oak tree, is flow, though gentlemen think they fee it vegetate. They have, indeed, feen wonders, but they were of another kind. They have seen their country defended againft France and Spain, when the minifter had abdicated its defence; when, after borrowing 1,203,000l. he was not able to protect them the volunteers, 50,000 freemen, at their own expence, armed and difciplined, ftood forth; the chofen men of the land approved, they gave them an example of firmnefs and moderation.* On the 13th of November, 1781, a very warm and important debate took place in the Irish Houfe of Commons refpecting the mutiny bill. Mr. Grattan made a motion for bringing in heads of a bill to explain, amend, and * What Mr. Flood faid of himself on the 10th of November, fhews how much he took to heart the lofs of his appointment: and it justified what Sir Edward Newnham, in the debate on the 8th, had remarked, lamenting, that gentlemen fhould lofe their places for acting confcientiously; but that it ever would be fo, until placemen and penfioners were by law excluded from parliament, (1 Parl. Debates, p. 47.) Mr. Flood arofe: he recapitulated what he had faid on Thursday laft, concerning the ftate of the national finances, and the ruin that must neceffarily enfue, if the fame destructive mode of running in debt was still continued. Within the last years, the country, says he, has advanced to deftruction with unexampled rapidity. The loudeft declaimer that ever made your walls re-echo, never ventured to suggest such an accumulation of debt. But if you have outgone example, if you have outgone the boldness of declamation, in your career to ruin, will any man fay, that the profperity of this country has likewife outgone the power of declamation, when the expence of your military establishment alone is equal to the whole of your revenue? Do you call this profperity? Do you call running in debt profperity? I do not now speak to retard your proceeding in bufinefs. I do not intend to divide the house upon the question; nor am at I all ambitious of applause; but I thought, and still think, that my propofal of going into a committee on the ftate of the nation, where fome mode of retrenchment might be devifed before we granted a fupply, was a moderate, a reasonable plan; and I did hope, that after twenty years experience of my condu&t, I should not be told in this house, that I was urged on by disappointed ambition. I have been gratified by almost the highest and most lucrative office that my fovereign can bestow; and the secretary knows whether ever I requested any favour of him. Is this then disappointed ambition? It cannot be supposed, that I am not fatisfied, because I am not invited to take a lead upon the treafury bench, for I do not wish to take a lead upon that bench. There is no man in the kingdom, to whom the words of disappointed ambition are lefs applicable than to me. 'Tis a hard measure indeed, if, after twenty years fervice, I meet with fuch treatment. The house can teftify, that before I entered into office, I was uniform in my defire of extricating the nation from debt; when in office, I attempted to do it even by the difagreeable expedient of propofing new taxes; and if now I am about to lose my employment, which I regret only as it deprives me of the power of ferving my fovereign, fhall I be told that I am actuated by disappointed ambition; because I do not wish, that the nation should run in debt more? My ambition has been, when out of office, not to be factious; and when in office, not to be venal. limit an act to prevent mutiny and desertion in the army;* which was feconded by Mr. Flood. On this occafion fome few of the more independent members * This great patriotic orator thus prefaced his motion (1 Parl. Deb. p. 51.) he faid, that in the 18th century, however attonithing it must appear, he rose to vindicate Magna Charta, fan&tified as it was by the authority of 600 years. He called upon gentlemen to teach British privileges to an Irish fenate. He quoted the laws of England, firft, because they were laws, fecondly, becaufe they were franchises; and they were the franchises of Irishmen as well as Englishmen. He was not come to say what was expedient, he came to demand a right; and he hoped he was speaking to men, who knew and felt their rights, and not to corrupt confciences and beggarly capacities. He begged gentlemen to tell him why, and for what reafon, the Irish nation was deprived of the British conftitution? He said, the limitation of the mutiny bill was one of the great hinges of the conftitution, and ought it then to be perpetual in Ireland? No man could doubt as to the point of right respecting the army; he would even refort to the question of neceffity. We want not an army as Great Britain does; for an army is not our protection. Was your army your protection when Sir Richard Heron told you, you must trust to God and your country? You want it not for defence. You want it not for ambition. You have no foreign dominions to preferve, and your people are amenable to law. Our duties are of a different nature. To watch with inceffant vigils the cradle of the conftitution, to rear an infant ftate, to protect a rifing trade, to fofter a growing people. We are free, we are united. Perfecution is dead. The Proteftant religion is the child of the conftitution; the Prefbyterian is the father. The Roman Catholic is not an enemy to it. We are united in one great national community. What was our fituation formerly? We were a gentry without pride, and a people without privilege, The British conftitution lay upon the ground like a giant's armour in a dwarf's cuftody. At length the nation afferted itself, and though the declaration of rights was not carried, which I propofed as a meafure fafe and innoxious; yet our fpirit made us a nation. British fupremacy fell upon the earth like a spent thunderbolt. The minifter feared to look at it. The people were fond to touch it. Yet though we have no neceffity for an army, and have afferted our freedom, we have followed that affertion by erecting martial law, and a perpetual dictator for ever. I laugh at the argument, that this law is the charter of our freedom. Is the 6th of George I. repealed? Why does not the minifter come forward and declare our rights? No, all is mystery, all is filence. Befides, the present mutiny law is defective, no enacting part, and articles of war are become the law of the land; by which there is no safety left either to England or Ireland. We have fuffered an armed prerogative to iffue out of a claim of right. Befides, the power of the purfe is given up already by the hereditary revenue, that original fin of your ancestors, which vifits you from generation to generation. This is the very alarming confideration to those, that love liberty better than the profits of office. Yet we have added the tide of power to the fink of influence, and have bid majefty to govern by either. The power of the purfe you have long loft. You have now loft the power of the fword. The queftion is, will men prefer a biennial to a perpetual mutiny bill? Will men lay their hands upon their hearts and decide the question? members of the ministerial party sided with the oppofition; the divifion being 77 for and 133 against the motion. Of this circumstance Mr. Eden took netice, by expreffing his concern to differ that day in opinion from fome gentlemen, with whom he wished and hoped in general to concur; but it was a confolation to differ on a point of mere fpeculative reafoning, and not of permanent importance. As a fervant of the public, and filling a very refponfible fituation, he was determined, at all times, to guard against the enthusiasm of the day, whatever it might be; and to preferve coolly and refpectfully the even tenor of his way, on fuch principles as feemed to be calculated for the advantage of the public. He concluded with faying, that having doubts on the foundation of the question, and no doubt of its prefent unimportance, he would refift the motion. He had found the mutiny law recently established on folemn difcuffion, and by large majorities; the execution of it had paffed immediately through his hands, almost from its commencement, and he had found it full of expediency, and void of mifchief. It was the act of a feffion, of which all within thofe walls ought to be proud, it was the act of a feffion, to which all out of those walls ought to feel reverence and gratitude. The heads of the new mutiny bill were most violently fupported by the heads of the patriotic party, and as violently oppofed by the miniftry. Much intemperate language paffed in the houfe, but the proportion on the divifion Suppofe that a company of British merchants fhould petition an English parliament to restrain your trade again, and that the requifition thould be acceded to; what would you do without any refources to fupport your rights; without a navy? You could not refift such a mandate; and every idea of coping with such tyranny would be in vain when you have refigned the sword. When two thirds of your revenue are granted in perpetuity, the power of parliament cannot preserve the free trade of the kingdom. Be affured that England will never grant to your meanness what the refuses to your virtue. In the infancy of this very act, why did not the advocates of its present form come forward, and propose it a perpetual mutiny bill? No. They knew fuch language would ill fuit the ears of parliament, as it then ftood difpofed in the public fervice. He then reforted to the other argument with regard to the unity of difcipline, &c. which having ftated, he faid, if you are competent to regulate your commerce, why not competent to regulate your own army? Commiffioners have been sent to America, to offer a branch of the British empire, in arms against the parent state, unconditional terms to tax themselves, and regulate their own army. Two of the commiffioners have been fent over to govern this kingdom. Will his excellency, or the Right Hon. gentleman his fecretary, fay, that Ireland is not entitled to the terms offered to America? That the loyal and affectionate fifter of England is not entitled to the indulgence holden out to the enemy of England, to the ally of France? It is impoffible remained remained nearly the fame; on that which took place upon this question on the 29th of November, the numbers were 66 to 146. On which occafion, juft as the queftion was about to be put, Mr. Eden rofe, and faid that he gave that interruption, not from any anxiety about the decifion, which was easy to be foreseen. It had been avowed, he faid, that the object of the bill then propofed, was fubftantially the fame as that, which had recently been negatived by a large majority: it would therefore be an unmanly and unworthy idea, if it could be fuppofed, that the house would adopt a bill under one title, which upon the fulleft difcuffion had been rejected under another. His anxiety was on another puint; he was anxious for the order of parliament, and especially when that order entrenched on the barriers of the conftitution. Where would be the end of parliamentary difcuffion and debate, if points fully agitated and decided, might be thus refumed in the fame feffion? Where would be the fafety of the conftitution, if the practice should be established, that a meafure rejected to-day upon a fair hearing, might be brought forward again to-morrow, or whenever the disappointed party on either fide of the houfe could frame a majority to carry it either by furprize or by influence? He wished for a decifion on the point of order; if however it should not be agreeable to the speaker to give that decifion, he would not urge it; but having ftated the objection, would give his negative to the question. Upon which Mr. Grattan replied. It is very odd, that the fame chorus of voices, which formerly faid, this was not a mutiny bill, fhould now admit that it is; but reft their defence on its not being like to that of England. The Right Hon. member thinks, that without a flagrant violation of the rules of parliament, he cannot now bring in the heads of a bill propofed; but I defire he will confider, that thofe heads are only to explain and amend. The Right Hon. gentleman fays, he has no anxiety as to the fate of this quef tion. I am forry he has no anxiety. I am forry he can ftate this to parliaBut is this fecurity founded in the potency of the arguments, that were used on a former night? If it be, it was not even then afferted that a perpetual mutiny bill is better than a limited one; for even then his friends gave up the principle. I have a note, a faithful record of that night's proceeding, and I find, that no man in the house faid it was better; but though it may against established form, yet I think the powerful arguments, that have been ufed should plead for another hearing. If gentlemen be not afraid that the public mind fhould receive conftitutional truths from one fide of the houfe, ment. be and and perceive the contemptible fhifts of the other fide, they will not oppose the motion. There is not a man in the houfe, but knows that it is the wish of, there is not a man but knows, that the nation will be gratified; that the nation will carry this law as it carried the octennial bill; that bill, which was debated feffion after feffion, but which at laft was conceded to the voice of the people. Mr. Flood afferted, that the example of parliament in reconfidering the absentee bill was a fufficient precedent, and should be followed. That bill, he faid, had been reconfidered, and Mr. Malone, that most experienced fenator, though before he came to the house, he had declared against the propriety of reconfideration, yet afterwards made a moft animated fpeech in favour of it; but common sense (fays he) tells us we should seldom confider any fubject fo feldom as once; why therefore, fhould we ftifle a matter of fuch importance? Do gentlemen think that fuppreffing the evidence of truth will give content? Do they think that they are of fo much confequence, that their mandate will quiet the people? I would, faid he, fpeak upon this fubject till I fell proftrate upon your floor, had I any hope of being fuccessful; but if what has already been offered fhould fail of its effect, how shall I hope to change your refolution? Upon the receipt of the melancholy news of the furrender of Lord Cornwallis's army to the French in America, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Yelverton rofe in the Houfe of Commons on the 5th of December, 1781, and thus addreffed them. *"I had determined this day to bring on a motion, which I think it my indifpenfable duty, at a proper time, to purfue; a motion of which I will never lofe fight, until a mode of legislation, utterly repugnant to the British constitution fhall be done away; but the melancholy intelligence received from America has, for the prefent, diverted my attention from that object, and turned my thoughts into another train; and I think it but decent to defer the confideration of Poyning's law, and for the prefent devote my whole * 1 Parl. Deb. p. 124. This fpeech of Mr. Yelverton is so fraught with true patriotic and conftitutional spirit, and fo pointedly appropriate to the union of the two kingdoms, that I cannot forbear calling the attention of the reader to its relevancy to the then as well as fince exifting circumftances of Ireland. faculties |