to manhood before the claims of the Catholics in their actual extent had ever been heard of, and before any statesman would have ventured to espouse them, had they been advanced. While he thus disapproved of the conduct of the Irish Catholics, he entreated the House not to be diverted by a just indignation at their extravagant proceedings, from the permanent state of the question. It would probably be the duty of that House to concur in some measure to curb their licentious spirit; but that done, their lordships ought to consider anxiously, whether the state of the Catholics was one that could continue; and whether, if the admission of the Catholics to the stations from which they were excluded, were an evil, it was not a less evil than their discontent in good times, and their possible disaffection in bad ones. In congratulating the country on the assurances which his majesty continued to receive from all the governments of Europe, of their amicable and friendly dispositions, the noble viscount observed, that this general peace rested on the secure foundation of strength united with moderation. The only contest which existed in Europe was, not between governments, but ties. There were two great parties-one desiring to restore the ancient order of things, and the other constantly striving after some new order. The former were not contented with that order which existed before the revolution, but wanted something more despotic; such as had been adopted by mankind in an uncivilized age. They did not like our form of government, and naturally looked on our national institutions as a pregnant source of principles which they

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always dreaded, and wished to repress. The other party were desirous of destroying every thing which existed; and the only remedy they could find for all the evils of mankind was, to sweep away every institution which had long been held in veneration. They were, while they boasted of their attachment to freedom, extremely narrow and illiberal; and however they might differ among themselves, they were all actuated by a bitter hatred towards this country. They were not sincere in their love of liberty, of which they talked so much; for they had crouched down before Buonaparte, and worshipped him, and had endeavoured to reduce England to an imperial province. They were the enemies of all the principles of national liberty or national independence; and the institutions of this country they above all things ab horred. They resembled their predecessors, the Jacobins, but had less sincerity: and it was only when they were subdued by their opponents, that they called out loudly for liberty, by which they meant power. They now complained, that this country had not done that which would have proved its injury, if not its de

struction.

In the recognition of the South American states, lord Dudley and Ward contended, that we had proceeded with caution, justice, and delicacy. It was a difficult question to decide, where insurrection ended, and legal government began: and his majesty's government had not pretended to determine where allegiance ought to end and lawful resistance begin; but had acted openly upon the undisputed fact of those states of South America, with which treaties had

been concluded, being actually independent. Our intercourse had grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength; and had at length become complete, as their independence had become unquestionable.

Lord Gort seconded the Address. Lord King then made a speech, in which he was too intent upon being witty to trouble himself about sense: the wit consisted in describing the members of the cabinet by Turkish titles. The marquis of Lansdown gave his hearty concurrence to all that had been said concerning the internal prosperity of the country, and the wisdom of its foreign policy in the recognition of the independent states of South America. That part of the Speech which touched upon the state of Ireland, he regarded as peculiarly important; and he went at some length into the subject, cautioning ministers not to be hasty in repressing open complaint, and not to beguile themselves with the idea of curing a malady, merely by removing the outward symptoms. After a few observations from lord Liverpool, which did not bring forward any new topic, lord Donoughmore and lord Clifden expressed their disapprobation of that part of the Speech which related to the Catholic Association. Lord Roden, on the other hand, contended, that that body had been allowed too long to pursue their dangerous career without molestation. The Address was then agreed to without a division.

In the House of Commons the Address was moved by lord Francis Leveson Gower, in a very neatly worded speech, which was received with the kind indulgence usually

shown by that assembly to the early efforts of young men of powerful connexions and great expectancies. Mr. Alderman Thompson seconded it. Mr. Brougham was the first member who spoke from the opposition side of the House. He began by observing, that in giving his assent, and in joining his congratulations to those contained in the address upon many of the points noticed in the Speech, he could not claim for himself any extraordinary stretch of candour. He was rather withheld, as indeed were many of the friends around him, by a feeling of modesty, from giving their due meed of praise to the measures alluded to; since those measures which were now the theme of so much eulogy, were measures which the gentlemen on his side of the House had urged years ago, but in vain, upon those who at that time were intrusted with the administration of the country. For years the House had been told, that it was either a wild chimera, or a dangerous innovation, to talk of the doctrines of a free trade, and of the right of men to employ their capital and their industry according to their interests, their wishes-ay, or even according to their caprices. At one time, when it pleased the ministry to view them with contempt, these doctrines were described as a visionary code, specious in theory, but impossible in practice; and at another, when it pleased our rulers to excite alarm against them, they were viewed with as much detestation and abhorrence, as if they had been a leaf taken out of that book which some men thought they could never sufficiently detest and abhor, "The Rights of Man," by Thomas Paine. He had himself heard them treated as idle chimeras by one set of

ministers, and as jacobinical innovations by another; and yet he, who had seen them first contemned and then abhorred, had now the happiness to say, that they had reached the consummation of their glory, not merely in being adopted by ministers, but in being publicly recognized, both in the Speech which had just been delivered to them from a high quarter, and also in the addresses which were about to be returned to it by both Houses of Parliament. The House would see, that it required but little candour in him to approve those parts of the Speech, which referred to the late mercantile reforms. Eight years ago he had himself expounded-very inadequately, he admitted, but still he had expounded-the very alterations in the Navigation laws which had lately been adopted: and, by so doing, he had drawn down upon himself the heavy disapprobation of a great guardian of the commercial interests of the country, -the late Mr. Rose. He had ventured, however, to preach them more than once-ineffectually, indeed, at the time, but, as it now appeared, with undeniable ultimate success. At the same time, he had also proposed the changes which had recently been adopted with regard to the silk trade. They were assailed, on his first propounding them, with great and extraordinary severity: he was told over and over again, that nothing could be more speculative, nothing more absurd, that though they might appear very plausible in theory, every person in the trade considered them inapplicable to practice: and he was even met by the taunt, that what he advanced might be very true, but that it looked very much like an ingenious sophism. Ministers had, however, sanctioned such

principles: they had carried into effect all the detestable nostrums of that side of the House: they had taken an entire leaf out of the book of their opponents: they had even enacted measures to legalize the damnable heresies of Adam Smith and the Scotch economists, and to stamp with that odious name the opinions of their adversaries: nay more, the country was now called to thank God for having ministers who had courage to support such measures, though it was formerly called upon to thank God for having ministers who had courage to oppose them.

His majesty's ministers would, he hoped, go on in the course on which they had entered. If they did not, their work would be only half accomplished. What they had done was chiefly to be prized as a pledge that a better policy than the past would be pursued in future. For example, they had adopted the recommendations which he had proposed in 1817 regarding the navigation and the silk laws. Now, another of the measures which he had recommended was one that had never been described as either so chimerical or so abominable, as either of those which had been recently adopted, and might be easily carried into effect. Let the wine duties be at once reduced; and let there be not only a reduction, but an equalization of these different wine duties for all foreign countries-in fact, a general and total revision of that arrangement, which was made under the name of the Methuen treaty, at a time, and under circumstances, when a far different foreign and domestic policy prevailed from that which ought at present to regulate the affairs of such a kingdom as Great Britain. One good effect which

equally to Orange and to Catholic Associations, and the adversaries of both will be conciliated." Let not that little letter s, however, deceive a single person. Whatever affectation there may be of holding the balance even between the Catholic and the Orange Associations, it will be only a nominal equity. It will be like one of those "subtile equities" so well known in the court, over which the noble and learned lord, to whom I have been alluding, presides. Let the proposed measures be carried, and the Catholic Association will be strongly put down with one hand; while the Orange Association will receive only a gentle tap with the other.

Mr. Brougham declared, that if men are roused, it was not surprising that they should go a step beyond strict propriety. Making the allow ance which it was but just to make under the peculiar circumstances of the case, he could not, after the most attentive observation and vigilant inspection of all which the Catholic Association had done and said, discover a single word or act which justified the charge conveyed in his majesty's Speech: and therefore from the very first to the very last of the proposed proceedings on the first reading of the projected bill-nay, on the production of the papers, on which the motion for leave to bring in the bill would probably be founded, -he, for one, would take his stand and offer every opposition which he could, to what appeared to him to be an enormous mischief, bottomed in the grossest injustice, pregnant with the most fatal consequences, and leading, sooner or later, to the severance of the two kingdoms. He concluded by stating that, upon this occasion, he

had been prevented from taking a more decided course, solely by the reflection, that it would be injudicious to take the sense of the House upon his view of the question, when many of its most sincere and zealous supporters were absent.

Mr. Canning made a very spirited, and pointed, and somewhat contemptuous reply to the desultory harangue of Mr. Brougham. The hon. and learned gentleman, he observed, had asked him-"Why do not you, who have carried the South American question against an opposing minister, insist upon carrying the Catholic question also." Both the premises and the conclusion were wrong. Suppose the premises true, was there no difference between the Catholic question and the recognition of the South American States. "What had a minister to fear," the learned gentleman had asked, "with this House, these benches, the country, all England, at his back?" To which he would propose another question, "What would a minister do with only these benches, and with no England at his back?” One assumption of the hon. and learned gentleman's he (Mr. C.) must positively deny. He assumed the notion of a cabinet divided into two parties, and that a certain member of it, who was opposed to him upon the Catholic question, was also opposed to him on that of South America. He was entirely mistaken. The line, which was frequently drawn between the supposed liberals and illiberals of the cabinet council, was by no means a straight but a serpentine line. As it regarded the Catholic question, it was nearly straight, and direct; but, wherever habit did not arbitrarily prevail, or personal

honour was not pledged, the members brought their minds to the discussion totally disengaged. The project of breaking up the cabinet and forming a completely new one from the different benches of that House, would be found not very easy, in practice. He (Mr. C.) wished to separate the Catholic Association and the Catholic question; the hon. and learned gentleman wished to confound them: But, so far from the Association being identified with the interests of the Catholic people, its institution, and the conduct of its members, more resembled the scheme of an enemy, who had devised this as the best invention for throwing back and thwarting the further progress of the question of emancipation. If the worst enemy of Catholic emancipation had purposely sat down to devise means to exasperate the people of England against that measure, he could not have hit upon means more certain-he could not have imagined a plan so successfully mischievous-as the institution and conduct of that body had been. The House had been told that the Catholic Association was the cause of the peace which prevailed. By what charm had they brought about this object. Whence did they obtain their magical elements of concord? From the pit of Acheron! Their combination was cemented by an adjuration of horror and loathing -"Be peaceable, by the hatred which you bear the Orangemen !" This was the charm by which they worked-These the means by which they proposed to extract peace out of hatred. Good God! was it for reasoning men deliberately to put such a bond of union into writing, and when called

upon to explain themselves, deliberately to affirm the deed? To inculcate peace among themselves, through their steadfast hatred of their fellow subjects? Could this be Catholicism. All that he (Mr. C.) desired, was, that the House would consider rightly the terms which were objected to in the Address. The king stated in his Speech, that associations existed in Ireland which had adopted proceedings not reconcileable with the laws and the constitution. As those proceedings tended to public mischief, it was recommended to parliament to consider of an adequate remedy. The House of Commons was about to reply by promising that it would do so. What less could the House do?

In touching upon what had fallen from Mr. Brougham with respect to the liberal commercial policy which had been adopted, and the recognition of the new South American States, Mr. Canning observed, that, the hon. and learned gentleman having, in the course of his parliamentary life, proposed and supported almost every species and degree of innovation, which could be practised towards the constitution, it was not very easy for ministers to do any thing in the affair of South America, without seeming to borrow something from him. Their views might be shut up by circumstances which they must consult, though he need not-like ships among ice in a northern winter. In time the thawing proceeds, so that they were able to come out. But, break away in what direction they would, whether they took to the left or right, it was all alike. "Oho!" said the hon. and learned gentleman, "I was there before you-you would