Commons on the King's Message ner. the noble lord had reations. But (Dr. L. said) he had himself received a different explanation of it from soned from them in a very singular manHe threw it out as an imputation an illustrious friend of his, now no more, whose pre-eminent abilities had been for against the opposition of that day, that they had not, till a very late period of many years the admiration of that House, of the kingdom, of Europe, and the whole that discussion, objected to the scheme, civilized world, whose wonderful endow- as an infringement on the independent ments yielded to nothing but the benevo- constitution of Ireland. It was certainly true. But was that to be pressed as a lence of his heart, and his pure, his ardent, his enlightened love of his country. charge of inconsistency, or was it to be That great statesman (Mr. Burke) to construed into an implied admission, that the last moment of his existence, regretted the project itself was not contrary to the that however just and irresistible he adjustment of 1782? The fact would thought the demand, he had not, never- apply in neither way. That proposition, or rather that limitation annexed to one theless, opposed the recognition of Irish independence, without that clear exposi- of the propositions on which the objection tion, which he believed the succeeding arose, was introduced here to obviate the resolution to have meant, of the new si- alarms which had been expressed by the tuation in which the two countries were British manufacturers in their petitions then placed with regard to each other. and evidence at the bar of the House, Yet he never had in contemplation any and surely the noble lord would have the such measure as the present. On the candour not to infer very much from the contrary, it was his opinion, that the two silence of members, if they had not anticountries had now grown up, under cir- cipated censure on the minister, and recumstances which did not admit of such prehended terms in a treaty, which had an incorporation. But what he desired then no existence; which had been never was, that the connexion of the sister king-hinted; which had even been strenuously doms should be reduced to a positive compact; that the manner should be explicitly defined, in which Ireland, with the entire and absolute power of local legislation, as far as she now enjoys it, should be bound on impartial questions of peace and war (according to the sentiment quoted from a speech of Mr. Grattan, at the commencement of the present hostilities,) to stand or fall with the forToo well was he tunes of Great Britain. acquainted with human nature, not to be aware, that in times of tranquillity the letter of such a stipulation would be unnecessary, and that in times of extreme irritation and mutual animosity, if such should unhappily occur, it would be liable to be disregarded: but there are doubtful and tremulous moments in the fate of every empire, when he judged that it might be useful to have that, which is now the feeling of all, confirmed and fixed by the guarantee of the national faith. Nothing beyond this did he ever understand to have been designed by any man, who was a party to the resolution of 1782. The commercial propositions of 1785, had also been introduced into this debate. The argument drawn from thence by the chancellor of the exchequer, and his insinuation of inconsistency in the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, had been already answered to his complete satis contended to be unnecesary; though the right hon. gentleman, who had so contended, afterwards proposed them himself. The late rebellion, it had been asserted, made the projected union necessary. He should not then enter upon that topic in the extent which its magnitude might seem to deserve. The evidence which his majesty had been pleased to communicate to his parliament, was still before He could not the select committee, which had not yet produced any report. however, suffer the representations, of the noble lord on that head to remain for a single night uncontradicted. The rebellion had not solely sprung from the dissemination of French principles. There had undoubtedly existed in that country, from the latter end of the year 1791, a knot of conspirators, whose aim it had been to separate Ireland from Great Britain. He had himself, on all occasions and especially in the debates of the last session, avowed his belief of that conspiracy. But it had never been in itself formidable. It had dwindled; it had died away; it had become in a manner extinct, whenever a hope had been given of any practically good government: It had revived; it had increased in size: it had gathered strength, whenever any misconduct of the government had prepared the any other mode of union, might or might not, under different circumstances, be conducive to the strengthening and consolidating of the empire. He must, however, remark, that the chancellor of the exchequer had, with his usual perspicuity, one a federal, the other an incorporating union. The former admitted of much variety, in the nature, scope, and extent of its provisions and stipulations. The latter was more simple, as it was more compliant. Of the former description, were the ulterior measures, which were supposed to have been intimated in the prospective resolution of 1782. Of the same description were the commercial propositions, introduced under the auspices of the right hon. gentleman in 1785. Of the latter description was the plan on which he now stood committed, in the face of his country, and which he had solemnly engaged to make it the great object of his political existence to effect. Should any scheme of union come recom way for the artifices of the agitators to operate with more effect on the minds of the people. Above all things, we should not hastily give credit to the cry, which had been no less wickedly than falsely, attempted to be raised, that it drew its origin in any considerable degree from re-distinguished two very dissimilar modes, ligious animosities. He had taken some trouble to inform himself of the truth. In the north, he knew on the most indubitable authority, that hardly a single Catholic was concerned in the insurrection. All of that religious persuasion were almost to a man, loyal and zealous in behalf of that constitution, from the full participation of which they are to this moment excluded. The disaffection in that quarter, was in a great measure, confined to the Protestant dissenters, the descendants of those soldiers, whom Oliver Cromwell settled in the lands of which he had dispossessed the ancient proprietors. Among the insurgents in Kildare, Catholics and Protestants were mingled in nearly the same proportions which they bear to each other in the general propor-mended by the full, the free, the unintion of the country: but in their language, and their pretexts, nothing of a religious aspect and complexion was discernible. In Wexford alone, the rebellion did assume that character, because in that county and the adjacent districts, party violence had previously run high between the opposite sects; yet even there, the five principal leaders who suf-ent for the general weal. He certainly fered under the just severity of the law, acceded to the sentiment of the right hon. were all members of the established gentleman, that it was impossible to speak church. Of whatever kind were the local as a true Englishman, without speaking discontents of the people, the conspi- also as a true Irishman, or as an Irishrators, with malignant dexterity, wrought man, without holding at the same time, them to their purpose; and there was the language of an Englishman; yet it one thing which generally inflamed and was the duty of each to consult in the ulcerated the feelings of the lower classes, first place, the interests of that country to -the system of rigour and coercion, which he immediately belonged; and of which, it is now proved by the solemn in- the sister kingdom only in the second place, vestigation of the two Houses in Ireland, in so much as through that the common had long preceded that treasonable arm-interests of the whole empire may be afing of the conspirators, which has been falsely argued as the justification of so doubtful a departure from the great standing rules of civil policy. It was not his intention to follow the noble lord into his panegyric on the measure itself. It was not necessary in that stage, it did not seem to be necessary in any stage of the business, that he and others, who like him, looked upon the time and the temper lately manifested in the sister kingdom, to be insuperable objections, should debate whether this, or fluenced, the unequivocal consent and approbation of the Irish parliament and the Irish people, he would give it an attentive and dispassionate consideration: nevertheless, he must fairly acknowledge, that he did entertain very great doubts indeed whether, under any circumstances, an incorporating union would be expedi fected. Looking, therefore, not with the narrow jealousy of local prejudice, but as a member of the empire, at some of the commercial arrangements contained in the intended resolutions, he could not but warn the House and the country against speculating too rashly on the beneficial consequences so munificently promised, from the circulation of British capital in Ireland. Cork was the only city, which had hitherto declared in favour of the union. What did this indicate? Was it not that Cork, above all other places, ex pected to profit by the measure? Would it then be so clearly useful for the empire at large, that any considerable portion of British trade should be transferred to Cork, and perhaps to Kinsale, to Limerick, and other ports on the coasts of Munster, where that province contracts itself, as it approaches the south western point of the island? He did not wish to deprive Ireland of any advantage, which she might draw from the natural opportunities of her situation, improved by her own proper resources; but would it be wise, artificially to collect and accumulate the merchandizes and wealth of Great Britain in a distant extremity of the king's domestic dominions, in a small space, peculiarly accessible on different sides, incapable of being sufficiently fortified for defence, and more immediately exposed to the attack from the principal naval station of the enemy? Was there a military man who would choose to place his magazines in an outpost similarly circumstanced? This branch of the argument he did not mean at present to push so far as it might easily be pressed; but he did throw it out as not undeserving the serious attention of the House. That part of the proposed union which touched the constitution of parliament, he considered as of much higher importance and more anxious concern. The endeavours, which had been so frequently made, to render the representation of the people, the ancient foundation on which that House was built, and on which it had stood secure for ages, had sometimes induced him to analyse and study the different parts of which the august fabric is composed. It existed, such as it was and such as it had become, from the concurring operations of wisdom, fortune, and time, combining all interests of the community in a manner reducible to no exact rule of theory, yet affording a practical result, that corresponded with the most perfect theory to a wonderful degree of precision He had found it to be so in the present parliament. He had divided the whole representation into four classes; the first, of counties;-the second, of cities, county towns, and other places of the largest population and most extensive franchises;-the third, of boroughs containing such a number of votes as to render them generally, what are called, open boroughs, though some of them may be accidentally liable to particular influence;-and in the fourth class he placed all that remained. It was then his object to examine, whether any one of these classes prodominated in the minorities of that House. With this view he had diligently scrutinized the lists, which are sometimes taken on momentary questions, when on both sides there is the greatest muster of strength. He had checked those lists again by striking out those who commonly voted on the other side, and inserting others who had been absent, but whose sentiments he knew. And in what did his inquiries terminate? In the conviction, he had almost said in the demonstration, that if any one sort of representation should be preferred to the exclusion of the rest, and a new parlia ment be chosen under such a new right of suffrage, there would be no material alteration in the votes of that House. Now, would the conclusion be the same, if one hundred Irish members should be added to the representation? He would answer by acknowledging, that in the estimate which he had made, he had found himself under the necessity of wholly omitting the members from Scotland." Why did he so? Because they were found to go, almost unanimously, with government. It was far from his intention to disparage the representatives of that part of Great Britain. He thought it in some measure their duty to pursue that conduct. It was so that other minor interests and local connexions acted in that House; it was so that men ever would act, who were sent, few among many, with the charge of protecting and benefitting any distinct and separate body of the people. They could only compromise with power, which they were not able to resist. They must obtain the support which they wanted, by giving that which they could themselves bestow. Would Ireland, then, be in such a situation, as would probably induce her hundred members to maintain the same general concert amoag themselves, and throw their weight into the same scale? Undoubtedly she would. Many very important regulations in commerce and revenue were to be settled, at first only for a limited period, and would return to be discussed anew from time to time in the united parliament. The representatives from Ireland would be impelled by the force of circumstances to follow in the track of those from Scotland. The latter, in his opinion, did not form a body greater than, in the present debility of all within doors and without, our attention was always called to the happy effect of the union with Scotland. But the noble lord had used that topic rather unfairly, because, while he had attributed the prosperity of Scotland during the current cen tury to her having ceased to be an independent kingdom, he had denied that the rapid prosperity of Ireland, since the year 1782, was at all to be ascribed to her having then become an independent kingdom. Dr. Laurence gave it as his opinion, that one assertion was as good as the other, and that neither of them was satisfactory. It was an old trite fallacy, long since exploded in the schools, to reason, that whatever happened after some particular event, was produced by that event. We must go much deeper into an investigation of all the circumstances attending the two countries before we can justly get to a conclusion, that the union of one with England, or the independence of the other has occasioned, what we hear of both with equal delight. the old governments, it might be useful to the public service, or at least consistent with the public safety, to leave under the influence of the crown. But would any man venture to assert, that the question would remain the same if a hundred more of a similar description were to be thrown into the number. And his alarms on this head were not a little increased when he recollected what was the influence of the crown at present in the sister kingdom, extending to many more than the proposed addition to the Commons of Great Britain. Suppose, however, that the new members should take a course contrary to all common experience of similar bodies. They were justly allowed by the chancellor of the exchequer to be of a nation distinguished for abilities. Lures too had been thrown out to their ambition by a splendid display of imperial honours and imperial power, which they might attain by those arts which lead to pre-eminence in free states. And certainly they were by no means deficient in the great popular talent of eloquence. But if they-But there was one point of view in should hereafter exercise it within these walls, in any degree corresponding with the example which they have lately given in their own proper theatre, where they continued in very animated debate for little less than the complete circle of a day and night, he was apprehensive that we might find the public business a little impeded in its progress. Put even the most favourable case; suppose them to divide on one side and the other, nearly in the same relative proportion in which English members now espouse the opposite parties; suppose them not to protract the debates with one single observation; yet would any man practically acquainted with that House deny, that the consequent differ-rough had but commenced that brilliant ence of the actual numbers in every ma jority would have a very different effect in public opinion. The House, to any purpose of a national council expressing the general will, would no longer be the same; its character would be changed; the confidence of the people would be hazarded; and a new argument, infinitely stronger than any which had yet been produced in favour of innovation, would be furnished to those, who, some honestly, and some as a pretext for worse designs, wished to alter the parliamentary constitution of these realms. In every discussion of the present measure, in all that had been said, and all that had been written to recommend it, which he would advise ministers seriously to look at the union with Scotland. We were then engaged, as we are now, in a war against the ambition of France. But then not only was the marine of the enemy crippled, his military power also was broken; he was reduced to the defence of his own territories against the victorious allies under the conduct of the illustrious Marlborough. Mr. Dundas appearing to express some dissent across the House, Dr. Laurence acknowledged that he did not come prepared for this debate, but believed himself to be correct. In 1705, when the treaty which led to the union was set on foot, though Marlbo career, which shook the throne of Louis 14th to its foundation, yet he had gained the first decisive battles which fixed the fortune of the war. Nevertheless such were the discontents and heart-burnings which the union excited in North Britain, that when the French, encouraged by their intelligence from that quarter, soon after made a feeble attempt to invade it, had they not accidentally missed the op. portunity of landing at Leith, it was confessed at the time that they would without difficulty have made themselves masters of the whole country. Compare our situation "now. No man was less inclined than himself to undervalue our late splendid victories, than which none shone Commons on the King's Message more brightly in the annals of our naval Repeated attempts had been made upon Ireland with various success; and we had every reason to believe, that those attempts would be again and again renewed. Would it not then be sound policy, while we repressed with a strong and steady hand every discontent that assumed the appearance of insurrection, at the same time to conciliate, as far as we could, the affections of the sister kingdom? Ought we not at least in common prudence to abstain from adding new discontents to those which already were too ripe? But what was the peculiar character of the present question? The agitation of it had excited, and the continuance of it would perpetuate new discontents;-discontents which began to operate in the community there, just at the very point, where the operation of the old discontents terminated. The lower classes in Ireland, it must not be concealed, were too generally disaffected from a multitude concurring causes the late rebellion had been crushed, by a junction of all the higher orders of every religious persuasion, and by the loyalty and energy of the yeomanry and other volunteer forces, whose meritorious cxertions had received a testimony no less just than eloquent in the panegyric pronounced upon them by the chancellor of the exchequer, and whose own courage alone, he had confessed, might have ultimately succeeded in repelling the dangers with which they were threatened, though after a more severe struggle, and a longer duration of confusion and slaughter. Yet they, whohad been thus highly extolled, were the Above all, he must very persons who were now more immediately disgusted. remind the House, that there existed in Ireland a powerful party, the principles of which he did not approve; and the violence of which, indeed, he considered as having had a most mischievous effect in driving the Catholic peasantry into the arms of the conspirators, yet which professed the most ardent zeal for the connexion with Great Britain, and on that connexion built their own political influence and importance ;-he alluded to what is called the Orange party. That party, however, had been the foremost, and the loudest in the cry against the union; while on the other hand, no one considerable body of Catholics, or of any other description had been gained to its support. In such a situation of that distracted country, with so decided an expression of the general sense against any union, and with such pernicious effects following from the bare mention of the measure, he, who, without going into any question of abstract competency, thought it to be peculiarly a measure, which should have in some way or other the direct or the implied concurrence of the people as well as the parliament, and who believed it to be so dangerous to our own constitution, as that under any circumstances he should approve the actual discussion of it with fear and trembling, could not hesitate to give his vote against proceeding any farther in the consideration of his majesty's message. For these reasons he should oppose the speaker's leaving the chair, for some of these reasons also he should stop there, and decline giving his voice for the preliminary resolutions, of which an hon. gentleman had given notice. He could not be supposed to object to them |