a man he described as having dedicated his life to banishing "fear and drudgery from junior education", David Manson. Manson, whose portrait was to hang in the new institution, in the 1760s had taught children literacy in his Donegall Street school "without the discipline of the rod" and on "the principle of amusement". The Belfast Academical Institution was otherwise non-denominational, but opened in 1814 with a collegiate department that, for the first time in Ireland, allowed for the certification of candidates for the Presbyterian ministry. Lord Castlereagh immediately discerned "a deep-laid scheme again to bring the Presbyterian Synod within the ranks of democracy". His suspicions appeared confirmed when, in 1816, it was reported that at a St. Patrick's Day dinner board members and staff had raised a succession radical toasts to Drennan for his services to the cause of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary reform, to the French and South American Revolutions, and to "The exiles of Erin" under "the wing of the republican eagle" in the United States. Despite the resignations of the board members present (Drennan at the time was in England), including Robert Tennent the presiding chairman, it was several years before the government was persuaded to restore its grant of £1,500. Belfast Monthly Magazine When Drennan had first returned from Dublin in 1807, William Bruce attempted a reconciliation. He proposed Drennan to his Belfast Literary Society, but Drennan declined. His friend John Templeton (the "father of Irish botany") had already withdrawn from the Society rather than accept the presence of Dr. James MacDonnell. In the wake of Robert Emmet's abortive rising, in 1803 MacDonnell made a public subscription for the capture of Thomas Russell, who had been their mutual friend and was subsequently hanged. Instead, with Templeton, Robert Tennent and the dissident Quaker John Hancock, Drennan began publication of the Belfast Monthly Magazine. The journal (which was to run for 77 issues) promised that while "intemperate political discussion would be excluded", where facts give rise "to those political differences that agitate the public mind", in "the spirit of true constitutional patriotism" "explanation" would be provided. Drennan found opportunity for such explanation not only in commentary, but in biographical sketches and books reviews. In 1809 the Magazine contained a '"Letter addressed to a Young Nobleman Just Entering Upon the Possession of a Great Estate'". The piece was clearly aimed at the new Marquis of Downshire who had just