the healing draught from the parched lip of the people? Patriotifm is not a compound of fire and folly, it is a pure fubftance, and cool, and moves fteadily to its object, the GENERAL weal, with right on one fide and reafon on the other-Ye demagogues of the day! prove the political independence you call upon us fo loudly to defend; fhew us your ftream of commerce unmixed with the fwelling waters of a wider fource; fhew us your power to maintain the one and to increase the other; and when you have done this, and this you cannot do, the harraffed people of the land may liften and believe that party is virtue, and declamation wifdom!

There seems one grand error to run through the whole of Mr. Fofter's argument; he contends for the proteftant part of the ftate only, without taking into confideration the catholics of the country, except in the inftance of his curious apostrophe; now the measure of union would not be so neceffary, did the proteftants alone conftitute the people, but the great point to accomplish by union, is the harmony of the general community, without which there can be no ftate fafety. A people may be whipped into filence, but they cannot be whipped into content. Coercion is a bad fyftem of government; it may debafe, but it can never exalt a people; nor is it a fyftem that can laft; while it is in force it is execrable, and when its fury has wafled its ftrength, an inevitable confequence, it is deftroyed, and the community is

thrown

thrown by the vice of its governors into the horrors of anarchy. And here I cannot help remarking that the people of Ireland have felt the whip, and that Mr. Fofter is injudicious to his caufe, and unfriendly to his country, in lamenting, as he does, the difcontinuance of that difgraceful and horrid fyftem of military coercion, a fyftem totally repugnant to the laws of the land, and confequently fubverfive of all civil liberty-The British Government faw this, and found it neceffary to ftep forward and fave the people, not by "following up the vigour" of whipping, and burning, and picketing, but by the mild and perfuafive energy of conftitutional law tempered with conftitutional mercy!

And here it may be allowed a man who writes for neither party, but whofe little exertion is the refult of a perfect conviction of the general virtue of the great meafure propofed-it may, I hope, be allowed fuch a man to hail Lord Cornwallis as the inftrument of human falvation and human happiness. There is a fort of fatality (I do not mean to chain the idea to the letter) runs. through the existence of every individual; in domeftic concerns we fee it often attach--in the more confpicuous walks of public life it immediately and ftrongly impreffes the mind of the obferver. Ancient history could furnish a volume of examples, but I fhall content myself with giv

* Vide Mr. Fofter's Speech, page 113.

ing two inftances from modern record which go to establish a fort of leading fatality of confequences, particularly obfervable in the character of every public man.

Admiral Byron had great talents, profeffional knowledge, opportunity, and fingular perfeverance; yet, it may be faid, from the firft hour of his public life to the last, he was uniformly unfor

tunate.

Admiral Rodney, than whom a better seaman, or more perfect gentleman, never commanded a British fleet, was greatly fuccefsful in almost all his public undertakings: as a private man he was as remarkably unfortunate! and his country (I almoft weep in recording the fact!) left him to die literally of a broken heart! I am well aware he had a penfion and a ribband, but he fhould not have been left to the deftructive fangs of the law. His capture of St. Euftatius was accomplished under the exprefs order of government, and government, in common juftice and in public gratitude, fhould have defended that act as their own, against a combination of British fubjects become Dutch traders, and who, under the veil of that character, fupplied the enemies of England with naval ftores, provifions, and almost every article neceffary to carry on and protract the war: he found them in the island Dutch burghers, and as Dutch burghers he confifcated their property. He was left to their vengeance, and he perished in the conteft-Yes, and his body, his lifeless body,

which

which fhould have been confecrated by his country, was feized in the ftreets of the capital by the emiffaries of the law, and for fome time the rites of fepulture were favagely denied to the vindicator of his country's naval fuperiority-to the conqueror of Langara and de Graffe!

The destiny of Lord Cornwallis is not fulfilled, but thus far it has been pregnant with good to his fellow creatures. His convention at York town was an act of wisdom and reflective humanity; he might have oppofed Washington and Rochambeau with flaughterous effect, but with no reafonable hope of victory or retreat; his furrender was an act of more determined bravery-he risked his fame, and faved the lives of at least 2000 men! He next appears in India, driving the restless Tippoo before him even to the gates of Seringapatam-he could have mastered the capital, but his happier destiny prevailed, and the horrid practice of man murdering man was fufpended; he made an advantageous peace, leaving Tippoo his capital and a kingdom, and converting him, as it were, into a political check over the intrigues of the neighbouring princes. After having humanely, and to the utmost point of patriotic good, fulfilled his miffion, he returned from India as from a place of banishment; he refigned all the power and all the riches of the Eaft, for enjoyments more congenial to his nature-for the calm of honourable repofe, and for the nameless bleffings of domeftic privacy! but his deftiny again interpofed,

and

and he was chofen by his fovereign to be the infrument of Peace to the People! His appearance in Ireland was the harbinger of returning reafonthe pike dropped from the hand of the deluded peafant, and loyalty became the order of the day! the whip was banished, humanity prevailed, the atrocioufly guilty were punished, and titled iniquity did not efcape the incurable wound of public cenfure; the Orange and the Green, equally factious, and equally ohnoxious to the good of the land, were discountenanced, and acted no longer as colours of difaffection to the peace of the community-An honeft foldier, an honeft man, intrufted with the anxious wifh of the king-he will honourably endeavour to fulfil it; and if he does accomplish union, his destiny will arrive at the climax of its beneficence; he will extend the bleffings of Conftitutional Liberty to a whole People, and fecure the integrity of the British Empire.

The body politic is fubject to diseases; its conflitution being the creature of man is therefore blended with the infirmities of his nature; when thofe difeafes appear it becomes the duty of the governing power to fearch the cause and apply the remedy. The governing power of a community may be aptly termed the mind, and the members of a community may be properly called the body. If the mind is corrupted, it neglects the conftitution, and the body falls into cureless ruin ; but, if the mind is found and the conftitution is

attacked