whether to see a father, a brother, or a
son, fall, perhaps innocently, under the bayonet of a military
executioner, or transported for life from his helpless family and
nearest connections--it may be without guilt, because the punishment was
inflicted without trial--may not in some degree account for, though it
cannot justify, the shocking crimes which have, since the introduction
of that measure, been committed by individuals in Ireland? A magistrate
who exerts himself in carrying this law into effect, and who, in
obedience to the will of the legislature, sends numbers of his
countrymen from the soil in which they drew breath, and the connections
which make life dear to them, merely because he suspects their loyalty,
does that which, being legal, ought not to induce on him either odium or
punishment; but while human nature shall continue to be composed of its
present materials, there will be found men among the people over whom he
exerts such authority, whose vindictive passions will be apt to mark him
as their victim. In many deplorable instances has this been verified in
Ireland. The Insurrection Act was adopted to prevent such enormities;
unhappily it but encreased, greatly encreased, the black catalogue.

I ask unprejudiced men, whether these measures, carried into execution
against a people who from the recent acquisition of independence felt
much of the pride and sensibility of freedom, were not most likely to be
attended with the consequences which have followed? What then, I ask,
must have been the effect of that measure, at which freedom and justice
feels still more abhorrence--a legal indemnity for all crimes committed
against the people, under colour of preserving the peace? Good heavens!
was it not enough that a law was passed which left the subjects' liberty
and person at the mercy of the magistrates--but must the military or
civil tyrant be protected _by_ law _against_ law, in the perpetration
of acts which even by the spirit of that act would be illegal and
oppressive? The first Bill of Indemnity Was designed to protect my Lord
Carhampton, who had played the part of a self-created Dictator in
Ireland. What the particular measures pursued by his Lordship were, I
shall not enumerate. They are known, and I believe will be remembered by
both countries. He is indemnified for his zeal; and his measures,
instead of quieting, have been unfortunately found to have produced a
contrary effect. From that time to th