versal reprobation of the assumption of the British parliament, to bind this kingdom, then received, I had been silent on that subject, if that parliament had not since that time continued its tyrannical and unconstitutional assumption, by enacting several laws to bind Ireland, which I have in my hand, as also a proclamation in the Irish Gazette, where the execution of a British statute is enforced: measures that evidently shew, that the British nation, so far from relinquishing the claim of usurped authority in this kingdom, have still the same spirit of making laws for us, which they keep alive by renewing their claim on every occasion. These fresh instances of British usurpation, added to that disgraceful and unrepealed act of the 6th of George I. which declares Ireland bound at all times by the legislature of Great Britain, makes it necessary at this time for the parliament of Ireland to come to an explanation concerning its privileges, and the injured rights of the nation. And what are the boasted regulations Britain has granted to us? The first was in 1778, as contemptible in principle as in effect; for after a bar of lawyers had been brought to plead against Ireland in the English House of Commons, we are permitted to export every thing except our manufactures, Their favour was an insult and aggravation to our misery. The minister sends over to know the causes of our distresses; and he is answered from his agents here, that it was done away, and that we were satisfied by being permitted to cultivate tobacco. The second period was in 1779,

when government abdicated the defence of Ireland, and Ireland appeared in arms; the minister now changed his tone, he glanced a temporary gleam of hope upon our shields; he gave us every thing, but kept the power of taking it back; he retained a mutiny bill and the postoffice act. The third period was a ministerial address of thanks, evidently calculated to dissolve the union of the people; it had its effect in a paroxism of ease, and when it was known, that the strength of this house was dissolved, and that the glory of 1779 was no more, an order comes over to oppose on every occasion the latent claims of Ireland; to oppose an Irish mutiny bill, to alter the sugar bill; and when lord Hillsborough found you had lost all veneration for yourselves, he lost it for you likewise. The reprobated measure of a perpetual mutiny bill followed; but you have not done with it yet, you have stabbed your country, and the wound is festering. Emboldened by your dissolution, English acts binding Ireland were passed last winter. Is the claim of the British parliament to legislate for this kingdom given up, as I have heard some gentlemen say in this house? How futile and ridiculous now do these arguments appear, that declared the return of the Irish, mutiny bill was a renunciation of legislation on the part of England. How futile and absurd are all the arguments, that teemed on that occasion from the government press? I am for tranquillity; it is for honorable tranquillity; but when I see an administration, unable to make a blow against an enemy,

tyrannize over Ireland, I am bound to exert every power to oppose it.

"Ireland is in strength; she has acquired that strength by the weakness of Britain, for Ireland was saved when America was lost: when England conquered, Ireland was coerced; when she was defeated, Ireland was relieved; and when Charles-town was taken, the mutiny and sugar bills were altered. Have you not all of you, when you heard of a defeat, at the same instant, condoled with England, and congratulated Ireland?

"If England were for a moment awake to her own interests, she would come forward, and invite us to her arms, by doing away every cause of jealousy. How, but by the strictest domestic union, can Great Britain, with only eight millions of people, oppose the dreadful combination of seven millions in Spain, with twenty-four millions in France, and two in Holland? Will she cast off three millions of brave and loyal subjects in Ireland, at so critical and eventual a time?

"An Irish army, the wonder of the world, has now existed for three years, where every soldier is a freeman, determined to shed the last drop of blood to defend his country, to support the execution of its laws, and give vigour to its police. The enemy threaten an invasion, the Irish army comes forward, administration is struck dumb with wonder, their deputies in their military dress go up to the Castle, not as a servile crowd of courtiers attending the lord lieutenant's levee, but as his protectors, while the

cringing crowd of sycophants swarm about the treasury, and, after having thrown away their arms, offer nothing but naked servitude.

"You are now losing the British constitution, which by compact you were to possess; two councils, with more than parliamentary power, dependent judges, a mutiny bill lost, and governors like the Roman pro-consuls in distant provinces, are sent over to fleece you.

"A general election is shortly to take place; what will be your answer to those, who have sent you hither, when you resign your delegated trust, and they ask you, where are our rights? Where ia our sugar bill? Where our mutiny bill?

"What will be the consequence of your not explaining your rights now? When a peace happens it will then be too late; your island will be drained of its people, the emigrants will say, let us prefer freedom in America to slavery at home, and cease to be his majesty's subjects here, to become his equals there. Let us not therefore suffer the same men, whose infamous arts were reprobated in America, to succeed here." He then moved an Address to his majesty,

"To assure his majesty, of their most sincere and unfeigned attachment to his majesty's person and government.

"To assure his majesty, that the people of Ireland were a free people; that the crown of Ireland was a distinct kingdom, with a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof.

"To assure his majesty, "that by their fundamental laws and franchises, which they on the

part of this nation claimed and challenged as their birth-right, the subjects of that kingdom could not be bound, affected, or obliged, by any legislature, save only the King, Lords, and Commons, of that his majesty's realm of Ireland; nor was there any other body of men, who had power or authority to make laws for the same.

"To assure his majesty, that his majesty's subjects of Ireland conceived, that in that privilege was contained the very essence of their liberty, and that they tendered it as they did their lives, and accordingly had with one voice declared and protested against the interposition of any other parliament in the legislation of that country.

"To assure his majesty, that they had seen with concern, the parliament of Great Britain advance a claim to make law for Ireland, and their anxiety was kept alive, when they perceived the same parliament still persist in that claim, as might appear by recent British acts, which affected to bind Ireland, but to which the subjects of Ireland could pay no attention.

"To assure his majesty, that next to their liberties, they valued their connexion with Great Britain, on which they conceived, at that time most particularly, the happiness of both kingdoms did depend, and which, as it was their most sincere wish, so should it be their principal study to cultivate and render perpetual. That under that impression, they could not suggest any means, whereby such connexion could so much be improved or strengthened, as by a renunciation