fince he knew from experience, that pains would be taken to mifreprefent what he should fay, in order to place him in a light unfavourable to the people of Ireland. The infidious pains, that had been exerted on a former occafion to mifreprefent both him and other gentlemen on the fame fide of the house, had not altogether failed producing the intended effect, of making them odious in the eyes of a people, whom they loved and honoured. Difficult and dangerous as the fituation was, he could not be induced from any apprehenfions of perfonal confequence to permit a matter charged with fo much apparent danger to pafs unnoticed; at the fame time he was not infenfible of the unfavourable opinions of his fellow citizens.

He had many reafons of friendship and affection for wishing to ftand well in the eyes of the people of Ireland; and it was not his purpose to attack the claim, which they had fet up to legislative independency. They had not a friend in that houfe more warmly attached to their interests than himself. He wished to share the dangers and the alarming tendency of this bill both to the liberties of England and of Ireland, and he thought, to be filent on fuch a fubject would be tacitly to affift in taking away from the people, in order to enlarge the prerogative of the crown, in demolishing and fubverting the liberties of the fubject, in order to give the prince a means of beoming abfolute. He had been held out, he was aware, as the enemy of Ireland, and the first lord of the treafury had been declared to be the best friend of that country, though he had uniformly endeavoured to fupport the rights and liberties of the Irish, and to give them all they requefted long ago, and which the noble lord had pofitively denied them till they had armed themfelves, and then by three specific propofitions had given more to force, than he had before denied to fupplication. In better times than thefe, Mr. Fox faid, he should probably have entered upon the topic in a manner and in language widely different from that he meant to adopt, and to use on the prefent occafion. In better times than these, he fhould have talked of the fuperintending power of the British parliament over Ireland, and over every part of the British monarchy; but fuch was the miserable fituation, to which the king's fervants had reduced this country, that the queftion was of a very delicate nature indeed, and it was by no means a matter easy to be handled without disturbing what ought not to be disturbed, and without producing confequences, which every man, who wifhed well to his country, must wish to avoid. In the prefent queftion, he wifhed to fpeak and act agreeably to

the fentiments of fome of the first and best men in the parliament of Ireland. The powers of fupremacy and fuperintendency of this country over her dif tant connexions were topics, which he knew were at that time dangerous to be touched, but which had never been so at any former period of our hiftory. Ten years ago it would not have been confidered as improper or dangerous to talk on thefe topics, because then they were confidered as neceffary to the liberties and the well-being of the empire. They were not only confidered by that house in this light, but by every part of our extended empire they were allowed and acknowledged the fame. It was the weakness of administration, that had given rife to different ideas. America had never complained of these powers till her calm and fober requests were refused, and Ireland had not afferted the contrary till relief was denied, when her grievances were manifeft. But now the topics were dangerous to be touched. The weakness and the wantonness of ministers had introduced into that houfe difficulties and embarrassments, new and unprecedented, and he must yield to the disagreeable neceffity of fubmiffion. But he might fay, that if he had been speaking on this fubject ten years ago, he would have found no difficulty in faying, that the fuperintendency and fupremacy of this country was neceffary to the liberty of the empire, for many great, and, in his opinion, unanfwerable reafons, and that in particular they ought to be careful never to give out of their own hands the power of making a mutiny bill. He would have been able to have advanced various reafons for retaining this privilege, the firft and moft powerful of which would have been a reafon of apprehenfion, left at fome future moment of negligence or corruption, the parliament of Ireland, the affemblies of any of the colonies of America, or of any other of our foreign connexions, fhould be tempted or prevailed on to grant a perpetual mutiny bill. If he had advanced this argument, he knew that it would have been immediately faid of him, that he pushed fpeculation to excefs, that he was chimerical and libellous in his ideas, for that no houfe of representatives could be fo negligent or corrupt as to grant fuch a bill, and no people fo blind and fupine as to bear it. Might he not then now say this when it was not an argument of fpeculation but experience, and when the parliament of Ireland had actually granted a perpetual mutiny bill to the crown, by which they had invefted the fovereign with the power of a standing army, unlimited in point of numbers or duration. There were in the paffing of this bill, fo granted, alfo feveral circumstances of a fufpicious

nature,

nature, which implied in pretty plain language, that it was impofed upon them by the cabinet of England. It originated in the privy council of this country, and was fent over at a time, when Ireland was loud in their claim of independent legiflation. The cabinet took advantage of the heat and the inflammation of Ireland, with respect to independence, and granted them the one thing, provided they would purchase it at the price of the other. They applied to the paffions of the country; they feized on parliament in the moment of their warmth, and appealing perhaps to other paffions, than those of patriotic phrenzy, they procured the confent of parliament to this, and received a perpetual standing army, in defiance of the declaration of rights. Many of the first members of the Irish parliament were fenfible of the shock, which that bill gave at once to the libertics of Ireland and England. Mr. Grattan called upon the people of this country to ftand forward and protect the liberties of both, by preventing the dangers and effects of a law fo violent and contradictory to the conftitution. It was therefore a bufinefs, in which both nations were equally affected, and in which they ought equally to unite. It was a fpecies of confpiracy between the cabinet and that part of the people of Ireland, who, anxious for independence, were intoxicated with the idea, and inclined to purchase it at any price. A confpiracy to give a mutiny bill of their own to Ireland, in return for a grant from Ireland of a perpetual army to the crown, a thing wholly unwarranted by the constitution. It was curious and alarming, that in the Irish mutiny bill, the preamble was left out, which recited the declaration of rights. What could be the inducement of that omiffion? It contained no enacting law, and consequently was in no ways an attack on the legislative independence of Ireland. It was merely declaratory, and as the conftitution and the rights in both countries were the fame, the declaration of thofe rights was equally applicable to both. But it was found expedient to leave out the preamble, because the words, "Whereas it is illegal in the crown to keep a standing army "in times of peace," were in direct contradiction to the bill, which had been granted. The danger of the bill would appear in its full magnitude, when gentlemen reflected, that all that was neceffary now to the maintenance of a standing army in Ireland, unlimited in number and duration, was the power of the purfe. He confidered the ftatute of King William, commonly called the disbanding statute, reducing the number of troops to 12,000, and which by a late act had been raised to 15,000, to be ftill in force with refpect to this country, but it was not fo agreeable to the prefent ideas of the people of Ire

lan

land, fo that there was no power fufficiently reftrictive on minifters against maintaining in that country an army to any extent. But it might be argued, that without the power of the purfe, the power of the army was nothing. It had been the policy of Britain to keep them both in her own hands, and had granted them only for one year. As there was no responsibility in the minifters under the exifting laws, and as it was not in the power of either kingdom to bring them to a legal parliamentary conviction, the ministers, who advised the perpetual mutiny bill, were guilty of high treason. The act giving the crown a perpetual mutiny bill, in direct violation of the declaration of rights, was high treafon against the conftitution of the realm. But how could he get at the authors of the treafon in the present circumstances? It was perfectly impoffible, for there was no refponfibility to be established against them. This difficulty, had been incurred by a system of negligence and incapacity. Any other minifter would have foftened, when it could have been done with propriety; or refifted, when it could have been done with fuccefs: but the noble lord had acted contrary to every expectation. When Ireland, in a decent fober ftyle, applied to parliament for relief from restrictions, which were at once impolitic and illiberal, the noble lord attended more to the reprefentations of individual members, influenced by their conftituents, the manufacturers of trading towns, than to the unanimous call of a whole country. The minifter was obliged, on account of the American war, to court the votes of individual members, and when the gentlemen on that fide of the house had carried a decifive queftion, he came down two days afterwarwards, and refifted their anxious endeavours to redress the grievances of the Irish, when they were temperate in their requefts. The honorable gentleman then stated the powerful and the rapid effect of the refolution and the fpirit of Ireland. Their affociations had done more in a moment than all the effects of friendship in their favor. All false reasoning had vanished; all little partial motives of refiftance had ceafed; local confiderations died away inftantly, and the noble lord in the blue ribbon, who had fhewn himself the last man to listen to fupplication, was the first man to give way to force. The noble lord came down to that houfe, and by three lumping propofitions, did more for Ireland than fhe had ventured to afk: not that he blamed the noble lord for the conceffions: he had acted wifely, and had properly told the house, that commercial confiderations ought not to be taken up on a narrow illiberal fcale, but fhould be looked at as great objects.

All

All that he blamed in the noble lord was, for having done that meanly, which he might have done with grace and dignity. An army might thereafter be raifed and maintained in Ireland under that law, which, though legal in Ireland, would be illegal in England, and not be the lefs dangerous, from being illegal. Soldiers raised, enlifted, and attefted in England, might be fent to Ireland, and placed under the military law, which in one inftance at least was different from the law of England, fince it gave the king a power over them in every thing short of life and limb. Though an enemy to the dangerous influence of the crown, he was a friend to its juft prerogative; and he confidered the power vested in his majesty, of fending troops to whatever part of his dominions, that might require their affistance, a most valuable prerogative. It was on this ground, that the Earl of Chatham said, that retrenching the number of troops to be employed in Ireland, was" tearing the "mafter-feather from the eagle's wing." That bill therefore, containing different laws, became dangerous to the prerogative. Many more things he had on his mind to offer on the fubject, but he faw the impropriety of urging all that had occurred to him. He was reftrained by the consciousness, that every thing which he faid would be mifreprefented in Ireland, and that for the bafeft of purpofes. He reminded the houfe again, that the Irish mutiny bill had originated in this country, and that it had paffed under the most fufpicious and alarming circumftances. He concluded with faying, that he fhould move for the recommitment of the bill, when the prefent queftion was fettled.

Mr. T. Townshend feconded the motion.

The fecretary at war fpoke in very guarded terms of the extreme delicacy of the fubject. It had been a great object in former reigns to endeavour to induce the legiflature in Ireland to pafs a mutiny bill, which had not been accomplished till the time of Queen Anne. The objects of that bill were the raifing, paying, and due government of the army; the bill of Queen Anne went only to the first two objects, but it was a perpetual bill. In the year 1688 the firft mutiny bill was paffed in England, at which time an attempt was made to pafs a fimilar bill in Ireland, which failed. In 1692 a bill paffed the House of Lords, and was fent thither. The great lord Somers was then attorney general; and every one knows how much the attorney general has to do with Irith bills in that stage. The great authors of the Revolution were anxious, that Ireland thould have a mutiny bill of their own; and though many at

tempts