difficulty be cleared away, yet would not the waters of the Atlantic wash out that damned spot of their sworn secrecy*. It impudently bids defiance

* The Orangemen have to lament the folly or misfortune of having had their cause advocated by Sir Richard Musgrave, a wholesale dealer in falsity and fiction. By way of blunting the edge of just indignation at the nature of the rules and regulations of the Orange Societies, which he foresaw might in the process of time come to light, even through the dark veil of their secret oath, and of imposing upon the public in the mean while, their zealous defender has given in his Strictures (p. 225.) seven resolutions, which he says were fabricated by the enemies of the Orangemen, for the purpose of exciting in the breasts of the lower class of Catholics the most malignant and vindictive passions. One should have imagined, that the sagacious Baronet had, in 1804, when he published his Strictures, (which, by the bye, were never fairly entered) been long enough in the Customs to have learnt, how much better for use genuine than counterfeit commodities were.

1. Resolved unanimously, that each and every member be furnished with a case of horse pistols and a sword: also, that every member shall have 12 rounds of ball cartridges.

2. Resolved, that every man shall be ready at a moment's warning.

3. Resolved, that no member is to introduce a Papist or Presbyterian, Quaker or Methodist, or any persuasion but a Protestant.

4. Resolved, that no man wear Irish manufacture, or give employment to a Papist.

5. Resolved, that every man shall be ready at a moment's warning, to burn all the chapels and meeting-houses in the city and county of Dublin.

6. Resolved,

fiance to common law and common equity; daringly violates the letter of the Statute, and dangerously

6. Resolved, that any man, that will give information of any house he suspects to be an United Irishman's, will get the sum of 51. and his name kept secret.

the

7. Resolved, that no member will introduce any man under age of 19, or over the age of 46.

Whoever attentively compares the genuine rules and regulations printed at the end of this introduction, with these seven resolutions given as fictitious, will perceive less deviation in them from the reality, than he will in Sir Richard Musgrave's Memoirs of the different Irish Rebellions. Sir Richard then gives under false titles and dates pieces of the Orange institution, their declaration about the Union, and also a declaration of the Ulster Orangemen, and the rules and regulations of the Boyne Orangemen; and all with a view to impress the public with a sublime idea of the refined loyalty of their Societies; even to the minutiae of manners and external apparel. masters of lodges are not only solemnly enjoined to be most particular in scrutinizing the character of every candidate for admission, but to discountenance, even by imposing fines, any imitation of the manners and dress of traitors. But Sir Richard's drivelling effort to account for and justify the Orangemen's oath of secrecy, is too curious to be withholden from the reader.

The

(P. 228 ) "We declare most solemnly, that we are not "enemies to any body of people on account of their religion, "their faith, or their mode of worship. We consider every loyal subject our brother, and they shall have our aid and protection. We are exclusively a Protestant associa

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"tion."

(P. 230.) Orangemen have no secret to conceal, except the marks and tokens, by which they know one aǹ"other. In times of turbulence and intestine commotion, it

"was

gerously encroaches upon the Constitution. Read the obligations of an Orangeman, and answer in the face of the country, why this impenetrable veil ? Look steadfastly upon truth and loyalty; and say, will they descend to be disguised under any coverlid and least of all under an illegal and

N

was necessary to have certain words and signs to discrimi"nate friends from enemies, and prevent designing traitors

from mixing amongst us. They were necessary to inspire "mutual trust and confidence, by indicating similarity of sen"timent, and they are still necessary, not only to guard against "imposition, but to recommend us to the attention and kind

ness of brother Orangeinen, wherever the institution pre"vails. To divulge these would destroy their utility, and "therefore the knowledge of them is strictly and properly "confined to themselves." There is added a note to the foregoing passage of no slight importance, viz.-" The oath of "the Orangemen, which was not kept secret, was an oath of "allegiance to the King and constitution, besides which, it "contained two clauses; one, that they would consider every

loyal man of every religious denomination as their brother, "and would protect him as such and another, that they "would not divulge the signs, by which they were known to "each other."

Is it not self evident from these declarations, that the secret signs of the Orange Society were to entitle its members to the attention and kindness of brotherhood, wherever the institution prevailed. But the Catholics, who are proscribed from their Society, could not by those secret signs recommend themselves to such attention or kindness: consequently it was an insulting falsehood, that the Orangemen considered every loyal man of every religious persuasion as their brother; unless it be followed up by the negative inference, that no man of the Catholic persuasion can be loyal.

ism.

and unconstitutional oath of secrecy? What does the black mystery aim at, but to knit together a ferocious banditti, taking with voracious vigilance the bloody signal from the patrons of national disunion?

in

Extension It cannot be too frequently pressed upon the of Orang reader, that the establishment of Orangism has become the fatal engine, by which modern ministers effectuate that division of the Irish people, by which they maintain a monopoly of power the country under the imposing term Protestant ascendancy, which their predecessors more modestly termed English interest. When Primate Boulter lamented the exposure and consequent failure of the corrupt English job of Wood's patent for a base coinage of halfpence, he spoke to his brother minister without disguise: "The worst of it is, that it tends to unite Pro"testant with Papist: and whenever that hap

pens, good bye to the English interest in Ire"land for ever." In order to prepare the mind for judging soundly of the grand catastrophe of disunion, it behoves us to trace as correctly as possible the ex cnt of the powers, and multiplication of these engines of division, whilst the managers were getting up and rehearsing the bloody tragedy. In November, 1797,"

* Extracts from the Press, Philad. 1802. p. 191.

" in

the

46

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"the narrow vicinage of a northern village, (Lisburn) no less than fourteen societies of illegal associations, under the denominations of Orangemen, and numbered from 138 to 354,* "which proves, that so many other societies "of the same kind exist, avow themselves in a public advertisement, which appeared in the Evening Post of Thursday (i. e. 23 Nov. 1797) publicly addressing a Mr. Johnson as their chairman, and publishing their resolutions publicly entered into at a meeting held on tl e "Sabbath-day, at the parish church of Der

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riaghy," In this same year, the seeds of Orangism were profusely sown in and about Newry, and promised an early and plentiful harvest. The Ancient Britons, who were mostly Orangemen, and Mr. Giffard, the great apostle of Orangism, then a captain in the Dublin

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As it appears by the rules and regulations of the Orange societies, settled in 1800, that each lodge shall, bave ten officers, viz. a master and deputy master, a secretary and deputy secretary, a treasurer, and five committee men, it Lay reasonably be inferred from that number of officers, that each lodge consists of several score, if not some hundred menbers. Coupling this with a further and very obvious presumption, that the number of lodges, which in November 1797 fell not short, but may have greatly exceeded 354, has since that period been considerably augmented, the present aggregate of that base brotherhood is awfully formidable.