INCREASE OF POWER.

SPEECH ON THE INCREASE OF POWER IN THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND.

THE Bible, with every man's comment, is now the fashion. I shall give Tou a text, with my own comment: "The Philistines took Samson and put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison. Howbeit the hair of Samson began to grow after he was shaven." They put out the eyes of Ireland; they made education illicit, and declared knowledge to be contraband. They knew that slavery and ignorance were companions-they quenched the intellectual vision of the people-they bound them in penalties that cut into the mind, and corroded the heart-they set them to grind in the prison-they declared them to be incapable of all honourable occupation-they fixed a brand upon their labour, and to their industry they attached disgrace; and yet, in despite of all this, notwithstanding the detestable ingenuity of this infernal process for the debasement and demoralization of man, the innate power of the country defeated this abominable scheme. Its original and native energy were insensibly restored; war, and massacre, and slavery, and exile, could not stop the progress of population. The law of nature was stronger than the law of the land. Shorn, as Ireland was of her strength, she imperceptibly regained her gigantic vigour "The hair of Samson began to grow upon his head.” What, then, is to be done with Samson? But I do the country wrong. Unlike the strong man Ireland has recovered her sight, with the renovation of her strength. Let me drop the illustration, and appeal, not to metaphors, but to facts. The population of Ireland was reduced at one period to eight hundred thousand inhabitants. The penal code was passed-it tended to multiply them, and not to diminish the indigenous religion. The population swelled to three millions-the Volunteers arose; that which Primate Boulter pronounced to be the death of English influence was about to be effected-her junction of the Catholic and Protestant, and the merging of religion into nationality. The government flung the Catholic question into the Irish convention. Division was produced-the Protestant became alarmed, and the Catholic discontented. "Give us our liberty," exclaimed the Catholic—“ preserve our ascendancy," exclaimed the Protestant. The government struck upon a middle course, and by so doing, the seeds of dissension were deposited. The Catholic purchased the soil which he had scarcely dared to tread; he acquired power with the elective franchise; a career was thrown open to the intellect of the country in the professions Popery became rich, influential, active, restless, intelligent, and aspiring The three millions rose to six. We are six millions of British subjects. Statesmen of England, what is to be done with us? What is to be done with six millions of men? You must re-enact the penal code, or make us wholly free; you must strip the lawyer of his gown, the merchant of his stock, the proprietor of his estate. The bill of discovery must be rerˇˇed; filial ingratitude must again be turned into virtue, and a

Bounty must be set upon parricide. This might not be humane, but it would be consistent. It would be more reasonable, at all events, thau the perpetuation of a system, which is at once exasperating and absurd It is not only absurd but dangerous. It is more than dangerous--it carries the seeds of destruction and the elements of ruin. England is now at the highest point of prosperity-she reposes in opulence from the fatigues and the exhaustion of a long and sanguinary war. She has, if I may say so, washed the blood and dust from her brow, and bathes herself in the warm and refreshing stream of a vast and superabundant commerce. The treasures of South America are pouring into her lap; the sun does not set upon her dominions; the fabric of her power is magnificent and immense; but is its foundation in measure with its height? Is it built upon an immutable basis? Is it placed beyond the power of all political contingency, and can it bid defiance to calculable events? The King of Babylon beheld the type of a great empire in an image with a golden head, and with feet of iron and of clay. It was shattered by a pebble. It was emblematic of a dominion which rested on frailty and oppression. The amazing wealth of England is illustrated by the symbol that surmounted the visionary form, and in the government of this unhappy, but important province, there is a combination of meanness and injustice, which is not unaptly Exemplified by the hard and vile materials of which the feet of the prophetic statue were composed. It requires but little of the spirit of prophecy to foresee the hazard to which that dominion must be exposed, which, however glorious, rests upon a system at variance with the interests and with the rights of the great body of the people, which is at once paltry and grinding, despicable and cruel, and to recur to the Scriptural illustration, is made of iron and of clay. Such a system may be subverted by an accident; a stone may shatter it; literally speaking, it may fall in the shifting of the wind. Let France declare war; let the English fleet be blown out of the Channel; let-But I see in the faces of many around me an expression of alarm; you think I tread upon dangerous ground; "Beware," you seem to say, "you are upon the verge of sedition-the ear of Dionysius is always open." I do not dread it; I am fearless in the integrity of my own purpose; and, knowing myself, not only from every principle of duty, but from every motive of interest, to be strenuously anxious for the pacification of my country; being little prone to political romance, never having indulged in the day-dream of Irish independence; attached, from deep conviction of its necessity, and, I will add, of its ultimate utility to the connexion with England; desiring to see my country substantially blended and consolidated with the great mass of the empire; united not merely by acts of parliament, but by a reciprocity of kindness and a mutuality of interests, I am careless of any imputation that may be flung upon my motives, either by open enemies, or by those luke-warm friends, whom we should begin to vomit. I will give utterance to the language which is dictated by my feelings, and to which my judgment gives it sanction. There are six millions of Roman Catholics in Ireland. A vast proportion of that immense body are alienated by the law. It is impossible that

discontent-that disaffection should not exist. The better classes d Roman Catholics-they who have acquired, or who hope to acquire wealth-the members of professions, the opulent merchants, the extensive agriculturists, set off their interests against their feelings; and while they abhor the penal code (as which of us does not?) they have a still greater dread of a convulsion in which life and property would not only be endangered, but swept away. But there is in this country an immense mass of population, who have uniformly acted under the influence of passion, more than of reason; men who have injuries to avenge, and nothing but death, with which they are familiar, to apprehend; spirits untamed by the enjoyments of life-bound to it by no tie— cheered by no solace-having nothing but the animal instinct to attach them to existence, which their habits are calculated to surmount—men who mount the scaffold with a laugh, and leap from it with a bound. That vast body of fierce, and fearless, and desperate peasantry would be easily allured into a junction with an invader, and whatever might be the ultimate event, the immediate consequences must make every good man tremble. It is the fashion in the orgies of Orangemen to boast of the power of the Irish Protestants, and to vaunt that they would alone repel any attempt upon our shores. An accident or rather a merciful dispensation of Providence, prevented the great body of the French forces from landing at Killala. But mark what was accomplished by only a handful of men! Twelve hundred Frenchmen marched into the heart of the country and defeated six thousand of the British troops. I admit that those troops were very different from the veterans of the Peninsula they were, like the present Irish government, formidable only to their friends. But they were as good as the Orangemen could muster, and they were discomfited almost by a band of boys. There were many difficulties in the way of the French Directory at that period There was no sympathy in religion, and the people were not prepared for their reception. But in fifteen or twenty years hence, if the system of alienation should continue, how different will be the condition of the national mind? The Bourbon family are aware of that mistake which Bonaparte committed and regretted. They turn their eyes towards Ireland a community of religious feeling may be easily cultivated. A long peace affords opportunities of intercourse, and if, after a mature and deliberate preparation of the public sentiment, the united fleets of France and America were to appear, with twenty thousand men, and one hundred thousand stand of arms, off our coast, what would be the result? "We should beat them still," exclaims an Englishman, laying his hand with honest pride upon his sword. I trust that the national vaunt would be verified by the event! Miserable as the condition is to which we are reduced, it is better than the connexion of Ireland with a foreign power. I had rather see the streets patrolled by Scotch Highlanders than French Dragoons. There is not a man in this assembly who would not wish that such an enterprise should fail; and that it would fail I firmly believe. The patriotic aspiration of the Duke of Wellington, that his country should be re-conquered, would be realised. But I ask, in the name of common humanity, and

those instincts of universal nature, which even religious antipathies are not able wholly to subdue-I ask of the most inveterate of the fartion who are leagued against the peace, as well as the freedom of Ireland, whether anything could compensate for the deluge of blood witli which even victory must be bought? The events of which I speak, (and may the timely wisdom of England, and the God of heaven avert them) may not happen, and in all likelihood will not happen while we live. We shall all be gathered in the dust, blended in the great and lasting reconciliation of the grave. But shall a legislator-a British statesman-a trustee of the interests and happiness of his fellow-men, presume to say, that provided he can crawl in office to the tomb, he is indifferent about futurity. Eldon, perhaps, may say so. Let him, in his agony, clutch his money bags in one hand, and the seals in the other, and he dies contented. But can any man, with the least pretensions to elevation of character or generosity of feeling, contemplate the frightful probabilities to which I have adverted without a shudder? It is not to the philanthropist alone that we should point out this disastrous prospect. It is to the meaner advocates of ascendancy, that we should address ourselves. I do not appeal to any dignified or exalted sentiment. They cling to the bad pre-eminence which they derive from their religion These birds of prey croak and flutter in angry tumult at the least dis turbance of those foul nests which they have built upon the ruins of their country. But dead as they may be to every other sentiment, I would appeal to their self-love and throw their personal interests into the scale. A man contemplates the perpetuation of his own existence in his child; they have children, and yet, strange to say, while they manifest the utmost solicitude in the indulgence of their paternal sensibilities for the future welfare of their offspring, they entirely forget how much it must depend upon the permanent tranquillization of their country. A great Protestant proprietor sits down to draw his will-he surveys from the window of his magnificent residence, the expanse of confiscated woods and lawns with which the courageous piety of the Cromwellian forefather was rewarded. He devises his estate in strict settlement, and by a variety of complicated limitations, endeavours to escape from the laws against perpetuity, and would give, if he could, & feudal permanence to his estate, and render it unalienable. He embraces a century in the extent of his testamentary anticipations. If, at such a moment, a warning like the prophecy of Lochiel, were to be breathed upon him; if he were to be told that the time should come when his mansion should be given to the flames-when the shouts of murder and the shrieks of dishonour should ring through his hallswhen his sons should be slaughtered upon his threshold, and his daughters should scream for help upon their father's grave- -But I advance too far into "the field of the dead." I must pause in this dreadful picture, and yet I cannot avoid calling upon every man with a touch of the parental instincts in his heart, to awaken to the appalling likelihood of a convulsion, of which his children may be the victims. They will insure their lives for the benefit of their children; they will not insure the peace of their country. They will insure their dwellings against

fire, and they will not insure the great fabric of the State against conflagration. Nay, they pile combustible matter within it, and seem almost to prepare it for an explosion. It is not to Protestants alone that I address myself. There is not a man that hears me whose offspring may not be immolated to this frightful infatuation. If ever these terrible events should arise, every class of society will be swept and sucked into the bloody vortex. There is not a parent in the land-there is not a father or a mother who does not bear a painful participation in those disastrous likelihoods. The cry of discord should sound like Alecto's trumpet; it should give a start to every mother, and make her clasp her children to her breast. I would to heaven the women of Ireland would feel the frightful possibilities of which I have given a sketch so imperfect, and, like the wives and mothers of antiquity, throw themselves between us, and holding up their children, implore us to forbear. And how easily, with what facility, and by an expedient how prompt, how obvious and simple, might our unhappy animosities be subdued for ever! How rapidly a great national reconciliation would take place! How soon the waters of bitterness would cease to run, if the fountain were sealed up! How easily our minds would mingle and coalesce together, if the law did not stand between us; how zealously should we all co-operate for the purposes of national good! Instead of waging battles about heaven, we should exemplify its precepts by good will upon earth; in place of engaging in the frenzy of polemics, we should enter into an universal alliance for the education of the people. A wholesome communication between the higher and the lower classes of society would take place; the channels of a salutary intercourse would be opened-an easy and unimpeded circulation of good feelings and of good principles would arise-English capital and English minds and habits would be diffused amongst us; and in a little time we should look back with shame and with astonishment at the rancorous feuds by which we had been divided.

VIOLENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION.

SPEECH IN VINDICATION OF THE VIOLENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION.

You are assembled upon an occasion of no ordinary moment; you meet in order to determine upon the general system which you are hereafter to adopt, and to intimate to your advocates and to your antagonists the principles upon which your proceedings are intended to be regulated, and the general course which you mean to follow. I do not exaggerate when I say, that whatever little weight may be attached to individuals, and however our opponents may affect to hold, at a cheap rate, the most active of the members of our own body, yet, that the cause itself is of such a magnitude, and upon its progress so much of the stability of parties depends. that the eyes of the country are directed to our