dissolution of the government; you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you. Sir, I state doctrines which are not merely the opinions of the ablest men who have written on the science of government; but I state the practice of our constitution as settled at the era of the revolution, but I state the doctrine under which the house of Hanover derives its title to the throne. Has the king a right to transfer his crown? Is he competent to annex it to the crown of Spain, or any other country? No, but he may abdicate it; and every man who knows the constitution, knows the consequence, the right reverts to the next in succession; if they all abdicate, it reverts to the people. The man who questions this doctrine, in the same breath, must arraign the sovereign on the throne as a usurper. Are you competent to transfer your legislative rights to the French council of five hundred? Are you competent to transfer them to the British parliament? I answer, no. When you transfer you abdicate, and the great original trust reverts to the people from whom it issued. Yourselves you may extinguish, but parliament you cannot extinguish; it is enthroned in the hearts of the people; it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution; it is immortal as the island which it protects; as well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body, should extinguish his eternal soul. Again I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the parliament and the people by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitution. Whenever such a case arises, it must be decided on its own merits; but that is not this case. If government considers this a season peculiarly fitted for experiments on the constitution, they may call on the people. I ask you, are you ready to do so? Are you ready to abide the event of such an appeal? What is it you must in that event submit to the people? Not this particular project, for if you dissolve the present form of government, they become free to choose any other; you fling them to the fury of the tempest, you must call on them to unhouse themselves of the established constitution, and to fashion to themselves another. I ask again is this the time for an

experiment of that nature? Thank God the people have manifested no such wish; so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favor, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the kingdom, if you know how to appreciate that silence, it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition; you may be rived and shivered by the lightning, before you hear the peal of the thunder! But sir, we are told that we should discuss this question with calmness and composure! I am called on to surrender my birthright and my honor, and I am told I should be calm, composed! National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an enlightened assembly as this. They are trinkets and gew-gaws, fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy the consideration of this house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it. Gracious God! we see a Perry reascending from the tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country.

PLUNKETT.

IN DEFENCE OF FINNERTY.

THE learned gentleman is farther pleased to say, that the traverser has charged the government with the encouragement of informers. This, gentlemen, is another small fact, that you are to deny at the hazard of your souls, and on the solemnity of your oaths. You are, upon your oaths, to say to the sister kingdom, that the government of Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of destruction as

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informers. Let me ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every man of us, and every man of you knows by the testimony of his own eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false. I speak not now of the public proclamations of informers, with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward: I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory:-I speak of what your own eyes have seen day after day during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants, who avowed, upon their oaths, that they had come from the very seat of government—from the castle, where they had been worked upon by the fears of death, and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows, that the mild and wholesome councils of this government, are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness.

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb-after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent: there was an antidote—a juror's oath — but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth; conscience swings from her moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety, in the surrender of the victim!

CURRAN.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HATRED.

My honorable friend has expended abundant research and subtilty upon this inquiry, and having resolved the phrase into its elements, in the crucible of his philosophical mind, has produced it to us purified and refined, to a degree that must command the admiration of all who take delight in metaphysical alchemy. My honorable and learned friend began by telling us, that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself. I hate a tory," says my honorable friend,— "and another man hates a cat; but it does not follow that he would hunt down the cat, or I the tory." Nay, so far from it — hatred, if it be properly managed, is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of differences-for lying down with their most inveterate enemies, like the leopard and the kid, in the vision of the prophet. This dogma is a little startling, but it is not altogether without precedent. It is borrowed from a character in a play, which is, I dare say, as great a favorite with my learned friend as it is with me; I mean, the comedy of the Rivals, in which Mrs. Malaprop, giving a lecture on the subject of marriage to her niece, (who is unreasonable enough to talk of liking, as a necessary preliminary to such an union,) says, "What have you to do with your likings and your preferences, child? Depend upon it, it is safest to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle like a blackamoor, before we were married! and yet you know, my dear, what a good wife I made him." Such is my learned friend's argument to a hair. But finding that this doctrine did not appear to go down with the house so glibly as he had expected, my honorable and learned friend presently changed his tack; and put forward a theory, which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I pronounce to be incomparable; and, in short, as wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight foundation in truth. "True philosophy," says my honorable friend, "will always continue to lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their conflicting vices. The virtues,

where more than one exist, may live harmoniously together; but the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, and therefore furnish, to the moral engineer, the power by which he can make each keep the other under control." Admirable ! but, upon this doctrine, the poor man who has but one single vice must be in a very bad way. No fulcrum, no moral power for effecting his cure. Whereas his more fortunate neighbor, who has two or more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of becoming a very virtuous member of society. I wonder how my learned friend would like to have this doctrine introduced into his domestic establishment. For instance, suppose that I discharge a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could not venture to recommend him to my honorable and learned friend. It might be the poor man's only fault, and therefore clearly incorrigible; but if I had the good fortune to find out that he was also addicted to stealing, might I not, with a safe conscience, send him to my learned friend with a strong recommendation, saying, I send you a man whom I know to be a drunkard; but I am happy to assure you, he is also a thief; you cannot do better than employ him; you will make his drunkenness counteract his thievery, and no doubt you will bring him out of the conflict a very moral personage!

CANNING.

ON GOING TO WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN.

If we are going to war with Great Britain, let it be real, effectual, vigorous war. Give us a naval force; this is the sensitive chord you can touch, and which would have more effect on her than ten armies. Give us thirty swift-sailing, well-appointed frigates-they are better than seventy-fours; two thirty-six gun frigates can be built and maintained for the same expense as one seventy-four, and for the purpose of annoyance, for which we want them, they are better than two seventy-fours; they are managed easier, ought to sail faster, and can be navigated in shoaler water- - we do not want