texts and excufes; by degrees it will be more eafily fatisfied; until at length confcience becomes callous, and crime familiar. Enough, my best friend, of this difmal fubject. I have pursued it fo far, in compliance with your request. It is for my own peace now, that I beg your permiffion to relinquish it, and proceed to your next enquiry, if not more eafy of folution, at leaft more agreeable. OF THE CRIMES OF THE IRISH REBELS. Written by Counsellor Sampson. To fay that the rebels never committed any cr mes, would be deservedly to lofe my credit for veracity. I can only fay, I never faw them; but I faw and felt bitterly thofe committed by their enemies. And I believe there was no crime or cruelty which they could perpetrate, for which they had not ready precedents in the Irish ftatute books, the records of their history, and the memorable examples of their own times. They had no need to hold a parliament; it was but to fubftitute the word English for irish, and Proteftant for Catholic, and they had the fanction of king, lords and commons, for every poffible enormity.Would they burn the castle of the lord? He had taught them by burning the cot tage of the peafant. Would they murder the innocent? Gracious heaven! how many pointed authorities could they not find in the murder of those they adored? Would they torture?—— They found irons, fcourges, pickets and pitch-caps, amongst the baggage of their enemies. Would they kidnap? It was but to empty the dungeons and prisonips, let out their friends, and put their perfecutors in. Would they exact of men to change their religion? It was * A remarkable circumflance is, that this Chanceller, by the kick of a horfe, fuffered a privation fimilar to that with which he threatened his countrymen, and died in copfe quence. To fo great a length was this wonderful abuse carried on, that Lord Cornwallis flued an order, that they should not, in future, aft as JUSTICES, until they were of age, had had they more to do than to open the ftatute book, and read the acts of indem>nity for thefe applauded deeds of “ ardent loyalty and vigour beyond the law ??` I will then only afk this one question: was that precept good which God revealed to man, to "do unto others as they would it should be done unto them?" Let us then learn to abhor all crimes alike. Let us not cant like hypocrites on one side, and be obdurate as devils on the other. Let us halten to do away unjust calumnies, which ferve to provoke, but never to reform. Let men be impartial, that they may enjoy peace. Let thole who have been cruel, by future acts of liberal juice and unfeigned contrition, wipe away, if it be yet poffible, the ftings of deadly injury. This prefent unnatural order of human things cannot endure. The delirium of antiphilofophy, and the fever of antipatriotifm cannot be fuftained long. Already the fneer of the fycophant, and faucinefs of the protected jackanapes, and the infolence of the fool, begin to "ftink in the noftrils of men." Out of the calamities of mankind, a new order muft arife. Let us raife our thoughts to the dignity of fuch an æra, and cease to be obftinate in unworthinefs: and let thofe whofe ambition aims at diftinction feek it in the furtherance of human liberty, and the welfare of their fpecies. But to return - Whether the rebels did act as cruelly as their adverfaries let Lord Kingsborough anfwer; he was in their hands, and he was released, as were other men of no lefs power and note, who had exhaufted their imagination in devising and executing tortures. Counsellor Sampson's Summary of the Effects of Ireland's Connection with Great Britain. Thus, for fix hundred years and more have we seen our country exposed to never ceafing torments, and ftruggling against oppreffions as cruel as abfurd. We have seen, that it was not, as the ignorant imagine, or the crafty affect to think, in the fortuitous accidents of the times, that its late troubles had their origin. It was a chronic malady, and the agitations of our days were but its fymptoms. The quack may affume importance from the feeming cure, but the dif eafe ftill burns like a covered fire. All nations have had their civil diffentions, and their wars; but Ireland has groaned unremittingly under the blighting and corrupting influence of foreign and jealous domination. Her fruitful foil has been laid wafte with fire and fword; confifcated to the profit of adventurers and plunderers; and much of it (a feeming paradox) three times confifcated; firit in the hands of its ancient and lawful owners, and then in thofe of the confifcators themselves. We have feen that country, formed by nature's hand for happiness, profperity and univerfal commerce, afflicted with mifery, beggary and bondage; her native inhabitants removed from the foil which their ancestors once cultivated, that animals might be raised to feed a navy, the enemy of their commerce and of the world's repofe; or to nourish India planters, not an ounce of whofe produce in return they could import in fhips of their own nation. The very fleeces of the flocks they fed, made prize to the cupidity of British manufacturers, to whofe felfish principles the Irish manufactures have been ever facrificed. And on thofe provifions, raised at the expence of human exiltence, and exported from a country where the people starve, within the space of forty years, twenty three embargoes were laid, to favor the exclufive avarice of Leadenhall contractors; and the fortunes of thousands thereby often ruined in a day. From the ftinted revenues of this country millions are annually drained to fupply the luxuries of abfentees, the most malignant malignant of our enemies, revilers, and vituperators. A place and penfion lift of an extravagance fo gigantic, filled by fuch characters (from the German Prince, down to the fervile fatelite of St. James's) that the Livre Rouge of ancient Verfailles compared to it, would blush a fill deeper red at its own paltry infignifi cance !* A people, victim of rapacity, naked, poor, and hugry, deprived of education, robbed of their liberty and natural rights, who lay them down in wearinefs, and rife but to new toils! A debt, which in the short period of the last twenty-four years, has encreased from two to fixty millions flerling! in the contemplation of which, the Irish have but one fentiment of confolation, that in their infolvency they are fecure. And that the prodigal, for whose use it has been railed, muft answer forit with his own-and God knows how 1 CHARACTER OF BAYLE, A FRENCH PHILOSOPHER. BAYLE, who renounced the Proteft. ant, embraced the Catholic religion, and in feventeen months after returned to his former communion, was able, by his mode of reafoning, not only to impofe on men of fuperficial understanding, that he was a man of vaft eradition, but even upon some of the learned, who do not always invefligate inatters fufficientJy. When his Dictionary appeared, the celebrated Abbe Renaudot, appointed to examine it, by order of thehancellor of France, gave his report of it in a tract wherein he boldly maintains, that Bayle read the works of the Ancients only according to the quotations of modern writers; and that in articles of far fetch The Penfion Lift alone, at this moment, exceed one hundred and fifty thousand pounds fterling per annum. ed erudition, he committed more miltakes than Moveri, whofe work he criticifed. Although fuch a reproach must have feverely wounded a man, who paffed himself on the world for a learned critic, yet Bayle, in his reply strives only to vindicate himself from the charge of lewdness and impiety. His Dictionary, which contains fo many useless articles, and fo few of importance, may be juítly entitled-a mis-shapen collection. The following character of Bayle is drawn by an able master, his countryman and cotemporary, the eloquent Saurin, a French Proteftant minifter. "He was one of thofe inconfiftent men, whom the greatest penetration could not reconcile with himself, and whofe contradictory qualities leave us always in fufpenfe whether to place him in the one or in the oppofite extremity. On the one hand, a great philosopher, knowing how to difcriminate between truth and falfehood, feeing the connexion of a principle, and pursuing a confequence. "On the other a great caviller, who ftrives, with might and main, to confound truth with falfehood, to twift and conteft a principle, and defeat a confequence. "On the one hand, a man of genius, and erudition, who read every thing that that can be retained. can be read, and retained every thing "On the other ignorant, or pretending to be ignorant of things the most common and familiar: ftarting difficulties, that have been a thousand times refuted, propofing objections, that the greateft novice in the fchools would not, without blufhing prefume to allege. greateft men, opening a vaft field to their intricate mazes, and impervious paths, toils and operations, leading them thro and if not defeating, at leaft obliging them always to purchafe victory at the deareft rate. "On the one hand, attacking the On the other, making ufe of men of the "On the other employing the whole dint of his genius to make war on morality, to combat chastity, modelty and aggregate of all chriftian virtues. "On the one hand, appealing to the fevereft tribunal of found doctrine, extracting from the pureft fources, borrowing the arguments of Doctors the leaft fufpected. "On the other, walking in the footAteps of Heretics, renewing the objections of old Herefiarchs, furnishing them with new weapons, and concentrating in our age, all the errors of former introduced, caused these unfortunate men to pafs in review before me; their appearance was truly horrible :-fome of them had their nofes cut off others their ears, others both ears and nofes flit ;their heads were fhaved, and they wore a fort of jackets made of Ruffian frize, with bear-fkin caps, and large fnow fhoes. Amongst the exiles I remarked two young men, who were not deformed or mutilated; their heads were thaved, and they wore larger caps than the other exiles, in which were faftened a multitude of feathers, of the different fowl that inhabit this climate. As the figures they exhibited refembled exactly those of European Merry- Andrews, I asked the Governor to detail the circumstances which had caused their banishment, and why the punishment inflicted on them appeared to be fo much milder than that impofed on the other exiles. He complied with my request, and favoured me with the following narration: "Their father," faid he, "was a merchant of the first class in Petersburgh -who had been bleffed for many years by the poffeffion of ample wealth, and happy in the univerfal regard of his fellow citizens. His circumstances in life enabled him to beftow an education on thefe young men far above the sphere in which they were defined to move.When they had left school, and their greener years ripened into manhood, inftead of rendering themselves useful members to fociety, by the activity of induftrious purfuits, or aflifting to increafe their parent's wealth, they com Tranflated from the French of Monfieur menced news. writers, and authors of Glaffoculus. Having accompanied fome merchants who traded in furs, from Tobolski to Kamtchatfkoi, I had an opportunity of feeing in the latter place, all those who had been exiled to this dreary region, for real or imputed offences against the State. The Governor, to whom I was foolish mifcellanies, they behaved to their inferiors with tyrannical infolence, to their equals with hauteur and ill manners, and to their fuperiors with a cringing, fawning fervility, which are always the characteristic traits of feeble and grovelling minds. The only claim they poffeffed to the notice of the inhabitants of Peterburgh, as men of learning, was, the who was accustomed to write a great quantity of the barbarous Sclavonian dialect, interfperfed with worfe Perfian, which as foon as he had written he used to carry all over Peterburgh, asking at every fhop, like a pedlar with his wares, "did the people read his laft Xongi Yong, Zong? Did they not think it was very humorous? Did they not think it was very fatirical? Did they not think it was very harmless? and did they not think the ftyle very pure? The good citizens feeing that he did not understand grammar, that nothing in his effays favoured of wit, fatire, innocence, or na. tural talest, and that, or the contrary, they difplayed only feeble malignity, put their heads together to have him ba nifhed from Petersburgh. To accomplith this, they employed an old folicitor who knew all the good laws of Ruffia, from the reign of Rurick down to the prefent day. Having taken instructions from them, he recurred to his voluminous legal records, where he discovered that in the reign of Alexander Nevski, a tribunal of morals had been established at Kiev, which enacted, "that all per fons having no vilible means of livingthose who difedified the rifing genera tion by eves-dropping-thofe who fomented quarrels-those who were mean hypocrites-thofe who offended the fight by writing nonsense-and those who injured the hearing by. talking too much, fhould be tranfported either to Tobolfki or Kámtchatskoi. On receiving this information, the 'citizens of Petersburgh memorialed the Emprefs Catha rine to banish the young man to the pe ninfula, who was then poffeffed of his liberty, with which request the gra cioufly complied, as they had repréfented him in their memorial to be a public nuisance. the public miscarriage of their literary bandlings, and the univerfal ridicule they fuftained from men of good fenfe; all which they bore with philofophic infen. fibility, and continued their authorship undeterred by any apprehenfion of perJonal risk, of injury to their fortunes, or the certainty of increafing the meafure of public mirth, by the expofure of their follies. They continued in the habits of idleness and vanity for feveral years, until the ufual confequences thereof reful ted and they had brought poverty upon thenfelves by their extravagance and mifmanagement. Their refpected parent having lot his worldly fubftance, but not the esteem of his fellow citizens, a fubfcription was fet on foot to reftore him, in fome degree, to that ftate, or condition in life, which he had forfeited by the indifcretion of his relatives. The fuccefs of this praife-worthy undertaking was in fome degree counteracted by the perfeverant and deceptious puerility of thefe young men, one of whom was fo great a diffembler, that it was his practice to vilit thofe who had been friends to his father, and gleaning from them what information he could, he used to carry it all to the avowed enemy of thofe gentlemen, for the purpose of having it published in the Journals of Peterfburgh. The other was not remarkable for the commiflion of any folly, but that of ftiulating greater blockheads than himfelf to deferve the Knout, by engaging in fingle combat ; an offence that Peter the Great has made capital, but which this young man thought fo light of, that he has been difcovered to provoke Count PRESUMPTUSO to fight another young gentleman about the compofition of a ballad, for which violation of Peter's wholefome law, he was arrested and imprifoned in Petersburgh. The community of that city having been long time. annoyed by the intolerable vanity, and garrulous noife of the other young man, *A severe punishment inflicted on great criminals in Russia. "The other who was then in prison, hearing of the fentence which had been pronounced against his brother, petitioned for permiflion to accompany him in his exile, rather than await his trial for encouraging |