overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fatal rashness, seeking temptation, when it is in our power to avoid it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infallibility. We are liable to be corrupted. To an ambitious man, an honourable office will appear as beautiful and fascinating as the apple of Paradise.

I admit, sir, that ambition is a passion, at once the most powerful and the most useful. Without it, human affairs would become a mere stagnant pool. By means of his patronage, the president addresses himself in the most irresistible manner, to this, the noblest and strongest of our passions.

All that the imagination can desire, honour, power, wealth, ease, are held out as the temptation. Man was not made to resist such temptations. It is impossible to conceive, Satan himself could not devise a system which would more infallibly introduce corruption and death into our political Eden. Sir, the angels fell from heaven with less temptation. M'DUFFIE.

133.-ON THE MEASURE OF THE IRISH UNION.

SIR,-I in the most express terms deny the competency of parliament to do this act. I warn you do not dare to lay your hand on the constitution. I tell you, that if circumstanced as you are, you pass this act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately; I repeat it, and call on any man who hears me, to take down my words. You have not been elected for this purpose; you are appointed to make laws, not legislatures; you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them; and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the govern ment; you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you.

Sir, I state doctrines which are not merely founded in the immutable laws of justice and of truth; I state not merely the opinions of the ablest men who have written on the science of government; but I state the practice of our constitution as settled at the era of the revolution; I

state the doctrine under which the house of Hanover derives its title to the throne. Has the king a right to transfer his throne? Is he competent to annex it to the crown of Spain, or of any other country? No, but he may abdicate it; and every man who knows the constitution, knows the consequence, the right reverts to the next in succession; if they all abdicate, it reverts to the people. The man who questions this doctrine, in the same breath must arraign the sovereign on the throne as a usurper. Are you competent to transfer your legislative rights to the French council of five hundred? Are you competent to transfer them to the British parliament? I answer, No. When you transfer you abdicate, and the great original trust reverts to the people from whom it issued. Yourselves you may extinguish, but parliament you cannot extinguish it is enthroned in the hearts of the people; it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution; it is immortal as the island which it protects; as well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body, should extinguish his eternal soul

Again I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the parliament and the people, by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitution. Whenever such a case arises, it must be decided on its own merits: but that is not this case. If government considers this a season peculiarly fitted for experiments on the constitution, they may call on the people. I ask you, Are you ready to do so? Are you ready to abide the event of such an appeal? What is it in that event submit to the people? Not this particular project, for if you dissolve the present form of government, they become free to choose any other; you fling them to the fury of the tempest; you must call on them to unhouse themselves of the established constitution, and to fashion to themselves another. I ask again, is this the time for an experiment of that nature ?

you must

Thank God, the people have manifested no such wish; so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favour, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some

parts of the kingdom; if you know how to appreciate that silence, it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition; you may be rived and shivered by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder!

But, sir, we are told that we should discuss this question with calmness and composure! I am called on to surrender my birth-right and my honour, and I am told I should be calm, composed! National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an enlightened assembly as this. They are trinkets and gewgaws, fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy the consideration of this house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it.

Gracious God! we see a Perry reascending from the tomb, and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet, to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country. PLUNKETT.

134.-SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMETT, AT THE CLOSE OF HIS TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON.

MY LORDS,-You ask me what I have to say, why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say, that can alter your predetermination, or that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence, which you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and which you have laboured to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

An

I am charged with being an emissary of France. emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged, that I wished to sell the independence of my country!

And for what end?

Was this the object of my ambition? No; I am no emissary-my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country-not in power, not in profit, but in the glory of the achievement! Sell my country's independence to France! and for what? A change of masters? No; but for ambition! O, my country, was it personal ambition that influenced me-had it been the soul of my actions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself among the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol to it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment, and for it I now offer up my life. No, my lord, I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction.

Connexion with France was indeed intended—but only so far as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal of their destruction. Were they to come as invaders, or enemies uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I should advise you to meet them on the beach, with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. I would meet them with all the destructive fury of war, and I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their boats, before they had contaminated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of ground, raze every house, burn every blade of grass, and the last intrenchment of liberty should be my grave.

I have been charged with that importance, in the efforts to emancipate my country, as to be considered the keystone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expressed it, "the life and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honour overmuch-you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior; there are men engaged in this conspiracy, who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord-men, before the splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who

would think themselves dishonoured to be called your friends-who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand.-[Here he was interrupted.]

What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to that scaffold, which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediate executioner, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor-shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I, who fear not to approach the Omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life-am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here-by you, too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed, in your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it?

My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice—the blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so grievous, that they cry to Heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few more words to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished: my race is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done! EMMETT.

135.-RIGHT OF DISCOVERY.

THE first source of right, by which property is acquired in a country, is discovery. For as all mankind have an equal right to any thing which has never before been