liament affembled, fhould never more be quef tioned or questionable."..

If one thing is more likely than another to rekindle the fparks of freedom, it is the tricking, tyrannizing measure of an Union. If any thing can re-animate her faded form, it is the vigor which it will infpire. This conduct to Ireland is quite of a piece with the candor and fincerity which affirmed the balance of Europe to be destroyed by the feizure of Oczakow, but denied it was endangered by the fubjugation of Poland, or the invafion of France...

Let me afk, what qualification can Mr. Pitt produce to the people of Ireland to entitle him to their unbounded confidence? Is it the expectation of manly and rational liberty, which can induce them to be gulled into an Union, or to liften to any recommendation from a minifter, who has profeffed determinations in favor of THAT LIBERTY, only to recede from them; who has advanced liberal principles merely to renounce them; and whofe whole life has been one 'continued chain of tricks, quibbles, fubterfuges and contradictions? Is it his conduct to Great Britain which can animate the confidence of Irifhmen-the extenfion of excife laws the erection of barracks-the encreafe.

of

of taxation the determined adherence to abuses the most inveterate-and the encroachments which have been made on the liberty of the fubject; betray, even in the moft flattering appearances of naval victories, the feeds of ruin. The florid bloom cannot conceal the fatal malady which preys upon the vitals. But poffibly the facrifice of wealth and conftitution at home, has arifen from the magnanimous relief which has been extended to foreign ftates, and confequently, that the people of Ireland have a very flattering prefage of improved liberality in the councils of England from the extraordinary facrifices and exertions which have been made to protect foreign ftates, and to imprefs them with a fenfe of order, and the advantages of regular government. The prefent ftate of Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Sardinia, Italy, Naples, Germany and Spain, fcarcely efcaped from the ravages of a revolutionary army, afford no flattering profpect to the people of Ireland, and are no very perfuafive arguments in favor of any material advantage from Mr. Pitt's proffered protection to their country. The Irish nation can beft decide, whether Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1785, and on many fubfequent occafions, has laid a reasonable foundation of encreasing liberality: he is the fam

man, and entertains the fame defigns on Ireland, which he did at the æra to which I have alluded. 66 It is the fame animal that at firft crawled about in the fhape of a caterpillar, that now rifes into the air, and expands his wings to the fun."

Since 1785, fome meafures have been taken. to equalize the Channel trade, but Great Britain ftill exhibits in her policy an unbending diflike, by her influence in the councils of Ireland, to give Ireland the full benefit of her domeftic market; and in her heavy imposts on fuch manufactures as might be exported to England from Ireland, the demonftrates her narrow minded, but impotent jealoufy, except in the fingle inftance of the linen trade; and as that is the only article in which this country can, by poffibility, be injured by Great Britain, I fall, in the fubfequent part of this publication, clearly fhew, that it is out of her power, under the exifting connection, to injure the linen manufactory; that fhe must admit our linens into her ports, though it might be against her inclination, and that her withdrawing the prefent bounty on the exportation of Irish linens from England, though

breach of compact would be an advantage ather ́than an injury to this unhappy country. On the prefent commercial fyftem of Ireland

land I need merely obferve, that Ireland, with the exception of a reftricted trade to the east, and the British market, has, by right, a free and unlimited trade to the whole world, and fo far from encouraging the people of Ireland to ftruggle for the British market, it is the intereft of the whole country to turn from it to attempt no race, nor rivalship with the British merchant, but to endeavour to meet him in the foreign market, when peace comes, by liberal emulation, and the generous rivalry of a magnanimous ally, and a forgiving friend.

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You have now before you the whole system of your commercial affairs, from the earliest æras to the present times, fyftematized with precifion, and delineated with candour. I haften now to appeal to your reason, and to your integrity, on the neceffary effects of an incorporate Union on the growing profperity of your young country.

There is an argument frequently used, but which, I confefs, ftrikes me as inconclufiveit is this: In the intercourfe between the two countries there is no equality, no reciprocity; the English merchant is too much favored in the Irish market, therefore Ireland cannot commercially be injured by an Union." It is a strange mode of reasoning, to make the existence of an evil a juftification for a still greater

greater evil. Those who fupport, and those who oppose an Union, alike condemn the cruel manner in which the British merchant is favored in the Irish market. But fay the fupporters, because we admit that this partiality to the exclufion of domeftic induftry is op preffive and fevere; we will remove the cruelty and the oppreffion, by giving the Englith merchant the fole dominion of the mar ket, and giving him by RIGHT, what he has now by corrupt and fecret INFLUENCE-the right of bringing over his manufactures in the last stage of excellence, and carrying back fuch raw materials as may enable him to keep on a trade, ruinous and deftructive to Ireland. I know the reply to this: How can you remedy yourself. I admit, that the most specious and plaufible arguments in favor of an Union are drawn from the corrupted ftate of of our own fegislature, and the never to be forgotten system which has lately been pursued ; at the fame time that the generality of those who ured urge the argument never think proper to pourtray the notoriously corrupt and inadequate state of the English representation, and the increafed influence of the crown, in the British Houfe of Commons. Mr. Paine, in fome part of his works, fays, that there is a paradox in the idea of vitiated bo