land unprejudiced and in her calm reafon, will never reject the many bleffings it holds out to her trade; it gives wealth and fecurity which I trust will never be refused from a wild imagination of Utopian Republics, Commonwealths, Monarchies -God knows what.

I will stand or fall with the Bill, that not a line in it touches your Conftitution; it is now left to the decifion of the country, it is not abandoned, God forbid it should; and I truft I fhall fee the nation afk it at our hands, that we may be able then to obtain it fhall be my prayers-the Minifter cannot promife-he has done his duty-and it will be my pride at a future day, when its real value fhall be known, that I bore a leading fhare in the transaction-that I' laboured to procure for Ireland folid and fubftantial benefits, which even two years ago no man had an idea of even looking to.

PRESENT

STATE OF IRELAND,

AND

THE ONLY MEANS OF PRESERVING HER •

TO

THE EMPIRE,

CONSIDERED.

IN A

Letter to the Marquis Cornwallis.

By JAMES GERAGHTY, Esq.

BARRISTER AT LAW.

Concordiâ res parvæ crefcunt.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. STOCKDALE, PICCADILLY.

1

THE

PRESENT STATE,

&c.

MY LORD,

PULCHRUM eft bene facere reipublicæ, etiam bene dicere haud abfurdum eft, is the obfervation of the eloquent hiftorian, who has tranfmitted to us the details of that flagitious confpiracy which once menaced the Roman name, and which the vigilance and patriotifm of the chief magiftrate detected and defeated.

Your Excellency may perceive with what application the opinion and authority of the illuftrious Roman can be urged in this addrefs. The arduous fituation in which you have been placed by your appointment to the government of Ireland, may bear fome likeness to that of the diftinguifhed conful, whom the Roman writer has recorded as the father of his country. In an hour of extraordinary danger and confternation, armed like him with fupreme authority, ne quid detrimenti refpublica capiat, you have effected the public fafety; but without violation of the law, or departure from the duties of humanity. In this your Excellency, without vanity, might claim, and Truth herself muft recognise your

B

fuperiority

fuperiority to the Roman magiftrate. The late confpiracy in Ireland, for extent, fyftem, and preparation, has no parallel in the confederacy of Catiline. They may resemble in boldness of defign, and flagitioufness of means; but their difference is incalculable, when we compare the two æras which are ftained with their enormities, and contrast the darkness of paganism with the light of christianity. The face of human fociety is confiderably varied fince the days of Cicero; the arts of life have been fince perfected; navigation and commerce have connected and civi-. lized the nations of the earth; a complete interchange of wifdom has every where educated the minds, and foftened the manners of men; the principles of government are brought to a juft theory; whofe great end is the happiness of the people; and a wife and extended policy has arifen in Europe, whose end is the fecurity and independence of feparate ftates, by an equalization of power, which, like the preffure on the parts of a fluid when equal and general, fuftains the whole in tranquillity.

The fyftem of morals introduced by chriftianity, and interwoven in the frame of civilized states, has diffused the purest and most exalted notions of morality. Confidering these, and the many important discoveries, and improvements of modern times, the late tranfactions in Ireland fill us with aftonifhment, and lead the philofophic obferver to deep and ferious reflection. From your conduct, my Lord, at all times in the service of your fovereign, and the zeal and promptitude with which you obeyed his late commands in affuming the government of a confiderable part of his dominions, in a season the most difficult and trying, when the powers of ordinary men are found inadequate to the great emergencies which arife; and when your Lordship's refufal would have ftood juftified by your long and important fervices, and the claims of that period of life, to which you have happily arrived: from thefe, my Lord, and the experience of fuperior wisdom in your govern

ment,