f unconstitutional
coercion and deprivation was resorted to of necessity:"--the other was
to shew, that whatever discontent has been recently shewn in Ireland,
whatever crimes have been committed for political purposes, had their
remote origin in that system by which the powers of government had been
abused in Ireland for several years back. Whether I have succeeded in
this attempt, I leave to Englishmen, who know and value freedom and
constitution, to determine. For myself I shall only say, that my mind is
incapable of feeling a greater degree of moral certainty, than that the
people of Ireland are innocent of causeless discontent and of
ingratitude; and that all the evils which now lacerate that unhappy
country, (for the mere suppression of present discontents will not end
the danger,) and threaten the mutilation of the empire, are the
necessary and inevitable effects of the wicked system adopted by the
weak, hot-headed, and petulant men to whom the administration of Ireland
was entrusted, operating upon a generous and loyal but irritable and
warm people.

But had the Irish junto rested at the point to which we have now come in
describing their system, Ireland would not now have to appeal for pity
or for aid to the British nation. It is the subsequent measures to which
they resorted, and for which no precedent is to be found in the history
of this or any other country pretending to laws, or rights, or
constitution, that we complain of. It is by these that Ireland has been
lashed into madness, and driven to crimes and to follies which her sober
reason would have looked at with detestation. It shall be now my
business to advert to those measures--to shew that they have generally
preceded those crimes of the people which are alledged to have produced
them--that they have been severe and desperate beyond what the necessity
of the case called for--that their probable result will be a military
despotism--that they cannot tranquillize the country but by the
destruction of every degree of constitutional liberty--that, therefore,
the people of Great Britain are interested in preventing the progress of
that system in Ireland--and, finally, that if the two great objects of
the public in Ireland were honestly and fully conceded, and if the
people were re-instated in the blessings of the constitution by the
establishment of a mild and just administration, peace and content would
be restored to the country, disaffection would vanis