It is said to be one of the infirmities of human nature to give an undue prominence, an undeserved importance, to the events passing around us; but if I have any due appreciation of the circumstances of the time in which we are now living, there has rarely been in the history of the world a more Remarkable Crisis than that at which the Imperial Legislature has been now summoned for the transaction of business.

But he took a wider view of the question, and would ask whether, when Ireland was just emerging from a very Remarkable Crisis, it was wise to seize for the imperial treasury the first fruits of her returning prosperity, and thus to prevent its further development?