ed my silence, because, though your criticism is beneath the notice of either a scholar or a gentleman, still, I would not avoid a contro versy with one who is the best patronised, because the worst principled amongst the retainers of corruption. It is by the tolerated instrumentality of such miscreants, that individual reputation is sure to be harnessed to the hearse of national liberty. Your attack upon me commences as usual with a sarcasm upon my country, in the liberal distribution of which your enlightened confederacy is now completely practised. I do not complain of the association. To have been born in a country so barbarously oppressed may be a misfortune; to be identified with her under every disadvantage. shall be to me a pride. The degredation of Ireland is disgraceful only to those who have occasioned it, and the name of Irishman, but dishonourable to the wretch who could stoop to enrich himself on the ruin of his country. Plundered of every thing except that genius which nature seems to have given as some compensation for her political injuries I endeavoured to hold the most honourable of its possessors up to public imitation in a poem composed while I was at the temple If a production has not merits of its own, it can find but a precarious refuge in the partiality of its author. The Emerald Isle, imperfect as it is, has, however, gone through four editions, during as many years, in England, and a reprint of it has been extensively circulated in America. I place this fact against your solitary and most important depreciation. Against the charge of the dedication (I admit it is a charge) my defence is as unanswerable. It was inscribed to the Regent--not of 1817, but of 1814 the restricted Regent-as I then thought, the pupil of Fox, the patron of Moore, the friend of Sheridan-he had promised much and he owed much to Ireland. My dedication was the result rather of my country's habitual affection towards him, an affection most ardent and most practical when he most wanted it, than of any personal expectation to myself. I never was such a fool as to indulge in any such expectation and hope. I shall never be such a slave as to act on it. If indeed, I had the combined servility and stupidity of my accuser, I might perhaps have done so ; but as it was, I had no idea of creating an anomaly at court, or of erecting myself into a solitary instance of his royal highness' literary munificence. Letters having been denominated a Republic, perhaps, as in the instance of my catholic countrymen, some scruple of conscience may have arrayed the coronation oath against their preferment. Equally untrue is it that I recanted at Liverpool what I had recommended in Dublin, or deserted the cause of my country's emancipation, because I advised her to petition no more to a parliament so constituted as the present.— Sixteen years of petition had only produced sixteen years of repulse, and as every argument weakened, every obstacle strengthened, until at length we appeared but as so many prideless mendicants, courting the humiliation of a predetermined refusal! Under these circumstances, with the most ardent desire for the emancipation of my countrymen, I did and now advise a cessation from petitions until the parliament of England shall be what the constitution of England intended it should. Is it fit for any thing but stocks and stones to petition the representative of "Old Salum -Equally untrue is it that I ever belied the objects of my previous panegyric; with all the diffidence which became youth, perhaps also with much of its presumption, I

ventured, on a particular point, to dissent from Mr. Grattan ; my dissent was most respectfully expressed, and it was echoed by the almost unanimous voice of the Irish people. Admiring, as all must, the commanding eloquence and splendid services of that great man, I still must be excused from advocating those errors to which, in this condition of humanity, the highest as well as the humblest are occasionally subject. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica veritas. Political consistency consists not, in my mind, in a personal partizanship, but in the support of a principle; in an adherence to measures, not in a servility to men-in the steady maintenance of those truths which the heart and the judgment co-operate in approving It is a nice distinction however in these times--one not likely to be comprehended by a slave or adopted by a sycophant. But what, either of veracity or of principle, can be expected from a writer who has had the hardihood to assert, that those speeches whose celebrity has so excited his venom, were "never even heard of in the place of his nativity." A falsehood to which, he must have known in his heart, there was not a single educated person arrived at the age of maturity in Ireland, who could not afford a refutation. The fact is, they had a circulation here quite unprecedented, and were dispersed far and wide in England without the most remote cooperation on my part.Of the four different gentlemen who severally published them in London, I appeal to any one whether he made any previous communication to me upon the subject, or whether I ever added note, comment or correction. The fact is, so annoyed was I at the continual mistatements to which such a system subjected me, that I was compelled to publish them in an authenticated form, at the press of Mr. Longman, which volume, announced as it was, you declined waiting for, but with the most malignant intention chose to select for your slander the un-uthorised editions. Now, Sir, I ask you in the face of that public upon whom you sought to impose, was this fair play? I ask you was there a syllable of truth in "suggesting that I edited those speeches? I ask you how you dare, under the mask of literature, to blend the professional libel with the political falsehood? The influence of habit is a very inadmissible apology. Indeed it is scarcely fair for any rational man, (how much less fair for such a man as you !) to exercise a final judgment upon any advocate from the perusal of even an authenticated report of a professional effort. It is quite impossible that such a report can convey to the mind of the reader the thousand local and temporary circumstances, without a consideration of which he never can be duly appreciated. The facts of the cases, however, to which you have adverted, are now notorious, and I can have no objection to abide by the determination of the public as to the comparative talent with which they may have been developed. Be assured, sir, it matters very little to me of what "breed," as you elegantly express it, your advocates in England are-I have neither leisure nor skill to ascertain their genealogy, and should be very far from estimating, by any such criterion, such men as an Erskine, a Romilly, or a Brougham. As to the Irish bar, however, I shall take the liberty of saying, that it rises quite as high above my praise as your depreciation; and believe me, it is estimating it most unfairly, if you have judged it by any itinerant adventurer in your service, whose avarice may have prompted him to

the exposure of His incapacity. The professional part of the question I now leave, and follow you to that political inquiry to which I am indebted for distinction of your enmity. It seems I am "inconsistent " The charge comes well from the coadjutor of Mr. Southey and the protege of Mr. Canning! My consistency was not indeed learned at the same school, nor do I ask its panegyric from the pen of Wat Tyler, nor will I solicit its purchase money from the paymaster of Lisbon. In the same manner you have accused me of impudence, because I did not imbibe my modesty from Mr. Secretary Croker !!!

It is not my fault, sir, that ever since 1811, an illustrious personage has been deemed to the infliction of your newly coined economy. It is not my fault that we live in a "new æra," and that the principles, the predilections, and the friendships of the old should vanish in a Little did I imagine that my humble dedication to that illustrious personage would excite the consistent enmity of The Quarterly Review! Forgive me this once, and now kneeling upon the grace of Fox, I solemnly promise never again similarly to offend

moment.

you.

But, sir, why should you accuse me of tergiversation, because in common with the entire British population I was deceived by the promises of the late ruinous and sanguinary contest! because I was heathen enough to put my trust in priaces, and foolishly imagined that the assertion of human freedom and not the obtrusion of a family upon the people who had banished them was really their object! because I could not believe that a mighty continent had formed itself into an armed catchpole association for the mere capture of a single individual! because I would not credit that, like the ghost of Banquo, the grim and blood-besmeared spectre of legitimacy was to rush into the festival of our triumph, leading in kingly followers, and, "pushing us from our stools." You, sir, no doubt, must be most highly gratified at the heart cheering consequences of our achievements. It is indeed quite exhilerating to see the king of Naples at the chase, the king of France at confession, the king of Spain at his tambour frame, and the pope and the jesuits, and all the other worthy legitimates, basking beneath the torches of the Holy Inquisition !-The liberty of Europe, to be sure, has perished; Lewis will assure us she had the benefits of clergy, and I hope some brother hero has preserved the blood of Ney, with which to inscribe "glory" upon her monument. 1 really, sir, must be excused a participation in these philan thropic exstacies. I cannot see any thing to rejoice at in the result of twenty years such calamity the world never witnessed--innumerable standing armies--revived feudal insolence-secret legal associations --heart embittering anniversaries, establishments of the most sanguinary and infuriate character, holy offices and holy alliances, and all the putrid carcases of exploded oppression, dug up and deified in their infection; these things I confess throw me into an alarm from which I am not at all relieved, by beholding on the shores of the continent a frightful military monster, after having gorged itself at the grave of millions, measuring the distance of the ocean that divides us. Such is the situation of affairs abroad. How are they improved at

home? Let your countrymen answer that question whenever their magistrates allow them a license.

I confess there was a time when I did not think such things could be, and I gave a loose to the joy se natural to my credulity in proclamations and conventions-if I have been deceived, surely not on me should the delinquency be visited. The charges you have made as to the Emperor of France, are perfectly unfounded, I always described his principles, always extolled his talents-to you, sir, who admire the principles without the talents, I leave the panegyric of any sovereign you may select. I have now gone as fully as my leisure will admit into the accusations which you have made against me. You have had two advantages--you are anonymous, and your powers ofdefamation have been perfected by habit--in my defence, to those who know me, I refer to my character--to those who do not, I refer to yours. As to myself, I am perfectly insensible to the calumnies of either your employers or yourself-if I was fool enough not to feel them rather as a pride than a reproach, custom must long since have reconciled me to their endurance--there is not a reptile of corruption by whom I have not been assailed, from the worm born but to be trampled upon, up to the more venemous associate that has coiled itself into a loathsome elevation around the broken columns of a mouldering constitution. To be assailed is an happiness inferior only to the consciousness of having deserved it.

Be assured, sir, the treasury itself should not purchase from mé that consciousness. While heaven spares me health, I am more independant than the plunderer who pays you; and when it takes it away, my memory shall be such as to cause a blush but on the cheek of my calumniator.

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

SPEECH

OF

GENERAL TALLMADGE,

"On the Bill for authorising the People of the Territory of Missouri to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of the same into the Union."

The amendment proposed, with a condition in these words-"And provided also that the further introduction of slavery or in"voluntary servitude into the said state, be prohibited, except for "the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted—and that all children of slaves born within the "said state, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free, but may be held to service until the age of twenty-five years."

66

MR. TALLMADGE, of New-York, rose.--Sir, said he, it has been my desire and my intention to avoid any debate on the present painful and unpleasant subject. When I had the honour to submit to this House the amendment now under consideration, I accompanied it with a declaration, that it was intended to confine its operation to the newly acquired territory across the Mississippi; and I then expressly declared, that I would in no manner intermeddle with the slave-holding states, nor attempt manumission in any one of the original states in the union. Sir, I even went further, and stated, that I was aware of the delicacy of the subject--and, that I had learned from southern gentlemen the difficulties and the dangers of having free blacks intermingling with slaves; and on that account, and with a view to the safety of the white population of the adjoining states, I would not even advocate the prohibition of slavery in the Alabama territory; because, surrounded as it was by slave holding states, and with only imaginary lines of division, the intercourse between slaves and free blacks could not be prevented, and a servile war might be the result. While we deprecate and mourn over the evil of slavery, humanity and good morals require us to wish its abolition, under circumstances consist