1830.] The Wellington and the Grey Administration*. 027 



government, and in the still deeper determinations of men who have 

 been distinctly taught that they can overawe the legislature. 



Has it bound any one portion of Ireland faster to this country ? 

 It has alienated the whole Protestant community of Ireland to such a 

 degree, that even the imminent danger of a separation, which would 

 make Ireland at once a Popish republic, and a field of blood to the 

 Protestant, has not been able to make them come forward in defence 

 of the British connexion. They have been disgusted. They declare that 

 they were scorned, tricked and insulted ; and the zeal which once 

 burned so brightly in their bosoms, and which they displayed by the 

 noblest efforts in the most perilous times, the generous and hal- 

 lowed zeal with which they resisted the Popish despotism of James, 

 at the most afflicting sacrifices, and sustained the fortunes of William 

 and Protestantism with the most gallant devotement of their blood, 

 has utterly passed away. In the measure of Catholic emancipation they 

 feel the old contract of England with their ancestors broken, and they 

 now, between indignation and sorrow, rest on their arms, and look on, 

 while they see Rebellion fitting on its sword, and a struggle preparing 

 which will shake the country to its foundations. So much for the great 

 healing measure in Ireland ! 



And what has it effected already on the Continent ? This is a ques- 

 tion of scarcely a more complicated nature. For a long period there 

 has been a contest in Europe between despotism and democracy. The 

 first French Revolution was its original display, but the popular vio- 

 lences were so terrible,, that the aspect of popular power, begrimed with 

 civil blood, and inflamed with the intoxication of the most unbridled 

 vice, made itself hideous in the eyes of mankind. Yet this might have 

 gradually assumed a more human aspect, and might have ended by 

 shaping the Continental tyrannies into limited governments, but for the 

 usurpation of Napoleon. War was his throne he lived by bloodshed, 

 and his existence expired when France grew weary of feeding him 

 with slaughter. The fall of France re-established the old system, and 

 all the leading despotisms of the Continent seemed to have been fixed 

 fixed on firmer grounds than ever. 



But the feeling survived, and men justly declared that monarchy 

 was an institution not for the simple purpose of enabling a race of high- . 

 born individuals to do with mankind as ihey pleased ; but to make their 

 people secure in the enjoyment of their abilities, time, and industry. 

 And this is to be secured only by a Constitution, which puts the liberty 

 of the subject beyond the future caprice of the sovereign. This is the 

 liberty which we enjoy in England, which is guarded by a Constitution, 

 and which the monarch cannot change. All the continental kings had 

 promised their people this kind of defence against arbitrary power ; 

 but the promise was given in the day of danger, and its purpose was to 

 rouse their subjects to exertion against Napoleon. The people did their 

 part, and Napoleon was destroyed. The sovereigns failed in their per- 

 formance, and the despotisms even grew more sullen, arbitrary, and 

 violent, as the discontents of the people at this breach of promise were 

 more openly expressed. 



There may have been popular excesses, and even republican follies 

 and frenzies in some instances. But let an Englishman put himself in 

 the place of a foreign subject, and then consider how he would relish 

 the conduct of government. With the single exception of France, there 



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