the sceptre of lath and the tiara of straw, and mimic his bedlamite emperor and pope with such refined and happy gesticulation, that he could be prevailed on to quit so congenial a company. I should not, however, said he, be disposed to hasten his return to them, or to precipitate the access of his fit, if by a most unlucky felicity of indiscretion, he had not dropped some doctrines which the silent approbation of the minister seemed to have adopted. Mr. Curran said, he did not mean amongst these doctrines to place the learned doctor's opinions touching the revolution, nor his wise and valorous plan, in case of an invasion, of arming the beadles and the sextons, and putting himself in wind for an attack upon the French, by a massacre of the Papists: the doctrine he meant was, that Catholic franchise was inconsistent with British connexion. Strong, indeed, said he, must the minister be in so wild and desperate a prejudice, if he can venture, in the fallen state of the empire, under the disasters of the war, and with an enemy at the gate, if he can dare to state to the great body of the Irish nation, that their slavery is the condition of their connexion with England, that she is more afraid of yielding to Irish liberty than of losing Irish connexion; and the denunciation, he said, was not yet upon record, it might yet be left with the learned doctor, who, he hoped, had embraced it only to make it odious, had hugged it in his arms with the generous purpose of plunging with it into the deep, and exposing it to merited derision, even at the hazard of the character of his own sanity. It was yet in the power of the minister to decide, whether a blasphemy of this kind should pass for the mere ravings of frenzy, or for the solemn and mischievous lunacy of a minister: he called therefore again, to rouse that minister from his trance, and in the hearing of the two countries, to put that question to him, which must be heard by a third, whether at no period, upon no event, at no extremity, we were to hope for any con

nexion with Britain, except that of the master and the slave, and this even without the assertion of any fact that could support such a proscription? It was necessary, he found, to state the terms and the nature of the connexion; it had been grossly misrepresented; it was a great federal contract between perfectly equal nations, pledging themselves to equal fate, upon the terms of equal liberty, upon perfectly equal liberty. The motive to that contract was the mutual benefit to each; the object of it, their mutual and common benefit; the condition of the compact was, the honest and fair performance of it, and from that only arose the obligation of it. If England shewed a decided purpose of invading our liberty, the compact by such an act of foulness and perfidy was broken, and the connexion utterly at an end: but, he said, the resolution moved for by his right honourable friend to the test of this connexion, to invade our liberty, was a dissolution of it. But what is liberty as known to our constitution? It is a portion of political power necessary to its conservation; as, for instance, the liberty of the commons of those kingdoms is that right, accompanied with a portion of political power to preserve it against the crown and against the aristocracy. It is by invading the power that the right is attacked in any of its constituent parts; hence it is, that if the crown shews a deliberate design of so destroying it, it is an abdication; and let it be remembered, that by our compact we have given up no constitutional right. He said, therefore, that he was warranted, as a constitutional lawyer, in stating, that if the crown or its ministers, by force or by fraud, destroyed that fair representation of the people by which alone they could be protected in their liberty, it was a direct breach of the contact of connexion; and he could not scruple to say, that if a house of commons could be so debauched as to deny the right stated in the resolution, it was out of their own mouths, conclusive

evidence of the fact. He insisted that the claim of the Catholics to that right was directly within the spirit.of the compact: and what have been the arguments advanced against the claim? One was an argument, which, if founded in fact, would have some weight; it was, that the Catholics did not make the claim at all. Another argument was used, which he thought had as little foundation in fact, and was very easy to be reconciled to the other; it was, that the Catholics made their claim with insolence, and attempted to carry their object by intimidation. Let gentlemen take this fact, if they please, in opposition to their own denial of it. The Catholics then do make the demand; is their demand just? Is it just that they should be free? Is it just that they should have franchise? The justice is expressly admitted; why not given then? The answer is, they demand it with insolence. Suppose that assertion, false as it is in fact, to be true, is it any argument with a public assembly, that any incivility of demand can cover the injustice of refusal? How low must that assembly be fallen, which can suggest as an apology for the refusal of an incontestible right, the answer which a bankrupt buck might give to the demand of his tailor; he will not pay the bill, because," the rascal had dared to threaten his honour." As another argument against their claims, their principles had been maligned; the experience of a century was the refutation of the aspersion. The articles of their faith had been opposed by the learned doctor: to the validity of their claims. Can their religion, said he, be an objection, where a total absence of all religion, where atheism itself is none? The learned doctor, no doubt, thought: he was praising the mercy with which they had been governed, when he dilated upon their poverty; but can poverty bé an objection in an assembly whose humble and Christian condescension shut not its doors even against the common beggar? He had traduced some of them by name;

mere

"Mr. Byrne and Mr. Keogh, and four or five ruffians from the Liberty;" but, said Mr. Curran, this is something better than frenzy; this is something better than the want of feeling and decorum; there could not, perhaps, be a better way of evincing a further and more important want of the Irish nation, the want of a reformed representation of the people in parliament. For, what can impress the necessity of it more strongly upon the justice, upon the humanity, the indignation, and the shame, of an assembly of Irish gentlemen, than to find the people so stripped of all share in the representation, as that the most respectable class of our fellowcitizens, men who had acquired wealth upon the noblest principle, the practice of commercial industry and integrity, could be made the butts of such idle and unavailing, such shameful abuse, without the possibility of having an oppor tunity to vindicate themselves; when men of that class can be exposed to the degradation of unanswered calumny, or the more bitter degradation of eleemosynary defence? Mr. Curran touched upon a variety of other topics, and con cluded with the most forcible appeal to the minister, to the house, and to the country, upon the state of public affairs at home and abroad. He insisted that the measure was not, as it had been stated to be, a measure of mere internal policy; it was a measure that involved the question of right and wrong, of just and unjust: but it was more, it was a measure of the most absolute necessity, which could not be denied, and which could not safely be delayed. He could not, he said, foresee future events; he could not be appalled by the future, for he could not see it; but the present he could see, and he could not but see that it was big with danger; it might be the crisis of political life, or political extinction; it was a time fairly to state to the country, whether they had any thing, and what to fight for; whether they are to struggle for a connexion of tyranny or of pri

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vilege; whether the administration of England will let us condescend to forgive the insolence of her happier days; or whether, as the beams of her prosperity have wasted and consumed us, so even the frost of her adversity shall perform the deleterious effects of fire, and burn upon our privileges and our hopes for ever."

The great questions which were agitated in the earlier and subsequent periods of Mr. Curran's parliamentary career, were Mr. Orde's (afterwards Lord Bolton,) famous commercial propositions, which, from the opposition they met, were finally withdrawn; on this occasion Mr. Curran distinguished himself by successful attacks on Mr, Orde and his measure; his speech on that subject is retained, but it is not remarkable for any thing more than some pungent personalities, much fire and determination. Mr. Orde was secretary to the Duke of Bedford, who succeeded Lord Northington in 1785. On the bill for emancipating the Catholics, he exerted every faculty of his mind; strenuous and immutably attached to that cause, he was opposed to Dr. Duigenan. On the great question of parliamentary reform, and on appointing a regent, he was among those most distinguished; in short, there was no great measure discussed during the many years he sat in parliament, in which he did not take a conspicuous part. The great names with which his must be associated, were Mr. Grattan, Mr. Flood, Mr. Geo. Ponsonby, Mr. Forbes, Mr. Richard Sher