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the fair purpose of trade, and which have not become objectionable on the ground above mentioned.

I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration,

Sir,

Your most obedient

humble servant, (Signed) HAWKESBURY.

MANIFESTO OF THE IRISH REBELS.

The Provisional Government to the People of Ireland.

You are now called on to show to the world that you are competent to take your place among nations-that you have a right to claim their recognisance of you, as an independent country, by the only satisfactory proof you can furnish of your capability of maintaining your independence-your wresting it from England with your own hands.

In the developement of this system, which has been organised within the last eight months, at the close of internal defeat, and without the hope of foreign assistance; which has been conducted with a tranquillity, mistaken for obedience; which neither the failure of a similar attempt in England has retarded, nor the renewal of hostilities has accelerated: in the developement of this system you will show to the people of England, that there is a spirit of perseverance in this country beyond their power to calculate or to repress; you will show to them that as long as they think to hold unjust dominion over Ireland, under no change of circumstances can they count on its obedience-under no aspect of affairs can they judge of its intentions; you will show to

them that the question, which it now behoves them to take into serious and instant consideration, is not whether they will resist a sepa ration, which it is our fixed determination to effect, but whether or not they will drive us beyond separation; whether they will, by a sanguinary resistance, create deadly national antipathy between the two countries, or whether they will take the only means still left of driving such a sentiment from our minds a prompt, manly, and sagacious acquiescence in our just and unalterable determination.

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If the secrecy with which the present effort has been conducted, shall have led our enemies to sup. pose that its extent must have been partial, a few days will undeceive them. That confidence, which was once lost, by trusting to external support, and suffering our own means to be gradually undermined, has been again restored. We have been mutually pledged to each other to look only to our own strength, and that the first introduction of a system of terror, the first attempt to execute an indivi. dual in one county, should be the signal of insurrection in all. We have now, without the loss of a man, with our means of communication untouched, brought our plans to the moment when they are ripe for execution; and in the promptitude with which nineteen counties will come forward at once to execute them, it will be found that neither confidence nor communication are wanting to the pecple of Ireland.

In calling on our countrymen to come forward, we feel ourselves bound, at the same time, to justify our claim to their confidence by a precise declaration of our Own views. We, therefore, solemnly

declare,

declare, that our object is to establish a free and independent republic in Ireland-that the pursuit of this object we will relinquish only with our lives-that we will never, unless at the express call of our country, abandon our post, until the acknowledgement of its independence is obtained from England-and that we will enter into no negotiation (but for exchange of prisoners) with the government of that country while a British army remains in Ireland. Such is the declaration which we call upon the people of Ireland to supportAnd we call first on that part of Ireland which was once paralysed by the want of intelligence, to show that to that cause only was its inaction to be attributed-on that part of Ireland which was once foremost by its fortitude in suffering on that part of Ireland which once offered to take the salvation of the country on itself-on that part of Ireland where the fame of liberty first glowed-we call upon THE NORTH to stand up and shake off their slumber and their oppression.

MEN OF LEINSTER!

stand to your arms!-To the courage which you have already displayed, is your country indebted for the confidence which it now feels in its own strength, and for the dismay with which our enemies will be over-whelmed when they shall find this effort to be universal. But, men of Leinster, you owe more to your country than the having animated it by your past example: you owe more to your own courage than the having obtained by it a protection. If, six years ago, when you rose without arms, without plan, without co-operation, with more troops against you alone than are

now in the country at large, you were able to remain for six weeks in open defiance of the government, and within a few miles of the capital, what will you not now effect, with that capital, and every other part of Ireland, ready to support you? But it is not on this head that we have need to address you. No! we now speak to you, and through you to the rest of Ireland, on a subject dear to us, even as the success of our country-its honour. You are accused by your enemies of having violated that honour; excesses which they themselves had in their fullest extent provoked, but which they have grossly exagge rated, have been attributed to you. The opportunity of vindicating yourselves by actions is now for the first time before you: and we call upon you to give the lie to such assertions, by carefully avoiding every appearance of plunder, intoxication, or revenge, recollecting that you lost Ireland before, not from want of courage, but from not having that courage rightly directed by discipline. But we trust that your past sufferings have taught you experience, and that you will respect the declaration which we now make, and which we are determined by every means in our power to enforce.

The nation alone possesses the right of punishing individuals; and whosoever shall put another person to death, except in battle, without a fair trial by his country, is guilty of murder. The intention of the provisional government of Ireland is to claim from the English government such Irishmen as have been sold or transported by it for their attachment to freedom; and for this purpose it will retain, as hostages for their safe return, such adherents of that government as

shall

1803.]

shall fall into its hands. It there fore calls upon the people to respect those hostages, and to recol leet, that, in spilling their blood, they would leave their own countrymen in the hands of their ene

mies.

The intention of the provisional government is to resign its functions as soon as the nation shall have chosen its delegates; but in the mean time it is determined to en force the regulations hereunto subjoined: it in consequence takes the property of the country under its protection, and will punish, with the utmost rigour, any person who shall violate that property, and thereby injure the present resources and the future prosperity of Ireland. Whoever refuses to march to whatever part of the country he is ordered, is guilty of disobedience to the government, which alone is competent to decide in what place and necessary, his services are which desires him to recollect, that, in whatever part of Ireland he is fighting, he is still fighting for its freedom.

Whoever presumes, by acts or otherwise, to give countenance to the calumny propagated by our enemies, that this is a religious contest, is guilty of the grievous crime of belying the motives of his country. Religious disqualification is but one of the many grievances of which Ireland has to complain. Our intention is to remove not that only, but every other oppression under which we labour. We fight that all of us may have our country; and that done, each of us shall have his religion.

We are aware of the apprehensions which you have expressed, that, in quitting your own counties, you leave your wives and children in the hands of your enemies: but

on this head have no uneasiness.
If there are still men base enough
to persecute those who are unable
to resist, show them by your victo-
ries that we have the power to pu
nish, and by your obedience, that we
have the power to protect; and we
pledge ourselves to you, that these
men shall be made to feel, that the
safety of every thing they hold
dear depends on the conduct they
observe to you. Go forth then
with confidence, conquer the fo-
reign enemies of your country, and
leave to us the care of preserving
its internal tranquillity; recollect
that not only the victory, but also
the honour of your country is
placed in your hands; give up
your private resentments, and show
to the world that the Irish are not
only a brave, but also a generous
and a forgiving people.

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MEN OF MUNSTER AND CONNAUGHT!
you have your instructions-we
trust that you will execute them.
The example of the rest of your
countrymen is now before you,
your own strength is unbroken.
Five months ago you were eager to
act without any other assistance:
we now call upon you to show,
what you then declared you only
wanted the opportunity of proving,
that you possess the same love of
of
rest your coun
liberty, and the same courage,
with which the

trymen are animated.

We now turn to that portion of our countrymen whose prejudices we had rather overcome by a frank declaration of our intentions, than conquer their persons in the field: and in making this declaration we do not wish to dwell on events, which, however they may bring tenfold odium on their authors, must still tend to keep alive in the victims minds both of the instruments and

victims of them, a spirit of animosity, which it is our wish to destroy. We will, therefore, enter into no detail of the atrocities and oppression which Ireland has laboured under during its connexion with England; but we justify our determination to separate from that country on the broad historical statement, that, during six hundred years, she has been unable to conciliate the affections of the people of Ireland; that during that time five rebellions were entered into to shake off the yoke; that she has been obliged to resort to a system of unprecedented torture in her defence; that she has broken every tie of voluntary connexion by taking even the name of independence from Ireland, through the intervention of a parliament notoriously bribed, and not representing the will of the people; that, in her vindication of this measure, she has herself given the justification of the views of the United Irishmen, by declaring, in the words of her ministers-That Ireland never had nor ever could enjoy, under the then circumstances, the benefits of British connexion; that it necessarily must happen, when one country is connected with another, that the interests of the lesser will be borne down by those of the greater that England had supported and encouraged the English colonists in their oppression towards the natives of Ireland; that Ireland had been left in a state of ignorance, rudeness, and barbarism, worse in its effects, and more degrading in its nature, than that in which it was found six centuries before +." Now to what cause are these things to be attributed? Did

Lord Castlereagh's speech.

the curse of the Almighty keep alive a spirit of obstinacy in the minds of the Irish people for six hundred years? Did the doctrines of the French revolution produce five rebellions? Could the misrepresentations of ambitious and designing men, drive from the mind of a whole people the recollection of defeat, and raise the infant from the cradle with the same feelings with which his father sunk into the grave? Will this gross avowal which our enemies have made of their own views, remove none of the calumny that has been thrown upon ours? Will none of the credit which has been lavished on them, be transferred to the solemn decla ration which we now make in the face of God,and our Country?— We war not against propertywe war against no religious sectwe war not against past opinions or prejudices-we war against English dominion. We will not, however, deny that there are some men, who, not because they have supported the government of our oppressors, but because they have violated the common laws of morality, which exist alike under all or under no government, have put it beyond our power to give to them the protection of a government. We will not hazard the influence we may have with the people, and the power it may give us of preventing the excesses of revolution, by undertaking to place in tranquillity the man who has been guilty of torture, free quarters, rape and murder, by the side of the sufferer, or their relations; but, in the frankness with which we warn these men of their danger, let those who do not feel that they have

+ Considerations on the State of Affairs in Ireland, by Lord Auckland.

passed

passed this boundary of mediation, count on their safety.

We had hoped, for the sake of our enemies, to have taken them by surprise, and to have committed the cause of our country before they could have time to commit themselves against it: but though we have not altogether been able to succeed, we are yet rejoiced to find, that they have not come forward with promptitude on the side of those who have deceived them; and we now call on them, before it is yet too late, not to commit themselves further against a people they are unable to resist, and in support of a government, which, by their own declaration, has forfeited its claim to their allegiance.

To that government, in whose hands, though not the issue, at least the features with which the present contest is to be marked, are placed, we now turn. How is it to be decided? Is open and honourable force alone to be resorted to? or is it your intention to employ those laws which custom has placed in your hands, and to force us to employ the law of retaliation in our defence?

Of the inefficacy of a system of terror, in preventing the people of Ireland from coming forward to assert their freedom, you have already had experience. Of the effect which such a system will have on our minds in case of success, we have already forewarned you. We now address to you another consideration; if, in the question which is now to receive a solemn, and we trust a final, decision; if we have been deceived, reflexion would point out that that conduct should be resorted to which was the best calculated to produce conviction on our minds. What would

that conduct be? It would be to show us, that the difference of strength between the two countries is such, as to render it unne cessary for you to bring out all your force; to show to us that you have something in reserve wherewith to crush hereafter, not only a greater exertion on the part of the people, but a greater exertion, rendered still greater by foreign assistance; it would be to show to us, that what we have vainly sup posed to be a prosperity growing beyond your grasp, is only a partial exuberance, requiring but the pressure of your hand to reduce it into form.

But, for your own sake, do not resort to a system which, while it increased the acrimony of your minds, would leave us under the melancholy delusion that we had been forced to yield, not to the sound and temperate exertions of superior strength, but to the frantic struggles of weakness, concealing itself under desperation. Consider also, that the distinction of rebel and enemy is of a very fluctuating nature; that, during the course of your own experience, you have already been obliged to lay it aside; that should you be forced to abandon it towards Ireland, you cannot hope to do so as tranquilly as you have done towards America; for in the exasperated state to which you have raised the minds of the Irish people-a people whom you profess to have left in a state of barbarism and ignorance, with what confidence can you say to that people, "while the advantage of cruelty lay upon our side, we slaughtered you without mercy; but the measure of our own blood is beginning to preponderate: it is no longer our interest that this bloody system should continue:

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