vanish. Before such a consideration, the real difficulties, the quarrel of one minister with another minister, to displace whom, the former destines 3,000,000 of men to everlasting incapacities, do not vanish, but appear in the highest degree culpable and fatal.

It has been said, that this question was forced forward by the last administration. I affirm that it was not in the power of that administration to have kept it back. The mode in which it should be brought forward was a subject in which the Catholics would have been directed by those who supported them; but the bringing it forward was, in their minds, an unalterable determination. I affirm it, their communication was touching the mode only, their determination was to bring forward the bill; which is an answer to that stuff which is written or spoken, that Earl Fitzwilliam brought forward the Catholic question. No; we found the question; and we supported it, because it ought to have been supported. It is said the Catholics have had communication with a person, as their secretary, against whom, in a late trial, some intercourse with Jackson has appeared; but he was not their secretary when he had that communication; and, I understand, on that trial it did appear as follows:- That this gentleman, among other reasons for declining to go to France, said he would thereby lose the money promised by the Catholics, by which it, appears, from this testimony, that their mind was not disposed to a French communication, but abhorrent to it. Thus the circumstance, if relevant at all to the question, is an evidence in their favour.

Gentlemen have mentioned the conduct of the Catholics to the government. May I be permitted to mention the conduct of the government to them, and I beg leave to call that conduct the history of proscription.

In 1792, the religious war began; can we forget the attempt of government to divide the Catholic democracy from its aristocracy, and the people from their leaders, and the flock from the clergy; their attempt to use the influence of the latter to defeat the claim of the former, and to pervert religion into an instrument against liberty? Can we forget the paper war of that time carried on by government, where the scribes of the court, whose fortune was their falsehood, levelled their artillery against the people; and by paragraphs, and libels, and impudence, outraged the wounded feelings of the Catholic subject, and, fed as they were by his taxes, turned assassins of his character? Do we forget the scornful rejection of the Catholic petition, and the sad and miserable grand jury war? Do not we recollect the instructions sent from

the Castle to their friends in the counties, to pledge Protestant against Catholic, on the question of elective franchise. Do we not remember a minister presiding most improperly at one of those meetings, to inflame, mislead, and canker the mind of the Protestant? Do we forget the order in favour of the Catholics from the throne; the instant crouching to that order; and then the return of the malice of the Irish court, and the bitterness of its prosecutions; the hive swarming forth again of hireling scribblers, against the characters, and the prosecutions against the lives, of the Catholics, for having petitioned for their liberty? Do we forget these things? Where are the ears of your perjured witnesses, and the minister's little manifesto, hawked about the streets of London and Dublin, (as little to be relied on as these witnesses)? Have we not heard of the closet conversation, and the attempt to poison the mind of the King? the tampering with the corporation, and the endeavouring to exclude, by influence, those whom the government took credit for having rendered admissible by law?

And now behold the growth of the cause under this course of persecution. They began with a division among themselves, and conclude with an unanimity among themselves, and a division among you: if that can be called a division, where the Protestants of a number of the counties, of all the great cities, and all the mercantile interests, have come to petition in their favour, and when nothing prevents the success of the Catholic but the influence of the government. The youth of the kingdom, too, they who in a few years must determine this question, they have decided for the emancipation, with a liberality which is natural to youth, and a sagacity which is peculiar to years and they will sit soon in these seats, blended with Catholics, while we, blended with Catholics, shall repose in the dust. Another age shall laugh at all this,

"Her justice bury what your pride has planned,
"And laughing plenty reassume the land."

In this general application for the Catholics, there has been no application against them, nor city, nor county, nor grand jury, nor corporation, has appeared against them, that of Dublin alone excepted. Thus the Catholic emancipation ceases to be a question between the Irish Protestant and Catholic, and is now a question between the ministers of another country and the people of Ireland. They advancethe Catholic description of them; they advance from the wilderness, where for an hundred years they have wandered,

and they come laden with their families and their goods, whether conducted by an invisible hand, or by a cloudy pillar, or a guardian fire, and they desire to be received into your hospitable constitution. Will the elders of the land come forth to greet them? Or will the British ministry send out their hornet to sting them back again to the desert? I mentioned that their claim was sustained by a power above; look up! Behold the balances of heaven!-pride in the scale against justice, and pride flies up and kicks the beam!

The House divided on the motion that the bill be rejected ;Ayes 155, Noes 84; Majority against the bill 71. Tellers for the Ayes, Lord Kingsborough, and Mr. Cuffe; for the noes, Mr. G. Ponsonby, Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald.

MOTION OF CENSURE ON LORD WESTMORELAND.

SIR LAURENCE PARSONS PROPOSES A RESOLUTION, CENSURING THE CONDUCT OF LORD WESTMORELAND FOR WITHDRAWING THE TROOPS FROM THE DEFENCE OF THE KINGDOM.

May 13. 1795.

SIR LAURENCE PARSONS rose in pursuance of notice. He said, the subject was of the greatest constitutional importance; namely, whether the House would suffer the laws of the land to be violated; whether a Viceroy should be permitted to exercise a dispensing power, which the King could not exercise with impunity. He stated the augmentation of the army in 1769, and the compact entered into, that 12,000 effective_men were by law engaged to remain in Ireland for its defence. To render this more binding, it had been introduced into two most solemn acts, the great money bill, and the mutiny bill. The same was

continued in every money bill, until the time of Lord Harcourt; when it was thought necessary to introduce a bill to justify the sending away 4000 men, of the number stipulated in the compact. Again, in the Duke of Portland's time, it was thought proper to remove part of the home troops, and it was thought necessary to procure an act of the legislature to justify the measure; but in the month of July 1794 it appeared, from the monthly returns, that there were only 7000 troops in the country: the moment at which this deficiency was made was most critical; for if Lord Howe had been defeated, Ireland would have been the object of the French force. The country was defrauded in the quality as well as in the quantity of troops. The consequences would prove dangerous if such a violation of law was left unpunished. He

therefore moved the following resolution: "Resolved, that John, Earl of Westmoreland, by authorizing such a number of regular troops to be sent out of this country, as left the remainder considerably less than the number appointed by law for the defence thereof, has been guilty of a violation of the compact entered into with the Crown, and of dispensing with the law of the land."

The motion was opposed by Sir John Blaquiere, Sir Hercules Langrishe (who moved the question of adjournment), Mr. Marcus Beresford, Sir Henry Cavendish, Colonel Blaquiere, Colonel Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Parnell), Mr. Barrington, Mr. Archdall, Mr. Ogle, and the Solicitor-general (Mr. Toler). It was supported by Mr. Conolly, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Tighe, Mr. Vandeleur, Doctor Browne, Mr. Curran, Mr. Hoare, Mr. W. Ponsonby, and Mr. Egan.

Mr. GRATTAN observed: that the question was not, whether Lord Westmoreland had dispensed with acts of Parliament, but, being by papers on your table convicted of having exercised a dispensing power, the question was, whether the House should proceed to impeach him. I am sure you ought. Nothing can be so evident as the law, except it be a breach of it. The King, in 1769, sent a message to this House, that 12,000 men were necessary to be kept within the kingdom of Ireland for its defence at all times, save only invasion or rebellion in Great Britain. His message is reduced in the committee of supply into the following resolution: "That 12,000 men are necessary for the defence of the kingdom. That to enable His Majesty to carry into execution his determined resolution, signified by the Lord-lieutenant, to keep within this kingdom 12,000. men at all times for the necessary defence of the same, rebellion or invasion in Great Britain excepted, it is necessary to augment the army 3,000 men." Thus the King's promise is made matter of record, and of covenant; and the additional force and the supply granted on the condition of his fulfilling his part of the covenant so recorded. This covenant is then made matter of law, and reduced into provisions in the money bill, which provisions run nearly as follows: they recite the sense of the legislature, that 12,000 men are necessary to be kept within this country for its defence, and grant the additional 3,000 men to secure the presence of the 12,000 men; they then recite the King's promise and determined resolution, to keep at all times, save the two excepted cases, 12,000 men within the kingdom for its defence, and then grant him the supply for that purpose, as well as the other purposes of government. The practice has been accordingly; and in 1775 and 1782, when

that portion of the troops were wanted abroad, the government applied and obtained an act of Parliament. This provision is always a provision in the mutiny bill, and continues every year repeated in the committee of supply; repeated in the money bill; and repeated in the mutiny bill. It follows, that by the laws of Ireland, no Lord-lieutenant can remove the troops out of Ireland, so as to diminish the number below the complement of 12,000. Now, by the papers on the table, namely, the army returns, which are complete evidence, it appears Lord Westmoreland did reduce your army in the months of June, August, September, October, and November, to 8,000, and in some of those months to 6,000. It follows, that the Earl of Westmoreland has dispensed with the law of Ireland. It follows, that the Earl of Westmoreland has offended against the declaration of rights, and has violated the principles of the Revolution; he has committed an act for which James II. was deposed, and when he was on the throne as viceroy, was a greater offender against the law than any ordinary delinquent; the motion is not so much to try his offence as to proceed on his conviction. We heard the other day the Revolution set up against the Catholics, most improperly and fictitiously; we now set up most necessarily and properly, the Revolution against the the viceroy, whose advocates have set up the Revolution against the Catholics, and the dispensing power against the Revolution.

It seems the Marquis of Buckingham may negociate the sale of peerages, and break the law with impunity. It seems his successor Lord Westmoreland may remove the troops, and break the law with impunity, and that Ireland under the system of the British cabinet, pays 20,000l. a year to her governors for breaking her laws; and this is the system which is to put anarchy to the blush! Lord Westmoreland's friends have said in the debate that he only obeyed his orders; that is, his friends say in other words that he was not a viceroy, but a perfect nothing. But such an excuse is one which we must not receive, as long as any man shall be placed in the situation of a Lord-lieutenant or governor of Ireland, so long, in supposition of law, is he an accountable officer, a self-agent, answerable to Parliament for misconduct, violation, delinquencies, of any and of every sort. Were this argument true, it would seem that the English court was an asylum for Irish culprits; a bar to the privileges of our Catholics; and a protection to the breakers of our law. If such an offence as this is suffered to be passed over, how can any minister talk again of the Revo