Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

DUBLIN, Jan. 26. Those writers who are so fond of reminding Ireland of her deficiencies and defects, should, if actuated by candor, also mention her advantages, her resources. Ireland, as they say, can never, unallied to England, become a commercial country, a maritime state: she has no navy, nor has she materials for building one. But we should ask these sapient gentlemen, what was the situation of the United States, on their emancipation from the English yoke? What was the condition of any European state in its infancy? It is an axiom in politics, that if a kingdom cannot burst on the sight like a meteor, and instantaneously start into eminence, equipped with fleets and armies, that she cannot gradually attain respectability? No: such transformations are not looked for in the regions of cool reason, and are an insult to sober sense. The true foundation of commercial greatness, in any country, is formed of maritime situation and industry, the foundation of liberty, courage and virtue. These, and these alone, are abundantly sufficient to render any nation great in commerce, and happy in liberty, the highest of sublunary attainments.

The character of an administration, like that of an individual, is ever estimated by its openness, candor and consistency. Like an individual, too, should an administration prevaricate, quibble, and unblushingly advance evasions, it must become the object of contempt and derision,--it must lose that confidence, which, as the refined Raynal has asserted, is necessary to subsist between those who rule, and those who obey, and without which there can be no true government.

Great benefits were preached up as resulting from our intended participation of the British commerce:--Irishmen were never ungenerous, and the sum of 140,000l. in taxes, as an equivalent, was voted--very good! Now as that system, whether brought forward or not, is unlikely to take place, it is to be hoped, (though indeed, it cannot be expected, that ministers will have the self-denial to offer to refund the sum) that administration will not attempt to revive or enact the new taxes which produced the said 140,000l.,