The Sun.
London, England, 1836-07-08 00:00:00

TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND. 1

(From the Dublin Patriot of Wednesday.)
" Hereditary bondsmen, know you not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow

London, 4th July, 1836.
FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN----I address Irishmen of every
rank and profession, of every creed and station, from the
peer to the peasant—from the wealthiest merchant to the
poorest labourer, from the highest archbishop to the most
humble of curates, Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians,
Dissenters—l address them ALL.
I do call on them—on each and on all—first, to under-
stand the' precise state of Irish affairs, to understand it
thorourrhly ; and, secondly, to act as integrity and honour
shall and do dictate.
This then is the state of Ireland. It can be peurtrayed
in a few distinct propositions.
FlRST—lreland is one of the most fertile countries in
the world, and of the most productive of all the necessaries
of life. She has the poorest population of any other coun-
try on the face of the globe.
SECOND—Abundance and starvation go hand in hand-

provisions are exported in abundance--the
rishing from starvation. p.ople PC.
THIRD—In Ireland the church established, and endowed
by law with national wealth, is the richest in the world.
It has the smallest number of votaries—the Protestants are
comparatively the smallest number in any country called
Protestant in the world.
FOURTH—Again, the richest Protestant church in the
world is surrounded by the poorest Catholic population.
FIFTH—This poorest Catholic population in the world
are compelled by law to support one church with which
they hold no spiritual communion ; and compelled by con-
science to support another church with which they are in
communion. Thus the poorest Catholic population in the
world is burthened with two churches—its own, and a
strange one.
SIXTH—The lands of Ireland produce in rent, it is cal-
culated, twelve millions sterling annually. The precise
amount is not material to our present purpose, it` being
certain that. such rents amount to many millions. Yet
there is an almost complete deficiency of capital for agri-
cultural improvement. This almost unnoticed phenomenon
is, perhaps, one of the most significant of general poverty
and distress ; but this, alas ! is not a matter of theory, for—
SEVENTH—Ireland pays to absentees a tribute amount-

ing certainly to more than six millions—probably exceed•
ing seven millions of pounds sterling annually ; whilst, out
of the eight millions of her inhabitants, the enormous and,
most appalling number of more, much more, than THREE
MILLIONS are actual beggars, living for a considerable
part, or for the entire of the year, on alms and charity.
EIGHTH—The people who are thus immersed in poverty
are the most ready and anxious for employment. They
are amongst the best, if not the very best labourers in the
world ; indeed, they traverse the globe to find employ-
ment. Besides the swarms they send out as permanent
operatives in the factories and cities of Great Britain,
scores of thousands of them travel *on foot ONE THOUSAND
MILES and upwards, in coming and going, from the re-
motest part of Connaught to the extreme of Kent, and all
intermediate spaces, to earn the wages of a few weeks in
each harvest ! ! !
NINTH—The climate of Ireland is very salubrious—the
soil of Ireland is exuberantly fertile—the mineral treasures
of Ireland in coal, lead, and copper ores, are known to be
abundant. The impetuous streams of Ireland furnish a
mill-power cheap in its nature, and, at the same time,
greater in efficient quantity, than in any country of five
times its extent in the world. Its•navigable rivers intersect
the fairest and richest parts of the island for hundreds of
miles, and form at their mouths estuaries which furnish se-
cure ports for the heaviest vessels, for scores upon scores of
leagues. The other harbours of Ireland arc open at every
hour of every tide, and secure from the violence of every
wind that blows—whilst the position of Ireland, the wes-
ternmost land of Europe, the best eastern point for the
trade of the myriads of new nations of America, entitles her
to he the cntrepot of the commerce of the universe.
TENTH—The people of. Ireland are active, industrious,
shrewd, intelligent, faithful, honest, moral, religious. In
no country upon earth are there so few crimes committed
in proportion to the population, against property or good
morals—if you deduct, as you ought, the agrarian outrages
which belong to a state of war, and partake altogether of
the criminal nature of warfare. Again, the tenacity with
which the Irish people have adhered, through proscription,
plunder, and blood, to the faith they deemed best, entitles
them to the admiration even of those who believe that
faith erroneous.

ELEVENTII.-Virith such a country, with such a people,
the manufactories are few—the mines nearly unexplored—
the commerce confined to the export of provisions, and the
imports little more than for the consumption of the garrison,
police, revenue, and church establishment ; whilst—it
must be repeated—more than three millions of the inha-
bitants are living upon alms and charity.
Such is the state of Ireland—such are her capacities—such
is her destitution. Understand this well—lreland, the
most capable of wealth, and strength, and comfort, and
happiness, is involved in distress and dissension, destitu-
tion and faction, pitiless pelting oppression and misery, in
every shape and form ; evils great and pressing, for the
present—miseries fearful and appalling in the prospect of
the future.
Now, this being understood, are there any facts—clear
and undoubted facts—to explain these strange anomalies?
Yes there are—clear and undoubted facts. Let us begin
another series of numbers.

FIRST—The Irish people have not for the last six cen-
turies governed themselves. They have been ruled by
English taskmasters, with one short and evanescent ex-
ception.
SECOND—The English government has uniformly, under
one pretext or another, refused to admit the Irish people
into a community of legal rights and privileges.
THIRD—The Irish people have repeatedly, indeed almost
continuously, demanded, implored, beseeched to be ad-
mitted into a community of laws and right with England.
They have been uniformly refused, except when they hap-
pened to be the strongest, and extorted a part of that which
would otherwise have been withheld.

FOURTH—JUSTICE—JUSTICE TO IRELAND required
that equal participation of rights with England. It was
always refused upon one pretext or the other. The
alienage in blood and in language was at first the pretext—
the alienage in religion became the second.
FIFTH—It is 500 years ago since this amalgamation of
these two nations into one was pressed upon the paternal
attention of Ed,:vard the Third. That Monarch favoured

the plan ; but history tells us that then, as now, justice t 3
Ireland was refused by •' the great Lords," because, as they
at that time candidly avowed, they had an interest in con-
tinuing the abuses. Five hundred years have not taught
any wisdom the " great Lords" of the present day. There
is nothing new under the sun.
SIXTH—One gleam of sunshine brightens the murky
pages of Irish history. It is the glorious era of 1782., and
a few succeeding years. The progress of Ireland in com-
merce, in comfort, In wealth, in literature, during that
bright and transitory period, appears unequalled in any
other story. But something like madness lies in its contem-
plation. I turn to other topics.

SEVENTII—The value . of domestic government was
known to Ireland only to embitter its loss. The Union
was determined on—and by treachery and blood—by cor-
ruption and military force, the Union, was effected. Let
us not dwell on these things for the present; but they must
be noticed. _ _

EIGHTH—The pretext—the assigned cause—the justify-
ing purpose of the Union was to do complete justice to Ire-
land—to -amalgamate both nations into one—to give Ire-
land a full, an equal participation of all the rights, of all
the liberties, of all the privileges of .the English nation.
NINTH—By the Union there were not to be two nations,
but one nation—conscience was to be respected and free—
the "paribus se legibus," the "invicke genies," the "elerna
in fcedera," were repeated until the repetition distrusted ;
they were proclaimed, and praised, and sworn to by King,
Lords, and Commons.
TENTH—The principle of the Union was justice to Ire-
land—equal justice—any other principle would have been a
crime. . _

ELEVENTH—The compact at the Union was justice to
Ireland—equal justice. It was, to be sure, a forced com-
pact on our
part—but upon the part of England, which
used that compulsion, the compact was only doubly bind-
ing on that account.
TwEtrrit—But this compact, like every other thereto-
fore made by the English Government with the Irish people,
was violated so soon after it was made as it was perfectly
safe to do so.

TiilllTEENTli—lreland was admitted into a full partici.
potion of all the burthens of England ; she has been to this
hour deprived of any equal or just participation of the li-
berties,
rights, and privileges of England.
FOURTEENTH—Tbe first instalment of the debt due by
England to the Irish people, by virtue of the Union com-
pact, was not conceded voluntarily, hut was extorted by
the concentrated energy of the Irish people, after a struggle
of no less than twenty-nine long and tedious years.
FlFTEENTit—lrcland continued, as before the Union, to
be governed by and for a faction. That faction was en-
couraged daily into greater insolence and more organization.
Lord Anglesey—heaven help him—re-armed the entire of
the yeomanry of that faction! ! !
Thus, until the last appoingnent of Lord Melbourne's
Administration—until, indeed, Lord Mulgrave became
Lord Lieutenant, admirably choosing Lord Morpeth for his
Secretary—until the Government of Lord Mulgrave, jus-
tice to Ireland was a name and a mockery ; the faction
were every thing—the nation nothing. The bench, the
crown lawyers, the officers of the revenue and customs, the
magistracy, the grand jurors, and as often as possible the
petit jurors, the sheriffs, the police—.all, or nearly all,

0,610 d to the faction ; and rank, and station, and honours,
an I emoluments were distributed in the evact proportion
to the rancorous and successful exhibition of hate, malig_
nity, and peculating bigotry.
Such is the epitome of Irish history ; such are the
causes of Irish misery. The government has been upon a
wrong.basis ; the people of Ireland have been governed with
a wrong intention. Injustice, iniquity, partiality, the with-
holding of franchises and rights—in short, INJUSTICE has
been the foul but continued basis of Irish government.
What man of common reflection, or gifted even with the
slightest glimmering of common sense, but must see these
two things, first, the prolific cause of the woes and destitu-
tion of eland—next, the obvious mode of changing her
fate, and improving her fortunes.
Injustice has been the bane and curse of Ireland. Upon
justice she builds her hope of amelioration and improvement.
But a new era opened upon us ; a new prospect brielitened
before us. The renewed administration of Lord Melbourne
felt the necessity as well as the propriety of doing justice
to Ireland. Lord Mulgrave at once carried into practical
effect all that the existing state of the law would allow
him of fair play and impartiality : discountenancing every
faction ; looking to merit alone for the objects of his
choice ; banishing all considerations of sectarian preference
or sectarian exclusion ; despising with manly firmness the
threats and the calumnies of are infuriated and sanguinary
party, and calmly doing equal justice to enemies as to friends.
A young and a new hope sprung up for Ireland—ancient
injuries and recent prosecutions and coercions were all, all
forgotten or forgiven—and Ireland at length exulted in the
expectation that her resources would be developed, her in-
dustry encouraged, her feuds healed, and her people com-
bined in one bond of allegiance, interest, and freedom, with
the hitherto more favoured people of Britain.
But if the prospect of these, blessings were to depend
on the active virtues of individuals for their only support,
they must in their nature be precarious and transitory—the
brightness of a moment to make the permanent gloom
more terrible. Accordingly the King's Government de-
termined to give permanency to the measures of justice, and
in effect to give to Ireland at length the benefits of the
Union.

Alas ! how many topics of the deepest interest am I
obliged to pass over, in order to hurry to those practical
measures which the exigencies of the present portentous cri-
sis of Irish affairs absolutely demands.
The King's Government, then, in the present session,
contemplated three great measures:—
First—The amendment of the Irish reform Act, by giv-
ing a more easy and honest mode of legislation, by diminish-
ing the amount of the franchise to the more reasonable di-
mension contemplated by the legislature, and preventing
the fraudulent creation of votes, especially in towns and cities.
There is not the least chance that the House of Lords will
pass that Bill.
Second—To bring within a more reasonable compass
the enormous revenues of a sinecure church, and to appro-
priate the surplus, after supplying the spiritual wants of the
Irish Protestants, for the purposes of the moral and religious
education of all the people. This Bill is also doomed to
meet its fate, by being strangled in the House of Lords.
Third—The Municipal Corporation Bill—mark its his-
tory and blush for shame—l know you are men, and that the
burning blush of shame is already on your cheeks. Mark
its history : It passed the House of Commons shorn of
some of its utility. The selfish and base hostility of the
Tory slavish faction in the Lords was known ;' and, there-
fore, to appease its virulence, the Ministry made a con-
cession, which they ought not in my opinion ever to have
made. They consented to deprive the Reformed Irish
Corporations of the power to nominate persons for the
office of sheriff, and they limited the power to nominate
•
magistrates.
Yet, with these concessions, the Lords contemptuously
mutilated, disfigured, destroyed the Bill. Not a single vote
was obtained by these concession:,—nay, they were used—
and it was retributive justice that they should be so used—
as an argument against the Bill.
Well—the mutilated Bill came down to the Commons,
the Ministers again made concessions—more concessions
than in my conscience I am now convinced ought to be
*made—l mention these things as part of history, and to
protest to the people of Ireland, that I, for one, will never
again, directly or indirectly, assent to any such concessions..
But this moderation—this disposition for conciliation has
had one good effect ; it has placed the Ministry and the
Commons more in the right ; it has placed the haughty
and arrogant Lords more in the wrong.
The Lords received these concessions contumeliously,
and contemptuously restored the Bill to all its original mis-
chievous operation, as it came out of their hands.
Mark the consequences :
Scotland enjoys reformed and popular Municip.3l Cor-
porations.
England enjoys reformed Municipal Corporations.
Ireland is refused any such reform.
To this injustice is superadded
Is not the injuries enough—is not the injustice sufficient
—no—one thousand times, no. Misery has been borne by
Ireland—injustice has been endured for centuries by
Irishmen.

•But insult—daring, foul insult, has been superadded—
insult from the ungenerous and heartless tyrant Welling-
ton--f-insult from the mean and creeping Vesey Fitzgerald—
insult from the basest of the base, whose foul name shall
not pollute my page. Insult—lrishmen---insult.
The lion in the fable was dying when the asses dared to
kick him. Ireland is not dying—neither slee2s she—nor
shall the asses kirk her with impunity. •
6‘ The nations have fallen but THOU STILL ART YOUNG."
Yes, Ireland, my country—thou art young in the strength,
the energy, the patriosm of thy sons. Yes, by the concen-
tration of thy energies hast thou already burst the manacles

of ages.
But let us at once commence the organization of the
public mind ; the combination of the virtuous and the
good. We already succeeded in the strife where only some of
the Irish were • interested in that success ; where our
efforts bore, in site of us, a sectarian character. Shall we
not now succeed when all Ireland—when Irishmen of every
creed, sect, and persuasion are equally interested—when
every Irishman that lives is involved in one common in-
justice, and is tarnished and tainted by one common insult.
Rally, then—let us rally round the King's Government
and the rights of Ireland. JUSTICE to IRELAND is our
watch-word, our motto, our daily cry, our only object, our
great reward.
Justice to Ireland—speedy, equal, complete justice to
Ireland.
Let us not consume one moment in reproach or in anger,
in expostulation or in resentment. The injury—above all,
the INSULT—is too deep, too degrading, to find any re-
source in complaints or words.
Let us be up and doing.
We are degraded below the level of human beings as
long as the foul stain of this daring insult remains upon. us.
I have been amongst those who have led you already to
victory—the lowliest, but amongst the most zealous of them
all. I offer myself to you again to lead you to success
more certain and complete.
England MUST do us justice, or we WILL
.do justice to
ourselves. .
But the course of this struggle must be like the last—
v:ithout a breach of any law—without a violation of any
duty—without a crime before man—without a sin before
God—unstained with any injury. to the property of any
human being—entirely free from the pollution of one drop
of blood.

Hasten, then, to another moral combination—hasten,
then, to procure a remedy for the past, to prevent the more
hideous mischiefs with which the future threatens us. If
the Lyndhurst gang in the Lords are allowed with impunity
to rejoice, over their insolent injustice to Ireland, success
will necessarily encourage them to further darings. The
sword of destruction was ()nee before threatened by Wel-
lington. I believe him to be now as willing, though less able,
to wield it. That sword may sweep over Ireland for destruc-
tion, unless every honest and good man arouses him now at
my call and the call of Ireland—unless there be a vow
unspoken, but recognised in the heart's firm determination
to exert every faculty of mind and body to wipe off the foul
insult, and to procure JUSTICE FOR IRELAND. •
This, then, is my manifesto to the people of Ireland, to
the Reformers of Great Britain, and to the friends of ra-
tional liberty all over the world.
I proceed at once to the plan which I most respectfully
and earnestly press on the consideration and for the adop—
tion of the people of Ireland.
Let us first. see what are our duties. They seem to me
to be three-fold :-
Ist. To rally all our exertions for the support of the
King's Government. The safety of Ireland—of tha lives
and properties of all classes in Ireland—its freedom from
the horrors of anarchy and a. servile war—all depend on
the stability of the present Ministry. Let us, then, rally
round the Government of Lord Melbourne, and give it all
the aid we can in and out of Parliament. Heart and hand
let us aid Lord Mulgrave in Ireland.
Our second duty is to exert all the influence we possess
to preserve the internal peace of Ireland—to prevent or to
suppress agrarian outrages of every description—to advise,
control, protect the people—to protect them from their r,
own natural resentments, as well as from the insidious
equally with the open machinations of their enemies. •
The third and chicfeet duty, because the best instill-
went of the other two, is the immediate formation of an
active Society, to regulate all legal and constitutional exer-
tions in the paths or peace and with the fervour of free_
dow—a body free Nan any legal objection; or any moral
reproach.
I propose that we immediately form an assoc ataon, to I e
called tt THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND."
The name National has been suggested, but I pref.( r
that of General—simply because the present experiment •
most have completely.faiW—and this Association, intended
for other purposes, must stand dissolved before we form

that other association, to be called the National—and
which can be rendered necessary only when it is demon-
strated that justice for Ireland cannot be obtained without
a repeal of the Union.
The General Association of Ireland will require no pro-
fession of any principles, save those of obtaining justice for
Ireland, through the instrumentality of the United Par-,1
Bement.
The National Association, should it hereafter become
necessary, will be composed of Repealers only.
I propose that the objects of the General Association of
Ireland should be confined to these two-
-Ist. To obtain peaceably, and by legal means, a settle-
ment of the tithe question, in a mode perfectly satisfactory
to the people of Ireland.
2d. To obtain municipal reform for Ireland, upon the
same principle, and to the same extent, with that obtained
by the people of Scotland and of England.
The Association to stand absolutely dissolved the mo-
ment these two objects are achieved.
Thus, temporary in its nature, and most useful in its
ends, it will deserve, and I am confident obtain, the full
confidence of the people of Ireland, of all classes, creeds,
and stations. •
This Association must be unconnected with any other
body, society, or union. This seems to me, and I have
some experience in these matters, to be essentially neces-
sary to the freedom of its working and the permanent uti-
lity of its exertions.
The admission to be regulated precisely as in the Catho-
lic Association.
The rules of proceeding adopted by that Association
will be found to have had the benefit of a long experi-
ment, and have already secured good order and perfect
freedom of debate. I respectfully suggest the appointment
of a Committee to report such of those rules as should be
adopted.
Of course nothing could be more abhorrent from the Ge-
neral Association of Ireland than any exclusion on account
of religious or political distinction. Whoever will now
work for Ireland should be hailed with the delicacy and
fervour shewn by all good men to adversaries becoming pro-
selytes to more liberal. opinions.
But the chief staff and support of the new Association will
be the institution of an annual rent, upon the secure basis
with the late Catholic rent, and to be called, " The Rent
for Ireland." The victims of illegal tithe exactions demand
assistance, and the resistance to oppression will require, in
a thousand ways, pecuniary aid. " The Rent for Ireland"
will, I trust, soon rival the Catholic rent in utility and
efficacy to procure success.
Let every man who pays one pound be a member of the
Association, with power to speak and vote—let every man
who contributes one shilling be " an associate," and be en-
rolled on our books, and entitled to all the protection we
we can give him.
This letter has necessarily grown into great length, but
it does not contain one-tenth of the materials with which
my mind is loaded on this most interesting subject. I see
distinctly that the House of Lords have taken their stand
to effectuate a ,counter revolution. They are determined
to render useless, and in fact to annihilate the Reform Bill,
and it is'quite plain that if they are not themselves crushed
in and by the attempt, they will succeed. The result of
success would be the imperative necessity fer, and the ine-
vitable accomplishment of, a violent and probably sangui-
nary revolution. Those, therefore, who with me abhor
violence and shudder at blood,. will seek the paths of peace-
able and constitutional agitation—will form those tranquil
but energetic combinations which, looking to the franchise
and the registry—to the moral influence of public opinion
—to the straightforward efforts of the disinterested lovers
of huFan freedom and human liberty—will become, with-
out turbulence or any crime, too powerful for any unjust
or tyrannical resistance ; and will secure constitutional li-
berty without the commission of any crime, or the liability
to any reproach.
I propose to be in Dublin as soon as I can, to assist in
the organization and arrangement of the General Associa-
tion of Ireland. I intend also, on Wednesday, to direct a
letter to its secretary, with my contribution to the " Rent
for Ireland" of the year 1836.
We are involved in a crisis of great and most portentous
magnitude. Firmness, patience, tranquility, perseverance,
energy—these are the qualities now necessary. Above all,
unremitting perseverance.
I never despaired of Ireland. My mind is now full of
great hope and high resolve.
I have the honour to be, fellow-countrymen,
Your ever faithful servant,
DANIEL O'CONNELL.