trade of Ireland; it is not so. It has been represented as a boon from England; it is not so.

"The Act of Navigation is an act of empire, not of commerce; Cromwell was no merchant, his mind was compass, power, and empire.-The Navigation Act is a restriction on commerce in the benefit of shipping-a restriction on the sale of things imported and exported-confining the sale and purchase to vessels and ports of a certain description. The compensation Great Britain receives, is in the carrying trade; and a doubt has arisen, whether the benefits she receives from that trade, compensate for the restraint she imposes on the sale of the commodity; but as to Ireland, there can be no doubt at all. The Act of Navigation is clearly a restriction without the compensation. Your trade does not receive benefit from the alien duty. The Act is a clog on your plantation and a clog on your European trade.-Does your trade receive benefit by being confined to vessels of a certain description, or a certain port? You incur the restraint on the sale, but you do not get compensation: See your tonnage of 1784: English in the Irish trade 360,000; Irish 71,000; thus the Act of Navigation is a restriction on commerce for shipping; a restriction on Irish commerce for British

shipping; therefore the Act of Navigation is a grant to England.

"I do not hesitate to make that grant, nor do I require to be exhorted to make that grant, by a suggestion, that an act of restriction on our commerce is for the benefit of our trade. I know we must make some sacrifices, in some instances, to the general cause. I know taxes are not commercial benefits any more than Acts of Navigation, but they are necessary, and therefore I do not hesitate to conform to the British act; desiring only, in order to warrant that conformity, that the conditions of the act may be effectually equal. As Irish conformity is necessary to the British empire, so is Irish equality necessary to obtain that conformity, that is, the true principle that connects; it is the breath that lifts, and it is the spirit that moves, and the soul that actuates; without it all is eccentricity-with it the two nations gravitate to a common centre, and fulfil their stated revolutions in the imperial orbit, by rules, regular as the laws of motion, like them infallible, and like them everlasting! Nor do you here demand an equality of which you are not a purchaser; you purchased the right to equal admission, or equal exclusion, under this Act, by a long conformity to its restriction; you have given to Great Britain, for that equality,

your carrying trade and your market-100,000%. in plantation goods-360,000 tonnage nor do you in fact desire equal advantages. You do not desire the British market, but you wish to have the speculation of the British market for the chance of your own; it is not another man's estate you desire, but a small channel through your neighbour's land, that you may water your own, without the fear of inundation. The English need not tremble; their estates in the plantations articled to render the produce to Great Britain will not break those articles. Cork will not be the emporium of the empire. Old England wil remain at the head of things.-We only aspire that the little bark of this island may attendant sail-pursue the triumph, and perchance partake some vagrant breath of all those trade-winds that waft the British empire along the tide of com

merce.

"The equality we ask, is not only the birth of our condition-it is the dictate of our lawsSee the Act of 1782-the same benefits and the same restraints-a principle very inadequate, if applied, as the rule whereby to measure laws not yet in existence; very infirm ground whereon to pledge the faith of Parliament to future adoption, but necessary for your conformity to any English act already in existence-a principle of equality

is thus registered in your own statutes. The merchants who petitioned were therefore moderate; they are men respectable as merchants, as men of sense, and men of probity-they did not desire you to repeal the Navigation Act, but they did desire that you would not re-enact it; that you would not give any new sanction or authority to the Act, without establishing and securing its benefits. They spoke like freemen the sugges tion of the laws, and demanded their rightequity, effectual equity. They spoke a principle admitted even by the two Houses of the British Parliament at a time not very favourable to your liberty-the time of the Propositions. The fourth Proposition, inadmissible as it was, did not presume to ask of you to adopt English laws of Shipping and Navigation, on a principle other than that of equality. That Proposition was idle enough to expect that you should pledge your faith to a future conformity to future English Acts-but equality even there was admittedeven by that oppressive narrow Propositiontherefore I think I have proved, that in the Act under your consideration you have a right to demand equality, and I ask whether the clause. sufficiently secures it? The clause recites the rule, and then enacts, and explains nothing-reeites no principle, secures no principle, removes

no doubt; it leaves you a verbal, not an operative equality; equality of law, but not equality of construction. In support of a clause so circumstanced, two principal arguments have been adduced; one, that the Act of Navigation is the law already, and the other, that it is not. As to the first, if the whole of the argument rested here, the argument and the bill would be easily disposed of.-'Tis true, the Act of Navigation has been complied with; the merchants, commissioners, and people, have obeyed it; the doubt must arise somewhere out of this country, and if out of this country, in some quarter appertaining to the British Court; it is therefore a Proposition from the British Court to the Irish nation. When we are employed in discussing this Proposition, and in removing the doubt the Court of Britain may entertain about the existence of the Act of Navigation, have we forgotten that there does not exist a much more respectable and more interesting doubt about its construction; and shall we gratify the Court by settling the one point, and not gratify, serve, and secure the people, by settling and securing the other?

"The other argument, that tells you the Navigation Act is not the law; desires you with all speed to establish it, in order to secure your plantation trade. But has any court of justice