ABSTRACT
To the Free and Independent Electors of the Kingdom of Ireland in general, to those of the City of Dublin in particular; Freedom, Health and Peace:
My most, dear Countrymen, worthy Fellow-Citizens, and loving Friends;
Though long severed from you, by hateful and lawless oppression, I never was, nor ever can be, inattentive to your concerns. Silence would but ill-become me on this important, this critical conjuncture, big with events, which must most nearly affect you; events which must, sooner or later, be felt by all Europe; I may say, by all the extremes of the globe. Patiently hear me relate them. Call forth all your fortitude: the first will tent you to the soul: the good old king,1 that tender and indulgent father of his people, overloaden with cares for the happiness and glory of his subjects, anxious to put a stop to human bloodshed, and to give contending nations an equal, just and permanent peace; his great heart, with incessant labour in the common cause, as it were, worn out, at length gave the sad proof of the mortality of the greatest of men. /