CHAP. I.] BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

7

arbitrary and capricious rejection, or are obliged to assign a reasonable cause for their disapprobation. To that point you have a right to be heard; but I hope you do not mean to lecture the council."

Mr. Curran.—"I mean, my lords, to speak to the case of my clients, and to avail myself of every topic of defence which I conceive applicable to the case. I am not speaking to a dry point of law, to a single judge, and on a mere forensic subject; I am addressing a very large auditory, consisting of co-ordinate members, of whom the far greater number are not versed in law. Were I to address such an audience on the interests and rights of a great city, and address them in the hackneyed style of a pleader, I should make a very idle display of profession, with very little information to those I address, or benefit to those on whose behalf I have the honour to be heard. I am aware, my lords, that truth is to be sought only by slow and painful progress; I know also that error is in its nature flippant and compendious; it hops with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and perches upon assertion, which it calls conclusion."*

The Chancellor, notwithstanding the able arguments of counsel, decided in favour of Alderman James, declaring "that the case must come before the King's Bench, and by the time that the Commons had amused themselves there for three or four years, it was probable they would be tired of it, and wish themselves out of the dispute." Such was the solemnity of his judicial decisions.

The conduct of the Chancellor and Privy Council met with general disapprobation. Several of the minor corporations, the volunteer corps, and public meetings of the inhabitants upheld the rights of their fellow citizens, and condemned the decision of the Privy Council. The sheriffs and commons of the corporation assembled, and resolved that the Privy Council were wrong in their decision; that Alderman James was not legally elected Lord Mayor; and they adopted * A just representation of the Chancellor.

the sovereign remedy in all such cases-that of stopping the supplies, and voted that they would not pay the Government Lord Mayor any money, or allow any in his accounts; and that he must deliver up to them the Mansion-house and the corporation property.

An address was then voted to his Majesty, complaining of Lord Westmoreland and Lord Clare; and thanks were returned to Mr. Curran and Mr. Ponsonby for their exertions in the Privy Council in favour of the rights of the people. The Whig Club also proceeded to pass the following resolution:

Dublin, July 19th, 1790. At a meeting of the Whig Club, held this day, his Grace the Duke of Leinster in the chair, the following resolution was proposed by the Right Hon. the Earl of Charlemont, and seconded by the Right Hon. the Earl of Moira, viz.:

"That the Whig Club cannot possibly have witnessed what has lately passed respecting the election of a Lord Mayor, without expressing the deepest concern, and declaring that they will, both individually, and as a body, co-operate with their fellow citizens in every legal and constitutional measure, which may tend to vindicate the laws, and to support the rights of this metropolis."

Which resolution being put, the same was passed unanimously, and ordered to be entered on their books, and published.

(Signed)

HENRY GRATTAN, Pro. Sec. This resolution roused the ire of the Chancellor, and on the 24th of July, 1790, before the Lord Lieutenant came to the House to prorogue the Parliament, he attacked the Whig Club in very severe terms; and said that he was ready to justify his conduct on that occasion. He was replied to by Lord Moira and Lord Charlemont, who avowed the resolutions, which they said they were ready to support.

The speech of the Chancellor which contained

CHAP. I.]

THE WHIG CLUB.

9

the attack having been published, the Whig Club found it necessary to defend their principles. The vindication is strong and able, perhaps too personal; but it was not on that account the less liked. The party had been hardly treated and greatly abused, and being attacked, it was not possible for the Club to yield; it was absolutely necessary they should defend themselves, otherwise they would have sunk in the country. This reply enabled them to rise and triumph. It was printed in pamphlets, and had a rapid circulation. Undoubtedly the Whig Club went very far. It was a political assembly openly watching and superintending the measures of Government,-a very formidable body to be permitted in any state. The manner, however, in which the Chancellor chose to attack it was neither Parliamentary nor Constitutional. The following was their reply:

Monday, 2nd Aug. 1790. At a meeting held this day the Whig Club resolved itself into the following committee:

Duke of Leinster,
Earl of Moira,

Earl of Charlemont,
Earl of Arran,

Mr. Ponsonby,

The Duke of Leinster

Mr. Grattan,

Mr. Curran,

Sir Edward Newenham,
Mr. Egan,

Mr. Hamilton Rowan. reported the resolution of the committee, which was accordingly read and unanimously agreed to, and is as follows:

That we have seen a publication containing various and extraordinary charges against the members of this society, comparing them to those of "porter clubs, and such like low and riotous meetings;" and further alleging "that they are persons of the grossest ignorance; that they have shown that ignorance particularly in their late resolution on behalf of the rights of the subject, and that they have discovered, on this occasion, as great a perversion of sense as ever distracted the human brain.”*

That we should have passed by such a publication as * The Chancellor's speech.

one of those flippant productions, which the present ministers of the Crown, by their writers, vilify the people, if said empty paper did not affect to call itself the speech of the Chancellor. That we could wish the composition had confined itself to us, and had not spread its foul contents among the Common Council of Dublin, and the citizens in general, on behalf of their privileges legally assembled. We are sorry to have given any one an occasion to aggravate their present situation, and to overwhelm with a torrent of abuse, men already struggling under great wrong.

We cannot avoid expressing our disapprobation of such a malapert way of addressing the people, a disregard for whom, under any Government, is unwise,-under a free Government, graceless, and in a minister, disqualification to hold the reins of power. We have not forgotten the gross language once before offered to the people-it was when they defended their country against the famous propositions. We flattered ourselves that we should never again be witness to the like froward discourse. The citizens, however, will bear with patience an evil it seems they only share in common with the rest of their fellow subjects as for ourselves, observations falling from no superior height of public virtue, make no impression.

The author of the publication asserts, that the act of council to which our resolution of the former meeting refers, was strictly legal; but it is not in a free country that the assertion of any one man can decide. Had assertion been sufficient, there was not wanting prompt and flippant assertion against all your exertions. You had the assertion of great law officers against your declaration of right—you had their assertion in favour of the famous propositionsand you had their assertion that the King legislated in Ireland, as King of Great Britain, and that the British Parliament could make, for certain purposes, a statute Regent for Ireland, and that a Regent so made, could supersede the one appointed by your own Parliament. This nation paid but little regard to such assertions; and whatever she has acquired in constitution and consideration, is due to her wisdom in holding such assertions, and the assertions thereof, as men fallible and suspicious.

The author of the paper is made to declare, that the rejecting of Alderman Howison, and the approving Alderman James, was a necessary act of public duty. Here we

are concerned to be obliged directly to contradict the author. It was not a necessary act of public duty, it was not necessary, however proper at that particular time, to approve of either, for the parties might have been sent back to a new election; but if approbation of either was unavoidable, it was not necessary to give the preference in favour of Alderman James, who could not serve, and to reject Alderman Howison, who was legally elected.

To prove the truth of this part of the speech, three things are indispensable, none of which are fact:-1st, That the parties could not have been sent back to a new election; 2nd, That the Council could not by law approve of Alderman Howison. 3d, That they could not by law

refuse Alderman James.

On the first great part of the defence, we must then observe, that it is not founded in fact; that it advances the plea of necessity, which notoriously did not exist, and that the resorting to such a plea, bespeaks in the author, a secret conviction, that such a proceeding can be excused by nothing else but the plea of necessity. From a misrepresentation of the fact, in the outset of the defence, the author of the speech proceeds to promise, that he will prove his point to the conviction of mankind-the most unlettered man. But first, he stops to reflect on the peers; and the author of the speech condemns two noble lords,* for expressing their sentiments on a point of right, which may afterwards come before them as judges. Their lordships, however, if they wished to shelter themselves under authority, have it, and on this very point, in the person of the Lord Chancellor, who did declare in the presence of the parties and the public, his law opinion very early on this very question, of which opinion the public were, by himself and his friends, fully possessed, and the public is much deceived, if his early and erroneous opinion on this subject has not been the principal cause of the disgrace of the Government and the ferment of the city. The noble lords will not, however, shelter themselves under his authority; they conceive that however improper to declare an early opinion in case of private property, yet where privileges are violated, where corporate rights are attacked, it is not unbecoming the peers of the realm to take an early part, and to consider themselves not merely as hereditary judges, but (what they value more infinitely) as hereditary freeLord Moira and Lord Charlemont.