1806.

us to make the proposal, and in it we earnestly entreat your acquiescence. Your return to Parliament has beyond any other occurrence, been gra tifying to every patriotic and independent feeling. Let us be permitted to render it altogether a public concern, by taking upon us the expences unavoidably incurred, in a popular and protracted election. Those, who have now the honor to address you, in the honest and zealous impulse of what they feel to be their duty, have made provision for this purpose; it is the tribute, Sir, of men attached to your interest and to your cause, because they identify these objects with the freedom and welfare of their country.

"D. T. O'BRIEN, Chairman."

"To which Mr. Grattan was pleased to make the following answer :

"GENTLEMEN,

"In answer to that part of your address, which attributes to me what I do not pretend to arrogate to myself, I can only say, that I took my part in the public service in common with others. The honor of representing the capital of my native country, I feel to be great, and still greater from the zeal, which was manifested in my favour. To you, and to your body I am very much indebted. You supported me with activity and with effect; and though the Catholics could not vote as freemen, yet, I hope the Corporations, from good

sense and good temper, coupled with a regard to their own real interest, will not long hesitate to second the intentions of the legislature, and give you the full benefit of those franchises, which the statute designed. The last idea contained in your address, which proposes to discharge the expence of my election, is, in a high degree generous and splendid; it does honor to yourselves, and to the person, who is the object of it. Gratified most sincerely by that honor, I must decline the offer; but I feel the obligation undiminished, unabated and perpetual. I have the honor to be, Gentle men, your most faithful humble Servant,

" HENRY GRATTAN."

1806.

increase.

On the decline of Autumn the tumultuous spirit Threshers of the Threshers began to spread itself into the neighbouring counties. Lord Granard and the leading gentlemen of property in the county of Longford had frequent meetings to concert measures for checking its progress, at the last of which they came to a string of resolutions*, which they

* COUNTY OF LONGFORD.

At a meeting of the magistrates and gentry of the county of
Longford, convened by the Earl of Granard, as governor of
said county, on the 8th day of December 1806, at Longford,
The following resolutions were unanimously agreed to.

Resolved, That we have observed with deep regret the dis.turbances and disorders, which have lately been committed in this county by deluded men styling themselves Threshers, assem

1806. published in the chief newspapers. They bespeak the alarming stage, to which these infatuated wretches had then arrived. About the same time, in consequence of Mr. Serjeant Moore's report, and the growing audacity of the associators, a special commission issued to Lord Chief Justice Downes and Mr. Baron George to try the several prisoners in the different goals of the disturbed counties. In the county of Mayo, 12 of those deluded wretches were found guilty, and expiated their offences by death. Fewer were tried and

bling by night, disguised and armed, and tendering illegal oaths, or administering oaths, they not being qualified so to do.

Resolved, That we hold such proceedings in utter abhorrence, and that we will collectively and individually, use every legal means in our power to bring such offenders to justice, and that we will co-operate with the military in a strenuous support of the laws, and in affording every protection in our power to the loyal and well conducted part of this county.

Resolved, That liberal rewards shall be given to all persons giving such information as will enable us to prosecute any of the above mentioned offenders to conviction.

Resolved, That the sincere thanks of this meeting be returned to John West, Esq. Hugh Kerr, Esq. and Samuel Crawford, Esq. for their active and spirited endeavours to repress the outrages committed by those deluded men styling themselves Threshers

Resolved, That any person bringing information to a magistrate may rely upon being fully protected and amply rewarded, as the magistrates of the county are authorized, and will be enabled by government to do so.

Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to each other and to our country, that we will not renew any lease, or let an acre of land, to any person, who we have just reason to believe has voluntarily and actively been concerned in any of the above or similar outrages.

suffered in the other counties. The special commissión fortunately put a check to the outrages. The country was convinced, that the strong arm of the law sufficed to tranquillize it. Addresses of thanks to the Lord Lieutenant for his having so seasonably issued the special commission, were sent up from the Grand Jury of the county of Mayo and others. It was the peculiar boast of the Castle, that they put down the Threshers without resorting to the violent measures, which Mr. Perceval, in particular, had on the second day of the session so vehemently called upon the ministers to adopt.

1906.

ministers

the old

It is to be deplored, that the new ministers, who The new came into office upon the open avowal of princi acting upon ples diametrically opposite to those of their prede- principles. cessors, should have been but few months in office, ere they shewed themselves impregnated with the spirit and principles of the old system, as strongly to all appearances, and according to every rational ground of human judgment, as if they essentially constituted the tenure, by which they held their situations. In the old official cant they charged the insurrections of the Threshers upon the religion of the rioters and the illiberal and injudicious annexation of a tumultuary confederacy of parts of a wretched ground-down peasantry with the vital question of Catholic emancipation produced the only measure brought forward by the ministers,

That measure of opening the military service to Catholics, brought on by Lord Howick, will fall under the consideration of

*1806.

which appeared to carry with it any thing like Catholic concession. Those men were now in rule, who had been the loudest in reprobating the conduct of Mr. Pitt as insincere and insidious to the Irish Catholics, because when in office he had the power of carrying their question, and did not: because he declared it essential to the security of the Empire, and that no minister could hold his situation with honor or honesty, without effecting it: and he returned to office on a pledge to resist it. The Catholics were not aware of any abbreviation of the arm of government; they were sensible of no accession of offensive or defensive force to the Empire; they lamented to see the enemy daily aggrandized; they knew the sincerity and ardor of their own wishes to procure a constitution to fight for, and on every application for relief, on every expression of expectancy or even hope, they uniformly found ministers wrapping themselves up in the threadbare cover of inexpediency. They were not even soothed by any fresh assurance of good will to their cause; they had received no intermediate subordinate relief or encouragement from the executive, nor was a prospective promise or cheering ray even of remote hope hollen out by those, who communicated with them. They naturally bore in mind the advice, they had received from the present servants of the crown, to perse

the reader in its order. As will also the encrease of the allow ance to the Catholic College at Maynooth, which certainly was a beneficial measure, which Catholic Ireland owed to the Bedford administration.