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 legislation at Paris; yet I believe, if the French council should choose to transfer the legislation of France to the Parliament of Westminster, England would scarcely hesitate on the subject of her own competency; the one is the competency of acquisition; the competency 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 popular 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 compares the pruning 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 instance 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 restoring 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 desperate 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 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 parliament stand 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 government like that of England: in a country where the crown is held by recorded compact, and the parliament sits by temporary representation. 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 respectable 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 everything, 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 elements 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 Scotland. He might have gone on; he might have extended his argument 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 many centuries, have 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 are 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 Ireland, 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 militia, nor the English treasury, nor the Irish yoeman, nor the Irish Parliament, that can save you; they may by chance succeed; but your great dependance 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 identification 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 an 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 proportion of Irish taxation, and diminishes her burdens, by communicating 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 any thing, 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 feelings 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 gentlemen have expressed that sentiment with an ardour which does them honour;* ingenuous young men, they have spoken with unsophisticated 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

* Mr. O'Donnell, and Col. Vereker.

d

To

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 CORRY.

14th February, 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 privileges 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 any thing 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 gentleman 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 blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, 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 haracter, how contemptible his speech; whether a privy counsellor for parasite, my answer would be a blow. He has charged me with

his P