as they answered their kings when they urged precedents against the liberty of England-such things are the tyranny of one side, and the weakness of the other, and the law of neither: we will not be bound by them; or rather, in the words of the Declaration of Right, no doing, judgment, or proceeding to the contrary, shall be brought into precedent or example. Do not, then, tolerate a power, the power of the British Parliament, over this land, which has no foundation in necessity, or utility, or empire, or the laws of England, or the laws of Ireland, or the laws of nature, or the laws of God. Do not suffer that power which banished your manufacturers, dishonoured your peerage, and stopped the growth of your people; do not, I say, be bribed by an export of woollen, or an import of sugar, and suffer that power which has thus withered the land, to have existence in your pusillanimity. Do not send the people to their own resolves for liberty, passing by the tribunals of justice, and the high court of Parliament; neither imagine, that by any formation of apology, you can palliate such a commission to your hearts, still less to your children, who will sting you in your grave for interposing between them and their Maker, and robbing them of an immense occasion, and losing an opportunity which you did not create, and can never restore.

. Hereafter, when these things shall be history,

D

your age of thraldom, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and miraculous argument; shall the historian stop at liberty, and observe, that here the principal men among us were found wanting, were awed by a weak ministry, bribed by an empty treasury; and when liberty was within their grasp, and her Temple opened its folding doors, fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold?

I might, as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty. I do call upon you by the laws of the land, and their violation; by the instruċtions of 18 counties; by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present moment-Tell us the rule by which we shall go, assert the law of Ireland, declare the liberty of the land. I will not be answered by a public lie in the shape of an amendment; nor, speaking for the subject's freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be, to break your chain, and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied, so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags: he may be naked, he shall not be in irons; and I do see the time at hand; the spirit is gone forth; the Declaration of Right is planted; and though great men should fall off, yet the cause shall live; and though he who utters

this should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the humble organ who conveys it; and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive him.

[He then moved the Declaration of Right. See the Address of the 16th of April, in page 59.]

D2

[Spoken on the 19th of February, 1782.]

BEFORE Ireland goes into her title, let us hear the title of England; for the question is not, whether Ireland has a right to be free, but whether Great Britain has a right to enslave her. When the latter country asks what right have the Irish to make laws for themselves? Ireland will not

answer, but demands, what right has England to make laws for

Ireland-from nature she not given any one nation

has none-nature has a right over another. Has she it from covenant? let her show the covenant. In what roll do we find it? in what history is it recorded? There is no such thing; there is a covenant most certainly, but a covenant diametrically opposite; it is a compact with Henry 2nd securing to Henry the crown-to Irish settlers the laws of England; that is to say, the liberties of England, in which is included a right not to be bound without her own consent, and to have her own legislative assemblies. These articles