OF THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, A TOUR ROUND THE BALTIC, &c. &c. LONDON: PRINTED FOR RICHARD PHILLIPS, No. 6, BRIDGE-STREET, BLACKFRIARS. By T. Gillet, Wild-court. TO HIS GRACE JOHN DUKE OF BEDFORD. MY LORD, IF the name of your Grace had 'been rendered illustrious solely by those distinguished Patriots from whom you derived it, my pride could not fail of being eminently gratified by being permitted to dedicate to you the following pages: but other, and infinitely more impressive and honorable emotions are awakened, when I reflect, that in the present descendant of the House of Russel are displayed that patriotic fervor, that lofty spirit of political independence, and that ardent zeal in the great cause of humanity, which distinguished so many of its branches in the annals of this great country. Indeed, my Lord, it is a felicity to be able to attest, from experience, and now to record, the pretensions of your Grace to the gratitude of your country and the love of mankind. To the wisdom of your administration was committed a great and important, but a much neglected portion of the United Empire. You became the ruler of a country long oppressed, wickedly calumniated, and still bleeding from many a wound. Soon after the elevation of your Grace to this august situation, public symptoms appeared which called for sagacity and energy of no ordinary nature. Instead of listening, in the sunshine of vice-regal magnificence, to the vague reports of the idle, the ignorant, or the mischievous, you penetrated into the wild recesses of that distracted country, reputed to contain the hot-bed of insurrection; you personally contemplated the character of the poor, suffering Irish peasant, in all its rough but affecting simplicity; you beheld a fellow-being possessed of affections easily to be won by ten DEDICATION, derness, of a vivid imagination, and quick and ardent susceptibility, cloathed in rags, and living in common with the beast of the field, in a state of penury and wretchedness, unknown to the miserable and oppressed of any other region. To see, to feel, and to meditate relief were all simultaneous in the mind of your Grace. When some partial excesses at length broke out, when the violent and the intolerant clamorously demanded the terrible inflictions of military law, you firmly, wisely, and most humanely resolved upon surrendering up the guilty to the laws of their country, without delivering over their unoffending vicinage to the savage dominion of the bullet, and the bayonet. The noble experiment answered, and your Grace lost no portion of your popularity, in the very spot where dire necessity compelled you to offer up victims to justice. Your conduct on that occasion, even in the absence of every other laudable event of your life, is sufficient to sweeten it to its latest period.. |