vidious title of congrefs; invidious undoubtedly, fince under the conduct of an affembly fo denominated, the British colonies of North America had recently, by a fuccessful war against the power of Britain, established an independent republic in the western hemisphere.

The failure of this measure in November, the fame year, when the petition of congrefs was contemptuously rejected by parliament, was attributed to the weakness of national difunion, the triple partition of the people divided by the religious antipathies of proteftants, proteftant diffenters, and Roman catholics. If all these difcordant fects could be perfuaded virtually to abandon religious diftinctions in a purfuit of political reform, and cordially to coalefce with fteady determination in their demands, parliament was imagined to be incapable of withholding its confent. As the main ftrength of the nation in refpect to number was conceived to reft in the Romanifts, who might conftitute three-fourths of the whole population, to give these a proportionate weight in the fyftem, and to intereft them warmly in the plan propofed -was an object of primary magnitude with political reformers. For the removal of thofe legal reftrictions and difqualifications by which the Romanifts were deprived of what was accounted their due fhare of political power, vigorous efforts were made, and various engines put in motion.

Among the modes of agency adopted in thofe bufy times by the favourers of innovation, was the inftitution of political clubs, which were formed

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under feveral titles in the metropolis and elfewhere. The principal of thefe, denominated the whig club, or the affociation of the friends of the conftitution, liberty, and peace, was honoured by the fanction of fome very highly refpectable characters. as its members, whofe object was doubtlefs merely to obtain the reformation of abufes in the political fyftem, and particularly to promote the scheme of a more equal reprefentation of the people in parliament. A few of its members, however, seem to have entertained projects of a deeper kind-projects of revolution, the total fubverfion of the exifting government, and the erection of a democratically conftituted commonwealth in its place.Thefe advocates of revolution formed a connexion with other clubs of congenial principles, particularly that of the whigs of the capital, whose object was evidently a radical alteration in the political fyftem. The determined agitators of this and other focieties, which appeared not to promife a speedy fuccefs to their wishes, framed at length a more general and deeply planned affociation, which outlived all the reft, and far furpaffed them in the vigour and conduct of its affaults on the exifting conftitution of the ftate. This was the famous combination of United Irishmen, whose profound confpiracy, after a long, obftinate, and doubtful struggle with the government of the kingdom, was forced in the end, by the vigilance and vigor of administration, feebly to explode in partial, irregular, and cafily conquerable infurrections, inftead

of a univerfal and well-organized rebellion, the means proposed by the chiefs to overturn the conftitution.

Originating from Belfaft, where principles of a republican tendency had long been cherished, was inftituted in Dublin, in the month of November, 1791, the fociety of United Irifhmen, with the immediate view of combining into one political phalanx as many as poffible of their countrymen, without any distinction of sect, for the effectuating of a change in the government of Ireland; or, as themselves have declared, "for the purpose of

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forwarding a brotherhood of affection, a communion of rights, and a union of power among "Irishmen of every religious perfuafion, and thereby to obtain a complete reform in the legislature, "founded on the principles of civil, political, and "religious liberty." Catholic emancipation, and parliamentary reform, were the avowed objects of their pursuit. By the former was understood a total abolition of political diftinctions between Romanifts and proteftants: by the latter they profeffed to mean a completely democratic house of commons. In the plan which they offered to the confideration of the public, they proposed that the parliament should be annual; that for the purpose of election, the whole kingdom fhould be divided into three hundred electorates, each formed by a combination of parishes, and all as nearly equal as poffible

* Appendix to the report of the fecret committee of the houfe of commons, No. 2.

poffible in point of population; that no qualification with respect to property fhould be required in the elector nor in the reprefentative; that every male of found understanding of the full age of twenty-one, and refident in the electorate during the laft fix months preceding the election, fhould be capable of fuffrage for a reprefentative; that to be qualified for a feat in the houfe of commons, a man fhould be twenty-five years old, refident within the kingdom, and holding neither place nor penfion under government, and that each reprefentative fhould receive a reasonable flipend for his attendance in parliament.

To attain their object by a military force was attempted fo early as the year 1792, when money was raised by fubfcription to arm and embody a number of men in the metropolis, under the title of national guards, with a uniform diftinguished with green, which was adopted as the national colour, and buttons infcribed with a harp, the armorial enfign of Ireland, divefted of the crown, to denote, as was fuppofed, the intended abolition of monarchy. The ninth of December was appointed as a day of general mufter of thefe guards, probably with the defign to display their force, to inspire confidence into their friends, to difpirit their adverfaries, or perhaps, as was feared by fome, tho' it appears not probable, to seize even then the city, and commence a civil war. Whatever was their immediate object, government wifely deter mined to fupprefs in their commencement all armed affociations not authorifed by the fupreme power

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power of the state. On the eighth of December, the day immediately preceding that of the intended mufter, a proclamation was iffued by the lord lieutenant and council, peremptorily interdicting all feditious affemblies, and commanding the magiftrates to fupprefs them by military force, if admonition should be found not fufficiently efficaciIntimidated by the menacing language of, this proclamation, and the fubfequent martial array of the garrifon ftationed in the capital, the national guards deferred their meeting, and the long propofed mufter never took place. The heads of the fociety, however, met on the fourteenth following, and published a kind of manifefto or counter-proclamation, exhorting the volunteers to refame their arms, for the maintenance, as before, of tranquillity throughout the kingdom, against foreign and internal enemies, and advising the proteftants of Ireland to choose deputies for provincial affemblies, preparatively to a general convention, which they declared neceffary to form a common caufe with that of the Romanists. On account of this manifefto, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, who had acted the part of fecretary at the above affembly, was arrefted in the following month-a gentleman of a very refpectable family and fortune, of a moft amiable character, and the warmest philanthropy. That a zealous philanthropy, without a clear judgment and steady refolution to direct it, is pernicious inftead of useful to fociety, is a painful obfervation. Brought to trial in January, 1794, and found guilty by the jury,