You fet out by faying, and you fay truly, that the Union is a question of extent, and importance; that it applies warmly to the feelings-I believe indeed you say, “to all the feelings of the human mind;" but, alas! there are fome men, who have fome feelings, to which argumentative applications were in vain; for, they are " armed fo ftrong in"-(I was going to fay " honefty,") "that they pass by them as the idle winds, which they respect not." You fay, it is a question cannot fail to be univerfally debated, but you exprefs your fear "that it will not be PROPERLY. debated." I am forry you should have carried the rules of academic theme-writing into the compofition of a political pamphlet; I am forry you should have elucidated your pofition, by your perfonal example! Yet, I confefs, you have made a convert of me. I have read your pamphlet, and I agree with you, that the Union is a fubject, which MAY not be PROPERLY debated.

But of this-more anon:

Though I do not completely fubfcribe to the order, even, in which you have arranged your arguments; yet as I prefume to answer you, I hold myfelf obliged to follow you. I think it my duty

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to attend you," feriatim et literatim," through every page and line of a production, likely to intereft fo deeply every man I value in fociety. In yourself, I believe, you are entitled to all poffible confidera tion and deference to your opinions-but I go farther than that: I believe, and so do thousands as well as I that you speak the fentiments, at least, that you hold out the reasonings of men higher in political confequence than yourfelf: and that we, poor people at the outfide of the curtain, who are too far removed from the machinery of State Pieces, to fee the wires which conduct the Pantomime; can only guefs at what paffes behind the Scenes, from the now-and-then glimpse of the hand of the Prompter. We must argue from you to them: What you would venture to fay, you or they might hazard to do: it is all one, " QUI FACIT PER ALIUM, FACIT PER SE."

Well then, Sir, You would have a Union? Is it fo? But you would «discuss it fairly," and to prove your fincerity, you fay you will begin by ftating the question in the Abstract; viz. (Page 2) "Two independent States, finding their separate "existence mutually inconvenient, propose to form "themselves into one State, for their mutual << benefit." I deny your poftulatum: I never heard

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one fingle Englishman repine at his feparate exiftence, deprecate his mutual inconveniences, or pray to unite his fate through life, with fuch a dower-lefs termagant Confort as poor Ireland. Nay, I am yet to learn, that even the most insignificant close. Borough in this kingdom has petitioned either his Majesty or the Parliament, to advise-to promote -or to effect an Union. I look in vain for the documents whence you collect your hypothefis: The Quarry must be a plaguy fecret one, from which you have, hewn this corner-ftone of your edifice. Yet you fay, "nothing can be devised móre fit for fober and philofophic argument.' I think it looks bad in profe, yet it might make neat argument to a Canto of Poetry, for it is pretty fiction.

The light of hiftory is beyond queftion, fingularly useful in fhewing us the ftumbling blocks. which tripped up our forefathers, and pointing to us the way which we ourselves fhould go. The Author of the Pamphlet before me, has availed himself of every-even the most antique illumination on the fubject, and has felected no less than TWO examples to prove that an Irish Union would be a "good thing." Of these two examples,

it is true, that one is a few thousand years pofterior

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to the other. It is in the Pamphlet however, (page 3.) put first, and so I take it—I mean the example of the Seven United Provinces, which were (to use the Author's own words)" cruelly' oppreffed by the Spanish government, &c." and fo " they separated to escape tyranny," &c." and the Author fays "they did right." Now, is this an argument for an Irish Union?

But, no doubt, the ftrong argument is kept for the laft-I have dwelt on it with attention, and it runs in these words: "When the Sabines found they "could not maintain themselves any longer against "the Romans, and faw that by uniting with them they had an opportunity of encreafing their liberty, their happiness, and their power; they acted according to the principles of reafon and right « in relinquishing their separate independency as a "ftate, and by their Union, laid the foundation of "Roman Greatness." Apply the parallel. Have the Sabines (i. e. the Irish) found that they cannot maintain themselves any longer against the Romans, (i. e. the English)? Do the Irish fee, that by uniting with them, they have an opportunity of encreasing their liberty, their happiness, and (oh! monftrous!) their power? Will even the Author of the Pamphlet answer these questions in the affirma

tive? And if he does, ftill what becomes of his conclufion, viz. " and by that Union, laid the "foundation of their greatnefs." Of whofe greatnefs? Of Roman, Roman greatnefs. What became even of the very name of Sabine? Was it not loft, merged, overwhelmed and engulphed in the vortex. of Roman Rapacity? The Sabines aggrandized the Romans admitted! Do you want the Irish to aggrandize Great Britain? She don't need it-She is no adjective state: In the political grammar of Europe, England can stand alone!!! PROUDLY ALONE! and were it otherwise, what Irishman would fnatch the staff from the hand of Hibernia, fcarce yet able to ftand erect, or walk alone; to, place it in the grasp of a Sifter, older, richer, greater, and ftronger; to be hereafter ufed, perhaps, as the inftrument of unmerited infliction,at beft, as the Mace of arrogant fuperiority. Nay, farther; fuppofing every poffible good confequence, eventually, to arife from it: My mind has an infurmountable antipathy to the old forcible reafons which must be the neceffary forerunners to affimilate these cases: I should be grieved even to agony, to find the ravishing arguments which overcame the Sabines, applied to my fair, my honoured, my