ceffes. Thus the very effect of oppreffion is audaciously affigned as a cause for reiterated perfecution. This is cruelty torturing its wretched victims to madness, and then juftifying the repetition of torment by the phrenfy, which it has produced. While defpotifm is thus active in diffufing its deceptions, the advocate of liberty and of truth, cannot too fre. quently infift on the real ftate of facts. Whence have arifen the miseries of Ireland? They have arisen from the perfidy of thofe, who aught to have been the guardians of her happiness. From the perfidy of men, who betray the most facred of all trufts, the depofit of a people's rights-exhibiting the moft barefaced contradiction, ever displayed in the page of hiftory-a representative affembly profeffing to derive all its power from the will of the people, and yet evincing a marked contempt for the most unequivocal expreffions of that will. This was a refinement in treachery, which formed a new epoch in the annals of deception. The government of imperial Rome openly declared, “ quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem." Here was tyranny, but no hypocrify. The Romans were then flaves, and they were told fo. But the men of Ireland were mocked while they were betrayed. Laws faid to be made with their confent, were in fact enacted by an authority, which facraficed their interefts, and defpifed their fentiments. This was not only an outrage to their rights, but an infult to their understandings. A people faid to be reprefented in a popular affembly, which laughed at the public voice, was a fraud too grofs to be endured. The fallacy 'required only to be ftated in order to be expofed. The people faw at once the difeafe and the remedy. They wished (the wifh was not an unnatural one) to fave themselves, and their pofterity from the greatest curse, which can afflict the human race-flavery. They ventured to explain the nature of the malady, and humbly to fuggeft nature. fuggeft the means of life. Their remonftrances were treated with contempt, and their right to apply, the law of felf-preservation denied; the right not merely of exercising. the prerogative of reafon, but of following the inftincts of What followed? A fyftem of legiflative coercion filencing the voice of truth, and torturing agonized nature into excess-accompained and fupported by a fecret hell-bred policy of fubtile and malignant influence, poisoning the fountain of benevolence, by whofe pure and falutary waters the wounds of religious bigotry, were healed: but even laws the most penal were found inadequate to chaftife the prefumption of men, who felt that the were flaves, and who wished to be free. What followed next? A fyftem of arbitrary extermination, of summary profcription, of military execution. A fyftem which its inventors, for once laying afide the language of diffimulation, have boldly characterifed as a vigour beyond law. It is indeed a fyftem which mocks all laws human and divine. A fyftem, which banishes all the charities of life, and diffolves all the fympathies. of nature. Which burfts the ties of fociety affunder, by giving a licence to power, to prey upon weakness. It is a fyftem, which has made the rich man's palace the mansion of diftruft, and the poor man's hovel the habitation of despair. It is a fyftem, which has confounded all the diftinctions of morals, in fo much that the mere abfence of cruelty is now celebrated as virtue, and the gratitude of a perfecuted people beftows on the want of malignity the praise of beneficence. The definition of humanity has become negative, and the defcription of a merciful man, that he is not a monfter. The barbarities of a foldiery excite not our surprise. Blood is their trade; they live by it. But have we not alfo feen the fhepards of the flock of Chrift transformed into ravenous wolves, fpreading terror and defolation. Indeed, we can never fufficiently deplore the effects which the policy of our rulers has produced on certain difcriptions of men in the community. It has addressed itself to fome of the worft paffions of the human breaft, to pride, avarice and fear. The proud man has been been taught to tremble for his titles, the avaricious man for his wealth, and the timid man for his life. And thus the moft ignoble and relentless paffions have been engaged in fupport of a fyftem of murderous perfecution. It is aftonishing to think how numbers by this artifice have been abufed into the belief that profligate men in fupporting their own agrandizement, and filencing the juftice of a nation, have been only confulting the preservation of social order, and public peace. The plain truth is this: A reform in the reprefentation of the people would be to these men a complete revolution. By reform they must lofe the privilege of facraficing the interefts of Ireland to the interefts of Britain, and the emoluments annexed to that privilege. By reform, the British minifter muft lose the privilege of governing as a fubject province a country, on the face of which nature with a bold hand has traced the outlines of independence. By reform, Ireland muft become free, powerful, and happy. But the freedom, the power, and the happiness of Ireland demand the facrifice of the intereft of a few, who have rifen by her abasement, and who have fattened by her impoverishment. This facrifice would be to these men a complete Revolution and to repel this Revolution from themselves they have regarded a Revolution in a kingdom. They have convulfed a people, and they have shaken a throne-There is no animal fo favage as the man, who having been long accustomed to indulge bad paffions without reftraint, feels himself in danger of lofing the means of adminiftering to their gratifications. As long as his vices are pampered without refiftance, or reproof, he is grofs, but he is tame. But when indignant nature rifes against the monfter, he becomes furious and confuming, he would annihilate a nation, rather relinquish an indulgence. Such are the men, who in this country abuse their Prince, and perfecute his people. Too long has this Prince been deluded by their artifices, too long have the people been victims of their vengeance, will not the prince and the people unite in punishing their crimes? EUERGETES. ODE TO BENEVOLENCE 1 CELESTIAL maid, in fnowy veft, In vain I fearch the lonely fhade, Where Anchorite his cave hath made; And folitude, in cypress veft, In bufy life are oft'neft seen ; Where Where Ambition's fiery eye See, how the monfter inuffs afar The fmoaking blood of flaughtered heaps; O! no |