I could refer them to the cool, deliberate compositions of my closet, but I am compelled here to stand forward while they are wrung from me by the unfair conduct of a debate. I am most unwillingly placed in the situation I now occupy, and obliged for my own justification to appear to throw imputations upon others.

"I perfectly concur in the general doctrine laid down, that it is the exclusive prerogative of the crown to nominate its own ministers: I admit that the case must be urgent indeed to authorise the interference of the House; but I cannot forget that parliament has a double character. The House of Commons is a council of controul, but it is likewise a council of advice, and I think the man ill-read, not in your journals, but in our constitution, who should say that no case of such transcendant importance could exist, in which it would not be competent for the legislature, by the timely interposition of advice, to prevent the necessity of controul.-The right honourable gentleman who spoke last, has resorted to a very dangerous species of argument, even when most dexterously handled, by attempting to shew the absurdity of one thing, by exemplification and comparison with another. His reference was made with peculiar infelicity.

"In 1784, he says, times of peculiar turbulence, the House never thought of interfering with the crown in the appointment of its servants. Though triumphant majorities were headed by transcendant talents, so high and extravagant a flight as interposition in the nomination of ministers was never contemplated, but to keep with in the bounds of the constitution, parliament addressed the sovereign for the continuance of their own existence ! If the proposition of this night had been as it was in 1784 to address the crown against a dissolution, then in

deed it might with some plausibility have been urged that the House was advancing a step too far then indeed the right honourable gentleman might exclaim, that the great land-marks of the constitution were thrown down; that the king was deprived of his controuling power, and that the House of Commons was erecting itself into the tyrant of the realm, instead of remaining merely the representatives of the people. While I am thus arguing in favour of the motion of the honourable gentleman, the House and he will allow me to state that I utterly disclaim any privity to his intention of submitting it. I can truly assert that no man admires his vigour and independence more than myself, and there is no man whom I should be more proud to call my friend; but standing in the situations which we respectively hold, if I were to have indulged a conjecture on the subject, and were to have considered who would have been the first to have brought forward a motion of censure upon my conduct, I should have named that honourable member; and if the House is taken by surprise, I can, with the utmost sincerity, assert, that its astonishment at the nature of the motion, and at the quarter in which it originates, is not equal to my own.

"In the early part of the debate, the honourable gentleman who moved that the other orders of the day be read, made an allusion which was liable to some misapprehension.I wish, however, previously to say a word or two upon the nature of his amendment.

-What, sir, are we come to this? How is an unprecedented motion, shaking the very foundations of the throne-aiming a deadly blow at the prerogative of the crown, inverting the march of the constituent powers of the state, met by the administration? By an amendment, proposing the reading of the other orders of the

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day. They do not come forward boldly maintaining the principles of the constitution, demanding that such an unheard-of motion shall be deliberately investigated with closed doors, and exclaiming, Down with the audacious innovator!'—but they content themselves with very simply moving the orders of the day! This too, be it never forgotten, by a government which calls upon the House and the country, to declare that they are strong, efficient, and fully competent to conduct the arduous duties of the state, in these most arduous times. This specimen, I think, will be allowed to be a fair indication of what we may hereafter expect from their boasted ability and vigour. The allusion which I noticed as being liable to misconstruction, was made in the early part of the speech of the mover of this celebrated amendment, where he stated that I had demanded some concessions of principle as the price of my acceptance of office. To refute this assertion, I beg leave to refer him and the House to my recorded opinion. I merely enquired of Lord Liverpool, as a matter of information, whether the policy and sentiments of his colleagues continued the same, and I was answered by my noble friend with the candour and manliness that have distinguished him in every part of these transactions, as well as through life, that his own opinions upon this grand topic remained unchanged, and he was not aware that those of his colleagues had undergone any alteration. I here once more protest, and protest complainingly, that I have thus been dragged into a reconsideration of the subject, and I hope the House will not forget that I have been far from seeking the occasion. When I was thus informed of the settled and confirmed opinions of the head of the government, honoured with the chief confidence of the sovereign, and possessing all the influence

VOL, V. PART I.

and authority which that ostensible situation affords, could I doubt for an instant their practical effect on the other members of the cabinet ?. Could I hesitate as to their operation upon any attempt at a practical proceeding? My right honourable friend tells me, that if I would have consented to have formed a part of the administration to be established, the motion of which I have given notice would have been wholly unnecessary, as I should then have had an opportunity of call. ing the attention of my colleagues to the subject. I would ask any rational being what would have been the probable-the certain result? I should have moved it in the cabinet to be beaten there, instead of moving it in the Commons to be beaten here; I consider myself bound rather to move it here, and to be beaten here, and for this obvious reason, that it may appear to the public that the pledge I gave has not been forfeited, and that I have used my best exertions to carry my object into execution. I have never stated an opinion, nor do I hold it, that concessions to the catholics, unrestricted, unqualified, and precipitate, would be either politic or just.-Other honourable men may entertain consci. entiously different sentiments, but I am bound only by my own, and those have always been uttered in one direc tion.

"When my right honourable friend spoke of opinions that I had recently adopted, I apprehend he cannot mean to state that they are such as I have not long held, and such as he has known that I have long held. He says they are recently adopted-I say I have not recently adopted them, I have ever entertained them; but I have often avowed in this House, that on a fair comparison of conflicting duties, while the third branch of the constitu tion was hostile to the measure, I thought it better for the country, bet

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ter for the cause, better for Ireland, and better for the catholics themselves, that I should raise my feeble shield between the crown and the question. I felt it my duty at that period not to hazard the peace of the empire, and the peace of mind of a venerable sovereign. I maintain then, that the right honourable gentleman has no right to say that these opinions with me are of recent adoption. It is, however, a little too much to expect, that what I then yielded to the conscience of a sovereign, I should now yield to the convenience of a minister. For my conduct on this subject I have long laboured under misconstruction and obloquy, and I protest that I would have suffered under it with patience to the last hour of my life, rather than have sown with thorns the pillow of my sovereign. It is, however, rather an unreasonable expectation, that I should approve of the policy of a minister because I had submitted to the irremoveable conscience of a king. I should not have been more scrupulous with regard to the sentiments of my late much-lamented friend, and shall I now submit to the prejudices of an individual who has succeeded him at the head of affairs, and whose opinions nearly, though not perhaps entirely, coincide with those of the right honourable gentleman now no more? Personal objections to the noble lord, I declare I have none; I am actuated by no feeling of rivalry, and with this particular question excepted, I could have no earthly hesitation either in acting with, or under him; but I cannot allow, that the predominance of his opinion shall stifle mine. I cannot enter the cabinet, pretending not to know that the influence of the noble lord will be such as to paralyze all my feeble efforts there.

"But do I therefore demand concessions to my opinions? None! all I ask is, that the subject shall be fairly and deliberately considered, with a

view to the arrival at some practical conclusion, and that it should be investigated where alone it can be done with the hope of a favourable result, in the cabinet. My desire was, not to obtain concessions, but to ascertain to what extent conscientious men in the discharge of a public trust would go; it was to this consummation that my anxiety was directed; I required only that the important topic should be considered; the question demands it, you ought to give it, and I will add, that ere long you must give it. As another opportunity will shortly be afforded me of more minute explanation, I have not now attempted more than to free myself from the misrepresentations of which the honourable mover, I am certain, and my right honourable friend, I hope, were unintentionally, guilty. My right honourable friend has put to me a most unfair question, but since it has been proposed I will answer it. He enquires whether I have not seen a statement of the opinions entertained by the cabinet upon the subject of the catholic claims? I have seen it. I do not like to speak in disrespectful terms of any paper evidently the production of great labour and study, but I am compelled to notice it, for here, again, I would entreat the House to bear in mind that I have not courted this discussion. I admit that the abolition of the Jesuits completely exonerates that order from the charge of having drawn up this document, but such an extraordinary pledge of what a cabinet intended to do I never saw. Not two of the members agreed in opinion, and I thought that it would be little consolation that another individual should enter the cabinet with yet another shade of difference. I imagined, before I obtained a sight of the document referred to, that it comprised all the philosophical principles combined, that all the lights of abstract reasoning and profound theology were there

concentrated to a point, but, after perusing it with the utmost attention, I returned it with a note, written in perfect good humour, stating, that as far as I had been able to make it out, it appeared to me to be of a controversial nature.-Such was the answer, which, in perfect simplicity of heart, I returned yesterday; I really did not know what other answer to give ; but to what did this statement amount? Practically to this, as far as I could comprehend it; but, indeed, it is unfair to impute to the cabinet any opinion, because, collectively, it has none, and the retrospective influence upon my mind (for I did not see this curious production until after the negociation had been closed,) was, that if I had joined this hortus siccus of dissent, as Mr Burke once termed it, we should have formed as beautiful a variety as was ever assembled in so small a collection. But amidst such unprecedented differences, on which side is the influence and authority of government enlisted? That is the main question; this man may hold a blue opimion, another a white, a third a green, a fourth a yellow, and a fifth a red, but with which of these shades does the sentiment of government most nearly accord? Undoubtedly this point will be decided by the individual, who, holding the principal office, pre-eminently enjoys the confidence of the occupant of the throne, and the additional weight he adds to the scale must overbalance the remainder. I could not, therefore, feel that I entered the cabinet with honour, if I consented to give there a mere barren solitary vote. I trust, although not very fairly put upon my trial, that my conduct is completely justified in the eyes of the House and of the country.

To all that has been said regarding the mode in which the overtures were made, I most heartily subscribe; and no man can pronounce a panegyric

upon the demeanour of my noble friend, which I will not cheerfully second: I have known him for nearly twenty years, and during that period the warmth of my friendship has progressively augmented. I cast no slur upon the motives that influenced him or his colleagues: I believe, nay, I am convinced, that they conscientiously entertain different sentiments. Here I beg, once for all, to state, that the point on which we differ is this-not, as has been constantly and studiously misrepresented, whether we shall instantly concede, but whether, in the present temper of the times, in the present state of Europe, in the present convulsions of the world; at a period when the public mind is in a ferment, when you cannot dispose of the subject with a wish, or strangle it with a hair, and when you are not able to set it at rest by the strong arm of power, the government should not do that which is best in my opinion, and next best in the opinion of the present servants of the crown,allow the question to come before the cabinet for decision. Thus would the public anxiety be allayed, and those repeated annual discussions, fruitless of any thing but evil, be once for all concluded. In affirming that the Roman Catholic claims should not now be agitated, ministers beg the whole question. I do not say that immediate concessions should be made; all I claim is, that this body of people should be sheltered under the protecting wing of the legislature: that their case should be placed in the hands, or in the portfolio of the executive government. By those means, and those only, can you ensure to Ireland a happy and peaceful summer, and to the empire, confiding and lasting tranquillity.

"When my honourable friend opposite, (the member for Yorkshire,) asserts that measures and not men were