Imatges de pàgina
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SPEECH,

&c. &c.

I

MR. SPEAKER,

TOOK occafion, on a former day, to express my humble hope, that if a regular opportunity should again occur, the House would permit me to lay before them fome thoughts on this great fubject, which have appeared to me worthy of their attention; and to explain some of the grounds on which my opinion has been formed in favour of a Union with Ireland.

Nobody to whom I am known, will, I am perfuaded, impute to me the prefumptuous folly of imagining that I have it in my power to improve on what those men of transcendent talents and eminent political wisdom and experience, who have taken the principal share in the former debates, have advanced on the leading points of this queftion. But it is a question of fuch extent, that it may fairly be thought that even yet feveral important topics remain for confideration, and fome new views of thofe which have been already difcuffed. It has been for a confiderable length of time before the public in both

* On Thursday, February 14, after reporting the resolutions.

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kingdoms it has given rife to various arguments in both Houses of this and the other Parliament: and, upon every fresh occafion, additional lights have been thrown upon it, and new difficulties and objections have been raised, by the fertility and eagerness of contest and opposition.

Some of thofe objections may have feemed plaufible or ingenious; scarcely any, I think, have been weighty or fubftantial; none, I am fure, of fufficient weight to counterbalance the numerous benefits which there is fuch reafon to expect from the adoption of the measure. But they have been frequently fuited to meet those paffions and prejudices, which naturally exift, or have been artfully excited, in our fifter kingdom; and, if we feel it our duty to recommend the propofed incorporation to our fellowfubjects there, we owe it to them and to ourselves to spare no pains in the endeavour to remove, by dispasfionate reasoning and cool deliberation, fuch obstacles as may have appeared to them, or any number of them, to ftand in the way of what most of us here, I believe, confider as material for our interests and essential to theirs.

To those who have attended to the various modes of refistance to the propofal of an Union, which have been reforted to by different perfons, two circumstances muft have occurred as very remarkable.

One has been fo well expreffed in the refolutions of the Grand Jury of the county of the city of Cork, that I fhould do it injuftice not to introduce the mention of it in the very language they have used : Whilft we la

ment,' fay they, that any difference of opinion should • exift in this kingdom upon fo important a question, we 'cannot but remember how unanimous the rebellious and 'traitorous

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