nother dictated,
rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of
public policy. Lord Holland, however, justified the motion, by referring
to the haste with which the statutes about to be repealed had been
originally passed: and it was carried without a division.

On the appointed day the Duke of Wellington moved the second reading of
the bill, by stating that he trusted the house would believe that the
course which he had now adopted on this question had not been adopted
without the fullest conviction that it was a sound and a just one. His
grace then went on to show the state of Ireland as it had existed for
many years, describing it as bordering upon civil war, and attended
by all the evils of civil war, adducing this state of things in
justification of the measure. He conceived it his duty, he said, to
correct the evil by other means than force. "I am one of those,"
said his grace, "who have been engaged in war beyond most men, and,
unfortunately, principally in civil war; and I must say this, that, at
any sacrifice whatever, I would avoid every approach to civil war.
I would do all I could, even sacrifice my life, to prevent such a
catastrophe.

"Nothing could be so disastrous to the country; nothing so destructive
to it prosperity as civil war; nothing could take place that tended so
completely to demoralize and degrade as such a conflict, in which
the hand of neighbour is raised against neighbour; that of the father
against the son, and of the son against the father; of the brother
against the brother; of the servant against his master: a conflict
which must end in confusion and destruction. If civil war be so bad when
occasioned by resistance to government; if such a collision is to be
avoided by all means possible, how much more necessary is it to avoid
a civil war, in which, in order to put down one portion, it would be
necessary to arm and excite the other? I am quite sure that there is no
man that now hears me who would not shudder were such a proposition made
to him; yet such must have been the result had we attempted to terminate
the state of things to which I have referred otherwise than by a measure
of conciliation. In this view, then, merely, I think we are justified
in the measure we have proposed to parliament." On the other hand, his
grace asked, what benefit could arise to any one class in the state from
pertinaciously persisting in an opposition which had already produced
bad