The noble Lord's position, now that circumstances are very different, and that from the competition of other countries, we cannot expect to rule mankind by physical force, or dictate to other nations by means of our military power. I thought, until now, that this country exercised an awful sway; and had even hoped that we might "rule mankind and make the world obey" by the example of beneficial acts, and by sacrifices in the cause of humanity; and that amongst such disinterested sacrifices, we might refer with satisfaction to the abolition of the slavery of the negroes in the West India Islands. The noble Lord then might have continued his quotation— "To tame the proud, the fettered slave to free, These are imperial arms, and worthy thee." This was the majestic course to pursue; and, not looking to the promotion of our interests by the adoption of peace or war, dispose other countries to follow in our path, and to pursue our example by the furtherance and promotion of the interests of humanity. PEEL. ON THE TRIAL OF O'CONNELL, AND OTHERS. A PROSECUTION was not instituted against the great conspirators of 1782. The English minister had been taught in the struggles between England and her colonies a lesson from adversity; that schoolmistress, the only one from whom ministers ever learn anything, who charges so much blood, so much gold, and such torrents of tears, for her instructions. In reading the history of that time, and in tracing the gradual descent of England, from the tone of despotic dictation, to the reluctant acknowledgment of disaster, and to the ignominious confession of defeat, how many painful considerations are presented to us? If in time—if the English minister in time had listened to the eloquent warnings of Chatham, or to the still more oracular admonitions of Edmund Burke, what a world of wo would have been avoided! By some fatality England was first - we were demented, and then was lost. Her repentance followed her perdition. The colonies were lost; but Ireland was saved by the timely recognition of the great principle on which her independence was founded. No attorney-general was found bold enough to prosecute Flood and Grattan for a conspiracy. With what scorn would twelve Irishmen have repudiated the presumptuous functionary by whom such an enterprise should have been attempted. Irishmen then felt that they had a country. They acted under the influence of that instinct of nationality which, for his providential purposes, the Author of Nature has implanted in us. We were then a nation not broken into fragments by those dissensions by which we are at once enfeebled and degraded. If we were 8,000,000 of protestants— and, Heaven forgive me, there are moments when, looking at the wrongs done to my country, I have been betrayed for a moment into the guilty desire that we all were-but, if we were 8,000,000 of protestants, should we be used as we are? Should we see every office of dignity and emolument in this country filled by the natives of the sister island? Should we see the just expenditure requisite for the improvement of our country denied? Should we see the quit and crown rents of Ireland applied to the improvement of Charing-cross or of Windsor Castle? Should we submit to the odious distinctions between Englishmen and Irishmen introduced into almost every act of legislation? Should we bear with an Arms Bill, by which the Bill of Rights is set at nought? Should we brook the misapplication of a poor-law? Should we allow parliament to proceed as if we had not a voice in the legislature! Should we submit to our present inadequate representation? Should we allow a new tariff to be introduced without giving us the slightest equivalent for the manifest loss we have sustained? And should we not peremptorily require that the imperial parliament should hold a periodical sessions for the transaction of Irish business in the metropolis of a powerful, and, as it then would be, an undivided country? But we are prevented by our wretched religious distinctions from co-operating for a single object by which the honor and the substantial interests of our country can be promoted. Fatal, disastrous, detestable distinctions! Detestable, because they are not only repugnant to the genuine spirit of Christianity, and substitute for the charities of religion the rancorous antipathies of sect- but because they practically reduce us to a colonial dependency, make the union a name, convert a nation into an appurtenance, make us the footstool of the minister, the scorn of England, and the commiseration of the world! Ireland is the only country in Europe in which abominable distinctions between protestant and catholic are permitted to continue. In Germany, where Luther translated the Scriptures · -in France, where Calvin wrote the Institutes; ay, in the land of the Dragonades and the St. Bartholomews-in the land from whence the forefathers of one of the judicial functionaries of this court, and the first ministerial officer of this court, were barbarously driven — the mutual wrongs done by catholic and protestant are forgiven and forgotten; while we, madmen that we are, arrayed by that fell fanaticism which, driven from every other country in Europe, has found a refuge here, precipitate ourselves upon each other in those encounters of sectarian ferocity in which our country, bleeding and lacerated, is trodden under foot. We convert the island that ought to be one of the most fortunate in the sea, into a receptacle of degradation and of suffering: counteract the designs of providence, and enter into a conspiracy for the frustration of the benificent designs of God. If the imperial parliament held its sittings at intervals in Ireland, this city would appear in renovated splendor. Your streets would be shaken by the roll of the gorgeous equipages in which the first nobles of the country would be borne to the senate-house. The mansions of the aristocracy would blaze with that useful luxury which ministers to the gratification of the affluent, and to the employment and the comforts of the poor. The sovereign herself would not deem the seat of her parliament unworthy of her residence. The frippery of the vice-regal court would be swept away. We should look upon royalty itself, and not upon the tinsel image. We should behold the Queen of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland, in all the pomp of her imperial regality, with a diadem-the finest diadem in the world -glittering upon her brow, while her countenance beamed with the expression of that sentiment which becomes the throned monarch better than the crown. We should see her accompanied by the Prince, of whom it is the highest praise to say, that he has proved himself to be not unworthy of her. We should see her encompassed by all the circumstances that associate endearment with respect. We should not only behold the Queen, but the mother and the wife, and see her from the highest station on which a human being could be placed, presenting to ber subjects the finest model of every conjugal and maternal virtue. I am not speaking in the language of a fictitious enthusiasm, when I speak thus of her. I am sure that this project is not only feasible, but easy. If the people of this country were to combine in demanding it, a demand so just and reasonable could not be long refused. It is not subject to any of the objections which attach to the repeal question. No rupture of the two parliaments no dismemberment of the empire is to be apprehended. Let Irishmen unite in putting forth a requisition for a purpose which the minister would not only find expedient, but inevitable. But if you, gentlemen, shall not only not assist in an undertaking so reasonable and so safe, but shall assist the attorneygeneral in crushing the men who have had the boldness to complain of the grievances of their country, you will lay Ireland prostrate. Every effort for her amelioration will be idle. Every remonstrance will not only be treated with disregard, but with disdain; and for the next twenty years we may as well extinguish every hope for our country. Gentlemen, you may strike agitation dumb-you may make millions of mutes; but beware of that dreary silence, whose gloomy taciturnity is significant of the determination of its fearful purpose. Beware of producing a state of things which may eventuate in those incidents of horror which every good man will pray to avert, and which will be lamented by those who contribute to their occurrence, when repentance, like that of those who are for ever doomed, shall be unavailing, and contrition shall be in vain. But it is not to Ireland that the aching solicitude with which the result of this trial is intently watched will be confined. There is not a great city in Europe, in which, upon the day when the great intelligence shall be expected to arrive, men will not stop each other in the public way, and iuquire whether twelve men upon their oaths have doomed to incarceration the man who gave liberty to Ireland? Whatever may be your adjudication, he is prepared to meet it. He knows that the eyes of the world are upon him, and that posterity --whether in a gaol or out of it—will look back to him with admiration. He is almost indifferent to what may befal him, and is far more solicitous for others at this moment than for himself. But I, at the commencement of what I have said to you - I told you that I was not unmoved, and that many incidents of my political life, the strange alternations of fortune through which I have passed, came back upon me. But now the bare possibility at which I have glanced has, I acknowledge, almost unmanned me. Shall I, who stretch out to you in behalf of the son the hand whose fetters the father had struck off, live to cast my eyes upon that domicile of sorrow, in the vicinity of this great metropolis, and say, ""Tis there they have immured the Liberator of Ireland with his fondest and best-beloved child?" No! it shall never be! You will not consign him to the spot to which the attorney-general invites you to surrender him! No! When the spring shall have come again, and winter shall have passed—when the spring shall come again it is not through the windows of this mansion, that the father of such a son, and the son of such a father, shall look upon those green hills on which the eyes of so many a captive have gazed so wistfully in vain; but in their own mountain home again they shall listen to the murmurs of the great Atlantic; they shall go forth and inhale the freshness of the morning air together; "they shall be free as mountain solitude;" they will be encompassed with the loftiest images of liberty upon every side; and if time shall have stolen its suppleness from the father's knee, or impaired the firmness of his tread, he shall lean on the child of her that watches over him from Heaven, and shall look out from some high place far and wide into the island, whose greatness and whose glory shall be for ever associated with his name. In your love of justice-in your love of Irelandin your love of honesty and fair play- I place my confidence. I ask you for an acquittal, not only for the sake of your country, but for your own. Upon the day when this trial shall have been brought to a termination — when, amidst the burst of public expectancy, in answer to the solemn interrogatory which shall be put to you by the |