All those fierce
spirits, whom you hallooed on to harass us, now turn round and begin to
worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop: Exeter Hall sets up its
bray: Mr Macneile shudders to see more costly cheer than ever provided
for the priests of Baal at the table of the Queen; and the Protestant
operatives of Dublin call for impeachments in exceedingly bad English.
But what did you expect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you
called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him?
Did you think, when you went on, session after session, thwarting and
reviling those whom you knew to be in the right, and flattering all the
worst passions of those whom you knew to be in the wrong, that the day
of reckoning would never come? It has come. There you sit, doing penance
for the disingenuousness of years. If it be not so, stand up manfully
and clear your fame before the House and the country. Show us that some
steady principle has guided your conduct with respect to Irish affairs.
Show us how, if you are honest in 1845, you can have been honest in
1841. Explain to us why, after having goaded Ireland to madness for the
purpose of ingratiating yourselves with the English, you are now setting
England on fire for the purpose of ingratiating yourselves with the
Irish. Give us some reason which shall prove that the policy which you
are following, as Ministers, is entitled to support, and which shall
not equally prove you to have been the most factious and unprincipled
opposition that ever this country saw.

But, Sir, am I, because I think thus of the conduct of Her Majesty's
Ministers, to take the counsel of the honourable member for Shrewsbury
and to vote against their bill? Not so. I know well that the fate of
this bill and the fate of the administration are in our hands. But
far be it from us to imitate the arts by which we were overthrown. The
spectacle exhibited on the bench opposite will do quite mischief enough.
That mischief will not be lessened, but doubled, if there should be an
answering display of inconsistency on this side of the House. If this
bill, having been introduced by Tories, shall be rejected by Whigs, both
the great parties in the State will be alike discredited. There will
be one vast shipwreck of all the public character in the country.
Therefore, making up my mind to sacrifices which are not unattended with
pain, and repressing some feelings which stir strongly within me, I have
deter