stitution, to become a precedent for ever. In tenderness even to the judges, interpose. Their regret, which I am sure they now feel, on reflection, cannot undo what they have done: their hands cannot wash away what is written in their records; but you may repair whatever has been injured: -- if your friend had unwillingly plunged a dagger into the breast of a stranger, would you prove his innocence by letting the victim bleed to death? The constitution has been wounded deeply, but, I am persuaded, innocently; it is you only, who, by neglecting to interpose, can make the consequences fatal, and the wound ripen into murder.

I would wish, I own, that the liberty of Ireland should be supported by her own children; but if she is scorned and rejected by them, when her all is at stake, I will implore the assistance even of two strangers; I will call on the right honorable Secretary to support the principles of the British constitution. Let him not render his administration odious to the people of Ireland, by applying his influence in this house, to the ruin of their personal freedom. Let him not give a pretence to the enemies of his friend in a sister country, to say that the son of the illustrious Chatham is disgracing the memory of his great father; that the trophies of his Irish administration are the introduction of an inquisition among us, and the extinction of a trial by jury; let them not say that the pulse of the constitution beats only in the heart of the empire, but that it is dead in the extremities.

Mr. Curran concluded with declaring his hearty concurrence in the resolution proposed.

The Attorney-General (Fitzgibbon), in a speech of much personality, opposed Curran's motion.

Mr. Curran in reply I thank the right honorable gentleman for restoring me to my good humor, and for having, with great liberality and parliamentary decency, answered my arguments with personality. Some expressions cannot heat me, when coming from persons of a certain distinction. I shall not interrupt the right honorable gentleman in the fifth repetition of his speech. I shall prevent his arguments by telling him that he has not in one instance alluded to Mr. Reilly. The right honorable gentleman said I had declared the judges guilty; but I said no such thing. I said, if any judge was to act in

the manner I mentioned, it would be an aggravation of his guilt. The right honorable gentleman has said, that the house of commons had no right to investigate the conduct of judges; if so, I ask the learned Sergeant why he sits in that chair? I ask why the resolution has been just read from the journals? The gentleman has called ine a babbler; I cannot think that was meant as a disgrace, because, in another Parliament, before I had the honor of a seat in this house, but when I was in the gallery, I heard a young lawyer named Babbler. I do not recollect that there were sponsors at the baptismal font; nor was there any occasion, as the infant had promised and vowed so many things in his own name. Indeed I find it difficult to reply, for I am not accustomed to pronounce panegyrics on myself; I do not know well how to do it; but since I cannot tell you what I am, I shall tell you what I am not: - I am not a man whose respect in person and character depends upon the importance of his office; I am not a young man who thrusts himself into the foreground of a picture, which ought to be occupied by a better figure; I am not a man who replies with invective, when sinking under the weight of argument; I am not a man who denied the necessity of a parliamentary reform, at the time he proved the expediency of it, by reviling his own constituents, the parish clerk, the sexton, and the grave-digger; and if there be any man who can apply what I am not to himself, I leave him to think of it in the committee, and to contemplate it when he goes home. Debates, Vol. IV., pp. 402–10.

The resolution was negatived by 143 to 71.

ORDE'S COMMERCIAL PROPOSITIONS.

JUNE 30TH, 1785.

Was the interest of Ireland to be subordinate to England, when her parliament had ceased to be so? This Mr. Pitt tried to adjudicate against, by deceit, in 1785, and failing, he resolved to reach the same end by abolishing our parliament, and this he unhappily accomplished in 1800.

There is no political event from 1782 to the Union, of greater importance than the discussion of Orde's Propositions. In Grattan's Memoirs, vol. iii., and in Seward's Collectanes Politica, valuable elements of a judgment on this matter will be found. I tried to sum up the history of the transaction in the "Citizen " Magazine for September, 1841, in reviewing Grattan's Memoirs. On looking over that paper, I find I cannot condense the description of the propositions and their fate, given there, so I shall simply copy it:

"Partly from a belief that protection alone would secure a beginning to trade, and partly out of retribution on England, an attempt was made in April, 1784, to impose severe import duties on manufactures. Mr. Gardiner's motion for that purpose was negatived in parliament by nearly four to one; not that the Commons were the enemies of protection, but the creatures of England.

"In May in the same year, 1784, a proposal of Mr. Griffith's, for inquiry on the commercial intercourse between Britain and Ireland, was taken out of his hands by government. He desired to show that Irish trade should be protected from English competition: the opposite was the direction given to the inquiry by the adopting parents; he sought to inquire how Ireland might be served even at the expense of England; they, how England might be pampered on the spoil of Ireland. Accordingly, they solved it in their own way, and on the 7th of February, 1785, Mr. Orde, the Chief Secretary, announced, and on the 11th, moved the eleven propositions on trade, commonly called the Irish propositions, to distinguish them from the twenty proposed as amendments thereon by Pitt, a few months after, called the English propositions, though, in fact, both were English in contrivance and purport. There were four principles established in the Irish propositions:- 1st, that the taxes upon all goods, foreign and domestic, passing between the two countries, should be equal. Secondly, that taxes on foreign goods should be always higher than on the same articles produced in either island. Thirdly, that these regulations should be unalterable. Fourthly, that the surplus of the hereditary revenue (hearth tax, and certain customs and excises, over £656,000 a year) should he paid over to the English treasury, for the support of the Imperial (English?) navy. The first principle went to place a country with immense capital, great skill, and old trade on the same foot

ing with one without any of these, and therefore went to ruin the latter, unless private enterprise came forward, as before, and, supplying the defects of the law, rescued the country from the alien, the aristocrat, and the placeman. The second article sacrificed the realities of French, Spanish and American trade, then increas ing, to (the profits?) of English competition. The third and fourth were assumptions of a power beyond law-making; they abdicated legislation. The last, especially, paid for English strength-that is, Irish misery; and purchased protection, that is, slavery, at a price, which, as Grattan afterwards said, might amount to any share of the national revenue, to which a tricking financier wished to raise it. To pay black mail was to lay Ireland at the mercy of England, yet not secure her against other foreign states by any lasting or effectual means. An old treaty, or the convenience of a conqueror, are no substitutes for the safety, of which national and home passions and interests are the true guardians. Your own sword is a better protection than another's shield; for if he be endangered, you are left unarmed and undefended. Besides, between nations, guardianship means plunder; and the ward is an impoverished drudge. Yet this plan was proffered as a boon, and, what is stranger still, it was paid for as such- - £140,000 of new taxes were asked for, and voted in return for the prospective favors of the minister, Flood almost alone opposed it; he asked for time to let himself— to let the nation reflect on the propositions; he exposed some of the propositions; he expressed confi. dence in only a few. . . ."

"On the 22nd of February, Pitt, in a speech full of hopes for this country, moved the resolution which declared that Ireland should be allowed the advantages (i. e., competition) of British commerce as soon as she had 'irrevocably' granted to England an aid' (i. e., tribute) for general defence. Thus we were promised an equivocal boon at the cost of independence. Such was the generosity of Pitt, and it was too much for the opposition, too much for North and the Tories, too much for Fox and the whigs. They were in opposition, and they saw in English jealousy to Ireland a sure resource against the heaven-born minister.' He, to be sure, had not done good to Ireland, but he gravely promised to serve her, and this was suspicious, at least, especially when coming from one who still had a character. None of the leaders cared for Ireland, nor were they bigoted against her; but they flung her in each other's faces. . . ."

"Fox obtained adjournments; and all England 'spoke out,' from Lancashire to London, from Gloucester to York. During the twenty years of Pitt's supremacy, the liberal opposition had his apostacy from principle, his suppression of opinion in England, his hostility to freedom all over the globe, his bloody and constant wars, —all these had they, and what came nearer still to the soul (stomach) of England, they had his exhausting taxation to bring against him; yet he repelled them without difficulty, even led by Fox, when armed with these grievances. In 1785 the opposi tion united under a more exciting banner-cry, 'Jealousy of Ireland,' and England rallied beneath their flag. Pitt was borne back, but he was skilful and unscrupulous; he saw his danger, and sounded a parley; he submitted to some of their terms; he succeeded in retaining all that was adverse to the Irish constitution, suffered the loss of all that could be by any ingenuity supposed serviceable to Irish trade, and returned the act approved of by him in this form. The opposition kept up a little clamor about the invasion of Irish rights; it served for declamation, but England was now content; there being no fear of benefit to Ireland, the intended wrongs were soon forgotten in Englan 1.

"We have before us the Report of the Committee of Trade and Plantations ou the equalization of duties. That report includes the examinations of the chief manufacturers of England, and a more valuable evidence could not be got of English dread and jealousy, and assumption; fearing that free trade may make Ireland able to compete with them, they deprecate her prosperity, and assume a right to control her improvement. They all assert the success of the Irish non-importation agreement."

“The eleven propositions had been increased in England to twenty, each addition a fresh injury. Half the globe, namely, all between Magellan and Good Hope, was O articles 3 and 9) interdicted to Ireland's ships; interdicts were also laid on certain goods. The whole customs legislation of Ireland was taken away by clauses which forced her (by article 4) to enact (register) all navigation laws passed or to be passed by England; (by articles 5 and 8) to impose all colonial duties that Eng and did; (by 6 and 7) to adopt the same system in custom houses that England did; and finally, (by 17 and 18) to recognize all patents and copyrights granted to England."

The propositions were returned thus changed, and on Thursday, the 30th of June, 1785, the Right Honorable Thomas Orde moved the adjournment of the house till Tuesday fortnight. Against this Curran spoke as follows:

CAN easily excuse some inconsistencies in the conduct of the right honorable Secretary [Orde]; for some accidents have befallen him. When we met last, he desired us to adjourn for three weeks; we did so; and now he wants above a fortnight more; but will that help forward the business before the house? Will it expedite the progress of the bill, to say, "Let us wait till the packet comes in from England, and perhaps we shall have some news about the propositions?" Did the British minister act in this manner? No: when he postponed, from time to time, the consideration of the propositions, he did not postpone the other business of the house; he did not say, let it wait till the packet comes from Dublin. This the Irish minister is forced to do: I say forced, for I am sure it is not his inclination; it must distress him greatly, and I sincerely feel for, and pity his distress.

When we had the eleven propositions before us, we were charmed with them. Why? because we did not understand them! Yes, the endearing word reciprocity rang at every corner of the streets. We then thought that the right honorable gentleman laid the propositions before us by authority; but the English minister reprobates them as soon as they get to England, and the whole nation reprobates them. Thus, on one hand we must conclude, that the English minister tells the Irish minister to propose an adjustment, and,