But had the Irish junto rested at the point to which we have now come in describing their system, Ireland would not now have to appeal for pity or for aid to the British nation. It is the subsequent measures to which they resorted, and for which no precedent is to be found in the history of this or any other country pretending to laws, or rights, or constitution, that we complain of. It is by these that Ireland has been lashed into madness, and driven to crimes and to follies which her sober reason would have looked at with detestation. It shall be now my business to advert to those measures--to shew that they have generally preceded those crimes of the people which are alledged to have produced them--that they have been severe and desperate beyond what the necessity of the case called for--that their probable result will be a military despotism--that they cannot tranquillize the country but by the destruction of every degree of constitutional liberty--that, therefore, the people of Great Britain are interested in preventing the progress of that system in Ireland--and, finally, that if the two great objects of the public in Ireland were honestly and fully conceded, and if the people were re-instated in the blessings of the constitution by the establishment of a mild and just administration, peace and content would be restored to the country, disaffection would vanish, and the connection of the two islands become closer and more permanent than ever. I have already mentioned the Convention and Gunpowder Acts, and the discontent which these laws had excited. Administration felt, that on these questions there was but one opinion amongst the people of Ireland. They perceived, that though these acts were of the strongest kind, their operation would not be adequate to the suppression of the existing and encreasing discontent; and they therefore resorted to a device, which, having been but too often and too successfully tried in Ireland on former occasions, would, it was hoped, be equally successful at present. A religious feud was excited, and suffered to rage without check or intermission, until it nearly desolated a whole county. Some petty quarrels had, a considerable time back, taken place in the county of Armagh, between a few Catholics and Presbyterians, which, however, produced no serious mischief, and were almost instantly terminated either by the interposition of the magistrates, or by the mutual compromise of the parties. Subsequent to this, the county of Armagh enjoyed the most profound tranquillity, until about this period a party started up on the sudden, without visible motive, without provocation, and, to the surprize of the people in Ireland, commenced a most outrageous and unaccountable persecution of the Catholic inhabitants. It would shock the ears of an Englishman, and, perhaps, exceed his belief, were I to give a minute detail of the ferocious barbarities which were committed by this party.