It is true, indeed, there was on the other side of this question a name to which Ireland owed much, and to whose subsequent exertions in her cause, though fruitless, she owes perhaps still more—Mr. Grattan. He thought the simple repeal of itself a valid and full renunciation. But it may be said for the people of Ireland, that Mr. Grattan, when this question was agitated, stood in circumstances which deducted much from his high authority. He had but just come from the Treasury, after receiving 50,000l. for his past services—and it was too generally known in Ireland, that there was some quality in Treasury gold, however acquired, which attracted the possessor powerfully towards the Castle. The private judgement of Mr. Grattan might also be reasonably supposed to have a bias on the question, from the circumstance of being himself the adviser of the simple repeal—the idea of an explicit renunciation not having been started when Mr. Grattan's principal exertions, seconded by the voice of the people, triumphed over the old system. There was another reason—Mr. Grattan's influence was weakened, if not lost, by the fallen character of those with whom he then acted. The people of Ireland were naturally jealous of those men who had uniformly supported the dominating principles of the British party in Ireland, and who had as violently opposed (though by more legitimate means) the exertions of the popular party to obtain an independent legislature, as they now do to prevent the reform of the legislative body. And finally, the opinion and authority of Mr. Grattan, however respectable were not thought an adequate counterpoize to the weight of those very numerous and most respectable opinions which were on this question in opposition to his. Under these circumstances, the charge of sottish discontent, which has been so confidently made against the Irish nation, will appear to be one of those foul calumnies by which a desperate and enraged faction strive to cover their own enormities. Englishmen, and the world, will see, that had Ireland at that critical moment adopted the advice of those who had always acted as enemies to her best interests, and rejected the counsels and opinions of those to whom she owed the most important obligations, she would then indeed have been incorrigibly sottish.
The next crime with which the Irish nation stands charged, is their early and zealous efforts for parliamentary reform.—It has been enumerated as one of the causes which have produced the present horrible system of administration in Ireland, that shortly after the establishment of their legislative independence, a convention met in Dublin, consisting of representatives from the different Volunteer Associations, by whom the country had been saved from the common enemy, and who were supposed to have contributed much to the establishment of her independence. This convention had been constituted on the same principle (but with more circumspection and order) as that which was so well known by the name of the Dungannon meeting—an assembly, which though perfectly military, so far as its being constituted by armed citizens could make it so, did more towards asserting the independence of Ireland and procuring for her the most important advantages of constitution and commerce than any other which ever sat in Ireland. To the Dungannon meeting, however, no exceptions were taken—they were suffered to meet—to resolve—and to point out in the most decisive tone the grievances under which they supposed the country laboured. Their remonstrances were carried even to the foot of the throne, and the father of his people, uninfluenced by that romantic sense of dignity, which has since produced such lamentable effects in Irish Parliaments—graciously received, and wisely attended to their remonstrances.—The jesuitical or Machiavelian distinction between citizens in red clothes and in coloured ones, had not yet been thought of—it was considered sufficient to entitle an address or petition to a respectful hearing, if it was substantially the sense of a great body of the property and population of the state, no matter whether they spoke in the character of volunteers associated to defend the constitution, or as freeholders assembled only to exercise its privileges.
It is not for me now to defend the convention of that day from the imputation of false policy and imprudence, in preferring the character of soldiers to that of citizens in their deliberative capacity, but I cannot help observing—First, that the Irish administration have never manifested any dislike of military bodies—real, mercenary, foreign soldiers,—expressing publicly their sentiments on great public questions, when those sentiments coincided with the politics of the Castle—witness the manifestoes with which the Irish newspapers have for the last year or two been crouded, from Scotch and English mercenary troops, in which these zealous advocates for religion and liberty declare themselves friends to this or that measure, publish their determination to support them—and sometimes conclude by letting the Irish public know—they had not come thither to be trifled with.—Secondly, I must remark, that tho' the great objection to the volunteer convention was its being armed, and consisting of the representatives of an armed body, yet opposition equally violent has been since made to other representative bodies not military—instance the calumny with which the servants of the Irish administration have blackened the Catholic committee—and, above all, instance the Athlone convention, the meeting of which administration were so solicitous to prevent, that they ventured on a law to prevent for ever the meeting of any representative body—the House of Commons excepted.
By these circumstances it seems sufficiently clear, that the inconceivable aversion entertained against this body, and the memory of it, was founded not in its being military, but in its being representative and popular—not in its constitution, but in its object.—With respect to its being a representative body, I profess, for my own part, I cannot conceive why for that reason the Irish government and the Irish Chancellor have held it so much in abomination. You, Englishmen, who understand that constitution of which you are properly so proud, will be surprized to hear that representative bodies are unconstitutional.—If you heard this asserted with much confidence by a lawyer, you would say he had studied special pleading rather than the British constitution.—If you heard this doctrine swallowed implicitly by an assembly of legislators, you would say they were still unfit to govern themselves. What is it, you would ask, that forms the general and pervading principle of the British constitution, if not the representative one? Every petty corporation, you would observe, elects representatives to act for them in their Common Council—the council elect Aldermen, and these again their Mayor—all on the same principle—that of having the sense of the multitude concentrated, and their business dispatched at once with ease and order. Nay, every Freeman is himself but a representative, not indeed of other men—but of his own property.
But it is impossible that this should have been the real ground of objection to the Convention, however it might have been urged as the ostensible one—for it is obvious, that if the principle of representation be a fair and useful principle to adopt in collecting the sense of the people with respect to laws or taxes, it must also be a useful and fair principle to resort to, in every other instance, where great bodies of men are permitted to express their common sense as they are unquestionably in petitioning for redress of grievances, &c. No, Englishmen! it was not because the Convention was unconstitutional as being representative, but because it was chosen to recommend, as the sense of the Irish people (for the Volunteers of that day were people of Ireland,)—a parliamentary reform, and to consider of a specific plan. It was this that the corrupt part of the Irish Government dreaded. They had been stunned by the unexpected blow struck by the people in asserting the independence of the legislature: for whatever credit the Parliament of that day may assume for the part which they acted in that business, it requires no argument to prove to a discerning man, that they were passive instruments in the people's hand—they only re-echoed the voice of an armed nation which they conceived too loud to be smothered, and were hurried on irresistibly by that enthusiastic sentiment for national independence, which the ability of one great mind, aided by a fortunate concurrence of existing circumstances, had excited. But at the period I now speak of, the party of the British Minister had recovered from the astonishment into which the successful and prompt energy of the nation had thrown him. He now began to reflect on the extensive consequence which must follow from the restoration to Ireland of the right of legislating for herself. It was soon felt, that there now remained in the hands of the court faction in Ireland, only one instrument by which the effect of the recent revolution could be checked or frustrated; and that was, the borough system. It was seen, that whatever nominal independence the Irish legislature might have attained, yet while a majority of the Commons' House was constituted of members returned immediately by the crown influence, the will of the crown or the will of the British Cabinet must still be the law which would bind Ireland. To preserve the borough system then, at all hazards, became from that moment the great object of the dominating faction. The Convention was an engine which seemed to threaten its immediate and complete overthrow; it was therefore resolved, by all means, to effect its ruins. The staunch hounds which had fattened for years on the vitals of the country, but had been for some time kept at bay by the universal energy of the public mind, were again hallooed into action. In addition to these were introduced new forces from every quarter, but principally from the old aristocratic families, who had monopolized for a century the power and wealth of the country. On the memorable night when Mr. Flood presented to the House the petition of the Convention, was made the grand effort which was to decide whether the will of the nation or that of the old faction should govern. The latter was victorious. The people, with the characteristic levity of their nation, repulsed in this great effort, for the present, at least, shrunk back from the contest. The victorious party, possessing means of the most extensive and corrupting influence, strained them to the utmost; and gaining ground from that moment on the sense of the nation on that main point, have continued triumphantly and insolently to prostrate the people of Ireland. Every thinking and steady Irishman, however, retained his opinion as to the necessity of reform, and continued by the few means in his power, to promote it. At this point, then, commenced the separation between the Irish administration with their partisans in Parliament and the Irish people, and from that time they have gone in directly opposite directions.
Such, Englishmen, is another of the crimes with which we are charged, and for which the highest law authority in our country has declared we merit to be deprived of all the benefits of the British constitution! For this we have been called a sottish, an insatiable, and tumultuous people—and to punish us for this offence the world has been told we deserve all those horrible calamities which, year after year, since that time have been inflicted on us!
I have already said, that the people and the parliamentary supporters of administration separated from the moment when the Irish House of Commons extinguished the public hope on the important measure of parliamentary reform. The grand argument urged by the House of Commons against a reform at that time was, that it would be a surrender of the dignity and independence of the legislature to adopt a measure proposed to it on the point of a bayonet. The Convention proved the malice of the argument by the manner in which they bore the insulting rejection of their petition: having discharged the duty which they were created to perform, they dissolved, not only without a threat but without a murmur. The people, with a patience and moderation of which perhaps few more laudable instances are to be found in the history of any country, acquiesced, or submitted in silence to the decision of the legislation on this their most esteemed and favourite application. No doubt they hoped that a Parliament who refused to receive the petition of the people when presented as soldiers, would listen with a more patient ear to their claims when presented in another character. But this hope having been tried for five years without effect, was at last relinquished. The pertinacity with which all applications on the subject of reform were rejected, put it beyond doubt that reform was an object which by ordinary means could never be obtained. It was, however, a measure too big, when it had once gotten possession of the public mind, to be let go without a struggle. Accordingly, whatever of intelligence, of zeal, or of public spirit the country possessed, continued to be directed toward the acquisition of this great object. Among other modes which had been devised for giving greater efficacy to the public will on this subject, was that of forming societies which should have for their sole object to animate, to direct, to concentrate, the exertions of the people in the pursuit of this favourite and vital measure. Of these societies the first was formed in Dublin, of a few men whose talents, principles, and character, moral and political, gave such weight and popularity to their union, as soon swelled its numbers to a great magnitude, which, while it gave hope to the friends of the popular cause, excited in the administration very lively alarm. But it was yet more the principles of this body than its numbers which alarmed administration. The original members of the society, men of minds not only firmly attached to the political interests of this country, but superior to the influence of bigotry, which had been the most powerful instrument in the hands of the Court faction for dividing and weakening the people, made it a radical principle of their union to promote an abolition of all religious distinction, and to procure for all the freemen of the state, whatever might be their religious sentiments, a participation in all the privileges of the British constitution. A reform in Parliament, accompanied by such a principle as this, became a measure in which every man in the country was interested; and the catholics, who constitute the great majority of the people, more interested than others. The consequence was, that men of every description of religion, men of every rank in life, not immediately under the controul or influence of the Castle, adopted the principles of the society, or solicited admission into the ranks. The fear and the hatred of administration was soon manifested. Every art was used to blacken the principles of the society—its principal members were pointed out as the agitators of sedition—the enemies of social order—and men who aimed at nothing less than a subversion of the constitution and separation from Great Britain, under the pretext of reform and emancipation. The prints which were in the pay of the Castle vomited out daily the most gross, the most malignant, and irritating calumnies; and even the senate itself, now really forgetting its dignity, condescended to become the scurrilous aggressor not merely of the society at large, but of particular, and, in many instances, inconsiderable members of it.
It was this despicable conduct in the prevailing faction in Ireland that laid the ground work of all the mischiefs which have since affected our unhappy country. The Irish Minister who paid the money of the people to cover their name with infamy and their principles with dishonour, him I charge with having first implanted in the minds of the multitude that invincible detestation of the system by which they were governed, that has since ended in assassination and treason. His subordinate agents, who in the folly and venom of their hearts at one time charged the great body of the Catholics with disaffection, at another held up to ridicule and odium the names of individuals of the most respectable and unsullied characters—at one time sneering at the merchant, at another insulting the tradesman, them I charge with having irritated the people of Ireland wantonly and wickedly, by calling forth the personal feelings, the pride, and sensibility of individuals, into a personal and revengeful opposition to the British name and British connection. What would Englishmen have felt, how would Englishmen have acted, had two or three individuals, strangers to their country, despicable in point of birth or talents, and considerable only from fortuitous elevation to offices which they were unfit to fill, ventured to insult their national character—to accuse of treason every man who dared to complain of his sufferings or his privations, or assumed the courage to exercise the humble privilege of petitioning for redress? If the saucy hirelings of a foreign Cabinet should publicly avow contempt for the men who uphold the strength and consequence of the state by useful industry, and tell the merchant and manufacturer that it was not for such fellows to deal in politics, to seek for rights, or talk of constitution—would not the spirit of the nation rise against their insolence, and make them feel how much more valuable he is who promotes the comfort and welfare of society by commerce or by labour, than he who lives upon the spoil of the community in something worse than idleness?