to sit down by the black boy on the coast of Guinea,-and have you forgot the man at home by your side, your brother? HEAVEN FIGHTS ON THE SIDE OF A GREAT PRINCIPLE. Grattan. The Kingdom of Ireland, with her imperial crown, stands at your Bar. She applies for the civil liberty of three-fourths of her children. Will you dismiss her without a hearing? You cannot do it! I say you cannot finally do it! The interest of your country would not support you; the feelings of your country would not support you: it is a proceeding that cannot long be persisted in. No courtier so devoted, no politician so hardened, no conscience so capacious! I am not afraid of occasional majorities. A majority cannot overlay a great principle. God will guard his own cause against rank majorities. In vain shall men appeal to a church-cry, or to a mock thunder; the pro prietor of the bolt is on the side of the people. It was the expectation of the repeal of Catholic disability which carried the Union. Should you wish to support the minister of the crown against the People of Ireland, retain the Union, and perpetuate the dis qualification, the consequence must be something more than alienation. When you finally decide against the Catholic question, you abandon the idea of governing Ireland by affection, and you adopt the idea of coercion in its place. You are pronouncing the doom of England. If you ask how the People of Ireland feel towards you, ask yourselves how you would feel towards us, if we disqualified three-fourths of the People of England forever. The day you finally ascertain the disqualification of the Catholic, you pronounce the doom of Great Britain. It is just it should be so. The King who takes away the liberty of his subjects loses his Crown; the People who take away the liberty of their fellow-subjects lose their empire. The scales of your own destinies are in your own hands; and if you throw out the civil liberty of the Irish Catholic, depend on it, Old England will be weighed in the balance, and found wanting: you will then have dug your own grave, and you may write your own epitaph thus:"ENGLAND DIED, BECAUSE SHE TAXED AMERICA AND DISQUALIFIED IRELAND." UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 1800.-Henry Grattan. The minister misrepresents the sentiments of the People, as he has before traduced their reputation. Ile asserts, that after a calm and mature consideration, they have pronounced their judgment in favor of an Union. Of this assertion not one syllable has any existence in fact, or in the appearance of fact. I appeal to the petitions of twenty-one counties in evidence. To affirm that the judgment of a Nation against is for; to assert that she has said ay when she has pronounced no; to make the falsification of her sentiments the foundation of her ruin and the ground of the Union • to affirm that her Parliament, Constitution, liberty, honor, property, are taken away by her own authority to sit down by the black boy on the coast of Guinea,-and have you forgot the man at home by your side, your brother? HEAVEN FIGHTS ON THE SIDE OF A GREAT PRINCIPLE. Grattan. The Kingdom of Ireland, with her imperial crown, stands at your Bar. She applies for the civil liberty of three-fourths of her children. Will you dismiss her without a hearing? You cannot do it! I say you cannot finally do it! The interest of your country would not support you; the feelings of your country would not support you: it is a proceeding that cannot long be persisted in. No courtier so devoted, no politician so hardened, no conscience so capacious! I am not afraid of occasional majorities. A majority cannot overlay a great principle. God will guard his own cause against rank majorities. In vain shall men appeal to a church-cry, or to a mock thunder; the pro prietor of the bolt is on the side of the people. It was the expectation of the repeal of Catholic disability which carried the Union. Should you wish to support the minister of the crown against the People of Ireland, retain the Union, and perpetuate the dis qualification, the consequence must be something more than alienation. When you finally decide against the Catholic question, you abandon the idea of governing Ireland by affection, and you adopt the idea of coercion in its place. You are pronouncing the doom of England. If you ask how the People of Ireland feel towards you, ask yourselves how you would feel towards us, if we disqualified three-fourths of the People of England forever. The day you finally ascertain the disqualification of the Catholic, you pronounce the doom of Great Britain. It is just it should be so. The King who takes away the liberty of his subjects loses his Crown; the People who take away the liberty of their fellow-subjects lose their empire. The scales of your own destinies are in your own hands; and if you throw out the civil liberty of the Irish Catholic, depend on it, Old England will be weighed in the balance, and found wanting: you will then have dug your own grave, and you may write your own epitaph thus :— "ENGLAND DIED, BECAUSE SHE TAXED AMERICA AND DISQUALIFIED IRELAND.” UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN, 1800.-Henry Grattan. The minister misrepresents the sentiments of the People, as he has before traduced their reputation. He asserts, that after a calm and mature consideration, they have pronounced their judgment in favor of an Union. Of this assertion not one syllable has any existence in fact, or in the appearance of fact. I appeal to the petitions of twenty-one counties in evidence. To affirm that the judgment of a Nation against is for; to assert that she has said ay when she has pronounced no; to make the falsification of her sentiments the foundation of her ruin and the ground of the Union • to affirm that her Parliament, Constitution, liberty, honor, property, are taken away by her own authority attack on the persons and measures of a succession of viceroys, and after much declamation against their illegalities and their profusion, he took office, and became a supporter of Government, when the profusion of ministers had greatly increased, and their crimes multiplied beyond example. With regard to the liberties of America, which were inseparable from ours, I will suppose this gentleman to have been an enemy decided and unreserved; that he voted against her liberty, and voted, moreover, for an address to send four thousand Irish troops to cut he throats of the Americans; that he called these buchers "armed negotiators," and stood with a metapir in his mouth and a bribe in his pocket, a champion against the rights of America,-of America, the only hope of Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind. Thus defective in every relationship, whether to constitution, commerce, and toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private improbity to public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a level with his oath. He loves to deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say: Sir, you are much mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue; after a rank and clamorous opposition you became, on a sudden, silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greater questions, and you were silent for |