he called a bill, was suggested on an opinion, that an Irish act of parliament might pass without a king in a situation to give the royal assent, and without a regent appointed by the Irish Houses of parliament to supply his place. The idea of limitation, he conceived to be an attack on the necessary power of government; the idea of his bill was an attack on the King of Ireland. They had heard the castle dissenting from their suggestion. It remained for them to take the business out of their hands, and confide the custody of the great and important matter to men more constitutional and respectable. The lords and commons of Ireland, and not the castle, should take the leading part in this great duty. The country gentlemen, who procured the constitution, should nominate the regent. He should submit to them the proceedings they intended in the discharge of that great and necessary duty.

They proposed to begin by a resolution declaring the incapacity of the king, for the present, to discharge the personal func tions of the regal power. It was a melancholy truth, but a truth of which no man entertained a doubt; the recovery of the sovereign, however the object of every man's wishes, was that uncertain event, on which no man would presume to despair or to decide. Having then by the first resolution ascertained the deficiency in the personal exercise of the regal power, the next step would be the supply of that deficiency: that melancholy duty fell on the two houses of the Irish parliament; whether they were to be considered as the only surviving estates capable of doing the act, or as the highest description of his majesty's people of Ireland. The method whereby he proposed these great assemblies should supply this deficiency, was address, There were two ways of proceeding to these august bodies perfectly familiar; one by way of legislation; the other by way of address. When they proceeded by way of legislation, it was on the supposition of a third in a capacity to act; but address was a mode exclusively their own, and complete without the interference of a third estate; it was that known parliamentary method, by which the two houses exercised those powers to which they were jointly competent; therefore, he submitted to them, that the mode by address, was the most proper for supplying the existing deficiency; and though the address should on this occasion have all the force and operation of law, yet still that force and operation arose from the necessity of the case, and were confined to it. They would not profess to legislate in the ordinary forms, as if legislation were their ordinary province; they proposed to make an efficient third estate in order to legislate, not to legislate in order to create the third estate, the deficiency being the want of an efficient third estate. The creation of such an estate was the only act that deficiency made

indispensable; so limiting their act they would part with their present extraordinary power the moment they should have exercised it, and the very nature of their act would discharge and determine their extraordinary authority.

But as the addresses of parliament, though competent on the event of such a deficiency to create an efficient third estate, yet would not and could not with propriety annex to their act the forms of law and the stamps of legislation, it was thought advisable, after the acceptance of the regency, that there should be an act passed reciting the deficiency in the personal exercise of the regal power, and of his royal highness's acceptance of the regency of the realm, at the instance and desire of the two houses of the Irish parliament, and further, to declare and enact, that he was and should be regent thereof during the continuation of his majesty's indisposition. The terms of the act would describe the powers of the regent; and the power intended was, the personal exercise of the full regal authority; and the reason why plenitude of regal power was intended by the address, and afterwards by the bill, was to be found in the nature of the prerogative, which was given, not for the sake of the king, but of the people, for whose use kings and regents, and prerogatives were conceived. They knew of no political reason, why the prerogatives in question should be destroyed, nor any personal reason why they should be suspended.

He had stated the method to be pursued, indeed the method almost stated itself; undoubtedly it was not the method pursued by Great Britain; but the diversity arose from obvious causes. The declaration of right was omitted in their proceedings; why? Because they knew of no claim advanced against the privileges of the people. A declaration of right in such a case, would be a declaration without a meaning; it would bespeak an attack, which had not been made, and would be a defence against no invasion: it would be a false alarm and hold out false signals of public danger, in times of perfect safety, confounding and perplexing the public mind; so that in the moment of real attack, the people would not be forthcoming. He objected to a declaration of right in Ireland, therefore, as bad husbandry of popular artillery. He objected to it also, as attempting to convey to posterity historic evidence against the constitutional principles of the second person in his majesty's dominions, without any ground or pretence whatsoever. For these two reasons he had not adopted the declaration of right, conceiving it would in that country be no more than a protestation against a claim, which had not been made, and therefore would be a false alarm and a false suggestion.

Their method differed also from that pursued by Great Britain, inasmuch as they gave the full exercise of the regal power;

whereas the parliament of Great Britain had imposed limitations; but he had assigned a general principle why limitations were omitted, and would add, that whatever reasons might have been supposed to exist in England for those limitations, they were not so much as pretended in Ireland. He had therefore thought it unnecessary and improper to enfeeble a government, which they professed to restore, as he thought it also improper to defend a constitution, which they acknowledged to be uninvaded. As the substance of their proceedings was different, the mode was different also, and it was impossible, even though they wished it, that the mode should be the same. The mode proposed by the Castle differed from Great Britain more, than that which he had submitted; that which he had submitted, departed from the model of England, but did not commit them with England, nor cast the least reflection on the wisdom of her measures. They concurred in the great object, the regent in the proceedings necessary to form the regency, the deliberation of the two countries were governed by their respective circumstances. In the proceedings, which he had submitted, it was sufficient to affirm, that all the great objects, which could attract the care of a nation, were punctiliously attended to; first, as to their constitution in every stage of the business, they exercised the power of a free and an independent house of parliament; the incapacity of the king to the personal exercise of the regal power, they discussed and decided: the deficiency thereby declared, they supplied, and hav ing supplied that deficiency, they proceeded to legislate, and give their own work the clothing and stamp of law. As to their government, they restored it, and restored it to all its energies, that the concern of the people for the indisposition of the king, might not be aggravated by a tottering and impotent administration of public affairs. They also manifested attachment to the royal family, not only by renewing the government in the person of the heir apparent, but by renewing it in a manner honourable both to Prince and people.

In that great measure he had not relied on his own judgment. He had had recourse to history, he had looked for the highest land mark in the British annals, and had found it in the period of the Revolution.

The address which would be moved, in part of its phraseology, was copied from an address voted by the convention parliament to the Prince of Orange, desiring him to take upon himself the conduct of public affairs. The idea of proceeding by address was taken also from those addresses, which declared the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of Ireland; and the idea of an act was also taken from the same period; in the second session of the convention parliament an act passed,

containing the substance of the addresses last mentioned, and giving the whole the clothing and form of the law.

There were points, in which the Revolution bore a near resemblance to the existing period, as there were other points, in which it was not only different but opposite. The throne being full, and the political capacity of the king's existing, the power of the two houses could not be applied to that part of the monarchical condition; but the personal capacity of the king, or rather the personal exercise of the royal power being deficient, and the laws of the land not having, in the ordinary course of law, made provision for that deficiency, and one of the estates being incapable, it remained with the other two to administer the remedy by their own authority: the principle of their interference was established by the Revolution, the operation of that principle limited by the contingency, the power of the houses of parliament in the one case extended to remedy a defect in the personal and political capacities of the monarch; in this case it extended only to remedy a defect in the personal capacity, but in both cases it was the power of the houses of parliament called upon to interfere by their own authority when the ordinary course of law had made no provision, and where the three estates could not supply the defect. He had, therefore, had recourse to the precedent of the Revolution in the mode of supplying the existing deficiency.

Gentlemen had called that an important day; he would add to the expression: he would call it a proud day for Ireland; she had deserved it, she had struggled hard for her independency, and she was then disposed to make a most judicious use of it: it was not a cold, deliberate act, supplying a deficiency in the regal function; it was not a judicious, but languid nomination of a substitute for the exercise of monarchical power; that country annexed a passion to her proceeding, and kindled in love and affection to the house of Brunswick, and the effect of her exertions, and the great labour of years, in restoring her constitutional rights and privileges, she now gathered in a harvest, which she shared with her princes.

He should therefore move the following resolutions:

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the personal exercise of the royal authority, is, by his majesty's "indisposition, for the present interrupted."

The question having been put on the resolution, it passed without a division.

Mr. Conolly then rose and said, that on that melancholy occasion, which every gentleman in and out of office lamented, and none more sincerely than he did, it had fallen to the lot of the two houses to put into the kingly office a substitute for their beloved sovereign; and there seemed to be but one mind, which

was to make that substitute the illustrious person who had, of all others, the greatest interest in preserving the prerogative of the crown, and the constitution of the realm.

He entirely coincided in the plan Mr. Grattan had proposed, because he was convinced it was consonant to the constitution, and such as his royal highness, to whom he should then move an address, must necessarily approve. He hoped they would be unanimous on the occasion. He therefore moved the following resolution :

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that an "humble address be presented to his royal highness to take "upon himself the government of this realm, during the con"tinuation of his majesty's present indisposition, and no longer, "and under the style and title of Prince Regent of Ireland, in the name of his majesty to exercise and administer, according to "the laws and constitution of this kingdom, all regal powers, "jurisdiction, and prerogatives to the crown and government "thereof belonging."

The motion was seconded by Mr. George Ponsonby.

Several of the former friends of government supported the address, when the Attorney General desired the clerk to read the act of the 4th of William and Mary, chap. 1. sect. 1. which having been done, he requested gentlemen to recollect they were not debating, whether they were to lay restrictions on the Prince of Wales, or not; but to consider, whether the address moved for were an instrument sufficient to convey to his royal highness the regal authority, and whether it were such an address as they ought to present.

Before he proceeded he would observe, that he was perfectly convinced what he should say would have no manner of effect on gentlemen, who formed the government on the other side of the house; for let them propose whatever address they might take into their heads, it would certainly be voted: and therefore he would not have risen to trouble the committee at all, if he had not been convinced, that the measures proposed were equally contrary to the common statute law of the realm, and criminal in the extreme.

He maintained, that the crown of Ireland and the crown of England were inseparably and indissolubly united; and that the Irish parliament was perfectly and totally independent of the British parliament.

The first position was their security; the second was their freedom; and when gentlemen talked any other language than that, they either tended to the separation of the crowns, or to the subjugation of their parliament; they invaded either their security or their liberty; in fact, the only security of their liberty was their connection with Great Britain, and gentlemen