ren and we shall ever endeavour to preserve it: like them, we serve the same God, and with them we are ready, with our lives and fortunes, to support our king and constitution. When, in other places, disgraceful outrages were committed, with us the most perfect order was preserved; for that blessing we are indebted to our next resident magistrate, Andrew Newton, esq. of Coagh, for whose prudent conduct in that office, and the good behaviour of the Ballinderry yeomen under his command, our grateful acknowledgments are due.

Resolved, That this declaration, with our signatures, be delivered to captain Newton, with our request, that a copy of it be laid before his excellency the lord lieutenant.

Ballinderry, Dec. 29, 1797.

The above declaration is signed by Patrick Develin, pastor and all the Roman Catholics in the parish, amounting to several hundreds.

December 10th, 1797.

WE, the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the parish of Rathlin, in the county of Antrim, justly regretting the disturbances, which have outraged and disgraced the northern parts of this kingdom, and feeling sensible of the past errors which many of our body have been led into by the deep designs of wicked men styling themselves United Irishmen; men who have been and still are the prime causers and sole movers of all the seditious proceedings which have torn and disturbed Ireland—and detesting and abhorring as we do, from the bottom of our hearts, both their seditious principles and diabolical practices, do hereby declare, and in the most solemn manner, pledge ourselves to support with our lives and fortunes, the blessed constitution of this country, and his majesty's happy government established amongst us, determined as we are to exert ourselves for the suppression of rebellion and sedition within our districts. We further declare, that we have seen with indignation their endeavours to sow discord between those of our and the Protestant persuasion; being truly sensible that men who have associated or will associate like us, for the protection of the constitution, can have no enmity to those who are equally anxious for its preservation, of whatever religious persuasion they may be. And we do hereby assure all our Protestant brethren of the above description, of our sincere affection for them, and our absolute determination, to co-operate and join with them by every means in our power,

for the suppression of rebellion, the support of this happy constitution, the welfare of his majesty's government, and in love and loyalty towards his sacred person.

Signed by Edward M'Mullan, pastor of Rathlin.

Alexander M'Donnell, and by 180 Roman Catholic inhabitants of the aforesaid parish.

No. CVIII.

PAGE 299.

GENERAL ELECTION.

TO THE MEETING OF FREEMEN AND FREEHOLDERS, ASSEMBLED AT THE EXCHANGE, ON SATURDAY, THE 29th JULY.

MY FELLOW CITIZENS,

A SLIGHT indisposition has prevented me from giving your resolution an immediate answer. When the country is put down, the press destroyed, and public meetings for the purpose of exercising the right of petition to remove ministers are threatened and dispersed by the military, I agree with you that a general election is no more than an opportunity to exercise, by permission of the army, the solitary privilege to return a few representatives of the people to a house occupied by the representatives of boroughs.

When the Irish parliament was perpetual or provincial, it was of little moment how that parliament was constituted: but becoming independent, it became essential, that it should become constitutional; and in order to be constitutional, it was necessary the commons should form an integral part thereof; fourteen years you gave to the experiment, and having failed, withdrew. You refuse to take a small portion of that representation, the whole of which belongs to you; you will not confirm an unjust distribution of your property, by becoming a poor-rent charger on a poor portion of your inheritance; you refuse to give your sanction to your exclusion; and will not attend a ceremony which has proved the trade of the individual and the ruin of the country. While I entertain such an opinion, I beg to express my profound respect for some enlightened and valuable individuals, who differ from me; oppos.

ed to their opinion, I should suspect my own if it were not fortified by yours. I think the people of this country are perfectly right when they insist to be nothing less than the whole of the third estate. The people are in contemplation of the constitution only a part of the legislature, but they are the whole of the commons. Is that too much? They gave the crown-they ask the representation: they ask the representation of that prince to whom they gave the crown. Without derogating from any of those rights which exist, independent of any artificial formation, the people claim under the general constitution of the land, and under their own particular declaration of right to be an integral part of the legislature. The constitution tells them, that their liberty exists in their exemption from any laws, save those to which by representation they consent: their declaration of right tells them that the king, the lords, and the commons of Ireland are the only body competent to make her laws, by which it is not only asserted that the Irish parliament is exclusively the Irish legislatute, but that the people are an integral part thereof. If then the people are not suffered to form that integral part, the constitution of the realm and the claim of right are evaded and defeated. The minister stands in the place of parliament. He becomes the arbiter of your lives and fortunes, and transfers that dominion to the British cabinet, on whom he depends, and thus re-imposes on this realm the legislative power of another country. And when your ministers tell you that the reform of parliament is only a popular pretence, I cannot believe them to be in earnest : I wish they had made the experiment: happy had it been for the country-happy had it been for themselves; they would then indeed have possessed but one-third of the constitution, but they would not have lost the whole of the empire.

Foreign disgrace leads naturally and of course to the subject of domestic oppression: I cannot here omit that part of your resolution which adverts to the barbarities committed upon the ha bitations, property, and persons of the people, and beg to join with yours my testimony against such repeated, wanton, savage, abominable, and permitted outrages, barbarities, and murders, such as no printer will now dare to print, lest he too should be plundered or murdered for the ordinary exercise of his trade.

I beg to take this opportunity of returning my thanks to the aldermen of Skinner's alley, who have expressed their approbation of my conduct. I do believe our measures were agreeable to the sense of the nation. I lament they were not seconded by the majority of parliament; if that majority whose motives I do not discuss, whose infatuations I do lament; if that majority instead of attaching itself to the court, had considered itself as part and parcel of the people, they had consulted their dignity

better. Why am I superior to ministers or viceroys? Because I do not assume to be superior to my fellow-citizens. Had that majority taken a proud post, and identified with the people-had they seized the opportunity of doing justice to Ireland, and instead of voting millions without getting any thing for the country, supported us in our motion to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry, in our motion for an equal trade, in our attempts to emancipate the Catholics, and to reform the parliament, their country would now have liberty and peace, instead of distraction at home, and negociation abroad. Where the British negocia tor remains with the Irish boroughs about his neck, to pay for every felony the minister has committed on the

You express a wish, that my public duty should not cease with my representative capacity. In that idea I entirely concur. My seat in parliament was but a part of my situation; the relationship to my country was higher and more permanent. The duty of a citizen is commensurate with his powers of body and mind. I have the honour to be,

With the greatest respect,

Your most humble servant,

H. GRATTAN,

TO THE CITIZENS OF DUBLIN,

HAVING seen an address to the citizens of Dublin, from my worthy colleague and friend Mr Grattan, I feel it incumbent upon me, not only to take the same step, but also to state to you my most perfect coincidence of opinion, with the whole of that address; an address of such comprehension, such sublimity and truth, that he that does not feel its force must be lost to every sense of humanity, justice, and honour.

As my friend's address has been in consequence of the probability of a speedy dissolution of parliament, I should be wanting both in gratitude and respect, were I not immediately to seize the earliest opportunity of returning you my most sincere thanks for your past kindness, favour, and indulgence; in other circumstances I might have solicited I might have aspired to a continuance of them, but till the parliament of Ireland is reformed, I renounce every thought of ever again entering the House of Com

mons.

To take leave of those, from whom one has experienced so much as I have from the citizens of Dublin, is a most painful task. Proportionate, I may say, with the joy and satisfaction with which we met, flushed with hope, proud of your confidence,

proud of feeling myself a willing and devoted servant, I indulged in the fond illusion, as it has proved, of being instrumental, with the rest of my friends, in advancing those measures so absolutely necessary to the salvation of Ireland, and which the nation had a right to expect would be brought to a happy conclusion. Vain hope! vain struggle! accompanied by more ceasing regret, at having engaged to work in such a fruitless vineyard. I could not do it long; I early deserted the Irish House of Commons, but never you; I did so on conviction, that if the honesty and talents of my friends combined were only the sport of their opponents, wallowing in corruption, there could be little necessity for the attendance of those, who, not pretending to the latter, made the former the only rule of their conduct.

A session of parliament had not passed, after the honour you had done me, before I was completely convinced, that without a reform of the parliament, the country could not be saved. Could I have thought that you would have disapproved of my absence, I can only say, that I would have dragged my person and my regrets day after day, and night after night, into that house, however irksome it might have been to me, and although peculiarly circumstanced as to this country, you would still have found me at my post, had there been the most distant prospect of any one measure proposed for the good of Ireland, on an enlightened and comprehensive scale, being crowned with success.

The time was, would that it could be recalled, when the people of Ireland, always patient, always enduring, looked to a reform of parliament as a period when, through the integrity of their representatives and an ardent love for the welfare of the kingdom, such measures might be pursued, with the concurring zeal of an economical and wise administration, as would have raised the character of the nation, and detached our country from the ridicule of that frivolous system, that often imposed, by the character and appearance of energy and decision, only to relapse into the most perfidious dereliction of all principle whatsoever.

At this awful crisis, when the reflecting mind wanders through the mazes of truth and error, in the teeming of eventful moments, we must not despair, though our affrighted country, with a desponding and unsteady hand, upholds a mirror to our view, that glares upon our sight; the steady grasp shifts it but a little, and its reflection true. All is not lost, Ireland must still be sayed. Words get abroad; I have heard of United Irishmentheir system I know not-I cannot suppose it bad; but this I know, that want of system, want of union, want of cordiality, want of real patriotism in all ranks, has hitherto been the ruin of our country.