90 No Allegiance on the Part of the People. 



Commons were the mere puppets of the two 

 great aristocratical factions the people a fea- 

 ther in either scale, until arms were put into 

 their hands, and they became the means of 

 extorting, from the weakness of our councils, 

 what ought to have been yielded to Ireland 

 from a principle of justice. Corruption had 

 become so general, so familiar, and so fashion- 

 able, as to extinguish all sense of propriety, 

 and even that of shame. Remuneration was 

 considered to be expected, if not actually de- 

 manded, not for public services performed, but 

 for abstaining to clog the wheels of government. 

 In power there was no shade of difference be- 

 tween one party and another ; and while pro- 

 fusion was tolerated, nay encouraged, in the 

 hope of profiting by it, there could be no 

 reasonable ground to hope for the co-operation 

 of a state to remedy abuses in which it so 

 largely participated. The ties which bound 

 the executive and legislative branches were so 

 slight, and the influence of Great Britain so weak, 

 that the Irish constitution tottered, and was in 

 hourly jeopardy of falling. On the part of the 

 people, there existed no allegiance to the con- 

 stitutionno affection for the government no 

 respect for the laws : and while a suffocated 

 antipathy prevailed against their aristocratical 

 leaders, the latter became identified with the 



