cause, as if, with the noble consciousness that, though patriotism could not wreath the laurel round her brow, genius should at least raise it over her ashes; to be so distinguished, Sir, and in such a place, does, I confess, inspire me with a vanity which even a sense of my unimportance cannot entirely silence. Indeed, Sir, the ministerial critics of Liverpool were right. I have no claim to this enthusiastic welcome. But I cannot look upon this testimonial so much as a tribute to myself, as an omen to that country with whose fortunes the dearest sympathies of my soul are intertwined. Oh yes, I do foresee when she shall hear with what courtesy her most pretensionless advocate has been treated, how the same wind that wafts her the intelligence, will revive that flame within her, which the blood of ages has not been able to extinguish. It may be a delusive hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of that country's desolation. On this subject you can scarcely be ignorant, for you have an Irishman resident amongst you, whom I am proud to call my friend; whose fidelity, to Ireland no absence can diminish; who has at once the honesty to be candid, and the talent to be convincing. I need scarcely say I allude to Mr. Casey. I knew, Sir, the statue was too striking to require a name upon the pedestal. Alas, Ireland has little now to console her, except the consciousness of having produced such men. It would be a reasonable adulation in me to deceive you. Six centuries of base misgovernment,

the

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of causeless, ruthless, and ungrateful persecution, have now reduced that country to a crisis, at which I know not whether the friend of humanity has most cause to grieve or to rejoice; because I am not sure that the same feeling which prompts the tear at human sufferings, ought not to triumph in that increased infliction which may at length tire them out of endurance. I trust in God a change of system may in time anticipate the results of desperation; but you may quite depend on it, a period is approaching when, if penalty does not pause in the pursuit, patience will turn short on Can wonder at it? Contemplate pursuer. Ireland during any given period of England's rule, and what a picture does she exhibit! Behold her created in all the prodigality of nature; with a soil that anticipates the husbandman's desires; with harbours courting the commerce of the world; with rivers capable of the most effective navigation; with the ore of every metal struggling through her surface; with a people, brave, generous, and intellectual, literally forcing their way through the disabilities of their own country into the highest stations of every other, and well rewarding the policy that promotes them, by achievements the most heroic, and allegiance without a blemish. How have the successive governments of England demeaned themselves to a nation, offering such an accumulation of moral and political advantages! See it in the state of Ireland at this instant; in the universal bankruptcy that overwhelms her; in the loss of her trade; in the annihilation of her manu

factures; in the deluge of her debt; in the divisions of her people; in all the loathsome operations of an odious, monopolizing, hypocritical fanaticism on the one hand, wrestling with the untiring but natural reprisals of an irritated population on the other! It required no common ingenuity to reduce such a country to such a situation. But it has been done; man has conquered the beneficence of the Deity; his harpy touch has changed the viands to corruption; and that land, which you might have possessed in health and wealth and vigour, to support you in your hour of need, now writhes in the agonies of death, unable even to lift the shroud with which famine and fatuity try to encumber her convulsion. This is what I see a pensioned press denominates tranquillity. Oh, wo to the land threatened with such tranquillity; solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant; it is not yet the tranquillity of solitude; it is not yet the tranquillity of death; but if you would know what it is, go forth in the silence of creation, when every wind is hushed, and every echo mute, and all nature seems to listen in dumb and terrified and breathless expectation, go forth in such an hour, and see the terrible tranquillity by which you are surrounded! How could it be otherwise; when for ages upon ages invention has fatigued itself with expedients for irritation; when, as I have read with horror in the progress of my legal

studies, the homicide of a "mere Irishman" was considered justifiable; and when his ignorance was the origin of all his crimes, his education was pro

hibited by Act of Parliament!—when the people were worm-eaten by the odious vermin which a Church and State adultery had spawned; when a bad heart and brainless head were the fangs by which every foreign adventurer and domestic traitor fastened upon office; when the property of the native was but an invitation to plunder, and his non-acquiescence the signal for confiscation; when religion itself was made the odious pretence for every persecution, and the fires of hell were alternatively lighted with the cross, and quenched in the blood of its defenceless followers! I speak of times that are passed: but can their recollections, can their consequences be so readily eradicated. Why, however, should I refer to periods that are distant? Behold, at this instant, five millions of her people disqualified on account of their faith, and that by a country professing freedom! and that under a government calling itself Christian! You (when I say You, of course I mean, not the high-minded people of England, but the men who misgovern us both) seem to have taken out a roving commission in search of grievances abroad, whilst you overlook the calamities at your own door, and of your own infliction. You traverse the ocean to emancipate the African: you cross the line to convert the Hindoo; you hurl your thunder against the savage Algerine; but your own brethren at home, who speak the same tongue, acknowledge the same King, and kneel to the same God, cannot get one visit from your itinerant humanity! Oh,

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such a system is almost too abominable for a name; it is a monster of impiety, impolicy, ingratitude, and injustice! The pagan nations of antiquity scarcely acted on such barbarous principles. Look to ancient Rome, with her sword in one hand and her constitution in the other, healing the injuries of conquest with the embrace of brotherhood, and wisely converting the captive into the citizen. Look to her great enemy, the glorious Carthaginian, at the foot of the Alps, ranging his prisoners round him, and by the politic option of captivity or arms, recruiting his legions with the very men whom he had literally conquered into gratitude! They laid their foundations deep in the human heart, and their success was proportionate to their policy. You complain of the violence of the Irish Catholic: can you wonder he is violent? It is the consequence of your own infliction-

"The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear,

The blood will follow where the knife is driven."

Your friendship has been to him worse than hostility; he feels its embrace but by the pressure of his fetters! I am only amazed he is not more violent. He fills your exchequer, he fights your battles, he feeds your clergy from whom he derives no benefit, he shares your burdens, he shares your perils, he shares every thing except your privileges. can you wonder he is violent? No matter what his merit, no matter what his claims, no matter what his services; he sees himself a nominal