that as Mr. Ponsonby was unable to attend, he would, with the permission of the House, propose the motion which he said was connected with the petitions against the Union, which lay on the table. Lord Castlereagh said, that the motion of the honourable baronet was calculated to trifle with the House. Sir John Parnell conceived that the noble lord should not treat the acknowledged right of the subject with contempt.

Lord Castlereagh then rose amidst cries of order! order! chair! chair! The Speaker observed that no motion was before the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Corry) then moved, "That Lord Castlereagh should be heard," on which the Speaker rose to order. He said, the noble lord had made no motion, nor could the chair be supposed to understand that he intended to make any. After some debate, Sir John Parnell was desired to proceed; he said, that the great majority of the counties of Ireland, had petitioned against the Union, but the voice of the people was disregarded by the minister; that if the noble lord was convinced that the Union was sanctioned by the public will, he could have no objection to his motion; there was a precedent in the case of the Scotch Union, and if, after the adoption of the measure, the public wish appeared to be for the Union, it would stand on a broad and firm basis; for his own part, he had already made a sacrifice to his principles, and to what he conceived to be the will of the people; he was ready to make further sacrifices, if they conduced to the strength of the empire, and the happiness of the country. He concluded by moving, "That an humble address be presented to His Majesty, humbly praying, that he will be graciously pleased to dissolve the present Parliament, and call a new one, before any final measure shall be concluded, respecting a legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland."

The motion was seconded by Lord Corry. It was supported by Mr. Arthur Moore, Sir Laurence Parsons (afterwards Lord Rosse), Major Osborne, Mr. Egan, Mr. Dobbs, and Mr. Dawson. They contended that the respresentatives of the people were not competetent to pass the act of Union, unless instructed to do so by their constituents; they were delegated to execute a trust which they could not violate. In the present instance, the measure, it appeared, was to be carried by force, and against the sense of the people; the consequence of which, would be sooner or later fatal to Great Britain. Mr. Saurin with great ability supported the motion. He quoted the Scotch precedent, and the dissolution of the Parliament of that county, prior to the Union. He quoted the doctrine of Mr. Locke, to show, that when Parliament enacted laws of this nature, and in direct contradiction to the will of the people, they were not binding, and the right of resistance reverted to the society; and in such an event resistance would be a struggle against usurpation, not a rebellion against law. The motion was opposed by Mr. Alexander, Doctor Duigenan, Mr. Stanley, Mr. May, Mr. Martin, the Solicitor general, Mr. Daly (afterwards Judge), Mr. McClelland (afterwards Judge), Sir John Blaquiere, and Lord Castlereagh, who said, that he

acknowledged Mr. Saurin to be a most able lawyer, but, he must say, that he appeared to be but a young politician; it was necessary to separate his legal from his political knowledge, and to state, that however his professional opinions may accord with the principles of the constitution, his arguments were Jacobinical, and his doctrines were those of Tom Paine.

Mr. GRATTAN said: That the motion of his right honourable friend (Sir John Parnell), and the arguments of his learned friend (Mr. Saurin), were not fairly stated, and not understood by the other side of the House. The appeal proposed was most constitutional; it was most wise, and the sense of the people could not be expressed so well as by representatives recently chosen, because of the communications which must then be had between them. Nothing was farther from being an appeal to primary assemblies; the constituent body would be the umpire, and the established guides of law would direct the judgment of the members. A principle had been chosen perfectly constitutional, and justified by the precedent of Scotland; in fact it was nothing more than the doctrine contained in the message of His Excellency, which clearly shows that the measure of Union was proposed to the House, on the supposition, not of the concurrence of Parliament, but of the concurrence of the people. Having read the message, Mr. Grattan proceeded: His Majesty grounds the measure on the opinion of the people; the same principle was adopted by the minister of Great Britain in his speech of last session, wherein he rests every thing, not on an identification of the two Parliaments, but of the two nations. His learned friend (Mr. Saurin) did not appeal to the mere multitude; his, was not a reference to primary opinion, but to that of the constituent body, to the people legally and constitutionally described, to that mixture of strength and property, which forms the order of the country. The noble lord had stated, as fortifying the project of Union, that nineteen counties were for it; the fact is not so; but the support which he thus assumed must mean something or nothing. If he affected to respect the constituent opinion, let him obey it; let him withdraw his opposition; for on the sense of the people he was directly contradicted. Let him look to the table for proof; there he would see that since the commencement of the session, twentyseven counties, and numerous cities, towns, and corporate bodies, had petitioned against the measure, and several of those petitions were signed by not less than 120,000 names. What then was the result? Clearly that the sense of the people was not for the measure, and that His Majesty had been misinformed. Parliament was the great council of the

King, and its duty was to instruct him of the truth. It was the duty of the Irish Commons to say to His Majesty, "Much as we prize this Union, and however beneficial it might prove, if adopted in concurrence with the opinion of the people, against that opinion, it would be the most fatal measure that ever wickedness, or folly, or incapacity could advise or accomplish." It was the duty of that House to advise His Majesty to a constitutional exercise of his royal prerogative, that of dissolving the Parliament in order to arrive at the sense of the people, by the election of a new one. If the sense of the people was against the measure, would His Majesty's ministers boldly and distinctly say, that they intended to force it against that sense? If such was not their intention they should willingly embrace the measure proposed by his right honourable friend. It was a sound and safe measure, nor could he see that any disturbance was likely to arise from a dissolution of Parliament; every act necessary to secure the public peace, and to arm the executive government with powers to that effect, had passed the House. The supplies had been granted, the mutiny bill had passed, the martial law bill was agreed to. Under these circumstances the measure was not dangerous; under every consideration it was just, and should have his cordial support.

The House then divided on Sir John Parnell's motion; Ayes 104, Noes 150; Majority against the motion 46. Tellers for the Ayes, Sir John Parnell and Lord Viscount Corry; Noes, Mr. Stanley and Mr. Martin.

UNION.

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE REPORTS THE RESOLUTIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE UNION.

March 19. 1800.

ON this and the preceding days petitions were presented against the Union from the cotton manufacturers of Cork, the sugar refiners of Belfast, the printers and spinners of cotton manufactures of Belfast, the calico manufacturers of Balbriggen, the merchants of Belfast, the corporation of carpenters of Dublin, the freeholders of the city of Cork, and of the Queen's County. The Union resolutions having been agreed to, it was then moved by

Mr. O'Hara that the chairman (Mr. Annesley) should leave the chair; this was opposed by Mr. Grattan, who spoke as follows:

Sir, - The plan of Union has detailed itself. Still it is the abolition of the Irish Parliament, and 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 every thing: first, in their attempt to prove the competency of Parliament to destroy the old, and to impose 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 Parliament: so that the strength of the case of Scotland is the desideratum of the case of Ireland. They have attempted to produce instances; viz. 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 creature of law as the establishments are the creature of law, and law the creature of the lawmaker. In these instances the families and persons 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; viz. 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 law 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 Revolu

tion, Mr. Locke, whose express doctrine, and whose repeated declarations, together with the great principle on which his Essay is founded, go to establish 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, authorized 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 their ground of Union. See their debates of the last session-see the King's message on your table. Finding the sense of this House, on the last session, they appealed to the populace 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 declaration of right; viz. 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 either should have 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 Protestants; in short, the great bulk of the