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have no constitution, no country, no Ireland. Without this, our late revolution we declare to be fallacious and ideal; a thing much talked of, but neither felt or seen. The act of Irish sovereignty has been merely tossed out of the English houses into the cabinet of the minister; and nothing remains to the people, who of right are every thing, but a servile majesty and a ragged independence.

We call earnestly on every great and good man, who at the late æra spoke or acted for his country, to consider less of what was done than of what there remains to do. We call upon their senatorial wisdom to consider the monstrous and immeasurable distance which separates, in this island, the ranks of social life, makes labour ineffectual, taxation unproductive, and divides the nation into petty despotism and public misery. We call upon their tutelar genius, to remember, that government is instituted to remedy, not to render more grievous, the natural inequality of mankind, and that unless the rights of the whole community be asserted, anarchy (we cannot call it government) must continue to prevail, when the strong tyranize, the rich oppress, and the mass are brayed in a mortar. We call upon them, therefore, to build their arguments and their action on the broad platform of general good.

Let not the rights of nature be enjoyed merely by connivance, and the rights of conscience merely by toleration. If you raise up a prone people, let it not be merely to their knees: Let the nation stand. Then will it cast away the bad habit of servitude, which has brought with it indolence, ignorance, an extinction of our faculties, an abandonment of our very nature. Then will every right obtained, every franchise exercised, prove a seed of sobriety, industry, and regard to character, and the

manners of the people will be formed on the model of their free constitution.

This rapid exposition of our principles, our object, and our rule of conduct, must naturally suggest the wish of multiplying similar societies, and the propriety of addressing such a desire to you. Is it necessary for us to request, that you will hold out your hand, and open your heart to your countryman, townsman, neighbour? Can you form a hope for political redemption, and by political penalties, or civil excommunications, withhold the rights of nature from your brother? We beseech you to rally all the friends of liberty round a society of this kind as a centre. Draw together your best and bravest thoughts, your best and bravest men. You will experience, as we have done, that these points of union will quickly attract number, while the assemblage of such societies, acting in concert, moving as one body, with one impulse and one direction, will, in no long time, become not parts of the nation, but the nation itself; speaking with its voice, expressing its will, resistless in its power. We again entreat you to look around for men fit to form those stable supports on which Ireland may rest the lever of liberty. If there be but ten, take those ten. If there be but two, take those two, and trust with confidence to the sincerity of your intention, the justice of your cause, and the support of your country.

Two objects interest the nation, a plan of representation, and the means of accomplishing it. These societies will be a most powerful means; but a popular plan would itself be a means for its own accomplishment. We have, therefore, to request, that you will favour us with your ideas respecting the plan which appears to you most eligible and practicable, on the present more enlarged and liberal principles which actuate the people;

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 insurrection, 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.

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