clofe contact; nor was it equally fitted to communicate the flame. The population was thinly scattered over a vaft space, and there was little idleness or mendicancy. If communication had been as eafy, indigence as general, and herds of vagabonds and ruffians as readily collected in America as in Ireland, can we hefitate to pronounce what would have been the event? If the Government (the object of all this rancour, notwithstanding its perfection,) was but barely able to keep its ground, as matters actually stood, what must have been its fate, if the fpeculative traitors in the Clubs and in the Congress could have found, in thofe dregs of Society which they had not, but which every populous country must have, hordes of ferocious men, a thirst for their doctrines, and prompt to execute their purposes? In that cafe, they would not have confined their vengeance to the beheading of a roafted Pig, as the emblematic representative

*

*The fact here referred to is thus ftated by the acute and well-informed Author of the History of American Jacobins. "Nor," fays he, "were marks of ferocity wanting: at a

dinner at Philadelphia (at which a perfon high in office was "present) a roasted pig became the Representative of Louis "the 16th, and it being the Anniversary of his murder, the "pig's head was fevered from his body, and then carried "round to each of the convivés, who, after placing the Liberty"cap upon his own head, pronounced the word Tyrant, and gave the poor little animal's head a chop with his knife.”

of

of him who had helped them to independence, the unfortunate Louis, but would have wreaked it on the living objects of their more intimate malevolence, the virtuous WASHINGTON, the wise ADAMS, and the other active opposers of revolutionary profligacy.

What may be yet the fate of those excellent men, and of that vaft Country which they are endeavouring to fave from itself, Heaven only knows. It is long fince ADAMS, the prefent Prefident (raised to that dignity against the efforts of the Jacobins, by a majority of three voices,) gave his opinion, as plainly as prudence would admit, that the American Conftitution was but a fair-weather bark, and not calculated for political ftorms. "The United States," fays he, in the preface of his excellent work on Republics," are large and populous Nations, in "comparison of the Grecian Commonwealths, "or even the Swifs Cantons, and are growing. "every day more difproportionate, and, there"fore, lefs capable of being held together by c fimple Governments. Countries that increase "fo rapidly as the States of America did, even

during fuch an impoverishing and deftructive "War as the laft, are not to be bound long with "filk threads: lions, young or old, will not be "reftrained by cobwebs." Enough, however, Bb 2

has

1

has happened there already, to teach all who are fufceptible of inftruction that to undertake to conciliate Jacobins is to "caft pearls before fwine." They "will trample them

દ

"under their feet," as the Scripture fays, "and turn again and rend you."

"But we not only can tell what this gentleman's fpecific of timely conceffion would not have effected; we can also ascertain its pofitive effects from much stronger authority than the vifions of his high-raised fancy. We have been informed on this fubject by the United Irishmen themselves. The well-known Author of "a Letter to Lord "FITZWILLIAM," already mentioned as the mouth-piece of that fraternity, very frankly declares, on behalf of his brethren, "that any "kind of reform, fincerely put into execution,

would do much to pleafe, but not to SATISFY, "the people. Any reform," fays he, "once "made, would make EVERY reform afterward "more eafy when adopted, it would tend to "perfect itself. It may walk on as Catholic "Emancipation, from gradual to TOTAL.*”. What total reform means in the vocabulary of the United Irishmen need not be explained. The Right Hon. Gentleman himself is aware,

* Drennan's Letter to Earl Fitzwilliam.--1795

that

that it threatens confequences which no one can contemplate without horror and difmay.

Of the weighty truth of Doctor DRENNAN'S candid acknowledgement, the leading Members of the Irish legislature were juft as well apprized (however a few in that Affembly might have contrived to shut their eyes) as the United Irishmen themselves. Reafon told them, that if they should once begin to alter the frame-work of the Conftitution, merely in obedience to the call of Aggregate Meetings and Primary Affemblies, it would be impoffible to reftrain the wantonnefs of fpeculation: that every conceffion would beget new demands, and furnish a precedent for their being complied with; and that at each step the claimants muft grow ftronger, and they themselves become ftill lefs capable of refiftance. They knew also, from their own experience, that however proper it might be to adopt new measures on the ground of unquestionable utility, it was idle to expect much even from these, in the way of popular gratification. They themfelves had done more of this kind than perhaps any cotemporary Government upon earth. They had raised the Irish Catholics from the wretchedness to which the feverity of the penal code had reduced them, to every thing but do minion. They had relieved the loweft claffes from

from the only direct tax that they fuffered, the Hearth Duty. They had complied with popular wishes of a more elevated kind, by adopting various laws, tending to affimilate more perfectly the Irish to the British Conftitution. They were even making arrangements in the Election Laws, which implied a degree of fubftantial Parliamentary Reform already, and which, by being gradually extended, (as no one could doubt but they would be, if frantic turbulence would but leave fcope for the free exercife of reafon,) would effect by fafe, but fure, degrees, every thing that the true interefts of the country could require. And yet, after all, they have feen the populace more agitated and restless than ever; the ignorant vulgar panting for they know not what; their infidious feducers burning for Revolutionary Power; and human wolves and tigers already burfting, in horrid herds, through the fences of the community, to gorge themselves with the blood of the innocent and the fpoils of the induftrious. And ought they, then, in the frantic hope of appeafing thefe implacable beafts, to have weakened thofe fences ftill more, or, perhaps, broken them down entirely? Ought they to have conceded that which the claimants themselves acknowledged they only asked for hoftile purposes,

merely