The learned Gentleman the Attorney-General for Ireland referred in his
speech the other night to what had been said by the hon. and learned
Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry) on the occasion of a question that I
had put some two or three weeks ago. Now I call the House to witness
whether when I put the question which brought out this despatch, and
when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in
his place and gave the answer that with respect to the policy of
confiscation--for that is the only thing there is any dispute about in
the Proclamation--the Government disavowed it in every sense--I call the
House to witness whether every Gentleman present in this part of the
House did not cheer that sentiment. Of course, every man cheered it.
They would not have been men; they would not have been Englishmen; they
would not have been legislators; they would have been men who had never
heard of what was just and right, if every instinct within them, at the
instant they heard the declaration of the Government, did not compel
them to an enthusiastic assent. And it was only when the fatal influence
of party, and the arts which party knows how to employ, were put in
motion, that hon.
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