it is founded, and will be swept away, together with the other creatures of the same abuse, which now "fright our Isle from its propriety."

Those portentous appearances, the growth of later times, those figures that stalk abroad, of unknown stature, and strange form unions and leagues, and musterings of men in myriads, and conspiracies against the Exchequer; whence do they spring, and how come they to haunt our shores? What power engendered those uncouth shapes, what multiplied the monstrous births till they people the land? Trust me, the same power which called into frightful existence, and armed with resistless force, the Irish volunteers of 1782-the same power which rent in twain your empire, and raised up thirteen republics-the same power which created the Catholic Association, and gave it Ireland for a portion. What power is that? Justice denied-rights withheld-wrongs perpetrated the force which common injuries lend to millions-the wickedness of using the sacred trust of Government as a means of indulging private caprice -the idiotcy of treating Englishmen like the children of the South Sea Islands-the phrensy of believing, or making believe, that the adults of the nineteenth century can be led like children, or driven like barbarians! This it is that has conjured up the strange sights at which we now stand aghast! And shall we persist in the fatal error of combating the giant progeny, instead of extirpating the execrable parent? Good God! Will men never learn wisdom, even from their own experience? Will they never believe, till it be too late, that the surest way to prevent immoderate desires being formed, aye, and unjust demands enforced, is to grant in due season the moderate requests of justice? You stand, my Lords, on the brink of a great event; you are in the crisis of a whole nation's hopes and fears. An awful importance hangs over your decision. Pause, ere you plunge! There may not be any retreat! It behoves you to shape your conduct by the mighty occasion. They tell you not to be afraid of personal consequences in discharging your duty. I too would ask you to banish all fears; but, above all, that most mischievous, most despicable fear-the fear of being thought afraid. If you won't take counsel from me, take example from the statesmanlike conduct of the noble Duke,* while you also look back, as you may, with satisfaction upon your own. He was told, and you were told, that the impatience of Ireland for equality of civil rights was partial, the clamour transient, likely to pass away with its temporary occasion, and that yielding to it would be conceding to intimidation. I recollect hearing this topic urged within this hall in July 1828; less regularly I heard it than I have now done, for I belonged not to your number-but I heard it urged in the selfsame terms. The burthen of the cry was-It is no time for concession; the people are turbulent, and the Association dangerous. That summer passed, and the ferment subsided not; autumn came, but brought not the precious fruit of peace on the contrary, all Ireland was convulsed with the unprecedented conflict which returned the great chief of the Catholics to sit in a Protestant Parliament; winter bound the earth in chains, but it controlled not the popular fury, whose surge, more deafening than the tempest, lashed the frail bulwarks of law founded upon injustice. Spring came; but no etherial mildness was its harbinger, or followed in its train; the Catholics became stronger by every month's delay, displayed a deadlier resolution, and proclaimed their wrongs in a tone of louder de

fiance than before. And what course did you, at this moment of greatest excitement, and peril, and menace, deem it most fitting to pursue? Eight months before you had been told how unworthy it would be to yield when men clamoured and threatened. No change had happened in the interval, save that the clamours were become far more deafening, and the threats, beyond comparison, more overbearing. What, nevertheless, did your Lordships do? Your duty; for you despised the cuckoo-note of the season, "be not intimidated." You granted all that the Irish demanded, and you saved your country. Was there in April a single argument advanced, which had not held good in July? None, absolutely none, except the new height to which the dangers of longer delay had risen, and the increased vehemence with which justice was demanded; and yet the appeal to your pride, which had prevailed in July, was in vain made in April, and you wisely and patriotically granted what was asked, and ran the risk of being supposed to yield through fear.

But the history of the Catholic Claims conveys another important lesson. Though in right and policy and justice, the measure of relief could not be too ample, half as much as was received with little gratitude when so late wrung from you, would have been hailed twenty years before with delight; and even the July preceding, the measure would have been received as a boon freely given, which I fear, was taken with but sullen satisfaction in April, as a right long withheld. Yet, blessed be God, the debt of justice, though tardily, was at length paid, and the noble Duke won by it civic honours which rival his warlike achievements in lasting brightness-than which there can be no higher praise. What, if he had still listened to the topics of intimidation and inconsistency which had scared his predecessors? He might have proved

his obstinacy, and Ireland would have been the

sacrifice.

Apply now this lesson of recent history-I may say of our own experience, to the measure before us. We stand in a truly critical position. If we reject the Bill, through fear of being thought to be intimidated, we may lead the life of retirement and quiet, but the hearts of the millions of our fellow-citizens are gone for ever; their affections are estranged; we and our order and its privileges are the objects of the people's hatred, as the only obstacles which stand between them and the gratification of their most passionate desire. The whole body of the Aristocracy must expect to share this fate, and be exposed to feelings such as these. For I hear it constantly said, that the Bill is rejected by all the Aristocracy. Favour, and a good number of supporters, our adversaries allow it has among the people; the Ministers, too, are for it; but the Aristocracy, say they, is strenuously opposed to it. I broadly deny this silly, thoughtless assertion. What, my Lords! the Aristocracy set themselves in a mass against the people-they who sprang from the people are inseparably connected with the people are supported by the people are the natural chiefs of the people! They set themselves against the people, for whom Peers are ennobled -Bishops consecrated - Kings anointed the people to serve whom Parliament itself has an existence, and the Monarchy and all its institutions are constituted, and without whom none of them could exist for an hour! The assertion of unreflecting men is too monstrous to be endured as a Member of this House, I deny it with indignation. I repel it with scorn, as a calumny upon us all. And yet are there those who even within these walls speak of the Bill augmenting so much the strength of the democracy, as to endanger the other orders of the State; and so they charge its authors with promoting anarchy and rapine. Why, my Lords, have its authors nothing to fear from democratic spoliation? The fact is, that there are Members of the present Cabinet, who possess, one or two of them alone, far more property than any two administrations within my recollection; and all of them have ample wealth. I need hardly say, I include not myself, who have little or none. But even of myself I will say, that whatever I have depends on the stability of existing institutions; and it is as dear to me as the princely possessions of any amongst you. Permit me to say, that, in becoming a member of your House, I staked my all on the aristocratic institutions of the State. I abandoned certain wealth, a large income, and much real power in the State, for an office of great trouble, heavy responsibility, and very uncertain duration. I say, I gave up substantial power for the shadow of it, and for distinction depending upon accident. I quitted the elevated station of representative for Yorkshire, and a leading member of the Commons. I descended from a position quite lofty enough to gratify any man's ambition; and my lot became bound up in the stability of this House. Then, have I not a right to throw myself on your justice, and to desire that you will not put in jeopardy all I have now left?

But the populace only, the rabble, the ignoble vulgar, are for the Bill! Then what is the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England? What the Duke of Devonshire? What the Duke of Bedford? (Cries of Order from the Opposition.) I am aware it is irregular in any noble Lord that is a friend to the measure; its adversaries are patiently suffered to call Peers even by their christian and surnames. Then I shall be as regular as they were, and ask, does my