investigation. My friends and electors have nothing to say to it. I receivó the unanimous expression of congratulation from my fellow-citizens, not as a congratulation for such a trifle as that, but as an inestimable testimony, which I shall endeavour to merit and ever preserve. "I remain, gratefully, your faithful humble Servant, "HENRY GRATTAN". Thus, after having passed through a stormy age, and having experienced all the vicissitudes of public life, his brave and manly nature remained tender and genial to the last. He died in the public service. Though warned by his me dical attendants of the consequences, he insisted upon going to London to present the Catholic Petition. Exhausted by the journey, he expired there. The best and noblest spirits in England gathered round his sons, and entreated that his remains should lie where Fox and Chatham are interred. His grave is in Westminster Abbey. Reader! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh prejudices against your Catholic countrymen-study the works and life of Grattan-learn from him, for none can teach you better, how to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all your countrymen with a loving heart--to be tolerant of infirmities, caused by their unhappy history-and, like Grattan, earnestly sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character. Reader! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the Protestant religion with tyranny—learn from Grattan, that it is possible to be a Protestant, and have a heart for Ireland and its people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan-a steady Protestant-raised it to proud eminence, think also that in the hour of his triumph, he did not forget the state of your oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life, that both you and your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of conscience. But, reader! whether you be a Protestant or Catholic, and whatever be your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of Grattan. Learn from him how to regard your countrymen of all denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If (as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect that any country, containing such elements as those which roused the genius of Grattan, never need despair. Sursum corda. Be not disheartened. Go-go-my countrymen—and, within your social sphere, carry into practice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught, and which he so remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will teach you to avoid hating men on account of their religious professions or hereditary descent. From him you will learn principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of society in Ireland. For it is not from the senate, as some, or from the battlefield, as others, will tell you, that the regeneration of Ireland can arise. It must begin at home in our social life. It must spring from the domestic circle -from social affections expanded-from enmities disregarded-from views exalted beyond petty sectarianism-in short, from Irishmen consenting to live and work together, and using, for their public purposes, none but humane and civilizing means. Go, then, and imitate the noble example of our Grattan, for though to none shall it be given to obtain his genius, to copy his noble spirit is within the power of all. Let that spirit spread through society, and our lovely island will become, like the fame of our venerated countryman, not only a source of just national pride to ourselves, but an object of interest and respect to all mankind. THE SELECT SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY GRATTAN. DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. On this day came on the most important subject that ever had been discussed in the Irish Parliament,-the question of independence the recovery of that legislative power, of which, for centuries, Ireland had been so unjustly deprived. Her right to make laws for herself was first affected by the act of the 10th of Henry the Seventh, in a parliament, held at Drogheda, before the then Deputy, Sir Edward Poynings. It was there enacted that no parliament should be holden in Ireland, until the Lord-lieuter.ant and Privy Council should certify to the King, under the great seal of Ireland, the causes, considerations, and acts that were to pass; that the same should be affirmed by the King and council in England, and his license to summon a parliament be obtained under the great seal of England. This was further explained by the 3d and 4th of Philip and Mary, whereby any change or alteration in the form or tenor of such acts to be passed after they were returned from England, was prohibited. Thus, by these laws the English privy council got the power to alter or suppress, and the Irish parliament were deprived of the power to originate, alter, or amend. By these acts were the legislative rights of Ireland invaded: her judicial rights, however remained untouched, till, in 1688, a petition and appeal was lodged with the House of Lords of England, from the English society of the new plantation of Ulster, complaining of the Irish House of Lords, who had decided in a case between them and the Bishop of Derry. Upon this the English House of Lords passed an order declaring, that this appeal was coram non judice. To his order fourteen reasons and answers were written by the celebrated Molyneux, And the appeal gave rise to his famous work, entitled "The Case of Ireland", hich excited the hostility of the English House of Commons, and was burned by the hands of the common hangman! The Irish House of Lords then sserted their rights, passed resolutions, and protested against the English pro ceedings; thus matters remained until 1703, when came on the case of the Earl and Countess of Meath against the Lord Ward, who were dispossessed of their lands by a pretended order, of the House of Lords in England, on which the Irish House of Peers adopted the former resolutions, asserting their rights, and restored possession to the Earl and Countess. In 1703, the appeal of Maurice Annesley was entertained in England, and the decree of the Irish House of Lords was reversed; and the English House of Lords had recourse to the authority of the Barons of the Exchequer in Ireland to enforce their order; the Sheriff refused obedience; the Irish House of Lords protected the Sheriff, and agreed to a representation to the King on the subject. This produced the arbitrary act of the Cth of George the First, which declared, that Ireland was a subordinate and dependent kingdom; that the King, Lords, and Commons of England had power to make laws to bind Ireland; that the House of Lords of Ireland had no jurisdiction, and that all proceedings before that Court were void. Under this act, and to such injustice, the Irish nation were compelled to submit, until the spirit of the present day arose, and that commanding power which the armed volunteers gave to the country, encouraged the people to rise unanimously against this usurped and tyrannical authority. The efforts of the nation to obtain a fre trade, the compliance of the British Parliament with that claim, the British act passed in consequence thereof, which allowed the trade between Ireland and the British colonies and plantations in America and the West Indies, and the British settlements on the coast of Africa; had raised the hopes of the Irish people. The resolutions and proceedings of the volunteers, and the answers to their addresses by the patriotic members, had still further roused the people to a sense of their rights and their condition, and the hour was approaching which was to witness the restoration of their liberty. Mr. Grattan had, on a preceding day, given notice that he would bring forward a measure regarding the rights of Ireland; and in pursuance of that notice he rose and spoke as follows: Sir, I have entreated an attendance on this day, that you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it. If I had lived when the 9th of William took away the woollen manufacture, or when the 6th of George the First declared this country to be dependent, and subject to laws to be enacted by the Parliament of England, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience to seize the first moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have administere to him an oath that he would consider himself a person separate and set apart for the discharge of so important a duty; upon the same principle am I now come to move a declaration of right, the first moment occurring, since my time, in which such a declaration could be made with any chance of success, and without aggravation of oppression. Sir, it must appear to every person, that, notwithstanding the import of sugar and export of woollens, the people of this country are not satisfied--something remains the greater work is behind; the public heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our satisfaction; to stop the throats of millions with the votes of Parliment; to preach homilies to the volunteers; to utter invectives against the people, under pretence of affectionate advice, is an attempt, weak, suspi cious, and inflammatory. You cannot dictate to those whose sense you are entrusted to re present; your ancestors, who sat within these walls, lost to Ireland trade and liberty; you, by the assistance of the people, have recovered trade, you still owe the kingdom liberty; she calls upon you to restore it. The ground of public discontent seems to be, "we have gotten commerce, but not freedom": the same power which took away the export of woollens and the export of glass, may take them away again; the repeal is partial, and the ground of repeal is upon a principle of expediency. Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and tyrannical import; expedient is an ill-omened word, selected to express the reservation of authority, while the exercise is mitigated; expedient is the illomened expression of the Repeal of the American stamp-act. England thought it expedient to repeal that law; happy had it been for mankind, if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not reserved the right! To that reservation she owes the loss of her American empire, at the expense of millions, and America the seeking of liberty through a sea of bloodshed. The repeal of the woollen act, similarly circumstanced, pointed against the principle of our liberty, present relaxation, but tyranny in reserve, may be a subject for illumination to a populace, or a pretence for apostacy to a courtier, but cannot be the subject of settled satisfaction to a freeborn, an intelligent, and an injured community. It is therefore they consider the free trade as a trade de facto, not de jure, a license to trade under the Parliament of England, not a free trade under the charters of Ireland, as a tribute to her strength; to maintain which, she must continue in a state of armed preparation, dreading the approach of a general peace, and attributing all she holds dear to the calamitous condition of the British interest in every quarter of the globe. This dissatisfaction, founded upon a consideration of the liberty we have lost, is increased when they consider the opportunity they are losing; for if this nation. after the death-wound given to her freedom, had fallen on her knees in anguish, and besought the Almighty to frame an occasion in which a weak and injured people might recover their rights, prayer could not have asked, nor God have furnished, a moment more opportune for the restoration of liberty, than this, in which I have the honour to address you. England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; the doctrine of Imperial legislature she feels to be pernicious; the reveaues and monopolies annexed to it she has found to be untenable she lost the power to enforce it; her enemies are a host, pouring upon her from all quarters of the Earth; her armies are dispersed ; the sea is not hers; she has no minister, no ally, no admiral, none in hom she long confides, and no general whom she has not disgraced; the balance of her fate is in the hands of Ireland; you are not only Mer last connection, you are the only nation in Europe that is not her enemy. Besides, there does, of late, a certain damp and spurions supineness overcast her arms and councils, miraculous as that vigour which has lately inspirited yours;-for with you everything is the reverse; never was there a parliament in Ireland so possessed of the confidence of the people; you are the greatest political assembly now sitting in the world; you are at the head of an immense army; nor do we only possess an unconquerable force, but a certain unquenchable public fire, which has touched all ranks of men like a visitation. Turn to the growth and spring of your country, and behold and admire it; where do you find a nation who, upon whatever concerns the rights of mankind, expresses herself with more truth or force, perspicuity or justice? not the set phrase of scholastic men, not the tame unreality of court addresses, not the vulgar raving of a rabble, but the genuine speech of liberty, and the unsophisticated oratory of a free nation. See her military ardour, expressed not only in 40,000 men, conducted by instinct as they were raised by inspiration, but manifested in the zeal and promptitude of every young member of the growing community. Let corruption tremble; let the enemy, foreign or domestic, tremble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these means of safety and this hour of redemption. Yes; there does exist an enlightened sense of rights, a young appetite for freedom, a solid strength, and a rapid fire, which not only put a declaration of right within your power, but put it out of your power to decline one. Eighteen counties are at your bar; they stand there with the compact of Henry, with the charter of John, and with all the passions of the people. "Our lives are at your service, but our liberties-we received them from God; we will not resign them to man". Speaking to you thus, if you repulse these petitioners, you abdicate the privileges of Parliament, forfeit the rights of the kingdom, repudiate the instruction of your constituents, bilge the sense of your country, palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and reject that good which not a minister, sot a Lord North, not a Lord Buckinghamshire, not a Lord Hillsbo |
