Page:An address to the thinking independent part of the community.djvu/6

( 6 ) certain popular pretexts, to cover their real purposes, and to attract adherents. These, too, if their numbers be sufficient to inspire confidence, may be keen for the work of (laughter, and willing to try the issue of battle; for such means are suited to the intemperance of their projects—but neither in these can we discern the Irish people; the humane, the just, the generous body of the people.

Such seem to me to be the real parties in a contest, the source and progress of which are next to be considered.

In examining what have been the provocations which have given birth to the spirit of resistance and insurrection now prevailing in many parts of the country, candour, I think, requires, that we should lay out of the case, as not fairly applicable to this point, the rigorous measures adopted by government, which for some time past have succeeded each other in a long and dismal train—the insurrection bill, the suspension bill, the proclamations, and others of a like nature. These cannot properly be numbered among the sources of discontent, which are in truth the barriers erected by government to restrain its progress. And however ill calculated they may have been to answer the proposed end; however inconsistent with the once-loved principles of the British constitution; or however strange it may appear, that such measures could possibly be