This great political evil en- but others will rise in its place. genders and nourishes the rest. standings with researches into the musty records of antiquity? Why perplex yourselves with the professional subtlety of the law? Here is the origin of evil-you hear of it abroad-you see it at your doors-the people are lost, if they do not at present speak, and write, and act with all the energy which the spirit of the constitution warrants. It is not the temporizing expedient of repealing this or that law, or removing this or that minister, which can yield substantial and enduring redress to the ills of the nation; and if I be asked, who are the agents powerful enough to effectuate the work of reform? I Jay my hand upon my heart and I answer, Yourselves. God forbid, that while the constitution warrants peaceable, yet efficacious means of redress, any Irishman should countenance the vindication of our rights by the doubtful and dreadful de cision of the sword: but it is the duty of an Irishman to remark, that if any people from irresolution, want of integrity, criminal neutrality, or causeless despair, should neglect to employ those means which all the laws that are left them have placed in their power, that people is not entitled to lament the loss of liberty, which it deserves to lose. LETTER IV. FELLOW-SLAVES! ANSWER me one question.-If you be languid in the pursuit of reform, would you not be equally so in the enjoy ment of it? Are you ABLE to be free? Be assured, that if it be laborious to attain liberty, it is laborious to maintain it. The spirit of a nation able to be free, must be a haughty and magnanimous spirit, strenuous, vigilant, vindictive, always There is spirit in man. There is a spirit in nations; and the inspi ration of the Almighty gives some nations understanding to know the value of freedom, ardor to pursue it through sur rounding difficulties, and energy to maintain it. The reform, if obtained at this instant, might only serve to accumulate dis grace upon your heads, and make you a laughing-stock to Eu impatient, often impetuous, sometimes inexorable. sope. 1. fear your present indolence and irresolution: they hang about my heart with a melancholy foreboding and prescience that you are too impotent to possess a reform, that you have not, as it were, the nerves and muscles to bear it. If, at this time, you do not exert yourselves in a manner worthy of the sublime object which you have in view, I pray to Almighty God, that, whatever may be the lot of posterity, you your selves may never obtain a reformed constitution. Did the Concession of the ministry at this moment present the nation with a reform bill in a gold box, I should accept it, as an I zishman, with a reluctance bordering upon disgust; when I reflected that my countrymen might only divert themselves for a little with the blessing, as children with a toy. I declare I should be sorry that any minister brought about the redemp tion of a nation that ought to redeem itself; and, if it does not redeem itself, is not worthy of redemption. Must a mighty nation stand gaping for the wind which blows them the news of one man going into a closet, and an other man coming out? Must the genius of the Irish consti tution stand, like a blind harper, at the door of a man in of fice, till the porter bids him go about his business? Perhaps this young minster knows you, my countrymen, better than you know yourselves. His experience in human nature, and the history of the world will lead him to remark, that there is a distinction of rank among nations as well as a mong individuals; and that although some states rise by their own efforts far above the vulgar level of what may be called the mob of nations, appearing to the world as if the overbearing and impracticable spirit of his mighty Father had been melted down and diffused through the land; yet, the. generality of men, in different states, are sufficiently happy if they be permitted to eat, to drink, to sleep, and to propa gate. He might observe, that these seem to have been the only objects of national ambition in this island for centuries past, and that when the strange lunacy of the moment is over, they will continue our only goods for centuries to come. He may assure us, that his principles and his wishes would lead him to gratify the good people of Ireland in all their reasonable desires, but that he knows not as yet whether the expression of these desires be not merely the fugitive produc tions of the day, born only to buzz for a few hours, and then to perish in the stream of oblivion.-That we were at present in a state of probation for freedom: that Providence, which often chuses to throw obstacles in the way of a nation situated as ours is at present, merely as trials of its strength and resolution to bear what it has boldness enough to demand, may have designed to use himself and his associates as instruments in his hands, external obstacles, which may prove whether the nation has permanent efficience within itself sufficient to entitle it to the rank of a free people. That on this account solely, from the purest concern for the interests of humanity, which must be materially injured by our inability to maintain, with any credit to ourselves, the great object of our desires, and with silent and secret wishes, that by a heroism becoming candidates for such a prize, we may approve our selves to our King and to our God worthy of a reform; he takes the resolution to act, as a prime minister always acts, and hopes at the same time, that your admiration of his abilities, will not lead you so far as to make you forget the use of your own, I think, my countrymen, that the attainment of national freedom ought always to be made in a progressive manner, in order to train a people as it were to manhood: but I think, at the same time, that this progression ought to move on with a velocity accelerated in proportion as the nation approaches the object which attracts it. The youngest among you will easily remember the different steps in this progress, from laying the first stone at Dungannon, until the meeting of the last Convention: but the oldest among you is toe apt to forget the indissoluble connexion between these steps and the mutual support which they give to each other-I might dwell with pleasure on the regular and beautiful gradation of persevering virtue, which has of late raised this country to a name among nations; but I wish rather to appeal to your memory, for it is too soon, I hope, to commence your historian. Let the man who is fatigued in the ascent, look back and pretend to admire the prospect-I wish only that you may recollect how every part of this business has been, as it were, cemented with what went before, and to what came after. I wish to caution you from resting the weight and magnitude of this mighty matter upon any single occurrence, but that taking the whole under one comprehensive view, you may be less disappointed in the failure of any one part, and rest with perfect confidence, that if you do not desert yourselves, you will soon behold the completion of the work. I should wish particularly to impress you with the belief, that this assembly of dele-gates is nothing more or less than a continuation of the convention which assembled in the year eighty-three; and that as the object of the nation continues the same; as the agents who are interested in the attainment of this object are the same; as the motives become every day more pressing; and as the means put into practice are the same constitutional means, strengthened by repetition and variation of form and character, the same eagerness should spread from breast to breast, to make that assembly which is about to meet, an illustrious proof that the majesty of the people has hitherto pût forth only half its strength. The convention in 1783 assembled as volunteers, with no design of relinquishing, for a moment, the name of citizen, but from a desire of adding constitutional energy to that saered title, by uniting the characters of citizen and soldier, cementing them together in one common and consistent appellation. When these guardians of domestic peace, these protectors of your liberties and lives, were opprobriously used, they observed a majestic and expressive silence, a silence that spoke feelingly to the hearts of the people, and said, “We armed in your defence; we placed this nation in a guarded silence, dreadful to its foes. We have been the life-guards of the constitution, and richly have we been paid by your applause. Let us dissolve ;✅ we appeal to the people of Ireland to justify our characters, vindicate our cause, and restore our fame." You, then, my countrymen, are now called upon før your verdict in this momentous cause. Your silence is a contrite confession, that all which has been done was rebellion; that every volunteer is an outlaw, and every county-meeting a conventicle. The father may then call his son an assassin, and the son may call his father a traitor. The whole nation must in this case be acknowledged a nest of private and public iniquity. Speak, then, if you do not chuse to have the - reputation and fair fame of your friends and kindred destroyed before your eyes. Speak, if you do not wish to be employed as mutes to strangle your children with a bow-string. Yes! I speak warmly, because I am deeply interested. I gloin being enthusiastic. I pity the man who can discuss such a question as a problem in mathematics, and when he triamphs in his argument, walks off convinced and contented. This nation will never obtain its object, till it joins the ardor of love to the composure of political philosophy. I therefore ry |