stitution, on account of their conscientious adherence to the national faith? The Duke of Montebello will return in a little time to France, and I have pictured to myself what he will say, when his compatriots shall inquire of him what he has seen, and heard, and felt amongst us. "I visited," he will, or might at least say, "that most important portion of the British dominions, for which, in France, much interest is felt, but, as yet, all is not known. I arrived in country endowed by nature with its best gifts, and covered with a population of vigorous, healthy, intelligent, and generously-minded men. Yet, with all these advantages, I found an utter counteraction of the apparent designs of Providence; and where I expected a scene of national prosperity, I beheld a most miserable and degrading spectacle. The law had established an aristocracy different from that which exists in any other country, and which is not derived from rank, or birth, or public virtue, but consists in the profession of a peculiar form of religion. Protestantism is raised into a kind of nobility, and every miserable pupil of an eleemosynary schoolevery wretched product of a charter-house-every hard-handed mecha nic-every sordid artizan, and every greasy corporator is raised into an artificial superiority over the great body of the people. The fiercest dissensions are thus nurtured by the law, and two factions are marshalled, which are halloed on by the government, and infuriated into a detestation of each other. In the North, I found a band of men called Orangemen, with arms in their hands, supported by the magistracy in their acts of outrage, and exercising that species of domination, which the consciousness of impunity naturally engenders in base and sordid minds. When I reached the metropolis, I found a Lord Lieutenant surrounded with the forms, but destitute of all the realities of powerthe slave of an underling of office, set over him by Mr. Peel, and forced to submit to every slight and insult which the prevailing faction sought to put upon him. His vice-regal sceptre is a reed. He enjoys so little of he substance of authority, that he is unable to advance any liberal man w any important situation, although he should superadd the motives of personal friendship to his sense of political duty. Not long ago, he used his influence to advance a Roman Catholic barrister to the only judicial office open to the body, and utterly failed. The ascendant party feel that they are still the virtual masters, and omit no opportunity to proclaim their consciousness of superiority, and their conviction of the permanence of their dominion. The Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant is their patron, and gives a sanction, by his attendance at their atrocious festivities, to the anti-national and insulting sentiments which are announced upon these occasions. The person who is armed with most power in the local government of Ireland, makes it his business to countenance their ferocious orgies. At a recent dinner, which was adorned by his presence, a toast, reprobated by their Sovereign, was announced, amidst a yell of factious triumph, and hailed with rapturous vociferation. Thus the great mass of the people are not only oppressed, but insulted, and reminded of their degradation in every form of offence which the malignant spirit of Orange tyranny can devise. The Roman Catholics are not permitted for an instant to forget their inglorious

condition. They are not only stamped with shame, but the finger of scorn is for ever pointed at the brand with which they are marked." And when he shall have said this, and much more than this, and shall have gone into all the details of contumely to which every man of us is subject-when he shall have exhibited all the multifarious varieties of degradation, and of injury, which result from this abominable system, will not some Frenchman exclaim, "And how do these seven millions bear with all this?-are they contented with their political infamy do they bend in meekness to the yoke?-do they prostrate themselves before their masters?-are they satisfied with this state of things?-are they so utterly base as to hug their shame, and to be fond of their degradation?" Oh, my countrymen, what answer should be given to these questions? Shall Frenchmen be told that our hearts are compounded of such base stuff? Shall it be said, by our illustrious friend, that we have reached such a meanness of spirit, and have attained such an utter corruption, and helotism of feeling, as to be contented with such a lot? Shall the son of a gallant soldier, in answering that question, say that Ireland is satisfied with her lot? Shall he say that we are such worms, that we dare not turn upon the foot that treads upon us? Will he say this? No! thank God, No! Thanks to Almighty God, he will not say so; he will speak far differently about us. He will say, that seven millions of oppressed and degraded men feel all that burning indignation that befits the complication of insult and of injury which they endure; and that they are animated by as resolved and enthusiastic a spirit as ever actuated a people in the cause of freedom. He will say that they are bound together by a single, an undivided, and inseparable sentiment; that they are as firm and as determined as they are ardent and inflamed; that every thought and feeling is fixed and concentrated in an impassioned aspiration for the liberty of their country. Let him say this, and more than this; let him add, that if ever it shall come to pass that, to the financial embarrassments of England there should be superadded, the enormous expenditure of war, and if, when stripped of her commerce-with her machinery and manufactures at a stand—with her enormous debt, hanging like an avalanche upon her head-with famine within and danger abroad-the fleets of France and of America shall unfurl their flags upon the seas, then-in that hour of tremendous peril, with an enormous population, whose bare physical power would be terrific if put into a simultaneous and gigantic action, and would be doubly terrible if there were art and skill to give it direction, order, system, and effect-then...................... I have made a pause, and I feel from the silence with which you await my words, that there is something of awe in your anticipation-then........ But I shall proceed no farther. This is a subject on which much may be said, and more ought to be chought, and I shall only add—may God Almighty give that wisdom to those who are appointed by His providence to sway the destinies of empires, which shall avert those dreadful events, whose bare possibility is sufficient to appal, and from whose likelihood every good man must recoil in horror. And yet, why throw a veil pon futurity-why shu

out from contemplation what may arrive hereafter, because I may bɛ balumniously reproached with desiring what I do but apprehend, and of endeavouring to realize what it is even dreadful to imagine. I do, in the face of heaven, solemnly protest, that I not only deprecate the political calamities to which I have adverted, but I look upon them with horror. Not only my duty as a subject, but my feelings as a man, and those instincts of humanity, of which, I trust, that I am not destitute, teach me to regard any political convulsion which may take place in this country, with a sentiment still stronger than dismay. If it should unfortunately happen that such events should take place in the course of a few years, the men, who, like myself, take the most active share in public affairs, would be the first to perish. They would be swept away in the torrent of blood by which the country would be deluged. The first blast of the trumpet would be a signal for their death, and the example of Narbis, the tyrant of Sparta, would, no doubt, be followed, who, upon an invasion in which it was expected that the Helots might gain their liberty, ordered the leaders of them to be scourged, and then beheaded, so that, as the historian tells us, the streets were red with their blood. A selfish motive, independent of every generous emotion, should teach the most active of our body to look with awe upon those awful events, of which I have but traced the shadows. But is it wise, because the contemplation of an event is attended with terrible anticipations, to clasp our hands to our eyes, and shut it out? Are dangers to be averted by being disguised?or does he who cries "breakers a-head" drive the vessel on the rock? I hear the roaring of the billows, and see in the distance the surf breaking over the reef, and shall I not exclaim, "helm a lee!” It is to prevent, and not to hurry destruction on, that I point out the peril on which we are advancing, and drive to ruin before the wind.

O navis, referent in mare te novi,
Fluctus! oh quid agis.

I shall, then, fearlessly state what I apprehend may be the consequence of withholding their rights from seven millions of the Irish people. It will be observed, that I am not speaking of events which may take place in one, two, three, or perhaps twenty years; but any man who is not actuated by sentiments of the basest selfishness, will be as solicitous to protect his children from the evils incidental to national calamity, as to shelter himself against them. Should those claims, which are prosecuted with such an ardent pertinacity, be constantly rejected, it is to be apprehended (and such a possibility, independent of its likelihood, is surely to be averted) that the sense of their political duty may be ultimately so far weakened and impaired, that their state of exasperation, to use the language of Mr. Canning, may afford to the enemies of England an opportunity of assailing the empire in a very vulnerable point. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs has intimated this probability, and stated that the attention of the Continental powers was fixed upon this country. I, theref. re, do nc more than amplify and expand the sentiment of a Prime Ministerno more than he considered it consistent with official delicacy to do.

Should the anticipation of Mr. Canning come to pass, what sort of spectacle would this country present? I do verily believe that every man, who had any sort of stake in the country-every respectable Roman Catholic, would be induced to sacrifice his wrongs and his antipathies to his sense of moral and religious duty, and would adhere to his vow of allegiance. But the great body of the people would, I fear, be under the influence of very powerful temptation, and adventurers and men of desperate fortunes and aspiring minds (and they are to be found in every country) might yield to the suggestions of a wild and criminal ambition, and give a loose to their passious. In my judgment, such an enterprise would ultimately fail, because the power of England, unless she sustained very great reverses, would prevent rebellion from being ever sanctified by its result. But supposing that the event would be what every good subject and good Christian should legally and piously desire, still through what dreadful scenes the country would have to pass, before that salutary consummation could be attained. I do not deny that many would derive, from the confiscation of Catholic property, some consolatory compensations for the national misfortunes. But must not every man of ordinary feeling and humanity, no matter to what party he may belong, shudder at the thought of all the misery, both public and domestic, with which such a state of things would be attended. Some men there are, who are disposed to say, "these things may happen, but they will not happen in our time." This reminds me of the sordid solishness of Louis the Fifteenth, who shrugged up his shoulders at the prospect of a revolution, and consoled himself by saying, "apres moi le deluge.” Let it, he said, rain blood, if it only falls upon my grave. The head of his son rolled upon his tomb. I have said these things before; but why should they not be reiterated? Why should not that raven cry be sounded again and again? It is not for the purposes of faction-it is not as a furious and savage alarmist that I speak thus-it is in the hope that these impassioned appeals may have some effect in awakening our antagonists to a sense of the dangers to which we are all in common exposed. Protestants of Ireland, if you have no regard for your country-if you are dead to all public considerations-if the prcsperity of your native land is no object of your care, still have mercy upon your children, and unite with us in our honourable efforts to arrest the progress of those events, of which they may be the victims. Let this disastrous question be settled, and there is at once an end to all your apprehensions. Abolish the detestable remnants of the penal code-strike off the fragments of those chains that still hang upon -place seven millions of the Irish people in their just relation to the State-make it the interest as well as the duty of every citizen to support the system of government under which he lives-fasten the great body of the people by links which shall be rivetted to their hearts-give a fair influence to the talents of the able, the rank of the titled, the affluence of the wealthy-put us, in one word, in that state which ought to make us satisfied with our condition, and in whic neither our feelings shall be insulted, our pride mortified, nor our

us

passions inflamed; and it requires but little knowledge of human nature to be convinced, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland will not yield to any class of his Majesty's subjects, in loyalty to their Sovereign, attachment to his family, and allegiance to his government-fidelity to the constitution, obedience to the laws, and devotion to the interests of that great empire, of which this country forms so important, and at present so vulnerable a part.

THE ORANGEMEN OF ARMAGH.

SPEECH AT THE AGGREGATE MEETING, HELD NOVEMBER, 1826.

I, NOT very long ago, announced, at the Catholic Association, that I should make some observations on the grand festival of condolence, given to Colonel Verner, at Omagh. Having been prevented, by other occupations, from attending the Association, I relinquished the idea; but as I perceive that the speeches have since been published in a pamphlet, and the attention of the London newspapers has been directed to the sanguinary Christianity of Mr. Robinson, it may be as well to make some few comments upon the atrocious orgies, in which Colonels, Parsons, and Puritans emulated each other in their maledictions of their country. Taken as individuals, the persons assembled on the occasion deserve scorn; but they expressed the feelings of a party. The lucubrations of those consecrated bacchanals, Messrs. Miller, Robinson, and Company, may be considered as the catechism of a faction, and deserve to be saved from immediate oblivion, upon the same principle that a malefactor is prevented from dying of a natural death, in order to break him upon the wheel. Let us, then, proceed to the dinner. Was it not a strange notion after all! What could possess the Orangemen of Armagh to bring the lugubrions triumvirate of defected candidates together? Beaten, utterly and completely beaten-with the dust which they had been compelled to bite in their mouths, and beaten the more disgracefully, because beaten by the men whom they affected to despise they assemble, crow, and clap their wings upon the very dunghill of their defeat. They sung "Io triumphe," as they passed under the yoke! Mr. Robinson lamented, in his Ossianic phraseology, that he of Louth was not there; all that was wanting, indeed, was, that pleasant and vivacious senator, Mr. Leslie Foster, to complete the party; but there was he of Monaghan, and there was he of Armagh, and there was he of Curraghmore. How must they have looked wher they surveyed each other in the midst of their melancholy festivities ;— when he of Armagh looked upon him of Monaghan, and he of Monaghan gazed on him of Curraghmore, their faces must, like the mirrors of melancholy, (if I may so say,) have multiplied the expressiou of despair. The pamphlet (an authorised publication) called the meeting an assembly of "the Protestant Gentlemen of Armagh.”