upon yourself to prefix to the paper which you are pleased to call his speech, I became somewhat curious to know what that letter could be, and having learned that, I prosecuted my inquiries somewhat farther. I do recollect very well my writing a letter early in 1791, to a particular friend of mine, which letter enclosed the "Declaration" of the first society of United Irishmen in Belfast, of which I admit myself to be the author, and let what can be made of it. But through what channel it may have passed to the hands of the illustrious character in whose custody I am told it now is, I cannot answer, nor for what mutilations or interpolations it may have suffered on its way. I could wish for my own justification I had the letter; for when I wrote it, I thought it of so little importance, that I kept no copy, nor even made a memorandum of the date.

I am, therefore, obliged to take it on the dubious authority of the author of the speech, and admitting that, I see nothing in its principles which I am disposed to retract; but I would venture to assert, upon memory, for, as I said already, I have no copy, that in the first paragraph quoted, there is an error in the expressions. It is printed thus: "We have not inserted it in our resolutions, and we have not said a word which looks like separation, although in the opinion of our friends, such an event would be the regeneration of Ireland." This is evidently meant to convey something of the idea of a combination or conspiracy, which is utterly false. The declaration and the letter, as I wrote them, were solely my own act. When I had sketched the declaration, I showed it to some gentlemen, whose names I mentioned in the letter, and it met with their approbation. Their names, the author of the speech has not ventured to insert, because he was cunning enough to see that if they were made public, it would blow up his inuendo of a conspiracy into the air; he calls them, therefore, my associates, some physicians, a barrister, &c."

Whom he meant by the expression "our friends," is, I suppose, explained in the next sentence, which runs as follows:

"These are the sentiments of this father of the society of "United Irishmen, who has been voted upwards of a £1000 "sterling by the Catholic convention, and who struck out for "them that plan of election which he received from his friends "and associates in France.”

Here are four heavy charges, in as many lines. Of each in their order, and first of the first.

1st. So far as writing the declaration of the first society of Belfast, the first indeed in the kingdom, and being a very early member of that of Dublin, I plead guilty, and I remain, in every syllable I have there written, precisely of the opinion I was when I wrote it; I have not one word to offer in justification.

2d. To the second. I have been voted upwards of £1000 sterling by the Catholics. I am proud to own it; it is a connection wherein I glory. It is a reward spontaneously voted, for services fairly done, and sacrifices, I will say it, disinterestedly made. When I first wrote a little book on the Catholic question, I was not acquainted with one member of their body; that circumstance introduced me to their notice; they retained me in their service, and I served them faithfully. I have received from them an honorable discharge, and I am satisfied. I will further assure the writer of the speech, what he will perhaps find it difficult to conceive, that I think myself a richer, and a happier man with £ 1000 sterling, earned as I have earned it, than I should if I were Lord Chancellor of Ireland, with ten times as much a year, and the conviction that I had purchased my wealth and honors, by betraying the liberties and independence of my country.

3d. The next charge is, that I struck out for the Catholics the plan for the election of their convention. This charge, I am heartily sorry, is not true, for were it so, I should have the satisfaction to think I had rendered them a service, in some degree adequate to the benefits and the kindness which I have received at their hands; and I assure the author of the speech that I should not shrink from the honor of being the inventor of the plan, though I were convinced that I might thereby give mortal offence to the illustrious personage who is made, with such asperity, to censure me, a personage indeed about whose favor, I neither have been, nor am remarkably solicitous.

4th. The next charge is rather more serious. It is no less than that I received the plan, which I am just said to have myself struck out, from my friends and associates in France. There are some charges which admit but of one answer. As I presume that the author of the speech meant to convey an imputa

tion of the deepest dye, I shall give him the only reply he deserves, by telling him his assertion is a gross and malignant falsehood.

And here, if I had any doubt before, I would be satisfied that this same speech could not possibly be the composition of the noble and illustrious personage whose name is so audaciously prefixed to it; for surely that noble and learned personage is infinitely too just to endeavor to affix on an innocent man, whose success in life must depend on his preserving a fair character, who could never by any possibility have injured him, who has not the honor, nor even the wish, in the smallest degree, to know him, a charge of so heinous a nature, and, at the same time, so utterly unsupported by the smallest shadow of truth. God knows in those days of gunpowder acts, and alien acts, and treasonable correspondence acts, and convention acts, what may or may not be an act to bring a man's life in jeopardy. It may not be long the "only misfortune of a free Government, that "nothing but full and legal proof can bring such dark conspira❝tors to condign punishment." When all ordinary modes of investigation fail, perhaps we may see the rack come in for its turn, and force the unwilling culprit to furnish evidence against himself. There are minds, cruel and cowardly, to whom such a speculation may not be undelightful, and I remember to have read in a book, called the history of England, how a certain Lord Chancellor, (I think his name was Wriothesly) tortured with his own hands, in the tower of London, a certain Anne Ayscue; (but that was indeed, and the author mentions it as such, rather a violent act.) Thank God we live in times when such things are not. To the "misfortune of a free Government," a culprit can be convicted as yet only upon full and legal proof, a restraint upon the sallies of a great mind, eager to arrest sedition in its progress, which I do not much wonder the fictitious author of the speech should think extremely hard and unreasonable.

I remember to have lately seen a state paper, in which, by the suppression of dates, by the juxtaposition of remote facts, and the separation of connected ones, something like a plausible narrative was made out, every syllable of which, separately

*Note of the Editor.-This was prophetic.

taken, was true, yet, the whole together, as false as the Koran, a mode of composition which the author of the speech has imitated very successfully. For instance, he connects a letter supposed to be written by me in the spring of 1791, when I was not acquainted with a single Catholic, with the formation of the General Committee, which did not meet until Christmas, 1792; and then combining this with the Duke of Brunswick's immortal retreat the autumn of the same year, he infers, that we, the agitators, meaning the Catholics, my friends and associates in France, and myself, had formed, as he has no doubt, a serious design to rebel against Great Britain, and form a Republic connected with France. These are indeed the dreams of the wicked. "The thief doth fear each bush an officer." But what follows on the heels of this alarming discovery, "that roars so loud and thunders in the index? Truly, the cruel lenity of the laws, which again intervenes, and ties up the hands of this friend to rational liberty; unluckily, "he cannot convict in a court of justice the persons concerned in this design, for still, to the eternal disgrace, as well as misfortune of a free Government, “nothing but full and legal proof, can bring such dark conspirators to condign punishment." Alas! Alas!

But, though this memorable conspiracy, like its brother, the famous insurrection in England, (which has now blazed with such inextinguishable fury for so many months, and no man can yet tell where,) has not been thoroughly defined, or digested, so as to be carried into effect; yet, the authors of it have not been idle. Until they can produce their army of Sansculottes, which is lying, like Mr. Bayes, disguised, in Donnybrook, they amuse themselves piddling with lesser game. They have, therefore, merely "pour passer le temps," totally demolished all credit, public or private, in the country. In the month of August last, says the ingenious and veracious author of this speech, public and private credit were at the highest, public securities above par, and, in November, they had fallen twenty per cent. Private credit fell so low that no man could obtain

100, though specie was never so plenty in Ireland. It appeared in evidence, upon oath, before the Privy Council, that the distress of the manufacturers was owing to the National Guard, and to the United Irishmen. Now all philosophers agree, that no more causes are to be admitted in any hypothesis VOL. I.-64

than are true, and sufficient to explain the phenomenon. I agree with the author of the speech in the fact, but I differ, totally, in the mode of explaining it; and I will not so far imitate him as to give assertion for proof, and authority for argument, for I will support what I say by facts and dates, and, to do so, I must go a little farther back than August last.

The Catholics had, some time before that, begun the elections for their convention, from the beginning to the end of which neither riot, tumult, nor breach of the peace occurred, to the great contristation and disappointment of their enemies. The assizes which usually begin towards the latter end of July, gave an opportunity to some distinguished characters through the country to marshal their respective grand juries in battle array, and they did so to some purpose. From one end of Ireland to the other, nothing was to be heard but the most outrageous and clamorous attacks upon the Catholics, and their truly respectable chairman. Some cried out the Papists were bringing in the French, and others that they were bringing in the Pretender; some that they would leave us in absolute submission to the Pope, and others that they would plunge us into the horrors of a wild democracy; but all agreed, with a noble disregard to property and existence, which I know not how sufficiently to admire, to stake their lives and fortunes in support of the King, the Constitution, and something which was then called the Protestant ascendency, but is now become an obsolete phrase. All this bustle, and confusion, and rout, and alarm, certainly did create a good deal of uneasiness in the public mind, and some apprehension lest tumults, at least, if not worse, might ensue, for the Catholics proceeded with the cool resolution of men who seemed to be in earnest, and the blustering braggadocios of the grand juries, were, by many, mistaken for the ebullitions of genuine courage, determined not to recede; and, indeed, these idle rhodomontades were countenanced by men who should have known better. I have heard of one illustrious personage who, overlooking the gross impropriety of such a measure, in a Judge, a Peer, and a Minister, attended the meeting of the freeholders of his county, and lent, as far as he could, the countenance of his office to a fulminating declaration against the Catholics, wherein lives and fortunes were lavishly tendered, and the most terrible predictions and menaces held forth, in