FOREIGN ENLISTMENT BILL. So. EXTRACT S. APRIL 16, 1823. WHAT, Sir! is it to become a maxim with this country that she is ever to be a belligerent? Is she never, under any possible state of circumstances, to remain neutral? If this proposition be good for any thing, it must run to this extent -that our position, insulated as it is from all the rest of the world, moves us so far from the scene of continental warfare, that we ought always to be belligerent that we are bound to counteract the designs of Providence, to reject the advantages of nature, and to render futile and erroneous the description of the poet, who has said, to our honor, that we were less prone to war and tumult, on account of our happy situation, than the neighboring nations that lie conterminous with one another. But wherefore this dread of a neutrality? If gentlemen look to the page of history, they will find that for centuries past, whenever there has been a war in Europe, we have almost always been belligerent. The fact is undoubt edly so; but I am not prepared to lay it down as a principle, that if, at the beginning of a war, we should happen to maintain a species of neutrality, it was an unnatural thing that we should do Gentlemen say that we must be drawn into a war, sooner or later. Why, then, I answer, let it be later. I say, if we are to be drawn into a war, let us be drawn into it on grounds clearly British. I do not say—God forbid I should-that it is no part of the duty of Great Britain to protect what is termed the balance of power, and to aid the weak against the insults of the strong. I say, on the contrary, that to do so is her bounden duty; but I affirm, also, that we must take care to do our duty to ourselves. The first condition of engaging in any war-the sine quà non of every such undertaking-is, that the war must be jus; the second, that being just in itself, we can als with justice engage in it; and the third, that being just in its nature, and it being possible for us justly to embark in it, we can so interfere without detriment or prejudice to ourselves. I contend that he is a visionary politician who leaves this last condition out of the question; and I say further, that though the glorious abandonment of it may sound well in the generous speech of an irresponsible orator-with the safety of a nation upon his lips, and none of the responsibility upon his shoulders-it is matter deeply to be considered; and that the minister who should lay it out of his view, in calling on the country to undertake a war, would well deserve that universal censure and reprobation with which the noble Lord opposite has this night menaced me. If it be wise for a government, though it can not prevent an actual explosion, to endeavor to circumscribe the limits, and to lessen the duration of a war, then I say that the position we have taken in the present instance is of more probable efficacy than that in which we should have stood had we suffered ourselves to be drawn into a participation in the contest. Participation, did I say? Sir! is there any man who hears me-is there any man acquainted with the history of the country for the last twenty years, who does not know the way in which Great Britain has been accustomed to participate in a war? Do not gentlemen know that if we now enter into a war, we must take the whole burden of it upon ourselves, and conduct the whole force and exertions of the peninsula? But supposing such to be our course, how different must be our situation, as compared with former periods. When we last became the defenders of Spain, we fought for and with a united people. What would be the case at present? Any interference on our parts in favor of Spain must commence with an attempt to unite contending factions, and to stimulate men of opposite interests and opposite feelings to one grand and simultaneous effort. Now I do not hesitate to say that the man who would undertake to do this under present circumstances, must either be possessed of supernatural means of information, or of a hardihood which I may envy, but shall not attempt to imitate. I say that those men will not consult the true dignity of the country, who, finding fault with the part we have adopted, wish to indemnify themselves by endeavoring to make us perform that part amiss. Out course is neutrality-strict neutrality; and in the name of God, let us adhere to it. If you dislike that course-if you think it injurious to the honor or interests of the country-drive from their places those neutral ministers who have adopted it; but until you are prepared to declare war, you are bound to adhere to and to act upon the system which ministers have laid down. I stated, a few evenings ago, that we could have no difficulty in the course which we had to pursue in observance of a strict neutrality. We have spent much time in teaching other powers the nature of a strict neutrality; and, generally speaking, we found them most reluctant scholars. All I now call upon the House to do, is to adopt the same course which it has recommended to neutral powers upon former occasions. If I wished for a guide in a system of neutrality, I should take that laid down by America in the days of the Presidency of Washington and the Secretaryship of Jefferson ON THE KING'S SPEECH. FEBRUARY 15, 1825. I Now turn to that other part of the honorable and learned gentleman's [Mr. Brougham] speech, which he acknowledges his acquiescence in the | ests, we took care to give no just cause of ofpassages of the address echoing the satisfaction fense to other powers. felt at the success of the liberal commercial prin ARY 15, 1825. In the next place, are we prepared to say that these and other acts of the Catholic Association have no tendency to excite and inflame animosities? I affirm, without hesitation, that they have directly that tendency; and in support of this affirmation I must beg leave to recur, however solemnly warned against the recurrence, to an expression which I was the first to bring to the notice of the House, but which has been since the subject of repeated animadversion; I mean the adjuration "by the hate you bear to Orangemen," which was used by the association in their Various and not unamusing have been the attempts of gentlemen who take the part of the association, to get rid of this most unlucky phrase, or at least to dilute and attenuate its obvious and undeniable meaning. It is said to be unfair to select one insulated expression as indicating the general spirit of the proceedings of any publie body. Granted; if the expression had escaped in the heat of debate, if it had been struck out by the collision of argument, if it had been thrown forth in haste, and had been, upon reflection, recalled. But if the words are found in a document which was prepared with care and considered with deliberation-if it is notorious that they were pointed out as objectionable when they were first proposed by the framers of the address, but were, nevertheless, upon argument retained— surely we are not only justified in receiving them as an indication, at least, of the animus of those who used them; but we should be rejecting the best evidence of that animus, if we passed over so well-weighed a manifestation of it. ciples adopted by this country, and at the steps ON UNLAWFUL SOCIETIES IN IRELAND. FEBRCtaken for recognizing the new states of America. It does happen, however, that the honorable and learned gentleman being not unfrequently a speaker in this House, nor very concise in his speeches, and touching occasionally, as he proceeds, on almost every subject within the range of his imagination, as well as making some observations on the matter in hand-and having at different periods proposed and supported every innovation of which the law or Constitution of the country is susceptible-it is impossible to innovate, without appearing to borrow from him. Either, therefore, we must remain forever absolutely locked up as in a northern winter, or we must break our way out by some mode already sug-address to the Catholics of Ireland. gested by the honorable and learned gentleman, and then he cries out, "Ah, I was there before you! That is what I told you to do; but as you would not do it then, you have no right to do it now." In Queen Anne's reign there lived a very sage and able critic, named Dennis, who, in his old age, was the prey of a strange fancy, that he had himself written all the good things in all the good plays that were acted. Every good passage he met with in any author he insisted was his own. "It is none of his," Dennis would always say; "no, it's mine!" He went one day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly good to his taste occurred, till a scene in which a great storm was represented. As soon as he heard the thunder rolling over head, he exclaimed, "That's my thunder!" So it is with the honorable and learned gentleman; it's all his thunder. It will henceforth be impossible to confer any boon, or make any innovation, but he will claim it as his thunder. But it is due to him to acknowledge that he does not claim every thing; he will be content with the exclusive merit of the liberal measures relating to trade and commerce. Not desirous of violating his own principles, by claiming a monopoly of fore-structions on a phrase which is as plain in its sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to meaning as any which the hand of man ever my honorable and learned friend [Sir J. Mackin- wrote or the eye of man ever saw. The first tosh] near him, the praise of South America. 1 defense of this phrase was by an honorable memshould like to know whether, in some degree, ber from Ireland, who told us that the words do this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right not convey the same meaning in the Irish lanitself; but lest we should be too proud if he ap- guage which we in England naturally attach to proved our conduct in toto, he thinks it wrong in them. I do not pretend to be conversant with point of time. I differ from him essentially; for the Irish language; and must, therefore, leave if I pique myself on any thing in this affair, it is that apology to stand for what it may be worth, the time. That, at some time or other, states on the learned gentleman's erudition and authorwhich had separated themselves from the mother ity. I will not follow every other gentleman country should or should not be admitted to the who has strained his faculties to explain away rank of independent nations, is a proposition to this unfortunate expression; but will come at which no possible dissent could be given. The once to my honorable and learned friend [Sir whole question was one of time and mode. There James Mackintosh], the member for Knaresborwere two modes: one a reckless and headlong ough, to whom the palm in this contest of ingecourse, by which we might have reached our ob- nuity must be conceded by all his competitors. ject at once, but at the expense of drawing upon My honorable friend has expended abundant reus consequences not highly to be estimated; the search and subtilty upon this inquiry, and having other was more strictly guarded in point of prin- resolved the phrase into its elements in the cruoiple; so that, while we pursued our own inter-cible of his philosophical mind, has produced it Were not this felt by honorable gentlemen on the other side to be true, we should not have seen them so anxious to put forced and fanciful con to us purified and refined to a degree that must | and learned friend; it might be the poor man's 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 unrea sonable enough to talk of liking as a necessary preliminary to such a 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 contrive 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 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 very 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 can not 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. My honorable and learned friend, however, not content with laying down these new rules for reformation, thought it right to exemplify them in his own person, and, like Pope's Longinus, to be "himself the great sublime he drew." My learned friend tells us that Dr. Johnson was what he [Dr. Johnson himself] called a good hater; and that among the qualities which he hated most were two which my honorable friend unites in his own person—that of Whig and that of Scotchman. “So that," says my honorable friend, "if Dr. Johnson were alive, and were to meet me at the club, of which he was a founder, and of which I am now an unworthy member, he would probably break up the meeting rather than sit it out in such society." No, sir, not so. My honorable and learned friend forgets his own theory. If he had been only a Whig, or only a Scotchman, Dr. Johnson might have treated him as he apprehends; but being both, the great moralist would have said to my honorable friend, “Sir, you are too much of a Whig to be a good Scotchman; and, sir, you are too much of a Scotchman to be a good Whig." It is no doubt from the collision of these two vices in my learned friend's person, that he has become what I, and all who have the happiness of meeting him at the club, find him—an entirely faultless character. For my own part, however, I must say, that I can not see any hope of obtaining the great moral victory which my learned friend has anticipated-of winning men to the practice of virtue by adjurations addressed to their peculiar vices. I believe, after all these ratiocinations and refinements, we must come back to the plain truth, which is felt even while it is denied that the phrase "by the hate you bear to Orangemen," is an indefensible phrase; that it is at leastwhat alone I am contending that it is—incontestable evidence of the allegation that the Catholic Association does excite animosities in Ireland. It is an expression calculated to offend, provoke, and exasperate the Orangemen, however palatable to those whose hatred of Orangemen it predicates, and, to say the least, does not disapprove. LORD BROUGHAM. HENRY BROUGHAM is the last among the orators embraced in this collection; and as he is still living, only a brief notice will be given of his life and character. The family was one of the most ancient in Westmoreland, England. Brougham Castle is older than the days of King John; and the manor connected with it, after passing out of the family for a time, was regained by purchase and entailed on the oldest descendant in the male line. Toward the close of the last century, it fell to a young man who was studying in the University of Edinburgh, and who married, while there, a niece of the celebrated historian, Dr. Robertson. The first-fruit of this union was a son named HENRY, who was born at Edinburgh in 1779. The family appear to have resided chiefly or wholly in the Scottish capital; the boy received the rudiments of his education at the High School of Edinburgh, under the celebrated Dr. Adam, and was even then distinguished for his almost intuitive perception of whatever he undertook to learn. "He was wild, fond of pleasure, taking to study by starts, and always reading with more effect than others (when he did read), because it was for some specific object, the knowledge of which was to be acquired in the shortest possible time." We have here a perfect picture of Lord Brougham's mode of reading for life. Eager, restless, grasping after information of every kind, he has brought into his speeches a wider range of collateral thought than any of our orators, except Burke; and he has done it in just the way that might be expected from such a man, with inimitable freshness and power, but with those hasty judgments, that want of a profound knowledge of principles, and that frequent inaccuracy in details, which we always see in one who reads "for some specific object," instead of taking in the whole range of a science, and who is so much in a hurry, that he is constantly aiming to accomplish his task in "the shortest possible time." He entered the University of Edinburgh in the sixteenth year of his age, and soon gained the highest distinction by his extraordinary mathematical attainments. He gave in solutions of some very difficult theorems, which awakened the admiration of his instructors; and before he was seventeen, produced an essay on the "Flection and Reflection of Light," which was estimated so highly as to be inserted in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions. His supposed discoveries, so far as they were correct, proved, indeed, to have been anticipated by earlier writers; but they were undoubtedly the result of his own investigation; and they showed so remarkable a talent for mathematical research, that he was rewarded, at a somewhat later period (1803), with an election as member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is a curious fact that Lord Brougham has again taken up his favorite pursuits in optics at the age of seventy, and made recent communications to the French Institute, from his chateau at Cannes, in the south of France, on the same branch of science which called forth his early efforts in the University of Edinburgh. Having completed his college course, Mr. Brougham entered with indefatigable zeal upon the study of the law, in conjunction with Jeffery, Horner, and several other young men, who, only a few years after, stood foremost among the leading advocates of the country. He had commenced the practice of extemporaneous speaking some years before in the Speculative Society, that great theater of debate for the University of Edinburgh. He now carried it to a still greater height in the immediate prospect of his professional duties, and "exercised the same superiority over his youthful competitors (though some of them were then and afterward remarkable for their ability) which he held at a later period as Chancellor over the House of Lords." He was called in due course to the Scottish bar, and commenced business in Edinburgh with the most encouraging prospects of success. In 1803, he published his first work, in two octavo volumes, entitled "The Colonial Policy of the European Powers," containing an immense amount of information, and distinguished by the daring spirit of philosophical inquiry which he carried into this vast and complicated subject. He now removed to London, and, in addition to his practice at the bar, entered warmly into politics; producing a volume on the "State of the Nation," which awakened the liveliest interest by its eloquent assertion of Whig principles, and ultimately procured him a seat in Parliament by means of the Russell family. Before his removal to London, he united with the companions mentioned above in establishing the Edinburgh Review. He was for nearly twenty years one of its most regular contributors; and to him more than any other man was the work indebted for its searching analysis, its contemptuous and defiant spirit, its broad views of political subjects, and its eloquent exposition of Whig principles. Its motto,' whether selected by him or not, was designed to justify that condemnatory spirit which is so striking a trait in his character. A great part of his life has been spent in beating down; in detecting false pretensions whether in literature or politics; in searching out the abuses of long established institutions; in laying open the perversions of public charities; in exposing the cruelties of the criminal code; or in rousing public attention to a world of evils resulting from the irregularities in the administration of municipal law. The reader will be amused to trace this tendency of his mind, in turning over the four octavo volumes of his speeches as edited by himself, and observing their titles. We have "Military Flogging," with an exposure of its atrocities"Queen Caroline," defended at the expense of her husband-"The Durham Clergy," lashed unmercifully for their insulting treatment of the Queen-"The Orders in Council," with the folly of abusing the Americans because they had suffered from the abuse of France-" Agricultural Distress" and "Manufacturing Distress," as resulting from the rashness and incompetency of ministers-" Army Estimates," under which millions were lavished for mere military show in time of peace-"The Holy Alliance," with its atrocious attack on the constitutional government of Spain through the instrumentality of France-"The Slave Trade"-"The Missionary Smith," murdered in Demerara under a false charge of having excited insurrection-" Negro Apprenticeship," its inadequacy and folly-"The Eastern Slave Trade," or the cruelty and guilt of transporting coolies from Hindostan to be made laborers in the West India Islands—" Law Reform"-" Parliamentary Reform"-" Education," and the abuse of Educational Charities-"Scotch Parliamentary and Burgh Reform”—“ -"Scotch Marriage and Divorce Bill," showing that the existing laws are the worst possible" -"The Poor Laws," with "the deplorably corrupting effects of this abominable system"-" Neutral Rights," exposing their invasion by Great Britain-“ Administration of Law in Ireland," showing that "she had received penal statutes from England almost as plentifully as she had received blessings from the hands of Providence"-"Change of Ministry in 1834," with the gross, glaring, and almost incredible inconsistencies of Lord Wellington-" Business of Parliament," or the abuses which prevail in the mode of conducting its business"-" Maltreatment of the North American Colonies"-"The Civil List," or men's voting an allowance to the Queen "under the influence of excited feelings, and without giving themselves time to reflect." No orator certainly, since the days of Pym and Charles I., could furnish such another list. 1 “Judex damnatur dum nocens absolvitur,” the judge is condemned when the guilty is suffered to escape. |