Imperial Parliament's manifesting the same tutelary attention to the interests of the people of Ireland,

believe their consciences require, which they know to be civilly innoxious, and in no manner repugnant to the spirit of the constitution of their country. They therefore feel themselves galled by persecution and oppression merely on account of their religious persuasion. They know that they form a most decided majority of the nation; and they are now forcibly taught to insist upon the practical effects of the first principle of all civil govern ment, that the free will of the majority can alone bind a nation. The bulk of the Irish Roman Catholics consists of their peasantry. They are chiefly aggrieved by the want of the elective franchise, which subjects them to be constantly postponed in the letting of farms to Protestant 40s. freeholders, to keep up parliamentary influence. Catholic families are daily ejected from their tenements to make room for Protestant 40s. freeholders.

The body of Roman Catholics indeed, is generally inclined to monarchy: the society of United Irishmen of Belfast are mostly, if not entirely, Presbyterians, who are known to be less cordially affected towards monarchy: and it appears evident from their refolutions, oath, and proceedings, that they aim immediately at a total change in the representation of the kingdom of Ireland, intended probably to be followed up by a total separation from this country, and, if possible, by the establishment of a republican democracy.

The attempts of this society to form an union or coalition with the Roman Catholics are unremitted: every lure, every promise, every temptation to civil freedom and liberty, are artfully displayed, and every incentive to retaliate for past horrors or grievances, every provocative to reclaim usurped rights, are most ingeniously and forcibly and seasonably brought forth to keep up the irascibility of those, who have been so sorely hurt at the disdainful rejection of their petition to Parliament for the right of the elective franchise. The few Roman Catholics of landed property, or ostensible respectability, who have signed

any

Ireland, which they do to those of the city of London, or other the most favoured portion of the British empire.

any instrument to denote or intimate their acquiescence in the deprivation of this great civil right, have either lost their influence upon the body the body at large, or repented, for having committed themselves upon the question. The body itself has acquired an increased degree of spirit, energy, and determination to pursue this object to every extreme, in proportion as they have been heretofore supposed to be under the influence of Lord Kenmare and others who sided with him.

The unparalleled sufferance and forbearance of the Roman Catholics of Ireland for this last century, under the galling pressure of the severest laws, was solely owing to the influence and exertions of their clergy over their respective flocks. But now, from forming themselves into associations, and being taught to think more fully and freely upon their civil rights, they have determined amongst themselves, that in this they have been deceived and misled by their clergy: that no consideration whatever ought to have withholden them from asserting their just rights, as unoffending members of that society, of which they formed the decided majority. The consequence has been, that the clergy have found it necessary to secede from the committee of the Roman Catholic body. They have also felt, that during this unaccountable and infamous stupor of their body, as they term it, Lord Kenmare had pretended to command and exercise an influence over the body, which he really never possessed; and lest the deception might still continue, they have expelled him from the committee and it is notorious, that

his

The reader is requested to notice, that this paper was not a public historical detail of facts, but a private communication to Ministers of reports then in general circulation, and a reasoning upon the effects of those reports, in the truth of which the Author at that time assured the Minister, he should cordially rejoice in being deceived. The historical

detail

He passed in review all the intermediate scenes. exhibited on the theatre of that fatal country. between

his Lordship could not command one single name or signature to an address, that he wished to be presented to Government from his own county of Kerry, where the bulk of his property fies.

The consequences of irritating and provoking the majority of the Irish nation, by the refusal of what they feel they have a right to, are too horrid to dwell upon, and much too serious to trifle with. The resolution, no longer to submit to any incapaci ties or grievances upon the score of religion, is general with the body. And those who think that the Irish Roman Catholics are now peaceable, inactive, quiet, and contented with their situation, are grossly deceived. A spirit of resistance has per vaded the greater part of them, and is increasing in a rapid though silent manner: the more so at present, as their future measures will be probably planned and concerted by the society of the United Irishmen of Dublin, who have deeper schemes than the Roman Catholics, whom they mean to use as their instruments for executing them.

They are taught and spirited up by some very artful and determinate individuals of their own and of other bodies of men, to be insulted with the very idea of the Protestant ascendancy, to insist upon absolute equality in all civil advantages; to view every ascendancy over the bulk of the nation as an unjust and tyrannical monopoly of a few interested individuals; in a word, not to look upon those their representatives in Parliament, whom they neither elect nor depute. What must be the consequences of an enraged, resolute, and united people, thus tutored, and thus affected?

The

detail of the conduct of the late Lord Kenmare, and some other gentlemen who sided with him, and of their difference from the Catholic Committee, is to be found in the second Volume of the Historical Review.

between the years 1792 and 1801; he inquired into the effects produced up to that time (the end

The radical defect of redress lies in the act of the 23d of his present Majesty, which established a sort of imperium in imperio, and made Ireland independent of our Legislature. A most fatal solecism in politics; which nothing but an union can now possibly correct; and to that Ireland will object, and England is disathis very act to enforce it.

bled by

Government best knows of what importance it is to the state, that Ireland should be dependant upon, or united with Great Britain: they will therefore be the proper judges of the necessity of engaging the majority of the nation to relish and support that dependance or union. Let them not, therefore, permit the Roman Catholics of Ireland to remain under their present pre possession, that their exclusion from the state is necessary to preserve that dependance or union,

Ere some fatal resolution be entered into, let them be con vinced that their petition will be attended to, and granted. Under the desperate irritation at its rejection, some moderate men shudder at the violent extremities to which the more active and determinate members of the body are now proceeding.

The Irish are determinately faithful to the cause they embark in, and they would remain loyally attached to their King and their Constitution, were they admitted to an equal participation of it with others. Their religion enforces the observance of civil duties, wherever they have civil rights. It appears the extremity of rashness to alienate their affection, and drive them to the fatal provocation of asserting what they claim as an unalienable right, by force or violence.

If Government wish to preserve the form of the British constitution in Ireland, if the possessors of landed property in that kingdom wish to annex any parliamentary influence to their possessions, if the public wish to avoid bloodshed, to preserve the harmony and ensure the prosperity of that kingdom, it is evident that the content, freedom, and independence of their native tenantry are essentially necessary.

The

of August 1801) by the union; and he lamented to find, that it became daily less palatable to the people of that part of the United Kingdom. He

discovered

The spirit in which very many Roman Catholics have embark ed in the resolution of asserting an equal participation of civil rights and advantages with their Protestant brethren, is emphatically expressed in the form of the oath, which is required to be taken by all who enter into the society of United Irishmen, which is as follows: "I A. B. in the presence of God, do "pledge myself to my country, that I will use all my abilities

and influence in the attainment of an impartial and adequate "representation of the Irish nation in Parliament; and as a "means of absolute and immediate necessity in the establish

ment of this chief good of Ireland, I will endeavour, as "much as in my ability, to form a brotherhood of affection

and identity of interests, a communion of rights, and an union "of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions: without " which every reform in Parliament must be partial, not national, 66 inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insuffi"cient for the freedom and happiness of this country."

Many thousands of Roman Catholics have already entered into this society. A coalition between the Catholic committee of Dublin and the Dissenters of the north, is already completed, though not with the Roman Catholics of the south-west. The most earnest attempts are made to bring this to bear, and the prevention of it alone can save that country from a general attempt, by means perhaps the most horrible, to throw off their dependance upon this government (if any they still have), and to form a new one for themselves.

The enthusiastic conviction of asserting civil and religious rights, superadded to the natural impetuosity of the Irish disposi tion, and aggravated by the most artful incentives to retaliate for the oppressions and confiscations of their ancestors, must fill every thoughtful person with the awful dread of scenes, at which humanity will shudder, and from which God of his mercy preserve us.