naturally led to that part of the subject which relates to compensation, the payment which we are to sustain; certainly compensation cannot apply to the free trade supposing it uninvaded, first, because that trade was your right; to pay for the recovery of what you never should have lost, had been to a great degree unjust and derogatory; secondly, because that free trade was established in 1779, and the settlement then closed and cannot be opened now; to do so were to destroy the faith of treaties, to make it idle to enter into the present settlement, and to render it vain to enter into any settlement with the British minister. The same may be said of the colony trade; that too was settled in 1779, on terms then specified not now to be opened, clogged, conditioned or circumscribed; still less does compensation apply to the free constitution of 1782. His majesty then informed you from the throne, "these things come unaccompanied with any stipulation," besides, the free constitution, like the free trade, was your right. Freemen wont pay for the recovery of right; payment had derogated from the claim of right; so we then stated to ministry. It was then thought that to have annexed subsidy to constitution had been a barren experiment on public poverty, and had married an illustrious experiment on the feelings of the nation, and had been neither satisfaction to Ireland, nor revenue to Great Britain. This bolder policy, this happy art, which saw how much may be got by tax, and how much must be left to honour, which made a bold push for the

heart of the nation, and leaving her free to acquire, took a chance for her disposition to give, had its effect, for since that time until the present most unfortunate attempt, a great bulk of the community were on the side of government, and the parliamentary constitution was a guarantee for public peace.

See then what you obtain without compensation, a colony trade, a free trade, the independency of your judges, the government of your army, the extinction of the unconstitutional powers of your council, the restoration of the judicature of your lords, and the independency of your legislature?

See now what you obtain by compensation-a covenant not to trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan; a covenant not to take foreign plantation produce, but as the parliament of Great Britain shall permit; a covenant not to take British plantation produce, but as Great Britain shall prescribe; a covenant to make such acts of navigation as Great Britain shall prescribe; a covenant never to protect your own manufactures, never to guard the primum of those manufactures! These things are accompanied, I do acknowledge, with a covenant, on the part of England, to disarm your argument for protecting duties, to give the English language, in the act of navigation, the same construction in Ireland, and to leave our linen markets without molestation or diminution. One should think some God presided over the liberties of this country, who made it frugality in the

Irish nation to continue free, but has annexed the penalties of fine and infamy to the surrender of the constitution! From this consideration of commerce, a question much more high, much more deep, the invaluable question of constitution arises, in which the idea of protecting duties, the idea of reciprocal duties, of countervailing duties, and all that detail, vanish, and the energies of every heart, and the prudence of every head, are called upon to shield this nation, that, long depressed, and at length, by domestic virtue and foreign misfortune, emancipated, has now to defend her newly acquired rights, and her justly acquired reputation; the question is no less than that, which, three years ago, agitated, fired, and exalted the Irish nation-the independency of the Irish parliament! By this bill, we are to covenant that the parliament of Ireland shall subscribe whatever laws the parliament of England shall prescribe, respecting your trade with the British plantations, your trade in the produce of foreign plantations, and part of your trade from the United States of North America! There is also a sweeping covenant or condition, whereby we are to agree to subscribe whatever laws the parliament of England shall prescribe, respecting navigation; the adjustment subjects also your reversionary trade to the East, to the same terms. Over all these objects you are to have no propounding, no deliberative, no negative, no legislative power whatsoever. Here then is an end of your free trade, and your free constitution. I acquit the people of England; an ill

grounded jealousy for their trade seems aggravated by a well-founded alarm for your liberty; unwilling to relinquish, but when relinquished, too magnanimous and too wise to resume abdicated tyranny; they feel, in these propositions, an honourable solicitude for the freedom of Ireland, and the good faith of Great Britain, and see the darling principles and passions of both countries wounded in an arrangement, which was to compose them for ever. To a proposal, therefore, so little warranted by the great body of the people of England, so little expected by the people of Ireland, so little suggested by the minister, and so involving whatever is dear to your interest, honour, and freedom, I answer, no. I plead past settlements; I insist on the faith of nations. The objection should have been made, when these settlements were making; but now the logic of empire comes too late; no accommodation, no deprecation on this subject; assertion, national assertion, national reassertion! If three years after the recovery of your freedom, you bend, your children, corrupted by your example, will surrender; but, if you stand firm and inexorable, you make a seasonable impression on the people of England, you give a wholesome example to your children, you afford an awful instruction to his majesty's ministers, and make, as the old English did, in the case of their charter, the attempt on Irish liberty, its confirmation and establishment!

However, lest certain glosses should seem to go unanswered, I shall, for the sake of argument,

wave past settlements, and combat the reasoning of the English resolutions, the address, his majesty's answer, and the reasoning of this day. It is here said, that the laws, respecting commerce and navigation, should be similar, and inferred, that Ireland should subscribe the laws of England on those subjects; that is, the same law, the same legislature. But this argument goes a great deal too far: it goes to the army, for the mutiny bill should be the same; it was endeavoured to be extended to the collection of your revenue, and is in train to be extended to your taxes; it goes to the extinction of the most invaluable part of your parliamentary capacity; it is an Union, an incipient and a creeping Union; a virtual Union, establishing one will in the gene ral concerns of commerce and navigation, and reposing that will in the parliament of Great Britain; an Union, where our parliament preserves its existence after it has lost its authority, and our people are to pay for a parliamentary establishment, without any proportion of parliamentary representation. In opposing the right honourable gentleman's bill, I consider myself as opposing an Union in limine, and that argument for Union, which makes similarity of law, and community of interest (reason strong for the freedom of Ireland!) a pretence for a condition, which would be dissimilarity of law, because extinction of constitution, and therefore hostility, not community of interest. I ask, on what experience is this argument founded? Have you ever since your redemption refused to preserve a simi