Trial of the Printer and Publisher of Thomas Paine's Age of Reason. Court of King's Bench. 24th June, 1797 Trial of Cuthell. Court of King's Bench. 21st February, 1799 Trial of the Earl of Thanet. Court of King's Bench. 25th April, The Princesses of Oude. House of Commons. 7th February, 1787 Trial of Warren Hastings. Westminster Hall. 6th June, 1788 Trial of Warren Hastings. Westminster Hall. 13th June, 1788 Taxation. House of Commons. 14th December, 1797 . Union with Ireland. House of Commons. 7th February, 1799 The Volunteers. House of Commons. 10th August, 1803 Parliamentary Reform. House of Commons. 7th May, 1783 Ministerial Crisis. House of Commons. 20th February, 1784 Parliamentary Reform. House of Commons. 18th April, 1785 Finance. House of Commons. 17th February, 1792 Slave Trade. House of Commons. 2nd April, 1792 War with France. House of Commons. 10th November, 1797 343 246 Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. 25th February, 1813 Seditious Meetings. House of Commons. Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. Dublin Riot (Eulogy of William the Third). Before the Grand Jury of Dublin. 3rd February, 1823 Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. 28th February, 1825 Slave Trade. House of Commons. Seditious Meetings. House of Commons. 24th February, 1817 Parliamentary Reform. Liverpool. 29th June, 1818 Seditious Meetings. Liverpool. 18th March, 1820. Parliamentary Reform. House of Commons. 25th April, 1822 463 Law Reform. House of Commons. 7th February, 1828 Parliamentary Reform. House of Lords. 7th October, 1831 Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. Catholic Disabilities. House of Commons. Parliamentary Reform. House of Commons. Parliamentary Reform. House of Commons. RICHARD LALOR SHEIL Catholic Disabilities. 21st Sept., 1831. BRITISH AND IRISH ORATORY WE WILLIAM PITT FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM (1708-1778) E must muzzle this terrible cornet of horse,' said Sir Robert Walpole to a follower on hearing Chatham for the first time in the House of Commons. But the cornet was never muzzled, and remained terrible to the end. Indeed he may literally be said to have terrified the House at times, and his greatest Parliamentary triumphs were due rather to an overpowering and almost paralysing personality than to the logic or justice of the particular cause. Probably no man in the history of senates ever combined in a higher degree the gifts of an orator of the first rank as did the elder Pitt. Voice, presence, delivery, courage and character, an unerring instinct for the temper of his auditory, unassailable public and private virtue, imagination, fire, statesmanship, and poetry of expression-all these had Fortune lavished upon her favourite with an ungrudging hand. He was a giant among pigmies, a schoolmaster with his boys, a very tyrant over his subjects-and the House feared him, followed him, trusted him, and loved him, while the people outside worshipped and adored him. His eloquence was like the flight of the eagle. He could gaze on the sun without blinking. He could exaggerate and still be splendid, and soar in altitudes perilous for lesser men. His speeches, alas! have been handed down to us mutilated and illreported; but like fragments of noble sculpture, or a few chords from some mighty oratorio, though they sadden by their incompleteness, they excite a wonder in the mind and present a faint but genuine picture of what the masterpiece of achievement must have been as a whole. HOUSE OF COMMONS. On the 22nd of March, 1765, the Stamp Act had become law as part of a series of resolutions for imposing new duties on foreign articles imported into America. It aroused bitter indignation in the Colonies. Meetings were held to denounce the policy, dangerous rioting took place, and the stamped papers on their arrival from England were in some of the provinces seized and destroyed by the populace. Chatham spoke in opposition to this policy of taxation, the occasion being the address to the Throne on the assembling of Parliament. It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken in this House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it! It is now an act that has passed-I would speak with decency of every act of this House, but I must beg the indulgence of the House to speak of it with freedom. I hope the day may be soon appointed to consider the state of the nation with respect to America-I hope gentlemen will come to this debate with all the temper and impartiality that his Majesty recommends, and the importance of the subject requires. A subject of greater importance than ever engaged the attention of this House! that subject only excepted when, near a century ago, it was the question whether you yourselves were to be bond or free. In the mean time, as I cannot depend upon health for any future day, such is the nature of my infirmities, I will beg to say a few words at present, leaving the justice, the equity, the policy, the expediency of the act to another time. I will only speak to one point, a point which seems not to have been generally understood-I mean to the right. Some gentlemen1 seem to have considered it as a point of honour. If gentlemen consider it in that light, they leave all measures of right and wrong to follow a delusion that may lead to destruction. It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the 1 Alluding to Mr. Nugent. colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of Government and legislation whatsoever. The colonists are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen: equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are the voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned, but the concurrence of the Peers and the Crown to a tax is only necessary to clothe it with the form of a law. The gift and grant is of the Commons alone. In ancient days, the Crown, the Barons, and the Clergy possessed the lands. In those days, the Barons and the Clergy gave and granted to the Crown. They gave and granted what was their own. At present, since the discovery of America, and other circumstances permitting, the Commons are become the proprietors of the land. The Church (God bless it!) has but a pittance. The property of the Lords, compared with that of the Commons, is as a drop of water in the ocean; and this House represents those Commons, the proprietors of the lands, and those proprietors virtually represent the rest of the inhabitants. When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty -what? Our own property? No! We give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms. The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty. The Crown, the Peers, are equally legislative powers with the Commons. If taxation be a part of simple legislation, the Crown and the Peers have rights in taxation as well as yourselves; rights which they claim, which they will exercise, whenever the principle can be supported by power. There is an idea in some that the colonies are virtually |