larity of law in trade and navigation? Have you not followed Great Britain in all her changes of the act of navigation, during the whole of that unpalatable business, the American war? Have you not excluded the cheap produce of other plantations, in order that Irish poverty might give a monopoly to the dear produce of British colonies? Have you not made a better use of your liberty, than Great Britain did of her power? But I have an objection to this argument, stronger even than its want of foundation in reason and experiment; I hold it to be nothing less, than an intolerance of the parliamentary constitution of Ireland, a declaration that the full and free external legislation of the Irish parliament is incompatible with the British empire. I do acknowledge, that by your external power, you might discompose the harmony of empire, and I add, that by your power of the purse you might dissolve the State; but to the latter you owe your existence in the constitution, and to the former your authority and station in the empire; this argument, therefore, rests the connection upon a new and a false principle, goes directly against the root of parliament, and is not a difficulty to be accommodated, but an error to be eradicated; and if any body of men can still think, that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire, doctrine which I adjure as sedition against the connexion; but if any body of men are justified in thinking, that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire, Perish the Empire! Live the Constitution!

Reduced by this false dilemma to take a part, my second wish is the British empire, my first wish and bounden duty is the liberty of Ireland; but we are told this imperial power is not only necessary for England, but safe for Ireland. What is the present question? what but the abuse of this very power of regulating the trade of Ireland by the British parliament, excluding you, and including herself by virtue of the same words of the same act of navigation? And what was the promovent cause of this arrangement? what but the power you are going to surrender, the distinct and independent external authority of the Irish parliament, competent to question that misconstruction? What is the remedy now proposed? the evil. Go back to the parliament of England; I ask again, what were the difficulties in the way of your eleven propositions? what but the jealousy of the British manufacturers on the subject of trade? And will you make them your parliament, and that too for ever, and that too on the subject of their jealousy, and in the moment they displayed it; safe! I will suppose that jealousy realized, that you rival them in some market abroad, and that they petition their parliament to impose a regulation which shall affect a tonnage which you have, and Great Britain has not; how would you then feel your situation, when you should be obliged to register all this? And how would you feel your degradation, when you should see your own manufacturers pass you by a cypher in the constitution, and deprecate their ruin at the bar

of a foreign parliament-safe! Whence the American war? Whence the Irish restrictions? Whence the misconstruction of the act of navigation? Whence but from the evil of suffering one country to regulate the trade and navigation of another, and of instituting, under the idea of general protectress, a proud domination, which sacrifices the interest of the whole to the ambition of a part, and arms the little passions of the monopolist with the sovereign potency of an imperial parliament; for great nations when cursed with unnatural sway follow but their nature when they invade; and human wisdom has not better provided for human safety than by limiting the principles of human power. The surrender of legislature has been likened to cases that not unfrequently take place between two equal nations covenanting to suspend in particular cases their respective legislative powers for mutual benefit; thus Great Britain and Portugal agree to suspend their legislative power in favour of the wine of the one, and the woollen of the other, but if Portugal had gone further, and agreed to subscribe the laws of England, this covenant had not been a treaty, but conquest; so Great Britain and Ireland may covenant, not to raise high duties on each others manufactures, but if Ireland goes farther, and covenants to subscribe British law, this is not a mutual suspension of the exercise of legislative power, but a transfer of the power itself from one country to another, to be exercised by another hand; such covenant is not reciprocity of trade, it is a surrender of the

government of your trade, inequality of trade, and inequality of constitution. I speak however as if such transfer could take place, but in fact it could not, any arrangement so covenanting is a mere nullity; it could not bind, still less could it bind your successors, for a man is not omnipotent over himself, neither are your parliaments omnipotent over themselves, to accomplish their own destruction and propagate death to their successors; there is in these cases a superior relationship to our respective creators-God and the community, which in the instance of the individual, arrests the hand of suicide, and in that of the political body, stops the act of surrender, and makes man the means of propagation, and parliament the organ to continue liberty, not the engine to destroy it. However though the surrender is void, there are two ways of attempting it, one by a surrender in form, the other by a surrender in substance; appointing another parliament your substitute, and consenting to be its register or stamp, by virtue of which to introduce the law and edict of another land; to cloath with the forms of your law, foreign deliberations, and to preside over the disgraceful ceremony of your own abdicated authority; both methods are equally surrenders, and both are wholly void. I speak on principle, the principle on which you stand your creation. We, the limited trustees of the delegated power, born for a particular purpose, limited to a particular time, and bearing an inviolable relationship to the people who sent us to parliament, cannot break that relationship,

counteract that purpose, surrender, diminish, or derogate from those privileges we breathe but to preserve. Could the parliament of England covenant to subscribe your laws? Could she covenant that Young Ireland should command and Old England should obey? If such a proposal to England were mockery, to Ireland it cannot be constitution. I rest on authority as well as principle, the authority on which the revolution rests; Mr. Locke, who in his chapter on the abolition of government, says, that the transfer of legislative power is the abolition of the state, not a transfer. Thus I may congratulate this house and myself, that it is one of the blessings of the British constitution, that it cannot perish of a rapid mortality, nor die in a day, like the men who should protect her; any act that would destroy the liberty of the people, is dead-born from the womb; men may put down the public cause for a season, but another year would see old constitution advance the honours of his head, and the good institution of parliament shaking off the tomb to re-ascend in all its pomp and pride, and plenitude and privilege!

Sir, I have stated these propositions and the bill as a mere transfer of external legislative authority to the parliament of Great Britain, but I have understated their mischief, they go to taxation, taxes on the trade with the British plantations, taxes on the produce of foreign plantations, taxes on some of the produce of the United States of North America; they go to port duties, such as Great Britain laid on America! the