as I have seen defcribed would be indeed unfeasonable, and, I will add, wholely inadmiffible; but fuch a bill as this, is not the way to defeat it. You remember a much more formidable convention than this fuppofed one of Athlone, a convention of armed men representing the volunteer army; fitting at the Rotunda with a guard, and preparing plans for parliament: fome of the friends of this bill, members of this House, were deputies of that convention; accepted delegation, fat and voted, and whatever evil was incurred, had a full fhare in it. But how did the then Attorney General act, did he alter the conftitution under pretence of defending it; did he make use of popular exceffes to abridge the liberty of the subject; did he give an opinion contrary to law, and then get parliament to give an influenced judgment in fupport of it, and invade the conftitution under pretence of declaring the law? No; when the convention attempted to act, he framed a refolution, which purported the defence of the constitution against all encroachment: the confequence was the convention dif perfed, and the conftitution ftood unaltered and unimpaired -unimpaired either by the encroachment of a convention, or of a convention bill. In the prefent cafe the prorogation of parliament cannot interfere, unless government prefers a long prorogation; and fure I am that if fuch a thing as the defcribed convention is to take place, it were much better to meet it with the precedent I have mentioned than with this bill; but it is evident no fuch thing is now apprehended: the spirit of the people does not beat high, and because the fpirit is not high this bill is brought forward. The friends of the bill have feifed the opportunity of public panic, which certain exceffes have excited: I condemn both-the exceffes and the remedy; instead of either I am for the conftitution of England.

He

He then moved, "that the bill be read a fecond time on the ninth of September next."

The Attorney General opposed the motion-He faid, that if he had had any doubts on his mind of the truth of the declaration in the preamble, as to the illegality of the affemblies defcribed by the bill, the right honourable gentleman himself had removed them, by contradicting the opinion he had at first laid down fo pofitively; for he had faid that a meeting, fuch as had been described, fhould be withstood, and he knew the right honourable gentleman's principles and his love for the conftitution too well, to fuppofe he would have an affembly withftood which was not illegal. He denied that the bill had any retrospect particularly to the Catholic convention; it originated merely from a profeffed defign to call a convention, to represent the people and overturn the parliament. He alluded to the fociety of United Irifhmen, whofe agitations had greatly disturbed the city and deftroyed public credit. He mentioned the late meeting at Dungannon as a confequence of the invitations of this fociety; and preparatory only to a general meeting at Athlone in the course of the fummer. He declared it, as his well-weighed opinion, that fuch an affembly was unlawful. As to the authorities that had been adduced to prove it was not, he observed, that they had not been rightly understood; for that in Hawkins' nothing more was neceffary to conftitute an unlawful affembly, but that they were attended with circumftances of terror, whether armed or not. He had been called on for adjudication or statute to prove the illegality. He faid, things might be unlawful against which no statute nor adjudication exifts. Otherwife precedents of abjudication could never have been had. This, of representative affemblies diftinct from parliament, he thought was one of thofe. For a reprefentative affembly fuperior to, or even

co-ordinate

co-ordinate with, parliament, was, he was convinced. already against the principles of the conftitution. The principle of the bill, therefore, must be good; as to any imperfection in the clauses it might be corrected in a committee. The right honourable gentleman mifconceived the bill if he fuppofed it went to prevent all deputation; if there was any thing of that tendency in the bill, he would agree to its correction in a committee: it went only to prevent affemblies purporting to be the general reprefentatives of the people, not representation for any pre-conceived object.

The right of petitioning was not effected by the bill; that right, however, could not be exercised by delegation; cach individual knows his own grievance, and muft petition for himself. The people could not elect delegates for the purpose of confidering whether an object fhould be petitioned for, or not-whether the law was already what the preamble of the bill declared it or not, was of little importance; the queftion was, whether fuch ought to be the law or not. If the house believed that fuch a convention was intended, they should confider well whether it ought not to be prevented before it be too late.-The bill appeared to him a good mode of providing against that meeting, and until the right honourable gentleman fhould point out fome better one, the bill should meet his approbation.The right honourable gentleman had faid that the bill was intended to prevent a reform, and that it would make one neceffary: he folemnly declared he knew no object of the bill but one-that was, to prevent this threatened convention, which, from a late publication from the United Irishmen, appeared by its mode of election to be still more dangerous than it had appeared hitherto. It was to obviate this danger, only, that the noble peer had introduced this bill into the other Houfe; he was confident that fo small an

object

object as reform had not on this occafion been at all in his mind. The right honourable gentleman had argued from the revolution of 1688, and afferted that if fuch a bill as this had existed, any fuch revolution could never have been accomplished.-For his part, he hoped there would no more be occafion for any fuch: he admired it however, no man more, as the foundation of our liberties.-The bill, he contended, could not have the effect that the right honourable gentleman wished to attribute to it. The crifis for fuch an event, as the convention in 1688, are extremes which no law can have reference to: and he thought it worth obferving, that even the convention in 1688 was itself indemnified by a fubfequent act of parliament, à circumftance from which if any thing can be drawn, it is an argument against the legality even of that fingular affembly,

Mr. Hardy fupported the motion: He declared himself no friend to conventions: they must indubitably produce one of two effects; either they muft degrade parliament, or they must exhaust the strength of the people, and deprive them of that conftitutional energy which they ought to exert at proper occafions.

He entered into a fhort view of the different conventions that have met in Ireland within a few years, and fhewed, that where they attempted to dictate to parliament, parliament was enabled to disperse them with eafe, aa was the cafe of 1783; when their propofitions were founded in reafon, and parliament made reafonable conceffions, then they dispersed themfelves, as the late Roman Catholic

convention.

He thought parliament did not think ought of itself, if it did not depend for fupport rather on the many popular acts

of

of this feffion, than on one folitary law; they paid a bad compliment to the heads and hearts of their countrymen, if they did not believe that they would rather fit down contented participators of an amended conftitution, than become the dupes of knaves and fools. If the people were fo fenfeless, the bill might go back to the Lords with all his heart, for he knew not what would fatisfy them or prevent their ruin.

The question on Mr. Grattan's motion being put, the numbers were,

Ayes

Npes

27

128

Majority

ΙΟΙ

on

On July the 18, 1793, the bill being again proceeded

Mr. Grattan faid, he intended to move that it be an inftruction on the committee to receive a claufe to limit the duration of this act. If gentlemen would agree to this, he fhould make his particular objections in the committee.

The Attorney General faid, he could by no means a gree to the introduction of fuch a clause confiftently with his arguments of yesterday, namely, that the bill was only declaratory of what was already the law of the land.

Mr. Grattan-I put a queftion to the learned gentlemen -are the two circumstances of delegation and public concernment fufficient to constitute an unlawful affembly, except that affembly be the House of Commons? or in other words, must any delegation of any description of his Majef

ty's