• own fubjects. Their number, their riches, their spirit, • their civil and military talents, are so many objects of fear.' This is his picture of the government of Ireland! The Irish Government has used every endeavour which found policy can dictate, to increase the profperity of all its fubjects: their number, their riches, their fpirit, their civil and military talents, are the objects of its applaufes, of its proud and honorable exultation: but a certain clafs of Irish fubjects are, from religious bigotry, incurable enemies to the conftitution of their country in Church and State; found policy directs, that such should be excluded from the fovereign power of the State, which they must wield, if invested with it, for the subversion of the confttiution; and prevented from ufing either their number, their riches, their fpirit, or their talents, for the ruin of their fellow-fubjects and of the conftitution. The Irish Proteftants fear not Irish Romanifts, either from their boasted numbers or puiffance; they know their own ftrength, and rely on their own courage, of both which they have given Romish Rebels recent proofs; their conduct in fuch exclufion is not the effect of fear, but of wisdom and prudence: it is not cowardice in the garrifon of an impregnable fortrefs, the fafety and protection of a realm, to refufe entrance into it to their irreconcilable enemies, whofe numbers of courage, when on the outside, can be no objects of terror. How can it be faid with justice or reason, that Irish Proteftants put any impediments in the road of Irish Romanifts to wealth and profperity, or in their paths to military renown? Is not the army now open to them? Are not trade, and all the avenues of honeft industry, as open to them, as to their Proteftant fellow-fubjects? Are not their lives and properties equally protected by the laws? How falfe then, how malicious,

how

how infolent, and how petulant, is the above invective of this Romifh writer against the Irish Government!

I will now point the reader's attention to those parts of the author's pamphlet, in which he throws out the moft audacious threats of rebellion and resistance against the lawful authority of the State. Thefe he introduces under the guife of advice, or fuggefts them as the natural confequences of what he styles the oppreffion of the Romanifts in Ireland by their Proteftant fellow-fubjects and the State. In pages 6, 7, and 8, he obferves, that it is dangerous, in the prefent ftate of men's minds all over the world, to exclude formally three millions out of four, in a detached country, from the juft and reafonable rights which they fee their fellow-fubje&s enjoy; and that the idea of preferving fuch an establish

ment by force is abfurd and impracticable.' And then, after obferving on the fuccefs of the Netherlands in throwing off the Spanish yoke, and their right to do fo, he infinuates that in Ireland, Separation from Great Britain, and independency, should be maintained at all hazards; and concludes with the maxim of one of the French demagogues, that infurrection is the most facred of our duties; pretending to deduce the juftice of these treasonable aphorifms from a paffage in the pamphlet of his antagonist.

Further to ftimulate the Irish Romanifts to rebellion, and to sharpen their natural rancour against the British ' foldiery, he accufes the English Militia, who gallantly volunteered for the affiftance of their brethren the Proteftants of Ireland, of gratifying their luft by brutal. violations of the Irifh females, in the following paffage :

• From

• From accounts which the papers give of the gallantry of the British Militia with the fair, as well as in the field, one would imagine they had read Mr. C.'s pamphlet, and were imitating the Romans in fettling the preliminaries of Union with the Sabines.' The good conduct and strict difcipline of the British Militia, which lately came into Ireland, have been praised by the two Houfes of Parliament, and by every loyal man in the kingdom; and for this moft groundless calumny the flanderous author had no other authority than his own malice. He then proceeds with the utmost virulence, to abuse the policy of Great Britain in respect to foreign nations, afferting that fhe has thereby ruined herself, and is now a bankrupt, with which it would be highly imprudent for Ireland to have any connexion. He lays to the charge of her Miniftry all the calamities which, as he ftates, have afflicted Ireland for a feries of ages; and afferts that the dawn of improvement in the ftate of Ireland commenced with her afferting fome degree of independence on England in the year 1780. (See pages 9, 10.) Then, after styling the Proteftant Religion a Medufa's head, which paralyfes a large portion of our people, or turns their arms against each other (thereby admitting, what he in other places denies, that the laft Rebellion, as well as preceding ones, was a Romifh rebellion), he recites the triumphs of the Republic of France, and magnifies her power: he states, that a war between Great Britain and Ireland is not probable, if the people are satisfied; but it is to be feared, if the causes of difcontent are not removed. By the people, this author, throughout his pamphlet, means Romanifts exclufively; and the principal caufes of complaint which he enumerates, are the exclufion of the members of the Romifh fect from Parliament, and from the great offices

of

of the State; that is, from a fhare in the fovereignty of the State; thus declaring in the most explicit terms, that the Irish Romanifts will commence hoftilities against Great Britain and the Proteftants of Ireland, in confederacy with France, if they do not obtain a share in the fovereignty. (See page 17.) He further proceeds thus: "It is danC gerous, it is almoft treafon against the cause of all • regular fociety, attacked as it is by powerful enemies, to ◄ trifle in this manner with the feelings of three millions of people, by excluding them from those rights for which they are called upon to risk their lives.' (See page 23.) Then, after acknowledging that the late Irifh Rebels, forming the Directory, were in treaty with France for their affiftance to feparate. Ireland from Great Britain, and praising this Directory for their principles of patriotifm manifefted in the conduct of the treaty, he proceeds to encourage rebellion, by infinuating the probability of fuccefs, from the fituation of Ireland, and the certainty of French fupport. < Of late,' he obferves, the theory of infurrection has almoft forced itself upon every speculative mind. A province diftant from the seat of empire is much more. ⚫ liable to the intrigues of an enemy than one that has it

in its centre.' (See page 24.) He proceeds in pretty much the fame ftrain in page 30, in which he inserts a quotation from Mariana, importing, that all poor persons in a State will be enemies to it, if all hopes of emerging are taken away from them; which may be very true, but gives no fupport to the author's arguments. Mariana does not mean that all beggars in a State will rebel, if the hope of emerging into the fovereignty of the State is taken away from them; he means the hope of emerging into opulence: fuch is the precife meaning of the paf

fage.

fage. But the means of emerging from poverty into opulence are, by our Conftitution, as open to poor Romanists as to poor Proteftants. The author feems to have inferted the quotation for the mere purpose of showing his learning: it cannot be distorted to fignify that beggars will be difaffected to the State, unless they have grounds to hope that they may be kings.

This author, then, for the mere purpofe of inflammation, falls on the Irish Popery Code, which has been fome time fince, perhaps injudicioufly, certainly too haftily, repealed. He thus defcribes it and its effects: < Laws which for a century cramped the industry of a people, debarred them from education, armed the brother against the brother, and rewarded the fon for betraying the father, excluded the Roman Catholics from Proteftant fchools, prevented them from having • schools of their own,and profcribed foreign education.' (See pages 4. 10.) Thefe laws left a people poor, ignorant, with little refpect for law, and ferocious from a fense of injury. They rendered property infecure, C prevented the cultivation of land, the interior confidence of families, the extenfion of trade, or the employment of the talents or genius of three fourths of ⚫ the people in civil or military affairs.' (See page 34.) At prefent I fhall only obferve, that England had her Popery Code as well as Ireland, very fimilar to, and almoft the fame with the Irifh; and that this Code,

though the Irifh one be repealed, is ftill in force, as to many parts of it, in England. I fhall hereafter make further obfervations on this author's ftrictures on the Irish Popery Code; but fhall firft fhow that the ftrength and puiffance of the Irish Romanifts are not fo great or formidable,