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the most enlightened dissenters could scarcely operate. These prejudices, which chiefly prevailing in the county of Armagh, extended, less or more, into the adjoining districts of the counties of Down and Tyrone, began to break out into something like open hostility, in the year 1791. About that period, several associations among the lower orders of the protestants, were formed under the appellation of peep-o'-day-boys, whose object was to scour the catholic districts about the break of day, and strip the inhabitants of fire-arms, alledging that they were warranted in so doing by the popery laws, which had indeed for a long period forbidden to the members of that communion, the use of arms, even for self-defence,

The catholics, thus exposed and attacked, entered into a 7 counter association called defenders, which derived its name from the necessity of their situation, and its excuse from the diffi culty, or as they stated, the impossibility of obtaining justice against the aggressors. This association, at first local and confined, as much as mutual hatred would allow, to actual selfdefence, began in 1792 to spread through other parts of the kingdom, and not a little to connect itself with more general politics. To this it is said to have been impelled by a harsh, unfounded persecution, which some leading friends of government did not think it consistent with their characters to carry on in the county of Louth, and which seems to have prepared the way for subsequent disturbances elsewhere,

In proportion as this association extended itself into districts, where no protestants of inferior rank in life were to be found, and therefore no outrages like those committed by the peep-o'-dayboys to be apprehended, it gradually lost its characteristic of being a religious feud, and became in fact an association of the lowest order, particularly for procuring a redress of the grievances of the very lowest orders. Even in the counties where it originated, it ceased to be actuated by religious animosity

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mosity before the end of 1792, in consequence of the exertions of the early United Irishmen (whose chief endeavours were al ways directed to reconcile the protestants and catholics,) togegether with the influence of some liberal-minded men of both persuasions, and still more from the publications peculiarly adapted to that purpose, which were incessantly circulated through the medium of the Northern Star: for by these means the hatred of sects was lulled, until a subsequent period, when it will appear to have been aroused by fresh aggressions.

The defenders, after their association had changed its type, were bound together by oaths, obviously drawn up by illiterate men, different in different places, but all promising secrecy, and specifying whatever grievance was, in each place, most felt and best understood. Tythes therefore were, in all of them, very prominent. The views of these men were in general far from distinct; although they had a national notion that "something ought to be done for Ireland:" but they were all perfectly convinced that whatever was to be done for themselves or their country could only be accomplished by force of arms. They therefore formed themselves, as far as their knowledge would permit, upon a military system, and in order to procure arms, used to assemble by night, to take them from the houses of those who they conceived would be eventually their enemies.

They seem to have been entirely without any connexion in the upper, or even middling ranks of life, except what has transpir ed relative to Mr. Napper Tandy, Observing the commotions. that were taking place in the county of Louth and its vicinity, and guessing that they were not without some motive and object, he was desirous of penetrating into the secret. He contrived to communicate this wish to some of the defenders; and as his character was long known to them, they agreed to inform him if he would bind himself to secrecy. To this he consented, and met a party of them at Castlebellingham, where the oath of secrecy

was

was administered. This fact having been discovered by an informer, bills of indictment for felony were found against him with great privacy by the grand jury of the county of Louth, where it was hoped he would be easily entrapped, as he was on his way from Dublin, to stand his trial there for having published a libel. Information however of his new danger was given him before he reached Dundalk; he therefore absconded, and shortly after left the kingdom.

These disturbances also attracted the attention of the house of lords early in 1793, and a secret committee was appointed to enquire into their causes, to endeavour to discover their promoters, and to prevent their extension. This committee consisted very much of peers who were avowed enemies to the catholic bill, and had during the preceding summer committed themselves against the meeting of what they emphatically called "the Popish congress."

The secret committee in the course of its proceedings, proposed questions, to which it required answers on oath, that might eventually have criminated the persons under examination. As a knowledge of this fact had been obtained by the United Irishmen of Dublin, some of whom had been thus interrogated, they alledged, that the researches of the committee were not confined to the professed purpose of its institution, but directed principally to the discovery of evidence, in support of prosecutions, previously commenced, and utterly unconnected with the cause of the tumults it was appointed to investigate. They therefore published a series of observations, calculated to shew that the committee had no such right. They distinguished the legisla tive from the judicial capacity of the house of lords; denied its right to administer an oath in its legislative capacity; asserted that as a court it was bound by those rules of justice which were obligatory on all other courts, both as to the limits of jurisdiction, and the mode of conducting enquiry; and farther in

sisted

sisted, that these rules deprived it of all right to administer an oath, or exact an answer, in similar cases, or to delegate its judicial authority to a committee.

For this publication, the chairman and secretary of the society, the honourable Simon Butler and Mr. Oliver Bond, with whose names it was signed, were brought before the house itself on the first of March. They both avowed the publication, and were in consequence sentenced by that assembly to six months imprisonment, and a fine was imposed on each of £500. The society was not however deterred from espousing their cause. They were sumptuously entertained, as if in defiance of parliament, during the whole of that time, and their fines paid by the voluntary subscriptions of the United Irishmen.

Well calculated, as was the sentence passed on these gentlemen, to prevent others from disputing the authority of the committee, yet it did not entirely succeed. Doctor Reynolds, a physician from the north, having been summoned before their lordships, professed his conviction of the truth of the observations published by the United Irishmen, and refused to be examined on oath. He was therefore committed, and detained a prisoner for near five months, till the expiration of the session during all which time he experienced the same attentions as were shewn to Butler and Bond.

While the report of the secret committee was preparing, lively alarms were excited, and rumours very current through the metropolis, that it would implicate many leading members of the catholic convention, even to capital punishment-cover the whole of that body with suspicion and odium; and hazard if not defeat their bill, which was still only in progress. On the day when the report was expected, it was not made; a noble lord however sent a confidential and mutual friend to Mr. Sweetman, the secretary of the sub-committee, to inform him, that

should

should it appear his life would be exceedingly endangered, and the bill itself run a great risk; but that if he would sign any kind of paper in the form and wording most agreeable to his own feelings, acknowledging his indiscretion, and expressing his regret, at having connected himself with the defenders, his lordship was authorised to say, the report should never see the light, and all difficulties respecting the pending law should be removed. This, Mr. Sweetman peremptorily refused, but offered, in consequence of the subsequent conversation, to call together the sub-committee, that it might receive any proposal his lordship should think fit to make to them. Accordingly in the course of an hour they were collected in one room, while his lordship occupied that adjoining. He then offered to them by means of his friend, the same benefits if they would disavow their secretary. This they also refused: The report appeared the next day.

Its object was to connect the defenders with all that was obnoxious to the administration; and principally to implicate the general committee, or at least the sub-committee of the catholics. This it attempted to do, by inference, from the secresy and regularity of the defender system, which it said seemed as if directed by men of superior rank; from the collecting of money to a considerable amount by the voluntary subscription of catholics, in consequence of a circular letter from the sub-committee, expressing the necessity of raising a fund for defraying the heavy and growing expences incurred by the general committee, in conducting the affairs of their constituents; and lastly, from some letters written by Mr. Sweetman to a gentleman at Dundalk, in which the report states, that the secretary, in the name of the sub-committee, directed enquiries to be made, touching the offences of which the defenders then in confinement were accused. One of these letters is given, dated 9th of August, 1792, which mentions, that the brother of a person whom the secret committee states to have been committed as a

defender,

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