most clamourous opposition-you may be rived and shivered by the lightening before you hear the peal of the thunder! But, sir, we are told that we should discuss this question with calmness and composure.—I am called on to surrender my birth right and my honour, and I am told I should be calm and should be composed. National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted but for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an enlightened assembly as this; they are trinkets and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy the consideration of this house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it! God! We see a Perry re-ascending from the tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warm the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country.

Gracious

DENUNCIATION AGAINST THE MEN AND THE MEANS BY WHICH THE UNION WAS PERPETRATED.

LET me again ask you, how was the rebellion of 1798 put down? By the zeal and loyalty of the gentlemen of Ireland rallying round-what? a reed shaken by the winds, a wretched apology for a minister who neither knew how to give or where to seek protection! No-but round the laws

and constitution and independence of the country. What were the affections and motives that called us into action? To protect our families, our properties, and our liberties.— What were the antipathies by which we were excited? Our abhorrence of French principles and French ambition.— What was it to us that France was a republic?—I rather rejoiced when I saw the ancient despotism of France put down. What was it to us that she dethroned her monarch? I admired the virtues and wept for the sufferings of the man, but as a nation it affected us not. The reason I took up arms, and am ready still to bear them against France, is because she intruded herself upon our domestic concerns because, with the rights of man and the love of freedom on her tongue, I see that she has the lust of dominion in her heart-because wherever she has placed her foot, she has erected her throne, and that to be her friend or her ally is to be her tributary or her slave. Let me ask, is the present conduct of the British minister calculated to augment or to transfer that antipathy? No, sir, I will be bold to say, that licentious and impious France, in all the unrestrained excesses which anarchy and atheism have given birth to, has not committed a more insidious act against her enemy than is now attempted by her professed champion of civilized Europe against a friend and an ally in the hour of her calamity and distress at a moment when our country is filled with British troops-when the loyal men of Ireland are fatigued with their exertions to put down rebellion--efforts in which they had succeeded before these troops arrivedwhilst our Habeas Corpus Act is suspended-Whilst trials by court martial are carrying on in many parts of the kingdom-whilst the people are taught to think that they have no right to meet or to deliberate, and whilst the great body of them are so palsied by their fears, and worn down by their exertions, that even the vital question is scarcely able

to rouse them from their lethargy-at the moment when we are distracted by domestic dissentions-dissentions artfully kept alive as the pretext for our present subjugation and the instrument of our future thaldrom!! Sir, I thank administration for this measure. They are, without intending it, putting an end to our dissentions-through this black cloud which they have collected over us, I see the light breaking in upon this unfortunate country. They have composed our dissentions-not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and subdued rebellion-not by hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic and the Catholic against the Protestant-not by committing the north against the south-not by inconsistent appeals to local or to party prejudices-no—but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy against the liberties of Ireland, they have subdued every petty and subordinate distinction. They have united every rank and description of men by the pressure of this grand and momentous subject, and I tell them that they will see every honest and independent man in Ireland rally round her constitution and merge every other consideration in his opposition to this ungenerous and odious measure. For my own part, I will resist

it to the last gasp of my existence 'and with the last drop of my blood, and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders of their country's freedom.-Sir, I shall not detain you by pursuing this question through the topics which it so abundantly offers.-I should be proud to think my name might be handed down to posterity in the same roll with these disinterested patriots who have successfully resisted the enemies of their country-successfully I trust it will be in all events I have my "exceeding great reward" —I shall bear in my heart the consciousness of having done my duty, and in the hour of death I shall not be haunted by

the reflection of having basely sold or meanly abandoned the liberties of my native land. Can every man who gives his vote on the other side this night lay his hand upon his heart and make the same declaration? I hope so-it will be well for his own peace-the indignation and abhorrence of his countrymen will not accompany him through life, and the curses of his children will not follow him to his grave.

MR. FLOOD.

HENRY FLOOD was universally considered by his contemporaries as one of the most eminent men that Ireland ever produced. "The best, the most able, the most indefatigable, the most sincere man, (said Mr. Montgomery, speaking of him in the Irish House of Commons,) that had ever sacrificed private interest to the advantage of his country." I regret much, that with all my anxiety, I am not able to give any thing like a just idea of his eloquence. But the fact is, no single effort can do it—he was the speaker of every night— bringing to every debate, energy, learning, promptitude and eloquence, which appeared quite inexhaustible. It is therefore unfair to think of him as of one who on such an occasion made an eloquent speech, but as of one who on all occasions, and he avoided none, brought to the debate talents equally powerful. He was transferred late in life to the