may come, I shall not hesitate to embrace a union, rather than a separation." Words ominous of a union, and which rose up in judgment ten years after, against the mistaken politicians who ran tilt against the Parliament of England! The Attorney-General read the Act repealing Poynings' Law, which rendered it imperative that all Bills which passed in Ireland should be certified into England, and should be returned under the Great Seal of England. By this Act, the Great Seal of England was rendered essentially necessary on the passing of a law in Ireland. "It was nonsense to say, that it is as King of Ireland he affixes the Great Seal of England to Irish Acts."

"Let me now, for a moment suppose, that we, in the dignity of our independence, appoint a Regent for Ireland, he being a different person from the Regent of England—a case not impossible, if the gentlemen insist on our appointing the Prince of Wales before it shall be known whether he will accept the Regency of England; and suppose we should go farther, and desire our Regent of Ireland to give the Royal assent to Bills, he would say My good people of Ireland, you have by your own law made the Great Seal of England absolutely necessary to be affixed to each Bill before it 'passes in Ireland. That Seal is in the hands of the Chancellor of England, who is a very sturdy fellow. That Chancellor is an officer under the Regent of England, and I have no manner of control over him; and so, my very good people of Ireland, you had better apply to the Regent of England, and request that he will order the Chancellor of England to affix the Great Seal of England to your Bills; otherwise, my very good people of Ireland, I cannot pass them.""

Fitzgibbon further said—" If the House shall, by force of a mere address, upon the instant, and without any communica

tion with England, invest a Regent with powers undefined, I do say, that when the moment of reflection comes, it will startle the boldest adventurers in England.” Then followed words of wisdom and truth. "Certainly, if it be the scheme

to differ, in all imperial questions, from England, and if this be abetted by men of great authority, they mean to drive us to an union, and the method they take is certainly more effectual to sweep away opposition, than if all the sluices of corruption were opened together, and deluged the country's representatives; for it is certain, nothing less than the alternative of separation could ever force an union. The existence of this country depended on the union which we are now about to dissolve." Then this curious illustration was offered, to show the peril of the procedure:-"Suppose you chose a Regent in the manner suggested, and that by any fatality a different Regent should be appointed for Great Britain, he may send a commission, under the Great Seal of England, appointing a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and to that commission your Regent is bound to pay obedience: if he refuse, he stakes his head on the experiment." A pleasant predicament for the Irish Regent to be placed in! "I will not," said the future Chancellor, "insult the Prince of Wales by an address, which cannot confer on him the shadow of royal power. What, then, are we to do? As soon as we shall be certified that the Prince of Wales is invested with the authority of Regent in England, pass an Act to invest him with that authority in Ireland; send this Act to the Prince Regent in England; he will then have the command of the Great Seal in England, and return our Act, authenticated according to law. The Lord Lieutenant may then, by his command, give the Royal assent to it, and who shall say that it is not the law of the land? But suppose your address should reach him before he is actually invested with the

royal power in England, in what situation do you put him? You call upon him, in defiance of two Acts of Parliament, which make the Crowns inseparable, to dethrone his father."

I have seldom read in parliamentary history more judicious reflections than the following:-"There is a feature in this proceeding which, independent of every other objection to it, does, in my mind, make it highly reprehensible; and that is, that I consider it as a general appeal from the Parliament of England to that of Ireland. If it is to be a point of Irish dignity to differ with the Parliament of England, to show our independence, I very much fear that sober men in this country, who have estates to lose, will soon become sick of independence. The fact is, that, constituted as it is, the government of this country never can go on, unless we follow Great Britain implicitly in all regulations of imperial policy. Gentlemen who this night profess themselves advocates for the independence of the Irish Crown, are advocates of separation." Curran said: "The Attorney-General was a solitary and unprevailing preacher; that his language was more like that of an Attorney-Particular, than an AttorneyGeneral; it was that kind of silly fatuity that, on any other subject, he would leave to be answered by silence and contempt." Mr. Grattan bravely said: "The connexion between the countries in danger by our proceeding! Vile commonplace-antiquated cant-folly-presumption! The AttorneyGeneral has, by the juggle of a Crown lawyer, restored the supremacy of the British Parliament over this kingdom. He has done this by playing tricks with signs and seals, and confounding the stamp of authority with authority itself." The celebrated orator was furious at the bare idea of his Majesty legislating in Ireland as King of Great Britain; and the assent must be given, according to this gentleman, by another person, the King of Ireland. He then said: "The

perverse and desperate explanation would destroy the Irish monarchy;" and appealed to the country gentlemen to be roused and inflamed to indignation, in order to maintain the rights of the King of Ireland, and the imperial authority of the Irish Crown."

There is nothing more remarkable than the absence of all argument against the Attorney-General's positions. They abused him roundly, but did not confute him. Mr. Smith, afterwards Master of the Rolls, cannot be excused for his behaviour; he was, on this occasion, for everything that was wrong: he differed with England's Parliament-was for a mere address. No Act of Parliament needed here -no restriction whatever on the young Prince? He would make a Regent of Ireland on the spot. True, he said, the Attorney-General had proved that the Great Seal of England must be affixed to every Bill transmitted from this country, and returned thereto ? “But by whom is the Great Seal so to be affixed?" asked this eminent individual. Why, "by the King of Ireland, and by him alone." After this explosion, they went instantly to work, and appointed a Committee to draw up an address, offering Ireland to the Prince of Wales on the spot-“ in the name of his Majesty, to administer all regal powers, jurisdictions, and prerogatives, to the Crown and Government thereunto belonging." Now, it will be observed by the candid inquirer, that no plausible answer was suggested to the sense of the argument for acting on the English precedent-namely, that when in the Acts of Henry VIII. and of William and Mary, it was enacted that the Crown of Ireland was knit to the Crown of England, by "Crown" was meant the supreme executive power; and as the Crown of England must be the Crown of Ireland, so must the supreme executive power, in the hands of a Regent, be the very same also. But if there was a different measure

of power in the two kingdoms, there would be a different power: the same person would not make the same power. After the Committee had been appointed, a message comes from the Lord Lieutenant, to acquaint the House that he had received the resolutions agreed to by the British Parliament, on the subject of the Regency, with the reply of his Royal Highness thereto. The House seemed vexed at the intrusion, and were about to refuse receiving them, at least till they could contradict their effect, by getting forward their fanciful address. However, the Speaker thought a message from the Crown should be received, and the important documents were presented. Mr. Conolly then read the address to the Prince; whereupon Mr. W. Wellesley Pole (an honoured name) said, he would give his decided dissent from this address. He said, that by appointing the Prince of Wales Regent of Ireland without limitation, "pensions might be granted, peerages might be bestowed, and places given in reversion in this country, to designing men, who have wormed themselves into the confidence of his Royal Highness." If this was not eloquence, it was truth. The Irish measure was hastened, according to Mr. W. Pole, for the express purpose of getting hold of peerages, pensions, and places, then and since dearly loved in Ireland.

Wellesley Pole knew his men; and I am of opinion he hit the nail on the head. In England, through the virtue of the English Parliament, advised by Pitt, the Regent, chosen for a time, could grant no peerages, confer no pensions, create no places; in Ireland, the Parliament, led by Grattan, proclaimed that to restrict the Regent, in conferring peerages, places, and pensions, would be a daring attack upon their ancient rights and privileges. The Speaker, at this crisis, put the question, that this address do stand as the address of the House to his Royal Highness the Prince