: The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed In an Address to the People of England in Which It Is Proved by Incontrovertible Facts That the System for Some Years Pursued in That Country Has Driven It into Its Present Dreadful Situation by Anonymous -

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, does there appear to be a gleam of hope that Ireland may yet become a free, happy, and contented member of the British empire--and that is, in a suppression of the present insurrection--in a change of the men by whom the affairs of Ireland have been for some years so abominably administered--and in a change of that system which has hitherto been pursued by them. If Englishmen value their own liberty, which the contiguity of despotism must always hazard, or feel sympathy for the sufferings of an unfortunate people, whose attachment to Britain has been proved during the course of an anxious and changeful century, to these objects will they direct their efforts.

Englishmen!--your fellow subjects of Ireland now call on you to consider the case of a distracted country, as that of brethren united by the tie of a common nature, and by the still closer tie of a common Sovereign; both entitled to the advantages of the same constitution, each depending, in some measure, on the others strength. For one hundred years you have found in the people of Ireland a faithful and firm friend--though for much of that period we laboured under the most distressing disadvantages, destitute of the means of wealth, and aliens from the most important benefits of the British constitution, we have yet borne our sufferings with patient and uncomplaining attachment to a British Sovereign, and to the British cause. In our poverty we still contributed to the exigencies of the empire. When an extension of our means enabled us to give more largely towards the common stock, we poured forth our blood and treasure in the cause of Britain with more than the zeal of brothers. In our fallen state, with an island reeking with blood, and the sword at our throat, directed by an administration in the best and in the worst of times hostile to Ireland, we call upon you to assist in rescuing our country from utter and irretrievable ruin--we implore you to interfere for us with our common Sovereign--to solicit at his paternal hand the removal of those wicked men, who by abusing the confidence of their Sovereign, and sacrificing their duty to his people, to the gratification of ambitious views or native malevolence, have belied the Irish nation; and by their obstinate and relentless cruelty have driven it to madness. We conjure you to think of us as of men enamoured of liberty and animated by that zealous attachment to monarchy, limited by law, which has given immortality to the name of Englishmen--though at the same time, as of men, among whom many have been hurried into unpardonable indiscretions while the great body remain a loyal, though a suffering people.--In a word, we solicit your sympathy as brethren, and your influence as fellow subjects, with the common Father of both kingdoms, to save four millions of people from the insulting tyranny of Ministers who have abused their powers, and, instead of the mild genius of the British constitution, have governed by the galling despotism of a military mob!

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

Vide Irish Chancellor's speech on Lord Moira's motion.

See Mr. J. Claud Beresford's Speeches in the House of Commons during the session of 1797.

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