8. That, at some time or other, States which had separated themselves from the mother-country, should be admitted to the rank of independent nations is a proposition to which no possible dissent could be given. The whole question was one of time and mode.

9. There were two modes: one a reckless and headlong course, by which we might have reached our object at once, but at the expense of drawing upon us consequences not lightly to be incurred; the other was more strictly guarded. in point of principle; so that, while we pursued our own interests, we took care to give no just cause of offence to other powers, while we acted in obedience to a sound and enlightened policy.

CANNING.

35. DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHTS.

[Henry Grattan, born in Dublin, 1746; died, 1820. The history of this great inan, from his entrance into the Irish Parliament, in 1775, down to its extinction, is the history of Ireland's most splendid epoch. He achieved her triumph, established her rights, and, at the hazard of his life, coufronted her enemies. "His voice penetrated the recesses of the treasury, and peculation ceased. He revealed the abuses against the Church, and religion blessed him. He disdained the gold, and defied the vengeance of the Castle and its power, and its minions cowered before him. Every measure which tended to the dignity or prosperity of Ireland, he either originated or advanced. Free trade, legislative independence, and final judicature, head a list of boons and triumphs exclusively his own; and he was an earnest of the entire emancipation of Catholics from the shameful and outrageous disabilities imposed on them by English liberality and tolerance."]

SIR,

IR, 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. England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; 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.

2. Let corruption tremble; but let the friends of liberty reioice at these means of safety, and this hour of redemption. 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 which you must silently abdicate the rights of your country, or publicly restore them. Where is the freedom of trade? Where is the security of property? Where is the liberty of the people?

3. I therefore say, nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honora ble, nothing except a declaration of rights. What! are you, with three hundred thousand men at your back, with charters in one hand and arms in the other, afraid to say you are a free people? If England is a tyrant, it is you who have made her so; it is the slave that makes the tyrant, and then murmurs at the master whom he himself has constituted.

4. 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 rights, or cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she exercises 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.

5. 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,-America! They judge of us with a true knowledge and 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.

6. 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 centuries, by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present 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 subject's freedom, am I to hear of faction.

7. I wish for nothing but to breathe, in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chain, and contemplate your 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.

8. 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 outlast 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.

GRATTAN.

36. REPLY TO MR. FLOOD, 1783.

[At the time of this speech in the Irish Parliament, Flood and Grattan, although previously friends, stood before the British public as rival leaders. A bitter animosity had arisen between them; and Grattan having unfortunately led the way in personality, by speaking of his opponent's "affectation of infirmity," Flood replied with great asperity, denouncing Grattan as “a mendicant patriot," who, “bought by his country for a sum of money, then sold his country for prompt payment." He also sneered at Grattan's "aping the style of Lord Chatham." To these taunts Grattan replied in a speech, an abridgment of which we here give.]

IT

T is not the slander of an evil tongue that can defame me. I maintain my reputation in public and in private life. No man, who has not a bad character, can ever say that

I deceived. No country can call me a cheat. But I will sup pose such a public character. I will suppose such a man to have existence. I will begin with his character in his politi. cal cradle, and I will follow him to the last stage of political dissolution.

2. I will suppose him, in the first stage of his life, to have been intemperate; in the second, to have been corrupt; and in the last, seditious; that, after an envenomed attack on the persons and measures of a succession of viceroys, and after much declamation against their illegalities and their profusion, he took office, and became a supporter of government, when the profusion of ministers had greatly increased, and their crimes multiplied beyond example.

3. With regard to the liberties of America, which were inseparable from ours, I will suppose this gentleman to have been an enemy decided and unreserved; that he voted against her liberty, and voted, moreover, for an address to send four thousand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Americans; that he called these butchers "armed negotiators," and stood with a metaphor in his mouth and a bribe in his pocket, a champion against the rights of America, of America, the only hope of Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind.

4. Thus defective in every relationship, whether to constitution, commerce, and toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private improbity to public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a level with his oath. He loves to deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him and say:

5. Sir, you are much mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and per sonality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue; after a rank and clamorous opposition, you became, on a sudden, silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greatest questions, and you were silent for money!

6. You supported the unparalleled profusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry. You, sir, who manufacture stage thunder against Mr. Eden for his anti-American principles,-you, sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal Hampden;-you, sir, approved of the tyranny exercised against America,-and you, sir, voted four thousand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Americans fighting for their freedom, fighting for your freedom, fighting for the great principle, liberty!

7. But you found, at last, that the court had bought, but would not trust you. Mortified at the discovery, you try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the acts of an incendiary; and observing, with regard to prince and people, the most impartial treachery and desertion, you justify the suspicion of your sovereign by betraying the government, as you had sold the people.

8. Such has been your conduct, and at such conduct every order of your fellow-subjects have a right to exclaim! The merchant may say to you, the constitutionalist may say to you, the American may say to you,-and I, I now say, and say to your beard, sir,-you are not an honest man!

GRATTAN.

THE

37. THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.

HE Parliament of Ireland!-of that assembly I have a parental recollection. I sate by her cradle,-I followed her hearse! In fourteen years she acquired for Ireland what you did not acquire for England in a century,-freedom of trade, independency of the legislature, independency of the judges, restoration of the final judicature, repeal of a perpetual mutiny bill, habeas corpus act, nullum tempus act,-a great work!

2. You will exceed it, and I shall rejoice. I call my coun