traitorous enemies of the country are in their reprobation of the measure *.'

The plan of the United Irishmen, with the affiftance of the inveterate foe of the British empire and conftitution, is to effect a separation between Great Britain and Ireland. It is natural therefore that they should dread nothing so much as any measure which they must look upon as fatal to that favourite object. That feparation is their favourite object we have many incontestable proofs; but it is fufficient for me now to refer to the declaration of their founder, Tone, fubjoined to the Report of the Secret Committee of the Irish Houfe of Lords in 1797; and the deteftation of a Union, which on that account the fame clafs of men have always expreffed, is equally notorious. The furious declamations of M'Nevin, Lewins, and otherst, have been more than once referred to in this place; and within not many weeks from the prefent moment, fome of those selfconvicted traitors have contrived to publifh to the world new libels on the government and conftitution of their country, their main view in which has manifeftly been to co-operate, to this particular end, with those who, though of a very different defcription, and acting undoubtedly from motives of miftaken patriotism, have exerted their talents and influence to counteract and retard what I am well perfuaded the good sense of * Vide the refolutions of the Grand Jury of the county of the city of Cork, 26th March 1799.

No. II.

† Proceedings of the meeting at Francis Street Chapel, 1795. Vide Speech of the Right Hon. Henry Addington, p. 21, &c &c.

Arthur O'Connor's Letter to Lord Caftlereagh.-Demonstration, &c. Afcribed to Dr. M'Nevin.

that nation will not fuffer them ultimately to defeat, that happy confolidation of the empire which his Majesty's paternal goodness has recommended to the confideration of both his Parliaments.

The other circumftance to which I have referred appears to me not lefs ftriking. It is, that the oppofers of Union have almost all endeavoured to convince us that the cafe of the incorporation of Scotland and England in 1707, is not in any degree applicable on the prefent occafion.

I think there is confiderable dexterity, though perhaps not a great deal of candour, in this attempt. In all great political operations, experience and hiftorical precedent are the best and safeft guides. Thofe gentlemen have, therefore, justly thought they should have a better chance of gaining their end, if they could induce us to fhut our eyes against history, and wander with them in the obfcure mazes of theory and fpeculation. Their ingenuity might then perhaps bewilder and perplex us; whereas, if we recur to that memorable event, its fimilarity to what is now propofed, both in principle and in all its most characteristic features, is fo great, that they naturally feel it furnishes, by its complete fuccefs, after the trial of a century, the ftrongest and muft irrefiftible refutation of their arguments.

In the first and preliminary point, for instance, of the queftion of Union, that tranfaction is most efpecially applicable, being the direct cafe of a national decifion on the right and competency of Parliament.

I will not enter at large into the general argument concerning the extraordinary powers of the fupreme legiflature of a country. It has been amply and ably treated in feveral of the prior stages of the prefent bufinefs, in this House. If the Parliament, in our reprefentative government, is not competent to treat of, and conclude an incorporated Union, there is no authority which is; and, confequently, a legitimate Union, in fuch governments, never could take place.

The constituent body, or the electors, have no fuch authority; they have not, by the practice or true theory of our conftitution, any power of deliberation on any question whatever; their only bufinefs as electors being that of selecting and nominating those whom they think the fittest persons to exercise that share of legislation which is vested in the third eftate of Parliament: the act of the election is the beginning and end of their functions; the latent political rights of the people at large, whatever they may be, have not been delegated to them; and thofe gentlemen, on the other fide, who are the most ftrenuous advocates against a Union, would, I fhould think, be very unwilling to devolve that authority which is denied to the elected, on the elective body, as now conftituted; fince, in their opinion, they ought to be deprived of the very elective franchise itself, by what they call a reform of Parliament; the fcheme of such reform being, in many inftances literally, and virtually in all, to deprive the prefent electors of that franchife.

But if the electors cannot deliberate and decide on fuch a measure, much lefs can the people at large; who never, I believe, in the smallest state, or most complete de

mocracy,

mocracy, have exercised, in fact, by univerfal individual fuffrage, deliberative, judicial, or legislative authority. Yet to maintain that the conftitutional legislature of a country has not the right of doing certain acts, however clearly beneficial to that country, without a previous special commiffion from the mafs of the nation, leads immediately to the falfe and mifchievous principle of the direct fovereignty of the people, and to that equally mischievous fiction to which it has given rife, viz. That an original compact between the governors and governed is the only lawful foundation of government. Indeed, to refort to the elementary parts of a nation, the numerical aggregate of individuals composing it, for authority to form a union, would be a complete admission of fuch fovereignty; as the terms and conditions with which this numerical mass might choose to accompany that delegation of power, would be an exemplification of fuch original compact. But what fort of philosophy is that which traces the foundation of all political phenomena to a fact which no hiftory fhows ever to have existed, which the confideration of the human character and the daily tranfactions, and past and prefent fituations of life, demonstrate to be, and always to have been impoffible, and every attempt to realize which either by the Facquerie in ancient France, the Wat Tylers and Jack Straws in England, or the modern Jacobins, has proved as pernicious and deftructive*, as to fuppofe the poffibility

It has been unfortunate for the world, that fo great and upright a man as Mr. Locke (led aftray by the circumstances of the times in which he lived, and the zeal of controversy) should have been the patron and advocate of this baneful, but, in his hands, too plaufible and fpecious doctrine. Locke's fate has indeed been fingular. He was a good subject and a pious Chrif

fibility of its actual existence, is foolish and abfurd. The fatal confequence of fuch attempts to restore, as it is called, to the people the fovereignty they are imagined to have farmed out, as it were, to their rulers, fubject to divers claims of forfeiture and re-entry, has indeed been too well illuftrated by the late eventful history of a neighbouring kingdom, for us here, or our fellow-fubjects in Ireland, to require much argument to

tian. Yet, as his theory of government has ferved for a basis to the destructive systems of the Condorcets, Priestleys, and Paines, fo his metaphyfical principles have become the groundwork of the vain wisdom and false philosophy which began by denying the existence of the material world, and proceeded, in the writings of the late Mr. Hume and others, to extend that wild fcepticism of an ingenious and well-intentioned Prelate to the disbelief of spirit also, of the immortal nature of man, and the being of God himself. This remark has been, in a great measure, occafioned by my recollection of a truly great philofopher, to whose early leffons and kindness I look back with tenderness and pride, who was among the first to prove that the fyftem adopted by Locke concerning ideas, tended, by its natural consequence, to those of Berkeley and Hume; but who, in announcing that opinion to the world, anxiously disclaimed every with or intention to disparage the talents of those, the fallacy and danger of whose doctrines he thought he could demonftrate, and every view of arrogating to himself any peculiar fagacity and difcernment on that account. Indeed those who remember him, know that there never was learning and wisdom more free from arrogance and presumption than his. A traveller,' fays he, of good judgment may mistake his way, and be led unawares into a wrong track; and while the road is fair before him, may go on without fufpicion, and be followed by others; but when it ends in a precipice, it requires no peculiar degree of wisdom and pene'tration to know he has gone wrong, nor perhaps to find out what mifled him †.'

Bishop, Berkeley.

Dr. Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. 23.

B 4

convince