562 The Brunswick Clubs. (Dec. 
were strong holds, that neither the temporizing of an unpurposed cabinet, 
the tergiversation of lawyers who had betrayed every side in succession, 
nor the loose coxcombry of a legislator of spurs and feathers, could shake. 
In the language of a British peer, whose words will pass into a proverb, 
and the proverb into the principle of safety to the empire, they felt that 
“they must not put their trust in princes, nor in prelates—in the depo- * 
sitories of power, nor even in the chosen guardians of religion ;” they 
must look to the defence of the national interests by the national vigour, 
and where every man had to lose by inactivity, by giddy confidence in the 
corrupt, or guilty fear of the overbearing, privileges without which life 
would not be worth preserving for an hour—they must call round them 
their fellow-possessors of freedom, and see how far their muster might 
fight the battle of the Christian faith and of the constitution of their 
country. 
It was on those principles, the noblest that can stir the heart of man, 
that the Brunswick Clubs were founded; and who shall say that it was 
not full time? The cry of civil war had gone through the land. It was 
trumpeted from the lips of every orator of the Popish Association. 
“ We are masters of the whole force of Ireland,” says one—“ we have 
all its military passes in our hands, all its provisions, all its munitions of 
war, all its people.” ‘We have America at our back,” says another ; 
“and, as we once invaded America to keep up the despotism of the 
British government, so shall America invade us to put it down.” “ Let 
England tremble,” says a leader; “let England, brutish as she is 
bloody, tremble—let the country of our tyrants be reduced to her ori- 
ginal insignificance, and feel that the chains of Irishmen may be con- 
verted into their swords.” “ Look to the new aspect of Europe,” says 
another authority among those infuriated fools: “with France, Austria, 
and Spain, popish ; with the steam-vessel bringing invasion to a matter 
of calculation, and the English shores within sudden reach of every 
power of indignant Europe ; are there no hopes for the renewed ener- 
gies of Irish independence ?>— Again, look to’ Ireland !—was there ever a 
country so organized? I tell the government that the whole land is 
bound by a great secret confederation—that every county, every town, 
every village, has its leaders, and its troops—.that the men of Ireland — 
are regimented, armed, disciplined, and eager for the first summons.” 
The government listened to this. The language was repeated in a 
thousand forms ; they listened still. The metaphoric treason was soon — 
embodied into more vigorous figure. Armies of popish ruffians by the — 
twenty thousand, breathing blood and rebellion, accoutred in the © 
established uniform of Irish insurrection, and manceeuvring with the. 
discipline of regular troops, started up at the summons, marched in the — 
face of day through the country, with the menaces and the power of con- — 
querors, and gave the most insolent and ostentatious defiance to the law. — 
Will it be believed that the government still looked on? Buta memo- — 
rable example soon showed what the nation can do, and must do, for 
themselves, if they will be saved. A tool of the Popish Association, one — 
of the most vulgar and base of its brawlers, big with the triumph of riot, — 
and secure in the supineness of authority, was sent—will the words be 
capable of credence?—“ To rouse the north.’ He proceeded in the true 
spirit of his mission, and moved forward, at the head of every disturber 
whom he could gather, to the amount, by his own statement, of from 
