293

in my bosom, but leave it unsatisfied. I have illustrious relatives, it is true, but they offer me no kindness; and, if they did, there are certain slumbering recollections which would awake in my brain and check my ardour to receive them. I have but one mother, and no variations of place or circumstances can remove her from my sight. Heaven impressed her image on my soul, and time has established it there as its native and legitimate sphere.

"By a refinement of cruelty, indeed, we may be separated on earth; and I, as well as yourself, may be doomed the victim of an unjust and malignant spirit of persecution; but, in a better world, our congenial spirits will rush to meet each other, where no envious or hated fiends can intervene, or impede the pleasures which flow from the pure fountain of filial and maternal love.

"Such sentiments as these naturally arise out of the contemplation of my situation at this moment. Should it be the pleasure of Providence that I survive the hour of approaching danger, I may, at some future period, be endued with power to restore you to that situation which you were formed to embellish; but if an all-wise decree should summon me from this sphere of anxious apprehension, not for myself, but for my mother, a pang of terror shoots across my wildered brain; even then, however, my last would be to Heaven to gift you with that sublime feeling of pious resignation which would teach you to bow submissive to the chastening stroke of our common Father, and to console your afflicted heart with the anticipation of our reunion in a world where felicity is unimpaired, and to which malice is inadmissible.

prayer

"Believe me, my adored mother, I fear less to die than to live. The prospect of protracted existence is so blended with dangers and difficulties, so shadowed with clouds and uncertainties, so replete with anxieties and apprehensions, that I must shrink from the contemplation of it, and fly for refuge even to the probability of my removal from so joyless an inheritance. The page of history has determined that happiness is not the possession of those who move in the lofty circles to which my birth entitles me to look. I cannot hope for an exception in my favour. All the joys of life are centred in my present retirement; and they are even poor, because you are not a participator in them. But even this unqualified enjoyment of them must be brief: and I must emerge into a situation uncongenial to my soul, What cause and destructive to all my hopes of felicity on earth.

have I then to shun that issue which others may behold with horror? What cause have I to covet that existence which others so highly prize? Death would obliterate no image of delight from my heart, save that which, in the portrait of a beloved mother, nature has still left to the hoping, doubting, yet fearing. "CHARLOTTE."

"Claremont, Oct. 10, 1817."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE REPUBLICAN,

SIR, I enclose you the Speech of Mr. Phillips, the Barrister, and an Answer to it for your perusal and correction. If you think it worthy of publication in the Republican after your alterations, the insertion will confer a favour on a wellwisher to the cause and yourself.

May 29, 1820,

A FRIEND TO TRUTH.

The Speech of C. Phillips, Esq. as delivered at the Sligo County Meeting, on Monday, 10th of April, 1820, for the purpose of taking into consideration an Address of Condolence to the King, on the death of his Royal Father, and of Congratulation to his Majesty on his accession to the Throne.

SIR, I am happy in having an opportunity of giving my concurrence both in the sentiment and principle of the proposed address. I think it should meet the most perfect unanimity. The departed monarch deserves, and justly, every tribute which posterity can pay him. He was one of the most popular that ever swayed the sceptre of these countries--he never forgot his early declaration, that he gloried in the name of Briton; and Britain now reciprocates the sentiment, and glories in the pride of his nativity. He was indeed a true born Englishman-brave, generous, benevolent, and manly; in the exercise of his sway and the exercise of his virtues, so perfectly consistent, that it is difficult to say, whether as a man or sovereign he is most to be regretted. He commenced for the Catholic a conciliatory system-he preserved for the Protestant the inviolability of the constitution he gave to both a great example in the toleration of his principles and the integrity of his practice. The historian will dwell with delight upon these topics. He will have little to censure and much to commend. He will speak of arts, manufactures, literature, encouraged he will linger long among those private virtues which wreathed themselves around his public station-which identified his domestic with his magisterial character, and made the father of his family the father of his people. He will not fail to remark, how ample, and at the same time, how discriminating was his patronage; and he will truly say, that if the pencil of West, directed to the sacred volume by his bounty-if the old age of Johnson, cheered and consoled by his royal liberality, were to stand alone, they would undeniably attest the purity of his taste, and the piety of his morals. Attributes such as these, Sir, come home to the bosom of every man amongst us-they descend from the throne; they mingle with the fireside; they command more than majesty often ean, not only the

admiration, but the sympathy of mankind. Nor may we forget, independent of his most virtuous example in private life, the vast public benefits which, as a king, his reign conferred upon the country; the liberty of the press guaranteed as far as reason can require it, and where restrained, only so restrained as to prevent its running into licentiousness-the trial by jury fully defined and firmly established the independence of the bench voluntarily conceded, which deprived the executive of a powerful and possible instrument, and vested the rights, and privileges, and property of the people in the integrity of a now unassailable tribunal: these are acts which we should register in our hearts; they should canonize the memory of the monarch; they made his realm the land-mark of European liberty; they made its constitution the model for European imitation.

Let us not either, in our estimate of his character, forget the complexion of the times in which he lived; times of portent and of prodigy, enough to perplex the council of the wise, and daunt the valour of the warrior; in such extremities experience becomes an infant, and calculation a contingency.

From the terrific chaos of the French revolution, a comet rose and blazed athwart our hemisphere, too splendid not to allure, too ominous not to intimidate, too rapid and too eccentric for human speculation. The whole continent becane absorbed in wonder; kings, and statesmen, and sages, fell down and worshipped, and the political orbs, which had hitherto circled in harmony and peace, hurried from our system into the train of its conflagration. There was no order in politics-no consistency in morals-no stedfastness in religion

"Vice prevailed, and impious men bore sway.” Upon the tottering throne the hydra of democracy sat grinning-upon the ruined altar, a wretched prostitute received devotion, and waved in mockery the burning cross over the prostrate mummers of the new philosophy-Europe seemed spell bound-nor like a vulgar spell did it perish in the waters. It crossed the channel. There were not wanting in England abundance of anarchists to denounce the King, and of infidels to abjure the Deity-turbulent demagogues, who made the abused name of freedom the pretence for their own factious selfishness-Atheists looking to be worshipped-Republicans looking to be crowned. The nobles of the land were proscribed by anticipation, and their property partitioned by the disinterested patriotism of these agrarian speculators. What do you think it was during that awful crisis saved England from the hellish saturnalia which inverted France? Was it the prophetic inspiration of Mr. Burke? The uncertain adhesion of a standing army? The precarious principles of our navy at the Nore? Or the transient resources of a paper currency? I believe, on my soul, this empire owed its salvation during that storm to the personal character of the departed sovereign. When universal warfare was fulminated against monarchy, England naturally turned to its representative at home, and what

did she find him? Frugal, moral, humane, religious, benevolent, domestic, a good father, a good husband, a good man, rendering. the crown she gave him still more loyal, and not only preserving, but purifying the trusts she had confided. She looked to his court, and did her morality blush at the splendid debauchery of a Versailles? Did her faith revolt at the gloomy fanaticism of an Escurial? Far from it. She saw the dignity which testified her sway tempered by the purity which characterized her worship: she saw her diadem glowing with the gems of empire, but those gems were illumined by a ray from the altar; she saw that aloft on his triumphal chariot, her monarch needed not the memento.of the republican, he never for a moment forgot that "he was a man."

Sir, it would have been a lot above the condition of humanity, if his measures had not sometimes been impeached by party. But in all the conflict of public opinion as to their policy, whoever heard an aspersion cast upon his motives? It is very true, had he followed other counsels, events might have been different, but it is well worth while to notice, would our situation have been improved? Would Great Britain revolutionized, have given her people purer morals, more upright tribunals, more impartial justice, or more "perfect freedom" than. they now participate? Did the murder of her prelates, her nobility, and her king, followed by twenty years of military sway, procure for France more popular privileges than those of which we have been in undisturbed possession? Was the chance of some problematical improvement worth the contingencies? Should we surrender a present practical reality for the fantastic schene of some Utopian theorist ;Ought we to confound a creation so regular and so lovely for the vision. ary paradise that chaos might reveal to us! The experiment has been tried, and what has been the consequence? Look to the Continent at this moment; its unsettled governments; its perturbed spirit; its pestilential doctrines! Go to the tomb of Kotzebue; knock at the cemetery of the Bourbons; (providentially I have not to refer you to your own murdered cabinet) you will find there how much easier it is to desolate than to create; how possible it is to ruin; how almost, impracticable to restore. Even in a neighbouring county in your own island, look at the enormous temptation which has been offered in vain to its impoverished peasantry, to induce them-to what?* Why, merely to surrender a murderous assassin, well known to have been one of a numerous association. Do you think such principles are natural to our people? Do you not think they are the result of tem. Which do you believe, that such a sickening coincidence, both at home and abroad, is miraculous, or premeditated? Sir, there is one solution. You may depend upon it, the gulph is not yet closed, whence the dreadful doctrines of treason, assassination, and infide

sys

This alludes to the assassination of Mr. Browne, of the county of Galway, for the discovery of whose murderer, the ribbonmen have for two months, refused a reward of 2,300l.! yet, many of these wretched creatures, have scarcely a coat to cover them,

lity have issued. Men's minds are still feverish and delirious, and whether they nick-name the fever, illumination in Germany, liberality in France, radicalism in England, or by some more vulgar and unmeaning epithet at home, they are all children of the same parentall so many common and convulsive indications of the internal vitality of the revolutionary volcano.

Sir, I am not now to learn, that those opinions are unpalatable to certain ultra-patriots of the hour. I declared them before, and I now reiterate them still more emphatically, because they have expressed a very impudent surprize that such opinions should proceed from me. If they mean to insinuate that I ever approved the practice, or professed the principles of their infamous fraternity, they insinuate a base, slanderous, and malignant falsehood. I hold it to be the bounden duty of every honest man, who ever pronounced a liberal opinion, to come forward and declare his abhorrence of such doctrines. What, because I am liberal, must I become rebellious? Because I am tolerant, must I renounce my creed? They have mistaken me very much. Though I would approve of any rational practicable: reform--though I would go very far upon the road of liberality, I would not move for either--no, not one single inch, unless loyalty and religion were to bear me company. I know not what they mean by their "Radical Reform," except they mean to uproot the throne, the altar, and the state. I entertain not their chimera of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage. I prefer a legislature comprising the wealth, the talent, and the education of the realm, to a Radical Directory of shoeless Cobblers, and shopless Apothecaries. I fly for protection to my King, and for consolation to my God, from the lawless, creedless, murderous, blasphemous banditti, who profane them both to the putrid carcass of an outlawed infidel. Denounce me if you choose, I would sooner die to-morrow beneath the dagger of your hate, than live in the infectious leprosy of your friendship.

My fellow-countrymen, it is high time to pause. Our virtues by excess may become vices. Let us aid the aggrieved, but let us not abet the assassin---let us tolerate the sectarian, not countenance the infidel-let us promulgate, if we can, a universal good, without shaking the basis of our social system, or the blessed foundation of our eternal hope. My own sentiments, as to the most unlimited toleration of all sects of Christians, you are not now, for the first time, to be acquainted with. I know that many good men, and abler men, dissent from me; and while I give them full credit on the score of sincerity, I only seek the same concession for myself. I would open the. gates of constitutional preferment to all my fellow subjects of every religious creed, wide as I would expand to them the affections of my own heart. It is, in my mind, but fair, that he who protects a state, should receive a reciprocity of privileges-that no man should be made familiar with its burdens, and at the same time be told, that he must be made a stranger to its benefits. This is a humble, but conscientious opinion, given freely, but not servilely-seeking to