- that great event, whether you call it ancient or modern I know not, was tarnished with bigotry: the great deliverer (for such I must ever call the Prince of Nassau,) was blemished with oppression; he assented to, he was forced to assent to acts which deprived the Catholics of religious, and all the Irish of civil and commercial rights, though the Irish were the only subjects in these islands who had fought in his defence. But you have sought liberty on her own principle: see the Presbyterians of Bangor petition for the freedom of the Catholics of Munster. You, with difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a few, have done what your ancestors wished, but could not accomplish; and what your posterity may preserve, but will never equal: you have moulded the jarring elements of your country into a nation, and have rivalled those great and ancient commonwealths, whom you were taught to admire, and among whom you are now to be recorded: in this proceeding you had not the advantages which were common to other great countries; no monuments, no trophies, none of those outward and visible signs of greatness, such as inspire mankind and connect the ambition of the age which is coming on with the example of that going off, and forms the descent and concatenation of glory: no; you have not had any great act recorded among all your misfortunes, nor have you one public tomb to assemble the crowd, and speak to the living the language of integrity and freedom. 'Your historians did not supply the want of monuments; on the contrary, these narrators of your misfortunes, who should have felt for your wrongs, and have punished your oppressors with oppression's natural scourges, the moral indignation of history, compromised with public villany and trembled; they excited your violence, they suppressed your provocation, and wrote in the chain which entrammelled their country. I am come to break that chain, and I congratulate my country, who, without any of the advan tages I speak of, going forth as it were with nothing but a stone and a sling, and what oppression could not take away, the favour of Heaven, accomplished her own redemption, and left you nothing to add and every thing to admire.' We could have wished that no memorial existed of the memorable dispute between Mr. Grattan and Mr. Flood, on the subject of the Repeal of the Declaratory Act. The controversy was, in fact, merely verbal: but the invective of Mr. Grattan, though not unprovoked, was unmeasured in satire, poignancy, and bitterness. The disputants were in after-life reconciled; and it is to be lamented that even a transient cloud lowered over two eminent men, engaged in the sacred cause of their country's deliverance. It is by his exertions in behalf of the Irish Catholics, that Mr. Grattan has formed the most lasting monument of his greatness. Never was perseverance in effecting a great object of policy and justice more steadily, and, we may add, more beautifully - beautifully exhibited. The great law of Christian tolerance and religious charity seemed the inexorable rule of Mr. Grattan's political life: but it is disgraceful to an age abounding in the mature fruits of literature and philosophy, to state that, down to 1782, the Catholics had no rights of property and education. The bill which enabled them to acquire lands by purchase, grant, descent, devise, &c., restored them to the free exercise of their religion, secured them from the confiscation of their houses and property, and removed their disabilities as to education, was first carried (without a division) in that year. - Thus slowly do the vain prejudices of man fade before the increasing lights of reason and humanity! - but the progress of better opinions, though tardy and impeded, is at length mighty and irresistible. In the present state of enlightened feeling, it will be difficult to believe (what is strictly true) that, when the Catholic question was first introduced into the Irish House, Mr. Grattan and Mr. Dennis Browne, who supported it, could scarcely obtain a hearing. The petition of the Catholic body was even ignominiously rejected; and it is said that Sir Henry Harstonge actually carried it down to the bar, and kicked it out of the House. These difficulties, however, were as resting places only to the victorious progress of Mr. Grattan's exertions. It was his uniform opinion, almost a part of the constitutional frame of his mind, that the fate of Ireland as an independent nation hung on that decision; and that the constitution could not be upheld unless all classes and ranks were interested in its conservation. His labours were not consecrated only by the justice of his cause:he succeeded in his pious struggle for the rights of religion and humanity. Concessions to the Catholics went pari passu with the free trade and independence of the country; and never was political prophecy so literally verified as his celebrated exclamation, frequently remembered since it was uttered, "The day you reject the Catholic question, that day you vote the Union." - In the Imperial parliament, he repeatedly introduced that question, and on one occasion nearly triumphed in carrying it. He spoke also on other topics of moment: the Orders in Council; the Walcheren expedition; Irish tithes; the Irish Convention-act; and the war with Bonaparte in 1815; and at these times he was heard with the most respectful attention. Indeed, his venerable age, his long life consecrated to the advantage and happiness of his country, and the eminence which he had so early acquired and so long retained, could not but secure to him from the urbanity of the first assembly in -that great event, whether you call it ancient or modern I know not, was tarnished with bigotry: the great deliverer (for such I must ever call the Prince of Nassau,) was blemished with oppression; the assented to, he was forced to assent to acts which deprived the Catholics of religious, and all the Irish of civil and commercial rights, though the Irish were the only subjects in these islands who had fought in his defence. But you have sought liberty on her own principle: see the Presbyterians of Bangor petition for the freedom of the Catholics of Munster. You, with difficulties innumerable, with dangers not a few, have done what your ancestors wished, but could not accomplish; and what your posterity may preserve, but will never equal: you have moulded the jarring elements of your country into a nation, and have rivalled those great and ancient commonwealths, whom you were taught to admire, and among whom you are now to be recorded: in this proceeding you had not the advantages which were common to other great countries; no monuments, no trophies, none of those outward and visible signs of greatness, such as inspire mankind and connect the ambition of the age which is coming on with the example of that going off, and forms the descent and concatenation of glory: no; you have not had any great act recorded among all your misfortunes, nor have you one public tomb to assemble the crowd, and speak to the living the language of integrity and freedom. Your historians did not supply the want of monuments; on the contrary, these narrators of your misfortunes, who should have felt for your wrongs, and have punished your oppressors with oppression's natural scourges, the moral indignation of history, compromised with public villany and trembled; they excited your violence, they suppressed your provocation, and wrote in the chain which entrammelled their country. I am come to break that chain, and I congratulate my country, who, without any of the advan tages I speak of, going forth as it were with nothing but a stone and a sling, and what oppression could not take away, the favour of Heaven, accomplished her own redemption, and left you no thing to add and every thing to admire.' We could have wished that no memorial existed of the memorable dispute between Mr. Grattan and Mr. Fle the subject of the Repeal of the Declaratory Act. troversy was, in fact, merely verbal: but Mr. Grattan, though not unprovoked, satire, poignancy, and bitterness. after-life reconciled; and it is to transient cloud lowered over tv the sacred cause of their cour T in the world a silent and patient audience:-but the peculiar character of his eloquence suffered much in being transplanted from its kindred soil, where it had been nurtured by local associations which now had no existence. Its habitual warmth, its tone of high moral indignation and virtuous contempt, which struck so forcibly on the chords of national sympathy, when he hurled his invectives against those venal and corrupt parasites of the Castle by whom Ireland was blighted as by locusts, had no longer the same exciting causes to call them into play. Of a settled country, secure in its recognized privileges, and having rather to defend those privileges than to struggle for their acquisition, the popular eloquence is principally of a sedater and more subdued description; and principles being too thoroughly established to be called into doubt, or exposed to jeopardy, the usual controversies turn on questions which chiefly require accuracy of detail and justness of reasoning. Hence it was that, in the English House of Commons, the strong and vehement though frequently disjointed and abrupt sententiousness of Mr. Grattan had little effect, beyond that of rareness and singularity. It is remarkable that Mr. Grattan was at variance with many of the Whig-party in parliament, on the question of a war with Bonaparte after the violation of the treaty of Elba; and it is also to be observed that one of the most powerful orators of modern times, his friend and countryman, Mr. Plunket, was fighting by his side on that important occasion. Having stated the real question to be whether we should go to war when our allies were assembled, or when they should be dispersed, Mr. Grattan thus proceeded in his speech: Sir, the French government is war; it is a stratocracy, elective, aggressive, and predatory; her armies live to fight, and fight to live; their constitution is essentially war, and the object of that war, the conquest of Europe. What such a person as Buonaparte at the head of such a constitution will do, you may judge by what he has done; and, first, he took possession of the greater part of Europe; he made his son King of Rome; he made his son-in-law Viceroy of Italy; he made his brother King of Holland; he made his brother-in-law King of Naples; he imprisoned the King of Spain; he banished the Regent of Portugal, and formed his plan to take possession of the crown of England; England had checked his designs; her trident had stirred up his empire from its foundation; he complained of her tyranny at sea; but it was her power at sea which arrested his tyranny at land; the navy of England saved Europe. Knowing this, he knew the conquest of England became necessary for the accomplishment of the conquest of Europe, and the destruction of her marine necessary for the conquest of England. Accordingly, besides raising an army of 60,000 men |