The next _crime_ with which the Irish nation stands charged, is their early and zealous efforts for parliamentary reform.--It has been enumerated as one of the causes which have produced the present horrible system of administration in Ireland, that shortly after the establishment of their legislative independence, a convention met in Dublin, consisting of representatives from the different Volunteer Associations, by whom the country had been saved from the common enemy, and who were supposed to have contributed much to the establishment of her independence. This convention had been constituted on the same principle (but with more circumspection and order) as that which was so well known by the name of the Dungannon meeting--an assembly, which though perfectly military, so far as its being constituted by armed citizens could make it so, did more towards asserting the independence of Ireland and procuring for her the most important advantages of constitution and commerce than any other which ever sat in Ireland. To the Dungannon meeting, however, no exceptions were taken--they were suffered to meet--to resolve--and to point out in the most decisive tone the grievances under which they supposed the country laboured. Their remonstrances were carried even to the foot of the throne, and the father of his people, uninfluenced by that romantic sense of dignity, which has since produced such lamentable effects in Irish Parliaments--graciously received, and wisely attended to their remonstrances.--The jesuitical or Machiavelian distinction between citizens in red clothes and in coloured ones, had not yet been thought of--it was considered sufficient to entitle an address or petition to a respectful hearing, if it was substantially the sense of a great body of the property and population of the state, no matter whether they spoke in the character of volunteers associated to defend the constitution, or as freeholders assembled only to exercise its privileges.