E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Insita mortalibus natura violentiæ resistere. TACITUS.
LONDON:
Printed for J. S. JORDAN, No. 166, Fleet Street.
[PRICE ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE.]
FELLOW SUBJECTS,
It is always a bold undertaking in a private individual to become theadvocate of a suffering people. It is peculiarly difficult at thepresent moment to be the advocate of the people of Ireland, becausethere are among them men who have taken the power of redress into theirown hands, and committed acts of outrage and rebellion which nosufferings could justify, and which can only tend to aggravate ten-foldthe other calamities of their country. Deeply impressed, however, as Iam with a conviction that these difficulties stand in my way, I shallyet venture to state to Englishmen the case of Ireland. In doing so, Irest not on a vain confidence in my own strength, but on the nature ofthe cause I plead; for I am convinced, that when the train of measureswhich have led that miserable country into its present situation[Pg 6] shallbe fully disclosed, it will be but little difficult to rouze the peopleof England not merely to commiserate a distressed country, but excitethem to exert their constitutional endeavours, as head of the Britishempire, to avert the destruction of its principal member.
There is another circumstance which gives me hope. The people of Englandat this hour feel themselves much more interested in what concernsIrishmen, than they have ever done at any former period. Whatevermischiefs may have resulted to human society from that kind ofphilosophic illumination by which modern times are distinguished, onecertain good at least has been produced by it—men have become betteracquainted—the bond of a common nature has been strengthened—and eachcountry begins to feel an interest in the concerns of every other. It isnot to a more extensive personal intercourse, or to the creation of anynew principles of political union, that this is to be attributed. It isowing solely to an increased communication of sentiment and feeling—toa knowledge which has diffused itself through the world that the humanmind is every where made of the same materials, and that on all thegreat questions which concern[Pg 7] man's interest in society, the men ofevery country think alike. Hence has arisen an increased sympathybetween nations—if not between those who govern them, at least betweenthose by whom they are constituted; and hence too has it followed, thatthose national antipathies which had so long debased and afflictedmankind, are now become less strong and rancorous; and, it may bereasonable to hope, will one day be known no more.
It is not, however, on the influence of this nascent principle ofphilanthropy among nations that I ground my principal hope, when I callon Englishmen to hear with an ear of kindness and concern the complaintof a sister-country. I reso