through the land by the most inflammatory and ill-judged libels upon the country and its claims. Thus, in the hands of those men, the benignity of the Sovereign was perverted into an instrument of discontent, and those rich concessions which, if judiciously administered, would have bound Ireland to Britain by indissoluble ties, were made means of exciting in numbers of the inhabitants of that country a deep hatred of the British name and connection. When Englishmen contemplate for a moment this picture of the "conciliation" which the Irish nation has received with so much ingratitude, it is possible they may conclude that nothing has happened which might not have reasonably been expected. Possibly they will think it not unnatural that the people should have received, with little sense of obligation, measures which were never conceded until they came to form only a small part of what was demanded as rights--and that they should rather feel indignant at the insult and abuse heaped on them by a few contemptible and obscure adventurers, than acknowledge gratitude for benefits long kept back, and, at length, reluctantly yielded. I have dwelt thus long on the early conduct of the Irish administration for two reasons--the one to vindicate the people of Ireland from the insolent charge made against them by their enemies--"That conciliation had been tried in vain with that sottish and discontented people--that they had not intellect to understand, nor gratitude to acknowledge benefits--and that, therefore, the present system of unconstitutional coercion and deprivation was resorted to of necessity:"--the other was to shew, that whatever discontent has been recently shewn in Ireland, whatever crimes have been committed for political purposes, had their remote origin in that system by which the powers of government had been abused in Ireland for several years back. Whether I have succeeded in this attempt, I leave to Englishmen, who know and value freedom and constitution, to determine. For myself I shall only say, that my mind is incapable of feeling a greater degree of moral certainty, than that the people of Ireland are innocent of causeless discontent and of ingratitude; and that all the evils which now lacerate that unhappy country, (for the mere suppression of present discontents will not end the danger,) and threaten the mutilation of the empire, are the necessary and inevitable effects of the wicked system adopted by the weak, hot-headed, and petulant men to whom the administration of Ireland was entrusted, operating upon a generous and loyal but irritable and warm people.