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fuppofe to have been dipped in the ink, perhaps, of the Privy-council-chamber, and guided by an official hand, I acknowledge my wonder without

referve.

France! ONE and INDIVISIBLE!!!" For God's fake, if her pernicious fyftem muft be held forth at all, let it be exhibited as a warning to deter, not difplayed as a model for imitation. We have lately had one kind of Union (as they called it) attempted for Ireland, and, thanks to the Providence of Almighty God, to the valour and true patriotism of the Yeomanry of Ireland, and to the prudence, vigilance, and energy of government, that wicked, bloody, and unnatural attempt, recoiled on the heads which planned it; the political blunderbufs burft in the hands which dated to prefent it! Again I fay-let Irishmen beware of an Union!

Though the pamphlet before me, and which I am thus prefuming to analyze, be entitled, « Arguments for and against an Union," I am able (as yet) to discover no arguments, but what are enlifted (fome of them actually preffed) into the fervice of the PRO fide of this question: unlefs, indeed, we are to confider fome of them as being veritably intended (by a very delicate irony

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of the author) to undermine the very cause to which common and plain-judging apprehenfions, might think them applied as fupporters; and truly of this clafs, might be fuppofed the argument of page 10; where the author ftates the lofs which the fecondary state or province must always and neceffarily fuftain, from the non-refidence of only ONE branch of the legiflative aggregate, namely, the Sovereign; and yet (uncandidly enough, methinks) paffes over, nay, totally omits the obvious and palpable inference, a fortiori, of how very much these faid loffes must be extended, multiplied, and aggravated, (in case of such indivifible Union), when not only the king would continue an abfentee, but the whole houfe of peers, (late refidents in this kingdom), would become abfentees, and not only king and peers be abfent, but all the whole three branches of the legislature, King, Lords, Commons! ALL Abfentees. I have faid, the whole House of Peers, and I think it will not be difficult to fupport the fuppofition; for if you deduct, in the first inftance, the number of elective peers, who must neceffarily repair to attend parliamentary duties every feffion, to London, (twenty, fuppofe-if, indeed, England would be fo good as

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to allow us fo many), if you then deduct the number of other Irish peers, who, from English political interefts, English matrimonial connections, and fundry other caufes, have been induced, and no doubt would continue to be additionally induced, to accept and folicit feats in the English Houfe of Commons, I believe we shall find the catalogue of Irish resident peers, reduced to a very contracted lift indeed. I fuppofe the number of Commoners required or allowed to Irish reprefentation, in case of an Union, might be fixty or seventy: it must be admitted to me, that these fixty or feventy, would probably be from the most wealthy and refpectable clafs of Irish gentry, and they alfo would be forced to become abfentees. Then calculate the number of individuals, (the neceffary fatellites on each of these moving political planets), you will find, that including wives, children, tutors, fervants, &c. &c. the proportion of twenty-five dependents on each member of parliament, annunually EXPORTED, would be no very unreasonable fuppofition. Then calculate the probable amount of specie which must be transmitted annually (from rack-rents, and Lord knows what else) to London, for the maintenance of each of these eighty or ninety exported Lords and Commoners, and alfo for

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the maintenance of each of the twenty-five dependents attendant upon the faid eighty or ninety members, and you will then fee the enormous drawback of rank, confequence, and property, which would (of course) take place; nay-Vanity and Fashion would ftill further thin this defolated metropolis, and where would be the amends? Why, in the very cheap rate at which the thousands of troops neceffary (in that event) to keep this city in order, would be accommodated with barracks; our fplendid Parliament House would fet, perhaps, at twenty fhillings PER COLUMN, per annum; and that enchanting model of architectural beauty, the envy and the admiration of ftrangers, would hereafter be viewed but as the fad and fullen mausoleum, in which the Irish parliament would have interred the peace, the honor, the dignity, and the independence of the LATE IRISH NA

TION.

But to return to your pamphlet. You lament, (page 12), that the Irish parliament is (now) fup. pofed under British influence, and you allow that (even now) near one million of the rents of this kingdom are annually exported to abfentees. Permit me to afk, would your propofed Union leffen or ameliorate

ameliorate thefe caufes of complaint? If three hundred of the first men in this kingdom, fitting in College-green in Dublin, must be supposed under British influence, what muft we conclude would be the cafe with fixty of those very perfons, when tranfplanted to St. Stephen's chapel, in London? Good God! Sir! Are you not arguing FOR ME by anticipation, or have you mistaken the fide of the water at which you fhould have published your arguments? To my intellects, you are forcibly proving to the English nation, how much more cheaply they might govern the Irish people, than they do at prefent. You write as an Englishman to Englishmen, I write, and speak, and FEEL as an Irishman, and I call on Irishmen to hear me !

As to the 14th page, about the Scotch and the Pretender, I can dispatch it in a trice→→→→

TEMPORA MUTANTUR, & NOS MUTAMUR AB ILLIS.

There can be little danger upon that head now and as to any fuppofed or affumed fimilarity between the state of Scotland, in the reign of Queen Anne, and the prefent circumftances of this kingdom, (vide page 15), that argument has already

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