or they know your interest
better than you know your own; who are not bigots, for they return
you good for evil; but who are in worse durance than the prison of a
usurper, inasmuch as the fetters of the mind are more galling than
those of the body?

Upon the consequences of your not acceding to the claims of the
petitioners, I shall not expatiate; you know them, you will feel
them, and your children's children when you are passed away. Adieu to
that Union so called, as "_Lucus a non lucendo_," a Union from never
uniting, which in its first operation gave a death-blow to the
independence of Ireland, and in its last may be the cause of her
eternal separation from this country. If it must be called a Union,
it is the union of the shark with his prey; the spoiler swallows up
his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. Thus has Great
Britain swallowed up the parliament, the constitution, the
independence of Ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single
privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered
body politic.

And now, my Lords, before I sit down, will his Majesty's ministers
permit me to say a few words, not on their merits, for that would be
superfluous, but on the degree of estimation in which they are held
by the people of these realms? The esteem in which they are held has
been boasted of in a triumphant tone on a late occasion within these
walls, and a comparison instituted between their conduct and that of
noble lords on this side of the House.

What portion of popularity may have fallen to the share of my noble
friends (if such I may presume to call them), I shall not pretend to
ascertain; but that of his Majesty's ministers it were vain to deny.
It is, to be sure, a little like the wind, "no one knows whence it
cometh or whither it goeth," but they feel it, they enjoy it, they
boast of it. Indeed, modest and unostentatious as they are, to what
part of the kingdom, even the most remote, can they flee to avoid the
triumph which pursues them? If they plunge into the midland counties,
there will they be greeted by the manufacturers, with spurned
petitions in their hands, and those halters round their necks
recently voted in their behalf, imploring blessings on the heads of
those who so simply, yet ingeniously, contrived to remove them from
their miseries in this to a better world. If they journey on to
Scotland, from Glasgow to Johnny Groats, every where will they
receive similar ma