miffion and instructions, the powers vefted by law in their representatives, yet I am very clearly of opinion, that the representative does not perform his duty, or confult the true interefts of his country, who does not pay a due and refpectful attention to the fentiments, and even, in many cafes, to the inclinations and wishes of his particular conftituents, and of the proprietors and inhabitants of the place he reprefents (with whom he commonly has the easiest means of communication), as well as to the opinions which prevail in general among the different claffes of his fellow-fubjects. It is very true that there neither exifts, nor can exift, any legal or formal method of collecting the individual opinions and fuffrages of a whole nation; ftill, however, the predominant fentiment will force its way to the observation and understanding of the legislators, and will be in many, perhaps in most cases, the best and moft prudent guide for them to follow. If they neglect it, the period of re-election enables the voters (the majority of whom, even as now constituted in this kingdom, taking the whole country over, will, I believe, always be found to accord with the majority of the nation itself) to felect others who think more as they do on thofe fubjects of public concern which they have nearest their hearts. After all, fome may think I might have spared the Houfe and myself the trouble of the foregoing difcuffion, as few, very few, within these walls have gone fo far as directly to maintain the general incompetence of Parliament to fuch a measure as a Union. But several, by expreffions of doubt and furmife, by ambiguous words, fcattered abroad at the risk of misleading the vulgar, the illinformed, or ill-disposed, among his Majesty's fubjects in Ireland, have fet out with involving their opinion on this material material point in oracular obfcurity, and have then gone on to affert, that whatever may have been the right of the English or of the Scotch Parliament in 1707, a Union between Great Britain and Ireland, or, at least, fuch a Union as is fuppofed to be intended, cannot be lawfully agreed to or carried into effect by either of the Parliaments of those respective kingdoms. They affume, as the case I think muft be, that in the minds of those who have proposed, or are friends to the measure, the proportion of members to be fent by Ireland to the united Parliament is meant to be confiderably less than the number of British members; which, if the example of the Scotch Union fhall be followed in this particular, will remain as at present. This,' it is faid, would, in effect, amount to a total surrender of the legislative autherity of Ireland to Great Britain. But the conftituents of the Irish Parliament delegated to their reprefentatives the powers with which they invested them, for the purpose of exercising, not of furrendering, thofe powers, for the purpose of maintaining a fupreme, independent, and • exclusive Legislature for Ireland, not to enable them to betray and deftroy the independency, or rather the existence, of the Irish Legislature. This,' it is alleged, must be the cafe, if the members for Ireland are. in a great difproportion to thofe for Great Britain. Though the British Parliament, therefore, fhould be fuppofed competent to receive, in acceffion to its legiflative authority over Great Britain, the like power over Ireland, the Irish Parliament can have no right to bestow that power, and subject their country, in that manner, to the government of a foreign Legislature. The addition of one fixth, one fifth, or one fourth, to the prefent aggregate number of British members will leave the British Parliament as exclufively fupreme over 6 • Great Great Britain as before, and will, at the fame time, ❝communicate to Great Britain as entire a fupremacy "over Ireland as the formerly claimed (before the epoch * of 1782) when that country was totally unreprefented in Great Britain.' In ftating this fort of argument, which I have endeavoured not to weaken or mifreprefent, the cafe of Scotland feemed to militate fo ftrongly both against the conclufion of incompetency, and the affumed fact from which that conclufion is drawn, namely, the exercise of exclufive power by the greater over the leffer country, that every effort of ingenuity has been used, though unfuccefsfully, to find out fome intelligible ground of disa tinction between that tranfaction and the measure now in agitation. rft. With regard to the fact. It is a matter of such acknowledged notoriety, that in questions of a local nature, or which merely concern the northern division of this united kingdom, the members returned by Scotland have generally influenced the opinion and vote of the whole Houfe of Commons, that the Gentlemen on the other, fide have not been able to deny it. They have, therefore, been obliged to content themfelves with the hope that this, like other circumstances relative to the Scotch Union, may be afcribed to fomething of mysterious and undefinable nature, peculiar to the character and fituation of that people; and they infift, that whatever may have in practice counteracted the natural confequence of the fuperiority of numbers in that cafe, it is not 'lefs certain that the whole legislative authority over Scotland is vefted in the Englifh members, than that 513 is a larger number than 45. 2d. As to the conclufion, they argue, that if the furrender (as they infift on terming it) which was made by the Scotch Parliament has not vitiated the whole tranfaction, it is either because the lapse of time and long acquiefcence on the part of that country have, by a fort of prescription, confirmed the authority of the Parliament now denominated British, but still, in effect, only English, over Scotland; or because the Scotch Parliament was exprefsly empowered and commiffioned by the conftituents in that kingdom to agree to a Union. In answer to these refinements it may be obferved, ift. That it is a new fort of prescription which can confirm or render valid, what, in its commencement, was a mere nullity; especially where the acts by which this nullity has been turned into a right, must, if the argument is well founded, have been throughout equally null and void. If the Scotch Parliament could not, in 1707, legally ratify the Treaty of Union, the act by which they purported to do fo was void, and the royal affent, which was given to that act, having nothing on which it could operate, was void alfo; as much fo as it would have been if given to an act by which the Parliament had attempted to legislate for France or Italy. But the ratification of the treaty by the Scotch Parliament was the effential condition on which that of England ratified it. If, therefore, the act of the Scotch Parliament was a nullity, so also must have been that which was only paffed on the faith of its fuppofed validity. The one was the confideration for the other; and if England could receive nothing, neither could the mean to give, nor could give any thing; and the whole business refembled, on her part, what the lawyers call a nudum pactum. Thus, 2 Thus this doctrine neceffarily leads to the inference, that the present Legislature of this country has no legitimate authority; that the powers it exercifes are mere ufurpation; and that no man, either in Scotland or England, is bound to fubmit to any of the laws which have been enacted for near a century. 2d. When, perceiving that this argument of acquiefcence fails by leading to fuch a dangerous abfurdity, Gentlemen refort to fome fuppofed fpecial delegation from the people or conftituent body to the Parliament of Scotland, it will be recollected, as I have already fhown, that the electors could not, by the constitution-in this respect the fame in that kingdom as in England-make any fuch delegation, fo as to give it any force or validity; nor grant to the elected any peculiar powers, not incident to the mere character of reprefentatives duly chofen. I will now prove, that in 1707 no fuch delegation was in fact attempted in Scotland. There is undoubtedly a paffage or two in De Foe's Hiftory of the Union, which feem to indicate fomething fpecial in the appointment of the members of the Parliament of Scotland, which concluded that Treaty *; and a supposed specific authority, in that inftance, though very little taken notice of in this House, has been much relied on in feveral fpeeches, and in various pamphlets, in the fifter kingdom. This circumftance induced me to beftow fome pains in the investigation of the matter, the refult of which has been, as I was well perfuaded it would be, what I have just afferted, that no fuch authority was in contemplation, Stockdale's Edit. p. 230. 289. much |