admitted to several interviews with Mr. Cooke, at some of which the Attorney General assisted. Mr. Cooke affected to express astonishment and indignation at the information he then received of the Orangemen's oath of extermination. He was assured, that he had it in his power to ascertain the fact, by examining on oath one Bernard Cush, of the 5th Dragoons, then quartered at Carlow, who had been induced, with others, to conspire against Mr. Coile's life but who, touched with remorse, had disclosed the whole matter to a magistrate. He was sent for by Government, and in the presence of Mr. Cooke, deposed upon oath, as he had before the country magistrate, not only, that such was the form of the Orangeman's oath, which was tendered to him, and which he refused to swear, but which five others concerned in the conspiracy had actually subscribed to in his presence. Mr. Cooke,

after

"such power and authority so much imputed malversation." Lord Fitzwilliam began his government by removing two clerks from office, placed in a situation of confidence, but perfectly subordinate, and of no ostensibility. Neither his Excellency, nor his chief Secretary, with whom they were in hourly intercourse, felt inclined to repose confidence in them. One of these was Mr. Cooke, of whom his Lordship thus writes to Lord Carlisle. "Mr. Cooke indeed, whose tone and style rendered his approach to a superior not to be supported, rejects my proposals in his favor, and thinks a "retreat upon -12001. a year an inadequate recompence for the magnitude and importance of his services."

་་

after having taken the depositions of Cush, pledged himself to Mr. Coile, that Government would immediately have the conspirators apprehended and prosecuted, indemnify him for all his losses, and reward him moreover for his very proper conduct in the whole of the affair. The conspirators were not apprehended: Mr. Coile's losses were not made good to him; he was not rewarded; but continued to be an object of persecution as much at Dublin, as he had been in Armagh. When at another time he remonstrated with Mr. Cooke upon the impropriety of Government having discharged Trimble, the notorious murderer of several Catholics in Armagh, Mr. Cooke declared, that Government had been greatly imposed upon by the magistrates of Armagh; that Trimble was then on board a transport off Cork, and Mr. UnderSecretary pledged his honor, that he should be brought on shore and punished. It ended in promise.

the oath

It is incumbent upon us to throw all the day- Further light we can collect upon the mysterious secrecy proofs of of Orangism. We rarely conceal what we blush of externot to reveal. It will rest in the breast of the mination. impartial reader what weight he gives to Mr. O'Connor's answer to the Secret Committee of the Commons, on the 16th of August, 1798, when the following presumptive interrogatory

Testimo ny of Mr. O'Connor.

was put to him; as it is reported in Mr. O'Con nor's and his associates Memoir.*

"Committee. Government had nothing to "do with the Orange system, nor their exter.66.. mination?".

"O'Connor. You, my Lord Castlereagh, from the station you fill, must be sensible, "that the Executive of any country has it in

As

its power to collect a vast mass of information; and you must know from the secret nature and the zeal of the Union, that its Executive must have the most minute information of every Act of the Irish Government. one of the Executive, it came to my knowledge, that considerable sums of money were expended throughout the nation, in endea“vouring to extend the Orange system, and "that the oath of extermination was administered. When these facts are coupled, not only with general impunity, which has been uniformly extended towards the acts of this "infernal association, but the marked encou"ragement its members have received from

Government, I find it impossible to exculpate "the Government from being the parent and "protector of these sworn extirpators."

Further Were the object of our present research, to evidence. ascertain the rise, progress, and feats of a fac

tion

Mem. 55. published by P. Robinson, London, 1802.

tion or society, (however useful or mischievous to the country) that existed no more, much detail of evidence might be spared: much observation avoided; many inferences suppressed. But the Society of Orangemen still subsists in the lustful enjoyment of its primeval spirit: it is rendered less objectionable by more plausible and ambiguous tests, and is strengthened by new rules and regulations artfully adapted to fascinate the vulgar into a blind obedience to the most sanguinary commands. Fas est & ab hoste doceri.-When Mr. O'Connor was examined by the Secret Committee, he declared, that the Union saw with sorrow, that the cruelties practised by the Irish Government had raised a dreadful spirit of revenge in the hearts of the people and that they saw with horror, that to answer their immediate views, the Irish Government had renewed their old religious feuds.) "But," said he, those, who had monopolized the whole "political power of the Constitution, finding, "that they stood in need of some of the popu"lation, and from their monopoly, so directly "opposite to the interest of all classes of the

Irish nation, they could not hope for the sup"port of any (be their religion what it might) "on the score of politics, except those in the

pay of Government. Finding how necessary "it was to have some part of the population on their side, they had recourse to the old religi

ous feuds, and set an organization of Protes"tants, whose fanaticism would not permit "them to see they were enlisted under the ban"ners of religion, to fight for political usurpa"tion, which they abhorred."

Impunity Whatever may be asserted by the Orangemen and pro-and their abettors, of their own impartiality, Orange and of that of Government, certain it is, that

tection of

men.

notwithstanding the duration and extent of the outrages committed during the preceding 12 months by the Orangemen in Armagh, and the adjoining counties, no statute proclamation or resolution of a public body either specified or punished their offences: no perpetrator of the peculiar crimes of papering, racking and exterminating had been punished: not a single Magistrate had been stricken out of the commission, (except Mr. Greer, who was restored to it) although numbers of them were known to have connived

• In debating upon the Liberty of the Press in the House of Commons, in 1798, Mr. Vandeleur spoke of the Orangemen of Armagh in this extraordinary manner :-" He was "astonished, they should be still countenanced and supported

by Ministers, though the first Law Officer of the Crown "held their excesses, and the conduct of those Magistrates, "who countenanced them so much in hatred, that he de"clared, could he have found other men of sufficient loy

alty in the county to fill their places, he would have re"moved every one of them from the Magistracy." Will

posterity