ou could never obtain from his
bounty, is not unnatural. In the first effusions of Parliamentary
gratitude to that minister for the early and voluntary benefits he has
conferred upon Ireland, it might appear that you were wanting to the
triumph of his surrender, if you did not lead some of his enemies
captive before him. Neither could you feast him with decorum, if his
particular taste were not consulted. A minister, who has never defended
his measures in any other way than by railing at his adversaries, cannot
have his palate made all at once to the relish of positive commendation.
I cannot deny but that on this occasion there was displayed a great deal
of the good-breeding which consists in the accommodation of the
entertainment to the relish of the guest.

But that ceremony being past, it would not be unworthy of the wisdom of
Ireland to consider what consequences the extinguishing every spark of
freedom in this country may have upon your own liberties. You are at
this instant flushed with victory, and full of the confidence natural to
recent and untried power. We are in a temper equally natural, though
very different. We feel as men do, who, having placed an unbounded
reliance on their force, have found it totally to fail on trial. We
feel faint and heartless, and without the smallest degree of
self-opinion. In plain words, we are _cowed_. When men give up their
violence and injustice without a struggle, their condition is next to
desperate. When no art, no management, no argument, is necessary to
abate their pride and overcome their prejudices, and their uneasiness
only excites an obscure and feeble rattling in their throat, their final
dissolution seems not far off. In this miserable state we are still
further depressed by the overbearing influence of the crown. It acts
with the officious cruelty of a mercenary nurse, who, under pretence of
tenderness, stifles us with our clothes, and plucks the pillow from our
heads. _Injectu multae vestis opprimi senem jubet_. Under this influence
we have so little will of our own, that, even in any apparent activity
we may be got to assume, I may say, without any violence to sense, and
with very little to language, we are merely passive. We have yielded to
your demands this session. In the last session we refused to prevent
them. In both cases, the passive and the active, our principle was the
same. Had the crown pleased to retain the spirit, with regard to
Ireland, which seems