I know I shall be told that they practise in Ireland. There are in- stances, I allow, but it is under a license got in other countries. Tou have not prevented the practice under these restrictions, because that was too strong for your humanity ; nor given the license, because CATHOLIC QUESTION. 209 that was too strong for joar prejudices ; you of course have annexed to Catholic practitioners a clause of foreign education ; you certainly do tolerate their practice, but under circumstances that amount to an entire discouragement, if not intoleration : no license to practice ; of the five no one professorship ; of all the places in hospitals, so neces- sary for experimental knowledge, not one ; these chairs are made so many jobs for Protestant practitioners. If Doctor Purcel saves the lives of his Majesty's Protestant subjects it is not our fault ; we have given such sort of men no sort of encou- ragement in such practices; we allowed him no professorship, gave no license, no countenance ; let him and his patients pay their vows to aome other country. I have already dwelt upon the importance of the military profession. I have showed how constantly you con- nived at the breach of your o^ law. The question is not whether the Catholic shall serve in the army ; but shall serve in the army only when you want him, and he gets nothing by it ; as a common soldier, getting sixpence per day, it seems he is safe — as an officer, getting a livelihood, dangerous ; that you should monopolize his blood and your own honours and emoluments, it is a condition too unequal to be lasting ; they are fit to be entrusted with arms we say, therefore they may be soldiers ; they are not fit to be entrusted with arms we say, therefore, they may not be officers ; but the better order of Ca- tholics we rely on, it is the lower order we suspect ; therefore, the better may not, and the lower order may be received in our army. The extending this disqualification even to a prohibition, on their carrying arms, is another severity. Is it to say, we are afraid we have injured you too much, to sufier you to carry arms even for your own defence ? It is a prohibition of conscious severity, useless, be- cause constantly broken, and meritoriously departed from by yourselves, who arm Catholic servants against your own laws, as you arm Catholic soldiers against your enemies and against your law ; which in this instance is your greatest enemy ? A Protestant gentleman wants to go home late in the evening ; that is a good reason for arming a Ca- tholic against law ; a Catholic farmer wants to preserve his life and property ; that is no reason for arming him according to law ; you use, in this particular, the laws as your sport, and the Papists as your pro- perty ; they may arm as your servants and as your mercenaries, but not as citizens ; thus by our connivance as individuals, and severity as legislators, are they encouraged to despise the laws, and to hate them. I have shown already, that this law, prohibitory on carrying arms, is not observed, and cannot be observed ; what more can the state take away than the robber ? Unless the penalty is made some- o 210 CATHOLIC QUESTION. thing more than the loss of property and life, men will carry arms to defend both. That part of your code which disables the Roman Catholic from sitting on grand juries, except, and so forth, is like every other part, liable to great objections ; it subjects three millions to be taxed with- out their consent by the grand jury, who are already taxed without their consent by the parliament, and is a second flagrant breach of the great charter. To the Catholic that charter is a grievance ; it is light to a blind man. You tax three millions, not only for the state, but for every road presentment, robbery petition, illicit still, the abuse and extravagance of wliich grants is to you a complaint ; the use as well as the abuse is to him a grievance. This is a great aggra- vation of public taxes ; it is a home-felt tyrant, that brings to his door the little vexations and fretful tyranny of a superior, and makes him insignificant in his own farms, and under his own vine, and touches him in those lesser nerves where he is less mortal but extremely irritable ; and here you subject him to where the partial distributions of justice in a tribunal tax him without his consent, and try him without his peers, where he has no peers, and his adversary may have votes ; and as the oppression is great, so is the motive little ; it is a monopoly of jobbing. You do not exclude him entirely from the petty jury, which is a function much more in- teresting to Protestant life and property, but which is trouble without county patronage or county power. As the object is monopoly, so, as usual, the pretext is religion ; that exclusion which you impose in the case of juries, you impose in the case of magistracy ; and though with less oppression, with as little pretence ; — 3,000,000 of your fellow- subjects are to have no share whatsoever in the execution of the law, no more than they have in the formation of it — over the whole extent of your country; and of 4,000,000 of people, you exclude 3,000,000 from the function of enforcing obedience to the law. As you luive taken care that liberty, so have you taken care that law, shall have no very general extension in your island. He is not a party to the law, and the law is a party against him ; therefore the laws may be objects of his obedience not his affection. This, then, is their situation ; and this situation explains the liberality of those who say, they offer them every thing except the privilege of becoming part of the state ; every thing except a part of the electoral community ; every thing except a part of the legislative community ; every thing except a part of the judicial community ; every thing ex- cept a part of the corporative community ; every thing except a part of the executive community — ^that is, a species of excommunity, with privileges to acquire property for you to tax without their consent ! Thus are the Catholics by the present code excluded from an interest in your laws ; they are also excluded from communication with your persons ; the society of marriage punished ; the society of education forbidden ; the society of civil employment forbidden ; the society of military employment forbidden ; the society of parliament forbidden ; the society of election forbidden ; the society of grand jury forbidden ; the society of magistracy forbidden; there is no subject of public care, in which they can associate with the Protestant without breach of law, no subject of conversation, except foreign politics, foreign changes, and foreign revolutions ! We have declared, we hope to become one x)eople ; how ? By these lines of circumvallation, erasing the natural geography of your country, and setting up parallels and circles of folly and superstition, from the marriage bed to the cradle, from cradle to college, and from college to the grave, are two nations that cannot by any public inte- rest or business, or by any general call, save that of death, be brought together ? There have been three policies observed with respect to the Catholics, the first was that of Cromwell, — extermination by ope- ration of the sword I the second was that of Anne, — extermination by operation of the laws ! and the third was your's — ^which allowed them a qualified existence I Though the two former were cruel, yet both were consistent. They both considered Papists as criminals, and exercised over them the right of conquest. They considered the Catholics lis a body who were neither to have the power, nor pro- 212 CATHOLIC QUESTION. perty, nor any public existence in your country. The laws of Ireland prevented them from acquiring property in land ; and the usurpations of England prevented either them or the Protestants from acquiring any considerable property by commerce. But the third policy, much milder than either, is more extravagant than both — your policy. Tou allow them schools, seminaries, and colleges, but distinct from our own, and without funds ; marriage, but marriage attended with pains and penalties; a free trade without franchise, and land without a vote. Let us discuss how far this policy is consistent with the inte- rest of the constitution, the king or the British empire. I will suppose under your laws the Catholics purchased considerable tracts of land. The land so purchased is imrepresented. Just as the wealth of your country grows, the extent of your constitution contracts. I will sup- pose these men become a great commercial body ; a great portion of commercial interest, as well as the landed, is unrepresented ; and your constitution still more contracted. What a portion of the strength of the country must, in that event, be taxed, without the consent of its owners ! Tour constitution will be no longer a representaticm, either of property or population ; so that the British constitution will be worked out of the island by operaticm of law. Who will answer for the patience of that strength, compounded of a great portion of wealth, as well as of numbers ? Who wiU answer for the satisfacticm of those proprietors ? It is not life but the condition of living ; the slave Is not so likely to complain of the want of property, as the proprietor of the want of privilege. The human mind is progressive ; the child does not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the pro- prietor to the people that gave him the power of acquisition, but both look forward ; the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other to obtain all the privileges of property. Your imperfect grants and comprehensive theories have given those aspiring thoughts, and let in that train of ideas which may hereafter greatly serve, or marvellously distract your country ; you have already given to their minds the first principles of motion, and the laws of motion now must direct the machine. The germ on the soul^ like the child in the womb, or the seed in the earth, swell in their stated time to their destined proportions by virtue of their own laws, which we neither make nor control Talk not in such cases of gratitude ; rely on that gratitude which is founded on interest ; such gratitude as governed yourselves from 169 19 when you secured your property, to 1779, when you demanded your trade ; and 1782, when you demanded your liberty, from a colony looking only to property, to a people looking to a free form of government ; CATHOUC QUESTION. 213 from planters joining with the mother country against the Catho- lics, to a nation joining with the Catholics to exact of the mother country trade and fireedom. Do I condemn jou ; such is the pro- gress of nations ; such the nature of man, and such is gratitude t Let me now consider how far this policy is consistent with the interest of his Majesty. It has been said, that under a Protestant monarch, the Catholic ought never have the elective franchise ; thus gentlemen have attempted to annex the curse of Catholic slavery to the person of the King. They have gone a step farther^ and have supposed the coronation oath goes against the present claims of the Catholics, and have thus represented the King as sworn against the liberties of his people. They have done this on a surmise, the statement of which would excite our scorn, if its conse- quence did not produce our apprehensions that men believing in the real presence cannot be well affected to the House of Hanover ; they have urged this when the pretender was extinct, when the power of the Pope was extinct, and when the sting of Catholic faith was drawn; they have done this when a new enthusiasm had gone forth in the place of religion, much more adverse to kings than Popery, and infi- nitely more prevailing, — the spirit of republicanism. I differ much from those who say that the Roman Catholic cannot, under a Protestant King, enjoy the franchises of the constitution ; I should say directly the reverse ; that under no government can the francluses of the constitution be conmiunicated so effectually, and secured so permanently to all his Majesty's subjects, as under our present monarchic^ government. The time is come when every loyal subject should be free, and every free subject loyaL It is true, the Roman Catholics wiQ now be your fellow-subjects, but not your subjects ; they will be subjects of the king, and not the slaves of sub- jects, who stood, with regard to them, in the place of kings. Do you lament the change ? I congratulate you upon it ; the basha will not 214 CATHOLIC QUESTION* command the cringe of the peasant's knee, but the king will com- mand the strength of it You appropriate this great body of men to the throne ; you put the stamp of the king upon them, and serve the crown more bj far than when jou vote for his minister. Let me consider this policy in its relation to the British empire. Britain, you know, governs you no longer ; it is not your religious arrange- ment that interests her, but your physical strength. You do not mean to say that the Catholics cannot be faithful in their connection with Great Britain. I appeal to those officers who served with them in the last war ; their religion surely cannot now make them adverse ; the Roman Catholic religion resembles much more the Church of Eng- land than the Church of France ; their dissent cannot make them ad- verse. You say the Catholics are not as well disposed as the Protestants, because they are not descended from the English ; many of them are ; but nations have neither a parent's nor a child's affection ; like the eagle, they dismiss their young and know them no longer. I know not whether the Roman Catholics are as well disposed to Great Bri- tain as the Protestants are ; but I am sure they are at least as well disposed as the Protestants would be, if they were deprived of civil and political advantages. If you doubt their disposition, do you dis- pose them better. Thus you would deprive Great Britain of her resources in recruiting army and navy ; but you will supply their place ; how ? One million, after filling all the places in church and state, will spare the overplus of their numbers. You will borrow from the loom, and send the weaver of the north into the ranks. But this is a partial statement for you ; instead of affording one million to Great Britain, you must borrow men from Great Britain to defend and garrison yourselves. Calculate then, that in persisting to disfranchise the Catholic, you make him adverse ; three millions are to be put into the other scale, which would be a difference of six millions, that is nearly one-half of the whole empire. It follows from this, that your policy is prejudi- cial to the British empire as well as to the throne. I have considered your situation and your arguments. A situation of extraordinary peril. Arguments of extraordinary weakness, of monopoly, of panic, of prejudice, of any thing but religion ; argu- ments which, like the fabric they would sustain, cannot stand the CATHOLIC QUESTION. 215 proof of any trial ; nor the principles of morality, not those of religion, nor those of policy, nor those of constitution ; neither the touch of time nor the revolutions of mankind ; their tendency is to make free- dom a monopoly, which is like an endeavour to make the air and the light a monopoly ; their tendency is to make God a monopoly. I have heard of monopolies of salt, monopolies of rice, monopolies of com, but here is a monopoly of the Almighty ; and yet the persons who use these arguments are men of talents. Compare, compound, abstract ; but, in this instance, the string of their madness, so strangely perplexed in the intellectual function, one should think Grod had smitten the in- tellect of the country, as well as her fortunes, with some distinguished imbecility. Suppose a will impeached for insanity, and it appeared im evidence that the testator had, in his ca;>acity as a general officer, taken powder and ball from one half of his battalion, because they believed in the real presence, or, when sick, had refused to take a specific from Dr. Purcel, declaring he had confidence in his medicine, but had no faith in his sacrament ; or had disinherited his own son because his son's wife did not imderstand theology ; or had fallen on his knees to return thanks to God for his universal blessings, and then had risen up and dealt out imprecations on three-fourths of the people about him ; or proclaimed that as long as a Protestant prince was on the throne, three^fourths of his subjects should be disfranchised. Would not that evidence, which is nothing more than a compound of your piety and your policy, if applied to the case of an individual, compel twelve honest men, on their oaths, to find a verdict of insa- nity ? I have read of a republic, where the whole business of life was ne- glected to give place to mathematical investigation. I can suppose a more extraordinary state, where the law excluded from serving the public three-fourths of the people, unless they would give a theological opinion touching an abstract point of divinity, and verify that opinion on oath« I have heard of Athens, that cruel republic, excluding so many of her own children from the rights of citizenship ; but she had only the wisdom of Socrates and the light of Plato : she had not, like you, revelation to instruct her ; besides she had not the press — she had not the benefits of your lesson. What lesson ? that to a people it is not life, but the condition of living ; and that to be bound with- out your own consent, was to be a slave ; and, therefore, you were not satisfied in 1782 with the free exercise of your religion. However, I do not rely on your private productions. What are your public tracts, your repeated addresses to the King, the Speaker's annual speech to the throne ? what are they, while the penal code remains, but so many dangerous and inflammatory publications, felicitating the Protestants 216 CATHOLIC QUESTION. on the blessings of that constitution from whence three-fourths of your people are excluded ; but, above all, that instrument, infinitely more incendiary than all Mr. Paine has written, that instrument which you annually vote ; what is it but a challenge to rebellion ? I mean a money bill, wherein you dispose of the money of 3,000,000 of the people without their consent. You do not stir, nor vote, nor speak, without suggesting to the Catholics some motive ; either the provoca^ tion of your blessings, or the poison of your free principles ; some mo- tive, I say, which is fatal to that state of quietude wherein, during this age of discussion, you must enlay your people in order to give your government the chance of repose. You are struggling with difficulties you imagine ; you are mistaken ; you are struggling with impossibilities. To enchain the mind, to case in the volatile essential soul, nor tower, nor dungeon, much less par- liament, can be retentive of those fires kindled by yourselves in the breasts of your fellow-subjects. I would have you at this time distrust that religious vanity which tells you that these men are not fit for freedom ; they have answered that vanity in a strain of oratory pecu- liar to the oppressed. It is the error of sects to value themselves more upon their difierences than their religion ; and in these difierences, in which they forget the principles of their religions, they imagine they have discovered the mystery of salvation ; and to this supposed dis- covery they have offered human sacrifices. What human sacrifices have we offered ? the dearest ; the liberties of our fellow-subjects. Distrust again that fallacious policy which tells you your power is ad- vanced by their bondage ; it is not your power, but your punishment ; it is liberty without energy ; you know it It presents you with a monopoly ; and the monopoly of others, not your own. It presents you with the image of a monster in a state where the heart gives no. circulation and the limbs receive no life ; a nominal representative, and a nominal people. Call not this your misfortune ; it is your sen- tence ; it is your execution. Never could the law of nature suffer one set of men to take away the liberty of another, and that of a numerous part of their people, without a diminution of their own strength and freedom. But, in making laws on the subject of religion, legislators forget mankind until their own distraction admonishes them of two truths ; the one that there is a God ; the other that there is a people. Never was it permitted to any nation ; they may perplex their under- standings with various apologies, but never was it long permitted to exclude from essential, from what they themselves have pronounced essential blessings, a great portion of themselves for periods of time, and for no reason, or, what is worse, for such reason as you have ad- vanced. ANTI-JACOBIM WAR. 217 Conquerors^ or tyrants proceeding from conquerors, have scarcely ever for any length of time governed by those partial disabilities ; but a people so to govern itself, or rather, under the name of government so to exclude itself, the industrious, the opulent, the useful ; that part that feeds you with its industry, and supplies you with its taxes, weaves that you may wear, and ploughs that you may eat : to exclude a body so useful, so numerous, and that for ever ; and, in the mean time, to tax them ad libitum^ and occasionally to pledge their lives and fortunes ! for what ? For their disfranchisement. It cannot be done ; continue it, and you expect from your laws what it were blasphemy to ask of your JVIaker. Such a policy always turns on the inventor, and bruises him under the stroke of the sceptre or the sword, or sinks him un- der accumulation of debt and loss of dominion. Need I go to instances ? What was the case of Ireland, enslaved for a century, and withered and blasted with her Protestant ascendancy, like a shattered oak scathed on its hill by the fires of its own intolerance. What lost England America, but such a policy? An attempt to bind men by a parliament wherein they are not represented ; such an attempt as some would now continue to practise on the Catholics, and involve England. What was it saved Ireland to England, but the contrary policy ? I have seen these prin- ciples of liberty verified by yourselves. I have heard addresses from counties and cities here on the subject of the slave trade to Mr. Wil- berforce, thanking him for his efforts to set free a distressed people ; has your pity traversed leagues of sea to sit down by the black boy on the coast of Guinea ; and have you forgot the man at home by your side, your brother ? Come then, and by one great act cancel this code, and prepare yoiu* mind for that bright order of time which now seems to touch your condition. But I have tired you ; suffer me to sit down, and thank you for your patient attention. ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. 5th February, 1794. On this day, Sir Laurence Parsons (afterwards Lord Rosse) moved, "That an humble address be presented to His Excellency the Lord-lieutenant, that he will be pleased to lay before His Mi^esty the humble desire of this House, that Hit Migesty will graciously condescend to order to be laid before this House copies of his declaration, together with copies of the several conventions and treaties with different powers which bare been hud before the British Parliament, rela- 218 ANTI- JACOBIN WAR. tire to the present war." The motion was seconded by Mr. William Tighe, and was supported by Mr. Sergeant Duqueiy, Mr. Curran, Mr. Egan, Dr. Browne, Mr. Robert Stewart (afterwards Lord Castlereagh), on the ground that the Irish Parliament, as a matter of right as well as duty and interest, was bound to investigate the causes of the war. The motion was opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir J. Pamell), Mr. Cooke, Mr. Barrington, Mr. G. Pon- Bonby, and Mr. Beresford. Mr. Gbattan said : Sir, however I may differ from gentlemen with whom I generally concur, I shall this night, consistent with the vote I gave on the first day of the session in favour of the war, resist the present measure. I do not doubt that the honourable gentlemen who introduced it had very proper motives. The motion before you, purports to be a motion for papers ; but the declared object of its sup- porters is to condemn the war — ^that war which those gentlemen pledged themselves to support, and for which they now declare them- selves determined to grant the army and the supply. On the ground, therefore, laid for this motion, by those who have supported the honourable baronet, I shall give it a direct negative, as tending to undermine your own proceedings, to retract your plighted sentiments, and to raise a mutiny against your own taxes. Such a proceeding would, in my mind, bear a colour of hesitation, unbecoming the honour of this country, and by such conduct Ireland would prove her- self, instead of the best, the meanest ally of England. Some gentle- men, in support of the motion, have not indeed gone so far as to condemn the war, but have only desired to suspend their opinion until they receive the copies of the treaties, declarations, and conventions, from England ; and in the meantime they declare themselves ready to vote the army and the supply for this very war, on which they declare they have formed no opinion whatever. I dwell not on the folly of such a proceeding ; I tremble at the mischief. What ! tell France (an invasion impending perhaps on one or both of these countries) that you have not made up your minds on the war ; thus excite a diffidence on the part of Great Britain ; teach France to consider Ireland as de- sponding, and induce her to intrigue with our people and attempt a descent upon our country ; tell her, that you are waiting on a revo- lutionary-state opinion, until papers shall be sent from England, and a committee shall sHi flagrante belloy and have made its report on the causes, considerations, and merits of this war. The period is said to be awfuL If any thing could make it desperate, it would be such a condition. As to your own people, see the effect of such a motion. You tax them for the war ; you tell them at the same time, in this motion, that you have not as yet made up your mind upon the subject ; you pro- fess an utter ignorance of the justice and propriety of those taxes, and enable the people to tell you that they are taxed by parliament for a war, the grounds, justice, and necessity of which that parliament declares itself a stranger to, and is only now in a state of inquiry. Thus you arm your own people against your own taxes by your own authority. I want to know, say gentlemen, whether this war is to partition France, to exterminate its liberty, and to set up the old constitution ? whether it is to be persevered in to the last drop of our blood, rather than treat with the existing government ? and therefore I wish for treaties. What treaties ? — ^treaties which can resolve none of those questions, which will leave these gentlemen as free as ever to rail at the war. This, put in common language, is this — ^we want to have repeated opportunities of considering this war, first, by the artificial question of calling for papers, and after, by objecting to the sufficiency of these papers, and by repeating the same question with the same insinuation against the war. And the best way of judging what use gentlemen will make of these papers, is by observing what use they have made of the motion for them — an attack by insinuation, or di- rectly, on the wisdom, justice, or necessity of continuing the war. And the effects of such attacks, if often repeated, must be to raise murmurs against your taxes. But gentlemen, aware that they wanted subsidiary groimd, have said, they call for these papers merely to show their power of calling for treaties. The answer to that is, that the right in the Irish Parliament to call for treaties, to inquire into the causes, considerations, and condition of a war, is admitted on every side, in the fullest, broadest, and most unequivocal manner ; but when 220 ANTI-JACOBIN WAR« the purpose for which these papers are called, comes out in debate, to be the retractation of an opinion already given, or of a support already promised, and put this moment to be voted, there the House will object to the motion for papers, not on the principle of right, but because it objects to the use which is to be made of them. The House will see that the motion for papers under these circumstances, is nothing more than an artificial motion to bring into debate objections against the war, and the argument founded on the right of this House to call for such, will then appear to be nothing more than an artificial argu- ment, to interest the pride of this assembly in the abuse of an unques- tionable privilege, which it proposed to abuse, in order to assert. But, say gentlemen, we never had any treaties before us. Tou had the Spanish treaty laid before you, and must have every treaty laid before you, if you choose to call for it ; but you will not call for any treaty merely for the purpose of retracting either a support which you have promised, or a sentiment which you have plighted. But are those gentlemen who call for treaties under pretence of information, ignorant, as they profess to be, of the state of the war ? What treaty is necessary to inform them that France is sending an army to her coast, and meditates an invasion? In such a situation are they to appoint a committee of inquiry to investigate papers, or a com- mittee of supply to vote the army ? Do not they, as well as any one know, that the cause of the war is now lost in the consequence ; and that the question, supposing it ever to have been a question, is not, whether England will partition France, but whether France will invade England. I would not on this question give a silent vote, but rather meet directly any unpopularity which might attend the support I mean to give government ; and I am authorised by my honourable friend (Mr. Curran) to say, that on the subject of the war his senti- ments coincide with mine. The motion goes to excite commotion instead of unanimity ; yet^ in voting against it, I by no means bind myself not to inquire hereafter respecting the conduct and object of the war ; but I consider the mo- ment of going into the committee of supply a most improper one to institute such an inquiry. The House divided on Sir Laurence ParBons' motion i—^yes 9, Noes 128 ; Majority 119. Tellers for the Ayes, Sir Laurence Parsons and Mr. William Tighe. For the Noes, Mr. Marcus Beresford, and Colonel Arthur Wellealey (afterwards Duke of Wellington). WHIG REFORM. 221 WHIG REFORM. 4ih March, 1794. Mr. Grattan said : The bill before you has been called a transfer of property. It is not so ; the gentlemen who make the charge have not read the bill ; it is not a transfer of the borough from A. to B. but from A. to all those who have the adjacent interests, landed or commer- cial, to all who have estates, freehold, or terms for a certain number of years (for they must be included), or have carried on a trade for a certain time within a circle of twenty-four miles. If any one man has aU the lands and towns vrithin that circle, he probably will influence the return ; but such estates are scarcely to be found in this kingdom, and when they are found, they will have their influence under any re- form, unless you choose to rob the proprietor in order to amend the representation ; and, even in case of such estates, as in cases of great county interest, the return may be influenced, but it cannot be sold. This proprietary influence you may call the influence of the landlord on his tenants, but it is also the influence of the tenant on the land- lord ; also, instead of being as now the property of that person who is not a landlord, and whose best estate is his twelve burgesses ; this boroughmonger it extinguishes and leads to a milder communication of manners, as well as diffusion of influence between landlord and tenant, with an additional temptation of residence to the former, and improvement to the latter. It is, in short, an open of 200 seats to prc^rty, to talents^ and to both mixed, to be elected by the yeomanry and citizens. We have in this plan committed no violence on the principles of the constitution, and scarcely any on its geography. We have added one member to the counties and to the three cities, because we think the landed interest is not proportionably represented, and the minis- terial interest beyond ail proportion represented ; and we have ex- tended the boundary of the borough, because we find in the old boundary nothing to represent. We have not extended the boundary to the whole of the county, because we would not extinguish or overbalance an integral part of the parliament, — the citizens and burgesses ; and we have extended the line beyond the borough, to a line of twenty- four miles to encompass a mass of landed interest as long as land is productive, and commercial interest, if within twenty-four miles any commerce shall exist As commerce shall within that district increase and flourish, its balance on the return will increase, and there will yet remain a great landed interest in the representation, even though com- 222 ^HIG REFORM. merce should within that district totally decline. Thus we have, as far as is practicable, provided against the effect of the fluctuation of property ; we have not corrected oligarchy, as was erroneously objected to us, by oligarchy, but by aristocracy and democracy mixed. We have applied the principles of the English constitution to the state of Irish property, with a decisive advantage for the present, and with such growing advantages to the future, as must arise from the growth of commerce and the growing diffusion of riches. Weigh, then, the objections to the bill, and you will find they amount either to a depre- ciation of the principles of the British constitution in their application to Ireland, or to a demand for an agrarian law. I do not say that this bill, in its present shape, is perfect. On the contrary, I should wish to propose considerable alterations ; the fran- chise should be extended to termors for years, perhaps some others, the duration of parliament should be diminished, the powers of the corpo- ration to make voters totally extinguished. After these amendments, I do not say the bill would be then an exact representation of the pro- perty of the country, or of the propertied part of the community ; no, because that is impossible and that is unnecessary ; no, but it would be a substantial representation of both ; that is, it would answer all the political purposes of adequate representation ; it would be quod erat desideratum ; it would not be arithmetically equal, but it would be substantially and practically adequate; it would give to the mass of property, commercial and landed, instead of a fourth, the whole of the return of members to serve in Parliament, and with the mass of property it would give you the best chance for the mass of talents. But, says my right honourable friend,* why agitate the peo- ple now ? We have not created, we have found the agitation of this subject, and therefore the question now is not whether we shall agitate or abandon this subject. And sure I am, that we should agitate the people much more by renouncing, than by pursuing their great ob- ject,— a more equal representation of the people. We should then leave them at large on this subject to their own despair, or to those desperate suggestions which every seditious bungler may propose, while the abuses of your representation, abandoned to such hands, make every quack a doctor, and every fool a philosopher. Sir, it is the excellence of our constitution that it contains in itself the seeds of its own reformation ; and to this excellence I attribute its duration. Other countries have preserved abuses until they accumulated and were finally levelled but with the establishments themselves, by the • Sir II. Langrishe. f \ V WHIG REFORM. \ ^?^ deluge of anarchy, instead of being removed bj refork yourselves to a degree were sensible of this ; and have m, in the executive and in the judicial branches, but in the tc^ jou however have made none ; and without reforms in the i will have made none of anj great effect in the former ; for .^ the present representation is reformed, jour bench of justice, jour execu- tive power, jour house of peers, will be from time to time, as thej have been, contaminated, bj sacrificing the first to the implication of the boroughmonger ; bj modelling the second mere! j to gratif j the same boroughmonger, and bj the sale of the peerage for the borough- monger, to the disgrace of one house, and the corruption of both. So stronglj am I of this opinion, that I imagine with a reform in the abuse of representation, all the other abuses would be quelled ; whereas without it, the reform of the other abuses will be but plausible and palliative. But, sajs the right honourable baronet, is not this reform a step to a succession of innovation ? He goes farther ; he sajs. Docs it not lead to a personal representation ? to which I directlj answer. It leads from personal representation not to it ; it ascertains represen-. tation to propertj, and to the propertied communitj ; and whatever force, weight, infiuence, or authoritj both possess, unites them against the attempt in favour of personal representation. Freeholders, leaseholders, and all resident trading interests, are now in the struggle of our parliamentarj constitution spectators; thej would then be parties. Thej now enjoj a power of returning one- fiflh of the House, and therefore are little interested for it ; and thej maj have a speculation on the interest that might arise to them on the throwing up that fifth, and dividing the whole with the population ; therefore some of them maj be parties against it, but if thej had the whole of the return, thej would then be the proprietors, and thej would defend the parliamentarj constitution against innovation, with the same zeal with which the oligarchj now defends his boroughs against reformation ; but with this difference, that the existing par- liamentarj constitution would then be defended against innovation with the strength of all the propertj and all the propertied public ; whereas it is now defended with the strength of about fortj individuals, and about £200,000 rental ; that is, without the strength of population or of propertj : and it is a decided proof of its weakness, that the borough- mongers could not now defend it without the infiuence of government ; and a further proof of its weakness is the proposal of a plan of personal representation. Sir, could such a monster be offered as a proposal, that the persons who receive alms should vote the taxes, if there was not another monster much less misproportioned, but a monster notwith* WHIG REFORM. Standing, in the existing constitution, where a few individuals, as little the property of the country as its population, vote those taxes ? It fol- lows from what I have said, that the best method of securing the par- liamentary constitution is to embody in its support the mass of pro- perty, which will be generally found to include the mass of talents ; and that the worst way of securing your parliamentary constitution is to rest it on oligarchy— -oligarchy ! that is a bad form of government ; oligarchy 1 that is always a weak one. But, says the right honourable baronet, France! Take warning from France. If France is to be a lesson, take the whole of that les- son ; if her frantic convention is to be a monitress against the vices of a republic, let the causes which produced that convention, be an ad- monition against the abuses of monarchy. France would reform nothing until abuses accumulated, and government was swept away in a deluge ; until an armed force redressed the state, and then, as will be generally the case, united on becoming the government. It was not a progress from reformation to innovation, but from one modifica- tion of a military government, that is, of one anarchy to another. In principle, therefore, the case of France does not apply ; in policy still less ; for sure I am, if there is an attempt to introduce the rebellious graces of a republic into these countries, the best precaution is to dis- countenance them by the sober attractions of a limited monarchy ; and the worst precaution is to preserve all the abuses of the latter, to pre- engf^ men against the vices of the former. On this principle, I conceive the enemies to the constitution are the extremes, the advocate for its abuses and the leveller of its establish- ments. The advocate for its abuses falsifies the origin of the Com- mons in order to support the defects in the representation. He states that the Commons were seldom called, and then only for subsidy, and this he csdls the original purity of the English constitution. The period of its formation, as best ascertained, was the time of the Ed- wards ; and in the reign of Edward I. there were about twenty-five parliaments ; in the reign of Edward II. about eleven ; and in that of Edward IIL about seventy great councils or parliaments ; and to these parliaments you find the Commons were summoned : therefore, it is ignorant to say that the Conunons were seldom summoned, and it is no less ignorance to say they were only summoned for money ; for you will, in the different parliaments of those reigns, find the Commons occupied with the subjects of war, peace, and treaty, the regulation of the household, the regulation of the King's counsellors, the staple, the coinage, the price of provision, the conduct of ministers, and the making of laws. WHTO BEFORM. 225 And if authority was necessary to support history, you find in the reign of Richard 11^ the statute of heresy taken off the roll, because smuggled through parliament without the assent of the Commons. You find Blackstone express in declaring that the principle of the constitution of parliament as it now stands, was laid in the charter, and that it existed, in fact^ ever since the reign of Henry IIL You will find writs extant, and the purposes for which the Commons were called, viz. the ardua regniy not subsidy, expressed in those writs ; and you will from the whole conclude, that this advocate for abuses has traduced the inheritance of the people ; and that instead of being called seldom and then only for money, the Commons were, in the purity of the constitution, an essential part of the legislation ; and you will also find that they were the representative of landed and commercial pro- perty. In tracing the errors of the patron of abuses, you arrive at the truths which have confused him. He had propably heard of a general and particular parliament, but had not learned to distinguish the pur- poses for which they were called ; the general parliament being called for purposes afiecting the realm, the particular, which is properly caUed a great council, for purposes affecting the order of men only, of which that council was composed. Probably the uncertainty of the writ of summons was another cause of his confusion, but he should have un- derstood the reason, and then he would have learned that the writ fol- lowed the property, and when the borough was decayed was not directed thereunta Thus, in the thirty-fourth of Edward L you find a summons to parliament of one or two burgesses from each borough, as the boroughs should be found greater or less : why ? because the representation had reference to the property and not to the name ; because, though the Commons were an essential part of the parliament, the particular borough was not an essential part of the Commons ; be- cause in the origin of the constitution there was a principle of reform as well as of property, which principle was then very improperly exer- cised by act of prerogative, and which it is now very properly pro- posed should be exercised by act of legislation. 