"I can have no hesitation, to whatever amount of obloquy, or of forfeited friendship, the avowal may expose me, in stating the conclusion, which anxious and repeated consideration of the state of Ireland has at length forced upon me, (_Cheers._) It is, that the time has arrived for reconsidering the state of our relations with Ireland, with a view to a repeal of the Legislative Union between the two countries, (_Hear, hear._) I see no other adequate remedy for the ills which desolate that unhappy country, and think that such a step would also happily free England from a burden long felt to be intolerable, (_Hear._) I am fortified in arriving at this result, by a review of the favourable effects produced on Ireland by the measures which, during the last few years, I have had the honour to bring forward in this house, and see carried into effect by the legislature, (_Cheers._) I am aware that this avowal may startle some of the more timid (_hear, hear_) of those gentlemen who have usually done me the honour to act with me; but an imperious sense of duty compels me to be prompt and explicit upon this vital question, which I am fixedly resolved to settle in the way I propose; and I will, for that purpose, avail myself of every means which the constitution places at the disposal of her Majesty's responsible advisers, (_Cheers._) * * * I claim no credit for proposing this great measure of justice and mercy, nor wish to detract from the merit due to those whose minds the light of truth and reason reached earlier than mine. Whatever credit is due, I have no hesitation in ascribing to--_Daniel O'Connell_," (_Cheers._) * * * * Is there a man in the empire who would be seriously surprised if he were to hear Sir Robert Peel make the above statement in the next session of Parliament, if he met the house once more as Prime Minister? And so, in the session after, might we expect a similar announcement with reference to the Protestant succession to the throne; and then--but by no means to stop even there--the conversion of our form of government from a limited monarchy into a republic. What, in short, may not be predicted of such a statesman as Sir Robert Peel? Who can conceive of him taking his stand _any where_? Assisting _any body_ or _any thing_? It pains me to ask, whether the history of this country ever saw a man who had done so many things, the impropriety and danger of which he had himself uniformly beforehand _demonstrated_? Sir Robert Peel has been converted into a sort of political pillar of salt--a melancholy instructive memento of the evils of unprincipled statesmanship--the former word being used, not in a vulgar offensive sense, but as signifying, simply and solely, _the absence of any fixed principles of political action_; or the habit of action irrespective of principle. I will not, however, pursue this painful and humiliating topic further, than to express the deep concern and perplexity occasioned to me, amongst hundreds of thousands of