ession, the speech
from the throne recommended to the Irish Parliament to take into their
consideration the situation of the King's Catholic subjects. No sooner
was this hint received from the British Cabinet, than those very men,
who but last year pledged their lives and fortunes to perpetuate the
exclusion of the Irish Catholics from the privileges of freemen, because
to admit them to share those privileges would be a subversion of the
constitution and establishment, surrendered that opinion with as much
promptness and facility as they had shewn violence and rancour in taking
it up. Without any petition from the Catholics, without any change of
circumstances, except the declaration of the will of the British
Cabinet, that privilege which was last year refused with so much
harshness and disdain, was this year spontaneously conceded!

Will any man who knows any thing of men and of the feelings and motives
which actuate them, assert that there was any thing in this concession
which should attach more firmly the Irish Catholics to the Irish House
of Commons? Will he say that this was one of those gracious measures
which an enlightened legislature would adopt to soften the exasperation
of national discontent? Probably he will rather say, it was fitted to
evince more strongly than ever the necessity of reforming the
constitution of that assembly, which, from the inconsistency of its
measures, appeared evidently the instrument of a foreign will, not the
authentic organ of the national sense.

Let him, or them whose hot folly, whose rank bigotry, or whose petulant
and stolid zeal led the Irish Commons into this disgraceful and
contemptible situation, feel the blush of shame and confusion burn their
cheek, when they reflect on these scenes. Let them, while it is yet in
their power, atone to their offended country for the fatal consequences
of their advice, before those records which are to inform future ages
impress on their names for ever the indelible character of--PUBLIC
ENEMY.

In speaking of these transactions I have not attended to chronological
accuracy. There were other measures to which the administration of
Ireland had resorted to prop up their power, and form a substitute for
that legitimate strength which is to be found only in the chearful
support of a contented people--there were other measures which they
adopted to beat down the public voice, and overbear the general sense of
the nation. Among these were want