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TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCE OF WALES,

REGENT OF THe united kinGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN

AND IRELAND,

'SIR,

IN the year 1805, I had the dis

tinguished honor of ushering into public my Historical Review of the State of Ireland, under the sanction of your Royal Highness's countenance. In 1809, with your gracious permission, I dedicated to your Royal Highness my History of Ireland, from its invasion under Henry II. to its union with Great Britain. The acceptance of the latter work, was accompanied with a communication

Highness still feels the deepest interest for the Irish people, viewing their warm attachment to your Royal Highness as an unequivocal test of their earnestness in the cause of the British Empire, believing, that without their cordial co-operation that Empire cannot stand, and reluctantly yielding to circumstantial evidence, that there long has existed, and still does exist a systematic confederacy, alarming, as it is disavowed and disguised, which puts your Royal Highness's native rights to hazard, and the State in danger, in anticipated confidence of your Royal Highness's continued permission I humbly dedicate to your Royal Highness these earnest efforts to unravel the confederacy by a faithful disclosure of the weak and wicked policy so long pursued in governing this valuable portion of the United Kingdom. Sympathetic justice to a high spirited and powerful population has suggested, an active anxiety for the interests of your

Royal Highness has encouraged, and the highest duty of a subject (my sworn allegiance) has summoned me to take in hand the arduous and ungracious, though transcendently necessary undertaking, to stem the destructive confluence of deception, falsehood, and corruption.

THE AUTHOR

July 19, 1811.