1

depends in a great degree for her political fafety on our connexion, and we depend upon her for our commercial existence-aye, and we owe the land on which we live to the protecting power of her fleets and armies-and yet we are told we are independent!-union will make us truly independent-it will shake off the neceffity of our actual dependence on Great Britain, and raise us to the proud eminence of being equally free.

That there are many errors in this irregular effay is not to be doubted; the writer, however, hopes there will be found in it fome useful truths-he has thought it for the general good to speak those truths in fimple plainness—it is a fore mind that fhrinks from an honeft statement of facts, and it is a rotten political establishment that cannot bear the touch-ftone of free inquiry.

Union is a great queftion, its effect embraces every man on the land, and every man has a right, within the law, to give his opinion on the fubject. Oppofition fays, Parliament is incompetent to enact the measure, but the very reverse is established by fhewing where the English parliament did enact Union with Scotland, which formed the British parliament, which repealed the laws reftraining Ireland, which made her theoretically free now if parliament (I fpeak of the English, and ours is founded on the fame principles) is incompetent to enact

union, and has enacted union, every law flowing from that union is conflitutionally null, and even the theoretical independence of Ireland is illegal. But Ireland triumphantly acceded to the British acts of repeal, and dates her freedom from them-parliament must therefore poffefs complete competency-our present conftitution draws its being from that very principle.

The writer will be fparing of quotationhad he merely wished to make a book he might have swelled the page by applicable paffages from Tacitus down to Hume; he might have fcribbled French from Montefquieu, and been very profufe of law from Coke and from Blackftone; from the parterre of Burke, abundant in flowers! it were easy to have culled fome rofe with its recompanying thorn; and from his flashing adverfany Thomas Paine* a thorn without its rofe !-Quotation fometimes illuftrates happily enough-but it is a heavy auxiliary, and feems fitter for the main body than for the light detachments of an army-the page has therefore been incumbered as little as poffible with this fort of affiftance.

*Thomas may be left to his own confcience; and it is to be hoped he will endeavour to difpel fome of its murky gloom by comforting, if he can, his former friend the unfortunate De la Fayette, that great and virtuous fufferer for his KING and for his COUNTRY!

The

The writer has mentioned Sparta, and Rome, and Britain, and Ireland; he cannot avoid obferving that the two firft did not poffefs true libertyfor where a great portion of the people are kept in actual fervitude, as was the cafe of the Spartan Helots and the Roman Slaves, there is no real and · uncorrupted freedom; there may be a hard, a partial, and a state liberty, fupported by the profanation of individual right, but true liberty, where every man is equal. in the law, was not in Sparta or in Rome. Britain is at this moment in poffeffion of as pure political liberty as a community can. know; the defects of her fyftem may be pointed out on paper, but in practice fhe has all the poffible perfection of a human inftitution, and by confequence she is individually more happy and collectively more powerful than any state in the world; it will be here understood that the writer has a reference to her extent and population.

*

1

What a contraft when we turn our eyes to Ireland! her people divided-difcontented-now turbulent to phrenfy-now funk in the very fioth of apathy and indolence!-partial rights-partial feelings!-a country-no country country!-theoretically free-in reality dependent!-the pomp ftate-the beggary of the land!-fociety unhinged, and man regarding with doubt and apprehenfion the motions of his neighbour!-the

of

*This is strictly applicable to the people of Britain-the writer laments the flavery of the negroes under her govern

ment.

Jower

lower orders detefting the rich, and the rich breathing in fearful fufpicion of the lower orders! Religious bigotry unwifely roufed from its wholefome lethargy, and burfting into fanaticism!-Political bigotry nurfing the folly and widening the breach;-difcord-infecurity-plunder-murder! "try conciliation"-agreed-but how?-not a partial, and therefore an unavailing conciliation-Palliatives may mitigate, but they never radically cure-no-ftrike at the root of the disease-the reftoring conciliation must be "broad and general as the casing air”-it must embrace the whole, and be lafting as the land; uniting man with man, and state with ftate; and fecuring by the enlightened policy of that glorious Union the political and civil liberty, the fafety, the tranquillity, and the happiness of Ireland.

Popular clamour can neither eftablifh or refute the political virtues of any meditated measure; if it could, the Union with Scotland would never have taken place, and the projected Union of Great Britain and Ireland would now have been in the "family vault of all the Capulets"-and if it had, both British connexion and legal liberty would foon have followed to the fame tomb!

Our unhappy factions have diftracted this land; our religious diftinctions of Proteftant and Catholic have led to perfecution on the one part and to fanaticism on the other.-Merciful God! that Chriftians, at the close of the eighteenth century, should forget the benignant spirit of their founder,

J

founder, and deftroy the rcot because the branches are different!-We have heard much of the infidelity of Voltaire and of Hume, but fuch civil horrors, between fects of the fame religion, give deeper wounds to Chriftianity than all the fardonic fneers of the one, or the paradoxical reafoning of the other.

The gentlemen who ftiled themselves Patriots had for fome years rung fuch a peal in the public ear of corruption, reform, emancipation, &c. &c. that a portion of the people were brought to believe themselves very flaves, and to think that nothing would go well till his Majefty's minifters were turned out and the patriots turned in—how weak fighted is man! While this faction was labouring and abufing, not to deftroy the government but to remove the minifters, it gave birth to ano. ther faction of a much more dangerous natureThe Catholic faction-this faction combined for emancipation, one of the cant words of the patriots, and for a while each countenanced the other, and went on, in their way, well enough: but the patriots, though full of fire, and eager to take the Treasury Bench by ftorm, were yet true to the British connexion, for under it they expected to flourish, and would at any time loudly join in the refolution to ftand or fall with that country. The Catholics did not entirely relish this fort of conduct-they grew ́impatient, and, aided by a few hot-headed perfons of no, religion at all, they treated with the French Republic, in hopes, with the affiftance of that unde

figning