el that the members of the union should furnish thmselves, where their circumstances allowed it, with fire-arms,-where not, with pikes. To form a pecuniary fund for the various expences of this great revolutionary machine, monthly subscriptions, according to the zeal and ability of the subscribers, were collected in the several Societies, and treasurers appointed by suffrage for their collection and disbursement.*

From this fund were supplied the demands of the emissaries commissioned to extend the union. Of these, considerable numbers were dispatched into the southern and western counties, in the beginning and course of 1797, where, though many had been sworn into the union, little progress for the effectual promotion of the system had been made before the Autumn of 1796; and so little was made for some time after, that in May, 1797, at the eve of an intended insurrection, the strength of the association lay, exclusively of Ulster, chiefly in the metropolis and the neighbouring

* Appendix to the report, &c. No. 31. Report of the secret committee of the House of Lords, 8vo. 1798, p. 6-9. See also the trials of Henry and John Sheares, John Mac Cann, Oliver Bond, and William Michael Byrne.

counties of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, and King's county. This body of political missionaries, received instructions to work on the passions, the prejudices, and feelings of those to whom they should address themselves.

The lower classes were informed, that, by a revolution, which, in the establishment of a republican system of government, would give universal suffrage and equal rights, their condition would be exalted and rendered far more comfortable; that their industry was now too fatally checked by discontents, and stifled by a load of oppressions; that all improvements were thwarted by the covetousness of landlords, and the exactions of the clergy and that their present government, did not sufficiently counteract these checks, but were satisfied with sacrificing the good of the nation to their own private interests.

Such certainly is the deplorable condition in which Ireland stands with respect to agriculture. The first means by which every civilized nation exerts the industry of its inhabitants, and provides for their wants, is thus Beglected. That duty of providing food and

cloathing, with the other ordinary conveniences of life, which is known that every government owes to its subjects, is left undischarged. Instead of fulfilling the higher duties of advancing the nation to a state of true felicity,' by education, virtue, and real piety, it stops short in the very threshold, by leaving them unprovided with the necessaries of life.

As from the exorbitant rents at which the lands of Ireland are in general set, on account of the great monopolies of land, entails, settlements, and bad customs, the payment of tithes, which are so unfortunately modified as to rest their weight almost exclusively on tillage, appears to the cottager, (exhausted by the demands of his landlord, and the services and douceurs, exacted by his landlord's agent,) an almost intolerable grievance; the agitators of revolution spoke most forcibly to the feelings of the peasantry on that subject, particularly in the counties of the South, where the discontent, on this account, is greatest, representing the establishment of a commonwealth to include, by necessary consequence, the total abolition of this hated species of rent.

A rent, exacted to support accustomed luxury in the sister country, by wresting to the last farthing, from the hard labour of a wretched and dependent tenantry, whose calamitous appearance, (enough to send horror to the soul of humanity,) is unnoticed in the general view of misery and distress which Ireland exhibits as a singular and melancholy spectacle to the world. Such are the men who detest the simple kind that cultivates their lands, and who calumniate, to other countries, the subdued and crawling peasant of their own, whose ears are to be gratified, whose hearts are cheerfully delighted, by a defamatory, rancorous and indiscriminate reviling of their countrymen ; calumnies, that if directed against their fellow-natives, would excite horror and indignation in the breasts of the gentry of any other country in Europe or perhaps on the globe.

It has been too common a foible with some of this class of gentry to aim at equal splendor and expence with their superiors in fortune. Such men, before being aware of their situation, have incautiously expended largely above their incomes. A system of such careless dissipation, and extravagant squandering,

must destroy the most ample resources; and men, long in the habit of indulging those propensities, and finding their means abridged, and themselves deeply involved, have still an aching reluctance to give up any share of their ideal consequence. Instead therefore of resorting to any rational plan of economy, they endeavour to get within the circle of some lord or great man, supposed to be possessed of extensive patronage. They court his smiles, and if their efforts are crowned with any degree of success, they instantly conclude, that all their misapplied expenditure must be amply reimbursed by this very often empty speculation. They count upon places and employments, of great emolument, for themselves and their children ; and thus they abandon all idea of the certain pursuits of industry, trade and honourable profession: they launch into the lottery of patronage, and yield up their spirit of independence, and all their actions, (out of the circle of their families) to the utter controul and directing will of their adopted patron. is presumed, that any person acquainted with the state of Ireland, must perceive that this. system has unfortunately been but too largely pursued, and too much acted upon; and it is

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