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it for this inglorious furrender, that death and famine, fire and fword, captivity and their pathetic wounds, fo eloquent on the verge of fate, met them at Derry? Was it for this renunciation that the far-recorded Boyne was empurpled with their gore? That Athlone and Aughrim rivalled the. fame of Creffy and Agincourt? and that Limerick beheld the political horizon cleared of every cloud that coward tyranny could impofe? Is there one heart within this realm fo ingloriously dead to the divinity of Freedom as to stoop to the half vaffalage of an Union? If there be, he is no lrifhman. Is there a man fo loft to a fenfe of his own importance as to witness the ratification of this compact unmoved? If there be, let him lurk, in guilty darkness, and deny his country! Is there a pen that can move, a mind that can dictate, or a lip that can pronounce the neceflity of vigilance, fortitude and peremptory language, in the general caufe? Let them now emphatically come forward, and, with the bright example of our ancestors before their eyes, fpeak thunder to the enemies of their natural inheritance! Is there on earth a people fo happily fituated as we are, for all the importance, all the enjoyments, and all the elegancies of life, that could for a moment liften to any infidious terms on the fubject of an Union, to be the footstool of every fucceeding Adminiftration of England? Do we not fee the nullity entailed on Scotland? Let us, then, beware, nor, with our eyes open, rufh upon an awful precipice from

which the Herculean arm of public virtue itself, in her moft animated exertions, cannot draw us back to fafety or honour. One magnanimous .ftand will fave us from felf-deftruction and the execrations of pofterity. Who then fo intombed in felf-contempt, or fo fallen beneath the dignity of his nature, as not, at a moment's call, to throw off every fatal lethargy? while preserving inviolate his facred attachment and firm loyalty to his King and the Conftitution, he cannot, will not, err; he muft rife fuperior to the machinations of his adverfaries. Great is the prize for which he contends: irrevocable his doom-should the spoiler ence pass the Rubicon-but to proceed

Another bleffing dancing on the heels of this immaculate propofition, if carried into effect, will be the abfence of our nobility and the great men of large landed property, drawing away the fpecie of the kingdom, the hard earnings of toil, economy and felf-denial; to fquander it away, with the unfparing hand of prodigality, in the more congenial purlieus of the British Court; while their agents at home, too frequently a set of men rapacious, unfeeling and oppreffive, fuck the very life-blood of their unfortunate tenants. Or, should they, for once, deviate into humanity, the powerful rhetoric of a bribe must effect the hard work of the wretched occupant's temporary falvation, until, in the end, his means of conciliation exhaufted, no price to be had for his live ftock or the produce of his farms; the delegated harpy, restrained by

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golden hopes no more, pounces without mercy on his prey; and beggary-perhaps a prifonfucceeds to competence and domeftic repose. Defpair feizes himself and his once-fair-spreading family and this dire concatenation of calamities he owes to the Union.

"Hinc derivata clades,

In patriam populumque fluxit!”

It is the pride and generous ambition of all polished nations to enjoy the rational amusements of the ftage; which, when conducted on liberal principles, mends the public manners, raises the conceptions to true dignity; impreffes the ftamp of the patriot on the foul, and gives the genius of the people an elevation of fentiment and diction not to be derived, in an equal degree, from any other department in focial life. The Theatres of the capital are confeffedly of. this defcription. No expenditure intimidates the Managers from enfuring the true UTILE DULCI to the public; and, while fteady to this laudable and spirited conduct, it is the duty of that public to hold out a fuitable portion of encouragement and protection to their efforts:-But what are these feats of elegant enjoyment to be, under the aufpices of the Union? The fons of Thefpis may feel, as the clue of pathetic nature may originally warm, melt, tear, harrow up, or freeze the foul; they may faithfully weep with Shakepeare, pine with Otway, and mourn over human

mifery with Rowe. In generous Bevil, they may delineate the dignified feelings of the most amiable heart. They may in all their fanciful representations, "Hold the mirror up to nature, and fhew virtue her own image," but all, alas, to empty houses! The blighting winds that waft over the Articles (if fuch a malignant blaft fhould ever blow) shall nip, in the bud, the fair harvest of their honeft hopes; and, thus defeated, better had it been, had they devoted their early days to fome manual drudgery, where neither wit, tafte, genius nor education could have conftituted one qualifying ingredient in their compofitions.

Here a few queftions naturally arife, the evident reply to which, more clearly elucidates the evil tendency of this threatened innovation, as the means of our imperial falvation, equally occur from their due confideration.

1. Should the Union pass into a law, and Ireland fhould confequently have to delegate a number of Peers and Commoners to the British Parliament, tantamount to that of North Britain, is it to be imagined that fixteen Peers and one hundred Commoners, upon any question, involving the rights of their country, could make a stand againft, and carry a majority from the minifter, with one hundred Peers, and five hundred and thirteen Commoners at his back; and we

may

may throw the Caledonian phalanx into the bargain?

It were an abfurdity to fuppofe that fo much of the Spartan virtue were yet unextinct, as that fuch] an inferiority of forces, on one fide, could ftand the fhock, against such a formidable, well-difciplined Corps, under the General's perfonal command. And it is not a rashness to pre-fuppofe a fhameful tergiversation even on the part of the Irish Manipulus! The cause of devoted Ireland muft then be loft, and the most infignificant port, or manufacturing town, in Great Britain, bear the palm of fuperiority and predilection from the Metropolis of Ireland!

ふ

2. Should a long-contested fuit, at law, be at length referred to the ultimate decifion of the Peers, muft the litigants, perhaps already exhausted in money and means, linger the most part, or not improbably the whole, of Seffion after Seffion, under all the vexatious contingencies and disadvantages of their fituation?

This must be fubmitted to, or the parties must go home; and, after entailing beggary and ruin on themselves and their families, make the best they can of A BAD BARGAIN!

3. Can a high-contrading power, with incontrovertible documents of fallacy and violated faith before her, with fafety enter into any important covenant, where he has only to expect a breach of that covenant, as foon as the oppofite power