And he acknowledges that "he never could have anticipated those horrors by which the blood-hounds of Enniscorthy and Wexford have added new difgraces to a religion whose former enormities it would have been infinitely better to have expiated than revived." "Still, however, the author muft deem thofe perfons mistaken who conceive the Irish Union to have been originally a Roman Catholic P.ot. He thinks the erroneoufnefs of fuch a fuppofition will fully appear from the following pages. The attentive reader will find fufficient proof, that the primary object of the United Irishmen was ftrictly and exclufively Revolutionary Democracy; and that though, from the firit moment of their inftitution, they regarded the religious difaffection of the Irish Catholics as the chief inftrument of their defign, and the fureft pledge of their fuccefs, it was uniformly their object to make Religion fubfervient to Jacobinifm, and not Jacobinifm to Religion. How fatally they might have found them-felves deceived, and how likely they were to have become the victims of their own infernal policy, the events of the late rebellion have ftrongly evinced; but fuch is the malignity of the Jacobin temper, that we cannot doubt but the fame artifice will be perfevered in until both the political malecontent, and the religious bigot, fhall be obliged to feel the futility of combination, as well as the frenzy of refiftance." Pref. Pp. 16, 17. In the first Effay, Mr. Grattan's well-known Addrefs to the Citizens of Dublin is analyzed with equal spirit and juftice. It is very properly confidered as an exhortation to infurrection, and its author is compared to the frantic fanatic that spread confufion and terror through the metropolis of Great Britain in 1780. The latter, however, had the apology for his conduct which infanity ever affords, but the former had no fuch excufe, for it does not appear that he is infane, except fo far as anger is a fhort madness,' This Addrefs has been fince more fully expofed by the able and vigorous pen of Dr. Duigenan.* The fecond and third Effays contain fome judicious remarks on Lord Fitzwilliam's statement of the difpofition of the Irish Catholics, and the author clearly demonftrates the danger of acceding to the claims of the Catholics on the principle urged by his Lordship, at the time, as the ground of acceffion. Democratic Liberty is confidered in the fourth and fifth Ellays, and fome of its confequences are ably pourtrayed in the following paffage : "Kingly Governments have, no doubt, been frequently oppreffive; but when they opprefs, they do not oblige their people to call that oppreffion liberty: this adding of infult to injury, is the peculiar * See Vol. I. p. 37, of this Review. Hh z glory glory of Revolutionary Governments. When Lord Peter, in the Tale of a Tub, cut a large flice off a Brown-George loaf, and handed it to his hungry brothers, we are told he ufed to fay to them, Look ye, Gentlemen, this is mutton-excellent mutton, and if you don't call it mutton, you'll be damn'd eternally.' But Revolu tionary Liberty beats my Lord Peter all to nothing; what he gave to his brothers was ftill fomething they could eat; if it was not just what he called it, it was food, it was not poifon. But Democracy, as far as we have yet witneffed its good offices, gives, inftead of bread, a ftone; inftead of a fish, a ferpent; and, instead of an egg, it ofers a fcorpion. Nor is this all, for when the ferpent bites, or the fcorpion ftings, the wretched victims muft not fo much as whimper; when they are robbed, and plundered, and ftript, if they do not with to lofe their lives as well as their fubftance, they must still shoot Liberty! Liberty! "So much for the firft fteps of emancipation in Holland:--let us now fee what they may look to hereafter, as a compenfation for the ftripping of their fideboards. And who will pretend to fay that the Dutch will not have their full fhare of all the happiness the French have obtained; or that the Tree of Liberty will not bear as rich fruit amongst the former, as it has done amongst the latter? But what are the fruits which France has gathered off the Tree of Liberty? What advantages does it appear to have gained from its Revolution? To be informed on this head we will have recourse to a fure quarter, remote from the influence of a Court, or Minister; we will go to a well-known Oppofition Paper, the Courier, publifhed in London on the 23d of last month, in the third column of the third page of which we find a fpeech relative to the prefent ftate of France, delivered by one Pelet, on the 8th day of the same month in the National Convention :- For thefe five years paft (fays Pelet) the people who defire to be happy have been duped by words; for five years paft they have been oppreffed and feverely fiarted: let us no longer adjourn our duty, and their rights, for ambition and crime, ignorance and famine will not ceafe to fpread their devaftation. The erroneous system of our political economy is the fource of all our fufferings-our manufactures languish, our maritime trade is deftroyed; whilft our victories render us illuftrious, and confolidate our power abroad, diforder jhakes the very foundations of fociety at home. "Now what is this? is it national happinefs? is it a thing worth fighting for, worth rifking every thing valuable for? Is it a juft and adequate return for all the human blood which has been fhed in the purfuit of it? And can Holland hope for any thing better? At prefent it is under a French Government; that French Government has begun its career with robbery; and as to what is likely to arife from it in the fequel, let us liften to Pelet in another part of the fame fpeech: If (fays he) you delay treating with Holland, if you continue occupying that country as a conqueft, commerce will fly from that Republic. You will annihilate that beautiful creation of human induftry: induftry; in three months that country will be a charge to you, and its fugitive riches will increase the treasures of your enemies.' "Such then are the bleffed fruits of Democratic Emancipation, which France enjoys already, and which Holland has in profpect, if France perfeveres in holding it as a fraternized country. Pelet afferts that France has been in the fituation which he defcribes for five years, that is, ever fince the commencement of the new fyftem. So then, during the prefent free government, France has been miferable; and during her old flavish government fhe was comparatively happy! This is plain; because if the had been miferable under the old government, Pelet could not have limited the turn of national mifery to five years. "What then follows? Clearly that French Liberty has been productive of fo much mifery, that they now look back to the very times of that old government, which they fo much reprobated, as times of happiness compared with the prefent." (Pp. 31---34.) In farther fupport of his arguments on this topic the author cites the laconic epiftle of Piorry, a Member of the Convention, and Commiffioner to the people of Poitiers; "Lofe not a moment, every thing must be deftroyed, burnt, guillotined, carried off, regenerated!" and the merciful propofal of Bo for reftoring plenty to France by the destruction of one half of her inhabitants.-" Be of good cheer, France has enough for twelve millions of people; the rest of its inhabitants will be put to death, and then provifions will be abundant!" Democratic Confiftency forms the fubject of the next Effay, and the fix fucceeding ones are on various topics. In the feventh we find the following obfervations on the dreadful effects of the poifon contained in thofe vehicles of treafon and fedition, the Jacobin Newspapers :- "We fhudder at the tale of midnight murder, or the narra tive of cold cruelty; but what midnight murder, real or fabled, what cold cruelty, in ancient or modern ftory, is equal to this-that men, not driven mad by oppreffion, not rouzed to enthusiasm by any fpecies of perfecution, fhould thus make open war on focial happiness, on every thing that is mild, or gentle, or eftimable in human nature? "And are there fuch perfons? Alas, are there not? Would there be inflammatory Newfpapers if there were not fuch to cherish and to feed them? Would there have been Defenders, if there had not been fuch perfons to encourage them? Or would there be just now a band of plotters, of deeply fyftematized plotters against the Government and peace of the country, in the profperous and plenteous North, if the tones of fedition had not been founded from the metropolis, and echoed and re-echoed by that bufy inftrument of mifchief, The Northern Star? Yes, I write from honeft indignation, becaufe I know that in one of the most thriving diftriéts in the kingdom, where oppreffion is not felt, where diftrefs does not occur, except from mere misfortune, or abfolute vice, the spirit of sedition, unex. cited by the fhadow of provocation, and wrought up to phrenzy folely by the mental poifons of those murderous Mountebanks, has, within thefe few weeks, precipitated a number of wretched perfons (who, in order to be completely happy, wanted nothing but contented minds,) into the gloom of a jail, preparatory, perhaps, to the horrors of a gibbet." Pp. 56, 57. The eleventh Effay contains fome very juft and pertinent remarks on the arts exerted, and the fallacies employed, by factious demagogues, to mislead the ignorant and credulous multitude "Nothing is more common with half-thinking men, than to con】 found the evils which arife neceffarily out of the ftate of civil fociety, with thofe which spring from a bad Government, or a faulty Conftitution. But to men of common sense the distinction will be obvious. There are, and will be, in every community under heaven, deficien. cies and inconveniencies, burthens and grievances, which no laws can reach, and which, of course, no legiflature can cure. Of thefe a great part may be palliated, but they cannot be eradicated-Providence has entailed them on our nature. Others may unquestionably be remedied, but not by Government; they arife from the misconduct of fociety, from the wrong exercife of general free agency; and it refts with fociety by its own voluntary exertions to remove them. All "For inftance, there is, perhaps, as much diftrefs in the metropolis as in any one of the four provinces befides. A great deal of this undoubtedly comes within the clafs of unavoidable misfortune; but a great deal alfo arifes, at this moment, from a caufe equally remote from nature and politics, I mean the influence of fashion: the whole tribe of flaymakers, for example, muft now be in extreme diftress because the female fex have thought proper to throw off their bodice. The filk and ftuff.weavers must be equally wretched, from the univerfal wear of linen and muflin; the buckle-makers can be little less embarraffed from the general adoption of leather hocstrings; and the unfortunate corps of hair-dreffers are configned over to mifery and defpair, by the new generation of Roundheads. thefe together muft make up a deplorable mafs of poverty and wretchedness. But is the Government or the Conftitution to be blamed for this? Or, are the Democrats lefs blameable than any of their neigh bours? Do they not enter as deeply into the fashions of the day as the Nobility themselves? And is not the ftarvation of the laft enumerated victims, in particular, their own peculiar atchievement? Were they now in power, confiftency would bind them to denounce the Grecian waift, the calico robe, the fhoe-ftring, and the cropp'd head, as inftances of incivifm, and fymptoms of an anti-revolutionary temper. Perhaps it is to keep their extraordinary hamanity in full prefervation for thus exercifing it as Rulers of a Republic, that they do not now choose to fquander it while Subjects of a Monarchy." Pp. 88-90. The 12th Efay contains fome judicious comments on a report of the Whig Club, evidently calculated to excite difcon The tent in the minds of the lower claffes of people. 13th is "addreffed to Country Gentlemen and other Perfons of Property in the North of Ireland," ftrenuously urging them to active exertion against a widely extended confpiracy, that threatened to involve them all in one common destruction. The 14th exhibits a judicious and mafterly appeal to the United Irishmen of Ulfter, placing, in a ftrong point of view, the fallacy of thofe hopes which had led them to fwerve from their allegiance, and to embark in the caufe of rebellion, which, if fuccessful, could only be productive of accumulated mifery. The 15th contains a fimilar appeal to the United Irishmen, in and about Belfaft, interfperfed with fome curious facts, respecting their treasonable proceedings. The 16th is entitled "Remarks on the first printed Propofals for the Irifh Union," and the author fhews the exact conformity of this plan with the diabolical fyftem of the Jacobins on the Continent of Europe: the fame fubject is purfued in the two following Effays. He here examines the principles of the United Irishmen as explained and unfolded by themfelves, and proves, to demonftration, that their open and avowed object was the establishment of a complete democracy, and the total feparation of Ireland from Great Britain. If a doubt remain in the mind of any man, on this important point, we refer him for the certain means of removing it, to Pp. 155, 156, 157, and 158 of this volume. After thus expofing their treafon "to the broad face of day," Mr. Knox thus vents the honeft indignation of a loyal and virtuousmind: "And yet these are the men who have been cheered and toafted by the Whig Club in England, and pitied and patronized by the Whig Club in Ireland! These are they who have been reprefented by the great Oppofition Orator in the British Parliament as looking for nothing but the full enjoyment of the British Conftitution, and ast ready to return to tranquillity, if this reasonable boon were granted; and thefe are they for whom the Paragon of Irish eloquence has offered up his fervent prayers to Heaven, that the fame Providence which conducted another perfecuted tribe through the wildernefs may lead thefe victims of oppreffion alfo through the horrors with which they are furrounded! "Are we to fuppofe that thefe good-natured politicians were caught, in the fimplicity of their hearts, by that verbal bait of Reform with which the United Irishmen have covered their barbed hook of Revolutionary Democracy? Did they really not know that their Reform was itself but Democracy under another name? That its effen. tial features were Univerfal Suffrage, annual Elections, and every Man to be capable of being elected? And were they not well aware that fuch a mob-elected and mob-dependent Houfe of Commons as this plan would create, would itfelf be the most infallible engine that wicked policy could devife, for beating down the two other branches of the Legiflature? Were they ignorant of thefe felf-evident facts, or |