warrant from General Craig, on a charge of treason. This return was a gross falsehood fabricated by Sirr.' "If it be the test of supreme genius to produce strong and permanent emotions, the passages which we have quoted must be in the very highest style of eloquence. There is not a subject of these kingdoms, we hope, that can read them, without feeling his blood boil, and his heart throb with indignation; and without feeling, that any government which could tolerate or connive at such proceedings, held out a bounty to rebellion, which it would almost be dastardly to reject. The eloquence of these passages is in the facts which they recite; and it is far more powerful than that which depends upon the mere fancy or art of the orator. There are passages, however, of this more ornate description in the speech before us, which deserve to be quoted. The following is among the most striking. Mr. Curran is endeavouring to show, that the general publication of this transaction may be of use, as the means of letting England know the real condition and state of government in Ireland; and that the detail of a single authenticated fact is more likely to make an impression, than a more comprehensive but general picture. He then says, "If, for instance, you wished to convey to the mind of an English matron the horrors of that direful period, when, in defiance of the remonstrance of the ever to be lamented Abercrombie, our poor people were surrendered to the licentious brutality of the soldiery, by the authority of the state; you would vainly endeavour to give her a general picture of lust, and rapine, and murder, and conflagration. Instead of exhibiting the picture of an entire province, select a single object; and even in that single object do not release the imagination of your hearer from its task, by giving more than an outline: take a cottage; place the affrighted mother of her orphan daughters at the door, the paleness of death upon her face, and more than its agonies in her heart; her aching eye, her anxious ear, struggle through the mists of closing day, to catch the approaches of desolation and dishonour. The ruffian gang arrives; the feast of plunder begins; the cup of madness kindles in its circulation. The wandering glances of the ravisher become concentrated upon the shrinking and devoted victim. -You need not dilate, you need not expatiate; the unpolluted mother, to whom you tell the story of horror, beseeches you not to proceed; she presses her child to her heart; she drowns it in her tears; her fancy catches more than an angel's tongue could describe; at a sin gle view she takes in the whole miserable succession of force, of pro fanation, of despair, of death. So it is in the question before us. If any man shall hear of this day's transaction, he cannot be so foolish as to suppose that we have been confined to a single character, like those now brought before you."" CONTENTS. Page. On the right of election of lord mayor of the city of Dublin, between alderman Howison and James, before the lord lieutenant and privy council of Ireland, On moving that it is the exclusive privilege of the house of commons to origi- 12 SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN ON THE RIGHT OF ELECTION OF LORD MAYOR OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN. DELIVERED BEFORE THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND PRIVY COUNCIL MY LORDS,-I have the honour to appear before you as counsel for the commons of the corporation of the metropolis of Ireland, and also for Mr. Alderman Howison, who hath petitioned for your approbation of him as a fit person to serve as lord mayor, in virtue of his election by the commons to that high office; and in that capacity I rise to address you on the most important subject that you have ever been called upon to discuss.-Highly interesting and momentous indeed, my lords, must every question be, that, even remotely and eventually, may affect the well-being of societies, or the freedom, or the repose of nations: but that question, the result of which, by an immediate and direct necessity, must decide, either fatally or fortunately, the life or the death of that well-being, of that freedom, and that repose, is surely the most important subject on which human wisdom can be employed, if any subject on this side the grave can be entitled to that appellation. You cannot therefore, my lords, be surprised to see this place crowded by such numbers of our fellow citizens: heretofore they were attracted hither by a strong sense of the value of their rights, and of the injustice of the attack upon them; they felt all the magnitude of the contest; but they were not disturbed by any fear for the event; they relied securely on the justice of their cause, and the integrity of those who were to decide upon it. But the public mind is now filled with a fear of danger, the ́more painful and alarming, because hitherto unforeseen: the public are now taught to fear, that their cause may be of doubtful merits, and disastrous issue; that rights, which they considered as defined by the wisdom, and confirmed by the authority of written law, may, now, turn out to be no more than ideal claims, without either precision or security; that acts of parliament themselves are no more than embryos of legislation, or at best but infants, whose first labours must be, not to teach, but to learn; and which, even after thirty years of pupilage, may have thirty more to pass under that guardianship, which the wisdom of our policy has provided for the protection of minors.-Sorry am I, my lords, that I can offer no consolation to my clients on this head; and that I can only join them in bewailing, that the question, whose result must decide upon their freedom or servitude, is perplexed with difficulties, of which we never dreamed before, and which we are now unable to comprehend. Yet surely, my lords, that question must be difficult, upon which the wisdom of the representative of our dread sovereign, aided by the learning of his chancellor and his judges, assisted also by the talents of the most conspicuous of the nobles and the gentry of the nation, has been twice already employed, and em ployed in vain. We know, my lords, that guilt and oppression may stand irresolute for a moment ere they strike, appalled by the prospect of danger, or struck with the sentiment of remorse but to you, my lords, it were presumption to impute injustice: we must therefore suppose that you have denied your determination, not because it was dangerous, but because it was difficult to decide: and indeed, my lords, a firm belief of this difficulty, however undiscoverable by ordinary talents, is so necessary to the character which this august assembly ought to possess and to merit from the country, that I feel myself bound to achieve it by an effort of my faith if I should not be able to do so by any exertion of my understanding. In a question therefore so confessedly obscure as to baffle so much sagacity, I am not at liberty to suppose, that certainty could be attained by a concise examination. Bending then, as I do, my lords, to your high authority, I feel this difficulty as a call upon me to examine it at large; and I feel it as an assurance, that I shall be heard with patience. The lord mayor of this city hath from time immemorial been a magistrate, not appointed by the crown, but elected by his fellow-citizens. From the history of the early periods of this corporation and a view of its charters and by-laws, it appears, that the commons had from the earliest periods participated in the important right of election to that high trust; and it was natural and just, that the whole body of citizens, by themselves, or their representatives, should have a share in electing those magistrates who were to govern them: as it was their birth-right to be ruled only by laws which they had a share in enacting. The aldermen, however, soon became jealous of this participation, encroached by degrees upon the commons, and at length succeeded in engrossing to themselves the double privilege of eligibility and of election; of being the only body, out of which, and by which, the lord mayor could be chosen. Nor is it strange, that in those times, a board, consisting of so small a number as twenty-four members, with the advantages of a more united interest, and a longer continuance in office, should have prevailed, even contrary to so evident principles of natural justice and constitutional right, against the unsteady resistance of competitors, so much less vigilant, so much more numerous, and therefore so much less united.-It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.-The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. In this state of abasement the commons remained for a number of years; sometimes supinely acquiescing under their degrada tion; sometimes, what was worse, exasperating the fury, and alarming the caution of their oppressors, by ineffectual resistance-The slave that struggles without breaking his chain, provokes the tyrant to double it; and gives him the plea of selfdefence for extinguishing what, at first, he only intended to subdue. In the year 1672, it was directed by one of the new rules, made by the lord lieutenant and privy council, under the authority of the act of explanation, that "No person should be capable of serving in the office of lord mayor, until approved of by the lord lieutenant and council;" and this was a power given after the unhappy civil commotions in this country, to prevent any person, who was not a loyal subject, from holding so import ant a trust; and upon this single ground, namely, disloyalty, have you, my lords, any authority to withhold your approbation |