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CHAP. II.] MEETING OF PARLIAMENT, 1792. they derived another and substantial benefit from the prudence and wisdom of their friends. The Opposition, finding they had not influence enough to carry in Parliament any measure, determined not to take up the Catholic as a party question. Mr. Grattan's uniform opinion, both in the Irish and the Imperial Parliament, was that it should not be made an opposition question; and thus the Catholics, though apparently left unbefriended, had nevertheless every reason to be thankful, inasmuch as by this judicious management, they got on their side two powerful auxiliaries Mr. Hobart, who was one of the Government, and Sir Hercules Langrishe, who was not a decided oppositionist.

The Parliamentary session commenced on the 19th of January 1792. The speech from the throne, stated that the country had made great progress in trade, manufactures, and industry, but mentioned nothing whatever with regard to the Catholics. Mr. Grattan appears to have made almost a valedictory speech, nearly foretelling the fate of the Parliament and the Constitution. recapitulated the errors committed by the Government, and summed up their offences in a masterly manner. His statement affords a correct picture of the mode in which Ireland has always been governed except in 1782, when she may be said to have governed herself.

He

"Your present ministers made two attempts on your liberties; the first failed, and the second has succeeded: you remember the first, you remember the propositions: the people of Ireland would not consent to be governed by the British Parliament. An expedient was devised;-let the Irish Parliament govern the people of Ireland, and Britain govern the Irish Parliament.

ment, that in conformity to the above cited declaration, that their capital grievance, the cause of every other, be alleviated or finally

done away.

Signed by order, RICHARD M'CORMICK, Sec.

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MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH.

[CHAP. II. "The second attempt was modelling of the Parliament in 1789; fifteen new salaries, with several of new pensions to the members thereof, were created at once, and added to the old overgrown Parliamentary influence of the Crown. In other words, the expenditure of the interest of half a million to buy the House of Commons, the sale of the peerage, and the purchase of seats in the Commons, the formation of a stock-purse by the minister to monopolize boroughs, and buy up representation. This new practice, whereby the minister of the Crown becomes the common boroughbroker of the kingdom, constitutes an offence so multitudinous, and in all its parts so criminal, as to call for radical reformation and exemplary punishment."

He stated what a number of measures had been proposed by the opposition, and lost. The Place Bill, the Pension Bill, the Responsibility Bill, the Barren Land Bill (which had been pronounced by the Attorney-general to have been the best bill ever brought into Parliament); he condemned the proceedings in the case of the fiats, and the excessive bail required by the judges, which he considered most injurious to the civil liberty of the subject. He complained of the Commissioners of Revenue for not encouraging the breweries, and discouraging the consumption of whiskey.

In rejecting both the Place and Pension Bill, the ministerial language, he said, was this :

"It is true, they are the laws of England, but they are not fit for the meridian of Ireland. This is much more than asserting that Ireland should not be free,-it is asserting that England should be free, and that Ireland should not; you may put the question of servitude in such a shape as to disgust the pride of a Cappadocian. The lot of Ireland, according to this reasoning, becomes particular degradation. We bear misfortunes patiently, because they are the portion of man; but if they were the inheritance of you and of me only, if the imperfection of the dispensations, ordinances, and degrees of nature were visited on one tribe of the human species, if Providence had spoken, like the ministers of our country, 'these blessings are very well for others, but they are too good for your meridian,' I fear that the tribe so cast off would turn to execration;-and till Providence shall

CHAP. II.] DISMISSAL OF LORD CHARLEMONT.

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mark its divine displeasure by inflicting some visible opprobrious distinction on the people of Ireland, confirming the argument of their minister, and denoting its intention to degrade us, I must to such logic remain a disbeliever. It was once in this country, 'equal fate and equal freedom,' the still is now changed a little,-equal fate, i. e. equal fall, but inferior freedom-inferior freedom and superior profligacy."

Mr. Grattan then alluded to the case of Lord Charlemont, whose character is drawn in beautiful colours. For years past he had been Governor of the county of Armagh; but Lord Westmoreland, dissatisfied with the popular part he took, had joined Lord Gosford in the commission, in consequence of which Lord Charlemont resigned.

"We see with astonishment, and in it we blush for the abortive efforts of national spirit, the mortifying insignificance of public opinions, and the degrading contempt into which the people of your country have fallen. We see your old General, who led you to your constitution, marched off, dismissed by your ministry as unfit to be trusted with the government of a county,-the cockade of government struck from his hat. That man, whose accomplishments gave a grace to your cause, and whose patriotism gave a credit to your nobles,-whom the rabble itself could not see without veneration, as if they beheld something not only good, but sacred, the man who, drooping and faint when you began your struggles, forgot his infirmity, and found in the recovery of your Constitution a vital principle added to his own; the man, who, smit with the eternal love of fame and freedom, carried the people's standard till he planted it on the citadel of freedom;-see him dismissed from Government for those very virtues, and by that very ministry for whose continuance you are to thank the King;see him overwhelmed at once with the adoration of his country, and the displeasure of her Ministers. The history of nations is oftentimes a farce. What is the history of that nation, that, having at the hazard of everything dear in a free Constitution, obtained its mistress, banishes the champion, and commits the honour of the lady to the care of the ravisher? There was a time when the vault of liberty could hardly contain the flight of your pinion; some you went forth like a giant rejoicing in his strength; and stand like elves at the door of your own Pandemonium.

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EULOGY ON DEAN KIRWAN.

[CHAP. II. The armed youth of the country, like a thousand streams thundered from a thousand hills, and filled the plain with the congregated waters, in whose mirror was seen for a moment the watery image of the British Constitution. The waters subside, the torrents cease, the rill ripples within its own bed, and the boys and children of the village paddle in the brook."

Alluding to the Barren Land Bill, which the law-officer of the Crown had pronounced to be an excellent measure, but which had been abandoned by the Government to please the bench of Bishops, Mr. Grattan introduced a remarkable panegyric on Mr. Kirwan, one of the most distinguished and eloquent of Irish preachers.

"I congratulate the church on its alliance with the Ministers of the Crown: but let me assure them it will not serve their promotion. They live under an administration which has but two principles of promotion for church, or law, or anything,-English recommendation, and Irish corruption. What is the case of Doctor Kirwan? That man preferred this country and our religion, and brought to both a genius superior to what he found in either; he called forth the latent virtues of the human heart, and taught men to discover in themselves a mine of charity, of which the proprietors had been unconscious. In feeding the lamp of charity,* he had almost exhausted the lamp of life. He comes to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shakes one world with the thunder of the other;-the preacher's

*Collected for the female orphans at charity sermons preached by the Rev. Walter Kirwan, Dean of Killala.

April, 1792, at St. Anne's Church

1793, at St. Peter's

£ S. d.

752 16 11

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This document came from this excellent lady, who interested herself so much in this charity, and who set so good an example in Ireland.

CHAP. II.] DESIGNS OF GOVERNMENT DENOUNCED. 51

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desk becomes the throne of light; around him a train, not such as crouch and swagger at the levees of princes, (horse, foot, and dragoons,) but that wherewith a great genius peoples his own state, charity in action, and vice in humiliation; vanity, arrogance, and pride, appalled by the rebuke of the preacher, and cheated for a moment of their native improbity. What reward? St. Nicholas within, or St. Nicholas without!!* The curse of Swift is upon him, to have been born an Irishman, and to have used his talents for the good of his country! Had this man, instead of being the brightest of preachers, been the dullest of lawyers; had he added to dullness venality; had he aggravated the crime of venality, and sold his vote, he had been a judge: or had he been born a blockhead, bred a slave, and trained up in a great English family, and handed over as a household circumstance to the Irish viceroy, he would have been an Irish bishop, and an Irish peer, with a great patronage, perhaps a borough, and had returned members to vote against Ireland; and the Irish parochial clergy must have adored his stupidity, and deified his dullness. But under the present system, Ireland is not the element in which a native genius can rise, unless he sells that genius to the Court, and atones, by THE APOSTACY OF HIS CONDUCT, FOR THE CRIME OF HIS NATIVITY.'

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The conclusion of this memorable speech shews the idea Mr. Grattan entertained of the Government, and the impression on his mind that their intention was to abolish the Irish Parliament. He adds

"The people of this country suppose that England acceded to their liberties, and they were right; but the present Ministry have sent the curse after that blessing:hear the curse! You have got rid of the British Parliament, but we will buy the Irish; you have shaken off our final judicature, but we will sell yours; you have got your free trade, but we will make your own parliament suffer our monopolists in one quarter of the globe to exclude you, and you shall remain content with the right, destitute of the possession. Your corporate rights shall be attacked, and you shall not stir. The freedom of your press, and the personal freedom of the subject shall be outraged, and you shall not arraign. Your city shall be put under conTwo poor Dublin parishes.

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