
 will be also necessary to regulate the granting of licenses, and to 
 take from the commissioners that power, and lodge it with the quarter 
 sessions, who shall have authority to withdraw those licenses ; and 
 in the interval of the quarter sessions, I would give to the justices 
 of the peace a power of suspending them. It will also be proper 
 to oblige the person taking out a license to enter into a recognizance 
 for the order and regularity of his house ; and it will be further ne- 
 cessary to confine licenses to a certain description of housekeepers, 
 that the number may not be excessive, and that the person selling 
 liquor may be a responsible publican. There is, therefore, a resolu- 
 tion to this purpose, conceived in general terms, that the bill founded 
 on these resolutions may more particularly set forth. It is also ne- 
 cessary, in order to prevent the unlicensed sale of spirits, to give the 
 magistrates new and summary powers, with regard to all persons 
 selling unlicensed liquor : but as all this is only experimental, there 
 is a final resolution, expressing the propriety of such a committee as 
 this, the opening of the next session, sitting to inquire into the effect 
 of our measures, and take such further steps as may be found re- 
 quisite. 
 
 Whatever is adopted with regard to spirituous liquors would be 
 imperfect, indeed, if nothing was done in advancement of the brew- 
 eries. The state of your brewery, on a comparison with its state thirty 
 years ago, is that of a rapid decline; the decrease is about one-third; 
 increase of importation nearly two-thirds; whereas, your increase 
 of intoxication, that is, your increase of the consumption of whiskey, 
 in the course of twenty years, appears to be as 700 to 3,000,000. 
 Judge from this growth of poison, and this decline of nutriment, how 
 necessary the interference of parliament to sustain the latter, as well 
 as to check the former. Your breweries labour under many disadvan- 
 tages. Dear and inferior barley is one; a prohibition against hops 
 from Flanders (a prohibition which you ought now to take off') 
 another; the superiority of the malt liquor of England* which daily 
 
SPIRITUOUS LIQUOHS 
 
 1C5 
 
 increases upon you, another; also duties, which are too high, and 
 extraordinary regulations, which are wrong in principle, and which 
 have proved in experiment to be mischievous. 
 
 I have, therefore, submitted with respect to brewery ; first, a rc« 
 solution declaring it requires decisive encouragement : secondly, 
 resolution declaring, that the duties should be reduced, and th& 
 restrictions taken off : and, thirdly, a resolution declaring, that these 
 ends were best answered by taking the whole excise off beer and 
 ale, and laying a moderate duty on malt. I have digested this idea 
 into three resolutions, because I do not wish to embark the fate of 
 the redress of the brewery on the event of a malt-tax ; at the same 
 time I am clear that you will at last, if you do not now, see the 
 wisdom of entirely and absolutely repealing the whole excise on beer 
 and ale. The present system cannot be justified. It is expensive 
 in collection, small in production, and in little and vexatious restric- 
 tions and penalties, abundant. 
 
 The malt-tax is now £116,000, collected at considerable expense 
 of officers; the drawback is about £100,000, so that the tax nets 
 about £16,000 a year. The excise of beer and ale, after deducting 
 the drawback on account of malt, is about £60,000. The number 
 of officers employed to collect this, with the other inland excises, is 
 about 800. See, then, what a multitudinous system of expensive 
 collection, and what a miserable production. Take off, therefore, 
 the whole excise on beer and ale, and with it banish some of those 
 idle officers, and all those idle restraints and regulations which affect 
 the brewer in every part of his process, as well as in the ingredients 
 thereof. I will suppose you to take off the excise, and lay six pence 
 a stone on the malt. I do not say, you ought, by any means, to 
 lay so much ; but if government wili not consent to less, yet see even 
 on that duty how the brewer will stand ; supposing six stone and a 
 half to a barrel of beer, he will pay three shillings and three pence 
 per barrel, whereas he now pays four shillings and one penny. 
 
 There is another advantage attending the transfer of the excise 
 to the malt — that you will then bring the home-spirit much more 
 trader the control of your regulations ; because, when such a tax is 
 laid on the malt, as will take place if the whole excise on beer is 
 taken off, whatever is kept of excise on the distiller, will have more 
 operation. He will first pay a malt tax, he will then pay an excise, 
 which, being less, will in so much diminish the temptation to smuggle, 
 while, on the whole, he pays such duties as greatly raise the price 
 of the spirit. I shall now read the resolution, observing, that, in' 
 my opinion, the revenue will be increased thereby ; but 1 am very 
 
166 
 
 SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 
 
 willing that an estimate should be made of the revenue affected by 
 this measure for the last three years, and a resolution, that if, on the 
 next year, it is diminished, parliament will make good the difference. 
 -He then read the following resolutions : 
 
 * fi That a principal cause of the excessive use of spirituous liquors, 
 is' the low price thereof. 
 
 a That to remedy said evil, it is necessary to impose such duty or 
 duties on spirituous liquors, as render the same too dear for the 
 consumption of the lower orders of the people. 
 
 " That it is necessary that all licenses whatsoever should be 
 granted by the quarter sessions only ; and that a considerable duty 
 should be imposed on licenses for the sale of spirits ; and all persons 
 taking out licenses should enter into a recognizance for the order 
 and regularity of his house. 
 
 " That it is advisable, that no license should be granted except 
 to persons of a certain description, and that the quarter sessions 
 should have the power of withdrawing all licenses; and, during the 
 interval of their sitting, the magistrates of suspending them. 
 
 " That it is necessary to give the magistrates, with respect to all 
 houses selling unlicensed spirits, summary powers to convict and 
 punish. 
 
 61 That, in order to give the lower orders of the people a whole- 
 some and nutritious liquor, it is necessary to give the brewery of 
 this kingdom decisive advantages. 
 
 " That, for this purpose, it is necessary that the duties affecting 
 the brewer should be reduced, and the restrictions and regulations 
 whereby he is now restrained taken off. 
 
 " That it is advisable to take off the whole excise from beer and 
 ale, and in the place thereof lay a moderate tax on malt. 
 
 u That it is advisable, that the justices of the peace should make 
 a report to the grand jury of all the houses selling unlicensed spirits, 
 that the grand juries may, on proper information, present the same. 
 
 "That it is necessary a committee should sit at the opening of 
 the next session, to inquire into the effect of the above regulations, 
 and take such further steps as may be found requisite to carry into 
 execution the first resolution of the House, to banish the excessive 
 use of spirituous liquors". 
 
 Mr. Grattan then moved the first resolution. 
 
 Mr. Beresford stated, that the proposed plan embraced too wide a range to be 
 decided on at present. He admitted that the breweries should be encouraged, 
 and restraints imposed on distillation of spirits. He set forth an account, from 
 which it appeared that the number of stills had greatly decreased. In the year 
 
SALE OF PEERAGES. 
 
 167 
 
 1731, they were 1212; there contents were 295.127 gallons; and they paid 
 duty for 1,787,295 gallons; the proportion of which, to their contents, was as 
 six to one. The excise paid that year was £71,612. In the year 1790, the 
 number of stills was 246 ; the excise paid that year was .£170,729. Thus the 
 number of stills was reduced from 1212 to 246, and the revenue increased from 
 £71,612 to ^170,729. 
 
 The Speaker (Foster) and Mr. Hobart agreed in principle with Mr. Grattan. 
 The former strongly recommended that the breweries should be encouraged, 
 which he contended, were every year sinking, owing to some radical error in 
 the laws. 
 
 Mr. Grattan's first resolution passed without a division ; and as it appeared 
 to be the sense of the House that further time should be given to consider the 
 rest, the motion, that the chairman should report progress, was put and carried. 
 
 SALE OF PEERAGES. 
 
 February 8, 1791. 
 
 I propose three questions for the right honourable gentleman s 
 consideration : First, is not the sale of peerages illegal ? Second, Is 
 it not a high misdemeanour and impeachable offence ? Third, AYhether 
 a contract to purchase seats for persons named by the ministers of 
 the Crown, with the money arising from the sale of the peerage, is 
 not in itself an illegal and impeachable transaction, and a great 
 aggravation of the other misdemeanours ? 
 
 I wait for an answer. Does the right honourable gentleman con 
 tinue in his seat ? Then he admits these transactions to be great 
 and flagrant breaches of the law. No lawyer I find so old and 
 hardy, so young and desperate, as to deny it. Thus it appears that the 
 administration of this country, by the acknowledgment of their own 
 lawyers, have, in a high degree, broken the laws of the land. I 
 will now discuss the nature of the transactions admitted to be illegal. 
 I know the prerogative of conferring honours has been held a frugal 
 way of rewarding merit ; but I dwell not on the loss of any collate- 
 ral advantages by the abuse of that prerogative, but on the loss of 
 the essence of the power itself, no longer a means of exalting, and 
 now become an instrument of disgrace. I will expostulate with his 
 Excellency on this subject ; I will bring him to an eminence from 
 whence he may survey the people of this island. Is there, my lord, 
 of all the men who pass under your eye, one man whom you can 
 exalt by any title you may think to confer ? You may create a con- 
 fusion in names, or you may cast a veil over families-; but honour, 
 
108 
 
 SALE OF PEERAGES* 
 
 that sacred gem, you have cast in the dirt ! I do not ask you 
 merely, whether there is any man in the island whom you can raise ? 
 but I ask you, is there any man whom you would not disgrace, by 
 attempting to give him title, except such a man as would exalt you ' 
 by the acceptance — some man whose hereditary or personal preten- 
 sions would rescue his name and dignity from the apparent blemish 
 and ridicule cast on him by a grant from those hands to whom his 
 Majesty has most unfortunately abandoned, in Ireland, the reins of 
 government ? 
 
 The mischief does not go merely to the credit, but may affect the 
 existence of the nobility. 
 
 Our ministry, no doubt, condemn the National Assembly, in ex- 
 tinguishing the nobility of France, and I dare say they will talk very 
 scrupulously and very plausibly on that subject. They certainly 
 have not extinguished the nobility of Ireland, but they have (as far 
 as they could) attempted to disgrace them, and by so doing have 
 attempted to lay the seeds of their extinction. The Irish ministry 
 have acted with more apparent moderation ; but the French demo- 
 cracy have acted with more apparent consistency. The French 
 democracy have, at one blow, struck from the nobility, power, per- 
 quisite, and rank. The Irish ministry have attempted to strike off 
 honour and authority, and propose to leave them their powers and 
 their privileges. The Irish ministry, after attempting to render 
 their honours as saleable as the seats of justice were in France at 
 the most unregenerated period of her monarchy, propose to send them 
 abroad, to exact deference from the people as hereditary legislators, 
 hereditary counsellors to the King, and hereditary judges of the 
 land; and if hereafter any attempt should be made on our order of 
 peerage, look to your ministry ; they are the cause — they — they — 
 they who have attempted, without success, but with matchless 
 perseverance, to make the peerage mischievous, and, therefore, are 
 guilty of an eventual attempt to declare it useless. 
 
 Such a minister is but a pioneer to the leveller ; he composes a 
 part of his army, and marches in the van, and demolishes all the 
 moral, constitutional, and political obstructions of principle and 
 purity, and all the moral causes that would support authority, rank, 
 and subordination. 
 
 Such a minister goes before the leveller, like sin preceding the 
 shadow of death, shedding her poisons and distilling her influence, 
 an I preparing the nectar she touches for mortality. I do not say, 
 that such a minister with his own hands strips the foilage off the 
 tree of nobility. No; he is the early blight, that conies to tho 
 
SALE OF PEERAGES. 
 
 169 
 
 island to wither your honours in the first blast of popular breath, 
 and so to scatter, that at last the whole leafage of nobility may 
 descend. 
 
 This minister does not come to the foundations of the House of 
 Lords with his pick-axe, nor does he store all their vaults with trains 
 of gunpowder. He is an enemy of a different sort. He does not 
 purpose to blow up the houses of parliament ; he only endeavours to 
 corrupt the institutions, and he only undermines the moral props of 
 opinion and authority ; he only endeavours to taint nobility ; he sells 
 your Lords and he buys your Commons. The tree of nobility! — 
 that it may flourish for ever, and stand the blight of ministers and 
 the blast of popular fury, that it may remain on its own hill rejoicing, 
 and laugh to scorn that enemy, which, in the person of the minister 
 of the crown, has gone against the nobles of the land ; this is my 
 earnest prayer. That they may survive, survive to give counsel to 
 those very ministers, and perhaps to pronounce judgment upon them. 
 Put if ever the axe should go into that forest ; if, on the track of 
 the merchantman, in the shape of the minister, the political wood- 
 man, in the shape of the leveller, should follow ; if the sale of peer- 
 age, as exercised by the present minister, becoming the ordinary 
 resource of government, should prove a kindred extreme, and give 
 birth to a race of men as unprincipled and desperate in one ex- 
 treme as they are in the other, we shall then feel it our duty to resist 
 such an effort, and as we now resist the minister's attempts to dis- 
 honour, so shall we then resist the consequence of his crimes — 
 projects to extinguish the nobility. 
 
 In the mean time, to prevent such a catastrophe, it is necessary to 
 destroy such a practice, and, therefore, necessary to punish, or re- 
 move, or intimidate, and check your ministers. 
 
 I would not be understood to speak now of a figurative sale of 
 honours; I am speaking of an actual one in the most literal sense of 
 the word. I know that grants of honours have been at certain times 
 made for influence distinct from pretensions ; but not argent comp- 
 tant the stock purse. It is not title for influence, but title for money 
 to buy influence. You have carried it to the last step, and in that 
 step have gone beyond the most unscrupulous of your predecessors ; 
 they may have abused the prerogative, but you have broken the 
 laws. Your contract has been what a court of law would condemn 
 for its illegality, and a court of equity for its turpitude. 
 
 The ministers have endeavoured to defile the source of honour; 
 they have also attempted to pollute the stream of justice. The sale of 
 a peerage is the sale of a judicial employment, which cannot be sold 
 
170 
 
 SAiE OP PEERAGES. 
 
 without breach of an express act of parliament, — the act of Richard 
 the Second and Edward the Sixth. 
 
 I know the judicial power is only incidental to peerage, but the 
 sale is not the less against the spirit of the act; indeed, it is the 
 greatest possible offence against the spirit of the act, inasmuch as 
 the judicial power in this case is final, and comprehends all the 
 judgments and decrees in all the courts of law and equity. If I am 
 injured in an inferior court, I can bear it; it is not without remedy. 
 But there, where everything is to be finally corrected; where the 
 public is to be protected and rescued from the vindictive ignorance 
 of a judge, or the little, driving, arbitrary genius of a minister ; the 
 last oracle of all the laws, and the first fountain of council, and 
 one great constituent of the legislature; to attempt to make that 
 great repository a market; to erect at the door of the House of 
 Lords the- stall of the minister, where he and his friends should ex- 
 orcise their calling, and carry on such an illicit and shocking trade ! 
 That a minister should have cast out of his heart all respect for 
 human institutions so far, as to attempt to post himself at the door 
 of that chamber, the most illustrious, select, and ancient of all insti- 
 tutions we know of; to post himself there with his open palm, and to 
 admit all who would pay for seats ; is this the man who is to teach 
 the Irish a respect for the laws, and to inculcate the blessings of 
 the British constitution ? 
 
 History is not wanting in instances of gross abuses of the prero- 
 gative in the disposal of the peerage; the worst ministers perhaps 
 have attempted it; but I will assert, that the whole history of Eng- 
 land does not furnish so gross and illegal an exercise as any one of 
 those bargains contracted for by the minister of Ireland. In the 
 reign of Queen Anne there was, by the Tories of the times, a great 
 abuse of that power — twelve peers created for an occasion. In 
 some particulars there was a similitude between that and the pre- 
 sent act; it was an attempt to model the House of Lords; but there 
 was no money given. The turpitude of our transaction was want- 
 ing in the act of the ministry of Queen Anne; it was an act of influ- 
 ence purporting to model one House of Parliament ; but it was not 
 the sale of the seats of one House to buy those of the other, and to 
 model both. 
 
 The second instance is the sale of a peerage by the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham in the reign of Charles the First. It was one of the articles 
 of his impeachment, a peerage sold to Lord Roberts for £10,000; 
 it was a high misdemeanour, a flagrant illegality, and a great public 
 
SALE OF PEERAGES. 
 
 171 
 
 scandal; so far it resembles your conduct, but it was no more. The 
 offence was confined to a single instance ; the Duke of Buckingham 
 created one peer of the realm, one hereditary legislator, one heredi- 
 tary couns llor, and one final judiciary, for a specific sum of money 
 for his ;iiv J& use; but the Irish minister has created divers heredi- 
 tary legislators, divers hereditary counsellors, and divers final judi- 
 ciaries, for many specific sums of money. The Duke of Buckingham 
 only took the money for a seat in the peers, and applied it to his 
 own use; but the Irish minister has taken money for seats in the 
 Peers, under contract that it should be applied to purchase seats in 
 the Commons ; the one is an insulated crime for private emolument, 
 the other a project against the commonweal in this act. 
 
 The ministers have sold the prerogatives of the crown to buy the 
 privileges of the people ; they have made the constituent parts of the 
 legislature pernicious to each other; they have played the two Houses 
 like forts upon one another ; they have discovered a new mode of 
 destroying that fine fabric, the British constitution, which escaped 
 the destructive penetration of the worst of their predecessors ; and 
 the fruit of their success in this most unhallowed, wicked endeavour 
 would be the scandal of legislation, which is the common right of 
 both Houses; of jurisdiction, which is the peculiar privilege of one; 
 and adding the discredit which, by such offences, they bring on the 
 third branch of the constitution (unfortunately exercised in their own 
 persons), they have attempted to reduce the whole process of govern- 
 ment in this country, from the first formation of law to the final de- 
 cision and ultimate execution ; from the cradle of the law, through 
 all its progress and formation, to its last shape of monumental 
 record ; they have attempted to reduce it, I say, to disrepute and 
 degradation. 
 
 Are these things to go unpunished? Are they to pass by with 
 the session, like the fashion of your coat, or any idle subject of taste 
 or amusement? Is any state criminal to be punished in Ireland? 
 Is there such a thing as a state offence in Ireland? If not, renounce 
 the name of inquest, if ay, punish. He concluded by moving the 
 following resolution: — "That a select committee be appointed to 
 examine, in the most solemn manner, whether the late or present 
 administration have entered into any corrupt agreement with any 
 person or persons, to recommend such person or persons to His Ma- 
 jesty, as fit and proper to be by him made peers of this realm, in 
 consideration of such person or persons giving certain sums of money 
 to be laid out in procuring the return of members to serve in parlia- 
 
172 
 
 SPEECH OX THE ADDRESS. 
 
 ment, contrary to the rights of the people, inconsistent with the in- 
 dependency of parliament, and in violation of the fundamental laws 
 of the land". 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 January 19, 1792. 
 
 The House met pursuant to prorogation, when the Lord-lieutenant (Westnr.oie- 
 land) opened the session by the following speech to both Houses : — 
 " My Lords and Gentlemen, 
 
 " I have it in command from his Majesty to acquaint you, that, since the ciose 
 of the last session, preliminaries of peace have been signed between Russia and 
 the Porte, and those powers are now engaged in negotiation for a definitive 
 treaty, which his Majesty trusts will complete the restoration of tranquillity 
 amongst the different powers of Europe. 
 
 "His Majesty, convinced of the interest you take in whatever concerns his 
 domestic happiness, commands me to acquaint you of the marriage of his Royal 
 Highness the Duke of York and the Princess Royal of Prussia. 
 " Gentlemen of the House of Commons, 
 
 " 1 have ordered the proper officers to lay before you the national accounts, 
 and I trust you will make such provisions as are necessary for the exigencies of 
 the state, and the honourable support o his Majesty's government. 
 "My Lords and Gentlemen, 
 
 " The constant attention } t ou have shown to the interests of Ireland makes it 
 unnecessary to recommend to you a continuance of that wise system of policy, 
 from which your country has received such inestimable advantages in the in- 
 crease of her trade, her credit, and manufactures. It is equally unnecessary for 
 me particularly to point out the encouragement of your agriculture, and atten- 
 tion to your linen manufacture. The Protestant charter-schools, and other 
 charitable institutions, will receive your accustomed consideration. 
 
 " You may be assured of my zealous cooperation to forward every measure 
 that may contribute to the public welfare. I shall pay unremitting attention to 
 the due execution of the law, and the maintenance of good order and govern- 
 ment, so essential to the continuance of that freedom, prosperity, and happiness, 
 which Ireland enjoys under his Majesty's auspicious reign, and under our excel- 
 lent constitution'*'. 
 
 Lord Thurles, in a maiden speech, moved an address of thanks to his Majesty. 
 It was an echo of the speech The motion was seconded by the Honourable 
 George Knox, who declared his approbation of the government and their admi- 
 nistration. 
 
 Mr. Grattan said: I have no objection to concur in everything 
 honourable to his Majesty, and sincerely do rejoice in every circum- 
 stance which can add to his public and private happiness. I am 
 sure every circumstance that can tend to increase that happiness, 
 must give pleasure to every branch of his Majesty's subjects, and to 
 
SPEECH ON TIIE ADDRESS. 
 
 173 
 
 none more sincerely than to his loyal people of Ireland, who must 
 ever rejoice in the auspicious increase of the illustrious House of 
 Hanover, whose accession to the throne of these dominions has been at- 
 tended with so many blessings to this country, as well as every 
 other part of the empire. So far I am ready to concur in this ad- 
 dress. In addresses of this kind, declarations of our readiness to 
 support the different establishments of government are usual and 
 perhaps necessary. But I freely concur in that part of the declara- 
 tion, and am not only willing to support those establishments, but 
 even any new establishment which can add to the honour of his 
 Majesty's reign, or the happiness of his family. But to that pan! of 
 the address, which goes to declare thanks to his Majesty for con- 
 tinuing in the government of this country a Lord-lieutenant and an 
 administration whose measures I have found it necessary to oppose, 
 and who have uniformly opposed every measure urged for the good 
 of this country, I cannot give my assent. It woidd be equally in- 
 consistent and absurd for men to have found it necessary to oppose 
 the measures of administration, and then to return thanks to his 
 Majesty for continuing that administration. To comply, therefore, 
 in this part of the address, with the unanimity the young nobleman 
 recommends, would be to render the compliment of congratulation to 
 his Majesty a farce. 
 
 Either the opposition would appear insincere, or the address itself 
 must appear so. But I know better of one side, and I hope better 
 of the other, than to imagine such a circumstance. The measures of 
 opposition have not been lightly taken up, nor will they be lightly 
 abandoned. They were adopted in sincerity of heart, and have been 
 maintained by uniformity of conduct. 
 
 It is now ten years since you recovered your constitution, and 
 three since, in the opinion of some, you have lost it. Your present 
 ministers made two attempts on your liberties ; the first failed, and 
 the second, in a degree has succeeded. You remember the first ; 
 you remember the propositions. The people of Ireland would not 
 consent to be governed by the British Parliament ; an expedient 
 was devised — let the Irish Parliament govern the people of Ireland, 
 and Britain govern the Irish Parliament. She was to do so speci- 
 fically in those subjects in which she had been most oppressive — 
 monopolies of commerce East and AYest. We were to put down the 
 Irish constitution, in order to set up British monopoly against Irish 
 commerce. The ministry who conducted this trick, took care to 
 make the Irish advance by a certain number of propositions, under 
 an assurance that the British cabinet would, to an iota, accede, and 
 
% 
 
 174 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 they made the Irish Parliament give an additional revenue on the 
 faith of that accession. They then suffered the propositions to be 
 reversed, turned them against the country from which they were 
 supposed to proceed, and made them fatal at once to her constitution 
 and to her commerce. The individuals concerned in this business, 
 some of them had pledged themselves against an iota of alteration 
 —they broke their honour. The Irish minister was pledged to a 
 specific system — he prevaricated ; in the attempt on her liberty he 
 was a violator ; in taking her taxes, a swindler. Thi3 measure was 
 defeated by the influence principally of that part of the aristocracy 
 who refused to go through the bill, and who have been dismissed. 
 They who made the attempt have been advanced and rewarded, The 
 path of public treachery in a principal country leads to the block, 
 but in a nation governed like a province, to the helm. 
 
 The second attempt was the modelling of parliament; in 1789 
 fifteen new salaries, with several new pensions to the members 
 thereof, were created at once, and added to the old overgrown par- 
 liamentary influence of the crown : in other words, the expenditure 
 of the interest of half a million to buy the House of Commons ; the 
 sale of the peerage and the purchase of seats in the Commons ; 
 the formation of a stock-purse by the minister to monopolize boroughs 
 and buy up representation. 
 
 This new practice, whereby the minister of the crown becomes the 
 common borough-broker of the kingdom, constitutes an olfeuce so 
 multitudinous, and in all its parts so criminal, as to call for radical 
 reformation and exemplary punishment, whether the persons concerned 
 be Lord Buckingham or his secretary, or those who became the ob- 
 jects of his promotion because they had been the ministers of his 
 vice3. It was a conspiracy against the fundamental laws of the 
 land, and sought to establish, and in a degree has established, in 
 the place of a limited monarchy, a corrupt despotism ; and if agr 
 thing rescues the persons so concerned from the name of traitors it 
 is not the principles of law, but its omission, that has not described 
 by any express provisionary statute, that patricide, of which these 
 men in intention and in substance are guilty. They have adopted a 
 practice which decides the fate of our parliamentary constitution. In 
 vain shall we boast of its blessings, and of its three estates, the 
 king, the lords, and the commons,, when the king sells one estate to 
 buy the other, and so contaminates both. The minister has sent 
 one set of men packing into the peers, and another set of men packing 
 into the commons ; and the first he calls the hereditary council, and 
 the latter the grand council of the nation, and both, that once great 
 
SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 175 
 
 and august institution — the parliament. Such a condition, I say, puts 
 the constitution of Ireland, not merely below a republic, but below any 
 other form of genuine and healthy government. It is not a mixed mo- 
 narchy, with parts happily tempered and so forth, the cant of grave and 
 superannuated addresses, but a rank, and vile, and simple, and ab- 
 solute government, rendered so by means that make every part of it 
 vicious and abominable — the executive, which devours the whole, and 
 the other two parts, which are thus extinguished. Of such a con- 
 stitution, the component parts are debauched by one another ; the 
 monarch is made to prostitute the prerogative of honour by the sale 
 of honours ; the lords by the purchase ; and the commons prostitute 
 their nature by being the offspring, not of the people, but of a traffic, 
 and prostitute themselves again by the sale of their votes and 
 persons. ♦ 
 
 I allow the British constitution the best, and arraign this model as 
 the worst, because practically and essentially the opposite of that 
 British constitution. The British minister has given an account of 
 the English constitution, which he wishes to extend to the Irish 
 constitution. " Aristocracy'', he says, "reflects lustre on the Crown, 
 and lends support and effect to democracy, while democracy gives 
 vigour and energy to both, and the sovereignty crowns the constitution 
 with dignity and authority. Aristocracy is the poise", he says ; 
 " give an infusion of nobility". The Irish minister can answer him : 
 he who sold the aristocracy and bought the democracy ; he who 
 best understands in practice what is this infusion of nobility ; he who 
 has infused poison into this aristocratic and this democratic division 
 of power, and has crowned the whole with corruption ; he well 
 knows all this, as far as Ireland is concerned, to be theatric repre- 
 sentation, and that the constitution of the country is exactly the re- 
 verse of those scenes and farces which are acted on the public 
 stages, of imposture and hypocrisy. 
 
 By this trade of parliament the king is absolute ; his will is sig- 
 nified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an instru- 
 ment in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment. Like a 
 regiment, we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary for the 
 old, and to the brothel for the young, and men thus carted as it were 
 into this House to vote for the minister, are called the representa- 
 tives of the people. Suppose General Washington to ring his bell, 
 and order his servants out of livery to take their seats in congress. 
 You can apply this instance. 
 
 We have read a description of the late National Assembly of 
 France. I can suppose something more degrading even than the 
 
176 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 picture ; suppose an assembly, not ruled, as it was suggested, by a 
 club of Jacobins, but by a Swiss major, who robbed the treasury of 
 France, and bought the Assembly. You can apply this instance. 
 
 Mr. Locke has the following passage : " Such revolutions happen 
 not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs : great mistake* 
 on the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the 
 slips of human frailty, will be borne without mutiny or murmur ; 
 but if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending 
 
 one way, making the design visible to the people ." Mr. Locke 
 
 then states what the design is. 
 
 "What I have said concerning the legislature", he continues, "is 
 equally true concerning the supreme executive. He acts contrary 
 to his trust when he either employs the force, treasure, or offices of 
 the society to corrupt the representatives and gain them to his pur- 
 pose, or openly corrupts the electors, and prescribes to their choice 
 such, whom he by solicitation, promises, or otherwise has previously 
 won to his designs, and employs them to bring in such who promised 
 beforehand what to vote and what to enact. Thus to regulate can- 
 didates and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it 
 but to cut up government by the roots, and poison the very sources 
 of public security ? For the people, having reserved to themselves 
 the choice of their representatives as a fence to their properties, 
 could do it for no other end but that they might be always truly 
 chosen, and so chosen, truly act and debate as the necessity of the 
 commonwealth should, on examination, be judged to require; and 
 this, those who give their votes before they hear, are not capable of 
 doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and to endeavour to 
 set up the declared abettors of his own will as the true representa- 
 tives of the people, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as 
 perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government as can 
 possibly be". 
 
 I must observe on this passage, that in the opinion of Mr. Locke, 
 parliament as well as kings may abdicate ; and having quoted the 
 passage, let me quote the declaration and confession of the Irish 
 ministry : "Half a million was expended by government in 1769, 
 to defeat the aristocracy ; that is, to buy the representatives of the 
 people ; and gentlemen may now force government to expend a 
 greater sum for the same purpose". I will now state the fact as 
 appears from your establishment, and as you all allow it to be: the in- 
 terest of about that sum was expended to buy the parliament, and 
 it was bought accordingly. I will state another account : a stock- 
 purse was made by the minister, partly out of the sale of peerages, 
 
SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 177 
 
 to buy op seats in parliament, in order to introduce only such men 
 as had previously agreed to vote with the minister, and both facts 
 constitute severally or jointly what Mr. Locke calls " preparing " 
 such an assembly as he describes, and setting up the abettors of 
 the will of the minister as the representatives of the people. Here 
 is the present model — the trade of parliament instead of the consti- 
 tution. See its effects! The strongest question that could be put 
 to the nationality of .the Commons, was that which related to the 
 trade of Ireland with the East. The question was simply this : 
 whether Ireland should exercise that trade, or individuals sell it to 
 the minister of the crown, acting in Ireland as an agent to the Ea.-t 
 India Company, and after three debates it was determined for the 
 Company, against the country, by her own parliament, under the in- 
 fluence of her minister, who proposed that Ireland should be satisfied 
 with the right, and leave the profits of the trade to the company ; 
 the country, by her exertions, had established the right ; the indi- 
 vidual, by corruption, sold the exercise. 
 
 It happened in 1779, that the claim of what they called free 
 trade, had gone directly to the exercise, and not to the light. It 
 said that nothing but a free trade could save this country from im- 
 pending ruin ; meaning not a title to trade, but possession. It 
 happened also, that when government, through the instrumentality 
 of her parliament, stopped the trade of Ireland to the unoccupied 
 parts of the East, Spain interrupted the trade of England to the un- 
 occupied parts of the North-west, and stood with respect to England 
 as government stood with respect to Ireland ; with this difference — 
 Spain was a natural and open enemy, the other carries on a war 
 against the interest of her country with her own money, and under 
 the trust and the name of her government. 
 
 There was a circumstance attending this treachery that made it 
 still more mortifying. This very government had called upon Ireland 
 for a vote of credit against Spain, and placed the Irish Parliament 
 in the most extraordinary and degrading predicament, voting money 
 to a war with Spain for intemrpting the trade of England to the 
 North-west, and assisting England in interrupting the trade of Ire- 
 \aiid to the East; assisting government to do against Ireland that 
 very act which she was to fight Spain for attempting to commit 
 against Great Britain. 
 
 The question cannot end here ; it is the cause of free trade and 
 free constitution revived; that cause for which this country committed 
 life and fortune ; not for a barren right, but for profitable possession ; 
 not to give a portion of it to the East India Company, still less to 
 
178 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 suffer their own servants to sell a portion of it to the Company's 
 agent residing here under the name of your minister ; least of all, to 
 suffer that very agent to draw back a portion of your trade by pil- 
 fering the treasury to buy the parliament, and to betray the late il- 
 lustrious acquisitions of their country. On this principle might gen- 
 tlemen give up the American European colonial trade ; it would be 
 only a question about the quantum of money expended on the mem- 
 bers, and the quantum of danger incurred by their notorious acts of 
 bribery and dereliction. 
 
 The rejection of a reponsibility bill, and, still more, the principle 
 on which it was rejected, is another effect of the trade of parliament. 
 To say that, without responsibility in the officers of state, there can 
 be no limited monarchy, would be unnecessary in any enlightened 
 country except Ireland ; indeed, the existence of responsibility is as 
 essential to the limitation of the monarchy, as the existence of a king 
 to monarchy itself ; and yet when the servants of the crown argued 
 against the bill, such ignorance did these men display, that they 
 affirmed, that were the ministers of the crown responsible in Ireland 
 for what they did by the orders of the king, yet they were above him, 
 viceroys over him ; and tattle of that sort. These men who had 
 been talking and talking about the British constitution, showed they 
 were misinformed both of the fact of the constitution in one country, 
 and the principles of it in both. It was thus La Mancha's knight 
 discoursed about the perfections of his mistress, whom he never be- 
 held. As on the East India question they had resisted their free 
 trade, so here they resisted their free constitution, and contended 
 for absolute impunity in every abuse of power and prerogative that 
 could be committed by the servants of the crown, and by none more 
 likely to be committed than themselves, acting under the authority 
 of the first magistrate. 
 
 They were the more inexcusable for this doctrine, because they 
 had before them their own crimes ; many of them sat in the house, 
 like gorgeous satraps, dressed in their own extortion ; they had also 
 in recollection the crimes of their predecessors ; of those lord-lieuten- 
 ants and their secretaries, whom these men had supported. In 
 1769, the army was increased to 15,000 men, under compact to 
 keep within the kingdom at all times, except invasion or rebellion 
 in Great Britain, 12,000 men: and in 1779 you had not 5000 ; and 
 government got your own consent to your nakedness. In 1773, a 
 tenth was added to your revenues, on compact to stop the further 
 growth of debt, and in 1775, a new debt was presented to you. 
 In 1785, new taxes were presented on specific estimates of all 
 
SPEECH ON TIIE ADDRESS. 
 
 179 
 
 your expenses, and every one of those estimates instantly and ever 
 since grossly and corruptly exceeded. In 1783, an addition is made 
 to the place of the private secretary to the Lord-lieutenant, on com- 
 pact that he is not to have a pension. He takes a pension ; his suc- 
 cessor keeps the addition ; and the nation continues saddled with 
 both. In 1 7G6 a king's letter is sent over promising a specific reduc- 
 tion of most of the offices in the ordnance ; in 1789, every word of 
 the letter was falsified, and every salary of those places increased for 
 parliamentary influence. In 1773, a promise was made, in conside- 
 ration of new taxes, to keep the boards of stamps and accounts uni- 
 ted. In 1789, that promise is falsified, and they are divided for 
 corruption. In 1773, the boards of revenue are united, and the 
 number of the commissioners on compact reduced ; and in 1789, 
 the compact is broken for corruption. 
 
 In 1785, the ministers in the respective countries come forward 
 with t wo sets of propositions. The Irish secretary produces one part of 
 the plan as the ultimatum of government, and for that he gets your 
 taxes ; the English minister then produces the other part, and for 
 this he asks your constitution ; and Ireland, like a poor traveller, is 
 glad to escape with her life and her liberty, after having been fleeced 
 by two robbers. I only state a few instances of perfidy out of a 
 thousand instances of mal-administration. 
 
 Carthage, or what the Roman historian has said of Carthage, has 
 not exceeded your ministers in the fallibility of public honour. The 
 ministers of this country have acted here on the principle of East 
 India adventurers ; but here there is less vigour in the soil, and 
 therefore less plunder in your government ; send these men beyond 
 the line, send them to Arcot and the Ganges, and that principle 
 will be rapine ; keep them to Ireland, it is peculation ; it is the sale 
 of the country for "half a million; it is robbing the country to buy 
 the parliament. 
 
 The persons who opposed the responsibility were therefore per- 
 fectly apprised of its necessity : they should have felt it in the general 
 principles of the constitution; they must have felt it in the parti- 
 cular abuses in the Irish constitution ; they felt in their own par- 
 ticular situation, that the minister of Ireland, as our administration 
 is at present constituted, has an interest opposite to the welfare of 
 the country. It was once the object of the Irish government to 
 support the supremacy of the British Parliament ; it is now their 
 object to supply that supremacy, and establish the corruption of the 
 Irish in its place. 
 
 What made these present men ministers ? "What, but a steady 
 
180 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 opposition to the independent exertions of parliament, and an activity 
 to corrupt it. The liberty of the country has served the individual ; it 
 has made their treachery precious : and corrupt Irishmen must now 
 do what powerful Englishmen did before them. 
 
 The constitution of parliament may be divided into two parts : 
 internal, which comprehends the existence of parliament ; and exter- 
 nal, which comprehends its creation. As to the former, it is not 
 the mere existence, but the independency of its existence, wherein 
 the freedom of the subject consists. To restore that independency 
 a place bill was introduced. The legislators, the purse-bearers, the 
 grand inquisition and great council of the nation, had as little control 
 on the monarch as his beef-eaters. When the place-bill was proposed 
 and rejected — Brennus and the Gauls — the right honorable gen- 
 tleman was in your lobby with his mouth in every man's ear, and 
 his touch in every man's palm ! 
 
 By the rejection of the bill, they seemed to declare, that the 
 House had been bought, was bought, and should be bought again. 
 Among other arguments against the bill, one was advanced by autho- 
 rity, that the bill would prevent the crown from combating aristo- 
 cracy, by bribing the Irish Parliament. What an argument for a 
 radical application — for a decisive measure to bring back your con- 
 stitution to its first principles ! 
 
 This bill was rejected along with a pension bill. The pension lists 
 so called are two — civil and military ; but the real pension lists are 
 more numerous ; they distribute the bounty of the king among the 
 senate — the licentiousness of the court, and the enemies of the realm. 
 This is called a part of the dignity of the Crown. Corruption has 
 not only reached the hearts of men, but it has debased their dialect ; 
 and our public language is become the speech of hypocrisy and im- 
 posture. 
 
 In rejecting both these bills, the ministerial language was, " it is 
 true they are the laws of England, but they are not fit for the meri- 
 dian of Ireland". This is much more than asserting that Ireland 
 should not be free ; it is asserting that England should be free, and 
 Ireland should not ; you may put the question of servitude in such a 
 shape as to disgust the pride of a Cappadocian. The lot of Ireland, 
 according to this reasoning, becomes particular degradation. We 
 bear misfortunes patiently, because they are the portion of man; 
 but if they were the inheritance of you and of me only ; if the im- 
 perfection of the dispensations, ordinances, and decrees of nature 
 were visited on one tribe of the human species ; if Providence had 
 spoken like the ministers of our country, "these blessings are 
 
SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 161 
 
 very well for others, but they are too good for you"; I fear that the tribe 
 so cast off would turn to execration. And till Providence shall mark 
 its divine displeasure by inflicting some visible opprobrious distinc- 
 tion on the people of Ireland, confirming the argument of their minis- 
 ter, and denoting its intention to degrade us, I must to such logic 
 remain a disbeliever. It was once in this country, " equal fate, and 
 equal freedom" — the style is now changed a little — equal fate, L e. 
 equal fall, but inferior freedom — infeiior freedom, and superior 
 profligacy. 
 
 With the same view, to save the internal purity of parliament, we 
 proposed a resolution, touching those miuisters of the crown employed 
 in the sale of peerages. They have made the honorific prerogative 
 a nuisance ; they have endeavoured to disgrace one House of Parlia- 
 ment, and to model both ; they have invited the rabble to tread 
 upon the nobles. And if this House had done its duty, some of 
 those gentlemen now on the treasury bench should be lodged in the 
 Tower. 
 
 I have said the constitution may be divided into two parts — 
 internal and external. To preserve the former, we introduced those 
 measures ; and with a view in some degree to diminish the corrup- 
 tion of the latter, we introduced a bill for disqualifying revenue officers 
 from voting at elections ; the bill did no more than what the princi- 
 ples of the constitution required, and no more than England already 
 had done by statute. It prevented from interfering in election, a 
 set of men who are in a most absolute manner dependent on the 
 will of a minister ; men who have from their office the power to 
 harass and oppress the freedom of other electors, white they have no 
 power to act with freedom themselves. They are so many votes 
 taken out of the democratic scale, and thrown into that of the other 
 side, and instead of adding to the number of free electors, are so many 
 votes to be deducted from thence. The disqualifying bill was more 
 necessary in Ireland, because the persons concerned in the revenue sit 
 in parliament : your collectors are members ; your commissioners are 
 members ; are, in some cases, of course, to try their own constituents. 
 They are not only members, they are ministers ; they are not only 
 miuisters, they are borough patrons, and form a great aristocratic 
 influence by virtue and abuse of their commissions. 
 
 The trade of parliament is like original sin — it operates through 
 all political creation, and would lead me to various other instances 
 in which this country has been deceived and exhausted, and in no 
 instances more frequently than in the artifices whereby this trade has 
 endeavoured to sustain itself. You remember the £140,000, and the 
 
 9 
 
182 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 threefold falsehoods annexed — trade, equalization of expense, and 
 non-accumulation of debt. The first promise failed at the oustset ; 
 the equalization, the second promise, was also falsified ; the govern- 
 ment falsified every one of its own estimates, not of necessity, as has 
 been suggested, or from national charges imposed, but voluntarily, 
 prodigally, and corruptly. I will remind them of some of their ex- 
 penses. Do they remember the prodigalities of your pension in 1 786, 
 and the profusion of their park expenses, at which the ministers 
 laughed when they voted? Do they remember the corruptions of 
 Lord Buckingham, which corruption the gentlemen, acknowledged, 
 when they voted for the third promise ? Non-accumulation of debt 
 fails when that of equalization fails. The minister who is guilty of 
 exceeding, is guilty of debt, and not he who provides for it. They 
 get a lottery, which is a resource to supply the current corruption 
 of the year, and they introduce this lottery under colour of dimin- 
 ishing the interest of the loan ; and, when established, apply the 
 annual amount to the establishment. They had gotten £140,000 
 taxes, £80,000 lottery ; this will not do ; they get a gross sum of 
 £60,000 from the bank, and, instead of applying to liquidate, give 
 it to the establishment — £80,000 per annum lottery, £60,000 bank. 
 
 They raised the duty on spirits just to that criminal and critical 
 point which left the intoxication and increased the revenue — to take 
 away at once the understanding of the people and their money. The 
 increase of the duty on whiskey, they made an excuse for raising 
 the duty on rum. As that duty stood before, it was higher than the 
 proportion — in England the proportion is about one to three, in 
 Ireland two to three. Violating the proportion he professed to ob- 
 serve, to filch the revenue he pretended to abjure, he had engaged 
 to encourage the brewery, as he had promised to depress the spirit ; 
 and was as fallacious on the encouragement of the one as in the de- 
 pression of the other. His whiskey was to be rendered unattainable 
 by raising it a farthing a pint ; strong beer was to be brought into 
 consumption by lowering it the one hundredth part of a farthing a 
 quart. Here is his ultimate line of encouragement and depression, 
 of bringing a wholesome beverage into general use, and banishing a 
 poison. The minister had filched, by this trick, his drawback on 
 the loan, which was £70,000 ; he had filched what was estimated 
 at about £40,000 beside on spirit ; and in consideration of this, he 
 offers you beer at three pence a barrel reduced price. The fact is, 
 the price of beer is now increased. The gentlemen who first propo- 
 sed, disclaimed the business, and saw the duplicity : they had deter- 
 
SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 183 
 
 mined not only to give the brewery cleeisive advantage, by lowering 
 the duty, but by taking off restrictions on the trade. I pass 
 over the false measure by which the brewer is now taxed and 
 aggrieved. Hear how they have taken off the restrictions by adding 
 to them — they have imposed a new restriction affecting the quantity 
 of liquor each brewer is to make ; and to exclude the smaller brewer 
 from the trade, they add a new restriction, and they left one of the 
 worst of the old — the division of the breweries. 
 
 On the same plan of encouragement, he agreed to permit the im- 
 portation of foreign hops. We had kept down our brewery in com- 
 pliment to the brewers of London ; we put it under inconveniencies 
 in compliment to the hop growers of England ; we had excluded all 
 foreign hops, and this monopoly of our consumption, our negotiator 
 of the propositions stated not as a favour to England, but an obliga- 
 tion to her. They have since changed their opinion, and learned that 
 Flanders may grow hops as well as England. They agreed there- 
 fore, that foreign hops should be importable at three pence per pound, 
 which is twice as much as the duty on English ; and then in mockery 
 of what they themselves had agreed to, they proposed in that reposi- 
 tory of unconstitutional matter — the revenue bill — a clause which 
 prohibited the import of foreign hops, except when British amounted 
 to £9 the cwt. So that, however dear, however bad the English 
 hops might prove, you must take them, unless they come to such a 
 price that England cannot export them. Here is the fatal hand of 
 an Irish cabinet legislating against Ireland, to promote its own credit 
 in the court of Great Britain. Thus stands the conduct of the minister. 
 On this subject he had disclaimed revenue ; he had filched what 
 tvas estimated at above £100,000: he had professed to stop 
 the use of whiskey, he had raised it a farthing the pint : he had pro- 
 fessed to preserve the British proportion in the duty of rum, he vio- 
 lated that proportion : he had professed to give the brewery decisive 
 encouragement by lowering the duty on beer, he sunk the duty the 
 hundredth part of a farthing a quart : he had proposed to leave the 
 brewer free, he left one grievous restriction, and added another : he 
 had professed to agree to permit the import of foreign hops, he 
 fixes the line of permission at an impossible price. These measures 
 were too bad, and therefore it became necessary to do something 
 bearing a resemblance to what he had professed — the discouragement of 
 the use of spirits. He therefore borrows from a right honourable 
 gentleman a bill of regulation — that bill, every efficient part of which 
 is the formation of the right honourable gentleman, is the only measure 
 
184 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDKESS. 
 
 that gives any chance of relief from that situation to which the duties 
 adopted by the ministry lead — an increase of revenue, and a conti- 
 nuation of drunkenness. 
 
 From what I have stated of the situation of your parliament, and 
 from the conduct of that parliament under the influence of such a 
 situation, your political liberty is in much danger. What is the 
 state of your civil liberty ? Four actions are brought for certain 
 publications against one printer, and, without specifying any loss, 
 they lay their damages to the amount of £8,000. The judge grants 
 different fiats to oblige the printer to give bail to that amount ; and 
 the printer, unable to furnish such bail, is committed to prison. 
 Here is, by the judge so acting, a breach of the great charter. He 
 deprived the subject of his liberty in a case which deprived the press 
 of its freedom; and he did this against a positive clause in Magna 
 Charta, which forbids excessive bail ; and he did this on a principle 
 which would enable him equally to deprive every other subject in 
 the kingdom of his freedom, against whom any action, however 
 frivolous, was brought. 
 
 The printer, having suffered almost to ruin under an arbitrary 
 judgment, became a subject for parliamentary inquiry ; but here a 
 person much more criminal than the judge — the minister — stands 
 forth : he comes with all the patronage of the crown to screen from 
 justice all these attacks on the liberty of the subject and the liberty 
 of the press. But was it friendship ? w r as it private tenderness ? 
 No ; he betrayed the judge in the moment and in the manner of de- 
 fending him : he confessed the crime when he screened the criminal. 
 The ministry are enemies to the inquisitorial power of the people; a 
 proceeding against an erroneous judge might be a precedent against 
 a hot, an intemperate, and an arbitrary minister. They who had 
 libelled the people of Ireland as gross and stupid, would not like to 
 see that people exercise their inquest over the worst or even the best 
 of judges. The people might question the sale of peerages; they 
 might question the expenditure of the half million ; they might 
 question the attack on the rights of the city. When, therefore, the 
 minister screened the judge, it was partly on a principle that the 
 House of Commons should not proceed against state offenders ; it 
 was not that they hated the judge the less, but that they hated 
 justice more. The honourable mover said he dropped the question 
 — I think him right. The offence of the judge is washed away; ho 
 has been punished in the treachery with which he has been defended ; 
 he has been punished in having a rival his patron, and the right honour- 
 able gentleman his advocate. As his offences are washed away, so 
 are they eclipsed by the crime of the ministry — that ministry who, 
 
SPEECH OX THE ADDRESS. 
 
 185 
 
 systematically and deliberately bad, could screen with the influence 
 of the crown, a judge whose offence they acknowledge, whose cha- 
 racter they betray, whose authority they undermine, and whose 
 power they continue. 
 
 The ministry, for whose continuation you are now to thank the 
 kiug, have not only attacked civility by protecting the errors of 
 judges, but by making their seats part of the patronage of the mi- 
 nister in the House of Commons. A respect for the constitution is 
 fatal to the pretensions of a lawyer ; a disregard for liberty is a qualifi- 
 cation sufficient for him; the barrister is brought from his studies in the 
 hall to his compliances in the senate. In vain shall the minister 
 assume a regard for the common law, to apologise for his contempt 
 for the constitution, when he undermines the law as well as that con- 
 stitution, by making a corrupt political traffic of both, and mortgages 
 the seats of justice to reward parliamentary compliance. It is worse 
 than an illegal opinion, or an attack on corporate rights — it is sow- 
 ing the seeds of illegality in the very bed of justice. That minister 
 who makes the law arrangement a part of parliamentary patronage, 
 sells the seats of justice ; he who sells the seats of justice, sells the 
 law ; and he who sells the law of the country, sells his loyalty. 
 
 I shall be told of many learned men of the law sitting in this 
 House. I make not the least doubt ; but if it is neither repute nor 
 learning, but the tender of both at the feet of the minister, that 
 must raise them to the bench, I condole with them, and still more 
 with then* country. 
 
 There are various instances in which the corruption of the senate 
 touches the condition of private life (instances which cannot be well 
 pronounced), to attack either the political or civil liberty, yet accom- 
 plish an abundance of mischief. The police establishment of the city 
 of Dublin, repeatedly patronised by the present administration, is of 
 this nature — an institution planned to corrupt your magistracy, and 
 to procure a guard which neglects, insults, and has committed robbery 
 on the citizens ; they applied for redress, and found in government 
 an accomplice. The charge for this public nuisance has been, since 
 its establishment, near £100.000. 
 
 The rejection of the barren land bill is another subject where the 
 trade of parliament has touched the private interest of men and the 
 intended economy of the country ; a subject, if compared to what has 
 been mentioned already, a trifle, but, as explanatory of principle, a 
 volume. The bill provided that lands which, by reason of their 
 barrenness, had been exempt from tithe, should continue so for 
 seven years, notwithstanding their cultivation. The principle of this 
 bill was an immediate addition to the income of the kingdom, and a 
 
186 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 reversionary addition to that of the church : upon its principle it was 
 rejected by the influence of government, and of that very government 
 who had before declared the bill to be the best ever brought into 
 parliament. Three bills had been introduced in 1788 — one for rape, 
 another for flax, and a third for barren land. The ministry compro- 
 mised that two should be sacrificed to the bishops, and one should be 
 conceded to the country. They went farther, and their attorney- 
 general* declared, that the bill in question, namely, the barren land 
 bill, was the best ever brought into parliament ; and he took on 
 himself the modelling some clauses to secure the assent of the 
 bishops. The bishops, or some who led them, were then supposed 
 to have broken faith with government, as government after broke 
 its engagement with the country, and rejected this very best of all 
 possible bills on the worst of all ^ssible motives — for the votes of 
 the bishops in parliament. They — the ministers — sold this bill; 
 they sold it to the lords spiritual, just as they had before sold their 
 honours to the lords temporal. Such a step would scarce be credible, 
 except under an administration who had prevaricated on the 
 subject of the propositions, under whose venal auspices seats of 
 justice, peerages, the establishment, and now the bills and proceed- 
 ings of parliament, like their own talents and activity, were all sold 
 for parliamentary compliances. 
 
 I congratulate the church on its alliance with such ministers of 
 the Crown. But let me assure them, it will not serve their promo- 
 tion ; they live under an administration which has but two principles 
 of promotion, for church or law — English recommendation and 
 Irish corruption. 
 
 What is the case of Doctor Kirwan ? That man preferred this 
 country and our religion, and brought to both a genius superior to 
 what he found in either: he called forth the latent virtues of the 
 human heart, and taught men to discover in themselves a mine of 
 charity, of which the proprietors bad been unconscious ; in feeding 
 the lamp of charity he had almost exhausted the lamp of life ; he 
 comes to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shakes one world 
 with the thunder of the other. The preacher's desk becomes the 
 throne of light ; around him a train, not such as crouch and swagger 
 at the levees of princes (horse, foot, and dragoons), but that where- 
 with a great genius peoples his own state — charity in action and 
 vice in humiliation ; vanity, arrogance, and pride, appalled by the 
 rebuke of the preacher, and cheated for a moment of their native 
 
 * Mr. Fitzgibbon. 
 
PEKCH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 187 
 
 improbity. What reward ? St. Nicholas Within or St. Nicholas 
 Without ! ! The curse of Swift is upon him — to have been born an 
 Irishman, to have possessed a genius, and to have used his talents 
 for the good of his country. Had this man, instead of being the 
 brightest of preachers, been the dullest of lawyers ; had he added to 
 dulness venality ; had he aggravated the crime of venality, and sold 
 his vote, he had been a judge ; or, had he been born a blockhead, 
 bred a slave, and trained up in a great English family, and handed 
 over as a household circumstance to the Irish viceroy, he would have 
 been an Irish bishop and an Irish peer, with a great patronage, perhaps 
 a borough, and had returned members to vote against Ireland, and 
 the Irish parochial clergy must have adored his stupidity and deified 
 his dulness. But under the present system, Ireland is not the 
 element in which a native genius can rise, unless he sells that genius 
 to the court, and atones by the apostacy of his conduct for the crime 
 of his nativity. 
 
 Unde derivata ha?c clades? In five words I will tell you — in the 
 trade of parliament. It is a matter to consider how a man bred up 
 in the school of liberty, how a foreigner would speak to you on 
 your present SITUATION ; he would perhaps address the gentle- 
 men of this House in the following manner : You put on the sword, 
 and would have drawn it for your freedom, and failing, you had died 
 in the field, or had bled on the scaffold. In that event, the attorney- 
 general, on the part of the Crown, had prosecuted, and the chief- 
 justice had pronounced sentence, and the boys of your court would 
 have shouted at the execution of the patriots. How comes it that 
 of the men that would have been your executioners, some of them 
 have become your ministers? Your madness is not become a general 
 disease. We do not find that the English, after their revolution, 
 made Father Peter Archbishop of Canterbury, or that General 
 Bender has placed Vandemoot at the head of the Imperial army. 
 America had enemies, but she disposed of them in a different 
 manner. You have put into commission your enemies, and you have 
 banished your friends. We see with astonishment, and in it we blush 
 for the abortive efforts of national spirit, the mortifying insignificance 
 of public opinions, and the degrading contempt into which the people 
 of your country have fallen, with all their shouts and addresses. 
 We see your old general * who led you to your constitution, march 
 off — dismissed by your ministry as unfit to be trusted with the 
 government of a county — the cockade of government struck from 
 
 * Lord Charlemont, late governor of Armagh. 
 
188 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 
 his hat. That man, whose accomplishments gave a grace to your 
 cause, and whose patriotism gave a credit to your nobles; whom the 
 rabble itself could not see without veneration, as if they beheld 
 something not only good, but sacred. The man who, drooping and 
 fainting when you began your struggles, forgot his infirmity, and found 
 in the recoveiy of your constitution a vital principle added to his 
 own. The man who, smit with the eternal love of fame and 
 freedom, carried the people's standard till he planted it on the citadel 
 of freedom — see him dismissed from his government for those very 
 virtues, and by that very ministry for whose continuance you are to 
 thank the king. See him overwhelmed at once with the adoration of 
 his country, and the displeasure of her ministers. The history of 
 nations is oftentimes a farce. What is the history of that nation 
 that, having, at the hazard of everything dear in a free constitution, 
 obtained its mistress, banishes the champion, and commits the 
 honour of the lady to the care of the ravisher ? There was a time 
 when the vault of liberty could hardly contain the flight of 
 your pinion ; some of you went forth like a giant rejoicing in hi3 
 strength, and now you stand like elves at the door of your own pande- 
 monium. The armed youth of the country, like a thousand streams, 
 thundered from a thousand hills, and filled the plain with the con- 
 gregated waters, in whose mirror was seen for a moment the watery 
 image of the British constitution ; the waters subside, the torrents 
 cease, the rill ripples within its own bed, and the boys and children 
 of the village paddle in the brook* 
 
 Sir, whenever freedom shall be properly understood, depend upon 
 it, the gentlemen of this country will be ashamed of the condition 
 they bear, and the questions they have made upon it. In the mean 
 time, I can account for their patience ; the Irish are accustomed to 
 be trodden upon ; uniformly, says Junius, has Ireland been plundered 
 and oppressed. It is not so in England: defective in some particu- 
 lars as the constitution of England may still be, yet, with all these 
 defects, England has a constitution, and she has also maxims as well 
 as laws to preserve it. They have not been blessed in England 
 with a succession of lord-lieutenant's secretaries, whose sole occu- 
 pation has been to debauch the political morality of the gentlemen 
 of the island. No minister will venture to tell the gentlemen of 
 England that they must be bought : no man will venture to say, 
 that the best minister is he who buys parliament the cheapest. 
 Men do sometimes desert and oppose their own party, but not them- 
 selves and their own list of measures. A man does not in England 
 publicly cross the house to reverse every part of his conduct, and 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 189 
 
 then liokl out his little paw to the minister like a pennvboy. There 
 was, indeed, one man in England supposed to have done so; but he 
 was in England a prodigy; let me add, he had been Irish secretary 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The people of this country supposed that England acceded to their 
 liberties, and they were right; but the present ministry have sent 
 the curse after that blessing. Hear the curse ! You have got rid of 
 the British Parliament, but we will buy the Irish; you have shaken 
 off our final judicature, but we will sell yours; you have got your 
 free trade, but we will make your own parliament suffer our mono- 
 polists in one quarter of the globe to exclude you ; and you shall 
 remain content with the right, destitute of the possession. 
 
 Your corporate rights shall be attacked, and you shall not stir ; 
 the freedom of your press and the personal freedom of the subject 
 shall be outraged, and you shall not arraign; your city shall be put 
 under contribution to corrupt its magistracy, and pay a guard to 
 neglect and insult her; the seats of justice shall be purchased by 
 personal servitude, and the qualification of your judges shall be to 
 have borne their suffrage and testimony against the people. Taxes 
 shall be drawn from the poor by various artifices to buy the rich ; 
 your bills, like your people, shall be sold ; you shall see the genius 
 of your country neglected, her patriotism dismissed from commission, 
 and the old enemies of your constitution made the rulers of the realm. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 February 22, 1793. 
 
 On the 4th of February, Mr. Hobart had obtained leave to bring in a bill fo* 
 the further relief of the Roman Catholics: the bill was presented and read a 
 first time on the 18th, and ordered to be read a second time on this day ; and 
 when the order of the day for the second reading was moved for, Mr. George 
 Knox said, that from the moment he felt political independence, he found the 
 necessity of Catholic emancipation. The present bill did not admit the Ca- 
 tholics into the constitution \ that the upper as well as the lower orders should 
 be the objects for legislative liberality, and as the admission of ten or twenty Ca- 
 tholics into parliament would not, in his opinion, endanger the safety of the 
 state, he would move : "That the Roman Catholics should be permitted to hold 
 seats in parliament". Mr. Knox's motion being inconsistent with the order of 
 proceeding, the bill was read a second time ; and on the question that it be com- 
 mitted, it was warmly supported by the provost (Mr. Hutchinson), Mr. Forbes, 
 Mr. Day (afterwards judge), Mr. Hobart, Mr. W. B. Ponsonby, Colonel Hutch- 
 inson, and Major Doyle ; it was opposed by Mr. Richard Sheridan, Mr. Georga 
 Ogle, Mr. David Latouche, and Dr. Duigenan. 
 
190 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 Mr. Grattan said : I could wish the bill under your considera- 
 tion had gone farther. I could wish that it had given the Roman 
 Catholics the privileges of other dissenters. I am sure that is only 
 sound policy. I think, however, the bill deserves thanks, because it 
 contains much, and also because it leads to much more ; but I must 
 say the mover had discovered more sense if he had given to the Catho- 
 lics the whole now, and had -settled with them for ever. 
 
 The situation of the Roman Catholics is reducible to four proposi- 
 tions : they are three-fourths of your people, paying their proportion 
 of near £2,000,000 of taxes, without any share in the representation 
 or expenditure ; they pay your church establishments without any 
 retributions ; they discharge the active and laborious offices of life, 
 manufacture, husbandly, and commerce, without those franchises 
 winch are annexed to the fruits of industry ; and they replenish your 
 armies and navies, without commission, rank, or reward. Under these 
 circumstances, and under the further recommendation of total and entire 
 political separation from any foreign prince or pretender, they de- 
 sire to be admitted to the franchise of the constitution. I have listened 
 to your objections with great respect — give me leave to answer them. 
 
 The first objection I heard, is the petition of the Catholics to his 
 Majesty ; but who is there that does not see the question to be, 
 whether the Catholics are aggrieved, and not how those grievances 
 have been stated by their committee? But even on the ground of 
 the petition, if as in a case of bill and answer, you choose to wrangle, 
 you will find their petition is substantially true ; it complains that 
 the Catholic, by law, cannot carry arms — the law is so ; it com- 
 plains that the Catholics, on refusing to discover their arms, are 
 liable to be whipped — that law is yet in force ; and finally it states, 
 the great and radical grievance, that the Catholics are excluded from 
 the franchises of the constitution. And about that complaint there 
 is no doubt. The petition therefore, cannot justify a refusal to ad- 
 minister redress, even if their redress depended on the manner of 
 forming their petition. But the second objection goes on broader 
 and bolder grounds, and insists on the demerits of the Catholics. 
 It states, that the Catholics abhor all Protestants, and never w T ere, 
 nor are, nor ever will be, loyal subjects to a Protestant king ; and it 
 asserts in particular, that in every war, and in two rebellions since the 
 Revolution, the Catholics have exerted themselves to the best of their 
 power against their king and country, and have besides been guilty 
 of various domestic insurrections. The last part of the objection 
 scarcely deserves notice. It proposes that the Catholic inhabitants 
 of thirty-two counties should be punished for the disturbances of six ; 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 191 
 
 it proposes that the offences of a local mob should be visited on the 
 community at large, and that the finite offences of that local mob 
 should be punished by the eternal disfranchisement of the community; 
 it makes the crimes of the man the pretext for the prosecution of the 
 sect ; it proceeds on a principle that would disfranchise every part of his 
 Majesty's dominions where riots have existed, and almost every great 
 city, the city of London in particular ; it proceeds on a principle which 
 argues from the particular to the universal, and which in logic is false 
 reasoning, and in politics is a departure from the principles, not of 
 reason only, but of justice, of humanity, and of charity. 
 
 This last part of the objection, I say, scarcely requires an answer, 
 the first does ; it states, that after the articles of Limerick, the Catho- 
 lic troops rejected General Ginkle's offer, and almost to a man went 
 to the enemy. This is not history — the fact is otherwise. It has 
 been made to appear already by my honourable friend from undoubted 
 authority, that nineteen regiments of the Catholic army at that time 
 Joined King William. The objection proceeds to another misrepre- 
 sentation, and states that the Irish brigade is constantly recruited 
 and officered from Ireland. The fact is not so. Here again the ob- 
 jection, in matter of fact, totally and notoriously fails. The Irish 
 brigade is not constantly recruited and officered from Ireland — but 
 on the contrary, few of its officers and very few of its men are re- 
 cruited from Ireland. Gentlemen will distinguish between officers of 
 Irish families and of Irish birth, and they will distinguish also be- 
 tween a regiment bearing an Irish name, and a regiment filled with 
 Irishmen. The first is the case of the Irish brigade, and the latter 
 is not. And for the refutation of this part of the objection, I appeal 
 to the knowledge and the candour of gentlemen who have seen ser- 
 vice, and who must know the charge, that the Irish brigade is con- 
 stantly officered and recruited from Ireland, to be absolutely destitute 
 of foundation. The objection proceeds and states that sixteen thou- 
 sand Irish Catholics fought against Great Britain in the American 
 war. I believe the number of those Irish to be greatly magnified, 
 and sure I am that the description is not just. Those Irish were in great 
 numbers Presbyterians of the north, not Catholics of the south ; they 
 emigrated in great bodies, and they continue now to emigrate to 
 America from the north of Ireland, not for rebellion, but for land, or 
 a better condition. Your fellow-subjects have emigrated from poverty 
 at home, and sometimes have met war, and if you wish never to 
 meet them in amis in other countries, your method should be to give 
 them a better condition at home. The objection proceeds, and statos, 
 that great bodies of Lish fought against England at St. Eustatia 
 
VJ2 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 and St. Lucia. Here again the objection fails in point of fact ; great 
 bodies of Irishmen did not fight against England at St. Eustatia and 
 St. Lncia. There was indeed a regiment of eighteen hundred, com- 
 manded by General Dillon, the Irish brigade ; and this, I suppose, 
 the objector conceives to be those great bodies of Irishmen ; but that 
 regiment was chiefly composed of Dutch, and of the recruits of various 
 nations, of very few Irish. And here again I appeal to the gentle- 
 men on the service, whether this part of the objection is not like the 
 other parts, entirely unfounded. The objection proceeds and states, 
 that the Irish Catholics supply the fleets and armies of the enemy 
 in a much greater proportion than those of Great Britain. This I 
 must positively deny; they supply the fleets and armies of the enemy 
 in a very trifling proportion, and they supply the fleets and armies 
 of Great Britain in a very great and abundant proportion. In the 
 last war, of 80,0C0 seamen, 50,000 were Irish names- — in Chelsea, 
 near one-third of the pensioners were Irish names — in some of the 
 men-of-war almost the whole complement of men were Irish. With 
 respect to the recruiting service, it is a fact known to the gentlemen 
 of the army, that since they recruited for the foot in Ireland, the re- 
 giments have been filled in a great proportion with Irish Catholics. 
 I do not mean to say, that the Irish Catholics have supplied his 
 Majesty's fleets and armies abundantly, but so abundantly, and in so 
 great a proportion, that the recruiting service could not well go on 
 without them. I appeal again to gentlemen who have seen service, 
 to their knowledge in this particular, and their candour ; and I 
 affirm, that this part of the objection, like the other parts, has no foun- 
 dation whatsoever. The objection proceeds and states,, that some 
 of the Protestants are nearly as criminal as the Papists ; these Pro- 
 testants are the persons who took a part for the emancipation of 
 Ireland : and the objection complains that some of their measures 
 were passed into laws. Those measures were the emancipation of 
 the country in 1782 ; and those ill-affected men were the parliament, 
 that is, the King, Lords, and Commons, that passed those acts of 
 emancipation. The objection compares the persons concerned therein 
 to the Catholic rebels before the Revolution, and at the same time it 
 represents the Catholics since the Revolution, as well as before, as 
 disaffected. Here is the division under which this objection describes 
 his Majesty's subjects ; all the Catholics disloyal, and all the Pro- 
 testants who lately took part for the emancipation of Ireland, namely, 
 the King, Lords, and Commons, disloyal likewise, more disloyal 
 than the Catholics since the Kevolution, and very like those Catholics 
 who, before the Revolution, were executed for rebellion. Thus the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 193 
 
 objection ends in general defamation and feeble infatuation ; a proof 
 how bigotry will extinguish the force of the mind, impair its prin- 
 ciples, banish the virtues of the citizen and the charity of the 
 Christian. 
 
 The next objection is, that the Roman Catholics now have every- 
 thing short of political power ; to which I must observe, that the 
 objection proves two things, an ignorance of the nature of liberty, and 
 of the situation of the Catholic. Civil and political liberty depend 
 on political power ; the community that has no share whatsoever di- 
 rectly or indirectly in political power, has no security for its political 
 or civil liberty. The example of the Catholic is a proof; what de- 
 prived him of his civil rights for this century, but the want of poli- 
 tical rights, the want of right of representation ? What deprived 
 him of the rights of education, of self-defence ? — a parliament in 
 which he had no effectual, though for a time, he had a nominal re- 
 presentation. Such a parliament may take away his wife — it did 
 so : such a parliament may bastardize his issue — it did so : such a 
 parliament may enter into his domestic economy, and set on his 
 children to defy the father — it did so. Where then is the utility of 
 attempting to convince the Catholic that he may have in security 
 civil liberty, without any share of political powers, when his present 
 situation is an experimental refutation of that fallacious sophistry, 
 and a proof that no community can long enjoy civil liberty under 
 laws that have excluded them from all share of political power ? or, 
 in other words, that no community have a security for civil liberty, 
 when that liberty may be taken away by any body where they have 
 no authority. But it is supposed the Catholics have civil liberty — 
 certainly they have not ; they have not free and unfettered the rights 
 of education ; they have not the full benefit of trial by juiy, for they 
 are excluded from petty juries, in some cases, and from grand 
 juries in almost all ; and they have not the rights of self-defence, for 
 they cannot carry arms. No man means to say that a license to an 
 individual, at the arbitrary will of a privy council, to carry arms, is 
 a substitute for a right of self-defence ; under the law, he is ever 
 liable to be questioned on suspicion of having aims, and subject to 
 an inquisition instituted against the principles of self-defence ; he is 
 liable to be whipped if he refuses to make discovery, for the law has 
 not expired, and though his discovery is no evidence against him, 
 yet his refusal is whipping. It is therefore trifling to say, that a 
 person so circumstanced has even civil liberty, still less any security 
 for its continuation. 
 
 But it is said, he is on the same ground as the enfranchised Pro- 
 
194 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 testant : denied, utterly denied. Protestants having property, or the 
 symbol of property, can very generally vote — franchise, that is, free- 
 dom of guilds or corporate towns, is the symbol of property ; but the 
 Protestant who has no property cannot complain that he has no vote ; 
 he is a non-proprietor, and of course, is not affected by laws taking 
 or regulating property ; he is a passenger on your farm, or a guest in 
 your house, and has no pretensions to the regulations thereof. But 
 the Catholic who is a proprietor may complain, because his property 
 is taxed and regulated without his consent. Mr. Byrne complains, 
 he pays to the revenue near £100,000 annually, and has no vote. 
 John Doe has no vote- — but he pays nothing ; there is no resem- 
 blance, therefore, between the enfranchised Protestant and disfran- 
 chised Catholic; or if any, the resemblance is that between a man who 
 is robbed, and a man who has nothing to be robbed of — the man, 
 the profits of w T hose industry are taken without his consent, and the 
 man who has no industry from whence profits could arise — the 
 difference between a violation of the rights of nature, and none. 
 
 The Catholic proprietor appears indeed to be on a level with the 
 Protestant beggar, but is not. The Protestant beggar is one of the 
 community of the legislature, though not a sharer therein ; he is of 
 that tribe for whose benefit the laws are made. In this country 
 there are two codes of laws : one for the Protestant sect, another for 
 the Catholic. The legislature has a common interest with the one, 
 and against the other. The Protestant beggar has, therefore, an 
 advantage over the Catholic proprietor. 
 
 It is objected they are not fit for freedom. The elective fran- 
 chise acts directly on men, not measures. Montesquieu, I need 
 not remind you, observes, that the people are good judges of cha- 
 racter, though not always of things. Do you think the Roman Ca- 
 tholics adequate to that? Is there a man in this House who has a 
 name, of whose character they are not fully apprised, who has sup- 
 ported, who has opposed certain measures ? The press has made 
 every character a public subject; our conversations are known; our 
 principles of action are very well known. As to the measures, can 
 we suppose the Roman Catholics incapable of judging of them ? they 
 are not complicated ; the measures of, Ireland are domestic regula- 
 tions. 
 
 The fact of their unfitness is not true; but if it were, if they are 
 not rational enough to choose a man to serve in parliament, how 
 criminal must you have been, who have governed them ; and under 
 whose government for a century, they have not acquired the power 
 to exercise their rational faculties ! Your government (supposing 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION". 
 
 195 
 
 the charges to be true, which I utterly deny) must have been more 
 horrible than the worst of tyrannies ; it must have done worse than 
 take away property, life, or limb ; it must have brutalized your own 
 species. But the truth is otherwise ; they are not beasts ; you are 
 not tyrants. I can collect from the charge some meaning, though 
 I cannot collect your conclusion — I collect that the Catholics have 
 lived apart from you, and therefore you are inclined to think them 
 an inferior species ; and perhaps, though they do not labour under 
 moral incapacity, yet, from the separation of societies, they have 
 not all your advantages. What then is the evil ? The separation. 
 What the cause ? The laws. What is the remedy ? The repeal 
 of the laws. 
 
 The objections at last take the turn of self-defence, and urge that, 
 if you give the elective franchise, you give away the power. Xo, 
 you gain it ; for at present, you have it not — the event will be the 
 reverse of your apprehension. The Protestant would not give 
 away the elective franchise; he would get it. The Protestant 
 individual is now a monopolist against a Protestant people. The 
 oligarchy, with the crown, has the boroughs ; the aristocracy has a 
 great portion of the counties. This they call a Protestant ascendency; 
 but this is a monopoly against a Protestant people. Some of the 
 Protestants have understood it rightly; they have seen that the 
 essence of the elective franchise is in its extent ; that, confined, it is 
 the trade of the individual ; and in order to take it back from the 
 individual and restore it to the Protestant people, it is necessary 
 to multiply the electors, for yeomen in numbers cannot become 
 property ; the borough may ; the borough patrons, of whatever reli- 
 gion, will be an aristocracy ; the electors, of whatever religion, will 
 be a people. On elections there are three parties — the minister, the 
 aristocracy, and the people. You have thrown out of the scale of 
 the latter, a great portion of your own weight, and therefore you are 
 light; restore that portion to the scale of the people, and you will 
 recover that gravity : the effect, therefore, of this participation will 
 be to restore to the Protestant people their elective authority. As 
 an example of your weakness, the whole power of the elective fran- 
 chise has not created in the Protestant body a Protestant ascen- 
 dency ; far from it ; the Protestant electors have not been able to 
 cany a single point for these last ten years, nor any point for these 
 last twenty years, except in 1779 and 1782, when there was other 
 strength to assist your cause, and with it the cordial and active sup- 
 port of the Catholic community. As the Church of England's 
 electors have acquired strength, by communicating the franchise to 
 
196 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 the Presbyterians, so Protestants and Presbyterians acquire force by 
 communicating the franchise to the Catholics ; and, on the same 
 principle on which the Protestant electors exclude the Catholics, so 
 should that part of them which is called the Church of England, ex- 
 clude the Presbyterians. This Parliament and its electors would 
 then preserve what they now depart from, unity of religion, and de- 
 stroy unity of interest. In a few words, this objection says, that, 
 in order to preserve the power of a Protestant people, we should 
 take precaution that we may be no people at all. This objection is 
 entirely blind to the present progress of things, and docs not see 
 that the tendency, if it is not to Deism, most undoubtedly it is not 
 to Popery. This objection gives no credit to the operation of asso- 
 ciation on the repeal of the penal code ; it allows nothing for the 
 growth of liberal opinion ; it does not conceive the possibility of a 
 political conformity ; it cannot conceive one political attachment in 
 society, whose members, as is the case of every society, entertain 
 their different notions on subjects of religion. The objection, on the 
 whole, is founded on this position, that two sects will retain the ani- 
 mosity of the provocation after the provocation is removed. The 
 objection goes farther ; it says, that if the Catholics get the franchise, 
 they will at length get such power in the House of Commons, as to 
 repeal the act of settlement, reverse the outlawries, and subvert the 
 Protestant church. With regard to the first, there would be a diffi- 
 culty somewhat approaching to an impossibility ; for, if those out- 
 lawries were set aside, and the act repealed, the estates would remain 
 exactly where they are. The title being now by time, another opera- 
 tion would be necessary — the parliament should attaint every present 
 proprietor, but that would not do ; a further operation is necessary 
 — the parliament should rind out the lawful heir of the old proprie- 
 tors, which I apprehend would be impossible ; but, exclusive of the 
 impossibility of the event, I will endeavour to give the imaginary 
 fears of gentlemen other reasons. Before the Catholics could 
 have power to repeal the act of settlement and reverse the outlawries, 
 they must be the parliament, and before they become the parliament, 
 they must be the landed proprietors of the kingdom. In that event 
 it is impossible to say what they will do ; but it is obvious to say 
 what they will not do — they will not change the state of landed 
 property. In further answer, it is almost unnecessary to repeat, 
 that there are no Catholics now making claim ; that the Catholics 
 have solemnly renounced it ; that they desire you to propound your 
 own terms of renunciation ; that the number who could trace a claim 
 is next to nothing ; and that the number of Catholics interested in 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 197 
 
 the present state of landed property, by mortgage, purchase, and 
 otherwise, is the majority of the principal members of their commu- 
 nity. But, though it is unnecessary to urge this now, yet there is 
 another thing which cannot be too strongly impressed on you, that, 
 in the present state of Catholic depression, Protestant property is 
 very much in danger. 
 
 Witness the funds, whose fall is a proof how much you are one 
 interest, and what a portion of that interest is the Catholics. Do 
 you tremble at a visionary claim ; and are you insensible and stupid 
 to an existiug diminution of your property, real or personal ? The 
 second objection is, that the church establishment will be subverted. 
 I see no reason why the church shoidd be more in danger from the 
 Catholics than from the Presbyterians, who, in Ireland, are the ma- 
 jority of the Protestants. If the church is in danger, it is from the 
 times, not from the Catholics ; and I know of nothing so likely to 
 increase that danger, as an opposition on the part of the church to the 
 liberty of three parts of the island. To insist on a system of taxa- 
 tion without representation, in order to secure a system of tithe without 
 consolation, would be to hazard both; but to shake the latter in a time 
 of some speculation on the subject of church emoluments, the best policy 
 is to make those emoluments reconcileable to other interests and passions. 
 
 I have considered the objections to Catholic freedom. I will 
 now consider the code of Catholic depression. I will begin with the 
 beginning, and where you should have begun — with education. 
 Eespecting this part of the subject, your present laws are criminal on 
 three grounds : they refuse a degree to the Catholic in the university, 
 and establishing a separation at the time in which friendships and 
 sympathies are formed, ordain a species of anti-fraternity by act of 
 parliament; excluding him from the right of education in your uni- 
 versity, they exclude him from the right of endowing an university 
 for educating himself ; that is, they impose ignorance by act of par- 
 liament unless where they insure a third mischief — foreign education. 
 From this original error the laws advance to more. 
 
 They have permitted intermarriage as politic, but they have made 
 it subject to the highest penalty (not only as impolitic, but as cri- 
 minal), that association which is the parent of every other, and leads 
 directly to mass and mingle into one people, they have punished and 
 deterred by disqualification. Thus they have ordained separation on 
 propagation, and have gone to the origin of things to sow the seed 
 of mischief there. They have endeavoured to make two moulds for 
 the human species, transmitting to posterity opposite characteristics 
 of implacable weakness, and inveterate and malignant folly. They 
 
198 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 have introduced into the religion of the Christians the tyranny which 
 disgraces the Gentoos, and which they also call religion ; they have 
 cut and carved the human species into distinct castes of perpetual in- 
 coinmunication, stopping the circulation of the human blood, in 
 order to preserve his pride, his folly, and his imbecility. Did you 
 find that nature suggested a hint to your laws, by stopping the 
 pregnant consequences of such intermarriages, or by muling the issue 
 of the first degree, then I would allow that the consent of the mother 
 and father, in one precise organization of faith, was essential to 
 human propagation. But here the honesty of nature derides the 
 madness of the statute, and the wisdom of your instinct corrects the 
 folly of law. You have made a separation between the sects in an 
 instance where an intercourse was rendered necessary, not only by 
 your real interest, but your idle fears, because that marriage which 
 you deterred, confounds those claims which you affect to tremble at, 
 and blends Catholic pretensions with Protestant titles, while it makes 
 Catholic numbers administer to Protestant population, and physi- 
 cally and politically would, if your state of mind admitted of benefit, 
 do you service. Your late act seemed sensible of this, and therefore 
 permitted the marriage, but permitted it under the penalty of dis- 
 qualification, that is, the law authorises the act and punishes it. 
 The law has a glimmering sense of its own folly, and goes a little 
 way, just as in cases where the mind has a sense of what is wrong, 
 without a love of what is right. Your law establishes the principle 
 of intermarriages, and then impeaches its own principle ; it at once 
 authorised and discredited ; and to complete the folly of the act, the 
 punishment you inflict is to fall exclusively on those of your own 
 persuasion. The Roman Catholic husband is not punished for the 
 intermarriage with a Protestant, but the Protestant husband is dis- 
 qualified for the intermarriage with a Papist. If a Protestant adds 
 Catholic claim and Catholic property to the Protestant community, 
 he loses the rank of a citizen, and the community of which he is a 
 member loses also a portion of its constitutional strength, and the 
 number of Protestant electors, of whose paucity you complain, is 
 rendered still less, by doing an act which you affect to encourage. 
 Thus, in every step of the progress, you yourselves are punished — 
 you are punished as individuals by disqualifications, and as a free 
 community by diminution. In order to palliate your own dis- 
 franchisement to your own people, you are obliged to depreciate the 
 value of franchise; in order to reconcile your permission to your 
 penalty, and your penalty to your permission, you are obliged to 
 aggravate the condition of intermarriage, which you permit, and to 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 199 
 
 depreciate {he condition of freedom, which you affect to hold inesti- 
 mable. Such unhappy effects are the result of an unascertained and 
 ill-assured mind in the legislature that devises the law. Struggling 
 with reason, and compromising with folly, it makes the law a 
 monster — a permission with prohibition. Your law says, remove 
 this inhuman and impolitic separation ; unite, intermarry ; the law 
 adds, if you do, I will chive you out of the pale of the constitution ! 
 The motive of all these inconsistencies is as inconsistent and weak 
 as the inconsistencies themselves. 
 
 We lay it down as a maxim of government, that the theology of 
 the wife as well as the husband is a subject of penal law — moral de- 
 pravity is out of the question : her theology is what the state in- 
 vestigates, and yet she may be a pagan as well as a profligate, but 
 she must not be a Christian of the Catholic communion : she 
 may worship Jove, or Venus, or Mahomet ; but Christ, if she 
 worships Him according to the Catholic ritual, she is supposed 
 to entertain principles hostile to the state, and to poison — what ? — 
 the purity of her husband's politics in matters of elections ! And lest 
 he should vote for an improper Protestant, we strive by the law to 
 make him a Papist, for we take away from him one great motive for 
 continuing a Protestant — the right of citizenship. We send him 
 from the society of the franchised Protestant, and, of course, force 
 him into that of the Papist. Conceived in the same spirit of selfish 
 folly is that part of the code which affects to regulate the medical 
 art — rules of persecution — and so regulates that art as to refuse any 
 degree of professorship therein to three-fourths of the community, 
 This is a combination against the sick, Protestant as well as Papist. 
 How would you have exclaimed if any one had combined against 
 your luxury as you yourselves have combined against your health, 
 and had said that no man should have a license to exercise the art 
 of a cook unless a Protestant ? Suppose you had said no Englishman 
 shall have a license, no Scotchman shall have a license, there are 
 some who would not live to refuse unto their own countrymen the 
 same privilege. If a man's life is attacked by a robber, the law has 
 not said, let no man save him but a Protestant ; but the law does 
 say, if a man's life be attacked by disease, we authorise no man to 
 save him but a Protestant ; that is, we refuse to three-fourths of 
 our countrymen a license to administer to the health of one another. 
 Now, the chance of medical ability is according (in the same place) 
 to the number of persons who may furnish practitioners ; by your 
 restriction, that chance you decrease, and in the same proportion in- 
 crease the chances of mortality ; and this depredation on your healths 
 
200 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 yoti commit in the name of religion : you diminish the foundation of 
 your liberty, and you attack the sources of your existence, the better 
 to promote your power and ascendency. 
 
 I know I shall be told that they practise in Ireland. There are 
 instances, I allow, but it is under a license got in other countries. 
 You have not prevented the practice under these restrictions, because 
 that was too strong for your humanity ; nor given the license, because 
 that was too strong for your prejudices ; you of course have annexed 
 to Catholic practitioners a clause of foreign education; you certainly 
 do tolerate their practice, but under circumstances that amount to 
 an entire discouragement, if not intoleration : no license to practise ; 
 of the five, no one professorship ; of all the places in hospitals, so 
 necessary for experimental knowledge, not one ; these chairs are 
 made so many jobs for Protestant practitioners. 
 
 If Doctor Purcel saves the lives of his Majesty's Protestant subjects^ 
 it is not our fault ; we have given such sort of men no sort of encou- 
 ragement in such practices ; we allowed him no professorship, gave 
 no license, no countenance ; let him and his patients pay their vows 
 to some other country. I have already dwelt upon the importance 
 of the military profession. I have showed how constantly you con- 
 nived at the breach of your own law. The question is not whether 
 the Catholic shall serve in the army ; but whether he shall serve in the 
 army only when you want him, and when he gets nothing by it. 
 As a common soldier, getting six pence per day, it seems he is safe;" 
 as an officer, getting a livelihood, dangerous. That you should mono- 
 polize his blood and your own honours and emoluments, is a con- 
 dition too unequal to be lasting. They are fit to be entrusted with 
 arms, we say, therefore they may be soldiers ; they are not fit to 
 be entrusted with arms, we say, therefore they may not be officers. 
 But the better order of Catholics we rely on, it is the lower order 
 we suspect ; therefore, the better may not, and the lower order may, 
 be received in our army. The extending this disqualification even 
 to a prohibition on their carrying arms, is another severity. Is it to 
 say, we are afraid we have injured you too much to suffer you to 
 carry arms even for your own defence ? It is a prohibition of con- 
 scious severity, useless, because constantly broken and meritoriously 
 departed from by yourselves, who arm Catholic servants against your 
 own laws, as you arm Catholic soldiers against your enemies and 
 against your law, which in this instance is your greatest enemy. A 
 Protestant gentleman wants to go home late in the evening ; that is 
 a good reason for arming a Catholic against law : a Catholic farmer 
 wants to preserve his life and property ; that is no reason for arming 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 201 
 
 him according to law. You use, in this particular, the laws as jour 
 sport, and the Papists as your property; they may arm as your 
 servants and as your mercenaries, but not as citizens ; thus by our 
 connivance as individuals, and severity as legislators, are they en- 
 couraged to despise the laws and to hate them. I have shown 
 already, that this law prohibitory on carrying arms, is not observed, 
 and cannot be observed. What more can the state take away than 
 the robber? Unless the penalty is made something more than the 
 loss of property and life, men will carry arms to defend both. 
 
 That part of your code which disables the Eoman Catholic from 
 sitting on grand juries, except, and so forth, is, like every other part, 
 liable to great objections ; it subjects three millions to be taxed with- 
 out their consent by the grand jury, who are already taxed without 
 their consent by the parliament, and is a second flagrant breach of 
 the great charter. To the Catholic that charter is a grievance ; it is 
 light to a blind man. You tax three millions, not only for the state, 
 but for every road presentment, robbery petition, illicit still, the 
 abuse and extravagance of which grants are to you a complaint ; the 
 use as well as the abuse is to him a grievance. This is a great 
 aggravation of public taxes ; it is a home-felt tyrant, that brings to 
 his door the little vexations and fretful tyranny of a superior, and 
 makes him insignificant in his own farm and under his own vine, 
 and touches him in those lesser nerves where he is less mortal but 
 extremely irritable ; and here you subject him to where the partial 
 distributions of justice in a tribunal tax him without his consent, and 
 try him without his peers where he has no peers, and where his 
 adversary may have votes ; and as the oppression is great, so is the 
 motive little ; it is a monopoly of jobbing. You do not exclude 
 him entirely from the petty jury, which is a function much more in- 
 teresting to Protestant life and property, but which is trouble without 
 county patronage or county power. As the object is monopoly, so, 
 as usual, the pretext is religion ; that exclusion which you impose 
 in the case of juries, you impose in case of magistracy, and though 
 with less oppression, with as little pretence ; — 3,000,000 of your 
 fellow subjects are to have no share whatsoever in the execution of 
 the law, no more than they have in the formation of it, over the 
 whole extent of your country ; and of 4,000,000 of people, you 
 exclude 3,000,000 from the function of enforcing obedience to the 
 law. As you have taken care that liberty, so have you taken care 
 that law, shall have no very general extension in your island. You 
 have here, as usual, punished the Protestant, the better to disable 
 the influence of the Papist; and no Protestant married to a Papist 
 
202 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 can be a justice of peace. I have heard your reasons ; a Catholic 
 should not be a magistrate in Ireland, because the laws contain a 
 code which is against him ; that is, the law is his enemy ; and yet 
 we talk of the lawlessness of the common people, just as we talk of 
 the blessings of our most excellent constitution, excluding them 
 from any share in the law, or any participation in the constitution. 
 What makes the subject love the law? — not the hangman. Pains 
 and penalties may be the objects of terror, but not of affection ; he 
 loves the law because he has a share in the formation and execution 
 of it ; the men who are reconciled to taxes are those who vote ; 
 and the men who are reconciled to penalties are those who enact 
 them ; and the men who are friends to a rigid execution of a law, 
 is the community that furnishes juries to find bills, judges to sen- 
 tence, and magistrates to execute. The relation in which the Pro- 
 testant stands makes him a party to the laws ; the relation in which 
 the Catholic stands makes him the object of the law, not a party. He 
 is not a party to the law, and the law is a party against him ; there- 
 fore the laws may be objects of his obedience, not his affection. 
 This, then, is their situation ; and this situation explains the liberality 
 of those who say, they offer them everything except the privilege of 
 becoming part of the state ; everything except a part of the elec- 
 toral community ; everything except a part of the legislative com- 
 munity ; everything except a part of the judicial community ; every- 
 thing except a part of the corporative community ; everything except 
 a part of the executive community : that is, a species of excommunity 
 with privileges to acquire property for you to tax without their 
 consent ! Thus are the Catholics by the present code excluded from 
 an interest in your laws ; they are also excluded from communica- 
 tion with your persons; the society of marriage punished; the 
 society of education forbidden ; the society of civil employment for- 
 bidden ; the society of military employment forbidden ; the society 
 of parliament forbidden ; the society of election forbidden ; the 
 society of grand jury forbidden ; the society of magistracy forbidden. 
 There is no subject of public care, in which they can associate with 
 the Protestant without breach of law, no subject of conversation, 
 except foreign politics, foreign changes, and foreign revolutions ! 
 
 We have declared we hope to become one people : how ? By 
 these lines of circumvallation, erasing the natural geography of your 
 country, and setting up parallels and circles of folly and superstition, 
 from the marriage bed to the cradle, from cradle to college, and from 
 college to the grave, are two nations that cannot by any public in- 
 terest or business, or by any general call, save that of death, be 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 203 
 
 be brought together ? There have been three policies observed with 
 respect to the Catholics : the first was that of Cromwell — extermina- 
 tion byoperation of the sword ; the second was that of Ann — extermi- 
 nation by operation of the laws ; and the third was your's — which 
 allowed them a qualified existence ! Though the two former werecruel, 
 yet both were consistent. They both considered Papists as criminals, 
 and exercised over them the right of conquest. They considered 
 the Catholics as a body who were neither to have power, nor pro- 
 perty, nor any public existence in your country. The laws of Ireland 
 prevented them from acquiring property in land ; and the usur- 
 pations of England prevented either them or the Protestants from 
 acquiring any considerable property by commerce. But the third 
 policy, much milder than either, is more extravagant than both — 
 your policy. You allow them schools, seminaries, and colleges, but 
 distinct from our own, and without funds ; marriage, but marriage 
 attended with pains and penalties ; a free trade without franchise, 
 and land without a vote. 
 
 Let us discuss how far this policy is consistent with the interest 
 of the constitution, the king, or the British empire. I will suppose 
 under your laws the Catholics purchased considerable tracts of land. 
 The land so purchased is unrepresented. Just as the wealth of your 
 country grows, the extent of your constitution contracts. I will sup- 
 pose these men become a great commercial body ; a great portion of 
 commercial interest, as well as the landed, is unrepresented; and your 
 constitution still more contracted. What a portion of the strength 
 of the country must, in that event, be taxed without the consent of 
 its owners! Your constitution will be no longer a representation 
 either of property or population ; so that the British constitution 
 will be worked out of the island by operation of law. Who will 
 answer for the patience of that strength, compounded of a great por- 
 tion of wealth, as well as of numbers ? Who will answer for the 
 satisfaction of those proprietors ? It is not life, but the condition of 
 living; the slave is not so likely to complain of the want of property, 
 as the proprietor of the want of privilege. The human mind is 
 progressive ; the child does not look back to the parent that 
 gave him being, nor the proprietor to the people that gave him the 
 power of acquisition, but both look forward, the one to provide for 
 the comforts of life, and the other to obtain all the privileges of 
 property. 
 
 Your imperfect grants and comprehensive theories have given 
 those aspiring thoughts, and let in that train of ideas which may 
 hereafter greatly serve or marvellously distract your country ; you 
 
204 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 have already given to their minds the first principles of motion, and 
 the laws of motion now must direct the machine. 
 
 The germ on the soul, like the child in the womb, or the seed in 
 the earth, swell in their stated time to their destined proportions by 
 virtue of their own laws, which we neither make nor control. Talk 
 not in such cases of gratitude; rely on that gratitude which is 
 founded on interest; such gratitude as governed yourselves from 1691, 
 when you secured your property, to 1779, when you demanded your 
 trade ; and in 1782, when you demanded your liberty, from a colony 
 looking only to property, to a people looking to a free form of govern- 
 ment ; from planters joining with the mother country against the 
 Catholics, to a nation joining with the Catholics to exact of the 
 mother country trade and freedom. Do I condemn you? such is the 
 progress of nations ; such the nature of man ; and such is gratitude. 
 Let me now consider how far this policy is consistent with the in- 
 terest of his Majesty. It has been said, that under a Protestant 
 monarch, the Catholic ought never have the elective franchise; thus 
 gentlemen have attempted to annex the curse of Catholic slavery to 
 the person of the King. They have gone a step farther, and have 
 supposed the coronation oath goes against the present claims of the 
 Catholics, and have thus represented the King as sworn against the 
 liberties of his people. They have done this on a surmise, the state- 
 ment of which would excite our scorn, if its consequence did not pro- 
 duce our apprehensions — that men believing in the real presence cannot 
 be well affected to the House of Hanover. They have urged this when 
 the Pretender was extinct, when the power of the Pope was extinct, 
 and when the sting of Catholic faith was drawn. They have done 
 this when a new enthusiasm had gone forth in the place of religion, 
 much more adverse to kings than Popery, and infinitely more pre- 
 vailing — the spirit of republicanism. At such a time, they have 
 chosen to make the Catholics outcasts of a Protestant monarchy, and 
 leave them no option but a republic. Such a policy and such argu- 
 ment tend to make Irish Catholics French republicans ; they aid the 
 cause of proselytism against the cause of kings; they would drive 
 the Roman Catholics from the hustings, where they may vote with- 
 out danger, and would send them to plant the tree of liberty on their 
 own hills, where treason, foreign and domestic, may intrigue in a 
 body, kept vacant for all the floating poison of the times to catch 
 and propagate ; a school for the discontents of both countries, and 
 for foreign emissaries, who need not bring any other manifesto than 
 your own code and your own resolutions. 
 
 I differ much from those who say that the Roman Catholics 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 205 
 
 cannot, under a Protestant King, enjoy the franchisesof theconstitution. 
 I should say directly the reverse, that under no government can the 
 franchises of the constitution be communicated so effectually, and se- 
 cured so permanently to all his Majesty's subjects, as under our pre- 
 sent monarchical government. The time is come when every loyal 
 subject should be free, and every free subject loyal. It is true, the 
 Roman Catholics will now be your fellow-subjects, but not your sub- 
 jects ; they will be subjects of the king, and not the slaves of sub- 
 jects, who stood, with regard to them, in the place of kings. Do 
 you lament the change ? I congratulate you upon it ; the bash a 
 will not command the cringe of the peasant's knee, but the king will 
 command the strength of it. You appropriate this great body of 
 men to the throne ; you put the stamp of the king upon them, and 
 serve the crown more by far than when you vote for his minister. 
 Let me consider this policy in its relation to the British empire. 
 Britain, you know, governs you no longer; it is not your religious 
 arrangement that interests her, but your physical strength. You do 
 not mean to say that the Catholics cannot be faithful in their con- 
 nection with Great Britain. I appeal to those officers who served 
 with them in the last war ; their religion surely cannot now make 
 them adverse ; the Roman Catholic religion resembles much more 
 the Church of England than the Church of France ; their dissent 
 cannot make them adverse. You say the Catholics are not as well 
 disposed as the Protestants, because they are not descended from the 
 English ; many of them are ; but nations have neither a parent's nor 
 a child's affection; like the eagle, they dismiss their young and know 
 them no longer. I know not whether the Roman Catholics are as 
 well disposed to Great Britain as the Protestants are ; but I am sure 
 they are at least as well disposed as the Protestants would be, if they 
 were deprived of civil and political advantages. If you doubt their 
 disposition, do you dispose them better. You are trustees to 
 preserve to Great Britain the physical force of the Catholics of 
 Ireland, and nothing but you can forfeit it ; not religion, not the Pope, 
 not the Pretender, but your proscription, which argues that the fran- 
 chise of the Catholic is incompatible with British connection, and of 
 course teaches the Catholic to argue that the British connection is 
 incompatible with Catholic liberty. Thus you would deprive Great 
 Britain of her resources in recruiting army and navy; but you will 
 supply their place; how? One million, after filling all the places in 
 church and state, will spare the overplus of their numbers. You 
 will borrow from the loom, and send the weaver of the north into the 
 ranks. But this is a partial statement for you; instead of affording 
 
 10 
 
206 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 one million to Great Britain, you must borrow men from Great Bri- 
 tain to defend and garrison yourselves. Calculate then, that in 
 persisting to disfranchise the Catholic, you make him adverse; three 
 millions are to be put into the other scale, which would be a differ- 
 ence of six millions, that is nearly one half of the whole empire. It 
 follows from this, that your policy is prejudicial to the British empire 
 as well as to the throne. 
 
 I have considered your situation and your arguments. A situation 
 of extraordinaiy peril. Arguments of extraordinary weakness, of 
 monopoly, of panic, of prejudice, of anything but religion ; arguments 
 which, like the fabric they would sustain, cannot stand the proof of 
 any trial ; nor the principles of morality, nor those of religion, nor 
 those of policy, nor those of constitution; neither the touch of time 
 nor the revolutions of mankind. Their tendency is to make freedom 
 a monopoly, which is like an endeavour to make the air and the light 
 a monopoly; their tendency is to make God a monopoly. I have 
 heard of monopolies of salt, monopolies of rice, monopolies of corn, 
 but here is a monopoly of the Almighty ; and yet the persons who 
 use these arguments are men of talents. Compare, compound, ab- 
 stract; but, in this instance, the string of their madness, so strangely 
 perplexed in the intellectual function, one should think God had 
 smitten the intellect of the country, as well as her fortunes, with 
 some distinguished imbecility. Suppose a will impeached for insanity, 
 and it appeared in evidence that the testator had, in his capacity as 
 u general officer, taken powder and ball from one half of his battalion, 
 because they believe in the real presence, or, when sick, had refused 
 to take a specific from Dr. Purcel, declaring that he had confidence 
 in his medicine, but had no faith in his sacrament; or had disin- 
 herited his own son because his son's wife did not understand theo- 
 logy ; or had fallen on his knees to return thanks to God for His 
 universal blessings, and then had risen up and dealt out imprecations 
 on three-fourths of the people about him ; or proclaimed that as long 
 as a Protestant prince was on the throne, three-fourths of his subjects 
 should be disfranchised. Would not that evidence, which is nothing 
 more than a compound of your piety and your policy, if applied to 
 the case of an individual, compel twelve honest men, on their oaths, 
 to find a verdict of insanity ? 
 
 I have read of a republic, where the whole business of life was 
 neglected to give place to mathematical investigation. I can sup- 
 pose a more extraordinary state, where the law excluded from serv- 
 ing the public three-fourths of the people, unless they would give a 
 theological opinion touching an abstract point of divinity, and verify 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 207 
 
 that opinion on oath. I have heard of Athens, that cruel republic, 
 excluding so many of her own children from the rights of citizenship; 
 but she had only the wisdom of Socrates and the light of Plato : she 
 had not, like you, revelation to instruct her; besides she had not the 
 press — she had not the benefits of your lesson. What lesson? that 
 to a people it is not life, but the condition of living ; and that to be 
 bound without your own consent, was to be a slave ; and, therefore, 
 you were not satisfied in 1782 with the free exercise of your reli- 
 gion. However, I do not rely on your private productions. What 
 are your public tracts, your repeated addresses to the King, the 
 Speaker's annual speech to the throne ? what are they, while the 
 penal code remains, but so many dangerous and inflammatory publi- 
 cations, felicitating the Protestants on the blessings of that constitu- 
 tion from whence three-fourths of your people are excluded ; but, 
 above all, that instrument, infinitely more incendiary than all Mr. 
 Paine has written, that instrument which you annually vote ; what 
 is it bul a challenge to rebellion ? I mean a money bill, wherein 
 yoii dispose of the money of 3,000,000 of the people without their 
 consent. You do not stir, nor vote, nor speak, without suggesting 
 to the Catholics some motive, either the provocation of your bles- 
 sings, or the poison of your free principles ; some motive, I say, which 
 is fatal to that state of quietude wherein, during this age of discus- 
 sion, you must inlay your people in order to give your government 
 the chance of repose. 
 
 You are struggling with difficulties you imagine ; you are mis- 
 taken ; you are struggling with impossibilities. To enchain the 
 mind, to case in the volatile essential soul, nor tower, nor dungeon, 
 much less parliament, can be retentive of those fires kindled by your- 
 selves in the breasts of your fellow-subjects. I would have you at 
 this time distrust that religious vanity which tells you that these mei? 
 are not fit for freedom ; they have answered that vanity in a strain 
 of oratory peculiar to the oppressed. It is the error of sects to value 
 themselves more upon their differences than their religion ; and in 
 these differences, in which they forget the principles of their religions, 
 they imagine they have discovered the mystery of salvation, and to 
 this supposed discovery they have offered human sacrifices. What 
 human sacrifices have we offered? the dearest — the liberties of our 
 fellow-subjects. Distrust again that fallacious policy which tells you 
 your power is advanced by their bondage ; it is not your power, but 
 your punishment ; it is liberty without energy ; you know it It 
 presents you with a monopoly, and the monopoly of others, not 
 your own. It presents you with the image of a monster in a state 
 
ao8 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 where the heart gives no circulation and the limbs receive no life ; 
 a nominal representative, and a nominal people. Call not this your 
 misfortune ; it is your sentence ; it is your execution. Never could 
 the law of nature suffer one set of men to take away the liberty of 
 another, and that of a numerous part of their people, without a dimi- 
 nution of their own strength and freedom. But, in making laws on 
 the subject of religion, legislators forget mankind until their own 
 distraction admonishes them of two truths ; the one, that there is a 
 God; the other, that there is a people. Never was it permitted 
 to any nation; they may perplex their understandings with various 
 apologies, but never was it long permitted to exclude from essential, 
 from what they themselves have pronounced essential blessings, a 
 great portion of themselves for periods of time, and for no reason, or, 
 what is worse, for such reasons as you have advanced. 
 
 Conquerors, or tyrants proceeding from conquerors, have scarcely 
 ever for any length of time governed by those partial disabilities ; 
 but a people so to govern itself, or rather, under the name of govern- 
 ment so to exclude itself — the industrious, the opulent, the useful ; 
 that part that feeds you with its industry, and supplies you with its 
 taxes, weaves that you may wear, and ploughs that you may eat : 
 to exclude a body so useful, so numerous, and that for ever; and, in 
 the mean time, to tax them ad libitum, and occasionally to pledge 
 their lives and fortunes! for what? For their disfranchisement. It 
 cannot be done ; continue it, and you expect from your laws what it 
 were blasphemy to ask of your Maker. Such a policy always turns 
 on the inventor, and bruises him under the stroke of the sceptre or 
 the sword, or sinks him under accumulation of debt and loss of 
 dominion. Need I go to instances? What was the case of Ireland ? 
 enslaved for a century, and withered and blasted with her Pro- 
 testant ascendancy, like a shattered oak scathed on its hill by the 
 fires of its own intolerance. What lost England America, but such 
 a policy ? An attempt to bind men by a parliament wherein they 
 are not represented ; such an attempt as some would now continue 
 to practise on the Catholics, and involve England. What was it 
 saved Ireland to England, but the contrary policy ? I have seen 
 these principles of liberty verified by yourselves. I have heard 
 addresses from counties and cities here on the subject of the slave 
 trade to Mr. Wilberforce, thanking him for his efforts to set free a 
 distressed people : has your pity traversed leagues of sea to sit down 
 by the black boy on the coast of Guinea, and have you forgot the 
 man at home by your side, your brother? Come then, and by one 
 £reat act cancel this code, and prepare your mind for that bright 
 
ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. 
 
 209 
 
 order of time which now seems to touch jour condition. But I hav<* 
 tired you ; suffer me to sit down, and thank you for your patient 
 attention. 
 
 ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. 
 
 February 5, 1794. 
 
 On this day, Sir Laurence Parsons (afterwards Lord Rosse) moved, M That an 
 humble address be presented to His Excellency the Lord-lieutenant, that he 
 will be pleased to lay before His Majesty the humble desire of this House, that 
 His Majesty will graciously condescend to order to be laid before this House 
 copies of his declaration, together with copies -of the several conventions and 
 treaties with different powers which have been laid before the British Parlia- 
 ment, relative to the present war". The motion was seconded by Mr. William 
 Tighe, and was supported by Mr. Sergeant Duquery, Mr. Curran, Mr. Egan, Dr. 
 Browne, Mr. Robert Stewart (afterwards Lord Castlereagh), on the ground that 
 the Irish Parliament, as a matter of right as well as duty and interest, was 
 bound to investigate the causes of the war. The motion was opposed by the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir J. Parnell), Mr. Cooke, Mr. Barrington, Mr. 
 G. Ponsonby, and Mr. Beresford. 
 
 Mr. GraTtax said : Sir, however 1 may differ from gentlemen 
 with whom I generally concur, I shall this night, consistent with 
 the vote I gave on the first day of the session in favour of the war, 
 resist the present measure. I do not doubt that the honourable 
 gentlemen who introduced it had very proper motives. The motion 
 before you, purports to be a motion for papers ; but the declared object 
 of its supporters is to condemn the war — that war which those gen- 
 tlemen pledged themselves to support, and for which they now 
 declare themselves determined to grant the army and the supply. 
 On the ground, therefore, laid for this motion, by those who hare 
 supported the honourable baronet, I shall give it a direct negative, as 
 tending to undermine your own proceedings, to retract your plighted 
 sentiments, and to raise a mutiny against your own taxes. Such a 
 proceeding would, in my mind, bear a colour of hesitation, unbecom- 
 ing the honour of this country, and by such conduct Ireland would 
 prove herself, instead of the best, the meanest ally of England. 
 Some gentlemen, in support of the motion, have not indeed gone so 
 far as to condemn the war, but have only desired to suspend their 
 opinion until they receive the copies of the treaties, declarations, 
 and conventions from England ; and in the meantime they declare 
 
210 
 
 ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. 
 
 themselves ready to vote the army and the supply for this very wi*r, 
 on which they declare they have formed no opinion whatever. I 
 dwell not on the folly of such a proceeding; I tremble at the 
 mischief. What ! tell France (an invasion impending perhaps on 
 one or both of these countries) that you have not made up your 
 minds on the war : thus excite a diffidence on the part of Great 
 Britain : teach France to consider Ireland as desponding, and induce 
 her to intrigue with our people and attempt a descent upon our coun- 
 try ; tell her, that you are waiting on a revolutionary-state opinion, 
 until papers shall be sent from England, and a committee shall sit 
 flagrante hello, and have made its report on the causes, considera- 
 tions, and merits of this war. The period is said to be awful. If 
 anything could make it desperate, it would be such a condition. 
 It would be a promulgation to the troops on the coast of France, 
 that we were not decided to stand by England, and that this was 
 the moment in which the suspense of our sentiments was to be deter- 
 mined by some stroke from that country. Considering the princi- 
 ple of this motion in reference to Great Britain, you told her in the 
 opening of this session you would stand by her in this war. You 
 tell her now by this motion that you beg leave to consider it, and have 
 therefore called for papers in order to form a deliberate judgment on 
 mature and late consideration. Is not this a retraction of your for- 
 mer opinion ? Is not this chilling your own efforts ? changing a 
 positive pledge to support a war, into a languid disposition to inquire 
 into its origin, while England remains, in the interim, in doubt, 
 whether she can depend on you, whether you will not take the lead 
 in the desertion, or, as has been the tendency of some speeches 
 to-night, whether, while you affect to support her by your arms you 
 may not damn that support by your censure, and declare thai you 
 think France is in the right, though you support Great Britain. 
 
 As to your own people, see the effect of such a motion. You tax 
 them for the war ; you tell them at the same time, in this motion, 
 that you have not as yet made up your mind upon the subject you 
 profess an utter ignorance of the justice and propriety of those taxes, 
 and enable the people to tell you that they are taxed by parliament 
 for a war, the grounds, justice, and necessity of which that parlia- 
 ment declares itself a stranger to, and is only now in a state of 
 inquiry. Thus you arm your own people against your own taxes by 
 your o^'n authority. I want to know, say gentlemen, whether this 
 war is to partition France, to exterminate its liberty, and to set up 
 the old constitution ? whether it is to be persevered in to the last 
 drop of our blood, rather than treat with the existing government ? 
 
ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. 
 
 211 
 
 and therefore I wish for treaties. What treaties ? — treaties which 
 can resolve none of those questions, which will leave these gentle- 
 men as free as ever to rail at the war. This, put in common lan- 
 guage, is this — we want to have repeated opportunities of consider- 
 ing this war, first, by the artificial question of calling for papers, and 
 after, by objecting to the sufficiency of these papers, and by repeat- 
 ing the same question with the same insinuation against the war. 
 And the best way of judging what use gentlemen will make of these 
 papers, is by observing what use they have made of the motion fur 
 them — an attack, by insinuation or directly, on the wisdom, justice, 
 or necessity of continuing the war. And the effects of such attacks 
 if often repeated, must be to raise murmurs against your taxes. But 
 gentlemen, aware that they wanted subsidiary ground, have said, 
 they call for these papers merely to show their power of calling for 
 treaties. The answer to that is, that the right in the Irish Parlia- 
 ment to call for treaties, to inquire into the causes, considerations, 
 and condition of a war, is admitted on every side, in the fullest, 
 broadest, and most unequivocal manner; but w T hen the purpose for 
 which these papers are called, comes out in debate to be the retrac- 
 tion of an opinion already given, or of a support already promised, 
 and put this moment to be voted, there the House will object to the 
 motion for papers, net on the principle of right, but because it objects 
 to the use which is to be made of them. The House will see that 
 the motion for papers under these circumstances, is nothing more 
 than an artificial motion to bring into debate objections against the 
 war, and the argument founded on the right of this House to call 
 for such will then appear to be nothing more than an artificial 
 argument, to interest the pride of this assembly in the abuse of an 
 unquestionable privilege, which it proposed to abuse, in order to 
 assert. 
 
 But, say gentlemen, we never had any treaties before us. You 
 had the Spanish treaty laid before you, and must have every treaty 
 laid before you, if you choose to call for it ; but you will not call for 
 any treaty merely for the purpose of retracting either a support which 
 you have promised, or a sentiment which you have plighted. But 
 are those gentlemen who call for treaties under pretence of informa- 
 tion, ignorant, as they profess to be, of the state of the war ? What 
 treaty is necessary to inform them that France is sending an army 
 to her coast, and meditates an invasion? In such a situation are 
 they to appoint a committee of inquiry to investigate papers, or a 
 committee of supply to vote the army? Do not they, as well as 
 any one know, that the cause of the war is now lost in the conse- 
 
212 
 
 WHIG REFORM. 
 
 quence ; and that the question, supposing it ever to have been a 
 question, is not, whether England will partition France, but whether 
 France wiH invade England? I would not on this ouestion give a 
 silent vote, but rather meet directly any unpopularity which might 
 attend the support I mean to give government ; and I am autho- 
 rised by my honourable friend (Mr. Curran) to say, that on the 
 subject of the war his sentiments coincide with mine. 
 
 The motion goes to excite commotion instead of unanimity ; yet 
 in voting against it, I by no means bind myself not to inquire here- 
 after respecting the conduct and object of the war ; but I consider 
 the moment of going into the committee of supply a most improper 
 one to institute such an inquiry* 
 
 The House divided on Sir Laurence Parsons' motion : — Ayes 9, Noes 128 f 
 Majority 119. Tellers for the Ayes, Sir Laurence Parsons and Mr William 
 Tighe. For the Noes, Mr. Marcus Beresford and Colonel Arthur Wellesler 
 (afterwards Duke of Wellington). 
 
 WHIG REFORM, 
 March 4. 1794. 
 
 Mr. Grattan said : The bill before you has been called a transfer 
 of property. It is not so ; the gentlemen who make the charge have 
 not read the bill ; it is not a transfer of the borough from A to B, 
 but from A to all those who have the adjacent interests, landed or 
 commercial, to all who have estates freehold, or terms for a certain 
 number of years (for they must be included), or have carried on a 
 trade for a certain time within a circle of twenty-four miles. If any 
 one man has all the lands and towns within that circle, he probably 
 will influence the return; but such estates are scarcely to be found 
 in this kingdom, and when they are found, they will have their 
 influence under any reform, unless you choose to rob the proprietor 
 in order to amend the representation ; and even in case of such 
 estates, as in cases of great county interest, the return may be 
 influenced, but it cannot be sold. This proprietary influence you may 
 call the influence of the landlord on his ten-ants, but it is also the 
 influence of the tenant on the landlord ; instead of being, as now, 
 the property of that person who is not a landlord, and whose best 
 estate is his twelve burgesses. This borough monger it extinguishes, 
 
WHIG REFORM. 
 
 213 
 
 and leads to a milder commnnication of manners, as well as diffusion 
 of influence between landlord and tenant, with an additional tempta- 
 tion of residence to the former, and improvement to the latter. It 
 is, in short, an open of 200 seats to property, to talents, and to both 
 mixed, to be elected by the yeomanry and citizens. 
 
 We have in this plan committed no violence on the principles of 
 the constitution, and scarcely any on its geography. We have added 
 one member to the counties and to the three cities, because we think 
 the landed interest is not proportionably represented, and the minis- 
 terial interest beyond all proportion represented ; and we have exten- 
 ded the boundary of the borough, because we find in the old boundary 
 nothing to represent. We have not extended the boundary to the 
 whole of the county, because we would not extinguish or overbalance 
 an integral part of the parliament — the citizens and burgesses ; and 
 we have extended the line beyond the borough, to a line of twenty- 
 four miles, to encompass a mass of landed interest as long as land is 
 productive, and commercial interest, if within twenty -four miles any 
 commerce shall exist. As commerce shall within that district increase 
 and flourish, its balance on the return will increase, and there will 
 yet remain a great landed interest in the representation, even though 
 commerce should within that district totally decline. Thus we have, 
 as far as is practicable, provided against the effect of the fluctuation of 
 property; we have not corrected oligarchy, as was erroneously objected 
 to us, by oligarchy, but by aristocracy and democracy mixed. We 
 have applied the principles of the English constitution to the state 
 of Irish property, with a decisive advantage for the present, and 
 with such growing advantages to the future, as must arise from the 
 growth of commerce and the growing diffusion of riches. Weigh, 
 then, the objections to the bill, and you will find they amount 
 either to a depreciation of the principles of the British constitution 
 in their application to Ireland, or to a demand for an agrarian law. 
 
 I do not say that this bill, in its present shape, is perfect. On 
 the contrary, I should wish to propose considerable alterations ; the 
 franchise should be extended to termors for years, perhaps some 
 others ; the duration of parliament should be diminished ; the powers 
 of the corporation to make voters totally extinguished. After these 
 amendments, I do not say the bill would be then an exact represen- 
 tation of the property of the country, or of the propertied part of 
 the community. No, because that is impossible, and that is unneces- 
 sary ; no, but it would be a substantial representation of both ; that 
 is, it would answer all the political purposes of adequate representa- 
 tion ; it would be quod erat desi'dtratum ; it would not be arithineti- 
 
214 
 
 "WHIG REFORM. 
 
 cally equal, but it would be substantially and practically adequate ; 
 it would give to the mass of property, commercial and landed, instead 
 of a fourth, the whole of the return of members to serve in Parlia- 
 ment, and with the mass of property it would give you the best 
 chance for the mass of talents. But, says my right honourable 
 friend,* why agitate the people now ? We have not created, we 
 have found the agitation of this subject, and therefore the question 
 now is not whether we shall agitate or abandon this subject. And 
 sure I am, that we should agitate the people much more by renouncing^ 
 than by pursuing their great object, — a more equal representation 
 of the people. We should then leave them at large on this subject 
 to their own despair, or to those desperate suggestions which every 
 seditious bungler may propose, while the abuses of your representa- 
 tion, abandoned to such hands, make every quack a doctor, and 
 every fool a philosopher. Sir, it is the excellence of our constitu- 
 tion that it contains in itself the seeds of its own reformation ; and 
 to this excellence I attribute its duration. Other countries have 
 preserved abuses until they accumulated, and were finally levelled 
 but with the establishments themselves, by the deluge of anarchy, 
 instead of being removed by reformation. You yourselves to a 
 degree were sensible of this, and have made reforms in the execu- 
 tive and in the judicial branches; but in the representation you how- 
 ever have made none ; and without reforms in the latter, you will 
 have made none of any great effect in the former ; for until the 
 present representation is reformed, your bench of justice, your execu- 
 tive power, your house of peers, will be from time to time, as they 
 have been, contaminated, by sacrificing the first to the application 
 of the boroughmonger ; by modelling the second merely to gratify the 
 same boroughmonger ; and by the sale of the peerage for the borough- 
 monger, to the disgrace of one house, and the corruption of both. 
 So strongly am I of this opinion, that I imagine with a reform in 
 the abuse of representation, all the other abuses would be quelled ; 
 whereas without it, the reform of the other abuses will be but 
 plausible and palliative. But, says the right honourable baronet, is 
 not this reform a step to a succession of innovation ? He goes 
 farther ; he says, does it not lead to a personal representation ? to 
 which I directly answer, it leads from personal representation, not 
 to it ; it ascertains representation to property, and to the propertied 
 community ; and whatever force, weight, influence, or authority both 
 possess, unites them against the attempt in favour of personal repre- 
 sentation. 
 
 * Zir H. Langrishe. 
 
whig- reform:. 
 
 215 
 
 Freeholders, leaseholders, and all resident trading interests, are 
 now in the struggle of our parliamentary constitution spectators; 
 they would then be parties. They now enjoy a power of returning 
 one-fifth of the House, and therefore are little interested for it ; and 
 they may have a speculation on the interest that might arise to them 
 on the throwing up that fifth, and dividing the whole with the 
 population ; therefore some of them may be parties against it; but if 
 they had the whole of the return, they would then be the proprietors, 
 and they would defend the parliamentary constitution against innova- 
 tion, with the same zeal with which the oligarch now defends his 
 boroughs against reformation; but with this difference, that the 
 existing parliamentary constitution would then be defended against 
 innovation with the strength of all the property and all the pro- 
 pertied public ; whereas it is now defended with the strength of about 
 forty individuals, and about £200,000 rental ; that is, without the 
 strength of population or of property : and it is a decided proof of 
 its weakness, that the boroughmongers could not now defend it 
 without the influence of government; and a further proof of its 
 weakness is the proposal of a plan of personal representation. Sir, 
 could such a monster be offered as a proposal, that the persons who 
 receive alms should vote the taxes, if there was not another monster 
 much less misproportioned, but a monster notwithstanding, in the 
 existing constitution, where a few individuals, as little the property 
 of the country as its population, vote those taxes ? It follows from 
 what I have said, that the best method of securing the parliamentary 
 constitution is to embody in its support the mass of property, which 
 will be generally found to include the mass of talents ; and that the 
 worst way of securing your parliamentary constitution is to rest it on 
 oligarchy — oligarchy ! that is a bad form of government ; oligarchy ! 
 that is always a weak one. 
 
 But, says the right honourable baronet, France ! Take warning 
 from France. If France is to be a lesson, take the whole of that 
 lesson ; if her frantic convention is to be a monitress against the vices 
 of a republic, let the causes which produced that convention be an 
 admonition against the abuses of monarchy. France would reform 
 nothing until abuses accumulated, and government was swept away 
 in the deluge; until an armed force redressed the state, and then, 
 as will be generally the case, united on becoming the govern- 
 ment. It was not a progress from reformation to innovation, but 
 from one modification of a military government, that is, of one 
 anarchy to another. In principle, therefore, the case of France does 
 not apply ; in policy still less ; for sure I am, if there is an attempt 
 
216 
 
 WHIG REFOS1. 
 
 to introduce the rebellious graces of a republic into these countries, 
 the best precaution is to discountenance them by the sober attractions 
 of a limited monarchy, and the worst precaution is to preserve all the 
 abuses of the latter, to preengage men against the vices of the former. 
 
 On this principle, I conceive the enemies to the constitution are 
 the extremes, the advocate for its abuses and the leveller of its estab- 
 lishments. The advocate for its abuses falsifies the origin of the 
 Commons in order to support the defects in the representation. .He 
 states that the Commons were seldom called, and then only for subsidy, 
 and this he calls the original purity of the English constitution. 
 The period of its formation, as best ascertained, was the time of the 
 Edwards ; and in the reign of Edward I. there were about twenty- 
 five parliaments ; in the reign of Edward II. about eleven ; and in 
 that of Edward III. about seventy great councils or parliaments; 
 and to these parliaments you find the Commons were summoned ; 
 therefore, it is ignorant to say that the Commons were seldom sum- 
 moned, and it is no less ignorant to say they were only summoned 
 for money ; for you will, in the different parliaments of those reigns, 
 find the Commons occupied with the subjects of war, peace, and 
 treaty, the regulation of the household, the regulation of the King's 
 counsellors, the staple, the coinage, the price of provision, the con- 
 duct of ministers, and the making of laws. 
 
 And if authority was necessary to support history, you find in the 
 reign of Richard II., the statute of heresy taken off the roll, because 
 smuggled through parliament without the assent of the Commons. 
 You find Blackstone express in declaring that the principle of the 
 constitut ion of parliament as it now stands, was laid in the charter, 
 and that it existed, in fact, ever since the reign of Henry III. You 
 will find writs extant, and the purposes for which the Commons w 7 erc 
 called, namely, the ardua regni, not subsidy, expressed in those writs; 
 and you will from the whole conclude, that this advocate for abuses 
 has traduced the inheritance of the people; and that instead of being 
 called seldom, and then only for money, the Commons were, in the 
 purity of the constitution, an essential part of the legislature ; and 
 you will also find that they were the representatives of landed and 
 commercial property. In tracing the errors of the patron of abuses, 
 you arrive at the truths which have confused him. He had probably 
 heard of a general and a particular parliament, but had not learned 
 to distinguish the purposes for which they were called ; the general 
 parliament being called for purposes affecting the realm ; the parti- 
 cular, which is properly called a great council, for purposes affecting 
 the order of men only of which that council was composed. Probably 
 
WHIG REFORM. 
 
 217 
 
 the uncertainty of the writ of summons was another cause of his 
 confusion ; but he should have understood the reason, and then he 
 would have learned that the writ followed the property, and when the 
 borough was decayed, was not directed thereunto. Thus, in the 
 thirty-fourth of Edward L, you find a summons to parliament of 
 one oi* two burgesses from each borough, as the boroughs should be 
 found greater or less : why ? because the representation had refe- 
 rence to the property and not to the name ; because, though the 
 Commons were an essential part of the parliament, the particular 
 borough was not an essential part of the Commons ; because in the 
 origin of the constitution there was a principle of reform as well as 
 of property, which principle was then very improperly exercised by 
 act of prerogative, and which it is now very properly proposed should 
 be exercised by act of legislation. 
 
 The advocate for abuses having falsified the origin of the Com- 
 mons, proceeds to falsify their importance, and tells us that the 
 security of the liberty of the people is placed in the aristocratic 
 influence of their representatives, and the inference of his observa- 
 tion he applies not only to Ireland, but to Great Britain. As the 
 English Commons increased in aristocratic influence, says the patron 
 of abuses, their liberties were best defended. It is not so ; it is 
 almost directly the contrary. If he means by aristocratic influence, 
 borough influence, he talks idly ; and if he means wealth, he 
 expresses himself improperly : liberty was not best defended as the 
 Commons became an aristocratic power, but as an aristocratic 
 wealth and feudal principality were alienated, melted, and diffused 
 among Ihe Commons : not as the Commons ceased to be Commons, 
 but as great men became Commons by alienation, and small men 
 became such by commerce — as the Commons grew in wealth the 
 better to combat that aristocratic influence, and not as they them- 
 selves became a part of that influence and ceased to be Commons. 
 To the aristocratic power which the patron of abuses would set up 
 as the bulwark of freedom, must we attribute the fall of freedom 
 and the catastrophe of kings. To this must we attribute the barons' 
 war and five depositions ; and to the diminution of that power are 
 we to attribute the Bill of Rights and the Revolution, both carried 
 in the Commons against the alterations and interpolations attempted 
 by this aristocratic interposition and influence. It is true, though 
 the power of the baron is gone, the influence of the borough patron 
 remains ; and therefore, though there is no civil war, there will 
 continue to be faction. For wherever the powers of the constitu- 
 tion fall into the hands of an oligarchy, the Crown and the 
 
218 
 
 WHIG REFORM. 
 
 people must alternately capitulate, the one for his freedom, and the 
 other for his prerogative ; and if I were to come to any general 
 conclusion on this part of the subject, it would be, that the dis- 
 turbance of government has been the effect of this prevalence of 
 the oligarchy, and the freedom of the people the effect of its 
 decline. Worse even than the abuses so defended, is a plan I have 
 seen for their reformation — personal or individual representation. 
 
 The principle of such a plan is a complete, avowed, and unquali- 
 fied departure from the vital and fundamental article of the British 
 constitution in practice and in theory ; and I must say such an 
 outset requires no small degree of mischievous and senseless 
 temerity. With equal folly does this plan violate the dearest rights 
 of man ; for if there is one right of man entirely indisputable, it is 
 that which gives to the individual in particular, and the community 
 in general, the fruits of his and of their industry ; thus the passenger 
 through your field, or the labourer on your farm, has no right to 
 make rules for the management of the same; nor have the aggregate 
 of labourers or of non-proprietors a right to make rules or ordinances 
 for the land, farms, or trade of the community. 
 
 This reasoning applies very strongly to the case of Ireland; 
 because it appeared on the hearth-money survey of the last year, that 
 those who were to be exempted from the hearth-money for want of 
 property, were more than half of our inhabitants. It was, besides, 
 insisted on by the objectors to reform, on the principle of property, 
 that such a principle excluded the majority; it follows that the plan 
 which gives votes to all the inhabitants, and gives away to that 
 majority the fruits of the industry of the community, gives away the 
 estate of the landholder, the farin of the freeholder, the lease of the 
 leaseholder, and the trade of the citizen, to be ordered and disposed 
 of by a majority who are confessed to have neither estate, nor farm, 
 nor lease, nor trade. That is the plan that robs the individual and 
 the community of the fruits of their industry, and destroys the 
 representation of property. Under the pretence of establishing a 
 representation of existence, it destroys a principle which is real and 
 sacred, to establish a conceit which is affected and nonsensical. 
 
 But it is not merely to those who have neither farm, freehold, 
 nor trade, that this plan extends the right of voting ; it gives the 
 return of members to serve in parliament to all the common soldiers, 
 to the resident army, horse, foot, and dragoons ; to the police ; to the 
 scavenger. It goes farther ; it gives that right to all hospitals, to 
 alms-men, to Channel Row, and every beggarman in the kingdom 
 of Ireland. It goes farther ; it gives that right to every criminal — 
 
WHIG REFORM. 
 
 219 
 
 Whiteboys that break laws, and Defenders who steal arms ; and 
 would thus present you with a representation of felons as well as of 
 paupers. To such a monstrous constitution, whose frenzy, folly, 
 and wickedness must excite at once your scorn and horror, the 
 objection is not merely that such persons would be represented, 
 but the persons who have no property in land, lease, freehold, or 
 trade, being confessedly the majority, it follows, under such a plan, 
 that such persons alone would be represented, and that the land- 
 holder, leaseholder, farmer, and tradesman, confessedly the minority, 
 with their one vote only (this plan allows them no more), would 
 not be represented at all ; it follows that those who have nothing in 
 land, lease, farm, or trade, would return the parliament ; that is, 
 those who have nothing in the common stock would make the laws, 
 and the men who receive alms would vote the taxes. You held the 
 Catholic to be a slave when his property was taxed without his 
 consent by the Protestant. The plan of personal representation 
 does away the franchise of the Catholic bill, and taxes both Protes- 
 tant and Catholic without the consent of either, by introducing a 
 new set of voters who shall outnumber both ; a body who have not, 
 with respect to you, like the Catholics, in property, a common, but 
 have a distinct and opposite interest, and are not politically the 
 same, but essentially different ; a body who put nothing into the 
 common stock, and are to take everything out of it. Some of them 
 are the objects of your charity, others the objects of your justice, 
 and all of them now invited to become members of the government 
 — a plan which invests the beggar with the power of the state, and 
 which robs the people of their influence in the constitution ; which 
 goes against the rights of man and the principles of the British consti- 
 tution ; which destroys all the counties ; which takes away from every 
 citizen and freeholder one vote by regulation, and extinguishes by the 
 voice and votes of the multitude the effect of the other; and which by 
 its direct and indirect operation, taken together, disfranchises all the 
 property in the kingdom. With such electors as have no property, 
 and whose condition alone, however subdivided their multitude, 
 would make an election a riot — with such an unqualified route, the 
 plan of personal representation becomes more alarming, by doubling 
 the number of elections, and making the parliament annual — that is, 
 by diminishing the franchise and doubling the confusion, afterward 
 making that confusion eternal ; so that instead of 150 elections 
 once in eight years, we should have every year 300 riots. 
 
 Suppose a potwalloping borough without even the restraint of a 
 potwalloping qualification ; suppose an election, of which Sword 
 
220 
 
 WHIG REFORM. 
 
 gives you an orderly and tranquil image, multiplied into three 
 hundred instances, and blazing out every year at the same moment 
 in every part of the kingdom. Trade, industry, government, order, 
 liberty, external consequence and internal repose, in short, young 
 Ireland, what must be your lot, while the business of your legisla- 
 tion, your trade, and your agriculture, stood still to give way to this 
 universal canvass and universal disorder, to this permanent intoxi- 
 cation and riot ? 
 
 To destroy the influence of landed property is the object of 
 individual representation, but its immediate effect would be to 
 extinguish the people. The rich might, for a time, make a struggle ; 
 they might in some places buy the mob, who, by such a plan, would 
 all be electors ; they might beset the hustings with their retainers, 
 who, by such a plan, would all be electors ; or they might purchase 
 the votes of that great body of electors introduced by such a plan 
 into the constitution — all the beggars in the neighbourhood ! The 
 minister, too (for the short time such a plan suffered king or 
 minister), could, in the corrupt confusion of such elections, preserve 
 some influence by the application of the treasury and the command 
 of the army ; he could have all the swords and votes of all the 
 common soldiers. But the farmer and the citizen could have none 
 of those advantages ; and, indeed, what farmer or citizen would go 
 to the trusting of a medley of offenders met on a plan, where 
 bayonets, bludgeons, and whiskey elected the House of Commons ? 
 In the mean time, the respect which the landlord and candidate now 
 pay to the farmer and to the citizen would be at an end; and instead 
 of resorting to the farmer for his vote and interest, the 'squire would 
 go the farmer's dung-yard, and canvass the boys of his bawn, who 
 would have more votes, though neither farm nor freehold. The 
 consequence of the citizen would be at an end also ; and instead of 
 going to his shop to ask the tradesman for his vote, the candidate 
 would apply to the beggar on the bridge, or the scavenger in the 
 kennel, or to the hospitals, or Channel Row, and those places where 
 the poor are now wisely supplied with bread instead of being 
 intoxicated with handbills, offering, in the place of bread, the hopes 
 of returning the parliament, and becoming a third constitutive part 
 of the legislature. 
 
 Such would be the state of election under this plan of personal 
 representation, which, from a revolution of power, would speedily 
 lead to a revolution of property, and become a plan of plunder as 
 well as a scene of confusion ; for if you transfer the power of the 
 state to those who have nothing in the country, they will afterward 
 
WHIG REFORM. 
 
 221 
 
 transfer the property, and annex it once more to the power in their 
 own persons. Give them your power, and they will give themselves 
 your property. Of such a representation as this plan would provide, 
 the first ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the circum- 
 stance incidental to robbery — murder. Such we have seen in France 
 on a similar experiment. There were two models for those who 
 undertook to reform the legislature — the principles of the British 
 constitution with all its prosperity — the confusions of the French 
 with all its massacres. Deliberately have the authors of the plan 
 of personal representation preferred the latter! Their plan, at 
 another time, had been only evidence of utter incapacity; at this, 
 and with the circumstance of its most active circulation, it is a proof 
 of the worst intentions : their plan is an elementary French consti- 
 tution ; as such I would resist it : as such, as long as there is spirit 
 or common sense in the kingdom, we will all and for ever resist it. 
 But though the perpetration of the design you may defy, yet the 
 mischief of the attempt you must acknowledge. It has thrown back 
 for the present the chance of any rational improvement in the repre- 
 sentation of the people, and has betrayed a good reform to the hopes 
 of a shabby insurrection. There are two characters equally enemies 
 to the reform of parliament, and equally enemies to the government 
 — the leveller of the constitution, and the friend of its abuses: they 
 take different roads to arrive at the same end. The levellers propose 
 to subvert the king and parliamentary constitution by a rank 
 and unqualified democracy — the friends of its abuses propose to 
 support the king and buy the parliament, and in the end to overset both, 
 by a rank and an avowed corruption. They are both incendiaries ; 
 the one would destroy government to pay his court to liberty ; the other 
 would destroy liberty to pay his court to government; but the liberty 
 of the one would be confusion, and the government of the other would 
 be pollution. Thus these opposite and bad characters would meet at 
 last on the ground of their common mischief, the ruins of the best re- 
 gulations that ever distinguished human wisdom, those that limit the 
 power of the Crown, and those that restrain the impetuosity of thepeople. 
 
 Adverting to your constitution with particular care, I find in its 
 present defective state of representation, we have neither represen- 
 tation of property, nor of any proportion of property; it appeared 
 that less than ninety, but in fact, I believe about forty, individuals 
 return # vast majority of the House of Commons. Of property it 
 will be found that those persons who return that majority (it is, I 
 believe, two-thirds) have not an annual income of £300,000, while 
 they give and grant above £3,000,000— that is, the taxes they 
 
222 
 
 WHIG REFORM. 
 
 give are ten times, and the property they tax is infinitely greater 
 than the property they represent. This constitution of dispro- 
 portion, this representation of person, not property, of the persons of 
 a few individuals, is less defensible when you look to its origin. I 
 have heard of the antiquity of borough representation in Ireland- 
 it is a gross and monstrous imposition ; this borough representation 
 is upstart, the greater part of which was created by James I., for 
 the known and professed purpose of modelling parliament. Hear 
 the account of that project in Ireland! Chief-Baron Gilbert says: 
 " The constitution of boroughs did not arise from burgage-tenures 
 as in England, but from concessions from the King to send members 
 created in later times, when, by securing an interest in such towns, 
 proper representatives to serve the turn of the court were sent to 
 parliament". In Leland, you find them described as follows : " A 
 number of new boroughs, most of them inconsiderable, and many 
 too poor to afford wages to representatives, must be entirely devoted 
 to government, and must return its creatures and dependents ; such 
 an accesion of power could not fail to encourage administration to 
 pursue the dictates of its passions and resentments". The persons 
 returned were — whom? — clerks, attorneys, and servants of the 
 Lord Deputy ; there is the sacred model ! 
 
 But, say gentlemen, the boroughs have in their operation done 
 prodigies ! one great operation has been to tax the country at large 
 for places and pensions for borough representatives. See how the 
 constitution, by borough and not representation, worked previous* 
 to the Revolution : it scarcely worked at all. Of the last century, 
 near eighty-five years at different intervals passed without a par- 
 liament ; from 1585 to 1612, that is, twenty-seven years, no 
 parliament; from 1615 to 1634, nineteen years, no parliament; 
 from 1648 to 1661, thirteen years, no parliament; from 1666 to 
 1692, that is twenty-six years, no parliament. Before the Revo- 
 lution, it thus appears, that with the rights and the name, Ireland 
 had not the possession of a parliamentary constitution ; and it will 
 appear, since the Revolution, she had no constitutional parliament. 
 From 1692 to 1768, near seventy years, almost two-thirds of a 
 century, the tenure was during the life of the King; since that time 
 of limitation of the term, there have been two reforms in the essence 
 of parliament, but reforms which I shall distinguish from the 
 constitutional reform desired in the bill, by the appellation of anti- 
 reforms. The first anti-reform procured by the treasury, was the 
 creation of a number of new parliamentary provisions, in the years 
 1769, 1770, and 1771, for the purpose of creating representatives 
 
WHIG REFOUtf. 
 
 223 
 
 of the minister to counteract and counterbalance the representatives 
 of the aristocracy ; this anti-reform, or modelling of the legislature, 
 was emphatically described and authoritatively confessed by a 
 memorable declaration and scandalous justification ; and the govern- 
 ment was said to have paid for defeating the aristocratic influence a 
 sum of half a million — a sum which would have bought fifty boroughs 
 to be open to the people, and which the people were declared to have 
 paid to procure a certain number of members in parliament to 
 represent the minister. 
 
 The second period of anti-reform was in 1789, when the same 
 sum was declared as likely to be expended for the same purpose — for 
 the purpose of buying more representatives of the then minister, to 
 counteract the remaining strength of the representatives of the 
 aristocracy ; that is, when fifteen new parliamentary provisions were 
 created to procure fifteen new ministerial representatives. Here is 
 the other half million ; and here are two anti-reforms, which have 
 cost the nation as much as would buy one hundred boroughs, that 
 is, all the boroughs ; which (the fifteen new court representatives of 
 1789 being added to those of 1769, or about that period, and to 
 the gradual additions since) make altogether from forty to fifty new 
 additional representatives of administration, which is a number 
 nearly equal to all the knights of the shire. 
 
 I have heard the word innovation. Would they who exclaim 
 thus, call forty additional members to the counties innovation, and 
 forty additional members to the ministers none ? Is the extent of 
 the principle of representation to more county members innovation, 
 and the subversion of that principle in the instances I speak of none ? 
 Is a fuller and fairer representation of property on the principles of the 
 constitution, innovation, and a fuller representation of the treasury 
 none ? The question is not now, whether you will admit the idea of a 
 reform of parliament, but, having admitted and submitted to innovation 
 in the shape of abuse, whether you will not now counteract that abuse 
 in the shape of reformation ? Gentlemen speak of a fixed constituc 
 tion. Sir, these boroughs^are not a fixed constitution, but floating 
 property ; a provision for younger children, a payment for debts, and 
 a mortgage on the treasury for the family of the proprietor. The 
 question is, then, whether a property which is now at market, shall 
 be bought by individuals or opened to the people ? — whether the 
 minister shall, from time to time, buy such portions of your constitu- 
 tion as shall secure him at all times a majority against the people ; 
 or a reform shall so control that influence, as to secure to the people 
 the chance of a majority in their own House of Parliament. 
 
224 
 
 WHIG REFORM. 
 
 When I say this is a quest ion, I am in error ; it can be no 
 question, or, at least, this is the only assembly in which it could be 
 a question. Let not gentlemen complain of stirring the subject ; 
 they stirred, they decided the subject ; they who negotiated the half 
 million ; they who created, in 1789, the memorable increase of court 
 representation ; they whq confessed the half million ; and they who 
 devised the sale of the peerage. We are only the advocates for a 
 reform of parliament, but they are the evidence of its necessity ; 
 they do not draw that conclusion themselves ; no, but they are the 
 evidences that force the conclusion upon you. 
 
 Gentlemen have talked of innovation ; have they considered the 
 date of boroughs when they talk in this manner ? Many of these 
 boroughs were at first free boroughs, perhaps one half of the whole 
 was free by charter, and have been made close boroughs by its 
 violation, and are in law extinct, and their members now sit in this 
 House in the face of the law of the land as well as the principles of 
 the constitution. We moved to go last session into an examination, 
 but gentlemen were afraid ; we wish to go now into an examina- 
 tion, and if they will venture, we have reason to think we can 
 show you that many of those boroughs are dead in law ? and their 
 members sit here by intrusion. 
 
 We conclude this head by three observations : 1st, That in! 
 Ireland the erection of the majority of the boroughs was with a view 
 to subvert her parliamentary constitution. 2nd, That the use made 
 of those boroughs since, by the sale of peerages, and by the 
 procuring at each general election portions of the parliament, 
 has tended to undermine that constitution. 3rd, That a great part 
 of those boroughs have at this moment no existence in law. We, 
 therefore, conclude with Locke and Bolingbroke : 
 
 " Things of this world are in so constant a flux, tliat nothing 
 remains long in the same state ; thus people, riches, trade, power, 
 change their stations, flourishing, mighty cities come to ruin, and prove 
 in time neglected, desolate corners ; whilst other unfrequented places 
 grow into populous countries, filled with wealth and inhabitants. 
 But things not always changing equally, and private interest often 
 keeping up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are 
 ceased, it often comes to pass, that in governments where part of 
 the legislature consists of representatives chosen by the people, that 
 in tract of time this representation becomes very unequaL and 
 disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To 
 what gross absurdities the following of custom, when reason has left 
 it, may lead, we may be satisfied, when. we see the bare name of a 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 225 
 
 *own, of which there remain not so much as the ruins, where scares 
 so much housing as a sheep-cot, or more inhabitants than a shepherd, 
 are to be found, send as many representatives to the grand assembly 
 of law-makers as a whole county, numerous in people and powerful 
 in riches ; this strangers stand amazed at, and every one must 
 confess needs a remedy". 
 
 Speaking of the Revolution, Lord Bolingbroke adds : 
 " If it had been such, with respect to the elections of members to 
 serve in parliament, these elections might have been drawn back to 
 the ancient principle on which they had been established ; and the 
 tale of property which was followed anciently, and was perverted by 
 innumerable changes that length of time produced, might have been 
 restored ; by which the communities to whom the right of electing 
 was trusted, as well as the qualification of the electors and the 
 elected, might have been settled in proportion to the present state 
 of things. Such a remedy might have wrought a radical cure to the 
 evil that threatens our constitution ; whereas it is much to be 
 apprehended, even from experience, that all others are merely 
 palliative; and yet the palliative must be employed, no doubt, till the 
 specific can be procured". 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 January 15, 1800. 
 
 Mr. Egan had just risen to speak, when Mr. Grattan entered the House, sup- 
 ported (in consequence of illness) by Mr. W. B. Ponsonby aud Mr. Arthur 
 Moore.* He took the oaths and his seat, and after Mr. Egan had concluded, 
 in consequence of illness being obliged to speak sitting, he addressed the House 
 as follows : — 
 
 Sir, The gentleman who spoke last but one (Mr. Fox) has spoken 
 the pamphlet of the English minister — I answer that minister. He 
 has published two celebrated productions, in both of which he 
 declares his intolerance of the constitution of Ireland. He concurs 
 with the men whom he has hanged, in thinking the constitution a 
 
 * The reporters who have transmitted the account of the debates of the day 
 state, " Never was beheld a scene more solemn; an indescribable emotion seized 
 the House and gallery, and every heart heaved in tributary pulsation to the 
 name, the virtues, and the return to parliament of the founder of the constitu 
 ition of 1782; the existence of which was then the subject of debate*'. 
 
226 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 grievance, and differs from them in the remedy only; they proposing 
 to substitute a republic, and he proposing to substitute the yoke of 
 the British Parliament ; the one turns rebel to the King, the minister 
 a rebel to the constitution. 
 
 We have seen him inveigh against their projects, let us hear him 
 in defence of his own. He denies in the face of the two nations a 
 public fact registered and recorded; he disclaims the final adjustment 
 of 1782, and he tells you that this final adjustment was no more 
 than an incipient train of negotiation. The settlement of which I 
 speak consists of several parts, every part a record, establishing on 
 the whole two grand positions. First, the admission of Ireland's 
 claim to be legislated for by no other parliament but that of Ireland. 
 Secondly, the finality imposed upon the two nations, regarding all 
 constitutional projects affecting each other. On the admission of 
 that claim, the first tracts of this adjustment are two messages sent 
 by his majesty to the parliaments of the different countries, to come 
 to a final adjustment, in order to remove the discontents and 
 jealousies of the Irish ; the second, the answer of the Parliament of 
 Ireland to His Majesty's message, declaring, among other causes of 
 discontent and jealousy, one great, capital^ principal, and funda- 
 mental cause, namely, the interposition of the Parliament of Great 
 Britain in the legislative regulation of Ireland, accompanied with a 
 solemn protest against that interposition, and with a claim of right 
 on the part of Ireland ; not of the Parliament of Ireland only, but 
 of the people of the realm, whose ancient and unalienable inheritance 
 it was stated in that address to be — a perpetual exemption against 
 the interference of the Parliament of Great Britain, or that of any 
 other Parliament, save only the King, Lords, and Commons of 
 Ireland. The third part of this adjustment was a resolution voted 
 by the two British Houses of Parliament, in consequence of said 
 address, transmitted by His Majesty for their consideration. There 
 were two resolutions transmitted ; the first, that the 6 th of George 
 L, containing the claim of interference by the British Parliament, 
 should be repealed ; the second, that the connection between the 
 countries should be placed, by mutual consent, on a solid and 
 permanent foundation. The third part of the covenant was, the 
 address of the two Houses of the Irish Parliament upon the consi- 
 deration of these two resolutions ; which address does, among other 
 things, accept of the proposition contained in the first resolution, and 
 does expressly reject the second ; for it says, that we conceive 
 the resolution for unqualified and unconditional repeal of the 6th of 
 George I. to be a measure of consummate wisdom. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 227 
 
 I drew that address, and I introduced those words expressly tc 
 exclude any subsequent qualifications or limitations, affecting to clog 
 or restrain the operations of that repeal, and the plenitude of the 
 legislative authority of the Irish Parliament. The address adds the 
 clause of finality; for instance, that, gratified in these particulars 
 which it states, no "constitutional question between the two nations 
 will any longer exist". 
 
 The next part was the measure adopted by the English Parlia- 
 ment upon the consideration of this address ; and in that measure 
 they accede to that address entirely and unequivocally ; they embrace 
 our proposition of unconditional and unqualified repeal ; and they 
 accordingly introduce a bill for that purpose ; and thus they close 
 the final adjustment; our address, though no part of their resolutions, 
 becoming part of their covenant; as their bill of repeal, though no 
 part of our acts, became part of our treaty. 
 
 Another instrument in the transaction is, the address to His 
 Excellency the Lord-lieutenant, touching the finality of this measure, 
 in which are these words — "We have seen this great national 
 arrangement established on a basis which secures and unites the 
 interests of both kingdoms ; the objects we have been labouring for 
 have been accomplished". 
 
 The 'next is the declaration of the Irish government, touching the 
 finality of that arrangement, " convince the people that every cause 
 of past jealousy and discontent is finally removed, and that both 
 countries have pledged their good faith to each other, and that their 
 best security will be their inviolable adherence to this compact". 
 There are two other parts which are material ; the resolution of the 
 Irish House of Commons, the 18th of June, declaring in substance, 
 that the question was not now to be opened, and that the business 
 was done, and in these words, that leave to bring in a bill of right 
 was refused, because the right of legislation in the Irish Parliament 
 in all cases had been already asserted by Ireland, and fully, and 
 finally, and irrevocably acknowledged by Great Britain. 
 
 The next instrument was an address to His Majesty, to beseech 
 him to appoint a day of public thanksgiving for the accomplishment 
 of these great objects, as well as for his victories. Thus it appears, 
 that whatever idea might have been conceived in the second reso- 
 lution of the 17th of May, 1782, it was totally and entirely 
 abandoned. The minister of that time probably intended to make 
 the best bargain he could for England, and therefore conceived it 
 eligible to condition and qualify the acknowledgment of the inde- 
 pendency of the Irish Parliament, by certain provisions respecting 
 
228 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 navigation, etc. ; but finding that the Irish Parliament wouM -accept 
 of nothing but the unqualified and unconditional repeal, he dropped 
 the fruitless idea. I cannot presume to state his sentiments, but I 
 can state that the Irish proposition of unqualified and unconditional 
 repeal, rejecting the idea of further measures, was adopted in England 
 by her Parliament, which embraced the Irish proposition of 
 unqualified and unconditional repeal of the 6th of George I., and 
 did repeal it accordingly without qualification, condition, or limitation. 
 
 I beg leave to mention two facts, which, though not recorded, are 
 not forgotten ; the one is a declaration by Lord Lansdowne, then 
 secretary of state, that the repeal of the 6th George I. was the only 
 measure he meant to propose ; the other was a declaration by the 
 representative of the Irish government, in the Irish House of 
 Commons, made after our address of the 27th of May, that no 
 measures were intended to be grounded on the second English reso- 
 lution of May 17 th. I remember the question to have been asked 
 and so answered. 
 
 I think I have now shown, from the records quoted, that the 
 argument of the minister is against the express letter, the evident 
 meaning and honest sense of this final settlement, and I beg leave 
 to repeat that finality was not only a part of the settlement, but one 
 of its principal objects. The case is still stronger against him : 
 finality was the principal object of his country, as legislative inde- 
 pendency was the object of our's. Ireland wished to seize the 
 moment of her strength for the establishment of her liberties ; the 
 court of England wished to conclude the operations of that strength, 
 and bind its progress. The one country wished to establish her 
 liberty, the other to check the growth of demand; I say the growth 
 of demand ; it was the expression of the time. The court of Eng- 
 land came, therefore, to an agreement with this country, namely, to 
 establish for ever the free and independent existence of the Irish 
 Parliament, and to preserve for ever the unity of empire. The 
 former, by the abovernentioned adjustment, the latter, by the clause 
 of finality to that adjustment annexed, and by precluding then, and 
 at all times to come, the introduction of any further constitutional 
 questions in either country, affecting the connection which was to 
 rest under solemn covenant, inviolable, impregnable, and invincible 
 to the intrigue or ambition of either country, founded on the prudent, 
 the profound, the liberal, and the eternal principle of unity of empire, 
 and separation of parliament. 
 
 I might, however, waive all this, and yet the minister would get 
 nothing ; I might allow, contrary to common sense, that final adjust- 
 
ANTI-UNION SrEECHES. 
 
 229 
 
 ment, as proposed by His Majesty, means incipient negotiation. I 
 will suppose, contrary to truth, to public faith, public honour, and 
 common policy, that the councils of Great Britain at that time meant 
 to leave the Irish constitution open to the encroachments of the 
 British Parliament, and the British empire open to the encroachments 
 of the Irish volunteer; that is, that she meant to expose the solidity of 
 her empire, in order to cheat the Irish, first, of their opportunity, and 
 afterwards of their constitution ; and yet he has gained nothing by 
 these preposterous concessions, because he must allow that the 
 arrangement did proceed to certain articles of covenant, and the 
 first article on the part of England excludes his Union, being the 
 assent of the Parliament of Great Britain to the requisition of the 
 people of Ireland, which was to be exempted in all times to come 
 from the interference of British Parliaments, and to have established 
 over them no other legislature whatever, save only that of the King, 
 Lords, and Commons of Ireland. Admitting, then, the ridiculous 
 idea of ulterior measures to follow final adjustment, a Union could 
 not be one of them. It it hardly necessary to mention that he has 
 been minister ever since that period ; that during the whole of that 
 time he never ventured to name Union as one of those measures ; 
 not in 1783, when a bill was brought in by the ministry; not in 
 1785, when he introduced his celebrated propositions, and stated the 
 second resolution of the 17th of May, 1782, to comprehend, not the 
 constitution, but the commerce of both countries ; not in the admi- 
 nistration of 1785 ; not, in short, until he had reduced this country 
 by a train of calamitous measures, to religious divisions, to the con- 
 dition of a conquest, such as she was when the Parliament of England, 
 at the close of the last century, took away her trade, and in the 
 middle of the present took away her constitution. 
 
 The minister proceeds ; he impeaches the constitution of 1 782 ; 
 from disavowing an arrangement so adjusted at that time, and an 
 adjustment so concluded, he advances, and calls that adjustment a 
 miserable imperfection ; after fifteen years' panegyric, and when he 
 has a great army in Ireland, he has made that discovery, and 
 instead of a constitution which established peace in Ireland, he 
 revives a principle which produced war in America ; namely, that 
 two independent legislatures are incompatible. This was the lan- 
 guage of Lord North's sword in the colonies ; this is the language 
 of Mr. Pitt's sword in Ireland ; and this doctrine of imperial legis- 
 lature which lost Great Britain America, and which Great Britain 
 surrendered to Ireland, takes once more its bloody station in the 
 speeches of the minister, in defiance of faith, and in contempt of 
 
 11 
 
230 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 experience. It seems as a British Parliament is disposed to surrender 
 its liberties to the court, the court is disposed to advance its domination 
 over all the British connections; similarity of constitutions is no longer 
 the bond of connection ; all are to be swallowed up, according to this 
 doctrine, in one imperial parliament, whose powers increase as the 
 boundaries of the empire contract and the spirit of her liberties declines. 
 
 " You abolished", says he, " one constitution, but you forgot to 
 form another".* Indeed! What! does he mean that we should 
 have demolished an usurpation, in order to mangle a constitution ? 
 Does he mean that we should have overset the tyranny of one par- 
 liament to mangle another ? Does he mean that we should have taken 
 away the usurped and tyrannical powers of the legislature of Eng- 
 land, in order to restore those usurped and tyrannical powers to that 
 very legislature? In what branches? His propositions have stated 
 them; commerce, etc., the very branches in which they had been by 
 that very legislature, most oppressively and egregiously, obstinately, 
 and transcendently abused. Most certainly the conductors of that 
 settlement on the part of Ireland, did not think proper so to restore 
 the grievance of a foreign legislation, and so to limit the powers of 
 a domestic one. The minister has given in his speech the reason. 
 " All the great branches of trade (by which he must mean the linen 
 trade, the plantation trade, and the import trade) are ascribed to 
 the liberality of England, not to covenant". I deny it; but as 
 ministers may deny covenants, it seemed prudent to reserve the 
 powers of parliament, and accordingly the Irish legislature retains 
 full and ample resources, under the settlement of that time, to 
 incline the councils of England to remember and observe her com- 
 pacts with our country, should the Brittish minister be disposed to 
 forget them ; thus the Parliament of Ireland can so regulate her in- 
 tercourse with other countries for colonial produce, so regulate her 
 right to an East India trade, and so adjust her channel trade, as to 
 secure a preference in the English market for her linens, and for a 
 direct intercourse with the British plantations. 'Was Ireland to 
 retain those powers with a view to annoy ? No ; but she was to 
 retain them, and to retain them, lest Great Britain, instigated by 
 some minister, might be induced to exercise once more those very 
 powers of annoyance with which now the right honourable gentleman 
 threatens Ireland ; in short, lest Great Britain should retain all her 
 powers of molestation, and Ireland should surrender all her powers 
 of retaliation. The classic minister must know, Tacitus has told 
 
 * Mr. Pitt's speech. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 231 
 
 Irim, that between the powerful and the impotent there can be nopeaee; 
 the powers I speak of were powers of peace ; they were powers of pro- 
 tection; they were the great reserves of the Irish Parliament, to secure 
 the trade of Ireland and the harmony of the empire ; the wisdom of the 
 reserve, such a minister as he is was bora to establish. Strange ideas 
 this minister entertains of the constitution of an Irish Parliament. It 
 should be incompetent, it should be omnipotent ; incompetent to regulate 
 the commerce of the country, omnipotent to give away her constitution: 
 it finds its omnipotence in his mind when it abdicates its trust. 
 
 The minister proceeds : he specifies his objections to this settle- 
 ment of 1782 ; the case of regency is one, and war is another. Facts 
 are against him in both. He states that it was accident alone, 
 meaning the recovery of his Majesty, that preserved the identity 
 of the executive power at the time of the regency ; he misstates 
 that fact totally and entirely ; it was not accident, namely, the 
 recovery of the King, that preserved the identity of the execu- 
 tive powers ; that identity was preserved amply, carefully, and 
 affectionately, by the determination of the Irish Parliament in choos- 
 ing for their regent the heir apparent of the Crown, already 
 designated and determined upon, though not in form invested, 
 by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Parliament of Ireland 
 provided in that event not only for the preservation of the monar- 
 chical principle, but for the preservation of the connexion likewise, 
 and adhered to his country, though they did not link themselves to 
 his party. The principle that came under the consideration of the 
 Irish Parliament was threefold, — the principle of monarchy, the 
 principle of connection, and the principle of party. With regard to 
 the two first, they concurred with the Parliament of England ; they 
 chose as regent the next in succession to the Crown, and they chose 
 him after, and not before, the Parliament of Great Britain had signi- 
 fied, with the minister at their head, their determination to appoint 
 him, and in so doing they followed faithfully the spirit of the act of 
 annexation of the crown, which forms between the two countries 
 their bond and connexion, but a bond and connection through the 
 medium of monarchy. I am stating the spirit of that act. I say, 
 the act of annexation, and so the bill of 1782, altering and amend- 
 ing the act of Poynings, and ordaining that Irish bills shall be sent 
 to the King, look to the bond and connection of these islands through 
 the medium of monarchy. A British republic never was in the 
 contemplation of either ; but an English monarchy, and no other 
 form of government, was present to the conceptions of both, either 
 giving thereby the royal house, who are the monarchs of Ireland as 
 
232 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 well as of Great Britain, a double security, and the throne upon 
 which they sit a double root. I say the Parliament of Ireland did 
 adhere to the principles of British connection, and did unite with 
 them the safe and the prescribed principles of monarchical govern- 
 ment. They did concur with the Parliament of England in the 
 choice of a regent, in the person of his Royal Highness the Prince 
 of Wales. But with regard to the third principle, namely, the 
 principle of party, they differed ; the Parliament of England think- 
 ing proper to incumber the regent with extraordinary limitations, 
 and that of Ireland judging it more eligible to leave him in full 
 exercise of all the executive powers. It therefore rejected a motion 
 of delay, knowing the object of that motion was to postpone the 
 appointment until the then Lord-lieutenant of Ireland should have 
 formed a formidable faction confederated against the future govern- 
 ment. In short, the Parliament of Ireland did not think it proper 
 to appoint a regent with less than regential power, and to constitute 
 in opposition a minister with great portions of regal authority. 
 Hence, perhaps, this Union ; hence, perhaps, the visitation of calami- 
 tous government which has befallen Ireland ever since. One of the 
 minister's instruments in this country has confessed it ; he has said, 
 in one of his speeches published by his authority, that all the misfor- 
 tunes of this country sprung from that resentful period. But who 
 is it that reproaches Ireland upon this subject, most injuriously and 
 unjustly, with the crime of availing herself of the opportunity 
 afforded by the most calamitous event that visited the health of our 
 sovereign ? it is that very minister who published that opportunity 
 in the broadest and most unqualified resolution ; who told the 
 parliament of both countries, that they were perfectly competent to 
 supply, in that melancholy moment, the deficiency in the executive 
 magistrate by any method which they thought proper ; that is, who 
 told the British Houses they were competent to establish a tempo- 
 rary republic; and told the Irish Houses, of course and by necessary 
 iuference, that they were competent to establish a temporary repub- 
 lic, and to accomplish a temporary separation. To have declined the 
 opportunity is called the ambition of one parliament ; to have pro- 
 claimed the opportunity, is called the moderation of the minister. 
 His partizans in this country went further ; he maintained the power 
 of the British convention to bind Ireland : — 
 Ille inipiger hausit 
 Spumantem pateram et pleno proluit se auro. 
 
 According to the two opinions, the two Houses of the British Parlia- 
 ment could overturn the British monarchy and Irish constitution. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 233 
 
 The minister proceeds : he states a second instance, namely, that 
 of war. Here, again, the fact is against him; the Parliament of 
 Ireland have, ever since their emancipation, concurred with England 
 on the subject of war ; but they have concurred, with this remark- 
 able difference, that, before their emancipation, their concurrence 
 w T as barren, and since their emancipation, it has been productive. 
 Immediately on the settlement of that emancipation in 1782, they 
 voted a sum for British seamen, and on the apprehension of a war 
 with Spain in 1790, they voted another; and in the present war, 
 under Lord Fitzwilliam's administration, they voted a third ; so 
 much more beneficial are the wild offerings of liberty, than the 
 squeezings, and eviscerations, and excruciations of power. But all 
 this is lost upon the minister ; fact and bounty make no impression on 
 him ; he has against both a fallacious argument and hungry speculation. 
 
 He thinks that he foresees that the Parliament of Ireland may 
 dissent from that of Great Britain on the subject of war. He knows 
 that peace and war are in the department of the King, not of 
 parliament ; he knows that, on a proclamation by His Majesty, 
 Ireland is in a state of war, of course, and without the assent of the 
 Houses of Parliament ; he knows that the supply of that war depends 
 not on the Parliament of Ireland, but of Great Britain ; and there- 
 fore the interference of the Parliament of Ireland on that subject is 
 little more than the declaration of a sentiment. Now, the declara- 
 tion of a sentiment on such a subject is only valuable as it is the 
 sentiment of the nation; and the concurrence of Ireland in British wars 
 can only be the sentiment of the nation as the constitution of the 
 nation ; that is to say, the rights of Ireland, as claimed by herself, to 
 be exempted from the legislative authority of a British Parliament, are 
 tendered, regarded, and protected by the British empire. It is not the 
 Isle of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mysore country, nor the 
 dominions of Tippoo, nor yet the feathers of her western wing, that 
 engage the attention or interests of Ireland ; it is her own freedom and 
 constitution; it is our own idea of that internal freedom and constitu- 
 tion, not such as British ministers, who have invaded that constitution, 
 shall hold forth ; nor such as English or Scotch metaphysicians, who 
 made chains for America, and called them her constitution, and who are 
 ready now to cast links for Ireland; but that constitution which she 
 herself, Ireland, feels, comprehends, venerates, and claims ; such as 
 she herself expressed in her contention at Dungannon, and through 
 all her counties and cities, and in every description and association 
 of people, and afterwards in full parliament claimed, carried, regis- 
 tered, and recorded ; it is for the preservation of this constitution 
 
234 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES, 
 
 that she is interested in British wars. She considers the British 
 empire a great western barrier against invasion from other countries ° r 
 invasion on what? invasion on her liberties, on her rights and privi- 
 leges ; invasion on self-legislation, the parent and protectress of them 
 all. She hears the ocean protesting against separation, but she 
 hears the sea likewise protesting against Union; she follows, there- 
 fore, her physical destination, and obeys the dispensations of Provi- 
 dence, when she protests, like that sea, against the two situations, 
 both equally unnatural, separation and union. 
 
 On these principles, I suppose the dissent of Ireland, on the subject 
 of war, highly improbable, as it is uninstancecl ; but I should 
 attribute, like the minister, infallibility to those councils that engage 
 their country in a war, should I suppose the dissent of Ireland on 
 such a subject at all times to be fatal. Happy had it been for his 
 Majesty, happy had it been for his glory and renown in all time to 
 come, had not the Parliament of Ireland, in an American war, cursed 
 him with her concurrence ! What could the tutelary angel of 
 England have done more, if that angel had been Minerva, and that 
 Minerva sat in parliament — what, than to have advanced against 
 the councils of that time the shield of her displeasure ? Looking 
 back to the wars in which Great Britain has been engaged, I should 
 therefore suggest, that she is in less danger from the hesitation of 
 Ireland, than from the precipitation of Great Britain. In this part 
 of his argument the minister is weak, but in his remedy he is not 
 only weak, but mischievous. He proposes, by taking away our 
 powers of dissent, to withdraw our motive of concurrence, and, to 
 secure our silence, forfeits our affection ; he foresees an improbable 
 event; of that event he greatly exaggerates the danger and provides 
 a remedy which makes that danger not only imminent, but deadly. 
 
 I will put this question to my country • I will suppose her at the 
 bar, and I will ask her : Will you fight for a Union as you would 
 for a constitution ? Will you fight for that Lords and that 
 Commons, who in the last century took away your trade, and in the 
 present your constitution, as for that King, Lords, and Commons, 
 who have restored both ? Well, the minister has destroyed this 
 constitution ; to destroy is easy ; the edifices of the mind, like the 
 fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to 
 precipitate ; and, as the fall of both is an effort of no time, so 
 neither is it a business of any strength ; a pick-axe and a common 
 labourer will do the one — a little lawyer, a little pimp, a wicked 
 minister, the other. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 235 
 
 The constitution, which, with more or less violence, has been the 
 inheritance of this country for six hundred years ; that modus tenendi 
 parliamentum, which lasted and outlasted of Plantagenet the wars, 
 of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic falsehood ; the 
 condition of our connection — yes — the constitution he destroys — is 
 one of the pillars of the British empire. He may walk round it 
 and round it, and the more he contemplates, the more must he 
 admire ; such a one as had cost England of money millions and of 
 blood a deluge— cheaply and nobly expended ; whose restoration 
 had cost Ireland her noblest efforts, and was the habitation of her 
 loyalty; we are accustomed to behold the kings of these countries 
 in the keeping of parliament ; I say of her loyalty as well 
 as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the 
 volunteer, her temple of fame, as well as of freedom ; where she had 
 seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a 
 long repose. 
 
 I have done with the pile which the minister battersl I come to 
 the Babel which he builds ; and as he throws down without a 
 principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric 
 he calls a Union, and to this his fabric there are two striking 
 objections : first, it is no Union : it is not an identification of 
 people, for it excludes the Catholics ; secondly, it is a consolidation 
 of the Irish legislatures, that is to say, a merger of the Irish 
 Parliament ; and incurs every objection to a Union, without obtain- 
 ing the only object which a Union professes : it is an extinction of 
 the constitution, and an exclusion of the people. Well ! he has 
 overlooked the people as he has overlooked the sea. I say he 
 excludes the Catholics, and he destroys their best chance of admission 
 — the relative consequence. Thus he reasons, that hereafter, in a 
 course of time (he does not say when), if they behave themselves 
 (lie does not say how), they may see their subjects submitted to a 
 course of discussion (he does not say with what result or determina- 
 tion); and as the ground for this inane period, in which he promises 
 nothing, and in which, if he did promise much, at so remote a period 
 he could perform nothing, unless he, like the evil he has accomplished, 
 be immortal — for this inane sentence, in which he can scarcely be 
 said to deceive the Catholic, or suffer the Catholic to deceive 
 himself, he exhibits no other ground than the physical inanity of 
 the Catholic body accomplished by a Union, which, as it destroys 
 the relative importance of Ireland, so it destroys the relative pro- 
 portion of the Catholic inhabitants, and thus they become admissible 
 
236 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES 
 
 because they cease to be anything. Hence, according to him, theii 
 brilliant expectation : " You were", say his advocates, and so- 
 imports his argument, u before the Union as three to one, you will 
 be by the Union as one to four". Thus he founds their hopes of 
 political power on the extinction of physical consequence, and makes 
 the inanity of their body and the nonentity of their country the 
 pillars of their future ambition. 
 
 The Catholics of the city of Dublin have come forth in support of 
 the constitution. I rejoice at it. They have answered their enemies 
 by the best possible answer — by services. Such answer is more 
 than refutation — it is triumph. The man who supports and 
 preserves parliament qualifies ; the path of glory leads on to 
 privilege ; " enjoy with me, if you please ; without me, if you be 
 illiberal ; but by me certainly ; and at all events enjoy the parliamen- 
 tary constitution of your country". This is to defend the tower, 
 this is to leap upon the wreck, this is to sit beside the country in 
 her sick bed ; if she recover, there is a long and bright order of 
 days before her, and the Catholics will have contributed to that 
 event ; if she perish, they will have done their utmost to save her ; 
 they will have done as an honest man ought in such an extreme 
 case — they will have flung out their last setting glories, and sunk 
 with their country. 
 
 The minister, by his first plans, as detailed by his advocates, not 
 only banished the Catholics from parliament, but banished the 
 Protestants from it likewise, for he banished them from a due repre- 
 sentation therein ; he struck off one half of the county representa- 
 tives, and preserved the portion of boroughs as two to one. Thus 
 he disposed of the question of Catholic emancipation and 
 parliamentary reform, by getting rid c»f both for ever ; thus did he 
 build his first plan of Union upon the abuses both of church and 
 state, and reformed neither ; religious monopoly or borough 
 monopoly, he continued to exclude the Catholic from parliament ; 
 and he continued to shut out both Protestant and Catholic from a 
 due and effectual parliamentary representation. He shut out 
 Protestant ascendency as well as Catholic participation ; and in the 
 place of .both, constituted borough ascendency in perpetual abuse 
 and dominion. He reformed the British Parliament by nearly sixty 
 Irish borough members ; he reformed the Irish Parliament by 558 
 English and Scotch members; and on this mutual misrepresentation, 
 constituted an imperial legislature. There was no great effort of 
 ability in all this ; much felicity of mischief, no expenditure either 
 of time or talent. There was nothing in the scheme which was 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 237 
 
 grand, nothing which was deep, nothing which was comprehensive; 
 ho demolished an old institution at the same time that he preserved 
 old abuses, and put himself at their head, and entailed them on 
 posterity, like a common disorder, to be continued through what he 
 calls a parental parliament. Such a plan was too desperate, as far 
 as relates to the proportion of counties and boroughs. I understand 
 it is in part abandoned, and well it may, because, whether these 
 representatives be in a greater or lesser proportion borough members, 
 they will be the host of administration, and not the representatives 
 of the people. He takes one hundred members, many of whom are 
 removed by the nature of their election from the influence of repre- 
 sentation ; all of whom, by removal from their country, are with- 
 drawn from that of sympathy, from that of opinion. He changes 
 the sphere, not only of their action, but of their character and of 
 their sensations. How came the Irish Parliament, with all its 
 borough members, in 1779, to demand a free trade — in 1782, to 
 demaud a free constitution ? Because it sat in Ireland ; because 
 thevsat in their own country ; and because at that time they had a 
 country ; because, however influenced as many of its members were 
 by places, however uninfluenced as many of its members were by 
 popular representation, yet were they influenced by Irish sympathy. 
 They did not like to meet every hour faces that looked shame upon 
 them ; they did not like to stand in the sphere of their own infamy ; 
 thus they acted as the Irish absentee at the very same time did not 
 act ; they saved the country because they lived in it, as the others 
 abandoned the country because they lived out of it. 
 
 I will not say that one hundred Irish gentlemen will act ill, where 
 any man would act well ; but never was there a situation in which 
 they had so much temptation to act il), and so little to act well ; 
 great expense and consequent distresses ; no support from the voice 
 of an Irish public ; no check ; they will be in situation a sort of 
 gentlemen of the empire ; that is to say, gentlemen at large, absent 
 from one country, and unelected by the other — suspended between 
 both, and belonging to neither. The sagacious English Secretary 
 of State has foretold this : "What advantage", says he, "will it 
 be to the talents of Ireland, this opportunity in the British empire 
 thus opened ?" That is what we dread. The market of St. Stephen 
 opened to the individual, and the talents of the country, like its 
 property, dragged from the kingdom of Ireland to be sold in 
 London ; these men, from their situation (man is the child of situa- 
 tion), their native honour may struggle ; but from their situation, 
 they will be adventurers of the most expensive kind ; adventurers 
 
238 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 with pretensions, dressed and sold, as it were, in the shrouds and grave- 
 clothes of the Irish Parliament, and playing for hire their tricKc on her 
 tomb, the only repository the minister will allow to an Irish constitu- 
 tion, the image of degradation, and the representatives of nothing. 
 
 Come, he has done much ; he has destroyed one constitution ; he 
 has corrupted another ; and this corrupted constitution he calls a 
 parental representation. I congratulate the country on the new 
 baptism of what was once called the representative body of the 
 nation. Instead of the plain, august language of the constitution, 
 we are here saluted with the novel and barbaric phraseology of 
 empire. With this change of name we perceive a transfer of 
 obligation, converting the duty of the delegate into the duty of the 
 constituent, and the inheritance of the people into the inheritance of 
 their trustees. 
 
 Well, this assembly, this Imperial Parliament, what are its 
 elements ? Irish absentees, who have forsaken their country, and 
 a British Parliament that took away the constitution. Does he say 
 that such a parliament will have no prejudices against Ireland? Let 
 him look to his speeches ; a capital understanding, a comprehensive 
 knowledge, and a transcendent eloquence ; hear him with all these 
 powers speak on the subject of Ireland, whether it be the conduct 
 of her administration, the character of her people, her commerce, or 
 her covenants, or her constitution, and he betrays an ignorance that 
 would dishonour an idiot. Does he wish for further instances ? Let 
 him look to the speeches of his agents in Ireland; speeches made and 
 published for the palate and prejudices of the English court: what 
 description of men have they not traduced, what patriotic achieve- 
 ment have they not deprecated, what honest character have they not 
 belied ? Does he look for further instances ? Let him turn to his 
 catalogue: what notorious apostate whom he has not honoured? 
 tvhat impudent defamer of the rights and character of Ireland that 
 Vie has not advanced ? On the other hand, what man that made a 
 Stand for her liberties whom he has not dismissed? Mr. Fitzgerald, 
 Sir John Parnell, who had supported his government long, refused 
 to abandon their country and their honour, and were immediately 
 told they were no longer fit for the service of government. Mr. 
 Foster, who had supported his administration long, held up his 
 shield for that parliament of which he is the natural advocate, and 
 was immediately honoured by the enmity of the court, and a 
 personal attack on his character and consistency. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam, an Englishman, a friend to the war, a 
 strenuous advocate for order and regular government, with & 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 230 
 
 character that is purity itself, entertained for Ireland a fatal 
 affection, and by that one offence, cancelled all his long and splendid 
 catalogue of virtues, and was dismissed accordingly. 
 
 A legislature, the parent of both countries, he talks of; a legisla- 
 ture, as far as relates to Ireland, free from the influence of vicinity, 
 of sympathy. The Isle of Man is all that (free from the influence 
 of opinion, free from the influence of duty, directed by prejudices, 
 and unincumbered by knowledge). In order to judge what this 
 parental legislature would be, let us consider what the British 
 Parliament has been, and let us compare that Parliament, for this 
 purpose, with the legislature of Ireland. In this comparison I do 
 not mean to approve of all the parliaments that have sat in Ireland: 
 I left the former parliament, because I condemned its proceedings ; 
 but I argue not like the minister, from the misconduct of one parlia- 
 ment against the being of parliament itself. I value that parliamentary 
 constitution by the average of its benefits ; and I affinn, that the 
 blessings procured by the Irish Parliament in the last twenty years, 
 are greater than all the blessings afforded by British Parliaments to 
 Ireland for the last century ; greater even than the mischiefs inflicted 
 on Ireland by British Parliaments ; greater than all the blessings 
 procured by those parliaments for their own country within that 
 period. Within that time the legislatures of England lost an empire, 
 and the legislature of Ireland recovered a constitution. 
 
 Well, we have done with this parental parliament ; and now we 
 come to the bribes which he holds out. And, first, he begins with 
 the ' church. To the Protestant church he promises perpetual 
 security ; to the Catholic church his advocates promise eventual 
 salary ; and b:>th hold out to the former Commutation of tithes. 
 
 With respect to the Protestant church, whatever may be his 
 wishes in favour of its duration, he takes the strongest measures to 
 accomplish its destruction ; for he attempts to disgrace it to all 
 eternity. He is employing, or his agents are employing, several o. 
 its members to negotiate away the constitution, and to mendicate 
 addresses transferring to another country the parliament and legisla- 
 tive power of their own ; disfranchising the very people by whom 
 the church is fed, and deserting the holy mission of God to fulfil 
 this profligate mission of the minister. Give up your country, says 
 the minister ; give up your character, and be immortal. So said 
 Charles the First to his church when he prostituted the Gospel, and 
 regimented the clergy into battalions against the constitution, and 
 overturned the church by its own infamy. 
 
 At the same time that the minister endeavours to take away the 
 
240 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 authority of one church, his advocates tell you that he proposes to 
 give salaries to another ; that is, they tell you that he proposes to 
 bribe the Catholic clergy, if they will betray the constitution. In 
 whatever form of religion our pious court contemplates the Almighty, 
 it ever occurs to convert Him to some diabolical purpose. The 
 Catholics had been accused pretty liberally of disloyalty by those 
 very advocates who now seem to think it proper to reward their 
 imputed treasons against the king, provided they shall be followed 
 up by real treasons against the people. I do not believe, I never 
 did believe, the general charges made against the Catholics ; I do 
 not dispute, I never did dispute, the propriety of giving salaries to 
 their clergy ; but it should be salaries, not bribes — salaries for the 
 exercise of their religious duty, and not wages for the practice of 
 political apostacy. According to this plan, the Catholic religion, it 
 would seem, disqualified its followers to receive the blessings of the 
 constitution ; but the priest's hostilities to that constitution qualify 
 him to receive a salary for the exercise of that very religion which 
 is at once punished by civil disability and encouraged by ecclesiastical 
 provision ; as good Catholics they are disqualified, and as bad 
 citizens they are to be rewarded. 
 
 The minister proceeds : he proposes his third bribe, namely, the 
 abolition of tithes. You observe, such a proposal does not seem to 
 form part of his Union, but is an offer kept back to be regulated, 
 modified, and qualified, wheu the Union is passed, and the consider- 
 ation is given. I approve of a modus as a compensation for tithe, 
 but I do not approve of it as a compensation for parliament ; when 
 I proposed that measure, and was opposed by men by whom I could 
 only be opposed, and could not be answered, I was told by the king's 
 ministers that commutation of tithe was the overthrow of the church. 
 Couple the project of the minister now with the argument of 
 his agents then, and the combined idea amounts to this, that it is 
 prudent to overturn the church, provided at the same time you over- 
 turn the constitution ; but the fact is, that the argument at that 
 time was false, and the proposal at this time is fallacious ; the 
 argument had for its object personal calumny ; and the proposal^ 
 national extinction. 
 
 The minister has not done with bribes ; whatever economy he 
 shows in argument, here he has been generous in the extreme. 
 Parson, priest (I think one of his advocates hints the Presbyterians) are 
 not forgotten ; and now the mercantile body are all to be bribed, 
 that all may be ruined. Pie holds out commercial benefits for political 
 annihilation ; he offers you an abundance of capital, but first he 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 241 
 
 takes it away ; he takes away a great portion of the landed capital 
 of the country by the necessary operation of Union ; he will give you, 
 however, commercial capital in its place ; but first he will give you 
 taxes. It seems it is only necessary to break the barriers of liberty, 
 and the tides of commerce will flow in of course ; take away her 
 rival in landed capital, and then commercial capital advances without 
 fear. Commerce only wants weight, u e. taxes, it seems, in order 
 to run with new spirit. He not only finds commerce in the retreat 
 of landed capital, but he finds corn also. His whole speech, is a 
 course of surprises ; the growth of excision, the resource of incum- 
 brance, and harvests sown and gathered by the absence of the 
 proprietors of the soil and of their property. All these things are to 
 come. When ? He does not tell you. Where ? He does not tell 
 you ? You take take his word for all this. I have heard of a 
 banker's bill of exchange, Bank of England's notes, Bank of Ireland's 
 notes ; but a prophet's promissory note is a new traffic ; all he gets from 
 Ireland is our solid loss ; all he promises are visionary, distant, and 
 prophetic advantages. He sees, I do not, British merchants and 
 British capital sailing to the provinces of Connaught and Munster ; 
 there they settle in great multitudes, themselves and families. He 
 mentions not what description of manufacturers : who from Birming- 
 ham; who from Manchester ; no matter, he cares not; he goes on 
 asserting, and asserting with great ease to himself, and without any 
 obligation to fact. Imagination is the region in which he delights 
 to disport ; where he is to take away your parliament, where 
 he is to take away your final judicature, where he is to increase 
 your taxes, where he is to get an Irish tribute, there he is a plain 
 direct, matter-of-fact man ; but where he is to pay yon for all 
 this, there he is poetic and prophetic ; no longer a financier, but 
 an inspired accountant. Fancy gives her wand ; Amalthea takes him 
 by the hand ; Ceres is in her train. 
 
 The English capitalist, he thinks, will settle his family in the 
 midst of those Irish Catholics, whom he does not think it safe to 
 admit into parliament ; as subjects, he thinks them dangerous ; as a 
 neighbouring multitude safe. The English manufacturer will make 
 this distinction ; he will dread them as individuals, and confide in 
 them as a body, and settle his family and his property in the midst 
 of them : he will therefore, the minister supposes, leave his coal 
 mines, leave his machinery, leave his comforts, leave his habits, 
 conquer his prejudices, and come over to Ireland to meet his taxes 
 and miss his constitution. They did not do this when the taxes of 
 Ireland were few ; we were indeed told they would, as we are now told 
 
242 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 They did not do this when there was no military government in 
 Ireland. However, as prejudices against the country increase, he 
 supposes commercial confidence may increase likewise. There is no 
 contradicting all this, because arguments which reason does not 
 suggest, reason cannot remove ; besides, the minister in all this does 
 not argue, but foretel. Now you can scarcely answer a prophet ; you 
 can only disbelieve him ; his arguments are false, but his inspiration 
 may be true; appearances, however, are against them; for instance, 
 a principal ground of complaint in Ireland is a misapplication of 
 landed capital, or the diversion of it to other countries from the 
 cultivation of Ireland, where great tracts remain either totally neglec- 
 ted or superficially improved ; where the tenantry have not capital, 
 and the land can be reclaimed only by the employment (and a very 
 rational employment it would be) of part of the rent arising there- 
 from, on the soil which produced it, improving, however, gradu- 
 ally since the establishment of our free constitution, which contains 
 in itself the power of checking the evil I speak of, and which, by 
 adding to the consequence of the country, will naturally diminish 
 the number of absentees, comparatively aided as it must be by the 
 growth of English taxes, unless by a Union we adopt those taxes 
 in Ireland. How does he remedy this disorder ? He finds a great 
 absentee draught ; he gives you another; and having secured to you 
 two complaints, he engages to cure both. Another principal cause 
 of complaint, is another effect arising from the non-residence of Irish 
 landlords, whose presence on their own estates is necessary for the 
 succour as well as the improvement of their tenantry ; that the 
 peasant may not perish for want of medicine, of cordial, and of cure, 
 which they can only find in the administration of the landlord, who 
 civilizes them and regulates them in the capacity of a magistrate, 
 while he husbands and covers them in that of aprotecter, improving 
 not only them but himself by the exercise of his virtues, as well as 
 the dispensation of his property, drawing together the two orders of 
 society, the rich and poor, until each may administer to the other, 
 and civilize, the one by giving, and the other by receiving ; so that 
 aristocracy and democracy may have a head and a body ; so that 
 the rich may bring on. the poor, and the poor may strengthen the 
 rich ; and both contributing to the strength, order, and beauty of the 
 state, may form that pillar of society, where all below is strength, 
 and all above is grace. How does his plan accomplish this ? He 
 withdraws their landed gentlemen, and then improves Irish manners 
 by English factors ; but I leave his trifling, and come to his threats. 
 As he offered before a trade which he had not to give, so now he 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 213 
 
 menaces to withdraw a trade which he cannot take away ; his 
 threat is founded on a monstrous assertion, that our principal 
 branches of commerce are due to the liberality of England. 
 
 Liberality of England to Irish commerce ! Where are we to look 
 for it ? In what part of the century ? For near one hundred years 
 (it is a long time), the minister himself disclaims the illiberal policy 
 of his country. Is it at the close of this century; for instance, in 
 His Majesty's speech from the throne in the year 1775. where he is 
 advised to signify his intention to maintain the principle of American 
 taxation over all his dominions ? Or is it in the embargo of the 
 same period ? Or is it in the tea tax imposed on Ireland by the 
 British Parliament about the period of 1779 ? Or will he say this 
 liberality appears in the mockery of those bills, in which England 
 affected to relieve the distresses of Ireland ? Was it in the English 
 act, giving the Irish a power to catch whales, or in that other bill, 
 permitting the Irish to plant tobacco? Or was it in 1778 
 that this liberality made its appearance? No: for I remember 
 in that period, supporting an address for the extension of Irish 
 commerce ; and I remember also being opposed and defeated by the 
 immediate interposition of the Crown. It is not then in the period 
 of 1778 that we are to look for this liberality. Was it in the period 
 1779, the time of the short money bill, of the non-consumption 
 agreement, and of the Irish requisition of free trade ? 
 
 Here is the liberality of England; she was just then, she was 
 liberal never; and she was just to you then, because you were then 
 just to yourself; she has been faithful since ; I for one shall be satis- 
 fied with her fidelity and justice, and on these occasions I acknow- 
 ledge both. Are there any further instances in which we are to 
 look for English justice in the subject of Irish trade? Yes; there 
 is another, in 1793, on the subject of the reexport. An attempt had 
 been made to carry that point for Ireland in 1786, contained in two 
 resolutions which I moved as an amendment to the navigation act, 
 ivhich has been charged to Ireland as a favour, but which was in 
 fact jobbed to the British ministry by him who made the charge, 
 and sold without any clause of equality and reciprocity. But after- 
 wards in 1793, a reexport bill passed in Great Britain in favour of 
 Ireland, exactly at the time when the charter of the East India 
 Company expired, and an Irish bill was necessary and did pass to 
 secure her monopoly for a limited time : such is the history of British 
 concession. Now look at the tariff, or see what has been the result ; 
 greatly in favour of England. Under the head of home manufacture 
 and colonial produce, in favour of England ; under the head of raw, 
 
244 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 material, the produce of their respective countries, above two 
 millions in favour of England. Under the head of foreign articles, 
 a great balance in favour of England. Add to this an absentee 
 rental of considerably above a million, and you will find there is 
 a sum of above four millions annually, in which Ireland administers 
 to Great Britain, and pours herself, as it were, abundantly and without 
 reserve into the British dominion. 
 
 This is the trade the minister threatens to alter, and thinks he 
 threatens not Great Britain, but Ireland. Here he will have some 
 difficulty; and first, the covenant of 1779. He denies that cove- 
 nant ; he says, that all the great commercial advantages of Ireland are 
 to be ascribed to the liberality of the British Parliament, and not to 
 the Irish Parliament. Wherever he meets an Irish covenant, he gives 
 it no quarter. I will state the fact, and let the public judg§* In 
 October, 1779, an address passed the Irish Commons, containing a* 
 requisition for a free trade : it was followed by a motion declaring 
 that the Irish Commons would not, for the present, grant new taxes ; 
 it was followed by a limitation of the act of supply to the duration 
 of six months only. It was considered in England, and attended 
 with resolutions moved by the then minister, purporting to repeal 
 certain restrictive acts on the free trade of Ireland, and to grant a 
 direct intercourse between Ireland and his Majesty's plantations, 
 subject to equality of duty. These resolutions were considered in 
 the Parliament of Ireland ;* they were voted satisfactory. A long 
 money bill was then passed, and new taxes were then granted in 
 consideration thereof, and this he calls no covenant. He has denied, 
 it seems, the linen covenant ; he has denied this commercial cove- 
 nant of 1779 ; and he has denied the constitutional covenant of 1782; 
 and having disclaimed the obligation of three treaties, he now proposes 
 a fourth, in which he desires you to give up your parliament to 
 secure his faith in time to come. I argue in a different manner ; 
 I argue from his disposition to dispute the validity of covenant to 
 the necessity of the existence of parliament — an Irish parliament — 
 the guarantee of those covenants, which has the power to preserve 
 the obligation, or resources to retaliate. Does the minister, when 
 he talks of an eleemosynary trade, recollect how the Irish Parliament 
 could affect the East India Company by discontinuing the act of 
 1793, granted but for a limited time ? Does he recollect how she 
 could affect the British West India monopoly by withdrawing her 
 exclusive consumption from the British plantations ? Does he recol- 
 
 * See tha resolutions and the law expressing the condition and covenant. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 245 
 
 lect how we could affect the navy of England by regulations regard- 
 ing our Irish provisions ? Does he recollect how we could affect her 
 empire by forming commercial intercourse with the rest of the world ? 
 But let not this depend upon idle threats, threats which never should 
 have been advanced on our side, if they had not been first most 
 imprudently introduced on his. I say, let not the argument rest on 
 threats, but let it rest on the past experiment ; the experiment has 
 been made ; we got our trade by our resources and our parliament ; 
 we will keep our trade by affection and by covenant. But should a 
 British minister choose to despise those tenures, we have another ; we 
 can keep our trade by the means by which we have obtained it, — 
 our parliament, our resources. 
 
 He speaks of the linen trade. On this subject, indeed, he has 
 been answered, as he has upon the others, by the argument and by 
 the experiment; the argument which proves that the bounty on linen 
 was not granted for the sake of Ireland, and that Irish linen sells 
 itself. But suppose his reasoning in this case to be as true as it is 
 fallacious, what does it amount to ? That his country robbed Ireland 
 of her free trade in the last century, and gave her, in the place of it, 
 the export of one solitary manufacture, depending on the charity of 
 England ; and now he proposes to rob Ireland of that manufacture, 
 unless Ireland consents to be robbed of her parliament ! He has no 
 other ground of triumph but the disgrace and dishonour of his 
 country ; however, her case is better than he has stated it ; and that 
 is proved by the experiment ; for in 1779, we were encountered by 
 the same threats on the same subject ; we despised those threats ; 
 we put the question to a trial ; we entered into a non-consumption 
 agreement ; we demanded a free trade ; the free trade we obtained ; 
 the linen trade we preserved. 
 
 What he cannot reconcile to your interests, he affects to reconcile 
 to your honour. He, the minister, " his budget with corruption 
 crammed ", proposes to you to give up the ancient inheritance of 
 your country ; to proclaim an utter and blank incapacity, and to 
 register this proclamation of incapacity in an act which inflicts on 
 this ancient nation an eternal disability : and he accompanies these 
 monstrous proposals by undisguised terror and unqualified bribery, 
 and this he calls no attack on the honour and dignity of the kingdom. 
 
 The thing he proposes to buy, is what cannot be sold — liberty ! 
 For it, he has nothing to give ; everything of value which you 
 possess, you obtained under a free constitution ; part with it, and 
 you must be not only a slave but an idiot. 
 
 His propositions not only go to your dishonour, but they are 
 
246 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 built upon nothing else : he tells you, it is his main argument, thai 
 you are unfit to exercise a free constitution : and he affects to prove 
 it by the experiment. Jacobinism grows, says he, out of the very 
 state and condition of Ireland. I have heard of parliament impeach- 
 ing ministers ; but here is a minister impeaching parliament ; he does 
 more — he impeaches the parliamentary constitution itself : the abuses 
 in that constitution he has protected ; it is only its being that he 
 destroys ; on what ground ? Your exports since your emancipation, 
 and under that parliamentary constitution, and in a great measuie 
 by -that parliamentary constitution, have nearly doubled ; commer- 
 cially it has worked well. Your concord with England since the 
 emancipation, as far as it relates to parliament on the subject of 
 war, has been not only approved, but has been productive ; imperi- 
 ally, therefore, it has worked well. What then does the minister 
 in fact object to ? That you have supported him ; that you have 
 concurred in his system ; therefore he proposes to the people to 
 abolish the parliament, and to continue the minister. He docs 
 more — he proposes to you to substitute the British Parliament in 
 your place, to destroy the body that restored your liberties, and to 
 restore that body which destroyed them. Against such a proposi- 
 tion, were I expiring on the floor, I should beg to utter my last 
 breath, and record my dying testimony. 
 
 February 5, 1800. 
 
 But the minister alleges that Jacobinism grows out of our situ- 
 ation ; and that situation he explains to be our separate parliament ; 
 and he thinks that enough. An ancient constitution and a recorded 
 covenant are to be put down by that sentence. It is no longer a 
 question, you see, according to him, of right or of treaty, but of 
 convenience : expediency is to be the measure of both : and yet he 
 will not say to England : Jacobinism grows out of a popular consti- 
 tution, therefore strike out the people. His idea is a paradox ; 
 namely, that the spirit of democracy, which he means by Jacobinism, 
 grows from the King, or from the chamber of the Lords, or from 
 the chamber of the commons, in which aristrocracy has no small 
 share of power. In fact, his assertion is, that democracy grows out 
 of monarchy and aristocracy, with certain popular mixture ; that is, 
 the excels grows out of the temperament ; his instances are nothing; 
 enough to say he thinks it. Jacobinism grows out of your constitu- 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES 
 
 247 
 
 tion ; and therefore down with the Lords, down with the commons, 
 hew down the chair in one house, and the throne in the other, and 
 let huge innovation enter. 
 
 Never was it known in the English constitution that the excesses 
 of the popular branch were made an argument for destroying any 
 integral part of the constitution, still less the constitution .itself. 
 The English cut off the head of Charles the First ; was that made 
 an argument, on the restoration, for putting down the popular branch 
 of the English constitution ? James the Second put down liberty ; 
 was that made an argument afterwards for putting down monarchy? 
 The Parliament of England, in the close of the present century, lost 
 America at the expense of above an hundred millions of debt ; was 
 that made an argument for putting down parliament ? Excesses 
 committed by any one integral part of the constitution have never 
 been urged as arguments for putting down that integral part, still 
 less for putting down the whole ; and, least of all, have excesses 
 committed by the people been urged against the constitution itself, 
 particularly where the constitution endeavoured to restrain those 
 excesses. I should be glad to know how he composes this Jacobin- 
 ism at which he trembles. I really believe he means to impose a 
 military government, and that his Union imports nothing less, and 
 that the tranquillity tolked of is the mere result of that intention. 
 But he professes the contrary : he professes similarity of privilege : 
 of course, he must leave the press of Ireland, and the power of 
 forming clubs and associations in Ireland, on the same ground as in 
 Great Britain, where both exist. Thus he leaves, or professes to 
 leave, the powers of agitation, and takes away the constitution of 
 parliament, which is to keep them in order. He does more : he 
 leaves a provincial government or an Irish court without the control 
 of a resident parliament ; for the governments are not consolidated, 
 though the parliaments are. He leaves that provincial court free 
 from native control, and of course, with great powers of provocation 
 and irritation, and the prospect of impunity. The ministers of Union 
 will be the ministers of the country — a wise exchange ; you keep 
 your court, and banish your constitution. 
 
 You banish your constitutional and resident parliament, and, of 
 course, the authority which is to restrain the abuse of power and the 
 abuse of privilege, and this he calls a measure of tranquillity. He 
 does more in favor of Jacobinism : he gives it a complete triumph 
 over aristocracy. What is the claim or charge of democracy ? That 
 the upper orders are incapable to legislate for the country. You do 
 not know the strength of your case, says the minister ; you think 
 
248 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 you understand Jacobinism, but I will convince you you are mistakes £ 
 you do not know how to overset the higher order, leave it to me ; I 
 will get that higher order to echo your charge ; I will propose a Union, 
 wherein the higher order is to proclaim and register their own inca- 
 pacity in the rolls of their own parliament. Thus, I think, as far as 
 relates to tranquillity, his own plan is a refutation of his own argu- 
 ment ; a false and fatal idea of public tranquillity I think it, to take 
 refuge from your own liberties in the domination of another country, 
 and to surrender, as a pledge of peace, a constitution which you 
 have stipulated to defend with your lives and fortunes. That consti- 
 tution I think I have shown to be adequate to the purpose of trade, 
 and to be faithful to that of connection, but I do not think it adequate 
 to the purpose of surrender. This introduces a new question, the 
 competence of parliament to surrender the constitution. The project 
 of Union appears to me to be nothing less than the surrender of the 
 constitution. It reduces the Commons of Ireland to one-third, 
 leaving the Parliament of England their present proportion ; it redu- 
 ces the Commons of Ireland, I say, to one-third ; it transfers that 
 third to another country, where it is merged and lost in the superior 
 numbers of another parliament; he strikes off two- thirds, and makes 
 the remaining English ; those Irish members residing in England 
 will be nominally Irish representatives? but they will cease to be 
 Irishmen ; they will find England the seat of their abode, of their 
 action, of their character ; and will find, therefore, the great princi- 
 ples of action, namely, sympathy and fame, influencing them no 
 longer in favour of their own country, but prepollant motives to 
 forget Ireland, to look up to England, or rather the court of England, 
 exclusively for countenance, for advancement, and for honours, as 
 the centre from which they circulate, and to which they tend.* 
 
 I therefore maintain that the project of a Union is nothing less 
 than to annul the Parliament of Ireland, or to transfer the legislative 
 authority to the people of another country. To such an act the 
 minister maintains the Irish Parliament to be competent, for, in. 
 substance, he maintains it to be omnipotent. I deny it ; such an 
 act in the parliament, without the authority of the people, is a breach 
 of trust. Parliament is not the proprietor, but the trustee ; and the 
 people the proprietor, and not the property. Parliament is called to 
 make laws, not to elect law-makers ; it is a body in one branch of 
 
 * Puffendorf says : When one commonwealth unites with another in such a 
 manner that one keeps its government and states, and the subjects of the other 
 change their country, and are taken into the rights and privileges of a foreign 
 commonwealth, it is evident that one is swallowed up and lost in the other. 
 
ANTI- UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 249 
 
 delegates, in no one branch of electors, assembled to exercise the 
 functions of parliament, not to choose or substitute another parliament 
 for the discharge of its own duty ; it is a trustee, and like every 
 trustee, without a power to transfer or hand over the trust. A 
 miserable quibble it is to suppose, because delegated to make law, 
 it has, therefore, a right to make a law to destroy its own law- 
 making, or supersede its own delegation, precluded as it is by the 
 essential nature of its trust from annulling its own authority, and 
 transferring the powers of its creator, the society, to another country ; 
 it is appointed for a limited time to exercise the legislative power for 
 the use and benefit of Ireland, and therefore precluded from trans- 
 ferring, and transferring for ever, that legislative power to the people 
 of another country ; it is appointed, entrusted, created, and ordained, 
 not only to exercise the legislative powers of the society, but also to 
 preserve her rights, and, instead of abolishing them by surrendering 
 them to another country, to return them at stated periods, iinimpaired, 
 undiminished, to the people from whom it received them. I state a 
 principle on which the House of Commons is built, supported by 
 authorities, if any authority be requisite. " The power of the legisla- 
 tive", says Mr. Locke, " being derived from the people by a positive 
 voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that 
 positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws and not legisla- 
 tors, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of 
 making laws, and placing it in other hands, thelegislative neither must, 
 nor can, transfer the power of making laws to any body else, or place it 
 anywhere, but where the people have". — "The prince", says 
 Grotius (speaking of princes that have the whole legislative power 
 in themselves ; the case is, however, stronger in our government), 
 " cannot alienate or transfer his kingdom". " He cannot", says 
 Purlendorf, " transfer his subjects to be governed by a foreign power ; 
 the commonwealth itself has no power over its members other than 
 what are granted and left by them that first erected it ; the moral 
 or political body has not the same right over its members as the 
 natural". Mr. Locke says, the delivery of a people into the subjec- 
 tion of a foreign power is a change of the legislative, and therefore 
 a dissolution of the government; the legislative acts against the 
 trust reposed in it, when it makes an arbitrary disposal of the lives 
 and fortunes of the country, and he refers to Hooker, who is also 
 authority on our side. 
 
 " The legislature", says Mr. Locke, " is not only supreme, but 
 sacred and unalterable in the hands in which the community have 
 placed it : though it be a supreme power in every commonwealth, 
 
250 
 
 AKTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 jet it is not and cannot be arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the 
 people. It has not an absolute arbitrary power". But I have higher 
 authority — that of the convention of England in 1688. That con- 
 vention voted that there was an original contract between the nation 
 "and the government. It follows that the nation is the proprietor of 
 that contract, and the parliament ministerial to fulfil the provisions of 
 that contract, not to break it ; to act within the frame of the consti- 
 tution, and not to dissolve it. Accordingly, in the trial of Sacheverel, 
 you find the arguments of the Commons exactly on this principle. 
 
 Mr. Lechmere as follows : " The nature of our constitution is that 
 of a limited monarchy, wherein the supreme power is communicated 
 and divided between Queen, Lords, and Commons, though the 
 executive power and administration be wholly in the Crown. The 
 terms of such a constitution do not only suppose but express an 
 original contract between the Crown and the people, by which that 
 supreme power was (by mutual consent and not by accident) limited 
 and lodged in more hands than one; and the uniform preservation of 
 such a constitution for many ages without any fundamental change, 
 demonstrates to your lordships the continuance of the same contract". 
 
 Sir Joseph Jekyl : " Nothing is plainer than that the people have 
 a right to the laws and the constitution. This right the nation hath 
 asserted and recovered out of the hands of those who had dispos- 
 sessed them of it at several times". 
 
 Mr. Bushel says : " Indeed it is difficult to give limits to the 
 mere abstract competence of the supreme power, but the limits of a 
 moral competence, subjecting occasional will to permanent reason, 
 and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental 
 policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding on those who 
 exercise any authority under any name or under any title in the 
 state. The House of Lords is not morally competent to dissolve 
 itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion of the legislature of 
 the kingdom. By as strong, or a stronger reason, the House of 
 Commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement 
 and pact of society which generally goes by the name of constitu- 
 tion, forbids such innovation and such surrender. The constituent 
 parts of a state must hold their public faith with each other, and 
 with all those who derive a serious interest under their engagement, 
 as much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate 
 communities. Otherwise competence and power would be entirely 
 confounded, and no law left but the will of a prevailing force". 
 
 " The collective body of the people", says Bolingbroke, "delegate 
 but do not give up ; trust, but do not alienate their right and power. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECIIES. 
 
 251 
 
 There is something which a parliament cannot do ; a parliament 
 cannot annul the constitution. The legislature is a supreme, but not 
 an arbitrary power". 
 
 "The power of King, Lords, and Commons", says Junius, "is 
 not an arbitrary power. They are the trustees, not the owners of 
 the estate. The fee simple is in us ; they cannot alienate, they 
 cannot waste. When we say the legislature is supreme, we mean 
 that it is the highest power known to the constitution, that it is the 
 highest in comparison with the other subordinate powers established 
 by the laws. In this sense, the word supreme is relative, not 
 absolute. The power of the legislature is limited, not only by the 
 general rules of natural justice and the welfare of the community, 
 but by the forms and principles of our particular constitution. If 
 this doctrine be not true, we must admit that King, Lords, and 
 Commons have no rule to direct their resolutions, but merely their 
 own will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and 
 executive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution by 
 an act of parliament : but I am persuaded you will not leave it to 
 the choice of seven hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by the Crown, 
 whether seven millions of their equals shall be freemen or slaves". 
 
 The latter part of this quotation will not apply to the Irish 
 Parliament. But could we suppose the intrigues of a minister to be 
 successful — could we suppose that, by intimidating some, bribing 
 others, influencing all, he could procure in both houses of parliament 
 a majority to annul the parliament itself, and transfer the legislature 
 to another country, the judicial, the controlling, the impeaching, 
 and all the powers in that great denomination signified and com- 
 prehended — could we suppose that the minister purposes to buy the 
 Irish Parliament, as his proposal to compensate the extinguished 
 boroughs imports, and that he comes to offer £1,500,000 to buy up 
 the Irish Parliament at the expense of the Irish people, who are to 
 pay that million and a half for losing it ; I say, could we suppose 
 such a case, the question on that supposition propounded would be 
 nothing more nor less than this — whether the individuals composing 
 the legislative body have a right, for their own profit, to sell the 
 parliament of the country ? To affirm that they cannot, requires 
 scarcely any other argument than the honest instinct of the human 
 mind, the moral sense implanted in the heart of man, and the rudi- 
 ments of right and wrong registered in every breast. 
 
 The English minister thinks otherwise ; he pronounces the Irish 
 Parliament absolute ; he gives no reason ; he who denied the power 
 of France to alter her government, maintains the omnipotence of the 
 
252 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 Irish Parliament to annul her constitution ; he, whose parliament 
 protested against its competence, now affirms its omnipotence ! He 
 supports this false doctrine by the confusion and inapplication of his 
 cases ; he confounds the case of a parliament accepting of the legisla- 
 tive dominion of another country, with the treachery of the parliament 
 of that country, betraying, transferring, or selling that legislative 
 power. What! does he mean to say that the Parliament of England 
 is competent to transfer to Ireland the legislature of Great Britain ? 
 Does he mean to say that she is competent to reduce the number to 
 an insignificant proportion, and transfer that part and the seat of 
 legislation, that is the English legislation itself, to the French legis- 
 lation at Paris ? Yet I believe, if the French council should choose 
 to transfer the legislation of France to the Parliament of West- 
 minster, England would scarcely hesitate on the subject of her own 
 competency; the one is the competency of acquisition; the compe- 
 tency of diminution ; the competency of aggrandisement : the other 
 is the competency of treason; the competency of delinquency; the 
 competency of abdication. 
 
 When he compares this case with the reform of parliament, he is 
 equally feeble and fallacious : he argues that to restore the third 
 estate to the Commons, to whom his friends argue it belongs, and to 
 destroy, with that view, in a few individuals, the monopoly of popu- 
 lar franchise, to whom on no principle of constitution it can belong ; 
 that is, to revive the principle of representation, is tantamount to an 
 act abolishing in substance and effect the representation itself, and 
 annihilating the King, Lords, and Commons of this realm. He com- 
 pares the priming the tree that it may bear fruit, to the taking it out 
 of the earth, root and all. He does not confine himself to one in- 
 stance of inapplication ; the pages swarm with them. He proceeds 
 to compare the case of the repeal of statute disabilities with an act 
 imposing disability on the whole realm : he compares the act restor- 
 ing the Catholic to the elective franchise to an act disfranchising not 
 a particular man, not a particular sect, but in substance and effect 
 the whole kingdom. From the inapplication of his cases, he proceeds 
 to the errors of his doctrine : there he says that absolute power of 
 parliament is necessary for the repose of the state. He thinks that 
 the state of society is best secured when there is a body always in 
 existence competent to overturn or sell her constitution. He thinks 
 that the happiness of mankind is best promoted when a daring des- 
 perate minister (I know of no minister more daring or desperate) 
 shall be able, by packing a parliament, to overturn the liberties of 
 the people. He thinks their happiness worst preserved when the 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECIIES. 
 
 253 
 
 body competent to overturn them is not assembled, and when the 
 body that is assembled has not the competency, and when both these 
 secure the freedom and eternity of the society by the repose of her 
 powers. For this doctrine, I say the minister has given no reasons; 
 he has been equally sparing of his authorities. Had his friends 
 done the same, they would have been more prudent. 
 
 They indeed have quoted Lord Somers as an authority, to prove 
 the power of parliament to surrender the legislative authority of one 
 country to another, confounding the case of a surrender with the 
 case of an acceptance. Lord Somers is authority (and so would every 
 judge and every English lawyer) that if any one legislature, or that 
 if all the legislatures on Earth were willing to surrender all the rights, 
 privileges, and inheritances of the globe to Great Britain, her parlia- 
 ment stands ready to accept them. He states, that this his doctrine 
 is particularly true in a mixed constitution like that of England ; it 
 is exactly the contrary : it is particularly false in a mixed govern- 
 ment like that of England : in a country where the crown is held by 
 recorded compact, and the parliament sits by temporary representa- 
 tion. It is peculiarly false in a country where the parliament and 
 the crown stand upon the powers of the society, interposing without 
 any authority but that of the society, and assembled in a most re- 
 spectable and comprehensive description, and with the assent of the 
 great body of the nation, deposing one king, electing another, and 
 constituting a parliament ; and such awe did they entertain for their 
 constitution, that they acted as a convention but for a moment, to 
 set up a parliament for an eternity ; to do what ? to repair every- 
 thing, to preserve everything, and to abolish nothing, save only the 
 abuses that threatened to abolish the constitution. On this subject 
 he not only errs in his reasoning, but his conception of reasoning on 
 the subject is fallacy and error ; he affects to measure the elements 
 of human justice by the element of British empire. Do not admit 
 the principle of justice, do not admit human right, else what becomes 
 of our conquest of Wales, else what becomes of our union with Scot- 
 land. He might have gone on ; he might have extended his argu- 
 ment to the East and West Indies ? Had the British Parliament 
 succeeded in its attempts on America, he would have more arguments 
 of this nature. But what is all this to us ? If Scotland chose to 
 transfer her legislature to England, or if Wales were conquered, is 
 that a reason why Ireland should admit the competency of the 
 parliament to surrender her rights, or the justice and validity of a 
 right of conquest ? The fact is, that the acquiescence of Scotland 
 for a century, and the acquiescence of Wales for manv centuries, have 
 
 12 
 
254 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 become the laws of these respective countries : the practice and the 
 consent of nations for periods of time become their laws, and make 
 the original act of combination, whether it be conquest or treachery, 
 no longer scrutable nor material. In a course of years, conquest 
 may be the foundation of connexion, and rape of marriage ; such 
 has been, not seldom, the elements of empire ; but such are not the 
 elements of justice. The principles of right and wrong so intermix 
 in centuries of human dealing as to become inseparable, like light 
 and shade ; but does it follow that there is no such thing as light 
 and shade ; no such thing as right and wrong? I am sure that the 
 right of England to the acquisitions above stated is perfectly sound 
 and unquestionable ; I should be sorry it were otherwise ; and, 
 therefore, I am exceedingly glad it does not rest on the ground on 
 which he has placed it. 
 
 I might, however, waive all this, and produce against him two 
 authorities, to either of which, in this case, he must submit; the one 
 is the Parliament of Ireland, the other is himself. After having 
 denied in substance the power of the people, which he calls a 
 sovereignty in abeyance, and after having maintained, in terms 
 absolutely unqualified, the unlimited authority of parliament — that 
 is, its omnipotence, — he does acknowledge reluctantly, and at length, 
 that parliament is not unlimited, and that there does exist in the 
 society a power in abeyance. He tells you there may be a case of 
 abuse calling for the interference of the people collectively, or of a 
 great portion thereof, as at the Revolution of 1688. I suppose now, 
 if there can be such a case of abuse calling for such an interference, 
 there must be a power in abeyance to answer that call, and to 
 question that abuse ; and the point in dispute is not touching the 
 application of that power, but its existence. The other authority, 
 namely, the Parliament of Ireland, has publicly, solemnly, and 
 unanimously disclaimed and renounced, in the following memorable 
 and eternal expressions, any competency whatever to transfer or 
 surrender the unalienable right and inheritance of the people of Ire- 
 land to be governed by no other parliament whatsoever, save only 
 the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland : " The right of the 
 people of Ireland to be subject to laws made by the King, Lords, 
 and Commons of Ireland, and no other, is their ancient inheritance, 
 which we claim on our part and on theirs, and which we cannot 
 surrender but with life". What will the minister say now ? But 
 he has more difficulties against him ; he has his own authority against 
 his own project. He states, that his object is identification of 
 people ; he says, it is not the English navy, it is not the English 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 255 
 
 men* have expressed that sentiment with an ardour which does th<3 
 militia, nor the English treasury, nor the Irish yeoman, nor the Irish 
 Parliament, that can save you ; they may by chance succeed ; but 
 your great dependence is the identification of the people of the two 
 nations. He states further, that this identification is necessary for 
 a present purpose, namely, the defence of the empire against the 
 ambition of France. 
 
 Here, then, is the great principle of his Union, as expressed by 
 himself, the identification of the people of the two nations, for a 
 present purpose. According to that principle, let us examine his 
 project ; it is not an identification of people, as it excludes the 
 Catholic from the parliament and the state ; it is not an identifica- 
 tion of government, for it retains the Lord-lieutenant and his court : 
 it is not an identification of establishments ; it is not an identification 
 of revenue ; it is not identification of commerce, for you have still 
 relative duties, and countervailing duties ; it is not an identification 
 of interest, because England relieves herself as she increases the pro- 
 portion of Irish taxation, and diminishes her burdens by communica- 
 ting them to Ireland. The present constitution may be said to be 
 nearly an equal trade and an equal liberty, and the Union to be a 
 tax and a drawback upon that equal trade and upon that equal liberty; 
 for so much a diminution of that identification of interests, if it be 
 not an identification of interests, still less is it an identification of 
 feeling and of sympathy. The Union, then, is not an identification 
 of the two nations ; it is merely a merger of the parliament of one 
 nation in that of the other ; one nation, namely, England, retains her 
 full proportion ; Ireland strikes off two-thirds ; she does so, without 
 any regard either to her present number, or to comparative physical 
 strength ; she is more than one-third in population, in territory, and 
 less than one-sixth in representation. Thus there is no identification 
 in anything, save only in legislature, in which there is a complete 
 and absolute absorption. 
 
 It follows, that the two nations are not identified, though the Irish 
 legislature be absorbed, and, by that act of absorption, the feeling 
 of one of the nations is not identified but alienated. The petitions 
 on our table bespeak that alienation ; the administration must by 
 this time be acquainted with it; they must know that Union is Irish 
 alienation, and, knowing that, they must be convinced that they 
 have the authority of the minister's argument against the minister's 
 project. I am not surprised that this project of Union should 
 alienate the Irish ; they consider it as a blow. Two honourable gentle- 
 
 * Mr. O'Donnell and Col. Vereker. 
 
256 
 
 INVECTIVE AGAINST COREY. 
 
 honour ; ingenuous young men, they have spoken with unsophisti- 
 cated feeling and the native honesty of good sense. The question is not 
 now such as occupied you of old, not old Poynings, not peculation, 
 not plunder, not an embargo, not a Catholic bill, not a reform bill — 
 it is your being — it is more, — it is your life to come, whether you 
 will go with the Castle at your head to the tomb of Charlemont and 
 the volunteers, and erase his epitaph ; or whether your children shall 
 go to your graves, saying : A venal, a military court, attacked the 
 liberties of the Irish, and here lie the bones of the honourable dead 
 men who saved their country ! Such an epitaph is a nobility which 
 the King cannot give his slaves ; it is a glory which the crown 
 cannot give the King. 
 
 INVECTIVE AGAINST COREY. 
 
 February 14, 1800. 
 
 Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done? He was 
 unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. There 
 was scarce a word he uttered that was not a violation of the privi- 
 leges of the House ; but I did not call him to order — why ? because 
 the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be 
 severe without being unparliamentary. But before I sit down I 
 shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same 
 time. On any other occasion I should think myself justifiable in 
 treating with silent contempt anything which might fall from that 
 honourable member ; but there are times when the insignificance of 
 the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know the 
 difficulty the honourable gentleman laboured under when he attacked 
 me, conscious that, on a comparative view of our characters, public and 
 private, there is nothing he could say which would injure me. The 
 public would not believe the charge. I despise the falsehood. If 
 such a charge were made by an honest man, I would answer it in 
 the manner I shall do before I sit down. But I shall first reply to 
 it when not made by an honest man. 
 
 The right honourable gentlemen has called me " an unimpeached 
 traitor I ask, why not " traitor unqualified by any epithet ? I 
 will tell him ; it was because he dare not. It was the act of a coward, 
 who raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give the 
 
INVECTIVE AGAINST CORRY. 
 
 257 
 
 felow. I will not call him villain, becanse it would be unparliamen- 
 tary, and he is a privy counsellor. I will not call him fool, because 
 he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one 
 who has abused the privilege of parliament and freedom of debate to 
 the uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should 
 answer only with a blow. I care not how high his situation, how 
 low his character, how contemptible his speech ; whether a privy 
 counsellor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow. He has 
 charged me with being connected with the rebels : the charge is 
 utterly, totally, and meanly false. Does the honourable gentleman 
 rely on the report of the House of Lords for the foundation of his 
 assertion ? If he does, I can prove to the committee there was a 
 physical impossibility of that report being true. But I scorn to 
 answer any man for my conduct, whether he be a political coxcomb, or 
 whether he brought himself into power by a false glare of courage 
 or not. I scorn to answer any wizard of the Castle throwing himself 
 into fantastical airs. But if an honourable and independent man 
 were to make a charge against me, I would say : " You charge me 
 with having an intercourse with the rebels, and you found your 
 charge upon what is said to have appeared before a committee of the 
 Lords. Sir, the report of that committee is totally and egregiously 
 irregular ". I will read a letter from Mr. Nelson, who had been 
 examined before that committee; it states that what the report 
 represents him as having spoken, is not what he said. [Mr. Grattan 
 here read a letter from Mr. Nelson, denying that he had any connec- 
 tion with Mr. Grattan as charged in the report ; and concluding 
 by saying, "never was misrepresentation more vile than that put into 
 my mouth by the report ".] 
 
 From the situation that I held, and from the connections I had in 
 the city of Dublin, it was necessaiy for me to hold intercourse with 
 various descriptions of persons. The right honourable member might 
 as well have been charged with a participation in the guilt of those 
 traitors ; for he had communicated with some of those very persons 
 on the subject of parliamentary reform. The Irish government, too, 
 were in communication with some of them. 
 
 The right honourable member has told me I deserted a profession 
 where wealth and station were the reward of industry and talent. If 
 I mistake not, that gentleman endeavoured to obtain those rewards 
 by the same means ; but he soon deserted the occupation of a banis- 
 ter for those of a parasite and pander. He fled from the labour of 
 gtudy to flatter at the table of the great. He found the lord's 
 parlour a better sphere for his exertions than the hall of the Four 
 
258 
 
 INVECTIVE AGAINST CORRY. 
 
 Courts ; the house of a great man a more convenient way to power 
 and to place ; and that it was easier for a statesman of middling 
 talents to sell his friends, than for a lawyer of no talents to sell hiscjients. 
 
 For myself, whatever corporate or other bodies have said or done 
 to me, I from the bottom of my heart forgive them. I feel I have 
 done too much for my country to be vexed at them. I would 
 rather that they should not feel or acknowledge what I have done 
 for them, and call me traitor, than have reason to say I sold them. 
 I will always defend myself against the assassin ; but with large 
 bodies it is different. To the people I will bow : they may be my 
 enemy — I never shall be theirs. 
 
 At the emancipation of Ireland, in 1782, I took a leading part in 
 the foundation of that constitution which is now endeavoured to be 
 destroyed. Of that constitution I was the author ; in that constitution 
 I glory; and for it the honourable gentleman should bestow praise, 
 not invent calumny. Notwithstanding my weak state of body, I 
 come to give my last testimony against this Union, so fatal to the 
 liberties and interests of my country. I come to make common cause 
 with these honourable and virtuous gentlemen around me ; to try and 
 save the constitution ; or if not save the constitution, at least to save 
 our characters, and remove from our graves the foul disgrace of 
 standing apart while a deadly blow is aimed at the independence of 
 our countiy. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman says I fled from the country 
 after exciting rebellion, and that I have returned to raise another. 
 No such thing. The charge is false. The civil war had not commenced 
 when I left the kingdom ; and I could not have returned without 
 taking a part. On the one side there was the camp of the rebel ; 
 on the other, the camp of the minister, a greater traitor than that 
 rebel. The stronghold of the constitution was nowhere to be found. 
 I agree that the rebel who rises against the government should have 
 suffered ; but I missed on the scaffold the right honourable gentleman. 
 Two desperate parties were in arms against the constitution. The 
 right honourable gentleman belonged to one of those parties, and 
 deserved death. I could not join the rebel — I could not join the 
 government — I could not join torture — I could not join half-hanging 
 - — I could not join free quarter — I could take part with neither. 
 I was therefore absent from a scene where I could not be active 
 without self-reproach, nor indifferent with safety. 
 
 Many honourable gentlemen thought differently from me: I 
 respect their opinions, but I keep my own ; and I think now, as I 
 thought then, that the treason of the minister against the liberties 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 251? 
 
 of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of the people 
 against the minister. 
 
 I have returned, not as the right honourable member has said, to 
 raise another storai — I have returned to discharge an honourable 
 debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred a great reward for 
 past services, which, I am proud to say, was not greater than my 
 desert. I have returned to protect that constitution, of which I was 
 the parent and the founder, from the assassination of such men ae 
 the honourable gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are 
 corrupt — they are seditious — and they, at this very moment, are in 
 a conspiracy against their country. I have returned to refute a 
 libel, as false as it is malicious, given to the public under the appella- 
 tion of a report of the committee of the Lords. Here I stand ready 
 for impeachment or trial : I dare accusation. I defy the honourable 
 gentleman ; I defy the government ; I defy their wholei phalanx : 
 let them come forth. I tell the ministers I will neither give them 
 quarter nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered remains of my 
 constitution on the floor of this House in defence of the liberties of 
 my country. 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 March 19, 1800. 
 
 Sir, — The plan of Union has detailed itself. Still it is the abolition 
 of the Irish Parliament, aud the transfer of legislation : on the part 
 of this House a breach of trust, and on the part of the minister of 
 England a breach of faith. The advocates for Union have failed in 
 everything : first, in their attempt to prove the competency of parlia- 
 ment to destroy the old, and to imposs a new constitution against 
 the sense of the people. They have quoted the instance of Scotland; 
 but there was no compact between England and Scotland, such as 
 our compact of 1782 ; and the sense of the Scotch electors was 
 taken on the subject of Union by a dissolution of the Scotch Parlia- 
 ment ; so that the strength of the case of Scotland is the desidera- 
 tum of the case of Ireland. They have attempted to produce instan- 
 ces ; namely, the succession of the crown and the change of religion, 
 as if it were the same thing to make law and to dissolve the law 
 maker ; as if the frame of the constitution were as much the creat ure or 
 law as the establishments are the creature of law, and law the creature 
 of the law-maker. In these instances the families and persons 
 
260 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 administering the constitution were changed, but the frame of the 
 constitution continued; the principle on which they have argued 
 would reduce human right to the two great questions of power and 
 corruption, in breach of trust and contempt of justice. They have 
 attempted to produce authority ; namely, the parliaments of both 
 countries : as if, in a question between two parties, the parliament 
 and the people, the ipse dixit of the parliament decided the point. 
 However, the Parliament of Ireland have decided the point, and 
 they have decided the point against their power ; for they declared in 
 1782, unanimously, both Houses, that the right of the people of 
 Ireland to be subject to no laws but those made by King, Lords, 
 and Commons of Ireland exclusively, was the ancient inheritance of 
 the realm, which they could not surrender. They have attempted 
 to quote authorities : Blackstone, who upon a constitutional subject 
 regarding Ireland, is no authority ; for he declared the Parliament 
 of England competent to make laws for this country : Lord Somers, 
 who has said nothing on the subject : and Lord Coke, who, if he 
 has spoken decisively upon the subject, has spoken against them ; for he 
 has said that one parliament cannot take away the power of future 
 parliaments — of course cannot take away their existence. They 
 have been answered by an authority greater than all they have 
 attempted to quote, the great writer of the Eevolution, Mr. Locke, 
 whose express doctrine, and whose repeated declarations, together 
 with the great principle on which his Essay is founded, go to estab- 
 lish that the legislature is a thing in trust, and that the trustees 
 have not in themselves authority to surrender or transfer the 
 same. They have been answered by the great political act of the 
 English nation, as well as by her great political author, namely, the 
 Revolution, where the society, or a large description thereof, autho- 
 rised by the society, did interfere in consequence of a breach of 
 trust, adjudged to be a violation of the fundamental principles of the 
 constitution, and therefore an abdication of the government. They 
 have been answered by original contract, declared and voted at that 
 time to be the bond between the people and the government ; and 
 they have been further answered by this necessary inference, arising 
 from their doctrine, that, according to their doctrine, should the 
 government of France, Buonaparte for instance, be able to corrupt 
 a majority of the two Houses of the British Parliament, that majority 
 is competent to transfer the powers of the British legislature to Paris. 
 
 In their attempts to prove this measure to be the sense of the 
 people, they have been equally unfortunate. They relied on that 
 sense at first as then' ground of Union. See their debates of the 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 261 
 
 last session — see the king's message on your table. Finding the 
 sense of this House on the last session, they appealed to the popu- 
 lace against the parliament : finding themselves on this session more 
 fortunate to incline the will of this House to their projects, they 
 reject the sense, not of the populace, but of the people. They had 
 before thought the parliament had no sense but in the rabble ; and 
 now they maintain that the great body of the people, the community, 
 the electors of the realm, that great comprehensive body which the 
 law calls the Commons, have no sense but in the parliament. They 
 render the right of petition null and void They effectually and 
 substantially repeal the operation of one great article, the declara- 
 tion of right, namely, that it is the right of the subject to petition ; for 
 they allege that, instead of attending to his petitions as conveying 
 his sense, you are to look for his sense in the measure adopted by 
 parliament, against which measure he is petitioning ; and, in order 
 to take away any possible authority which his petition should have 
 either on the royal mind or on this House, they set up a ministerial 
 inquisition into his character, and proscribe for certain popular acts — 
 such as Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform, all His 
 Majesty's subjects that took a part in those acts ; that is to say, all 
 the Catholics, all the Presbyterians, and a great portion of the 
 Protestants ; in short, the great bulk of the community. They in 
 fact proscribe and exclude, not from their right of petition in form, 
 but in substance, from any authority, weight, or utility annexed to 
 that right, all His Majesty's subjects, save only the friends to the 
 Union, their own connexion, then- courtiers, or their fellows. Thus 
 they get clear and dispose of the cities, towns, and six and twenty 
 counties, who have petitioned against the Union. 
 
 In their attempt to prove this Union a measure of identification, 
 they have been no less unfortunate. These cities, and six and twenty 
 counties, petitioning against it, remonstrating against it, exclaiming 
 against it, prove that it cannot be a measure of identification. You 
 cannot identify or bind two people together by mere operation of 
 parchment or paper ; the will of the parties is essential to marriage, 
 national or personal ; between the buyer and the bought, between 
 the oppressor and the oppressed, between the conqueror and the 
 conquered, there can be no identification. This Union, forced against 
 the sense of the people, by terror and by money, would be an act 
 of oppression, of purchase, and of conquest ; the means taken to 
 force the Union, render the identification of people impossible. — 
 Indeed the Union does not profess to be an identification ; it is not 
 an identification of executive. You are to have two courts, a 
 
262 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 viceroy or justices, and their separate establishments, a separate 
 treasury, a separate revenue, with its distinct patronage and expense, 
 and a separate and distinct regulation for trade and commerce; you 
 are to be governed by distinct laws (what is the martial bill of the 
 other night ?) and by a distinct spirit and principle administering 
 those laws. The temper and spirit with which administration speak 
 of the people of Ireland, prove that they think them a different 
 people, of different manners, different views, and different natures, 
 to be governed on different principles. What are those principles ? 
 The principles of conquest for the Irish, the principles of hostility for 
 the Irish. Has any one seen the pamphlet of the Earl of Clare on 
 this subject ? Nay, even in the instance of parliament, though 
 there be an identification of legislatures, there is not, as has been 
 proved by a most learned and valuable member of this House, an 
 identification of legislative principle ; the principle with respect to 
 England being that of trust and confidence, and the principle with 
 respect to Ireland being that of terras and of jealousy. 
 
 As little have they been able to prove that this Union will produce 
 tranquillization. The object of the minister seems to be to get rid 
 of the parliament, in order to get rid of the opposition ; a shallow and 
 a senseless thought. What ! when you banish parliament, do you 
 banish the people ? Do you extinguish the sentiment ? Do you 
 extinguish the soul ? Do you put out the spirit of liberty, when 
 you destroy that organ, constitutional and capacious, through which 
 that spirit may be safely and discreetly conveyed ? What is the 
 excellence of our constitution ? Not that it performs prodigies, and 
 prevents the birth of vices which are inseparable from human nature, 
 but that it provides an organ in which those vices may play and 
 evaporate, and through which the humours of society may pass with- 
 out preying on the vitals. Parliament is that body where the whole 
 intellect of the country may be collected, and where the spirit of 
 patriotism, of liberty, and of ambition may all act under the control 
 of that intellect, and under the check of publicity and observation. 
 But if once these virtues or defects were forced to act in secret 
 conclave or in dark divan, they would produce, not opposition, but 
 conspiracy. Hence, the parliamentary storm which shakes the 
 minister saves the monarchy. How idly have gentlemen argued, 
 who think that all questions will cease because there * is no Irish 
 Parliament to agitate them; they will be agitated by the parliament 
 of the empire, and by the people of Ireland, who will have no par- 
 i ament, and therefore must agitate them amo ng on e another. — 
 Catholic emancipation . gentlemen say that question has ceased ; the 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 263 
 
 question of Union has revived it ; it is now discussed in the debates 
 of Great Britain, and in the publications of the members of the 
 British Parliament. The question of parliamentary reform, do 
 gentlemen say that will cease ? No ; the use made of Irish boroughs 
 to procure the Union, and the inundation of corruption from Ireland 
 in consequence of the Union ; the operation of the double establish- 
 ments playing against one parliament ; the military government of 
 Ireland ; all these are great subjects, certain to be agitated. 
 
 Why should gentlemen imagine that the absence of parliament 
 should silence great questions or great grievances ? Has India a 
 parliament ? Have the slaves a parliament ? Have the oppressions 
 of India never been agitated ? Has the slave trade never been 
 agitated ? Yes ; all those questions will be agitated ; but how ? 
 without hope of redress. The irritation will therefore be certain, 
 and the remedy desperate. You will be taught by the debates of 
 the imperial parliament that you have grievances, and you will be 
 further taught by the abortive consequences of those debates, that 
 you have no parliament to redress them. You will rind that to 
 deprive a nation of hope is not the best method to prevent her 
 becoming desperate ; and that you, least of all, secure the peace of 
 your country, by taking away that constitution, which that conntrv 
 had pledged herself to support. 
 
 As little have they established the defects of the constitution oi 
 1782, or the ministerial responsibility, and consequent inadequacy, 
 which they allege to be inseparable from the same. They have been 
 answered by referring to the judicial, financial, and military depart- 
 ments, with Irish officers and stamps of authority aunexed, all 
 responsible to the Irish Parliament. They have been shown that no 
 English minister can do anything here but through the medium of 
 an Irish minister, who is answerable to you. They have been shown, 
 that if the countiy have not all that political consequence that they 
 now, for the first time, desire, it is because she has not the physical 
 consequence which their Union would but ill supply, and would 
 greatly diminish. But they have been shown that this country may 
 have by the constitution all that liberty which is necessary for happi- 
 ness, and all that power which is necessary for liberty. They have 
 dwelt much upon the conventual inadequacy of the Irish constitution. 
 Here I beg to consider its fact as well as its theory. 
 
 The direct powers of the House of Commons are much, but the 
 indirect are everything ; the purse has drawn the action of the 
 executive here; the minister is that person whom the king h&> 
 appointed and the Commons support ; he is constituted ministei b; 
 
264 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 His Majesty, but he continues minister only as he enjoys the confi- 
 dence of parliament ; he is ultimately responsible to parliament, but 
 in the mean time he takes care to act with her previous or concomitant 
 council. 
 
 Let us apply this doctrine to Ireland, by adverting not to what 
 may happen, but to what actually has taken place. You obtained a 
 free trade ; how ? by your command over the purse of the nation. 
 And yet at that time your grant was not four hundred thousand a- 
 year additional supply, and the king had an hereditary revenue con- 
 siderably more, and the parliament of England voted your army : and 
 now, when the king has no hereditary revenue, and the parliament 
 of England does not vote your army, and when you grant more than 
 five-fold of what you granted then, do you imagine you will not be 
 able to secure objects which are to England ten-fold less interesting, 
 namely, participation in her treaties ? But the experiment has been 
 tried ; the Methuen treaty, French treaty, and the American treaty. 
 All these were open to you as matter of course ; it is therefore con- 
 trary to experiment as well as to theory, to affirm that the constitu- 
 tion of Ireland is incompetent to secure to the people of Ireland a 
 participation in English treaties ; and the truth is, that this Union 
 is propounded, not so much from a sense of our constitutional weak- 
 ness, as from a dread of our constitutional power. The English 
 minister is jealous of Ireland : he wishes to make the business of 
 influence more compendious ; he thinks it more easy to govern by 
 patronage one parliament than two ; he has produced a correspon- 
 dence which shows you how reluctantly, as far as concerns some of 
 the ministers of England, our constitution was acknowledged even in 
 the moment of our strength, and now he proposes a measure, show- 
 ing with what avidity it is to bo snatched away in the moment of 
 our weakness. Let them produce what arguments they please. 
 Let them throw over their proceedings what veil or colour they can 
 devise, still is the case apparent. You recovered your liberty in the 
 day of your strength, and the British minister takes it away in the 
 day of your weakness. 
 
 The advocates of the Union have failed in that part of their argu- 
 ment which relates to commerce even more than any other. Instead 
 of promoting your manufactures, to compensate for the loss of your 
 parliament, they tell you now that it i3 of very little consequence 
 whether you have any manufactures or not ; they tell you it is of 
 very little consequence where the manufactures of the empire are 
 disposed, and that if England be more formed for the cotton manu- 
 facture, &c, that manufacture and the others should reside in England 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 2G5 
 
 exclusively. We conceived at first that the manufacturer was to be 
 the great object of those who promoted the Union; we now Snd 
 that it is the consumer. In short, that idea of converting this conn- 
 try into a land of manufacturers to atone for the loss of a resident 
 gentry, is abandoned, and we are now to have neither a resident 
 gentry nor manufacturers ; all the policy of nursing onr growing 
 fabrics, and thereby of improving the industry of the country, employ- 
 ing her children and expending her wealth upon her own labour, is 
 now abandoned, and the language of the Union is : Buy where yea 
 can and as cheap as you can, and if the English market be cheaper, 
 resort to that market in preference to your own. Accordingly, it is 
 proposed to reduce the protecting duties in seventy instances, to 10 J 
 per cent, for the next twenty years, and after that to reduce them 
 to nothing. Observe that this injury, or at least this danger, is the 
 great bonus for the Union : you are called upon to declare, that the 
 high duties under which those manufactures have flourished, has not 
 only been an injury to your commerce, but so great an injury, that 
 you should get rid of your parliament in order to get rid of those 
 duties ; you are called upon to declare, contrary to experience, that 
 your manufactures have been prejudiced by those high duties ; you 
 are called upon to declare, contrary to evidence, that your manufac- 
 tures can flourish hereafter without them ; and you are called upon 
 to declare, supposing those duties to be mischievous, that they cannot 
 be reduced by your own parliament. Never was a proposition so 
 audacious, to call upon a country to give up at the same time her 
 constitutional and her commercial securities, and to inform her at the 
 same time, that she is to make such a surrender with a view to 
 enlarge her liberty and her commerco. The cotton manufacturers 
 have got a respite ; a few years are allotted to them to withdraw 
 their capital from the trade, to save themselves, but not the country 
 — a decisive proof of the ruinous consequence of the measure, and 
 how little the commerce of Ireland was in its consideration. 
 
 You have heard the testimony of certain manufacturers ; you have 
 heard what capital they have laid out, what a number of men they 
 have employed, how then manufacture has flourished since the con- 
 stitution of 1782, and what ruinous consequences they apprehend , 
 from the Union. Against their testimony, you have heard nothing 
 but the calculation of ministers, who do not understand the subject, 
 and who, if they did understand the subject, are parties for Great 
 Britain. Thus against experience, against evidence, you are called 
 to act in a case where, if you commit a false step, you can never 
 recover it. If these alterations in your duties were necessary for 
 
266 
 
 A^TI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 your interest, they had been proposed before this to your own 
 parliament, who was and is perfectly competent to administer redress ; 
 but they were not propounded since the time of the propositions to 
 your own parliament, because, till now, the commercial interests of 
 this country, and the country herself, had weight and strength. In 
 the moment of your weakness do they come before you, when you 
 are equally unable to defend your trade and your liberty ; for the 
 injuries done to both, the project of Union proposes a compensation 
 in revenue ; England, it states, is to pay for your establishments in 
 peace and in war. A mischief which has not befallen the British 
 empire for near a century ; England is to buy, and Ireland is to sell 
 the Irish constitution, and the empire of Great Britain and the 
 freedom of Ireland are to be the victims ; the empire is to lose what 
 she wants — revenue ; and you are to lose what you hold invalua- 
 ble — constitution. When England communicated to Ireland the 
 blessings of her trade, as in 1779, she lost nothing; she added to 
 the stock of common industry ; but when England parts with revenue, 
 she loses what she gives, and you lose more than what you get. 
 The idea, therefere, is inadmissible, the offer fraudulent. It is 
 founded upon two principles, both of which are false ; first, that the 
 revenues of the country will not increase ; second, that the expenses 
 of the country must. As to the first, they say Ireland will be no 
 longer able to support herself, either in peace or war. In the last 
 twenty years the revenues of Ireland have increased near four-fold 
 under the constitution of 1782. If they are to decline under the 
 Union in the next twenty, what becomes of the national prosperity 
 which is promised to flow from the Union ? Either their promise is 
 true, and the Union will increase the means of the country, and then 
 what becomes of their argument ? Or their promise is false, and 
 the Union will diminish the means of the country, and then what 
 should become of their Union ? So that they must either give up 
 their argument, or give up their measure. 
 
 Let us see, however, what is this tremendous bankruptcy with 
 which we are threatened. The revenues of this year they have 
 stated to be £2,300,000, and the new taxes to be £300,000 
 more, making together a net annual income of £2,600,000. 
 Now, the last peace establishment was not above £1,000,000, and 
 the interest of the debt is not above £1,400,000; as they have 
 underrated the revenues of the country, so they have overrated her 
 establishments; and they have estimated her future peace establish- 
 ment at £1,500,000; they have increased, according to this esti- 
 mate, the peace establishment one-third, for which they have given 
 
ANTI- UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 2G7 
 
 no adequate reason : they say the pay of the army has been 
 augmented ; that there will be a certain increase of expense in peace 
 in consequence of the militia, and also in consequence of the yeomen 
 admitted ; but these three items will not amount in peace to the 
 difference of £500,000. They have not attempted to produce any 
 estimate to show that they will, nor can they ; therefore, when they 
 call upon you to acknowledge such a peace establishment, they call 
 upon you for an opinion without any data or foundation whatsoever. 
 The expenses of militia and yoemen in peace, which they talk about, 
 but do not state, should produce a proportional reduction of the 
 arniy, unless they propose, as I suspect they do, to make the estab- 
 lishment a military government, and to throw into this country a 
 great proportion of the army of the empire : and they do hint, 
 indeed, that your peace establishments must be £1,900,000 ; and 
 that you are not to have 12,000 regulars as formerly, but 20,000 
 effective regular troops. Thus, they propose a war establishment in 
 time of peace, as they have proposed a rebellion establishment in 
 time of war, and form the estimate of their permanent establish- 
 ments on the estimate of a permanent rebellion. They have already 
 stated the productive effects ; and now they state the tranquillizing 
 consequences of a Union — permanent disaffection — permanent mili- 
 tary government. A minister states, that he cannot administer the 
 country according to the established constitution, or upon any 
 revenue which the country can afford ; and you are to make him a 
 present of the parliament, and replace it by troops. Thus the Union, 
 when it details itself, becomes a self-convicted measure. The pro- 
 jector tells you of a military government and a military force, which 
 the country will not be able to pay, and which Great Britain must, 
 in order to keep down those discontents which will follow the Union, 
 I do acknowledge, that some few years after the war, it may be 
 necessary to keep up a certain unusual force in Ireland. I do not 
 know that it will; but if it should, I would consider such force the 
 establishment of expediency and not of permanency. It should be 
 considered, like the martial law bill, or repeal of the Habeas Corpus 
 bill, a measure of the moment; and as those laws are not to be con- 
 sidered as your permanent constitution, so neither should that force 
 be considered as your permanent establishment. 
 
 With respect to the war establishment, the project holds out the 
 saving of a million ; on what grounds I cannot see. But let us 
 proceed on the noble lord's calculations as if they were right : what 
 will be the amount of that saving? His statement of the war estab- 
 lishment he cannot apply beyond the present war ; you can collect 
 
268 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 something like a wish that the statement should be extended still 
 farther, but nothing like an argument. Let us suppose, then, the 
 present war to last for three years ; for one you have provided 
 already; in the remaining two you will, according to him, save two 
 millions; but you are to pay for the purchase of boroughs, 
 £1,500,000; so that your net saving for the surrender of your par- 
 liament will be £500,000 only. But this gain is founded upon a 
 supposition that the noble lord's statements are right, and that the 
 annual supply now voted is a million more than the annual contri- 
 butionary supply projected ; but his annual contributionary supply 
 he states to be £4,492,000 English, and the supply voted this 
 year is £4,652,000 Irish; so that his saving in time of war seems 
 to be a perfect delusion. If you look back, you will find that, upon 
 his principle of contribution, we should in the present year, taking 
 into consideration the taxes on exports and on income, and the per- 
 manent taxes raised this year in Great Britain, have raised, in 
 addition to our former supplies, the annual income of above 
 £2,000,000 a-year. Looking to the present moment, you see that 
 you save nothing; and, looking prospectively, you see you pledge 
 yourself to a principle of expense which is indefinite. You are to 
 pay, I think he says, £4,400,000 English in time of war, unless 
 England should raise her expense, and then you are to raise yours 
 along with her. Let us, however, take the L'ish contribution, and 
 £4,492,000 English ; I should be glad to know whether this is to 
 be expended on troops kept within the country or not ? If on the 
 former, it is a very bad disposition of the force of the empire, which 
 cannot be justified but by rebellion and invasion, or the apprehension 
 of both, and therefore never can be considered as the permanent 
 application of His Majesty's forces. If the latter, that is, if the 
 money be to be expended on troops serving out of the country, how 
 will you ever be able to bear so great a drain in addition to all your 
 others ? the drain of the absentees ; the drain of the additional 
 absentees ; the drain of money paid for the interest of additional 
 debt, and now the drain of the Irish contribution expended in other 
 countries ; so that, according to this plan, an invasion, or the appre- 
 hension of invasion or rebellion, are the only means to prevent bank- 
 ruptcy. In every shape I view this question, it is mischievous ; 
 and not less mischievous as the extinction of the Parliament of Ire- 
 land, than as the corruption of the Parliament of Great Britain. 
 You reduce your Commons by two-thirds ; and you make the 
 minister a present of the other ; you calculate upon an immense 
 Irish establishment in war, and an increased establishment in peace. 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 269 
 
 Thus you increase greatly the sources of influence, while you 
 diminish the number of the persons on whom that influence is to 
 operate ; you keep up all the Irish establishments so augmented, 
 together with all the establishments of Great Britain, and leave the 
 double cause to operate on one parliament. 
 
 The British House of Commons resolved some years ago, that the 
 influence of the crown had increased, and ought to be diminished. I 
 understand it has considerably increased since. Some years ago, 
 the number of placemen aud pensioners in the Irish House of 
 Commons were one hundred and ten ; since that time the influence 
 of the crown has greatly increased in Ireland; and, according to the 
 plan of Union, the peace establishment is to increase one-third, and 
 the military establishment infinitely beyond anything known in 
 former wars. Thus, in addition to an influence which both coun- 
 tries felt to be truly alarming, and one country, in the resolutions of 
 her representatives, declared to be so, do we see a vast accumulation 
 formed and forming, to act on the reduced numbers of one legislature, 
 thus rendered more compendious for the corruption of the minister, 
 as the corruption of the minister is rendered more comprehensive 
 and more decisive in the legislature ; so that you lay a train for the 
 downfall of the constitution of Great Britain, by the surrender of 
 your own, whether you look to the military government, which is 
 likely to take place in Ireland, to support this act of power, for such I 
 must call the Union, or to the tides of patronage, which are to 
 accompany this act of power, and, to add to terror the force of cor- 
 ruption, in conjunction against the cause of liberty. 
 
 I have mentioned the contributionary aid which is to follow this 
 Union. I beg to consider, upon what proportion that contribution 
 is founded. The noble lord who introduced the Union states it to 
 be as two-fifteenths, or as a seventh and a half ; but the grounds on 
 which he formed his proportion, I own, do not satisfy me. His 
 principal ground was a comparison of the respective exports and 
 imports of the two countries, and he estimates the imports and 
 exports of England, on an average of the three last years, at 
 £73,000,000, and those of Ireland at £10,000,000, and something 
 more. Mr. Pitt, in his calculation for his income tax, stated them 
 at above £80,000,000, and on that trade which was actually 
 insured, and we must suppose much that was not insured. The 
 noble lord has understated the export and import trade of England; 
 he is also erroneous, inasmuch as he does not include tonnage, the 
 proportion of which is beyond all comparison in favour of Great 
 Britain. In the trade between Great Britain and this country, the 
 
270 
 
 ANTI -UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 tonnage and freight is almost entirely British ; valuing, therefore, the 
 imports from Great Britain to this country, as a part of our trade, 
 we ought to value the freight as her wealth, not ours, and it ought 
 to be added to her export. He does not include in his estimate 
 £1,000,000 (it is a great deal more) imported into England to pay 
 the absentees their rents from Ireland, and £4,000,000 from the 
 West Indies. He does not include in his plan of valuation of com- 
 parative wealth by trade, the internal commerce of the two countries, 
 which is to Great Britain a greater source of wealth than any other, 
 and which, when we consider that Great Britain is in possession 
 almost exclusively of her own markets, as far as relates to her 
 manufactures, bears a prodigious proportion, we may presume, to 
 the internal trade of Ireland. He says, that is difficult to obtain 
 any knowledge on that subject ; which would be a good reason for 
 rejecting the Union, when so necessary a knowledge was impossible; 
 but the fact is, Mr. Pitt, in his speech on the income tax, has 
 obtained knowledge on that subject, at least knowledge enough for 
 the purpose of taxation ; and he states the value of the internal 
 trade of his country to be £120,000,000. There are other things 
 of less consequence, but, however, of consequence notwithstanding, 
 which he omits to state ; for instance, he omits to state the profits 
 of mines, minerals, timber, and shares in canals, which exist in Ire- 
 land in a very small degree of comparison, and which are rated to 
 produce in England £3,000,000 per annum. From all this what 
 do I conclude ? Not that the proportion of the wealth of Ireland is 
 this quantity or that quantity, but that he has not given you any 
 data whereon to conclude that the proportion of wealth in the two 
 countries is the contribution propounded, namely, two-fifteenths, or 
 one seventh and a half ; on the contrary, I think you may safely say, 
 that he overrates you in contribution, as he overcharges you in 
 establishment. 
 
 On the whole, it remains then for us to reject this measure ; it is 
 a dishonourable measure; it is an insulting measure; it is a faithless 
 measure ; the commercial interests cry out against it ; the spirit of 
 the country and her constitution cry out against it ; witness the 
 petitions of different descriptions of men of all religions, who seem 
 now to forget their differences, and only to remember their danger. 
 I might here appeal to the different branches of the constitution, 
 which you are going to devote. *o the Lords: will they burn their 
 robes, overset the throne, disgrace their ancestors, disqualify their 
 blood, and consent to become slaves with nicknames, instead of peers 
 with privileges ? I might appeal to the Commons : will you, who 
 
AOTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 271 
 
 remember the business of 1782, before the grave has closed on all 
 tho persons concerned in that great event, and when the hearse is 
 but just returned from depositing the remains of some of them, will 
 you violate yourselves, violate the obsequies of our dead general,* 
 and renounce publicly, and deliberately, and for ever, your constitu- 
 tion and your renown ? I might call on you by all the good laws 
 you have established, by the commerce which you have freed, and 
 by those manufactures which appear from the evidence lately pro- 
 duced at your bar to have grown like so many children under the 
 providence of a free constitution. I might call on you by those 
 measures of coercion which you lately adopted, and which the most 
 vehement assertor of power never attempted to justify, but inasmuch 
 as he thought them the means to preserve the parliament and con- 
 stitution. Do not now scandalize your own professions on that 
 occasion, as well as renounce your former achievements, and close a 
 political life of 700 years by one monstrous, self- surrendering, self- 
 debasing act of relinquishment, irretrievable, irrecoverable, flagitious, 
 and abominable. I might appeal to the king, whose royalty is the 
 auspicious birth of a free constitution. Let him not suffer any 
 minister to profane the mild blood of the House of Hanover, or to 
 sink his illustrious house to the level of other kings by corrupt and 
 unconstitutional victories obtained over the liberties and charters of his 
 subjects. I might appeal to the spirit of loyalty itself against this 
 measure of Union. I mean that loyalty which distinguishes the 
 people of these islands; other nations are slaves, but they are 
 subjects. Do I mean that loyalty which is attached to the person 
 of his Majesty ? No ; but that loyalty which is attached to the 
 person of his Majesty, with all the constitutional circumstances which 
 surround it ; that pride of privilege, that love of liberty, and that 
 tenacity of public honour. This it was, which in former times sus- 
 tained British liberty at home, and her arms abroad ; it was not 
 discipline alone, for the armies on the continent are at least as well 
 disciplined; it was not courage alone, for that your enemies 
 possessed in common with the rest of mankind ; but it was the 
 spirit of a free constitution sustaining that courage and that discip- 
 line, which made every soldier in the line, with but six pence in his 
 pocket and one shirt to his back, conceive himself an integral part 
 of a free state, and a conscious proprietor of the great charter. It 
 was this, that in former times drove old Bourbon in battle ; it was 
 this that made his Majesty's subjects men, not slaves ; and it is this, 
 
 » The Earl of Charlemont. 
 
272 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 which you are going in Ireland, along with the constitution, from 
 whence it emanated, to extinguish for ever. 
 
 I conclude, in these moments — they seem to be the closing 
 moments of your existence — by a supplication to that power whom 
 I tremble to name, that power who has favoured you for 700 years 
 with the rights and image of a free government, and who has lately 
 conducted you out of that desert, where for a century you had 
 wandered, that He will not desert you now, but will be pleased to 
 permit our beloved constitution to remain a little longer among us, 
 and interpose His mercy between the stroke of death and the liberties 
 of the people. 
 
 May 26, 1800, 
 
 Mr. Grattan observed that the bill before the House was full of 
 inaccuracies, but inaccuracy was the least of the objections ; it did 
 indeed refer to a schedule for duties which were not there set forth, 
 and which were not yet passed ; it did indeed recite a bill to have 
 passed both Houses of Parliament which was at that very moment in 
 debate before the House of Lords ; and it did describe that very bill 
 by the name of an act of parliament (saying, that when the act, 
 namely, a bill which had only passed one house, had the royal assent, 
 should pass), offending against parliamentary propriety and legal 
 phraseology with its various and great improprieties, the evident 
 marks of haste and carelessness. But all these are lost in the fatal 
 principle of ruin and extinction which the bill contains, whose enact- 
 ing clauses are two, first that there shall be a distinct and separate 
 council, and secondly, that there shall not be a parliament. 
 
 That is to say, that you are to have not what is miscalled a Union, 
 still less a union and a constitution of liberty, but a subordinate 
 Irish government without the control of an Irish parliament ; the 
 inferiority, the expense, the patronage, of a second and secondary 
 government, with all those distinctions which attend separate estab- 
 lishments of finance and revenue, with a separate system of trade, 
 with a different interest for money, and a distinct code of law. 
 This breach of compact, for such I must call it — this surrender of 
 liberty, for it is nothing less — this transfer of the powers of the 
 country to Great Britain — (what powers have you over India ? pre- 
 cisely as much as you retain over Ireland) — this introduction of an 
 innovation, consisting of a separate Irish government without an 
 Irish Parliament, is made at a time of national debility and division, 
 
ANTI-UNION SrEECnES. 
 
 273 
 
 the result of a rank and vicious system of government, formed to 
 corrupt the upper order, and divide and inflame the lower, and to 
 deprive both of their liberty; such as one part of the present British 
 cabinet abjured, and declaring that they took office principally to 
 reform, did greatly confirm and aggravate ; at a time too of martial 
 law, admitted undei the plea of necessity, but with great effect to 
 depress and intimidate, not rebellion but assertion — not the spirit of 
 insurrection, but the spirit of constitution, which would have also 
 spoken more decidedly (and yet very decidedly it has spoken notwith- 
 standing). 
 
 At a time, I say, when government was possessed of dictatorial 
 power, and at a time when a spirit of innovation was abroad, which 
 has been adopted by the ministers of the Crown, who thus afford 
 their example to overturn the throne by overturning the constitution, 
 and teach the Jacobin, if he wanted to be taught, to make war on 
 the rights of kings, by making a Jacobinical war on the rights of the 
 people : the power given them to preserve the settled state of order, 
 they use to introduce a new order of things, and make government 
 a question of strength, not of opinion ; they run the chance of future 
 anarchy, in order to establish present despotism ; they go into the 
 very excesses they condemn, and are the bad example they depre- 
 cate ; they tell the people practically and effectually, that there is a 
 faction not less daring and destructive than the rankest democracy ; 
 a faction which, under the colour of supporting government, would 
 eradicate the great fundamental and ancient principles of public 
 security, as effectually, as ambitiously, and as seditiously as its rival 
 the Jacobin, who is only guilty of an opposite excess, and who is 
 likely to follow and march through the public breach which the slaves 
 of despotism havp made in the fundamental laws of the land, for the 
 entrance of the two extremes in succession, Tyranny that takes the 
 lead, and Anarchy that follows. 
 
 If the principle of this bill be innovation, the terms of it are 
 innovation likewise ; the alteration in our system of commerce is 
 innovation; the alteration in our system of revenue is innovation. — 
 The bill teems with everything that is exceptionable. They talk 
 to you, indeed, as if for liberty surrendered you were to break down 
 under the weight of commercial acquisition ; they talk to you, indeed, 
 as if for liberty surrendered you were to carry off an immense portion 
 of English revenue ; and one million a year in war, paid by England, 
 in all distresses, was to glad and to console you, and much silly and 
 empty sound of that kind was rung in your ears. But what is the 
 act ? that the terms of the Union are aggravations of the Union ; 
 
274 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 the principal conditions are heavy contributions. Your financial 
 conditions are dangerous experiments, and both such as you are 
 perfectly competent to make, provided you are disposed to do so 
 much mischief to your country. The revenue, or the financial 
 returns set out, with the surrender of an availing revenue of £100,000 a 
 year, arising from the export of the raw material and the import of 
 the manufacture, that to the best possible revenue which a nation 
 can continue, it adds the creation of a deficit of £95,000 a year, 
 the interest to pay a loan of one million and a half to be paid for 
 the purchase of boroughs, that is, from one to two hundred thousand 
 pounds a year, to be supplied by new taxes. The terms go on and 
 propose a proportion of two to fifteen as the future contribution of 
 Ireland ; they do this without any data whatsoever which can 
 warrant such a proposition. The data which are now before you, 
 but which were not before you when you passed the resolution, and 
 when that proposition was laid, are unintelligible to the gentlemen 
 to whom that data is furnished. Their papers, for instance, state 
 the value of the consumption of the country in certain articles, by 
 which they affect to ascertain its opulence, to be so much ; and other 
 papers, which are also before the House, state the value to be so 
 much less. In the instance of tea, of tobacco, and some other 
 articles, the value of the goods consumed is returned by one-third, 
 in some cases by one-half, more than the value of the same kind of 
 goods imported. The difference may be reconcileable, but it is not 
 reconciled, and the House votes now the proportion of the contribu- 
 tion which is founded on those very papers, without waiting for, 
 without demanding explanation. Suppose the cause, partly at least, 
 of the apparent incongruity is, that in one set of papers they are 
 valued subject to freight and tax, and in another set exempt from 
 both. When the minister proceeds to value the ability of the counr 
 try to pay taxes, he presents you with papers containing the value 
 of the great articles, with the charge of freight and taxes embodied ; 
 but when he proceeds to state the balance of trade bet ween England 
 and Ireland, he presents papers in which the freight and tax are 
 omitted : thus coals (it is one among other instances) are valued at 
 the pit mouth, and thus an apparent balance of trade is created in 
 your favour, about £800,000 more than the fact ; so that by the 
 double operation, you are overrated in commerce and overrated in 
 revenue. I say, therefore, that in fixing the proportion of relative 
 cpntiibution, as far as that proportion affected to found itself on the 
 comparative consumption of the respective kingdoms, you had no 
 data. When first you voted that proportion by way of resolution, 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 275 
 
 you had not even papers ; the majority of this House took the word 
 of the minister, without papers or documents, and on that word 
 voted a twenty years' contribution. Since you proceeded by way of 
 bill, a member on this side of the House called for papers ; the papers 
 are returned incongruous and unexplained, and now you vote the 
 data which you do not understand, as before you voted without any 
 data whatever. I speak of the comparison on the articles of con- 
 sumption ; let us see whether you have better information on the 
 comparison formed on the imports and exports. Here papers are 
 submitted, but here the inland trade is omitted ; it is calculated to 
 amount in Britain to £12,000,000 per annum; — here also the 
 reexport trade is omitted. It is valued at £11,000,000 per annum 
 in Britain; in Ireland £133,000; in the year ending January, 
 1799, it is valued at £14,000,000 in Britain. In the minister's 
 calculation of national wealth, to ground a tax on national income, 
 it was included, I apprehend, as a distinct substantive source of 
 wealth; and, if it were just to comprehend it with a view to impose 
 a tax, it is equally just to comprehend it with a view to ascertain a 
 proportion : it is carried on by a distinct capital ; it produces a dis- 
 tinct revenue ; it is, by itself, a great trade ; and it is almost the 
 only one of some great commercial nations — Holland for instance. 
 It is a greater evidence, and greater source of wealth, to make other 
 nations pay for your industry added to that of other countries, than 
 out of the fruits of your industry to pay for the industry of those 
 countries. 
 
 But without inquiring farther into this head, without inquiring 
 whether it be just to proceed on an average of three years, when it 
 appears from a document, almost published under the name of Mr. 
 Rose, that the imports and exports of Britain, in the year 1798, 
 were not £73,000,000 but £80,000,000, and the reexport not 
 £11,000,000, but £14,000,000; while our trade is said to have 
 declined, inasmuch as our revenue is said to have fallen £800,000 ; 
 without inquiring into this, I say, that the papers before you prove 
 your contribution to be unjust ; they set forth the imports and exports 
 of Britain, for the three years, to have been £73,000,000; on that 
 they form the proportion of two to fifteen ; now there should be 
 added to that £73.000,000, £6,000,000 per annum, which Britain 
 receives from the Indies and from Ireland ; £4,000,000 from the 
 former, and £800,000 in interest for public monev lent ; and near 
 £2,000,000 in rent from the latter : this £'2,000,000 is to be 
 taken from the imports and exports of Ireland, and to be added to 
 those of Britain, which will make a proportion not of ten to seventy? 
 
276 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 three, but of about eight to seventy-nine. Thus it follows, that 
 whatever difficulty you may have in pronouncing the proportion of 
 contribution, you can have no difficulty in pronouncing that the con- 
 tribution you have ascertained is unjust and fallacious ; and you can 
 discover its injustice and fallacy by the very papers on which you 
 have formed, it ; those papers ascertaining the proportion you have 
 voted, by the omission of £6,000,000 of British annual income. 
 Thus has this House, under the direction of the minister, overcharged 
 this country in contribution, having no sufficient evidence to estimate 
 its contribution, but having complete evidence to impeach that con- 
 tribution which it now imposes. And what is this contribution ? 
 It is valued at about £4,800,000 in war, in addition to the interest 
 of your debt, which is £140,000 per annum ; that is, equal to the 
 charge of your establishment, four times greater than any past war 
 establishment; a charge equal to the support of 128,000 soldiers, 
 which is near eight times as much as you paid in former wars : so 
 that you are to multiply your charge for the loss of your parliament ; 
 or rather, you are to pay the tribute of the slave ; before this, you 
 raised the supply of freemen ; — a charge, I say, which, if for troops 
 to be kept in the country, establishes a military government as com- 
 plete as in Russia; and which, if for troops out of the country, will 
 not leave you a guinea ; which will, therefore, render you a slave or 
 a bankrupt ; a military province of England, or a beggar — indeed 
 both : for though I do not think the means of this country are 
 unequal to every necessary expense, yet I do think they are inade- 
 quate to that contributary expense which the Union stipulates. I 
 do think they are unequal to a war contribution of £4,800,000 per 
 annum ; and I think the attempt will exhaust this country, at the 
 same time that it enslaves her. Colour it as you please, she will 
 pay more than she is able ; and she will pay for a force, not to pro- 
 tect, but to enslave. 
 
 Do we know that the balance of our trade with all the world is 
 but half a million in our favour, and that this half million is to supply 
 the absentee drain of above two millions, which is to be greatly 
 increased by the operation of the Union, by which we are to pay not 
 only absentee representation, but absentee establishment ? Do we 
 know that even now, when we borrow about £3,000,000 per 
 annum from England, the exchange is greatly against us ? Do we 
 know, that at this very moment, the revenue has fallen £800,000 ? 
 — a fall which could be only occasional, if your constitution were 
 suffered to continue ; but, if the Union and its new drain, contribu- 
 tions, discontents, military government, and military maxims shall 
 
ANTI-UNIOS SPEECHES. 
 
 277 
 
 succeed, is ominous and alarming. Knowing all these, what have 
 we done ? We have overrated our country in wealth, to overrate 
 her in contribution, to apply that contribution to the maintenance of 
 a military, to take away her liberty. I speak of the proposed war 
 establishment. What is the proposed peace establishment ? — one- 
 third greater than past peace establishments. Why one-third greater ? 
 The increased pay of 15,000 men, the peace establishment of a 
 militia of 17,000 men, the skeleton of the yeomen corps, will not 
 account for an increase of one-third, namely, of half a million. No 
 ground whatever has been laid for it, except, indeed, a certain hint 
 that it may be expedient to mention. In peace, an army in Ireland 
 of 20,000 — we understand that perfectly — an Union army — a 
 military establishment in peace ; and a rebellion establishment in 
 war : in fact, an army not for the people of Ireland, but put upon 
 them, not to protect them, but to protect the projects of the minister 
 against them. Tis time, it has been said, that England will pay 
 this additional expense ; but what is that ? The English minister 
 will make his country assist in the subjugation of the Irish by force 
 of arms ; there is no great compliment in this : but rely on it, that 
 Ireland, like every enslaved country, will ultimately be compelled to 
 pay for her own subjugation ; robbery and taxes ever follow con- 
 quest ; the country that loses her liberty, loses her revenues. 
 
 But, if the terms of the financial part of the Union were as bene- 
 ficial as they are injurious, it would be of little moment ; for there 
 is an article, that whenever the minister shall raise the debt of 
 Ireland to an amount which shall be as the proportion of two to 
 fifteen in relation to the permanent debt of England (in three years 
 of war they tell you they will do it), then you are to be taxed as 
 much as England. Considering then the terms of the Union, as far 
 as they relate 10 revenue, they amount to a continuation of the 
 double establishment, an increase of the separate establishments, and 
 a military government, with a prospect of soon succeeding to the 
 full taxes of England. 
 
 As to commerce, the terms are short and simple — to abate those 
 duties which you thought necessary for the protection of your manu- 
 factures ; that's all ! Are the manufacturers of glass, of iron-ware, 
 are the brewers, the hosiers, the saddlers, the manufacturers of cotton, 
 obliged to you for that ? Did they petition parliament for it ? have 
 they not petitioned parliament against it ? Who is it then that 
 calls for it ? The Irish manufacturer ? — No. The Irish consumer ? 
 —No. The Irish Parliament ?— No. Who then ?— The Br tish 
 minister, who does not indeed petition, but exacts it of the Irish 
 
 13 
 
278 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 Parliament;, who, at the same time, are called on to surrender 
 themselves, their power, and their being. All duties below ten per 
 cent, to be taken off; all duties above it to be reduced to that stan- 
 dard for twenty years, and then to be abolished in toto. Calico is 
 respited for a few years. Why do you deprive calico of the advan- 
 tage of being unprotected for those few years ? Why ; but because 
 it is of no advantage, but the contrary ; and you have thought it a 
 matter of mercy to let the persons engaged in that trade gradually 
 withdraw. Here is the commercial benefit, the commerce which 
 we are to get for our constitution ; for you do not say, that it is a 
 material privilege to be permitted to export to England our cotton 
 and woollen cloth. Would it be a great privilege to permit England 
 to export Burgundy into France ? Even the privilege of importing 
 wool, the British minister has told you, will be of no use to you ; 
 lie is, I believe, right ; there is nothing he gives, there is nothing 
 in trade which he can give, that will be of any use to you. I do 
 not pretend to decide whether these advantages will prove the ruin 
 of your manufacturers ; but I do venture to decide, that they will 
 not be of any use to them. Besides, what are the commercial terms ? 
 Such as you could give yourselves without an Union, if you did not 
 think them mischievous ; what, then, are the terms, financial and 
 commercial ? The increase of your taxes of incumbrance, and the 
 abatement of your duties of protection ; a surrender, not a compen^ 
 sation ; evidences of conquest ; such terms as a nation must expect 
 that surrenders her constitution. 
 
 From the bad terms which attend the Union, I am naturally led 
 to the foul means by which it has been obtained — dismissals from 
 office — perversions of the place bill — sale of peerage — purchase of 
 boroughs — appointment of sheriffs with a view to prevent the meet- 
 ings of freemen and freeholders for the purpose of expressing their 
 opinions on the subject of a Legislative Union — in short, the most 
 avowed corruption, threats, and stratagems, accompanied by martial 
 law, to deprive a nation of her liberty ; and so very great and bene- 
 ficial have been the efforts, that His Majesty's . ministers have 
 actually resorted to a partial dissolution of parliament at the very 
 time they declined to resort to a general election ; the sense of 
 parliament and people was against them : they change, therefore, 
 the parliament without recurring to the people, but procure a 
 number of returns, exceeding their present majority, from private 
 boroughs, vacated with a view to return a court member, who should 
 succeed a gentleman that would not vote for the Union ; here then, 
 is a parliament made by the minister, not the people ; and made for 
 
ANTI-UNIOK SPEECHES. 
 
 279 
 
 the question. Under these circumstances, in opposition to the 
 declared sense of the country, has been passed a measure imposing 
 on the people a new constitution, and subverting the old one. 
 
 The good consequences of this measure have been boldly pro- 
 phesied ; I own I see them not. Tranquillity arising from the 
 suppression of parliament ; manufacturers flourishing from the want 
 of protection, these excellent consequences are, at best, but 
 problematical ; the ceasing of political topics with the ceasing of the 
 assembly wherein tney might be regularly or decorously deliberated, 
 is an expectation very pious, perhaps, but very fond and very 
 presumptuous. Do you seriously think that when you take away 
 the forms of liberty, you take away the spirit of liberty? Do you 
 think, for instance, that the Catholic will become insensible to the 
 privileges of a free constitution, because a Protestant Parliament has 
 renounced them ? Do you think Protestant and Catholic will become 
 insensible to the necessity of representation, because they lost their 
 freedom by the want of it ? Do you think that a minister, that any 
 set of men in league with a minister, can, with the institution, sink, 
 smother, and put out the very essence, soul, and light of liberty ? It 
 may be so; I do not believe it. Recollect again, that this tranquil- 
 lity and this commerce predicted to follow the Union, are, at best, 
 paradoxical and remote ; but that the evil consequences predicted 
 are immediate and certain, namely, the war contribution of near 
 £5,000,000, the diminution of your landed capital, the absence of 
 your landed proprietors, the abatement of your protecting duties, the 
 surrender of a solid revenue, the increase of your benefit by a 
 borough loan, and the subversion of your constitution. Those gen- 
 tlemen who, for what they call tranquillity, in their speculations, 
 are ready to sacrifice the labours, the honour, and the freedom of 
 their country, may find that they have lost the liberty, but have not 
 secured the repose. Let me add, that the most decided friends, who 
 deserve respect, have not gone farther than to say, that its conse- 
 quences cannot be foreseen. 
 
 The minister of Britain (Mr. Pitt) has spoken again in its favour. 
 His first speech is a record of inanity ; the merit of his second is, to 
 have abandoned the defence of the first. The inundation of capital 
 from the increase of absentees, the visit of British manufacturers 
 from the increase of taxes, the abatement of protecting duties, and 
 the diminution of the number of consumers, civilization arising from 
 the absence of the gentry, from the corruption of the higher orders 
 (never was minister more profligate), from the debasement of the 
 lower order by the application of terror, civilization arising from the 
 
280 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 regular practices of administration to destroy public virtue, and to 
 render the evils base and false of every order and degree. The 
 political blessings arising from these causes, which overflowed in the 
 first speech, have, in the minister's second speech, prudently and 
 considerately, like any other folly of the day, vanished and evaporated. 
 Argument seems to have taken a new post ; it is no longer industry 
 of the manufacturer, it is now a more pleasurable plan ; luxury and 
 consumer ; such has been the turn of talk and trifling here. " England 
 will furnish everything for money ; she will take your rent, and 
 supply manufactures for your accommodation ; what signifies which 
 country supplies the article, since you are one people ?" In the same 
 way it is said : " What signifies the number of Irish representatives, 
 since you are one people? and, therefore, let them be so few as to 
 be merged in the representation of Great Britain". Again, it is 
 said : " What signifies where the army is quartered, whether in 
 Britain or in Ireland, since you are one people ?" and, therefore, let 
 the troops be in Ireland, and the manufactures be in Great Britain ! 
 
 The advantages predicted in revenue, like those in commerce, 
 vanish also ; the magnificent million of the speech of the Irish 
 Secretary, does not appear in the second oration of the British 
 minister. He had indeed assumed a certain air of astonishment at 
 the surmise, that Britain sought to obtain revenue from other coun- 
 tries. He suffered his minister here to go a little farther, and to 
 teach us to think that England was impatient to get rid of revenue ; 
 that her turn now was to buy up constitutions; that she had 
 become a chapman and dealer in liberty, and was willing to pay 
 Ireland for her parliament, half a million in peace, and one million 
 per annum in war. I doubted the fact, for I had not forgotten the 
 American war ; I had not forgotten the American Stamp Act ; I 
 had not forgotten Mr. G. Grenville's pamphlet, containing a proposal 
 to tax Ireland as well as America ; I had not forgotten the proposal 
 of the present minister of England, contained in one of the proposi- 
 tions of 1785, namely, that the surplus of the hereditary revenue 
 should go to England. When, therefore, the same minister, in a 
 state of tenfold distress, disclaimed revenue, and when the minister 
 here averred that England was to pay a contribution to Ireland, I 
 did not believe either ; but when the former now disavows the latter, 
 and, in his second speech as printed, he is made to say, that Ireland 
 is to pay pretty much what she does now ; that is to say, not as the 
 minister here said, a million less, but above four times as much as 
 she paid in any former war, and many times as much as she is able, 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 281 
 
 and such an expense as the rebellion, not the war, produced ; I say, 
 when the minister sets forth such as our contribution hereafter, he 
 does renounce all benefits predicted in finance, with as much candonr 
 as he abandons all benefits predicted in commerce, to result from his 
 fatal measure of Union. His second speech, in short, deserts the 
 boast of beneficial terms, and confines itself to errors and misrepre- 
 sentations of another kind, which are there to be found in very great 
 abundance. He sets forth that the Irish constitution is the cause of 
 our misfortunes ; his friends have stated the same thing, and have 
 said, that they cannot administer the country on her revenues or 
 under her constitution ; and such an argument in him and in them 
 is modestly urged to banish the parliament and to retain the ministry. 
 Never was it known in a country that retained a trace of liberty, 
 that a minister of the Crown was suffered to impeach the constitu- 
 tion of the realm. Suppose he were to say : 
 
 "I cannot administer a monarchical constitution; therefore banish 
 the king"; or, "I cannot administer an aristocratic constitution ; / 
 therefore banish the house of Lords". What, in fact, does the 
 minister say, who uses this argument, but that his system was a 
 grievance, as was predicted by part of his colleagues, who said they 
 took office to reform it ; that it was not fit for a free people ; that 
 it would produce a civil war; that the public sale of honours, that 
 his notorious attempts to pack parliament, that the violence of some 
 of his agents in this country, that his selection of persons for Irish 
 affairs, who were rather panders than politicians, would aid the 
 growth of French principles, and produce insurgency? Let us, 
 however, give the minister every advantage; let us receive his 
 charge, and tiy the constitution. He will please to show by what 
 act she produced the rebellion ; the mere coexistence of a constitution 
 and a rebellion does not convict the former ; it will be necessary for 
 the accuser to specify facts, and it will be necessary for him to show, 
 first, that these facts sprung out of parliament ; second, that these 
 facts produced the rebellion. His friends have advanced two facts, 
 the reform of parliament, and the emancipation of the Catholics ; 
 but it will be recollected, that parliament was not the author of 
 cither of these questions, and it will be recollected also, that in the 
 report of the two Houses, formed by the friends of the minister, it 
 ? 3 declared, that neither of these questions was the cause of the 
 rebellion, for there it is said, that neither of these questions was an 
 object to the people. Thus is the constitution acquitted, and 
 acquitted by the very ministry who prefer the charge. They have 
 
282 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 confined their charge to two questions; and they have declared 
 these questions did not interest the people ; and these questions, it 
 is known, did not spring from the parliament. 
 
 They have affected to try the constitution. Let us now tiy them ; 
 and I ask whether their own measures might not have caused the 
 rebellion ? Whether the sale of peerages, as notoriously took place 
 in 1789 and 1790, by the then ministers of the crown, for the pur- 
 pose of procuring seats in the commons for the dependents of the 
 Castle, might not have destroyed in Ireland the credit of British 
 government ? 
 
 I ask, whether the attempt to pack the Irish Parliament, as was 
 notoriously practised in '89 and '90, by the then minister of the 
 crown in Ireland, might not have sunk the credit of British govern- 
 ment ? I ask, whether the profligate avowal of that profligate 
 practice by a profligate minister of the crown, might not have sunk 
 the credit of British government ? I ask not, whether the intro- 
 duction of the question of Parliamentary Eeform could have sunk the 
 credit of British government ; but I do ask, whether the introduction 
 and the apostacy from that question, might not have helped to sink 
 the credit of British government ? I ask, whether the introduction 
 of the Catholic question in Great Britain in '92 ; whether the oppo- 
 sition given to the Catholic franchise by the Irish government in 
 '92 ; whether the assent given to the petition for that franchise by 
 the English ministry in '93 ; whether the abuse and Billingsgate 
 accompanying that assent, and uttered by the Irish ministry at that 
 time ; whether the adoption of the pretensions of the Catholics by 
 the English ministry at the close of '94 ; whether the rejection of 
 those pretensions, and the recal of a lord-lieutenant, because with 
 the ministiy's knowledge and acquiescence he honoured those pre- 
 tensions ; whether the selection of persons for distinguished trust, 
 who had distinguished themselves by a perpetual abuse of the Irish, 
 and who were notoriously hostile, and who since have acknowledged 
 their hostility by a conspiracy against the parliamentary constitution 
 of their country ; I ask, I say, whether such a conduct, so incoherent, 
 so irritating, so violent, so temporising, so corrupt, might not have 
 very much aided the efforts of France in sinking the character of 
 British government ? I ask those questions, and I do say, if ever 
 the causes of the late rebellion shall be dispassionately discussed, the 
 great, originating, and fundamental cause, will be found in the aver- 
 sion of His Majesty's ministry to the independency of the Irish 
 Parliament, and their efforts to subvert the same. 
 
 We follow the minister. In defence of his plan of Union, he 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 283 
 
 tells us the number of Irish representatives in the British Parlia- 
 ment is of little consequence. This doctrine is new, namely, that 
 between two nations the comparative influence is of no moment. 
 According to this, it would be of no moment what should be the 
 number of the British Parliament. No, says the minister; the 
 alteration is to be limited to the Irish Parliament ; the number and 
 fabric of the British is to remain entire, unaltered, and unalterable. 
 What now becomes of the argument of mutual and reciprocal change? 
 or what does the new argument avow, but what Ave maintained and 
 the court denied, that the Union was, with respect to Ireland, a 
 merger of hei parliament in the legislature of the other, without 
 creating any material alteration therein, save as far as it advanced 
 the influence of the crown direct or indirect. 
 
 The minister goes on, and supposes 100 Irish will be sufficient, 
 because he supposes any number would be sufficient ; and he sup- 
 poses any number would be sufficient, because the nations are iden- 
 tified. Thus he speaks, as if identification was at once a cause to 
 flow from representation, and an event which preceded it. You are 
 one people, such is his argument, because you are represented, and 
 what signifies how, or, indeed, whether you be represented? But 
 the fact is, that you are identified (if you be identified, which I 
 deny) in the single point of representation, and that representation 
 is absorbed in the superior numbers of the English Parliament, and 
 that apparent identification is, of course, lost, while you remain a 
 distinct country, distinct in interest, revenue, law, finance, commerce, 
 government. Suppose Yorkshire governed by a lord-lieutenant and 
 by a different code of law, she would not be a part of England, but 
 a province of Great Britain; but now the martial law of Scotland 
 must be the martial law of England, and therefore the constitutional 
 sympathy of England defends and renders the number of her repre- 
 sentatives less essential ; but the martial law of Ireland is not the 
 martial law of England ; the military government of Ireland is not 
 the military government of England, and therefore the constitutional 
 sympathy of England does not defend Ireland, but, on the contrary, 
 the imperial jealousy of England endangers Ireland, and has taught 
 the councils of Britain to think that our servitude is our safety. 
 
 " It is matter of no moment what are the number of Irish repre- 
 sentatives, provided that they be sufficient to state the wants, and 
 watch over the interest of their country". So do the public prints 
 make the minister speak. Why ! three men are sufficient for that 
 purpose — one man could do it — a gentleman seated at the bar could 
 do it : the American agents did that before the American war. But 
 
284 
 
 ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 the minister is made to add another provision, which makes his 
 doctrine less answerable in point of meaning, leaving it without any 
 meaning at all — " provided that the numbers be sufficient to protect 
 the rights of the country". But, indeed, when he afterwards 
 explains what protection those rights are to receive, then he sets 
 your mind at ease — protection against Jacobinism ; that's the only 
 point, and that could be accomplished without a single represen- 
 tative — without a parliament ; an absolute monarch could do that ; 
 martial law will do that ; James the Second would have done it. 
 But are there no popular rights ? Is liberty gone out of the 
 calendar ? Order, government, they are indispensable, but are they 
 the whole ? This is new doctrine in these countries, very familiar 
 to a minister, but very fatal to a free people. He confines the pur- 
 poses of Irish representation to two objects ; first, watching and 
 stating, which only requires one representative ; secondly, protection 
 against Jacobinism, which requires no representative whatever. 
 He then proceeds to ask himself a question extremely natural after 
 such reasoning; what security has Ireland? He answers, with great 
 candour, honour. English honour. Now, when the liberty and 
 security of one country depends on the honour of another, the latter 
 may have much honour, but the former can have no liberty. To 
 depend on the honour of another country, is to depend on the will ; 
 and to depend on the will of another country, is the definition of 
 slavery. " Depend on my honour", said Charles the First, when he 
 trifled about the petition of right : " I will trust the people with the 
 custody of their own liberty, but I will trust no people with the 
 custody of any liberty other than their own, whether that people be 
 Rome, Athens, or Britain". 
 
 Observe how the minister speaks of that country which is to 
 depend hereafter on British honour, which, in his present power, is, 
 in fact, his honour. " We had to contend with the leaders of the 
 Protestants, 4 enemies to government' ; the violent and inflamed 
 spirit of the Catholics ; the disappointed ambition of those who 
 would ruin the country because they could not be the rulers of it". 
 Behold the character he gives of the enemies of the Union, namely, 
 of twenty-one counties convened at public meetings by due notice ; 
 of several other counties that have petitioned ; of most of the great 
 cities and towns, or indeed of almost all the Irish, save a very few 
 mistaken men, and that body whom government could influence. 
 Thus the minister utters a national proscription at the moment of 
 his projected Union : he excludes by personal abuse from the possi- 
 bility of identification, all the enemies of the Union, all the friends 
 
ANTI-UNION SPEECHES. 
 
 285 
 
 of the parliamentary constitution of 1782, that great body of the 
 Irish, he abuses them with a petulance more befitting one of his 
 Irish ministers, than an exalted character, and infinitely more dis- 
 graceful to himself than to them ; one would think one of his Irish 
 railers had lent him their vulgar clarion to bray at the people. 
 
 This union of parliaments, this proscription of people, he follows 
 by a declaration, wherein he misrepresents their sentiments as he 
 had before traduced their reputation. After a calm and mature 
 consideration, the people have pronounced their judgment in favour 
 of an Union ; of which assertion not one single syllable has any 
 existence in fact, or in the appearance of fact, and I appeal to the 
 petitions of twenty-one counties, publicly convened, and to the other 
 petitions of other counties numerously signed, and to those of the 
 great towns and cities. To affirm that the judgment of a nation is 
 erroneous may mortify, but to affirm that her judgment against is 
 for; to assert that she has said ay when she has pronounced no; to 
 affect to refer a great question to the people ; finding the sense of 
 the people, like that of the parliament, against the question, to force 
 the question ; to affirm the sense of the people to be for the ques- 
 tion ; to affirm that the question is persisted in because the sense of 
 the people is for it; to make the falsification of her sentiments the 
 foundation of her ruin and the ground of the Union ; to affirm that 
 her parliament, constitution, liberty, honour, property, are taken 
 away by her own authority ; there is, in such artifice, an effrontery, 
 a hardihood, an insensibility, that can best be answered by sensa- 
 tions of astonishment and disgust, excited on this occasion by the 
 British minister, whether he speaks in gross and total ignorance of 
 the truth, or in shameless and supreme contempt for it. 
 
 The. constitution may be for a time so lost ; the character of the 
 country cannot be lost. The ministers of the crown will, or may 
 perhaps at length find that it is not so easy to put down for ever an 
 ancient and respectable nation, by abilities, however great, and by 
 power and by corruption, however irresistible ; liberty may repair 
 her golden beams, and with redoubled heat animate the country; 
 the cry of loyalty will not long continue against the principles of 
 liberty; loyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capacious principle; 
 but in these countries loyalty, distinct from liberty, is corruption, 
 not loyalty. 
 
 The cry of the connection will not, in the end, avail against the 
 principles of liberty. Connexion is a wise and a profound policy ; 
 but connexion without an Irish Parliament, is connexion without its 
 own principle, without analogy of condition, without the pride of 
 
286 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 honour that should attend it; is innovation, is peril, is subjugation— 
 not connexion. 
 
 The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against the 
 principles of liberty. 
 
 Identification is a solid and imperial maxim, necessary for the pre- 
 servation of freedom, necessary for that of empire; but, without 
 union of hearts — with a separate government, and without a 
 separate parliament, identification is extinction, is dishonour, is 
 conquest — not identification. 
 
 Yet I do not give up the country : I see her in a swoon, but she 
 is not dead : though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, 
 still there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of 
 beauty — 
 
 ** Thou art not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, 
 And death's pale flag is not advanced there". 
 
 While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave her. 
 Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light bark of 
 his faith with every new breath of wind: 1 will remain anchored 
 here with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her 
 freedom, faithful to her fall. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 May 13, 1805. 
 
 In the month of April, Mr. Grattan was returned for Malton, a Yorkshire 
 borough, and in the ensuing month he took his seat for the first time in the 
 Imperial Parliament. Much curiosity was naturally excited to hear a speaker 
 of whom so much had been said, and who, in his own country, had acted so 
 conspicuous a part in obtaining for her a constitution, and in defending it at the 
 period of its extinction ; an opportunity soon presented itself, on the subject of 
 the Roman Catholic Petition, which had been entrusted to Mr. Fox, and which, 
 on the 25th of March, he presented to the House. It was read and laid upon 
 the table. The 10th of May was named as the day on which he meant to bring 
 forward a motion upon the subject, this was altered to the 13th, when, after a 
 long and able speech, in which he reviewed the policy of Great Britain towards 
 Ireland, set forth the disabilities under which the Roman Catholics laboured, 
 and the fidelity with which they had adhered to the fortunes of Great Britain, 
 he concluded by moving, " That the petition be referred to the consideration of 
 a committee of the whole House". This was opposed by Dr. Duigenan, who 
 entered into a long and violent invective against the Roman Catholics ; he 
 quoted several obsolete decrees of Rome and acts of various councils, and de- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 287 
 
 dared that tlie Catholics were hostile to the connection with Great Britain, and 
 that any bill in favour of their liberties, would be a violation of his Majesty's 
 coronation oath. After he had concluded : 
 
 Mil. Grattax rose, he said, to avoid the example of the member 
 who had just sat down, and instead of calumniating either party, to 
 defend both. 
 
 The past troubles of Ireland, the rebellion of .1641, and the wars 
 which followed (said the honourable gentleman), I do not wholly 
 forget, but I only remember them to deprecate the example and 
 renounce the animosity. The penal code which went before and 
 followed those times, I remember also, but only enough to know, 
 that the causes and reasons for that code have totally expired ; and 
 as on one side the Protestant should relinquish his animosity on 
 account of the rebellions, so should the Catholics relinquish their 
 animosity on account of the laws. The question is not stated by 
 the member ; it is not whether you will keep in a state of disqualifi- 
 cation a few Irish Catholics, but whether you will keep in a state 
 of languor and neutrality a fifth of the empire. Before you impose 
 such a sentence on yourself, you will require better arguments than 
 those which the member has advanced ; he has substantially told 
 you that the Irish Catholic church, which is, in fact, more indepen- 
 dent than the Catholic church here, is the worst in Europe ; that 
 the Irish Catholics, our own kindred, are the worst of Papists ; that 
 the distinction, a distinction made by the law, propounded by our- 
 selves, and essential to the state, between temporal and spiritual 
 power, is a vain discrimination ; and that the people of Ireland, to 
 be good Catholics, must be bad subjects : and finally, he has 
 emphatically said, "that an Irish Catholic never is, never was, 
 never will be, a faithful subject to a British Protestant king": his 
 words are, "they hate all Protestants and all Englishmen ". Thus 
 has he pronounced against his country three curses : eternal war 
 with one another, eternal war with England, and eternal peace with 
 France. So strongly does he inculcate this, that if a Catholic printer 
 were, in the time of invasion, to publish his speech, that printer 
 might be indicted for treason, as the publisher of a composition 
 administering to the Catholics a stimulative to rise, and advancing 
 the authority of their religion for rebellion. His speech consists of 
 four parts : — 1st, an invective uttered against the religion of the 
 Catholics; 2nd, an invective uttered against the present generation ; 
 3rd, an invective against the past ; and 4th, an invective against 
 the future : here the limits of creation interposed, and stopped the 
 member. It is to defend those different generations, and their 
 
288 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 religion, I rise ; to rescue the Catholic from his attack, and the 
 Protestants from his defence. 
 
 The civil interference of the Pope, his assumed power of deposi- 
 tion, together with the supposed doctrine, that no faith was to be 
 kept with heretics, were the great objections to the claims of (he 
 Catholics ; to convict them, the learned doctor has gone forth with 
 a sinister zeal to collect his offensive materials, and behold! he returns 
 laden with much disputed comment, much doubtful text, much of 
 executive decrees, and of such things as are become obsolete because 
 useless, and are little attended to because very dull and very uninte- 
 resting, and wherein the learned gentleman may for that reason 
 take many little liberties in the way of misquotation or in the way 
 of suppression. All these, the., fruits of his unprofitable industry, he 
 lays before you : very kindly and liberally he does it ; but of this 
 huge and tremendous collection, you must reject a principal part, as 
 having nothing to say to the question, namely, all that matter which 
 belongs to the court of Rome as distinct from the church ; secondly, 
 of the remnant after that rejection, you must remove everything 
 that belongs to the church of Rome which is not confined to doctrine 
 regarding faith and morals, exclusive of, and unmixed with, any 
 temporal matter whatever; after this correction, you will have 
 reduced this gentleman of the fifteenth century to two miserable 
 canons, the only rewards of his labour and result of his toil, both 
 passing centuries before the Reformation, and therefore not bearing 
 on the Protestants or the Reformers. The first is a canon excommu- 
 nicating persons who do not abide by a profession of faith contained 
 in a preceding canon, which notably concludes with the following 
 observation, that virgins and married women may make themselves 
 agreeable to God. Now I cannot think such a canon can excite any 
 grave impression or alarm in this House, passed six hundred years 
 ago, three hundred years before the birth of the Reformation, made 
 by lay princes, as well as ecclesiastics, and never acknowledged or 
 noticed in these islands, even in times of their Popery. 
 
 The other canon, that of Constance, goes to deny the force of a 
 free passport or safe conduct to heretics, given by temporal prince3 
 in bar of the proceedings of the Church. Without going farther into 
 that canon, it is sufficient to say, that it is positively affirmed by the 
 €atholics, that this does not go farther than to assert the power of 
 the Church to inquire into heresy, notwithstanding any impediments 
 from lay princes ; and farther, there is an authority for that inter- 
 pretation, and in contradiction to the member's interpretation, not 
 only above his authority, but any that it is in his studies to produce; 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 289 
 
 I mean that of Grotius, who mentions, that the imputation cast on 
 the Catholics on account of this canon is unfounded. 
 
 Here I stop, and submit, that the member is in the state of a 
 plaintiff, who cannot make ont his case, notwithstanding his two 
 canons ; that he has failed most egregiously, and has no right to 
 throw the other party on their defence. However, the Catholics 
 have gone, as far as relates to him, gratuitously into their case, and 
 have not availed themselves of the imbecility of their opponent, and 
 they have been enabled to produce on the subject of the above 
 charges, the opinion of six universities, to whom those charges, in 
 the shape of queries, have been submitted : Paris, Louvaine, 
 Salamanca, Douay, Yalladodid, Alcala. These universities have all 
 answered, and have, in their answers, not only disclaimed the impu- 
 ted doctrines, but disclaimed them with abhorrence. The Catholics 
 have not stopped here ; they have drawn up a declaration of nine 
 articles renouncing the imputed doctrines, together with other 
 doctrines or views objected to them ; they have gone farther, they 
 have desired the Protestants to name their own terms of abjuration : 
 the Protestants have done so, and here is the instrument of their 
 compact — it is an oath framed by a Protestant parliament, princi- 
 pally manufactured by the honourable member himself, in which the 
 Irish Catholics not only abjure the imputed doctrine, but are sworn 
 to the state, and to the present establishment of the Protestant 
 church in Ireland, and to the present state of Protestant property ; 
 this oath has been universally taken, and by this oath both parties 
 are concluded, the Catholic from resorting to the abjured doctrines, 
 and the Protestant from resorting to the abjured charge. There- 
 fore, when the member imputes, as he has done, to the Catholic the 
 principles hereby abjured, it is not the Catholic who breaks faith 
 with him, but it is he who breaks faith with the Catholic. He 
 acts in violation of the instrument he himself formed, and is put 
 down by his own authority. But the Catholics have not only thus 
 obtained a special acquittal from the charges made against them in 
 this debate, they have obtained a general acquittal also. 
 
 The most powerful of then- opponents, the late Earl of Clare, 
 writes as follows: "They who adhere to the Church of Rome are 
 good Catholics ; they who adhere to the Court of Rome are traitors"; 
 and he quotes Lord Somers as his authority, in which he entirely 
 acquiesces, and acknowledges their innocence in their adherence to 
 the Church of Rome as distinct from the Court. A test, such as I 
 have already mentioned, is formed in Ireland, abjuring the doctrine 
 of the Court of Rome, and reducing their religion to the Church of 
 
290 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 Rome. This test, together with a number of other articles, is re- 
 duced to an oath, and this oath is reduced into an act of parliament, 
 and this oath, thus legalised, is taken universally. Here again are 
 the opponents to the Catholic concluded by their own concessions ; 
 by tendering an oath to Catholics, they allow an oath to be a test of 
 sincerity; by framing that oath under these circumstances, they 
 make it a test of pure Catholicism ; and by their own argument, 
 they pronounce Dure Catholicism to be innoxious. But the 
 honourable member has gone a little farther than pronounce the in- 
 nocence of the Catholics ; he has pronounced the mischievous con- 
 sequences of the laws that proscribe them ; he has said, in so many 
 words, that an Irish Catholic never is, and never will be, faithful to 
 a British Protestant king ; he does not say eveiy Catholic, for then 
 he would include the English Catholics and those of Canada ; nor 
 does he say every Irishman must hate the king, for then he would 
 include every Protestant in Ireland ; the cause of the hatred is not 
 then in the religion nor in the soil ; it must be then in the laws, in 
 something which the Protestant does not experience in Ireland, nor 
 the Catholic in any country but in Ireland, that is to say, in the 
 penal code ; that code then, according to him, has made the Catho- 
 lics enemies to the king ; thus has he acquitted the Catholics and 
 convicted the laws. This is not extraordinary, it is the natural pro- 
 gress of a blind and a great polemic ; such characters, they begin 
 with a fatal candour, and then precipitate to a fatal extravagance, 
 and are at once undermined by their candour anol exposed by their 
 extravagance : so with the member, he hurries on, he knows not 
 where, utters, he cares not what, equally negligent of the grounds of 
 his assertions and their necessary inferences ; thus, when he thinks 
 he is establishing his errors, unconsciously and unintentionally he 
 promulgates truth ; or rather, in the very tempest of his speech, Pro- 
 vidence seems to govern his lips, so that they shall prove false to 
 his purposes, and bear witness to his refutations. Interpret the 
 gentleman literally — what blasphemy has he uttered ! He has said 
 that the Catholic religion, abstracted as it is at present in Ireland 
 from Popery, and reduced as it is to mere Catholicism, is so incon- 
 sistent with the duties of morality and allegiance, as to be a very 
 great evil. Now, that religion is the Christianity of two-thirds of 
 all Christendom ; it follows, then, according to the learned doctor, 
 that the Christian religion is in general a curse. He has added, 
 that his own countrymen are not only depraved by religion, but 
 rendered perverse by nativity ; that is to say, according to him, 
 blasted by their Creator, and damned by their Redeemer. In order, 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 291 
 
 therefore, to restore the member to the character of a Christian, we 
 must renounce him as an advocate, and acknowledge that he has 
 acquitted the Catholics whom he meant to condemn, and convicted 
 tbe laws which he meant to defend. But though the truth may be 
 eviscerated from the whole of the member's statement, it is not to 
 be discerned in the particular parts, and therefore it is not sufficient 
 to refute his arguments ; it is necessary to controvert his positions. 
 The Catholics of Ireland, he says, hate the Protestants, hate the 
 English, and hate the king. I must protest against the truth of 
 this position. The laws, violent as they were, mitigated as for the 
 last seventeen years they have been, the people, better than the 
 laws, never could have produced that mischief: against such a posi- 
 tion I appeal to the conscious persuasion of every Irishman. We 
 will put it to an issue : the present chief governor of Ireland is both 
 an Englishman and the representative of English government. I 
 will ask the honourable gentleman whether the Irish hate him ? If 
 I could believe this position, what could I think of the Protestant 
 ascendency, and what must I think of the British connexion and 
 government, who have been for six hundred years in possession of 
 the country, with no other effect, according to this logic, than to 
 make its inhabitants abhor you and your generation. But this po- 
 sition contains something more than a departure from fact : it says, 
 strike France, strike Spain, the great body of the Irish are with 
 you : it does much more, it attempts to give the Irish a provocation ; 
 it teaches you to hate them, and them to think so ; and thus false- 
 hood takes its chance of generating into a fatal and treasonable truth. 
 
 The honourable gentleman, having misrepresented the present 
 generation, misstates the conduct of their ancestors, and sets forth 
 the past rebellions as proceeding entirely from religion. I will 
 follow him to those rebellions, and show, beyond his power of con- 
 tradiction, that religion was not, and that proscription was, the 
 leading cause of those rebellions. The rebellion of 1641, or let me 
 be controverted by any historian of authority, did not proceed from 
 religion ; it did proceed from the extermination of the inhabitants of 
 eight counties in Ulster, and from the foreign and bigoted education 
 of the Catholic clergy, and not from religion. The rebellion of the 
 Pale, for it was totally distinct in period and cause from the other, 
 did not proceed from religion : loss of the graces (they resembled 
 your petition of right, except that they embraced articles for the 
 security of property), disarmament of the Catholics, expulsion of 
 them in that disarmed state from Dublin, many other causes, order 
 for the execution of certain priests — you will not forget there was 
 
292 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 an order to banish their priests in James the First's time, and to 
 shut up their chapels in Charles the First's — these were the causes : 
 there was another cause — jou were in rebellion, Scotland was in re- 
 bellion ; there was another cause, the Irish government was in re- 
 bellion ; they had taken their part with the republicans, and wished 
 to draw into treason the Irish freeholders, that, with the forfeiture 
 of another's rebellion, they might supply their own. I go back with 
 concern to these times, I see much blood, no glory ; but I have the 
 consolation to find, that the causes were not lodged in the religion 
 or the soil, and that all of them, but the proscriptive cause, have 
 vanished. I follow the member to another rebellion, which should 
 properly be called a civil war, not a rebellion ; it proceeded from a 
 combination of causes which exist no longer, and one of those causes 
 was the abdicating king at the head of the Catholics, and another 
 cause was the violent proscription carried on against the Catholics 
 by the opposite and then prevailing party : these causes are now no 
 more, or will the member say there is now an abdicating prince, or 
 now a Popish plot, or now a Pretender. There are causes most 
 certainly sufficient to alarm you, but very different, and such as can 
 only be combated by a conviction, that as your destinies are now 
 disposed of, it is not the power of the Catholics which can destroy, 
 or the exclusion of the Catholics that can save you. The conclusion 
 I draw from the history above alluded to, is very different from that 
 drawn by the member, and far more healing ; conclusions to show 
 the evils arising from foreign connexions on one side, and from do- 
 mestic proscription on the other. If all the blood shed on those 
 occasions, if the many fights in the first, and the signal battles in 
 the second period, and the consequences of those battles to the de- 
 feated and the triumphant — to the slave that fled, and to the slave 
 that followed — shall teach our country the wisdom of conciliation, I 
 congratulate her on those deluges of blood ; if not, I submit, and 
 lament her fate, and deplore her understanding, which would 
 render not only the blessings of Providence, but its visitations, fruit- 
 less, and transmit what was the curse of our fathers as the inheritance 
 of our children. 
 
 The learned gentleman proceeds to misstate a period of one 
 hundred years — namely, the century that followed the revolution ; 
 and this he makes a period of open or concealed rebellions : the 
 sources of his darkness and misinformation are to be found in history 
 and revelation ; of his charges against that period he brings no 
 proof ; none of those on the same side with him can bring any : they 
 heard from such a one, who heard from such a one ; I neither be- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 293 
 
 lieve them nor such a one, and I desire so many generations may 
 not be convicted on evidence that would not be admitted against the 
 vilest caitiff, and that in opposition to evidence by which that vilest 
 caitiff would be acquitted — in opposition to the authority of four acts 
 of parliament ; the act of 1778, which declares their loyalty for a 
 long series of years, that of 1782, that of 1793, and further, against 
 the declared sense of government, who, in the year 1762, proposed 
 to raise four Catholic regiments, because the Catholics had proved 
 their allegiance against the authority of the then Irish Primate, who 
 supported that measure, and in his speech on that subject assigns, 
 as his reason, that after his perusal of Mr. Murray's papers, nothing 
 appeared against the Irish Catholics, of any connexion whatsoever 
 with the rebellion of that period. The member next proceeds to the 
 rebellion of 1798, and this he charges to the Catholics ; and against 
 his charge I appeal to the report of the committee of the Irish House 
 of Commons in 1797, in which is set forth the rebel muster, con- 
 taining 99,000 northerns enrolled in rebellion, and all the northern 
 counties organised : at the time in which the committee of the House 
 of Commons states the rebellion of the north, the dispatches of go- 
 vernment acknowledged the allegiance of the south. To those dis- 
 patches I appeal, written at the time of Hoche's projected invasion, 
 and applauding the attachment and loyalty of the southern counties, 
 and their exertions to assist the army on its march to Cork, to op- 
 pose the landing of the French. If you ask how the rebellion 
 spread and involved the Catholics, I will answer, and tell you, that 
 as long as the proscriptive system continues, there will be in our 
 country a staminal weakness, rendering the distempers to which so- 
 ciety is obnoxious, not only dangerous, but deadly ; every epidemic 
 disease will bring the chronic distemper into action ; it is the grape- 
 stone in the hand of death which strikes with the force of a thunder- 
 bolt. If you have any apprehension on this account, the error is to 
 be found in yourselves, in human policy, not in religion ; in the 
 fallibility of man, not of God. If you wish to strip rebellion of its 
 hopes, France of her expectations, reform that policy ; you will gain 
 a victory over the enemy when you gain a conquest over yourselves. 
 
 But I will for a moment accede to the member's statement against 
 facts and histoiy : what is his inference ? during one hundred years 
 of the proscriptive system, the state has been in imminent danger ; 
 therefore, adds he, continue the system : here is the regimen under 
 which you have declined — persevere. But the member proceeds to 
 observe, that you cannot hope to reconcile those whom you cannot 
 hope to satisfy, and he instances the repeal of the penal code. I 
 
294 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION 
 
 deny the instances : the repeal in 1778 and 1782 did reconcile and 
 did satisfy ; accordingly you will find, that the Irish Catholics in 
 1779 and 1780, 1781 and 1782, were active and unanimous to 
 repel the invasion threatened at that time, when the French rode in 
 the Channel, and Ireland was left to the care of 6,000 regulars, and 
 was only defended from invasion by the spirit and loyalty of the 
 Catholics, in harmony and in arms with their Protestant brethren. 
 The repeal of a principal part of the penal code in 1793 did not re- 
 concile and did not satisfy ; it was, because the Irish government of 
 that time was an enemy to the repeal and to the Catholics, and pre- 
 vented the good effects of that measure. That government, in the 
 summer of 1792, had sent instructions (I know the fact to be so) to 
 the grand juries to enter into resolutions against the claims of the 
 Catholics. Their leading minister appeared himself at one of the 
 county meetings, and took a memorable part of hostility and pub- 
 licity. When the petition of the Catholics was recommended in tho 
 King's speech in 1793, the Irish minister answered the King, and 
 with unmeasured severity attacked the petitioners. When the bill, 
 introduced in consequence of his Majesty's recommendation, was in 
 progress, the same minister, with as unmeasured severity, attacked 
 the bill, and repeated his severity against the persons of the Ca- 
 tholics. When the same bill of reconciliation, in consequence of the 
 recommendation and reference of the petition, was in its passage, the 
 Irish government attempted to hang the leading men among the pe- 
 titioners, and accordingly Mr. Bird and Mr. Hamilton were, by their 
 orders, indicted for a capital offence — I think it was defenderism ; 
 and so little ground was there for the charge, that those men were 
 triumphantly acquitted, and the witnesses of the crown so flagrantly 
 perjured, that the judge, I have heard, recommended a prosecution. 
 These were the causes why the repeal of 1793 did not satisfy ; and 
 in addition to these, because the Irish administration took care that 
 the Catholics should receive no benefit therefrom, opposing them with 
 their known partizans and dependents, seldom giving them any office 
 (there are very few instances in which they got any), and manifest- 
 ing in the government a more active enemy than before the Catholic 
 had experienced in the law. I refer to the speeches delivered and 
 published at the time by the ministers and servants of the Irish go- 
 vernment, and persisted in, and delivered since ; read them, and 
 there you will see an attack on all the proceedings of the Irish 
 people ; from the time of their address for free trade, all their pro- 
 ceedings, such as were glorious, as well as those that were intem- 
 perate, without discrimination, moderation, or principle ,* there you 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 295 
 
 will see the Irish ministry engaged in a wretched squabble with the 
 Catholic committee, and that Catholic committee replying on that 
 ministry, and degrading that ministry more than it had degraded 
 itself; and you will further perceive the members of that ministry 
 urging their charges against the members of that committee, to dis- 
 qualify other Catholics who were not of the committee, but opposed 
 it ; so that by their measures against the one part of the Catholics, 
 and their invective against the other, they took care to alienate, as 
 far as in them lay, the whole body. The fact is, the project of con- 
 ciliation in 1793, recommended in the speech from the throne, was 
 defeated by the Irish cabinet, who were at that time on that subject 
 in opposition ; and being incensed at the British cabinet for the 
 countenance afforded to the Catholics, punished the latter, and 
 sowed those seeds which afterwards, in conjunction with other 
 causes, produced the rebellion. 
 
 I leave the member, and proceed to discuss the differences now 
 remaining that discriminate His Majesty's subjects of the Protestant 
 and Catholic persuasion. Before we consider how far we differ, it 
 is necessary to examine how far we agree ; we acknowledge the 
 same God, the same Redeemer, the same consequences of redemption, 
 the same Bible, and the same Testament. Agreeing in this, we 
 cannot, as far as respects religion, quarrel about the remainder ; 
 because their merits as Christians must, in our opinion, outweigh 
 their demerits as Catholics, and reduce our religious distinction to a 
 difference about the eucharist, the mass, and the Virgin Mary ; 
 matters which may form a difference of opinion, but not a division 
 of interest. The infidel, under these circumstances, would consider 
 us as the same religionists, just as the French would consider us, 
 and cut us down as the same community. See whether we are not 
 agreed a little farther, and united by statute as well as religion ; 
 the preamble of three acts declares the Catholics to be loyal subjects ; 
 the act of 1778 declares that they have been so for a series of years; 
 the same act declares that they should be admitted into the blessings 
 of the constitution: the act of 1793 goes farther, and admits them 
 into a participation of those blessings ; thus is the principle of iden- 
 tification established by the law of the land, and thus are the 
 Catholics, by that law, proclaimed to be innocent, and the calum- 
 niators of the Catholics guilty. Let us consider their situation 
 under these laws, professedly and in principle admitted to everything 
 except seats in parliament and certain ofhees of state ; they are, in 
 fact, excluded from everything, under the circumstances of paying 
 for everything (the few places they enjoy make no exception); they 
 
296 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 pay their proportion of money to the navy, and contribute one-third 
 to its numbers, and have not a commission ; they contribute to the 
 expenses of the army, and to one-third of its numbers, and have not 
 a commission; and shall I now be asked, how are the Catholics 
 affected by this ? or shall I be told that the Catholic body would 
 not be served by the removal of this ? How would the Protestant 
 body be affected, if only removed from the state, the parliament, the 
 navy, and the army ? In addition to this, I am to add the many 
 minor injuries done to the Catholics, in ways that must be felt, and 
 cannot be calculated; the incalculable injury done to the Catholic 
 mind by precluding it from objects of ambition, and to the Catholic 
 spirit by exposing it to taunts and insults — you cannot be at a loss 
 for an instance, such as is uttered by the vilest of the Protestants 
 against the first of the Catholics. I am to add the mischief done to 
 the morals of the country by setting up a false standard of merit, by 
 which men, without religion, morals, or integrity, shall obtain, by an 
 abhorrence of their fellow-subjects, credit and consequence, and 
 acquire an impunity for selling the whole community, because they 
 detest a part of it. You see it is impossible for any one part of 
 society to afflict the other, without paying the penalty, and feeling 
 the consequences of its own bad policy in the reaction of its own 
 bad passions. I am to add the mischief done to the peace of the 
 country among the lower orders, when the spirit of religious dis- 
 cord descends, and the holiday becomes a riot, and the petty magis- 
 trate turns chapman and dealer in politics, theologian and robber, 
 makes for himself a situation in the country by monstrous lies, fabri- 
 cates false panics of insurrection and invasion, then walks forth the 
 man of blood; his creditors tremble; the French do not; and atro- 
 cities, which he dares not commit in his own name, he perpetrates 
 for the honour of his king, and in the name of his Maker. 
 
 I have heard of the uncivilization of Ireland; too much has been 
 said on that subject: I deny the fact: a country exporting above 
 five millions, even at your official value, above half a million of corn, 
 three millions of linen, paying nine million to the state, cannot be 
 barbarous; a nation connected with you for six hundred years 
 (what do you say ?) cannot be barbarous. If France should say so, 
 you should contradict her, because it is not on Ireland, but on you 
 the reflection must fall; but if anything, however, delays the perfect 
 and extensive civilization of Ireland, it is principally her religious 
 animosity; examine all the causes of human misery, the tragic 
 machinery of the globe, and the instruments of civil rage and 
 domestic murder, and you find no demon is like it, because it privi- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 297 
 
 leges every other vice, and amalgamates with infidelity, as well as 
 with murder; and conscience, which restrains every other vice, 
 becomes a prompter here. To restrain this waste and this conquest, 
 exercised over your understanding, your morals, and your fortune, 
 my honourable friend makes his motion. Come, let us hear the 
 objections: the Catholics, they say, should not have political power: 
 why, they have it already; they got it when you gave them landed 
 property, and they got it when you gave them the elective franchise. 
 "Be it enacted, that the Catholics shall be capable of holding all 
 offices (civil and military, except") and then the act excludes a 
 certain numeration. 
 
 This is the act of 1793 ; and is not this political power allowed 
 by act of parliament? So that the objection goes not so much 
 against the petition as against the law, and the law is the answer 
 to it. The reasons they give for objecting to the law are, first, 
 that the Catholics do not acknowledge the King to be the head of 
 their church. To require a person of the Catholic faith to acknow- 
 ledge a person of another religion, who makes no very encouraging 
 declarations towards them, to be head of the Catholic church, is 
 going very far; but to make the withholding such acknowledgment 
 the test of disaffection, is going much farther ; farther than reason, 
 and farther than the law, which does not require such test, but is 
 satisfied with a negative oath, and therefore the Presbyterians who 
 make no such acknowledgment may sit in parliament; so that here 
 the objector is answered again by the law, and the reason he gives 
 in opposition to the law shows that the legislature is wiser than the 
 objector. The reason alleged is, that he who allows his Majesty to 
 be the head of his church has more allegiance, because he acknow- 
 ledges the king in more capacities ; according to this, the Turk has 
 more allegiance than either, for he acknowledges the Grand Seignior 
 in all capacities, and the Englishman has less allegiance than any 
 other subject in Europe, because, whereas other European subjects 
 acknowledge their king in a legislative as well as an executive 
 capacity, the English acknowledge their king in the latter capacity 
 only. But such men know not how to estimate allegiance, 
 which is not measured by the powers which you give, but by 
 the privileges which you keep: thus your allegiance is of a 
 higher order, because it is rendered for the proud circumstances be- 
 longing to an Englishman, to the peer who has his rank, the commoner 
 who has his privileges, and the peasant who has his magna charta. 
 The Catholic too — he has an interest in his allegiance ; increase that 
 interest, that is, increase this privilege, you increase the force of the 
 
298 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 obligation, and with it your own security. But here again the 
 objector interposes, and alleges, that the Catholics do not only 
 not acknowledge the king to be the head of their church, but acknow- 
 ledge a foreign power — whom? I cannot find him. There was, 
 indeed, a power which you set up in the last war and guarded with 
 your troops ; is that the memory at which gentlemen tremble ? 
 A sort of president, or chair, in whose name the business of the 
 Catholic church is conducted, for whom no Catholic would fight, 
 and against whom the Irish Catholics would fight, if he came into 
 their country at the head of an invading army ; they have said so. 
 You will recollect how little you yourselves feared that name, when 
 you encompassed and preserved it at the very time of the Irish 
 rebellion ; and nov? do gentlemen set it up and bring it back again 
 into the world, as a principle likely to influence the action of the 
 Irish? But then I here received an answer to this, viz. that 
 Buonaparte has gotten possession of the power and person of the Pope. 
 What power ? He had no power before his captivity, and there- 
 fore he became a captive ; he has not found his power in his captivity ; 
 or will you say, that he could now disband an Austrian or an Irish 
 army, or that if he were to issue out his excommunications, your 
 seamen and soldiers would desert ? Such the power of the Pope, 
 such your fear of it, and such is the force of their argument. "What 
 is the policy of it ? Buonaparte has gotten the Pope ; give him the 
 Catholics. But here the objector interposes again, and tells us, it is 
 in vain to look for harmony with the Catholics, inasmuch as they 
 deliver us, the Protestants, to damnation : gravely they say this, 
 soberly they say this, in the morning, and according to this you must 
 not only repeal your laws of toleration, but you must disband part 
 of your army and your navy, and disqualify your electors. The 
 Catholic who hears this, produces a Protestant creed, which does 
 the same thing, and damns his sect likewise ; the infidel, who listens, 
 agrees with both, and triumphs and suggests that it were better not 
 to cast off your people, but to shake off your religion. So Volney 
 makes all sects contend, and all conquer, and religion the common 
 victim. The truth is, exclusive salvation was the common frenzy 
 of all sects, and is the religion of none, and is now not rejected by 
 all, but laughed at ; so burning one another as well as damning one 
 another ; you can produce instances — they can produce instances : it 
 was the habit of the early Christians to anathematize all sects but 
 their own. No religion can stand, if men, without regard to their 
 God, and with regard only to controversy, shall rake out of the 
 rubbish of antiquity the obsolete and quaint follies of the sectarians, 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 299 
 
 and affront the majesty of the Almighty with the impudent catalogue 
 of their devices ; and it is a strong argument against the proscrip- 
 tive system, that it helps to continue this shocking contest, theolo- 
 gian against theologian, polemic against polemic, until the two 
 madmen defame their common parent, and expose their common 
 religion. With arguments such as these it is urged that the laws 
 were in error which gave the Catholic political power ; and, it is 
 further added, that he will use that political power to destroy the 
 church. I do not think they have now said, he will destroy the 
 present state of property : bigotry has retired from that post, and 
 has found out, at last, that the Catholics cannot repeal the act of 
 settlement in Ireland, by which the property of the country was 
 ascertained, until they become the parliament ; nor become the 
 parliament till they get the landed property of the country ; and 
 that when they get that property, they will not pass an act to set 
 aside their titles to it. Further, it is now understood that the 
 Protestant title is by time ; that there are few old Catholic proprie- 
 tors, a multitude of new ones ; that the Catholic tenantry hold 
 under Protestant title ; and, therefore, that there is, in support of 
 the present state of property in Ireland, not only the strength of the 
 Protestant interest, but the physical force of the Catholics ; there- 
 fore, the objectors have judiciously retired from that ground, and 
 now object to Catholic power as certain to destroy the Protestant 
 church. How ? They must do it by act of legislation or by act of 
 force ; by act of legislation they cannot, and by force they would 
 not : they would net by act of force, because the measures proposed, 
 which do not go to increase the force, do go decisively to remove 
 the animosity. Or will you say, when you give them eveiy temporal 
 motive to allegiance, they will become rebels ; that when, indeed, 
 they had rights of religion, rights of property, rights of election, 
 they were loyal ; but when you gratified their ambition likewise, 
 then they became disaffected, and ready to sacrifice all their tempo- 
 ral rights and political gratifications ? In order to, do what ? To 
 get a larger income for their clergy ; that is, that their bishops 
 should drink more claret, and wear finer clothes. And with whose 
 assistance should they do this ? With the aid of the French, who 
 starve their clergy ! The ordinary principles of action, the human 
 motives that direct other men, according to these reasoners, are not 
 to be found in the Catholic ; nature is in him reversed ; he is not 
 influenced by the love of family, of property, of privilege, of power, 
 or any human passion, according to his antagonists, no more than his 
 antagonists appear in their logic influenced by human reason ; and 
 
300 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 therefore it is that these reaseners deal mostly in the prophetic 
 strain — a prophet's fury, and his blindness; much zeal, and no 
 religion. 
 
 I would ask them, what authority have they for thus introducing 
 the church as an obstacle to the advantages of the state ? Is it 
 politic, or is it moral, to deprive the Catholics of the franchises of 
 the constitution, because they contribute to the church, lest on 
 obtaining those franchises they should pass laws withholding that 
 contribution ? as if you had any right to make that supposition, or any 
 right to insist on that perilous monopoly, which should exclude them at 
 once from church and state, that they might pay for both without 
 compensation. The great preachers of our capital have not said so ; Mr. 
 Dunn, that meek spirit of the gospel, he has not said so ; Mr. Douglass, 
 in his strain of piety, morals, and eloquence, has not said so ; nor the 
 great luminary himself ; he who has wrung from his own breast, as it 
 were, near £60,000, by preaching for public charities, and has stopped 
 the mouth of hunger with its own bread, he has not said so. I ask 
 not what politicians may instil and may whisper, but what have the 
 laborious clergymen preached and practised ? 
 
 But the Revolution, it seems, is an eternal bar : they find the 
 principles of slavery in the Revolution, and they have found thoso 
 of darkness in the Revelation. If they mean to measure the privi- 
 leges of the empire by the model existing at the Revolution, they 
 must impose on Ireland eternal proscription ; for at that time she 
 was deprived of the rights of trade and constitution, and the Catho- 
 lics of all rights whatsoever ; and they must impose on the empire 
 two opposite principles of action, the free system for England, and 
 the proscriptive principle for the rest ; they are then to make Ireland 
 fight for British liberty and Irish exclusion ; their argument is, there- 
 fore, not only a wicked wish, but a vain one ; nor is this the practice 
 of other countries — those countries do not require the religion of the 
 public officer to be the religion of the state ; their practice has been 
 notoriously otherwise : they who said the contrary labour under a 
 glaring error ; nor will you be able to encounter France and the 
 other nations of Europe, if they shall avail themselves of the talents 
 of all their people, and you will oppose them by only a part of yours. 
 It follows, then, whether you look to the principles of liberty or of 
 empire, that you cannot make the proscriptive system of the Revoke 
 tion the measure of empire ; you must then make the principles of 
 the Revolution that measure. What are those principles ? — Civil 
 and religious liberty : they existed at that time in full force for you ; 
 they existed as seminal principles for us ; they were extended to 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 301 
 
 the Protestant part of Ireland a century after ; they remain now to 
 be extended to the Catholics ; then will the Revolution be completed, 
 not overthrown ; then will you extend the principles of your empire 
 on those of your constitution, and have secured an uniformity of 
 action by creating an identity of interests; thus will you have 
 simplified the imperial and constitutional motions to one and the 
 same principle of action, moving you in your home and in your 
 imperial orbit, informing the body of your laws, and vivifying the 
 mass of your empire. The petition of the county of Oxford states, 
 the Catholics have ever been enemies to freedom, just as the contro- 
 versialists have said the Catholics must be enemies to the King ; yet 
 the Revolution, from whose benefits you are to exclude the Catholics, 
 was founded on a model formed and moulded by Catholics ; the 
 declaration of right being almost entirely declaratory of rights and 
 privileges secured by your Catholic ancestors : one of your great 
 merits at the Revolution was not to have exceeded that model ; but, 
 on the contrary, you restrained popular victory, and restored estab- 
 lishments, and kindled a modest spirit, which has outlasted the 
 French conflagration ; a vital heat which then cheered you, which 
 now should cheer the Catholic, and, which giving light and life to 
 both, will, I hope, be eternal. The great objects, church, state, and 
 property, I adopt with the controversialist, and beg to rescue them 
 from his wisdom, to give them, for their support, the physical force 
 of the Catholic body, inasmuch as our danger does not arise from 
 the possible abuse of his constitutional power, but from the possible 
 abuse of his physical force to obtain that constitutional power. In 
 all this debate, you will observe, we argue as if we had but one 
 enemy, the Catholic, and we forget the French ; and here, what I 
 6aid to the Irish Parliament on the Catholic question, I will repeat to 
 you : I said to them : u The post you take is injudicious — indepen- 
 dency of the British Parliament, exclusion of the Irish Catholics — 
 a post to be kept against the power of one country and the freedom 
 of the other". I now say to you, the post you would take is injudi- 
 cious ; a position that would keep France in check, and Ireland in 
 thraldom, to be held against the power of one country and the 
 freedom of the other. There are three systems for Ireland ; one, 
 such as Primate Boulter has disclosed, a system to set the people at 
 variance on account of religion, that the government might be strong 
 and the country weak; a system (such a one as prevailed when I 
 broke her chain), which made the minister too strong for the consti- 
 tution, and the country too weak for the enemy ; a system which 
 one of its advocates had described, when he said the Protestants of 
 
 U 
 
302 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 Ireland were a garrison in an enemy's country ; and which another 
 gentleman has described, when he considered Ireland as a caput 
 mortuum : this system has failed ; it ought to have failed ; it was 
 a party government and a party god. 
 
 There is another — extermination. That will not do : the exter- 
 mination of three millions of men would be no easy task in execution, 
 no very charitable measure in conception ; the justices of 1641 had 
 dreamed of it, Cromwell had attempted, Harrington had talked of it. 
 I hold the extermination of the people, and even of their hierarchy, 
 to be such an experiment as will not be proposed by any gentleman 
 who is perfectly in his senses. Extermination, then, will not do; 
 what is left ? the partial adoption of the Catholics has failed ; the 
 eradication of the Catholics cannot be attempted ; the absolute 
 incorporation remains alone ; there is no other ; or did you think it 
 necessary to unite with the Irish Parliament, and do you hesitate to 
 identify with the people ? see whether you can conduct your empire 
 on any other principle. The better to illustrate this, and in order to 
 ascertain the principles of your empire, survey its comprehension. 
 Computing your West Indies and your eastern dominions, England 
 has now, with all deference to her moderation, a very great pro- 
 portion of the globe. On what principles will she govern that 
 portion? On the principles on which Providence governs the 
 remainder, when you make your dominions commensurate with a 
 great portion of her works, you should make your laws analogous to 
 her dispensations ; and as there is no such thing as an exclusive 
 Providence, so neither, considering the extent of your empire, should 
 there be such a thing as an exclusive empire, but such a one as 
 accommodates to peculiar habits, religious prejudices, prepossessions, 
 and so forth. You do not, in your dispatches to your generals, 
 gend the Thirty-nine Articles ; you know the bigot and conqueror 
 are incompatible: Lewis XIV. found it so. You know that no 
 nation is long indulged in the exercise of the two qualities, bigotry 
 to proscribe at home, ambition to disturb abroad : such was your 
 opinion when you established Popery in Canada ; I do not speak 
 of Corsica : such your opinion when you recruited for the foot in 
 Ireland. It was in the American war this practice began ; then 
 you found that the principle of exclusive empire would not answer, 
 and that her test was not, who should say her prayers, but w1k> 
 should light her battles. On the same principle the Irish militia, 
 which must be in a great proportion Catholic, stand ; and on the 
 same principle the Irish yeomanry, who must be in a far more con- 
 siderable proportion Catholic, stand ; and on 'the same principle you 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 303 
 
 have recruited for the navy in Ireland, and have committed your 
 gea thunder-bolt to Catholic hands. Suppose in Egypt the general 
 had ordered the Catholics to go out of the ranks, or if, in one of your 
 sea-fights, the admiral had ordered all the Catholics on shore, what 
 had been the consequence ? It is an argument against the prescrip- 
 tive system, that if adopted practically in navy or army, the navy 
 and army and empire would evaporate ; and shall we now proclaim 
 these men, or hold such language as the member ; language, which 
 if he held on the day of battle, he must be shot; language for which, 
 if a Catholic, he must be hanged ; such as you despised in the case 
 of Corsica and of Canada, and in the choice of your allies, and in 
 the recruiting of your army and your navy whenever your convenience, 
 your ambition, or your interest required. 
 
 Or let us turn from the magnitude of your empire to the magni- 
 tude of its danger, and you will observe, that whereas Europe was 
 heretofore divided into many small nations of various religion?, 
 making part of their civil policy, and with alliances, influenced in 
 some degree and directed by those religious distinctions, where civil 
 and religious freedom were supposed to be drawn up on one side, 
 end on the other Popery and arbitrary power; so now the globe has 
 been divided anew — England and France. You have taken a first 
 situation among mankind, you are of course precluded from a second, 
 Austria may have a second situation, Prussia may have a second, 
 but England seems to have linked her post and being to her glory, 
 and when she ceases to be the first, she is nothing. According to 
 this supposition, and it is a supposition which I do not frame, but 
 find in your country, the day may not be very remote, when you 
 will have to fight for being, and for what you value more than being, 
 the ancient renown of your island: you have said it yourselves, and 
 you have added, that Ireland is your vulnerable part : why vulner- 
 able? — Vulnerable, because you have misgoverned her. It may 
 then happen that on Irish ground, and by an Irish hand, the destinies 
 of that ancient monarchy, called Britain, may be decided. Accord- 
 ingly you have voted your army, but you have forgot to vote your 
 people ; you must vote their passions likewise. Horror at the 
 French proceedings will do much, but it is miserable to rely on the 
 crimes of your enemies always, on your own wisdom never ; besides, 
 those horrors did not prevent Prussia from leaving your alliance, 
 nor Austria from making peace, nor the United Irishmen from making 
 war. Loyalty will do much; but you require more — patience under 
 taxes and loaus, such as are increased far beyond what we have 
 been accustomed to, from one million and a half to nine millions ; 
 
304 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 nor patience only, but ardour. The strong qualities, not such as 
 the scolding dialect of certain gentlemen would excite ; a fire, that 
 in the case of an invasion will not sit as a spy on the doubt of the 
 day and calculate, but though the first battle should be unsuccessful, 
 would, with a desperate fidelity, come on and embody with the 
 destinies of England. It is a wretched thing to ask how would they 
 act in such a case. What ! after a connexion of six hundred years, 
 to thank your admiral for your safety, or the wind, or anything but 
 your own wisdom ; and, therefore, the question is not whether the 
 Catholics shall get so many seats, but whether you shall get so many 
 millions ; in such a case you will have all people. What is it that 
 constitutes the strength and health of England but this sort of 
 vitality, that her privileges, like her money, circulate everywhere, 
 and centre nowhere ; this it was which equality should have given, 
 but did not give France ; this it was which the plain sense of your 
 ancestors, without equality, did give the English; a something, 
 which limited her kings, drove her enemies, and made a handful of 
 men fill the world with their name. Will you, in your union with 
 Ireland, withhold the regimen which has made you strong, and con- 
 tinue the regimen which has made her feeble? You will further 
 recollect, that you have invited her to your patrimony, and hitherto 
 you have given her taxes, and an additional debt ; I believe it is an 
 addition of twenty-six millions : the other part of your patrimony, I 
 should be glad to see it. Talk plainly and honestly to the Irish : 
 " It is true your taxes are increased and your debts multiplied ; but 
 here are our privileges, great burthens and great privileges ; this is 
 the patrimony of England, and with this does she assess, recruit, 
 inspire, consolidate". But the Protestant ascendency, it is said, 
 alone can keep the country ; namely, the gentry, clergy, and nobility 
 against the French, and without the people : it may be so ; but in 
 1641, above ten thousand troops were sent from England to assist 
 that party ; in 1689, twenty-three regiments were raised in England 
 to assist that party ; in 1798, the English militia were sent over to 
 assist that party : what can be done by spirit will be done by them ; 
 but would the city of London, on such assurances, risk a guinea ? 
 The Parliament of Ireland did risk everything, and are now nothing, 
 and in their extinction left this instruction — not to their posterity, for 
 they have none, but to you, who come in the place of their posterity 
 — not to depend on a sect of religion, nor trust the final issue of your 
 fortunes to anything less than the whole of your people. 
 
 The Parliament of Ireland — of that assembly I have a parental 
 recollection. I sate by her cradle* I followed her hearse. In four- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 305 
 
 teen years she acquired for Ireland what yon did not acquire for 
 England in a century — freedom of trade, independency of the legis- 
 lature, independency of the judges, restoration of the final judicature, 
 repeal of a perpetual mutiny bill, habeas corpus act, nullum temp us 
 act — a great work ! You will exceed it, and I shall rejoice. I call 
 my countrymen to witness, if in that business I compromised the 
 claims of my country, or temporised with the power of England but 
 there was one thing which baffled the effort of the patriot and 
 defeated the wisdom of the senate ; it was the folly of the theologian. 
 When the Parliament of Ireland rejected the Catholic petition, and 
 assented to the calumnies then uttered against the Catholic body, on 
 that day she voted the Union : if you should adopt a similar conduct, 
 on that day you will vote the separation : many good and pious 
 reasons you may give ; many good and pious reasons she gave, and 
 she lies there with her many good and her pious reasons. That 
 the Parliament of Ireland should have entertained prejudices, I am 
 not astonished ; but that you, that you who have, as individuals and 
 as conquerors, visited a great part of the globe, and have seen men 
 in all their modifications, and Providence in all her ways ; that you, 
 now at this time of day, should throw up dikes against the Pope, 
 and barriers against the Catholic, instead of uniting with that 
 Catholic to throw up barriers against the French, this surprises ; 
 and, in addition to this, that you should have set up the Pope in 
 Italy to tremble at him in Ireland ; and further, that you should 
 have professed to have placed yourself at the head of a Christian, 
 not a Protestant league, to defend the civil and religious liberty of 
 Europe, and should deprive of their civil liberty one-fifth of your- 
 selves, on account of their religion — this surprises rne ; and also that you 
 should prefer to buy allies by subsidies, rather than fellow-subjects by 
 privileges ; and that you should now stand, drawn out, as it were, 
 in battalion, 16,000,000 against 36,000,000, and should at the 
 same time paralyze a fifth of your own numbers, by excluding them 
 from some of the principal benefits of your constitution, at the very 
 time you say all your numbers are inadequate unless inspired by 
 those very privileges. 
 
 As I recommend you to give the privileges, so I should recom- 
 mend the Catholics to wait cheerfully and dutifully. The temper 
 with which they bear the privation of power and privilege is evidence 
 of their qualification : they will recollect the strength of their case, 
 which sets them above impatience ; they will recollect the growth of 
 their case from the time it was first agitated to the present moment, 
 and in that growth perceive the perishable nature of the objections, 
 
306 
 
 CATHO LIC QUESTION. 
 
 and the immortal quality of the principle they contend for. They 
 will further recollect what they have gotten already, rights of re- 
 ligion, rights of property, and above all, the elective franchise, which 
 is in itself the seminal principle of everything else : with a vessel so 
 laden, they will be too wise to leave the harbour, and trust the fal- 
 lacy of any wind : nothing can prevent the ultimate success of the 
 Catholics but intemperance. For this they will be too wise ; the 
 charges uttered against them they will answer by their allegiance : 
 so should I speak to the Catholics. To the Protestant I would say: 
 You have gotten the land and powers of the country, and it now re- 
 mains to make those acquisitions eternal. Do not you see, accord- 
 ing to the present state and temper of England and France, that 
 your country must ultimately be the seat of war P Do not you see, 
 that your children must stand in front of the battle, with uncertainty 
 and treachery in the rear of it ? If, then, by ten or twelve seats hi 
 parliament given to Catholics, you could prevent such a day, would 
 not the compromise be everything ? What is your wretched mono- 
 poly, the shadow of your present, the memory of your past power, 
 compared to the safety of your families, the security of your estates, 
 and the solid peace and repose of your island ? Besides, you have an 
 account to settle with the empire : might not the empire accost you 
 thus ? " For one hundred years you have been in possession of the 
 countiy, and very loyally have you taken to yourselves the power 
 and profit thereof. I am now to receive at your hands the fruits of 
 all this, and the unanimous support of your people : where is it now, 
 when I am beset with enemies and in my day of trial ?" Let the 
 Protestant ascendency answer that question, for I cannot. Above 
 twenty millions have been wasted on their shocking contest, and a 
 great proportion of troops of the line locked up in the island, that 
 they may enjoy the ascendency of the country, and the empire not 
 receive the strength of it. Such a system cannot last : their 
 destinies must be changed and exalted ; the Catholic no longer 
 their inferior, nor they inferior to every one save only the Catholic ; 
 both must be free, and both must fight, — but it is the enemy, and 
 not one another : thus the sects of religion renouncing, the one all 
 foreign connexion, and the other all domestic proscription, shall form 
 a strong country; and thus the two islands, renouncing all national 
 prejudices, shall form a strong empire — a phalanx in the west, to 
 check, perhaps ultimately to confound, the ambition of the enemy. I 
 know the ground on which I stand and the truths which I utter, 
 and I appeal to the objects you urge against me, which I constitute 
 my judges, to the spirit of your own religion, and to the genius t>f 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 307 
 
 your own revolution ; and I consent to have the principle which I 
 maintain tried by any test, and equally sound, I contend, it will be 
 found, whether yon apply it to constitution where it is freedom, or 
 to empire where it is strength, or to religion where it is light. 
 
 Turn to the opposite principle, proscription and discord : it ha3 
 made in Ireland not only war, but even peace calamitous : witness 
 the one that followed the victories of King William — to the Catho- 
 lics a sad servitude, to the Protestants a drunken triumph, and to 
 both a peace without trade and without constitution. Yon have 
 seen in 1798 rebellion break out again, the enemy masking her ex- 
 peditious in consequence of the state of Ireland, twenty millions 
 lost, one farthing of which did not tell in empire, and blood bar- 
 barously, boyishly, and most ingloriously expended. These things 
 are in your recollection : one of the causes of these things, whether 
 efficient, or instrumental, or aggravating, the prescriptive system I 
 mean, you may now remove ; it is a great work ! — or has ambition 
 not enlarged your mind, or only enlarged the sphere of its action ? 
 What the best men in Ireland wished to do, but could not do, the 
 patriot courtier, and the patriot oppositionist, you may accomplish. 
 What Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Langrishe, men who had no views of popu- 
 larity or interest, or any but the public good ; what Mr. Daly, Mr. 
 Burgh, men whom I shall not pronounce to be dead, if their genius 
 live in this measure ; what Mr. Forbes, every man that loved Ire- 
 land ; what Lord Pery, the wisest man Ireland ever produced ; 
 what Mf. Hutchinson, an able, accomplished, and enlightened servant 
 of the Crown ; what Lord Charlemont, superior to his early pre- 
 judices, bending under years and experience and public affection ; 
 what that dying nobleman ; what our Burke ; what the most pro- 
 found divine, Dr. Xewcome, for instance, our late Primate (his 
 mitre stood in the front of that measure) ; what these men sup- 
 ported, and against whom ? Against men who had no opinion at 
 that time, or at any time, on the subject, except that which the 
 minister ordered, or men whose opinions were so extravagant that 
 even bigotiy must blush for them : and yet those men above mentioned 
 had not before them considerations which should make you wise — 
 that the Pope has evaporated, and that France has covered the best 
 part of Europe. That terrible sight is now before you ; it is a gulf 
 that has swallowed up a great portion of your treasure, it yawns for 
 your being. Were it not wise, therefore, to come to a good under- 
 standing with the Lish now ? It will be miserable if anything unto- 
 ward should happen hereafter, to say we did not foresee this danger. 
 Against other dangers, against the Pope, we were impregnable ; but 
 
808 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 if, instead of guarding against dangers which are not, we wonld pro- 
 vide against dangers which are, the remedy is in your hands — the 
 franchises of the constitution. Your ancestors were nursed in that 
 cradle, the ancestors of the petitioners were less fortunate, the pos- 
 terity of both born to new and strange dangers ; let them agree to 
 renounce jealousies and proscriptions, in order to oppose what, with- 
 out that agreement, will overpower both. Half Europe is in bat- 
 talion against us, and we are damning one another on account of 
 mysteries, when we should form against the enemy, and march. 
 
 May 25, 1808. 
 
 The petition which the House has just heard read, contains the 
 sentiments of the Catholics of Ireland : not only that petition, but 
 the other petitions presented this day speak the sense of that body. 
 I may therefore fairly assume that they speak the sentiments of four- 
 fifths of the Irish population. The petitions come from a considera- 
 ble portion of your electors, having political power, forming a part of 
 the United Kingdom, and applying to the constitutional organ for a 
 legitimate object. In discussing the merits of the petitioners' claims, 
 I should recommend to gentlemen to avoid any intemperate language, 
 and to adopt a spirit of concord, that nothing may pass in debate 
 which shall sharpen the public mind. Whatever decision the House 
 may come to upon the motion which I shall have the honour to pro- 
 pose, I should hope that the temper with which it will be met, 
 and the manner in which it will be argued, will rather approximate, 
 than remove to a farther distance, the great objects of justice and 
 policy. With such hope, therefore, I wish gentlemen to apply the 
 balm of oblivion, and not revive topics, which can only serve to irri- 
 tate and inflame ; that they will not go back to the battle of the 
 Boyne, nor to the scenes of 1641, nor to any of those afflicting 
 periods, in which both parties contended against each other. If you 
 go back, so will the Catholics ; if you make out a law against them, 
 they will make out a case against you ; we shall have historian 
 against historian ! man of blood against man of blood ! the parties 
 will remain unreconciled and irreconcileable, each the victim of their 
 own prejudices ; and the result will convince you that the victory 
 remains only for the enemies of both. 
 
 In the course of so many years of contest and prejudice, evils 
 must have been engendered, national calamities must have multi- 
 plied, and much violence must have passed. In the tempests to 
 which Ireland was reduced by the two contending parties, the one 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 309 
 
 fired bv bigotry and intoxicated with victory, the other overpowered 
 by misfortunes and wrung by oppression, I say it is impossible but 
 that great political evils must have arisen. However we may la- 
 ment those times, we must all agree that in settling their acconnts, 
 there is much to admire in both parties ; but there is something to 
 forget: events have happened since those periods, which make it neces- 
 sary to do away those religious distinctions. When gentlemen call to 
 mind the war, and the consequent dangers which menace our empire, 
 they must be convinced that unanimity is necessary for our existence. 
 
 A cordiality in cooperation is what I strenuously recommend ; and 
 I most sincerely hope that the good sense of both nations will 
 supply the want of national concord. We are now arrived at the 
 period when the cessation of all party rancour and religious ani- 
 mosity is not only desirable, but indispensable : it is a sentiment 
 which not only the Irish Catholic and the Irish Protestant should 
 feel, but which should be the guide of both nations in their inter- 
 course with each other. 
 
 With great concern, therefore, I saw scribbled on the walls of this 
 country, these idle words "No Popery". What could be the object 
 or the hope of those who encouraged so wicked and abominable a 
 cry, I cannot pretend to divine. It could not be for the purpose of 
 promoting unanimity or of adding to the national strength: on the 
 contrary, it had this effect, that it held up to the people of Ireland, 
 and to the world, this country as a people devoted to civil commo- 
 tion, as a nation of fanatics, incompetent to any purpose but fana- 
 ticism, and incapable of acting with energy against the enemy of the 
 British empire. The counter-petitions which were presented upon 
 a former occasion were the sentiments of well-meaning men, who, 
 when they fled from the shadow of the Pope, were precipitated into 
 that gulf into which so many nations had fallen and continue to fall. 
 It gives me great pleasure to see that the sense of public danger 
 has recalled men's minds from those narrow principles, which a 
 ridiculous fear of Popery had so long encouraged : those fears are 
 now removed, and therefore it is that you do not find upon the 
 table of this House any petition against the Roman Catholics (save 
 one presented this day). Such symptoms augur well for the 
 security of the empire, and I congratulate the public upon it ; it is 
 an example of liberality worthy of the wisdom of a great nation, of 
 that wisdom which prompted you to form an alliance with Austria. 
 You restored the Pope; you took Catholics into your pay; you 
 afforded protection to the family of Portugal; you lent aid and 
 assistance to transplant that family to South America ; you planted 
 
310 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 Popery there. In so doing, you acted wisely. You have shown 
 the innocence of the Catholic religion ; that there is nothing in it 
 dangerous to the state ; and you have thereby falsified all those idle 
 notions of the vices which some persons attributed to that mode of 
 faith. I then ask of you this night, on behalf of your fellow- 
 subjects, that, in the same spirit of wisdom and liberality, you would 
 extend to one-fifth of your countrymen those beneficial principles 
 which you so wisely and liberally extended to your foreign con- 
 nexions. It now remains for you to exert that wisdom on behalf 
 of your countrymen; to show them that you are not less anxious for 
 them, than you were for your foreign allies ; to convince them that 
 an alliance (a natural one !) with them, is not only your anxious 
 wish, but that it is also your indispensable interest. It is on these 
 grounds that I shall move for the House to go into a committee on 
 the petition. It prays that the Roman Catholics may have admis- 
 sibility into the state and legislature in common with the rest of 
 their fellow-subjects. The law has already admitted them to poli- 
 tical power, has given them the right of suffrage, and has made 
 them a part of the constituency of the House of Commons, and 
 has rendered them capable of all offices, civil and military, save only 
 certain exceptions, or enumerated offices, amounting to fifty, and 
 seats in either House of Parliament; against these exceptions they 
 pray, and in support of those exceptions it is argued as follows : — 
 That those who profess the Roman Catholic faith cannot be bound 
 by the obligation of an oath ; that they are ready, if required, to 
 depose their princes, and do not, with regard to those of another 
 religion, hold themselves bound by the obligation of faith or pact ; 
 that is to say, that those persons so admitted by the law into the 
 constitution, forming a part of your army and navy, are destitute of 
 the principles which hold together the social order, and which form 
 the foundation of government, and that they are thus depraved by 
 their religion. Now, as it is the religion of the greater part of the 
 Christian world, it would follow that Christianity was a special 
 interference for a few nations only, but, in general, that it had 
 destroyed the morals of Christians. It follows, that the argument must 
 be false, or that the Christian religion is not divine; and thence it 
 follows, that the objection is reduced to a theological impossibility. 
 
 To throw a light on this subject, the charges above mentioned 
 have been reduced to three propositions, and put to the six faculties 
 in Europe, the best authority on this subject — Paris, Louvaine, Alcala, 
 Douay, Valladolid, and Salamanca. To those queries they answer, 
 first, that the Pope has no temporal power in this country whatso- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION 
 
 311 
 
 ever ; second, that he cannot absolve from the oath of allegiance ; 
 third, that the doctrine that no faith should be kept with heretics 
 is no part of the Catholic religion. They answer the questions with 
 great promptitude aud much moral indignation at the monstrous 
 surmises contained in such questions; and they argue the points 
 with much erudition, and they show that such doctrine did not 
 belong to their religion, and that the council of Constance did not 
 warrant the doctrine of breach of faith with heretics, and that what- 
 ever popes might have practised, or some authors taught, yet such 
 practices and doctrines were not warranted by the Catholic faith, 
 bat were condemned and reprobated. This authority goes to estab- 
 lish the present tenets of the Catholic body; and, in addition to this 
 authority, I beg leave to mention the acts of the 13th and 14th of 
 the King, the declaration of 1793, in which they disclaim, among 
 other things, the position that princes excommunicated by the Pope 
 can be deposed ; and also the other charge, that no faith is to be 
 kept with heretics ; and they further renounce all claims to forfeited 
 property. And in addition to this, I am to add another declaration 
 contained in the oath of the 33d of this reign, in which, among other 
 things, they abjure the infallibility of the Pope, and swear to preserve 
 the present act of settlement, and uphold the present state of pro- 
 perty in Ireland, and are sworn to such an exercise of power as 
 shall not weaken the Protestant church or Protestant state. This 
 oath was proposed by the Protestants, made part of an act of parlia- 
 ment, and thus, by the Protestants themselves, made the test of their 
 principles. 
 
 To this I beg to add their catechism. 
 
 I submit, that these instruments are good authority to ascertain, 
 on the disputed points, the tenets of the Catholics in general, and of 
 the Irish Catholics in particular. Thus it follows, that there is no 
 moral incompatibility; but it is further objected,, that there is a 
 political incompatibility, because the Popish religion, the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, the practice of the mass, and the deification of 
 the Virgin Mary, are irreeoncileable to any attachment to a Pro- 
 testant prince, and are essentially connected with foreign power ; 
 that is to say, that they are irreeoncileable to the principles of alle- 
 giance. As to the first position, I see nothing less than a miracle 
 can establish it ; and if men believe in this their own cry, I do not 
 see why they should cavil at the eucharist. As to the second, the 
 objects of foreign attachment have ceased; the things do not exist 
 with which they were connected ; the combinations are no more. 
 It is not as in the time of Elizabeth, or in that of the Pretender ; 
 
312 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 the Pope is a power no longer ; the nations of the continent receive 
 into their service all religions : so it is in Germany, so in France, so 
 in Hungary, such is the case in America. It was said, on a formei 
 Catholic petition, that the nations on the continent excluded them. 
 But the fact 'is otherwise; the continent has, for the most part, 
 undergone a silent reformation; you are almost the only nation that 
 excludes them. There has taken place that political conformity of 
 which Mr. Paley speaks, when he says, that if Popery, for instance, 
 and Protestantism, were permitted quietly to dwell together, Papists 
 might not become Protestants, for the name is the last thing they 
 would change; but they would become more enlightened and 
 informed ; they would, by little, incorporate into their creed many 
 of the tenets of Protestantism, as well as imbibe a portion of its 
 spirit and moderation: that is the case of the continent of Europe. 
 Nor should it be said that this may be the case in despotic countries, 
 where the prince may dismiss his servants, for in this country he can 
 do the same ; nor let it be said, that in a despotic country perfect 
 toleration is admissible, but in a free country it is otherwise ; nor let 
 it be suggested, that the freedom of the country is an enemy to the 
 claims of the Catholics, and if they should assist to make the king 
 absolute, they may enjoy equality. Further, you will observe how 
 little religion is a part of political combination, when you recollect 
 the case of America, how the Protestants and Catholics of America 
 united against you and with France: how fatally wrong you argued, 
 and how idly men speculated at that time upon their incompatibility. 
 Turn to the present state of Europe, and see the Protestant and 
 Catholic completely united ; and united against whom ? Against 
 you. Sweden excepted, you have not one Protestant ally now on 
 the face of the globe. The only part of America that did not fly 
 off from England, is Catholic Canada ; of the only European allies 
 that now remain, one is Catholic ; the rest are a formidable com- 
 bination against you ; an anti-English confederacy, composed of all 
 religions, and using the talents of all the members of the different 
 churches against you, without any incapacity imposed on their mis- 
 chievous direction. 
 
 If, then, your religion does not secure to you one ally abroad, and 
 if, on the other hand, you suffer it to exclude the full assistance of 
 your fellow-subjects at home, you do not give your country a fair 
 chance for her safety. It follows, that there is no political incom- 
 patibility between the two religions, but a political necessity imposed 
 on you to form a political junction for the common defence, notwith- 
 standing the difference. It has been allowed by those who have 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 313 
 
 ) 
 
 argued against the Catholics, with an appearance of candour, that the 
 test proposed is no more than the declaration of a political opinion ; 
 that the religious doctrines contained in it are evidences of political 
 attachment. When that political connexion ceases, this test should 
 cease with it ; every subject has a right to equal laws ; as a general 
 proposition that cannot be denied ; he may forfeit that right most 
 certainly ; but he does not forfeit that right by religious opinions, 
 except those opinions are connected with a foreign attatchment. 
 The state has no right to make a religious test part of a civil 
 qualification, because the state has not an arbitrary power of imposing 
 a test ; the test must relate to the function ; the state has no right, 
 therefore, to put a mathematical test or proposition to a candidate for 
 a seat or office. 
 
 In such a case, the state would make an arbitrary ana capricious 
 use of her authority. The state, therefore, has no right to make a 
 religious test part of a civil qualification. In the present case the 
 qualification is professed to be political, and the abjured doctrines 
 are held the evidences of certain political attachments, but there 
 must be good reason to suppose the connection between the religious 
 opinion and the attachment, to warrant the continuation of the test. 
 It is not a slight surmise that will be that warrant ; otherwise the 
 state becomes arbitrary and tyrannical. Now, in the present case, 
 there does not exist that reason for supposing the political attach- 
 ment, because the object of it has ceased to exist ; the test then becomes 
 merely a religious test for a civil condition, which the state cannot 
 devise without exercising an arbitrary power. Nor is it an answer 
 to this, that the Pope is a foreign attachment, for he is no political 
 power ; he is the mere interpreter of disputed points of Scripture : 
 he is abjured in all temporal points, therefore in all mixed points : 
 he is particularly abjured on the subject of the oath of allegiance. 
 The objections attempted to be made, namely, that marriage, the 
 inheritance, and half the temporal power belong to the Pope, is 
 monstrous and frivolous, inasmuch as marriage is a civil contract, 
 governed by our laws, and the inheritance arising from it governed 
 by the laws of the land. That it is so is proved by the acts passed 
 upon the subject. That they have lost that inheritance, and acqui- 
 esced in the laws is clear by the 9th W., 2 Anne, 19 and 23 Geo. 
 II., by which marriage and inheritance are set aside, and the next 
 of kin is only tenant for life. The next point to be considered is 
 with respect to excommunication : they say, that excommunication 
 is a spiritual obligation ; and further they say, that excommunication 
 has not been urged with reference to any legal or temporal conse- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 quences, but that Catholics have enjoyed all the privileges of life, 
 and in these eases are denied nothing but the sacrament. In some 
 letters which I have seen, annexed to a very able production, in the 
 shape of a pamphlet, the work of a learned gentleman of this House, 
 to whose labours and information his country and ours are equally 
 indebted — to the charges that the Catholics claim a light to tithes, 
 that they deny the right of the Protestant clergy to tithes, that they 
 claim legal existence for a Catholic establishment, and that they 
 exercise the right of excommunication in all temporal cases, the 
 most positive and unequivocal denial is given. They deny that they 
 have ever resisted the right of the established church to tithes, 
 or that they have claimed an exclusive establishment for the Catholic 
 church : they do not deny that taxation to the Protestant clergy 
 is founded in justice ; and, for the truth of these denials, they appeal 
 to their fellow-subjects in the most solemn manner, and profess their 
 readiness to swear to the facts. 
 
 As to excommunication, that, they say, is confined entirely to the 
 bishops, and they declare they have not claimed nor exercised any 
 of those powers imputed to them by their adversaries. In one of their 
 principal diocesses,that of Dublin, I have the authority of Dr. Troy, the 
 titular archbishop, to say, that in the course of nineteen years, the time 
 in which he has filled that see, only two instances of excommunica- 
 tion have occurred ; and that, during the time of his predecessor, 
 Dr. Carpenter (seventeen years), only the same number took place. 
 I appeal to the good sense and judgment of the House, then, whethe? 
 the power of the Pope, in regard to excommunication, can be looked 
 on as dangerous with regard to appointment of bishops. The Pope 
 merely institutes, but the bishops nominate. But, if that objection 
 be a ground of alarm, it is a decisive reason for going into a commit- 
 tee, in order to come to a settlement on that part of the subject ; 
 and here I have a proposition to make, a proposition which the 
 Catholics have authorised me to make — it is this : That in the 
 future nomination of bishops, His Majesty may interfere and exercise 
 his royal privilege, and that no Catholic bishop be appointed with- 
 out the entire approbation of His Majesty. In France the king used 
 to name ; in Canada the king names ; it is by no means incompati- 
 ble with the Catholic religion that our king should name ; and I do 
 not see any great difficulty on this head. Thus the objectors cannot 
 refuse to go into the committee with consistency. They say they have 
 no repugnance to the civil capacities of the Catholics, but they 
 object to the nomination of their bishops by a foreign power. Here, 
 then, they may get their wishes on both subjects ; if the danger 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 315 
 
 will exist nnder the further admission of the Catholics, it exists now; 
 if Buonaparte has that ascendency over the Pope, if the Pope has 
 that ascendency over the bishops, and they — that is, the clergy — 
 over the people, it follows, that the Catholics in the army and navy, 
 and the Catholic freeholders, are affected by a foreign power : 
 so that a very great danger now exists, and a further measure is 
 necessary. Here is that measure. So that they who oppose it, 
 oppose their safety and prefer their danger. They choose three 
 things — the power of the Pope, the exclusion of the Catholics, and 
 the danger of the state. That the king shall not be substantially 
 the head of the Catholic church, and that the Catholics shall be 
 excluded from the constitution, they in fact object to the doing away 
 of Popery ; they had before omitted to come to a settlement in 1799, 
 and they are answerable for the consequences. 
 
 The general objections being removed, it remains to consider the 
 particular. 
 
 The first is, the constitution of thi3 country as settled at the 
 Revolution. Here we called for a fundamental law that renders the 
 exclusion necessary. The law enacting the oath of qualification is 
 not one ; it is the reverse. The fact was, in the Revolution, Ireland 
 was forgotten ; the state of the country made the application difficult ; 
 it remained for the next century to extend that blessing. 
 
 They must resort elsewhere. They find one in the act of settle- 
 ment ! I deny it. 64 The provision — the entail of the Crown — of 
 such and such persons being Protest ants". They infer, that this 
 principle should be construed to extend to the king's counsellors and 
 the legislature. I deny the inference. " The provision names the 
 king ; therefore it means the parliament and the king's counsellors". 
 No ; it is satisfied with one of the estates, and seems to judge, that 
 having secured that advantage to the Protestant, it might trust the 
 estate so secured, with the full prerogative of choosing from among 
 all the subjects. So, if great talents, industry, and virtue should 
 appear among the Catholic body, the country might have the advan- 
 tage of their services. The principle of the clause and of the infe- 
 rence are different ; the one is preference, the other exclusion. Now, 
 it does not follow because the Protestant should have, exclusively, 
 one of the estates, that the Catholic should have no share in the 
 rest. It is one thing to exclude the Catholics from the Crown, and 
 another to exclude part of the Commons from the constitution. 
 
 The idea of the provision is, that the king should be of the religion 
 of his people ; but, in its perverted application, it is, that the people 
 should be of the religion of the king, or be disqualified. 
 
316 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 The inference we hold to be a bad one ; but we still object to the 
 idea of making this bad inference a law, a penal law, and a funda- 
 mental law. This we iiold to be no law, but the violation of a 
 fundamental principle ; and we oppose to this a fundamental princi- 
 ple on behalf of Catholics, namely, a right the Commons have to form 
 a part of the legislature, and which the Catholics have of course, we 
 say, being a part of the Commons, and being subject to no excep- 
 tion on account of political delinquency or foreign attachment. If, 
 therefore, you look to the general principles of the constitution, you 
 mast agree with me ; or if you take the spirit of the particular trans- 
 action (for what was the spirit but the security of civil and religious 
 liberty ?), you must either extend the principles of the constitution, 
 or abandon them altogether. You must reject a great portion of the 
 Commons, or admit the Catholics. 
 
 On the other alternative, you must, by the Union, have extended 
 your empire over those, a great portion of whom have no adequate 
 interest in your constitution. You told us the Union would conso- 
 lidate the resources and the interests of both islands. I now call 
 upon you to consolidate the strength and energies of both nations by 
 fulfilling the contract. Unless you carry into effect that measure, 
 then do I contend that it was an act of ambition quoad the Parlia- 
 ment of Ireland, and an act of bigotry quoad the people. 
 
 It is said : " We will guard the church and guard + he state ". 
 Long, I hope, may you guard the church and the state. But you 
 cannot guard the church and the state, nor the land you live in, 
 without the assistance of all your fellow-subjects ; and, as you are 
 to defend the act of settlement by Catholics, the best way to secure 
 that defence is to give them the benefit of it. Here, however, they 
 oppose a species of political baptism imagined by themselves, and 
 say, theirs is a Protestant constitution. They tell you that the consti- 
 tution is formed on Protestant principles ; but the constitution was 
 formed by your Catholic ancestors. Magna Charta, the laws of the 
 Edwards, are the work of Catholics. The petition of right and the 
 declaration of right, events which took place when the Catholics sat 
 in parliament, are declaratory of that constitution. 
 
 The claim does not go to establish a Catholic cabinet or a 
 Catholic parliament, nor to transfer the state, but it does go to estab- 
 lish a certain proportion, and a very small proportion, in a very 
 considerable part of the king's subjects, of the privileges of the con- 
 fctitution and powers of state; and in so doing, they are much more 
 constitutional, and by far more reasonable, than those who desire 
 that the whole should be confined to a religious and victorious sect, 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 317 
 
 to the exclusion of one -fifth of the people, and in justification of 
 which it is added, that the persons so excluded are not good subjects, 
 because they do not acknowledge the king to be the head of their 
 church. Failing in that argument, which would exclude the Presby- 
 terians equally, they say it would be a strange anomaly, a Protestant 
 king with a Catholic counsellor. What a strange anomaly, for in- 
 stance, an assembly where all were not of the same religion ! ^Vhat 
 an injury to Henry the Fourth, to have had in his cabinet Sully ; or 
 Louis the Fourteenth to have had in his councils Turennc and yet 
 both these great ministers were of a religion different from the es- 
 tablished religion of the country. If, then, your enemies have the 
 range of all the abilities of their subjects in a much greater extent of 
 country and men, do you think it a strange anomaly that you should 
 not conscientiously put yourselves under the disadvantage of reject- 
 ing all counsellors, however able, except those of his Majesty's re- 
 ligion! It is said that their claims go to establish a Catholic 
 cabinet, and a Catholic parliament, and a transfer of the power of the 
 state : they misstate their claims, as they misstated the constitution. 
 
 They say the church is in danger, inasmuch as that if the Ca- 
 tholics were admitted into the state, they would overturn the church ; 
 and on that surmise it is urged, you should continue their civil dis- 
 abilities. They make a general attack upon the character of the 
 Catholics, and say they are as bigoted as ever, and that they acknow- 
 ledge the Pope, in spirituals entirely, in temporals in part. Having 
 voted that these very Catholics should be a constituent part of the 
 Commons, thus are they answered by their own votes, if any answer 
 was necessary. Here again they recur to that error, which supposes 
 that the Catholics, that the majority of Christians, are so restless 
 and dangerous, that nothing can soften, no benefit can conciliate. 
 Let them advance the instances. How is it in modern Europe ? 
 I object to that idea of justice, which makes your own supposition a 
 crime in a third person, and proceeds to inflict a penalty ; but I have 
 a greater objection to the other argument, which supposes that if the 
 Catholics got into parliament, they would use their power to stop 
 the provisions of the Protestant clergy ; for by this the money they 
 pay our church is made the foundation of their exclusion : this is 
 to found the church on injustice. That the Catholics should con- 
 tribute to our church, I acknowledge ; the church could not stand 
 otherwise ; but that they should be excluded therefore, I deny. 
 You pay us without compensation, and the return is to impose civil 
 incapacity, lest you should question your own contribution. They 
 get half a million to administer to about 800,000, and are paid this 
 
318 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 by the Catholics, and then exclude them. They see their God, not 
 in His great work, the world, nor in His work the Bible ; they see 
 Him as a special interference, coming only to themselves ; they see 
 Him a narrow and a partial Deity ! It seems omnipotence wonld 
 have fallen apart ; His work would fail, according to them, if they 
 did not support His religion at the expense of their morals, and 
 bolster up Almighty power, by accommodating the Deity with our 
 ingratitude and injustice ! 
 
 In their plan for the church, they forget the attribute of their 
 Maker, and in their plan for the state, they forget a fifth of the 
 people ; and on these two omissions they propose to establish the 
 security of church and state. They do not see that both are to be 
 supported, partly by their own excellence, and also by the interests 
 and the passions of man (not by human depravity). What so strong 
 an interest in the church, as that it is compatible with civil liberty ? 
 On those rocks you may build your church and your state ; and on 
 those immortal foundations they will brave every storm, and outlast 
 the length of ages. 
 
 There are only two imaginable ways by which the church can be 
 destroyed, by law and by force ; by law, the Catholics cannot, unless 
 they become the majority ; by force, they will not be more enabled 
 by the admission, and will at the same time be freed from every 
 motive of interest. But they argue otherwise, that they are now 
 well disposed ; but if they get additional motives, then, provoked by 
 additional benefit, stung by the removal of disabilities, they will then 
 revolt. On this solid observation they found eternal incapacity, 
 then they pronounce esto perpetua. This is not argument, but folly. 
 
 The next objection is that which arises from the peculiar situation 
 of Ireland, and this is founded on the supposed disposition of the 
 people, and the state of her property. They tell you the Irish hate 
 the English and the Protestants ; they said before, that if the 
 Catholics be true to their religion, they cannot be attached to a 
 Protestant king ; they tell us that they abhor you by nativity, and 
 should rebel on principle. The Pope is a better interpreter ; the 
 Catholic faculties, I am sure, are. They say this is a time of war ; 
 invasion perhaps hanging over the island. They say this, and in 
 saying this they tend to promote the curse which they lament, and 
 to make the two nations mutually hate each other ; they scold both 
 of them into hostility, and one out of allegiance ; they are refuted in 
 this by analysing the objection, which cannot be founded in the soil, 
 for otherwise the Irish Protestant would hate you; nor in the 
 Catholic religion, for otherwise the English Catholic would hate you. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 319 
 
 It cannot arise from either, but, according to them, it does from 
 both ; thus does the mind (the heated brain rather) generate 
 monstrous imaginations. In religious matters, it seems, this is the 
 privilege of the casuist ; here the mind is set adrift from this world, 
 and assuming a familiarity with the other, brings back conclusions 
 pernicious to both and belonging to neither. But from this argu- 
 ment a conclusion may be drawn — not that the people of Ireland hate 
 those of England, but that the penal code has created an animosity 
 not entirely subsided. The code being the cause, the removal of 
 that code is the removal of the cause. Do not think you reconcile 
 it to your conscience, if you say, they are a perverse generation, 
 their Maker is in fault, the government is excellent. Xo, not a 
 fallible creator, but a very fallible system of legislature and adminis- 
 tration ! . See whether that code was an adequate cause : it was 
 detailed by the late Lord Avonmore. I heard him. His speech 
 was the whole of the subject, and a concatenated and an inspired 
 argument not to be resisted. It was the march of an elephant ; it 
 was the wave of the Atlantic ; a column of water 3,000 miles deep. 
 He began with the Catholic at his birth — he followed him to his 
 grave : he showed that in every period he was harassed by the law: 
 the law stood at his cradle — it stood at his bridal bed — and it stood 
 at his coffin. The justice of his fellow-subjects repealed the greater 
 part of that code : it remains for your justice to repeal the remainder ; 
 and do not let us look for vain and irreinoveable causes, when the 
 cause is obvious and correctable. 
 
 The other argument peculiar to Ireland is the state of property ; 
 that is founded on a fable, namely, that there is a map retained with 
 the property of the old Catholic owners delineated ; and further, that 
 there is a conditional limitation of the same in marriage settlements. 
 This map, which is to be found in the auditor's office, was drawn up 
 by Sir William Petty for the use of the then government ; a copy of 
 which had been taken and brought to France ; a copy of that copy had 
 been obtained by a person in the service of government, and is 
 retained as matter of history : but the nature of that map was well 
 explained in this House on the last debate on this question ; and the 
 limitation in the marriage settlements was not proved, nor the name 
 of any lawyer who drew such produced ; but, on the contrary, 
 lawyers most employed in conveyancing had been asked positively, 
 and no such limitation had been framed regarding the map. Further, 
 the state of property in Ireland is a complete answer to the appre- 
 hension ; the Catholic purchasers are numerous ; the ancient pro- 
 prietors few. It has been said, that the Catholics have not in 
 
320 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 landed property above £50,000 a-year ; I will state that the rental 
 of one noble earl alone is £30,000 a-year ; their proportion is from 
 £500,000 to a million in fee simple ; add to this, that the tenantry 
 of Ireland are Catholics in a great proportion, and hold under the 
 title of Protestant landlords, so that the majority are interested in 
 the defence of the present state of property. Again it is asked, how 
 should they overset the present property of Ireland if admitted ? 
 By force ? No. The law w T hich admits them into the constitution, 
 does not increase their physical force. The proprietors of Ireland 
 are not, however, at their ease on the subject of property ; but 
 their apprehension arises from the continuation of civil disabilities, 
 not the removal ; they fear the invasion of their country, and they 
 fear 'the divisions of the people ; they fear the protection these laws 
 afford ; they deprecate the terrible protection in the defence you 
 offer them in civil incapacities and political monopoly. 
 
 The counties of Clare and Gal way have had meetings convened by 
 their sheriffs, at which they passed resolutions expressing their 
 ardent wishes for an admission of their Catholic brethren to the 
 benefits of the constitution. In the counties of Tipperary, Kilkenny, 
 Eoscommon, Waterford, and Meath, and in the town of Newry, 
 resolutions have been passed, not formally by the Protestant gentry 
 and inhabitants, but by the great bulk of the landed proprietors, 
 These recommendations were not owing to the influence of liberality 
 and confidence merely, not to the absence of all suspicion of an 
 intention to invade the landed property at a more convenient season, 
 but to the stronger and more immediate feeling of the danger which 
 a divided country would have to experience, in case of invasion, from 
 an active and powerful enemy. They are the persons who are to 
 share and lose their monopoly ; and to diminish their returns to parlia- 
 ment and appointment to offices, they desire it. This is the way to 
 repeal the act on its own principle, and to make it, not a triumph 
 over a party, but a victory over prejudice. They propose to give 
 up their monopoly, and in so doing, they are advancing their cause : 
 they propose the best method to secure their country and to strengthen 
 it ; they have canvassed for the British empire ; it remains for you 
 to decide what answer will you give them. But it is said, that the 
 privileges desired are of little moment, namely, a share in the state 
 and the legislature ; and they are told this by those who make great 
 sacrifices of industry and property to come into both. Xet me ask 
 them, is an exclusion from the two houses of parliament nothing ? 
 from the shrievalty nothing? from the privy council nothing? from 
 the offices of state nothing ? from the bank nothing ? Is it nothing 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 321 
 
 to be censured, schooled, and suspected ? When they hold this 
 language, they depreciate the value of their own constitution ; they 
 depreciate it in their own estimation, and are less freemen by urging 
 the doctrine of inferiority and degradation ; thus men are punished 
 by keeping part of their fellow -subjects out of the privileges of the 
 constitution. So it was when you preached the doctrine of surrender 
 to America; it lowered the public spirit, and deprived men of the 
 high language by which they should animate their country. But 
 look a little farther : what meant the petition of 1805? what the 
 present petition ? These petitions, very numerously signed, say 
 otherwise ; this testimony says otherwise, and shows how the 
 Catholic feels the exclusion. Rely on it, you deceive yourself, if you 
 think that any people will be satisfied with inferiority. But sup- 
 posing this argument to have force, what is that force ? that you 
 have in one-fifth of your population destroyed the spirit of liberty ; 
 that your government conquered the spirit of your constitution. 
 
 They add to this, some of them, that the people are too ignorant 
 to exercise — what ? The upper orders of the Irish too ignorant to 
 fulfil the duties of members of parliament, or of principals servants 
 of the state ! But what is the force of this argument ? — that you 
 have left them ignorant, and made them contemptible. 
 
 It has been urged, that the oath of the king is incompatible with 
 the removal of the disabilities complained of. Let us examine how 
 far it is so. It is a fit subject of parliamentary inquiry to ascertain 
 whether or n& the representation is just. We must not allow the 
 enemies of the Catholics to abuse in the first place the religion of 
 God, and in next place the piety of His Majesty, without contradic- 
 tion or restraint. The kings of England swore to maintain the 
 liberties of their people. They are therefore subordinate to the law; 
 they cannot invade the liberties or religion of any man, without 
 committing a breach of their oath. They are not sworn to maintain 
 the penal laws, nor to restrict the legislature from making new 
 provisions in favour of the church. If the king, according to the 
 provisions made respecting the church, is sworn to maintain them 
 entire and without change, why then, the church is placed beyond 
 the power of human interference, and is also beyond the executive 
 and legislative power. The penal laws are included in those provi- 
 sions ; and what is the nature of them ? One of them goes to rob 
 a Catholic of his horse ; another prevents him from educating his 
 sons at home, and from sending them abroad for education ; another 
 goes to deprive a Catholic father of his property. If the repeal of 
 laws of this kind be a breach of the coronation oath, why, then every 
 
322 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 sovereign, since the time of Henry the Eighth is perjured. William 
 the Third, when he signed the articles of Limerick, was perjured ; 
 and Queen Anne, when she passed the act of Union, was perjured* 
 George the First and George the Second were perjured. Our present 
 gracious sovereign, when he passed the Quebec act, was persuaded 
 to depart from his coronation oath: so, in 1782, when the act of 
 Catholic inheritance was passed ; again, in 1793, when the Catholics 
 were allowed the exercise of their elective franchises. In short, the 
 coronation oath from which so many departures have occurred, is 
 nothing more than the oath of succession. This oath cannot be 
 interpreted in a manner laid down by the enemies of the Catholics, 
 without making the rights of the church the wrongs of the people, 
 by incapacitating one-fifth of His Majesty's subjects from contribu- 
 ting their best services for the benefit of the state. The church is, 
 in consequence, made a confederacy against the state, and the king 
 a party to it. There may be cases in which the coronation oath 
 might interfere with the penal statutes, but then it would be to 
 repeal them. The king is sworn to protect the Protestant religion 
 as by law established. But I will suppose a case in which it may 
 be necessary to enlist Catholics for the army in order to the better 
 defence of the empire : will it be said that the royal oath is to stand 
 in the way at the time when the concurrence of His Majesty, in 
 requiring the assistance of all his subjects to support the Protestant 
 establishment against all enemies, is so imperiously necessary ? I 
 should hardly think such a position would be advanced. 
 
 I have now shown that there is in the two religions no moral incom- 
 patibility ; that there is no political incompatibility ; that, in the 
 Revolution and in the act of settlement there is no objection, but 
 every reason in favour of the Catholics ; for the civil capacities, 
 whether you look to the original constitution, or to the constitution 
 as declared and improved by the Revolution, or to the duration of 
 the constitution, and its danger from foreign and domestic enemies. 
 The resolutions show you the sentiments of a great portion of the 
 Protestants. There is no reason against, but the most imperious 
 and solid conclusions in favour of the petition ; the arguments against 
 i t would depreciate the value of the constitution, and of course go 
 against the spirit by which it is to be defended ; the other arguments, 
 which would defend the pay of the church by excluding the Catholics, 
 go against the principles of justice and retribution, and are not the 
 support of your church, but would be a blemish and a reflection on 
 it ; and the cast and complexion of the objections is of a nature not 
 only weak, but criminal and mischievous. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 323 
 
 Mr. Fox Drought on this question in 1805. I have followed that 
 light on this subject : he was a great advocate, as he was also a 
 great authority. In 1 788, 1 remember his opinion privately given : it 
 was decidedly against the penal code. In that opinion he continued 
 to the close of his life ; he recommended a total repeal of those laws, 
 and when the Roman Catholic petitions presented by him to the 
 legislature, he gave his last testimony against their cruelty, their 
 impolicy, and their ingratitude. Ireland will ever retain a grateful 
 sense of all the benefits she has received from that great man. She 
 now feels the loss she has sustained, and weeps in sorrow over his 
 tomb. In estimating his qualities, we dwell with delight on his 
 integrity, his rectitude of mind, his commanding and convincing 
 eloquence, his amiable disposition, his benevolent weakness, and the 
 negligent grandeur of his capacity ; and yet he had not the melan- 
 choly addition to the case, that Russia had become your enemy, that 
 Prussia is beaten down, and that Austria has left you, and that our 
 divisions must be lost in our danger. Against this danger see the 
 security offered by some who are hostile to the claim of the Catho- 
 lics ; an eternal exclusion from the state, an exclusion from the 
 legislature of a fifth of the community that compose a part of the 
 Commons and a part of your army. This is their plan of safety ! 
 Is anything more frantic, more extravagant, more foolish than this? 
 Yes ; their idea of the danger ! A few Catholics in parliament and 
 a few Catholics in the higher departments of the state, these are to 
 become the majority of the Irish representatives, and so on, the 
 ascendent part of the English and Scotch representation, and finally 
 that power which is to overturn the whole. These are the fears, 
 and these the arguments of some wise men — of some good men — of 
 some liberal men ; but wise, and good, and liberal men, educated in 
 early prejudices : thus it happens, that on a religious subject, men 
 shall not only have a degree of interest, but even shall assume 
 a privilege to commit depredations, not seldom upon reason, and 
 sometimes upon morals. To meet this danger, to give your country 
 a better defence, I should suggest the more obvious means — that of 
 national concord, as soon as possible. 
 
 I would first recommend it to the legislature : if the legislature 
 did not establish it in the laws, I recommend that the good sense 
 of both countries should supply their defect ; above all, I should 
 appeal to the gentlemen of Ireland to associate with the Catholics 
 as much as possible. If they do not, if they form a distinct society, they 
 rt'ill be a distinct people, and will reap the wages of pride and infirmity. 
 When a country divides, and hates one portion of itself more than 
 
324 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 i hates the enemy, that country opens a passage to a foreign power, 
 and betrays the infallible symptom of a falling nation, and its fate is 
 then a judgment on its malignity and its folly. 
 
 The landed interest will have the power of communicating through 
 their tenantry the spirit of tolerance, and with it the spirit of con- 
 cord and the spirit of defence ; for they must go together. Their 
 example will do much : their presence will do more. They will 
 recollect that the Catholic feels the personal at least as much as the 
 political superiority ; the latter is at his door. He does not see the 
 exclusion from parliament, but he does see and feel the assumed 
 superiority of his neighbour (which arises not a little from that 
 exclusion), the saucy little tyrant that wounds him by a galling 
 dominion, his toasts and monopolising merriment hurting him in those 
 very points in which he is most sensitive and irritable. 
 
 I have applied to one description ; and here let me apply to that 
 body of the community distinguished by the appellation of Orange- 
 men. Many of them are heated by controversy, but many of them 
 are misunderstood ; and many will soften and see the folly of the 
 dispute, if the point was made rather a subject of discussion than a 
 point of spirit. They will perceive the certainty, that though there 
 may be an exclusive religion, there should be no affectation of an 
 exclusive allegiance. In vain their loyalty, if they procure to the 
 throne a host of enemies. No insinuation, as thus : If you believe 
 your own religion, you cannot be good subjects, or you cannot be 
 trusted, or we will not corps with you. No pointed paragraphs, no 
 logical victories ! They will see the danger with which we are 
 environed, and the punishment, and will despise the little puerile 
 jealousy entertained against their fellow-subjects, which can only end 
 in the victory of the French and the subjugation of the constitution. 
 They should consider that Ireland should not be a party question ; 
 that nations do not always act from their interest, but more generally 
 from their feelings ; and that any measures that sharpen these are 
 high crimes. They should consider themselves as trustees for its 
 preservation, and not sectarists to quicken and disgrace the downfall 
 of their country. 
 
 Arid,, finally, I should appeal to the government, who may do 
 some great good or great mischief. They may act decisively on the 
 magistracy, so as to preclude partiality in the administration of 
 justice, in the appointment of justices of the peace, in the regulation 
 of the yeomanry, and in the disposal of favours and distinctions in 
 the state. They may, and ought, and it is indispensable that they 
 should, establish this principle in the administration of that country, 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 325 
 
 that the Catholics should never feel the victory of a party ; this 
 should be a fundamental maxim of the Irish government. Let there 
 be no bigotry on one side, and there will be no French feeling on the 
 Other. It is a necessary consequence, and the natural reaction of 
 your own sentiment. Philanthropy generates on philanthropy, and 
 confidence propagates on confidence. 
 
 And do not believe those idle tales, for instance, that the Catholics 
 in some part of Ireland will not suffer a Protestant to live among 
 them ; or that Catholic servants will not suffer a Protestant in the 
 same family ; or that, in Dublin, the poorer sort cannot get them- 
 selves apprenticed as servants. To this I beg to advance an absolute 
 denial. And I offer, if a committee should be appointed, to disprove 
 it most fully and satisfactorily. The Catholics desire, that they may 
 not be concluded against by a suggestion which would not be listened 
 to, and they appeal to the conscious persuasion of their fellow-coun- 
 trymen ; they appeal to Maida, and they appeal to Egypt, that 
 witnessed their battles, which could never have been fought if such 
 tales had been true. I do not agree with those who think the lower 
 classes of the Irish savage or lazy. I see them labouring their 
 mountains, cultivating their hills, and toiling in every part of Ireland. 
 I do not agree with those who think the landlords are oppressive ; 
 if that were so, the middlemen could not exist ; the middleman is a 
 proof that the head landlord does not get the highest price for his 
 land. These suggestions arise from the ignorance of the Irish, and 
 tend to make the upper orders despise the lower, and to mislead and 
 deceive both. But, in order to judge of the country, look at her 
 work ; they have in twenty-five years added a third to their trade, 
 worked out by the sweat of their brow, produced by the labour, 
 virtue, and energy of the people ; they increased five-fold their 
 revenue, and have added a third to their population ; they procured 
 a free trade and a free constitution. 
 
 These are the savage perfections of the people of Ireland. The 
 Catholics had their share in procuring these blessings of freedom, 
 and, to a certain degree, a share in the enjoyment of their benefits. 
 I will not vulgarise their petition by the cant of exaggeration. The 
 Catholic has the benefit of trial by jury ; he has admissibility to all 
 offices, civil and military, that are not offices of state, and sheriffs ; 
 he is a constituent part of the^Commons, and he can go to a couuty 
 meeting, discuss public matters, instruct, arraign, and rebuke his 
 representatives. What these are I cannot estimate ; but I say they 
 are defending you against a foreign enemy. The Catholic would 
 not surrender these to the king of England ; he will not surrender 
 
 15 
 
326 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 them to the powers of France. Further, in these things, and parti- 
 cularly in the elective franchise, is the seminal principle of the 
 remainder : that remainder, the object of his petition, will come — it 
 will come in the natural progress of moral causes. I mentioned the 
 progress for the last twenty-five years ; above a third to your trade, 
 and near a third to your population : so that Ireland now stands by 
 you a country with 5,000,000 of people, exporting near £9,000,000 
 of produce, taking from you near £7,000,000, supplying you with 
 £700,000 worth of corn, and furnishing your navy and army with 
 a great proportion of their strength. Why do I mention this ? that 
 Ireland may see what a country she has to defend, and that you may 
 see what a country you have to adopt ; and that both may see they 
 have nothing but one another ; and that you may perceive the folly 
 as well as wickedness of attempting to govern such a country by 
 division, or corruption, or bigotry, or any system but that of equality. 
 The more to illustrate the necessity of this, turn to the Continent, 
 and you see all her ports and harbours hostile. Let me suppose 
 there should hereafter issue from them different navies to invade 
 these islands, would you then send dispatches to Ireland to guard the 
 corporation against the Catholic, to preserve the parliament ? or 
 would you not desire to embody, and incorporate, and inspire ? But 
 tnen it might be too late. Now, therefore, when you are mistress of 
 the measure, and have time to secure its effect, now will you not do 
 away in act or in spirit these distinctions ? Will you not repeal 
 those death-doing divisions ? Coalesce in the spirit of repeal and 
 confidence, so that you may in fact, or by anticipation, prepare — for 
 what ? for the final battle, which, sooner or later, must be fought, 
 and which must determine the rivalship of 500 years. How would 
 3*>u answer to your ancestors, that you had lost the hereditary laurel 
 gf your country, because you were afraid of the Pope, or of the 
 influence of the eucharist, of the Council of Lateran, or the Council 
 of Constance ? 
 
 The Catholics do not approach this House with servile humility 
 they come to support your empire ; they come, as freemen, to share 
 your privileges ; and now, when Austria has turned against you, 
 when Russia is no longer your friend, when Prussia has ceased to 
 exist as a power, they come to partake in your danger, and to partake 
 in your constitution. This is their -prayer. On these grounds I 
 move their petition ; I move to refer it to a committee of the whole 
 House ; I move it on the ground of national justice, and I accom- 
 pany it with two wishes ; first, that you may long preserve your 
 liberties ; next, that you may never survive them. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 327 
 
 May 31, 1811. 
 
 Sir — In wishing that these votes of thanks should be read on this 
 occasion, it was my object that the House should be in accurate 
 possession of its own testimony to the conduct of that race of men, 
 the justice of whose claims to equal rights and capacities we are 
 proceeding to discuss. We are now going to consider whether it be 
 just or expedient that the existing system of penal laws to which 
 they are subject, should any longer continue. I call them penal ; 
 for what else is the qualifying law ? A law inflicting penalties in 
 the most objectionable form, that is, under the disguise of an oath ; 
 a law which makes the forfeiture of conscience a recommendation to 
 title and office ; a law that enacts religion to be a crime, and per- 
 jury a qualification. This is an occasion in which we are assembled 
 to try the bulk of the population of Ireland. We have to try them 
 upon separate charges — upon charges against the religion they profess 
 and the political principles upon which they have acted. The testi- 
 mony against them, I am sorry to say, is that of their countrymen 
 and also of their fellow-subjects. Now, although I will not affirm 
 that it is impossible for the authors of those charges to enjoy a safe 
 conscience, although I will not suspect or deny their morality, j%t 
 their testimony, thus directed against their fellow-subjects, is to my 
 mind a strong presumption of their prejudice against those whom 
 they accuse. Let their evidence be ever so good or respectable, 
 their zeal and alacrity to tender it are to me demonstrations of those 
 prejudices. For what, in fact, does this evidence amount to ? It 
 begins by testifying that an immense body of Christians, subjects of 
 this empire, are worse than any class or nature of idolaters; that 
 they are not trustworthy in civil life. But if this charge be true, 
 then it can be no less true that the Messiah has failed, that the 
 Christian religion is not of divine origin, since its effect and opera- 
 tion has been to deprave and immoralize mankind. The charge is 
 compounded of the dogmas of the church and the politics of the 
 court ; the spirit of the former being uniformly the spirit of bigotry, 
 that of the latter as uniformly power. Against this evidence we 
 have long had the indisputable declarations and the explicit testi- 
 mony of the six most eminent universities of Europe, disclaiming 
 any doctrine incompatible with the strongest attachment to the civil 
 government of every country. In addition to this, there is our expe- 
 rience of the fact, as proved and established in the long intercourse 
 that has subsisted between Protestant and Catholic, and the long 
 
328 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 obedience and submission shown by the Catholic to your government. 
 But let us look at the charge in another point of view, and examine 
 upon what ground it rests. It represents that you, having had 
 possession of Ireland for six hundred years, have so abused the 
 exercise of your authority, have so oppressed and misgoverned the 
 people of that country, that they are unalterably hostile to your 
 interests, and inflexibly rebellious to your control. It represents 
 that you stand self-convicted of a perversion of your power, and 
 practically disqualifies you to be governors, under whose sovereignty 
 Ireland has passed so many centuries of her existence. But, sir, I 
 believe no such thing; I believe the assumption to be groundless; 
 that it is unjust thus to accuse England ; but such is the nature of 
 the a accusation against the Catholics; it points less against them 
 than against England and against British connexion. Depend upon 
 it, that the original source of a people's vices is the vice of its 
 government; and that, in every instance since the creation of the 
 world, the people have been what their rulers made them. A good 
 government makes a good people. Moralize your laws, and you 
 cannot fail to moralize your subjects. 
 
 Now, in order to disprove the justice of the charges brought 
 against the general character of the Irish Catholics, I will first refer 
 the House to the preamble of the statute of 1782 ; I will next beg 
 their attention to the facts recorded in its late votes of thanks ; and, 
 lastly, to the circumstances and history of the connexion between 
 both countries. If the allegation, that the religion of the Catholics 
 is essentially adverse to the British government be true, let us 
 remember that the necessary inference is, that the British govern- 
 ment must be a public calamity, and no longer deserving of support. 
 But give me leave, in contradiction to that allegation, to advert to 
 the facts on which it is founded, in order that I may the more clearly 
 show, in the first place, that the existing penal laws are wrong, 
 unjust, and indefensible; secondly, that their repeal is the only 
 means of establishing the tranquillity and the security of Ireland. 
 In the year 1792, about a hundred dissenters in the north of Ire- 
 land rebelled ; this was immediately designated a Catholic revolt. 
 These men, unprotected by your government and denounced by 
 your laws, were then declared to be in a state of general insurrection, 
 This was your candour, this was your truth. But let me remind 
 you, that tyranny is its own reward, and that imperfect privilege is 
 the cause and measure of imperfect allegiance. In order to put dov/n 
 the insurgent, put down that penal code by which he is harassed and 
 inflamed. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 329 
 
 Another case to which I beg to refer is that of the civil war or 
 rebellion, or whatever other name you please to give it, in the time 
 of William the Third. On that occasion the Catholics opposed 
 William in defence of their liberties, civil and religious. Liberties, 
 for violating which, the English people had most properly expelled 
 James the Second from the throne. But if James had offered to 
 the English what he offered to the Irish people, would you have 
 called in William and expelled him ? If he had proved the con- 
 queror, and proposed to you the same conditions which William 
 imposed upon the Irish nation, would you have accepted them at his 
 hands, and persevered in your submission, without any effort to 
 procure a relaxation of them ? If they submitted with reluctance, 
 would you, in a similar situation, have submitted with any other 
 feeling ? Whenever sects wage their war of persecution against 
 each other, they will proceed to the last extremes of hostility ; this 
 is no ordinary or generous warfare, and confiscation is not omitted 
 among their weapons of annoyance. An act of attainder was passed 
 against three thousand persons on account of their religion, and it 
 was remarkable that those individuals were all men of property. 
 This was forfeited accordingly to the crown, and parcelled out to its 
 favourites. In the reign of Charles the First forfeiture was a stand- 
 ing branch of the revenue ; the claims of the crown respected no 
 charters ; it held sacred no private rights ; it was not restrained by 
 common shame from despoiling the people of Ireland of their pro- 
 perty and estates. On that occasion the government wished the 
 people to embark their properties on the same security with the 
 establishments ; the people gave in their title deeds, but the Master 
 of the Rolls, an officer of the government, omitted to register them, 
 and the government was flagrant and wicked enough to take advan- 
 tage of the omission, and seize upon the property. Even an impu- 
 dent subject had the audacity to take upon himself the perfidy of 
 the crown, and to declare to the people, that the charters of Ireland 
 were not valid, and that the King of England was not bound by any 
 law. It was this perfidious act that laid the foundation for the 
 blood and massacre which ensued, and which were only the legiti- 
 mate offspring of the unprincipled baseness and perfidy of a tyran- 
 nical, wicked, and illegal government. It would be easy, I think, 
 to show that these atrocious proceedings were the natural result of 
 an atrocious system of misgovernment. Let me caution you not to 
 embrace such a system, if you desire that common security should be 
 the common object of society. If you do, depend on it, not Catholics 
 alone, nor Lishinen, but Protestants, and all persuasions, will revolt 
 
330 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 against laws by which they are painfully distinguished from their 
 fellow-men. Be assured, that no dependence is to be placed upon 
 any man, either Catholic or Protestant, unless governed upon the 
 same principles as the people of this country. 
 
 From this I infer the necessity of repealing the laws for disquali- 
 fying the greatest portion of the people in Ireland, and for keeping 
 alive such odious and painful distinctions in that country. 
 
 Suffer me now, Sir, to enter into a consideration of what has been 
 the established principle of the British government in Ireland. This 
 principle is that of disqualification ; a principle which, whatever we 
 may affect to think of it, in its existence implies a right to govern 
 by conquest. If the Irish were now in a state of half-allegiance, 
 this species of government might be proper and necessary ; if not, 
 the policy is erroneous and unjust. Let us reflect on the necessary 
 limits to all human legislation. No legislature has a right to make 
 partial laws ; it has no right to make arbitrary laws — I mean laws 
 contrary to reason, because that is beyond the power of the Deity. 
 Neither has it a right to institute any inquisition into men's thoughts, 
 nor to punish any man merely for his religion. It can have no 
 power to make a religion for men, since that would be to dethrone 
 the Almighty. I presume it will not be arrogated on the part of 
 the British legislature, that His Majesty, by and with the advice of 
 the Lords spiritual and temporal, and so forth, can enact, that he 
 will appoint and constitute a new religion for the people of this 
 empire ; or, that by an order in council, the consciences and creeds 
 of his subjects might be suspended. Nor will it be contended, I 
 apprehend, that any authoritative or legislative measure could alter 
 the law of the hypothenuse. Whatever belongs to the authority of 
 God, or to the laws of nature, is necessarily beyond the province 
 and sphere of human institution and government. The Roman 
 Catholic, when you disqualify him on the ground of his religion, 
 may with great justice tell you that you are not his God, that he 
 cannot mould or fashion his faith by your decrees. You may inflict 
 penalties, and he may suffer them in silence ; but if parliament 
 assume the prerogative of Heaven, and enact laws to impose upon 
 the people a different religion, the people will not obey such laws. 
 If you pass an act to impose a tax or regulate a duty, the people 
 can go to the roll to learn what are the provisions of the law. But 
 whenever you take upon yourselves to legislate for God, though 
 there may be truth in your enactments, you have no authority to 
 enforce them. In such a case, the people will not go to the roll of 
 parliament, but to the Bible, the testament of God's will, to ascer- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 331 
 
 tain His law and their duty. When once man goes out of hk 
 sphere, and says he will legislate for God, he, in fact, makes him- 
 self God. But this I do not charge upon the parliament, because in 
 none of the penal acts has the parliament imposed a religious creed. 
 It is not to be traced in the qualification oath, nor in the declaration 
 required. The qualifying oath, as to the great number of offices 
 and to seats in parliament, scrupulously evades religious distinc- 
 tions ; a Dissenter of any class may take it, a Deist, an Atheist 
 may likewise take it. The Catholics are alone excepted, and for 
 what reason? Certainly not because the internal character of the 
 Catholic religion is inherently vicious ; not because it necessarily 
 incapacitates those who profess it to make laws for their fellow- 
 citizens. If a Deist be fit to sit in parliament, it can hardly be 
 urged that a Christian is unfit. If an Atheist be competent to legis- 
 late for hi3 country, surely this privilege cannot be denied to the 
 believer in the divinity of our Saviour. But let me ask you if you 
 have forgotten what was the faith of your ancestors, or if you are 
 prepared to assert, that the men who procured your liberties are 
 unfit to make your laws ? Or do you forget the tempests by which 
 the dissenting classes of the community were at a former period 
 agitated, or in what manner you fixed the rale of peace over that- 
 wild scene of anarchy and commotion? If we attend to the pre- 
 sent condition and habits of these classes, do we not find their con- 
 troversies subsisting in full vigour ? and can it be said, that their 
 jarring sentiments and clashing interests are productive of any 
 disorder in the state ; or that the Methodist himself, in all his noisy 
 familiarity with his Maker, is a dangerous or disloyal subject ? 
 Upon what principle can it be argued, that the application of a 
 similar policy would not conciliate the Catholics, and promote the 
 general interests of the empire ? I can trace the continuance of 
 their incapacities to nothing else than a political combination ; a 
 combination that condemned the Catholic religion, not as a heresy, 
 but as a symptom of a civil alienation. By this doctrine, the religion 
 is not so much an evil in itself, as a perpetual token of political dis- 
 affection. In the spirit of this liberal interpretation, you once decreed 
 to take away their arms, and on another occasion ordered all 
 Papists to be removed from London. In the whole subsequent 
 course of administration, the religion has continued to be esteemed 
 the infallible symptom of a propensity to rebel. Known or sus- 
 pected Papists were once the objects of the severest jealousy and 
 the bitterest enactments. Some of these statutes have been repealed, 
 and the jealousy has since somewhat abated ; but the same suspicions, 
 
832 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 although in a less degree, pervade your councils. Your imagina- 
 tions are still infected with apprehensions of the proneness of the 
 Catholics to make cause with a foreign foe. A treaty has lately 
 been made with the King of the Two Sicilies. May I ask, is his 
 religion the evidence of the warmth of his attachment to your 
 alliance ? Does it enter into your calculation as one of the motives 
 that must incline him to our friendship, in preference to the friend- 
 ship of the state professing his own faith ? A similar treaty has 
 been recently entered into with the Prince Regent of Portugal, pro- 
 fessing the Roman Catholic religion, and one million granted last 
 year, and two millions this session, for the defence of Portugal* 
 Nay, even in the treaty with the Prince Regent of Portugal, there is an 
 article which stipulates that we shall not make peace with France un- 
 less Portugal shall be restored to the house of Braganza. And has 
 the Prince of Brazil's religion been considered evidence of his con- 
 nexion with the enemy? You have not one ally who is not Catholic ; 
 and will you continue to disqualify Irish Catholics, who fight with you 
 and your allies, because their religion is evidence of disaffection ? 
 
 But if the Catholic religion be this evidence of repugnance, is 
 Protestantism the proof of affection to the crown and government of 
 England? For an answer, let us look at America. In vain did 
 you send your armies there ; in vain did you appeal to the ties of 
 common origin and common religion. America joined with France, 
 and adopted a connexion with a Catholic government. Turn to 
 Prussia, and behold whether her religion has had any effect on her 
 political character. Did the faith of Denmark prevent the attack 
 on Copenhagen? It is admitted on all sides, that the Catholics 
 have demonstrated their allegiance in as strong a manner as the 
 willing expenditure of blood and treasure can evince. And 
 remember that the French go not near so far in their defence of 
 Catholicism, as you in your hatred of it in your own subjects, and 
 your reverence for it in your allies. They have not scrupled to pull 
 down the ancient fabrics of superstition in the countries subjected to 
 their arms. Upon a review of these facts, I am justified in assum- 
 ing that there is nothing inherent in Catholicism, which either 
 proves disaffection, or disqualifies for public trusts. The immediate 
 inference is that they have as much right as any dissentient sect to 
 the enjoyment of civil privileges and a participation of equal rights ; 
 that they are as fit morally and politically to hold offices in the state 
 or seats in parliament. Those who dispute the conclusion will find 
 it their duty to controvert the reasoning on which it is founded. I 
 do not believe the church is in any danger; but if it is, I am sure 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 333 
 
 that we are in a wrong way to secure it. If our laws will battle 
 against Providence, there can be no doubt of the issue of the con- 
 flict between the ordinances of God and the decrees of man; tran- 
 sient must be the struggle, rapid the event. Let us suppose an 
 extreme case, but applicable to the present point. Suppose the 
 Thames were to inundate its banks, and, suddenly swelling, enter 
 this House during our deliberations (an event which I greatly depre- 
 cate, from my private friendship with many members who might 
 happen to be present, and my sense of the great exertions which 
 many of them have made for the public interest), and a motion of 
 adjournment being made, should be opposed, and an address to Pro- 
 vidence moved, that it would be graciously pleased to turn back the 
 overflow, and direct the waters into another channel. This, it will 
 be said, would be absurd; but consider whether you are acting upon 
 a principle of greater intrinsic wisdom, when, after provoking the 
 resentments, you arm and martialize the ambition of men, under the 
 vain assurance, that Providence will work a miracle in the consti- 
 tution of human nature, and dispose it to pay injustice with affection, 
 oppression with cordial support. This is, in fact, the true character of 
 your expectations ; nothing less than that the Author of the Universe 
 should subvert His laws to ratify your statutes, and disturb the 
 settled course of nature to confirm the weak, the base expedients of 
 man. What says the decalogue? Honour thy father. What says 
 the penal law? Take away his estate! Again, says the deca- 
 logue, do not steal. The law, on the contrary, proclaims, you may 
 rob a Catholic ! The great error of our policy is, that it presup- 
 poses that the original rights of our nature may be violated with 
 impunity, in imagining that a transgression of natural law can be 
 punished only hereafter. But there is an immediate, as well as a 
 future retribution, and a remedy provided by natural causes for this 
 obstruction of natural justice. The early effect of the promulgation 
 of the penal code in Ireland, was to confound tyrant and slave, Pro- 
 testant and Catholic, in one common mass of misery and insignificance. 
 
 A new law against English Catholics, was made in the reign of 
 George II., and mark the result ! when a militia force of 6,000 was 
 wanted, it could not be raised. The Duke of Cumberland, son of 
 George II., would not allow a man to be recruited in Ireland, 
 except perhaps a weaver from the north. And what was the 
 consequence ? We met our own laws at Fontenoy. The victorious 
 troops of England were stopped in their career of triumph by that 
 Irish brigade which the folly of the penal laws had shut oat from 
 the ranks of the British army. 
 
334 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 A little attention will show us that, in the same proportion as we 
 have conceded to the Catholic, have we grown strong and powerful 
 by our indulgence, and that we have been the blind instruments 
 of our own misfortunes, and of inflicting judgment on ourselves, by 
 refusing justice to our fellow-subjects. If it be contended, that to 
 support the church it is expedient to continue these disabilities, I 
 dissent from that opinion. If it could indeed be proved, I should 
 say that you had acted in defiance of all the principles of human 
 justice and freedom, in having taken away their church from the 
 Irish, in order to establish your own, and in afterwards attempting 
 to secure that establishment by disqualifying the people, and 
 compelling them at the same time to pay for its support. This is to 
 fly directly in the face of the plainest canons of the Almighty. For 
 the benefit of eleven hundred, to disqualify four or five millions, is 
 the insolent effort of bigotry, not the benignant precept of Chris- 
 tianity, and all this not for the preservation of their property, for 
 that was secured, but for bigotry, for intolerance, for avarice, for a 
 vile, abominable, illegitimate, and atrocious usurpation. The laws 
 of God cry out against it ; the spirit of Christianity cries out against 
 it ; the laws of England, and the spirit and principles of its consti- 
 tution cry out against such a system. 
 
 An honourable member once expressed his apprehension, that the 
 Catholic, if admitted to a seat in parliament, would exert himself to 
 promote the interests of his own religion, and to dispossess the' 
 Church of England. I must remind the House, however, that it is 
 contrary to every principle of legislation to inflict penalties on 
 supposed offenders, or to punish imaginary crimes, and to deal out 
 chastisement in advance. I ask them to remember, that by the 
 oaths of the Catholics, oaths which we are bound to believe, we have 
 their solemn engagement to defend and preserve the constitution as 
 by law established. If you acknowledge that the church can only 
 be supported on the ruins of Irish liberty, then I say that the church 
 ought not, and cannot, be so supported. The church was estab- 
 lished that men might resort to it for consolation and hope ; it was 
 not made for the king, or for the court, or for men of fashion 
 exclusively. For the people it was instituted, and by its beneficial 
 effects on the people must its excellence be appreciated. It was 
 with this persuasion that the kirk was established in Scotland ; but 
 widely different was the policy with respect to Ireland. Upon no 
 other principle, however, can the church be really recognized as the 
 house of God. It is no longer than it adheres to that principle that 
 it has any foundation in Christianity; when it deserts it, it becomes 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 335 
 
 the asylum of pride, of avarice, of bigotry; an establishment 
 nourished by the worst vices of our nature, and fulfilling its baneful 
 purposes, unlike the church of a Christian God, by dividing, 
 oppressing, and apostatizing mankind. In a political sense, the 
 Irish hold everything by the same tenure as their fellow-subjects in 
 England ; the landlord and tenant claim equally by virtue of the 
 act of settlement. If the government of England chose to say, that 
 the Church of Ireland is not to be secured by law, by the allegiance 
 of the people, by the coincidence between the people and their 
 liberties, but by the title of right and claim of conquest — if they so 
 chose to blaspheme their title, they then must come to this ; they 
 must pause to consider between the laws of God and the policy of 
 man ; they must put their own wisdom into one scale, and in the 
 other, to be weighed against it, place the Almighty ! Let us avoid 
 any situation approaching to such a state of things. 
 
 Upon these various considerations, I submit it to the good sense 
 and justice of the House, that such remaining penalties and incapa- 
 cities as attach upon the Catholics should be removed, that we may 
 unite them with ourselves in a common feeling in a common cause. 
 I freely admit, that if there should recur a period when a French 
 Pope might occupy the pontifical chair, it would be necessary to 
 guard against the exercise of his influence in the nomination of 
 bishops. This, however, is an additional reason, I conceive, to 
 induce the House to go into a committee, in which this 
 particular branch of the question may be fairly discussed. I 
 shall ever be as earnest as any man in my wishes and exertions 
 to prevent the chaos and horrors of foreign invasion or foreign 
 domination. 
 
 It has been asserted that what the Catholics claim is of little value. 
 This is a poor argument against acceding to it. If one person 
 robbed another, would it be any defence of his honesty to urge that 
 what he had stolen was of little value to the owner ? I know there 
 are some who are for entering into certain stipulations with the 
 Catholics ; this is foolish. You can never gain anything with a 
 people by conditions : it is the silliest thing on Earth to think of 
 conciliating by merchandizing their claims. Many there are, some 
 I know, who imagine that the Irish Catholic is indifferent as to the 
 fate of these demands. However, that is not the question ; you 
 have no right to ask them whether they desire, but ask yourselves 
 whether it is just to grant. If you really think them so careless on 
 the subject, all you have established by the argument is this: "We, 
 by our bad government, have so debilitated you, so broken your 
 
336 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 hearts and debased your spirits, that even liberty has become of no 
 account amongst you, and you have no understanding to prize its 
 blessings". Will this be a matter of boast to England ? But 
 liberty is not to be made the creature of circumstance or condition. 
 England ought to know this. What made her, what inspired, what 
 raised her to such eminence in the world as that on which she now 
 stands, but this inherent spirit of liberty ; this spirit, which she was 
 never so reduced as not to think worth contesting for? Did Mr. 
 Hampden ,think so ? was he so senseless ? did he not think that a 
 naked freeman was a nobler object than a superb slave ? 
 
 It has been said that the Catholics of Ireland are too poor and 
 too senseless to wish for any removal of their disqualifications. By 
 the return made to government, it appears that the expenditure of that 
 country, which was but lately not more than one million, has become 
 seven, eight, and ten millions. To say, that a country which 
 expends ten millions is too poor for liberty is false and preposterous. 
 Before the Union, the expenditure of Ireland was £1,600,000 ; and 
 her debt, three millions : she had then a free trade and a free 
 constitution. Since that she has gone on increasing in debt and 
 expenditure ; she has contributed to England, exclusive of her 
 cattle, her provisions., her men, above sixty-five millions of money ; 
 she is the hundred-handed giant, and holding out to you in every 
 hand a benefit. Therefore, when you say to her that she is too poor 
 for liberty, you talk in language unknown to England ; you do not 
 speak the dialect of the people. Depend upon it, when you address 
 Ireland in this Jacobite phrase, you will not argue her out of her 
 wish for liberty ; but you will argue England out of her respect for 
 her freedom. When you once sully your lips with this meanness, 
 this baseness, and this servitude, you will not convey the poison to 
 her, but you will cast a taint upon your own land and your own 
 constitution. You need not gloss over your injustice by the idea 
 that what you refuse is trifling. The Catholics have wisely refrained 
 from stating their grievances in this petition. But what they are 
 excluded from is not a bauble. Do you know what the privileges 
 are, which you refuse to the Irish Roman Catholics? Do you think 
 they merely relate to some insignificant baubles, or that they are 
 merely confined to the obtaining seats in parliament ? They are 
 excluded from seats in this House, from offices in the bank, from the 
 situation of sheriff, from the best places at the bar, from the highest 
 stations in the army, from any participation in the state ; they are 
 deprived of their civil liberties, they are galled by tithes ; and what 
 remedy do you offer them ? Nothing ! 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 337 
 
 While these grievances remain to be removed, let it not be said 
 that the Irish are indifferent to them. You wound the Catholic by 
 taking away from him his civil capacity, and then you vote tithes 
 upon him. You have marked him out as an object of degradation ; 
 you have separated him by disqualification from his Protestant 
 brethren. One set of men are at court, and the other are not. 
 You instigate the lower orders to revile each other ; and if once a 
 servant of the crown be permitted to revile and degrade any portion 
 of his Majesty's subjects, that portion cannot be said to be free, that 
 portion is in every sense degraded. 
 
 It has been said, that the oath of the chief magistrate is a 
 hindrance to any farther extension of privileges to the Catholics. 
 We suppose this oath to be a check, and we suppose this check 
 immutable with respect to alleviating, but changeable with respect 
 to grinding the subject. But this oath can by no means in any sense 
 be construed as an obstacle to the privileges of the Catholics. The 
 imposition of the qualification oath did not take place with regard to 
 Ireland till 1782, because the English Parliament had no right to 
 impose any such oath. What then has been done since the Union? 
 You have taken from us a parliament where Catholics were 
 admissible, and brought us into a parliament where, by the oath of 
 the King, it is pretended that Catholics are inadmissible. And this 
 is what we have got then by the Union ! According to this inter- 
 pretation, the Union was a most monstrous innovation, for it 
 supposes that religion depends alone for support on pains and 
 penalties ; that is, that it is false, and that it does not stand on its 
 own evidence ; it supposes that religion is merely a state trick, and 
 that the first magistrate can alone preserve it by the infliction of 
 pains and penalties. 
 
 It has been said, that the disqualifying oath is a fundamental law 
 of the land. There are, I will allow, laws which are fundamental ; 
 liberty is one of the fundamental principles of our nature ; and the 
 laws which support these fundamental principles must be funda- 
 mental laws. The declaration of rights, for example, is a funda- 
 mental law ; but the laws which deprive the Catholics of their 
 liberty are not fundamental. In this way you would have two sorts 
 of fundamental laws ; you would have the laws which support and 
 maintain you in the possession of your own privileges, and the laws 
 which consign the privileges of the Catholics to damnation ; as if 
 the liberties of 10,000,000 of men could only be secured by making 
 4,000,000 the enemy of that 10,000,000. We must always 
 remember, that to endear a constitution to a people, it must not be 
 
838 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 unjust towards them; and that if a people are interested in a con- 
 stitution, the more likely is that constitution to be lasting. What 
 are the terms of this oath ? It declares that mass is to be held in 
 abhorrence, and that it is an idolatry ; that is to say, that all those 
 Catholic nations who have been your allies are idolaters ; that the 
 Prince Regent of Portugal, whom you are bound to establish on his 
 throne, is an idolater ; the Emperor of Austria is an idolater ; the 
 King of the two Sicilies is an idolater ; that the people of Portugal, 
 to whom you formerly voted one million, and lately two millions, are 
 idolaters ; the Spaniards, your own fellow-subjects of Canada, and 
 four-fifths of your fellow-subjects of Ireland, are idolaters. Thus the 
 qualification of an English gentleman to serve in parliament is a libel 
 on his allies and a libel on his fellow-subjects. It is not easy 
 indeed in all to draw the line of distinction, and say what laws are not 
 fundamental, and what laws are ; but here there is no occasion ; for 
 here are laws which you yourselves have declared not to be funda- 
 mental, but to be provisory. In the Union with Scotland, you 
 expressly say that this is subject to the discretion of parliament ; 
 you say, " until the parliament of the United Kingdom shall other- 
 wise provide Such is the language on this subject, in the twenty- 
 second section of the Scotch Union, and the twenty-fourth of the 
 Irish Union. These laws, therefore, are only provisory, and not 
 fundamental ; you have declared it repeatedly ; and you have thus 
 abandoned the great argument against the admissibility of the 
 Catholics. By the Union, the declaration of right did not exclude 
 for ever the Catholics : that declaration which signifies this is* sub- 
 ject to a future provision. Who are the parties to these Unions ? 
 The King and the parliaments. When I bring up to your table a 
 petition loaded with the multitude of signatures which it contains, 
 let it not be said that the declaration is against them, which the 
 parliament of England and the parliament of Scotland, which the 
 parliament of Britain and the parliament of Ireland, have declared to 
 be no part of the fundamental laws of the land. Why was this 
 clause introduced into the Irish Union ? It was introduced for the 
 sake of facilitating the Union ; it held out to the Catholics the pos- 
 sibility of the removal of their disabilities in the strongest terms ; 
 and it made the King a witness that nothing stood in the way of 
 that removal, that it was a subject free to be debated, that there 
 was no coronation oath against it, and no fundamental law of the 
 land. I appeal to the candour of the House, if this is not a fair 
 construction of the meaning of this clause. I appeal to the com- 
 mon sense and integrity of the nation. I appeal to that old English 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 honour which has, as it were, dove-tailed itself into your constitu- 
 tion. I propose to you a measure which will give you safety, and 
 make your enemies weak. Will you not adopt it ? Why then will 
 you support a principle which tarnishes your national faith ? 
 
 If it is said, we do not like to admit the Catholics to a community 
 of privileges with ourselves, I will ask you if you will allow your* 
 selves to be guided by any such prejudices, to reject a measure which 
 is not more essential to the welfare of the Irish Roman Catholic than 
 essential to your own safety ? What would you think of the conduct 
 of that regiment which should refuse to march with another regi- 
 ment, and to act along with it, because that regiment was Roman 
 Catholic ? Why will you allow yourselves to be under the influence 
 of such uncharitable prepossessions? What must be the conse- 
 quence ? If you will not tolerate one another, you must at last 
 tolerate the conqueror. England is nothing without Ireland, and 
 Ireland is nothing without England. Do you not know that the 
 preservation of your own religion, your liberty, and all your privi- 
 leges, depends on the success of your efforts against the French ? 
 Do you not know that your success depends on your union among 
 yourselves, and that if, instead of being united, you split and 
 separate, you are a ruined nation ? The government may tell you 
 you can wait. Yes ; God Almighty may wait, but will the enemy 
 wait ? I now tell you, unless you tolerate each other, you must 
 tolerate a conqueror. You will be enslaved and plundered, for con- 
 fiscation will surely follow in the train of conquest. Thus your 
 property will go to other hands, and you will be a ruined nation. 
 You may be a very brave nation and a very wise nation : but if in 
 one part of your policy, which is the most essential, you fail, if you 
 split among yourselves, you are a ruined nation. That one error 
 will be your death. It will render you incapable, with all your 
 valour, to contend successfully against your foe, or even to preserve 
 your existence as a nation. I have often wished that some guardian 
 angel would descend, and raise those sectaries from the plain of this 
 world, above the little Babel of their own dissensions, and show them 
 the calamities which were approaching ; show them, in the con- 
 tinuance of their jarring, ruin visible: show them France, or rather, 
 hostile Europe, arrayed against them; and then say: "If you join, 
 you may live ; but divided, the destruction must be universal". 
 
 Amidst all this discussion and dispute about tests, there is one 
 test which has missed the wisdom of the wise, which the politician 
 has not discovered, and which the divine, in his Heavenly folly, has 
 also not discovered, but which has been discovered by the common 
 
840 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 man ; and that is, that you must allow every man to follow his own 
 religion, without restriction and without limitation. Catholicism and 
 allegiance are compatible with one another. The Catholics consti- 
 tute a great proportion of your armies ; a great proportion of your 
 marine force are Catholics ; you continue to recruit your forces with 
 Catholics. A statement has been furnished of the proportion between 
 the Protestant and Catholic part of the forces quartered in the Isle 
 of Wight, and of the crews of several ships at Portsmouth, and the 
 Catholics were by far the greatest proportion. I do not say that the 
 number of each persuasion amounts to exactly what has been there 
 stated ; but I say, that in a view of our maritime and land forces, 
 the numbers of Irish Catholics are such as to be enough to turn the 
 scale of empire. They have enabled you to vanquish those French, 
 for a supposed attachment to whom you disqualify the Irish Catholics. 
 The Russian, the Austrian, and the Prussian armies fled before the 
 armies of France. Neither the insensibility of the Russian soldier, 
 nor the skilful evolutions of the Prussian, availed them in the day of 
 battle ; they all fled before the French armies ; so that, with her 
 collected force, she gave a final stroke to the liberties of Europe* 
 Whatever remained of the glory of Europe fell at the feet of France. 
 In the last contest with Austria, feats of courage were displayed by 
 the Austrians such as could be equalled by nothing but the courage 
 that conquered them, and yet the armies of Austria were in a short 
 time shattered by the armies of France. And if in another part of 
 the continent you have been enabled to oppose that nation with 
 more success, to whom was that success principally to be ascribed ? 
 It was to the Scotch Presbyterian, a steady and gallant soldier ; it 
 was to the Irish Catholic, whom you have incapacitated from honours 
 and rank, and who, while he was exposing to every breeze his gar- 
 ments bathed in the blood of France, was also carrying about him 
 the marks of your disqualification. One regiment, which has lately 
 distinguished itself in a remarkable manner, was raised in Dublin, 
 almost entirely of Catholics. Had the gallant officer* who raised 
 these men, raised soldiers on the principle on which we admit mem- 
 bers of parliament — had he insisted on their renouncing the eucharist 
 and declaring their abhorrence of mass, France would have had one 
 eagle the more, and you would have had one regiment the less ; but 
 that gallant man, far above the folly of theology, did not stop for 
 the sanction of either priest or parson, but told the soldier to draw 
 for his country. 
 
 * Lieut. Gen. Sir John Doyle. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 341 
 
 The question is, therefore, whether Irish Catholics are or are not 
 as capable of allegiance as the Protestants are, of which one should 
 think there could hardly remain a doubt. And if I can collect at 
 present a general sense in favour of the claims of the Roman 
 Catholics, I shall be of opinion that the country may look to the 
 issue of the present contest without dismay, and that she has such a 
 security within herself, that she may behold the utmost efforts of the 
 enemy with tranquillity. [Mr. Grattan then moved, "That the 
 petition of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects be referred to the 
 consideration of a committee of the whole House".] 
 
 April 23, 1812. 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose and said : Sir, I have changed the question, 
 and instead of a committee to consider the petitions, I propose to 
 move for a committee to revise the laws. Thus, every person who 
 thinks that redress should be administered, whether in a greater or 
 a less degree, whether by applying to the executive power to take 
 a leading part in the business (as was the opinion of a right honour- 
 able gentleman, whose opinion deserves every consideration), or by 
 proceeding ourselves to administer relief, must, I say, concur in this 
 motion. The present powers of England chiefly regard Ireland and 
 America ; your efforts in other places must be chiefly influenced by 
 fortune, but here you can arbitrate your own destinies ; here wisdom 
 may save, or folly may undo : and if you err here, you lose, delibe- 
 rately and by your own fault, your strength in the new world and 
 your anchor in the old. 
 
 The question I shall propose is a new one ; it was hitherto deba- 
 ted upon the circumstance, it is on the principle you are now to 
 decide. The doom of Ireland lies before you ; and if you finally 
 decide against her petitions, you declare that three-fourths of the 
 Irish, and one-fourth of the empire, shall be disqualified for ever. 
 When you say, we will not accede to the wishes of Ireland now, and 
 advance no reason, which must not always exist, you mean never, 
 but you do not say never, because you cannot give to the tremen- 
 dous sentence its proper denomination — a sentence abominable, 
 unutterable, unimaginable. 
 
 The sentence purports to disqualify for ever three-fourths of the 
 people of Ireland for adhering in their own country to the religion 
 of their ancestors. Recollect that Ireland is their country, and that 
 your power in that country is founded on her liberties. That religion 
 is then right, and the gospel is their property. Revelation is the 
 
342 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 gift of God, given to man to be interpreted according to the best of 
 that understanding which his Maker has bestowed. The Christian 
 religion is the property of man, independent of the state. The naked 
 Irishman has a right to approach his God without a license from 
 his king ; in this consists his duty here, and his salvation hereafter. 
 Thestatethatpunisheshimforthe discharge of that duty, violates her 
 own, and offends against her God and against her fellow-creature. Yon 
 are the only civilized nation who disqualify on account of religion. 
 
 I allow that where religion is accompanied with any circumstance 
 that tends to disaffection, the state has a right to interfere ; but in 
 that case, it is not the religion that the state touches, but the diaffec- 
 tion, and here that circumstance does not exist, because here we 
 have practical proofs of allegiance. You have read the public 
 papers, you have seen the Gazette. With every repugnance to 
 inquire into the state of the people of Ireland, there are some things 
 which you must know. You know they are lighting and dying in 
 your service, and in this knowledge you learn the falsehood of the 
 calumnies which were once offered against their pretensions, and 
 what is more, oh ! shame to relate it ! admitted as evidence ; their 
 opponents said no Irish Catholic could be loyal to a prince of the 
 House of Hanover ; they said that the Irish Catholic must ever 
 hate an Englishman. They were not aware that they implied that 
 the British government had made itself hated in Ireland, and had 
 misgoverned our country from the beginning ; they said that the 
 Pope claimed in these realms a temporal power, that he claimed 
 a deposing power, that he claimed a power to dispense with 
 moral obligations ; they said that oaths did not bind the Catholic, 
 and that Protestants and Catholics could never amalgamate. 
 Their charges were calumnies, the common calumnies of a 
 scolding sect. They were received as evidence, notwithstanding 
 they were answered by the impossibility of their truth. Had they 
 been true, the Christian religion could not have existed an hour ; 
 had they been true, the Catholic states must have come long ago to 
 moral and political dissolution. They were also answered (they 
 need not have been answered) by six Catholic universities — Paris, 
 Douay, Alcala, Valladolid, Louvaine, Salamanca, the best authority 
 upon the subject. I need not refer to the answers ; they refuted 
 their calumniators ; to silence them was impossible ; they state that 
 the Pope had no temporal power in these countries ; they state that 
 he has no deposing power ; and, regarding the charge of no faith 
 with heretics, they repel the imputation with horror and contempt. 
 These charges are also refuted by the oaths of the Catholics, which 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 the Protestant legislature haci made the test of their loyalty — see 
 the oath of 1793 ; and by another, by the best possible answer, by 
 an answer that sets misinterpretation at defiance, and refutes false 
 logic by sound fact — by the practical allegiance of the Catholic. 
 You have that evidence before you ; you see it in the dispatches 
 which recite you battles ; you yourselves, without knowing, having 
 decided upon the fact. What are your votes of parliament, return- 
 ing thanks to the Catholics in the army and navy ; what are they, 
 but the verdict of the English Parliament in favour of their allegiance ? 
 But those votes of parliament that pronounce the Catholic to be 
 innocent, pronounce the legislature that disqualifies them, to be 
 guilty. Here stands on one side the parliament with a penal 
 sentence in its hand, and on the other, the Catholic with an acquittal 
 by that very parliament ; thus, under your own authority is the 
 Catholic acquitted and the parliament convicted. 
 
 With this practical evidence of their allegiance, and this your own 
 seal and sanction, you have divers Protestant petitions in their 
 favour ; these petitions are prayers for their privileges and evidences 
 for their character. And first, where are the petitions against 
 them? where is the petition from the city of London? where are 
 those instruments that were to have overlaid your table ? Your 
 countrymen have not come here to mock the calamities of the state 
 by petitions to defend England at this perilous moment against the 
 Pope and his seven sacraments ; they have not aggravated the 
 calamities of the state by denouncing an eternal hostility to the 
 civil privileges of three-fourths of the people of Ireland ; they have 
 not petitioned for the perpetual weakness of the empire by deman- 
 ding an everlasting separation of interests. The church too — I have 
 not seen, in any great degree, its interference ; I have not heard the 
 ecclesiastical horn of discord and sedition. Where are the ministers 
 of the gospel, who have left their God to follow the court, to damn 
 their fellow-creatures for pay ? Where are the numerous pulpits 
 blasted by the flag of ecclesiastical prostitution ? Instead of one 
 religion damning another for stipend and promotion, in the person 
 of dull divines, instead of an ill-advised people coming down to 
 parliament with petitions against their fellow-subjects, in the character 
 of mad metaphysicians, I see but three petitions against the 
 Catholics. 
 
 I see, on the other hand, the address of the livery of London, 
 with a clause expressing a desire that civil disabilities should be 
 removed. I see the sense of this great capital favourable, or not 
 adverse, to Irish liberty and English justice. I see wisdom and 
 
344 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 justice, truth and security, speaking in the voice of many thousand 
 Englishmen, petitioning in their favour. I see a petition from the 
 Protestants of Ireland, denominated a Protestant petition, and signed 
 by the greater part of the Protestant proprietors in Ireland ; that 
 petition, unaccompanied by any counter-petition, may be called the 
 Protestant interest of Ireland. The first name is Mr. David Latouche ; 
 that gentleman had originally voted against the Catholics; but 
 seeing the changes of time, and weighing well the public exigency, 
 he now comes forward in their favour : ever a foe to violence, and 
 checking by turns the errors of the crowd and the crimes of the court, 
 independent equally of the king and the people, aloof from all party, 
 and attached solely to the public good, he asserts to the last the integ- 
 rity of his character, and gives the authority of his name and his 
 house to the service of his country. You have in addition to this> 
 the names of the house of Leinster, of Ormond, Meath, &c. &c. 
 
 You have the Protestant merchants, the Presbyterians, and, 
 coupled with the Catholics, this petition may be said to comprehend 
 the property and population of Ireland ; in fact, the petition of 
 Ireland lies upon your table. I congratulate my Protestant brethren 
 in Ireland ; they have asserted the true principles of the gospel, 
 they have asserted the principles of civil liberty, and they give a 
 warning voice to the British empire. If any misfortune should happen, 
 they must share the evil, but they avoid the dishonour. 
 
 Before you dismiss the petitions, let us see who is the petitioner. 
 The kingdom of Ireland, with her imperial crown, stands at your 
 bar ; she applies for the civil liberty of three-fourths of her children. 
 She pays you in annual revenue about six millions : she pays you in 
 interest of debt, about three ; in rent of absentees, about two ; and 
 in commerce, about ten. Above twenty millions of money is compre- 
 hended in that denomination called Ireland ; besides the immeasur- 
 able supply of men and provisions, you quadruple her debt, you add 
 three-fold to her taxes, you take away her parliament, and send her 
 from your bar without a hearing, and with three-fourths of her 
 people disqualified for ever. You cannot do it ; I say you cannot 
 finally do it. The interest of your country would not support you ; 
 the feelings of your country would not support you : it is a proceed- 
 ing that cannot long be persisted in. No courtier so devoted, no 
 politician so hardened, no conscience so capacious. I am not afraid 
 of occasional majorities ; I remember in 1782, to have been opposed 
 by a court majority, and to have beaten down that court majority. 
 I remember, on a similar occasion, to have stood with twenty-five, 
 opposed to a strong majority, and to have overcome that immense 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 S45 
 
 majority. A majority cannot overlay a great principle. God will 
 guard His own cause against rank majorities. In vain shall men 
 appeal to a church-cry, or to a mock-thunder : the proprietor of the 
 bolt is on the side of the people. 
 
 Should you, however, finally resolve upon such a measure, such a 
 penal sentence, recollect how much you will .be embarrassed by 
 engagements, recollect the barrier is removed that formerly stood 
 against the measure I propose. However we may lament the cause, 
 we must acknowledge the fact, and perceive, that the time is now 
 come in which the Catholics were to expect a gracious predilection. 
 They were taught to expect that their wounds would be healed, and 
 their disabilities should cease ; that a great deliverer was on his way, 
 that would wipe the tears of the Irish, and cast upon the royal 
 family a new ray of glory everlasting. They gave themselves up to 
 a passion that was more than allegiance, and followed the leading 
 light, that cheered their painful steps through the wilderness, until 
 they came to the borders of the land of promise, when, behold ! the 
 vision of royal faith vanishes, and the curse which blasted their 
 forefathers, is to be entailed upon their children. In addition to this 
 immeasurable disappointment, you must consider another — you may 
 remember the Union. Without inquiring whether the repeal of 
 Catholic disability was actually promised, it was the expectation of 
 that measure which earned the Union. It is the price for the 
 Union, and an essential part thereof ; you will now pay the purchase 
 of that measure. National honour is power; in trade, it is capital; 
 in the state it is force. The name of England has carried you 
 through a host of difficulties ; we conjure you by that name to 
 accede to those petitions ; should you finally refuse, you repeal the 
 Union ; you declare the Irish and the English to be a distinct people ; 
 you not only declare it, but you do it ; you dissolve the incorpora- 
 tion ; they were kept together by hope, and you divide them by 
 despair; you make them two distinct nations, with opposite and 
 with hostile interests ; the one with civil privileges, the other with- 
 out ; the one in the act of disqualifying the other ; the oppressor 
 and the oppressed. 
 
 The idea of the Union is twofold ; a union of parliament and a 
 union of people. I see the union of parliament, and in that I see 
 the measure which makes the legislature more handy to the minister ; 
 but where are the people ? where is the consolidation ? where is the 
 common interest ? where is the heart that should animate the whole, 
 and that combined giant that should put forth his hundred hands 
 for the state? There is no such thing : the petitioners tell you so; 
 
846 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 they tell you that it is impossible such a policy should last ; a policy 
 that takes away the Parliament of Ireland, and excludes the Catholic 
 from the Parliament of England; a policy that obtained the Union 
 by the hope of admission, and now makes the exclusion everlasting. 
 
 The Catholics now come to you; they have brought their Protes- 
 tant neighbours along with them, and they both call upon you 
 for the civil capacities of the Catholics, and for the integrity of the 
 empire. 
 
 Thus, you perceive, it is no longer a question between the different 
 sects of Ireland, no longer a question regarding the security of the 
 Protestant property or the Protestant church. Far from looking for 
 that security in civil disqualifications, they deprecate those disqualifi- 
 cations as their principal danger, and they reduce the subject to a 
 question between the people of Ireland and t he ministers of the crown. 
 
 So it now stands. But should you wish to support the minister of 
 the crown against the people of Ireland, retain the Union, and perpe- 
 tuate the disqualification, the consequence must be something more 
 than alienation. When you finally decide against the Catholic ques- 
 tion, you abandon the idea of governing Ireland by affection, and 
 you adopt the idea of coercion in its place. National disqualification, 
 national litigation, informations, attachments, an angry press, an 
 angry prosecution, errors on both sides ; men discharged for their 
 virtuous sentiments in favour of the people ; such was the case of 
 Mr. Stanhope ;* domestic feud added to foreign war. Such must 
 be the situation of Ireland ; a situation which is nothing more nor 
 less than preparation to render the Irish mind completely hostile to 
 Great Britain. This misfortune will be very great to both of us. In 
 what particular way it will break out I know not, but I know it will 
 be nun ; when I say ruin, you must know I mean ultimate separa- 
 tion, separation either in fact, or separation in disposition — either 
 will undo us. Nature protests against it : France, with all her 
 powers, could not achieve it ; civil disqualification may. We shall 
 first be destroyed, and your gorgeous empire will follow ; you are 
 mined by the hostility of Ireland, you are ruined by her neutrality. 
 You are therefore pronouncing the doom of England. You, opposed 
 to the population of France, with all her appendages ; you, with 
 only sixteen millions of inhabitants, strike out of actual operation 
 four. Never wa3 an instance of human insensibility so fatally dis- 
 played. The mad Athenian, when for a few bushels of corn he dis- 
 
 * Son of Lord Harrington. He attended and spoke at a dinner in Dublin in 
 favour of the Catholics. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 347 
 
 qualified a part of his fellow-citizens, was not so frantic. The mad 
 Greek, who in the last moments of his existence refused the assist- 
 ance of the West, damned the cardinal, and gave up his empire, was 
 not more frantic. 
 
 A nation fightiug for her existence, a wise nation, a civilised nation, 
 striking out of operation one-fourth of her people, deliberately, in her 
 senses, for no reason — the eucharist is no reason, the worship of the 
 Virgin Mary is no reason ; arguments of public scorn, if they were 
 not the cause of public nun — without any cause, except we suppose 
 that the hand of death precipitates the empire ; I say, you are 
 pronouncing the doom of England. If you ask how the people of 
 Ireland feel towards you, ask yourselves how you would feel towards 
 us, if we disqualified three-fourths of the people of England for ever. 
 The day you finally ascertain the disqualification of the Catholic, 
 you pronounce the doom of Great Britain. It is just it should be so. 
 The king who takes away the liberty of his subjects loses his crown; 
 the people who take away the liberty of their fellow- subjects lose 
 their empire. 
 
 The gentlemen who are invited by the call, think, perhaps, they 
 are presiding over a few penal laws affecting the Irish, or exercising 
 a lazy tyranny in the easy chair of pride and security : depend upon 
 it they are mistaken. You are presiding over the fame and fortune 
 of that great renowned empire called Great Britain. The scales of 
 your own destinies are in your own hands ; and if you throw out 
 the civil liberty of the Irish Catholic, depend on it, Old England 
 will be weighed in the balance, and found wanting : you will then 
 have dug your own grave, and you may write your own epitaph, 
 namely : 
 
 " England died, because she taxed America and disqualified 
 Ireland". 
 
 It is worthy to inquire how many rights you violate in order to 
 destroy yourselves and your fellow-subjects. You assume a right to 
 make partial laws, or laws against the very principles of legislation. 
 You govern one part of the society by one code, and the other by a 
 distinct one. You make laws as arbitrary as they are partial, that 
 is to say, you disqualify one part of the society for differences not 
 more essential in apolitical point of view, than colour or complexion ; 
 as if you should say, no man shall be a general who has black hair, 
 no man shall be a member of parliament who has brown. Yon not 
 only make partial and arbitrary laws, but you invade the sacred 
 right of religion, and you, with a. sentence which is eternal, invade 
 the sacred cause of liberty. 
 
348 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 They say yoti have power to regulate qualifications ; that is, you 
 are a trustee for the privilege ; but if, under pretence of regulation, 
 you destroy the privilege, you exceed your power and violate your 
 trust. Thus, if you enacted that no man who had less than £3,000 
 a-year should be a member of parliament, you would disqualify the 
 people of England, and break your trust. Thus, when you, on the 
 pretence of regulation, forbid the Catholic to sit in parliament, you 
 pisqualify a great part of the people of Ireland, and break your trust. 
 
 It is said, parliament may do partial ill for the general good. Yes ; 
 but the majority cannot take away the liberty of the minority ; for 
 this never can be the general good ; still less, can the minority, as 
 in the case of Ireland, take away the liberty of the majority ; that 
 would be a breach of the principle by which the society is compacted. 
 You cannot rob one part of the society of her property, to enrich the 
 community ; still less, can you rob one part of the society of her 
 liberty ; and least of all, can you do that in the case of Ireland, 
 which is connected with England, as that liberty is protected. 
 
 When the general good means the existence of the state, there 
 the ruling power may abandon a part to save the remainder. But 
 what is understood by the general good in its modern application ? 
 It means power, as opposed to liberty : such was the case in the 
 American stamp act ; such was the case of the British statutes that 
 restrained the trade of Ireland ; such is the case now ; it is the 
 power of one sect over the privileges of the other : and what is that, 
 but the disqualification of the part, and the dismemberment of the 
 whole ? Whenever one sect degrades another on account of religion, 
 such degradation is the tyranny of a sect. When you enact, that, 
 on account of his religion, no Catholic shall sit in parliament, you do 
 what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. When you enact, that no 
 Catholic shall be a sheriff, you do what amounts to the tyranny of 
 a sect. When you enact, that no Catholic shall be a general, you do 
 what amounts to the tyranny of a sect. There are two descriptions of 
 laws : the municipal law, which binds the people ; and the 
 law of God, which binds the parliament and the people. When- 
 ever you do any act which is contrary to His laws, as expressed 
 in His work, which is the world, or in His book the Bible, 
 you exceed your right ; whenever you rest any of your estab- 
 lishments on that excess, you rest it on a foundation which 
 is weak and fallacious; whenever you attempt to establish your 
 government, or your property, or your church, on religious restrictions, 
 you establish them on that fals.e foundation, and you oppose the 
 Almighty ; and though you had a host of mitres on your side, you 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 349 
 
 banish God from your ecclesiastical constitution, and freedom from 
 your political. In vain shall men endeavour to make this the cause 
 of the church ; they aggravate the crime by the endeavour to make 
 their God their fellow in the injustice. Such rights are the rights 
 of ambition : they are the rights of conquest : and, in your case, 
 they have been the rights of suicide. They begin by attacking 
 liberty ; they end by the loss of empire. 
 
 In all matters where the legislature interferes, you will take care 
 to distinguish between nomination and eligibility. Nomination is the 
 right of the person who nominates, and eligibility of the person who 
 is nominated. 
 
 Eligibility is a common-law right, and can only be taken away by 
 act of parliament : but parliament can only take it away for crimes or 
 unfitness : religion is neither. You cannot take away eligibility, which 
 is a common-law right, on account of religion, which is a right also. 
 
 The clause of disqualification consists of three heads : the super- 
 stition of the eucharist ; the adoration of the Mother of God ; and 
 the Papal power. The two first are merely matters of religion, 
 which the state has no right to investigate, and snch as form an 
 objection, which must be, and which is, for the most part entirely 
 abandoned. Two parts of the objection, then, are disposed of ; and 
 a third only remains ; and that third, namely, the power of the 
 Pope, is reduced to a mere spiritual authority : nor are the 
 arguments founded, which say, that spiritual and temporal power 
 are inseparable ; and which instance, as proof of their insepara- 
 bility, marriage and excommunication. There is no solidity in their 
 observation nor their instance, inasmuch as marriage is a civil 
 contract ; and all its consequences, inheritance, and legitimacy, and 
 so forth, depend on the civil quality of that contract, and cannot 
 be affected by a spiritual connexion, of which the law has no 
 conception, and to establish which no evidence is admissible. This 
 matter has been settled by the act which allows Catholics to be on 
 juries, and therefore allows them safe and competent to try the 
 validity of marriage. The same may be said of excommunication, 
 which is an authority which cannot be enforced ; attended by an 
 obedience which cannot be commanded, the ecclesiastic who attempts 
 to enforce such a power, is subject to a prosecution ; and the 
 parishioner who is injured is entitled to damages, and damages have 
 been given accordingly. To this objection there are further 
 answers : the law and the fact. The law, which has made the 
 distinction between temporal and spiritual, and has (see 14th and 
 1 5th of the king) reduced that distinction to an oath, to be taken 
 
 1G 
 
850 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 by Catholics under the authority of an act of parliament. It is 
 remarkable, that in our dealings with the Catholics, the arguments 
 of their opponents have been answered by their laws. They say, 
 the Catholics are not credible on their oaths ; and they have made, 
 by act of parliament, their oath the test of allegiance. They say, 
 that temporal and spiritual power are inseparable; and they have 
 made them distinct by act of parliament. They say, that the dis- 
 qualifying oath is a fundamental part of the law of the land ; and 
 they have declared by the fourth article of the act of Union, that 
 oath to be pro visionary, not fundamental. They say, that by the 
 constitution the Catholics should have no political power ; and they 
 have made them by act of parliament, that is, by the act of Union, 
 a part of the Commons, that is, of the third estate of the empire. 
 Thus, they speak to the Catholic with a double tongue, and then 
 most piteously exclaim : " These Romanists will keep no faith with 
 heretics". In further answer to their objection, which confounds 
 spiritual with temporal power, and which supposes the Pope to 
 divide with the prince the allegiance of his subjects, we have the 
 fact as well as the law. Let the princes of Europe tell how far the 
 Pope has shared or divided the loyalty of their Catholic subjects. 
 Let the Pope declare how far he commanded the allegiance of the 
 Roman Catholics in Europe, when he was dragged from his palace 
 — this dreaded interpreter of the Scriptures, and this joint proprietor 
 of allegiance, dragged to Paris through an immense extent of 
 Catholic country, at the wheels of the car of a Catholic prince, 
 without a sword in his support, or an arm to defend him ! Or 
 say, what succour has he in all his afflictions experienced, except 
 when, on the shoulders of the Protestant government of England, 
 this unhappy old man was supported, an image of frail fortune and 
 extinguished authority, until he was finally resigned to captivity and 
 oblivion, the sole attendants on his state, without an effort to restore, 
 or a partizan to console him, "more formidable than ever", exclaims 
 the petition of Cambridge ; and on this solid observation piously 
 prays the legislature to impose on four millions of her fellow-sub- 
 jects eternal disabilities. To this learned university how formidable 
 then must the house of Bourbon appear. Like the Pope, that house 
 has lost its dominions. How formidable Ferdinand of Spain ; like 
 the Pope, he has lost his liberty, and is possessed of all the resources 
 that proceed from captivity and deposition. How criminal must 
 our government appear, according to this reasoning, who pay above 
 £20,000,000 to support in Spain and Portugal the respective 
 governments in church as well as state, and of course, are contending 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 351 
 
 to set up again the powers of France, in the person of the Pope, 
 now represented to be more formidable than ever. See then how 
 your right stands; of three objections, two are abandoned; the 
 third reduced to a spiritual, and that spiritual power now reduced 
 to nothing ! 
 
 You profess to tolerate religion; you do not tolerate religion when 
 you punish it. Disability is punishment; it is a punishment in a 
 very high degree. You cannot say, that an application to get rid 
 of that punishment is an application for power ; it is an application 
 for protection. Civil capacities are defence ; they are necessary to 
 protect the Catholic against the injustice of a partial trial ; they are 
 necessary to protect him against the hardships of being taxed and 
 bound by a body of which he constitutes no part: when the 
 Catholics desire eligibility to the office of sheriff, they desire a pro- 
 tection against juries exclusively Protestant, modelled by a party 
 sheriff ; they desire that their lives and properties may not be tried 
 exclusively by those who disqualify them. If this be ambition, it is 
 the ambition of not being hanged by a party jury, the ambition of 
 not being robbed by a party sheriff packing a party jury. On a 
 question touching Catholic claims, the Eoman Catholics have not 
 now a fair trial in Ireland; in a case between Catholics and Pro- 
 testants they have not the benefits even which foreigners possess. 
 I do not say this applies to ordinary cases, but I do say that where 
 there is a question touching their exertions to obtain civil privileges, 
 they have not a fair trial. How many Catholics were j my men on 
 the late trials for the violation of the convention acts ? not one ; 
 they are not only deprived of the great executive offices of their 
 country, but of the great protective principles by which their lives 
 and properties shall be defended. They are excluded from the 
 office of sheriff by which juries are empannelled, and from that legis- 
 lative body by which taxes are imposed. 
 
 Gentlemen call for security; we call for security; we call for 
 security against a policy which would make the British name in Ire- 
 land odious ; we call for security against a policy which would make 
 the British faith in Ireland equivocal ; we call for security against a 
 policy which would disinherit, disqualify, and palsy a fourth part of 
 the empire, 
 
 When gentlemen on the other side call for security, let them state 
 the danger : does the danger consist in the eucharist, or in the poli- 
 tical consequences attending the real presence? does the danger 
 exist in worship of the Virgin Mary ? does the danger exist in an 
 attachment to the house of Stuart ? Let the opponents give us some 
 
352 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 serious reason ; let them afford us some apology to after ages for 
 inflicting on a fourth of our fellow-subjects political damnation to 
 all eternity. They have but one danger to state ; let us hear it ; it 
 is the Pope, and the influence of France upon that power. He has 
 at present no power ; France has no influence over him, and the 
 Irish Catholic no communication: the danger, therefore, is prospec- 
 tive. What securities have they taken against it ? domestic noini* 
 nation ? No, they have declared it impracticable and inadequate. 
 You might have had the veto; you might have had it in 1801, when 
 you had the Pope in your power ; you might have had it in 1805, 
 when you rejected Mr. Fox's proposition; and I believe you might 
 have had it in 1808 ; but you lost it. Well, domestic nomination 
 they say will not do ; the veto, they say, will not do. Have they 
 any other measure ? Do they propose a plan for making proselytes? 
 Do they propose to discontinue recruiting from the Catholic body ? 
 They have no plan but civil disabilities, that is to say, national dis^ 
 qualification is the odium of the British name, and the hostility of 
 the Irish people, and what is that but ultimate separation ? Sepa^ 
 ration in fact, or separation in disposition. They have talked much 
 of the security of the church, much of the security of the state, and 
 much of the necessity to fortify both ; and the only security they 
 propose for either is virtual or actual separation. For this, the 
 church has been expected to preach, and the people to petition. 
 They tell you, that there is a great danger in the relative situation 
 of the Pope with regard to France ; they suggest to you, of course, 
 that some remedy is necessary, and they produce a remedy which 
 does not act upon the disease, but is of itself another disorder, that 
 goes to the dissolution of the empire. For this has Oxford, for 
 this has Cambridge, petitioned, with good intentions I must sup- 
 pose; but they have petitioned for the dismemberment of the 
 empire. 
 
 Sensible of this, the people have not crowded your table with 
 applications against the Catholics; on the contrary, the propeity and 
 the Protestant interest of Ireland have petitioned for them ; and, in 
 addition to this, a number of leading characters in England have 
 declared they cannot accept of office without taking measures for the 
 relief of the Catholics. This is a great security ; in this security, 
 with other circumstances, I would advise the Catholics to place much 
 confidence. Nothing could be more fatal to their cause than despair : 
 they may be certain that their application must ultimately succeed, 
 and that nothing can add to its natural strength more than the 
 temper with which it is conducted. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 353 
 
 I know the strength of the cause I support ; it must appeal to all 
 the quarters of the globe; aud it will walk the Earth and flourish, 
 when dull declamation shall be silent, and the peit sophistry that 
 opposed it shall be forgotten in the grave, I cannot think that the 
 civil capacities of millions, coupled with the cause of this empire, 
 which is involved in their fate, shall owe their downfall to folly and 
 iuanition. As well might I suppose the navy of England to be 
 blown out of the ocean by a whirlwind raised by witches, or that 
 your armies in Spain and Portugal should be laid prostrate by Har- 
 lequin and his wooden sword, as that such interests as I now sup- 
 port should be overturned by a crew of quaint sophisters, or by 
 ministers, with the aid of a few studious but unenlightened ecclesi- 
 astics, acting under the impulse of interest and the mask of religion. 
 The people, if left to themselves and their good understanding, will 
 agree ; it is learned ignorance only that would sever the empire. 
 
 As the call of the House may have brought together many gentle- 
 men who did not attend the former debates on the subject, I beg to 
 apprise them of some further objections with which they must 
 expect to be encountered. They will be told, that the people of 
 Ireland are base and barbarous, and are not equal to the exercise of 
 civil capacities ; that is, that the first order of Catholic gentlemen 
 in Ireland, who are to be affected by the repeal of these laws, are 
 base and barbarous; that is to say, that in the course of 600 years, 
 the British government in Ireland has made the people of that 
 country base and barbarous, or, in other words, that your govern- 
 ment has been in Ireland a public calamity. They state the Chris- 
 tian religion, as exercised in Ireland by the majority of the people, 
 to be another cause of this evil ; and thus they suggest, as the only 
 remedy, the adoption of a measure which would banish from that 
 island her government and her religion. The folly, the indecency, 
 and the insanity, of these objections do not deserve an answer. 
 
 They will tell you, moreover, that the spirit of the act of settle- 
 ment, which deposed the reigning prince for his attack on civil and 
 religious liberty, commits the very crime it punishes, and goes to 
 deprive of civil liberties one-fourth of your fellow-subjects for ever. 
 Desire those men who tell you so, to show the clause in the act of 
 settlement of such an import ; and ask them why they, in defiance 
 of an express provision in the act, raise foreign Catholics to the 
 highest rank in the army ? Ask them why the eucharist, which 
 overpowers the understanding, as they suppose, of Lord Fingall or 
 Sir Patrick Bellew, has no effect on these foreigners? and why they 
 abandon their prejudices in favour of strangers, and advance them 
 
854 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 only to proscribe the natives of their country ? They will tell you 
 that the disqualifying oath is a fundamental part of the act of Union. 
 Desire them to read the act of union : they will there find the 
 disqualifying oath is directly the contrary; that by the fourth 
 article of the Union it is expressly declared to be provisionary, not 
 fundamental : and you may add, that herein is a provision by act of 
 parliament, declaring that the excluding oath, as prescribed at the 
 Revolution, is not a fundamental part of the constitution. The same 
 declaration will be found in the Scotch Union. Thus all the parlia- 
 ments of these realms have repeatedly declared that the disqualifying 
 oath is not a fundamental part of the constitution ; and, therefore, 
 against the argument of the minister on this head, you may quote 
 the two acts of Union, and also the authority of those who voted for 
 the Irish act of Union, that is to say, some of the ministers them- 
 selves, and also of those who drew up the Irish act of Union, who, 
 I apprehend, were some of themselves. Ask them, have they set 
 forth in this act of parliament, that the disqualifying oath was 
 provisionary, and, after obtaining the Union, will they now belie 
 their own law, and assert that the oath is fundamental ? They will 
 tell you, that by the constitution of the country, the parliament is 
 Protestant. Ask them, are not the Commons a part of parliament? 
 and are not they in no small proportion Catholic ? The persons who 
 argue with you thus against the Catholics, have sworn the oath at 
 your table. Desire them to read it, and there they will find no 
 profession of faith whatever ; that Christianity itself is no part of 
 the qualification ; that any man can take that oath except a Catholic. 
 Ask them, whether that exclusion was not on account of political 
 combinations formerly existing in Europe ? ask them whether they 
 continue ? and, in answer to all their objections and jealousy, ask 
 them why they continue to fill their navy and army in such an 
 immense proportion with men whose race they affect to distrust, and 
 therefore they presume to disqualify ? Ask the generals and admirals 
 how these men act in the fleet and in the field ? Read the lists of the 
 killed and wounded, and see in what number these men have died 
 in your service : read the Irish names of wounded officers ; recollect 
 that they cannot be generals, and see in their practical allegiance a 
 complete answer to all objections. Tell them they must extend their 
 constitution to their empire, or limit their empire to their church 
 establishment. Or, if you wish for further information, do not 
 apply to the court, but ask the country; ask the Protestant 
 gentlemen of Ireland ; ask the house of Leinster ; ask the house 
 of Ormond ; ask the great landed proprietors of the country, men 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 355 
 
 who must stand the brant of danger ; ask their petition ; and 
 do not, in the face of their opinion, decide against the civil 
 privileges of a fourth of your own people ; do not hazard the 
 name of England on such a principle ; do not hazard the empire of 
 England on such an experiment. 
 
 I appeal to the hospitals, which are thronged with the Irish who 
 have been disabled in your cause, and to the fields of Spain and 
 Portugal, yet drenched with their blood, and I turn from that policy 
 which disgraces your empire, to the spirit of civil freedom that 
 formed it : that is the charm by which your kings have been appoin- 
 ted, and in whose thunder you ride the waters of the deep. I call 
 upon these principles, and upon you to guard your empire, in this 
 perilous moment, from religious strife, and from that death-doing 
 policy which would teach one part of the empire to cut the throats 
 of the other, in a metaphysical, ecclesiastical, unintelligible warfare. 
 
 I call upon you to guard your empire from such an unnatural 
 calamity, and four millions of your fellow-subjects from a senseless, 
 shameless, diabolic oppression. You come on the call of the House 
 to decide, as you suppose, a great question regarding the people of 
 Ireland. You have to say to them : We are ruined ; unless we 
 stand by one another, we are ruined ; and they have to say to you : 
 We require our liberties ; our lives are at your service. 
 
 He then moved, " That it be referred to a committee to consider 
 the state of the laws imposing civil disabilities on His Majesty's 
 subjects professing the Catholic religion". 
 
 February 25, 1813. 
 
 Sir, I am very happy that the right honourable gentleman has 
 caused those passages in the bill of rights to be read to the House, 
 for I am distinctly of opinion, that the qualifications which it 
 enumerates as the indispensable accompaniments of the sovereignty 
 of this empire, ought to form a part of the preamble of any bill that 
 may be introduced into parliament for the relief of the Roman 
 Catholics. For, sir, it is most necessaiy and most wise, that when- 
 ever we admit the Catholics to the privileges which they claim, we 
 should insure to the Protestants the unendangered continuance of all 
 the privileges which are founded on the act of settlement. The same 
 measure which gives liberty to one, should give security to the other. 
 I rise, sir, to support the petition, which some time ago I had the 
 honour to present from the Catholics of Ireland. I am sure that I 
 
356 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 may say, without fear of contradiction, that this petition is generally 
 from the Catholics of Ireland ; that it is substantially true ; and that 
 it conveys the wishes of the whole body. The motion which I mean 
 to make is, that the House will resolve itself into a committee, in 
 pursuance of the resolution which, at the desire of my right honour- 
 able friend, has been read by the clerk at the table. Sir, I know 
 very well that a resolution of a former parliament cannot bind its 
 successor. At the same time, I do not conceive that I am guilty of 
 any impropriety in referring to the resolution of a former parliament. 
 I have to lament, and it would be miserable affectation not to acknow- 
 ledge it, that the petitions against the claims of the Catholics are 
 very numerously and very respectably signed. I have to lament that 
 there are still in my native country many individuals, enlightened in 
 other respects, but fallible on the subject of religious distinctions. I 
 have also to lament and condemn the venomous manner in which 
 some of these petitions denounce the Catholics. I will avoid the 
 example ; and, in the allusions which I may find it necessary to make 
 to the Protestant petitions, I will speak of those from whom they 
 have proceeded with the highest respect. I respect and love many 
 of them, I dissent partially from their opinions ; but I respect and 
 love them personally. Nay, more ; I will consider them not as pre- 
 sent enemies, but as future friends to the Catholics. They live in 
 the same country, they are embarked in the same cause, they have 
 the same battles to fight against the common enemy for the common 
 interest. Never can it be my wish to w r iden the breach between 
 great bodies of men. The particular object of the Catholic petition 
 is general concord. Never can I think that any difference in religion 
 must necessarily lead to civil discord. Never can I believe that 
 revelation came down to us a firebrand, to justify parliament in 
 withholding from a part of the subjects of the realm their just 
 rights. 
 
 Sir, I am the more induced to hope that the cause which I have 
 undertaken humbly to advocate, will ultimately be successful, because 
 I recollect that in the Irish Parliament of 1792, some general and 
 strong resolutions were adopted against the claims then made by the 
 Catholics, and that, in the next session, more was actually granted to 
 the Catholics than they had claimed. The understanding of the Irish 
 parliament enlarged with the exigency of the state. I trust that 
 this will be the case with us. With this view to the ultimate suc- 
 cess of Catholic emancipation, I beg leave to make a few observa- 
 tions on the anti-Catholic petitions on your table, using that liberty 
 with the arguments they contain, that my cause may require, but 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 357 
 
 maintaining the greatest respect for the persons who have signed 
 them, and whom, I am persuaded, are sincere in that which I, never- 
 theless, consider to be a very mistaken view of this most important 
 subject. 
 
 In the first place, I object to the manner in which, in many 
 instances in this country, and more particularly in Ireland, these 
 petitions have been obtained. In Ireland, they have been the con- 
 sequence of a requisition to the sheriffs of the respective counties, to 
 call a meeting of the Protestant inhabitants. Now, it appears to 
 me to be exceedingly objectionable for a public officer to call the 
 people together in sects, and to give to a private and party meeting 
 the authority of a public assembly. Again, it appears to me 
 exceedingly objectionable, thus to separate religious sects, and to 
 give the semblance of public authority to religious animosities. I 
 object again to calling one part of his Majesty's subjects to petition 
 against another ; and still more do I object to their petitioning 
 another country against the liberties of their own. 
 
 Sir, I beg not to be understood as casting any reflections on the 
 Irish Protestant petitioners ; but their object has evidently been 
 neither more nor less than this — to entreat the parliament of this 
 country not to grant civil liberty to the great body of the people of 
 Ireland. They petition us to inflict on their countrymen a sentence 
 of perpetual incapacity : they petition us to announce to Ireland the 
 destination of being for ever a divided colony, and to impress on the 
 general sense an acquiescence in the necessity of this being a divided 
 empire. Sitting for a moment, they have given judgment for 
 eternity. Let us consider a little their reasons for this judgment. 
 One of the first observations which these petitions contain is, that 
 the tone which the Catholics have assumed, renders it unwise to grant 
 their claims. But that is not the question. We are not in the par- 
 liament of the United Empire entering into an examination of the 
 arguments that may have been urged in this or that body. We 
 are not inquiring whether Mr. A or Mr. B may or may not have 
 spoken too freely. What has the conduct of any particular assembly 
 to do with the great body of the Catholics ? The question is, Shall 
 the great body of the Catholics of Ireland be emancipated ? The 
 opponents of the Catholic claims say, that they ought not to be 
 emancipated, because Mr. Fitzpatrick published a libel. But this is 
 not a question dependent on such circumstances, I do not say that 
 there may not have been much warmth exhibited in discussions in 
 Ireland ; but I say that the question is, Can you in any of their pro- 
 ceedings, charge tf j £ Catholics with want of allegiance ? It is a 
 
358 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 question of allegiance. If it can be proved that the Catholics of 
 Ireland have shown a disposition adverse to royalty, then my motion 
 ought to be rejected. But if, on the contrary, there does not appear 
 any disaffection in their proceedings, in their speeches, or in their 
 general conduct, then the resolution of thanks to the Irish Catholics, 
 which was involved in the resolution of thanks to the army who 
 gained the victory of Salamanca, should be followed up in its full 
 and genuine spirit, and the Catholics of Ireland should be considered 
 as entitled to the same civil liberties as the other loyal subjects of 
 his Majesty's empire have a natural and legal right to possess. 
 
 Having thus stated the question to be one of allegiance, let us 
 proceed, sir, to examine how the an ti- Catholics have made out their 
 case. They say that the Catholics desire political power. Why 
 should they not ? Why should they be sentenced to utter and hope- 
 less exclusion from all political power ? But, sir, the Catholics have 
 not applied for political power. They have applied for political 
 protection, and no farther for political power than as political power 
 is inseparable from political protection. The Catholics, having given 
 pledges of their allegiance, desire not to be bound in fetters from 
 which their fellow-subjects are free ; they desire not to be taxed 
 without their own consent ; they desire not to be tried by persons 
 who are exclusively partizans — not only partizans, but who are 
 actually covenanted against them. To the inquiry, " What is your 
 wish ?" they reply, " W T e wish for our liberties. We do not demand 
 this or that office, but we desire to possess our just civil qualifica- 
 tions". Do you understand them? Is this ambition? If it is 
 ambition, then was Magna Charta ambition — then was the Declara- 
 tion of Rights ambition. Protection, not power, is the request of 
 the Catholics. The Catholic petitioners ask for protection ; it is the 
 Protestants who ask for power. The Protestants ask for the 
 ascendency of* their sect ; the Catholics ask for the ascendency of 
 the law. Let me repeat, that I wish to treat the Protestants with 
 all possible respect. It is natural that they should be tenacious of 
 their peculiar privileges. But, unquestionably, they desire, by their 
 petitions, to keep all the patronage of Ireland in their hands ; to 
 maintain a continued ascendency : to govern the other sects in the 
 country. While the Catholics only desire in their petitions that the 
 whole should be governed by an equal law, the Protestant petitioners 
 assert, that the Catholics want power in order to make laws for the 
 Protestant church. No ; they only desire, as I have before stated, 
 not to be taxed without their own consent — not to be tried by par- 
 tizans, or juries called by partizans. Their prayer is, that the Pro- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 359 
 
 testant church should be governed, not by Catholics, but by Pro- 
 testants ; for the Catholics know, and the Protestants know, that 
 under any circumstances, and after any concessions, the majority in 
 this House must be Protestants, and that by that majority the laws 
 for the Protestant church must be made. But the members of the 
 Protestant church who have petitioned us, desire us to make laws 
 exclusively for the Catholic church. They wish to control the 
 conscience of the Catholic, as well as to bind him in other respects. 
 They are willing to receive the tithes of Catholic labour, but they 
 desire to exclude the Catholic from a participation in the blessings 
 of the constitution. Their argument is this : " The persons who regu- 
 late the Protestant church should be of that church ". Why, then, 
 all the Scotch members of this House ought to be sent away. All 
 who do not profess to hold the doctrines of the Church of England 
 ought to be sent away. The tendency of the argument of these 
 gentlemen is, that we ought to have a church government. But 
 ours is not a church government, it is a representative government ; 
 it includes all classes, all religions, all descriptions of persons, except 
 the Catholic and the churchman. The principle on which these 
 gentlemen insist will prove fatal. If you confine the enjoyments of 
 the constitution to the limits of the Church of England, you will 
 endanger the empire ; if you extend it to all religious persuasions, 
 you will place the empire in a state of security. 
 
 The parliament is justly called imperial. It is not a partizan. 
 The Catholics of Ireland make a part of the third estate. Is it not 
 so ? Is not the great body of electors in Ireland Catholic ? Does 
 it not follow, that a part, and that no inconsiderable portion, of the 
 third estate is already Catholic ? And can we for a moment sup- 
 pose, that this is incompatible with the genuine principles of the 
 British constitution ? But the fact is, sir, that the Protestants will 
 and must have the ascendency in the state. The great population 
 of the empire is Protestant ; the great property of the empire is Pro- 
 testant. This ascendency the Protestants have a right to possess ; 
 but they ought to possess it, not by the exclusion of their fellow- 
 subjects from a participation of civil liberty, but in virtue of their 
 superior numbers and property. Sir, in the provision for the royal 
 authority being exclusively Protestant, the Protestant interest has 
 another great and wise security for the maintenance of its ascendency. 
 The admission of the Catholics to their civil rights will be entirely 
 coexistent with the maintenance of the Protestant ascendency ; and, 
 by granting that admission, you will strengthen and fortify the whole 
 empire. To grant the Catholics their privileges will be to identify 
 
360 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 the people; for it is by granting them their rights that you must 
 expect to identify them, and not by keeping them in chains. To 
 grant the Catholics their privileges, maintaining the just ascendency 
 of the Protestants, will be much more effectually to support the state, 
 and much more effectually to support the church, than either can be 
 supported by a monopoly of power, and without that identification 
 of the people of the two countries, which such a measure alone can 
 insure. Superficial, indeed, are the arguments of the opposers of 
 emancipation ; they think, that the admission of five or six indi- 
 viduals (such men as Lord Fingali and other enlightened members 
 of the Catholic body) into parliament will be productive of injurious 
 consequences ; but to the alienation of four or five millions of per- 
 sons out of parliament, they attach no importance ! A right 
 honourable gentleman has talked of the pains and penalties which, as 
 he thinks, were justly inflicted on the Catholics at the time of the 
 Revolution. They were not, however, the effects of the Revolution, 
 but took place long after the reign of Queen Anne. As to the ex- 
 clusion of the Catholics from political power at the period of the 
 Revolution, that was not an original idea at that period, but arose 
 out of, and was founded on, the fabricated plot of Titus Oates, the 
 severities occasioned by which were even mitigated at the Revolu- 
 tion. And will parliament make the madness of that time the rule 
 by which the liberty of their fellow- subjects is to be regulated at all 
 times ? 
 
 " But ", say the anti-Catholics, " toleration in England is greater 
 than in any other country ". Sir, I know very well, that the prin- 
 ciples of every established church are in some degree hostile to 
 toleration ; there is scarcely any church which will tolerate so exten- 
 sively and liberally as a wise parliament ought to do. But when it 
 is maintained that toleration in England exceeds that of any other 
 country, and that it is perfect, I must declare my opinion to be the 
 reverse. 
 
 Abroad, in Catholic countries, persons professing a difference of 
 religious sentiments, enjoy not only toleration, but qualification. At 
 home, in a Protestant country, persons professing a difference of 
 religious sentiments, are not only disqualified, but hardly tolerated. 
 Abroad, sectaries enjoy toleration, united with qualification. Here, 
 they have a scanty toleration, united with pains and penalties. In 
 France, for instance, no man is disqualified on account of his religious 
 opinions. In Hungary, toleration and qualification are completed. 
 I will read an edict issued by the Hungarian Diet in 1791. It 
 declares, "that all persons shall have free exercise of their respec- 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION'. 
 
 3r;i 
 
 tive religions, with full liberty to build churches, erect steeples, 
 found schools, form church-yards, and so forth, without impediment". 
 So much for religious toleration. Now for civil qualification. The 
 edict proceeds to say, that " the public charges, offices, and honours, 
 high or low, great and small, shall be given to native Hungarians 
 who deserve well of their country, and who are competent to hold 
 them, without any regard to their religious persuasion". This is the 
 declaration of a Popish diet. This proceeds from one of those 
 nations, which, according to the anti-Catholics, has no idea of tolera- 
 tion, as compared with this country! This Catholic government 
 gives not only toleration, but qualification, and the Catholic Church 
 acquiesces in the gift. We give toleration without qualification, 
 and we accompany that toleration with pains and penalties. The 
 auti-Catholic petitions require that those pains and penalties should 
 be continued. The petitioners seem totally ignorant of the real state 
 of things. They declare generally (mayors and corporations) that 
 the principles of the Catholics are the same as they were at the worst 
 of times. They state, and they state it after the demolition of the 
 Vatican, after the prostration of the Inquisition, after the fall of the 
 Pope, that religious toleration and civil qualification ought not to be 
 granted, which is allowed in every great country in Europe, England 
 excepted. They assume that to be true in argument which is false 
 in fact. They quote Catholic writers, who have said that the 
 fathers and they hold (he same opinions; and on this the anti-Catholics 
 found a monstrous misstatement. 
 
 Sir, the Catholics of the present day have evinced their principles 
 by their oaths. They have abjured every criminal tenet attributed 
 to their ancestors. In taking an oath framed by a Protestant, 
 enacted by a Protestant parliament, and going into the minutice of 
 rejection, the Catholics have acquitted themselves, by a solemn 
 obligation, of the principles formerly imputed to them. They, never- 
 theless, maintain, that there is no difference of opinion between 
 them and their ancestors, because they maintain that their ancestors 
 were charged unjustly with entertaining criminal opinions. This 
 defence of their ancestors has been converted into a crimination of 
 themselves, and they are suspected of maintaining doctrines, an 
 adherence to which they deny on oath. 
 
 It is said by the anti-Catholics, that the Catholics have been, and 
 are always the same. The Catholics allow, that a true Catholic 
 was and is always the same ; but they add, that a criminal Catholic 
 is not a true one. " But the Catholics are enemies to the Church 
 of England". Sir, this is a very hasty and imprudent assertion; it is 
 
362 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 one calculated to make the Catholics that which they are not, enemies 
 to the Church of England. If it proceeded from high authority, it 
 might be seriously dangerous ; but coming as it does from persons, 
 however respectable, whose opinions are not entitled to very serious 
 consideration, it may be comparatively innoxious. Sir, why should 
 the Catholics be enemies of the Church of England ? If the endea- 
 vours of the Catholic to obtain his civil liberties be opposed by the 
 Church of England, then it is not the Catholic that is the enemy of 
 the Church of England, but the Church of England that is the 
 enemy of the Catholic. What is it, Sir, that is to make a Catholic 
 an enemy to the Church of England? Is it his doctrines ? Is it the 
 doctrine of penance, of absolution, of extreme unction ? The affirma- 
 tive would subject the affirmer to the most just ridicule and scorn. 
 So much for the hostility of the Catholics to the church. 
 
 But it is said further, " the Catholics are enemies to the state". 
 Some honourable members on the other side of the House observed, 
 that they were so "in principle In principle ! Sir, I deny it. 
 How are principles to be ascertained but by actions ? If they are 
 enemies to the state, let us go into the committee, and let those who 
 allege that the Catholics are enemies to the state, support their 
 allegations by evidence. If they plead the canons of the council of 
 Lateran, of Constance, of Trent, I will produce authority of a much 
 higher description; I will adduce the testimony of the parliament of 
 the united empire ; I will quote the thanks of that parliament unani- 
 mously voted to the armies, of which a large component part was 
 Catholic, for the most important service rendered to the state. Sir, 
 the opponents of the Catholics go on to assert, that they are enemies 
 to liberty. What ! the authors of Magna Charta enemies to liberty ! 
 And have the Catholics shown no other attachment to liberty ? I 
 say that the very declaration of rights, which, on the motion of 
 the right honourable gentleman opposite, was read by the clerl^ 
 sufficiently shows the love of the Catholic to liberty. For what 
 does that declaration ? It does not enact new laws, but it reaffirm* 
 those which the declarers found already established ; and by whom 
 were they established ? Who were their authors ? The Catholics ; 
 those alleged enemies of the church : those alleged enemies of the 
 state ; those alleged enemies of liberty ! Why did the legislature, 
 at the period of the Revolution, go further than to declare the law ? 
 Because the Roman Catholics had not only been friendly to liberty, 
 but had so established the principles of liberty by statute, that the 
 wisdom of the reformers could not exceed their distinct enact- 
 ments. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 363 
 
 Sir, what is the amount of the charge now preferred against the 
 Roman Catholics? That they are governed and swayed by all those 
 canons which, they contend, have been grossly misinterpreted, but 
 which, however interpreted, they have forsworn. They are accused 
 of maintaining the deposing power of the Pope, of cherishing regi- 
 cidal principles, and of asserting the right of perjury. On these 
 assumptions, and in this enlightened age, the Catholic is not only 
 not admitted to the constitution, but formally excluded from it. Sir, 
 I defy those who are hostile to Catholic concession to support their 
 positions by any thing but by these canons, nugatory, contemptible, 
 obsolete, and denied by the Catholics themselves. What were the 
 answers made by the universities of Salamanca, Paris, Alcala, 
 Louvaine, Douay, and St. Omer's, to the questions put to them ? 
 [Here Mr. Grattan read the following questions proposed to those 
 universities :] 
 
 " First, Has the Pope, or cardinals, or any body of men, or any 
 individual of the Church of Rome, any civil authority, power, juris- 
 diction, or preeminence whatsoever, within the realm of England ? 
 
 " Second, Can the Pope, or cardinals, or any body of men, or any 
 individual of the Church of Rome, absolve or dispense with his 
 Majesty's subjects from their oath of allegiance, upon any pretext 
 whatsoever ? 
 
 "Third, Is there any principle in the tenets of the Catholic faith, 
 by which Catholics may break faith with Protestants, or other 
 persons differing from them in religious opinions, in any transaction, 
 either of a public or a private nature ?" 
 
 Sir, continued Mr. Grattan, on the best authorities, I can assert 
 that those learned bodies were disposed, not to deny, but to ridicule 
 the opinions imputed to them ; not to reject, but to scorn them. 
 They, however, answered, that the Pope had no such deposing 
 power, and that, as to the supposition that the Catholics would keep 
 no faith with Protestants, they were almost ashamed to say anything 
 on the subject. Sir, a book has been alluded to, used by the 
 indents at Maynooth ; and it has been adduced as decisive evidence, 
 not only of the criminal principles of the Catholics, but as a proof of 
 the criminal principles which the posterity of the existing Catholics 
 were doomed to imbibe, by its being rendered available to the 
 purpose of then' education. These criminal principles are the 
 authority of the Pope to depose royal authority, the consequent 
 regicidal disposition of the Catholics, and the tenet that no faith 
 is to be kept with heretics. The work I allude to, Sir, is called 
 Tractatus de Ecclesia; and, with the permission of the House, I 
 
864 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 will read several passages to show how baseless their assertions 
 are. 
 
 [The right honourable gentleman here read some extracts from 
 the book in question. They stated that Christ had not granted to 
 St. Peter direct or indirect power over the temporal concerns of 
 kingdoms ; that by the kings and emperors of states alone the 
 supreme temporal establishment of them ought to be held ; that the 
 declarations of pontiffs were not to be considered as infallible, or as 
 points of faith which it was necessary to salvation to believe.] 
 
 Here then, Sir, said Mr. Grattan, is a book which has been traduced 
 as a concentration of evils, and it appears that it enjoins principles 
 directly the reverse of those which have been ascribed to it. When 
 such are the misrepresentations that are circulated, the result is not 
 surprising. But there is another work of higher authority, to which 
 I wish to refer. I mean the Common Prayer Book of the Catholics. 
 
 [The right honourable gentleman here quoted several passages 
 from the Catholic Prayer Book, the tenor of which was, to declare 
 that no general council, much less a papal consistory, had the power 
 of deposing sovereigns, or absolving subjects from their alleigance ; 
 that the Pope had no authority, direct or indirect, over temporal 
 affairs ; that, notwithstanding any papal interference, all Catholic 
 subjects were bound to defend their king and country at the hazard 
 of their lives and fortunes, even against the Pope himself, should he 
 invade their country ; and that the alleged duty of Catholic subjects 
 to murder their princes, if excommunicated for heresy, was impious 
 and execrable, being contrary to all the known laws of God and nature.] 
 
 I have another instance with which I shall beg leave to trouble 
 the House, and which would go to complete the chain of proofs 
 that show the Catholics are not without principles of allegiance, and 
 which would acquit them of every charge and imputation on their 
 loyalty. It is the oath taken by the Catholics, according to the 33rd 
 of the King, in Ireland, after the oath of allegiance. 
 
 "I, A. B., do hereby declare, that I do profess the Roman 
 Catholic religion. 
 
 " I, A. B., do swear, that I do abjure, contemn, and detest, as 
 unchristian and impious, the principle that it is lawful to murder, 
 destroy, or any ways injure any person whatsoever, for or under pre- 
 tence of being a heretic ; and I do declare solemnly before God, that 
 I believe that no act in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be 
 justified or excusedby or under pretence or colour that it was done either 
 for the good of the church or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power 
 whatsoever : I also declare, that it is not an article of the Catholic 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 365 
 
 faith, neither am 1 thereby required to believe or profess, that the 
 Pope is infallible, or that I am bound to obey any order in its own 
 nature immoral, though the Pope, or any ecclesiastical power, should 
 issue or direct such order ; but, on the contrary, I hold that it would 
 be sinful in me to pay any respect or obedience thereto : I further 
 declare, that I do not believe that any sin whatever, committed by 
 me, can be forgiven at the mere will of any Pope, or any person or 
 persons whatsoever ; but that sincere sorrow for past sins, a firm 
 and sincere resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, 
 are previous and indispensable requisites to establish a well-founded 
 expectation of forgiveness ; and that any person who receives 
 absolution without those previous requisites, so far from obtaining 
 thereby any remission of his sins, incurs the additional guilt of 
 violating a sacrament : and I do swear, that I will defend, to the 
 utmost of my power, the settlement and arrangement of property in 
 this countiy as established by the laws now in being : I do hereby 
 disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the 
 present church establishment, for the purpose of substituting a 
 Catholic establishment in it3 stead ; and I do hereby solemnly swear, 
 that I will not exercise any privilege to which I am or may become 
 entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion and Protes- 
 tant government in this kingdom. — So help me God. 
 
 " I, A. B., do hereby declare, that I profess the Roman Catholic 
 religion. 
 
 " I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, that I will be faithful, 
 and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Third, and 
 him will I defend to the utmost of my power, against all conspiracies 
 and attempts whatsoever that shall be made against his person, 
 crown, or dignity : and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose 
 and make known to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons 
 and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or 
 them : and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, 
 to the utmost of my power, the succession of the crown ; which 
 succession, by an act, entitled, 6 An act for the further limitation of 
 the crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject', 
 is, and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess 
 Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants ; 
 hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance 
 unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of 
 these realms : and I do swear, that I do reject and detest, as an 
 unchristian and impious position, that it is lawful to murder or 
 destroy any person or persons whatsoever, for, or under pretence of, 
 
366 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 their being heretics or infidels, and also that unchristian and impious 
 principle, that faith is not to be kept with heretics or infidels : and I 
 further declare, that it is not an article of my faith, and that I do 
 renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes excommuni- 
 cated by the Pope and council, or by any authority of the See of 
 Rome, or by any authority whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered 
 by their subjects, or any person whatsoever ; and I do promise that 
 I will not hold, maintain, or abet any such opinion, or any other 
 opinions contrary to what is expressed in this declaration : and I do 
 declare that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other 
 foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, 
 any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or preeminence, 
 directly or indirectly, within this realm : and I do solemnly, in the 
 presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do make this 
 declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense 
 of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or 
 mental reservation whatever, and without any dispensation already 
 granted by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, or any 
 person whatever, and without thinking that I am, or can be, acquit- 
 ted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part 
 thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or authority what- 
 soever, shall dispense with, or annul the same, or declare that it was 
 null or void. — So help me God". 
 
 Now, I ask, what further answer do you require to the charges 
 urged against the Catholics ? There is a further — an indictment or 
 information ; a criminal proceeding is the only answer. The 
 petitioners against the Roman Catholics may say what they choose 
 as to their good intentions ; but with respect to the pamphlets which 
 charge them with murder and treason as their creed, they must 
 charge them with perjury also. If such a pamphlet was written 
 against my Lord Fingall or Sir Edward Bellew, the printer would 
 say in vain that he did not mean such an imputation. Suppose 
 Lord Fingall should indict the author, would he be suffered to 
 produce the canons in his defence ? Would my Lord Ellenborough, 
 or my Lord Kenyon, suffer him to extenuate the offence by citing 
 the decrees of the council of Constance or of the council of Trent ? 
 No. But the author might urge in his defence, that he had no 
 particular meaning injurious to Lord Fingall or Sir Edward Bellew, 
 but to only four millions of His Majesty's Catholic subjects. But 
 there is another refutation of such a charge against the Catholics 
 — the impossibility of its truth. It amounts to such a pitch of 
 moral turpitude as would burst asunder the bonds of civil and 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 3G7 
 
 social intercourse, it would be a dissolution of the elements of society, 
 and of the elastic principle which binds man to man. It is 
 not merely unfounded, but monstrous ; it is not in the nature of 
 man, but in the nature of sects, which, when they contend for power, 
 charge each other with what they know to be false. 
 
 But there is another argument which I hope the learned divines 
 will excuse me for adverting to. It is, that the Christian religion, 
 or its clergy, are such as to be so described. I will see the tenets 
 of the petitioners against the Catholics ; I will first examine them 
 when they pray, and then when they petition. "When they pray, 
 they address the Deity as a God of mercy and beneficence, who sent 
 His Son on Earth to spread religion, and peace, and love, amongst 
 mankind. When they petition, they suppose that the Deity has 
 abandoned His own revelations ; that the human species are sunk in 
 barbarism ; that Christians are become monsters ; and that the 
 Deity, driven from other nations in Europe, is only preserved by the 
 English divines, the colleges, and corporations. This doctrine goes 
 to establish an exclusive right to power and profit, and, when 
 eviscerated, is nothing more than a contest for those objects. I beg 
 to be understood as speaking with the* utmost respect for those divines 
 who have petitioned against the Catholics, but I must take some 
 liberty with their arguments. I do not dispute the purity of their 
 motives, I only quarrel with the nature of their opinions ; and I hope 
 that the time is not far distant when I shall see the division of sects 
 lost in the union of principles, and behold every denomination acting 
 as one people in one common cause. For what is it, that you would 
 exclude a great portion of your fellow-subjects from the participation 
 of civil rights ? They are traitors and murderers according to the 
 tenets which they profess! Here then is a proposition by which you 
 would exclude one-fifth of your population from the benefits of the 
 constitution, in order to drive them iuto those crimes with which you 
 charge them. If you go on, you will scold yourselves out of your 
 connexion. I hope, however, that parliament will consider, whether 
 the elements of concord may not be found amidst this apparent dis- 
 cord. You say, on the one part, that there are legitimate objections, 
 and you enumerate the evils that may arise from the removal of the 
 disqualification of the Catholics. But a great portion of the Protes- 
 tants of Ireland have not seen those evils. They have petitioned in 
 favour of the Catholics. I have a book filled with their names in 
 my pocket. I know that it will be said again, that the Catholics 
 insist on conditions. I will not take this argument. You, the 
 parliament, are to frame your bill, and to propose your conditions. 
 
8G8 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 The Catholic3 do not see what security they ought to give. They 
 say, that they have already given every security, though a synod of 
 their bishops has declared that they have no indisposition to every 
 mode of conciliation. "We seek for nothing", say they, "but the 
 integrity of the Roman Catholic church" ; but everything which does 
 not trench on the security of their church, or which is necessary for 
 you, they are ready to grant you. They are against making their 
 liberty a conditional boon ; they do not see the necessity of what you 
 demand, but they will give you every security you think necessary, 
 provided it does not derogate from the rights of their church. Then, 
 I say, the privileges of the Catholics and the rights of the Protestant 
 church are perfectly consistent, and parliament should find the means 
 of reconciling them. 
 
 Give me leave to say, as to the anti- Catholic petitioners, that 
 many of them do not profess themselves hostile to the principle, but 
 anxious about the mode of extending those rights claimed by the 
 Catholics. They do not say : " Exclude the Catholics", but " do not 
 admit the Catholics, unless you take care of our religion". I do not 
 say, that I ani obliged to agree that the church of England is an 
 enemy to the liberty of the Catholics, still less that the people of 
 England are enemies to their liberty ; so far from it, that I would 
 little fear to repose the question on their good sense and sober integrity. 
 I do believe, that if they believed their religion was safe, they would 
 be among the warmest friends of the Catholics. The only point, 
 then, is the security of the Protestant church, and for that they have 
 pointed out the means. They have no right to say, that they are 
 the only judges of the conditions to be imposed, or to tell you that 
 you can only save the church of England by denying their prayers 
 to the Catholics of Ireland. You shall have declared, in the strongest 
 manner, all the securities you can ask ; you shall have the crown 
 and its succession confirmed, as fundamental, unalienable, and sacred ; 
 you shall have the episcopal church of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
 land, as established by law. Some of the petitioners against the 
 Catholics desire the separation to be eternal — I would secure the 
 church and state by identification ; they would do it by patronage 
 — I by union. I would effect every object by bringing in a bill, 
 which should contain such provisions as would guard the rights of 
 the church and the colleges and the corporations, and I would leave 
 other provisions to be filled up by others in the committee, provided 
 they were not filled up in such a manner as to qualify, or rather to 
 neutralise, the liberty you were conceding, or to displace the gift you 
 were bestowing. Such a measure I think practicable, and I know 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 369 
 
 it to be desirable. The preamble I would make a covenant of concord, 
 in which I would urge the necessity of putting an end to all animosities, 
 national and religious. The two islands have been for two centuries 
 in a state of political contest. I would put an end to it. I would 
 have the liberty of the press unrestained in everything but one — 
 the people should not abuse one another out of their allegiance. 
 They have the French and the Dutch to quarrel with abroad, and 
 they may quarrel with ministers at home, or if they do not like that, 
 they may attack the opposition ; but they should never wage war 
 against each other. It is a system that you cannot put an end to 
 too soon. You are one people. You have but one interest. The 
 outcry which is raised among you, is neither the voice of religion 
 nor the voice of nature, and it cannot be appeased too soon. I would 
 therefore propose as a first step, that the House should go into a 
 committee on the Catholic claims, agreeably to the resolution of the 
 last parliament ; and I will now read the resolution which I shall 
 bring forward in the committee as the foundation of a bill : " That, 
 with a view to such an adjustment as may be conducive to the peace, 
 strength, and security of the English constitution, and the ultimate 
 concord of the British empire, it is highly advisable to provide for 
 the removal cf the civil and military disqualifications under which 
 His Majesty's Eoman Catholic subjects at present labour ; making 
 full provision, at the same time, for the maintenance and security 
 of the Protestant succession to the crown, according to the act of 
 limitations, and for preserving inviolable the Protestant episcopal 
 church of Great Britain and Ireland, and the church of Scotland, 
 their doctrines, discipline, and government, as by law established". 
 
 Mr. Grattan then moved, " That this House will resolve itself into 
 a committee of the whole House, to take into its most serious con- 
 sideration the state of the laws affecting His Majesty's Roman Catholic 
 subjects in Great Britain and Ireland, with a view to such a final 
 and conciliatory adjustment as may be conducive to the peace and 
 strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant 
 establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes 
 of His Majesty's subjects". 
 
370 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 March 2, 1813. 
 
 The debate which ensued on the motion was resumed on the 27th February, 
 1st and 2nd March, when — 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose in reply : He would not, he said, at that very 
 late hour, and in the exhausted state in which the House was, enter 
 into anything but a brief comment upon some observations which he 
 had just heard. I am asked, Sir, why I did not come forward with 
 a specific detail on the part of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, of 
 those grievances, the redress of which they now seek from the legis- 
 lature, and the securities which they mean to concede. Had I so 
 proceeded, Sir, in what manner would I have been met ? I should 
 have been answered : "You, Sir, do not speak the sentiments of the 
 Catholic body of Ireland. You do not speak the opinions of the 
 great population of the land; you merely pronounce the decision of 
 a body calling itself the Catholic Board; you bring before the House 
 the proceedings of a set of men unconstitutionally legislating out of 
 the kingdom — a party now coming forward, not with the view to 
 consult, but to command, the legislature of the empire". Such, Sir, 
 would have been the argument by which I should have been received. 
 But the right honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Bathurst) called 
 upon me to institute an inquiry into the principles of my bill before 
 the proper stage of its discussion, before it should meet with the 
 investigation of a committee. I will do this right honourable gentle^ 
 man the justice to believe, that his argument in favour of a point so 
 erroneous in principle, so utterly untenable, arises not from his con- 
 viction of the correctness of his logic, but is the result of the ministerial 
 situation in which he is placed. He naturally writhes at the idea o* 
 this discussion, and easily finds objections to articles not founded in 
 fact. You, Sir, in a committee will have opportunities of consider- 
 ing in the most minute manner the nature of that important subject 
 " Catholic Emancipation". 
 
 It is true, Sir, that from various parts of England and Ireland, a 
 variety of petitions have been presented, which now lie on your 
 table. These petitions are of three different kinds. One class from 
 Koman Catholics praying the removal of disabilities under which the 
 penal statutes had placed them. A second class from Protestant 
 communities, in support ot the claims of their Roman Catholic fellow- 
 subjects ; and a third class, Sir, praying the legislature to guard 
 against the danger arising from granting the prayer of the aforesaid 
 petitions, and imploring parliament to guard the supremacy of the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 371 
 
 established church ; the latter, however, in very few instances, object- 
 ing totally to the nature of these claims, provided sufficient securities 
 were at the disposal of the state. Very few in England, Sir, very 
 few in Ireland, very few in the empire, are hostile to this discussion. 
 On the contrary, the great majority are favourable to the principle 
 of emancipation ; the qualifications of w T hich (if any be deemed 
 necessary) will be the matter to which I would call the attention of 
 the House, should we go into a committee. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman, Sir, has expressed his displeasure 
 at my remarks on the means which have been resorted to in this 
 country, and, in many ins tances, by individuals professing our religion, 
 to procure some petitions, which your clerk has read. I would not, 
 Sir, indulge in any unconciliatory remarks upon the clergy of the 
 country. But when the under-clergy of this country charge my 
 countrymen with the crime of holding principles dangerous to the 
 community, with the profession of tenets hostile to the existence of 
 the state, I shall not withhold my astonishment at such a calumny ; 
 nor shall I silently submit to the propagation of such libels, without 
 those severe animadversions against them which their conduct deserves. 
 And here I most solemnly protest against the foulness of those pro- 
 ceedings. The honourable gentleman (Mr. Yorke) has been so 
 completely answered by the honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. 
 Canning), that I have little to add upon the inconsistency of his vote. 
 I shall merely confine myself to that part of his speech, in which he 
 directed the bill of rights to be read, and pronounced any repeal of 
 the penal laws to be at variance with the solemn enactments of that 
 celebrated law. I am the more led to remark upon this passage, 
 because it was afterwards enforced by the secretary for Ireland.* 
 These official gentlemen contend, that the exclusion of Catholics 
 from parliament forms a part of the bill of rights. In answer to the 
 assertion, Sir, I shall produce the authority of parliament, and refer 
 them to an act of Queen Anne. I shall therefore, Sir, upon their 
 own document, refute their own principle. [Here the right honour- 
 able gentleman read some extracts from this act, at the time of the 
 Union of Scotland, also from the Irish statutes, the tenor of which 
 was, " that every person in Great Britain, until parliament should 
 otherwise direct (the right honourable gentleman particularly called 
 their attention to this reservation), should take the oath prescribed".] 
 He concluded by contending, that any man of the plainest capacity, 
 need only read the oath, to be fully satisfied that it was a conditional, 
 
 • Mr., afterwards Sir Robert Peel. 
 
372 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 not a fundamental provision. " I leave to this House to consider 
 its construction ; that which is plainly and obviously accompanied 
 by a provisional reservation, can never be recorded as a fundamental 
 enactment". 
 
 March 9, 1813. 
 
 Mr. Grattan said, he had thought it unnecessary and inconvenient 
 the other night, when the House showed the greatest anxiety to 
 come to a decision on the question, to go at large into any reply to 
 the arguments against his motion. He would now, however, remark 
 upon several of them ; and in doing so, he thought it rigL , to observe, 
 that he had made an alteration in the resolution, as it was originally 
 proposed. It did not, however, at all alter the principle, but merely 
 modified the terms in which it was expressed. The alteration, which 
 he was sure could not meet with the disapprobation of the opponents 
 of the measure, was to this effect : That the House would take 
 measures for restoring to the Catholics the privileges of the constitu- 
 tion, subject, however, to certain exceptions, and under such regula- 
 tions as might be deemed necessary to support the Protestant 
 establishment in church and state. This was a suggestion proposed 
 by a right honourable gentleman, with whom, in principle, he com- 
 pletely agreed : and he did most willingly comply with it, not as any 
 dereliction of the principle, but as a modification of the terms in 
 which it was conceived. With regard to the church of Scotland 
 and the people of that communion, they seemed to be perfectly 
 acquiescent in the wisdom of parliament on this question. It was 
 of great importance to the motion, that he could say that the 
 presbytery of Scotland were not hostile to the measure of concession 
 and conciliation. The presbytery of Edinburgh was, indeed, against 
 the Catholics, but that of Glasgow was favourable ; and he might 
 conclude from their not having petitioned, that the great body of 
 the church of Scotland was friendly to the Catholic cause. Nor 
 could it be maintained, that the church of England, generally speak- 
 ing, was against the principle, though many of its members had 
 been more active in opposing the measure than the Scottish clergy 
 had been ; and though it may be granted, that many of the clergy 
 were not placable, yet it did not follow as a truth, that the people 
 of England were in general hostile to the communication of their 
 own privileges to the people of Ireland. The opposition to the 
 Catholic claims was respectable ; but at the same time they had 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 373 
 
 received great and efficient snpport. Notwithstanding the opposi- 
 tion, to which he would not deny the name of respectable, how were 
 we warranted to say, that the people of England were against the 
 motion, when so few great bodies had expressed their opinion? If 
 such was the case with the people of England, sure he was the great 
 body of the Protestants in Ireland were still less unfavourable. The 
 most respectable of the petitions from that part of the empire also, 
 were not founded on the principle of opposition, but on the principle 
 of security to existing establishments. He had no doubt, in short, 
 that the weight of Ireland, both in point of property and respecta- 
 bility, was decidedly in favour of the Catholics. 
 
 But supposing the sense of the nation was divided on the subject, 
 this furnished, in his mind, a decisive argument for finishing the con- 
 troversy by the wisdom of parliament : if they found the country in 
 a dispute, it was their duty to temiinate it as soon as possible. The 
 truth was, that too many at present of those who enjoyed the privi- 
 leges of the constitution, founded their arguments for exclusion on 
 topics which affronted and insulted those who were placed out 
 of this constitution ; the controversy, therefore, must proceed to mis- 
 chief, unless the wisdom of parliament interfered. He was con- 
 vinced that many people in England, who signed these anti-Catholic 
 petitions, did not understand the ultimate object to which they led, 
 but were influenced by misconceptions and prejudice;:. If, for 
 instance, they were asked, in plain terms, whether they believe the 
 Catholics were enemies to liberty, and disaffected to government, he 
 had little doubt they would answer in the negative ; but one oppo- 
 sition naturally begot another, and at length, by the mutual warmth 
 of controversy, it might become a question, whether one-fifth of 
 the population was well affected to the government or not. There 
 was no saying where such disputes might end. He regretted that 
 so many of the clergy had shown a disposition to place the securitv 
 of the church on the principles of exclusion. By so doing, they did 
 all that lay in their power to place it on principles which might be 
 fatal to its existence. With respect to the enemies to the Catholic 
 cause, what had they done ? They had petitioned for a monopolv, 
 and said that the concession of the claims would be dangerous, it 
 was a subject fatal to the Protestant monopoly and the Protestant 
 church. This party was for a perpetual division, and desired par- 
 liament to exclude a great portion of the people from the benefits of 
 the constitution ; and upon what grounds ? upon an argument that 
 tended ultimately to force them out of the empire. 
 
 He would again revert shortly to the arguments that were clothed 
 
 17 
 
374 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 with the sacred name of the act of settlement. He allowed that it 
 was a part of the act of settlement to exclude the Catholics, but it 
 was by no means an essential part which could admit of no alteration. 
 In the act of Union with Scotland, the oath was declared to be sub^ 
 ject to future regulation ; for it was declared, that it should remain 
 as it then was, until otherwise provided for by parliament. This 
 sufficiently manifested the power of parliament to interfere : and 
 w r hen his opponents set forth the consecration of the act of settlement, 
 as an insuperable barrier, he should reply to them with this pro- 
 visional act of parliament, which declared that the oath was not 
 fundamental, but subject to future regulation. At the time when 
 the Union with Ireland was under consideration, it did not appear 
 that it was deemed fundamental. Some of those who were concerned 
 in that measure were still alive and in the House ; and were they, 
 now that they had attained their object in gaining the Union, pre- 
 pared to say, that they looked upon that at this day to be funda- 
 mental which they then allowed to be provisionary ? 
 
 But the argument upon which some honourable gentlemen mainly 
 rested, was the incompatibility of all the plans that had been pror 
 posed. His answer was, that a diversity of opinion, as to the mode 
 of effecting Catholic emancipation, was by no means fatal to unity of 
 principle with regard to the object. All were agreed, that the 
 Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Church of Ire- 
 land, should be amply secured and maintained. Here, at least, was 
 concord. If you are agreed that the Catholic religion was consistent 
 with the welfare of the state, you might have different modes of con- 
 ciliation, but you were agreed as to one essential point. His right 
 honourable friend under the gallery (Sir J. C. Hippesley) and him- 
 self might think differently as to the particular limitations and excep- 
 tions ; any plan indeed to be proposed, would of course be a subject 
 of modification and matter of debate. When the House resolved to 
 go into the committee, they, in fact, decided that Catholic emanci- 
 pation, however a question of difficulty, was not a question of im- 
 possibility. The question, indeed, before the committee, might be 
 comprehended under three heads ; the first was, give full liberty to 
 the Catholics ; the second, establish the church by every requisite 
 security ; and the third, impose no conditions incompatible with the 
 Catholic faith. These were the heads of what he should have to 
 propose. 
 
 It had been said, that Mr. Pitt had sunk under the difficulties 
 which the subject presented ; and as a proof of this it was added, 
 that he never had communicated his plan. But it was certain that 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 375 
 
 Mr. Pitt went out of office in 1801, not because his plan was im- 
 practicable, but from other well-known obstacles. He did not think 
 so in 1799, or in 1800, and from his communication through the late 
 Marquess Comwallis to the Catholics, it did not appear that he deemed 
 the measure impracticable in the following year. That person, on 
 that occasion, sent the letter he alluded to to the Catholics of Ire- 
 land, in which he told them, that, " by acting with moderation, and 
 pursuing a loyal and dutiful line of conduct, they would afford 
 additional grounds of argument to the growing number of their advo- 
 cates in this country, till their object was ultimately attained". 
 Such was the language of the letter which Mr. Pitt caused to be 
 transmitted to Lord Fingall, Dr. Troy, and others. What, again, 
 did the Marquess Comwallis say on that veiy occasion ? He gave 
 his formal opinion, annexed to the same communication, that the 
 measure of emancipation was necessary for seeming the connexion 
 between Great Britain and Ireland. Again, when the question was 
 brought forward by Mr. Fox in 1805, there was nothing in the 
 language of Mr. Pitt to show that he considered the measure imprac- 
 ticable. He said, there was a bar to its agitation, the nature of 
 which was sufficiently understood, but never that it was impracti- 
 cable. He differed as to the right, but not as to anything that con- 
 cerned the question as a measure of regulation. He even alluded to 
 the plan which he had entertained, as consisting of a variety or 
 regulations. Nine months after this period Mr. Pitt died ; so that 
 we are now called upon to believe, that what he contemplated 
 as practicable for six years, within these nine short months he found 
 out to be impracticable. But what were the difficulties under which 
 the mind of Mr. Pitt was supposed to sink? "Why, they were 
 the difficulties, of promoting meritorious Catholic officers on the staff 
 of the army ; of admitting such men as Lord Fingall into the House 
 of Peers, and as Sir E. Bellew into the House of Commons ! These 
 were the mighty difficulties under which his mind was supposed to 
 have sunk — he who had the ability to destroy seventy Irish boroughs ! 
 There was a difficulty started in the Irish parliament, at the time 
 when it was proposed to grant the Catholics the right of voting at 
 Sections ; it was then said, that an inundation of Popery would 
 -sweep away everything before it. But what were the effects of this 
 restoration of Catholic rights ? Ireland had evidently gained by it; 
 the elections were more free and independent; they were now 
 founded, not on monopoly, but on property and respectability. 
 
 In addition to Mr. Pitt, he begged leave to name Mr. Burke, Mr. 
 Fox, and Mr. Wyndham, distinguished statesmen and philosophers, 
 
376 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 and strenuous supporters of the Catholic claims. He might also 
 enumerate men of learning, like the Bishop of Llandaff, and the 
 Bishop of Norwich, a name that would be ever respected, and which 
 was dear to every friend of religious liberty and social freedom. It 
 was also remarkable, that the Lord-lieutenants of Ireland, for the 
 last fifty years, were uniformly in favour of them. Lord Fitzwilliam 
 was decidedly so ; Lord Camden, who went over to Ireland with 
 opposite sentiments, and who lived in that country at a most trying 
 time, when he could not avoid knowing the opinions of the Catholics, 
 was ultimately for concession. He, too, was the friend of Mr. Pitt, 
 and might be supposed not unacquainted with the sentiments of that 
 individual. Lord Cornwallis publicly declared it essentially neces- 
 sary for preserving the connexion between Great Britain and Ire- 
 land. This was the practical conclusion formed by a statesman and 
 a soldier, at a most critical period of Irish history, and was entitled 
 to the utmost respect. Lord Hardwicke did not go over a friend to 
 the measure ; but after some years' residence as Lord-lieutenant 5 
 he altered his opinion, and now supported it by his vote. His right 
 honourable friend, the late secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. Pole), 
 had, at first, opposed the Catholics on account of the obstacles that 
 existed in certain quarters to the granting their claims ; but when, 
 by the removal of the restrictions on the Prince Regent, such 
 obstacles were done away, and after his right honourable friend had 
 derived, from five years' official residence in Ireland, a high degree 
 of experience on this subject, he had voted in favour of the Catholics, 
 and had stated, that, in his opinion, the country could not do well 
 without some measure of the kind. He had, for this, been charged, 
 and, in his opinion, unfairly, with inconsistency. His right honour- 
 able friend's mind was not stationary, like the minds of those who 
 made this idle accusation. He showed that it was progressive ; and 
 he was right, for time and circumstances had operated very power- 
 fully in favour of the Catholic question. 
 
 There was a time when Roman Catholic emancipation would not 
 have been heard of without horror ; but, as had been stated by an 
 honourable gentleman on a former night, the intenseness of the pre- 
 judice had been weakened. Those professing the two religions had 
 advanced much nearer to each other in spirit ; so that, though they 
 still differed on points of faith, they were much more likely than 
 formerly to coalesce in other respects. He intended to propose cer- 
 tain resolutions ; first, that the Catholic disabilities should be 
 removed ; second, that the establishments in church and state ought 
 to be effectually secured ; and he should then propose regulations for 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 377 
 
 the ecclesiastical courts and other matters, and an oath against 
 foreign influence. It might be demanded of him to state the regu- 
 lations ; but he would not, and for this reason, that under pretence 
 of opposing these regulations, some gentlemen would oppose the 
 principle. He would only say, that if any gentleman on the other 
 side proposed any regulation of security not trenching on the Catholic 
 religion, he would support it ; for he valued the principle so much, 
 that he would not hazard its loss by precipitation and punctilio. 
 His object was to lay the seminal principle of making the inhabitants 
 of the empire an united people. The language we ought to hold 
 was, we are friends to your liberty and to our own religion. Sup- 
 pose he was to introduce a clause into the preamble of his bill, 
 saying, it was necessary that the Protestant succession should be 
 secured, in order to obtain the concurrence of some of those who 
 opposed his measure, would they not then admit that to be provi- 
 sional now, and not fundamental, which they formerly, in their 
 comments on the bill of rights, contended to be fundamental, and 
 not pro visionary ? For his own part, he must say that he valued 
 the principle too much to surrender or lose it for reasons of regula- 
 tion. If once admitted, it would make the empire one, for it was a 
 principle of union and regeneration. 
 
 If the resolutions were agreed to, he should then move for leave 
 to bring in a bill ; but he was not desirous of precipitating the 
 measure. He thought that time ought to be given for men's spirits 
 to cool ; that they should not legislate without consulting the feelings 
 of the people ; antl that, in the mean time^ they should repose upon 
 the good sense of both countries, and not take any step that would 
 deprive the cause of the benefit of that good sense. It might be 
 asked, why the Catholics did not protest against the violence of some 
 of their own body ? The answer was, that parliament had not given 
 them encouragement. But when the arm of parliament should be 
 once stretched out to the Catholics, there would be many wise and 
 moderate enough to embrace it. By thus evincing a conciliatory 
 disposition towards the Catholics, parliament would at all events 
 show that the fault did not lie with them, should the measure prove 
 unsuccessful. Let them send out the dove, and she will bring back 
 the olive. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman concluded, by moving, " That, 
 with a view to such an adjustment as may be conducive to the peace 
 and strength of the United Kingdom, to the security of the Estab- 
 lished Church, and to the ultimate concord of all classes of his 
 Majesty's subjects, it is highly advisable to provide for the removal 
 
378 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 of the civil and military disqualifications under which his Majesty's* 
 Roman Catholic subjects now labour ; with such exceptions, and 
 under such regulations, as may be found necessary for preserving 
 unalterably the Protestant succession to the crown, according to the 
 act for the further limitation of the crown and better securing the 
 rights and liberties of the subject, and for maintaining inviolable the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland, and the doc- 
 trine, discipline, and government thereof, and the Church of Scot- 
 land, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and* government thereof,, 
 as the same are respectively by law established ". 
 
 May 11, 1813. 
 
 Mr. Grattan rose, he said, for the purpose of opposing the propo- 
 sition of his honourable friend. He certainly should feel a conside- 
 rable degree of difficulty in answering the speech with which his 
 honourable friend had prefaced his motion ; not on account of any 
 force or cogency of argument observable in it, but from its extraor- 
 dinary length, and the immense extent of the subjects which it 
 comprised. He begged leave, however, before he entered into the 
 consideration of his honourable friend's speech, to return him his 
 most sincere thanks for the great services he had on a former 
 occasion rendered to the cause of religious liberty — services which 
 never could be forgotten, and which rendered it painful to be obliged 
 to differ from him on the present occasion. His honourable friend now 
 proposed, " that a select committee should, in the first instance, be 
 appointed to examine the state of the laws at present affecting the 
 Roman Catholics". Connected with this subject, there were four 
 other propositions, embodied in the same motion, the whole of which 
 proceeded on the supposition that the House were ignorant with 
 respect to the Catholic question. His honourable friend must surely 
 have forgotten, that thirty-five years had now elapsed since the 
 question was originally discussed, and that twenty years had already 
 been consumed in this inquiry. Could he not call to his recollection, 
 that it was brought before parliament in 1791, again in 1792, in 
 1793, in 1795, in 1805 (on a motion made by Mr. Fox), in 1808, 
 in 1810, twice in 1811, and three times, both in 1812 and 1813 ? 
 Had he forgotten the part he had himself taken in those different 
 discussions, as well as the various books he had published on the 
 subject ? Was it possible that he had lost all remembrance of the 
 victories he had gained, of the adversaries he had put to flight, of the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 379 
 
 theological arguments which he had conducted, so ranch to his own 
 honour and so decidedly to the discomfiture of his opponents ? would 
 he now contend (for so in effect he did when he stated that the 
 subject was not understood by the House), that all his labours had 
 been useless, or was it by a very strange excess of self-denial, that 
 he wished to forego the fruits of those victories, and fight his battles 
 over again, giving his enemies ground for claiming a triumph, 
 where they had sustained signal and complete discomfiture ? No ! 
 this was impossible ; his honourable friend's motion was defeated 
 by the services which he had performed ; his very successes in this 
 way deprived him of the power of now saying that the. country was 
 uninformed upon the subject. Under what circumstances were they 
 called on to accede to this proposition ? A resolution had been 
 passed, in which the House stated, 61 that it was advisable to make 
 provision for the repeal of the remaining penal laws", and what was 
 the motion of his honourable friend ? — u that a committee shotdd be 
 appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the grounds on which 
 you, the House of Commons, have resolved that it is so advisable". 
 After a debate, which continued for several days, the House came 
 to this conclusion, " that it was highly advisable to provide for the 
 repeal of those laws", and now they were called upon to enter into an 
 examination of the principles by which they were influenced. With 
 all respect to the House, he would suggest that such a measure would 
 be little short of a disavowal of their own act. If they adopt it, 
 they would tacitly say, that they regretted their admitting the intro- 
 duction of the present bill. They would avow that their resolution 
 was precipitate. The honourable baronet had confessed, that if the 
 effect of his motion should be to get rid of this bill, he thought it 
 would be so much the better. Now, it would be for the House fcc 
 determine, whether it would be right to get rid of the bill in such a 
 manner. The question was not, whether the House w r ould go into 
 this committee merely, but whether they would reject the bill then 
 pending : that, and that only would be the effect of such a procee- 
 ding. It would not be a rejection for six months or for a session, 
 but it would be a rejection for an indefinite period. The whole 
 question of Catholic liberation would be postponed ; not as he had 
 already observed, for a certain period. No ! it would be postponed 
 till all the penal laws were examined. Not merely those laws which 
 were enacted since the reformation, but those which were made 
 before it ; not only our own laws against Catholics, but the procee- 
 dings in colleges and ecclesiastical courts, and all the controversies 
 oa doubtful and disputed points. To demand of them to examine 
 
380 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION* 
 
 the laws affecting the Roman Catholics, was in effect to ask them to 
 do that which, in respect to time, could not be done for a very long 
 period. And could it be supposed, that any rational man would 
 agree to a measure which must inevitably put off the adjustment ot 
 this great question for ten or even for twenty years, or could it be sup- 
 posed that any person who wished for the success of the Catholic cause 
 would be satisfied with such a delay ? Could it be supposed that 
 the Catholics could be contented that their claims should be kept 
 back for nine or ten years, until a committee had made a report upon 
 the immense mass of matter which the honourable baronet wished to 
 refer to them ? His honourable friend had alluded to the proceedings 
 in the case of the slave trade, and observed, that the legislative 
 proceedings on that occasion were preceded by the labours of various 
 committees. But it should not be overlooked, that that question 
 was first agitated in 1788, and the bill was not passed till 1807, 
 a period of nineteen years, during which time incessant appeals were 
 made to the justice and humanity of parliament. In fact, if the 
 motion were granted, they would do worse than reject the bill ; because 
 they would do it with a sort of apology which stultified themselves, 
 by a confession of ignorance which they ought not to evince on any 
 subject, and which, on this particular subject, they could not be 
 supposed to possess. He objected to this intended exhibition of the 
 penal laws, because it was not necessary with a view to their repeal, 
 and much matter was contained in them which was calculated to 
 produce discontent and irritation. It was on this ground that an 
 honourable gentleman on the other side of the House had opposed 
 the production of a book which enumerated a considerable number of 
 the penal laws still in existence. That honourable gentleman was 
 of opinion, that no benefit could result from such a statement of 
 grievances ; but they were now called upon to do that by the com- 
 mittee, which, in the particular instance referred to, had been refused, 
 and themselves to furnish those topics for animosity, by holding 
 forth to the public as acts in force, those which were in fact and in 
 practice obsolete. 
 
 This committee would not only revive the odious name of the 
 penal laws, but it would answer a variety of other purposes. It 
 would be a judicial committee, in which the charges against the 
 Catholic bishops would be investigated ; and whatever the result of 
 such an inquiry would be, he conceived that it was one not at all 
 consistent with the dignity of the House. It would not perhaps actually 
 tax them with disaffection to the government, but it would certainly, 
 whatever might be the extent of then- suspicions or accusations, put 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 381 
 
 theni and the whole Catholic body on their trial, and this on thesugges- 
 tion of an individual. The committee which the honourable baronet 
 proposed, was not merely to examine the acts of religious councils, 
 but it was likewise to be a committee of diplomacy, for it was to 
 examine all the acts which had been done by foreign states upon 
 this subject ; and until their report could be had, no bill was to be 
 brought in for the relief of the Catholic or the security of the Protestant. 
 After this laborious investigation, a report was to be drawn up ; and, 
 until that report was made, no bill for the relief of the Catholics and 
 the security of the Protestants could be introduced. Therefore, on 
 the same principle which induced him to seize the opportunity of 
 bringing in the bill, he must oppose a motion which would have the 
 effect of frustrating everything that had already been done. In 
 stating the necessity of thus opposing his honourable friend's propo- 
 sition, he could assure him that he felt the highest respect for him 
 personally, and that he gave him full credit for the great sendees 
 he had rendered the Roman Catholic body — services which no 
 difference of opinion could ever obliterate from his mind. 
 
 Having said thus much, he thought it was necessaiy to state 
 briefly the nature of his bill ; and the more so, because is was said, 
 that it had given great offence in Ireland, and created a flame through- 
 out that country. This assertion he positively denied. As far as 
 his correspondence extended, the Catholics in general were well 
 pleased with the provisions of the bill : the great body professing 
 the Catholic religion were ready to receive, thankfully and grate- 
 fully, whatever the House of Commons thought proper to grant ; 
 and they were willing to give every security, provided it did not 
 trench on their religious principles or their civil rights. The order 
 of the day was for the second reading of the bill for the relief of the 
 Roman Catholics. That bill consisted of four parts: it began first 
 by conceding the right to sit in parliament ; it secondly communi- 
 cated the privilege of voting at elections for members of parliament ; 
 thirdly, it gave to the Roman Catholics corporate lights ; and fourthly, 
 it also opened to them civil and military offices. It was in fact 
 what it was intended to be — a bill of incorporation. There were 
 many penalties now existing in the books, but which were never 
 enforced ; and it would, of course, be desired, that they should no 
 longer exist even in the books. The main object of the bill, however, 
 was a communication of rights and privileges to the Catholics, under 
 such restrictions as should be considered sufficient securities for the 
 Protestant church. By giving the Roman Catholics great political 
 privileges in common with their Protestant fellow-subjects, they 
 
882 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION". 
 
 would be incorporated with them ; their present disabilities would 
 be rendered of no avail ; and the remaining penal laws might be 
 swept out of the statute book at any future period. 
 
 It was said, that some bodies of Catholics not only disapproved 
 of the bill, but had reduced their objections to the form of resolu - 
 tions. He, in consequence of this report, made it his business to 
 inquire very minutely into the fact, and he found that the statement 
 was not true. He learned that the Catholic Board, which was more 
 particularly alluded to, had entered into no such resolutions ; that 
 board had not sanctioned or adopted the sentiments imputed to them 
 in the public papers ; and, therefore, the argument founded on the 
 assumption that they had, was not tenable. It was an argument 
 resting on a report, which report proved not to be founded in fact. 
 When the Catholic Board were apprised of the successful motion 
 which had been made in support of Catholic emancipation, they 
 returned thanks to those gentlemen who had taken the lead on that 
 occasion, and who had been entrusted to frame the bill. They met 
 a second time, but no act of their's could be construed into an 
 abandonment of their former approbation. At the last meeting, 
 they merely resolved to send an additional number of delegates to 
 London, but they expressed no dislike to the measure proposed for 
 the relief of the Raman Catholics. Having, in the first instance, 
 thanked those who were instrumental in bringing in the bill, it was 
 not to be inferred, because they intended to dispatch delegates to 
 London, that they therefore felt dissatisfaction at the measure. 
 
 And, if the parliament were never to pass an act in favour of the 
 liberty of the subject, because some newspaper opposed it, or to 
 come to an amicable understanding with the Boman Catholics, 
 because some individual thought fit to set his veto upon a particular 
 measure, it would be in vain to think of ever adjusting those differ- 
 ences. Even if the proceeding excited some local dissatisfaction, 
 still, he contended, they ought to go forward. A great measure 
 ought not to be abandoned, because the newspapers or a few indivi- 
 duals opposed their declamation to that which would produce public 
 concord and minister to public security. The whole conduct of the 
 Boman Catholics showed that their gratitude kept equal pace with 
 the benefits which were conferred on them. There seemed to be a 
 regular principle of action and reaction ; and, in proportion as the 
 legislature advanced towards them with feelings of conciliation, they 
 appeared most anxious to afford every facility and accommodation 
 in their power. If they acted on this principle, they would with- 
 hold from the Catholic body what they demanded, and to withhold 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 383 
 
 it with justice, they must fasten on them the imputation of discon- 
 tent as a body ; but that could not be done. Their letters all 
 breathed a spirit of conciliation which did them infinite honour, and 
 supplied proof of the sincerity of their friendly resolution. They 
 had met advance with advance, and there was no reason for either 
 party to recede. He conceived that the Catholic body had fairly 
 met the disposition manifested by the House to attend to their claims. 
 As it was a general principle in natural philosophy, that reaction 
 was equal to action, so it was found, that as soon as parliament 
 evinced a wish to meet the question, a correspondent wish was 
 manifested by the Catholics to come to an accommodation. 
 
 On those objections to the bill, which appeared in the public 
 papers (although he would not allow that they came from the 
 Catholic Board), he should make some observations. They appeared 
 to him to be founded in complete mistake and misapprehension. 
 The first objection was, that the bill did not give the Catholic peer 
 a right to vote at the election of peers. This, however, was a 
 mistake ; the bill did grant that right on the new oath being taken. 
 The act of union already qualified every Irish peer to vote for the 
 peers to sit in parliament, provided that they took the same oaths 
 which must be taken by the sitting peers. The present bill made 
 such an alteration in the oath as would allow the Catholic peer to 
 take it, and the new oath formed the qualification for the sitting 
 member, and, being taken by the Catholic peers, generally invested 
 them with the right of voting. 
 
 It was next asserted, that the bench was not included in the bill. 
 But how could this be supposed, when the bill specifically stated 
 them to be " eligible for all civil offices of trust ", with the excep- 
 tions stated ? The same observation would apply to the objection 
 of the Catholics being excluded by the bill from corporations. They 
 would not be excluded. The Catholics were, by this bill, admitted 
 to all corporate rights. But it was objected, that though their 
 disqualifications might be removed by the provisions of the bill, still 
 they would be excluded in consequence of by-laws. Now, the by- 
 laws alluded to were those which at present imposed the oaths of 
 supremacy and abjuration on those who became members of a corpo- 
 rate body. But by the present bill those oaths were removed, and 
 no corporation could continue them contrary to the law of the land ; 
 therefore the bill granted corporate rights and privileges. 
 
 It was also contended, that Catholics were by this bill excluded 
 from colleges, and prevented from becoming guardians to Protestants. 
 Neither of these assertions was better founded than those which he 
 
384 
 
 CATBOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 had already referred to. The bill only excluded them from being 
 on what was called the foundation of Protestant ecclesiastical colleges. 
 In this respect, it was thought proper that the law should stand as 
 it is at present. Neither would the Catholics remain excluded by 
 the present bill from the power of being guardians to a Protestant ; 
 and a recent decision of the Lord Chancellor for Ireland (Lord 
 Manners) made it doubtful whether they could be so excluded as the 
 law now stands. 
 
 These, he believed, were the principal objections to the bill ; but 
 they were not made by the Catholic Board ; they were objections 
 which arose to the minds of individuals ; but he had no hesitation in 
 saying that they were unfounded. By the bill, the Catholics were 
 admitted, first, to the right of election ; second, to corporate rights ; 
 third, to franchises ; fourth, to the bench ; fifth, they were not 
 excluded from colleges; and sixth, they were not prevented from 
 acting as guardians to Protestants. On the whole, it was a bill of 
 incorporation ; a bill granting substantial emancipation to the Catho- 
 lics, and at the same time affording ample securities to the Protestant 
 establishment. 
 
 Another objection had been made, that the bill did not go upon 
 the general principle of liberty of conscience, and did not compre- 
 hend other classes to which the Catholics wished the same extension 
 of civil liberty. In answer to this objection, he should put it to the 
 House, whether the committee would have been justified in framing 
 their bill upon an abstract proposition of this nature. They conceived 
 that they were bound only to consider the case which the petitioners 
 had stated, and that they were not at liberty, by introducing other 
 matter, to deprive the Catholics of their own case. If they had done 
 so, the committee would not have known how to face the House 
 with a bill upon a principle so different from that which was expected 
 from them. The great object of the bill was, the adjustment of the 
 claims of the Catholics ; but the principle and soul of it was their 
 incorporation with Protestants into the general body of the empire. 
 It was for this reason that the repeal of the penal laws was an object 
 of far inferior importance. The great question was, the repeal of 
 those oaths which now prevented the incorporation. In fact, the 
 committee had abstained from touching much upon the penal laws, 
 as that could have no other effect than to bring forward a great 
 quantity of irritating matter. The repeal of those laws would be 
 doing nothing without repealing the oaths. 
 
 It was alleged, that they ought to have introduced a bill contain- 
 ing a specific repeal of all the penal laws. In that case, they would 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 385 
 
 have been under the necessity of proceeding by a numerical enumera- 
 tion of those laws, a mode to which he had many objections. The 
 great object which they had in view, was a conciliatory adjustment 
 of the Catholic claims ; and incorporation formed the very soul and 
 essence of that adjustment. The laws which operated to prevent 
 that incorporation were those that enforced the taking of the oaths. 
 The gentlemen who framed the bill thought it better to remove those 
 laws without specification by introducing new oaths; and he con- 
 sidered that to be a final adjustment, by which those obnoxious acts, 
 although not mentioned by name, were rendered null and of no effect. 
 If they had pursued a different course, and introduced a numerous 
 detail of the penal laws, they would have been compelled to bring 
 forward matter of a very irritating description. Without removing 
 those test laws, nothing could be done ; but by setting them aside, 
 all the other acts were rendered of no avail, and were left to be done 
 away by the legislature at any future time. This was the principle 
 which was acted upon in 1778 in the Irish Parliament. In the bill 
 brought in at that period, a clause was inserted repealing the test 
 act. That bill was sent back from England, that particular clause 
 having been expunged, and they were obliged to pass the act with- 
 out this provision. In the act of 1793, the Irish Parliament did not 
 state numerically the laws which were repealed. They proceeded 
 on the principle now adopted, and administered great constitutional 
 rights to the Roman Catholics. Having thus acted with the best 
 motives and intentions, they hoped for the support of the House. 
 
 Having stated that the present bill gave emancipation to the 
 Catholic, he had next to state the securities it gave to the Protes- 
 tant. Those securities were to be found principally in the exceptions 
 which were to be found in the bill and in the alteration of the oath. 
 1. The first was, the exception of the situations of Lord-chancellor 
 of England and Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, which were withheld from 
 Roman Catholics. The office of Lord-chancellor comprised a great 
 deal of ecclesiastical patronage ; and the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland 
 was the representative of the king, who must be a Protestant, inde- 
 pendent of which circumstance, he possessed very considerable 
 ecclesiastical gifts. 2. The second exception related to the right of 
 holding advowsons, or presenting to livings. Where any Roman 
 Catholic possessed an advowson, Protestant commissions were 
 appointed to superintend its disposal. 3. In the third place, all 
 oificers in ecclesiastical courts were excepted. 4. The fourth security 
 is, the exclusion of the Catholics from all ecclesiastical courts of 
 judicature. 5. By the fifth, all courts of appeal, or review of ecclesias- 
 
386 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 tical matters, were likewise excepted, 6. Catholics were also 
 excluded from situations in ecclesiastical schools. 7. They were 
 prevented from any interference in the disposal of Protestant benefices. 
 8. All Roman Catholics were excluded from any episcopal authority 
 within these realms. 9. The ninth security is, the exclusion of non- 
 resident native Catholics from such ecclesiastical duties and functions. 
 10. The tenth security consisted of an oath containing a great variety 
 of clauses. By it, the Catholic swore to his allegiance, and abjured 
 the supposed regicidal and deposing power of the Pope. He also 
 abjured the temporal power of His Holiness in these countries ; the 
 infallibility of the Pope, as an article of faith ; and the principle, 
 that no faith was to be kept with heretics. By it the Catholic 
 deposed, that he would support the Protestant succession and the 
 present state of Protestant property ; that he would discover all 
 plots and treasons which came within his knowledge ; that he would 
 not make use of any power he obtained in the state, either to its 
 injury, or to the overthrow of the Protestant church ; and that, in 
 the nomination of any bishop or apostolic vicar, no man should be 
 chosen with his consent, of whose loyalty and tranquil disposition he 
 was not convinced ; that the clergy were also to swear that, in the 
 election of persons to be recommended to the apostolic functions, they 
 would never choose any persons whose loyalty and good conduct 
 were not known to them. The oath also bound him to hold no 
 intercourse with the See of Rome, which, directly or indirectly, could 
 disturb the Protestant church in England, Ireland, or Scotland ; and 
 that his intercourse with that see should be purely of a spiritual 
 nature. He was aware that some gentlemen would inquire, why 
 the oath was so very long and particular. To this, his answer was, 
 that those who drew up the present bill, found a part of that oath 
 already established. They did not wish to alter a single article of 
 it, as they felt it their duty to increase and not to diminish the 
 securities now existing ; therefore, they had made a variety of addi- 
 tions to it, comprising every point which was connected with the 
 safety either of church or state. The present oath was generalised ; 
 it was not necessary for a Catholic clergyman to take the former 
 oath unless some office were conferred upon him ; but the oath being 
 generalised, it would now, by law, be necessary for every Roman 
 Catholic in the United Kingdom to take it. They had therefore 
 added to the present oath the obligation of disclosing treason, and 
 of not recommending any clergyman whose loyalty was not well 
 known. They had also extended the obligation of the oath. The 
 former oath was only required to be taken on the acceptance of some 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 387 
 
 office ; the present oath, however, was proposed to be extended 
 generally to the clergy, as well as to the laity. These, then, were 
 the securities. Whether the House would consider them to be 
 sufficient, he knew not ; but great securities they unquestionably 
 were. 
 
 A right honourable gentleman, he begged leave to call him his 
 right honourable friend (Mr. Canning), had suggested some additional 
 clauses. He proposed the appointment by parliament of Protestant 
 commissioners, with power to withhold their assent to the noinina- 
 tion of those bishops and apostolic vicars, of whose loyalty they 
 entertained any doubt, and also with power to inspect the papers 
 and books connected with those nominations, with a proviso that 
 they should be bound not to betray the secrets of the Catholic church. 
 These clauses would amount to a complete security for domestic 
 nomination. His right honourable friend had touched the subject 
 with a delicate hand. Those appointed to frame the bill had not 
 introduced the clauses into the bill, not because they disapproved of 
 them, but because they did not know how far the Catholic body 
 might approve of their introduction. For his own part he thought 
 they were liberal in their nature, and that they ought to be 
 received. 
 
 He would now say a very few words on the general merits of the 
 bill now before the House. It would, no doubt, undergo some altera- 
 tions here ; but such as it was, it amounted to a plan of perfect 
 domestic security and liberality — a plan, for the accomplishment of 
 which the greatest statesmen of this country had struggled in vain — 
 a plan that, he trusted, at no distant period- would be completed. 
 If, however, the motion of the honourable baronet were acquiesced 
 in, and this committee should be appointed, he should not dare to 
 hope to witness the fulfilment, not only of his wishes, not only of the 
 wishes of the majority of this House, but of the wishes of the majo- 
 rity of the nation. This was a bill of Catholic emancipation, in 
 which were provided three main securities for the Protestants. The 
 first and greatest, was incorporation ; the second, a positive bar 
 against domestic Catholic influence ; and the third, an effectual provi- 
 sion against foreign Catholic interference. This measure, they 
 submitted, ought to receive the sanction of the legislature ; parlia- 
 ment had already pledged itself to concede it. It has already 
 declared, that it was expedient to repeal the laws which deprive a 
 great portion of their countrymen of privileges they ought to enjoy, 
 for the sake of producing general harmony, security, and happiness. 
 Let parliament, then, fulfil the pledge it had given to the nation, 
 
388 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 without being diverted from its obvious duty by motions like that to- 
 night proposed. The bill was before it ; nor could any solid objec- 
 tions be urged, unless by those who are enemies to Catholic privilege 
 and Protestant security. 
 
 May 24, 1813. 
 
 Sir, I rise to direct the attention of the House to the course of opposi- 
 tion which has this night been taken to the great measure now under 
 discussion, and shall commence with the right honourable gentleman 
 (Mr. York), who has last spoken in the debate. He has emphatically 
 told you how futile must be the success (if such should attend it) of 
 this bill, when it is evident its provision will never be complied with 
 by the party for whose relief it has been framed. Now, Sir, I say 
 that such a mode of reasoning goes too far, it proves too much ; for 
 what is the deduction ? why, that there will be no Catholic episcopacy, 
 because, if the clergy do not comply with the provisions of this bill, 
 there can be no episcopacy ; it must, in such case, expire ; and the 
 very body which the right honourable gentleman holds in terror em 
 before your view, can no longer (upon his own argument) have 
 existence ; his fears are therefore visionary, and his reasoning 
 groundless. So far for the clerical argument. Now, Sir, towards 
 the admission of Roman Catholics into parliament : here again the 
 argument of the right honourable gentleman is built upon no founda- 
 tion. Can any man in his senses credit the assertion, that the 
 ingress of the Catholics to this assembly can be productive of the 
 effect described ? Is the right honourable gentleman so ignorant of 
 the constitution of this House as for a moment to believe the prin- 
 ciple he has himself laid down ? I shall not pay him so poor a com- 
 pliment as to think he does. Does he, Sir, take it for granted, that 
 this is a Catholic House legislating for a Protestant people ? or does 
 he not know that this is a Protestant House legislating for a Catholic 
 people, a Protestant people, a Presbyterian people, a Dissenting 
 people ? A House, Sir, making laws for a whole and a divided 
 community ; not a particular body enacting for a particular sect. 
 The admission of a few Catholics here left the constitution where it 
 stood. It left it as it found it, a Protestant body. The principle 
 of this bill is incorporation, uniting the jarring differences of many 
 religions. 
 
 Another argument equally defective, equally erroneous, has been 
 sounded — sounded with acclamation this night ; namely^ that it is 
 impossible to unite the Catholic with the Protestant ; also that the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 389 
 
 Catholic himself protests against this measure. This assertion I 
 deny ; I repeat, sir, this denial ; let those who cheer contradict me. 
 I expect nothing from their moderation ; I now challenge them to 
 the proof. What, sir, constitutes this impassable abyss of separation 
 between the Catholic and the Protestant? Why, forsooth, the belief 
 of transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, the worship of the 
 Virgin Mary. limited view of human nature ! preposterous 
 conclusion ! No, sir, it is not those visions which have separated 
 the community ; the cause of this separation, such as it is, has arisen 
 from the enactment of your civil penalties, continues only by their 
 operation, and with them only can have extinction and oblivion. A 
 right honourable gentleman (the Speaker), whose great authority in 
 the House I willingly admit, has told you that the representatives of 
 Ireland will, if this clause should pass, be entirely Catholic, that the 
 Catholics will engross the nomination of 100 members in this House. 
 I deny this conclusion wholly ; I deny the right honourable gentle- 
 man's authority here. Why principally Catholic ? It is necessary 
 for the Speaker to prove that the entire property of Ireland is in 
 Catholic hands. The fact is not so ; the great proportion of that 
 property which would be represented, should this bill pass into a 
 law, that great proportion, I assert, is in Protestant hands ; and the 
 just conclusion, generally speaking, must be, that a Protestant repre- 
 sentation would still emanate from it, Again, I am told, you are 
 about to erect a Catholic ascendency in parliament. This, like the 
 other arguments, proves — what ? the discomfiture of the supporters 
 of exclusion and monopoly ; because, to give effect to this argument, 
 you must make forty a greater effective number than six hundred ; 
 you must make seven or eight the majority of four hundred. I con- 
 tend for it, forty Catholics would be the major number which this 
 bill would introduce into one House ; seven or eight, the major 
 number it could introduce into the other. Therefore, sir, this is to 
 be the foundation of a Catholic ascendency, and this is the argument 
 directed to 658 legislators ! This is the principle upon which exclu- 
 sion is to be pronounced towards millions of people, and here is the 
 argument and the authority upon which we are to arrive at the con- 
 clusion ! Therefore, I repeat, the right honourable gentleman's 
 authority, great as it is in general, is, upon this particular cause, no 
 authority at all. The question is not, whether you will uphold the 
 Protestant establishment, but it is, whether you will endanger its 
 existence, by proscribing your people. I repeat, again and again, 
 that if you repel Catholic emancipation, you trample to the ground 
 Protestant security. 
 
390 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 You addressed us, the framers of this bill ; you said : " We will 
 argue the point : produce us your securities in the first instance ; we 
 will then produce you our concessions". Here they are [Mr. Grattan 
 here extended forth the bill] ; here are our securities : where are 
 your concessions ? How do you meet us ? After calling on us for 
 securities, you reject concession, and, by that rejection, refuse the 
 best security for the church, by withholding freedom from the people. 
 If you vote against this clause, you vote against thebill ; you nullify 
 your object, you falsify your pledge. The noble lord opposite (Cas- 
 tlereagh) has acted a manly part ; let the noble lord share then the 
 merit of the bill. Upon my head be the odium of the clauses : to 
 insure the principle of concession, I shall submit to the minor infringe- 
 ments. The alleged unpopularity of the bill can only be temporary. 
 Should the Catholic mind be indisposed to accept it, should their 
 leaders inculcate hostility to its clauses, clauses so necessary to carry 
 through its principle, why then, I shall lament such an occurrence ; 
 I shall feel it bitterly ; I shall then, indeed, admit, that the Catholics 
 are the bitterest enemies of themselves, and that upon their own 
 heads, and on their own heads only, can the consequences of their 
 own folly rest. [Mr. Grattan here paused for a moment, but resumed 
 his wonted animation.] 
 
 Sir, the question is, if you reject this bill, can you dwell upon the 
 resrictions ? and, upon your own view of the subject, how do you 
 stand ? You vote for the continuation of galling and jarring restric- 
 tions upon four millions of your fellow-subjects. You vote for the 
 unlimited power of the Pope upon this proscribed population, instead 
 of enfranchising the one, and obliterating the other. [The right 
 honourable gentleman concluded in a strain of eloquence, of which it 
 is impossible to convey even a faint outline.] I beseech you to pause 
 before you vote this night. You stand between two important opi- 
 nions. The one leads to unanimity in the nation ; the other to 
 discord in the community. The one incorporates the Catholic with 
 the Protestant, and limits, nay, extinguishes, the power of the Pope ; 
 the other exasperates the feelings of the people, and saps the best 
 securities of the empire, The one lays at your disposal a brave and 
 generous people, to testify on the embattled plain the allegiance and 
 the gratitude they owe you, and places your country on an iron 
 pedestal, never — never to be shaken ; the other arms you, with 
 what? the Pope and his visions at your back; and, with these 
 banners, to advance against and appal the almost overwhelming 
 enemy of Europe. 
 
891 
 
 CORN LAWS. 
 June 23, 1815. 
 
 Sir, the question before you, complicated, and comprehensive, and 
 doubtful as it appears, may be, notwithstanding, reduced to three 
 plain considerations : whether we can contend with foreigners in the 
 trade of corn ; whether we can supply, in that article, our own con- 
 sumption ; and whether we can at all times command a sufficient 
 supply of that article from foreign nations. To the first question, the 
 persons examined by the corn committee have given a flat, positive, 
 and decisive negative. They concur to affirm, that we cannot con- 
 tend with foreigners in the market of corn, and they support their 
 assertion with evidence which is incontestible — on the low price of 
 labour abroad, the tithes, the taxes, the poor rates, the cesses, the 
 high price of labour, and the various charges which attend tillage at 
 home. But this evidence is necessary no longer ; the question is 
 decided by the fact ; we are at this moment driven out of the corn 
 market ; 800,000 quarters of foreign corn have been imported in 
 the last half year, so that the farmer may go about his business. In 
 the year 1814, Ireland exported near three millions of corn, the 
 principal part of which came to Great Britain. In 1812, Ireland 
 exported £2,900,000 worth of corn, of which £2,100,000 came to 
 Great Britain. In the last half year, ending in January, Ireland 
 exported into Britain 300,000 quarters of corn, while the foreigner 
 exported 800,000 ; so that Ireland is driven out of the market, and 
 foreign nations have taken her place. With this information before 
 you, the question you must try is reduced to this ; shall we protect 
 the farmer or go out of tillage ? To the last-mentioned monstrous 
 proposition, no pretence can be afforded, except gentlemen on the 
 other side say, that if you do not abandon tillage, you must renounce 
 manufacture ; they cannot say this — they have said this. They 
 have said this without an iota of evidence ; they have said the con- 
 trary also ; they have said that (a few articles excepted) you under- 
 sold the foreigner, and so saying, they have given up the cause, and 
 the only pretence on which it rested. They have said, that the 
 English manufacturer undersold the foreigner, and that he did not ; 
 and saying both, and proving neither, they have left you free to 
 decide, that whatever be the fate of the manufactures, it is not 80s. 
 a quarter for corn that will destroy them : the less so, because, under 
 a higher price, the manufactures have increased, and the manufac- 
 
392 
 
 CORN LAWS. 
 
 turers have multiplied, and because the gentlemen themselves pro- 
 pose protecting duties of 74s. or 765., thereby acknowledging the 
 policy of protection, and therefore of an adequate protection, and 
 imposing upon themselves the obligation of a proof, that while the 
 less duty is safety, the higher one is destruction ; death lies, it seems, 
 in the difference — at 80s. you die, and you revive at 76s. 
 
 Having gone so far, I beg to submit, that the opponents of the 
 measure have not produced argument sufficient to authorise you to 
 abandon tillage by returning to protection. I now come to the 
 second question, namely, whether we can supply corn sufficient for 
 our own consumption. You have done it ; you did so in the last 
 century. You did so till the act of 1765: England alone did so. 
 We have done so lately; the two islands have supplied their own 
 consumption, with all their increased manufacturers and all their 
 increased population. In 1812, these islands imported £12,000,000 
 worth of corn, and exported £14,000,000, above £300,000 more 
 than their own consumption. The opposers of this measure combat 
 this fact by an average, and say, that on their average we have not 
 supplied our own consumption ; their average is fallacious ; the cause 
 of that self-supply was Ireland, and her new condition since the act 
 of 1807 ; but Ireland is a growing country, and her resources are a 
 growing quantity ; instead, therefore, of forming a calculation on an 
 average, you should count on an increase. The evidence before the 
 committee tells you, that Ireland must increase in tillage one-third, 
 and it stands uncontroverted. Now, I will tell you how she has 
 grown, and read you the accounts I have taken the last fourteen years. 
 I have divided them into two periods, seven years each. In the first 
 seven years, commencing with 1801, Ireland exported to Great 
 Britain 4,300,000 quarters of corn, and her growth or increase in 
 the course of that time was 2,300,000 quarters. In the same period 
 of fourteen years, foreign nations sent to Great Britain, in the first 
 seven years, 6,400,000 quarters of corn, and in the last seven years, 
 4,200,000 quarters ; and there was a decrease of 2,200,000 quar- 
 ters. Thus, Ireland has doubled her quantity, and foreign nations 
 in the same period have declined one-third ; and Ireland was coming 
 into their place, as they are now coming into the place of Ireland. 
 
 On the progress of Irish husbandry I beg leave to say a few 
 sentences. Lord Pery was the father of Irish agriculture. In the 
 depth and extent of his sagacious and prophetic intellect, he conceived 
 for his country a project, which was nothing less than the creation of 
 tillage. His plan w T as to bring the market of the capital to the 
 door of every farmer in the remotest part of the island, and he did 
 
CORN LAWS. 
 
 393 
 
 so by granting an inland bounty on the carnage of corn to Dublin. 
 He found Ireland in the article of corn a country of import ; he put 
 in practice his plan ; she ceased to import ; she began to export ; 
 she began to export much ; she proceeded to export more ; she be- 
 came a country of great, of growing, and of permanent export. The 
 public care of Mr. Foster and his vigorous mind followed Lord Pery, 
 and, by a graduated scale of export, furthered the growth of tillage. 
 Then came my right honourable friend (Sir John Newport), whose 
 presence represses the ardour I feel to dwell on the imperishable 
 honours annexed to his name and his measures. He finished the 
 work by his bill of unlimited export ; and Ireland, who was fed by 
 imported corn in the middle of the last century, has, in the last war, 
 fed herself on a scale of double population, supplied Great Britain 
 with above two millions' worth of corn, and sent near another million 
 to supply your expeditions, and to feed foreign nations. 
 
 It is an infmnity in the argument of the gentlemen of the other 
 side of the question, that Ireland should have made no part of their 
 calculation, and that, in contemplating the resources of the British 
 empire, they should have overlooked one-third of the King's do- 
 minions. Gentlemen acknowledge the principle of self-supply : they 
 cannot deny it ; but they, in substance, retract their concession, and 
 say, you should not make the effort. If the commodity — corn, for 
 instance — is to be rendered dear, they do not say what they call 
 dear, but leave us to suppose that com must be dear, if corn is pro- 
 tected. Thus their argument goes against all protecting duties, still 
 more against all prohibitions, and going equally against the whole of 
 your policy, goes without force against any part of it. They speak 
 of a surplus ; to have what is sufficient for your consumption, you 
 must, at times, have a surplus ; and you cannot, they tell you, dis- 
 pose of that surplus abroad, on account of its high price. Surplus 
 is the effect of plenty, and plenty is the cause of cheapness, and 
 cheapness the sign of surplus ; and the proprietor will be remunerated 
 by quantity for what he loses in price. Besides, will you not take 
 into consideration capital, which enables the proprietor to hold over 
 that surplus, nor the increase of population that grows to con- 
 sume it ? 
 
 Conceiving that the gentlemen on the other side have not given 
 reasons sufficiently strong to induce the House to give up a great 
 maxim of state, and to accede to the extraordinary policy of 
 abandoning those resources which Providence has given these islands 
 to supply their own consumption, I come to the third question, which 
 is, whether you can at all times command a sufficient quantity of 
 
394 
 
 CORN LAWS. 
 
 corn from foreign nations ? The gentlemen on the other side of the 
 question will show (it is incumbent on them to do so) that you can ; 
 they will set forth what physical necessity, what moral obligation, 
 what law, obliges foreign nations to supply Great Britain with corn ; 
 they will show that they must furnish our expeditions, such as that 
 to Portugal for instance ; expeditions, perhaps, against the very 
 nations from whom the supply is to proceed ; they will show that 
 foreign nations cannot tax, still less prohibit, the export of their 
 grain ; they will show this, I hope, before they shall induce you to 
 confide your people to their policy ; but unable to show this, they 
 are reduced to rest their case on the experiment of the last war. In 
 the last war they say the trial was made, and, notwithstanding all 
 our difficulties, we found a supply from the continent. We did so, 
 we escaped in the last war. In the last war we made an experi- 
 ment which should teach us never to rely upon foreign grain, for we 
 found the price immense, and, but for the Russian war, should have 
 found the corn unattainable. With this experiment or this ex- 
 perience before you, and this their only argument for the certainty of 
 foreign supply, I hope you will think that the gentlemen have not 
 made a case strong enough to incline you to reduce your people to 
 a state in which they must depend on foreign nations for their food. 
 
 Having gone through the three considerations, I beg to observe, 
 with regard to the opposers of this measure, that they found their 
 policy on a vain philosophy ; it is the error of Mr. Smith, refuted 
 by Malthus, and adopted by them, and on this error they found 
 the strength of the empire and the food of the people. The maxim 
 contended for is, that you should get corn where you can get it 
 cheapest. Why ? Because corn is necessary ; so is clothing : how- 
 ever, in Ireland, generally speaking, corn is not so. Yet corn, 
 though a necessary of life, is not the only necessary, but is one of 
 the five necessaries, and therefore ultimately sways, but by no means 
 rules, the price of labour. Smith, a great author, is mistaken, and 
 he is the less an authority (in general I applaud and admire him), 
 but he is the less an authority on this point, because he considers it 
 in the abstract, and has no reference to the political part of the 
 subject, which is the principal part, and which governs the decision; 
 he advises to go to the cheapest market, but omits to consider 
 whether that market be accessible. Again, the application of this 
 rule to the present question goes against the drift of his philosophy ; 
 hi3 drift is, that everything should find its true level, and capital its 
 natural application ; but to do this, all nations must agree ; for it 
 is impossible that any one without general concurrence can attain it. 
 
CORN LAWS. 
 
 395 
 
 All nations then must abate their bounties and their prohibitions ; 
 that will not be sufficient ; they must abate their taxes also. To 
 make the experiment then, you must find some other planet, for the 
 Earth will not answer your purpose. But suppose this philosophical 
 traffic practicable, the proposition of its abettors goes, as I have said, 
 in the teeth of its principle ; the proposition goes to leave one article 
 unprotected, and to continue on all other articles prohibition ; that 
 is to say, to take your capital from corn, which is a natural trade, 
 and apply it to silk, which is an artificial one. 
 
 Gentlemen have spoken of the view of the resolution ; the view 
 is to encourage the growth of corn ; encouragement is plenty, and 
 plenty is cheapness. The view of the manufacturers is cheapness, 
 but they oppose the means of obtaining it — plenty. They advise you, 
 the gentlemen who oppose the resolution advise you, to procure the 
 cheapness of the article by going out of the cultivation of it ; but 
 they will find that plenty is the only sure cause of cheapness, and 
 the only certain plenty is the home market ; when you diminish that, 
 you diminish your supply ; you, of course, raise the price of corn ; 
 you are dependent on the supply of foreigners, which supply, with- 
 out the abundance of the home market, is inadequate, and therefore 
 dear ; and is also a precarious supply, which the foreigner may tax, 
 a nd which the foreigner may refuse. Thus the policy of the opposers 
 of the measure goes first to ruin the farmer, and then to starve the 
 manufacturer. Gentlemen have said truly, that their interests are 
 indeed united, and that when the farmer is beggared, the manufac- 
 turer is famished. I beg to return to that part of the subject which 
 is comprehended in the denomination of Ireland ; you know it was 
 the policy of your ancestors to destroy the manufactures of Ireland, 
 and it was the tendency of the Union to direct her capital to gross 
 produce. Have you then driven Ireland out of manufacture, and 
 do you now propose to drive her out of tillage ? You recollect that 
 Ireland has, for ages, excluded the manufacturers of other countries, 
 and has given an exclusive preference to yours. Ireland desires, 
 and desires of right, that as she prefers your manufactures, that you 
 may prefer her corn. Do you propose that Ireland should prefer the 
 British manufacturer, and that the British manufacturer should 
 prefer the French husbandman? You know that Ireland owes 
 £137,000,000, the principal debt of the war; that the interest is 
 £6,500,000; that her. revenue is not £5,500,000, and that her 
 deficit to pay the interest is above a million a year. Do you mean 
 that she should supply that deficit by giving up her agriculture ? 
 You know that of her interest, £4,500,000 is paid to you. How? 
 
396 
 
 CORN LAWS* 
 
 By her produce. When you propose that she should desert or even 
 diminish her husbandry, you shake your funded security. Again, 
 you are aware, that in rent to absentees, Ireland pays not less than 
 £2,000,000 annually, and pays it out of her produce ; when you 
 propose to diminish, when you do not propose to augment that 
 produce, you shake your landed security. Again, in the respective 
 traffic of the two countries, the account stands so : Ireland pays to 
 Great Britain for commodities, at the current price, a large sum ; 
 about £4,500,000 for interest ; forthe rents of absentees £2,000,000; 
 altogether, about £16,000,000 annually. The exportation of Ireland 
 is about £17,000,000, of which £2,900,000 is the export of corn. 
 When you propose to diminish her produce in corn, nay when you do not 
 propose to increase it, you propose that she should not pay you that 
 balance. Again, are you unapprised that the population of Ireland is 
 not less than 6,000,000, and that a great proportion of that number are 
 people connected with tillage? If you go out of tillage, what will you do 
 with that population ? Will you, with the opposers of this measure, 
 consign that people to famine and to tumult, or, with the supporters 
 of the measure, hand them over to plenty and to peace ? Again, in 
 addition to these reflections, will you consider, that the question 
 before you is not merely a means of subsistence, but a measure of 
 empire ? England clothes Ireland, Ireland feeds England, and both 
 live with one another and by one another; the two nations are 
 bound together by law ; but there is something stronger than law ; 
 they are grappled together by the iron fangs of necessity, and not 
 only legally united, but physically identified ; and this is the very 
 soul of your connexion. In the relationship of the two countries, 
 mutual want is public concord ; that intercourse which makes them 
 physically dependent on one another, makes them physically indepen- 
 dent of their enemies, and thus forms the strength of your empire 
 as well as its abundance. 
 
 Sir, I am for this resolution ; I am for it, because it is decisive, 
 not ambiguous ; because 80s. is a preference which the farmer will 
 understand ; do not send him to your averages ; for, while you per- 
 plex the farmer with your calculations, the plan is at a stand. Sir, 
 I am for the measure, because it gives strength to your funds, credit 
 to your landed interest, identification to the people of the respective 
 countries, and physical independence on the foreigner. I am for it, 
 because it is an increase of your ways and means ; because it promises 
 plenty, where alone it can be relied on ; namely, in your home 
 market, and, with that plenty, cheapness, but that cheapness which 
 is steady, and which pays your farmer while it feeds your manufac- 
 
DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 397 
 
 turer, instead of that extravagant fluctuation which alternately ruins 
 both ; and I am for this measure, because it secures us against the 
 policy suggested by its opponents, and which is reducible to three 
 monstrous propositions — an abandonment of tillage ; a relinquish- 
 ment of your power to supply your own consumption ; and a depen- 
 dence on foreign markets for bread. 
 
 DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 May 25, 1815. 
 
 Sir, I sincerely sympathise with the honourable gentleman who 
 spoke last in his anxiety on this important question ; and my solici 
 tude is increased by a knowledge that I differ in opinion from my 
 oldest political friends. I have further to contend against the 
 additional weight given to the arguments of the noble lord who 
 moved the amendment, by the purity of his mind, the soundness of 
 his judgment, and the elevation of his rank. I agree with my 
 honourable friends in thinking that we ought not to impose a 
 government upon France. I agree with them in deprecating 
 the evil of war; but I deprecate still more the double evil of a 
 peace without securities, and a war without allies. Sir, I 
 wish it was a question between peace and war ; but, unfortunately 
 for the country, very painfully to us, and most injuriously to all ranks 
 of men, peace is not in our option ; and the real question is, whether 
 we shall go to war when our allies are assembled, or fight the battle 
 when those allies shall be dissipated ? 
 
 Sir, the French government is war ; it is a stratocracy, elective, 
 aggressive, and predatory ; her armies live to fight, and fight to 
 live ; their constitution is essentially war, and the object of that 
 war the conquest of Europe. What such a person as Buonaparte 
 at the head of such a constitution will do, you may judge by what 
 he has done; and, first, he took possession of the greater part of 
 Europe ; he made his son King of Borne ; he made his son in-law 
 Viceroy of Italy ; he made his brother King of Holland ; he made 
 his brother-in-law King of Naples ; he imprisoned the King of 
 Spain; he banished the Regent of Portugal, and formed his plan 
 to take possession of the crown of England. England had checked 
 his designs ; her trident had stirred up his empire from its founda- 
 tion ; he complained of her tyranny at sea ; but it was her power at 
 
 18 
 
398 
 
 DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 sea which arrested his tyranny on land — the navy of England saved 
 Europe. Knowing this, he knew the conquest of England became 
 necessary for the accomplishment of the conquest of Europe, and the 
 destruction of her marine necessary for the conquest of England. 
 Accordingly, besides raising an army of 60,000 men for the invasion 
 of England, lie applied himself to the destruction of her commerce, 
 the foundation of her naval power. In pursuit of this object, and 
 on his plan of a western empire, he conceived, and in part executed, 
 the design of consigning to plunder and destruction the vast regions 
 of Russia ; he quits the genial clime of the temperate zone ; he bursts 
 through the narrow limits of an immense empire ; he abandons 
 comfort and security, and he hurries to the pole, to hazard them all, 
 and with them the companions of his victories, and the fame and 
 fruits of his crimes and his talents, on speculation of leaving in 
 Europe, throughout the whole of its extent, no one free or indepen- 
 dent nation. To oppose this huge conception of mischief and despo- 
 tism, the great potentate of the north, from his gloomy recesses 
 advances to defend himself against the voracity of ambition amid 
 the sterility of his empire. Ambition is omnivorous — it feasts on 
 famine and sheds tons of blood, that it may starve in ice, in order 
 to commit a robbery on desolation. The power of the north, I say, 
 joins another prince, whom Buonaparte had deprived of almost the 
 whole of his authority, the King of Prussia, and then another 
 potentate, whom Buonaparte had deprived of the principal part of 
 his dominions, the Emperor of Austria. These three powers, physi- 
 cal causes, final justice, the influence of your victories in Spain and 
 Portugal, and the spirit given to Europe by the achievements and 
 renown of your great commander [the Duke of Wellington], together 
 with the precipitation of his own ambition, combine to accomplish his 
 destruction. Buonaparte is conquered. He who said : " I will be 
 like the Most High": he who smote the nations with a continual 
 stroke — this short-lived son of the morning, Lucifer, falls, and the 
 Earth is at rest ; the phantom of royalty passes on to nothing, and 
 the three kings to the gates of Paris ; there they stand, the late 
 victims of his ambition, and now the disposers of his destiny and 
 the masters of his empire ; without provocation he had gone to their 
 countries with fire and sword ; with the greatest provocation they 
 come to his country with life and liberty ; they do an act unparallelled 
 in the annals of history, such as nor envy, nor time, nor malice, nor 
 prejudice, nor ingratitude can efface ; they give to his subjects 
 liberty, and to himself life and royalty. This is greater than conquest! 
 The preseut race must confess their virtues, and ages to come must 
 
DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 399 
 
 crown their monuments, and place them above heroes and kings in 
 glory everlasting. 
 
 When Buonaparte states the conditions of the treaty of Fontaine- 
 blean are not performed, he forgets one of them, namely, the condi- 
 tion by which he lives. It is very true there was a mixture of 
 policy and prudence in this measure ; but it was a great act of 
 magnanimity notwithstanding, and it is not in Providence to turn 
 such an act to your disadvantage. With respect to the other act, 
 the mercy shown to his people, I have underrated it ; the allies did 
 not give liberty to France, they enabled her to give a constitution 
 to herself, a better constitution than that which, with much laborious- 
 ness and circumspection, and deliberation, and procrastination, the 
 philosophers fabricated, when the Jacobins trampled down the 
 flimsy work, murdered the vain philosophers, drove out the crazy 
 reformers, and remained masters of the field in the triumph of 
 superior anarchy and confusion ; better than that, I say, which the 
 Jacobin destroyed, better than that which he afterwards formed, 
 with some method in his madness, and more madness in his method ; 
 with such a horror of power, that in his plan of a constitution he 
 left out a government, and with so many wheels that everything 
 was in movement and nothing in concert, so that the machine took 
 fire from its own velocity in the midst of death and mirth, with 
 images emblematic of the public disorder, goddesses of reason 
 turned fool, and of liberty turned fury. At length the French found 
 their advantage in adopting the sober and unaffected security of 
 King, Lords, and Commons, on the idea of that form of government 
 which your ancestors procured by their firmness, and maintained by 
 their discretion. The people had attempted to give the French liberty, 
 and had failed ; the wise men (so her philosophers called themselves) 
 had attempted to give liberty to France, and had failed ; it remained 
 for the extraordinary destiny of the French to receive their free 
 constitution from kings. This constitution Buonaparte has destroyed, 
 together with the treaty of Fontainebleau, and having broken both, 
 desires your confidence ; Russia confided, and was deceived ; Austria 
 confided, and was deceived. Have we forgotten the treaty of Lune- 
 ville, and his abominable conduct to the Swiss ? Spain and other 
 nations of Europe confided, and all were deceived. During the 
 whole of this time he was charging on England the continuation of 
 the war, while he was, with uniform and universal perfidy, breaking 
 his own treaties of peace for the purpose of renewing the war, to 
 end it in what was worse than war itself — his conquest of Europe. 
 But now he repents and will be faithful ! he says so, but he says 
 
400 
 
 DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 the contrary also : "I protest against the validity of the treaty of 
 Fontainebleau ; it was not done with the consent of the people ; I 
 protest against everything done in my absence ; see my speech to 
 the army and people ; see the speech of my council to me". The 
 treaty of Paris v r as done in his absence ; by that treaty were returned 
 the French colonies and prisoners : thus he takes life and empire 
 from the treaty of Fontainebleau, w r ith an original design to set 
 it aside, and he takes prisoners and colonies from the treaty of Paris, 
 which he afterwards sets aside also ; and he musters an army, by a 
 singular fatality, in a great measure composed of troops who owe 
 their enlargement, and of a chief who owes his life, to the powers 
 he fights, by the resources of France, w 7 ho owes to those powers her 
 salvation. He gives a reason for this : " Nothing is good which 
 was done without the consent of the people " (having been deposed 
 by that people, and elected by the army in their defiance). With 
 such sentiments, which go not so much against this or that particular 
 treaty as against the principles of affiance, the question is, whether, 
 with a view to the security of Europe, you will take the faith of 
 Napoleon, or the army of your allies ? 
 
 Gentlemen maintain, that we are not equal to the contest ; that 
 is to say, confederated Europe cannot fight France single-handed ; 
 if that be your opinion, you are conquered this moment ; you are 
 conquered in spirit : but that is not your opinion, nor was it the 
 opinion of your ancestors ; they thought, and I hope transmitted 
 the sentiment as your birth-right, that the armies of these islands 
 eould always fight, and fight with success their own numbers ; see 
 now the numbers you are to command ; by this treaty you are to 
 have in the field what may be reckoned not less than 600,000 men ; 
 besides that stipulated army you have at command, w r hat may be 
 reckoned as much more, I say you and the allies. The Emperor 'of 
 Austria alone has an army of 500,000 men, of which 120,000 were 
 sent to Italy to oppose Murat, w r ho is now beaten ; Austria is not then 
 occupied by Murat; Prussia is not occupied by the Saxon, nor Russia by 
 the Pole, at least not so occupied that they have not ample and redun- 
 dant forces for this war; you have a general never surpassed, and allies 
 in heart and confidence. See now Buonaparte's muster ; he has lost his 
 external dominions, and is reduced from a population of 100,000,000, 
 to a population of 25,000,000 ; besides, he has lost the power of fasci- 
 nation, for though he may be called the subverter of kings, he has not 
 proved to be theredresser of grievances. Switzerland has not forgotten, 
 all Europe remembers the nature of his reformation, and that tho 
 best reform he introduced was worse than the worst government ha 
 
DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 401 
 
 subverted ; as little can Spain or Prussia forget what was worse 
 even than his reformations, the march of his armies : it was not an 
 army; it was a military government in march, like the Koman 
 legions in Rome's worst time, Italica or Kapax, responsible to 
 nothing, nor God, nor man. Thus he has administered a cure to 
 his partisans for any enthusiain that might have been annexed to 
 his name, and is now reduced to his resources at home ; it is at 
 home that he must feed his armies and find his strength, and at 
 home he wants artillery, he wants cavalry ; he has no money, he has 
 mo credit, he has no title. With respect to his actual numbers, they 
 are not ascertained, but it may be collected that they bear no propor- 
 tion to those of the allies. 
 
 But gentlemen presume that the French nation will rise in his 
 favour as soon as we enter their country ; we entered their country 
 before, and they did not rise in his favour ; on the contrary they 
 deposed him ; the article of deposition is given at length. It is 
 said we endeavour to impose a government on France ; the French 
 armies elect a conqueror for Europe, and our resistance to this 
 conqueror is called imposing a government on France ; if we put 
 down this chief, we relieve France as well as Europe from a foreign 
 yoke, and this deliverance is called the imposition of a government 
 on France. He — he imposed a government on France ; he imposed a 
 foreign yoke on France ; he took from the French their property by 
 contribution ; he took their children by conscription ; he lost 
 her empire, and, a tiling almost unimaginable, he brought the 
 enemy to the gates of Paris. We, on the contrary, formed a project, 
 as appears from a paper of 1805, which preserved the integrity of 
 the "French empire ; the allies, in 1814, not only preserved the 
 integrity of the empire as it stood in 1792, but gave her her liberty, 
 and they now afford her the only chance of redemption. Against 
 these- allies, will France now combine, and having received from 
 them her empire as it stood before the war, with additions in conse- 
 quence of their deposition of Buonaparte, and having gotten back her 
 capital, her colonies, and her prisoners, will she break the treaty to 
 which she owes them ; rise up against the allies who gave them ; 
 break her oath of allegiance ; destroy the constitution she has 
 formed ; depose the King she has choseu ; rise up against her own 
 deliverance, in support of contribution and conscription, to perpetuate 
 her political damnation under the yoke of a stranger ? 
 
 Gentlemen say, France has elected him ; they have no grounds 
 for so saying : he had been repulsed at Antibes, and he lost thirty 
 men ; he landed near Cannes the 1st of March, with 1100. With 
 
102 
 
 DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 this force he proceeded to Grasse, Digne, Gap, and on the 7th he 
 entered Grenoble; he there got from the desertion of regiments 
 above 3,000 men and a park of artillery ; with this additional force 
 he proceeded to Lyons ; he left Lyons with about 7,000 strong, and 
 entered Paris on the 20th, with all the troops of the line that had 
 been sent to oppose him ; the following day he reviewed his troops; 
 and nothing could equal the shouts of the army except the silence of 
 the people. This was, in the strictest sense of the word, a military 
 election : it was an act where the army deposed the civil govern- 
 ment ; it was the march of a military chief over a conquered people. 
 The nation did not rise to resist Buonaparte or to defend Lewis, 
 because the nation could not rise upon the army ; her mind as well 
 as her constitution was conquered ; in fact, there was no nation ; 
 everything was army, and everything was conquest. France had 
 passed through all the degrees of political probation, revolution, 
 counter-revolution, wild democracy, intense despotism, outrageous 
 anarchy, philosophy, vanity, and madness ; and now she lay exhaus- 
 ted, for horse, foot, and dragoons to exercise her power, to appoint 
 her a master — captain or cornet who should put the brand of his 
 name upon her government, calling it his dynasty, and under this 
 stamp of dishonour pass her on to futurity. 
 
 Buonaparte, it seems, is to reconcile everything by the gift of a 
 free constitution. He took possession of Holland, he did not give 
 her a free constitution ; he took possession of Spain, he did not give 
 her a free constitution ; he took possession of Switzerland, whose 
 independence he had guaranteed, he did not give her a free consti- 
 tution ; he took possession of Italy, he did not give her a free 
 constitution ; he took possession of France, he did not give her a free 
 constitution ; on the contrary, he destroyed the directorial constitu- 
 tion, he destroyed the consular constitution, and he destroyed the 
 late constitution formed on the plan of England ! But now he is, 
 with the assistance of the Jacobins, to give her liberty ; that is, the 
 man who can bear no freedom, unites to form a constitution with a 
 body who can bear no government ! In the mean time, while he 
 professes liberty, he exercises despotic power, he annihilates the 
 nobles, he banishes the deputies of the people, and he sequesters the 
 property of the emigrants. "Now he is to give liberty!" I have 
 seen his constitution, as exhibited in the newspaper ; there are faults 
 innumerable in the frame of it, and more in the manner of accepting it: 
 it is to be passed by subscription without discussion, the troops are 
 to send deputies, and the army is to preside. There is some cunning, 
 however, in making the subscribers to the constitution renounce the 
 
DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 403 
 
 house of Bourbon ; they are to give their word for the deposition of 
 the king, and take Napoleon's word for their own liberty ; the offer 
 imports nothing which can be relied on, except that he is afraid of 
 the allies. Disperse the alliance, and farewell to the liberty of 
 France and the safety of Europe. 
 
 Under this head of ability to combat Buonaparte, I think we should 
 not despair. 
 
 With respect to the justice of the cause, we must observe, Buona- 
 parte has broken the treaty of Fontainebleau ; he confesses it ; he 
 declares he never considered himself as bound by it. If then that 
 treaty is out of the way, he is as he was before it — at war. As 
 Emperor of the French, he has broken the treaty of Paris ; that 
 treaty was founded on his abdication ; when he proposes to observe 
 the treaty of Paris, he proposes what he cannot do unless he abdi- 
 cates. 
 
 The proposition that we should not interfere with the government 
 of other nations is true, but true with qualifications ; if the govern- 
 ment of any other country contains an insurrectionary principle, as 
 France did when she ottered to aid the insurrections of her neigh- 
 bours, your interference is warranted ; if tfie government of another 
 country contains the principle of universal empire, as France did, 
 and promulgated, your interference is justifiable. Gentlemen may 
 call this internal government, but I call this conspiracy ; if the govern- 
 ment of another country maintains a predatory army, such as Buona- 
 parte's, with a view to hostility and conquest, your interference is 
 just. He may call this internal government, but I call this a prepara- 
 tion for war. No doubt he will accompany this with offers of peace, 
 but such offers of peace are nothing more than one of the arts of war, 
 attended, most assuredly, by charging on you the odium of a long 
 and protracted contest, and with much common-place, and many 
 good saws and sayings of the miseries of bloodshed, and the savings 
 and good husbandry of peace, and the comforts of a quiet life ; but 
 if you listen to this, you will be much deceived ; not only deceived, 
 but you will be beaten. Again, if the government of another country 
 covers more ground in Europe, and destroys the balance of power, 
 so as to threaten the independence of other nations, this is a cause 
 of your interference. Such was the principle upon which we acted 
 in the best times ; such was the principle of the grand alliance ; such 
 the triple alliance ; and such the quadruple ; and by such principles 
 has Europe not only been regulated but protected. If a foreign 
 government does any of those acts I have mentioned, we have a 
 cause of war ; but if a foreign power does all of them, forms a con- 
 
404 
 
 DOWNFALL OF FUONAFARTE. 
 
 spiracy for universal empire, keeps up an army for that purposey 
 employs that army to overturn the balance of power, and attempts 
 the conquest of Europe — attempts, do I say? in a great degree 
 achieves it (for what else was Buonaparte's dominion before the battle 
 of Leipsic ?), and then receives an overthrow, owes its deliverance to 
 treaties which give that power its life, and these countries their 
 security (for what did you get from France but security?) ; if this 
 power, I say, avails itself of the conditions in the treaties which 
 give it colonies, prisoners, and deliverance, and breaks those conditions 
 which give you security, and resumes the same situation which 
 renders this power capable of repeating the same atrocity, has England, 
 or has she not, a right of war ? 
 
 Having considered the two questions, that of ability, and that of 
 right, and having shown that you are justified on either considera- 
 tion to go to war, let me now suppose that you treat for peace ; first, 
 you will have a peace upon a war establishment, and then a war 
 without your present allies. It is not certain that you will have 
 any of them, but it is certain that you will not have the same com- 
 bination while Buonaparte increases his power by confirmation of his 
 title and by further preparation ; so that you will have a bad peace 
 and a bad war. Were I disposed to treat for peace, I would not 
 agree to the amendment, because it disperses your allies and strengthens 
 your enemy, and says to both, we will quit our alliance to confirm 
 Napoleon on the throne of France, that he may hereafter more 
 advantageously fight us, as he did before, for the throne of England. 
 
 Gentlemen set forth the pretensions of Buonaparte ; gentlemen 
 say, that he has given liberty to the press ; he has given liberty to 
 publication, to be afterwards tried and punished according to the 
 present constitution of France — as a military chief pleases ; that is 
 to say, he has given liberty to the French to hang themselves. 
 Gentlemen say, he has in his dominions abolished the slave trade ; 
 I am unwilling to deny him praise for such an act ; but if we praise 
 him for giving liberty to the African, let us not assist him in impos- 
 ing slavery on the European. Gentlemen say, will you make war 
 upon character ? but the question is, will you trust a government 
 without one ? What will you do if you are conquered ? say gentle- 
 men. I answer, the very thing you must do if you treat ; abandon 
 the Low Countries. But the question is, in which case are you most 
 likely to be conquered — with allies or without them ? Either you 
 must abandon the Low Countries, or you must preserve them by 
 arms, for Buonaparte will not be withheld by treaty. If you 
 abandon them, you will lose your situation on the globe, and instead 
 
DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE. 
 
 405 
 
 of being a medium of communication and commerce between the new 
 world and the old, you will become an anxious station between two 
 fires — the continent of America, rendered hostile by the intrigues of 
 France, and the continent of Europe, possessed by her arms. It then 
 remains for you to determine, if you do not abandon the Low 
 Countries, in what way you mean to defend them, alone or with 
 allies. 
 
 Gentlemen complain of the allies, and say, they have partitioned 
 such a country, and transferred such a country, and seized on such 
 a countiy. What ! will they quarrel with their ally, who has 
 possessed himself of a part of Saxony, and shake hands with Buona- 
 parte, who proposed to take possession of England ? If a prince 
 takes Venice, we are indignant ; but if he seizes on a great part of 
 Europe, stands covered with the blood of millions, and the spoils of 
 half mankind, our indignation ceases ; vice becomes gigantic, con- 
 quers the understanding, and mankind begin by wonder, and conclude 
 by worship. The character of Buonaparte is admirably calculated 
 for this effect ; he invests himself with much theatrical grandeur ; 
 he is a great actor in the tragedy of his own government ; the fire 
 of his genius precipitates on universal empire, certain to destroy his 
 neighbours or himself ; better formed to acquire empire than to keep 
 it, he is a hero and a calamity, formed to punish France, and to per- 
 plex Europe. 
 
 The authority of Mr. Fox has been alluded to ; a great authority, 
 and a great man ; his name excites tenderness and wonder ; to do 
 justice to that immortal person, you must not limit your view to this 
 country ; his genius was not confined to England, it acted three hun- 
 dred miles off' in breaking the chains of Ireland ; it was seen three 
 thousand miles off in communicating freedom to the Americans ; it 
 was visible, I know not how far off, in ameliorating the condition of 
 the Indian ; it was discernible on the coast of Africa in accomplish- 
 ing the abolition of the slave trade. You are to measure the magni- 
 tude of his mind by parallels of latitude. His heart was as soft as 
 that of a woman ; his intellect was adamant ; his weaknesses were 
 virtues ; they protected him against the hard habit of a politician, 
 and assisted nature to make him amiable and interesting. The ques- 
 tion discussed by Mr. Fox in 1792, was, whether you would treat 
 with a revolutionary government ? The present is, whether you will 
 confirm a military and a hostile one ? You will observe, that when 
 Mr. Fox was willing to treat, the French, it was understood, were 
 ready to evacuate the Low Countries. If you confirm the present 
 government, you must expect to lose them. Mr. Fox objected u 
 
406 
 
 DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE, 
 
 the idea of driving France upon her resources, lest you should make 
 her a military government. The question now is, whether you will 
 make that military government perpetual ? I therefore do not think 
 the theory of Mr. Fox can be quoted against us; and the practice 
 of Mr. Fox tends to establish our proposition, for he treated with 
 Buonaparte and failed. Mr. Fox was tenacious of England, and 
 would never yield an iota of her superiority ; but the failure of the 
 attempt to treat was to be found, not in Mr. Fox, but in Buonaparte. 
 
 On the French subject, speaking of authority, we cannot forget 
 Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke, the prodigy of nature and acquisition. He 
 read everything, he saw everything, he foresaw everything. His 
 knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling ; and when 
 he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great 
 political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between 
 the access of fever and the force of health ; and what other men 
 conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew to be no more 
 than the paroxysm of her madness, and then, prophet-like, he pro- 
 nounced the destinies of France, and, in his prophetic fury, admonished 
 nations. 
 
 Gentlemen speak of the Bourbon family. I have already said, 
 we should not force the Bourbon upon France ; but we owe it to 
 departed (I would rather say to interrupted) greatness, to observe, 
 that the house of Bourbon was not tyrannical; under her, every- 
 thing, except the administration of the country, was open to 
 animadversion ; every subject was open to discussion, philosophical, 
 ecclesiastical, and political, so that learning, and arts, and sciences, 
 made progress. Even England consented to borrow not a little 
 from the temperate meridian of that government. Her court stood 
 controlled by opinion, limited by principles of honour, and softened 
 1by the iniluence of manners : and, on the whole, there was an 
 amenity in the condition of France, which rendered the French an 
 amiable, an enlightened , a gallant, and an accomplished race. Over 
 this gallant race you see imposed an oriental despotism. Their pre- 
 sent court (Buonaparte's court) has gotten the idiom of the East as 
 well as her constitution ; a fantastic and barbaric expression : an 
 unreality, which leaves in the shade the modesty of truth, and states 
 nothing as it is, and everything as it is not. The attitude is affected, 
 the taste is corrupted, and the intellect perverted. Do you wish to 
 confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe ? A tyranny 
 founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil 
 government, tending to universalize throughout Europe the domina- 
 tion of the sword, and to reduce to paper and parchment, Magna 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 407 
 
 Charta and all our civil constitutions. An experiment such as no country 
 ever ma^cle, and no good country would ever permit ; to relax the 
 moral and religious influences ; to set Heaven and Earth adrift from 
 one another, and make God Almighty a tolerated alien in His own 
 creation ; an insurrectionary hope to every bad man in the commu- 
 nity, and a frightful lesson to profit and power, vested in those who 
 have pandered their allegiance from king to emperor, and now found 
 their pretensions to domination on the merit of breaking their oaths 
 and deposing then* sovereign. Should you do anything so monstrous 
 as to leave your allies in order to confirm such a system ; should 
 you forget your name, forget your ancestors, and the inheritance 
 they have left you of morality and renown; should you astonish 
 Europe, by quitting your allies to render immortal such a composi- 
 tion, would not the nations exclaim, "You have very providently 
 watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed 
 to our service, and do you falter now ? In vain have you stopped 
 in your own person the flying fortunes of Europe ; in vain have you 
 taken the eagle of Xapoleon, and snatched invincibility from his 
 standard, if now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you 
 take the lead in the desertion, and preach the penitence of Buona- 
 parte and the poverty of England''? 
 
 As to her poverty, you must not consider the money you spend in 
 your defence, but the fortune you would lose if you were not defended ; 
 and further, you must recollect you will pay less to an immediate 
 war, than to a peace with a war establishment, and a war to follow 
 it. Recollect further, that whatever be your resources, they must 
 outlast those of all your enemies ; and further, that your empire 
 cannot be saved by a calculation. Besides, your wealth is only a 
 part of your situation. The name you have established, the deeds 
 you have achieved, and the part you have sustained, preclude you 
 from a second place among nations ; and when you cease to be the 
 first, vou are nothing. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 May 21, 1816. 
 
 Mr. Grattan observed, that his right honourable friend (Sir. Elliot, 
 who presented the English Catholic petition) had argued this ques- 
 tion so justly, so wisely, and with so much honour to himself and 
 
408 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 his country, that he had really left him very little to say on the 
 subject. He begged to return his best thanks to the House for the 
 extreme patience with which, on various occasions, they had listened 
 to the repetition of his opinions on the Catholic claims. Again he 
 had to entreat their candour, which would again be followed by his 
 gratitude. It had been repeatedly urged in hostility to the claims 
 of the Catholics, that those claims ought to be advanced with more 
 temper, and that a greater attachment ought to be exhibited to the 
 existing institutions of the country. It must be most satisfactory to 
 the House to observe, that the Catholics now grounded their hope 
 of obtaining their liberties, or their rights, or their claims, or by 
 whatever name the concessions to them were to be called, on evincing 
 a disposition not merely to acquiesce, but heartily to concur, not in 
 form only, but in act, in such terms as that House might think neces- 
 sary for the preservation of the church establishment, and of the 
 Protestant succession to the throne. The known washes of that 
 House could not indeed fail to make a due impression on their minds ; 
 and having considered the whole subject, and the absolute necessity 
 of expressing their attachment, not to the crown only, but to the 
 Protestant succession, the Catholics of Ireland presented a petition, 
 from which he begged leave to read some extracts. [Here he read 
 several passages of the Catholic petition, the tendency of which was 
 to express the anxious wish of the Catholics, that the great measure 
 of emancipation should take place under such circumstances as might 
 render it satisfactory and unobjectionable to all classes of his Ma- 
 jesty's subjects ; inasmuch as, in their opinion, the chief benefit to be 
 derived from it, would be an union in the bonds of concord of the 
 various religious persuasions of the empire, and the removal of thosa 
 jealousies and apprehensions which at present prevented a cordial 
 cooperation for the public good. They also declared it to be their 
 duty to state, that they were ready to submit and conform to any 
 regulations not incompatible with the principles of their religion, or 
 threatening with danger its pure and permanent exercise ; and that, 
 w r hile they fully relied on the liberality and justice of the legislature, 
 not to impose any conditions inconsistent with their religious persua- 
 sions, they were convinced that an adjustment might take place 
 conciliatory to the Protestant mind, and at the same time compatible 
 with the principles of their faith and discipline.] This petition was 
 signed by above nine hundred persons, many of them of the highest 
 rank. [Here the clerk, by desire of Mr. Grattan, read a number of 
 the names, comprehending a large portion of the Irish nobility.] 
 The House had desired to have certain declarations on the part of 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 40* 
 
 the Catholics, and the Catholics had given him a petition to present 
 to the House in which those declarations were explicitly made. The 
 House had exacted certain terms, and with those terms the Catholics 
 had complied. He held in his hand a letter, for the authenticity of 
 which he could vouch, directed by the Pope to be written by Cardinal 
 Litta to Dr. Poynter, touching the conditions with which the legis- 
 lature of this country wished to accompany any concession to the 
 Catholics. The letter set forth the forms of those oaths, which were 
 veiy little different from those at present taken by the Catholics of 
 Ireland, and though the oath which was to be taken by the bishop 
 was thought in itself a sufficient security, yet his Holiness did not 
 hesitate to permit those to whom it appertained to make out a list of 
 the candidates for a bishopric, which list was to be presented to the 
 King's ministers, in order that if any one of such candidates were 
 disliked or suspected, his name might be expunged from it. The 
 letter went further, and said, that as soon as the British government 
 shall promulgate emancipation to the Catholics, his Holiness will 
 send a brief to the Roman Catholic bishops to the above effect, and 
 publish to the universe his grateful sense of the generosity and cle- 
 mency of the British government, and finally permit the bishops to 
 observe what was before stated with regard to the oaths and to the 
 mode of elections. 
 
 Here then, upon the granting of emancipation, was that power 
 given to the crown which had been so frequently demanded as its 
 condition. He had been often, on former occasions, asked what 
 plan did he bring, in order that emancipation should be granted ? 
 what plan could he propose for the security of the Protestant 
 religion as by law established ? In order to be able to answer such 
 questions on the present occasion, he had, with a great deal of pains, 
 possessed himself of -good information on the subject. He was ac- 
 quainted, through a most authentic channel, with the sentiments of 
 the Pope on the great question ; and the Pope had expressed him- 
 self, that if emancipation was now withheld, the fault was not his. 
 He (the Pope) had very fairly said. " Why will the parliament not 
 legislate for the Catholics ? I am not indisposed to withhold my 
 assistance". If then he was asked on the present occasion, where 
 are your securities ? he would say : " Here are my terms ; they are 
 the terms on which you wished heretofore to grant emancipation, 
 and if you now refuse them, you refuse what you so anxiously sought 
 for, and considered as securities ". 
 
 He would ask the House how many petitions had been presented 
 to them this session against the claims of the Catholics ? He wished 
 
V 
 
 410 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 to have all, or any, such petitions read. None could be read. None 
 had been presented. What then was the inference? That the 
 great body of the Protestants were not inimical to the claims of their 
 Catholic brethren. He would not go so far as to say, that there 
 were not many Protestants who still opposed Catholic emancipation, 
 but it would not be presuming too much in him to suppose, that 
 where so many petitions had been presented on a former occasion, 
 all or most of which were against emancipation conditionally, and 
 none on the present, there did not exist any general opposition to it 
 in the minds of the Protestants. There then was no general pre- 
 judice to contend against on the part of the Protestants, and there 
 was sufficient authority to show that they could legislate in respect 
 of concessions for the Catholics. The Catholic bishops had in 1799 
 agreed to certain resolutions, which declared that . the concessions 
 which were then, and have been since demanded, were not hostile to 
 the discipline of the church. The Pope himself not only declares 
 that such concessions may be granted, but has actually granted them, 
 provided the Catholics be emancipated. This then, would be one 
 good effect of the committee for which he intended to move : it 
 would show to some of the Catholics, that those concessions to which 
 they objected were not only not against the discipline of the church, 
 but accordant with its practice. He would not take up the time of 
 the House by mentioning in detail the grievances which at present 
 affected Ireland. They might be classed under a very few heads. 
 She had commercial and financial difficulties ; but a great deal of he~ 
 present misfortunes might be traced to religious animosities. The 
 causes of the other evils of Ireland might be removed with perhaps 
 little difficulty ; but it would not be easy to remove many of the 
 evils which arose from religious distinctions and the effect of the 
 penal code, without a particular investigation. ■ To this inquiry he 
 called the House ; by it they would reduce those who made religious 
 differences a pretext for disturbance, to a mere banditti, because the 
 removal of that pretext would be the result of the inquiry, and 
 having no foreign power to aid them in their wish for disturbance, 
 they would die from jej unity. If the result of the inquiry which the 
 House might enter into did not satisfy some of the Catholics, it 
 should be recollected that the duty of the House was to serve, not to 
 satisfy them ; and if they succeeded in the former, he trusted they 
 would have firmness and spirit sufficient to act upon that conduct 
 which justice and duty should point out. Most of the evils which at 
 ] reent affected Ireland were not to be attributed to the system 
 i ux-ued by one or another chief governor. He by no means wished 
 
CATnOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 411 
 
 to attribute them to such cause. The fault lay in the law, which 
 obliged the government of Ireland to act with a marked partiality 
 to one sect. Until this defect in the law was remedied, it would be 
 impossible for any chief governor of Ireland to act impartially. The 
 fault, then, of the government of Ireland, as far as its government 
 was affected by the operation of the penal code, rested with parlia- 
 ment, who had it in their power to repeal that code. Almost all the 
 evils which affected Ireland, whether they originated in this code or 
 not, were fostered and fomented by it. The United Irishmen had 
 not originated in religious animosities, but their disturbances had 
 at length turned into that disordered channel. Thus it would ever 
 be; there was something radically bad in the law, and as long as it 
 was not remedied, so long would it continue to be the nurse of 
 every evil which arose in the state, whether originating with itself 
 or not. A sore on the finger may, though in itself not very dangerous, 
 be turned to mortality. It was the same in the body politic ; small 
 evils may thus become the channels through which great miseries 
 might flow on the state. 
 
 The honourable gentleman then contended, that it was essential to 
 the security of the empire, that the evils which existed in any part 
 of it should be traced to their source, in order to prevent their 
 spreading, or being the cause of others as pernicious as themselves. 
 He observed that the societies of Orangemen, which caused so much 
 disaffection between Protestant and Catholic in Ireland, had arisen 
 from the effects of the penal code. Another evil which arose from it 
 was, that the people of Ireland, he meant the Catholic population, 
 were not identified with the law. The advantage of that identifi- 
 cation would be to unite all in defence and support of privileges 
 which all equally enjoyed ; but this advantage, which was contem- 
 plated by the Union, was lost by the continued existence of partial 
 laws, which, while they obliged the Catholic to defend the consti- 
 tution, gave him little or no share in the privileges of that constitu- 
 tion. It was vain then to expect, that while such partiality 
 existed, the great body of the Catholics could be identified with the 
 laws. So long as this code of laws remained unrepealed, so long 
 would there exist in the state a large body of men, of whom the 
 government must necessarily be afraid, and to overawe whom it 
 would be necessary to support a large standing ami}'. 
 
 This was a necessary consequence of the penal code, and not its 
 least obnoxious one, as it tended to draw on a military government. 
 It was true the soldiers so employed may not be badly disposed, 
 but as long as the soldiers in any country exceeded a fair proportion 
 
412 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 of the population, so long is the liberty of the inhabitants held, not 
 by the law, but by the clemency of the army. He had every respec* 
 for the army, he applauded them for their unparallelled victories ana 
 for their strict discipline, but still he could never consent that British 
 subjects should hold their liberties at their pleasure. He did not 
 mean to say, that the support of a large standing army was the in- 
 tention of the continuance of the penal code, but such was its effect. 
 It was necessary that this army should be kept, in order to keep 
 down a proscribed people. It was also necessary that this army 
 should be paid at a vast expense to the country ; and for what was 
 all this expense and this risk of a military government incurred ? 
 To keep such men as the Duke of Norfolk or the Earl of Fingall out 
 of parliament, lest if they got a seat there they should seek by 
 treasonable conspiracies to overturn the constitution. But why 
 should these, or any other Catholic noblemen, seek to overturn the 
 constitution when they were admitted to a participation of its privi- 
 leges ? Or if they were so disposed, how could they effect it ? 
 Would it be by applying to France ? No. To Spain ? No. We 
 were in peace and amity with those powers. Was it then to the 
 Pope they would apply ? Such an idea was ridiculous. The Pope 
 had not the power, nor if he had, was he disposed to exert it. Yet 
 it was for this we were obliged to keep up a large standing army, to 
 prevent a few noblemen from doing that which they would not do 
 if they could, and could not if they would. Yet these were the idle 
 fears for which we were called upon to make such sacrifices. 
 
 He begged leave to add, that the empire, according to the admis- 
 sion of all parties, was at present in a state of great splendour. We 
 had made great additions to it by conquest, and it required large 
 standing armies to keep those conquests. Why then should we add 
 to the number of our troops, in order to keep a part of our fellow- 
 subjects as aliens in their native country ? Such conduct was most 
 absurd and impolitic, and tended greatly to reduce the strength of 
 the empire. Here then was the danger which was to be incurred ; 
 and for what ? For refusing emancipation on those very terms on 
 which it had been opposed some time back. The opponents of 
 emancipation feared some time back, that by granting that measure, 
 they would be granting an influence to a foreign power ; that fear 
 was now done away by the terms which he proposed. The terms 
 would place the Catholic prelates out of the danger of any foreign 
 influence, and sufficiently under the power of the crown for any 
 security which it could demand. He begged the House to be on 
 their guard against anything like recrimination on the Catholics. It 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 413 
 
 would not be politic to refer back to ancient dates of history, to sea 
 what had been done on former occasions by them. It would be 
 sufficient to know, that in 1782 we had made most important con- 
 cessions to Ireland, which we should not now retract hi part, by 
 refusing the benefits of our law to three-fourths of its inhabitants. 
 It had been once said, that Ireland would not receive the English 
 law when it was pressed upon her. The House should not now act 
 upon a contrary principle, and refuse those benefits to so large a 
 portion of the Irish population, who would receive them with joy 
 and gratitude. 
 
 He then moved, " That this House will, early in the next session 
 of parliament, take into its most serious consideration the state of 
 the laws affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, with a view to such a £ual and conciliatory ad- 
 justment as may be conducive to the peace and tranquillity of the 
 United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant establishment, 
 and to the general concord and satisfaction of all classes of his 
 Majesty's subjects". 
 
 May 9, 1817. 
 
 Mr. Grattas t previous to submitting his motion to the House on the subject 
 of the Catholic claims, moved, " That the petition of the Roman Catholics of 
 Ireland, presented on the 15th of May, 1816, be read." 
 The petition was accordingly read by the clerk. 
 
 Mr. Grattan then said : Having been applied to by the Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland to bring their case under the consideration of 
 the House, I shall now proceed to discharge the duty I have under- 
 taken. But, sir, it is not my intention at present to go into this 
 important question. I shall entreat the indulgence of the House to 
 hear my sentiments fully by way of reply. Upon a question of this 
 sort, which has been debated in this House so often, it would be 
 monstrous presumption in me to expect to be heard twice in the 
 course of one night ; I shall therefore request the indulgence of the 
 House for my reply ; and shall now trouble gentlemen but a very 
 few minutes. The resolution I intend to move is, for a committee 
 to take the laws affecting the Roman Catholics into consideration. 
 It is the same motion which was carded in 1813, and does nothing 
 more than pledge the House to examine the penal laws, with a view 
 to relie e the Catholics, to give every security to the Protestant 
 
414 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 establishment, and ultimately to impart satisfaction to all orders of 
 men in the empire. I say ultimate satisfaction ; because in such a 
 question as this, the hope of giving immediate satisfaction to every 
 order of men, is a matter of utter impossibility ; and therefore the 
 House must legislate to the best of its judgment, with a view to the 
 ultimate satisfaction of one party, and the immediate relief of another. 
 
 I have read the report* which my learned and useful friend (Sir 
 J. C. Hippesley) has presented to the House, which has clearly shown 
 you that, in all the great countries of Europe, there is a civil and 
 military toleration, incorporation, and qualification, for all religious 
 sects ; that there is, in nearly every state of Europe, a certain con- 
 nexion between the clergy and the government, so as to preclude the 
 danger of foreign influence ; and that England is almost the only 
 country where such an arrangement has not yet been made. I beg 
 to observe, that there is now every reason to hope, and there is no 
 reason to doubt, but that securities may be had, and such securities 
 as the House will perhaps think desirable. There may be domestic 
 nomination, there may be a veto — there may be both ! Now you 
 may command your own securities, and therefore let not gentlemen 
 say : " We cannot accede to Catholic emancipation, because we have 
 no securities The question is, will you endanger the safety of 
 your own church, in order to exclude the Catholics from the consti- 
 tution ? You now have securities, both for church and state, at 
 your command. If you exclude the Catholics, if you keep from 
 them civil and military rights, will you not say, that you will exclude 
 the Protestant church and the Protestant settlement from security ? 
 That is to declare, that you will prefer to the securities which your 
 fellow-subjects offer, and which have so often been represented as 
 necessary to the safety of the church and state, a monopoly, the 
 monopoly of power, the monopoly of seats in parliament, the mono- 
 poly of civil and military offices. Is it not to say, that you will 
 prefer this power, not to the freedom of your Roman Catholic fellow- 
 subjects, but to the security of the Protestant church ? 80 that it 
 will appear that, having called for securities in order to justify you 
 in granting liberty, you now refuse them when offered, and exclude 
 the Catholics, in order to prevent them from participating in that 
 power which they were expected to share. I beg leave to say, that 
 the present question is not about the means by which securities may 
 be effected. I will not debate that point. The question is, whether 
 
 * Official papers relating to the regulation of the Roman Catholics : printed 
 by order of the House of Commons. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 415 
 
 any securities whatever will be received ? Let me tell you why. 
 There is a communication between the Pope and the Catholic clergy, 
 which must end either in incorporation with the See of Rome, or 
 connexion with the government of England, and if the latter be 
 refused, it will be dangerous to the safety of England. You will 
 have the Catholic clergy incorporated with the See of Rome, and 
 the Catholic laity discorporated from the people of England. 
 
 I shall go into a committee to move the repeal of the laws that 
 disqualify the Catholics from civil, military, and naval power, subject 
 to such arrangements as may be judged necessary for the safety of 
 the Protestant religion, the act of settlement, and the government of 
 Great Britain ; that is to say, subject to such provisions as you will 
 feel necessary for the security of your church and state ; that, if you 
 choose to adopt the resolution, you may show to the world that you 
 have ceased to be the only comitry in Europe that withheld those 
 rights, but that you are ready to give franchises, and that you are 
 willing to grant a participation in the benefits of your constitution to 
 your Catholic fellow-subjects. This will acquit you with regard to 
 your having a just idea of the principles of liberty, whilst the secu- 
 rities you will receive will effectually protect your civil and religious 
 privileges. Give to the Catholics all they require, taking care that 
 your church is properly protected. This is the principle on which 
 the question will stand, and the point which you must ultimately 
 concede. With respect to safeguards, I think there is no man, when 
 he procures rights which he considers inestimable, that ought not to 
 give you those securities, which, while they do not trench on the 
 Catholic church, afford strength and safety to the Protestant 
 religion. I shall now move : 
 
 " That this House do resolve itself into a committee of the whole 
 House, to take into its most serious consideration the state of the laws 
 affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Great Britain and 
 Ireland, with a view to such a final and conciliatory adjustment as 
 may be conducive to the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, 
 to the stability of the Protestant establishment, and the general 
 satisfaction and concord of all classes of his Majesty's subjects". 
 
 I beg to say this, that my idea is not, in any degree whatever to 
 put it out of the power of this House to insist on full satisfaction 
 relative to the proffered securities, before they proceed to legislate ; so 
 that nothing that shall occur in the House, either now or at any future 
 period, shall be considered operative, unless the House be perfectly 
 satisfied that the secmities offered will insure the safety of the Pro- 
 testant church and state. 
 
416 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 On the close of the debate Mr. Grattan spoke as follows : — 
 I beg to restate what I said in the beginning, that you can now 
 command your securities, and in refusing to agree to this motion, 
 you not only reject the emancipation of the Catholic subject, but the 
 security of the Protestant. It is very true, a certain unpopularity 
 may for a while attend one species of security, but I agree with the 
 noble lord (Castlereagh), you are not to legislate to please, you are 
 to legislate to serve, you are to legislate to save ; and then, rely on 
 it, you will ultimately satisfy. If you reject this motion, I repeat 
 it, you reject your security, you oppose the franchises of those of 
 another religion, and the security of your own. The right honourable 
 gentleman (Mr. Peel) has called our system a Protestant constitution; 
 as justly might he have called it a Protestant empire ; he means 
 a constitution to which the Protestants have an exclusive right 
 without the participation of any Catholic member ; he will prove 
 that title. I do not find that he has produced any authority in 
 which that constitution is called Protestant, and if he did, denomina- 
 tion is no title. Still less can he advance prescription ; the consti- 
 tution was the work of Catholics, and the fundamental laws the 
 work of Catholics. The bill of rights, and the declaration of rights, 
 went no further than to declare the rights obtained by Catholics. 
 The right honourable gentleman has no right to say, the oath is a 
 fundamental law; the oath was not intended to go against the 
 Catholic religion, but against those who obey the temporal power of 
 the Pope, and such is the explanation by act of parliament. [Here 
 the statute of 33 Geo. III., chap. 44, was read.] 
 
 Mr. Grattan proceeded and observed, that the preamble ran thus : 
 that the oath was a dogmatic renunciation of religious tenets, instead 
 of an oath of allegiance ; that the oath had been enacted to preserve 
 the government against the attempts of those who were supposed to 
 acknowledge the temporal power of the Pope, and not against their 
 religion ; that it was accordingly repealed, and the oath of allegiance 
 put in its place. I speak of the repeal of the Scotch oath of 1793. 
 There is another act which declares the oath to be provisional, and 
 if provisional, of course, not fundamental. The Irish act of Union 
 enacts, that the qualifying oath and declaration shall be taken until 
 altered by parliament, and it had in view this very question, namely, 
 the admission of the Catholics into parliament. Here, then, are these 
 gentlemen declaring the oath to be fundamental, and here are two 
 statutes declaring the contrary ; which then will you believe ? 
 Gentlemen say, the Catholics are excluded by the fundamental laws 
 of the land from all political situations. The act of parliament saya 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 417 
 
 exactly the contrary : " Be it enacted, that persons professing the 
 Catholic religion may enjoy all places, civil and military". Having 
 failed to make out this exclusive title by law — on the contrary, being 
 oonvicted in the attempt by act of parliament, they endeavour to 
 make out a title by inference : they say the King must be Protestant, 
 the lords must be Protestant, and the commons must be Pro- 
 testant. They are mistaken ; the lords are not exclusively Pro- 
 testant, writs are now sent to Catholic peers ; the commons are not 
 exclusively Protestant, the commons are in part Catholic ; the con- 
 stituency of Ireland, and they form no small part of the electors, are 
 in no small proportion Catholic. Gentlemen make a comparison 
 between the body and the House wherein it acts ; the House are not 
 the commons ; the commons are those who elect and act by repre- 
 sentation ; accordingly, the King thanks the commons, and impeach- 
 ments are made in the name of the commons, and survive prorogation 
 or dissolution. I have two objections to their argument ; it raises 
 disabilities on inference, which is against a principle of law, and it 
 founds inference upon what is not fact. You cannot take away the 
 prerogative of the crown by inference ; you cannot take away the 
 privilege of the people by inference. 
 
 They have failed to make out an exclusive title to this constitution, 
 they have produced nothing in the letter of the Revolution, and the 
 spirit is all against them. The Revolution, properly understood, was 
 not a victory of Protestantism over Popery, but of civil and religious 
 liberty over oppression ; and the Catholics were excluded from its 
 benefits because they were ranged in the cause of that oppression. 
 They were excluded then, because they were in a state of war ; and 
 they are admissible now, because they are in a state of allegiance. 
 Gentlemen have said that the Revolution was a final settlement of reli- 
 gion; no such thing; the penal laws took place a considerable time after ; 
 and then their argument is, that this final settlement was open to 
 penalties and shut to benefits. Gentlemen having failed to show 
 that the Protestants have an exclusive title to the benefits of the 
 constitution, or to say more properly, that the constitution is her- 
 metically sealed against Catholics, are reduced to prove that they 
 have a right to exclude the Catholics from political power. 
 
 I do not enter into the question of natural right to political power ; 
 out I do say that the Catholics have a right to the attributes of law, 
 universality, and equality ; and I do further say, that the Catholics 
 have a common-law right to eligibility. The parliament does not 
 give that right, but the parliament takes it away. The common law 
 gives the Catholic the right of eligibility, and the parliament deprive* 
 
418 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 him of it. The parliament may do so ; the parliament must, and 
 does regulate that right ; so with regard to qualification ; so with 
 regard to persons concerned in the collection of the revenue ; so with 
 regard to placemen and pensioners. Parliament may take away 
 that right, but it must be for a good reason, and religion is none — 
 religion is no just excuse for disqualification. Every man has a 
 right to communicate with his God without the interference of the 
 state. The moral atrocity which has been charged upon the Catho- 
 lic religion, and which is no part of religion, namely, violation of 
 faith and contempt of allegiance, are imputations now too long 
 exploded to be dwelt upon. They are incompatible with any society, 
 and they are inconsistent with the truth of the Christian religion. 
 Such charges are no ground for disqualification. The incompatibility 
 of the seven Romish sacraments with allegiance to the House of 
 Hanover, part of which is recited in the oath, as little can it form a 
 ground of disability ; imputed disallegiance can form no ground of 
 disability ; and their allegiance, declared in four acts of parliament, 
 14th, 18th, 22nd, and 43rd of the king, the right of property 
 granted in 1778, the rights of religion in 1782, the right of franchise 
 and of arms granted in 1793, preclude any question regarding dis- 
 ability on account of disaffection. The inability of the Pope to 
 shake the British empire, and his disposition signified by the letters 
 of Quarantotti and Litta, go still farther to take away any pretence of 
 disability on account of disaffection. But they say the Pope has 
 revived the Jesuits, and this is an argument for attainting the Catho- 
 lics ; they say the Inquisition is revived, and this is a good argument 
 for disqualifying the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Fingall ; they say 
 that the Catholic draft of 1813 was a bad bill, and therefore the 
 act of William, imposing the oath, is a good law ; but the question 
 is not whether a particular committee be capable of drawing an act 
 of parliament, but whether the Roman Catholic be incapable of alle- 
 giance ? 
 
 An honourable gentleman (Mr. Webber) dissents, and says, if 
 there was an opportunity, the Catholics would rise. You will observe 
 that this is evidence, not argument, and evidence of an opinion, the 
 ground of which he has not thought proper to establish. If the 
 Catholics be so disposed, which I deny, it must arise from their 
 particular situation by his own account, and not from the Catholic 
 religion ; that is, it must arise from nativity and from the laws ; if 
 from nativity, his argument is this, that God has made men in Ire- 
 land for rebellion ; if from the laws, then why does he defend a 
 system which he acknowledges must produce disaffection? The 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION". 
 
 419 
 
 member refers to history ; the history of Ireland is a history of oppres- 
 sion, of a people ill governed, and a government ill obeyed. The 
 historians were, for the most part, partisans, and afraid to speak 
 truth ; but do not go back to those periods of your common disgrace ; 
 rather go to those periods where you fought together, to those battles 
 where you have conquered. Here a battalion, here a troop stood 
 for the empire, and then learn this practical knowledge, that, 
 
 " Without a priest, his sword the brave man draws, 
 And asks no omen but his country's cause"'. 
 
 I beg to observe, that the gentlemen on the other side have esta- 
 blished no ground for disqualification ; none in religion abstractedly 
 considered ; none in the charges of atrocity which they have made 
 against it : none in the supposed incompatibility of the seven Catho- 
 lic sacraments with the House of Hanover ; none in the connexion 
 with the Pope, which now ceases, except they please to continue it ; 
 none in the charges made against Irish Catholics, and they are 
 refuted by the declaration of parliament and their acts of allegiance. 
 The disqualification then becomes an act of power, and the argu- 
 ments that support it, not only irrational, but criminal. 
 
 It is a crime to say, you should punish the children for the offence 
 of the father. It is a crirue to say, you should punish the many for 
 the offences of the few. It is a crime to say, you would deprive of 
 the benefit of the law a great portion of your countrymen, without a 
 reason. Such reasons are not only contrary to justice, but contrary 
 to religion ; they do not tell in Christianity. If the arguments be 
 true, the religion cannot be so ; they amount to a position, not that 
 the court of Rome, but that the religion of Christendom, is an 
 abomination. They are not the arguments of statesmen defending 
 a country, but the arguments of sectaries defending a monopoly. 
 A sectary is not content with saying that his own religion is the 
 best, but that all other religions are bad ; he takes from the Deity 
 His attributes, and gives Him his own, his pride, his passion, his 
 love of plunder, and his love of power. When the sectary says, 
 exclude him from the constitution, he means, give me the monopoly 
 of power. When the Divine says, exclude him from the constitu- 
 tion, he means, give me the monopoly of wealth. In both, it is the 
 rank sweat of earth, and a spiritual call in neither. I wish well to 
 the Established Church, and would give it everything but the 
 liberties of the people. 
 
 An honourable gentleman (Mr. Leslie Foster) ha3 said, that this 
 is a case of defence, that we are only protecting our constitution 
 
420 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 and religion, that the proposed measure would only produce a revo- 
 lution in both countries ; a gentleman says this, endowed with much 
 information and ability. The Protestant establishment, the Protes- 
 tant church, are great names certainly ; but in order to make them 
 anything more than a mere outcry on the present occasion, it is 
 necessary to show they are in danger. Seven or eight noble- 
 men would come into the House of Peers, and perhaps ten or twenty 
 members into the House of Commons ; is this a revolution ? or 
 would this justify you in disqualifying a great portion of your fellow- 
 subjects ? It is then necessary to prophesy, and gentlemen say this 
 would become a majority in Ireland, then a majority in England, 
 and bear down the House of Peers, and finally depose the king. I 
 say no ; and for the reason they give ; because the majority they 1 
 say will draw the power ; and the majority in the British empire is 
 Protestant. But I gravely ask yon, will you on the strength of 
 prophecy, and such a prophecy, disqualify your people ? Mr. Fox 
 has observed, that if men had an interest in it, they would deny a 
 mathematical as well as a moral truth ; here it has happened ; 
 minority is majority, and nothing is, but what is not. Such has 
 been the danger which gentlemen apprehend to the constitution. 
 Now let us see the safety which they administer ; and, first, they 
 reject the security, and, instead of security, they suffer an unrestained 
 intercourse between the church of Rome and the Irish clergy ; so 
 that there may be a complete incorporation with the See of Rome, 
 accompanied by a complete disincorporate of the people from the 
 constitution of England, to be accompanied with a tax on both 
 countries, and chiefly on England, in order to guard the penal system 
 in Ireland against the people. 
 
 Penal system! do I say? What! are you not yet a people? 
 Have you been so many centuries with the powers of revenue, of 
 government, of legislation, and are you not yet a people ? And have 
 you incurred a debt of £25,000,000, as it existed before the Union, 
 telling nothing in empire, and only spinning on your own axis, and 
 do you now seek to continue a system, which has thus kept you 
 divided, and support it with barracks and forces, and inflict pains 
 and penalties on your people ? " It is true we have prayed for you, 
 much ; we have drank for you, much ; and now all we want is 
 everything you have to give, at the expense of the strength of the 
 empire ". 
 
 This is not the state of Ireland, but it is their idea of her safety ; 
 fortunately for the empire, she has acted upon a very different 
 principle. She has acted as a nation, not as a settlement; sh© 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 421 
 
 has contributed to restore the empire, by rejecting a system 
 those mistaken men would impose upon her; a system impolitic, 
 immoral, and unchristian ; no state can be formed on it, no 
 morality can be reconciled to it, Christianity protests with all her 
 charities against it ; it stabs the dearest interests of men, and aggra- 
 vates the crime by assuming to act in the name of the Almighty. 
 
 May 3, 1819. 
 
 Mr. Grattan presented eight Roman Catholic, and five Protestant petitions in 
 favour of the Roman Catholic claims; he then rose and said: 
 
 I beg leave, Sir, in presenting these petitions, to express my most 
 ardent hope, that they may ultimately succeed, and that in their 
 success they may give strength to the Protestant church, to the act 
 of settlement, and to the Protestant succession to the crown, and 
 that they may form an identification of the people, so as to preserve 
 tranquillity at home, and security and respectability abroad, while 
 the two religions under the roof of one and the same empire, may 
 exercise their respective privileges, with the same God, the same 
 Gospel, and the same Redeemer, with different sacraments, but the 
 same results, and hi their different notes, with all the variety of 
 nature, but with its concord and harmony also, offer up their prayers 
 to their common Creator. 
 
 It is submitted that the Roman Catholic combination of Europe 
 has ceased ; that the race of the Pretender is extinct ; that the 
 dangerous power of the Pope is no more ; and that the imputed 
 attachments are not only gone, but the objects to which there could 
 be any attachment are annihilated. 
 
 The Roman Catholics claim a common-law right of eligibility, 
 subject certainly to the control of parliament : they formerly sat in 
 parliament, and held offices, as you now sit in parliament, by virtue 
 of that right ; should you repeal the disabling statutes, you do not 
 give, you only restore ; should you please to continue the penal 
 statutes, it is a sentence where you are to prove their delinquency 
 before you call upon them to establish their innocence. 
 
 There is no doubt that parliament has a right to disqualify ; the 
 safety of parliament depends on it ; you have done so in the best of 
 times ; you have disqualified placemen and pensioners of certain 
 descriptions ; you have disqualified revenue officers, and you have 
 ascertained the qualification of members of parliament, with a view 
 
 19 
 
422 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 to secure its independency ; but there is one privilege which you 
 cannot affect — you cannot disqualify on account of religion ; the 
 subject worships his God in defiance of his fellow- creature ; it is the 
 prerogative of God, as well as the privilege of the subject. The 
 king who would interfere, puts himself in the place of his Maker, 
 and attempts to jostle the Almighty from His throne ; he has no 
 credentials from God, and he can have none from man ; all the kings of 
 the Earth, and all their artillery, horse, and foot, and dragoons cannot, 
 in the mind of the meanest individual, establish a conviction of any 
 proposition, moral, religious, or mathematical. Indeed, you are too 
 enlightened to doubt this ; and therefore it is said, we do not exclude 
 the Roman Catholics on account of their religion, but that we 
 consider what they call their religion to be evidence of tenets and 
 affections which do not belong to religion, and which amount to a 
 disregard of the obligation of an oath and the duty of allegiance. 
 Let us suppose Sir George Jemingham tried on that charge, and 
 that the arguments tendered in evidence were, the proceedings of 
 the council of Lateran, the revival of the Jesuits, the restoration of 
 the Inquisition, Gandolphy's pamphlet, his reception by the Pope, 
 And the politeness of the Pope's chamberlain : the judge who should 
 suffer such evidence to go to a jury would be impeached, and the 
 jury who found on such evidence, would be attainted. Suppose the 
 counsel on the side of the defence should tender in eyidence the 
 divers oaths which the Protestants had prescribed, and which the 
 Roman Catholics had taken, the answers of the six universities 
 against the imputed slander, the list of the killed and wounded, the 
 battles won with Catholic blood, and, in answer to the objec- 
 tion arising from the appointment of a Roman Catholic prelate by 
 the Pope, he should say, that this was the only part of the question 
 which, by any pretence, came within your jurisdiction, but that 
 objection was answered by the Pope's own letters, containing an 
 offer of the veto, and that you, in refusing that offer, rejected the 
 security of the church, when it came accompanied with the liberty of 
 the people; such a tender by the counsel, the judge would observe 
 to be unnecessary, inasmuch as the other side had made out no 
 case. 
 
 Here then I beg to observe on this part of the subject, first, that 
 the Roman Catholics had a common-law right to eligibility; secondly, 
 that the parliament had, in justice, no right to require them to abjure 
 their religion ; thirdly, that the Roman Catholic religion is no 
 evidence of perfidy or treason ; fourthly, that you reject the Roman 
 Catholics for what they have abjured, and you further require them 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 423 
 
 to abjure that which does not belong to the cognizance of the civil 
 magistrate, namely, the articles of their religion ; and in so doing, 
 you commit that for which a judge would be impeached, and a jury 
 might be attainted. 
 
 In continuing the disqualification of the Roman Catholics, we not 
 only deprive them of the common-law right of eligibility, but we 
 affect the foundation of our own faith, and disobey the prime order 
 of natural and revealed religion : when we say, the Roman Catholic 
 is affected with circumstances idolatrous, and incapable of moral 
 obligation or political allegiance, we say the Roman Catholic religion 
 is not divine ; saying that, we affirm that Christianity does not 
 extend to France, to Italy, to Spain, and a great part of Germany ; 
 saying that, we say that Christianity has made no way, and of 
 course deprive it of one great proof of its divinity ; saying that, we 
 say that the Pope has foiled his Maker, that a man proves too 
 strong for Almighty power, save where a few nations have rescued 
 the wreck of His omnipotence from general discomfiture. The 
 Atheist hears all this, goes along with each sect while it attacks the 
 other, and instead of stopping short at Protestantism, proceeds to 
 infidelity. 
 
 I say, we affect the foundation of our faith, and disobey a prime 
 order of natural and revealed religion, which is to love one another. 
 In no other way can you serve your Maker ; prayer is adoration, 
 not service ; by serving one another, you become a part of His 
 creation, and an auxiliary member of His system; for this, the 
 Redeemer came among you ; He came supported by miracle, 
 prophecy, and the internal evidence of transcendent morals, to ordain 
 two great truths — the love of God, and the love of man ; the love 
 of man was not only the order, but the object of His coming. You 
 answer, you do not obey ; that your fellow-Christians are in general 
 idolaters, and the object, for the most part, of moral disapprobation. 
 God then has left mankind so imperfect, as to make His own com- 
 mands impossible ; and accordingly we disqualify a great portion of 
 our fellow-citizens, and denounce a great proportion of our fellow- 
 Christians, and disobey our Gospel, except you can prove that the 
 Gospel does not comprehend those who believe in seven sacraments, 
 or that its blessings are to be confined to alms, and that the greater 
 part of our fellow-Christians are objects of our charity, not ol ou 
 benevolence. 
 
 You answer this by charges against the Roman Catholics. I 
 have stated those charges to be unfounded ; you yourselves do not 
 believe them; you did not believe those charges in the 17th of the 
 
424 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 King, when you declared the Roman Catholics to be good and loyal 
 subjects ; you did not believe those charges when you gave them the 
 right of bearing arms ; you did not believe thosp charges when you gave 
 them, in Ireland, the elective franchise ; you did not believe those charges 
 when you gave them the army and navy ; you did not believe those 
 charges when you restored the Popedom ; you carried the Pope on your 
 back, the great infallible, whom you supposed would command the 
 allegiance of your fellow-subjects, but whom you found a feeble 
 potentate, who could not command a Roman Catholic musket in the 
 region of Popery, strapped to the war-horse of a great captain, viola- 
 lated in his own dominions, and whom the Roman Catholic nations had 
 suffered to be deposed, until the great Protestant power restored him. 
 I flay, did you restore the mass in Italy, in order to punish your 
 fellow-subjects for Popery ? No ; but you saw the danger came from 
 another quarter ; you saw that Christianity of every sort was compa- 
 ratively safe, but that infidelity of every description was dangerous. 
 You did not believe these charges when you helped to restore the 
 house of Bourbon, and with them to give new strength to the Roman 
 Catholic religion in France. France had claimed to walk with 
 reason, and despised to walk with God, and she stumbled ; you saw 
 that the cold acknowledgment of a first cause would ill supply the 
 place of the living God and the glowing devotion ; you saw that a 
 Roman Catholic church establishment was a better guide than a 
 rueful philosophy, and that Christianity, with seven sacraments, w r as 
 better than infidelity ; peace had lost the sweets of affiance, and war 
 the properties of honour, and the reign of the philosopher was a 
 proof of the necessity of religion. Accordingly, you waited for its 
 revival — the revival of the Roman Catholic religion, as a means of 
 faith and a bond of treaty ; and as you endeavoured to restore the 
 principles of order without disputing the particular government, so 
 you endeavoured to revive the elements of Christianity without 
 disputing the particular religion ; and in so doing, you introduced 
 in Europe a political conformity on the subject of religion ; you 
 cut off the hostile appeal to Roman Cathojic princes ; and accor- 
 dingly, the different kings, Protestant and Roman Catholic, have 
 united, by the bond of Christian fraternity, to support the Christian 
 religion. You have changed the ecclesiastical position of Europe : 
 the two religions, Protestant and Roman Catholic, had been in 
 a state of mutual hostility, they are now in a state of mutual defence, 
 each preferring its own establishment, but both concurring to defend 
 the principles of government against the anarchist, who would 
 depose the king, and the principles of Christianity against the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 425 
 
 infidel, who would depose the Almighty ; but you cannot limit the 
 benefit of these principles to foreign powers ; a conformity of religion 
 abroad must be in substance a comprehension of religion at home ; 
 you cannot set up the Pope in Italy, and punish Popery in England ; 
 you cannot favour the religion of kings, and punish the same religion 
 in subjects ; that were to declare, that religion was an artifice of 
 state to protect power and abridge liberty. 
 
 But it is said, if you emancipate the Roman Catholics, then clergy 
 will overturn the government, they will use their influence with their 
 laity, and their laity will use their new power, and forfeit their lives 
 in the vain attempt to give dominion to their church. They rest 
 this argument on a position which is fundamentally erroneous ; it 
 supposes that man struggles for the domination of his church estab- 
 lishment by nature. Man is not attached to church establishment by 
 nature. Church establishment is a creature of art and a question 
 of politics, not a work of nature. The argument goes farther, and 
 says that men would prefer the domination of their church establish- 
 ment to all considerations, moral or political ; that is to say, that all 
 men are by nature fanatics. It is true the Deity is a natural im- 
 pression, but the bishop is not the Almighty ; the Deity has come 
 amongst us with the Gospel in His hand, and the Gospel contains a 
 morality in the face of those ungrateful and rebellious proceedings 
 here apprehended : the moral of the Gospel is common to the Roman 
 Catholics, and in this case the argument then would be, that the 
 Roman Catholics would rise against their God, against their Gospel, 
 and against their King, to rebel with their clergy. This argument- 
 is not only not according to human nature, but the reverse ; it sup- 
 poses Dr. Poynter, an excellent subject, will, upon the emancipation 
 of his flock, say to the Duke of Norfolk : " Your Grace is now pos- 
 sessed of the privileges of the constitution, you will now of course 
 try to subvert the government": that is to say, lose your head by a 
 fruitless effort to get me made Archbishop of Canterbury. It 
 supposes that Lord Shrewsbury, Lord Fingall, Lord Clifford, excel- 
 lent subjects when deprived of their privileges, on their emancipation, 
 to precipitate on treason. With them the moral elements are 
 reversed; kindness revolts ; injuries reconcile. Strange men! such 
 as human nature never created ; you hug your thraldom ; you rebel 
 against your privileges, and you fall in love with death, when it is 
 to be administered by the hands of the common hangman. This 
 argument arrives at last to the monstrous palliation of two crimes ; 
 rebellion of the Roman Catholics for the ambition of their church, 
 and pains and penalties imposed on the Roman Catholics for the 
 
426 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 exercise of their religion ; and the Gospel, instead of being a system 
 of charity, becomes a scale of ferocity. 
 
 The argument I combat, goes not only against the nature of man, 
 but against the drift of the age. The question is not now, which 
 church ? but whether any ? — Church or no church ? God or no 
 God ? When you attack the religion of Europe, you attack the 
 religion of England. When you attack Dr. Troy, you attack the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. In vain shall Oxford come forth and 
 say, we never meant this ; we only disapprove of auricular confession j 
 we abhorred extreme unction ; we petitioned against extending to 
 the Eoman Catholics the full benefits of the constitution. The 
 infidel or the sectary, who will succeed the Church of Home, will 
 answer : " You swore the religion of Europe was a humbug (to use 
 their low expression), and taught us to suspect your own ; yon 
 argued that the hierarchy of Europe would overturn the govern- 
 ments that restrained its ambition, and thus you swore so stoutly, 
 and argued so well, that you have conquered your own religion. 
 There is a great similitude ; you send for the clergy when you are 
 sick ; you send for the clergy when you are dying ; your sacrament 
 is more than a commemoration, though less than a transubstantiation. 
 There are shades of difference, it is true ; but if their hierarchy be so 
 abominable, yours cannot be pure, and in your common downfall you 
 will learn your similitude". I speak of the tendency of their argument, 
 I do not speak of the conduct of our church : upon the whole, on 
 this question, I think the church appears to be placable. 
 
 I love the mild government of the Church of England ; it is a 
 home for piety ; it is a cradle for science ; so that by an early 
 alliance with divinity, you guard the Majesty of Heaven against the 
 rebellion of wit. Those who would send back the clergy to the 
 hair garment and the naked foot, would be the first to deride. I 
 like the arched roof, the cathedral state, the human voice, and all the 
 powers of evangelic harmony ; they give a soul to our duty, and 
 sway the senses on the side of salvation. The wisest men we know 
 of, Locke and Newton, were Christians and Protestants ; it is the 
 minor genius that mutinies against the Gospel : he affords to the 
 universe one glance, and has not patience for the second. But I 
 should think I provided ill for the security of our church by the 
 destruction of others. 
 
 The objection which alleges the growth of demand, naturally con- 
 nects itself with this part of the subject. If the Eoman Catholics 
 get a share in the state, they will demand a share in the church, 
 that is to say, they will desire to become Protestant clergymen. The 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 42T 
 
 law may make a Catholic a member of parliament, but cannot make 
 him a Protestant clergyman ; there the nature of things interposes 
 limits ; but if they mean that he will desire a church establishment 
 of his own, they are mistaken ; it is what the Protestants in general 
 wish to give him, and the Roman Catholic declines ; he declines 
 because he does not feel that impulse, charged on nature, in favour 
 of a church ascendency ; because they wish to have their pastors a 
 little nearer to themselves, and less connected with the court : the 
 progress of demand does not arise from the unreasonableness of the 
 Catholics, but from the nature of things. In the time of the 
 Pretender there was a general disability ; at the death of the Pre- 
 tender some of the penal political provisions were by law to cease : 
 when the Emperor Joseph repealed the principal provisions against 
 the Protestant you naturally proposed a corresponding repeal : when 
 the French made great changes in their religion, and their country 
 ceased to be a champion of Popery, a further repeal took place ; and 
 now, when you have established a political conformity abroad, a 
 political comprehension at home naturally presents itself ; it is not 
 the growth of demand, but the ceasing of the hostile circumstances 
 which were incident, but not essential, to the Roman Catholic 
 religion. There was a time, perhaps, when less could be said for the 
 repeal of the penal code, and the time has now arrived when nothing 
 can be said for its continuance. Your error is, that the circum- 
 stances that belong to the times you annex to the sacraments of 
 their religion. 
 
 And now I must add another objection interposed in the way of 
 Roman Catholic emancipation, and that is, a denomination not less 
 respectable than the Revolution ; a great event, but a human 
 transaction, and the arrangement of man ; but what is here claimed 
 is the dispensation of the Almighty. The Revolution does not repeal 
 the New Testament ; the Revolution, properly understood, is the 
 victory of civil and religious liberty, not over a sect, but 
 over a tyranny. When the Roman Catholics cease to sup- 
 port that tyranny, they are entitled to the benefits of the Revolution. 
 It is said, that the oath and declaration framed at the Revolution 
 were intended to be final : parliament says otherwise ; the House of 
 Lords, in its resolution of 1705, says otherwise; in the act of the 
 Scotch Union, it declares that the oath and declaration were not tu 
 be final. Again, parliament, in the act of the Irish Union, declares, 
 that this oath and declaration were not to be final. You will ob- 
 serve that the declaration is conventional ; in order to obtain the 
 approbation of the Roman Catholics in favour of the Union, they 
 
423 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 were informed by parliament that their exclusion was not final ; so 
 that, instead of a covenant amongst the Protestants against the 
 Roman Catholics for their final exclusion, there is a covenant of the 
 Protestants with the Roman Catholics, against their final exclusion ; 
 the argument is nothing less than a proposal to break that covenant. 
 
 I have understated the force of the Roman Catholic case on this 
 part of the argument ; the oath and declaration were not only not 
 intended to be a final exclusion of the Roman Catholics, but did not 
 purpose to exclude the Roman Catholics generally, but directed its 
 rigour against such as refused to abjure the temporal power of the 
 Pope : such is the act of 1793. Now this description does not com- 
 prehend the present race of Roman Catholics, and therefore they do 
 not come within the meaning of the exclusion : such is the act of 
 1793. It contains three principles : it condemns the oath and 
 declaration ; it repeals the oath and declaration in the instance of 
 Scotland ; and it declares that Roman Catholics in general did not 
 come within the rigour of the act of exclusion. Gentlemen talk of a 
 Protestant constitution ; it seems they prescribe for a Protestant 
 constitution ; what! for a constitution in favour of the Protestants, 
 before the existence of the Protestant religion ! Baptism is no title ; 
 you may call your son George Brunswick, but that does not give him 
 the crown ; the component parts of the constitution are not exclu- 
 sively Protestant, the peers are not exclusively Protestant, the com- 
 mons are not exclusively Protestant, the Irish electors are not exclu- 
 sively Protestant, and yet they are a part of the commons. You are 
 not to confound the third estate with the House in which that third 
 estate is represented, or to suppose that the commons are only the 
 representatives, and not the electors: but Protestant constitution is 
 a good name, and excites the feelings without any meaning annexed ; 
 so they answer the Gospel ; their evangelical duty is stated ; it is 
 said the Gospel ordains that you should love your enemies ; they 
 reply, the battle of the Boyne, the Revolution of 1688, and the 
 glorious memory of King William. Thus they answer the Gospel 
 by toasts which tickle the brain without reaching the understanding, 
 and produce intoxication instead of conviction. 
 
 They speak of Ireland ; it is a common case of colonization, except 
 where your policy made it peculiar ; you made an exclusive system, 
 and prevented your own amalgamation. When they say the Irish 
 are disaffected, I deny it ; but if they are, who made them so ? not 
 their five additional sacraments ; it must then have been oppression; 
 you acquit oppression, and convict their religion ; and bearing false 
 witness against the people, their detractors desire two things, to get 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 429 
 
 a monopoly of all the good things in this life, and in the next glory 
 everlasting. They have been at this work for ages : they have 
 gotten the land, established our religion, and disqualified the ma- 
 jority ; we have given them good reason for so doing, by asstiring 
 them of the idolatry of their faith, the treason of their politics, and 
 the perfidy of their religion ; and unable to reconcile a perverse 
 generation, we desire barracks and an army. This is the account 
 men give of the result of their politics in Ireland, and in this account 
 they do justice neither to the Roman Catholics nor to themselves. 
 The Protestants in Ireland are not tyrants, the Roman Catholics are 
 not rebels, and the Protestants and Roman Catholics together form 
 a fine race of men. The Protestants have, in many instances, saved 
 to the Catholics their inheritance, and, in general, respected their 
 persons. The Irish heart, better than the law, rescued humanity 
 from the barbarity of the statute. Make it a point of spirit, and the 
 Irish will yield nothing ; refer it to his heart, and he has the soft- 
 ness of a woman : even the most violent have frequently acted with 
 the milk of a Christian, though they have argued with the fury of an 
 idiot. The Protestants have petitioned in great numbers and in 
 great respectability ; it is impossible not to take notice of the good 
 conduct of the chief magistrate of Dublin, the Lord Mayor,* who 
 acted with temper, firmness, and liberality ; also of the good con- 
 duct of the government and the chief-secretary, f whom I now see 
 on the opposite bench, and whom I hope long to see in the situation 
 that he holds. 
 
 The petitioners against the Roman Catholics (many of them I 
 know — many of them I personally regard), I would ask them, do 
 they really think their fellow- subjects should be excluded on account 
 of extreme unction? Certainly not. For transubstantiation ? 
 Certainly not. And yet their application, if strictly taken, would, 
 and for no better reason, deprive them of their civil rights for ever : 
 it would go, as far as concerns two-thirds of their fellow-citizens, to 
 a perpetual repeal of the Gospel. The standard of constitution which 
 they frame would be at least as fatal to themselves as to the Roman 
 Catholics; for it is the Revolution of 1688, in which their country 
 was deprived both of trade and the exclusive power of her own 
 parliament, and it was not till one hundred years after that Ireland 
 recovered her trade and her liberty. They will observe also, that 
 there was no law against the admission of Roman Catholics into the 
 Irish parliament at the time of the Revolution, nor did any law take 
 
 * Alderman M'Kenny. j Mr. Charles Grant. 
 
430 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 place till near one hundred years after ; they have then chosen a 
 period as the standard of their rights, when the Roman Catholics 
 were not excluded from seats in parliament by law, and when the 
 whole country was deprived of trade and liberty by power. 
 
 But it is said, an arrangement is impossible. To take away privi- 
 lege, it seems, then, is easy ; but to restore, to retrace the diabolical 
 course, there is the difficulty. Not the ability and sound judgment 
 of Mr. Ponsonby were adequate (I will name the committee), not the 
 modest truth of Mr. Elliot's intellect, not the refining genius of Mr. 
 Wyndham, not the strenuous capacity of Mr. Whitbread, nor the 
 all-enlightened perfection of Sir Samuel Romilly's understanding. 
 These men were of the committee to frame the bill, they are now 
 great authorities to support it — authorities canonised by death. But 
 I do not despair ; my right honourable friend* still lives ; the trusty 
 constitutional hand that drew that billf still lives ; the noble lordj, 
 his enemies must allow him abilities, he lives; the luminary § by 
 his side, he lives ; and the good ameliorator of the lot of Africa, he 
 lives. || What then is the tremendous obstacle, to overcome which 
 we boast our incapacity ? It is a declaration that the majority of 
 Christians are idolaters ; that our good ally, the Emperor of Austria, 
 is an idolater ; that our good ally, the Emperor of Russia, is an 
 idolater; that our good ally, the King of France, is an idolater; 
 that the King of Portugal, for whom we have been fighting so bril- 
 liantly, is an idolater ; — saying this, we announce that we have 
 crowned idolatry in Italy ; that we have given idolatry new vigour 
 in France ; and have planted idolatry in Canada. This declaration 
 is one obstacle, the oath of supremacy the other : the latter means 
 to abjure any foreign power of any kind, coactive, coercive, or com- 
 pulsory, affecting any power to be enforced by temporal means, any 
 power which is more than conscientious, any jurisdiction of what 
 sort soever in this realm. The Roman Catholic might take that 
 oath properly explained ; will you try him ? Would you explain 
 that oath so as to give the crown the benefit of what is called his 
 complete allegiance ? There are two oaths then in the way of his 
 emancipation; the one, the oath of supremacy, which, if properly 
 explained, the Roman Catholic would take ; the other, the declara- 
 tion, which every Protestant should wish to repeal : to repeal the 
 one, and to explain the other, with such circumstances and accom- 
 
 * Mr. Tierney. t Sir Arthur Pigott. 
 
 % Lord Castlereagh. § Mr. Canning. 
 
 U Mr. Wilberforce. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 431 
 
 paniments as may be held to be necessary, are motions that will be 
 submitted to the committee ; refusing them, you will have refused 
 your own security. 
 
 It is further argued, that all this will not satisfy ; that is to say, 
 to obey the w r ord of God, commanding us to love one another, will 
 not satisfy ; as far as anything is personal to the Almighty, they 
 are ready ; but further they beg to decline, and they make a com- 
 promise with their Maker ; they praise God, and damn one another. 
 When gentlemen have said that the bill of a former year gave 
 universal dissatisfaction, they go farther than they are warranted ; 
 the laity did not give any general expression of dissatisfaction ; some 
 Catholic Bishops certainly did, but they had before expressed their 
 satisfaction, and approved of the bill ; and you will observe, when 
 the Pope objects to the Regium Exequatur, he shows that you may 
 take it if you please, as other princes have done, and he cannot help it. 
 
 Gentlemen object that the bill gave everything ; how then could 
 it give general dissatisfaction ? Certainly not on account of the two 
 exceptions in it, the seals and the Lord-lieutenancy, for they are the 
 patrons of Protestant livings. Now to tell a Roman Catholic that 
 he cannot be trusted with an office, is to tell him he is a bad subject; 
 but to tell him he cannot be a Protestant patron, is only to tell him 
 he is a Roman Catholic. 
 
 There are those who disapprove of the veto and detest emancipa- 
 tion ; if you wait until you can reconcile these, you will wait for 
 ever ; because you cannot satisfy all, you will satisfy none. Recol- 
 lect that the question here, is not merely a question of public satis- 
 faction, but a question of public service; and not only a question of 
 public service, but a question of religious duty; and then the 
 argument is, you must take the pleasure of the crowd, before you 
 obey the Almighty. When I say the crowd, I mean a crowd of 
 sectaries. When we consider obedience to a human law, we ask, 
 is it on the roll ? But when we consider the law of God, we ask, 
 is it convenient ? how will it please the prince ? how will it answer 
 our interest in the corporation ? how will it serve us on our elections ? 
 We try the wisdom of God by the folly of man, as we did His 
 person, and decide against both by a presumption which is blas- 
 phemous. 
 
 Gentlemen call this a question of empire ; the Gospel is not a 
 question of empire ; it is the highest possible command pronounced 
 by infinite power ; it is the highest imaginable interest pronounced 
 by infinite wisdom ; as the empire swerves from it, she falters ; as 
 sbe stands by it, she prospers. 
 
432 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 The objection that the Irish are below the privileges that emanci- 
 pation would confer, I scorn to answer. You should answer it ; for 
 that argument would say that you governed the Irish so ill as to 
 have put them below the blessings of a free constitution. They want 
 bread, it is said, and not liberty ; and then you leave them without 
 bread and without liberty ; and here your conduct is as inconsistent 
 as your assertion is unwarrantable. You give the elective franchise 
 to the people so described, and you refuse the representative to 
 those who are not pretended to come within that description. The 
 objection that Eoman Catholics do not love liberty, I despise equally. 
 What ! in these walls to say so ! in these walls that have witnessed 
 the confirmation of Magna Charta thirty times, and in this city, 
 whose tower guards that great sacred instrument of liberty! There 
 are now extant of those who trace themselves to the signature of 
 the charter, three families ; they are Roman Catholics, they are 
 petitioners, and they desire to share that liberty which their ances- 
 tors gave to the people of England. It is said the Roman Catholics 
 do not take the oath of supremacy, and their allegiance is imperfect ; 
 make it perfect then, and explain the oath of supremacy as I have 
 already mentioned, and then the Roman Catholics will take it. Their 
 allegiance is as perfect now as it was before the Reformation, and 
 then it was found sufficient. Their allegiance is as perfect as that 
 of Austria, that of France, or that of any other country that acknow- 
 ledges the spiritual power of the Pope ; that is, of all Catholic 
 countries. The people of those countries afford a conditional allegi- 
 ance, allegiance for protection ; and yet their allegiance is found 
 sufficient. The Presbyterians do not acknowledge the king to be 
 the head of the church, and yet their allegiance is found to be 
 sufficient. The Roman Catholics are said to carry their allegiance 
 too far, and, instead of a perfect, to render the king an abject allegi- 
 ance. "We prefer contradictory charges against them ; the one 
 would suppose them to be rebels, and the other to be slaves : the Roman 
 Catholics are neither. We owe an allegiance to God which is 
 perfectly consistent with our allegiance to the state, and an 
 allegiance to our free constitution which is perfectly consistent with 
 our allegiance to the king. Do you think that our allegiance 
 would be more perfect if we thought the king a great doctor of 
 divinity, or like Henry the VIII., a tyrant, who could change our 
 religion without understanding it? When they desire allegiance 
 to the king without a rival, they would strike constitution out 
 of our state, and God out of our religion. 
 
 It is said, the Protestant church in Ireland is established by the 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION'. 
 
 433 
 
 articles of the Union, therefore the Roman Catholics are to be 
 disqualified. Will they by that insinuate that the Protestant church 
 sold the country at the time of the Union ? The authors of the 
 Union were of a different opinion, and told us that the Catholic 
 emancipation was to be the result of that measure. On what 
 ground do gentlemen, then, place the faith of the ministers of that 
 day ? They make them hold out to the people the hopes of emanci- 
 pation, and at the very moment bring in an article which makes 
 that measure impossible. There is no such article. 
 
 Upon what ground do they place the Protestant church by that 
 argument ? They make its establishment incompatible with the 
 civil rights of the people who pay that church ; they do more, they 
 make it incompatible with its own Gospel ; and the rock on which 
 hey rest it is hostility to Christian charity and popular liberty. 
 It is said, when we urge the fewness of their numbers to come into 
 parliament, that we allow their unfitness to be in that place. No ; 
 it is a question of proportion : you would not have the members all 
 English, all Irish, or all Scotch, but a proportion of each representing 
 their respective interests. It is objected that the Roman Catholic 
 prelate takes an oath of persecution. No ; "persequar " is not 
 to persecute. The persons who make the objection, excellent men 
 I suppose they are, but I hope their knowledge of divinity exceeds 
 their knowledge of Latin. " Expugnabo et persequar" means, I 
 will use my utmost endeavours to proselyte. What power, what 
 means have these bishops to persecute? But it is not a question 
 with regard to the meaning of the Latin words ; there are no such 
 words in the oath, they are not only wrong in respect to the construe 
 tion of the Latin tongue, but they are wTong in the matter of fact; 
 there are no such words in the oath. I am glad, however, they 
 have expressed their abhorrence of persecution, which, it appears, 
 by referring to the fact, the Roman Catholics have abandoned, and 
 they themselves propose to continue. They object to a Roman 
 Catholic ceremony, and that a very ridiculous one, of " reading out ", 
 repeated every year. The answer to that is, there is now no such 
 ceremony in England. They say this is a question of politics ! 
 Whether the state has a right to punish the subject for not abjuring 
 his religion, a question of politics ! Then it seems with them 
 religion is politics, and politics is oppression. 
 
 I have now gone through most of the arguments, which at different 
 times (forty years it is since this question has been under conside- 
 ration) .have been urged against the Roman Catholics, from the 
 time of the right honourable member (Mr, Foster), whom I see 
 
434 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 opposite, who resisted it with great ability, and great temper also, to 
 another light honourable member, the late Secretary for Ireland*, 
 who opposed it on a former occasion, in a speech replete with talent 
 and effect, set off by the suavity of his manners and the excellence 
 of his character. Whatever could be said on that side, he has said 
 it; but he laboured under one insuperable difficulty — he was to 
 prove an impossibility, namely, the right of the state to disqualify 
 the subject for not abjuring his religion. I took a part in that debate 
 alluded to, and I must say, I have reason to complain of the unfair 
 criticism of some of our own side. I make no reply, but refer to my 
 speech ; that is my answer. 
 
 In the course of this debate, two great points have been obtained, 
 which should settle the proposition for ever ; the one is, the confes- 
 sion of its antagonists : the other, the experiment of its safety. The 
 antagonists have said, that, with equal privileges, population draws 
 power. Then there is an end of their opposition ; for the popula- 
 lation of the two islands is Protestant, five to one ; and the Protes- 
 tant ascendency would therefore be established by the emancipation 
 of the Catholics, and increased ; inasmuch as, where the different 
 parts of the community have their natural place, the strength of the 
 majority embraces the strength of the whole : there is no deduction. 
 You must consider also, in addition to their numbers, that the pro- 
 perty, particularly the landed property, is, beyond comparison, 
 Protestant ; you are to consider that the seat of legislature is Protes- 
 tant ; you are to consider that the crown is exclusively Protestant ; 
 you are to consider that the number of members from the Roman 
 Catholic part of the empire cannot exceed a sixth of the representa-^ 
 tion in one House, even were we to suppose that the whole number 
 were Catholics, which is impossible ; still less in the other, besides 
 the bishops ; and you must further consider the progress of amalga- 
 mation. But the antagonists say, that in Ireland the Roman Catholic 
 ascendency will be established. I answer not, unless it be established 
 in England ; for there is but one ascendency, and that ascendency 
 acts here. Gentlemen say it would be Protestant England, Presby- 
 terian Scotland, and Catholic Ireland. Not more than it is so now ; 
 with this difference, that it is now disqualified Ireland, and of course 
 discontented Ireland. Gentlemen say, that the property in Ireland 
 would change, and become Roman Catholic. Why so ? Not in 
 consequence of the emancipation. To make them members of parlia- 
 ment, or to make them officers, is not a change of property. If such 
 
 * Sir Robert Peel. 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 435 
 
 a change takes place, it must be from the freedom of trade and the 
 right of purchase. You do not mean to take away that ; you do 
 not mean to restore the gavel, or repeal the act of 1781, which gave 
 them the freehold. Their proposition, then, is this : by the laws 
 which they do not propose to repeal, the property of Ireland must 
 become Roman Catholic. To guard against the evil consequence, 
 they propose to disqualify the landed property, and render hostile or 
 alien to the empire the landed proprietors of Ireland. I canuot say 
 what would be the best arrangement for Ireland, but I am sure that 
 would be the worst. No ; there is another still worse ; and that is, 
 that these people, so disqualified and affronted, should have the 
 command of the army and navy — you have given it. While gentle- 
 men were talking of the permanency of an imaginary balance, two 
 quantities, and those not very inconsiderable, went out of the scale — 
 the navy and army. 
 
 In the year 1807, a noble lord, then the minister* (and if ever 
 there was a disintereste minister, he was that minister), brought 
 into the House a bill, expending the right of holding certain military 
 commissions to his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. It was ex- 
 claimed, turn him out. What! a Roman Catholic command a regi- 
 ment ! A Roman Catholic command a ship ! The church is undone : 
 turn out the bill ; turn out the minister, and excite the people ! Two 
 years ago, another minister (he acted wisely) brought in a bill, 
 giving the Roman Catholics the navy and army. The bill was read 
 a first time ; it was read a second time ; committed ; reported ; 
 read a third time ; and passed without any opposition whatever. 
 It was sent to the lords, read, committed, and passed ; the mitre 
 nodded its unanimous approbation ; the bill received the royal assent. 
 The next morning the Tower of London was observed not to have 
 fallen ; the spires and steeples of Oxford and Cambridge persisted to 
 stand ; the Bishop of Peterborough and the Bishop of Chester were 
 alive, and not only alive, but alive with undiminished health and 
 income. The safety of the state and the prosperity of the church 
 showed the futility of that wisdom, and the folly of those fears, and 
 the unreality of those alarms, that would, for the strength of the 
 empire, exclude one-fifth of the people. 
 
 You have now settled this question ; or will you say, that the 
 Roman Catholic cannot be trusted with a vote, but may with the 
 navy of England ? Do not give him the posse commitatus, but he 
 may have the army ; he may be commander-in-chief, but do not 
 
 a Earl Grey (then Lord Howiek;. 
 
436 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 make him an alderman. The navy and army consist of above 1 20,000 
 men ; these he may command ; but here draw the line ; no political 
 power except his Majesty's forces by sea and land. I say, in point 
 of argument, you have settled this question ; and when you shall 
 have settled it in point of fact, I shall congratulate you, for you will 
 not only have enfranchised their religion, but you will ameliorate 
 your cwn. The enemies of the Roman Catholics had confined the 
 Universal benevolence of the Gospel to their own sect, and had de- 
 prived their fellow Christian of the benefits of one great at- 
 tribute of the Almighty: they had not only taken from the 
 Deity His attributes, but they had given Him their own, 
 and had made Him a partial and a penal God, the minister of 
 their ambition ; and thus they became self-idolaters in the worship 
 of their own spleen under the name of the Almighty ; they had for- 
 gotten the mild character of the Gospel ; they had mixed a little 
 acrimony in their religion, and annexed to prayer a contumelious 
 humility, that despised the publican who prayed by their side. It 
 remains for them now to restore to God His attributes, and to their 
 devotion the morality, the sublimity, and the amenity of the Gospel. 
 
 Other nations have got the start of us in liberality ; the system of 
 disqualification has become peculiar to you. It does not exist in other 
 enlightened countries : it is not in Germany, it is not in France, it is 
 not in Hungary, it is not in Holland ; but in England, free, liberal, 
 and enlightened England ! England and Spain seem to possess it 
 without a rival. But then you will say, let arbitrary countries give 
 civil and religious liberty, but let a free country disqualify a fifth of 
 its people, and assume to the remainder the monopoly of the Godhead. 
 Recollect that you are forfeiting your great prerogative of taking the 
 lead in liberating the human mind : in the arts that grace mankind 
 other nations excelled you ; they sang better; they danced better ; but 
 in stating courageous truths, in breaking political or metaphysical 
 chains, here were your robust accomplishments. We have heard of 
 divers anomalies in your policy — they are numerous ; your treaties, 
 your subsidies, and your prayers ; but you yourself are the great ano- 
 maly. The Continent lay flat before yom- late rival ; the Spaniard 
 had retired ; the Austrian had retired ; the Prussian had retired; the 
 iron quality of Russia had dissolved ; the domination of France had 
 come to the water edge, when, behold ! from a misty speck in the 
 west the avenging genius of these countries issues forth, clutching ten 
 thousand thunders, breaks the spell of France, stops, in his own person, 
 the flying fortunes of the world, sweeps the sea, rights the globe, and 
 then retires in a flame of glory; and, when the human race is in 
 
CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 437 
 
 amaze and admiration at his courage and originality, he turns school 
 divine, fights a battle about extreme unction, and swears against the 
 companions of his fortune and his victories. Our prince is, on the 
 part of his father, the supreme head of the church ; we are his national 
 council, and as such, have aright to advise him. I avail myself of 
 this privilege and say to him: " My prince, my master, you must take 
 the lead in the deliverance of your people. The graciousness of your 
 manners indicates that you were born for acts of benevolence. Your 
 predecessor, the Plantagenet, prevailed on the Continent, so have you ; 
 but then he gave the charter and the laws of the Edwards : your 
 other predecessor, the Tudor, she rescued Holland, so have you ; but 
 then she passed wise and useful statutes innumerable. You have 
 carried Europe on your back ; but then the home measure, the 
 securing and ascertaining and extending the liberties of your people — 
 that, that still remains. The whole body of the Roman Catholics 
 petition for freedom. The destinies of a fifth of your empire are 
 before you. Come — the glory of the House of Hanover is waiting 
 for you ; be the emancipator of the Roman Catholics, as you have 
 been the deliverer of Europe, and look in the face the Tudor and the 
 Plantagenet". 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 CHARACTER OF MR. PITT.* 
 
 The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached 
 him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character 
 had the hardidcod of antiquity; his august mind overawed majesty ; 
 and one of his sovereigns! thought royalty so impaired in his 
 presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved 
 from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow systems of 
 vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sunk him to 
 the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and 
 impracticable, his object was England — his ambition was fame; 
 without dividing, he destroyed party ; without corrupting, he made 
 a venal age unanimous ; France sunk beneath him ; with one hand 
 he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the demo- 
 cracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite, and his 
 schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but 
 Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these 
 schemes were accomplished, always seasonable, always adequate, 
 the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour and 
 enlightened by prophecy. 
 
 The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent, — 
 those sensations which soften, and allure, and vulgarize, were 
 unknown to him; no domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness 
 reached him ; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and 
 unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to 
 counsel and decide. 
 
 A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, 
 astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of 
 Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, 
 that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the 
 inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories ; 
 
 * Lord Chatham. 
 
 f Not George II. 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 439 
 
 but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, 
 answered and refuted her. 
 
 Nor were his political abilities his only talents ; his eloquence was 
 an era in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing 
 gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom, — not like the torrent of 
 Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully ; it resembled, 
 sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. 
 Like Murray* he did not conduct the understanding through the 
 painful subtilty of argumentation ; nor was he, like Townshend,f for 
 ever on the rack of exertion, but rather lightened upon the subject, 
 and reached the point by the flashings of his mind, which, like 
 those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. 
 
 Yet he was not always correct or polished ; on the contrary, he 
 was sometimes ungrammatical, negligent, and unenforcing, for he 
 concealed his art, and was superior to the knack of oratory. Upon 
 many occasions he abated the vigour of his eloquence ; but even 
 then, like the spinning of a cannon ball, he was still alive with 
 fatal, unapproachable activity. 
 
 Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could 
 create, subvert, or reform ; an understanding, a spirit, and an 
 eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of 
 slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded 
 authority ; something that could establish or overwhelm the empire, 
 and strike a blow in the world that should resound through its 
 history. 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 To the Printer, 
 
 I have seen a pamphlet, purporting to be written on the Union, 
 and published in the name of the Earl of Clare. The speech of the 
 noble earl, delivered in the House of Lords, I have nothing to say to; 
 
 * Lord Mansfield. 
 
 t Mr. Charles Townshend. See his character in Burke's speech on 
 American taxation. 
 
440 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 but a publication is not a speech, and, though it be the work of a 
 member of Parliament, has no privilege. Whether his lordship be 
 the author, I have no authority, save the assumption of the publica- 
 tion, to affirm; but the pamphlet contains against several, with 
 whom I have acted, charges the most direct, and against myself, for 
 the last twenty years, charges the least qualified and insinuations the 
 most deep. What is yet worse, it tends to lower the character of 
 the country, and to tarnish the brightest passages of her history, as 
 well as the memories of the persons concerned in those transactions. 
 Matter so various and comprehensive could not be regularly dis- 
 cussed in any debate that has come, or is likely to come, before the 
 House of Commons. In the interval of business, I therefore resort 
 to the only method of defence — the press. 
 
 H. GRATTAN. 
 
 Mr. Grattan will take no notice of any answer, except one coming from the 
 author of the pamphlet. 
 
 Dublin, April, 1800. 
 
 Of the work which it is proposed to answer, nearly one-third is 
 the common-place of Irish history. Much of abridgment, much of 
 misrepresentation, no new discovery, no new remark ; the termini, 
 or landmarks of historic knowledge, remain precisely as they were, 
 in their old, sober station. What was long known before by many 
 men, by many women, and by many children, the compendium of 
 the studies of your childhood, this pamphlet reports to you, for the 
 amusement of your age, without any further novelty save that of 
 misrepresentation. The idea is to make your history a calumny 
 against your ancestors, in order to disfranchise your posterity ; the 
 execution is without the temper of a commentator or the knowledge 
 of an historian. 
 
 We will begin with this performance at the Irish parliament of 
 James I. The author is now within 187 years of his subject. 
 Ireland, says he, had no parliamentary constitution till that time. 
 Here his pages only deserve attention, in order to vindicate the 
 lineage of our liberties against slander. This statement is a tra- 
 duction of the inheritance of th.e realm, a calumny against her anti- 
 quities, and a falsification of her title. Lord Coke, the judges of 
 England, the records of Ireland, the modus twendi parliamentum, the 
 statute-book, the extent of acts of parliame&t before the reign of 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 441 
 
 James throughout the realm, and the act of annexation among others, 
 answer him. From all those you find, that Ireland had a parliament 
 from the beginning, and that the legislature was not of the Pale, but 
 of the nation.* 
 
 The boldness of this assertion is rendered the more remarkable by 
 the distinguished feebleness of its reasoning. The pamphlet attempts 
 to prove that to be true in argument which is false in fact ; and its 
 argument is, that James I. generalized Irish representation by forty 
 private boroughs, that is, that he rendered representation general by 
 making it particular. It teaches you to think, that it was James, 
 instead of Elizabeth, who created the seventeen counties, and that 
 he did not create the forty boroughs, by him erected to counteract 
 that county representation, in order to pack a parliament. It con- 
 ceives that the legislature was not general, because the representation 
 was not so. It should have said that, the legislature being general, 
 the representation ought to be so. It discovers two ideas of a new 
 and extraordinary nature on this subject — that parliament is confined 
 by the bounds of representation, and that national representation is 
 extended by the creation of private boroughs. And for this 
 paradoxical idea of parliament and this paradoxical idea of repre- 
 sentation, it offers you nothing like extent of erudition or force of 
 imagination ; it is dull error. The art of modern war, says the 
 pamphlet, is to traduce the house of Stuart ; the art of modern 
 court loyalty, it might have added, is to praise the principle of the 
 Stuart, and to plant it in the house of Hanover. 
 
 The pamphlet now comes to its own times, and it is to be remarked, 
 that as it dwelt on the past with all the fury and prejudices of the 
 present time, so it expatiates on the present with as much error and 
 mistake as if it were treating of the remotest antiquity. It states 
 the adjustment of 1782 to be described by its author as follows: — 
 " That it emanated from the armed convention assembled at Dun- 
 gannon, was approved at county meetings of the people, armed and 
 unarmed, and was sanctioned and registered by the Irish parlia- 
 ment ".f No such thing, nor anything like it, did its author say, nor 
 suggest, nor hint ; and this statement of the pamphlet is not misre- 
 presentation, nor misinterpretation, but palpable invention ; did not 
 the pamphlet assume the name of a judicial character, I would say, 
 
 * See the speech of Mr. Hutchinson (late Secretary of State) on the subject 
 of parliamentary reform, in the parliamentary debates of 1793. It is a com- 
 plete answer to the pamphlet on this part of the subject. 
 
 f No such statement is to be found in any of Grauan's speeche*. 
 
442 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 downright falsehood. I respect and admire the meeting at Dun- 
 gannon, but the subjects of 1782 did not emanate from thence ; two 
 years before, were they discussed in parliament ; they were discussed 
 on the 19th of April, 1780, on a motion made by myself; and in 
 the course of that session, and of the next session, repeatedly and 
 fully. They were adopted by different counties and various descrip- 
 tions of men, and they finally passed the parliament. Such is the 
 history ; the pamphlet falsifies the history to blemish a great 
 transaction, and attributes that falsification to me in order to blemish 
 an individual. 
 
 We follow the work where it will be perhaps more fortunate. It 
 objects, on the question of the claim of right, to the declarations of 
 the volunteers. Their character now, it seems, it professes to ad- 
 mire ; their conduct, however (this was the most leading part of the 
 conduct of the old volunteers), it condemns ; the inconsistency of 
 setting up a character, and putting down a conduct, is glaring, but, 
 in a work pregnant with everything which is exceptionable, hardly 
 deserves notice. But will any man seriously say, that those bodies 
 should not have come forward at that time with resolutions in favour 
 of a claim of right ? Does any man mean to affirm, that we could 
 have established that claim without them ? Does any man mean to 
 say, that the claim did not deserve to be established ? If so, he is 
 a slave ; and in neither case does he deserve an answer. To have 
 countenanced resolutions essential to the establishment of your con- 
 stitution, and to have opposed any further interference when that 
 constitution was established, was the duty and the pride of them by 
 whom the business of 1782 was conducted. By the first step they 
 procured the constitution ; by the second, they saved the govern- 
 ment ; and in both they deserved well of their country, and are placed 
 far above the reach of the author of this little performance, its little 
 censure, or its little panegyric. We thought that at that time, as in 
 the period of Magna Charta, armed men might make declarations 
 to recover liberty ; and having recovered it, we thought they secured 
 their glory as well as their freedom, by retiring to cultivate the 
 blessings of peace. 
 
 The pamphlet has further objections : it condemns the expedition 
 with which the claim of right was established ; it calls for discussion 
 and delay — to do what ? To debate whether the English parliament 
 had a right to make laws for Ireland ; whether the privy councils in 
 both countries should alter your bills ; or whether the Mutiny Bill 
 should be perpetual. Why, for the two preceding years, these sub- 
 jects had been, and little other than these subjects had been, debated. 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 443 
 
 The pamphlet has proved to yon, however, the necessity of expedi- 
 tion by its argument for delay ; for it explains to you, that we were 
 to delay the question in order to sell it ; that is, in order to diminish, 
 clog, and condition your claim of right. You were to delay, the 
 pamphlet explains, in order to preserve to the parliament of England, 
 over this country, a share of legislative power; and the pamphlet 
 administers additional arguments against its project of delay, by 
 showing you that the viceroy of that time was intriguing against 
 your favourite measures ; and it gives you still further arguments 
 against delay, by suggesting that there were certain gentlemen at 
 that time, who would not with their lives have supported their 
 liberties ; it might have added, nor with their votes. Perfectly well 
 do we understand the author ; and this pamphlet might have added, 
 with peculiar authority, that there were certain young gentlemen at 
 that time ready to barter honour for office, and liberty for chains. 
 It was therefore we did not listen to the idea of delay ; we did not 
 choose to set up the inheritance of the people of Ireland to auction ; 
 we were applied to for delay, and we refused it ; we thought the 
 16th of April was the day of the Irish nation, and we were de- 
 termined not to lay our heads on the pillow until we could say : 
 This day Ireland has obtained a victory. 
 
 Seeing, then, that the constitution was established without delay, 
 or barter, or auction, the pamphlet does not despair ; it has a cure, 
 namely, corruption ; it does not, indeed, set forth corruption in 
 words, but it does amply and broadly in idea. 
 
 The expressions are these : " The only security for national con- 
 currence is a permanent and commanding influence of the English 
 executive, or rather English cabinet, in the councils of Ireland". By 
 councils of Ireland it means, and professes to mean, nothing less 
 than the parliament. Here is the necessary substitute, it seems, for 
 the British parliament — here is the half million — here is the depen- 
 dency of the Irish parliament avowed as a principle ; here breaks out 
 the taint and sore of that system, whose rankness the pamphlet 
 seems to have deeply inhaled, and with whose political incense it 
 now deigns to regale our nostrils and its own ; here is acknowledged 
 the truth of the complaint of the opposition, namely, that the British 
 minister, some years after the settlement of 1782, wished, through 
 his agents here, to filch back our constitution of 1782, so honourably 
 and nobly obtained, and to resume by fraud what had been obtained 
 by treaty. In vain shall a minister come forth in sounding words, 
 such as national concurrence or national connection, and wrap him- 
 self up in the threadbare coat of zeal for empire, to stab his country 
 
444 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 to the heart ; such arguments are not to be answered but punished, 
 and when any man shall avow that he has no idea of governing in 
 this country, without rendering her parliament, by means of influence, 
 perfectly dependent on Great Britain, he avows not his profligacy 
 only, but his incapacity also. Such a minister could not govern 
 without corruption ; he could not govern with it ; he might indeed 
 begin by attempts to pack a parliament, but he will conclude by 
 rebellion. 
 
 To return to the pamphlet. On the subject of the claim of right, 
 the authoi seems to have three parental ideas : first, that the volun- 
 teers should have made no declaration on the subject ; secondly, that 
 the question should have been left open to delay ; and, thirdly, that 
 the British cabinet should succeed to the power of the British parlia- 
 ment. By the first plan the constitution had been lost, by the second 
 sold, and by the third corrupted. We follow the pamphlet : it states, 
 that the adjustment of 1782 was described by the author of it as 
 follows : then he introduces a description which certainly was given 
 by its author, but which was not a description of the adjustment of 
 the parliament of 1782, but of a parliament that sat 187 years ago, 
 and which was assembled by James I., in the year of our Lord 1613* 
 Here again is that of which we have so often reason to complain in 
 this work — fabrication ; true it is that the boroughs created by 
 James T. have had their effect on posterity, and true it is that those 
 boroughs continue to send members to parliament. So far the par- 
 liaments of 1782 and of 1 613 had a similitude ; but it is not true 
 that the parliament of 1782 was a packed parliament like that of 
 1613 ; it is not true that the representatives of the boroughs were 
 either attorneys' clerks or the servants of the Castle, as in 1613 ; 
 nor is it true that the boroughs of 1782 resembled those created by 
 James in 1613 ; and so far the two parliaments have no similitude. 
 Mr. Burke, speaking to me of some country that had prospered under 
 a constitution consisting of three estates, but estates defectively 
 formed, observed, " that it was of the nature of a constitution so 
 formed as ours, however clumsy the constituent parts, when set 
 together in action, ultimately to act well" ; . so of that in question. 
 The boroughs in course of time ceased to be under the influence of 
 the king, and the constitution took root in the people ; the crown 
 became dependent for supply on the parliament, and the parliament, 
 by the octennial bill, became more intimately connected with the 
 country. But, however altered, depurated, and naturalized, this 
 borough system was an evil still ; in 1613 it was court ascendency— 
 it was corruption ; in 1800 it may be union. 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 445 
 
 "We follow the work. It affirms that the rivals of Mr. Flood had 
 agreed, in 1782, to support a draft of a clandestine bill or treaty 
 for imperial legislation, which the pamphlet describes, and adds, that 
 they sacrificed to flimsy and corrupt popularity the peace of ages, and 
 so forth. Here are two assertions, which I do affirm publicly and 
 in the most unqualified manner, contained not one syllable, or tittle, 
 or shadow of fact ; the two assertions are wholly and most absolutely 
 destitute of truth. The author of the pamphlet is called upon to 
 support and to defend them ; he has access to the Duke of Portland 
 and to many of the cabinet of 1782, in both countries, and to the 
 official and unofficial agents of that time. 
 
 We have seen with what regard for truth the pamphlet asserts ; 
 we will now see with what justice it reasons ; and certainly its falter 
 in fact must prejudice its authority in logic. It denies the settle- 
 ment of 1782 to have been final : the words of the settlement are as 
 follow : " His Majesty recommends it to take into consideration the 
 discontents and jealousies prevailing in Ireland, in order to come to 
 such a final adjustment as may give mutual satisfaction to both 
 kingdoms" — see his message to the respective parliaments. Parlia- 
 ment declares : " That no body of men whatever has any right to 
 make laws for Ireland, save only the king, lords, and commons 
 thereof; that this is the birthright of the people, in which the 
 essence of their liberty exists, and which we cannot surrender but 
 with our lives" — see address of the Irish Commons, 16th of April. 
 " His Majesty has recommended the subject to his parliaments of 
 both kingdoms, trusting that their wisdom will recommend such 
 measures as may terminate in a final adjustment" — see his Majesty's 
 answer. " The British legislature has concurred in a resolution to 
 remove the causes of your discontents and jealousies : the intention 
 of the king and willingness of the British parliament come unaccom- 
 panied with any stipulation or condition whatever" — see the Duke of 
 Portland's speech, 27th May. " We conceive the resolution for an 
 unqualified, unconditional repeal of the 6th of George I. to be a 
 measure of justice and wisdom, worthy of the British parliament, 
 and furnishing a perpetual pledge of mutual amity : gratified in these 
 particulars, no constitutional question will exist between the two 
 countries to interrupt their harmony" — see Irish Commons' answer 
 27th May. " We rejoice that the name of Portland will be handed 
 down as blended with a full and perfect establishment of the consti- 
 tution of Ireland" — see Commons' address to his Excellency same 
 day. "His Majesty assures his Commons of his affectionate 
 acceptance of their acknowledgments of his Majesty's and the British 
 parliament's attention to their representation, and which they so 
 
 20 
 
446 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LfXRD CLARE, 
 
 # 
 
 justly consider as furnishing a perpetual pledge of mutual amky. 
 The declaration that no constitutional question between the two 
 nations will any longer exist that can interrupt their harmony, is 
 very pleasing to him " — see the king's answer to Irish address of 
 27th May. "We have seen this great national arrangement estab- 
 lished on a basis which secures the tranquillity of Ireland, and unites 
 the affections as well as the interests ot both kingdoms"— see Com- 
 mons' address at the close of the session of 1782. " Convince the 
 people of your several counties that the two kingdoms are now inse- 
 parably one, indissolubly connected in union of constitution and unity 
 of interest ; that every just cause of jealousy is removed ; that the 
 two nations have pledged their faith, and their best security will he 
 an adherence to that compact" — see the second speech of the Lord- 
 lieutenant at the close of the session and the adjustment. 
 
 Here is the record. The pamphlet proposes to do away the force 
 of record by the force of intrigue, and to set up a private corres- 
 pondence of the then Lord-lieutenant against a public act. It pro- 
 duced an intrigue carried on with a view to clog the settlement, as 
 sufficient not to condition or interpret, but to overhaul and overset 
 it. It does not make the covenant conclusive on the insincerity of 
 the viceroy, but the insincerity of the viceroy conclusive against the 
 covenant ; as if it were possible to construe away the obligation of a 
 deed of trust by a private protest of the trustee, or as if treaties 
 between two nations were to be set aside by the private letter of the 
 envoy. It goes further, it gives the private intrigue an extent 
 which the intrigue itself never affected ; it makes the correspondence, 
 containing a wish pending the adjustment and before its conclusion, 
 to abandon the Irish claim of right, tantamount to a public protest 
 purporting to render it final in nothing. The pamphlet states : 
 " That all the parties looked on the adjustment of 1782 as leading 
 to a future political treaty". 
 
 The author is ignorant of the sentiments of the parties, as well as 
 of the nature of the treaty. Thus Mr. Fox's sentiments the pamphlet 
 has misrepresented ; he (Mr. Fox) has declared, that he wished to 
 make the best terms he could for Great Britain ; but, as Ireland 
 would not condition her independence, he gave up the second pro- 
 position. It has misstated the sentiments of General Fitzpatrick ; 
 he declares that he was totally ignorant of the despatch of the Duke 
 of Portland, and that he had, at the very time, assured the Irish 
 parliament, in the name of the government which he then repre- 
 sented, that no farther measure was intended. He has misstated 
 Mr. Grattan's sentiments, who publicly declares, that every part of 
 the assertion, as iu ftS relates to him, is totally unfounded, without 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 447 
 
 a shadow of colour or pretence, and calls on the author to support 
 his assertions. But I think I could quote another authority against 
 this pamphlet; it is another pamphlet in the name of the same 
 author, published in 1798, which charges the people of Ireland and 
 the opposition with a breach of faith in agitating certain political 
 and commercial questions, after the kingdom had come to a final 
 settlement with England, "a settlement so complete and satisfactory 
 as to render a revival of political or constitutional controversies 
 utterly impossible". 
 
 That pamphlet accordingly quotes the address of 1782^ declaring, 
 that all constitutional questions between the two countries should 
 cease ; and it extends the word constitutional to mean all commercial 
 questions; and it extends the words between the two nations to mean 
 questions between the administration and the country. This inter- 
 pretation by the pamphlet of 1798, was as extravagant as the 
 opposite interpretation by the pamphlet of 1800, in the name of the 
 same author. The author is there made to differ from Mr. Pitt, and 
 to say, that the adjustment went to everything ; the author is here 
 made to differ from himself, which is much less surprising, and to 
 say that the adjustment extended to nothing. But here I must 
 observe, that it is the argument only that is inconsistent, the senti- 
 ment is perfectly uniform ; it advanced covenant against national 
 redress, and it now advances the will of the minister against 
 oavenant. Thus has this pamphlet, on the subject of a national 
 treaty, expatiated with extraordinary vehemence and confidence, 
 without knowing its purport, without knowing who were the parties, 
 without knowing who should be the parties, without knowing what 
 were the sentiments of the parties ; in direct contradiction to the 
 sentiments of the principal agents, and to the spoken, written, and 
 piinted opinion of the alleged author of the publication. 
 
 We follow the work : having denied a covenant which did exist, 
 it fabricates a covenant which never had any existence whatsoever ; 
 it asserts (p. 47) that an alliance, offensive and defensive, was formed 
 by certain parties, in both countries, to play the independence of 
 Ireland against their antagonists. Secondly, it affirms the principal 
 object of that alliance to be, to guard against any settlement which 
 might cut off the sources of jealousy and discontent between the two 
 nations. I do aver, in the most solemn, public, and unqualified 
 manner, that there is not the least foundation, colour, or pretence 
 for either of those assertions ; and it is with great pain I feel myself 
 forced to declare, that they are absolutely and wholly destitute of 
 any foundation in fact or in truth. I refer to the facts. 
 
 Immediately after the settlement of 1782, the English part of 
 
448 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARIS 
 
 this pretended alliance went into opposition ; the Irish part of this 
 pretended alliance, till 1785, supported the government, and some of 
 them for years after ; the English part of this pretended alliance 
 opposed the French treaty ; the Irish part supported it ; some of the 
 English part of this pretended alliance opposed the war ; the Irish part 
 supported it. Here then is a public proof of the falsehood of the first 
 position. We are furnished with further means of falsifying the second. 
 
 The original propositions that passed the Irish parliament in 1785 
 were that very settlemeiurwhich the pamphlet describes, that is, a 
 settlement purporting to cut off the sources of any remaining discon- 
 tents and jealousies between the two nations, and they had our 
 warmest support. So that the pamphlet has been so indiscreet and 
 ill advised as to advance and affirm two criminal charges positively 
 and publicly, having, within the reach of the author's knowledge, 
 certain facts, proving the falsehood of those very charges, at the 
 very time that he so injudiciously advanced them. The author is 
 called upon to support them ; he must have access to the Duke of 
 Portland, to Mr. Pelham, and to many of those who must have 
 been parties in this pretended alliance. They are not our friends,, 
 they are his. 
 
 The work proceeds to state, but not to state fairly or fully, the 
 propositions ; and I cannot but again observe, that these frequent 
 mistakes in fact must create a prejudice against its logic. The best 
 way of answering misrepresentation is by reciting the fact. The 
 original ten propositions were formed with the consent of the British 
 cabinet ; they were the work (at least the first nine), as I under- 
 stand, of a gentleman of this country, and they showed, in their 
 ability and their compass, the hand of a master. A tenth was added, 
 which stipulated for revenue to be given by this country to Great 
 Britain ; that tenth was altered in the cabinet in Ireland, and divided 
 into two resolutions, the first declaring, that no Irish revenue should 
 be given to England until all Irish charges were previously satisfied ; 
 the second, that the Irish revenue should be raised to the Irish 
 expenses. The Irish ministry took the new revenue, and the English 
 parliament altered the original propositions. Pending these altera- 
 tions, some members of the House spoke on the subject, and pledged 
 themselves that they should, on the return of the propositions, give 
 them opposition, in case they should be altered, even in an iota. I 
 recollect Mr. Foster speaking to that point, he did not so pledge 
 himself; but I perfectly recollect, that the then Attorney-General 
 did : the pamphlet has given reasons for the inconstancy of his senti- 
 ments : give me leave to justify the uniformity of mine. The bill, 
 founded on the altered propositions, departed from the original ones 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 449 
 
 in the following particulars ; it stipulated for a perpetual revenue 
 bill ; it stipulated, in certain leading and essential matters, for a 
 covenant of referential legislation ; it included in that covenant four 
 articles of American commerce ; it stipulated for the reduction of 
 our duties of protection on cotton among others, and it gave us 
 nothing in substance but the reexport trade, which we have gotten 
 without it. To the public it is sufficient to say so much, to the 
 pamphlet it is unnecessary to say anything ; but w r hen that pamphlet 
 calls opposition to those altered propositions a breach with England 
 and a sacrifice of the common interest on the altar of faction, the 
 author should be reminded, that the person whose name it assumes 
 had pledged himself to oppose those altered propositions ; that is, 
 according to the pamphlet, to cause that breach with England, and 
 to make that sacrifice on the altar of faction ; and also, that a great 
 part of the present cabinet of England did actually execute what the 
 pamphlet calls a breach with England, and sacrificed the common 
 interest on the altar of faction — Lord Auckland, the Duke of Port- 
 land, and most of his connexions. But we stand in need of no 
 authorities ; did we, I should quote Mr. Denis Daly, the then muster- 
 master, who declared he could not support the altered propositions. 
 The truth is, the opposition to the bill which comprehended them 
 was no breach with England, however there might, indeed, mix in 
 the debate an offensive disposition to contrast the two nations ; but 
 we must always distinguish between the nature of the question itself, 
 and the craft of the expectant flattering the court of England by 
 reviling his own country for his private advantage. 
 
 We follow the pamphlet to the regency, and here its charge against 
 the country is not her conduct, but her power. The pamphlet repro- 
 bates the right of Ireland to choose a regent ; now, she is not respon- 
 sible for the right, but the exercise of it, and we have shown that 
 she exercised that right for the preservation of the monarchy and the 
 connexion. The pamphlet states the power of choice to be tanta- 
 mount to a power of separation. But who gave that power ? It 
 was the law. And who displayed that power ? The minister. It 
 was he who stated, that the two Houses of Parliament, in case of 
 regal incapacity, could supply the deficiency exactly as they thought 
 proper. When a servant of government here maintained that the 
 Houses of the British Parliament could do more, and could provide 
 for the deficiency in Ireland as well as in England, that is to say, 
 could republicanize both countries, he did not make our situation 
 better, nor give any great security to the monarchy or the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The pamphlet asserts, that if the proceedings of our parliament 
 
450 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 could have any effect, we were separated for some weeks from Eng- 
 land. Now, if we were separated for an hour, it was not by the 
 proceedings of parliament, that is to say, by the address to the Prince, 
 which never had effect, but by the indisposition of his Majesty, which 
 had effect, and which alone had effect to suspend the royal function, 
 and, of course, the only connecting power of the two countries. 
 
 The pamphlet, having confounded the proceedings of parliament 
 with causes which parliament found but did not produce, proceeds to 
 a gross misrepresentation of concomitant circumstances. It charges 
 on the parliament the crime of expedition, but it does not state the 
 cause of it. One cause was, the sedition of the Irish ministry. That 
 ministry apprehended dismissal, and were forming an opposition. 
 The then representative of majesty in Ireland was supposed to be 
 employed at that time in canvassing for a party against the future 
 government, with the king's commission in his pocket. Thus his 
 Royal Highness would have been a regent in chains, with a court 
 in mutiny. 
 
 The pamphlet charges the commons at that time with disrespect 
 to the king, marked by the limitation of the supply. The fact is 
 true, but it is not true as the pamphlet states it; the commons 
 abridged the grant of the supply because the king's minister in Ire- 
 land could not be trusted, and he could not be trusted for the fol- 
 lowing reasons : because he had declared he would make certain 
 members of parliament victims of their votes ; because he had cen- 
 sured the parliament, and the parliament had censured him ; and 
 because one of his servants had pronounced in parliament the necessity 
 of resorting to the rankest corruption. It was for these reasons that 
 parliament did not think proper to trust either with the revenues of 
 the country. 
 
 The pamphlet asserts, that the Irish parliament proceeded without 
 a tittle of evidence ; it is not the fact. The pamphlet, indeed, 
 acknowledges that its own charge is not true by making another, 
 namely, that the House of Commons did not attend to the evidence. 
 Here it is as deficient in candour as before in fact. The case was, 
 that the report of the physician, regarding the state of his Majesty's 
 health, had appeared before in every paper ; it was a subject too 
 interesting and too melancholy not to be perfectly known, and was 
 read in the House pro forma. On this part of the subject the 
 pamphlet is in an eminent degree indecorous and licentious when it 
 speaks of the House of Commons ; nor is it less so when it speaks of 
 the persons concerned in the proceedings of that time, as of a set of 
 men who had accomplished a breach between Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, and had committed (I think the word of the charge is) 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET 01- LOUD CLARE. 
 
 451 
 
 tnownities. The persons guilty of those enormities were some of the 
 present servants of the Crown, a majority of two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, several bishops, a great part of the present cabinet of Eng- 
 land, the Duke of Portland and his party, Lord Spencer, who was 
 to have been Lord-lieutenant, and Mr. Pelham, who was to have 
 been his secretary : were it not presumptuous, I might ascend much 
 higher. 
 
 An alliance to play against England the independency of Ireland, 
 whose basis was to prevent measures of concord, a breach made be- 
 teen the two countries in 1785, and now their enormities in the ad- 
 dress on the regency, are charges against the Duke of Portlands 
 party very unfounded and very puerile, but made with great bold- 
 ness by the author, who seems to enjoy a genius for crimination, 
 which, in its extent and extravagance, becomes harmless. The 
 pamphlet charges on that period much indecorum. I do lament it. 
 " You have set up a little king of your own ", said a principal 
 servant of the Crown, speaking to the House of Commons, and 
 talking of his prince with the vulgar familiarity with which a pert 
 barrister would salute his fellow. " Half a million, or more, was 
 expended some years ago, to break an opposition, the same, or a 
 greater sum, may be necessary now"; so said the principal servant 
 of the Crown. The House heard him ; I heard him ; he said it, 
 standing on his legs, to an astonished House and an indignant 
 nation, and he said so in the most extensive sense of bribery and 
 conniption. The threat was proceeded on, the peerage was sold, the 
 caitiffs of corruption were everywhere ; in the lobby, in the street, 
 on the steps, and at the door of every parliamentary leader, whose 
 thresholds were worn by the members of the then administration, 
 offering titles to some, amnesty to others, and corruption to all. 
 Hence arose the discontents of which the pamphlet complains, against 
 such proceedings and the profligate avowal of such proceedings : 
 against the consequences that followed, they were many and bloody, 
 we did then, and we beg now, to enter once more our solemn 
 protest. 
 
 Could that nation, who had refused to obey the legislative power 
 of the British parliament, who had armed for her defence and her 
 freedom, who had recovered her trade, reinstated her constitution, 
 and acquired a great, and it shall not be my fault if it be Dot an 
 immortal name ; could they who had taken a part for that nation, in 
 all her glorious acquisitions ; could the nation, or such men, could 
 both forget themselves, and support a rank instrument of power, and 
 become its little comrade and its copander in its dirty doings, in the 
 
452 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OP LOftD CLARE. 
 
 sale of the peerage, its conspiracies against parliament, and its vife 
 and -vulgar abuse of the people ? 
 
 A pamphlet of 1798, nublished in the naire of the same author, 
 is pleased to mention, that the experiment of conciliation had been 
 fully and abundantly tried ; and it particularly instances the acknow- 
 ledgment of our parliamentary constitution. It was an experiment, 
 magnanimous on the part of Great Britain and her then minister, 
 and we ought to take this public opportunity of making acknowledg- 
 ments to both * but we must lament that their noble purposes were 
 counteracted, and their wise experiment betrayed, by a calamitous 
 ascendency in the Irish cabinet, from 178$, of the above councils, at 
 once servile and insolent, who had opposed the establishment of the 
 Irish constitution ; and scarce were they placed in power when they 
 planned its overthrow, set up a counter-experiment, or conspiracy, to 
 undo what England thought she had recognised, and Ireland thought 
 she had secured — -that very parliamentary constitution, our bond of 
 connexion and pledge of peace, and took two methods to accomplish 
 their crime, both of which they proclaimed with much public im- 
 modesty, but without danger — a project to pack a parliament, and a 
 project to abolish it. 
 
 We follow the work : it complains of the Whig club ; the minister 
 was the author of it ; his doctrine and his half-million were the 
 authors of it. But clubs of this kind are only preserved by violence; 
 that violence did happen ; an attack was made on the rights of the 
 city ; a doctrine was promulgated by the same person, that the com- 
 mon council had no right to put a negative on the lord-mayor, chosen 
 by the board itself of aldermen, except the board should assent to 
 the negative put on its own choice. This doctrine was advanced by 
 the court, to secure the election of the mayor to itself. In the course 
 of the contest a minister involved himself in a personal altercation 
 with the citizens : with Mr. Tandy he had carried on a long war, 
 and with various success ; he was now involved in an altercation 
 more general : in the compass of his wrath and his scurrility, he paid 
 his compliments to the Whig club, and that club advanced the shield 
 of a free people over the rights of the city, and humbled a little 
 minister in the presence of those citizens whose privileges he had 
 invaded and whose persons he had calumniated. The pamphlet 
 charges the club with a crime on account of a publication on the 
 subject of the poor, pending a probable invasion, — idle charge! At 
 this time of a probable invasion is a society formed for the very 
 purpose of investigating their condition, with some of the officers of 
 state and several clergy at its head. At such a time did some of 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 453 
 
 the English clergy publish treatises, proving that the peasantry could 
 not live by their labour. Did the author read a very learned 
 pamphlet in favour of the Union, published by Mr. Douglass at a 
 time of apprehended invasion, recommending union as the best 
 means of relieving the lower order from the oppression of the rich ? 
 And then he quotes Adam Smith. Did the author read Mr. Pitt's 
 pamphlet, published pending an apprehended invasion, and condoling 
 with the peasantry of Ireland, on the great practical grievance^ tithes ? 
 
 But, to have done with such trifling, we follow the work to its 
 charge against the propounders of the reform plan of 1797 : the 
 work sets forth two plans, that of those gentlemen, and that of the 
 United Irishmen : they differ in the following essentials : — The 
 plan of the former left the counties as they are ; the former did not 
 propose to annualize parliament; the former rejected the idea of 
 personal representation ; the former did not propose to abolish the 
 oath taken by the elector. What then did the former do ? It 
 destroyed boroughs, and it proposed to supply their place by the 
 present freemen and freeholders, that is, by those whom the law 
 calls the commons ; it created no new constituency, but it did w r hat 
 every plan of reform professes to emulate — it gave representation to 
 the constituency, that is, to the commons, in the place of the mono- 
 polist. When I say it made no new constituency, I beg to make an 
 exception, it introduced in the place of the potwalloper, as he is 
 termed, substantial leaseholders and substantial householders, thatis.it 
 gave property more weight, and population, distinct from property, 
 less weight. On the whole, it took away the monopolist and the pot- 
 walloping rabble, and communicated the representation of the kingdom 
 to the proprietors thereof, as constituted its electors bylaw, or as entitled 
 to become such by a property greater than the law had required. 
 
 The effect of this plan had been to prevent an union. If we are to advert 
 to the evidence of the prisoner examined by the Houses of Parliament, 
 it had been to prevent a rebellion, and to break off a French con- 
 nexion. When the pamphlet sets forth, that Mr. O'Connor* and 
 others approved of this plan, it should have stated the whole truth, or 
 
 * The author is pleased to term Mr. O'Connor our unreservp.d friend. In his 
 manifesto, showed to the Irish government for permission to publish, Mr. 
 O'Connor sets forth, that, save only on the question of reform, he had no com- 
 munication with us of any kind whatever ; that manifesto must have been 
 read by the author of the pamphlet, who thus makes another charge he should 
 have known to be groundless, and which he is now called on to maintain. We 
 do not call for legal evidence ; but if the author has any evidenee at all, such 
 as would convince an honest man of the truth of any of those charges, or justify 
 an honest man in making them, he is called upon aud requested to produce that 
 evidence. 
 
454: 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 have stated nothing ; it has done neither. It has suppressed their 
 declaration, which was, that, had that plan taken place, they would 
 have broken off their connexion with France. 
 
 Neither the history of that reform, nor the history of any public 
 measure, does the writer set forth. A plan of reform had been 
 proposed in 1793, and debated in 1794. It was objected, first, 
 that the plan did not give satisfaction; in that the most vehement 
 partizans of parliamentary reform had signified their disapprobation; 
 secondly, that the plan opened the way to another plan, or to the 
 project of personal representation. It became highly expedient, 
 before any other plan was submitted to the consideration of parlia- 
 ment, to be able to assure that august body, that such plan would 
 give general satisfaction, and put an end to the project of personal 
 representation. The persons concerned in the forming that plan did 
 accordingly obtain from the north of Ireland, and, moreover, from 
 the advocates of personal representation, authority to declare in 
 parliament, that if the plan of 1797 should pass, they would rest 
 satisfied. If a further answer to the author be necessary, it is his 
 own avowal of his own principle, namely, that no Irish representation 
 at all is necessary, and that he should be satisfied to be governed 
 by the English parliament, without a single representative. With 
 such a person I shall no further discuss the subject of representation. 
 He is, in his own person, an argument for reform. What L the 
 man of the half-million ! 
 
 We follow the work to the Catholic question. It is pleased to- 
 que te me as follows : "Let me advise you by no means to postpone 
 the consideration of your fortunes till after war ; your physical 
 consequence exists in a state of separation fromEnglantV\ etc. I am 
 extremely sorry to be obliged to declare again^ what I have been 
 compelled to do so often, that this paragraph, published as mine by 
 the author of the pamphlet, is not misinterpretation, not misrepresen- 
 tation, but 'palpable fabrication. I never said,, or published, that 
 the physical consequence of any part of His Majesty's subjects 
 existed in a state of separation from England, nor anything that 
 would warrant that interpretation ; but I did say the reverse ; that 
 as our domestic security consisted in concord with another, so our 
 security against an invader from abroad depended on our connexion 
 with Great Britain. On this expression, then, boldly attributed to 
 me, but which I never delivered, the author founds two charges, as 
 destitute of truth as the foundation on which they rest — a charge 
 of revolution and a charge of jacobinism. 
 
 The author, in a production sanctioned by his name in one of the 
 public papers, is made to say that a certain party had resorted to 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 455 
 
 the Catholic bill as a new subject of discontent, after the place and 
 pension bill had been conceded. Here again I am forced to lament 
 the necessity of declaring-, that this assertion also is totally and 
 absolutely destitute of foundation ; and I will prove its departure 
 from the fact by the proceedings of parliament. The first Catholic 
 bill after that of 1782 was passed in 1792 ; the second was early 
 in the session of 1793; and the place and pension bill did not pass 
 till the close of it, so that the refutation of the charge appears 
 on the rolls of parliament. As to the last Catholic bill, they n 
 whom he alludes did not resort to it as a new subject of discontent 
 to annoy the government, being at that time themselves the adminis- 
 tration ; it follows, there is an arithmetical and moral impossibility 
 of the truth of this charge of the author. I beg indulgence, in 
 addition, to state a few facts. The Catholics were not excited to 
 come forward by an opposition ; they were induced to come forward 
 by Mr. Mitford's bill in 1791. They came at the latter end of the 
 session of that year to some of our party, myself among others, to 
 know whether we should not advise them to petition parliament 
 for further indulgences. My answer was : I am your friend, but go 
 to the secretary and consult him ; do not narrow your cause to the 
 fate of an opposition and a minority. I give this advice as a friend 
 to your body. In the winter of 1791 I was applied to by Mr. 
 Richard Burke,* with a request to know my sentiments on the 
 Catholic subject, which I did uot disclose to him, declaring at the 
 same time my good wishes to the Catholic body ; and on the 
 opening of the session in January, 1792, I gave the Catholics a 
 decided support. Forgetting this, the pamphlet quotes a declara- 
 tion, "that the Catholics could not induce any one member of 
 parliament to patronize their petition". This declaration was 
 published, December, 1792, and the author charges from thence, 
 that, until the petition was recommended by ministers, we had been 
 Catholic persecutors. That charge also is a departure from fact : 
 I remember giving in support of the Catholic petition and claims, a 
 decided voice and vote in 1792. 
 
 In January, 1793, their claims came recommended from the 
 th rone, and, in supporting their bill so recommended, I observed, 
 that, however I might think it were judicious to go farther, I did 
 think the bill communicated most important rights. In the session 
 of 1794, the Catholic subject was not mentioned; but in summer, 
 on a change made in the British cabinet, being informed by some 
 of the leading persons therein, that the administration of the Irish. 
 
 * Son of the celebrated Edmund Burke. 
 
456 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 department was to belong to them, and that they had sent for us to 
 adopt our measures, I stated the Catholic emancipation as one of 
 them. Thus the charge, that we were originally persecutors of the 
 Catholics, appears to be a departure from the fact. Thus the charge, 
 that we took up the Catholics after the passing of the place and 
 pension bill, as Irish matter of opposition, appears likewise to be a 
 departure from fact. The proofs are in the proceedings of parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 The pamphlet of 17&8, in the author's name, has said, that the 
 experiment of conciliation was abundantly tried. Here is the 
 second experiment, and here it is but just to acknowledge the 
 wisdom of His Majesty, and the benignity of his intentions, when 
 he was graciously pleased to recommend the Catholics in 1793, in 
 his speech from the throne, so that this body, thus royally patronized, 
 might be attached not only to the constitution, whose privileges 
 they were to participate, but to the great personage also at whose 
 special interposition they were thus parentally and majestically 
 recommended. But as in the first experiment, the people of England, 
 so in the second, was His Majesty betrayed by those infatuated, 
 weak, and pernicious counsels, which had been, in 1789, the 
 instruments of political corruption, and now became the horn of 
 religious discord. 
 
 I will give the learned author every advantage, and, contrary to 
 my fixed and unalterable opinion, admit the policy of excluding the 
 Catholics from the constitution ; yet should I, nevertheless, condemn 
 the hostile and outrageous manner in which that exclusion was 
 defended. "If", says he, "the Catholics do not subvert the 
 Protestant government, they must resist the ruling passions and 
 propensities of the human mind; they can never be cordially affected 
 to His Majesty's government. I am confident, the old Roman 
 superstition is as rank in Ireland now as in 1641 : the profound 
 ignorance of the lower order, the general abhorrence of the Protes- 
 tant religion by the people, qualify them to receive any impression 
 their priests can make ; and if their minds be divested of venera- 
 tion for the priest, such is the ignorance and barbarity of the people, 
 that they would fall into a state of rude nature : the Popish super- 
 stition is not confined to the lower order, it flourishes in full 
 vigour amongst the higher order ". 
 
 This was the language, improper because not founded in fact, and 
 impolitic and indecent in any man, though the facts could support 
 it ; idle, empty, and shallow ranting, The best way to distinguish 
 the indecorum of such a speech, is to advert to a speech made on 
 the same side of the question, by a gentleman who said everything 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 457 
 
 that could be urged against their pretensions, without uttering a 
 single syllable which could give offence to their persons, so that the 
 Catholics might much more easily forgive the latter his vote than 
 the former his speech ; and, on a comparison of the two produc- 
 tions, you will see the eminent superiority of sense with temper 
 over talents without it. There are two sides in this question which 
 men of principle might take, for the measure or against it ; but the 
 ministry that took both parts, could be justified by neither. The 
 fact was, that the ministry encouraged the Protestants, and forsook 
 them afterward ; they brought forward the grand juries, and deser- 
 ted them also — then to the Catholics — then to the Protestants — 
 then back again to the Catholic, and then to the Protestants once 
 more. This was a great mistake, but there was a greater, and that 
 was to be found in those speeches and publications from a quarter 
 in high confidence, which vilified the acts of concession in the 
 moment of conferring them, and, affecting to support the king's 
 government, called the bill he had recommended an act of insanity. 
 The incoherent plan was erroneous, but this was infatuation, it was 
 the petulance of power, it was the insolence of wealth, it was the 
 intoxication of a minister in a state of sudden and giddy elevation, 
 breathing out on a great and ancient description of His Majesty's 
 subjects the frenzy of his politics and the fury of his faith with all 
 the feminine anger of a feverish and distempered intellect. It went 
 to deprive the Protestant ascendency of the advantage of temper 
 and of the graciousness of good manners, which should always 
 belong to the powerful sect ; it went to deprive the state of a 
 certain comeliness of deportment and mild dignity which should 
 always belong to government ; it fought in the king's colours 
 against the king's benevolence ; it went to deprive His Majesty of 
 the blessings of gratitude, and his people of the blessings of concord ; 
 it went to corrode where the Crown had intended to heal, and it 
 curdled with the temper of the minister the manna that was descen- 
 ding from the throne. 
 
 The argument that accompanied this invective was of little 
 moment ; a man in a fury cannot argue ; the weakness of his reason- 
 ing will be exactly in proportion to the strength of his passion. 
 Behold a melancholy example of the victory of human passion over 
 the human understanding. The present danger of the Papal power 
 after the deposition of the Pope, the incompatibility of the real 
 presence and of the worship of the Virgin Mary, with the interest 
 of the House of Hanover, and the incompetency of parliament to 
 alter the oaths of its own members — such are the author's arguments. 
 However, if the pamphlet of 1798 denies the competence of parlia- 
 
458 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 ment, here comes the pamphlet of 1800 to console you, and as the 
 one sets the law above the law-maker, so the other sets the law- 
 maker above the constitution, and both together would prove that 
 the legislature is incompetent to admit a Catholic, but is perfectly 
 competent to destroy a parliament. 
 
 We leave these arguments, and the vehement spirit with which 
 they are poured forth, and come to the close of the pamphlet and 
 the beginning of the subject — the Union. Of one hundred and one 
 pages, twenty- six only are devoted to the question ; the rest contain 
 feelings, battles, and sores from a perpetual encounter with all 
 descriptions of men, and with patriotism in all ages. As the author 
 scarcely argues the question of Union, or indeed affects it, here I 
 shall say but little ; however, to two great points which he would 
 establish I beg to advert. They contain positions which are not 
 only glaringly unfounded, but exceedingly dangerous ; the first, That 
 this country is unable to pay her establishments ; second, That her 
 constitution is incompetent to provide for her security. He attempts 
 to warrant his first, by a statement affecting to prove, that in three 
 years, if she was to continue without an Union, we shall owe 
 £50,000,000. He states, that we borrow annually £8,000,000 ; 
 he should have stated, that we borrow but £4,000,000 ; whatever 
 capital we may create on each loan, he should have stated how 
 much less we should borrow on the adoption of an Union. He 
 should have stated, that the projectors of the Union only proffered 
 the payment of £1,000,000 of our war establishment; that the 
 present year was provided for ; that the saving in the two following 
 years of war will be, according to this proffer, but £2,000,000, 
 and the purchase of boroughs will be £1,500,000, He should 
 have stated further, that our war contribution was rated a,fc 
 £4,100,000, and that our present war expense was only £4,652,000, 
 so that the proffer appears fallacious ; and if we be unable to support 
 our present war expense, we will be unable to support our war 
 contribution ; and the reader will observe, the present war expense 
 is an occasional war establishment, principally caused by insurrec- 
 tion, whereas the war contribution will in all probability be a 
 permanent war contribution, except as far as it may be augmented.* 
 But there is an answer to his argument which is more decisive, it is 
 his own argument in 1798, which is as follows: "First, as to the 
 adequacy of the constitution for the purpose of security and 
 connexion, next for that of wealth and prosperity. 
 
 * Vide Lord Farnliam's excellent pamphlet, and his judicious, speech on the 
 Union. 
 
ANSWER TO A PA.WTILET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 "A parliament perfectly distinct from and independent of the 
 other parliament, forms a system the most critical and complicated ; 
 to a common observer, utterly impracticable-; but experience has 
 proved, that in the midst of popular turbulence and in the convul- 
 sion of rancorous and violent party contests, the Irish Parliament, 
 as it is now constituted, is fully competent to all political and 
 beneficial purposes of government ; that it is fully competent to protect 
 this which is the weaker country against encroachment, and to save 
 the empire from dissolution, by maintaining the constitutional 
 connexion of Ireland with the British crown". Here is the refuta- 
 tion of his second great argument, published by himself. Hear him 
 conquer himself in his pamphlet of 1798 — here (page 5) he writes 
 as follows : " There is not a nation in the habitable globe which has 
 advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and manufac- 
 tures, with the same rapidity in the same period — speaking of 
 Ireland since the constitution of 1782, namely, for the last twenty years. 
 
 Here we add nothing, but that the author has been, by his own 
 account, recommending an Union for these eight years ; he has been 
 according to his own account, betraying, for these eight years, the 
 •onstitution in her counsels, in the very moments of his panegyric. 
 On this important discovery let others expatiate ; to us it is more 
 material to observe on his work, where it sets up our history against 
 our constitution, and the annals of the parliament against its legis- 
 lative capacity. To establish this, he has thought it prudent to 
 advert to four periods in which the greatest questions were success- 
 fully discussed, and the legislative abilities were triumphantly 
 displayed. 
 
 This pamphlet quotes the period of 1753, and relates, that a 
 question regarding a surplus in the treasury was then started, to 
 try the strength of two factions, which, in its consequence,, trans- 
 mitted a spirit that afterwards degraded the parliaments What, 
 when, or where, this parliamentary degradation appeared, we are at 
 a loss to discover. This is not history, nor comment, nor fact, but 
 it is a garbling of history to establish a conclusion the opposite of 
 that which the history itself would administer. The principle then 
 determined^ the importance of that principle, the abilities displayed 
 on the discussion of it, the real effect of both on the public mind, 
 have escaped the pen of the historian ; from that pen you would 
 collect, that Mr. Malone and Mr. Pery were nothing more than two 
 prize-fighters, embattled in the cause of faction, under two great 
 state criminals, the Primate and Lord Shaunon ; that they agitated 
 a matter of no moment ; but that they propagated sedition of great 
 moment and fatal consequences to the next generation. 
 
460 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OP LORD CLARE. 
 
 Having thus disposed of parliament, and the characters of '53, 
 without the vexation of any study, or any sordid obligation to 
 fact, the pamphlet proceeds to dispose of the character of the House 
 of Commons and the principal gentlemen of the country for fifteen 
 years after. It had before represented them as incendiaries, it here 
 represents them as plunderers ; it sets forth, that, under the pretext 
 of public improvement, the commons plundered the country ; and 
 that their parliament, to pay their parliamentary following, plundered 
 the treasury, until they imposed on the Crown the necessity of re- 
 sorting for supply to parliament ; which the author most pathetically 
 bemoans, and which he seems to think the only great grievance of 
 the country. 
 
 Having given this history of parliament, from 1753 to 1768, it 
 advances to the administration of Lord Townshend, m wnich it seems 
 to recollect nothing but the noise of opposition. 
 
 The pamphlet of 1798, in the name of the author, had observed, 
 that from the revolution of 1782, the system adopted by those in 
 whom the power resided (they were those, among others, whom he 
 had just been pleased to reprobate as incendiaries and plunderers), 
 went to cement the connexion which had so long subsisted between 
 Great Britain and Ireland, to their mutual advantage ; the pamphlet 
 of 1800 is pleased to observe, that the precedent of their government 
 was fatal ; and that a system was formed on it that would beat down 
 any nation on Earth ; accordingly it states, that the English govern- 
 ment opened their eyes, shook, indeed, the aristocracy, but generated 
 a race of political adventurers, full of noise and indecorum. I think 
 I have heard spruce authority as petulant and indecorous as young 
 ambition. 
 
 The attempts of the court to pack a parliament at that period, the 
 increase of the establishment for that purpose, the great abilities dis- 
 played, the altered Money Bill, protests, prorogation, in short, the 
 history of the period, once more escape this historian. The learned 
 author now approaches the year 1779 ; the expedition of his march 
 is very great, and very liberally does he leave untouched everything 
 behind him ; he is arrived ; and here he scarcely is stricken with 
 anything worthy of his history, save only the weakness of Lord 
 Buckinghamshire in arraying the volunteers, and the illiberality of 
 the nation in demanding a free trade ; the pamphlet commends 
 the volunteers of that period ; and yet I think I remember a young 
 barrister going forth in his cock-boat, and scolding the waves of 
 that ocean, and the waves regarded him not.* Certainly the volun- 
 
 * Alluding to Mr. Fitzgibbon's speech in 1780, when he termed the proceed- 
 ings of the volunteers " riot r clamour, and the production of a giddy faction". 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 4C1 
 
 teers did take a most decisive part in the political and commercial 
 question of that day. Well, he has done with the year 1779 ; what- 
 ever he had to say on the great questions then discussed, and on that 
 most pregnant period, in a few lines he has said it ; history is nothing 
 in his hands ; in his account of the parliament of Ireland for thirty 
 years, the learned author has five ideas, and those are all false ; 
 faction in 1753 ; plunder till 1768 ; then noise of opposition ; then 
 the weakness of government ; then the ungenerous proceedings of 
 parliament ; and as he before condemned your elforts to recover your 
 trade with oblique censure, so now he condemns your efforts to 
 recover your constitution with direct animadversion ; he calls the 
 settlement of 1782 the separation of a colony from Great Britain. 
 Bold adulation of England this ; the alleged author of the pamphlet 
 was in parliament the 16th of April, 1782 : he made no objection to 
 the separation : he was in parliament the 27th May, 1782 : he made 
 no objection to the separation : he wrote me a letter of congratulation 
 at that time on the success of that settlement, he did not there men- 
 tion this separation. Reading this publication now, and in the 
 society of the two other pamphlets of the same name, every Irishman 
 feels himself less a gentleman and more a slave. The pamphlet, in 
 its oblique censure and in its direct animadversion, disparages every 
 great act and every distinguished character in this country for the 
 last fifty years : Mr. Malone, Lord Pery, late Lord Shannon, Duke 
 of Leinster, the Messrs. Ponsonby, Mr. Brownlow, Sir William 
 Osborne, Mr. Burgh, Mr. Daly, Mr. Yelverton, Mr. Ogle, Mr. Flood, 
 Mr. Forbes, Lord Charlemont, and myself. I follow the author 
 through the graves of these honourable dead men, for most of them 
 are so ; and* I beg to raise up their tomb-stones, as he throws them 
 down. I feel it more instructive to converse with their ashes, than 
 with his compositions. 
 
 Mr. Malone, one of the characters of 1753, was a man of the 
 finest intellect that any country ever produced. " The three ablest 
 men I have ever heard, were Mr. Pitt (the father), Mr. Murray, and 
 Mr. Malone ; for a popular assembly I would choose Mr. Pitt, for a 
 privy council, Murray; for twelve wise men, Malone". This was 
 the opinion which Lord Sackville, the secretary of 1753, gave of Mr. 
 Malone to a gentleman from whom I heard it. "He is a great sea 
 in a calm", said Mr. Gerrard Hamilton, another great judge of men 
 and talents ; "ay", it was replied, "but had you scon him when lie 
 was young, you would have said he was a great sea in a storm". 
 And like the sea, whether in calm or storm, he was a great pro- 
 duction of nature. 
 
 Lord Pery, he is not yet canonized by death ; but he, like the 
 
462 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LOUD CLA1IE. 
 
 rest, has beeu canonized by slander. He was more or less a party 
 in all those measures which the pamphlet condemns, and indeed in 
 every great statute and measure that took place in Ireland the last 
 fifty years ; a man of the most legislative capacity I ever knew, and 
 the most comprehensive reach of understanding I ever saw ; with a 
 deep engraven impression of public care, accompanied by a temper 
 which was tranquillity itself, and a personal firmness that was 
 adamant ; in his train is every private virtue that can adorn human 
 nature. 
 
 Mr. Brownlow, Sir William Osborne, I wish we had more of these 
 criminals ; the former seconded the address of 1 782 ; and in the 
 latter, and in both, there was a station of mind that would have 
 become the proudest senate in Europe. 
 
 Mr. Flood, my rival, as the pamphlet calls him, and I should be 
 unworthy the character of his rival, if in his grave I did not do him 
 justice ; he had faults ; but he had great powers, great public effect; 
 he persuaded the old, he inspired the young ; the Castle vanished 
 before him ; on a small subject he was miserable ; put into his hand 
 a distaff, and, like Hercules, he made sad work of it ; but give him 
 the thunderbolt, and he had the arm of a Jupiter ; he misjudged 
 when he transferred himself to the English parliament ; he forgot 
 that he was a tree of the forest, too old and too great to be trans- 
 planted at fifty ; and his seat in the British parliament is a caution 
 to the friends of union to stay at home, and make the country of 
 their birth the seat of their action. 
 
 Mr. Burgh, another great person in those scenes, which it is not 
 in the little quill of this author to depress. He was a man singu- 
 larly gifted, with great talent, great variety, wit, oratory, and logic; 
 he, too, had weakness ; but he had the pride of genius also, and 
 strove to raise his country along with himself, and never sought to 
 build his elevation on the degradation of Ireland. I moved an 
 amendment for a free export ; he moved a better amendment, and he 
 lost his place. I moved a declaration of right ; " with my last 
 breath will I support the right of the Irish parliament", was his 
 letter to me, when I applied to him for his support. He lost the 
 ehance of recovering his place and his way to the seals, for which he 
 might have bartered. The gates of promotion were shut on him, as 
 those of glory opened. 
 
 Mr. Daly, my beloved friend ; he, in a great measure drew the 
 address of 1779, in favour of our trade — that " ungracious measure " ; 
 and he saw, read, and approved of the address of 1782 in favour of 
 constitution ; that address of " separation". He visited me in my 
 illness at that moment, and I had communication on those subjects 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 4G3 
 
 with that man, whose powers of oratory were next to perfection, and 
 whose powers of understanding, I might say, from what has lately 
 happened, bordered on the spirit of prophecy.* 
 
 Mr. Forbes, a name I shall ever regard, and a death I shall ever 
 deplore ; enlightened, sensible, laborious, and useful ; proud in 
 poverty, and patriotic, he preferred exile to apostacy, and met his 
 death. I speak of the dead, I say nothing of the living ; but I 
 attribute to this constellation of men. in a great measure, the privi- 
 leges of your country ; and I attribute such a generation of men to 
 the residence of your parliament. 
 
 The ministers of the Crown, who, in the times related by the 
 pamphlet, did the lung's business, were respectable and able men ; 
 they supported sometimes acts of power, but they never, by any 
 shocking declaration, outraged the constitution ; they adjusted them- 
 selves to the idea of liberty, even when they might have offended 
 against tfee principle, and always kept on terms of decency with the 
 people and then- privileges. Least of all did they indulge in a ter- 
 magant vulgarity, debasing to a plebeian level courts and senates, and 
 courting Irish infamy on a speculation of British promotion. 
 
 In the list of injured characters I beg leave to say a few words for 
 the good and gracious Earl of Charlemont ; an attack, not only on 
 his measures, but on his representative, makes his vindication 
 seasonable. Formed to unite aristocracy and the people, with the 
 manners of a court and the principles of a patriot, with the flame ot 
 liberty and the love of order; unassailable to the approaches of power, 
 of profit, or of titles, he annexed to the love of freedom a veneration 
 for order, and cast on the crowd that followed him the gracious light 
 of his own accomplishments ; so that the very rabble grew civilized 
 as it approached his person. For years did he preside over a great 
 army without pay or reward ; and he helped to accomplish a great 
 revolution without a drop of blood. Let slaves utter their slander, 
 and bark at glory which is conferred by the people ; his name will 
 stand : and when their clay shall be gathered to the dirt to which 
 they belong, his monument, whether in marble or in the hearts of 
 his countrymen, shall be resorted to as a subject of sorrow and an 
 excitation to virtue. 
 
 Should the author of the pamphlet pray, he could not ask for his 
 son a greater blessing than to resemble the good Earl of Charlemont ; 
 nor could that son repay that blessing by any act of gratitude more 
 filial, than by committing to the flames his father's publications. 
 
 * This alludes to a private anecdote of Lord Clare and Mr. Daly, respecting 
 the conduct likely to be pursued by the former in case a Union -was proposed. 
 
464 
 
 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 I have attempted to vindicate the dead, let us now vindicate the 
 parliament. The question of 1753 was the beginning in this 
 country of that constitutional spirit, which asserted afterwards the 
 privilege of the Commons, and guarded and husbanded the essential 
 light of a free constitution. The question was of its very essence ; 
 but the effect spread beyond the question, and the ability of the 
 debate instructed the nation, and made her not only tenacious of 
 her rights, but proud of her understanding. There might have been 
 party, there might have been faction, mixing with a great public 
 principle ; so it was in the time of ship money ; so it was in the 
 Revolution. In these instances the private motive mixed with the 
 public cause ; but still it was the cause of the public and the cause of 
 liberty. In great moral operations, as well as in the great opera- 
 tions of nature, there is always a degree of waste and overflow ; so 
 it is with the sea. Shall we therefore pronounce the ocean a 
 nuisance ? Thus, afterward, in the time which the pamphlef describes 
 as the period of plunder, there was a spirit of private jobbing 
 mixing with the spirit of public improvement ; but that spirit of public 
 improvement, and the commencement and birth of public care, was 
 there also, and so continued, from the time of the sagacious Lord 
 Pery, to the period of Mr. Foster and his wise regulations. 
 
 In the histoiy of parliament, I observe the learned historian omits 
 her laws ; the corn law, the octennial bill, the tenantry bill ; he has 
 not only forgotten our history, but his own, and most impartially 
 contradicts what is written by himself as well as others. " No 
 nation in the habitable globe, in cultivation, in commerce, in agricul- 
 ture, in manufacture, has advanced in the same rapidity within the 
 same period", says the pamphlet of 1798, in the name of our author 
 (page 5). "A settlement so complete and satisfactory, as to render 
 the revival of political or constitutional questions utterly impossible", 
 so said the same pamphlet (page 9), speaking of the settlement of 
 1782. " A parliament", speaking of the Irish Parliament, " fully 
 competent to all practical and beneficial purposes of government, 
 fully competent to preserve this country, which is the weaker, 
 against encroachment, and to save the empire from dissolution, by 
 maintaining the constitutional connexion with Great Britain"; so 
 said the same pamphlet, speaking of the constitution of 1782. 
 Thus have these different works furnished their own answers, and 
 like opposite poison, administered their cure and their contradic- 
 tion. In procuring that constitution and that trade, the Irish 
 Parliament had great merit — the servants of the crown had great 
 merit — the author had none. 
 
 As the author has censured the proceedings of both, let me be their 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 465 
 
 vindicator. Those servants of the crown proved themselves to be 
 Irishmen, and scorned to barter their honour for their office; that 
 parliament, whose conduct the pamphlet reprobates, had seen the 
 country, by restrictions on commerce and by an illegal embargo on 
 her provision trade, brought, in 1779, to a state of bankruptcy ; that 
 parliament had reposed in the liberality of the British Parliament an 
 inexorable confidence ; that parliament waited and waited, till she 
 found, after the English session of 1778, nothing could be expected ; 
 and then that parliament (and here behold the recuperative princi- 
 ples of our constitution, and contemplate parliament, as the true 
 source of legitimate hope, though sometimes the just object of 
 public disapprobation), that parliament at length preferred a demand 
 — I say a demand, for a free trade, and expressed in a sentence the 
 grievances of a century. They shorten the money bill, assert the 
 spirit of the country, and, supported as they were by the whole 
 nation, break, in one hour, that chain which had blocked up your 
 harbours for ages. They follow this by a support of government 
 and of empire, as ample as was their support of their country and 
 their commerce, bold and irresistible, and do more to deter and 
 intimidate the common enemy, than all your present loans and all 
 your establishments. 
 
 I come to the second period ; and here they fall back ; here they 
 act reluctantly ; but here you see again the rallying principle of our 
 constitution ; that very parliament, whom the pamphlet vilifies, 
 whom the minister thought he had at his feet, those very gentlemen 
 whom the pamphlet disparages, whom the -then secretary relied on 
 as a rank majority, made a common cause with the people — made a 
 common cause with their liberties ; and, assisted and backed by the 
 voice of that people, preserved, carried, and established the claim, 
 inheritance, and liberties of the realm, and sent the secretary post to 
 England, to recant his political errors in his own country, and to 
 register that recantation in the rolls of his own parliament. These 
 achievements we are to estimate, not by the difficulties of the day, but 
 by the difficulties resulting from the depression and degradation of 
 ages. If we consider that the people and parliament, who had thus 
 associated for the defence of the realm, and had added to the objects 
 of their association the cause of trade and liberty, without which 
 that realm did not deserve to be defended, had been in a great 
 measure excluded from all the rest of the world, had been depressed 
 for one hundred years by commercial and political oppression, and 
 torn by religious divisions ; that their ministers had not seldom 
 applied themselves to taint the integrity of the higher order, and very 
 seldom (except as far as they concurred in the bounties o f the legis- 
 
4G6 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 ■lature) applied themselves to relieve the condition of the lower 
 order ; that such a people and such a parliament should spontaneously 
 associate, unite, arm, array, defend, illustrate, and free their country, 
 overawe bigotry, suppress riot, prevent invasion, and produce, as 
 the offspring of their own head, armed cap-a-pie, like the goddess of 
 wisdom issuing from the thunderer, commerce and constitution— 
 what shall we say of such a people and such a parliament ? Let 
 the author of the pamphlet retire to his closet, and ask pardon of 
 his God for what he has written against his country ! 
 
 1 state these things, because these things have been called clamour; 
 I state these facts, in opposition to slander, as the defence of my 
 country, to restore from calumny the character of her constitution, 
 and to rescue from oblivion the decaying evidences of her glory. 
 
 I think I know my country ; I think I have a right to know her; 
 she has her weaknesses ; were she perfect, one would admire her 
 more, but love her less. The gentlemen of Ireland act on sudden 
 impulse ; but that impulse is the result of a warm heart, a strong 
 head, and great personal determination ; the errors incidental to such 
 a principle of action must be their errors $ but then the virtues 
 belonging to that principle must be their virtues also ; such errors 
 may give a pretence to their enemies, but such virtues afford salva- 
 tion to their country. The minister should therefore say what I say 
 to my country — I, who am no better than one of yourselves, but far 
 superior to your tyrants — I, who probably partake of your defects, 
 and shall be satisfied if I have any portion either of your spirit or of 
 your fire : " Come, come to this heart, with all your infirmities and 
 all your religion ". 
 
 We return to the publication : we look for something to build or 
 plant in the immense waste — the huge moral devastation this writing 
 has left of the talents, ability, and credit of the country. Three 
 pamphlets of this author lie open before me, a publication of 1793, 
 another of 1798, and the present of 1800, all in the same name. 
 Here we are to look, I suppose, for whatever is by him suffered to 
 remained unlevelled of profound wisdom, liberal policy, comprehen- 
 sive system ; the true principle of government and of a free consti- 
 tution. Leaf after leaf, and period after period, have I turned them 
 over ; the author will show in what part of these poor things those 
 great maxims are to be discovered ; to mere mortal eyes these pub- 
 lications seem to be a system of political, moral, and intellectual 
 levelling ; scurrilous in themselves, they betray a native, genuine 
 horror of anything like genius, liberty, or the people ; great audacity 
 of assertion ; great thrift of argument ; a turn to be offensive, without 
 a power to be severe — fury in the temper and famine in the phrase. 
 
ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 46*7 
 
 I find, and lament to find, in those levelling publications the 
 following sentiments : that Ireland is a British colony, and that to 
 demand a free constitution, was to separate from Britain; that 
 Ireland may prudently submit to legislation without representation ; 
 that Ireland had no parliamentary constitution till the time of James 
 the First ; that the creation of the dependency of the crown for 
 supply on the Commons, was a pernicious precedent; that the 
 remedy for our present free constitution, and the only security for 
 the connexion, was to put in the place of the British parliament the 
 commanding influence of the British cabinet over the Irish legisla- 
 ture. Couple this with a declaration, that half a million had been 
 resorted to some years back to buy the Commons of Ireland ; couple 
 that with the declaration contained in this pamphlet, that, for the 
 last seven years, a noble minister of the crown had perseveringly 
 recommended the abolition of the Irish Parliament, and an union in 
 its place ; couple all this together, and the result of the pamphlet 
 will be the most complete and ample justification and panegyric of 
 that opposition, who for a course of years have, with honest perseve- 
 rance, reprobated that minister's administration. I will not say it 
 is a justification of rebellion, but it is the best defence I have seen; 
 it amounts to a direct charge, for those last fifty years, on the aristo- 
 cracy and on the commons, of faction, of plunder, of breaches with 
 England, and of acts of separation; and it particularly condemns 
 the parliament for those very measures on which she must rest her 
 credit and authority with the people; and further, it charges, that 
 before any rebel was in the country, a leading minister in the cabinet 
 was himself, and had been for eight years, a secret adviser against 
 the parliamentary constitution of Ireland, of course against the 
 fundamental laws of the land. To such a work, containing three 
 fabrications, four capital departures from matter of fact, together 
 with disparagement of his country, and of almost every honest public 
 character for the last fifty years, I do not think it necessary to 
 say more. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, by repeating what I have already solemnly 
 declared, that 
 
 It is not fact that we excited the Catholics. 
 
 It is not fact that we persecuted the Catholics. 
 
 It is not fact that we adopted the Catholic measures after the 
 place bill and pension bill had passed, and in quest of new matter of 
 opposition. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever declared or wrote that the adjustment of 
 1782 emanated from Dungannom 
 
468 ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET OF LORD CLARE. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever compared the parliament that accom- 
 plished that adjustment to the parliament of 1613. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever declared that the Catholic would be 
 most powerful if these nations were separated. 
 
 It Is not fact that I ever abandoned to popularity the draft of a 
 bill for vesting in the Parliament of England a power of imperial 
 legislature. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever saw, agreed to, or heard of, any such draft. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever agreed to an alliance with any English 
 party, to oppose any plan of national concord. 
 
 It is not fact that I ever entered into any alliance, offensive and 
 defensive, with them, however I might esteem their persons and 
 prefer their principles. 
 
 Here are ten assertions made by the author ; he is publicly called 
 upon to establish them. 
 
 I have said thus much to defend my country and myself in opposi- 
 tion to this publication, that takes the name of a minister who has 
 the support of the governments of both countries, and with respect 
 to whom I have no advantage, except the cause, my own personal 
 superiority, and another recommendation which I possess in common 
 with almost every honest subject in Ireland, and with the Irish 
 nation herself, the advantage which the calumniated has over the 
 calumniator. I might avail myself of many more vulnerable parts 
 in these publications, and press the supposed author personally, as 
 he has pressed others ; but, considering his situation more than he 
 has done himself, I consign him to judges more severe than I could 
 be, and to him the most awful, and, on this side the grave, the 
 most tremendous — ins country and his conscience ! * 
 
 * This was singularly prophetic. After the Union, Lord Clare repented of 
 his conduct, and I have heard a near relative of his declare, that in hi' 
 days he bitterly reproached himself for the part he had taken in that mer- — 
 Note by the Editor of GraUarfs Mis. Works. 
 
 THE END.