them, which they played in 1785 against the Irish nation; by mis-stating and misrepresenting it, as a surrender of Irish dignity and independence, and an insidious reclamation by the British cabinet of the legislative authority of the British parliament. And thus were the peace and happiness of ages, the clear interests of Great-Britain and Ireland, and their lasting connexion, sacrificed to the timidity and jealousy of the patriot statesmen of 1782, or rather to their corrupt love of a flimsy and precarious popularity. Let them have grace now to hide their heads, and not to talk of final adjustment.?

Before he dismissed this part of the subject, his lordship quoted Mr. Grattan's description of the Irish house of commons, the sponsors of the finality of the adjustment, and animadverted on that gentleman's acceptance of 50,000l. from an assembly which he had styled a regal pandemonium.' He then referred to a declaration of Mr. Fox (in 1785), asserting the necessity of making some regulations between Great-Britain and Ireland, tending to replace that power of which the Irish, in their struggles for independence, had imprudently insisted on the abolition; a power which had been sometimes called commercial, at other times external, and frequently imperial legislation. Some succedaneum, Mr. Fox thought, should be found for that power, as, without one general super-intending authority, to embrace the whole system of the navigation of the empire,' much inconvenience and confusion would take place.

Here,' said the chancellor, are damning proofs of the falsehood of the assertion, that the transactions which passed in 1782 were considered as final between Great-Britain and Ireland.' But, even if the adjust

ment

ment had been deemed final by both countries, will sound policy or common sense preclude a revision of it, when practice and experience have proved that it has sown the seeds of ceaseless contention and periodical rebellion ?'

To prove that the existing connexion was adverse to real concord and harmony, he said, Waving for a moment the dignity and independence of imperial Ireland, let me see how her government in its present state of connexion with Great-Britain must be administered. We admit the dependence of the crown of Ireland upon the crown of Great-Britain; but there is a distinct parliament in each country, exercising all legislative functions without restriction. The unity and dependence of our executive are unquestioned; but all legislative authority in either country is denied to the other, not only in municipal regulations, but in every branch of imperial policy, whether of trade and navigation, of peace and war, of revenue, or of the executive government, when it may happen to be committed to a regency. Between two countries equal in power, such a connexion could not subsist for one hour; and therefore its existence must depend upon the admitted inferiority and marked subordination of one of them. Ireland is that inferior country; and call her constitution independent or dignified, or by any other high-sounding title in the Irish vocabulary, hers must be a provincial government, and of the worst description; a government maintained, not by the avowed exercise of legitimate authority, but by a permanent and commanding influence of the English executive in the councils of Ireland, as a necessary substitute for it. In the present state of connexion between Great-Britain and Ireland there can be no other

bond of their union. If there be not an implicit concurrence by Ireland in every imperial act of the crown which has the sanction of the British parliament, and in every article of British legislation upon imperial subjects, there is an end of your connexion with the British nation; and I repeat, that the only security which can exist for this national concurrence, is a permanent and commanding influence of the English executive, or rather of the English cabinet, in the councils of Ireland. Such a connexion is formed, not for mutual strength and security, but for mutual debility; it is a connexion of distinct minds and distinct interests, generating national discontent and jealousy, and perpetuating faction and misgovernment in the inferior country. The first obvious disadvantage to Ireland is, that, in every department of the state, every other consideration must yield to parliamentary power: let the misconduct of any public officer be what it may, if he is supported by a powerful parliamentary interest, he is too strong for the king's representative. A majority in the parliament of Great-Britain will defeat the minister of the day; but a majority of the parliament of Ireland against the king's government tends directly to a separation of this kingdom from the British crown. If it continues, separation or war is the inevitable issue; and therefore it is, that the general executive of the empire, so far as is essential to retain Ireland as a member of it, is completely at the mercy of the Irish parliament: and it is vain to expect, so long as man continues to be a creature of passion and interest, that he will not avail himself of the critical and difficult situation in which the executive government of this kingdom must ever remain under its present constitution, to demand the favors of the crown,

not

not as the reward of loyalty and service, but as the stipulated price, to be paid in advance, for the discharge of a public duty. Every unprincipled and noisy adventurer, who can achieve the means of putting himself forward, commences his political career on an avowed speculation of profit and loss; and, if he fails to negotiate his political job, will endeavour to extort it by faction and sedition, and with unblushing effrontery to fasten his own corruption on the king's ministers. English influence is the inexhaustible theme for popular irritation and distrust, of every factious and discontented man who fails in the struggle to make himself the necessary instrument of it.'

In support of his remark on the tendency of the present connexion to the production of periodical hostility or rebellion, the earl stated, that some gentlemen who had been in the habit of considering the Irish nation as their political inheritance, resolved, on the acknowlegement of the independence of the realm in 1782, to make it a muniment of their title, by forming a political confederacy, offensive and defensive, in both countries;' that the basis of this alliance was, a mutual engagement to play the independence of Ireland against their political antagonists whenever they happened to occupy the seat of power,' and, apparently, to foment turbulence and faction in that kingdom even to open rebellion, if it should be found necessary to the removal of an obnoxious British administration; that it was an essential object of the confederacy to guard against any settlement which might cut off the most obvious sources of mutual jealousy; and that, with this view, the commercial propositions of the year 1785 were opposed and baffled, on pretence of their militating in some instances against the recently-acquired freedom of constitution.

constitution. Thus, he said, the solid interests of Britain and Ireland, and the fair foundation of their permanent connexion, were sacrificed on the altar of faction; and, in less than three years from the period of boasted final adjustment, did Ireland come to a breach with the British nation on the important imperial question of trade and navigation. Within the next four years a new imperial question arose, the most critical and important which could have come into discussion; a question of the identity of the executive power; and here again Ireland came to a breach with the British nation, marked by virulent hostility.' The proceedings of the Hibernian parliament on this question he stigmatised as indecorously precipitate, and unwarranted by law: he mentioned the dispute between the lord-lieutenant (the marquis of Buckingham) and the two houses, with a compliment to the propriety of his conduct; and affirmed, that for several weeks the authority of the British crown was not acknowleged in Ireland.

The authors of this enormity (says the chancellor) assert, in extenuation of their conduct, that their choice fell upon the same personage whom it was known the British parliament would, of necessity, look to in the existing emergency; but, if Ireland has a choice of her regency during any fortuitous incapacity attached to the crown, that choice may fall hereafter on a French or an Irish consul; and, when we look at the further extravagances of the house of commons in 1789, it is by no means an impossible event. The supplies for that year had been voted in committee for the ordinary period, to the 25th of March, 1790; but, before the report of the committees of supply and ways and means, his majesty's recovery was announced: