e present, Bills of Indemnity have
become an established part of the system of government in Ireland; so
that he who can contrive means to cover the most malicious and
oppressive crimes by the easy pretext of securing the public peace, may
rest as firmly on an act to indemnify him in the succeeding session, as
the public creditor may depend on the passing of the money bills.

In enumerating these successive steps which have been taken in Ireland,
professedly to tranquillize the country, but which have operated only to
render it outrageous, I might have mentioned the appointment and the
recall of my Lord Fitzwilliam. But in speaking to the people of England
it were superfluous to dwell on that event; for with the circumstances
of _that_, _they_, as well as the people of Ireland, are acquainted. I
shall therefore content myself with saying, that of the many irritating
measures which have goaded Ireland, the recall of my Lord Fitzwilliam
was the most mischievously efficacious. With that nobleman, Hope fled
from the country. What has since followed has been the counsel of
Despair. By that event it was placed beyond doubt, that the Cabinets of
the two countries formed a junction against reform--against the
restoration of the constitution to Ireland--and against a mitigation of
the coercive system. If treason have spread widely through the
country--if the friends of the French system have become numerous, it
must be since that insulting act of the British Cabinet told the people,
that if they felt the pressure of present evils, or looked for a further
extension of constitutional rights, their hope must be turned to another
quarter than to the influence of the British connection.

By the operation of the measures which I have now described, the Irish
people and the Irish administration were put at issue. The system to
which the Castle had resorted to silence murmur, had produced
outrage--the measures which they took to punish outrage had created
conspiracy, assassination, and, in many instances, treason. Throughout
the whole process of discontent, I have shewed that administration were
aggressors, and that the irregularities which have followed were but the
reaction of an high and irritable spirit in the people, compressed by
coercion, which left no vent to its feelings but in acts of private or
public violence.

At this point the administration found it necessary to pause. The
measures which they had already tried to smothe