We whose names are hereunto subscribed, inhabitants of the town of Belfast, actuated by the same motives expressed in the annexed association, do hereby join therein under the conditions and obligations therein mentioned, in the capacity of a body for exercising and fighting the Artillery intended for the First Company of Belfast Volunteers.

Given under our hands this 6th day of July 1778.

The Artillery Company never purchased uniform. The late Earl of Donegall, father to the present Marquis, presented each of the three Belfast Companies with two brass field-pieces (six pounders,) two of which, belonging to the second company, were used by the people, at the Battle of Antrim, and taken by the military; the other four were given up to General Nugent, in 1798. The first uniform of the Volunteers of 1778, was scarlet with black velvet facings; five or six years later, it was changed to green, with white facings, and in 1793, to yellow with white facings.

BY THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND COUNCIL OF IRELAND. A PROCLAMATION.

WESTMORLAND.

WHEREAS it appears by the report from the Lords' Committees, appointed to inquire into the causes of the disorders and disturbances which prevail in several parts of this kingdom, that certain seditious and ill-affected persons in several parts of the north of this kingdom, particularly in the town of Belfast, have endeavoured to foment and encourage discontent, and by seditious publications circulated amongst the people, and calculated to defame the government and the parliament, have endeavoured to render people dissatisfied with their condition, and with the laws.

And whereas it appears to us, by the said report, that several bodies of men have been collected into armed associations, and have been levied and arrayed in the said town of Belfast, and that arms and gunpowder, to a very large amount, have been sent thither; that bodies of men in arms are drilled and exercised by day and by night, and that the declared

object of the said armed bodies is redress of alleged grievances, but that the obvious intention of most of them appears to be to overawe the parliament and the government, and to dictate to both.

And whereas these dangerous and seditious proceedings tend to the disturbance of the public peace, the obstruction of good order and government, to the great injury of public credit, and the subversion of the constitution, and have raised great alarms in the minds of his Majesty's loyal subjects.

Now we the Lord Lieutenant and Council, being determined to maintain the public peace against all attempts to disturb the same, and being desirous to forewarn all such persons as might unadvisedly incur the penalties of the law in this behalf, by concurring in practices of a tendency so dangerous and alarming, do hereby strictly charge all persons whomsoever, on their allegiance to his Majesty, to abstain from committing such offences respectively.

And we do charge and command the magistrates, sheriffs, bailiffs, and other peace-officers, having jurisdiction within the said town of Belfast, and the several districts adjacent thereto, to be careful in preserving the peace within the same, and to disperse all seditious and unlawful assemblies; and if they shall be resisted, to apprehend the offenders, that they may be dealt with according to law.

Given at the council-chamber in Dublin, the 11th day of March, 1793.

(Signed) FITZGIBBON, &c. &c. &c.

In compliance with the proclamation, the volunteers ceased to parade, or any longer to appear in military array.

No. II.

IN the month of October, 1791, some of the Catholic leaders attempted to form a society "Instituted for the purpose of promoting unanimity amongst Irishmen, and removing religious prejudices." This society put forth the following declaration, on the 21st of October, 1791, previously to the formation of the society of United Irishmen. The attempt proved abortive; but the idea was caught at, and embodied in the formation of a society called the Society of United Irishmen, which held its first meeting at the Eagle Tavern, in Eustace-street, the 9th of November, 1791.

Dublin, October 21st, 1791.

DECLARATION OF THE SOCIETY,

Instituted for the purpose of promoting unanimity amongst Irishmen, and removing religious prejudices.

In the present enlightened and improving period of society, it is not for the Irish Roman Catholics alone to continue silent. Not accused of Not accused of any crime -not conscious of any delinquency, they suffer a privation of rights and conveniencies, the penalty reserved, in wise states, for offences of atrocious magnitude. It does not become them, whilst with liberality ever to be gratefully remembered, many descriptions of their fellow-citizens compassionate their situation, to seem indifferent to the desirable, and, they hope, not distant event of their emancipation. They wish to ascertain upon what terms they

may venture to settle in a country, which they love with the rational preference of men, not the simplicity of puerile acquiescence. It is not for the Irish Catholics, armed as their cause is with reason and justice, like public foes to seek advantage from public calamity. They ought to advance their claim at a time most favourable to discussion, when the condition of the empire is flourishing and tranquil. They might seem culpable to their country, if, affecting to dissemble what it were unmanly not to feel, they reserved their pretensions in ambuscade to augment the perplexities of some critical emergency. They should be culpable to posterity, if they omitted to profit by the general inclination of public sentiment. They should be culpable to themselves, if they suffered an imputation to subsist, that in the extent of the British territory they alone submit, without repining, to a mortifying and oppressive bondage, degrading to themselves, and pernicious to their country. They conceive, that in the present state of things their silence might be received as evidence of such dispositions.

Influenced by these considerations, and instructed by a recent transaction, that although laws may be shameful and preposterous, there is no security that they shall not be enforced-for even in a philosophic age there will be bigots, and tyrants where the votaries of freedom are most sanguine-a number of Roman Catholics, resident in Dublin, have formed themselves into a society which they invite their fellow-sufferers throughout the nation to unite with, which shall have for its object to consider, and individually to support with all their zeal, and personal influence, such measures not inconsistent with their duty to the civil magistrate, as shall appear likely to relieve them from the oppressions and disqualifications imposed in this country on persons professing the Roman Catholic religion. We therefore do unanimously Resolve,

That we will, to the utmost of our power, endeavour by all legal and constitutional means to procure