ADVERTISEMENT.

ABOUT the middle of last year I had prepared for the prefs fome reflexions upon the state of Ireland, which at that time appeared to me very little known, or very ill understood in the public of this country.

Upon the first intimation of the project of a LEGISLATIVE UNION, paused upon this defign, the utility of which became in a confiderable degree fuperfeded by it; and I turned my attention in filence to the progress and fuccefs of that great measure, to which it was impoffible not to foresee some of the principal obstacles and motives of oppofition. But it is but very lately that I perceived any advantage Ꭱ

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in a public difcuffion of them, in the particular light in which they prefented themselves to my view. The peculiar manner in which the offer of Union on the part of Great Britain has been received by the House of Commons in Ireland, and the delicacy that conftantly occurs in a free examination of the subject upon this fide of the water, have determined me to make public the following Confiderations. The truth of them, I flatter myfelf, will be felt where it is most ufeful: though, perhaps, under the prefent circumftances, it could not fo properly or fo ftrongly by infifted upon in any public or responsible quarter, as from the calm and privacy of the clofet.

CON

CONSIDERATIONS, &c.

WHEN the great question, which is the

fubject of the present Confiderations, was first whispered in the world, it seemed to ftrike up on the minds of men with a peculiar mixture of anxiety and delight, till it fubfided for a time in a general fufpence and astonishment.

But this fituation of the public fentiment did not arise, as I apprehend, from the novelty or the magnitude of the measure, nor from any prefumption of a juft oppofition or rational dislike on the part of Ireland, to fo happy

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happy and fo glorious a termination as it held out to her crimes, her fufferings, and her dangers.

The conftant and earneft declarations of the most oftenfible perfons in that kingdom, of the perfons highest in fituation and highest in popularity, entirely forbade and excluded that apprehenfion. They had loudly and repeatedly announced, That things could not remain upon their prefent establishment; that commercial jealousy was roufed; that it would increase with two independent Legiflatures; that the feeds of feparation were fown in the final fettlement of 1782; that feparation of interefts would bring on feparation of CONNEXION." The public opinion had kept in even tenor with the warnings of Irish ftatefinen, and the fenfe of practical evils, the dreadful courfe and career of calamities which every poft divulged, and which advanced and expanded with progreffive force

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and