body competent to overturn them is not assembled, and when the body that is assembled has not the competency, and when both these secure the freedom and eternity of the society by the repose of her powers. For this doctrine, I say the minister has given no reasons; he has been equally sparing of his authorities. Had his friends done the same, they would have been more prudent.

They indeed have quoted Lord Somers as an authority, to prove the power of parliament to surrender the legislative authority of one country to another, confounding the case of a surrender with the case of an acceptance. Lord Somers is authority (and so would every judge and every English lawyer) that if any one legislature, or that if all the legislatures on Earth were willing to surrender all the rights, privileges, and inheritances of the globe to Great Britain, her parliament stands ready to accept them. He states, that this his doctrine is particularly true in a mixed constitution like that of England; it is exactly the contrary: it is particularly false in a mixed government like that of England: in a country where the crown is held by recorded compact, and the parliament sits by temporary representation. It is peculiarly false in a country where the parliament and the crown stand upon the powers of the society, interposing without any authority but that of the society, and assembled in a most respectable and comprehensive description, and with the assent of the great body of the nation, deposing one king, electing another, and constituting a parliament; and such awe did they entertain for their constitution, that they acted as a convention but for a moment, to set up a parliament for an eternity; to do what? to repair everything, to preserve everything, and to abolish nothing, save only the abuses that threatened to abolish the constitution. On this subject he not only errs in his reasoning, but his conception of reasoning on the subject is fallacy and error; he affects to measure the elements of human justice by the element of British empire. Do not admit the principle of justice, do not admit human right, else what becomes of our conquest of Wales, else what becomes of our union with Scotland. He might have gone on; he might have extended his argument to the East and West Indies? Had the British Parliament - succeeded in its attempts on America, he would have more arguments of this nature. But what is all this to us? If Scotland chose to transfer her legislature to England, or if Wales were conquered, is that a reason why Ireland should admit the competency of the parliament to surrender her rights, or the justice and validity of a right of conquest? The fact is, that the acquiescence of Scotland - for a century, and the acquiescence of Wales for many centuries, have

become the laws of these respective countries: the practice and the consent of nations for periods of time become their laws, and make the original act of combination, whether it be conquest or treachery, no longer scrutable nor material. In a course of years, conquest may be the foundation of connexion, and rape of marriage; such has been, not seldom, the elements of empire; but such are not the elements of justice. The principles of right and wrong so intermix in centuries of human dealing as to become inseparable, like light and shade; but does it follow that there is no such thing as light and shade; no such thing as right and wrong? I am sure that the right of England to the acquisitions above stated is perfectly sound and unquestionable; I should be sorry it were otherwise; and, therefore, I am exceedingly glad it does not rest on the ground on which he has placed it.

I might, however, waive all this, and produce against him two authorities, to either of which, in this case, he must submit; the one is the Parliament of Ireland, the other is himself. After having denied in substance the power of the people, which he calls a sovereignty in abeyance, and after having maintained, in terins absolutely unqualified, the unlimited authority of parliament-that is, its omnipotence,—he does acknowledge reluctantly, and at length, that parliament is not unlimited, and that there does exist in the society a power in abeyance. He tells you there may be a case of abuse calling for the interference of the people collectively, or of a great portion thereof, as at the Revolution of 1688. I suppose now, if there can be such a case of abuse calling for such an interference, there must be a power in abeyance to answer that call, and to question that abuse; and the point in dispute is not touching the application of that power, but its existence. The other authority, namely, the Parliament of Ireland, has publicly, solemnly, and unanimously disclaimed and renounced, in the following memorabie and eternal expressions, any competency whatever to transfer or surrender the unalienable right and inheritance of the people of Ireland to be governed by no other parliament whatsoever, save only the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland: "The right of the people of Ireland to be subject to laws made by the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, and no other, is their ancient inheritance, which we claim on our part and on theirs, and which we cannot surrender but with life". What will the minister say now? But he has more difficulties against him; he has his own authority against his own project. He states, that his object is identification of people; he says, it is not the English navy, it is not the English

men have expressed that sentiment with an ardour which does th militia, nor the English treasury, nor the Irish yeoman, nor the Irish Parliament, that can save you; they may by chance succeed; but your great dependence is the identification of the people of the two nations. He states further, that this identification is necessary for a present purpose, namely, the defence of the empire against the ambition of France.

Here, then, is the great principle of his Union, as expressed by himself, the identification of the people of the two nations, for a present purpose. According to that principle, let us examine his project it is not an identification of people, as it excludes the Catholic from the parliament and the state; it is not an identification of government, for it retains the Lord-lieutenant and his court: it is not an identification of establishments; it is not an identification of revenue; it is not identification of commerce, for you have still relative duties, and countervailing duties; it is not an identification of interest, because England relieves herself as she increases the proportion of Irish taxation, and diminishes her burdens by communicating them to Ireland. The present constitution may be said to be nearly an equal trade and an equal liberty, and the Union to be a tax and a drawback upon that equal trade and upon that equal liberty; for so much a diminution of that identification of interests, if it be not an identification of interests, still less is it an identification of feeling and of sympathy. The Union, then, is not an identification of the two nations; it is merely a merger of the parliament of one nation in that of the other; one nation, namely, England, retains her full proportion; Ireland strikes off two-thirds; she does so, without any regard either to her present number, or to comparative physical strength; she is more than one-third in population, in territory, and less than one-sixth in representation. Thus there is no identification in anything, save only in legislature, in which there is a complete and absolute absorption.

It follows, that the two nations are not identified, though the Irish legislature be absorbed, and, by that act of absorption, the feeling of one of the nations is not identified but alienated. The petitions on our table bespeak that alienation; the administration must by this time be acquainted with it; they must know that Union is Irish alienation, and, knowing that, they must be convinced that they have the authority of the minister's argument against the minister's project. I am not surprised that this project of Union should alienate the Irish; they consider it as a blow. Two honourable gentie

*Mr. O'Donnell and Col. Vereker.

honour; ingenuous young men, they have spoken with unsophisticated feeling and the native honesty of good sense. The question is not now such as occupied you of old, not old Poynings, not peculation, not plunder, not an embargo, not a Catholic bill, not a reform bill— it is your being-it is more, it is your life to come, whether you will go with the Castle at your head to the tomb of Charlemont and the volunteers, and erase his epitaph; or whether your children shall go to your graves, saying: A venal, a military court, attacked the liberties of the Irish, and here lie the bones of the honourable dead men who saved their country! Such an epitaph is a nobility which the King cannot give his slaves; it is a glory which the crown cannot give the King.

INVECTIVE AGAINST CORRY.

February 14, 1800.

He was

HAS the gentleman done? Has he completely done? anparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. There was scarce a word he uttered that was not a violation of the privileges of the House; but I did not call him to order-why? because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be severe without being unparliamentary. But before I sit down I shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any other occasion I should think myself justifiable in treating with silent contempt anything which might fall from that honourable member; but there are times when the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know the difficulty the honourable gentleman laboured under when he attacked me, conscious that, on a comparative view of our characters, public and private, there is nothing he could say which would injure me. The public would not believe the charge. I despise the falsehood. If such a charge were made by an honest man, I would answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit down. But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest man.

The right honourable gentlemen has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not "traitor," unqualified by any epithet? I will tell him; it was because he dare not. It was the act of a coward, who raises his aim to strike, but has not courage to give the

blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy counsellor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of parliament and freedom of debate to the uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer only with a blow. I care not how high his situation, how low his character, how contemptible his speech; whether a privy counsellor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow. He has charged me with being connected with the rebels: the charge is utterly, totally, and meanly false. Does the honourable gentleman rely on the report of the House of Lords for the foundation of his assertion? If he does, I can prove to the committee there was a physical impossibility of that report being true. But I scorn to answer any man for my conduct, whether he be a political coxcomb, or whether he brought himself into power by a false glare of courage or not. I scorn to answer any wizard of the Castle throwing himself into fantastical airs. But if an honourable and independent man were to make a charge against me, I would say: "You charge me with having an intercourse with the rebels, and you found your charge upon what is said to have appeared before a committee of the Lords. Sir, the report of that committee is totally and egregiously irregular". I will read a letter from Mr. Nelson, who had been examined before that committee; it states that what the report represents him as having spoken, is not what he said. [Mr. Grattan here read a letter from Mr. Nelson, denying that he had any connection with Mr. Grattan as charged in the report; and concluding by saying, "never was misrepresentation more vile than that put into my mouth by the report ".]

From the situation that I held, and from the connections I had in the city of Dublin, it was necessary for me to hold intercourse with various descriptions of persons. The right honourable member might as well have been charged with a participation in the guilt of those traitors; for he had communicated with some of those very persons on the subject of parliamentary reform. The Irish government, too, were in communication with some of them.

The right honourable member has told me I deserted a profession where wealth and station were the reward of industry and talent. If 1 mistake not, that gentleman endeavoured to obtain those rewards by the same means; but he soon deserted the occupation of a barrister for those of a parasite and pander. He fled from the labour of study to flatter at the table of the great. He found the lord's parlour a better sphere for his exertions than the hall of the Four

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