Here certainly was another of those measures which without any crime in the people of Ireland was levelled at one of their most valuable privileges. Let the people of England judge, whether under the circumstances I have mentioned, it was not likely to wound deeply the feelings of three-fourths of his Majesty's Irish subjects--and, combined as it was with the insulting rejection of the Catholic petition, and the subsequent concession, at the instance of the British Cabinet, of that favour which was refused to Irish supplication--let Englishmen say, whether it may not fairly be reckoned among the wanton and unprovoked causes of the present discontents. The Convention Bill, however mischievous it may have been by aggravating the discontent which had already spread through the mass of the people, was yet more mischievous by stopping up that channel through which popular discontent discharges itself with most safety--that of petition and remonstrance. So little effect had been found to result from the petitions of individuals in the legislature on any of the great questions which in any degree interfered with the system adopted by administration, and in which they seemed resolved to persevere, that it was thought futile and absurd to resort to that mode of stating complaint or soliciting redress. If a corporation petitioned, they were answered only by an observation on the manner in which the petition was obtained, by contrasting it with other petitions procured by Castle influence, or by some sarcastic remark on their profession or character. If a body of citizens petitioned, they were porter-house politicians or bankrupt traders. There remained, therefore, no way in which the people could lay their complaints before the legislature, with any hope of relief, but in that general way of a representative body, which, while it gave weight and consistency to their application, obviated those pitiful arts by which the Castle continued to elude and frustrate the wishes of the people. The Convention Bill, by rendering that mode impracticable, compressed the public discontents, and while it encreased the irritation, left no vent to its violence but in assassination and conspiracy.