heaped upon us by the present abominable Administration, we furely would wish for a separation. But, Fellow Subjects, connected as we are by the ties of blood-of a common language and polity-intimately con nected as we are by our relative fituation with each other, and with the reft of the world, as well as by our mutual wants, and redundancies-fo far from wifhing to leffen these ties of connection, we call upon, we entreat you to Unite ftill farther with us in the juft and neceffary work of REFORM. We conjure you, by the manes of your Lockes, your Sidneys, your Hampdens, and your Ruffels, to join us in a great and united effort to fave the empire from deftruction by the only meafure which can fave it-A radical Reform in the Reprefentation of the People. The removal of your present wicked Minifters will only operate as a temporary relief-the cause of all our evils would ftill remain. Had not your Minister known that bis influence, owing to the defective ftate of our Reprefentation, enabled him to draw from Ireland 150,000 men to recruit the army, and 40,000 feamen to man the Fleet of the Empire, he would not fo rapidly have rushed into the dereftable War, which has brought you as well as us to the brink of ruin. Britons! Remember the words of the most illuftrious Statesman that ever adorned your Country or directed your Councils-of that PITT who conducted the Empire to glory abroad whilft he cherished Liberty at home. In the year 1766, when Maffachufets was charged with Rebellion, as Ulfter is now, "I rejoice that America has refifted," faid great man. "Thefe millions of people, fo dead to all "the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, "would have been fit inftruments to make flaves of the rest. "If America was to fall," continued he, "fhe would fall like "the ftrong man; fhe would embrace the pillars of the State, "and pull down the Conftitution with her. She has been wronged; fhe has been driven to madness by injuftice :"Will you punish her for the madnefs you have occafioned,” His counfels fucceeded-the obnoxious laws were repealed, and America fat down contented. Shortly after, the fyftem of coercion was again reforted to, and America was left: the Finally, we appeal to the FATHER of the UNIVERSE, whofe Almighty power we invoke to conduct us by the paths of Peace, to Liberty and Happiness, Pp 2 THE END. APPENDIX. SPEECH OF ARTHUR O'CONNOR; ON MONDAY, MAY 4, 1795, I MR. SPEAKER. SHOULD not have trefpaffed on your time, at this late hour, was it not that, as often as this important fubject has been agitated, fince I have had a feat in this House, I have given filent votes for the moft unqualified emancipation of my Catholic countrymen; from conviction of the juftness of their claims to freedom, and of the inexpediency and folly of continuing to facrifice the civil and political rights of the people, for the purpose of aggrandizing a few families, under the mask of promoting religion. But, Sir, the times call for fomething more than filent votes. The fituation in which we are fo unaccountably placed, is fo critical, and the bill under your confideration involves fuch consequences in its train, that every man, who is not wholly indifferent to the welfare of his country, muft feel himself called on, to lay afide every leffer confideration, and to deliver his opinion with that freedom, and that boldness, by which only the country can be faved. What do the whole of the arguments which have been advanced on this night, againft the emancipation of our Catholic countrymen, by the gentlemen of the opposite fide of the House, amount to? To a mere unsupported affertion, that it would deftroy our Conftitution in Church and State. This is not the only inftance in this country, in which the moft egregious job has been concealed under a fpecious phrafeology. One would imagine, from the language held by the Right Hon. Gentleman, (Mr. Pelham) that the people people of this country were in the actual enjoyment of the British conftitution in all its purity, and that it had been in this country, that the experiment of that conftitution had been made, by which it had become the admiration of the world. Is it that the condition of the people of Ireland correfponds fo well with the great natural advantages of their country, that we are to infer, that their civil and political conftitution was of that immaculate nature which the Right Hon. Gentleman, (Pelham) has reprefented it? Is it because we were the moft wretched, and most miserable nation in Europe, as long as this fyftem of monopoly and exclufion, for which the gentlemen on the opposite fide of the House contend, under the title of Conftitution in State and Church, was in its moft entire ftate; and that we have emerged from that wretchedness and mifery in an exact proportion as we have deftroyed this fyftem of monopoly, by extending the bleffings of freedom to our Catholic countrymen, that we should now defift from our labours? Is it because we have heard thofe gentlemen at the oppofite fide of the houfe, year after year, ever fince this queftion has been agitated, predict the ruin of the country, from extending the conftitution to our Catholic countrymen, and that we have seen the country thrive in an exact proportion as it has been extended, that we should now ftop short on their authority, and confecrate the remainder of the system of monopoly and exclufion? Before we risk every thing in defence of a fyftem upon authority, which has hitherto proved so utterly fallacious, let us inquire into its merits. I will fuppofe the worft of fyftems; and I will leave it to the advocates of this fyftem, to fhew in what it differs from this fyftem of theirs, which they have confecrated under the mystical words of Conftitution in Church and State. I will suppose the whole representation of the people of Ireland, converted into a fubject of traffic, and a monopoly of the trade given to a few families, with an exception of that fmall portion of freedom, which falls to the fhare of the counties: I will fuppofe even this pittance affailed by these monopolifts, by their profufe diftributions of jobs and of pa tronage, tronage, and by their appointing the men of the best interefts in their several counties, to feats for their boroughs, whom they could find mean enough to accept them, on the condition of fervitude and wages in fo vile an occupation; I will fuppofe thefe wholefale dealers in our rights and liberties, coming from their rotten boroughs, and from the counties they had debauched, with their attendant fupporters of Conftitution in Church and State, to discharge their cargo at the feat of government, at the countinghoufe of an English factor; bartering an unqualified facrifice of Irish trade, of Irish induftry, of Irish rights, and of Irish character, at the feet of Englifh domination, and of English avarice. For what? What shall I fuppofe the price of this infernal cargo, like Pandora's box, a collection of every ill that can afflict mankind? The whole nation of Ireland would blush to hear it! They would blush at their own degradation! Nothing less than the moft unqualified facrifice of every thing in this unfortunate country, that could exalt these farmers general of our rights and liberties, and of every thing that could debafe an injured, infulted, and impoverished people. Here is a fyftem by which our national character would be degraded in the eyes of furrounding nations. Here is a fyftem by which the people of this country would be doubly impoverished, to pay for that treason which was to revile and vilify them in the legiflature of their own country, and to pay for that treason which was to facrifice their dearest interest to the aggrandizement of another nation; I CALL UPON THE GENTLEMEN OF THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE HOUSE, TO SHEW IN WHAT THIS EXECRABLE SYSTEM DIFFERS FROM THE CONSTITUTION IN CHURCH AND STATE, FOR WHICH THEY CONTEND? And yet you have been told, that, on the continuance of this fyftem, your lives, your liberties, your property, and your religion depend;-on the continuance of this fyftem, you have been told your conftitution depends. Nay, to fill up the measure of their effrontery, there are men who will unblushingly tell you, that this fyftem, fo profitable to them, and fo ruinous to the country, fhall be your conftitution itself! Fortunately, Fortunately, it is no longer a subject of contention between the Proteftants and the Catholics; for every man in this country, except monopolifts, and thofe in pay of monopolifts, whether Proteftants, Prefbyterians, or Catholics, have declared themfelves equally interefted in the deftruc tion of this odious fyftem. Fortunately the Proteftants and Prefbyterians of Ireland have, at length, difcovered the folly of facrificing their own rights and the profperity of their country, in a criminal attempt to exclude threefourths of their countrymen from the bleffings of freedom, for no other purpose than to perpetuate a fyftem, in which a few families are unnaturally exalted, at the expence of millions of their countrymen, as unnaturally debafed. But it is no longer a fecret that the men who oppose the abolition of religious diftinctions in our civil and political concerns, when the general voice of the nation has concurred it fo wife, fo juft, and fo politic a meafure, are the men who ufurp the whole political power of the country, the men who have converted the whale representation of Iveland into family patrimony; to the poverty, to the oppression, and to the disgrace of the nation, and to the monftrous aggrandizement of themselves, their relatives, and their fervile adherents; THESE ARE THE MEN WHO OPPOSE CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION, and suby? because Catholic emancipation would be incompatible with their accursed monopoly. Here lies the incapacity of the Catholics to participate in the freedom of their country here lies the excellence of the prefent conftitution in church and flate. In this is comprised the whole guilt of our Catholic countrymen, and in the eyes of men of this description, the fame ineapacity would attach itself to angels from beaven, if the abolition of their accurfed monopoly was to make any part of the confequences. Let thofe men who flatter themselves that they can con, tinue the old fyftem of monopoly and exclufion, by which the few have been raised on the necks of the many, risk what they pleafe in its defence; but let me conjure you, who are without the pale of their political communion, to confider the important change which has taken place in the public mind, to confider the language which has been spoken |