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by labor either of mind or body, something beyond a mere subsistence, some little capital to prove, in case of sickness, old age, or misfortune, a safeguard for his body and for his soul, a hallowed heard that may lift him above the hard necessity which struggles between conscience and corruption; that may keep his heart whole and his spirit erect, while his body bends beneath its burden; make him fling away the wages of venality, and proudly return to an humble home, where a constitution that looks alike on the palace and the hovel, may stand at his hearth a tutelar divinity, and spread the Egis of equal law to guard him from the revenge of those who offered the bribe and offered it in vain. Yes, Irishmen, we do proclaim it our dearest wish, to see a more equal distribution of the benefits and blessings of life through the lowest classes of the community, the stamina of society; and we assert it as our firm belief, that an equal distribution of the elective franchise must contribute to this end; for national happiness depends upon employment, which must itself spring from industry; and that again depends on liberty, security of person and property, equal law, speedy and impartial justice, and, in short, on that tenure in the state, which may raise the ebimmunity in relative value as in self-estimation; make the agency of the people instrumental to a good government, and the re-agency of good government meliorate the morals and manners of the people; bind together the distinct, and hither to contending classes of society, by the cement of reciprocity and the interchange of obligations, and make the higher ranks, balustrades that adorn the arch, feel their dependence on the people, who are the piles that support it. On the whole, we are so far republicans, as to desire a national House of Commons, in its origin, its form, its features, and its spirit; reverencing the people, not conspiring, with every other rank, against them, against their privileges, their pleasures, their homely happiness, their fireside enjoyment; but rather cher

ishing the elective franchise, the poor man's ewe lamb, and stigmatizing the landlord, who would despoil him of it, as à traitor to the constitution, a robber of national right, and a murderer of public happiness.

We have addressed the Friends of the People in England, and have received their concurrence, their thanks, and their gratulation. We have addressed the volunteers,-deliverer's of this injured land!-Have we done wrong? If we have, tear your colors from the staff-reverse your armis-muffle your drums-beat a funeral march for Ireland-and then abandon the corpse to fencibles, to militia, to invalids, and dismounted dragoons. If we have not done wrong, and we swear by the revolution of 82 that we have not,-go on with the zeal of enterprizing virtue, and a sense of your own importance, to exercise that right of self-defence, which belongs to the nation, and to infuse constitutional energy into the public will, for the public good.

We now address Ireland.-We address you as a moral person, having a conscience, a will, and an understanding ; bound not only to preserve, but to perfect your nature; the nations around you to witness your conduct, and à God above you to reward your virtues, or to punish your crimes. We speak to you as man to man,-reading your countenance, remarking the various passions that now shift across it, and striving to recollect a character long obliterated by foreign influence, or, after short and fierce developements, becoming the same dall blank as before. Severed as you have always been into counteracting interests; an English interest, an aristocratic interest, a Protestant interest, and a Catholic interest,-all contradistin guished from commonweal; and all, Eike the four elenients, before WISDOM moved on the surface of the deep, exerting their respective influences to retain a chaos rather than create a constitution; actuated, as you have most generally been, by eircumstances merely external,-compressed at one time inte

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fortuitous union by the iron circle of British domination,at another time, by the panic of invasion and fear of famine, when a bankrupt merchantry, and embarrassed gentry, were starved into the common cause of a beggared people, whom government had first pillaged, and then abandoned; the present time, perhaps impelled chiefly by the extraordinary events that have taken place on the Continent, it is not surprizing that your real character is still, in a great measure, unknown to Europe, to Britain, and even to yourself. It is not surprizing, that recollecting the past, we should be anyious about the future;-that we will not entirely confide in the fugitive splendor of the moment, the passing spirit of the people, or even the miraculous conversion of parliament ;-never, never satisfied or secure, until we see a real representation of that people in that parliament ;-until we can see Britain and Ireland connected by constitution, not by corruption,-by equal, not by strong government;-until we see public opinion, or the will of the nation, not as now, acting with rude and intermittent shocks, but the settled and central balance of the political order, around which, without apparent motion in itself, the different branches of the legislature may revolve with the silence and regularity of the planetary system.

We address your understanding, the common sense of the commonweal, and we ask you, is it not a truth, that where the people do not participate in the legislature, by a delega tion of representatives, freely, fairly, and frequently elected, there can be no public liberty; Is it not the fact, that in this country there is no representative legislature; because the people are not represented in the legislature, and have no partnership in the constitution? If it be the principle of the constitution, that it is the right of every commoner in this realm to have a vote in the election of his representative ; and that without such vote, no man can be actually represented, it is our wish, in that case, to renovate that constitution; and to re

vive its suspended animation, by giving free motion and fäll play to its vital principle. If, on the other hand, the constitu

tion does not fully provide for an impartial and adequate re"presentation of all the people; if it be more exclusive than inclusive in its nature; if it be a monopoly, a privilege, or a prerogative; in that case is our desire to alter it; for what is the constitution to us, if we are as nothing to the constitution? Is the constitution made for you, or you for it? If the people do not constitute a part of it, what is it to them more than the ghost of Alfred; and what are principles without practice which they hear and read, to practice without principles which they see and feel?

The people of Ireland want political power:-taxation without consent, and 'legislation without representation, is not a partial grievance, or a Catholic grievance, but the grievance of the nation. The elective franchise is withheld from all, while all want a constituency in the constitution. The disfranchised, and the unfranchised, the unrepresented, and the misrepresented, the Catholic and the Presbyterian, are equally under the law, and out of the constitution: the Protestant, who is supposed to have it, and the Catholic who wishes to have it, are equally interested in having it free; for the truth is, that the whole community wants that emancipation which is necessary to a free government; we can give no truer definition of slavery, than that state in which men are governed without their consent, and no better description of freedom, than that not only those who make the law, should be bound by the law, but those who are bound by the law should have a share in the making it.

All Ireland knows and feels that the people are ousted from their own constitution, and that in a government where they have no participation, the King must become a despot, and the nation a slave. Public reason is convinced, and we assert with the confidence of conviction, that there are not 100

înî this island, inimical to a renovation of the genuine constitution, who are not, at the same time, personally interested in the continuance of its corruptions and the prolongation of its abuses. The time is come when the nation must speak for the nation, and the long expected hour of redemption apd proaches, perhaps providentially protracted, until the universal' voice could be heard, and the universal will declared. The nation is one; one in body, one in soul, an union of colors in a single ray of truth; and the same inextinguishable principle which has accomplished many bloodless revolutions in our history; the peaceful revolution of 79, which gained a free trade, the peaceful revolution of 82, which gained an indepen dence of right to Ireland; will consummate her iniperfect freedom, with equal safety, honor and tranquillity, by the same means, a constitutional interposition of the people, justifiable by law, reason, right, and expediency. The honor of Ireland, her dearest interests, present and future, the interest of her land-holders, and of her merchants, her commercial credit," her staple manufacture, are all involved in the present crisis, and urgently call upon you to declare in convention, your wish, your will, and your determination; that the House of Commons may be restored to that true representative character which would regain national confidence, most effectually sup press all particular associations, give vigor to government, and rest to the perturbid spirit of the people.

O, Ireland Ireland! country to which we have clung in all our misfortunes, personal, religious, political; for whose freedom and happiness we are here solemnly united, for whom, as a society we live; and for whom as men, if hard necessity commands it, we are ready to die; let us conjure you not to abuse the present precious moment, by a selfextinguishment, by a credulous committal of your judgment and senses to the direction of others, by an idle and ideot

gaze