We follow the minister. In defence of his plan of Union, he tells us the number of Irish representatives in the British Parliament is of little consequence. This doctrine is new, namely, that between two nations the comparative influence is of no moment. According to this, it would be of no moment what should be the number of the British Parliament. No, says the minister; the alteration is to be limited to the Irish Parliament; the number and fabric of the British is to remain entire, unaltered, and unalterable. What now becomes of the argument of mutual and reciprocal change? or what does the new argument avow, but what we maintained and the court denied, that the Union was, with respect to Ireland, a merger of her parliament in the legislature of the other, without creating any material alteration therein, save as far as it advanced the influence of the crown, direct or indirect. The minister goes on, and supposes one hundred Irish will be sufficient, because he supposes any number would be sufficient; and he supposes any number would be sufficient, because the nations are identified. Thus he speaks, as if identification was at once a cause to flow from representation, and an event which peceded it. You are one people, such is his argument, because you are represented, and what signifies how, or, indeed, whether you be represented? But the fact is, that you are identified (if you be identified, which I deny) in the single point of representation, and that representation is absorbed in the superior numbers of the English Parliament, and that apparent identification is, of course, lost, while you remain a distinct country, distinct in interest, revenue, law, finance, commerce, government. Suppose Yorkshire governed by a lord-lieutenant and by a different code of law, she would not be a part of England, but a province of Great Britain; but now the martial law of Scotland must be the martial law of England; and therefore the constitutional sympathy of England defends and renders the number of her representatives less essential; but the martial law of Ireland is not the martial law of England; the military government of Ircland is not the military government of England, and therefore the constitutional sympathy of England does not defend Ireland, but, on the contrary, the imperial jealousy of England endangers Ireland, and has taught the councils of Britain to think that our servitude is our safety. -- "It is matter of no moment what are the number of Irish representatives, provided that they be sufficient to state the wants, and watch over the interest of their country." So do the public prints make the minister speak. Why! three men are sufficient for that purpose one man could do it a gentleman seated at the bar could do it; the American agents did that before the American war. But the minister is made to add another provision, which makes his doctrine less answerable in point of meaning, leaving it without any meaning at all "provided that the numbers be sufficient to protect the rights of the country." But, indeed, when he afterwards explains what protection those rights are to receive, then he sets your mind at ease protection against Jacobinism; that's the only point, and that could be accomplished without a single representative without a parliament; an absolute monarch could do that; martial law will do that; James the Second would have done it. But are there no popular rights? Is liberty gone out of the calendar? Order, government, they are indispensable, but are they the whole? This is new doctrine in these countries, very familiar to a minister, but very fatal to a free people. He confines the purposes of Irish representation to two objects; first, watching and stating, which only requires one representative; secondly, protection against Jacobinism, which requires no representative whatever. He then proceeds to ask himself a question extremely natural after such reasoning; what security has Ireland? He answers, with great candor, honor. English honor. Now, when the liberty and security of one country depend on the honor of another, the latter may have much honor, but the former can have no liberty. To depend on the honor of another country, is to depend on the will; and to depend on the will of another country, is the definition of slavery. "Depend on my honor," said Charles the First, when he trifled about the petition of right: "I will trust the people with the custody of their own liberty, but I will trust no people with the custody of any liberty other than their own, whether that people be Rome, Athens, or Britain." Observe how the minister speaks of that country which is to depend hereafter on British honor, which, in his present power, is, in fact, his honor. "We had to contend with the leaders of the Protestants, enemies to government;' the violent and inflamed spirit of the Catholics; the disappointed ambition of those who would ruin the country because they could not be the rulers of it." Behold the character he gives of the enemies of the Union, namely, of twentyone counties convened at public meetings by due notice; of several other counties that have petitioned; of most of the great cities and towns, or indeed of almost all the Irish, save a very few mistaken men, and that body whom government could influence. Thus the minister utters a national proscription at the moment of his projected Union he excludes by personal abuse from the possibility of identification, all the enemies of the Union, all the friends of the parliamentary constitution of 1782, that great body of the Irish, he abuses them with a petulance more befitting one of his Irish ministers, than an exalted character, and infinitely more disgraceful to himself than to them; one would think one of his Irish railers had lent him their vulgar clarion to bray at the people. This union of parliaments, this proscription of people, he follows by a declaration wherein he misrepresents their sentiments as he had before traduced their reputation. After a calm and mature consideration, the people have pronounced their judgment in favor of an Union; of which assertion not one single syllable has any existence in fact, or in the appearance of fact, and I appeal to the petitions of twenty-one counties publicly convened, and to the other petitions of other counties numerously signed, and to those of the great towns and cities. To affirm that the judgment of a nation is erroneous may mortify, but to affirm that her judgment against is for; to assert that she has said aye when she has pronounced no; to affect to refer a great question to the people; finding the sense of the people, like that of the parliament, against the question, to force the question; to affirm the sense of the people to be for the question; to affirm that the question is persisted in because the sense of the people is for it; to make the falsification of her sentiments the foundation of her ruin and the ground of the Union; to affirm that her parliament, constitution, liberty, honor, property, are taken away by her own authority; there is, in such artifice, an effrontery, a hardihood, an insensibility, that can best be answered by sensations of astonishment and disgust, excited on this occasion by the British minister, whether he speaks in gross and total ignorance of the truth, or in shameless and supreme contempt for it. The constitution may be for a time so lost; the character of the country cannot be lost. The ministers of the crown will, or may perhaps at length find that it is not so easy to put down for ever an ancient and respectable nation, by abilities, however great, and by power and by corruption, however irresistible; liberty may repair her golden beams, and with redoubled heat animate the country; the cry of loyalty will not long continue against the principles of liberty; wyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capacious principle; but in these countries loyalty, distinct from liberty, is corruption, not loyalty. The cry of the connection will not, in the end, avail against the principles of liberty. Connection is a wise and a profound policy; but connection without an Irish Parliament, is connection without its own principle, without analogy of condition, without the pride of honor that should attend it; is innovation, is peril, is subjugation — not connection. The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against the principles of liberty. Identification is a solid and imperial maxim, necessary for the preservation of freedom, necessary for that of empire; but, without union of hearts with a separate government, and without a separate parliament, identification is extinction, is dishonor, is conquest - not identification. Yet I do not give up the country: I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead; though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty "Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light bark of his faith with every new breath of wind: I will remain anchored here with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall. INVECTIVE AGAINST CORRY. FEBRUARY 14TH, 1800. AS the gentleman done? Has he completely done? He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. There was scarce a word he uttered that was not a violation of the privileges of the House; but I did not call him to order why? because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be severe without being unparliamentary. But before I sit down I shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any other occasion I should think myself justifiable in treating with silent contempt anything which might fall from that honorable member; but there are times when the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know the difficulty the honorable gentleman labored under when he attacked me, conscious that, on a comparative view of our characters, public and private, there is nothing he could say which would injure me. The public would not believe the charge. I despise the falsehood. If such a charge were made by an honest man, I would answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit down. But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest man. The right honorable gentleman has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not "traitor," unqualified by any epithet? I will tell him; it was because he dare not. It was the act of a coward, who raises his aim to strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy counsellor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of arliament and freedom of debate to the uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should |