members summoned to Parliament. In the reign of this monarch's son, by the intervention of the nobles, the first Act of Parliament passed, from which the origin of our present House of Commons is to be traced. And in those times, when the principal enemies of civil and religious liberties were the Popes of Rome, when they had spread their power over the whole of Europe they were resisted here; the nobles of this realm rejected an alteration in the laws proposed to them by the Pope, an alteration gratifying to their own wishes, but inimical (as they thought) to the liberties of their country, and they rejected that insiduous (sic) proposal in the memorable words "Nolumus leges Angliae mutari"' "we will not have the laws of England changed." And again, at a somewhat subsequent period they emphatically declared on a similar occasion, "This realm of England hath hitherto never been, nor by the consent of our Lord the King and his Lords of Parliament, shall it ever be ruled and governed by the Papal law." Gentlemen, it was the Peers who when a ill-fated monarch had yielded to the demands of this people every privilege essential for their liberties, was compelled at length to resist their unconstitutional demands that he should surrender to the Commons his first prerogative, that of the appointment of the officers of his army, - It was the Peers who first rallied round the standard of their King which he was compelled to set up at Oxford against the Parliament. Gentlemen, in these our later times the Peers have never opposed the real interests or sober wishes of the people.
Witness the great alterations which have been made in our laws during the last few years; our commercial relations have been placed on a new basis, the criminal code has been mitigated and consolidated, the Catholic Disabilities have been removed, the Test and Corporation Acts repealed, slavery abolished, and several other liberal measures passed, with the consent and co-operation of the House of Lords; and if on some late occasions, the Lords have not thought fit to yield at once to some measures proposed to them by the House of Commons, you, I am sure, will not condemn them, if on measures in the opinion of so many, affecting our dearest interests - the interest of our religion, of our Church, the Lords have given you time to consider, to reflect. I am sure you will not blame them, if they have, for a time, placed themselves boldly forward on the only spot where could be successfully repelled the hasty rush of immature and inconsiderate legislation.
Gentlemen, in this, their conduct, they have given you time for deliberation, and for this they are entitled to your gratitude. But, gentlemen, there are other advantages accruing to you from the institution of an hereditary nobility, invested with peculiar privileges and rights. Such an institution operates as the spur to honourable enterprise as the reward of virtuous exertion. For it is so constituted that the lowliest now among you may, by aid of virtues, of talents, and of fortune, obtain for himself and his posterity a place in that assembly, which is composed of all that is illustrious in birth, exalted in piety, and eminent in wealth, in learning and in valour. Let us then, gentlemen, preserve this part of our constitution; let us preserve all the chances of our constitution in their own integrity, and be assured they can never be preserved but by sedulously securing the equilibrium of all its parts, in which the efficacy of our national establishment consists. If the time should ever come when one part of this establishment should successfully encroach on the territories of the other, irreparable confusion will ensue. If the people should ever become discontented with the station in which God has placed them, and madly rush across that boundary along which the hand of the Almighty has written as with a sunbeam, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther"; if they shall rush on to pull down those pillars which support the throne - that throne, and those pillars will be destroyed, but they, themselves, will be crushed under the ruins they have made. Then will Liberty, the tutelar deity of the structure, lie prostrate and destroyed, and desolation and anarchy reign triumphant through the land. The excellent rector before me brought forward an illustration from Shakespeare, in the course of an address to you; and how forcibly, how nobly does that immortal poet describe the miseries that would ensue from the destruction of order, subordination, and degree.
This, gentlemen, is no mere flowery effusion of poetry, although expressed in all the colours of the imagination, and the most exquisite harmony of verse; it inculcates the deep and serious truth, that without order subordination and degree, neither the course of nature, nor the institutions of the State, nor each man's own individual rights can be preserved; and that if they are destroyed, we shall not have remaining to us even the merest shadow of liberty. You, gentlemen, I am persuaded, will rally round the Constitution of your country, whenever you shall see her assailed or threatened; for she is the great nursery-house of our rights, our liberties, our wealth, our wisdom, our valour, and our glory. Draw tighter the triple cord which binds together his majesty the King, his illustrious nobles, and his faithful people, nor suffer any sacrilegious hand to loosen it, or tear it asunder; for these are our bulwarks against foreign invasion and domestic broil - these our own inalienable birthright; the proud inheritance which has been transmitted to us from a long line of ancestors; and by the blessing of Heaven we will preserve them. Gentlemen, with a view to that preservation, I give you the "House of Lords."
After the excellent speech the band played "Britons strike Home," followed by a toast proposed by George Darby, Esq., who was just after, and for several subsequent years, one of the Members for East Sussex.
Mr. DARBY commenced by observing that the name of Hastings had been famous for one battle, and the meeting had assembled to-day to fight another in defence of the Constitution. The toast which he was about to propose was the health of the great champion of that Constitution. But the gentlemen who had preceded him had spoken on so many topics, that there was scarcely anything left for him to say on the subject which brought them together. Still he would offer one or two remarks. Sir Robt. Peel - how was he met when in office? A gentleman who had for years filled an office with credit to himself and with advantage to the country - he spoke of the present Lord Canterbury - was proposed as Speaker to the House of Commons; he had previously been Speaker of the Reformed House, and that at the particular request of the Reform Ministry. But no sooner had Sir Robert Peel been called from abroad to the councils of his Sovereign, than that gentleman was opposed by the very party who had previously proposed his appointment. The next act was the appropriation clause of the Irish Tithe Bill; - so that the first two acts of the present government were, to reject the Speaker they themselves had chosen, and adopt the appropriation clause, which they had rejected. On the appropriation clause Sir Robert Peel was left in a minority; and with his high-mindedness and honour he unfortunately resigned the reigns of government. He (Mr. Darby) asked where was the appropriation clause now? and where were the ministers who turned Sir Robert Peel out of office? They found that they could not remain in office without making an unholy compact, discreditable to themselves and to those who joined them - discreditable to those who formed the compact with ministers, because it was upon the securities which were given to the Protestant Church that the Roman Catholics were admitted into Parliament. The price paid for their emancipation was security to the Protestant Church; and these securities were indorsed with the solemn pledges of the leaders of the Roman Catholic party. The securities were now without value, the pledges had proved worthless, but the debt was still due to the Protestant Church and religion. To Mr. Eneas M'Donnell, the agent of the Roman Catholics before the passing of the Emancipation Act, to the nobles in the House of Lords, and to some in the House of Commons, who had refused to vote on questions affecting the Church, he would appeal; he would also appeal to the evidence taken before a Committee of Parliament, from which it would be shewn that the now leading Roman Catholic agitators solemnly pledged themselves that if Emancipation were granted, they would uphold the Protestant Church. As those securities were worth nothing, the debt was still owing to the Protestant Church; and from what he saw of English feeling, Englishmen would take care that it was paid. Now let them look to the real state of the majority on the Church-rate question. One party, namely, the Ministry, said "We bring in the Church-rate question on Conservative principles; we do it to support the Church." This was the principle on which the Conservative party said such a measure must be brought forward, and therefore, with regard to the principles on which it ought to be brought in, the Conservatives had a majority. Mr. O'Connell and his party, on the other hand, declared "We support the Church-rate question, because it will destroy the Established Church." The Conservatives, too, said "that will be the effect of the present measure"; so that they had a majority also as to the effect of it. And the actual majority in the House was composed of persons differing as to the principle of that which ought to have been brought forward, and differing also in the effect of the particular measure. From what did the Whig majority arise but from the unholy compact formed at Lichfield House, where the Government chose to join a party whose principles they professed to oppose? This was the state of things at home; now let them look abroad. There they saw a British vessel seized, and in the Peninsula a band of troops, brave as Englishmen always were, unfortunately covering the retreat of their own countrymen, who were fighting in an intestine war with a foe against whom our Sovereign had not declared war; and this was done by a ministry which came in upon the principle of non-intervention. When he (Mr. Darby) looked to the Peninsula, and remembered that Wellington at Torres Vedras, with the olive branch and sword together in his hand, was ready, in the name of his country, to offer the one to the world when he should have sheathed the other in triumph; and when he contrasted this with the present state of affairs in that place he felt that the glory of England was on the wane. Let them then come to the rescue, unless they thought that England, which was wont to conquer others, should make a shameful conquest of herself. Mr. Darby proceeded to say that the declaration of a Dissenting Minister of this town, that the conscientious and religious Dissenters should not be mixed up with the political Dissenters,had been received at Lewes with great approbation. He (Mr. D.) thought the religious Dissenter had a right to demand that the political Dissenter should not be confounded with him; the political Dissenters were short-sighted, and doing great mischief. How many had tenants and labourers who were Dissenters; and was any distinction made on account of religion? But there was danger that the agitation of political Dissenters would force on religious distinction; and we should then have all the misery entailed on us that exists in a sister country, the consequence of religious jealousy. Mr. Darby proceeded to say that he believed there were in the room many persons who were called Reformers; and what right had any person to charge them with inconsistency? Had not Lord John Russell, who introduced the Reform Bill, written a defence of rotten boroughs? Had Lord Melbourne never been a member of a Tory Government? Had not the noble Secretary of War been in almost every administration that had been formed since the commencement of his public career? If the Ministry objected to the appropriation clause, and then introduced it, the Reformers had no right to follow them. If Dr. Lushington, in the ecclesiastical report, recommended not only church-rates, but a more summary mode of collection, yet afterwards spoke against them, the Reformers had no right to follow him. If Ministers refused to have an appropriation of English Church property, and then forgot that they had signed the refusal, the Reformers had no right to follow them. It was they who had deceived the Reformers, and not the Reformers who had deceived them. He would point out to Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham and Sir Francis Burdett; who all felt that they had been left, that the question was not now one of party, but between good and evil, between destructiveness and conservation. The Reformers, instead of being ashamed of their position in the Conservative ranks, were bound to come forward and lead on the Conservatives, because when the Reform Bill was proposed, the Conservatives said there was danger, but the Reformers said there was none, and that if there was they would not support it. The danger which was then prophesied was not apparent; -
