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IRISH ORATORS 
 
 AND ORATORY 
 
» fA 
 
UOHnPHILPOTCURRAN 
 
 -■r^ r rt r r i ii»ii n i ^~> l i rH ,, i HH^ i n„ 
 
 HENRY GRflnflH 
 
 Famous Irish Orators 
 
Every • Irishman's • Library 
 
 General Editors . Alfred PercEval Graves, m.a. 
 William Magennis, m.a. Douglas Hyde, ll.d. 
 
 IRISH ORATORS 
 AND ORATORY 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY PROFESSOR T. M. KETTLE 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 
 LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE 
 LEIPSIC: INSKLSTRASSE 20 
 
Printed by The 
 Kducationai, Company 
 OF IreIvAND Limited 
 AT The Tai^bot Press 
 
 DUBIvIN 
 
 *,.•' -■ »., '1 
 

 CONTENTS. t^'^ 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Bdmund Burke (i 730-1 797) : 
 American Taxation 
 Conciliation v\dth the Colonies ... 
 The Nabob of Arcot's Debts ... 
 
 Henry Flood (i 732-1 791) : 
 Renunciation Speech 
 Vindication of the Volunteers... 
 
 Walter Hussey Burgh (i 742-1 783) : 
 Free Trade Debate 
 
 Henry Grattan (i 746-1820) : 
 Declaration of Irish Rights ... 
 Cathohc Question 
 Rights of Ireland 
 Triumph of Irish Independence 
 
 Irish Feeling 
 
 X 1 xnes ••• ... ••• ••• 
 
 Speech on the Address ... 
 
 Against the Union, 1800, Jan. 15th 
 
 „ „ 1800, Mar. 19th 
 
 ,, ,, 1800, May 26th 
 
 CathoHc Question, 1805, May 13th 
 
 1808, May 25th 
 
 181 2, April 23rd 
 
 iii 
 
 h' 
 
 / 
 
 Page 
 
 vii-xx 
 
 I 
 
 •• 43 
 ■• 65 
 
 . 96 
 .. 107 
 
 no 
 
 112 
 130 
 
 131 
 
 131 
 
 133 
 
 135 
 136 
 
 136 
 
 138 
 
 140 
 
 142 
 
 142 
 
 143 
 
 323295 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 John Phu^pot Curran (i 750-181 7) : Page 
 
 On Pensions 145 
 
 For Archibald Hamilton Rowan (First Speech) ... 147 
 
 ,, (Second Speech) ... 17c 
 
 In Defence of Mr. Peter Finerty ... ... ... 175 
 
 Forecast of Union ... ... ... ... ... 177 
 
 Massy v. Headfort ... ... ... ... ... 178 
 
 Election at Newry ... ... ... ... ... 192 
 
 Richard Brinsi^ey Sheridan (1751-1816) : 
 
 Robbery of the Princesses of Oude ... ... ... 202 
 
 Proceedings against Mr. Hastings in Westminster Hall, 
 
 Second, or Begum Charge, 1788, Jmie 3rd ... 217 
 
 ,, 1788, Jmie 6th ... 226 
 
 1788, June 13th ... 236 
 
 Peter Burrowes, K.C. (i 753-1841) : 
 
 The King v. Edward Sheridan, M.D, ... ... ... 247 
 
 The King v. Robinson, for Bigamy ... ... ... 263 
 
 John Sheares (i 756-1 798) : 
 
 Address from Dock ... ... ... ... ... 275 
 
 Theobai^d WoIvFE Tone (i 763-1 798) : 
 
 Speech before the " Court Martial" 279 
 
 WlIvLIAM CoNYNGHAM PIvUNKET (1764-1854) ! 
 
 Incompetence of Irish Parhament to pass the Union 285 
 
 Thomas Gooi,d (i 766-1848) : 
 
 Anti-Union Speech ... ... ... ... ... 290 
 
 DanieIv 0'CoNNEi.iy (1 775-1847) : 
 
 The PoUtical Outlook ... ... ... ... ... 291 
 
 Catholic Association (on Grattan) 302 
 
 Speech at Tara ... ... ... ... ... ... 303 
 
 Robert Emmet (i 778-1 803) : 
 
 Speech from the Dock ... ... ... ... ... 322 
 
Page 
 ... 333 
 
 ... 341 
 
 ... 352 
 ... 363 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL (179I-1851): 
 
 Speech at Penenden Heath 
 
 Isaac Butt (1812-1879) : 
 
 Speech on Home Rule 
 
 Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867) : 
 
 Sword Speech •• '•• '•' 
 
 The Rev. IMr. Cahii<i, : 
 
 "Down ^vith the Pope" ••• 
 
 The Manchester ^Iartyrs : 
 
 WilUam Philip Allen, Speech from Dock 3^5 
 
 Michael Larkin, Speech from Dock ... • • • 3^7 
 Michael O'Brien, Speech from Dock 3&» 
 
 A. M. SuivUVAN (1 830-1 884) : 
 
 On the Irish National Demands 37^ 
 
 Lord Kusseli. of Kili^owen (1832-1900) : 
 
 Parnell Commission Speech • 3^2 
 
 Mr. Parnell 39^ 
 
 ,, .. »' 
 
 Boycotting 394 
 
 The American Connec- 
 tion ... ... •.• 396 
 
 Two Parties in Ireland 400 
 
 »i " 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnei^l (i 846-1 891) : 
 
 At Navan 
 
 Debate on Volunteers for Ireland ... 
 
 At Limerick—" The Land for the People " . 
 
 Meeting of Irish ParUamentary Party 
 
 At Ennis (Boycotting defined and defended) 
 
 At Fintona 
 
 At Wexford 
 
 Parnell National Tribute 
 
 At Cork 
 
 402 
 402 
 402 
 404 
 
 405 
 
 406 
 
 406 
 406 
 408 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chari^ES Stewart Parnei,]:,. — Continued. 
 
 At Portsmouth, after defeat of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Home Rule Bill 
 
 On a Coercion Bill in House of Commons 
 
 Debate on Government Land Purchase Bill. 
 
 At Waterford 
 
 At Longford 
 
 At Listowel 
 
 MiCHAEi. DaviTT ( 1 846-1 906) : 
 
 Against the South African War 
 
 Page 
 
 409 
 409 
 420 
 421 
 421 
 421 
 
 422 
 
 John B. Redmond (1851) : 
 
 Irish National Convention in Chicago 427 
 
 On Pamell — Fifteen Years in the House of Commons 429 
 
 Ireland and the Boer War 430 
 
 Exclusion of the Irish Members 435 
 
 The Irish Problem 437 
 
 EngUsh Government in Ireland 440 
 
 Home Rule Resolution 441 
 
 The Great War, 1914 443 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Every anthologist, even the worst, is in the afflicting 
 position of that antique sophist, the fore-runner of all the 
 tribe of company-promoters, who spent so much of his 
 life trying to sell a house on the basis of a specimen brick. 
 In the region of poetry which is, of its very nature, an ex- 
 altation, as brief as it is intense, he may avoid abject failure. 
 In prose literature, too, the prospector may hope to come 
 upon passages, quintessential and yet true to type, which 
 can be broken off from the central mass without losing 
 their character. Your author and worker in print has this 
 further advantage : he writes for the individual, and the 
 spiritual values in which he trades are, if not universal, 
 at least partly stripped of localism and transience. But 
 oratory is, by contrast, complex, diffuse, netted beyond 
 release in impermanent details. Its triumph is of the 
 moment, momentary. The sound and rumour of great 
 multitudes, passions hot as ginger in the mouth, torches, 
 tumultuous comings and goings, and, riding through the 
 whirlwind of it all, a personality, with something about him 
 of the prophet, something of the actor, a touch of the char- 
 latan, crying out not so much with his own voice as with 
 that of his multitude, establishing with a gesture, refuting 
 with a glance , stirring ecstasies of hatred and affection — 
 is not that a common, and far from fantastic, conception 
 
 Vll 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the orator ? But when the fire is become ashes and 
 the orator too ; when the crowd no longer collaborates ; 
 when the great argument that transfigured them is a 
 paragraph in a text book, yawned over by schoolboys, 
 the task of the resurrectionist verges on the impossible. 
 
 The material difficulties are in themselves formidable. 
 Fragmentary reports, exanimate reports, no reports at all, 
 or none beyond a chance phrase, come down by tradition, 
 make up the baggage of achievement with which many of 
 the masters of the spoken word confront posterity. But 
 there are difficulties of another, and more serious order. 
 The public are agreed that speeches in general, however 
 well recorded, make dull reading. That is a dictum which 
 has filtered down from Fox to O'Connell, and Gladstone, 
 and Disraeli, and Lord Roseberry. But it is only partially 
 true. To the dull all things are dull. Readers immersed 
 in the particular and the present, and devoid of historical 
 imagination, turn aside with very natural ennui from the 
 printed eloquence of dead men. But they turn aside just as 
 brusquely from every other innuendo of the soul. What 
 does that prove, except that a dumpling is always a 
 dumpling ? 
 
 Oratory is at once the expression and the chronicle 
 of that creative stress which has shaped the course of 
 political development in every parliamentary country. 
 In Ireland that is certainly the case. The evolution of the 
 national idea, in and through a succession of great social 
 movements, is the characteristic phenomenon of Ireland 
 in the modern period. Anybody who desires to under- 
 stand that process must employ as his central source the 
 speeches of Grattan, O'Connell, Butt, Parnell, Mr Red- 
 
INTRODUCTION. iX 
 
 mond and their contemporaries. The research speciaHst 
 who now writes history for us is disposed to undervalue 
 oratory. He is passionate for documents, Custom House 
 records, tables of statistics, the Statute Book, newspapers, 
 pamphlets, broadsheets. He is all for what he calls facts, 
 but facts do not explain themselves. Without contem- 
 porary testimony to their significance they remain blind 
 or rather dead, and of the witnesses to whom appeal may 
 be made the orator is by no means the least informative. 
 He represents the v/arm thought of his time, as the news- 
 paper represents generally the tepid criticism, and the 
 Act of Parhament the cold performance. This is true 
 even in economic history which, most of all, is set down 
 as a matter of averages, percentages, and other bloodless 
 actualities. Grattan on the Commercial Propositions 
 and the Corn Laws, O'Connell on Free Trade and 
 the Poor Law, Butt, Davitt and Mr. Dillon on the 
 land system, Mr. Devlin on the Irish problem of poverty 
 bring one closer to the focus of reality than much bemused 
 grubbing in Blue Books. As for the economic substratum 
 of the Act of Union, by far the amplest and most accurate 
 account of it is to be found in the Parliamentary debates, 
 especially in the speeches of Sir John Foster on the one 
 side and Lord Castlereagh on the other. 
 
 From the Irish orators, then, there is much matter to be 
 heard and learned. As workers in a difficult and potent 
 art they vary widely in accomplishment. A great speech 
 must have in it passion, structure, and beauty. The bal- 
 ance of these three qualities which constitutes perfection 
 of form is less ardently pursued by one than by another. 
 It is to a great extent controlled by outer conditions . When 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 you compare G rattan with O'Connell for instance, you 
 must remember that the typical mise-en- scene of the 
 one is a Chamber, courtly of aspect, powdered, rapiered, 
 and classical, and that of the other a roaring multitude 
 of disinherited peasants, met on some windy hill. 
 O'Connell indeed is the pioneer in all Western countries 
 of the open-air meeting, as he is of the democratic 
 agitation in general. The physical strain of speaking in 
 such circumstances is so exacting that delicacy of form 
 must needs be sacrificed. Platform oratory runs inevitably 
 to set phrases, cliches^ and the roll of standardised per- 
 orations. Assemblies of the kind are rather parades or 
 demonstrations than discussions. The dainty egotism of 
 certain young men among us — ' literary ' men, if only by 
 the baptism of desire — leads them to cry down O'Connell 
 and his successors as a tribe of demagogues . The thunders 
 of the Titan were often vulgar. He fondled and, as we say, 
 " soothered " his crowd too copiously at times ; he was 
 content to be right in the gross and was little troubled at 
 being wrong by retail. But he took his people by the 
 twenty and the two hundred thousand, and shouted slaves 
 into the status of manhood. 
 
 I am indebted to a personal friend for the following 
 account of the pre-Edisonian megaphone, by which the 
 Liberator was able to transmit his speech to the uttermost 
 fringe of great gatherings, like those of Tara and Mullagh- 
 mast. It is a fascinating footnote to history : — 
 
 Many times have I heard debated the " possibility " 
 of Dan O'Connell making himself audible and understood 
 by the vast multitudes he drew to Mullaghmast and 
 Tara. In the closing of the eighties, falling in with an 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 old man who said that he had been in Tara the day of the 
 " big meetin'," I asked how it happened and what it was 
 Hke. " I was going there and all the world was going 
 to Tara Hill to hear the Liberator. I went too, and on 
 the road I met an ould ancient man, who was bending 
 towards the same direction. When we got to the hill, 
 it was black with people and we could not get near." 
 Then I said, " did you not hear the speech ? " " Oh, 
 begorra we did — every word. It was this way. The 
 people said there was half a million of men, not counting 
 women. It was a mighty gathering. Everybody heard 
 Dan. For Dan raised his hand and told all about the 
 platform to repeat his words. He said, ' Silence,' and sil- 
 ence came out to us as the wind upon the barley. Then 
 each man spoke after Dan, and every other man said the 
 words, and out to us all on the edge of the crowd came 
 the speech of Dan O'Connell." 
 
 With Grattan the conditions under which mastery was 
 achieved were very different, and he used them according 
 to their nature. His oratory is a continuing miracle. 
 His natural speech was made up of what Lecky has ad- 
 mirably called the " very proverbs of freedom." He is 
 always central, always creative. A good politician and 
 Parliament man, he was not : he committed the two deadly 
 sins which are to sulk and to retire. But living, as he did, 
 neighbour to the sun, he touched with fire the lips and the 
 heart of Ireland ; fusing old with new, he made her a 
 nation. Except in his quarrel with Flood, in which each 
 dragged the other for a moment into the ditch, his form 
 never dwarfs or crookens his matter. The epigram is 
 always a perilous triumph : no man ever made more or 
 
XU INTRODUCTION. 
 
 better, or ever held them so strongly under the rein of 
 an unbroken continuity of argument. The " proud, full 
 sail " of the Grattan utterance is as noble and individual 
 in its way as that of Shakespeare himself. There is as rich 
 political wisdom in him as in Burke. If this character- 
 isation be thought extravagant there is but one answer to 
 the dissenter : let him read Grattan. 
 
 Flood by contrast is always the Chancery lawyer, 
 gradual, deliberate, not to be stayed and not to be hurried. 
 In the English Parliament his iciness froze his reputation 
 to death. The flash-point of his passion is, in truth, very 
 high, but when kindled, as by the challenge of the Volun- 
 teer idea, he burns with concentrated intensity. Curran 
 is hardly less miraculous than Grattan. Through the 
 Assize of Blood that fierce peasant, with the coal-black hair 
 and the lit coals of eyes, so like Robert Burns and so unlike 
 him, moves like the appointed warden of freedom and all 
 humanity. He, too, ought to be read in full in the edition 
 of his speeches prepared by Davis. The introduction is 
 Davis's most mature and released expression of himself : 
 it flashes like naked swords ; it is acquainted with the 
 griefs that burden men, even the free ; it exults like a 
 trumpet. All Curran is in it, and all Davis. 
 
 In later years Butt restores beauty, and a rare lucid 
 magic, to a speech that had been somewhat battered in 
 the wars. Butt should have been a god, and dwelt apart. 
 He possessed a prose as intimate, and flexible as that of 
 Goldsmith : whether he touched economics, philosophy, 
 romance, or politics he never missed the key of his subject. 
 Parnell spoke like an invoice, definite to the third decimal 
 point, and final. His language, in any emotional stress 
 
• •• 
 
 INTRODUCTION. XlU 
 
 that caught him, political or private, was far inferior to 
 his personality. He died with half his music in him. 
 Davitt impresses one as a workman of genius eager to get 
 on with the business in hand. There is so much to do 
 that he has no time to pick and choose. Any words that 
 happen to be lying about will serve : he flings them rapidly 
 together with savage sincerity, and hurries on to new 
 labours. Of contemporary orators I have included only a 
 ver}^ inadequate selection of passages from Mr. Redmond. 
 That plan proceeds on no principle of exclusion, but solely 
 on those of space and time. A book like this must, to 
 begin with, be kept within manageable dimensions. 
 Moreover, the task of piecing together from newspapers 
 detachable passages, really representative of contem- 
 poraries, is one demanding a great deal more time than I 
 have had at my disposal. Should this volume seem to 
 the public to fill a gap on their library-shelves I shall be 
 glad in due course to supplement it with another devoted 
 to our living orators. Mr. Redmond alone of them has 
 authorised the issue by Mr. Barry O'Brien of a collection 
 of his speeches. He, like Grattan, is central. An un- 
 equalled power of exposition, a style in which every 
 syllable is weighed and every word is meant, a grave 
 self-control which no interruption can perturb, have 
 made him one of the two or three recognised masters 
 of the English House of Commons. 
 
 The peril of the orator, his disease of occupation as one 
 may call it, consists in the temptation to sacrifice structure 
 to ornament. That lure assails him in every acclamation 
 of his listeners. Packed together in crowds we are all 
 absorbed into the ethos of the crowd ; standards decline ; 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the swift stimulation of raw spirits is preferred to the 
 tardier glow of matured wine. We all but insist that a 
 speaker shall cheapen his argument, shall drop to the role 
 of public entertainer. When he yields, and especially 
 when his field of surrender is vituperation, the outcome is 
 sufficiently lamentable. But, as against this, there are 
 certain set-offs to be considered. In those moods of self- 
 condemnation to which Ireland is so curiously addicted, 
 when everybody is busy confessing the sins of everybody 
 else, we find the ' idealists ' describing as personal 
 attack what is really a duel of irreconcilable policies. Let 
 us guard against the blanc-mange Elysiums, so vainly 
 proposed to a world whose most precious metal is iron. 
 The battle of politics is real, and calls for real fighters : 
 so that the fighting be bonny there is no matter of offence. 
 The epigrammatist, too, and the whole tribe of image 
 makers, dwell under a disfavour far too austere. We must 
 distinguish. There is in such images an earned, and an 
 unearned, increment of applause. The sudden, vast, 
 dazzling, and deep-shadowed view of traversed altitudes 
 that breaks on the vision of a climber, who after 
 long effort has reached the mountain-top is not to be 
 grudged him. And the image that closes up in a little 
 room the infinite riches of an argument carefully pursued 
 is not only legitimate but admirable. More than all 
 others G rattan had the secret of that art. What may 
 properly awaken resentment is mere pseudo-picturesque 
 foolery, and structureless harangue that gains applause 
 simply by the cap-and-bells. And yet, even in this latter 
 kind, it is well not to be too severe. Men have lounged 
 into casual greatness as Francis Thompson believes 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 that they sometimes lounge into Heaven. Hamilton 
 of the single speech, which nobody remembers, is copious 
 compared with Hussey Burgh of the single metaphor. 
 Again it is so much easier to talk in long words than in 
 short ones that a stone, lying by the roadside, if adroitly 
 employed as a missile, will often bring to earth a whole 
 fleet of the most pretentious abstractions. In regard to all 
 these matters our Irish speakers are, perhaps, blamably 
 indifferent. In the New Philistinism that has come upon 
 us out of unexpected places, and in strange disguises, 
 our old freedom of mind, and with it our old sense of 
 form has been gravely compromised. Laughter must be 
 according to schedule ; lucidity, betraying as it does a 
 certain infection of art, lies under suspicion. In such 
 an atmosphere the effort to keep one's soul aUve, which 
 is the whole task of culture, is not distinguished from the 
 antics of the jester. Public speaking wallows in a trough 
 of dismal rectitude, and, as in the culmination of the 
 Dunciad, universal dulness covers all. 
 
 Another besetting peril of oratory is severance from 
 great action. So separated from its natural issue it 
 degenerates into rococo. The relation of adequacy 
 between fact and word is dissolved. The smallest fish 
 talks like a whale, and a Rural District Council election 
 is adjectived into a Thermopylae. But this is an ex- 
 travagance that corrects itself. Far more dangerous is 
 it to assume that the master of phrase is necessarily also 
 a master of reality. The conjunction is normal, as witness 
 the mere ranked names of Grattan, Mirabeau, Emmet, 
 Pitt, O'Connell, Lincoln, Gambetta, Gladstone. But 
 there are men born to the leadership of ideas who exercise 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but poorly the leadership of policies or of men. And 
 further that coloured speech, which is styled oratory, 
 is of its essence a Swiss : it may attack to-morrow what 
 it defends to-day. ' Hannibal ' Plunkett, for instance, 
 delivered quite as cogent and imaginative an oration 
 in prosecuting Emmet as in opposing the Union, or 
 pleading for Catholic Rights. 
 
 Whether there is a national style or school of public 
 speech in this country is a question to which I do not even 
 pretend to return an answer. Oratory is the least intimate 
 of all modes of expression, and the least mutable. The 
 analysis of Aristotle and the practice of Demosthenes have 
 in this regard controlled absolutely the shape of our 
 western utterance. The mass-soul does not grow as 
 rapidly as the individual soul, and yesterday's Hansard 
 will disclose to the student no new scheme or method. 
 The Latin nations run, perhaps, a little more to general 
 principles, but with that reservation, a good speech 
 anywhere is very like a good speech anywhere else. The 
 oratory of the great Gaelic days is of course lost to us, 
 and we can pronounce no judgment on it. But in that of 
 the modern period, except perhaps in certain interludes 
 of O'Connell, it is difficult to discover any specifically 
 national mode or form. If one be sought it will certainly 
 not be found in that floridity and Orientalism, commonly 
 imputed to Irish speakers. 
 
 In a subject the mere margins of which are touched in 
 this book, a hundred other significant lines of enquiry 
 suggest themselves. It would be interesting to take some 
 image still current, and trace its history. O'Connell's 
 " brass plate on a coffin," for instance, was not an original 
 
INTRODUCTION. XVll 
 
 mintage, but an old coin that had for many years made 
 the rounds of the Law Library, and the Circuit Messes. 
 The sea, not in the convention that drives across its 
 enmity a precious barque, but the sea itself recurs with 
 large reverberations. Grattan, writing of Malone, of 
 whom nothing survives except the tradition of a demi- 
 god, says : — ' Mr. Malone, one of the characters of 1753, 
 was a man of the finest intellect that any country ever 
 produced.* . . . . ' He is a great sea in a calm,' said 
 Gerrard Hamilton, another great judge of men and 
 talents. ' Ay ! ' it was replied, ' but had you seen him 
 when he was young, you would have said he was a great 
 sea in a storm.' 
 
 Davis tells us that Curran " had a deep sea mind." 
 Lionel Johnson reports that the opening words of one of 
 the last speeches of Parnell were : " Once again I am come 
 to cast myself into the deep sea of the love of my people ! " 
 In this reiteration there is obviously no hint of plagiarism. 
 But that process goes thrivingly forward all the time. 
 It is with ideas as with umbrellas : if left lying about 
 they are peculiarly liable to a change of ownership. And 
 after all the man who seizes upon some valuable, un- 
 regarded coinage of obscure genius and makes it at once 
 Ms owTi and the world's property is, in his own fashion, 
 doing good by stealth. Should he find it fame, he is, 
 moreover, in a situation very favourable to blushing. 
 
 It will be observed that the eloquence of the Bar is, 
 except in a passage or two from Curran, unrepresented. 
 The truth is that Bar speeches, even when founded on 
 great public issues, are beyond all others diffuse and vola- 
 tile. It ought to be added that since Irish silk and stuff 
 
XVlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 deserted the national cause, greatness of inspiration has 
 abandoned them. Their habit of utterance is thin, dipt, 
 and timorous. 
 
 It is true that the exceptions have been magnificent. 
 It is true also that something of the decline is to be set 
 down to an altered fashion of speech. The decay of 
 imagination has been accompanied by an advance in 
 technical efficiency. But when all has been said it remains 
 indisputable that freedom is the breath and being of 
 forensic eloquence. The man who rejects it may become 
 a great lawyer, a learned bully, or a keen-scented arrivistCy 
 but he will never be a great orator. 
 
 Almost everybody who gives himself the trouble of 
 
 reading a book of speeches ends up with a practical and 
 
 personal question : How am I to set about making a good 
 
 speech ? What is the formula or recipe } There is none. 
 
 It is with speeches as Rossetti tells us it is with sonnets : 
 
 without " fundamental brain-work " there can be no 
 
 greatness. Tricks of the surface may be learned by any 
 
 poodle ; but without knowledge, sincerity, and a hearty 
 
 spiritual commitment to public causes the crown of 
 
 oratory, such as it is, is not to be won. This second 
 
 requisite, that a speaker shall not only be sincere, but 
 
 shall infect his audience with that impression, troubles 
 
 the novitiate of the platform more than any other. It 
 
 opens out the whole question of gesture and pantomime. 
 
 Portrait painters assure us that they never quite know what 
 
 to do with the hands of their subject. The average public 
 
 speaker would, if he were candid, admit that he seldom 
 
 quite knows what to do with his own. Historically,. 
 
 pantomime precedes language ; it has lived on as a 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 parallel mode of expression in the fascinating art of the 
 ballet and has now entered into a new dominion through 
 the cinematograph. But in current life, except perhaps 
 among the Latin peoples, its ritual has disappeared ; what 
 remains is amorphous and fragmentary. It follows 
 that the " trained elocutionist," with his scheduled 
 gestures and cadences is always on the perilous edge of 
 unreality. On the other hand, such a man may well be 
 repelled by the veritable genius for clumsiness exhibited 
 by many public speakers. In all these matters the solution 
 m^ust frame itself in the first person singular. The ruling 
 law is that a man must be true to his nature, his facts 
 and his emotion. Pater reduces what is called style to the 
 single note of accuracy. That analysis holds as well of 
 the spoken as of the written w^ord. To be equal to the 
 occasion, equal in the action counselled, in the reasons 
 expounded, in the passions aroused ; to be neither above 
 your work nor below it, but to strike at its centre with 
 strong precision, is to be an initiate. 
 
 The outer histrionic shell does not in the end count 
 for very much. To Byron, Grattan was a harlequin ; 
 to others, Burke was a majestic bore ; Flood had the air 
 of a broken-beaked vulture ; Hussey Burgh bellowed ; 
 O'Connell tainted the winds with his perspiring vulgarity ; 
 Sheil piped in a thin falsetto. In the memoirs of any 
 period — those admirable creations of malice, vanity, 
 and garrulous old age — you will find in the pictures 
 of any public man a good deal more of the artist than of 
 the model. No two interpretations will agree ; you are 
 driven back, whether you will or no, to the man himself, 
 to the things he did and the things he said. Whether in 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 any particular circumstances he looked like a sneak thief^ 
 as one witness testifies, or like a senator of Rome after 
 Cannae, as another avers, does not amount to a row of 
 pins. His value, in the judgment of posterity, will depend 
 on his share in impelling the civilization in which he lived 
 towards its assigned goal of freedom and justice. 
 
 It may well be doubted whether those who regard 
 rhetoric as the enemy of enemies in Ireland are in all 
 respects as wise as they believe themselves to be. There 
 is this to be said for grandiloquence : it is a sin of excess. 
 It is insincere on the right side, namely, that of large 
 ideas. The practical and the concrete need no intensive 
 cultivation, they impose themselves. But the social 
 imagination, the wide-sweeping courage which takes all 
 humanity for its workshop and its material, is rarer, less 
 tenacious, more easily broken. Even sentimentalism and 
 rhodomontade may have their protective uses. The 
 knowledge henceforth indispensable to the orator must 
 plainly be of the bread and butter order. The fight for 
 natural freedom, for democracy, for the deliverance of 
 intellect from the old fantastic bondages has already been 
 won, if not everywhere in the realm of fact, at all events in 
 that of conscience. It remains to reconstruct the fabric 
 of civilization on a basis of economic justice and wisdom. 
 That is the task of the twentieth century. In approaching 
 it we are in graver peril from littleness than from bigness. 
 We may well regard with tolerance any evangel which, 
 however it may miss the centre of supreme accomplish- 
 ment, helps to keep alive the guttered and flickering 
 candles of idealism. 
 
 T. M. Kettle. 
 
IRISH 
 ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 EDMUND BURKE (1730-1797). 
 
 Hazlitt probably came near the truth when he said 
 the only specimen of Burke was " all that he wrote," 
 a profound criticism, because Burke's speeches are 
 often brilhant pamphlets. Still, it is possible, even in 
 fragments, to give some idea of what may be called his 
 leading characteristics — clearness of vision, a luminous 
 accuracy of phrase, and an instinct for what w^as morally 
 right, irrespective of political exigencies — in the long run, 
 the soundest poUtical philosophy. He saw his subject too, 
 in spite of accidental complexities, as a whole, resolved 
 it into its natural divisions, showed the relations of parts, 
 their interdependence or contradictions, with the touch of a 
 skilled dissector, and imposed assent by the very boldness 
 of demonstration, a quality triumphantly displayed in his 
 speeches on America and those connected with the im- 
 peachment of Warren Hastings. No man realized more 
 thoroughly the dictum of Buff on : " Pour bien ecrire, il 
 faut posseder pleinement son siijet." This copiousness often 
 defeated its object, for he had not the lightning tact of 
 lesser men, and never acquired the art of " hitting the 
 House between wind and water." Some critics found him 
 too episodical ; but to this we owe the superb examples of 
 character drawing which illuminate his speeches. 
 
 B 
 
2 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 " There is no political figure of the eighteenth century," 
 says Lecky, " which retains so enduring an interest, or 
 which repays so amply a study, as Edmund Burke. . . 
 As an orator, he has been surpassed by some, as a practical 
 politician he has been surpassed by many. . . But 
 no other politician or writer has thrown the light of so 
 penetrating a genius on the nature and working of the 
 British Constitution, has impressed his principles so deeply 
 on both of the great parties in the State, and has left behind 
 him a richer treasure of political wisdom applicable to all 
 countries and to all times. He had a peculiar gift of in- 
 troducing into transient party conflicts observations drawn 
 from the most profound knowledge of human nature, of 
 the first principles of government and legislation, and of 
 the more subtle and remote consequences of political in- 
 stitutions, and there is perhaps no English prose writer 
 since Bacon whose works are so thickly starred with thought. 
 The time may come when they will be no longer read. 
 The time will never come in which men would not grow 
 the wiser by reading them." 
 
 AMERICAN TAXATION. 
 
 (April 19th, 1774.) 
 
 As if by the act of a veiled Nemesis, the loss of America 
 may be traced remotely to the seizure of the ill-omened East 
 India Company. Owing to the disloyal conduct of its ser- 
 vants in robbing on their own account, its affairs became 
 so embarrassed that it could not pay the annual tribute 
 of £400,000 to the Government and was finally obliged to 
 appeal to Parliament. Two measures were passed, one 
 granting a loan, the other, a Regulating Act, giving Govern- 
 ment, practically, control of the Association. 
 
 Having gained his point. Lord North, the minister, per- 
 mitted the export of 17,000,000 lbs. of tea then lying in 
 the Company's warehouses to America, with a duty of 3d. 
 per pound — to he paid in the Colonies. The reception 
 of the tea in Boston is historical, and it was during the 
 resulting debate Burke delivered this speech. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 3 
 
 This tea duty was the only remaining tax, out of all those 
 imposed by Townshend in 1767. It was intentionally 
 allowed to stand in order to assert the perilous right to tax. 
 Taxing for Revenue : — In reading the speech the follow 
 ing facts may be borne in mind. 
 
 Grenville, 1764, proposed stamp duties for a revenue 
 towards the Enghsh National Debt, £140,000,000, and the 
 upkeep of British troops in America, beheving that like 
 Ireland, the Colonies should pay for military protection 
 and the glories of Empire. Despite remonstrance, the 
 measure became law as the Stamp Act, 1765. It provided 
 that bonds leases, broadsides, etc., should be printed or 
 written on stamped paper. Great bitterness was excited 
 in America — taxation for commercial purposes being one 
 thing and taxation for purposes of revenue, another. The 
 Act was fiercely resisted on the vital principle that there 
 should be no taxation without representation. 
 
 The Rockingham Ministry, whose key-stone was Pitt, 
 introduced a bill repeahng the Act— on the ground of 
 expediency, while by a Declaratory Act they grimly insisted 
 on the right of England to make taxes binding the Colonists 
 " in all cases whatsoever." 
 
 The Grafton IVIinistry followed. Accident placed Charles 
 Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the head of 
 affairs. He hghtheartedly set about reconcihng the 
 distinction between external and internal taxation by his 
 project of raising a revenue through a port duty on glass, 
 lead, painters' colours, paper and tea, the charge on the 
 last being 3d. in the pound, and again the analogy was 
 Ireland. But America had the miserable state of that 
 country before her eyes, and believing in God, she deter- 
 mined that one Ireland was enough in His world. 
 
 Townshend died. North, favourite of the King and 
 court party became minister. He made Lord Hillsborough 
 Secretary of State. The friends of America, Chatham, 
 Conway, Shelbourne, resigned. Finally North repealed 
 all the duties imposed by Townshend's Act, except that on 
 tea, arguing that it was based on commercial grounds, the 
 tea having been freed from a duty of i/- in the pound in 
 England and the Colonists asked only to pay one of 3d., 
 
4 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 while a circular letter from Hillsborough pledged the 
 Government not to raise other revenue from America. 
 The concessions came too late, the English states flushed by 
 success, and irritated by the shuffling poHcy of the " Mother 
 Country," resisted, and the long struggle which was to 
 end in the Declaration of Independence had begun. 
 
 At the time the speech produced a great effect. Colonel 
 Barre declared if it could be written out, he would nail it 
 on every church door in the kingdom. Sir George Savile 
 called it the greatest triumph of eloquence within his 
 memory. Governor Johnstone said it was fortunate for 
 the noble lords (North and Germaine) that strangers were 
 excluded from the debate, else they might have excited the 
 populace to tear them to pieces on their way home. Though 
 urged by his friends, Burke generously refrained from 
 having the speech printed until a year had elapsed, so that 
 the Ministers might have an opportunity of re -considering 
 their poHcy. (Payne.) 
 
 Sir, — I agree with the honourable gentleman who 
 spoke last, that this subject is not new to this House. 
 Very disagreeably to this House, very unfortunately to 
 this Nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole 
 Empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For 
 nine long years, session after session, we have been 
 lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional 
 arguments, and temporary expedients. I am sure our 
 heads must turn, and our stomachs nauseate with them. 
 We have had them in every shape ; we have looked at them 
 in every point of view. Invention is exhausted ; reason 
 is fatigued ; experience has given judgment ; but ob- 
 stinacy is not yet conquered. 
 
 The honourable gentleman has made one endeavour 
 more to diversify the form of this disgusting argument. 
 He has thrown out a speech composed almost entirely 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 5 
 
 of challenges. Challenges are serious things ; and as 
 he is a man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say 
 he has very well weighed those challenges before he 
 delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit at the 
 same side of the House, and agree with the honourable 
 gentleman on all the American questions My sentiments, 
 I am sure, are well known to him ; and I thought I had 
 been perfectly acquainted with his. Though I find 
 myself mistaken, he will still permit me to use the pri- 
 vilege of an old friendship ; he will permit me to apply 
 myself to the House under the sanction of his authority ; 
 and on the various grounds he has measured out, to 
 submit to you the poor opinions which I have formed 
 upon a matter of importance enough to demand the 
 fullest consideration I could bestow upon it. 
 
 He has stated to the House two grounds of deliber- 
 ation ; one narrow and simple, and merely confined to the 
 question on your paper : the other more large and more 
 complicated ; comprehending the whole series of the 
 Parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their 
 causes and their consequences. With regard to the 
 latter ground, he states it as useless, and thinks it may be 
 even dangerous to enter into so extensive a field of enquiry. 
 Yet, to my surprise, he had hardly laid down this restric- 
 tive proposition, to which his authority would have given 
 so much weight, when directly, and with the same au- 
 thority, he condemns it ; and declares it absolutely neces- 
 sary to enter into the most ample historical detail. His 
 zeal has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. 
 In this perplexity, what shall we do, Sir, who are willing 
 to submit to the law he gives us ? He has reprobated 
 
b IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in one part of his speech the rule he had laid down for 
 debate in the other ; and, after narrowing the ground 
 for all those who are to speak after him, he takes an 
 excursion himself, as unbounded as the subject and the 
 extent of his great abilities. . . 
 
 He desires to know, whether, if we were to repeal this 
 tax, agreeably to the proposition of the honourable 
 gentleman who made the motion, the Americans would 
 not take post on this concession, in order to make a new 
 attack on the next body of taxes ; and whether they would 
 not call for a repeal of the duty on wine as loudly as they 
 do now for the repeal of the duty on tea ? Sir, I can 
 give no security on the subject. But I will do all that 
 I can, and all that can be fairly demanded. To the 
 experience which the honourable gentleman reprobates 
 in one instant, and reverts to in the next ; to that ex- 
 perience, without the least wavering or hesitation on my 
 part, I steadily appeal ; and would to God there was no 
 other arbiter to decide on the vote with which the House 
 is to conclude this day ! 
 
 When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in the year 
 1766, I affirm, first, that the Americans did not in conse- 
 quence of this measure call upon you to give up the former 
 Parliamentary revenue which subsisted in that country ; 
 or even any one of the articles which compose it. I 
 affirm also, that when, departing from the maxims of that 
 repeal, you revived the scheme of taxation, and thereby 
 filled the minds of the Colonists with new jealousy, and 
 all sorts of apprehensions, then it was that they quarrelled 
 with the old taxes, as well as the new ; then it was, and not 
 till then, that they questioned all the parts of your legis- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. ^ 
 
 lative power ; and by the battery of such questions have 
 shaken the solid structure of this Empire to its deepest 
 foundations. 
 
 Of those two propositions I shall, before I have done, 
 give such convincing, such damning proof, that however 
 the contrary may be whispered in circles, or bawled in 
 newspapers, they never more will dare to raise their 
 voices in this House I speak with great confidence. 
 I have reason for it. The Ministers are with me. They 
 at least are convinced that the repeal of the Stamp Act 
 had not, that no repeal can have, the consequences which 
 the honourable gentleman who defends their measures 
 is so much alarmed at. To their conduct I refer him for 
 a conclusive answer to his objection. I carry my proof 
 irresistibly into the very body of both Ministry and Parlia- 
 ment ; not on any general reasoning growing out of col- 
 lateral matter, but on the conduct of the honourable 
 gentleman's Ministerial friends on the new revenue itself. 
 
 The Act of 1767, which grants this tea duty, sets forth 
 in its preamble, that it was expedient to raise a revenue 
 in America, for the support of the civil government, there, 
 as well as for purposes still more extensive. To this 
 support the Act assigns six branches of duties. About 
 two years after this Act passed, the Ministry, I mean the 
 present Ministry, thought it expedient to repeal five of 
 the duties and to leave (for reasons best known to them- 
 selves) only the sixthstanding. Suppose any person, at 
 the time of that repeal, had thus addressed the Minister : 
 "Condemning, as you do, the Repeal of the Stamp Act, 
 why do you venture to repeal the duties upon glass, 
 paper, and painters' colours ? Let your pretence for the 
 
8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 repeal be what it will, are you not thoroughly convinced, 
 that your concessions will produce not satisfaction, but 
 insolence, in the Americans ; and that the giving up 
 these taxes will necessitate the giving up of all the rest ? " 
 This objection was as palpable then as it is now ; and it 
 was as good for preserving the five duties as for retaining 
 the sixth. Besides, the Minister will recollect, that the 
 Repeal of the Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal ; 
 and the ill policy of that measure (had it been so im- 
 politic as it has been represented), and the mischiefs it 
 produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, 
 therefore, of the honourable gentleman, upon the prin- 
 ciples of the Minister himself, the Minister has nothing 
 at all to answer. He stands condemned by himself, 
 and by his associates old and new, as a destroyer, in the 
 first trust of finance, of the revenues ; and in the first 
 rank of honour, as a betrayer of the dignity of his 
 country. 
 
 Most men, especially great men, do not always know 
 their well-wishers. I come to rescue that noble lord 
 out of the hands of those he calls his friends ; and even 
 out of his own. I will do him the justice he is denied at 
 home. He has not been this wicked and imprudent man. 
 He knew that a repeal had no tendency to produce the 
 mischiefs which give so much alarm to his honourable 
 friend. His work was not bad in its principle, but im- 
 perfect in its execution ; and the motion on your paper 
 presses him only to complete a proper plan, which, by 
 some unfortunate and unaccountable error, he had 
 left unfinished. 
 
 I hope. Sir, the honourable gentleman who spoke last, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 is thoroughly satisfied, and satisfied out of the proceedings 
 of Ministry on their own favourite Act, that his fears from 
 a repeal are groundless. If he is not, I leave him, and the 
 noble lord who sits by him, to settle the matter, as well 
 as they can, together ; for if the repeal of American taxes 
 destroys all our government in America— He is the 
 man !— and he is the worst of all the repealers, because 
 he is the last. 
 
 But I hear it rung continually in my ears, now and 
 formerly—" The Preamble ! what will become of the 
 Preamble, if you repeal this tax ? "—I am sorry to be com- 
 pelled so often to expose the calamities and disgraces of 
 Parliament. The preamble of this law, standing as it 
 now stands, has the lie direct given to it by the pro- 
 visionary part of the Act ; if that can be called provision- 
 ary which makes no provision. I should be afraid to 
 express myself in this manner, especially in the face of 
 such a formidable array of ability as is now drawn up 
 before me, composed of the ancient household troops 
 of that side of the House, and the new recruits from this, 
 if the matter were not clear and indisputable. Nothing 
 but truth can give me this firmness ; but plain truth and 
 clear evidence can be beat down by no abihty. The Clerk 
 will be so good as to turn to the Act, and to read this 
 favourite preamble : 
 
 " Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be 
 raised in your Majesty's Dominions in America, for 
 making a more certain and adequate provision for defray- 
 ing the charge of the administration of justice and 
 support of civil government, in such Provinces where it 
 shall be found necessary ; and towards further defraying 
 
10 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the 
 said Dominions ** 
 
 You have heard this pompous performance. Now 
 where is the revenue which is to do all these mighty 
 things ? Five-sixths repealed — abandoned — sunk — gone 
 — lost for ever. Does the poor solitary tea duty sup- 
 port the purposes of this preamble ? Is not the supply 
 there stated as effectually abandoned as if the tea 
 duty had perished in the general wreck ? Here, Mr. 
 Speaker, is a precious mockery — a preamble without an 
 act — taxes granted in order to be repealed — and the 
 reasons of the grant still carefully kept up ! This is 
 raising a revenue in America ! This is preserving 
 dignity in England ! If you repeal this tax in com- 
 pliance with the motion, I readily admit that you lose this 
 fair preamble. Estimate your loss in it. The object 
 of the Act is gone already ; and all you suffer is the 
 purging the Statute book of the opprobrium of an empty, 
 absurd, and false recital. 
 
 It has been said again and again, that the five 
 taxes were repealed on commercial principles. What is 
 got by this paltry pretence of commercial principles 
 I know not : for if your government in America 
 is destroyed by the repeal of taxes ^ it is of no conse- 
 quence upon what ideas the repeal is grounded. Repeal 
 this tax too upon commercial principles if you please. 
 These principles will serve as well now as they did for- 
 merly. But you know that, either your objection to a 
 repeal from these supposed consequences has no validity, 
 or that this pretence could never remove it. This com- 
 mercial motive never was believed by any man, either in 
 
EDMUND BURKE. II 
 
 America, which this letter is meant to soothe, or in Eng- 
 land, which it is meant to deceive. It was impossible it 
 should. Because every man, in the least acquainted 
 with the detail of Commerce, must know, that several 
 of the articles on which the tax was repealed, were fitter 
 objects of duties than almost any other articles that could 
 possibly be chosen ; without comparison more so, than 
 the tea that was left taxed ; as infinitely less liable to be 
 eluded by contraband. . . Tea is perhaps the most 
 important object, taking it with its necessary connections, 
 of any in the mighty circle of our Commerce. If commer- 
 cial principles had been the true motives to the repeal, 
 or had they been at all attended to, tea would have been 
 the last article we should have left taxed for a subject of 
 controversy. 
 
 Sir, it is not a pleasant consideration, but nothing in 
 the world can read so awful and so instructive a lesson, 
 as the conduct of Ministry in this business, upon the 
 mischief of not having large and liberal ideas in the 
 management of great affairs. Never have the servants 
 of the State looked at the whole of your complicated in- 
 terests in one connected view. They have taken things 
 by bits and scraps, some at one time and one pretence, 
 and some at another, just as they pressed, without any 
 sort of regard to their relations or dependencies. They 
 never had any kind of system, right or wrong ; but 
 only invented occasionally some miserable tale for the 
 day, in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties, into 
 which they had proudly strutted And they were put to 
 all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and full of 
 mischief, in order to pilfer piece-meal a repeal of an Act, 
 
12 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 which they had not the generous courage, when they 
 found and feh their error, honourably and fairly to dis- 
 claim. By such management, by the irresistible oper- 
 ation of feeble counsels, so paltry a sum as threepence 
 in the eyes of a financier, so insignificant an article as tea 
 in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the pillars of a 
 commercial Empire that circled the whole globe. 
 
 Do you forget, that in the very last year, you stood 
 on the precipice of general bankruptcy ? Your danger 
 was indeed great. You were distressed in the affairs of 
 the East India Company ; and you well know what sort 
 of things are involved in the comprehensive energy of 
 that significant appellation. I am not called upon to 
 enlarge to you on that danger, which you thought proper 
 yourselves to aggravate, and to display to the world with 
 all the parade of indiscreet declamation. The monopoly 
 of the most lucrative trades, and the possession of im- 
 perial revenues, had brought you to the verge of beggary 
 and ruin. Such was your representation — such, in some 
 measure, was your case. The vent of ten millions of 
 pounds of this commodity, now locked up by the oper- 
 ation of an injudicious tax. and rotting in the warehouses 
 of the company, would have prevented all this distress, 
 and all that series of desperate measures which you 
 thought yourselves obliged to take in consequence of it. 
 America would have furnished that vent, which no other 
 part of the world can furnish but America ; where tea 
 is next to a necessary of life ; and where the demand 
 grows upon the supply. I hope our dear-bought East 
 India Committees have done us at least so much good, 
 as to let us know, that without a more extensive sale of 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 3 
 
 that article, our East India revenues and acquisitions 
 can have no certain connection with this country. It is 
 through the American trade of tea that your East India 
 conquests are to be prevented from crushing you with 
 their burthen. They are ponderous indeed ; and they 
 must have that great country to lean upon, or they tumble 
 on your head. It is the same folly that has lost you at 
 once the benefit of the West and of the East. This folly 
 has thrown open folding-doors to contraband ; and will 
 be the means of giving the profits of the trade of your 
 Colonies to every nation but yourselves. Never did a 
 people suffer so much for the empty words of a preamble. 
 It must be given up. For on what principles does it 
 stand ? This famous revenue stands, at this hour, on all 
 the debate, as a description of revenue not as yet known 
 in all the comprehensive (but too comprehensive !) voca- 
 bulary of finance — a preambulary tax. It is indeed, a 
 tax of sophistry, a tax of pedantry, a tax of disputation, 
 a tax of war and rebellion, a tax for anything but 
 benefit to the imposers, or satisfaction to the subject. 
 
 But, the Colonies can be forced to take the tea. Has seven years' 
 quarrel forced them to take it ? 
 
 But the tax is trifling. Three-fourths of the duty taken off, the 
 place of collection merely shifted. Instead of the retention of a 
 shilling in England, it is 3d. paid in America. True, but this shows 
 your folly — the duty, safe and secure, has been thrown away for one 
 three-fourths less ! 
 
 Could anything be a subject of more just alarm to 
 America than to see you go out of the plain road of 
 finance, and give up your most certain revenues and your 
 clearest interests, merely for the sake of insulting your 
 Colonies ? No man every doubted that the commodity 
 
14 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of tea could bear an imposition of threepence. But no 
 commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a penny, 
 when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two 
 millions of people are resolved not to pay. The feelings 
 of the Colonies were formerly the feelings of Great 
 Britain. Theirs were formerly the feelings of Mr. 
 Hampden when called upon for the payment of twenty 
 shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. 
 Hampden's fortune ? No ! but the payment of half 
 twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would 
 have made him a slave. It is the weight of that pre- 
 amble, of which you are so fond, and not the weight of 
 the duty, that the Americans are unable and unwilling 
 to bear. 
 
 It is then. Sir, upon the principle of this measure, and 
 nothing else, that we are at issue. It is a principle of 
 political expediency. Your Act of 1767 asserts, that it 
 is expedient to raise a revenue in America ; your Act 
 of 1769, which takes away that revenue, contradicts the 
 Act of 1767 ; and by something much stronger than 
 words, asserts, that it is not expedient. It is a reflection 
 on your wisdom to persist in a solemn Parliamentary 
 declaration of the expediency of any object, for which, 
 at the same time, you make no sort of provision. And 
 pray. Sir, let not this circumstance escape you ; it is 
 very material ; that the preamble of this Act, which we 
 wish to repeal, is not declaratory of a right as some 
 gentlemen seem to argue it ; it is only a recital of the 
 expediency of a certain exercise of a right supposed already 
 to have been asserted ; an exercise you are now contend- 
 ing for by ways and means, which you confess, though 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 5 
 
 they were obeyed, to be utterly insufficent for their 
 purpose. You are therefore at this moment in the awk- 
 ward situation of fighting for a phantom : a quiddity ; 
 a thing that wants not only a substance but even a 
 name ; for a thing, which is neither abstract right, nor 
 profitable enjoyment. 
 
 They tell you. Sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I 
 know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a 
 terrible incumbrance to you ; for it has of late been 
 ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every 
 idea of your policy. Shew the thing you contend for to 
 be reason ; shew it to be common sense ; shew it to be the 
 means of attaining some useful end ; and then I am 
 content to allow it what dignity you please. But what 
 dignity is derived from the perseverance in absurdity 
 is more than ever I could discern. The honourable 
 gentleman has said well — indeed, in most of his general 
 observations I agree with him — he says, that this subject 
 does not stand as it did formerly. Oh, certainly not ! 
 Every hour you continue on this ill-chosen ground, your 
 difiiculties thicken on you ; and therefore my conclusion 
 is, remove from a bad position as quickly as you can. The 
 disgrace, and the necessity, of yielding, both of them, grow 
 upon you every hour of your delay. 
 
 Shall we repeal this tax when America is in open opposition to us ? 
 Go back to 1769, and see how the King himself opposed the repeal 
 of Townshend's Act, and then listen to Lord Hillsborough's de- 
 claration to the Colonists going straight against it ! 
 
 An apprehension of the very consequences now stated 
 by the honourable gentleman was then given as a reason 
 for shutting the door against all hope of such an alter- 
 
1 6 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ation. And so strong was the spirit for supporting the 
 new taxes, that the Session concluded with the following 
 remarkable declaration. After stating the vigorous mea- 
 sures which had been pursued, the Speech from the 
 Throne proceeds : — 
 
 " You have assured me of your firm support in the 
 prosecution of them. Nothing, in my opinion, could 
 be more likely to enable the well-disposed among my 
 subjects in that part of the world, effectually to discourage 
 and defeat the designs of the factious and seditious, than 
 the hearty concurrence of every branch of the Legis- 
 lature, in maintaining the execution of the laws in every 
 part of my Dominions." 
 
 After this no man dreamt that a repeal under this 
 Ministry could possibly take place. The honourable 
 gentleman knows as well as I, that the idea was utterly 
 exploded by those who sway the House. This speech 
 was made on the ninth day of May, 1769. Five days 
 after this speech, that is, on the 13th of the same month, 
 the public circular letter, a part of which I am going to 
 read to you, was written by Lord Hillsborough, Secretary 
 of State for the Colonies. After reciting the substance 
 of the King's Speech, he goes on thus : 
 
 " I can take upon me to assure you, notwithstanding 
 insinuations to the contrary, from men with factious and 
 seditious views, that his Majesty's present Administra- 
 tion have at no time entertained a design to propose to 
 Parliament to lay any further taxes upon America for the 
 purpose of RAISING A REVENUE ; and that it is at. 
 present their intention to propose, the next Session of 
 Parliament, to take ofF the duties upon gl^sSj paper, and 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 1 7 
 
 colours, upon consideration of such duties having been 
 laid contrary to the true principles of commerce. 
 
 " These have always been, and still are the sentiments 
 of his Majesty s present servants ; and by which their 
 conduct in respect to America has been governed. And 
 his Majesty relies upon your prudence and fidelity for such 
 an explanation of his measures, as may tend to remove 
 the prejudices which have been excited by the misrepre- 
 sentations of those who are enemies to the peace and 
 prosperity of Great Britain and her Colonies ; and to 
 re-establish that mutual confidence and affection, upon 
 which the glory and safety of the British Empire de- 
 pend." 
 
 Here, Sir, is a canonical book of ministerial scripture ; 
 the General Epistle to the Americans. What does the 
 gentleman say to it ? Here a repeal is promised ; pro- 
 mised without condition ; and while your authority was 
 actually resisted. I pass by the public promise of a 
 Peer relative to the repeal of taxes by this House. I pass 
 by the use of the King's name in a matter of supply, that 
 sacred and reserved right of the Commons. I conceal 
 the ridiculous figure of Parliament hurling its thunders 
 at the gigantic rebellion of x\merica ; and then, five days 
 after, prostrate at the feet of those assemblies we affected 
 to despise ; begging them, by the intervention of our 
 ministerial sureties, to receive our submission, and 
 heartily promising amendment. These might have been 
 serious matters formerly ; but we are grown wiser than 
 our fathers. Passing, therefore, from the constitutional 
 consideration to the mere policy, does not this letter imply, 
 that the idea of taxing America for the purpose of revenue 
 
l8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 is an abominable project ; when the Ministry suppose 
 that none but factious men, and with seditious views, 
 could charge them with it ? does not this letter adopt and 
 sanctify the American distinction of taxing for a revenue ? 
 does it not formally reject all future taxation on that prin- 
 ciple ? does it not state the ministerial rejection of such 
 principle of taxation, not as the occasional, but the constant 
 opinion of the King's servants ? does it not say, I care 
 not how consistently — but does it not say, that their 
 conduct with regard to America has been always governed 
 by this policy ? It goes a great deal further. These 
 excellent and trusty servants of the King, justly fearful 
 lest they themselves should have lost all credit with the 
 world, bring out the image of their gracious Sovereign 
 from the inmost and most sacred shrine, and they pawn 
 him as a security for their promises — " His Majesty 
 relies on your prudence and fidelity for such an ex- 
 planation of his measures." These sentiments of the 
 Minister, and these measures of his Majesty, can only 
 relate to the principle and practice of taxing for a revenue ; 
 and accordingly Lord Botecourt, stating it as such, did, 
 with great propriety, and in the exact spirit of his instruc- 
 tions, endeavour to remove the fears of the Virginian 
 assembly, lest the sentiments, which it seems (unknown 
 to the world) had always been those of the Ministers, 
 and by which their conduct in respect to America had 
 been governed, should by some possible revolution, 
 favourable to wicked American taxers, be hereafter 
 counteracted. He addresses them in this manner : — 
 
 " It may possibly be objected, that, as his Majesty's 
 present administration are not immortal, their successors 
 
EDMUND BURKE. IQ 
 
 may be inclined to attempt to undo what the present 
 Ministers shall have attempted to perform ; and to that 
 objection I can give but this answer ; that it is my firm 
 opinion, that the plan I have stated to you will certainly 
 take place ; and that it will never be departed from ; 
 and so determined am I for ever to abide by it, that I 
 will be content to be declared infamous, if I do not, to 
 the last hour of my life, at all times, in all places, and 
 upon all occasions, exert every power with which I either 
 am or ever shall be legally invested, in order to obtain 
 and maintain for the Continent of America that satis- 
 faction which I have been authorised to promise this 
 day, by the confidential servants of our gracious Sovereign, 
 who to my certain knowledge rates his honour so high, 
 that he would rather part with his crown than preserve 
 it by deceit.*' 
 
 A glorious and true character ! which (since we suffer 
 his Ministers with impunity to answer for his ideas of 
 taxation) we ought to make it our business to enable his 
 Majesty to preserve in all its lustre. Let him have 
 character, since ours is no more 1 Let some part of the 
 Government be kept in respect. 
 
 This Epistle was not the letter of Lord Hillsborough 
 solely ; though he held the official pen. It was the letter 
 of the Noble Lord upon the floor, and of all the King's 
 then Ministers, who (with, I think, the exceptionof two 
 only) are his Ministers at this hour. The very first 
 news that a British Parliament heard of what it was to 
 do with the duties which it had given and granted to the 
 King, was by the publication of the votes of American 
 assemblies. It was in America that your resolutions 
 
20 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 were pre- declared. It is from thence that we knew to 
 a certainty, how much exactly, and not a scruple more or 
 less, we were to repeal. We were unworthy to be let 
 into the secret of our own conduct. The assemblies had 
 confidential communications from his Majesty's confi- 
 dential servants. We were nothing but instruments. 
 Do you, after this, wonder that you have no weight and 
 no respect in the Colonies ? After this, are you sur- 
 prised, that Parliament is every day and ever5rwhere 
 losing (I feel it with sorrow, I utter it with reluctance) 
 that reverential affection, which so endearing a name of 
 authority ought ever to carry with it ; that you are obeyed 
 solely from respect to the bayonet ; and that this House, 
 the ground and pillar of freedom, is itself held up only 
 by the treacherous under-pinning and clumsy buttresses 
 of arbitrary power ? 
 
 So much for the folly of confidential communications. As for your 
 dignity — you did not think of it in time, you began by violence. 
 
 Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants 
 here ; and then went mumping with a sore leg to America, 
 canting and whining, and complaining of faction, which 
 represented them as friends to a revenue from the Colonies. 
 I hope nobody in this House will hereafter have the 
 impudence to defend American taxes in the name of 
 Ministry. The moment they do, with this letter of 
 attorney in my hand, I will tell them, in the authorized 
 terms, they are wretches, " with factious and seditious 
 views ; enemies to the peace and prosperity of the Mother 
 Country and the Colonies," and subverters "of the mutual 
 affection and confidence on which the glory and safety of 
 the British Empire depend." 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 21 
 
 After this letter, the question is no more on propriety 
 or dignity. They are gone already. The faith of your 
 Sovereign is pledged for the political principle. The 
 general declaration in the letter goes to the whole of it. 
 You must, therefore, either abandon the scheme of taxing, 
 or you must send the Ministers tarred and feathered to 
 America, who dared to hold out the Royal Faith for a 
 renunciation of all taxes for revenue. Them you must 
 
 punish, or this faith you must preserve 
 
 Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own commerce, 
 which is your own convenience, were the sole grounds 
 of the repeal of the five duties, why does Lord Hills- 
 borough, in disclaiming in the name of the King and 
 Ministry their ever having had an intent to tax for revenue, 
 mention it as the means " of re-establishing the confi- 
 dence and affection of the Colonies ? " Is it a way of 
 soothing others, to assure them that you will take good 
 care of yourself? The medium, the only medium, for 
 regaining their affection and confidence, is, that you will 
 take off something oppressive to their minds. Sir, the 
 letter strongly enforces that idea : for though the repeal 
 of the taxes is promised on commercial principles, yet 
 the means of counteracting " the insinuations of men 
 with factious and seditious views," is, by a disclaimer 
 of the intention of taxing for revenue, as a constant in- 
 variable sentiment and rule of conduct in the government 
 of America. 
 
 Look at the Act just above the American Revenue Act in the 
 Statute Book. It is one for raising a revenue in the Isle of Man — 
 almost the whole body of British manufacture is taxed there. It 
 resembles the American Act in every particular but that. Yet, you 
 repeal in the latter case, and continue taxing the Isle of Man as you 
 
23 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 would continue to tax America if she did not resist — that is the 
 motive for the repeal. 
 
 Your reasons were political, not commercial. The 
 repeal was made, as Lord Hillsborough's letter well ex- 
 presses it, to regain " the confidence and affection of the 
 Colonies, on which the glory and safety of the British 
 Empire depend." A wise and just motive surely, if 
 ever there was such. But the mischief and dishonour is, 
 that you have not done what you had given the Colonies 
 just cause to expect, when your Ministers disclaimed the 
 idea of taxes for a revenue. There is nothing simple, 
 nothing manly, nothing ingenuous, open, decisive, or 
 steady, in the proceeding, with regard either to the con- 
 tinuance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole has an 
 air of Httleness and fraud. The article of tea is slurred 
 over in the Circular Letter, as it were by accident — 
 nothing is said of a resolution either to keep that tax, 
 or to give it up. There is no fair dealing in any part of 
 the transaction. 
 
 If you mean to follow your true motive and your public 
 faith, give up your tax on tea for raising a revenue, the 
 principle of which has, in effect, been disclaimed in your 
 name ; and which produces you no advantage ; no, 
 not a penny. Or, if you choose to go on with a poor 
 pretence instead of a solid reason, and will still adhere 
 to your cant of commerce, you have ten thousand times 
 more strong commercial reasons for giving up this duty 
 on tea than for abandoning the five others that you have 
 already renounced. 
 
 The American consumption of teas is annually, I 
 believe, worth £300,000 at the least farthing. If you urge 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 23 
 
 the American violence as a justification for your perse- 
 verance in enforcing this tax, you know that you can never 
 answer this plain question— Why did you repeal the 
 others given in the same Act, whilst the very same vio- 
 lence subsisted ? — But you did not find the violence 
 cease upon that concession. — No ! because the concession 
 was far short of satisfying the principle which Lord 
 Hillsborough had abjured ; or even the pretence on which 
 the repeal of the other taxes was announced ; and be- 
 cause by enabling the East India Company to open a shop 
 for defeating the American resolution not to pay that 
 specific tax, you manifestly showed a hankering after 
 the principle of the Act which you formerly had renounced. 
 Whatever road you take leads to a compliance with this 
 motion. It opens to you at the end of every vista. 
 Your commerce, your policy, your promises, your reasons, 
 your pretences, your consistency, your inconsistency — all 
 jointly oblige you to this repeal. 
 
 But, if we go so far, the Americans will go farther ? 
 
 It is impossible to answer for bodies of men. But I 
 am sure the natural effect of fidelity, clemency, kindness 
 in governors, is peace, good-will, order, and esteem on 
 the part of the governed. I would certainly, at least, 
 give these fair principles a fair trial ; which since the 
 making of this Act to this hour they never have had. 
 
 Sir, the honourable gentleman having spoken what 
 he thought necessary upon the narrow part of the subject, 
 I have given him I hope, a satisfactory answer. He next 
 presses me by a variety of direct challenges and oblique 
 reflections to say something on the historical part. I 
 
24 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 shall, therefore, Sir, open myself fully on that important 
 and delicate subject ; not for the sake of telling you 
 a long story (which I know, Mr. Speaker, you are not 
 particularly fond of) , but for the sake of the weighty in- 
 struction that, I flatter myself, will necessarily result 
 from it. I shall not be longer, if I can help it, than 
 so serious a matter requires. 
 
 First period of Colonial policy : — From the Navigation Act down, 
 the system of commerce was the only one by which you tried to make 
 the colonies support the empire. Accordingly, in all laws referring 
 to plantations the words which characterize Revenue Laws were all 
 avoided intentionally. Our Revenue Laws have " Give and Grant " 
 as a symbol. These words first occur, in regard to America, iu 1764, 
 when they were interpreted to mean merely regulations of trade. 
 This was your pohcy from 1660 to 1764. 
 
 Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of American 
 revenue say, that the commercial restraint is full as hard 
 a law for America to live under. I think so too. I think 
 it, if uncompensated, to be a condition of as rigorous 
 servitude as men can be subject to. But America bore 
 it from the fundamental Act of Navigation until 1764. 
 Why ? Because men do bear the inevitable constitution 
 of their original nature with all its infirmities. The 
 Act of Navigation attended the Colonies from their in- 
 fancy ; grew with their growth and strengthened with 
 their strength. They were confirmed in obedience to 
 it even more by usage than by law. They scarcely had 
 remembered a time when they were not subject to such 
 restraint. Besides, they were indemnified for it by a 
 pecuniary compensation. Their monopolist happened 
 to be one of the richest men in the world. By his im- 
 mense capital, primarily employed, not for their benefit, 
 but his own, they were enabled to proceed with their 
 
EDMUND BURKE 25 
 
 fisheries, their agricuhure, their ship-building (and their 
 trade too, within the Umits) in such a manner as got far 
 the start of the slow, languid operations of unassisted 
 nature. . . . For my part, I never cast an eye on their 
 flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commo- 
 dious life, but they seemed to me rather ancient nations 
 grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate 
 events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating 
 wealth in many centuries, than the Colonies of yesterday ; 
 than a set of miserable outcasts, a few years ago not so 
 much sent as thrown out, on the bleak and barren shore 
 of a desolate wilderness three thousand miles from all 
 civilised intercourse. 
 
 All this was done by England, whilst England pursued 
 trade, and forgot revenue. . . . America had the 
 compensation of your capital, which made her bear her 
 servitude. She had another compensation which you 
 are now going to take away from her. She had, except 
 the commercial restraint, every characteristic mark of a 
 free people in all her internal concerns. She had the 
 image of the British Constitution. She had the sub- 
 stance. She was taxed by her own representatives. She 
 chose most of her own magistrates. She paid them all. 
 She had in effect the sole disposal of her own internal 
 government 
 
 Whether you were right or wrong in establishing the 
 Colonies on the principle of commercial monopoly 
 rather than on that of revenue is at this day a problem 
 of mere speculation. You cannot have both by the same 
 authority. To join together the restraints of an universal 
 internal and external monopoly, with a universal internal 
 
26 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 and external taxation, is an unnatural union ; perfect 
 uncompensated slavery. 
 
 Second period : — How did the revenue scheme begin ? Thus. 
 Twenty new regiments, and twenty colonels capable of seats in the 
 House were maintained. The country gentlemen who, of course, 
 would oppose this, were pacified by the idea of a revenue from the 
 Colonies which would pay, or help to pay the expense. Mr. Charles 
 Townsheud dazzled them with the idea, and Mr. Grenville lent 
 himself to the project. 
 
 Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of this new 
 Colony system. It appeared more distinctly afterwards 
 when it was devolved upon a person to whom, on other 
 accounts, this country owes very great obligations. . . 
 No man can believe that at this time of day I mean to 
 lean on the venerable memory of a great man whose 
 loss we deplore in common. Our little party differences 
 have been long ago composed ; and I have acted more 
 with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, 
 than ever I acted against him. Undoubtedly, Mr. Gren- 
 ville was a first-rate figure in this country. With a 
 masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, 
 he had an application undissipated and unwearied. 
 He took public business, not as a duty which he was to 
 fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy ; and he seemed 
 to have no delight out of this House, except in such things 
 as some way related to the business that was to be done 
 within it. If he was ambitious, I will say tliis for him, 
 his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was 
 to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politics of a 
 court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious 
 gradations of public service ; and to secure himself a well- 
 earned rank in Parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its 
 constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 27 
 
 Sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be from 
 defects not intrinsical ; they must be rather sought in the 
 particular habits of his life ; which, though they do not 
 alter the ground- work of character, yet tinge it with 
 their own hue. He was bred in a profession. He was 
 bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first 
 and noblest of human sciences ; a science which does 
 more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than 
 all the other kinds of learning put together ; but it is not 
 apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and 
 liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. 
 Passing from that study, he did not go very largely into 
 the world, but plunged into business ; I mean into the 
 business of office ; and the limited and fixed methods 
 and forms established there. Much knowledge is to be 
 had undoubtedly in that line ; and there is no knowledge 
 which is not valuable. But it may be truly said, that men 
 having too much conversation with office have rarely minds 
 of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are 
 apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business 
 not to be much more important than the forms in which 
 it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary 
 occasions ; and, therefore, persons who are nurtured in 
 office do admirably well as long as things go in their com- 
 mon order ; but when the high roads are broken up, and 
 the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, 
 and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater 
 knowledge of mankind and a far more extensive com- 
 prehension of things is requisite than ever office gave 
 or than office can ever give. Mr. Grenville thought 
 better of the wisdom and power of human legislation 
 
28 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many 
 conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of 
 this country was greatly owing to law and institution, 
 and not quite so much to liberty ; for but too many are 
 apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be 
 revenue 
 
 But the grand manoeuvre in that business of new 
 regulating the Colonies was the 15th Act of the Fourth 
 of George III., which, besides containing several of the 
 matters to which I have just alluded, opened a new prin- 
 ciple ; and here properly began the second period of the 
 policy of this country with regard to the Colonies ; by 
 which the scheme of a regular plantation Parliamentary 
 revenue was adopted in theory and settled in practice. 
 A revenue not substituted in the place of, but super- 
 added to, a monopoly ; which monopoly was enforced 
 at the same time with additional strictness, and the 
 execution put into military hands. 
 
 This Act, Sir, had for the first time the title of " grant- 
 ing duties in the Colonies and Plantations of America " ; 
 and for the first time it was asserted in the preamble, 
 " that it was jiist and necessary, that a revenue should 
 be raised there." Then came the technical words of 
 " giving and granting " ; and thus a complete American 
 Revenue Act was made in all the forms, and with a full 
 avowal of the right, equity, policy, and even necessity 
 of taxing the Colonies, without any formal consent of 
 theirs 
 
 Sir, it has been said in the debate, that when the first 
 American Revenue Act (the Act in 1764, imposing the 
 port duties) passed, the Americans did not object to the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 29 
 
 principle. It is true they touched it but very tenderly. 
 It was not a direct attack. They were, it is true, as yet 
 novices ; as yet unaccustomed to direct attacks upon 
 any of the rights of Parliament. The duties were port 
 duties, like those they had been accustomed to bear ; 
 with this difference, that the title was not the same, the 
 preamble not the same, and the spirit altogether unlike 
 But of what service is this observation to the cause of those 
 that make it ? It is a full refutation of the pretence for 
 their present cruelty to America ; for it shews out of 
 their own mouths, that our Colonies were backward to 
 enter into the present vexatious and ruinous controversy. 
 
 Third period : — Rockingham Administration ; character of Rock- 
 ingham. 
 
 This was the state of the Colonies before his Majesty 
 thought fit to change his ministers. It stands upon no 
 authority of mine. It is proved by incontrovertible 
 records. The honourable gentleman has desired some 
 of us to lay our hands upon our hearts, and answer to 
 his queries upon the historical part of this consideration ; 
 and by his manner (as well as my eyes could discern it) 
 he seemed to address himself to me. 
 
 Sir, I will answer him as clearly as I am able, and with 
 great openness ; I have nothing to conceal. In the 
 year sixty-five, being in a very private station, far enough 
 from any line of business, and not having the honour 
 of a seat in this House, it was my fortune, unknowing 
 and unknown to the then Ministry, by the intervention 
 of a common friend, to become connected with a very 
 noble person, and at the head of the Treasury department. 
 It was indeed in a situation of little rank and no con- 
 
30 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 sequence, suitable to the mediocrity ot my talents and 
 pretensions. But a situation near enough to enable 
 me to see, as well as others, what was going on ; and I 
 did see in that noble person such sound principles, such 
 an enlargement of mind, such clear and sagacious sense, 
 and such unshaken fortitude, as have bound me, as well 
 as others much better than me, by an inviolable attach- 
 ^ment to him from that time forward. Sir, Lord Rock- 
 ingham very early in that summer received a strong 
 representation from many weighty English merchants 
 and manufacturers, from governors of provinces and 
 commanders of men of war, against almost the whole 
 of the American commercial regulations : and parti- 
 cularly with regard to the total ruin which was threa- 
 tened to the Spanish trade. I believe. Sir, the noble 
 Lord soon saw his way in this business. But he did 
 not rashly determine against Acts which it might be sup- 
 posed were the result of much deliberation. However, Sir, 
 he scarcely began to open the ground, when the whole 
 veteran body of office took the alarm. A violent out- 
 cry of all (except those who knew and felt the mischief) 
 was raised against any alteration. On one hand, his 
 attempt was a direct violation of treaties and public law ; 
 on the other, the Act of Navigation and all the corps of 
 trade laws were drawn up in array against it. 
 
 Rockingham consulted with Yorke, and came to the conclusion 
 that the Stamp Act should be abandoned. There was violent oppo- 
 sition, and weighty questions arose — whether the repeal should be 
 whole or partial — that English rights of taxation regarding America 
 were ill-defined — that such acts went directly against principles of 
 commerce and equity. References to Chatham and Conway. 
 
 I State, Sir, these particulars, because this act of spirit 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 31 
 
 and fortitude has lately been, in the circulation of the 
 season, and in some hazarded declamations in this House, 
 attributed to timidity. If, Sir, the conduct of Ministry, 
 in proposing the repeal, had arisen from timidity with 
 regard to themselves, it would have been greatly to be 
 condemned. Interested timidity disgraces as much in 
 the Cabinet, as personal timidity does in the field. 
 But timidity with regard to the well-being of our country 
 is heroic virtue. The noble Lord who then conducted 
 affairs, and his worthy colleagues, whilst they trembled 
 at the prospect of such distresses as you have since 
 brought upon yourselves, were not afraid steadily to look 
 in the face that glaring and dazzling influence at which 
 the eyes of eagles have blenched. He looked in the face 
 one of the ablest, and, let me say, not the most scrupulous, 
 oppositions, that perhaps ever was in this House; and 
 withstood it, unaided by even one of the usual supports 
 of administration. He did this when he repealed the 
 Stamp Act. He looked in the face a person he had long 
 respected and regarded, and whose aid was then parti- 
 cularly wanting ; I mean Lord Chatham. He did this 
 when he passed the Declaratory Act .... 
 
 The question of the repeal was brought on by Ministry 
 in the Committee of this House, in the very instant when 
 it was known that more than one Court negotiation was 
 carrying on with the heads of the Opposition. Every- 
 thing, upon every side, was full of traps and mines. Earth 
 below shook ; heaven above menaced ; all the elements 
 of Ministerial safety were dissolved. It was in the midst 
 of this chaos of plots and counter-plots ; it was in the 
 the midst of this complicated warfare against public 
 
32 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Opposition and private treachery, that the firmness of that 
 noble person was put to the proof. He never stirred 
 from his ground ; no, not an inch. He remained fixed 
 and determined, in principle, in measure, and in conduct. 
 He practised no managements. He secured no retreat. 
 He sought no apology. 
 
 I will likewise do justice, I ought to do it, to the 
 honourable gentleman who led us in this House. Far 
 from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his 
 part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by 
 the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest 
 in that phalanx. ... It was a time for a man to 
 act in. We had powerful enemies ; but we had faithful 
 and determined friends ; and a glorious cause. We had 
 a great battle to fight ; but we had the means of fighting ; 
 not as now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did 
 fight that day, and conquer. 
 
 I remember. Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the 
 situation of the honourable gentleman who made the 
 motion for the repeal ; in that crisis, when the whole 
 trading interest of this Empire, crammed into your 
 lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, 
 almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your 
 resolutions. When at length you had determined in their 
 favour, and your doors, thrown open, showed them the 
 figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his 
 important victory, from the whole of that grave multi- 
 tude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and 
 transport. They jumped upon him like children on a 
 long-absent father. They clung about him as captives 
 about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 33 
 
 to his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best 
 of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his 
 fellow-citizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his 
 crest. I stood near him ; and his face, to use the ex- 
 pression of the Scripture of the first martyr— his face 
 was as if it had been the face of an angel. I do not know 
 how others feel ; but if I had stood in that situation, 
 I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their 
 profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's 
 danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us 
 all together for ever. But, alas ! that, with other pleasing 
 visions, is long since vanished. 
 
 Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been repre- 
 sented as if it had been a measure of an Administration, 
 that having no scheme of their own, took a middle Hne, 
 pilfered a bit from one side, and a bit from the other. 
 Sir, they took no middle lines. They differed funda- 
 mentally from the schemes of both parties ; but they 
 preserved the objects of both. They preserved the 
 authority of Great Britain. They preserved the equity 
 of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory Act ; 
 they repealed the Stamp Act. They did both fully ; 
 because the Declaratory Act was without qualification ; 
 and the repeal of the Stamp Act total. 
 
 Now, Sir, what will the adversary say to both these 
 Acts ? If the principle of the Declaratory Act was not 
 good, the principle we are contending for this day is 
 monstrous. If the principle of the Repeal was not good, 
 why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective 
 revenue ? If both were bad, why has this Ministry 
 incurred all the inconveniences of both and of all schemes ? 
 
34 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Why have they enacted, repealed, enforced, yielded, and 
 now attempt to enforce again ? 
 
 Burke then deals with various rumours — that the disturbances 
 in America are to be traced to the repeal of the Stamp Act — to 
 change of [Ministry — to feebleness of the succeeding one. He advances 
 documentary proof of their seriousness before repeal in the amend- 
 ment to the Address, 1 765, in the report of General Gage, in a letter 
 from Governor Fauquier. After the repeal America was tranquil, 
 witness the warm acknowledgments from various parts ot the 
 Colonies. So much for the third period, 
 
 I have done with the third period of your policy ; that 
 of your Repeal ; and the return of your ancient system, 
 and your ancient tranquillity and concord. Sir, this 
 period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene 
 was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. 
 The State, in the condition I have described it, was 
 delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham — a great and 
 celebrated name ; a name that keeps the name of this 
 country respectable in every other on the globe. It may 
 be truly called — 
 
 Clarum et venerabile nomen 
 Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi. 
 
 Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited 
 rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his 
 eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of 
 mankind ; and, more than all the rest, his fall from power, 
 which, like death. Canonizes and sanctifies a great character, 
 will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I 
 am afraid to flatter him ; I am sure I am not disposed to 
 blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their 
 adulation, insult him with their malevolence. But what 
 I do not presume to censure, I may have leave to lament. 
 
EDMUND BURKE 35 
 
 For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be gover- 
 ned too much by general maxims. I speak with the free- 
 dom of history, and I hope without offence. One or two 
 of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most 
 indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too 
 general, led him into measures that were greatly mis- 
 chievous to himself ; and for that reason, among others, 
 perhaps fatal to his country ; measures, the effects of 
 which, I am afraid, are for ever incurable. He made 
 an administration so checkered and speckled ; he put 
 together a piece of joiner}^ so crossly indented ; and 
 whimsically dove-tailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; 
 such a piece of diversified mosaic ; such a tesselated 
 pavement without cement ; here, a bit of black stone, 
 there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers ; King's 
 friends and republicans ; whigs and tories, treacherous 
 friends and open enemies, that it was indeed a very 
 curious show ; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure 
 to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at 
 the same boards, stared at each other and were obliged 
 to ask, " Sir, your name ? — Sir, you have the advan- 
 tage of me." . . . When his face was hid but for a 
 moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without 
 chart or compass. The gentlemen, his particular friends, 
 who, with the names of various departments of ministry, 
 were admitted to seem as if they acted a part under him, 
 with a modesty that becomes all men, and with a confi- 
 dence in him which was justified, even in its extrava- 
 gance, by his superior abilities, had never in any instance, 
 
 presumed upon any opinion of their own 
 
 As if to insult as well as betray him, even Vong before 
 
36 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the close of the first session of his administration, when 
 everything was pubUcly transacted, and with great parade, 
 in his name, they made an Act, declaring it highly just 
 and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even 
 then. Sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely 
 set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his 
 descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens 
 arose another luminary, and, for his hour, became lord 
 of the ascendant. 
 
 This light, too, is passed and set for ever. You under- 
 stand, to be sure, that I speak of Charles Townshend, 
 officially the re-producer of this fatal scheme ; whom I 
 cannot even now remember without some degree of 
 sensibility. In truth. Sir, he was the delight and ornament 
 of this House, and the charm of every private society 
 which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there 
 never arose in this country nor in any country, a man of 
 a more pointed and finished wit ; and (where his passions 
 were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and pene- 
 trating judgment. If he had not so great a stock, as some 
 have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long 
 treasured up, he knew better by far, than any man I 
 ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within 
 a short time, all that was necessary to establish, to illus- 
 trate, and to decorate that side of the question he sup- 
 ported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. 
 He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation 
 and display of his subject. His style of argument was 
 neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit 
 the House just between wind and water. And not being 
 troubled with too anxious a zea) for any matter in question, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 37 
 
 he was never more tedious, or more earnest, than the 
 pre-conceived opinions and present temper of his hearers 
 required ; to whom he was always in perfect unison. 
 He conformed exactly to the temper of the House ; and 
 he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to follow 
 
 it But he had no failings which were not 
 
 owing to a noble cause ; to an ardent, generous, perhaps 
 an immoderate, passion for fame ; a passion which is the 
 instinct of all great souls. He worshipped that goddess 
 wheresoever she appeared ; but he paid his particular 
 devotions to her in her favourite habitation, in her chosen 
 temple, the House of Commons. Besides the character 
 of the individuals that compose our body, it is impossible, 
 Mr. Speaker, not to observe that this House has a collec- 
 tive character of its own. That character, too, however 
 imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public 
 collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue, 
 and an abhorrence of vice. But among vices, there is 
 none which the House abhors in the same degree with 
 obstinacy. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a great vice ; 
 and in the changeful state of affairs, it is frequently the 
 cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very 
 unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great 
 and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, 
 fortitude, fidelity, and firmness, are closely allied to this 
 disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an ab- 
 horrence ; and in their excess, all these virtues very 
 easily fall into it. He, who paid such a punctilious 
 attention to all your feelings, certainly took care not to 
 shock them by that vice which is the most disgustful to 
 you. 
 
38 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 In favour of the Act from the first, he changed his mind with the 
 fluctuating opinion of the House, and finally endeavoured to reconcile 
 opposing interests. 
 
 He had observed (indeed it could not escape him) 
 that several persons, infinitely his inferiors in all respects, 
 had formerly rendered themselves considerable in this 
 House by one method alone. They were a race of men 
 (I hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they 
 rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any 
 known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to principles ; 
 from any order or system in their politics ; or from 
 any sequel or connection in their ideas, w^hat part 
 they were going to take in any debate. All eyes 
 were fixed on them, all ears open to hear them ; each party 
 gaped and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the 
 end of their speeches. . . . The fortune of such 
 men was a temptation too great to be resisted by one, 
 to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much 
 greater pain than he received delight in the clouds of it, 
 which daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition 
 of innumerable admirers. He was a candidate for con- 
 tradictory honours ; and his great aim was to make those 
 agree in admiration of him who never agreed in anything 
 else. 
 
 Hence arose this unfortunate Act, the subject of this 
 day's debate ; from a disposition which, after making 
 an American revenue to please one, repealed it to please 
 others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing a third, 
 and of catching something in the ideas of all. 
 
 Such is the history of your taxation regarding America. I am in 
 favour neither of the Act nor the preamble and shall vote for the 
 question which leads to the repeal of both. 
 
EDMUND BURKE 39 
 
 If you do not fall in with this motion, then secure some- 
 thing to fight for, consistent in theory and valuable in 
 practice. If you must employ your strength, employ 
 it to uphold you in some honourable right, or some 
 profitable wrong. You will employ it with more grace ; 
 with better effect ; and with great probable concurrence of 
 all the quiet and rational people in the provinces ; who are 
 now united with, and hurried away by, the violent ; having 
 indeed different dispositions, but a common interest. 
 If you apprehend that on a concession you shall be pushed 
 by metaphysical process to the extreme lines, and argued 
 out of your whole authority, my advice is this : when you 
 have recovered your old, your strong, your tenable position 
 then face about — stop short — do nothing more — 
 reason not at all — oppose the ancient policy and practice 
 of the Empire, as a rampart against the speculations of 
 innovators on both sides of the question ; and you will 
 stand on great, manly, and sure ground. On this solid 
 basis fix your machines, and they will draw worlds towards 
 
 you 
 
 Let us, Sir, embrace some system or other before we 
 end this Session. Do you mean to tax America, and to 
 draw a productive revenue from thence ? If you do, 
 speak out ; name, fix, ascertain this revenue ; settle its 
 quantity ; define its objects ; provide for its collection ; 
 and then fight when you have something to fight for. 
 If you murder — rob ! if you kill — take possession ! and 
 do not appear in the character of madmen, as well as 
 assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, 
 without an object « 
 
 Again and again, revert to your own principles — 
 
40 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Seek Peace, and ensure it — leave America, if she has 
 taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here 
 going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to 
 mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these meta- 
 physical distinctions ; I hate the very sound of them. 
 Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these 
 distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along 
 with it. They and we, and their and our ancestors, 
 have been happy under that system. Let the memory 
 of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on 
 both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind 
 America by laws of trade ; you have always done it. 
 Do not burthen them by taxes ; you were not used to do 
 so from the beginning. . . . But if intemperately, 
 unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very 
 source of government, by urging subtle deductions, and 
 consequences odious to those you govern, from the un- 
 limited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, 
 you will teach them by these means to call that sove- 
 reignty itself in question. . . . They will cast your 
 sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued into 
 slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call 
 forth all their ability ; let the best of them get up, and tell 
 me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, 
 and v/hat one brand of slavery they are free from, if 
 they are bound in their property and industry, by all the 
 restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same 
 time are made pack horses of every tax you choose to im- 
 pose, without the least share in granting them. When 
 they bear the burthens of unlimited monopoly, will you 
 bring them to bear the burthens of unlimited revenue 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 4 1 
 
 too ? The Englishman in America will feel that this is 
 slavery — that it is legal slavery — will be no compensation, 
 either to his feelings or his understanding. 
 
 Still further objections. Taxation without representation ? But 
 England is not free, Manchester and other considerable places are not 
 represented. Is it because some towns in England are not repre- 
 sented that the Americans are to have no representation ? What 
 is to become of the Declaratory Act ? 
 
 For my part, I look upon the rights stated in that Act, 
 exactly in the manner in which I viewed them on its very 
 first proposition, and which I have often taken the 
 liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I look, 
 I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain and the 
 privileges which the Colonists ought to enjoy under these 
 rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the 
 world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head 
 of her extensive Empire in two capacities : one as the local 
 legislature of this island, providing for all things at home, 
 immediately, and by no other instrument than the exe- 
 cutive power. The other, and I think her nobler capacity, 
 is what I call her imperial character ; in which, as from 
 the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several 
 inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, 
 without annihilating any. As all these provincial legis- 
 latures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought 
 all to be subordinate to her ; else they can neither preserve 
 mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually 
 afford mutual assistance. . . . But in order to enable 
 Parliament to answer all these ends of provident and 
 beneficent superintendence, her powers must be bound- 
 less. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parlia- 
 ment limited, may please themselves to talk of requisi- 
 
42 miSH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 tions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed ? 
 What ! Shall there be no reserved power in the Empire, 
 to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide and 
 dissipate the whole ? We are engaged in war — the 
 Secretary of State calls upon the Colonies to contribute — 
 some would do it, I think most would cheerfully furnish 
 whatever is demanded — one or two, suppose, hang 
 back, and easing themselves, let the stress of the draft 
 lie on the others — surely it is proper that some authority 
 might legally say : " Tax yourselves for the common 
 supply, or Parliament will do it for you." This back- 
 wardness, was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsyl- 
 vania for some short time towards the beginning of the 
 last war, owing to some internal dissensions in the Colony. 
 But whether the fact were so or otherwise, the case is 
 equally to be provided for by a competent sovereign 
 power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power ; 
 nor ever used in the first instance. This is what I meant, 
 when I have said at various times that I consider the 
 power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire, 
 and not as a means of supply. 
 
 Such, Sir, is my idea of the Constitution of the British 
 Empire, as distinguished from the Constitution of 
 Britain ; and on these grounds I think subordination and 
 liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole ; 
 whether to serve a refining speculatist, or a factious dema- 
 gogue, I know not ; but enough surely for the ease and 
 happiness of man. 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 43 
 
 CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. 
 
 (March 22, 1775.) 
 
 In this speech the voice of Burke is as the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness. The Mother Country had already 
 passed laws calculated to widen the breach between America 
 and England. The Colonies were arming, and although 
 negotiations continued, the belief prevalent amongst the 
 Enghsh ruling classes was that England had already con- 
 ceded enough. 
 
 I hope, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the 
 Chair, your good nature will incline you to some degree 
 of indulgence towards human frailty. You will not 
 think it unnatural, that those who have an object depend- 
 ing, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should 
 be somewhat inclined to superstition. As I came into 
 the House full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I 
 found, to my infinite surprise, that the Grand Penal Bill, by 
 which we had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance 
 of America, is to be returned to us from the other House. 
 I do confess I could not help looking on this event as a 
 fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential 
 favour ; by which we are put once more in possession of 
 our deliberative capacity, upon a business so very ques- 
 tionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By 
 the return of this Bill which seemed to have taken its flight 
 for ever, we are at this very instant nearly as free to 
 choose a plan for our American Government as we were 
 on the first day of the session. If, Sir, we incline to the 
 side of conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed by any 
 incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We 
 
44 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 are, therefore, called upon, as it were by a superior warn- 
 ing voice, again to attend to America ; to attend to the 
 whole of it together ; and to review the subject with an 
 unusual degree of care and calmness 
 
 To restore order and repose to an Empire so great and 
 so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an under- 
 taking that would ennoble the flights of the highest 
 genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest 
 understanding. Struggling a good while w^ith these 
 thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, 
 at length, some confidence from what in other circum- 
 stances usually produces timidity. I grew less anxious, 
 even from the idea of my own insignificance. For, 
 judging of what you are, by what you ought to be, I 
 persuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable 
 proposition, because it had nothing but its reason to re- 
 commend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute 
 of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was 
 very sure that if my proposition were futile or dangerous ; 
 if it were weakly conceived, or improperly timed, there 
 was nothing exterior to it, of power to awe, dazzle, or 
 delude you. You will see it just as it is ; and you will 
 treat it just as it deserves. 
 
 The proposition is Peace. Not Peace through the 
 medium of War ; not Peace to be hunted through the 
 labyrinth of endless negotiations ; not Peace to arise 
 out of universal discord, fomented, from principle, in 
 all parts of the Empire ; not Peace to depend on the 
 juridical determination of perplexing questions ; or the 
 precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex 
 government. It is simple Peace ; sought in its natural 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 45 
 
 course, and in its ordinary haunts — It is Peace sought in 
 the spirit of Peace ; and laid in principles purely pacific. 
 I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and 
 by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the 
 Colonies in the Mother Country, to give permanent satis- 
 faction to your people ; and far from a scheme of ruling 
 by discord, to reconcile them to each other in the same 
 act, and by the bond of the very same interest which 
 reconciles them to British Government. 
 
 My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been 
 the parent of confusion ; and ever will be so, as long as 
 the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as 
 easily discovered at the first view, as fraud is surely de- 
 tected at the last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the 
 government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is 
 an healing and cementing principle. My plan, there- 
 fore, being formed upon the most simple grounds ima- 
 ginable, may disappoint some people, when they hear it. 
 It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curious 
 ears. There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. 
 It has nothing of the splendour of the project which has 
 been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the 
 blue ribband. It does not propose to fill your lobby with 
 squabbling colony agents, who will require the inter- 
 position of your mace, at every instant, to keep the peace 
 amongst them. It does not institute a magnificent auc- 
 tion of finance, where captivated provinces come to 
 general ransom by bidding against each other, until you 
 knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of 
 payments beyond all the powers of Algebra to equalize 
 and settle > 
 
46 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 The capital leading questions on which you must this 
 day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to 
 concede ; and secondly, what your concession ought to 
 be. On the first of these questions we have gained some 
 ground. But I am sensible that a good deal more is to 
 be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both 
 on the one and the other of these great questions with 
 a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary 
 to consider distinctly the true nature, and the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the object which we have before us . . . 
 and to those circumstances ; and not according to our 
 own imaginations ; nor according to abstract ideas of 
 right ; by no means according to mere general theories 
 of government, the resort to which appears to me, in 
 our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I 
 shall therefore endeavour, with your leave, to lay before 
 you some of the most material of these circumstances in 
 as full and as clear a manner as I am able to state them. 
 
 Look at the population of your Colonies — 2,000,000, besides 
 500,000 natives. They are increasing every day. Then your com- 
 merce with them, that is growing rapidly too. You have three 
 branches, Trade with Africa, with the West Indies, with North 
 America, not separate, but interwoven and forming practically one 
 trade. From five hundred odd thousand it has leaped to /6,ooo,ooo. 
 As to the trade with America alone, it is now within less than 
 ;£50o,ooo of be'ng equal to your trade with the whole world at the 
 beginning of this century ! 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over 
 this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We 
 stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what 
 is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. 
 Let us, however, before we descend from this noble emi- 
 nence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 47 
 
 has happened within the short period of the Ufe of man. 
 , . . . For instance, my Lord Bathurst might 
 remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 
 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. 
 He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et 
 quae sit potuit cognoscere virtus. Suppose, Sir, that the 
 angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many 
 virtues, which made him one of the most amiable, as 
 he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened 
 to him in vision, that when, in the fourth generation the 
 third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve 
 years on the throne of that nation, which was to be made 
 Great Britain, he. should see his son Lord Chancellor 
 of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity 
 to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of Peerage, 
 whilst he enriched the family with a new one — if amidst 
 these bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and 
 prosperity that angel should have drawn up the curtain, 
 and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and, whilst 
 he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial 
 grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him 
 a little speck scarcely visible, a small seminal principle, 
 rather than a formed body, and should tell him — " Young 
 man, there is America — which at this day serves for little 
 more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and 
 uncouth manners ; yet shall before you taste of death, 
 show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which 
 now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England 
 has been growing to by a progressive increase of improve- 
 ment, brought in by varieties of people, by succession 
 of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a 
 
48 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much 
 added to her by America in the course of a single life ! " 
 If this state of his country had been foretold to him, 
 would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, 
 and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe 
 it ? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ? Fortunate, 
 indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the pros- 
 pect, and cloud the setting of his day ! 
 
 Take the case of Pennsylvania, in 1704 it claimed of your produce 
 ;^i 1,459, now it is nearly fifty times as much. In the same way 
 agriculture and fisheries have grown. 
 
 Pass by the other parts and look at the manner in which 
 the people of New England have of late carried on the 
 whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling 
 mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the 
 deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's 
 Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the 
 Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the 
 opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the 
 antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of the 
 south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and 
 romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, 
 is but a stage and resting place in the progress of their 
 victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more 
 discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of 
 both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw 
 the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, 
 others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game 
 along the coast of Brazil No sea but what is vexed by 
 their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their 
 toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 49 
 
 activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of 
 English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode 
 of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed 
 by this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were, 
 but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of 
 manhood. When I contemplate these things ; when I 
 know that the Colonies in general owe little or nothing 
 to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into 
 this happy form by the constraints of watchful and sus- 
 picious government, but that through a wise and salu- 
 tary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take 
 her own way to perfection ; when I reflect upon these 
 effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, 
 I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption 
 in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away 
 within me. My rigour relents. I pardon something to 
 the spirit of liberty. 
 
 You would like to try force with those people ? Well, force is 
 temporary, uncertain, often destructive, even should you be vic- 
 torious. Then, you have no experience of its efi&cacy against them. 
 Consider their character. 
 
 In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom 
 is the predominating feature which marks and distin- 
 guishes the whole ; and as an ardent is always a jealous 
 affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and 
 untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest 
 from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, 
 what they think the only advantage worth living for. This 
 fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies 
 probably than in any other people of the earth ; and 
 this from a great variety of powerful causes ; which, to 
 
50 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 understand the true temper of their minds, and the 
 direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay 
 open somewhat more largely. 
 
 First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of 
 Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still I hope 
 respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colon- 
 ists emigrated from you when this part of your character 
 was most predominant ; and they took this bias and 
 direction the moment they parted from your hands. They 
 are, therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty 
 according to English ideas, and on English principles. 
 Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be 
 found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object ; and 
 every nation has formed to itself some favourite point, 
 which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their 
 happiness. It happened, you know. Sir, that the great 
 contests for freedom in this country were from the ear- 
 liest times chiefly upon the question of Taxing. Most 
 of the contests in the ancient commonwealths turned 
 primarily on the right of election of magistrates ; or on 
 the balance among the several orders of the State. The 
 question of money was not with them so immediate. 
 But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes 
 the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues have been 
 exercised ; the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. 
 In order to give the fullest satisfaction concerning the 
 importance of this point, it is not only necessary for those 
 who in argument defended the excellence of the English 
 Constitution, to insist on this privilege of granting money 
 as a dry point of fact, and to prove, that the right had been 
 acknowledged in ancient parchments, and blind usages, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 5 1 
 
 to reside in a certain body called an House of Commons. 
 They went much farther, they attempted to prove, and they 
 succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the par- 
 ticular nature of an House of Commons, as an immediate 
 representative of the people ; whether the old records 
 had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains 
 to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all mon- 
 archies the people must in effect themselves, mediately 
 or immediately, possess the power of granting their own 
 money, or no shadow of liberty can subsist. The Colonies 
 draw from you, with their life-blood, these ideas and 
 principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and 
 attached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might 
 be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty other parti- 
 culars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. 
 Here they felt its pulse ; and as they found that beat, 
 they thought themselves sick or sound. I do not say 
 whether they were right or wrong in applying your gene- 
 ral arguments to their own case. It is not easy indeed to 
 take a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact 
 is, that they did thus apply those general arguments ; 
 and your mode of governing them, whether through 
 lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed 
 them in the imagination, that they, as well as you, had an 
 interest in these common principles. 
 
 They were further confirmed in this pleasing error 
 by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. 
 Their governments are popular in a high degree ; some 
 are merely popular ; in all, the popular representative 
 is the most weight)^ ; and this share of the people in their 
 ordinary government never fails to inspire them with 
 
52 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from what- 
 ever tends to deprive them of their chief importance. 
 
 If anything were wanting to this necessary operation 
 of the form of government, reHgion would have given it 
 a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, 
 in this new people is no way worn out or impaired ; and 
 their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this 
 free spirit. The people are protestants ; and of that kind 
 which is the most adverse to all impHcit submission of mind 
 and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favourable to 
 liberty, but built upon it. I do not think. Sir, that the 
 reason of this averseness in the dissenting churches, from 
 all that looks like absolute government, is so much to be 
 sought in their religious tenets, as in their history. Every 
 one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least 
 coeval with most of the governments where it prevails ; 
 that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and 
 received great favour and every kind of support from 
 authority. The Church of England, too, was formed 
 from her cradle under the nursing care of regular govern- 
 ment. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in 
 direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world ; 
 and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim 
 to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the 
 powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All 
 protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a 
 sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our 
 Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of 
 resistance ; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the pro- 
 testantism of the Protestant religion. This religion under 
 a variety of denominations agreeing in nothing but in 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 53 
 
 the communion of the spirit of Hberty, is predominant 
 in most of the Northern provinces ; where the Church 
 of England, nothwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality 
 no more than a sort of private sect, not composing pro- 
 bably the tenth of the people. The Colonists left England 
 when this spirit w^as high, and in the emigrants was highest 
 of all ; and even that stream of foreigners, which has been 
 constantly flowing into these Colonies, has, for the greatest 
 part, been composed of dissenters from the establish- 
 ments of their several countries, and have brought with 
 them a temper and character far from alien to that of 
 the people with whom they mixed. 
 
 Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some gentle- 
 men object to the latitude of this description ; because 
 in the Southern Colonies the Church of England forms a 
 large body and has a regular establishment. It is cer- 
 tainly true. There is, however, a circumstance attending 
 these Colonies, which, in my opinion, fully counterbal- 
 ances this difference, and makes the spirit of liberty still 
 more high and haughty than in those to the Northward. 
 It is, that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast 
 multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part 
 of the world, those who are free, are by far the most proud 
 and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not 
 only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. 
 Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it 
 is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, 
 may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, 
 with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, amongst 
 them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I 
 do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of 
 
54 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue 
 in it ; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is 
 so ; and these people of the Southern Colonies are much 
 more strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn 
 spirit, attached to liberty than those to the Northward. 
 Such were all the ancient commonwealths ; such were 
 our Gothic ancestors ; such in our days were the Poles ; 
 and such will be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves 
 themselves. In such a people, the haughtiness of domi- 
 nation combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, 
 and renders it invincible. 
 
 Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our 
 Colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the 
 growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their 
 education. In no country, perhaps, in the world 
 is the law so general a study. The profession itself is 
 numerous and powerful ; and in most provinces it takes 
 the lead. . . This study renders men acute, in- 
 
 quisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, 
 full of resources. In other countries, the people, more 
 simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill prin- 
 ciple in government only by an actual grievance ; here 
 they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the 
 grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur 
 misgovernment at a distance ; and snuff' the approach 
 of tyranny in every tainted breeze. 
 
 The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colonies 
 is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely 
 moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. 
 Three thousand miles of ocean he between you and them. 
 No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 55 
 
 weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, be- 
 tween the order and the execution ; and the want of a 
 speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat 
 a whole system. You have, indeed, winged messengers 
 of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their pounces 
 to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power 
 steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging passions and 
 furious elements, and says, So far shall thou go, and 
 no farther. Who are you, that you should fret and rage, 
 and bite the chains of nature ? Nothing worse happens 
 to you than does to all nations who have extensive Empire. 
 And it happens in all the forms into which Empire can be 
 thrown. In large bodies the circulation of power must 
 be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it. 
 The Turk cannot govern Egypt and Arabia, and Cur- 
 distan, as he governs Thrace, nor has he the same do- 
 minion in Crimea and Algiers, which he has at Brusa 
 and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obUged to truck and 
 huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. 
 He governs with a loose rein that he may govern at all ; 
 and the whole of the force and vigour of his authority 
 in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all 
 his borders. This is the immutable condition, the eternal 
 law, of extensive and detached Empire. 
 
 Such being the spirit of the Colonies, it|^ppears to me there are 
 only three ways of dealing with it, viz. : Change it by removing the 
 causes of discontent — prosecute it as criminal — comply with it, as 
 necessary. You might keep them in one place by stopping fiirther 
 grants of land ? But to do that, you should place guards over the 
 desert, and they would continue occupying land without grants, 
 and become so many EngUsh Tartars. Besides, you would simply 
 raise the value of unoccupied land in the hands of private persons. 
 You could destroy the trade of the Colonies, but where Colonies 
 
56 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 exist for trade, it does not seem over-wise to destroy that trade in 
 order to reduce them to obedience. 
 
 It is in truth nothing more than the old, and, as I thought 
 exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar 
 its subjects into submission. But, remember, when you 
 have completed your system of impoverishment, that 
 nature still proceeds in her ordinary course ; that dis- 
 content will increase with misery ; and that there are 
 critical moments in the fortune of all states, when they who 
 are too weak to contribute to your prosperity, may be 
 strong enough to complete your ruin. Spoliatis arma 
 super sunt. 
 
 The temper and character which prevail in our Colonies, 
 are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We can- 
 not, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and 
 persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation 
 in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The 
 language in which they would hear you tell them this 
 tale would detect the imposition ; your speech would 
 betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on 
 earth, to argue another Englishman into slavery. 
 
 You might enfranchise the slaves of the Virginian.s — their masters 
 could do the same, and arm them as well. Besides : 
 
 Slaves, as these unfortunate black people are, and dull 
 as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect 
 the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold 
 them to their present masters ? from that nation, 
 one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their 
 refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic ? An 
 offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, 
 shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 57 
 
 an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a 
 cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be 
 curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same 
 instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, and to 
 advertise his sale of slaves. 
 
 Finally, you cannot pump the ocean dry ! Now, as to the second 
 plan — prosecute the spirit as criminal. 
 
 At this proposition I must pause a moment. The 
 thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of juris- 
 prudence. It should seem to my way of conceiving such 
 matters that there is a very wide difference in reason and 
 policy, between the mode of proceeding on the irregular 
 conduct of scattered individuals — or even of bands of men, 
 who disturb order within the State, and the civil dissen- 
 tions which may, from time to time, on great questions, 
 agitate the several communities which compose a great 
 Empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic, to 
 apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great 
 public contest. I do not know the method of drawing 
 up an indictment against a whole people 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an Empire, 
 as distinguished from a single State or kingdom. But 
 my idea of it is this : that an Empire is the aggregate of 
 many States under one common head ; whether this 
 head be a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in 
 such constitutions, frequently happen (and nothing but 
 the dismal, cold, dead uniformity of servitude can prevent 
 its happening) that the subordinate parts have many local 
 privileges and immunities. Between these privileges 
 and the supreme common authority the line may be 
 extremely nice. Of course disputes, often too, very 
 
58 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 bitter disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. . . . 
 Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among the component 
 parts of a great political union of communities, I can 
 scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent, 
 than for the head of the Empire to insist, that, if any 
 privilege is pleaded against his will, or his acts, his whole 
 authority is denied ; instantly to proclaim rebellion, to 
 beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces under 
 the ban. Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the provinces 
 to make no distinctions on their part } Will it not teach 
 them that the Government against which a claim of 
 liberty is tantamount to high-treason, is a Government 
 tojwhich submission is equivalent to slavery ? It may not 
 always be quite convenient to impress dependent com- 
 munities with such an idea 
 
 If then the removal of the causes of this spirit of 
 American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather en- 
 tirely, impracticable ; if the ideas of Criminal Process 
 be inapplicable, or if applicable, are in the highest degree 
 inexpedient ; what way yet remains ? No way is open, 
 but the third and last — to comply with the American 
 spirit as necessary ; or, if you please, to submit to it as a 
 necessary evil. The Colonies complain, that they have 
 not the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. 
 They complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in 
 which they are not represented 
 
 My idea, therefore, without considering whether we 
 yield as a matter of right, or grant as a matter of favour, 
 is to admit the people of our Colonies into an interest 
 in the Constitution ; and, by recording that admission 
 in the Journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 59 
 
 assurance as the nature of the thing will admit, that 
 we mean for ever to adhere to that solemn declaration of 
 systematic indulgence. 
 
 After all, if you want to please any people, you must give them 
 the boon which they ask ; not what you may think better for them. 
 You keep up Revenue L/aws which are mischievous, in order to pre- 
 serve trade laws that are useless. The quarrel is about taxation ; 
 put the taxes out of the question by repeal, and then see how the 
 Americans will act. You have favourable examples in Ireland, 
 Wales, Chester and Durham, concession has not produced anarchy 
 in those places. My idea is, then, that it would be best to establish 
 the equity and justice of taxation in America by grant and not by 
 imposition. 
 
 My resolutions, therefore, mean to establish the equity 
 and justice of a taxation of America by grant and not by 
 imposition. To mark the legal competency of the 
 Colony Assemblies for the support of their government 
 in peace and for public aids in time of war. To ack- 
 nowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful 
 and beneficial exercise ; and that experience has shown 
 the benefit of their grants, and the futility of Parliament- 
 ary taxation as a method of supply. 
 
 The resolutions follow, and a criticism on Lord North's proposal, 
 that of taxing according to the relative wealth of each, which Burke 
 describes as ransom by auction. Conclusion. 
 
 Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain 
 and simple. The other full of perplexed and intricate 
 mazes. This is mild ; that harsh. This is found by 
 experience effectual for its purposes ; the other is a new 
 project. This is universal ; the other calculated for 
 certain Colonies only. This is immediate in its con- 
 ciliatory operation ; the other, remote, contingent, full 
 of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling 
 
60 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 people, gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as a 
 matter of bargain and sale 
 
 But what (says the Financier) is peace to us without 
 money ? Your plan gives us no revenue. No ! But 
 it does — For it secures to the subject the power of 
 REFUSAL ; the first of all revenues. Experience is a 
 cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the subject of pro- 
 portioning his grant, or of not granting at all, has not been 
 found the richest mine of revenue ever discovered by the 
 skill or by the fortune of man. It does not indeed vote 
 you £152,750 us. 2|d., nor any other paltry limited 
 sum — but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, 
 the bank, from whence only revenues can arise amongst 
 a people sensible of freedom : Posita luditur area. Can- 
 not you, in England ; cannot you, at this time of day ; 
 cannot you, a House of Commons, trust to the principle 
 which has raised so mighty a revenue and accumulated 
 a debt of near 140 millions in this country ? Is this prin- 
 ciple to be true in England, and false everywhere else ? 
 • ••••••• 
 
 Next we know, that parties must ever exist in a free 
 country. We know too that the emulations of such 
 parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, 
 their hopes, and their fears, must send them all in their 
 turns to him that holds the balance of the State. The 
 parties are the gamesters, but Government holds the table, 
 and is sure to be the winner in the end. When this game 
 is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the 
 people will be exhausted, than that the Government will 
 not be supplied. Whereas, whatever is got by acts of 
 absolute power ill-obeyed, because odious, or by contracts 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 6 1 
 
 ill-kept, because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, un- 
 certain and precarious 
 
 I, for one, protest against compounding our demands : 
 I declare against compounding for a poor limited sum, 
 the immense, ever growing, eternal debt, which is due 
 to generous government from protected freedom. And 
 so may I speed in the great object I propose to you, as I 
 think it would not only be an act of injustice, but would 
 be the w^orst economy in the world, to compel the Colonies 
 to a sum certain, either in the way of ransom, or in the way 
 of compulsory compact. 
 
 But to clear up my ideas on this subject — a revenue 
 from America transmitted hither — do not delude your- 
 selves — you never can receive it — No, not a shilling. We 
 have experience that from remote countries it is not to be 
 expected. If, when you attempted to exact revenue from 
 Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan what you had 
 taken in imposition, what can you expect from North Ame- 
 rica ? For certainly, if ever there w^as a country qualified 
 to produce wealth, it is India ! or an institution fit for the 
 transmission, it is the East India Company. America 
 has none of these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable 
 objects, on which you lay your duties here, and gives you, 
 at the same time, a surplus on a foreign sale of her commo- 
 dities to pay the duties on these objects, which you tax 
 at home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. 
 But with regard to her own internal establishments ; she 
 may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. 
 I say in moderation ; for she ought not to be permitted 
 to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, 
 the weight of which, with the enemies that we are most 
 
63 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter of the 
 globe. 
 
 For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, 
 trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British 
 Constitution. My hold of the Colonies is in the close 
 affection which grows from common names, from kindred 
 blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. 
 These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong 
 as links of iron. Let the Colonists keep always the idea 
 of their civil rights associated with your government ; 
 they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under 
 heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. 
 But let it be once understood, that your government may 
 be one thing, and their Privileges another ; that these two 
 things may exist without any mutual relation ; — the 
 cement is gone ; the cohesion is loosened ; and everything 
 hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have 
 the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country 
 as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated 
 to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons 
 of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces 
 towards you. 
 
 Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that 
 grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they 
 may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost 
 to all feeling of your true interest, and your natural dignity, 
 freedom they can have from none but you. This is the 
 commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. 
 This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you 
 the commerce of the Colonies, and through them secures 
 
EDMUND BURKE 63 
 
 to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this parti- 
 cipation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which 
 originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the 
 Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, as 
 that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and 
 your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are 
 what form the great securities of your commerce. Do 
 not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, 
 and your suspending clauses, are things that hold together 
 the great contexture of the mysterious whole. These 
 things do not make your Government. Dead instruments, 
 passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English 
 communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. 
 It is the spirit of the English Constitution, which infused 
 through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, in- 
 vigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire. 
 
 Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us 
 here in England ? Do you imagine then, that it is the 
 Land Tax Act which raises your revenue } that it is the 
 annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you 
 your army ? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires 
 it with bravery and discipline ? No ! surely no ! It 
 is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their 
 Government, from the sense of the deep stake they have 
 in such a glorious institution — which gives you your 
 army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal 
 obedience without which your army would be a base 
 rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and 
 chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and me- 
 chanical politicians who have no place among us ; a sort 
 
64 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross 
 and material ; and who, therefore, far from being quali- 
 fied to be directors of the great movement of Empire, 
 are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men, 
 truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master 
 principles, which, in the opinion of such men as I have 
 mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth 
 everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is 
 not seldom the truest wisdom, and a great Empire and little 
 minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our station, 
 and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situa- 
 tion and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public 
 proceedings on America with the old warning of the church 
 Sursum corda ! We ought to elevate our minds to the 
 Sfreatness of that trust to which the order of Providence 
 has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high 
 calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness 
 into a glorious empire ; and have made the most extensive, 
 and the only honourable conquests not by destroying, but 
 by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness, of 
 the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we 
 have got an American empire. English privileges have 
 made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make 
 it all that it can be. 
 
 In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now 
 quod felix fausiumque sit I lay the first stone of the 
 Temple of peace ; and I move you : 
 
 " That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain 
 in North America, consisting of fourteen separate govern- 
 ments, and containing two millions and upwards of 
 free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 65 
 
 of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, 
 
 or others, to represent them in the High Court of 
 Parliament." 
 
 THE NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS 
 
 (February 28th, 1785.) 
 
 [As an example of changed methods, this speech may 
 be read in conjunction with Digby's " Prosperous 
 India."] 
 
 The Nabob of Arcot — a district in the Camatic, and now 
 in the Presidency of Madras — ^was established in his govern- 
 ment by the East India Company, with whose officers he 
 afterwards maintained close relations. By a secret ar- 
 rangement he was enabled to still further enlarge his 
 territories through the aid of the Company's troops lent 
 to him as mercenaries, at a high price. His diplomatic 
 and military operations plunged the unhappy district in 
 all the horrors of war and roused Hyder AH to carry havoc 
 from Mysore to Madras. Before long he found himself 
 indebted to the EngHsh for immense sums increased by 
 fraudulent loans from EngHsh money jobbers, at usurious 
 interest until the amount was considerably over £2,000,000. 
 By a BiU called Mr. Pitt's East India Act, ParHament 
 ordered an inquiry by the Court of Directors, who, aghast 
 at the mighty total, directed the president and council of 
 Madras to enter into a full examination. At this point 
 the ministers again intervened, admitted the debts without 
 inquiry, and set aside a portion of the revenue of the Car- 
 natic for their discharge. This volte face could not even 
 then pass unchallenged, and Fox moved that copies of the 
 documents relating to the transaction be laid before the 
 House. " Question being put, it passed in the negative 
 by a great majority." 
 
 Burke's speech was deemed " in energy, and rhetorical 
 address, in a minute knowledge of India . . . . 
 
 F 
 
66 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 equal to anything ever delivered in Parliament." It would 
 be tedious to follow him " winding like a serpent " into the 
 intricacies of his subject, but it is to be hoped that the 
 selected passages will show with what a masterly hand he 
 draws aside the curtain from that glittering world of cruelty 
 and chicane whose presiding spirit was Warren Hastings. 
 
 The times we live in, Mr. Speaker, have been distin- 
 guished by extraordinary events. Habituated, moreover, 
 as we are, to uncommon combinations of men and of 
 affairs, I believe nobody recollects anything more sur- 
 prising than the spectacle of this day. The right hon- 
 ourable gentleman (Rt. Hon. Henry Dundas) whose 
 conduct is now in question, formerly stood forth in this 
 House, the prosecutor of the worthy baronet who spoke 
 after him. (Sir T. Rumbold, late governor of Madras). 
 He charged him with several grievous acts of malver- 
 sation in office, with abuses of a public trust of a great 
 and heinous nature. In less than two years we see the 
 situation of the parties reversed ; and a singular revolution 
 puts the worthy baronet in a fair way of returning the 
 prosecution in a recriminatory bill of pains and penalties, 
 grounded on a breach of public trust, relative to the govern- 
 ment of the very same part of India. If he should 
 undertake a bill of that kind, he will find no difficulty 
 in conducting it with a degree of skill and vigour fully 
 equal to all that have been exerted against him. . . . 
 
 It is to draw your attention to economy of quite ano- 
 ther order, it is to animadvert on offences of a far different 
 description, that my honourable friend has brought before 
 you the motion of this day. It is to perpetuate the 
 abuses which are subverting the fabric of your empire, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 67 
 
 that the motion is opposed. .... But before his 
 curtain is let down, and the shades of eternal night shall 
 veil our Eastern dominions from our view, permit me, 
 Sir, to avail myself of the means which were furnished 
 in anxious and inquisitive times, to demonstrate out of 
 this single act of the present minister, what advantage 
 you are to derive from permitting the greatest concern 
 of this nation to be separated from the cognizance, and 
 exempted even out of the competence of Parliament. 
 The greatest body of your revenue, your most numerous 
 armies, your most important commerce, the richest 
 sources of your public credit, are on the point of being 
 converted into a mystery of state. You are going to have 
 one half of the globe hid even from the common liberal 
 curiosity of an English gentleman. Here a grand revolu- 
 tion commences. Mark the period, and mark the circum- 
 tances. In most of the capital changes that are recorded 
 in the principles and system of any government, a public 
 benefit of some kind or other has been pretended. The 
 Revolution commenced in something plausible ; in some- 
 thing which carried the appearance at least of punishment 
 of delinquency, or correction of abuse. But here, 
 in the very moment of the conversion of a department of 
 British government into an Indian mystery, and in the 
 very act in which the change commences, a corrupt, 
 private interest is set up in direct opposition to the 
 necessities of the nation. A diversion is made of millions 
 of the public money from the public treasury to a private 
 purse. It is not into secret negotiations for war, peace, or 
 alliance, that the House of Commons is forbidden to 
 inquire It is a matter of account ; it is a pecuniary 
 
68 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 transaction ; it is the demand of a suspected steward 
 upon ruined tenants and an embarrassed master, that the 
 Commons of Great Britain are commanded not to inspect. 
 The whole tenor of the right honourable gentleman's 
 argument is consonant to the nature of his policy. The 
 system of concealment is fostered by a system of false- 
 hood. False facts, false colours, false names of persons 
 and things, are its whole support 
 
 Madras, with its dependencies, is the second (but with 
 a long interval, the second) member of the British Empire 
 in the East. The trade of that city and the adjacent 
 territory was, not very long ago, among the most flourish- 
 ing in Asia But since the establishment of the British 
 power, it has wasted away under an uniform, gradual 
 decline ; in so much that in the year 1779 not one merchant 
 of eminence was to be found in the whole country. 
 During this period of decay, about 600,000 sterling 
 pounds a year have been drawn off by English gentlemen 
 on their private account by the way of China alone. If 
 we add £400,000 as probably remitted through other 
 channels, and in other mediums, that is, in jewels, gold 
 and silver, directly brought to Europe, and in bills upon 
 the British and foreign companies, you will scarcely 
 think the matter over-rated. If we fix the commencement 
 of this extraction of money from the Carnatic at a period 
 no earlier than the year 1760, and close it in the year 
 1780, it probably will not amount to a great deal less than 
 twenty millions of money. 
 
 During the deep, silent flow of this steady stream of 
 wealth, which set from India into Europe, it generally 
 passed on with no adequate observation ; but happening 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 69 
 
 at some period to meet rifts of rocks that checked its 
 course, it grew more noisy and attracted more notice. 
 The pecuniary discussion caused by an accumulation of 
 part of the fortunes of their servants in a debt from the 
 Nabob of Arcot, was the first thing which very parti- 
 cularly called for, and long engaged the attention of the 
 court of directors. This debt amounted to eight hundred 
 and eighty thousand pounds sterling, and was claimed 
 for the greater part, by English gentlemen, residing at 
 Madras. This grand capital, settled at length by order 
 at 10 per cent., afforded an annuity of eighty-eight 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 Whilst the directors were digesting their astonishment 
 at this information, a memorial was presented to them from 
 three gentlemen, informing them that their friends had 
 lent likewise to merchants of Canton in China, a sum 
 of not more than one million sterUng. In this memorial, 
 they called upon the Company for their assistance and 
 interposition with the Chinese government for the re- 
 covery of the debt. This sum lent to Chinese merchants, 
 was at 24 per cent., which would yield, if paid, an annuity 
 of two hundred and forty thousand pounds. 
 
 Perplexed as the directors were with these demands, 
 you may conceive. Sir, that they did not find themselves 
 very much disembarrassed by being made acquainted 
 that they must again exert their influence for a new reserve 
 of the happy parsimony of their servants, collected into 
 a second debt from the Nabob of Arcot, amounting to 
 two millions four hundred thousand pounds, settled at 
 an interest of twelve per cent. This is known by the 
 name of the Consolidation of 1777, as the former of the 
 
yO IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Nabob's debts was by the title of the ConsoHdation of 
 1767. To this was added in a separate parcel, a Httle 
 reserve called the Cavalry debt, of one hundred and 
 sixty thousand pounds, at the same interest. The whole 
 of these four capitals, amounting to four millions four 
 hundred and forty thousand pounds, produced at their 
 several rates annuities amounting to six hundred and 
 twenty-three thousand pounds a year ; a good deal more 
 than one-third of the clear land tax of England, at four 
 shillings in the pound ; a good deal more than double 
 the whole annual dividend of the East India Company, 
 the nominal masters of the proprietors in these funds. Of 
 this interest, three hundred and eighty three thousand two 
 hundred pounds a year stood chargeable on the public 
 revenues of the Carnatic. 
 
 Sir, at this moment it will not be necessary to consider 
 the various operations which the capital and interest of 
 this debt have successively undergone. I shall speak 
 to these operations when I come particularly to answer 
 the right honourable gentleman on each of the heads, 
 as he has thought proper to divide them 
 
 When this gigantic phantom of debt first appeared 
 before a young minister, it naturally would have justified 
 some degree of doubt and apprehension. . . . He would 
 exorcise that shapeless, nameless form, and by everything 
 sacred would have adjured it to tell by what means a small 
 number of slight individuals, of no consequence, or situ- 
 ation, possessed of no lucrative offices, without the 
 command of armies, or the known administration of 
 revenues, without profession of any kind, without any 
 sort of trade sufficient to employ a pedlar, could have, 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 7^ 
 
 in a few years (as to some, even in a few months) amassed 
 treasures equal to the revenues of a respectable kingdom ? 
 Was it not enough to put these gentlemen, in the novi- 
 tiate of their administration, on their guard, and to call 
 upon them for a strict inquiry, that when all England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, had for years been witness to the 
 immense sums laid out by the servants of the Company, 
 in stocks of all denominations, in the purchase of 
 lands, in the buying and building of houses, in the securing 
 quiet seats in Parliament, or in the tumultuous riot of 
 contested elections, in wandering throughout the whole 
 range of those variegated modes of inventive prodigality, 
 which sometimes have excited our wonder, sometimes 
 roused our indignation ; that after all, India was four 
 millions still in debt to them ? India in debt to them \ 
 For what ? Every debt for which an equivalent of some 
 kind or other is not given, is, on the face of it, a fraud. 
 What is the equivalent they have given ? What equi- 
 valent had they to give ? What are the articles of com- 
 merce, or the branches of manufacture, which those 
 gentlemen have carried hence to enrich India ? What 
 are the sciences they beamed out to enlighten it ? What 
 are the arts they introduced to cheer and to adorn it ? 
 What are the religious, what the moral institutions they 
 have taught among that people as a guide to life, or as a 
 consolation when life is to be no more, that there is an 
 eternal debt, a debt, " still paying, still to owe," which 
 must be bound on the present generation in India, and 
 entailed on their mortgaged posterity for ever ? A debt 
 of millions in favour of a set of men, whose names, with 
 few exceptions, are either buried in the obscurity of their 
 
72 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 origin and talents, or dragged into light by the enormity 
 of their crimes ? 
 
 If this body of private claims of debt, real or devised, 
 were a question, as it is falsely pretended, between the 
 Nabob of Arcot as debtor, and Paul Benfield and his 
 associates as creditors, I should give myself but little 
 trouble about it. . . . But the gentlemen on the other 
 side of the House know as well as I do, they dare not con- 
 tradict me, that the Nabob of Arcot and his creditors are 
 not adversaries, but collusive parties, and that the whole 
 transaction is under a false colour, and false names. The 
 litigation is not, nor ever has been, between their rapacity 
 and his hoarded riches. No ; it is between him and 
 them combining and confederating on one side, and the 
 public revenues, and the miserable inhabitants of a ruined 
 country, on the other. These are the real plaintiffs and 
 the real defendants in the suit 
 
 How they came to contract the debt to themselves, how 
 they came to act as agents for those whom they ought to 
 have controlled, is for your inquiry. The policy of this 
 debt was announced to the court of directors by the very 
 persons concerned in creating it. " Till very lately " 
 (say the presidency) ," the Nabob placed his dependence 
 on the Company. Now he has been taught by ill ad- 
 visers, that an interest out of doors may stand him in good 
 stead. He has been made to believe that his private 
 creditors have power and interest to over-rule the court 
 of directors." The Nabob was not misinformed. The 
 private creditors instantly qualified a vast number of 
 votes : and having made themselves masters of the court 
 of proprietors, as well as extending a powerful cabal in 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 73 
 
 Other places as important, they so completely overturned 
 the authority of the court of directors at hom^ and abroad, 
 that this poor baffled government was soon obliged to 
 lower its tone. It was glad to be admitted into partner- 
 ship with its own servants. The court of directors es- 
 tablishing the debt which they had reprobated as a breach 
 of trust, and which was planned for the subversion of 
 their authority, settled its payments on a par with those 
 of the pubHc ; and even so, were not able to obtain peace 
 or even equaUty in their demands. 
 
 In fact, the creditors who had contracted those debts in the name 
 of, but wdthout the consent of the Company, were bidding fair to 
 subvert the power of that organization in favour of the Nabob of 
 Arcot. He kept up a large army which he was soon unable to pay. 
 The troops mutinied ; he sought a loan. Enter, the soucar. 
 
 Here was a difficulty. The Nabob had no money ; 
 the Company had no money ; every public supply 
 was empty. But there was one resource which no 
 season has ever yet dried up in that climate. The 
 soucar s were at hand ; that is, private English money- 
 jobbers offered their assistance. Messieurs Taylor, 
 Majendie, and Call proposed to advance the small sum 
 of £160,000 to pay off the Nabob's black cavalry, pro- 
 vided the Company's authority was given for their loan. 
 This was the great point of policy always aimed at, and 
 pursued through a hundred devices, by the servants at 
 Madras. The presidency, who themselves had no 
 authority for the functions they presumed to exercise, 
 very readily gave the sanction of the Company to those 
 servants who knew that the Company, whose sanction 
 was demanded, had positively prohibited all such trans- 
 actions. 
 
74 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Accordingly, those E^nglish phi anthropists agreed to lend the 
 Nabob ;^i6o,ooo at the rate of 12% (in reaUty 20 or 24%). But, as 
 they had no ready money, payment of first instalment would not be 
 made until after four months. Meanwhile, they gave the Nabob 
 their bond, getting in return permission to collect revenue on one 
 of his districts, as security. " Thus they condescended to accumulate 
 a debt of ^160,000 with an interest of 12% in compensation for a 
 lingering payment to the Nabob of ;^ 160,000 of his own money." 
 After two years, the loan was not fully paid, other troops mutinied 
 now, and the Nabob, who seems deficient in a sense of humour, com- 
 plained bitterly. 
 
 Here, Sir, you see how these causes and eflFects act 
 upon one another. One body of troops mutinies for 
 want of pay ; a debt is contracted to pay them ; and they 
 still remain unpaid. A territory destined to pay other 
 troops, is assigned for this debt ; and these other troops 
 fall into the same state of indigence and mutiny with the 
 first. Bond is paid by bond ; arrear is turned into new 
 arrear ; usury engenders new usury ; mutiny suspended 
 in one quarter, starts up in another ; until all the revenues 
 and all the establishments are entangled in one inextri- 
 cable knot of confusion, from which they are only dis- 
 engaged by being entirely destroyed. In that state of 
 confusion, in a very few months after the date of the 
 memorial I have just read to you, things were found, 
 when the Nabob's troops, famished to feed English 
 soucarSy instead of defending the country, joined the 
 invaders, and deserted in entire bodies to Hyder Ali. 
 
 The manner in which this transaction was carried on 
 shows that good examples are not easily forgotten, 
 especially by those who are bred in a great school. One 
 of those splendid examples give me leave to mention, at 
 a somewhat more early period, because one fraud fur- 
 nishes light to the discovery of another, and so on, until 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 75 
 
 the whole secret of mysterious iniquity bursts upon you in 
 a blaze of detection. The paper I shall read you is not 
 on record. If you please you may take it on my word. 
 It is a letter written from one of undoubted information 
 in Madras to Sir John Clavering. 
 
 "... One mode," says Clavering's correspondent, 
 " of amassing money at the Nabob's cost is curious. 
 He is generally in arrears to the Company Here, 
 the governor, being cash-keeper, is generally on good 
 terms with the banker, who manages matters thus : the 
 governor presses the Nabob for the balance due from 
 him ; the Nabob flies to his banker for relief ; the banker 
 engages to pay the money, and grants his notes accordingly, 
 which he puts in the cash-book as ready money ; the Nabob 
 pays him an interest for it at two or three per cent, per 
 mensem, till the tunkaws he grants on the particular 
 districts for it are paid. Matters in the meantime are 
 so managed that there is no call for this money for the 
 Company's service till the tunkaws (assignments) be- 
 come due. By this means not a cash is advanced by the 
 banker, though he receives a heavy interest from the 
 Nabob, which is divided as lawful spoil." 
 
 Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art and mystery, 
 the true freemason secret of the profession of soucaring ; 
 by which a few innocent, inexperienced young English- 
 men, such as Mr. Paul Benfield, for instance, without 
 property upon which anyone would lend to themselves 
 a single shilling, are enabled at once to take provinces 
 in mortgage, to make princes their debtors, and to become 
 creditors for millions. 
 
 Having shown how the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the younger 
 
76 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Pitt) had countenanced the exactions of the creditors by restoring 
 their exorbitant rates of interest, Burke comments thus : — 
 
 Let no man hereafter talk of the decaying energies of 
 
 nature. All the acts and monuments in the records of 
 
 peculation, the consolidated corruption of ages, the 
 
 patterns of exemplary plunder in the heroic times of 
 
 Roman iniquity, never equalled the gigantic corruption 
 
 of this single act. Never did Nero, in all the insolent 
 
 prodigality of despotism, deal out to his praetorian guards 
 
 a donation fit to be named with the largess showered 
 
 down by the bounty of our chancellor of the exchequer 
 
 on the faithful band of his Indian sepoys. 
 • • • • • « » 
 
 The great fortunes made in India, in the beginnings 
 of conquest, naturally excited an emulation in all the 
 parts, and through the whole succession, of the Company's 
 service. But in the Company it gave rise to other senti- 
 ments. They did not find the new channels of acquisi- 
 tion flow with equal riches to them. On the contrary, 
 the high flood tide of private emolument was generally 
 in the lowest ebb of their affairs. They began also to 
 fear that the fortune of war might take away what the 
 fortune of war had given. Wars were accordingly dis- 
 couraged by repeated injunctions and menaces ; and that 
 the servants might not be bribed into them by the native 
 princes, they were strictly forbidden to take any money 
 whatsoever from their hands. But vehement passion 
 is ingenious in resources. The Company's servants 
 were not only stimulated, but better instructed by the 
 prohibition. They soon fell upon a contrivance which 
 answered their purposes far better than the methods which 
 were forbidden ; though in this also they violated an 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 77 
 
 ancient, but they thought an abrogated, order. They re- 
 versed their proceedings. Instead of receiving presents, 
 they made loans. Instead of carrying on wars in their 
 own name, they contrived an authority, at once irresistible 
 and irresponsible, in whose name they might ravage at 
 pleasure ; and being thus freed from all restraint, they 
 indulged themselves in the most extravagant speculations 
 of plunder. The cabal of creditors who have been the 
 object of the late bountiful grant from his Majesty's minis- 
 ters, in order to possess themselves under the name of 
 creditors and assignees, of every country in India, as fast 
 as it should be conquered, inspired into the mind of the 
 Nabob of Arcot (then a dependent on the Company of the 
 humblest order) a scheme of the most wild and desperate 
 ambition, that I believe ever was admitted into the thoughts 
 of a man so situated. First, they persuaded him to con- 
 sider himself as a principal member in the political system 
 of Europe. In the next place they held out to him, and 
 he readily imbibed, the idea of the general empire of 
 Indostan. As a preliminary to this undertaking, they 
 prevailed on him to propose a tripartite division of that 
 vast country. One part to the Company ; another to 
 the Marattas ; and the third to himself. To himself 
 he reserved all the southern part of the great peninsula, 
 comprehended under the general name of the Deccan. 
 
 In pursuit of this policy, they ruined the Rajah of Tanjore, the 
 oldest ally of the Company, plundered province after province and 
 reduced the princes to servitude, until they crossed the path of Hyder 
 Ali. Superb description of his descent upon the Carnatic, noble 
 tribute to the former rulers of India. 
 
 Among the victims of this magnificent plan of universal 
 plunder, worthy of the heroic avarice of the projectors, 
 
y^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 you have all heard (and he has made himself to be well 
 remembered) of an Indian Chief called Hyder Ali Khan. 
 This man possessed the western, as the Company under 
 the name of the Nabob of Arcot does the eastern, division 
 of the Carnatic. It was among the leading measures in 
 the design of this cabal (according to their own emphatic 
 language) to extirpate this Hyder Ali. They declared 
 the Nabob of Arcot to be his sovereign, and himself to 
 be a rebel, and publicly invested their instrument with the 
 sovereignty of the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim 
 was not of the passive kind. They were soon obliged to 
 conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance with this 
 rebel at the gates of Madras. Both before and since 
 that treaty, every principle of policy pointed out this power 
 as a natural alliance ; and on his part, it was courted by 
 every sort of amicable office. But the cabinet council of 
 English creditors would not suffer their Nabob of Arcot 
 to sign the treaty, or even to give to a prince, at least his 
 equal, the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy. From 
 that time forward, a continued plot was carried on within 
 the divan, black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot, for the 
 destruction of Hyder Ali. As to the outward members 
 of the double, or rather treble, government of Madras, 
 which had signed the treaty, they were always prevented 
 by some over-ruling influence (which they do not de- 
 scribe, but which cannot be misunderstood) from perform- 
 ing what justice and interest combined so evidently to 
 enforce. 
 
 When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with 
 men who either would sign no convention, or whom no 
 treaty and no signature could b nd, and who were the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 79 
 
 determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he 
 decreed to make the country possessed by these incorri- 
 gible and predestinated criminals a memorable example 
 to mankind. He resolved in the gloomy recesses of a 
 mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Car- 
 natic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put 
 perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those, 
 against whom the faith which holds the moral elements 
 of the world together was no protection. He became at 
 length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, 
 that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolu- 
 tion. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, 
 and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in 
 their common detestation against the creditors of the 
 Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever 
 a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the 
 arts of destruction ; and compounding all the materials 
 of fury, havoc and desolation, into one black cloud, he 
 hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. 
 Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly 
 gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their 
 horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole 
 of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then 
 ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, 
 no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately 
 tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, 
 were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal 
 fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed 
 every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their 
 flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without 
 regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness 
 
8o IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from 
 wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst 
 the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing 
 horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and 
 hostile land. Those who were able to evade this 
 tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from 
 fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of 
 famine. 
 
 The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful exigency, 
 were certainly liberal ; and all was done by charity that 
 private charity could do ; but it was a people in beggary ; 
 it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food. 
 For months together these creatures of sufferance, whose 
 very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had 
 fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, 
 patient, resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost 
 without complaint, perished by an hundred a day in the 
 streets of Madras ; every day seventy at least laid their 
 bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and 
 expired of famine in the granary of India. I was going 
 to awake your justice towards this unhappy part of our 
 fellow-citizens, by bringing before you some of the 
 circumstances of this plague of hunger. Of all the 
 calarnities which beset and waylay the life of man, this 
 comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the 
 proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than 
 he is ; but I find myself unable to manage it with decorum ; 
 these details are of a species of horror so nauseous and 
 disgusting, they are so degrading to the sufferers and to 
 the hearers ; they are so humiliating to human nature 
 itself, that, on better thoughts, I find it more advisable 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 8 1 
 
 to throw a pall over this hideous object, and leave it to 
 your general conceptions. 
 
 For eighteen months, without intermission, this des- 
 truction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of 
 Tanjore ; and so completely did these masters in their 
 art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, absolve them- 
 selves of their impious vow, that when the British armies 
 traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles 
 in all directions, through the whole line of their march, 
 they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, 
 not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. 
 One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region, 
 with the inconsiderable exceptions of the narrow vicinage 
 of some few forts I wish to be understood as speaking 
 literally ; I mean to produce to you more than three 
 witnesses, above all exception, who will support this 
 assertion in its full extent. That hurricane of war passed 
 through every part of the central provinces of the Carnatic. 
 Six or seven districts to the north and to the south (and 
 these not wholly untouched) escaped the general ravage. 
 
 The Carnatic is a country not much inferior in extent 
 to England. Figure to yourself, Mr. Speaker, the land 
 in whose representative chair you sit ; figure to yourself 
 the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country 
 from Thames to Trent north and south, and from the Irish 
 to the German Sea east and west, emptied and em- 
 bowelled (May God avert the omen of our crimes !) by 
 so accomplished a desolation. Extend your imagination 
 a little farther, and then suppose your ministers taking 
 a survey of this scene of waste and desolation ; what 
 would be your thoughts if you should be informed, that 
 
 G 
 
82 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 they were computing how much had been the amount 
 of the excises, how much the customs, how much the land 
 and malt tax, in order that they should charge (take it in 
 the most favourable light) for public service, upon the 
 reUcs of the satiated vengeance of relentless enemies, the 
 whole of what England had yielded in the most exuberant 
 seasons of peace and abundance ? What would you call 
 it ? To call it tyranny, sublimed into madness, would be 
 too faint an image ; yet this very madness is the principle 
 upon which the ministers at your right hand have pro- 
 ceeded in their estimate of the revenues of the Carnatic, 
 when they were providing, not supply for the establish- 
 ments of its protection, but rewards for the authors of its 
 ruin. 
 
 Every day you are fatigued and disgusted with this 
 cant, " the Carnatic is a country that will soon recover, 
 and become instantly as prosperous as ever." They 
 think that they are talking to innocents, who will believe 
 that, by sowing of dragon's teeth, men will come up ready 
 grown and ready armed. They who will give themselves 
 the trouble of considering (for it requires no great reach 
 of thought, no very profound knowledge) the manner 
 in which mankind are increased, and countries cultivated, 
 will regard all this raving as it ought to be regarded. In 
 order that the people, after a long period of vexation and 
 plunder, may be in a condition to maintain government, 
 government must begin by maintaining them. Here the 
 road to economy lies not through receipt, but through 
 expense ; and in that country nature has given no short 
 cut to your object. Men must propagate, like other 
 animals, by the mouth. Never did oppression light the 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 83 
 
 nuptml torch ; never did extortion and usury spread 
 out the genial bed. Does any of you think that England, 
 so wasted, would under such a nursing attenaance, so 
 rapidly and cheaply recover ? But he is meanly acquainted 
 with either England or India, who does not know that 
 England would a thousand times sooner resume popula- 
 tion, fertility, and what ought to be the ultimate secretion 
 from both, revenue, than such a country as the Carnatic. 
 The Carnatic is not by the bounty of nature a fertile 
 soil. The general size of its cattle is proof enough that it 
 is much otherwise. It is some days since I moved, that 
 a curious and interesting map, kept in the India House, 
 should be laid before you. The India House is not yet 
 in readiness to send it ; I have therefore brought down 
 my own copy, and there it lies for the use of any gentleman 
 who may think such a matter worthy of his attention. It 
 is indeed a noble map, and of noble things ; but it is 
 decisive against the golden dreams and sanguine specu- 
 lations of avarice run mad. In addition to what you know 
 must be the case in every part of the world (the necessity 
 of a previous provision of habitation, seed, stock, capital) 
 that map will show you, that the uses of the influences of 
 heaven itself are in that country a work of art. The 
 Carnatic is refreshed by few or no living brooks or running 
 streams, and it has rain only at a season ; but its product 
 of rice exacts the use of water subject to perpetual com- 
 mand. This is the national bank of the Carnatic, on 
 which it must have a perpetual credit, or it perishes 
 irretrievably. For that reason, in the happier times of 
 India, a number, almost incredible, of reservoirs have 
 been made in chosen places throughout the whole country ; 
 
84 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 they are formed for the greater part of mounds of earth 
 and stones, with sluices of soUd masonry ; the whole 
 constructed with admirable skill and labour, and main- 
 tained at a mighty charge. In the territory contained 
 in that map alone, I have been at the trouble of reckoning 
 the reservoirs, and they amount to upwards of eleven 
 hundred, from the extent of two or three acres to five 
 miles in circuit. From these reservoirs currents are 
 occasionally drawn over the fields, and these water-courses 
 again call for a considerable expense to keep them pro- 
 perly scoured and duly levelled. Taking the district 
 in that map as a measure, there cannot be in the Carnatic 
 and Tanjore fewer than ten thousand of these reser- 
 voirs of the larger and middling dimensions, to say 
 nothing of those for domestic services, and the uses of 
 religious purification. These are not the enterprises of 
 your power, nor in a style of magnificence suited to the 
 taste of your minister. These are the monuments of real 
 kings, who were the fathers of their people ; testators 
 to a posterity which they embraced as their own. These 
 are the grand sepulchres built by ambition ; but by the 
 ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not con- 
 tented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness 
 during the contracted term of human life, had strained, 
 with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious mind, 
 to extend the dominion of their bounty beyond the limits 
 of nature, and to perpetuate themselves through genera- 
 tions of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the 
 
 nourishers of mankind 
 
 What, Sir, would a virtuous and enlightened ministry 
 do on the view of the ruins of such w^orks before them ? 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 85 
 
 On the view of such a chasm of desolation as that which 
 yawned in the midst of those countries to the north and 
 south, which still bore some vestiges of cultivation ? 
 They would have reduced all their most necessary estab- 
 lishments ; they would have suspended the justest pay- 
 ments ; they would have employed every shilling derived 
 from the producing, to reanimate the powers of the 
 unreproductive, parts. While they were performing 
 this fundamental duty, whilst they were celebrating these 
 mysteries of justice and humanity, they would have 
 told the corps of fictitious creditors, whose crimes were 
 their claims, that they must keep an awful distance ; 
 that they must silence their inauspicious tongues ; that 
 they must hold off their profane, unhallowed paws from 
 this holy work ; they would have proclaimed with a voice 
 that should make itself heard, that on every country the 
 first creditor is the plough, that this original, indefeasible 
 claim supersedes every other demand. 
 
 This is what a wise and virtuous ministry would have 
 done and said. This, therefore, is what our minister 
 could never think of saying or doing. A ministry of 
 another kind would have first improved the country, 
 and have thus laid a solid foundation for future opulence 
 and future force. But on this grand point of the restor- 
 ation of the country, there is not one syllable to be found 
 in the correspondence of our ministers, from the first 
 to the last ; they felt nothing for a land desolated by fire, 
 sword, and famine ; their sympathies took another 
 direction ; they were touched with pity for bribery, so 
 long tormented with a fruitless itching of its palms ; their 
 bowels yearned for usury, that had long missed the harvest 
 
86 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of its returning months ; they felt for peculation v/hich 
 had been for so many years raking in the dust of an empty 
 treasury ; they were melted into compassion for rapine 
 and oppression, licking their dry, parched, unbloody 
 jaws. These were the objects of their solicitude. These 
 were the necessities for which they were studious to 
 provide. 
 
 Knowing that the revenue of the Carnatic had fallen to ;/;8oo,ooo 
 a year, before the war, they nevertheless apportioned from it the 
 sum of ;^48o,ooo annually " for paying to their rebellious servants 
 a debt contracted in defiance of their clearest and most positive 
 injunctions." 
 
 This Carnatic debt is the root of all the evil. 
 
 That debt forms the foul, putrid mucus in which are 
 engendered the whole brood of creeping ascarides, 
 all the endless involutions, the eternal knot, added to 
 a knot of those inexpugnable tape-worms, which 
 devour the nutriment, and eat up the bowels of India. 
 It is necessary, Sir, you should recollect two things : 
 First, that the Nabob's debt to the Company 
 carries no interest. In the next place you will observe, 
 that whenever the Company has occasion to borrow, she 
 has always commanded whatever she thought fit at 8 per 
 cent. Carrying in your mind these two facts, attend to 
 the process with regard to the public and private debt, 
 and with what little appearance of decency they play into 
 each other's hands a game of utter perdition to the un- 
 happy natives of India. The Nabob falls into an arrear 
 to the Company. The presidency presses for payment. 
 The Nabob's answer is, I have no money. Good. But 
 there are soucars who will supply you on the mortgage 
 of your territories. Then steps forward some Paul 
 
EDMUND BURKE. ^J 
 
 Benfield, and from his grateful compassion to the Nabob, 
 and his filial regard to the Company, he unlocks the 
 treasures of his virtuous industry ; and, for a consideration 
 of 24 or 36 per cent, on a mortgage of the territorial re- 
 venue, becomes security to the Company for the Nabob's 
 arrear. . . • • • 
 
 In consequence of this double game all the terri- 
 torial revenues have, at one time or other, been covered by 
 those locusts, the English soucars. Not one single foot 
 of the Carnatic has escaped them ; a territory as large as 
 England. During these operations what a scene has that 
 country presented ! The usurious European assignee 
 supersedes the Nabob's native farmer of the revenue ; 
 the farmer flies to the Nabob's presence to claim his bar- 
 gain ; whilst his servants murmur for wages, and his 
 soldiers mutiny for pay. The mortgage to the European 
 assignee is then resumed, and the native farmer replaced ; 
 replaced, again to be removed on the new clamour of the 
 European assignee. Every man of rank and landed for- 
 tune being long since extinguished, the remaining miser- 
 able last cultivator, who grows to the soil, after having 
 his back scored by the farmer, has it again flayed by the 
 whip of the assignee, and is thus by a ravenous, because 
 a short-lived succession of claimants, lashed from op- 
 pressor to oppressor, whilst a single drop of blood is left 
 as the means of extorting a single grain of corn. . . 
 
 Inconsistent conduct of ministers who having revived an old 
 order of the Company against contracting private debts, give positive 
 directions for contracting the debts they forbid. 
 
 They order the Nabob, out of the revenues of 
 the Carnatic, to allot £480,000 a year, as a fund for 
 
88 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the debts before us. For the punctual payment of 
 this annuity, they order him to give soucar security. 
 When a soucar, that is, a money dealer, becomes 
 security for any native prince, the course is for the 
 native prince to counter-secure the money dealer, by 
 making over to him in mortgage a portion of his territory, 
 equal to the sum annually to be paid, with an interest of 
 at least 24 per cent. The point for the House to know is, 
 who are these soucars, to whom this security on the 
 revenues in favour of the Nabob's creditors is to be given ? 
 The majority of the House, unaccustomed to these trans- 
 actions, will hear with astonishment that these soucar s 
 are no other than the creditors themselves. The Minister, 
 not content with authorising these transactions in a 
 manner and to an extent unhoped for by the rapacious 
 expectations of usury itself, loads the broken back of the 
 Indian revenues, in favour of his worthy friends the 
 soucar s.WiXh an additional 24 per cent, for being security 
 to themselves for their own claims ; for condescending 
 to take the country in mortgage, to pay to themselves the 
 fruits of their own extortions. 
 
 In addition, those men have saddled Tanjore, the ancient ally 
 of England, with an unjustifiable tribute of ;/^4o,ooo a year, due to 
 their puppet, the Nabob of Arcot, who never claimed such tribute. 
 Their care of the country. 
 
 Every one, but tolerably conversant in Indian affairs, 
 must know that the existence of this little kingdom depends 
 on its control over the river Cavery. The benefits of 
 heaven to any community ought never to be connected 
 with political arrangements, or made to depend on the 
 personal conduct of princes ; in which the mistake, or 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 89 
 
 error, or neglect, or distress, or passion of a moment 
 on either side, may bring famine on millions, and ruin an 
 innocent nation, perhaps for ages. The means of the 
 subsistence of mankind should be as immutable as the 
 laws of nature, let power and dominion take what 
 course they may Observe what has been done with 
 regard to this important concern. The use of this river 
 is indeed at length given to the Rajah, and a power pro- 
 vided for its enjoyment at his own charge ; but the means 
 of furnishing that charge are wholly cut off. This use of 
 the water which ought to have no more connection than 
 clouds, and rains, and sunshine, with the politics of the 
 Rajah, the Nabob, or the Company, is expressly contrived 
 as a means of enforcing demands and arrears of tribute. 
 This horrid and unnatural instrument of extortion has 
 been a distinguishing feature in the enormities of the 
 Carnatic politics, that loudly called for reformation. But 
 the food of the whole people is by the reformers of India 
 conditioned on payments from its prince, at a moment 
 that he is overpowered with a swarm of their demands, 
 without regard to the ability of either prince or people. 
 
 Having instanced examples where the creditors were sheltered by 
 Government, Burke passes on to an inquiry into the actions of the 
 party thus favoured, and shows how, following Clive's precedent, 
 they built up a parUamentary interest. He proceeds with what is 
 practically an indictment of young Pitt. 
 
 Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a now 
 plan, a plan insigne recens indicium ore alio, a plan for 
 supporting the freedom of our Constitution by court in- 
 trigues, and for removing its corruptions by Indian delin- 
 quency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into 
 execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became 
 
90 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 necessary. You are perfectly sensible that a parliament- 
 ary reform occupies his thoughts day and night, as an 
 essential member in this extraordinary project. In his 
 anxious researches upon this subject, natural instinct, 
 as well as sound policy, would direct his eyes and settle 
 his choice, on Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand 
 parliamentary reformer, the reformer to whom the whole 
 choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the right 
 honourable gentleman himself must yield the palm : 
 for what region in the Empire, what city, what borough, 
 what country, what tribunal in this kingdom, is not full 
 of his labours ? Others have been only speculators, 
 he is the grand practical reformer ; and whilst the chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer pledges in vain the man and the 
 minister, to increase the provincial members, Mr. Benfield 
 has auspiciously and practically begun it. . . . Paul 
 Benfield made (reckoning himself) no fewer than eight 
 members in the last Parliament. What copious streams 
 of pure blood must he not have transfused into the 
 veins of the present ! 
 
 But what is even more striking than the real services 
 of this nev\^ imported patriot, is his modesty. As soon 
 as he had conferred this benefit on the Constitution, he 
 withdrew himself from our applause. He conceived that 
 the duties of a member of Parliament, might be as well 
 attended to in India as in England, and the means of 
 reformation to Parliament itself be far better provided. 
 
 It was not, therefore, possible to consult him, but his agent and 
 attorney, Mr. Richard Atkinson, was always there — " a name that 
 will be remembered as long as the records of this House, as long as 
 the records of the British treasury, as long as the monumental debt 
 of England shall endure." 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 9 1 
 
 This gentleman, Sir, acts as attorney for Mr. Paul Ben- 
 field. Every one who hears me is well acquainted with 
 the sacred friendship, and the steady, mutual attach- 
 ment, that subsists between him and the present minister. 
 As many members as chose to attend in the first session 
 of this ParHament can best tell their own feelings at 
 the scenes which were then acted. How much that 
 honourable gentleman was consuhed in the original 
 frame and fabric of the Bill, commonly called Mr. Pitt's 
 India Bill, is matter only of conjecture ; though by no 
 means difficult to divine. But the public was an indig- 
 nant witness of the ostentation with which that measure 
 was made his own, and the authority with which he 
 brought up clause after clause, to stuflF and fatten the 
 rankness of that corrupt Act. As fast as the clauses were 
 brought up to the table they were accepted. No hesi- 
 tation ; no discussion. They were received by the new 
 minister, not with approbation, but with implicit submis- 
 sion. The reformation may be estimated by seeing who 
 was the reformer. Paul Benfield's associate and agent was 
 held up to the world as legislator of Hindostan. But it was 
 necessary to authenticate the coalition between the men of 
 intrigue in India, and the minister of intrigue in England, 
 by a studied display of the power of this their connect- 
 ing link. Every trust, every honour, every distinction was 
 to be heaped upon him. He was at once made a director 
 of the India Company ; made an alderman of London ; 
 and to be made, if ministry could prevail, representative 
 of the capital of this kingdom. But to secure his ser- 
 vices against all risk, he was brought in for a ministerial 
 borough. On his part, he was not wanting in zeal for the 
 
92 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 common cause. His advertisements show his motives, 
 and the merits upon which he stood. For your minister, 
 this worn-out veteran submitted to enter into the dusty 
 field of the London contest ; and you all remember, 
 that in the same virtuous cause he submitted to keep a 
 sort of public office or counting-house, where the whole 
 business of the last general election was managed. . . 
 It was managed upon Indian principles and for an Indian 
 interest. This was the golden cup. of abominations ; 
 this the chalice of the fornications of rapine, usury, 
 and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous 
 Eastern harlot ; which so many of the people, so many 
 of the nobles, of this land had drained to the very 
 dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to follow 
 this lewd debauch ? that no payment was to be demanded 
 for this riot of public drunkenness and national prosti- 
 tution ? Here ! you have it here before you. The 
 principal of the grand election manager must be indemni- 
 fied ; accordingly the claims of Benfield and his crew 
 must be put above all enquiry. 
 
 Benfield's share in the " debt " was about ;!^50o,ooo. From pru- 
 dential motives, he made it over to Taylor, Majendie and Call, and 
 thus his name did not appear on the creditors' list. Burke describes 
 his subsequent attempt on that respectable firm when matters grew 
 threatening. He, too, shows how Benfield, getting control of the son of 
 the Nabob of Arcot, used him against his father, just as Hastings 
 used the son of Surajah Dowlah against his mother. 
 
 I believe, after this exposure of facts, no man can 
 entertain a doubt of the collusion of ministers with the 
 corrupt interest of the delinquents in India. Whenever 
 those in authority provide for the interest of any person, 
 on the real but concealed state of his affairs, without 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 93 
 
 regard to his avowed, public, and ostensible pre- 
 tences, it must be presumed that they are in confederacy 
 with him, because they act for him on the same fraudulent 
 principles on which he acts for himself. It is plain that 
 the ministers were fully apprized of Benfield's real situ- 
 ation, which he had used means to conceal whilst conceal- 
 ment answered his purposes 
 
 I have thus laid before you, Mr. Speaker, I think with 
 sufficient clearness, the connexion of the ministers with 
 Mr. Atkinson at the general election ; I have laid open to 
 you the connexion of Atkinson with Benfield ; I have 
 shown Benfield's employment of his wealth, in creating 
 a parliamentary interest, to procure a ministerial pro- 
 tection ; I have set before your eyes his large concern 
 in the debt, his practices to hide that concern from the pub- 
 lic eye, and the liberal protection which he has received 
 from the minister. If this chain of circumstances do not 
 lead you necessarily to conclude that the minister has paid 
 to the avarice of Benfield the services done by Benfield's 
 connexions to his ambition, I do not know anything short 
 of the confession of the party that can persuade men of 
 his guilt. Clandestine and collusive practice can only be 
 traced by combination and comparison of circumstances. 
 To reject such combination and comparison is to reject 
 the only means of detecting fraud : it is indeed to give it 
 a patent and free licence to cheat with impunity. 
 
 . . • • • • • 
 
 That these oppressions exist, is a fact no more denied, 
 than it is resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been 
 done in India under British authority. What has been 
 done to redress it ? We are no longer surprised at 
 
94 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 anything. We are above the unlearned and vulgar pas- 
 sion of admiration But it will astonish posterity when 
 they read our opinions in our actions, that after ten years 
 of enquiry, we have found out that the sole grievance of 
 India consisted in this, that the servants of the Company 
 there had nor profited enough of their opportunities, 
 nor drained it sufficiently of its treasures ; when they shall 
 hear that the very first and only important act of a com- 
 mission specially named by act of Parliament is to charge 
 upon an undone country, in favour of a handful of men 
 in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous 
 sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money. 
 
 It is difficult for the most wise and upright govern- 
 ment to correct the abuses of remote, delegated power, 
 productive of unmeasured wealth, and protected by 
 the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. 
 These abuses, full of their own vv^ild native vigour, will 
 grov/ and flourish under mere neglect. But where the 
 supreme authority, not content with winking at the 
 rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and 
 corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for 
 disobedience to its laws, when it will not trust to the 
 activity of avarice in the pursuit of its own gains, when 
 it secures public robbery by all the careful jealousy and 
 attention with which it ought to protect property from 
 such violence, the commonwealth then is become totally 
 perverted from its purposes ; neither God nor man will 
 long endure it ; nor will it long endure itself. In that 
 case, there is an unnatural infection, a pestilential taint 
 fermenting in the constitution of society, which fever 
 and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off ; 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 95 
 
 or in which the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, 
 are pushed back upon themselves, and, by a reversal of 
 their whole functions, fester to gangrene, to death ; and, 
 instead of what was but just now the delight and boast 
 of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun, 
 a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench and 
 poison, an offence, a horror, a lesson to the world. 
 
90 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 HENRY FLOOD (1732-1791). 
 
 1783.— RENUNCIATION SPEECH. 
 
 The repeal of the Declarator}^ Act (6th George I.) was not 
 a repeal of the legal principle that acts passed in England 
 had power to bind Ireland, neither was the mere denial 
 of that power by Ireland herself sufficient in Flood's opinion. 
 There should be an express renunciation on the part of 
 England and an international compact. Flood w^as legally 
 right. Of course, the only guarantee that such a renun- 
 ciation would be respected was the existence of an armed 
 force — the Irish Volunteers. 
 
 A voice from America shouted to liberty, the echo of 
 it caught your people as it passed along the Atlantic, and 
 they renewed the voice till it reverberated here. What 
 followed ? All the propositions that had been separately 
 reprobated were now collectively adopted ; the repre- 
 sentatives of the people articulated at length the sense 
 of their constituents. The case of Ireland originally 
 stated by the great Molyneux, and burned at the revolu- 
 tion by the Parliament of England, is not now afraid of the 
 fire ; it has risen from that phoenix urn, and with the 
 flames of its cradle it illuminates our isle ! What is the 
 result ? It is now in your power, and I trust it will be 
 in your wisdom to do final justice to the rights and interests 
 of your country ; for me, I hope I have not been pecu- 
 liarly wanting to them. At an early period of my life, 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 97 
 
 on a question of embargo, in consequence of a proclamation 
 founded on a British Act ot Parliament, I brought the 
 criminal gazette within these walls, and at your Bar I 
 arraigned the delinquent. The House was alarmed, and 
 I withdrew my question, on the proclamation being 
 withdrawn. If you ask why I did not pursue it to a formal 
 declaration of right, I answer, for I wish to be answer- 
 able to you for every part of my life : I answer that the 
 time was not ripe for it. The first spring of the con- 
 stitution is the elective power of the people : till that was 
 reinforced by limiting the duration of Parliaments, little 
 could be done. The people wanted constitutional 
 privilege ; till the fabric of usurpation, founded on the 
 law of Poynings, had been shaken to its foundation, little 
 could be done ; the Parliament wanted conscious dignity 
 till the people were armed ; everything could not be 
 done ; the nation wanted military power. These were 
 necessary antecedents. The public mind wanted much 
 cultivation. The seed, too, was necessary to be sown, and 
 if I have not been wanting to the preparations of the soil, 
 may I not be permitted to watch over the harvest ? To 
 that harvest too, as well as to every other, a prosperous 
 season was necessary, and that season presented itself in 
 the American war. When, therefore, the honourable 
 member (Grattan) in the sunshine of that season, and of 
 his own abilities, brought forward a declaration of rights 
 in Lord Buckingham's government, after that adminis- 
 tration had amended his proposition for the purpose of 
 defeating it, I stepped forward, in ofRce as I was, and 
 at the hazard of that office, rescued the principle from 
 the disgrace of a postponement, or from the ruin of rejec- 
 
 H 
 
98 . IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 tion. In this session, too, I hope that my humble efforts 
 have not been peculiarly wanting. In abilit}^ I will yield 
 to many, in zeal to none ; and, if I have not served the 
 public cause more than many men, this at least I may say, 
 I have sacrificed as much to it. Do you repent of that 
 sacrifice } If I am asked, I answer " No." Who could 
 repent of a sacrifice to truth and honour, to a country 
 that he loves, and to a country that is grateful ? Do 
 you repent of it ? No. But I should not rejoice in it, if it 
 were only to be attended with a private deprivation, and 
 not to be accompanied by all its gains to my country. I 
 have a peculiar right, therefore, to be solicitous and ardent 
 about the issue of it, and no man shall stop me in my 
 progress. 
 
 Were the voice with which I utter this, the last effort 
 of an expiring nature ; were the accent which conveys 
 it to you, the breath that was to waft me to that grave 
 to which we all tend, and to which my footsteps rapidly 
 accelerate, I would go on ; I would make my exit by a loud 
 demand of your rights ; and I call upon the God of truth 
 and liberty who has often favoured you, and who has 
 of late looked down upon you with such a peculiar grace 
 and glory of protection, to continue to you his inspirings 
 — to crown you with the spirit of his completion, and 
 to assist you against the errors of those that are honest, 
 as well as against the machinations of all that are not so. 
 
 I will now move you, That the opinion of all the judges 
 be desired on the following question : " Does the repeal 
 of the Declaratory Act amount, in legal construction, to a 
 repeal or renunciation of the legal principle on which the 
 Declaratory Act grounded itself ? ** 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 99 
 
 Nothing ever was more judicious than the conduct of 
 Great Britain on this occasion. She was so embarrassed 
 abroad, and you were so strong at home, that she could 
 not deny the repeal of the declaratory lav/. Yet it must 
 ever be her wish to retain the principle of it, because it is 
 the principle of power, which no nation has ever relin- 
 quished while it could maintain it. 
 
 If there be a pride of England, there is a pride of Ireland 
 too. Now I ask which ought to give way, for one must, 
 and I answer impartially, that which has the worst foun- 
 dation. Now which is that .? The pride of England in 
 this case, is the pride of wrong, and the pride of usur- 
 pation. The pride of Ireland is the pride of right, the 
 pride of justice, the pride of constitution. I will not ask 
 you, after that, which ought to give way ; but it is wrong 
 to put this question principally upon pride. 
 
 But time is not necessary, negotiation alone is sufficien. 
 to undo you ; you were not born to be negotiators ; the 
 negotiator is a dark, austere, inexorable character ; you 
 are soft, open, and persuadable ; you have not the de- 
 tailed knowledge, the systematical procrastination, the 
 suspicious reserve, or the frigid perseverance of a nego- 
 tiator. When have you negotiated that you have not 
 lost ? You negotiated at the Restoration, you negotiated 
 at the Revolution, you negotiated at the augmentation 
 of your army, you negotiated your free trade, you nego- 
 tiated the Mutiny Bill. When have you demanded that 
 you have not succeeded, and when have you negotiated 
 that you have not been deceived ? 
 
 There never was a time which required more consi- 
 deration than the present ; the national exertion began 
 
100 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in the last year of Lord Buckingham's administration, 
 it is now drawing to a period, and whether that shall be 
 glorious or otherwise depends on your wisdom. A short 
 view of what we have done will be a guide to what we 
 should do. We had groaned for a century under an 
 increasing usurpation ; the American war broke out, and 
 whilst we were called upon to shed our blood for Great 
 Britain, we were insulted with the application of that 
 principle to Ireland which had revolted America ; our 
 feelings were exasperated by the application, and our 
 trade was ruined by the war ; we saw ourselves beggars 
 in fact, and slaves in assertion. The merchants flew to 
 a non-importation agreement, the people flew to arms. 
 Amidst this perturbation Parliament assembled, and we 
 amended our address by the demand of a free constitution, 
 that is of an exclusive legislature, on which all freedom 
 of trade must depend— and therefore it was, that I did 
 originally differ with some gentlemen, for I asserted that 
 they had not obtained that freedom of trade of which 
 they had boasted, because they had not obtained that 
 freedom of Parliamentary constitution, without which 
 a freedom of trade could not exist. We received from 
 England a dilatory answer. We shortened our money 
 grants to the crown — we shortened them to the subject. 
 And the Irish public creditors to their immortal honour, 
 embarked so fully with the rights of the nation, as cheer- 
 fully to accept of a six months' security. This rapid 
 succession of sober and consistent efforts struck like 
 lightning on the Ministry and Parliament of England ; all 
 obstacles gave way ; our demand was to be granted in all 
 its plentitude ; all the British statutes restrictive of our 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 10 1 
 
 foreign commerce were to be repealed ; and on that 
 constitutional principle on which alone it would be 
 welcome — a principle, which in that early period of this 
 question, I took the first opportunity to lay down in 
 clear, unambiguous, and categorical terms. What was 
 that principle ? That, having a Parliament of our own, 
 our foreign trade was necessarily free, and subject to no 
 restrictions as to our ports, but such as our ParHament 
 might impose. This principle, we were told, was ad- 
 mitted by England, as to our foreign trade, and pleaded 
 by her in return, as to her own ports, and those of her 
 own colonies. She admitted the principle which we 
 claimed, and she said she would open to us her colony 
 ports, on equal regulation of trade. The tidings of this 
 emancipation, as it was idly called, landed in Ireland. 
 The Post Office was illuminated by an emissary of the 
 Castle ; the College took fire in the next instance by an 
 unhappy contagion, and the city caught the flame in a 
 regular and sympathetic succession. All sober consi- 
 deration was lost in an ignorant clamour, and the steady 
 pulse of the public yielded to a fever of exuhation. What 
 was the consequence ? England saw that we were sur- 
 prized at our success, saw that we had asked more than 
 we expected, concluded that we would accept of in- 
 finitely less, and determined that should be as little as 
 she could. First, then, she determined not to repeal 
 all her laws restrictive of our foreign commerce, yet, 
 whilst an atom of such restriction remains, the total 
 impeachment of your Constitution remains ; when, there- 
 fore, an artful resolution was prepared for this House, on 
 that occasion, expressive of satisfaction in that enlarge- 
 
102 mSH ORATORY J^lSiD ORATORS. 
 
 ment of our foreign trade, I exclaimed against that word. 
 If you thank the British ParHament, I said, for the 
 enlargement of your foreign trade, you admit she can 
 restrain it, you admit her legislative authority ; that is, you 
 gain little in commerce, and you lose everything in con- 
 stitution. I objected to the word foreign ^ therefore ; it 
 belies Ireland, and it deceives Great Britain. The inde- 
 pendent gentlemen of the day, however, did not feel, 
 did not take up the principle, yet, though they did not 
 take it up that day, they have felt it since ; and though 
 the word was universally admitted then, there is not a 
 man in the nation that would not reject it now. Such 
 was the first of this business. Let us see how much 
 worse we made it in the progress of negotiation. The 
 language of England was the language of common sense. 
 Ireland must have equal regulations of trade, she said, 
 but equal taxes on home consumption she did not say ; 
 equal regulations of trade may subsist between a poor 
 country and a rich one, but equal taxes on consumption 
 cannot. Now what has your negotiation made of it ? 
 You have made your arrangement a tax-law in part, which 
 ought to have been a trade-law in the whole ; that is to 
 say, instead of a regulation in trade, you made it a regu- 
 lation against trade, and a caustic regulation too. What 
 regulation, indeed, can be much more adversary to trade, 
 than a heavy tax on a raw material imported for the pur- 
 pose of trade, and for the end of manufacture ? So per- 
 nicious are such taxes, that the ministers in England, 
 whose profusion has brought them to that country, 
 have endeavoured to extenuate their malignity by two 
 regulations ; to console the manufacturer, they tell him 
 
HENRY FLOOD. IO3 
 
 that they will open to him the foreign market, by giving 
 him a drawback on his manufactures exported, equal to 
 the tax on the imported material. And they tell him 
 besides, that they will shut up for him the home market, 
 and give him a monopoly of it. How ? By laying a 
 prohibitory duty on the manufacture imported from 
 abroad ; and what have they done as to manufactured 
 sugars ? Thay have laid a prohibitory duty upon them 
 when imported into England from any other part of the 
 world, Ireland even not excepted. What have we done ? 
 We have laid the same prohibitory duty on manufactured 
 sugars imported into Ireland from any other part of the 
 world ; but we have excepted England, whereas she did 
 not except Ireland. Now, there was much more reason 
 for our excepting England, than there was for her excepting 
 Ireland, and why ? Because Ireland could never, by any 
 possibility, be a rival in sugars to England in the English 
 market, but England is actually a very formidable rival 
 to Ireland in the Irish market. What is the fact ? The 
 Irish manufacturer of sugars has but one rival in the 
 world, and that is the English manufacturer of them. 
 And what have we done ? We have given him the fullest 
 security against all those that are not his rivals. And we 
 have not given it to him against the only manufacturers 
 that are his rivals ; we have given him perfect protection 
 where he is in no danger, and we have not given it to him 
 where he is in all danger. We have done worse by him, 
 we have not only given him as much security against his 
 only rivals, as against those who are not at all his rivals ; 
 but we have not left him as much security against his 
 only rivals as he always had before ; that is to say, the 
 
104 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 duty on the imported manufacture now bears a less pro- 
 portion than ever it did before to the duty on the imported 
 raw materials. By consequence his peril is greater, as 
 his protection is less ; and his security being diminished, 
 his danger is enhanced. But this is not all ; you have 
 not done for him what England originally pointed out to 
 you in his favour : she proposed equality as the principle 
 of your regulation of trade ; we adopted it religiously 
 in that part to w^hich it was not applicable, and, where it 
 was pernicious, I mean in the tax part ; and we only de- 
 serted it in the trade part, where alone it was applicable, 
 and where alone it was beneficial. Such was the spirit in 
 which we negotiated our free trade ; let us take care how 
 we negotiate our free Constitution : but the error of that 
 arrangement does not stop here. Its first principle was 
 erroneous ; it set out with this maxim : That you were 
 to pay for this as if it were an enlargement, and that you 
 were to pay for it in tax, as if you had not paid it other- 
 wise before. But what is the truth ? The sugars of Spain, 
 Portugal, and France, would supply your manufactures, 
 as well as the British West Indian Islands, and generally 
 better ; if, whilst you retained those markets, England 
 had opened her colony ports too, this would have 
 been a new market, which is always an advantage to the 
 buyer. But what is the case now ? You are suffered to 
 go to the colony market of England, which is the English 
 market in effect, and which is therefore her advantage ; 
 but you give up for this all other, and some better markets, 
 which is your advantage. Instead of its being an en- 
 largement, therefore, this is more properly a restriction ; 
 and instead of England's granting you a boon in this 
 
HENRY FLOOD. 1 05 
 
 matter, it is you that gave her a monopoly. Now, a 
 monopoly is so much against the giver, and so much in 
 favour of the obtainer of it, that no nation in its senses 
 ever gives it to another. And if a part of an empire gives 
 it to the head, it cannot be on a principle of trade, be- 
 cause a principle of trade is a principle of gain, whereas 
 this is a principle of loss. On what principle alone can it 
 be given ? On a principle of empire. That is to say, 
 in other words, it is a tax or a tribute, and that of the 
 heaviest nature ; but, if you were to pay for it in taxes, 
 besides paying for it by monopoly, it would be absurd 
 to pay for it more than it was worth. Now take the whole 
 West Indian commerce, take the utmost proportion of 
 that commerce that could ever fall to your lot, take the 
 utmost proportion of clear profit that can be supposed 
 to accrue from that quantity of trade, and then take the 
 utmost proportion of that clear profit that can be afforded 
 to revenue, and I say it would never amount to that sum 
 which you have agreed to pay on the instant for the con- 
 tingency of this direct trade, with this additional absurdity, 
 that if you should not be able to establish it, these addi- 
 tional duties will be equally payable upon your old cir- 
 cuitous trade, which before was free from them. Will 
 you trust negotiation again ? This arrangement cannot 
 be justified on any commercial principle. Was any 
 constitutional advantage obtained by it ? Far from it : 
 the very principle of the arrangement is hostile to the 
 Constitution ; it gives to the British Parliament a virtual 
 power of taxing you ; for what is the principle of it ? 
 That when England taxes a colony produce, you must 
 tax it equally or give up the trade. Thus this arrange- 
 
I06 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ment leaves both your trade and your money at the mercy 
 of the Ministry and ParHament of England. Combine 
 this with another law of the same period, the Mutiny Bill, 
 therefore, and see what the result of both is. You com- 
 plained that the British Parliament should make even a 
 twelve-months law for your army ; and what did you 
 do to remedy it } You made an Act, that she should do 
 it for ever. The two greatest powers in the management 
 of human concerns, are the power of the purse, and the 
 power of the sword. You did by these two laws, for so 
 much, delegate away both of these great powers from 
 yourselves to the British Parliament ; that is to say, in the 
 very moment that you talked of recovering your own 
 authority, and denying that of the British legislature, you 
 did everything you could to strengthen the power of that 
 Parliament which you meant to overthrow, and to 
 weaken the pov/er of that Parliament which you meant 
 to establish. I do not speak these things in order to 
 say what is disagreeable to any man living, much 
 less to say any thing disagreeable to that body, in 
 defence of whose privileges I have lived these two 
 and twenty years, and in defence of whose privileges 
 I will die. I speak them from a deep conviction 
 of their necessity. You see how you have been nego- 
 tiated out of every thing, and how dangerous it is to 
 negotiate again. You see how dangerous it is to exult 
 too soon, or to imagine that any thing of this kind is done, 
 while any thing remains undone. You see what a miser- 
 able end was made of Lord Buckingham's last session of 
 Parliament, though it began with so much splendour ; 
 and as a part of this session has trod the steps of its glory, 
 
HENRY FLOOD. IO7 
 
 I would warn the conclusion of it against the steps of its 
 decline. To put a stop, therefore, to the danger of nego- 
 tiation, and to accelerate the safety of an immediate 
 repeal, and of a final renunciation, I move the resolution 
 I have before stated to vou. 
 
 1783.— VINDICATION OF THE VOLUNTEERS. 
 
 Flood's Reform Bill, planned at the Volunteer Conven- 
 tion, gave rise to a bitter debate. Corollary of the De- 
 claration of Rights and the Renunciation Bill, all the forces 
 of corruption in the Irish Parliament were leagued against 
 it, and Yelverton (Attorney-General) opposed the measure 
 as emanating from a body of armed men. Grattan sup- 
 ported it in a half-hearted Vv^ay. Finally, the motion was 
 defeated by a majority of 80. 
 
 The decisive moment had come, but the abuse-bespattered 
 Volunteers, or rather their unworthy leaders, shrank from 
 the issue — the nation was not behind them. " Looking 
 back over these events," says Mitchel, " one cannot resist 
 the conclusion that if the Convention had generously and 
 at once thrown open the door of the Constitution to the 
 Catholics, Lord Charlemont might at this juncture have 
 marched down to that den of corruption in College Green, 
 cleared it out, and thereafter dictated his Reform Bill by 
 way of general orders." 
 
 Sir, I have not mentioned the Bill as being the measure 
 of any set of men or body of men whatsoever. I am as 
 free to enter into the discussion of the Bill as any gentle- 
 man in this House, and with as little prepossession of what 
 I shall propose. I prefer it to the House as the Bill of 
 my right honourable friend who seconded me, — will 
 vou receive it from us .-^ 
 
I08 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 In the last Parliament it was ordered " That leave be 
 given for the more equal representation of the people in 
 Parliament." This was in the Duke of Portland's 
 administration, an administration the right honourable 
 gentleman (Mr. Yelverton) professes to admire, and which 
 he will not suspect of overturning the Constitution. 
 
 I own, from the turn which has been given to this 
 question, I enter on it with the deepest anxiety. Armed 
 with the authority of a precedent, I did not think anyone 
 would be so desperate as to give such violent opposition 
 to the simple introduction of a Bill. I now rise for the 
 first time to speak on the subject, and I call on every man, 
 auditor or spectator, in the House or in the galleries, to 
 remember this truth — that if the Volunteers are introduced 
 in this debate, it is not I who do so. The right 
 
 honourable gentleman says, "If the Volunteers have 
 approved it he will oppose it " ; but I say I bring it in as 
 a member of this House supported by the powerful aid 
 of my right honourable friend (Mr. Brownlow) who sits 
 behind me. We bring it in as Members of Parliament, 
 never mentioning the Volunteers. I ask you, will you 
 receive it from us — from us, your members, neither in- 
 tending by anything within doors or without to intimidate 
 or overawe you ? I ask will you receive it as our Bill, or 
 will you conjure up a military phantom of interposition 
 to affright yourselves ? 
 
 I have not introduced the Volunteers, but if they are 
 aspersed I will defend their character against all the world. 
 By whom were the commerce and the Constitution of this 
 country recovered ? By the Volunteers ! 
 
 Why did not the right honourable gentleman make a 
 
HENRY FLOOD. I09 
 
 declaration against them when they lined our streets — 
 when Parliament passed through the ranks of those vir- 
 tuous, armed men to demand the rights of an insulted 
 nation ? Are they different men at this day, or is the right 
 honourable gentleman different ? He was then one of 
 their body, he is now their accuser ! He who saw the 
 streets lined, who rejoiced, who partook in their glory, 
 is now their accuser. Are they less wise, less brave, less 
 ardent in their country's cause, or has their admirable 
 conduct made him their enemy ? May they not say, 
 We have not changed, but you have changed ? The 
 right honourable gentleman cannot bear to hear of Volun- 
 teers ; but I will ask him, and I will have a starling taught 
 to halloo in his ear— Who gave you the Free Trade ? 
 Who got you the Free Constitution ? Who made you a 
 nation ? The Volunteers ! 
 
 If they were the men you describe them, why did you 
 accept of their service ? Why did you not then accuse 
 them ? If they were so dangerous, why did you pass 
 through their ranks with your speaker at your head to 
 demand a Constitution ? Why did you not then fear the 
 ills you now apprehend ? 
 
no IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 WALTER HUSSEY BURGH (1742-1783). 
 
 Burgh's contribution to the Free Trade debate assured 
 his instant and lasting fame. At the celebrated words, 
 " Talk not to me of peace, Ireland is not at peace. It is 
 smothered war. England has sown her laws as dragon's 
 teeth, and they have sprung up armed men," a roar of ap- 
 plause went up from the floor to the galleries, rolled back, 
 and thundered through the doors of the House to the 
 waiting crowd outside. A few moments later Burgh pub- 
 licly resigned the office he held as Prime Sergeant. " The 
 gates of promotion are shut," said Grattan prophetically, 
 " and the gates of glory opened." By the autumn of 1783 
 " the fire of his manner, the silver tone of his voice, the 
 inimitable graces of his action " were a memory, and 
 although Lord Plunket considered " no modern speaker 
 approached him in power of stirring the passions," few, if 
 any, records of his admired speeches remain. 
 
 You have but two nights ago declared against new 
 taxes, by a majority of 123, and have left the Ministers 
 supported only by 47 votes ; if you now go back and 
 accede to the proposed grant for two years, your com- 
 pliance will add insult to the injuries already done to your 
 ill-fated country. You strike a dagger in your own 
 bosom, and destroy the fair prospect of commercial 
 hope, because if the Minister can, in the course of two 
 days, render void the animated spirit and patriotic sta- 
 bility of this House, and procure a majority, the British 
 Minister will treat our applications for free trade with 
 
WALTER HUSSEY BURGH. Ill 
 
 contempt. When the interests of the Government 
 and the people are contrary, they secretly operate against 
 each other ; such a state is but smothered war. I shall 
 be a friend alike to the Minister and the people, according 
 as I find their desires guided by justice ; but at such 
 a crisis as this the people must be kept in good temper, 
 even to the indulgence of their caprices. 
 
 The usurped authority of a foreign Parliament has 
 kept up the most wicked laws that a jealous, monopolising, 
 ungrateful spirit could devise to restrain the bounty of 
 Providence, and enslave a nation, whose inhabitants are 
 recorded to be a brave, loyal, and generous people. 
 By the English code of laws, to answer the most sordid 
 views, they have been treated with a savage cruelty ; 
 the words penalty, punishment, and Ireland, are synony- 
 mous, they are marked in blood on the margin of their 
 statutes ; and, though time may have softened the 
 calamities of the nation, the baneful and destructive 
 influence of those laws has borne her down to a state 
 of Egyptian bondage. 
 
 The EngHsh have sowed their laws Hke dragon's teeth, 
 and they have sprung up armed men. 
 
112 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 HENRY GRATTAN (1746-1820). 
 
 DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS. 
 
 1780.— (April 19th.) 
 
 The gravity of the occasion on which this speech was 
 deHvered and the significance of its poHtical import give it 
 a high place in the history of the legislative relations between 
 Ireland and England. It is a distinct denial of England's 
 power to filch from the Irish Parliament the right to make 
 laws for Ireland independent of English interference. The 
 attack on tliis right, begun by Poynings' Act (loth Hen. 
 VII.) culminated in tne 6th George I., which declared 
 Ireland a subordinate kingdom. The spirit of the speech 
 may be summed up in Burke's aphorism, " Connivance is 
 the relaxation of slavery, not the definition of liberty." 
 
 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 
 administered to him an oath that he would consider 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. II3 
 
 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_jiny chance of success, and without 
 aggravation of oppression. 
 
 Sir, it must appear to every person, that, notwithstand- 
 ing 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 Parliament ; to 
 preach homilies to the Volunteers ; to utter invectives 
 against the people, under pretence of aflPectionate advice, 
 is an attempt, weak, suspicious, and inflammatory.^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^ 
 
 You cannot dictate to those whose sense you are en- 
 trusted to represent ; your ancestors, who sat within these 
 walls, lost to Ireland trade and liberty ; you, by the assis- 
 tance 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 ill-omened expression of 
 the Repeal of the American stamp-act. England thought 
 
 j> 
 
114^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 it expedient to repeal that law ; happy had it been for 
 mankind, if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not 
 reserved the right 1 To that reservation she owes the loss 
 of her American empire at the expense of miUions, 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 re- 
 laxation, 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 satis- 
 faction to a freeborn, an intelligent, and an injured com- 
 munity. It is, therefore, they consider, the free trade as 
 a trade de facto, and 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 con- 
 dition 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 theJ^ason^ofdie^Amenc^ 
 war ; the doctrine of Imperial legislature she feels to be 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 1 15 
 
 pernicious ; the revenues 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 whom 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 her last connection, 
 you are the only nation in Europe that is not her enemy. 
 Besides, there does of late, a certain damp and spurious 
 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 Parlia- 
 ment in Ireland so possessed of the confidence of the 
 people ; you are the greatest political assembly now sit- 
 ting in the world ; you are at the head of an immense 
 armv ; 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 un- 
 reality of court addresses, not the vulgar raving of a 
 rabble, but the genuine speech of liberty, and the unso- 
 phisticated oratory of a free nation. 
 
 See her military ardour expressed not only in 40,000 
 men, conducted by instinct as they were raised by inspi- 
 ration, but manifested in the zeal and promptitude of every 
 young member of the growing community. Let corrup- 
 
Il6 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 tion 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 free- 
 dom, 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 Parlia- 
 ment, 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 
 the good which not a minister, not a Lord North, not a 
 Lord Buckinghamshire, not a Lord Hillsborough, but a 
 certain providential conjuncture, or rather the Hand of 
 God, seems to extend to you. Nor are we only prompted 
 to this when we consider our strength ; we are challenged 
 to it when we look to Great Britain. The people of that 
 country are now waiting to hear the Parliament of Ireland 
 speak on the subject of their liberty ; it begins to be made 
 a question in England whether the principal persons wish 
 to be free : it was the delicacy of former Parliaments to be 
 silent on the subject of commercial restrictions, lest they 
 should show a knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of 
 the violation ; you have spoken out, you have shown a 
 knowledge of the fact, and not a sense of the violation. 
 On the contrary, you have returned thanks for a partial 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. II7 
 
 « 
 
 repeal made on a principle of power ; you have returned 
 thanks as for a favour, and your exultation has brought 
 your charters as wellas your spirit into question, and tends 
 to shake to her foundation your title to liberty : thus you 
 do not leave your rights where you found them. You 
 have done too much not to do more ; you have gone too 
 far not to go on ; you have brought yourselves into that 
 situation, in vvhich 3^ou must silently abdicate the rights 
 of your country, or publicly restore them. Jt is.Yery.tme 
 youjnay feed your manufacturers, and landed gentlemen 
 may get their rents, and you may export woollen, and may 
 load a vessel with baize, serges, and kerseys, and you 
 may bring back again directly from the plantations, sugar, 
 indigo, speckle-wood, beetle-root, and panellas. But 
 liberty, the foundation of trade, the charters of the land, 
 the independency of Parliament, the securing, crowning, 
 and the consummation of everything, are yet to come. 
 Without them, the work, is imperfect, the foundation 
 is wanting, the capital is wanting, trade is not free, 
 Ireland is a colony without the benefit of a charter, and you 
 are a provincial synod without the privileges of a par- 
 liament. 
 
 I read Lord North's proposition ; I wish to be satisfied, 
 but I am controlled by a paper, I will not call it a law, 
 it is the Sixth of George the First. (The paper was read.) 
 I will ask the gentlemen of the long robe is this law ? I 
 ask them whether it is not practice ? I appeal to the judges 
 of the land, whether they are not in a course of declaring 
 that the Parliament of Great Britain, naming Ireland, 
 binds her ? I appeal to the magistrates of justice, whe- 
 ther they do not, from time to time, execute certain acts 
 
Il8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of the British Parliament ? I appeal to the officers of the 
 army, whether they do not fine, confine, and execute their 
 fellow-subjects by virtue of the Mutiny Act, an act of the 
 British Parliament ; and I appeal to this House whether a 
 country so circumstanced is free. Where is the freedom 
 of trade ? where is the security of property ? where is 
 the liberty of the people ? I here, in this Declamatory 
 Act, see my country proclaimed a slave ! I see every man 
 in this House enrolled a slave ! I see the judges of the 
 realm, the oracles of the law, borne down by an 
 unauthorized foreign power, by the authority of the 
 British Parliament against the law ! I see the magis- 
 trates prostrate, and I see Parliament witness of these 
 infringements, and silent — silent, or employed to preach 
 moderation to the people, whose liberties it will not 
 restore ! — I therefore say, with the voice of 3,000,000 of 
 people, that notwithstanding the import of sugar, beetle- 
 wood, and panellas, and the export of woollens and kerseys, 
 nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honourable, nothing ex- 
 cept a Declaration of Right. What ! are you with 3 ,000,000 
 of men at your back, with charters in one hand and arms 
 in the other, afraid to say you are a free people ? Are you, 
 the greatest House of Commons that ever sat in Ireland, 
 that want but this one act to equal that English House of 
 Commons that passed the Petition of Right, or that 
 other that passed the Declaration of Right, are you afraid 
 to tell that British Parliament you are a free people } Are 
 the cities and the instructing counties, who have breathed 
 a spirit that would have done honour to old Rome when 
 Rome did honour to mankind, are they to be free by con- 
 nivance ? Are the military associations, those bodies 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. HQ 
 
 whose origin, progress, and deportment have transcended, 
 equalled at least, anything in modern or ancient story- 
 is the vast line of northern army, are they to be free by 
 connivance ? What man will settle among you ? Where 
 is the use of the Naturalization Bill ? What man will 
 settle among you ? Who will leave a land of liberty and 
 a settled Government for a kingdom controlled by the 
 Parliament of another country, whose liberty is a thing 
 by stealth, whose trade a thing by permission, whose 
 judges deny her charters, whose Parliament leaves 
 everything at random ; where the chance of freedom 
 depends upon the hope that the jury shall despise the 
 judge stating a British Act, or a rabble stop the magis- 
 trate executing it, rescue your abdicated privileges, and 
 save the Constitution by trampling on the Government, 
 by anarchy and confusion ? ^/.Ou^ciL 
 
 But I shall be told, that these are groundless jealousies, 
 and that the principal cities, and more than one half of 
 the counties of the Kingdom, are misguided men, raising 
 those groundless jealousies, ^ir, let nie become, on this . 
 ^occasion,, the p£Qple;s advoc^ and your historian; the 
 people of this country were possessed of a code of liberty 
 similar to that of Great Britain, but lost it through the 
 weakness of the kingdom and the pusillanimity of its 
 leaders. Having lost our liberty by the usurpation of the 
 British Parliament, no wonder we became a prey to her 
 ministers, and they did plunder us with all the hands 
 of all the harpies, for a series of years, in every shape of 
 power, terrifying our people with the thunder of Great 
 Britain, and bribing our leaders with the rapine of Ireland. 
 The Kingdom became a plantation, her Parliament, 
 
120 IRISH ORATORY ANt) ORATORS. 
 
 deprived of its privileges, fell into contempt ; and with the 
 legislature, the law, the spirit of liberty, with her forms, 
 vanished. If a war broke out, as in 1778, and an occasion 
 occurred to restore liberty and restrain rapine. Parliament 
 declined the opportunity ; but, with an active servility 
 and trembling loyalty, gave and granted, without regard 
 to the treasure we had left, or the rights we had lost. If 
 a partial reparation was made upon a principle of exped- 
 iency, Parliament did not receive it with the tranquil 
 dignity of an august assembly but with the alacrity of 
 slaves. 
 
 The principal individuals, possessed of great property 
 but no independency, corrupted by their extravagance, 
 or enslaved by their following a species of English factor 
 against an Irish people, more afraid of the people of Ire- 
 land than the tyranny of England, proceeded to that excess, 
 that they opposed every proposition to lessen profusion, 
 extend trade, or promote liberty ; they did more, they 
 supported a measure which, at one blow, put an end to 
 all trade ; they did more, they brought you to a con- 
 dition which they themselves did unanimously acknow- 
 ledge a state of impending ruin ; they did this, talking 
 as they are now talking, arguing against trade as they now 
 argue against liberty, threatening the people of Ireland 
 with the power of the British nation, and imploring them to 
 rest satisfied with the ruins of their trade, as they now 
 implore them to remain satisfied with the wreck of their 
 Constitution . . 
 
 Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we 
 may sicken with addresses, but the pubUc imagination will 
 never rest, nor will her heart be well at ease — never ! 
 
HENRY GR\TTAN. 121 
 
 SO long as the Parliament of England exercises or claims 
 a legislation over this country ; so long as this shall be the 
 case, that very free trade, otherwise a perpetual attach- 
 ment, will be the cause of new discontent ; it will create 
 a pride to feel the indignity of bondage ; it will furnish 
 a strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will 
 poison the good communicated. rvo " 
 
 The British minister mistakes the Irish character : ^-'^^^^■^^ 
 had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have 
 kept her a beggar ; there is no middle policy ; win her 
 heart by the restoration of her right,^er.^t off the nation's 
 right hand ; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. 
 We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she exer- 
 cises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations 
 in a state of war ; the claims of the one go against the 
 liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to 
 oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood. The 
 English opposition, therefore, are right ; mere trade 
 will not satisfy Ireland — they judge of us by other great 
 nations, by the nation whose political life has been a 
 struggle for liberty ; they judge of us with a true know- 
 ledge of, and a just deference for, our character — that a 
 country enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, 
 armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied 
 with nothing less than liberty. . 
 
 I admire that public-spirited merchant (Alderman / ' 1 ^ 
 Horan), who spread consternation at the Custom House, L >y^.k 
 and, despising the example which great men afforded,) ' 
 determined to try the question, and tendered for entry 
 what the British Parliament prohibits the subject to export, 
 some articles of silk, and sought at his private risk the 
 
122 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 liberty of his country ; with him I am convinced it is 
 necessary to agitate the question^q^ight. In vain will 
 you endeavour to keep it back, the passion is too natural, 
 the sentiment is too irresistible ; the question comes on 
 of its own vitality — you must reinstate the laws. 
 
 There is no objection to this resolution, except fears ; 
 I have examined your fears ; I pronounce them to be 
 frivolous. I might deny that the British nation was 
 attached to the idea of binding Ireland ; I might deny 
 that England was a tyrant at heart ; and I might call 
 to witness the odium of North and the popularity of 
 Chatham, her support of Holland, her contributions to 
 Corsica, and the charters communicated to Ireland ; 
 but ministers have traduced England to debase Ireland ; 
 and politicians, like priests, represent the power they serve 
 as diabolical, to possess with superstitious fears the victim 
 they design to plunder. If England is a tyrant, it is you 
 have made her so : it is the slave that makes the tyrant, 
 and then murmurs at the master whom he himself has 
 constituted. I do allow on the subject of commerce, 
 England was jealous in the extreme, and I do say it was 
 commercial jealousy, it was the spirit of monopoly (the 
 woollen trade and the Act of Navigation had made her 
 tenacious of a comprehensive legislative authority), and 
 having now ceded that monopoly, there is nothing in the 
 way of your Hberty except your own corruption and 
 pusillanimity ; and nothing can prevent your being free 
 except yourselves. It is not in the disposition of England ; 
 it is not in the interest of England ; it is not in her arms. 
 What ! can 8,000,000 of Englishmen, opposed to 
 20,000,000 of French, to 7,000,000 of Spanish, to 3,000,000 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. I23 
 
 of Americans reject the alliance of 3,000,000 in Ireland ? 
 Can 8,000,000 of British men, thus outnumbered by 
 foes, take upon their shoulders the expense of an expedi- 
 tion to enslave you ? Will Great Britain, a wise and 
 magnanimous country, thus tutored by experience and 
 wasted by war, the French navy riding in her Channel, 
 send an army to Ireland, to levy no tax, to enforce no law, 
 to answer no end whatsoever, except to spoliate the char- 
 ters of Ireland, and enforce a barren oppression ? What ! 
 has England lost thirteen provinces ? has she reconciled 
 herself to this loss, and v»dll she not be reconciled to the 
 hberty of Ireland ? Take notice that the very Constitu- 
 tion which I move you to declare. Great Britain herself 
 offered to America : it is a very instructive proceeding 
 in the British history. In 1778 a commission went out, 
 with powers to cede to the thirteen provinces of America, 
 totally and radically, the legislative authority claimed over 
 her by the British Parliament, and the Commissioners, 
 pursuant to their powers, did offer to all, or any, of the 
 American States, the total surrender of the legislative 
 authority of the British Parliament. I will read their 
 letter to the Congress. (Here the letter surrendering 
 power was read) . What ! has England offered this to the 
 resistance of America, and will she refuse it to the loyalty 
 of Ireland } Your c lears then are nothing but an habitual 
 subjugation of mind ; that subjugation of mind which 
 made you, at first, tremble at every great measure of safety ; 
 which made the principal men amongst us conceive the 
 commercial association would be a war ; that fear, which 
 made them imagine the military association had a tendency 
 to treason ; which made them think a short money-bill 
 
124 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 would be a public convulsion ; and yet these measures 
 have not only proved to be useful but are held to be mode- 
 rate, and the Parliament that adopted them, praised, 
 not for its unanimity only, but for its temper also. You 
 now wonder that you submitted for so many years to the 
 loss of the woollen trade and the deprivation of the glass 
 trade ; raised above your former abject state in com- 
 merce, you are ashamed at your past pusillanimity, so 
 when you have summoned a boldness which shall assert 
 the liberties of your country — raised by the act, and 
 reinvested, as you will be, in the glory of your ancient 
 rights and privileges, you will be surprised at yourselves, 
 who have so long submitted to their violation. (Moder- 
 ation is but a relative ternxx^or nations, like men, are only 
 safe in proportion to the spirit they put forth, and the 
 proud contemplation with which they survey themselves. 
 Conceive yourselves a plantation, ridden by an oppressive 
 Government, and everything you have done is but a for- 
 tunate phrensy ; conceive yourselves to be what you are, 
 a great, a growing, and a proud nation, and a Declaration 
 of Right is no more then the safe exercise of your indubit- 
 able authority 
 
 I shall hear of ingratitude : I name the argument to 
 despise it and the men who make use of it : I know the 
 men who use it are not grateful, they are insatiate ; they 
 are public extortioners, who would stop the tide of public 
 prosperity, and turn it to the channel of their own emolu- 
 ment : I know of no species of gratitude which should pre- 
 vent my country from being free, no gratitude, which 
 should oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of 
 robbery and usurpation, nothing is an object of gratitude 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 1 25 
 
 except the thing stolen, the charter spoliated. A nation's 
 liberty cannot, like her treasures, be meted and parcelled 
 out in gratitude ; no man can be grateful or liberal of his 
 conscience, nor woman of her honour, nor nation of her 
 liberty : there are certain unimpartable, inherent, in- 
 valuable properties, not to be alienated from the person, 
 whether body politic or body natural. With the same 
 contempt do I treat that charge which says that Ireland 
 is insatiable ; saying, that Ireland asks nothing but that 
 which Great Britain has robbed her of, her rights and 
 privileges ; to say that Ireland will not be satisfied with 
 liberty, because she is not satisfied with slavery, is folly. 
 I laugh at that man who supposes that Ireland will not be 
 content with a free trade and a free constitution ; and 
 would any man advise her to be content with less ? 
 
 I shall be told that we hazard the modification of the 
 law of Poynings' and the Judges' Bill, and the Habeas 
 Corpus Bill, and the Nullum Tempus Bill ; but I ask, 
 have you been for years begging for these little things, 
 and have not you yet been able to obtain them ? and have 
 you been contending against a little body of eighty men in 
 Privy Council assembled, convocating themselves into the 
 image of a Parliament, and ministering your high office ? 
 and you have been contending against one man, a humble 
 individual, to you a Leviathan — the English Attorney- 
 General — who advises in the case of Irish bills, and exer- 
 cises legislation in his own person, and makes your parlia- 
 mentary deliberations a blank, by altering your bills or 
 suppressing them ? and have you not yet been able to con- 
 quer this little monster ! Do you wish to know the reason ? 
 I will tell you : because you have not been a Parliament, 
 
126 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 nor your country a people. Do you wish to know the 
 remedy } — be a Parliament, become a nation, and these 
 things will follow in the train of your consequence. I 
 shall be told that titles are shaken, being vested by force 
 of English acts ; but in answer to that, I observe time 
 may be a title, acquiescence a title, forfeiture a title, but 
 an English act of Parliament certainly cannot : it is an 
 authority, which, if a judge would charge, no jury would 
 find, and which all the electors in Ireland have already 
 disclaimed unequivocally, cordially, and universally. 
 
 I shall be told that the judges will not be swayed by the 
 resolution of this House. Sir, that the judges will not be 
 borne down by the resolutions of Parliament, not founded 
 in law, I am willing to believe ; but the resolutions of 
 this House, founded in law, they will respect most exceed- 
 ingly. 
 
 The same laws, the same charters, communicate to both 
 kingdoms, Great Britain and Ireland, the same rights 
 and privileges ; and one privilege above them all is that 
 communicated by Magna Charta, by the 25th of Edward 
 the Third, and by a multitude of other statutes, " not 
 to be bound by any act except made with the archbishops, 
 bishops, earls, barons and freemen of the commonalty," 
 viz., of the Parliament of the realm. On this right of 
 exclusive legislation are founded the Petition of Right, 
 Bill of Right, Revolution and Act of Settlement. The 
 King has no other title to his crown than that which you 
 have to your liberty ; both are founded, the throne and 
 your freedom, upon the right vested in the subject to 
 resist by arms, notwithstanding their oaths of allegiance, 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. ' 1 27 
 
 any authority attempting to impose acts of power as laws, 
 whether that authority be one man or a host, the second 
 James, or the British Parliament ! 
 
 Every argument for the House of Hanover is equally 
 an argument for the liberties of Ireland : the Act of 
 Settlement is an act of rebellion, or the declaratory statute 
 of the 6th of George the First an act of usurpation ; for 
 both cannot be law. . . . 
 
 And as anything less than liberty is inadequate to Ireland, 
 so is it dangerous to Great Britain. We are too near the 
 British nation, we are too conversant with her history, 
 we are too much fired by her example, to be anything 
 less than her equal ; (anything less, we should be ^^^^gfi-^j. 
 bitterest enemiesVan enemy to that power which smote l^ \ 
 us with her mace, and to that Constitution from whose 
 blessings we were excluded : to be ground as we have 
 been by the British nation, bound by her Parliament, 
 plundered by her crown, threatened by her enemies, 
 insulted with her protection, while we returned thanks for 
 her condescension, is a system of meanness and misery 
 which has expired in our determination, as I hope it has 
 in her magnanimity. 
 
 There is no policy left for Great Britain but to cherish 
 the remains of her empire, and do justice to a country 
 who is determined to do justice to herself, certain that 
 she gives nothing equal to what she received from us 
 when we gave her Ireland. 
 
 With regard to this country, England must resort to 
 the free principles of government, and must forget that 
 legislative power which she has exercised to do mischief 
 to herself ; she must go back to freedom, which, as it 
 
128 IRISH OR.\TORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 is the foundation of her Constitution, so is it the main 
 pillar of her empire ; it is not merely the connection of 
 the crown, it is a constitutional annexation, an alliance of 
 liberty, which is the true meaning and mystery of the 
 sisterhood, and will make both countries one arm and one 
 soul, replenishing from time to time, in their immortal 
 connection, the vital spirit of law and liberty from the 
 lamp of each other's light ; thus combined by the ties 
 of common interest, equal trade and equal liberty, the 
 Constitution of both countries may become immortal, a 
 new and milder empire may arise from the errors of the 
 old, and the British nation assume once more her natural 
 station — the head of mankind. 
 
 That there are precedents against us I allow — acts of 
 power I would call them, not precedents ; and I answer 
 the English pleading such precedents, as they answered 
 their kings when they urged precedents against the liber- 
 ties of England : Such things are the weakness of the 
 times ; the tyranny of one side, the feebleness of the other, 
 the law of neither ; we will not be bound by them ; or 
 rather, in the words of the Declaration of Right, "no doing 
 judgment, proceeding, or anywise to the contrary, shall 
 be brought into precedent or example." Do not then 
 tolerate a power — the power of the British Parliament 
 over this land, which has no foundation in utility or 
 necessity, or empire, or the laws of England, or the laws 
 of Ireland, or the laws of nature, or the laws of God — 
 do not suffer it to have a duration in your mind. 
 
 Do not tolerate that power which blasted you for a 
 century, that power which shattered your loom, banished 
 your manufactures, dishonoured your peerage, and 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 1 29 
 
 Stopped the growth of your people ; do not, I say, be 
 bribed by an export of woollen, or an import of sugar, and 
 permit that power which has thus withered the land to 
 remain in your country and have existence in your 
 pusillanimity. 
 
 Do not suffer the arrogance of England to imagine a 
 surviving hope in the fears of Ireland ; do not send the 
 people to their own resolves for liberty, passing by the 
 tribunals of justice and the high court of Parliament ; 
 neither imagine that, by any formation of apology, you 
 can palliate such a commission to your hearts, still less 
 to your children, who will sting you with their curses in 
 your grave for having interposed between them and their 
 Maker, robbing them of an immense occasion, and losing 
 an opportunity which you did not create, and can never 
 restore. 
 
 Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age 
 of thraldom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, com- 
 mercial redress, and miraculous armament, shall the 
 historian stop at liberty, and observe — that here the 
 principal men among us fell into mimic trances of grati- 
 tude — they were awed by a w^eak ministry, and bribed 
 by an empty treasury — and when liberty was within their 
 grasp, and the temple opened her folding doors, and the 
 arms of the people clanged, and the zeal of the nation 
 urged and encouraged them on, that they fell down, and 
 were prostituted at the threshold. 
 
 I might, as a constituent, come to your bar, and demand 
 my liberty. I do call upon you, by the laws of the land 
 and their violation, by the instruction of eighteen counties, 
 by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present 
 
130 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 moment, tell us the rule by which we shall go — assert the 
 law of Ireland — declare the liberty of the land. 
 
 I will not be answered by a public lie, in the shape of 
 an amendment ; neither, speaking for the subjects' free- 
 ^ft^^ dom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to 
 breathe, in this our island, in common with my fellow- 
 subjects, the air of liberty. (l have no ambition, unless 
 ^t be the ambition to break your chain, and contemplate 
 TOUT glory. ^ I never will be satisfied so long as the 
 meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain 
 clanking to his rags ; he may be naked, he shall not be in 
 iron ; and I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone 
 forth, the declaration is planted ; and though great men 
 should apostatize, yet the cause will live ; (and though the 
 public speaker should die,| yet the immortal fire shall out- 
 last the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, 
 like the word of the holy man, will not die with the 
 prophet, but survive him. 
 
 I shall move you, " That the King's most excellent 
 Majesty, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the 
 only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland." 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION* 
 
 1782. — (February 20). 
 
 The question is now, whether we shall grant Roman 
 Catholics the power of enjoying estates — 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 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 13I 
 
 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 has become a bird, it must burst 
 the shell or perish in it. 
 
 RIGHTS OF IRELAND. 
 
 1782. — (February 22). 
 
 This brings the claim of England to a mere question 
 of force. It is a right which Swift, I think it is Swift, 
 has explained — the right of the grenadier to take the 
 property of a naked man. I add, this man has now gotten 
 back his arms, and begs to get back his property. 
 
 Before you decide on the practicability of being slaves 
 for ever, look to America. Do you see nothing in that 
 America but the grave and prison of your armies ? Do 
 you not see in her range of territory, cheapness of living, 
 variety of climate, and simplicity of life — the drain of 
 Europe ? Whatever is bold and disconsolate, sullen 
 virtue and w^ounded pride ; all, all to that point will 
 precipitate ; and what you trample on in Europe will 
 sting you in America. 
 
 TRIUMPH OF IRISH INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 April 16, 1782, is one of the memorable dates in Irish 
 history. Despite physical suffering, and a skilfully con- 
 ducted opposition, Henry Grattan redeemed the pledge 
 he had given, March, 14th, when he declared he would 
 
132 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 again bring before the House the question of legislative 
 independence. He demanded repeal of : — The Declaratory 
 Statute, George I., The Perpetual Munit}^ Bill, and abolition 
 of the unconstitutional powers of the Privy Council. His 
 resolutions were triumphantly carried. 
 
 I am now to address a free people : ages have passed 
 away, and this is the first moment in which you could 
 be distinguished by that appellation. 
 
 I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, 
 that I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by 
 what heaven-directed steps you have proceeded until the 
 whole faculty of the nation is braced up to the act of her 
 own deliverance. 
 
 I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with 
 a paternal solicitude ; I have traced her progress from 
 injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of 
 Swift ! spirit of Molyneux ! your genius has prevailed. 
 Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her, 
 and bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto perpetua I 
 
 She is no longer a wretched colony, returning thanks 
 to her governor for his rapine, and to her king for his 
 oppression ; nor is she now a squabbling, fretful sectary, 
 perplexing her little wits, and firing her furious statutes 
 with bigotry, sophistry, disabilities, and death, to transmit 
 to posterity insignificance and war 
 
 You, with difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a 
 few, have done what your ancestors wished, but could not 
 accomplish ; and what your posterity may preserve, 
 but will never equal : you have moulded the jarring 
 elements of your country into a nation. You had not the 
 advantages which were common to other great countries ; 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 133 
 
 no monuments, no trophies, none of those outward and 
 visible signs of greatness, such as inspire mankind and 
 connect the ambition of the age which is coming on with 
 the example of that going off, and form the descent and 
 concatenation of glory : no ; you have not had any great 
 act recorded among all your misfortunes, nor have you 
 one public tomb to assemble the crowd, and spread to the 
 living the language of integrity and freedom. 
 
 Your historians did not supply the want of monuments ; 
 on the contrary, these narrators of your misfortunes, who 
 should have felt for your wrongs, and have punished your 
 oppressors with oppressions, natural scourges, the moral 
 indignation of history, compromised with public villainy 
 and trembled ; they excited your violence, they sup- 
 pressed your provocation, and wrote in the chain which 
 entrammelled their country. I am come to break that 
 chain, and I congratulate my country, who, without any 
 of the advantages I speak of, going forth, as it were, with 
 nothing but a stone and a sHng, and what oppression 
 could not take away, the favour of Heaven, accomplished 
 her own redemption, and left you nothing to add and 
 everything to admire. 
 
 IRISH FEELING. 
 
 1785. — (September 6). 
 
 Regard, I acknowledge, should be constantly had 
 to the general welfare of the whole empire, whenever it 
 is really concerned ; but let me add, that general welfare 
 should never be made a pretence, nor be artificially and 
 
134 IK^^SH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 wantonly introduced ; and in an arrangement, where 
 Irish trade is professedly the subject, that trade ought to 
 be expressly the object. I laugh at those Irish gentlemen 
 who talk as if they were the representatives of something 
 higher than their native land — the representatives of 
 empire, not of Ireland ; but so talking and so acting, 
 they will be in fact the representatives of their salary. 
 Let me tell those gentlemen, if they are not Irishmen, 
 they are nothing ; and if we are not the representatives 
 of Ireland, we are nothing. 
 • . • ■ • • • • 
 
 Let me, therefore, caution my country against the revival 
 of this bill, and against those arguments which have a 
 tendency to put down the pretensions of Ireland, and 
 humble the pride of the Irish nation. Public pride is the 
 best champion of public liberty Cherish it, for if ever 
 this kingdom shall fall in her own esteem, shall labour 
 under a prepossession of impotence, shall conceive she 
 cannot have the necessaries of life or manufacture, but 
 from the charity of another country, in short, that God 
 and nature have put her in a state of physical bondage, 
 I say, if once this becomes her sentiment, your laws are 
 nothing, your charters are paper, and Ireland is a slave 
 with Magna Charta in her hand. Let us not then put 
 down our native land, and rob her of her pride to rob 
 her of her Constitution. 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 1 35 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 1788. — (February 14). 
 
 Let bigotry and schism, the zealot's fire, the high- 
 priest's intolerance, through all their discordancy, tremble, 
 while an enlightened Parliament, with arms of general 
 protection, overarches the whole community, and roots 
 the Protestant ascendency in the sovereign mercy of its 
 nature. Laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly 
 severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine 
 of power you have hitherto kept back ; that engine which 
 the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the 
 ambition of the high-priest, nor the arsenal of the con- 
 queror, nor the inquisition, with its jaded rack and 
 pale criminal, never thought of ; the engine which, armed 
 with physical and moral blessings, comes forth and overlays 
 mankind by services — the engine of redress : this is govern- 
 ment, and this the only description of government worth 
 your ambition. Were I to raise you to a great act, I should 
 not recur to the history of other nations ; I would recite 
 your own acts, and set you in emulation with yourselves. 
 Do you remember that night when you gave your country 
 a free trade, and with your own hands opened all her 
 harbours ? That night when you gave her a free Con- 
 stitution, and broke the chains of a century, while England 
 eclipsed at your glory, and your island rose as it were from 
 its bed, and got nearer the sun ? In the arts that 
 polish life, the inventions that accommodate, the manu- 
 factures that adorn it, you will be for many years inferior 
 to some other parts of Europe ; but, to nurse a growing 
 
136 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 people, to mature a struggling, though hardy community, 
 to mould, to multiply, to consolidate, to inspire, and to 
 exalt a young nation, be these your barbarous accomplish- 
 ments ! 
 
 SPEECH ON THE ADDRESS. 
 1792. — On Dr. Kirwan. 
 
 The curse of Swift is upon him — to have been born an 
 Irishman ; to have possessed a genius, and to have used 
 his talents for the good of his country. 
 
 AGAINST THE UNION. 
 1800. — (January 15). 
 
 It is not the Isle of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, 
 the Mysore country, nor the dominions of Tippoo, nor 
 yet the feathers of her western wing, that engage the atten- 
 tion or interests of Ireland ; it is her own freedom and 
 Constitution ; it is our own idea of that internal freedom 
 and Constitution, not such as British ministers, who have 
 invaded that Constitution, shall hold forth ; nor such 
 as English or Scotch metaphysicians, who made chains for 
 America, and called them her Constitution, and who are 
 ready now to cast links for Ireland ; but that Constitution 
 which she herself, Ireland, feels, comprehends, venerates, 
 and claims ; such as she herself expressed in her convention 
 at Dungannon, and through all her counties and cities, 
 and in every description and association of people, and 
 afterwards in full ParHament claimed, carried, registered, 
 
HENRY GRi\TTAN. I37 
 
 and recorded. It is for the preservation of this Constitu- 
 tion that she is interested in British wars. She considers 
 the British empire a great western barrier against invasion 
 from other countries. Invasion on what ? Invasion on 
 her Uberties, on her rights and privileges ; invasion 
 on self-legislation, the parent and protectress of them all. 
 She hears the ocean protesting against separation, but she 
 hears the sea likewise protesting against Union ; she fol- 
 lows, therefore, her physical destination, and obeys the 
 dispensations of Providence, when she protests, like that 
 sea, against the two situations, both equally unnatural, 
 
 separation and Union 
 
 I will not say that one hundred Irish gentlemen will 
 act ill, where any man would act well ; but never was 
 there a situation in which they had so much temptation 
 to act ill, and so little to act well ; great expense and con- 
 sequent distresses ; no support from the voice of an Irish 
 public ; no check ; they will be in situation a sort of 
 gentlemen of the empire ; that is to say, gentlemen at 
 large, absent from one country, and unelected by the 
 other — suspended between both, and belonging to neither. 
 The sagacious English Secretary of State has foretold 
 this : " What advantage," says he, " will it be to the 
 talents of Ireland, this opportunity in the British empire 
 thus opened ? " That is what we dread. The market of 
 St. Stephen opened to the individual, and the talents of 
 the country, like its property, dragged from the kingdom 
 of Ireland to be sold in London ; these men, from their 
 situation (man is the child of situation), their native 
 honour may struggle ; but from their situation, they will 
 be adventurers of the most expensive kind ; adventurers 
 
138 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 with pretensions, dressed and sold, as it were, in the shrouds 
 and grave-clothes of the Irish Parliament, and playing for 
 hire their tricks on her tomb, the only repository the 
 minister will allow to an Irish Constitution, the images of 
 degradation, and the representatives of nothing. 
 
 AGAINST THE UNION. 
 
 1800. — (March 19). 
 
 In their attempt to prove this Union a measure of 
 identification, they have been no less unfortunate ; these 
 cities, and six and twenty counties, petitioning against it, 
 remonstrating against it, exclaiming against it, prove 
 that it cannot be a measure of identification. You cannot 
 identify or bind two people together by mere operation 
 of parchment or paper ; the will of the parties is essential 
 to marriage, national or personal ; between the buyer 
 and the bought, between the oppressor and the oppressed, 
 between the conqueror and the conquered, there can be 
 no identification. This Union, forced against the sense 
 of the people, by terror and by money, would be an act 
 of oppression, of purchase, and of conquest ; the means 
 taken to force the Union, render the identification of 
 peoples impossible ; indeed the Union does not profess to 
 be an identification ; it is not an identification of executive. 
 You are to have two courts, a viceroy or justices, and their 
 separate establishments, a separate treasury, a separate 
 revenue, with its distinct patronage and expense, and a 
 separate and distinct regulation for trade and commerce ; 
 you are to be governed by distinct laws (what is the 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. 1 39 
 
 Martial Bill of the other night ?) and by a distinct spirit 
 and principle administering those laws. The temper 
 and spirit with which administration speak of the people 
 of Ireland, prove that they think them a different people, 
 of different manners, different views, and different 
 natures, to be governed on different principles. What are 
 those principles ? The principles of conquest for the 
 Irish, the principles of hostility for the Irish. 
 
 The advocates of the Union have failed in that part 
 of their argument which relates to commerce even more 
 than any other. Instead of promoting your manufactures, 
 to compensate for the loss of your Parliament, they tell 
 you now that it is of very little consequence whether you 
 have any manufactures or not ; they tell you it is of very 
 little consequence where the manufactures of the empire 
 are disposed, and that if England be more formed for the 
 cotton manufacture, and so on, that manufacture and the 
 others should reside in England exclusively. We conceived 
 at first that the manufacturer was to be the great object of 
 those who promoted the Union ; we now find that it is 
 the consumer. In short, that idea of converting this 
 country into a land of manufacturers to atone for the 
 loss of a resident gentry is abandoned, and we are novv 
 to have neither a resident gentry nor manufacturers. 
 All the policy of nursing our growing fabrics, and thereby 
 of improving the industry of the country, employing 
 her children and expending her wealth upon her own 
 labour, is now abandoned, and the language of the Union 
 is : Buy where you can and as cheap as you can, and if the 
 English market be cheaper, resort to that market in 
 
140 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 preference to your own. Accordingly, it is proposed to 
 reduce the protecting duties in seventy instances, to loj 
 per cent, for the next twenty years, and after that to reduce 
 them to nothing. Observe that this injury, or at least this 
 danger, is the great bonus for the Union ; you are 
 called upon to declare, that the high duties under which 
 those manufactures have flourished, have not only been an 
 injury to your commerce, but so great an injury, that 
 you should get rid of your Parliament, in order to get rid 
 of those duties. You are called upon to declare, contrary 
 to experience, that your manufactures have been prejudiced 
 by those high duties ; you are called upon to declare, 
 contrary to evidence, that your manufactures can flourish 
 hereafter without them ; and you are called upon to 
 declare, supposing those duties to be mischievous, that 
 they cannot be reduced by your own ParHament. Never 
 was a proposition so audacious, to call upon a country to 
 give up at the same time her constitutional and her com- 
 mercial securities, and to inform her at the same time 
 that she is to make such a surrender with a view to 
 enlarge her liberty and her commerce. 
 
 AGAINST THE UNION. 
 
 1800.— (May 26). 
 
 The Constitution may for a time be so lost ; the character 
 of the country cannot be so lost. The ministers of the 
 Crown will, or may, perhaps, at length find that it is not 
 so easy to put down for ever an ancient and respectable 
 nation, by abilities, however great, and by power and bv 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. I4I 
 
 corruption, however irresistible. Liberty may repair 
 her golden beams, and with redoubled heat animate the 
 country : the cry of loyalty will not long continue against 
 the principles of liberty ; loyalty is a noble, a judicious 
 and a capacious principle, but in these countries loyalty, 
 distinct from liberty, is corruption, not loyalty. 
 
 The cry of the connection will not, in the end, avail 
 against the principles of liberty. Connection is a wise 
 and a profound policy ; but connection without an Irish 
 Parliament is connection without its own principle, with- 
 out analogy of condition, without the pride of honour 
 that should attend it ; is innovation, is peril, is subjuga 
 tion — not connection. 
 
 The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against 
 the principles of liberty. 
 
 Identification is a solid and imperial maxim, necessary 
 for the preservation of freedom, necessary for that of 
 empire ; but, without union of hearts — with a separate 
 Government — and without a separate Parliament, identifi- 
 cation is extinction, is dishonour, is conquest — not identi- 
 fication. 
 
 Yet I do not give up the country. I see her in a swoon, 
 but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless 
 and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, 
 and on her cheek a glow of beauty — 
 
 " Thou are not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet 
 Is crimson in thy hps, and in thy cheeks, 
 And death's pale flag is not advanced there." 
 
 While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave 
 her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry 
 the light bark of his faith, with every new breath of wind. 
 
142 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 I will remain anchored here, with fidelity to the fortune 
 of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her 
 fall. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 1805.— (May 13). 
 
 The Parliament of Ireland did risk everything, and are 
 now nothing ; and in their extinction left this instruction, 
 not to their posterity for they have none, but to you, 
 who come in the place of their posterity, not to depend 
 on a sect of religion, nor trust the final issue of your 
 fortunes to anything less than the whole of your people. 
 
 The Parliament of Ireland — of that assembly I have 
 a parental recollection. I sate by her cradle, I followed 
 her hearse. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 
 1808.— (May 25). 
 
 With such hope, therefore, I wish gentlemen to apply 
 the balm of oblivion, and not revive topics, which can 
 only serve to irritate and inflame ; that they will not go 
 back to the battle of the Boyne, nor to the scenes of 1641, 
 nor to any of those afflicting periods, in which both parties 
 contended against each other. If you go back, so will the 
 Catholics ; if you make out a law against them, they will 
 make out a case against you ; we shall have historian 
 against historian, man of blood against man of blood. 
 The parties will remain unreconciled, and irreconcilable ; 
 
HENRY GRATTAN. I43 
 
 each the victim of their own prejudices ; and the result 
 will convince you that the victory remains only for the 
 enemies of both. 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION. 
 1 812. — (April 23). 
 
 Before you dismiss the petitions, let us see who 
 is the petitioner. The kingdom of Ireland, with her 
 imperial crown, stands at your bar ; she applies for the 
 civil liberty of three-fourths of her children. She pays 
 you in annual revenue about six millions ; she pays you 
 in interest of debt about three ; in rent of absentees, about 
 two ; and in commerce about ten. Above twenty million 
 of money is comprehended in that denomination called 
 Ireland ; besides the immeasurable supply of men and 
 provisions, you quadruple her debt, you add three-fold 
 to her taxes, you take away her Parliament, and send her 
 from your bar without a hearing, and with three-fourths of 
 her people disqualified for ever. You cannot do it ; I say 
 you cannot finally do it. The interest of your country 
 would not support you ; the feelings of your country 
 would not support you : it is a proceeding that cannot 
 long be persisted in. No courtier so devoted, no poli- 
 tician so hardened, no conscience so capacious. I am 
 not afraid of occasional majorities ; I remember in 1782, 
 to have been opposed by a court majority, and to have 
 beaten down that court majority. I remember, on a 
 similar occasion, to have stood with twenty-five, opposed 
 to a strong majority, and to have overcome that immense 
 
144 ^^^SH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 majority. A majority cannot overlay a great principle. 
 God will guard his own cause against rank majorities. 
 In vain shall men appeal to a church-cry, or to a mock- 
 thunder : the proprietor of the bolt is on the side of the 
 people. 
 
 • ' 
 
[ HS 3 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN (1750-1817). 
 
 ON PENSIONS. 
 In the House of Commons, March 13, 1786. 
 
 England having yielded to force in 1782, determined 
 to undermine the loyalty of the Volunteer leaders and of the 
 Irish representatives by means of a fund instituted for 
 pensions. 
 
 This polyglot of wealth, this museum of curiosities, the 
 pension list, embraces every link in the human chain, 
 every description of men, women, and children, from the 
 exalted excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney, to the debased 
 situation of the lady who humbleth herself that she 
 may be exalted. But the lessons it inculcates form 
 its greatest perfection : it teacheth, that sloth and vice 
 may eat that bread which virtue and honesty may starve 
 for after they have earned it. It teaches the idle and 
 dissolute to look up for that support which they are too 
 proud to stoop and earn. It directs the minds of men to 
 an entire reliance on the ruling powers of the state, who 
 feed the ravens of the royal aviary, that cry continually 
 for food. It teaches them to imitate those saints on the 
 pension list that are like the lilies of the field, they toil 
 not, neither do they spin, and yet are arrayed like Solomon 
 in his glory. In fine, it teaches a lesson, which indeed 
 
146 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 they might have learned from Epictetus, that it is some- 
 times good not to be over virtuous : it shows, that in 
 proportion as our distresses increase, the munificence of 
 the Crown increases also, in proportion as our clothes are 
 rent, the royal mantle is extended over us. 
 
 But notwithstanding that the pension list, like charity, 
 covers a multitude of sins, give me leave to consider it as 
 coming home to the members of this House, give me leave 
 to say, that the Crown, in extending its charity, its 
 liberality, its profusion, is laying a foundation for the 
 independence of Parliament ; for hereafter, instead of 
 orators or patriots accounting for their conduct to such 
 mean and unworthy persons as freeholders, they will learn 
 to despise them, and look to the first man in the State ; 
 and they will by so doing have this security for their 
 independence, that while any man in the kingdom has a 
 shilling, they will not want one. 
 
 Suppose at any future period of time the boroughs of 
 Ireland should decline from their present flourishing and 
 prosperous state — suppose they should fall into the hands 
 of men who would wish to drive a profitable commerce, 
 by having members of Parliament to hire or let ; in such 
 a case a secretary would find great difficulty, if the pro- 
 prietors of members should enter into a combination to 
 form a monopoly * to prevent which in time, the wisest 
 way is to purchase up the raw material, young members 
 of Parliament, just rough from the grass ; and when they 
 are a little bitted, and he has got a pretty stud, perhaps 
 of seventy, he may laugh at the slave merchant ; some 
 of them he may teach to sound through the nose, like a 
 barrel organ : some, in the course of a few months, might 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN I47 
 
 be taught to cry, '' Hear ! hear ! " some, " Chair ! chair ! " 
 upon occasion — though those latter might create a little 
 confusion, if they were to forget whether they were calling 
 inside or outside of those doors. Again, he might have 
 some so trained that he need only pull a string, and up 
 gets a repeating member ; and if they were so dull that 
 they could neither speak nor make orations (for they are 
 different things), he might have them taught to dance, 
 pedibus ire in sententia. This improvement might be 
 extended : he might have them dressed in coats and 
 shirts all of one colour ; and, of a Sunday, he might 
 march them to church two by two, to the great edifica- 
 tion of the people, and the honour of the Christian reli- 
 gion ; afterwards, like ancient Spartans, or the fraternity 
 of Kilmainham, they might dine all together in a large 
 hall. Good heaven ; what a sight to see them feeding in 
 public upon public viands, and talking of public subjects 
 for the benefit of the public ! It is a pity they are not 
 immortal ; but I hope they will flourish as a corporation, 
 and that pensioners will beget pensioners, to the end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 FOR ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN. 
 
 (January 29, 1794.) 
 
 " The greatest speech of an advocate in ancient and 
 modern times." — Brougham. 
 
 This speech and another on the same subject a few days 
 later are amongst the happiest efforts of Curran's genius, 
 not only for the swift grasp of essentials, the method and 
 
148 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 mastership of argument, but also for the eloquence of the 
 passages in defence of the Volunteers, universal emanci- 
 pation, the liberty of the Press, and for the scathing 
 arraignment of corruption, which ensure them immortaHty. 
 
 The Castle, now thinking itself strong enough to take 
 overt measures against the Volunteers, who were showing 
 a leaning towards revolutionary France, issued in the autumn 
 of 1792 a Proclamation for repressing seditious associations, 
 and another was published in England embodying the 
 MiHtia, while the famiUar methods of intimidation were 
 lavishly employed. The immediate pretext for the prose- 
 cution of Hamilton Rowan, Secretary of the United Irish- 
 men, was an appeal to the Volunteers drawn up by Dr. 
 William Drennan, chairman, and signed by Rowan. In 
 consequence, a public meeting of the Dublin Volunteers 
 was held at a fencing school in Cope Street for the purpose 
 of distributing this document to the various corps. 
 
 Taking as its text the previous proclamations, it calls 
 on the Volunteers to arm for the preservation of peace, 
 and pertinently asks : " From whence but from appre- 
 hended danger are these menacing preparations for war 
 drawn through the streets of this capital ? From whence, 
 if not to create that internal commotion which was not 
 found — to shake that credit which was not affected — to 
 blast that volunteer honour which was hitherto inviolate — 
 are those terrible suggestions, and rumours and whispers, 
 that meet us at every corner, and agitate at least our old 
 men, our women, and our children ? Whatever be the 
 motive, or from whatever quarter it arises, alarm has arisen ; 
 and you. Volunteers of Ireland, are therefore summoned 
 to arms at the instance of Government, as well as by the 
 responsibility attached to your character, and the permanent 
 obligations of your institution. . . . Citizen Soldiers, 
 to arms ! Take up the shield of freedom and the pledges 
 of peace — peace the motive and end of your virtuous insti- 
 tution. War, an occasional duty, ought never to be made 
 an occupation ; every man should become a soldier in the 
 defence of his rights — no man ought to continue a soldier for 
 offending the rights of others. The sacrifice of Hfe in the 
 ?t rvice Oi or- cc r r.tr} is a duty much too honourable to be 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. I49 
 
 entrusted to mercenaries, and at this time, when our 
 country has, by public authority, been declared in danger, 
 we conjure you by your interest, your duty and your glory, 
 to stand to your arms, and in spite of a police — in spite of 
 a fencible militia — in virtue of two proclamations, so main- 
 tain good order in your vicinage and tranquillity in Ireland. 
 It is only by the military array of men in whom they con- 
 fide . . . that the present agitation of the people 
 can be stilled, that tumult and Hc-entiousness can be re- 
 pressed, obedience secured to existing law, and a calm 
 confidence diffused through the pubHc mind, in the speedy 
 resurrection of a free Constitution, of liberty, and of equality 
 — words which we use for an opportunity of repelling 
 calumny, and of saying that by liberty we never under- 
 stood unhmited freedom, nor by equaUty, the levelHng of 
 property, or the destruction of subordination. This is a 
 calumny invented by that faction, or that gang, which mis- 
 represents the King to the people and the people to the 
 King ; traduces one half of the nation to cajole the other ; 
 and, by keeping up mistrust and division, wishes to 
 continue the proud arbitrators of the fortune and fate of 
 Ireland. ... If our Constitution be imperfect, nothing 
 but a reform in representation will rectify its abuses ; 
 .... The CathoHc cause is subordinate to our cause, 
 and included in it ; for, as United Irishmen, we adhere 
 to no sect, but to society — to no cause but Christianity — 
 to no party, but the whole people. In the sincerity of our 
 souls do we desire Catholic emancipation ; but were it 
 obtained to-morrow, to-morrow would we go on as we do 
 to-day, in the pursuit of that reform, which would still 
 be wanting to ratify their Hberties as well as our own. 
 . . . The nation is neither insolent nor rebellious, nor 
 seditious ; while it knows its rights it is unwilling to mani- 
 fest its powers ; it would rather suppHcate administration 
 to anticipate revolution by well-timed reform, and to save 
 their country in mercy to themselves. The^ fifteenth of 
 February approaches — a day ever memorable in the annals 
 of the country as the birth day of a new Ireland. I^t 
 parochial meetings be held as soon as possible ; let each 
 parish return delegates ; let the sense of Ulster be again 
 
150 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 declared from Dungannon on a day auspicious to union, 
 peace, and freedom ; and the spirit of the north will again 
 become the spirit of the nation." 
 
 Having reviewed the history of the case, Curran goes 
 into its legal aspects, divides the Appeal under four heads : — 
 The invitation to the Volunteers to arm — the necessity of 
 reform — emancipation of the Catholics — and the necessity 
 of a general delegated convention of the people — he takes 
 up and justifies each point in detail. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, when I consider the period at 
 which this prosecution is brought forward ; when I 
 behold the extraordinary safe-guard of armed soldiers 
 resorted to, no doubt for the preservation of peace and 
 order ; when I catch, as I cannot but do, the throb of public 
 anxiety which beats from one end to the other of this 
 hall ; when I reflect on what may be the fate of a man 
 of the most beloved personal character, of one of the most 
 respectable families of our country — himself the only 
 individual of that family — I may almost say of that country 
 — who can look to that possible fate v/ith unconcern ? 
 Feeling as I do all these impressions, it is in the honest 
 simiplicity of my heart I speak, when I say, that I never 
 rose in a court of justice with so much embarrassment 
 as upon this occasion. 
 
 If, gentlemen, I could entertain a hope of finding 
 refuge for the disconcertion of my mind in the perfect 
 composure of yours — if I could suppose that those awful 
 vicissitudes of human events, which have been stated or 
 alluded to, could leave your judgment undisturbed, and 
 your hearts at ease, I know I should form a most erroneous 
 opinion of your character. I entertain no such chimerical 
 hope — I form no such unworthy opinion. I expect 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 15I 
 
 not that your hearts can be more at ease than my own — I 
 have no right to expect it ; but I have a right to call upon 
 you, in the name of your country, in the name of the 
 living God, of whose eternal justice you are now adminis- 
 tering that portion which dwells with us on this side of 
 the grave, to discharge your breasts, as far as you are 
 able, of every bias of prejudice or passion, that if my 
 client be guilty of the offence charged upon him, you 
 may give tranquillity to the public, by a firm verdict of 
 conviction ; or, if he be innocent, by as firm a verdict of 
 acquittal ; and that you vvill do this in defiance of the 
 paltry artifices and senseless clamours that have been 
 resorted to in order to bring him to his trial with antici- 
 pated conviction. And, gentlemen, I feel an additional 
 necessity in thus conjuring you to be upon your guard, 
 from the able and imposing statement which you have 
 just heard on the part of the prosecution (the late Lord 
 Kilwarden, then Attorney-General Wolfe) I know how 
 much he would disdain to impose on you by the trappings 
 of office ; but I also know how easily we mistake the 
 lodgment which character and eloquence can make upon 
 our feelings, for those impressions that reason, and fact, 
 and proof, only ought to work upon our understandings. 
 
 Perhaps, gentlemen, I shall act not unwisely in waiving 
 any further observation of this sort, and giving your minds 
 an opportunity of growing cool and resuming themselves, 
 by coming to a calm and uncoloured statement of mere 
 facts, premising only to you, that I have it in strictest 
 injunction from my cUent, to defend him upon facts and 
 evidence only, and to avail myself of no technical artifice 
 or subtlety that could withdraw his cause from the test 
 
152 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of that inquiry which it is your province to exercise, and 
 to which only he wishes to be indebted for an acquittal. 
 
 In the month of December, 1792, Mr. Rowan was ar- 
 rested on an information, charging him with the offence 
 for which he is now on his trial. He was taken before 
 an honourable personage now on that bench, and ad- 
 mitted to bail. 
 
 He remained a considerable time in this city, soliciting 
 the present prosecution, and offering himself to fair trial 
 by a jury of his country. But it was not then thought 
 fit to yield to that solicitation ; nor has it now been thought 
 proper to prosecute him in the ordinary way, by sending 
 up a bill of indictment to a grand jury. 
 
 I do not mean by this to say that informations ex-officio 
 are always oppressive or unjust ; but I cannot but observe 
 to you, that when a petty jury is called upon to try 
 a charge not previously found by the grand inquest, and 
 supported by the naked assertion only of the King's 
 prosecutor, that the accusation labours under a weakness 
 of probability which it is difficult to assist. If the charge 
 had no cause of dreading the light — if it was likely to 
 find the sanction of a grand jury — it is not easy to account 
 why it deserted the more usual, the more popular, and the 
 more constitutional mode, and preferred to come forward 
 in the ungracious form of an ex-officio information. 
 
 If such a bill had been sent up and found, Mr. Rowan 
 would have been tried at the next commission ; but a 
 speedy trial was not the wish of his prosecutors. An 
 information was filed, and when he expected to be tried 
 upon it, an error, it seems, was discovered in the record. 
 Mr. Rowan offered to waive it, or consent to anv amend- 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 53 
 
 ment desired. No, that proposal could not be accepted : 
 a trial must have followed. The information, therefore, 
 was withdrawn, and a new one filed, that is in fact, a 
 third prosecution was instituted upon the same charge. 
 This last was filed on the 8th day of last July. 
 
 Gentlemen, these facts cannot fail of a due impression 
 upon you. You will find a material part of your inquiry 
 must be, whether Mr. Rowan is pursued as a criminal, 
 or hunted down as a victim. It is not, therefore, by in- 
 sinuation or circuity, but it is boldly and directly that I 
 assert, that oppression has been intended and practised 
 upon him, and by those facts which I have stated, I am 
 warranted in the assertion. 
 
 His demand, his entreaty to be tried was refused, and 
 why ? A hue and cry was to be raised against him ; the 
 sword was to be suspended over his head ; some time 
 was necessary for the public mind to become heated by 
 the circulation of artful clamours of anarchy and rebellion. 
 These same clamours which with more probability, but 
 not more success, had been circulated before through 
 England and Scotland. In this country the causes and 
 the swiftness of their progress were as obvious as their 
 folly has since become to every man of the smallest obser- 
 vation 
 
 Such are the bugbears and spectres to be raised to war- 
 rant the sacrifice of whatever little public spirit may 
 remain amongst us. But time has also detected the im- 
 posture of these " Cock-lane apparitions " ; and you 
 cannot now, with your eyes open, give a verdict, without 
 asking your consciences this question : — Is this a fair and 
 honest prosecution ? Is it brought forward with the 
 
154 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 single view of vindicating public justice, and promoting 
 public good ? And here let me remind you, that you 
 are not convened to try the guilt of a libel, affecting the 
 personal character of any private man. I know no case 
 in which a jury ought to be more severe, than where 
 personal calumny is conveyed through a vehicle w^hich 
 ought to be consecrated to public information. Neither, 
 on the other hand, can I conceive any case in which the 
 firmness and the caution of a jury should be more exerted, 
 than when a subject is prosecuted for a libel on the State. 
 The peculiarity of the British Constitution (to which in its 
 fullest extent, we have an undoubted right, however 
 distant we may be from the actual enjoyment), and in 
 which it surpasses every known government in Europe, 
 is this, that its only professed object is the general good, 
 and its only foundation the general will ; hence the people 
 have a right acknowledged from time immemorial, forti- 
 fied by a pile of statutes, and authenticated by a revolution 
 that speaks louder than them all, to see whether abuses 
 have been committed, and whether their properties and 
 their liberties have been attended to as they ought to be. 
 
 This is a kind of subject by which I feel myself over- 
 awed when I approach it ; there are certain fundamental 
 principles which nothing but necessity should expose 
 to public examination ; they are pillars, the depth of 
 whose foundation you cannot explore, without endan- 
 gering their strength ; but let it be recollected, that the 
 discussion of such subjects should not be condemned in 
 me, nor visited upon my client : the blame, if any there 
 be, should rest only with those who have forced them 
 into discussion. I say, therefore, it is the right of the 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 55 
 
 people to keep an eternal watch upon the conduct of their 
 rulers ; and in order to do that, the freedom of the Press 
 has been cherished by the law of England. In private 
 defamation, let it never be tolerated ; in wicked and wan- 
 ton aspersion upon a good and honest administration, 
 let it never be supported. Not that a good government 
 can be exposed to danger by groundless accusation, but 
 because a bad government is sure to find, in the detected 
 falsehood of a licentious Press, a security and a credit, 
 which it could never otherwise obtain. 
 
 I said a good government cannot be endangered ; I 
 say so again ; for whether it be good or bad, it can never 
 depend upon assertion ; the question is decided by simple 
 inspection ; to try the tree, look at its fruit ; to judge of 
 the government, look at the people. What is the fruit 
 of a good government ? the virtue and happiness of the 
 people. Do four millions of people in this country gather 
 those fruits from that government, to whose injured 
 purity, to whose spotless virtue and violated honour this 
 seditious and atrocious libeller is to be immolated upon 
 the altar of the Constitution ? To you, gentlemen of 
 the jury, who are bound by the most sacred obligation 
 to your country' and your God, to speak nothing but the 
 truth, I put the question — do the people of this country 
 gather those fRilts ? — are they orderly, industrious, reli- 
 gious, and contented ? — do you find them free from 
 bigotry and ignorance, those inseparable concomitants 
 of systematic oppression ? Or, to try them by a test as 
 unerring as any of the former, are they united ? " 
 
 Having alluded to the restoration of the law of libel by Erskiue 
 and Fox, making the decision of what was libel a matter for the jury. 
 
156 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 not the judge, Curran states the case against Rowan of publishing 
 a seditious libel calculated to bring the Government of Ireland into 
 contempt and designed to subvert it by force of arms, he argues 
 that the jury must decide whether Rowan did publish the paper, 
 whether it is a libel, whether he publ shed it with the intent charged. 
 If there be a failure on any one of these points, Rowan is entitled to 
 acquittal. He proceeds : — 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney- General has thought proper 
 to direct your attention to the state and circumstances of 
 public affairs at the time of this transaction ; let me also 
 make a few retrospective observations on a period at 
 which he has but slightly glanced ; I speak of the events 
 which took place before the close of the American war. 
 
 You know, gentlemen, that France had espoused the 
 cause of America, and we became thereby engaged in a 
 war with that nation. 
 
 " Heu nescia mens hominum futuri ! " 
 
 Little did that ill-fated monarch know that he was 
 forming the first causes of those disastrous events, that 
 were to end in the subversion of his throne, in the slaughter 
 of his family, and the deluging of his country with the 
 blood of his people. You cannot but remember that at 
 the time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for our 
 defence, when the old and young were alarmed and 
 terrified with apprehensions of descent upon our coasts, 
 that Providence seemed to have worked a sort of miracle 
 in our favour. You saw a band of armed men come forth 
 at the great call of nature, of honour, and their country. 
 You saw men of the greatest wealth and rank ; you saw 
 every class of the community give up its members, and 
 send them armed into the field, to protect the public and 
 private tranquillity of Ireland. It is impossible for any 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 57 
 
 man to turn back to that period, without reviving those 
 sentiments of tenderness and gratitude, which then beat in 
 the public bosom, to recollect amidst what applause, what 
 tears, what prayers, what benedictions, they walked forth 
 amongst the spectators, agitated by the mingled sensations 
 of terror and of reliance, of danger and of protection, 
 imploring the blessings of heaven upon their heads, and 
 its conquest upon their swords. That illustrious, and 
 adored and abused body of men, stood forward and 
 assumed the title, which I trust the ingratitude of their 
 country will never blot from its history — " THE VOLUN- 
 TEERS OF IRELAND." 
 
 Give me leave now, with great respect, to put this 
 question to you : — Do you think the assembling of that 
 glorious band of patriots was an insurrection ? Do you 
 think the invitation to that assembling would have been 
 sedition ? ... If it would not have been so then, 
 upon what principle can it be so now ? What is the force 
 and perfection of the law ? It is the permanency of the 
 law ; it is, that whenever the fact is the same, the law is 
 also the same ; it is, that the letter remains written, monu- 
 mented and recorded, to pronounce the same decision, 
 upon the same facts, whenever they shall arise. 
 
 Rowan has done nothing more than issue such an invitation, 
 he finds his justification argues Curran, with deadly irony, in the 
 mysterious rumours lately set afloat. As to the charge that he desired 
 alteration of the Constitution by declaring the necessity for reform, 
 here is the language used by the " Morning Chronicle" unsuccessfully 
 prosecuted for Ubel : — " We refuse to approach defects of govern- 
 ment with ' pious awe and trembhng soUcitude,' it is our right to 
 inquire into them. We do view with concern the frequency of wars 
 from which we gain nothing. ' If kings continue to make us fight 
 and kill one another in uniform, we will continue to write and speak. 
 
158 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 until nations shall be cured of this folly.' Our heavy taxes are 
 due to cruel and impolitic wars, we shall continue to protest against 
 them. We think the present representation of the people calls for 
 particular attention. We give government our money, but have no 
 control on the way it is spent. We view with lively concern the 
 traffic in places and pensions. We note the outcry against reform 
 and the increasing taxes on the people, and we ask ourselves are we 
 in England ? We hope similar societies to ours will be founded all 
 over the country to bring pressure to bear on our rulers. Such 
 is the language of Englishmen stamped by the corroborating sanction 
 of a verdict of acquittal." 
 
 Gentlemen, the representation of our people is the 
 vital principle of their political existence ; without it 
 they are dead, or they live only to servitude ; without it 
 there are two estates acting upon and against the third, 
 instead of acting in co-operation with it ; without it, if 
 the people are oppressed by their judges, where is the 
 tribunal to which the judges can be amenable ? without 
 it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by a 
 minister, where is the tribunal to which the offender 
 shall be amenable ; without it, where is the ear to 
 hear, or the heart to feel, or the hand to redress 
 their sufferings ? Shall they be found, let me ask 
 you, in the accursed bands of imps and minions that 
 bask in their disgrace, and fatten upon their spoils, 
 and flourish upon their ruin .? But let me not put this 
 to you as a merely speculative question. It is a plain 
 question of fact : rely upon it, physical man is everywhere 
 the same ; it is only the various operations of moral causes 
 that gives variety to the social or individual character and 
 condition. How otherwise happens it that modern 
 slavery looks quietly at the despot, on the very spot 
 where l.eonidas expired ? The answer is Sparta has 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 59 
 
 not changed her climate, but she has lost that government 
 which her liberty could not survive. 
 
 I call you, therefore, to a plain question of fact This 
 paper recommends a reform in Parliament, I put that 
 question to your consciences ; do you think it needs that 
 reform ? I put it boldly and fairly to you, do you think 
 the people of Ireland are represented as they ought to be ? 
 Do you hesitate for an answer ? If you do, let me remind 
 you, that until last year, three millions of your country 
 men have by the express letter of the law, been excluded 
 from the reality of actual, and even from the phantom 
 of virtual representation. Shall we then be told that this 
 is the affirmation of a wicked and seditious incendiary ? 
 If you do not feel the mockery of such a charge, look at 
 your country ; in what state do you find it ? Is it in a 
 state of tranquillity and general satisfaction ? These are 
 traces by which good are ever to be distinguished from 
 bad governments, without any very minute inquiry or 
 speculative refinem.ent. Do you feel that a veneration 
 for the law, a pious and humble attachment to the Con- 
 stitution, form the political morality of the people } Do 
 you find that comfort and competency among your people 
 which are always to be found where a government is mild 
 and moderate, where taxes are imposed by a body who have 
 an interest in treating the poorer orders with compassion, 
 and preventing the weight of taxation from pressing sore 
 upon then ? . . . . 
 
 This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of 
 emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged 
 as part of the libel. If they had waited another year, 
 if they had kept this prosecution impending for another 
 
l6o IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 year, how much would remain for a jury to decide upon 
 I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the pro- 
 gress of public information was eating away the ground 
 of the prosecution, this part of the libel has unluckily 
 received the sanction of the legislature. In that interval 
 our Catholic brethren have obtained that admission, which, 
 it seems, it was a libel to propose ; in what way to account 
 for this, I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been 
 occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren ? 
 Has the bigoted malignity of any individual been crushed } 
 or has the stability of the Government, or that of the coun- 
 try been weakened ; or is one million of subjects stronger 
 than four millions ? Do you think that the benefit they 
 received should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance ? 
 If you think so, you must say to them — " You have de- 
 manded emancipation, and you have got it ; but we abhor 
 your persons, we are outraged at your success, and we will 
 stigmatise by criminal prosecution the adviser of that relief 
 which you have obtained from the voice of your country." 
 I ask you, do you think, as honest men, anxious for the 
 public tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds not 
 yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to speak this 
 language at this time, to men who are too much dis- 
 posed to think that in this very emancipation they have 
 been saved from their own Parliament by the humanity of 
 their sovereign ? Or do you wish to prepare them for 
 the revocation of these improvident concessions } Do 
 you think it wise or humane at this moment to insult 
 them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to 
 stand forth as their advocate ? I put it to your oaths ; 
 do you think that a blessing of that kind, that a victory 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. l6l 
 
 obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression, should 
 have a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence 
 upon men bold and honest enough to propose that mea- 
 sure ? to propose the redeeming of religion from the abu- 
 ses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men 
 from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right 
 to demand it ; giving I say, in the so much censured words 
 of this paper, giving "UNIVERSAL EMANCIPA- 
 TION ! " I speak in the spirit of the British law, which 
 makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from 
 British soil ; which proclaims even to the stranger and 
 sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, 
 that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated 
 by the genius of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION. 
 No matter in what language his doom may have been 
 pronounced ; no matter what complexion incompatible 
 with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have 
 burnt upon him ; no matter in what disastrous battle 
 his liberty may have been cloven down ; no matter 
 with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon 
 the altar of slavery ; the first moment he touches the 
 sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together 
 in the dust ; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty ; 
 his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that 
 burst from around him ; and he stands redeemed, re- 
 generated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius 
 of UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION. 
 
 A sudden burst of applause from tlie court and the hall, which was 
 repeated for a considerable length of time, interrupted Mr. Curran, 
 Silence being at length restored, he proceeded : — 
 
 Gentlemen, I am not such a fool as to ascribe any 
 
 M 
 
1 62 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 effusion of this sort to any merit of mine. It is the mighty 
 theme, and not the inconsiderable advocate, that can 
 excite interest in the hearer. What you hear is but the 
 testimony which nature bears to her own character ; it 
 is the effusion of her gratitude to that Power which stamped 
 
 the character upon her 
 
 Gentlemen, you are sitting in a country which has a 
 right to the British constitution, and which is bound by 
 an indissoluble union with the British nation. If you 
 were now even at liberty to debate on that subject ; if 
 you even were not, by the most solemn compacts, founded 
 upon the authority of your ancestors and of yourselves, 
 bound to that alliance, and had an election now to make ; 
 in the present unhappy state of Europe, if you had been 
 heretofore a stranger to Great Britain, you would now say 
 — ^We will enter into society and union with you : — 
 
 " Una saliis ambohns erit, commune pericuhim." 
 
 But to accomplish that union let me tell you, you must 
 learn to become like the English people. It is vain to say 
 you will protect their freedom, if you abandon your ov/n 
 The pillar whose base has no foundation, can give no 
 support to the dome under which its head is placed ; 
 and if you profess to give England that assistance which 
 you refuse to yourselves, she will laugh at your folly, and 
 despise your meanness and insincerity. Let us follow 
 this a little further — I know you will interpret what I 
 say with the candour in which it is spoken — England is 
 marked by a natural avarice of freedom, which she is 
 studious to engross and accumulate, but most unwilling to 
 impart ; whether from any necessity of her policy, or from 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 63 
 
 her weakness, or from her pride, I will not presume to 
 say, but so is the fact ; you need not look to the east nor 
 to the west ; you need only look to yourselves. 
 
 In order to confirm this observ^ation, I would appeal 
 to what fell from the learned counsel for the crown — " that 
 notwithstanding the alliance subsisting for two centuries 
 past between the two countries, the date of liberty in one 
 goes no further back than the year 1782/' 
 
 If it required additional confirmation, I should state the 
 case of the invaded American, and the subjugated Indian, 
 to prove that the policy of England has ever been, to govern 
 her connexions more as colonies than as allies ; and it 
 must be owing to the great spirit indeed of Ireland, if 
 she shall continue free. Rely upon it, she shall ever 
 have to hold her course against an adverse current ; rely 
 upon it, if the popular spring does not continue strong and 
 elastic, a short interval of debilitated nerve and broken 
 force will send you down the stream again, and re-consign 
 you to the condition of a province. 
 
 Having painted the evils of government by faction, and alluded 
 in a passage of delicate irony to the law passed by the " Irish " 
 Parliament the year before, declaring that no body of men could 
 delegate to a smaller body power to petition for them, Curran 
 continues : — 
 
 I do not complain of this act as any infraction of popu- 
 lar liberty ; I should not think it becoming in me to 
 express any complaint against a law, when once become 
 such. I observe only that one mode of popular deliberation 
 is thereby taken utterly away, and you are reduced to a 
 situation in which you never stood before. You are living 
 in a country where the Constitution is rightly stated to 
 be only ten years old — where the people have not the 
 
164 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ordinary rudiments of education. It is a melancholy 
 story that the lower orders of the people here have less 
 means of being enlightened than the same class of people 
 in any other country. If there be no means left by which 
 public measures can be canvassed, what will be the conse- 
 quence ? Where the Press is free and discussion un- 
 restrained, the mind, by the collision of intercourse, 
 gets rid of its own asperities ; a sort of insensible per- 
 spiration takes place in the body politic, by which those 
 acrimonies, which would otherwise fester and inflame, 
 are quietly dissolved and dissipated. But now, if any 
 aggregate assembly shall meet, they are censured ; if a 
 printer publishes their resolutions, he is punished : rightly, 
 to be sure, in both cases, for it has been lately done. If 
 the people say, let us not create tumult, but meet in dele- 
 gation, they cannot do it ; if they are anxious to promote 
 parliamentary reform in that way, they cannot do it, the 
 law of the last session has for the first time declared such 
 meetings to be a crime. 
 
 What then remains ? The liberty of the Press only — 
 that sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, no 
 minister, no government, which nothing but the de- 
 pravity, or folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. 
 And what calamities are the people saved from, by having 
 public communication left open to them ? I will tell you, 
 gentlemen, what they are saved from, and what the Govern- 
 ment is saved from. I will tell you also to what both are 
 exposed by shutting up that communication. In one case 
 sedition speaks aloud and walks abroad : the demagogue 
 goes forth — the public eye is upon him — he frets his 
 busy hour upon the stage : but soon either weariness, or 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 165 
 
 bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him down, 
 or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other 
 case, how does the work of sedition go forward ? Night 
 after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and 
 casts another and another brand upon the pile, to which, 
 when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will 
 apply the torch. If you doubt of the horrid consequence 
 of suppressing the effusion even of individual discon- 
 tent, look to those enslaved countries where the protection 
 of despotism is supposed to be secured by such restraints. 
 Even the person of the despot there is never in safety. 
 Neither the fear of the despot, nor the machinations of 
 the slave, have any slumber — the one anticipating the 
 moment of peril, the other watching the opportunity of 
 aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon 
 both, the decisive instant is precipitated without warning — 
 by folly on the one side, or by frenzy on the other ; and 
 there is no notice of the treason till the traitor acts. In 
 those unfortunate countries — one cannot read it without 
 horror — there are officers, whose province it is, to have 
 the water which is to be drunk by their rulers, sealed up in 
 bottles, lest some wretched miscreant should throw 
 poison into the draught. 
 
 But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and more in- 
 teresting example, you have it in the history of your 
 own revolution. You have it at that memorable period, 
 when the monarch found a servile acquiescence in the 
 ministers of his folly — when the liberty of the Press was 
 trodden under foot — when venal sheriffs returned packed 
 juries, to carry into effect those fatal conspiracies of the 
 few against the many — when the devoted benches of 
 
1 66 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 public justice were filled by some of those foundlings of 
 fortune who, overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption 
 at an early period, lay at the bottom, like drowned bodies, 
 while soundness or sanity remained in them ; but, at 
 length, becoming buoyant by putrefaction, they rose as 
 they rotted, and floated to the surface of the polluted 
 stream, where they were drifted along, the objects of 
 terror, and contagion, and abomination. 
 
 In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last 
 gasp of tyranny and the first breath of freedom, how preg- 
 nant is the example ! The Press extinguished, the people 
 enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of 
 society, therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty — and the 
 lasting union of the two countries — I conjure you to guard 
 the liberty of the Press, that great sentinel of the State, 
 that grand detector of public imposture ; guard it, because 
 when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common 
 grave, the liberty of the subject, and the security of the 
 crown. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has not been 
 brought forward earlier ; I rejoice, for the sake of the court, 
 of the jury, and of the public repose, that this question 
 has not been brought forward till now. In Great Britain 
 analogous circumstances have taken place. At the com- 
 mencement of that unfortunate war which has deluged 
 Europe with blood, the spirit of the English people was 
 tremblingly alive to the terror of French principles ; at 
 that moment of general paroxysm, to accuse was to con- 
 vict. The danger looked larger to the public eye, from the 
 misty region through which it was surveyed. We measure 
 inaccessible heights by the shadows which they project, 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 67 
 
 where the lowness and the distance of the light form 
 the length of the shade. 
 
 There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, 
 which disdains asserting the obvious truths, and delights 
 in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its 
 best ground of faith. To what other cause, gentlemen, 
 can you ascribe, that in the wise, the reflecting, and the 
 philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been 
 gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing those reso- 
 lutions to which the present minister of the kingdom 
 had actually subscribed his name ? — To what other cause 
 can you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, 
 in such a country as Scotland — a nation cast in the happy 
 medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive 
 poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth — 
 cool and ardent — adventurous and persevering — winging 
 her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an 
 eye that never winks and a wing that never tires — crowned 
 as she is, with the spoils of every art, and decked with the 
 wreath of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing 
 researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not 
 less sublime and pathetic, morality of her Burns — how, 
 from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and char- 
 acter, and talents, should be banished to a distant bar- 
 barous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid com- 
 munion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy, for twice 
 the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continu- 
 ance of human life ? 
 
 But I will not further press the idea that is so painful to 
 me, and I am sure must be painful to you. I will only 
 say, you have now an example, of which neither England 
 
1 68 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 nor Scotland had the advantage : you have the example 
 of the panic, the infatuation, and the contrition of both. 
 It is now for you to decide, whether you will profit by their 
 experience of idle panic and idle regret ; or whether you 
 meanly prefer to palliate a servile imitation of their frailty, 
 by a paltry affectation of their repentance. It is now for 
 you to show, that you are not carried away by the same 
 hectic delusions, to acts, of which no tears can wash away 
 the fatal consequences, or the indelible reproach. 
 
 The allusion here is to the sentence of transportation for fourteen 
 years passed on Mr. Muir and Mr. Palmer in Scotland. Having 
 cited the passage regarding liberty, already quoted, in the address 
 to the Volunteers, against the Attorney-General's misconstruction, 
 and impeached the credibility of the chief witnesses for the prose- 
 cution, Lyster and Morton, Curran concludes with a further re- 
 ference of the case of Muir and Palmer. 
 
 I cannot, however, avoid reverting to a circumstance 
 that distinguished the case of Mr. Rowan from that of 
 the late sacrifice in a neighbouring kingdom. 
 
 The severer law of that country, it seems — and happy 
 for them that it should — enables them to remove from 
 their sight the victim of their infatuation. The more 
 merciful spirit of our law deprives you of that consolation ; 
 his sufferings must ever remain before our eyes, a continual 
 call upon your shame and your remorse. But those 
 sufferings will do more ; they will not rest satisfied with 
 your unavailing contrition — they will challenge the great 
 and paramount inquest of society — the man will be 
 weighed against the charge, the witness, and the sentence — 
 and impartial justice will demand, why has an Irish jury 
 done this deed ? The moment he ceases to be regarded 
 as a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser ; and let 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 69 
 
 me ask you, what can your most zealous defenders be pre- 
 pared to answer to such a charge ? When your sentence 
 shall have sent him forth to that stage, which guilt alone 
 can render infamous, let me tell you, he will not be like 
 a kttle statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminished by 
 elevation ; but he will stand a striking and imposing 
 object upon a monument, which, if it does not (and it 
 cannot) record the atrocity of his crime, must record the 
 atrocity of his conviction. 
 
 Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I say, 
 that I am still more anxious for you than I can possibly 
 be for him. I cannot but feel the peculiarity of your 
 situation. Not the jury of his own choice, which the 
 law of England allows, but which ours refuses ; collected 
 in that box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan 
 (Gifford, the sheriff) — certainly not very deeply interested 
 in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I 
 am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however 
 you may be distressed, at the mournful presage with which 
 an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your pos- 
 sible determination. But I will not, for the justice and 
 honour of our common country, suffer my mind to be 
 borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I will not 
 relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period 
 of his sufferings ; and, however mercilessly he has been 
 hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home 
 to the arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. 
 But if, which Heaven forbid ! it hath still been unfortu- 
 nately determined, that because he has not bent to power 
 and authority, because he would not bow down before the 
 golden calf, and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into 
 
1 70 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the furnace ; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming 
 spirit in the Constitution, which will be seen to walk with 
 the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him 
 unhurt by the conflagration. 
 
 The jury took only ten minutes to find the prisoner guilty, and by 
 the order of Lord Clonmel, one of the judges, the accused was con- 
 veyed to the New Prison in custody. 
 
 February 4th an application was made to set aside the verdict 
 on various grounds — partiality in the case of one of the jurors, 
 in that of one of the sheriffs, the unreliability of John I^yster, prin- 
 cipal witness, and the misdirection of the court. Much of the second 
 trial dealt with legal questions, but Curran fastened his attention 
 to the main point, that the accuser was obliged to establish guilt. 
 
 I also conceive, my lords, that the direction of the 
 court was not agreeable to the law of Ireland. The 
 defence of my client was rested upon this : that there 
 was no evidence of the fact of publication ; upon the 
 incredibility of the fact ; and the circumstances of dis- 
 credit in the character of the witness : yet the court 
 made this observation : *' Gentlemen, it is scarcely lies 
 in the mouth of Mr. Rowan to build a defence upon 
 objections of this kind to the characters of witnesses, be- 
 cause the fact was public ; there were many there ; the 
 room was crowded below, the gallery was crowded above ; 
 and the publicity of the fact enabled him to produce a 
 number of witnesses to falsify the assertion of the prose- 
 cutor, if, in fact, it could be falsified ! " Is that the prin- 
 ciple of criminal law ? Is it a part of the British law that 
 the fate of the accused shall abide, not the positive estab- 
 lishment of guilt by the prosecutor, but the negative proof 
 of innocence by himself } Why has it been said in foolish 
 old books, that the law supposes the innocence of every 
 man, till the contrary is proved ? How has it happened 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 171 
 
 that that language has been admired for its humanity, and 
 not laughed at for its absurdity, in which the prayers of 
 the court are addressed to Heaven for the safe deliver- 
 ance of the man accused ? How comes it that so much 
 public time is wasted in going into evidence of guilt, if 
 the bare accusation of a man did call upon him to go 
 into evidence of his innocence ? The force of the obser- 
 vation is this. Mr. Rowan impeaches the credit of a 
 witness, who has sworn that he saw him present, and doing 
 certain acts, at a certain meeting ; but it is asked, has he 
 substantiated that discredit, by calling all the persons who 
 were present to prove his absence from the meeting, which 
 is only stated to have existed by a witness whom he alleges 
 to have perjured himself ? I call upon the example of 
 judicial character ; upon the faith of that high office, 
 which is never so dignified as when it sees its errors and 
 corrects them, to say, that the court was for a moment 
 led away, so as to argue from the most seductive of all 
 sophisms, that of the petitio principii. 
 
 See what meaning is to be gathered from such words : 
 we say the whole that this man has sworn is a consum- 
 mate lie ; show it to be so, says the court, by admitting 
 a part of it to be true. It is a false swearing ; it is a con- 
 spiracy of two witnesses against the defendant ; well, 
 then, it lies upon him to rebut their testimony, by proving 
 a great deal of it to be true ! Is conjecture, then, in 
 criminal cases, to stand in the place of truth and demon- 
 stration ? Why were not some of those (I w411 strip the 
 case of the honour of names which I respect) , but why were 
 not some of those, who knew that these tw^o persons were 
 to be brought forward, and that there wxre to be objections 
 
172 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to their credit, if, as it is stated, it happened in the pre- 
 sence of a public crowd, rushing in from motives of cur- 
 iosity, why were not numbers called on to establish that 
 fact ? On the contrary, the court have said to this effect : 
 Mr. Rowan, you say you were not there ; produce any of 
 those persons with whom you were there, to swear you 
 were not there ! You say it was a perjury ; if so, produce 
 the people, that he has perjured himself in swearing to 
 have been there ! But as to your own being there, you 
 can easily show the contrary of that, by producing some 
 man that you saw there. You say you were not there ! 
 Yes. There were one hundred and fifty persons there : 
 now produce any one of those to swear they saw you there ! 
 It is impossible for the human mind to suppose a case, 
 in which infatuation must have prevailed in a more pro- 
 gressive degree, than when a jury are thus, in fact, directed 
 to receive no refutation nor proof of the perjury of the 
 witness, but only of his truth. We will permit you to 
 deny the charge, by establishing the fact : we will permit 
 you to prove that they swore falsely to your being there, 
 by producing another witness to prove to a certainty that 
 you were there 
 
 lyord Clonmel, one of the judges trying the case, here interposed 
 pointing out that what the witnesses for the prosecution swore to 
 occurred in a public assembly where many of Mr. Rowan's friends 
 were present, that any of those persons might have been called to 
 prove he was not there, or that he could prove an alibi. He might 
 also have proved that no meeting took place. To this Curran re- 
 plies by using a statement made by Clonmel when charging the jury 
 in the first trial : — " One hundred and fifty Volunteers, or United 
 Irishmen, and not one comes forward ! Many of them would have 
 been proud to assist him (Rowan). Their silence speaks a thousand 
 times more strongly than any cavilling upon this man's credit — 
 the silence of such a number is a volume of evidence in support of the 
 prosecution." 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 173 
 
 There was no such idea put to the jury as whether there 
 was a meeting or not : it was said they were all of his party, 
 he might have produced them ; and the non-production 
 of them was a " volume of evidence " on that point. No 
 refinement can avoid this conclusion, that even as your 
 lordship now states the charge, the fate of the man must 
 depend upon proving the negative. 
 
 Until the credit of the witness was established, he could 
 not be called upon to bring any contrary evidence. What 
 does the duty of every counsel dictate to him, if the case 
 is not made out by his adversary or prosecutor ? Let it 
 rest ; the court is bound to tell the jury so, and the jury 
 are bound to find him not guilty. It is a most unshaken 
 maxim, that nemo tenetur prodere seipsum. And it would 
 indeed be a very inquisitorial exercise of power, to call 
 upon a man to run the risk of confirming the charge, under 
 the penalty of being convicted by nil dicit. . . It is 
 only when the party stands mute from malice, that such 
 extremes can be resorted to. I never before heard an 
 intimation from any judge to a jury, that bad evidence, 
 liable to any and every exception, ought to receive a sanc- 
 tion from the silence of the party. The substance of the 
 charge was neither more nor less than this : that the 
 falsehood of the evidence shall receive support and 
 credit from the silence of the man accused. With 
 anxiety for the honour and religion of the law, I demand 
 it of you, must not the jury have understood that this 
 silence was evidence to go to them ? Is the meaning 
 contained in the expression, " a volume of evidence," 
 only insinuation ? I do not know where any man could be 
 safe ; I do not know what any man could do to shield 
 
174 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 himself from prosecution. . I do not know what 
 
 shall become of the subject, if a jury are to be told that the 
 silence of the man charged is a " volume of evidence " 
 that he is guilty of the crime : where is it written ? I 
 know there is a place where vulgar frenzy cries out, that 
 the public instrument must be drenched in blood ; where 
 defence is gagged, and the devoted wretch must perish. 
 But even there, the victim of such tyranny is not made to 
 fill, by voluntary silence, the defects of his accusation ; 
 for his tongue is tied, and therefore no advantage is taken 
 of him by construction ; it cannot be there said that his 
 -not speaking- is a volume of evidence to prove his guilt. 
 
 But to avoid all misunderstanding, see what is the force 
 of my objection : is it that the charge of the court cannot 
 receive a practicable interpretation, that may not terrify 
 men's minds with ideas such as I have presented } No ; 
 I am saying no such thing ; I have lived too long, and 
 observed too much, not to know, that every word in a 
 phrase is one of the feet upon which it runs, and how the 
 shortening or lengthening of one of these feet will alter 
 the progress or direction of its motion. I am not arguing 
 that the charge of the court cannot by any possibility 
 be reconciled to the principles of law ; I am agitating a 
 more important question ; I am putting it to the conscience 
 of the court whether a jury may not have probably collected 
 the same meaning from it which I have affixed to it ; 
 and whether there ought not to have been a volume of 
 explanation, to do away with the fatal consequences of 
 such a mistake. ... In earlier times it might have 
 been thought sacrilege to have meddled with a verdict 
 once pronounced ; since then, the true principles of jus- 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 175 
 
 tice have been better understood ; so that now, the whole 
 wisdom of the whole court will have an opportunity of 
 looking over that verdict, and setting right the mistake 
 which has occasioned it. 
 
 After some further discussion, Curran impressively sums up : 
 
 You are standing on the scanty isthmus that divides 
 the great ocean of duration, on one side of the past, on the 
 other of the future ; a ground that, while you yet hear 
 me, is washed from bengath our feet. Let me remind 
 you, my lords, while your determination is yet in your 
 power, " Dum versatur adkuc intra penetralia Vestae," 
 that on that ocean of future you must set your judgment 
 afloat. And future ages will assume the same authority 
 which you have assumed ; posterity feel the same emo- 
 tions which you have felt, when your little hearts have 
 beaten, and your infant eyes have overflowed, at reading 
 the sad history of the sufferings of a Russell or a Sidney. 
 
 1797.— IN DEFENCE OF MR. PETER FINERTY. 
 
 Mr. Peter Finerty was publisher of The Press, the 
 organ of the United Irishmen. The ground for his prose- 
 cution was a letter signed " Marcus " (Mr. Deane Swift) 
 commenting on the judicial murder of Mr. William Orr, 
 executed October 14th, 1797. 
 
 But the learned gentleman is further pleased to say, 
 that the traverser has charged the Government with the 
 encouragement of informers. This, gentlemen, is ano- 
 ther small fact that you are to deny at the hazard of your 
 souls, and upon the solemnity of your oaths. You are 
 
I7& IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 upon your oaths to say to the sister country, that the 
 Government of Ireland uses no such abominable instru- 
 ments of destruction as informers. Let me ask you 
 honestly what do you feel, when in my hearing, when in 
 the face of this audience, you are called upon to give a 
 verdict that every man of us, and every man of you know 
 by the testimony of your own eyes to be utterly and abso- 
 lutely false ? I speak not now of the public proclamation 
 of informers with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant 
 reward ; I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches 
 who have been so often transferred from the table to the 
 dock, and from the dock to the pillory ; I speak of what 
 your own eyes have seen day after day during the course 
 of this Commission from the box where you are now 
 sitting ; the number of horrid miscreants who avowed 
 upon their oaths that they had come from the very seat 
 of Government — from the very chambers of the Castle, 
 where they had been worked upon by the fear of death 
 and the hope of compensation, to give evidence against 
 their fellows, that the mild and wholesome councils of 
 this Government are holden over these catacombs of 
 living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies 
 till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then 
 dug up a witness ! 
 
 Is this a picture created by a hag-ridden fancy, or 
 is it fact ? Have you not seen him, after his resurrec- 
 tion from that tomb, after having been dug out of the 
 region of death and corruption, make his appearance 
 upon the table, the living image of life and of death, 
 and the supreme arbiter of both ? Have you not 
 marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 77 
 
 multitude retired at his approach ? Have you not marked 
 how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his 
 power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror ? 
 How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to 
 rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, 
 while his voice warned the devoted wretch of woe and 
 death ; a death which no innocence can escape, no art 
 elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent. There was 
 an antidote — a juror's oath — but even that adamantine 
 chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of 
 eternal justice, is solved and molten in the breath that 
 issues from the informer's mouth ; conscience swings 
 from her moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror 
 consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim : — 
 
 Et quae sibi quisque timebat, 
 
 Unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere. 
 
 1798— FORECAST OF UNION. 
 
 I am sorry to think it is so very easy to conceive, that in 
 case of such an event the inevitable consequence would 
 be, a union with Great Britain. And if anyone desires 
 to know what that would be, I will tell him : It would 
 be the emigration of every man of consequence from 
 Ireland ; it would be the participation of British taxes 
 without British trade ; it would be the extinction of the 
 Irish name as a people. We should become a wretched 
 colony, perhaps leased out to a company of Jews, as was 
 formerly in contemplation, and governed by a few tax- 
 gatherers and Excisemen, unless possibly you may add 
 
 N 
 
178 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 fifteen or twenty couple of Irish members, who might be 
 found every session sleeping in their collars under the 
 manger of the British Minister. 
 
 MASSY VERSUS HEADFORT. 
 July 27th, 1804. 
 
 In the beginning of 1803 Limerick society was much 
 fluttered by the elopement of Mrs. Massy, once the beautiful 
 Miss Rosslewin, wife of the Rev. Charles ]\Iassy, with the 
 Marquis of Headfort who chose to requite thus the hospi- 
 tality of her husband. The case excited widespread 
 interest and the array of legal talent on both sides was 
 proportionately great. Amongst the defenders we find 
 Ponsonby and Goold, while for the prosecution were men 
 like Curran, Hoare, and Bennet — whose simile of the 
 Cornish wrecker, when opening the case, has often been 
 quoted. The Marquis at this time had reached the age 
 when Antony fell to Cleopatra's charm. His riches were 
 great and he was equally wealthy in experiences which 
 possibly prompted the nature of the defence ; its callousness 
 so fired Curran's generous indignation that " his speech 
 against lyord Headfort is beyond comparison the most 
 persuasive pleading ever uttered in a case not involving 
 national interests or public passions." 
 
 Who are the parties ? 
 
 The plaintiff, young, amiable, of family and education. 
 Of the generous disinterestedness of his heart you can 
 form an opinion even from the evidence of the defendant, 
 that he declined an alliance, which would have added to 
 his fortune and consideration, and which he rejected for an 
 unportioned union with his present wife She, too, at 
 that time, was young, beautiful, and accomplished ; and 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 79 
 
 felt her affection for her husband increase, in proportion 
 as she remembered the ardour of his love and the sin- 
 cerity of his sacrifice. 
 
 Look now to the defendant 1 — I blush to name him ! 
 I blush to name a rank which he has tarnished — and a 
 patent which he has worse than cancelled. High in the 
 army — high in the State — the hereditary councillor of the 
 king — of wealth incalculable — and to this last I advert 
 with an indignant and contemptuous satisfaction, because, 
 as the only instrument of his guilt and shame, it will be 
 the means of his punishment, and the source of compen- 
 sation for his guilt. 
 
 Oh ! how happy had it been when he arrived at the 
 bank of the river with the ill-fated fugitive, ere yet he had 
 committed her to that boat, of which, like the fabled bark 
 of Styx, the exile was eternal — how happy at that moment, 
 so teeming with misery and with shame, if you, my lord, 
 had met him, and could have accosted him in the character 
 of that good genius which had abandoned him How 
 impressively might you have pleaded the cause of the 
 father, of the child, of the mother, and even of the worth- 
 less defendant himself. You would have said : "Is this 
 the requital that you are about to make for respect and 
 kindness, and confidence in your honour ? Can you 
 deliberately expose this young man, in the bloom of life, 
 with all his hopes before him — can you expose him, a 
 wretched outcast from societ}', to the scorn of a merciless 
 world ? Can you set him adrift upon the tempestuous 
 ocean of his own passions, at this early season, when 
 they are most headstrong ; and can you cut him out from 
 
l8o IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the moorings of those domestic obligations to whose cable 
 he might ride in safety from their turbulence ? Think 
 of, if you can conceive it, what a powerful influence arises 
 from the sense of home, from the sacred religion of the 
 heart in quelling the passions, in reclaiming the wander- 
 ings, in correcting the discords of the human heart ; do 
 not cruelly take from him the protection of these attach- 
 ments. 
 
 But if you have no pity for the father, have mercy 
 at least upon his innocent and helpless child ; do not 
 condemn him to an education scandalous or neglected ; do 
 not strike him into that most dreadful of all human con- 
 ditions, the orphanage that springs not from the grave, 
 that falls not from the hand of Providence, or from the 
 stroke of death, but comes before its time, anticipated and 
 inflicted by the remorseless cruelty of parental guilt." 
 
 " Mean however, and degraded as this woman must be, 
 she will still (if you take her with you), have strong and 
 heavy claims upon you. The force of such claims does 
 certainly depend upon circumstances ; before, therefore, 
 you expose her fate to the dreadful risk of your caprice 
 or ingratitude, in mercy to her, weigh well the confidence 
 she can place in your future justice and honour : at that 
 future time, much nearer than you think, by what topics 
 can her cause be pleaded to a sated appetite, to a heart 
 that repels her, to a just judgment in which she never 
 could have been valued or respected ? Here is not the 
 case of an unmarried woman, with whom a pure and 
 generous friendship may insensibly have ripened into a 
 more serious attachment, until at last her heart became 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. l8l 
 
 too deeply pledged to be reassumed. If so circumstanced, 
 without any husband to betray, or child to desert, or 
 motive to restrain, except what related solely to herself, 
 her anxiety for your happiness made her overlook every 
 other consideration, and commit her history to your 
 honour ; in such a case, the strongest and the highest 
 that man's imagination can suppose, in which you at 
 least could see nothing but the most noble and disinterested 
 sacrifice ; in which you could find nothing but what 
 claimed from you the most kind and exalted sentiment 
 of tenderness and devotion, and respect ; and in which 
 the most fastidious rigour would find so much more 
 subject for sympathy than blame ; let me ask you, could 
 you even in that case, answer for your own justice and 
 gratitude ? 
 
 ** I do not allude to the long and pitiful catalogue of 
 paltry adventures, in which it seems your time has been 
 employed ; the coarse and vulgar succession of casual 
 connections, joyless, loveless, and unendeared. But do 
 you not find upon your memory some trace of an en- 
 gagement of the character I have sketched ? Has not 
 your sense of what you would owe in such a case, and to 
 such a woman, been at least once put to the test of experi- 
 ment ? Has it not once, at least, happened that such a 
 woman, with all the resolution of strong faith, flung 
 her youth, her hope, her beauty, her talent, upon your 
 bosom, weighed you against the world, which she found 
 but a feather in the scale, and took you as an equivalent ? 
 How did you then acquit yourself? Did you prove 
 yourself worthy of the sacred trust reposed in you ? 
 Did your spirit so associate with hers, as to leave her no 
 
1 82 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 room to regret the splendid and disinterested sacrifice 
 she had made ? Did her soul find a pillow in the tender- 
 ness of yours, and a support in its firmness ? Did you 
 preserve her high in her own consciousness, proud in your 
 admiration and friendship, and happy in your affection ? 
 You might have so acted ; and the man that was worthy 
 of her would have perished rather than not so act, as to 
 make her deUghted with having confided so sacred a trust 
 to his honour. Did you so act ? Did she feel that, 
 however precious to your heart, she was still more exalted 
 and honoured in your reverence and respect ? Or did 
 she find you coarse and paltry, fluttering and unpurposed, 
 unfeeling and ungrateful ? You found her a fair and 
 blushing flower, its beauty and its fragrance bathed in the 
 dew of heaven. Did you so tenderly transplant it, 
 as to preserve that beauty and fragrance unimpaired ? 
 Or did you so rudely cut it, as to interrupt its nutriment, 
 to waste its sweetness, to blast its beauty, to bow its 
 faded and sickly head ? And did you at last fling it Hke 
 * a loathsome weed away ' ? Send her back to her 
 home, to her child, to her husband, to herself." 
 
 Alas ! there was no one to hold such language to this 
 noble defendant ; he did not hold it to himself. But 
 he paraded his despicable prize in his own carriage, with 
 his own retinue, his own servants ; this veteran Paris 
 hawked his enamoured Helen from this western quarter 
 of the island to a seaport in the eastern, crowned with 
 the acclamations of a senseless and grinning rabble, 
 glorying and delighted, no doubt, in the leering and scoff- 
 ing admiration of grooms and ostlers, and waiters, as he 
 passed. 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 83 
 
 In this odious contempt of every personal feeling, of 
 public opinion, of common humanity, did he parade 
 this woman to the seaport, whence he transported his 
 precious cargo to a country, where her example may be 
 less mischievous than in her own ; where I agree with 
 my learned colleague in heartily wishing he may remain 
 with her for ever. We are too poor, too simple, too 
 unadvanced a country, for the example of such achieve- 
 ments. When the relaxation of morals is the natural 
 growth and consequence of the great progress of art 
 and wealth, it is accompanied by a refinement that makes 
 it less gross than shocking ; but for such paUiations we 
 are at least a century too young. I advise you, therefore, 
 most earnestly, to rebuke this budding mischief, by 
 letting the wholesome vigour and chastisement of a 
 
 liberal verdict speak what you think of its enormity. 
 • • • ••• • • 
 
 But he has pressed another curious topic upon you. 
 After the plaintiff had cause to suspect his designs, and 
 the likelihood of their being fatally successful, he did 
 not then act precisely as he ought. Gracious God ! 
 what an argument for him to dare to advance ! It is 
 saying this to him : — " I abused your confidence, your 
 hospitality ; I laid a base plan for the seduction of the 
 wife of your bosom ; I succeeded at last, so as to throw 
 in upon you that most dreadful of all suspicions to a man 
 fondly attached, proud of his wife's honour, and tremb- 
 lingly alive to his ow^n ; that you were possibly a dupe 
 to the confidence in the wife, as much as in the guest. 
 In this so pitiable distress, which I myself had studiously 
 2nd deliberately contrived for you, betw^een hope and fear, 
 
184 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 and doubt and love, and jealousy and shame ; one 
 moment shrinking from the cruelty of your suspicion ; 
 the next, fired with indignation at the facility and cre- 
 dulity of your acquittal ; in this labyrinth of doubt, in 
 this frenzy of suffering, you were not collected and 
 composed ; you did not act as you might have done, if I 
 had not worked you to madness ; and upon that very 
 madness which I have inflicted upon you, upon the very 
 completion of my guilt, and of your misery, I will build 
 my defence. You did not act critically right, and there- 
 fore are unworthy of compensation.*' 
 
 Gentlemen, can you be dead to the remorseless atrocity 
 of such a defence ! And shall not your honest verdict 
 mark it as it deserves. 
 
 But let me go a little further ; let me ask you, for I 
 confess I have no distinct idea — What should be the con- 
 duct of a husband so placed, and who is to act critically 
 right } Shall he lock her up, or turn her out, or enlarge 
 or abridge her Uberty of acting as she pleases ? Oh, 
 dreadful Areopagus of the tea-table ! how formidable 
 thy inquests, how tremendous thy condemnations ! In 
 the first case, he is brutal and barbarous ; an odious 
 eastern despot. In the next ; what ! turn an innocent 
 woman out of his house, without evidence or proof, but 
 merely because he is vile and mean enough to suspect 
 the wife of his bosom and the mother of his child ! 
 Between these extremes, what intermediate degree is he 
 to adopt ? I put this question to you — Do you at this 
 moment, uninfluenced by any passion as you now are, 
 but cool and collected, and uninterested as you must be, 
 do you see clearly this proper and exact line, which the 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 85 
 
 plaintiff should have pursued ? I much question if you 
 do. But if you did or could, must you not say, that he 
 was the last man from whom you should expect the 
 coolness to discover, or the steadiness to pursue it ? And 
 yet this is the outrageous and insolent defence that is put 
 forward to you. My miserable client, when his brain 
 was on fire, and every fiend of hell was let loose upon 
 his heart, should then, it seems, have placed himself before 
 his mirror : he should have taught the stream of agony 
 to flow decorously down his forehead ; he should have 
 composed his features to harmony ; he should have 
 writhed with grace, and groaned in melody. 
 
 But look farther to this noble defendant and his honour- 
 able defence. The wretched woman is to be successively 
 the victim of seduction, and of slander. She, it seems, 
 received marked attentions. Here, I confess, I felt 
 myself not a little at a loss. The witnesses could not 
 describe what these marked attentions were, or are. 
 They consisted, not, if you believe the witness, that swore 
 to them, in any personal approach, or contact whatsoever, 
 or in any unwarrantable topics of discourse. Of what 
 materials, then, were they composed ? Why it seems 
 a gentleman had the insolence at table to propose to her 
 a glass of wine ; and she, oh, most abandoned lady ! 
 instead of flying like an angry parrot at his head, and 
 besmirching and bescratching him for his insolence, 
 tamely and basely replies, " Port, sir, if you please." 
 
 But, gentlemen, why do I advert to this folly, this 
 nonsense ? Not surely to vindicate from censure the 
 most innocent and the most delightful intercourse of 
 social kindness, or harmless and cheerful courtesy, " where 
 
l86 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 virtue is, these are most virtuous." But I am soliciting 
 your attention, and your feeling, to the mean and odious 
 aggravation, to the unblushing and remorseless barbarity, 
 of falsely aspersing the wretched woman he had undone. 
 
 One good he has done, he has disclosed to you the point 
 in which he can feel ; for how imperious must that 
 avarice be, which could resort to so vile an expedient 
 of frugality .'* Yes, I will say, that, with the common 
 feelings of a man, he would have rather suffered his 
 thirty thousand a year to go as compensation to the 
 plaintiff, than have saved a shilling of it by so vile an 
 expedient of economy. He would rather have starved 
 with her in a gaol, he would rather have sunk with her in 
 the ocean, than have so vilified her — than have so degraded 
 himself. 
 
 The devil, it seems, has saved the noble Marquis 
 harmless in the past ; but your verdict will tell him the 
 term of that indemnity is expired — that his old friend 
 and banker has no more effects in his hands — and that 
 if he draws any more upon him, he must pay his own 
 bills himself. You will do much good by doing so : 
 you may not enlighten his conscience, nor touch his heart ; 
 but his frugality will understand the hint. It will adopt 
 the prudence of age, and deter him from pursuits, in which, 
 though he may be insensible of shame, he will not be 
 regardless of expense. You will do more — you will not 
 only punish him in his tender point, but you will weaken 
 him in his strong one, his money. We have heard much 
 of this noble Lord's wealth, and much of his exploits, 
 but not much of his accomplishments or his wit ; I know 
 not if his verses have soared even to the " poet's corner." 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 87 
 
 I have heard it said, that an ass laden with gold could 
 find his way through the gate of the strongest city. But, 
 gentlemen, lighten the load upon his back, and you will 
 completely curtail the mischievous faculty of a grave 
 animal, whose momentum lies, not in his agility, but his 
 weight ; not in the quantity of his motion but the quantity 
 of his matter. 
 
 There is another ground on which you are called upon 
 to give most liberal damages, and that has been laid by 
 the unfeeling vanity of the defendant. This business 
 has been marked by the most elaborate publicity. It is 
 very clear that he has been allured by the glory of the 
 chase, and not the value of the game. The poor object 
 of his pursuit could be of no value to him, or he would 
 not have so wantonly, and cruelly, and unnecessarily 
 abused her. He might easily have kept this unhappy 
 intercourse an unsuspected secret. Even if he wished 
 for elopement, he might easily have so contrived it, that 
 the place of her retreat would be profoundly undiscover- 
 able. 
 
 Yet, though even the expense, a point so tender to his 
 delicate sensibility, of conceaHng could not be one-fortieth 
 of the cost of publishing her, his vanity decided him in 
 favour of glory and publicity. By that election, he has in 
 fact, put forward the Irish nation, and its character so often 
 and so variously calumniated, upon its trial before the 
 tribunal of the empire ; and your verdict will this day 
 decide whether an Irish jury can feel with justice and 
 spirit upon a subject that involves conjugal affection and 
 comfort, domestic honour and repose, the certainty of 
 issue, the weight of public opinion, the gilded and 
 
l88 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 presumptuous criminality of overweening rank and 
 station. 
 
 I doubt not but he is at this moment reclined on a silken 
 sofa, anticipating that submissive and modest verdict, 
 by which you will lean gently on his errors ; and expecting 
 from your patriotism, no doubt, that you think again, 
 and again, before you condemn any great portion of the 
 immense revenue of a great absentee, to be detained in 
 the nation that produced it, instead of being transmitted, 
 as it ought, to be expended in the splendour of another 
 country. He is now probably waiting for the arrival 
 of the report of this day, which I understand a famous 
 note-taker has been sent hither to collect. Let not the 
 gentleman be disturbed. 
 
 Gentlemen, let me assure you, it is more, much more, 
 the trial of you than of the noble Marquis, of which this 
 imported recorder is at this moment collecting materials 
 His noble employer is now expecting a report to the fol- 
 lowing effect : — " Such a day came on to be tried at 
 Ennis, by a special jury, the cause of Charles Massy 
 against the most noble Marquis of Headfort. It ap- 
 peared that the plaintiff's wife was young, beautiful, and 
 captivating ; the plaintiff himself, a person fond of this 
 beautiful creature to distraction, and both doating on 
 their child. But the noble Marquis approached her ; 
 the plume of glory nodded on his head. Not the goddess 
 Minerva, but the goddess Venus, had lighted up his 
 casque with ' the fire that never tires, such as many a 
 lady gay had been dazzled with before.' At the first 
 advance she trembled ; at the second, she struck to the 
 redoubted son of Mars and pupil of Venus. The jury 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 89 
 
 saw it was not his fault (it was an Irish jury) ; they felt 
 compassion for the tenderness of the mother's heart, and 
 for the warmth of the lover's passian. The jury saw on 
 one side, a young, entertaining gallant ; on the other, 
 a beauteous creature, of charms irresistible.. They re- 
 collected that Jupiter had been always successful in his 
 amours, although Vulcan had not always escaped some 
 awkward accidents. The jury was composed of fathers, 
 brothers, husbands, but they had not the vulgar jealousy, 
 that views little things of that sort with rigour ; and, 
 wishing to assimilate their country in every respect to 
 England, now that they are united to it, they, like English 
 gentlemen, returned to their box, with a verdict of 6d. 
 damages, and 6d. costs." 
 
 Let this be sent to England. I promise you, your 
 odious secret will not be kept better than that of the 
 wretched Mrs. Massy. There is not a bawdy chronicle 
 in London, in which the epitaph which you would have 
 written on yourselves will not be published ; and our 
 enemies will delight in the spectacle of our precocious 
 depravity, in seeing that we can be rotten before we are 
 ripe. I do not suppose it ; I do not, cannot, will not 
 believe it ; I will not harrow up myself with the antici- 
 pated apprehension. 
 
 There is another consideration, gentlemen, which I 
 think most imperiously demands even a vindictive reward 
 of exemplary damages — and that is, the breach of hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 To us peculiarly does it belong to avenge the violation 
 of its altar. The hospitality of other countries is a matter 
 of necessity or convention — in savage nations, of the first ; 
 
190 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in polished, of the latter : but the hospitality of an Irish- 
 man is not the running account of posted and ledgered 
 courtesies, as in other countries ; it springs like ail his 
 qualities, his faults, his virtues, directly from his heart. 
 The heart of an Irishman is by nature bold, and he con- 
 fides ; it is tender, and he loves ; it is generous, and he 
 gives ; it is social, and he is hospitable. This sacrilegious 
 intruder has profaned the religion of that sacred altar 
 so elevated in our worship, so precious to our devotion : 
 and it is our privilege to avenge the crime. You must 
 either pull down the altar, and abolish the worship ; or 
 you must preserve its sanctity undebased. There is no 
 alternative between the universal exclusion of all man- 
 kind from your threshold, and the most rigorous punish- 
 ment of him who is admitted and betrays. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am the more disposed to feel the strongest 
 indignation and abhorrence at this odious conduct of the 
 defendant, when I consider the deplorable condition to 
 which he has reduced the plaintiff, and perhaps the still 
 more deplorable one that the plaintiff has in prospect 
 before him. What a progress has he to travel through, 
 before he can attain the peace and tranquillity which he 
 has lost } How like the wounds of the body are those of 
 the mind ! how burning the fever ! how painful the sup- 
 puration ! how slow, how hesitating, how relapsing the 
 process to convalescence ! Through what a variety of 
 suffering, what new scenes and changes must my un- 
 happy client pass, ere he can re-attain, should he ever 
 re-attain, that health of soul of which he was despoiled 
 by the cold and deliberate machinations of this prac- 
 tised and gilded seducer ? .... 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 19I 
 
 But I confess, I feel a ten-fold solicitude when I re- 
 member that I am addressing you as my countrymen, as 
 Irishmen, whose characters as jurors, as gentlemen, must 
 find either honour or degradation in the result of your 
 decision. Small as must be the distributive share of that 
 national estimation, that can belong to so unimportant 
 an individual as myself, yet I do own I am tremblingly 
 solicitous for its fate. Perhaps it appears of more value 
 to me, because it is embarked on the same bottom with 
 yours ; perhaps the community of peril, of common 
 safety, or common wreck gives a consequence to my 
 share of the risk, which I would not be vain enough to 
 give it, if it were not raised to it by that mutuality. But 
 why stoop to think at all of myself, when I know that you, 
 gentlemen of the jury — when I know that our country 
 itself are my clients on this day, and must abide the alter- 
 native of honour or of infamy, as you shall decide. But 
 I will not despond, I will not dare to despond. I have 
 every trust and hope, and confidence in you. And to 
 that hope I will add my most fervent prayer to the God 
 of all truth and justice, so to raise and enlighten and fortify 
 your minds, that you may so decide, as to preserve to 
 yourselves while you live, the most delightful of all 
 recollections— that of acting justly : and to transmit 
 to your children the most precious of all inheritances— 
 the memory of your virtue. 
 
 Baron Smith charged, and after a trial of twelve hour.s' duration, 
 the Jury at midnight found for the plaintiff ;^i 0,000 damages with 
 costs. 
 
192 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ELECTION AT NEWRY. 
 
 (October 17, 1812.) 
 
 Having passed on to the circumstances of the test proposed to 
 his opponent, which, said Mr. Curran, was the most moderate ever 
 witnessed, it was merely that he would not obstinately persevere 
 in betraying the trust reposed in him, what was his answer ? Cer- 
 tainly it was fair and candid, and giving you all the fullest notice of 
 what you had to expect ; he said, that he was not an orator ; that 
 his principles were those of a soldier ; and that whatever question 
 came forward, he would vote as he should think best ; that is, in 
 other words, if you returned him, you would send him a mute to 
 Parliament, with a parchment in one hand, under the name of a 
 return, containing the terms of your capitulation, and a bow-string 
 in the other ; during the debate he would ring the dumb bell but, 
 on the division, — 
 
 " When it became a passing bell, 
 O ! then he'd sing it passing well." 
 
 Indeed, to touch but passingly upon the subsequent 
 transactions of the election, they are fresh in your minds. 
 You saw those who voted for their country ; you saw 
 those who voted against their country, and against them- 
 selves. Every honourable, every respectable man, within 
 your borough, except the unfortunate Mr. Caulfield, and 
 his two associates, were in the former class ; but why do 
 I except them ? They do not belong to that class of 
 public spirit or honour ; you saw the class to which these 
 unfortunate men properly belong. You saw a succession 
 of poor creatures, without clothes upon their backs, 
 naked, as if they had been stripped for execution, naked, 
 as if they had been landed from their mothers, consigned 
 to the noble general at the moment of their birth, no part 
 of them covered but their chins, as if nature had stuck a 
 beard upon them in derision of their destiny. Such has 
 
JOHN PHlLPOT CURRAN. 193 
 
 been the contest, such the adverse forces, such, too, thus 
 far, the result. But I told you that the contest was of 
 more value than the victory ; that if it did not give you 
 triumph, it would give you wisdom ; and to keep this 
 promise, I must carry back your reflections to times that 
 have passed us ; and I must do that to show you that all 
 our miseries and degradation have sprung from a disunion, 
 cruelly and artfully fabricated by a foreign country, for 
 the base purpose of driving us to suicide, and making us 
 the instrument of our own destruction. 
 
 Mr. Curran here rapidly sketched the first dawn of dissension 
 in Ireland, the conqueror and the conquered, a conquest, too, ob- 
 tained, like all the victories over Ireland, by the triumph of guilt 
 over innocence, this dissension followed up by the natural hatred 
 of the spoiler and the despoiled ; followed up further by the absurd 
 antipathies of rehgious sects ; and still further followed by the 
 rivalries of trade, the cruel t3'rants of Ireland dreading, that, if Irish 
 industry had not her hands tied behind her back, she might become 
 impatient of servitude, and those hands might work her deHverance. 
 
 To this growing accumulation of Irish dissension, the 
 miserable James the Second, his heart rotted by the 
 depravity of that France which had given him an interested 
 shelter from the just indignation of his betrayed subjects, 
 put the last hand ; and an additional dissension, calling 
 itself political, as well as religious, was superadded. 
 Under this sad coalition of confederating dissensions, 
 nursed and fomented by the policy of England, this de- 
 voted country has continued to languish, with small 
 fluctuations of national destiny, from the invasion of the 
 second Henry, to the present time. And here let me 
 be just while I am indignant ; let me candidly own, 
 to the noble examples of British virtue, to the splendid 
 
 exertions of British courage, to their splendid sacrifices, 
 
 o 
 
194 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 am I probably indebted for my feelings as an Irishman, 
 and my devotion to my country. They thought it mad- 
 ness to trust themselves to the influence of any foreign 
 country ; they thought the circulation of the political 
 blood could be carried on only by the action of the heart 
 within the body, and could not be maintained from 
 without. Events have shown you that what they thought 
 was just, and that what they did was indispensable ; they 
 thought they ought to govern themselves, they thought 
 that at every hazard they ought to make the effort, they 
 thought it more eligible to perish than to fail, and to the 
 God of heaven I pray, that the authority of so splendid 
 an example may not be lost upon Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Curran in adverting to the state of Ireland, from the Revolution 
 to the year 1782, called her a sad continuing spectacle of disgrace, 
 and oppresson, and plunder, which she was too enfeebled by dis- 
 sensioti to resist ; because she was the abject, sad, helpless victim 
 of the sordid, insatiable, and implacable tyranny of a foreign country. 
 
 At length, in 1782, a noble effort was made, and death- 
 less ought to be the name of him* that made it, and 
 deathless ought to be the gratitude of the country for which 
 it was made, the independence of Ireland was acknowled- 
 ged. Under this system of asserted independence, our 
 progress in prosperity was much more rapid than could 
 have been expected, when we remember the conduct 
 of a very leading noble person upon that occasion. Never 
 was a more generous mind, or a purer heart ; but his 
 mind had more purity than strength ; he had all that 
 belonged to taste, and courtesy, and refinement ; but the 
 grand and the sublime of national reform were composed 
 
 ♦ Henry Grattan. 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. I95 
 
 of colours too Strong for his eye, and comprised an hori- 
 zon too outstretched for his vision. The Catholics of 
 Ireland were in fact excluded from the asserted indepen- 
 dence of their country. Thus far the resuh comes to this, 
 that wherever perfect union is not found complete re- 
 dress must be sought in vain. 
 
 Mr. Curran, in obser^dng on the Union, called it the last and 
 mortal blow to the existence of Ireland, as a nation ; a consum- 
 mation of our destruction, achieved by that perpetual instrument 
 of our ruin, our own dissensions. 
 
 The whole history of mankind records no instance of any 
 hostile cabinet, perhaps of any, even internal cabinet 
 destitute of all principles of honour or of shame. The 
 Irish Catholic was taught to believe, that if he surrendered 
 his country; he would cease to be a slave. The Irish 
 Protestant was cajoled into the belief, that if he concurred 
 in the surrender, he would be placed upon the neck of an 
 hostile faction. Wretched dupe ! You might as well per- 
 suade the gaoler, that he is less a prisoner than the cap- 
 tives he locks up, merely because he carries the key of 
 the prison in his pocket. By that reciprocal animosity, 
 however, Ireland was surrendered, the guilt of the sur- 
 render was most atrocious, the consequences of the crime 
 most tremendous and exemplary. We put ourselves into 
 a condition of the most unqualified servitude, we sold 
 our country, and we levied upon ourselves the price of 
 the purchase, we gave up the right of disposing of our 
 properties, we yielded to a foreign legislature to decide, 
 whether the funds necessary to their projects or their pro- 
 fligacy should be extracted from us, or be furnished by 
 themselves ; the consequence has been, our scanty means 
 
196 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 have been squandered in her internal corruption, as pro- 
 fusely as our best blood has been wasted in the madness 
 of her aggressions, or the feeble folly of her resistance, 
 our debt has accordingly been increased more than ten- 
 fold, the common comforts of life have been vanishing, 
 we are sinking into beggary, our poor people have been 
 worried by cruel and unprincipled prosecutions, and the 
 instruments of our Government have been almost simpli- 
 fied into the tax-gatherer and the hangman 4 At length, 
 after this long night of suffering, the morning star of our 
 redemption cast its light upon us, the mist was dissolved, 
 and all men p^ceived that those whom they had been 
 blindly attacking in the dark, were, in reahty, their fellow- 
 sufferers and their friends ; we have made a discovery of 
 the grand principle in politics, that the tyrarft is in every 
 instance the creature of the slave, that he is a cowardly 
 and a computing animal, and that, in every instance, he 
 calculates between the expenditure to be made, and the 
 advantage to be acquired. I therefore do not hesitate to 
 say, that if the wretched Island of Man, that refugitim 
 peccatorum, had sense and spirit to see the force of this 
 truth she could not be enslaved by the whole power of 
 England ; the oppressor would see that the necessary 
 expenditure in whips, and chains, and gibbets, would 
 infinitely countervail the ultimate value of the acquisition, 
 and it is owing to the ignorance of this unquestionable 
 truth, that so much of this agitated globe has, in all ages, 
 been crawled over by a Manx population. This dis- 
 covery, at last, Ireland has made, the Catholic claimed his 
 rights, the Protestant generously and nobly felt as he 
 ought, and seconded the claim, a silly Government was 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 1 97 
 
 driven to the despicable courage of cowardice, and resorted 
 to the odious artillery of prosecutions ; the expedient 
 failed ; the question made its way to the discussion of the 
 senate. I will not tire you with a detail ; a House of 
 Commons, who at least represented themselves, perhaps 
 afraid, perhaps ashamed of their employers, became un- 
 manageable tools in the hands of such awkward artists, 
 and were dissolved ; just as a beaten gamester throws 
 the cards into the fire, in hopes in a new pack to find 
 better fortune. 
 
 Here the speaker was interrupted. 
 
 He resumed — I do not wonder, said he, at having 
 provoked interruption, when I spoke of your borough, 
 I told you that from this moment it is free. Never in my 
 life have I so felt the spirit of the people, as among you, 
 never have I so felt the throbs of returning life, I almost 
 forgot my own habitual estimate of my own small impor- 
 tance, I almost thought it was owing to some energy 
 within myself, when I was lifted and borne on upon 
 the buoyant surge of popular sympathy and enthusiasm. 
 I, therefore, again repeat it, it is the moment of your new 
 birth unto righteousness, your proved friends are high 
 among you, your developed enemies are expunged for ever, 
 your liberty has been taken from the grave, and if she is 
 put back into the tomb, it can only be by your own 
 parricide, and she must be buried alive. 
 
 I have to add, for your satisfaction, a statement has 
 been laid before me of the grossest bribery, which will be 
 proved, beyond all doubt, and make the return a nullity. 
 I have also received a statement of evidence to show, that 
 
198 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 more than one third of those who voted against us, had 
 been trained by bribe and terror into perjury, when they 
 swore to the value of their quaUfications. Some of those 
 houses had actually no existence whatsoever : they might 
 as well have voted from their pasture to give their suf- 
 frage ; and Nebuchadnezzer, in the last year of his feed- 
 ing on grass, would have been as competent as they were 
 to vote in Ireland. But I enlarge not upon this topic. 
 To touch upon it is enough for the present ; the detail 
 must be reserved for a future occasion, and another place. 
 It belongs only to the hopeless, to be angry ; do not you, 
 therefore, be angry, where you cannot be surprised. You 
 have been insulted, and oppressed, and betrayed ; but 
 what better could you hope from such a ministry as their 
 own nation is cursed withal ; they hear the voice of suf- 
 fering England now thundering in their ears ; they feel 
 they cannot retain, they are anxious to destroy, they are 
 acting upon the principle of Russian retreat. Pressed 
 upon by the people, and beaten back into their fastnesses, 
 they depopulate as they retire : but what better could you 
 have ever hoped from such men ; a motley group, without 
 virtue, or character, or talent ; the sort of cabinet that 
 you have laughed at on the stage, where the " potent, 
 grave, and reverend signiors " were composed of scene- 
 shifters, and candle-snuffers, robed in old curtains, and 
 wigged from the stores of the theatre ? They affected to 
 profess religious distinctions, but they were too grossly 
 ignorant to conceive any such. There is no science in 
 which a man must not know something to qualify him 
 for misconception. 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. I99 
 
 Shall I, my friends, say one serious word to you upon 
 this serious subject ? Patriotism is of no one religion ; 
 Christianity belongs exclusively to no sect ; and moral 
 virtue and social duty are taught with equal exactness by 
 every sect, and practised with equal imperfection by all ; 
 and therefore, wherever you find a little interested bustling 
 bigot, do not hate him, do not imitate him^, pity him if you 
 can. I scarcely wish you not to laugh when you look at 
 one of these pearl-divers in theology, his head barely under 
 water, his eyes shut, and an index floating behind him, 
 displaying the precise degree of his purity and his depth. 
 A word or two upon your actual position ; and what 
 upon that subject but a word of sadness, the monu- 
 mental inscription upon the head-stone of our grave ? all 
 semblance of national independence buried in that grave in 
 which our legislature is interred, our property and our 
 persons are disposed of by laws made in another clime, 
 and made like boots and shoes for exportation, to fit the 
 wearers as they may. If you were now to consult my 
 learned friend here, and ask him how much of your pro- 
 perty belongs to yourself, or for what crime you may be 
 w4iipped, or hanged, or transported, his answer would be, 
 " It is impossible, sir, to tell you now ; but I am told that 
 the packet is on the bay." It was, in fact, the real design 
 of a rash, and arbitrary, and short-sighted projector, at 
 once to deprive you of all power, as to your own taxation, 
 and of another power of not very inferior importance, 
 and which, indeed, is inseparably connected with taxation, 
 to rob you of all influence upon the vital question of peace 
 or war ; and to bring all within the control of an English 
 minister. This very power, thus acquired by that detested 
 
200 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Union, has been a mill-stone about the neck of England. 
 From that hour to this she has been flaring away in her 
 ruinous and wasteful war : her allies no more, her enemies 
 multiplied, her finances reduced to rags, her people de- 
 pressed and discontented, her artizans reduced to the last 
 ebb, and their discontents methodised into the most terrific 
 combinations ; her labourers without employment, her 
 manufacturers without a market, the last entrance in 
 the north, to which they could have looked, being now 
 shut up against them, and fastened by a bar that has been 
 reddened in the flames of Moscow. But this, gentlemen, 
 is a picture too heart-rending to dilate upon ; you cannot 
 but know it already ; and I do not wish to anticipate the 
 direful consequences by which you are too probably des- 
 tined to feel it further to the quick. I find it a sort of 
 refuge to pass to the next topic which I mentioned as 
 calling for your attention, namely, what foundation, what 
 
 ground we had for hope. 
 • • • ■ • •• • 
 
 Let me remind you, before I go, of that precept, equally 
 profound and beneficent, which the meek and modest 
 author of our blessed religion left to the world : " And one 
 commandment I give you, that you love one another." Be 
 assured, that of this love the true spirit can be no other 
 than probity and honour. The great analogies of the moral 
 and the physical world are surprisingly coincident, you 
 cannot glue two pieces of board together, unless the joint 
 be clean, you cannot unite two men together, unless the 
 cement be virtue ; for vice can give no sanction to com- 
 pact, she can form no bond of affection. 
 
 And now, my friends, I bid you adieu, with a feeling 
 
JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 201 
 
 at my heart that can never leave it, and which my tongue 
 cannot attempt the abortive effort of expressing. If my 
 death do not prevent it, we shall meet again in this place. 
 If you feel as kindly to me as I do to you, relinquish the 
 attestations which I know you had reserved for my depar- 
 ture. Our enemy has, I think, received the mortal blow, 
 but, though he reels, he has not fallen ; and we have seen 
 too much, on a greater scale, of the wretchedness of anti- 
 cipated triumph. Let me, therefore, retire from among 
 you, in the way that becomes me, and becomes you, 
 uncheered by a single voice, and unaccompanied by a 
 single man. May the blessing of God preserve you in 
 the affection of one another ! 
 
202 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 
 
 (1751-1816). 
 
 ROBBERY OF THE PRINCESSES OF OUDE 
 
 (February 7, 1787.) 
 
 lyike Burke, Sheridan was thoroughly roused by the 
 operations of Warren Hastings while Empire building in 
 India. He was a constant attendant at the committee 
 meetings, where witnesses were examined, and when the 
 articles of indictment were pre^Dared he was entrusted with 
 the task of getting assent to those recording the spoliation 
 of the Begums, or Princesses of Oude, a spoliation effected 
 by the son of one of those ladies, Asoph ul Dowlah, at the 
 instigation of Hastings, then pressed for money, the pretext 
 being that the Begums had no title to the treasure and had 
 been engaged in the rebellion of Cheit Sing. The other 
 characters of tliis squalid tragi-comedy were Middleton, 
 Bristow, Hannay and Gordon, the two former, British 
 " residents," the two latter Biitish officers. The scene 
 was Oude, the most ancient centre of Indian civiliscition. 
 It is good to recall that Oude paid something of its debt 
 in the " mutiny " of 1857. 
 
 Sheridan's speech occupied over five hours, and at the 
 conclusion the whole house, members, peers and strangers 
 burst into a tumult of applause, the chamber ringing with 
 the unaccustomed sound of hand-clapping, as if the place 
 had been a theatre and Charles Surface engaged in borrow- 
 ing Joseph's morality. So great was its effect that Pitt 
 moved the adjournment of the debate. He acknowledged 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 203 
 
 that it " surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern 
 times, and possessed everything that genius or art could 
 furnish to agitate and control the numan mind." Fox, 
 said that " all he had ever heard— all that he had ever read 
 when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished 
 like vapour before the sun." Burke declared it to be " the 
 most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit, 
 united, of which there was any record or tradition." 
 
 Unfortunately, no verbatim record remains but the best 
 report appeared in the " London Chronicle," February 8th, 
 1787. 
 
 Having alluded to explanatory additions to evidence 
 which Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal and in- 
 timate friend of Warren Hastings, wished to give, in terms 
 which showed he comprehended the motive, Mr. Sheridan 
 went on to ask : Was Parliament mis-spending its time, 
 by enquiring into the oppressions practised on millions 
 of unfortunate persons in India, and endeavouring to 
 bring the daring delinquent, who had been guilty of the 
 most flagrant acts of enormous tyranny and rapacious 
 peculation, to exemplary and condign punishment ? Was 
 it a misuse of their functions to be diligent in attempting 
 by the most effectual means, to wipe off the disgrace 
 affixed to the British name in India, and to rescue the 
 national character from lasting infamy ? Surely no man 
 who felt for either the one or the other would think a 
 business of greater moment, or magnitude, could occupy 
 his attention ; or that the House could, with too much 
 steadiness, too ardent a zeal, or too industrious a perse- 
 verance, pursue its object. Their conduct in this respect, 
 during the course of the preceding year, had done them 
 immortal honour, and proved to all the world, that however 
 
204 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 degenerate an example of Englishmen some of the British 
 subjects had exhibited in India, the people of England 
 collectively, speaking and acting by their representatives, 
 felt as men should feel on such an occasion, and they 
 were anxious to do justice, by redressing injuries, and 
 punishing offenders, hov^^ever high their rank, however 
 elevated their station. 
 
 The House had set up a beacon, which, whilst it 
 served to guide their own way, would also make their 
 motions more conspicuous to the world which sur- 
 rounded and beheld them. He had no doubt but in 
 their manly determination, to go through the whole of 
 the business with the same steadiness which gave such 
 sterling brilliancy of character to their outset, they might 
 challenge the world to observe and judge of them by the 
 result. Impossible was it for such men to become im- 
 properly influenced by a paper, bearing the signature of 
 Warren Hastings, and put, not many minutes before, into 
 their hand, as well as his own, on their entrance into the 
 House. The insidious paper be felt himself at liberty to 
 consider as a second defence, and a second answer to the 
 charge he was about to bring forward ; a charge replete 
 with proof of criminality of the blackest die — of tyranny 
 the most vile and premeditated — of corruption the most 
 open and shameless — of oppression the most severe and 
 grinding — of cruelty the most hard' and unparalleled . But 
 he was far from meaning to rest the charge on assertion, 
 or on any warm expressions which the impulse of wounded 
 feelings might produce. He would establish every part 
 of the charge, by the most unanswerable proof, and the 
 most unquestionable evidence ; and the witness whom he 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 205 
 
 would bring forth to support every fact which he would 
 state, should be, for the most part, one whom no man 
 would venture to contradict — Warren Hastings himself. 
 Yet, this character had friends, nor were they blamable. 
 They might believe him guiltless, because he asserted his 
 integrity. Even the partial warmth of friendship, and the 
 emotions of a good, admiring, and unsuspecting heart, 
 might not only carry them to such lengths, but incite them 
 to rise with an intrepid confidence in his vindication. 
 Again would he repeat that the vote of the last session, 
 wherein the conduct of this pillar of India, this corner 
 stone of our strength in the East, this talisman of the 
 British territories in Asia, was censured, did honour to 
 the House, as it must be the fore-runner of speedy justice. 
 
 There were questions on which party 
 
 conviction was supposed to be a matter of easy acquisition ; 
 and if this enquiry was to be considered merely as a matter 
 of party, he should regard it as very trifling indeed ; but 
 he professed to God, that he felt in his own bosom the 
 strongest personal conviction ; and he was sensible that 
 many other gentlemen did the same. It was on that 
 conviction that he believed the conduct of Mr. Hastings 
 in regard to the Nabob of Oude and the Begums, compre- 
 hended every species of human oflFence. He had proved 
 himself guilty of rapacity at once violent and insatiable — 
 of treachery, cool and premeditated — of oppression, useless 
 and unprovoked — of breach of faith, unwarrantable and 
 base — of cruelty unmanly and unmerciful. These were 
 the crimes of which, in his soul and conscience, he 
 arraigned Warren Hastings ; and of which he had the 
 confidence to say he should convict him. 
 
206 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Having examined Mr. Hastings' evidence, which he declared false 
 throughout, the speaker continued : — 
 
 Treasure, which was the source of all the cruelties, 
 was the origirtal pretence which Mr. Hastings had made 
 to the Company for the proceeding ; and through the 
 whole of his conduct he had alleged the principles of 
 Mahomedanism in mitigation of the severities he had 
 sanctioned ; as if he meant to insinuate that there was 
 something in Mahomedanism which rendered it impious 
 in a son not to plunder his mother. 
 
 The speaker then explained the principle of Mahomedan law by 
 which the property or treasure contained in the Zenana, or women's 
 quarter, belonged to the wife solely, on the death of the husband. 
 The Begums of Oude had considerable property, and Mr. Hastings 
 set about acquiring it by a charge of " rebellion " against the pro- 
 tective British government, to which Shujah ul Dowlah had been 
 most friendly. The tool was her own son, 
 
 Mr. Hastings left Calcutta in 1781 and proceeded to 
 Lucknow, as he said himself, with two great objects in 
 his mind, Benares and Oude. What was the nature of 
 these boasted resources ? — that he should plunder one or 
 both — the equitable alternative of a highwayman, who in 
 going forth in the evening, hesitates which of his resources 
 to prefer — Bagshot ; or Hounslow. In such a state of 
 generous irresolution did Mr. Hastings proceed to Benares 
 and Oude. At Benares he failed in his pecuniary object. 
 Then, and not till then — not on account of any ancient 
 enmities shown by the Begums — not in resentment of any 
 old disturbances, but because he had failed in one place, 
 and had but two in his prospect, did he conceive the base 
 expedient of plundering these aged women. He had no 
 pretence, he had no excuse — he had nothing but the arro- 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 207 
 
 gant and obstinate determination to govern India by his 
 own corrupt will to plead for his conduct. Inflamed by 
 disappointment in his first project, he hastened to the 
 fortress of Chunar, to meditate the more atrocious design 
 of instigating a son against his mother, of sacrificing female 
 dignity and distress to parricide and plunder. At Chunar 
 was that infamous treaty concerted with the Nabob Vizier, 
 to despoil the Princesses of Oude of their hereditary pos- 
 sessions ; — there it was that Mr. Hastings had stipulated 
 with one, whom he called an independent prince " that 
 as great distress had arisen to the Nabob's government 
 from the military power and dominion assumed by the 
 Jaghierdars, he be permitted to resume such as he may 
 find necessary ; with a reserve, that all such, for the 
 amount of whose Jaghiers the company are guarantees, 
 shall in case of the resumption of their lands, be paid 
 the amount of their net collections, through the resident, 
 in ready money — and that no English resident be appointed 
 at Furruckabad." 
 
 No sooner was this foundation of iniquity thus instantly 
 established, in violation of the pledged faith and solemn 
 guarantee of the British Government ; no sooner had Mr. 
 Hastings determined to invade the substance of justice, 
 than he resolved to avail himself of her judicial forms ; 
 and accordingly despatched a messenger for the chief 
 justice of India to assist him in perpetrating the violations 
 he had projected. Sir Elijah having arrived, Mr. Hastings, 
 with much art, proposed a question of opinion, involving 
 an unsubstantiated fact, in order to obtain even a surrep- 
 titious approbation of the measure he had predetermined 
 to adopt. " The Begums being in actual rebellion, 
 
208 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 might not the Nabob confiscate their property ? " " Most 
 undoubtedly," was the ready reply of the friendly judge. 
 Not a syllable of inquiry intervened, as to the existence of 
 the imputed rebellion ; nor a moment's pause as to the 
 ill purposes to which the decision of a chief justice might 
 be perverted. It was not the office of a friend to mix the 
 grave caution and cold circumspection of a judge, with an 
 opinion taken in such circumstances, and Sir Elijah had 
 previously declared, that he gave his advice, not as a judge, 
 but as a friend ; a character he equally preferred, in the 
 strange office which he undertook of collecting defensive 
 affidavits on the subject of Benares. 
 
 It was curious to reflect on the whole of Sir Elijah's cir- 
 cuit at that perilous time. Sir Elijah had stated his desire 
 of relaxing from the fatigues of office, and unbending 
 his mind in a party of health and pleasure ; yet wisely 
 apprehending that very sudden relaxation might defeat 
 its object, he had contrived to mix some matters of business, 
 to be interspersed with his amusements. He had, there- 
 fore, in his little airing of nine hundred miles, great part 
 of which he went post, escorted by an army, selected those 
 very situations where insurrection subsisted, and rebellion 
 was threatened, and had not only delivered his deep and 
 curious researches into the laws and rights of nations and 
 of treaties, in the capacity of the Oriental Grotius, whom 
 Warren Hastings was to study ; but likewise in the humb- 
 ler and more practical situation of a collector of ex parte 
 evidence. In the former quality, his opinion was the 
 premature sanction for plundering the Begums — in the 
 latter character, he became the posthumous supporter 
 of the expulsion and pillage of the Rajah Cheit Sing. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 209 
 
 Acting on an unproved fact, on a position as a datum of 
 the Duke of Richmond's fabrication, he had not hesitated, 
 in the first instance, to lend his authority as a license for 
 unlimited persecution. In the latter, he did not disdain 
 to scud about India like an itinerant informer, with a 
 pedlar's pack of garbled evidence and surreptitious affi- 
 davits. What pure friendship, what a voucher of un- 
 equivocal attachment from a British judge to such a 
 character as Warren Hastings ! With a generous obli- 
 vion of duty and of honour ; with a proud sense of having 
 authorised all future rapacity, and sanctioned all past 
 oppression, this friendly judge proceeded on his circuit 
 of health and ease ; and whilst the Governor- General, 
 sanctioned by this solemn opinion, issued his orders to 
 plunder the Begums of their treasure. Sir Elijah pursued 
 his progress, and passing through a wide region of distress 
 and misery, explored a country that presented a speaking 
 picture of hunger and nakedness, in quest of objects best 
 suited to his feelings, in anxious search of calamities most 
 kindred to his invalid imagination. 
 
 Under such circumstances did Mr. Hastings com- 
 plete the treaty of Chunar ; — a treaty which might 
 challenge all the treaties that ever subsisted, for con- 
 taining in the smallest compass the most extensive treach- 
 ery. Mr. Hastings did not conclude that treaty till he 
 had received from the Nabob a present, or rather a bribe, 
 of £100,000. . . What was the consideration for 
 
 this extraordinary bribe ? No less than the withdrawing 
 from Oude not only all the English gentlemen in official 
 situations, but the whole also of the English army ; and 
 that too at the very moment when he himself had stated 
 
210 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the whole country of Oude to be in open revolt and rebel- 
 lion. Other very strange articles were contained in the 
 same treaty, which nothing- but this infamous bribe could 
 have occasioned, together with the reserve which he had 
 in his own mind of treachery to the Nabob ; for the only 
 part of the treaty which he ever attempted to carry into 
 execution was to withdraw the English gentlemen from 
 Oude. The Nabob, indeed, considered this as essential 
 to his deliverance ; and his observ^ation on the circum- 
 stance was curious — for though Major Palmer, said he, 
 has not yet asked anything, I observe it is the custom of 
 the English gentlemen constantly to ask for something 
 from me before they go. . . . This was the only 
 part of the treaty which he even affected to fill, in all its 
 other parts, we learn from himself that at the very moment 
 he made it he intended to deceive the Nabob . . . and 
 instead of giving instant and unqualified assent to all the 
 articles of the treaty, he perpetually qualified, explained, 
 and varied them with new diminutions and reservations. 
 
 He heard it advanced by some of those admirers of Mr. 
 Hastings, who were not so implicit as to give unqualified 
 applause to his crimes, that they found an apology for the 
 atrocity of them, in the greatness of his mind. To esti- 
 mate the solidity of such a defence, it would be sufficient 
 merely to consider in what consisted this prepossessing 
 distinction, this captivating characteristic of greatness of 
 mind. Is it not solely to be traced in great actions directed 
 to great ends ? In them, and them alone, we are to search 
 for true estimable magnanimity. To them only can we 
 justly affix the splendid title and honours of real greatness. 
 There was indeed another species of greatness, which dis- 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 211 
 
 played itself in boldly conceiving a bad measure, and un- 
 dauntedly pursuing it to its accomplishment. But had 
 Mr. Hastings the merit of exhibiting either of these des- 
 criptions of greatness ; — even of the latter ? He saw 
 nothing great — nothing magnanimous — nothing open — 
 nothing direct in his measures, or in his mind ; — on the 
 contrary, he had too often pursued the worst objects by 
 the worst means. His course was an eternal deviation 
 from rectitude. He either tyrannised or deceived ; and 
 was by turns aDionysius and a Scapin. As well might the 
 writhing obliquity of the serpent be compared to the 
 swift directness of the arrow, as the duplicity of Mr. 
 Hastings' ambition to the simple steadiness of genuine 
 magnanimity. In his mind all was shuffling, ambiguous, 
 dark, insidious, and little ; nothing simple, nothing un- 
 mixed : all affected plainness, and actual dissimulation ; 
 a heterogeneous mass of contradictory qualities ; with 
 nothing great but his crimes ; and even these contrasted 
 by the littleness of his motives, which at once denoted 
 both his baseness and his meanness, and marked him for 
 a traitor and a trickster. ... He remembered to 
 have heard an honourable and learned gentleman (Mr. 
 Dundas) remark, that there was something in the first 
 frame and constitution of the Company, which extended 
 the sordid principles of their origin over all their successive 
 operations ; connecting with their civil policy, and even 
 with their boldest achievements, the meanness of a pedlar, 
 and the profligacy of pirates. Alike in the political and 
 the military line, could be observed auctioneering ambas- 
 sadors and trading generals ; — and thus we saw a revolu- 
 tion brought about by affidavits ; an army employed in 
 
212 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 executing an arrest ; a town besieged on a note of hand ; 
 a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus 
 it was they exhibited a government, which united the mock 
 majesty of a bloody sceptre, and the little traffic of a mer- 
 chant's counting-house, wielding a truncheon with one 
 hand, and picking a pocket with the other. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan then went into the various charges of inciting the 
 peasantry to revolt, resisting the authority of the Nabob, aiding the 
 insurrection at Benares, and then pointed out their real crime. 
 
 It was incontrovertible that the Begums were not con- 
 cerned either in the rebellion of Bulbudder, or the insurrec- 
 tion of Benares, nor did Mr. Hastings ever seriously 
 believe them guilty. Their treasures were their treasons, 
 and Asoph ul Dowlah thought like an unwise prince when 
 he blamed his father for leaving him so little wealth. His 
 father, Shujah ul Dowlah, acted wisely in leaving his son 
 with no temptation about him, to invite acts of violence 
 from the rapacious. He clothed him with poverty as 
 with a shield, and armed him with necessity as with a 
 sword. . . . The Begums were by their condition, 
 their age and their infirmities, almost the only souls in 
 India who could not have a thought of distressing that 
 government by which alone they could hope to be protec- 
 ted ; and to charge them with a design to depose their 
 nearest and dearest relation was equally absurd. . . 
 
 The simple fact was, their treasure was their treason. 
 But " they complained of the injustice." God of Heaven, 
 had they not a right to complain ! After a solemn treaty 
 violated ; — plundered of all their property, and on the 
 eve of the last extremity of wretchedness, were they to 
 be deprived of the last resource of impotent wretchedness 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 21 3 
 
 —complaint and lamentation ! Was it a crime that they 
 should crowd together in fluttering trepidation like a flock 
 of resistless birds on seeing the felon kite, who, having 
 darted at one devoted bird, and missed his aim, singled 
 out a new object, and was springing on his prey with 
 redoubled vigour in his wing, and keener vengeance in 
 his eye. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan then reviewed the affidavits prepared by some mili- 
 tary men as evidence against the Begums. They refute the alle- 
 gation that the Enghsh are an unimaginative race, one, describmg 
 how 50 British troops guarding 200 prisoners were attacked by 
 6,000 and reUeved by the approach of nine men is worthy the best 
 traditions of modern journalism. 
 
 And of such extraordinary hearsay evidence were most 
 of the depositions composed. Considering, therefore, 
 the character given by Mr. Hastings to the British army 
 in Oude, " that they manifested a rage for rapacity and 
 peculation," it was extraordinary that there were no 
 instances of stouter swearing. But as for Colonel Gordon, 
 he afforded a flagrantly conspicuous proof of the grateful 
 spirit and temper of affidavits designed to plunge these 
 wretched women in irretrievable ruin. Colonel Gordon 
 was, just before, not merely released from danger, but 
 preserved from imminent death by the very person whose 
 accuser he thought fit to become ; and yet, incredible 
 as it may appear, even at the expiration of two little days 
 from his deliverance, he deposes against the distressed 
 and unfortunate woman who had become his saviour, 
 and only upon hearsay evidence accuses her of crimes 
 and rebellion. Great God of Justice 1 Canst Thou from 
 Thy eternal throne look down upon such premeditated 
 
214 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 turpitude of heart, and not fix some mark of dreadful 
 vengeance upon the perpetrators ? . . . . 
 
 Here he would pause a moineut, and particularly address himself 
 to one description of gentlemen, those of the learned profession, 
 within those walls. 
 
 Within those walls, they saw that that House was the 
 path to fortune in their profession ; that they might soon 
 expect that some of them were to be called to a dignified 
 situation, where the great and important trust would be 
 reposed in them of protecting the lives and fortunes of their 
 fellow-subjects. One right honourable and learned gen- 
 tleman in particular (Sir Lloyd Kenyon), if rumour 
 spoke right, might suddenly be called to succeed that great 
 and venerable character, who long had shone the brightest 
 luminary of his profession, whose pure and steady light 
 was clear even to its latest moment, but whose last beam 
 must now too soon be extinguished. He would ask the 
 supposed successor to Lord Mansfield, to calmly reflect 
 on these extraordinary depositions, and solemnly to 
 declare, whether the mass of affidavits taken at Lucloiow 
 would be received by him as evidence to convict the 
 lowest object in this country ? If he said it would, he 
 declared to God he would sit down and not add a syllable 
 more to the too long trespass which he had made on the 
 patience of the committee. 
 
 Having demonstrated the unreliability of the evidence and de- 
 scribed the miseries of the princesses Mr. Sheridan went on — 
 
 Mr. Hastings had once remarked, that a mind touched 
 with superstition might have contemplated the fate of 
 the Rohillas with peculiar impressions. But if, indeed, 
 his mind could yield to superstitious imagination ; if 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 21 5 
 
 his fancy could suffer any disturbance, and even in vision, 
 image forth the proud spirit of Shujah Dowlah, looking 
 down upon the ruin and devastation of his family, and 
 beholding that palace which he had first wrested from his 
 hand, and afterwards restored, plundered by that very 
 army with which he himself had vanquished the Mah- 
 rattas ; seizing on the very plunder which he had ravaged 
 from the Rohillas ; that Middleton, who had been engaged 
 in managing the previous violations, most busy to per- 
 petrate the last ; that very Hastings, whom, on his death- 
 bed, he had left the guardian of his wife and mother, and 
 family, turning all those dear relations, the objects of his 
 solemn trust, forth to the merciless seasons, and to a more 
 merciless soldiery ! A mind touched with superstition 
 must indeed have cherished such a contemplation with 
 peculiar im.pressions ! That he was regularly acquainted 
 with all the enormities committed on the Begums, there 
 was the clearest proof ; it was true that Middleton was 
 rebuked for not being more exact. He did not perhaps 
 descend to the detail ; he did not give him an account of 
 the number of groans which were heaved ; of the quantity 
 of tears w^hich were shed ; of the weight of the fetters ; 
 or of the depth of the dungeons ; but he communicated 
 every step which he took to accomplish the base and 
 umvarrantable end. He told him that to save appear- 
 ances they must use the name of the Nabob, and that they 
 need go no farther than was absolutely necessary ; this 
 he might venture to say without being suspected by 
 Mr. Hastings of a too severe morality. 
 
 After showing how Hastings tried to shift the blame on the Council 
 and had shrunkfroni the inquiry " und^r a new aud pompous doctrine 
 
21 6 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 that the majesty of justice was to be approached with supplication, 
 and was not to degrade itself by hunting for crimes ; forgetting the 
 infamous employment to which he had appointed an Knglish Chief 
 Justice, to hunt for criminal charges against innocent, defenceless 
 women," Mr. Sheridan went on — 
 
 He had heard of factions and parties in that House, 
 and knew that they existed. There was scarcely a subject 
 upon which they were not broken and divided into sects. 
 The prerogative of the crown found its advocates among 
 the representatives of the people. The privileges of the 
 people found opponents even in the House of Commons 
 itself. Habits, connexions, parties, all led to diversity 
 of opinion. But when inhumanity presented itself to 
 their observations, it found no division among them : 
 they attacked it as their common enemy ; and as if the 
 character of this land was involved in their zeal for its 
 ruin, they left it not till it was completely overthrown. 
 It was not given to that House to behold the objects of 
 their compassion and benevolence in the present extensive 
 consideration, as it was to the officers who relieved, and 
 who so feelingly described the extatic emotions of grati- 
 tude in the instant of deliverance. They could not 
 behold the workings of the heart, the quivering lips, 
 the trickling tears, the loud and yet tremulous joys of the 
 millions whom their vote of this night would for ever 
 save from the cruelty of corrupted power. But though 
 they could not directly see the effect, was not the true 
 enjoyment of their benevolence increased by the blessing 
 being conferred unseen ? Would not the omnipotence 
 of Britain be demonstrated to the wonder of nations, 
 by stretching its mighty arm across the deep, and saving 
 by its fiat distant millions from destruction ? And would 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 217 
 
 the blessings of the people thus saved, dissipate in empty 
 air ? No ! I may dare to use the figure — we shall con- 
 stitute Heaven itself our proxy, to receive for us the 
 blessings of their pious gratitude, and the prayers of their 
 thanksgiving. It is with confidence, therefore. Sir, that 
 I move you on this charge, " that Warren Hastings be 
 impeached." 
 
 PROCEEDINGS AGAINST MR. HASTINGS IN 
 WESTMINSTER HALL. 
 
 (June 3rd, 1788.) 
 
 The excitement caused by the Begum speech spread over 
 England, and Sheridan's address, as manager of the impeach- 
 ment, was eagerly awaited. It was the sensation of the 
 hour and we learn that fifty pounds were cheerfully given 
 for a seat— more than would be paid for a window at an 
 execution. This great speech, according to Burke, un- 
 matched for its splendour, extended over four days- 
 Tuesday, 3rd June ; Friday, 6th ; Tuesday, loth ; Friday, 
 13th. It was deUvered in Westminster Hall, and by 8 
 o'clock on the morning of the opening day " the avenues 
 leading to the court, through the New and Old Palace 
 Yard were filled with persons of the first distinction, many 
 of them peeresses in full dress, who stood in the open air 
 for upwards of an hour before the gates were opened. The 
 exertions made in pressing forward to get convenient seats, 
 had nearly proved fatal to many. The Peers did not enter 
 the Hall till twelve o'clock. A few minutes after, the Lord 
 Chancellor, having bowed to Mr. Sheridan, to signify to 
 him that their lordships were ready to hear him, that 
 honourable gentleman rose, whilst all about him preserved 
 the most dignified and awful silence." 
 
 Mr. Sheridan said— Such general remarks, as it was in 
 his power to make, would only weaken what had been al- 
 
2l8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ready urged by the right honourable gentleman who was 
 the principal mover of the impeachment — whose genius 
 exceeded everything but his disposition — who understood 
 and felt for all — through whom, and by whom, so great 
 an embodied stand had been made in defence of the rights 
 of man against man's oppression. . . He thought 
 
 that if ever there was a prosecution in which those who 
 carried it on were free from all unwarrantable resent- 
 ment, or improper bias, it was the present. He could 
 speak from his own heart, and declare most solemnly, 
 that he found there no private incentive to the part he had 
 taken in this impeachment ; and he verily believed he 
 might safely say that all his honourable colleagues, as well 
 as himself, were actuated solely by the zeal they felt for 
 the public welfare, and their honest solicitude for the 
 honour of their country. With such subjects in view, 
 he really lost sight of Mr. Hastings ; who, however great 
 in other respects, was too insignificant to be mixed with 
 such important considerations. . .In truth, the prose- 
 cution was not begotten in prejudice, or nursed in error. 
 It was founded in the clearest conviction of the wrongs 
 which the natives of Hindostan had suffered, through the 
 mal-administration of those, in whose hands the country 
 had placed extensive powers, which ought to have been 
 exercised for the benefit of the governed ; but which 
 had been used by the prisoner at the bar, for the shameful 
 purposes of oppression. 
 
 To convince their lordships that the British Govern- 
 ment, which ought to have been a blessing to the powers 
 in India connected with it, had been a scourge to the 
 natives, and the cause of desolation to the most flourishing 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 219 
 
 provinces in Hindostan ; He had only to read a letter that 
 had been received not long since from Lord Cornwallis, 
 the present Governor-General of Bengal. In that 
 letter the noble lord stated that he had been received by 
 the Nabob Vizier with every mark of friendship and res- 
 pect ; but the honour he received at the court of Luck- 
 now had not prevented him from seeing the desolation 
 that overspread the face of the country, the sight of which 
 had shocked his very soul. He spoke to the Nabob on 
 the subject, and earnestly recommended it to him to adopt 
 some system of government, that might restore the pros- 
 perity of his kingdom and make his people happy. The 
 Nabob's answer was strikingly remarkable. That degra- 
 ded prince said to his lordship, that as long as the demands 
 of the English Government upon the revenue of Oude 
 should remain unlimited, he could have no interest in 
 establishing any system, of economy ; and whilst the 
 English should continue to interfere in the internal govern- 
 ment of his country, it would be in vain for him to at- 
 tempt any salutary reform ; for his subjects knew he was 
 only a cypher in his own dominions, and therefore laughed 
 at and despised his authority, and that of his ministers. 
 
 Surely the state to which that wretched prince was 
 reduced by our mismanagement, and the ruin which 
 had, by the same cause, been brought upon his country, 
 called loudly upon their lordships to interfere, and rescue 
 their national honour and character from the infamy to 
 which both would be exposed, if no enquiry was made 
 into the causes of such calamities, and no punishment 
 was inflicted on the authors of them. . . . In looking 
 round for an object fit to be held out to the world as an 
 
220 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 example of national justice, their lordships must neces- 
 sarily fix their eyes upon Mr. Hastings. He was the 
 great cause of the degradation of our character in India, 
 and of the oppression of its devoted inhabitants ; and he 
 was the only victim that could atone for the calamities he 
 had occasioned. .... 
 
 Whilst he called for justice upon the prisoner, he could 
 wish also to do him justice. He would be sorry that the 
 weight and consequence of the commons of Great Britain, 
 in whose name the prosecution had been set on foot, 
 should operate to his prejudice. Indeed, whilst he had 
 such upright judges as their lordships, it was impossible 
 that anything could injure him, but the clearest and most 
 unequivocal proofs of guilt — " It is not the peering suspicion 
 of apprehending guilt. It is not any popular abhorrence 
 of its widespread consequences. It is not the secret 
 consciousness in the bosom of the judge, which can 
 excite the vengeance of the law, and authorise its inflic- 
 tion ! No. In this good land, as high as it is happy, 
 because as just as it is free, all is definite, equitable, and 
 exact. The laws must be satisfied before infliction ensues. 
 And ere a hair of the head can be plucked, legal guilt 
 must be established by legal proof ! " 
 
 Then having referred to the four defences made by Warren Hast- 
 ings, three of which he himself discredited on consultation, Mr. Sheri- 
 dan proceeds to the question of title to the treasure of Oude, and 
 quotes a decision of Hastings against himself. 
 
 There was very good ground for presuming that the 
 treasures possessed by the princess were her property, she 
 had endeared herself to her husband, the late Nabob, 
 by flying to him in the moment of his distress, after his 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 221 
 
 defeat at Buxar, and carrying with her to his relief the 
 jewels, with which in happier days, his fondness for her 
 had enriched her : upon these she raised him a large supply. 
 When the political generosity of this country restored him 
 afterwards to his throne, his gratitude to his wife knew no 
 bounds ; her ascendancy over him was such, that she pre- 
 vailed upon him to appoint his son by her, his successor. 
 
 The present Nabob, as had appeared from a passage 
 in a letter written by Mr. Hastings to him and since 
 proved in evidence, owed to her not only his birth and 
 succession to the crown, but also the preservation of his 
 life ; for one day his savage father in a rage attempting 
 to cut him down, the Begum rushed between her husband 
 and her son, and saved the latter, through the loss of 
 some of her own blood ; for she was wounded by the 
 blow that was not aimed at her. A son so befriended and 
 so preserved, Mr. Hastings had armed against such a 
 mother — he invaded the rights of that prince, that he 
 might compel him to violate the laws of nature by plun- 
 dering his parent ; and he made him a slave, that he 
 might afterwards make him a monster. Mr. Hastings was 
 bound to be the protector of the Begum, instead of her 
 plunderer ; for her husband, on his death-bed, bequeathed 
 her to his friendship ; and Mr. Hastings had always called 
 that husband his brother — but no consideration could 
 make him discharge the duties of any obligation that could 
 set bounds to his rapacity. 
 
 In 1775 Mr. Bristow intervening between the Begum 
 and the Nabob, in consequence of the claims of the latter, 
 had then, in a conversation with the superior, or elder 
 Begum, thrown out the insinuation, that the treasures 
 
222 IRISH ORATORY AND ORAIORS. 
 
 which she possessed were the treasures of the State ;— 
 and on this insinuation, so termed by Air. Bristow himself, 
 had Mr. Hastings founded all his arguments on that head, 
 and on which he lately appeared to place so much reliance. 
 The Begums at that time gave up to Asoph ul Dowlah 
 sums amounting to five hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds. Of this a part was to be paid in goods, which, 
 as they consisted of arms, elephants, etc., the Nabob 
 alleged to be his property, and refused to accept as pay- 
 ment. This occasioned a dispute, which was referred to 
 the Board of Calcutta. Mr. Hastings then vindicated the 
 right of the Begums to all the goods in the Zenana, and 
 brought over the majority of the council to his opinion. 
 The ideas then placed on record he had since found it 
 convenient to disown, as belonging not to him, but to 
 the majority of the council ! 
 
 There are in this assemblage those who are perfect in 
 their ideas of law and justice, and who understand toler- 
 ably well majorities and minorities ; but how shall I 
 instance this new doctrine of Mr. Hastings } It is as if 
 Mr. Burke, the great leader of the cause, should some 
 ten years hence revile the managers, and commend Mr. 
 Hastings ! " Good God ! " might say one of those 
 gentlemen, " it was you who instigated the enquiiy ; it 
 was you who made me think as I did ! " " Aye, very 
 true," might Mr. Burke reply, " but I was then in a min- 
 ority : I am now in a majority ; I have left my opinions 
 behind me ; and I am no longer responsible." 
 
 The claims, however, it was observable, of the Nabob, 
 as to the treasure of the Begums, were at this time the only 
 plea alleged for the seizure. These were always founded 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 223 
 
 on a passage of that Koran which was perpetually quoted, 
 but never proved. Not a word was then mentioned of 
 the strange rebellion, which was afterwards conjured up, 
 and of which the existence and the notoriety were equally 
 a secret ! — a disaffection which was at its height at the 
 very time when the Begums were dispensing their liber- 
 ality to the Nabob, and exercising the greatest generosity 
 to the English officers in distress ! — a disturbance, in short, 
 without its parallel in history, which was raised by two 
 women — carried on by tw^o eunuchs — and finally sup- 
 pressed by an affidavit! . . . But in June, 1781, 
 
 all the hoard and arrear of collected evil 
 
 burst out without restraint, and Mr. Hastings determined 
 on his journey to the upper provinces. It was then, 
 that without adverting to intermediate transactions, he 
 met with the Nabob, Asoph ul Dowlah, at Chunar, and 
 received from him the mysterious present of £100,000. 
 To form a proper idea of this transaction, it was only 
 necessary to consider the respective situation of him who 
 gave, and of him who received this present. It was not 
 given by the Nabob from the surperflux of his wealth, 
 nor in the abundance of his esteem for the man to whom 
 it was given. It was, on the contrary, a prodigal bounty, 
 drawn from a country depopulated — no matter whether 
 by natural causes, or by the grinding of oppression. 
 It was raised by an exaction which took what calamity 
 had spared, and rapine overlooked ; — and pursued those 
 angry dispensations of providence, when a prophetic 
 chastisement had been inflicted on a fated realm. The 
 secrecy which had marked this transaction was not the 
 smallest proof of its criminality. Neither Mr. Middleton 
 
224 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 nor the council were acquainted with the transaction, 
 until Mr. Hastings, four months after, felt himself com- 
 pelled to write an account to England, and the intelli- 
 gence returned thus circuitously to his friends in India ! 
 It was peculiarly observable in this transaction, how much 
 the distresses of the different parties were at variance. 
 Mr. Hastings travels to the Nabob to see, no doubt, and 
 enquire into his distresses, but immediately takes from 
 him ;f 100,000 to be applied to the necessities of the dis- 
 tressed East India Company ; but on farther deliberation, 
 these considerations vanish ; a third object arises more 
 worthy than either of the former, and the money is taken 
 from the one, and demanded from the other, to be ap- 
 plied to the use of — the distressed Mr. Hastings. 
 
 The money, it was alleged by Mr. Hastings, had been 
 originally taken to discharge the arrears of the army. 
 It had not long been applied to that use, because it was 
 received in bills on Gopal Dos, a rich banker at Benares, 
 who was then kept a prisoner by Cheit Sing — Major 
 Scott being questioned on the subject, declared the bills 
 on Gopal Dos were as good as cash, for that though the 
 principal of the house was a prisoner, that circumstance 
 made no difference whatsoever with the other partners. 
 Thus Mr. Hastings was inconsistent with himself, by 
 alleging an objection which should have prevented his 
 taking the money in the first instance, for the purpose he 
 had stated ; and Major Scott contradicting Mr. Hastings, 
 removed the objection and restored the business to its 
 original footing. But through all those windings of 
 mysterious hypocrisy, and of artificial concealment, it 
 was easy to mark the sense of hidden guilt. Mr. Hastings 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 225 
 
 himself, being driven from every other hold, advanced 
 the stale plea of state necessity. But of this necessity 
 he has brought no proof ; it was a necessity which listened 
 to whispers for the purpose of crimination, and dealt 
 in rumour to prove its own existence. To a general 
 leading the armies of Britain — to an admiral bearing her 
 thunders over the seas, the plea of necessity might be 
 indulged, if the wants of those were to be supplied whose 
 blood had been spilt in the service of their country ; but 
 his " State necessity " grand, magnanimous, and all 
 commanding — went hand in hand with honour, if not 
 with use — it went forth with our arms, when the hero 
 could plume himself like the imperial eagle on his nest, 
 unassailable ! — and amidst his fair successes, look down 
 in justified disdain on any malevolent challenge of minute 
 error ; his fame as firm as the rock, which from his de- 
 fence, all the enemy had battered in vain. 
 
 As for the treaty of Chunar, it was a proceeding which 
 as it had its beginning in corruption, had its continuance 
 in fraud, and its end in violence. The first proposition 
 of the Nabob, after his recent liberality, was that the army 
 should be removed, and all the English recalled from his 
 dominions. The bribe which he had given was the 
 obvious price of their removal. He felt the weight of 
 their oppression : — He knew, to speak his own language, 
 **that when the English stayed, they stayed to ask for some- 
 thing." Though their predecessors had exhausted the 
 revenue ; — though they had shaken the tree until nothing 
 remained upon its leafless branches, yet a new flight was 
 on the wing to watch the first buddings of its prosperity, 
 and to nip every promise of future luxuriance. 
 
 Q 
 
226 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 SPEECH ON SECOND OR BEGUM CHARGE- 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 (June 6th, 1788.) 
 
 Having gone into the affidavits, which he declared grounded on 
 vague rumour and improbable surmise, Mr. Sheridan passed to the 
 " rebellion " of the Begums, of which he could find no trace. 
 
 The best antiquarian in our society would be, after all, 
 never the wiser ! — Let him look where he would, where 
 can he find any vestige of battle, or a single blow ? In 
 this rebellion there is no soldier, neither horse nor foot : 
 not a man is known fighting ; no office-order survives, 
 not an express is to be seen. This Great Rebellion, as 
 notorious as our forty-five, passed away — unnatural, 
 but not raging — beginning in nothing — and ending, no 
 doubt, just as it began ! 
 
 If rebellion, my Lords, can thus engender unseen, it is 
 time for us to look about. What hitherto has been 
 dramatic, may become historical ; Knightsbridge may at 
 this moment be invested ; and all that is left us, nothing 
 but the forlorn hope — of being dealt with according to 
 the statute — by the sound of the Riot Act, and the sight, 
 if it can be, of another Elijah ! 
 
 Mr. Sheridan read the letter from the Begum to Mr. Hastings, 
 complaining of the suspicions which had been so unjustly raised of 
 her conduct and referring to Captain Gordon, who could testify her 
 innocence. He read that of Captain Gordon thanking her for her 
 interference and acknowledging that he owed his life to her bounty. 
 
 Here the plain and simple language of truth gave to 
 the representations of the Begum an Herculean force — 
 her complaints were eloquence ; her supplications per- 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 227 
 
 suasion, and her remonstrances conviction. It had been 
 asked, with an air of some triumph, why Captain Gordon 
 was not called to that bar ? He had answered then as now, 
 he would not call on a man who, in his affidavit, had 
 suppressed all mention of this important transaction. 
 He trusted that if ever he saw him at that bar, he should 
 witness a contrite zeal to do away the effects of that silence, 
 and behold a penitential tear for the part he had taken. 
 He hoped, however, for the honour of human nature, that 
 Captain Gordon was then under a delusion ; and that he 
 was led on by Mr. Middleton, who was well informed of 
 the business, to act a part of which he did not know the 
 consequences. Every feeling of humanity recoiled from 
 the transaction taken in any other point of view. It was 
 difficult to imagine that any man would say to a bene- 
 factor, " The breath that I now draw, next to heaven, I 
 owe to you ; my existence is an emanation from your 
 bounty ; I am indebted to you beyond all possibility of 
 return, and, therefore, my gratitude shall be your destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 The original letters on this occasion from Colonel 
 Hannay and Captain Gordon to the Begum had been 
 transmitted by her, through Major Gilpin, to Mr. Middle- 
 ton, for the purpose of being shown to Mr. Hastings ; but 
 the leaves were torn from Mr. Middleton's letter-book 
 in the place where they should have appeared. When 
 examined on this subject, he said, that he had deposited 
 Persian copies of those letters in the office at Lucknow, 
 but that he did not bring the translations with him to 
 Calcutta, because he left Lucknow the very day after he 
 had received the originals. It could be proved that 
 
228 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Middleton received those letters at least a month before 
 he left Lucknow. He was, therefore, well aware of the 
 purity of those in whose oppression he was engaged ; he 
 knew that their attachment was fully proved, at the very 
 time they were charged with disaffection ; but as their 
 punishment was predetermined, he, in concert with his 
 principal, found it necessary to suppress the testimonials 
 of their innocence. But this mass of fraud and cruelty, 
 covered as it had been by every art which the vile agents 
 could devise was now bared to the view. You see how 
 Truth — empowered by that will which gives a giant's 
 nerve to an infant's arm — has burst the monstrous mass 
 of fraud that has endeavoured to suppress it. It calls 
 now to your lordships, in the weak but clear tone of that 
 Cherub, Innocence, whose voice is more persuasive than 
 eloquence, more convincing than argument, whose look 
 is supplication, whose tone is conviction, it calls upon 
 you for redress, it calls upon you for vengeance upon the 
 oppressor, and points its heaven-directed hand to the 
 detested, but unrepenting author of its wrongs ! 
 
 Ha^dng dealt with this instance of a British soldier's gratitude, he 
 reverts to the charge that the Begums stirred up the country to 
 revolt, and in doing so paints a picture of the desolation of Oude 
 which recalls the state of Ireland when the famine system of Sir 
 Robert Peel was beginning to have effect. 
 
 Had a stranger at this time gone into the province 
 of Oude ignorant of what had happened since the death 
 of Shujah Dowlah — that man who, with a savage heart, had 
 still great lines of character ; and who, with all his ferocity 
 in war, had still, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his 
 country the riches which it derived from benignant skies 
 and a prolific soil ; — if this stranger, ignorant of all that 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 229 
 
 had happened in the short interval, and observing the 
 wide and general devastation, and all the horrors of the 
 scene — of plains unclothed and brown — of villages de- 
 populated and in ruins — of temples unroofed and perish- 
 ing — of reservoirs broken down and dry, — he would natur- 
 ally ask. What war had thus laid waste the fertile fields 
 of this once beautiful and opulent country ? — What civil 
 dissensions have happened, thus to tear asunder and 
 separate the happy societies that once possessed those 
 villages ? — What disputed succession, what religious rage, 
 has, wdth unholy violence, demolished those temples, and 
 disturbed fervent, but unobtruding piety, in the exercise 
 of its duties ? — What merciless enemy has thus spread 
 the horrors of fire and sword ? — What severe visitation 
 of Providence has dried up the fountain, and taken from 
 the face of the earth every vestige of verdure ? — Or, rather, 
 what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and with malice 
 and mortal enmity to man, has withered with the grip 
 of death every growth of nature and humanity ? 
 
 To such questions, what must be the answer ? No 
 wars have ravaged these lands, and depopulated these 
 villages — no civil discords have been felt — no disputed 
 succession — no religious rage, no merciless enemy — 
 no affliction, which, while it scourged for the moment, 
 cut off the sources of resuscitation — no voracious and 
 poisoning monsters ; no ! — all this had been accomplished 
 by the friendship, generosity, and kindness of the English 
 nation. They have embraced us with their protecting 
 arms and lo, we sink under the pressure of their support — 
 we writhe under the grip of their pestiferous alliance ! 
 
 Thus they suffered ; in barren anguish and ineffectual 
 
230 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 bewailings. And, O audacious fallacy ! says the defence 
 of Mr. Hastings. What cause was there for any incidental 
 ills, but their own resistance } 
 
 What then ! Shall we be told that under such cir- 
 cumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people, 
 thus goaded and spurred on to clamour and resistance, 
 were excited by the poor and feeble influence of the 
 Begums } When we hear the description of the fever — 
 paroxysm — delirium, into which despair had thrown the 
 natives, when on the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting 
 for death, they tore more widely open the lips of their 
 gaping wounds to accelerate their dissolution ; and while 
 their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to 
 Heaven, — breathing their last and fervent prayer, that 
 the dry earth might not be suflf"ered to drink their blood, 
 but that it might rise up to the throne of God, and rouse 
 the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of their 
 country : — Will it be said that this was brought about 
 by the incantations of those Begums, in their secluded 
 Zenana ? or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and 
 this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no 
 grievance, and had suffered no torture } What motive, 
 then, could have such influence in their bosom } W^hat 
 motive ? That, which Nature — the common parent — 
 plants in the bosom of man ; and which, though it may 
 be leas active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is 
 still congenial with, and makes part of, his being. It 
 grows with his growth, it strengthens with his strength — 
 That feeling, which tells him, that man was never made to 
 be the property of man ; but that when, through pride 
 and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyran- 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 23 1 
 
 nize over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance 
 is a duty — That feeling which tells him that all power is 
 delegated for the good, not for the injury of the people ; 
 and that when it is converted from the original purpose, 
 the compact is broken, and the right is to be resumed — 
 That principle which tells him, that resistance to power 
 usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to himself 
 and to his neighbour, but a duty which he owes to his 
 God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which He 
 gave him in the creation !— to that common God, Who, 
 where He gives the form of man, whatever may be the 
 complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man 
 — That principle, which neither the rudeness of ignorance 
 can stifle, nor the enerv-ation of refinement extinp^uish — 
 That principle which makes it base for a man to suffer, 
 when he ought to act — which, tending to preserve to the 
 species the original designations of Providence, spurns 
 at the arrogant distinctions of man, and vindicates the 
 independent quality of his race. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan then goes on to argue that the innocence of the 
 Begums infers the guilt of Hastings, and points out the fact that from 
 September, when the robbery was effected with circumstances of 
 cruelty, until J anuary following, the transaction had been concealed 
 from the council in Calcutta, the delay being caused by the neces- 
 sity of finding an excuse. He instances some of the false statements 
 made, statements to which "the Oriental Grotius, Sir Elijah Impey," 
 lent himself. Amidst the other artifices of concealment, was a letter 
 from Colonel Hannay, dated October 17th, 1781, which could not 
 have been written then, but must have been fabricated later, 
 since it contained mention of facts which could not have been 
 known to Hannay at the time. The British Providence, 
 
 The question would naturally occur to every person 
 
 who had attended to those proceedings. Why Mr. 
 
 Hastings had used all these efforts to veil the whole of this 
 
 business in mystery ? — It was not strictly incumbent on 
 
232 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 him to answer the question, yet he would reply that Mr. 
 Hastings had obviously a bloody reason for the con- 
 cealment. He had looked to the natural effect of strong 
 injuries on the human mind : as in the case of Cheit 
 Sing, he thought that oppression must beget resistance ; 
 and the efforts which might be made by the Begums 
 in their own defence, though really the effect, he was 
 determined to represent as the cause of his proceedings. 
 . . . . In his letter to the directors, of January 5, 
 1782, he had represented the subsequent disturbances 
 in Oude, as the positive cause of the violent measures 
 which he had adopted — two months before these distur- 
 bances had existence ! He then congratulates his masters 
 on the seizure of those treasures which by the law of 
 Mahomet he assures them were the property of Asoph 
 ul Dowlah. Thus the perturbed spirit of the Mahometan 
 law, according to Mr. Hastings' idea, still hovered round 
 those treasures, and envied them to every possessor, 
 until it at length saw them safely lodged within the 
 sanctuary of the British Treasury ! In the same spirit 
 of piety, Mr. Hastings had assured the House of Commons 
 that the inhabitants of Asia believed that some unseen 
 power interfered, and conducted all his pursuits to their 
 destined end. That Providence, however, which thus 
 conducted the efforts of Mr. Hastings, was not the Pro- 
 vidence to which others profess themselves indebted ; — 
 which interferes in the cause of virtue, and insensibly 
 leads guilt towards its punishment ; it was not, in fine, 
 that Providence 
 
 " Whose works are goodness, and whose ways are right." 
 
 The unseen power which protected Mr. Hastings, 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 233 
 
 operated by leading others into criminality, which so far 
 as it respected the Governor-General, was highly fortunate 
 in its effects. If the Rajah Nunducomar brings a charge 
 against Mr. Hastings, Providence so orders it that the 
 Rajah has committed a forgery some years before ; which 
 with some friendly assistance, proves a sufficient reason 
 to remove out of the way so troublesome an acquaintance. 
 If the Company's affairs are deranged through the want of 
 money, Providence ordains it so that the Begums, 
 though unconsciously, fall into a rebellion, and give Mr. 
 Hastings an opportunity of seizing on their treasures ! 
 Thus the success of Mr. Hastings depended not on any 
 positive merit in himself ; it was to the inspired felonies, 
 the heaven-born crimes, and the providential treasons 
 of others that he was indebted for each success, and for 
 the whole tenor of his prosperity ! 
 
 It must undoubtedly bear a strange appearance, that 
 a man of reputed ability should, even when acting wrongly, 
 have had recourse to so many bungling artifices, and spread 
 so thin a veil over his deceptions. But those who testified 
 any surprise at this circumstance must have attended but 
 little to the demeanour of Mr. Hastings. Through the 
 whole course of his conduct he seemed to have adhered 
 to one general rule — to keep as clear as possible of the 
 fact which he was to relate ! Observing this maxim, 
 his only study was to lay a foundation as fanciful and as 
 ornamental as possible ;— then by a superadded mass of 
 fallacies, the superstructure was soon complete, though 
 by some radical defect it never failed to tumble on his 
 own head ;— rising from these ruins, however, he was 
 soon found rearing a similar edifice, but with a like effect 
 
234 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 It had been a maxim once as much admitted in the 
 practice of common Hfe, as in the school of philosophy, 
 that where Heaven was inclined to destroy the vicious, 
 it began by debasing the intellect. This idea was carried 
 still farther by the right honourable gentleman (Mr. 
 Burke), who opened the prosecution ; who declared that 
 prudence and vice were things absolutely incompatible ; — 
 that the vicious man being deprived of his best energies, 
 and curtailed in his proportion of understanding, was left 
 with such a short-sighted degree of penetration as could 
 not come under the denomination of prudence. This 
 sentiment does honour to the name of my right honour- 
 able friend to whom I look up with homage ! — whose 
 genius is commensurate with his philanthropy — whose 
 memory will stretch itself beyond the fleeting objects of 
 any little partial shuffling, through the whole wide range 
 of human knowledge, and honourable aspiration after 
 human good ; as large as the system which forms life — 
 as lasting as those objects that adorn. 
 
 But it was still to be remembered, that there were other 
 characters besides a Caesar and a Cromwell ; who, acting 
 on determinations inimical to virtue, and hostile to the 
 laws of society, had proceeded, if not with prudence, yet 
 with an all-commanding sagacity, that was productive 
 of similar effects. Those, however, were isolated char- 
 acters, which left the vice that dared to follow either in a 
 state of despondent vassalage, or involved it in destruction. 
 
 As to the claims on those ladies, whether first made by 
 the Nabob, or suggested to him by his sovereign, Mr. 
 Hastings, though the counsel had laboured much to prove 
 the former, appeared to him to carry very little difference. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 235 
 
 If the seizure was made as a confiscation and punishment 
 for supposed guilt, then if ever a crime might be over- 
 looked it was where a son must necessarily be made 
 the instrument of an infliction, by which he broke his 
 covenant of existence, and violated the condition by which 
 he held his rank in society. If, on the contrary, it was 
 meant as a resumption, in consequence of a supposed 
 right in the Nabob, then Mr. Hastings should have re- 
 collected the guarantee of the Company granted to the 
 Begums ; unless it was meant to be said, that Mr. Hastings 
 acted in that as in other instances and assured them of his 
 protection until the very moment when it was wanted 
 It was idle, however, to dwell on the conduct or free agency 
 of a man who, it was notorious, had no will of his own. 
 What Mr. Middleton asserted at that bar would scarcely 
 be put in competition with a series of established facts ; 
 by which it appeared that the Nabob had submitted to 
 every indignity, and yielded to every assumption. It 
 was an acknowledged fact, that he had even been brought 
 to join in that paltry artifice which had been termed subor- 
 nation of letters. This practice was carried to such a 
 length, that he in the end complained, in a manner rather 
 ludicrous, that he was really tired of sending different 
 characters of Mr. Bristow, in pursuance of the directions 
 sent by the resident. He had pronounced black white 
 and white black so often, that he really knew not what to 
 say ; and therefore begged that, once for all, the friends 
 of A'Ir. Hastings might be considered as his, and that their 
 enemies might also be the same. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan having spoken for four hours, appearing exhausted, 
 the court adjourned. 
 
236 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 SPEECH ON THE SECOND OR BEGUM CHARGE 
 
 —CONCLUDED. 
 (June 13th, 1788.) 
 
 Most of the speech delivered on June loth is occupied by an 
 examination into the tortuous methods employed by Hastings and 
 his accomphces. Mr. Sheridan having been taken ill, the court was 
 adjourned. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan, on resuming, directed their lordships' attention to 
 the correspondence of Hastings and Middleton, accessible through a 
 quarrel between the parties, Hastings having been infuriated by the 
 hesitation of Middleton when sent to resume the Jaghires in the hope 
 of provoking a riot. It was noticeable that in those letters and in the 
 more private ones of Impey, there was no hint of rebellion on the part 
 of the Princesses. Middleton's ill-timed moderation was, of course, 
 due to regard for his own skin. His fears show how far his fellow 
 rogue had goaded the unfortunate prince, 
 
 " I am fully of opinion," he says, " that the despair, 
 of the Nabob must impel him to violence ; I know also 
 that the violence must be fatal to himself; but yet I 
 think that with his present feelings he will disregard all con- 
 sequences." Mr, Johnson, the assistant resident, wrote at 
 the same time to Mr. Hastings, to aver to him that the 
 measure was dangerous, that it would require a total 
 reform of the collection which could not be made without 
 a campaign ! This was British justice ! This was 
 British humanity ! Mr. Hastings ensures to the allies 
 of the Company, in the strongest terms, their prosperity 
 and his protection ; the former he secures by sending an 
 army to plunder them of their wealth and to desolate their 
 soil ! His protection is fraught with a similar security ; 
 like that of a vulture to a lamb ; grappling in its vitals ! 
 thirsting for its blood ! scaring off each petty kite that 
 hovers round ; and then with an insulting perversion of 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 237 
 
 terms, calling sacrifice protection !— an object for which 
 history seeks for any similarity in vain. The deep-search- 
 ing annals of Tacitus ;— the luminous philosophy of 
 Gibbon ;— all the records of man's transgressing, from 
 original sin to the present period, dwindle into comparative 
 insignificance of enormity ; both in aggravation of vile 
 principles, and extent of their consequential ruin ! The 
 victims of this oppression were confessedly destitute 
 of all power to resist their oppressors ; but that debility, 
 which from other bosoms, would have claimed some 
 compassion, with respect to the mode of suffering, here 
 excited but the ingenuity of torture I 
 
 Yet, when cruelty seemed to have reached its bounds, 
 and guilt to have ascended to its climax, there was some- 
 thing in the character of Mr. Hastings, which seemed to 
 transcend the latter, and overleap the former ; and of this 
 kind was the letter to the Nabob which was despatched 
 on this occasion. To rebuke Mr. Middleton for his 
 moderation, as was instantly done, was easily performed 
 through the medium of a public and private letter. But 
 to write to the Nabob in such a manner that the command 
 might be conveyed, and yet the letter afterwards shewn 
 to the world, was a task of more difficulty ; but which it 
 appeared by the event was admirably suited to the genius 
 of Mr. Hastings. His letter was dated the 15th of Febru- 
 ary, 1782, though the Jaghircs had been then actually 
 seized ; and it was in proof that it had been sent at a much 
 earlier period. He there assured the Nabob of his coinci- 
 dence with his wishes respecting the resumption of the 
 Jaghires ; he declares that if he found any difficulty in 
 the measure he, Mr. Hastings, would go to his assistance 
 
238 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in person, and lend his aid to punish those who opposed 
 it ; " for that nothing could be more ardent than his 
 friendship, or more eager than his zeal for his welfare." 
 The most desperate intention was clothed in the mildest 
 language. But the Nabob knew, by sad experience, the 
 character with whom he had to deal, and, therefore, was 
 not to be deceived ; he saw the dagger glistening in the 
 hand which was treacherously extended, as if to his 
 assistance ; and from that moment the last faint ray of 
 nature expired in his bosom. . . 
 
 Though there were circumstances exasperating to the 
 human heart, which felt the smallest remains of sensibility, 
 yet it was necessary in idea, to review the whole from the 
 time that this treachery was first conceived, to that when by 
 a series of artifices the most execrable, it was brought to 
 a completion. Mr. Hastings would there be seen stand- 
 ing aloof indeed, but not inactive in the war ! He would 
 be discovered in reviewing his agents, rebuking at one 
 time the pale conscience of Mr. Middleton, and at another, 
 relying on the stouter villainy of Hyder Beg Cawn. With 
 all the calmness of veteran delinquency, his eye ranged 
 through the busy prospect, piercing through the darkness 
 of subordinate guilt, and arranging with congenial adroit- 
 ness the tools of his crimes, and the instruments of his 
 cruelty. 
 
 The feelings of the several parties at the time would 
 be most properly judged of by their respective corres- 
 pondence When the Bow Begum, despairing of redress 
 from the Nabob, addressed herself to Mr. Middleton, 
 and reminded him of the guarantee which he had signed, 
 she was instantly promised that the amount of her Jaghire 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 239 
 
 should be made good ; though Mr. Middleton said he 
 could not interfere with the sovereign decision of the 
 Nabob respecting the lands. The deluded and unfor- 
 tunate woman '' thanked God that Mr. Middleton was at 
 hand for her relief" ; at the very instant when he was 
 directing every effort to her destruction ; when he had 
 actually written the orders which were to take the collec- 
 tion out of the hands of her agents ! Even when the 
 Begum was undeceived — when she found that British 
 faith was no protection, — ^when she found that she should 
 leave the country, and prayed to the God of nations not 
 to grant His peace to those who remained behind, still 
 there was no charge of rebellion — no recrimination made 
 to all her reproaches for the broken faith of the English ; 
 nay, when stung to madness, she asked " how long would 
 be their reign ? " no mention of her disaffection was 
 brought forward ; the stress was therefore idle, which the 
 counsel for the prisoner strove to lay on these expressions 
 of an injured and enraged woman. When at last irritated 
 beyond bearing, she denounced infamy on the heads of 
 her oppressors, who was there who would not say that she 
 spoke in a prophetic spirit, and that what she had then 
 predicted, had not even to its last letter been accom- 
 plished ! But did Mr. Middleton, even to this violence, 
 retort any particle of accusation ? No ; he sent a jocose 
 reply, stating that he had received such a letter under her 
 seal, but that from its contents he could not suspect it 
 to come from her ; and hoping, therefore, that she might 
 detect the forgery. Thus did he add to foul injuries, 
 the vile aggravation of a brutal jest. 
 
 There was something connected with this transaction 
 
240 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 SO wretchedly horrible, and so vilely loathsome, as to 
 excite the most contemptuous disgust. If it were not a 
 part of my duty, it would be superfluous to speak of the 
 sacredness of the ties which those aliens to feeling, — 
 those apostates to humanity had thus divided. In such 
 an assembly as that which I have the honour of addressing, 
 there is not an eye but must dart reproof at this conduct ; 
 not a heart but must anticipate its condemnation. Filial 
 Piety ! It is the primal bond of society — it is that in- 
 stinctive principle, which, panting for its proper good, 
 soothes unbidden, every sense and sensibility of man ! — 
 it now quivers on every lip ! it now beams from every 
 eye ! — it is an emanation of that gratitude, which softening 
 under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the 
 vast, countless debt it ne'er alas ! can pay, for so many 
 long years of unceasing soHcitudes, honourable self- 
 denials, life-preserving cares ! — it is that part of our 
 practice, where duty drops its awe ! — where reverence 
 refines into love ! — it asks no aid of memory ! — it needs 
 not the deductions of reason ! — pre-existing, paramount 
 over all, whether law, or human rule, few arguments can 
 increase and none can diminish it ! — it is the sacrament 
 of our nature ! — not only the duty but the indulgence of 
 man — it is his first great privilege — it is amongst his last 
 most endearing delights ! — it causes the bosom to glow 
 with reverberated love ! — it requites the visitations of 
 nature, and returns the blessings that have been received ! 
 it fires emotion into vital principle — it renders habituated 
 instinct into a master passion — sways all the sweetest 
 energies of man — hangs over each vicissitude of all that 
 most pass away — aids the melancholy virtues in their 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 24 1 
 
 last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude 
 and age — explores the thought — elucidates the aching 
 eye ! and breathes sweet consolation even in the awful 
 moment of dissolution. 
 
 The Jaghires being seized, the Begums were left without 
 the smallest share of the pecuniary compensation pro- 
 mised by Mr. Middleton ; and as, when tyranny and 
 injustice take the field, they are always attended by their 
 camp followers, paltry pilfering, and petty insult ; so in 
 this instance, the goods taken from them were sold at a 
 mock sale at inferior value. Even gold and jewels, to 
 use the language of the Begums, instantly lost their value 
 when it was known that they came from them ! Their 
 ministers were therefore imprisoned to extort the de- 
 ficiency which this fraud had occasioned ; and those mean 
 arts were employed to justify a continuance of cruelty. 
 Yet, these again, were little to the frauds of Mr. Hastings. 
 After extorting upwards of £600,000 he forbade Mr. 
 Middleton to come to a conclusive settlement. He knew 
 that the treasons of our allies in India had their origin 
 solely in the wants of the Company. He could not, 
 therefore, say, that the Begums were entirely innocent, 
 until he had consulted the general record of crimes— the 
 cash account at Calcutta ! And this prudence of Mr. 
 Hastings was fully justified by the event ; for there was 
 actually found a balance of twenty-six lacs more against 
 the Begums, which £260,000 worth of treason had never 
 been dreamed of before. "Talk not to us," said the 
 Governor-General, " of their guih, or innocence, but as it 
 suits the Company's credit ! We will not try them by 
 the code of Justinian, nor the Institutes of Timur ; we 
 
 R 
 
242 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 will not judge them either by the British laws, or their 
 local customs ! No ! We will try them by the multi- 
 plication table — we will find them guilty by the rule of 
 three, and we will condemn them according to the sapient 
 and profound institutes of — Cocker's Arithmetic. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan then alluded to the scruples of Middleton by whose 
 order the Chief Kunuchs were imprisoned at Fyzabad. This man 
 defended himself for his apparent clemency, and his delay in conduct- 
 ing the operations there by alleging that in the case of an ally 
 acting against his own mother two days' delay was not excessive. 
 " No further rigour than what I have exerted, could be used against 
 females in this country," he writes, January 20, 1782. "Where force 
 could be employed, it was not spared." When threats could effect 
 nothing the ministers were removed from their prison in Fyzabad 
 to the fortress of Chunargur. 
 
 There, where the British flag was flying, they were 
 doomed to deeper dungeons, heavier chains, and severer 
 punishments ; — there, where that flag was flying which 
 was wont to cheer the depressed, and to elate the subdued 
 heart of misery, those venerable but unfortunate men 
 were fated to encounter something lower than perdition, 
 and something blacker than despair ! It appeared from 
 the evidence of Mr. Holt, they were both cruelly flogged, 
 though one was about seventy years of age, to extort a 
 confession of the buried wealth of the Begums ! Being 
 charged with disaffection, they proclaimed their innocence. 
 " Tell us where are the remaining treasures," was the 
 reply — " it is only treachery to your immediate sovereigns 
 — and you will then be fit associates for the representa- 
 tives of British faith and British justice in India ! " 
 
 Oh 1 Faith. Oh, Justice ! I conjure you by your 
 sacred names to depart for a moment from this place, 
 though it be your peculiar residence ; nor hear your 
 names profaned by such a sacrilegious combination, as 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 243 
 
 that which I am now compelled to repeat ! — where all 
 the fair forms of nature and art, truth and peace, policy 
 and honour, shrunk back aghast from the destroying 
 shade ! where, amidst the black agents on one side, and 
 Middleton and Impey on the other, the great figure of 
 the piece, characteristic in his place, stood aloof and inde- 
 pendent from the puny profligacy in his train ! — turning 
 a malignant eye on all mischief that awaited him ! — the 
 multiplied apparatus of temporising expedients, and 
 intimidating instruments, now cringing on his prey, 
 and fawning on his vengeance ! Now quickening the 
 limping pace of craft, and forcing every stand that retiring 
 nature can make in the heart ! violating the attachments 
 and decorums of life ! sacrificing every emotion of 
 tenderness and honour ! and flagitiously levelling all the 
 distinctions of national characteristics with a long cata- 
 logue of crimes and aggravations, beyond the reach of 
 thought, for human malignity to perpetrate, or human 
 vengeance to punish 
 
 It might have been hoped, for the honour of the human 
 heart, that the Begums had been themselves exempted 
 from a share in these sufferings ; and that they had been 
 
 wounded only through the sides of their ministers 
 
 Their palace was surrounded by a guard, which was with- 
 drawn by Major Gilpin, to avoid the growing resentments 
 of the people, and replaced by Mr. Middleton, through his 
 fears from that "dreadful responsibility " which was im- 
 posed on him by Mr. Hastings. The women of the Khord 
 Mahal, who had not been involved in the Begums' sup- 
 posed crimes ; who had raised no sub-rebellion, and who, 
 it was proved, lived in a distinct dwelling, were cause- 
 
244 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 lessly involved in the same punishment ; their residence 
 surrounded with guards, they w^ere driven to despair by 
 famine, and when tliey poured forth in sad procession, 
 were driven back by the soldiery, and beaten with blud- 
 geons to the scene of madness which they had quitted. 
 
 On the question whether Hastings was answerable for the crimes 
 committed by his agent, he had actually written to arraign Middleton 
 for forbearance and neglect : — 
 
 He would not allow even a delay of two days to smooth 
 the compelled approaches of a son to his mother on such 
 an occasion ! His orders were peremptory ; and if 
 a massacre did not take place, it was the merit of accident, 
 and not of Mr. Hastings. After this would it be said, 
 that the prisoner was ignorant of the acts, or not culpable 
 for their consequences ? It was true he had not enjoined 
 in so many words the guards, the famine, and the blud- 
 geons ; he had not weighed the fetters, nor numbered 
 the lashes to be inflicted on his victims. But yet, he was 
 equally guilty, as if he had borne an active and personal 
 share in each transaction. It was as if he had commanded 
 that the heart should be torn from the bosom, and yet 
 had enjoined that no blood should follow. 
 
 Another defence set up by Hastings was that he was only one 
 of the supreme council, and that the other members sanctioned these 
 transactions. Of all his defences this was possibly the honestest, 
 but the council professed to have been duped by a letter dated 29th 
 November, intended to give the Directors of the Company the idea 
 that they received at that time intelligence of the proceedings at 
 Fyzabad 6f which they declared ignorance. The Directors, on 
 looking over Hastings' report, ordered an inquiry into the alleged 
 disaffection of the Begums. This inquiry was not made. It would, 
 Mr. Hastings pointed out, only revive the animosities between the 
 Nabob and the Begums. Of course if the ladies were inclined to 
 appeal to a foreign jurisdiction, they were the best judges of their 
 own feeling. 
 
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 245 
 
 All this, however, was nothing to the magnificent 
 paragraph which concluded this minute, and to which 
 I request the attention of the court. " Besides, I hope 
 it will not be a departure from official language to say, 
 that the majesty of Justice ought not to be approached 
 without solicitation." 
 
 But Justice is not this halt and miserable object ; it is 
 not the ineffective bauble of an Indian Pagod ! it is not 
 the portentous phantom of despair, it is not like any fabled 
 monster, formed in the eclipse of reason, and found in 
 some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and 
 political dismay. No, my lords 
 
 In the happy reverse of all these, I turn from this dis- 
 gusting caricature, to the real image — Justice! I have 
 now before me, august and pure, the abstract idea of all 
 that would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings of 
 men ; where the mind rises ; where the heart expands ; 
 where the countenance is ever placid and benign ; where 
 her favourite attitude is— to stoop to the unfortunate ; 
 to hear their cry, and to help them ; to rescue and relieve ; 
 to succour and to save ! Majestic from its mercy ; vener- 
 able from its utility ; uplifted, without pride ; firm, 
 without obduracy ; beneficent in each preference : lovely 
 though in her frown ! 
 
 On that justice I rely, deliberate and sure ; abstracted 
 from all party purpose and political speculations ; not in 
 words, but on facts ! You, my lords, who hear me, I 
 conjure by those rights it is your best privilege to preserve ; 
 by that fame it is your best pleasure to inherit ; by all 
 those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of 
 existence, the original compact of our nature, our con- 
 
246 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 trolling rank in the creation ! This is the call on all to 
 administer to truth and equity, as they would satisfy 
 the laws and satisfy themselves, with the most exalted 
 bliss possible or conceivable for our nature — the self- 
 approving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation 
 we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accom- 
 plished for mankind since the creation of the World. 
 
[ 247 ] 
 
 PETER BURROWES, K.C. (1753-1841). 
 
 THE KING VERSUS EDWARD SHERIDAN, M.D. 
 
 1811. 
 
 The case of Dr. Sheridan presents a certain resemblance 
 to that of Hamilton Rowan. The Irish CathoHcs in order 
 to render their frequent petitioning through the General 
 Committee more effective, determined to elect a new one 
 composed of members from the thirty-two counties, eight 
 from each. Accordingly their secretary, Mr. Hay, circular- 
 ised the Catholics of Ireland, asking them to appoint mana- 
 gers throughout the country for the purpose of forwarding 
 petitions. The Castle took instant action, and the very 
 " Convention Act," passed 1793, to which Curran alludes, 
 was disinterred, so that the various meetings might be 
 dispersed under pretext of being " unlawful assemblies," 
 while a general letter was addressed to magistrates directing 
 them to arrest persons found posting the committee's 
 notices. To their honour, the magistracy, numbering eight 
 thousand, ignored this arbitrary " act of power," some 
 refusing to obey. The Committee realizing what was at 
 stake, went on with its preparations, elected members and 
 held meetings. As a result, the principal officers, amongst 
 them Lord Fingall, were arrested and held to bail. The 
 first trial, that of Dr. Sheridan, one of the delegates, 
 came on in the Michaelmas term, 181 1. The accustomed 
 means of securing " safe verdicts " were resorted to, and the 
 packing of the jury entrusted to the practised hands of 
 Major Sirr ; the Committee placed its defence in those of 
 Peter Burrowes, the friend of Wolfe Tone, the advocate of 
 Emmet. Like Curran, he faced all that intimidation could 
 
248 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 bring to bear and achieved his greatest professional success 
 in a verdict of acquittal, although Bushe and Saurin were 
 arrayed against him. " His speech," says his biographer, 
 Waldron Burrowes, " was probably one of the noblest 
 efforts of skill, learning, and constitutional reasoning, that 
 has ever been delivered at the Irish Bar," and Sir Arthur 
 Pigott, Attorney-General for England describes it in similar 
 terms. 
 
 The powerful arguments, the earnestness and eloquence 
 of the orator may, conceivably, have had some weight 
 with the packed jury, but it must be remembered that they 
 were backed by the mighty menace of a French invasion 
 which he uses so skilfully in the concluding passages. 
 
 My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Jury, — It is no com- 
 monplace exaggeration to assert, that the question upon 
 Vi^hich you are to decide is serious and interesting in the 
 extreme, and claims your utmost attention. His Majesty's 
 Attorney-General more than insinuates that the peace 
 of the country, and the stability of its government, depend 
 upon your verdict. In this I agree with the Attorney- 
 General, and I add to the catalogue of things at hazard 
 (what does not much appear to excite his sensibility) 
 the invaluable right of petitioning. But I totally differ 
 from His Majesty's Attorney-General as to the mode 
 in which your verdict may affect these great concerns, 
 for it is the firm conviction of my mind that if you shall, 
 in the person of Mr. Sheridan, attaint the CathoHc body 
 of Ireland of treasonable practices, all these great objects 
 will be more than hazarded. I well know with what 
 inferior weight of talents and influence I make this con- 
 trasted assertion ; but I feel, I confidently feel, that this 
 inferiority, great and formidable as it is, is more than 
 counter-balanced by the weight of the cause I advocate. 
 
PETER BURRO WES, K.C. 249 
 
 Before I enter upon that cause I must, I will, freely remark 
 upon what occurred under every eye, and therefore under 
 your own, while you were impannelling. I confess, 
 gentlemen, I was astonished to find that no Roman 
 Catholic was suffered to enter that box, when it is well 
 known that they equal, if not exceed, Protestant jurors 
 upon other occasions, and when the question relates to 
 privileges of which they claim a participation, and you 
 possess a monopoly. I was astonished to see twenty- 
 two Protestant jurors, of the highest respectability, set 
 aside by the arbitrary veto of the Crown, without any 
 alleged insufficiency, upon the sole demerit of suspected 
 liberality. I was astonished to find a juror pressed into 
 the box, who did not deny that he was a sworn Orange- 
 man ; and another who was about to admit, until he 
 was silenced, that he had prejudged the cause. Those 
 occurrences, at the first aspect of them, filled me with 
 unqualified despair. I do not say that the Crown lawyers 
 have had any concern in this revolting process ; but I 
 will say, that they ought to have interfered in counter- 
 acting a selection, which has insulted some of the most 
 loyal men in this city, and must disparage any verdict 
 which may be thus procured. But, gentlemen, upon a 
 nearer view of the subject, I relinquish the despair by 
 which I was actuated ; I rest my hopes upon your own 
 integrity, your deep interest in the welfare of the country, 
 and the very disgust which yourselves must feel at the 
 manner and motive of your array. You did not press 
 forward into that jury-box — you did not seek the exclusion, 
 the total exclusion, of any Roman Catholic ; you, no doubt, 
 would anxiously desire an intermixture of some of those 
 
250 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 enlightened Roman Catholics, whom the Attorney- 
 General declared he was certain he could convince, but 
 whom he has not ventured to address in that box. The 
 painful responsibility cast upon you is not of your own 
 seeking, and I persuade myself you will, upon due re- 
 flection, feel more indisposed to those who court and 
 inflame your prejudices, and would involve you in an act 
 of deep responsibility, without that fair intermixture of 
 opposite feelings and interest, which, by inviting discus- 
 sion, and balancing aff"ections, would promise a mode- 
 rate and respected decision, than toward me who openly 
 attack those prejudices, and strive to arm your conscience 
 against them. You know, as well as I do, that pre- 
 judice is a deadly enemy to fair investigation ; that it 
 has neither eyes nor ears for justice ; that it hears and sees 
 everything on one side only ; that to refute it is to exas- 
 perate it ; and that, when it predominates, accusation 
 is received as evidence, and calumny produces con- 
 viction. 
 
 One claim I add to your justice, which you cannot, 
 you will not refuse. Listen to the evidence and the argu- 
 ments with patient attention, and read the indictment 
 and the Act of Parliament upon which it is founded with 
 the minutest care ; they will not, I presume, be with- 
 held from you. Upon the law of the case, and the true 
 construction of that Act, I shall now proceed to com- 
 ment. 
 
 The Act, my Lords, is very short, and nothing is more 
 easy than to extract a just and perfect definition of the 
 crime it declares^ and enacts to be a high misdemeanour ; 
 that definition is " representing the people, or any portion 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 25 1 
 
 of the people, under pretence of petitioning for, or other- 
 wise procuring an alteration of matters established by law 
 in Church or State." All persons who are in any way, 
 or under any name, deputed to, or who assume such a 
 character, are guilty under this Act ; and persons any 
 way electing or appointing such assemblies, namely, 
 assemblies assuming or exercising a right to represent 
 the people, are also guilty. The great question, therefore, 
 will arise upon the true meaning of the term represent 
 in this Statute. Now I conceive that to represent any 
 man, or body of men, both in common and legal par- 
 lance, means to fill his or their place, and to possess his or 
 their power, to the exclusion of the body represented 
 during the representation. The representative acts in 
 his own name, and is invested with all the powers of the 
 body represented ; he differs from an attorney, or a man 
 deputed to do a particular act in a defined way ; the latter 
 is a mere instrument acting under orders, and in the 
 name of his principal. . . If this meaning be 
 
 adopted, it is not difficult to understand why to represent 
 the people, or any portion of them, should be a crime 
 at common law and declared to be such. It is evident 
 that to give or to assume such a right would be to encroach 
 upon the exclusive privileges of the House of Commons; 
 and no man can doubt, but that to assume the character, 
 or exercise the functions of any department of the State, 
 legislative, executive, or judicial, is, and always was, a 
 high misdemeanour ; but it never yet was conceived, 
 that to depute a man or number of men to perform a 
 defined, preconceived, legal service, for and in the name 
 of persons deputing, was an encroachment upon the rights 
 
252 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of Parliament, and more particularly when that very 
 service was to propose a petition to that very Parliament. 
 That the Legislature uses the word represent, in defining 
 the crime, as I explain it, appears conclusively from this, 
 that, knowing that the House of Commons must fall under 
 the definition, they expressly except it : " Save and 
 except the knights, citizens, and burgesses elected to 
 serve in the Parliament thereof." So that from the 
 legal and constitutional meaning of the word represent, 
 from the excepting the House of Commons from the 
 enactment, and from the legislative avowal that the evil 
 to be guarded against was a pre-existing crime, it most 
 clearly follows that the appointment of deputies bona 
 fide to prepare a petition to Parliament and for no other 
 purpose cannot be within the Act. I entreat those who 
 assert the contrary to inform the public, whether every 
 act of deputation for the purpose of communicating with 
 the Parliament falls within the Act, or where they draw 
 the line. The Attorney-General has not drawn any line ; 
 will he say, that to depute a few to prepare a petition, or 
 
 materials for petition, is criminal "i 
 
 Will it be criminal in the mercantile bodies of Dublin, 
 Cork, Waterford and Belfast, should each appoint persons 
 to confer upon the general business of trade, and to pre- 
 pare a petition to Parliament upon the subject } The 
 Attorney-General has not furnished any boundary or 
 criterion ; and if he succeeds in his construction of the 
 law, no man can say where the spoliation of a great popular 
 right (I am not ashamed to use the word, much as it has 
 been abused) will stop. 
 
 But we are told that the magistrates are directed and 
 
PETER BURRO WES, K.C. 253 
 
 empowered by the law to disperse the assembly declared 
 and enacted to be illegal ; and we are triumphantly asked, 
 how can they ever act if false pretence, or encroachment 
 upon parliamentary privileges, be the criterion of guilt ? 
 How can they be supposed to know the false pretence 
 or criminal pursuit ? I decline not this test of the meaning 
 of the Statute, and I ansv»'er, that it is no great evil in the 
 mind, at least of any man who is not a law officer, that 
 great difficulty should obstruct the right of dispersing 
 men who are acting peaceably, and who furnish no pretext 
 for such dispersion, but suspected guilt, and imaginary 
 evil result. If they commit any seditious act, or menace 
 the public peace by riotous or disorderly conduct, the 
 magistrate may disperse them. If they are associated as 
 usurpers, in the slightest degree, of parliamentary right, 
 he may also disperse them. In the latter case he must, 
 and he ought to act at his peril ; and I hope I never shall 
 live to see the day when the tranquillity of the country 
 shall be secured by more extended powers. But has the 
 Attorney- General illuminated the intellect of the magis- 
 tracy upon this subject ? Has he defined for their practical 
 guide, what species of delegates they may disperse, and 
 when they should abstain } Are they warranted to 
 attack the Quakers' meeting ? Are they warranted to 
 disperse the Presbyterian Synod in Ulster ? Are they 
 warranted to violate the sanctuary of every deputed cham- 
 ber of commerce in Ireland ? Can there be no confer- 
 ence upon subjects of common interest between persons 
 widely separated, through the medium of agents or com- 
 mittee men without a previous licence from Government } 
 . , . , . The Attorney-General has not explained 
 
254 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 this, which I wisli he may do ; I shall not consider 
 it an interruption. What explanation the Solicitor- 
 General may give, when he shall have the last word^ 
 fearless of reply, I cannot anticipate, but certain I am he 
 cannot, in his way of construing the Act, ascertain the 
 right and duty of magistrates without placing the most 
 precious of our reserved civil rights under their feet. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, we are surfeited with visionary 
 notions and republican declamation. We have lost 
 our relish for the old, I hope not obsolete, principles of 
 liberty so cherished by our ancestors. From the abuse 
 of things of the highest worth we begin to forget their 
 value. . Every important invasion of right has 
 
 been founded upon an abuse of that right, and has suc- 
 ceeded through the apathy created by such abuse. Let 
 us not fall into this vulgar error ; let us give to the Govern- 
 ment and the people their legitimate rights, and not suffer 
 either to transgress. Few are the rights reserved to the 
 pSople, or which can be reserved, under a stable con- 
 stitution. The Legislature must be sovereign. To 
 ascribe to it actual omnipotence is nonsense and im- 
 piety, but to ascribe to it relative omnipotence is rational. 
 No power can question or resist its acts, while it exists, but 
 consistent with this acknowledged supremacy are the re- 
 served popular right of a free Press, and an unshackled 
 right of petitioning They are the great pedestals of our 
 free and balanced Constitution ; impair either, and it 
 totters ; withdraw either, and it falls, and crushes the 
 people and their liberties. Do I say that these privileges 
 are incapable of abuse, and should not be controlled in 
 their exercise by law } No, but I say that each should 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 255 
 
 be exercised without previous restraint. Let every man 
 publish at his peril ; let no man dare to exercise any 
 previous control over him ; but if he publishes a public 
 or private libel let the law punish him. In the same way 
 suffer nothin^^ to impede the formation or presenting 
 a petition ; but if, under the pretext of petitioning, men 
 should assemble and violate the law, vindicate the vio- 
 lated law ; but do not, as His Majesty's Government boasts 
 to have done, suffer the offenders to escape, but attack 
 the privilege which has been abused. Much has been 
 said about the Act of Charles II., in England, against 
 tumultuous petitioning. This Act grew out of the licen- 
 tiousness in the reign of Charles I., and, in my opinion, 
 was intended to be repealed by the Bill of Rights. But 
 does it not implicitly recognise and recommend, peti- 
 tioning through delegates ? Is not delegation the best 
 remedy of tumultuous petitioning ? and will it be said that 
 the people shall neither petition in numbers nor through 
 delegates, who may collect and communicate their wishes ? 
 This cannot be said by any honest statesman. It is al- 
 ways useful to know even the transient sentiment of the 
 people, though it may not always be wise to adopt it. 
 But there are, and ever will be, statesmen who wish to 
 have it stopped ; who always claim popular approbation, 
 but never will, if they can avoid it, suffer their pretensions 
 to be brought to any test. There never was a state 
 empyric, who forced a bitter potion down the throats of 
 the people, who did not say he did so to gratify their 
 craving appetite. To guard against such mockery and 
 insult is amongst the uses of the right of petitioning. In 
 short, qui facit per alium facit per se, and conversely. 
 
256 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 every man, being answerable for the acts of others 
 authorised by him, may depute others to do legal acts ; 
 so may many men appoint one or more deputies for 
 defined legal purposes ; so may many, having a common 
 object, appoint deputies to confer with other deputies 
 upon the same object ; without this, many salutary 
 pursuits might be absolutely frustrated ; the concerns of 
 agriculture, the concerns of trade, the concerns of charity, 
 the concerns of religion, might be sacrificed. Neither 
 can the exercise of this right depend upon the number 
 or variety of the persons deputing or the persons deputed. 
 Such circumstances might possibly, in some imaginable 
 cases, be an ingredient to be left to a jury, with other 
 evidence to satisfy them that the purpose avowed w^as a 
 pretence, and that the real object was to represent the 
 people or any portion of them not to petition Parliament, 
 or to execute any defined preconceived object. But if 
 men should be elected, or assume to represent the people, 
 or any portion of them, for general purposes, and if peti- 
 tioning should be found by a jury to be a mere pretext, 
 or if such usurpation of the exclusive right of the House 
 of Commons should, under any pretext, take place — then 
 the assembly so elected, or usurping, would be an illegal 
 assembly from their very constitution, independent of 
 any Act, and guilty of a high misdemeanour of a treason- 
 able nature, and liable to heavy punishment. This is 
 enough for security, and not too much for freedom. 
 
 Having argued further on the exact meaning of the word " pre- 
 tence," the advocate passes to the origin of the Act. 
 
 What was the evil which, in 1793, induced the Attorney- 
 General, and the Government of that day, to introduce 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 257 
 
 this bill ? In stating it, I am vindicating the memory of 
 that Attorney- General and of that Government from the 
 misconstruction and the misapplication of the Act, by 
 their successors of the present day. There existed, 
 shortly previous to the enactment of that law, a body 
 representing the whole province of Ulster in the illegal 
 and dangerous sense which I have ascribed to the term. 
 They sat at Dungannon ; they acted and resolved in their 
 own names as general representatives of that province. 
 They abstained from no subject, legislative or executive. 
 They did not confine themselves, or pretend to confine 
 themselves, to any defined preconceived object. They 
 did not pretend to seek even a subsequent adoption or 
 ratification of the measures or the resolutions they adopted. 
 Their avowed purpose was to destroy or new model all 
 or most of the ancient and venerable departments of the 
 State and Constitution. ... In the name of God, 
 can any man say there is any resemblance between an 
 assembly such as I have described and a Catholic com- 
 mittee such as I acknowledge is now in existence, for the 
 sole bona fide purpose of preparing a petition for the 
 subsequent ratification and adoption of individuals of 
 their body. 
 
 Counsel then read over the resolutions of the Ulster Convention, 
 and proceeded to attack the main argument of the prosecution — ■ 
 that the Convention Act could apply to the Catholic Committee. 
 
 My Lords, . . I shall refer you to contemporary 
 evidence at once admissible, and to my understanding, 
 conclusive upon the subject. I mean the Act of the 33rd of 
 the King, the very Act from which the Attorney- General 
 read the affecting detail of remaining Roman Catholic 
 
258 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 restrictions. This Act, containing such liberal con- 
 cessions to the Roman Catholic body, was passed in the 
 same sessions with the Convention Act, and, perhaps, 
 received the royal assent the very same day. It was 
 the result of a petition framed by the Catholic Com- 
 mittee. ... It was then deemed wise and consti- 
 tutional to hold intercourse with men who understood 
 and could truly communicate the sentiments and feeling 
 of their community. " Whereas various Acts of Par- 
 liament have been passed, imposing on His Majesty's 
 subjects, professing the Roman Catholic religion, many 
 restraints and disabilities, and from the peaceable and 
 loyal demeanour of His Majesty's Popish or Roman 
 Catholic subjects, it is fit that such restraints and dis- 
 abilities be discontinued." Now I ask is not this recital 
 decisive evidence, that the legislature did not consider 
 the Roman Catholic Convention, through whose media- 
 tion the very Act passed, an illegal and unconstitutional 
 assembly ? Or is it to be conceived, that they would 
 pass an Act with such a recital, and immediately after 
 denounce the body through whose mediation it was 
 obtained } 
 
 Counsel, in reply to the Attorney-General, pointed out the utility 
 of delegations as well as their necessity. When the Catholic body 
 did not protest against persecution the Tories in the reign of Anne, and 
 the Whigs in that of, George I. regarded them as mute of malice ; 
 when they did, bigots like Primate Boulter, were alarmed for the 
 Protestant interest. " It never has been found an easy task for the 
 oppressed to please his oppressor," 
 
 From the first formation of a Roman Catholic Com- 
 mittee to this day, it was either continued, or was called 
 into existence, whenever any subject of discussion arose 
 between that body and Government or Parliament. Every 
 
PETER BURRO WES, K.C. 259 
 
 relaxation of the law which was obtained is principally 
 ascribable to their zeal, activity, and perseverance. 
 The Attorney-General is well acquainted with the truth 
 of the maxim, " lex vigilantihus, non dormientibus, 
 inservity" and he may rest assured that the maxim is 
 
 as true in politics as in law 
 
 I shall again refer you to that affecting catalogue of 
 privations which the Attorney- General read with such 
 visible involuntary public sensation ; and I shall tell you 
 that that catalogue details but a small portion of privi- 
 leges from which the Roman Catholic people are shut 
 out. . . . For instance, no Roman Catholic, though 
 he should possess half, or the whole Bank of Ireland 
 stock, can be a director of the Bank of Ireland. These 
 restrictions and exclusions meet the Roman Catholic 
 in every quarter of Ireland, and affect his interests, and 
 hurt his feelings, in a thousand ways not known to my 
 honourable friend. But suppose it otherwise ; suppose 
 the higher orders alone interested in the present Catholic 
 question ; suppose the higher orders alone labour under 
 disabilities ; can the Attorney- General know so little 
 of human nature as not to feel that the lower orders will 
 make common cause with the higher orders of their sect, 
 even in matters of mere pride and speculation ? In my 
 opinion, if the only difference between the Protestant 
 and the Catholic were, that the latter should be prohibited 
 from wearing lace upon their clothes, or having livery 
 servants, this ridiculous and invidious distinction would 
 be felt by the meanest peasant, and might, at some un- 
 lucky crisis produce the most disastrous consequences. 
 
26o IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Jury, such things are not only possible, 
 but certain ; and although Protestant liberality has made 
 great advances in modern times, although rooted pre- 
 judices have been dislodged, although the Roman Catho- 
 lic of this day has received, from the Protestant of this day, 
 concessions calculated to obliterate, and which have 
 almost obliterated all recollection of past animosities, all 
 reflection of the barbarous and civil dissensions which 
 disgraced our ancestors, and embittered their lives — 
 although much has been done, much more remains 
 to be done ; and, until that shall be done, we cannot 
 feel the confidence of an united people ; the enemy will 
 not feel the terror with which such a character will 
 ever strike the invader. Instead, therefore, of im- 
 peding the object of this delegated Committee, it ought 
 to be the anxious wish of every good Irishman, and every 
 loyal subject, to give it full success ; to wipe away at once, 
 at this most interesting moment, all restrictions and 
 distinctions ; to invite our Roman Catholic brother to a 
 full participation of every civil right, and to bind him by 
 interest, gratitude, and affection, to unite with his heart 
 and hand in defending our common rights, our common 
 country, and our common Constitution 
 
 In every well-constituted State, property and power 
 are connected in all its departments, to separate them is 
 to sow the seeds of disease and agitation. . . Either 
 property will clothe itself with power, or power will seize 
 upon property. In a pure despotism, there is but one 
 proprietor. So that, in fact, the Roman Catholics are 
 seeking not only the grace, but the shield of property ; 
 not only what would ornament, but what would secure 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 261 
 
 their acquisitions. Can it be just, can it be wise, at any 
 time, or in any country, to disfranchise property and rank 
 of their legitimate and constitutional fruits ? Can it be 
 wise or politic to permit the great bulk of a nation to accu- 
 mulate property without bounds, and to acquire lands and 
 interests in lands without limit, and to close the avenues 
 of all the great honours and distinctions of the State 
 against them ? Ambition is a passion natural to man, 
 and if great proprietors and their descendants be shut 
 out from all legitimate gratification of that ineradicable 
 appetite, they will be tempted to courses and pursuits 
 equally dangerous to the community and themselves. 
 . . . Can the Roman Catholics of Ireland be 
 
 taught to feel — is it possible, in fact, that they will feel 
 that there is a fair legislative union between the nations ? 
 But will they not be effectually told by every man who 
 wishes to inflame them, — will not their own feelings tell 
 them — that Ireland is more than ever provincial ? 
 
 After warning the court that what was really at stake was the 
 privilege of petitioning, Counsel concluded : — 
 
 Gentlemen of the Jury, upon this inexhaustible subject 
 I have left much unsaid ; yet upon the grounds I have 
 urged I shall now leave it to your decision, only again 
 imploring you to read the charge which you are sworn 
 to try, and to compare it with the evidence you have heard 
 from the witnesses , and not with the calumnies which have 
 been everywhere uttered. To find the traverser guilty, 
 you must upon your oaths find in the very language of 
 the indictment, the Catholic Committee intended to be 
 appointed to be " a Committee of persons professing the 
 Roman Catholic religion, to be thereafter held, and to 
 
262 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 exercise a right and authority to represent the inhabitants 
 of Ireland professing the Roman Catholic religion under 
 pretence of preparing petitions to Parliament." You 
 must, in fact, convict the Roman Catholic subjects of this 
 realm of an offence approaching to high treason. You 
 have no evidence to warrant this ; and you cannot have 
 any rational wish to create or supply such evidence. The 
 Catholic body of this day owe their Protestant brethren 
 of this day great obligations. Believe me they are deeply 
 sensible of the debt, and are not the less worthy to have 
 that debt augmented, by the eagerness they display to be 
 fully emancipated to be perfectly amalgamated with you 
 in constitutional co-existence. No wise and good man 
 would wish at any time to disappoint this laudable im- 
 pulse. No man, not a maniac, would seek to disappoint 
 it, at a moment when all that is dear to us is in such peril, 
 that united enthusiastic efforts are necessary to common 
 security. Gentlemen, your Roman Catholic brethren 
 await a verdict, which is to pronounce upon their prin- 
 ciples and pursuits, with agonizing anxiety. There is 
 not a city, town, village or hamlet in Ireland, in which 
 the result is not at this moment looked for with breathless 
 expectation. It is looked for in England with little less 
 anxiety. . . . It is looked for by the common enemy, 
 with an anxious wish that the accusation may be true ; 
 they must derive the highest gratification, and possibly 
 the strongest motive to act, from a Protestant verdict 
 against the Roman Catholic people. Gentlemen, pro- 
 nounce a verdict of Not Guilty ; relieve your fellow- 
 subjects and disappoint the common enemy. Do not, 
 gentlemen, apprehend, that so gratifying a result would 
 
PETER BURROWES, K C. 263 
 
 be followed up by intemperate joy, or dangerous exul- 
 tation. No bad feeling can mix with the pure delight 
 which such an event would universally diffuse ; but if 
 there were danger of excesses from unbounded joy, those 
 Roman Catholic noblemen and gentlemen who are 
 implicated in the charge will moderate the triumph, and 
 guarantee the tranquillity of the country. The gallant 
 Fingall will guarantee it. He stands before you to 
 pledge his high character for the conduct of his brethren. 
 You know you may trust him ; you know that in the hour 
 of danger he lifted his sword equally against the rebels 
 of all persuasions ; he despised false and perishable 
 popularity ; he proved his title to be received as a sup- 
 porter of the throne, and he would not sully that title, 
 and he never has sullied it, by any seditious or intemperate 
 act. 
 
 May the God of truth and justice subdue your pre- 
 judices, awaken your conscience, and enlighten your 
 minds, to find that verdict which will tranquillise the 
 country, unite the people, appal the enemy, and place 
 these united islands in a state of such a proud defiance, 
 that no enemy will dare to pollute our shores ! 
 
 THE KING (AT THE SUIT OF BERRY) versus 
 ROBINSON, FOR BIGAMY 
 
 (1813.) 
 
 This case may be classed amongst the documents which 
 illustrate the social life of Ireland at the beginning of the last 
 century, the simple facts constituting one of those astound- 
 ing romances which sometimes vivify the arid pages of legal 
 
264 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 records. From the mystery of its illimitable folly one 
 thing emerges luminous — the inexhaustible kindness of the 
 Irish heart. 
 
 " The orator places the story and the scene before his 
 hearers as if they witnessed the reality. . . Livy's 
 beautiful story of the Roman Father is not superior to this 
 speech, as an exquisite specimen of narrative pathos." 
 {Memoir and Speeches of Peter Btirrowes, K.C.) 
 
 My Lords and Gentlemen of the Jury, — It falls to 
 my lot, very much by me regretted, to state to you a case 
 as pregnant with circumstances of human woe, as strongly 
 appealing to the feelings of humanity, as ever appeared 
 in a court of justice. The prisoner at the bar stands 
 indicted for a crime too often committed and seldom 
 prosecuted in this country — a crime which I think you will 
 agree with me, stands pre-eminently high in the scale of 
 offences — a crime at once preying upon the best interests 
 of society, and annihilating the happiness of the individual 
 who chances to be its victim 
 
 On a luckless morning, in the month of July, 18 10, the 
 prisoner at the bar rapped at the door of Mr. Charles 
 Berry, an eminent attorney resident on Arran Quay, in 
 this city. He was admitted to a conference, and a long 
 and fatal conference. Mr. Berry never had known him, 
 never had seen him, never heard that such a man was 
 in existence ; his appearance was wretched and squalid 
 to a degree of extremity, carrying the marks, the legible 
 marks, of misfortune and affliction. His debilitated 
 frame and haggard looks at once recommended him to 
 the sympathy of Mr. Berry. This sympathy was kept 
 alive and augmented by introductory letters which this 
 man carried with him, and by a sad and instructive tale of 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 265 
 
 folly and misfortune, which was communicated to Mr. 
 Berry in the most impressive manner by this forlorn 
 stranger, and which was in many parts corroborated by 
 letters from persons in whom Mr. Berry could confide. 
 From these sources Mr. Berry was informed that he had 
 once been high in fortune's favour ; that he was the 
 favourite and adopted nephew of General Robinson, 
 who died in the year 1793 ; that, whilst almost a boy, 
 he was treated with the most lavish and improvident indul- 
 gence, placed under masters to be taught what are called 
 accomplishments ; that he had been allowed for his ex- 
 penditure £500 per annum ; that his uncle, on his death, 
 bequeathed him so large a legacy as £100,000 vested 
 in the English funds ; he of course concluded his wealth 
 was inexhaustible, and he became as lavish and dissolute 
 as the most prodigal man of the day ; he purchased into 
 the cavalry ; and what with his credit and the unkind 
 accommodations of friendly loans, he was in a short time, 
 and whilst under age, enabled to waste £20,000 of his 
 fortune ; that at length, in 1800 an unlucky wind wafted 
 him to this country ; that he was quartered at Clonmel, 
 in the county of Tipperary, in that year, and shortly after 
 became acquainted with the family of Mr. Stoney of 
 Arran Hill. 
 
 Gentlemen, when I am relating facts as to that family, 
 I am telling you what he told Mr. Berry, for the truth 
 of which I do not vouch. I would not hazard the doing 
 so, for I know the origin from which the communication 
 came. He told Mr. Berry that Mr. Stoney had advised 
 him to quit the army ; that he did so ; that Mr. Stoney 
 gave him a hospitable invitation to enjoy the pleasures 
 
266 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of the chase at his country mansion ; that he accepted the 
 invitation, and was treated with kindness and hospitality ; 
 that he enjoyed the sports of the field abroad, and the 
 pleasures of the drawing-room at home ; that Mr. 
 Stoney's eldest daughter was strongly recommended by 
 her personal charms, and that Mr. Robinson, though still 
 a minor, was not insensible to their influence, and that 
 a mutual attachment was the consequence. He told Mr. 
 Berry that Mr. Stoney encouraged his addresses ; that he 
 did not throw any impediment in the way on the ground 
 of his minority ; that he did not suggest any prudential 
 recommendation to wait one year till he should arrive at 
 age ; that, on the contrary, he suggested and supplied 
 means of immediate marriage, and prepared the parties 
 with accommodations for Scotland. On their way to 
 Scotland, in Dublin, they stopped at the house of a pro- 
 fessional gentleman who had been married to a daughter 
 of Mr. Stoney. There it was managed that he should 
 execute a most liberal marriage settlement, amounting 
 to £20,000 ; and it was thought right also that Mr. Barry 
 (Mr. Stoney's son-in-law) should retain a further sum of 
 £4,000 for purposes not then defined. At this time it 
 was that the prisoner got acquainted with Mr. Vigne, the 
 jeweller. They then set off for Scotland, and arrived, 
 as rapidly as could be expected from the nature of the 
 mission, at Portpatrick. There the prisoner at the bar 
 was married, in the presence of many witnesses, to Miss 
 Ruth Stoney, by a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, 
 in a place of public worship. Having been married, they 
 remained in Portpatrick one or two days, and thence 
 immediately repaired to London. His stay there was 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 267 
 
 not very long, but it was not an idle time ; it was no 
 sluggish, no obscure, and inglorious period. On his 
 arrival he hired a furnished house in the most 
 fashionable part of the city. He hired a country villa, 
 purchased four carriages and seven race horses, with 
 an endless establishment of grooms, postilions, and 
 outriders. He flourished at all places of public resort ; 
 at Newmarket and at Epsom. He shot like a meteor 
 across public observation. He dazzled for a week ; he 
 was recollected for a month. Being sated with the glories 
 of the sod, he was smitten with a passion to become a 
 candidate for Parliament, and embarked in all the ex- 
 travagance and bustle of a contested election. He heard 
 of a vacancy in a borough where money recommended 
 to distinction, and offered the senatorial dignity to the 
 highest bidder. Thither he repaired with all the pomp 
 and circumstance of a popular candidate. Though he did 
 not succeed, he polled a prodigious number of free and 
 independent voters at the price of £17,000 or £18,000. 
 But, gentlemen, it is useless to dwell on the idle and puerile 
 instances of his prodigal folly. You are aware this course 
 could not long continue ; a man thus blazing with lavish 
 dissipation in every direction must soon have burned out. 
 At the close of two years he was without money, without 
 credit. The man who shone with such splendour dared 
 no longer to appear in the open day. Bailiffs were his 
 principal visitors ; London become a solitude to him ; 
 and he repaired to Ireland. The prudence of his father- 
 in-law had enabled him to vest in a purchase in Ireland a 
 sum of money, which produced about £900 a year. To 
 this remnant of his property he repaired, and he took 
 
268 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 up his habitation near his father-in-law. A man of his 
 capacity for expense must have contracted debts in Ire- 
 land as well as England. After a few years of ignoble ex- 
 travagance in Ireland, he became a prisoner in his own 
 house ; it was besieged with bailiffs, and all the calamities 
 of ruined fortune surrounded him. The man who had 
 shone so brilliantly in the metropolis of the empire was 
 at last unable to show his face in the smallest village in 
 Ireland. He told Mr. Berry that a project was at last 
 formed by his wife's family to preserve the income of the 
 property which he had purchased for the maintenance of 
 himself and family. It was suggested that his wife's 
 pin-money was in arrear, and that an amicable bill should 
 be filed by the trustee in order to raise it ; that a receiver 
 would be put upon the estate, by which stratagem it would 
 be protected from the creditors, and he would draw the 
 rents for his own support. The bill was filed, he put 
 in his answer, admitting all that was stated, and there was 
 a decree. A receiver was put upon the lands, and, as he 
 stated, the rents fell into the hands of Mr. Stoney In 
 order then to excite the humanity of Mr. Berry, he told 
 him that the moment the rents were thus taken from him 
 his father-in-law refused to furnish him with a penny. 
 He told Mr Berry that whilst in his career of prodigality, 
 he had lent his father-in-law from £8,000 to £10,000, and 
 he told him, as the winding up of his ingratitude, that the 
 very moment the receiver was put upon his property, 
 his wife and children — for he had, and still has, four 
 children — deserted him, and went to his father-in-law's 
 house. He attempted to follow them, but was repulsed. 
 The exhausted prodigal would not be sheltered under the 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 269 
 
 roof of the man who had seized his last stake. His misery 
 was now complete and without remedy ; he was aban- 
 doned by his dearest relations, banished from their society, 
 their confidence and love ; the doors of his father's house 
 were closed against him, and he was left a stranger in a 
 strange land, bereft of his fortune, abandoned by his 
 wife, shunned by his offspring, and left a prey to 
 want and the impending horror of arrest and imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 Such was his pitiful tale to Mr. Berry, a tale against 
 the effects of which he could not, he would not struggle. 
 Mr. Berry at once took him under his protection, little 
 thinking that the hand which he grappled in friendship 
 would one day wound him where he was most vulnerable. 
 His humanity was not chilled by suspicion ; he thought 
 not of the artifice of the impostor, while he was stimulated 
 to relieve the stranger ; and that relief was as bountiful 
 as it was disinterested. How was he treated ? Mr. 
 Berry, gentlemen, provided the prisoner at the bar with 
 lodging, for the rent of which he became security ; in that 
 lodging he supplied him, outcast as he was, with the neces- 
 saries, with the comforts of life. He was labouring under 
 a heavy bodily malady ; he procured him an apothecary, 
 a physician, medicine and wine. It was necessary in the 
 furtherance of his legal pursuits, to have frequent inter- 
 course with Mr. Berry, and he constantly crept out in the 
 darkness of the night to visit the family of his benefactor ; 
 whenever relieved from the apprehensions of the bailiff, 
 or by a casual relaxation from his disease, he came, pouring 
 out the benedictions of a grateful heart to the house of 
 his friend and benefactor. Whenever he came he was 
 
270 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 received with open arms, and the most confiding hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 Finally, he was received into Mr. Berry's house, and treated as 
 one of the family, while the solicitor set about disentangUng his 
 affairs by getting bills filed in Chancery to obtain reversal of pre- 
 vious decrees and also to obtain account of the sums alleged to have 
 been lent to Stoney and Barry. 
 
 Mr. Berry, at his own expense, filed all these bills, and 
 the suits are still depending. During his residence in 
 Mr. Berry's house, his wish to please was unceasing, and 
 he manifested in every act and in every word, the animated 
 gratitude by which he was actuated. Compassion grew 
 into esteem in every part of Mr. Berry's family. . . . 
 He had two daughters — the one a child, the other but a 
 few years older, now in her sixteenth year of age. She, 
 gentlemen, it is, who has become the hapless heroine of 
 the sad story of this unfortunate family. She was in her 
 person lovely, in her manners interesting, in female ac- 
 complishments eminently cultivated, in domestic virtues 
 and filial duty pre-eminent. She had an ardent and 
 elevated mind, a warm and aflfectionate heart. She was 
 the delight of her parents at home, their pride abroad, 
 the solace of their labours and their cares, and the antici- 
 pated hope and joy of their declining lives. The love 
 of offspring, the most forcible of all our instincts, is even 
 stronger towards the female than the male child. It is 
 wise that it should be so, it is more wanted ; it is just that 
 it should be so, it is more requited. There is no pillow 
 on which the head of a parent, anguished by sickness or 
 by sorrow, can so sweetly repose, as on the bosom of an 
 affectionate daughter. Her attentions are unceasing. 
 She is never utterly foras-familiated. The boy may 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 271 
 
 afford occasional comfort and pride to his family ; they 
 may catch glory from his celebrity, and derive support 
 from his acquisitions ; but he never can communicate 
 the solid and unceasing comforts of life which are derived 
 from the care and tender solicitude of the female child — 
 she seems destined by Providence to be the perpetual 
 solace and happiness of her parents. Even after her 
 marriage her filial attentions are unimpaired ; she may 
 give her hand and heart to her husband, but still she may 
 share her cares and attention with her parents, without a 
 pang of jealousy or distrust from him. He only looks 
 on them as the assured pledges of the fidelity, and 
 the unerring evidences of a good disposition. Mr. Berry 
 ought, perhaps, to have guarded this treasure with more 
 jealous suspicion ; perhaps he ought not to have suffered 
 a man, acknowledging himself to have been sunk in the 
 vortex of fashionable dissipation, to have had opportuni- 
 ties of converse with this young female ; but, gentlemen 
 of the jury, it is easy to be wise after experience ; it is easy 
 to suggest expedients to prevent evil after it has occurred. 
 Is there a man of you could suspect that a married man, 
 with four children, paralysed and forlorn, received under 
 your hospitable roof, covered with benefits which would 
 have kindled gratitude in the basest nature, could be 
 guilty of meditating the infliction of such a fatal wound 
 upon his benefactor ? . . . . Look at him, gentle- 
 men, at the bar of his country ! Is he an object likely 
 to engender suspicion of such a crime } You have heard 
 the story of his shattered fortunes — could his wealth have 
 been attractive .? What could Mr. Berry have dreaded 
 from the intercourse of such a man, even if he were un- 
 
272 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 married ? But, gentlemen, it has turned out that he had 
 means of acquiring an ascendancy over a young female 
 mind, which were unfortunately too prevailing ; he 
 was a man of polished manners, and, though superficial, 
 yet attractive endowments ; his understanding, though 
 not sound, was not altogether uncultivated ; he had a 
 taste for the belles-lettres ^ and was an adept in music and 
 poetry, understood drawing, was conversant in the 
 fashionable tales of the day, and possessed of all that little 
 artillery of accomplishment which make a man agreeable, 
 particularly in female society. Gentlemen, it sometimes 
 happens that the same courses which vitiate the morals 
 improve the manners, and that the surface appears the 
 more polished from the corruption which it covers and 
 conceals. In the month of December, 1810, he was 
 ordered to Cheltenham. Mrs. Berry was at the time very 
 ill, and she was prescribed also the Cheltenham waters. 
 
 Unable to accompany them, through pressure of business, Mr. 
 Berry permitted Robinson to escort wife and daughter to the 
 springs. With the consent of her father, the yoimg lady accepted 
 some trifling presents. 
 
 The party returned back to Ireland in the spring, and 
 things remained on this footing until the fatal 1 8th Novem- 
 ber last. I shall trace him through the melancholy occur- 
 rences of that day. Through what artifice, through what 
 fascination, through what suggestion, by what sophistry, 
 by what allurement, he must have drugged the mind of 
 this young female, it is impossible to say. It is a moral 
 miracle ' It is out of the ordinary course of human 
 agency. Yet so it happened, that on the eighteenth of 
 November, he being at the time so worn down by illness 
 that his life was in danger, with strength scarcely sufficient 
 
PETER BURROWES, K.C. 273 
 
 to admit his being carried to the carriage in the arms of 
 the servant, he induced this young lady to accompany him ; 
 he told her parents that he was going to the hot baths, 
 and would leave her at Mr. Vigne's to hear an eminent 
 proficient, his (Vigne's) sister, play on the pianoforte, 
 and begged Mr. Berry would indulge her with this musical 
 gratification, as Miss Berry was considered a first-rate 
 performer. It is impossible for me, gentlemen, to account 
 for his influence over this young lady's mind ; it would be 
 vanity in me to attempt to explain the cause ; however, 
 he did induce her, accompanied by her sister, a child from 
 ten to twelve years old, to go to Mr. Vigne's in Nassau 
 Street, where the prisoner had provided a clergyman, of 
 the name of Harris, who actually did celebrate the cere- 
 mony of marriage between them ; and having prevailed 
 on her to become his wife in point of ceremony, he was 
 carried back to his carriage, and afterwards, in Mr. Berry's 
 servant's arms, to his own bed. I am happy, gentlemen, 
 to say, that he did not, he could not, render his crime 
 perfect and complete. It is really a curious riddle ; it 
 surpasses anything I ever heard or read of ; and but for 
 the melancholy and afflicting distress of her injured family, 
 it would be a matter of novel and curious inquiry to dis- 
 cover how he should have sought and acquired that 
 ascendancy over her mind. It could not be a gross and 
 sensual passion ; a glance of your eye must refute the 
 idea. What ! — a sensual p assion for a being such as you 
 behold, drooping under the ravages of disease, and unable 
 to walk to a carriage ! It could not be a mercenary 
 attachment to the object of her father's charity ; it must 
 have been some mental fascination. By what artifices 
 
 T 
 
274 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 that unworthy man could influence the mind of a person 
 ten times his superior in understanding is astonishing ; 
 the means are incredible. Whether he told her of the 
 sufferings of his youth, the ruin of his fortunes, the deser- 
 tion by his wife and her ingratitude — whether his dis- 
 tresses excited her compassion, or whether he deluded 
 her into the notion of his marriage being void — is quite 
 inexplicable ; but so prevalent was his power over her 
 mind, that she would not have disputed his authority, 
 and probably she would have more cheerfully obeyed him, 
 if he had commanded her to give her hand to any other 
 man. The charitable public who will hear of this trial 
 ought to carry in their minds this extenuation — the utter 
 impossibility that anything sensual, or vain, or mercenary, 
 could have actuated her mind to that strange and blind 
 obedience. And when female criticism sits in judgment 
 upon this hapless young lady, and is about to pronounce 
 an austere and unfeeling judgment, I hope it will be recol- 
 lected that their common and primaeval parent fell under 
 the fascination of a reptile. 
 
 Robinson was sentenced to seven years' transportation. 
 
[ 275 ] 
 
 HENRY SHEARES (1753-1798). 
 JOHN SHEARES (1756-1798). 
 
 The story of the Sheares brothers is one of the saddest 
 in the annals of '98. It is remarkable not only for the 
 fraternal affection of the victims, but for the hideous trea- 
 chery which compassed their ruin. Sons of a banker, 
 member for Clonakilty, they inherited their father's liberal 
 spirit, and after a visit to Paris, 1792, threw themselves 
 heart and soul into the struggle for Irish independence. 
 They both joined the United Irishmen, John becoming 
 the ruling spirit of that organisation at the most critical 
 period of its history. He fixed the 23rd May, 1798, as the 
 date when the country should rise. Through the loyal 
 exertions of a Captain Warnesford Armstrong, who played 
 the part of betrayer and chief witness, they were arrested 
 on the 2 1st, and kept in prison until June 12th, when they 
 were brought to trial, Toler being created Attorney-General 
 for the occasion. The proceedings were huddled through at 
 break-neck pace. Curran defended in a speech which con- 
 demned Armstrong to eternal infamy as an atheist and a 
 perjurer. His efforts were unavailing, and both brothers 
 perished on the scaffold. 
 
 On the reassembling of the court to pass sentence, John Sheares 
 spoke ; — 
 
 My Lords, — I wish to offer a few words before sentence 
 is pronounced, because there is a weight pressing on my 
 heart much greater than that of the sentence which is to 
 come from the court. There has been, my Lords, a 
 weight pressing nn my mind from the first moment I 
 
276 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 heard the indictment read upon which I was tried ; but 
 that weight has been more particularly pressing upon my 
 heart when I found the accusation in the indictment 
 enforced and supported upon the trial. That weight 
 would be left insupportable if it were not for this oppor- 
 tunity of discharging it ; I shall feel it to be insupport- 
 able since a verdict of my country has stamped that evi- 
 dence as well founded. Do not think, my Lords, that I 
 am about to make a declaration against the verdict of the 
 jury or the persons connected with the trial ; I am only 
 about to call to your recollection a part of the charge at 
 which my soul shudders, and if I had no opportunity of 
 renouncing it before your Lordships and this auditory, 
 no courage would be sufficient to support me. The 
 accusation of which I speak, while I linger here yet a 
 minute, is that of holding out to the people of Ireland a 
 direction to give no quarter to the troops fighting for its 
 defence ! My Lords, let me say this, that if there be any 
 acquaintances in this crowded court — I do not say my 
 intimate friends, but acquaintances — who do not know 
 what I say is truth, I shall be reputed the wretch which 
 I am not ; I say if any acquaintance of mine can believe 
 that I could utter a recommendation of giving no quarter 
 to a yielding and unoffending foe, it is not the death which 
 I am about to suffer I deserve — no punishment could be 
 adequate to such a crime. My Lords, I can not only 
 acquit my soul of such an intention but I declare in the 
 presence of that God before Whom I must shortly appear 
 that the favourite doctrine of my heart was that no human 
 being should suffer death but when absolute necessity 
 required it. My Lords, I feel a consolation in making 
 
HENRY SHEARES ; JOHN SHEARES- 277 
 
 this declaration, which nothing else could afford me, be- 
 cause it is not only a justification of myself, but where I 
 am sealing my life with that breath which cannot be 
 suspected of falsehood, what I say may make some im- 
 pression upon the minds of men not holding the same 
 doctrine. I declare to God I know no crime but assas- 
 sination which can eclipse or equal that of which I am 
 accused. I discern no shade of guilt between that and 
 taking away the life of a foe by putting a bayonet to his 
 heart when he is yielding and surrendering. I do request 
 the Bench to believe that of me, I do request my country 
 to believe that of me — I am sure God will think that of 
 me. Now, my Lords, I have no favour to ask of the 
 court ; my country has decided I am guilty and the 
 law says I shall suffer — it sees that I am ready to suffer. 
 But, my Lords, I have a favour to request of the 
 court that does not relate to myself. My Lords, I have 
 a brother whom I have even loved dearer than myself, 
 but it is not from any affection for him alone that I am 
 induced to make the request. He is a man, and therefore 
 I would hope, prepared to die, if he stood as I do — 
 though I do not stand unconnected ; but he stands more 
 dearly connected. In short, my Lords, to spare your 
 feelings and my own, I do not pray that I should not 
 die, but that the husband, the father, the son— all com- 
 prised in one person — holding these relations dearer in 
 life to him than any man I know — for such a man I do 
 not pray a pardon, for that is not in the power of the court, 
 but I pray a respite for such time as the court in its 
 humanity and discretion shall think proper. You have 
 heard, my Lords, that his private affairs require arrange- 
 
278 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ment. When I address myself to your Lordships, it 
 is with a knowledge you will have of all the sons of our 
 aged mother being gone. Two have perished in the 
 service of the king — one very recently. I only request 
 that disposing of me, with what swiftness either the public 
 mind or justice requires, a respite may be given to my 
 brother, that the family may acquire strength to bear it all. 
 That is all I wish ; I shall remember it to my last breath, 
 and I shall offer up my prayers for you to that Being 
 Who has endowed us all with the sensibility to feel. 
 That is all I ask. I have nothing more to say. 
 
[ 279 ] 
 
 THEOBALD WOLFE TONE (1763-1798). 
 
 SPEECH BEFORE THE " COURT MARTIAL." 
 
 (November lo, 1798.) 
 
 Taken prisoner in the heroic fight off lyough Swilly, which 
 the " Hoche " sustained for six hours against four EngHsh 
 battleships, Wolfe Tone had hopes of passing as a French 
 ofiicer until a former fellow-student, named Hill, recognised, 
 and obe3dng inherited instincts, betrayed him. He was 
 illegally brought before a " court martial " in one of the 
 Dublin barracks, and, of course, condemned to be hanged. 
 
 It will be remembered that Curran, with his accustomed 
 intrepidity, insisted on the surrender of the gallant soldier 
 to the civil powers. The surrender came too late, for, 
 according to the generally received story, Wolfe Tone had 
 already wounded himself seriously. He did not die on the 
 scaffold. Like the proud sailor, Moreau, he cheated the 
 mean maUgnity of the race which has never claimed great- 
 ness of soul amongst its virtues. 
 
 I mean not to give the court any useless trouble, and 
 wish to spare them the idle task of examining witnesses. 
 I admit all the facts alleged, and only request leave to read 
 an address which I have prepared for this occasion. 
 
 Questioned ; does he mean by this that he has acted traitorously 
 against his Majesty ? 
 
 Stripping this charge of the technicality of its terms, 
 it means, I presume, by the word traitorously, that I have 
 been found in arms against the soldiers of the King in 
 
28o IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 my native country. I admit this accusation in its most 
 extended sense, and request again to explain to the court 
 the reasons and motives of my conduct. 
 
 On the court signifying acquiescence — 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court Martial, — 
 I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial 
 proof to convict me legally of having acted in hostility 
 to the government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. 
 I admit the fact. From my earliest youth I have regarded 
 the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the 
 curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that, whilst 
 it lasted this country could never be free nor happy. My 
 mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the ex- 
 perience of every succeeding year, and the conclusions 
 which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes. In 
 consequence, I was determined to employ all the powers 
 which my individual efforts could move, in order to 
 separate the two countries. That Ireland was not able of 
 herself to throw off the yoke, I knew ; I therefore sought 
 for aid wherever it was to be found. In honourable 
 poverty I rejected offers which, to a man in my circum- 
 stances, might be considered highly advantageous. 
 I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my 
 country, and sought in the French Republic an ally to 
 rescue three millions of my countrymen — 
 
 After some interruption from the court on the ground of irre- 
 levancy : — 
 
 I believe there is nothing in what remains for me to 
 say which can give any offence ; I mean to express my 
 feelings and gratitude towards the Catholic body, in whose 
 cause I was engaged. I have laboured to create a people 
 
THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. 28 1 
 
 in Ireland by raising three millions of my countrymen to 
 the rank of citizens. I have laboured to abolish the 
 infernal spirit of reUgious persecution, by uniting the 
 Catholics and Dissenters. To the former I owe more 
 than ever can be repaid. The services I was so fortunate 
 as to render them they rewarded munificently ; but they 
 did more : when the public cry was raised against me — 
 when the friends of my youth swarmed off and left me 
 alone— the Catholics did not desert me ; they had the 
 virtue even to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid prin- 
 ciple of honour ; they refused, though strongly urged, to 
 disgrace a man who, whatever his conduct towards the 
 Government might have been, had faithfully and con- 
 scientiously discharged his duty towards them ; and in 
 so doing, though it was in my own case, I will say they 
 showed an instance of public virtue of which I know not 
 whether there exists another example. 
 
 After further interruption — 
 
 I shall, then, confine myself to some points relative to 
 my connection with the French army. Attached to no 
 party in the French RepubHc — without interest, without 
 money, without intrigue — the openness and integrity 
 of my views raised me to a high and confidential rank in 
 its armies. I obtained the confidence of the Executive 
 Directory, the approbation of my generals, and I will 
 venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave com- 
 rades. When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret 
 and internal consolation which no reverse of fortune, no 
 sentence in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive 
 me of, or weaken in any degree. Under the flag of the 
 
282 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save 
 and liberate my own country. For that purpose I have 
 encountered the chances of war amongst strangers ; for 
 that purpose I repeatedly braved the terrors of the ocean, 
 covered, as I knew it to be, with the triumphant fleets of 
 that power which it was my glory and my duty to oppose. 
 I have sacrificed all my views in life ; I have courted 
 poverty ; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and 
 children whom I adored, fatherless. After such a sacri- 
 fice, in a cause w^hich I have always considered — con- 
 scientiously considered — as the cause of justice and 
 freedom, it is no great effort at this day, to add the sacri- 
 fice of my life. But I hear it said that this unfortunate 
 country has been a prey to all sorts of horrors. I sin- 
 cerely lament it. I beg, however, it may be remembered 
 that I have been absent four years from Ireland. To me 
 these sufferings can never be attributed. I designed by 
 fair and open war to procure the separation of the two 
 countries. For open war I was prepared, but instead of 
 that a system of private assassination has taken place. 
 I repeat, whilst I deplore it, that it is not chargeable on 
 me. Atrocities, it seems, have been committed on both 
 sides. I do not less deplore them. I detest them from 
 my heart ; and to those who know my character and senti- 
 ments I may safely appeal for the truth of this assertion ; 
 with them I need no justification. In a case like this 
 success is everything. Success, in the eyes of the vulgar, 
 fixes its merits. Washington succeeded, and Kosciusko 
 failed. After a combat nobly sustained — a combat 
 which would have excited the respect and sympathy of a 
 generous enemy — my fate has been to become a prisoner 
 
THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. 283 
 
 to the eternal disgrace of those who gave the orders. I 
 was brought here in irons like a felon. I mention this 
 for the sake of others ; for me, I am indifferent to it. 
 I am aware of the fate which awaits me, and scorn equally 
 the tone of complaint and that of supplication. As to the 
 connection between this country and Great Britain, I 
 repeat it — all that has been imputed to me (words, writ- 
 ings, and actions), I here deliberately avow. I have 
 spoken and acted with reflection and on principle, and 
 am ready to meet the consequences. Whatever be the 
 sentence of the court I am prepared for it. Its members 
 will surely discharge their duty — I shall take care not to 
 be wanting in mine. 
 The court having asked if he mshed to make further observations — 
 
 I wish to offer a few words relative to one single point 
 — the mode of punishment. In France our emigres, 
 who stand nearly in the same situation in which I now 
 stand before you, are condemned to be shot. I ask that 
 the court shall adjudge me the death of a soldier, and let 
 me be shot by a platoon of grenadiers. I request this 
 indulgence rather in consideration of the uniform I wear 
 — the uniform of a Chef de Brigade in the French army 
 — than from any personal regard to myself. In order to 
 evince my claim to this favour, I beg that the court may 
 take the trouble to peruse my commission and letters of 
 service in the French army. It will appear from these 
 papers that I have not received them as a mask to cover 
 me, but that I have been long and bona fide an officer in 
 the French service. 
 
 The " Judge Advocate " pointed out that such letters would 
 be incriminatory. 
 
284 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Oh, I know they will. I have already admitted the 
 facts, and I now admit the papers as full proof of con- 
 viction. 
 
 (The papers consisted of a brevet of Chef de Brigade from the 
 Directory signed by the Minister of War, a passport and a letter of 
 service granting rank of Adjutant-General.) 
 
 General L,oftus — In these papers you are designated as serving in 
 the army of England. 
 
 I did serve in that army, when it was commanded by 
 Buonaparte, by Dessaix, and by Kilmaine, who is, as I 
 am, an Irishman ; but I have also served elsewhere. 
 
 The court asked if he had anything further to say. 
 
 He said that nothing more occurred to him, except that 
 the sooner his Excellency's approbation of the sentence 
 was obtained the better. 
 
L 285 ] 
 
 WILLIAM CONYNGHAM PLUNKET 
 
 (AFTERWARDS LORD PLUNKET) 
 
 (1764-1854.) 
 
 1800.— INCXDMPETENCE OF IRISH PARLIAMENT 
 
 TO PASS THE UNION 
 
 This is the great " Hamilcar " speech. The standard 
 of action proved too high for personal use. 
 
 Sir, the noble lord has shown much surprise that he 
 should hear a doubt expressed concerning the com- 
 petence of ParHament to do this act. I am sorry that I 
 also must contribute to increase the surprise of the noble 
 lord. If I mistake not, his surprise will be much aug- 
 mented before this question shall be disposed of ; he shall 
 see and hear what he has never before seen or heard, 
 and be made acquainted with sentiments to which, pro- 
 bably, his heart has been a stranger. 
 
 Sir, I, in the most express terms, deny the competency 
 of Parliament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to 
 lay your hands on the Constitution. I tell you, that if, 
 circumstanced as you are, you pass this Act, it will be 
 a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will be bound to 
 obey it. I make the assertion deliberately, I repeat it, 
 ^nd I call on any man who hears me to take down my 
 
286 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 words. You have not been elected for this purpose. 
 You are appointed to make laws, and not legislatures. 
 You are appointed to act under the Constitution, not 
 to alter it. You are appointed to exercise the func- 
 tions of legislators, and not to transfer them. And if 
 you do so, your act is a dissolution of the Government. 
 You resolve society into its original elements, and no man 
 in the land is bound to obey you. 
 
 Sir, I state doctrines which are not merely founded 
 on the immutable laws of justice and of truth. I state 
 not merely the opinions of the ablest men who have written 
 on the science of government, but I state the practice of 
 our Constitution as settled at the era of the revolution, 
 and I state the doctrines under which the House of Hanover 
 derives its title to the throne. Has the King a right to 
 transfer his Crown ? Is he competent to annex it to the 
 Crown of Spain or any other country } No, but he may 
 abdicate it, and every man who knows the Constitution 
 knows the consequence — the right reverts to the next 
 in succession, if they all abdicate, it reverts to the people. 
 The man who questions this doctrine, in the same breath 
 must arraign the Sovereign on the throne as an usurper. 
 Are you competent to transfer your legislative rights to 
 the French Council of five hundred ? Are you competent 
 to transfer them to the British Parliament ? I answer. 
 No. When you transfer you abdicate, and the great 
 original trust reverts to the people from whom it issued. 
 Yourselves you may extinguish, but Parliament you cannot 
 extinguish. It is enthroned in the hearts of the people. 
 It is enshrined in the sanctuary of the Constitution. It is 
 immortal as the island which it protects. As well might 
 
WILLIAM CONYNGHAM PLUNKET. 287 
 
 the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his 
 miserable body should extinguish his eternal soul. Again, 
 I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on 
 the Constitution ; it is above your power. 
 
 Sir, I do not say that ParUament and the people, 
 by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change 
 the form of the Constitution. Whenever such a case 
 arises it must be decided on its own merits — but that 
 is not this case. If the Government considers this a season 
 peculiarly fitted for experiments on the Constitution, they 
 may call on the people. I ask you are you ready to do so ? 
 Are you ready to abide the event of such an appeal ? 
 What is it you must, in that event, submit to the people ? 
 Not this particular project ; for if you dissolve the present 
 form of government, they become free to choose any 
 other — you fling them to the fury of the tempest — you 
 must call on them to unhouse themselves of the established 
 Constitution, and to fashion to themselves another. I 
 again ask, is this the time for an experiment of this 
 nature ? Thank God, the people have manifested no such 
 wish ; so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly 
 against this daring innovation. You know that no voice 
 has been uttered in its favour, and you cannot be infatuated 
 enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails 
 in some parts of the Kingdom. If you know how to appre- 
 ciate that silence, it is more formidable than the most 
 clamorous opposition — you may be rived and shivered 
 by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder. 
 But, Sir, we are told that we should discuss this question 
 with calmness and composure. I am called on to surren- 
 der my birthright and my honour, and I am told I should 
 
288 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 be calm and should be composed. National pride ! 
 Independence of our country ! These, we are told by 
 the Minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian 
 of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an 
 enlightened assembly as this ; they are trinkets and gew- 
 gaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking 
 people Hke you, Sir, or like your predecessor in that 
 chair, but utterly unworthy the consideration of this house, 
 or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who 
 condescends to instruct it. Gracious God ! We see a 
 Pery re-ascending from the tomb, and raising his awful 
 voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, 
 and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which 
 warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man are 
 only calculated to excite the contempt of this young 
 philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery 
 to the Cabinet to outrage the feelings and understanding 
 
 of the country' 
 
 Yes, Sir, I thank administration for tliis measure. 
 They are, without intending it, putting an end to our 
 dissensions — through this black cloud which they have 
 collected over us, I see the light breaking in upon this 
 unfortunate country. They have composed our dissen- 
 sions — not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and 
 subdued rebellion — not by hallooing — the Protestant 
 against the Catholic and the Catholic against Protestant — 
 not by committing the north against the south — not by 
 inconsistent appeals to local or to party prejudices ; no, 
 but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy against 
 the liberties of Ireland, they have subdued every petty 
 and subordinate distinction. They have united every 
 
WILLIAM CONYNGHAM PLUNKET. 289 
 
 rank and description of men by the pressure of this grand 
 and momentous subject ; and I tell them that they will 
 see every honest and independent man in Ireland rally 
 round her Constitution, and merge every other con- 
 sideration in his opposition to this ungenerous and 
 odious measure. For my own part, I will resist it to 
 the last gasp of my existence and with the last drop of 
 my blood, and when I feel the hour of my dissolution 
 approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take 
 my children to the altar and swear them to eternal 
 hostility against the invaders of their country's freedom. 
 
 u 
 
290 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 THOMAS GOOLD (1766-1846). 
 
 A meeting of the Irish Bar was called, December 9th, 
 1799, at the Exhibition Room, William Street, to discuss 
 the Union project, and rejected it by a majority of 134. 
 Amongst the speakers was a brilliant Cork barrister, Thomas 
 Goold, K.C., author of a pamphlet in defence of Burke's 
 " Reflections on the Revolution in France," and an address 
 against the Union, to which he was consistently opposed. 
 His speech aroused the same enthusiasm that greeted 
 Hussey Burgh's several years before. The following extract 
 is marked by a clearn^s of insight and an energy of diction 
 too rare in subsequent times. 
 
 There are 40,000 British troops in Ireland, and with 
 40,000 bayonets at my breast, the minister shall not plant 
 another Sicily in the bosom of the Atlantic. I want not 
 the assistance of divine inspiration to foretell, for I am 
 enabled by the visible and unerring demonstrations of 
 nature to assert, that Ireland was destined to be a free 
 and independent nation. Our patent to be a state, not a 
 shire, comes direct from heaven. The Almighty has in 
 majestic characters, signed the great charter of our in- 
 dependence. The great Creator of the world has given 
 our beloved country the gigantic outlines of a kingdom. 
 The God of nature never intended that Ireland should be 
 a province, and by God she never shall. 
 
[ 291 ] 
 
 DANIEL O^CONNELL (1775-1847). 
 
 i8i4.~THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK. 
 
 In this able oration the great Tribune reiterates his advice 
 concerning the advantages of petitioning. It is noticeable 
 that he oSers England Ireland's help — unconditionally — 
 in return for concessions. This type of political morality 
 is not peculiar to O'Connell, nor unknown at the present 
 day. It is saying, in effect, to England, " We have declared 
 you to be a liar, a hypocrite, and a thief, but give us what 
 we want, and we will aid you in your designs against others." 
 
 As long as truth or justice could be supposed to in- 
 fluence man ; as long as man was admitted to be under 
 the control of reason ; so long must it be prudent and wise 
 to procure discussions on the sufferings and the rights 
 of the people of Ireland. Truth proclaimed the trea- 
 cherous iniquity which had deprived us of our chartered 
 liberty ; truth destroyed the flimsy pretext under 
 which this iniquity is continued ; truth exposed our 
 merits and our sufferings ; whilst reason and justice 
 combined to demonstrate our right — the right of every 
 human being to freedom of conscience — a right without 
 which every honest man must feel that to him, individually, 
 the protection of Government is a mockery, and the res- 
 triction of penal law a sacrilege. 
 
 Truth, reason, and justice are our advocates ; and 
 
292 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 even in England, let me tell you, that those powerful 
 advocates have some authority. They are, it is true, 
 more frequently resisted there than in most other coun- 
 tries ; but yet they have some sway among the English 
 at all times. Passion may confound, and prejudice darken 
 the English understanding ; and interested passion and 
 hired prejudice have been successfully employed against 
 us at former periods ; but the present season appears 
 singularly well calculated to aid the progress of our cause, 
 and to advance the attainment of our important objects. 
 
 Yes, everything, except false friendship and domestic 
 treachery, forebodes success. The cause of man is in 
 its great advance. Humanity has been rescued from 
 much of its thraldom. In the states of Europe, where the 
 iron despotism of the feudal system so long classed men 
 into two species, the hereditary masters and the perpetual 
 slaves ; when rank supplied the place of merit, and to be 
 humbly born operated as a perpetual exclusion ; in many 
 parts of Europe man is reassuming his natural station, 
 and artificial distinctions have vanished before the force 
 of truth, and the necessities of governors. 
 
 France has a representative government ; and, as the 
 unjust privileges of the clergy and nobility are abolished ; 
 as she is blessed with a most wise, clear, and simple code 
 of laws ; as she is almost free from debt, and emancipated 
 from odious prejudices, she is likely to prove an example 
 and a light to the world. 
 
 In Germany the sovereigns who formerly ruled at their 
 free will and caprice, are actually bribing the people to the 
 support of their thrones, by giving them the blessings of 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 293 
 
 liberty. It is a wise and a glorious policy. The Prince 
 Regent has emancipated his CathoHc subjects of Hanover, 
 and traced for them the grand outlines of a free con- 
 stitution. The other states of Germany are rapidly 
 following the example. The people, no longer destined 
 to bear the burdens only of society, are called up to take 
 their share in the management of their own concerns, 
 and in the sustentation of the public dignity and hap- 
 piness. In short, representative government, the only 
 rational and just government, is proclaimed by princes 
 as a boon to their people, and Germany is about to afford 
 many an example of the advantages of rational liberty. 
 Anxious as some kings appear to be in the great work 
 of plunder and robbery, others of them are now the first 
 heralds of freedom. 
 
 It is a moment of glorious triumph to humanity ; 
 and even one instance of Hberality freely conceded, 
 makes compensation for a thousand repetitions of the 
 ordinary crimes of military monarchs. The crime is fol- 
 lowed by its own punishment ; but the great principle 
 of the rights of man establishes itself now on the broadest 
 basis, and France and Germany now set forth an example 
 for England to imitate. 
 
 Italy, too, is in the paroxysms of the fever of inde- 
 pendence. Oh, may she have strength to go through 
 the disease, and may she rise like a giant refreshed with 
 wine ! One thing is certain, that the human mind is set 
 afloat in Italy. The flame of freedom burns ; it may be 
 smothered for a season ; but all the whiskered Croats 
 and the fierce Pandours of Austria will not be able to 
 extinguish the sacred fire. Spain to be sure, chills the 
 
294 HUSH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 heart, and disgusts the understanding. The combined 
 Inquisition and the Court press upon the mind, whilst 
 they bind the body in fetters of adamant. But this despot- 
 ism is, thank God, as unrelentingly absurd as it is cruel, 
 andthere arises a darling hope out of the very excess of the 
 evil. The Spaniards must be walking corpses, they 
 must be living ghosts, and not human beings, unless a 
 subhme reaction be in rapid preparation. But let us turn 
 to our own prospects. 
 
 The cause of liberty has made, and is making, great 
 progress in states heretofore despotic. In all the coun- 
 tries in Europe, in which any portion of freedom prevails, 
 the liberty of conscience is complete. England alone, 
 of all the states pretending to be free, leaves shackles 
 upon the human mind ; England alone, amongst free 
 states, exhibits the absurd claim of regulating behef by 
 law, and forcing opinion by statute. Is it possible to con- 
 ceive that this gross, this glaring, this iniquitous absurdity 
 can continue } Is it possible, too, to conceive that it 
 can continue to operate, not against a small and powerless 
 sect, but against the millions, comprising the best strength, 
 the most affluent energy of the empire } — a strength 
 and an energy daily increasing, and hourly appreciating 
 their own importance. The present system, disavowed 
 by liberalised Europe, disclaimed by sound reason, 
 abhorred by genuine religion, must soon and ior ever be 
 abolished. 
 
 Let it not be said that the princes of the Continent 
 were forced by necessity to give privileges to their subjects, 
 and that England has escaped from a similar fate. I 
 admit that the necessity of procuring the support of the 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 295 
 
 people was the mainspring of royal patriotism on the 
 Continent ; but I totally deny that the ministers of Eng- 
 land can dispense with a similar support. The burdens of 
 the war are permanent ; the distresses occasioned by the 
 peace are pressing ; the financial system tottering, and to 
 be supported in profound peace only by a war taxation. 
 In the meantime, the resources of corruption are mightily 
 diminished. Ministerial influence is necessarily dimin- 
 ished by one-half of the effective force of indirect bribery ; 
 full two-thirds must be disbanded. Peculation and cor- 
 ruption must be put upon half-pay, and no allowances. 
 The ministry lose not only all those active partisans ; 
 those outrageous loyalists, who fattened on the public 
 plunder during the seasons of immense expenditure ; 
 but those very men will themselves swell the ranks of the 
 malcontents, and probably be the most violent in their 
 opposition. They have no sweet consciousness to reward 
 them in their present privations ; and therefore they are 
 likelv to exhaust the bitterness of their souls on their late 
 employers. Every cause conspires to render this the 
 period in which the Ministry should have least inclination, 
 least interest, least power, to oppose the restoration of 
 our rights and liberties. 
 
 I speak not from mere theory. There exist at this 
 moment practical illustrations of the truth of my asser- 
 tions. Instances have occurred which demonstrate, 
 as well the inability of the Ministry to resist the 
 popular voice, as the utility of re-echoing that voice, 
 until it is heard and understood in all its strength 
 and force. The ministers had determined to continue 
 the property tax ; they announced that determination 
 
296 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to their partisans at Liverpool and in Bristol. Well, 
 the people of England met ; they petitioned ; they 
 repeated, they reiterated their petitions, until the ministry 
 felt they could no longer resist ; and they ungraciously, 
 but totally, abandoned their determination ; and the 
 property tax now expires. 
 
 Another instance is also now before us. It relates to 
 the Corn Laws. The success of the repetition of peti- 
 tions in that instance is the more remarkable, because 
 such success has been obtained in defiance of the first 
 principles of political economy, and in violation of the 
 plainest rules of political justice. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the merits of the 
 Corn Laws, but I cannot avoid, as the subject lies in my 
 way, to put upon public record my conviction of the 
 inutility as well as the impropriety of the proposed measure 
 respecting those laws. I expect that it will be believed 
 in Ireland that I would not volunteer thus an opposition 
 of sentiment to any measure, if I was not most disinter- 
 estedly, and in my conscience, convinced that such a 
 measure would not be of any substantial or permanent 
 utility to Ireland. 
 
 As far as I am personally concerned, my interest plainly 
 is to keep up the price of lands ; but I am quite con- 
 vinced that the measure in question will have an effect 
 permanently and fatally injurious to Ireland. The 
 clamour respecting the Corn Laws has been fomented by 
 parsons who were afraid that they would not get money 
 enough for their tithes, and absentee landlords, who 
 apprehend a diminution of their rack rents ; and if you 
 observed the names of those who have taken an active 
 
DANIEL OCONNELL. 297 
 
 part in favour of the measure, you will find amongst them 
 many, if not all, the persons who have most distinguished 
 themselves against the liberty and religion of the people. 
 There have been, I know, many good men misled, and 
 many clever men deceived, on this subject ; but the great 
 majority are of the class of oppressors. 
 
 There was formed some time ago an association of 
 a singular nature in Dublin and the adjacent counties. 
 Mr. Luke White was, as I remember, at the head of it. 
 It contained some of our stoutest and most stubborn 
 seceders ; it published the causes of its institution ; it 
 recited that, whereas butchers' meat was dearer in Cork, 
 and in Limerick, and in Belfast than in Dublin, it was 
 therefore expedient to associate, in order that the people 
 of Dublin should not eat meat too cheap. Large sums 
 were subscribed to carry the patriotic design into effect ; 
 but public indignation broke up the ostensible con- 
 federacy ; it was too plain and too glaring to bear public 
 inspection. The indignant sense of the people of 
 Dublin forced them to dissolve their open association ; 
 and if the present enormous increase of the price of meat 
 in Dublin beyond the rest of Ireland be the result of 
 secret combination of any individuals, there is at least 
 this comfort, that they do not presume to beard the public 
 with the open avowal of their design to increase the diffi- 
 culties of the poor in procuring food. 
 
 Such a scheme as that, with respect to meat in Dublin — 
 such a scheme, precisely, is the sought-for Corn Law. The 
 only difference consists in the extent of the operation of 
 both plans. The corn plan is not only more extensive, not 
 only more unjust in principle, but it is more unreasonable 
 
298 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in its operation, because its necessary tendency must be 
 to destroy that very market of which it seeks the exclusive 
 possession. The Corn Law men want, they say, to have 
 the exclusive feeding of the manufacturers ; but at pre- 
 sent our manufacturers, loaded as they are with taxation, 
 are scarcely able to meet the goods of foreigners in the 
 markets of the world. The English are already undersold 
 in foreign markets ; but, if to this dearness produced 
 by taxation, there shall be added the dearness produced 
 by dear food, is it not plain that it will be impossible 
 to enter into a competition with foreign manufacturers, 
 who have no taxes and cheap bread ? Thus the Corn Laws 
 will destroy our manufactures, and compel our manu- 
 facturers to emigrate, in spite of penalties ; and the 
 Corn Law supporters will have injured themselves and 
 destroyed others. 
 
 • ••«•••• 
 
 The great advantages of discussion being thus appa- 
 rent, the efficacy of repeating, and repeating, and repeating 
 again our petitions being thus demonstrated by notorious 
 facts, the Catholics of Ireland must be sunk in criminal 
 apathy, if they neglect the use of an instrument so effi- 
 cacious for their emancipation. 
 
 There is further encouragement at this particular 
 crisis. Dissension has ceased in the Catholic body. 
 Those who paralysed our efforts, and gave our conduct 
 the appearance and reality of weakness, and wavering, 
 and inconsistency, have all retired. Those who were ready 
 to place the entire of the Catholic feeling and dignity, 
 and some of the Catholic religion too, under the feet of 
 every man who pleased to call himself our friend, and to 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 299 
 
 prove himself our friend, by praising on every occasion, 
 and upon no occasion, the oppressors of the CathoHcs, 
 and by abusing the CathoHcs themselves ; the men 
 who would link the Catholic cause to this patron and to 
 that, and sacrifice it at one time to the minister, and at 
 another to the opposition, and make it this day the tool 
 of one party, and the next the instrument of another party ; 
 the men, in fine, who hoped to traffic upon our country 
 and our rehgion, who would buy honours and titles, and 
 places and pensions, at the price of the purity, and dignity, 
 and safety of the Catholic Church in Ireland ; all those 
 men have, thank God, quitted us, I hope for ever. They 
 have returned into silence and secession, or have frankly 
 or covertly gone over to our enemies. I regret deeply 
 and bitterly that they have carried with them some few, 
 who, like my Lord Fingal, entertain no other motives 
 than those of purity and integrity, and who, like that 
 noble lord, are merely mistaken. 
 
 But I rejoice at this separation — I rejoice that they 
 have left the single-hearted, and the disinterested, and the 
 indefatigable, and the independent, and the numerous, 
 and the sincere Catholics to work out their emancipation 
 unclogged, unshackled, and undismayed. They have 
 bestowed on us another bounty also — they have proclaimed 
 the causes of their secession — they have placed out of 
 doubt the cause of the divisions. It is not intemperance, 
 for that we abandoned ; it is not the introduction of 
 extraneous topics, for those we disclaimed ; it is simply and 
 purely. Veto or no Veto — restriction or no restriction — 
 in other words ; it is religion and principle that have 
 divided us ; thanks, many thanks to the tardy and remote 
 
300 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 candour of the seceders, that has at length written in large 
 letters the cause of their secession — it is the Catholic 
 Church of Ireland— it is whether that Church shall con- 
 tinue independent of a Protestant ministry or not. We 
 are for its independence — the seceders are for its de- 
 pendence. 
 •••••••• 
 
 Those are our present prospects of success. First, 
 man is elevated from slavery almost everywhere, and 
 human nature has become more dignified, and, I may say, 
 more valuable. Secondly, England wants our cordial 
 support, and knows that she has only to concede to us 
 justice in order to obtain our affectionate assistance. 
 Thirdly, this is the season of successful petition, and the 
 very fashion of the times entitles our petition to succeed. 
 Fourthly, the Catholic cause is disencumbered of hollow 
 friends and interested speculators. Add to all these the 
 native and inherent strength of the principle of religious 
 freedom, and the inert and accumulating weight of our 
 wealth, our religion, and our numbers, and where is the 
 sluggard that shall dare to doubt our approaching success } 
 Besides, even our enemies must concede to us, that 
 we act from principle, and from only principle. We 
 prove our sincerity when we refuse to make our emanci- 
 pation a subject of traffic and barter, and ask for relief 
 only upon those grounds which, if once established, would 
 give to every other sect the right to the same political 
 immunity. All we ask is " a clear stage and no favour." 
 We think the Catholic religion the most rationally con- 
 sistent with the divine scheme of Christianity, and 
 therefore, all we ask is, that everybody should be left to 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 3OI 
 
 his unbiassed reason and judgment. If Protestants are 
 equally sincere, why do they call the law, and the bribe 
 and the place, and the pension, in support of their doc- 
 trines ? Why do they fortify themselves behind pains, 
 and penalties, and exclusions, and forfeitures ? Ougni 
 not our opponents to feel that they degrade the sanctity 
 of their religion, when they call in the profane aid of 
 temporal rewards and punishments, and that they proclaim 
 the superiority of our creed, when they thus admit them- 
 selves unable to contend against it upon terms of equality, 
 and by the weapons of reason and argument, and perse- 
 vere in refusing us all we ask — " a clear stage and no 
 
 favour." 
 • ••»■••• 
 
 I close with conjuring the Catholics to persevere in 
 their present course. 
 
 Let us never tolerate the slightest inroad on the 
 discipline of our ancient, our holy Church. Let us never 
 consent that she should be made the hireling of the 
 ministry. Our forefathers would have died, nay, they 
 perished in hopeless slavery, rather than consent to such 
 degradation. 
 
 Let us rest upon the barrier where they expired, or 
 go back into slavery, rather than forward into irreligion 
 and disgrace ! Let us also advocate our cause on the two 
 great principles — first, that of an eternal separation in 
 spirituals between our Church and the State ; secondly, 
 that of the eternal right of freedom of conscience — a 
 right which, I repeat it with pride and pleasure, would 
 exterminate the Inquisition in Spain, and bury in oblivion 
 the bloody Orange flag of dissension in Ireland ! 
 
302 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 
 
 (June i6, 1815.) 
 
 On G rattan. 
 
 I cannot conclude without deprecating any declamation 
 on the merits of Mr. Grattan. No man can be more 
 sensible of those merits than I am. 
 
 I recall to mind his early and his glorious struggles for 
 Ireland. I know he raised her from degradation, and 
 exalted her to her rank as a nation. I recollect, too, that 
 if she be now a pitiful province, Grattan struggled and 
 fought for her whilst life or hope remained. I know all 
 this, and more ; and my gratitude and enthusiasm for 
 those services will never be extinguished. 
 
 But I know too, that, to use his own phrase of another, 
 " he was an oak of the forest, too old to be transplanted." 
 
 I see with regret, that except his services in our cause, 
 he has since the Union, made no exertions worthy of his 
 name and of his strength. Since he has inhaled the foul 
 and corrupt atmosphere that fills some of the avenues to 
 Westminster, there have not been the same health and 
 vigour about him. He seems to have forgotten his ancient 
 adorations. He supported the Insurrection Bill, and every 
 future Peel has the authority of his name to aid in outlawing 
 Ireland. He accused his fallen countrymen of cherishing 
 a French party. Alas ! he ought to have distinguished 
 between the strong anti-Anglican spirit which centuries 
 of oppressive government created and fostered and any 
 attachment to the enemy of freedom. The very party 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 303 
 
 whom he was induced to traduce hated despotism as much 
 in France as in Russia or in England ; and it assuredly 
 had nothing French about it. 
 
 SPEECH AT TARA 
 
 (August 15, 1843.) 
 
 Here O'Connell again urges the argument he hadelabo- 
 rated in 1840, proving that the EngHsh sovereign could 
 convoke a parliament in Dublin, by her own act. This 
 speech cannot be described as a great oratorical triumph 
 but its historical value is indubitable. Delivered a few 
 years before the Liberator's death, its verbiage and 
 intermittent weakness may be traced to the faihng powers 
 of a great intellect borne down by immeasurable labours, 
 while its illogical faith in the efficacy of multiplied petitions 
 to the Power which imposed the Union by the methods 
 detailed is probably temperamental. However, the impor- 
 tance of the occasion, and far-reaching effects of its anti- 
 climax cannot be exaggerated. Like the blunder of Mul- 
 laghmast, it unmasked for England the organized strength 
 of the nation's forces, but that strength was unarmed, and , 
 she promptly challenged it successfully by proclaiming the 
 meeting at Clontarf. 
 
 Understanding now the menace of a too populous Ireland, 
 she took counsel — the " famines " of the years following 
 1846 were the result. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell proceeded to address the meeting, 
 and was received with loud cheers. When the cheering 
 had subsided he said : — It would be the extreme of 
 affectation in me to suggest that I have not some claims 
 to be the leader of this majestic meeting. It would be 
 worse than affectation — it would be drivelling folly, if 
 I were not to feel the awful responsibility of the part I 
 
304 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 have taken in this majestic movement imposed upon me 
 (hear, hear.) I feel responsibility to my country — res- 
 ponsibility to my Creator. Yes, I feel the tremulous 
 nature of that responsibility — Ireland is aroused, is 
 aroused from one end to another. Her multitudinous 
 population have but one expression, and one wish, and 
 that is the extinction of the Union, the restoration of 
 her nationality. 
 
 A Voice — There will be no compromise. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — Who is that that talks of compromise ? 
 I am not here for the purpose of making anything like a 
 schoolboy's attempt at declamatory eloquence ; I am not 
 here to revive in your recollection any of those poetic 
 imaginings respecting the spot on which we stand, and 
 which have really become as familiar as household words ; 
 I am not here to exaggerate the historical importance of 
 the spot on which we are congregated — but it is impossible 
 to deny that Tara has historical recollections that give to 
 it an importance, relatively, to other portions of the land, 
 and deserves to be so considered by every person who 
 comes to it for political purposes, and gives it an elevation 
 and point of impression in the public mind that no other 
 part of Ireland can possibly have. History maybe tar- 
 nished by exaggeration, but the fact is undoubted that we 
 are at Tara of the Kings. We are on the spot where the 
 monarchs of Ireland were elected, and where the chief- 
 tains of Ireland bound themselves by the sacred pledge 
 of honour and the tie of religion to stand by their native 
 land against the Danes or any other stranger (cheers). 
 This is emphatically the spot from which emanated the 
 social power — the legal authority — the right to dominion 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 305 
 
 over the furthest extremes of the island, and the power of 
 concentrating the force of the entire nation for the purpose 
 of national defence. On this important spot I have an 
 important duty to perform — I here protest in the face of 
 my country, in the face of my Creator — in the face of 
 Ireland and her God, I protest against the continuance of 
 the unfounded and unjust Union. My proposition to 
 Ireland is that the Union is not binding upon us ; it is 
 not binding, I mean, upon conscience — it is void in prin- 
 ciple — it is void as matter of right — and it is void in con- 
 stitutional law. I protest everything that is sacred, with- 
 out being profane, to the truth of my assertion, there is 
 really no union between the two countries. My proposi- 
 tion is that there was no authority vested in any person 
 to pass the Act of Union. I deny the authority of the act — 
 I deny the competency of the two legislatures to pass that 
 act. The English legislature had no such competency — 
 that must be admitted by every person. The Irish 
 legislature had no such competency ; and I arraign the 
 Union, therefore, on the ground of the incompetency of 
 the bodies that passed it. No authority could render 
 it binding but the authority of the Irish people, consulted 
 individually through the counties, cities, towns, and 
 villages ; and if the people of Ireland called for the Union, 
 then it was binding on them, but there was no other 
 authority that could make it binding. The Irish ParHa- 
 ment had no such authority ; they were elected to make 
 laws and not legislatures, and it had no right to the 
 authority which alone belonged to the people of Ireland. 
 The trustee might as well usurp the right of the person 
 who trusts him ; the servant might as well usurp the power 
 
 X 
 
306 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 of the master ; the Irish Parliament were elected as our 
 trustees — we were their masters — they were but our 
 servants, and they had no right to transfer us to any other 
 power on the face of the earth. This doctrine is mani- 
 fest, and would be admitted by every person ; if it were 
 applied to England, would any person venture to assert 
 that the Parliament of England should have the power 
 to transfer its privileges to make laws from England to 
 the legislative chamber of France. Would any person be so 
 insane as to admit it, and that insanity would not be miti- 
 gated even if they were allowed to send over their repre- 
 sentatives to France. Yes, every person would admit 
 in that case that the Union was void. I have no higher 
 affection for England than for France — they are both 
 foreign authorities to me. The highest legal authority 
 in England has declared us aliens in blood, aliens in reli- 
 gion, and aliens in language from the English. Let no 
 person groan him — I thank him for the honesty of the 
 expression. I never heard of any other act of honesty 
 on his part, and the fact of his having committed one act 
 of honesty ought to recommend him to your good graces. 
 I can refer you to the principle of constitutional law, and 
 to Locke on government, to show that the Irish Parliament 
 had no power or authority to convey itself away. I will 
 only detain you on that point by citing the words of Lord 
 Chancellor Plunket. He declared in the Irish House of 
 Commons that they had no right to transfer the power of 
 legislation from the country. He called upon them to 
 have his words taken down, and he defied the power of 
 Lord Castlereagh to have him censured for the expression, 
 limiting the authority of Parliament. He said to them 
 
DANIEL OCONNELL. 307 
 
 that they could not transfer their authority — that the 
 maniacal suicide might as well imagine that the blow by 
 which he destroyed his miserable body could annihilate 
 his immortal soul, as they to imagine they could anni- 
 hilate the soul of Ireland, her constitutional right. The 
 illustration is a happy one. I am here the representative 
 of the Irish nation, and in the name of that great, that 
 virtuous, that moral, temperate, brave, and religious 
 nation, I proclaim the Union a nullity for it is a nullity in 
 point of right. Never was any measure carried by such 
 iniquitous means as the Union was carried. The first 
 thing that taints it in its origin, and makes it, even if it 
 were a compact, utterly void, is the fraud committed in 
 fomenting discord in the country, and encouraging the 
 rebellion until it broke out, and in making that rebellion 
 and the necessity for crushing it the means of taking from 
 Ireland her constitution and her liberties. There was 
 this second fraud committed on her, that at the time of 
 the passing of the Act of Union Ireland had no legal pro- 
 tection ; the habeas corpus was suspended, martial law 
 was proclaimed, trial by jury was at an end, and the lives 
 and liberties of all the King's subjects in Ireland were at 
 the mercy of the courts martial. Those among you who 
 were old enough at the time remember when the shriek 
 from the triangle was heard from every village and town, 
 and when the troops would march out from Trim and 
 lay desolate the country for nine or ten miles around. The 
 military law was established in all its horrors throughout 
 every district of the countrj^ and the people were trampled 
 in the dust under the feet of the yeomanry-, army, and 
 fencibles. The next fraudulent device to which England 
 
308 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 had recourse in order to carry this infamous measure, 
 and to promote her own prosperity on the ruins of Irish 
 nationaUty, was to take the most effective means in order 
 to prevent the Irish people from meeting to remonstrate 
 against the insult and the injury which was about to be 
 inflicted upon them. The Union was void no less from 
 the utter incompetency of the contracting parties to enter 
 into any such contract than by reason of the fact, that it 
 was carried into operation by measures most iniquitous, 
 atrocious and illegal ; the habeas corpus act was suspended, 
 torture, flogging, pitch caps, and imprisonment were the 
 congenial agencies whereby England endeavoured to carry 
 her infamous designs, and executions upon the gallows 
 for no other crime than that of being suspected to be 
 suspicious, were of daily occurrence in every part of the 
 kingdom. Thus it was that they endeavoured to crush 
 the expression of the people's feelings, whom they re- 
 solved to plunder and degrade. The people were not 
 permitted to assemble together for the purpose of re- 
 monstrating against the Union. Meetings — convened 
 by the officers of justice — by the high sheriffs of counties, 
 were dispersed at the point of the bayonet. The people 
 were not permitted to meet together for remonstrance, but 
 they got up petitions in every direction, to testify their 
 feelings upon the subject, and although no less than 
 seven hundred and seven thousand signatures were signed 
 to petitions against the Union, despite of all the corrupt 
 influence of the Government, more than three thousand 
 wretches could not be found to sign a petition in favour of 
 the measure. The next impeachment which I bring 
 against the Union is that it was brought about not only 
 
DANIEL O'CONXELL. 309 
 
 by physical force, but by bribery the most unblushing and 
 corruption the most profligate. One million two hundred 
 and sevent}^-five thousand pounds were expended upon 
 the purchase of rotten boroughs alone, and no less a sum 
 than two millions of money were lavished upon peculation 
 unparalleled, and bribery the most enormous and most 
 palpable that ever yet disgraced the annals of humanity. 
 There was not an office, civil, military, or ecclesiastical 
 in the country, which was not flung open to the Unionist 
 as the price and wages of his political depravity. Six 
 or seven judges bought their seats upon the bench by 
 giving in their adhesion to the Union ; and having no claim 
 to wear the ermine other than that which was to be derived 
 from the fact of their being recreants to their country, they 
 continued in right of this during their lives to inflict the 
 effects of their iniquity upon the people whom they 
 betrayed. Twelve bishops obtained their sees by voting 
 for the Union, for the spirit of corruption spared nothing. 
 Men were made prelates, generals, admirals, commis- 
 sioners, for supporting the ministry in this infamous 
 design, and every office in the revenue and customs was 
 placed at the disposal of those who were base enough to 
 sell their country for a mess of porridge. In fact, cor- 
 ruption was never known to have been carried before or 
 since to such excess in any country of the world, and if 
 such a contract, if contract it could be called, was to be 
 binding on the Irish nation, there was no longer any use 
 for honesty or justice in the world. But strong as was the 
 influence of corruption on the human mind, the victory 
 which the English ministry achieved was slow, and by 
 no means easy of accomplishment, for the intimidation 
 
310 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to the death upon the one hand, and bribery on the other, 
 were impotent to procure a majority for them in the Irish 
 House of Commons in the first session, when the bill 
 was introduced. On the contrary, when the first attempt 
 was made to frustrate our liberties, there was a majority 
 of eleven against the Union bill. But the despoiler was 
 not easy to be foiled, nor was he apt to be disheartened 
 by a single failure. The work of corruption was set on 
 foot with redoubled energy, and the wretches who were 
 not so utterly abandoned as to suffer themselves to be 
 bribed for the direct and positive purpose of giving their 
 vote for the Union, accepted bribes on the condition 
 of withdrawing from the House altogether, and accord- 
 ingly they vacated their seats, and in their place stepped 
 in Englishmen and Scotchmen who knew nothing of 
 Ireland, and who were not impeded by any conscientious 
 scruples whatever from giving their unqualified sanction 
 to any plot of the English, how infamous soever, to 
 oppress and plunder the country. By these accumulated 
 means the Union was carried and the fate of Ireland sealed. 
 But the monster evil of the Union is the financial robbery 
 which by its means was practised upon Ireland. A scan- 
 dalous injustice thus inflicted would be in itself 
 sufficient even in the absence of other arguments (even 
 if other arguments were wanting) to render the Union 
 void and of no effect. At the passing of that fatal act 
 (badge of our ruin and disgrace) Ireland owed only twenty 
 millions, England owed four hundred and forty six mil- 
 lions, and the equitable terms on which the contract was 
 based, whereby both countries were to be allied and 
 identified — identified indeed ! — were these, that England 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 311 
 
 was generously to undertake the liability of one-half of her 
 national debt, on condition that we would undertake the 
 responsibility of one-half of hers. This is not a befitting 
 time nor season to enter into minute details relative to 
 the particulars of this financial swindle, but I may be per- 
 mitted to direct your attention to this very obvious fact, 
 that whereas England has only doubled her debt since 
 the passing of the Union, the increase of the national debt 
 of Ireland during the same period cannot with justice be 
 estimated on a different ratio, and that consequently 
 Ireland, at the very highest calculation, cannot in reality, 
 and as of her own account, owe a larger sum than forty 
 millions ; and I will tell you, my friends, that never will 
 we consent to pay one shilling more of. a national debt 
 than that. I say it in the name and on behalf of the Irish 
 nation. But I will tell you this as a secret, and you 
 may rely upon it as a truth, that in point of fact we do 
 not owe one farthing more than thirty millions ; and in 
 proof of the truth of this assertion I beg leave to refer 
 you to a work published by a very near and dear relative 
 of mine — my third son, the member for Kilkenny — who, 
 by the most accurate statistical calculations, and by a 
 process of argument intelligible to the humblest intellect, 
 has made the fact apparent to the world, that according 
 to the terms of honest and equitable dealing, as between 
 both countries, Ireland's proportion of the national 
 debt cannot be set down at a larger sum than I state — 
 thirty millions. I am proud that there is a son of mine 
 who, after the Repeal shall have been carried, will be 
 able to meet the cleverest English financier of them all, 
 foot to foot and hand to hand, and prove by arguments 
 
3^2 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 most incontestible how grievous and intolerable is the 
 injustice which was inflicted upon our country in this 
 respect by the Union. The project of robbing Ireland 
 by joining her legislatively with England was no new 
 scheme which entered the minds of the English for the 
 first time about the year 1800. It was a project which 
 was a favourite theme of dissertation with all the English 
 essayists for years previous to the period when it was 
 carried into practical effect, and the policy towards Ire- 
 land, which their literary men were continually urging 
 upon the English people for their adoption, was similar 
 to that of the avaricious housewife who killed the goose 
 who laid her golden eggs. Yes, such was the course 
 they pursued towards Ireland, and you will deserve the 
 reputation of being the lineal descendants of that goose 
 if you be such ganders as not to declare in a voice of 
 thunder that no longer shall this system of plunder be 
 permitted to continue. My next impeachment of the 
 Union is founded upon the disastrous effects which have 
 resulted therefrom to our commercial and manufacturing 
 interests, as well as to our general national interests. 
 Previous to the Union, the county Meath was filled with 
 the seats of noblemen and gentlemen. What a contrast 
 does its present state present ! I on Monday read at the 
 Association a list of the deserted mansions which are now 
 to be found ruined and desolate in your country. Even 
 the spot where the Duke of WelHngton (famed the world 
 over for his detestation of his country) drew his first 
 breath, instead of bearing a noble castle, or splendid 
 mansion, presented the aspect of ruin and desolation, 
 and briars and nettles adequately marked the place that 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 313 
 
 produced him. The county of Meath was at one time 
 studded thickly with manufactories in every direction, 
 and an enormous sum was expended yearly in wages, 
 but here, as in every other district of the country, the eye 
 was continually shocked with sights which evidenced 
 with but too great eloquence the lamentable decay which 
 has been entailed upon our country by the Union. The 
 linen trade at one period kept all Ulster in a state of 
 affluence and prosperity. Kilkenny was for ages cele- 
 brated for its extensive blanket manufactures — and Cork 
 also — and Carrick-on-Suir, and in a thousand other 
 localities, too numerous to mention, thousands were kept 
 in constant and lucrative employment, at various branches 
 of national industry, from year's end to year's end, before 
 the passing of the Union. But this is no longer the 
 case, and one man is not now kept in employment for 
 a thousand who were employed before the Union. 
 The report of the English commissioners themselves 
 has declared this appalling fact to the world — that 
 one-third of our population are in a state of actual 
 destitution ; and yet, in the face of all this, men may 
 be found who, claiming to themselves the character 
 of political honesty, stand up and declare themselves 
 in favour of the continuance of the Union. It is no 
 bargain — it was a base swindle. Had it, indeed, been 
 a fair bargain, the Irish would have continued faith- 
 ful to it to the last, regardless of the injuries which it 
 might have entailed upon them — for the Irish people 
 have been invariably faithful to their contracts ; whereas 
 England never yet made a promise which she did not 
 violate, nor ever entered into a contract which she did not 
 
314 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 shamelessly and scandalously outrage. Even the Union 
 itself, beneficial as it is to England, is but a living lie to 
 Ireland, Everybody now admits the mischief that the 
 Union has produced to Ireland. The very fact of its 
 not being a compact is alone sufficient to nullify the 
 Union, and on that ground I here proclaim, in the name 
 of the Irish nation, that it is null and void. It is a union 
 of legislators, but not a union of nations. Are you and I 
 one bit more of Englishmen now than we were twenty 
 or forty years ago } If we had a Union would not Ireland 
 have the same parliamentary franchise that is enjoyed 
 by England ? But calling it a Union, could anything be 
 more unjust on the part of England than to give her 
 own people a higher and more extensive grade of fran- 
 chise, and to the Irish people a more limited and an 
 extinguishing and perishing franchise. She has given 
 to her people an extended municipal reform, and to 
 Ireland a wretched and miserable municipal reform. 
 Even within the last week a plan was brought forward by 
 Lord Elliot and the sneaking Attorney-General Smith, 
 that will have the effect of depriving one-third of those 
 who now enjoy the franchise of its possession. No, the 
 Union is void, but it is more peremptorily void on the 
 ground of the ecclesiastical revenues of the country being 
 left to support a church of a small portion of the people. 
 In England the ecclesiastical revenues of the country are 
 given to the clergy that the majority of the people believe 
 to teach the truth. In Scotland the ecclesiastical revenues 
 are, or at least were up to a late period, paid to the clergy 
 of the majority of the people ; but the Irish people are 
 compelled to pay the clergy of a small minority, not 
 
DANIEL OCONNELL. 315 
 
 amounting to more than the one-tenth of the people of 
 the entire island. The Union was effected against all 
 constitutional principle— by the most atrocious fraud— 
 by the most violent and most iniquitous exercise of force — 
 by the most abominable corruption and bribery— by the 
 shifting of Irish members out of their seats, and the 
 putting of Englishmen and Scotchmen into their places ; 
 and that was followed by the destruction of our commerce, 
 by the annihilation of our manufactures, by the depre- 
 ciation of our farmers— and you know I speak the truth 
 when I talk of the depression of the farming interests— 
 by financial robbery, on an extensive scale to be sure, but 
 a robbery on that very account, only the more iniquitous, 
 fiendish, and harsh. I contend, therefore, that the Union 
 is a nullity ; but do I, on that account, advise you to turn 
 out against it ? No such thing. I advise you to act 
 quietly and peaceably and in no other way. 
 A Voice — Any way you like. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell— Remember that my doctrine is that 
 " the man who commits a crime gives strength to the 
 enemy," and you should not act in any manner that would 
 strengthen the enemies of your country. You should 
 act peaceably and quietly, but firmly and determinedly. 
 You may be certain that your cheers here to-day will be 
 conveyed to England. (The vast assemblage here com- 
 menced cheering for several minutes in the most deafening 
 and enthusiastic manner, and the distant lines of human 
 beings that on the walls and hedges marked the limits of 
 the immense assemblage might be seen waving their hats 
 and handkerchiefs in response, though, of course, without 
 knowing the sentiment that called forth the burst of 
 
3l6 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 enthusiasm.) Yes, the overwhelming majesty of your 
 multitude will be taken to England, and will have its 
 effect there. The Duke of Wellington began by threat- 
 ening us. He talked of civil war, but he does not say 
 a single word of that now. He is now getting eyelet 
 holes made in the old barracks, and only think of an old 
 general doing such a thing, just as if we were going to break 
 our heads against stone walls. I am glad to find that a 
 great quantity of brandy and biscuits has been latterly 
 imported, and I hope the poor soldiers get some of them. 
 But the Duke of Wellington is not now talking of attack- 
 ing us, and I am glad of it ; but I tell him this — I mean 
 no disrespect to the brave, the gallant, and the good 
 conducted soldiers that compose the Queen's army ; and 
 all of them that we have in this country are exceedingly 
 well conducted. There is not one of you that has a single 
 complaint to make against any of them. They are the 
 bravest army in the world, and therefore I do not mean 
 to disparage them at all, but I feel it to be a fact, that 
 Ireland roused as she is at the present moment, would, 
 if they made war upon us, furnish women enough to beat 
 the entire of the Queen's forces. At the last fight for 
 Ireland, when she was betrayed by having confided in 
 England's honour — but oh ! English honour will never 
 again betray our land, for the man will deserve to be 
 betrayed who would confide again in England. I would 
 as soon think of confiding in the cousin-german of a 
 certain personage having two horns and a hoof. At that 
 last battle, the Irish soldiers, after three days' fighting, 
 being attacked by fresh troops, faltered and gave way, and 
 1,500 of the British army entered the breach. The Irish 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 317 
 
 soldiers were fainting and retiring when the women of 
 Limerick threw themselves between the contending 
 forces, and actually stayed the progress of the advancing 
 enemy. I am stating matter of history to you, and the 
 words I use are not mine, but those of Parson Story, the 
 chaplain of King William, who describes the siege, and 
 who admits that the Limerick women drove back the 
 English soldiers from fifteen to thirty paces. Several of 
 the women were killed, when a shriek of horror resounded 
 from the ranks of the Irish. They cried out, " Let us 
 rather die to the last man than that our women should be 
 injured," and then they threw themselves forward, and, 
 made doubly valiant by the bravery of the women, they 
 scattered the Saxon and the Dane before them. Yes, I 
 have women enough in Ireland to beat them if necessary ; 
 but, my friends, it is idle to imagine that any statesman 
 ever existed who could resist the cry that Ireland makes 
 for justice. 
 
 Having cautioned the meeting against Ribbonism, and alluded in 
 terms of effusive loyalty to Queen Victoria, Mr. O'Connell continued : 
 
 We will break no law. See how we have accumulated 
 the people of Ireland for this Repeal Year. When, on 
 the 2nd of January, I ventured to call it the Repeal Year, 
 every person laughed at me. Are they laughing now ? It 
 is our turn to laugh at present. Before twelve months 
 more the Parliament will be in College Green. I said the 
 Union did not take away from the people of Ireland their 
 legal rights. I told you that the Union did not deprive 
 the people of that right, or take away the authority to have 
 self-legislation. It has not lessened the prerogatives of 
 the crown, or taken away the rights of the Sovereign, and 
 
3l8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 amongst them is the right to call her Parliament wherever 
 the people are entitled to it, and the people of Ireland are 
 entitled to have it in Ireland. And the Queen has only 
 to-morrow to issue her writs and get the Chancellor to 
 seal them, and if Sir Edward Sugden does not sign them 
 she will soon get an Irishman that will, to revive the Irish 
 Parliament. The towns which sold their birthright have 
 no right to be reckoned amongst the towns sending mem- 
 bers to Parliament. King James the First, in one day, 
 created forty boroughs in Ireland, and the Queen has the 
 same right as her predecessor to do so. We have a list 
 of the towns to return members according to their popu- 
 lation, and the Queen has only to order writs to issue, and 
 to have honest ministers to advise her to issue those writs, 
 and the Irish Parliament is revived by its own energy, 
 and the force of the Sovereign's prerogative. I will only 
 require the Queen to exercise her prerogative, and the 
 Irish people will obtain their nationality again. If, at 
 the present moment, the Irish Parliament was in existence, 
 even as it was in 1800, is there a coward amongst you — 
 is there a wretch amongst you so despicable that would 
 not die rather than allow the Union to pass ? 
 
 A Voice — Yes, to the last man (cheers). 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — Let every man who, if we had an 
 Irish Parliament, would rather die than allow the Union 
 to pass lift up his hands. (The immense multitude lifted 
 up their hands) . Yes, the Queen will call that Parliament ; 
 you may say it is the act of her ministry, if you please. 
 To be sure it would be the act of her ministry, and 
 the people of Ireland are entitled to have their friends 
 appointed to the ministry. The Irish Parliament will then 
 
DANIEL O'CONNELL. 319 
 
 assemble, and I defy all the generals, old and young, and 
 all the old women in pantaloons. Nay, I defy all the 
 chivalry of the earth to take away that Parliament from 
 us again. Well, my friends, may I ask you to obey me 
 in the course of conduct I point out to you, when I dismiss 
 you to-day; when you have heard the resolutions put, I 
 amsure you will go home with the same tranquillity with 
 which you came here, every man of you ; and if I wanted 
 you again, would you not come again to Tara Hill for me ? 
 Remember me, I lead you into no peril. If danger exis- 
 ted, it would arise from some person who would attack us, 
 for we will attack nobody ; and if that danger exists you 
 will not find me in the rear rank. The Queen will be able 
 to restore our Parliament to us. The absentee drains, 
 which caused the impoverishment of the country, will be 
 at an end — the wholesale ejectment of tenants and 
 turning them out on the highway— the murdering 
 of tenants by the landlords shall be at an end. The 
 rights of the landlords wall be respected, but their 
 duties shall be enforced — an equitable tenure will 
 take the place of the cruel tyranny of the present code 
 of laws, and the protection of the occupying tenants 
 of Ireland be inscribed on the banner of Repeal. Carry 
 home with you my advice — let there be peace and quiet, 
 law and order, and let every one of you enroll your- 
 selves Repealers — men, women, and children. Give 
 me three millions of Repealers, and I will soon have them. 
 The next step is being taken, and I announce to you from 
 this spot, that all the magistrates that have been deprived 
 of the commission of the peace shall be appointed by the 
 association to settle all the disputes and differences in their 
 
320 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 neighbourhood. Keep out of the petty sessions court, 
 and go to them on next Monday. We will submit a plan 
 to choose persons to be arbitrators to settle the differences 
 of the people without expense, and I call upon every man 
 that wishes to be thought the friend of Ireland, to have 
 his disputes settled by the arbitrators, and not again to 
 go to the petty sessions. We shall shortly have the pre- 
 servative society to arrange the means of procuring from 
 her Majesty the exercise of her prerogative, and I believe 
 I am able to announce to you that twelve months cannot 
 possibly elapse without having a hurra for our Parliament 
 in College Green. Remember, I pronounce the Union 
 to be null — to be obeyed, as an injustice must be obeyed, 
 when it is supported by law until we have the royal 
 authority to set the matter right, and substitute our own 
 Parliament. I delight at having this day presided over 
 such an assemblage on Tara Hill, Those shouts that 
 burst from you were enough to recall to life the Kings 
 and Chiefs of Ireland. I almost fancy that the spirits 
 of the mighty dead are hovering over us — that the ancient 
 Kings and Chiefs of Ireland are from yonder clouds 
 listening to us. Oh, what a joyous and cheering sound 
 is conveyed in the chirrup for Old Ireland ! It is the 
 most beautiful — the most fertile — the most abundant — 
 the most productive country on the face of the earth. It 
 is a lovely land, indented with noble harbours — inter- 
 sected with transcendent, translucent streams — divided 
 by mighty estuaries. Its harbours are open at every 
 hour for every tide, and are sheltered from every storm 
 that can blow from any quarter of Heaven. Oh, yes, it 
 is a lovely land, and where is the coward that would not 
 
DANIEL OCONNELL. 32 1 
 
 dare to die for it ! Yes, our country exhibits the extreme 
 of civilization, and your majestic movement is already 
 the admiration of the civilized world. No other country 
 could produce such an amount of physical force, coupled 
 with so much decorum and propriety of conduct. Many 
 thousands of persons assembled together, and, though 
 they have force sufficient to carry any battle that ever was 
 fought, they separate with the tranquillity of schoolboys 
 breaking up in the afternoon. I wish you could read my 
 heart, to see how deeply the love of Ireland is engraven 
 upon it, and let the people of Ireland, who stood by me 
 so long, stand by me a little longer, and Ireland shall be 
 a nation again. 
 
322 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ROBERT EMMET (1778-1803). 
 
 Complete justice has not yet been done to the ability 
 disijlayed in Emmet's attempt to get possession of Dublin 
 Castle. Its ill-success was in great part due to the incapa- 
 city of his lieutenants. After the 23rd of July, 1803, he 
 might have escaped to France, but his love for Sarah 
 Curran finally led to his arrest. He was brought to trial 
 September 19. The judge was Norbury. 
 
 SPEECH FROM THE DOCK. 
 (September 19, 1803.) 
 
 My Lords, — I am asked what have I to say why sen- 
 tence of death should not be pronounced on me, according 
 to law. I have nothing to say that can alter your pre- 
 determination, nor that it will become me to say, with 
 any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are 
 to pronounce, and I must abide by. But 1 have that to 
 say which interests me more than life, and which you have 
 laboured to destroy. I have much to say why my repu- 
 tation should be rescued from the load of false accusation 
 and calumny which has been cast upon it. I do not 
 imagine that seated where you are, your mind can be so 
 free from prejudice as to receive the least impression from 
 what I am going to utter. I have no hopes that I can 
 anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted 
 and trammelled as this is. 1 only wish, and that is the 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 323 
 
 Utmost that I expect, that your lordships may suffer 
 it to float down your memories untainted by the foul 
 breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable 
 harbour to shelter it from the storms by which it is buf- 
 feted. Was I only to suffer death, after being adjudged 
 guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet 
 the fate that awaits me without a murmur ; but the sen- 
 tence of the law which delivers my body to the execu- 
 tioner will, through the ministry of the law, labour in its 
 own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy ; 
 for there must be guilt somewhere, whether in the 
 sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, time must 
 determine. A man in my situation has not only to en- 
 counter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power 
 over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the 
 difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies but 
 his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it 
 may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon 
 this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the 
 charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be 
 wafted to a more friendly port — when my shade shall have 
 joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed 
 their blood on the scaffold and in the field in the defence 
 of their country and of virtue, this is my hope — I wish 
 that my memory and name may animate those who sur- 
 vive me, while I look down with complacency on the 
 destruction of that perfidious government which upholds 
 its domination by blasphemy of the Most High — which 
 displays its power over man, as over the beasts of the 
 forest — which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his 
 hand in the name of God against the throat of his fellow, 
 
324 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 who believes or doubts a little more or a little less than the 
 government standard — a government which is steeled to 
 barbarity by the cries of the orphans, and the tears of the 
 widows it has made. 
 
 Lord Norbury here interrupted : — Mean and wicked enthusiasts 
 no doubt felt as Mr. Emmet, but they were not equal to the accom- 
 plishment of their wild designs. 
 
 I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the Throne 
 of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear — by the 
 blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me — 
 that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and 
 through all my purposes governed only by the conviction 
 which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of 
 the emancipation of my country from the superhuman 
 oppression under which she has so long and too patiently 
 travailed ; and I confidently hope that, wild and chi- 
 merical as it may appear, there is still union and strength 
 in Ireland to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of 
 this I speak with confidence, of intimate knowledge and 
 with the consolation that appertains to that confidence. 
 Think not, my lords, I say this for the petty gratification 
 of giving you a transitory uneasiness. A man who never 
 yet raised his voice to assert a lie, will not hazard his 
 character with posterity, by asserting a falsehood on a 
 subject so important to his country, and on an occasion 
 like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not wish to have 
 his epitaph written until his country is liberated, will not 
 leave a weapon in the power of envy, or a pretence to 
 impeach the probity which he means to preserve even in 
 the grave, to which tyranny consigns him. 
 
 Interrupted by the Court. 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 325 
 
 Again I say, that what I have spoken was not intended 
 for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather 
 than envy — my expressions were for my countrymen. 
 If there is a true Irishman present, let my last words 
 cheer him in the hour of his affliction. 
 
 Here I,ord Norbury said he was not on the bench to listen to 
 treason. 
 
 I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge 
 when a prisoner had been convicted, to pronounce the 
 sentence of the law. I have also understood that judges 
 sometimes think it their duty to hear with patience and to 
 speak with humanity ; to exhort the victim of the laws, 
 and to offer, with tender benignity, their opinions of the 
 motives by which he was actuated in the crime of which 
 he was adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his 
 duty so to have done, I have no doubt ; but where is the 
 boasted freedom of your institutions — where is the vaun- 
 ted impartiality, clemency and mildness of your courts 
 of justice if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy, 
 and not justice, is about to deliver into the hands of 
 the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives 
 sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by 
 which he was actuated ? My lords, it may be a part of 
 the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind by 
 humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold ; 
 but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaf- 
 fold's terrors, would be the shame of such foul and un- 
 founded imputations as have been laid against me in this 
 court. You, my lord, are a judge ; I am the supposed 
 culprit. I am a man ; you are a man also. By a re- 
 volution of power we might change places, though we 
 
326 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 never could change characters. If I stand at the bar of 
 this court and dare not vindicate my character, what a 
 farce is your justice ? If I stand at this bar and dare not 
 vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it ? 
 Does the sentence of death which your unhallowed policy 
 inflicts upon my body, condemn my tongue to silence 
 and my reputation to reproach ? Your executioner may 
 abridge the period of my existence ; but while I exist I 
 shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives 
 from your aspersions ; and, as a man to whom fame is 
 dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in 
 doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, 
 and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honour 
 and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, 
 my lords, we must appear on the great day at one common 
 tribunal ; and it will remain for the Searcher of all hearts 
 to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most 
 virtuous actions, or swayed by the purest motives — my 
 country's oppressor, or 
 
 He was again interrupted and bade listen to the sentence of the 
 law. 
 
 My lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege 
 of exculpating himself in the eyes of the community from 
 an undeserved reproach, thrown upon him during his 
 trial, by charging him with ambition, and attempting to 
 cast away for a paltry consideration the liberties of his 
 country ? Why did your lordships insult me ? Or 
 rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sen- 
 tence of death should not be pronounced against me ? 
 I know, my lords, that form prescribes that you should 
 ask the question. The form also presents the right of 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 327 
 
 answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, 
 and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since 
 snetence was already pronounced at the Castle before 
 the jury were empanelled. Your lordships are but the 
 priests of the oracle, and I insist on the whole of the 
 forms. 
 
 On the court requesting him to continue : — 
 
 I am charged with being an emissary of France. An 
 emissary of France ! and for what end ? It is alleged 
 that I wished to sell the independence of my 
 country ; and for what end ? Was this the object 
 of my ambition ? And is this the mode by which a 
 tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions ? No ; 
 1 am no emissary ; and my ambition was to hold 
 a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power 
 nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell 
 my country's independence to France ! and for what end .'' 
 Was it a change of masters ? No, but for my ambition. 
 Oh, my country, was it personal ambition that could in- 
 fluence me ? Had it been the soul of my actions, could 
 I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and con- 
 sideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the 
 proudest of your oppressors ? My country was my idol. 
 To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment ; 
 and for it I now offer up myself, O God ! No, my lords, 
 I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my 
 country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting 
 tyranny, and the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, 
 which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, 
 from the ignominy existing with an exterior of splendour 
 
328 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart 
 to extricate my country from this doubly rivetted despotism 
 — I wished to place her independence beyond the reach 
 of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that 
 proud station in the world. Connection with France 
 was, indeed, intended, but only as far as mutual interest 
 would sanction or require. Were the French to assume 
 any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, 
 it would be a signal for their destruction. We sought their 
 aid — and we sought it as we had assurance we should 
 obtain it — as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. Were 
 the French to come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by 
 the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the 
 utmost of my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I should 
 advise you to meet them upon the beach with a sword in 
 one hand and a torch in the other. I would meet them 
 with all the destructive fury of war. I would animate my 
 countrymen to immolate them in their boats, before they 
 had contaminated the soil of my country. If they suc- 
 ceeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior 
 discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, burn 
 every blade of grass, and the last entrenchment of liberty 
 should be my grave. What I could not do myself, if I 
 should fall, I should leave as a last charge to my country- 
 men to accomplish ; because I should feel conscious that 
 life, any more than death, is unprofitable when a foreign 
 nation holds my country in subjection. But it was not 
 as an enemy that the succours of France were to land. 
 I looked, indeed, for the assistance of France ; but I 
 wished to prove to France and to the world that Irishmen 
 deserved to be assisted — that they were indignant at 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 329 
 
 slavery, and ready to assert the independence and liberty 
 of their country ; I wished to procure for my country 
 the guarantee which Washington procured for America— 
 to procure an aid which, by its example, would be as im- 
 portant as its valour ; disciplined, gallant, pregnant with 
 science and experience ; that of a people who would 
 perceive the good, and polish the rough points of our 
 character. They would come to us as strangers, and leave 
 us as friends, after sharing in our perils and elevating our 
 destiny. These were my objects ; not to receive new 
 taskmasters, but to expel old tyrants. It was for these 
 ends I sought aid from France ; because France, even 
 as an enemy, could not be more implacable than the 
 enemy already in the bosom of my country. 
 
 After fresh interruption : 
 
 I have been charged with that importance in the 
 emancipation of my country, as to be considered the 
 keystone of the combination of Irishmen ; or, as your 
 lordship expressed it, " the life and blood of the con- 
 spiracy." 
 
 You do me honour over much ; you have given to the 
 subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men en- 
 gaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, 
 but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord — 
 men before the splendour of whose genius and virtues 
 I should bow with respectful deference, and who would 
 think themselves disgraced by shaking your blood- 
 stained hand. 
 
 Here he was interrupted. 
 What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the 
 
330 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 scaffold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the 
 intermediary executioner) has erected for my murder, 
 that I am accountable for all the blood that has been and 
 will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against 
 the oppressor — shall you tell me this, and must I be so 
 very a slave as not to repel it ? I do not fear to approach 
 the Omnipotent Judge to answer for the conduct of my 
 whole life ; and am I to be appalled and falsified by a 
 mere remnant of mortality here ! By you, too, although 
 if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that 
 you have shed in your unhallowed ministry in one great 
 reservoir, your lordship might swim in it. 
 
 Norbury, unable to remain silent, interposed. 
 
 Let no man dare, when I a*m dead, to charge me with 
 dishonour ; let no man attaint my memory, by believing 
 that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my 
 country's liberty and independence ; or that I could 
 have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression 
 and misery of my country. The proclamation of the 
 Provisional Government speaks for our views ; no in- 
 ference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity 
 or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or 
 treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a 
 foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist 
 the foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of 
 freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my 
 country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over 
 my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my 
 country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of 
 the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of 
 
ROBERT EMMET. 33 1 
 
 the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and 
 my country her independence, am I to be loaded v^ith 
 calumny, and not suffered to resent it ? No ; God 
 forbid ! 
 
 Lord Norbury interposed again. He reminded Mr. Emmet that 
 his sentiments disgraced his family, and stated that if Dr. Emmet 
 were alive he would reprobate them. 
 
 If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the 
 concerns and cares of those v^ho were dear to them in this 
 transitory life, oh ! ever dear and venerated shade of my 
 departed father, look down v^ith scrutiny upon the conduct 
 of your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a moment, 
 deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism 
 which it w^as your care to instil into my youthful mind, 
 and for which I am now about to offer up my life. My 
 lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which 
 you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which 
 surround your victim — it circulates warmly and unruffled 
 through the channels which God created for noble purposes, 
 but which you are now bent to destroy, for purposes so 
 grievous that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient ! I have 
 but a few more words to say — I am going to my cold and 
 silent grave — my lamp of life is nearly extinguished — 
 my race is run — the grave opens to receive me, and I 
 sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my 
 departure from this world, it is — the charity of its 
 SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph ; for as no man 
 who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let 
 not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and 
 me rest in obscurity and peace ; and my tomb remain 
 uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times 
 
332 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 and other men can do justice to my character. When 
 my country takes her place among the nations of the 
 earth, then and not till then^ let my epitaph be written. 
 I have done. 
 
[ 333 ] 
 
 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL (1791-1851). 
 
 SPEECH AT PENENDEN HEATH, KENT. 
 
 (October 24, 1828.) 
 
 The momentous Clare Election, September, 1828, had 
 been fought and won, mainly through the exertions of 
 O'Connell, Sheil, and the Catholic Association. It became 
 known that Government was considering some measure 
 of CathoHc relief. The Protestant interest took alarm, and 
 a mass meeting was announced to be held on Penenden, 
 Heath, Kent. Sheil courageously resolved to attend, 
 went to London and purchased a freehold which would 
 qualify him to speak. 
 
 Although continually interrupted, no personal violence 
 was offered him. It should be mentioned that amongst 
 Englishmen he had the support of Cobbett and Jeremy 
 Bentham. The latter wrote : "So masterly a union of 
 logic and rhetoric as Mr. Sheil's speech scarcely have I 
 ever beheld." 
 
 Let no man believe that I have come here in order that 
 I might enter the lists of religious controversy and engage 
 with any of you in a scholastic disputation. In the year 
 1828 the Real Presence does not afford an appropriate 
 subject for debate, and it is not by the shades of a mystery 
 that the rights of a British citizen are to be determined. 
 I do not know whether there are many here by whom I 
 am regarded as an idolater, because I conscientiously 
 adhere to the faith of your forefathers, and profess the 
 
334 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 doctrine in which I was born and bred ; but if I am so 
 accounted by you, you ought not to inflict a civil depri- 
 vation upon the accident of the cradle. You ought not 
 to punish me for that for which I am not in reality to 
 blame. If you do you will make the misfortune of the 
 CathoHc the fault of the Protestant, and by inflicting a 
 wrong upon my religion, cast a discredit upon your own. 
 I am not the worse subject of my king, and the worse 
 citizen of my country, because I concur in the belief of 
 the great majority of the Christian world ; and I will 
 venture to add, with the frankness and something of the 
 bluntness by which Englishmen are considered to be 
 characterized, that if I am an idolater, I have a right to 
 be one if I choose ; my idolatry is a branch of my pre- 
 rogative, and is no business of yours. But you have been 
 told by Lord Winchelsea that the Catholic religion is the 
 adversary of freedom. It may occur to you, perhaps, 
 that his lordship afl^ords a proof in his own person that a 
 passion for Protestantism and a love of liberty are not 
 inseparably associated ; but without instituting too 
 minute or embarrassing an inquiry into the services to 
 freedom which in the course of his political life have been 
 conferred by my Lord Winchelsea, and putting aside all 
 personal considerations connected with the accuser, let 
 me proceed to the accusation. 
 
 Calumniators of Catholicism, have you read the history 
 of your country } Of the charges against the religion 
 of Ireland the annals of England afford the confutation. 
 The body of your common laws was given by the Catholic 
 Alfred. He gave you your judges, your magistrates, 
 your high sheriffs (you, sir, hold your office, and have 
 
RICHARD LALOR SHEIL. 335 
 
 called this great assembly, by virtue of his institutions) — 
 your courts of justice, your elective system, and the great 
 bulwark of your liberties, the trial by jury. When Eng- 
 lishmen peruse the chronicles of their glory, their hearts 
 beat high with exultation, their emotions are profoundly 
 stirred, and their souls are ardently expanded. Where 
 is the English boy who reads the story of his great island, 
 whose pulse does not beat at the name of Runnymede, 
 and whose nature is not d eply thrilled at the contem- 
 plation of that great incident when the mitred Langton, 
 with his uplifted crozier, confronted the tyrant, whose 
 sceptre shook in his trembling hand, and extorted what 
 you have so justly called the Great, and what, I trust 
 in God, you will have cause to designate as your ever- 
 lasting Charter ? It was by a Catholic pontiff that the 
 foundation-stone in the temple of liberty was laid ; and 
 it was at the altars of that religion which you are accus- 
 tomed to consider as the handmaid of oppression, that the 
 architects of the Constitution knelt down. Who con- 
 ferred upon the people the right of self- taxation, and fixed 
 if he did not create, the representation of the people ? 
 The Catholic Edward the First ; while in the reign of 
 Edward the Third perfection was given to the represen- 
 tative system, parliaments were annually called, and the 
 statute against constructive treason was enacted. It is 
 false, foully, infamously false, that the Catholic religion, 
 the religion of your forefathers, the religion of seven 
 miUions of your fellow-subjects, has been the auxiliary 
 of debasement, and that to its influences the suppression 
 of British freedom can, in a single instance, be referred. 
 I am loath to say that which can give you cause to take 
 
33^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 offence ; but when the faith of my country is made the 
 object of imputation I cannot help, I cannot refrain from 
 breaking into a retaUatory interrogation, and from asking 
 whether the overthrow of the old religion of England was 
 not effected by a tyrant, with a hand of iron and a heart 
 of stone ? whether Henry did not trample upon freedom, 
 while upon Catholicism he set his foot ; and whether 
 Elizabeth herself, the virgin of the Reformation, did not 
 inherit her despotism with her creed ; whether in her 
 reign the most barbarous atrocities were not committed ; 
 whether torture, in violation of the Catholic common law 
 of England, was not politically inflicted, and with the 
 shrieks of agony the Towers of Julius, in the dead of 
 night, did not re-echo ? And to pass to a more recent 
 period, was it not on the very day on which Russell 
 perished on the scaffold that the Protestant University 
 of Oxford published the declaration in favour of passive 
 obedience, to which your Catholic ancestors would have 
 laid down their lives rather than have submitted ? 
 
 These are facts taken from your own annals, with which 
 every one of you should be made familiar ; but it is not 
 to your own annals that the recriminatory evidence, on 
 which I am driven to rely, shall be confined. If your 
 religion is the inseparable attendant upon liberty, how 
 does it come to pass that Prussia, and Sweden, and 
 Denmark, and half the German states should be Protes- 
 tants, and should be also slaves ? You may suggest to 
 me that in the larger portion of Catholic Europe freedom 
 does not exist ; but you should bear in mind that at a 
 period when the Catholic religion was in its most palmy 
 state freedom flourished in the countries in which it is 
 
RICHARD LALOR SHEIL. 337 
 
 now extinct. Look at Italy, not indeed as she now is, 
 but as she was before Martin Luther was born, when 
 literature and liberty were associated, and the arts im- 
 parted their embellishments to her free political institu- 
 tions. I call up the memory of the Italian CathoHc 
 republics in the great cause which I am sufficiently adven- 
 turous to plead before you. Florence, accomplished, 
 manufacturing, and democratic, the model of your own 
 municipal corporations, gives a noble evidence in favour of 
 Catholicism ; and Venice, Catholic Venice, rises in the 
 splendour of her opulence and the light of her liberty, to 
 corroborate the testimony of her celebrated sister with 
 a still more lofty and majestic attestation. If from 
 Italy I shall ascend the Alps, shall I not find, in the moun- 
 tains of Switzerland, the sublime memorials of liberty, 
 and the reminiscences of those old achievements which 
 preceded the theology of Geneva, and which were per- 
 formed by men by whom the ritual of Rome was uttered 
 on the glaciers, and the great mystery of Catholicism was 
 celebrated on the altars which nature had provided for 
 that high and holy worship ? But Spain, I may be told, 
 Spain affords the proof that to the purposes of despotism 
 her religion has always lent its impious and disastrous 
 aid. That mistake is a signal one, for when Spain was 
 most devotedly Catholic, Spain was comparatively free — 
 her Cortes assumed an attitude nobler even than your 
 own Parliament, and told the king, at the opening of every 
 session in which they were convened, that they were 
 greater and invested with a higher authority than himself. 
 In the struggles made by Spaniards within our own mem- 
 ory we have seen the revival of that lofty sentiment ; while 
 
338 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 amongst the descendants of Spaniards, in the provinces 
 of South America, called into existence in some sort by 
 yourselves, we behold no religion but the Catholic, and, 
 no government of v^hich the principle is not founded 
 in the supremacy of the people. Republic after republic 
 has arisen at your bidding through that immeasurable 
 expanse, and it is scarce an exaggeration to say (if I may 
 allude to a noble passage in one of the greatest writers 
 of our time) that liberty, with her " meteor standard " 
 unfurled upon the Andes, 
 
 lyooks from her throne of clouds o'er half the world. 
 
 False, I repeat it, with all the vehemence of indignant 
 asseveration, utterly false is the charge habitually preferred 
 against the religion which Englishmen have laden with 
 penalties, and have marked with degradation. I can 
 bear with any other charge but this — to any other charge 
 I can listen with endurance : tell me that I prostrate 
 myself before a sculptured marble ; tell me that to a can- 
 vas glowing with the image of heaven I bend my knee ; 
 tell me that my faith is my perdition : — and as you traverse 
 the churchyards in which your forefathers are buried, 
 pronounce upon those who have lain there for many 
 hundred years a fearful and appalling sentence : — yes ; 
 call what I regard as the truth not only an error, but a 
 sin to which mercy shall not be extended : — all this I 
 will bear — to all this I will submit — nay, at all this I will 
 but smile — but do not tell me that I am in heart and 
 creed a slave — that my countrymen cannot brook ; in 
 their own bosoms they carry the high consciousness that 
 never was imputation more foully false or more detestably 
 
RICHARD LALOR SHEIL. 339 
 
 calumnious. I do not believe that with the passion for 
 true liberty a nation was ever more enthusiastically in- 
 spired — never were men more resolved — never were 
 men more deserving to be free than the nation in whose 
 oppression, fatally to Ireland and to themselves, the 
 statesmen of England have so madly persevered. 
 
 What have been the results of that system which you 
 
 have been this day called together to sustain ? You behold 
 
 in Ireland a beautiful country, with wonderful advantages 
 
 agricultural and commercial, a resting-place for trade 
 
 on its way to either hemisphere ; indented with havens, 
 
 watered by numerous rivers, with a fortunate climate 
 
 in which fertility is raised upon a rich soil, and inhabited 
 
 by a bold, intrepid, and, with all their faults, a generous 
 
 and enthusiastic people. Such is Ireland as God made 
 
 her — what is Ireland as you have made her ? This fine 
 
 country, swarming with a population the most miserable 
 
 in Europe, of whose wretchedness, if you are the authors, 
 
 you are beginning to be the victims — the poisoned chalice 
 
 is returned in its just circulation to your lips. Harvests 
 
 the most abundant are reaped by men with starvation 
 
 in their faces ; all the great commercial facilities of the 
 
 country are lost ; the rivers that should circulate opulence, 
 
 and turn the machinery of a thousand manufactures, 
 
 flow to the ocean without wafting a boat or turning a wheel ; 
 
 the wave breaks in solitude in the silent magnificence of 
 
 deserted and shipless harbours. In place of being a source 
 
 of wealth and revenue to the empire, Ireland cannot 
 
 defray its own expenses ; her discontent costs millions 
 
 of money ; she debilitates and endangers England. The 
 
 great mass of her population are alienated and dissociated 
 
340 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 from the state ; the influence of the constituted and 
 legitimate authorities is gone ; a strange, anomalous and 
 unexampled kind of government has sprung up, and 
 exercises a despotic sway ; while the class inferior in num- 
 bers, but accustomed to authority, and infuriated at its 
 loss, are thrown into formidable reaction ; the most 
 ferocious passions rage from one extremity of the country 
 to the other. Hundreds and thousands of men, arrayed 
 with badges, gather in the South, and the smaller faction, 
 with discipline and with arms, are marshalled in the 
 North : the country is like one vast magazine of powder, 
 which a spark might ignite into an explosion, and of which 
 England would not only feel, but perhaps never recover 
 from the shock. 
 
[ 341 ] 
 
 ISAAC BUTT (1812-1879). 
 
 SPEECH ON HOME RULE IN THE HOUSE OF 
 
 COMMONS. 
 
 (March 20, 1874.) 
 
 Delivered on the occasion of the Speech from the 
 Throne. In the resulting debate on the Amendment, 
 Mr. Gladstone spoke against it, pointing out that there 
 were two methods of dealing with grievances in the House, 
 " one by endeavouring to cure them, and one by endeavour- 
 ing to create them." 
 
 A single sentence will show the spirit of the discussion : — 
 " He (Mr. Butt) knows very well that if he ever does prepare 
 a plan for remedying the dissatisfaction which he asserts 
 exists in Ireland, it would be carefully examined, and 
 that we should enquire whether it was intelligible before 
 we thought whether it was expedient." 
 
 The Amendment was rejected by a majority of 264. 
 
 In moving an Amendment to the Address, I am fully 
 aware of the objection that may be raised to a course being 
 followed which will bring controversial questions to the 
 vote on such an occasion as the present. I venture at the 
 same time to think that, if the House favours me with 
 a hearing, I shall be able to satisfy hon. members that I 
 am justified in acting as I do ; I hope, in short, to show 
 that there is an absolute necessity for giving Ireland a new 
 system of internal Government. The proposal I desire 
 
342 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to submit to the House is that the following passage be 
 added to the Address : — 
 
 " We also think it right humbly to represent to Your 
 Majesty that dissatisfaction prevails very extensively 
 in Ireland with the existing system of Government in 
 that country, and that complaints are made that under 
 that system the Irish people do not enjoy the full benefit 
 of the Constitution and of the free principles of the law; 
 and we humbly assure Your Majesty that we shall regard 
 it as the duty of Parliament, on the earliest opportunity, 
 to consider the origin of this dissatisfaction with a view 
 to the removal of all just causes of discontent." 
 
 I think there is one result of this dissatisfaction in 
 Ireland, as exhibited by the recent elections, to which no 
 person can be indifferent, and which no wise statesman 
 can disregard. For the first time since the Act of Union, 
 a majority — I will call it a decisive majority of Irish 
 members has been returned pledged to seek such a modi- 
 fication of the arrangements of the Union as would give 
 to Irishmen in Ireland the right of managing their own 
 affairs. I refer to this fact as evidence of dissatisfaction 
 with the existing state of things. The Irish members 
 who have been returned as Home Rulers are a decisive 
 majority of the Irish representatives, and these have not 
 been pledged to any mere vague declaration in favour of 
 Home Rule. Those who have thought it right to endea- 
 vour to excite the attention of the country to the question 
 of Home Rule have deliberately prepared and put before 
 the country the plan contained in the Resolution, which, 
 I venture to say, is framed in terms as clear and distinct 
 as possible. We ask that Ireland shall have the manage- 
 
ISAAC BUTT. 343 
 
 ment of all exclusively Irish affairs. Our plan would relieve 
 the House of business which it has not the time, and, I 
 may say, without disrespect, the capacity, to manage. 
 Our plan would not in the slightest degree affect the pre- 
 rogative of the Crown or the stability of the Empire. 
 We see no reason why an Irish Parliament could not 
 manage exclusively Irish affairs without endangering 
 the stabihty of the Empire. Has the grant of Parliaments 
 to Canada, Australia, and other Colonies endangered the 
 stability of the Empire ? I believe I speak for every 
 member who has been returned for Ireland on the Home 
 Rule principle, when I say that we repudiate, in the 
 strongest terms, the slightest wish to break up the unity 
 of the Empire, or to bring about a collision between Eng- 
 land and Ireland. We make no secret that they have 
 all been elected to put forward the claim of Ireland to 
 Home Rule, and, whether rightly or wrongly, we have 
 come to an agreement among ourselves that we will act 
 separately and independently of all existing political 
 combinations in this House. 
 
 Whether this course is wise or not, it certainly is a new 
 feature in Irish politics, and one that cannot be overlooked. 
 We take up this position because we cannot acquiesce 
 in anything that appears to us to imply that there is no- 
 thing in the state of Ireland that requires a remedy. In 
 taking up this position I feel that we have taken a great 
 responsibility upon ourselves, and I know the difficulty 
 of our position. I know the prejudice which the state- 
 ment that we have determined to act independently 
 of political combinations must naturally provoke, but I 
 would ask this House to judge us by our conduct. We 
 
344 imSU ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 would pursue a course very different from anything like 
 faction. I think I may base the first part of this Amend- 
 ment upon the mere fact that a majority of the Irish mem- 
 bers are returned expressly to endeavour to obtain for 
 Ireland self-government. I know not what stronger 
 proof can be given of the dissatisfaction existing in Ireland. 
 This dissatisfaction has been constitutionally expressed. 
 It has not been expressed by any disturbances, such as 
 on former occasions have been noticed in the Queen's 
 Speech. The Irish people have made this great political 
 movement at a time when perfect tranquillity prevails 
 throughout the counti}^ and in all the agitation by which 
 the result has been brought about there has been nothing 
 unconstitutional or illegal. It has been expressed through 
 that political franchise which has been given to them for 
 the purpose of declaring their political opinion. Ireland 
 at present is in a state of perfect tranquillity. The Assizes 
 that have just closed have ended in every place with 
 congratulations from the Judges upon the peaceableness 
 of the different counties. In the last Summer Assizes 
 in the city I have the honour to represent (Limerick), 
 white gloves were given to the Judge, there not being 
 a single prisoner to be tried. In the city of Cork, another 
 great city in the south of Ireland, the very same thing 
 occurred. I think the dissatisfaction in Ireland calls 
 upon the House, I will not say to alter or reverse any 
 policy that has been hitherto pursued with reference to 
 Ireland, but certainly to review calmly and deliberately 
 that policy, and ascertain the causes that have given rise 
 to the dissatisfaction as to the management of Irish 
 affairs bv this House. 
 
ISAAC BUTT. 345 
 
 I think I need not go far to justify the second part of 
 this Amendment, which affirms that the Irish people 
 complain that they have not had the full benefits of the 
 Constitution of England. I believe that at this moment 
 Ireland is under a code of law which for severity has not 
 its parallel in any European State. I will not speak for a 
 moment of the law that prevails all over Ireland indepen- 
 dently of the will of the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord 
 Lieutenant has power, by proclamation, to make it 
 illegal in any district to carry arms without a licence from 
 a poUce magistrate ; and any man having a gun, a pistol, 
 or dagger is liable, unless he have a magistrate's licence, 
 to imprisonment for two years. Of the thirty-two counties 
 in Ireland, twenty-six have been proclaimed ; the greater 
 part of five others has been proclaimed ; and there is just 
 one county in Ireland, designated Tyrone, which is free 
 from proclamation. Of the eight counties and cities, 
 Carrickfergus only is free from proclamation. Now, 
 this, I think, is a very startling state of things in Ireland. 
 But more than this— at any time of the night, in any 
 district where this law prevails, any policeman holding 
 a warrant may demand to be admitted into any house in 
 a proclaimed district, and may break open the door if 
 admittance be refused, to search the house for arms ; 
 one hundred and nineteen of these general warrants are 
 now in operation. Even this is not all. By proclamation 
 the Lord Lieutenant may make it a crime to be out of 
 doors after dark ; while by another proclamation he can 
 empower the police to seize any stranger ; and a large 
 portion of Ireland is at present under this law. By 
 another proclamation any magistrate or police officer may 
 
34^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 demand admittance to any man's house, and ransack his 
 papers for the purpose of comparing the handwriting with 
 the handwriting of a threatening letter. Let it not be 
 insinuated that these powers are never used. They 
 are in daily and constant use. On one occasion a 
 number of young men, one of whom was the son 
 of a respectable merchant, determined to play " Ham- 
 let." A police inspector, hearing of this, went to the 
 theatre, arrested the young gentleman, and kept him in 
 prison from Saturday night till Monday morning, when 
 he was brought before a magistrate on a charge of having 
 arms in his possession. 
 
 Cases like this are of frequent occurrence in Ireland. 
 Under the pretext of searching for arms the police often 
 seek to procure evidence of robberies and thefts, and 
 these powers may be abused for many other purposes. I 
 care not how these provisions may be defended, for I am 
 sure they are not necessary. 
 
 This, I think, amply justified me in saying that Ireland 
 does not enjoy the advantages of the British Constitution, 
 nor the free principles of the English law. These powers 
 are in constant use. With regard to arresting persons 
 after sunset, I will tell the House what occurred on the 
 fifth of the present month, according to an account which 
 appeared in a very respectable newspaper. Early in the 
 morning on that day a band went to attend an election 
 meeting. In going through the town they played some 
 tune — which, however, was not a party tune — and the 
 young people of the place were naturally attracted by the 
 music. The crowd cheered, and then a policeman thought 
 fit to think an offence had been committed against the law. 
 
ISAAC BUTT. 347 
 
 Subsequently, the constable followed two young men, 
 whom he knew perfectly well, a distance of two miles, and 
 at six minutes to six o'clock, just after sunset, he told them 
 they were out under suspicious circumstances. There- 
 upon he carried them to goal, where they were detained 
 until they were brought before a magistrate the next day. 
 Is this a state of things that ought to be endured in a coun- 
 try w^hich is nominally under the British Constitution ? 
 The police in Ireland are in truth a military force. A high 
 Conservative authority has said they are ten times as 
 numerous as they need be for the purpose of keeping 
 the peace ; and the late Lord Mayo said that, by con- 
 verting them into a military force, their efficiency as de- 
 tectors of crime has been destroyed. The existing laws 
 make the police the masters of the daily life of the people. 
 Indeed the police have been termed an " army of occu- 
 pation" and when the civil power of a country is con- 
 fided to such an army, the law is identified with the idea 
 of conquest. But how does Ireland stand with regard to 
 other matters ? In the first place, the franchise is not 
 the same as in England. When the late Reform Act 
 was passed for England, household suffrage was introduced 
 into the boroughs ; whereas in Ireland no one can vote 
 in a borough unless he have a rating qualification above 
 £4. Moreover, the franchise in Ireland is encumbered 
 by so many vexatious rules about rating that it is difficult 
 for anybody to obtain a vote. In England, with a popu- 
 lation of 26,000,000, as many as 1,200,000 enjoy the town 
 franchise ; while in Ireland, with a population of 5,000,000 
 there are just 50,000 town voters, of whom 30,000 are to 
 be found in Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Limerick. In 
 
34^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the whole of the rest of Ireland only 20,000 persons are 
 admitted to what ought to be a popular franchise. Per- 
 haps it may be said that the town population of Ireland 
 is not so large as that of England. This is doubtless 
 true, but in England one man out of every eight has the 
 franchise, whereas in Ireland only one man out of every 
 twenty has it. I will ask you whether the Irish people 
 have the full benefit of the Constitution which has been 
 established in England ? It is a strange circumstance 
 that the progress of Liberal opinions leads to this divergence 
 between the English and the Irish franchises. Formerly 
 they were the same in both countries, but shortly after 
 the passing of Catholic Emancipation the 40/- free- 
 holders were abolished, and by the Reform Act the 
 franchise in Ireland was made higher than in England, 
 There is also a difference between the municipal franchise 
 in the two countries. In Ireland — the poorer country, 
 be it remembered — a man cannot take part in a municipal 
 election unless he occupies a house worth £10 a year, 
 but in England every householder has a right to vote. 
 Again, how are fiscal affairs managed in Ireland ? A 
 Grand Jury is summoned in every county for the purpose 
 of finding bills and discharging the criminal adminis- 
 tration of justice, and the members of this body, who are 
 not elected by the people, are made the guardians of the 
 whole county expenditure, which amounts throughout 
 the whole of Ireland to £1,200,000 a year. In fact, the 
 whole system of Government in Ireland is based on dis- 
 trust of the people, just as the whole system of Govern- 
 ment in England is based upon trust of the people. 
 This circumstance, I think, justifies the complaint 
 
ISAAC BUTT. 349 
 
 of the people of Ireland that they have not the benefit 
 of the Constitution. In accordance with an old prin- 
 ciple of the British Constitution, sheriffs in all towns 
 are elected by the people, and this was the case in Ireland 
 until Liberal legislation reformed the corporations, and 
 took from them this power of electing sheriffs. Do not 
 the facts I have mentioned justify me in asking the House 
 to recede from its policy of coercion and distrust ? The 
 conclusion has been reluctantly forced upon me, that 
 conceding to Ireland a Parliament to manage its own 
 affairs is the only way to establish a perfect Constitutional 
 Government in that country. I am persuaded that any 
 candid Englishman w^ho will examine the peculiar condi- 
 tion of Ireland, and the differences which exist between 
 Ireland and England, will arrive, as I have done, at the 
 conclusion that the only way to have a really Constitu- 
 tional Government in Ireland is to allow the represen- 
 tatives of the people, freely chosen by the people, to 
 administer their own affairs. However, the Amendment 
 I am about to move does not express any opinion on this 
 point. All I now ask the House to say is that Ireland has 
 not the benefit of the Constitution, and to consider a 
 remedy. The Amendment ought to commend itself 
 to the common sense and candour of English gentlemen. 
 A new state of things has arisen in Ireland, and an oppor- 
 tunity is now given to the House of Commons to review 
 its policy with regard to that country. I do not at present 
 ask the House to concede Home Rule to Ireland. That 
 question remains to be discussed, and perhaps to be 
 discussed for many years. But first the advocates of Home 
 Rule must satisfy the English people that they are not 
 
350 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 seeking separation. Ireland has given up the idea of 
 separation, because she has before her the prospect of 
 obtaining another and a far better thing. I do not beHeve 
 Ireland will ever be content with the existing state of things 
 but if Englishmen approach the subject with unpre- 
 judiced minds, there will be no difficulty in framing a 
 measure which will make Ireland contented, while the 
 integrity of the Empire will be perfectly maintained. 
 
 We are now entering upon a new phase of Irish politics. 
 It is not my wish to say one word of disrespect towards 
 the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), who by 
 his genius has raised himself to the exalted position he at 
 present occupies. The right hon. gentleman is now, for 
 the first time in his life in power, although he has pre- 
 viously been in office. Ireland is a field large enough for 
 the ambition of any man if he can reconcile that country 
 cordially to the British nation, and dispel every trace of 
 disloyalty to the British Crown. I believe it is possible 
 to do this by wise legislation. There may be a veiled 
 policy as well as a veiled rebellion. It will be a mistake, 
 however, if the right hon. gentleman conceives that other 
 questions will not have to be dealt with. If a policy of 
 conciliation is pursued towards Ireland, the right hon. 
 gentleman will not find himself obstructed by Irish 
 representatives ; but if he unfortunately pursues a 
 different course, he will find himself disappointed. But 
 however great our wish to relieve the House of Commons 
 from the management of exclusively Irish affairs, for which 
 we believe the House unfit, while these affairs are managed 
 in the House, and we continue members of it, a duty 
 devolved upon us which will be discharged by not offering 
 
ISAAC BUTT. 351 
 
 factious opposition to any measures for the benefit of 
 Ireland, from whichever side of the House, such measures 
 may emanate. 
 
 I think I have shown that a crisis has arisen in the affairs 
 of Ireland, presenting new phases ; that those gentlemen 
 who have associated themselves for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing self- Government for Ireland are bound not to 
 acquiesce in an Address which infers that things shall 
 remain as they are ; and it is with this view that I now 
 place in the hands of the Speaker the Amendment 
 which I have prepared. 
 
352 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER 
 
 (1823-1867). 
 
 O'Connell having attended a levee at Lord John Russell's 
 house, and come to an understanding with the Whigs, 
 determined to rid the Repeal Association of those who 
 declined to have anything to do with the Whig AlHance. 
 The incident of the Dungarvan election, when he stated 
 that if a Repealer could not be got, he would not oppose 
 a man sympathetic to " the present ministry " caused much 
 surprise, and to forestall any action on the part of his 
 critics, he had the famous Peace Resolutions drawn up, 
 thinking this would compel the Young Irelanders to quit 
 the Association. Meagher alone objected. 
 
 On July 27th and 28th, 1846, two meetings were held at 
 Conciliation Hall, the aim being to force a Secession on the 
 basis of the Peace Resolutions, carefully revised. 
 
 On the first day of the debate Smith O'Brien pointed out 
 the folly of alliance with the national enemy and the danger 
 of taking office under either party. John O'Connell replied, 
 in favour of the alliance with the stock arguments used often 
 since. On the second day the debate was resumed, not on 
 the question of physical force, but on the danger of place- 
 begging. When Meagher rose he addressed a hostile 
 audience, which only slowly yielded to the spell of his 
 eloquence. 
 
 It is safe to say that the " Sword Speech " has been read 
 wherever the language in which it was delivered is spoken, 
 not only for the virile wisdom of its opening passages, but 
 for the clashing splendour of its peroration. 
 
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER. 353 
 
 SWORD SPEECH. 
 (Conciliation Hall, Dublin, July 28, 1846.) 
 
 My Lord Mayor,— I will commence as Mr. Mitchel 
 concluded, by an allusion to the Whigs. I fully concur 
 with my friend, that the most comprehensive measures 
 which the Whig Minister may propose will fail to lift 
 this country up to that position which she has the right 
 to occupy, and the power to maintain. A Whig Minister, 
 I admit, may improve the province — he will not restore 
 the nation. Franchises, tenant compensation bills, liberal 
 appointments, may ameliorate — they will not exalt. They 
 may meet the necessities — they will not call forth the abili- 
 ties of the country. The errors of the past may be re- 
 paired—the hopes of the future will not be fulfilled . With 
 a vote in one pocket, a lease in the other, a full " justice " 
 before him at the petty sessions — in the shape of a " res- 
 tored magistrate " — the humblest peasant may be told 
 that he is free ; but, my lord, he will not have the character 
 of a freeman— his spirit to dare, his energy to act. From 
 the stateliest mansion down to the poorest cottage in the 
 land, the inactivity, the meanness, the debasement, which 
 provincialism engenders, will be perceptible. . . . 
 
 A good government may, indeed, redress the grie- 
 vances of an injured people ; but a strong people can alone 
 build up a great nation. To be strong, a people must 
 be self-reliant, self-ruled, self-sustained. The depen- 
 dence of one people upon another, even for the benefits 
 of legislation, is the deepest source of national weakness. 
 By an unnatural law it exempts a people from their just 
 
 2 A 
 
354 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 duties, — their just responsibilities. When you exempt 
 a people from these duties, from these responsibilities, 
 you generate in them a distrust in their own powers. 
 Thus you enervate, if you do not utterly destroy, that 
 spirit which a sense of these responsibilities is sure to 
 inspire, and which the fulfilment of these duties never 
 fails to invigorate. Where this spirit does not actuate, 
 the country may be tranquil — it will not be prosperous. 
 It may exist, it will not thrive. It may hold together — 
 it will not advance. Peace it may enjoy — for peace and 
 serfdom are compatible. But, my lord, it will neither 
 accumulate wealth, nor win a character. It will neither 
 benefit mankind by the enterprise of its merchants, nor 
 instruct mankind by the examples of its statesmen. I 
 make these observations, for it is the custom of some 
 moderate politicians to say, that when the Whigs have 
 accomplished the " pacification " of the country, there 
 will be little or no necessity for Repeal. My lord, there is 
 something else, there is everything else, to be done when 
 the work of " pacification " has been accomplished — and 
 here it is hardly necessary to observe, that the prosperity 
 of a country is, perhaps, the sole guarantee for its tran- 
 quillity, and that the more universal the prosperi tythe more 
 permanent will be the repose. But the Whigs will enrich 
 as well as pacify ! Grant it, my lord. Then do I con- 
 ceive that the necessity for Repeal will augment. Great 
 interests demand great safeguards. The prosperity of a 
 nation requires the protection of a senate. Hereafter 
 a national senate may require the protection of a national 
 army. So much for the extraordinary affluence with 
 which we are threatened ; and which it is said by gentle- 
 
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER, 355 
 
 men on the opposite shore of the Irish sea, will crush this 
 Association, and bury the enthusiasts who clamour for 
 Irish nationality, in a sepulchre of gold. This prediction, 
 however, is feebly sustained by the ministerial programme 
 that has lately appeared. On the evening of the i6th 
 the Whig Premier, in answer to a question that was put to 
 him by the member for Finsbury, Mr. Duncombe, is re- 
 ported to have made this consolatory announcement : — 
 
 " We consider that the social grievances of Ireland are 
 those which are most prominent — and to which it is most 
 likely to be in our power to afford, not a complete and 
 immediate remedy, but some remedy, some kind of im- 
 provement, so that some kind of hope may be entertained 
 that, some ten or twelve years hence, the country will, 
 by the measures we undertake, be in a far better state 
 with respect to the frightful destitution and misery which 
 now prevail in that country. We have that practical 
 object in view." 
 
 After that most consolatory announcement, my lord, 
 let those who have the patience of Job and the poverty of 
 Lazarus, continue in good faith " to wait on Providence 
 and the Whigs " — continue to entertain " some kind of 
 hope " that if not " a complete and immediate remedy," 
 at least " some remedy," " some improvement " will 
 place this country in a far better state than it is at pre- 
 sent, " some ten or twelve years hence." After that, let 
 those who prefer the periodic boons of a Whig govern- 
 ment to that which would be the abiding blessing of an 
 Irish Parliament — let those who deny to Ireland what 
 they assert for Poland — let those who would inflict, as 
 Henry Grattan said, an eternal disability upon this country, 
 
356 IRISH OKAIOKY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to which Providence has assigned the largest facilities for 
 power — let those who would ratify the " base swap," as 
 Mr. Shell once stigmatised the Act of Union, and who 
 would stamp perfection upon that deed of perfidy — let 
 such men 
 
 " Plod on in sluggish misery, 
 Rotting from sire to sire, from age to age, 
 Proud of their trampled nature." 
 
 But we, my lord, who are assembled in this hall, and 
 in whose hearts the Union has not bred the slave's disease 
 — w^e w^ho have not been imperialised — we are here, wdth 
 the hope to undo that w^ork, which, forty-six years ago, 
 dishonoured the ancient peerage, and subjugated the 
 people of our country. 
 
 My lord, to assist the people of Ireland to undo that work 
 I came to this hall. I came to repeal the Act of Union — 
 I came here for nothing else. Upon every other question, 
 I feel myself at perfect liberty to differ from each and 
 every one of you. Upon questions of finance — questions 
 of a religious character — questions of an educational char- 
 acter — questions of municipal policy — questions that 
 may arise from the proceedings of the legislature — upon 
 all these questions, I feel myself at perfect liberty to differ 
 from each and every one of you. Yet more, my lord, I 
 maintain that it is my right to express my opinion upon 
 each of these questions, if necessary. The right of free 
 discussion I have here upheld. In the exercise of that 
 right I have differed, sometimes, from the leader of this 
 Association, and would do so again. That right I will 
 not abandon — I shall maintain it to the last. In doing so, 
 let me not be told that I seek to undermine the influence 
 
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER. 357 
 
 of the leader of this Association and am insensible to his 
 services. My lord, I am grateful for his services, and 
 will uphold his just influence. This is the first time I 
 have spoken in these terms of that illustrious man, in 
 this hall. . . . No, my lord, I am not ungrateful 
 to the man who struck the fetters off my arms, whilst I 
 was yet a child, and by whose influence, my father — the 
 first Catholic who did so for two hundred years — sat 
 for the last two years, in the civic chair of an ancient city. 
 But, my lord, the same God who gave to that great man 
 the power to strike down an odious ascendancy in this 
 country, and enabled him to institute in this land the 
 glorious law of religious equality — the same God gave 
 to me a mind that is my own — a mind that has not been 
 mortgaged to the opinions of any man or any set of men — 
 a mind that I was to use and not surrender. 
 
 My lord, in the exercise of that right which I have here 
 endeavoured to uphold — a right which this Association 
 should preserve inviolate, if it desires not to become a 
 despotism. In the exercise of that right I have differed 
 from Mr. O'Connell on previous occasions, and differ 
 from him now. I do not agree with him in the opinion 
 he entertains of my friend, Charles Gavan Duffy — that 
 man whom I am proud indeed to call my friend — though 
 he is a " convicted conspirator," and suffered for you 
 in Richmond prison. I do not think he is a " maHgner." 
 I do not think he has lost, or deserves to lose, the public 
 favour. I have no more connection with the " Nation " 
 than I have with the " Times." I, therefore, feel no 
 delicacy in appearing here this day in defence of its prin- 
 ciples, with which I avow myself identified. My lord, 
 
35^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 it is to me a source of true delight and honest pride to 
 speak this day in defence of that great journal. I do not 
 fear to assume the position. Exalted though it be, it is 
 easy to maintain it. The character of that journal is 
 above reproach. The ability that sustains it has won 
 an European fame. The genius of which it is the off- 
 spring, the truth of which it is the oracle, have been 
 recognised, my lord, by friends and foes. I care 
 not how it may be assailed — I care not howsoever 
 great may be the talent, howsoever high may 
 be the position, of those who now consider it their duty 
 to impeach its writings — I do think that it has won too 
 splendid a reputation to lose the influence it has acquired. 
 The people, whose enthusiasm has been kindled by the 
 impetuous fire of its verse, and whose sentiments have 
 been ennobled by the earnest purity of its teaching, will 
 not ratify the censure that has been pronounced upon it 
 in this hall. Truth will have its day of triumph, as well 
 as its day of trial ; and I foresee that the fearless patriotism 
 which, in those pages, has braved the prejudices of the 
 day, to enunciate grand truths, will triumph in the end. 
 My lord, such do I believe to be the character, such do I 
 anticipate will be the fate of the principles that are now 
 impeached. This brings me to what may be called the 
 " question of the day." Before I enter upon that question, 
 however, I will allude to one observation which fell from 
 the honourable member for Kilkenny (John O'Connell), 
 and which may be said to refer to those who expressed an 
 opinion that has been construed into a declaration of war. 
 The honourable gentleman said — in reference, I pre- 
 sume, to those who dissented from the resolutions of 
 
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER. 359 
 
 Monday— that " Those who were loudest in their de- 
 clarations of war, were usually the most backward in acting 
 up to these declarations." 
 
 My lord, I do not find fault with the honourable gentle- 
 man for giving expression to a very ordinary saying, but 
 this I will say, that I did not volunteer the opinion he 
 condemns— to the declaration of that opinion I was 
 forced. You left me no alternative — I should compro- 
 mise my opinion, or avow it. To be honest, I avowed it. 
 I did not do so to brag, as they say We have had too 
 much of that '^bragging" in Ireland. I would be the last 
 to imitate the custom. Well, I dissented from those 
 " peace resolutions " — as they are called. Why so ? In 
 the first place, my lord, I conceive that there was not the 
 least necessity for them. No member of this Association 
 suggested an appeal to arms. No member of this Asso- 
 ciation advised it. No member of this Association would 
 be so infatuated as to do so. In the existing circumstances 
 of the country, an excitement to arms would be senseless — 
 and wicked, because irrational. To talk nowadays of 
 repealing the Act of Union by force of arms would be to 
 
 rhapsodize There might be a riot in the 
 
 street — there would be no revolution in the country. 
 The secretary, Mr. Crean, will far more effectually pro- 
 mote the cause of Repeal, by registering votes in Green 
 Street than registering fire-arms in the Head Police Office. 
 Conciliation Hall on Burgh Quay is more impregnable 
 than a rebel camp on Vinegar Hill. The hustings at 
 Dundalk will be more successfully stormed than the 
 Magazine in the Park. The registry club, the reading 
 room, the polling booths, these are the only positions in 
 
360 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the country we can occupy. Voters' certificates, books, 
 pamphlets, newspapers, these are the only weapons we 
 can employ. Therefore, my lord, I cast my vote in favour 
 of the peaceful policy of this Association. It is the only 
 policy we can adopt. If that policy be pursued with truth, 
 with courage, with fixed determination of purpose, I 
 firmly believe it will succeed. 
 
 But, my lord, I dissented from the resolutions before 
 us, for other reasons. I stated the first — I now come to 
 the second. I dissented from them, for I felt that by 
 assenting to them, I should have pledged myself to the 
 unqualified repudiation of physical force in all countries, 
 at all times, and under every circumstance. This I could 
 not do. For, my lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in 
 the vindication of national rights. There are times when 
 arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations 
 call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of 
 blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. 
 But as the honourable member for Kilkenny has observed, 
 force must be used against force. The soldier is proof 
 against an argument — but he is not proof against a bullet. 
 The man that will listen to reason — let him be reasoned 
 with, but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can 
 alone prevail against battalioned despotism. 
 
 Then, my lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as 
 immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say, that the 
 King of Heaven — the Lord of Hosts ! the God of Battles, 
 bestows His benediction upon those who unsheath the 
 sword in the hour of a nation's peril. 
 
 From that evening on which, in the valley of Bethulia, 
 He nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken 
 
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER, 36 1 
 
 tyrant in his tent, down to this day, in which He has 
 blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian priest, His 
 Almighty hand hath ever been stretched forth from His 
 throne of Light, to consecrate the flag of freedom — to 
 bless the patriot's sword ! Be it in the defence, or be it 
 in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a 
 sacred weapon ; and if, my lord, it has sometimes taken 
 the shape of the serpent and reddened the shroud of the 
 oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of 
 the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blos- 
 somed into celestial flowers to deck the freeman's brow. 
 
 Abhor the sword — stigmatise the sword ? No, my lord, 
 for in the passes of the Tyrol it cut to pieces the banner 
 of the Bavarian, and through those cragged passes struck 
 a path to fame for the peasant insurrectionist of Inspruck ! 
 
 Abhor the sword — stigmatise the sword ? No, my 
 lord, for, at its blow, a giant nation started from the 
 waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic, and in 
 the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled colony 
 sprang into the attitude of a proud republic — prosperous, 
 limitless, and invincible ! 
 
 Abhor the sword — stigmatise the sword ? No, my 
 lord, for it swept the Dutch marauders out of the fine old 
 towns of Belgium — scourged them back to their own 
 phlegmatic swamps — and knocked their flag and sceptre, 
 their laws and bayonets, into the sluggish waters of the 
 Scheldt. 
 
 My lord, I learned that it was the right of a nation to 
 govern herself — not in this hall, but upon the ramparts 
 of Antwerp. This, the first article of a nation's creed, 
 I learned upon those ramparts, where freedom was justly 
 
362 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 estimated, and the possession of the precious gift was 
 purchased by the effusion of generous blood. 
 
 My lord, I honour the Belgians, I admire the Belgians, 
 I love the Belgians, for their enthusiasm, their courage, 
 their success, and I for one, will not stigmatise, for I do 
 not abhor, the means by which they obtained a Citizen 
 King, a Chamber of Deputies 
 
 At this point Mr. John O'Connell won the equivocal place he 
 since holds in the history of the Repeal movement by interrupting 
 the speaker. The sentiments Mr. Meagher avowed were, he declared, 
 opposed to those of the founder of the Association, and that, there- 
 fore, the Association must cease to exist, or Mr. Meagher must cease 
 to be a member of it. 
 
 Smith O'Brien here intervened with a grave warning and an 
 allusion to the ugliest characteristic of modern Irishmen : — "Re- 
 member this, gentlemen — and it is fit you should remember it — 
 for the proceedings this day are an event in Irish history. You are 
 charged with being a people who will never give fair play to an 
 adversary. You are charged with being willing slaves to any despot 
 who may obtain the reins of power at a particular moment. This 
 is the charge against the Irish people. I entertain a different opinion 
 of them. I should designate as a calumniator the man who would 
 give you such a character ; but I ask 3'ou, are you now going to for- 
 tify, as far as regards this assembly, the assertion of your enemies, 
 by putting down the man who is endeavouring calmly and dis- 
 passionately to discuss a question to which he was invited — which 
 he was compelled to discuss ? If this discussion be terminated, I 
 shall have the satisfaction of entering my protest against the pro- 
 ceedings which put down Mr. Meagher on the present occasion." 
 
 John O'Connell retorted that the question was not should a young 
 man be put down ; but should the young man put down the Asso- 
 ciation ? It was a question between the founder and certain ob- 
 jectors ; if the members would not stand by the founder, let them 
 adopt other resolutions and another leader. 
 
 Meagher and his friends left the hall, the secession had taken place. 
 Within a few months the Repeal Association was moribund and the 
 " Whig compact " doing its work on a divided nation. 
 
3^3 ] 
 
 THE REV. MR. CAHILL. 
 
 ''DOWN WITH THE POPE." 
 
 When Lord John Russell was endeavouring to break the 
 newly formed union between North and South by an appeal 
 to sectarianism, his policy was thus criticised by Mr. Cahill. 
 
 " Down with the Pope," but will that revive the six 
 hundred victims that were flung coffinless into one monster 
 grave at Skibbereen ? Yes, down with the Pope ! but 
 will that raise up from their crumbled ruins the 17,865 
 houses which the exterminators in two short years have 
 levelled in the dust ? Down with the Pope ! but will 
 that give food or drink or raiment to those wretched 
 outcasts of landlord barbarism who are sucking sub- 
 sistence from the rotten turnip — who are burning with 
 fever in some roofless shed — without a drop to cool their 
 parched lips, or who are wet with the dew and rains of 
 Heaven — as they crouch without shelter or covering 
 amid the scattered fragments of their once loved homes ? 
 Down with the Pope ! but will that clear our roadstead 
 of those ships which are sweeping away the strength, and 
 bone, and wealth of our country, or bring back those hap- 
 less exiles who roam by the stagnant swamps, and over 
 the torrid plains and desolate prairies of a distant land, 
 cursing the laws that drove them from the green fields 
 they never again will see ? 
 
364 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 The policy will fail. 
 
 We have drawn around it the circle of charity which 
 discord cannot enter. In this blessed union we have 
 found our cure and our remedy It will force you and 
 your successors to treat us with respect and govern us 
 with justice — it will muzzle the bloody jaws of ravening 
 landlords. It will not revive the dead, but it will save the 
 living ; and in the words of Davis, by its magic influence, 
 in spite of landlords and Government, we will win the 
 rights which we seek — 
 
 lyandlords fooled us 
 
 England ruled us, 
 Hounding us on to make us their prey ; 
 But in their despite the Irish unite. 
 
 And Orange and Green 
 
 Will carry the day. 
 
[ 365 ] 
 
 THE MANCHESTER MARTYRS. 
 
 The rescue of Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy while they 
 were being conveyed to Salford gaol, near Manchester 
 (September i8th, 1867), is one of the most stirring episodes 
 of the Fenian movement. The accidental shooting of a 
 poHce sergeant in charge was made the pretext for executing 
 three young men who had taken part in the affair — WilUam 
 Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Michael O'Brien. They were 
 " tried " and found guilty, November ist. The conduct of 
 the trial was in strict accord with the traditions of EngUsh 
 law when applied to Irish patriots. The behaviour of the 
 crowd which gathered about Salford prison on the night 
 preceeding the day of execution showed how the three 
 Irishmen were victims to the blood-lust of the moment. 
 Some of the songs which the waiting mob bawled were so 
 British that the very poHce on guard, in sheer human revul- 
 sion, drove the singers to some distance from the gaol. 
 
 WILLIAM PHILIP ALLEN. 
 
 " No man in this court regrets the death of Sergeant 
 Brett more than I do, and I positively say, in the pre- 
 sence of the Almighty and ever-living God, that I am 
 innocent ; aye, as innocent as any man in this court. 
 I don't say this for the sake of mercy : I want no mercy— 
 I'll have no mercy. I'll die, as many thousands have died, 
 for the sake of their beloved land, and in defence of it. 
 I will die proudly and triumphantly in defence of repub- 
 lican principles and the liberty of an oppressed and 
 
366 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 enslaved people. Is it possible we are asked why sentence 
 should not be passed upon us, on the evidence of prosti- 
 tutes off the streets of Manchester, fellows out of work, 
 convicted felons — aye, an Irishman sentenced to be hanged 
 when an English dog would have got off. I say positively 
 and defiantly, justice has not been done me since I was 
 arrested. If justice had been done me, I would not have 
 been handcuffed at the preliminary investigation in 
 Bridge Street ; and in this court justice has not been done 
 me in any shape or form. I was brought up here and all 
 the prisoners by my side were allowed to wear overcoats, 
 and I was told to take mine off. What is the principle of 
 that ? There was something in that principle, and I 
 say positively that justice has not been done me. As for 
 the other prisoners, they can speak for themselves with 
 regard to that matter. And now, with regard to the 
 way I have been identified. I have to say that my clothes 
 were kept for four hours by the policemen in Fairfield 
 station and shown to parties to identify me as being one of 
 the perpetrators of this outrage on Hyde Road. Also in 
 Albert station there was a handkerchief kept on my head 
 the whole night, so that I could be identified the next 
 morning in the corridor by the witnesses. I was ordered 
 to leave on the handkerchief for the purpose that the 
 witnesses could more plainly see I was one of the parties 
 who committed the outrage. As for myself, I feel the 
 righteousness of my every act with regard to what I have 
 done in defence of my country. I fear not. I am fearless 
 — fearless of the punishment that can be inflicted on me ; 
 and with that, my lords, I have done." 
 
 (After a pause) : — " I beg to be excused. One remark 
 
THE MANCHESTER MARTYRS. 367 
 
 more. I return Mr. Seymour and Mr. Jones my sincere 
 and heartfelt thanks for their able eloquence and advo- 
 cacy on my part in this affray. I wish also to return to 
 Mr. Roberts the very same. My name, sir, might be 
 wished to be known. It is not William O'Meara Allen. 
 My name is William Philip Allen. I was born and 
 reared in Bandon, in the County of Cork, and from that 
 place I take my name ; and I am proud of my country, 
 and proud of my parentage. My lords, I have done." 
 
 MICHAEL LARKIN. 
 
 " I have only got a word or two to say concerning Ser- 
 geant Brett. As my friend here said, no one could regret 
 the man's death as much as I do. With regard to the 
 charge of pistols and revolvers, and my using them, I 
 call my God as witness that I neither used pistols, 
 revolvers, nor any instrument on that day that would 
 deprive the life of a child, let alone a man. Nor did I 
 go there on purpose to take life away. Certainly, my 
 lords, I do not want to deny that I did go to give aid and 
 assistance to those two noble heroes that were confined in 
 that van — Kelly and Deasy. I did go to do as much as lay 
 in my power to extricate them out of their bondage ; but I 
 did not go to take life, nor, my lord, did anyone else. It 
 is a misfortune there was life taken ; but if it was taken 
 it was not done intentionally, and the man who has taken 
 life we have not got him. I was at the scene of action, 
 when there were over, I dare say, 150 people standing by 
 there when I was. I am very sorry I have to say, my 
 
368 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 lord, but I thought I had some respectable people to come 
 up as witnesses against me ; but I am sorry to say as my 
 friend said — I will make no more remarks concerning 
 that. All I have to say, my lords and gentlemen, is that 
 so far as my trial went, and the way it was conducted, I 
 beheve I have got a fair trial." 
 
 He evidently alluded to the exertions of his counsel and solicitor, 
 whom he thanked. He concluded with a curiously fatalistic refer- 
 ence to his belief in the old saying, " what is decreed a man in the 
 page of life he has to fulfil, either on the gallows, drowning, a fair 
 death in bed, or on the battle-field." 
 
 " So I look to the mercy of God. May God forgive all 
 who have sworn my life away. As I am a dying man, I 
 forgive them from the bottom of my heart. God forgive 
 them." 
 
 MICHAEL O'BRIEN. 
 
 " I shall commence by saying that every witness who has 
 sworn anything against me has sworn falsely. I have 
 not had a stone in my possession since I was a boy. I 
 had no pistol in my possession on the day when it is 
 alleged this outrage was committed. You call it an out- 
 rage, I don't. I say further my name is Michael O'Brien. 
 I was born in the county of Cork and have the honour 
 to be a fellow-parishioner of Peter O'Neal Crowley, who 
 was fighting against the British troops at Mitchelstown 
 last March, and who fell fighting against British tyranny 
 in Ireland. I am a citizen of the United States of Ame- 
 rica, and if Charles Francis Adams had done his duty 
 towards me, as he ought to do in this country, I should 
 not be in this dock answering your questions now. Mr. 
 
THE MACHESTER MARTYRS. 369 
 
 Adams did not come, though I wrote to him. He did not 
 come to see if I could not find evidence to disprove the 
 charge, which I positively could, if he had taken the trouble 
 of sending or coming to see what I could do, I hope the 
 American people will notice this part of the business." 
 
 The speaker continued reading from a paper he held : 
 
 "The right of man is freedom. The great God has 
 endowed him with affections that he may use, not smother 
 them, and a world that may be enjoyed. Once a man is 
 satisfied he is doing right, and attempts to do anything 
 with that conviction, he must be willing to face all the 
 consequences. Ireland, with its beautiful scenery, its 
 delightful climate, its rich and productive lands, is 
 capable of supporting more than treble its population in 
 ease and comfort. Yet no man, except a paid official 
 of the British Government, can say there is a shadow of 
 liberty, that there is a spark of glad life amongst its 
 plundered and persecuted inhabitants. It is to be hoped 
 that its imbecile and tyrannical rulers will be for ever 
 driven from her soil amidst the execrations of the world. 
 How beautifully the aristocrats of England moralise on the 
 despotism of the rulers of Italy and Dahomey — in the 
 case of Naples with what indignation did they speak of the 
 ruin of families by the detention of its head or some loved 
 member in a prison. Who has not heard their condem- 
 nations of the tyranny that would compel honourable 
 and good men to spend their useful lives in hopeless 
 banishment ? 
 
 To have observed this aspect of British foreign policy, at that time, 
 indicates no small degree of intelligence on the part of the speaker. 
 The court recognising this, intervened with a warning " entirely 
 
 2 B 
 
370 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 for Mr. O'Brien's sake." The effort to divert attention from British 
 philanthropy was not successful. 
 
 '' They cannot find words to express their horror of the 
 cruelties of the King of Dahomey because he sacrificed 
 2,000 human beings yearly, but why don't those persons 
 who pretend such virtuous indignation at the misgovern- 
 ment of other countries look at home, and see that greater 
 crimes than those they charge against other governments 
 are not committed by themselves or by their sanction ? 
 Let them look at London, and see the thousands that 
 want bread there, while those aristocrats are rioting in 
 luxuries and crimes. Look to Ireland ; see the hundreds 
 of thousands of its people in misery and want. See the 
 virtuous, beautiful and industrious women who only 
 a few years ago — aye, and yet — are obliged to look at their 
 children dying for want of food. Look at what is called 
 the majesty of the law on one side, and the long deep misery 
 of a noble people on the other. Which are the young men 
 of Ireland to respect — the law that murders or banishes 
 their people or the means to resist relentless tyranny, 
 and ending their miseries for ever under a home govern- 
 ment ? I need not answer that question here. I trust 
 the Irish people will answer it to their satisfaction soon. 
 I am not astonished at my conviction. The Government 
 of this country have the power of convicting any person. 
 They appoint the judge ; they choose the jury ; and by 
 means of what they call patronage (which is the means of 
 corruption) they have the power of making the laws to 
 suit their purposes. I am confident that my blood will 
 rise a hundredfold against the tyrants who think proper 
 to commit such an outrage. In the first place, I say I 
 
THE MANCHESTER MARTYRS. 37 1 
 
 was identified improperly by having chains on my hands 
 and feet at the time of identification, and thus the witnesses 
 who have sworn to my throwing stones and firing a pistol 
 have sworn to what is false, for I was, as those ladies said, 
 at the jail gates. I thank my counsel for their able 
 defence, and also Mr. Roberts, for his attention to my 
 case." 
 
372 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 A. M. SULLIVAN (1830-1884). 
 
 ON THE IRISH NATIONAL DEMANDS. 
 
 House of Commons. 
 
 (January 17, 1878.) 
 
 On the opening of Parliament. The Amnesty to which 
 Mr. Sullivan alludes was not due to British clemency, but 
 as it was cleverly said, to the Emperor of Russia whose 
 successes against Turkey in the Balkans had terrified 
 England. Amongst the released prisoners it will be remem- 
 bered were Colour-Sergeant McCarthy and Michael Davitt. 
 The former, a soldier in the English army, having joined 
 the Fenian Association, was imprisoned for life. During 
 twelve years he was carefully broken inch by inch between 
 the wheels of British " justice," Millbank, Dartmoor, 
 Pentonville and Chatham. When freed at the age of 44, 
 he was clearly dying, and indeed expired a few days after 
 liberation, at Morrison's Hotel. The issue of the 
 Freeman's Journal, January 22nd, giving a belated report 
 of Mr. Sullivan's speech, contains also an account of the 
 hideous cells in which the poHtical prisoners were immured. 
 
 Sir, — The House stands indebted to the hon. and 
 gallant gentleman, the member for Waterford. His 
 motion has broken " the cold chain of silence " that hung 
 over the Government benches, and has elicited from the 
 hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Plunket) a speech 
 which, whatever its other characteristic, we have all 
 admired for its varied play of humour, eloquence and 
 
A. M. SULLIVAN. 373 
 
 ability. He had no need to apologise to the House for 
 the time he was occupied. This is his business, and this 
 of all others the subject, with which the time of the House 
 should most rigidly be occupied. Parliament has been 
 assembled three weeks earlier than usual, and within 
 these three weeks there should be good time for discussing 
 and considering the Irish question — for fully considered 
 and discussed we are fixedly determined it shall be. Mr. 
 Speaker, that hon. and learned gentleman said of the men 
 amidst whom I stand, that they were " masquerading 
 as Home Rulers." The phrase is not offensive, I suppose, 
 or he would not have applied it ; so I may use it too and 
 say that the thing which is really intolerable is to see the 
 grandson of the great Plunket masquerading on the floor 
 of the House as an Imperialist. We are supposed to be 
 concerned just now with the Turkish question. One 
 of the cruellest wrongs which the subject Christians under 
 the Moslem yoke were made to feel was that oftentimes 
 the children of Christian parents were seized and carried 
 into the Turkish camp trained up in Turkish ideas, em- 
 braced the faith and the banner of the conqueror and 
 appeared many a time, scimitar in hand, to wage war upon 
 their kindred and their race ! Even so, it has been with us 
 in Ireland through many a sad chapter of our country's 
 history. Sometimes by force, sometimes by guile, some- 
 times by one influence, sometimes by another, British 
 power has been able to tear away from us children who 
 bore great names and might have greatly served their 
 country ; and we have seen these converts as to-night, 
 skilfully set in the forefront of the assault when their 
 countrymen were to be cut down. 
 
374 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Who is our accuser ? The voice is the voice of an 
 Irishman. The wit, the abiUty, the brilHant play of 
 fancy and of genius, the rhetoric, the skill — all, all are Irish, 
 but all are set against Ireland I Who I repeat is our 
 accuser ? If we stand here to-night as we do, upon the 
 floor of this House to maintain in the face of the Empire 
 and of Europe the protest of Ireland against the memorable 
 crime that robbed her of her constitutional liberties, 
 whose behests are we fulfilling ? — who pledged us to 
 undying faith and eternal war against the crime ? The 
 hon. and learned gentleman had the temerity to use a 
 phrase for ever notable in the history of his family when 
 he spoke of men " swearing upon the altar." Who was 
 that great Irishman, that distinguished Constitutional 
 lawyer, who declared that if the Irish Parliament were 
 successfully overthrown he would bring his child — oh, 
 why did he not say his grandchild ? — and swear him 
 upon the altar of his country to wage relentless war 
 against that tremendous wrong ? How little did he imagine 
 in that hour that to-night the representatives of Ireland 
 should discover in the ranks of their adversaries the 
 heritor of his great name, and in no small degree of 
 his genius, false to his principles and to his teachings, 
 false to his lineage and his fame ? 
 
 But, Sir, I turn from the man to his arguments. He 
 drew for us a picture of Ireland. Many years ago 
 O'Connell was defending a sheep-stealer. In his speech 
 to the jury he drew a glowing picture of the prisoner at 
 the bar as a model husband and father (he was not married 
 at all), a dutiful son, an exemplary citizen, virtuous, pious, 
 industrious, inoficnsive. At this point the prisoner in the 
 
A. M. SULLIVAN. 375 
 
 dock could stand it no longer, and he exclaimed to those 
 around him, " I never knew before that I bore so high a 
 character." Well, Sir, we have heard to-night the de- 
 fender of British rule in Ireland extolling the virtues 
 and excellences of his client ; ^nd well may the prisoner 
 at the bar in this case exclaim, " I never knew I was so 
 beautiful, so virtuous, so meritorious as all that." Only 
 beUeve the hon. and learned gentleman, and there is not 
 the slightest need of changing anything— the slightest 
 possibility of improving anything — in Ireland. Every- 
 thing there is already perfect in the matter of government, 
 law and administration. There is not, if you believe him, 
 a more fortunate spot on the face of the habitable globe. 
 It is the home of happiness, peace, prosperity, of bene- 
 ficent rule and abounding loyalty. Hon. gentlemen 
 opposite cheer. You evidently think so, too. You know 
 all about it. You know Ireland better than we do. You 
 are better entitled to speak for it than we, the Irish 
 majority, are. Are you ? But, pray, by what right 
 does your party hold those benches and rule the destinies 
 of England but by the right of a Parliamentary majority ? 
 In virtue of a ParHamentary majority you say you are 
 entitled to speak to the world for England, while in 
 virtue of a Parliamentary minority you would claim to 
 speak for Ireland. 
 
 But, Sir, the question before the House is much wider, 
 and greater, and more serious than the merits of the 
 Irish " Bills " which the Government has promised. If 
 it were a matter of a better or a worse Grand Jury Law, 
 or a better or a worse Intermediate Education Bill, I, 
 for one, should hesitate to concur in an interposition like 
 
376 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 the present. The question we raise is that for which it 
 may be said Parhament has been specially convoked. We 
 have been told in the Royal Speech of a possible danger 
 near at hand, of precautions and preparations that may 
 be necessary for the defence of the power and stability 
 of the Empire. Well, we have come forward to suggest 
 the wisest precaution and the most potential preparation 
 which the Government could make. The matter is 
 glossed over by smooth phrases, but the danger that you 
 all mean is war — a war in which England will have to 
 fight for her very existence as a nation. If that war breaks 
 out, if it be not averted, as I hope it may be, England 
 will find herself in such desperate straits as she has not 
 known for four hundred years. Your army, small, but 
 brave and fearless as ever, will behave with its traditional 
 valour ; wherever it may be sent, on whatever field it 
 may fight, the army of this country will exhibit those 
 splendid qualities that have justly given it a world-wide 
 fame, 1 would say as much for it, even were it not 
 composed as largely as it is of my own brave countrymen. 
 But there is not a military man sitting in this House 
 who does not know and feel the truth of what I say — 
 that a recent memorable war in Europe has demonstrated 
 that courage and prestige no longer compensate as largely 
 as they used to do sixty years ago against overwhelming 
 odds ; and that your army of a hundred thousand, or a 
 hundred and fifty thousand men, would be utterly power- 
 less before the hosts that now stand arrayed and discip- 
 lined on the Continent of Europe. Should this calamity 
 befall, should this trouble for your existence arise, think 
 you that it is upon inanimate sword and bayonet and ship 
 
A. M. SULLIVAN. 377 
 
 and gun, rather than upon stalwart arms and patriotic 
 enthusiasm, your best reUance will be ? Should that 
 crisis come, right sure am I that amongst the English 
 masses a patriotic fervour will answer to your call. 
 Throughout England and throughout Scotland it will be 
 so, but will it be so in Ireland ? In the spirit of the oath 
 which I swore at that table— nay, higher obligations still, 
 by the duty I owe to conscience and to truth — I dare all 
 misconception and outcry to deliver at this momentous 
 crisis my solemn testimony and belief that if this Empire 
 enters upon a struggle of such magnitude while Ireland 
 is in the attitude which Hungary occupied towards Aus- 
 tria previous to Sadowa,the popular enthusiasm which you 
 will receive in England and Scotland will not respond to 
 you in Ireland. (Cries of " Oh ! oh ! ") I was prepared for 
 your exclamations, and I do not complain ; for the state- 
 ment I have made is serious, and naturally unwelcome ; 
 but time will vindicate the truth of my words and the 
 integrity of my motives. 
 
 Twenty or tw^enty-five years ago there stood upon the 
 floor of this House a band of Irish members, struggling, 
 as we struggle now, to persuade you to listen to Irish 
 demands. Study for yourselves what was their fate ; 
 read for yourselves the lesson of that time. They were 
 voted down, they were shouted down, they were laughed 
 at, they were denounced or derided. You had in that day 
 — as you always have — some gifted and eloquent Irish- 
 man in your service to get up and do your work against 
 his countrymen — to contradict their testimony, to tell 
 you pleasant tidings which you hailed as gospel truths, 
 while honest warnings of danger were shrieked against as 
 
378 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 seditious incentives. John Francis Maguire and others 
 ventured to say in this House, as I say now, that 
 there was danger and disaffection in Ireland. They 
 were set upon angrily as almost traitors. They were 
 contradicted and condemned. This House, by over- 
 whelming voice, declared their testimony untrue, and that 
 Ireland was peaceable, contented and loyal to the core. 
 Alas ! a year or two barely passed when events threw a 
 terrible light on all this. At that very moment my un- 
 fortunate countrymen were being sworn in by the thou- 
 sand in a secret conspiracy for armed insurrection. 
 Barely a few years passed away when the c owded dock, 
 the convict ship, the penal gang, the triangle, and the 
 bloody lash — nay, the scaffold itself — furnished a frightful 
 contradiction to the pleasant testimonies which you pre- 
 ferred to believe ; a frightful corroboration to the warn- 
 ings you denounced and despised. What happened 
 then } Like the story of the recent Fenian amnesty which 
 we have heard to-night, measures prayed for in vain in the 
 hour of your tranquillity, when concession would have 
 grace and efficacy, were conceded, amidst public disquie- 
 tude and almost panic. Writing some six weeks ago to 
 a friend in the north of England — a fair-minded, a kindly- 
 hearted, and a high-principled Englishman — yes, I 
 believe in the existence of such men, not in scores or 
 hundreds, but in hundreds of thousands — I complained 
 of this, and asked how and why it was that English 
 statesmen and politicians should thus put a premium on 
 turbulence and revolt. 
 
 Just look what has been the history of any great political 
 measure passed for Ireland in our own generation. The 
 
A. M. SULLIVAN. 379 
 
 argument of Catholic Emancipation was exhausted in 
 1 819. Its justice was as patent to all men in 1822 as at any 
 time afterwards ; yet it was resisted and refused until 
 as the Duke of Wellington declared, civil war seemed 
 inevitable. Was not that a mischievous lesson to Irish- 
 men ? The Tithe Question you resisted until our land 
 was reddened with blood. The Church Question and the 
 Land Question— it is a story of recent years. A Land 
 Bill was passed in 1870, after passions had been aroused, 
 hearts broken, homes desolated by the thousand ; after 
 you had filled America with combustible elements that are 
 at this moment a serious menace to England. In that 
 struggle you broke the heart of Lucas, and drove Gavan 
 Duffy into exile— robbed Ireland of the services of 
 a man whose genius and worth you have been glad to 
 recognise at the Antipodes. The Land Bill, prayed for 
 in 1850, was granted in part in 1870, after the terrible 
 tragedy of Ballycohey had startled the Empire. In 1869 
 you suddenly overthrew the Irish Church, because, as 
 you avowed, of the spread of Fenianism. In the face 
 of the men whose warnings you had angrily resented 
 a few years previously, you came down to this House 
 to concede in an hour of alarm what you had refused in 
 the time of tranquillity. Is this narration true or false ? 
 What do these facts show ? That, by some malign 
 fatality, some calamitous coincidence, if nothing more, 
 you scoff at men, like my colleague and myself, who 
 beseech you to be just in time. You resist concession in 
 time of calm, and yield it only in the face of real or fancied 
 peril. If it be not so, let some one get up to-night, and 
 name for us any great national concession made to Ireland 
 
380 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 under any other circumstances. As it has been, perhaps 
 it is still to be. You will complain of my words ; you 
 will say I do not warn but threaten, and you will prefer 
 to believe those who tell you the Irish masses are con- 
 tented and well-affected, as enthusiastically ready as 
 Englishmen could be to pour out their blood in your 
 defence ; but I dare all risk of temporary misrepresen- 
 tation and blame. 
 
 I look into the future, and can await my vindication. 
 Do not affect to mistake our position in this crisis of the 
 Empire. We are not so many members of a party or a 
 section of this House. We are not so many advocates 
 of this or that Bill. We are the National representation 
 of Ireland, here in overwhelming majority to demand 
 the restoration of Parliamentary rule and Constitutional 
 Government. We are projecting no new proposal, like 
 the friends of this or that great reform or amelioration. 
 We are here to call for the restitution of what we enjoyed 
 and possessed, but which you wrung from us by means 
 held to vitiate and render illegal every public transaction 
 between man and man, between nation and nation. 
 Possession gives you no title to it ; for no time runs 
 against a claim asserted and renewed, as ours has been, 
 from generation to generation. Legally we stand to-day 
 where we stood seventy years ago. Restore to Ireland 
 the reign of law ! It is all she asks as the price of her 
 friendship ; — a price cheap indeed, for it takes nothing 
 from you that belongs to you. The price of her friend- 
 ship ! You are now, in view of a terrible emergency 
 possibly at hand, searching Europe through for allies. 
 Here we are to-night empowered to offer you one worth 
 
A. M. SULLIVAN. 381 
 
 the best you could elsewhere find — the alliance, the hearty 
 friendship, the enthusiastic support of Ireland. I own 
 I have deep reason to wish this question settled, and to 
 see a cordial feeling established between the two coun- 
 tries before dark clouds grow darker, and while yet the 
 reconciliation can be free and generous and efficacious. 
 The peace, the happiness, the tranquillity of Ireland 
 are most dear to me ; and I do not wish to see my country 
 desolated and destroyed by being made, perhaps, a battle- 
 field of the coming struggle. I do not want the ghastly 
 episode of some continental despot making what he 
 would call a diversion in Ireland — wasting the blood 
 and blasting the hopes of my country in a mere stroke of 
 tactics to serve his own ends. I shudder when I think of 
 such a possibility ; and I appeal to you — yes, unchilled 
 by the foregone conclusion of your unwise refusal — I 
 nevertheless raise and record my appeal to you and the 
 English nation to-night to let us clasp hands in friendship 
 on the only terms on which we can be allies or friends. 
 Be simply just. That you will do so yet, despite your 
 customary refusals now, I am as convinced as I am of 
 my own existence. It is the time which, with your 
 customary unwisdom, you may select for such a step that 
 alone disquiets me. Austria tried your present poHcy 
 towards Hungary, and changed it after Sadowa. I hope 
 and pray you will wait for no such hour to accept the 
 proffered hand and secure the ready aid of the brave and 
 gallant Irish nation. 
 
382 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN 
 
 (1832-1900). 
 
 The English, through their leading organ, the Times, 
 having endeavoured to connect Mr. Parnell and his party 
 with crime in Ireland, and particularly with a futile assas- 
 sination committed in the Phoenix Park, a special Commis- 
 sion Act was passed in July, 1888, and the Commission 
 sat in the following October. Sir Charles Russell, Q.C., 
 M.P., with Mr. H. H. Asquith, represented Mr. Parnell. 
 The following extracts are taken from his monumental 
 speech which passes in review the tangled history of the 
 agrarian movement and that of the legislation connected 
 with it. 
 
 PARNELL COMMISSION SPEECH. 
 
 (October, 1888.) 
 
 My Lords, — The sittings of this Commission — this 
 unique Commission — have, up to to-day, reached the 
 number of 63. There have been called before your 
 Lordships in the course of this inquiry some 340 odd 
 witnesses. There have been called, amongst others, 
 16 District Inspectors of the Royal Irish Constabulary 
 force ; 98 members of a subordinate kind belonging to 
 that force ; a number of landlords and agents ; 18 
 informers, including some convicts ; one Irish priest, 
 one only of the class in the Irish community best acquain- 
 ted with the circumstances and feelings of that community. 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 383 
 
 and best able to inform your Lordships as to their circum- 
 stances and as to their condition. There have been also 
 called five expert witnesses — experts on the question of 
 handwriting ; Captain O'Shea, the informer Delaney, 
 and, I am afraid I must add, Mr. Soames and Mr. Mac- 
 Donald ; and the fifth, Mr. Inglis, called and sworn, but 
 fortunately for Mr. Inglis's reputation, not examined. 
 
 My Lords, from these witnesses has proceeded a very 
 large body of evidence, a great part of which I shall have 
 to submit to your Lordships, after argument, and I hope 
 demonstration, is wholly irrelevant to any real question 
 in this case. For this is not an inquiry into the existence 
 of crime, for that is known unhappily to exist in every 
 community in a greater or less degree, and as to agrarian 
 crime in a greater degree in communities like Ireland, 
 cursed with a vicious land system. 
 
 My Lords, I cannot but feel in now rising to address 
 your Lordships, that the utter, absolute collapse of the 
 forged letters has taken out of this inquiry its pith and its 
 marrow. It would be idle to affect that your Lordships 
 do not know, what all the world knows, that without 
 those letters there would have been no such Commission 
 as your Lordships are now sitting upon, and that those 
 letters are the only foundations on which rest the most 
 reckless and the most calumniatory of the remaining 
 charges and allegations. Those letters run through the 
 story of the libels in The Times, playing the part of 
 the warp in the weaving of these webs of calumny. 
 Even if your Lordships had the power — I presume you 
 have not — even if your Lordships desired, I presume 
 your Lordships could not avoid discharging the duty 
 
384 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 which the statute casts upon you, of inquiring into the 
 remaining charges and allegations apart from those letters, 
 and it is to that part of the case, at the outset of my 
 observations, I propose principally to address your Lord- 
 ships, 
 
 My Lords, I would ask you who are the accused before 
 your Lordships ? I will tell you. Ireland returns to the 
 Imperial Parliament 102 representatives. Ireland returns 
 these representatives upon the principles on which the 
 Constitution gives the right to return them. She selects 
 her representatives to interpret her wants and her wishes, 
 to please no section of men and no portion of this com- 
 munity, but to represent her. My Lords, of those 102 
 members, two are returned by the distinguished Uni- 
 versity of Dublin, Trinity College. Trinity College has 
 been, if I may be permitted to make the observation in 
 passing, always remarkable for returning men of con- 
 siderable distinction ; and it is now represented by two 
 gentlemen of distinction ; but it has commonly played 
 the part of a port of refuge or a port of call for distinguished 
 Irish lawyers, of one side of politics, on their way to the 
 more peaceful haven of the woolsack or the judicial 
 bench. Of the remaining 100 representatives returned 
 for Ireland, 85 stand before your Lordships' bar, for al- 
 though, upon a principle of selection that I do not under- 
 stand, and do not think it worth while to try and under- 
 stand, only 65 have been named in these proceedings 
 before your lordships, the whole 85 stand firm and solid 
 on the same public platform. Some may have been more 
 or less active, some may have been, if you please, more or 
 less indiscreet, or more or less discreet, but they are 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 385 
 
 solid on the general principles upon which they have 
 acted, and their conduct in respect of which is, in part, 
 impugned before your Lordships. 
 
 My Lords, there is no county in Ireland from which 
 there is not one or other of the parties for whom I appear 
 sitting as a representative. In three provinces of Ireland 
 they have the entire representation in their hands, and 
 even for the province of Ulster, which some people are 
 disposed to speak of as if it were not part of Ireland, but 
 were something like a suburb of Glasgow, there is a ma- 
 jority of the Irish parliamentary party sitting. My Lords, 
 why do I dwell upon this ? To point out to your Lordships 
 that there is, as far as I know, no parallel in history, no 
 parallel certainly in the division of political parties in this 
 country, which presents so complete a picture of prepon- 
 derating force of representative opinion, represented 
 according to the forms of the Constitution, as is shown in 
 the representation of Ireland to-day. But I have another 
 purpose in mentioning this. I want to try and raise this 
 issue out of that unmethodical heterogeneous mass of 
 detail with which it is at present covered. I want to 
 point out to your Lordships that in truth the attempt is 
 here being made, in which your Lordships are asked to 
 assist, to do what Edmund Burke declared had never been 
 successfully done, to draw an indictment against a whole 
 nation. (Conciliation with America). 
 
 I say this for the purpose, not merely of stating what 
 Burke says, but of pointing the meaning of what he says. 
 What does he mean by saying that you cannot indict a 
 nation ? He means that when a movement becomes a 
 movement of a whole people, that when there is a great 
 
 2C 
 
386 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 national upheaval, the ordinary notions and rules of 
 judicature borrowed from the Old Bailey and from Nisi 
 Prius have no relation to such questions ; that you are 
 dealing in a higher region and with a broader issue than 
 any in which the mere ordinary rules of judicature will 
 help you. 
 
 My Lords, for ten years, from 1879 ^^ 1889, it is no 
 exaggeration, it is the literal truth, to say that there has 
 been going on in Ireland a great revolution — social 
 partly, political partly. It is the truth to say, even so early 
 I venture to put it, that your Lordships are here to-day 
 trying that revolution under the Queen's Commission, 
 while there are across the Channel, in Ireland, numbers 
 of the Queen's Courts, at least as regularly constituted 
 as this, gathering for the Irish people the fruits of that 
 very revolution. 
 
 I have pointed out who the accused here are. Who 
 are the accusers .? The accusers are a company or a co- 
 partnership, or a syndicate, I know not which, called by 
 the public in ordinary parlance The Times ; who, if they 
 have been consistent in nothing else, have been consistent 
 in their unrelenting, unvarying hostility to the Irish 
 people, and the cause of the Irish people. 
 
 It is now a good many years ago, but the incident is an 
 instructive one, when The Times, during the Lord Lieu- 
 tenancy of Lord Mulgrave, put into its columns these 
 words : — 
 
 " It has been proved beyond a doubt that Lord Mul- 
 grave has actually invited to dinner that rancorous and 
 foul-mouthed ruffian, O'Connell." 
 
 We have here in these words the keynote to the mis- 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KTLLOWEN. 387 
 
 government of Ireland. It is the fashion nowadays to 
 praise O'Connell, and a distinguished Minister of the day, 
 indeed the principal Irish Minister, has gone the length 
 of claiming O'Connell as a supporter of his policy ! 
 But what did the writer mean when he made that com- 
 plaint against Lord Mulgrave ? Lord Mulgrave was the 
 Queen's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, charged with the duty 
 of the government of that country, bound — if indeed it 
 be true that governments exist for the good of the people 
 and not for the benefit of the governors — to consult, by 
 the best and every means in his power, the interests, and 
 to regard the wishes of the people over whom he ruled, 
 and yet it is made in the columns of this paper a charge 
 and indictment against him that he has sought companion- 
 ship with, has sought counsel with, has sought to get 
 some touch-point, and means of contact with popular 
 opinipn and feeling in Ireland. It is the want to which 
 I shall have again and again to refer in the course of this 
 case : it is this absence of contact with the people, with 
 the representatives of the people, absence of the means 
 of knowledge of their wants and of their wishes, that has 
 been one of the grievous disasters in Ireland's govern- 
 ment in the past, aye, and in the present day. 
 
 My Lords, the same paper later, again and again vilified 
 the Irish priesthood — as devoted a body of clergy as 
 probably the world has ever seen — as a band of " surpliced 
 ruffians." The same paper, later in 1846, again and again 
 exulted in that cruel decimation which an artificial famine 
 had brought on the Irish people, and exultingly exclaimed 
 that " at last the Irish were gone, and gone with a ven- 
 geance." Unhappily for the peace of the country they 
 
3 88 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 were "gone with a vengeance/' the fruits of which 
 to-day we are to some extent reaping. 
 
 The same paper in 1848 expressed the hope that the 
 Young Ireland rising would be such as would enable the 
 Queen's troops with the Queen's artillery to mow down 
 the Queen's subjects in Ireland wholesale. Lastly, and in 
 comparatively recent days, speaking of the emigration 
 from Ireland draining the manhood of the country, and 
 leaving behind in undue proportions the old and the 
 feeble, it likened that stream of emigration across the 
 Atlantic to the passage of rats from an empty ship in dock 
 to a laden and freighted ship — the passage from one to 
 the other by the hawser which joined them together. 
 
 My Lords, I have dwelt upon this perhaps longer than 
 may have seemed to be necessary, but I cannot shut my 
 eyes to the fact that the columns of The Times supply 
 the daily mental pabulum which feeds a large proportion 
 
 of the governing classes of this country 
 
 But in this reference I have one consolation. It is the 
 recollection of the fact that it has been the fate of The 
 Times to help forward to success every cause it has 
 opposed. Nor are these my words. They are the words 
 of one of the greatest Statesmen of our time, now dead. 
 I mean Richard Cobden, who says : — 
 
 " By its truculent — I had almost said ruffianly — attack 
 on every movement while in the weakness of infancy, it 
 has aroused to increased efforts the energies of those it has 
 assailed ; while, at the same time, it has awakened the 
 attention of a languid public, and attracted the sympathy 
 of fair and manly minds. It is thus that such public 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 3^9 
 
 measures as the abolition of the corn laws, the repeal of 
 
 the taxes on knowledge, the negotiation of the treaty of 
 
 commerce with France, triumphed in spite of these 
 
 virulent, pernicious and unscrupulous attacks, until at 
 
 last I am tending to the conviction that there are three 
 
 conditions only requisite for the success of any great 
 
 project of reform— namely, a good cause, persevering 
 
 advocates, and the hostility of The Times!' 
 
 This is the accuser. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 What are the accusations ? At this stage I am not going 
 to deal with them in detail ; that 1 will do at a later time, 
 and w^hen I do I shall take them, not with the milder 
 gloss which occasionally the language of the Attorney- 
 General has sought to put upon them, but I shall take 
 them from their original source, as they originally ap- 
 peared, as they were intended to be understood, as they 
 were understood. For my present purposes, my Lords, 
 it is enough to say that the accusations may be broadly 
 stated thus : That the movement in Ireland was carried 
 on by its leaders by means of an organised and paid system 
 of murder and outrage, which such leaders carefully 
 calculated upon and coolly applied ; that they aided 
 with money, and otherwise, the flight of criminals from 
 justice ; and that the pubhc denunciations of crime, 
 including the Phoenix Park murders, which were uttered, 
 by them, were lying, false, and hypocritical. 
 
 Need I point out, if I have rightly stated those charges, 
 that those are charges of the gravest criminal significance ? 
 This is no charge of moral responsibility for crime, 
 
 incidental to a great public and national movement and 
 
39^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 organisation. It is a deliberate charge of systematically, 
 coolly calculating and deliberately applying a system 
 of murder and of outrage, and I have to ask the question : 
 If, as I cannot doubt, I have rightly stated the case, why 
 did not the Government prosecute ? Why are we here 
 before your Lordships' Court instead of standing in the 
 dock at the Old Bailey, if a dock large enough could be 
 obtained ? And why were we not standing years ago in 
 
 that position ? Why is it that this case 
 
 is being conducted at the instance of what I may call for 
 this purpose a private prosecutor ? 
 
 My Lords, the only answer that can be given. . . is 
 because the advisers of the Government . . . did 
 not believe that there was any just, real, tangible ground 
 for making criminal charges against those members. 
 
 How was the case conducted ? 
 
 Why, my Lords, Lincoln's Inn Fields has at times pre- 
 sented much the appearance of a camping ground for that 
 military force known as the Royal Irish Constabulary, 
 collecting to form the posse comitatus of a sheriff on his 
 way to a great eviction scene. . . . We have had, 
 " thick as leaves in Vallambrosa," district inspectors 
 and magistrates crowding even the very benches where 
 the Counsel of the Queen sit, aiding, helping, and suggest- 
 ing the conduct if this case. We have had magistrates 
 assisting and taking evidence, and policemen seeing 
 witnesses personally — personally conducting them, buy- 
 ing their tickets, paying their conduct-money. . . 
 We have secret spies enHsted in their service, and 
 we have had the gaols of the country, the gaols of the 
 kingdom, scoured to see, whether from the refuse, there 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 39I 
 
 might not be produced witnesses who will do some little 
 bit of dirty work in trying to defame and to blacken the 
 character of the Irish Parliamentary Party. This is a 
 serious thing, more serious than I thought it to be when, 
 as I have only recently learned, this was done not merely 
 by the Walkers, and the Thompsons, and the Shannons, 
 but done by police officers in considerably high authority, 
 and done even by that wretched man to whose name I 
 must hereafter refer — I mean Pigott — all these people 
 going to these gaols in the character of friends of the 
 convicts, and going as though to pay friendly visits which 
 the rules of the prison enabled to be paid, to break the 
 dreary monotony of their convict life ! . . . A man 
 sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, character lost, 
 separated from wife and children and kinsfolk, is visited, 
 is told that he may have the opportunity of coming and 
 giving evidence, is asked whether he knows anything 
 to incriminate Mr. Parnell or Mr. Parnell's colleagues ; 
 for I suppose the visitor would hardly be a more careful 
 emissary than Mr. Houston was when he gave that famous 
 commission to Richard Pigott, to see whether he could 
 or could not obtain documents incriminating Mr. Parnell 
 and others. And, my Lords, without any vulgar temp- 
 tation, without even suggestion of possible benefit, eager 
 hope in the wretched convict's mind would conjure up 
 a picture, and he would believe that if he could give 
 evidence, valued by those who approached him, the prison 
 doors might earlier be opened for him, and the light of God's 
 heaven shine upon him, and he might see once more his 
 friends, his kinsfolk, his children, from whom he was 
 so separated. My Lords, with those temptations, tried 
 
392 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 as one cannot doubt, with the facts we know, again and 
 again, it is a marvel not that the man Delaney has come 
 and said what he did, but that he has not been able to say 
 more, and that none others have been found of the scour- 
 ings of the gaols to come and add their story to this tale of 
 infamy and calumny, 
 
 Mr. Parnell. 
 
 Now, my Lords, I ask this question : Is it to be expected 
 that, in invoking aid to such a movement as this, Mr. 
 Parnell was to require a certificate of previous political 
 conduct from each man who came into his movement ? 
 Was he to require some kind of test oath from the man 
 who came into a movement perfectly open, perfectly 
 legal, perfectly justifiable in its objects — objects which 
 have since become part of the policy of the Government 
 of the day — that he was to inquire and be expected to 
 search into the previous history and character of these 
 men ? He would be more than human, he would be less 
 than a leader, to take any such course as that. Was he 
 to refuse their assistance in money ? The taunt has 
 often been levelled, scornfully levelled, at the Irish Party 
 because of their poverty, and because they had to rely 
 in great measure upon the help and support of the scat- 
 tered kindred of their nation in other countries. Was he 
 to refuse their help ? Was he to say to them — you are 
 giving me this money for a purpose, for an organisation 
 over which I have control, yet I decline to receive it be- 
 cause you whose hands present it to me, have been mixed 
 up in previous, or may now be concerned in some political 
 scheme with which I have no sympathy, and in which I 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 393 
 
 can take no part ? Did the Irish landlords scorn Ameri- 
 can money ? Did the Irish landlords, when money 
 was coming in hundreds of thousands, as it has come, from 
 the sons and daughters of the farmers left behind in Ire- 
 land, helping them to eke out a miserable existence at 
 home, helping them to discharge the burden of oppressive 
 rents which they could not make out of the land — in those 
 days did the landlords scorn the American money which 
 came from these sources, and which went into their 
 pockets ? 
 
 Your Lordships have heard the evidence of one in- 
 terested witness, whose evidence I regard, in one branch 
 at least of it, as the most important to the right under- 
 standing of Mr. Parnell's position that has yet been pre- 
 sented in this court — I mean the evidence of the spy, 
 Le Caron, or Beach. Your Lordships have already 
 heard from him of certain unconstitutional movements 
 with which the Irish in America have been mixed up — 
 the raid on Canada, the Fenian movement — of the strength 
 and the breadth of which your Lordships have even yet 
 had no adequate idea presented to you. When Le 
 Caron tells us that the U.B. or V.C., or whatever it is to 
 be styled, in 1885 had dwindled down to something like 
 1^,000, but after the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's policy 
 of reconciUation, as it has been called, rose again to 24,000 
 in the years 1886 and 1887, and is to-day more powerful 
 at those figures than it has been before, how ridiculous 
 and puny such an organisation seems side by side with 
 the Fenian organisation, which, at the very lowest com- 
 putation, in America had, in 1865-66, numbered between 
 200,000 and 300,000 ! 
 
394 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 My Lords, Mr. Parnell will receive credit in due time. 
 The gratitude of communities to public men is often 
 melancholy in its retrospectiveness. It is not always that 
 the merits of men are recognised in the day in which they 
 live and in which they act. Their motives are miscon- 
 strued. Their aims are misrepresented. And within the 
 last few days we have had a notable example of what one 
 may call the posthumous gratitude of a nation, when by 
 the grave of one of the greatest men whom this generation 
 has seen in England, the loudest and shrillest notes in the 
 caoine of mourning which went up, came from men who 
 had spent their lives in denouncing the character, in vilify- 
 ing the motives, and in doing all they could to bring 
 infamy upon the head of that distinguished man, John 
 Bright. 
 
 History is full of examples such as that. And I doubt 
 not that the day will come when, through the mists and 
 prejudice which now surround his actions and public 
 life, Mr. Parnell will be recognised as having played the 
 part of a statesman, and, though working for and in the 
 name of Ireland, as having rendered true and loyal ser- 
 vice to England by bringing about something like a recon- 
 ciliation between two peoples who have been kept apart, 
 but between whom there never has been, and is not to-day 
 just cause of quarrel or of difference. 
 
 Boycotting. 
 
 My Lords, in this matter of boycotting, may I be for- 
 given for using the celebrated exclamation of Dr. Johnson, 
 and say : " Let us clear our minds of cant." Boycotting 
 has existed from the earliest times that human society 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 395 
 
 existed. It is only a question of degree. Up to a certain 
 point, boycotting is not only not criminal, but I say is 
 justifiable and is right. For what does boycotting mean } 
 It means the focussing of the opinion of the community 
 in condemnation of the conduct of an individual of that 
 community who offends the general sense of propriety, 
 or offends against its general interests. Is there no 
 boycotting at the Bar ? Is there no boycotting in the other 
 professions ? Is there no boycotting in the Church ? 
 Is there no boycotting in politics ? Is there no boycotting 
 of tradesmen in election times ? What is the meaning of 
 " Sending a man to Coventry ? " I say that is boy- 
 cotting. I am not justifying intimidation, I am not 
 justifying force, I am not justifying violence in connection 
 with it ; those are different things — I am talking of an act 
 of moral reprehension called boycotting, and I say it 
 always has existed and always will exist. 
 
 My Lords, if I were to search ancient records, historical, 
 sacred records, I could point to many instances of boy- 
 cotting ; but I need not go far back. We have had in 
 our days very remarkable instances, not only of boy- 
 cotting, but effective and useful boycotting. What was 
 the action of our great Colonies when the ill-judged policy 
 of this country sent them the criminal population, the 
 offscouring of the old world, as the rotten seed from which 
 their fresh population was to spring. What did they do ? 
 Why, they simply boycotted the Government officials 
 in Australia. The most notable instance of all w^as 
 in the Cape Colony, where they boycotted the governor, 
 declined to serve him, declined to supply him with horses, 
 declined to supply him with provisions until the 
 
396 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 objectionable ship, which was importing and seeking to 
 land the offscourings of this nation, took its wretched 
 burthen to another place. 
 
 The American Connection. 
 
 I now come to the American branch of the question ; 
 and, in connection with that American branch I think 
 it will be convenient to weave into the narrative, so that 
 your Lordships may have it connected with reference to 
 the story of the American conventions, the story told by 
 Le Caron as to the action of the secret body with which 
 he was associated. This American branch of the question 
 cannot fail to raise in your Lordships minds and the minds 
 of thoughtful persons some very grave considerations. 
 
 The population of America, in that vast Continent is a 
 community reaching the figures of between 60,000,000 
 and 70,000,000 of human beings ; of that number some 
 15,000,000 or 16,000,000 are Irish, or of Irish descent. How 
 comes it that, at least until comparatively recent days, that 
 vast multitude of persons were imbued, as undoubtedly 
 they were imbued, with deep feelings of resentment to the 
 government of the land they had left ? That it is so is a 
 fact, a pitiable fact. My Lords, the explanation is to be 
 found in the story of that misunderstanding, misgovern- 
 ment, misrule with which I have been obliged to trouble 
 you. Emigration from Ireland has been, not the volun- 
 tary and healthy exodus of a people seeking in fresh fields 
 of enterprise new careers in life, new fields for profitable 
 employment of their industrious labour, in great part 
 at least it has not been of that character ; they have felt 
 and they have had cause to feel, that a great part of the 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 397 
 
 emigration from Ireland, especially in its earlier years, 
 has not been voluntary emigration ; that they have been 
 deported, not emigrated ; that they have been driven 
 from the country to which they were heartily attached. 
 
 My Lords, anyone who has visited America, and who 
 has had the singular pleasure of sailing up that noble bay 
 which leads to New York, and of passing before he landed, 
 under Brooklyn Bridge, sees a sight which, if he be an 
 Irishman, fills him with some humiliation and certainly 
 tends to sadden the mind, and take away that feeling of 
 pleasurable exhilaration with which one looks forward 
 to the contemplation of new and unknown scenes. For 
 on the hillsides of New York his attention is drawn to a 
 collection of huts as miserable as any to be seen in Galway 
 or Mayo. What are they? What is their history ?. What 
 purpose have they served ? My Lords, they have served 
 as squatting refuges for the wretched creatures who have 
 been landed upon the hospitable — for they have been 
 hospitable shores to the Irish race — on the hospitable 
 shores of America, but who have arrived penniless, un- 
 provided for, with no provision for their employment, 
 and who have been compelled to seek refuge in these 
 wretched huts until some kind of honest employment 
 can be found for them. 
 
 The whole story of emigration is enough to account for 
 the feeling with which it is regarded by a large mass of 
 the population of Ireland. I have referred to these squatter 
 huts. I might refer to the stories told to this day of the 
 hospitals of New York, of the wards ; some of them named 
 after landlords from whose estates men and women and 
 children have been driven ; named after those land- 
 
398 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 lords because of the deaths, the disease, the misery that 
 have been imported into them. 
 
 My Lords, the Irish are mainly an agricultural popu- 
 lation ; yet so little forethought for their future was 
 shown, so little consideration for their future lives, that in 
 the absence of any location where such agricultural know- 
 ledge as they possessed might be utilised, they have in 
 the main gravitated to and been found in the large towns. 
 
 My Lords, their exodus has been like that of the Israel- 
 ites when they were seeking to escape from the Egyptian 
 bondage. They have, like them, made their way to " a 
 good land and a large" ; but there was no Moses to guide 
 them ; and to them America has not proved " a 
 land flowing with milk and honey," for as to the greater 
 proportion of them, their lot has been hard. The story 
 of emigration of those days, and even of recent times, has 
 other, and even greater aspects ; the demoralisation of 
 youth ; the loss of that chiefest treasure of many a guileless 
 girl ; the ill-provision in emigrant ships of former days 
 when inspection was not as it has been in recent times ; 
 emigration in rotten ships, such as too often proved the 
 coffins and graves of intending emigrants. 
 
 My Lords, it is not remarkable from these considera- 
 tions and under such conditions as these, and with such 
 associations as these facts recall, that the Irish should look 
 with distrust upon emigration, and should have brought 
 with them to America feelings not kindly to the govern- 
 ment which they believed had driven them away. Their 
 emigration has been mainly neither the emigration of the 
 family group nor of the village community, but it has been 
 the emigration of the unit of the family, of the young man, 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 399 
 
 or the young girl, away from the influence of friends, 
 away from the influence of family, and the community 
 amongst which they lived. And, therefore, it is not 
 remarkable that they have not yet achieved that position 
 which their energy and their intelligence I hope, will 
 accomplish for them. They are to-day, I regret to say it, 
 too much the Gibeonites in the labour theatre of the 
 world. 
 
 My Lords, in these considerations is it to be wondered 
 at that the Irish should have entertained the strong and 
 resentful feelings which unquestionably they have ? Nay, 
 is it not remarkable. . . that under impulses and 
 teachings for which I take credit on behalf of those I 
 represent, they have in these later times Hnked their 
 strength, given their money, combined their energies 
 to ameliorating the condition of their kindred in Ireland 
 by open methods of constitutional redress. My Lords, 
 I could not better express the feeling which was enter- 
 tained during the Fenian movement in America, than by 
 recalling the celebrated expression of one of the distin- 
 guished children of Ireland at that time, for I am happy 
 to say that Ireland has contributed to America distin- 
 guished men, and among them several of the Signatories 
 of the Declaration of Independence. She has given 
 statesmen, generals, soldiers to the American army ; and 
 one of those, General Sheridan, whose genius is described 
 by Lord Wolseley as one of the most remarkable the world 
 has known, is reported to have said at that time : " An 
 American by birth, I love liberty ; an Irishman by des- 
 cent, I hate oppression ; and if I were in Ireland, I should 
 be a Fenian." 
 
400 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Two Parties in Ireland. 
 
 My Lords, there are two parties in Ireland, and two 
 parties only in Ireland. There is the party which desires 
 that the law, the government, the administration shall 
 be in accordance with the wants and the wishes of the 
 majority of the people of Ireland ; that is one party. 
 There is another party who affect to believe, many of 
 them I am sure honestly believe, that they are very much 
 better judges of what the interests of the people of Ireland 
 demand than are the majority of its people. The former 
 party may be called the Nationalist party, the latter goes 
 by various names. Sometimes it is the party of the 
 " respectable class." Sometimes it is the party of the 
 " loyal minority." Sometimes it is the party of " law 
 and order." My Lords, loyalty, law, order are terms 
 which have been much misapplied, much misused in 
 Ireland. The essential differences between the two 
 parties are these. First, that the majority of the nation 
 look for their support, for their impulse, from the people 
 of Ireland, and that the other party look for their support 
 and influence, not to the people amongst whom they live, 
 but to forces external to Ireland. 
 
 My Lords, I have come to an end. ... I have 
 spoken not merely as an advocate. I have spoken for the 
 land of my birth. But I feel, and profoundly feel, that 
 I have been speaking for and in the best interests of 
 England also, where my years of laborious life have been 
 passed, and where I have received kindness, consideration, 
 and regard, which I shall be glad to make some attempt 
 to repay. 
 
LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN. 4OI 
 
 My Lords, my colleagues and myself have had a respon- 
 sible duty. We have had to defend not merely the leaders 
 of a nation, but the nation itself. To defend the leaders 
 of a nation whom it was sought to crush ; to defend a 
 nation whose hopes it was sought to dash to the ground. 
 This inquiry intended as a curse, has proved a blessing. 
 Designed, prominently designed, to ruin one man, it has 
 been his vindication. 
 
 2 D 
 
402 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 
 
 (1846-1891). 
 
 AT NAVAN— September 24, 1876. 
 
 No amount of eloquence could achieve what the fear 
 of an impending insurrection — what the Clerkenwell 
 explosion and the shot into the police van had achieved. 
 
 DEBATE ON VOLUNTEERS FOR IRELAND. 
 
 June 13, 1878. 
 
 There is no desire to attribute cowardice to the English 
 soldier, but it is a common saying that in the day of battle 
 the Irish regiments go first to break the line, the Scotch 
 follow to take the prisoners, and the English come last 
 to pick up the booty, which probably accounts for their 
 having been able to acquire wealth more than the people 
 of Ireland. It is unjust to refuse Ireland the right of 
 defending herself while she is compelled to contribute to 
 the defence of England. 
 
 AT LIMERICK.— August 31, 1879. 
 " The Land for the People." 
 
 It is the duty of the Irish tenant farmers to combine 
 amongst themselves and ask for a reduction of rent, and if 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 4O3 
 
 they get no reduction where a reduction is necessary, 
 then I say that it is the duty of the tenant to pay no rent 
 until he gets it. And if they combined in that way, 
 if they stood together, and if being refused a reasonable 
 and just reduction, they kept a firm grip of their home- 
 steads, I can tell them that no power on earth could pre- 
 vail against the hundreds of thousands of the tenant 
 farmers of this country. Do not fear. You are not to be 
 exterminated as you were in 1847, and take my word for 
 it, it will not be attempted. You should ask for con- 
 cessions that are just. Ask for them in a proper manner 
 and good landlords will give these conditions. But for 
 the men who had always shown themselves regardless 
 of right and justice in their dealings with these questions, 
 I say it is necessary for you to maintain a firm and deter- 
 mined attitude. If you maintain that attitude victory 
 must be yours. If when a farm was tenantless, owing to 
 any cause, you refuse to take it, and the present most foolish 
 competition amongst farmers came to an end, as undoubt- 
 edly it now must, these men who are forgetful of reason 
 and of common sense must come to reconsider their posi- 
 tion. I believe that the land of a country ought to be 
 owned by the people of the country. And I think we 
 should centre our exertions upon attaining that end. 
 . . . . When we have the people of this country 
 prosperous, self-reliant, and confident of the future, we 
 will have an Irish nation which will be able to hold its 
 own amongst the nations of the world. We will have 
 a country which will be able to speak with the enemy 
 in the gate — we will have a people who will understand 
 their rights, and, knowing those rights, will be resolved 
 
404 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to maintain them. We must all have this without in- 
 justice to any individual. 
 
 MEETING OF IRISH PARLIAMENTARY PARTY, 
 
 DUBLIN. 
 
 May 18, 1880. 
 
 I am one of those who believe that you will never 
 be able to carry out the principle of partnership in land. 
 The landlords have been placed there under the feudal 
 system of land tenure. This system has, perhaps, worked 
 well on the whole in England, and England may be pre- 
 sented as the example of a country where the feudal 
 system has been attended with less evil than in any other 
 country. I think Ireland may equally well be represented 
 as the example of a country where the feudal system has 
 been attended with most mischief and suffering. It 
 is admitted on all hands that the system is a false 
 one. What hope then can we have in perpetuating 
 such a system in Ireland. I believe the attempt to 
 be perfectly hopeless, and believe that is one of the 
 reasons why this question of land tenure has made 
 so little progress. It is because you have been 
 proceeding on false lines, because you have been 
 talking about the mutual interests of landlord and tenant 
 in the land, where it is impossible that their interest 
 should be a mutual one. . . . There is another 
 and a greater reason why I think that land reformers 
 ought to strike at the root of the land evil : that is, the 
 system of landlordism. I speak now from the national 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 405 
 
 point of view in the highest sense of the word. There 
 can be no doubt that one of the reasons, and the greatest 
 reason, next to the reHgious question, which now I hope 
 no longer exists, the greatest reason why the upper, 
 and many of the middle classes in Ireland — I speak more 
 especially of the Protestant body, to which I belong 
 myself — have remained aloof from the National opera- 
 tions of Ireland, and have refused to give them assistance, 
 has been the institution of landlordism. You cannot 
 expect the landlords of Ireland to strike for the rights 
 of Ireland as long as you supply them with every induce- 
 ment for the maintenance of the English system of 
 government here by upholding this land system. 
 
 AT ENNIS.— September 19, 1880. 
 [Boycotting defined and defended.] 
 
 Now what are you to do to a tenant who bids for a 
 farm from which another tenant has been evicted ? 
 (Several voices — " Shoot him.") I think I heard some- 
 say, " Shoot him." I wish to point out to you a very 
 much better way, a more Christian and charitable way, 
 which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting, 
 When a man takes a farm from which another man has 
 been evicted you must shun him on the roadside when you 
 meet him ; you must shun him in the streets of the town ; 
 you must shun him in the shop ; you must shun him in 
 the fairgreen, and in the marketplace, and even in the 
 place of worship by leaving him alone, by putting him 
 into a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of 
 
406 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 his country as if he were the leper of old — you must 
 show him your detestation of the crime he has committed. 
 If you do this you may depend on it there will be no man 
 so full of avarice, so lost to shame, as to dare the public 
 opinion of all right-thinking men in the country and 
 transgress your unwritten code of laws. 
 
 AT FINTONA.— September 2, 1881. 
 
 .... Remember there is no finality in politics, 
 and that the politician who tells you to stand is effete. 
 The progress of the people is ever marching on. 
 
 AT WEXFORD.— October 9, 1881. 
 
 . . . . No man is good in Ireland until he is dead 
 and unable to do anything more for his country. In the 
 opinion of an English statesman no man is good in 
 Ireland until he is dead and buried, and unable to strike 
 a blow for Ireland. Perhaps the day may come when 
 I may get a good word from English statesmen, as being 
 a moderate man, after I am dead and buried. . . 
 
 THE PARNELL NATIONAL TRIBUTE. 
 
 December 11, 1883. 
 
 As an Irishman, I have no doubt in 
 
 common with many thousands of my countrymen, I 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 407 
 
 looked around me : I saw the artisan in the towns strug- 
 gling for a precarious existence, with a torpid trade, 
 with everything against him : I saw the Irish tenant 
 farmer trembling before the eye of his landlord, with 
 the knowledge that in that landlord's power rested the 
 whole of the future of himself and of his family : that 
 his position was literally no better, physically not so 
 good, as the lot of the South African negro : that he was 
 endeavouring to make both ends meet, that his life was 
 a constant struggle to keep the roof over his head and 
 over the heads of his family by the most grinding and 
 pinching self-denial. I saw, as you have all seen, the 
 Irish labourer, whose lot even to this day has been but 
 ver}' little improved, and for whom there is now also I 
 Irust a ray of light and hope dawning. I saw the Irish 
 labourer the lowest of the low, the slave of the slave, 
 with not even a dry roof over his head, with the rain from 
 heaven dripping upon the couch on which he was forced 
 to lie : dressed with rags : subsisting on the meanest 
 food : and whether I looked upon one side of the social 
 system or upon the other side, irresistible conviction 
 w^as borne back upon me that here was a nation carrying 
 on its life, striving for existence, striving for nationhood 
 under such difficulties as had never beset any other people 
 on the face of Europe. Many of us saw these things. 
 To many of us the same thoughts occurred. And some 
 years ago we resolved — and I am proud and happy 
 to say that at this board to-night there are many present 
 who joined in that resolve — that these things should no 
 longer be if we could help it. And the historian of the 
 future will say for the Land League movement, if he be 
 
408 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 unprejudiced and faithful, that never was there such an 
 infamous and horrible system — a system which even 
 the British Parliament and the influence and laws of 
 England have already partially admitted to be a gigantic 
 system of robbery and fraud — that never was there a 
 movement formed to contend against such a system 
 with so much odds against it, in the carrying out of which 
 I will not even say in connection with which, but in 
 association with which there was so much moderation 
 and discretion and such an utter absence of crime and of 
 the strong passions which agitate men. . . . 
 
 AT CORK.— January 21st, 1885. 
 
 . . . It is given to none of us to forecast the future 
 and just as it is impossible for us to say in what way 
 or by what means the National question may be settled — 
 in what way full justice may be done to Ireland — so it is 
 impossible for us to say to what extent that justice should 
 be done. We cannot ask for less than the restitution of 
 Grattan's Parliament, with its important privileges, 
 and wide and far-reaching constitution. We cannot, 
 under the British Constitution, ask for more than the 
 restitution of Grattan's Parliament, but no man has a 
 right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation. No 
 man has a right to say, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no 
 further " ; and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus 
 ultra to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, and we 
 never shall. . . . 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 409 
 
 AT PORTSMOUTH, AFTER THE DEFEAT OF 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S HOME RULE BILL. 
 
 (June 25, 1886.) 
 
 . , ; . Untold is the guilt of that man who, for 
 party purposes, does not take advantage of the spirit 
 which is abroad amongst the English to put the hand of 
 the Irish into that of the English to close the strife of 
 centuries — a strife that has been of no advantage to the 
 people of either country ; a strife that has only been for 
 the benefit of the money-grabbing landlords ; a strife that 
 has impeded popular progress in England as well as in 
 Ireland, and that must continue to impede it ; a strife 
 which is fanned for the purpose of cheating you out of 
 your rights, and to divert the energies of the newly en- 
 franchised masses of Great Britain from the redress of 
 their grievances to the odious task of oppressing and keep- 
 ing down the small sister country. 
 
 ON A COERCION BILL IN THE HOUSE OF 
 
 COMMONS. 
 
 (April 18, 1887.) 
 
 Possibly some faint sense of the abject meanness of the 
 Times libel and of the subsequent trick in the House, may 
 account for the fact that Mr. Parnell's explanation was 
 heard, in attentive silence the principal point having been 
 gained, that of securing for the forgery a good start. 
 
 The speech itself was delivered during the debate on the 
 
410 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS, 
 
 Amendment of Sir Bernhard Samuelson to the second 
 reading of the Coercion Bill. A division being taken, 
 the Amendment was defeated by a majority of loi. 
 
 Sir, — The right hon. gentleman (Mr. A. J. Balfour) 
 refrained from answering the speech which I delivered 
 on the first reading of this Bill, and the Government 
 refused to allow the adjournment of the debate, in order 
 that some other member of the Government should have 
 an opportunity of answering it the next day ; and now, 
 upon the second reading of this Bill, he goes back to the 
 speech, and he attempts an answer to it, at a time of the 
 night when he knows perfectly well that no reply can be 
 made to him ; and with characteristic unfairness — an 
 unfairness which I suppose we may expect to be con- 
 tinued in the future — he has refused to me the ten or 
 twelve minutes that I should have craved to refer to a 
 villainous and barefaced forgery which appeared in The 
 Times of this morning, obviously for the purpose of 
 influencing the Division, and for no other purpose. I 
 got up when the right hon. gentleman the member for 
 Midlothian (Mr. Gladstone) sat down. I had not inten- 
 ded to have made a speech at all upon the second stage of 
 this Bill. I should not have said more than a very few 
 words in reference to this forgery ; but I think I was 
 entitled to have had from the right hon. gentleman an 
 opportunity of exposing this deliberate attempt to blacken 
 my character at some time when there would have been 
 some chance of what I stated reaching the outside world. 
 I say there is no chance now. I cannot suppose the right 
 hon. gentleman, in refusing me the ten minutes which 
 I crave, had not in his eye the design of practically pre- 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 41 1 
 
 venting my denial of this unblusing calumny having that 
 effect upon public opinion which it would otherwise have 
 had if it had been spoken at a reasonable hour of the night. 
 It appears that, in addition to the passage of this Coercion 
 Act, the dice are to be loaded — that your great organs 
 of public opinion in this country are to be permitted to 
 pay miserable creatures for the purpose of producing 
 these calumnies. Who will be safe in such circumstances 
 and under such conditions ? I do not envy the right hon. 
 gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, this first 
 commencement of suppression of defence — this first 
 commencement of calumny and of forgery which has been 
 made by his supporters. We have heard of the misdeeds 
 of Mr. Ford, the editor of The Irish World, but Mr. 
 Ford never did anything half so bad as this. 
 
 (Mr. A. J. Balfour — I do not wish to interrupt the hon. 
 member ; but as he makes these accusations, I should like 
 to explain that I intervened between the hon. gentleman 
 and the House simply because I understood that it had 
 been arranged that I should follow the right hon. member 
 for Midlothian, and that the hon. member would follow 
 me. No hint reached me that he was going to confine 
 himself to an explanation of, or deal at all with the accu- 
 sation in The Times to which he has referred. No hint 
 of that kind reached me, and I conceive that the hon. 
 member might have risen, had he wished, at any time 
 earlier in the evening.) 
 
 I was asked officially, at an early hour in the evening 
 whether I would speak after the right hon. member for 
 Midlothian, and I replied that I would, and that I only 
 intended to say a few words in reference to this calumny. 
 
412 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 I think I ought to have been given the opportunity which 
 I desired. 
 
 Now, Sir, when I first heard of this precious concoction 
 — I heard of it before I saw it, because I do not take in 
 or even read The Times usually — when I heard that a 
 letter of this description, bearing my signature, had been 
 published in The Times, I supposed that some autograph 
 of mine had fallen into the hands of some person for whom 
 it had not been intended, and that it had been made use 
 of in this way. I supposed that some blank sheet con- 
 taining my signature, such as many members who are 
 asked for their signature frequently send — I supposed 
 that such a blank sheet had fallen into hands for which 
 it had not been intended, and that it had been misused 
 in this fashion, or that something of this kind had hap- 
 pened. But when I saw what purported to be my 
 signature, I saw plainly that it was an audacious and 
 unblushing fabrication. Many members of this House 
 have seen my signature, and if they will compare 
 it with what purports to be my signature in The Times 
 of this morning, they will see that there are only two letters 
 in the whole name which bear any resemblance to letters 
 in my own signature as I write it. I cannot understand 
 how the conductors of a responsible, and what used to 
 be a respectable, journal, could have been so hoodwinked, 
 so hoaxed, so bamboozled, and that is the most charitable 
 interpretation which I can place on it, as to publish such 
 a production as that as my signature, my writing. Its 
 whole character is entirely different. I unfortunately 
 write a very cramped hand ; my letters huddle into each 
 other. I write with very great difficulty and slowness. 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 413 
 
 It is, in fact, a labour and a toil to me to write anything 
 at all. But the signature in question is written by a ready 
 penman, who has evidently covered as many leagues of 
 letter-paper in his life as I have yards. Of course, this is 
 not the time, as I have said, to enter into full details and 
 minuticB as to comparisons of handwriting ; but if the 
 House could see my signature, and the forged, the fabri- 
 cated one, they would see that, except as regards 
 two letters, the whole signature bears no resemblance to 
 mine. 
 
 The same remark applies to the letter. The letter does 
 not purport to be in my handwriting. We are not in- 
 formed who has written it. It is not alleged even that it 
 was written by anybody who was ever associated with me. 
 The name of this anonymous letter-writer is not men- 
 tioned. I do not know who he can be. The writing is 
 strange to me. I think I should insult myself if I said — 
 I think however, that I perhaps ought to say it, in order 
 that my denial may be full and complete — that I certainly 
 never heard of the letter. I never directed such a letter 
 to be written. I never saw such a letter before I saw it in 
 The Times this morning. The subject matter of the 
 letter is preposterous on the surface. The phraseology 
 of it is absurd — as absurd as any phraseology that could be 
 attributed to me could possibly be. In every part of it, 
 it bears absolute and irrefutable evidence of want of 
 genuineness, and want of authenticity. Politics are come 
 to a pretty pass in this country when a leader of a party 
 of eighty-six members has to stand up, at ten minutes 
 past one, in the House of Commons, in order to defend 
 himself from an anonymous fabrication, such as that which 
 
414 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 is contained in The Times of this morning. I have 
 always held, with regard to the late Mr. Forster, that his 
 treatment of his political prisoners was a humane treat- 
 ment, and a fair treatment ; and I think for that reason 
 alone, if for no other, he should have been shielded from 
 such an attempt as was made on his life by the Invincible 
 Association. I never had the slightest notion in the 
 world that the life of the late Mr. Forster was in danger, 
 or that any conspiracy was on foot against him, or any 
 other official in Ireland or elsewhere. I had no more 
 notion than an unborn child that there was such a con- 
 spiracy as that of the Invincibles in existence, and no one 
 was more astonished than I was when that bolt from the 
 blue fell upon us in the Phoenix Park Murders. I knew not 
 in what direction to look for this calamity. It is no exag- 
 geration to say that if I had been in the Park that day I 
 would gladly have stood between Lord Frederick Caven- 
 dish and the daggers of the assassins, and, for the matter 
 of that, between their daggers and Mr. Burke, too. 
 
 Now, Sir, I leave this subject. I have suffered more 
 than any other man from that terrible deed in Phoenix 
 Park, and the Irish nation has suffered more than any other 
 nation through it. I go for a moment to the noble Marquis, 
 the member for Rossendale (the Marquis of Hartington). 
 The noble Marquis made a rather curious complaint of 
 me. He said that, having denied point-blank a charge tliat 
 had been made by him against me and the National League 
 during the General Election last year, he was rather sur- 
 prised that I did not again refer to the matter in the House 
 of Commons. Well, I was rather surprised that the noble 
 Marquis made a charge which he advanced without a par- 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 415 
 
 tide of truth. He advanced that charge again to-night with- 
 out a particle of proof, and I deny that charge, as I denied 
 it before, in point-blank terms. I said it was absolutely 
 untrue to say that the Irish National League or the 
 Parliamentary Party had ever had any communication 
 whatever, direct or indirect, with a Fenian organisation 
 in America or this country. I further said that I did not 
 know who the leaders of the Fenian organisation in this 
 country or America were. I say that still. But the noble 
 Marquis says he knows who they are, at least he tells us 
 that Mr. Alexander Sullivan — I believe that was the name 
 mentioned — was president of the Clan-na-Gael, or 
 Fenian organisation. When I asked him how he obtained 
 his knowledge, he said that he obtained it from infor- 
 mation he received as a member of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. That may be. But I am not in possession of the 
 information with regard to the Clan-na-Gael which is 
 possessed by the members of the present, or of the late 
 Government. The Clan-na-Gael is a secret organisation ; 
 it is an oath-bound organisation ; it gives no information 
 with regard to its members to persons who are not mem- 
 bers. I presume that the Government, if they obtained 
 their information with regard to Alexander Sullivan, 
 obtained it through their secret agents in America, through 
 means which are not open to me in any capacity as a pri- 
 vate person or a public politician. It is no answer to me 
 to say that because the noble Marquis, a member of the 
 late Government, with all the information obtainable 
 by the wealth and resource of that Government at his 
 disposal, believes Alexander Sullivan was a member and 
 the leader of the Clan-na-Gael, or any secret organisation 
 
4l6 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 in America that I should therefore know him to 
 be so. I have never had any deaHngs v^ith him, 
 or anyone else, either in Ireland or America, in respect 
 of doings or proceedings of any secret society what- 
 soever. All my goings on, and sayings and doings in Irish 
 public life have been open and above board, and they have 
 stood the test of the searching investigation of the three 
 years' administration of the Crimes Act by Lord Spencer, 
 who has left it on record that neither any of my colleagues 
 nor myself were in any way connected with the commis- 
 sion of, or approving of the commission of, any crime. 
 Here are Lord Spencer's words, spoken at Newcastle 
 on the 2ist of April, 1886 : — 
 
 " Foremost among the many objections are these : — 
 It is said that you are going to hand over the government 
 of Ireland to men who have encouraged — nay, some I 
 have heard say even have directed — outrage and crime 
 in Ireland. That is a very grave accusation. Now, I 
 have been in a position, in my official capacity, to see and 
 know nearly all the evidence that has been given in Ireland 
 in regard to the murder and conspiracies to murder that 
 took place in 1881 and 1882, and I can say, without doubt 
 or hesitation, that I have neither heard nor seen any evi- 
 dence of complicity with those crimes against any of the 
 Irish representatives. It is right that I should clearly 
 and distinctly express my condemnation of many of the 
 methods by which they carried on their agitation. They 
 often used language and arguments that were as un- 
 justifiable as they were unfounded. They sometimes, 
 perhaps from financial grounds, were silent when words 
 would have been golden, when words might have had s 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 417 
 
 great influence on the state of the country. They might 
 even have employed men for their own legitimate purposes 
 who had been employed in illegal acts by others ; this I 
 must say, but, on the other hand, I believe those men to 
 have an affection for, and a real interest in, the welfare 
 of their country. Their ability has been felt and ack- 
 nowledged in the House of Commons by all Parties. 
 I believe that, with full responsibility upon them, they will 
 know that the only true way of obtaining the happiness 
 and contentment of Ireland, is for the Government to 
 maintain law and order, and defend the rights and pri- 
 vileges of every class and of every man in the country." 
 
 I cordially re-echo those words. I believe that they 
 express the only real way of maintaining law and order 
 in any country — that you must obtain from the majority 
 of the people of the country sympathy towards the law, 
 without which the maintenance of the law is impossible, 
 that you must show the majority of the community that 
 the law is not only made, but that it is also administered 
 for their benefit, and fairly and justly to all classes. In this 
 way, and in this way only, can be ever obtained respect 
 and sympathy for law and order in Ireland, or anywhere 
 else. The present Bill may put down crime, or it may 
 increase crime. If it puts it down, it will not put it down 
 by instilling into the minds of the people a sympathy for law 
 and order. Crime will die out only as the effect of sullen 
 submission. You will be no farther, after you have been 
 administering your Crimes Act, in the direction of the 
 real maintenance of law and order than you were at the 
 beginning ; nay, not nearly so far. You are crushing 
 by this iron Coercion Bill those beneficial symptoms in 
 
 2 E 
 
4l8 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Ireland which a Government of wise statesmen and wise 
 administrators would cherish and foster. You are pre- 
 venting that budding of friendship between the two 
 countries which this generation, and I believe no 
 other generation, would ever have witnessed in 
 Ireland had it not been for the great exertions of 
 the right hon. member for Midlothian. Who could 
 have predicted, who would have ventured to pre- 
 dict, that the heat, the passion, the political antipathies 
 engendered by the working of the Protection Act of 1881 
 and the Crimes Act of 1882, would have all disappeared 
 in three or four short months, and that you would have 
 had the English and the Irish people regarding each other 
 as they did during that happy, that blessed period, but all 
 this to be put an end to by the mad, the fatuous conduct 
 of the present Government. You are going to plunge 
 everything back into the seething cauldron of dis- 
 affection. You cannot see what the results of all this may 
 be. We can only point to the experience of what has 
 happened in past times. We anticipate nothing bene- 
 ficial from this Bill, either to your country or to ours ; 
 and we should not be honest men if we did not warn you, 
 with all the little force at our command, of the terrible 
 dangers that may be before you. 
 
 I trust before this Bill goes into Committee, or at all 
 events, before it leaves Committee, the great English 
 people will make their voice heard, and impress upon their 
 representatives that they must not go further with 
 this coercive legislation. If this House and its ma- 
 jority have not sense enough to see this, the great heart 
 of this country will see it, for I believe it is a great and 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 419 
 
 generous heart, that can sympathise even when a question 
 is concerned in reference to which there have been so 
 many poUtical antipathies. I am convinced, by what 
 I have seen of the great meetings which have been held 
 over the length and breadth of England and Scotland, 
 that the heart of your nation has been reached — that it 
 has been touched, and though our opponents may be in 
 a majority to-day, that the real force of public opinion 
 is not at their back. A Bill which is supported by men, 
 many of whom are looking over their shoulders and behind 
 them, like the soldiers of an army which a panic is be- 
 ginning to reach, to see which is their readiest mode of 
 retreat, is not likely to get through the difficult times be- 
 fore it emerges from Committee. The result will be 
 modifications of the provisions of the most drastic of the 
 Coercion Acts ever introduced against Ireland since 1833. 
 Do not talk to me of comparing the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act with the present Bill. We have 
 suffered from both. We have suffered from some of the 
 provisions of the present Bill, as well as from the Habeas 
 Corpus Suspension Act, and we are able to compare the 
 one with the other ; the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act empowered you to arrest and detain 
 in prison those whom you suspected ; but it guaran- 
 teed them humane treatment, which did much to 
 soften the asperities that otherwise would have been 
 bred between the two nations. Your prisoners under the 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act were not starved 
 and tortured as they will be under this. Your political 
 prisoners were not put upon a plank bed, and fed on 
 sixteen ounces of bread and water per day and compelled 
 
420 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to pick oakum, and perform hard labour, as they will be 
 under this Bill. The Bill will be the means by which 
 you will be enabled to subject your political prisoners 
 to treatment in your gaols which you reserve in England 
 for the worst of criminals, and it is idle to talk about com- 
 parison between the suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, under which your prisoners w^re humanely 
 treated — although imprisonment is hard to bear under 
 the best circumstances ; and provisions such as these 
 where your political prisoners will be deliberately 
 tortured, starved with hunger, and clammed with cold 
 in your gaols. I trust in God, Sir, that this nation and 
 this House may be saved from the degradation and the 
 peril that the mistake of passing this Bill put them in. 
 
 DEBATE ON THE GOVERNMENT LAND 
 
 PURCHASE BILL. 
 
 (House of Commons. — April 21, 1890.) 
 
 We do not fear the solution of the land question. 
 We know that as you give independence and security 
 to the Irish tenant, so his worth as an Irishman and 
 as an Irish nationalist will be increased. We do not 
 base our claim upon nationhood or the sufferings and 
 calamities of our countrymen. We use these rather 
 as illustrations of your incapacity to govern us, and to 
 do justice from Westminster. But these things are 
 not the foundation of Ireland's claim to her restitution 
 of legislative independence. So far from the securing 
 of the tenant in his holding, or the solution of the land 
 
CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 42 1 
 
 question preventing a settlement of the great National 
 question, I am convinced that every injustice that is 
 removed, every tenant who is secured in the future, 
 increases the force of the great army which is arrayed 
 on our side for the Hberation of our country. 
 
 AT WATERFORD.— January 28, 1891. 
 
 . . . You will get a ParHament of some kind or 
 another, but the sort of Parliament that you get depends 
 entirely on yourselves. . . 
 
 AT LONGFORD.— February 22, 1891 
 
 I took off my coat for the purpose of obtaining and 
 consummating the future of Irish nationality. . . 
 
 AT LISTOWEL.— September 13, 1891. 
 
 . . . . If I were dead and gone to-morrow, the 
 men who are fighting against English influence in Irish 
 public life would fight on still ; they would still be Inde- 
 pendent Nationalists ; they would still believe in the 
 future of Ireland a Nation ; and they would still protest 
 that it was not by taking orders from an English Minister 
 that Ireland's future could be saved, protected, or secured. 
 
422 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 MICHAEL DAVITT (1846-1906). 
 
 AGAINST THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. 
 
 (October 25, 1899.) 
 
 A man of Davitt's strength and earnestness could never 
 hope to become a parHamentarian. As Mr. Sheehy- 
 Skeffington finely says in his graphic book, " Michael 
 Davitt," — " Nothing in his parliamentary life became him 
 like the leaving of it," for this noble protest against the 
 spoliation of two small nationalities was the last speech 
 he addressed to the English House of Commons. 
 
 This is a war for the meanest and most mercenary of 
 ends and aims which ever prompted conquest or aggres- 
 sion, and it will rank in history as the greatest crime of 
 the nineteenth century. The hon. member for King's 
 Lynn poured the vials of his wrath upon our heads on 
 Monday evening because we voiced a sympathy, not with 
 England, but with the Transvaal in this struggle ; but 
 how is national or political or human sympathy won or 
 provoked in conflicts between nations ? 
 
 Can it be said, for instance, with truth, that freedom, 
 justice, or righteousness inspire your motives in waging 
 this conflict ? You say Yes ; but the whole world says 
 No. Who is the enemy you are going forth to crush } 
 
 Not one who threatens to invade England, not a power 
 who menaces your liberties, not an equal or a match for 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT. 423 
 
 your giant strength, but a foe of your own blood and faith, 
 your equal in courage, your superior in patriotism and in 
 national virtue, and who has more claim upon your pro- 
 tecting arm than upon your oppression and vengeance. 
 Why, then, should we sympathise with your action ? You 
 gladly took a king from the Dutch, and obtained thereby 
 a revolution and constitutional Government. 
 
 Why do you now assassinate in the Transvaal the liberty 
 which their ancestors helped to win for you ? We Irish 
 owe nothing to the Dutch, but what the hon. member for 
 Belfast would call the glorious battle of the Boyne. We 
 were on the wrong side then. 
 
 Mr. Wm. Johnston (Belfast S.) — " You are always on 
 the wrong side." 
 
 Mr. Davitt — Possibly, when force and not reason 
 determined the conclusion. We took the wrong side 
 then, anyhow, and deservedly got licked for showing too 
 much loyalty to England's legitimate king. Had the hon. 
 Member for Belfast been present on that interesting 
 occasion he would have been for the king, and I should 
 probably be among the revolutionists. We are on the 
 right side now, at any rate, though it may also be the 
 losing side ; but you stand to lose more by your victory 
 if you gain than the Dutch race will have to pay for its 
 defeat in this war. To say that because England goes to 
 war Irishmen must back her, or become traitors is a 
 monstrous proposition. 
 
 War, like any other transaction, must be judged on 
 its merits, and support or opposition be determined by 
 the right or the wrong involved. 
 
 I hold the Government have no divine commission 
 
424 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS 
 
 to knock the word " not " out of every one of the Ten 
 Commandments. " Thou shalt not commit murder," 
 " Thou shalt not steal," are as obligatory upon Cabinets 
 as upon citizens, and to ask Irish Members to approve 
 of this war and its main purposes would be akin to asking 
 them to sympathise with an act of burglary which would 
 also lead to the wholesale kiUing of those who would 
 resist the crime. The hon. Member for King's Lynn 
 in his virtuous wrath reminds me in this connection, 
 but in this only, of a saying of the late Colonel Ingersoll 
 of America, namely, " When England is mentioned in 
 connection with one of her wars against small nations, 
 in which she declares she has only humanity in view, she 
 reminds me of a burglar wearing a white tie on his way to 
 the scene of his philanthropy." 
 
 Sir, in conclusion, let me say that we Irishmen are 
 compelled to give our sympathies to the Boers because 
 they are absolutely in the right in heroically defending 
 with their lives the independence of their country. 
 
 Such a defence has always commanded the admiration 
 of unhampered minds in every struggle for liberty, for 
 there is no nobler cause for which man can fight and die 
 than the freedom of a nation. 
 
 England in this contest is the enemy of liberty ; the 
 Transvaal Republic is its champion and defender ; and 
 win or lose, the world will applaud the Boers and their 
 just cause. 
 
 We on these benches know what our attitude on this 
 war will mean, for the time being, to Home Rule. 
 
 Very well, so be it. But let me say this for myself in 
 answer to this contention — Had I been offered, not Home 
 
MICHAEL DAVITT 425 
 
 Rule only, but an Irish Republic by Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment on yesterday week, in return for one word or one 
 vote in favour of this war to destroy the independence 
 of the Republic of the Transvaal, I would speak no such 
 word nor record any such vote. 
 
 Sir, I would not purchase Uberty for Ireland at the base 
 price of voting against liberty in South Africa. 
 
 Ireland may never win her liberty ; but still she may. 
 Yet, I pray she never will at the price of dishonour ; and 
 to help you in this war against the Transvaal, to wish you 
 success in a fight with a brave foe a thousand times your 
 inferior in strength and resources, but who fearlessly 
 face you on your own battlefield in defence of their 
 independence and their homes would be an infamy and 
 a disgrace which no Home Rule, no freedom, depending 
 on your promise or word, could ever obliterate or redeem. 
 And now, sir, one word more and I have done. This, I 
 hope, will be the last time I shall address this House. 
 As a feeble but final protest against this infamous war, 
 I shall ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to-morrow 
 to relieve me of further attendance here. Let me say 
 in conclusion that I owe many personal courtesies to 
 members on both sides of the House, and that they have 
 treated with a good deal of good-natured toleration and 
 fairness, even during this stormy session, the strong 
 words which we Irish Members have felt it our duty to 
 use against this war-policy, and I shall carry that re- 
 collection with me. I make no complaint of what has 
 been said of me personally inside or outside this House. 
 It is, of course, natural for Englishmen to feel sore at our 
 attitude ; but for my part, I do not unsay or take back 
 
426 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 a single syllable I have uttered in Ireland or in this Chamber 
 in condemnation of this horrible business. When I go 
 I shall tell my boys, " I have been some five years in this 
 House, and the conclusion with which I leave it is that no 
 cause, however just, will find support ; no wrong, however 
 pressing or apparent, will find redress here unless backed 
 up by force." This is the message which I shall take 
 back from this assembly to my sons. 
 
[ 427 ] 
 
 JOHN E. REDMOND (1851). 
 
 IRISH NATIONAL CONVENTION IN CHICAGO. 
 
 (August i8, 1886.) 
 
 This speech has been quoted by Lord Russell of Killowen 
 at the Parnell Commission as a proof that the ParUamentary 
 Party were not connected with the physical force movement. 
 
 Selfishness and worldly interests all point to another 
 course as the best ; but it is the undying glory of Ireland 
 that her exiled sons, in the midst of prosperity, and in the 
 light of liberty, have yet found time to absent themselves 
 from felicity awhile to tell her story, and have made it 
 a part of their daily Hfe and nightly dream to help in work- 
 ing out her redemption. 
 
 The Irish soldier, whose sword was consecrated to the 
 service of America, dreamed, as he went into battle, 
 of the day when his arm, skilled in the service of his 
 adopted country, might strike a blow for Irish liberty. 
 The Irish business man, who found in one of your gigantic 
 cities scope for his enterprise and for his industry, looked 
 forward to the day when from his store help might 
 go across the Atlantic to sustain Ireland's champions on 
 the old sod. The Irish labourer, whose brawny arms have 
 built your railroads and reared your stately palaces, in the 
 midst of his labours laid aside his daily or weekly mite 
 
428 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 to help those who were fighting, time after time, with one 
 weapon or another, in the old cause against the old enemies 
 of Ireland. Rich or poor, high or low, alike, the Irish 
 in America have never forgotten the land whence they 
 sprang, and our people at home, in their joys and their 
 sorrows, in their hopes and in their fears, turn ever for help 
 and encouragement and confidence to this great republic, 
 upon whose fortunes and whose future rest to-day the 
 blessings of the Irish race. To assist at this great con- 
 vention of the Irish nation in America, especially to stand 
 here as we do, as the ambassadors sent here to represent 
 the Irish nation at home, is indeed a supreme honour which 
 
 we can never over-estimate and can never forget. 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 The principle embodied in the Irish movement of to- 
 day is just the same principle which was the soul of every 
 Irish movement for the last seven centuries — the principle 
 of rebellion against the rule of strangers ; the principle 
 which Owen Roe O'Neill vindicated at Benburb ; which 
 animated Tone and Fitzgerald, and to which Emmet 
 sacrificed a stainless life. Let no man desecrate that 
 principle by giving it the ignoble name of hatred of Eng- 
 land. Race hatred is at best an unreasoning passion. 
 I, for one, believe in the brotherhood of nations, and bitter 
 as the memory is of past wrongs and present injustice 
 inflicted upon our people by our alien rulers, I assert the 
 principle underlying our movement is not the principle 
 of revenge for the past, but of justice for the future. When 
 a question of that principle arises there can be no such 
 thing as compromise. The Irish leader who would pro- 
 pose to compromise the national claims of Ireland, who 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 429 
 
 would even incline for one second to accept as a settlement 
 of our demand any concession short of the unquestioned 
 recognition of that nationality which has come down 
 to us sanctified by the blood and tears of centuries, would 
 be false to Ireland's history and would forfeit all claims 
 upon your confidence or support. Such a contingency 
 can never arise, for the man who would be traitor enough 
 to propose such a course would find himself no longer a 
 leader. No man can barter away the honour of a nation. 
 The one great principle of any settlement of the Irish 
 question must be the recognition of the divine right ot 
 Irishmen, and Irishmen alone, to rule Ireland. This is 
 the principle in support of which you are assembled to- 
 day ; this is the principle which guides our movement 
 in Ireland. But, consistently with that principle, we be- 
 lieve it is possible to bring about a settlement honourable 
 to England and Ireland alike, whereby the wrongs and 
 miseries of the past may be forgotten ; whereby the chap- 
 ter of English wrongs and of Irish resistance may be closed; 
 and whereby a future of freedom and of amity between 
 the two nations may be inaugurated. 
 
 ON PARNELL.—FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE HOUSE 
 
 OF COMMONS. 
 
 (November 29, 1896.) 
 
 The truth is, the English never understood Parnell. 
 They never could fathom his aims and his policy. Though 
 a man of strong passion, his outward demeanour was 
 invariably cold and impassive. He seldom spoke once 
 
430 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 he had risen to a commanding position in Parliament. 
 When he did speak the silence which crept over the 
 House was absolutely painful in its intensity. He had 
 something of the quality which Coleridge attributed 
 to the Ancient Mariner : " He held them with his 
 glittering eye, they could not choose but hear." He 
 was no orator in the ordinary acceptation of the 
 phrase. Indeed he commenced his Parliamentaiy career 
 as a halting speaker, with almost an impediment in 
 his speech. As time went on it is true he spoke with 
 ease and fluency, but the great quality of his oratory 
 was its clearness, directness and terseness. " No man," 
 said Mr. Gladstone of him, " is more successful in doing 
 that which it is commonly supposed all speakers do, but 
 which in my opinion few really do — namely, in saying 
 what he means." 
 
 At one time Parnell was the most hated man in the 
 House of Commons. At another he was probably the 
 most powerful and respected. 
 
 IRELAND AND THE BOER WAR. 
 
 (February 7, 1900.) 
 
 The sympathy of Ireland is with the Boers. Why is 
 
 this ? On what foundation is it based ? What is the 
 
 explanation of it ? I propose to answer shortly those 
 
 questions. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 It is true that wherever the Empire is involved in a 
 difficulty or complication which diminishes its great 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 43 1 
 
 Strength, a feeling of hope and satisfaction stirs through 
 the veins of men of the Irish race both at home and abroad. 
 This is a fact which stares you in the face, and it is folly 
 to conceal it. It is one of those facts which statesmen 
 should study and observe and try to understand. It 
 is not our fault that it is a fact, but yours. It is the fault 
 of the history which you and your predecessors have 
 made. 
 
 Some day, not perhaps far off, in that Ireland which 
 you are about to create for yourselves in South Africa, 
 you may find white people rejoicing in the Empire's diffi- 
 culties and sending messages of sympathy to your foes. 
 I would urge this country, before it is involved more 
 deeply in this ill-fated war, to endeavour to learn some- 
 thing from the history of your own experience in Ireland 
 and the American colonies, and from contrasting the 
 history of other great portions of the Empire, and to be- 
 ware of pursuing to the bitter end the chapter which, 
 whatever way the military operations may go, whether you 
 succeed in this war, can only be a story of misfortune 
 and disgrace. I admit in the frankest manner, that the 
 feeling of the mass of the Irish people is hostile to the 
 Empire. At this moment it would be hypocrisy for me 
 to attempt to deny it, and it would be the utmost folly for 
 
 you to attempt to minimise it. 
 
 • •••*•■ 
 
 I assert emphatically that the sympathies of the Irish 
 people would be in precisely the same direction if England 
 were not concerned in the matter at all. Our sympathies 
 would be on the side of the independence of these Re- 
 
432 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 publics, no matter what was the power that was attempt- 
 ing to act as the bully and the oppressor in South Africa. 
 • •••••• 
 
 Go back for a moment to the conflict w^hich lost you 
 America, and the memory of which is the real reason why 
 to-day you cannot win the friendship and alliance of the 
 United States. Go back to the history of that war. Who 
 led the Opposition ; who inspired, who planned, who worked 
 through steadfast years in opposition to that luckless war ? 
 An Irishman, and in doing so he poured forth a wealth of 
 political wisdom which has been the nourishment of your 
 wiser statesmen ever since, and which if it could only be 
 understood, and acted upon by your statesmen of to-day, 
 would induce you even now to retrace your steps, and by 
 an early peace to retrieve to some extent w'hat I believe 
 is the worst mistake of your Imperialism. Yes, Burke and 
 Sheridan and Grattan and the mighty Irishmen of that 
 day took precisely the same stand in that eventful contro- 
 versy that we their humbler countr}^men take to-day upon 
 the question of this war. They had to face the self-same 
 abuse, the same unstinted criticism that we have to do. 
 But who in the world of politics dares to say now that they 
 were not absolutely in the right ? No ; the organised and 
 obstinate pride of the rulers of that day would not accept 
 advice from the treacherous Irish members, and America 
 was lost. In crises like this your best advisers have always 
 been Irish statesmen and Irish soldiers. But you have ahvays 
 distrusted their advice, whether in the case of the present war 
 or in other struggles. Had you taken the advice and heeded 
 the warning of one who was your representative in South 
 Africa until recently— I mean General Butler (who was 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 433 
 
 described as labouring under the disadvantage of being an 
 Irishman and a Catholic), had you hearkened to his advice, 
 instead of the advice of Sir Alfred Milner, you would not 
 be the spectacle of humiliation before the civilised world 
 which you now are. I say, therefore, that we arrive by 
 quite a natural process at our sympathies with these Repub- 
 lics. How could it be otherwise ? We would be stocks 
 or stones if our admiration were not aroused by one of the 
 finest spectacles that the world has witnessed since Ther- 
 mopylae — the resistance of these two little Republics to the 
 most powerful Empire of modern times. I think I am speak- 
 ing the sentiments of all generous-minded men in this 
 House — no matter what view they take of the war — when 
 I say that we admire the pluck and heroism of the old grey- 
 bearded Boer side by side with the dauntless courage of the 
 Boer of sixteen in the stand they have already made against 
 this mighty Empire in defence of what they believe to be 
 right. Do they surrender their independence without 
 a struggle ? Do the Free Staters, thinking only of their 
 crops, abandon their brothers in the Transvaal ? Had 
 they done so we should all, without distinction of creed 
 or party, have heartily despised them ; and it seems to 
 me that but for this bloody struggle the world would have 
 been robbed of one of its most stirring episodes. I think 
 the world at large owes a deep debt to these two little 
 Republics for showing, in this degraded age, that there 
 are other things to fight for than gold, and for which they 
 are prepared to lay down their lives. 
 
 In conclusion, I cannot do better than say that we 
 desire to put this case before the House with moderation, 
 
 2 F 
 
434 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 but with clearness. We do not desire to be guilty of the 
 hypocrisy of pretending that we are solely moved by the 
 merits. While admitting frankly that in these cases 
 we are prejudiced to a certain extent by an antecedent 
 hostility, at the same time in most cases in the past we have 
 been right, and in this case we have been undoubtedly 
 influenced by the merits of the controversy. We ask you 
 in time to reconsider your position. We believe you can 
 do it without injury to yourselves, certainly with far less 
 injury than must come to you if you persist in going on to 
 the end of the chapter and imperilling the future of the 
 white races in South Africa. We at any rate make our 
 position perfectly clear. We are not influenced one whit 
 by the odium that may come upon us because of our 
 action. We know that we are a small minority in this 
 House — possibly some people say a contemptible minority. 
 We look back on the past, and we know that when Chatham 
 and Burke were right in denouncing the American War 
 they were in contemptible minorities, and were the objects 
 of odium and misrepresentation. We know that when 
 in the Crimean War John Bright attempted to stem the 
 flood of war passion he was in a contemptible minority, 
 and was a mark for odium and taunts. And we care still 
 less for the threats of injury to the cause of Home Rule. 
 We know that we are right, and are profoundly convinced 
 that Ireland our country has nothing to lose, but has 
 everything to gain, by raising her voice on the side of 
 justice and liberty. I, therefore, beg to move the 
 Amendment standing in my name 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 435 
 
 EXCLUSION OF THE IRISH MEMBERS. 
 
 (March 7, 1901.) 
 
 I s^y that if you go on, if the House of Commons perse- 
 veres in its present course in this matter, the logical result, 
 and the only logical result, is the disfranchisement of 
 Ireland. I am not sure that that would not be far better. 
 I am sure it would be a far honester system than the pre- 
 sent one. As long as you deprive Ireland of the substance 
 of constitutional government and preserve the empty 
 form by bringing us here to this Parliament, where we are 
 always in a permanent minority as compared with the 
 representatives of another country and another nation — 
 so long, Mr. Speaker, as that is the case, you will have 
 in your midst a foreign element. There is something 
 deeper in this matter than mere ebullitions of temper 
 on the one side or mere new rules on the other. There 
 is something deeper, something that goes right down to 
 the bed-rock of this Irish question. The Irish Members, 
 brought as they are to this House are a foreign element 
 in this House. Just as in the human body the presence 
 of a foreign substance is a constant source of irritation 
 and a constant source of danger, so the presence of a 
 foreign element in this Parliament is the same, because 
 the foreign element is made up of a body of men who are 
 with you but not of you ; a body of men to whom the 
 ancient glories and the great traditions of this House have 
 no meaning ; a body of men who regard this House and 
 this Parliament simply as instruments for the oppression 
 of their country ; and in dealing with such an element 
 
436 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 I assert that no rules the wit of man can devise can possibly 
 save your Parliament from being injured and degraded 
 in the eyes of the world. Sir, that is the penalty that this 
 country is paying to-day for the Union, and will continue 
 to pay for it as long as it lasts. I say, therefore, that we 
 treat the whole of these new rules with indifference and 
 with contempt. I say that every such rule as you are 
 proposing to-night is a weakening and degrading of your 
 own ParHament, and the passing of every such rule as 
 this, amounts to the turning, if I may say so, of a search- 
 light upon the system of government in Ireland, which 
 will expose the system to the knowledge and criticism of 
 the nations of the world. It discloses to the world the 
 fact that, with all your constitutional forms, you hold 
 one portion of the so-called United Kingdom simply 
 by brute force I say to you, under these circumstances, 
 speaking for myself, and I believe, for many, many Irish 
 Members, go on with your new rule, suspend, expel, and 
 imprison members, we will not be in the smallest degree 
 deterred. So long as we are forced to come to this House 
 to endeavour, in the midst of a foreign majority, to trans- 
 act our Irish business, we will use every form of this House, 
 every right, every privilege, every power which mem- 
 bership of this House gives us — we will use these things 
 just as it seems to us to be best for Ireland, quite regard- 
 less of the opinion and so-called dignity of British Members 
 and absolutely careless of the penalties you may devise 
 for our punishment. In conclusion, I would only say 
 that my ow^n strong feeling is this, that if n your effort 
 to hold Ireland, according to your present system of 
 government, by force, you degrade and paralyse, and in 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 437 
 
 the end destroy, this famous Assembly, it will be but a 
 just retribution upon you for the baseness and the cruelty 
 with which you destroyed the free Parliament of the Irish 
 people. 
 
 THE IRISH PROBLEM. 
 
 (February 19, 1906.) 
 
 Now, what is the Irish question ? I say that it is the 
 greatest of all Imperial questions which can concern, 
 which can command, or ought to command, the attention 
 of English statesmen. It is the most urgent of all 
 Imperial questions. The present condition of Ireland is 
 the greatest disgrace of this Empire ; it is of the greatest 
 danger to this Empire ; it is the greatest obstacle to the 
 efficiency of this Parliament — aye, and let me say to you 
 English Members on the other side, who have come here 
 filled with enthusiasm for English reforms, it is the greatest 
 block in the way of those great social reforms for this coun- 
 try which are needed by the people. It means the exis- 
 tence at your doors here, at the very heart of your Empire, 
 of an Ireland poverty-stricken and disaffected. Does 
 anyone doubt that ? And does anyone who recognises 
 the fact doubt its meaning or minimise its consequences .? 
 
 • ••• •••• 
 
 In Ireland it has declined, and is still declining. Listen 
 to the figures : Since 1841 the population of Ireland has 
 diminished by fifty per cent. In 1845 Ireland had three 
 times as many people as Scotland, and half as many as 
 England — Ireland, in fact, had one-third of the whole 
 
43S IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 population of the United Kingdom ; but in sixty years 
 the population of Ireland had gone down by 4,000,000. 
 Is there in the whole world a parallel to that awful tragedy ? 
 We in Ireland have emerged within the last few weeks — 
 I hope for ever — from what Lord Salisbury called twenty 
 years of resolute government. In those twenty years 
 the population of Ireland went down by almost i ,000,000. 
 And what was the character of the emigration ? Sir, 
 that is a greater tragedy still. Ninety per cent, of those 
 who have emigrated from Ireland have been between the 
 ages of ten and forty-five. That means that it is those who 
 are in the prime of life who are leaving the country, and 
 accounts for the fact which English tourists always notice — 
 that there are more little children and more old men and 
 women to be seen in Ireland than in any other country in 
 Europe. And of the ninety per cent., how many of them 
 remain in Europe at all ? Every man who emigrates 
 from Ireland is lost, not only to Ireland, but to the Empire ; 
 eighty-seven per cent, of the whole emigration from 
 Ireland goes to the United States — that is to say, young 
 men and young women, physically and mentally vigorous, 
 not only are lost to Ireland, but are lost to the Empire, 
 and constitute a power in America, as everyone acquainted 
 with the circumstances knows, which is a danger to this 
 country, and which most undoubtedly is the chief barrier 
 in the way of a permanent amicable understanding 
 between America and England. 
 
 They may mean a little, and they may mean a great 
 deal, but the fact that they are vague, throws upon me, 
 as I conceive it, the duty of reiterating in this House 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 439 
 
 once again the position of the Irish party upon this 
 question of National Self-government. Our attitude has 
 not changed by one hair's breadth during the past twenty- 
 five years. We have been sent to this House, and come 
 here year after year, not to obtain little bits of amelioration 
 for the lot of the Irish people in this particular or that. 
 We have taken all that came our way, not merely because 
 these things seemed to us good in themselves, but because 
 we believed that everything which tended to make pros- 
 perous the lot of the people in Ireland and to alleviate 
 the condition of the people was a strengthening of their 
 political power to obtain National Self-government in 
 the end. We did not come for the purpose of obtaining 
 these things ; we came here to obtain the freedom of our 
 country. And, Mr. Speaker, we are to-day of the same 
 opinion that we always were, that the Irish question can 
 never be satisfactorily or finally settled except by the 
 concession to Ireland of a Parliament and an Executive 
 responsible to it. 
 
 Sir, in conclusion, one word more — one only. Once 
 again Ireland has lifted her head — that head so long 
 bowed in sorrow and almost in despair. Once again the 
 hope of a better day, of a coming day of justice, of liberty, 
 and at least of comparative prosperity is pulsing through 
 her veins. God grant, for her sake, but equally for yours, 
 that that hope be not disappointed. 
 
44^ IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 ENGLISH GOVERNMENT IN IRELAND 
 
 (February 12, 1907.) 
 
 I remember, in 1886, Mr. Gladstone, in one of those 
 great and inspired speeches of his upon the Irish question, 
 speaking of that time as " one of those golden moments 
 in our history ; one of those opportunities which may 
 come or may go, but which rarely return, or, if they return, 
 return at long intervals, and in circumstances which no 
 man can forecast. There have been several such golden 
 moments, even in the tragic history of Ireland. The long 
 periodic time has once more run out, and again the star 
 is mounted in the heavens." Twenty years ago the cup 
 of hope and comfort was rudely dashed from Ireland's 
 lips. Now, for my part, I believe, in the words of Mr. 
 Gladstone, that the star has once again risen in the 
 heavens, and that again the golden opportunity has arisen 
 for English statesmanship. Don't, I beg of you, palter 
 with this question of life and death ; don't, I beg of you, 
 trifle with a desperate case ; don't merely " skin and film 
 the ulcerous place." The disease of Ireland is deep- 
 seated. The time is long past for the use of palliatives. 
 Every remedy has been tried except trusting the people. 
 You have tried force in all its forms — on the scaffold and 
 in the prison cell. You have had your twenty years of 
 resolute government for which Lord Salisbury asked. 
 You have tried conciliation and reform. Your conciliation 
 has always been ignorant and blundering, and your reform 
 has always been too late. Further, you have sent to 
 Ireland from time to time the very best men you have. 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 44 1 
 
 Take the list of statesmen who have gone to Ireland in the 
 last one hundred years ; you will find in that list the names 
 of almost every great man in your history ; one after an- 
 other they have been sent to Ireland. They have all come 
 back and told you they have failed, and many of them have 
 told you also that their task was hopeless, and that the 
 only chance of good government in Ireland was in some 
 measure or other to trust the people 
 
 HOME RULE RESOLUTION. 
 
 (March 30, 1908.) 
 
 Yes, those are two of the great gifts of freedom, the 
 power to develop and the power to heal. These are 
 the gifts that we are asking for Ireland, the power to 
 develop for ourselves, in our own way, our own qualities ; 
 the power to develop for ourselves the resources of 
 our own country ; the power to strike off the minds of 
 the youths of Ireland the chains that are there to-day, to 
 free their hands and to enable them to develop their 
 own characters and the resources of their own country. 
 Whenever Ireland had that power, Ireland prospered ; 
 when she lost that power Ireland declined. During 
 the history of Grattan's Parliament, Irish industries, 
 which had been deliberately and ruthlessly destroyed 
 by the action of the English ParHament, had begun to 
 revive, and then to flourish, but from the moment that the 
 Union was carried that development was arrested, stag- 
 nation and decay came down like a poisonous mist over the 
 land, and to-day Ireland, which is by nature a rich and 
 
442 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 fertile island, lags miserably behind in the hindmost 
 
 rank of the progress of the world. We ask from you 
 
 power to develop, we ask also the power to heal. There 
 
 are many wounds to be healed in Ireland, and it may be 
 
 said that although the wounds inflicted by this country 
 
 in the past have been many and grievous, yet probably 
 
 the deadliest wounds have been those inflicted by race 
 
 or class hatred, and the religious dissensions of Ireland's 
 
 own sons themselves. My answer to that is that every 
 
 class hatred in Ireland, every discord, every feud has its 
 
 origin in the past history of the government of Ireland by 
 
 England. Give us the power to heal those feuds. Ireland 
 
 herself alone can do it. So long as English ascendancy 
 
 is associated with one creed in Ireland, with one class, 
 
 and with one party, so long will the healing of these wounds 
 
 be absolutely impossible. It was the same in Canada. 
 
 But, in consequence of the enlightened statesmanship 
 
 of Lord Durham and the statesmen of that day, the blessed 
 
 influence of freedom came along and united warring races 
 
 and creeds. So will it be in Ireland, and all we ask from 
 
 you, all I ask in this Resolution, is this : That what you 
 
 have done for Frenchmen in Quebec, what you have done 
 
 for Dutchmen in the Transvaal, you should now do for 
 
 Irishmen in Ireland. In other words, you should trust 
 
 the people, and the moment you do it, I believe in my 
 
 heart and conscience, there and then, once and for all, 
 
 you will have ended the blackest chapter in the history of 
 
 your country. 
 
JOHN E. REDMOND. 443 
 
 AT THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 (Augusts, I9H-) 
 
 I hope the House will not consider it improper on my 
 part, in the grave circumstances in which we are as- 
 sembled, if I intervene for a very few moments. I was 
 moved a great deal by that sentence in the speech of the 
 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in which he said 
 that the one bright spot in the situation was the changed 
 feeling in Ireland. In past times, when this Empire 
 had been engaged in these terrible enterprises, it is true — 
 it would be the utmost affectation and folly on my part 
 to deny it — the sympathy of the Nationalists of Ireland, 
 for reasons to be found deep down in the centuries of 
 history, has been estranged from this country. Allow 
 me to say, Sir, that what has occurred in recent years has 
 altered the situation completely. I must not touch, 
 and I may be trusted not to touch, on any controversial 
 topic ; but this I may be allowed to say, that a wider 
 knowledge of the real facts of Irish history has, I think, 
 altered the views of the democracy of this country towards 
 the Irish question, and to-day I honestly believe that the 
 democracy of Ireland will turn with the utmost anxiety 
 and sympathy to this country in every trial and every 
 danger that may overtake it. There is a possibility, at 
 any rate, of history repeating itself. The House will 
 remember that in 1778, at the end of the disastrous Ameri- 
 can War, when it might, I think, truly be said that the 
 military power of this country was almost at its lowest 
 ebb, and when the shores of Ireland were threatened with 
 foreign invasion, a body of 100,000 Irish Volunteers 
 
444 IRISH ORATORY AND ORATORS. 
 
 Sprang into existence for the purpose of defending her 
 shores. At first, no Catholic — ah ! how sad the reading 
 of the history of those days is ! — was allowed to be en- 
 rolled in that body of Volunteers, and yet, from the very 
 first day, the Catholics of the South and West subscribed 
 money and sent it towards the arming of their Protestant 
 fellow-countrymen. Ideas widened as time went on, 
 and finally the Catholics in the South were armed and 
 enrolled with their fellow-countrymen of a different 
 creed in the North. May history repeat itself to-day» 
 There are in Ireland two large bodies of Volunteers. 
 One of them sprang into existence in the South. I say 
 to the Government that they may to-morrow withdraw 
 every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the 
 coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion 
 by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalist 
 Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms 
 with the armed Protestant Ulsterman in the North. 
 Is it too much to hope that out of this situation there may 
 spring a result which will be good, not merely for the 
 Empire, but good for the future welfare and integrity 
 of the Irish nation ? I ought to apologise for having 
 intervened, but while Irishmen generally are in favour 
 of peace, and would desire to save the democracy of this 
 country from all the horrors of war ; while we would 
 make every possible sacrifice for that purpose, still, if the 
 dire necessity is forced upon this country, we offer to the 
 Government of the day that they may take their troops 
 away, and that if it is allowed to us, in comradeship with 
 our brethren in the North, we would ourselves defend 
 the coasts of our country. 
 
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