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months previous to the opening of the Seffion. It had been confidered that the force of Government in Parliament was fo commanding, as that any measure, proposed by them, would have an easy paffage through the Houfe of Commons; and, on the ground of grofs and degrading subserviency in this body, fome gentlemen of high patriotic feeling, and fcrupulous purity of mind, Members of the House, would no longer fuffer the pollution of fuch Society, and had actually feceded from attendance on parliamentary duty.

The Speech from the Throne recommended to the confideration of Parliament "fome permanent adjustment which might extend the advantages enjoyed by our Sister Kingdom to every part of this Island, and to provide the most effectual means of maintaining and improving a connexion, effential to their common fecurity, and of confolidating

confolidating, as far as poffible, into one firm and lafting Fabrick, the ftrength, the power, and the refources of the British Empire."- -The Address was moved by Lord Tyrone, and feconded by Mr. Fitzgerald, Member for the County of Cork.—Early in the evening Lord Caftlereagh avowed his intention of submitting to the House a specific motion on the subject of a Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. G. Ponfonby in a Speech of confiderable length, and confiderable warmth, attacked the principle, which dictated to the British Minister a measure, covertly intended to produce every injury and degradation to Ireland, and moved an amendment to the Addrefs, that after the paffage which declared the willingness of the Houfe to enter on a confideration of what measures might beft tend to confirm the common ftrength of the Empire, should

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be inferted, maintaining, however, the undoubted birthright of the people of Ireland, to have a resident and independent Parliament, fuch as it was recognized by the British Legislature in 1782, and was finally fettled at the adjustment of all differences between the two countries."

A debate arofe on this amendment, which was carried on with great heat, and fometimes with very unbecoming fcurrility, through the whole night. If an examination were ftrictly made into the nature of the arguments used on behalf of the amendment, which were, in fact, all applied to the Queftion of Union, it would be found that National Pride had a very confiderable influence on them all. In fome no other Theme was urged but the annihilation of the Legiflation of Ireland. The removal of the refidence of parliament was considered,

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and contended for, to be equivalent to the an nihilation of its legislature. In fuch an event no veftige of it was to remain. Others argued on the disadvantages that must follow to Ireland, in the detail, and in the completion of an united Parliament for the Empire. It was faid that an incorporating connexion, in which diftinctions, of any nature whatsoever, were inadmiffible, with a nation, that excelled every other on the globe in wealth, in fcience, in commerce, both internal and external, in agriculture, in arms, and in all the arts that dignify and adorn human life, must be the bane of Ireland, and that England fought it, that, by means of the wealth of Ireland, fhe might recruit her own ruined finances. This was urged and swallowed,at the moment that Ireland could not fupply one half of the fum that was required for her annual establishments, and was obliged to borrow the fum in which

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fhe was deficient.-Where? From her impoverished fifter. The deftruction which muft follow to the commerce of Ireland, from fuch an arrangement, was much dwelt on, and men, whofe talents or acquirements. hardly fitted them for a calculation in the firft rules of arithmetic, undertook to decide on the vaft and momentous ftructure and numerous complications of a commerce, the most astonishing that the world has ever witneffed. The Science of Politics, the most difficult to which the powers and attainments of the human mind can be applied, on account of the great importance as well as the infinite and ever changing variety of fubjects that come within its range, was at once profeffed by men, who poffeffed no one requifite, to give a colour to the rank they ufurped. Were then many to be found in hoftility to the discussion of the measure of Union, who poffeffed the indefatigably

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