he country was interested; and the catholics, who constitute
the great majority of the people, more interested than others. The
consequence was, that men of every description of religion, men of every
rank in life, not immediately under the controul or influence of the
Castle, adopted the principles of the society, or solicited admission
into the ranks. The fear and the hatred of administration was soon
manifested. Every art was used to blacken the principles of the
society--its principal members were pointed out as the agitators of
sedition--the enemies of social order--and men who aimed at nothing less
than a subversion of the constitution and separation from Great Britain,
under the pretext of reform and emancipation. The prints which were in
the pay of the Castle vomited out daily the most gross, the most
malignant, and irritating calumnies; and even the senate itself, now
really forgetting its dignity, condescended to become the scurrilous
aggressor not merely of the society at large, but of particular, and, in
many instances, inconsiderable members of it.

It was this despicable conduct in the prevailing faction in Ireland that
laid the ground work of all the mischiefs which have since affected our
unhappy country. The Irish Minister who paid the money of the people to
cover their name with infamy and their principles with dishonour, him I
charge with having first implanted in the minds of the multitude that
invincible detestation of the system by which they were governed, that
has since ended in assassination and treason. His subordinate agents,
who in the folly and venom of their hearts at one time charged the great
body of the Catholics with disaffection, at another held up to ridicule
and odium the names of individuals of the most respectable and unsullied
characters--at one time sneering at the merchant, at another insulting
the tradesman, them I charge with having irritated the people of Ireland
wantonly and wickedly, by calling forth the personal feelings, the
pride, and sensibility of individuals, into a personal and revengeful
opposition to the British name and British connection. What would
Englishmen have felt, how would Englishmen have acted, had two or three
individuals, strangers to their country, despicable in point of birth or
talents, and considerable only from fortuitous elevation to offices
which they were unfit to fill, ventured to insult their national
character--to accuse of treason every man