sition in almost every case melted itself down into the common mass of ministerial advocates. The address to his Majesty was unanimously voted without amendment, Mr. Grattan having only broken silence to state his determination to preserve the connexion with Great Britain, and to assist her in the war, even if it were more unsuccessful. He afterwards in the course of the session, introduced a motion relative to an equalization of duties between the two countries, but Mr. Secretary Douglas having moved the question of adjournment, he declined pressing his own motion, lest it should seem to imply a distraction of sentiment in the house. The alien and gunpowder bills were continued likewise without resistance or comment, and that precedent was afterwards constantly followed.

The only instance where opposition seemed to assume any thing of its former tone, was, in the debate upon Mr. Ponsonby's reform bill, on the 4th of March; but even then that party was particularly careful to mark its abhorrence of democracy, of French principles, and universal suffrage. Sir Lawrence Parsons, indeed, very strikingly pointed out what he called the imposture and mockery of the existing representation. "When *the Americans were deliberating," said he, "on their new

constitution, if any one had got up among them, and had "proposed such an institution as our present borough represen"tation, and had said, there is a certain ruin in Virginia, let it "send two representatives, to be named by any twelve persons "Mr. Washington shall appoint; and there is a certain tree in

Pennsylvania; let it send two representatives, to be named by 86 any twelve persons Mr. Franklin shall appoint; and so on"would not the man have been deemed mad who made such a proposition. An institution, then, which any rational set of earth would deem a man mad for having proposed, 66 can it be sound sense in you to retain ?"?

men upon

Mr. Grattan too, among other arguments in support of the plan before the house, asserted that ninety, or, as he believed,

about

commons.

about forty individuals, returned a vast majority in the house of "Of property," said he, " it will be found that "those who return that majority (it is I believe two thirds) "have not an annual income of three hundred thousand pounds, "while they give and grant above three millions-that is, the "taxes they give are ten times, and the property they tax ❝is infinitely greater than the property they represent." But his speech was most particularly remarkable for a series of epigrammatic invectives against the United Irishmen of Dublin, their plan of reform, and the principle of universal suffrage.

To this display of what they stiled "the highest genius with the lowest ribaldry," they replied in an answer full of argument, and which cannot be refused at least the merit of temper and moderation; but in doing so they made their last public effort. Mr. Hamilton Rowan had been found guilty on the preceding 29th of January, of publishing a seditious libel, by distributing the address of that society to the volunteers of Ireland, and sentenced to two years imprisonment, and a fine of five hundred pounds. Government then felt itself emboldened, after the rejection of Mr. Ponsonby's bill, by a majority of one hundred and forty-two to forty-four, to disperse the only body under its immediate observation, that presumed to brave its power, and persevered in pursuing reform. This Mr. Sheriff Giffard accomplished by its order, and without resistance, in consequence of the general apparent apathy, and of a conviction on the minds of the members themselves, that there now remained no hope of acquiring the object for which they sought, by similar meetings, or by public discussions.

This society from its first formation, had been a mark for the abuse of government and its adherents. To the perseverance and exertions however of the United Irishmen of Dublin, may be attributed much of the change which took place in the public mind in favour of the catholic claims. Just before the existence

of

of their society, the followers of that religion would not be permitted in an address of loyalty to the viceroy, to express a hope of relief: and not a member of parliament could be found even to present a petition to the legislature, praying that their case might be taken into consideration: yet the institution had not been eighteen months established, when in spite of denunciations of war from the protestant ascendency, and with only the ungracious and constrained assent of the Irish government, the popery laws, the disgrace and scourge of a century, were reduced to a few comparatively insignificant restraints.-A reform in parliament seemed at one time too on the point of being conceded to that spirit, which the same society had been very instrumental in exciting, and was always among the foremost to evince. Whether that spirit be characterised as patriotism and firmness, or as faction or sedition, if all the friends of reform had concurred in displaying as much of it as was shewn by the United Irishmen, and had marched pari passu with them, there can be no reasonable doubt but that their efforts would have been crowned with complete success. Thus might Ireland, under the vigilant protection and ameliorating cares of a free, regenerated legislature, have emerged from her debasement, poverty and wretchedness; have rapidly risen to importance and opulence, to prosperity and happiness; have escaped her subsequent calamities, her scenes of persecution, desolation, outrage and horror; have still continued a distinct and independent, as she would have been an admired and respected nation.

The present inaction on the part of the people, does not, however, seem to have deluded parliament into an opinion that coercion had produced conviction in the lower orders, or that the gun-powder and convention bills, with all their consequences, had removed a sense of grievance from the Irish mind. Colonel Blaquiere (as if he had the wildness to suppose that such a motion could be entertained in the assembly he addressed) proposed every member should send for each of his tenants, who paid

that

under forty pounds a year, and refund him three shillings in the pound of his last September's rent. There was not a man among them, he said, who in case of commotion could find fifty followers on his estate, perfectly attached to the constitution. 'He went on, and said the French were meditating something wicked; he inclined to believe it was Ireland they meant to visit-half the nation was attached to them he would be right if he said more than half. This was reprehended with such an irritation on the part of the house, as sometimes betrays itself in those who are unexpectedly offended by the statement of an undeniable and unwelcome truth. Sir Lawrence Parsons urged administration to take measures for putting the country into a proper state of defence, by raising and officering independent companies. His importunity on this subject was almost deemed troublesome; but in pressing it on ministers, he told them he thought they were sleeping on a volcano.

And deep and terrible indeed was the volcano, which secret discontent was forming, and gradually extending throughout the land. The press had been overawed and subdued: numberless prosecutions had been commenced against almost every po pular publication; but particularly against the Northern Star. The expectations of the reformers had been blasted, their plans had been defeated, and decisive means had been taken by government to prevent their being resumed. It became therefore necessary to wait for new events, from which might be formed new plans. Nor did such events seem distant; for now the French armies were again emblazoning their cause with success, and hiding, in the splendor of their victories, the atrocities of their government. This raised a returning hope, that the crimes and calamities of the moment might pass away from that republic, and the permanent consequences of its revolution still shed a happy influence on Ireland. The utterance of opinions faTourable to reform and democracy, was prevented in the upper and middling ranks, by the coercion they experienced, and by

the

the outcries that were raised against France, against her principles, and from them against liberty itself. But those restraints and reflections scarcely affected the lower orders, in themselves nineteen-twentieths of the population; whose proceedings were unobserved, whose reasonings were confined to their own misery, and whose views were entirely directed to its alleviation, The system of defenderism, therefore, continued to spread from Ulster into Connaught, Leinster and Munster, privately and uninterruptedly, although its progress was marked in those places by some appearances of assembling and disturbance. The defenders likewise, began to entertain an idea, that possibly the French might visit Ireland, and that from thence, benefits would result to them and their country; for in some places, it was made a part of the oath, and in others well understood, that they should join the French in case of an invasion. There is not however, any reason to believe that this expectation arose from any communication with France; but only from the strength and ardency of their own wishes. They were also as yet unconnected with any persons of information or an higher. order. But even these last were not induced by their defeats and disappointments, entirely to relinquish their political pursuits on the contrary, some of them began to resolve on more important measures.

At an earlier period, when the Brissotines had declared war against England, they sent a confidential agent to Ireland, with offers of succour, if it would attempt to liberate and separate itself from their enemy. This gentleman arrived in Dublin sometime in the summer of 1793, with an introduction to Lord Edward Fitz-Gerald. His offers were made known to Messrs. Butler and Bond then in Newgate, to Mr. Rowan, Dr. Reynolds and some others; but those persons, then so obnoxious to government, discountenanced the proposal, and it was dropped. Now however, a similar application was differently received. When the committee of public safety came into power,

M 2