visionary safeguards---of what use is the responsibility of ministers, if it is to depend upon the will of a parliament, whose majority is the creature of those ministers? What avails our so celebrated laws, if they are to be thus capriciously suspended? What is our constitution with its theoretic blessings, but a practical and splendid mockery, if its noblest ornaments are to be effaced at will and its strength turned into an engine of oppression? Oh! it is worse than fatuity in us to deceive ourselves. The tower in which we trusted turns out at last to be but a goodly vision; fair indeed to the eye, but as false as it is fair, falling to pieces at the wand of the minister, when the forlorn people approach it for protection.

Such, gentlemen, are my reasons for the assertion I have made; their inferences may be, perhaps, doubted by many, who can never see any thing, even problematical, in the basest conduct of "the powers that be," their existence, however, at least, is undeniable.

In taking my leave of you, for the present, let me express my gratitude to the prompt, manly, and decided friends, who so independently proffered me, not only their interest, but their purses, and particularly to the professional friends, who, in addition volunteered their services.

The period is approaching when all may be necessary; in the mean time, let every independent man in the country, register his freehold, and await with confidence the hour of his liberation.

I am, gentlemen, with gratitude and respect,
Your fellow countryman,

Dublin, June 21, 1818.

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

OF

MR. PHILLIPS,

AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO

GEN. DEVEREUX,
AT DUBLIN.

My Lord, and Gentlemen,

I sincerely thank you; to be remembered when my countrymen are celebrating the cause of freedom and humanity, cannot fail to be grateful-to be so remembered when a personal and valued friend is the object of the celebration, carries with it a double satisfaction; and you will allow me to say, that if any thing could enhance the pleasure of such feelings, it is the consciousness that our meeting can give offence to no one. Topics have too often risen up amongst us, where the best feelings were painfully at variance; where silence would have been guilt, and utterance was misery. But, surely here, at length, is an occasion where neither sect or party are opposed-where every man in the country may clasp his brother by the hand, and feel and boast the most electric communication. To unmanacle the slave-to unsceptre the despot-to erect an altar on the inquisition's grave--to raise a people to the attitude of freedom -to found the temples of science and of commerce --to create a constitution, beneath whose ample

arch every human creature, no matter what his sect, his colour or his clime, may stand sublime in the dignity of manhood-these are the glorious objects of this enterprize, and the soul must be imbruted, and the heart must be ossified, which does not glow with the ennobling sympathy. Where is the slave so abject as to deny it? Where is the statesman who can rise from the page of Spanish South America, and affect to commiserate the fall of Spain? Her tyranny, even from its cradle to its decline, has been the indelible disgrace of christianity, and of Europe-it was born in fraud, baptized in blood, and reared by rapine-it blasphemed all that was holy-it cankered all that was happythe most simple habits, the most sacred institutions, the most endeared and inoffensive customs, esca ped not inviolate, the accursed invader-the hearth, the throne, the altar, lay confounded in one common ruin; and when the innocent children of the sun confided for a moment in the christian's promise, what! oh, shame to Spain! oh, horror to christianity! oh! eternal stigma on the name of Europe! what did they behold?-the plunder of their fortunes, the desolation of their homes, the ashes of their cities; their children murdered without distinction of sex; the ministers of their faith expiring amid tortures; the person of their Ynca, their loved, sacred, the heroic Ynca, quivering in death upon a burning furnace; and the most natural, and most excusable of all idolatries, their consecrated sunbeam, clouded by the murky smoke of an inquisition, streaming with human gore, and raised upon the ruins of all that they held holy! These were the feats of Spain, in South America! This is the fiery and demoniac sway for which an execrable tyrant solicits British neutrality! Ireland,

at least, has given an answer. An armed legion of her chosen youth bears it at this hour in thunder on the waters, and the sails are swelling for their brave companions. I care not if this tyranny was ten thousand times more crafty, more vigilant, more ferocious, than it is; when a people will it. their liberation is inevitable; their inflictions will be converted into the instruments of freedom; they will write its charter even in the blood of their shrines; they will turn their chains into the weapons of their emancipation. If it were possible still more to animate them, let them only think on the tyrant they have to combat-that odious concentration of qualities, at once the most opposite, and the most contemptible; timid and sanguinary; effeminate and ferocious; impious and superstitious; now embroidering a petticoat, now imprisoning an hero; to-day kneeling to a God of mercy; to-morrow lighting the hell of inquisition; at noon embracing his ministerial pander; at midnight starting from a guilty dream, to fulminate his banishment; the alternate victim of his fury and his fears; faithful to an infidel priestcraft, which excites his terrors, and fattens on his crimes, and affects to worship the anointed slave as he trembles, enthroned on the bones of his benefactors. Who can sympathise with such a monster? Who can see, unmoved, a mighty empire writhing in the embraces of this human Boa? My very heart grows faint within me when I think how many thousands of my gallant countrymen have fallen to crown him with that ensanguined diadem; when I think that genius wrote, and eloquence spoke, and valour fought, and fidelity died for him, while he was tasting the bitterness of captivity, and that his ungrateful restoration has literally withered his realm into a desert, where

the widow and orphan weep his sway, and the sceptre waves, not to govern, but to crush! Never, my lord, never, whether we contemplate the good they have to achieve, the evil they have to overcome, or the wrongs they have to avenge; never did warriors march in a more sacred contest. Their success may be uncertain, but it is not uncertain that every age and clime will bless their memories, for their sword is garlanded with freedom's flowers, and patriotism gives them an immortal bloom, and piety breathes on them an undying fragrance. Let the tyrant menace, and the hireling bark; wherever christianity kneels or freedom breathes, their deeds shall be recorded, and when their honoured dust is gathered to its fathers, millions they have redeemed will be their mourners, and an emancipated hemisphere their enduring monument. Go, then soldier of Ireland, (turning to Gen. Devereux,)

"Go where glory waits thee;"

Montezuma's spirit, from his bed of coals, through the mist of ages, calls to you for vengeance; the patriot Cortes, in their dungeon vaults, invoke your retribution; the graves of your brave countrymen, trampled by tyranny, where they died for freedom, are clamorous for revenge! Go, plant the banner of green on the summit of the Andes. May victory guide, and mercy ever follow it; if you should triumph, the consummation will be liberty, and in such a contest should you even perish, it will be as martyrs perish, in the blaze of your own glory. Yes, you shall sink like the sun of the Peruvian whom you will seek to liberate; mid the worship of a people, and the tears of a world, and you will rise reanimate, refulgent, and immortal!