Speech delivered in the Music Hall, Belfast, November 15th, 1847.
Citizens of Belfast, I appear before you as the advocate of those principles, with the resolute assertion of which the proudest reminiscences of Ulster have been identified. I appear before you as the disciple of that creed which, a few years since, was preached from the pulpit of Dungannon Church, and which the armed apostles that issued from it delivered to the nation.
If I am wrong, blame your fathers—blot their names from the records of the north—burn their banners, on which ‘free trade’ was written—brand their arms, which saved the nation, and restored the senate. Blame them—they have taught me the principles which you impeach as treason. Blame them—they have taught me the creed which you anathematise as heresy. Blame them—they have taught me to love the frank, bold voice of freedom—to shun the lazy sanctity of servitude. The sentiments they cherished, I would labour to diffuse. The attitude they assumed, I would have their sons assume. The position to which they raised this kingdom, I would urge this kingdom to regain. Therefore, I demand the Repeal of the Act of Union; and that this act may be repealed, I invoke the spirit of the North. Not for vote by ballot—not for an extension of the franchise—not for corporate reform amendment acts—not for ‘eleven comprehensive measures’—do I demand Repeal. These are not the grounds upon which an Irish citizen should claim for his country the restitution of her legislative power. The grievances of a class, the defects of an institution, may be, in time, removed by that parliament, the legislation of which has, for so long a period, been conservative of error and abuse. Political reform is a question common to both countries; and you must bear this in mind, that many politicians in England believe that an assimilation of the franchises, and various political institutions, of the two countries, will confirm rather than disturb the control which England maintains at present over the taxes, the produce, and the energies of Ireland. On higher grounds—on grounds that are immutable—on grounds that are common to all parties in the state—I take my stand, and beckon the nation to a new career.
That the taxes of this island may be levied and applied, by its own decrees, for its own particular use and benefit; that the produce of the soil may be at our own free and full disposal, and be dealt with precisely as the national necessities require; that the commerce of the island, protected by native laws, may spring into a strenuous activity, and cease to be a mere Channel trade; that the manufactures of our towns, encouraged by the premiums which a native parliament would not hesitate to grant, may revive, and, with a generous supply, meet the demand which a resident gentry, and all the public offices connected with the seat of legislation, would be sure to create; that, in fact, the whole property of this island—the food that sustains—the skill that clothes—the enterprise that enriches—the genius that adorns—may belong, permanently and absolutely, to itself, and cease to be the property of any other people: on these grounds, sir, we insist that Ireland shall be exempt from foreign rule.
Against this project, what objection have you to urge? Is what we advocate tainted with sectarianism? Is it distempered with Whiggery? Does it predict the fall of Protestantism? Does it threaten the rights of property? I know that many of you are the enemies of Repeal. I know full well, that, in the North, Repeal has been identified with Popery, whilst the Union has been identified with Protestantism. I know full well, that, on this side of the Boyne, it has been declared antagonistic to Orangeism, and that, with the principles of 1688, a legislative disconnection from England has been judged incompatible. Your fathers did not say so. On the 1st of July, 1779, the Volunteer companies of Belfast held a different opinion. On that day the Orange cockades were glittering in their hats, and the same guns that backed the Declaration of Irish Rights, poured forth their volleys in commemoration of the great victory you still so vehemently celebrate. Why have you foresworn the faith of which your fathers were the intrepid missionaries? I will not urge this question deceitfully. You are frank, blunt men, in Ulster, and speak your opinions boldly. You like to hear the plain truth, and shall have it.
That there have been circumstances, connected with the Repeal movement, which justify in a great measure your hostility to Repeal, I candidly admit. Until very lately, the movement has worn the features of the Catholic movement of 1827. Exclusions of Catholics from the jury box—exclusion of Catholics from government offices, infidel colleges, Propaganda rescripts, Bequest Acts, Maynooth grants—questions which could not be discussed without provoking sectarian strife, and which could not be decided without originating factions—these, and similar questions, were frequently introduced at Repeal meetings, giving to them the complexion of the meetings that preceded the Act of 1829. Instead of keeping to the one plain question—the question upon which, in 1782, the advocate of Catholic claims and the advocate of Catholic disabilities concurred—the question upon which, in 1799, the Catholic Committee and the Orange Lodge pronounced the same opinion—instead of keeping to this one plain question, the leaders of the movement constantly diverged into those topics, upon which, as I have just said, division was inevitable, and from the discussion of which in a popular assembly, I conceive, the fiercest antipathies must arise. Besides, sir, it seems to me that a predominance in the movement was conceded to the Catholic priests, which the Protestant portion of the community could not recognise, and which, I maintain, it would be an abdication of their civil liberty for Protestants to tolerate. ‘The Priests and the People’—that was the motto of the Repeal Association. ‘The Citizens of Ireland’—this is the motto of the Irish Confederation. And by this we mean, the peer, the priest, the merchant, the peasant, the mechanic—every class, trade, creed, race, profession—all the elements that move and act within this island—sustaining its existence, and directing its career. Will you adopt that motto?
But, first of all, tell me, do you believe the Union is essential to Irish interests? Do you believe that we cannot get on through life unless we are bound by an act of parliament to England? Do you believe that we have been gifted with no inherent strength, and that, without the help of a neighbouring state, we must limp, and stagger through the world? Is that your faith? and if it be, whence comes it? Is it the result of inspiration, or the result of teaching? Inspiration! What—the secret tutorship of God! What—the instruction which the soul receives amid the mysteries of nature, which comes to it borne upon the black pinion of the wave, and bids it go forth and bring a new world into contact with the old—which comes to it along the burning pathways of the stars, and bids it utter those mighty thoughts which shall echo through all ages—which comes to it, even at this day, across the waste and desolation of the desert—wakes an outcast tribe into brilliant heroism, and gives them strength and skill to cope with the cross and sword of the Christian civiliser! Inspiration! Utter not the word. No craven faith ever came from thence. Taught from thence, you would spurn the menial’s garb, and snap the vassal’s fetter. Taught from thence, you would boldly dare, and nobly consummate. Taught from thence, you would find no enterprise too perilous, no eminence too giddy for your ambition to attempt. Taught from thence, you would step from height to height, bearing aloft your country’s flag, until you had reached the summit, whence your voice would be heard, and your glory witnessed, from the furthest confine of the earth. From false teaching your timid faith has come. Look to it, and see if it be not false.
You cannot do without the aid of England—the Union Act is your stoutest main-stay! This you have been taught to say. And how is this sustained? Mr. Pitt assured you that the Union was essential to the local interests of Ireland. In his speech, on the 31st of January, 1799, he declared, that the measure ‘was designed and calculated to increase the prosperity, and ensure the safety of Ireland.’ He declared, moreover, that he wished for it ‘with a view of giving to Ireland the means of improving all its great national resources, and of giving to it its due weight and importance, as a great member of the empire.’ Is it not absurd to ask the question—Where are the evidences of increased prosperity, and how has the safety of Ireland been ensured? The landlord swamped—the tradesman bankrupt—the farmer in the poorhouse—are these the evidences of increased prosperity? And tell me is it by the scourge or famine that the safety of Ireland has been ensured?
I do not enter into the details of ruin which the history of the Union contains. Were I to do so, I should have to detain you for many hours; and, besides, it is an inquiry that can be more instructively pursued in private than in public. The Council of the Confederation will take care to have pamphlets and tracts distributed throughout the country, in which these details will be fully given; for we desire that from a conviction of its necessity, and from that alone, you should unite with us in the demand for self-government. An intelligent concurrence of opinion is the only sure basis for a firm political combination. The accession to a political society of men who do not understand its object—who have not been convinced of the utility of that object, and the practicability of its attainment—such an accession, in my mind, is utterly worthless. Hence, I say, that the meetings of 1843 failed to promote Repeal. There was no mind at work within those gigantic masses. There was faith, trust, heroism. But that which outlives the tumult of a meeting—that which dies not with the passion the orator has evoked—that which survives, though the arm may shrivel, and the heart grow cold—a free, intelligent opinion was wanting. What, then, do we propose? Nothing more than this—that the question of Repeal should be honestly considered by the country, and that if the result of this consideration be a conviction of its necessity, the country should demand Repeal as the condition of its allegiance. That the country will be in time, and in a very short time, convinced of the necessity of Repeal, I entertain no doubt. That it is already the growing conviction of many minds, hitherto opposed most decisively to Repeal, I firmly believe.
What is the meaning of the Irish Council, sitting in the Rotunda, if it be not this—that the affairs of Ireland having been mismanaged by the parliament of England, the citizens of Ireland have been, at length, compelled to assemble, as an Irish parliament would do, to overlook those affairs, and advise upon them? In that council many of our best citizens deliberate. What does it report? That the Union must be repealed? No; but that the Union has been an experiment, of which the utter prostration of the national interests attests the terrible fatality. Do you refuse to authenticate this report? Doctor Boyton must be esteemed an authority in the North. He was a zealous opponent of Catholic claims, and a powerful champion of ultra-Conservatism. In 1835 there was a great Protestant meeting at Morrisson’s Hotel, Dublin, and at that meeting, Doctor Boyton delivered an anti-Union speech, from which I will read to you the following extract:—
‘The exports and imports, as far as they are a test of a decay of profitable occupation—so far as the exports and imports are supplied from the parliamentary returns—exhibit extraordinary evidences of the condition of the labouring classes. The importation of flax seed (an evidence of the extent of a most important source of employment) was—In 1790, 339,745 barrels; 1800, 327,721 barrels; 1836, 469,458 barrels. The importation of silk, raw and thrown, was—In 1790, 92,091 lbs.; 1800, 79,060 lbs.; 1830, 3,190 lbs. Of unwrought iron—In 1790, 2,271 tons; in 1800, 10,241 tons; in 1830, 871 tons. Formerly we spun all our own woollen and worsted yarn. We imported in 1790, only 2,294 lbs.; in 1800, 1,880 lbs.; in 1826, 662,750 lbs.—an enormous increase. There were, I understand, upwards of thirty persons engaged in the woollen trade in Dublin, who have become bankrupts since 1821. There has been, doubtless, an increase in the exports of cottons. The exports were—In 1800, 9,147 yards; 1826, 7,793,873. The exports of cotton from Great Britain were—In 1829, 402,517,196 yards, value £12,516,247, which will give the value of our cotton exports at something less than a quarter of a million—poor substitute for our linens, which in the province of Ulster alone exceeded in value two millions two hundred thousand pounds. In fact, every other return affords unequivocal proof that the main sources of occupation are decisively cut off from the main body of the population of this country. The export of live cattle and of corn has greatly increased, but these are raw material; there is little more labour in the production of an ox than the occupation of him who herds and houses him; his value is the rent of the land, the price of the grass that feeds him, while an equal value of cotton, or linen, or pottery, will require for its production the labour of many people for money. Thus the exports of the country now are somewhat under the value of the exports thirty years since, but they employ nothing like the number of people for their production; employment is immensely reduced—population increased three-eighths. Thus, in this transition from the state of a manufacturing population to an agricultural, a mass of misery, poverty, and discontent is created.’
Thus have Mr. Pitt’s predictions been verified; thus has the prosperity of Ireland increased; thus have its local interests been protected; and thus its due weight and importance, as a great member of the empire, has been established! Mr. Staunton, in his able essay—an essay which, for its statistical information, I know would be highly prized in the North—has quoted an opinion of the late O’Conor Don, in which the weight and importance of Ireland, as a great member of the empire, is very respectfully set forth. The opinion is simply this—that ‘any five British merchants waiting upon the minister, to urge on his attention any public subject, would have more weight than the whole body of Irish representatives.’ In this opinion is it erroneous to coincide? Do you really believe that Ireland is a great member of the British Empire? You might as well say that the boy Jones was a great member of the royal family. He had no right to the privy purse, and you have no claim to the Imperial Exchequer. So you may boast of your English connection, but you’ll get nothing by it. Get nothing by it? No; but depend upon it, you will lose everything you have to lose. See what you have lost already. You have lost your manufactures. You have lost your foreign trade. You have lost several public institutions. The Board of Customs has been transferred to London. So have the Revenue and Excise Boards. The Board of Ordnance, within the last few weeks, has been ordered off. And is it not the fashionable news of the day, that Lord Clarendon will be the last of the English Proconsuls, and that the Castle will be given up to the Board of Works, of whose genius for mischief, upon every road in the country, there have been deposited the most embarrassing testimonials?
Depend upon this—the English people love old England, and to make her rich and powerful they will exact from you every treasure you possess, and then commit you, most piously, to Providence and your own resources. Like proper men of business, they mind their own affairs, and will not entrust them to the Diet of Hungary, or the French Chamber of Deputies. And, in doing so, of course, they will pay very little attention to the affairs of Ireland, or any other despicable province. Thus it is, that the grant in aid of your linen manufacture has been withdrawn. Thus it is, that the grant in aid of the deep-sea fisheries has been withdrawn. Thus it is, that the protective duties have been repealed, in spite of the remonstrance of the principal manufacturers of Ireland. Thus it is, that for the reclamation of your five million acres of waste land, they have refused to vote an adequate advance. Thus it is, as Mr. Grey Porter has stated, in the first pamphlet which he published, that, since the Union Act came into operation, only fifteen local acts have passed for Ireland, whilst four hundred and forty-five local acts have passed for Great Britain. I might proceed with these facts, if you did not interrupt me with the exclamation—
‘Look to Belfast, if you please; we have thriven here in spite of England—the industry of the people can thwart the injustice of the parliament—cease your spouting—go to work—leave the old parliament house with the bankers—the cashier’s office is just as good as a Treasury bench—build the factory—build the warehouse—learn this, that industry is true patriotism, and that for a nation to be prosperous it must cease to be indolent.’
Now, sir, this is most excellent advice, and I congratulate Belfast upon its miraculous exemption from the ruin in which every other town in Ireland has been embedded. Your fate has been as singular as that of Robinson Crusoe; and your ingenuity, in making the most of a desert island, has been no less remarkable. But, in ascribing the indigence of the country to the indolence with which you charge it, how do you explain this fact, that, previous to the enactment of the Union, in thousands of factories, now closed up, there were so many evidences of an industrious disposition?
I cannot run through all them—but, take one or two. Dublin, with its ninety-one master manufacturers in the woollen trade, employing 4,938 hands; Cork, with its forty-one employers in the same trade, giving employment to 2,500 hands; Bandon, your old southern ally, with its camlet trade, producing upwards of £100,000 a year; were these no proofs of an active spirit, seeking in the rugged paths of labour for that gold out of which a nation weaves its purple robe, and moulds its sceptre? I cite those towns—I could cite a hundred other towns—Limerick, Roscrea, Carrick-on-Suir, Kilkenny—I cite them against the Union. You cite Belfast, and because Belfast has prospered, the Union must be maintained! Is that your argument? I do not deny, that whilst Belfast has been industrious, the other places I have mentioned have been inert. But how does this admission serve the Unionist? He admits the existence of an industrious energy, prevailing all through the country, previous to the Union. In the English Commons, it was asserted by Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burdett, and, I believe, also by Mr. Tierney. Mr. Pitt himself bore testimony to it, but said there was room for improvement. What then? The indolence of the country dates from the passing of the Union; and the fact is indisputable, that whilst the Union has grown old, the country has grown decrepid. How could it be otherwise? In the history of all nations, you will find that, with the decline of freedom the decay of virtue has been contemporaneous. Restrict the powers—restrict the functions of a nation—and you check the passions that prompt it to what is noble. The nation that does not possess the power to shape its own course, will have no heart, no courage, no ambition. Like the soul, in which a sense of immortality has been extinguished, it will not look beyond to-day—it will do nothing for the morrow. All its acts will be little, and, for the future, it will have no generous aspiration, and, therefore, no heroic effort. Argue you as you please, the plain fact is this—a nation will be indolent, sluggish, slothful, unless it has a security for its outlay, and this security exists solely in the power to protect, by laws and arms, the riches which its industry may accumulate.
Do you dispute the fact? Have you no faith in freedom? If so, let the Northern Whig supplant the gospel of Dungannon. Go into the churchyard write ‘Fool’ upon every tombstone that commemorates a Volunteer—and thank your God that you live in an age of commonsense, Whig philosophy, and starvation. Ay, write the sarcasm upon the tombstone of the Volunteer. It may be sacrilege—but it is commonsense. The citizen soldier of 1782 was a fool! He did not sign petitions for out-door relief, but labelled his gun with ‘free trade.’ He did not drive to the Castle to beg ‘justice for Ireland,’ but drew his sword in College Green, under the statue of King William; took the oath of independence, and compelled the Castle to do homage to the Senate. He insisted upon a final settlement between the two countries—declared that Ireland should not be an integral portion of a monopolising empire—declared that Ireland should be an independent sovereignty—and, until that settlement was concluded, he ‘put his trust in God, and kept his powder dry.’ I am much mistaken if you do not ambition to imitate this ‘fool.’ I believe that you desire to have this country occupy an honourable position, and that of its abilities to be great you have formed no mean conception.
But as I have already said, you dread Repeal, which means the restoration of the Constitution of 1782, and you cling to the Union, which is an abdication of that Constitution—an abdication by the country of all control over her resources, her revenue, and her existence. The Union Act, you say, is the great charter of Irish Protestantism. But has that charter been held inviolate? Have those ancient privileges been preserved, which, a few years since, gave to Irish Protestantism an authority so supreme? The corporations—once the citadels of the Williamites—have been surrendered to the Radicals; and though, as yet, the civic chain has never shone as a trophy upon the altar of the Catholic, how often, let me ask you, does it glitter in the Protestant pew, for which its brilliancy has been so fastidiously reserved? The Castle, too, has slipped from your hands. The sleek Catholic slave is a greater favourite in that quarter, now-a-days, than an alderman of Skinner’s Alley. The Orange flag is designated by a Conservative minister the symbol of vagabondism—your processions are prohibited—and, when you declaim against the spread of Popery, and pray for the repeal of the Emancipation Act, they knock ten mitres of the Established Church into ‘kingdom come,’ and vote £26,000 a year to Maynooth. What say you now to the great charter of Protestant supremacy? What said Dr. Maunsell, in the Dublin Corporation, in 1844, when his motion in favour of rotatory parliaments was under discussion? Speaking upon this very subject, he asked the following question:
‘What is now the position, and what may be the reasonable expectations of Irish Protestants? Two institutions—and two only—in which they have a special interest, have been suffered to remain—the University and the Church. Now, I ask any reflecting man will he engage that the Protestant University will not, within a year, be thrown as a sop to the monster of agitation? On this matter the handwriting of the Premier has but recently appeared upon the wall. The question is no longer a mooted one: the days of the University of Dublin, as an exclusively or special Protestant institution, are numbered; and I will again ask, when the University shall have been sacrificed, how long do Irish Protestants suppose their Church, as a national establishment, will survive? Surely, if the history of the last fifteen years be remembered, no one, not the most sanguine truster in statesmen, can in his sober moments fail to see that this establishment is already doomed—that the purses of the great English proprietors of Irish soil gape for the remnant of the patrimony of the Church, to the appropriation of which they have already made a first step, by converting it from an actual property in the land to a stipendiary rent-charge ? No; let no one hope that a minister whose mind is trained in manoeuvres for tiding over political shoals will hesitate to slip these the two only remaining anchors of Irish Protestantism, as a national establishment, if doing so will enable him to escape official wreck, even if it were but for a session.’
Such were the prospects of Protestantism in 1844; and, since then, have those prospects been improved? Alderman Butt is an authority upon this subject, and wherever integrity is prized, his opinion must have weight. At the second meeting of the Irish Council he delivered a most powerful speech upon the condition of Ireland, and in alluding to that establishment, of which he has been for so many years the gifted champion, he made the following remarks:
‘Take any of those interests for which party has contended. Where will they be when the country is gone? Let us take the question of the Church establishment—a question, perhaps, which has excited much of angry discussion. I am one of those who thought—I still think—that the Protestant establishment of Ireland ought to be maintained. I see gentlemen in this room who have differed with me honestly and sincerely, I am sure, upon this question. We have contended about this, and what is the result? The question will be settled without the decision of our disputes. The poor-rate has swallowed up the income of the clergy; and in many districts the Protestant Church has suffered that which you, its most determined opponents, never proposed. The present incumbents will be left, by the operation of the present pauperism of Ireland, without the means of actual support. Thus, while we have been contending about the Church, the Church is sharing the ruin of the country. Need I refer to other instances to prove that, struggle as we will for party interests, no party interest can survive our country? There are gentlemen here who have been advocates of the voluntary system—who have applauded that system, as carried out in Ireland, in the support of the clergy of the Church of Rome. I inquire not now into the reasonableness of your opinions; but are not these clergy now in many districts reduced to actual destitution with the misery of their flocks? What interest, I ask again, for which party was intended, can outlive the ruin of our native land?’
This is the declaration of one of the most eminent of the Irish Protestants. Is this declaration false, and do you still maintain that the Union Act is your great charter? Beggary, insult, the sneers of English prelates, tithe reductions of twenty per cent.— are these your ancient privileges? If so, stand to the Union, and kiss the hand that has given you gall and wormwood to drink! If so, stand to the Union, and be the history of Irish Protestantism henceforth the history of debasement! If so, stand to the Union, and let the spires of your churches mark the way by which slaves may crawl, like bruised and bleeding worms, to the grave!
In the summer of 1845 there was a purer blood rushing through your veins; and, from the hills of the south, there were eyes that strained and glistened, day after day, from the rising to the setting of the sun, as they looked towards that river, into which your forefathers knocked the crown of a craven king, for there a splendid spectacle had been predicted. Do you forget the prediction? Do you forget the menace which the Evening Mail flung in the face of England, when her Prime Minister was warned that ‘a hundred thousand Orangemen, with their colours flying, might yet meet a hundred thousand Repealers on the banks of the Boyne, and, on a field presenting so many solemn reminiscences to all, sign the Magna Charta of Ireland’s independence?’ Why has that rapturous menace been withdrawn? Repeal would deliver you into the hands of the priests—a penal code would exclude the Protestant from the privileges of the citizen—the Union has made him a beggar, but Repeal would make him a slave! You might as well predict that there will be a Smithfield fire in College Green, and a Spanish Inquisition in the House of Lords, where your victories of Aughrim and the Boyne are worked in gorgeous tapestry upon the walls. I say here, what I said in Cork—and I am the more anxious to repeat it, because it has been censured—I say, that there is a spirit growing up, amongst the young Catholics of Ireland, which will not bend to any clerical authority beyond the sanctuary—a spirit which will not permit the priesthood of any religion to hold a political power greater than that which any other class of citizens possess—a spirit which would raise the banner of revolt against the pulpit, if the pulpit preached intolerance to the people—a spirit which would level the altar to the dust, before the bigot had stained it with the sacrifices of the scaffold.
Catholic ascendancy! It is a ghost that frightens you, and, whilst you stand trembling before it, the Union, which is no ghost, is playing the thief behind your back. The Unionist tells you not to trust the Catholic, and, in your panic, you forget who robbed you of the ten mitres and the corporations. Away with the evil counsellor! In Rome, the Jew and Christian have embraced. There is a creed which includes all other creeds—a creed common to the synagogue, the cathedral, and the mosque. The genius of the poor weaver of Belfast, whose lyrics are the brightest treasures you possess, has announced it to you:—
‘And though ten thousand altars bear
On each for Heaven a different prayer,
By light of moon, or light of sun,
At Freedom’s we must all be one.’
This is the creed which we profess—and the place-beggar calls it ‘infidelity.’ The place-beggar—that figure with two faces—like the Marquis of Rockingham, described by Grattan—one face turned towards the Treasury, and the other presented to the people, and, with a double tongue, speaking contradictory languages. You disapprove of place-begging, I understand. And why not? This country can never be independent, whilst it is a recruiting depot for the English Whigs, or any other English faction, that frets and fights for salary behind the benches of St. Stephen’s.
Orangemen of Ireland!—stand to your colours—keep up your anniversaries—but do not damn the Pope at the skirts of England. Burn Guy Fawkes, but in the flames let not the writings of Molyneux be consumed. Radicals of Ireland!—claim the ballot—claim the household suffrage—claim annual or triennial parliaments—but claim them from a native parliament. Of the House of Russell scorn to be the scavengers. Imitate, in this respect, that nation from whose corn-law majorities, sugar-bill majorities, coercion-bill majorities, we struggle to emancipate ourselves. Be antagonists in religion—be antagonists in the science of legislation—but combine for the common right—combine for self-government. Is this absurd? Is this impracticable?
Consult the oracles of Exeter Hall—consult the oracles of the Catholic Institute. High above them both flies the ensign of St. George, and though the war of sects is waged beneath, no hand is ever raised to tear it down and fling it to a foreign foe. Interrogate the cotton lord of Manchester—interrogate the corn monopolist of Buckinghamshire—and see if they would not link their forces—artisans and farmers—if a camp, like that of 1803, threatening an invasion, were descried from the cliffs of Dover. A union of parties, then, in the name of national independence, is not impracticable.
But the acquisition of independence is impossible. What! the public opinion of Ireland is a feather in the scales of the British Constitution! Is that the conclusion you have come to? Have you tried your weight at all? You have not; and before you assert that you are not up to the mark, you are bound to make the experiment. In God’s name, then, let the experiment be made! To raise this kingdom to the position of an independent state should be the passionate ambition of all its citizens. Gifted, as she has been, with fine capacities for power, it is a crime to tolerate the influence by which those capacities are restrained. In the profusion of its resources, the will of heaven, that this land should be blessed with affluence, has been nobly signified. Nor have the intimations of that will been less distinctly traced in the character of its people. The generous passion, the vivid intellect, the rapturous faith, are visible through all their vicissitudes, their errors, and their vices. For a destination the most exalted, we behold, in every arrangement, facilities the most adequate. Shall the dispensations of Providence be contravened, through the timorous inactivity of man? In a sluggish acquiescence to the sword of conquest, and the law of rapine, are we to witness the profane rejection of that charter, which, through these dispensations, instructs us to be free, and empowers us to be great?
A right noble philosophy has taught us, that God has divided this world into those beautiful systems, called nations, each of which, fulfilling its separate mission, becomes an essential benefit to the rest. To this Divine arrangement will you alone refuse to conform, surrendering the position, renouncing the responsibility, which you have been assigned? Other nations, with abilities far less eminent than those which you possess, having great difficulties to encounter, have obeyed, with heroism, the commandment—from which you have swerved—maintaining that noble order of existence, through which even the poorest state becomes an instructive chapter in the great history of the world. Shame upon you! Switzerland—without a colony, without a gun upon the seas, without a helping hand from any court in Europe—has held, for centuries, her footing on the Alps; spite of the avalanche, has bid her little territory sustain, in peace and plenty, the children to whom she has given birth; has trained those children up in the arts that contribute most to the security, the joy, the dignity of life; has taught them to depend upon themselves, and for their fortune to be thankful to no officious stranger; and, though a blood-red cloud is breaking, even whilst I speak, over one of her brightest lakes, whatever plague it may portend, be assured of this, the cap of foreign despotism will never gleam again in the market-place of Altorff.
Shame upon you! Norway—with her scanty population, scarce a million strong—has kept her flag upon the Categat; has reared a race of gallant sailors to guard her frozen soil; year after year has nursed upon that soil a harvest to which the Swede can lay no claim; has saved her ancient laws, and, to the spirit of her frank and hardy sons, commits the freedom which she rescued from the allied swords, when they hacked her crown at Frederichstadt.
Shame upon you! Greece—‘whom the Goth, nor Turk, nor Time, hath spared not’—has flung the crescent from the Acropolis; has crowned a king in Athens, whom she calls her own; has taught you that a nation should never die; that not for an idle pageant has the blood of heroes flowed—that not to vex a school-boy’s brain, nor smoulder in a heap of learned dust, has the fire of heaven issued from the tribune’s tongue.
Shame upon you! Holland—with the ocean as her foe—from the swamp in which you would have sunk your graves, has bid the palace, and the warehouse, costlier than the palace, rear their ponderous shapes above the waves that battle at their base; has outstripped the merchant of the Rialto; has threatened England in the Thames; has swept the Channel with her broom; and though, for a day, she reeled before the bayonets of Dumouriez, she sprang to her feet again, and with the cry—‘Up, up with the House of Orange!’—struck the Tricolour from her dykes.
And you—you, who are eight million strong; you, who boast, at every meeting, that this island is the finest which the sun looks down upon; you, who have no threatening sea to stem—no avalanche to dread; you, who say that you could shield along your coast a thousand sail, and be the princes of a mighty commerce; you, who by the magic of an honest hand, beneath each summer sky, might cull a plenteous harvest from your soil, and with the sickle strike away the scythe of death; you, who have no vulgar history to read; you, who can trace, from field to field, the evidences of a civilisation older than the conquest—the relics of a religion more ancient than the gospel; you, who have thus been blessed, thus been gifted, thus been prompted to what is wise and generous, and great; you will make no effort; you will whine, and beg, and skulk, in sores and rags, upon this favoured land; you will congregate in drowsy councils, and, when the very earth is loosening beneath your feet, respectfully suggest new clauses and amendments to some blundering bill; you will strike the poor-rate—ay, fifteen shillings in the pound!—and mortgage the last acre of your estates; you will bid a prosperous voyage to your last grain of corn; you will be beggared by the million; you will perish by the thousand; and the finest island which the sun looks upon, amid the jeers and hootings of the world, will blacken into a plague-spot, a wilderness, a sepulchre!
God of Heaven! shall these things come to pass? What say you, yeomen of the north? Has the Red Hand withered? Shall the question be always asked at Innishowen—‘Has the time come?’—and shall no heroic voice reply—‘It has. Arise!’ Swear that the rule of England is unjust, illegal, and a grievance. Swear it, that, henceforth, you shall have no lawgivers, save the Queen, the Lords, and Commons of the kingdom. Swear it, that, as you have been the garrison of England for years, from this out you will be the garrison of Ireland. Swear it, that the flag which floats next summer from the battlements of Derry shall bear the inscription of Dungannon. Swear it, that you shall have another anniversary to celebrate—that another obelisk shall cast its shadow on the Boyne—that, hereafter, your children, descending to that river, may say—‘This is to the memory of our fathers; they were proud of the victory which their grandsires won upon these banks, but they ambitioned to achieve a victory of their own; their grandsires fought and conquered for a king; our fathers fought and conquered for a nation—be their memories pious, glorious, and immortal!’