Page:An address to the thinking independent part of the community.djvu/4

( 4 ) 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? It is material to ascertain, whether the Irish people, the moderate, independent, valuable part of the Irish people, be really interested in the success of the one side or the other: Whether die principles and views of both parties are not alike adverse to the general interest: and whether there may not yet be found a party in the country, more respectable than either, and able, if it be willing, to control both.

Who are the parties in this contest?—To me they appear to be these following:

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