at the same time giving your sentiments upon our national coalition, on the means of promoting it, and on the political state and disposition of the county or town where you reside. We know what resistance will be made to your patriotic efforts by those who triumph in the disunion and degradation of their country. The greater the necessity for reform, the greater probably will be the resistance: We know that there is much spirit that requires being brought into mass, as well as much massy body that must be refined into spirit. We have enemies, and no enemy is contemptible; we do not despise the enemies of the union, the liberty and the peace of Ireland, but we are not of a nature, nor have we encouraged the habit of fearing any man, or any body of men, in an honest and honourable cause. In great undertakings, like the present, we declare that we have found it always more difficult to attempt, than to accomplish. The people of Ireland must perform all that they wish, if they attempt all that they can.

Signed by order,

JAMES NAPPER TANDY, Sec.

No. III.

THE CATECHISM OF THE UNITED IRISHMEN,

Published and circulated since the rebellion was put down, for the purpose of keeping the flame of it alive.

I BELIEVE in the IRISH UNION, in the supreme majesty of the people, in the equality of man, in the lawfulness of insurréction, and of resistance to oppression. I believe in a revolu

tion founded on the rights of man, in the natural and imprestcriptable right of all the Irish citizens to all the land. I believe the soil, or any part of it, cannot be transferred without the consent of the people, or their representatives, convened and authorised, by the votes of every man having arrived at the age of twenty-one years. I believe the land, or any of it, cannot become the property of any man, but by purchase, or as rewards for forwarding and preserving the public liberty. I believe our present connexion with England must be speedily dissolved. I believe that old age, pregnant women, and labour should be honoured. I believe that TREASON is the crime of betraying the people. I believe religious distinctions are only protected by tyrants. I believe applying the lands of the church to relieve old age, to give education and protection to infancy, will be more acceptable to an united people, that maintaining lazy hypocrites and ravenous tythe gatherers.

In this faith I mean to live, or bravely die.

Question. What are you?

Answer. An Irishman.

Q. As an Irishman, what do you hope for?

A. The emancipation of my country, and equality of rights, a fair division of the land, an abolition of religious establishments, and a representative government.

Q. What benefit do you propose to your country, by what you call emancipation?

A. Deliverance from the odious influence of England, and that domestic tyranny it generated, which is calculated to corrupt our morals, impoverish our people, and retard our industry.

Q. How do you conceive this?

A. By the innumerable injuries we experience from England -she shuts us out from any mercantile connexion with the world, while she tells us we are an independent people; she fosters establishments in our island, contriving to make her agents in the land her friends and our oppressors?

Q. How are Irish morals injured by England?

A. By monopolizing the trade of the world, and confining us to deal only with her.

Q. Does that effect your morals?

A. Yes, her contrivance leaves us at her mercy: she sells to us at her own prices, she deprives us of the choice of other markets, either to buy or sell; by such means she has the command of all our produce; we buy dear and sell cheap; consequently we are poor, and poverty begets crimes, as Job says, "Lord, make me not poor, lest I should steal.”

Q. What other reasons have you against English connections, and what other proofs have you of influence on your morals?

A. England has organized a kind of legislators here, devoted to her interests, and holding their influence and power at her will.

Q. Explain yourself?

A. Those law-makers are land-holders, all of one trade, which in itself is criminal; as men making laws, being of one profession, will always be unanimous in promoting the welfare of a particular object. A legislative assembly of tanners would make leather dear; of weavers, would increase the price of cloth; of schoolmasters, would monopolize instruction. Our law-makers contrive to make spirituous liquors in more general use than bread, they are constantly canting on the drunkenness of the people, and take no pains to discourage distillation, as it raises the value of their lands, under the pretext of promoting the revenue. They encourage grazing and the exportation of cattle; they sell the liquor and accuse us of drunkenness; they export our raw materials; they say we are idlers, and mock our poverty; they import tobacco for our use, and export our beef and butter. Thus the necessaries of life are put out of our reach, to promote their own ends, and a poisonous plant given us for the same purposes.

Q. What advantage can our poverty be to our law-makers?

A. By being poor we must be on the alert, to procure the necessaries of life, which makes true the old maxim, they "keep us poor and busy." Our time will be spent studying to avoid want, instead of inquiring the cause of it; for enquiry is dangerous to tyranny.

Q. What benefit, in a general sense, would emancipation be?

A. Ireland, delivered from England, would give us immense resources, innumerable means of employing our people, would

extend our trade and agriculture, we could have the sugars of the West-Indies, seventy per cent. cheaper from the Danes, the Dutch, or the French, than we can get them from the retail market of England. The teas and produce of the Indies, we could also have, in the same advantageous manner, from the same nations, or from the Americans, or by a direct importation. Other branches of trade and other resources of riches and employments would unfold themselves to independent Ireland, now impossible to enumerate.

Q. What is meant by equality?

A. Men being born equal, is evident to every understanding. If the Creator intended any superior rank among men, it is that of superior abilities or superior virtue; if he intended any other nobility than the noble of nature, we should see noblemen, not the same impotent, ignorant, vicious, and untaught creatures, so common among the artificial orders. We should have them born without wanting any of those acquirements that appear so necessary to every rank, which is the result of tedious instruction, and persevering industry, their childhood would be distinguished by a knowledge of every talent that is known or valued; they would come into the world finished statesmen, orators, mathematicians, generals, dancing-masters, hair-dressers, taylors, &c. nay, they would come from the womb covered with embroidery, ribbons, stars, and coronets.

Q. Not appearing in infancy to have any visible or mental acquirements, more than other mortals, you think is an argument to defend the opinions of those who are advocates for equality?