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matter for ridicule in those trite but not trivial words. "Do justice to America, exclaimed the father of that man by whom the Irish Unio was accomplished, "do it to-night-do it before you sleep." In your National Gallery is a picture on which Lord Lyndhurst should look : į was painted by Copley, and represents the death of Chatham, who dio not live long after that celebrated invocation was pronounced. justice to America--do it to-night-do it before you sleep." There were men by whom that warning was heard who laughed when it was uttered. Have a care lest injustice to Ireland and to America may not be followed by the same results-lest mournfulness may not succeed to mirth, and another page in the history of England may not be writ in her heart's blood.

66

IRISH MUNICIPAL BILL.

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 22, 1837.

THE right honourable baronet (Sir James Graham) began the speech, m many particulars remarkable, which he has just concluded amidst the applauses of those, whose approbation, at one period of his political life, he would have blushed to incur-by intimating that he was regarded as ຄ bigot" on this side of the house. Whether he deserves the appellation by which he has informed us that he is designated, his speech to-night affords some means of determining. I will not call him a bigot-I am not disposed to use an expression in any degree offensive to the right honourable baronet, but I will presume to call him a convert, who exhibits all the zeal for which conversion is proverbially conspicuous. Of that zeal we have manifestations in his references to pamphlets about Spain, in his allusions to the mother of Cabrera, in his remarks on the Spanish clergy, and the practice of confession in the Catholic Church. I own that, when he takes in such bad part the strong expressions employed in reference to the Irish Church (expressions employed by Protestants, and not by Roman Catholics), I am surprised that he should not himself abstain from observations offensive to the religious feelings of Roman Catholic members of this house. right honourable baronet has done me the honour to produce an extract from a speech of mine, delivered nearly two years ago at the Coburg Gardens and at the same time expressed himself in terms of praise of the humble individual who now addresses you. I can assure the right honourable baronet that I feel at least as much pleasure in listening to him, as he has the goodness to say that he derives from hearing me

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He has many of the accomplishments attributed by Milton to a distin guished speaker in a celebrated council. He is "in act most graceful and humane-his tongue drops mauna.' I cannot but feel pride that ae should entertain so high an opinion of me, as to induce him to peruse and collect all that I say even weyond these walls. He has spent the recess, it appears, in the diligent selection of such passages as he nas read to-night, and which I little thought, when they were uttered, that the right honourable baronet would think worthy of his comments. However, he owes me the return of an obligation. The last time I spoke in this house, I referred to a celebrated speech of his at Cockermouth, in which he pronounced an eloquent invective against "a recreant Whig;" and as he found that I was a diligent student of those models of eloquence which the right honourable baronet used formerly to supply, in advocating the popular rights, he thought himself bound, I suppose, to repay me by the citation, which has, I believe, produced less effect than he had anticipated. The right honourable baronet also adverted to what he calls "the Lichfield House compact." It is not worth while to go over the same ground, after I have already proved, by reading in the house the speech which has been the subject of so much remark-how much I have been misrepresented; I never said that there was a 66 compact;" I did say, and I repeat it, that there was a compact alliance." Was that the first occasion on which an alliance was entered into? Was Lichfield House the only spot ever dedicated to political reconciliations? Has the right honourable baronet forgotten, or has the noble lord (Stanley) who sits beside him, succeeded in dismissing from his recollection, a meeting at Brookes's Club at which the Irish and English reformers assembled, and, in the emergency which had taken place, agreed to relinquish their differences and make a united stand against the common foe? Does the noble lord forget an admirable speech (it was the best post-prandial oration it was ever my good fortune to have heard) delivered by a right honourable gentlemar. who was not then a noble lord, and was accompanied by a vehemence of gesture and a force of intonation not a little illustrative of the emotions of the orator, on his anticipated ejectment from office? That eloquent individual, whom I now see on the Tory side of the house, got up on a table, and with vehement and almost appalling gesture, pronounced an invective against the Duke of Wellington, to which, in the records of vituperation, few parallels can be found. I shall not repeat what the noble lord then said.

66

Lord STANLEY.-You may.

Mr. SHEIL.-No; my object is not to excite personal animosities among new, but ardent friends. I have no malevolent motive in adverting to that remarkable occasion. If I have at all referred to it, it is because the right honourable baronet has been sufficiently indiscreet to talk of Lichfield House :-let him, for the future, confine himself to th recollections of Brookes's, instead of selecting as the subject of his sar casms the meeting in which that reconciliation took place to which Ircland is indebted for the exclusion of the noble lord opposite, and his associates, from power. The right honourable baronet has been guilty

of another imprudence: he has charged Lord Mulgrave with the promotion of Mr. Pigot to a forensic office in Dublin Castle. Mr. Pigot's offence, it seems, consists in his having been a member of the Precur sor Association. Does the right honourable baronet recollect where he sits in this house-with whom he is co-operating-with what party he and the noble lord opposite have entered into confederacy-when he makes matters of this kind the groundwork of imputation? Who were the first men selected for promotion by the Tories? To what association did they belong? Let the right honourable baronet look back, and behind him he will see the treasurer, the grand treasurer, of the Orange Association, whom the member for Tamworth appointed Treasurer of the Ordnance-when his Sovereign placed him at the head of the government of his country. What are the offences of the National Association, when compared with the proceedings of the Orange Institution? Are our proceedings clandestine? Are figures and symbols resorted to by us? Have we tampered with the army, as the Orange Society has been convicted by a committee of this house of having done?

Colonel PERCEVAL.-I deny that the Orange Society tampered with the army. I admit that such warrants were issued.

Mr. SHEIL.-I will not dispute with the gallant colonel about a word. If the phrase " tampered" be objected to, I will adopt any word the gallant colonel will do me the favour to suggest, in order to express a notorious and indisputable fact. It was proved beyond all doubt, and even beyond all controversy, that the Orange Society made the utmost efforts to extend itself into the army; that a number of regimenta warrants were issued, and that resolutions were actually passed, at meetings of the society, upon the subject. From this society, the gal lant officer, who was one of its functionaries, was selected, in order to place him in the Ordnance; and, by a curious coincidence, having been treasurer to the Orange Institution, he was appointed to the same fiscal office in the Ordnance, to whose treasureship he was raised. How, then, can gentlemen be guilty of the imprudence of talking of Mr. Pigot's appointment-(he is a gentleman conspicuous for his talents and high personal character)-when their own party made, within a period so recent, such an appointment as that to which I have reluctantly but unavoidably adverted. But, Sir, can we not discuss the great measure of municipal reform without descending to such small and transitory considerations as the selection of this or that man for office? Talk of Lord Mulgrave's government as you will, you cannot deny that his administration has been, beyond all example, successful. He has acted on the wise and obvious policy of adapting the spirit of his government to the feelings of the numerous majority of that Irish nation by whom he is respected and beloved. His measures have been founded on the determination to regard the rights of the many, instead of consulting the factious interests of the few; and, by the just and wise system on which he has acted, he has effected a complete reconciliation between the government and the people. You speak of his liberating prisoners from gaols :---I disdain even to advert, in reply, to the comments which

have been made on this act of clemency by men who are naturally the advocates of incarceration. I meet these gentlemen with the broad fact, that the country has, under Lord Mulgrave's government, made a great progress towards that pacification which I make no doubt that, under his auspices, Ireland will attain. Look to the county which I have the nonour to represent, and which has been unhappily conspicuous for the disturbances of which it was once the scene. Mr. Howley, the assistant-barrister for that county-a gentleman whose authority is unimpeach able, and who, by his impartial conduct, his admirable temper, his knowledge, and his talents, has won the applause of all parties—states. in his charge delivered at Nenagh, that there is an end to the savage combats at fairs; and, in a return made by the clerk of the crown for the county, it appears that, in every class of crime, there has been, within the last year, a most extraordinary diminution. This surely is better evidence than the assertions made in Tory journals, and adopted by gentlemen whose political interests are at variance with their amiable aspirations for the establishment of order in their country. But. Sir, the most remarkable incident to the administration of my Lord Mulgrave has been, its effect upon the great political question which, not very long ago, produced so much excitement in one country, and not a little apprehension in the other. Without having recourse to coercive bills-without resorting to a single measure of severity-by impressing the people of Ireland with a conviction that he was determined to do them justice, Lord Mulgrave has laid the Repeal question at rest. It is. if not dead, at least deeply dormant; and, although such a policy as that of the noble lord opposite would soon awaken or resuscitate it again, as long as the principles on which the government of Lord Mulgrave and of the noble lord the member for Yorkshire* is carried on, are adhered to, so long you will find that the people of Ireland will remain in a relation not only of amity, but of attachment to the administration. It may be asked, how the good results of the policy I have been describ ing can affect the question before the house? Thus:-the executive has, by its judicious measures, by adapting itself to the political condition of the country, and by its preference of the nation to a faction, completely succeeded. It has held out a model which the legislature ought to imitate. Let the parliament enact laws in the spirit in which the laws, even as they stand, have been carried into effect in Ireland. Let the good of the country, instead of the monopoly of a party, supply the standard by which parliament shall regulate its legislation; and to what the Irish government has so nobly commenced, a perfect and glorious completion will one day be given.

I turn from the consideration of those topics connected with the exist ing condition of affairs in Ireland, to the discussion of the broader ground on which the question ought to be debated. I ask you to dɔ justice to Ireland. Every man in this house will probably say, that he is anxious to do Ireland justice; but what is justice to Ireland? It will assist us, in investigating that question, to determine, in the first

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place, wnat is justice to England? In this country the Corporation and Test Acts were always regarded as the muniments of the church and corporations, through their effects, as its chief bulwarks. Mr. Ca..ing was so strongly persuaded of this, that in 1827, while he declared himself the advocate of emancipation, he announced his firm resolve to stand by the Protestant corporations, and not to consent to the repeal of the law which gave them their peculiar character, and connected them with the establishment. Those laws were, however, repealed by the member for Tamworth; he could not help repealing them; he then began to undergo that process of soft compulsion, in submitting to which he afterwards acquired those habits of useful complaisance-in which we shall furnish him with the strongest motives to persevere. and Corporation Acts having been repealed, still, through the machinery of self-election, the body of the people were deprived of the practical advantages which ought to have resulted from that repeal. The reformed House of Commons determined to place corporations under popular control. The Lords thought it imprudent to resist. No one was found bold enough to state that because a transfer of power would take place from the Tories to the Reformers, therefore corporations should be abolished. Take Liverpool as an example. A transfer of influence has taken place there, to such an extent that, very much to the noble lord's astonishment, his plan for the mutilation of the Word of God has been adopted in the schools under the superintendence of the corporations. Let us now pass to Ireland. I will admit for the sake of argument, that corporations were established to protect the Protestant Church; they would thus rest on the same ground as the Test and Corporation Acts: the latter having been abandoned in England, and having been followed by corporate reform, the same reasons apply to the relinquishment of the principle of exclusion in Ireland, which is utterly incompatible with the ground on which Catholic Emancipation was acknowledged to have been conceded. What took place when emancipation was carried? Was it intimated that we should be excluded from corporations? The direct contrary was asserted. "Roman Catholics (said the right honourable member for Tamworth, in the admirable speech in which he acknowledged the gentle violence by which the rights of Ireland were ravished from his reluctant coyness), Roman Catholics shall be admitted to all corporate offices in Ireland.” This was strong; but he did more. In the bill framed under his superintendence, two clauses were introduced providing for the admission of Catholics into corporations. Was the right honourable gentleman sincere? Did he intend that to the heart of Ireland, beating as it was with hope, the word of promise should be kept? Who can doubt it? Who can believe that the right honourable baronet would be capable of practising a delusion? What he did, he did unwillingly; but he did with honesty whatever he did. His act of enfranchisement was baffled in this regard, and, by a combination among corporators, Catholics werc xcluded. From that day to this, not a single Roman Catholic-not one has been admitted into the corporations attached to the metropois of our country I boldly ask the right honourable baronet whether