tion, and has nothing human about it except its presumption.

What you lose by this surrender, what you forfeit by giving up the possibility of intercourse with so great a proportion of the inhabited globe, I cannot presume to say; but this I can say, that gentlemen have no right to argue from present want of capital against future trade, nor to give up their capacity to trade, because they have not yet brought that capacity into action, still less have they a right to do so without the shadow of compensation, and least of all on the affected compensation, which, trifling with your understanding as well as interest, suffers a vessel to go to the West, in its way to the East. I leave this uncompensated surrender-I leave your situation in the East, which is blank-I leave your situation in the East, which is the surrender of trade itself; and I come to your situation in the West, which is a surrender of its freedom. You are to give a monopoly to the British plantations, at their own taxes; before, you did so only in certain articles, with a power of selection, and then only as long as you pleased to conform to the condition, and without any stipulation to exclude foreign produce. It may be very proper to exclude foreign produce by your own temporary laws, and at your own free will and option, but now you are to covenant to do so for ever, and thereby you put the trade out of your own power for ever, and you give to the English, West as well as East, an eternal monopoly for their plantation produce, in the taxing and regulating of

which, you have no sort of deliberation or interference, and over which Great Britain has a complete supremacy. Here you will consider the advantage you reap from that monopoly, and judge how far it may be expedient to set up against yourselves that monopoly for ever; there is scarcely an article of the British plantation, that is not out of all proportion dearer than the same article is in any other part of the globe, nor any other article that is not produced elsewhere, for some of which articles you might establish a mart for your manufactures, Portugal, for instance, capable of being a better market for our drapery than Great Britain. This enormity of price is aggravated by an enormity of tax. What, then, is this covenant? To take these articles from the British plantations, and from none other, at the present high rates and taxes, and to take them at all times to come, subject to whatever further rates and taxes the parliament of Great Britain shall enact. Let me ask you, why did you refuse protecting duties to your own people? Because they looked like a monopoly; and will you give to the West India merchant, and the West India planter something more? A monopoly, where the monopolist is, in some degree, the law-giver. The principle of equal duty, or the same restriction, is not the shadow of security; to make such a principle applicable to, the objects must be equal; but here the objects are not only dissimilar, but opposite. The condition of England is great debt, and greater capital; great incumbrance,

but still greater abilities: the condition of Ireland, little capital, but a small debt; poverty, but exemption from intolerable taxes. Equal burdens will have opposite effects, they will fund the debt of one country and destroy the trade of the other; high duties will take away your resource, which is exemption from them; but will be a fund for Great Britain: thus the colony principle in its extent is dangerous to a very great degree. Suppose Great Britain should raise the colony duties to a still greater degree, to answer the exigency of some future war, or to fund her present debt, you must follow, for by this bill you would have no option in foreign trade; you must follow, not because you wanted the tax, but lest your exemption from taxes should give your manufactures any comparative advantage. Irish taxes are to be precautions against the prosperity of Irish manufactures! You must follow because your taxes here would be no longer measured by the wants of the country or the interest of her commerce, because we should have instituted a false measure of taxation; the wants and the riches of another country, which exceeds you much in wants, but infinitely more in riches. I fear we should have done more, we should have made English jealousy the barometer of Irish taxes. Suppose this country. should in any degree establish a direct trade with the British plantations, suppose the apprehensions of the British manufacturers in any degree realized, they may dictate your duties, they may petition the British parliament to raise certain

duties, which shall not affect the articles of their intercourse, but may stop yours; or, which shall affect the articles of their intercourse a little and annihilate yours; thus they may by one and the same duty raise a revenue in England, and destroy a rival in Ireland. Camblets are an instance of the former, and every valuable plantationimport an instance of the latter; your option in foreign trade had been a restraint on England, or a resource to Ireland, but under this adjustment you give up your foreign trade, and confine yourself to that which you must not presume to regulate. The exclusion of foreign plantationproduce would seem sufficient, for every purpose of power and domination; but to aggravate, and it would seem, to insult, the independent states of North America are most ungraciously brought into this arrangement, as if Ireland was a British colony, or North America continued a part of the British dominion; by the resolutions almost all the produce of North America was to be imported to Ireland, subject to British duties; the bill is more moderate, and only enumerates certain articles, but what right has Great Britain to interfere in our foreign trade, what right has she to dictate to us on the subject of North America trade? How far this country may be further affected by clogging her plantation trade and surrendering her free trade, I shall not for the present stop more minutely to inquire, but I must stop to protest against one circumstance in this arrangement, which should not accompany any arrangement, which would be fatal to settlement 21

VOL. IV.

itself, and tear asunder the bands of faith and affection; the circumstance I mean, is the opening of the settlements of the colony trade, and free trade of 1779: this adjustment takes from you the power of choosing the article, so that the whole covenant hangs on the special circumstance, and takes from you your option in the produce of foreign plantations, and even of America. It is a revision in peace of the settlements of war; it is a revocation in peace of the acquisition of war. I here ask, by what authority? By what authority is Ireland obliged now to enter into a general account for past acquisitions? Did the petition of the manufacturers desire it? Did the addresses of the last session desire it? Did the minister, in this session, suggest it? No; I call for authority, whereby we can be justified in waving the benefit of past treaties, and bringing the whole relative situation of this country into question in an arrangement, which only professes to settle her channel trade? I conceive the settlements of the last war are sacred; you may make other settlements with the British nation, but you will never make any so beneficial as these are; they were the result of a conjuncture miraculously formed, and fortunately seized. The American war was the Irish harvest. From that period, as from the lucky moment of your fate, your commerce, constitution, and mind took form and vigour; and to that period, and to a first and salient principle, must they recur for life and renovation.-It is therefore I consider those settlements as sacred, and from them I am