farther duty on importation to the same amount, adequate to countervail the duty on the material, and shall be entitled to such drawbacks or bounties on exportation, as may leave the same subject to no heavier burden than the home-made manufacture; such farther duty to continue so long only as the internal consumption shall be charged with the duty or duties to balance which it shall be imposed, or until the manufacture coming from the other kingdom, shall be subjected there to an equal burden, not drawn back, or compensated on exportation.

"That in order to give permanency to the settlement now intended to be established, it is necessary that no prohibition, or new or additional duties should be hereafter imposed in either kingdom on the importation of any article of the growth, product, or manufacture of the other, except such additional duties as may be requisite to balance duties on internal consumption, pursuant to the foregoing resolution.

That for the same purpose it is necessary farther that no prohibitions, or new or additional duties, should be hereafter imposed in either kingdom on the exportation of any article of native growth, product, or manufacture, from thence to the other, except such as either kingdom may deem expedient, from time to time, upon corn, meal, flour, and biscuits; and also except where there now exists any prohibition, which is not reciprocal, or any duty which is not equal in both kingdoms; in every such case the prohibition may be made reciprocal,

or the duties raised, so as to make them equal. "That for the same purpose, it is necessary that no bounties whatsoever should be paid, or payable in either kingdom, on the exportation of any article to the other, except such as relate to corn, meal, flour, and biscuits, and such as are in the nature of drawbacks, or compensation for duties paid; and that no bounty should be granted in this kingdom on the exportation of any article imported from the British plantations, or any manufacture made of such article, unless in case where a similar bounty is payable in Britain on exportation from thence, or where such bounty is merely in the nature of a drawback, or compensation of, for duties paid, over and above any duty paid thereon in Britain.

"That it is expedient for the general benefit of the British empire, that the importation of articles from foreign states should be regulated from time to time in each kingdom, on such terms as may afford an effectual preference to the importation of similar articles of the growth, produce, or manufactures of the other.

"That it is essential to the commercial interests of this country to prevent, as much as possible, an accumulation of national debt; and that therefore it is highly expedient that the annual revenues of this kingdom should be made equal to its annual expences.

"That for the better protection of trade, whatever sum the gross hereditary revenue of this kingdom (after deducting all drawbacks, re-payments, or bounties granted in the nature

peace,

wherein

of drawbacks) shall produce over and above the sum of £656,000, in each year of the annual expence, and in the year of war, without regard to such equality, should be appropriated towards the support of the naval force of the empire, in such manner as the parliament of this kingdom shall direct."

To these, four clauses were proposed by Orde, with his own comments on them, according to his instructions from the English state jugglers, under a shew of confirming the legislative independence, and the permanence of the commercial treaty; but, evidently, to obtain, under sanction of parliamentary authority, that no fiual settlement had been made; and, that both might be new-modelled, or subverted, by some future, unreformed parliament, when existing circumstances should prove favourable. The first and fourth clause clearly point to this; and the whole seem the fabrication of William Pitt, the detestable enemy of Ireland.

"And whereas no law made by the present parliament can, or ought to limit or restrain the free and unquestioned exercise of the discretion of any succeeding parliaments, who must be competent equally, as in the present, to every act of legislation whatever, and to deliberate upon, enact, or decline to enact, any of the regulations or provisions to be considered as essential and fundamental conditions of this settlement.

"And whereas the continuance of the present settlement must depend on the due observance, in both kingdoms, of the several matters herein

declared to be fundamental and essential conditions thereof, according to their true intent, spirit and meaning.

"Be it declared, that the continuance of the present settlement, and the duration of this act, and of every thing herein contained, shall depend upon the due observance, in the kingdom of Great Britain, of the several matters herein declared to be fundamental and essential conditions of the said settlement according to the true intent, meaning and spirit thereof.

"Provided, nevertheless, that all the said fundamental and essential conditions shall in all times be held and deemed to be, and to have been duly observed in the kingdom of Great Britain, unless it shall have been expressly declared by a joint address of both houses of parliament of this kingdom to his majesty, that the same have not been duly observed."

The fraud and imposture of the secretary's bills and clauses, were exposed, and ably opposed, by Henry Grattan.

Mr. Grattan." Sir, I can excuse the right honourable member, who moves you for leave to bring in the bill. He is an Englishman, and contends for the power of his own country, while I am contending for the liberty of mine. He might have spared himself the trouble of stating his own bill. I read it before; I read it in the twenty resolutions; I read it in the English bill, which is, to all intents and purposes, the same, and which he might read, without the trouble of resorting to his own. His comment is of little

moment; a lord lieutenant's secretary is an unsafe commentator on an Irish constitution. The former merit of the right honourable gentleman, in pressing for the original propositions, and contending against the present, which he now supports, may have been very great, and I am willing to thank him for his past services; they may be a private consolation to himself. No more. I differ from him in his account of that transaction. He was pledged to his eleven propositions; his offer was the propositions, ours the taxes; he took the latter, but forgets the former. I leave both, and come to his system. Here it becomes necessary to go back a little—I begin with your free trade obtained in 1779: by that you recovered your right to trade with every part of the world, whose ports were open to you, subject to your own unstipulated duties, the British plantations only excepted. By that you obtained the benefit of your insular situation, the benefit of your western situation, and the benefit of your exemption from intolerable taxes. What these advantages might be, no man could say; but any man, who had seen the struggle you had made, during a century of depression, could foresee, that a spirit of industry operating upon a state of liberty in a young nation, must, in the course of time, produce signal advantages. The sea is like the earth, to non-exertion a waste; to industry a mine. This trade was accompanied with another, a plantation trade; in this, you retained your right to trade directly with the British plantations in a variety of arti