afide, at her pleasure, any incorporation of this kingdom and that of Ireland, which the wisdom and patriotism of the two Parliaments may adopt. After a Union, Ireland may again be separated from Great Britain, as England may be torn afunder from Scotland, by domestic faction and civil war, or by foreign hoftility; but they never can be disjoined by any regular act of the united Government and Legislature.

In short, it appears to me that a common Parliament, fuch as was formed on the Scotch Union, and must be in contemplation now, muft have the power of altering or repealing any of the former acts of either of the local Legiflatures, i. e. either English or Scotch, British or Irish, a power daily exercised in regard to English and Scotch acts made previous to 1707; but that fuch common Parliament cannot legitimately repeal or alter any of the fundamental and effential claufes, articles, or conditions of that treaty, by which the Union fhall be conftituted; fince the treaty authorized by each Legislature, concluded by commiffioners, and then again ratified by each Legislature, when carried into effect, will render it impoffible, upon any breach, for either party to refume its former fituation, and avail itfelf of the nullity thereby occafioned, and of course impoffible, confiftently with moral right and duty, for the united Parliament, i. e. beyond its legitimate powers, to commit fuch a breach.

Before I proceed, the Houfe will permit me to explain what may otherwise be liable to mifrepresentation or mifconftruction. Though I have denied the ftrict right of the constituent body to deliberate and decide on political quef

tions, and either to limit or extend, by fpecial commiffion and inftructions, the powers vefted by law in their reprefentatives, yet I am very clearly of opinion, that the reprefentatives does not perform his duty, or confult the true intereft of his country, who does not pay a due and respectful 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 represents (with whom he commonly has the eafieft means of communication), as well as to the opinions which prevail in general among the different claffes of his fellowfubjects. 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; still, however, the predominant fentiment will force its way to the observation and understanding of the legiflators, and will be in many, perhaps in most cases, the best and most 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 conftituted in this kingdom, taking the whole country over, will, I believe, always be found to accord with the majority of the nation itself) to select others who think more as they do on thofe fubjects of publie co which they have nearest their hearts.

concern

After all, fome may think I might have fpared the House and myself the trouble of the foregoing difcuffion, as few, very few, within these walls have gone so far as directly to maintain the general incompetence of Parliament to fuch a measure as a Union. But feveral, by expreffions of doubt and furmife, by ambiguous words, fcattered abroad at the risk of misleading the vulgar, the ill-informed, or ill-difposed, among his Majesty's fubjects in Ireland, have fet

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out with involving their opinion on this 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, such a Union as is fupposed to be intended, cannot be lawfully agreed to or carried into effect by either of the Parliaments of thofe refpective kingdoms. They affume, as the cafe I think muft be, that in the midst 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 prefent. This, it is faid, would, in effect, amount to a total furrender of the legislative authority of Ireland to Great Britain. But the conftituents of the Irish Parliament delegated to their reprefentatives the power with which they invefted them, for the purpose of exercifing, not of furrendering, those powers, for the purpose of maintaining a fupreme, independent, and exclufive Legislature for Ireland, not to enable them < to betray and destroy the independency, or rather the existence, of the Irish Legislature. This,' it is alledged, must be the cafe, if the members for Ireland are in a great difproportion to those 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 fubject their country, in that manner, to the government of a foreign Legiflature. The addition of onefixth, one-fifth, or one-fourth, to the prefent aggregate "number of British members will leave the British Parlia

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ment as exclufively fupreme over 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 unrepresented in Great Britain.'

In ftating this fort of argument, which I have endeavoured not to weaken or mifreprefent, the cafe of Scotland eemed 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 unsuccessfully, to find out fome intelligible ground of diftinction between that tranfaction and the measure now in agitation.

Ift. With regard to the fact. It is a matter of fuch acknowledged notoriety, that in questions of a local nature, or which nearly concern the northern divifion of this united kingdom, the members returned by Scotland have generally influenced the opinion and vote of the whole House of Commons, that the Gentlemen on the other fide have not been able to deny it. They have, therefore, been obliged to content themselves with the hope that this, like other circumftances relative to the Scotch Union, may be afcribed to fomething of a 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 legiflative authority over Scotland is vested in the English members, than that 513 is a larger number than 45.

2d. As

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2d. As to the conclufion, they argue, that if the furrender (as they infift on terming it) which was made by the Scotch Parliament have not vitiated the whole tranfaction, it is either because the lapse of time and long acquiescence 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 anfwer to these refinements it may be observed,

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, muft, 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, fo alfo muft 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 fhe mean to give, nor could give any thing; and the whole bufinefs refembled, on her part, what the lawyers call a nudum pactum.

Thus