taken together, made an army at once of 30,000 collectors; unarmed, he admitted, in every thing but prayers, entreaties, and influence. Having raised their army of collectors, they brought to their assistance two thousand five hundred priests; and thus provided, they went about levying contributions on the peasantry. Now, this was a direct violation of the principles of the British constitution. "I do not say," continued Mr. Plunkett, "that it is illegal in the strict sense; for if it were, the Irish government would be able to prosecute, and need not have come here for a remedy; but, I will say, that an Association assuming to represent the people, and in that capacity to bring about a reform in church and state, is directly contrary to the spirit of the British constitution. Do I deny the right of the people, under this free constitution, to meet for the purpose of promoting the redress of grievances in church and state, by discussion and petition? Most certainly not. Do I mean that they have not a right to form themselves into clubs and bodies? Certainly not. But I do deny that any portion of the subjects of this realm have a right to give up their suffrages to others, have a right to select persons to speak their sentiments, to debate upon their grievances, and to devise measures for their removal, those persons not being recognized by law. This is the privilege alone of the Commons of the United Kingdom; and those who trenched upon that privilege, acted against the spirit of the British constitution. I will not assert that there may not be cases, where no danger would be likely to arise from such an assumption of authority. But I must

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treat the case now before the House as it really stands; and I contend, that if there be a body of people in Ireland who stand forward as the representatives of six millions of their fellow-subjects, such an assembly ought to be put down." Even if they were the wisest and worthiest men that ever wielded the resources of any state, he would not allow them to exercise an authority of this description. whom were they accountable? Where was their responsibility? Who was to check them? Who was to stop their progress? By whom were they to be tried, by whom were they to be rebuked, if found acting mischievously? If the executive in the state wielded great powers, the constitution pointed out the mode in which it was to be done. But, in this instance, the society assumed the power both of the legislative and executive bodies, and rejected all the checks by which the latter was hemmed in and surrounded. They met when they pleased; and, in point of fact, they were in the habit of sitting from January to December, and of exercising their powers with as much strictness and severity as any absolute monarch could do. Individuals connected with them went into every house and every family; they mixed in all the rela tions of private life, and afterwards detailed what they had seen or heard with such a degree of freedom, with such a degree of publicity, with so great a want of restraint, that it required more courage than belonged to ordinary men to express a fair and candid opinion: and the numbers of the Association were increased, in consequence, from time to time, by a body, he believed, of right unwilling conscripts. With respect to the

interference of the Catholic Association with the administration of public justice, he could not conceive a more deadly instrument of tyranny, irreconcileable with justice, than this was. The Association claimed to represent six millions of the people of Ireland; and then they claimed the right of denouncing, as an enemy to the people of Ireland, and of bringing to the bar of justice, any individual whom they chose to accuse (no matter on what grounds) of having violated the rights of that people. Was not this a mockery? Could the party so accused come safely to trial, when the grand inquest of the people of Ireland were his accusers? and when those accusers had in their power the application of money levied on the people of Ireland? The consequence must inevitably be, that magistrates and persons in authority must yield to such a power, or else they must array themselves against it. Looking to the consequences, he knew not which was the worse alternative. In either case the country must be a prey to wretchedness. The courts of justice would be converted into so many arenas, where the passions of those who appeared in them would be displayed with the utmost malignity. There party would be opposed to party, and thus would those courts become scenes of factious contention. And, when such was the state of things, the marquis Wellesley must be content to lie under the heavy reproach, the painful imputation, of not having allowed this institution to die of its own follies! The noble marquis, in accordance with the rest of the government of Ireland, wished to put that Association down; and, in his (Mr. Plunkett's) opinion, the determination was a

wise one. Was it, he asked, to be desired, that an institution of this kind should be kept up, merely because it was supposed by some individuals, that it was impossible to carry the measure of emancipation by any other mode? Of what materials did gentlemen think the Protestants of Ireland were composed, if they imagined that the Protestant body would not establish a counter-association? Would they not seek the means of defending themselves? He did not believe that amongst the Catholics there was any present intention of having recourse to force: but he would say, they were not their own masters. They must obey the command and behests of those under whom they had placed themselves. Was it the intent of those leaders to adopt violent measures? He did not say

it was; but he would say, that even those leaders were not their own masters. If they got the dregs of the population under their command, and if that population became irritated, they might rest assured, however good their intentions might be, that desperate men would take the lead of them, and produce a catastrophe which they did not now contemplate. They would be forced down that precipice where they now meant to stop, as surely as a man, placed on the brink of a steep rock, and pressed from behind by a million of persons, must give way to the power which pushed him onwards. It was, therefore, no answer to his argument to say, that the intentions of the Association were now honest and peaceable.

But gentlemen said, “although the mischief is great, you ought not to proceed, because there is another remedy-that is the granting of Catholic emancipation." He himself considered Catholic eman

cipation as a claim of right and justice, and as that measure, with out which all other measures to render Ireland contented and tranquil must be ineffectual. But, when it was proposed to the House instead of the measure now before them, the question was, "Can we have it?" He thought not. But those who opposed the proposition now under discussion, turned round and said, "Because we cannot have that measure, do not put down the mischief, the existence of which we admit." This appeared to him to be bad reasoning. The question, then, arose," By whose fault was it that we could not have emancipation?" Let that question be examined, and let those by whose fault it arose give the answer: but, whether or not they could name those with whom the fault lay, still there were circumstances which made it necessary to resort to the present measure, as the only one which could immediately give an effectual check to a great growing evil.

The remainder of Mr. Plunkett's speech was employed chiefly in repelling the charges of inconsistency and of desertion of his party, which had been brought against him, on account of his acceptance of office under a ministry which did not make Catholic emancipation a cabinet question.

He was answered by Mr. Tierney, who ridiculed the account which Mr. Plunkett had given of the Catholic Association. Among other alarming assertions, he said, the right hon. and learned gentleman had stated, that they had an army of 30,000 men; armed with nothing but a little leather bag in their van; and a slate, in order to register their collections. And this army was headed by no less than 2,500 priests! If the right hon.

gentleman meant to insinuate that these 30,000 collectors, and 2,500 priests, applied their collections to an improper purpose, why did he not say so at once? Or, if he meant to state that they collected subscriptions in Ireland to such an enormous amount as to be absolutely dangerous and alarming, why did he not speak out, and plainly tell the House so? But, what was the fact? Was there any such enormous amount so collected? No: here was, at best, a miserable subscription obtained by pence, raised upon all the counties of Ireland. It was the general contribution furnished by the whole country; and yet it amounted to no more than the paltry sum of 10,000l. But, did the right hon. gentleman really think, that if he could get his bill passed into a law, and put down this Catholic Association, he could at the same time stop this collection? Why; that collection was at present confided to, or principally made by, priests. Well! priests might be prohibited by a law from collecting this rent for the Association; but it was very well known, that the Catholic priests of Ireland collected mo◄ nies among their flocks for other purposes besides those of the rent. And, was it possible to find out, if the Roman Catholic population still continued their weekly subscriptions of three-halfpence each for ordinary purposes, what became of the other halfpenny? Then, the only difference which the bill could make as to that matter, would be, to convert that, which was at present an open and avowed contribution for a declared purpose, into a secret and a clandestine proceeding. By passing the bill, the House would be compelling the Irish Catholics to resort to this

secrecy, in furthering what that bill would declare to be an illegal object. And what could be more impolitic and foolish, than thus to compel men, who now acted in the face of day for the attainment of a given object, to work in the darkto conceal their operations, though it was evident and certain that they would still tend to the same point. Mr. Tierney then commented at great length on Mr. Plunkett's defence of his acceptance of office, and on the pusillanimity of those ministers, who, though friendly to Catholic emancipation, allowed their colleagues to prevent its being carried. He did not conclude till half-past one o'clock, when Mr. Brougham moved "That the debate be now adjourned." Upon this the House divided: the Ayes were 70; the Noes 252. A second division took place on the motion, "That this House do now adjourn:" Ayes 76; Noes 231. The minority declaring their resolution to persist in dividing the House, it was agreed that the debate should be further adjourned till Monday the 14th of February.

On the third night of the debate, Mr. George Lamb, Mr. Carew, Mr. Spring Rice, sir James Mackintosh, and Dr. Lushington opposed the measure: the defence of it was undertaken by Mr. Dawson, Mr. Brownlow, Mr. North, and the chancellor of the Exchequer. There was little of novelty either in the topics which were enforced, or in the form in which they were brought forward. Mr. North's speech was the best of those which were made in this stage of the debate. That the Association, though not clected, did affect to represent the people of Ireland, was, he contended, be

yond all douot. If Mr. O'Connell were told, that the Association was not duly elected, that there was no polling, no show of hands in the choice of its members, he would answer, "I care not for those forms or shadows of election. If you doubt whether we are really the representatives of the Irish Catholics, ask the priests, who support us; ask the peasantry, who contribute to our treasury; ask the peers who are enrolled amongst our members, and they will answer you, that we are, virtually and actually, their representatives." Was not, then, this Association really and bona fide acting as the representatives of the Irish Catholic people? And, was it to be tolerated, that such a body should enact rules, and levy contributions on the country? The amount of the Catholic rent, as far as money was concerned, was nothing; but, considered as an index of the public mind, it was of vast importance. The establishment of such a tax was a positive mischief; for it led the people to look up to other authorities, besides the constituted authorities of the land: it loosened their confidence in the established institutions of the country, and, by that very proceeding, taught them to place it in a new source of power, which it at once created and fostered. Nor was that all. Every man who paid this tax was pledged to every object of the Catholic Association; he was with it "for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer;" he was wedded to it for life, and was thus inseparably linked to all its fortunes. But, a still greater mischief remained untold-the meetings at which this Catholic rent was levied. The Catholic Association in Dublin was comparatively harm

less; but the Catholic rent meetings, which were minor associations in the country, on the same principle, were pregnant with incalculable mischief. There the people were harangued from their altars, and in their chapels, by the minor members of the Catholic persuasion -men as devoid of caution as of education, who were not, like their leaders in Dublin, controlled by the censure of the press, nor influenced by the force of public opinion. From the Association at Dublin there flowed a stream of seditious and turbulent matter into the country, from which it returned back to the Association in a thousand currents, full of every thing mean, narrow, and illiberal. Thus there was a perpetual interchange between two streams of bitter waters, which flowing, one from the Association at Dublin, and the other from the rent-meetings in the country, formed a whirlpool of prejudice in which peace and good order were certain to suffer shipwreck. The rent-meetings in the country, he repeated, were far more detrimental than the Catholic Association in Dublin. The leaders in the first had nothing to control them, and sought notoriety by means of seditious violence; in the latter, there was a power, before which even O'Connell, dictator though he was, bent and trembled. “Divisum imperium cum Jove Cæsar habet." Those who wielded it were at once his ministers and his masters, and governed him, even at the moment they professed to honour and obey him.

It had been obseryed, upon a former evening, that one of the evils of the Catholic Association was, that as all the members of it had the same objects, no discussion was ever produced in it. The

observation, Mr. North said, was a just one, but had not, in his opinion, been pushed to its full extent. For, what was the consequences of all the speakers being thus on one side? Why, that as no man could obtain credit by ingenuity of reply or liveliness of debate, each man was obliged to establish his reputation by going beyond his associates in violence of language, so that the only emulation which was excited was an emulation of violence. This emulation, too, was not confined to mere emulation between the speakers at the Catholic Association, but produced similar emulation between the rent-meetings in various parts of the country. By this system, what was violent yesterday, came to be considered as temperate today; and what to-day was considered as the extreme verge of violence, would to-morrow be considered as too vapid for the palate of the public. A call for stimulants would thus be excited, which it required no great sagacity to predict would inevitably be provided. It was the nature of such associations to generate violence: they could not remain stationary: with them "non progredi est regredi." Their objects were daily varying. No man could say that he knew them. Mr. O'Connell himself, lord of the ascendant as he was in that Association, could not explain them; for the people would not be content to-morrow with that with which they were contented to-day; and thus the Catholic Association of next year, if it be not suppressed, would be even a greater nuisance than it was at present.

On the fourth night of the debate, the bill was opposed by sir Robert Wilson, sir John Newport;