et received. Repeal, they say, is an object
on which millions have, however unwisely, set their hearts; and men
who speak in the name of millions are not to be coughed down or sneered
down. That which a suffering nation regards, rightly or wrongly, as the
sole cure for all its distempers, ought not to be treated with levity,
but to be the subject of full and solemn debate. All this, Sir, is most
true: but I am surprised that this lecture should have been read to
us who sit on your right. It would, I apprehend, have been with more
propriety addressed to a different quarter. Whose fault is it that we
have not yet had, and that there is no prospect of our having, this full
and solemn debate? Is it the fault of His Majesty's Ministers? Have
not they framed the Speech which their Royal Master delivered from the
throne, in such a manner as to invite the grave and searching discussion
of the question of Repeal? and has not the invitation been declined? Is
it not fresh in our recollection that the honourable and learned Member
for Dublin spoke two hours, perhaps three hours,--nobody keeps accurate
account of time while he speaks,--but two or three hours without
venturing to join issue with us on this subject? In truth, he suffered
judgment to go against him by default. We, on this side of the House,
did our best to provoke him to the conflict. We called on him to
maintain here those doctrines which he had proclaimed elsewhere with so
much vehemence, and, I am sorry to be forced to add, with a scurrility
unworthy of his parts and eloquence. Never was a challenge more fairly
given: but it was not accepted. The great champion of Repeal would not
lift our glove. He shrank back; he skulked away; not, assuredly, from
distrust of his powers, which have never been more vigorously exerted
than in this debate, but evidently from distrust of his cause. I have
seldom heard so able a speech as his: I certainly never heard a speech
so evasive. From the beginning to the end he studiously avoided saying
a single word tending to raise a discussion about that Repeal which, in
other places, he constantly affirms to be the sole panacea for all the
evils by which his country is afflicted. Nor is this all. Yesterday
night he placed on our order-book not less than fourteen notices; and
of those notices not a single one had any reference to the Union between
Great Britain and Ireland. It is therefore evident to me, not only that
the honourable and learn