Nor did even these measures, insidious, violent, and unconstitutional as they were, produce so much discontent as the tone and the spirit in which they were tarried into execution. The most insulting imputations on the loyalty, and even on the intellect of the nation, were daily made by the needy adventurers, whom chance, or perhaps infamous services, had raised to a place in the administration. The public prints were polluted by the foulest calumny against every man who had the virtue and the courage to oppose a system which he foresaw must eventually terminate in the ruin of the country. Some of the basest of mankind, distinguished, however, by more than usual talents for perversion and invective, were appointed to conduct those publications which were paid by the public money for abusing the national character. The Whig Club, consisting of noblemen and gentlemen who, by possessing large property and extensive connections in the country, felt themselves bound to oppose the mad measures of men who, as they were mostly foreigners, had no interest but to turn the present moment to most advantage, were held up to the public, both in and out of Parliament, as enemies to the tranquillity of the state, and anxious only, at all events, to raise themselves to power. The conduct of administration to the Whig Club, indeed, deserves peculiar confederation, as it evinces, in the fullest manner, that it was not the irregular or unconstitutional proceedings of this or that body of men--of the Volunteer Convention, or of the United Irish Society--but the measures which these bodies recommended, against which the influence and force of government was turned. The Whig Club had formed themselves on the most constitutional and moderate principles. Their object was to obtain for the people of Ireland, by a concentration of their parliamentary influence and exertions, those laws by which the British constitution was guarded, against the encroachments of the executive power; and by the want of which in Ireland, her constitution seemed to have but a precarious existence at the pleasure of the Court. Such were a Pension Bill, for limiting the influence resulting to the Crown by an indefinite power of granting pensions--a Place Bill, to secure the independence of the House of Commons, by making the acceptance of office by a member a vacation of his seat--a Responsibility Bill, by which the men intrusted with the management of the public treasure, or enjoying high official situations in the government of the country, should be responsible to Parliament for their conduct and advice. These were the measures which the Club undertook at their formation to press upon minister. They subsequently adopted others on which the sense of the people became too generally known to be at all doubtful. The question of reform and Catholic emancipation they did not take up, until the nation called for them in a manner which