reland, armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, wili be satisfied with nothing less than liberty.

I might, as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty.

REPLY TO MR. FLOOD, 1783.-Henry Grattan.

At the time of this speech in the Irish Parliament, Flood and Grattan, although previously friends, stood before the Irish people as rival leaders. A bitter animosity had arisen between them; and Grattan having unfortunately led the way in personality, by speaking of his opponent's "affectation of infirmity," Flood replied with great asperity, denouncing Grattan as a mendicant patriot," who, 66 bought by his country for a sum of money, then sold his country for prompt payment." He also sneered at Grattan's "aping the style of Lord Chatham." To these taunts Grattan replied in a speech, an abridgment of which we here give. An arrangement for a hostile meeting between the parties was the consequence of this speech; but Flood was arrested, and the crime of a duel was not added to the offence of vindictive personality, of which both had been guilty. Grattan lived to regret his harshness, and speak in generous terms of his rival.

It is not the slander of an evil tongue that can defame me. I maintain my reputation in public and in private life. No man, who has not a bad character, can ever say that I deceived. No country can call me a cheat. But I will suppose such a public character. I will suppose such a man to have existence. I will begin with his character in his political cradle, and I win follow him to the last stage of political disselution. I will suppose him, in the first stage of his life, to have been intemperate; in the second, to have been corrupt; and in the last, seditious;-that, after an envenomed

attack on the persons and measures of a succession of viceroys, and after much declamation against their illegalities and their profusion, he took office, and became a supporter of Government, when the profusion of ministers had greatly increased, and their crimes multiplied beyond example.

With regard to the liberties of America, which were inseparable from ours, I will suppose this gentleman to have been an enemy decided and unreserved; that he voted against her liberty, and voted, moreover, for an address to send four thousand Irish troops to cut he throats of the Americans; that he called these huchers "armed negotiators," and stood with a metapi. r in his mouth and a bribe in his pocket, a champion against the rights of America,-of America, the only hope of Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind. Thus defective in every relationship, whether to constitution, commerce, and toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private improbity to public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a level with his oath. He loves to deliver panegyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and say:

Sir, you are much mistaken if you think that your talents have been as great as your life has been reprehensible. You began your parliamentary career with an acrimony and personality which could have been justified only by a supposition of virtue; after a rank and clamorous opposition you became, on a sudden, silent; you were silent for seven years; you were silent on the greater questions, and you were silent for

money! You supported the unparalleled profusion and jobbing of Lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry. You, sir, who manufacture stage thunder against Mr. Eden for his anti-American principles,-you, sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the immortal Hampden,you, sir, approved of the tyranny exercised against America, and you, sir, voted four thousand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Americans fighting for their freedom, fighting for your freedom, fighting for the great principle, liberty! But you found, at last, that the Court had bought, but would not trust you. Mortified at the discovery, you try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the acts of an incendiary; and observing, with regard to Prince and People, the most impartial treachery and desertion, you justify the suspicion of your Sovereign by betraying the Government, as you had sold the People. Such has been your conduct, and at such conduct every order of your fellow-subjects have right to exclaim! The merchant may say to you, the constitutionalist may say to you, the American may say to you, and I, I now say, and say to your beard-Sir, you are not an honest man.

NATIONAL

ATITUDE, 1780.—Henry Grattan.

I shall hear of ingratitude. I name the argument to despise it, ard the men who make use of it. I know the men who use it are not grateful: they are insatiate; they aro public extortioners, who would stop the tide of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel of their own climent. I know of nc species of gratitude

which should prevent my country from being free; no gratitude which should oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. In cases of robbery and usurpation, nothing is an object of gratitude except the thing stolen, the charter spoliated. A nation's liberty cannot, like her treasure, be meted and parcelled out in gratitude. No man can be grateful or liberal of his conscience, nor woman of her honor, nor nation of her liberty. There are certain unimpartable, inherent, invaluable properties, not to be alienated from the person, whether body politic or body natural. With the same contempt do I treat that charge which says that Ireland is insatiable; saying that Ireland asks nothing but that which Great Britain has robbed her of,-her rights and privileges. To say that Ireland will not be satisfied with liberty, because she is not satisfied with slavery, is folly. I laugh at that man who supposes that Ireland will not be content with a free trade aud a free constitution; and would any man advise her to be content with less?

DISQUALIFICATION OF ROMAN CATHOLICS,

Grattan.

1793.-Henry

You are struggling with difficulties, you imagine; you are mistaken, you are struggling with impossi bilities. In making laws on the subject of religion, legislators forget mankind, until their own distraction admonishes them of two truths,-the one that there is a God; the other, that there is a people! Never was it permitted to any nation,-they may perplex their

anderstandings with various apologies, but 1 ever was it long permitted to exclude from essential-from what they themselves have pronounced essential blessings— a great portion of themselves for a period of time; and for no reason, or, what is worse, for such reasons as you have advanced.

Conquerors, or tyrants proceeding from conquerors, have scarcely ever for any length of time governed by those partial disabilities; but a people so to govern itself, or, rather, under the name of government, so to exclude itself---the industrious, the opulent, the useful -that part that feeds you with its industry, and supplies you with its taxes, weaves that you may wear, and ploughs that you may eat,-to exclude a body so useful, so numerous, and that forever!—and in the mean time to tax them ad libitum, and occasionally to pledge their lives and fortunes!--for what?-for their disfranchisement?-it cannot be done! Continue it, and you expect from your laws what it were blasphemy to ask of your Maker. Such a policy always turns on the inventor, and bruises him under the stroke of the sceptre or the sword, or sinks him under accumulations of debt and loss of dominion. Need I go to instances? What was the case of Ireland, enslaved for a century, and withered and blasted with her Protestant ascendency, like a shattered oak scathed on its hill by the fires of its own intolerance? What lost England America, but such a policy? An attempt to bind men by a parliament wherein they are not represented! Such an attempt as some would now continue to practise on the Catholics. Has your pity traversed leagues of sea