Brougham's political character, it is the vigour of imagination which that respectable body have exhibited on the same subject. Whilst such charges were confined to those whom their distinguished subject once termed "sentence-makers, paragraph-mongers, and magazine-writers," it was a matter of comparatively little importance,-an attack to which the well-earned reputation of Lord Brougham was a sufficient answer. But impunity, in this case, as in every other, has begotten confidence. Your Lordship has discovered, in your assault on Lord Brougham, a chance of gaining a desperate distinction, or, at all events, some employment for those talents of the value of which a very learned body not long since exhibited a culpable ignorance.

Your charge, my Lord, is an exceedingly vague one. It is characterised, indeed, like all the other moves of the opposition, by a certain convenience of extent most comfortable either for him who professes the present Whig accomplishment of uttering a great quantity of nothing, or of the equally candid opponent who provides himself in his advance with your countryman's celebrated facility of going "bock again." One thing, however, you have ventured to say-that Lord Brougham has "attached himself" to principles distinct from "those which he once advocated." It is difficult to conceive any charge more easily made against a statesman, whose name appears, as does that of Lord Brougham, in connexion with every great question of the age, than that of inconsistency. It is, however, to say the least, most remarkable, that in all the unscrupulous efforts that have been lately made to damage the political reputation of Lord Brougham, there has been no manly accusation of the change of any particular principle evidenced by any overt act. Had this been attempted, it would have been easy indeed to have dealt with the charge. As it is, however, your partisans desire to throw upon the advocates of Lord Brougham the onus of demolishing your figment,

as regards every matter in issue between Conservatives and Whigs; leaving, with the true candour of your clique, the opportunity to yourselves of evading a dilemma, by pleading at length the uncertainty of your

accusation.

Your threat was made on the 15th instant, at the conclusion of one of those characteristic debates concerning Ireland, brought on by the late ministers, apparently for no other purpose than to shew that if the Whigs are impaired in reputation they are not in lungs, and that though they have lost all other power, that of making professions is still left to them. Did your anxiety to "follow" Lord Brougham in the debate on that night arise from any hope that you would have an opportunity of exercising your new office of censor, upon any "principle" in Irish politics propounded by his Lordship, at variance with those which he has ever professed in regard to that country? If such was your desire, it is much to be regretted that the "fitting opportunity" for the display did not occur.

Your

failure, my Lord, would have been most signal and salutary. The defence of Lord Brougham requires no hair-splitting, no special pleading. Beyond those of every man of his age, his opinions are pre-eminently public. If then we are to infer, from the mode and time of bringing your charge, that you desire, in common with your late dictator, Mr. O'Connell, to accuse Lord Brougham of a change of principle on the subject of Ireland, the plainest mode of deciding the question is to inquire what have been, and what are, his Lordship's published opinions on that subject. I apprehend that the first insinuation is, that Lord Brougham has become an opponent of popular liberty in consequence of his approval of the suppression of the "monster meetings. Perhaps your Lordship will consider the 2nd of December 1819, a date sufficiently remote at which to commence the inquiry as to what was the nature of that right of meeting, of which Lord Brougham

was so distinguished and successful an advocate. On that day, in a speech on the Seditious Meetings Prosecution Bill, his Lordship said

66

"I also disapprove of the mode in which these recent "meetings were conducted. I broadly disapprove of "the array in which men were marched from place to "place. It points to anything rather than to the beginning of a deliberative assembly. I also object "to the large amount of numbers which were collected "on these occasions. If 60,000 or 70,000 persons "must meet, if the population of such a place allows "such a mass to assemble together, it must always be "attended with danger, and therefore I disapprove of it." Was Lord Brougham's opinion on the propriety of such meetings changed in 1834? On the 28th of April, in that year, his Lordship delivered these sentiments.

66

My opinion distinctly is, and I do not wish to have "it for one moment concealed from any part of the "country. My clear and decided opinion is,-that it "is not lawful for men to assemble together in vast bodies, disproportionate to the nature of the occasion "which brings them together, and in multitudes infinitely "beyond any apparent necessity for such congregation. "It tends to great public mischief. It tends to the "intimidation of the peaceful subjects of the King. In "a great mercantile and industrious community it tends "to great mischief-to the interruption of the peaceful industry of the country. It has an almost unlimited tendency to endanger the peace of the King, by the "more unnecessary and innumerable assemblage of his subjects."

66

66

66

I shall not needlessly multiply proofs that Lord Brougham has been in the most perfect degree consistent in his opposition to the monster meetings; but shall invite your Lordship's attention to his views respecting them, as propounded in the late Session of Parliament. the 15th of May last, your Lordship, with that originality and profundity which characterises your efforts in legis

On

lation, made some remarks in the debate on the Marquis of Clanricarde's motion to reprint the Report of the Railway Commissioners (Ireland). You condemned the application of "harsh language" to Mr. Daniel O'Connell, who was then outdoing himself in scurrilous slander of the English people. You advocated a "temperate "remonstrance with the monster meetings. You "would have appealed to their reason," and to the "Connemara cavalry" you would have

"Quoted Puffendorf and Grotius,

And proved from Vattel

Exceedingly well,

That this conduct was atrocious."

In replying to you, Lord Brougham took occasion again to enunciate his opinion of such assemblies.Perhaps, my Lord, you will favour the world by pointing out the contrast which that opinion displays to that of his Lordship four-and-twenty years before.

66

His noble and learned friend talked of appeals to "reason. Reason could have but very little weight "against assemblies of 30,000 or 40,000 people. He "was convinced that these immense assemblages were "not summoned for discussion, or to hear reason, but "for these three main objects among others:-to create "a feeling of uneasiness and apprehension throughout "the country at large; to alarm the landlords in parti"cular; and so to intimidate peaceable people by these

tumultuous meetings and violent speeches, and to "make it seem and be perilous for honest and loyal "men to do their duty, by keeping the peace and dis"countenancing agitation."

"Those were the best friends to Ireland who endea"voured to put an end to agitation, and encourage the application of capital to improve her resources; and "those who by continual agitation prevented the capital so much required, from flowing into Ireland, were "Ireland's worst enemies.

66

"He held it to be the most constitutional of all acts to prevent the breach of the public peace, by all the means which the law placed at the disposal of the Crown."

66

It is scarcely necessary, my Lord, to say more respecting Lord Brougham's consistency on the question of Irish agitation. There are, however, some considerations which, had Lord Brougham even altered his opinions (and no amount of effrontery in the face of these litera scripta can enable any man to assert that he has) your friends manage conveniently to forget in their attacks upon his Lordship; but which would amply justify a very different course of conduct respecting Ireland from that which his Lordship has taken. Lord Brougham was the eloquent and untiring asserter of the Catholic claims. In his advocacy of Catholic emancipation, he conjured the Irish people to meet and petition incessantly for what he conceived to be their undoubted rights. He gave it as his opinion in Parliament, in 1825, that "the more energetic their remonstrance, "provided that it were peaceable; the stronger their

language, provided that it were respectful; the more "firm their port, the more lofty their demeanour,—the "more conformable their conduct would be to the high "interests of those who had all at stake." The struggle of which Lord Brougham's efforts formed no mean part, was at length successful. The Relief Bill was carried, Lord Brougham has lived to discover the close resemblance borne by the gratitude of the Irish Roman Catholics, whom he assisted to liberate, to that of the Whigs, whom his eloquence raised to power.

But will your Lordship have the intrepidity to say that the language which Lord Brougham held respecting a people whom he sincerely believed to be seeking only for justice, he should hold to the same people when they practised the spirit, if not, indeed, the very letter of treason; when they aimed at destroying the integrity of the empire, and the position of his native land among