Right, after reciting precedents against the liberty of the subject, says, all such doings and so forth, shall be utterly void. Her Great Charter had set forth, that ány judgment given to the contrary, shall be utterly void. She formed her Petition of Right upon her birth-right-your birth-right against precedent. She formed her Declaration of Right on the same ground. She considered the right of Kings as defeasible, and the birth-right of the subject as indefeasible and she deposed a King, who had, under the authority of precedent and adjudication, invaded the indefeasible right of the subject, out of which right, she not only formed a revolution, but a dynasty that had and has no other foundation than that which depends on the abolishment of every arbitrary maxim in Church and State, the venal judgment, the violent precedent, and the bare-faced impudence of the law of conquest. Has, then, the birthright of the British subject-your birth-right-been against precedent, the precedent of the Plantagenets, the precedent of the Tudors, the precedent of the Stuarts, to form a Petition of Right, a Declaration of Right, a Revolution, cancel the oath of allegiance, depose James, establish William, royalise the House of Hanover? Has our common birth-right done all this for England, and given security to her meanest subject, and clothed her beggar with his sturdiness? and has it left Ireland naked, subject to be bound without your consent, taxed without your consent;

restricted commerce, an independent army, and a dependent parliament? We have done with precedent. She then resorts to authority. To what authority, to her judges? To do what? To repeal act of parliament by interpretation? What act, Magna Charta? I respect the judges, but in this case, I object to their authority; first, because they are partial, being of the country whose power they are to discuss; secondly, because they are dependent, being punishable by the parliament whose claims they are to arbitrate; thirdly, because they are incompetent, being by their office obliged to pronounce the law as parliament declares; fourthly, because they are inadmissible, being in this case called upon to repeal act of parliament vunder colour of interpretation. The Great Charter, the 10th Henry 4th, the 29th Henry 6th, the Act of Faculties, do not want an interpreter: these, say, no English statute shall be of force in Ireland, till confirmed by the Irish Parliament: no Irish subject to be bound by statutes, except ordained within the realm; to say they may, is to repeal, not to interpret such explanation is violation, not interpretation, and the judge not an authority, but an offender; besides, the judges are bad arbiters of public liberty. There is no act of power for which you have not a precedent, nor any false doctrine for which you have not an adjudication. Lord Bacon maintained a dispensing power-Lord Coke

maintained a dispensing power-Lord Chief Justice Fleming affirmed the power of the King to lay port duties Judge Blackstone maintained the power of the House of Commons to disqualify by the vote of its own body. When the Attorney General filed an information against five members of parliament for their speeches in the House of Commons, the judges of the King's Bench fined and confined them all. There is no adjudication which the judges of England can make against Ireland, that they have not made against their own country. Now, as the people of England have disregarded such authority when waged against their own liberties, so shall we disregard the same authority when waged against ours. We cannot allow England to plead her Magna Charta against the authority of her judges, and to sit up the authority of her judges against the Magna Charta of Ireland; nor must she answer her judges with the principles of the Revolution, nor Ireland with those of the Jacobite; for neither judgments, nor the judges, nor pre cedents, are laws; still less can they repeal laws still less, franchises; and least of all, the charters—— these things right themselves without a judge, and in despite of him, and put forth a voice even against kings; and, buried for ages, like the blood of the murdered man, they rise up in judgment, and call for justice. Let them now produce their judges. There are four remarkable adjudications on

this subject, one has been against us, and three have been favourable; the one against us is the case of the Staple Act, the English Act 2nd of Henry 6th; it was a case where Ireland was specially named and forbidden to export woollen to Calais : the first decision adjudged, that Ireland was not bound by this Act: the decision was made in the time of Richard 3rd, by all the judges of England, assembled in the Exchequer Chamber. This case afterwards, in the reign of Henry 7th, was, by Lord Chief Justice Hussy, decided against us, his brethren not much dissenting; the reporter, Brooke, doubts the legality of his opinion, and Lord Coke approves of the contrary opinion, namely, of the original determination of the judges assembled in the Exchequer. Under these circumstances stands the decision that is against us; of the three decisions which were for us, I have already stated one another was the case of a patent given to one Pilkington, of an office in Ireland, which he discharged by deputy. A. got a patent for the same office, and Pilkington brought a scire facias to the Court in England, 20th of Henry 6th, against A. to show cause why the patent should not be repealed! A. pleaded that the Irish Parliament had, by an Act, required that said office should be discharged in person, or forfeited; and then he prescribed for the Irish Parliament, and the prescription was allowed! The third decision, is that of the judges of Ire

land-queries put to them by the Lords, at the request of the Commons. The first query was as follows: Whether the subjects of Ireland be a free people, and to be governed only by the common laws of England, and statutes of force in this kingdom? to which query all the judges answer in the affirmative--they point out where the common law, in some instances, differs from that of England, where equity interferes; but with respect to the question, whether the subjects of Ireland be a free people, to be bound only by the common laws of England and the Irish statutes, their assent is unqualified. Such is the answer of the seven judges of Ireland, given in writing, with their names affixed. The other authorities are, the opinions of judges, given in their books. One of these opinions is that of Mr. Justice Blackstone, a very considerable name-but what has this oracle pronounced? namely, that the Parliament of England has settled her own right by her own ipse dixit, she has settled the matter, he says, by the Declaratory Act of the 6th of George 1st. Certainly she has settled the matter for this Rhadamanthus, but his remark proves only, that the Parliament of England had authority over her judges, but it does not prove that she had authority over Ireland; certainly the judge cannot question the legislature, and therefore ought not, in such a case, to be arbiter: he adds his own reasons; they are bad ones. Ireland,