because it has all been centred and condensed into one man who was reared and nursed in its bosom, whose celebrity was gained under its auspices, who was at once the child and the champion of all its atrocities and horrors? Our security in negotiation is to be thisBuonaparte, who is now the sole organ of all that was formerly dangerous and pestiferous in the Revolution. Jacobinism is allowed formerly to have existed, because the power was divided. Now it is single, and it no longer lives. This discovery is new, and

I know not how it has been made.

But the honourable gentleman asks, what is our intention? He asks, whether the war is to be carried on till Jacobinism is finally extinguished? If he means that war is to be carried on till Jacobinism has either lost its sting, or is abridged in its power to do evil, I say that this is the object of our exertions. I do not say that we must wage war until the principle of Jacobinism is extinguished in the mind of every individual; were that the object of the contest, I am afraid it would not terminate but with the present generation. I am afraid that a mind once tainted with that infection never recovers its healthful state. am afraid that no purification is sufficient

I

to eradicate the poison of that foul distemper. Even those, we see, who so loudly tell us now that the danger of Jacobinism is past, are endeavouring to disarm us of the means of carrying on the war we now wage against its remnant, by those arts which they employed to bend us down before its meridian splendour. They tell us again, that, by resisting that pestilent mischief, we are promoting distress, that we are despising humanity. They tell us that we have spent two hundred millions for a phrase for the words 'just and necessary.' I hope, Sir, that the people of this country will not be governed by words. No, Sir, the people of England will not be so misled. We have spent two hundred millions; but what has been the object, what have been the fruits of this expenditure? If this country has spent two hundred millions, they have been spent to preserve the sources of its prosperity, its happiness, its glory, its freedom.

Yes, Sir,

we have spent that sum; and I trust we are ready, as I am sure we are able, to spend two hundred millions more for purposes so great 13 and important. I trust this country is ready to exert its efforts to avail ourselves of the assistance of our allies to obtain real security, and to attain solid peace. . . .

You took away our Parliament; you took from us that Parliament which, like the House of Commons of this country, must have been under the control of the great majority of the people of Ireland; and would not, and could not, have withheld what you so long refused us. ... That House of Commons you bought, and paid for your bargain in gold; ay, and paid for it in the most palpable and sordid forms in which gold can be paid down. The great minister of the time, by whom that unexampled sale of our legislature was negotiated, held out equality with England as the splendid equivalent for the loss of our national representation; and, with classical reference, elucidated the nobleness of the compact into which he had persuaded the depositants of the rights of their countrymen to enter... The Act of Union was passed; and twenty

...

nine years elapsed before any effectual measure was taken to carry its real and substantia! terms into effect. [At last, our enfranchisement was won by our own energy and determination: and when it was in progress we received assurances that in every respect we should be placed on a footing with our fellow citizens; and more specially that to corporations, and to all offices connected with them, we should be at once admissible. Pending this engagement, a bill is passed for the reform of the corporations of this country. . . . This important measure having been carried here, the Irish people claim an extension of the same advantages; . . . This demand on the part of Ireland is rejected.] . . . Is this justice? You will say that it is, and I should be surprised if you did not say so. I should be surprised, indeed, if while you are doing us

*

wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to do us justice. From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Englishmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice: even Strafford, the deserter of the people's cause, the renegade Wentworth . even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland. What marvel is it then that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehement protestations? There is, however, one man of great abilities, not a member of this House, but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party-who, disdaining all imposture, abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, though they cannot hide, their motive-distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; and pronounces them to be aliens to be aliens in race-to be aliens in country-to be aliens in religion. Aliens! Good God! was Arthur Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim 'Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty'? The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved: but notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederates could supply-I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. 'The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed' ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name

* Lord Lyndhurst.

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imperishable-from Assaye to Waterloo-the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valour climbed the steep and filled the moats at Badajos? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory- Vimiera, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and last of all, the greatest.-Tell me, for you were thereI appeal to the gallant soldier before met. who bears I know a generous heart in an in- 100 trepid breast- tell me, for you must needs remember on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balancewhile death fell in showers-when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science-when her legions, incited by the voice, and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset-tell me, if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the 110 aliens blenched? And when at length the moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, and the valour which had so long been wisely checked was at last let loosewhen, with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assaulttell me, if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valour than the natives of this your own glorious country, precipitated herself upon the foe? The blood of England, Scotland, and of 120 Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together: in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust - the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate; and shall we be told, as a requital, that we are 130 estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out?

† Sir H. Hardinge.

ΙΟ

20

IT was a maxim once as much admitted in the practice of common life as in the schools of philosophy, that where heaven was inclined to destroy the vice, it began by debasing the intellect. This idea was carried still further by the right honourable gentleman* who opened the prosecution; who declared, that prudence and vice were things absolutely incompatible; that the vicious man, being deprived of his best energies, and curtailed in his proportion of understanding, was left with such a shortsighted degree of penetration as could not come under the denomination of prudence. This sentiment does honour to the name of my right honourable friend, to whom I look up with homage; whose genius is commensurate with his philanthropy-whose memory will stretch itself upon the fleeting objects of any little partial shuffling, through the whole wide range of human knowledge, and honourable aspiration after human good; as large as the system which forms life-as large as those objects that adorn. It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, worthy the mind of him who uttered it; worthy that proud disdain, that generous scorn of the means and instruments of vice, which virtue and genius must ever feel. But I should doubt whether we can read the history of a Philip of Macedon, a Cæsar, or a Cromwell, 30 without confessing that there have been evil purposes baneful to the peace and rights of men, conducted, if I may not say with prudence or with wisdom, yet with awful craft, and with most successful and commanding subtlety. If, however, I might make a distinction, I should say that it is the proud attempt to mix a variety of lordly crimes that unsettles the prudence of the mind, and breeds this distraction of the brain; one master-passion,

* Edmund Burke.

domineering in the breast, may win the faculties of the understanding to advance its purpose, and direct to that object everything which thought or human knowledge can effect; but, to succeed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind; each rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage on its throne; for the power that has not forbidden the entrance of evil passions into man's mind, has at least forbidden their union: if they meet, they defeat their object, and their conquest, or their attempt at it, is tumult. Turn to the virtues-how different the decree! Formed to connect, to blend, to associate, and to co-operate; bearing the same course, with kindred energies and harmonious sympathy; each perfect in its own lovely sphere, each moving in its wider or more contracted orbit, with different but concentrating powers, guided by the same influence of reason, and endeavouring at the same blessed end-the happiness of the individual, the harmony of the species, and the glory of the Creator! In the vices, on the other hand, it is the discord that ensures the defeat; each clamours to be heard in its own barbarous language; each claims the exclusive cunning of the brain; each thwarts and reproaches the other; and even while their fell rage assails with common hate the peace and virtue of the world, the civil war among their own tumultuous legions defeats the purpose of the foul conspiracy. These are the furies of the mind, my lords, that unsettle the understanding; these are the furies that destroy the virtue of prudence; while the distracted brain and shivered intellect proclaim the tumult that is within, and bear their testimonies, from the mouth of God himself, to the foul condition of the heart.

This is a singular argu

the illness of his son. ment, indeed; and the circumstance, in my mind, merits strict observation, though not in the view in which it was placed by the counsel. [It went to show that some, at least, of those concerned in these transactions, felt the force

of those ties which their efforts were directed to tear asunder; that those who could ridicule the respective attachment of a mother and a son; who would prohibit the reverence of the son to the mother who had given him life; who could deny to maternal debility the protection which filial tenderness should afford-were yet sensible of the straining of those cords by which they were connected. There was something connected with this transaction so wretchedly horrible, and so vilely loathsome, as to excite the most contemptible disgust. When I see . . . in many of these letters the infirmities of age made a subject of mockery and ridicule; when I see the feelings of a son treated by Mr Middleton as puerile and contemptible; when I see an order given from Mr Hastings to harden that son's heart, and to choke the struggles of nature in his bosom; when I see them pointing to the son's name and to his standard, while marching to oppress the mother, as to a banner that gives dignity, that gives a holy sanction and a reverence to their enterprise; when I see and hear these things done; when I hear them brought into three deliberate defences set up against the charges of the Commons,-my lords, I own I grow puzzled and confounded, and almost begin to doubt whether, where such a defence can be offered, it may not be tolerated. And yet, my lords, how can I support the claim of filial love by argument? What can I say on such a subject? What can I do but repeat the ready truths which, with the quick impulse of the mind, must spring to the lips of every man on such a theme? Filial piety!-it is the primal bond of society; it is that instinctive principle, which, panting for its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense and sensibility of man! It now quivers on every lip!it now beams from every eye!-it is an emanation of that gratitude which, softening under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the vast countless debt it ne'er, alas! can pay, for so many long years of unceasing solicitudes, honourable self-denials, life-preserving cares! -it is that part of our practice where duty drops its awe-where reverence refines into love! It asks no aid of memory!-it needs

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not the deductions of reason!-pre-existing, paramount over all, whether law or human rule, few arguments can increase and none can diminish it!-it is the sacrament of our nature-not only the duty, but the indulgence of man-it is his first great privilege-it is amongst his last most endearing delights!-it causes the bosom to glow with reverberated love!-it requites the visitations of nature, and returns the blessings that have been received! -it fires emotion into vital principle!-it renders habituated instinct into a masterpassion-sways all the sweetest energies of man-hangs over each vicissitude of all that must pass away-aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and age-explores the thought-elucidates the aching eye-and breathes sweet consolation even in the awful moment of dissolution! If these are the general sentiments of man, what must be their depravity-what must be their degeneracy-who can blot out and erase from the bosom the virtue that is most deeply rooted in the human heart, and twined within the chords of life itself? Aliens from nature, apostates from humanity! And yet, if there be a crime more fell, more foul-if there be anything worse than a wilful persecutor of his mother, it is that of a deliberate instigator and abettor to the deed: this it is that shocks, disgusts, and appals the mind more than the other; to view, not a wilful parricide, but a parricide by compulsion-a miserable wretch, not actuated by the stubborn evils of his own worthless heart, not driven by the fury of his own distracted brain, but lending his sacrilegious hand, without any malice of his own, to answer the abandoned purposes of the 100 human fiends that have subdued his will! To condemn crimes like these we need not talk of laws, or of human rules; their foulness, their deformity, does not depend on local constitutions, on human institutes, or religious creeds; they are crimes, and the persons who perpetrate them are monsters, who violate the primitive condition on which the earth was given to man; they are guilty by the general verdict of human kind.

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See also ON ARMY AFFAIRS

THE death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never, till then, known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero-the greatest of our own and of all former times-was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar,

was considered at an end: the fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed: new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him: the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards, were all which they could now bestow upon him whom the king, the legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence in every village through which he might have passed would have wakened the church bells, have given schoolboys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and old men from the chimney corner to look upon Nelson ere they died. The victory of Trafalgar was celebrated, indeed, with the usual forms of rejoicing, but they were without joy; for such already was the glory of the

British navy, through Nelson's surpassing genius, that it scarcely seemed to receive any addition from the most signal victory that ever was achieved upon the seas: and the destruction of this mighty fleet, by which all the maritime schemes of France were totally frustrated, hardly appeared to add to our security or strength; for, while Nelson was living to watch the combined squadrons of the enemy, we felt ourselves as secure as now, when they were no longer in existence.

There was reason to suppose, from the appearances upon opening the body, that in the course of nature he might have attained, like his father, to a good old age. Yet be cannot be said to have fallen prematurely, whose work was done; nor ought he to be lamented, who died so full of honours, and at the height of human fame. The most triumphant death is that of the martyr: the most awful, that of the martyred patriot; the most splendid, that of the hero in the hour of victory; and if the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for Nelson's transla tion, he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory. He has left us, not indeed his mantle of inspiration, but a name and an example, which are at this hour inspiring thousands of the youth of England, -a name which is our pride, and an example which will continue to be our shield and our strength. Thus it is that the spirits of the great and the wise continue to live and to act after them; verifying, in this sense, the language of the old mythologist:

τοὶ μὲν δαίμονές εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλὰς ἐσθλοί, ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων.* Hesiod, 'E.. 'H. 122.