of the commissioners of the revenue and dividing of the boards, be laid before His Majesty, with an humble address that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to order to be laid before us the particulars of the representations, in consequence of which two new com missioners of the customs have been added, notwithstanding the resolutions of this House; and also that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to communicate to his faithful Commons the names of the persons concerned in recommending that measure".

February 11, 1790.

I think it necessary to rise, to make some few observations on what fell in this debate from some gentlemen on the other side, on the subject of party. We have been called "the tail of a British faction"; by whom? By those, or the followers of those, who owe their livelihood, or their first elevation, to what they call “the British faction"; by those who have received one, two, or three thousand pounds a-year from that British faction; whose numerous family have been fed by that British faction; or whose introduction into political life was first due, and the consequences, therefore, in some degree to be attributed to that British faction. There is not one of the gentlemen in the present Irish administration who is really confidential, that is not bound either by the closest relationship or the greatest political pecuniary obligations to that British faction; nor is there any one of them, or of those who act under them, that would not be the humble servant of that British faction, if the keys of the treasury were once more in those hands; nor is there any one of them who would not, and does not now, for his private interest, personally and privately court that British faction. When such men revile that body, and instigate their friends and followers and retainers to revile that body, such men do not acquit themselves of the charge of party, but convict themselves of the basest ingratitude and vilest adulation. They prove themselves willing to offer their wretched incense to whomsoever shall be in power; to those from whom they now receive wages, and therefore fawn on, at the expense of those from whom they did receive wages, from whom they are ready to receive wages, but from whom, at this particular moment, they receive wages no longer; and, therefore, such men are not above party, but so very mercenary and menial, as to be below faction. Just so the coachman who drives the minister:

he serves secretary after secretary-he is handed down from master to master, and he inquires not into the principles of any, but receives wages from all; and his justification is, that he is a servant. But should he, servant as he is, like some of you, revile those masters who have paid him, then he would be a faithless hireling, and not an honest servant.

Sir, I will tell gentlemen what description of party is beneficial: party united on public principle by the bond of certain specific public measures, which measures cannot be carried by individuals, and can only succeed by party.

I will state some of our's: a pension bill; a place bill; a repeal of the present Dublin police bill; a responsibility bill; that is, a bill requiring the acts of the executive power to be signed by certain officers resident in Ireland, who shall be, with their lives and fortunes, responsible to this kingdom in the measures and expenses of government; also a bill to preserve the freedom of election, by disqualifying revenue officers; and further, a total demolition of the new charges created by the Marquess of Buckingham.

These are some of the measures which we, if we should have power, are pledged to the public to carry into specific execution. I read them the rather, because, littera scripta manet, the public hears and will record.

These are some of our measures. I now turn to administration, and call upon them to state their measures; what bills for the public good? State them; come forth. I pause to give them time to consider. Well, what are they? not one public, constitutional, or wise regulation; there they sit under the public eye-a blank, excavated and eviscerated of any one single constitutional or economic bill, or principle, or project, for the good of the community.

Sir, I will give these gentlemen of administration, on this topic of party, the greatest advantage they can in their situation receive. I will draw a veil over the past, and forget the specific services which we have performed, and those which we are pledged to perform for the good of the country. I will also forget the injuries which they and their abettors have at different times inflicted, and are at this hour inflicting on the community. Let us start as it were anew; set name against name, and we will beat them down by character.

I have submitted a description of party which I conceive to be & public benefit. I will state to you a description of party which I conceive to be a public curse; if party it can be called which is worse than a faction, and nothing more than an impudent phalanx of political mercenaries, coming from their little respective offices to

vote for their bribe and vapour for their character, who have neither the principles of patriotism, nor ambition, nor party, nor honour; who are governed not by deliberation, but discipline, and lick the hands that feed, and worship the patron who bribes them. Degraded men, disgraceful tribe; when they vote for measures, they are venal; when such men talk against party, they are impudent!

As to the complaint before you, contained in the address of my friend, I can only say what has already been said better by others. This complaint is not incompatible with the bill. It states the grievance of the excess of pensions, and applies for redress; the bill purports to prevent the repetition of that excess by operation of law. The pension list is not now less than the latitude of the bill; they have not read the bill who talk so. The establishment of the bill, including royal pensions, parliament pensions, military pensions, and incidents, was £80,000. The latitude of the list with these, about £110,000. There was, indeed, in the bill a latitude for future royal and parliament pensions, but ne present were and are included in the bill of £80,000-you will be certain of this, because we will try the bill again. They say we have no evidence of what? that the Irish pension list is excessive and corrupt. What! do they want to be convicted as well as confuted? Had you the evidence they demand, it would not be sufficient to proceed against the measure, it would be incumbent on you to proceed against the men.

What evidence had this House in 1757, which resolved a string of resolutions against pensions? What evidence had this House in 1771 and 1773, that resolved against Mr. Dyson's pension? In these cases you act as an inquest—notoriety is evidence here-notoriety of corruption in the present case is ample evidence. Do yon demand more evidence? The men who have supported these measures are evidence; the reason, or rather the want of reason, they adduced, is evidence. They have attempted to tell you, that you have no right to complain to the king on the exercise of his prerogative; and, in telling you so, they talk like school-boys, unfit to be members of the legislature, and still more anfit to be ministers of the crown. You are the great council of the nation, and obliged to remonstrate with the king on the improper exercise of his prerogative, unless you have abdicated that situation, and, instead of being the great council of the nation, under the present ministers, bave become the pensioners of administration.

Gentlemen tell you, that your debt has decreased, and therefore they infer, you may increase corruption. Sir, the fact is not so; the forded debt, indeed, has decreased, and without any merit in govern

ment; but there is another debt, the unfunded debt, which has not only increased, but which, when added to the other debt, makes in the whole, on a comparative view of 1789 with 1787, an increase of debt £113,000; for those reductions of fictitious charges are to be taken off the debt of 1787, as well as off 1789, and there will be, notwithstanding your new taxes and your unfounded argument, an increase of debt from 1787 to 1789, in the sum of £113,000. But there is another position which they cannot deny, and which is fatal to that argument that supports the pension list, presuming on the ability of the nation. Sir, you this moment exceed your income; you exceed it in the sum of near £100,000, notwithstanding this casual payment to the minister for New Geneva. What becomes of the argument of those gentlemen now? Sir, there is another position which they cannot deny, and that is, that they now want a loan of near £200,000, which they wish to postpone; but they admit the fact. Their argument, therefore, founded on the prosperity of your revenue, is a false confidence founded on a fallacious statement. Their other argument, founded on the prosperity of the nation, let us examine that.

The country is rising in prosperity! it is true. We prevailedwe, on this side of the House, with the assistance of the people, got for the country a free trade and a free constitution, without the assistance, and in direct opposition to some of the gentlemen on that side of the House now in her government-gentlemen who took no part, or took a most hostile and wicked part on those great occasions. Yes, Sir, we prevailed against these deserters of the pretensions of their country, of her trade, and her constitution. The consequence of their defeat and of our victory was, that the country, free from restrictions, shot forth in prosperity and industry, not by the virtue of her present ministers, but by her own native vigour, which their oppression is no longer able, and which their corruptions have not yet been able, to subdue.

This country is placed in a sort of interval between the cessation of a system of oppression, and the formation of a system of corruption; the former affects her no longer; the latter has only began within the walls of certain august bodies, and will take time to propagate all its poisons into the mass of the country; but go on for ten or twelve years as you have done in the last five; increase in the same proportion your number of parliamentary places; increase, as you have done, your annual charge, every five years of peace, £183,000; get every five years new taxes, and apply them as you have done, and then the minister will find that he has impared the trade and agri

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culture, as well as destroyed the virtue and the freedom, of the country.

There is no object which a course of corrupt government will not finally ruin—morality, constitution, commerce, manufacture, agriculture, industry. A corrupt minister issues forth from his cabinet like sin and death, and senates first wither under his footsteps; then he consumes the treasury; and then he corrupts the capital, and the different forms of constitutional life, and the moral system; and at last, the whole island is involved in one capacious curse from shore to shore -from the nadir to the zenith.

Yes; the country is a great and growing kingdoin; but were the physical blessings as sparingly dealt out as those which proceed from her present government-were she as much cast off by Providence as by her ministers, I own I should think her a country too lost to be defended.

Yes! Ireland is a great country-4,000,000 of men, and near £5,000,000 of export. Look at your ministers; there they are; I do not ask them—but I ask you, are they, are they such men-tho public eye beholds them—are such meu fit to govern such a country? Contemplating with due reverence, as they ought, the majesty of the people of Ireland, men such as they are, should feel in her growing consequence a sense of their own unworthiness, and a lesson to their presumption.

February 26, 1790.

Sir, those country gentlemen who have declared a general confidence in his Majesty's ministers, should have stated some ground for that confidence; for general opinion must be founded on particular facts. What are the fourteen new parliamentary salaries, and a new pension list of £13,000 a year, added or supplied, whereof you will find eight or nine pensions mediately or immediately parliamentary? Will the frankness of country gentlemen call these fourteen new parliamentary salaries, and these eight or nine parliamentary pensions, anything more than measures of corruption? What de they think of these peerages, sold for money to be laid out in the purchase of seats for the servants of the Castle to sit among the representatives of the people? It follows, that the country gentlemen, such of them as now step forward in support of the administration, must either withdraw their confidence, or acknowledge that they