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A Charge Delivered to the Grand Jury of the County of Dublin, at the Quarter Sessions of the Peace, Held at Kilmainham, on Tuesday the 12th of January 1796

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2009

Extract

Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, IT is impossible for any Irishman, not dead to all public virtue, to contemplate without exultation and just national pride, the Stability of these Kingdoms, amidst the Convulsions and disastrous Events which in the lapse of a few years have desolated the greater part of Europe. While we prostrate ourselves in great adoration before the throne of God for this his stupendous goodness, it may not be unprofitable to inquire into the more immediate Causes of our Exemption from those [8] awful Calamities, which it has pleased Providence to visit upon so large a portion of our Fellow-creatures. Such disquisitions, while they teach us to form a just sense of our Establishments, and of their importance and value, must lead every man of prudence and reflexion to sustain and cherish them, as the surest means of our preservation amidst this wreck of Nations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1992

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References

page 536 note 1 Early in 1794 it appeared from the Reports of both Houses of the British Parliament, grounded upon uncontrovertable evidence, and in the course of the State Trials which were had at the Old Bayly in the October following, that a Traiterous Conspiracy had been formed and acted upon, by certain Societies and Individuals in different parts of England and Scotland corresponding and intimately connected, for subverting the established Laws and Constitution, pulling down the Monarchy, and for introducing in its stead that Anarchy and those extravagant Notions of false Liberty, which have transformed the fairest and once the most civilized region of Europe into a wilderness of Tygers.

page 536 note 2 A stone was thrown at the King's coach in October 1795 on his way to Westminster.

page 537 note 1 See Jackson, 's Trial, p. 81Google Scholar & passim.

page 538 note 1 “In tantâ tamque corruptâ Civitate, Catalina, &c. See Sallust in bello Catal:

page 539 note 1 By Chamberlaine, J. Finucane, J. and George B. in the King against Weldon for High Treason at the Commission held 14th December 1795.

page 540 note 1 The Hearthmoney Act, which transferred that Tax from all Houses having but one Hearth to such as have more; the Barren Land Act, which exempted all Heath and waste unimproved ground from Tythe for seven years after improvement; the great Catholic Act, which gave to the Catholic, in common with the Protestant Peasantry, every political privilege of which that Order of the Community is susceptible - these liberal measures, calculated generally for the relief of the poor at the expence of the Rich, were among the many excellent Laws of the Westmorland Government.