calculated to inspirit his hopes, and to depress those of your Countrymen, is in your Lordship's breast to determine but at least, it is for me to shew how grosly your Lordship has been deceived; how unjustly the Government of Ireland has been aspersed; and to endeavour, by the sober statement of a few facts, which cannot be refuted, to destroy the baneful effects which your Lordship's declamatory and ill-judged Speech is calculated to produce upon the public mind.

For this purpose, my Lord, it is necessary to advert to the situation of Ireland a short time back. Your Lordship charges the present state of that Country to be the consequence of the measures now pursuing by Government, for retaining it in a state of peace and subordination. It is fair, therefore, to enquire, what was its condition, before the great and opulent County of Down, and other Districts in the Province of Ulster, were pro claimed, to which the present discontents are ascribed. At that period the measures of which your Lordship has so loudly complained, had not taken place. The complaints which you represent to arise out of them, could have no existence; and therefore we may fairly recur to that æra, as a test by which we may examine the question at issue between Government and their opponents. Does your Lordship not know, that, before the meeting of the Irish Parliament, in November, 1796, an alarming Conspiracy was generally conceived to exist, which has since been detected; and that many Baronies throughout the North were in a state of the greatest insubordination and tumult ? Is not your Lordship aware, that this Conspiracy had for its object the reduction of Rents, the division of Property, the abolition of Tythes, the absolute destruction of Government, and a general massacre of the principal Gen

try

try throughout the Provinces? Was not the Constitution then nearly put down, and the Laws in general silenced, by a system of terror gradually extending itself over the Country, and threatening in its progress both a dissolution of Government and Society? Can any impartial spectator deny this? At that period your Lordship was in England; you are therefore entitled to call for proofs. Perhaps, if you had been upon the spot, the scandal of the scene would have impressed upon your Lordship's mind the necessity of being a little more cautious in relying so implicitly upon your channels of intelligence. You would then have seen a Country rich in population, soil, and industry, in the wantonness of prosperity conspiring against its own happiness, and driven to the verge of Insurrection through the diabolical machinations of Demagogues and Traitors. Yes, my Lord, I aver, that at that period hardly a Magistrate dared to do his duty. Scarcely a Juryman would venture to discharge his trust, so universally were they under the influence of terror, from the lawless conduct of that desperate body of men denominated United Irishmen. At the Spring Assizes at Carrickfergus, both the Sheriff and the Jury were universally said to have received Letters, threatening them with death if one United Irishman was convicted. Many Gentlemen constantly carried pocket pistols about them, as a security against assassination. In open day, in the Town of Lisburn, near Belfast, in the month of September, 1796, the Rev. Mr. JOHNSON, an active and able Magistrate, was shot in the streets, as he was mounting his horse, for daring to be superior to fear, in the discharge of his duty. In the month of November of the same year, another Magistrate, the Rev. Mr. CLELAND, was shot at, in New Town Ards, on the same account;

and

་

and Magistrates the most eminent, were obliged to have Soldiers living in their houses, to protect them from the sanguinary vengeance of these deluded and ferocious people. Was not Lord LONDONDERRY, and is he not to this moment compelled to have a military guard in his house? Were not Witnesses against any of these individuals either cut off by assassination, compelled to emigrate, or necessitated to live under military protection? Were not these murders frequent? Does not your Lordship know that at that very period (in November, 1796) the King's Stores in Belfast were robbed, and a quantity of gunpowder carried off by force? Was not the Country ftricken with universal consternation, in consequence of these atrocious scenes? And was there not, at the same time, a general expectation of a Foreign Invasion?

Yes, my Lord, such was the state of the North of Ireland when Parliament met in the month of November, 1796. What then ensued? The intended Invasion was announced from the Throne; and the Country was called upon to put itself in a state of adequate resistance to the Enemy. Yeomanry Corps were then ordered to be raised for the purpose of maintaining Peace throughout each Barony, and of enabling Government, in the event of necessity, to concentrate as much as possible the Regular Military Force of the Kingdom. In this situation, I ask your Lordship, if the Conspirators in the North did not employ every base art to prevent as much as possible the formation of these useful Corps? At one moment. they misrepresented to the People, the Oath of Allegiance to be taken by individuals entering into these Corps ; at another, the most open threats were practiced; and, in some instances, the most daring and cruel violence was employed

employed with successful effect, to terrify those into resigning, who had already inlisted. Does your Lordship require any proof of this? Read it in the tragical fate of the gallant but unfortunate Mr. CUMMINS. In one night (in the year 1796) a body of United Irishmen, with blackened faces, forcibly disarmed several Yeomen belonging to Lord LONDONDERRY'S Corps, by entering into their houses in the dead of the night, and seizing upon their arms and accoutrements; and because this brave Gentleman, who was one of their Captains, nobly refused to surrender up his arms, they inhumanly butchered him with the most savage barbarity. Did not the lamented Mr. HAMILTON meet with a similar fate? Shortly afterwards they appeared in arms, in open day, in the vicinity of Cumber, to rescue two men then carrying to Downpatrick jail. Is, not this a fact notoriously known? Did they not, about the same time, begin forcibly to disarm all the inhabitants of the Country who were not united with them by nocturnal visits? Did not families fly into Belfast for safety, dreading to sleep in the Country? Did not others quit Ireland altogether? Did not a regular Battalion of United Irishmen, in the spring of this year, march to Mr. KENNEDY's, at Kentraw, near Belfast, and carry away thirteen stand of arms forcibly from the family, with as much systematical regularity as if they had been invested with lawful authority so to do? And is it not within. your Lordship's knowledge, that before the County of Down was proclaimed, several Gentlemen's Estates, immediately on your Lordship's vicinity, were despoiled of their best timber, for the purposes of manufacturing pikes for the Insurgents?

In this situation, what was the Government of Ireland to do? They had seen the Laws openly violated; they

VOL. I.

G

had

had witnessed the blood of the Magistrate to flow; they had beheld illegal Associations administering unlawful Oaths throughout the Country, for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution; they had seen the authority of the State despised, in the disarming of its Soldiery; they had the warning of revolutionary preparations, in the war-whoop of Sedition sounded throughout the Country, in the forging of Arms, and the carrying off of the King's Military Stores. The Press at Belfast was in a state of open hostility; the Insurgents every day became more daring, and the loyal part of the Country grew clamourous for protection against the dangers which encompassed them. Nothing, therefore, was left to Government but the interposition of Military Force to check acts of rebellion which defied and suspended the Civil Power: to renew the existence of the Constitution, by rescuing the Laws from that state of imbecility into which the lawless violence of a Banditti had plunged them. It was only then, when every measure of lenity and forbearance had failed, and the Conspirators were on the eve of a concerted and general Insurrection, that the Province of Ulster was proclaimed, and the inhabitants were called upon to deliver up their arms in trust for themselves, and to be restored hereafter, to prevent the United Irishmen from getting them into their possession. This, my Lord, I aver to have been the state of the North of Ireland at the moment when that salutary measure was adopted, and to it alone is to be ascribed the quietude it has since enjoyed. Outrage has greatly ceased; confidence is returned; the Laws are re-assuming their sway; and Persons and Property have derived a security from it, to which for a considerable time before they were entirely

strangers.