AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND
that the life of one labouring man is exactly equal to the life of one nobleman, neither more nor less! That the property of a farmer is as sacred as that of a gentleman! That men born in Ireland have a right to live on the produce of Ireland—and even to make laws for Ireland! That no good thing could come from the English Parliament or the English Government! That all men ought to possess Arms, and know how to use them!—These were doctrines to propound to a civilised nation! At once a cry of virtuous horror arose from all the genteel places of the land. They saw the plain consequences deducible from such Jacobin premises, and were justly alarmed. "Here is a miscreant," they said; "will no man stop him? Where is it to end? Whose life or property is safe"? The Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench the moment he read the document said, this paper ought to be called, not "United Irishman," but "Queen's Bench Gazette." For what is the use, thought he, of my Queen's Bench, if not to check miscreants of this kind?
I knew by the outcry they raised that I had found the right road at length. By the nervous anxiety of Lord Stanley in the English House of Lords; by the tremendous abuse of the landlord-newspapers in Ireland; by the congregating of the Government troops, and the whetting of their slaughtering tools; by the formidable looks of legal officials, the bubonic solemnity of the "inner bar," and the parrot clatter of the outer,—I knew that the monster called "Government" was collecting all his energies—that his judges were getting ready
37
