efficient. Confiding in your zeal for the general welfare of the country, and sensible of the great importance of the subject, we entreat your aid to any investigation which may be instituted in Parliament relating to the operation of the corn laws of the kingdom. We cannot avoid expressing our apprehensions, that the system requires some alteration or modification, when the safety of the public so often demands the disagreeble, though necessary interference of the executive power to suspend the law of the land. Allow us once more to express to you our grateful acknowledgments for your services in Parliament; we have viewed with pleasure and satisfaction your exertions to conciliate, interest, and unite our fellow subjects in support of that happy constitution which your virtue, wisdom, and splendid talents have been so eminently displayed to establish, to defend, and to invigorate. Which I attest, GENTLEMEN, CHAS. SEXTON, Clk. Gld. Mr. Grattan's Answer. I AM much honoured by the confidence you place in me, and I shall endavour to merit its continuation by directing my attention to those subjects which are to the welfare of the manufactures of this city so highly interesting. I see the situation of your trade in particular, and it shall not want my humble but sincere assistance: that my assistance shall be successful I cannot promise; I am sure it is well intended. I have the honour to be, Your most obedient humble Servant, THE following Address of the Catholics of Dublin was presented to Mr. GRATTAN by the Gentlemen appointed for that purpose at the Meeting in Francis Street, on the 27th February, 1795. SIR, To the Right Honourable Henry Grattan. WE are instructed by the Catholics of Dublin to offer you their humble tribute of thanks and gratitude, as well for the eminent services which you have rendered to this kingdom on various occasions, as for your able and generous exertions in their cause. It is not easy to do justice to the merits of a man whose name is connected with the most brilliant events of his time; and who has already obtained the highest of all titles, THE DELIVERER of his COUNTRY: but though it is impossible to add to your fame, by any terms we can employ, it must be grateful to you to learn, that you have a place, not only in the admiration, but in the affections of your countrymen. To be thus loved and admired is surely an enviable distinction. It may not, perhaps, be sufficient to preserve or purchase station and power at court, but to a well-formed mind it is a source of purer satisfaction, than the favour and protection even of monarchs or their ministers. Few men have had it in their power to do so much for their native land, as you have done for Ireland. When you first entered into public life, garrison habits, and provincial prejudices, were opposed to Irish interests and feelings; and, what was still more discouraging, the different descriptions of people in this country, far from being ready to meet in a common point for their mutual advantage, were kept asunder by perverse and unintelligible antipathies of a religious nature. Into this chaos of contradiction you infused your spirit, and brought order in some measure out of confusion. The first effort of your eloquence was to rouse the Irish Parliament to assert its own independence; and, notwithstanding the habits of subjection which particular causes had induced, you were successful. At present you are engaged in a pursuit equally honourable to your head, and still more to your heart. As mover of the Catholic bill, you are endeavouring to inculcate the necessity of moderation and justice, where you before inspired courage; and urging men who triumphed over foreign supremacy, to an act of much greater dignity and difficulty, a sacrifice of the prejudices of their youth and education. In this work, so full of genius and public spirit, and which goes to the creation of a people, as your former exertions went to the forming of a constitution, you have already made considerable progress; and when you and your illustrious friends were called to the councils of a virtuous Viceroy, we looked with confidence to the accomplishment of your patriotic intentions. Some enemy, however, to the King and to the people has interposed his malignant and wicked suggestions, and endeavoured to throw obstacles in the way of our total emancipation. But we are far from giving way to sentiments of despondency and alarm. We feel the justice of our pretensions, and we are persuaded that what is just will prevail over the arts of perfidy and falsehood. What gives us the most sensible satisfaction is the general union of sentiment that pervades all ranks and descriptions of Irishmen on the present occasion. Never before did Ireland speak with a voice so unanimous. Protestants and Catholics are at this moment united, and seem to have no other contest but who shall resent most the outrage that has been offered to Irish pride in the intended removal of a patriotic Viceroy from the government, and you and your friends from the councils of this kingdom. For our own part, it shall be our study to cultivate an union so happily begun. We have no selfish or narrow views. We do not wish to acquire privileges for ourselves, in order to abridge the privileges of others; for we know that, in matters of liberty and constitution, to give is to gain. * Earl Fitzwilliam; who came to Ireland in January, and was recalled in February, 1795. With regard to the men who may have the hardihood to take the situations which you and your friends are about to lay down, if unfortunately for this country such an event should happen, we shall only say, that we do not envy them the sensations which they must take up at the same time. That man's temper must be of steel, who can hold up his head amidst the hisses of a betrayed and irritated nation. As to you and your friends, your departure from power will not disturb the serenity of your minds. The veneration and gratitude of the people will attend you in retirement, and will preserve you from reflections which must be the portion of those who may be your dismal and melancholy successors. GENTLEMEN, Signed by order, THOMAS BRAUGHALL, Chairman. Mr. Grattan's Answer. IN supporting you, I support the Protestant. We have but one interest and one honour, and whoever gives privileges to you, gives vigour to all. The Protestant already begins to perceive it. A late attack has rallied the scattered spirits of the country, from the folly of religious schism, to the recollection of national honour, and a nation's feuds are lost in a nation's resentment. Your emancipation will pass; rely on it, your emancipation must pass it may be death to one Viceroy, it will be the peaceoffering of another; and the laurel may be torn from the dead brow of one governor to be craftily converted into the olive of his successor. Let me advise you by no means to postpone the consideration of your fortunes till after the war; rather let Britain receive the benefit of your zeal during the exigency which demands it, and you yourselves while you are fighting to preserve the blessing of a constitution, have really and bona fide those blessings. My wish is that you should be free now; there is no other policy which is not low and little; let us at once instantly embrace, and greatly emancipate. On this principle I mean to introduce your bill, with your per mission, immediately after the recess. You are pleased to speak of the confidence and power with which for a moment I was supposed to have been possessed. When his Majesty's ministers were pleased to resort to our support, they took us with the incumbrance of our reputation, and with all our debts and mortgages which we owed to our country. To have accepted a share of confidence and council without a view to private advantage, will not meet I hope with the disapprobation of my country; but to have accepted that share without any view to public advantage, would have been refinement on the folly of ambition; measures, therefore, public measures and arrangements, and that which is now disputed, were stipulated by us, were promised in one quarter, and with assurances they were not resisted in another. In the service of government, under his Excellency's administration, we directed our attention to two great objects, the kingdom and the empire. We obtained certain beneficial laws; the discovery and reformation of certain abuses, and were in progress to reform more; we obtained a great force, and a great supply with the consent and confidence of the people. These were not the measures of courtiers, they were the measures of ministers. His Excellency Lord Fitzwilliam may boast that he offered to the empire the affections of millions, a better aid to the war than his enemies can furnish, who have forfeited those affections, and put themselves in their place. So decidedly have the measures of Ireland served the empire, that those who were concerned in them might appeal from the cabals of the British cabinet to the sense of the British nation. I know of no cause afforded for the displeasure of the English cabinet; but if services done to Ireland, are crimes which cannot be atoned for by exertions for the empire, I must lament the gloomy prospects of both kingdoms, and receive a discharge from the service of government, as the only honour an English minister can confer on an Irish subject. I conceive the continuance of Lord Fitzwilliam as necessary for the prosperity of this kingdom; his firm integrity is formed to correct, his mild manners to reconcile, and his private example to discountenance a progress of vulgar and rapid pollution; if he is to retire, I condole with my country. For myself, the pangs on that occasion I should feel, on rendering up my small portion of ministerial breath, would be little, were it not for the gloomy prospects afforded by those dreadful guardians which are likely to succeed. I tremble at the return to power of your old task-masters; that combination which galled the country with its tyranny, insulted her by its manners, exhausted her by its rapacity, and slandered her by its malice; should such a combination, at once inflamed as it must be now, by the favour of the British court and by the reprobation of the Irish people, return to power, I have no hesitation say that they will extinguish Ireland, or Ireland must remove them. It is not your case only but that of the nation. I find the country already committed in the struggle; I beg to be committed along with her, and to abide the issues of her fortunes. to I should have expected that there had been a wisdom and faith in some quarter of another country, that would have prevented such catastrophe; but I know it is no proof of that wisdom to take the taxes, continue the abuses, damp the zeal, and dash away the affection of so important a member of the empire as the people of Ireland; and when this country came forward, cordial and confident, with the offering of her treasure and blood, and resolute to stand or fall with the British nation. It is, I say, no proof of wisdom nor generosity to select that moment to plant a dagger in her heart. But whatsoever shall be the event, I will adhere to her interests to the last moment of my life. HENRY GRATTAN. ADDRESS of the Roman Catholics of the county of Tipperary, 20th March, 1795. SIR, To the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. If services to Ireland are to be deemed crimes, if a life devoted to the successful assertion of the dignity and independence of his native country, excites the suspicion and distrust of those who seem desirous to convert an imperial kingdom into a dependent province, the patriot who enjoys the confidence, and has earned the gratitude of millions, will find in the consciousness of his own integrity the best reward of his virtues, and the firmest support of his measures, in the unanimous concurrence and approbation of every class of the people. The baleful breach of narrow and bigotted politicians may check, but cannot destroy, the blossoms of our just expectations whilst you live; and we think we cannot despair that freedom, constitutional freedom, will extend and must be imparted to all Irishmen. You, Sir, have our confidence; and whilst we have formed the most sanguine expectations from your unshaken virtue, and most brilliant talents, we feel at the same time an honest pride by our attachment to the constitution, and by our long tried loyalty, to have entitled ourselves to your approbation and support. GENTLEMEN, Signed by order, THOMAS LANIGAN, Chairman. Mr. Grattan's Answer. I THANK you for the confidence you are pleased to repose in me, and for the choice of the time in which you are pleased to express it. To have incurred the displeasure of a powerful quarter is to me no new misfortune. If I wanted consolation, I have it in my own conviction, in your confidence, and in the approbation of my country. The justice of your cause, your attachment to his Majesty, your desire to preserve and cultivate a connexion with Great Britain, the firm but dutiful tone with which you apply for privileges, and now the interposition of your Protestant brethren in your favour, must ultimately secure your success. The tranquillity observed at this present interesting moment, in places, too, where so many rumours to the contrary were so confidently circulated, is an argument that the Catholics are too much in earnest to be tumultuary, and that they seek through the peace of the country the privileges of the constitution. The most adverse to your cause, (save the few who are always adverse to the people,) will at last see the propriety of your |