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Gentlemen , I have had a long professional experience of the state of this country , travelling two circuits every year ; and I have spoken the result of my professional observations and judicial knowledge—perhaps the sincerity with which I have put forward these observations may excite some
displeasure . But I hope they may do some good , and I am pretty indifferent whether they are found disagreeable or not : living a great part of my life in the hurry of professional pursuits , I have employed the moments of my leisure in literary retirement . Attached to no party , I have never mixed with the zealots of either—I have been
assailed and calumniated by both . Such is the lot of the man endeavouring to do his duty with firmness and sincerity . Gentlemen , if any of you be disposed to think that this address would be better suited to another place and another occasion ; to such I answer ,
that I have embraced the opportunity thus afforded to me of addressing you , in order to state what have appeared to me the causes of popular commotions , and the remedies likely to assuage and prevent them in tbose several counties where , within these last five years , I have borne the King ' s Commission . I consider the present occasion a pecu
liarly seasonable one for such an address . We approach towards the close of a circuit , whose usual order had been inverted for the purpose of delivering the crowded gaols ; and bringing to speedy trial those men with whom they were filled , and who stood charged with the perpetration of almost every crime known to the criminal code . It
seemed to me expedient , if such subjects as I have brought before you were touched upon , to do so in a county profoundly tranquil , where n © danger could be apprehended , even by the most timid and fastidious , of agitating the minds of the peasantry , by a public discussion .
Gentlemen , two bills , of importance to the public peace of Ireland , have recently passed both Houses of Parliament , almost , as I believe , without observation ; and certainly without public inquiry into the state of the country . Having formed an opinion upon the causes of popular discontents , and public commotions in those counties , which I have 3 within these five
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years , visited , I thought it expedient openly from this place , to state this opinion ; hoping that my judgment , being founded not npon secret whisperings or private communications , but upon the solemnity of public trials and the authenticity of criminal records , may have some weight towards suggesting the expediency of resorting to other means of tranquillizing
Ireland , than those hitherto resorted to—¦ banishment , the tope and the gibbet . These expedients have been repeatedly tried ; and have , by the acknowledg - ment of those who have used them , hitherto proved ineffectual . And here I must in treat , that I may not wilfully be mistaken and purposely misunderstood by any man or class of men . I
mean not to question in the slightest degree , the prudence of the Irish government in introducing , or the wisdom of the legislature in enacting , those laws ; they mayff be suitable ( for any thing I kn © w to the contrary ) to the existing state of things in some of these counties , where the discharge of my public duty has not yet called me .
In others , although it may not be immediately necessary to put them into active operation , the notoriety of their existence in the Statute Book may be a wholesome warning to the turbulent and audacious . But having , in addressing you , taken occasion to give yotr my opinions upon different subjects ( the statement of which , however erroneous
those opinions should appear to be , may produce some good , by soliciting the attention of the enlightened men in both countries to the same subjects ] , I feel myself more especially called upon by a sense of public duty , to say a few
words to you upon the scope and object of these bills—1 say more especially called upon , by reason of those important , though contradictory , publications , in the Wexford Journals now laid before me , and to which I have
already adverted . Whence that contradiction of sentiment could originate * between persons resident in the same county , and having , ( one would imagine ) equal opportunities of information , it is not for me to conjectu re ; t
but its indisputable existence in « c months of March and April last ( siwsequently to your last assizes ) , calls upon me briefly to explain to you the purport of those acts , which some of y > may deem it expedient to call into active
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6 f > & Judge Fletcher ' s Charge ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1814, page 658, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2445/page/70/
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