tJ>AfL&i-un^ 
 
ORAIf GE1SM EXPOSED, 
 
 V.'ITH A 
 
 REFUTATION OF THE CHARGES, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 BROUGHT AGAINST THE 
 BY 
 
 LAWYER DAVID GRAHAM, 
 OF jYEW-YORK, 
 
 1ST HIS DEFENCE OF THE ORANGEMEN, TRIED IN THIS CITY, Q.N 
 
 THE 13TH AND 14TH DAYS OF SEPTEMBER, 1824, 
 
 FOR ASSAULT AND BATTERY ON A POOR 
 
 IRISHMAN, ON THE TWELFTH 
 
 DAY OF JULY, 1824. 
 
 —&&&— 
 BIT AST UNBIASSED XRXSHlftAHr. 
 
 — ®©^— 
 
 a A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that 
 which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude, under the 
 •arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves." 
 
 NeUJ=¥otlt: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 M'Loughlin & Crampton Printers, 163, Chatham-street. 
 ■ 1824 
 

 p.m. 
 
&c. &c. 
 
 There is no country whose history is so little known, nor 
 one which has heen more exposed to the calumny of enemies 
 and hired scribblers, than Ireland. This may be attributed to 
 the Vandalism of her oppressors ; for, so soon as England 
 gained a footing in that country, her interested policy led her 
 to the destruction of every document, within her grasp, that 
 could throw any light on its history or expose her usurpations, 
 and the system pursued by her, in relation to its government. 
 
 The necessity of this policy has been so well understood 
 in England, and it is a remarkable fact, that from the earliest 
 period, up to the present day, the different factions which 
 have succeeded each other in the government of Ireland, 
 have uniformly concealed or palliated the atrocities com- 
 mitted therein by their predecessors. 
 
 It is curious to see, that however this selfish people may 
 quarrel among themselves about power at home; with what 
 circumspection they avoid every thing that may lead to an 
 exposure of the administration of the government in Ireland. 
 
 Their very vehicles of slander, (the news-papers) through 
 which they heap abuse on each other without measure, seem 
 to haye an understanding on this head ; for if they notice Ire- 
 land at all, it is not for the purpose of exposing the misgovern- 
 ment of, and the atrocities committed in that devoted pro- 
 vince. No ; they know too well, that such a course would 
 prove injurious to British pretensions, with her numerous soci- 
 eties for the civilization of the pagan world; as it would natu^ 
 rally and undoubtedly expose to astonished Europe the real 
 character of the English Government and people, who expend 
 immense sums under the specious pretext of converting and 
 civilizing the barbarous subjects of foreign powers ; at the same 
 time that they pursue a system which has for its object the total 
 
4 
 
 debasement and degradation of a people whom they arc bound 
 to protect, and to whom they deny the common rights of man. 
 There is no better course to be pursued, if one wishes 
 to attract the notice of the British government, and secure 
 some lucrative employment, than that of reviling the 
 Irish people, trampling them under foot, and falsifying the 
 history of their country. The few who have pursued a dif- 
 ferent course — who have made any attempt at an impartial 
 review of the treachery and tyranny of England, have been 
 persecuted and hunted down as traitors to the good old cause* 
 
 The authorized romances of Musgrave and others, are 
 bandied about as the only pure sources whence the members 
 of the Orange faction can derive their knowledge of Irish his- 
 tory. It is not wonderful, then, that they should be so invinci- 
 bly ignorant as not to know the most remarkable circumstances 
 connected with their own ascendancy, nor the origin of that 
 power whence they derive their very existence. 
 
 These remarks are called forth by a publication that now 
 lies before me.t In itself it merits not the attention of any man, 
 and I may be censured for noticing it ; some declaring it be- 
 neath contempt; others that it is a bait for English patronage. 
 I agree with all, yet am of opinion, that the subject claims our 
 most serious attention. In it is involved the hope of the 
 emigrant, and the future repose of the Irish citizens of this 
 country. If Orangeism be tolerated here, we are undone. 
 The sooner we abandon the country the better. Our feelings 
 outraged, the sanctuaries of home violated, we shall be ex- 
 posed to midnight assassination, a continual strife will de- 
 stroy the confidence of the government ; we shall become 
 hateful to our fellow-citizens, and, at length, sink into the 
 
 * Plowden was employed by the British ministry to write a Court Ca- 
 lander, he was, however, found not sufficiently pliant, having- thought pro- 
 per to write something 1 like a history, he was discarded, persecuted, com- 
 pelled to fly his native country, and is now living on a garret in Paris, yet 
 this man advocated the Union, was the friend of the present king-, Pitt, kc. 
 &c. and is in every respect a very prejudiced Englishman. 
 
 -f- A mutilated report of the speeches for the prosecution, and in defence 
 of the OraDg-emen, &c. &e. 
 
same abject state of despondency from which we emancipated 
 ourselves with an effort in abandoning our native land. To our 
 countryman in oppression it will be still more injurious. To 
 what country then can he look for refuge when driven from 
 his home ? When he flies the murdering banditti that dies in 
 blood the green fields of his native land, where can he seek 
 an asylum ? It is incumbent then, on every honest Irishman, 
 to contribute his migbt towards the exposure of the views 
 and principles of those dangerous assassins, as well as the his- 
 torical falsities on which their advocate founds his pretensions to 
 have them treated as men belonging to a harmless association^ 
 which derives its origin in the pure source of religious toleration. 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke ridicules the idea of love of country being 
 implanted in us by nature ; he supposes it founded more in 
 moral than in physical causes,* and although I do not fully 
 subscribe to this doctrine, Amor patrice ratione valcntior omni, 
 yet am I led to think that there is some foundation for his opi- 
 nion, from the melancholy fact, that Ireland has given birth to 
 so many men, who do not seem to be actuated by any other 
 feeling towards her than dislike and aversion. They seize on 
 every opportunity of calumniating her people, falsifying her 
 history, and sounding forth praises of England, and their own 
 admiration of her power and glory. That Mr. Graham is one 
 of the living examples in support of this doctrine, will be fully 
 proved in the course of these sheets ; and as the champion of 
 a system, which has long been reprobated by every honourable 
 mind, he must but attribute it to his own Quixotism, if he be^ 
 come so notorious, as that no Irishman will associate with an 
 individual who has dared to calumniate nine tenths of his suf- 
 fering countrymen — the Catholics and Presbyterians of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Had he been wise, he had still remained in obscurity, court- 
 ing the smiles of his warm hearted countrymen ; or if he felt 
 an uncontrolablc desire of bringing his oratorical powers into 
 notice, why did he not resume his original prof ession of holding 
 
 ;; - Locke and Condorcet labour also to shew the absurdifv of the bcheF 19 
 
forth to the multitude ? or what would be still more congenial to 
 his feelings and principles, why did he not wait patiently till 
 Orangeism was organized in the country ; and then his ambi- 
 tion of notoriety might have been fully gratified, by the appoint- 
 ment of High-Priest to the tribe : but perhaps he considered 
 the course pursued the surest way of attaining this honourable 
 office ; if so, I congratulate him on his prospects ! ! ! 
 
 With his attack on Emmet and Sampson, it is beneath me to 
 wrestle. Men, who will live in the memory of future times, 
 whose names belong to history, require not my advocacy ; and, 
 from the contemptuous smile that lighted up theirfeatures when 
 this modest gentleman told them, that in science, legal know- 
 ledge, and every other acquirement, than experience at the 
 bar, he (Graham) would not shrink from a competition with 
 either of .them, we may form some idea of the importance 
 that they attach to his opinion. 
 
 The vanity ot such a man, in placing himself on a level 
 with men, whose enlightened minds and expanded views soar 
 so far beyond the murky darkness of his bigot soul, will lead 
 him, no doubt, to conclude that considerable importance is 
 attached to his opinions, and to himself individually, in thus 
 introducing him before the public ; but, to undeceive him, I 
 now tell him once for all, that his assertions, so false in fact, 
 so full of ignorance and absurdity, would remain unnoticed by 
 roe, were it not to dispel the mists of prejudice that may have 
 been raised in the public mind, by uncontradicted statements, 
 reflecting on my country and its inhabitants, made too, by a 
 man who calls himself an Irishman. 
 
 I shall pass over, in silence, this gentleman's attack on that 
 " false and cruel religion," as he is pleased to entitle the re- 
 ligious creed of seven-eighths of his countrymen, nor will I 
 make any attempt to defend ' ; those horrid tenets" which have 
 desolated the world. 
 
 This in me is a matter ot" inclination as well as of prudence. 
 I am ignorant of theology — I never had any inclination for 
 the study. Should I, therefore, make the attempt, the odds 
 would be fearfully against me ; Mr. Graham being a theolo- 
 gistj as I presume, from his having been some years ago on 
 
the mission in the Jerseys. But, in history — there I will 
 meet him fearlessly ; I know history as well as he, I know the 
 history of my country better than he does, as I shall show, 
 before I have done. 
 
 Taking his assertions in rotation, as they present them- 
 selves, I shall begin with page 10, line 31, he says, "that 
 about the middle of the 1 2th century, the English first gained 
 a footing in Ireland," " Orangeism took its rise in a religious 
 controversy of seven hundred years standing," that is pre- 
 cisely 393 years before there was any difference in religious 
 opinions in England, much less in Ireland, and about fifty 
 years before the English landed in the country.* This is too 
 much, most learned counsellor ! what, the English inha- 
 bitants fighting for Irish lands, and Irish tithes, ffty years 
 before one of them landed in the country, and quarrelling 
 too, on the score of religion, 400 years before the refor- 
 mation — this requires no comment. Line 13, page 11," To 
 depict the disasters of the English during the period of two 
 hundred years that followed, would exhaust volumes ! What 
 sympathy is here betrayed for ruthless invaders, blood-thirsty 
 tigers, who came to deprive an unoffending people of their rights, 
 and to rob them of their liberties and possessions. Would to 
 God that their "disasters" had been greater, that every one of 
 them had been exterminated, and that the people had cause, and 
 that they would have exterminated the invaders, had they 
 been true to their country and to themselves, we need but 
 refer to the history of that period. We shall there see that 
 as early as the reign of Edward II. the work of plunder com- 
 menced on a large scale ; the earnings of the people went 
 then, as they do now, to the support of their oppres- 
 sors; free quarters robbed them of even the semblance 
 of property ; they had nothing but what became the prey of 
 a rapacious soldiery ; Sir John Davist describes the coyne 
 and livery, or free quarters of that day thus, " that this extor- 
 
 * The English under Robert Fitzstephens first landed in Ireland in 
 the spring of 1170. 
 
 f Sir John Davis was an Englishman and a British Judge — he resided 
 iono: in frelan«t 
 
tion did produce two notorious effects. First, it made the 
 land waste ; next, it made the people idle ; for when the hus- 
 bandman had laboured all the year, the soldiers, in one night, 
 did consume the fruits of all his labour, lungique peril labor 
 irritus anni.* Doctor Leland, at a later period, remarks; 
 il The compendious Irish method of quartering the soldiers on 
 the inhabitants, and leaving them to support themselves by 
 arbitrary exactions, seem to have been pointed out by the 
 urgent occasion, was adopted with alacrity, and executed 
 with rigour. Riot, rapine, massacre, and all the tremendous 
 effects of anarchy were the natural consequences. Every 
 inconsiderable parly, who, under the pretence of loyally, re- 
 ceived the King's commission to repel the adversary in some 
 particular district, became pestilent enemies to the inhabit- 
 ants. Their properties, their lives, the chastity of their 
 families, were all exposed to barbarians, who sought only to 
 glut their brutal passions ; and, by their horrible, excesses, 
 purchased the curse of God and man." Here, might not our 
 suppose, Dr. Leland was describing the Orange faction of the 
 present day, but no such thing. These outrages were first 
 perpetrated by the catholic English. English catholic kings 
 'adjudged it no felony to kill a mere Irishman in time of 
 peace, + and those found with their upper lips unshaven for 
 the space of a fortnight, (as was the Irish fashion), were liable 
 to be seized on as Irish enemies, their properties taken, and 
 they themselves held to ransom. § By the statutes of Kil- 
 kenny, alliance by marriage, nurture of infants, and gossipred 
 with the Irish, are made high treason. TT 
 
 Thus commenced that lineof demarcation drawn by the policy 
 of England, to keep her party distinct from the great body of the 
 people, that it might have a separate interest, and be entirely 
 dependent on her. It is this feature in her government, that has 
 paralyzed the energies of Ireland, brought ruin on her people, 
 and died the country in blood. All these facts, are, however. 
 
 * Sir Davis' Diser. 174. 
 , -j- An English protectant divine. Histor. 1 vol. page 2.;0. 
 
 t Dav. Dis. 102. & Stat, of Trim, 25 Hen. VI. Chap. 4—1447. 
 
 T 40 Edward III.— 1366. 
 
overlooked by the learned Mr. Graham, his sympathies arje 
 excited, his' compassionate regards are only directed to the 
 " disasters" of those who robbed Ireland of its independence. 
 The second paragraph, in page 11, begins with "anew 
 impulse was given in the reign of Henry VIII. to the hostility 
 of the ancient Irish. The English Pale readily absented to 
 the doctrines of the reformation, &c. &c." The latter part 
 of these assertions is utterly false, and devoid of all founda- 
 tion. The people of the English Pale became, in despite of 
 British policy, in some degree, amalgamated with the Irish 
 before the period he alludes to. The reformation made little 
 or no progress in that country till a much later period.* The 
 section of country, that originally formed the English pale, is 
 about the most catholic in Ireland. This is not of any fur- 
 ther consequence in itself, than as it goes to prove the utter 
 ignorance of the man who is, according to his own opinion, 
 equal in every thing to an Emmet. The Pale, in its most 
 extended limits, formed itself of a part of the counties of 
 Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare; those four counties contain- 
 ed, according to the census of 1822, a population of 626,412 
 souls — of these 33,926 are protestants or dissenters, and the 
 remaining 592^486 are ,catholics.t The descendants of the 
 great families of the Pale are to this day catholic. The Plun- 
 kets, the Prestons, the Barnwells, the Bellews, &c. &C.J The 
 descendants of those who became protestant at an early pe- 
 riod, in Ireland, are, to a man, Irish in feeling and principle. 
 They execrate, as much as any other portion of their country* 
 men, the tyranny of England, and that hellish crew of Orange^ 
 men of which Mr. Graham is (if not in name) in spirit a 
 
 * See Lord Clare's speech on the Union, page 13. 
 
 f See notes on Ireland by Reed, a protestant and surgeon in the British 
 navy, page 333. He gives the census of Ireland for 1822, as 7,855,606; 
 of these 6,871,919 are catholics. The surplus S83,687 souls are presby- 
 terians or protestants. 
 
 I An estate in Ireland, now in the possession of a catholic Lord, belong* 
 ed to the ancestors of the writer of these sheets — one of them was robbed 
 of it in the time of Cromwell, merely because he was of the old' Irish, and 
 given to an ancestor of the present Lord Southwell, who professed himself 
 a protestant tMl the storm pa seed. 
 
io 
 
 member. It was reserved for the colonists after tire refbmation , 
 to complete the degradation and enslavement of that ill-fated 
 country. 
 
 At the period of which we are now treating, the in- 
 habitants of the Pale became obnoxious to the English, by 
 wishing to strengthen themselves, by forming alliances with 
 the ancient Irish, against the encroachments of Henry VIII. 
 and his satellites. The struggle was no longer between the 
 Anglo-Irish of the Pale and the Irish nation. A new horde 
 of English adventurers, under the plea of religious zeal, pass- 
 ed over, with the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the 
 other, headed by George Brown, an apostate Augustinian 
 Eriar. They covered themselves with the mantle of heaven, 
 that they might the more securely plunder the hapless na- 
 tives of this ill-fated country. They, however, met with mi- 
 expected opposition^ in the firmness of Cromer, Archbishop 
 of Armagh, by birth an Englishman. 
 
 And if any proof be necessary to establish the fact, that a 
 difference in religion was at no time the cause of distur- 
 bances in Ireland, but merely seized on as a pretext to 
 divide the people and create heartburnings in the country, 
 it is in the account given of the suppression of Lord Kil- 
 dare's rebellion, in the reign of Henry VIII. by Borlase, 
 who was himself a satellite. He says, " that on the failure of 
 this enterprise, Henry VIII. affected to consider it a new 
 Conquest of Ireland, and proposed it to be debated in hi& 
 council, whether he had not now acquired a right to seize at 
 once on all the estates of the Kingdom, spiritual and temporal, 
 and reparcel them out to his- hungry followers." He no 
 longer considered the inhabitants of the Pale, but as a part of 
 a devoted people. They were plundered and persecuted 
 under the name of offended religion- They were considered 
 and treated as Irish enemies.* This, in truth, they merited - r 
 it was but a just retribution of Divine Proridence, for the 
 tyranny they themselves exercised but a little before on the 
 unhappy natives. 
 
 The same Machiavelian policy has been pursued by all the 
 
 * Fide Dr. Lelant!, vol. i.i. pa*6 1 7 1 
 
n 
 
 English monarch,? towards this devoted country ; whether 
 catholic Mary* or protectant Elizabeth! wielded the British 
 sceptre,, it made no difference ; the same systematic persecu- 
 tion still prevailed. 
 
 We now approach the most eventful period in Ireland's his- 
 tory. The commencement of tl»e reign of the hypocritical 
 and infamous house of Stuart. About that time it was that the 
 seeds of Orangeism were first implanted in our soil. Whole 
 districts were laid waste by James I.ji and colonies of Puri- 
 tans from Scotland and England, filled with the spirit of ra- 
 pine and religious bigotry, took possession of the lands of the 
 affrighted natives, who fled in terror to the farthest extreme- 
 ties of the island. It was then that the " new impulse was 
 given to the hostility of the persecuted natives." — houseless 
 wanderers, strangers in the lands ■&£ their fathers, is ,it a won- 
 der that they were hostile ? Yet Mr. Graham, true to his prin- 
 ciples, speaks of the " want of power of language to depict 
 the horrors that awaited the puritans (for protestants there 
 were but few)§ of Ireland, at this period. I will here ask any 
 American how he would feel, how he would act, were he 
 driven from his home, plundered of his property, by a horde 
 of infuriated wretches from a foreign land, whatever might be 
 their religious opinions ? But let us hear what Sir John Davis 
 says of the Irish of this period, and judge if this charge of Mr. 
 
 * Catholic Mary, by her deputy, robbed of their estates the Catholic Irish 
 ■of two districts, Lcix and Gflalia, now king's and queen's counties. 
 
 f The picture given of the atrocities of some of Elizabeth's generals, by 
 Spencer, who was secretary to the cold-blooded .monster, Lord Deputy 
 Grey, is truly frightful. He describes the country then as rich and plen- 
 tiful, full of corn and cattle, ih yet in one year and -a half ihe people were 
 brought to such wretchedness, that their legs could not support them, they 
 looked like anatomies of death ; they did eat dead carrions, happy where 
 they could find them, and if they found a plot of water-cresses or sham- 
 rocks, there they flocked as to a feast, in a little time the country was 
 left void of man and beast. 
 
 | Sir Richard Cox says, that 511,456 Irish acres were .seized on by 
 James, and the possessors banished. See, also, Sir George Paul's life of 
 archbishop Whitgift, page 47. 
 
 i Geoghegan, in his history, says that .there were not 60 protestant fa- 
 milies in Irdlead at the accession of James I. 
 
12 
 
 Graham be well founded. Sir John was then residing in the 
 country as British chief justice, he says :* " For the truth is, 
 that in time of peace the Irish are more fearful to offend, than 
 the English or any other nation whatsoever," and again,! " In 
 which condition of subjects they will gladly continue without 
 defection, or adhering to any other lord or king, as long as 
 they be protected and justly governed, without oppression on 
 one side, or impunity on the other. For there is no nation of 
 people, under the sun, that doth love equal and impartial justice 
 better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the exe- 
 cution thereof, though it be against themselves." This is the 
 testimony of an Englishman who knew the people, and had 
 an opportunity of judging. Is he not entitled to more credit 
 than a bigot descendant of those very puritans of whom we 
 are now treating ? 
 
 The next in order is Mr. Graham's attack on the Irish of 
 1641 ; " their religious bigotry, their persecuting spirit, their 
 massacres," &.c. &c. It is very difficult to disprove general 
 assertions, mere declamation, without argument. That the 
 Irish have committed excesses, every body will allow ; but 
 that their uniform resistance to British tyranny, even up to the 
 present day, is fully justified by the cruelty and oppression of 
 their governors, no candid man will deny ; for, setting aside 
 the right that all people have to govern themselves, and 
 admitting for a moment, that England ha had a legitimate 
 right to govern Ireland, yet has she not forfeited all claims 
 to the obedience of the p< ople of that country, by robbing 
 them of their rights as men, by refusing them the protec- 
 tion of her laws, and treating them as common enemies. 
 The rising of 1641, to which the gentleman alludes, occurred 
 about thirty years after the expulsion of the Irish out of the 
 North. The cause, he however, does not state ; but I will. 
 With a new reign (Charles I.) commenced new measures; 
 new favourites were to be provided for; the infamous Strafford 
 was named Viceroy. " He was impatient to signalize his ad- 
 ministration by a service of immediate and extensive emolu- 
 ::: Dav. Dis. 257. j Dav Dis. 283. 
 
ment to his royal master. His project was nothing less than 
 to subvert the title to every estate in every part of Connaught, 
 andto establish new plantations throughout the whole province." * 
 Thus were the unfortunate natives, after having been driven 
 from their homes in the North, to seek a shelter in the desolate 
 wilds of Connaught, threatened with the loss of this their last 
 asylum. Free-quarters were proclaimed as a preparatory mea- 
 sure : add to this, the solemn promises of Charles remained 
 unredeemed ; the Penal laws were enforced with the utmost 
 rigours ;t fines were imposed on those who neglected attend- 
 ing the Established Church ; an high commissioned Court 
 was erected to try the titles to the estates of the inhabitants of 
 Connaught, which were in the possession of their ancestors 
 for a thousand years. So determined was Stratford to obtain 
 hinds for his minions, " that jurors who gave their verdict ac- 
 cording to their consciences, were censured in the Castle-cham 
 ber in great fines 5 sometimes pillored, with loss of ears, and borr(> 
 through the tongue ; and sometimes marked over the forehead 
 with other infamous punishments. "| Were not these provo-. 
 cations sufficient to drive a whole people to madness ? Yet 
 they were but the prelude. Lord Clarendon says, that 
 " about the beginning of November, in this year, the English 
 and Scotch forces in Carrickfergus murdered, in one night, all 
 the inhabitants of the island Macgee, to the number of three 
 thousand, men, women, and children, all innocent persons, in a 
 time when none of the Catholics of that country were in arms 
 or rebellion ; and lie concludes the paragragh with a Noia 
 Bene that this was the first massacre committed on either 
 ,side ;§ and of course it was the signal for a general rising. The 
 
 * Leland, vol. 3, p. 30,31. 
 
 J A Catholic Priest was dragged from the alter whilst performing di- 
 vine service, by an infuriated soldiery, headed by the protestant arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, and the Lord Mayor. They carried off the sacred 
 utensils, ornaments, &c. This was winked at by Strafford. 
 
 J Articles of impeachment of Stratford's. — Journal of the House ofCom»- 
 .itwns. 
 ^ 5 Clar. Hist. Review of the state of Ireland, page 329. 
 
1 4 
 
 people found, unfortunately from experience, that their omy 
 ix>pe of safety rested on their union, and in the field ; for whets 
 actually there, their native bravery, in spke of every disadvan- 
 tage, secured them against treachery and massacre. In their 
 Iiomes they had no safety — peace they could not enjoy. " In 
 Desey's county, the neighbouring English garrisons of the 
 county of Cork, after burning and pillaging all that county, 
 murdered above three hundred men, women, and children 
 before any rebellion began in Munster, and led one hundred 
 labourers prisoners 'to Caperquin, where, being tied by couples, 
 they were cast into the river, and made sport to see them 
 drowned ; at the same time that this county is not charged 
 zsifkmiy murder to be committed on Protestants. ."* So much 
 fertile " bigotry, the persecuting spirit, the massacres of the 
 Irish," he. If they did massacre, the ancestors of Mr. Gra- 
 ham set them the example* The Irish did not commence the 
 war of 1641, "till they were convinced that they must have 
 either turned Protestants, or quit the country, or be hanged 
 at their own doors»"t They flew to arms in their own de- 
 fence. The retaliation was dreadful. The infamous faction 
 tbat planned and organized the insurrection were nearly .ex- 
 tirpated. They wished for a pretext to butcher the people ; 
 and had like themselves to have fallen victims to their own 
 Moody policy. u The partizans in the Privy Council privately 
 wrote to the Earl of Leicester, then Lord Lieutenant, desiring 
 his secrecy, for they could not speak openly at the Council 
 Board, that he would riot accept of any overtures for checking 
 the Northern rebellion, because the charge of supplies from 
 England would be abundantly compensated out of the estates of 
 the actors in the rebellion."! The only danger dreaded was 
 that of a too speedy suppression of the rebellion. Extensive 
 forfeitures was the favourite object." | 
 
 I have been induced to enter more fully into this portion of 
 the history of Ireland, than perhaps my limits would fully 
 
 ' * Clarendon's Review of the state of Ireland, page 396. 
 •J Dr. Anderson's Genealogies, page 786. 
 
 , $ Cart. 1 vol. page 194. 4 Leland, vol. 3, p. }QQ 
 
lb 
 
 warrant, by the desire of disabusing those who might hav$ 
 been led away by the coloured statements of prejudiced histo- 
 rians, who have painted the rising @f 1641, as a war of reli- 
 gion. That it was the Powder Plot of the government injlreland, 
 eannot be doubted; and that it did not succeed as in England, 
 is to be attributed to the differences in the numerical strength 
 of the contending parties* In both, the object was the same ; 
 fc> rob the people of their possessions, under the plea of re- 
 ligious differences. Let us here pause for a moment, and re- 
 flect on the object and end of all governments, founded in right; 
 and justice. If in the protection and happiness of a people be 
 constituted the rights of rulers and governors, what must we 
 think of those who plan and goad a people into rebellion, that 
 they may rob them of their properties, and fatten on the spoils ? 
 But the Irish of 1641 y were Papists;* and " Papists (Mr» 
 Graham says, page 1 1 ,) believe in the infallibility of the Pope, 
 and hold that no faith is to be kept with those who differ from 
 them in religion* Good God ! can these b& the assertions of 
 a man who boasts of his science and legal knowledge. I my- 
 self do not suppose him so ignorant as to believe, in such ma- 
 lignant falsehoods. What 1 the Catholics of Ireland hold the 
 doctrine, that no faith is to be kept with Protestants- 
 Why then- do they exclude themselves from all offices of 
 trust or emolument, under the British government ? They 
 are but required to take certain oaths to make them eligi- 
 ble to every office; and yet 4hey have remained excluded 
 for more than a century, in spite of their belief " that ?io 
 obligation can bind them — that no faith is to be kept with 
 Protestants." This doctrine, which the learned gentleman 
 attributes to Catholics, is in truth the ground-work andfunda- 
 
 * The influence of the Romao FonthT was never admitted in Ireland be» 
 yond that of spiritual supremacy, as first Pastor of the Catholic Church. 
 In 1152 the first general council, under the control of the Eoman Pontiff", 
 was held in Kells, Cardinal Paparon, leg-ate a latere, presiding. He, no 
 doubt, was sent to pave the way for the submission of the Church, to the 
 mandate of an infamous English Pope. The clergy, notwithstanding, 
 opposed it manfully; yet are the Cathohcs of Ireland, tauntingly called 
 gapists, by the descendants of the basest slaves of the Roman Pontiff,. y 
 
1G 
 
 mental principle of Orangei<m. The very allegiance c>> 
 Orangemen is conditional ; not so long as their idol king pre* 
 serves their liberties as citizens, do they swear to be good 
 and loyal subjects; no such thing— this is not their political 
 creed. It is, so long, and so long only, as he secures to them 
 their ascendancy in Church and State ; so long as he thinks 
 as they do, believes what they believe, and changes his reli- 
 gious opinions with every new act of Parliament: but should 
 he presume to think for himself; to think that the people 
 are entitled equally to the protection of the laws, without 
 any regard to religious destinctions ; they will oppose him, 
 as not being longer the king of a faction — he will not be en- 
 titled to their support. 
 
 Mr. Graham, in his review or summary of that which he 
 would feign make pass for Irish history, passes over in silence 
 the period from 1641 to the invasion of William III. Is it 
 that he felt ashamed of the conduct of his ancestors, the Pu- 
 ritans, their base desertion of their benefactors, the Stuarts; 
 the infamy of their union with the puritanical, bloody tyrant, 
 Cromwell. No ; the advocate of Orangeism must exult in the 
 sufferings of the people ; besides, they then did but what their 
 descendants and successors, the Orangemen, do now. They 
 joined in trampling on the rights of the people. They united 
 with the myrmidons of Cromwell in their atrocious massacres 
 and house burnings. It was no longer profitable to support, 
 royalty. The Irish, on the contrary, faithful to their oaths, 
 and fancied obligations towards the English king, struggled for 
 'eleYen years in defence of that throne which was raised on 
 the ruins of their country. " After the most fierce and 
 bloody contest, in which the whole face of the Island was de- 
 solated, and its population nearly extinguished," they were 
 compelled to bend beneath the yoke, or expatriate them- 
 selves.* Thus leaving their properties as spoils for traitors, 
 
 * On one occasion Cromwell did not scruple to transport 40,000 Irish 
 from their own country, to fill all the armies in Europe with complaints of 
 his cruelty and admiration oi" their own valour. — Dalrymple Mem. 1 vol- 
 page 267. 
 
and yet in spite of the unheard-of sufferings of this ill-fated-, 
 unfortunate people, in the cause of Charles II. he, on his res- 
 toration to the throne, not only did not restore to them their 
 possessions, confiscated by Cromwell, but guaranteed to the 
 murderers of his father, these rewards of their treachery, and 
 with that systematic ingratitude which has characterized his 
 whole race, he sanctioned the enactment of laws which ex- 
 cluded the Irish from all places of trust or profit ; ami that fa- 
 mous act of settlement, in which they are stiled " rebels," for 
 having fought in his defence, and by which 7,800,000 acres of 
 land were set out under its authority to a motley crew of 
 English adventurers, nearly to the total exclusion of the old 
 inhabitants.* Titles were conferred on the rebellious regi- 
 cides, and a brave and loyal people surrendered up to the fury 
 of the enemies of social order. 
 
 Now for Mr. Graham's jump of nearly fifty years. Page 12, 
 begins, " After various renewed attempts to effect an entire 
 extermination of the Protestants, their enemies resolved to 
 embrace the reign of James II. to give it completion, Sec. 
 The work of destruction, projected on a large scale, was in 
 rapid progress, when William, Prince of Orange, was resorted 
 to by the sufferers, and supplicated to assume their protection* 
 When in an exuberance of joy the Lord Mayor of Dublin 
 committed the officers of Christ Church, because the bells did 
 not ring merrily enough on the birth of a son to James. 
 When more than three-fourths of the population of Ireland 
 united, swore, upon the altar ol religion, the utter exterminac 
 tion of protestants ; when the wretched remnant of a most 
 sanguinary persecution trembled in expectation of the decisive- 
 blow. At that poriod it was, on the 12th of July, 1690, on. 
 the bunks of the Boyne, that William, Prince of Orange, com- 
 missioned by heaven, like the destroying angel, who smote the 
 Assymatrl camp, by night, attacked and routed the armies of 
 James." The invasion of William — the reign of James with 
 the dirty name — the final degradation of Ireland, and the 
 u-iumph of a faction, are themes on which the Orangeman 
 
 ■ 'kh Lord Clare's Speech on the Union. J ,* 
 
i8 
 
 wishes to dwell. The events of this period of Ireland's his- 
 tory first warmed him into life, and furnished food to the ma- 
 lignant passions of his soul. We must again have recourse to 
 history, to disprove those sweeping assertions of the modest 
 and learned gentleman. That James was counselled, not by 
 catholics to his worst acts, but by protcstants, hear Dr. Leslie, 
 a famous protestant divine ; he says : " that it is now publicly 
 known, that the fatal measures he took were advised, and often 
 pressed, against his majesty's inclinations and opinion, by 
 those protestants, whom bis unexampled and even faulty cle- 
 mency, had not only pardoned for all their bitter virulency in 
 opposing his succession, but brought them into his most secret 
 councils, and acted by their advice.* But an entire extermi- 
 nation of the Protestants was projected on a large scale." 
 Is it not a notorious fact, that all Ireland was in the military 
 possession of the catholic army under James's viceroy, up to* 
 Shomberg's landing, (two garrisons excepted ;) yet no massa- 
 cres were committed. On the contrary, the discipline of 
 the Irish army was admirable, as is acknowledged by its 
 most inveterate enemies ; some of whom being candid enough 
 to declare, a that the Protestants had less to dread from it, than 
 from that English army, who came (according to Mr. Graham) 
 " to deliver them from popish slavery." Dr. George, who 
 was secretary to Shomberg (William's confidential General.) 
 says, in a letter addressed to a Colonel Hamilton, " that it was 
 resolved (by them) to treat the Protestants of Ulster rather as . 
 enemies than friends. That the goods and stocks of the Pro- 
 testant inhabitants once seized by the enemy were forfeited, 
 and ought not to be restored, but given as encouragement to 
 the soldiers ; that their (the protestants) oaths and complaint? 
 were neither to be believed nor redressed ; that so an easier and 
 safer approach might be made to the little left them by the 
 Irish ; that free-quartering was the least retaliation that Pro- 
 testants could give for being restored to their former estates \. 
 that religion was but canting, &c. If to these you add, the 
 pressing of horses at pleasure, deny ing the people bread or 
 
 * Leslie's preface to his answer to Archbishop King 1 : 
 
seed of their own corn, &c. whereby multitudes of families 
 are already reduced for want of bread, and left only to beg 
 and steal, or starve : these being the practices, and these the 
 principles, and both as well known to you as to me, it cannot 
 be wondered that the oppressed Protestants here should report 
 rs worse than the Irish.''' 1 So much for the real policy of 
 William, this idol of Orangeism, who " came like the destroy- 
 ing angel, and saved the protcstants from utter annihilation."* 
 The truth is, William cared as little for Protestants as for Ca- 
 tholics ; he grasped at a throne, and cared not about the means. 
 At this period in England the hue and cry, raised about fifty 
 years before against popery, being at its height, William, of 
 course, affected the utmost hatred of Catholics ; yet his foreign 
 troops were composed of Catholics ; and men of the proscribed 
 religion were most of his confidence. Intolerance being ever 
 the spirit of the English People, he professed himself an enemy 
 to toleration, yet no man loved it more. His Dutch subjects 
 were all equally protected and entitled to his favour, without 
 any distinction as to religion ; but, devoid of all principles 
 he was a hypocrite in religion, and a camelion in politics. 
 He suited his administration to the prejudices of the times and 
 the people that he had to govern. The Spirit of his adminis- 
 tration was, as to Scotland Presbyterian, to England Puritani- 
 cal, and to Ireland it was any thing and every thing to suit the 
 faction which governed in his name. A king without power to 
 do good ; the general of a rapacious horde of hungry expec- 
 tants, he has been more unjustly censured, and falsely praised, 
 than any other monarch that has filled the British throne. 
 James is condemned by the base admirers of William " for 
 having intended, as they say, to do in Ireland what he did 
 not do when in his power, and what king William actually did 
 when in Scotland, viz. to overturn the Church, then by law 
 established, though king James had truly the argument of */tg 
 
 * Cromwell, too, had scriptural auihority ready to shelter his boldest 
 and most atrocious crimes. He used to urge his soldiery to treat the Irisjj 
 catholics " as the Canaanites had been treated in the time Of Jcshua* 
 
20 
 
 ihclinations of the people, i. e. of the major part in freland- 
 which was but a pretence, and falsely collected in Scotland, 
 from the fanatic rabble being let loose, and encouraged to 
 act all sort of outrage upon the episcopal clergy.* Here I 
 •wish to observe that I am not the apologist of James. 1 ex- 
 ecrate the memory of his house. The Stuarts were the bit- 
 terest enemies Ireland ever saw. My intention being to ex- 
 hibit the actions of the contending parties in their proper light; 
 not to bolster up the character of a kingly tyrant. 
 
 I must do James the justice to say, that the laws enacted 
 by the Irish parliament, whilst he was in Ireland, were the 
 only ones, passed since her first connexion with England, that 
 had her prosperity for their object. He himself recommended 
 an act for the advance and improvement of trade, and for the 
 encouragement and increase of shipping and navigation.} 
 
 This act in particular must be peculiarly offensive to the 
 selfish policy of England. That country having always 
 dreaded competition from the geographical position of Ire- 
 land, her superior fertility, and the facility with which she 
 could export her products and manufactures, owing to the 
 excellence of her harbours and plentiful supply of materials 
 for ship-building, resolved that she should have neither ship- 
 ping, manufactures, nor trade. The more effectually to destroy 
 every hope of this kind, her forests, the finest in Europe, 
 have all disappeared under the withering blast of an infa- 
 mous state policy ; her manufacturers are compelled to emi- 
 grate ; the accumulated obstructions of centuries, remain in 
 the mouths of her rivers ; her harbours are deserted, &c &c. 
 &c.' — these are a part of the blessings continued to her by the 
 glorious revolution of 1688. 
 
 Mr. Graham has drawn all his slores from the same foul 
 and lying calendar. He knows better than I do, (for I never 
 had any connexion' with the British government,) the im- 
 mense sums that have been expended by his government in 
 
 * Lesley's Preface to his answer to Archbishop King, 
 f The illustrious deliverer, the apostle of Orangemen, William, had 
 Ibis act publicly burned. 
 
 
21 
 
 purchasing the testimony of venal historians and apostate 
 United Irishmen; yet I do not believe that any bungler it has 
 employed, ever before went so far as to assert that the battle of 
 the Boyne was fought on the 1 2th of July, 1 690." Williams ? s 
 commission from heaven," must be of an earlier date : for the 
 battle of the Boyne was fought on the first of Julv. The 
 celebration of the 1 2th is to commemorate the battle of Aughrim, 
 the assertions and the bombast of the learned gentleman, not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 That William was sent as a *' destroying angel," every 
 Orangeman, (I know) religously believes, and that he paved 
 the way for the final enslavement of the fairest portion 
 of the earth, history fully proves.! For if he gave liberty 
 to England, he forged chains for Ireland ; and, afier having 
 ratified them, he violated, without the shadow of pre- 
 text the solemn engagements entered into at Limerick. 
 Notwithstanding this treaty, which secured to the people 
 their civil and religious liberty, a parliament of Britons, 
 under his sanction, and before the ink was well dry on 
 this Charter of the liberties of Irishmen, passed the most 
 sanguinary laws that have ever disgraced their statue book :\ 
 to restrain education,* to disarm the people, to banish Ca- 
 tholic ecclesiastics — to* prevent protectants intermarrying 
 
 * Vide Mr. Graham's harangue, p. 12, lines 20 and 21. 
 
 f That the protestant's of Ireland went further than merely the ringing 
 of bells in their demonstrations ef loyalty to James, and that the better in- 
 formed among them were not blind'to the real motives of William's inva- 
 sion, we have but to refer to Dr. Leslie. In his answer to Archbishop 
 King, he says, that the protestants prayed for James, " that <iod would 
 strengthen him to vanquish and overcome his enemies ;" he says farther, 
 •' that they prayed four times in one year, forwards and backwards, point 
 blank contradictory the one to the other. 1 ' 
 
 J Lord Clare says in his Speech on the Union, lhat " The sHu:itk>n of 
 the Irish Nation, at the revolntion df 1688, stands uuparalelled in the His- 
 tory of the inhabited World. If the wars of England, carried on here 
 from the reign of Elizabeth, had been waged against a foreign enemy, the r 
 inhabitants would have retained their possessions" under the established 
 law of civilized nations, and their countrv would have been annexed, as & 
 province to the British empire.^ 
 
with catholics ; to prevent Catholics being solicitors, &c. &c» 
 &c. Yet, notwithstanding these outrages on human nature, 
 is this man with his horse, worshipped as the champion of 
 civil and religious liberty, by men who call themselves Irish- 
 men.! 
 
 With the following opinion of Burke,*as to the effects of the 
 revolution of 1688, on the prosperity of Ireland, I shall close 
 this part of my subject. " By the total reduction of Ireland, 
 in 1691, the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure, 
 too, of the first races of the English, was completely accom- 
 plished. The new interest was settled with as solid a stability 
 as any thing in future affairs can look for. All the penal laws 
 of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made 
 after the last event, were manifestly the efft-cts of national ha- 
 tred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors 
 delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to pro- 
 voke. They were not the effects of (heir fears, but of their 
 security. They who carried on this system, looked to the 
 irresistible force of Great Britain for their support in acts of 
 power. They were quite certain, that no complaints of the 
 natives would be heard on this side of the water, with any 
 other sentiments than those of contempt and indignation. 
 Their cries served only to augment their torture. Machines, 
 which could answer their purposes so well, must be of an ex- 
 cellent contrivance. Indeed, at that time in England, the 
 double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (it would 
 
 * Papists teaching school publicly or privately, or being ushers to pro- 
 fcestant school-masters, should be transported on pain of death if they re- 
 turned. Fifty pounds reward were offered for a Catholic Bishop ; ten 
 pounds for a Catholic school-master, and twenty pounds for a Priest, to be 
 levied on the catholics of the county where they were found — 7 William 
 III. c. iv. Burke, in allusion to this act, says, '• I have ever thought the 
 prohibition of the means of improving our rational nature to be the worst 
 species of tyranny that the iasoience and perverseness of mankind ever 
 Jared to exercise." 
 
 t On the Orange flag is the figure of a horse to which the votaries 
 kneel. I myself have heard an Orangeman drink li to the immortal me.- 
 mory of William's hoir:e r 
 
he hard to say, singly, which was the most odious) shut up tils' 
 the hearts of every one against them. Whilst that ternpei 
 prevailed in all its force, to a time within our memory, every 
 measure was pleasing and popular, just in proportion as it 
 tended to harrass and ruin a set of people who were looked 
 upon as enemies to God and man ; and, indeed, as a race of 
 bigoted savages, who were a disgrace to human nature itself.* 
 
 When memory turns to the period, (the last fifty years) I 
 would now describe, how heart-rending are the scenes which 
 present themselves. My pen trembles in my hand as the re- 
 collections crowd on each other; within that time, Ire- 
 land took her rank, for a moment, among the nations of thro 
 earth. Within that time, Ireland was an independent king- 
 dom ; that kingdom was bought and sold. Within that time r 
 a brave and long suffering people united, made one grand- 
 struggle for the liberties of their country ; but they were be- 
 trayed, and their country plundered, and they themselves^ 
 hunted down, like wild beasts in the forests, by ferocious mon- 
 sters, who, under the name of Orangemen, spread devastation 
 over the land. 
 
 The rise and progress of Orangeism is accounted for by 
 Mr. Graham, in this way, page 13, line 6, Sec. " After the 
 first abortive attempt at revolution, reflecting men among the. 
 protestants, began to think they had acted rashly in forming 
 a brotherhood with catholics." " Whether, upon the whole, it 
 was prudent to sever at a blow, the arm of the British go- 
 vernment, which, with all its maladies, protected them." " The 
 re-action began among them." " They united, kc, and the* 
 wisdom of the measure recommended itself strongly." " This 
 was the starting point from which the present Orange associ- 
 ation of Ireland is to date its origin." That that faction- 
 under different appellations, devastated Ireland for more than 
 a century before, is already proved ; but allowing, for a mo- 
 ment, the learned gentleman the full benefit of his argument 
 what does he prove ? Why that the faction, true to their 
 
 :i Loiter to .Sir Her. Lang. p. 44. 
 
w 
 
 principles, finding, after an " abortive attempt at revolution,'' 
 that it was much more profitable to join the government, de- 
 serted their former companions, and were foremost in their 
 butchery. It was then that " reflecting Orangemen regretted 
 having formed a brotherhood with Catholics." It was much 
 more congenial ,to their feelings and principles, to trample 
 and oppress, than to unite with them in their struggles for 
 freedom. Mr. Graham says that he himself was a United 
 Irishman, but abaudoned them on reflection; of course he too 
 joined in " the re-action" — that is, in pursuit of naked, un- 
 armed wretches, who, when surprised, were burned in their 
 habitations ; but, that " reflecting men," among the protes- 
 tants, have approved of the institution of a bond of union 
 among any portion of their countrymen, distinct and separate 
 from the great body of the people, and that they have en- 
 couraged the celebration of the battle of Aughrim, I totally 
 deny ; on the contrary, all the Irishmen who have, for the 
 last fifty years, by their talents and their genius, illumined 
 the political horizon of their ill-fated country, have uniformly 
 advocated a union of Irishmen, and have indignantly depre- 
 cated the infamous and unnatural conspiracy entered into by 
 Orangemen, to perpetuate the slavery and degradation of Ire- 
 land.* 
 
 With what naviete this modest and learned gentleman 
 treats his subject. He describes the horrors of 1798, as "a 
 mere re-action." The blood-stained flag, the emblem of de- 
 struction, " an Orange handkerchief set on a pole for amuse- 
 ment." I should like to ask the gentleman if he has ever 
 heard or read of such atrocities as were perpetrated in 1798. 
 by his faction, or if he could point out a single year in which 
 they have hoisted their " Orange handkerchief on a pole for 
 amusement," that has not witnessed the murder of some one- 
 inhabitant of wretched Ireland. 
 
 * In this number we find a Flood, a G rattan, a Duquery, a Barrington, a 
 Curran, a Burke, a Sheridan, a Robert Emmett, an Edward Fitzgerald, 
 a Bushe, a Plunkett, &c. &c. From such a constellation of genius, could 
 Mr. Graham not borrow one ray of light tD illumine the darkness of hi? 
 own intellect. 
 
w? 
 
 . i # 
 
 Orangemen were never Uiyted Irishmen, those who bfc;' 
 5ame so as spies excepted : on the contrary, an insurrectional 
 plot, irt which were embodied all the talents, s.\\ the patriot 
 ism and energy of the country, .was rendered abortive by this 
 hellish £action». a .A people, ground U> powder" by enormous 
 rents— the pressure of- tithes, for the support of a church es- 
 tablishment, with which they had no connexion, were easily 
 driven into premature action, by a well directed espionage." 
 " The Orange system was brought into.play, and the soldiery, 
 Jet loose on the people, commenced the work of death and 
 desolation — covered the country with the horrors of a most 
 calamitous war, and drove the innocent in co-operation with 
 the guilty. All the ties af social life were torn up, and filing 
 into one .vast heap of uudistinguishable ruin. The bayonet, 
 whetted with religious rancour, was opposed by the merciless 
 pike ; whilst at the same time insidious, but pitiless, policy 
 held out in one hand, the olive branch, and flourished the 
 lash of torture in the other. It was not war — it was butchery* 
 The contest was mad revenge, driven to desperation by exter- 
 minating pursuit." The proscription, in the time of the' huri- 
 tans was revived. The Catholics of the north were oncdniote 
 warned from their homes, on pain of extermination^ to seek ai. 
 refuge in the western wilds. Written notices were posted ori 
 their doors with CromwelFs watch word's, ' • To Hell or Co'ti- 
 naught."* Obedient to this bloody admonition, the affrighted 
 Catholics abandoned their habitations to the fury of the 
 spoiler ; but even this could not satisfy Orangemen, ^tliif 
 thirsted after the blood of Papists, and were but too well 
 seconded by the government of that day. 
 
 The Insh government, in '98, stigmatized 'with the name @f 
 
 rebellion, that which was but legitimate defence, and hating 
 
 made the charge, it considered itself at perfect liberty i® 
 
 abandon the peasantry to the whole fury of the tempesi; 
 
 Grattan describes the faction that desolated Ireland at ifeat 
 
 ■' It is asserted by many respectable individuals (fiat ffom 5 & 79^ 
 families abandoned their homes & the North at this period,- 
 
 4 L 
 
20 
 
 day in a letter addressed to the Orange corporation of Dnu- 
 lin. —After vindicating his- own character, he proceeds to de- 
 velop the causes which have produced so much misery to 
 that country. He says, it is that " faction which is the secret 
 mover of all this calumny and all this injustice ; they stand at 
 the head of a bloody combination ; I look on them as the. 
 cause of the evil that has of late fallen on their country. I 
 protest I do not know a faction, which, considering the very 
 small measure of their credit and ability, has done so much 
 mischief to their king and country. They opposed the re- 
 storation of the Constitution of Ireland ; they afterwards en- 
 deavoured to betray and undermine it ; they introduced a 
 system of corruption, unknown in the annals of' parliament ! 
 they then proclaimed that corruption so loudly, so scandal- 
 ously, and so broadly, that one of them was obliged to deny 
 in one house the notorious expressions he had used in ano- 
 ther. They accompanied these offences by abominable pe- 
 tulence of invective, uttered from time to time against the 
 great body of the people^ and having by such proceedings and 
 such discourse, lost their affection, they resorted to a system of 
 coercion, to support a system of torture, attendant on a con- 
 spiracy of which their crimes was the cause. And now their 
 country displays a most; extraordinary contest, where an 
 Englishman, at the head of its government, struggles to spare 
 the Irish people, and an Irish faction presses to shed then 
 blood. I repeat it, I do not know a faction more danger on. ■ ^ 
 more malignant or ?iwre sanguinary.* 
 
 So thought illustrious Grattan, but the paternal government 
 ojf. England was of a different opinion. They had titles and 
 pensions conferred on the leaders of this murdering banditti, 
 and acts of indemnity passed to screen them from the punish- 
 ment due to their crimes. The disgusting and horrid detail 
 of their half-liangings. their pitch-caps>, their torturings, and 
 military massacres, 1 will not now venture to describe. 
 Would to God! that the remotest recollection of thatbloodj 
 
 * C rattan's letter is dated Twickenham. 9th November. 1798,nnd pul* 
 Jislied jji the Courier of the same month 
 
~27 
 
 ■a > stem was buried in eternal oblivion, and Irishmen at length 
 united. 
 
 I will, however, beg the reader's indulgence, whilst I make 
 • few extracts from a speech of Lord Moira* in the British 
 House of Lords in Nov. 1797. It shews so clearly, and de- 
 picts so forcibly, the situation and sufferings of my country- 
 men at .this period, that I cannot offer any thing equally 
 strong and clear to prove nry positions, and the falsities of 
 the assertions with which the people of this country have 
 been amused : " I address you upon this day, my Lords, upon 
 documents sure and and stable. Before God and my country 
 1 speak of wlw.t'1 have seen myself. My Lords> I have seen in 
 Ireland the most absurd, as well as the most disgusting tyranny 
 that any nation ever groaned under. I have been myself a 
 witness of it in many instances •, I have seen it practised and 
 unchecked, and the effects that have resulted from it have 
 been such as I have stated to your Lordships. I have seen in 
 diat country a marked distinction made between the English 
 and Irish. I have seen^ic most wanton insults practised upon 
 men of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most grievous 
 -oppressions exercised in consequence of a presumption, that 
 the person who was the unfortunate object of such oppression 
 was in hostility to the government •.; and yet that has been done 
 in a part of the country as quiet and as free from such distur- 
 bance as the city of London. Who states these things, my 
 Lords, should, I know, be prepared with proofs. I am pre- 
 pared with them." His Lordship, observing on the curfew 
 laws then in force in Ireland, continues, "/ have known an in- 
 stance, where a master of a house had in vain pleaded to be 
 allowed the use of a candle to enable the mother to adminster 
 relief to her daughter; struggling in convulsive fits.'''' Again, 
 he says, '• When a man was taken on suspicion, he was put to 
 the torture; nay, if he was merely accused of concealing the 
 guilt of another." I have known a man, in order to extort 
 
 * This nobleman will not be accused of too much humanity by Ameri- 
 cans, wlieu they are toU that it was be who commanded in the Carolinas, 
 under the title of Lord Kowden, during the glorious struggle of the re- 
 rolutiaa. 
 
28 
 
 canfession of a supposed crime, or of that of some of his neigh- 
 bours, picquetted till he actually fainted ; picquetteda second^ 
 time till he fainted again — and, as soon as he came to himself; 
 picquctted a third time, till he once more fainted, and alts 
 upon mere suspicion ! Nor was this the only species of tor- 
 ture : men had been taken and hung up liH they were half 
 dead, and then threatened with a repetition of the cruel treat 
 orient, nnlesS they made confession of the imputed guilt. These 
 "were not particular acts of cruelty, exercised by men abusing 
 the power committed to them ; but they formed a part of 
 our system. This, however was not all \, their Lordsliips, no 
 doubt, would recollect the famous proclamation issued by a 
 military commander in Ireland requiring the people to give up 
 their arms : it never was denied, that this proclamation was 
 illegal, though defended on some supposed necessity; but it 
 was not surprising, that any reluctance had been shewn to 
 comply withk by men who conceived the vConstitution gave 
 them a right to keep arms within thel-r houses, for their own, 
 defence ; and they could not but feel indignation in being call-, 
 ed upon to give up their right. In the execution of this order, the 
 greatest cruelties had been committed. If any one was suspected, 
 to hav« concealed weapons of defence in his house, his furni- 
 ture and all his property was burnt : but this was not all ; if it . 
 were supposed that any district had not surrendered all the 
 arms it contained, a party was sent out to collect the number 
 at which it was rated ; and in the execution of this order, thirty 
 houses were sometimes burned down in a\$ingle nighL Officers 
 took upon themselves to decide discretionally tfcje quantity of 
 arms ; and upon their opinions .these fatal consequences fol- 
 lowed. From prudential motives I wish to draw a veil over 
 more aggravated facts, which I could state, and which 1 am 
 "willing to attest before the Privy I ouncil, or at your Lord- 
 ship's bar.* 3 ' 
 
 The ill-omened struggle of 1798 coujd npt last long. A 
 people unarmed and without leaders were soon compelled tc 
 submit, and butchered in detail. Orangeism progressed, and 
 
 * See Journal of the Lords for November 179?. 
 
29 
 
 M its votaries had now no fears for the loss of their dominion, 
 they gave some attention to the proper organization of the, 
 holy brotherhood. A higher order of exterminators was esta- 
 blished, (known under the name of purple marksmen.) They 
 are the staunch bloodhounds of the pack, to whom is specially 
 reserved the task of checking the increase of Irish enemies, 
 by shooting a few hundred married men and women annually. 
 The mere Orangeman is a low beastly creature, set on as a cur 
 to start the game 5 he proceeds by every manner of provoca- 
 tion to rouse a sensitive people to resistance ; and then it is, that 
 the purple marksmen, those hellish exterminators are let loose 
 on the people, to riot in blood, and clear the country of its 
 superabundant population* 
 
 Mr. Reed (already quoted) has himself been an eye-witness 
 to some such scenes. In 1 822, on the 25th of June, " About 
 nine o'clock in the evening a riot took place, (in Armagh) 
 which appeared to originate in party spirit ; there were a great 
 many engaged. The constables were not to be found, and had 
 it not been for the prompt interference of the military, the 
 quarrel might have assumed a serious aspect. Some of the com- 
 batants continued to patrol the streets till a lale hour, and 
 seemed very anxious to find ri bbon-men to fight with. About half 
 past ten I met with a party of about thirty, several of whom 
 wore red coats ; (in the kings pay of course,) they stopt me, 
 and rudely demanded whether I was a ribbon-man ; but being 
 answered in Ihe negative, they permitted me to proceed, say- 
 ing at the same time, " It is d d well for you that you arc 
 
 not."* Here we have a sample of Irish State policy; the 
 military were called out, yet the Orangemen continued to 
 parade the streets, the town was cleared for them " that they 
 might amuse themselves,^ trample on the inhabitants with im- 
 punity, and insult respectable strangers. 
 
 And all this no doubt in celebration of the victory of the 
 Boyne, as a few days make no difference with Orangemen ; be- 
 
 -ides they had as good a right to suppose the anniversary or. 
 > '• 
 
 * j?ee his notes on Ireland, page 168, 
 
30 
 
 <1ie 25ch Jane as their learned brother Graham has to fix it on 
 he twelfth day after it actually occurs. 
 
 ' On the 12th of July, Mr. Reed went to Middleton in Ar- 
 magh county, to witness the celebration of the battle of Augh- 
 rim. " The cause of this place being selected was openly de- 
 clared by some of those brave high-minded gentry, and was 
 simply this : some three or four years back, a number of them 
 imd met, as usual, to celebrate the " glorious memory," and 
 irmiU their fellow-subjects the Catholics ! who, at length driven 
 to resentmeni, repelled the aggressors, and the affray terminat- 
 ed in the glorious memory-men getting "gloriously" thrashed. 
 'This stain on their chivalry they determined to wipe off; and 
 for this purpose their forces were this day to be concentrated 
 on the ground which had before been the theatre of defeat. 
 
 At an early hour the road between Dungannon and Cala- 
 don was crowded with men, hoys, women, and children ; 
 most of them wore shoes, many had stockings, and all were 
 provided with flags, scarfs, or ribbands of orange colour. 
 Some of these indeed were discoloured by smoke and soot- 
 rain ; but their owners (or more properly their wearers, for it 
 was said that many of them were borrowed,) did not appear to 
 prize them the less on that account. The importance of the 
 occasion was heightened ..by drums, fifes, and bugles, which 
 produced exhilirating discord. Some of the Orangemen and 
 Orangezoomen were mounted on horses, that appeared cer- 
 tainly to stand more in need of. a feed of oats, than the airing 
 intended for them in this procession. 
 
 There lived in the neighbourhood a poor man, named John 
 Beaviers, almost worn out by disease ; haemoptysis had 
 brought him to the verge of the grave. I had myself pre- 
 scribed for him, and most rigidly enjoined abstinence and 
 quiet : but so irresistible was the desire to swell the ultra-loyal 
 ranks, that this infatuated creature was staggering along with 
 the crowd, nobly supported by his wife. On my expressing 
 astonishment and regret at the fatal folly of this man, an ac- 
 quaintance, who was standing by, and who. was an Orange - 
 man, said, " The boy? must alt shexo themselvAS : else hov: could 
 
SI 
 
 %»c tell whether they arc of the right or wrong sort ? I asked-, 
 would any of these right or wrong fellows support the poor 
 man's widow and children if he were called from them. This 
 seemed treading on tender ground. — I got no reply, and my 
 right or wrong friend walked off, not at .all pleased at my 
 BUriosity. " He proceeds to describe his " meeting straggling- 
 parties of the Orangemen, who had taken apremature departure 
 from the aggregate body ; not, however, before they had laid in a 
 large store of whiskey and irresistible loyalty. So desirous 
 were they of an opportunity to display this exalted sentiment, 
 that t he, cry, five pounds for the face of a black mouth pa- 
 pish was shouted incessantly. Many of them were mount- 
 ed on horses, which I knew were not the\r own ; almost every 
 horse had two riders — It was really disgusting to hear the shout 
 from boys, whose ages could have not exceeded sixteen or se- 
 venteen years, but some of whom, it would seem, were officer*., 
 as they bore standards, and were invested with other insignia 
 indicative of authority. In the large body I should think there 
 were between eleven and twelve hundred persons : and I can 
 safely and solemnly assert, that in the whole number there war 
 not one decent looking individual. This did not dissappoint me ; 
 for I zvas assured that men who had any pretensions to respect- 
 ability could not be found in brotherhood, or in any way as- 
 sociating with such canaille." 
 
 With them, " extirpation of the unoffending catholics, ?ear 
 a cherished object. In the arms of apparent death, the faint 
 er} r of five pounds, for the face of a black-mouthed papish ; 
 was the last articulate sound that could be collected from 
 those heroes, when they fell overwhelmed by the effects of 
 extreme intoxication. Knowing that a considerable portion of 
 the population of that part of the country were catholics, 
 who, it was reasonable to suppose, would oppose/orec to vio- 
 lence, I apprehended serious consequences,but, the Orangemen 
 rould find no Cathplics to tight with ; a quarrel there could no!. 
 easily be excited. It is barely doing justice to say that tin: 
 conduct of the Catholics this day, was orderly, decent, and 
 peaceable in amost creditable degree. In the transactions 
 
\ 
 
 <of this- day, so far as they fell under my observation, the 
 peace was preserved in spite of the innumerable premeditated 
 efforts made to the contrary, and bloodshed only prevented 
 by the forbearance of the insulted class. Every hostile in- 
 tention to produce battle, lost its object in the grave' contempt 
 of those it was meant to injure; it is probable that very seri- 
 ous mischief would have ensued were it not for the praise- 
 worthy moderation of the Catholics,. One atrocity, notwith- 
 standing, was committed in the neighbourhood. A party o!. 
 those whom I had seen at Middleton, on their return, got 
 hold of a poor Catholic, and beat him unmercifully :/ he died 
 of the abuse shortly afterwards. 
 
 " It was. reasonable to expect that some step? would be 
 taken to bring the perpetrators of so foul a crime to justice ; 
 but the magistrates of the district manifested, in this instance, 
 a spirit of v forbearance and forgiveness, of. which they had 
 never before .been suspected 5 the delinquent? were left ai 
 large, &c. Had , they chosen, they might have performed 
 similar exploits the next and succeeding days, ad libitum, 
 without molestation from the local authorities."'* 
 
 The events just mentioned are the* natural consequences 
 of a system to which the vital interests of that country have 
 for centuries been blindly sacrificed. 
 
 " I would dispassionately ask the upholders of the Orange 
 Association, what benefits has it conferred on the country. 
 Has Ireland ever derived from it ought but jealousy, discontent 
 and sanguinary, discord/ Its advantages if it have any, are 
 known to very few. Its baleful consequences, who does iioj 
 known 1 ' 
 
 This portrait of Orangeism in 1 822, is entitled to the more, 
 consideration as being the production of a British officer, and 
 although it presents but a faint outline of the real sufferings of 
 the Irish people, yet is it more than sufficient to convince 
 every rational man of the unhappy consequences that would 
 follow an introduction of such brotherhood into this country .J 
 
 * Two of tho murderers are sous of a parson who is also a justice, 
 + See Reeds notes on Ireland, from page 187 to 197. 
 i The Baltimore Federal Gazette has just fallen into m.v hands, sorn^- 
 
33 
 
 Mr. Graham lias made a bold attempt to palm this associa- 
 ion on the people as the great bulwark of Protestantism ; in 
 this there is more perhaps than meets the ear. Could the 
 American citizens be induced take to their bosoms these mis- 
 creants as sufferers in the cause of religion. Orangeism, na- 
 turalized in the country, would soon give England a prepon- 
 derating influence here. Secure of the devotion of the cne- 
 
 of its contents bear so forcibly on the subject here under discussion, that 
 I must take leave to insert them. — At the Fermanagh Assizes in Au- 
 gust last, Catholic prisoners were tried for murders at Innismore, and found 
 guilty of manslaughter. — " At the adjournment, the Catholic prisoners 
 tried for the riots were found guilty, the Orange traversers (nothwithstand- 
 ing the wrecking of the houses of the Catholics at Innismore, and the 
 shooting at and wounding the Catholics,) were only two., those two were 
 acquitted. The jurors were exclusively Orangetnen. 
 
 It was proved by a respectable witness, that one of the traversers {John 
 Sye,) had fired the shot that wounded Lawrence Hannan in the thigh ; it 
 was proved that a man by the name of Riley was dangerously wounded by 
 a shot from Kenney's party ; he proved it himself, and that three magis- 
 trates of this county had, after repeated applications, refused to take t/te 
 witness's information. 
 
 After Lawrence Hannan Lad been examined as a witness, and was 
 making his way from the council table, he was hauled by a party of Les- 
 bellaw Peelers, (not the least apprehensive of the consequences, and assault- 
 ed almost within view of the court. A few minutes after, on his arrival in 
 the street, in presence of ( ounsellor Rolleston, he received a most despe- 
 rate blow on the back of the neck from an Orangeman of the name of 
 M'Cready. As soon as the fact was made known, Counsellor Kernan 
 communicated it to the Judge, and had informations prepared and sworn to 
 in the Court against the offender (he had no difficulty in escaping.) 
 
 The Sub sheriff denied the charge, and said he had fifteen witnesses to 
 prove to the contrary. 
 
 Judge Moore— *" Talk not to me, Sir, of j T our fifteen witnesses. IN 
 THE PROGRESS OF THESE TRIALS 1 HAVE SEEN ENOUGH 
 OF THAT. I saw the hustliug in the Court myself; I saw the rush from 
 the galleries. If, Sir, your constabulary force be not sufficient to protect 
 the administration of justice, (I know not -how long the Bench itself will 
 continue safe) call out the posse comitatus of the county ; and if that be not 
 sufficient, Sir, said the Judge, with great warmth and indignation, I shall 
 call out the military. The proper conduct of the High Sheriff prevents me 
 imposing such a fine on you as this abominable transaction merits. 
 
 I wish I had room for the excellent observations with which this article 
 is accompanied by Mr. Guynne, in the Gazette. He himself is, if I wis- 
 lake not, an Irish Protestant, and therefore the better able to describe the 
 real views of a faction who have long laboured to make Protestantism and 
 Orangeism in Ireland mere convertible terms. He says, " If the Orange- 
 men, not one to seven of the nation, are depraved and perjurers, the fault is 
 in the Government, which has so long nurtured them in bigotry and cor- 
 ruption, as a priviledged caste, net subject to the wholesome control of 
 law or reason ; and if the Catholics, seven to one of the population, retaliate 
 the murders practised on them, the fault is in the Government, which for 
 seven hundred years has kept them in a state of debasement, and without 
 affording them legal protection from the insults and crimes of their domes 
 tic oppressors. ' 
 
 5 
 
mies of social order, she could then the more easily mar the 
 growing strength and prosperity of a dreaded rival, insinuate 
 herself into the councils of the nation, excite distrust of the 
 Irish emigrant, and thus neutralize his ardour in the cause oi* 
 liberty and the country. 
 
 Mr. Graham's hostility to every liberal principle, his attach- 
 ment to England, to its mode of government and policy, and 
 hatred of religious liberty, make him a very fit agent. A man 
 who could declare, without ablush, in the face of history 
 and the world, that "he did not believe that the British Go- 
 vernment is predicated (as to Ireland) on a policy merely ma- 
 licious, or that it is the direct and studied object of her rulers 
 to promote the miseries of the subjects of that ill-fated coun- 
 try ;" but that he did believe that " that government did no!; 
 make, but found the difficulties deeply inlaid in the ancient 
 policy and history of Ireland, which have hitherto retarded 
 her emancipation." Good God ! how blind are the prejudices 
 of that desolating faction; when one of them, a man, 'too, 
 nursed in penury, whose wants must have been few, and who 
 was obliged to abandon his country in search of that subsist- 
 ence which was denied to his industry at home, still defends 
 the very policy which sent him a wanderer. 
 
 That Mr. Graham owes to it some acknowledgement, I will 
 freely admit. It has thrown him on a country where he has 
 had the good fortune to raise himself to rank with those who 
 would not associate with him at home, and it has afforded him 
 an opportunity of recommending himself to the attention of the 
 British government by a display of those necessary qualifica- 
 tions for propagating the baneful principles of Orangeism. 
 This latter consideration had no doubt its proper weight with 
 him, when regardless of the ties of gratitude, which bind even 
 honorable mind to its friend and benefactor, he insulted the 
 Venerable and aged patriot, who extended to him the hand oi 
 fellowship, patronised and opened to him that source, from 
 which he now draws his support, when poor, a stranger, and 
 unknown. 
 
 That the government of England is " predicated as to Ire- 
 land on a policy truly malicious" — that it is " the direct and, 
 
35 
 
 Studied object of her rulers to promote the misery of the Irish 
 people" — that it is only fitted to the destruction of liberty, — 
 to trample down in the wantonness of cruelty and oppression 
 the comforts and rights of the people, and that it thinks of no- 
 thing but how to turn one to cut the throat of the other," few 
 will deny who are conversant with Irish history. 
 
 The same system of oppression and plunder has governed 
 the policy of England towards that country for 600 years. 
 There is not a single act upon record from the invasion of 
 Henry II. to the declaration of American independence which 
 had not for its object the moral degradation of the people, and 
 Ihe destruction of the wealth and resources of the country. 
 In the time of the Pale, Sir John Davis says, that " the English 
 lords could not endure that any other should have authority but 
 themselves. They persuaded the king of England that it was 
 unfit to communicate the laws of England to the Irish people, 
 that it was the best policy to hold them as aliens and 
 
 ENEMIES, AND TO PROSECUTE THEM WITH A CONTINUAL WAR. 
 
 The Revolution of 1688 gave an encrease of power to the 
 English faction to oppress and plunder the people. The Patron 
 Saint of Orangeism, William, in a speech from his throne at 
 that period, pledged himself that he should do all that^lay in his 
 
 power to D1SCOURAOE THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURIES OF IRE- 
 LAND, and by his ready co-operation with the Parliament, the 
 trade was prohibited soon-after, thousands thrown out of em- 
 ployment and the raw material exported to supply the manu- 
 factories of England.* 
 
 This act was but a prelude to further encroachments, until 
 at length the people were left without the means of support- 
 Thousands emigrated to France and other countries to escape 
 the wretchedness that awaited them at home.t 
 
 Thus did this apostle of liberty, whjpse very "mantle has" 
 according to Mr. Graham " entailed a spirit ever watchful of the- 
 proiestant interest," first enact that the Irish people should not 
 read, as his soldiers did, that they should not eat bread, and, 
 
 * The woollen manufacture of Ireland is naturally its staple fabric, oi^ 
 account of the richness of the soil, aod the excellence of i|s climate. 
 
 f By a reference to the register of the war office of France, it appears^ 
 that from the year 1691 to the year 1745, incmsive,yawr hundred and Jiffy 
 thousand Irkh enlisted umter the banners of France.-- Th»s in itself speaifti 
 volumes. 
 
m 
 
 then decreed that eveii the bounteous hand of providence 
 should be stayed, that its gifts might go to another people 
 This was the protection afforded to the protestant manufactur- 
 ers of Ireland. 
 
 But they cannot complain ; as he left them his " mantle" to 
 cover and protect them, they need not manufactures. 
 
 The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, 
 Dropped on the world a sacred gift to man. 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 The succeeding reign introduces the "ferocious act of Ann," 
 by which Catholics were disabled from the purchase of any 
 lands, or interest in them, for a term beyond thirty-one years ; 
 and, if property came by descent, by devise or will, the next 
 heir, if a protestant, might possess himself of it. Another 
 provision destroyed the mutual confidence and relation of pa- 
 rent and child ; it went to the total boulversement of society - 
 it sapped the very foundations of social happiness, and re- 
 versed the order of nature entire, as it placed the father at 
 the mercy of his child. " It permitted a son, on becoming a 
 protestant, to make his father tenant for life to his own 
 estate.* 
 
 The accession of the house of Hanover to the English 
 throne, caused no alteration in British state policy, and 
 its leading principle " that the Irish ought to be plundered, 
 and none protected," was as anxiously cherished by the 
 Georges, as by any of their predecessors. 
 
 In consonance with the recommendation of the then Lord 
 Lieutenant, ihe Parliament of Ireland, in 1 723, came to eight 
 violent resolutions against the Catholics, which passed with- 
 out a desentient voice. To prevent the further growth of 
 popery — for strengthening the Protestant interest in that king- 
 
 * Dr. Curry, in his History of the civil wars, vol. ii. page 234 says that 
 " through this act, there runs such a vein of ingenious cruelty, that it 
 seems to be dictated rather by some Pretor of Dioclesian than by a British 
 ]Nobleman. 
 
 And Burke in his letters to Sir Her. Langrish, page 87, says of this ac 
 — " You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection. For I" must do it 
 justice. It was. a complete system full of coherence and consistency.: 
 well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise 
 and elaborate contrivance ; and as well fitted for the oppression, impove- 
 rishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human 
 nature itself as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." 
 
«lom — and for castrating every catholic clergyman tiia? 
 
 SHOULD BE FOUND IN THE REALM., &LC. &C. &C. 
 
 But with the declaration of American Independence com- 
 menced a brighter era. That glorious effort awakened the 
 slumbering energies of a long suffering people ; for when 
 with the cry of liberty, the standard of freedom was unfurled on 
 the shores of America, and tyrants started at the sound. 
 Eighty thousand Irishmen in arms re-echoed this cry. 
 The greatest enthusiasm pervaded all ranks in the country. 
 Internal dissensions were allayed, and not one domestic ene- 
 my contaminated the face of Ireland, 
 
 A people united are irresistible. The Irish volunteers 
 commanded the freedom of trade for their country, and tire, 
 independence of its parliament, with some relaxation of the 
 penal laws. Would to God they had gone farther. They 
 commenced by imitating the Americans — they asserted their 
 rights as men — gained an immoral victory of liberal prin- 
 ciples, but they closed their career, as slaves. 
 
 England soon took advantage of this falling off. Freed 
 from the ^imminent danger with which she was threatened, 
 while America beat her armies abroad, and France her fleets 
 at home, resorted once more to her favourite system of divi- 
 sion and persecution ; on it she founds her power in Ireland., 
 well convinced that in the enjoyment of internal peace, a union 
 of Irishmen of all religious denominations would soon follow 
 and destroy her supremacy, for the people would then feel 
 their own strength and awaken to othex feelings than those of 
 base submission to the ordinances of a foreign power. 
 
 It was easy to open half closed wounds, to renew the strug- 
 gle between slaves and their task-masters, and to excite dis- 
 trust and spread false alarms by the means of a well paid host 
 of spies and informers* 
 
 At length the object was attained. The people were driven 
 into rebellion, and after having suffered under the most un- 
 heard of cruelty, and the most sanguinary acts of atrocity, and 
 still smarting under the lash, and irritated by threats of conf,i- 
 
 * One method resorted to was a publication industriously circulated, 
 stating that a scheme was formed between the Catholics and Presbyterians 
 for the subversion of the established re%ion and constitution. — Curran, 
 1 Par. Deb. W). . 
 
infliction, they looked on, as was expected, with the most per- 
 fect indifference, when the former acts of justice, wrung from 
 the fears of an English Minister,* were rendered abortive by 
 die suicidal act of the same Parliament, who, eighteen years 
 before declared itself independent of the Parliament of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 After this sketch of Irish history and Irish sufferings, will any 
 man for a moment doubt, " that the government of Ireland is 
 predicated on a policy merely malicious," " That it is the direct 
 and studied objectof her rulers to promote the misery of the Irish 
 people." " That it is fitted only to the destruction of liberty, 
 to trample down in the wontoness of cruelty and oppression 
 the comforts and rights of the people," or that it thinks of 
 any thing else but to turn one individual," in Ireland, " to cut 
 the throat of another;" If there be any such in this country, 
 (besides Mr. Graham, for he says that he does not believe it :) 
 let him read the following quotation with which I shall close 
 this part of my subject. 
 
 " You are called upoti to give up your independence, and 
 to whom are you to give it up ? To a nation which for six hun- 
 dred years has treated you with uniform oppression and injus- 
 tice. The Treasury Bench startles at this assertion : Nou 
 meus hie sermo est. If the treasury scold me, Mr. Pitt will 
 scold them ; it is his assertion, in so many words in his speech, 
 Ireland, says he, has always been treated with injustice und il- 
 liberality : Ireland, says Junius, has been uniformly plundered 
 and oppressed. This is not the slander of Junius, or the can- 
 dour of Mr. Pitt-y it is history. For ccnhirieshas the British na- 
 tion and Parliament kept you down, shackled your commerce^ 
 paralized your exertions, despised your character, and ridiculed 
 your pretensions to any privileges, commercial or constitutional. 
 She never conceded a point to you which she coidd avoid, or 
 granted a favor which was not reluctantly distilled. They have 
 been alhvrungjrom her like drops of her heart's blood, and yon 
 are not in possession of a single blessing, except those which 
 you derive from God, that has not beep, either purchased or ex~ 
 
 * At a time when he was told those truths by Burke, " That Ireland was 
 now the chief dependance of the British Crown, and that it behooved Eng»- 
 Rmd to^dmit the Irish nation to the privilege of British citizens : * 
 
39 
 
 tortcd by the virtue of your own parliament from the illiberal!- 
 ly of England* 
 
 In page 26, Mr. Graham says that the British Govern- 
 ment " did not make, but found the difficulties deeply inlaid in 
 the ancient policy and history of Ireland, which have hitherto 
 retarded her emancipation." 
 
 This is the last assertion of his which I shall notice, and^l- 
 though it requires but little effort after what has been already 
 said to show its utter fallacy, yet will I for a moment (to des- 
 troy all doubt ) carry m the readers attention back to the early 
 history of my country. 
 
 We have the concurring testimony of the early historians 
 who have written on the subject ; that the national character 
 of the Irish was long established before their unfortunate con- 
 nexion with England. And that whilst the inundation of 
 savages from the North covered the whole of the Roman Em- 
 pire, that Ireland alone, by her insular situation, secure from 
 the storm that swept the last vestige of civilization from every 
 other part of Europe, continued to patronize the arts and 
 sciences. And that so soon as the inundation had subsided, 
 *ihe seized on the first moment of calm to send forth her Jearn^ 
 cd missionaries, to preach the gospel of peace, establish 
 schools, and found and superintend seminaries in every part of 
 Europe.1 And that for centuries before the connexion her 
 shores were annually crowded with students from the conti- 
 nent, who were not only educated, elothed and lodged, (by the 
 
 * Speech of Mr. Bush, [now Lord Chief Justice of King: Bench in Ire- 
 Sand 1 in the Irish Parliament in 1800, on a motion made for the 
 union of Ireland with Great Britain. Mr. Graham will not question this 
 authority, nor call him a partisan ! ! ! , 
 
 + Henrick of St. Germain, who wrote m the time of Charles the Bald, 
 says " why should I mention Ireland? Almost the whole nation, despising 
 the dangers of the sea resort to our coasts with a numerous tram ot Ph»k> 
 
 ' In the reign of Pepin of France Virgillhis Solivagns, an Irishman, war. 
 bishop of Saltzburgh, he it was who first maintained the true form of the 
 earth on the continent and for which he was. degraded by the Pope— 
 Another 500 years after placed him on the calender ot saints. 
 
 A little after flourished the famous Johannes Scotus Engena, also an 
 Irishman. 1 1 ^'writings were various, was a favourite of Charles the Bald. 
 passed over to England at the intreaty of Alfred the Great and was ; the Jirst 
 professor of geometry and astronomy in the university oi Cxford ; he 
 trantated the Hierarchy of Uionysius the Ariopagite from th.e Greek. 
 
nation) but even furnished with books, then so scarce anariui,. 
 gratis.*' 
 
 To her Alfred, England's boasted king, owed bis education. 
 Many other facts might be adduced equally strong and convinc- 
 ing to justify her claim to a high degree of civilization at an 
 early period. 
 
 Her admirable code of laws, as given by Ollam Fadhla, 930 
 years before Christ, improved and digested by her Brehonst 
 the Beatagh regulation of public hospitality, for which provi- 
 sion was made by the nation, the cultivation of poetry and 
 music, the extensive and magnificent ruins, once the seat of 
 arts and sciences, the sanctuaries of learning, all bear testimony 
 to what Ireland has been. But alas how lost, how fallen now ! 
 A blank in the map of Europe, her people compelled to wan- 
 der in every clime in search of subsistence, and her blood her 
 treasures and resources going to the aggrandizement of that 
 country which has robbed her of every thing but the ruins of 
 those monuments of her departed glory. 
 
 When an American reflects a little on the foregoing, when he 
 contrasts the past with the present, the former prosperity of 
 Ireland when independent, with its misery and wretchedness 
 iiowthat it is under the dominion of England, will he not con- 
 clude, that to a government of misrule, is to be attributed the 
 unparelled wretchedness of the Irish peasantry. J 
 
 When he considers the natural resources of a country in 
 which the most appalling pictures of human misery daily and 
 hourly present themselves. When he is told that many wret- 
 ches are there, induced to the perpetration of crime by the 
 hope of being transported out of a country which they 
 
 * A most honorable testimony, says " Lord Littleton," not only to the 
 learning - , but also to the hospitality and bounty of that nation : See Leland 
 prel. disc. 31, Bede, Lord Coke, 4 inst. 349, &c. Sic. &c. 
 
 | The conformity of tins with the Jewish and Egyptian codes goes to 
 prove what has been so often asserted, that Ireland was colonized first by 
 Scythians, who were compelled in the year before Christ 1290 to submit to 
 the Iberian Gael or Milesians, and who were themselves the children of 
 JScythia, being 1 a part of a colony of Phoenicians that had established itself 
 in Spain. — I myself have been shown in Rome several manuscripts which 
 (my friend aesurred me) fully proved the truth of those assertions, and 
 which I was the more inclined to believe, after lie had translated for me a 
 part of those invaluable documents of Irish history. 
 
 To those who wish to pursue this subject, I shall refer them to Colonel 
 Vallancv's researches Sir Lar. Parsons Def. of the An. Hist, of Irl. Bedc. 
 Usher. O'Conner, OMIalloran, O'Kelly, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 | And that too in spite of the excellence of the climate, the fruitfull- 
 ness of the soil" [which commonly produces from 60 to 70 bushels of wheat 
 to the acre,]the pleasant and commodius seats for habitat ion; the safe and large 
 ports and havens, lying 1 open for traffic in all parts of the world ; the long' 
 inlets of many navigable rivers and so many great lakes and fresh ponds 
 within the lands; as the like are not to be seen in any part of Europe, the 
 rich fishings and wild fowl of all kinds, and, lastly, the bodies and minds of 
 the people indued with extraordinary abilities of nature^ Sir] Jolm Das ics 
 
*.:iiinr^i;istiral]y loVe, the apprehension? of the horrid death 
 by iojniiie which await them; should they remain at home 
 tio(g this and every other tie, what must he the convictions 
 of his mind ? will he think with Mr. Qrahani "■ that England 
 did not make, hut found the difficulties deeply inlaid, in the an- 
 cient policy and history of Ireland," or will he say the fault lays 
 in the turhnienec and barbarity of the Irfsb peasantry. I admit 
 that the 1;* h peasantry are curspd with many of the vices oi 
 pry, hut we must recollect that the Irish peasant can- 
 no! be peacihie and industrious for if he toils, it is without re- 
 ward, instruction is denied him, if he remonstrates it is rebel- 
 lion; hut he is accused of violence, he is violent; he ought, 
 to be violent; habituated to misery, familiiarized with oppres- 
 sion, - he can bear ever) thing but insolence, but that he can. 
 never bear." 
 
 Plundered of every thing that could be taken from him. and 
 not recognised! nor protected by the laws of England, the 
 care of self preservation, the laws of nature remain to him en- 
 tire ; he i? as n» the government of Ireland, and to the faction 
 which controls that government ; in a style of nature, he is 
 bound to them by no ties, obedience to them would be a crime ; 
 submission, cowardice and non-resistance a sin against his 
 country and posterity, yes; perpetual war, revenge, death to 
 the tyrants, this should be his cry,'!. 
 
 But hclas long continued, and debasing oppression has so 
 weakened the spirit of resistance which should glow in the bo- 
 som of Irishmen, that their instinctive bravery, their impa- 
 
 f The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, (Maners,) declared some few years 
 buck from the bench, that the law did not recognise nor suppose one Cath- 
 olic in Ireland. ■ . 
 
 t In this doctrine I am supported bv Rousseau, Aristotle, Coimorsoi, t a- 
 ley. Price, Locke, Priestly, MolineaUX and u'hers. iVo one will pretend 
 to say that obedience is due where there is no protection,— so late, a* $06, 
 Lofd Kingston stated in the House of Lords that the magistrates in ti»& 
 county of Sligo, were the real promoters of the disturbances, that some ot 
 them deserved rather to be hanged than to be made magistrates, yet they 
 were all Orangemen and enjoyed the confidence of the government. This 
 is the sort of protection afforded to the Irish people. 
 
 Another instance of this sort of protection is the interference of the law 
 in the sob-inn and tender relation of Husband and Wife. In August last, 
 m this year l€24. The Reverend Barnard M'Cann was indicted at the 
 Antrim Assizes in Ireland " for that he being; a reputed Popish priest did 
 unlawfully celebrate two marriages each between a Protestant and a Cath- 
 olic had he been convicted of this crime of uniting Protestants and Cath- 
 olfcs, he would have been bung, as the law makes the first offence pum.sh- 
 able with a fine of fioOQ and imprisonment,and for the second, death with- 
 out benefit of clergv. In both instances the marriages are declared void 
 in law as contrary to that state policy which would keep the people divi- 
 ded into factions. 
 
 ■" Resistance to such a system is a matter of prudence for no one GStn 
 doubt the peoples right." — C. J. Fax, G 
 
42 
 
 tiencc of contpol, their impetuosity, have all givcnway to the 
 desire " of an unnoticed and unknown existence.' 1 '' It is only when 
 roused to avenge themselves of some atrocious insult that the 
 dreadful energy of their character shews itself; which, like the 
 whirlwind or the mountain torrent in its fury sweeps all be- 
 fore it. 
 
 Internal and eternal disunion have destroyed all confidence 
 in each other. Single acts of oppression may meet with dread- 
 ful retaliation, but a systematic and united effort to effect the 
 emancipation of their country is become now almost hopeless. 
 " The eye glistening with grateful sensibility at the sounds of 
 condolence, lights up the furrovred feature with intelligence 
 but that divine expression of an innate gem is suddenly cloud- 
 ed with a recollection of debasement, and the grief ' that all tal- 
 lent in that state is as dross settles round the heart, and fastens 
 there in perpetual gloom." 
 
 In America then let Irishmen unite and swear by their 
 Country's wrongs, and by the immortal shades other murdered 
 patriots, to use all the means that God and nature have furnish- 
 ed them with, to destroy her oppressors, to break down the 
 tyranny of Britain and dissolve the conexion. 
 
 To rouse the expiring hopes of their countrymen at home, 
 would be a very effectual way of attaining those ends, for lead- 
 ers are not wanting, in that country there are still daring and 
 intrepid spirits who would yet give life and vigour to a strug- 
 gle, and trample in the dust the whole fabric of British tyrany. 
 But they want arms and ammunition and countenance- 
 from abroad. 
 
 With ourselves on this continent, in Canada, England is vul- 
 nerable. It would not require a great effort to destroy her pow- 
 er in that country. 
 
 At all events it behooves Irishmen here to instruct their chil- 
 dren in the history of the country of their ancestors, that they 
 may imbibe an invincible hatred of the British name, and of 
 that sanguinary faction, part of which has now for the first time 
 made its appearance in this country. 
 
 After having driven us from our homes, wanderers on the 
 earth — after having rioted in the life's blood of that country 
 to which they owe their birth, and robbed it of every thing 
 but its name, they pursue us even into this, our last asylum. 
 Will this be tolerated ? No ; forbid it heaven, in, the land of li- 
 berty, in the asylum of the persecuted, a murdering banditti 
 whose history may be graced in the blood of its victims, will 
 not be tolerated, will not be allowed a settlement. 
 
 Exposed to their fury, our brethren massacred 1 before our 
 eyes, we abandoned to them our country and the ashes of 
 our ancestors, and sought an assylum among strangers, and in 
 p. strange land, far distant from the scenes of our boyhood. bu ? l 
 
haying sworn our utter extermination, flight and distance can? 
 not save us, for even in this free country they conspire our de-f 
 struction, murder is their trade, in their breath is contagion, 
 their grasp is death, Here sick of a subject that awakened 
 in me the most painful recollections, I threw down my pen 
 and put on my hat, chance led me to the City-Hall, an hon- 
 est and upright man was on the bench, before him stood those 
 demons of discord, the slave drivers of an English Oligar- 
 chy.* They bore on their fronts the marks of reprobation, 
 the Algerine scowl, yet not once did they raise their eyes to 
 the bench, for there they could not command the protection 
 of the court, nor look on the judge as a partisan. They seemed 
 as if unconscious of all that was passing around ; the able and 
 affecting appeal of the Honourable Richard Riker, before pro- 
 nouncing the sentence of the law, was intirely lost on them, 
 they heard it not; I watched their countenances of livid hue ; 
 but not the slightest shade betrayed the workings of a single 
 passion ; and yet the scene was new to them, for never before 
 did they hear from the bench, that Irish Catholics were en- 
 titled to the protection of the law equally with themselves, 
 nor could they comprehend, how it were possible for a Presby- 
 terian judge to administer justice impartially, between an 
 Irishman and Orangemen.* 
 
 After the clear and forcible manner in which the Recorder 
 reprobated the attempt made to trample on the laws of a coun- 
 try that affords equal protection to every man cast upon her 
 shores, whatever may be his. creed or political principles ; it is 
 to be hoped that the committee directeur in Ireland will see the 
 inutility of sending any more agents here, to desturb public re- 
 pose. They must be convinced, that the refugees who have 
 escaped their murderous fangs, will be fully protected here by 
 those taws which they have sworn to defend. 
 
 Here I close for the present, " but whatever capacity, what- 
 ever spirit, whatever energy God or nature has given me, I 
 consider myself as holding but in trust for my country, to be 
 expended for her use whenever her oppressions or destresses 
 draw for their assistance. 1 ' 
 
 AN UNBIASSED IRISHMAN.! 
 
 * The Presbyterians are looked upon by the Orange faction as the most 
 dangerous rebels. 
 
 | Not having been born till about the period of the failure of the Uni- 
 ted Irish System, I have never attached myself to any political society 
 whatever. 
 
1900 
 
 WmmSfJZI; CONGRESS 
 
 • 
 
 021 342 826 3 
 
 POSTCPJPT. 
 
 The man who bullys to-day and crouches to-morrow, rsnol 
 to be trusted. His vacillating principles submit themselves to 
 his interest; and you can never know what the) are, or what 
 he wishes to be at. One day. led away by his passions, he 
 stands exposed in his native deformity ; the next, alarmed by 
 selfish fears of interest, he reassu tries the garb from under 
 which he was wont to impose on the public. 
 
 These reflections suggested themselves on reading about 
 half an hour ago a late speech of Lawyer Graham, on the trial 
 of some three or four Irishmen, for a riot which grew out of 
 the Orange affair. 
 
 The hurried eagerness with which he attempts to gloss over 
 the calumnies and falsities of his historical review, betrays so 
 much baseness, is so unworthy of a man who belongs (even 
 though he crept, into it) to the first profession in the world, 
 that I should not again pollute the paper with his name, were 
 it not for the necessity 1 am under of checking the propagation 
 of falsehood^ and to gratify at the same time my wishes in 
 shewing to the world the truth of Cobbet's assertion, " that a 
 pure lie is necessary food to that worst faction the world ever 
 saw." 
 
 The gentleman says, " that the United Irishmen were prin- 
 cipally, though not exclusively, Catholics. 
 
 This is equally false with all. his other assertions ; for at the 
 commencement of the conspiracy, the leaders were almost all 
 Presbyterians or Protestants, and in the executive there was 
 but one Catholic. 
 
 That •' reflecting" Protestants of the north seceded at a 
 more advanced stage, when self-exposure was necessary, will 
 be readily conceded, for their deception and treachery alone 
 brought ruin on the whole ; but the Presbyterians of the 
 north, and the Protestants of the centre and south never lost 
 sight of that which they owed to their country and to that 
 se in which they had embarked their lives and fortunes 
 The insidious design of Mr. Graham in giving all the credit 
 to the Catholics, and in making them the chief instigates and 
 actors in the scenes of 1798, is an old trick of the faction ; 
 v wish to make believe that the Catholics and Presbyte- 
 rian e ■:. n ldh cause in their uniform resistance 
 toBritisI that the discontents of eacharenc/f 
 bottomed in e of the most unheard-of oppression, 
 but in religions ranc'our, vvhichhas lk endured," accordin, 
 Mr. Grabs : • e : stored ye u 
 
Mi' 
 
 £l 34 2 826 3 •