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ing perfons. I alfo warn the inhabitants of the county in general, that if any of them are convicted of harbouring one or more of thofe perfons, or, knowing where they are, do not give immediate notice thereof to the officer commanding at the neareft poft, they will fuffer as capital offenders, and their property be deftroyed. Should any perfon be weak or wicked enough to join thefe defperate outlaws, either by force or from inclination, he cannot expect mercy; and I therefore conjure every one to give immediate information against fuch perfons as may go through the country for the purpofes above mentioned, and alfo to do all in their power to take them up.

If the people do not attend to this warning, they will have none but themselves to blame for the diftreffes brought on their families.

[Several names were inferted at the end of this Notice.]

Subftance of the Agreement entered into between the Irish Government and the State Prifoners confined in the feveral Gaols.

Sunday, July 29, 1798.

WE, the undersigned state prifoners confined in the three prifons of Newgate, Kilmainham, and Bridewell, engage to give every information in our power of the whole of the internal tranfactions of the United Irishmen, and that each of the prifoners fhall give detailed information of every tranfaction that has paffed between the United Irishmen and foreign states; but that the prifoners are not, by naming or defcribing, to implicate any perfon whatsoever; and that they are ready to emigrate to fuch country as fhall be agreed on between them and Government, giving fecurity not to return to this country without permiflion of Government, and not to pafs into an enemy's country.

It is on their complying with thefe terms that they are to be freed from profecutions, and alfo Mr. Oliver Bond to be permitted to take the benefit of this propofal. The state prifoners alfo expect that this propofal may be extended to fuch perfons in custody, or not in cuftody, as may choofe to benefit by it.

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WHEREAS the ftate prifoners in the feveral prifons in Dublin have proposed to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant "to

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give

give every information in their power of the whole of the internal tranfactions of the United Irifhmen; and that each of them would give detailed information of every tranfaction that has paffed between the United Irishmen and foreign ftates, without however naming or describing, fo as to implicate any person whatever; and that they were ready to emigrate to fuch country as fhould be agreed upon between them and Government, giving fecurity not to return to this country without the permiffion of Government, and not to pafs into an enemy's country, if on their fo doing they fhould be freed from profecution; and that Mr. Oliver Bond was to be permitted to take the benefit of the faid proposal; and that the state prisoners also hoped that the benefit of the said propofal would be extended to fuch perfons in cuftody, or not in custody, as might choose to take the benefit of it:" Which propofal is figned by Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, William M.Nevin, Samuel Neilfon, Henry Jackfon, John Sweetman, and by upwards of feventy other prisoners:

And whereas his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant has been graciously pleased to accept of the faid propofal, and has agreed to the terms thereby offered; in confequence whereof the said state prifoners have been examined before the fecret committee of the two Houfes of Parliament, and have given full information of the tranfactions of the United Irishmen :

Now I do, by this my proclamation, make known to the feveral ftate prisoners within this district, and to others whom it may concern, the terms and conditions upon which the state prisoners in Dublin have obtained his Majefty's pardon, in order that thofe who think fit, may entitle themselves to an equal diftribution of the King's moft merciful and gracious intentions; and I do hereby require those whom it may concern, within this diftrict, forthwith to fignify to me, whether they are ready to fubfcribe to fimilar terms and conditions, and thereby entitle themselves to the like measure of his Majefty's mercy; and in order that all perfons now in cuftody may have a full opportunity of fignifying their intentions herein, I will fend proper perfons to each prifon within this district, for the purpose of receiving their respective determinations.

G. NUGENT, Major-general, commanding
Northern District.

Belfast, August 23, 1798.

A Proclamation by the Lord Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland.

CORNWALLIS. WHEREAS it appears that during the late invafion many of the inhabitants of the county of Mayo, and counties adjacent,

did join the French forces, and did receive from them arms and ammunition; and whereas it may be expedient to admit fuch perfons to mercy, who may have been inftigated thereto by defigning men; we do hereby promife his Majetty's pardon to any perfon who has joined the enemy, provided he furrenders himself to any of his Majefty's juftices of the peace, or to any of his Majefty's officers, and delivers up a French firelock and bayonet, and all the ammunition in his poffeffion-and provided he has not ferved in any higher capacity than that of private.

This proclamation to be in force for thirty days from the date hereof.

Given at his Majefty's Caftle of Dublin,
this 11th day of September 1798.

By the Lord Lieutenant's command,
CASTLEREAGH.

Report from the Committee of Secrecy of the Irish Houfe of Commons. Mr. Speaker,

THE Committee of Secrecy appointed to take into confideration the papers prefented to the Houfe on the 17th day of July laft by the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Caftlereagh, have directed me to report as follows:

Your Committee, in reporting upon the papers referred to them, find it neceffary to recall the attention of the House to a Report of a Secret Committee of the Lords in the year 1793, as alfo to the Reports of Secret Committees of both Houfes of the late Parliament, prefented in the courfe of the year 1797.

Your Committee find that the allegations ftated in thofe Reports are fully confirmed by further evidence and by fubfequent events; and the facts they contain, connected with the information arifing out of the prefent inquiry, will enable the Houfe to trace in all its parts the confpiracy carried on by the party ftyling themselves United Irifhmen, from its first appearance under the pretext of a reform till it connected itfelf with the foreign enemy, and broke out into a wide and extended rebellion.

Before your Committee proceed to trace the extenfion and progrefs of the fyftem of treason fince the period of the last Report (the organization of which at that time appeared to have been in a great degree confined to the northern counties, but fhortly after extended itself throughout other parts of the kingdom), they are defirous of adverting to the prominent facts established by former inquiries, and to the measures adopted by the government to meet the dangers which then, and at the period immediately fubfequent to the laft Report, exifted in the province of Ulfter.

The fociety under the name of the United Irifhmen, it ap

pears

pears, was established in the year 1791; its founders held forth what they termed Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform, as the oftenfible objects of their union: but it clearly appeared, from the letter of Theobald Wolfe Tone, accompanying their original conftitution, as tranfmitted to Belfast for adoption, that from its commencement, the real purpose of thofe who were at the head of the inflitution, was to feparate Ireland from Great Britain, and to fubvert the established conftitution of this kingdom in corroboration of which your Committee have annexed to this Report feveral of their early publications, particularly a profpectus of the fociety, which appeared in the beginning of the year 1791; as alfo the plan of reform which they recominended to the people.

For the first three years their attention was entirely directed to the engaging in their fociety perfons of activity and talents in every quarter of the kingdom; and in preparing the public mind for their future purposes by the circulation of the molt feditious publications, particularly the works of Thomas Paine. At this time however the leaders were rather cautious of alarming minds not fufficiently ripe for the adoption of their principles, by the too open difclofure of the real objects they had in view.

In 1795 the teft of the fociety underwent a ftriking revision; the words in the amended teft ftand, "A full reprefentation of all the people," omitting the words "In the Commons House of Parliament," the reafon for which has been admitted by three members of the Executive examined before your Committee to be, the better to reconcile reformers and republicans in a common exertion to overthrow the ftate.

In the fummer of 1796 great numbers of perfons, principally in the province of Uliter, had enrolled themfelves in this fociety. About the fame period, as will be more fully explained hereafter, a direct communication had been opened by the heads of the party with the enemy, and French affistance was folicited and promifed to be speedily fent to aid the difaffected in this kingdom.

With a view of being prepared as much as poffible to co-operate with the enemy then expected, and in order to counteract the effect of the armed affociations of yeomanry eftablished in October 1796, directions were iffued by the leaders to the focieties to form themfelves into military bodies, and to be provided with arms and ammunition.

Thefe directions were fpeedily obeyed; the focieties affumed a military form, and it appears by the original papers feized at Belfast in the month of April 1797, that their numbers at that period in the province of Ulfter alone were ftated to amount to nearly one hundred thousand men: that they were very largely

fupplied

fupplied with fire-arms and pikes; that they had fome cannon and ammunition, and were diligently employed in the ftudy of military tactics; in fhort, that nothing was neglected by the party which could enable them to take the field on the arrival of the enemy, or whenever they might receive orders to that effect from their fuperior officers, whom they were bound by oath to obey.

To deter the well-affected from joining the yeomanry corps, and to render the administration of juftice altogether ineffectual, the most active fyftem of terror was put in operation; perfons enrolled in the yeomanry, magiftrates, witnelles, jurors, in a word, every class and description of people who ventured to fupport the laws, became objects of the most cruel perfecution in their perfons, property, and even in the line of their bufinefs; and multitudes were compelled to take their illegal oaths, and profefs an adherence to the party as a means of fecurity.

In the latter end of 1796, and beginning of 1797, the loyal inhabitants of Ulfter fuffered moft feverely from the depredations. of the United Irishmen; throughout the province they were ftripped of their arms; the most horrid murders were perpetrated by large bodies of men in open day, and it became nearly impoffible to bring the offenders to juftice; from the inevitable destruction that awaited the witneffes or jurors who dared to perform their duty.

Your Committee will now fhortly trace the measures reforted to for fuppreffing these disturbances, and for extending protection to the well-affected.

In the fummer of 1796, the outrages committed by a banditti calling themfelves Defenders, in the counties of Rofcommon, Leitrim, Longford, Meath, Westmeath, and Kildare, together with a religious feud prevailing in the county of Armagh, induced the legiflature to pafs a temporary act of Parliament, generally called the Infurrection Act, by which the Lord Lieutenant and Council were enabled, upon the requifition of feven magiftrates of any county affembled at a feilions of the peace, to proclaim the whole or any part thereof to be in a state of disturbance; within which limits this law, giving increafed power to the magiftracy, was to have operation.

Many diftricts in Ulfter in which outrages prevailed, occafioned by the active and pertecuting spirit of the United Irishmen, were in the courfe of the winter of 1796, and fpring of 1797, put under the provifions of the act above mentioned; and your Committee have to obferve, that although where the law was put in force with activity by the magiftrates, very beneficial confequences were found to refult from it, yet the treafon was then too deeply rooted to yield to this remedy.

The Parliament being affembled in October 1796, the dan

gerous

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