which won universal admiration for its boldness, sublimity, and compass of thought. Lord Charlemont remarked afterward, in speaking of this effort, and of Mr. Grattan's weakness of health when he came forward, that "if ever spirit could be said to act independent of body, it was on that occasion." It was in vain for the friends of the minister to resist. The resolutions were carried almost by acclamation. Mr. Fox, when he heard the result, decided instantly to yield, declaring that he would rather see Ireland wholly separated from the crown of England than held in subjection by force. He, therefore, soon after brought in a bill for repealing the act of the sixth of George First.

As an expression of their gratitude for these services, the Parliament of Ireland voted the sum of £100,000 to purchase Mr. Grattan an estate. His feelings led him, at first, to decline the grant; but, as his patrimony was inadequate to his support in the new position he occupied, he was induced, by the interposition of his friends, to accept one half the amount.

Mr. Flood had been greatly chagrined at the ascendency gained by Mr. Grattan, and he now endeavored to depreciate his efforts by contending that the "simple repeal" of the act of the sixth of George First was of no real avail; that the English Parliament must pass a distinct act, renouncing all claim to make law for Ireland. Every one now sees that the pretense was a ridiculous one; but he succeeded in confusing and agitating the minds of the people on this point, until he robbed Mr. Grattan, to a considerable extent, of the honor of his victory. He came out, at last, into open hostility, stigmatizing him as "a mendicant patriot, subsisting on the public accounts-who, bought by his country for a sum of money, had sold his country for prompt payment." Mr. Grattan instantly replied in a withering piece of invective, to be found below, depicting the character and political life of his opponent, and ingeniously darkening every shade that rested on his reputation.

As most of the extracts in this selection are taken from the early speeches of Mr. Grattan, it will be unnecessary any farther to trace his history. Suffice it to say, that, although he lost his popularity at times, through the influence of circumstances or the arts of his enemies, he devoted himself throughout life to the defense of his country's interests. He was vehemently opposed to the union with England; but his countrymen were so much divided that it was impossible for any one to prevent it. At a later period (1805), he became a member of the Parliament of Great Britain, where he uniformly maintained those principles of toleration and popular government which he had supported in Ireland. He was an ardent champion of Catholic Emancipation, and may be said to have died in the cause. He had undertaken, in 1820, to present the Catholic Petition, and support it in Parliament, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his medical attendants, who declared it would be at the hazard of his life. "I should be happy," said he, "to die in the discharge of my duty." Exhausted by the journey, he did die almost immediately after his arrival in London, May 14th, 1820, at the age of seventy, and was buried, with the highest honors of the nation, in Westminster Abbey. His character was irreproachable; and Sir James Mackintosh remarked, in speaking of his death in the House of Commons, "He was as eminent in his observance of all the duties of private life, as he was heroic in the discharge of his public ones." "I never knew a man," said Wilberforce, "whose patriotism and love for his country seemed so completely to extinguish all private interests, and to induce him to look invariably and exclusively to the public good."

The personal appearance and delivery of Mr. Grattan are brought vividly before us in one of the lively sketches of Charles Phillips. "He was short in stature, and unprepossessing in appearance. His arms were disproportionately long. His walk was a stride. With a person swinging like a pendulum, and an abstracted air, he

seemed always in thought, and each thought provoked an attendant gesticulation. How strange it is, that a mind so replete with grace, and symmetry, and power, and splendor, should have been allotted such a dwelling for its residence! Yet so it was; and so, also, was it one of his highest attributes that his genius, by its 'excessive light,' blinded his hearers to his physical imperfections. It was the victory of mind over matter." "The chief difficulty in this great speaker's way was the first five minutes. During his exordium laughter was imminent. He bent his body almost to the ground, swung his arms over his head, up, and down, and around him, and added to the grotesqueness of his manner a hesitating tone and drawling emphasis. Still, there was an earnestness about him that at first besought, and, as he warmed, enforced, nay, commanded attention."

The speeches of Mr. Grattan afford unequivocal proof, not only of a powerful intellect, but of high and original genius. There was nothing commonplace in his thoughts, his images, or his sentiments. Every thing came fresh from his mind, with the vividness of a new creation. His most striking characteristic was, condensation and rapidity of thought. "Semper instans sibi," pressing continually upon himself, he never dwelt upon an idea, however important; he rarely presented it under more than one aspect; he hardly ever stopped to fill out the intermediate steps of his argument. His forte was reasoning, but it was "logic on fire ;" and he seemed ever to delight in flashing his ideas on the mind with a sudden, startling abruptness. Hence, a distinguished writer has spoken of his eloquence as a "combination of cloud, whirlwind, and flame"-a striking representation of the occasional obscurity and the rapid force and brilliancy of his style. But his incessant effort to be strong made him sometimes unnatural. He seems to be continually straining after effect. He wanted that calmness and self-possession which mark the highest order of minds, and show their consciousness of great strength. When he had mastered his subject, his subject mastered him. His great efforts have too much the air of harangues. They sound more like the battle speeches of Tacitus than the orations of Demosthenes.

His style was elaborated with great care. It abounds in metaphors, which are always striking, and often grand. It is full of antithesis and epigrammatic turns, which give it uncommon point and brilliancy, but have too often an appearance of labor and affectation. His language is select. His periods are easy and fluentmade up of short clauses, with but few or brief qualifications, all uniting in the expression of some one leading thought. His rhythmus is often uncommonly fine. In the peroration of his great speech of April 19th, 1780, we have one of the best specimens in our language of that admirable adaptation of the sound to the sense which distinguished the ancient orators.

pur

Though Mr. Grattan is not a safe model in every respect, there are certain poses for which his speeches may be studied with great advantage. Nothing can be better suited to break up a dull monotony of style-to give raciness and point— to teach a young speaker the value of that terse and expressive language which is, to the orator especially, the finest instrument of thought.

BB

SPEECH

OF MR. GRATTAN IN THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS IN MOVING A DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT, DELIVERED APRIL 19, 1780.

INTRODUCTION.

Ireland had been treated by the English, for three centuries, like a conquered nation. A Parliament had indeed been granted her, but a well-known statute, called Poynings' Act, had so abridged the rights of that Parliament, as to render it almost entirely dependent on the English Crown. By the provisions of this act, which was passed in 1494, through the agency of Sir Edward Poynings, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, no session of the Irish Parliament could be held without a license previously obtained from the King of England in council, on the recommendation of the Deputy and his council in Ireland. Thus, the English government had power to prevent the Irish Parliament from ever assembling, except for purposes which the King saw reason to approve. At a later period, there was indeed a relaxation of the severity of this act, but the restraints still imposed were borne reluctantly by the Irish, and gave rise at times to violent struggles. Under such an administration, the commercial and manufacturing interests of Ireland were wholly sacrificed to those of the English; the exportation of woolen goods, and of most other articles of English manufacture, and also the direct import of foreign articles, being denied the Irish. These restrictions had been removed in part, as already stated, on the ground of "expediency," by an act of the British Parliament, passed December 13, 1779, under the terror of the Irish Volunteers; and Mr. Grattan, with the same instrument of compulsion in his hands, now moved the Irish Parliament to a Declaration of Right, which should deny the authority of England to make laws for Ireland-an authority asserted by an act of the British Parliament, passed in the sixth year of George I.

SPEECH, &c.

I have entreated an attendance on this day, that you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it.

est moment

If I had lived when the ninth of William took Duty of resist away the woolen manufacture, or ing at the earli when the sixth of George the First possible. took away your Constitution, I should have made a covenant with my own conscience, to seize the first reasonable moment of rescuing my country from the ignominy of such acts of power; or, if I had a son, I should have administered to him an oath that he would consider himself as a person separate and set apart for the discharge of so important a duty.

Upon the same principle am I now come to move a Declaration of Right, the first moment occurring in my time, in which such a declaration could be made with any chance of success, and without an aggravation of oppression.

cial conces

Sir, it must appear to every person that, notThe commer- withstanding the import of sugar, and tions not sat. export of woolens,' the people of this isfactory. country are not satisfied; something remains the greater work is behind-the public heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our satisfaction, to stop the throats of millions with the votes of Parliament, to preach homilies to the Volunteers, to utter invectives against the people under the pretense of affectionate advice, is an attempt, weak, suspicious and inflammatory.

You can not dictate to those whose sense you are instructed to represent.

Your ancestors, who sat within these walls, lost to Ireland trade and liberty. You, by the assistance of the people, have recovered trade. You owe the kingdom a CONSTITUTION; she calls upon you to restore it.

The ground of public discontent seems to be, "We have gotten commerce, but not freedom." The same power which took away the export of woolen and the export of glass, may take them away again. The repeal is partial, and the ground of repeal is a principle of expediency.

America

En

Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and tyrannical import-expedient is a word Case of Ire selected to express the reservation of land and of authority, while the exercise is mitigat- compared. ed-expedient is the ill-omened expression in the repeal of the American Stamp Act. gland thought it "expedient" to repeal that law. Happy had it been for mankind if, when she withdrew the exercise, she had not reserved the right. To that reservation she owes the loss of her American empire, at the expense of millions; and America the seeking of liberty through a scene of bloodshed. The repeal of the Woolen Act, similarly circumstanced, pointed against the principle of our liberty, may be a subject for illuminations to a populace, or a pretense for apostacy to a courtier, but can not be a subject of settled satisfaction to a free born, an intelligent and an injured community.

It is, therefore, they [the people of Ireland]

1 These were a part of the concession made by consider the free trade as a trade de facto, not Lord North.

de jure-a license to trade under the Parliament

MR. GRATTAN ON MOVING A DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT.

Petition of Right, or that other, which passed | consternation at the Custom-house, and, despisthe Declaration are you, are you afraid to telling the example which great men afforded, tenthe British Parliament that you are a free peo- dered for entry prohibited manufactures, and ple? Are the cities and the instructing coun- sought, at his private risk, the liberty of his ties, who have breathed a spirit that would have country. With him, I am convinced, it is necdone honor to old Rome, when Rome did honor essary to agitate the question of right. In vain to mankind—are they to be free by connivance? will you endeavor to keep it back; the passion Are the military associations those bodies is too natural, the sentiment too irresistible; the whose origin, progress, and deportment have question comes on of its own vitality. You transcended, equaled, at least, any thing in mod- must reinstate the laws. ern or ancient story, in the vast line of Northern array-are they to be free by connivance? What man will settle among you? Who will leave a land of liberty and a settled government for a kingdom controlled by the Parliament of another country; whose liberty is a thing by stealth; whose trade a thing by permission; whose judges deny her charters; whose Parliament leaves every thing at random; where the hope of freedom depends on the chance that the jury shall despise the judge stating a British act, or a rabble stop the magistrate in the execution of it, rescue your abdicated privileges by anarchy and confusion, and save the Constitution by trampling on the government ?

can satisfy

There is no objection to this resolution except fears. I have examined your fears; No ground of I pronounce them to be frivolous. If fear for conse England is a tyrant, it is you have quences. made her so. It is the slave that makes the tyrant, and then murmurs at the master whom he himself has constituted. I do allow, on the subject of commerce, England was jealous in the extreme; and I do say, it was commercial jealousy; it was the spirit of monopoly. The woolen trade and the Act of Navigation had made her tenacious of a comprehensive legislative authority, and, having now ceded that monopoly, there is nothing in the way of our liberty except our own corruption and pusillanimity. Nothing can But I shall be told that these are groundless prevent your being free, except yourselves; it is Nothing less jealousies, and that the principal cities, not in the disposition of England, it is not in the and more than one half the counties of interest of England, it is not in her force. What! the people. the kingdom, are misguided men, rais- can eight millions of Englishmen, opposed to ing those groundless jealousies. Sir, they may twenty millions of French, seven millions of say so, and they may hope to dazzle with illu- Spanish, to three millions of Americans, reject minations, and they may sicken with addresses, the alliance of three millions in Ireland? Can but the public imagination will never rest, nor eight millions of British men, thus outnumbered will her heart be well at ease; never, so long by foes, take upon their shoulders the expense as the Parliament of England claims or exer- of an expedition to enslave Ireland? cises legislation over this country. So long as Great Britain, a wise and magnanimous country, this shall be the case that very free trade (oth-thus tutored by experience and wasted by war, erwise a perpetual attachment) will be the cause of new discontent. It will create a pride and wealth, to make you feel your indignities; it will furnish you with strength to bite your chain; the liberty withheld poisons the good communicated. The British minister mistakes the Irish character. Had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar. There is no middle policy. Win her heart by a restoration of her right, or cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy! We may talk plausibly to England; but so long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war. The claims of the one go against the liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood.

Will

the French navy riding her channel, send an army to Ireland to levy no tax, to enforce no law, to answer no end whatever, except to spoliate the charters of Ireland, and enforce a barren oppression ?

same thing to

What! has England lost thirteen provinces ? has she reconciled herself to this England offered loss, and will she not be reconciled substantially the to the liberty of Ireland? Take no- America. tice, that the very Constitution which I move you to declare, Great Britain herself offered to America: it is a very instructive proceeding in the British history. In 1778 a commission went out with powers to cede to the thirteen provinces of America totally and radically the legislative authority claimed over her by the British Parliament; and the commissioners, pursuant to their powers, did offer to all, or any of the American states, the total surrender of the legislative authority of the British Parliament. I will read you their letter to the Congress. [Here the letter was read, surrendering the power, as aforesaid]. What! has England of

The English Opposition, therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland. They judge of us by other great nations; by the English nation, whose whole political life has been a struggle for liberty. They judge of us with a true knowledge and just deference for our character, that a country enlightened as Ireland, the Irish Custom-house, which had been prohibited armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will by an English act of Parliament, for the purpose of be satisfied with nothing less than liberty. I ad-trying the validity of the Act of the sixth of George mire that public-spirited merchant who spread

the First.

4 This is the commission referred to in such severe terms by Mr. Burke in a speech delivered at

› Alderman Horan, who offered goods for entry at Bristol. See page 297.