to the extinction of the most invaluable part of your parliamentary
capacity; it is a union, an incipient and creeping union; a virtual
union, establishing one will in the general concerns of commerce and
navigation, and reposing that will in the Parliament of Great Britain;
a union where our Parliament preserves its existence after it has lost
its authority, and our people are to pay for a parliamentary estab-
lishment, without any proportion of parliamentary representation.
In opposing the right honourable gentleman's bill, I consider myself
as opposing a union in limine, and that argument for union which
makes similarity of law and community of interest (reason strong for
the freedom of Ireland!) a pretence for a condition which would be
dissimilarity of law, because extinction of constitution, and therefore
hostility, not community of interest. I ask on what experience is this
argument founded?
Have you, ever since your redemption, refused
to preserve a similarity of law in trade and navigation? Have you
not followed Great Britain in all her changes of the act of naviga-
tion during the whole of that unpalatable business, the American
war? Have you not excluded the cheap produce of other planta-
tions, in order that Irish poverty might give a monopoly to the dear
produce of the British colonies? Have you not made a better use
of your liberty than Great Britain did of her power? But I have an
ɔbjection to this argument, stronger even than its want of foundation
in reason and experiment; I hold it to be nothing less than an into-
lerance of the parliamentary constitution of Ireland, a declaration that
the full and free external legislation of the Irish Parliament is incom-
patible with the British empire. I do acknowledge that by your ex-
ternal power, you might discompose the harmony of the empire, and I
add that by your power over the purse, you might dissolve the state:
but to the latter, you owe your existence in the constitution, and to
the former, your authority and station in the empire: this argument,
therefore, rests the connection upon a new and a false principle, goes
directly against the root of Parliament, and is not a difficulty to be
accommodated, but an error to be eradicated; and if any body of men
can still think that the Irish constitution is incompatible with the
British empire-doctrine which I abjure as sedition against the con-
nection; but if any body of men are justified in thinking that the
Irish constitution is incompatible with the British empire, perish the
empire! live the constitution! Reduced by this false dilemma to
take a part, my second wish is the British empire, my first wish and
bounden duty is the liberty of Ireland.

But we are told this imperial power is not only necessary for England, but safe for Ireland. What is the present question? what but the abuse

x

of this very power of regulating the trade of Ireland by the British Parliament, excluding you and including herself by virtue of the same words of the same act of navigation? And what was the promovent cause of this arrangement? what but the power you are going to surrender the distinct and independent external authority of the Irish Parliament, competent to question that misconstruction? What is the remedy now proposed?-the evil. Go back to the Parliament of Eng land. I ask again, what were the difficulties in the way of your eleven propositions? what but the jealousy of the British manufacturers on the subject of trade? And will you make them your parliament, and that too for ever, and that too on the subject of their jealousy, and in the moment they displayed it? I will suppose that jealousy realized; that you rival them in some market abroad, and that they petition their Parliament to impose a regulation which shall affect a tonnage which you have and Great Britain has not: how would you then feel your situation, when you should be obliged to register all this? And how would you feel your degradation, when you should see your own manufacturers pass you by as a cypher in the constitution, and deprecate their ruin at the bar of a foreign parliament! Whence the American war? Whence the Irish restrictions? Whence the misconstruction of the act of navigation? Whence but from the evil of suffering one country to regulate the trade and navigation of another, and of instituting, under the idea of general protectress, a proud domination, which sacrifices the interest of the whole to the ambition of a part, and arms the little passions of the monopolist with the sovereign potency of an Imperial Parliament: for great nations, when cursed with unnatural sway, follow but their nature when they invade; and human wisdom has not better provided for human safety than by limiting the principles of human power. The surrender of legislature has been likened to cases that not unfrequently take place between two equal nations, covenanting to suspend, in particular cases, their respective legislative powers for mutual benefit; thus Great Britain and Portugal agree to suspend their legislative power in favour of the wine of the one and the woollen of the other; but if Portugal had gone farther, and agreed to subscribe the laws of England, this covenant had not been a treaty, but conquest. So Great Britain and Ireland may covenant not to raise high duties on each other's manufactures; but if Ireland goes farther, and covenants to subscribe British law, this is not a mutual suspension of the exercise of legislative power, but a transfer of the power itself from one country to another, to be exercised by another hand. Such covenant is not reciprocity of trade; it is a surrender of the government of your trade, inequality of trade,

and inequality of constitution. I speak, however, as if such transfer could take place; but in fact it could not any arrangement so coveuanting is a mere nullity; it could not bind you, still less could it bind your successors; for a ran is not omnipotent over himself, neither are your parliaments omnipotent over themselves, to accomplish their own destruction, and propagate death to their successors. There is in these cases a superior relationship to our respective creators -God and the community, which, in the instance of the individual; arrests the hand of suicide, and in that of the political body, stops the act of surrender, and makes man the means of propagation, and parliament the organ to continue liberty, not the engine to destroy it. However, though the surrender is void, there are two ways of attempting it; one, by a surrender in form, the other, by a surrender in substance; appointing another parliament your substitute, and consenting to be its register or stamp, by virtue of which to introduce the law and edict of another land, to clothe with the forms of your law foreign deliberations, and to preside over the disgraceful ceremony of your own abdicated authority. Both methods are equally surrenders, and both are wholly void. I speak on principle, the principle on which you stand-your creation. We, the limited trustees of the delegated power, born for a particular purpose, limited to a particular time, and bearing an inviolable relationship to the people who sent us to parliament, cannot break that relationship, counteract that purpose, surrender, diminish, or derogate from those privileges we breathe but to preserve. Could the Parliament of England covenant to subscribe your laws? could she covenant that young Ireland should command, and old England should obey? If such a proposal to England were mockery, to Ireland it cannot be constitution. I rest on authority as well as principle-the authority on which the revolution rests—Mr. Locke, who, in his chapter on the abolition of government, says: "that the transfer of legislative power is the abolition of the state, not a transfer". Thus, I may congratulate this House and myself, that it is one of the blessings of the British constitution, that it cannot perish of rapid mortality, nor die in a day, like the men who should protect her. Any act that would destroy the liberty of the people is dead-born from the womb. Men may put down the public cause for a season, but another year would see old Constitution advance the honours of his head, and the good institution of Parliament shaking off the tomb to reascend, in all its pomp, and pride, and plenitude, and privilege!

Sir, I have stated these propositions and the bill, as a mere transfer of external legislative authority to the Parliament of Great Britain

but I have understated their mischief; they go to taxation; taxes on the trade with the British plantations, taxes on the produce of foreign plantations, taxes on some of the produce of the United States of North America; they go to port duties, such as Great Britain laid on America! The mode is varied, but the principle is the same. Here Great Britain takes the stamp of the Irish Parliament; Great Britain is to prescribe, and Ireland is to obey! We anticipate the rape by previous surrender, and throw into the scale our honour as well as our liberty. Do not imagine that all these resolutions are mere acts of regulation; they are solid, substantial revenue, a great part of your additional duty. I allow the bill excepts rum and tobacco; but the principle is retained, and the operation of it only kept back. I have stated that Great Britain may by these propositions crush your commerce, but 1 shall be told that the commercial jealousy of Great Britain is at an end: but are her wants at an end? are her wishes for Irish subsidy at an end? No; and they may be gratified by laying colony duties on herself, and so raising on Ireland an imperial revenue to be subscribed by our Parliament, without the consent of our Parliament, and in despite of our people. Or, if a minister should please to turn himself to a general excise-if wishing to relieve from the weight of further additional duties the hereditary revenue now alienated—if wishing to relieve the alarms of the English manufacturers, who complain of our exemption from excises, particularly on soap, candles, and leather, he should proceed on those already registered articles of taxation, he might tax you by threats, suggesting that if you refuse to raise an excise on yourself, England. will raise colony duties on both. See what a mighty instrument of coercion this bill and these resolutions! Stir, and the minister can crush you in the name of Great Britain; he can crush your imports; he can crush your exports; he can do this in a manner peculiarly mortifying, by virtue of a clause in a British act of Parliament, that would seem to impose the same restrictions on Great Britain; he can do this in a manner still more offensive, by the immediate means of your own Parliament, who world be then an active cypher and notorious stamp in the hands of Great Britain, to forge and falsify the name and authority of the people of Ireland.

I have considered yoursituation under these propositions with respect to Great Britain: see what would be your situation with respect to the crown. You would have granted to the King a perpetual money bill, or a money bill to continue as long as the Parliament of Great Britain shall please, with a covenant to increase it as often as the British Parliament shall please. By the resolutions a great part of the additional duty would

have been so granted; the trade of the country is made dependent on the Parliament of Great Britain, and the Crown is made less dependent on the Parliament of Ireland, and a code of prerogative added to a code of empire. If the merchant, after this, should petition you to、 lower your duties on the articles of trade, you answer, “trade is in covenant". If your constituents should instruct you to limit the bill of supply, or pass a short money bill, you answer, "the purse of the nation, like her trade, is in covenant". No more of six months' money bills; no more of instructions from constituents; that connection is broken by this bill. Pass this, you have no constituent; you are not the representative of the people of Ireland, but the register of the British Parliament, and the equalizer of British duties.

In order to complete this chain of power, one link, I do acknowledge, was wanting-a perpetual revenue bill, or a covenant from time to time to renew the bill for the collection thereof. The twentieth resolution, and this bill founded upon it, attain that object. Sir, this House rests on three pillars: your power over the annual mutiny bill; your power over the annual additional duties; your power over the collection of the revenue. The latter power is of great consequence, because a great part of our revenues is granted for ever. Your ancestors were slaves; and for their estates, that is, for the act of settlement, granted the hereditary revenue, and from that moment ceased to be a parliament. Nor was it till many years after that parliament revived; but it revived, as you under this bill would continue, without parliamentary power. Every evil measure derived argument, energy, and essence from this unconstitutional fund. If a country gentleman complained of the expenses of the Crown, he was told a frugal government could go on without a parliament, and that we held our existence by withholding the discharge of our duty. However, though the funds were granted for ever, the provision for the collection was inadequate; the smuggler learned to evade the penalties, and parliament, though not necessary for granting the hereditary revenue, became necessary for its collection. Here then we rest on three pillars: the annual mutiny bill, the annual additional supply, and the annual collection of the revenue. If you remove all these, this fabric falls; remove any one of them, and it totters; for it is not the mace, nor the chair, nor this dome, but the deliberate voice resident therein, that constitutes the essence of parliament. Clog your deliberations, and you are no longer a parliament, with a thousand gaudy surviving circumstances of show and authority.

Contemplate for a moment the powers this bill presumes to per