AN

2394

ADDRESS TO THE NATION.

RELAND has of late years made rapid ad

IRE

vances in Foreign Trade, Internal Wealth, and in Political and Religious Liberty: the Commerce of Great Britain has been laid open to her Merchants; many oppressive Laws against the Members of the Roman Church have been repealed; the Parliaments have been rendered Octennial; and she has obtained to be numbered among the Independent Nations of Europe.

The numerous acquisitions which form the total of these changes, were made in a few years, and with a succession which might be called rapid; yet the period was long enough to produce a habit of change upon the spirit of People whose temperament exceeds the common degree of ardour. In times of change, men of ability in the lower and middle ranks

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of Society rise in importance; and when the purposes for which they are associated in plans of action, by the upper class, are obtained, it is not easy to induce them at once to lay it down.

The length of the struggle of Ireland to attain, her present state has formed a vast and a disciplined body of persons of this description: and many of the middle aged men of Ireland have been trained, and in this school of perpetual plan and mutation, from their earliest years, to the most perfect period of human life; and are consummate masters of the art of employing every thing which can be expected from perfect system, and long practised dexterity, to bad, as well as good purposes. In the first contest likewise, a considerable ferment of Republicanism was introduced into the minds of no small number of them: in a Republic, or a Monarchy nearly approaching to it, such men stand the best chance of being the Leaders. Thus, in the midst of its increasing prosperity, the fire was generated in the lower mineral strata of the country, whose progress has endangered, and whose explosion may cover it entirely over with ruin and desolation.

Such

(3)

Such was the external face of prosperity, and the concealed danger of Ireland, when that danger became greatly augmented by the successive French Revolutions, which, at the instant the Conspiracy was planned (some account of which is here to be given) received from its Architect the title of the "Morning Star of Liberty to Ireland(1)."

Without the excitement derived from this sad series of tragical events, the fire might have burned out for want of further materials to support it, and this dangerous generation of men passed away, without much hazard of involving themselves and their country in destruction, however unwilling they might have been to sacrifice the importance they could only continue to enjoy in the continuance of the agitated state of Society. But the example of France at that very period, pointed out to them the means of converting the importance they still retained, into permanent power; and making both, the means of the acquisition of wealth. The effect of these Revolutions upon the minds of the lower orders of all the States

(1) Report of Committee of Commons, p. 4.

in Europe, opened to them new facilities for this atrocious attempt. For the comparative privations(1) to which the nature of Society has doomed this class fills them with envy against the opulent and this keeps the principle of levelling constantly alive among them, and ready to burst forth into action, with every opportunity of success at home, or example of it from abroad.

Great Britain, during the same period, had been much agitated with new plans of Government, and Combinations, and Factions: the effects of the transactions in France, began ul

(1) In a Society where there are many rich men, the appearance of the difference of their state and that of the poor, will be great; but the industrious and prudent poor man

will be able to command more of the necessaries and conveniencies of life, than in a state where there is more equality of wealth; because there will be more demand for his work, and he will get a better price for it. There are countries, where there is much more equality in the circumstances of different ranks of people, than in Great Britain; and in those countries there are Princes and Nobility; yet it is agreed by those who have visited some of these regions where there is so much equality, that an industrious and sober poor man in England, sleeps in a better house, wears better clothes, and is better supplied with food, than even a Prince there.

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