IT has been the lot of biographers (who for the most part, from time immemorial, critics have considered as a class of beings in whose veins the blood circulates with a singular and undeviating apathy,) often to become animated with the subjects of their several memoirs, and to write the lives allotted to their charge with both eloquence and feeling.

This ability, we imagine, is required to be evinced in no trivial degree in the present instance; for although objects more attractive might have been selected, there are but few, if any, round which a lustre dwells so pure, and so dazzling, as around the shrine of the uncompromising and self-sacrificing patriot.

Painful it is also to those who are obliged from a rigorous regard to truth, to praise individuals for their public actions, and dispraise them for their private vices; to analyse the shades of character, and state minutely the portion to be admired and disapproved. Such, however, is not the case in the subject before us; rarely have we seen an instance in which the most exalted genius, seemed united with every quality that wisdom allows to be excellent, and the heart acknowledges as truly amiable.

HENRY GRATTAN, the being who has elicited the above praises, was born in the city of Dublin, in 1751. His father was an eminent practitioner at the Irish bar, and held the situation of Recorder of Dublin. His son was called to the bar in 1761; but in his forensic character be did not acquire much celebrity. He shortly afterwards gave up his whole lime to politics; and the following domestic calamity occasioned his first entry into the {198} senate. In 1778 or 1774, Francis Caulfield, the brother of Lord Charlemont, a most estimable character, and the representative of the borough of Charlemont, was on his return from England to attend his duty in parliament, unfortunately lost between Park-gate and Dublin. By this vacancy, which Mr. Caulfield’s death occasioned in parliament, the electors of Charlemont were enabled, under the auspices of his lordship, to return a man to the House of Commons, who was destined to act a more conspicuous part than any one who had ever been deputed to serve there; and Mr. Grattan accordingly took his seat, for the first time in the Irish House of Commons, on the 11th of December, 1778.

We are not aware either in what year, or on what subject he delivered what is termed his maiden speech; but his great talents, his fervid and impressive eloquence, soon constituted him a leader on the popular side, and on that side he continued with scarcely an aberration to the close of his existence. In October 1777, Lord Buckinghamshire met parliament; and in the debate on the embargo, the necessity of which was feebly supported by Burgh, pertinaciously adhered to by Scott, and opposed with great vivacity and honest indignation by Ogle, we find Grattan also opposing it with excessive point, delicate irony, and strong and manly eloquence.

IN 1778, the national distress was beyond all human calculation. The manufacturers, in consequence of the restrictions on their foreign trade, imposed by the English parliament, were in a state of mendicancy, of absolute want. Thousands of them were supported by charity. These alarming circumstances were constantly brought before the eyes of ministers, in their warmest colouring, by an opposition of the greatest weight, numbers, and talents, ever combined in the British senate. Ministers, however, remitted the great objects of Irish grievances to the next session, upon the pretexts of want of informs lion. Whilst the British parliament were thus acting on a system of procrastination and delay, the feelings of this {199} Irish nation were suspended by the hopes of relief; but when they found that the British ministry had forsaken their cause, they naturally enough became sorely exasperated, and their discontent became formidable and alarming. Associations were entered into against the importation of British commodities, and for the encouragement of Irish manufactures; the consequence of which was, that the manufactures of Ireland began in some slight degree to revive, and the demand for British goods in a great measure to decrease. During the recess, the system of associating and volunteering took its rise, and had made considerable progress ere the parliament met on the 12th October, 1779. The lord-lieutenant’s speech from the throne did not say much; and the address in answer, by Sir R. T. Dean, did not, of course, presume to say more. An address of a different complexion was now formed and moved by Mr. Grattan, as an amendment to the answer to the lord-lieutenant’s speech: Mr. Grattan’s amendment was clothed in the following eloquent language; “That we beseech your majesty to believe, that it is with the utmost reluctance we are constrained to approach you on the present occasion; but the constant drain to supply absentees, and the unfortunate prohibition of our trade, have caused such calamity, that the natural support of our country has decayed, and our manufactures are dying away for want. Famine stalks hand in hand with hopeless wretchedness, and the only means left to support the expiring trade of this miserable part of your majesty’s dominions, is to open a free export trade, and let your Irish subjects enjoy their natural birthright.”

Sir Henry Cavendish declared he would vote against the amendment, and advised the forming a committee; this, Mr.Ogle reprobated: Sir Edward Newenham charged the British ministry with contempt and neglect to the nation, and said, he thought the original address a servile echo to the speech. The Provost drew a most ptk thetic picture of the melancholy situation of his native country. The attorney-general delivered a studied eul{200}gium on the sensibility of the king and the humanity of his minister. The debate took a new turn by several of the ministerial party declaring, that, for the sake of unanimity, they would not oppose the amendment. The Right Hon. Henry Flood declared for the amendment, and entered largely into a justification of his political conduct, which he said had unfortunately been misrepresented; that the office he held was the unsolicited gift of his sovereign, which he had received with gratitude, and held with honour; that when a time came that he could no longer do it, he would gladly throw the bracelet into the common cauldron. Mr. Burgh (at that time prime-serjeant) approved of the amendment, but condemned the preamble, and suggested one short simple proposition. Mr. Flood whispered to him across the benches, “state a free trade merely.” Burgh instantly adopted the words and moved, “That nothing but a free trade could save the country from ruin.” Mr. Grattan at first objected to withdrawing the preamble, as he not only considered it as a necessary adjunct to any motion that could be made on the subject; but was afraid by dividing the proposition, he should make room for some adroit and successful parliamentary manoeuvre, which would get rid of the whole. However, when Mr. Connolly, the brother-in-law of the lord-lieutenant, and who from that connection, as well aa his rank and situation, might, in the fluctuating state of the House, have commanded a majority, not only expressed himself strongly in favour of a free trade, but against the preamble, Mr. Grattan withdrew it, stating at the same time, that he did so in the full and entire expectation that the resolution as to a free trade would be unequivocally supported. Mr. Burgh’s amendment was then put and carried unanimously. The above is a correct detail of the manner in which this inconceivable advantage was obtained. When the House of Commons attended the lord-lieutenant with this resolution, the volunteers of the Dublin district lined the streets through which they passed, as a mark of respect and grateful approbation. {201} On the 13th of November, 1781, Mr. Grattan made a motion for bringing in heads of a bill to explain, amend, and limit, an act to prevent desertion and mutiny in the army, which was seconded by Mr. Flood. The great patriotic orator thus prefaced his motion: he said, that “in the eighteenth century, however astonishing it must appear, he rose to vindicate Magna Charts, sanctified as it was by the authority of six hundred years. He called upon gentlemen to teach British privileges to an Irish senate. He quoted the laws of England, first, because they were laws; secondly, because they were franchises, and they were the franchises of Irishmen as well as Englishmen. He was not come to say what was expedient, he came to demand a right; and he hoped he was speaking to men, who knew and felt their rights, and not to corrupt consciences and beggarly capacities.” After having displayed a considerable portion of his usual eloquence, the motion was lost by a division of seventy-seven for, and one hundred and thirty-three against the motion.

On the 20th of February, 1782, when the Roman catholic bill was in the committee, Mr. Grattan delivered a most powerful speech in favour of their withheld rights and privileges, proving in every instance, that they had behaved as a brave, loyal, and sincere people. “When this country (said he) had resolved no longer to crouch beneath the burthen of oppression that England had laid upon her; when she armed in defence of her rights, and a high-spirited people demanded a free trade, did the Roman catholics desert their countrymen? No; they were found among the foremost. When it was afterwards thought necessary to assert a free constitution, the Roman catholics displayed their public virtue; they did not endeavour to take advantage of your situation, they did not endeavour to make terms for themselves; but they entered frankly and heartily into the cause of the country; judging by their own virtue that they might depend upon your generosity for their reward. But now, after you have obtained a free trade, after the voice of the nation {202} has asserted their independence, they approach this House as humble suppliants, and beg to be admitted to the common rights of men. Upon the occasions I have mentioned, I did carefully observe their actions, and did then determine to support their cause whenever it came before this House, and to bear a strong testimony of the constitutional principles of the catholic body. Nor should it be mentioned as a reproach to them, that they fonght under the banner of King James, when we recollect that before they entered the field, they extorted from him a Magna Charta [sic], a British constitution. In 1779, when the fleets of Bourbon hovered on our coasts, and the Irish nation roused herself to arms, did the Roman catholics stand aloof? or did they, as might be expected from their oppressed situation, offer assistance to the enemy? No; they poured in subscriptions for the service of their country, or they pressed into the ranks of her glorious volunteers.”

Lord Carlisle foreseeing, in the change of ministry, a total change of principles and measures, with reference to Ireland, and having received no fresh instructions or support from the British cabinet, wished only to convoy some of the then pending bills up to the Lords; and,on the 14th of March, 1782, adjourned the parliament to the 16th of April. By that time a general change having taken place in the British ministry, the Rockingham party having gained the ascendancy, Mr. Eden went to London with Lord Carlisle’s resignation of the lieutenancy of that kingdom, desiring only time to make some necessaiy arrangements, and to close the session of parliament. His lordship was succeeded in the viceroyalty by the Duke of Portland, who arrived in Dublin on the 14th of April, accompanied by Colonel Fitzpatrick (brother to Lord Ossory) as his secretary. His grace, on his asrival, was hailed by all ranks as the harbinger of liberty, conciliation, and peace.

Parliament met according to adjournment, on the lSlh of April; the galleries and bar of the House of Commons {203} were crowded, and expectation was raised to enthusiasm. The resolutions then moved by Mr. Grattan were objected to at the Castle, not so much for their substance (for the British ministry meant fairly) as because they were thought to require some modifications, which, in the opinion of Mr. Grattan and his friends, would have diminished their weight and efficacy. Perhaps the Duke of Portland might think they would not meet the concurrence of the British cabinet without some alteration. The good Lord Charlemont had several interviews with his grace on the subject, in the course of which he declared his intention, and that of his friends, to move the resolutions again in both Houses, without any alteration; and that ministers might take what course they thought fit. In this state of uncertainty, when the House met, it was wholly unknown to Lord Charlemont and his friends, whether the resolutions and address which Mr. Grattan had undertaken to move, would be opposed by government or not. Mr. Grattan, however, persevered; and, though much indisposed, prefaced his declaration of rights by a most splendid oration, in which he observed, “he was not very old, and yet he remembered Ireland a child. He had watched her growth; from infancy she grew to arms, from arms to liberty. She was not now afraid of the French, she was not now afraid of the English, she was not now afraid of herself; her sons were no longer an arbitrary gentry; a ruined commonalty; protestants oppressing catholics; catholics groaning under oppression: but she was now an united land.” He stated the three great causes of complaint on the part of Ireland; the declaratory statute of George the First, enabling the British parliament to make laws to bind Ireland the perpetual mutiny bill, which rendered the standing army of Ireland independent of the control of parliament; - and the unconstitutional powers of the Irish privy council to mutilate or suppress bills of the Irish parliament on their way to England for the royal assent. The repeal of these obnoxious statutes, and the abolition of that most im{204} proper sway of the Irish privy council, were, be said, the terms on which alone he could be induced to support the government: the address to his majesty stating the grievances of Ireland, and the declaration of right, were then proved by him in answer to the king’s message. Notwithstanding his indisposition, his exertions were so great, that Lord Charlemont often declared, that if ever spirit could be said to act independent of body, it was on that occasion. The sense of the House in favour of the address was so unequivocally manifested, that all opposition (if any were intended) was relinquished. Colonel Fitzpatrick acted with his usual good sense, and suffered the address to pass unanimously. In fact, had government shewed itself any way hostile to the address, it must have been left in a minority, as several of the old court had pledged themselves to a support of Mr. Grattan in this instance; and many of that body would have joined him, uot from the slightest regard to a declaration of right, or its movers, but from their antipathy to a Whig ministry, which they would have most gladly embarrassed, and indeed overthrown, if in their power. The British minister acted with candour and magnanimity. Mr. Fox moved the repeal of the obnoxious statute of George the First, in the British House of Commons, “and never (said Mr. Grattan) did a British minister support such honourable claims with such constitutional arguments.” The bill rendering the parliament of Ireland independent of that of Great Britain, passed through both Houses, coupled with a resolution, “That it was essentially necessary to the mutual happiness of the two countries, that a firm and solid connection should be forthwith established by the consent of both, and that his majesty should be requested to give the proper directions for promoting the same.”

If any thing could surpass the patriotic zeal, and temperate firmness which marked the conduct of the Irish parliament and people, it was the unbounded joy and generous gratitude they manifested on this first pledge of political sincerity on the part of the British government
{205} towards Ireland. The parliament voted twenty thousand seamen for his majesty’s navy, and the whole volunteer body cheerfully engaged to contribute their aid and influence in raising the men.

No sooner had the important motion been disposed of, than Mr. Bagenal, a man of sterling sense, and an inflexible patriot, rose; and, after congratulating his country, Great Britain, his majesty, and his ministers, for having obtained the greatest of all political blessings, he called upon the house to confer some signal mark of a great and grateful nation, upon their illustrious benefactor Mr. Grattan; whose efforts in procuring them these blessings, had been timed and conducted with so much wisdom; and considering this great and good man as the father of his regenerated country, he further called upon them to look upon him as the special instrument which benign providence had used, to convert the oppression and bondage of their country, into freedom and independence. “Far be it from me (said he) to compare even the services of Marlborough to those, for which we stand indebted; we have no deductions to make from our gratitude; without protracting, or any public expence, his efforts “have been timed and conducted with so much wisdom, and the appearance of such a being on earth, was so esseotial to the establishment of liberty at this most critical juncture, that without superstition, men may well record him amongst the most propitious interpositions of heaven. He has crowned his work; and under his auspices the throne of freedom is fixed upon so certain a basis, and will probably be always so well supported by the doe influence the public are likely to acquire under his system, that, with the blessing of God, there is no danger of parliament itself ever being able to shake it; nor shall parliament, I trust, ever again be profanely styled omnipotent. I am conscious I might have anticipated men infinitely better qualified to bring such a measure forward; one excuse I have, - for it is not the impatient wish that every body must have, to see such a character {206} exalted, - not any little vanity to distinguish myself; but, as I never had any private acquaintance, nor private conversation with our great benefactor, I thought it might come as well from one from whom he could not have any claim, as from those distinguished personages that he is intimate with. Virtue, to be sure, is its own reward; and we know, that our generous benefactor is in his own sphere of happiness, content; but shall we be content without doing our duty, - shall we be ungrateful? God forbid! Gratitude seems to be a virtue peculiarly adapted to nations that have received such benefits as ours; it is often neglected by individuals, because it is often out of their power to be as grateful as they wish; we, I trust, shall never have such another opportunity of exercising ours. God forbid we should let it slip.”

He then concluded by giving notice, that on the morrow after the grant to his majesty should have been settled, and a proper thanksgiving offered to heaven for the recovery of their rights, he would move that the House should resolve itself into a committee, to lake intn consideration the sum they should grant for the purchasing an estate, and building a suitable mansion for their illustrious benefactor, Henry Grattan, Esq. and his heirs, for ever, in testimony of their gratitude for the unequalled service he had done for the kingdom of Ireland, whichwm afterwards, on May 7th, fixed at £50,000; which resolution the House unanimously agreed to, and resolved that an address should be presented to the lord-lieutenant that he would be pleased to lay before his majesty the humble desire of that House, that he would direct that sum to be laid out in the purchase of lands in the kingdom of Ireland, to be settled on Henry Grattan, Esq. and his heirs. Ere the rejoicings of the people were concluded, the demon of discord was busy in sowing discontent, jealousy, and envy, both within and without parliament. The two great rival orators, Messrs. Grattan and Flood, who appeared equally bent and determined upon acquiring and securing the civil freedom of their country, had different {207} pleas of merit for their conduct. Mr. Flood had for seven years enjoyed one of the most lucrative offices under government, which he sacrificed to his patriotism in the present hour. Mr. Grattan had never been in place; and now, that he might have come in, through his patriotism he declined it: but the honourable tribute of gratitude shewn to Mr. Grattan by the vote and address of the Commons, appears to have been productive of jealousy in the breast of Mr. Flood, and some few of his most intimate friends and admirers. The grounds of this unfortunate jealousy fully appeared within three days after Mr. Bagenal’s motion in favour of Mr. Grattan; when Mr. Montgomery (of Donegal) “called the attention of the House to an honourable gentleman, the best, the most able, the most indefatigable, the most sincere, that had ever sacrificed private interest to the advantage of his country. After such a description, be said he need not name Mr. Flood; who had relinquished the most lucrative offices of the state, rather than desert the constitution of Ireland: and, as he knew the present administration intended to raise its glory, by acting on the most liberal principles of freedom, he gave notice, that he did intend to move for an address to his majesty, that he would be graciously pleased to restore the Right Hon. Henry Flood to the office he lately held, and in this he hoped for the concurrence of the minister. He would not, be said, move for any pecuniary reward, as he knew the right hon. gentleman in question was above receiving any alms from his country?” He was called upon to name a day; but Colonel Fitzpatrick having observed, that the place of Mr. Flood was no longer vacant, when, after some desultory observations, Mr. Montgomery abandoned his intention.

On the 28th of October, 1783, on the motion of Sir Henry Cavendish, on the subject of retrenchment, which was supported by Mr. Flood, and opposed by Mr. Grattan, the debate became so personal and overheated between these two rival orators, that they were both ordered into {208} custody, in order to prevent any mischievous consequence of their unhappy difference. Although the speeches of both abound with much personality, yet they are too eloquent to be omitted, - we therefore insert the whole of the unhappy dispute.

Mr. Flood prefaced his speech by observing - “I find myself little capable of speaking to this question, oppressed with sickness as I am; not in the least degree expecting such a question this night, and more astonished than ever I was in my life, to find the least symptom of opposition arising on the other side of the House. The opposition to it should originate here, for the resolution does not go as far as it ought to do. In Lord Townshend’s administration, a resolution was proposed, ‘that the condition of this country required every practicable retrenchment to be made in its expenses;’ and the administration of that day thought they had done enough, and allowed themselves latitude sufficient, by amending it with the words - ‘consistent with the welfare thereof, and the honourable support of his majesty’s government;’ though the resolution so amended stood then exactly like the present motion. (Here the clerk, at Mr. Flood’s desire, read the former resolution.) But, I think, this motion still allows too great an inlet to public profusion. Some men will think of their own welfare, when the welfare of the country is the object, and include their own support within the honourable support of his majesty’s government. I did not, therefore, think any men on the side of administration would have opposed the motion; I rather supposed they would have called out in triumph to let it pass; they would have exulted to see ‘the new commons the new country.’ Ireland, in its emancipated and dignified state, tolerate the nonsense that was current in Lord Townshend’s administration!

“I am as willing as any man to pay compliment to ministry, both here and in England, to allow them every degree of credit for their honourable intentions; I have not the smallest ground of animosity or resentment to them, and {209} when I hear economy recommended from the throne, almost in the words of the honourable baronet, I am astonished at an opposition to his motion. Indeed, I believe the words of that recommendation were by some accident misplaced, or that government has not digested the plan of retrenchment; they should not have followed immediately the mention of the Genevan colony, a body of virtuous men, who, to avoid the most ignominious slavery, have sought an asylum in the arms of this country. It was not the proper place to use the word economy: it there disgraces the virtuous and generous act of men, who have just recovered their own liberty; by placing it there, we may lose a great deal of honour, but can save very little money. But it is not to such little things we are to look for relief; our retrenchments should reach establishments, and not, like England, plunge deeper each day in ruin. Ministry both here and in that kingdom, have been often warned of the fatal consequences that must follow; but these warnings have been treated as the visions of speculative men. England, that great and mighty country, now staggers under a load of debt, distressed and dismembered; her expenses overwhelm her; and* where is the man who will say, she shall be redeemed i where is the man who will say, I will redeem her, and will say how? Though every little minister, or every little man who imagines he is a minister, is ready to undertake the management of her affairs; where is the man who will say, that Ireland ought to have a peace establishment of fifteen thousand men I When the augmentation took place in Lord Townshend’s administration, this country was unable to bear it; and since that day, we have been involving her deeper and deeper, because we at first engaged her in an undertaking beyond her strength. When all the world united against Britain, and she was surrounded with enemies on every side, we gave way to the feelings of our hearts and spared her four thousand men; and some time after, in the moment de flagrante bello we granted her more than half our remain{210}ing troops; if then, in time of war, the country could MW sist without troops, will any man say, that in time of profound peace she ought to support fifteen thousand men? No; now is the time for reducing your military establishment; let your intention be known this day, that the right honourable secretary may have time to communicate with England; if you neglect the present opportunity, no minister hereafter will have even a pretence for restoring the finances of this country.

“I am no partisan; either here or in England, I can gain nothing by it; I am ready in either place, like a mas, to support ministers while they are right; and whenever they are wrong, to oppose them, and resist their measures. At present, I hope my honourable friend will allow use to alter his motion, and state a precise idea; I would bare it run thus: Resolved, That the condition of thia country requires every practicable retrenchment, &c. and that the military establishment in its present state, affords room for effectual retrenchment.

“I love the army as a body of brave and worthy men; but I would not sacrifice the kingdom to their benefit. Now, Sir, if ministers really mean economy, they will agree with this amendment of mine; if not, they will amuse us with the words only.”

Mr. George Ponsonby. - “Sir, I can see as plainly as any man, the intent of the reflections thrown upon your predecessor in the chair; and I must say, as to the mover of this resolution, that no disapprobation of his gives me any but a pleasurable sensation, and I do at all times feel that supreme contempt for his disapprobation and opinion which I now take the liberty to declare.” Mr. Ponsonby then entered into a defence of his father’s (the late Speaker) conduct; he recited the history of that time. He said, “that Mr. Flood had exerted himself to support his father’s interest against Lord Townshend’s attacks, and asked why, when virtue in the shape of Lord Townshend, had overturned interest, the alleged system of profusion had not been overturned also? He declared his {211} firm reliance on the Duke of Portland and his friends, that they intended an effectual and satisfactory reform; and concluded, that if the honourable baronet thought the circle in which he sat, was composed of men grown old in iniquity, it would be but charitable for him to come /amongst them, as. only from his virtuous contact and indefatigable labours, they could hope to be brought iqto the road of righteousness.”

Mr. Flood said, “he had not supported Mr. Poosonby’s interest, but he had opposed Lord Townshend’s administration: he said this to exculpate Mr. Ponsonby from the charge of ingratitude, for when he had felt the hand of power, Mr, Ponsonby had not supported him; but be never looked at such little things as the interest of particular men of parties: they appeared great indeed to the men who were engaged in them; but in the eyes of the man who contemplates .the public welfare, they vanish into nothing. Had I, said he, been his father’s supporter, the honourable gentleman but ill requited me, when in his loudest tone, he cried out to have me dismissed, and seemed to reproach ministers with pusillanimity for delaying the sentence. He declared, indeed, that he had no personal dislike to me, but it was only to oblige one or two particular friends; yet the gentleman boasts of Whig principles, Whig connexions: Whig friends he may justly boast; but such conduct was a manifestation of Whig apostacy. God and nature have established this limit to power, - it cannot long subsist divested of rectitude. Do we mean to take up the words of retrenchment ourselves, or will we leave it to others to economise for net if we proceed upon this business, the people will stand grateful and admiring spectators of our progress; if not, they may perhaps take it up themselves: let us then act honestly; let us tell Great Britain what no man can deny, that the military is the place to make retrenchment. I will suppose ministers as good as any man can wish, but ’tis our duty to give them an opportunity of exorcising their honest intentions.” {211}

Mr. Grattan. - “I shall not trouble you long, nor take up the time of the House, by apologising for bodily infirmity, or the affectation of infirmity. I shall not speak of myself, or enter into a defence of my character, having never apostatised. I think it is not necessary for the House now to investigate what we know to be fact. I think it would be better to go into the business, as the House did upon another occasion, without the formality of the committee’s report. As to myself, the honourable reward that a grateful nation has bestowed upon me … for ever binds me to make every return in my power, and particularly to oppose every unnecessary expense. I am far from thinking with the honourable gentleman, as to the speech; and I believe he will find instances, where economy has been recommended from the throne, but prodigality practised. This was the case in Lord Harcourt’s administration; - an administration which had the support of the honourable gentleman, and therefore he, of all men, cannot be at a loss to reject that illusory economy, which has so often appeared in the speeches of lord-lieutenants. With respect to the Genevese, I never could have thought it possible to give the speech such a bias as has been mentioned, and that people will be deceived, if they give credit to any declaration that infers from the words of the speech, any thing but an honest economy in applying the public money fairly to their use. The nation has derived great honour from this transaction, and I would be sorry to have it tarnished by inference and insinuation.

“In 1771, when the burdens of the country were comparatively small, I made a motion similar to this; the honourable gentleman then opposed me. I have his sanction, now, that I was right, and he was wrong; and Isay this, that though gentlemen may for a while vote against retrenchments, they will at last see the necessity of them. Yet, while I think retrenchments absolutely necessary, I am not very sure, that this is just the time to make it in the army; now when England has acted justly, I will not say generously; {213} when sbe has lost her empire; when she still feels the wounds of the last unhappy war, and comforts herself only with the faithful friendship of Ireland. If in 1769, when the liberties of Ireland were denied, and those of America in danger, it was thought unadvisable to retrench our army, there can be no such reason to reduce it now, when both are acknowledged and confirmed. When we voted four thousand men to butcher our brethren in America, the honourable gentleman should have opposed that vote; but perhaps he will be able to explain the propriety of sending four thousand Irishmen thither. But why not look for retrenchment in the revenue and other departments. In my mind, the proper mode would be, to form a fair estimate of what would be a reasonable peace establishment, and reduce our several departments to it.”

Mr. Flood. - “The right honourable member can have no doubt of the propriety of my saying a word in reply to what he has delivered; every member in that House can bear witness of the infirmity I mentioned, and therefore, it required but little candour to make a nocturnal attack upon that infirmity: but I am not afraid of the right honourable member; I will meet him any where, or upon any ground, by night or by day. I would stand poorly in my own estimation, and in my country’s opinion, if I did not stand far above him. I do not come here dressed in a rich wardrobe of words to delude the people; I am not one who has promised repeatedly to bring in a bill of rights, yet does not bring in that bill or permit any other person to do it; I am not one who threatened to impeach the chief justice of the king’s bench, for acting under an English law, and afterwards shrunk from that business; I am not the author of the simple repeal; I am not one who, after saying the parliament was a parliament of prostitutes, endeavoured to make their voices subservient to my interest; I am not one who would come at midnight, and attempt by a vote of this House, to stifle the voice of the people, which my egregious folly had raised against me; I am not the gentleman who sub{214}sists upon your accounts; I am not the mendicant patriot who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt payment; I am not the man who in this House loudly complained of an infringement made by England, in including Ireland in a bill, and then sent a certificate to Dungannon that Ireland was not included. I never was bought by the people, nor ever sold them: the gentleman says, be never apostatised, but I say I never changed my principles: let every m say the same, and let the people believe them if they can. But if it be so bad a thing to take an office in the state* how comes the gentleman connected with persons in office? They, I hope, are men of virtue; or, how could the gentleman so closely connected with Colonel Fitzpatrick? I object to no man for being in office; a patriot in office is the more a patriot for being there. There was a time when the glories of the great Duke of Marlborough shrunk and withered before those of the right honourable gentleman; when palaces superior to Blenheim were to be built for his reception; when pyramids and pillars were to be raised, and adorned with emblems and inscriptions sacred to his virtue: but the pillars and pyramids are now sunk, though then the great Earl of Chatham was held inferior to him; however, he is still so great that the Queen of France, I dare say, will have a song made on the name of Grattan.

“Lord Harcourt practised economy - but what was the economy of the Duke of Portland? £100,000 was voted to raise twenty thousand seamen, though it was well known, that one-third of that number could not be raised; and what was the application of the money? It was applied to the raising of the execrated fencibles.

“It is said, I supported Lord Harcourt’s administrations It is true; but I never deserted my principles, but carried them into the cabinet with me. A gentleman, who now hears me, knows that I proposed to the privy council * Irish mutiny bill, and that not with a view of any parliamentary grant. I supported an absentee tax; and while {215} I was in office, registered my principles in the books of government; and the moment I could not influence government to the advantage of the nation, I ceased to act with them. I acted for myself. I was the first who ever told them, that an Irish mutiny bill must be granted,. If this country is now satisfied, is it owing to that gentleman? No; the simple repeal, disapproved and scouted by all the lawyers in England and in Ireland, shews the contrary; and the only apology he can make is, that he is no lawyer at all. A man of warm imagination aid brilliant fancy, will sometimes be dazzled with his own ideas, and may for a moment fall into error; but a man of sound head could not make so egregious a mistake, and a man of an honest heart would not persist in it after it was discovered. I have now done: and, give me leave to say, if the gentleman enters often into this kind of colloquy with me, he will not have much to boast of at the end of the session.

Mr. Grattan. – “In respect to the House, I could wish to avoid personality, and return to the question, but I must request liberty to explain some circumstances alluded to by the honourable member. The honourable member has alluded to St. Christopher’s bill, I will declare the fact - he may tell a story: when I received a copy of that bill, it gave me much pain and much offence; I thought I saw the old intention of binding Ireland by English laws; I therefore spoke to that effect in this House; I also shewed the bill to all the most able and virtuous men in this kingdom, who were of opinion, that my suggestion was wrong; under this opinion I acquiesced, and the opinion has justified it: as to coming at midnight to obtain a vote, imposing silence on the people, I deny it; it was mis-stated in the papers; my resolution was to declare this country free, and that any person who should speak or write to the contrary, was a public enemy. All the House, all the revered and respected characters in this kingdom heard me, and know what I say is true. But it is not the slander of a bad
{216} tongue of a bad character that can defame me. I maintain my reputation in public and in private life; no man, who has not a bad character can say I ever deceived him, no country has ever called me cheat. I will suppose a public character, a man not now in this House, but who formerly might have been here; I will suppose it was his constant practice to abuse every man who differed from him, and to betray every man who trusted him; I will suppose him active; I will begin from his cradle, and divide his life into three stages - in the first, he was intemperate; in the second, corrupt; and in the third, seditious.

“Suppose him a great egotist, his honour equal to his oath, and I will stop him and say, Sir, your talents are not so great as your life is infamous; you were silent for years, and you were silent for money: when affairs of consequence to the nation were debating, you might be seen passing by these doors like a guilty spirit, just waiting for the moment of putting the question, that you might hop in and give your venal vote; or, at times, with a vulgar brogue, apeing the manner, and affecting the infirmities of Lord Chatham; or, like a kettle-drummer, lather yourself into popularity to catch the vulgar; or you might be seen hovering over the dome, like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral notes, a cadaverous aspect, and broken beak, ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey: you can be trusted by no man; the people cannot trust you; the ministers cannot trust you; you deal out the most impartial treachery to both; you tell the nation it is ruined by other men, while it is sold by you; you fled from the embargo; you fled from the mutiny bill; you fled from the sugar bill; I therefore tell you in the face of your country, before all the world, and to your beard, you are not an honest man.”

Mr. Flood. - “I have heard a very extraordinary harangue indeed, and I challenge any man to say, that any thing half so unwarrantable was ever uttered in this House. The right honourable gentleman set out with declaring, he did not wish to use personality, and no sooner has he opened his mouth, than forth issues all the venom that ingenuity and disappointed vanity, for two years brooding over corruption, has produced: but it cannot taint my public character; four-and-twenty years employed in your service has established that; and as to my private, let that be learned from my tenants, from my friends, from those under my own roof; to those I appeal, and this appeal I boldly make, with utter contempt of insinuations, false as they are illiberal. The whole force of what has been said, rests upon this, that I once accepted office, and this is called apostacy; but is a man the less a patriot, for being an honest servant of the crown? As to me, I took as great a part with the first office of the state at my back, as ever the right honourable gentleman did with mendicancy behind him?”

Mr. Flood proceeded to defend his character, when, at a pause, the Speaker took an opportunity to interfere, and with the utmost politeness, and in the kindest manner, entreated him to forbear, declaring, that he had suffered inexpressible pain during this contest; and that nothing but the calls of the House to hear the two members, could have made him so long sit silent. He again besought Mr. Flood to sit down, and the House joining with the chair, that gentleman, after sundry efforts to speak, was obliged to desist, and soon after retired.

Mr. Flood was sought for that night by his kinsman, Sir Frederick Flood, but could not be found. On the 1st of November, 1785, he came to the House, and thus resumed the subject:

“Sir, I wish to take the earliest opportunity of speaking a few words to you, and addressing a few to the House, upon the situation in which I left the House last Tuesday. You heard, Sir, and the public heard me, the subject, as I think, of an unwarrantable attack. I rose to .defend myself, I am sure with temper. I am not lightly moved; and I think I should be lightly moved, indeed, if I could have been moved by that. I was, however, interrupted, {218} though I did not bring any fictitious subject before you, or set out without the least appearance of any argument. In consequence of interruption, Sir, I left the House, but soon after I understood, that the House thought proper to say, they would give me liberty to proceed; and I wish to take the earliest opportunity of returning them my thanks for that permission. At the same time, Sir, that I return my thanks for that permission, I hope they will suffer me to render it not an empty indulgence; but, upon the present occasion, to take up the subject where I left it last night. (Mr. Toler rose to order; but Mr. flood proceeded.) I hope gentlemen will not interrupt me: when they find me going out of order, when they find am drawing fictitious characters, let them stop me; when I say any thing unparliamentary; when I recall the asperity of that day, which, whilst I despise, I must disapprove. I rise in defence of what I think an injured character. As I have endeavoured to defend the rights of this country for twenty-four years, I hope they will permit me to defend my reputation. My life, Sir, has been divided into three parts, and it has been dispatched by three epithets: one part, Sir, that which preceded Lord Harcourt’s administration; another, which passed between Lord Harcourt’s and Lord Carlisle’s; and the third, which is subsequent. The first has a summary justice, or injustice done to it, by being said to be intemperate; the second is treated in like manner, by being said to be venal; and the conduct of the third is said to be that of an incendiary."

Mr. O’Hara. - To order; it is against order to speak of what passed on a former day, not that any thing the honourable gentleman has said now, is improper; but that the order of the House forbids a reference to the debates of a former day."

Mr. Flood. - “I take this matter up, upon the ground of an interrupted debate; it is in that light it comes within order. I have a right to begin where I was interrupted; but, Sir, there are some cases of so particular a nature, that a strict adherence to a general order, would be the {319} height of injustice. In the attack made upon my person, I went back, not only to the arguments of two or three days before, but to the conduct of twenty years antecedent; therefore, Sir, I hope, that if animadversions of twenty years are allowed to one, I may have an opportunity of referring to arguments used three days ago. With respect to that period of my life, which is dispatched in the word intemperate, I beg gentlemen would consider the situation of public characters, if that is to be their treatment: that period takes in a number of years, and in which the public were pleased to give me their sentence of approbation. Sir, it includes, for I wish to speak to facts, not to take it up upon epithets, it includes the Duke of Bedford’s, Lord Halifax’s, the Duke of Northumberland’s, Lord Hertford’s, and Lord Townshend’s.”

“Now, Sir, as to the fact of intemperance, I will state to you how that stands, and let the gentleman see how plain a tale shall put him down. Of those five administrations, there were three I could not be said, in any sense of the word, to oppose at all; I mean the three first. I certainly voted against the secretary of the day, but oftener voted with him. In Lord Hertford’s administration, I had attained to a certain view and decided opinion of what was fit, in my mind, to be done for this country. I had fixed upon the great objects of public utility. I endeavoured to attain them, with that spirit and energy, with which it is my character and nature to speak and to act? - as I must take the disadvantages of my nature, will take the advantages of it too. These three great objects were resisted by that administration; what was the consequence? A conflict arose between that administration and me; but that conflict ought not to be called opposition on my part; no, it ought rather to be called opposition on theirs; I was the propounder, and they resisted my propositions. This may be called a conflict, not an opposition to that administration. What were those three objects? One was to prove, that the constitution of parliament in this kingdom did still exist; {220} that it had not been taken away by the law of Poyning; but that it was an infamous perversion of that statute, by which the constitution had suffered: the other was the establishment of a constitutional military force, in superaddition to a standing army. The only idea that ever occurred to England, or any free country of Europe, I adopted, namely, that of a constitutional militia. At that time the idea of a volunteer force had not arisen; therefore, I adopted the idea which at that time appeared to be best. The third great object I took up as necessary for this country, was a law for limiting the duration of parliaments; these were the three great, salutary, and noble objects, worthy of the enlarged mind of an enlarged country. I pursued them with ardour, I do not deny it; but I did not pursue them with intemperance. I am sure I did not appear to the public to do so; they gave my exertions many flattering testimonies of their approbation. There is another proof that I was not intemperate; I was successful: intemperance and miscarriage are apt to go together, but temperance and success are associated by nature. This is my plain history with regard to that period. The clumsiness of virulence, of invective, may require to be sheathed in a brilliancy of diction, but plain truth and plain sense are best delivered in plain terms. I now come to that period in which Lord Harcourt governed, and which is stigmatised by the word venal. I say Lord Harcourt, for in my consideration of his administration, I will include that of Lord Townshend. If every man who accepts an offer is venal, and an apostate, I certainly cannot acquit myself of the charge, nor is it necessary. I should have so many associates in the crime, if ever there was a crime in what multitudes would defend. I am sensible multitudes and majorities would not be wanting to defend that. But I say, either it is a crime, or it is not; if it be a crime universally, let it be a crime universally ascribed. But, Sir, I say it is not fair, that one set of men should be treated by that honourable member as great friends and lovers of their country, not with{221}standing they are in office; and another man, because he WM in office, should be treated as an enemy and an apostate; but what is the truth? Everything of this sort depends upon the principles on which office is taken, and on which it is retained: with regard to me, let no man imagine I am preaching up a doctrine for my own convenience; there is not a man less concerned in the propagation of it. I have no treaty with the right honourable gentleman on the floor, nor shall have any.

“Now, Sir, I shall beg leave shortly to state the manner in which I accepted that office, which I give you my word I never will resume. It was offered to me in the most honourable manner, with an assurance not only of being a placeman for my own profit, but a minister for the benefit of my country. My answer was, that I thought, in a constitution such as ours, an intercourse between the prince and the subject ought to be honourable; the being a minister ought to redound to a man’s credit; but I lamented that it often happened otherwise; men in office often gave up those principles, which they maintained before. I told, them, therefore, that my objections were not to the going into office, but to following the examples which I had sometimes seen before me. I mentioned the public principles I held. I said, if consistently with those principles, from an atom of which I would not depart, I could be of service to his majesty’s government, I was ready to be so; I speak in the presence of men, who know what I say. After the appointment had come over, and landed in this kingdom, I sent in writing to the chief governor, that I would not accept the office, unless upon that principle.

“Thus, Sir, I took office; the administration before I opposed only in part of it; in the first session of Lord Townshend, I did not oppose; I never opposed Lord Townshend till after his prorogation and protest. This appeared to me an infamous violation of the privileges of parliament. With regard to money bills, and after that protest, by which he endeavoured to make, the journals of {222} the House of Lords, instead of being the record of their privileges the monument of their disgrace, I opposed him; now what did I oppose in that administration. The violation of the privileges of this House, with regard to money bills, and the wanton augmentation of offices, by the division of the board of commissioners into two parts. In Lord Harcourt’s administration, what did I do? I had the two boards of commissioners reduced again into one. I do not say my single voice effected this but as far as it had any efficacy, it insisted on having the twelve commissioners again reduced to seven, and the two boards So one, a saving, including the whole arrangement, of £10,000 a year to the nation. It went further; it insisted to have every altered money bill thrown out, and privy council money bills not defended by the crown. Thus, instead of giving sanction to the measures I had opposed, my conduct was in fact to register my principles in the records of the court, to make the privy council a witness to the privileges of parliament, and to give final energy to the tenets, with which I commenced my life. Economy did did not stop with the reduction of the commissioners’ board. The right honourable gentleman* who has censured me, in order to depreciate that economy, said, that we had swept with the feather of economy, the pens and paper of your table: a pointed and brilliant expression b far from a just argument.

“This country has no reason to be ashamed of that species of economy, when the great nation of Great Britain bas been obliged to descend to an economy as minute. Neither, Sir, was this all; it is not my fault, if infinitely more was not done for this country upon that occasion; they were offered a saving, they did not chuse [sic] to take it; they were offered the absentee tax, and they refused it; I am not to blame for that, it was a part of the saving proposed. If administration were wrong on that occasion, they were wrong with the prejudices of half a century; they were wrong with every great writer that had ever written upon the subject of Ireland; they were wrong {223} with some of the plainest principles, aa it seems, of human nature in their favour. I will suppose the determination not to accept it to have been right, still it was meritorious in adminitration to offer it: and, to shew that I was not under any undue influence of office, I appeal to the memory of many men present, whether, when the disposition of the House was made to alter upon that subject, and when administration yielded, not unwillingly, to the violence of parliament; I appeal to the conscious and public knowledge of many, whether I did veer and turn about with the secretary; or, whether I did not make a manly stand in favour of that principle; after having pledged myself to the public, I would rather break with a million of administrations than retract?

“I not only adhered to it, but by a singular instance of exertion, I forced it a second time under the consideration of this House. That this benefit was lost to this country, if it be a benefit, was not my fault. One thing I mast go back to; I had repeatedly pressed the bill for limiting the duration of parliament. In Lord Townshend’s time, I brought it in finally, and crowned it with success: thus I restored to the universal community of Ireland, a right of which they had been robbed for near a century, namely, their first and fundamental franchise as electors, without which this House is but a shadow. And thus, after having restored that root of all their other rights in Lord Townshend’s administration, after having restored economy, and reduced twelve commissioners to seven, in Lord Harcourt’s, I went on to the other great measure which I have mentioned, the militia law; and when a right honourable gentleman (Mr. Ogie) moved that question, I engaged all the interest I could with government on behalf of it; I rose up to second his motion, and declared I would support him and his militia bill to the last; accordingly, I gave him the assistance of my poor labours, and it was carried: thus, therefore, Sir, I say, that in that administration, in which I accepted office, instead of relinquishing -any principles, I preserved them. instead {224} of getting a minority to vote for them, I brought the majority to give an efficient sanction to their troth, by entering into office upon that occasion, and acting as I did; I acted the part of an honest minister between the prince and the people; in doing so, I think I was more a patriot, than if, out of office, I had made empty declamations on empty subjects, without any advantage to the public. Most of those who hear me can recollect the state of this kingdom at the close of Lord Townshend’s administration. I appeal to them all, and I ask, what was then my repute in the nation? I will not say it was the first, or the second, or the third, but did it not stand in an honourable rank, and among the former rather than among the last? In Lord Harcourt’s government, the vice-treasurership was offered to me, accompanied with every declaration that could render it acceptable to an honourable mind. When that office was offered to me, was my situation that of a reprobated man? Did the administration of England send over an office usually reserved for the parliament of England, and offer it of their own accord to a reprobated man? I take the facts of both countries to disprove this calumny. Is it since I have become a mark of obloquy? I Batter myself not. Lord Buckinghamshire’s administration succeeded. With regard to Lord Harcourt’s administration, the objection is, I did too much; the charge with regard to the other is, I did too little for it; those two accusations run a little in contrary directions, and, like a double poison, each may cure the operation of the other: but the fact is this, I acted not upon visions and imaginations, but on sound common sense, the best gift of God to man; which then told me, and still whispers, that some administrations deserve a more active support than others; that some administrations deserve little of either: I adapted my conduct to those three conditions; I did not run headlong against government at one time, and with government at another, bat adapted my conduct as I ought to do, to what I saw, and what I felt. Did I support Lord Harcourt? Why? Be{225}cause he gave me an influence in his councils. It is nonsense to say, a man is not to support his own council; but the next administration took another direction, and they did not give me any influence in their councils. What was the consequence? I did not give them support. Was there any thing more fair? I felt myself a man of too much situation to be a mere placeman. If not a minister to serve my country, I would not be the tool of salary. What was the consequence? I voted with them in matters of importance, when they were clearly right; I voted against them in matters of importance when they were clearly wrong; and in matters of small moment I did not vote at all; and why? I scorned, by voting for them in such matters, to seem to pay court. To vote against them in such matters would have been absurd. What remained? Not to vote at all. If you call that absconding, going behind the chair, or escaping into the corridore, call it what you please, I say it was right. This is my plain way of dealing; it is common sense. I told Lord Buckinghamshire I would not attend the cabinet councils of the sage Mr. Heron. Was that duplicity? I think not. I did more; I sent my resignation to England, to the same friend through whom the first communication was made to me on the subject of office; but, from the ideas of friendship to me, he took time to consider, and at length declined to deliver my resignation. I have said something of the middle period, I shall now come to the third, viz. Lord Carlisle’s administration, in which my conduct has been slandered as the conduct of an incendiary. When that idea took place in some minds I cannot tell, but this I am sure of, that the right honourable gentleman who censured me, was called an incendiary a that time, and so perhaps might I; but I am sure the right honourable gentleman at that time, did not think me an incendiary more than himself. There was not a single instance in which he did not co-operate. If I am an incendiary, I shall gladly accept, therefore, of the society; of that right honourable gentleman who censured me, was called an incendiary a[t] that time, and so perhaps might I; but I am sure the right honourable gentleman at that time, did not think me an incendiary more than himself. There was not a single instance in which he did not co-operate. If I am an incendiary, I shall gladly accept, therefore, of the same society of that right honourable gentleman under the {226} same appellation [sic]: but he laughed at the folly of the accusation at that time, and so do I now. If I was an incendiary, it was for moving that the parliaments of both kingdoms have since given their sanction to; if that is to be incendiary, God grant I may continue so! In this administration it was, that I was dismissed from office; now, Sir, I do not know that in general my dismissal from office was thought any disgrace to me; I do not thing that this House or the nation thought me dishonoured by that dismissal. The first day I delivered thoses sentiments for which I was dismissed, I remember it well, I though it for my honour, some very honourable and worthy gentlemen, some since dead, and some still alive, one of whom I shall every love and shall ever lament; one of htem is dead since to every thing but his own honour and the grateful memory of his country; one of them who thought me so little of the character of an incendiary, that he crossed the House, together with others, to congratulate me on the honour of my conduct, and to embrace me in open parliament. At that moment I think I stood clear to the imputations of being an incendiary. The character of an incendiary, therefore, seemed to have been superinduced upon me of a sudden; it has sprouted out and germinated from that root of so much een, the simple repeal: since that moment only, it seems that I have been going down in the opinion of the pubic; since that moment they have found out that my character and conduct deserve all reprobation, and deserve the brand of being an incendiary; and yet I can hardly prevail upon myself to think that is the case, because, since that moment, I have received more honourable testimonies from every corner of the kingdom, than the right honourable member has received in the same period. I shall return once more to the sentiments of that beloved character I have just described: he was a man, over whoe life, or over whose grave, envy never hovered: he was a man, wishing ardewntly to serve his country himself, not wishing to monopolise the service, but wishing to partake and to com{226}municate the glory of what passed: he gave me, in his. motion for a free trade, a full participation of the honour. Upon another occasion he said, I remember the words, they are traced with the pencil of gratitude on my heart, “That I was a man whom the most lucrative office in the land had never warped in point of integrity.” The words were marked; l am sure I repeat them fairly; they are words I should be proud to have inscribed upon my tomb. Consider the man from whom they came; consider the magnitude of the subject on which they were spoken; consider the situation of the persons concerned, and it adds to, and multiplies the honour. My noble friend - I beg pardon, he did not live to be ennobled by patent, but he was born ennobled by nature; his situation at that moment was this: he had found himself obliged to surrender office, and enter into active opposition to that government, from whom he had received it. I remained in office, though under the circumstance of having sent in my resignation; that he did not know; in political position, therefore, we were contra-distinguished to each other: he did not know, while he was doing justice to me, but that be might be doing political detriment to himself; he did not know but he might serve the administration he opposed; but, careless of every thing except justice and honour, he gave the sentiments of his heart, and be approved. I have mentioned, Sir, that short period, doting which the character of an incendiary, if at all applicable to me, must have come upon me in the night, like an enemy, and have taken me unawares: I cannot think the opinion of the public so transformed, when I see every corner of the country expressing their approbation of my conduct, one after another; great and respectable societies of men, compared with whose sentiments the obloquy of an individual sinks into nothing. Even this very day, I have received from the united delegates of the province of Connaught, an approbation, with one voice, as they express it, of that conduct, which has been slandered as the conduct of an incendiary. Here is a {228} congregation of men, not one of whom I have ever seen, to none of whom I have ever a chance of doing ¦ service, who could have nothing in contemplation, bat the doing an act of justice. Sir, I may say, I had the same sanction from another province, that of Ulster. Bat it seems I went to Belfast in the character of an incendiary; I went to Dungannon in the character of an incendiary. Now, I went to neither of those places but by an invitation, and, if a person invited, be an incendiary, what must those be that give the invitation? If I am an incendiary, all Ulster is an incendiary; if I am an incendiary, all Connaught is an incendiary - with two provinces therefore, at my back, and with the parliament of England, behind me - in their having coincided honourably, and nobly in that sentiment, which I sustained, think I am not much afraid of any single and solitary accusation.. But I have not only the parliaments of both kingdoms, I have the judicial power in my favour. If my doctrine was not right, Lord Mansfield’s was not right; I ask you, was he wrong? It has been said he was the enemy of both countries on that occasion. But has the accusation been proved? Lord Mansfield has many political enemies. The administration at the time would have been glad to have proved him an enemy to both countries; yet, was there a man in the parliament of England, the greatest enemy to that noble judge, who attempted to find fault with his conduct? After having mentioned the judicial power, let me come to 8 highly respectable body, the corps of lawyers in this country, who, after six months meditation, by a committee chosen by ballot, gave their sanction to that opinion, which is the opinion of an incendiary. If [ deserve that name; if Lord Mansfield be an incendiary; if the parliament of England be an incendiary; if the corps of lawyers be incendiaries; tf the Ulster dek gates be incendiaries; if the Connaught delegates be incendiaries; and all the societies who have joined that opinion throughout the kingdom - if all these be incendiaries, in the name of God let me be added to the num{229}ber, and let me be an incendiary too. But though I may be such an incendiary, I will never be that which would deserve the name; I will never by any hollow composition lay the seed of future dissension, - I will go clearly and fully to the work. I will be satisfied when satisfaction is given; my nature is as prone to satisfaction, and as distant from chagrin as that of any man. I appeal to those who know me from my childhood, first at a public school, then at the university of this kingdom, then at the university of Oxford, and afterwards during twenty-four years, taking no very private part within the walls of this house. - I have spoken to facts: I do not mean to arraign. Any man may be mistaken, and I wish to suppose any man to be really mistaken, rather than be so intendedly. I would rather reconcile all men to the public, than make unnecessary divisions. But, though I would do every thing a man cao do to prevent dissension, I cannot be expected to sacrifice my character to unlimited obloquy. Sir, one circumstance I must mention, as it is somewhat extraordinary. It has been said by some authority on that side of the question, that I am the outcast of government, and of my prince; certainly, Sir, my dismissal from office was attended with the extraordinary circumstance of my dismissal from council; therefore I suppose it is that the right honourable member has called me the outcast of government and of my prince. It certainly, Sir, was an extraordinary transaction; but it was done in the case of Mr. Pulteney, - it was done in the case of the Duke of Devonshire: therefore I suppose it will not be a decisive proof of any reprobated or factious character in the person to whom it happened. It is the first time it has been mentioned to my disadvantage. It was in the House of Lords of England mentioned to the disadvantage of the minister who was supposed to have done it, by a most respectable character; it was thought not to my dishonour here; it was thought not to my dishonour in the House of Lords of Ireland, where I have lately received from a very eminent Peer, the sanction of sentiments very different from {231; note missing p.230 in printed text} perpetual disposition of her hereditary revenue by the latot proposition, the surrender of her commercial legislation by (be fourth, the restraint imposed on her from trading beyond the Cape of Magellan, by the ninth, were put in every point of view, in which reason and eloquence could render them impressive and convincing. On this side of the question, Mr. Grattan delivered a most eloquent and impressive speech, which he concluded in the following eoergetic language

“Contemplate for a moment the powers this bill presumes to perpetuate; a perpetual repeal of trial by jury; a perpetual repeal of the great charter; a perpetual writ of assistance; a perpetual felony to strike an exciseman!”

The late Chief Baron Burgh, speaking on the revenue bill, exclaimed, ‘You give to the dipping rule, what you should deny to the sceptre.’

“All the unconstitutional powers of the excise we are to perpetuate, the constitutional powers of parliament we are to abdicate. Can we do all this? Can we make these bulky surrenders, in diminution of the power, in derogation of the pride of parliament, and in violation of those eternal relationships, which the body that represents should bear to the community which constitutes?

“The prefence given for this unconstitutional idea is weak indeed, - that as the benefits are permanent, so should be the compensation. But trade laws are to follow their nature, revenue laws to follow theirs. On the permanent nature of commercial advantages depends the faith of trade, on the limited nature of revenue laws depends the existence of parliament; but the error of the argument arises from the vice of dealing. It is a market for a constitution; and a logic, applicable to barter only, is applied to freedom. To qualify this dereliction of every principle and power, the surrender is made constitutional; that is, the British market for the Irish constitution, the shadow of a market for the substance of a constitution. You are to reserve .an option, trade or liberty; if you mean to come to the British market, you must pass under the British yoke. I {232} object to this principle in every shape, whether you an?/ as the resolution was first worded, directly to transfer legislative power to the British parliament; whether, as it was afterwards altered, you are to covenant to subscribe her acts; or whether, as it is now softened, you are to take the chance of the British market, so long as you wave the blessings of the British constitution - terms dishonourable, derogatory, incapable of forming the foundation of any fair and friendly settlement, injurious to the political morality of the nation. I would not harbour a slavish principle, nor give it the hospitality of a night’s lodging in a land of liberty! Slavery is like any other vice, tolerate and you embrace: you should guard your constitution by settled maxims of honour, as well as wholesome rules of law; and one maxim should be, never to tolerate a condition which trenches on the privilege of parliament, or derogates from the pride of the island. Liberal in matters of revenue, practicable in matters of commerce, on these subjects I would be inexorable; if the Genius of Old England came to that bar, with the British Constitution in one hand, and in the other an offer of all that England retains, or all that she has lost of commerce, I should turn my back on the latter, and pay my obeisance to the blessings of her constitution; for that constitution will give you commerce, and it was the loss of that constitution that deprived you of commerce. Why are you not now a woollen country? because another country regulated your trade. Why are you not now a country of re-export? because another country regulated your navigation. I oppose the original terms as slavish, and I oppose the conditional clause as an artful way of introducing slavery, of soothing an high-spirited nation into submission by the ignominious delusion that she may shake off the yoke when she pleases, and once more become a free peoples. The direct unconstitutional proposition could not have been listened to, and therefore resort is bad to the only possible chance of destroying the liberty of the people, by holding up the bright reversion of the British consti{233}tution, and the speculation of future liberty, as a consolation for the present submission. But would any gentleman here wear a livery to-night, because he might lay it aside is the morning I or, would this House substitute another, because next year it might resume its authority, and once more become the parliament of Ireland? I do not believe we shall get the British, but I do not want to make an experiment on the British market, by making an experiment likewise on the constitution and spirit of the people of Ireland. But do not imagine, if you shall yield for a year, you will get so easily clear of this inglorious experiment; if this is not the British market, why accept the adjustment? and if it is, the benefit thereof may take away your deliberative voice. You will be bribed out of your constitution by your commerce: there are two ways of taking away free-will, the one by direct compulsion, the other by establishing a praepollent motive. Thus a servant of the crown may lose his free will, when he is to give his vote at the hazard of his office, and thus a parliament would lose its free will, if it acted under a conviction that it exercised its deliberative function at the risk of its commerce. No one question would stand upon its own legs, but each question would involve every consideration of trade, and indeed the whole relative situation of the two countries. - And I beseech you to consider that situation, and contemplate the powers of your own country, before you agree to surrender them. - Recollect that you have now a right to trade with the British plantations, in certain articles, without reference.to British duties; that you have a right to trade with the British plantations in every other article/ subject to the British duties; that you have a right to get clear of each and of every part of that bargain; that you have a right to take the produce of foreign plantations, subject to your own unstipulated .duties; that you have a right to carry on a free and unqualified trade, with the United States.of North America; that you have a right to. carry on an. experimental trade ill countries contiguous to which Great Britain has estab{234}lished her monopolies; the power of trade this, and an instrument of power, and station, and authority, in the British empire! Consider that you have likewise a right to the exclusive supply of your own market, and to the exclusive reserve of the rudiment of your manufactures; - that you have an absolute dominion over the public purse and over the collection of the revenue. If yon ask me how you shall use these powers, I say for Ireland, with due regard to the British nation, let them be governed by the spirit of concord, and with fidelity to the connection; but when the mover of the bill asks me to surrender those powers, I am astonished at him. I have neither ears, nor eyes, nor functions to make such a sacrifice. What! that free trade, for which we exerted every nerve in 1779; that free constitution for which we pledged life and fortune in 1782! Our lives are at the service of the empires but - our liberties! No - we received them front onr Father, which is in Heaven, and we will hand them down to our children. But, if gentlemen can entertain a doubt of the mischief of these propositions, are they convinced of their safety? the safety of giving up the government of your trade? No! the mischief is prominent, but the advantage is of a most enigmatical nature. Have gentlemen considered the subject, - have they traced even tbs map of the countries, the power or freedom of trading with whom they are to surrender for ever? Have they traced the map of Asia, Africa, and America? Do they know the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish settlements? Do they know the neutral powers of those countries, their produce, aptitudes and dispositions? Have they considered the state of North America? its present state, future growth, and every opportunity in the endten succession of time attending that nurse of commerce and asylum of mankind? Are they now competent to declare, on the part of themselves and all their posterity, that a free trade to those regions will never, in the efflux of time, be of any service to the kingdom of Ireland? If they have information on this subject, it must be by a communica{235}tion with God, for they have none with man; it must be inspiration, for it cannot be knowledge. In such circum-stances, to subscribe this agreement, without knowledge, without even the affectation of knowledge, when Great Britain, with ail her experience and every means of information from East Indies, West Indies, America, and with the official knowledge of Ireland at her feet, has taken six months to deliberate, and has now produced twenty resolutions, with a history to each, amounting to a code of empire, not a system of commerce: I say, in such circumstances, for Ireland to subscribe this agreement, would be infatuation; an infatuation to which the nation could not be a party, but would appear to be concluded, or indeed huddled, with all her posterity, into a fallacious arrangement, by the influence of the crown, without the deliberation of parliament, or the consent of the people! This would appear the more inexcusable, because we are not driven to it; adjustment is not indispensable; the great points have been carried! An inferior question about the home market has been started, and a commercial fever artificially raised; but, while the great points remain undisturbed, the nations cannot be committed; the manufacturers applied for protecting duties, and have failed; the minister offered a system of reciprocity, and succeeded in Ireland, but has failed in England; he makes you another offer, inconsistent with the former, which offer the English do not support and the Irish deprecate, M We can go on; we have a growing prosperity, and as yet an exemption from intolerable taxes; we can from time to time regulate our own commerce, cherish our manufactures, keep down our taxes, and bring on our people, and brood over the growing prosperity of Young Ireland. In the mean time we will guard our free trade fend free constitution, as our only real resources; they were the struggles of great virtue, the result of much perseverance, and our broad base of public action! We should recollect that this House may now, with peculiar propriety, interpose, because you did, with great zeal and success, {236} on this very subject of trade, bring on the people, and you did, with great prudence and moderation, on another occasion, check a certain description of the people, and you are now called upon by consistency to defend the people. Thus mediating between extremes, you will preserve this island long, and preserve her with a certain degree of renown. Thus faithful to the constitution of the country, you will command and ensure her tranquillity; for our best authority with the people is, protection afforded against the ministers of the crown. It is not public clamour but public injury that should alarm yon; your high ground of expostulation with your fellow-subjects has been your services; the free trade you have, given the merchant, and the free constitution you have given the island! Make your third great effort; preserve them, and with them preserve unaltered your own calm sense of public right, the dignity of the parliament, the majesty of the people, and the powers of the island! Keep them unsullied, uncovenanted, uncircumscribed, and unstipendiary! These paths are the paths to glory; and, let me add, these ways are the ways of peace: so shall the prosperity of your country, though without a tongue to thank you, yet laden with the blessings of constitution and of comment - bear attestation to your services, and wait on your progress with involuntary praise!”

On the 6th of March, 1786, on Mr. Forbes’s motion that the present application, and amount of pensions on the civil establishment, were a grievance to the nation, and demanded redress, Mr. Grattan closed the speech which he made on the occasion, by asserting, that, “if he should vote that pensions were not a grievance, he should veto an impudent, an insolent, and a public lie."

On the same day Mr. Grattan exclaimed, “When gentlemen say, that the new charge for pensions is small, let me assure them, they need not be alarmed; the charge will be much greater; for unless your interposition should deter, what else is there to check it? Will public poverty? No. New taxes? No. Gratitude for those taxes? No. {237} Principle? No. Profession? No. The love of fame, or sense of infamy? No. Confined to no one description of merit, or want of character, under the authority of that list, every man, woman, or child, in Ireland, have pretensions to become a public incumbrance; so that since government went so far, I marvel that they have stopped, unless the pen fell out of their hand from fatigue, for it could not be from principle. No, Sir, this list will go on; it will go on till the merchant shall feel it; until the pension list shall take into its own hand the keys of taxation; and, instead of taxing licence to sell, shall tax the article and manufacture itself; until we shall lose our great commercial resource, a comparative exemption from taxes, the gift of our poverty, and get an accumulation of taxes to be the companion of our poverty; until public indignation shall cry shame upon us, and the morality of a serious and offended community shall call out for the interposition of law.”

On the 9th of February previous, Mr. Grattan, after having insisted upon the necessity of making a stand against the growth of expense, or else their constitution and commerce were at an end, drew the following picture of the nation’s expense: “See the chart of your credit, an evanescent speck just rising above the plane of the horizon, and then it drops; while your debt ascends like a pyramid, with an audacious defalcation, and almost culminates on your meridian. Midway of this mountain of debt, you will discern a line marking your effort to put an end to your practice of running in debt.” The subject of tythes took up the principal attention of the nation, both within and without parliament, during the first months of the year 1787. The speech which Mr. Grattan delivered on this important subject in the House of Commons, on the 14th of February, 1787, made such a sensation in the country, that it was published with a very spirited preface, and ran through four editions in less than a month. Upon a division, however, in the House, forty-nine only voted for Mr. Grattan’s motion against one {238} hundred and twenty-one. On the 14th of April, Mr. Grattan, with undaunted perseverance, returned once more to the subject of tythes, and submitted to the House a string of resolutions, which be purposed moving regularly in the course of the session ensuing. Each resolu- tion he followed up with a most impressive comment. Nothing else of importance came before parliament during that session, and it was prorogued on the 14th of April, 1788, to the astonishment of the nation.

The ensuing session was opened by the Marquis of Buckingham, on the 5th of February, 1789, and on the next day some objections to the (usual) address to the lord-lieutenant were made, which brought on along and interesting conversation, and opinions were delivered of his excellency, without any reserve or tenderness to his character or situation. Mr. Grattan’s speech, from the commencement to the end, is a continued display of all those compounds which render his speeches of invective, so galling and severe, we therefore insert the whole of it. Prior to which, however, -

Mr. Brown, of the College, said, “that he came into the House extremely well-disposed to dilacerate the character of the viceroy; but really, it was now left in so miserable and mangled a condition, that it would be ungenerous and unmanly, to attack the small fragment that remained, he could only now talk of what he intended to have done, which had been already anticipated by other assailants. He might have painted the acclamations, with which his administration began; the disgrace, with which it terminated; the declarations against jobbing; the actual jobbing that succeeded; jobbing in the closet; coercion in the offices. A little gnawing, corroding, venomous scrutiny, which ate its way into the hearts of some poor men, who had not strength of body to bear violent accusation, or strength of mind enough to ration on greater offenders; which seemed to look out for crimes and forfeitures, as objects of prey, not of correction. He might have painted an economy, which, instead of apply{239}ing itself to great objects, such as the pension list, police establishment, or sinecure offices, fell upon a few miserable military taylors; and, by depriving them of their little fire, in reality increased, instead of .diminishing, the expense of clothing the army. He might have dwelt on a prorogation of parliament, prejudicial to the public business, and unnecessary, except for the purposes of a faction.”

Mr. Grattan wished “that the lord-lieutenant had not been introduced into the address: he said, the expenses of the Marquis of Buckingham were accompanied with the most extraordinary professions of economy, and censures on the conduct of the administration that immediately preceded him: be had exclaimed against the pensions of the Duke of Rutland; a man accessible undoubtedly to applications, but the most disinterested, man on earth, and one whose noble nature demanded some, bet received no indulgence from the rigid principles or professions of the Marquis of Buckingham. He exclaimed against his pensions, and he confirmed them: he resisted motions made to disallow some of them, and he finally agreed to a pension for Mr. Orde, the secretary of the Duke of Portland’s administration, whose extravagance was at once the object of his invective, and of his bounty: be resisted his pension, if report says true; and having shewn that it was against his conscience, he submitted. Mr. Orde can never forgive the Marquis the charges made against the man be thought proper to reward: the public will never forgive the pension given to a man the Marquis thought proper to condemn. The pension list, whose increase the Marquis condemned, be had an opportunity to restrain. A bill limiting the amount of pensions was proposed by an honourable friend of his, and was resisted by the Marquis of Backingham; his secretary was the person to oppose that biU, and to give a signal to the servants of the crown to resist it. He assigned his reason, viz, because he thought his excellency was entitled to the same confidence which had been deposed in the other viceroys, that is, the confidence {240} which the Marquis of Buckingham patriotically declared had been grossly abused. The police was another theme of his excellency’s indignation; he had exclaimed, or had been said to have exclaimed, against the expense of that establishment. A committee was appointed to examine into its utility, and, after a long and minute investigation, discovered, that the turbulence and corruption of the police-men, were at least equal to the extravagance of the establishment. With that two-fold knowledge of its prodigality and its licentiousness, he defended the police establishment, and resisted a measure to repeal that InM; defending in parliament every measure against which he was supposed to have exhausted his time in invective and indignation.

“The park establishment was also supposed to have excited his indignation. A motion was made to disallow some of those charges, and resisted by all the strength of his government. He was on these subjects satisfied with a minute examination, a poor and passionate exclamation, and a miserable acquiescence. Some of these expenses must have stopped, because they were for furniture and improvement, and were not annual expenses; but the principle remained; the country was open to* the repetition of the charge, and the Marquis had only U take credit for the ceasing of charges, which must for o time have stopped of themselves; but which by his influence and resistance in parliament to motions disallowing them, might be renewed; but he not only continued the evils he found, he introduced a number; on the expenses’ of his predecessor, he introduced jobs of his own. He increased salaries in the departments, which he proposed and was said to reform. He made by that increase certain places parliamentary objects, which before had not come into the sphere of what is called parliamentary corruption; and greatly increased the influence of the crown at the time he affected to reduce the expenses of the nation. The disposition he made of some of those offices, was in favour of very worthy men. He would not say {241} that one of them was not yet underplaced, but he did say, that his office ought not to have been raised to his merits, for his merits were his own, and of course, during life; but the increase was perpetual; and the increase of salary would never want a pretence, if this argument were admitted. You will easily have that species of economy, which does at least as much mischief as good, checks peculation, and promotes undue influence. He did not confine himself to the increase of salaries; he projected, if fame says true, a number of new offices, to be created for the accommodation of friends, at the public expense, by dividing and splitting offices or boards, under that worst species of profusion, the mask of economy; laying the foundation of new salaries hereafter, and increasing undue influence for the present. But there was one of his projects he had actually carried into execution, the revival of an obsolete office, the second counsel to the commissioners: that office was the remnant of a wretched job, attempted eighteen years ago, and put down because im- practicable and improper. The division of the boards of custom and excise, for extending the undue influence of the crown; that measure was put down; but the second counsel, a wretched remnant, was suffered for a time; and when the then counsel, Mr. Maunsel, died, his place also was discontinued. It thus remained on the establishment an obsolete unoccupied office, until it had been revived by the Marquis of Buckingham, no doubt, it will be said, for the purpose of saving. The office was to be a great saving to the public; he was to be feed like the first counsel in the revenue. You are to have two counsel instead of one, to give opinions, and to receive fees in all revenue proceedings: but this was to be a great saving. He was not at present to be consulted in the framing of the money bills; but this was a private transaction; and this was a saving, on the duration of which little dependance was to be had. He had stated particular instances of the expensive genius of the Marquis of Buckingham in the management of the public money: and, in the course {242} of one year, the year in which even prodigal lord-leuitenants impose on themselves a reserve. But these particular instances were principles, bad principles: the attempt to increase the number of offices, was an attempt to increase corruption, the man guilty of that attempt was not pure. The revival of an obsolete useless office for a friend, was a bad principle; and, if accompanied with extraordinary professions of public parsimony, was a detestable principle: hypocrisy added to extravagance! His greet objection to the Marquis of Buckingham, was not merely that he had been a jobber, but a jobber in a mask: his objection was not merely, that his administration had been expensive, but that his expenses were accompanied with hypocrisy: it was the affectation of economy, attended with a great deal of good, comfortable, substantial jobbing for himself and his friends. That led to another measure of the Marquis of Buckingham, which was the least ceremonious, and the sordid and scandalous act of self-interest, attended with the sacrifice of all public decorum; he meant the disposal of the reversion of the place of the chief remembrancer, to his brother; one of the best, if not the very best office in the kingdom, given in reversion to an absentee, with a great patronage and a compensation annexed. That most sordid and shameless act was committed exactly about the time, when that kingdom was charged with great pensions for the bringing home, as it was termed, absentee employments. That bringing home absentee employments was a monstrous job; the kingdom paid the value of the employment, and perhaps mom; she paid the value of the tax also. The pensioner so paid, was then suffered to sell both to a resident, who was free from the tax; he was then permitted to substitute new and young lives in the place of his own; and then permitted to make a new account against the country, and to receive a further compensation, which he was suffered in the same manner to dispose of. In excuse for that sort of traffic, they were told, that they were not buying places, but principles; the principle of confining {243} the great employments of that country to residents; a principle invaluable, they were told, to her pride and her interest. While they were thus buying back principles, and while the Marquis of Buckingham was professing a disinterested regard for the prosperity of Ireland, in opposition to these principles and these professions he disposed of the best reversion in Ireland to his own family; the only family in the world that could not, with decency, receive it, as be was the man in the world, that could not dispose of it to them. After that, Lord Buckingham was not to be called disinterested; call him any thing else; give him any appellation you please of ability or activity, but do not call him a public reformer; do not ridicule him by calling him a disinterested man.

“Gentlemen had spoken about public inconstancy, and had dwelled on the rapid turn of the public mind in despising now, what a year ago it seemed to idolize; but let those gentlemen reflect a little. When a man in a high situation professed to be a reformer; when he exclaimed against the profusion and memory of his predecessor; when he taught the people to deceive themselves; en-feoffed himself in popularity; shook hands with the populace; when such a man agreed to no one constitutional or economic bill; on the contrary, resisted motions for disallowing extravagance, and bills tending to secure the country against future extravagance, and set up his own temporary regulations, his own contingent savings and casual fractions of economy, in the place of laws; such a man must speedily forfeit the opinion of the public; but when the same man shall, to the crime of omission, add that of commission, shall increase the expenses, of which he complained, on the principle which he affected to reprobate; shall multiply undue influence, and create or revive offices, merely for private gratification: and finally, shall attach the best office of the kingdom to his family, whilst he affects to attach the love of the public to his person: such a man. could not be surprised at the loss of popularity; an event the natural consequence, not of public {244} inconstancy, but of his own inconsistency; of his great professions, and his contingent savings overbalanced by his jobbing, a teazing and minute industry ending in no one great principle of economy, and tarnished by attempts to increase the influence of corruption, and by a sordid and indecorous sense of private interest.”

On the 11th of February, 1789, the great contest upon the regency of Ireland, took place. Mr. Grattan and Mr. Fitzgibbon took the lead on opposite sides. In conclusion, Mr. Grattan moved an address, inviting the Prince of Wales to come as regent, invested with full regal power, which was carried without a division. The message was afterwards agreed to in the Lords with a slight amendment; and, on the 19th, both Houses waited on the lord-lieutenant with their address, and requested him to transmit it to his royal highness. With this request his excellency refused to comply; returning for answer, that, under the impressions he felt of his official duty, and of the oath he had taken, he did not consider himself warranted to lay before the prince an address purporting to invest his royal highness with powers to take upon him the government of that realm, before he should be enabled by law so to do, and therefore was obliged to decline transmitting their address to Great Britain. In consequence of this reply, Mr. Grattan moved a vote of censure on the lord-lieutenant, which was agreed to by a majority of one hundred and thirty to seventy-one.

On the 3rd of March, 1789, Mr. Grattan moved a resolution to prevent the great offices of the state from bring conferred on absentees; great annual charges having been incurred, by making compensation to absentees for resigning their offices, that those offices might be granted to residents.

Scarcely had Mr. Grattan concluded his speech, when Mr. Parsons rose; he was interrupted by Mr. Grattan’s observing, that if the honourable gentleman rose to second his motion, he would withdraw it. Upon which, Mr. Parsons instantly launched out into a most infuriated {245} philippic against Mr. Grattan, and his whole political conduct. To this Mr. Grattan made the following reply: “Sir, the speech of the honourable member has been so disorderly and extraordinary, that the House will permit me to make an immediate reply. He talks of simple repeal, he does not understand that question; he does not know whether that measure was right or wrong. He speaks of renunciation; of that he is equally ignorant. The merits or demerits of either question, or of both questions, surpass his capacity. He has arraigned my conduct, but his observations are as feeble as they are virulent. The member is a melancholy proof, that a man may be scurrilous who has not capacity to be severe. He speaks of the public grant of £50,000; and he says, I got that for bungling, what the patentee was so fortunate to complete. He says so, but why he should say so, or on what grounds he talks, he is totally unable to explain; he repeats a sentence which he has heard, but the force of meaning, or foundation for the sentence, the member cannot set forth; the jingle of a period touches his ear; and he repeats it, and he knows not why. The calumny urged against me by the member, is not his own, (Dublin Evening Packet.) Mr. Higgins has said it better than the honourable gentleman; the Freeman’s Journal has stated it better, and with much more ingenuity than the honourable gentleman: but Mr. Higgins is a liar; the Freeman’s Journal is a liar; it is not unparliamentary to say, that the authority from which the gentleman draws his argument, is a liar, a public, pitiful liar! He said, he did not mean that the honourable gentleman was a liar, but that the paper from which he had borrowed his authority, was a liar, a positive liar!” Here Mr. Parsons rose, and stepping towards Mr. Grattan, made use of some words, which, for the honour of parliament, are not reported. Mr. Grattan sat down. The House immediately called out, a custody! custody!” and the Speaker ordered the galleries to be cleared: it was near two hours before order was completely restored.

The leaden of Opposition found it advisable^ in order to consolidate their force into a common onion, to establish a new political society, under the denomination of the Whig Club, of which Mr. Grattan has left the following sketch:

“The minister was the author of it. His doctrines and his half million were the authors of it. But clubs of this kind are only preserved by violence. That violence did happen. An attack was made on the rights of the City, a doctrine was promulgated, that the common council had no right to put a negative on the lord mayor, chosen by the board of aldermen, except the board itself should assent to the negative put on its own choice; this doctrine was advanced by the court, to secure the election of the mayor to itself; in the course of the contest, a minister involved himself in a personal altercation with the citizens. With Mr. Tandy he had carried on a long war, and with various success; he was now involved in an altercation more general; in the compass of his wrath, he paid his compliments to the Whig Club, and that club advanced the shield of a free people over the rights of the city, and humbled a minister in the presence of those citizens, whose privileges he had invaded, and whose persons he had calumniated.”

Parliament was prorogued; and the Earl of Weatmoie» land succeeded the Marquis of Buckingham in the government. He met parliament on the 21st of January, 1790, and his speech embraced merely the common topics. On the second day of the session, on the usual address being moved, Mr. Grattan, though he did not mean to oppose it, felt it incumbent on him to mark his disapprobation of the measures of the late administration, and to prove, to the full conviction of that House, that they had been ill governed. After having amplified in detail, upon every act of the late viceroy, he summed up his charges in the following impressive manner:

“Such has been the conduct of your reformer. This was the man; you remember his entry into the capital, {247} trampling on the hearse of the Duke of Rutland, and seated in a triumphal car, drawn by public credulity; on one side, fallacious hope, and on the other, many-mouthed profession; a figure with two faces, one turned to the treasury, and the other presented to the people; and with a double longue, speaking contradictory languages.

“This minister alights; justice looks up to him with empty hopes, and peculation faints with idle alarms; he finds the city a prey to an unconstitutional police; he continues it: he finds the country overburthened with a shameful pension list; he increases it: he finds the House of Commons swarming with placemen; he multiplies them: he finds the salary of the secretary increased to prevent a pension; he grants a pension: he finds the kingdom drained by absentee employments, and by compensations to buy them home; he gives the best reversion in the country to an absentee, his brother! he finds the government, at different times, had disgraced itself by creating sinecures, to gratify corrupt affection; he makes two commissioners of the rolls, and gives one of them to another brother: he finds theaecond counsel to the commissioners put down because useless; he revives it: he finds the board of accounts and stamps annexed by public compact; he divides them: he finds the boards of customs and excise united by public compact; he demolishes them: he finds three resolutions, declaring, that seven commissioners are sufficient; he makes nine: he finds the country has suffered by some peculations in the orduance; he increases the salaries of offices, and gives the places to members; to members of parliament.”

On the 11th of February, on Mr. Forbes’s motion relative to the public expenditure, Mr. Grattan, in reply to some observations from the treasury bench on the subject of party, distinctly disclosed the objects which he and his friends professed to have in view.

He then proceeded - “These are some of our measures: I now turn to administration, and call upon them to state their measuresJ what bills for the public good? State them come forth; I pause to give them time to consider. {248}

Well, what are they? not one public, constitutional, or wise regulation; there they sit under the public eye; a blank, gutted, excavated, and eviscerated of any one single, constitutional, or economic bill, principle, or project, for the good of the community.

“Sir, I will give these gentlemen of administration, on this topic of party, the greatest advantage they can in their situation receive. I will draw a veil over the put, and forget the specific services which we have performed, and those which we are pledged to perform for the good of the country. I will also forget the injuries, which they and their abettors have at different times inflicted, and are at this hour inflicting on the community; let us start, as it were, anew, set name against name, and we will beat them down by character.
“I have submitted a description of a party, which I conceive to be a public benefit. I will state to you a description of a party, which I conceive to be the public curse; if party it can be called, which is worse than a faction, and nothing more than an impudent phalanx of political mercenaries, coming from their little respective offices, to vote for their bribe, and vapour for their character, who have neither the principles of patriotism, nor ambition, nor party, nor honour: who are governed not by deliberation, but discipline; licking the hands that feed, and worshipping the patron that bribes them. Degraded men, disgraceful tribe! When they vote for measures, they are venal; when such men talk against party, they are impudent.”

On no occasion during the session did he press the ministry more closely, than on the 20th of February, when he opened upon them a new battery, for which they were not in the slightest degree prepared. He rose unexpectedly in the House, and, without any preface, thus accosted the chair:

“Sir, we persist to combat the project to govern this country by corruption. We have hitherto contended against those parts of the system, which proceeded to undermine the constitution, without an apparent breach {249} of the law, and therefore, might impose on the public as a government by law; such was the addition of two unnecessary commissioners; such were the unnecessary salaries for four officers of the stamps; such were the additional salaries to four officers of the ordnance; such, in short, the creation of fourteen new parliamentary places, and of eight or nine parliamentary pensions, in the course of less than twelve months. These measures import their own criminality, and bespeak, on the part of his majesty’s ministers, a design to govern this country by sapping the foundation of her liberty. They called upon us to disallow them; they called upon us to withdraw our confidence from the ministers by whom they were imposed; but they went no further. They did not appear to be accompanied with any overt act, whereby the criminal designs of their authors could be substantiated by evidence enough to punish their persons; they were good reasons for dismissing the ministers for ever from his majesty’s councils, but not grounds for personal punishment.

“But there is another part of this project, wherein his majesty’s ministers have not only attempted to undermine the constitution, but have actually broken the laws; for that part of the project, we conceive his majesty’s ministers to be impeachable. Sir, the sale of honours is an impeachable offence; the crime speaks itself; but to take the point out of doubt, I will state to you a case; the Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Charles I was impeached on thirteen articles, and the ninth article was the sale of honours; the very crime, of which the ministers of Ireland have been guilty. He was impeached for the sale of a peerage to Lord Roberts for £10,000.

“The House of Commons in support of the impeachment, stated the heinousness of perverting the ancient and honourable way of obtaining titles of honour. They urged the crime, of taking away from the crown, the fair and frugal way of rewarding great and deserving servants. They stated the crime of shuffling promiscuously and {250} confusedly together, those of inferior alloy, with those of the purest and most generous metal. They urged, that it was a prodigious scandal to the nation, and that for such offence, precedent there was none, and then they call for justice on the head of that man, who by making honour saleable, had rendered it contemptible.

"But there is a circumstance in the offence of the Irish ministry, which is not to be found in the case of the Duke of Buckingham; they have applied the money arising from the sale to model the House of Commons; this is another impeachable offence; that minister who sells the honours of one House to model the representation of the other, is impeachable for the last offence as well as the first; he makes a wicked, and scandalous, and illegal use of the prerogative of the crown, in order to destroy the privileges of parliament. He makes the two Houses of Parliament auxiliary, not to support, but to contaminate one another. Thus he is a conspirator against the legislation, attacking it in both Houses of Parliament, and poisoning the two great sources of the law. But this practice corrupts also the dispensation of justice as well as the fountains of the law; the sale of a peerage, is the sale of a judicial employment of the highest judicial situation; a situation whose province it is to correct the errors of all other courts; such a sale goes against the common law, and against the spirit of every statute made on the subject.

“I say, the present ministers of this country cannot govern Ireland, they cannot govern Ireland for England; I do not call corruption government; not the carrying n question at the loss of their money and character. They have thus procured for the British government, neither character sufficient to command respect, nor revenue sufficient to pay the establishments; but then, they have gotten other strength, they have gotten the support and good will of the nation. No; the loss of the nation’s good will is synonymous with the loss of reputation* “The independent country gentlemen never on sup{251}port a minister who practises extravagance and professes corruption; supporting such a minister, they would be country gentlemen no longer, they would be the servants of the castle out of livery. They must see and despise the pitiful policy of buying the country gentlemen by an offer to wrap them up in the old cast-clothes of the aristocracy: a clumsy covering and a thin disguise, never the object of your respect, frequently the subject of your derision. The country gentleman must recollect how seldom he can procure even an audience from that bench, except when he artificially deserts his cause and his country. Place him on his native hills, and he is a protection against the storm; transplant him to the hot-bed of the castle, he degenerates and becomes a weed.

“As to the aristocracy, I will not say you have alienated every member of that body; but I do say, you have alienated as great, as respectable, and as formidable a part of that body, as ever stood in the phalanx of Opposition; and you have not only given them every personal provocation, but every public topic, and every public provocation, to raise on their side the interest, the feelings, and the voice of the community. You have not, however, left yourselves without some part of the aristocracy of the country, but that part you have endeavoured to leave without any kind of reputation, by directing against the aristocracy of Ireland in general, the whisper of your castle, and the scurrility of your press, reducing all men to the level of your own reputations. Thus, the result of your project has been, to render the British government in this country, as feeble and contemptible as the tendency of your project is to render the Irish constitution corrupt and dependent. For the sake of both nations, therefore, we oppose it; but how defeat this project? Certainly not by a plan of self-defence. It is a maxim of war, that the body that is ever attacked, and only defends, must finally be subdued; it is then on a principle of self-preservation, that we resort to the good old method of impeachment. We have long disputed about this pension, and that place, until inch by {252} inch we are driven into our trenches by a victorious enemy. It is now necessary to change our system of action, and to come forth with the power of the constitution to punish the enemies thereof. We call this House, whose foundation the minister now undermines, to witness that we are compelled to this, and that these men have, by a multiplication and repetition of plunder, prodigality, corruption, insult, outrage, and misdemeanours, brought forth at last the reluctant justice of the nation. The great influences, which the philosopher tells you, are necessary to bind together the moral system, are wanting here. The influence of opinion, of future and sublunary punishment: the two first the ministers disregard; be it our province to introduce into this region the last, that his majesty’s ministers may be sensible there is a vindictive justice, and that there is in this country a power competent to inflict that justice upon them. Gentlemen come over to this country for a livelihood, and they find servants, who, like themselves, look to government for nothing but a livelihood, and this alliance, that does not include an idea of public care or duty, they call an administration; but it is our task to interrupt this venal commerce by impeachment. Had the people of England only condemned ship-money, they had done nothing. No, they brought forth to public punishment the projectors, they exhibited the malefactor at the bar of the nation. The injuries you have suffered,demand a spectacle of that kind; a state offender kneeling at the bar of the Lords, and impeached in the name, and on behalf of the Commons of this realm. I therefore move you, -

“‘That a select committee be appointed to inquire, in the most solemn manner, whether the late or present administration, have entered into any corrupt agreement with any person or persons, to recommend such person or persons to his majesty as fit and proper to be by him made peers of this realm, in consideration of such person or persons giving certain sums of money to be laid out in procuring the return of members to serve in parliament {253} contrary to the rights of the people, inconsistent with the independence of parliament, and in violation of the fundamental laws of the land.”

This very severe and pointed attack was resisted by the chancellor of the exchequer, for want of evidence to ground any specific charge upon simple assertion and common fame were totally insufficient: therefore, to the crime alleged, they pleaded not guilty, and put themselves upon their country to be judged by their actions. The prime sergeant found the motion of so extraordinary a nature, of such alarming magnitude and novelty, and introduced in so strange a manner, that no man could, consistently with the principles of justice, or the dictates of his conscience, accede to it. When the attention of the House was bespoken for that day, gentlemen, according to the usual course of parliamentary proceedings, requested to know the intended subject of debate: all information was withholden, and a general reference made to the former debates. If the minister in either country should introduce a proposition of so much novelty without a previous information, there would be stronger ground than common fame to suspect an intention to surprise the House: if the measure be so self-evident, why had it been kept back, and introduced after five days’ preparation, with a reference to several authorities to support its propriety t And among others, one from the inauspicious reign of Charles I.; a reign, in which the other House of Parliament was voted useless, and which terminated in the sacrifice of the king to hypocrisy and faction. If any better authority could be produced, the honourable member would have recurred to it: but even that precedent, as cited, did not go so far as to say, that the House of Commons of that day, instituted a committee to fish for evidence, whereon to ground an accusation; a species of proceeding, in his judgment, inadmissible.

A very severe debate ensued, about the close of which, Mr. Grattan rose to reply: he was indignant that it should have been said in debate, that the facts rested upon his {254} simple assertion. “Will you,” said he, “rest it on that? Will you maintain it is only a simple assertion? I do not assert only, that, I have heard it commonly said, and specially stated; the sums, the persons, the circumstances; but I said I never heard it out of these walls denied. It is a crime as generally known, and as publicly reported, as any thing, which is not yet reduced to special conviction; it is a crime we offer to prove; we come here to arraign the ministers of the crown. I will read the charges which I make against them.” He then read the following paper:

“We charge them publicly, in the face of their country, with making corrupt agreements for the sale of peerages, for doing which, we say they are impeachable; we charge them with corrupt agreements for the disposal of the money arising from the sale, to purchase for the servants of the castle, seats in the assembly of the people; for doing which, we say they are impeachable; we charge them with committing these offences, not in one, nor in two, but in many instances, for which complication of offences, we say they are impeachable, guilty of a systematic endeavour to undermine the constitution in violation of the laws of the land. We pledge ourselves to convict them. We dare them to go into an inquiry. We do not affect to treat them as other than public malefao factors. We speak to them in a style of the most mortifying and humiliating defiance. We pronounce them to be public criminals. Will they dare to deny the charge? I call upon, and dare the ostensible member to rise in his place, and say on his honour, that he does not believe such corrupt agreements have taken place. I wait for a specific answer.” After some pause, Mr. Secretary Hobart plied, that if he could think the right honourable gentleman had any right to ask him the question he had proposed, and were he alone concerned in it, he should find no manner of difficulty in answering him; but as it was a question, which related to the exercise of his majesty’s undoubted prerogative, it would ill become him, upon the {255} investigation of an individual, to say what were the reasons, which had induced his majesty to bestow upon any person those honours, which the crown alone could constitutionally confer. As to the charge that had been made, he could not avoid expressing some surprise, that gentlemen were not sufficiently alarmed by common fame at the end of Lord Northington’s administration, to bring forward such a charge then. Common fame certainly did then report, that peerages had been notoriously granted in return for seats in the Commons House of Parliament: yet the right honourable gentleman and his friends were in the confidence of that administration, and must be presumed to be informed of the fact. On which, Mr. Conolly remarked, that his right honourable friend had asked a plain, unequivocal, direct question, and the House was to judge, whether he had received an intelligible and satisfactory answer. The division was one hundred and forty-four against, and eighty-eight for the motion.

Four days after the above, Mr. Grattan, adverting to some circumstances connected with the former discussion, made use of the following strong language:

“Sir, I cannot avoid observing, that in this day’s debate, gentlemen on the other side of the House have adopted a certain tone of power, I presume in consequence of a very indecent and disorderly interposition on the part of one, who does not belong to this House, though he has lately interfered in its proceedings*. Sir, I am not uninformed to what length that person went within these walls even during the debates of this House; it seems to me somewhat strange, that gentlemen on the other side should dwell so much on the necessity of parliamentary decorum, when they have been evidently spirited up by ao interposition, which in itself was the grossest violation of parliamentary decency. Sir, I have been told it was said, that I should have been stopped, should have been expelled the Commons, should have {255}

This appears to kave been the Lord Chancellor.

been delivered up to the bar of the Lords, for the expressions delivered that day.

“I will repeat what I said on that day: I said, that his majesty’s ministers had sold the peerages, for which offence they were impeachable. I said they had applied the money for the purpose of purchasing seats in the House of Commons for the servants or followers of the castle, for which offence I said they were impeachable. I said they had done this, not in one or two, but in several instances, for which complication of offences, I said his majesty’s ministers were impeachable, as public malefactors, who had conspired against the common weal, the independency of parliament, and the fundamental laws of the land; and I offered, and dared them to put this matter in a course of inquiry. I added, that I considered them as public malefactors, whom we were ready to bring to justice. I repeat these charges now, and if any thing more severe were on a former occasion expressed, I beg to be reminded of it, and I will again repeat it. Why do you not expel me now? Why not send me to the bar of the Lords? Where is your adviser? Going out of the House I shall repeat my sentiments, that his majesty’s ministers are guilty of impeachable offences; and advancing to the bar of the Lords, I shall repeat those sentiments; or, if the Tower is to be my habitation, I will there meditate the impeachment of these ministers, and return, not to capitulate, but to punish. Sir, I think I know myself well enough to say, that if called forth to suffer in a public cause, I will go farther than my prosecutors, both in virtue and in danger.”

This subject was again renewed by Mr. Grattan in the ensuing session, but with like effect; and, on the motion for the address in 1792, Mr. Grattan, with an astonishing power of eloquence, travelled over once more the whole ground, which he had taken each of the three last sessions, but with new point and redoubled vigour, fn the course of the debate, Sir Henry Cavendish was very personal against him, for (what he termed) the violence {257} and intemperance of his language, and a disorderly extra dissertation on the measures of the lord-lieutenant, which brought up Mr. Grattan thus in reply: “It seems, the right hon. baronet is ignorant of the only subject he is supposed to be acquainted with, order; he talks of scurrilous language; his language and epithets return on himself: but a man’s language is of little moment, - it is his conduct that is essential: what shall we say of the conduct of that man, who voted in one session for a pension bill, and against it in the next; of that man, who voted for a place bill in one session, and voted against it in the next; of that man, who voted for a committee to proceed towards impeachment against the present ministry for the selling peerages, and the very next session votes for thanks to that very ministry? What does he think of such an apostate?”

The first bill for the emancipation of the catholics was brought forward in the Irish parliament in 1792, which Mr. Grattan supported, although not officially called upon by them until December 1794, when they unanimously committed their cause into his hands, and in both the Irish and the English parliaments, from that period until the time of his decease, he continued their steady, inflexible, and uncompromising advocate, assisting them in private with his counsel and advice, and in public devoting to their cause the stupendous powers of his oratory.

The society of United Irishmen of Dublin, of 1794, had, amongst their publications on the subject of parliamentary reform, strongly inculcated the necessity of annual parliaments and universal suffrage, which Mr. Grattan, in his speech upon Mr. Ponsonby’s bill, most severely reprobated, and thus exposed to derision and scorn: “To destroy the influence of landed property is the object of individual representation, but its immediate effect would be to extinguish the people. The rich might for a time make a struggle; they might in some places buy a mob, who by such a plan would be all electors; they might beset the hustings with their retainers, who {278} by such a plan would be all electors, or, they might purchase the votes of that great body of electors introduced by such a plan into the constitution, all the beggars in the neighbourhood. The minister too, for the short time such a plan suffered king or minister, could, m the corrupt confusion of such election, preserve some influence by the application of the treasury, and the command of the army; he could have all the swords and votes of all the common soldiers. But the farmer and the citizen could have none of those advantages, and indeed what farmer or citizen would go to the hustings of a medley of offenders met on a plan, where bayonets, bludgeons and whiskey, elected the House of Commons? In the mean time, the respect which the landlord and candidate now pay to the farmer and to the citizen, would be at an end; and, instead of resorting to the farmer for his vote and interest, the squire would go to the farmer’s dung-yard, and canvas the boys of his lawn, who would have more votes, though neither farm nor freehold; the consequence of the citizen would be at an end also, and, instead of going to his shop to ask the tradesman for his vote, the candidate would apply to the beggar on the bridge, or the scavenger in the kennel, or to the hospitals in Channel-row, and those places where the poor are now wisely supplied with bread, instead of being intoxicated with hand bills, offering, in the place of bread, the hopes of returning the parliament, and becoming a third constitutive past of the legislature."

In the year 1794, a change of administration and of measures took place in Ireland, when Mr. Grattan and Mr. Ponsonby were sent for to England to consult upon the arrangement and plan of government. Lord Fitzwilliam was appointed viceroy; and so persuaded was Mr. Grattan of the good intentions of Great Britain towards the Irish nation, that on the 22nd of January, 17th he moved the address in answer to the speech of the viceroy, which was carried without a division. These halcyon days were but of short duration. On the 12th of February, {259} 1794, Mr. Grattan moved for leave to bring in a bill for emancipating the catholics, which was given with only three dissentient voices. Lord Fitzwilliam (it is asserted by himself, by Lord Milton, by Mr. Ponsonby, and Mr Grattan,) went over with a plenitude of power from the British cabinet, to carry every measure which he proposed among which was that of catholic emancipation; yet on the 14th of February, intelligence arrived in Dublin, that the British minister was adverse to the important measure, which the lord-lieutenant was thus publicly pursuing. The immediate consequence of this was, the indignant resignation of Lord Fitzwilliam, who was succeeded by Lord Camden.

On the 4th of May, 1795, Mr. Grattan, on the second reading of the catholic bill, thus attacked the doctrine (which was now for the first time made a subject of parliamentary discussion) that catholic emancipation was incompatible with the coronation oath.

“But I find that catholic emancipation is held incompatible with our monarchy. What! his majesty, the head of a catholic league, the king of Corsica, the lord of Canada, the great ally of the emperor, the grand confederate of the king of Spain, the protector of the pope; the king of England, whose armies are catholic, whose European connexions are catholic, are his Irish subjects the only catholics in whom he won’t confide? Has he found religion make the emperor false, or the Prussian faithful? Such were not the sentiments of the speeches from the throne in 1793 and 1795, when his majesty called on all his subjects to defend their religion and their constitution. What religion? A religion of disabilities. What constitution? A constitution of exclusion. Am I to understand that his majesty called forth his catholic subjects to fight for a constitution, which was to be shut against them, and for a religion which was dangerous to the king, and penal to the catholic? No; it was not the pope, nor yet the pretender, it was Paine, it was the French republic, against which you called for the zeal of your people, and {260} held out the blessings of the constitution. But now it seems it is the antichrist against whom you place your batteries, the virgin, and the real presence: and in that strain of grave and solemn raving, a right honourable gentleman proposes to take up arms against the grave of popery, which is shut, and to precipitate into the gulph of republicanism, which is open; perfectly safe for the king, he and those who join him think it, to affront the catholic subjects, by gross suspicions; others have proceeded to the grossest invectives; perfectly safe, they think it, to banish them from all places at court and seats in parliament; to tell catholic virtue, catholic talents, catholic ambition, you must not serve the king; yon may have property influence, but you must not act in constituted assemblies, nor in any rank or distinction for the crown. Perfectly safe they think it to establish an incompatibility between popery and allegiance. Perfectly safe they think it to insulate the throne, and reduce the king of Ireland, like the pope, to protestant guards instead of a people; and then, it is proposed, that those protestant guards should monopolise all the powers of government, and privileges of the constitution, as a reward for their disinterestedness. In support of such policy, it has been advanced, in a very idle publication, that Roman catholics, as long as they have the feeling of men, must resist the natural propensities of the human heart, if they do not endeavour to subvert a protestant king; bnt I pass that over with the scorn it deserves. It has been also said, that his majesty’s oath is a bar. Oaths are serious things. To make them political pretences is a high crime; to make an obligation, taken for the assurance of liberty, a covenant against it; to impose on conscience a breach of duty, to make the piety of the king the scourge of his people^ ft an attempt atrocious in the extreme. Examine the argument, and you find the oath was taken three ynaro before the exclusion of the Irish catholics; the oath ft the first of William, the tests that exclude them thethird; so that his majesty must have sworn in the strain and {261} spirit of prophecy. Examine a little farther, and you will find his majesty swears, not in his legislative, but in his executive capacity, he swears to the laws he is to execute, not against the laws which parliament may think proper to make. In that supposition he would, by his oath, control not himself but parliament, and swear not to execute laws but to prevent them. Examine a little further, and you will find the words of the oath cannot support the interpretation:

“I will support the true profession of the gospel, and the protestant religion as by law established. This is the oath. I will perpetuate civil incapacities on catholics: this is the comment. Such comment supposes the true profession of the gospel to stand on pains and penalties, and the protestant religion on civil proscription. Examine the oath a little further; and, if the comment be true, the oath has been broken, by his majesty’s gracious recommendation in favour of the catholics in 1793; broken by the grant of the elective franchise; broken by the Canada bill; broken by the Corsican constitution. Hear the speech of the viceroy of Corsica; his excellency having recommended to parliament the civil and military establishment, proceeds at last to the church, and advises them to settle that establishment with his holiness the pope. Very proper all this, no doubt; but if the interpretation were true, what an outrageous breach all this of his majesty’s coronation oath. I should ask, whether, in the interpretation of the oath, his majesty has consulted his Irish bishops? And yet he could have found among them men perfectly competent. I will venture to say, that the head of our clergy understands the catholic question better than those consulted; I will add, he does not, I believe, disapprove of their emancipation, nor approve of the argument against them. But it seems, in matters that relate to the Irish church, the Irish clergy are not to be consulted; an English episcopacy, like an English cabinet, is to determine the destiny of Ireland. I have great respect for the learned prelates of England, particularly {262} for one, whose exemplary virtue and apostolic character, qualify him to preside over whatever is learned, pore, or holy; but in Irish affairs, in matters in which our civil as well as our religious interests are implicated, might I nay, his majesty’s counsellors should be his Irish parliament and his Irish bishops. It seems highly prejudicial to the church and the monarchy, that the argument which excludes the catholic under pretence to strengthen both should be attended with circumstances that bespeak the Irish hierarchy a cypher, the English hierarchy a nuisance, and represent the king as a magistrate sworn against the privileges of his people. So far am I from agreeing to such an argument, that I must here repeat what I advanced before, and say, that I do not dissent, but I contradict. I do not say that catholic emancipation is compatible with the present monarchical government in Ireland, but that it is now become necessary to it; and that, as for the preservation of the connexion, you mast make it compatible with the privileges of three-fourths of your people; so, for the preservation of your monarchy, you must make monarchy also compatible with those privileges, you must make the regal capacity of the kipg compatible with the civil capacity of the subject.”

The 17th of February, 1797, was the last time the question of catholic emancipation was brought before the Irish parliament. Mr. Grattan waded through every worn-out argument, on all of which he threw new light; and, towards the conclusion of his speech, he thus inveighed: “These men prescribe for these things as the old natural jobbers of the country; they demand all power and all place, in consideration of the superior purity and disinterestedness of their religion: “Give us all the good things on earth, in the name of God; and in God’s mercy give nothing to the rest of our fellow-subjects!" Thus this pure and pious passion for church and state, turns out to be a sort of political gluttony - an ascendancy hunger a state voracity - an inordinate appetite for temporal gratifications; in consideration of spiritual perfection; and {263} in consequence of this vile and mean, selfish and beastly monopoly, your state becomes an oligarchy, the worst species of oligarchy, a plebeian oligarchy. I love the protestants, I love the presbyterians, and I love the catholics, that is, I love the Irish; if ever my affection abates, it is when they hate one another.” He said he approved of the British ministry, when they liberalised towards the catholic, and condemned the ministry in 1795, when it renounced its liberality and its honour, and returned to its barbarity, and employed Christian sects, like hell hounds, to hunt down one another. That in consequence of this, they have set up in Ireland a proscriptive state - a proscriptive parliament - a proscriptive monarchy - a proscriptive connexion; they have done so, when the condition of the empire is in a great degree feeble, and that of the constitution in the last degree corrupt. Thus they make the empire feeble, and the constituted authorities profligate, and after purpose to make them proscriptive; and do this when they are to encounter abroad, not only the triumph of arms but of revolutions, as one way of defeating both and setting them at defiance.”

The motion, however, was lost.

On the 15th of May following, Mr. W. B. Ponsonby moved his great question of parliamentary reform; a very spirited debate ensued, and Mr. Grattan closed an energetic speech, with these words: “We have offered you our measure, you will reject it; we deprecate yours, you will persevere; having no hopes left to persuade or dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no more, and after this day shall not attend the House of Commons.”

From this time Mr. Grattan ceased to attend in the senate; and at the ensuing dissolution, in an address to the freemen and freeholders of Dublin, dated July 29th, 1797, he published his reasons for declining a seat in the new parliament. In this resolution he was followed by his colleague Lord Henry Fitzgerald, who also published a similar address. {264}

During the melancholy year of 1798, Mr. Grattan appears to have resided principally at Twickenham, from whence, on the 9th of November, he addressed a letter to the guild of merchants, corporation of Dublin, and fellows of Trinity College, in defence of his character and conduct from their unfounded and malevolent attacks.

Mr. Grattan having been elected for the borongh of Wicklow, in the parliament of 1800, was sworn in on the 15th of January, and on that eventful day, when the grand question of the Union was before parliament, about three o’clock in the morning, Mr. Grattan entered the House between Mr. W. B. Ponsonby and Mr. A. Moore, whilst Mr. Egan was on his legs actually referring to the constitution of 1782.

The re-appearance in parliament of the founder of that constitution, at that critical moment, and under those awful circumstances, electrified the House and galleries with an indescribable emotion of terrific joy and expectation. On rising to speak, he referred to the adjustment of 1782. The minister of Great Britain, he said, had come forward in two celebrated productions; he declared his intolerance of the parliamentary constitution of Ireland; that constitution, which he ordered the several viceroys to celebrate, in defence of which he recommended the French war, and to which he swore the yeomen, - that constitution he now declared to be a miserable imperfection, concurring with the men, whom he had executed for thinking the Irish parliament a grievance; differing from them in the remedy only; they proposing to substitute a republic, and he the yoke of the British parliament. They had seen him inveigh against their projects; let them hear him in defence of his own: he denied in the face of the two nations a public fact registered and recorded; he disclaimed the final adjustment, as being no more than an incipient train of negociation. That settlement consisted of several parts, every part a record, establishing on the whole two grand positions: first, the admission of Ireland’s claim to be legislated by no other parliament but {265} that of Ireland: secondly, the finality imposed upon the1 two nations regarding all constitutional projects affecting each other. Finality was not only a part of the settlement, but one of its principal objects; finality was the principal object of England, as legislative independency was the object of Ireland.

Having spoken very largely to the two points of regency and war, on which the Unionists rested their strongest arguments against the constitution of 1782, he thus continued: “I will put a question to my country. I will suppose her at the bar, and I will then ask, Will you fight for an Union as you would for a constitution? Will you fight for those Lords and Commons, who, in the last century, took away your trade, and in the present, your constitution, as for that king, lords, and commons, who restored both? Well, the minister has destroyed this constitution. To destroy is easy. The edifices of the mind, like the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only minutes to precipitate; and, as the fall is of no time, so neither is it the effect of any strength. That constitution, which with more or less violence has been the inheritance of this country for six hundred years; that modus tenendi parliamentum, which lasted and out-lasted of Plantagenet the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic falsehood; even the bond and condition of our connexion, are now the objects of ministerial attack. The constitution which he destroys is one of the pillars of British empire; dear in its violation, dear in its recovery. Its restoration cost Ireland her noblest efforts; it was the habitation of her loyalty, as well as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the volunteer; her temple of fame, as well as of freedom, where she had seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a long repose. I have done with the pile which the minister batters, I come to the Babel which he builds; and, as he throws down without a principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric he calls an Union; and to this his fabric there are {266} two striking objections. First, it is no Union; it is not an identification of people, for it excludes the catholics: Secondly, it is a consolidation of the legislatnres; that is to say, it merges the Irish parliament, and incurs every objection to an Union, without obtaining the only object which an Union professes: it is an extinction of the constitution, and an exclusion of the people.”

“What was the language of the minister’s advocates to the catholic body? ‘You were before the Union, as three to one; you will be by the Union as one to four.’ Thus he founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical consequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the non-entity of their country the pillars of their future ambition. He afterwards observed, that the minister, by his first plan, as detailed by his advocates, not only excluded the catholics from parliament, but also deprived the protestants of a due representation in that assembly; that he struck off one half of the representatives of counties, and preserved the proportion of boroughs as two to one; thus dismissing for ever the questions of catholic emancipation and parliamentary refona: that, instead of reforming abuses in church and state, he wished to entail them on posterity; that, in lieu of protestant ascendancy and catholic participation, he proposed to constitute borough ascendancy in perpetual abuse and dominion; that it was his aim to reform the British parliament by nearly sixty boroughs, and that of Ireland hy nearly five hundred and fifty-eight English and Scotch members, and thus by mutual misrepresentation frame an Imperial House of Commons, who would become the host of ministers, not the representatives of the people. “Of the predicament in which the new members would be placed, he said, never was there a situation, in which men would have so much temptation to act ill, and so little to act well. Subject to great expense and consequent distresses, having no support from the voice of an Irish public, no check, they would be in situation £ sprt of gentlemen of the empire, that is to say, gentlemen at {267} large, unowned by one country, and unelected by the other, suspended between both, false to both, and belonging to neither. The sagacious British secretary of state had remarked, how great would be the advantage to the talents of Ireland, to have this opportunity in the British empire thus opened! that was what they dreaded: that the market of St. Stephen would be opened to the individual, and the talents of the country, like its property, drafted from the kingdom of Ireland to be sold in London. These men, from their situation (man was the child of situation), though their native honour might struggle, Would be adventurers of a most expensive kind, adventurers 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 would allow to an Irish constitution; the images of degradation and the representatives of nothing.
“He then noticed the bribes offered by Mr. Pitt. To the protestant church perpetual security was promised; but a measure that would annihilate the parliament by which that church was upholden, and disfranchise the people who supported that establishment, would rather tend, he said, to its disgrace and ruin. To the catholic clergy salaries were promised. Those who had been strongly accused of disloyalty were to be rewarded for imputed treasons against the king, if they would commit real treasons against the people. Salaries, he allowed, might reasonably he given to those sectaries for the exercise of religious duty; but he could not approve the grant of wages for political apostacy. According to this plan, the catholic religion would seem to disqualify its followers from receiving the blessings of the constitution, while their hostility to that constitution qualified them to receive a salary for the exercise of their religion, which would thus be at once punished by civil disability and encouraged by ecclesiastical provision i as good catholics they would be disqualified, and, as bad citizens, would be rewarded. {268}

“A commutation of tithes formed another bribe. It had formerly been observed by some of the king’s ministers, in opposition to a proposal of that kind from Mr. Grattan, that it would tend to the overthrow of the church; but now, he said, the premier was not unwilling to overturn the church, if he could at the same time overturn the constitution.

“Bribes were also offered to the mercantile body. Commercial benefits were holden out for political annihilation; and an abundance of capital was promised; butting a great part of the landed capital of the country would be taken away by the necessary operations of an Unio^ This rival being removed, commercial capital, it was supposed, would quickly take its place. But these and other promises of the minister would probably be found visionary. He goes on (said Mr. Grattan) asserting with great ease to himself, and without any obligation to fact, npon the subject. Icarian imagination is the region in which he delights to sport. Where he is to take away your par-liament, where he is to take away your first judicature, where he is to take away your money, where he is to increase your taxes, where he is to get an Irish tribute, there he is a plain direct matter-of-fact man; but where he is to pay you for all this, there he is poetic and prophetic; no longer a third-hand financier, but an inspired accountant Fancy gives him her wand; Amalthea takes him by the hand; Ceres is in his train. The English capitalist, he thinks, will settle his family in the midst of those Irish catholics, whom he does not think it safe to admit into parliament; as subjects, he thinks them dangerous; as a neighbouring multitude, safe. The English manufacturer will make this distinction: he will dread them as individuals, but will confide in them as a body, and settle his family and his property in the midst of them; he will therefore, the minister supposes, leave his mines, leave his machinery, leave his comforts, leave his habits, conquer his prejudices, and come over to Iceland to meet his taxes, and miss his constitution. The manu{269}facturers did not do this when the taxes of Ireland were few, or when there was no military government in Ireland: however, as prejudices against this country increase, he supposes that commercial confidence may increase likewise. There is no contradicting all this, because arguments which reason does not suggest reason cannot remove. Besides, the minister in all this does not argue, but foretell; now you cannot answer a prophet, you can only disbelieve him. The premier finds a great absentee draft: he gives you another; and, having secured to you two complaints, he engages to cure both. Among the principal causes of complaint, we may reckon another effect arising from the non-residence of the Irish landlords, whose presence on their own estates is necessary for the succour, as well as the improvement of their tenantry; that the peasants may not perish for want of medicines, of cordial, or of cure, which they can only find in the administration of the landlord, who civilizes them, and regulates them in the capacity of a magistrate, while he covers them and husbands them in that of a protector, improving not only them but himself by the exercise of his virtues, as well as by the dispensation of his property, drawing together the two orders of society, the rich and the poor, until each may administer to the other, and civilize the one by giving, and the other by receiving; so that aristocracy and democracy may have a head and a body; so that the rich may bring on the poor, and the poor may support the rich; and both contributing to the strength, order, and beauty of the state, may form that pillar of society where all below is strength, and all above is grace. How does the minister’s plan accomplish this? He withdraws the landed gentlemen, and then improves Irish manners by English factors. The minister proposes to you to give op the ancient inheritance of your country, to proclaim an utter and blank incapacity to make laws for your own people, and to register this proclamation in an act, which inflicts on this ancient nation an eternal disability; and he accompanies these monstrous proposals {270} by undisguised terror and unqualified bribery; and this he calls no attack on the honour and dignity of the kingdom* The thing which he proposes to buy is what cannot be sold - liberty* For it he has nothing to give. Every thing of value which you possess you obtained under a free constitution: if you resign this, you must not only be slaves, but idiots. His propositions are built upon nothing but your dishonour. He tells you (it is hii maid argument) that you are unfit to exercise a free constitution; and he affects to prove it by the ex peri menu Jacobinism grows, he says, out of the very state and con-dition of Ireland. I have heard of parliament impeaching ministers; but here is a minister impeaching parliament. He does more; he impeaches the parliamentary constitution itself. The abuses in that constitution he has protected; it is only its existence that he destroys: and oil what ground? Your exports since your emancipation; under that constitution, and in a great measure by it, bate been nearly doubled; commercially, therefore; it has worked well. Your concord with England since the emancipation, as far as it relates to parliament, on tbs subject of war, has been not only improved, but has been productive; imperially, therefore, it has worked well. To what then does the minister in fact object? that you have supported him, that you have concurred in his system? therefore he proposes to the people to abolish the parliament, and to continue the minister. He does more; he proposes to you to substitute the British parliament in your place, to destroy the body that restored your liberties, and restore that body which destroyed them. Against such a proposition, were I expiring on the floor, I should beg to utter my last breath, and to record my dying testimony.”

Mr. Corry replied at large to Mr. Grattan. On the division about ten o’clock in the morning, ninety-six voted for the amendment, one hundred and thirty-eight against it. This majority of forty-two exceeded the warmest expectations of government; and the {271} viceroy hoped to increase it by allowing an interval of some weeks to pass, before he sent to either house a copy of the resolutions of the parliament of Great Britain. On the 15th of February following, the question of the Union was again brought forward, which Mr. Grattan opposed with great energy, and concluded his speech with the fellowing brilliant peroration:

“But if this monster of political innovation is to prove more than the chimera of a mad minister rioting in political iniquity - away, with the Castle at your head, to the grave of a Charlemont, the father of the Irish volunteers, and rioting over that sacred dust, exult in your completed task, and enjoy all its consequent honours. Nor yet will the memory of those who opposed you wholly die away - the gratitude of the future men of Ireland will point to their tombs and say to their children, ‘here lie the bones of those honest men, who, when a venal and corrupt parliament attacked that constitution which they fought for and acquired, exerted every nerve to maintain, to defend, and to secure it.’ - This is an honour which the king cannot confer upon his slaves - it is an honour which the crown never gave the king.”

The general principles of the Union having been amply discussed in both Houses, it was moved on the 14th of February, in the Commons, that a general committee should proceed to the consideration of the particular terms of the Union, which night was fixed for the 17th, when a warm debate took place, in the course of which the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Corry, retraced his old ground of argument, which he interspersed with much personal acrimony and abuse, directed particularly to Mr. Grattan, who vindicated himself in strong language, and retorted upon his opponent the insinuations of unconstitutional and treasonable conduct. Mr. Corry replied with redoubled vehemence; and Mr. Grattan rqjoioed with increased power of severity.

“My guilt or innocence have little to do with the {272} question here. - I rose with the rising fortunes of my country - I am willing to die with her expiring liberties. To the voice of the people I will bow, but never shall I submit to the calumnies of an individual hired to betray them and slander me. The indisposition of my body has left me perhaps no means but that of lying down with fallen Ireland, and recording upon her tomb my dying testimony against the flagitious corruption that has murdered her independence. The right honourable gentleman has said that this was not my place - that instead of having a voice in the councils of ray country, I should now stand a culprit at her bar - at the bar of a court of criminal judicature to answer for my treasons. The Irish people have not so read my history - but let that pass - if I am what he has said I am, the people are not therefore to forfeit their constitution. In point of argument, therefore, the attack is bad - in point of taste or feeling, if he had either, it is worse - in point of fact it is false, utterly and absolutely false - as rancorous a falsehood as the most malignant motives could suggest to the prompt sympathy of a shameless and a venal defence. The right honourable gentleman has suggested examples which I should have shunned, and examples which I should have followed. I shall never follow his, and I have ever avoided it. I shall never be ambitious to purchase public scorn by private infamy - the lighter characters of the model have as little chance of weaning me from the habits of a life spent, if not exhausted, in the cause of my native tend. Am I to renounce those habits now for ever, and at the beck of whom? I should rather say of what - half a minister - half a monkey - a ’prentice politician, and a master coxcomb. He bas told you that what he said of me here, he would say any where. I believe he would say thus of me in any place where he thought himself safe in saying iL - Nothing can limit his calumnies but his fears - in perifoment he has calumniated me to-night, in the king’s courts he would calumniate me to-morrow, but had he -said or {273} dared to insinuate one half as much elsewhere, the indignant spirit of an honest man would have answered the vile and venal slanderer with - a blow.”

The House saw the inevitable consequences. The Speaker sent for Mr. Grattan into his chamber, and pressed his interposition for an amicable adjustment, which Mr. Grattan positively refused, saying, he saw, and had been some time aware of a set made at him, to pistol him off on that question; therefore it was as well the experiment were tried then as at any other time. Both parties had instantly left the House upon Mr. Grattan’s finishing his philippic. Matters having been speedily adjusted by the seconds, they proceeded in hackney coaches to a field on the Ball’s Bridge road, which they reached in the twilight. It was agreed they should level and fire at their own option. The first shot on both sides did no mischief; Mr. Grattan’s passed through Mr. Corry’s coat. On the second level there was much science and pistol play, and it was settled, upon the honour of the parties, that both should fire together. Mr. Corry missed his aim, and Mr. Grattan’s ball hit his antagonist on the knuckle of his left hand, which he had extended across his breast to protect his right side, and taking a direction along his wrist, did no other injury.

The populace, notwithstanding the quickness and secrecy with which the business was conducted, followed the parties to the ground; and there was reason to fear, had Mr. Grattan fallen, that his antagonist would have been sacrificed on the spot to the resentment of the populace, so enthusiastically were they devoted to their favorite. The issue of this affair reached the House of Commons whilst they were still in debate at half past eight in the morning. Before Mr. Grattan went to the ground a most affecting and truly Roman meeting took place between him and Mrs. Grattan.

On the 26th of May, Mr. Grattan proposed a delay to the 1st of August, that it might be more fully examined, and that more correct documents might be procured, as {274} foundations of the financial and commercial articles. He again discussed the principle of the measure. “It was a breach of a solemn covenant, on whose basis the separate^ reciprocal, and conjoint power of the countries relied; an innovation promoted by the influence of martial law; an unauthorised assumption of a competency to destroy the independence of the realm; an unjustifiable attempt to injure the prosperity of the country. The bill would be, quoad the constitution, equivalent to a murder, and, quoad the government, to a separation. If it should be carried into effect, he foretold its want of permanence, and inti-mated his apprehensions, that popular discontent, perhaps dangerous commotions, might result from its enforcement.”

Mr. Grattan’s motion was supported by eighty-seven, and negatived by one hundred and twenty-four. The Union bill passed. The independence of Ireland, as a nation, was destroyed; and Grattan, happy as man could be in domestic life, retired to the comforts of home. But the voice of his suffering countrymen was heard even in his retirement, and he was again forced into public life, to advocate their claims. In 1805, he was elected member of the Imperial parliament for Malden, and, in the succeeding year, for the city of Dublin, which he represented during the remainder of his life. His exertions in the British senate were principally confined to the subject which had occupied so much of his talents and his time, the oppressions of the catholics. Many of his countrymen, when in England, seemed to sink below their former rank; but Mr. Grattan displayed all that force of eloquence and splendour of thought and diction, which had so often been hailed by his countrymen in their own capital. The genius of Grattan lived and bloomed even when torn from the beloved spot which gave -it birth. His speeches on the catholic question have never been excelled. On other subjects he adopted a moderation and caution, differing much from the patriot and reformer who had won back the liberties of his county, and few were {275} there among his friends, who were not astonished at his speech in 1815, in which he whetted the sword of European despotism against the independence of France; thus countenancing a principle, in his glorious opposition to which his earliest laurels had been won, - foreign interference in domestic policy. In the great question, however, of catholic emancipation, he was always consistent. It was the constant theme of his tongue, the chief feeling of his heart. He lived to advocate its justice, - he died to confirm its truth. In the spring of 1820, he felt his dissolution approaching, and he knew that a journey to England would accelerate it; but, as the happiness of his country had been the great purpose of his life, he was determined that its interests should not suffer by his death. He embarked with his family for London, for the purpose of devoting his last breath in the British parliament to the great cause of catholic emancipation. It was fated otherwise. His enfeebled frame was not again permitted to give public utterance to the aspirations of his fervent soul. He expired at his house in Baker-street, on Sunday night, May 14th, 1820.

A SKILFUL and fearless seaman, was the son of a clergyman, who settled in the North of Ireland, where he had an exceeding large family. The subject of our memoir left his father at a very early period of life, and put himself under the protection of his uncle, Admiral Samuel Graves, with whom he served for some time as a midshipman, on board his majesty’s ships Scorpion, Duke, and Venus. After the peace of 1768, he was placed under the care of. his relation Lord Graves, who then commanded the Antelope, and was Governor of Newfoundland. In the year 1765, he accompanied him to the coast of Africa, where he was promoted to a lieutenancy on board the Shannon. After the Shannon was paid off, he was selected by Lord Mulgrave to be one of his lieutenants on {276} board the Racehorse, in the expedition towards the North Pole, where, during the whole of that perilous voyage, he displayed uncommon resolution and firmness. It was upon this voyage that Lord Mulgrave interposed, and prevented Mr. Graves and another officer, who was of a similar disposition to himself, from fighting a duel with muskets and fixed bayonets, across the carcass of a white bear, which had just been killed, and which each party disputed as their prize. Shortly after Mr. Graves returned from this voyage, he was appointed to the command of a small schooner off Boston, in New England. This schooner was soon afterwards burnt by General Putnam, at Winnisimmet Ferry, after a long and brave resistance. After remaining on the American station for some time, he was appointed to the command of the Savage sloop, in the West Indies, where he was actively employed.

After some time spent in the West Indies, he was ordered in the Savage to New York, with dispatches for Admiral Arbuthnot, at the time that the French fleet under M. Ternay arrived on that coast. The French admiral, notwithstanding the superiority of his force, was apprehensive of meeting with the British squadron, and took refuge in Rhode Island. Of this place Mr. Graves had gained a perfect knowledge from his former services in America, and therefore he offered his assistance to the admiral to pilot in the leading ship of his squadron to the attack of the French fleet, assuring him that be would engage to run the French admiral on board.

On the 5th of March, 1781, Mr. Graves was appointed post-captain to the Bedford, in which ship he served in the action with Count de Grasse, off the Chesapeak. The Bedford also bore a distinguished part in the encounter with Count de Grasse, on January 25th, 1782, in Basse Terre Road, St. Christopher’s. In the autumn of 1782, Captain Graves took the command of the Magicienne frigate, and was employed in attending convoys, and on the 2nd of January, 1783, while on his passage with a convoy to the West Indies, he fell in with the Sybille {277} French frigate, and another French ship of war, with whom he had a most desperate engagement.

On the termination of the American war, the services of Captain Graves being no longer wanted, be of course retired for a time from his profession. In October 1800, he was appointed to command the Cumberland, of seventy- four ’guns, and joined the Western squadron under Earl St. Vincent. On the promotion which took place on the 1st of January, 1801, our hero was raised to the rank of rear-admiral of the white; and in March he hoisted his flag on board the Polyphemus, of sixty-four guns, with orders to put himself under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, destined for the Baltic. He soon after shifted his flag into the Defiance, of seventy-four guns, in which ship, on the 2nd of April, he had the honour to be second in command to Lord Nelson, in the attack on the Danish line off Copenhagen. As the Defiance was in the hottest of the engagement, her loss in killed and wounded was very considerable. The whole fleet bore testimony to the’ skill and bravery of the rear-admiral on this memorable day; and Lord Nelson, in his public letter to the Commander-in-chief, makes use of the following expression: “It is my duty to state to you the high and distinguished merit and gallantry of Rear-Admiral Graves.”

The thanks of both Houses of Parliament were voted to our hero for his services on the 2nd of April, and soon afterwards his majesty was pleased to confer on him the most honourable Order of the Bath. The ceremony of investiture took place on board the St. George, in Kioge Bay, near the scene of action, and Lord Nelson, by particular command of his majesty, represented the sovereign on the occasion. We cannot probably close our account of this meritorious officer, with more appropriate language, than by subjoining the speech which was made by Lord Nelson, on the above mentioned occasion:

“Sir Thomas Graves,” said the gallant hero of the Nile, “having fulfilled the commands of his majesty, in investing you with the ensigns of the most honourable {278} and Military Order of the Bath, I cannot but express how much I feel gratified that it should have fallen to my lot to be directed to confer this just and merited honour, and special mark of royal favour upon you; for I cannot but reflect, that I was an eye-witness of your high merit and distinguished gallantry on the memorable 2nd of April, and for which you are now so honourably rewarded.
 “I hope that these honours conferred upon you will prove to the officers in the service, that a strict perseverance in the pursuit of glorious actions, and the imitation of your brave and laudable conduct, will ever ensure them the favours and rewards of our most gracious sovereign, and the thanks and gratitude of our country.”

Sir Thomas Graves died March 29th, 1814, at his seat, Woodbine-cottage, near Honiton, Devon.

WAS a brave and fearless soldier in his majesty’s 88th regiment of foot. He was the third son of the late Robert Graydon, Esq. of Killeshee, in the county of Kildare, and on his entrance into the army, served with much credit in the West Indies. In the hopeless attack on Buenos Ayres, while sharing the fate of the brave but unfortunate grenadiers of the 88th regiment, he was carried, severely wounded, from the mouths of the enemy’s guns. In the glorious and sanguinary conflict of Talavera this gallant young officer was among the first who fell, displaying to his heroic companions an animating example of that enthusiastic bravery for which he was ever conspicuous.

He had scarcely attained his twenty-fourth year, and was equally distinguished as a Christian, a hero, and a friend.

While writing this article, we have to regret the want of information, relative to those warriors who fell covered with wounds and glory, at the head of their respective {279} regiments, daring the protracted combat in the Peninsula; - those who “fell in the blaze of their fame,” and whose names we would wish to hand down to posterity as imperishable.

AN enthusiast of a peculiar cast, whose supposed cures- caused much speculation among the learned, and were witnessed by the most celebrated and scientific men,, among whom was the Hon. Robert Boyle, was born on February 14th, l6£8, at Affane, in the county of Waterford, where his father, William Greatreaks, Esq. was possessed of a landed estate, which afterwards descended to his son. His mother was the daughter of Sir Edward Harris, one of the justices of the King’s Bench in Ireland. He was educated in the protestant profession, at the free school of Lismore, till the age of thirteen, when his friends intended to remove him to Trinity College, Dublin, for the purpose of finishing his education. This, however, was prevented by the commencement of the Great Rebellion, which induced his mother to retire into England taking Valentine and her other children with her. Here they resided for some time with his great uncle, Mr. Edmund Harris; and on his death, his mother, anxious for her son’s improvement in literature, committed him to the charge of Mr. John Daniel Getrius, minister of Stoke Gabriel, in Devonshire, with whom he spent several years in furthering his acquaintance with the classics and divinity.

After a residence of five or six years in England he returned to his native country, which he found in so wretched a state, that he retired to the castle of Caperquin; “where I spent,” says he, “a year’s time in contemplation, and saw so much of the madness and wickedness of the world, that my life became a burden to me, and my soul, was as weary of this habitation of clay, as ever the galley-slave was of the oar; which brought my {280} life even to the threshold of death, so that my legs had scarcely strength enough to carry my enfeebled body about.” It was probably during this melancholy seclusion, that he contracted that enthusiasm which forms the prominent feature of his life, and which never quitted him, though repressed in some measure by the active and bustling scenes which soon after engaged his attention for a few years. In 1649, he became a lieutenant in the regiment of Lord Broghill, afterwards Earl of Orrery, which was then acting, by parliamentary commission, against the rebels in Munster; and in 1656, when the greater part of the army was disbanded, he retired to his estate at Affane, and was soon after appointed clerk of the peace for the county of Cork, register for transplantation, and justice of the peace.

On the king’s restoration, these situations were, however, all taken from him; and his mind being disturbed by this disappointment, and the want of any regular and useful occupation, he felt an internal impulse which persuaded him that the gift of curing diseases by stroking the hand over the parts affected was imparted to him. His fame soon spread to so great an extent round the country, that Colonel Phaire, of Cahirmony, in the county of Cork, being afflicted with an ague, applied to him for relief, which he afforded him in his usual way. Transported with his success, he now began to assume to himself great merit, and he is reported to have mentioned the Holy Ghost with irreverent presumption, as his assistant. In consequence of this, he was cited to the bishop’s court at Lismore, where not producing a proper license for practising, he was forbidden in future to pursue his course. This censure and prohibition, however, he disregarded, and still continued his former practice till January 1664-5, when he passed over into England at the reqnest of the Earl of Orrery, for the purpose of curing the lady of Viscount Conway, of Ragley, in Warwickshire, who had for many years laboured under a violent head ache* In this, however, lie failed, though he resided at Ragley three {281} or four weeks, during which time he performed many cores on the people in that neighbourhood.

It was during his residence at Ragley that he obtained the notice of the learned Mr. Henry Stubbe, who was then practising physic at Stratford-upon-Avon, and was witness to several of his cures. In consequence of this he published “The Miraculous Conformist; or, an Account of several Marvellous Cures performed by the Stroking of the Hands of Mr. Valentine Greatreaks, with a Physical Discourse thereupon;; in a Letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq. with a Letter relating to some other of his miraculous Cures, attested by E. Foxcroft, A. M. and Fellow of King’s College, in Cambridge.” This is dated at Stratford-upon-Avon, February 18th, 1665-6.

The reputation which was thus acquired by Greatreaks, extended to the court, and the king, at the recommendation of the Royal Society, invited him to London, where he performed cures at Whitehall before his majesty. Failing, however, in some instances to perform the miracles which were expected from bim, particularly in the case of a Mr. Cresset, in Charter-house-square, he was censured as an impostor and cheat by Mr. David Lloyd, chaplain to the Charter-house, in h pamphlet, entitled, “Wonders no Miracles; or, Mr. Valentine Greatreak’s Gift of Healing examined.” In answer to this, Greatreaks published for the purpose of vindicating his character, “A brief Account of Mr. Valentine Greatreaks, and divers strange Cures by him lately performed; in a Letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq.” To this are annexed various testimonials signed by, among others, Robert Boyle himself, Dr. William Denton, Colonel George Weldon, Aiderman William Knight, Sir Charles Doe, Sir Abraham Cullen, Dr. John Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester, Dr. Benjamin Whichcot (a patient), and Dr. Simon Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Ely.
Shortly after this, his fame began to decline, and we have no account of his future proceedings. Mr. {282} Harris informs us, that he saw him in Dublin about 1681, but cannot say how long he lived after that time.

It has been too commonly the practice to regard Greatreaks, as a designing impostor; and it is conjectured that St. Evremond intended his novel, “The Irish Prophet,” in ridicule of him and of the people who submitted their diseases to his touch. This opinion, however, is certainly contradicted by the fact of his having distributed the whole of his income in supplying with necessaries those who applied to him for advice; which clearly evinces that he was rather a dupe than a designer. Nor can we altogether impute to imagination the whole of the cures performed by him, and of which, from the nature of the testimonials, there cannot exist the smallest doubt. Hit plan seems to have consisted entirely in gentle and long continued friction with the hand, a practice which is now known to be attended with the most salutary and beneficial effects in scrofulous tumours, contractions in the joints, and chronic rheumatism. And it is also well known, that in some others of the cases which he treated, the impression on the mind is alone sufficient to cure the complaint, particularly in epilepsy; of the influence of the mind over which, many curious and satisfactory instances might be related.

A DIVINE, and man of science, was the son of a dogy- man who had been educated at Trinity College, Dahlia, and held the rectory of Edermine, and a prebend in the cathedral church of Ferns, in the county of Wexford. His father’s family was originally from Scotland, and his mother was a native of Lancashire. Dr. Gregory was bora April 14th, 1754, and his father dying in 1766, when he was only twelve years of age, his mother returned Mahar native country, and settled in Liverpool. Anxtons to confer on her son the benefits of the best education, she {283} put him under the care of an eminent schoolmaster, of the name of Holden, from whose tuition he acquired a knowledge of the classics, and made considerable proficiency in the mathematics. His mother had intended him for trade; but his own ardent love of literature and science, leading him to prefer entering into the church, he removed to Edinburgh, and for two years attended the lectures of the celebrated professors of that university. The mathematical and physical sciences were his favourite pursuits. After leaving Edinburgh, he entered, in 1776, into holy orders, and discharged the duties of curate in Liverpool with fidelity and reputation. His humanity prompted him to oppose the slave trade, in which too many in that city were engaged; and, in a periodical work published there, he exposed in several essays the impolicy and inhumanity of this traffic in human blood.

In 1789, he came to London, and obtained the curacy of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where his attention to his doty, and his eminent talents, rendered him extremely popular: in consequence of which, in 1785, after he had resigned his curacy, he was unanimously elected by the parishioners their morning lecturer. He at the same time officiated at St. Botolph’s, delivered lectures at the Asylum, and weekly lectures at St. Antholin’s. In 1789, he was candidate for the office of chaplain to the Asylum, which from the too great confidence of his friends, he lost by one vote. By the Bishop of London he was presented to a small prebend in St. Paul’s, which he resigned on obtaining from his lordship, the rectory of Stapleford, in Hertfordshire. In 1804, by the interest of Mr. Addington, now Lord Sid- mouth, he was presented with the valuable living of West Ham, in Essex.

Dr. Gregory’s education had been conducted without any fixed plan; but his capacious mind and thirst of knowledge enabled him to acquire vast stores of information on all subjects to which he directed his attention: and his works display a minute and profound acquaintance with the arts and sciences, commerce, manufactures, and {284} political institutions. His first publication was a volume of “Essays, Historical and Moral” in 1785, but which he did not acknowledge until the second edition in 1788. He had before that time, in 1782, suggested to Mr. Kearsley of Fleet-street, a series of extracts from eminent authors, which were published under the name of “Beauties” and had an extensive sale. In 1787, he favoured the public with a translation of “Lowth’s Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” 2 vols. 8vo. In the following year, he published a volume of “Church History,” of which a second appeared in 1795. He was a contributor to the Biographia Britannia, in which is his “Life of Thomas Chatterton, with Criticisms on his Genius and Writings, and a concise View of the Controversy concerning Rowley’s Poems.” - This work was first published separately in one volume 8vo. in 1789. In 1795, he revised an edition of Hawkesworth’s Telemachus, with a new Life of Fenelon, in two vols. 4to. and also published in the - mg year a continuation of Hume’s History of England, 8vo. In 1796, appeared in 3 vols. 8vo. his “Economy of Nature, illustrated and explained on the Principles of Modern Philosophy,” a scientific work, rich in information conveyed in a most pleasing manner. Such was its success with the public, that it had reached the third edition in 1804. Dr. Gregory contributed also to the useful interests of education by his “Lessons, Astronomical and Philosophical, for the Instruction of British Youth” in 1797, 12mo. and by his “Elements of Polite Education, carefully selected from the Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son,” 1801, 12mo. During his retreat from the metro- polis, he found leisure to superintend the progress of a “Dictionary of Arts and Sciences,” which was published in 1806, in two vols, 4to. It is a work in which much information is conveyed in a narrow compass, and is well suited to those who cannot conveniently obtain any of our large Encyclopaedias of science. After his death, were published “Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy/’ and a “Series of Letters to his Son.” In addition {285} to these extensive and valuable literary labours, Dr. Gregory contributed to various other works, and was for several years conductor of the “New Annual Register.”

In his youth he wrote some verses; and a tragedy, entitled, the “Siege of Jerusalem,” has been attributed to him.

Dr. Gregory was no less amiable in private life, than eminent as a literary character. He was for many years an active and zealous friend of the Royal Humane Society, and at their anniversary in 1797, he preached a sermon on the prevention of suicide. He was eminently useful as a member of the committees, as his knowledge of mechanics fully qualified him to decide on the merits of the different inventions presented to the society, for preserving the lives of shipwrecked seamen. He was elected F.S.A. in 1785. In 1789, he formed a matrimonial union with Miss Nunnes. He died, after a short illness, on the evening of March 12th, 1808, and was buried in the parochial church of West Ham.

THAT the most splendid talents united with the most intense application, is not confined either to sex or sphere of life, is fully evinced by the subject of the present memoir.

This prodigy of early learning and acquirements (whose maiden name is no where mentioned) was bom in the county of Kilkenny, of parents poor and illiterate. Nothing is recorded of her until her eighteenth year, when we are told by Mrs. Pilkington, that she was brought to her father to be instructed in midwifery, and that then she was a perfect mistress of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French languages, and was far advanced in the study of the mathematics. Mr. Pilkington having inquired of her where she gained this prodigious knowledge, she modestly replied, that when she could spare time from her needlework, to which she was closely kept by her mother, she {286} had received some little instruction from the minister of the parish. She wrote elegantly (says Mrs. P.) both in verse and prose; but the turn of her mind was chiefly to philosophical or divine subjects; nor was her piety inferior to her learning. The most delightful hours, this lady declares that she had ever passed, were in the society and conversation of this “female philosopher." My father, adds she, readily consented to accept of Constantia as a pupil, and gave her a general invitation to his table, by which means we were rarely asunder. Whether it was owing to her own design or to the envy of those who survived her, I know not, but of her various and beautiful writings, I have never seen any published, excepting one poem of hers in the works of Mrs. Barber. Her turn, it is true, was principally to philosophical or religious subjects, which might not be agreeable to the present taste; yet could her heavenly mind descend from its sublimest heights to the easy and epistolary style, and suit itself to my then gay disposition.

Mrs. Barber likewise gives her testimony to the merit of Constantia, of whom she declares, “that she was not only happy in a fine imagination, a great memory, an excellent understanding, and an exact judgment, but had all these crowned by virtue and piety. She was too learned to be vain, too wise to be conceited, and too clearsighted to be irreligious. As her learning and abilities raised her above her own sex, so they left her no room to envy any, on the contrary, her delight was to see others excel. She was always ready to direct and advise those who applied to her, and was herself willing to be advised.{287}

* The following epigram was written by Mrs. Grierson to the HoB. Mrs. Percivaly with Hutcheton’s Treatise on Beauty and Order:

Th’internal senses painted here we see.
They’re born in others, but they live in thee;
O! were our author with thy converse blest,
Could he behold the virtues in thy breast.
His needless labours with contempt he’d view.
And bid the world not read — but copy you.

{287}

So little did she value herself upon her uncommon excellencies, that she has often recalled to my mind a fine reflection of a French author, “That great geniuses should be superior to their own abilities?”

Constantia married a Mr. George Grierson, a printer in Dublin, for whom Lord Carteret, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, obtained a patent appointing him printer to the King, in which, to distinguish and reward the merit of his wife, her life was inserted.

She died in 1733, at the premature age of twenty-seven, admired and respected as an excellent scholar in Greek and Roman literature, in history, theology, philosophy, and mathematics. Her dedication of the Dublin edition of Tacitus to Lord Carteret, affords a convincing proof of her knowledge in the Latin tongue; and by that of Terence to his son, to whom she wrote a Greek epigram. Dr. Harwood esteems her Tacitus one of the best edited books ever published. She wrote many fine poems in English, but esteemed them so slightly, that very few copies of them were to be found after her decease. What makes her character the more remarkable is, that she rose to this extraordinary eminence entirely by the force of natural genius and uninterrupted application. As a daughter, a wife, and a friend, her conduct was amiable and exemplary; and, had she been blessed with the advantages of health and longer life, there is every reason to believe, she would have made a more distinguished figure in the learned world than any woman who had preceded her.

Such are all the facts that are left to posterity of this high-gifted female; and we cannot help regretting, that while so many pains are taken to preserve memorials the most minute of individuals whose lives have glided away in a succession of miserable follies, so little has been recorded of a woman, whose mind was a casket richly stored with the gems of ancient and modern learning. {288}

WAS a native of the country he so essentially served by first establishing the cotton manufacture in the North of Ireland. He not only, by his indefatigable perseverance, brought its several branches to a degree of perfection and excellence formerly unknown in that realm; but his fine taste and exalted genius were strikingly displayed in every part of his extended manufacture, and in the numerous improvements he made.

For the few years prior to his decease, in which he acted as a magistrate, he was eminently useful in the character in his neighbourhood; and he might also be termed with great justice, the patron of industry and the unwearied benefactor of the indigent and distressed. The loss of an amiable wife made an impression on his heart that time could not cure, and which impaired his health, and hastened his dissolution, which occurred in 1804, at Whitehouse, near Belfast, being then in the fifty-eighth year of his age.