peerage may be obtained by any ruffian who possesses borough interest?"[1] Grattan accuses the ministers of the Crown of having " introduced a trade or commerce, or rather brokerage of honours, and thus establishing in the money arising from that sale a fund for corrupting representation."[2] " The sale of peerages," says Curran, " is as notorious as the sale of cast-horses in the castle-yard; the publicity the same, the terms not very different, the horses not warranted sound, the other animals warranted rotten."[3] " The Minister," says Mr. Grattan in another debate, "sells your Lords and he buys your Commons."[4] "The Irish Minister has taken money for seats in the peers under contract that it should be applied to purchase seats in the Commons."[5] "I have good reason to believe," says George Ponsonby, "that peerages have been sold for money, nay more, I have proof; give me a Committee, and if I do not establish my charge degrade me, let me no more enjoy the character of an honest man. I dare you to it, and I risk my reputation on establishing the fact."[6] Edmund Burke, in a second letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, speaks of the sale of peerages as a matter of notoriety. "I like Parliamentary reforms," he remarks, " as little as any man who has boroughs to sell for money or for peerages in Ireland."[7] The sale of peerages and the purchase with the pro-
