So3. 
 
 sc 
 
 
 SECOND SERIES. No. 6 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 O THE IRISH PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 T. W. ROLLESTON 
 
 Uontion 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE SHELLEY SOCIETY 
 
 BY REEVES AND TURNER, 196 STRAND 
 
 1890 
 
 Meaiftrs 
 
5^3 
 
 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 Class > :^ c^c^ CASE ^ 
 
 
 
 5*^ . 6 
 
 


AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE IRISH PEOPLE 
 
Of this Book 
 
 Two Hundred Copies have been Printed. 
 
 4: 10: '90. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 . in 2008 with funding from 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/addresstoirishpeOOshelrich 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE IRISH PEOPLE 
 
 BV 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 REPRINTED 
 
 FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1812 
 
 iStritelr 
 By THOMAS J. WISE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 T. W. ROLLESTON 
 
 OF 1 
 
 UNIVE. 
 
 O! 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE SHELLEY SOCIETY 
 
 BY REEVES AND TURNER 196 STRAND 
 
 1890 
 
Printed ly Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, Bread Street Hill, October, 1890. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. face 
 
 By T. W. ROLLESTON II 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 By Thos. J. Wise 27 
 
 LIST OF ERRATA IN THE ORIGINAL EDITION 28 
 
 Type-facsimile of 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
^ >■ 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Shelley's early interest in Ireland — State of Ireland during period in which 
 his visit fell, (i) political, (2) social— His jnethods and aims — His 
 failure — His success. 
 
 During the series of trials for treason-felony endured by the 
 editor of the Nation in '48— '49, so persistent and ingenious did 
 the prosecution show itself in its efforts to obtain a verdict, that 
 a legal critic is reported to have remarked that at last every 
 disputed question in criminal law was being decided and set at 
 rest — at the expense of Mr. Duffy. The history of Mr. Duffy's 
 country presents a curious parallel to this episode in his own. 
 Ireland has had to meet oppression in almost every possible 
 form, and has met it in almost every possible way. And 
 Ireland's martyrdom has been England's education. Ireland's 
 sufferings and resistance have forced political problems 
 generally debated in vacuo upon the attention of practical 
 statesmen, and compelled practical maxims of English govern- 
 ment to show their foundation in reason and justice, or perish. 
 
 For Shelley the reformer, a visit to Ireland, the classic land 
 of the struggle for freedom and justice, was a very natural event. 
 How early his interest may have been awakened in Irish affairs it 
 is hard to say for certain. In his Posthumous Fragments of Mai'- \ 
 garet Nicholson, published while he was at Oxford in November, 
 1810, we find allusions to the Banshee and certain other 
 commonplaces of Irish legend. St. frz'yne (January 181 1) 
 bears testimony to his love of the Irish melodies, then being 
 popularised by Moore. In the following March we find his 
 name in the Oxford Iferald as a contributor of one guinea to a 
 fund started by that newspaper for the benefit of Mr. Peter 
 Finnerty, an Irish journalist, who had been sentenced to 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 eighteen months' imprisonment for having written, in the 
 Morning Chronicle^ a public letter to Lord Castlereagh, 
 denouncing that Minister for his share in the cruelties practised 
 upon the Irish people in '98. About the same time Shelley 
 pubHshed on Mr. Finnerty's behalf a poem now lost, entitled 
 A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things — a poem the 
 proceeds of which, if we can trust the positive statement of a 
 contemporary Dublin newspaper sent by Shelley to Godwin, 
 and unearthed some years ago by Mr. D. F. McCarthy, 
 amounted to ** nearly a hundred pounds." ^ 
 
 But a much more important Irishman than Mr. Finnerty also 
 aroused Shelley's enthusiasm, as indeed that of many a young 
 heart since. This was Robert Emmet, the hero of the insur- 
 rection of 1803 — an insurrection trivial and even despicable for 
 what it actually effected at the time, but memorable as the first 
 protest of Irish nationality against the Act of Union. That it 
 accomplished little, beyond exhibiting (and this principally to 
 those who were behind the scenes) the elements with which 
 something might be accomplished later on, is hardly to be 
 wondered at. Emmet was no organizer, and Ireland at the 
 time was gagged, bound, and saignee a blanc. But it had one 
 important result, in making Emmet's aims and his pure heroic 
 character known to his countrymen ; and the defeated rebel's 
 speech from the dock has had no small influence on Irish 
 history. When Shelley first began to take an interest in Emmet 
 is uncertain : certain it is, however, that he wrote, probably in 
 Dublin, a poem on Emmet's Grave ; ^ and that Hogg found in 
 Shelley's lodgings, in October, 181 2, a broadsheet containing 
 Emmet's speech, with a portrait of the speaker. 
 
 Robert Emmet's insurrection was a purely nationalist move- 
 ment. But it was no such movement that Shelley found in 
 progress when he visited Ireland in 181 2. The political 
 
 ^ This was the Mr. Finnerty alluded to in Shelley's Address. The 
 fullest information, relevant and irrelevant, about this gentleman, will be 
 found in Mr. Denis Florence McCarthy's Early Life of Shelley. That 
 work, and Prof. Dowden's Life of Shelley ^ have been my sources for the 
 documents quoted in this Introduction. 
 
 2 This poem has been discovered by Prof. Dowden, who gives two 
 stanzas from it in his Life of Shelley (i., 268). It is alluded to in a letter 
 to Miss Kitchener, written shortly after Shelley's departure from Dublin. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 energies of the people were absorbed in the struggle for Catholic. 
 Emancipation, then passing under the leadership of O'Connell. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter in detail into the system of 
 government which throughout the eighteenth century made 
 Ireland a vast penal settlement. It is enough to say that 
 men living in 181 2 could remember an utterance from the Irish 
 Bench (1758), in which it was declared that "the laws did not 
 presume a Catholic to exist in the kingdom, nor could they 
 breathe without the connivance of government." Less than a 
 century before Shelley's visit it had been sought to secure the 
 expiration of the Catholic priesthood in Ireland by a Bill 
 decreeing for all unregistered priests thereafter found in the 
 realm the punishment of a shocking mutilation.^ 
 
 With the first year of the independent Irish Parliament things 
 began to improve for the Catholics. In the words of Charles 
 Greville, "the great thaw of the intolerant and proscriptive 
 policy had now begun." That thaw ended with the great 
 concession made to Catholics in 1793, the last until their final 
 Emancipation in 1829. In Shelley's time the laws relating to 
 Irish Catholics who were in a much better position, at least 
 theoretically, than their English co-religionists, were by no 
 means oppressive. They had been admitted to the magistracy, 
 to the franchise, to all lay corporations except Trinity College, 
 to the grand and petty juries, and to naval and military rank. 
 They could hold land by lease, educate their children, practise 
 in the learned professions, and meet for worship according to 
 the rites of their Church. But they still lived under the shadow 
 of reproach, suspicion, and disdain ; they could be magistrates, 
 but they were not selected ; they could be jurors, but they 
 were not summoned, nor could they be either High- or 
 Sub-Sheriffs; Parliament had opened the corporations to 
 them, but had not prevented the corporations from passing 
 by-laws to exclude them. By their exclusion from Parlia- 
 ment they were robbed of the important right of challenging 
 
 ^ This Bill was recommended to the English Government in 1719, by 
 the Irish Privy Council, including the Lord-Lieutenant (Duke of Bolton), 
 the Secretary, and two Bishops of the Established Church. The special 
 clause in question was struck out by the English Ministry, without whose 
 consent, under Poyning's Act, no Irish Bill could pass. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the administration upon individual cases of oppression and 
 injustice ; and the silence thus imposed upon them, the stigma 
 thus cast upon them, rendered practically worthless (so they 
 argued) many of the formal concessions which they had already 
 obtained. 
 
 At the time of the Union, Pitt and his Irish alter ego, Lord 
 Castlereagh, were openly favourable to the Catholic claims. It 
 was notorious that but for the well-founded expectation of the 
 Catholics that they would be at once admitted to the Imperial 
 Parliament, the passing of the Act of Union would have been a 
 far more difficult and dangerous, if not an impossible, under- 
 taking. And it is probable enough that but for George III.'s insane 
 obstinacy a measure of Catholic Emancipation might have been 
 carried almost simultaneously with the Act of Union ; but 
 bigotry was unabashed and vigorous, and the modern jealousy of 
 the direct influence of the Crown in politics, though intense 
 where it existed, was anything but universal. Pitt honourably 
 strove to overcome the King's opposition : failing in one serious 
 efifort, he is hardly to be blamed for refusing to enter upon a 
 desperate constitutional struggle at a time when the revolutionary 
 forces in England seemed so dangerously strong, and when the 
 aspect of foreign affairs was so threatening. Yet at Pitt's death 
 a golden opportunity passed away for ever. For more than a 
 quarter of a century no Minister was found who both could 
 and would carry Catholic Emancipation through both Houses. 
 And the Minister who did finally carry it adopted the measure 
 simply as a lesser evil than insurrection, and accompanied it 
 with circumstances of injustice and insult. 
 
 The Catholics, of course, were not prepared to accept Pitt's 
 decision as the last word on the subject. But their movement 
 had to be conducted under great difficulties. Special Acts, 
 such as the Insurrection Act and the Conventions Act, placed 
 obstacles in the way of association for any political purpose, 
 and gave vast arbitrary powers to persons mostly hostile to the 
 Catholic cause. An association for the purpose of pressing the 
 CathoHc claims had of course existed before the Union, but 
 its organization was broken up in the convulsion of '98, and 
 did not begin to be knit together again till 1805. In that year 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 a petition for relief from their disabilities was framed by the 
 Irish Catholics, and presented in the Commons by Charles 
 James Fox, in the Lords by Lord Grenville. The motion for 
 appointing a committee on the subject was rejected in the Upper 
 and Lower Houses by majorities of 129 and 212 respectively. 
 Then a disastrous step was taken. A new petition was prepared 
 in 1808, in which, on behalf of the Irish bishops and with the 
 sanction of their agents, the offer was made ^ that, if Emancipa- 
 tion were conceded, the Crown should possess a right of veto in 
 the election of Catholic bishops in Ireland. This not being 
 thought a sufficient quid pro quo, the petition was promptly 
 rejected, and the Catholic prelates began to feel that their 
 eagerness for Emancipation had led them into a surrender of 
 essential Hberties of their Church. Two hostile parties were 
 formed in the Catholic camp, the Vetoists and the Antivetoists,^ 
 whose animosity, though sometimes repressed in the face of 
 the common enemy, was violent enough to do immense injury 
 to their cause. 
 
 In i8to, 1811, and 18 12 (January) the question was again 
 before Parliament in the form of motions to appoint committees 
 on the subject. They were rejected by decisive though no 
 longer crushing majorities. The Catholic cause appeared to 
 be making way, though unsteadily, and the number of eminent 
 men such as Castlereagh, Canning, Lord Wellesley, and others, 
 who declared themselves favourable to the measure in principle, 
 if opposed to its introduction at this or that particular moment, 
 gave promise of a complete and easy victory when the right 
 
 1 This proposal had been mooted in 1793 ; and in 1799, according to 
 Lord Castlereagh, had been ''formally and explicitly proposed to His 
 Majesty's Ministers by the Roman Catholics themselves." (Speech on 
 March 3, 1813.) The opposition to it arose first among the middle-class 
 laity, who preferred to wait for Emancipation rather than place their 
 Church under English control. Many of the higher clergy at first 
 supported the veto, but were forced by the more patriotic attitude of the 
 people to head the movement against it. 
 
 ^ The Vetoists were represented in Parliament by Grattan, who identified 
 himself closely with their proposal. The Antivetoists were supported by 
 Sir H. Parnell, afterwards Lord Congleton (great-uncle of the present 
 leader of the Irish party). In Ireland, the Catholic aristocracy finally took 
 the former side, the clergy, traders, and peasantry, under Daniel O'Connell, 
 the latter. 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 moment should arrive. It seemed to have arrived in February, 
 1812, when the Regent, who had previously declared himself 
 favourable to the Catholic claims, entered upon full regal 
 power, and all possibility that the King might again take upon 
 himself the genuine authority he had been wont to wield, and 
 undo disastrously what his son had begun, was at an end. The 
 events which immediately followed, and which determined for 
 long the positions of the two great English parties, are well- 
 known. Ministerial rank was offered to Grenville and Grey, 
 but under impossible conditions, and they refused it. At 
 the death of Perceval the Liberals again got their chance, and 
 this time a fair chance, of power. But they quarrelled over 
 the appointments, and that twenty years' frost of Tory Govern- 
 ment^ remained unbroken. There was indeed a deceptive 
 appearance that in Ireland a thaw like that of 1793 was about 
 to set in. In June, 181 2, Canning carried by a majority of 129 
 a resolution binding the House to take into its most serious con- 
 sideration the laws affecting the Roman Catholics. A similar 
 motion in the Lords was only lost by one vote. A Bill for 
 Catholic Emancipation passed its second reading in the House 
 of Commons in May, 1813, by a majority of 43. But while 
 the measure was going through its various stages. Catholic 
 opinion grew so violently hostile to certain clauses intro- 
 duced by Canning, which vested the right of veto in a 
 Commission of lay Catholic peers named by the Crown, that 
 in Committee the Speaker (Mr. Abbott), carried, by a majority 
 of 4, an amendment to omit from the Bill that vital 
 clause which opened Parliament to the Catholics. The 
 measure was immediately abandoned by its supporters, Grattan 
 declaring his intention of introducing it again at the next 
 opportunity.^ 
 
 This terrible blow, however, shattered the Catholic organiza- 
 
 1 1807— 1827. 
 
 2 Mr. Abbott quoted opinions of the Catholic clergy upon the Bill with 
 much effect : "Dr. Troy, the titular Archbishop of Dublin, has declared 
 that it contains provisions worse than the old veto. There is an Apostolic 
 Vicar of the See of Rome, Dr. Milner, in this kingdom, the accredited 
 agent for the Roman Catholics ; what does he say to it ? Why, that all 
 good Catholics should sooner lay down their lives than agree to it" 
 (May 24). 
 
INTRODUCTION, 17 
 
 tion. The Vetoists who had reckoned upon the passing 
 of the Bill and upon its ultimate acceptance by the Church 
 — Grattan coolly saying that if the episcopacy did not agree 
 to the Commission, the episcopacy must expire — attacked 
 the party of unconditional Emancipation with great vehemence. 
 The Catholic Board,^ torn with dissensions, ceased to be 
 a national centre of control and counsel, and the peasantry 
 lapsed into disorder and reckless crime. Then the Board 
 — all that remained of it after many secessions — was sup- 
 pressed by law, the Insurrection Act, which had been repealed 
 in 181 1, was renewed (1814), and so hopeless and so dis- 
 credited had the Catholic cause become, that in one year 
 from the date when it had all but touched victory, Grattan 
 refused even to renew the contest. 
 
 How turbulent and dangerous was the sea on which 
 Shelley embarked when he entered Irish politics, and how 
 little he could know of its currents and sunken rocks, 
 will be plain enough, even from the foregoing very brief 
 statement of the events which closely preceded and followed 
 his visit. But Catholic Emancipation was not the only 
 cause which he meant to assist in Ireland. The first public 
 meeting in favour of Repeal of the Union had been held 
 in 1 810. Shelley thought this object much more of a 
 good in itself than Emancipation, which latter he regarded as 
 more important for what it betokened than for what it could 
 practically effect. But whether mere Repeal without Emanci- 
 pation and without giving the Irish legislature a responsible 
 executive could have materially benefited Ireland is very doubt- 
 ful. Landlords in 18 12 were rapacious and unjust, but in 1785 
 the Attorney-General for Ireland had complained that they 
 were grinding their unhappy tenants to powder. Absenteeism 
 had probably increased since the Union, but it had been the 
 subject of many fruitless complaints in the Irish Parliament. 
 The national debt of Ireland had quadrupled, but its rate 
 
 ^ The body which conducted the agitation vice the Catholic Committee, 
 suppressed in accordance with the Conventions Act, shortly before Shelley's 
 visit in 1812. The Conventions Act forbade political assemblies in Ireland 
 of a delegated or representative character. It was repealed in 1879. 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of increase in the decade immediately preceding the Union 
 had been much more startHng.^ It might however be fairly 
 argued that even an exclusively Protestant Irish Parliament 
 must not only be better informed, but also in the long run 
 more amenable to Irish public opinion, than the Imperial 
 Parliament could possibly be. And the manner in which 
 Ireland was governed during the period in which Shelley's visit 
 fell, was such as to make almost any change seem desirable. 
 The true representatives of English rule, the irot/xci/cs Xawv, 
 were comprised in that single class which not only monopolized 
 the Parliamentary representation, but directly governed the 
 country, in one capacity as landlords, in another as local taxing 
 bodies (grand jurors), and in a third as magistrates. Of the 
 character of this governing class during the period with which 
 we are dealing there exists what must be supposed a faithful 
 account in a charge delivered to the grand jury of the County 
 Wexford in 1814,2 by a judge of assizes, Baron Fletcher, once 
 a Prosecutor for the Crown, and a man who had abundant 
 opportunities for informing himself as to the state of social 
 order, and the administration of justice, in every part of Ireland. 
 As this valuable historical document is now easily obtainable, it 
 will be enough to say here that Judge Fletcher, with an indigna- 
 tion which such causes did not often arouse on the Irish 
 Bench, charges the disorder which existed in the country on the 
 shameless extortions of the landlords ; on corrupt and fraudulent 
 grand jurors, who for the improvement of their private proper- 
 ties, and for the endowment of their relations with sinecures, 
 heaped mountains of taxation on the peasantry ; and on an 
 unjust, cruel, even mu7'derous magistracy. He had known cases, 
 he declared, in which the immense arbitrary powers committed 
 to it by the Coercion Acts of the day had been used to procure 
 the death of persons on whose lives depended leases which it 
 
 1 It is, however, only the figures of the last two or three years of inde- 
 pendence that make the growth of the national debt before the Union 
 seem abnormally rapid. And the expenditure of these years was owing to 
 the Rebellion, and to the corrupt means employed to pass the Union — both 
 properly chargeable to the English executive rather than to the Irish 
 legislature. The debt of 1800 was almost double that of 1799. 
 
 '^ Lately published as a pamphlet by the Irish Press Agency, with an 
 Introduction by Mr. J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 was desirable to terminate. Again and again had viceroys like 
 Fitzwilliam, and judges like Fox, endeavoured to cope with 
 this sordid tyranny ; and again and again England had doggedly 
 put them down. The English garrison in Ireland worked its 
 will under the shelter of a perpetual unwritten Act of Indemnity. 
 
 It now remains to tell as briefly as possibly what Shelley 
 meant to do in Ireland, and how he strove to do it. 
 
 On February 12th, 18 12, he, being then between nineteen and 
 twenty years of age, with his wife Harriet and her sister Eliza 
 Westbrook, reached Dublin, after a journey from some unknown 
 spot in the north of Ireland, whither his vessel had been driven 
 by a southerly gale. His Address to the Irish People was 
 already written. It contained, he wrote to Godwin before his 
 departure,^ "the benevolent and tolerant deductions of 
 philosophy reduced into the simplest language, and such as 
 those who by their uneducated poverty are most susceptible of 
 evil impressions from Catholicism may clearly comprehend." 
 It was meant to reach the masses — he at one time thought of 
 having it printed on broadsheets *' as Paine's works were, and 
 posted on the walls of Dublin." 2 "I have wilfully vulgarized 
 the language," he wrote to Godwin, ^ << in order to reduce the 
 remarks it contains to the taste and comprehension of the Irish 
 peasantry" — a most unfortunate endeavour, for Shelley could 
 not be Cobbett, and only succeeded in robbing his natural 
 style of much of its harmony and felicity. It was pubHshed 
 on February 24th, and although Shelley wrote a couple of days 
 later ^ that it had ** excited a sensation of wonder in Dublin," 
 it seems to have had absolutely no success. Shelley's methods of 
 getting his pamphlet into circulation were certainly likely 
 enough to excite sensations of wonder, and perhaps, too, of 
 ridicule, in those to whom apostolic ardour and faith are 
 ridiculous. No bookseller would dare to publish it — so 
 he wrote to a friend some months afterwards^ — and an 
 Irish servant was employed to distribute it by hand, while he 
 
 ^ January 28th, 181 2. 
 
 2 To Miss Kitchener, January 26th, l8i2. 
 
 ^ February 24th, 181 2. 
 
 * To Miss Kitchener, February 27th. 
 
 ' To Thomas Kookham, August i8th, 181 2. 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 himself stood in the balcony of his lodgings, (No. 7, Lower 
 Sackville St.,) watching the stream of passers : when a man 
 " who looked likely " ^ appeared among the crowd of common- 
 place figures, a copy of the gospel of philosophy descended 
 at his feet. ** We throw them out of window," wrote Harriet 
 to Miss Hitchener, " and give them to men that we pass in 
 the streets. For myself I am ready to die of laughter when it 
 is done, and Percy looks so grave. Yesterday he put one into 
 a woman's hood of a cloak ; she knew nothing of it and we 
 passed her. I could hardly get on, my muscles were so 
 irritated." 
 
 But Shelley did not trust to his pen alone. He spoke at an 
 important general meeting of the friends of Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion on February 28th, and spoke on the whole with success, 
 although certain references to the Catholic religion were received 
 by his audience with strong signs of disapproval. A few days 
 later his second Irish pamphlet. Proposals for an Association of 
 Philanthropists^ was published, and we find him in connection 
 with one Mr. Lawless, a well-known member of the Catholic 
 Board, meditating the establishment of a newspaper, and 
 preparing some chapters for a popular History of Ireland.^ 
 
 All this stir and energy made itself felt. Shelley had many 
 visitors, observed and weighed many minds, and studied Irish 
 opinion by private intercourse as well as in journals and 
 meetings. The results were deeply disappointing to him. 
 One class was "bigoted," another lost in petty party aims, another 
 blankly apathetic. Only among *' the remnant of the United 
 Irishmen " did he find spirits who seemed capable of being 
 anything but merely " oppositionist or ministerial." ^ With 
 men who were, or were to be, eminent, he had little communi- 
 cation. Godwin had introduced him to Curran, but from the 
 old lawyer he got nothing but invitations to dinner and 
 bon mots. He had spoken on the same platform with O'Connell, 
 but O'Connell, when questioned on the subject by McCarthy, 
 had no recollection whatever of Shelley or his doings. 
 
 ^ February 27th, in Shelley's last quoted letter to Miss Hitchener. 
 - Lawless's Competidium of Irish History. Shelley's intended contribu- 
 tions never appeared in print, however, and ha"ve disappeared. 
 ^ Letter to Miss Hitchener, February 27th. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 He had come to Ireland, be it observed, not mainly to 
 help in emancipating the Catholics or in repealing the Union, 
 but to use the moral energies aroused by these minor aims 
 for the attainment of a loftier one, for the advance of truth, 
 intellectual freedom, justice, benevolence. A people which 
 has so far risen above merely selfish and individual feeling as 
 to be united in devotion to some great public end, may be led, 
 thought Shelley, in the hour of its purifying passion, to embrace 
 a greater aim still, the greatest conceivable aim, that inward 
 spiritual reform without which all legislative reforms would 
 be vain and worthless. In the Ireland of 181 2 the right 
 conditions seemed to exist, and to Shelley, who had perfect 
 faith in his mission and confidence in his methods, the call of 
 duty was clear. The whole nation was to be organised for 
 the pursuit of virtue and light. Associations were to be 
 founded which might ultimately spread to England, and 
 perhaps farther still. Friends of truth and liberty should join 
 them, to encourage and illuminate each other by co-operation 
 and discussion, and to oppose a peaceful, constitutional 
 resistance to tyrannical governments. 
 
 The idea of association for purposes of " mutual safety and 
 mutual indemnification " had been advanced by Shelley a year 
 before in a letter to Leigh Hunt, and was doubtless suggested 
 to him by the Hunts' late Pyrrhic victories in the law-courts, 
 where they had had to pay *' about three hundred pounds for 
 being three times found innocent " ^ of seditious libel. The 
 principle has of course been since appHed with signal success 
 in Irish politics, but clearly it can only be applied for ends 
 desired by the persons who are to adopt it. It is therefore not 
 surprising that not one of Shelley's Associations ever got itself 
 formed. He can hardly be said to have had a gleam of success. 
 How could it have been otherwise ? He desired the emancipa- 
 tion of Catholics from their legal disabilities, but he avowedly 
 desired still more their emancipation from Catholicism, the 
 creed for which the nation had fought and suffered for three 
 centuries. He desired repeal of the Union, but the passionate 
 patriotism of the Irish must have seemed as mere a superstition 
 ^ Dowden, i. 112. 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to the disciple of Godwin as even their religion. And with the 
 *' openness and sincerity " which he declared to his friend Miss 
 Kitchener,^ should mark his " course of conduct in Ireland," 
 he made no secret of any part of his aims or views. Perhaps 
 he had no conception of the intensity of religious feeling there. 
 Certain passages of the Catholic petition of 1805,2 which con- 
 tradicted some of the accepted opinions of English and Irish 
 Protestants about the Catholic faith, may have encouraged him 
 to think that Catholicism in Ireland was breaking up. If he 
 did think so, it was of course an utter delusion. The odium 
 theologicum must have instantly put a stop to his career, if he 
 had ever got far enough to excite it. But his Proposals for an 
 Association of Philanthropists were not likely to take him even 
 so far. Ideas alone may win admirers, but only ideas in union 
 with a powerful personality can win disciples. And it is no 
 slight upon Shelley to say that he was incapable, at nineteen, 
 of inaugurating an epoch-making movement. At no time, 
 indeed, does he seem to have possessed that gift without 
 which no one can influence masses of men to action — the gift 
 of placing himself with imaginative sympathy in the attitude of 
 other and otherwise-constituted minds. 
 
 Shelley could not but have been discouraged at the result of 
 efforts from which he had hoped so much, but there was yet 
 another cause of discouragement. Godwin had condemned 
 in the strongest manner his methods of serving their 
 common cause in Ireland. The idea of organised associations 
 was abhorrent to Godwin, from the " unnatural unanimity " of 
 
 1 Letter of February 14th, 1812. 
 
 2 "Catholics," declared this petition, "reject and detest, as unchristian 
 and impious to believe, that it is lawful in any way to injure any person or 
 persons whatever, under pretence of their being heretics . . . believe that 
 no act, in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused 
 by, or under pretence or colour, that it was done for the good of the Church, 
 or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever, and it is not an article 
 of the Catholic Faith ; neither are they thereby required to believe or 
 profess that the Pope is infallible, or that they are bound to obey any 
 order, in its own nature immoral, though the Pope, or any ecclesiastical 
 power, should issue or direct any such order, but that on the contrary, they 
 hold that it would be sinful in them to pay any respect or obedience 
 thereto ; that they do not believe that any sin whatsoever committed by 
 them can be forgiven at the mere will of any Pope, or of any Priest, or of 
 any person or persons whatsoever." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 opinion they tended to produce. Further, he foresaw that in 
 Ireland such associations would soon be transformed into 
 so many insurrectionary clubs, and both he and Shelley were 
 agreed in absolutely condemning the idea of armed resistance 
 to oppression. The refusal of the Irish to associate themselves 
 for the pursuit of virtue and the overthrow of the Catholic 
 Church was probably easier for Shelley to bear than his 
 master's uncompromising hostility to the proposal that they 
 should associate themselves at all. " Shelley," he wrote, " you 
 are preparing a scene of blood " ; and Shelley, though at first he 
 argued strenuously in favour of his cherished project, at last 
 yielded, partly to Godwin's insistence, partly to the logic of 
 facts. " I have withdrawn from circulation," he wrote to Godwin 
 on March i8th, ** the publications wherein I have erred, and 
 am preparing to leave Dubhn." His departure, though saddened 
 by the sense of failure, was probably not much hastened by it, 
 for on January 28th ^ he had spoken of his hope of finding 
 "some romantic spot" in Wales wherein to receive Miss 
 Hitchener, and perhaps Godwin with his family, in the summer. 
 And in the letter to Miss Hitchener written when his pamphlet 
 had only been a couple of days before the world, he had 
 announced his intention of leaving DubHn ** at the end of 
 April." He actually did leave on April 4th, never to see Ire- 
 land again except for a brief visit to the south in the spring 
 of the following year, — a visit totally devoid of political or 
 propagandist motive. 
 
 There is little in the Address to the Irish People that calls 
 for further comment or elucidation than has already been 
 incidentally given in the course of this Introduction. The 
 drift of it is clear enough. Catholic Emancipation is good — 
 Repeal of the Union is good — Shelley was not one of those 
 Englishmen whose best and sincerest efforts for our welfare are 
 tragically marred by the assumption that while anything may 
 be done for Ireland, Ireland can be allowed to do nothing for 
 herself. But better than Emancipation, better than Repeal, is 
 the reform which every man can at once inaugurate in his own 
 spirit — the cause of truth, justice, temperance, benevolence, to 
 ^ To Godwin, from Keswick (Dowden, i. 231). 
 
24 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 which he can give at least one convert. He thought the Irish 
 " a noble nation," and according to his lights, which surely 
 were not altogether darkness, he laboured ardently for its 
 highest interests. His Association of Philanthropists came to 
 nothing, but let us not suppose that so much noble effort was 
 wholly wasted. Shelley's missionary visit of seven weeks has 
 impressed the imagination even of Irishmen who, Hke Mr. 
 D. F. McCarthy, differed from him most strongly in some 
 important conclusions and objects. Nor is it only men of 
 letters who have found something significant and memorable in 
 Shelley's Irish journey. The present writer remembers to have 
 heard the late Mr. P. J. Smyth win the enthusiastic applause 
 of a hostile and turbulent audience by the singularly moving 
 eloquence with which he described that brief visit to our 
 shores, some seventy years before, of " a youth of marvellous 
 genius," the herald of England's better mind. 
 
 T. W. R. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 AND LIST OF ERRATA. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, Etc. 
 
 An Address to the Irish People is a demy octavo 
 pamphlet of twenty-four pages, " stabbed," and without 
 wrappers ; consisting of Title-page (as given here 
 following in exact type-facsimile), with blank reverse, 
 pp. i.-ii. ; Text of the Address, pp. 1-20 ; and Postscript, 
 pp. 21-22.^ T)\Q Address is dated from ''No. J Lower 
 Sackville Street, Feb, 22," and the pamphlet itself 
 was published two days later. A full account of 
 the genesis of this, one of the most interesting 
 pieces of Shelleyian Juvenilia, will be found in Mr. 
 Denis Florence Mc-Carthy's Shelley s Early Life 
 [London, Hotten, 1872] ; where the most original 
 and amusing methods adopted by Shelley for dis- 
 tributing his pamphlet, and assuring it as wide a 
 circulation as possible, are related in minute detail. 
 
 From all accounts Shelley appears to have had 
 his Address complete in manuscript before leaving 
 England to embark upon his Irish campaign, and 
 almost immediately upon his arrival in Dublin it 
 was put to press and produced with the utmost 
 
 * This Postscript is wanting in the copy preserved in the British 
 Museum. 
 
28 
 
 speed. As a natural consequence the pamphlet was 
 roughly and coarsely printed, and abounds in typo- 
 graphical errors, as a glance at the following list of 
 Errata will show. Although nominally published at 
 the price of Five-pence it is probable that very few 
 copies were actually sold. The brochure has now 
 become of extreme scarcity, and but very few 
 examples are known to be extant to-day. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 2, line 2, {or feelings xt2A feeling. 
 
 ,, 2, ,, 28, iox prefers^ x^zA profess. 
 
 ,, 2, ,, 2>^, iox impudently f re2idi impudent. 
 
 ,, 4, ,, 14, delete the a at the close of the line. 
 
 ,, 5, ,, 3, for merit on me, read merit in me. 
 
 ,, 5, ,, 31, delete the w^ before >/^/. 
 
 »» 5» j> 34» for ^^^^ ^'V^*' heard of read were ever heard of 
 
 ,, 6, ,, 20, for the full point after contend, read a note of interrogation. 
 
 ,, 6, ,, 30, for and, read and. 
 
 ,, 7, ,, 23, for the comma Siitex good, read a full point. 
 
 ,, 8 ,, 3, insert a full point after dlush. 
 
 ,, 8, ,, ^, {or violenee, xQzd violence. 
 
 ,, 8, ,, 30, for cooly, read coolly. 
 
 „ 8, ,, 45, for the comma after days, insert a full point. 
 
 ,, 9, ,, 41, for /^c'j^^m/^, we should probably read /(?rj-^^«/^. 
 
 ,, 9, last line, for others read others\ 
 
 „ 10, ,, 44, delete the note of interrogation after spread. 
 
 ,, 10, ,, 47, for so they begin, read do they begin, 
 
 ,, 12, ,, 51, delete the comma after M^r^. 
 
 ,, 14, „ qS>, {or next impossible, XQ.2A next to impossible. 
 
29 
 
 Pa<Te 14, line 34, for nnaccnstomed, read unaccustomed. 
 H» M 5°» ^°^ ^'^ ^"^ aim, read /j ^wr azw. 
 15, ,, \\, iox as so much, read is so much. 
 I5> >> I5> fo'^ -^^^ ^^'^'^ the greatest, read //ax ^t^^r the greatest. 
 IS» >> 19, insert a comma after /;7'«<rz/>/?j. 
 15, ,, 25, delete the who after argu?nents. 
 15, ,, 30, for Europe the World, read Europe, World. 
 I5> >» 39> for ^'^'^'^ ^'^ discussing, read Ma« ^«<? discussing. 
 15, ,, 42, for influence a force, read influence on force. 
 I5> >> 50j for /Z*?/^ ^/^Mr shame, read ^/^/;y /w ^'^z^r shame. 
 
 15, last line, for check, read cheek. 
 15 ,, ,, delete the i« after ^«r«. 
 
 16, line 8, for the full point after safety, insert a note of interrogation. 
 16, ,, 43, for their are none, read there are none. 
 16, ,, 44, for that their are, read that there are. 
 18, ,, 17, for as to see, read as not to see. 
 
 18, ,, 40, iox ytiu, read you. 
 
 19, ,, 2, for vitiate, read vibrate. 
 19, ,, 12, for imcompetent, read incompetent. 
 I9> >» I3> insert a space between ///^ and abuses. 
 I9j m I7> for inroduction, read introduction. 
 19, ,, 18, for millenium, read millennium. 
 19, ,, 22, for «/^« read ?^/^«. 
 I9> >> 34> ioT philanthrophy, x^zA philanthropy . 
 ^^Qj >> 36, for i7«f, read one. , 
 I9> >> Zli^^"^ P^'''^(''''^th't'ophy,x&2A philanthropy. 
 19, last line, for the full point after while^ insert a note of interrogation. 
 21, line 1$, ior philanthrophy, read philanthropy. 
 
 21, „ 34, delete the to at the close of the line. 
 
 22, last line, insert *' turned commas " at the end of the paragraph. 
 
 T. J. WISE. 
 
An ADDRESS, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 IRISH PEOPLE, 
 
 Bv PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 T^e lomjest possible price is set on tMs publication, because it is the intention of 
 the Author to a^waken in the minds of the Irish poor^ a knonvledge of their 
 real state, summarily pointing out the e^ils of that state, and suggesting 
 rational means of remedy. — Catholic Emancipation, and a Repeal of the 
 Union Act, (the latter, the most successful engine that England e<ver nxjielded 
 o'ver the misery of fallen Ireland,^ being treated of in the foUowoing address, 
 as grienjances n^hich unanimity and resolution may remo<ve, and associations 
 conducted <with peaceable firmness, being earnestly recommended, as means 
 for embodying that unanimity and firmness^ luhick must finally be successful. 
 
 ©ublin 
 
 1812. 
 
 Price—'Qd, 
 
AN ADDRESS, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 IRISH PEOPLE. 
 
 Fellow Men, 
 I am not an Irishman, yet I can feel for you. I hope there are none 
 among you who will read this address with prejudice or levity, because it 
 is made by an Englishman, indeed, I believe there are not. The Irish are 
 a brave nation. They have a heart of liberty in their breasts, but they are 
 much mistaken if they fancy that a stranger cannot have as warm a one. 
 Those are my brothers and my countrymen, who are unfortunate. I should 
 like to know what there is in a man being an Englishman, a Spaniard, or 
 a Frenchman, that makes him worse or better than he really is. He was 
 born in one town, you in another, but that is no reason why he should not 
 feel for you, desire your benefit, or be willing to give you some advice, 
 which may make you more capable of knowing your own interest, or acting 
 so as to secure it. — There are many Englishmen who cry down the Irish, 
 and think it answers their ends to revile all that belongs to Ireland ; but it 
 is not because these men are Englishmen that they maintain such opinions, 
 but because they wish to get money, and titles, and power. They would act 
 in this manner to whatever country they might belong, until mankind is much 
 altered for the better, which reform, I hope, will one day be effected. — I 
 address you then, as my brothers and my fellow-men, for I should wish to 
 see the Irishman who, if England was persecuted as Ireland is, who, if 
 France was persecuted as Ireland is, who, if any set of men that helped to 
 do a public service were prevented from enjoying its benefits as Irishmen 
 are — I should like to see the man, I say, who would see these misfortunes, 
 and not attempt to succour the sufferers when he could, just that I might 
 tell him that he was no Irishman, but some bastard mongrel bred up in a 
 court, or some coward fool who was a democrat to all above him, and an 
 aristocrat to all below him. I think there are few true Irishmen who would 
 not be ashamed of such a character, still fewer who possess it. I know 
 that there are some, not among you my friends, but among your enemies, 
 who seeing the title of this piece, will take it up with a sort of hope that 
 it may recommend violent measures, and thereby disgrace the cause of 
 freedom, that the warmth of an heart desirous that liberty should be 
 possessed equally by all, will vent itself in abuse on the enemies of liberty, 
 bad men who deserve the contempt of the good, and ought not to excite 
 
their indignation to the harm of their cause. But these men will be dis- 
 appointed — I know the warm feelings of an Irishman sometimes carries 
 him beyond the point of prudence. I do not desire to root out, but to mode- 
 rate this honorable warmth. This will disappoint the pioneers of oppression 
 and they will be sorry, that through this address nothing will occur which 
 can be twisted into any other meaning but what is calculated to fill you 
 with that moderation which they have not, and make you give them that 
 toleration which they refuse to grant to you. — You profess the Roman 
 Catholic religion which your fathers professed before you. Whether it is 
 the best relio-ion or not, I will not here inquire : all religions are good 
 which make men good j and the way that a person ought to prove that his 
 method of worshipping God is best, is for himself to be better than all 
 /)( other men. But we will consider what your religion was in old times and 
 what it is now : you may say it is not a fair way for me to proceed as a 
 Protestant, but I am not a Protestant, nor am I a Catholic, a.id therefore 
 not being a follower of either of these religions, I am better able to judge 
 between them. A Protestant Is my brother, and a Catholic Is my brother, 
 I am happy when I can do either of them a service, and no pleasure is so 
 great to me than that which I should feel If my advice could make men of 
 any professions of faith, wiser, better and happier. 
 
 The Roman Catholics once persecuted the Protestants, the Protestants 
 now persecute the Roman Catholics — should we think that one is as bad as 
 the other ? No, you are not answerable for the faults of your fathers any 
 more than the Protestants are good for the goodness of their fathers. I 
 must judge of people as I see them j the Irish Catholics are badly used. I 
 will not endeavour to hide from them their wretchedness ; they would think 
 that I mocked at them if I should make the attempt. The Irish Catholics 
 now demand for themselves, and profers for others unlimited toleration, 
 and the sensible part among them, which I am willing to think constitutes 
 a very large portion of their body, know that the gates of Heaven are 
 Hopen to people of every religion, provided they are good. But the Pro- 
 testants, although they may think so in their hearts, which certainly, if 
 they think at all they must seem to act as if they thought that God was better 
 pleased with them than with you, they trust the reins of earthly government 
 only to the hands of their own sect ,- In spite of this, I never found one 
 of them Impudently enough to say that a Roman Catholic, or a Quaker, or 
 a Jew, or a Mahometan, if he was a virtuous man, and did all the good in 
 his power, would go to Heaven a bit the slower for not subscribing to the 
 jfthirty-nine articles — and if he should say so, how ridiculous In a foppish 
 courtier not six feet high to direct the spirit of universal harmony, in what 
 manner to conduct the affairs of the universe ! 
 
 The Protestants say that there was a time when the Roman Catholics 
 burnt and murdered people of different sentiments, and that their religious 
 tenets are now as they were then. This is all very true. You certainly 
 worship God in the same way that you did when those barbarities took 
 place, but is that any reason that you should now be barbarous. There is 
 as much reason to suppose it, as to suppose that because a man's great- 
 grandfather, who was a Jew, had been hung for sheep-stealing, that I, by- 
 believing the same religion as he did, must certainly commit the same crime. 
 Let us then see what the Roman Catholic religion has been. — No one knows 
 much of the early times of the Christian religion, until about three hundred 
 years after Its beginning, two great churches called the Roman and the 
 Greek churches divided the opinions of men. They fought for a very long 
 time, a great many words were wasted and a great deal of blood shed.. 
 
This as you may suppose did no good. Each party however, thought 
 they were doing God a service, and that he would reward them. If they 
 had looked an inch before their noses they might have found that fighting 
 and killing men, and cursing them and hating them, was the very worst 
 A way for getting into favor with a Being who Is allowed by all to be best 
 ^ pleased with deeds of love and charity. At last, however, these two 
 Religions entirely separated, and the Popes reigned like Kings and Bishops 
 at Rome, in Italy. The inquisition was set up, and in the course of one 
 year thirty thousand people were burnt in Italy and Spain, for entertaining 
 different opinions from those of the Pope and the Priests. There was an 
 instance of shocking barbarity which the Roman Catholic Clergy committed 
 in France by order of the Pope. The bigotted Monks of that country, in 
 cold blood, in one night massacred 80,000 Protestants j this was done 
 under the authority of the Pope, and there was only one Roman Catholic 
 Bishop who had virtue enough to refuse to help. The vices of Monks and 
 Nuns in their Convents were in those times shameful, people thought that 
 they might commit any sin, however monstrous, if they had money 
 enough to prevail upon the Priests to absolve them j in truth, at that time 
 the Priests shamefully imposed upon the people, they got all the power into 
 their own hands, they persuaded them that a man could not be entrusted 
 with the care of his own soul, and by cunningly obtaining possession of 
 their secrets, they became more powerful than Kings, Princes, Dukes, 
 Lords, or Ministers : this power made them bad men ; for although rational 
 people are very good in their natural state, there are now, and ever have 
 been very few whose good dispositions despotic power does not destroy. I 
 have now given a fair description of what your religion was ; and Irishmen 
 my brothers ! will you make your friend appear a liar, when he takes 
 upon himself to say for you, that you are not now what the professors of 
 the same faith were in times of yore. Do I speak false when I say that 
 ^ the inquisition is the object of your hatred ? Am I a liar if I assert that 
 an Irishman prizes liberty dearly, that he will preserve that right, and 
 if he be wrong, does not dream that money given to a Priest, or the 
 talking of another man erring like himself, can in the least influence 
 the judgement of the eternal God ? — I am not a liar if I affirm in 
 your name, that you believe a Protestant equally with yourself to be 
 worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, if he be equally virtuous, that you will 
 treat men as brethren wherever you may find them, and that difference of 
 opinion in religious matters, shall not, does not in the least on your part, 
 obstruct the most perfect harmony on every other subject. — Ah ! no, Irish- 
 men, I am not a liar. I seek your confidence, not that I may betray it, 
 but that I may teach you to be happy, and wise, and good. If you will 
 not repose any trust in me I shall lament, but I will do every thing in my 
 power that is honorable, fair, and open, to gain it. Some teach 
 you that others are heretics, that you alone are right ,• some teach that 
 rectitude consists in religious opinions, without which no morality is good, 
 some will tell you that you ought to divulge your secrets to one particular set 
 of men 5 beware my friends how you trust those who speak in this way. 
 They will, I doubt not, attempt to rescue you from your present miserable 
 state, but they will prepare a worse. It will be out of the frying-pan into 
 the fire. Your present oppressors it is true, will then oppress you no 
 longer, but you will feel the lash of a master a thousand times more 
 blood-thirsty and cruel. Evil designing men will spring up who will 
 
 t prevent your thinking as you please, will burn you if you do not think as 
 
The Monks and the Priests of old were very bad men ; take care no such 
 abuse your confidence again. You are not blind to your present situation, 
 you are villainously treated, you are badly used. That this slavery shall 
 cease, I will venture to prophesy. Your enemies dare not to persecute 
 you longer, the spirit of Ireland is bent, but it is not broken, and that I 
 they very well know. But I wish your views to embrace a wider scene, 
 I wish you to think for your children and your children's children ; to 
 take great care (for it all rests with you) that whilst one tyranny is destroyed 
 another more fierce and terrible does not spring up. Take care then of 
 smooth-faced impostors, who talk indeed of freedom, but who will cheat 
 you into slavery. Can there be worse slavery than the depending for the safety 
 of your soul on the will of another man ? Is one man more favored than another 
 by God. No, certainly, they are all favored according to the good they 
 do, and not according to the rank and profession they hold. God values a 
 a poor man as much as a Priest, and has given him a soul as much to 
 himself j the worship that a kind Being must love, is that of a simple 
 affectionate heart, that shews its piety in good works, and not in ceremonies, 
 or confessions, or burials, or processions, or wonders. Take care then, 
 that you are not led away. Doubt every thing that leads you not to 
 charity, and think of the word " heretic " as a word which some selfish 
 knave invented for the ruin and misery of the world, to answer his own 
 paltry and narrow ambition. Do not inquire if a man be a heretic, if he 
 be a Quaker, or a Jew, or a Heathen ; but if he be a virtuous man, if 
 he loves liberty and truth, if he wish the happiness and peace of human i 
 kind. If a man be ever so much a believer and love not these things, he is 
 a heartless hypocrite, a rascal, and a knave. Despise and hate him, as ye 
 despise a tyrant and a villain. Oh ! Ireland, thou emerald of the ocean, 
 whose sons are generous and brave, whose daughters are honorable, and 
 frank, and fair ; thou art the isle on whose green shores I have desired to 
 see the standard of liberty erected, a flag of fire, a beacon at which the 
 world shall light the torch of Freedom ! 
 
 We will now examine the Protestant Religion. Its origin is called the 
 if Reformation. It was undertaken by some bigotted men, who showed how 
 little they understood the spirit of Reform, by burning each other. You 
 will observe that these men burnt each other, indeed they universally be- 
 trayed a taste for destroying, and vied with the chiefs of the Roman 
 Catholic Religion, in not only hating their enemies, but those men, who 
 least of all were their enemies, or any body's enemies. Now, do the 
 Protestants, or do they not hold the same tenets as they did when Calvin 
 burnt Servetus, they swear that they do. We can have no better proof. 
 Then with what face can the Protestants object to Catholic Emancipation, 
 on the plea that Catholics once were barbarous ,• when their own establish- 
 ment is liable to the very same objections, on the very same grounds ? I 
 think this is a specimen of bare-faced intoleration, which I had hoped 
 would not have disgraced this age j this age, which is called the age of 
 reason, of thought diffused, of virtue acknowledged, and its principles 
 fixed. — Oh ! that it may be so, — I have mentioned the Catholic and Pro- 
 testant Religions more to shew that any objection to the toleration of the 
 one forcibly applies to the non-permission of the other, or rather to shew 
 that there is no reason why both might not be tolerated, why every Religion, 
 every form of thinking might not be tolerated. — But why do I speak of 
 toleration ? This word seems to mean that there is some merit in the person 
 who tolerates, he has this merit if it be one, of refraining to do an evil 
 act, but he will share the merit with every other peaceable person who 
 
pursues his own business, and does not hinder another of his rights. It 
 is not a merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant : it is not a 
 merit on me that I sat quietly at home without murdering any one, but it 
 is a crime if I do so. Besides no act of a National representation 
 can make any thing wrong, which was not wrong before ; it cannot change 
 virtue and truth, and for a very plain reason } because they are unchange- 
 able. An act passed in the British Parliament to take away the rights < 
 of Catholics to act in that assembly, does not really take them away. It 
 prevents them from doing it by force. This is in such cases, the last and 
 only efficacious way. But force is not the test of truth ; they will ne- 
 ver have recourse to violence who acknowledge no other rule of behaviour 
 but virtue and justice. 
 
 The folly of persecuting men for their religion will appear if we exa- 
 mine it. Why do we persecute them ? to make them believe as we do. Can I 
 any thing be more barbarous or foolish. — For although we may make them I 
 say they believe as we do, they will not in their hearts do any such thing, i 
 indeed they cannot, this develish method can only make them false hypo- ( 
 crites. For what is belief? We cannot believe just what we like, but ' 
 only what we think to be true ; for you cannot alter a man's opinion by » 
 beating or burning, but by persuading him that what you think is right, ' 
 and this can only be done by fair words and reason. It is ridiculous to 
 call a man a heretic, because he thinks differently from you, he might as 
 well call you one. In the same sense, the word orthodox is used, it sig- 
 nifies " to think rightly " and what can be more vain and presumptuous iii 
 any man or any set of men, to put themselves so out of the ordinary course 
 of things as to say — " What we think is right, no other people throughout 
 the world have opinions any thing like equal to ours.'"' Any thing short of 
 unlimited toleration, and complete charity with all men, on which you 
 will recollect that Jesus Christ principally insisted, is wrong, and for this 
 reason — what makes a man to be a good man ? not his religion, or else 
 there could be no good rrien in any religion but one, when we yet we find 
 that all ages, countries, and opinions have produced them. Virtue and 
 wisdom always so far as they went produced liberty or happiness long be- 
 fore any of the religions now in the world have ever heard of. The only t 
 use of a religion that ever I could see, is to make men wiser or better, so far , 
 as it does this, it is a good one. Now if people are good, and yet have 
 sentiments differing from you, then all the purposes are answered, which 
 any reasonable man could want, and whether he thinks like you or not, 
 is of too little consequence to employ means which must be disgusting and 
 hateful to candid minds, nay they cannot approve of such means. For as 
 I have before said you cannot believe or disbelieve what you like — perhaps 
 some of you may doubt this, but just try — I will take a common and fa- 
 miliar instance. Suppose you have a friend of whom you wish to think 
 well, he commits a crime, which proves to you that he is a bad man. It 
 is very painful to you to think ill of him, and you would still think well 
 of him if you could. But mark the word, you cmmot think well of him, ' 
 not even to secure your own peace of mind can you do so. You try, but 
 your attempts are vain. This shews how little power a man has over his be- I 
 lief, or rather, that he cannot believe what he does not think true. And 
 what shall we think now ? What fools and tyrants must not those men » 
 be, who set up a particular religion, say that this religion alone is right, 
 and that every one who disbelieves it, ought to be deprived of certain rights 
 which arc really his, and which would be allowed him if he believed. 
 Certainly, if you cannot help disbelief, it is not any fault in you. — To take 
 
r 
 
 away a man's rights and privileges, to call him a heretic or to think 
 worse of him, when at the same time you cannot help owning that he has 
 committed no fault, is the grossest tyranny and intoleration. From what 
 has been said I think we may be justified in concluding, that people of all re- 
 ligions ought to have an equal share in the state, that the words heretic and 
 orthodox were invented by a vain villain, and have done a great deal of 
 harm in the world, and that no person is answerable for his belief whose ac- < 
 tions are virtuous and moral, that the religion is best whose members are 
 the best men, and that no person can help either his belief or disbelief. — j 
 Be in charity with all men. It does not therefore, signify what your 
 Religion was^ or what the Protestant Religion was, we must consider 
 them as we find them. What are they now f Yours is not intolerant, 
 indeed my friends I have ventured to pledge myself for you that it is not. 
 You merely desire to go to Heaven, in your own way, nor will you 
 interrupt fellow travellers, although the road which you take may not be 
 that which they take. Believe me, that goodness of heart and purity of 
 life are tUngs of more value in the eye of the Spirit of Goodness, than 
 idle earthly ceremonies, and things which have any thing but charity for 
 their object. And is it for the first or the last of these things that you or 
 the Protestants contend. It is for the last. Prejudiced people indeed, are 
 they who grudge to the happiness and comfort of your souls, things which 
 can do harm to no one. They are not compelled to share in these rites. 
 Irishmen j knowledge is more extended than in the early period of your 
 religion, people have learned to think, and the more thought there is in the 
 world, the more happiness and liberty will there be: — men begin now to 
 think less of idle ceremonies, and more of realities. From a long night 
 have they risen, and they can perceive its darkness. I know no men of 
 thought and learning who do not consider the Catholic idea of purgatory, ' 
 much nearer the truth than the Protestant one of eternal damnation. Can 
 you think that the Mahometans aud the Indians, who have done good 
 deeds in this life, will not be rewarded in the next. The Protestants believe 
 that they will be eternally damned — at least they swear that they do. — I 
 think they appear in a better light as perjurers, than believers in a falsehood 
 so hateful and uncharitable as this. — I propose unlimited toleration, or 
 rather the destruction, both of toleration and intoleration. The act permits 
 certain people to worship God after such a manner, which, in fact, if not 
 done, would as far as in it lay prevent God from hearing their address. 
 Can we conceive any thing more presumptuous, and at the same time more 
 ridiculous, than a set of men granting a license to God to receive the 
 prayers of certain of his creatures. Oh Irishmen ! I am interested in 
 your cause j and it is not because you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics, 
 that I feel with you and feel for you ; but because you are men and 
 sufferers. Were Ireland at this moment, peopled with Brahmins, this very 
 same address would have been suggested by the same state of mind. You 
 have suffered not merely for your religion, but some other causes which I 
 am equally desirous of remedying. The Union of England with Ireland 
 has withdrawn the Protestant aristocracy, and gentry from their native 
 country, and with these their friends and connections. Their resources are 
 taken from this country, although they are dissipated in another ; the very 
 poor people are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden which the 
 superior ranks lay upon their shoulders. I am no less desirous of the 
 reform of these evils (with many others) than for the Catholic Emancipation. 
 Perhaps you all agree with me on both these subjects, we now come to the 
 method of doing these things. .1 agree with the Quakers so far as they 
 
disclaim violence, and trust their cause wholly and solely to its own truth. — 
 If you are convinced of the truth of your cause, trust wholly to its truth j 
 if you are not convinced, give it up. In no case employ violence, the way \ 
 to liberty and happiness is never to transgress the rules of virtue and justice. / 
 Liberty and happiness are founded upon virtue and justice, if you destroy the 
 one, you destroy the other. However ill others may act, this will be no 
 excuse for you if you follow their example ; it ought rather to warn you 
 from pursuing so bad a method. Depend upon it, Irishmen, your cause 
 shall not be neglected. I will fondly hope, that the schemes for your happi- 
 ness and liberty, as well as those for the happiness and liberty of the world, 
 will not be wholly fruitless. One secure method of defeating them is vio- 
 lence on the side of the injured party. If you can descend to use the same 
 weapons as your enemy, you put yourself on a level with him on this score, 
 you must be convinced that he is en these grounds your superior. But appeal 
 to the sacred principles of virtue and justice, then how is he awed into no- 
 thing ? how does truth shew him in his real colours, and place the cause of 
 toleration and reform in the clearest light. I extend my view not only to you 
 as Irishmen, but to all of every persuasion, of every country. Be calm, mild, 
 deliberate, patient ; recollect that you can in no measure more effectually for- 
 ward the cause of reform than by employing your leisure time in reasoning, or 
 the cultivation of your minds. Think and talk, and discuss. The only sub- 
 jects you ought to propose , are those of happiness and liberty. Be free and be 
 happy, but first be wise and good. For you are notTairwise or good, You are 
 a great and a brave nation, but you cannot yet be all wise or good. You may 
 be at some time, and then Ireland will be an earthly Paradise. You know 
 what is meant by a mob, it is an assembly of people who without foresight 
 or thought, collect themselves to disapprove of by force any measure which 
 they dislike. An assembly like this can never do any thing but harm, tu- 
 multuous proceedings must retard the period when thought and coolness 
 will produce freedom and happiness, and that to the very people who make 
 the mob, but if a number of human beings, after thinking of their own 
 interests, meet together for any conversation on them, and employ resist- 
 ance of the mind, not resistance of the body, these people are going the 
 right way to work. But let no fiery passions carry them beyond this 
 point, let them consider that in some sense, the whole welfare of their 
 countrymen depends on their prudence, and that it becomes them to guard 
 the welfare of others as their own. Associations for purposes of violence, 
 are entitled to the strongest disapprobation of the real reformist. Always 
 suspect that some knavish rascal is at the bottom of things of this kind, 
 waiting to profit by the confusion. All secret associations are also bad. 
 Are you men of deep designs, whose deeds love darkness better than light j 
 dare you not say what you think before any man, can you not meet in the 
 open face of day in conscious innocence ? Oh, Irishmen ye can. Hidden 
 arras, secret meetings and designs, violently to separate England from Ire- 
 land, are all very bad. I do not mean to say the very end of them is bad, 
 the object you have in view may be just enough, whilst the way you go 
 about it is wrong, may be calculated to produce an opposite effect. Never 
 do evil that good may come, always think of others as well as yourself, and 
 cautiously look how your conduct may do good or evil, when you yourself 
 shall be mouldering in the grave. Be fair, open, and you will be terrible to 
 ^our enemies. A friend cannot defend you, much as he may feel for your 
 sufferings, if you have recourse to methods of which virtue and justice dis- 
 ajjprove. No cause is in itself so dear to liberty as yours. Much depends on 
 
8 
 
 you, far may your efforts spread, either hope or despair j do not then 
 cover in darkness wrongs at which the face of day, and the tyrants who 
 bask in its warmth ought to blush Wherever has violence succeeded. 
 The French Revolution, although undertaken with the best intentions, 
 ended ill for the people ; because violence was employed, the cause which 
 they vindicated was that of truth, but they gave it the appearance of a lie, 
 by using methods which will suit the purposes of liars as well as their 
 own. Speak boldly and daringly what you think j an Irishman was never 
 accused of cowardice, do not let it be thought possible that he is a coward. 
 Let him say what he thinks, a lie is the basest and meanest employment 
 of men, leave lies and secrets to courtiers and lordlings ; be open, sincere, 
 and single hearted. Let it be seen that the Irish votaries of Freedom dare 
 to speak what they think, let them resist oppression, not by force of arms, 
 but by power of mind, and reliance on truth and justice. Will any be 
 arraigned for libel — will imprisonment or death be the consequences of this 
 mode of proceeding : probably not — but if it were so ? Is danger frightful 
 to an Irishman who speaks for his own liberty, and the liberty of his wife 
 and children : — No, he will steadily persevere, and sooner shall pensioners 
 cease to vote with their benefactors, than an Irishman swerve from 
 the path of duty. But steadily persevere in the system above laid 
 down, its benefits will speedily be manifested. Persecution may destroy 
 some, but cannot destroy all, or nearly all ; let it do its will, ye have 
 appealed to truth and justice — shew the goodness of your religion by 
 persisting in a reliance on these things, which must be the rules even of 
 the Almighty's conduct. But before this can be done with any effect, 
 habits of SOBRIETY, REGULARITY, and THOUGHT, must be 
 entered into, and firmly resolved upon. 
 
 My warm-hearted friends, who meet together to talk of the distresses 
 of your countrymen, until social chat induces you to drink rather freely j 
 as ye have felt passionately, so reason cooly. Nothing hasty can be 
 lasting ; lay up the money with which you usually purchase drunkenness 
 and ill-health, to relieve the pains of your fellow-sufferers. Let your 
 children lisp of Freedom in the cradle — let your death-bed be the school 
 for fresh exertions — let every street of the city, and field of the country, 
 be connected with thoughts, which liberty has made holy. Be warm in 
 your cause, yet rational, and charitable, and tolerant — never let the 
 oppressor grind you into justifying his conduct by imitating his meanness. 
 
 Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what is called rebellion, 
 but no circumstances can ever make it good for your cause, and however 
 honourable to your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judgments. It 
 will bind you more closely to the block of the oppressor, and your children's 
 children, whilst they talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done them 
 injury, instead of benefit. 
 
 A crisis is now arriving, which shall decide your fate. The king of 
 Great Britain has arrived at the evening of his days, He has objected to 
 your emancipation 5 he has been inimical to you ; but he will in a certain 
 time be no more. The present Prince of Wales will then be king. It is 
 said that he has promised to restore you to freedom : your real and natural 
 right will, in that case, be no longer kept from you. I hope he has pledged 
 himself to this act of justice, because there will then exist some obligation 
 to bind him to do right. Kings are but too apt to think little as they 
 should do : they think every thing in the world is made for them ; when the 
 truth is, that it is only the vices of men that make such people necessary, 
 and they have no other right of being ki 
 
The benefit of the governed is the origin and meaning of government. The 
 Prince of Wales has had every opportunity of knowing how he ought to act 
 about Ireland and liberty. That great and good man, Charles Fox, who was 
 your friend, and the friend of freedom, was the friend of the Prince of 
 Wales. He never flattered or disguised his sentiments, but spoke them 
 openly on every occasion, and the Prince was the better for his instructive 
 conversation. He saw the truth, and he believed it. Now I know not what 
 to say j his staff is gone, and he leans upon a broken reed ; his pre- 
 sent advisers are not like Charles Fox, they do not plan for liberty and 
 safety, not for the happiness but for the glory of their country ; and what. 
 Irishmen, is the glory of a country divided from their happiness ? it is a 
 false light hung out by the enemies of freedom to lure the unthinking into 
 their net. Men like these surround the Prince, and whether or no he has 
 really promised to emancipate you, whether or no he will consider the pro- 
 mise of a Prince of Wales binding to a King of England, is yet a matter 
 of doubt. We cannot at least be quite certain of it : on this you cannot 
 certainly rely. But there are men who, wherever they find a tendency to 
 
 (freedom, go there to increase, support, and regulate that tendency. These 
 men who join to a rational disdain of danger, a practice of speaking the 
 truth, and defending the cause of the oppressed against the oppressor j these 
 men see what is right and will pursue it. On such as these you may safely 
 rely ; they love you as they love their brothers j they feel for the unfortunate, 
 and never ask whether a man is an Englishman or an Irishman, a catholic, 
 a heretic, a christian, or a heathen, before their hearts and their purses are 
 opened to feel with their misfortunes and relieve their necessities : such are 
 the men who will stand by you for ever. Depend then, not upon the pro- 
 mises of Princes, but upon those of virtuous and disinterested men : depend 
 not upon force of arms or violence, but upon the force of the ti uth of the 
 rights which you have to share equally with others, the benefits and the evils 
 ot Government. 
 
 The crisis to which I allude as the period of your emancipation, is not 
 the death of the present king, or any circumstance that has to do with kings, 
 but something that is much more likely to do you good : it is the increase 
 of virtue and wisdom which will lead people to find out that force and op- 
 pression is wrong and false : and this opinion, when it once gains ground, 
 will prevent government from severity. It will restore those rights which 
 government has taken away. Have nothing to do with force or violence, 
 and things will safely and surely make their way to the right point. The 
 Ministers have now in Parliament a very great majority, and the Ministers 
 are against you. They maintain the falsehood that, were you in power 
 you would prosecute and burn, on the plea that you once did so. They 
 maintain many other things of the same nature. — They command the 
 majority of the House of Commons, or rather the part of that assembly, 
 who receive pensions from Government, or whose relatives receive them. 
 These men of course, are against you, because their employers are. But 
 the sense of the country is not against you, the people of England are not 
 against you — they feel warmly for you — in some respects they feel with 
 you. The sense of the English and of their Governors is opposite — there 
 must be an end of this, the goodness of a Government consists in the 
 Happiness of the Governed, if the Governed are wretched and dissatisfied, 
 the Government has failed in its end. It wants altering and mending. It 
 will be mended, and a reform of English Government will produce good 
 to the Irish — good to all human kind, excepting those whose happiness 
 consists in others sorrows, and it will be a fit j unlshment for these to 
 
10 
 
 be deprived of their develish joy. This I consider as an event which Is ap- 
 proaching, and which will make the beginning of our hopes for that period 
 which may spread wisdom and virtue so wide, as to leave no hole in which 
 folly or villainy may hide themselves. I wish you, O Irishmen, to be as careful 
 and thoughtful of your interests as are your real friends. Do not drink, do 
 not play, do not spend any idle time, do not take every thing that other people 
 say for granted — there are numbers who will tell you lies to make their own 
 fortunes, you cannot more certainly do good to your own cause, than by 
 defeating the intentions of these men. Think, read and talk ; let your own 
 condition and that of your wives and children, fill your minds ; disclaim all 
 manner of alliance with violence, meet together if ye will, but do not meet 
 in a mob. If you think and read and talk with a real wish of benefiting the 
 cause of truth and liberty, it will soon be seen how true a service you are 
 rendering, and how sincere you are in your professions ; but mobs and vio- 
 lence must be discarded. The certain degree of civil and religious liberty 
 which the usage of the English Constitution allows, is such as the worst of 
 men are entitled to, although you have it not ; but that liberty which we may 
 one day hope for, wisdom and virtue can alone give you a right to enjoy. 
 This wisdom and this virtue I recommend on every account that you should 
 instantly begin to practice. Lose not aday, not an hour, not a moment. — Tem- 
 perance, sobriety, charity and independence will give you virtue j and read- 
 ing, talking, thinking and searching, will give you wisdom; when you have 
 those things you may defy the tyrant. It is not going often to chapel, crossing 
 yourselves, or confessing, that will make you virtuous j many a rascal has 
 attended regularly at Mass, and many a good man has never gone at all. It/) 
 is not paying Priests, or believing in what they say that makes a good man, 
 but it is doing good actions, or benefiting other people ; this i? the true 
 way to be good, and the prayers, and confessions, and masses of him who 
 does not these things, are good for nothing at all. Do your work regularly 
 and quickly, when you have done, think, read, and talk; do not spend your 
 money in idleness and drinking, which so far from doing good to your cause, 
 will do it harm. If you have any thing to spare from your wife and children, 
 let it do some good to other people, and put them in a way of getting wis- 
 dom and virtue, as the pleasure that will come from these good acts, will be 
 nmch better than the head-ache that comes from a drinking bout. And never 
 quarrel between each other, be all of one mind as nearly as you can ; do 
 these things, and I will promise you liberty and happiness. But itj on 
 the contrary of these things, you neglect to improve yourselves, continue 
 to use the word heretic, and demand from others the toleration which you 
 are unwilling to give ; your friends and the friends of liberty will have rea- 
 son to lament the death-blow of their hopes. I expect better things from 
 you ; it is for yourselves that I fear and hope. Many Englishmen are prejudiced 
 against you, they sit by their own fire-sides and certain rumours artfully 
 spread ? are ever on the wing against you. But these people who think ill 
 of you and of your nation, are often the very men who, it they had better 
 information, would feel for you most keenly ^ wherefore are these reports 
 spread, how so they begin ? they originate from the warmth of the Irish cha- 
 racter, which the friends of the Irish nation have hitherto encouraged rather 
 than repressed ; this leads them in those pnoments when their wrongs ap- 
 pear so clearly, to commit acts which justly excite displeasure. They begin 
 therefore, from yourselves, although falsehood and tyranny artfully magnify 
 ind multiply the causes of offence. — Give no offence. 
 
 I will for the present dismiss the subject of the Catholic Emancipation j 
 i little reflection will convince you that my remarks are just. Be true to 
 
11 
 
 yourselves, and your enemies shall not triumph. I fear nothing, if charity 
 and sobriety mark your proceedings. Every thing is to be dreaded, 
 you yourselves will be unworthy of even a restoration to your rights, if 
 yon disgrace the cause, which I hope is that of truth and liberty, by 
 violence, if you refuse to others the toleration which you claim for your- 
 selves. — But this you will not do. I rely upon it Irishmen, that the 
 warmth of your characters will be shewn as much in union with Englishmen 
 and what are called heretics, who feel for you, and love you as in avenging 
 your wrongs, or forwarding their annihilation. — It is the heart that 
 glows and not the cheek. The firmness, sobriety, and consistence of 
 your outward behaviour will not at all shew any hardness of heart, but will 
 prove that you are determined in your cause, and are going the right way 
 to work. — I will repeat that virtue and wisdom are necessary to true 
 happiness and liberty. — The Catholic Emancipation I consider, is certain. 
 I do not see that any thing but violence and intolerance among yourselves 
 can leave an excuse to your enemies for continuing your slavery. The 
 other wrongs under which you labor, will probably also soon be done away. 
 You will be rendered equal to the people of England in their rights and 
 privileges, and will be in all respects, so far as concerns the state, as happy. 
 And now Irishmen another, and a more wide prospect opens to my view. 
 I cannot avoid, little as it may appear to have any thing to do with your 
 present situation, to talk to you on the subject. It intimately concerns 
 the well-being of your children, and your children's children, and 
 will perhaps, more than any thing prove to you the advantage and 
 necessity of being thoughtful, sober, and regular ; of avoiding foolish and 
 idle talk, and thinking of yourselves, as of men who are able to be much 
 wiser and happier than you now are j for habits like these, will not only 
 conduce to the successful putting aside your present and immediate 
 grievances, but will contain a seed, which in future times will spring up 
 into the tree of liberty, and bear the fruit of happiness. 
 
 There is no doubt but the world is going wrong, or rather that it is 
 very capable of being much improved. What I mean by this improvement 
 is, the inducement of a more equal and general diffusion of happiness and 
 liberty. — Many people are very rich and many are very poor. Which do 
 you think are happiest ? — I can tell you that neither are happy, so far as 
 their station is concerned. Nature never intended that there should be 
 such a thing as a poor man or a rich one. Being put in an unnatural 
 situation, they can neither of them be happy, so far as their situation is 
 concerned. The poor man is born to obey the rich man, though they both 
 come into the world equally helpless, and equally naked. But the poor 
 man does the rich no service by obeying him — the rich man does the poor 
 no good by commanding him. It would be much better if they could be 
 prevailed upon to live equally like brothers — they would ultimately both be 
 nappier. But this can be done neither to-day nor to-morrow, much as 
 such a change is to be desired, it is quite impossible. Violence and folly 
 in this, as in the other case, would only put off the period of its event. 
 Mildness, sobriety, and reason, are the effectual methods of forwarding 
 the ends of liberty and happiness. 
 
 Although we may see many things put in train, during our life-time, 
 we cannot hope to see the work of virtue and reason finished now j we can 
 only lay the fo\mdation for our posterity. Government is an evil, it is 
 only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. 
 When all men are good and wise, Government will of itself decay, so 
 long as men continue foolish and vicious, so long will Government, even 
 
12 
 
 such a Government as that of England, continue necessary In order to prevent 
 the crimes of bad men. Society is produced by the wants, Govern- 
 ment by the wickedness, and a state of just and happy equality by the 
 improvement and reason of man. It is in vain to hope for any liberty and 
 happiness, without reason and virtue — for where there is no virtue there 
 will be crime, and where there is crime there must be Government. Before 
 the restraints of Government are lessened, it is fit that we should lessen 
 the necessity for them. Before Government is done away vkh, we must 
 reform ourselves. It is this work which I would earnestly i rommend to 
 you, O Irishmen, REFORM YOURSELVES— and I do not recommend 
 it to you particularly because I think that you most need it, but because 
 I think that your hearts are warm and your feelings high, and you will 
 perceive the necessity of doing it more than those of a colder and more 
 distant nature. 
 
 I look with an eye of hope and pleasure on the present state of things, 
 gloomy and incapable of improvement as they may appear to others. It 
 delights me to see that men begin to think and to act for the good 
 of others. Extensively as folly and selfishness has predominated in 
 this age, it gives me hope and pleasure, at least, to see that many know 
 what is right. Ignorance and vice commonly go together : he that would 
 do good must be wise — a man cannot be truly wise who is not truly 
 virtuous. Prudence and wisdom are very different things. The prudent 
 man is he, who carefully consults for his own good : the wise man is he 
 who carefully consults for the good of others. 
 
 I look upon the Catholic Emancipation, and the restoration of the 
 1 liberties and happiness of Ireland, so far as they are compatible with 
 the English Constitution, as great and important events. I hope to see 
 them soon. But if all ended here, it would give me little pleasure — I 
 should still see thousands miserable and wicked, things would still be 
 wrong. I regard then, the accomplishment of these things as the road to 
 a greater reform — that reform after which virtue and wisdom shall have 
 conquered pain and vice. When no Government will be wanted, but 
 that of your neighbour's opinion. — I look to these things with hope and 
 pleasure, because I consider that they will certainly happen, and because 
 men will not then be wicked and miserable. But I do not consider that 
 they will or can immediately happen ; their arrival will be gradual, and 
 it all depends upon yourselves how soon or how late these great changes 
 will happen. If all of you, to-morrow were virtuous and wise, Govern- 
 ment which to-day is a safe-guard, would then become a tyranny. But 
 I cannot expect a rapid change. Many are obstinate and determined in 
 their vice, whose selfishness makes them think only of their own good, 
 when in fact, the best way even to bring that about, is to make others 
 happy. I do not wish to see things changed now, because it cannot be 
 done without violence, and we may assure ourselves that none of us arc 
 fit for any change however good, if we condescend to employ force in a 
 cause which we think right. Force makes the side that employs it 
 directly wrong, and as much as we may pity we cannot approve the 
 headstrong and intolerant zeal of its adherents. 
 ' Can you conceive, O Irishmen ! a happy state of society — conceive men 
 \ of every way of thinking living together like brothers. The descendant 
 of the greatest Prince would there, be entitled to no more respect than 
 the son of a peasant. There would be no pomp and no parade, but that 
 I which the rich now keep to themselves, would then be distributed among 
 I the people. None would be in magnificence, but the superfluities then 
 
13 
 
 taken from the rich would be sufficient when spread abroad, to make f 
 every one comfortable. — No lover would then be false to his mistress, no ! 
 mistress would desert her lover. No friend would play false, no rents, 
 no debts, no taxes, no frauds of any kind would disturb the general 
 happiness : good as they would be, wise as they would be, they would 
 be daily getting better and wiser. No beggars would exist, nor any of ; 
 those wretched women, who are now reduced to a state of the most horrible j ^ 
 misery and vice, by men whose wealth makes them villainous and hardened, j 
 No thieves or murderers, because poverty would never drive men to take ' 
 away comforts from another, when he had enough for himself. Vice and 
 misery, pomp and poverty, power and obedience, would then be banished 
 altogether. — It is for such a state as this, Irishmen, that I exhort you 
 to prepare. — " A Camel shall as soon pass through the eye of a needle, 
 as a rich man enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This is not be understood 
 literally, Jesus Christ appears to me only to have meant that riches, have 
 generally the effect of hardening and vitiating the heart, so has poverty. I 
 think those people then are very silly, and cannot see one inch beyond their 
 noses, who say that human nature is depraved ; when at the same time 
 wealth and poverty, those two great sources of crime, fall to the lot of 
 a great majority of people j and when they see that people in moderate 
 circumstances are always most wise and good. — People say that poverty is 
 no evil — they have never felt it, or they would not think so. That wealth 
 is necessary to encourage the arts — but are not the arts very inferior things 
 to virtue and happiness — the man would be very dead to all generous 
 feelings who would rather see pretty pictures and statues, than a million 
 free and happy men. 
 
 It will be said, that my design is to make you dissatisfied with your 
 present condition, and that I wish to raise a Rebellion. But how stupid 
 and sottish must those men be, who think that violence and uneasiness of 
 mind have any thing to do with forwarding the views of peace, harmony 
 and happiness. They should know that nothing was so well-fitted to 
 produce slavery, tyranny, and vice, as the violence which is attributed 
 to the friends of liberty, and which the real friends of liberty are the only 
 persons who disdain. — As to your being dissatisfied with your present 
 condition, any thing that I may say is certainly not likely to increase that 
 dissatisfaction. I have advanced nothing concerning your situation, but 
 its real case, but what may be proved to be true. I defy any one to point 
 out a falsehood that I have uttered in the course of this address. It is 
 impossible but the blindest among you must see that every thing is not 
 right. This sight has often pressed some of the poorest among you to 
 take something from the rich man's store by violence, to relieve his own 
 necessities. I cannot justify, but I can pity him. I cannot pity th^ 
 fruits of the rich man's intemperance, I suppose some are to be found 
 who will justify him. This sight has often brought home to a day-labourer 
 the truth which I wish to impress upon you, that all is not right. But 
 I do not merely wish, to convice you that our present state is bad, but 
 that its alteration for the better, depends on your own exertions and 
 resolutions. 
 
 But he has never found out the method of mending it, who does not first 
 mend his own conduct, and then prevail upon others to refrain from any vicious 
 habits which they may have contracted — much less does the poor man suppose 
 that wisdom as well as virtue is necessary, and that the employing his 
 little time in reading and thinking, is really doing all that he has in his 
 power to do towards the state, when pain and vice shall perish altogether. 
 
14 
 
 I wish to Impress upon your minds, that without virtue or wisdom, there 
 can be no liberty or happiness j and that temperance, sobriety, charity, 
 and independence of soul, will give you virtue — as thinking, enquiring, 
 reading, and talking, will give you wisdom. Without the first, the last 
 is of little use, and without the last, the first is a dreadful curse to 
 yourselves and others. 
 
 I have told you what I think upon this subject, because I wish to 
 produce in your minds an awe and caution necessary, before the happy 
 state of which I have spoken can be introduced. This cautious awe, is 
 very different from the prudential feai, which leads you to consider yourself 
 as the first object, as on the contrary it is full of that warm and ardent 
 love for others that burns in your hearts, O Irishmen ! and from which 
 I have fondly hoped to light a flame that may illumine and invigorate the 
 world ! 
 
 I have said that the rich command, and the poor obey, and that 
 money is only a kind of sign, which shews, that according to government 
 the rich man has a right to command the poor man, or rather that the 
 poor man being urged by having no money to get bread, is forced to work 
 for the rich man, which amounts to the same thing. I have said that I 
 think all this very wrong, and that I wish the whole business was altered. 
 I have also said that we can expect little amendment in our own time, and 
 that we must be contented to lay the foundation of liberty and happiness, 
 by virtue and wisdom. — This then, shaH be my work : let this be yours, 
 Irishmen. Never shall that glory fail, which I am anxious that you 
 should deserve. The glory of teaching to a world the first lessons of 
 virtue and wisdom. 
 
 Let poor men still continue to work. I do not wish to hide from them 
 a knowledge of their relative condition in society, I esteem it next impos- 
 sible to do so. Let the work of the labourer, of the artificer — let the 
 work of every one, however employed, still be exerted in its accustomed 
 way. The public communication of this truth, ought in no manner, to 
 impede the established usages of society ; however, it is fitted in the end 
 to do them away. For this reason it ought not to impede them, because 
 if it did, a violent and unaccustomed, and sudden sensation would take 
 place in all ranks of men, which would bring on violence, and destroy the 
 possibility of the event of that, which in its own nature must be gradual, 
 however rapid, and rational, however warm. It is founded on the reform 
 of private men, and without individual amendment it is vain and foolish 
 to expect the amendment of a state or government. I would advise them 
 therefore, whose feelings this address may have succeeded in affecting, 
 (and surely those feelings which charitable and temperate remarks excite, 
 can never be violent and intolerant,) if they be, as I hope those whom 
 poverty has compelled to class themselves in the lower orders of society, 
 that they will as usual attend to their business and the discharge of those 
 public or private duties, which custom has ordained. Nothing can be 
 more rash and thoughtless, than to shew in ourselves singular instances of 
 any particular doctrine, before the general mass of the people are so 
 convinced by the reasons of the doctrine, that it will be no longer singular.' 
 That reasons as well as feelings, may help the establishment of happiness 
 and liberty, on the basis of wisdom and virtue, in our aim and intention. — 
 Let us not be led into any means which are unworthy of this end, nor, as 
 so much depends upon yourselves, let us cease carefully to watch over our 
 conduct, that when we talk of reform it be not objected to us j that reform 
 ought to begin at home. In the interval, that public or private duties 
 
15 
 
 and necessary labors allow, husband your time so, that you may do to 
 others ana yoiirselves the most real good. To improve your own 
 minds is to join these two views : conversation and reading are the prin- 
 cipal and chief methods of awakening the mind to knowledge and goodness. 
 Reading or thought, will principally bestow the former of these — the 
 benevolent exercise of the powers of the mind in communicating useful 
 knowledge, will bestow an habit, of the latter, both united, will contribute 
 so far as lays in your individual power to that great reform, which 
 will be perfect and finished, the moment every one is virtuous and wise. 
 Every folly refuted, every bad habit conquered, every good one confirmed, 
 as so much gained in this great and excellent cause. 
 
 To begin to reform the Government, is immediately necessary, however 
 good or bad individuals may be ; it is the more necessary if they are 
 eminently the latter, in some degree to palliate or do away the cause ; as 
 political institution has even the greatest influence on the human character, 
 and is that alone which differences the Turk from the Irishman. 
 
 I write now not only with a view for Catholic Emancipation, but for un- 
 iversal emancipation j and this emancipation complete and unconditional, 
 that shall comprehend every individual of whatever nation or principles 
 that shall fold in its embrace all that think and all that feel, the Catholic 
 cause is subordinate, and its success preparatory to this great cause, which 
 adheres to no sect but society, to no cause but that of universal happiness, 
 to no party but the people. I desire Catholic Emancipation, but I desire 
 not to stop here, and I hope there are few who having perused the preced- 
 ing arguments who will not concur with me in desiring a complete, a lasting 
 and a happy amendment. That all steps however good and salutary which 
 may be taken, all reforms consistent with the English constitution that 
 may be effectuated, can only be subordinate and preparatory to the great 
 and lasting one which shall bring about the peace, the harmony, and the 
 happiness of Ireland, England, Europe the World. I offer merely an out- 
 line of that picture which your own hopes may gift with the colors of rea- 
 lity. 
 
 Government will not allow a peaceable and reasonable discussion of its 
 principles by any association of men, who assemble for that express purpose. 
 But have not human beings a right to assemble to talk upon what subject they 
 please j can any thing be more evident than that as government is only of 
 use as it conduces to the happiness of the governed ; those who are governed 
 have a right to talk on the eflScacy of the safe guard employed for their ben- 
 efit. Can any topic be more interesting or useful, than on discussing how far 
 the means of government, is or could be made in a higher degree effectual 
 to producing the end. Although I deprecate violence, and the cause which 
 depends for its influence a force, yet I can by no means think that assemb- 
 ling together merely to talk of how things go on, I can by no means think 
 that societies formed for talking on any subject however government may dis- 
 like them, come in any way under the head of force or violence. I think that 
 associations conducted in the spirit of sobriety, regularity, and thought, are 
 one of the best and most efficient of those means which I would recommend 
 for the production of happiness, liberty, and virtue. 
 
 Are you slaves, or are you men ? if slaves, then crouch to the rod, and 
 lick the feet of your oppressors, glory your shame, it will become 
 you if brutes to act according to your nature. But you are men, 
 a real man is free, so far as circumstances will permit him. Then 
 firmly, yet quietly resist. When one check is struck, turn in the 
 
16 
 
 other to the insuhing coward. You will be truly brave ; you will resist 
 and conquer. The discussion of any subject, is a right that you have 
 brought into the world with your heart and tongue. Resign your heart"" s- 
 blood, before you part with this inestimable privilege of man. For 
 it is fit that the governed should enquire into the proceedings of Govern- 
 ment, which is of no use the moment it is conducted on any other 
 principle but that of safety. You have much to think of. — Is 
 war necessary to your happiness and safety. The interests of the poor 
 gain nothing from the wealth or extension of a nation's boundaries, they 
 gain nothing from glory, a word that has often served as a cloak to 
 the ambition or avarice of Statesmen. The barren victories of Spain, 
 gained in behalf of a bigotted and tyrannical Government, are nothing 
 to them. The conquests in India, by which England has gained glory 
 indeed, but a glory which is not more honourable than that of Buonaparte, 
 are nothing to them. The poor purchase this glory and this wealth, at 
 the expence of their blood, and labor, and happiness, and virtue. They 
 die in battle for this infernal cause. Their labor supplies money and 
 food for carrying it into effect, their happiness is destroyed by the 
 oppression they undergo, their virtue is rooted out by the depravity and 
 vice that prevails throughout the army, and which imder the present 
 system, is perfectly unavoidable. Who does not know that the quartering 
 of a regiment on any town, will soon destroy the innocence and happiness 
 of its inhabitants. The advocates for the happiness and liberty of the 
 great mass of the people, who pay for war with their lives and labor, 
 ought never to cease writing and speaking until nations see as they mus*- 
 feel, the folly of fighting and killing each other in uniform, for nothing 
 at all. Ye have much to think of. The state of your representation 
 in the house, which is called the collective representation of the country 
 demands your attention. 
 
 It is horrible that the lower classes must waste their lives and liberty to 
 furnish means for their oppressors to oppress them yet more terribly. It is 
 horrible that the poor must give in taxes what would save them and their 
 families from hunger and cold ; it is still more horrible that they should do 
 this to furnish further means of their own abjectness and misery j but 
 what words can express the enormity of the abuse that prevents them from 
 choosing representatives with authority to enquire into the manner in 
 which their lives and labor, their happiness and innocence is expended, 
 and what advantages result from their expenditure which may counterbalance 
 so horrible and monstrous an evil. There is an outcry raised against amend- 
 ment; it is called innovation and condemned by many unthinking people 
 who have a good fire and plenty to eat and drink ; hard hearted or thought- 
 less beings how many are famishing whilst you deliberate, how many perish 
 to contribute to your pleasures. I hope that their are none such as these 
 native Irishmen, indeed I fcarcely believe that their are. 
 
 Let the object of your associations (for I conceal not my approval of as- 
 semblies conducted with xt%yX2s\\.-j, peaceableness and thought for any pur- 
 pose,) be the amendment of these abuses, it will have for its object universal 
 Emancipation, liberty, happiness, and virtue. There is yet another subject, 
 " the Liberty of the Press." The liberty of the press consists in a right to 
 publish any opinion on any subject which the writer may entertain. The 
 ^ >|lAttorney General in 1793 on the trial of Mr. Perry, faid, '* I never will 
 difpute the right of any man fully to difcuss topics respecting government, 
 \ and honestly to point out what he may consider a proper remedy of grievan- 
 S res." — The Liberty of the Press, is placed as a sentinel to alarm us when 
 
 '( 
 
17 
 
 any attempt is made on our liberties." — It is this centinel, O Irishmen 
 whom I now awaken ! I create to myself a freedom which exists not. 
 There is no liberty of the press, for the subjects of British government. 
 
 It is really ridiculous to hear people yet boasting of this inestimable bless- 
 ing, when they daily see it successfully muzzled and outraged by thef 
 lawyers of the crown, and by virtue of what are called ex-officio informa- 
 tions. Blackstone says, that " if a person publishes what is improper, 
 mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own 
 temerity j " and Lord Chief Baron Comyns defines libel as " a contumely, 
 or reproach, published to the defamation of the Government, of a magistrate, 
 or of a private person." — Now, I beseech you to consider the words, 
 mischievous, improper, illegal, contumely, reproach, or defamation. May 
 they not make that mischievous, or improper, which they please ? Is not 
 law with them, as clay in the potter's hand ? Do not the words, contumely, 
 reproach, or defamation, express all degrees and forces of disapprobation ? It 
 is impossible to express yourself displeased at certain proceedings of Govern- 
 ment, or the individuals who conduct it, without uttering a reproach. We 
 cannot honestly point out a proper remedy of grievances with safety, 
 because the very mention of these grievances will be reproachful to the 
 personages who countenance them } and therefore will come under a 
 definition of libel. For the persons who thus directly or indirectly undergo 
 reproach, will say for their own sakes, that the exposure of their corruption 
 is mischievous and improper j therefore, the utterer of the reproach is a 
 fit subject for three years imprisonment. Is there any thing like the 
 Liberty of the Press, in restrictions so positive, yet pliant, as these. The 
 little freedom which we enjoy in this most important point, comes from 
 the clemency of our rulers, or their fear, lest public opinion alarmed at 
 the discovery of its enslaved state, should violently assert a right to 
 extension and diffusion. Yet public opinion may not always be so for- 
 midable, rulers may not always be so merciful or so timid : at any rate 
 evils, and great evils do result from the present system of intellectual 
 slavery, and you have enough to think of, if this grievance alone remained 
 in the constitution of society. I will give but one instance of the 
 present state of our Press. 
 
 A countryman of yours is now confined in an English gaol. His 
 health, his fortune, his spirits, suffer from close confinement. The air 
 which comes through the bars of a prison-grate, does not invigorate the 
 frame nor cheer the spirits. But Mr. Finnerty, much as he has lost, yet 
 retains the fair name of truth and honor. He was imprisoned for persisting 
 in the truth. His judge told him on his trial, that truth and falsehood 
 were indifferent to the law, and that if he owned the publication 
 any consideration, whether the facts that it related were well or ill-founded, 
 was totally irrelevant. Such is the libel law. Such the Liberty of the 
 Press — there is enough to think of. The right of withholding your 
 individual assent to war, the right of choosing delegates to represent you 
 in the assembly of the nation, and that of freely opposing intellectual 
 power, to any measures of Government of which you may disapprove, are In 
 addition to the indifference with which the legislative and the executive 
 power ought to rule their conduct towards professors of every religion 
 enough to think of. 
 
 I earnestly desire peace and harmony : — peace, that whatever wrongs 
 you may have suffered, benevolence and a spirit of forgiveness should mark 
 your conduct towards those who have persecuted you. Harmony, that 
 among yourselves may be no divisions, that Protestants and Catholics unite 
 
18 
 
 in a common interest, and that whatever be the belief and principles of 
 your countryman and fellow-sufferer, you de5ire to benefit his cause, at 
 the same time that you vindicate your own, be strong and unbiassed by 
 selfishness or prejudice — for Catholics, your religion has not been spotless, 
 crimes in past ages have sullied it with a stain, which let it be your glory 
 to remove. Nor Protestants, hath your religion always been characterized 
 by the mildness of benevolence, which Jesus Christ recommended. Had 
 it any thing to do with the present subject I could account for the spirit 
 of intolerance, which marked both religions ; I will, however, only adduce 
 the fact, and earnestly exhort you to root out from your own minds every 
 thing which may lead to uncharitableness, and to reflect that yourselves, 
 as well as your brethren, may be deceived. Nothing on earth is infallible. 
 The Priests that pretend to it, are wicked and mischievous impostors j 
 but it is an imposture which every one, more or less, assumes, who 
 encourages prejudice in his breast against those who differ from him in 
 opinion, or who sets up his own religion as the only right and true one, 
 when no one is so blind as to see that every religion is right and true, 
 which makes men beneficent and sincere. I therefore, earnestly exhort 
 both Protestants and Catholics to act in brotherhood and harmony, never 
 forgetting, because the Catholics alone are heinously deprived of religious 
 rights, that the Protestants and a certain rank of people, of every per-' 
 suasion, share with them all else that is terrible galling and intolerable 
 in the mass of political grievance. 
 
 In no case employ violence or falsehood. I cannot too often or too 
 vividly endeavour to impress upon your minds, that these methods will 
 produce nothing but wretchedness and slavery — that they will at the same 
 time rivet the fetters, with which ignorance and oppression bind you to 
 abjectness, and deliver you over to a tyranny, which shall render you 
 incapable of renewed efforts. Violence will immediately render your cause 
 a bad one. If you believe in a Providential God, you must also believe 
 that he is a good one ; and it is not likely, a merciful God would befriend 
 a bad cause. Insincerity is no less hurtful than violence : those who are 
 in the habits of either, would do well to reform themselves. A lying 
 bravo will never promote the good of his country — he cannot be a good 
 man. The courageous and sincere may, at the same time, successfully 
 oppose corruption, by uniting their voice with that of others, or individually 
 raise up intellectual opposition to counteract the abuses of Government 
 and society. In order to benefit yourselves and your country to any 
 extent, habits of sobriety, regularity, and thought, are previously so 
 necessary, that without these preliminaries, all that yuu have done falls 
 to the ground. You have built on sand. Secure a good foundation, and 
 you may erect a fabric to stand for ever — the glory and the envy of the 
 world ! 
 
 I have purposely avoided any lengthened discussion on those grievances to 
 which your hearts are from custom, and the immediate interest of the cir- 
 cumstances, probably most alive at present. I have not however wholly ne- 
 glected them. Most of all have I insisted on their instant palliation and 
 ultimate removal j nor have I omitted a consideration of the means which I 
 deem most effectual for the accomplishment of this great end. How far you 
 will consider the former worthy of your adoption, so far shall I deem the 
 latter probable and interesting to the lovers of human kind. And I have 
 opened to your view a new scene — does not your heart bound at the bare 
 possibility of your posterity possessing that liberty and happiness of which 
 
19 
 
 during our lives powerful exertions and habitual abstinence may give us a 
 foretaste. Oh ! if your hearts do not vitiate at such as this j then ye are 
 dead and cold — ye are not men. 
 
 I now come to the application of my principles, the conclusion of my 
 address ; and O Irishmen, whatever conduct ye may feel yourselves bound 
 to pursue, the path which duty points to, lies before me clear and unobscured. 
 Dangers may lurk around it, but they are not the dangers which lie beneath 
 the footsteps of the hypocrite or temporizer. 
 
 For I have not presented to you the picture of happiness on which my 
 fancy doats as an uncertain meteor to mislead honorable enthusiasm, or 
 blindfold the judgment which makes virtue useful. I have not proposed 
 crude schemes, which I should be imcompetent to mature, or desired to 
 excite in you any virulence against theabuses of political institution ; where 
 I have had occasion to point them out I have recommended moderation 
 whilst yet I have earnestly insisted upon energy and perseverance j I have 
 spoken of peace, yet declared that resistance is laudable ; but the intellectual 
 resistance which I recommend, I deem essential to the inroduction of the 
 millenium of virtue, whose period every one can, so far as he Is concerned, 
 forward by his own proper power. I have not attempted to shew, that 
 the Catholic claims or the claims of the people, to a full representation 
 in Parliament, or any of those claims to real rights, which I have Insisted 
 upon as Introductory to the ultimate claim of ally to universal happiness, 
 freedom, and equality ; I have not attempted, I say, to shew that these 
 can be granted consistently with the spirit of the English Constitution : this 
 is a point which I do not feel myself inclined to discuss, and which I 
 consider foreign to my object. But I have shewn that these claims have 
 for their basis, truth and justice, which are Immutable, and which In the 
 ruin of Governments shall rise like a Phoenix from their ashes. 
 
 Is anyone inclined to dispute the possibility of a happy change in society? 
 Do they say that the nature of man Is corrupt, and that he was made for 
 misery and wickedness ? Be it so. Certain as are opposite conclusions, I 
 will concede the truth of his, for a moment. — What are the means which I 
 take for melioration ? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime ? Do I do 
 evil, that good may come ? I have recommended peace, philanthrophy, 
 wisdom. — So far as my arguments influence, they will influence to these — 
 and if there Is any one nonju inclined to say, that " private vices are 
 public benefits," and that peace, philanthrophy, and wisdom, will, if once 
 they gain ground, ruin the human race; he may revel in his happy dreams; 
 though were / this man, I should envy Satan's Hell. The wisdom and 
 charity of which I speak, are the only means which I will countenance, for 
 the redress of your grievances, and the grievances of the world. So far 
 as they operate, I am willing to stand responsible for their e^il eff^ects. 
 I expect to be accused of a desire for renewing in Ireland the scenes of 
 revolutionary horror, which marked the struggles of France twenty years 
 ago. But it is the renewal of that unfortunate aera, which I strongly 
 deprecate, and which the tendency of this address Is calculated to obviate. 
 For can burthens be borne for ever, and the slave crouch and cringe the 
 while. Is misery and vice so consonant to man's nature, that he will hug 
 
 Note. The excellence of the Constitution of Great Britain, appears 
 to me, to be its indefiniteness and versatility, whereby it may be unresist- 
 ingly accommodated to the progression of wisdom and virtue. Such accom- 
 modation I desire j but I wish for the cause before the effect. 
 
20 
 
 it to his heart ? — but when the wretched one in bondage, beholds the 
 emancipator near, will he not endure his misery awhile with hope and 
 patience, then, spring to his preserver's arms, and start into a man. 
 
 It is my intention to observe the effect on your minds, O Irishmen ! 
 which this address dictated by the fervency of my love, and hope will 
 produce. I have come to this country to spare no, pains where expenditure 
 may purchase your real benefit. The present is a crisis, which of all 
 others, is the most valuable for fixing the fluctuation of public feeling j 
 as far as my poor efforts may have succeeded in fixing it to virtue, 
 Irishmen, so far shall I esteem myself happy. I intend this address as 
 introductory to another. The organization of a society, whose institution 
 V I shall serve as a bond to its members, for the purposes of virtue, happiness, 
 liberty, and wisdom, by the means of intellectual opposition to grievances, 
 would probably be useful. For the formation of such a society, I avow 
 myself anxious. 
 
 Adieu, my friends ! May every Sun that shines on your green Island 
 see the annihilation of an abuse, and the birth of an Embryon of me- 
 lioration ! Your own hearts — may they become the shrines of purity and 
 freedom, and never may smoke to the Mammon of unrighteousness, 
 ascend from the unpolluted altar of their devotion • 
 
 No, 7, Loiver Sack'ville-street. Feb. 22. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I have now been a week in Dublin, during which time I have endeavoured 
 to make myself more accurately acquainted with the state of the public 
 mind, on those great topics of grievances which induced me to select 
 Ireland as a theatre, the widest and fairest, for the operations of the 
 determined friend of religious and political freedom. 
 
 The result of my observations has determined me to propose, an asso- 
 ciation for the purposes of restoring Ireland to the prosperity which she 
 /possessed before the Union Act j and the religious freedom, which the 
 involuntariness of faith, ought to have taught all monopolists of Heaven, 
 long, long ago, that every one had a right to possess. 
 
 For the purpose of obtaining the Emancipation of the Catholics, from 
 the penal laws that aggrieve them, and a Repeal of the Legislative Union act : 
 and grounding upon the remission of the church-craft and oppression, which 
 caused these grievances ; a flan of amendment and regeneration in the moral 
 and -political state of society, on a comprehensi<ve and systematic philanthrophy, 
 nvhich shall be sure, though slonv in its projects j and as it is ^without the 
 rapidity and danger of resolution , so ivill it be de<void of the time-sernjingness 
 of temporizing reform — which in its deliberative capacity, having investigated 
 the state of the government of England, shall oppose those parts of it, by 
 intellectual force, which will not bear the touch-stone of reason. 
 
 For information respecting the principles which I possess, and the nature 
 and spirit of the association which I propose, I refer the reader to a small 
 pamphlet, which I shall publish on the subject, in the course of a few 
 days. 
 
 I have published the above address (written in England) in the cheapest 
 possible form, and have taken pains that the remarks which it contains, should 
 be intelligible to the most uneducated minds. Men are not slaves and 
 brutes, because they are poor : it has been the policy of the thoughtless, 
 or wicked of the higher ranks, (as a proof of the decay, of which policy, 
 I am happy to see the rapid success of a comparatively enlightened system 
 of education,) to conceal from the poor the truths which I have en- 
 deavoured to teach them. In doing so, I have but translated my thoughts 
 into another language } and as language is only useful as it communicates 
 ideas, I shall think my style so far good, as it Is successful as a means to 
 to bring about the end which I desire, on any occasion, to accomplish. 
 
22 
 
 A Limerick Paper, which I suppose, professes to support certain loyal 
 and John Bullish principles of freedom — has, in an essay for advocating 
 the Liberty of the Press, the following clause : " For lawless license of 
 discussion never did we advocate, nor do we now." — What is lawless license 
 of discussion ? Is it not as indefinite as the words, contumely, reproach, 
 defamation, that allow at present, such latitude to the outrages that are 
 committed on the free expression of individual sentiment. Can they not 
 see that what is rational will stand by its reason, and what is true stand 
 by its truth, as all that is foolish will fall by its folly, and all that is false 
 be controverted by its own falsehood. — Liberty gains nothing by the 
 reform of politicians of this stamp, any more than it gains from a change 
 of Ministers in London. What at present, is contumely and defama- 
 tion, would at the period of this Limerick amendment, be "lawless 
 license of discussion ; " and such would be the mighty advantage, which 
 this doughty champion of liberty proposes to effect. 
 
 I conclude, with the words of Lafayette — a name endeared, by its 
 peerless bearer, to every lover of the human race. ** For a nation to love 
 Liberty it is sufficient that she knows it, to be free it is sufficient that she 
 wills it. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
Reprinted bv Richard Clay & Sons, Bread Street Hili, 
 October, i8go. 
 

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NOTICE. 
 
 Will Members 
 the Honorary 
 
 note that the Address A 
 
 ' ts nozu 
 
 52 x^sHLEY Road, 
 
 Crouch Hill, 
 
 London, N. 
 
 A co7isiderable nurjco-.r oj ^iio^c /-^A/iu/i^ ' r \tii 
 in arrear, and the Hon. Sec. z:- 021 1 J be obliged. A 
 Members who have not ..y paui tiicir Giiinea\ 
 zooiUd kindly forward :hem at their earlieA 
 possible convenience, in order that the Committe\ 
 -may decide upon their printing progra^nme fo', 
 the coining Session — 1 890-1 891. 
 
 THOMAS f. WISE, 
 
 OCTOBKR -Ith, 1890.