influences and modifies the views of every party. Lord Clare would thus have had to address an uninformed assembly, in opposition to strong misstatements which derived a spurious power from misapprehension. Yet when we read the various misstatements and illconceived motions in the British parliament, by which the conduct of the earl of Clare and the Irish administration were so palpably misrepresented, we cannot help lamenting that the reply was not heard in the same house and recorded in the same pages. The good and benevolent earl of Moira, animated by a spirit of philanthropic liberality, to which the name of liberalism would not be quite inappropriate, had, at different times, brought forward statements replete with strong pictures of the sufferings and calamities of Ireland. He was heated by a warm humanity, and enlightened by a popular spirit. He was a good and a public-spirited nobleman; but though virtue may supply the better part of wisdom, it is not allsufficient in questions that are entangled with a multitude of prejudices and strong feelings. His aims were pure, but he was incapable of looking below the surface, or taking into account anything more than met his outward senses. In a word, the representations he made omitted every essential fact, and could have little effect in the Irish parliament. He was ably replied to by lord Grenville and by the marquis of Downshire. The charges which were made by his lordship, and after him, by other peers, are the same which we have already discussed at length, and shall not enter upon further here. They were immediately repeated in the Irish house of lords, by the same nobleman, and met, from the chancellor, a prompt and masterly refutation. This occurred on February 19, 1798. From this speech we shall offer a few extracts, as specimens of a better style of eloquence than is generally supposed to have existed in our parliament. Speaking of the system of the United Irishmen, and the manner in which they had spread and concealed their principles, his lordship said, "The resources of the union are the seduction of the lower orders of the people, under the specious pretext of freedom and equality, and every artifice, which cunning and profligacy can suggest, has been practised to detach them from the established government and constitution. The press has been used, with singular success, as an engine of rebellion; sedition and treason have been circulated with unceasing industry, in newspapers, and pamphlets, and handbills, and speeches, and republican songs, and political manifestoes. Robbery, assassinations, and massacre are the efficient powers of the union, and are executed with prompt and unerring vigour, by the order of every member of the executive, in their several departments. The communication of their orders is so managed as to render detection almost impossible. Each society has its secretary, from the general executive down to the lower subordinate clubs, the members of which are generally used as the agents of the union in all acts of outrage; and every order is communicated by the secretary of the superior committee, to the secretary of that committee or society which is next in immediate subordination to it. No subordinate knows, of whom its next superior is composed; the accredited secre * * tary vouches the order; from him it is received implicitly, and is communicated in like manner, till it reaches every member of the union to whom it is addressed. The order is, generally, verbal; but if it be reduced to writing, the moment the person who is to receive and communicate it is fully instructed, the paper is destroyed. Here, then, is a complete revolutionary government organized against the laws and established constitution; and let me ask the noble lord whether such a combination is to be met or counteracted, much less dissolved, by the slow and technical forms of a regular government; an invisible power of infinite subtlety and extent, which has no fixed or permanent station; which acts by the ungoverned fury of a desperate and savage race, and scatters universal desolation and dismay at its sovereign will and pleasure. When every gentleman, who had courage to remain in his country, was marked for assassination, and had no protection under his own roof but from a military guard; when a plan was actually formed, and nearly ripe for execution, to disarm and cut off the soldiery thus dispersed in small bodies for the protection of individuals; when a fierce and savage foreign enemy hung upon the Irish coast, what alternative remained for the executive government, but to surrender at discretion to a horde of traitorous barbarians, or to use the force intrusted to it for self-defence and self-preservation; and what would have been the folly and debility of the government which could have hesitated to exert itself with vigour and decision at such a crisis? Lord Camden did not hesitate; but, as became him, issued an order on the 3d of March, to disarm the rebels in the northern districts; and if he had not issued the order, I do not scruple to say that he would have betrayed his trust." Hitherto, since entering upon this portion of our history, it has been the main object of our statements to disembarrass it from certain fallacies with which it has been entangled, to an extent, that has corrupted the very language of one great class of political writers; and imposed on the other, to a great degree, the necessity of false admissions, most pernicious in their effect. The result of our most careful and conscientious attention to statements, which, with very little exception, we have drawn from the most democratic writers, has been now summarily presented in this memoir. These considerations have mainly regarded the origin of certain associations, and the respective principles and motives of the parties involved on either side. This object has much restricted our details of the events, to which we have referred, simply, as the grounds of an argument. We shall now avail ourselves of this memoir to offer a brief narrative of the memorable events of the rebellion of 1798. While the leaders of the United Irishmen were organizing a revolution, which, owing to the wisdom and vigour of the subject of this memoir, and the mercy of God's providence, they were not permitted to effect; they actually promoted an insurrection, not less bloody, though, happily, more brief, than that of 1641. The United Irishmen continued, from their institution, to increase in numbers and improve in discipline; but it was not till 1796, that the directory began to see prospects, from which encouragement could be drawn for any The justice of the sentence court was considered as irreg service of the crown, nor was The court of King's Beach w peared to be an infringement o that the case was anomalous, sus required to be met by saken prisoner in battle is s law, as could easily be proved its, and a military court the amenable to such a court, not the ranks of an invading ar trial, in the common sense of military cases, in which, by a served, though there is noth justice was not in question; the privileges of the King's prisoner, is merely nonsense be, whether in such a case King's Bench could proper supposing such a plea to b Sorm. But Mr Tone not o pleaded guilty: there was, ceeding in the King's Ber tory. It did not proceed justice-in strict justice M was taken-but was simpl combined, we most fully b The policy of governm It was not actuated by any not a time-while the yet which Mr Tone and his a through town and country seditious and inflammator men unbanged and untran guinary rebellion. It w stances, that the protecti required, follow the crim if necessary to the sanct immediate or decided course of proceeding. Until then, it was not thought safe to disclose their actual intentions to the lower ranks of the union, who were sufficiently kept in the necessary state of irritation, by strong representations of their grievances, and by vague promises of relief. But at last the hope of effectual aid by means of a French invasion, gave the desired occasion for more open and more active steps. Of the negotiations consequently set on foot with the French Directory, we have given some account in the previous memoirs. The understanding, that there was to be an immediate rising, was now universally propagated among the peasantry; and the project of separation from England spread, in conjunction with every other political doctrine by means of which they had been hitherto agitated. These may be generally enumerated: They were to be relieved from hearth-money, tithes, cess, and their rents were to be lowered. A general hurry of preparation arose, and the first object was to obtain arms. In the county of Louth considerable bodies of men began to assemble in the night: the example spread into Meath, Cavan, and Monaghan. They began with plundering private houses of arms, and ended by the plunder of everything. In all their movements, there were evident indications of the agency of persons of a higher order. Large sums of money were collected from the peasantry, by all the usual and well-known expedients. In the north of Ireland all these proceedings had been long prepared, and were in a more advanced state. In that quarter, the animosity of the people had been worked by opposition to a higher state of excitement-for such is the natural effect of opposition; the immediate presence of an opposite party of men, animated by a strong spirit of loyalty, and determined on protecting themselves and their homes from robbery and destruction, awakened a fearful conflict of strong passions and fierce exasperations on either side. A religious turn was communicated to resentment, fierce enough already. As the insurgents, being of the lower rank, were mostly of the church of Rome, and the loyalists mainly of the church of England, it is quite easy to see the progress by which this paramount and general distinction would quickly absorb all other considerations. This happened more especially among the united men; and thus the rebellion received its most fearful aggravation-the character of a religious war;-most fatal-because, to the extreme ignorance of the peasant, it is easily made the justification of every crime. The French uniform was adopted among the upper ranks of the union. In Dublin a regiment was organized, and called the First National Battalion. Their uniform was green, turned up with white; white waistcoat, and striped trowsers, and gilt buttons with the impression of a harp, surmounted with a cap of liberty upon a pike. Generally, great quantities of arms, ammunition, and several pieces of ordnance, were in their possession. In the month of April, 1797, an assembly of their committees was surprised in Belfast, and their papers seized, by colonel Barber. These papers contained the fullest disclosures of their forces, arms, and means. They stated a total of 72,206 men. In one of them it was declared that "our friends are soon expected in Bantry." This |