the judges, nor the will of the legislature, but is above them all, and above the states to which such thir gs are subject.

It has been unfortunate that a certain trick of expression, without foundation in things, "simple repeal", "remote and dubious construction", "legal security", "unequivocal emancipation", things either inapplicable or inadmissible, should, with a glib expedition and easy jingle, have run through the mouths of several. The chime of artificial words, the gabble of a party, running off the tongue without touching the intellect, and constantly dinned into the public ear, were received as oracles of truth, when they should have been rejected as watch-words of rancour and symbols of party. They who fell under the influence of these words, they who talk of simple repeal, rejected a material part of the transaction to argue falsely upon the remainder; they rejected that part which made the transaction a treaty, that by its nature bound the British Parliament, and confined themselves to the legal part, which, by its nature, could not bind the legislature; they simplified Ireland totally out of the transaction; they simplified the law of nations and the faith of nations totally out of the transaction; they simplified every thing into clauses of the British statute, whose operation could not bind the British Parliament, against whom your claims were directed, except by taking into consideration those Irish transactions which they, in their temerity, called "transitory ", and which they in particular rejected, and except by taking into consideration the law of nations and of treaties, which they despised.

They called for legal security: like slaves, they desired manumission from the British Parliament: moriatur frigore ni reduces pannum. Away with doubtful construction and inexplicit security! We are enslaved unless we are freed by an English act of Parliament ! Away with the charters of Ireland, and the distinct inherent rights of the land: let us have the English Parliament expressly legalize the independency of the Parliament of Ireland; establish the liberty of Ireland by virtue of an English act! Away with the flimsy bubble, ecurity of a covenant between nation and nation! let us bind the Parliament of England by its laws!

Such men, while they think they are committing the very excesses of liberty, talk in the very sense and spirit of slavery; they neither are free, nor can they be free: for, as they will admit of no Legal security except in the laws of another nation, they are to that nation tenants-at-will for liberty, not freemen: men manumitted, with a power of revocation reserved to the ancient lords; and therefore their imaginary condition of lil rty is of as abject and base a

conure as their metaphysical arguments are absurd. The reason why they argue so is, that their mind has not grown to their condition; they do not feel that Ireland is a nation, though they talk at random about her liberty, accustomed to think that Great Britain had a right, though, in talk, they denied it. Bred, perhaps, under the lore and influence of Westminster-hall, and those false oracles on Irish subjects, which you have silenced, the old superstitions of a pernicious and narrow education still hung about them; the rapid progress of the country had outrun them, and they felt like the subjects of a province when Ireland became a nation: they therefore still plod back again to the quibble and comment of their ancient guides and oppressors, who had cramped their youth, and were deluding their understanding. "What! the opinion of Westminster! that England may make law for any country she can conquer". The idea of coordinate nations, or of measuring a transaction between England and Ireland by any but the municipal maxims of the superior, was above them: the Irish charter, like happiness, was in their hand, but they did not know it: they went to Westminster to look for it.

The honourable member held out a false standard in the principles of the municipal law, and having held out a false security in the laws of England, attacks the only security the nature of the case admits of the faith of nations! He attacks it with the habits of declamation: what is it but to perpetuate warfare, an everlasting appeal to Heaven? What the ethics of the member may be I know not; but this I know, that the good faith which he repudiates is the great bond of civil society, and the only bond of nations. What is it that preserves peace for an hour, but the faith of nations? What preserves all the treaties of the globe, but the faith of nations? The faith of nations is supported and enforced by a sense of interest: a nation noted for infidelity can have no alliances, no credit, no strength between nation and nation, character is power; between man and man, the honourable gentleman knows that a want of character is weakness. But he has found out two species of security for Irish liberty, very different indeed from faith, and very weak in themselves: the one is, the liberality of England; the other, her law; and he argues very gravely on both; he reduces your safety to a dilemma, and gives this gross and weak conception the form and affectation of logic. "You had but two ways to proceed; to rel on the liberality of England, and suffer the declaratory act to remain, or take legal security"; and on the legs of this hungry lilemma he stands a Colossus in argument. That the liberality of

England is a security for liberty, is a position too absurd and despicable to be answered; that the statute law of England is a control on the Parliament of England, and a legal security for the liberties of Ireland against the Parliament, is a position which has already been answered and exposed: both the positions answer themselves; the term liberality precludes security; and the term law imports a legal dependence upon, and not a security against, the law maker: so both the legs of the dilemma are struck away; the honourable member must descend. He has still a halt in a distinction where he asserts that legal security cannot be had between unconnected nations, but may be had between nations connected by civil government. The grounds of this distinction he is not pleased to discover; but we must suppose, by the words, countries connected by civil government, he means dependent, like Guernsey on England, or independent of each other, like England and Ireland. If the former, his observations do not apply; and if the latter, to state the connection will be sufficient to show that the consequence he has stated does not proceed from it: the connexion in question is, the annexation of the crown, but the legislatures are distinct and independent. Now, if the member means, that the Parliament of England can in anywise affect Ireland by the legal operation of its laws, or if he means, that the Parliament of England cannot repeal an English act affecting to give legal security to Ireland, because the king is the same, he argues in both equally wrong and equally illogical. Does the annexation of the crown, which is the connection by her civil government, give the Parliament of England authority over Ireland? or does it take from that Parliament its authority over England-the power of repealing its own laws? How then does legal security exist in the connection-a connection which leaves Ireland incapable of being affected by the statutes of England, and leaves England perfectly free to repeal them?

I think I have shown the folly of that argument which measured the transaction of 1782 by principles of municipal law, and which would make a legal security for Ireland under the statute law of England; and this transaction, when measured by what is the rea measure, and what, if liberty had been the original principle, would have been the measure, no man can deny to have been, on the part of Engiand, a complete dereliction.

The Irish nation protest against the claim of supremacy; England considers the protest, and then repeals the act declaratory of that claim; such a repeal is an assent to your protest. What clause in an act could be more express or memorable than such a national

compact? Parliaments may repeal laws; kings have invaded clear and express laws; but when laws have been environed and sanctified by a revolution, kings do not choose to meddle with them: the solemnity of the transaction gives a security to the law: a national compact between Great Britain and Ireland is higher than law, more awful, and the breach of it more dangerous; for transactions are understood by men who cannot understand law. The national convention being made in 1782 to remove the discontents of Ireland, by relinquishing the supremacy of the British Parliament, the revival of the power is a breach of which every man can judge, without resorting to the laws or lawyers of England; and the nation would rise as one man, not on the point of law, but of fact. I do acknowledge, that this security is not impregnable; there is one body that might shake it; the Irish themselves; England could not; but Ireland might waive the covenant, and then England is free; and when a party in this country pervert the sense of that covenant, they make the mischief they affect to tremble at; they endeavour to render your condition as uncertain as possible, and the faith of England as low as possible, and there they leave you. It was mischievously said, that England was now free to bind Ireland; it was said with all the affectation of enthusiasm, and the real spirit of rancour; it was said, that if she did, she would find an advocate. The very persons who asserted that the repeal did nothing, refuted their own arguments, falsified their own assertions, and discovered their real sentiments, by acknowledging that it liberated the hands of the King to pass a declaration of right, denying the supremacy of the British Parliament.

I now come to the last ground, that the judicature was not surrendered by an English act. Before I proceed on this head, let me state the difficulties. The claim of judicature was a surprise on both kingdoms. Ministry, prepared for a volume of grievances, were not prepared for that requisition. Several of the gentlemen of this country were afraid of the experiment-afraid, lest the judicature should be refused—afraid, lest it should be abused, and the collective body of the nation had not stirred the subject. Since the point is obtained, the difficulty is forgotten. Notwithstanding the difficulty, I was determined never to yield that point; for, carrying that point, you made yourselves the sole and exclusive judges of the pretensions of the British Parliament, and, of course, rendered those pretensions totally nugatory: you became the repository of your own charters; and until you proved false to yourselves, they could not be taken from you. The judicature being restored. I am condemned. because

it was not restored by an English act of Parliament. My answer is, that an Irish act was necessary and competent; necessary, because the practice of Ireland had been long to appeal to England, and the property of the kingdom dependent on the legislation of that past prac'ce; and, as we thought the interposition of the Irish necessary, wa hought it expedient. What is your claim of right? That you are the only body competent to make law for this realm in any casc whatsoever. If competent in any case whatsoever, are you not competent in this-competent to regulate your courts of justice? I, therefore, thought an Irish act, in point of law, adequate; and I am sure it was adequate in point of security. The nation says, that the Parliament of Ireland is solely and exclusively competent to make laws for this realm in all cases whatsoever; and I am now condemned for having taken her at her word.

I come now to the last charge, that Parliament was concluded by the address of the 27th, and the nation not freed by the transaction. The clause is, "gratified in these particulars, we conceive no constitutional questions will any longer exist to interrupt the harmony of the two nations". Do you repent that clause? Sir, the rejection of that would have stopped everything. Irish satisfaction was the price of Irish liberty. Do you think it dear at such a price? There was a time when you could have given millions! Do you seriously imagine that Great Britain would have acceded to the requisition of the 16th of April, if she had been left to apprehend a host of grievances in reserve? that we were only talking plausibly to England, when we enumerated the causes of our discontent and jealousy, but cherished a growing demand—a growth proceeding from the gracious reception which that demand had received? It was not a fanciful clause, as was observed with a ready facetiousness, but one on which British accommodation hung. Individuals might refuse satisfaction, whose object was something other than liberty, but the nation could not. What! do you imagine that the sense or interest of the nation was the declaration of one person, who said, we were pledged to go so far, and free to go on? Individuals may reserve certain latitudes, which would disgrace a nation. You were to reject the little policy of knavish latitudes and impracticable duplicity, and consider your own character, and that of the great nation you accosted, and to apply yourself to her magnaniity, as well as her justice, so that her passions might take part against her power. Believe me, there was a splendour in your moderation, and a force in your fidelity. You prescribed to yourself a sacred precinct; and when England yielded, you scorned trad