It is indeed principally on account of Ireland that I feel solicitous about the issue of the present debate. I well know how little chance he who speaks on that theme has of obtaining a fair hearing. Would to God that I were addressing an audience which would judge this great controversy as it is judged by foreign nations, and as it will be judged by future ages. The passions which inflame us, the sophisms which delude us, will not last for ever. The paroxysms of faction have their appointed season. Even the madness of fanaticism is but for a day. The time is coming when our conflicts will be to others what the conflicts of our forefathers are to us; when the preachers who now disturb the State, and the politicians who now make a stalking horse of the Church, will be no more than Sacheverel and Harley. Then will be told, in language very different from that which now calls forth applause from the mob of Exeter Hall, the true story of these troubled years. There was, it will then be said, a part of the kingdom of Queen Victoria which presented a lamentable contrast to the rest; not from the want of natural fruitfulness, for there was no richer soil in Europe; not from want of facilities for trade, for the coasts of this unhappy region were indented by bays and estuaries capable of holding all the navies of the world; not because the people were too dull to improve these advantages or too pusillanimous to defend them; for in natural quickness of wit and gallantry of spirit they ranked high among the nations. But all the bounty of nature had been made unavailing by the crimes and errors of man. In the twelfth century that fair island was a conquered province. The nineteenth century found it a conquered province still. During that long interval many great changes had taken place which had conduced to the general welfare of the empire: but those changes had only aggravated the misery of Ireland. The Reformation came, bringing to England and Scotland divine truth and intellectual liberty. To Ireland it brought only fresh calamities. Two new war cries, Protestant and Catholic, animated the old feud between the Englishry and the Irishry. The Revolution came, bringing to England and Scotland civil and spiritual freedom, to Ireland subjugation, degradation, persecution. The Union came: but though it joined legislatures, it left hearts as widely disjoined as ever. Catholic Emancipation came: but it came too late; it came as a concession made to fear, and, having excited unreasonable hopes, was naturally followed by unreasonable disappointment. Then came violent irritation, and numerous errors on both sides. Agitation produced coercion, and coercion produced fresh agitation. Difficulties and dangers went on increasing, till a government arose which, all other means having failed, determined to employ the only means that had not yet been fairly tried, justice and mercy. The State, long the stepmother