Such feeble auxiliaries (as I talk of) to such a force, employed against such resistance, I must own, in the present moment, very little worthy of your attention.  Yet, if one were to look forward, it scarcely seems altogether politic to bestow so much liberality of invective on the Whigs of this kingdom as I find has been the fashion to do both in and out of Parliament.  That you should pay compliments, in some tone or other, whether ironical or serious, to the minister from whose imbecility you have extorted what you could never obtain from his bounty, is not unnatural.  In the first effusions of Parliamentary gratitude to that minister for the early and voluntary benefits he has conferred upon Ireland, it might appear that you were wanting to the triumph of his surrender, if you did not lead some of his enemies captive before him.  Neither could you feast him with decorum, if his particular taste were not consulted.  A minister, who has never defended his measures in any other way than by railing at his adversaries, cannot have his palate made all at once to the relish of positive commendation.  I cannot deny but that on this occasion there was displayed a great deal of the good-breeding which consists in the accommodation of the entertainment to the relish of the guest.

But that ceremony being past, it would not be unworthy of the wisdom of Ireland to consider what consequences the extinguishing every spark of freedom in this country may have upon your own liberties.  You are at this instant flushed with victory, and full of the confidence natural to recent and untried power.  We are in a temper equally natural, though very different.  We feel as men do, who, having placed an unbounded reliance on their force, have found it totally to fail on trial.  We feel faint and heartless, and without the smallest degree of self-opinion.  In plain words, we are cowed.  When men give up their violence and injustice without a struggle, their condition is next to desperate.  When no art, no management, no argument, is necessary to abate their pride and overcome their prejudices, and their uneasiness only excites an obscure and feeble rattling in their throat, their final dissolution seems not far off.  In this miserable state we are still further depressed by the overbearing influence of the crown.  It acts with the officious cruelty of a mercenary nurse, who, under pretence of tenderness, stifles us with our clothes, and plucks the pillow from our heads. Injectu multae vestis opprimi senem jubet.  Under this influence we have so little will of our own, that, even in any apparent activity we may be got to assume, I may say, without any violence to sense, and with very little to language, we are merely passive.  We have yielded to your demands this session.  In the last session we refused to prevent them.  In both cases, the passive and the active, our principle was the same.  Had the crown pleased to retain the spirit, with regard to Ireland, which seems to be now all directed to America, we should have neglected our own immediate defence, and sent over the last man of our militia to fight with the last man of your volunteers.