present seems your situation, you seem to shut your eyes on the situation of this country, you seem incapable of deriving any advantage from the example of another country. The hand of Fate seems upon you, and you still go on as foolishly confident and as madly gay, as the insect that flutters around the torch, or the bird that cannot resist the fascinations of the serpent's jaws, that are extended to devour him.

"I know, my lord, you plume yourself on the imaginary safety of your situation. But pride not yourself any longer on that circumstance-deceive yourself no longer-I tell you, you are in danger. Think not to screen yourself behind the shield of parliamentary support; repose not on the delusive promises of military protection; they will avail you nothing, in the dread moment of national retribution, or amid the confusion of revolutionary vengeance.

"At such a moment, if unhappily a perseverance in your present conduct should induce it, the sacred person of the judge will not be respected, your elevated situation will not protect you, the formalities of trial may be laid aside, and the cautious and established rules of evidence may be exploded; at such a juncture, the forms of law may not be insulted to justify your execution, there will be no necessity for suborned testimony, or intoxicated jurymen, to procure your condemnation. Ireland can afford the clearest evidence of your crimes; the unanimous voice of its inhabitants will pronounce you guilty.

On such an occasion, our disgust

against the duty of the executioner will be suspended, and men will contend for the honour of terminating so destructive an existence.

"I repeat, my lord, the caution :-reflect on your situation before you again proceed on your desperate system of coercion; consider that that amiable companion of your crimes, has shrunk from the danger of his situation-and it was infinitely less perilous than yours; he was only the vile instrument of your schemes, the executioner of your projects, the insignificant puppet exposed upon the stage, while you, behind the scenes, pointed his sword and guided his devastations. His were only the contemptible qualifications, of a bloody hand and a relentless bosom : it was you, my lord, that possessed the nobler merit of a heart to conceive, and a head to justify, the most atrocious acts of a vindictive administration. Thus, my lord, did you expose him to the danger, while you hoped to monopolize the credit; thus did you gratify your vengeance, while you consulted your safety; and thus did you prove my assertion-that you were vindictive without being spirited.

"But that no motive of conviction, apprehension, or prudence, may be wanting to make you alter your conduct, let me, if possible, awaken your emulation, and make even your vanity subservient to the salvation of your country; let me hold up to your view a character, who, though I think mistaken in some points, is, nevertheless, entitled to the highest respect, because his are the mistakes of principle. Look to the venerated character of your antagonist on a late important question, and there behold the

just prerogative of virtue and principle. Compare, my lord, the mild, the polished, the benevolent eloquence of that nobleman, with the pertness of upstart insolence, and the flippancy of habitual assumption of superiority; see how he commands the attention of his fellow peers, the gratitude of his country, and restrained even the petulancy of your lordship. Confounded and abashed by the presence of a man, whose principles you hated, and whose spirit you dreaded; you paid an extorted and unwilling homage to the ascendancy of his character, and granted to his virtue, that respect so unusual to you, and which you refused to the meekness and profession of a preacher of the gospel and a minister of religion. Had, my lord, that dignified object of your oblique attack been a layman, that attack had been unprovoked; as a clergyman, it was more—it was cowardly. But, pardon me; I had almost forgotten that romantic bravery forms no feature of your lordship's character. Had I recollected the meanness of your submission, and the asperity of your vengeance against the unhappy F, I should not have been surprised at anything you could have done.

"Your attack on another victim of your persecution, was equally haughty and unprovoked. You should have known, my lord, that it was illiberal and unmanly to assault any man when he had not the opportunity of retaliation or defence; but unfortunately, in the present instance, his want of your successful hypocrisy has afforded you some excuse; yet there was a time, my lord, when you dared not

have murmured but a censure against a man whose talents you dreaded,

"Think not, however, I mean to defend him, for he is far above the reach of your malice or my praise: no, I enter not into the question of his merits; but I shall always insist that, as a peer of the realm, you indulge your malignity in an attack you shrunk from as a commoner; and, avoiding a contest with an acknowledged superior, attempted, like a coward, to assassinate the man you dreaded to encounter as an equal.*

It is impossible to entertain any opinion but one of the extreme imprudence displayed in this letter, and of the folly of pointing out the dangers to their adversaries, which the writer and his party were endeavouring to create. The prophesy with respect to the speedy termination of the power and influence of Lord Clare, was soon verified, though the mode of its accomplishment was somewhat different from that predicted. His lordship lived long enough to feel the effects of the great measure he had been mainly instrumental in achieving, in his own humiliation. He survived the success,-which was ruinous to his country and fatal to himself, a little better than two years. The execrations of the people,

The sixty-seventh number of the "Press" was the last that was published, on the 3rd of March, 1798. This letter was printed in No. 68, which was seized on the day of its intended publication. Consequently, in the copies of the "Press" which are now to be met with, the letter to Lord Clare is not found.

which pursued him through life, accompanied him to the grave; and the attendants at his funeral had the painful spectacle to witness, of indignities offered to his remains, such as were never, perhaps, before exhibited on such an occasion.* Previous to his interment, the street in which he had resided was beset by a multitude of people-in fact, for some days, the neighbourhood of Ely Place resembled a fair. The only approach I ever witnessed to the savage expression of public exultation, at the interment of a man in the same degree unpopular, was at the funeral of the late Marquess of Londonderry, when his remains were received at the porch of Westminster Abbey, with three distinct shouts of acclamation from the multitude of his countrymen assembled at the door of the cathedral.

From the period of John Sheares becoming a member of the directory, his activity was unceasing; and the various addresses to the United Irishmen from the directory, through the Dublin committee, from the middle of March to the 20th of May, were drawn up by him. Every exertion that it was possible to make, to retrieve the injury caused by the arrest of the eminent leaders of the society, was made by him.

In one of the above-mentioned addresses, the people were strongly recommended to abstain from

*It was one of his lordship's vaunting menaces, in the hey-day of his political power and authority, that he would make the people of Ireland as tame as cats! At the interment of his remains in St. Peter's Church-yard, a number of dead cats were flung upon his coffin.