GRATTAN, 251 port a minister who practises extravagance and professes corruption; supporting such a minister, they would be country gentlemen no longer, they would be the servants of the castle out of livery. They must see and despise the pitiful policy of buying the country gentlemen by an offer to wrap them up in the old cast-clothes of the aris tocracy: a clumsy covering and a thin disguise, never the object of your respect, frequently the subject of your derision. The country gentleman must recollect how sel dom he can procure even an audience from that bench, except when he artificially deserts his cause and his coun try. Place him on his native hills, and he is a protection against the storm; transplant him to the hot-bed of the castle, he degenerates and becomes a weed. “As to the aristocracy, I will not say you have alienated every member of that body; but I do say, you have alien ated as great, as respectable, and as formidable a part of that body, as ever stood in the phalanx of Opposition; and you have not only given them every personal provocation, but every public topic, and every public provocation, to raise on their side the interest, the feelings, and the voice of the community. You have not, however, left yourselves without some part of the aristocracy of the country, but that part you have endeavoured to leave without any kind of reputation, by directing against the aristocracy of Ire land in general, the whisper of your castle, and the scur rility of your press, reducing a l l men t o the level o f your own reputations. Thus, the result o f your project has been, t o render the British government i n this country, a s feeble and contemptible a s the tendency o f your project i s t o render the Irish constitution corrupt and dependent. For the sake o f both nations, therefore, we oppose it; but how defeat this project? Certainly not b y a plan o f self-defence. I t i s a maxim o f war, that the body that i s ever attacked, and only defends, must finally b e subdued; i t i s then o n a principle o f self-preservation, that we resort t o the good old method o f impeachment. We have long disputed about this pension, and that place, until inch b y
