"Who are the People?

con

"Can the right of CHANGING the CONSTI"TUTION reft any where but in the original "ftitutive power, the PEOPLE?

"Can the WILL of the PEOPLE be known, but by full and fair convention, to be con"ftituted on the plan which fhall come recom

"mended on the moft POPULAR AUTHORITY?

"Is there any middle ftate between the ex"tremes of Union with Britain and TOTAL SE"PARATION, in which the Rights of the People "can be fully established and reft in fecurity?

"What is the form of Government that will "fecure to us our rights with the least expence "and the greatest benefit?

By the BROTHERHOOD are thefe queftions, and fuch as these, to be determined; on this "determination are they to form the chart of their "conftitution, which, with honour and good faith, "they are to fubfcribe, and which is to regulate "their courfe."

It will be seen, at once, that almost every one of these pretended queries is fo put as to inftruct

the

the political catechumen in the answer he is to return; that each fubfequent queftion proceeds upon the fuppofition that the foregoing one has been answered agreeably to the wifh of the propofer; and that, of courfe, though questions in appearance, they are, in reality, propofitions, only couched in a more infinuating form. In the first two queftions the word Reform is introduced; in the next it is renovation, CONVULSION, DESTRUCTION. Then comes the right of the multitude to change the Conflitution by means of a Convention formed on the bafis of mere population. Next follows Separation from Great Britain as effential to the full eftablishment of the National Rights; and, last of all, the formation of fuch a Government as thefe fecret, felf-elected Representatives of the People fhall be pleased to appoint. For, let it be obferved, that after having afferted that the Will of the People can only be known by full and fair Convention, they tell us plainly (as they had in effect told us before) that they mean to take the leading functions of legiflation in the firft inftance upon themselves; that it is by them all the great quef tions are to be decided; and that, confequently, even a Convention is to be nothing but an apparatus for giving a popular colouring to their defpotic determinations.

The

The reader is now in poffeffion of what may be fairly confidered as the United Irishmen's own developement of their original defign. And let it be obferved, that it is a developement made, not in the ferment of irritated zeal, but at the moment when it might be fuppofed their paffions would be calmeft and their reason leaft mifled. Other fimilar defigns have at first been but rudely conceived, and have owed their after-maturity to experience, and not seldom to accident; but this Minerva of the United Irishmen feems to have come forth at once from the head that gendered it, complete in every limb and lineament. The melancholy events which have taken place of late imply no advance in the theory; they are no more than that theory reduced in a very trifling degree to practice. By comparing both, every man may judge for himfelf whether all the enormities which we lament, and all that we can dread, were not as much contained in the firft idea of this affociation, as a brood of living vipers, that now hiss and fting, were once contained in the bowels of the reptile which produced them.

ESSAY

ESSAY XVIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

Towards the prefervation of your Government it is requifite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppofitions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you refift, with care, the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however fpecious the pretext: One method of affault may be, to effect in the form of the conftitution alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you are invited, remember that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothefis and opinion, expofes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothefis and opinion; and remember, especially, that, for the efficient management of your common interests, a Government of as much vigour as is confiftent with the perfect fecurity of liberty is indifpenfible."

WASHINGTON's Farewell Addrefs.

JUNE 6, 1797.

IN the two laft papers I have laid before my readers the statement given by the founders of the Society of United Irishmen of their intentions and views; it only remains to fhew that, when their Society was actually formed, no variation took place in their principles, nor any abatement in the violence of their purpose.

It is easy to prove this by the fame inconteftible evidence of their own declarations. One

of

of their earlieft publications, after they had announced themfelves as the Society of United Irifhmen, was a Circular Letter addreffed to two fimilar Societies in the town of Belfast, and figned by the well-known Tandy as their Secretary. In this (wherein it is impoffible not to perceive the moft ftriking marks of that fame pen which has already been alluded to) the whole spirit of their first Addrefs is condenfed into two or three emphatic fentences: "The "object of this inftitution," say they, "is to "make a UNITED SOCIETY of the IRISH NA"TION-to make ALL Irishmen Citizens-ALL "Citizens Irifbmen. It becomes neceffary, by a "union of minds and a knowledge of each other, "to WILL and ACT as a Nation. To know "each other is to know ourselves, the weakness of 6c one, the ftrength of MANY. Union, therefore, "is POWER, it is wisdom, it must be liberty. "Our defign, therefore, in forming this Society, is to give an example which, when well followed, muft COLLECT the PUBLIC WILL and CONCENTRATE the PUBLIC FORCE-the effect of which must be RAPID, MOMENTOUS "and CONSEQUENTIAL."

66

Can any thing under Heaven be more aftonishing than that, after thefe expreffions being