Gentlemen, I said I had not come here to make a party speech.  I have addressed you upon subjects of grave, and I will venture to believe of general, interest; but to be here and altogether silent upon the present state of public affairs would not be respectful to you, and, perhaps, on the whole, would be thought incongruous.  Gentlemen, I cannot pretend that our position either at home or abroad is in my opinion satisfactory.  At home, at a period of immense prosperity, with a people contented and naturally loyal, we find to our surprise the most extravagant doctrines professed and the fundamental principles of our most valuable institutions impugned, and that, too, by persons of some authority.  Gentlemen, this startling inconsistency is accounted for, in my mind, by the circumstances under which the present administration was formed.  It is the first instance in my knowledge of a British administration being avowedly formed on a principle of violence.  It is unnecessary for me to remind you of the circumstances which preceded the formation of that government.  You were the principal scene and theatre of the development of statesmanship that then occurred.  You witnessed the incubation of the portentous birth.  You remember when you were informed that the policy to secure the prosperity of Ireland and the content of Irishmen was a policy of sacrilege and confiscation.  Gentlemen, when Ireland was placed under the wise and able administration of Lord Abercorn, Ireland was prosperous, and I may say content.  But there happened at that time a very peculiar conjuncture in politics.  The Civil War in America had just ceased; and a band of military adventurers—­Poles, Italians, and many Irishmen—­concocted in New York a conspiracy to invade Ireland, with the belief that the whole country would rise to welcome them.  How that conspiracy was baffled—­how those plots were confounded, I need not now remind you.  For that we were mainly indebted to the eminent qualities of a great man who has just left us.  You remember how the constituencies were appealed to to vote against the government which had made so unfit an appointment as that of Lord Mayo to the vice-royalty of India.  It was by his great qualities when Secretary for Ireland, by his vigilance, his courage, his patience, and his perseverance that this conspiracy was defeated.  Never was a minister better informed.  He knew what was going on at New York just as well as what was going on in the city of Dublin.

When the Fenian conspiracy had been entirely put down, it became necessary to consider the policy which it was expedient to pursue in Ireland; and it seemed to us at that time that what Ireland required after all the excitement which it had experienced was a policy which should largely develop its material resources.  There were one or two subjects of a different character, which, for the advantage of the State, it would have been desirable to have settled, if that could have