lic beheld the unusual phenomenon of the great political rivals, with their respective friends and adherents, maintaining the imperious necessity of the measure, and denying that the free will of the executive can in any possible case be constitutionally fettered from assenting to whatever bill the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled may advise; that the coronation oath, by its words and spirit, enjoins the observance of existing laws; and the constitution leaves them essentially open to repeal and modification, according to the exigencies of times and circumstances. It is at this moment an awful consideration to a reflecting mind, that upon the liberty and welfare of four millions of his Majesty's subjects, inhabiting the most vulnerable part of the British empire, the whole body politic is drawn out in full array, every one dreading the word of command. In this unaccountable suspense, fear, or stupor, the passive victims are silent and quiet--plectuntur Achivi. The most lamentable effect of this perilous state of things, is, that the straggling corps of freebooters and marauders, presuming on their commissions, which recognise them as an irregular part of the general force, are permitted and encouraged to commence a masked warfare. They are let loose unmuzzled, fresh trained to the old game, without badge, name, or responsibility.

The

The war-hoop of defamation, slander, and opposition has long been given. Every engine has been put in requisition, that can be commanded to spread again wide and deep the baneful spirit of religious discord. As if Ireland, As if Ireland, poor ill-fated Ireland, had not yet been saturated with blood and wretchedness! As if Great Britain feared that union should expel the dæmon of dissention, and diffuse indiscriminate concord through that long-distracted country, the Government papers in England are fed from Ireland with the foulest calumnies and falsehoods. The nauseous cant of bigotted mendacity is largely administered, as a provocative to stimulate the wasting lust for religious persecution. They are the unadministered doses, with which Ireland has been overgorged, sent under Drogheda covers to take their fate upon such British patients as shall madly swallow them. Such anonymous discharges of rancorous falsehoods, even in the supposed pay of Government, would produce but slight effects upon the impartial

I

The Times being the official Government paper, has with certain persons the authority of a British Moniteur. This paper, for the 5th January 1804, in a letter signed Molyneux, sets out in telling us that, "the disaffection and turbulence which have "disgraced Ireland for above twenty years, have arisen from a "radical ignorance in the English Government, of its real "state." This is a prelude to a second letter of the same

hireling,

impartial public, were they left to operate by their mere intrinsic virtue. If in spite of St. Patrick's wand, there still be found some enves nomed reptiles in the holy island, the dunghills in which their baneful eggs are hatched, may be easily traced to Merrion Avenue, or the vicinity of Lismore. The venomous issue may be followed home through all their windings, forms, and craft, to the parent vipers. These poisonous nondescripts have, however, the peculiarity of being innoxious to all but to their kindred spawn.

The author has already endeavoured to convince his reader of the real and true grounds upon which he proposed, and the Minister acceded to his writing a History of Ireland. Yet, ere he quits the subject, he submits to the public this written declaration, which he made to Mr. Addington,

hireling, in The Times of the 9th January, in which he himself says, that the author's "voluminous work is a gross libel on the conduct of the British Government !" From Molyneux's com mendation of the British Critic, it may be inferred, that those valuable and well-founded invectives have been made up in the gross by the same hand; to which also may be attributed some other such potions sent forth in the Traveller, for the benefit of his British country customers: iny which may be read this description of all his Catholic countrymen whose wants and wishes are, says he, to exterminate all loyal subjects from Ireland, to seize their property, to separate it for ever from England, and to appropriate it exclusively to themselves: and this object they have invariably pursued ever since the Reformation was introduced into Ireland. Such are thefe Doctors' Union pills.

Addington, in a letter of the 26th of July 1803, which was never honoured with an answer.

“SIR,

Essex-Street, 26th July 1803.

I am sorry to find, from a conversation "with Mr. Wickham, that the long and painful "labours I have undergone to promote union

and affection in the sister kingdom, have in "some shape failed of the desired effect; and "that it is found impracticable to give public

countenance to the circulation of my History. "I lament, that the same object can be seen in "such opposite lights. I appeal, Sir, to your "candour, whether the express conditions, under " which I took the work in hand were not, to "write an authentic, impartial, and true History " of Ireland, to counteract the effects of Sir "Richard Musgrave's falsities and calumnies, to "render the union popular, and follow up and 66 support the spirit of Lord Cornwallis's admi. "nistration. To effect this, it became essentially "necessary to decry that system, which Lord "Cornwallis so pointedly reprobated; nor could "those persons be consistently praised or pal❝liated, against whom he had either expressed " or shewn displeasure, or offence. I have ❝ laboured incessantly and zealously to inculcate, ❝on every occasion, gratitude to his most gra"cious Majesty for the many signal favours conferred

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«ferred upon the Irish Catholics during his .. reign; to display the advantages of union in "the most fascinating colours, and to convince "the people of that country, that it is the inten"tion of the present Government to tread in the "footsteps of Lord Cornwallis, and not in those "of his predecessor. I have necessarily thrown "the odium of certain measures upon a junto in "Ireland, whose monopoly of power I neither "did or do conceive the present Government "wishes to revive or support. I have laboured "all I could to purify the British Government in "the eyes of the Irish nation, and to make them "sensible of the advantages of the union from "the innate and unvarying corruption of their "own Parliament," &c. Such were the sentiments of the author, not obliquely hinted at, ambiguously assumed, or obscurely stated, but explicitly urged both before and after publication, perhaps ad nauseam. Great then was bis surprise, when he observed the mind of the Minister ob. stinately bent upon inverting, counteracting, and undervaluing the measures of Lord Cornwallis's administration; greater, when he passed in review the long procession of characters implicated in, dependant upon, or interested in the continuance of the present system of government in ' Ireland, who now fill high offices in the state,

and