infection, and became patriotic and independent. All these rational and just propositions became, through the new-born zeal of the Parliament, established law: down went Poynings' law-useful in its day; down went the Act of Philip and Mary; down went the obnoxious Statute of George I.; the Mutiny Bill was limited, restrictions on Irish trade vanished, the ports were opened, the Judges were made irremovable and independent. I cannot join in the usual exultation at the proceedings of the Volunteers; on the contrary, I regret their occurrence. Not that I think the resolutions carried at Dungannon were in themselves unjust; not that I would hesitate to claim for Ireland all the rights possessed by our English fellow-subjects; but because all these inestimable advantages were not granted by the wisdom of the Government, through the recognised channel of Parliament, and were carried at the point of the bayonet. The precedent was dangerous. Had Walpole been alive, he would have repented his blunder in listening to Primate Boulter, and refusing to be advised by the counsels of Swift. But the deed was done.

Lord Mountmorres, in his valuable book on the Transactions of the Irish Parliament, published in 1792, in referring to the curious debate recorded by Carte, in his Life of the Duke of Ormonde-which debate took place in the Council of England, in the reign of Charles II., on the question whether the settlement of Ireland at that time should be transacted by the English or by the Irish Parliament-concludes his observations with these words :- "The assertion and declaration of the Irish, and the final renunciation of the English Parliament, in 1781, has established upon an eternal and irrevocable foundation, the sole right of their own Parliament to legislate for Ireland." The events which subsequently happened are in remarkable contrast to this bold and confi

dent statement, and refute the idea of a final renunciation, or indeed, of finality in political subjects.

Our inquiry henceforth will be-How the Parliament secured-how it preserved its independence-and why, and when it was lost.

It will be seen I have not misapprehended the true character of the celebrated Dungannon meeting. Mr. Grattan in the House of Commons thus refers to it:" Gentlemen will perceive that I allude to the transaction at Dungannon. Not long ago the meeting at Dungannon was considered a very alarming measure, but I thought otherwise. I approved, yet I considered the meeting at Dungannon as an original transaction. As such only it was matter of surprise. What more extraordinary transaction than the attainment of Magna Charta? It was not attained in Parliament, but by the Barons, armed in the field. A great original transaction is not founded in precedent; it contains in itself both reason and precedent. The Revolution had no precedent; the Christian religion had no precedent; the Apostles had no precedent." Apart from the singularity of the style and the very questionable analogies suggested by the orator, it is plain his argument was, that the meeting at Dungannon was an unprecedented revolutionary movement, owing its success and its value to the fact that it sprang from an assembly, and was backed by an association of armed men. The gentlemen who signed and supported the resolutions at Dungannon were not famous as orators; but they and their descendants would maintain their words by their actions; their pithy resolutions in the open air were as effective as the fine speeches delivered within the walls of Parlia

ment.

Flood added fuel to the flame when he exclaimed, in his place in the House of Commons, "A voice from America

shouted to Liberty; the echo of it caught your people as it passed along the Atlantic, and they renewed the voice till it reverberated here!" Ominous words when spoken! If the speaker were now alive, would he repeat his words, and say it was from America the voice should come which was to awake a lethargic nation to happiness and freedom?

On the night that the message was delivered from the Crown, in the Duke of Portland's administration, to the effect that all the demands of the Irish nation, that is, those made by the Parliament and the Volunteers, would be yielded, and that, amongst other concessions, the obnoxious Statute of 6th George I. was to be repealed,—Mr. Grattan, in the exuberance of his joy at what he considered the triumphant result of his labors, declared, "That there will no longer exist any constitutional question between the two nations that can disturb their mutual tranquillity." These words produced a corresponding impression upon the minds of the delighted hearers. Mr. Bagenal-declaring that our existence as a nation now began, comparing Grattan to Marlborough, and reminding the House that a grateful nation had voted Blenheim and an estate to the victor in twenty great battles-proposed that a similar course should be pursued with regard to Grattan, and that a sum of £100,000 should be applied to the purchase of an estate to be settled on him and his heirs for ever, as a token of the national gratitude for his illustrious services. The proposal was grateful to the House; the amount, however, was reduced to £50,000, and the estate was settled on the favourite. It might fairly be argued, that a place-hunter should be rewarded by a place-a patriot by the people. "He had crowned his work." These words were hardly spoken, and the Parliament had scarce recovered from the intoxication of its joy, when it was coolly, ably, and I think unanswerably argued, especially by a Mr.

Walshe and by Flood, that the work was not crownedthat poor Ireland was not rescued from English thraldom. "What!" said Mr. Grattan, "is not the 6th George I. to be repealed ?" "Yes," said Mr. Flood; "and may it not be reenacted—may not the British Parliament hereafter, if it pleases, repeat its original offence ?—a simple repeal will not suffice; there should be a renunciation of the right on the part of England so to legislate in regard to Ireland." The gauntlet flung down by Flood was gallantly taken up by Grattan, and the tournament was fought by knights who tilted each other in the House with the pen, and tried to tilt at each other out of the House with sword and pistol. The debates on the question, whether simple repeal of the hated statute implied a renunciation of the right to pass such a law, occupy half a volume. Flood reasoned his point with masterly ability, and Mr. Walshe argued almost as well. I think they proved that England always claimed the right to legislate for Ireland by naming Ireland in the Act, and not only claimed, but exercised that right repeatedly, as I have shown. They further proved, that the Act of George I. was a declaratory law only; and therefore, they insisted, that by the simple repeal of the Declaratory Law, the right to pass such a law remained just as it had been before, for that there was no renunciation of the right.

It is considered that Grattan was defeated in the argument, and that Flood argued the law of the matter better than most of the lawyers who spoke on the vexed question. I invite the student to read the argumentative and closely reasoned speeches of this distinguished Irishman. He was a county member and a country gentleman, but how educated? His father, who was Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, sent him to our University, then to Oxford, then to the Temple to acquire the general principles of

law and of the Constitution, then to write odes and to travel; then the County of Kilkenny returned him to Parliament, where he worried the Attorney-General, puzzled the lawyers, irritated the patriots, and convinced the Volunteers.

While Flood said he was opposed to the principle of an Union with England, he yet, inconsistently enough, asked for the same legal, fundamental, unalterable security for Ireland as England granted to Scotland, when the Union with that country was effected. He likewise insisted that England had only given up internal legislation, but not external legislation, as to Ireland. This should be noted carefully; for under the words external legislation was to be included commercial, colonial, and marine legislation. Flood maintained that unless England expressly renounced all right of external legislation, she would still have it, and exercise it over or against Ireland when it suited her; and he did not believe England intended to renounce that power. His language was pure and lofty; he concluded an able speech thus-"Were the voice with which I utter this, the last effort of an expiring nature—were the accent which conveys it to you, the breath that was to waft me to that grave to which we all tend, and to which my footsteps rapidly accelerate-I would go on; I would make my exit by a loud demand of your rights; and I call upon the God of truth and liberty, who has so often favoured you, and who has, of late, looked down upon you with such peculiar grace and glory of protection, to continue to you his inspirings, to crown you with the spirit of his completion, and to assist you against the errors of those that are honest, as well as against the machinations of all that are not so."

Flood failed for the time,-Grattan for the time triumphed. I turn to the Summary of the Parliamentary History of England at this period, supposed to have been written by BurkeDodsley's Register-and I find it there said, "the mode of