could not think without horror of the provincial defpotifm which would fucceed the prefent government of Ireland; and he exhorted Britain to beware of the formidable precedent of uncontrolled power holding five millions of people in chains. He ridiculed the various pretences for the measure, as illfounded and abfurd; afferted the full fufficiency and fuperior qualifications of the Irish parliament for every purpose of juft and equitable government; and concluded a very long and impreffive difcourfe with an appeal to the spirit of 1782, and to the protecting care of Providence for the prefervation of his country. When Mr. Prendergaft had spoken in favor of an union, Mr. J. M. O'Donnel declared that he oppofed it because he confidered it as ruinous and difgraceful, because he knew the foul means which had been practifed to carry it into effect, and because he did not conceive that the parliament had a right to facrifice the conftitution of the country. Mr. Ofborne reprefented the inefficacy of the fettlement of 1782, and the rifque of feparation, as ftrong grounds for a legislative union. Mr. Hardy spoke against the Union;* as did alfo Mr. Arthur Moore. He condemned the minifterial practices of corruption and intimidation, the wicked and unconftitutional means to which the government had reforted, in order to impose upon the country, deftroy the parliament, and overturn the conftitution. If the meafure fhould be carried under all the circumstances he had alluded to, it would be a robbery, and not a treaty; an act of constraint and violence, not of compact and volition; a conqueft, not an Union. An Union formed upon fuch principles, and accomplished by fuch means, policy never could require, juftice never could fanctify, wifdom never approve, "his affertion in fo many words in his fpeech.-Ireland, says he, has been always treated with injustice and illiberality.-Ireland, fays Junius, has been uniformly plundered and oppreffed. This " is not the flander of Junius, or the candor of Mr. Pitt; it is hiftory. For centuries has the Bri"tish nation and parliament kept you down; fhackled your commerce; paralyfed your exertions; despised your character; and ridiculed your pretenfions to any privileges commercial or con"stitutional. She never conceded a point to you which she could avoid, or granted a favor which "was not reluctantly diftilled. They have been all wrung from her, like drops of her heart's blood, "and you are not in poffeffion of a single bleffing, except those which you derive from God, that "has not been either purchased or extorted by the virtue of your own parliament from the illibe "rality of England." * This gentleman as well as Mr. O'Donnel denied the affertion made from the treasury bench, that nineteen counties had petitioned for the Union. patriotifm patriotifm never reconcile, time never cement, force never eftablifh. It might be an Union for a few days, a few months, perhaps for a few years; but it would be followed by ages of ill blood, generations of hoftility, centuries of conteft and defolation, and mifery to that ifland to all eternity. It would be an Union founded on the violation of public faith, erected on national degradation, equally fubverfive of the moral, phyfical, and political fitness of things, and equally odious and abominable in the fight of God and man. Sir John Parnell faid, that he would fupport the amendment for the purpofe of preventing those disturbances and that feparation from Great Britain, which fome gentlemen had accufed the Anti-unionifts of promoting. Sir John Blaquiere recommended an Union chiefly for the convenience of Great Britain, which was now obliged, by the distractions and divisions of Ireland, to employ for her internal fafety a force, that might be more beneficially used in fupport of the general interefts of the empire. Dr. Browne had become more inclined to an Union than he had been in the preceding feffion, because he thought it more neceffary from intermediate circumftances. After the fcenes which he had witneffed in that country during the rebellion, and for fome time after, he exprefsly declared to fome very refpectable and dignified friends, who well remembered it, that he thought fuch an Union under the then exifting circumftances defirable, and he never did at any time fhew the heat and fury upon the fubject, which other men had done. The difpofition of the college in general was against it; but was fo far from being universal, that nearly half of the governing part of the fociety favoured it. And fome of them had faid, they would never vote for the man who oppofed the Union. It did not feem to him a good method of promoting the Union, to perfecute every man with calumny and abufe, who faid, that he thought they ought to hear what England propofed, even though he refted that opinion merely on his notion of its propriety. If oppofition to the Union proceeded from love of the nation, he refpected it; if from regard to individual power, or perfonal aggrandizement, he concerned not himself about it. Had he feen after the rejection of the Union last year any measures brought forward to conciliate the people, or to heal the diftractions of the country; had he feen any revivifcence of that fpirit, which produced the conftitution of 1782, coming forward to preferve it, he fhould not have liftened to propofals of Union. But for gentlemen to suppose, that if parliament did not fupport support itself, it could be fupported; to fuppofe that without domeftic virtue, the nation would trouble itself about its existence, was abfurd. The truth was, apathy had gone through the nation upon the subject; in 1782, the idea of an Union could not have been brought forward; in 1785, it could not have been brought forward; why could it then? Because then the parliament had the warm affections of the nation, and now it had not. The method of preventing Union was not by rebellion, nor by Orange fystems: nor by looking for, republics, nor by holding up every man as a rebel, who difapproved of particular measures; it should have been by regular obedience to the laws, and conftitutional parliamentary oppofition to the propofed measure. up The measures of laft feffion to which he had alluded particularly, were the rebellion bill and the Fitzgerald bill. The firft, which he knew was rather forced upon the government than fought for by it, and which therefore was not imputable to the executive power, enabled any petty officer to take any person on the vague charge of affifting the rebellion, on his mere fufpicion founded on any foolish word or indifcreet trifling action, try him, and execute him, without the poffibility of appeal to any other tribunal. This law ftill exifted. Why did they not feel it? Why not know it? Why were they ignorant that they lived under fuch power? Because the wisdom, the prudence, the temper, the humanity, the goodness of the chief governor prevented it; he could not forget, that he lived under fuch law; he could not forget that the parliament, while it contended against the ademption of its rights, voluntarily relinquished them all, or that to-morrow a hot, or impudent, or weak fucceffor might make them feel this unbounded power in its excess. The other, which he called the Fitzgerald bill, made for a particular instance, as it was thought it would, fcreened the greatest outrage upon private innocence that was ever known. To his certain knowledge, no measure ever fo much promoted the Union, nor made fo many converts among the dif paffionate viewers of their conduct in England, and that country. The abufe upon that occafion neither tended to peace, nor was true; he had found in England, and fo he faid a year ago to his conftituents, more coolness, more kind difpofition to their country than among the fons of Ireland, and to reprefent it as always hoftile evidently tended to feparation. Mr. Plunket in a very long and animated fpeech reflected feverely on Dr. Browne's change of opinion. He went over the old field of argument; traced the the proceedings of the government from the first mention of the fcheme, cenfured both the meafure and the means; and earneftly exhorted the miniftry not to offer violence to the fettled principles or fhake the fettled loyalty of the country. The prime ferjeant took notice of the arts, which had been practifed by the Anti-union faction, to delude and inflame the people. He accused the leaders of that party of having reforted to the usual auxiliaries of a bad caufe— virulence, mifreprefentation, clamor, and fedition. He then appealed to the well-meaning and highly-refpectable gentlemen, who had oppofed the Union from a fincere opinion of its impolicy, whether it were just or candid to cooperate with the faction in preventing a cool difcuffion of the measure. As a great proportion of the kingdom had declared in its favor, he thought it the duty of the reprefentatives of the people to give it a fair investigation. Mr. Barrington, by ferious reflection, was confirmed in his opinion that a revolutionary measure arifing from the afhes of a rebellion, and grounded on the distractions of a nation, could not be permanent; and he dreaded the ultimate lofs of British connexion from the pertinacity of thofe minifters, who wifhed to deprive Ireland of her independence. Sir John Macartney and Mr. Egan fupported, and Mr. Luke Fox oppofed the amendment. Mr. Grattan entered the house between Mr. William B. Ponfonby and Mr. Arthur Moore, whilst Mr. Egan was on his legs actually referring to the constitution of 1782. The re-appearance in parliament of the founder of that conftitution at that critical moment and under thofe awful circumftances, electrified the house and galleries with an indefcribable emotion of terrific joy and expectation. On rifing to speak, he referred to the adjustment of 1782. The minifter of Great Britain, he said, had come forward in two celebrated productions; he declared his intolerance of the parliamentary conftitution of Ireland; that conftitution, which he ordered the feveral viceroys to celebrate, in defence of which he recommended the French war, and to which he fwore the yeoman, that conftitution he now declared to be a miferable imperfection, concurring with the men, whom he had executed for thinking the Irish parliament a grievance; differing from them in the remedy only: they propofing to fubftitute a republic, and he the yoke of the British parliament. They had seen him inveigh against their projects; let them hear him in defence of his own: he denied in the face of the two nations a public VOL. II. fact, *K fact registered and recorded; he difclaimed the final adjustment, as being no more than an incipient train of negociation. That fettlement confifted of feveral parts, every part a record, establishing on the whole two grand pofitions: firft, the admiffion of Ireland's claim to be legiflated by no other parliament but that of Ireland: fecondly, the finality impofed upon the two nations; regarding all conftitutional projects affecting each other. Finality was not only a part of the fettlement, but one of its principal objects; finality was the principal object of England, as legislative independency was the object of Ireland. 66 Having fpoken very largely to the two points of regency and war, on which the Unionifts refted their strongest arguments against the conftitution of 1782, he thus continued: "I will put a queftion to my country. I will fuppofe her at the bar, and I will then afk, Will you fight for an Union as you would for a conftitution? Will you fight for thofe lords and commons, "who in the laft century, took away your trade, and in the present your con"ftitution, as for that king, lords, and commons, who reftored both? Well, "the minifter has deftroyed this conftitution. To deftroy is easy. The edi"fices of the mind, like the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to precipitate; and, as the fall is of no time, fo neither is it "the effect of any ftrength. That conftitution, which with more or lefs vio"lence has been the inheritance of this country for fix hundred years; that " modus tenendi parliamentum, which lafted and out-lafted of Plantagenet the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the fyftematic falfehood; even "the bond and condition of our connexion, are now the objects of minif"terial attack. The conftitution which he deftroys is one of the pillars of "British empire; dear in its violation, dear in its recovery. Its restoration "coft Ireland her nobleft efforts; it was the habitation of her loyalty, as "well as of her liberty, where the had hung up the fword of the volunteer; "her temple of fame, as well as of freedom, where fhe had feated herself, as "fhe vainly thought, in modeft fecurity and in a long repofe. I have done "with the pile which the minifter batters, I come to the Babel which he "builds; and, as he throws down without a principle, fo does he construct "without a foundation. This fabric he calls an Union; and to this his fa"bric there are two ftriking objections. Firft, it is no Union: it is not an "identification of people, for it excludes the Catholics: Secondly, it is a "confolidation of the legiflatures; that is to fay, it merges the Irish par liament, |