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OF THE

Rebellion in Ireland,

IN THE YEAR 1798, &c.

CONTAINING AN IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEED-
INGS OF THE IRISH REVOLUTIONISTS, FROM THE
YEAR 1782 TILL THE SUPPRESSION

OF THE REBELLION.

WITH AN

APPENDIX

TO ILLUSTRATE SOME FACTS.

BY THE REV. JAMES GORDON,

RECTOR OF KILLEGNY, IN THE DIOCESE OF FERNS, AND OF CANNAWAY, IN
THE DIOCESE OF CORK.

AUTHOR OF TERRAQUEA, OR A NEW SYSTEM OF GEOGRAPHY
AND MODERN HISTORY;

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AN INHABITANT OF THE
COUNTY OF WEXFORD.

Truths would you teach, and save a sinking land,

All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

POPE.

Dublin:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM PORTER,

69, Grafton-freet.

1801.

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HISTORY

OF THE

IRISH REBELLION.

FROM

ROM the year 1782, when, by the fpirited ex ertions of the volunteer affociations of Ireland, the legislature of this kingdom was rendered le gally independent of that of Britain, and the odious restrictions, which had been moft unwifely imposed on its trade and manufactures by the British government, were in a confiderable degree removed, many among the Irish extended their views to a wider fphere of political freedom. A provincial affembly, firft convened at Dungannon, in Ulfter, on the fifteenth of February, 1782, confifting of the reprefentatives of a hundred and forty-three volunteer corps, with defign, among other objects, to plan and petition for a parliamen tary reform, or a more equal reprefentation of the commons in parliament, fwelled in 1783 into a national affembly, compofed of delegates from the feveral counties, and held in Dublin under the invidious

B

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 fuccefsful war against the power of Britain, eftablished 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 respect 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 system, 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 Romanists were deprived of what was accounted their due share of political power, vigorous efforts were made, and various engines put in motion.

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

under

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 some very highly respectable characters as its members, whofe object was doubtless merely to obtain the reformation of abuses 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 success to their wishes, framed at length a more general and deeply planned affociation, which outlived all the reft, and far furpafled them in the vigour and conduct of its affaults on the exifting conftitution of the ftate. This was the famous combination of United Irishmen, whofe profound confpiracy, after a long, obftinate, and doubtful ftruggle with the government of the kingdom, was forced in the end, by the vigilance and vigor of adminiftration, feebly to explode in partial, irregular, and eafily conquerable infurrections, instead

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