GENERAL HISTORY. 



[43 



for the purpose of moving an 

 address to the Prince Regent, be- 

 seeching him to form an efficient 

 administration. This motion, his 

 lordship said, entirely originated 

 from himself, and arose from feel- 

 ings of a purely public nature, and 

 an anxious wish for averting the 

 worst calamity that could befal 

 the empire — that of a separation 

 of the two sister countries. He 

 went on to give a view of the 

 situation of the empire at the com- 

 mencement of this new sera, with 

 respect both to prosj)erous and ad- 

 verse circumstances; and after 

 alluding to the correspondence 

 which had been carried on be- 

 tween the Prince Regent and the 

 two noble lords above-mentioned, 

 according to an authentic, though 

 not official document, he proceed- 

 ed particularly to notice the de- 

 cided hostility to the claims of 

 the Irish Catholics declared by the 

 present ministers. He was wil- 

 ling, however, to hope that not- 

 withstanding the refusal of these 

 lords to unite with the present go- 

 vernment, upon the ground of the 

 differences they had stated, they 

 I still might be the medium of form- 

 ing an administration upon a broad 

 and liberal basis. He concluded 

 his speech by moving an address 

 to the Prince Regent, in which, 

 after expressions of esteem and at- 

 tachment, his Royal Highness is 

 humbly told, ♦' that for the at- 

 , tainment of these objects (the 

 I honour of the nation abroad, and 

 its tranquillity and happiness at 

 home) it appears to us to be essen- 

 tial that the administration to wliich 

 his Royal Highness may be gra- 

 ciously pleased to commit the 

 management of his affairs should 

 be so composed as to unite, as 



far as possible, the confidence and 

 good will of all classes of his 

 Majesty's subjects. That in the . 

 present state of Ireland it is, in 

 our opinion, impossible that such 

 geueral confidence and good- 

 will should be enjoyed by any 

 administration, the characteris- 

 tic principle of whose domestic, 

 policy, as well as the bond of 

 whose connexion in office, is the 

 determination not onlj' not to 

 recommend, but to resist, a fair 

 and dispassionate consideration of 

 those civil disabilities under which 

 his Majesty's Roman-catholic sub- 

 jects in that part of the united 

 kingdom still labour, and of which 

 they complain as most grievous 

 and oppressive. That we therefore 

 humbly express our anxious hope 

 that his Royal Highness may yet 

 be enabled to form an administra- 

 tion, which, by conciliating the 

 affections of all descriptions of the 

 community, may most effectually 

 call forth the entire resources of 

 the united kingdom, and may af- 

 ford to his Royal Highness ad- 

 ditional means of conducting to a 

 successful termination a war in 

 which are involved the safety, 

 honour, and prosperity of this 

 country." 



Viscount Grimstone rising to 

 express his dissent from the mo- 

 tion, said that it appeared to him 

 that in the noble Lord's speech 

 some degree of blame was imputed 

 to the Prince Regent for the man- j 

 ner in which he had conducted f 

 himself- He was proceeding, t 

 when he was called to order for 

 making a personal allusion to the 

 Regent in a debate. This occa- ■ 

 sioned a warm debate on the point -> 

 of order ; which being terminated, • 

 Lord Grimstone, after mentionirig 



the 



