When I speak in terms thus strong of that system under which the people of Ireland have suffered for some years, and by which they have been goaded into acts of folly and madness which no good man is either able or inclined to defend, let me not too early be charged with declamation. There are some cases in which no language can be declamatory because no words can aggravate them. If I shall not shew before I conclude this address that the case of Ireland is one of them, let me _then_ be branded with the epithet of empty talker!
It will not be necessary for me, in stating to the people of England the calamities under which Ireland smarts, and the causes which produced them, to go farther back than that period at which she became, nominally at least, an independent country. What remains of her history before that period the honour of both countries calls on us to forget--a mistaken but overbearing principle of domination and monopoly on one hand, fed and strengthened by a servile and base acquiescence on the other, constitute the outline of the sketch--an idle and beggared populace, a jobbing legislature, proscriptions, penal laws, &c. &c. are the disgusting materials with which it must be filled. That Time should quickly draw his veil over such a scene, and cover it with oblivion would be the natural wish of every British and Irish heart, were it not that scenes still more disgraceful to both countries and more calamitous to one of them have succeeded--scenes which force the mind to revert with regret to those days of poverty and peace, when, as there existed little wealth to excite avarice, and little spirit to aggravate the ambition of party, that little remained inviolate, and the miserable cabin, though filled with objects of disgusting wretchedness, was yet the secure covering and castle of its humble owner.--How different his present situation! when in laying down his head at night he fears lest before morning he shall be rouzed by the cries of his family in flames, or dragged from his bed by military ruffians, to be hanged at his own door!
Forgetting then the many causes of discontent with the people of England which existed in Ireland prior to the year 1782, I shall call the attention of this country to only those transactions which have taken place since that time--and indeed to many of those transactions it would not be necessary to advert at all, were it not for that minute and elaborate detail which has been made of them by a well known public character in a late publication,[1] for the purpose of proving that Ireland deserved what she suffered--that she has been always sottishly discontented and basely ungrateful. But I call on Englishmen to judge impartially for themselves--nor let the confident assertion or bold recrimination of an accused man pre-occupy their decision on the merits and the sufferings of an unhappy people.