مجمد

UPON THE STATE OF

PUBLIC AFFAIRS,

IN THE YEAR MDCCXCIX.

IRELAND,

"Omnem equidem terram, fceptris quæ libera noftris "Diffidet, externam reor, & fic dicere divos."

DUBLIN:

B C

VIRG.

PRINTED FOR J. MILLIKEN, No. 32, GRAFTON-STREET.

1799.

168.(10)

226. i. 168. (10)

ADVERTISEMENT.

ABOUT

BOUT the middle of laft 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of the project of a LEGISLATIVE UNION, I paufed upon this defign, the utility of which became in a confiderable degree superseded by it; and I turned my attention in filence to the progress and fuccefs of that great measure, to which it was impoffible not to foresee some of the principal obftacles and motives of oppofition. But it is very lately that I perceived any advantage

but

in a public difcuffion of them, in the particular light in which they prefented themfelves 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 fubject upon this fide of the water, have determined me to make public the following Confiderations. The truth of them, I flatter myself, will be felt where it is most useful: though, perhaps, under the present circumftances, it could not fo properly or fo strongly by infifted upon in any public or responsible quarter, as from the calm and privacy of the clofet.

CON