IRISH

INDEPENDENCE,

&c. &c.

IN taking a view of the queftion of Union the

writer of the following pages may, by fome perfons, be thought to lean more to the Roman Catholic than is either juft or politick; he can only fay, that in looking into the ftate of this country he found the Catholic fo prominent a feature that his attention was compelled, and for the reafons which he fhall advance, he is penetrated with the juftnefs of their claims, and, fpeaking as a member of the empire, with the faving policy of their full emancipation.

The writer is neither a bigot in religion or in politics; he hopes he looks with a clear and liberal eye on MAN; it is for him that religions are formed and polity established; it is for the good of man that his mind fhould be impreffed with certain tenets leading to and compelling the moral duties; and that the licence of natural liberty be reftrained

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reftrained within the honourable bounds of focial order. Sparta was free, but she had her helots; Rome was free, but she had her flaves; Britain is free, but she has her negroes.-Can we fay Ireland is free when she has her Catholics? The flave has the fame right to liberty as his mafter; his motions may be directed by a superior force, but whenever he can he will rife, and affert the great charter of his nature; and who fhall prefume to cenfure his effort? It proceeds from a feeling marked upon his heart by the indelible finger of God! and therefore he is the best friend of Ireland, and the true friend of Britain, whose counfels and exertions go to the deftruction of that partial policy which feeds the fire that may confume the ftate.

The first safe step to that deftruction is a legiflative Union with Great Britain; without Union you cannot emancipate, and without emancipation there can be no real, efficient, operative, and indiffoluble Union. If the British connexion is an advantage (and who but a fool or an incendiary would deny that it is?) union will fecure it; if it is neceffary to the exiftence of the Proteftant establishment in Ireland, union will convert that neceffity into a duty on the part of Great Britain; at prefent her aid is precarious, it lies at her own will-union would leave her no choice-fhe muft defend herself. We are now diftinct governments, under the fame King! independent States, mutually dependent! Britain

depends

depends in a great degree for her political fafety on our connexion, and we depend upon her for our commercial exiftence-nay, and we owe the land on which we live to the protecting power of her fleets and armies-and yet we are told we are independent!-union indeed will make us truly independent-it will shake off the neceffity of our actual dependence on Great Britain, and raise us to the proud eminence of being equally fréé.

That there are many errors in this irregular effay is not to be doubted; the writer, however, hopes there will be found in it fome ufeful truths-he has thought it for the general good to speak those truths in fimple plainness-it is a fore mind that fhrinks from an honest statement of facts, and it is a rotten political establishment that cannot bear the touch-ftone of free inquiry.

Union is a great queftion, its effect embraces every man on the land, and every man has a right, within the law, to give his opinion on the fubject. Oppofition fays, Parliament is incompetent to enact the measure, but the very reverfe is established by fhewing where the English parliament did enact Union with Scotland, which formed the British parliament, which repealed the laws reftraining Ireland, which made her theoretically free now if parliament (I fpeak of the English, and ours is founded on the fame principles) is incompetent to enact union,

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