knew that the House was so well trained that he might at his pleasure call us off from the hottest scent.  As he acted in his usual manner and upon his usual principle, opposition acted upon theirs, and rather generally supported the measure.  As to myself, I expressed a disapprobation at the practice of bringing imperfect and indigested projects into the House, before means were used to quiet the clamors which a misconception of what we were doing might occasion at home, and before measures were settled with men of weight and authority in Ireland, in order to render our acts useful and acceptable to that country.  I said, that the only thing which could make the influence of the crown (enormous without as well as within the House) in any degree tolerable was, that it might be employed to give something of order and system to the proceedings of a popular assembly; that government being so situated as to have a large range of prospect, and as it were a bird’s-eye view of everything, they might see distant dangers and distant advantages which were not so visible to those who stood on the common level; they might, besides, observe them, from this advantage, in their relative and combined state, which people locally instructed and partially informed could behold only in an insulated and unconnected manner;—­but that for many years past we suffered under all the evils, without any one of the advantages of a government influence; that the business of a minister, or of those who acted as such, had been still further to contract the narrowness of men’s ideas, to confirm inveterate prejudices, to inflame vulgar passions, and to abet all sorts of popular absurdities, in order the better to destroy popular rights and privileges; that, so far from methodizing the business of the House, they had let all things run into an inextricable confusion, and had left affairs of the most delicate policy wholly to chance.

After I had expressed myself with the warmth I felt on seeing all government and order buried under the ruins of liberty, and after I had made my protest against the insufficiency of the propositions, I supported the principle of enlargement at which they aimed, though short and somewhat wide of the mark,—­giving, as my sole reason, that the more frequently these matters came into discussion, the more it would tend to dispel fears and to eradicate prejudices.

This was the only part I took.  The detail was in the hands of Lord Newhaven and Lord Beauchamp, with some assistance from Earl Nugent and some independent gentlemen of Irish property.  The dead weight of the minister being removed, the House recovered its tone and elasticity.  We had a temporary appearance of a deliberative character.  The business was debated freely on both sides, and with sufficient temper.  And the sense of the members being influenced by nothing but what will naturally influence men unbought, their reason and their prejudices, these two principles had a fair conflict, and prejudice was obliged to give way to reason.  A majority appeared, on a division, in favor of the propositions.