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observing, that it was not regular to go into the specific Resolutions, as they were not before the House, Dr. L. said, he was aware of the irregularity, but it was difficult not to allude to them, when so much had been said on the other side, of the happy consequences to be derived from these parts of the proposed adjustment. This he only offered in apology, and should dismiss the topic.

On the other hand, the mischiefs of keeping this question still suspended over the heads of the Irish nation, was no matter of speculation, but of melancholy experience. Since the Resolutions had been

wished to have all remaining disabilities | either of these heads. The Speaker here removed, the chief of which was, their exclusion from parliament: would it conciliate them to stipulate for the continuance of that exclusion, by continuing the old oath of supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation? Would they be quite easy under this stipulation, from observing that it was to remain in force only until the united parliament should otherwise provide; when they should find in the authoritative explanation of the Resolutions, published to the world, not in a newspaper report, but in a kind of half-official form, that all is to be left in studied ambiguity; that the right hon. gentleman declines" to anticipate the dis-opened, what intelligence had arrived? cussion, and even the propriety of agitating the question at all, or saying how soon or how late it may be fit to discuss it?" On the other hand, could even that little opening for the future admission of the Catholic claims, be supposed much to gratify the violent Orange party, and High Protestant-ascendancy-men ? A general cry had been endeavoured to be spread among all ranks, that British influence was the source of all Irish calamity: would the country be disabused and quieted, by being told from Great Britain that they ought to be governed in future by a legislature, in effect British? The great body of the peasantry, for the most part both of native Irish-birth and Papists, felt an old antipathy to the name of Sassena; it signifies at once English settler and Protestant; it sounds to their ears as conqueror and spoiler, persecutor and heretic; and too great reason had they for much of their horror at the sound. Would they be delighted when it should be interpreted to them, that the name was from henceforth to become their own? Was there any thing in the whole conception of the measure which could soften, and in time gradually wear away, their inveterate prejudices? Were the two nations, as in the Union with Scotland, to assume a new name, indifferent alike to both? Were we together to form, as he had supposed it naturally would have been, the United Kingdom of the Britannic Isles? No; but perhaps, in compliment to an Irish figure of speech, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. If the latter Resolutions were examined, with regard to commerce and finance, what was there to satisfy any man in Ireland, that the final modification of the details would leave him any security on

The administration of justice, for the present, had ceased; there was a sort of civil rebellion in the profession of the law, which, on occasion of the late armed rebellion, had set an illustrious example of loyalty, zeal, energy, and perseverance, to the whole yeomanry of the kingdom. In parliament, impeachments had been mentioned on one side, and on the other a very indiscreet menace had been thrown forth, of removing the session to Cork. The dismissals had been confirmed, and others had followed for the same offence, of too much attachment to the constitution of Ireland. A new opposition must in consequence be formed from those who were most devoted to government, while not a single man would be gained from the adverse ranks. But the most striking fact was, the use which had been made of the right hon. gentleman's speech on his majesty's message. All knew, from the late Reports of the Irish Lords and Commons, and they who had attended to the progress of the conspiracy had before known, the fertility and audacity of the seditious and treasonable libellers in that country, far beyond all competition of the most criminal productions that have issued from our own press. But all their Jacobin emissaries and agitators had for the present suspended their labours. They, whom the right hon. gentleman had truly described as cunning in mischief, had judged his speech more inflammatory, more injurious to the cause of Great Britain, more favourable to their own views of discontent, confusion, and separation, than any thing which their inventions could supply, and were at that moment busy in spreading its fame as widely as the author could desire. What had been the effect of the sequel, which ushered in the

Resolutions, and of the plan itself, as far as it was there contained, had not hitherto reached us; but for his own part, he was afraid that many of the arguments, both from immediate necessity and permanent expediency, would tend to fix a lasting impression on the minds of the Irish nation, that it was become the unalterable policy of the present ministry, sooner or later, in some way or other, by persuasion, intrigue, or intimidation, to lead, to inveigle, or to compel them, into a union with Great Britain. Would it not then, at least, be the extreme of rashness, without any one public object, to precipitate a decision, under the present circumstances of the two countries, before any intelligence had arrived of the temper and feeling with which the first developement of the measure itself had been received?

But there was one evil, above all others, of a magnitude that filled him with alarm, and which must ever spring from the unadvised agitation of such a question: it directly pushed men upon inquiries into the competence of parliaments, under the constitution of these realms, and the abstract rights of the people under the fundamental laws of civil society. This consequence followed, even from the proposal of a union with Scotland, among a more sober-minded people, and in a less speculative age. The present times were marked with a propensity to such dangerous theories. That itch was the first symptom of the epidemic that raged throughout Europe. It had become a running sore, into which all the foul humours of the body discharged themselves. What physician, then, of sound judgment, would venture, without the greatest precaution, on a prescription that must produce a new derivation to the diseased part; and how was it less imprudent for a statesman, in an hour of heat and inflammation, to create a new occasion for discussions, with which untutored minds could not safely be trusted in their coolest moments? Assemblies of a very different kind from public meetings of counties, cities, and towns, could not touch on these subjects, but at the risk of other points being mooted, no less important than delicate; and the doctrines which had been advanced on the other side of the House, against the sovereignty of the people, had drawn on, with some who stood on the same side with himself, a controversy concerning the principles of that Revolution on which depended his [VOL. XXXIV.]

majesty's title to his crown. For my own part, declared Dr. L., I have no hesitation in saying, that I will ever maintain the legal competence of the legislature, as possessing the supreme collective power of the state, to do whatever it may conscientiously think most conducive to the general good of the whole. I cannot distinguish in principle between our right to sanction, as we often have done, a treaty of peace, which should cede the smallest island in the West Indies, without consulting not only the local legislature, but every individual planter, and the people of Great Britain, who have all an interest in every inch of his majesty's dominions, as well as of this island, and our right to surrender our independence, if I could for an instant suppose, which God forbid, that such were the exigency of our situation: neither can I see why we should not do, to better our situation, whatever we might do to avoid a greater evil. Not meaning to bind myself to every word, or every phrase, I do generally agree also with those on the other side of the House, in their understanding of our own Revolution; but I choose rather to draw my notions of that glorious and happy event, from the fountain-head of authority:Our great deliverer, king William himself, with the assistance of lord Somers and his other ministers, recorded the motives and principles of his own actions. It was in a memorial designed to have been presented at Ryswick; but Europe required from him no such explanation. It remains, however, a venerable document for the instruction of posterity. On what, then, did the illustrious actors in the Revolution expressly ground the justification of all which they had done? On the sovereignty of the people? No; but on the nature of our limited monarchy, under the peculiar constitution and laws of this kingdom. It was the proximity of William to the throne, they observed, which was the cause of his interposing-but for what end? That alone of" endeavouring to bring things back to their ancient channel." It was James's desertion of the kingdom, and his having recourse to a foreign and hostile power, that made it necessary for his subjects to see to their own safety, "which," it is added, "they did, by continuing the ancient government, with no other interruption than what their present circumstances made unavoidable." But the whole subject is summed up by those truly-wise statesmen [2 F]

in a masterly style, every word of which, in these days of wild doctrines, should be engraven on the hearts of Englishmen. It seems as if they had, with a divine spirit, foreseen the sophistries of later times, and wished thus to enter their eternal protest against them. "Nothing," say they, "was done in the progress of the whole Revolu tion but that which the late king made inevitable by some act or other of his own. It went not upon false suggestions, nor barely upon the pretences of redressing particular grievances, or some doubtful oppressions, much less on the ambitious designs of his majesty, that are so often, and so maliciously, represented as the true causes of the Revolution. It was the late king's openly throwing off the restraints of law, and his setting about a total subversion of the constitution, that drove the nation to extreme courses. The oaths of allegiance can be understood only in the sense limited by law, and so they cannot be conceived to bind subjects to a king, who would not govern them any longer, unless he might be allowed to do it against law. A revolution, so brought about, carries in it no precedent against the security of government, or the peace of mankind. That which an absolute necessity enforced at one time, can be no warrant for irregular proceedings at any other time, unless it be where the like necessity shall require the like remedies."

This Sir, is my political creed with regard to the revolution, and this consecrated text speaks more forcibly home to my conviction than the most subtle and elegant comment. Fearing to lose myself in metaphysical refinements, I shall ever content myself with holding fast this simplicity of the ancient faith. Yet. fixed as are my opinions on these points, I cannot, with my hon. and learned friend, rejoice that they have found their way into these debates. Unfortunately, the practical argument for the competence of parliament, which he so much admires, and which is drawn from the union with Scotland, and all that has been done under it, has no solid foundation in fact. The parliament which surrendered the independence of that kingdom was expressly summoned to treat, to consult upon, to conclude a union with England. Neither can I share his exultation in the probable weight which our decision will have in favour of our own competency. They who give judgment in their own cause in behalf of their own rights, are always

liable to suspicion: they must seldom, indeed, hope to satisfy those who think their own rights invaded by the sentence. My right hon. friend who spoke last, treated with much more pleasantry than I can venture to follow, the high authorities which had denied our competency. If we believe him, they are no more than the confessed traitors, Dr. M'Nevin, and the diplomatic Mr. Lewins, envoy from the united Irishmen to the French republic; and to them he opposes the Speaker, and the late chancellor of the exchequer in Ireland. He forgets, however, the addresses to which Mr. Foster and sir John Parnell answered. In them, and in too many other similar addresses which I have seen, the competency of parliament is distinctly and strenuously denied, and it is, Sir, by authorities such as those, that I am most concerned to find such doctrines recognized; by popular meetings, which judging, as all large assemblies ever must, from feeling rather than from reason, propagate eagerly what they have hastily adopted, and quickly communicate their opinions and their passions to all within the wide sphere of their influence.

He then passed to the mode of proceeding on the present occasion. He wished that in this, as in all other respects, we should look back to the wisdom of our ancestors: for he thought, that by deviating from their track, we had wandered into a course by which we could never arrive at the goal. In every similar instance of old, the business had been prepared and matured by commissioners on one side and the other, men of name for rank, for talents and for integrity, who while they came to the arduous work with a serious disposition to remove all obstacles, yet saw the eyes of their country upon them, and felt the full obligation of the duty which they had to discharge. These met and conferred-they discussed their mutual objections with temper, and they sought, not the triumph of debate, but equitable accommodation. It was thus, that before the accomplishment of a union with Scotland, the measure was three times under treaty, and three times failed. But in every treaty the commissioners made some new advance, and on every rupture parted without irritation and animosity. It was thus, too, that the farther arrangements, whatever they were, which were intended in 1782, were to have been primarily settled and adjusted. But in what manner was this proceeding con

ducted. The project of a union was ushered into the world by a pamphlet, to the author of which (Mr. Cooke) if ministers did not advise his majesty to show some signal mark of his displeasure, he should always think that they had been culpably negligent in their duty; for never had he seen a publication so profligate in its principle and so desperate in its policy. It was profligate in principle because it aimed to intimidate all parties, to cajole all parties, to divide and distract the country by setting up one local interest against another, and to disgust every man in Ireland with the whole frame of the constitution, and the whole system of the government under which he lived; desperate in policy, because if the measure which it meant to recommend, should ultimately fail, there could not arise any faction, that would not in that record, find admissions of all that for years had been made the subject of popular clamour. The parliament is there represented as formed, in its very essence, for the exclusion of the Catholics from the state, as containing very little actual or virtual representation of the Protestant Dissenters, who are nearly two-thirds of the Protestants of that kingdom, and as being in practice, little more than a market for the abilities of lawyers. The clergy are reverently described as so sensible to the interests of the church, that they may safely be left to their usual discernment. The administration of justice is libelled by the decent insinuation that the bench and the bar need a new infusion of learning from our courts. It is allowed, that the government has been a uniform system of state partiality, that is, of oppression, against the Catholics, who are comforted, however, with the hope of final relief from a united parliament, but which the Protestants are assured, in the very next sentence, will never repeal the laws that stand in the way of that relief. It is hinted to the former, with all possible good faith, that if the union should not pass, they may be stript of all the favours which have recently been granted to them; and the latter are plainly told, that if they do not support the union, there is nothing to prevent government from making up matters with the Catholics, which it was just before said, would be no less than a total overthrow of the constitution. And for all the miseries and injuries of the sister kingdom, which have been so liberally admitted, Great Britain

dreadful

is made responsible, and a responsibility it is before the world and God. In the British cabinet, it is said, are the Irish councils framed; by a British lord lieutenant is the patronage of the crown distributed, in the manner that we all know; and to British influence is the Irish parliament subject. He did not himself believe that charge against ministers. If he were to be their accuser, his crimination of them would be of an opposite kind; it would rather be for abdicating the government of Ireland. While the flame which this firebrand had kindled, was still burning, parliament assembled. Who then could wonder at the fate which the attempt to introduce the measure there, experienced? Grant, nevertheless, that it had been suffered to be opened in detail, such a negotiation could never be successfully begun and brought to an issue by two parliaments. Such public bodies could not approach each other; could not search amicably together to find facilities and compromises; could not discuss the several points, each within its own bosom, without the probability of much internal violence and acrimony: there was hardly a forcible or a brilliant expression, that conld be employed in one, to lend energy or beauty to an argument or a declamation, which might not be perverted to scatter discord in the other. To court popular favour in each country, what is adverse must be in a great degree concealed, and that which seemed to be all bounty, must come back again clogged with conditions, the more unpalatable, as they were unexpected. It was thus that the commercial propositions of 1785 fell to the ground. After they were returned amended from this country, the minister of that never dared to show them in the Irish House of Commons which had originally past them. brought in a bill, which he professed to be founded on their old resolutions, and even that he was compelled to abandon. In a treaty so managed, where, at every successive stage, the hopes and wishes of a nation were excited with a certainty of being disappointed, there would always be an appearance of duplicity. He was convinced it never would succeed in any great question involved in detail. If he were the warmest friend to the measure, he would entreat the right hon. gentleman to stop where he was, and to propose that the House should simply declare and sig. nify to his majesty, that they were willing to nominate commissioners whenever

He

Ireland would do the same, for the purpose of consulting on the terms of a union between the sister kingdoms.

The secretary of state the other night had paid him a very flattering attention, for which he should have made his immediate acknowledgments, had he not been prevented by the rising of an hon. gentleman (Mr. Sheridan) from whom the House would always receive much more entertainment and instruction than from himself. To convince his scepticism, as it was called, the right hon. secretary had not only shown the present prosperity of Scotland, by a bundle of papers which every man heard with pleasure, and no man was inclined to deny; but he also, recollecting perhaps one of the strongest arguments against a worse kind of scepticism, edified the House by a complete dissertation on the greater and the lesser prophets. At the same time, Dr. L. said, he trusted that the House would not expect him to follow that right hon. gentleman through all the prophecies, from the melancholy, but happily baseless visions of lord Belhaven, and the clearer second sight of Mr. Seaton, up to the perfection of inspiration in a speech from the throne. It did not require a nice examination of lord Belhaven's beautiful oratory to satisfy him, that on such a subject there might be much splendid eloquence, where there was little solid wisdom; and he much doubted whether the prediction which had been quoted with so much applause, from one of the then English commissioners, was really any prediction at all, or indeed any thing more than a bad argument and unjust pretence. He could not contend in such erudition against the national advantages of the right hon. secretary; only he must take leave to declare, that he still thought he had acted candidly in setting off the argument drawn from the prosperity of Scotland since the Union, and that his scepticism as to the cause was in no degree removed by the bare statement, conclusive as it had been to the fact. The right hon gentle. man might as well take credit for the benefits which Great Britain had enjoyed from the American war, because since that event her commerce had been doubled. -Into the other purpose to which the union with Scotland had been applied, he must enter a little more at large, for a misapprehension in the particular to which he alluded might beget incalculable evil. ile had, on a former occasion, cautioned

the House against risking the consequences of pressing forward a union, even if it could be carried by a small majority in parliament, against the general wishes of the people, and in the face of a powerful, enterprizing and desperate enemy. With this view, he pointed to the dangers which had followed in Scotland, even amidst the victories of Marlborough's glorious campaigns on the continent, and he contrasted our successes then, with our situation now;-a situation though not of despondence, yet certainly not of exultation, nor yet even of established security. The right hon. secretary then, in a friendly manner, signified his dissent across the House, and he had paid the deference which he owed to such an authority, especially on the History of the North. What therefore was his surprise, on recurring to that history, to find himself more than confirmed in all which he had advanced? And he conjectured that the right hon. gentleman had made the same discovery, for he had shifted his ground. He had said, that the union must be referred to the commencement of the treaty in 1702, and then the allies were unsuccessful. The period of that commencement, however, had nothing to do (Dr. L. observed) with his view of the subject. But in truth the treaty of 1702 was undertaken before the British army had reached the continent, and soon after the allies had opened the first campaign with the capture of several towns and forts. That treaty totally failed; and new circumstances, under a new administration, gave rise to the more fortunate negotiation of 1705, the first overture to which had been voted in the House, after the decisive battle of Blenheim, and at the very moment when they had before them the Queen's message, desiring their concurrence in bestowing some signal and permanent reward on the duke of Marlborough. We must not delude ourselves with the hope, that because the union with Scotland succeeded against much popular clamour, we might now, with a certainty of a like happy issue, disregard the discontents of the Irish nation. There was hardly any thing common to the two measures except the name. Did the same necessity exist? No. He had before described the actual connexion of Great Britain and Ireland. Was there any such connexion between the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland? Nothing like it. The two crowns were joined by distinct titles. The acts of the Scottish

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