The National Register.
London, England, 1819-12-05 00:00:00

A POLITICAL WARNING.

The Dirtlies fievkly Regaler contains an able Review
of tile Political Stele fur the las► thirty years,
luldressed as a warning to EngLshinen

The article is entitled " An Adtlress to the Constitu-
tional Englishmen," to whom it is recommened at the.
present momentous crisis, as en example replete with
warning and instruction. In its detail of the inroads
made upon the newly acquired Constitution of Ireland
down to its final overthrow, the following passages de-
rive peculiar interest from the circumstances of the pre-
sent times. " Public meetings of the people." says the
writer, " constitutionally convened to deliberate upon
grievances the most notorious anti intolerable, were held
in be high treason in disguise, and were dispersed or
overawed by military fence. To be the friend of free-
dom, was to be marked for public dishonour—no rank
nor integrity could save the sictiin :—for instance, two
popular Noblemen, the Duke of Leinster, and the Earl
of Claremont, both of them venerable from their exalted
station their years, and their tried virtues,'were degraded
from their offices of Lords Lieutenant of Counties: the
tirst was dismissed, the other insulted into a resignation.
Upon the subject of military violence, I can mention
Wit or two examples, which at the present moment may
seem worthy of your attention.
The town of Belfast had long taken an honourable
part in the cause of National Reform, and was regarded
as our grant northern emporium of public spirit ; it
therefore became expedient to terrify and humiliate it.
In looking over the records of those times, I find that
on the lbth of March, 1793 (at a season of profound
local tranquility), four troops of dragoons having arrived
in the vicinity by different routes, galloped into the
centre of the town by its two opposite extremities with
their swords drawn, as if in full charge.' rhe account
goes on to say, that' they proceeded to attack every per-
son of every age and sex, who happened to be in the
streets.'—Would you not have supposed (without the
date) that the writer was ht re describing your 16th of
August ? This outrage was never brought before the
Parliament. It was well known that airy demand of
enquiry. into it would have been aswered by ' referring
the %tennis to the ordinary tribunals of the country.
" At a subsequent period, a meeting at which the
Duke of Leinster was to have presided, was publicly an-
nounced to take place to the county of Kildare, to con-
sider a petition to the Throne on the redress of grievances.
The ebening before the day of the intended assembly, a
military force with field pieces, &c. appeared in 'the
neighbourhood ; the Commanding Officer, on being
questioned, candidly admitted that lie had positive orders
to fire upon the people, if they should persist in their
design of assembling. No public caution to that effect
having been given, a Nobleman now in Ireland, who
was to have taken a part in the proceedings of the fol.
lowing.day. waited upon Mr. Pelham, the Secretary, to
ascertain the truth of so extraordinary a measure. He
found the Secretary as candid as the officer, and, in con-
sequence, announcing without loss of time to the publi-
the violence which awaited them, fortunately preventec
an incalculable effusion of human blood. limy memory
is correct, it was for his intention of presiding on this
occasion that eke Duke of Leinster was degraded from
the Lord Lieutenancy of the county.
These are a few specimens of the working of the
Pitt system in Ireland. The limits of a Newspaper do
not enable me to dwell on all its parts ; upon its mis-
chievous and unnecessary suspensions of the Constitu-
tion ; the enormous powers granted to Magistrates, and
(the inevitable consequence) their enormous abuses,
followed up in due order with acts of indemnity ; its
measures of summary vengeance on the popular press;
its corrupt influence on the administration ofjitstiee; its
open encouragement of venal Sheriffs, packed juries,
spies, and ihformers. This could not last without pro-
ducing consequences which a child might hare pnmlicted.
The proi,le, wearied and h.,ffial in their constitutional
efforts, became impressed with the conviction that revo-
lution was more attainable than reform, and resorted to
violence. You know the issue."

" S ith is ti:e brief summary related in a subdned
tone of the real history of Ireland, upon the moral of
which it may tie worth your while in your leisure mu-
memc to reflect. If rigntly studied it will equally deter
)0:1 twin any acts of illegal violence (let all the odium of
that remain with your enemies), and on the other hand
it will warn you against the dangers of unconstitutional
pathVi or of implicit reliance on the wisdom and mo-
tives of the present directors of your destinies. Upiin
this latter point (before I have done) a single word.—
Nut only is the same system, which reduced Ireland to
what sae is, at work upon England, but sonic of the
identical men who gave her the death-blow, and who
must inconsequence be impressed with a horrid Confi-
dence inthe powers of the sword, ate now enjoying rank
and authoolty among you; after having exhibited such ta-
lents for truaic scenes upon a provincial theatre, they
have now assumed the more ambitious task of drawing
sighs and ;ears from an imperial audience. It may be
wotth your while to remember ibis. It may be worth
your while to ask youraeives, whit claims they can
have upon your con&lence? Would you intrust your
lives to the pretender whose noxious drugs had sent a
bloater or a fsiend to the grave ? Between you and
them what constitutional sympathies can subsist ? Lt
whatever way the present contest may end, they feel
Mire of their reward—what honourable interest then
can they be supposed to take in the event? the same that
the hovering culture takes its the lame of a fight—let the
conflict terminate as it may he will hare his feast. Do
you not perceive that in such men every feeling of country
must be deed? iVhat sympathy did they slim fur their
own, wri7eh they devoured, till its means of satiating
their rapicity were exhausted—or can you for a moment
doubt the ravageS they t have committed, or the
motives of their emigration ? The very appearance or
such birds of prey upon your shores, is the clearest prow
that before they were (Irmo to roam abroad, the carcass

THE NATIONAL,

in which they hail fed at home must have been picked
to a skeleton. Be not then so infatuated as to eelyon
their patriotism and Oddity. They betrayed their origi-
nal duties—can they respect any new ones? They
They have claimed and found the deserter's welcome—
but are they to escape the deserter's fate, that of being
for ever the objects of vigilance, suspicion, and con-
tempt ?
" These remarks !in env view not unimportant, but
such as they are) 1 offer to your consideration, TV me
it appears that the warning our history holds unt, is at
this moment entitled to your peculiar attention—that it
should be received as the bOICIIIII communication of a
departed friend to his survivor to reveal the designs of an
enemy against his life. Perhaps 1 may err in my esti-
mate of your danger, but when I compare the past with
the present, I cannot but tremble at what ispossible.—
I have before my eyes the mournful spectacle of the hu-
miliation that may befal a once proud and generous
nation. I know that it is asked among you, " what has
become of the voice of Ireland? Is there to be no
public expression of her sorrow or indignation at events
which flit our breasts with anguish and alarm ?" Alas I
to ask such a
.question is to confess your ignorance
of her continuo]. We are now in a state in
which. on such a subject, silence is wisdom. We dare
not provoke the retaliation which the display of any
imprudent sympathy with you might bring down upon
us. But do nut therefore imagine that we are looking
on with heartless unconcern upon your struggles.—
Were there nothing else than the late affront offered to
one of the most respected of your nobility, that alone
would have put the heart of every honest Irishman in
motion. We do not forget that it was Lord Fitzwilliam
who once came to us the messenger of peace and free-
dom. Ile would have humanized our councils—he
would have checked the aggressiou of a despotic faction
—he would have made the interests and rights of the
subject the rule of his administration and therefore he
was sacrificed. That an occasion should be taken of
exacting from him a further expiation need no surprise ;
as the friend of Ireland, lie owes a long atonement to
the political hens of Mr. Pitt, which von may be certain
was not overlooked by the advisers of his recent dismissal.
Under these circumstances we should nut have been
slow in tendering to such a man, and to the cause in
which he is embarked, our homage and support.—
Yet, though our tongues way be tied. our hopes and
prayers are with that cause. Every rational mind in the
country sees that its dearest interests are indissoluble
blended with yours. We may have found ourselves
bound to abstain from all interference in those particu-
lar plans of reform upon which your own opinions are
divided ;—hut one deep persuasion is, that the lovers of
a free constitution among you, by whatever name you
may be called. are those to whom alone we can itt every
emergency look up (or punt ctiott and redress.
-

NATIONAL GOOD.
CTROW ♦ PAMP/IL ET JUST PUBLISHP.P.j
-•••••m..-

"As the desire of travelling and spending their
time and property abroad has increased amongst the
nobility and gentry—in the same degree has con-
tempt and neglect of the best interests of the nation
manifested itself in their conduct. Why, therefore,
should we suffer them to go on in their own way,
without stating to them the real state and situation
to which we are reduced ? It is most undoubtedly
national *ood that ought to sway the proceedings of
the principal men in the nation, inasmuch as the
good they possess cannot be permanent without it.
The language of many who spend their money
abroad is, that what tlwy spend is their own ; but
they should recollect the weight of suffering they
cause by absenting themselves from the country.
The following may serve to give them some idea of
the effects produced by their absence, copied from a
Provincial Paper:—
" The demand for our own rasmateetwes has
beet. diminished in no inconsiderable d.geee by The
number of our gentry, who, bit, us it should seem,
by what may be called the travelling iaranada, can
only be cured by a dance over half Europe, or at
least by a jig to Paris. I fear some of these bitten
ones will, like the traveller of Shakspeare's Rosa-
lind, sell their own lands to see other men's; then
to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have
rich eyes and poor hands.' But if they should not
sell their lands, by their absence they impoverish
them, which is much the same thing; fur these
gaping idlers take, according to a fair calculation,
about twelve millions yearly out of our country, that
is, about one-eighth of the whole income of Eng-
land. It has been calculated that forty thousand
hands arc, by this wanton emigration, thrown out
of employment in London alone. To export one-
eighth of the national income is to 3ubtract one eighth
of the employment, by subtracting one-eighth of
the demand—a grievous evil. But to forbid such
emigration would be an invasion, it is said, td tl.e
liberty of the subject, and these itinerants are suffi-
ciently rich and powerful to resist a tax on absentees,
which would be must salutary. Could, however, the
foolish rage for trav,lling and living in France for
cheapness, be restrained, much of the lack anent:And
fur our own manufactures would be undoubtedly
removed by increased consumption.'
" Thousands and tens of thousands are spent in
mere gew-gaw 1101INCIISe—timvigi: toys, or rather
perhaps, what is worse, foreign vice, and u. w fol-
lies—lace, silks, &c. &c. which are prohibited in this
country, but which are sought after mud bought with