public mind. The ministers did not gain, and the judge did not lose, in public opinion, by the readiness with which the former consented to hand him over to his adversaries. The house speedily became ashamed of what it had done. It had voted this select committee on the 13th of February, exposing the falsehood of O'Connell's charges. On the 21st, on the motion of Sir E. Knatchbull, after an animated debate, distinguished principally by an eloquent and powerful speech from Mr. Shaw, the vote was rescinded, notwithstanding the opposition of Mr. Stanley, and the order for appointing a committee was discharged, by a majority of six; 165 voting for Sir E. Knatchbull's motion, 159 against it. The political and party dislike which had instigated the attack, drew public attention to those who had made it, in a way which was not favourable to them; and was an unfortunate preparation for their approaching motion for a repeal of the union.

That greater question Mr. O'Connell, after many vacations of promises in Ireland, and many sessions of non-performance in London, found himself compelled to bring to trial, lest some of his more forward associates should take advantage of his backwardness to become a leader instead of continuing an humble follower. On the first day of the session he had given notices of two motions; one, that the house should take the act of union into consideration with a view to its repeal; the other, more indirect, for the appointment of a select committee to inquire and report on the means by which the dissolution of the parliament of Ireland was effectedon the effects of that measure upon

Ireland, and upon the labourers in husbandry, and the operatives in manufactures in England-and on the probable consequences of continuing the legislative union between both countries." He proceeded only with the latter of the two; and brought it forward on the 22nd of April. Ministers, anxious to make the decision as solemn, and the majority as overwhelming, as possible, had moved for a call of the house.

Mr. O'Connell, who had been preparing the way during the previous part of the session by presenting petitions in favour of repeal, which he and his partisans had no difficulty in getting up, made his motion on the 22nd of April. The debate was continued by adjournment for several days. There had never existed, he said, a greater mistake than to suppose that England possessed any right of dominion over Ireland; and it therefore would be his first object to show, that England had no title to Ireland by conquest, and then to ascertain whether or not any right the former now possessed had been acquired either before or after the union. Upwards of two centuries had now elapsed since Ireland had first been recognized as a portion of the dominions of the Crown of Great Britain. In the year 1614, the distinction between English and Irish subjects was put an end to, the latter having previously been considered and held, in contemplation of the law, as enemies; and up to that year Ireland had been recognized as a distinct nation, with a distinct independent legislature. The year 1614, then, was the period at which for the first time the power of the king of England and Scotland was recognized in Ireland;

but still no title was acquired by battle or other means of subjugation either previously or since; neither was any right raised by general submission on the part of the people as subjects; nor, above all, was there any recognition of the Irish people as subjects by this country. In the year 1246, during the reign of Henry III. the Irish people applied to have the benefits of the British constitution extended to their own country. The application, though made under the sanction of the king, excited the jealousy of the English barons, and was ultimately rejected. Similar applications were made in the reigns of Edward I., of Richard II., and of Henry VIII.; and all of them were equally unsuccessful. The influence of the British in Ireland defeated even the mandate issued, on the death of the earl of Desmond, by queen Elizabeth for the attain ment of the same object in the year 1584. During the reign of James I. there still prevailed on the part of the people of Ireland an anxiety to be governed by British laws, which was treated, however, by the government with silence and neglect, in order that the English settlers might continue unmolested to mature and accomplish their schemes of spoliation and robbery. The wealth of the nation became an object of cupidity; property was seized without right, and atrocities beyond description were perpetrated. The union of the two countries was ultimately the result of the most revolting crimes. The powerful were arrayed against the weak, the O'Connells against the O'Neill's, the illegitimate sons against the legitimate offspring of O'Neill; and thus the complete

command of the country was acquired, not by open conquest and fair subjugation, but by a series of the most unmitigated cruelties inflicted by one class against another portion of the community. The history of Ireland, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., teemed with unparalleled cruelties and crimes.* Such scenes proved beyond a doubt that no title could have been gained for England by battle or conquest, or by submission on the one side, and recognition on the other. It was proper that England and Ireland should know what really was the nature of their original connexion. The circumstances relating to the connexion of the two countries from the year 1633, were now part of our domestic history. At that time they existed as two nations under one sovereign. The history of Ireland under James I. was one of rapine and duplicity, equalled only by the crimes and wretchedness that disfigured the reign of his immediate successor. During the whole of this period, however, the right of Ireland to a separate legislature had never been questioned, and any attempt at authoritative interference on the part of the parliament of England had been considered an act of usurpation. The resources of Ireland were thus gradually unfolded; her commerce was extended, and her wealth increased. 1782, she asserted once more the principle of her legislative independence; and his majesty, at the same time, recommended such

In the year

Mr. O'Connell here read copious extracts from Morrison's History of Ireland to show the state of misery and

degradation to which the country had been at this time reduced.

measures to be adopted as might allay the spirit of discontent that prevailed among his Irish subjects. This was immediately followed by an address from the Irish gentry, which, while it ad mitted the connexion between the two countries, distinctly claimed for the people of Ireland a right to an independent legislature. The consequence of the avowal of such sentiments was a compact between the English and Irish parliaments; the one resigning the right of interference with the internal affairs of Ireland, the other peremptorily denying that any such right had ever existed.

The next branch of his argument led him to consider what had been the effects produced on the internal condition of Ireland by the experiment of legislative independence having been made even under the most adverse circumstances. Fifty boroughs, it is true, had been erected in a single day, but there still was left sufficient virtue to neutralize their influence. The Irish parliament had neither approved of the expedition to Holland, nor supported the regency bill of Mr. Pitt. The non-residence of the gentry was another topic which must not be forgotten. As the landlords of Ireland departed, her prosperity declined. Accord ing to lord Clare, Ireland had advanced, between the years 1786 and 1796, in cultivation, in agriculture, and manufactures. This statement was corroborated by the testimony of lord Plunkett, Mr. Pitt, and lord Grey, all of whom had, on several occasions, affirmed that the internal prosperity of Ireland had advanced with her political independence. Her produce had become more valuable,

her exports increased in amount, and her consumption, in the same period of time, had risen in a greater proportion than that of England, These facts proved incontestably the gradual improvement which had then taken place in the general state of society in Ireland. Her independence had never been surrendered; and no parliament was competent to effect so violent a change. That power was vested in the people alone. A legislature had indeed power to make laws, but not to create new legislatures. On this point, however, he did not depend on his own general views, or on deductions from general principles. The doctrine was established by Mr. Locke, and recognized by Mr. Saurin, and even by lord Plunket in the days of his unim peachable consistency. By the declarations of these men he was justified in holding the opinion, that, parliament having been incompetent to pass the act of union, the act itself was, in its very nature, void.

But still further, he maintained that the union was not, as had been too generally supposed, an international contract; and, for a moment, granting it to have been so, it was procured under circumstances which necessarily nullified it. He at once admitted the obligatory nature of a contract with regard to those who were parties to it; but still, if an inquiry were granted him, he pledged himself to prove, that the union possessed none of the features of a contract, and that it had been consummated by the commission of every species of enormity, by intimidation and bribery, by treachery and violence. Rebellion had been secretly cherished, and religion perverted,

simply that the British government might acquire a complete and irresponsible control over the revenues of Ireland. England, by engaging in an expensive war, had incurred an enormous debt; and Ireland was, as a matter of course, called on to resign her resources to a nation which had hitherto uniformly repaid her with insolence and oppression. These were the sentiments not of himself alone, but of men such as chief justice Bushe and lord Grey, holding a high character in judicial and political life; and, these sentiments being correct, no nation could, in more direct and unequivocal terms, express its unqualified disapprobation of any national measure than Ireland did of a legislative union with England. Indeed the union seemed to have been effected by an organized system of military surveillance and and intimidation. The army, for instance, had increased precisely in the same proportion as a necessity for its augmentation had diminished; public meetings were at one time suppressed; and, at another, a spirit of rebellion was secretly fostered for the specific purpose of having a more plausible pretence for carrying the odious measure of the union. Instead of the leaders in the rebellion being arrested and their treasonable meetings suppressed, the country was irritated into a higher degree of excitement and dissatisfaction by the cruelties which characterized the conduct of the soldiery. The army itself had been to such a degree demoralized, that sir Ralph Abercromby, who was in 1797 intrusted with its command, declared, in his general orders published in February, that it was formidable to all except the enemies of its country. In short,

the rebellion was permitted to ripen and explode, that by cherishing civil and religious animosities the union might, with some semblance of reason, be ultimately accomplished. To intimidation was added bribery. All persons holding office under government, even its most subordinate servants, were, on the one hand, dismissed on the slightest suspicion of their being actuated by any secret disinclination towards the union ; and, on the other hand, the statement of Mr. Grattan that three millions of money had been squandered remained still uncontradicted. Peerages had been created and conferred, promotions in every department of the state had taken place, and rotten boroughs had been purchased at an extravagant price, for the single purpose of effecting the union of the two kingdoms.

Having thus shown the incompetency of parliament to pass the act of union, and detailed the dishonourable means by which it was accomplished, he proceeded next to prove, that the financial and legislative terms upon which that great question had been settled were, in their very nature, fraudulent and unjust. The financial terms of the union had, in the absence of any commissioners or committee, been arranged without the slightest regard to the relative amount of the debts of Great Britain and Ireland. The latter was charged with two-seventeenths, instead of one-eighteenth, of the gross amount of the expenditure of the two countries; and the consequence was, that the resources of Ireland had been found altogether inadequate to the payment of the proportion of the debt which had been so unjustly assigned to her, assigned to her. This state of