1 to curse the hand which presented it. I know, Sir, that liberties, indecent in the extreme, have been taken with the name of that august personage I know it has been whispered that every man who shall vote against this address, will be considered as voting against him, and treating him with disrespect; but if any man has bad the guilt and folly to poison the mind with such an insinuation, I will trust to his good sense to distinguish his friends; I will trust to his good sense to determine whether they are his friends who wish to guard the imperial rights of the British Crown, or they who would stake them upon the momentary and important triumph of an English party. What matters it to the Prince whether he receives royal authority by a bill or by address? Is there a man who will presume to libel him, and to assert that the success of this measure will be a triumph to him? Gracious God! does any man, who calls himself a friendto the Prince of Wales, presume to say, that any address which he can present to him will be a subject of triumph to him? In his exalted station' he will triumph only in governing a great nation, with honor to himself and with advantage to his people. If you wish to pay a compliment to the Prince of Wales, guard the imperial rights of the British crown. He can have no triumph but that of governing a great and happy people; if you would give him a triumph, guard their rights, and guard the rights of the crown. "There is a feature in this proceeding which, independent of every other objection to it, does, in my mind, make it highly reprehensible, and that is, that I consider it as a formal appeal from the Parliament of England to that of Ireland. Respecting the parties who make this appeal I shall say nothing: But although there may be much dignity on our part in receiving this appeal, I cannot see any strong symptoms of wisdom in it; because, by so doing, I should conceive we must inevitably sow the seeds of jealousy and disunion between the Parliaments of the two countries; and though I do not by any means desire of the Parliament of this country implicitly to follow the Parliament of England,"I should suppose it rather a wise maxim for this country always to concur with the Parliament of Great Britain, unless for very strong reasons, indeed, we are obliged to differ from it. If it is to be a point of Irish dignity to differ with the Parliament of England, to shew our independence, I very much fear that sober men in this country who have estates to lose, will soon become sick of independence. The fact is, that constituted as it is, the Government of this country never can go on, unless we follow Great Britain implicitly in all regulations of imperial policy. The independence of your Parliament is your freedom; your dependence on the Crown of England is your security for that freedom; and gentlemen who profess themselves, this night, advocates for the independence of the Irish crown, are advocates for its separation from England, "Let us agree with England in three points: one King one, law-one religion. Let us keep these great objects steadily in view, and we act like wise men; and if you make the Prince of Wales your Regent, and grant him the plenitude of power, in God's name, let it be done by bill; otherwise I see such danger, that I deprecate the measure proposed. I call upon the country gentlemen of Ireland; this is not a time to think of every twopenny grievance, every paltry disappointment sustained at the Castle of Dublin: if any man has been aggrieved by the Viceroy, and chooses to compose a philippic on the occasion, let him give it on the debate of a turnpike bill, where it will not be so disgraceful to the man who utters it, and to those who will not listen to him, as it will be on the present joccasion. Sir, I abominate the idea of restraining the Prince Regent in the power of making Peers in this country, or in limiting him in the power of making grants, on the narrow principles of guspicion and distrust. This is a question which rests upon very different ground in this country from that on which it has been taken up in England'; and if gentlemen can reconcile to themselves a pre cedent for adopting in this country, a different form of executive Government from that established in England, I have not the smallest apprehension, that the powers which may be committed to the Prince of Wales by the Parliament of Ireland will be abused by him." MR. CURRAN rose soon after the Attorneygeneral had concluded, and thus addressed the Chair: SIR, “ MUCH irrelevant matter has forced ite self into this debate on a subject the most. simple and obvious that ever came before the House. The fact of certained the two Houses incapacity is as must provide for 1 1 the deficiency;the principles of the British constitution in either kingdom, simply is that the third estate should be certain and not elective the right of election is the right of ambition, of faction, of intrigue, of shedding civil blood; but this is a question to be considered on another principle also-the compact that united the crowns of England and Ireland-the compact is, that the executive power of the two kingdoms shall be ever the same. If either country has a wild arbitrary right of Election, both have the same; and if so, the absurdity follows, that they are bound to have the same third estate, and yet have a right of choosing different third estates; this surely is gross constitutional nonsense; to avoid this absurdity, we should seek for some striking circumstances that point out to both nations the common Regent; they are evidently the full age and the capacity of the heir apparent; this could here be no other. England agreed in the unanswerable necessity of choosing the Prince: Ireland was unanimous in the same choice. They both confessed it was clearly right to do so; it followed of course it would be clearly wrong to do otherwise. It followed at least that the two countries thought it their. indispensable duty to make that choice; and he knew no other quality of a right, -- |