dinner for which they pay as much as the others; and if they see
a little attenuated lawyer squabbling at the head of their opponents,
let them desire him to empty his pockets, and to pull out all the
pieces of duck, fowl, and pudding which he has filched from the public
feast, to carry home to his wife and children.

You parade a great deal upon the vast concessions made by this country
to the Irish before the Union. I deny that any voluntary concession
was ever made by England to Ireland. What did Ireland ever ask that
was granted? What did she ever demand that was not refused? How did
she get her Mutiny Bill--a limited Parliament--a repeal of Poyning's
Law--a constitution? Not by the concessions of England, but by her
fears. When Ireland asked for all these things upon her knees, her
petitions were rejected with Percevalism and contempt; when she
demanded them with the voice of 60,000 armed men, they were granted
with every mark of consternation and dismay. Ask of Lord Auckland the
fatal consequences of trifling with such a people as the Irish. He
himself was the organ of these refusals. As secretary to the Lord
Lieutenant, the insolence and the tyranny of this country passed
through his hands. Ask him if he remembers the consequences. Ask him
if he has forgotten that memorable evening when he came down booted
and mantled to the House of Commons, when he told the House he was
about to set off for Ireland that night, and declared before God, if
he did not carry with him a compliance with all their demands, Ireland
was for ever lost to this country. The present generation have
forgotten this; but I have not forgotten it; and I know, hasty and
undignified as the submission of England then was, that Lord Auckland
was right, that the delay of a single day might very probably have
separated the two peoples for ever. The terms submission and fear are
galling terms when applied from the lesser nation to the greater; but
it is the plain historical truth, it is the natural consequence of
injustice, it is the predicament in which every country places itself
which leaves such a mass of hatred and discontent by its side. No
empire is powerful enough to endure it; it would exhaust the strength
of China, and sink it with all its mandarins and tea-kettles to the
bottom of the deep. By refusing them justice now when you are strong
enough to refuse them anything more than justice, you will act over
again, with the Catholics, the same