"I am not afraid of the Right Honourable Member, I will meet him any where, or upon any ground, by night or by day.—I would stand poorly in my own estimation, and in my country's opinion, if I did not stand far above him.—I do not come here dressed in a rich wardrobe of words to delude the people—I am not one who has promised repeatedly to bring in a bill of rights, yet does not bring in that bill or permit any other person to do it—I am not one who threatened to impeach the Chief Justice of the King's Bench for acting under an English law, and afterwards shrunk from that business—I am not the author of the simple repeal—I am not one who, after saying the parliament was a parliament of prostitutes, endeavoured to make their voices subservient to my interest—I am not one who would come at midnight, and attempt by a vote of this House to stifle the voice of the people, which my egregious folly had raised against me—I am not the gentleman who subsists upon your accounts—I am not the mendicant patriot who was bought by my country for a sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt payment."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPoliticians from IrelandPeople from DublinAnglicansWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
Henry Flood, speech in the Irish House of Commons (28 October 1783), quoted in The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons of Ireland, The First Session of the Fourth Parliament in the Reign of his present Majesty; Which met the 14th of October, 1783, and ended the 14th of May, 1784. Vol. III (1784), p. 40
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Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 1801 and a Member of Parliament (MP) in Westminster from 1805 to 1820. He has been described as a superb orator and a romantic. With generous enthusiasm he demanded that Ireland should be granted its rightful status, that of an independent nation, though he alwa
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