English ports, on the same terms as the English themselves-it gave her the protection of the British Navy.

To these objections, Mr. GRATTAN replied, with his accustomed force of argument, and brilliancy of illustration:

"Sir-From the thin and unfrequented state of these benches, one would naturally expect no business of moment. The Navigation Act, now under your consideration, has been, from the earliest time, an object to Great Britain; for this she has incurred the jealousy of nations; to this she attributes the growth of her marine-the dominion of the sea; and she has called it, emphatically, a Great Sea Charter.

"But this Act, dear as it was to her, has been in its operation as cruel to you ;-hardly had the Act passed, when you were inhibited, by one law, from sending European goods to the Plantations. By another law, your name was stricken out of the bond, and the Plantations were inhibited from sending their articles to Ireland ;-and, finally, by another law, you were inhibited from sending Plantation goods to Great Britain; while England, who drew up your Act of Customs, (for the Act of Customs, though the measure of the Irish Parliament, was drawn up in Eng

land) forced herself into your market by a clause in that Act. Here has been the construction or operation of the Navigation Act; a construction of monopoly and contradiction; a ty ranny of power over the rules of reason; an operation of injustice, the result of which was, that Ireland was turned out of every market in the King's dominions, her own not excepted; while England construed herself into the Irish market, by an authority derived from the explanation of one and the same act, by the interpretation of which you were excluded. Thus you stood, or nearly thus, until the settlement of 1779; here the two nations came to an honorable explanation, in which the characters of both were raised, and in which, coupled with the settlement of 1782, their animosities were buried for ever; but in the settlement of 1779, we did not comprehend the channel trade, or the trade subsisting between Great Britain and Ireland, that stood on its ancient base, which was in equality; here the dregs of the provincial system remained not yet purged off; you took the manufacture of England, and the Plantation goods re-exported from England, and England refused to take either from Ireland-She got the raw article from you, and you take the manufacture from her. It was a condition that required

arrangement, but was not a condition (considering the great and recent acquisitions of this country) that should have called forth the very great turbulence and impatience which attended the inauspicious discussion of the unhappy questionProtecting Datics! to which the above condition had given birth-Protecting Duties !a question whether we should turn a vast number of articles of the English manufactures out of the Irish market, a question a question taken up so improperly, so furiously agitated, and so suspiciously deserted. The madness of the times frightened the English much, but frightened every rational man in Ireland much more, and did at last damn the pretensions of those manufacturers who had just force enough to give birth to an arrangement, of which Protecting Duties not only did not make a part, but in which an express stipulation against them made a principal part. The equality of the re-export trade made another part. This was the system of reciprocity, but the manufacturers of England trembled at it; they had got your market already, they, therefore, were not to gain any thing by the experiment, and they were, therefore, left free to indulge in the latitude of their ancient fears and airy speculations. They contemplated the low price of labour and of provisions in Ireland ;

they mistook the symptoms of poverty for the seeds of wealth;-in your raggedness they saw riches in disguise; and in destitution itself, they discovered a powerful rival to the capital, credit, and commerce of Great Britain.

"Whilst your pretensions were thus opposed by some of the English manufacturers, jealous. of your poverty, they were also combated by another party, jealous of your liberty. The remnant of Lord North's Ministry, who had supported the Minister in the fury of the American measures, but had condemned his decline, and saw the moment when a great man loses his virtues, that is, when he loses his power-that remnant who had but one idea with respect to Great Britain, Ireland, and America-coercion-coercion! From that quarter, the fourth Proposition, if I am well informed, and some of the other Propositions, the result of a narrow mind, a sordid circumspection, and a jealousy of the dominating genius of an individual, and of the liberties of a nation, originated. Thus was Mr. Pitt's system of reciprocity clogged with a system of coercion, and thus fell the adjustment; and since that time we have no question in the least connected with it, until a doubt has been entertained of the validity of the Act of Navigation. That doubt rests on two points; one is, the

informal and narrow rule in the Act of Customs, which enacts nothing, speaks only to the lower officers of the revenue, and rather indicates a false opinion of the validity of the Act of Navigation in Ireland, by the authority of the British Parliament, rather than a legislative confirmation of the law. Let the learned decide-I know there are some most eminent lawyers, who do not think that rule sufficient to establish the Act of Navigation in point of law;-in point of conformity it has not been disputed. The other ground of doubt is Mr. Yelverton's Bill; the clause in this Bill is equality; it enacts such commercial and navigation laws, as import to confer the same benefits, and impose the same restrictions. Had the Navigation Act been unaltered, had it not been perverted from its original purpose, it would have been established by Mr. Yelverton's bill; but its inequality of operation stood in the way of its confirmation. Thus, the doubt of the validity of the Act of Navigation arose; the narrowness of the rule, and the honest latitude, of the Bill. In these circumstances a Bill is introduced, to establish in this country the Act of Navigation. I was not under error in any degree whatever with respect to the measure. I stated it to be the establishment of the Act of Navigation; it is so. It has been called a Bill for the