SPEECH

OF MR. CURRAN, ON THE RIGHT OF ELECTION OF LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN, DELIVERED BEFORE THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND PRIVY COUNCIL OF IRELAND, 1790.

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MY LORDS,

I HAVE the honour to appear before you as counsel for the commons of the corporation of the metropolis of Ireland, and also for Mr. Alderman Howison, who hath petitioned for your approbation of him as a fit person to serve as lord mayor, in virtue of his election by the commons to that high office; and in that capacity I rise to address you on the most important subject that you have ever been called upon to disHighly interesting and momentous indeed, my lords, must every question be, that, even remotely and eventually, may affect the well being of societies, or the freedom, or the repose of nations; but that question, the result of which by an immediate and direct necessity, must decide, either fatally, or fortunately, the life or the death of that well being, of that freedom and that repose, is surely the most important subject on which human wisdom can be employed, if any subject on this side the grave can be entitled to that appellation.

You cannot, therefore, my lords, be surprised to see this place crowded by such numbers of our fellow citizens; here

tofore they were attracted hither by a strong sense of the value of their rights, and of the injustice of the attack upon them; they felt all the magnitude of the contest; but they were not disturbed by any fear for the event; they relied securely on the justice of their cause, and the integrity of those who were to decide upon it. But the public mind is now filled with a fear of danger, the more painful and alarming, because hitherto unforeseen; the public are now taught to fear that their cause may be of doubtful merits, and disastrous issue; that rights which they considered as defined by the wisdom, and confirmed by the authority, of written law, may now turn out to be no more than ideal claims, without either precision or security; that acts of parliament themselves are no more than embryos of legislation, or at best but infants, whose first labours must be, not to teach, but to learn; and which even after thirty years of pupilage, may have thirty more to pass under that guardianship, which the wisdom of our policy has provided for the protection of minors. Sorry am I, my lords, that I can offer no consolation to my clients on this head; and that I can only join them in bewailing that the question, whose result must decide upon their freedom or servitude, is perplexed with difficulties of which we never dreamed before, and which we are now unable to comprehend. Yet surely, my lords, that question must be difficult, upon which the wisdom of the representative of our dread sovereign, aided by the learning of his chancellor and his judges, assisted also by the talents of the most conspicuous of the nobles and the gentry of the nation, has been twice already employed, and employed in vain. We know, my lords, that guilt and oppression may stand irresolute for a moment ere they strike, appalled by the prospect of danger, or struck with the sentiment of remorse; but to you, my lords, it were presumption to impute injustice: we must therefore suppose that you have delayed your determination, not because it was dangerous, but because it was difficult, to decide; and indeed, my lords, a firm belief of this difficulty, however undiscoverable by or

dinary talents, is so necessary to the character which this august assembly ought to possess, and to merit from the country, that I feel myself bound to achieve it by an effort of my faith; if I should not be able to do so by any exertion of my understanding.

In a question, therefore, so confessedly obscure as to baffle so much sagacity, I am not at liberty to suppose that certainty could be attained by a concise examination. Bending, then, as I do, my lords, to your high authority, I feel this difficulty as a call upon me to examine it at large; and I feel it as an assurance, that I shall be heard with patience.

The lord mayor of this city hath from time immemorial been a magistrate, not appointed by the crown, but elected by his fellow citizens. From the history of the early periods of this corporation, and a view of its charters and by-laws, it appears that the commons had, from the earliest periods, participated the important right of election to that high trust; and it was natural and just that the whole body of citizens, by themselves, or their representatives, should have a share in electing those magistrates who were to govern them, as it was their birth-right to be ruled only by laws which they had a share in enacting.

The aldermen, however, soon became jealous of this participation, encroached by degrees upon the commons; and at length succeeded in engrossing to themselves the double privilege of eligibility and of election; of being the only body out of which, and by which, the lord mayor could be chosen. Nor is it strange that in those times a board, consisting of so small a number as twenty-four members, with the advantages of a more united interest, and a longer continuance in office, should have prevailed, even contrary to so evident principles of natural justice and constitutional right, against the unsteady resistance of competitors, so much less vigilant, so much more numerous, and, therefore, so much less united. It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become

a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

In this state of abasement the commons remained for a number of years; sometimes supinely acquiescing under their de gradation; sometimes, what was worse, exasperating the fury, and alarming the caution, of their oppressors, by ineffectual resistance: The siave that struggles without breaking his chain, provokes the tyrant to double it; and gives him the plea of self-defence for extinguishing what, at first, he only intended to subdue.

In the year 1672 it was directed by one of the new rules, made by the lord lieutenant and privy council, under the authority of the act of explanation, that no person should be capable of serving in the office of lord mayor, until approved of by the lord lieutenant and council;" and this was a power given after the unhappy civil commotions in this country, to prevent any person, who was not a loyal subject, from holding so important a trust; and upon this single ground, namely, disloyalty, have you, my lords, any authority to withhold your approbation.

From that time till the year 1759 no farther alteration appears to have taken place in the mode of electing the chief magistrate. At this latter period the act of the 33 G. II. was passed the occasion and the object of that law are universally known. A city so increased in population, in opulence, and in consequence, could not tamely submit to have its corporate rights monopolized by a few, who were at once the tyrants of the metropolis, and the slaves of the government. Magistrates elected by the board of aldermen, were in fact nominated by the court, and were held in derision and abhorrence by the people. The public peace was torn by unseemly dissensions; and the authority of the law itself was lost in the contempt of the magistrate. The legislature felt itself called upon to restore the constitution of the city, to restore and

ascertain the rights of the commons, and thereby to redeem the metropolis from the fatal effects of oppression, of servitude, and of anarchy. In saying this, my lords, I am founded on the preamble of the act itself" Whereas dissensions and disputes have from a dissatisfaction, as to some parts of the present constitution of the corporation of the city of Dublin, arisen, and for some years past subsisted, among several citizens of the said city, to the weakening the authority of the magistrates thereof, who are hereby rendered the less able to preserve the public peace within the said city: Therefore, for remedying the aforesaid mischiefs, and inconveniences, and for restoring harmony and mutual good will among the citizens of the said city, and for preserving peace and good order therein: At the humble petition of the lord mayor, sheriffs, commons, and citizens of the city of Dublin, be it enacted," &c.

Here are stated the mischief acknowledged, and the remedy proposed. With this view, the statute has ascertained the constituent parts of the corporation, their respective members, their rights, and the mode of their election, with so minute, and detailed an exactness, as even to enact many of those regulations which stood upon the authority of the new rules, or the ancient charters and by-laws, and in which no alteration whatsoever was intended to be made; and this it did, that the city might not be left to explore her rights by uncertain deduction from obscure or distant sources, but that she might see the whole plan in a single view, comprised within the limits of a single statute, and that so intelligibly to every common understanding, as to preclude all possibility of doubt, and thereby all future danger of cavil or dissension.

For this it enacts, purpose 66 That the common council of the city of Dublin, consisting of the lord mayor and twentyfour aldermen, sitting apart by themselves as heretofore, and also of the sheriffs of the said city for the time being, and sheriffs' peers, not exceeding forty-eight, and of ninety-six