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You have not altered my notions of the public good, but you have fhewn me that in the mind of a man, who has confidered the fubject under different impreffions, my ideas are exposed to objections of confiderable fpeciousness. Either I have explored the ftate of Ireland with too anxi ous research, and fuffered my mind to dwell too minutely on her distractions; or your examination has not been fufficiently clofe, or your modes of redress fufficiently radical. My aim was to catch the general principles by which people are usually moved, and upon these only did I venture to calculate, when I confidered by what impulfe the conduct of great bodies was like to be directed. You appear to me to expect, that the ingenuous feelings which you bring into private life, and which you meet there, may be converted into rules of general influence and practice* Let, you fay, the Government do this, and the Parliament that; and let the Catholics purfue this conduct, and the Proteftants this other; and then, all

It has been repeatedly alledged that the advantages expected from an Union are theoretical. Now I appeal to any man of plain understanding, which fuppofition is more theoretical that a conftitution which has uniformly generated faction and difcontent, and nothing elfe, will henceforward operate more benignly; or that, corrected by an Union, its vices will be foftened, and fuch a protective fyftem be established, as that, under which Great-Britain flourifhes?

To this you will oppofe the relative profperity of the country for fome years back. I propofe elsewhere, to prove that the improvements arofe from the repeal of the Popery Laws, which was forced upon Parliament, and from other circumstances, which might as well have arifen under a general, as a local legiflature; but which under the former would probably have fooner occurred and extended more widely. Every fyllable advanced against the measure of an Union is the contraft of theory to practice, of what might be against what is.

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all things will proceed admirably. "How rich fhould I be," faid poor Henry in the novel, the States-General would pay me." Can it efcape your understanding, that the entire difficulty confifts in drawing thefe feveral bodies to a sense of what is mutually right, and of the conduct they ought to purfue towards one another? * A proneness to faction is the distemper of the Irish nation. What fcheme of relief do you offer to remove thefe fatiguing folicitudes that agitate the public mind? To direct the popular attention to different objects? Not at all. Still preferving cautiously the matter and motives of difunion, you invoke the virtues of patience and forbearance to affuage its effects. To be fure thefe qualities are ineftimable, if they were to be attained; but they are the very contraft, the direct antipodes of the fpirit of party under which we labour; and to the exiflence of the one, it is effential, that it excludes the others; fo that the remedy which you and several others infift on, prefuppofes the extinction of the vice it is to be applied to. We fhould not ftand in need of the aid of me dicine, if men were uniformly temperate; nor of the guidance of the ftatesman, if they were wife; nor of the difcipline of criminal juftice, if they were virtuous. To expect that an high ft ate ofperfe&tion fhall prevail generally in a large fociety, or fhall operate with any conftancy of influence,

is

It is obfervable, that in Mr. Fofter's fpeech, this head is utterly omitted. One might fuppofe that gentleman to have gone to reft when the Commercial Propofitions were difpofed of in 1785, and to have awakened from his dream on the 11th of April, 1799-Surely no perfon could think of changing the conditions of government, if in the actual state of it the management of public affairs were not attended with great difficulties and perplexity; and furely any man might deliver an unanfwerable fpeeeh, if you give him leave to put out of the argument, whatever might furnish a reply

to it.

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To

is the rhapfody of a poetic imagination. take as the bafis of a scheme of policy, a difpofition to propriety of conduct, in which multitudes muft concur, is refting the welfare of mankind on the chance of a miracle. General rules fhould be precautions againft indifcretion, not provifions which require the aid of prudence to give them effect. Every day our parties approach nearer to an equality of confideration and influ fluence; and if an affembly be kept up, with fcarcely any other function, befides marshalling the pretenfions of these parties, and giving audience to their controverfies, no perfon of ordinary forecaft will enfure us fix months of harmony under any circumstances whatever. But of all other projects

I have feen not a little falfe wit and reafoning difplayed against a very fenfible obfervation-that a defcription of our citizens, whofe pretenfions to confequence in the ftate are increased by feeling themfelves a majority of the people of Ireland, would be more eafily iuduced to acquiefce in efta Blishments derived under an imperial government, of which they would be a minority. I will beg to enforce the remark by this example:

In the first years of the French revolution, all the interefts of the country were warmly agitated. There were feveral Proteftants in the Affembly, yet no one ever heard of parties of Catholic and Proteftant. If local legflatures had been erected in the feveral provinces, fuppofe in Languedoc, where the Proteftants are numerous and powerful, it would not be poffible, to prevent fuch parties from being formed and taking root, and becoming the principal occupation of the Affembly. But a National Affembly was remotefrom thefe objects of contention; and amidst the general and important concerns that occupied its cares, if any member propofed to introduce the topic, he would not be attended to.

Open governments, thofe I mean in which political affairs are difcuffed without referve, are of themselves prone to faction-where there is a difference of religion, it tends in proportion, as the parties are nearly balanced, to increafe this propenfity. That is a very urgent reason to ren der Ireland as little as poffible the fcene of political activity. The

projects for appeafing civil ftrife, this fcheme you offer of mutual kindness and conciliation, founded on a fenfe of obligations conferred, and of favours to be expected, is the moft unpromifing. It requires a co-operation fo univerfal, as cannot poffibly be procured; it renders the difcerning and the wife on either fide, refponfible for the worthless and the defperate; and whilft thofe are labouring to establish a good understanding, these are free (and they will never want inftigation) to fquander the entire ftock of merits, in a fingle fally of intemperance; in the vast collections of men who are the fubjects of this arrangement, there can be no fubordination. I have dwelt fomewhat longer on this head, as fo many oppo

nents

The parties of Church-eftablished and Diffident distracted Poland, until at length, the neighbouring powers profited of the occafion to interpofe; and, after a dreadful havoc of human happiness, they completely overturned that Republic. The parties of Church-Eftablished and Arminian in Holland, produced many bitter contentions and tumults, and at length proved fatal to that government. Religious difference exifts without animofity in fome governments, but thefe are close constitutions.

Scotland was before the Union in a fate of the highest irritation, political added to religious; the difference between Epifcopacy and the Conventiclers, like Proteftant and Catholic with us, was artfully managed and fomented. A very ferious tumult took place about the time of the Union, on account of opening a church of England chapel in Edinburgh. When the political motive was withdrawn, religious rancour fubfided totally. Every fect of chriftians, worthips at prefent in the principal towns of Scotlaud without incommoding each other. There is at this moment in the fervice a very fine regiment, compofed, officers and privates, of Scotch Catholics. very lately a fe&t was preferved in Scotland, with all the oftenaation of a regular hierarchy, who only diffented from the Church of England, in denying his Majefty's title to the Crown. By neglect they mouldered away, until the death of the late Pretender furnished a convenient occafion for their fubmiffion: and fo little was their former obftinacy vifited upon them, that the bounty, alloted by Queen Anne to the Scotch Epifcopalians, has been revived in their favour, and they now enjoy it.

Until

nents of the Union have difcourfed in the fame strain; although it may appear fuperfluous to enter into the merits of the plan, whilft the party that preponderates in the ftate, neither by its political acts, nor the tenor of its publications, difcloses any inclination to conciliate.

Upon one fact all are agreed, that there is fome. what materially aftray either in the temper, or in the politics of our country. Some conclude

haftily and fummarily against the people, hoping that the advantage of fituation may be fuffici ent to exempt them from the impeachment against their fpecies. Hiftorical experience teaches another leffon, that vice, widely diffused, is the unerring fymptom of a fociety defectively organized, or regulated injudiciously. Are the Irish

gentry overbearing and inattentive to their infe riors? Are the commonality restlefs and untrac table? Are their tumults ferocious? Is their state of peace, a dull, indolent, infipid langor? Every charge that can be brought against the people, recoils upon the inftitutions that formed their character. Three modern infurrections of the common people-that of Poland in 1768, of France from 1789 to 1792, and this of Ireland in 1798, will be traced in hiftory by a very uniform courfe of atrocities. In thefe countries that class of men were greatly depreffed by their fu periors; in Flanders and in America they were permitted to participate liberally in the natural and political advantages of the country; and the rifings which took place there, nearly within the fame period, did not differ from any other regular hoftility. I accufe the habits and condition of my countrymen,' as well of those who are fpoiled by the exercife of power, as of thofe on whom it bears very heavily. Their natural difpofitions differ not from

thofe