PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND R 1914 1 L District of New-York, ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the eighteenth day of November, in the thirty-second year of the independence of the United States of America, William Sampson of the said district, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM SAMPSON; Including particulars of his adventures in various parts of Europe; his confinement in the dungeons of the inquisition in Lisbon, &c. &c. several original letters, being his correspondence with the ministers of state in Great-Britain and Portugal; a short sketch of the history of Ireland, particularly as it respects the spirit of British domination in that country,, and a few observations on the state of mamers, &c. in America hi conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "Ap act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." EDWARD DUNSCOMB, Clerk of the District of New-York. ADVERTISEMENT. FEELING a deep interest in the affairs of that ill-fated country, whose history, at an interesting period, is here fully and faithfully portrayed; seeing our market entirely exhausted of so valuable an acquisition as the following work; hearing the great demand of my fellow-citizens for another edition; regretting that their just demand had not been sooner gratified, and sympathizing with the unfortunate author, on whom the iron hand of despotic power has heavily pressed, the publisher is induced to offer this new and revised edition of the Memoirs of Sampson to a liberal and enlightened public, fully confident that the sunshine of their approbation will bask upon him. Few works, possessing the merit of the following pages, have ever, in this enlightened country, been permitted to slumber in the arms of obscurity, and never to sink into the vortex of oblivion. While, therefore, the people are capable of distinguishing "where real merit lies;" while they possess commiserating hearts, and can shed the sympathizing tear over the sufferings of poor unhappy Erin, bowed down by the galling yoke of oppression; while historic facts worthy of record can interest; while smoothe flowing periods and elegant diction have a tendency to please; while severe and pungent satire will amuse, this work will meet with ample patronage. The history of Ireland during that period when tyranny and despotism with blood-stained hands were stalking, with gigantic strides, o'er her pleasant hills and fertile vallies, cannot fail to be interesting-particularly interesting to Americans, who but yesterday escaped the chains that now manacle Ireland, and a worse than Egyptian bondage. Like Daniel, we have escaped the devouring jaws of the lion, and like the sacred three of old, we have been delivered from the fiery furnace unscorched. Let our prayers then be offered for the safe deliverance of our brethren, "born in the country of affliction," whose "days are days of sorrow," who are yet in the power of the British lion, and who may yet be devoured in the flames of despotism. PREFACE. TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC. THE author, without apology, submits his Memoirs to that nation where truth can be uttered without alloy. To the idolaters of English power, some of whom have motives too strong for truth to shake, he is aware that his work will not be pleasing. But he knows that the genius of America is not that of persecution; and that although for ten years past, terror and corruption have been able to silence the vindicators of the Irish cause; yet it needs but to be known to find favor with the just and generous of every country. The printing presses of Ireland have been lawlessly demolished, and all who dare write or speak the truth, have been hunted to destruction; whilst scouts and hirelings, paid from the Irish treasury, have been maintained in the remotest regions of the earth, to slander Ireland; yet all this has not been sufficient to reconcile the minds of thinking people to the idea of a nation of rebels, or a kingdom out of a king's peace. For if a government be so manifestly against a people, and a people so manifestly against a government: if a kingdom must be put out of the king's peace, in order that a faction may monopolize royal power, it may be fairly asked, on which side is rebellion? and the answer arises spontaneously in the breast of a free American. Some of the most respectable citizens of America have ac knowledged to the author, that they had been deceived respecting Ireland, and were desirous of knowing the state of things; and this was a principal motive for giving to the public his Memoirs, which, from certain principles of mod-` eration, he had so long suppressed. The author has, with no less frankness avowed, that the unremitting and reiterated calumnies levelled against the American reputation, had not been without effect upon his mind, until it was his fortune to be corrected by the happiest experiment: till in that country, where, it was written,† that the men were sorded, the women withered, the institutions vicious, and religion unknown; he found exalted hospitality, the charms of female society elegant and attractive; institutions which on the other side the Atlantic pass for wild and visionary theories, reduced to practice, and unexampled prosperity growing beneath their shade: till he found religion unsulked by political craft or violent dominion, inculcated with purity, and exercised in charity: till he found in the benignity of the BENCH, a long lost profession, and in the liberality of the Ban, friends worthy of his esteem. To such a people he addresses himself with confidence. The faint sketch his Memoirs present of the calamities of his country, may serve at least to awake attention to a subject too little known for the common interest of humanity. The rest will follow; and the time may yet come, when the genius of Columbia, exulting in her young flight, and soaring on her eagle-wing, in quest of subjects equal to her swelling conceptions, may find them in the courage, the constancy, and un + See Moore, Weld, Parkinson, Davis, The Stranger, and alt the rest. |