DR. MADDEN ' S UNITED IRISHMEN.

So far as a chaos can be reduced to form, this publication consists of three parts. The first is an introduction, written by a friend of Dr. MADDEN'S, consisting of a review of Irish history previous to the sera of which the Doctor is about to treat : the second, filling the remainder of the volume, seems intended for an historical sketch of the Reform and Opposition Societies of the period, with notices of their members : the third part, which occupies the whole of the second volume, is a regular biography of the unfor- tunate SHEARES—two brothers, and men of respectable standing in society, who were executed in 1798, under circumstances of great peculiarity. A verdict was found against the elder, on very slender proof; and the younger, though there was little doubt of his guilt, was convicted on the evidence of a paper in his hand- writing, and a single witness ; that witness not merely being an informer' but an informer whom the Orange Government of the day had hired to worm himself into the confidence of the accused to stimulate to treason and then to betray them. Of these three parts, the introduction is brief and rapid ; and though not devoid of a partisan feeling, it puts the position of Irish parties in a new light. The second section is one of the most wordy, crude, and purposeless productions we have ever met with. After arriving at the end of the whole work, and catching a glimpse of Dr. MADDEN'S object—which seems to have been, to make the lives of some United Irishmen a vehicle for exhi- biting the society with which they were connected, the Government to which they were opposed, and the times in which they lived— we cannot make head or tail of the jumble. It opens with a his- tory of the Irish Volunteers, in which the facts are few and the arrangement is bad, but wordy declamation both of the writer's own and of the Society's abounds : it then attempts a notice of the United Irishmen, and in pretty much the same way, except that this story is more disjointed than the first ; after which, or in- termixed with them, come, not characters, not biographies, scarcely notices, but some sort of notice of the members of the Society—as REYNOLD the informer ; the length of these accounts not being pro- portioned to the importance of the person, or the intrinsic interests which may happen to attach to his fortunes or his villany, but de- pending upon the matter Dr. MADDEN has been able to pick up in his inquiries among the survivors of those disastrous times.

The biography of the &maim has somewhat more interest; not but that the space it fills is out of all proportion to the sub-

ject, whilst Dr. MADDEN stuffs into it the life of another person, (Cox, the editor of the Irish Magazine,) but the Doctor was in com- munication with the lady who was attached to JOHN SHEABBS, and who furnished him, before her death, with some original correspond-

ence, and with her reminiscences of the brothers and their family. A domestic interest is thus excited in their fortunes ; and much of

the matter has more reality and originality than the second-hand quotations from inferior works, the reprint of Irish addresses and resolutions, and the equally Irish declamation in which Dr. MAD- DEN deals.

The book is not one that can be recommended to any person's reading; but those who should happen to read it will only regret that the history and times of the United Irishmen has not fallen into abler hands. Amid the mass of verbiage or trivial matter with which the volumes abound, facts here and there appear that clearly exhibit the folly of the United Irishmen, the villany of the Govern- ment of the day, and the general corruption of society, and indi- cate the value of a work that should truly depict them. Putting aside the folly of supposing that an extensive conspiracy to effect a general rising could be concealed from those who would pay well for its detection, the United Irishmen appear to have talked without much disguise of their plans over their cups, to have continually asso- ciated with loose men known to be attached to the Ministry, and to have been insensible to the most obvious indications of treachery and danger. The tyranny of the Government, the atrocities they winked at if they did not order, the foul system of treachery and es- pionage they organized, and the manner in which they abandoned property, liberty, life, and honour, to the pleasure of their parti- sans, brutal by nature, bloody through fear, and exasperated by faction and private enmity, were perhaps unequalled, for there was neither the necessity of the French Revolutionists to plead nor the long civil wars and balanced forces of the Roman pro- scribers. But bad as the Government may have been, that Government could not have perpetrated its atrocities, or found instruments of perpetration, in a less corrupt state of society. Any thing like a healthy or honest tone of feeling or opinion seems to have been nonexistent! Amid much talk of honour, plenty of challenging, and a good deal of bloodshed in duelling, no man seems to have suffered in social estimation, or to have been worse received in society, for any cruelty or atrocity, any trading upon principles, or tergiversation obviously for what he could get by it. The only person who excited odium was the informer, and that chiefly among the people and the friends of the persons he doomed to the scaffold. No wonder that at the latter end of the last and the beginning of the present century a residence in Ireland was looked upon by the British in the manner painted by Miss EDGEWORTH in some of her fictions. The social atmo- sphere was tainted. Part of this truth is seen by Dr. MADDEN, and he sometimes admits it fairly enough to the extent of his perception ; but as a whole, his narrative is that of a man whose nature has the reck- lessness and vehemence of a partisan, and who, not designing par- tiality, is incapable of taking a large view of complicated events, or deducing from them the philosophical truth they may contain. And sometimes, in his haste to turn a period, he is not particularly accurate about a fact, and generally makes no allowance for cir- cumstances or necessity. For example, speaking of TONE and CASTLEREAGH, he says— "In the course of the extraordinary events of this world, Tone was sentenced to be banged, for attempting to carry into effect the project implied in the example so temptingly held forth, by uniting men of all religious descriptions,' and Colonel Robert Stewart, (subsequently Lord Castlereagh,) who sanctioned with his presence the sedition of the sword-in-hand delibemtors on reform, be- came a foremost man in those councils which consigned the United Irishmen to the gallows. The meeting I speak of was not an obscure county meeting— it was not what could be well called a farce ': the aggregate number of Volun- teers represented at the meeting was not less than 18,000."

This is something more than inaccuracy. TONE was not sen- tenced to be hanged for any thing done in furthering the objects agreed to at a public meeting, or any objects of Reform whatsoever, but for being taken in arms on board a French ship of war fighting against a British vessel ; he having instigated the Directory to in- vade Ireland, and that after his life had been spared by the Irish Government on condition that he banished himself.

Again, making allowance for the rebellious state of the country, and the custom of the age when flogging was a constant practice, the following notice is certainly not a set-off against the violent and blood-threatening proclamation of JOHN SHEARES in expecta- tion of a successful rising. The most curious part in the extract is the alternative—five shillings or a hundred lashes—which, if it marks the feelings of Colonel DERHAM, equally marks the feelings of the time : a fellow who couldn't raise five shillings might be flogged as a matter of course.

"TO THE INHABITANTS OF BELFAST.

"This is to give notice, that if any person is taken up by the patrols after ten o'clock, he will be fined five shillings, for the benefit of the poor. If the delinquent is not able to pay five shillings, he will be brought to a dram-head court-martial, and will receive a hundred lashes.

"JAMES DERHAM, Colonel-Commandant."

The book contains little extractable matter : such value as it possesses is derived from the impressions it leaves upon the mind. We take a couple of the most available passages.

IRISH INFORMERS.

The extraordinary openness of perfidy, and even wantonness of treachery, which marked the proceedings of an agency however useful in its consequences yet infamous in its character, has perhaps been equalled in other countries in the frenzy of civil strife, but it certainly never was surpassed. Other Informers, however, when they have once wormed themselves into the confidence of their victims, and have possessed themselves sufficiently of their secrets to bring them to the scaffold, rest from their labours, and spare them- selves the unnecessary annoyance, perhaps a feeling of remorse, at beholding the unfortunate wretches they have deceived, when they are fairly in their toils and delivered over to the proper authorities. In Ireland there is no such

squeamishness in the breasts of our informers. No sooner was the younger Sheares safely lodged in the Castleguard-room, than he received a visit of con- dolence from Captain Armstrong, [the betrayer,] on the very morning of his arrest. He was asked by the prisoner, if his brother was taken? and Captain Armstrong answered, "1 do not know." The unfortunate young man then asked him, if his papers had been seized? Captain Armstrong replied, "/do not know." John Sheares then said, he hoped not, for there was one paper among them that "would commit him" (John Sheares.) The latter words were deserving of more attention on the trial than, unfortunately for his brother, was paid to them; for it plainly showed the paper to have been in his possession, and not his brother's; and his own impression to have been, that he John Sheares only could be injured by its discovery. His opening his mind at all on the subject proves that when he made these inquiries he had no suspicion that he had been betrayed by Armstrong.

The same strong delusion continued to screen Reynold's treachery from the generous mind of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Be continued to receive the visits of the informer afterthe arrest of his associates; and his poor lady was not even exempt from the infliction of his presence. This mode of recreating his feelings, for these visits were not essential to the objects of his employers, was a cus- tomary indulgence.

The day before the arrests at Bond's, one of the persons apprehended there, and shortly after convicted on Reynold's testimony, and executed—the unfor- tunate M'Cann—breakfasted, by special invitation, with Mr. Reynolds ; and a few days subsequently to those arrests, we find the politeness of Mr. Reynolds carrying him even to the house where these arrests took place, to pay a visit of condolence to the wife of Bond, who in the course of a few days was likewise condemned to death on his testimony.

LORD CLARE.

Lord Clare, in some things, was a man of somewhat similar taste, but of a very different temperament. He bunted down his game, not for the pleasure of the chase, but on account of his antipathy to the creature he pursued. His natural disposition was by no means sanguinary ; his feelings were warm, im- petuous, ungovernable; he was capable of forming ardent friendships and of doing generous actions. But his violent temper, his arrogant disposition, his loose principles, and unbounded ambition, made his love of power and command a domineering passion which brooked no opposition, and converted his sense of offended pride into implacable resentments. With respect to the leaders of the United Irishmen, who had given him no personal offence, he not only refrained from obstructing their overtures to enter into terms with the Government, but his exertions were successfully used in their behalf when other members of the Privy Council were clamorous for their prosecution. The recollection of his conduct on these occasions was probably not forgotten by M'Nevin, when he spoke of his Lordship, with all his grievous faults, as "an Irishman after all." Mr. Moore has recorded a trait of his character, in reference to Lord Edward Fitzgerald, which shows his nature to have been intended for better things than his political course would lead one to expect of him. A few days previously to the arrests at Bond's, he said to Mr. Ogilvie, "For God's sake, get that young man out of the way : the ports shall be open to him." On another occasion, of no less peril to an individual implicated in an attempt to procure the assistance of a military force from the French Government, he gave that individual timely information of his danger, and thus enabled him to effect his escape. This circumstance never has been made public ; but I see no reason why it should be withheld, or that an act of justice to the memory of one whose con- duct on other occasions has been deservedly reprobated should be left undone. The late Archibald Hamilton Rowan owed his life to a communication made to him by Lord Clare. The statement of the fact may cause the justice of the opinions expressed on the subject of his Lordship's conduct in the case of the Sheares to be called in question; but the inconsistencies of Lord Clare's character it would be a difficult matter to reconcile or to account for. It is, however, far more gratifying to the writer to have one trait of generosity to record of such a man, than to corroborate previous statements by new evidence of his vindictiveness.

My authority for the above-mentioned fact is a physician long and inti- mately acquainted with Rowan, a gentleman of unquestionable veracity. He was informed by Rowan a short time before his death, that the first intimation he received of the detection of Dr. Jackson's correspondence with the French Directory, and of the discovery by Goverment of a paper in his own hand- writing, composed by Thcobald Wolfe Tone, and copied by him, (Rowan,) setting forth the political state of Ireland, had been communicated to him while he was confined in Newgate, (undergoing the sentence imposed on him for publishing and distributing "a seditious libel,") by a person sent to hint expressly by Lord Clare, for the purpose of acquainting him with his dangerous position. Rowan, promptly acting on the information, easily found means of escaping from gaol, and fled to France.