Chancellor got rid of the unpleasant part of the business quickly was very candid and explicit; then, having relieved his mind, and clutched the Great Seal, as Pitt's colleague, he changed the conversation; and Fox, laughing, said he never heard the old rogue talk better of France, of Spain, of Warren Hastings, and—O tempora, O mores!—of Demosthenes and Cicero. I ought to mention, the Chancellor had one useful quality possessed by Oliver Cromwell-he could cry whenever he liked. Accordingly, he resolved to cry in the House of Lords, and to amaze the nation. When the King was likely to recover, and the Regency question was under debate, he spoke; his affection for his sovereign overcame his nice and tender feelings, and he burst into tears; then exclaimed, that their first duty was to preserve the rights of their sovereign entire, so that when God should permit him to recover, he would not be in a worse situation than before his illness; then, in a fit of weeping enthusiasm, he ejaculated, "When I forget my King, may my God forget me!"

Two remarkable, though very different, men were standing at the bar, and looking at Thurlow, while he uttered these words-Wilkes, the demagogue, but a man of wit, and Burke. Pitt, the Prime Minister, was on the steps of the throne, as he was a Privy Councillor. Each of these three knew the Chancellor to be a hypocrite, and two of the three knew him to be a traitor to his sovereign, selfish and perfidious. What Wilkes said, I cannot here repeat; but when Thurlow uttered the words, "When I forget my King, may my God forget me," Burke was heard to say, "The very thing that could happen to you." Pitt could not endure the hoary hypocrite, and quitted the House, exclaiming several times, "Oh! what a rascal !"

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The English part of the drama was just finished; every one knew, that the moment the Prince became Regent, that is,

when the Bill founded upon the resolutions passed both Houses, Pitt would be dismissed from his high office, and Fox made Prime Minister. The merchants in the city proposed a subscription, in order to evince their respect for Pitt, who was known to be a poor man. Very speedily £100,000 was subscribed. Pitt announced, that no earthly inducement would prevail on him to touch one shilling; he instantly gave orders to look out for his old law chambers; he had, he said, formerly got a few briefs; he had not lost his taste for the law, and his capacity was trained to perfection. At the age of twenty-nine years, he was ready to lay down the government of an empire, preserve his personal independence, and try if he could not earn £300 a-year at the bar. We have not many examples of the like lofty independence of character.

We now turn our attention to Ireland. The English proceedings in Parliament were read and understood by the leaders and members of the Irish Parliament. What was their behaviour? I have already reminded you, that by an Act of King Henry VIII., whoever was King of England must be King of Ireland;—that safe principle was confirmed by subsequent statutes, and especially asserted at the Revolution. But it is obvious, that the effect of this legislation, designed to bind Ireland and England by the strong link of the Crown, applied to a regency as well as to a monarchy. The only bond of union between the two kingdoms, with separate Parliaments, was a common Executive—that the kingly authority should be exactly the same in the two islands, and lodged, with the same powers, in the same hands. Already had the Irish Parliament differed with the Imperial Parliament on matters of marine and commercial law. Reason, policy, respect for the Statute Law, and for the Constitution, and for their own political existence, all combined to impress

upon the minds of the Irish senators, that now their plain course was, when the monarchy was at stake, to follow closely the wise example of the British Legislature. I have read the proceedings of the Irish Parliament in the published debates, and the accounts given of the motives which influenced the various members at that period, and I arise from the perusal humiliated and disappointed. In the memoirs of eminent individuals of the time, it is broadly asserted, that many of our senators wished to recommend themselves to the new King, believing that the Prince would not only soon be Regent, with great patronage at his disposal, but that in a little time after, he would be King, with even more patronage to share amongst craving patriots. No doubt, there may be some truth in this statement; but it would not explain the conduct of such men as Lord Charlemont and Mr. Grattan, and would have no application to them. They erred, I am sure, honestly, but they mistook the law-deserted their duty to that Constitution which they boasted they had obtained with efforts so vast-provoked a quarrel with a powerful and just minister-defied the English Parliament, and proved to all reasoning men, by their perverse policy, that there was no middle course of government for Ireland under the British Crown; that there must, eventually, be either separation or incorporation; that Ireland must be either united to France or united to England.

A meeting of Peers and others was held at Lord Charlemont's, 3rd February, 1789, when it was resolved to offer the Regency of Ireland to the Prince of Wales, unconditionally, as his right, as if his royal father were dead. In the House of Commons it was sensibly asked by the Ministers that a short postponement should be granted; that the English proceedings should be adhered to; and that, above all, they ought to wait until the Regency was formally

offered to the Prince of Wales in England, and by him formally accepted, in order that, in obedience to the law and Constitution, they might be sure the royal executive power should be lodged in the hands of the same person to whom they offered the Regency of Ireland. To this reasonable appeal, Mr. Grattan said, if they waited for a Report from his Excellency, of the transactions which had occurred in England, it would appear 66 as if the measure of another assembly was to be the rule of their conduct." He had a high veneration for such a respectable authority, but he spurned the idea of dictation. "Ireland waits not for a

lesson from Britain, nor for a model whereby to frame her proceedings." On the 11th February, Mr. Grattan took the matter wholly out of the hands of the Government, saying, "We are clear that his Royal Highness must be Regent, but we are also clear that he should be invested with the full regal power-plenitude of royal power." Now, the Irish orator must have thus spoken in order directly to contradict and affront the British Legislature. Mr. Fitzherbert observed, "That no doubt his Royal Highness would be appointed Regent; but, in so doing, both nations should make as little difference as possible in their proceedings, so as, above all things, to preserve the unity of the Executive Government." Of the like sensible opinion was Mr. Parsons; but these men were not listened to. Mr. Grattan insisted that the idea of limitations was

an attack upon the King of Ireland. He would have no Bill, but a simple address from the two Houses of Parliament, which (he forgot to prove how or why) was to have all the force and operation of law; he would-after obtaining by the address a deputy King, with kingly powers-put a stamp upon his work, by a Bill to be passed, which was to declare that the Regent, created by address, had "full royal authority." Mr. Grattan then proclaims his method is in all

respects different from that pursued by the English Parliament, and boasts of his independence, and declares this to be a proud day for Ireland. "I object to a declaration of right in the Parliament, as a bad husbandry of popular artillery. I object to it also as attempting to convey to posterity historic evidence against the constitutional principles of the second person in his Majesty's dominions, without any ground or pretence whatever." Thus the triumph of Mr. Grattan was complete, he having, succeeded in persuading the King-loving Parliament of Ireland to take an exactly opposite course to that taken in England; especially in rejecting the declaration of right in the Parliament to supply the defect in the exercise of royalty, and in rejecting the mode of procedure by Bill, founded on resolutions asserting that right.

Mr. Connolly, a country gentleman of large possessions, misled by Grattan, had proposed a long address to the Prince, requesting him to accept the Regency of Ireland, with all royal power and authority of a king. Mr. Sheridan approved, and declared that if they followed the advice of the Attorney-General, they would adopt the despicable expedient "of putting their understandings into the keeping of other men," meaning the Parliament of England. The AttorneyGeneral, afterwards Lord Clare, delivered an unanswerable argument to prove that the proposed mode of conferring the Regency was equally contrary to the common and statute law of the realm, and criminal in the extreme. He then argued on the statute that the Crown of England and the Crown of Ireland were indissolubly united, and said— "Gentlemen who risk breaking the connexion must make up their minds to an union. God forbid I should ever see that day." [He afterwards argued for the Union strongly.] "But, if ever the day on which a separation shall be attempted