The reason, Gentlemen, for taking this step, at this time, is but too obvious and too urgent.  I cannot imagine that you forget the great war which has been carried on with so little success (and, as I thought, with so little policy) in America, or that you are not aware of the other great wars which are impending.  Ireland has been called upon to repel the attacks of enemies of no small power, brought upon her by councils in which she has had no share.  The very purpose and declared object of that original war, which has brought other wars and other enemies on Ireland, was not very flattering to her dignity, her interest, or to the very principle of her liberty.  Yet she submitted patiently to the evils she suffered from an attempt to subdue to your obedience countries whose very commerce was not open to her.  America was to be conquered in order that Ireland should not trade thither; whilst the miserable trade which she is permitted to carry on to other places has been torn to pieces in the struggle.  In this situation, are we neither to suffer her to have any real interest in our quarrel, or to be flattered with the hope of any future means of bearing the burdens which she is to incur in defending herself against enemies which we have brought upon her?

I cannot set my face against such arguments.  Is it quite fair to suppose that I have no other motive for yielding to them but a desire of acting against my constituents?  It is for you, and for your interest, as a dear, cherished, and respected part of a valuable whole, that I have taken my share in this question.  You do not, you cannot, suffer by it.  If honesty be true policy with regard to the transient interest of individuals, it is much more certainly so with regard to the permanent interests of communities.  I know that it is but too natural for us to see our own certain ruin in the possible prosperity of other people.  It is hard to persuade us that everything which is got by another is not taken from ourselves.  But it is fit that We should get the better of these suggestions, which come from what is not the best and soundest part of our nature, and that we should form to ourselves a way of thinking, more rational, more just, and more religious.  Trade is not a limited thing:  as if the objects of mutual demand and consumption could not stretch beyond the bounds of our jealousies.  God has given the earth to the children of men, and He has undoubtedly, in giving it to them, given them what is abundantly sufficient for all their exigencies:  not a scanty, but a most liberal, provision for them all.  The Author of our nature has written it strongly in that nature, and has promulgated the same law in His written word, that man shall eat his bread by his labor; and I am persuaded that no man, and no combination of men, for their own ideas of their particular profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say that he shall not do so,—­that