rts of the country to some circumstance
which did not exist at the time of the invasion; and that circumstance
could only be the introduction of the military system--of the efficacy
of which administration had so much vaunted. But powerful as they
supposed that system to be, they were not inclined to depend on its
efficacy, such as they had tried it. They therefore now resorted to a
measure which has hitherto been used only by irritated victors over
perfidious and vanquish'd enemies--they sent them troops, not to disarm
the inhabitants of a district, or to act with discretionary powers for,
what was now a general pretext for violence of every species, the
preservation of the public peace; but permanently to live at free
quarters on all the inhabitants of those counties which were in what was
called a disturbed state. Under this measure, excesses were committed
which Ireland, much as she had suffered, had not yet witnessed. It was
not the burning of a peasant's house, or the strangulation of one or two
individuals in a village, which struck the eye of a spectator--but the
houses of the most respectable farmers in the country, nay, houses of
gentlemen of large fortune, and, in many instances, of the most approved
loyalty, converted into barracks by the soldiery--the females of the
family flying from the insults of these new guests, who rioted on the
provision, emptied the cellars of their unwilling hosts, and when they
had exhausted the house which they occupied sent their mandate to the
neighbourhood to bring in a fresh stock!

At this point I stop--for here the fate of Ireland comes to its crisis.
This measure was in operation not three weeks, when the rebels, the
traitors, or the people of Ireland, to the sorrow of every friend to
peace, to the Irish name, and to the British connection, stood forth in
opposition to the King's troops. The scene of blood is now opened.
Ireland is wasting her vital strength in convulsion; and whether victory
or defeat await them, humanity, loyalty, and patriotism must weep over
the event!

When I solicit the people of England attentively to consider that long
train of harsh and hideous measures which I have now enumerated, and
which have brought Ireland into this lamentable condition--when I call
on them to examine with anxious care the motives in which they
originated, and the end to which they lead--I call on them to attend to
that in which they are deeply interested. In my mind they h