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CURRAN. 831 putes as this, the lord-lieutenant and privy council for the time being, should be the umpires. Appeal was accord- ingly made to them, by petitions from both bodies. A day for hearing was appointed, -the privy council assen- bled, Lord Westmorland, then viceroy, presided at the board.- - Lord Clare was also present.-Mr. Ponsonby and Mr. Curran attended as counsel for the commons in sup- port of Alderman Harrison.b The council was extremely full, and the council-chamber thronged with respectable citizens. When it came to Mr. Curran's turn to address the board, he did so in perhaps one of the most eloquent orations he ever uttered, and of which the following are but very short extracts. 101 But, my lords, how must these considerations (former contests of a similar kind, and laws enacted for their ad- justment) have been enforced by a view of. Ireland as a connected country, deprived as it was of almost all the advantages of a hereditary monarch: the father of bis people residing at a distance, and the paternal beams reflected upon his cbildren through such a variety of mediums, sometimes too languidly to warn them, some- times so intensely as to consume them-a succession of governors differiog from each other in their tempers, in their talents, in their virtues, and of course in their systems of administrations. Unprepared in general for rule, by any previous institution; and utterly unacquainted with the people they were to govern, and with the men through whose agency they were to act. Sometimes, my lords, 'tis true a rare individual appeared amongst us, as if sent by the bounty of Providence in compassion for human miseries, marked by that dignified simplicity of manly character which is the mingled result of enlightened un- derstanding, and elevated integrity, commanding a respect that he laboured not to inspire. It is but eight years since we saw such a man amongst us raising a degraded country from the condition of a province to the rank and Allnding to the Dake of Portland, under whom Ireland completed her independent constitution