CHAP. ercised by men in power for the punishment of claXL. mour against government or its ministers. Thus United Irishmen. 1791. John Magee, publisher of the Dublin Evening Post, a popular newspaper, was arrested by fiats, warrants issued by judges, on charges of libels, and long confined in prison from the impossibility of his procuring sponsors for the excessive bail demanded, bail for sums twenty-fold the damages which could be awarded by a conscientious jury when the matter came to trial. By a great majority in parliament on the side of ministers was lord Clonmel, chief justice of the court of King's Bench, who had ordered these warrants, screened from censure. By such acts the popular discontents were augmented on one side, while, on the other, government was alarmed by apparent symptoms of revolutionary disorder in the general mass of the people. Of this nature was the anniversary celebration of the French revolution, performed on the fourteenth of July in 1791, and the following year by the volunteers of Belfast, who displayed eblematical figures expressive of disaffection, and transmitted on the former occasion a most sympathetic address to the society of friends of the revolution at Bourdeaux, whence was returned a correspondent answer. But the two great questions by which the public mind was agitated, and the apprehensions of administration excited, were those of parliamentary reform and catholic emancipation. A plan of an association, under the name of United Irishmen, for the attainment of these ends, was XL. was printed in Belfast in the June of 1791; and in CHAP. the following November was accordingly instituted in Dublin this new society, with the immediate view of combining into one political phalanx as many as possible of their countrymen for the effectuating of a change in the government of Ireland, or, in the words of their own declaration, "for the purpose of forwarding a brotherhood of affection, a communion of rights, and a union of power, among Irishmen of every religious persuasion, and thereby to obtain a complete reform in the legislature founded on the principles of civil, political, and religious liberty." Conformably to this idea every person on his admission, as a member, pronounced and subscribed a test, solemnly promising in the awful presence of God to use his exertions for the promotion of that scheme. Whatever may have been the sentiments generally prevalent among the persons thus associated, projects of a most dangerous nature appear to have been entertained by some, not communicated to the rest, the total subversion of the existing government, and the erection of a democratical commonwealth in its place. To provide an armed force for this design an institution was form-guards. ed in Dublin of national guards, whose uniform was distinguished with green, thus adopted as the national colour, and buttons engraved with a harp under a cap of liberty instead of a crown. Probably with a view of displaying their force, inspiring confidence into their friends, and gaining proselytes to their cause, the leaders of these bands appointed the ninth Y 3 National 1792. CHAP. ninth of December 1792, for a day of their general XL. muster, and invited all the volunteer companies in Dublin to attend on the occasion, to celebrate the triumph of liberty in France. The government, affecting to apprehend an immediate attack on the city and commencement of rebellion, wisely determined to suppress in their commencement all armed associations unauthorized by the supreme authority of the state. On the day immediately preceding that of the intended muster, a proclamation was issued by the lord lieutenant and council, peremptorily interdicting all seditious assemblies, and commanding the magistrates to disperse them by military force, if admonition should prove ineffectual. Intimidated by this menace and the array of the garrison, the national guards deferred their meeting, and the long-proposed muster never took place. But on the following fourteenth, a kind of manifesto, or counter-proclamation, was framed by the heads of the society, and afterwards published, exhorting the volunteers to resume their arms for the maintenance, as before, of tranquility against foreign and internal enemies, and advising the protestants of Ireland to choose deputies for provincial assemblies, preparatively to a general convention, which they declared necessary for the forming of a common cause with the catholics. For this publication Archibald Hamilton Rowan, the secretary on that occasion, of the United Irish Society, was prosecuted some time afterwards, a gentleman of a respectable family and fortune, of a most most amiable character and warm philanthropy, but without sufficient clearness of judgment always to discern the proper objects of his benevolence. That the catholics should take measures to ameliorate their condition, while the minds of the people throughout the kingdom were strongly agitated by a spirit of political reform, might naturally be expected. A secret committee, instituted for the management of the political concerns of the Irish catholics by Charles O'Connor, an antiquarian, Doctor Curry, a physician, and a Mr. Wyse of Waterford, had subsisted in Dublin since the year 1757, elected from the several dioceses of the kingdom and parishes of the metropolis. In meetings of this body in the February of 1791, a petition to parliament was prepared; but from fears of revolutionary designs on democratic principles, or from apprehension of being suspected of such by government, some respectable catholics declined to concur with the rest; and at length, sixty-four in number, including the lords Kenmare and Fingal, they formally seceded, and on the twenty-seventh of December presented an address to the lord lieutenant, expressive of the respectful submission of themselves and the catholic body to government, and of their resignation to its wisdom and humanity. The rest of the members persevered in their pursuit; and, that they might be enabled to lay before government the sense collectively of the whole catholic body, they devised the plan of a convention, composed of delegates from the several towns and counties, who СНАР. XL. LX. CHAP. were elected by persons deputed, two from each parish. Assembling on the third of December 1792, in Dublin, and holding its session in Taylor's Hall in Back-lane, whence it was called in derision the Back-lane parliament, the convention voted a petition to the king, and afterwards adjourned, having appointed a permanent committee of nine for the management of catholic affairs during its recess. Catholic deputation. Catholic declaration. 1792. A petition, representing the grievances of the penal statutes, the meritorious patience and long tried loyalty of the Irish catholics, was committed to five deputies elected by the convention, at whose head was Edward Byrne, a wealthy merchant. In their way though Belfast these gentlemen were gratified by the cordial attention of the protestant inhabitants, of whom the lower sort expressed in shouts their wishes for the success of the petition, and, unharnessing the horses, drew the carriages of the deputies through the town, at their departure. Proceeding to London though Scotland, they were introduced, on the second of January 1793, by secretary Dundas, to the king, who received their petition in a very gracious manner, and at the ensuing meeting of the Irish parliament, he recommended to that body, through the lord lieutenant, a serious attention to the condition of his catholic subjects. To weaken the force of opposition in parliament against their claims, and to conciliate the protestants, the catholics had published a solemn disavowal of some dangerous tenets commonly supposed to be entertained by them, and added the declarations of some |