ch the party
abusing the powers of government in Ireland resorted, to tame or to
irritate the Irish people. The Gunpowder Bill, prior in order and time,
which deprived the Irish subject in a great measure of the
constitutional power of self-defence, prepared the minds of the people
for receiving the full impression of the Convention act, which narrowed
another of his rights. The attempt to annihilate the independence of the
country, by insisting on the right of Britain to choose a regent for
Ireland, and the subsequent attempt of the same kind in 1785 to
substitute a commercial boon for the right of self-government, had
already gone far toward producing a tendency to irritation in the
people, which these more vital attacks completed.

Nor did even these measures, insidious, violent, and unconstitutional as
they were, produce so much discontent as the tone and the spirit in
which they were tarried into execution. The most insulting imputations
on the loyalty, and even on the intellect of the nation, were daily
made by the needy adventurers, whom chance, or perhaps infamous
services, had raised to a place in the administration. The public prints
were polluted by the foulest calumny against every man who had the
virtue and the courage to oppose a system which he foresaw must
eventually terminate in the ruin of the country. Some of the basest of
mankind, distinguished, however, by more than usual talents for
perversion and invective, were appointed to conduct those publications
which were paid by the public money for abusing the national character.
The Whig Club, consisting of noblemen and gentlemen who, by possessing
large property and extensive connections in the country, felt themselves
bound to oppose the mad measures of men who, as they were mostly
foreigners, had no interest but to turn the present moment to most
advantage, were held up to the public, both in and out of Parliament, as
enemies to the tranquillity of the state, and anxious only, at all
events, to raise themselves to power.

The conduct of administration to the Whig Club, indeed, deserves
peculiar confederation, as it evinces, in the fullest manner, that it
was not the irregular or unconstitutional proceedings of this or that
body of men--of the Volunteer Convention, or of the United Irish
Society--but the measures which these bodies recommended, against which
the influence and force of government was turned. The Whig Club had
formed themselves on the