ment and consolidate, into one powerful and irresistible body, the strength of the whole empire, by a union of the two legislatures. the first, to show that Scotland must be the sufferer. "If a rich field," said one of the commissioners," lie next to a poor field, the latter must be the loser, as all The similarity of the circumstances in- the cattle would not fail to go into the duces me again to recur to the opposition, richer pasture."-After the union was efso frequently and strenuously given, to the fected, many, no doubt, did from time to proposal of a union with Scotland. In va- time come into the richer field, without, rious periods of our history attempts had however, any injury being sustained by been made to effectuate this favourite the fields from which they departed. It object, and as frequently frustrated. I appeared then, that what first induced shall shortly glance over the history of the people of England to become zeathese attempts, beginning with that of lous for, and to urge a union with ScotHenry 8th, who offered his daughter land, was, to prevent the bad effects of Mary to James 5th of Scotland, hold-party and French intrigue in that country. ing out such inducements as the Scotish king was inclined to listen to; but the plan was defeated by the intrigues of the French and the popish faction. Edward 6th of England, in pursuance of his father's design, offered himself to Mary queen of Scotland; and though it was agreed to by the parliament of that country, the interference of the same faction rendered this treaty as fruitless as the former. The plan was again renewed in the reign of James 1st; and though articles of union were agreed to by commissioners of both countries assembled at Westminster, and ratified conditionally by the Scotch parliament, yet the jealousy of the high churchmen at that time caused them to be rejected in England. The plan was again brought forward in the reign of Charles the first, but ended in some unavailing conferences amongst the commissioners appointed to manage it. In the reign of William and Mary, the proposition for a union came from the Scotch convention, and, on a recommendation from the crown, the English House of Peers passed a bill for appointing commissioners for treating of a union of the two kingdoms, which bill was thrown out by the Commons. Thus the matter rested till the reign of queen Anne, at whose accession the project also failed, through the high church influence. But some reverses in the progress of the war, and some events which took place in Scotland, made England take the alarm, and be as anxious for the accomplishment of the union, as it was before forward in rejecting it. And here I wish it to be recollected, that when propositions to this effect failed in Scotland, it always happened through French influence and French intrigue. I remember a curious simile, which was urged as an argument against the union in the reign of James What was then the situation of Scotland, now became, by various accidents, that of Ireland. France labours by every means to form a connexion in that country, and has in a great measure succeeded, as recent and unfortunate events testify: a union is proposed by Great Britain, as the surest way to put an end to this dangerous conspiracy by a consolidation of the whole powers of the empire. Those who most admire the transactions which took place in 1782, must admit, that no arrangement has yet taken place adequate to the cure of those diseases which threaten the destruction of Ireland; and those who were particularly concerned in the settlement of that degree of Irish independence alluded to, had uniformly avowed, that something farther was necessary, for the reciprocity of interests between the two countries so ardently wished for by the friends of both. If this deficiency of social compact between Great Britain and Ireland be acknowledged, as a recurrence to the proceedings of the times will verify, then it follows, that it was in the contemplation of those in power at that time to advance, as soon as convenient, to the completion of this grand principle. It is needless to state reasons, or conjectures for the delay of this final adjustment of amity: a variety of circumstances contributed to it; but I have no hesitation, Sir, in saying, that if such a plan as that intended had been discussed and confirmed by the parliaments of both countries, it is more than probable, that we should not now have to lament the acts of outrage and rebellion which have so recently convulsed and despoiled our sister-kingdom. It was this lamentable defect in the compact that excited the turbulent and obnoxious of Ireland-it was this lamentable defect that gave rise to the most dangerous passions and animosities-it, in fact, presented Ireland with more resentments to satiate, and less authority to control. While, then, we deplore the late abominable excesses, it is our duty to prevent the return of the sanguinary scenes, by a union of national interest, likely to reconcile and command the affections of the people. I again, Sir, affirm, that in any thing which has fallen from me for the purpose of elucidating my arguments, I mean to cast no imputation on the parliament of Ireland. I maintain, that with respect to the Catholics, they are under the influence of prejudice; I know, at the same time, that it is a prejudice inseparable from the nature of their situation. Attempts were made to show, that the exclusions under which the Catholics of this country laboured, did not augur well for the Catholics of Ireland, when they should come under our legislation. Here again I am at issue with gentlemen who advance this hypothesis; and I do most sincerely maintain, that a union is likely to prove advantageous to the Catholics of both countries, as under the same legislature there is every probability that, after some time, the same measure of indulgence will be equally distributed to both. The Irish will stand a chance of being soon put upon the same footing with the English; and should it ever be found prudent wholly to improve the condition of the great majority of the Irish nation, the English Catholics might expect to be no longer under any restraints. But after all, I am of opinion, there is no comparison between the state of the Catholics in the two kingdoms; for if in England considerations of policy have hitherto imposed some restrictions on the Catholics, I am fully persuaded that they do not think their interests neglected, or that any sentiments of animosity, jealousy, or discord, are entertained against them. They may, and naturally do regret the exclusions to which they are subjected; but they never, for a moment, entertain a thought that there exists against them a hostile spirit, either in the legislative or executive government of this country. Nobody will venture to assert, that such is the feeling of the Catholics of Ireland. If any Irishman should unfortunately prefer French fraternity to British liberty, I would most earnestly impress upon his mind the horrors and devastations of the continent. Should he entertain a doubt of French rapine and murder, let him cast his eyes on Brabant, Holland, Switzerland, Italy and Egypt. In these miserable countries, he would find the unparalleled effects of the fertile genius of innovation and reform; he would there find innumerable examples of a violation of faith he might there trace the agents of villany starting from one extreme of iniquity to another, scoffing and scorning justice and humanity, and, in the very face of heaven, defying divine vengeance. These are the bitter effects of French fraternity, and by which its miserable victims have been sunk in agonies of confusion and despair. Mr. Sheridan said, that the right hon. gentleman had laid great stress on the necessity of the union, from the determination of the French to use their utmost exertions for the separation of the two countries; but he denied that the measure could in the least cause the French to relax in their designs, since they had never built their hopes on the separation of the two legislatures, but had all along rested them on the discontents of the people. The right hon. gentleman had insisted on the discontents in Ireland being founded on the excluded situation of the Catholics, and had held out by way of lure, that if Ireland came under the regulation of an incorporated and imperial parliament, their situation might be altered for the better. But, unfortunately for the right hon. gentleman's argument, another part of his speech proved how little they had to expect on that head; for he had shown, that the British parliament had acted far more illiberally towards the Catholics than the parliament of Ireland had ever done. To what cause was this to be attributed? To the influence of the English councils. Can it be attributed to the Irish parliament? He denied that it could; for it was evident, during the vice-royalty of lord Fitzwilliam, that the measure had been announced as intended to be carried into effect, and that the Irish parliament had never expressed any intention of opposing it; and he had no doubt, had not that noble personage been so abruptly recalled, the measure would have passed the Irish parliament. The right hon. gentleman had said, that all he wished for was time; and on some expression of countenance, or motion of body, which had been made by him, the right hon. gentleman had inferred that he (Mr. S.) thought that time was wanted for the purposes of corruption 375] 39 GEORGE III. Debate in the Commons on the King's Message [376 or intimidation. The right hon. gentleman was right in his conjecture; he did intend to signify by the shrug, that the time wished for by the right hon. gentleman, was meant to be used for the same ends and purposes as had been effected with the duke of Hamilton, when he was bought off from his opposition, without which the Scotch union would not have taken place. The right hon. gentleman had said, he wished to treat with Ireland on equal terms; but that was not possible, surrounded as she was with English troops, and depending on the British parliament for the continuance of her commercial advantages, she could not be in a situation to give a free assent. The right hon. gentleman had, however, discovered one peculiar privilege with which Ireland had been gifted by nature, and that was, she With this exwas surrounded by the sea. traordinary advantage, however, he would advise the Irish parliament to give up the narrow and contracted sphere, in which they exercised their independence, in order to expand their views and enlarge their consequence by transplanting themselves into the imperial parliament, where they would derive so many advantages; among others the advantage of quitting a parliament where their chancellor of the exchequer was turned out for acting according to the dictates of his conscience, and of being transplanted to the imperial parliament, where they would behold a chancellor of the exchequer, whom no human power was likely to turn out of his situation. They might, perhaps, have the farther advantage of coming into an equal participation of the share in 400 millions of debt owing by this country [No, no]. After what he had many times heard of the competence and omnipotence of parliament, there was no safeguard against their breaking any compact they might enter into. The right hon. gentleman had very facetiously favoured the House with the recitals of several predictions of a lord Belhaven, in one of which he says, that mother Caledonia was stabbed by Julius Cæsar. Now lord Belhaven might have remembered that Julius Cæsar was stabbed by Brutus; and supposing that mother Caledonia was about to be stabbed by her sons, he might have confined her assassination to the stabbing of Julius Cæsar; but that he could predict that mother Caledonia would be stabbed by Julius Cæsar, was truly preposterous. From this inaccuracy, he thought he might fairly infer, that there was not much truth in the statements of the right hon. gentleman, relative to the manifesto of the pretender. The right hon. gentleman had said, that he had been obliged to strike out a part of it, which promised a repeal of the union: now he (Mr. S.) had been frequently credibly informed, that the fact was exactly the reverse. However, be this as it may, Ireland may receive all these benefits without a union; and to prove this, he had only to appeal to the rapid prosperity of the Trish commerce since she had gained her political independence. The right hon. gentleman had asserted, that the majority in the Irish parliament amounted only to five: but when that majority was contrasted with the minority of placemen, it would be found a weighty majority indeed. He then proceeded to notice what had fallen from Mr. Dundas relative to the motion made by Mr. Ponsonby, and denied that it was rejected. He contended that it was only withdrawn, and that upon the argument of, "Why press it at this moment, when it may be entirely useless? The English minister will never think of pressing this business, after he knows the decision of the Irish parliament; for the present, therefore, do not urge the question." On this the motion was withdrawn; but when the intention of the minister came to be known, it would be immediately resumed. He then came to the question of the competency of the Irish parliament, which was now agitating in every part of Ireland. If ministers deprecated the discussion, they should have chosen a less unfavourable time for bringing the project forward. He next adverted to the doctrine broached by the chancellor of the exchequer in his speech, "That it is a gross perversion of the principles of all political society, to suppose that there exists continually, in every government, a sovereignty in abeyance (as it were) on the part of the people." He was well aware, that attempts to ridicule the doctrine of that sort of sovereignty in abeyance were by no means new. Mr. Burke had, in more than one of his latter publications, attacked it with equal virulence. That principle, however, which those gentlemen treated with such contumely, which the right hon. gentleman styled a false and dangerous mockery, was in truth the foundation and security of all free governments, and most emphatically the vital principle of the British constitution. The right hon. gentleman had pronounced, with an emphasis of peculiar scorn, the words, "a sovereignty in abeyance." I thank him, said (Mr. S.) for introducing the term; it is precisely the definition I would give of this power on the part of the people-a right, not in operation, nor in assertion, until the great occasion calls it forth, but always existing in the remembrance and contemplation of the constitution-when the right hon. gentleman ridicules the appeal to this principle, on every frivolous pretence which may suit the purposes of party or faction, or when he tells us that, when the appeal is made in an extreme case, a perilous responsibility both in law and conscience attaches to those who make it, he tells us no more than what the warmest advocates for the principle in question are ready to accede to him. But it seems even if the right hon. gentleman were disposed to admit the existence of such a right in any case, he is still more decided that the people should never be told they possess such a right. This opinion Mr. S. combated as futile and evasive. Oppression might at all times, and in any government, provoke resistance, but it would be the resistance of despair, seeking for revenge and not redress. It was only where a people, instructed in their rights, met the assaults of ill-used power, with the consciousness that the justice of the cause was on their side, that resistance to tyranny could be well considered, well directed, or ultimately successful. The eternal gratitude of all freemen was therefore due to Sydney, Locke, and all who had told the people the great fundamental truth on which the revolution was built, by which it was preserved, and on which it now stands. The right hon. gentleman has declared, that, if a parliament is not competent to a union by the surrender of the trust reposed in it by its constituents, you, Mr. Speaker, and all of us here are usurpers. I tell him that if his doctrine respecting a sove reignty in abeyance on the part of the people be true, his majesty now on the throne is a usurper; the House of Brunswick have been all usurpers; the Revolution was a foul rebellion, and our present constitution an unprincipled usurpation. But, no, Sir, his majesty holding the crown by the first of all titles, the free choice of a free nation, must know the value of the principle which allows the people that choice, and the constitution never can be praised by us, their representatives, but with a grateful remembrance of that sovereignty by which it was obtained for us. Mr. Sheridan concluded, with earnestly exhorting ministers to give up the measure altogether, or at least, to take a more favourable time for proposing it. Mr. Windham said, it had been urged. as if the union were a measure proposed for the advantage of England at the expense of Ireland; whereas, in his mind, something very near the reverse of that proposition was the case; he, therefore, could not help feeling a little impatience at the manner in which it had been received in Ireland. It was so much the habit of his mind to resist all change, where things were well, that nothing but the sense of a pressing necessity could induce him to consent to the change which the present measure, if carried into effect, would occasion. It was his conviction, at the commencement of the present war, that England could get nothing by the changes which were agitating the world; and what he thought then he thought now. England had so much to lose, and so little to gain, by a union with Ireland, while, on the contrary, Ireland had so much to gain, and so little to lose, that the advantages might, in truth, be said to be all on one side; but still, the feeling of a strong necessity would induce him to forego all his abhorrence and dread of innovation, and give his assent to the proposition of a union with Ireland. The disorders of that kingdom, in his mind, were to be ascribed to various causes, but they chiefly grew out of the nature of its constitution, which, like a body distorted and misshapen, gave rise to various diseases, some of them lingering, and some of them acute, but which being inherent in its frame, no medicine could eradicate. The deformity of this constitution was its coercive form. It was like a garrison in the midst of a conquered town; a mere provisional government, which, whether it had lasted one century or three, was still a provisional government, deriving its existence, form, and power, from another state. Much of the distraction also of Ireland arose from the barbarous ignorance of its people, who were made ferocious from the animosities which existed among themselves, and which ferocity gave occasion to new restraints on the part of the government, and which again redoubled the fury of the people, so that government stood in the same relation to them, as the man did to the wolf which he had by the ears, and which he could neither hold nor let go. The constitution, and the barba rous ignorance of the people which grew out of that constitution, were the remote causes of the distractions in Ireland, but the proximate cause was undoubtedly the inoculation of French principles "That leperous distilment, whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man," that it can never enter without producing death. Unfortunately, the contamination had reached Ireland, and to its banefal influence they were to attribute the late horrible disorders of that kingdom. An ancient philosopher had said, that the people were like a sea, that the breath of demagogues could stir into commotion. If this were true, what a sea was the people of Ireland for the demagogues of France to stir! Government was charged with the imputation of corrupting the parliament of Ireland. Corruption was not a solitary vice; it required two parties to constitute the crime-the corruptor and the corrupted. Now, if it were true that the parliament of Ireland was of a nature to be corrupted, what would be the consequence of the government's abstaining? Corruption disappointed might degenerate into faction, and its tendencies ungratified might be more mischievous than if directed into the line of duty. The only remedy that he saw for the condition of Ireland was, to meliorate the state of the lower orders; and this could only be done by an infusion of British capital and British manners. How was this to be done? By giving security to those who should settle in the country; and a union bade fairer for that security, than any other measure that could be adopted. In all the late horrible distractions of Ireland, there was one thing which afforded him much consolation; and it was, that religion mixed in their rebellion. This proved satisfactorily to his mind, that the Irish were not Jacobins, and consequently that, with all their phrenzy, that they were reclaimable. Wherever we had religion, we had not pure Jacobinism. Wherever there was religion there was hope, there was a foundation to work upon; but Jacobinism was incurable. It was the loss of substance which no medicine could supply; but mere religious rage was but a wound, which skill and proper treatment might heal. He had no doubt but that, wher the present fury should have evaporated, he should see the people of Ireland as eager for the measure as they now were against it. It was not intended now to press the measure, but to show the principle so clearly, as that they should not mistake the advantages which were offered to them. He wished, therefore, to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober; he wished to appeal from the Irish, mad with independence, that is to say, independent of reason, independent of argument, to the Irish in a fit mood to examine the proposition that was offered them. The gentleman wished to postpone it until there should be a season of perfect sobriety and temper; but while the causes of irritation remained, was not this putting it off ad græcas calendas? An hon. gentleman had said, that the Irish people were not now in a state to give their assent freely; and yet they had given their dissent freely. It partook a little of the confusion of Irish logic, to say that a body which had given its dissent freely, could not give its assent with equal freedom. But this is the mode in which the hon. gentleman chooses to illustrate his doctrine by example. Gentlemen talk of the unanimity of opinion which prevails in Ireland against this measure: Sir, I by no means think that voice and opinion are synonymous terms. A dextrous party can, we know, create a cry throughout the country, when the opinion of solid, thinking people is quite the other way; and I am sure that the dispassionate people of that country are in its favour. The intention of making some proposition of this kind, has been long known, and yet it did not at first excite such a clamour. The strongest argument that has been brought against this measure is national pride; but that was not mentioned when this subject was first proposed; and, indeed, I think the advantages which belong to this measure fully balance any feeling of that kind. Many persons of sense, natives of that country, I know were in favour of the measure: they can have had no reason to change their opinions, and therefore I conclude those opinions still exist, though at present drowned in the general clamour. My right hon. friend has very fully and ably explained the situation of Scotland, and the benefits it has derived from the Union. I do not mean to say that all her prosperity has arisen from the Union; but it surely is a fair argument to say, that that |