of mankind it is the only instance of so fatal a religious fanaticism being discarded by the good sense of mankind, instead of dying slowly by the development of its folly. And I am persuaded the hints thrown out this night to make the different sects jealous of each other will be a detected trick, and will only unite them still more closely. The Catholics have given a pledge to their countrymen of their sincerity and their zeal, which cannot fail of producing the most firm reliance; they have solemnly disclaimed all idea of what is called emancipation, except as a part of that reform without which their Presbyterian brethren could not be free. Reform is a necessary change of mildness for coercion. The latter has been tried; what is its success? The convention bill was passed to punish the meetings at Dungannon and those of the Catholics; the government considered the Catholic concessions as defeats that called for vengeance, and cruelly have they avenged them. But did that act, or those which followed it, put down those meetings? The contrary was the fact. It concealed them most foolishly. When popular discontents are abroad, a wise government should put them into a hive of glass. You hid them. The association at first was small; the earth seemed to drink it as a rivulet, but it only disappeared for a season. A thousand streams, through the secret windings of the earth, found their way to one course, and swelled its waters, until at last, too mighty to be contained, it burst out a great river, fertilizing by its exudations or terrifying by its cataracts. This is the effect of our penal code; it swelled sedition into rebellion. What else could be hoped from a system of terrorism. Fear is the most transient of all the passions; it is the warning that nature gives for self-preservation. But when safety is unattainable the warning must be useless, and nature does not, therefore, give it. Administration, therefore, mistook the quality of penal laws; they were sent out to abolish conventions, but they did not pass the threshold; they stood sentinels at the gates. You think that penal laws, like great dogs, will wag their tails to their masters and bark only at their enemies. You are mistaken; they turn and devour those they are meant to protect, and are harmless where they are intended to destroy. I see gentlemen laugh; I see they are still very ignorant of the nature of fear; it cannot last; neither while it does can it be concealed. The feeble glimmering of a forced smile is a light that makes the cheek look paler. Trust me, the times are too humanized for such systems of government. Humanity will not execute them, but humanity will abhor them and those who wish to rule by such means. This is not theory; the experiment has been tried and proved. You hoped much, and, I doubt not, meant well by those laws; but they have miserably failed you; it is time to try milder methods. You have tried to force the people; the rage of your penal laws was a storm that only drove them in groups to shelter. Your convention law gave them that organization which is justly an object of such alarm; and the very proclamation seems to have given them arms. Before it is too late, therefore, try the better force of reason, and conciliate them by justice and humanity. The period of coercion in Ireland is gone, nor can it ever return until the people shall return to the folly and to the natural weakness of disunion. Neither let us talk of innovation; the progress of nature is no innovation. The increase of people, with the growth of the mind, is no innovation; it is no way alarming unless the growth of our minds lag behind. If we think otherwise, and think it an innovation to depart from the folly of our infancy, we should come here in our swaddling-clothes; we should not innovate upon the dress, more than the understanding of the cradle. As to the system of peace now proposed, you must take it on principles; they are simply two-the abolition of religious disabilities and the representation of the people. I am confident the effects would be everything to be wished. The present alarming discontent will vanish, the good will be separated from the evil-intentioned; the friends of mixed government in Ireland are many; every sensible man must see that it gives all the enjoyment of rational liberty if the people have their due place in the state. This system would make us invincible against a foreign or domestic enemy; it would make the empire strong at this important crisis; it would restore us to liberty, industry, and peace, which I am satisfied can never by any other means be restored. Instead, therefore, of abusing the people, let us remember that there is no physical strength but theirs, and conciliate them by justice and reason. I am censured heavily for having acted for them in the late prosecutions. I feel no shame at such a charge, except that, at such a time as this, to defend the people should be held out as an imputation upon a king's counsel, when the people are prosecuted by the state. I think every counsel is the property of his fellow-subjects. If, indeed, because I wore his Majesty's gown, I had declined my duty or done it weakly or treacherously; if I had made that gown a mantle of hypocrisy, and betrayed my client or sacrificed him to any personal view, I might, perhaps, have been thought wiser by those who have blamed me; but I should have thought myself the basest villain upon earth. The plan of peace, proposed by a Reform, is the only means that I and my friends can see left to save us. It is certainly a time for decision, and not for half measures. I agree that unanimity is indispensable. The house seems pretty nearly unanimous for force; I am sorry for it, for I bode the worst from it. I will retire from a scene where I can do no good---where I certainly would interrupt that unanimity. I cannot, however, go without a parting entreaty that gentlemen will reflect on the awful responsibility in which they stand to their country and to their conscience, before they set the example to the people of abandoning the constitution and the law, and resorting to the terrible expedient of force.-Debates, Vol. XVII., pp. 553-8. Grattan followed him, closing the debate, his speech, and the attendance of the opposition, in these words: Before they are to be reformed, rebellion, you tell us, must be subdued. You tried that experiment in America. America required self-legislation; you attempted to subdue America by force of angry laws, and by force of arms-you exacted of America unconditional submission the stamp act and the tea tax were only pretexts. So you said. The object, you said, was separation. So here the Reform of Parliament, you say, and Catholic Emancipation are only pretexts: the object, you say, is separation. And here you exact unconditional submission: "You MUST SUBDUE BEFORE YOU REFORM"—indeed! Alas, you think so; but you forget you subdue by reforming. It is the best conquest you can obtain over your own people. But let me suppose you succeed; what is your success? A military government, & perfect despotism, a hapless victory over the principles of a mild government and a mild constitution. But what may be the ultimate consequence of such a victory?— a separation. Let us suppose that the war continues, and that your conquest over your own people is interrupted by a French invasion. What would be your situation then? I do not wish to think of it; but I wish you to think of it, and to make a better preparation against such an event than such conquests and such victories. When you consider the state of your arms abroad, and the ill-assured state of your government at home, precipitating on such a system, surely you should pause a little. Even on the event of a peace you are ill-secured against a future war, which the state of Ireland, under such a system, would be too apt to invite; but in the event of the continuation of the war, your system is perilous, indeed. I speak with - out asperity I speak without resentment; I speak, perhaps, my delusion, but it is my heart-felt conviction - I speak my apprehension for the immediate state of our liberty, and for the ultimate state of the empire. I see, or I imagine I see, in this system, everything which is dangerous to both. I hope I am mistaken- at least, I hope I exaggerate; possibly I may. If so, I shall acknowledge my error with more satisfaction than is usual in the acknowledgment of error. I cannot, however, banish from my memory the lesson of the American war; and yet at that time the English government was at the head of Europe, and was possessed of resources comparatively unbroken. If that lesson has no effect on ministers, surely I can suggest nothing that will. We have offered you our measure - you will reject it; we deprecate yours - you will persevere. Having no hopes left to persuade or dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no more, and, AFTER THIS DAY, SHALL NOT ATTEND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS! Debates, Vol. XVII., pp. 569-70. The question being put on the adjournment it was carried:- for it, 170; against it, 30. The opposition ceased to attend, and the parliament, after a few sittings, was adjourned, in a speech from the Lord Lieutenant, of unusual length, on the 3rd of July, 1797. Thus, in the twilight of his country, ended Curran's parliamentary career; but in the awful night which followed, he was a beacon. FOR PETER FINNERTY, PUBLISHER OF "THE PRESS." [LIBEL.] - DECEMBER 22ND, 1797. THE Government and the United Irishmen were now face to face, the former armed with a full code of coercion, and a large army and unscrupulous agents to support it; the latter with a good cause, the organization given by Tone, and the prospect of French aid. Each party tried to strengthen itself by conciliation and intimidation. Among the government instruments were spies (such as Maguane and others, chronicled in Dr. Madden's work), "the battalion of testimony” (Bird, Newell, O'Brien, &c.), free quarters, prosecutions, bribery, patronage and calumny. One of the best auxiliaries summoned by the United Irishmen was "The Press' newspaper. The first number of it was published in Dublin, on Thursday, the 28th of September, 1797, and was thence continued on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, until Tuesday, the 13th of March, 1798, when the 69th and last number was seized by the government. It was not, like the "Northern Star," a chronicle of French politics. It was a true propagandist organ of Liberal and National opinions, filled with essays, letters and addresses of great ability. Arthur O'Connor mainly originated it, and he, Thomas Emmet, Drennan, Sampson, &c., wrote it. Government naturally longed to crush such a paper, as it had done the "Northern Star," but raw force was premature for Dublin, so they waited for a libel, and, as they gave plenty of provocation, they waited not long. They found one, which irritated them deeply, while it gave them a good opening, in a letter published on Thursday, the 26th of October, 1797, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant, signed "Marcus." Most of the letter is set out in the indictment; so are the legal facts which were the text of it, but it is right to say something more of them. William Orr was a Presbyterian farmer, resident at Farranshane, in the County of Antrim - a man of pious, gentle and gallant character; a tall, athletic and hearty fellow, too, and popular exceedingly. He was arrested in 1796, under the Insurrection Act (passed in the February of that year), for having, in April, 1796, administered the United Irish oath to Hugh Wheatly, a private in the Fifeshire Fencibles. He was indicted at Carrickfergus, on the 17th of April, 1797, and tried on Saturday, 16th of September, 1797, before Chief Baron Lord Yelverton. The chief witness was Wheatly, who deposed that Orr acted as chairman or secretary of a Baronial Committee in Antrim, where Wheatly was induced to go, and was there forced to |