Xerxes scourging the winds, Canute commanding the waves to recede
from his footstool, were but types of the folly of those who
apply the maxims of the Quarter Sessions to the great convulsions
of society. The law has no eyes: the law has no hands: the law
is nothing, nothing but a piece of paper printed by the King's
printer, with the King's arms at the top, till public opinion
breathes the breath of life into the dead letter. We found this
in Ireland. The Catholic Association bearded the Government.
The Government resolved to put down the Association. An
indictment was brought against my honourable and learned friend,
the Member for Kerry. The Grand Jury threw it out. Parliament
met. The Lords Commissioners came down with a speech
recommending the suppression of the self-constituted legislature
of Dublin. A bill was brought in: it passed both Houses by
large majorities: it received the Royal assent. And what effect
did it produce? Exactly as much as that old Act of Queen
Elizabeth, still unrepealed, by which it is provided that every
man who, without a special exemption, shall eat meat on Fridays
and Saturdays, shall pay a fine of twenty shillings or go to
prison for a month. Not only was the Association not destroyed:
its power was not for one day suspended: it flourished and waxed
strong under the law which had been made for the purpose of
annihilating it. The elections of 1826, the Clare election two
years later, proved the folly of those who think that nations are
governed by wax and parchment: and, at length, in the close of
1828, the Government had only one plain choice before it,
concession or civil war. Sir, I firmly believe that, if the
people of England shall lose all hope of carrying the Reform Bill
by constitutional means, they will forthwith begin to offer to
the Government the same kind of resistance which was offered to