country-for the honour of human nature-by the memory of your sufferings-by the sense you feel of your wrongs-by the love you owe your posterity-by the dignity and generous feelings of Irishmen I beseech you to seize the auspicious occasion, and let this be the hour of your freedom! The doctrine of parliamentary supremacy Great Britain now finds to be nonsense-parliamentary supremacy has been the bane of Great Britain. Her enemies are on all sides pouring in on her. The sea is not her's; the honour of her councils and arms is tarnished. She has no army-no fleet-no admirals-no generals-A supineness pervades her measures-and distractions attend her councils. Parliament is the only spring to convey the native voice of the people; never did this or any other country behold a senate possessed of so much public confidence. There is an ardent combination among the people, a fire which animates the nation to its own redemption.-A sacred enthusiasm, unconveyed in the language of antiquity, and which only belongs to the natural confidence of freedom. Forty thousand men in arms look up to the result of this day's deliberation.-Let the lovers of freedom rejoice at that martial spirit, which has operated to national happiness. If you refuse to comply with the resolution of this day, you belie the desire of your constituents. A providential conjunction and the hand of God seem to demand and direct it; grasp at a blessing, which promises independence and happiness. Yesterday the servants of the Crown were asked, whether a standing army of fifteen thousand Irishmen were to be bound in this kingdom by English laws; and the servants of the Crown have asserted that they shall.-The servants of the Crown have dared to avow that they shall be bound by English laws-This is the consequence of your rejoicing at a partial repeal of the laws which oppressed you-your exultation betrayed your rights. The courtier may have his salary-the landed gentleman may have his rent-you may export the commodities of your country, and bring the returns of another-but liberty-liberty, the consummation of all trade, is wanting. The superstructure is left without a baseyou have commerce without a full trade, and a senate without a parliament. When I found a prohibition upon glass, and other commodities, when I found an act of the 6th of George the 1st, which expressly claimed a power of binding this kingdom, the king, without its parliament, enacted a law to bind the people of Ireland, by making laws for them; it was time to call the authority of England a rod of tyranny. I call upon the judges of the land, the justices of the peace, and officers of the army, to say whether they do not act under the direction of English statutes! A present and explicit declaration of rights must remove all this. Three millions of people must feel how necessary it is to be as free as the people of England. They must behold, with veneration, a parliament superior to every other, and equal to that which passed the bill of rights.-A senate composed of men that would do honour to Rome, when Rome did honour to human nature.

"The enemies of Ireland may call the efforts of the people the proceedings of a mob.-A mob stopped your magistrates in their obedience to English laws, and vindicated your abdicated privileges. I shall be told this was the turbulence of the times; and so may every effort for freedom in the history of mankind be called. Your fathers were slaves, and lost their liberties to the legislature of England ;—the kingdom became a plantation-the spirit of independence was banished-The fears of parliament made it grant, in a strain of trembling servility, whatever was demanded: Men of overgrown fortunes became the very jobbers of corruption; they voted an embargo, which brought bankruptcy on the prince and misery on the people. The people saw nothing but starving manufacturers, a corrupt senate, and a military combination. The courtier was glad to petition for a free trade, and England to grant it; but the unconstitutional power of an English Attorneygeneral, and an English parliament, still remains-Eighteen or nineteen counties deserving to be free, and who are your legal constituents, have petitioned for this redemption.-You may lull the public with addresses, but the public mind will never be well at ease until the shackles are removed. The maxims of one country go to take away the liberties of another-Nature rebels at the idea, and the body becomes mutinous-there is no middle course left; win the heart of an Irishman, or else cut off his hand: A nation infringed on as Ireland, and armed as Ireland, must have equal freedom; any thing else is an insult. The opportunity prompts the spirit of the people prompts-the opinion of the judges prompts. No arguments can be urged against it, but two; one is, the real belief that the British nation is a generous one, witness the contribution sent to Corsica, and the relief afforded Holland; and the other, their uniform hatred of an administration that brought destruction on the British dominions? If England is a tyrant, it is Ireland made her so, by obeying-The slave makes the tyrant-What can prevent the completion of our demands? It is not in the power of England to resist. Can she war against ten millions of French, eight millions of Spaniards, three millions of Americans, three millions of Irish? England cannot withstand accumulated millions, with her ten millions; with a national debt of 200 millions, a peace establishment of 21 millions, can she pretend to dictate terms. She offered America the entire cession of her parliamentary power, and can she refuse the Irish the freedom of fellow-subjects? Every thing short of total independence was offered to the Americans--and will she yield that to their arms, and refase it to your loyalty? Nothing but a subjugation of mind can make the great men of Ireland tremble at every combination for liberty. When you possess this liberty, you will be surprized at your situation, and though jobbers may deem your ardour phrenzy, it will be a fortunate madness; a declaration will be the result. Your constituents have instructed and they will support you; for public pride and public necessity will find resources. What will

your judges and your commissioners, who have refused to abide by English laws, say? Will you abdicate, will you bring them into contempt? Eighteen counties have declared against it, and no man in this house dare defend the claims of the English. It is the sense of this side of the House, not to give an assent to the money bills until we obtain this declaratory act. The mock moderators, who go about preaching peace, are the really factious, and the worst enemies of this country. -Have you been for a century contending against the power of an English Attorney-general, and dare not conquer, though lying at your mercy?—The great charter has not been confirmed, as often as our rights have beer violated. You may be told indeed you are ungrateful.- -I know of no gratitude which can make me wear the badge of slavery. Insatiable-we may be told we are, when Ireland desires nothing but what England has robbed her of. When you have emboldened the judges to declare your rights, they will not be afraid to maintain them. His Majesty has no title to his crown but what you have to your liberty; if your exertions in that cause are condemned, the revolution was an act of perjury, and the petition of right an act of rebellion. The oaths made to the House of Stuart, were broken for the sake of liberty, and we live too near the British nation to be less than equal to it. Insulted by the British Parliament, there is no policy left for the English, but to do justice to a people, who are otherwise determined to do justice to themselves. Common trade and common liberty will give strength to our constitution, and make both nations immortal; the laws of God, the laws of nature, and the laws of nations, call loudly for it. Let not that supremacy, which has withered the land, remain uncontroverted. Do not, by opposing the present opportunity, give that destructive blow to the balance of the constitution which shall weigh it down beyond the power of recovery. Do not let the curses of your children, and your reflections in old age, weigh you down to the grave with bitterness. Forgetful of past violation and present opportunity, let no body say the parliament was bought by a broken ministry and an empty treasury. That having made a God of selfinterest, you kneeled down to worship the idol of corruption. Your exertions now will be the basis for erecting a temple to liberty. By the inspiration of the present opportunity,-by the affection you owe posterity-by all the ties which constitute the well-being of a people, assert and maintain the liberties of your country. I have no design, I ask for no favour, but to breathe in common in a nation of freedom; but I never will be satisfied as long as a link of the British chain is elanking to the heels of the meanest peasant." Mr. Grattan then moved that the House resolve, “That the King's most excellent Majesty, Lords, and Commons of Ireland. are the ONLY powers competent to make laws to bind this kingdom." Mr. Stuart rose to second this motion, and delivered his opinion of the immediate necessity there was for carrying the present resolution.

The Attorney-general proposed an amendment "to adjourn the question until the first day of September next."

The right honourable Mr. BURGH, notwithstanding the report of his illness, attended in his place, and with an eloquence to which it would be impossible for us to do justice, most ably supported the motion, combating and refuting whatever was urged from the side of Government against it. He said he owed no favour to Administration; they knew it; for he had scorned what they offered: nor would he oppose administration, to embarrass them; and he hoped every gentleman would support them when right. He acted he said, from pure constitutional motives, to support the rights and pivileges of his country, which, he hoped, he ever should do.

The question before the House was no less than the very paladium of the Irish constitution; and gentlemen seemed to rely much on the impropriety of urging a decision, because a similar resolution to that now moved for appeared upon the face of their journals in the month of July, 1641, and, as the question of adjournment had been moved, he would beg leave to offer an amendment, which, he hoped, would conciliate all parties. The amend ment was to this purport," that there being an equal resolution on the books with the one now moved, the same may be, for that reason, adjourned to the first day of September next."

Mr. GRATTAN (on being pressed by the Government party to withdraw his motion) said, he never could consent to withdraw the proposed declaration of rights, when a great law officer had asserted, that the Parliament of England had a right to bind the people of Ireland. It was impossible to wave the declaration; as to the person who made the assertion in favour of England, he was an unhappy man-another gentleman had presumed to call the sense of eighteen counties, Faction, Riot, Clamour-He hoped such idle babbie-such idle babble would have no weight against the rights of a people.

The amendment of the right hon. Hussey Burgh to the Attorneygeneral's motion for adjourning the question to the first of September, being a truism, could not be controverted, and the ministerial side, though from the complexion of the House it was evident they had a majority, were afraid to let the question on Mr. Burgh's amendment be put; as if it was carried, it entirely established the declaration of right, let Mr. Grattan's motion then go as it would: their embarrassment was at last put an end to by the right hon. Hussey Burgh, who, at twenty minutes past six in the morning, moved, that the House be adjourned," which preceding every motion, was of course immediately put, and carried unanimously.

This inattention. or rather backwardness of the majority in Parliament to serve their country, more fully manifest in the case of a Mutiny

was

Bill, which they allowed to be made perpetual in Ireland, though that in England had always been cautiously passed from year to year. Mr. Grattan took great pains to set forth the bad tendency of the act; and these representations of his, first opened the eyes of the Irish nation to its enormity. And on the 13th of November, 1781, he moved that leave be given to bring in heads of a bill to explain, amend, and limit an act, entitled, "An act to prevent Mutiny and Desertion in the army, which he prefaced by the following observations :

"Sir,

In the 18th century, however astonishing it must appear, I rise to vindicate Magna Charta, sanctified as it is by the authority of 600 years. I call upon gentlemen to teach British privileges to an Irish senate. I quote the laws of England, first, because they are laws; secondly, because they are franchises; and they are the franchises of Irishmen as well as of Englishmen. I am not come to say what is expedient, I come to demand a right; and I hope I am speaking to men who know and feel their rights, and not to corrupt consciences and beggarly capacities. I beg gentlemen to tell me why, and for what reason, the Irish nation was deprived of the British constitution?-The limitation of the Mutiny-bill was one of the great hinges of the constitution; and ought it then to be perpetual in Ireland?

No man could doubt as to the point of right respecting the army; I will even resort to the question of necessity. We want not an army as Great Britain does; for an army is not our protection. Was your army your protection when Sir RICHARD HERON told you, you must trust to God and your country?—You want it not for defence, you want it not for ambition-you have no foreign dominions to preserve, and your people are amenable to law. Our duties are of a different nature-to watch with incessant vigils the cradle of the constitution, to rear an infant state, to protect a rising trade, to foster a growing people.-We are free, we are united-persecution is dead-the Protestant religion is the child of the constitution-the Presbyterian is the father-the Roman Catholic is not an enemy to it-we are united in one great national community.-What was our situation formerly ? We were a gentry without pride, and a people without privilege.