faculties of her people, have produced fuch a capital of wealth and property as completely to countervail the landed proprietary: numerous trading companies and chartered focieties for diverfified commerce, have established fuch a monied intereft in England, as to make it the most active and important rank in the ftate, as it refpects the great finews of its power, the national finances: hence the eafy and rapid alienation of her real property, which is ever varying its poffeffors. Thus the power of the English commonalty increafes, and all ariftocratical tendencies and effects are obviated. To acquire an eftate becomes the ambition of the merchant; the certainty of market and of felling for the value, induces to alienation, and multiplies the fellers, and whatever be the difadvantages of the national debt, the magnitude of the public flocks has fo facilitated the means, and aug mented the progrefs of private wealth, as to diffufe among the whole body of the people fuch a mass of homogeneous property, that all claffes of Englishmen not only feel themselves without the collifion of oppofite views, and the contradictions of separate rights, but combined and connected in one individual intereft, the safety of the ftate; but in Ireland none of thofe caufes have exifted, which in England have tempered the aristocracy, and blended it in fine proportion with the rights of the people. Her fmall territorial extent is favourable to the growth of ariftocracy; her inconfiderable trade, her want of capital, and the perfect infancy of the nation in all the modes of industry, and in all the acquifitions of wealth, have left the aristocracy unbalanced. The centre of the conftitutional fyftem in Ireland wanting its due pofition, the whole vacillates and totters with infirmity. Not only the absence of a monied interest, and the want of a great mercantile power in Ireland, account for the inequality of her government; but a pofitive caufe has exifted for ariftocratical tendency, which feems fully adequate to the effect.

The

The people of Ireland, in refpect to their religi ous relation, are divided in triple proportion of Catholics to Protestants; and not only was the whole Catholic body, until very lately, excluded from the lowest participation in the legislative and executive parts of government; but by the operation of fevere and impolitic penal ftatutes were precluded from the acquifition and enjoyment of property. It is not therefore a matter of wonder, that in fo fmall a country as Ireland, in which three-fourths of its population were depreffed by a weight of difability and penalties from rifing by talent or property in the state; the refidum of the people fhould have the nature and effect of an ariftocracy itfelf; that this faction fhould. be itself capable of further reduction; and that, by monopoly and unjust exclufion, an inconfiderable part may engrofs the power of the whole.

From the ease alfo with which in a finall country family connexion may spread itself, the union of powerful men becomes ftrengthened by affinity, and confolidated by mutual intereft. Hence the combination of a few produces a formidable power, which in Ireland has had the mastery in public affairs. It has been openly avowed in the Irish Parliament, that to break the aristocracy, which impeded the King's government during the adminiftration of Lord Towfhend, coft the nation half a million sterling; and the kingdom was threatened with fimilar expence a few years ago, when fome parliamentary proprietors fhewed a difpofition to unite their forces, and turn their ftrength against the government. Hence has proceeded the degree of corruption and the purfuit of private intereft, to the injury of the public, which have prevailed in Ireland; and the bufinefs of the Viceroy is hardly more than to appeafe the importunity, and fatisfy the cravings, of the aristocracy. Frauds, peculations, and abufes of every kind, are protected from enquiry and fecured from punishment. Boards of commiffion have been multiplied beyond the neceffity of the public business; and places have

been

been divided and granted for life, to oblige the greater number, and make them independent of the Government and in the fame policy has prevailed the practice of reverfionary grants, to the injury of the fucceeding Viceroy, and the weakening of his administration. Improvident bargains have been made with individuals in fraud to the Public; and in the fame spirit of jobbing and venality the public buildings of Dublin have been raised on scites, not only inconvenient, but highly ridiculous, and at immenfe expense. Hence alfo the extravagant collec-. tion of the public revenues, and a penfion lift in Ireland, greater than in England, and above all, the proftitution of the peerage by actual fale, to the injury of merit, difhonour of the old nobility, and great odium of Government. This fhameful practice of bringing to market the honours of the Crown, which cafts a deep fhade on the memory of Lord Westmoreland in Ireland, has contributed more immediately and neceffarily to injure the public character of the Irish Parliament, than any other affignable cause. Under his government the Parliament called in 1790, was compofed in an extraordinary manner; those wealthy Commoners who once filled the lower House, and who had either acquired borough, patronage, or in whofe families it had defcended with their eftates, were ennobled in the grofs, and transferred to the upper houfe of Parliament, by which means the advowfon and inheritance of the Commons became vefted in the Lords, who for that turn gave up the presentation to the Lord Lieutenant's fecretary. This unjustifiable proceeding created an unconftitutional dependency of the popular branch of the Legislature on the aristocratical; it promoted and avowed a system of parliamentary traffic completely fufficient to difguft and alienate the Public; and the obvious confequence of this innovation was not only highly increasing the natural evil of the Irish government in its tendency to aristocracy, but, by remov ing from the House of Commons the men of confi

deration

deration and landed property, left it to a race of adventurers who were to make their way to fituation and fortune by fubmiffive and uniform fervility to all the measures of the Court, or by affected patriotism to commence their parliamentary career in groundless and indifcriminate oppofition to the Government, and afterwards with fhameful apoftacy, on the attainment of office, become advocates for the meafures they had oppofed, and panegyrifts of the Government they had maligned. No affembly, however, could conduct itself with more public obfequioufnefs, or ufe a higher ftrain of adulation in all its addreffes to the Chief Governor. This, however, is no more a proof of fincerity in public than in private life; for fo long ago as the administration of the unfortunate Lord: Strafford, they pronounced the higheft encomiums on his conduct, and expreffed their extraordinary obligations to their Sovereign for committing the government to fo able and honeft a fervant, but a fhort time before their fending over to England articles of impeachment, and deputing commiffioners to manage the profecution of the unfortunate Earl. And fo late as the year 1789, the very Parliament which had repeatedly and ftrongly expreffed its loyalty and attachment to the King's perfon, and panegyrized his Viceroy, did, on the unfortunate occurrence of his malady, change their political creed; a great majority of Parliament deferted the cause of their Sovereign, and voted a public cenfure on the Chief Governor. However, as foon as the King's health ap-. peared likely to be restored, and the powers of the ftate to continue in the fame hands, they became as eager to repent as they had been to offend: so true a criterion of human conduct is private intereft, and fo fallible a pledge of fincerity is human profeffion.

The verfatility of Parliament alfo on the Catholic queftion was moft glaring; the recency of this tranfaction, however, precludes the neceffity of particular statement: but the violent manner in which it refifted, and the

fe vility

fervility with which it foon afterwards conceded the Catholic claims, was fatal to the public interest. It taught the people to look for redrefs of grievance, not by appeals to the Legislature, but in the application of their own ftrength. Such has been the ftate of the Irish Government, and fuch the causes of that discontent which has so nearly been fatal to the empire.

The acknowledged independency of the Irish Legiflature has prevented her concerns coming under the review of the British Parliament; and there being no public medium of communication between the two countries, feems to me fufficiently to account for the ignorance which has prevailed in Britain of the real ftate of Ireland. A conftitution fo generative of abufe cannot continue; the fyftem of government which has prevailed in Ireland approaches to diffolution. It is the part of wisdom to forefee change, and to prevent or to improve it. That fomething must be now done, cannot be controverted; either the Parliament of Ireland muft be new fashioned, or, as it is called, reformed, and the aristocracy eradicated, or fhe must be committed to the Parliament of England by fair and regular reprefentation. That, if the former take place, the dominion of England in Ireland muft determine, and the two countries be feparated, appears to me the obvious and moft neceffary confequence. This I fhall endeavour to establish, and to communicate the ftrong perfuafion I feel, by reference to the hiftory of that country, to her late unfortunate rebellion, and the general state of politics. Sure I am that Ireland will find an union with England the panacea of her diforders, that it will convert her poverty into opulence, and her turbulence into tranquillity.

If a parliamentary reform be conceded to Ireland, no modification fhort of a pure democratic legislature can have effect, To extinguish, not to limit, the aristocracy, is their great object: and the first act of popular afcendancy would be the extermination of the fuperior order, to a moral certain