John Pratt Winter

“ Whatever traitors may lurk in the community, it is allowed that parliamentary reform is not their real object. To them a mild and temperate measure of that kind would not be grateful concession; it would be rather a disappointment: it would crush, probably for ever, their rash and visionary expectations. Let the concession then be to you, who form no secret plans of rebellion. You who have taken up arms, not to pull down, but to support the government, may surely with reason expect some attention to be paid to your wishes. ”

“ It is far from my intention in what I have said, to intimate, that the abuses in our government, great as they may well be thought, are yet great enough to justify an attempt on the part of the people to correct them by force. It is as repugnant to my disposition, as I am fore it is inconsistent with the happiness of mankind, to recur to that last desperate remedy of an oppressed people, 'till the condition of society become far more deplorable and hopeless, than it can possibly appear to be in this country. ”

“ Let them take the rights of the people under their protection. Let them shew that they prefer Irish constitution to British influence; the wishes of the Irish people, to those of the English minister. It is because they to whom the honourable trust of right belongs, have ceased to be the faithful, zealous guardians of constitutional freedom, that others have intruded themselves who arc little qualified for the office; men who cannot distinguish liberty from outrage; the reform of abuse, from the overthrow of society. ”

“ That they should arm to defend their country from foreign invasion, is suitable to their gallant spirit:—That they should arm to protect its internal peace, is becoming good citizens:—But that they should overlook, in the agitation of a temporary alarm, the lasting interests and dearest rights of an independent nation:—That they should express no wish, speak not one word for the security of Irish liberty, while they range themselves under the standard of ministers, whose attachment to it may well be suspected, appears altogether lamentable and surprizing. ”

“ Divided among ourselves, and mutually hating one another, the upper ranks will sink as formerly, into a vile dependence on England, bearing every contumely, and scarcely daring to murmur, thro' fear of blowing again the smothered embers of popular fury. Endless discontents and rankling jealousies will corrode the whole social system; and the inward malady, bursting out on every opportunity into open tumult and sedition, will not permit us even the undisturbed enjoyment of an ignominious repose.—Unhappy country! whose citizens will regard each other as the worst of enemies. ”

“ It is, I would answer, because the abuses in the constitution have estranged from it the affections of the people; because the laws have lost their firmed support—that general attachment which bed guards them from violation, and while they are hated by the multitude, are languidly enforced by the few and finally, because that class of men, which, from its rank in the community, ought to be the foremost to encounter and correct abuses in the government, seems, if not to approve of and defend them, at least indolently to acquiesce in them. ”

“ If the government, under pretence of putting down a secret conspiracy, should violate your lawful, open, peaceable societies;—if you are to be told, you shall not calmly deliberate on the means of saving yourselves from the evils which surround you;—if a military force is to scatter you like some lawless rabble—then is the state of the country fallen and low indeed. ”

“ When I say its triumph, I do not mean that of its principles in the eye of sober judgment, but that triumph only which arises from the splendour of successful contest. I am very far from being convinced, that a pure, unmixed form of republican government, on the whole provides the best for the various wants of society. This is a conclusion which we are not warranted in forming from our experience of the paid, and which we must therefore leave to be decided by the experience of the future. The happiness of mankind is certainly not promoted by great military achievements ”

“ Can any unbiassed man, acquainted with the general sentiments of the nation, entertain a doubt, that the immediate adoption of a wife, temperate and liberal plan of reform, together with the entire repeal of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics, would not occasion almost universal contentment, and attach the great mass of the community to the defence of the government and constitution? ”

“ Will you be the thoughtless, patient, unresisting victims of two enraged parties, who while they are bent on the pursuit of their own desperate purposes, would sacrifice you in their deadly strife? Or will you interpose with that manly spirit which becomes you, and that weight which your situation gives you, to check them in their intemperate and blind career, and save yourselves, and save your country? ”

“ Do no gloomy apprehensions at times come across their view and damp their exertions? Do they never feel suspicious of their cause and dissatisfied with themselves? When they have been led on step by step, till they are involved in an unnatural and odious contest; when they have been made the instruments for subduing the strength and humbling the spirit of the people, what means will they have left of protecting themselves against that authority they will have raised above controul? ”

“ Seldom has the voice of the nation spoken in the resolutions of the House of Commons, 'till it has made its way there circuitously through the fears of the minister. In all countries, whatever be their form of government, the natural strength of the great mass of the people must induce their rulers to pay some attention to their remonstrates, when they become loud and threatening: And little does it avail a nation to have the name of a representative legislature, unless care be taken that it become not the servile expensive instrument of the Executive Power. ”

“ Whence is it, I ask, that the peaceable inhabitants of the country are left a prey to violence and rapine? Why do we daily hear of riots, massacres, and other atrocities committed without number? And why is it so difficult to repress these offences, and to punish the guilty? ”

“ A few more turbulent spirits might inwardly repine at the disappointment of their daring projects, but they would be forced to acquiesce silently in the general sentiment. Perhaps for a little time, some of the moil profligate of that unthinking multitude who have broke through the restraints of law, might continue a system of devastation and outrage; but the ordinary means of legal controul, aided by the vigilant exertions of all the intelligent part of the community,—would quickly re-establish peace and Security. ”

“ Do we imagine that the youthful vigour of a new-born people can be refilled by the nerveless exertions of a tottering government? For this purpose the braved and mod powerful armies are scarcely sufficient. Nothing short of a united people can afford us full security. The Republican energy of France, mud be met, if met successfully, by republican energy here. When I say, republican, I mean nothing disrespectful to our monarchy or sovereign. To acquire French enthusiasm, there is no occasion that we should adopt French plans of government. ”

“ Or is it indeed to protect, secure from rude innovation, those abuses from which a few among us derive their power and their profit? Has the House of Commons, as it is now constituted, shewn itself so faithful a representative of the Irish nation, that we are to be driven into an odious contest, rather than admit of any alteration in its form or mode of election? ”

“ And when the French revolution took place among a people long accustomed to lead the taste and opinions of the neighbouring nations, it seemed as a glorious light placed in the very centre of the civilized world, to dispel the last remains of Gothic darkness, and reveal to man the true principles of his social nature. ”

“ There never existed a numerous society, in which considerable difference of opinion did not prevail: But I am sure much the greater part of the people would embrace with sincere and grateful joy, the terms of reconciliation. Though many may have been allured by ideal forms, while the good that is slid and practicable has been withheld, yet, when they are possessed of the latter without a struggle, they will never seek to realize the former through a sanguinary, and probably hopeless, contest. ”

“ The easiest and least hazardous method of securing the monarchy and guarding our sovereign's throne, would seem to consist in gratifying the temper of the times with a voluntary surrender of all that surplus of power and influence, which can be spared without wounding the vitals, or crippling any of the members of the constitution. If it be said, that when this has been done, there will still be no security for the remainder. I answer, that if the current of opinion continue to run long and violently in its present direction, it is true it may sweep away every trace of our antient system ”

“ I would ask all you whom I am addressing, whether you are not convinced that the calamities which seem fast approaching, might yet be averted, and the disorders of the country healed, without any very violent remedy, if our government, moderating that tone of obstinate haughtiness, which will hear of no compromise, would condescend to make those concessions to the people, which the acknowledged abuses of the confutation justify them in demanding? ”

“ On one side we see the English Minister, and his deputies in this country, determined to uphold, by all means, even the moil desperate, that insidious influence, which they have substituted instead of the open, undisguised authority which they were compelled reluctantly to relinquish. With them are leagued all those, their natural allies in this country, who support, because they are supported by, their power. Proprietors of boroughs, whose opprobrious traffick of the national representation can exit only with the sacrifice of national independence. ”

“ When I see this country in danger of being plunged into all the countless miseries of civil war—a war, in which, whatever be the blue, the blood of its best inhabitants mull probably flow, I cannot help pausing a while, and seriously asking this important question—Who are the parties in this ruinous contest, and what is the source of their quarrel? ”

“ They further admit a belief that the degrees of criminality in the individuals who compose the conspiracy, are very different, as it appears to be a principle with the authors of this institution to cloak their real design under false colours. Can we desire a stronger proof of the warm attachment of the people to these measures, than that the leaders of a wicked conspiracy, such as that disclosed in the report, have been enabled by holding them forth as their ostensible objects, to organize a force so formidable, as almost to brave the strength of the established government? ”

“ In such a union, these countries might not merely acquiesce from necessity. It would be their strength and their boast, and the hope and guardian of Europe. It is not became we have a British sovereign, but because we have not our constitutional protection, our independent, national, legislature, that discontent prevails: And it is only the mischievous policy of those who would represent the continuance of abuse, as essential to the continuance of the connection, which exposes that connection to danger. ”

“ And as it is contrary to the interest of mankind, that any one country should feel itself able to dictate laws to its neighbours, or insult them with impunity, and as we have yet no reason to be convinced that a republican form of government affords greater security against this danger than a monarchical, the cordial and animated co-operation of every part of the British empire seems more than ever necessary, to keep under some check the ambitious projects which a power so vast naturally gives birth to. ”

“ I think there are few fixations so intolerable, in which a good man will not prefer the patient progress of reason, which if it move slowly to its end, hazards nothing in the attainment of it, to the rash efforts of force, which, while it hurries precipitately to its object, at the fame time hazards every thing. But I think it very unwise in government to persist in irritating the people when pursuing a reasonable object, 'till the duty of submission may become a question of nice and subtle casuistry. ”

“ The Catholic body, labouring under peculiar restrictions, alike injurious and disgraceful to them and the whole nation, adopted similar means to procure their emancipation. Though these meetings were in general attended with but little success, yet that little was sufficient to alarm the monopolizers of the constitution, who foresaw in the union and co-operation of the whole people, the inevitable, though perhaps flow, decay of their power and influence. Terrified into severity, but not warned into Reform, administration seemed to place their chief security in the prevention of national union. ”

“ Ponsonby.—What though it may not exactly accord with the opinion of this or that individual:—No plan of reform can possibly be adopted, if every objection to it must first be removed. That which has been submitted to parliament is the work of virtuous and able men, and must surely be well deserving your support.—Confider the exigency of the time. The present object is not so much to make your constitution perfect in its theory, as to restore to it the attachment of the people. ”