erform, they
dissolved, not only without a threat but without a murmur. The people,
with a patience and moderation of which perhaps few more laudable
instances are to be found in the history of any country, acquiesced, or
submitted in silence to the decision of the legislation on this their
most esteemed and favourite application. No doubt they hoped that a
Parliament who refused to receive the petition of the people when
presented as soldiers, would listen with a more patient ear to their
claims when presented in another character. But this hope having been
tried for five years without effect, was at last relinquished. The
pertinacity with which all applications on the subject of reform were
rejected, put it beyond doubt that reform was an object which by
ordinary means could never be obtained. It was, however, a measure too
big, when it had once gotten possession of the public mind, to be let go
without a struggle. Accordingly, whatever of intelligence, of zeal, or
of public spirit the country possessed, continued to be directed toward
the acquisition of this great object. Among other modes which had been
devised for giving greater efficacy to the public will on this subject,
was that of forming societies which should have for their sole object to
animate, to direct, to concentrate, the exertions of the people in the
pursuit of this favourite and vital measure. Of these societies the
first was formed in Dublin, of a few men whose talents, principles, and
character, moral and political, gave such weight and popularity to their
union, as soon swelled its numbers to a great magnitude, which, while it
gave hope to the friends of the popular cause, excited in the
administration very lively alarm. But it was yet more the principles of
this body than its numbers which alarmed administration. The original
members of the society, men of minds not only firmly attached to the
political interests of this country, but superior to the influence of
bigotry, which had been the most powerful instrument in the hands of the
Court faction for dividing and weakening the people, made it a radical
principle of their union to promote an abolition of all religious
distinction, and to procure for _all_ the freemen of the state, whatever
might be their religious sentiments, a participation in _all_ the
privileges of the British constitution. A reform in Parliament,
accompanied by such a principle as this, became a measure in which every
man in t