tolerable good spirits, and the news of this day tends to invigorate us, which is the certain intelligence of the French having crossed the Rhine at Dusseldorf, and taken the citadel of that place by assault. With respect to our own affairs, they are not so well as I could wish, but still they are far from being in a bad way. The principal thing I dread is that the imprudence of some warm friends to their country may prematurely throw us into action. We are, however, generally in this quarter, striving to repress the ardor of our fellow-laborers. The Defenders in county Meath, Dublin, and Kildare, have been, throughout the summer, very turbulent, and excited general alarms amongst the great, but, as numbers of those unfortunate beings have suffered lately, they will, probably, for a time, be quiet. But it is evident, from the general sentiment of the lower classes of the people, that it will be impossible Ireland can long remain in her present situation. They all look to the French, and consider them as fighting their battles. The organization which you were made acquainted with amongst the Catholics in this neighborhood, continues to increase, and has spread as far as Meath, and will, probably, go much farther, which will certainly produce powerful means, if properly applied, but it will require great exertions to keep this organization from producing feuds among the different sects; for the Presbyterians in general, knowing nothing of their views and plans, look on them with great jealousy. These exertions shall not be wanting, and let us hope the best.

BELFAST, 18th Sept.

R. S.

Letter from my father to Arthur O'Connor, Esq. M. P. from

America.

[N. B. This letter, in the pressure of subsequent business, was never sent ; but, as it contains a clear and beautiful vindication of my father's conduct, I insert it here.]

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 20, 1795.

SIR: Within these few days, I met, by chance, with an Irish newspaper, of some months standing, in which was inserted an account of a debate in the Common Council at Cork, on the subject of granting the freedom of that city to Mr. Edward Byrne,

wherein you took that part which your spirit and your principles demanded. As my name was introduced in the argument by your adversaries, to the discredit of the Catholic cause, and as you, in justifying that cause, were, I am satisfied, inadvertently led into an assertion that I had been dismissed by the Catholics, in consequence of my connection, or supposed connection, with the late Mr. Jackson, and my wish to introduce a foreign enemy into Ireland, I feel it a duty to myself to acquaint you, that I never was directly or indirectly dismissed by the Catholics: that my resignation was my own voluntary act, wherein I did not even consult or advise with those of that body with whom I was most in habits of confidence, and that, consequently, whoever was your informant on that matter, asserted what was not the fact.

I might rest here, but I have that respect for Mr. O'Connor, that admiration for his uncommon talents, and still more uncommon integrity, that I cannot resist the desire I feel to avail myself of the opportunity which chance has afforded me of detailing somewhat the grounds of my conduct; in the execution, or attempted execution, of which I found myself constrained to quit a country, to whose emancipation I may now say I was ready to devote my life. I do this with the more eagerness, because, judging from the speech which has immortalized you, I am satisfied we are agreed as to the grievances of Ireland, however we may differ as to the mode of redressing them.

My theory of Irish politics is comprised in these words: I trace all her miseries, so strongly described by you, to the blasting influence of England. How is that influence maintained? By perpetuating the spirit of internal dissension, grounded on religious distinctions. How, then, is it to be obviated? By a cordial union of all the people. So far, I think, no honest Irishman can differ from me. On these principles I have acted, and I will say, allowing for humble talents aud limited situation, acted with success. I had the singular good fortune to be one of the very few men, through whose means the Catholics of Dublin and the Dissenters of Belfast, first came to understand each other; and to that union, I know, that what has been gained by the Catholics is owing. I know the members of your Parliament, (I rejoice you are no longer contaminated by the association,) even those who were the earliest and most decided friends to the

Catholic cause; and I know how little genuine principle weighed with any one of them. I have had an opportunity to observe their shuffling and their speculating, their pushing and their parrying; and, what is more, the Catholics understand them as well as I do. They set out to raise themselves on the shoulders of the Catholics; they have assisted, in a certain degree, to raise them, but they have failed in making them their instruments. They are speculating stockjobbers on the rights of the people; but I prophecy, they will have no cause to rejoice in the winding up of their accounts.

I presume, up to the arrival of the unfortunate man, whose fortitude in a voluntary death must command the respect of the most virulent persecutor, I am guiltless; though, two years before that period, I had the honor to be made the subject of a furious philippic in the House of Lords, by a man who had the meanness to possess himself of a copy of a private letter of mine, and the baseness to falsify and misquote it. The charge made against me, when stripped of the necessary legal and constitutional epithets, is, that I wished to introduce a French force into Ireland, to subvert the present Government, and establish a Republic in its place. To this charge I shall give, as to the fact, no answer. But, as to the principle, supposing it to be the case of an indifferent person, I think something at least may be said. Introducing a foreign enemy, is a sounding phrase, and very alarming to many; but I doubt whether the end may not justify even that measure, in certain cases of the last extremity. As I have the honor to address a gentleman of respectable situation, in a country yet subject to the laws of his Britannic Majesty, I shall beg leave to ask him, what he thinks of the Whig noblemen, and others, who brought a foreign army and a foreign prince into England, in 1688. If James II. had not been a fool and a coward, but had behaved like a man who was to contend for a crown, and if the Prince of Orange had been defeated, like Monmouth, as war is very uncertain, I should be very glad to know what figure in history Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, bishop Burnet, and all the venerable fathers of the Whig interest would have made? Lord Somers rose to the woolsack; had he been placed in the Dock, as might have happened, what epithets would his Majesty's Attorney General have applied to him? Or, to come nearer to our own day, what is to be said for his Ma

jesty's (present) loyal subjects of Corsica? They felt, we must suppose, the yoke of France intolerable; they applied, we are told, for the protection of England; and, in consequence, they introduced a foreign force into their country, to assist them in vindicating that liberty, which they felt their own means inadequate to obtain. Here is the principle established in the strongest manner on the highest authority, and in a case where I defy the ingenuity of man to find a difference, except in the event:

Multi eadem faciunt, diverso, crimina, fato;

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tutit, hic diadema.

I do, for my part, think it possible to doubt the truth of what seems to be an axiom, that we are bound, in all circumstances, to stand or fall with England; and I think the time is rapidly approaching, wherein it will be no more safe to broach that doctrine, than it is now to hold the contrary. But the present state of Ireland is such, that any man wishing to argue for her just rights, is constrained to keep the strength of his case as much out of sight as possible, and to scout and skirmish about the outposts, instead of storming the enemy in the citadel; unless, indeed, he has a mind to discuss the point coolly in the King's Bench, with the law officers of the crown; an experiment which I apprehend, from recent experience of the event of such investigations, few men will be now inclined to make.

But, to return to the original object of my letter: So far from being dismissed by the Catholics, in consequence of Mr. Jackson's trial, I can assure you that applications were made to them, from a quarter that must naturally have had great weight with them, subsequent to his conviction, and previous to introducing their bill, to induce them to disgrace me; which applications I must, though it is in my own case, say, they did, with great unanimity and justice, refuse. The answer given was, that I was in their service, until the dissolution of their committee, in April 1793, when they ceased to act as a body; that I was again called to their service at Christmas, 1794, on Lord Fitzwilliam's arrival; that I had always acted faithfully towards them; and that, as to any part of my conduct, which happened during a period wherein we had no political connection, they did not feel it just, or necessary, by any act of theirs, either to sanction or condemn it: and in this reply they steadily persevered.

It is a circumstance which, its being in a degree a personal concern of my own, prevents my dwelling upon. Circumstanced as I then was, so convenient a scape-goat, and utterly incapacitated from defending myself, nothing but a sentiment of the most refined honor and strictest justice, could have induced that body to protect me, as I must call it, by their refusal to comply with a requisition, which, if my self-love does not influence my judgment, was base and dishonorable. What makes it more curious, is, that the party making the requisition had, a very few years before, thought me worth soliciting; and the cause of our breaking off was, my refusal to withdraw myself from Catholic politics, in which I was peremptory. Yet the very personage who I am satisfied instigated the application for my disgrace, and who is now a noisy advocate for the Catholics, after first seeking me out, and then breaking off all connection on the ground I have mentioned, insinuated to the Catholics, that I must have purchased immunity from the Government by betraying their secrets, seeing I was not prosecuted. Luckily for me, they knew both our characters; and, though he was likely to be a great man, and I was ruined, they scorned to desert me in extremity. I know not whether my gratitude and admiration of their conduct exceeds my contempt for the man who took so safe, and, as he thought, certain a mode of destroying one, whose only offence, as to him, was, rejecting his patronage, when it was to be purchased at the surrender of principle.

I am sure you will make allowance for the feelings of a man in my situation. With regard to the opinions of most of the gentry of Ireland, I hold them in the most perfect contempt, but with regard to you it is a very different case. I entertain a sincere admiration of your talents and your principles, and I am sure you will credit me in this assertion, when you reflect that you and I shall, in all human probability, never meet, nor do I see any possible contingency wherein you can be of the smallest service to me. It is because I look on you as a good Irishman that I give you this trouble. I was, in a part of my letter, going at large into the state of our common country, and I think I could justify myself on general principles; but considering the present state of things in Ireland, I thought it but right to stop. You are almost a stranger to me, and a political correspondence, or even the appearance of one, might not be