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 BY APPLIED IMRGE, INC. 
 
Ho.^. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 I 
 
 or THE 
 
 RIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM SAURIN 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE ROTUNDA; 
 
 IX THE C[TY OF DUBLIN, 
 
 ON THURSDAY, THE 19th FRBRI'ATIV, 1829; 
 
 BEING THE 
 
 SECOND GENERAL MEETING 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BRUNSWICK 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CLUB OF IRELAND. 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CLUB, 
 
 
 GEORGE WALKER. 
 1829. 
 
 1 
 
SPEECH 
 
 • r rtfK 
 
 Rir.HT HONORABLE WILLIAM SAUUIN, 
 
 ^. ^. <5r<?. 
 
 My Lord and Gentlemen, 
 
 I can make no return for the warm expres- 
 sion of regard which I have experienced from 
 you. I can only assure you, that if the course 
 which I have pursued through life has de- 
 served your approbation, I shall persevere in 
 it to the end. I shall abstain from all expres- 
 sions calculated to increase the warmth of the 
 feelings which the present occasion has so 
 naturally excited. I cannot however but 
 honour and respect the warmth of your feel, 
 ings. It arises from the veneration and the 
 attachment which you entertain for the happy 
 system of Laws and Government under which 
 tliese countries have so long, and so pre-emi- 
 nently flourished. I cordially concur in ail the 
 resolutions which have this day been adopted, 
 and in none more than that which expresses the 
 feelings of astonisliment and dismay with which 
 we learned the proposition that has l>een sub- 
 mitted to Parliament by the IVIinisters of tlic 
 Crown. I can pay no regard to any qualification 
 that may be intended to accom})any the mea, 
 sure propouude<l, the measure itself being 
 in my judgment, a revolution in the Govern- 
 itient — to which, upon no terms whatever. 
 
 
 ,^^-' 
 
can I be reconciled ; — a measure, with res. 
 pect to which, I was under the fullest impres. 
 sion that the Noble and Illustrious Duke at 
 the head of his iVIajesty's Government, and my 
 Right Honourable and much respected and 
 regarded friend, the Chief Secretary for the 
 Home Department, entertained opinions as 
 irrevocable as my own. And I do feel the 
 greatest concern, that a duty which results 
 from the long-formed opinions I have enter- 
 tained upon this subject urges me to stand 
 up in opposition to the measure. I must leave 
 It to them to explain the reasons on which a 
 resolution so sudden and unexpected has been 
 formed ; but so far, I must confess, that to me 
 they are unintelligible. 
 
 The measure now proposed of admitting our 
 Roman Catholic fellow-subjects to the exercise 
 of the Executive and Legislative functions of the 
 State did not, in its origin, spring from the sen- 
 timents, much less from the privations, or the 
 alleged wrongs of that body. It was, with its 
 concomitant measure called Parliamentary 
 Reform, the offspring of that spirit, and those 
 principles of democracy and revolution, which, 
 for the last forty years, have been assailing, 
 and shaking to its centre, the British Constitu- 
 tion. They were the suggestions and the 
 artifice used by the United Irishmen, to seduce 
 the people of this country from their attach- 
 ment to their lawful Government, and to 
 engage them in the conspiracy then formed to 
 subvert it. T have been attentive to this mea- 
 sure from its commencement, and bound by 
 every principle of duty to examine and disco- 
 ver, if (I could,) whether there was any sound 
 political principle, or any sufficient reason why 
 we shoidd now make a revolution in our settled 
 
 Government ; and I oppose to it the resolution 
 which you have this day adopted, " That the 
 measure contemplated is uncalled for by any 
 necessity, and therefore unjustifiable upon any 
 sound political principle which has hitherto 
 directed the policy of civilized nations" — in 
 which resolution I do most fully concur. 
 
 It is an axiom in political science, which the 
 wisest and ablest men have deduced from the ex- 
 perience of ages, that when a Government is es- 
 tablished and settled — when men's minds are 
 reconciled to it — when it has become an object 
 of veneration and attachment, it ought not to 
 undergo alteration in the minutest particular, 
 except on tlie ground of absolute necessity. — 
 That necessity should be, that the Government 
 utterly fails to fulfil the object of its institution. 
 Such, and so great is the danger of unsettling 
 mens' minds on the subject of the Government 
 under which they have been accustomed to 
 live, and so difficult the task of forming or 
 framing another, in which men will agree. 
 
 I oppose this measure as a revolutionaiy 
 measure — a measure flowing out of the spirit 
 and principles of democracy. There is, and 
 has been, a party in this country, having for 
 their object the utter subversion of the Bri- 
 tish Constitution, and to establish in its 
 place, a Constitution of Government on the 
 basis of equality of political rights, on the 
 model of the Government of theUnited States 
 of America — a Government founded in dia- 
 metrical opposition and contrast to that of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 And here let me, for a moment, point 
 your attention to the distinction which ex- 
 ists between the* two Governments, for 
 
(I 
 
 I oannot but triw^e this rovclutioiwry mo^urc 
 to the principles on which the Government 
 of the United States is fo-anded. Tlie principle 
 of that Constitution is equality of political rights 
 to all people ; every office in the state is open 
 alike to every citizen ; representation is 
 theri? founded on universal suilVage ; under that 
 Constitution of Government, tht^e is not, nor 
 could there be a National Religion, nor 
 an Established Church. Such an institution 
 would violate the principle of equality ot 
 political rights, the basis of that Constitution, 
 under which all power flows from the people. 
 Look, my Lord, to the British Constitution ; 
 by that Constitution the executive authority 
 of the State, is vested by rivM hereditary, 
 in one individual of one family, and Irom that 
 office every other individual is interdicted. No 
 rank, no services, no talents, entitle any person, 
 to aspire to tliat office. The next branch of the 
 British Constitution Is the House of Peers, Le- 
 gislators and Judges, by hereditaiy right, and 
 tn total independence of the people. The only 
 branchof the Legislature in which the people ap- 
 peartoliuveany share, is the House of Commons; 
 but according to the principles of our 
 Constitution, that assembly never was a i-e- 
 presentation of the people, but a repre- 
 sentation of the property and intelligence 
 of the country. 
 
 It is nov/ forty years since a conf^piracy was 
 formed in this country, under the name of 
 United Irishmen, for 'the purpose of sub- 
 verting the British Constitution, and esta- 
 biishing on its ruins, a Government, having 
 for its tbundatlon, the principle of equality 
 of political rights on which that of Ame- 
 rica is based, imd which is utterly ia- 
 
 
 
 
 compatible wiUi the principles of our Con- 
 stltution. To forward the ends of that con- 
 spiracy, the two measures which have so 
 long agitated the country, under the specioUvS 
 name of Parliamentary Reform, and the still 
 more preposterous denomination of Catholic 
 Emancipation were first adopted. Such were 
 the engines made use of to engage the people, 
 and the Roman Catholics, (the principal objects 
 of the enterprize,) in the revolutionary mea- 
 sures then contemplated. Accordingly, you will 
 trace the arguments used by the United Irish- 
 men in the address to the Roman Catholics 
 by Theobald Wolfe Tone — you will trace these 
 in the arguments of those who have since then 
 advocated these measures, for the pui-pose of 
 supplanting the Ministry to which they were 
 opposed. 
 
 I have been looking on for many y^ears, and 
 Irave observed theuses made of these instruments 
 of delusion, for the purpose of exciting disaffec- 
 tion and discontent among the people of this 
 country; and they have to a great degi-ee suc- 
 ceeded. The Roman Catholics were told, that 
 while living under a Constitution, the freeest, 
 and mildest in the world, and in the bene- 
 fits of which tliey participated equally with 
 theirProtestantfellow-subjects-they wereslaves 
 and outlaws. I solemnly declare, if I did 
 believe that the Constitution under which we 
 live denied to the Roman Catholics of the em- 
 pire the benefits and blessings of its free 
 and happy Government — if I did not know 
 that they enjoyed the same protection 
 by Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, and Trial by Jury, as I 
 myselfr-if I thought the Constitution v/ere 
 guilty of depriving, not five millions, but one 
 Roman Catholic, of w4iat he was entitlod to, as 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
8 
 
 the free subjeet of a free State, I, myself, would 
 be the foremost to place my hand on that 
 guilty Constitution which had done him wrong. 
 
 But this is the jargon of denn luey, and the 
 artilBces of a party which tf^nk i ; this measure 
 from the United IrKiHuen. Ihey, in error, 
 (as I think they were,) in seeking to establish a 
 Constitution i I. vv»rnment in this country on 
 the basis of puiiiiLdi equuiiiy, were at least in- 
 telligible and consistent — many amongst them 
 were honest and sincere converts to the 
 principle of democracy. Their object was to 
 subvert the Constitution of the land ; and 
 the measure.*^ they urged were not only 
 consistent, but inseparable pai'ts of the system 
 which it was their avowed object to intro- 
 duce and establish — that is to put the princi- 
 ple of representation on a new basis, that 
 of universal suffrage, and to abolish the 
 Ecclesiastical establishment, and the national 
 religion, with the rest of our Constitution. — 
 They told us that they hated the system of here- 
 ditary sovereignty and hereditary legislation, 
 that they detested our Constitution, and would 
 have in its stead that of America. In all this 
 they were intelligible and consistent— on this 
 subject men might have reasonably differed, I 
 am not quarrelling with democracy ; I am not 
 assailing the Constitution of the United States. 
 Those who wish to live within its sphere, may 
 do so if they desire: but it is my decided and 
 irrevocable opinion, that such a Constitution is 
 unfitted and unsuitable to an Empire like ours, 
 advanced in arts, wealth and luxury. The same 
 Jacobin principles were derived from the same 
 source. If they succeeded here, they would lead 
 as they did in France to anarchy, while their influ- 
 ence continued to operate; but their day would 
 be short, and they would terminate here, as they 
 
 
 w 
 
 xlid there, in the despotism of an individual. This 
 is the view I have taken of the subject. I saw 
 its commencement forty years ago. It began bj 
 that contest and that struggle, in which, not only 
 these countries, but all Europe has been engaged 
 for the last forty years — the contest between 
 Monarchy and Democracy. In these countries — 
 between the British Constitution and that of the 
 United States of America. 
 
 Unfortunately for the country, and indeed 
 for themselves, about the same period a party 
 was systematically formed in the Irish Par- 
 liament in connexion with the British oppo- 
 sition to the administration of Mr. Pitt; and 
 the two republican measures of the United 
 Irishmen were inconsiderately adopted by that 
 party as measures of opposition to the Government. 
 That party was largely recruited from the profes- 
 sion of which I am a member, by young men more 
 distinguished for their talents and their eloquence 
 than for their knowledge or retlection, and who 
 to advance themselves in their profession and in 
 the world, ranged themselves under the standard 
 of opposition to the Government, and misemployed 
 their talent and perverted their eloquence in the 
 support of these two Revolutionary Republican 
 measures, which have, for the last forty years, 
 disturbed the peace of the country, impeded its 
 prosperity, and divided its people. In supporting 
 these measures they inculcated the false doctrines 
 which they had borrowed from the United Irish- 
 men, the principles of democracy which that 
 conspiracy had espoused. 
 
 I will advert shortly to the fake argu- 
 ments and unfounded principles on which 
 this measure has been advocated. The Ro- 
 man Catholics were told, that by the Bri- 
 tish Constitution they were denied their natural 
 
10 
 
 II 
 
 ainl itnprescriptiible ri^ht^; iluii tluit Constitu- 
 tion was a base monopoly, and that their condition 
 in the State was that of slaves and outlaws. iNow, 
 I ask, in the name of common sense if there be a 
 syllable of truth in this ? It is mere inflammatory 
 language. Where are the rii^hts denied to the 
 Roman Catholic? Is he not equally with the 
 l^otestant protected in the enjoyment of those 
 rights and privileges, for the maintenance of 
 which civil 4::overnments were established, and 
 which no «overnment ever yet instituted has 
 heeu so anxious to preserve as the Hritish 
 ^'onstitution ? 
 
 In the view v»hich I am takin^r of this subject, ^ 
 
 Mould call upon the Roman Catholics of Ireland to 
 
 join with me in resisting^ this revolutionarv system, 
 
 which will lead to democracv, to the subversion of 
 
 all religion, and to the destruction of every part of 
 
 the Constitutk>n. I would tell them that while 
 
 Jacobins are inculcating on their minds, that 
 
 they are deprived of their natural rights, they 
 
 are advancing allegations destitute of foundation. 
 
 The right.s of man in a natural state, are those 
 
 which secure to him the protection of his life, 
 
 property, and character. But I t<'ll him, at 
 
 the same time, that he has no rii>ht to 
 
 ofiir^? — olTice does not exist in the natural 
 
 state; tluTefore th<Te is no natural rii>ht in 
 
 anv man to office. Those situations are the 
 
 creation of the Civil State, for the benefit of 
 
 the State at large, and not for the benefit 
 
 or gratification, of those who may obtain 
 
 them. When the Roman Catholic is told, you 
 
 liave a right to office — I ask, is it a natural or a 
 
 civil ri^ht ? Natural Yizhi it is not — civil ri^rht it 
 
 cannot be, unless it be conferred by the law of 
 
 the State. The Roman Catholics are misled — 
 
 their minds are poisoned when they are told 
 
 by the incendiaries who are deluding them, that 
 
 I 
 
 they are deprived of their rights. Civil 
 offices and Seats in Parliament are created bv the 
 state for the public benefit. The law denies to 
 all Protestants as well as Catholics the right to 
 office and to seats in Parliament. The law creates 
 and qualifies. The principles of our Constitution 
 deny any such right. Those who have been in- 
 culcating upon Catholics, that they are deprived 
 of their rights because they cannot fill office 
 or seats in Parliament, tell them that which is 
 utterly politically false. 
 
 In every state in which a Civil Government 
 is established, the great object of the law, 
 as far as human laws can provide, Ls, that those 
 offices and places created for the public benefit 
 and the public service, and not of the indi- 
 viduals by whom they are to be tilled, should, 
 if possible, be filled by the persons in the state, 
 most fitted and best qualified to fill them. And 
 such is the provision, and such the policy of 
 our laws and Constitution, bv which whole 
 classes, and the great majority of the people, 
 are excluded from those offices and places, to 
 which the Sovereign Power of the state is 
 entrusted. Thus, under the British Constitution, 
 women are excluded from all those offic<3s, from 
 which the Roman CatholicvS are excluded. And 
 why ? — because the law considers men more 
 iiligible. Minors are excluded, because adults 
 are considered better qualified. Every man 
 who has not a real estate of £'300 a-year is 
 also excluded — and why ? — because the man 
 who has such estate is considered to be better 
 qualified. This exclusion, or rather the prefe- 
 rence which the law establishes in favour of the 
 better qualified, was never before asserted to 
 be injustice to the class postponed, nor to be 
 intended as a stigma, or disgrace. 
 
12 
 
 In myearly days this country was called the land 
 of liberty ; and it was the pride and boast of every 
 constitutional subject, that not only the native 
 was free, but the Negro slave who set his foot 
 upon her shores was enfranchised. But the 
 inarch of intellect has sbice discovered that to 
 be free, is to exercise the power of Government. 
 There was then a standard of constitutional 
 opinion — by it every thing was tried, and con- 
 firmed, or rejected. Now that standard must 
 be cast away, and we must launch the vessel 
 of the state on the wide sea of uncertainty, with- 
 out a pilot to guide, or a helm to direct her. 
 Need I advert to the many laws on the statute 
 book, by which classes of our fellow-subjects are 
 disqualified from office and seats in Parliament. 
 By one law, every person under twenty-one years 
 is excluded from the House of Commons, on 
 the principle that the law considers an adult 
 better qualified ; and will any man say that those 
 so disqualified are to be considered as slaves 
 and out-laws ? By another act, a century in 
 existence, no man can sit in Parliament unless he 
 possess a real estate of three hundred pounds 
 a-year, nor represent a county, unless he have 
 property to twice that amount. That was a law, 
 which disqualified from seats in Parliament the 
 great mass of the community. 
 
 These exclusions are founded on the prin- 
 ciple that offices of state are not made for 
 men, but that men the best qualified are to 
 be sought for to fill them. It is a delusion 
 to suppose that offices were created, or that 
 seats in Parliament were intended as prizes 
 for political adventurers, or to be trafficked upon 
 as tne means of advancement in life. These are 
 false views. Men may, it is true, get into Par- 
 liament, and thereby advance their fortunes ; but 
 it was never intended as a profession. 
 
 
 13 
 
 I come then to the exclusion of Roman Catholics 
 from Parliament, and offices of the State. And why 
 are they so excluded ? The Sovereign Power of 
 the State is invested in the King, Lords, and Com- 
 mons who comprise not more than twelve hun- 
 dred individuals out of twenty millions. Are the 
 remaining nineteen millions nine hundred and 
 ninety-eight thousand in a state of outlawry and 
 slavery, because of their exclusion ? — These 
 delusions have no foundation either in political 
 reason or political truth, they are, however, the 
 cause that our constitution, which was, as we 
 thought, deliberately and conclusively settled in 
 1688, is now in danger of another revolution. It 
 was then settled—on the principle that in the dis- 
 tribution of the offices of State, those should be se- 
 lected who were best qualified to till them — 
 it was then settled, that those in whom 
 the Government of the State should be 
 vested, should be Protestant and not Roman 
 Catholic ? My Lord, that provision was not, as 
 has been falsely and cruelly asserted, and mis- 
 chievously inculcated on the minds of Roman 
 Catholics, intended as a stain upon their charac- 
 ter or their religion, nor as a slur upon their 
 ability, or integrity. 
 
 It has ever been part of the British Constitution, 
 unlike the American, to have a national religion 
 and an Established Church — an establisment as 
 old as the Constitution itself — an establishment of 
 high rank, great possessions, sharing in the 
 legislative, and administering a great portion of 
 the executive ; and speaking politically of that 
 establishment, it is undoubtedly one of the 
 great bulwarks of the hereditary monarchy. 
 About three hundred years since, a great 
 Revolution took place in the national religion, 
 and the ecclesiastical establishments of the State, 
 from which resulted diirerences of opinions of the 
 
\) 
 
 u 
 
 most scrioUvQ (loscription. Proto^f^nts dissented 
 from the reliuion established at that period. 
 Ihey dissented from the relip:ion professed by 
 their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects and rejected 
 that Church to which the Roman Catholics ad- 
 hered^ 1 will admit, conscientiously and faith- 
 fully; but those who diiVered from them, as 
 conscientiously believed the doctrines of then* 
 Church to be erroneous, and the political cha- 
 racter and constitution of it, and the Institu- 
 tions appertaining- to it, to be incompatible with 
 the independence of the Crown, or the liberties 
 of the people. What was the consequence? 
 The majority of the people of this United 
 Kingdom, in population more than two to 
 one, in rank, property, and education, at 
 h ast one hundred to one, rejected that re- 
 lio:ion from which they dissented, and esta- 
 blished the Protestant religion in its stead. The 
 minority adhered with fidelity to their religion, 
 but let it be recollected that Protestants with 
 equal sincerity dis^:ented. It was not for twenty 
 Tears after this revolution had occurred, that any 
 alteration took place in the civil constitution of 
 the government ; nothing was done theoretically, 
 or under the intluence of religious feeling. 
 
 In the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
 the policy commenced of giving a preference to 
 Protestants by a Test, the effect of which was 
 to exclude Roman Catholics from all oHices in 
 the State derived from the Crown, in the 5th 
 year of Elizabeth, the same Test was extended 
 to the members of the House of Commons. That 
 policy from its commencement was never relaxed, 
 but gradually extended. In the 13th Charles II. 
 it wa^^ extended to corporate offices. In the 25th 
 Charles II. the Sacramental Test was superadded 
 and required as a qualification for all offices in 
 the State. It so rcmtiined until the 30th Obarlos 
 
 i 
 
 •;gfe 
 
 15 
 
 II. when it was extended to the House of Lords, 
 though its members sat there by hereditary right. 
 So things remained until the effort made by that* 
 unfortunate King, v/hose history has been so Avell 
 detailed by my Learned Friend, (Mr, Serjeant 
 Lefroy,) who, endeavouring taoverturn the estab- 
 lished religion, and liberties of the nation, was by 
 the nation expelled from the Throne, and that po- 
 licy which had commenced in the iirst year of 
 Queen Elizabeth,andhadbeengradually extended 
 from that period, was then reviewed, perfected, and 
 completed, by the exclusion of Roman Catholics 
 from the Crown, not merely by a Test, but by 
 express and positive enactment. For it is a 
 prominent part of t>ur great Constitutional Char- 
 ter, that the King on the Throne, if he shall be 
 a Papist, or even marry a Papist, shall forfeit his 
 Crown, and his subjects be therel)y absolved from 
 their oaths of allegiance. We have heard advo- 
 cates in Parliament for this revolutionary 
 measure, treat the constitutional settlement 
 of 1688, as the ebullition of a moment. 
 Never was a Constitution more fully considered 
 or deliberately settled, and by men of singular 
 ability and knowledge, particularly the know- 
 ledge of the Laws and Coisstitution of the Coun- 
 try. It was the completion and the consummation 
 of that policy which had commenced more than 
 a century before, and v/hichwas then completed, 
 by the exclusion of Roman Catholics from every 
 j)art of the Government, and the whole of the 
 Executive and Legislative power of the State 
 vested exclusively in Protestants. Under tliut 
 Constitution so settled, and by such men, we 
 have since lived and llourished, for a period of a 
 hundred and forty years. No man who has 
 advocated this measure in Parliament, has ven- 
 tured to say, that the Constitution as then .set- 
 tled has failed to aniwer the end and purposes of 
 its instittition. 
 
A 
 
 16 
 
 And therefore, my Lord, I will my in the 
 words of the resolution, '* that the measure con- 
 templated is uncalled for by any necessity, and 
 unjustiliable by any sound political principle." 
 
 Not only, my Lord, is there no necessity for 
 the proposed measure, but after the most anxi- 
 ous consideration which I have bestowed upon 
 the subject for a period of thirty years, I can see 
 no reason, much less discover a principle, why 
 we should depart from this Constitution. If it be 
 said it is because that Constitution deprives 
 Roman Catholics of their rijj:hts, I have already 
 adverted to that subject ; and now repeat, that 
 no subject of the realm, Protestant or Roman 
 Catholic, has any right to the Executive or Legis- 
 lative offices of \he State; even those who being 
 qualified according to law, are duly appointed 
 to those offices, do not take or hold them as a 
 rii^ht or a privilege conferred on them for their 
 personal benefit or gratification ; but in the con- 
 templation of the law and the Constitution, as an 
 obligation and a duty imposed upon them for th^- 
 benefit and service of the public. 
 
 The object in the view which I am taking of 
 this subject, is not to divide, but to reconcile 
 us. Many of the Roman Catholics of this 
 country have sense enough to know how 
 much they have been abused, and to discern 
 the artifices and delusions which have been 
 employed to disaffeet their minds to that 
 free Government, in the preservation of 
 which they are as much interested i s we are, 
 and which has been assailed for tie last 
 forty years as a violation of their rights — n(»t 
 those natural and imprescriptable rights, whii h 
 the Constitution holds sacred, but Paine's Rights 
 of Man. It is under the delusion of his doctrines 
 that the British Constitution has been assail- 
 ed and decried for the last forty years. Fie 
 
 17 
 
 derided your hereditary Government, and foimd- 
 ing his theory on the Constitution of his own 
 country, maintained that it was the right of 
 men to govern themselves. If you will analyze 
 the arguments that have been most successful 
 in the advocacy of this measure in Parliament, 
 you will find that they resolve themselves into a 
 retail of Paine's Rights of Man. 
 
 The Constitutional settlement of 1688 was a 
 settlement consonant with justice; and, as I think 
 I have proved, not violatory of the rights of any 
 man; a settlement founded on wise and sound 
 policy, a^ best calculated to maintain the Pro- 
 testant Religion — the Protestant Institutions of 
 the country, — the Protestant Church Establish- 
 ment, — and the exclusively Protestant succession 
 of the Crown, (which it is now proposed to 
 strengthen, by removing Protestants from the 
 Government and the House of Commons, in or- 
 der to replace them by Roman Catholics,) as 
 liest calculated to establish unity and consistency 
 in the councils of the State, and the proceedings 
 of the legislature. 
 
 The measure now proposed, professing to settle 
 a question, suffer me to say, will, in my opinion, 
 settle nothing It may, and will reverse a 
 policy which we have adhered to for 260 years ; 
 it will unsettle mens' minds, — it will unsettle the 
 Constitutional settlement of 1688, — it will destroy 
 all standard of Constitutional sentiment and 
 opinion, but it will settle nothing. It must be 
 considered as a compromise with that spirit of 
 radicalism and democracy, supported by the spirit 
 of party, which has long been encroachiiig upon 
 our Constitution, and threatening it in all its parts 
 and proportions. And in order to effect this com- 
 promise, we must surrender a vital part of our 
 Constitution, — and what consideration will the 
 
IS 
 
 nation receive for that siurender, \r lieu that sur- 
 render shall have be(ni made? I ask, will not 
 the spirit of radicalism and democracy subsist? 
 Will it not renew its assaults on our Constitution 
 with increased vi^jor, and an ardor renovated from 
 success? And will not the same spirit of party 
 which has attbrded countenance and encourage- 
 ment to all the assaults on om* Constitution for 
 the last forty years, still be found to exist? 
 And I would ask, when these assaults shall be 
 renewed, where will be foun<l the principles, or 
 where will be found the persons on which andl>y 
 whom these assaults can be longer resisted ? 
 
 I do therefore, my Lord, look with apprehension 
 and dismay to the measure in contemplation, as 
 directly tending to the downfall of the British 
 Constitution, it is our duty however to use our 
 best elForts to maintain Hs integrity. I shall 
 therefore now conclude, by moving 
 
 " That we nre of opinion, thiit the measure contemplated Is uncalled for 
 by any necessity, and unjustifiable by any sound political principle* which 
 Las hitherto directed tlie policy of ci\ilized nations." 
 
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