not then the height of madness, by pufillanimous forbearance, to nurse the infant fedition into an irresistible strength, of which you, no less than your neighbours, must be the helpless victims ?

Strange as at firft view it may appear to you, I hesitate not to affert, that the greater you conceive your present danger to be, the more preffing neceffity is there, for your facing it at once. Because, the greater malevolence your enemies discover now, the more certain you are of your own ruin, if by your timidity you suffer them to gain a power of injuring you equal to their will. You now fear your house being broke, or your barn, or ftable, or turf-ftack, or hay-stack being burnt, and therefore you'll do nothing. Do you not fee, that by this means you tell them in the plainest terms, " you are the strongest, and

you may do as you please?" But by thus furrendering at difcretion, are you fafe? Will housebreakers and house-burners when once in the plenitude of power, fuffer you to live undisturbed in return for your neutrality? Will not even they despise you for your cowardice, while they will hate you for what they know you wifhed to do if you had dared; and will they not of courfe deal out as hard measure to you as to the most active of your neighbours? Think whether the reprieve of a few weeks, which you now fo meanly purchase, will be then any very substantial confolation.

You

You have perhaps received threatening letters, telling you of the vengeance which awaits you if you proceed in the performance of your duty. Prove that you despise them, and ten to one you will receive no more of them. Liften to them, shew by your conduct that they have had their effect, and in all probability you will next be told, that if you do not leave a fum of money under a certain ftone, or if you don't deliver up your arms without afking questions to a certain person who will come to a fixed place by night to receive them, or perhaps if you do not take the United Irishman's Oath, or a hundred other fuch things (for there need be no end to them, if you encourage them by your fear) your house will be burnt and your stock destroyed. Is it not then infinitely, better, even on the ground of prefent fafety, to act at once a manly and decided part? By doing so you will animate the well-difpofed around you (who may probably at this moment be only waiting for your call) you will fix the wavering, and you will difhearten your enemies. When you have thus prepared yourselves to act in concert, and the malcontents fee a phalanx formed against them, rest affured they will fhrink from the conflict; and your perfons and properties will probably be the safest in the country. The experience of all ages has proved that in times of danger the chances are infinitely in favour of the refolute and the undaunted.

But

But even in the moft zealous efforts you will be liable to fail, if you do not proceed with judgment as well as activity. The feeds of the mischief lie in the minds of the lower claffes, and you must work upon their reafon or you will strive to little purpose. It is not enough that you ride haftily through your tenantry, or the tenantry of the perfon for whom you are in charge, and tell them, "On fuch a day you must all come to me "and take the oath of allegiance." No, you must talk to them calmly, hear their objections with patience, and in plain and difpaffionate language fhew them the intereft they have in maintainance of public order and that regular administration of juftice, by which the meanest and the lowest are protected as well as the richest and the greatest, and prefs upon them the wickedness and the madness of destroying trade, stopping the course of industry, and letting loofe violence and rapine and murder; all which you may easily prove to them must inevitably arise from a fucçessful invasion from abroad, or from the ascendency of house-breakers and house-burners and midnight affaffins at home.

To fuch views no honeft man will long be infenfible. The oath of allegiance, taken in confequence of being convinced of fuch truths, will be the proper and natural antidote against the poifon couched in the infidious oath of the

United

United Irifhmen. And by thus confirming the tie by which all good subjects are bound to the King and the Laws, and uniting them to each other in a mutual league for their own and their country's protection, you will give a new energy to the body politick, before which every attempt, whether of fedition or invafion, will be abashed and discomfited.

Gentlemen, I congratulate the country that this good work is well and happily begun. In the name of God, let it not ftagnate with any one of you. Any force will fuffice to plunder and enflave you, while you remain indolent, infulated individuals; active and united you may bid defiance to the world. Refift not then for one day longer, the imperious call of honour, of intereft, of humanity, of religion. Hefitate not to determine whether you will be the prefervers of all you value, and all you love; or the betrayers of every trust that Providence has committed to you, ́as husbands, as fathers, and as rational beings.

ESSAY

ESSAY XIV.

ADDRESSED

TO THE

UNITED IRISHMEN,

IN THE

PROVINCE OF ULSTER.

JAN. 6, 1797.

AT this awful moment when an Enemy's fleet is hovering about our coafts, hoping to carry fire and fword and devastation through this hitherto peaceful country, is it poffible that any perfons should be cold and unconcerned? Or worse still, is it poffible that any fhould be difaffected and ill-difpofed, flattered with the prospect, that in the general confufion a revolution might be brought about, and the Conftitution be new modelled according to the wifhes of the United Irifhmen?

Whoever you are, that harbour such a thought, and who in that expectation wish the French to come, or intend if they were here, not to refift

them,