Page:An address to the thinking independent part of the community.djvu/18

( 18 ) 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. Hence it is, that while the influence of the laws is relaxed and weakened, the most shocking crimes are committed with impunity, or checked only by such means as are scarcely less shocking. Let the gentlemen of the country then, if they regard their dignity or their security, separate their cause from that of administration. Let them maintain with a becoming firmness, their own commanding station, repelling, on each hand, the enemy of the public tranquillity, and save the nation, as well from the obstinacy of its rulers, as the violence of the multitude. 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. If the gentlemen of property in the country do not abandon their own strong position, and that conduct which must ever insure to them respect and