nd pride, the interest hid in
the secret of our hearts, the inveterate prejudice moulded into the
constitution of our frame, even the sacred fleece itself, all went
together. No reserve, no exception; no debate, no discussion. A sudden
light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not through well-contrived and
well-disposed windows, but through flaws and breaches,--through the
yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom by humiliation. No
town in England presumed to have a prejudice, or dared to mutter a
petition. What was worse, the whole Parliament of England, which
retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was despoiled of every
shadow of its superintendence. It was, without any qualification, denied
in theory, as it had been trampled upon in practice. This scene of shame
and disgrace has, in a manner, whilst I am speaking, ended by the
perpetual establishment of a military power in the dominions of this
crown, without consent of the British legislature,[48] contrary to the
policy of the Constitution, contrary to the Declaration of Right; and by
this your liberties are swept away along with your supreme
authority,--and both, linked together from the beginning, have, I am
afraid, both together perished forever.

What! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing, was I not to
endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces?
Would the little, silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and
having no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless tales, which
amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men, have saved you from "the
pelting of that pitiless storm," to which the loose improvidence, the
cowardly rashness, of those who dare not look danger in the face so as
to provide against it in time, and therefore throw themselves headlong
into the midst of it, have exposed this degraded nation, beat down and
prostrate on the earth, unsheltered, unarmed, unresisting? Was I an
Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood our pride? or on the day
that I hung down my head, and wept in shame and silence over the
humiliation of Great Britain? I became unpopular in England for the one,
and in Ireland for the other. What then? What obligation lay on me to be
popular? I was bound to serve both kingdoms. To be pleased with my
service was their affair, not mine.

I was an Irishman in the Irish business, just as much as I was an
American, when, on the same principles, I wished you to concede to
America