peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated an hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created!

"How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page,

Thou more than soldier and just less than sage;
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!

Such, Sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!

I have the honour, Sir, of proposing to you toast, The immortal memory of GEORGE WASHINGTON!

SPEECH

DELIVERED AT

AN AGGREGATE MEETING

OF

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF

DUBLIN.

HAVING taken, in the discussions on your ques

tion, such humble share as was allotted to my station and capacity, I may be permitted to offer my ardent congratulations at the proud pinnacle on which it this day reposes. After having combated calumnies the most atrocious, sophistries the most plausible, and perils the most appalling, that slander could invent, or ingenuity devise, or power array against you, I at length behold the assembled rank and wealth and talent of the Catholic body offering to the Legislature that appeal which cannot be rejected, if there be a Power in heaven to redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer justice. No matter what may be the depreciations of faction or of bigotry; this earth never presented a more ennobling spectacle than

that of a Christian country suffering for her religion with the patience of a martyr, and suing for her liberties with the expostulations of a philosopher; reclaiming the bad by her piety; refuting the bigoted by her practice; wielding the Apostle's weapons in the patriot's cause, and at length, laden with chains and with laurels, seeking from the country she had saved the Constitution she had shielded! Little did I imagine, that in such a state of your cause, we should be called together to counteract the impediments to its success, created not by its enemies, but by those supposed to be its friends. It is a melancholy occasion; but melancholy as it is, it must be met, and met with the fortitude of men struggling in the sacred cause of liberty. I do not allude to the proclamation of your Board; of that Board I never was a member, so I can speak impartially. It contained much talent, some learning, many virtues. It was valuable on that account; but it was doubly valuable as being a vehicle for the individual sentiments of any Catholic, and for the aggregate sentiments of every Catholic. Those who seceded from it, do not remember that, individually, they are nothing; that as a body, they are every thing. It is not this wealthy slave, or that titled sycophant, whom the bigots dread, or the parliament respects! No, it is the body, the numbers, the rank, the property, the genius, the perseverance, the education, but, above all, the Union of the Catholics. I am far from defending every measure of the Board-. perhaps I condemn some of its measures even

more than those who have seceded from it; but is it a reason, if a general makes one mistake, that his followers are to desert him, especially when the contest is for all that is dear or valuable? No

Show me the

Let the man,

doubt the Board had its errors. human institution which has not. then, who denounces it, prove himself superior to humanity, before he triumphs in his accusation. I am sorry for its suppression. When I consider the animals. who are in office around us, the act does not surprise me; but I confess, even from them, the manner did, and the time chosen did, most sensibly. I did not expect it on the very hour when the news of universal peace was first promulgated, and on the anniversary of the only British monarch's birth, who ever gave a boon to this distracted country.

You will excuse this digression, rendered indeed in some degree necessary. I shall now confine myself exclusively to your resolution, which determines on the immediate presentation of your petition, and censures the neglect of any discussion on it by your advocates during the last session of Parliament. You have a right to demand most fully the reasons of any man who dissents from Mr. Grattan. I will give you mine explicitly. But I shall first state the reasons which he has given for the postponement of your question. I shall do so out of respect to him, if indeed it can be called respect, to quote those sentiments, which on their very mention must excite your ridicule. Mr. Grattan presented your petition, and, on mov

ing that it should lie where so many preceding ones have lain, namely, on the table, he declared it to be his intention to move for no discussion. Here, in the first place, I think Mr. Grattan wrong; he got that petition, if not on the express, at least on the implied condition of having it immediately discussed. There was not a man at the aggregate meeting at which it was adopted, who did not expect a discussion on the very first opportunity. Mr. Grattan, however, was angry at "suggestions." I do not think Mr. Grattan, of all men, had any right to be so angry at receiving that which every English member was willing to receive, and was actually receiving from any English corn-factor. Mr. Grattan was also angry at our "violence." Neither do I think he had any occasion to be so squeamish at what he calls our violence. There was a day, when Mr. Grattan would not have spurned our suggestions, and there was also a day when he was fifty-fold more intemperate than any of his oppressed countrymen, whom he now holds up to the English people as so unconstitutionally violent. A pretty way, forsooth, for your advocate

to

commence conciliating a foreign auditory in favour of your petition. Mr. Grattan, however, has fulfilled his own prophecy, that "an oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty," and our fears that an Irish native would soon lose its raciness in an English atmosphere. "It is not my intention," says he, "to move for a discussion at present." Why? "Great obstacles have been removed." That's his first reason. "I am how

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