66 dience." Lord Hardwicke has full credit for having acted in this instance uprightly and prudently. As colonel of the Cambridgeshire militia, having no controul over other persons in Ireland, than those, who composed his own regiment, he forbad his men, as far as his power over them extended, to become Orangemen; because the Orange Societies were formed for party and other mischievous purposes. Lord Hardwicke then was too honorable and too honest to pass a sentence at the head of his regiment of such indiscriminate reprobation, against societies loudly professing the most refined zeal and loyalty for Church and King, unless he well knew their professions belied their principles and their practices. His Lordship then acted upon the unchecked impulse of his native feeling and judgment. He was still unmannacled by po, litics,* The * In the year 1804, the author published a Postliminous Preface to his Historical Review of the State of Ireland, in which he said "that the quintescence of Orangism was ne"cessarily productive of disunion and enmity between the " members of the Orange clubs and those, who could not be admitted into them. The prevailing belief, that their Viceroy, when colonel of the Cambridgeshire militia, had been sworn into an Orange lodge, (the author has not attempted "to verify the fact) tended to weaken the personal confidence of those, who considered all Orangemen indiscriminately bounden by ties and engagements adverse to the Catholic " "interests, The verification of the fact of Lord Hardwicke's having been sworn into an Orange lodge in the year 1799, is not matter of mere curiosity. It is not to be presumed, that after he had published that prohibition to his regiment, over which alone he had controul, to become members of any such society, formed for party and other mischievous purposes, he himself should have "interests, and who experimentally remarked the exclusive preference and predilection of the members of that society "in the dispensation of grace and favor from the Castle." When the 2d edition of that Preface was in the press in Dublin, Mr. Alexander Marsden, the most confidential and active Secretary under Lord Hardwicke, delivered to the author's publisher a copy of the above regimental order, which he desired might be transmitted to him in London; but without message or comment. It was received, and inserted in the 2d edition, with some appropriate observations founded upon wishes almost amounting to conviction, that his Excellency never had been sworn into an Orange lodge. Having since that time gone through a laborious investigation of that whole. system, the author now finds tenfold necessity for urging his concluding observation upon that regimental order, contained in the Dublin edition of his Postliminous Preface, published by Fitzpatrick, in 1801. "It is to be lamented, that when "this noble Colonel became the Chief Governor of Ireland, some act of state was not passed for checking or breaking up all those lodges or societies formed for party and other "mischievous purposes, the evil tendency of which his Lordship once so clearly saw and prudently guarded his regi <ment against." have entered amongst them.* The knowledge of the mischievous nature and purposes of the Orange societies, produced that excellent order from Lord Hardwicke. Within two years from the date of it he was appointed Chief Governor of Ireland. Thenceforth every relation between him and the Orange societies altered. But the purposes of the societies were not changed. Nor did his Lordship's knowledge of those purposes cease. It would be irregular now to anticipate that noble lord's conduct, during an administration of five years; it will form the principal part of the ensuing volume. But from the time his Lordship enlisted himself in the service of Mr. Addington, who entered into office under the avowed pledge of resisting Catholic claims, he was initiated into the use, which was to be made of these prætorian bands: he found that the * After much enquiry the author has not ascertained the fact. Had not his Lordhsip been sworn in, some denial or disclaimer would probably have accompanied the copy of the regimental order, which appears to have been given with the direct view of negativing that supposition. His Lordship having once dined at Mr. Beresford's ridinghouse by special invitation from all the Orange Lodges of Dublin, who collected there on that occasion, it was not unreasonable to presume him a member of their body. It is however no proof of his having been initiated. His Lordship's conduct, when at the head of the Government, furnished no grounds for counteracting that general prosumption. But Orange secrecy baffles all enquiry. the party and other mischievous purposes, for which those societies were formed, made the basis of that system, to the support of which he had lent his character and name. The conscious knowledge of the purposes, for which the Orange societies were formed, casts a peculiar shade upon every act of his government, by which the Orangemen were actively or passively affected. Be it generally observed, that during Lord Hardwicke's administration of five years, no vice-regal act was passed, which bore the most distant analogy to the regimental order of the 17th of April 1799. Destructive and horrible as have been the Evil of enormities of Orangemen upon the nation since keeping Orangism their institution, yet the evil of instituting the on foot. society, giving countenance to its progress, and indemnity to its outrages is far short of the mischief of keeping it on foot, and embodied under the protection and favor of government. Their former excesses were a temporary breach of internal peace and concord: their subsistence is a perpetuation of national rancor and dişunion. The existence of such a body is incompatible with the welfare and prosperity of Ireland and without the full and cordial energies of Ireland, the British empire cannot withstand the enemy. With the late political revolutions of empires the revolution in the mind of man Mischief evils. has kept pace. In some instances it has improved. However civil freedom may have suffered, religious slavery and persecution have every where ceased to exist, except in this Protestant united kingdom. We have ever been shamefully tardy in following the most enlightened example, when it originated from the continent. After how many years of bigotted pertinacity did Lord Chesterfield shame us out of the stupidity of rejecting the Gregorian calendar, and adopting the New Stile? That serious conviction of the national mischief of coun- of the Orange societies, which has brought forth tenancing known this disquisition, necessary calls for the disclosure of some facts in illustration of the system carried on out of the intervening period between the rise of Orangism on the 21st of September 1795, and the commencement of the Union on the 1st of January 1801. The singular and astonishing circumstance of Lord Hardwicke's prohibiting 1000 men under his military and qualified command in 1799, to become members of any of those societies, which he knew and declared to be formed for party and other mischievous purposes, and his not forbidding nor preventing one out of five millions, over whom he soon after exercised sovereign command for five years, from becoming a member of those very societies, which during that period |