means that the right honourable gentleman hopes to produce a lasting amity between the two kingdoms. He provides ill for peace, who deprives himself of the weapons of war. True policy suggests, that with a disposition to be amicable ourselves, we should be prepared against the effects of a contrary disposition in others.

In regard to the compensation, I hardly know in what view of it to express my particular reprobation. The exaction of a permanent provision from Ireland is what I consider as a measure pregnant with the most alarming consequence to the liberties and to the constitution of both countries. As an Irishman, I would never consent to grant it; and as an Englishman, I cannot accept it. What Ireland cannot concede with safety, England cannot receive with grace. It has always been the leading and characteristic privilege of our legislature-and when I speak of ours in this instance, I may include the legislature of Ireland also-to limit all grants of supplies to the period of one year. Thus the supplies for the army are voted annually, for the navy annually, for the ordnance annually, and so also in every description of public expenditure that may any way tend to produce an undue control over the subject: to make them perpetual, even though the application of them is to be left to the disposal of parliament, is a measure to which I cannot give my consent: it establishes a precedent for diminishing the sole security which the domestic branch of the constitution possesses against the encroachments of the executive. Annual supplies are the vital source of the influence and authority which the representative body have, and ought to have, in the respective legislature of the two countries, and I can accede to no regulation that has the operation of impairing so invaluable a privilege in the smallest degree. I object to this compensation on another account; and that is, that I do not think it worth our acceptance; for even if the surplus of the hereditary revenue should amount to a sum, which might be valuable when applied to the maintenance of our navy, what security have we that the Irish nation may not withdraw the sum which they now appropriate to the army? They now maintain a very considerable part of our army. I wish to know if it will not be in their power to withhold that sum whenever they shall deem it expedient, after the establishment of this new system: therefore what we gain in the one way, we may lose in the other. We may lose from our army what we are to gain in our navy, with this material difference still existing between the two cases, that the supply which is now granted on the part of Ireland for the support of our army, is granted in a manner truly and perfectly congenial with the practice and

spirit of our own constitution; whereas the proposed expedient of the service of our navy originates in a violation of both, and cannot operate but to the obvious disadvantage of the popular department of the Irish government. The right honourable gentleman says, the surplus of the hereditary revenue would be appropriated to the purchase of provisions for the navy, and that thus it would be beneficial to Ireland. To this I have no objection; I think it would be reasonable and advantageous. But to the permanency of the grant, I must enter my most cordial and determined protest. The right honourable gentleman says, that there he would not trust to the generosity of Ireland for a compensation, which he considers as founded in justice. He will implicitly trust to her generosity and kindness for the due and vigorous execution of the trade laws, but he will not trust to her generosity for the return which she shall make for his present benevolence towards her. In this I completely differ with the right honourable gentleman. I would trust to Ireland in the case where he would not, and I would not trust where he is inclined to do so. If there be any nation upon earth, in whom, on a point of honourable compensation, I would have implicit confidence, it is Ireland: but in the due performance of commercial regulations, where the laws stand for ever in the way of interest and adventure, I would not trust to any people existing. In the case of the compensation, the voice of all Ireland would be heard in her parliament. In the instance of sinister trade, it would be confined to the intrigues between smugglers and custom-house officers; and neither the generosity nor the manliness of the more enlightened and polished part of the nation would be at all concerned in the discussion.

The right honourable gentleman has insinuated, that there is an immediate necessity for adopting the system which he has proposed; that is as much as to say in plain English, he has held out the resolutions to Ireland, and the necessity for adopting them has arisen from his having done so. This is a mode of argument which merits a great share of countenance, whatever truth there may be in the fact. Ireland is not however, I trust, so unreasonable as to insist upon the rash and intemperate transfer of privileges, demonstrably ruinous to England. "But," says the right honourable gentleman, “this system will finally determine every question between the two nations, and nothing can arise in future to make a contest between them." I call upon the right honourable gentleman to say, what security he can give us for the certain accomplishment of his presage. Does he speak from experience? Evidently not. Experience of the first, which I conceive to be

the best criterion by which to determine the probability of the future, is against him. When the noble lord in the blue ribbon, in the year 1780, opened to the Irish the trade of our colonies, the parliament of that country declared themselves fully gratified, and thanked his majesty in terms of the utmost gratitude and apparent satisfaction. In a few months, however, their voice was heard again. In the administration of which I made a part, their legislature was declared to be independent; and in addresses from both Houses of parliament, they professed themselves so entirely content, as not to consider it possible that any subsequent question of political division could arise between the two kingdoms. Yet in the very next session they gave indications of new dissatisfaction, and farther concessions were made. How are men to argue from these facts? One would imagine, that the most effectual and satisfactory method of quieting the apprehensions, or relieving the exigencies of a distressed country, would be that of appealing to their own testimony for a knowledge of their circumstances; to collect information from themselves; to desire them to state, in their own persons, the measure of their calamities, and the best expedients for the relief of them. This was precisely the way pursued heretofore. The concessions were granted on the declarations of the best informed men in the land

men the best qualified to know the state, the wants, and the expectations of the kingdom. Mr. Hussey Burgh and Mr. Grattan, names which no man could mention but with the sincerest and most cordial respect, were the authorities on which England proceeded, and on which she relied. But this, it seems, however specious and natural, was not the proper method of ascertaining the wants or wishes of another kingdom. The true and only means of finally concluding all disputes with Ireland, is to send a stranger there, and order him to address himself to their senate in such language as this: "Hear me, ye men of ignorance and credulity! You know nothing of what you want, what you wish, or what would be good for youtrust yourselves to me I am perfect master of all your infirmities here is the specific that will cure you, the infallible nostrum for all ailments." It seems that this is the only conciliatory expedient for administering to the relief of a dis- not to suffer the inhabitants to speak, but to send a man amongst them ignorant at once of their exigencies, their grievances, and their policy, to propose wild schemes extravagant speculation, and prescribe for the disorder, without the painful tediousness of trying to understand it. In compliance with this new idea, Mr. Orde, an English gentleman, the secretary to an English nobleman, the lord lieutenant for the time, rises up and proposes a set of resolutions which he pledges himself to carry into complete execution.

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These resolutions are brought to England, and after two months discussion are completely and fundamentally altered. Upon these resolutions the right honourable gentleman thinks himself warranted to say that the system will be final. The right honourable gentleman said, that he must have a fund of credulity who believed all the evidence which the manufacturers had given at the bar. In like manner I say, that he must have a fund of credulity indeed, who can believe on such premises that the Irish will be content with this system, or that the general interests of both countries can be promoted by its establishment.

"It is possible," says the right honourable gentleman, "that one country may lose what another may gain." I am ready to agree with the right honourable gentleman, that in similar manufactures, or even in the same manufacture, one country might open channels of commerce unknown to another, the one acquire riches without the other suffering diminution: but it so happens, that between England and Ireland, under these resolutions, this cannot be the case. Their channels of consumption are precisely the same, and a mutual participation in all markets is the leading principle of the agreement. Ireland, therefore, cannot make a single acquisition but to the proportionate loss of England. I defy the right honourable gentleman to mention any one article—and he has not mentioned one-in which Ireland may gain without England suffering a loss. This, Sir, constitutes the distinct and prominent evidence of the impolicy of the system. It is this which will stir up jealousy between the two countries, and make Englishmen and Irishmen look at one another with cold hearts and suspicious eyes. If any one thing demands more than another the cautious deliberation of the committee, it is that of guarding against insidious competition; to take care that the new system shall not make the countries rivals instead of friends.

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Another objection requires a more satisfactory answer than it has yet obtained. We have gone great lengths for the suppression of smuggling, and have loaded our constitutents with a commutation tax of a most heavy and unequal kind, merely to crush the contraband trade on our coasts. Upon the heel of a most oppressive and unequitable expedient for the prevention of smuggling, we are preparing to adopt a new system, that will give to every species of this indirect and contraband commerce ten times the vigour and the generality that it ever possessed in the country. This is the right honourable gentleman's consistency. In one year he loads the subjects with the most intolerable imposition to which they were ever exposed; and the single motive, as well as

the only possible excuse for it is this-the prevention of smuggling. The next year, he introduces a new measure, the obvious and undeniable tendency of which is, to encourage all illicit trade to an extent hitherto unknown in any period of our history; for by means of this new intercourse, no laws, no watchfulness, no penalties will have power enough to prevent the revival of every sort of contraband trade. I shall mention only a single article or two, to shew the facility which these new resolutions will give to the exercise of smuggling. At present, so anxious are we to guard against the illicit importation of French gloves, that we have had recourse to a prevention of unexampled severity. Besides the penalty, which is uncommonly high, the person in whose custody suspected gloves are found, is obliged to prove that they were made in this country. The onus probandi lies upon the person accused, an instance of severity unknown to the general penal provision of our statutes. When this communication with Ireland is opened, what will be the consequence? The person has only to say that they are Irish. It will be in vain that you call upon him to prove that they are manufactured thereand thus you will have articles of every kind poured in upon you. Silk stockings is another article of the same kind. Distinctions will be impracticable; and every species of light goods, of small package and easy transfer, will flow in upon us, to the ruin of our manufactures.

I shall conclude, Sir, with supplicating the committee to take time to deliberate, and to inquire fully before they decide on this measure, which must make an entire revolution in the whole system of British commerce. We have seen the benefits of delay. Let us be wise from experience. It is impossible that Ireland can object to our desiring a sober deliberation on a subject so infinitely important. It is said, that Ireland is out of temper, and that she has been irritated almost beyond her bearing. Ministers are answerable for this irritation, if such irritation exists. The violences which they committed in Ireland deserve the most marked and general reprobation. Their attacks on the liberty of the press; their endeavours to prevent the legal and quiet meetings of counties to deliberate on the best peaceable means of amending their deficient representation; their proceeding against men by summary attachment: all were violences which, perhaps, may have inflamed Ireland, and now ministers are desirous of avoiding the consequences of imprudent insult by imprudent concession. But let us be cautious how we assist them in a design which may eventually turn out as insidious to that country as it would be ruinous to this; a design which may, perhaps, involve in it another commutation, and that a more