HISTORY

OF THE

IRISH REBELLION.

CHAP. I.

Congress-Clubs-United Irish-Parliamentary Reform -National Guards-Rowan-Drennan-TandyJackson-Catholic Convention-Petition-Convention

Bill-Ferment-Fitzwilliam-United Irish--Soldiery -Militia Bill-French Negociation-Insurrection Act-Imprisonments-French Expedition-Military Execution-Organization-Orange Men-HusseyTythes-Church-Newspapers-Hand Bills-French Mc Nevin-Atrocities -Arrests-ProclamationsFree Quarters-Violences-Yeomen-Lord Edward

Fitzgerald-Sheares.

FROM the

year 1782, when by the spirited exertions of the volunteer associations of Ireland, the legislature of this kingdom was rendered legally independent of that of Britain, and the odious restrictions, which had been most unwisely imposed on its trade and manufactures by the British government, were in a considerable degree

B

A

removed, many among the Irish extended their views to a wider sphere of political freedom. provincial assembly, first convened at Dungannon, in Ulster, on the fifteenth of February, 1782, consisting of the representatives of a hundred and forty-three volunteer corps, with design, among other objects, to plan and petition for a parliamentary reform, or a more equal representation of the commons in parliament, swelled in 1783 into a national assembly, composed of delegates from the several counties, and held in Dublin under the invidious title of congress; invidious undoubtedly, since under the conduct of an assembly so denominated, the British colonies of North America had recently, by a successful war against the power of Britain, established an independent republic in the western hemisphere.

The failure of this measure in November, the same year, when the petition of congress was contemptuously rejected by parliament, was attributed to the weakness of national disunion, the triple partition of the people divided by the religious antipathies of protestants, protestant dissenters, and Roman catholics. If all these discordant sects could be persuaded virtually to abandon religious distinctions in a pursuit of political reform, and cordially to coalesce with steady determination in their demands, parliament was imagined to be incapable of withholding its consent. As the main strength of the nation, in respect to number, was

conceived to rest in the Romanists, who might constitute three-fourths of the whole population, to give these a proportionate weight in the system, and to interest them warmly in the plan proposed, was an object of primary magnitude with political reformers. For the removal of those legal restrictions and disqualifications, by which the Romanists were deprived of what was accounted their due share of political power, vigorous efforts were made, and various engines put in motion.

Among the modes of agency adopted in those busy times by the favourers of innovation, was the institution of political clubs, which were formed under several titles in the metropolis and elsewhere. The principal of these, denominated the whig club, or the association of the friends of the constitution, liberty, and peace, was honoured by the sanction of some very highly respectable characters as its members, whose object was doubtless merely to obtain the reformation of abuses in the political system, and particularly to promote the scheme of a more equal representation of the people in parliament. A few of its members, however, seem to have entertained projects of a deeper kind-projects of revolution, the total subversion of the existing government, and the erection of a democra tically constituted commonwealth in its place. These advocates of revolution formed a connexion with other clubs of congenial principles, particu

larly that of the whigs of the capital, whose object was evidently a radical alteration in the political system. The determined agitators of this and other societies, which appeared not to promise a speedy success to their wishes, framed at length a more general and deeply planned association,which outlived all the rest, and far surpassed them in the vigour and conduct of its assaults on the existing constitution of the state. This was the famous combination of United Irishmen, whose profound conspiracy, after a long, obstinate, and doubtful struggle with the government of the kingdom, was forced in the end, by the vigilance and vigour of administration, feebly to explode in partial, irregular, and easily conquerable insurrections, instead of an universal and well-organized rebellion, the means proposed by the chiefs: to overturn the constitution.

Originating from Belfast, where principles of a republican tendency had long been cherished, was instituted in Dublin, in the month of November, 1791, the society of United Irishmen, with the immediate view of combining into one political phalanx as many as possible of their countrymen, without any distinction of sect, for the effectuating of a change in the government of Ireland; or, as themselves have declared, "for the purpose of

forwarding a brotherhood of affection, a com"munion of rights, and an union of power among Irishmen of every religious persuasion, and

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thereby to obtain a complete reform in the legislature, founded on the principles of civil, "political, and religious liberty." Catholic emancipation, and parliamentary reform, were the avowed objects of their pursuit. By the former was understood a total abolition of political distinctions between Romanists and protestants: by the latter they professed to mean a completely democratic house of commons. In the plan -which they offered to the consideration of the public, they proposed that the parliament should be annual; that for the purpose of election, the whole kingdom should be divided into three hundred electorates, each formed by a combination of parishes, and all as nearly equal as possible in point of population; that no qualification with respect to property should be required in the elector nor in the representative; that every male of sound understanding of the full age of twentyone, and resident in the electorate during the last six months preceding the election, should be capable of suffrage for a representative; that to be qualified for a seat in the house of commons, a man should be twenty-five years old, resident within the kingdom, and holding neither place nor pension under government, and that each representative should receive a reasonable stipend for his attendance in parliament.

* Appendix to the report of the secret committee of the house of commons, No. 2,