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PROBABILITY, CAUSES, AND

CONSEQUENCES.

OF AN

UNION

BETWEEN

GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND

DISCUSSED:

WITH STRICTURES ON AN

ANONYMOUS PAMPHLET,

IN FAVOUR OF THE MEASURE,

(

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A GENTLEMAN
HIGH IN OFFICE:

BY THE REV. DENNIS TAAFFE.

ONDIO DUBLIN:

PRINTED BY J. HILL, 51, ABBEY-STREET.-1798.

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PROBABILITY, CAUSES, AND

CONSEQUENCES

OF AN

UNION, &c.

as

AMIDST the disgrace and ruin brought upon us by the late unfortunate events; by the intolerant pride and avarice of short fighted monopoly on one hand, holding in its greedy grafp the exclufive management of a mutilated constitution, an engine of exclufive dominion and spoil; and the intemperate zeal and ambition of those who fought reform, and through reform looked for equal free dom, union, national government, and the general profperity of all, without diftinction of sect; attainable, as they supposed, through the medium of a virtuous independent legislature, representing the entire nation. Amidft the general mourning and desolation that fadden our plains, the cries of deftitute widows and orphans, the bleeding recollection of the most horrible eruelties and atrocious crimes, plunder, massacre, torture, fanaticism, and all the furies recorded in in fable or history, amid the grief, terror, and anxiety that benumb the

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heart, and palsy the intellectual powers; the def pondency of the good, the dreadful licence of the wicked; the heart-burnings and deadly animosity that rankle in the breasts of men smarting from re cent injuries, and breathing nothing but revenge, even to extermination; while all freedom of enquiry, whether by speech or writing, is treated as treason, and struck dumb by the terrors of martial law and military execution; it may be deemed rash to come forward with any political opinion, at a period so inauspicious to truth and justice. It may be deemed an hopeless task to awaken the public mind to national concerns.

Amid the general difmay that affumes the appearance of apathy, I for one am ready to acknowledge, that I do not despise existence, destitute as it is of most those circumstances that render it de frable, and beguile the burthen of life. The al luring profpects that fafcinare youthful ambition, the gay, the charming delusions that give an intereft to the most trivial objects of defire, that enliven the spirits, and fire the fancy, on our entrance in the career of human affairs, are fled indeed. I can no longer cherish life for the sake of any felfish plan of individual happiness; one strong motive furvives, the defire of promoting the happiness of my kind, and of doing fomething useful in my day. Have I performed my talk? or is my death likely to prove more beneficial to mankind, than my further continuance in existence? I truft, in that cafe, the trying hour shall find me chearfully refigned to the stroke. I was not made to cringe and fawn to ruffian power, for the wretched purpofe of obtaining a permit to live at the expence of truth, and the duty I owe my country and man

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kind; and most of all, to tyrants and their accom. plices, for furely none stand fo much in need of the wholesome admonitions of truth, as the deluded victims of paffion and injustice, who hate her moft.

It is a duty incumbent on us to minister to the wants of our fellow-creatures, most especially their moral wants. When the word Tyrant is mentione ed, some persons are apt to confine its meaning exs clusively to the abuse of established authority. That however is a gross mistake. Coercion exer. cised on others by any force, in the place of ar gument or perfuafion, comes properly under that denomination. The pike of the infurgent may be as much in the service of tyranny, as the bayonet

of the

e mercenary. Force in any shape is a very ✓improper inftrument of conviction; it may put a temporary reftraint on the external man, but the hoftile mind still remains. Every purpose that is honest will be best promoted by amicable difcuffi on, from whose mild beams no men or measures can fhrink, without pleading guilty by the very

fact.

Away with the rage and folly of faction, its cri minal excesses, its brutal unmanly triumphs in the disgrace and ruin of our country, Had the men of blood a particle of intellect; did any thing humane, or civilized, or patriotic enter into their composition, they would bewail, with tears of blood, the calamities they have infflicted on them i selves, as well as on their supposed enemies, and the undefinable evils they have prepared for our common pofterity. They have acted in the very manner their worst enemies could wish. Whater spectacle would the enemy of Ireland wish to be

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