When your governor, with his British retinue, shall appear amongst you, hofpitality will undoubtedly throw open your doors, and spread out your tables for the reception of your neighbours of this ifland. Give them your meat, your drink in plenty, but never furrender your dignity, your privilege of directing your own bufinefs, of difpofing of your own money. Thofe linens which bring in fuch fums, wherewith to purchase English manufactures, Eaft-India goods, and those foreign commodities, from which the customs and duties arise, are all the effects of Irish labour. The provifions, with which you furnish both this and other countries, are the produce of those fields, which your ancestors fubdued, in every fenfe of the word: In fhort, every fountain of your revenue is of your own opening; what governor did ever fet a loom going in your kingdom? and what secretary has ever imported thither ought but his vices, his follies, and a little baggage?

However, it is your duty to look upon your governor as the image of your Sovereign, and to treat him, therefore, with all becoming refpect; but it merits your particular attention, that although his Majefty has delegated his authority to this man, yet he cannot transfer to him his royal virtues: The vices, the frailties, the prejudices, the partialities of the fubject, will be perpetually mixing themselves with his public character, which points out, in the ftrongest manner, the neceffity of being upon your guard; a neceffity, which could not fubfift, were you honoured with the royal prefence; for his Majefty would then conceive the state and condition of your kingdom, from those who are not only able to convey that information, but who have also candour to disclose the truth. A governor has relations, dependants to provide for, and must come to an understanding with thofe apoftates of your country, who will be easily prevailed upon to look on quietly, whilft he plunders it, provided they are admitted to a fhare of the fpoil. He will take a reprefentation of the ftate of the country from thofe very apoftates, whofe intereft it is to deceive him, and, without farther enquiry, will tranfmit this falfe mirrour to his Majefty. You are, therefore, to afford him that share of confidence, which is barely neceflary for carrying on the public bufinefs; but to that unbounded confidence, which is due to your King alone, he is by no means entitled, because it is most probable that he would abufe it. As to the thing called a fecretary, you must watch him as a man who goes over with a thorough conviction, and firm perfuafion, that your whole. kingdom is his lawful prize, determined to bully, to bribe, to lie; in fhort, to make his fortune, by manifefting the abfolute dominion he can exercife over your counsellors, through a fervile majority in your houfe; and yet this tremendous being,

when

when in London, will scarce prefume to open his mouth in one of their speaking clubs. He, I fay, who would not dare to utter a fyllable at one of these wretched meetings, filled with that contempt, which the vulgar of this kingdom are sure to entertain for every thing Irish, commences in a moment, (notwithstanding that thicknefs of your air, faid to be unfavourable to wit, and proved to be fo by the feveral inftances of Ufher, Swift, Congreve, &c.) an orator, feels on a fudden the impulfe of genius, and rifes into the regions of eloquence. This creature, who, had he the good fortune to get into parliament at home, would have obferved, at leaft, a feven' years filence, opens amongst you on the very first day he takes his feat in the house, and fhall attempt to demonftrate (with an effrontery peculiar to these gentlemen clerks, who plume themselves with the new French feu bar of fecretary) that you are all a parcel of affes, and totally unacquainted with every thing that can relate to the intereft of your own country. Nor is it lefs than a million to one, but fome or other of your own fages, who has affumed for years the appearance of patriotifm, and would fain be fuppofed to have ftood the buffetings of many court attacks upon his virtue, fenfible of conviction, and ftruck with admiration of this young adventurer, shall stand up in the affembly, and pronounce him a Daniel. Throw, gentlemen, these beings at their proper distance, and inftruct them in that respect, which they owe to the reprefentatives of a nation, by whose fpoils they are raised, some from poverty and desperation; all indeed from obfcurity and contempt.

There might have been a time, perhaps, when your inattention to business was much more excufable than at prefent; but that was when your elder fifter was of found mind, and you tender, perhaps incapable: You are at prefent arrived at puberty, and alas, that fanity of mind, which the poor Lady once enjoyed, is now no more. She is delivered over to an hardhearted Scottish quack, whofe cruel severities have increased her delirium; although by a fcanty regimen, which he calls œconomy, the poor foul is almoft reduced to a skeleton. She had formerly an eye to your wants, and, instead of sending those who should plunder and strip you, has often reached forth a pitying hand to cover your infant nakedness: But at prefent, nothing good or falutary can be expected from this fide; for the fpring is tainted and impure. You must, therefore, confider this nation in a character quite different from that of which you read in history, or which you have received by tradition from your ancestors; and may reft affured, that thofe, who have obtained an unconftitutional power here, have neither tenderness nor regard for you. They have it not for those who are born in the fame island with themselves, the fame town, the fame

Y 2

house,

houfe. One brother is feen to betray the other each day, and all are laying schemes for defrauding and beggaring their neighbours. Circumftanced, therefore, as this nation is, confider what you are to expect.

When the tyrant James had fubjected your ancestors to the cruel domination of a Tyrconnel, they were constrained to fly their native foil, and met with a moft humane and hofpitable entertainment in this kingdom: Their wants were fupplied, their diftreffes relieved; they were looked upon by the English as defcended from English, and of the fame blood. But you are not to confider yourselves of the fame blood with the prefent English, (I mean those who have worked themselves into power here) for the real, unadulterated, Englishman has no more power in this goverment, than had the Saxons immediately after the Norman conqueft. It is now in the hands of a motely group of Jews, Scots, Creoles, ftock-jobbers, boroughdealers, and place-brokers, whose ancestors had no fort of exiftence in England when your ancestors left it; and, were it poffible to trace them back to the revolution, they would be found mere mechanics, or felons under fentence of transportation. It will furprise you, I doubt not, to hear that a fon of a taylor, from a fmall fea-port on the fouthern coaft of this ifland, is not only a member of parliament, and a knight, but has obtained fuch an influence at elections, that he has laid himfelf under contract with the minifter, to bring into the houfe, for his fervice, fix members more for the next parliament; and for this he is to be created a peer, so that it is not impoffible but you may fee him go over your Lord Lieutenant in a few years. And the first friend of that Great Commoner, whom you so much adored not long fince, his great favourite, his agent for the city tribes, is either the firft or fecond in defcent from a tranfport; and yet he had the confidence to oppofe, in the house, a law for permitting the importation of your provifions here, with a view, that his own plantations in Jamaica may have them at an under price. He actually fucceeded in carrying the ftamp-act against the poor Americans, although he conducted it in fo artful a manner, that it was with fome difficulty he was detected; however, detected he was, and he is at this time infamous and abhorred. People of this kind will ever hate you, because you are, in every respect, much bettermen than themselves. You have no concern with them, no relation to them of any kind, either by blood or affection. I pray you, therefore, to look forward, and provide for yourselves; noris there a likelihood, that thofe with whom you can have any poffible ties, will come very fpeedily into power, because the difdain to hold under any but their King; whereas these fel lows are ready to ferve the minifter, upon the fhorteft warm.

ing, and to become his meaneft and moft wicked inftru

ments.

But although you have, as I faid before, received many favours from this kingdom, during your infantine weakness, yet did a reliance upon England occation that neglect of yourselves, which prolonged your nonage, and gave too great a continuance to that weaknefs. You ever held your eyes fixed upon the politics of this kingdom; and in their unhappy civil wars, always divided yourfelves fo injudicioufly, that whatever fide had the fortune to prevail here, fome of you were sure to suffer, and the whole thereby to become weakened. In the wars of York and Lancaster, of what material concern was it to you, which family was to reign? a King you must have; and if you preferved your laws and properties, what fignified who that King was? In the wars of 1641, the king, after engaging you on his fide, fhamefully neglected you, probably betrayed you to a maífacre, influenced and fet on foot by a foreign power. The parliament did at length fend you fuccours, it is true, but not until you had experienced the utmoft calamities of war and defolation. At the revolution, your unfortunate attachments involved you in new fcenes of diftrefs, and the progrefs made in the cultivation of your lands, and improvement of your manufactures, became a facrifice to the fword. The extreme bad policy of King William, in fuffering the Irifh to go into foreign fervice, laid the foundation of a French intereft in your kingdom, which has been kept up by an intercourfe between the valiant Irish brigade, and their relations at home. This evil is in fome measure removed, by a late wife inftitution, which has drained that corps of its beft blood; and by many other wholefome laws, you feem placed in a capacity, of acquiring ftability to your quiet, and of carrying the improvements of your country to that perfection, of which it is fo diftinguifhedly capable, and applying thofe advantages which nature has beftowed, in making yourfelves fo refpectable, that although your riches may tempt, yet your weakness fhall not encourage any power whatfoever to difturb your tranquility. Should it be the misfortune of England to be conquered, and lofe in confequence both laws and liberty, her fubmiffion to a conqueror, lays you under no obligation to a like fubmiflion; for though fubject to the fame King, it is to a King under the Act of Settlement of the houte of Brunfwic, to a King under whom you are to enjoy, and not lofe your laws and liberty, that you are jointly fubjected with England. Should the take a King from Scotland or Rome, fhe would find it, I believe, a difficult matter to make you acknowledge him: If the were to jump down a precipice, I hope your complaifance will not make you jump after, and that you will not be fo faft bound as to be dragged

after

after her. It is true, Ireland was bestowed by your old friend the Pope, upon Henry the fecond; but his Holiness's bull of donation could not transfer you to him, because your ancestors had no existence there, at the time of this act of generosity, but were really the people who afterwards established themfelves in that ifland, either by force or by compact with the natives. Had they been villains, or in a state of fervitude, when they poffeffed the country, then would they, with justice, be thought to have communicated a flavish affection to the country, which would have remained to their pofterity; but they were in truth homagers to Henry, as were all the Norman barons; and they convinced both him and his family, that they were not conquered, nor flaves. Thefe points, however, are long fince given up to you, and all I recommend is, that you fufter not yourselves to be terrified, or deceived by the wretches who have gained an unconstitutional power here; for they are no more defcended from the old barons of England, than they are from Alexander the Great, or his fucceffors.

To what a ftate of infenfibility are you arrived? You perceive not your miserable poor unemployed, and your lands unimproved, upon which these poor may be fet fo usefully to labour. These are owing to a complication of caufes, but principally to that stupid propensity in your men, not only of very great, but indeed of very small fortune, to living in England, where their oftentatious generofity is laughed at by all orders, and their vanity defpifed: Even the rapacious cormorants of this country, who devour the fruits of their folly, have a fneer of contempt for thefe knights of St. Patrick, well knowing, that generofity, as well as charity, ought to begin at home.

The Catholic gentleman grounds his apology for not living in his own country, upon the impoffibility of exercifing his religion with the fame freedom at home as in England, which is in fact a downright falfhood; becaufe, except in London, where the chapels of foreign ambaffadors enjoy an open worfhip, the celebration of the Popish rites in England is private, whereas in Ireland, there are not only houfes in almost every parish confecrated to the ceremonies of that fect, but the people may be seen in the full luxuriancy of devotion, spreading themselves over the fields, and carrying on their adorations even in the highways; and all this without any constraint or moleftation whatfoever. The truth of the matter is, thefe gentlemen are contented with connivance and private indulgence in England, where they have no connections, no obfequious vaffals to confer an uneafy importance upon them; but in Ireland, puffed up by their retainers, followers, and blinded clans, nothing but the ancient fplendor and superiority of Holy

Mother