ter without responsibility; a parliament fearless of the people, from whom it did not derive its origin; a triumphant aristocracy, and a deluded nation. For eighty years of this century, the government had been the most arbitrary and oppressive of any in Europe. The treatment of the Catholics, in particular, had been brutally inhuman; and, though some of the laws against that sect had been repealed the consequences of a barbarous code were still evident. Under such a mode of administration, it was impossible to hope for love of the laws, zeal for the constitution, or attachment to the government. That pure, unsullied, unalloy ed allegiance, the vital principal of states, the only solid founda tion of legitimate rule, which would not yield to the clumsy chain of force, but was created by benefits, acknowledged by gratitude, and nourished by hope, could only be expected by a good and beneficent government from a happy and contented people. The powers of the earth would at length learn this salutary truth, that government must ever be in danger when the subject had nothing to lose.

In a country where equal law and equal liberty were unknown, the progress of French principles, to which he chiefly attributed the late rebellion, would be more rapid than in other states. An island thus misgoverned was a prepared soil for the reception of Jacobin principles; and they had flourished in it with all the growth of rank luxuriancy. He concluded a most impressive constitutional and elegant speech by declaring, that no popular delusion, no idle clamor or misrepresentation, should ever induce him to depart from what he considered as a great fundamental truth, that the best government for these countries would be one executive and one legislative, a connected people and an united parliament.

After several members had taken part in the debate, Mr Foster affirmed, that the boasted terms, instead of offering great be nefits, were replete with injury; that every point to which they tended might be as well secured by a separate parliament; that all contained the seeds of constant jealousy, and avowed distinct interests, the continuance of which they ensured, and therefore must promote separation. He entered into the detail of the proposed plan of future finance, revenue, and commerce, in which there was not one article, to which an Irish parliament was not less adequate, inasmuch as the regulation of duties and of trade between the kingdoms required a quick and ready knowledge of the local circumstances of Ireland, which could be effectually ob tained by a resident legislature alone.

As to the constitutional effects of the scheme, he observed, that the upper house created a sort of mongrel peer, half lord, half commoner, neither the one nor the other complete, and yet

Every

enough of each to remind you of the motley mixture. body knew, or should know, that by the original and uninterrupted constitution of parliament, a lord could not interfere in the election of a commoner; yet here he was not only to interfere, but might be a candidate, and might sit and act as a commoner. The twenty-eight chosen lords were to sit for life, though they were only representatives; thus counteracting one great principle, that representatives shall only act for a time limited, acknowledged by the septennial and octennial bills, and by the articles of the Scotch Union in respect to the lords. With this seat for life to the chosen lords, what was to become of the remaining peers, perhaps nearer 200 than 100 in number? They then were legislators: pass these articles, they would instantly cease to be so: they would be the only subjects in Ireland incapable of acting as legislators; a degradation ruinous to the nobility. This fatal measure of election for life would leave so little hope and so little chance, that all inducement to improvement, to education, to study the interests of his country, would be done away. It would depress the spirit, and enervate the exertions of all the rising nobility of the land. Further, by a strange sort of absurdity, the measure, in suffering him as a commoner to take a British seat, and refusing to allow him an Irish one, admitted this monstrous position, that in the country where his property, his connexions, and residence were, he should not be chosen a legislator, but where he was wholly a stranger, he might; the certain consequence of which was, that it would induce a residence of the Irish nobility in Britain, where they might be elected commoners, and must of course solicit interest; thereby increasing the number of Irish absentees, and gradually weaning the men of largest fortune from an acquaintance or a connexion with their native country.

As to the commons, this fatal Union would not be less unconstitutional. It reduced their number from 300 to 100. One great principle was, that in the House of Commons every species of property was represented, and the wisdom of the whole increased by a mixture of country gentlemen, merchants, lawyers, and men of all professions. But that measure shut the door against commercial men and against the professors of the law, who could not desert their business to attend parliament in another country.

In controverted elections the impracticability, expense, and difficulties in bringing over evidence, must necessarily leave the nomination with the sheriff.

After some other observations and several repetitions of remark, he spoke of the tendency of the measure to an augmentation of the influence of the crown; censured the unconstitutional use, to which the place bill had been perverted by the minister and his

friends, the appeal nominal, to which they had resorted against the decision of parliament, and the monstrous proposal of applying the public money to the purchase of public rights from private individuals, and finally moved for a dereliction of the project. Lord Castlereagh blamed the want of foresight in the speaker, who, without reflecting on the distractions and evils of Ireland, opposed the idea of settlement, and would leave the country open to a renewal of disorder and mischief, to a fresh gradation from jealousy to discontent, from discontent to faction, from faction to conspiracy, from conspiracy to rebellion.

Mr. William Johnson indignantly reprobated the insinuations of corrupt influence, thrown out against those who favoured the Union. The question had been forced upon them by the prevailing calamities; and he had examined it from no other motive or impulse than an anxious desire of meeting the peculiar evils of the country, which he viewed under three aspects, constitution, internal quiet, and commerce.

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After several speeches of less moment, Mr. William Smith in reply to some strictures on the proposed regulations of the peerobserved, that the alterations would not diminish the real dignity of the peers, or injure the essence of their privileges, and would materially conduce to the benefit of the country. Though only a part would be admitted to a seat in the imperial House of Lords, a great number, he said, would have an opportunity of constituting a portion of the assembly of the commons, and would thus maintain and strengthen the interests of Ireland in the united legislature. The minister carried the question by a majority of 46.

When lord Castlereagh, on the 21st of February, moved for the assent of the committee to the first article of the plan, Mr. O'Hara deprecated his obstinate persistance in the fatal measure. His lordship's avowal, that the question resolved itself into this, whether Ireland were to be a magazine of strength and resources to Great Britain, or of wealth for the grasp of France, sufficiently proved, that the object was the sacrifice of one country to the necessities of the other; an illiberal principle, which the Irish ought to resist with indignant warmth.

Mr. O'Donel, Mr. Tighe, lord Corry, Mr. W. B. Ponsonby, and Mr. J. C. Beresford were against the terms as well as the principle.

Mr. Saurin called the attention of the committee to the means by which the minister had procured his parliamentary majority, namely, the undue exercise of the patronage of the crown, promises of office and emolument, the abuse of the place bill, the project of pecuniary compensation for what was not the fair or legal subject of pecuniary estimation, and the encouragement of indi

If the

gent adventurers from the bar and the British army. nation should view the majority in such a light, on what foundation would the Union stand?

The terms he considered as refutations of the pretended excellence, and libels on the principle of the measure. Identity was promised as the grand object; yet every thing spoke distinctness. Another feature struck him in the ministerial arrangement. The general parliament, it was supposed, would be a paragon of purity and worth; yet the minister acknowledged that it ought not to be trusted; and he therefore shackled and restrained its omnipotence. Mr. Saurin conceived the measure fatal to the interests of Ireland, and disclaimed any responsibility in the calamitous consequences.

The attorney general re-asserted the necessity of an Union, which was also supported by Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Ormsby. Mr. serjeant Stanley on the same side panegyrised the British minister for boldly striking at the root, from which the disorders and calamities of Ireland had sprung, and bringing for. ward that great measure of imperial policy, which the best friends of this country had long anxiously desired rather than confidently expected.

The question was then put on the motion of adjournment, which being rejected, the first day of the following January was fixed for the commencement of the Union of the kingdoms, and the article which related to the settlement of the crown was also voted by the committee.

On the 24th of February, Mr. Shaw having warmly opposed the prosecution of the scheme, a division took place, when there appeared 56 for the speaker's leaving the chair, and 48 against it.

Some further conversations, in which nothing new occurred, took place, and in compliance with some of the petitions against the measure, several gentlemen of the law appeared at the bar to oppose various parts of the commercial scheme, and witnesses were brought forward to give evidence against it. On the 4th of March Mr. G. Ponsonby alleging, that the sovereign would not have persisted in recommending the present measure, unless he had firmly believed, that the sentiments of the public on the subject had undergone a great change, urged the house to remove so injurious a delusion by an intimation of the truth. A knowledge of the number of anti-union petitions would, he said, correct that error; and he therefore proposed an address, stating, that in conformity with the constitutional rights of the people, petitions against a legislative Union had been presented to the parliament from twenty-six counties, and from various cities and towns.

Lord Castlereagh affirmed, that the public opinion had really undergone a change friendly to the measure, and that seventy

four declarations, nineteen of which were of those counties, had been presented in its favour. Even if this were not the case, he would oppose a motion, which derogated from the deliberative power of parliament, and tended to encourage a popular interference pregnant in these critical times with danger and alarm.

Mr. Saurin and several other gentlemen of the bar maintained the constitutionality of such appeals to the people; and the lords Corry and Cole and some others supported the question, which was met by a motion for adjournment. On the opposite side spoke lord Charles Fitzgerald, Mr. Fox, Mr. Ormsby, and several other members; between seven and eight in the morning the house divided on the question of adjournment, ayes 155, noes

107.

On the 10th of March, the subject of parliamentary representation was discussed, and carried by a majority of 19.

A conversation then arose on the topic of compensation for the loss of the patronage of boroughs. Lord Castlereagh persisted in the intention of proposing a recompence, though Messrs. Plunkett and Goold inveighed with great warmth against the idea of rewarding the profligate invaders of the rights of the people, and expressed their astonishment at the shameless inconsis tency and absurdity of those who could assert the omnipotence of parliament, when the members had once been chosen by the people, yet avowed that the majority were not the fair representatives of the nation, but merely the creatures of borough pro prietors.

To disprove the assertion that Cork favoured the Union, sir John Freke presented a petition against it from eighteen hundred of the inhabitants of that city; but general Hutchinson affirmed, that this was not the sense of the majority of the traders or freemen of Cork. Colonel Longfield and Mr. May concurred in that declaration. Sir John Parnell again recommended a dissolution of the parliament, that the opinions of the people might be more certainly known; but Mr. Corry reprobated that appeal as unnecessary and imprudent.

The discussion was renewed on the 13th of March, when sir John Parnell moved in form, that the king should be addressed to convoke a new parliament before any final arrangement of Union should be adopted. Mr. A. Moore seconded this proposal as wise and honest; and sir Laurence Parsons, though sensible of the great influence of the crown in the choice of members, declared his willingness to put the fate of the question on the elec tion of a new parliament. Mr. Alexander opposed the motion; but major Osborne was zealous in its support, as was also Mr. Saurin, who urged the expediency of attending to the sense of the nation, and maintained, that if laws should be enacted in op