beyond toleration, it gave them a power, and tended to make a change in the state. If they gave them equal power with the Protestants, the present constitution could not survive. Though they wished to extend toleration to Roman Catholics, they did not wish to shake the government; they should allow them to purchase lands, but should carefully guard against their possessing any power in the state.

Mr. Grattan said, "I object to any delay which can be given to this clause; we have already considered the subject on a larger scale, and this is but a part of what the clause originally contained. We have before us the example of England, who four years ago granted Catholics a right of taking land in fee; the question is merely, whether we shall give this right or not, and if we give it, whether it shall be accompanied by all its natural advantages? Three years ago, when this question was debated in this house, there was a majority of three against granting Catholics estates in fee, and they were only allowed to take leases of 999 years. The argument then used against granting them the fee was, that they might influence elections. It has this day been shewn, that they may have as effectual an influence by possessing leases of 999 years, as they can have by possessing the fee; at that time, I do declare I was somewhat prejudiced against granting Roman Catholics estates in fee, but their conduct since that period has fully convinced me of their true attachment to this country. When this country had resolved no longer to crouch beneath the burthen of oppression that England had laid upon her; when she armed in defence of her rights, and a high-spirited people demanded a free trade, did the Roman Catholics desert their countrymen? No: they were found amongst the foremost. When it was afterwards thought necessary to assert a free constitution, the Roman Catholics displayed their public virtue; they did not endeavour to take advantage of your situation; they did not endeavour to make terms for themselves, but they entered frankly and heartily into the cause of the country; judging by their own virtue, that they might depend upon your generosity for their reward. But now, after you have obtained a free trade, after the voice of the nation has asserted her independence, they approach this house as humble suppliants, and beg to be admitted to the common rights of men. Upon the occasions I have mentioned, I did carefully observe their actions, and did then determine to support their cause whenever it came before this house, and to bear a strong testimony of the constitutional principles of the Catholic body. Nor should it be mentioned as a reproach to them, that they fought under the banner of King James, when we recollect that before they entered the field, they extorted from him a Magna Charta, a British constitution. In 1779, when the

fleets of Bourbon hovered on our coasts, and the Irish nation roused herself to arms, did the Roman Catholics stand aloof? Or. did they, as might be expected from their oppressed situation, offer assistance to the enemy? No: they poured in subscriptions for the service of their country, or they pressed into the ranks of her glorious volunteers.

"It has been shewn that this clause grants the Roman Catholics no new power in the state; every argument, therefore, which goes against this clause goes against their having leases for 999 years: every argument which goes against their having leases for 999 years, goes against their having any leases at all: and every argument which goes against their having property, goes against their having existence in this land. The question is now, whether we shall grant Roman Catholics a power of enjoying estates, or whether we shall be a Protestant settlement or an Irish nation? Whether we shall throw open the gates of the temple of liberty to all our countrymen, or whether we shall confine them in bondage by penal laws? So long as the penal code remains, we never can be a great nation; the penal code is the shell in which the Protestant power has been hatched, and now it is become a bird, it must burst the shell asunder, or perish in it. I give my consent to the clause in its principle, extent, and boldness, and give my consent to it as the most likely means of obtaining a victory over the prejudices of Catholics, and over our own. I give my consent to it, because I would not keep two millions of my fellow subjects in a state of slavery; and because, as the mover of the declaration of rights, I should be ashamed of giving freedom to but six hundred thousand of my countrymen, when I could extend it to two millions more.'

Fortunately for the Catholics, Mr. Gardiner's bill was not made a government question, or otherwise it would probably have fallen before the same majority that had uniformly opposed every constitutional question that had been brought before them since the commencement of the American war. The nearer that fatal ministry drew to its dissolution, the more violent were its agonizing struggles against the patriotic efforts of Ireland to obtain a free and independent constitution. Within the octave of the great civic festival at Dungannon, Mr. Grattan, as the herald and oracle of his armed countrymen, once more addressed the House of Commons.* "After the ample discussion," said he, "in this house, of the present question of right on the 19th of April, 1780, and the universal reprobation of the assumption of the British parliament, to bind this kingdom, then received, I had been silent on that subject, if that parliament had not since that time conti

* On the 22d of February, 1782. 1 Parl. Deb. p. 266. VOL. II.

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nued its tyrannical and unconstitutional assumption, by enacting several laws to bind Ireland, which I have in my hand, as also a proclamation in the Irish Gazette, where the execution of a British statute is enforced: measures that evidently shew, that the British nation, so far from relinquishing the claim of usurped authority in this kingdom, have still the same spirit of making laws for us, which they keep alive by renewing their claim on every occasion. These fresh instances of British usurpation, added to that disgraceful and unrepealed act of the 6th of Geo. I. which declares Ireland bound at all times by the legislature of Great Britain, makes it necessary at this time for the parliament of Ireland to come to an explanation concerning its privileges, and the injured rights of the nation. And what are the boasted relaxations Britain has granted to us? The first was in 1778, as contemptible in principle as in effect; for after a bar of lawyers had been brought to plead against Ireland in the English House of Commons, we are permitted to export every thing except our manufactures. Their favour was an insult and aggravation to our misery. The minister sends over to know the causes of our distresses, and he is answered from his agents here, that it was done away, and that we were satisfied, by being permitted to cultivate tobacco. The second period was in 1779, when government abdicated the defence of Ireland, and Ireland appeared in arms; the minister now changed his tone, he glanced a temporary gleam of hope upon our shields; he gave us every thing, but kept the power of taking it back; he retained a mutiny bill and the post-office act. The third period was a ministerial address of thanks, evidently calculated to dissolve the union of the people; it had its effect in a paroxysm of ease, and when it was known, that the strength of this house was dissolved, and that the glory of 1779 was no more, an order comes over to oppose on every occasion the latent claims of Ireland; to oppose an Irish mutiny bill, to alter the sugar bill; and when Lord Hillsborough found you had lost all veneration for yourselves, he lost it for you likewise. The reprobated measure of a perpetual mutiny bill followed; but you have not done with it yet, you have stabbed your country, and the wound is festering. Emboldened by your dissolution, English acts binding Ireland were passed last winter. Is the claim of the British parliament to legislate for this kingdom given up, as I have heard some gentlemen say in this house? How futile and ridiculous now do these arguments appear, that declared the return of the Irish mutiny bill was a renunciation of legislation on the part of England. How futile and absurd are all the arguments that teemed on that occasion from the gov ernment press? I am for tranquillity; it is for honourable tranquillity; but when I see an administration, unable to make a

blow against an enemy, tyrannize over Ireland, I am bound to exert every power to oppose

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it.

"Ireland is in strength; she has acquired that strength by the weakness of Britain, for Ireland was saved when America was lost when England conquered, Ireland was coerced; when she was defeated, Ireland was relieved; and when Charleston was taken, the mutiny and sugar bills were altered. Have you not all of you, when you heard of a defeat, at the same instant condoled with England, and congratulated Ireland?

"If England were for a moment awake to her own interests, she would come forward, and invite us to her arms, by doing away every cause of jealousy. How, but by the strictest domestic union, can Great Britain, with only eight millions of people, oppose the dreadful combination of seven millions in Spain, with twenty-four millions in France, and two in Holland? Will she cast off three millions of brave and loyal subjects in Ireland, at so critical and eventual a time?

“An Irish army, the wonder of the world, has now existed for three years, where every soldier is a freeman, determined to shed the last drop of blood to defend his country, to support the execution of its laws, and give vigour to its police. The enemy threaten an invasion, the Irish army comes forward, administration is struck dumb with wonder, their deputies in their military dress go up to the Castle, not as a servile crowd of courtiers attending the lord lieutenant's levee, but as his protectors, while the cringing crowd of sycophants swarm about the treasury, and, after having thrown away their arms, offer nothing but naked servitude.

"You are now losing the British constitution, which by compact you were to possess; two councils, with more than parliamentary power; dependent judges, a mutiny bill lost, and governors like the Roman pro-consuls in distant provinces are sent over to fleece you.

"A general election is shortly to take place; what will be your answer to those who have sent you hither, when you resign your delegated trust, and they ask you, Where are our rights? Where is our sugar bill? Where our mutiny bill?

"What will be the consequence of your not explaining your rights now? When a peace happens it will then be too late; your island will be drained of its people, the emigrants will say, let us prefer freedom in America to slavery at home, and cease to be his majesty's subjects here, to become his equals there. Let us not therefore suffer the same men, whose infamous arts were reprobated in America, to succeed here." He then made his mo tion for an address to his majesty.

"To assure his majesty, of their most sincere and unfeigned "attachment to his majesty's person and government.

"To assure his majesty that the people of Ireland were a free people; that the crown of Ireland was a distinct kingdom, with 66 a parliament of her own, the sole legislature thereof.

"To assure his majesty, that by their fundamental laws and "franchises, which they on the part of this nation claimed and "challenged as their birth-right, the subjects of that kingdom "could not be bound, affected, or obliged, by any legislature, save "only the King, Lords, and Commons, of that his majesty's "realm of Ireland; nor was there any other body of men, who "had power or authority to make laws for the same.

"To assure his majesty, that his majesty's subjects of Ireland "conceived, that in that privilege was contained the very essence "of their liberty, and that they tendered it as they did their lives, "and accordingly had with one voice declared and protested against the interposition of any other parliament in the legisla❝tion of that country.

"To assure his majesty, that they had seen with concern, the "parliament of Great Britain advance a claim to make law for "Ireland, and their anxiety was kept alive, when they perceived "the same parliament still persist in that claim, as might appear CC by recent British acts, which affected to bind Ireland, but to "which the subjects of Ireland could pay no attention.

"To assure his majesty, that next to their liberties, they va"lued their connexion with Great Britain, on which they con"ceived, at that time most particularly, the happiness of both "kingdoms did depend, and which, as it was their most sincere "wish, so should it be their principal study to cultivate and ren"der perpetual. That under that impression, they could not suggest any means, whereby such connexion could so much "be improved or strengthened, as by a renunciation of the claim "of the British parliament, to make law for Ireland, a claim "useless to England, cruel to Ireland, and without any founda❝tion in law.

"That impressed with an high sense of the unanimity and "justice of the British character, and in the most entire reliance " on his majesty's paternal care, they had set forth their right "and sentiments, and without prescribing any mode to his ma"jesty, throw themselves on his royal wisdom."

Mr. Brownlow seconded the motion, and said, the people know their rights, and it is needless for government to pretend to oppose what must at last be obtained.

Mr Hussey Burgh spoke also in favour of the address.

The attorney general rose to oppose the address: he observed, that they were desired to address the king, that he would interfere