degree, I do not deprecate your justice, but I call for it, and exhort you, for yourselves and your country, to get rid of a member who would be unworthy to sit among you.

No. LXXI.

MR. MONKE MASON'S SPEECH AGAINST PARLIAMENTARY REFORM....P. 75.

MR. John Monke Mason began the debate, by apologizing to the house for speaking at a time when he was so oppressed with a violent cold, that without their utmost indulgence he could not be heard at all. He said, I shall leave it to other gentlemen to point out to the house the absurdities of the plan that is now before you, and shall confine myself merely to the principle of the bill, and the reasons stated in support of it by the honourable gentleman by whom it was introduced, and the several petitions that lie on your table.

The honourable gentleman has said, that our present mode of representation is a novelty, and that what he contends for is not an innovation, but merely a restoration of the ancient constitution; and in the several petitions, it seems to be laid down as an incontrovertible maxim, that equality of representation is a fundamental principle of the English constitution; an assertion, which, I acknowledge, these people may support by the authority of several modern publications, the productions of ingenious and speculative men, who, in their vacant moments, when they have nothing else to do, amuse themselves with delineating a fantastical form of government, which they are pleased to entitle the constitution of England: and in reducing a series of politi cal aphorisms, which they tell us are the principles of that constitution; but I am confident they cannot support this assertion by any facts recorded in the general or parliamentary history of

that country.

If the constitution requires an equal representation of the people, the gentlemen will tell us the year of what reign that parlia ment assembled, in which the people were equally represented. If equality of representation be a principle of the constitution, they will point to us the period, at which this principle had effectual operation;....if they cannot do that, they will never persuade any man of common sense, that that is the English constitution,

which was never known to exist, or that that is a principle of the constitution which never has operated for a single moment of time, from the beginning of the world to the present hour.

It was not till the 34th of Henry VIII. that the county and city of Chester were impowered to send members to serve in parliament, it was not till 130 years after, in the 26th of Charles II. that this power was extended to the county and city of Durham. Could this possibly have happened, if equality of representation were a principle of the English constitution? In both these cases, specific acts of parliament were considered as requisite to invest them with this right. Could that have been thought necessary, if equality of representation were a principle of the constitution?

But to put this matter in a stronger light, it has ever been the undoubted prerogative of the crown, to impose the burden or extend the privileges of returning members to serve in parliament, to any communities or bodies of men that the king thought proper. This part of the prerogative has been constantly exercised without dispute or control from the first institution of parliament to the time of the revolution: is it possible that this power should even have existed for a single moment, if equality of representation were a principle of the constitution?

The reformers themselves do not controvert either this power of the crown, or the validity of the charters that have been formerly granted in consequence of that power; but they allege that many of the boroughs which were, at the time the charters were granted, in a flourishing condition, are now depo pulated and gone to decay. With respect to those boroughs where the right of suffrage is vested in the inhabitants at large, I do not believe that the assertion is true; I believe that in the greater part of those towns there are as many Protestant inhabi, tants now as there were in the reign of King James I. and with respect to those, which these people call rotten boroughs, where the right of suffrage is vested in a few persons only, the depopulation of the places can have no effect upon the representatives. Belfast is as much a rotten borough as Harristown; the number of inhabitants is nothing to the purpose, for those inhabitants could have no right to poll, and the members for such borough's are returned at this day by the self-same numbers of voters that they were at the time that the charters were granted. I will therefore assert that this pretended reform is not a renovation of the ancient constitution, but an idle and dangerous innovation.

A scheme for reforming the representation of the people was proposed in the British parliament in the course of the last

session, and was introduced by a gentleman, who, at an early period of life is already so distinguished for his virtue and abili ties, that he bids fair to be one of the most illustrious characters that country has ever produced, his father not excepted. But notwithstanding the powerful support it derived from such respectable authority, the measure was rejected by that wise and prudent nation, even in the paroxism of political reformation. They could not be insensible of the defects of their constitution, but they were sensible of the danger of tampering with it, and chose rather to suffer those defects to continue, than to hazard the consequence of breaking in upon a system sanctified by the wisdom of ages, and under which they had flourished for such a length of time.

Yet if the people of Great Britain, in the present deplorable situation of that country, fallen from the highest pinnacle of glory to a state of humiliating distress, deprived of half her empire, weighed down with a debt of 240 millions, and harassed with taxes so various and complicated, that they seem to have exhausted the invention of her ministers; if the people, I say, in this situation should begin to suspect that the numberless calamities they have lately suffered were owing to some inherent defect in their original constitution, and wish to amend it, it would not be surprising; but that the people of Ireland should quarrel with a constitution which has raised them to the utmost summit of their wishes, is the highest degree of folly and ingratitude; a constitution under which they have so lately obtained a full restitution of their natural rights, an unlimited freedom of commerce extended to every part of the globe and the most perfect degree of judicial and legislative independence, that any nation upon earth has ever yet enjoyed; a constitution, in short, which has put them in possession of every blessing that can render a people flourishing and happy, except those which no constitution can bestow; and which are only to be acquired by industry, sobriety, and obedience to the laws; these are the only blessings we want to make us the happiest nation upon earth; these are the virtues which every honest man, every true patriot, every man who has the real welfare of his country at heart should endeavour to inculcate on the minds of the people, instead of turning their brains with political jargon, which they do not understand, and visionary systems of government.... These are the virtues that will render us in a short time a nation of husbandmen and manufacturers, artificers and merchants; but at the rate we go on we bid fair to be a nation of politicians only, and shall appear as ridiculous to all the rational part of mankind as the inhabitants of Swift's imaginary island, who wasted the whole of their time in watching, with the utmost anxiety and solicitude, every change and motion of the heavenly

bodies, whilst their wives and children were starving at home. The complaints of the people of Great Britain are extorted from them by the pressure of calamity; but, thank Heaven! the complaints of the people of Ireland are excited merely by wantonness of prosperity.

The wanton and innovating spirit of the times has given rise to another new doctrine in this country, which was diligently propagated at the last general election, and seems to have been intended to pave the way for this pretended reformation.... The doctrine I mean is this, that the representatives are bound to pay implicit obedience to the commands of their constituents. A doctrine repugnant to the first principle of the constitution, which is, that a member, when elected, becomes the representative of the nation at large, not merely of that particular place that returned him to parliament; a doctrine which tends to destroy the unity of the state, and to degrade the dignity of this house; for if this doctrine be established, you are no longer the free independent representative of a great and powerful kingdom, but the féttered deputies of a parcel of petty communities; united indeed under one common sovereign, but as distinct from each other as the cantons of Switzerland, are from the provinces of America. If this doctrine is to prevail, if we are to be divided into these petty communities, it is just that each district should have its particular representatives; but if we adhere to the liberal and truly constitutional principle, that each member is the representative of the nation at large, every part of the kingdom is equally represented; and every county of the kingdom has not two only but three hundred representatives.

As an instance of the happy effects that would attend this new doctrine, let me recal the recollection of the house to the ridiculous scene that was exhibited on the floor in the beginning of last session; when an honourable member, by order of his constituents, moved, that the bill of supply should be granted for six months only. On the division he went into the lobby, and was followed by every county member in the house, a few only excepted, who walked across the floor, many of whom logizing with their looks and gestures, for the absurd part they were acting, and deploring at once their own servile subjection, and the folly of their constituents.

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Yet these, we are told, are the only independent members of the house ;....independent indeed they are; independent of reason....independent of judgment....independent of choice....independent of every kind of public virtue; which can have no existence without free agency.

This plan of reformation originated with the congress of Dungannon, who, after they had resolved to adopt it, directed

their secretary to write circular letters to every meddling priest, every political mountebank, whose names they read of in the English newspaper, whom they rendered the arbiters of the Irish constitution. These letters have since been published by authority; but why do we not find amongst them any letter to Mr. Pitt, the advocate for reform in the British parliament? Because they well knew that the sentiments of Mr. Pitt were not congenial to their own; that he did not desire to go the lengths which they were determined to proceed; his scheme of reform was confined to an addition of a certain number to the members for counties, and great communities. That the representatives of the people should presume to disfranchise their own constituents; that they should attempt to deprive, of their chartered rights, and most invaluable privileges, the persons to whose bounty they were indebted for their seats, and whose confidence had enabled them to strike that mortal blow, was a monstrous idea that never entered into the mind of that virtuous man, and was only reserved for that self-created monster, the congress of Dungannon.

I shall now beg leave to make a few observations on the motives and consequences of this pretended reform. The avowed motive is a desire to diminish the aristocratic power in this kingdom; but I am thoroughly convinced, that this plan would counteract their own intentions, and increase the very interest they wish to destroy. The natural consequence of this reform will be to throw the whole weight of power and influence in this country into the scale of property, and to bar for ever the doors of this house against rising genius and aspiring virtue.

I shall not hesitate to assert, that Great Britain owes the glory from which she has lately fallen, and Ireland the glory to which she has arisen, and which I hope she will ever maintain, to these very rotten boroughs that are now so reprobated.

You cannot but remember the wretched situation of Great Britain in 1757, when she had France alone to contend with ; so sunk were the power, the resources, and even the spirit of the nation, that instead of making any vigorous efforts against this single enemy, she thought it necessary to bring over twelve thousand German troops to save her from invasion. Such was the situation of Great Britain when Lord Chatham took the helm ; and such was the effect of the abilities and spirit of this one man, that in three years time the French were driven from the continent of America, and deprived of the finest of their West Indian islands. Yet who was Mr. Pitt? a younger brother with 2000l. fortune, and a cornetcy of horse, who had no more chance of representing any great community in England than I have at this instant. Had he not been returned for a rotten borough he might have lived in obscurity, and his vir