the spirit of the nation. The civil assembly ought to claim the attendance of the military associations, and we have addressed you citizen soldiers, on this subject, from the belief that your body, uniting conviction with zeal, and zeal with activity, may have much influence over our countrymen, your relations and friends. We offer only a general outline to the public, and meaning to address Ireland, we presume not at present to fill up the plan or pre-occupy the mode of its execution. We have thought it our duty to speak: answer us by actions; you have taken time for consideration. Fourteen long years are elapsed since the rise of your associations, and in 1782 did you imagine that in 1792 this nation would still remain unrepresented? How many nations in this interval have gotten the start of Ireland! How many of our country. men have sunk into the grave!—January 25, 1793. The immediate approval and adoption of the principles of this address, by the remnants of the Dublin Volunteer corps; and some symptoms of rejoicing they had manifested, at the retreat of the Duke of Brunswick, and the battle of Jemappe; and the aristocratic rage, then prevalent, against French principles, afforded the favourable opportunity for dispersing them, and introducing in their place, another description of men, newmodelled and armed, under the novel name of yeomanry. The experiment was tried on the Goldsmith's corps. Previous to their hour of assembling, at their usual parade, in St. Michaela-Pole's, Ship-street, on the 27th, a body of foot entered the Castle from the Barrack, two pieces of cannon were prepared in the ordnance-yard, and a company of the Royal Irish Artillery, The Volunteers, as soon as they had mustered, were surrounded by horse and foot; the magistrate entered, and ordered them to lay down their arms. The order was obeyed. Their arms were piled on the parade, thence conveyed to the Castle, and the members dismissed, through the ranks of the military, to their respective homes. This completed the dissolution of the Independent Irish Volunteers, once the pride, the ornament, and the bulwark of Ireland, and the admiration of surrounding nations! The important session of 1793 commenced on the 10th of January, with the following speech from the throne. My Lords and Gentlemen, I have his Majesty's commands to meet you in parliament, and to express his satisfaction in resorting to your councils in the present situation of affairs. "His Majesty feels the utmost concern that various attempts should have been made to excite a spirit of discontent and disturbance, and that appearances should have manifested themselves in any part of this kingdom, of a desigu to effect, by violence, an alteration in the constitution. It is an additional ground of uneasiness to his Majesty, that views of conquest and dominion should have incited France to interfere with the government of other countries, and to adopt measures with regard to his Majesty's allies, the States-General, neither conformable to the law of nations, nor the positive stipulations of existing treaties, especially when both his Majesty and the States-General had observed the strictest neutrality with regard to the affairs of France. Under these circumstances, I have ordered, by his Majesty's commands, an augmentation of the forces upon this establishment. By the advice of the privy-council, measures have been taken to prevent the exportation of coru, provisions, and naval stores, arms and ammunition. The circumstances which rendered these measures necessary, will, I trust, justify any temporary infringement of the laws, and will induce you to give them a parliamentary sanction. It will afford his Majesty the greatest satisfaction, if, by a temperate and firm conduct, the blessings of peace can be continued; but he feels assured of your zealous concurrence in his determination to provide for the security and interests of his dominions, and to fulfil those positive engagements to which he is equally bound by the honour of his crown and the general interests of the empire. Gentlemen of the House of Commons, I have ordered the national accounts to be laid before you, and I have no doubt of your readiness to grant such supplies for the public service, as the honour and security of his Majesty's crown and government, and the exigencies of the times, may require. My Lords and Gentlemen, the agriculture, the manufac tures, and particularly the linen manufacture, the protestant charter-schools, and other public institutions, which have so repeatedly been the objects of your care, will, I doubt not, engage your accustomed regard and liberality. "I am to recommend to you, in his Majesty's name, to adopt such measures as may be most advisable for the maintenance of internal tranquillity; and, for this purpose, to render more effectual the law for establishing a militia in this kingdom. His Majesty has the fullest confidence that you will, on all occasions, show your firm determination to enforce due obedience to the laws, and to maintain the authority of government, in which you may depend upon his Majesty's cordial co-operation and support: and I have it in particular command from his Majesty, to recommend it to you to apply yourselves to the consideration of such measures as may be most likely to strengthen and cement a general union of sentiment among all classes and descriptions of his Majesty's subjects in support of the established constitution; with this view, his Majesty trusts that the situation of his Majesty's Catholic subjects will engage your serious attention, and, in the consideration of this subject, he relies on the wisdom and liberality of his parliament. I am truly sensible of the repeated testimony which I have received of your approbation, and I will endeavour to merit a continuance of your good opinion, by strenuously exerting the power, with which I am entrusted, for the maintenance of our excellent constitution in church and state, as the best security for the liberty of the subject, and the prosperity of Ireland. The sentiments of the earl of Westmeath, on moving the usual address, clearly pourtray the aristocratic feelings, not only of Ireland, but of Europe. In times like these," said be, " when a considerable portion of Europe is desolated and destroyed by the wild speculations and wicked exertions of desperate and designing enthusiasts, who, not satisfied with making their own country the theatre of anarchy, murder, famine, and desolation, are endeavouring to spread the flagitious effects of their abominable and impracticable doctrines to other countries; who, not content with deluging their own land with the blood of their fellow-citizens, are straining every nerve to destroy the peace, to disturb the harmony of surrounding nations, and to carry the devastation of fire and sword, throughout all the kingdoms of the earth; who regardless of all laws divine and human, have with an impious and sacrilegious hand, torn the crown from off the head of the mildest monarch that ever swayed the French sceptre; and as if the murder of their Sovereign and his family were insufficient to allay their inordinate thirst for Royal blood, have publiclybut I hope vainly sworn-the annihilation of all Kings. In times like these, my lords, I say, it is peculiarly incumbent upon all who prefer loyalty to rebellion, religion to atheism, industry to idleness, and real liberty to the most abject slavery that ever vilified or disgraced mankind, to unite in the most ardent effusions of loyalty to his majesty, and the most strenuous exertions in defence of the constitution. The insidious and desperate attempts of busy incendiaries have not been left untried in Ireland; but, I trust, my lords, that the manly and decided conduct of our present chief governor, for whose continuance in the government we cannot be too thankful to his majesty, seconded by the united efforts of all who love and venerate the constitution, will teach those factious and seditious meddlers, that it is in vain they attempt to tamper with the loyalty, or shake the fidelity of the Irish nation; and if yet there should exist within the land any man or set of men, so desperate as to wish to subvert the constitution under which they live, that the law has the power to reach them and to devote them to that punishment which such crimes so well deserve. It is needless for me to expatiate on the peculiar felicity which we all enjoy in being governed by a prince whose objects are the prosperity and happiness of all his people; his public and private virtues are too strongly written in our hearts to make a repetition of them necessary, but if any thing could increase our veneration for him, or add to the many proofs we have experienced of his parental care of his people, it would be the gracious recommendation which he has given to his parliament, in the speech from the throne, to strengthen and cement the union of all classes and descriptions of our fellowsubjects, and to consider the wishes of our Roman Catholic brethren with wisdom and liberality. I trust, my lords, that the loyalty and moderation of that body will prove them well worthy his majesty's goodness and the liberality of parlia VOL. IV. 3 c |