THE 
 
 SPEECHES AND PUl^LIC LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LIBERATOR; 
 
 PREFACE AND HISTORICAL NOTES. 
 
 liY 
 
 M. F. CUSACK, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THK LIFE AND TIMKS OF THE LIBKRATOH,' 
 "THK illustrated history of IRELAND," 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 'I have struggled for kappy homes and altars free." 
 
 Speech at Athlnne, Aug. 1825. 
 
 yoL. II. 
 
 DUBLIN 
 M^GLASHAN & GILL, 50, UPPER SACKVILLE- STREET. 
 
 1875. 
 

 -r.^ 
 
 5G 
 
 fi^'i 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRAE^ 
 JUiV ~l ^973 
 
 [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] 
 
 PRINTED BY H'OLASHAN AND GILL, 50, UPPER SACKVILI.E STRFF.T, DtTBLIN. 
 
THE UNPUBLISHED SPEECHES 
 
 DANIEL O'COMELL. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES. 
 
 Subject, Confidence in Ministry — Adjourned Debate ; 
 
 Date, July 31, 1840. 
 
 'R. O'CONNELL— Sir, it is not my intention to 
 trouble the House with any reply to the speech, 
 the able speech, no doubt, which has just been 
 delivered by the hon. and learned member for the 
 University of Oxford. I certainly had not the good for- 
 tune to hear that speech throughout, and I therefore leave the 
 unbroken force of whatever arguments the hon. and learned 
 member has adduced to the benefit of the party of hon. gentle- 
 men opposite ; and I leave the ministry to bear the whole brunt 
 of whatever arguments the hon. and learned member had ad- 
 duced against him. I solemnly assure the House, that it is 
 with unfeigned regret that I feel it my inevitable duty to ad- 
 dress them on this occasion ; and that regret is not a little en- 
 
 VOL. II. 2 
 
2 A Novel Subject of Debate. 
 
 hanced by the circumstance, that, although various matters hav€ 
 been brought forward, so abundant as to tempt me to trespass 
 on the House at greater length than the House would, pro- 
 bably, be willing to endure, and certainly, than I should be 
 disposed to occupy, I do not think that this debate is likely tc 
 raise this House in the opinion of the public or of the statesmer 
 of Europe. I do not think there has been any of that sagacit} 
 which might have been expected to have been exhibited b} 
 statesmanlike minds ; on the contrary, a species of paltry con- 
 troversy has arisen, undeserving of such an occasion as the pre- 
 sent — this momentous occasion. The great question which th( 
 House has to decide is, how this great empire is to be governec 
 and managed ; because the manner of management in the pre- 
 sent case depends on the men who have the conduct of publi( 
 affairs. "We have to decide upon what principles twenty-foui 
 millions of British subjects are to be governed. We have alsc 
 to decide upon the fate of probably one hundred more million! 
 of human beings dependent on our control. And how has thii 
 subject been discussed ? Seven or eight gentlemen who hav( 
 spoken, have talked of where I dined. Yes, this has been p 
 fruitful subject of eloquence for the great statesmen who havt 
 addressed the House on this most important occasion. I reality 
 do think that the ridicule will be interminable, the laughtei 
 inextinguishable, when it goes abroad that the greatest question 
 which has ever agitated this House has been decided by the fre- 
 quency with which I have dined with the Lord Lieutenant oi 
 Ireland. The case, indeed, is twice as strong as it has been put, 
 for I have dined twice with his Excellency. I am glad that the 
 gentlemen opposite did not discover this sooner, for then, instead 
 of five, we should have had ten discourses on the subject. If the 
 hon. gentlemen opposite only knew the excellence of the wines 
 and the dinner, so as to have described them, there can be no 
 doubt that they would have carried by a greater majority a 
 motion in opposition to anybody who has dared to give them a 
 good dinner. I dare say I keep a fair ledger account of my 
 Hospitality with most people, and I hope I have given quite as 
 
Talking Themselves into Office. 3 
 
 many dinners as I have received. I will now pass to another sub- 
 ject. I have been the subject of many observations in the course of 
 this debate. I have been called a Repealer ; why, sir, I am a 
 Eepealer ; and has anything happened in the course of this debate 
 to shake me in that opinion? What said the hon. member for 
 Durham (Mr. Liddell) ? did he speak of this being the Parlia- 
 ment of the United Kingdom ? He talked of English and Irish 
 majorities. He stated as a charge against the present Government 
 that they had an Irish majority. The question has been asked 
 publicly, and I ask it again, is there any difference between an 
 Irish and an English majority ? And the hon. gentleman has 
 introduced into this discussion the fact of my having been 
 honoured with the offer of the Chief Baroncy of the Exchequer 
 in Ireland. And what was the defence ? Why, at that period 
 the Repeal agitation had ceased in Ireland, because the people 
 of Ireland had hopes that the House would do justice to Ire- 
 land. But I refused that offer, and I think that that is an ex- 
 ample likely to be followed by the other side. I am sorry to 
 «peak of myself, but really I am forced to do so. I refused that 
 offer upon two grounds : first, because I could not trust myself 
 to accept it ; for I own candidly that I was afraid that I should 
 fall into partiality to one party or another, that I should either 
 show favour to those who agreed with me in religion and 
 politics, or, which is the worst partiality, that I should decide in 
 favour of my opponents when they were in the wrong, in order 
 that I might avoid the accusation of doing wrong myself. 
 Thanking respectfully those who made that offer, I refused and 
 rejected it on the ground stated. I have seen some men talk 
 loud and long — men, violent in their politics, and truculent in 
 their language — merely to enforce themselves into notice, in 
 order that they might have the chance of such an offer. The 
 right hon. baronet opposite (Sir James Graham) has done me 
 the honour to notice me particularly, and with that candour for 
 which he is so eminent, has charged me with having compared 
 myself with Papineau ; and then the right hon. baronet pro- 
 ceeded to state that Papineau was a traitor, who had fled from 
 
 o ♦ 
 
/ look to nothiiicr but Moral Means. 
 
 i> 
 
 his country, not daring to stand his trial when a charge of high 
 treason was brought against him. I appeal to the House, 
 whether the right hon. baronet did not assert that I had com- 
 pared myself to Papineau. The right hon, baronet ought not 
 to have forgotten, and if he had not learned, he ought not to 
 have assailed me. He ought not to have forgotten to read the 
 remainder of the passage in which I compared myself to Pa- 
 pineau. I did venture to do so. I said that we both had 
 considerable popular influence, but that he had an advantage 
 over me, because he had a majority in the Commons' House of 
 Parliament in his favour ; but I went on to say, that he was a 
 traitor to the people as well as to the Crown ; because, instead 
 of using moral means when it was in his power to do so, he had 
 resorted to physical force. 
 
 The right hon. baronet took care to omit the remainder 
 of the passage which I have just quoted. I succeeded, Papi- 
 neau failed, and for this very reason, that I looked to nothing 
 but moral means, he resorted to physical force. I have said 
 more than enough on this subject. I now ask the House, 
 after this debate has lasted so long, what are the principles 
 of government that have been held out by hon. gentlemen 
 opposite ? Their case is this : they come before the country 
 and ask this House to turn the present ministry out, and let 
 them in, not merely to declare a want of confidence in the 
 present ministry, but to declare confidence in those who must 
 replace them. That is a matter of course. What foundation 
 do they lay for this ? Have they declared on what principles 
 they intend to govern? "We have heard a great deal of 
 attacks on ministers, of gibes and jeers at the result of the 
 division, and yet we have not heard one distinct affirmative 
 annunciation of the principles on which the gentlemen opposite 
 intend to govern. We have not heard what they will do 
 in England, and, least of all, what they mean to do in Ireland. 
 I ask, what are their principles ? Hon. gentlemen opposite 
 say that the country is much disturbed, that disafiection 
 prevails amongst numerous classes, that dissatisfaction is 
 
j Eiiglish Rebellion and English Assassinations. o 
 
 widely spread, and we heard numerous accounts of the state 
 of the middle counties from the hon. member for the county 
 of Nottingham (Mr. Grally Knight). That account, I dare 
 say was not exaggerated, however frightful it may be. 
 Armed Chartists, secret lodges, organization of men, weapons 
 of a most fearful character, and, worse of all, English con- 
 spiracies for assassination — yes, nine or ten victims marked 
 out for assassination — such is the state of England, as described 
 by the hon. member. We have heard of outbreaks at 
 Sheffield and at Bradford, of rebellion in Wales, and that 
 the situation of England is so bad as not to be described ; 
 and at such a period as this, have hon. gentlemen opposite 
 no panacea to offer? Have they no cure? Do they think 
 that the people of England have no grievances ? Will they tell 
 us that they will redress those grievances ? Will they redress 
 any of them? We have now been debating four nights, 
 and we have not yet been told of any plan for the redress of 
 those grievances. Talk of force, every constitutional force 
 has been used, and whenever an outbreak has occurred, it has 
 been met by the present ministers with more than abundant 
 force to suppress it. What will hon. gentlemen do ? Will 
 they redress the grievances of the country ? Will they turn 
 Thorogood out of gaol and free the Dissenters? Will they 
 prevent the gaols from being filled by those who follow 
 Thorogood's example, and, acting under what gentlemen 
 opposite call a mistake, but certainly what I call a conscien- 
 tious feeling, offer resistance to the impost of church-rates ? 
 Will they do this ? No, they talk not of doing it. They 
 dare not do it, for if any of them thought of doing it, 
 instantly the party would break up. How stands hon. 
 gentlemen opposite on this subject, which is so interesting 
 to Dissenters and Eoman Catholics? Will the gentlemen 
 opposite decide this question and give relief? When the 
 present Grovernment proposed a plan to ameliorate the law 
 upon this subject, by a better collection of the revenues 
 of the Church, having the additional advantage of giving 
 
6 Disaffection of the Working Classes in England. 
 
 a fixity of title to the tenants of ecclesiastical property, and 
 applying the surplus to relieve the country from the payment 
 of church rates, this plan was successfully resisted by the 
 gentlemen opposite, and they thus left that grievance festering 
 in the country, and producing very naturally disaffection 
 and disturbance. But hon. gentlemen opposite dare not do 
 otherwise. The hon. baronet, the member for Oxford Uni- 
 versity (Sir E. Inglis) chuckles at this, and will no doubt 
 point to the number of petitions he has presented in favour 
 of Church extension. I tell the hon. baronet, and he will 
 not deny it, that this means a grant of public money, I 
 ask, at once, does the hon. baronet mean to give the public 
 money to the present Church? You cannot give Church 
 extension without public money. I ask, then, is this one of 
 the cures, one of the emolients for the grievances of the 
 country which the gentlemen opposite are ready to administer ? 
 If they give public money to the Church of England, must 
 they not give it to the Church of Scotland, and with what 
 face can the Protestant Dissenter and the Eoman Catholic 
 be called upon to support a party whose great object is to 
 protect Protestantism by drawing out of the public purse the 
 greatest possible quantity of money they can lay hold of? 
 Perhaps, if the gentlemen opposite had not already stated 
 it, they will now state what they are determined to do upon 
 the Corn Laws ? In the present state of the country, I ask 
 them, do they think that the working classes, disaffected 
 as they are, breaking out into rebellion as they are, do they 
 think that those classes will be pacified by holding out to 
 them the impossibility of altering the Corn Laws ? Talk 
 of difierence of opinion on this side of the House, but what 
 is it compared with the difierence amongst the trading 
 members on the other side on this subject, leaving to the 
 present ministry this advantage, that with them it is an open 
 question, and some of them voted for going into committee 
 and making an inquiry, the first great step towards the repeal 
 of an unjust law ? but gentlemen opposite tell the starving 
 
Eiiglish Corn Laiv Meetings. 7 
 
 manufacturers, that 'Chqj are to have no relief from the present 
 graduated scale of daty — a duty increasing as the price falls ; 
 and diminishing as the price rises. 
 
 "Will gentlemen opposite ask the country to rally round 
 them on this question ? I do not think they will be wise to do 
 so. Let me remind the members of the House who may be dis- 
 posed to place confidence in gentlemen opposite, to pause before 
 they admit those gentlemen to be capable of curing the public 
 diseases, and of putting an end to the disaffection of the opera- 
 tive classes. It is advisable first to look abroad, and inquire 
 what are the feelings of the people. There have been three 
 meetings held of late at the great town of Manchester. The 
 first was a meeting of the middle classes, composed of three or 
 four thousand men, and need I inform the House what was the 
 result of that meeting ? The second was a meeting of the ope- 
 rative classes, amounting to about five thousand men. Did 
 hon. gentlemen opposite hear of the conduct of those men? of 
 the propriety of their demeanour ? of their respectful attention 
 to those who difier with them in opinion ? and of the distinct- 
 ness with which they applauded everything that was argumen- 
 tative, and rejected all that was mere declamation ? Talk of 
 danger to the Throne, and of the disaffections of the people ; if 
 that danger really exist, if there be that disaffection, if they 
 place themselves in opposition to the general and just call for 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws, see how they would aggravate 
 the mischief and increase the disaffection. There was a third 
 meeting at Manchester on Tuesday last — the very day on which 
 this debate commenced. That meeting was composed of seven 
 thousand persons, and the discourses there delivered would do 
 no discredit to this House ; and I ask, are such men to be 
 shaken in their determination by those who refused any re- 
 medy ? It is worth while to ask this question, when we recol- 
 lect that what we have to consider is, whether we shall have as 
 ministers men who will give no relief whatever to the manufac- 
 turers, or those who leave the Corn Laws an open question; we 
 leave it for discussion and evidence, to convince even those who 
 
8 A Working Mans Speech. 
 
 are unwilling yet to yield. I say, choose between them ; but 
 before you choose, hear the voice of those who are principally 
 interested, and hear the interpretation put upon those laws by 
 the operatives. At the great meeting, to which I referred, an 
 operative, of the name of Filligan, spoke in the following 
 terms : — 
 
 " I, too, will say, that if I were to come forward, and say as a working 
 man, that the repeal of the Corn Laws is a final measure of reform, I should 
 deserve all the opprobrium you can heap upon me. I come forward to advo- 
 cate the repeal of the Corn Laws, as a step towards getting what it is the in- 
 herent right of every individual to have who is a born subject in this country. 
 I do not attend here to-night for the purpose of asking the aristocracy to 
 pass a law to make bread cheap. I only ask for a repeal of that law which 
 makes bread dear. I do not stand here to ask the aristocracy to pass a law 
 that will infringe on the private property and vested rights of any individual, 
 but I ask for a repeal of that law which infringes upon my private property 
 and vested rights. The aristocracy say, that if you repeal the Corn Laws, 
 you infringe upon their vested rights ; but I ask every working man, has he 
 no estate? Was I not born in a most noble estate — the industry of these 
 hands ? And I contend that any law which prevents me exercising my in- 
 dustry is an infringement of my private property. Consequently, I stand 
 here to demand a repeal of the landlord's robbing laws," 
 
 This language comes from a man who as yet has not joined the 
 Chartists, but he calls the Corn Laws robbing laws. The 
 gentlemen opposite tell this man that they stand by these laws, 
 that they are necessary for landlords, that they are, like the 
 laws of the Medes and Persians, unalterable, whatever be the 
 consequences ; and do they expect that such a man would give 
 them his support ? Is such conduct likely to allay this dissatis- 
 faction of the country ? And, I ask, are those wise statesmen, 
 who, because the landed aristocracy and the clergy have joined 
 their party, refuse to hear the working-man pleading for his just 
 rights, and entreating to be allowed to earn the greatest possible 
 quantity of bread by the labour of his hands ? There is another 
 topic upon which gentlemen opposite have no kind of hope. 
 Hon. gentlemen on this side of the House have been taunted 
 with finality upon the subject of reform. The word "finality" 
 dropped from them, and has been fathered on them by some 
 
An allusion to Peel's Orinn. 
 
 t3 
 
 friends and by many enemies. There is no doubt of the finality 
 of the gentlemen opposite on this subject. I cannot but regret 
 the secession of the noble lord, the member for Northumber- 
 land ; but in that secession, I do not know that he has shown 
 as much of good sense as of nobleness of feeling. This I know, 
 that this secession has shown that there is a desire for progres- 
 sion on this side of the House, for the noble lord has forsaken 
 ministers. I know not the limits of their differences ; but he 
 has forsaken them because they were more progressive than 
 they wished. With gentlemen opposite it is quite otherwise. 
 There is to be no extension of the present franchise. Not one 
 other Englishman is to be admitted into tlie franchise. No ; the 
 gentlemen opposite are determined to restrain the community 
 within the paltry measure of the extent of the Reform Bill. 
 "What sanctity have gentlemen opposite discovered in the Be- 
 form Bill that they refuse to persons equally well entitled with 
 those who enjoy it, a participation of the benefits of the fran- 
 chise. I am not speaking to you alone, but to the people of 
 England, whom you exclude from the franchise, and from whom, 
 when they apply to be restored to it, you turn away, and refuse 
 to listen to them. You place yourselves in the high and lofty 
 situation of being solely entitled to political power, and you 
 spurn from you those you would claim to share it with you. 
 Now, upon what hereditary prescription do you lay claim to 
 this exclusive authority in the State ? The right hon. baronet, 
 the member for Pembroke — he, to be sure, is of high descent ; 
 he traces his pedigree to John of the Bright Sword ; and the 
 noble lord, he claims descent from no less a personage than 
 Edward the Confessor — and they tell the artizans, from their 
 high and irresponsible position, not to come "between the wind 
 and their nobility." This might possibly be borne from them ; 
 but the right hon. baronet, the member for Tamworth, his case 
 is different ; he came from a lower but a more illustrious origin 
 — his position and circumstances were the rich reward of talent 
 and industry, which, however, would never have produced their 
 fruits but for the high and unblemished integrity with which 
 
lO An Address fj'om a 
 
 they were accompanied. The industrious people of England had, 
 therefore a right to complain of the hon. Tsaronet, for he had 
 belonged to their class, and now he turned about upon them, 
 and would deprive industry and integrity of that participation 
 in the legislation of the country to which they were as much 
 entitled as himself. 
 
 Why, what was the theory of the constitution but this — 
 that taxation was just because the people were represented, and 
 were taxed by their own representatives ; but that it would be 
 a robbery if the people were taxed by other authority than that 
 of their representatives ? The party opposite said the people 
 shoruld not be represented ; and yet their own writers told them 
 that if they were not represented it would be a robbery. They 
 had told the people of England that there are two classes in the 
 state ; the first, a master class, being householders of £10 a j'ear, 
 and that those should be represented ; and a slave class, which 
 did not come within their category, and who were not to be 
 represented. These were told to begone ; ample as were their 
 grievances — just and equitable as were their claims, redress 
 they should have none. And yet that party now dare to appeal 
 to the country, and say they would govern the country sup- 
 ported by the sense of that people whom they would exclude 
 for ever from the franchise. No ; they do not even hold out 
 a hope that at some future period the unfranchised shall be ad- 
 mitted to their rights. No ; they have taken their stand upon 
 this point, and they thought they would be right in taking the 
 sense of the country upon it. And what said the people upon 
 this subject ? At the same meeting to which I have just re- 
 ferred, an address was agreed to to this House, in which he 
 read the following passage : — 
 
 " Still we are burdened with sinecures and pensions, outraging the feel- 
 ings of every honest and industrious man, a political state Church, that, by 
 its extortions and intolerance, under the cloak of religion, brings the sublime 
 and hallowed doctrines of Christianity into disrepute ; a standing army as nume- 
 rous and expensive as if we were at war with all Europe ; a ponderous debt 
 that presses most disastrously on the financial interests of the country; a new 
 
MancheFiter Meeting. 1 1 
 
 Poor Law brought into existence whilst the cursed and abominable Corn Law 
 exists, by which the food of the people is restricted, at the same time they are 
 starving by thousands in the land of their birth ; and in the midst of all this we 
 are told that the reforms already effected are to be final, and that no further 
 relief from our present state of political slavery shall be afforded us by you. 
 Already has this doctrine of finality being productive of the most disastrous 
 effects. A spirit of disatJection has exhibited itself in different parts of the 
 empire, and the lives of some of our fellow-subjects liave been sacrificed. "We 
 deeply deplore this ; we are as much opposed to violence as yourselves or 
 any other body of men in her Majesty's dominions. We have never joined 
 in any effort that has been made to alter the present state of things by force. 
 We are determined to seek for and obtain our rights by all lawful and con- 
 stitutional means ; but we hesitate not to express our apprehension that, 
 imless such concessions be speedily made by you as shall meet the wants, the 
 wishes, and the intelligence of the people, the recent outbreaks are only the 
 forerunners of an amount of destruction and loss of life that will be produc- 
 tive of incalculable mischief to the best interests of the country, and will 
 leave a stain on the character of its legislation that will not be easily oblite- 
 rated." 
 
 This was their declaration. Now he would ask (the hon. 
 and learned member continued), were these people to be excluded 
 for ever from a voice in the state? and, above all, was the 
 doctrine about illegal meetings to be pressed to this extent 
 that it would be in tlie power of the Government of the day to 
 prevent these meetings, which might probably be looked upon 
 as the safety-valve in our political scheme, allowing the evapora- 
 tion of passions which might explode andburst the whole machine. 
 He did not advise an appeal to force ; but when he found a total 
 refusal to accord the just rights of the people — a flat denial of 
 all redress for any of their grievances — when they found this 
 producing irritation and disaffection throughout the country, 
 he asked how could the party opposite pretend to undertake the 
 administration of affairs under such circumstances ? Yet the 
 noble lord opposite said last night that he was ready to take 
 office — that he was ready to assume this responsibility, and at 
 this very moment. Let him do so— let him come into power; 
 and then let him immediately proceed to increase the army, to 
 increase the police force, and to arm the yeomanry throughout 
 
1 2 How will you Govern Ireland. 
 
 the country; and with these materials risk the edifice of the 
 state to its very foundations ? But what would they do with 
 Ireland ? How would they govern Ireland ? By whom, and 
 for whom would they attempt to govern Ireland ? "Would they 
 attempt to govern her hy the party who had in this debate ex- 
 pressed their dissatisfaction of the present Government, by such 
 perfect specimens of meekness and modesty as the learned 
 Serjeant for instance, and of course with a total absence of 
 political feeling. He asked again, how would they govern 
 Ireland, and by whom ? He knew that the right hon. baronet 
 would this evening give the House some very excellent phrases 
 of conciliation, and make ample professions of his intention of 
 doing justice, with impartiality, to all. But he had heard the 
 same sentiments before from the right hon. baronet, and uttered, 
 he had no doubt, with equal sincerity; and the right hon. 
 baronet's entire sincerity he would not for a moment call in 
 question. But was not the right hon. baronet the same man 
 as when he was last in office? Were not his opinions the same? 
 And the gallant officer, too, than whom a braver soldier did not 
 live ; he had not changed his opinions since he last governed 
 Ireland ; and yet when he went over to Dublin in 1834, where 
 did the orange flag wave ? It was hoisted as the right hon. 
 and gallant officer's banner. No ! The fact was the right hon. 
 baronet had not the materials amongst his party to govern 
 Ireland. Ireland was in a state of suppressed rebellion, which 
 would break out into open insurrection at the very idea of such 
 a Grovernment coming again amongst them. The hon. member 
 for Wakefield, whom he was sorry to see abandoning the pro- 
 tection which Ireland had been proud to receive from him, had 
 talked in this debate as if there were two parties to determine 
 between. But now, what were those two parties ? There was 
 a whole people on one hand, and a party on the other. If that 
 party prevailed, the cause of the people was lost. He would 
 entreat the House to consider something of the history of 
 Ireland. 
 
 It would be taxing their patience too much to go back to 
 
The Effect of Twenty -Jive Years Coercion. 13 
 
 the times before the Union. Ireland had suffered for six hun- 
 dred years {ironical cheers and laughter from the Opposition). 
 Was that laugh intended to deny the fact ? If so, he pitied 
 their ignorance who uttered it ; or if it were not so intended, 
 and the fact once admitted, he could not respect the feeling 
 which dictated it. Ireland had suffered six hundred years of 
 oppression ; and this was a fact which hon. gentlemen opposite 
 laughed at. But what was the history of Ireland since the 
 Union ? For between twenty-nine and thirty years — for the 
 Whigs had been in office but one year during that period — the 
 Tory party had governed Ireland, and for twenty-five years 
 out of that time the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended, 
 or the Peace Preservation Act had been in operation, depriving 
 the people of their constitutional rights. Twenty-five years 
 had they thus coerced Ireland, and why had they not quieted 
 her ? And how would they hope to quiet her now, if they came 
 into office ? Was there an individual of that party who would 
 not raise the shout of exultation, if the right hon. baronet were 
 to come into office — and would they not kindle bonfires from 
 one end of the country to the other to signalise their new advent 
 to power? The learned serjeant had been obliged to admit the 
 present tranquillity of Ireland ; and was ever such an admission 
 made before in this House ; was there ever a four days' debate 
 in this House in which so little had been said about Ireland ? 
 How different from the Serjeant's course on former occasions, 
 when he came down with his hands full of lists and documents, 
 and papers as bulky as a volume of the statutes at large, and 
 gravely impeached magistrates and officers without number. 
 But if tranquillity was shown to exist in Ireland, had the party 
 of the learned serjeant done anything to promote it ? Not by 
 any act of their Grovernment, for, thank heaven, they were not 
 in power ; perhaps they had done so by their recommendations; 
 but was there any one who could get up and say, that he had 
 heard anything of a conciliatory nature uttered at any one of 
 their meetings? If there had been such, it had since been 
 buried, and lost in silence. But, on the other hand, had they 
 
14 TJic " Times'^ on the Irish People. 
 
 not by their Press worked in a way directly the reverse, pouiing 
 out the vials of their wrath against every person and every 
 principle dear to the people of Ireland ? Their leading journal 
 had gone to an enormous extent in order to assist in walking 
 them into power to-night. What was the language used in 
 this journal in respect to the Irish people ? They were called 
 " brutes," " ignorant savages," " worse than the cannibals of 
 New Zealand," What was said of the clergy? That they 
 were " surpliced ruffians," " sanguinary monsters," "a demon 
 priesthood." Good heavens ! Was he in a civilized — a Chris- 
 tian country ? Day after day, and week after week, were these 
 abominable insults poured out against the clergy of the people 
 of Ireland ; men who had clung to the cause of their suffering 
 fellow-countrymen with desperate fidelity — who were their only 
 comfort and friend when deserted and oppressed by all the rest 
 of the world, and when, at the bed of sickness and death, the 
 blood of youth was prematurely sapped by disease and poverty. 
 He repeated it — the opposite party had done nothing to promote 
 the tranquillity which existed in Ireland at the present moment ; 
 but, on the contrary, the very reverse. How had their clergy 
 acted ? The noble lord last night pronounced an eloquent 
 eulogism upon Mr. M'Neile ; he had spoken of his charity, of 
 his eloquence, and of the admirable tenets which he had heard 
 in a speech delivered by him. He (Mr. O'Connell) would now 
 beg to read a passage from a sermon delivered by that reverend 
 gentleman at Manchester. What said this reverend and chari- 
 table minister of God : — 
 
 " War, war to the knife. They tell you that you are ministers of peace, 
 but where are we to find that, I ask ? Not in any part of the Scripture that 
 I know of. There is nothing like it in the Bible. We are the ambassadors 
 of Christ." [0^,0^/] 
 
 What ! were they tired with so short a sermon ? — 
 
 " We are ambassadors of Christ — Christ, who said, you think that I come 
 to bring peace amongst you, but 1 come to bring a sword. What peace can 
 you expect to have whilst the woman Jezebel lives in the land?" 
 
Disloyal English Sermons. 1 5 
 
 This was one of their moderate supporters ! But who was 
 this woman Jezebel ? He knew there were many persons who 
 said it was the Queen. He did not say so himself, though he 
 had thought it so when first he heard the observation ; but its 
 application in that manner had been denied by the rev. gentle- 
 man, and, therefore, he did not take it in that light now. But 
 if it was not the Queen, who was the woman Jezebel ? What 
 could the term mean but the religion which was professed by 
 the great majority of the Christian world ? It was either the 
 Queen, or the religion of Ireland, and of the greater part of all 
 Europe. The Irish people were still tranquil, although the 
 Tory party put the English clergy in the pulpit to preach down 
 their clergy and their religion in this abominable manner. 
 And this was the preacher who, together with Mr. M'Ghee, 
 was invited by Lord Wharncliffe, a gentleman not naturally 
 given to fanaticism, but perverted to it by the baneful influence 
 of politics, to meet the Protestant Association in Sheffield. 
 Now, he wanted to know what had been preached here. Had 
 there been no fanaticism directed against the Queen ? Had 
 there been no treason directed against her? The man who 
 spoke of Victoria might say he did not mean the Queen ; but 
 he (Mr. O'Connell) could hardly lend credit to the assertion. 
 However, when he came to the person whose speech he meant 
 by-and-by to read, he would give him the explanation he 
 had made or could make. But what were the sermons which 
 had been preached ? He knew that the House was averse to 
 the reading of extracts, and he would not intrude upon it by 
 any lengthened quotations, but he held in his hands a couple of 
 documents from which he could not withstand the temptation 
 of selecting a few passages. The first was a sermon delivered at 
 Worcester on the 5th of November last, by a remarkable 
 preacher, the Eev. Frank Hewson, who said : — 
 
 " "We see a striking resemblance to the dispensing power which James II. 
 assumed, now pursued by the Government, in not enforcing the remaining 
 laws against Popery. More, we see a striking resemblance to the foreign 
 influence which James was under, in the present position of affairs at Court, 
 
1 6 En owlish attacks on the Oiieen. 
 
 in the crowds of followers who infest the palace of our Queen, and fill her 
 mind with Popish and un-English sentiments." 
 
 The orator went on to Universities, Education, Papists, the 
 Privy Councillors, Dissenters, Horror, Town Councils, and 
 winds up with — 
 
 " Lastly, there is a striking resemblance to the supposed birth of a Prince 
 of Wales in the time of James II., to the supposed marriage of our Queen to 
 a German prince, whose family are all Papists. When an heir was born to 
 James, the hope of England fell to the ground. In the prospect of a 
 nominal Protestant becoming the husband of our Queen, is the prospect any 
 better ?' 
 
 James II. lost his throne, and deserved to lose it ; but what 
 was the inference which this preacher would draw from the 
 parallel which he instituted ? Why, that as James II. lost the 
 throne for leaning to Popery, so Queen Victoria should be de- 
 prived of her crown for marrying a pretended Protestant. He 
 (Mr. O'Connell) came next to the sentiments of a man who 
 took a higher tone. He was now going to direct the attention 
 of the House to the celebrated speech at Canterbury. Before 
 he did so, however, wishing to act with perfect fairness to the 
 person whose name was at the head of this speech, he must 
 observe that that person had declared that the object of his attack 
 was not the Queen but the ministry. He would only observe, 
 let those who knew that person best, believe him most. He 
 would read the speech, and leave the House to judge of the 
 person to whom it was intended to be applied. Thus it 
 begins : — 
 
 " First, I shall direct your attention to the fearful growth of Popery, allied 
 as it is with atheism, infidelity, and the voluntary, or anythingarian principle. 
 Her Majesty's ministers have recognised this medley as their rule of faith, as 
 exemplified in their precious scheme of education without religion ; and I 
 grieve to say, that her Majesty herself has shown too much countenance to 
 the enemies of the Protestant Church. Brought about under the auspices of 
 the citizen-King of the Belgians, the serf of France, and guided by his 
 influence, the Queen thinks that if the monarchy lasts her time it is 
 enouah " 
 
English Opinion on the Queen. 17 
 
 Meauiug thereby, as the speaker afterwards explained, the 
 ministers. Truly an ingenious innuendo ; reduced to plain 
 English, it was to read thus : — 
 
 "Brought up under the auspices of the citizen-king of the Belgians, the 
 serf of France, and guided by his influence, the ministry think that if the 
 Monarchy hists its time it will be enough. But the people of England will 
 never consent that the Crown shall be degraded and debased for the inglori- 
 ous ease of any created being. \Here there were tremendous clieers^ Nor 
 will they consent that the personal wishes and caprices of the Sovereign (the 
 ministry again) shall direct the conduct of the executive. The Monarchy has 
 Its rights, but it has also its duty. The people of this country will not be 
 trampled on by Pope or Sovereign Cstill less by the ministry) ; still less will 
 they endure that a petty German prince shall hold the fair realm of England 
 in fee farm. We have not forgotten the forced abdication of the second 
 James (this, of course, applied to the ministry) ; nor are we ignorant that the 
 title of the throne of these realms is that derived from a Protestant princess. 
 No one can regret more than I do the growing unpopularity of the Queen 
 (meaning the growing unpopularity of the ministry) and her court (meaning 
 the court and the ministry). But, look at the composition of that court and 
 its acts. The courts of former sovereigns have been as frivolous, more vicious 
 even, than the present, but the government of the country and the direction 
 of public affairs have been carried on by statesmen of known and recognised 
 ability, honour, and independence ; men who were neither the boon com- 
 panions of the sovereign, nor the willing slaves of his follies and caprices (this 
 was all the ministry). I believe, in my conscience, that the favourite equer- 
 ries are younger, better looking, and better dressed men than Sir Robert 
 Peel ; that Lord Melbourne can tell a tale meet for a lady's ear far better 
 than the Duke of Wellington ; and that neither Lonl Stanley nor Sir James 
 Graham can compete with my Lord Normanby in getting up a pageant." 
 
 He supposed that every loyal man in the House wished to 
 have the Queen spoken of in that manner. Was there a gallant 
 officer on the opposite benches who did not feel indignant that 
 such language should be applied to the (iueen. "Was there a 
 really loyal man in the House who would not deplore and de- 
 nounce such ribaldry. 'Twas said that these observations were 
 not intended for the (iueen ; that they were insinuations against 
 the ministry. He would read a few more extracts, and leave 
 the House to judge for itself: — 
 
 VOL. II. 3 
 
1 8 The Opposition Benches. 
 
 " Look at the appointments that these men and women have lately made. 
 There is not one of them that is not a direct insult to the nation. See the 
 Irish Papists preferred to place, to power, and to patronage. I shall take 
 leave, on thus referring to them, to contrast the solemn oath sworn by her 
 Iklajesty at her coronation with her subsequent acquiescence in these acts. 
 This oath is the compact made between the sovereign and the people ; its 
 obligations are mutual. I will now read it to you, and be you judges whether 
 or no they have been truly fufilled. Here are the late appointments of 
 Papist councillors. I take them together, and thus I cast them from me 
 •with disgust and indignation." 
 
 One passage more lie would be ready to read, which, really 
 related to the ministry. But, before he did so, he must observe 
 that, as a man of conscience, he could not do otherwise than 
 believe that all the passages to which he had just called the at- 
 tention of the House related to the Queen, and to no one else. 
 It was painful to him to contradict any assertion that any gen- 
 tleman might make ; but, was there a man in the House — was 
 there one in the Opposition benches, who could not stand up 
 and say that the passage he had quoted applied to the Queen ? 
 The speaker came forward to the minister, of whom he said: — 
 
 " His sheet anchor is the body of Irish Papists and rapparees, whom the 
 priests return to the House of Commons. These are the men who repi'esent 
 the bigoted savages, hardly more civilised than the natives of New Zealand, 
 but animated with a fierce, undying hatred of England. I repeat, tlien, de- 
 liberately, that the Papists of Ireland, priest and layman, peer or peasant, are 
 alike our enemies; aliens as they are, in blood, language, and religion." 
 
 The last remark he (Mr. O'Connell) did not attribute to 
 the Canterbury orator. He admitted that it was a quotation 
 from a much greater man, a quotation borrowed from a speech 
 of the leader of that party which they were told made the mi- 
 nistry weak in the House of Lords, and gave to the Conserva- 
 tives power — 
 
 " Aliens in blood, language, and religion. Yet on these " 
 
O'Coiineirs Ancestors fought for the Stuarts. 19 
 Here, again, the speaker came back to tlie Uueen — 
 
 " Yet on these men are bestowed the countenance and support of the 
 Queen of Protestant England. But, alas ! her Majesty is queen only by a 
 faction, and is as much a partisan as the Lord Chancellor himself." 
 
 The " partisan ! " There was, of course, the ministry. 
 
 " But shall we quail at the impending danger, and meanly submit without 
 a struggle ? No ; we will present the same bold front as did our fathers of 
 old ; and God defend the right." 
 
 This was magnanimous, but nothing to what followed. 
 
 " We will resist to the death ill -government and unjustly usurped autho- 
 rity. Petitions to the Crown are an idle mockery. We will no longer sub- 
 mit to be governed by a profligate court. It is in your hands, my friends — 
 it is in the hands of the people of England, that her destinies are placed for 
 good or for evil." 
 
 Some comment had been made in the course of the debate 
 upon a reply whicb he (Mr. O'Connell) had made to that 
 speech. He did not deny the statements attributed to him. 
 He did say that against such a traitor — against the Tory domi- 
 nion of such traitors — he was able and willing to bring into the 
 field 500,000 figbting men. He admitted that he said so, and 
 he repeated it now. He had a kind of title to take such a 
 course ; for one of his ancestors, at the head of a regiment, 
 fought and bled for the unfortunate James Stuart. He, there- 
 fore, had a sort of hereditary right to adopt this course. The 
 lion, member for Maidstone, the other evening, entertained the 
 House with some curious infelicities of literature. He spoke of 
 the ruin of Charles I. , and accused the House of Commons of 
 that day having fantastically brought the Quaker, James Nay- 
 lor, before it, adding, that the House had the barbarity to cut 
 out his tongue. Now, it was hardly fair to accuse Charles I. of 
 having any share in that act of brutality, because, in point of 
 fact, it was committed five years after that monarch had been in 
 his grave. The House of Commons who mutilated Naylor was 
 
 3* 
 
2 o Lord Lyndh u rst. 
 
 not elected under the King's Writ, but was summoned in 
 soldier fashion by Cromwell. He was not defending the House 
 of Commons which committed so barbarous an act ; he was 
 merely reminding the hon. member for Maidstone how it was 
 that the fanaticism of which he spoke was brought about. It 
 was brought about by M'Neils and M' Ghees of that day. 
 Ministers of the Gospel were sent forth to preach of the Sove- 
 reign as a Jezebel. Thus it was that the fanaticism of that 
 day took its rise, and he (Mr. O'Connell) would warn the hon. 
 member for Maidstone, and the gentlemen who thought with 
 him, that the fanaticism which, at that period, was guilty of 
 such barbarous crimes, might, by the employment of similar 
 means, be raised again in England. Had he not seen, within 
 these few days, placarded on large carts ostentatiously driven 
 through the streets of the town, "The horrors of Popery?'^ 
 Were not meetings constantly held during the vacation ? He 
 could remind the House of dozens of them. Had not fanati- 
 cism been preached in every corner of the kingdom ? Did they 
 want to have another Bradshaw to preside at the trial of a 
 queen? There was something ominous in that name. He 
 called upon the House not to countenance by its votes anything 
 which could lead to such abominations. But had this fanati- 
 cism no partizans, no organ by which it could appeal to the 
 public ; had it no newspaper press, no protectors ? Why, he 
 found that it was embodied in a volume, and dedicated to Lord 
 Lyndhurst. The book was called, " The Metropolitan Conser- 
 vative Press," and he found, on reading the pompous list of 
 subscribers, that the names of the commoners began with that 
 of Sir Eobert Peel. Then came the right hon. F. Shaw, M.P., 
 Recorder of Dublin, and, shortly afterwards, James Bradshaw, 
 Esq., M.P. Then, turning back the page, he saw that the 
 motto was, " Pear God — honour the Queen." He was aware 
 that he had trespassed at some length upon the patience of the 
 House; but he was anxious, if possible, to confirm, by his 
 testimony, the fact that tranquillity, which, all admitted, now 
 
The Chartists. 21 
 
 prevailed in Ireland. He defied those who followed him in 
 this debate — and he knew that he should be ably followed, for 
 some of the ablest men in the nation had not yet spoken — but 
 he defied those who should follow him to show that there was 
 now anything of disturbances in Ireland. He was counsel for 
 Ireland, and he appeared there to plead her cause. England 
 was discontented and disaS'ected — Ireland was tranquil. Eng- 
 land was distracted by lawless bands of physical- force Chartists 
 — Ireland did not seek to attain her ends by violence, by resis- 
 tance of the law, by destruction of property. In England, 
 rebel bands were led against the armed soldiery ; but those 
 soldiers knew duty, and performed it. What were they ? Irish- 
 men. In England the lives of the gentry were threatened. 
 A spirit of assassination had sprung up. The hon. member for 
 Nottingham had described how the amiable fathers of families 
 — respectable, unofi'ending men — had been marked out for 
 assassination. Had the Irish in England joined the Chartists? , 
 Had they evinced a desire to link themselves with these assas- 
 sins ? With a few wretched exceptions, there were none. 
 Had the Irish in England taken any part with the Chartists ? 
 They had grievances — they had sufi'erings — they had many 
 causes of complaint. Did they join the Chartists ? No ; even 
 the tradesmen of Dublin, whose combinations he opposed at the 
 peril of his life, even they rejected Chartism. Ireland had be- 
 come tranquil ; no more calumnies would be uttered against 
 her upon that score. Her military force was diminished, and 
 why ? Because the troops, which were necessary to struggle 
 against rebellion, sedition, and treason in England, were not 
 required to maintain the good order which prevailed in Ireland. 
 Another speech of his had been referred to, or, at least, a part 
 of it had been referred to, by the hon. and learned member for 
 Coleraine, who had made extracts, and commented upon them, 
 with about the same sort of candour as the hon. and learned 
 Serjeant (Serjeant Jackson) had shown in dealing with another 
 speech. The hon. and learned member for Coleraine read that 
 part of a speech of his (Mr. O'Connell's) in which he spoke of 
 
22 The Const j'vativc Pa)iy. 
 
 the downfall of the funds, and so on. He asked, in that speech, 
 what the three per cents, would be worth if Ireland were in 
 rebellion, and the men of Kerrj led on bj himself, even 
 though that news should be accompanied with intelligence 
 that the chief agitator was put down, and the rebellion put 
 down ? How did he say that ? "What he said then he would 
 repeat now. He was addressing himseK to the Conservative 
 party in England, and the purport of his address was this : — 
 
 " Tou, the gentlemen of England, who have property acquired, either 
 by yourselves or your ancestors — who have all the blessings of this world 
 surrounding you, Oh, send us not over a ministry that cannot govern 
 us well— drive not the people to despair; let not an almost eternal civil war 
 prevail. Oh ! if you have mercy, stand between Ireland and an Orange 
 ministry." 
 
 He would now make that appeal again. He might make 
 the appeal in vain. He knew that the party he dreaded — the 
 party whose dominion in Ireland had been so fatal to all the 
 best interests of that country — were surrounded on the present 
 occasion, from every quarter of the kingdom, to see if it were 
 possible, by a vote of that House, to regain something of 
 their former ascendancy. He trusted he should never live 
 to see that day. One of the most respectable amongst them 
 had been chosen to be the leader of the attack. " Uj?, guards, 
 and at them !" was their cry. Oh! he had seen these noble 
 guards many a time; but he well remembered, that the 
 meteor flag of England, borne by their intrepid hands, had 
 never waved in triumph in the foughten field, where the 
 commingling blood of the heroes who achieved the victory 
 had not flowed in equal streams from the veins of the gallant 
 Irish. He was a Repealer only when he could not get justice. 
 He asked only for equality. If there was an Union — a real 
 Union — he was entitled to ask for equahty. If he had not 
 equality he cared not for the Union. He wished not for 
 repeal if he could get justice without it ; but if he could not 
 get it, then he knew of nothing that could prevent his 
 applying for repeal. He had a right to do so ; and if the 
 
Father Alathew. 23 
 
 necessity arose, lie would exert it. Never before had the 
 House heard of the tranquillity of Ireland. But there was 
 another feature in her case — a feature which had been slightly 
 touched upon by the noble lord, the Secretary for Ireland. 
 He had received a newspaper that day, which stated that / 
 more then 600,000 persons had given the pledge of temperance 
 to Father Mathew. "What was the result ? A strikincf 
 diminution in the amount of outrages and crimes. At Water- 
 ford, where the monthly return for outrages, for years past, 
 had amounted to no less than 150, there was, during the 
 last month, not one single ease. They might think that 
 its tranquillity was temporary. Oh ! they did not know 
 the tenacity of the Irish people. They had shown it in matters ; 
 of war and contest, and they were capable of showing it in ' 
 matters of the sublimest morality. It was that people who 
 were now before the House of Commons, and who had been 
 assailed only with the ribaldry of such as the learned would-be 
 Serjeant, the member for Coleraine. That people had come 
 scathless from every one else. It was that people who now 
 made their demand upon them. In the name of that people 
 (said Mr. O'Connell in conclusion) I present this ministry 
 to you, the first ministry that ever did justice to Ireland. 
 I present them to you in the attitude of our friends— ay, 
 and of your friends also ; for they enabled us to afford security 
 to you ; and though they were not permitted by you to 
 grant us the Parliamentary franchise in so complete a form 
 as the}'- desired, yet they did all they could to administer 
 impartially the law which they could not amend as they wished. 
 In the name of the Irish nation I present them to you. Will 
 you vote against them, with the Hewsons, the M'Neils, the 
 M'Ghees, and the Bradshaws ? or will you vote for them, 
 as I demand of you, in the sight of heaven, and in the name 
 of God? 
 
24 Vo^es and Voters. 
 
 Sahject, Registration of Voters, Ireland ; 
 Bate, March 26, 1840. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell remarked, tliat the noble lord had con- 
 cluded by saying that this was not a party question. He 
 supposed that it was mere accident that brought together 
 such a crowded assembly. There was no intention of treating 
 the question as a party question ; it was accident, of course. 
 Passing from that, he was really astonished at the length 
 of time during which the noble lord kept up his tone of 
 moderation, and kept down the disj)osition supposed to be 
 natural to him. But at length the noble lord came to excom- 
 munication. There was nothing of party in that ; there was no 
 bigotry in that; no, nor in the sneer about the chapel. 
 Never was there a culumny so unfounded. He defied the noble 
 lord to prove it. There was one asserter of it, and one only, 
 he meant in the evidence given before the Fictitious Yotes 
 Committee, or the Intimidation Committee, he did not know 
 which ; but as a practice which could be traced as prevalent 
 in Ireland, that he utterly and contemptuously denied 
 {cheers). He was not to be put down by mock cheers. 
 Having disposed of this preliminary matter, he would proceed, 
 if the House would condescend to listen to him ; if not, he 
 would take some other opportunity. He would now proceed. 
 It was scarcely worth while to notice some arguments em- 
 ployed by the noble lord founded upon matters personal to 
 himself. Those arguments first came from the right hon. 
 gentleman the Recorder of Dublin, who read a speech of his 
 from one of the Dublin newspapers, in which he was made 
 to &Q.J, that he defied the Grovernment to pass the measure of 
 the noble lord. Now, he had never said so, nor did he see 
 the report in which this language was attributed to him 
 until he was on his way over from Ireland, and the first thing 
 which he did when he arrived was, to go to the noble lord, 
 and assure him that he said no such thing, referring him at 
 
An Lis It it to Ireland. 25 
 
 the same time to the newspaper which contained an accurate 
 report of what he did say. That paper was the Freeman s 
 Journal, and in that paper it was stated, that he did set at 
 defiance, not the Government, but the enemies of Ireland and 
 the most malignant amongst them ? 
 
 As he was on the subject of chronology, he would refer to 
 some supposed contradiction between the report to which the 
 noble lord had alluded and the petition. It so happened that 
 the report was prepared first. That report cost him sixteen 
 hours' work, and it contained at great length the detailed objec- 
 tions against the bill. The noble lord had had that report 
 before him for several days, and he had not shown him to be 
 wrong in any one single particular. This bill, although he did 
 not say that such an object was intended, was with a vicious 
 ingenuity calculated to annihilate the franchise of Ireland. 
 The situation of Ireland was extraordinary — he might say 
 pitiful. What had happened in the other House of Parlia- 
 ment ? Subjects of the greatest importance, and most nearly 
 affecting the interests of Ireland, were staved off, because, un- 
 happily, one noble lord was ill, and another fantastic and 
 learned lord was elsewhere. Ireland was waiting for the con- 
 valescence of a noble and learned lord who had called Irishmen 
 aliens in blood, in religion, and language. Such an insult was 
 never offered to any country. Ireland was also obliged to wait 
 for another noble and learned lord, who had a great deal of 
 wit and talent, but no wisdom ; while at the same time the 
 mighty leader of hon. gentlemen opposite said, that he never 
 wished for a postponement of any question without a sufficient 
 reason. The noble lord had been reading, he did not know 
 from what documents, a manuscript history of the Reform 
 Bill, as it was brought into the House of Commons. He did 
 not know who the writer was, but he was certainly no accurate 
 historian, for he placed him in the position of one who was 
 anxious to raise and limit the franchise, whereas, all his efforts 
 were directed towards the object of obtaining a franchise at least 
 as low as that of England, and when he found he could not get 
 
26 The Recoj'-der of Diibliii. 
 
 that, he divided the House upon the question of a £5 instead 
 of a £10 franchise. And yet the noble lord gave the House a 
 manuscript history of the transaction, in a style which he could 
 only describe as chit-chatting, and represented him as desirous 
 of narrowing the franchise. The noble lord ought to look back 
 to that period with great regret. If he had possessed as states- 
 manlike a mind as he had talent for debate, he would have seen 
 that he ought not to have thrown away that great occasion. 
 It was a great occasion. The Reform Bill presented an oppor- 
 tunity of placing Ireland in the position which she ought to 
 occupy. But the noble lord, while he gave to England great 
 advantages, inflicted on Ireland mighty wounds. He met the 
 noble lord from day to day, but he had found the noble lord in 
 the Cabinet the perpetual enemy of his country. To him was 
 to be attributed the restricted franchise which was imposed 
 upon Ireland. This made the people of Ireland shudder at 
 any measure which the noble lord introduced. In England 
 the Beform Bill took away both the rotten and the nomination 
 boroughs. It destroyed the rotten boroughs in Scotland, and 
 it gave to Scotland eight additional members. Even to Wales, 
 with a population of 800,000 inhabitants, the Grovernment gave 
 four additional members ; but to Ireland, with a population of 
 8,000,000, they gave but five, indeed only four, for one member 
 was given to the University of Dublin, and that might well be 
 said to be a vote against Ireland. The right hon. gentleman, 
 the Recorder of Dublin, had said that the Repeal of the Union 
 was a cry fit only for old women and boys ; it was well that the 
 right hon. gentleman did not enter into either category. But 
 he did not think that the public mind would be dissatisfied 
 when a contrast was drawn between the relative positions of 
 England and Ireland as affected by the Reform Bill. He 
 knew well how difficult it was to restrain that feeling. The 
 Reform Bill annihilated no franchise that it found in England. 
 The owner of a 40«. fee, and the owner of a 40s. life estate, 
 were left untouched by the bill. Every franchise that the 
 Reform Bill found it left, and it auo-mented the number. But in 
 
The Franchise. 27 
 
 Ireland it destroyed several francliises. In several Irish boroughs 
 there were voters entitled by the ownership of a 40.s. fee and a 
 405. life estate, and there was a £5 franchise in Dungarvan 
 and Lismore. These franchises were all annihilated. He 
 knew that the noble lord was not aware of what he had done. 
 In Dublin there were 1,300 40.s. freeholders ; there were now 
 only 14. And yet the noble lord boasted that he had extended 
 the franchise in Ireland. But then it was said that the county 
 voters were augmented. Why, the leasehold voters only 
 amounted to 8,000. But the noble lord said that he gave 
 Ireland the same £10 franchise as England — a franchise of a 
 £10 value. He would, however, ask whether a franchise of a 
 £10 value was the same franchise in London and Ennis, in 
 Manchester and Tralee, in Bristol and Portarlington ? There 
 was the name, indeed, but not the reality ; and yet the noble 
 lord called this placing Ireland on an equality with England in 
 regard to the franchise. The noble lord had repented even of 
 that, and had brought in a bill, the object of which was, to 
 deprive Ireland of the leasehold franchise conferred by the 
 Eeform Bill. The noble lord came for that purpose to the 
 House at a moment when, as it seemed, it would be more 
 agreeable to the noble lord, and it ought to be, to be elsewhere 
 {inferrnptio)}). It was not I f continued the hon. and learned 
 member) who invited the noble lord here {interruption). .1 
 know the cause of these brutal exclamations (" Adjourn" and 
 "chair"). Nothing will keep those who are inimical to Ireland 
 from the indulgence of their hostility towards that country. 
 It is not my fault. I have heard of other instances which 
 may, perhaps, be found amoug those who are accidentally 
 present to-night. I will now come back to the point on which 
 I was enlarging. The hon. and learned gentleman proceeded 
 to say, that the noble lord had, in that honest explanation of his, 
 which he had given that night, admitted that it was his intention 
 to assist the landlords of Ireland in their endeavours to prevent 
 their tenants from voting. There was not the slightest doubt that 
 the bill would very considerably limit the franchise. Members 
 
28 Reoristered Voters in Encrland and Irelajid. 
 
 ^^i,^<.^,^^<, r „.., ^ ..^ ^--^iy 
 
 on his side of the House computed that it would annihilate 
 two-thirds of the constituency of Ireland. It was also agreed 
 by hon. members opposite, that the effect of the bill would be 
 to limit the constituency. There was, then, no question be- 
 tween the two sides of the House as to its actual operation. 
 Let it, then, be avowed, without any paltry hypocrisy, that the 
 object of the bill was to annihilate the franchise. He would 
 deal with the measure as if that were the avowed object. Hon. 
 members opposite complained of fictitious votes. Was the con- 
 stituency so extensive that they had a right to complain that 
 persons were on the registry who ought not to be there ? Were 
 the people so extensively represented that it was of no import- 
 ance how many votes were struck off the register ? 
 
 Why did not hon. members come forward and say, " There 
 are so many registered voters for the country that it is impos- 
 sible, looking at the population, that they can all be fairly en- 
 titled to vote." He would show the disproportion between the 
 representation of England and Ireland. In Westmoreland, 
 after the Eeform Act, the population was 35,046, and the number 
 of voters 4,392 ; while Cork, which had a population of 700,366, 
 had but 3,835 electors. Yet, with that fact staring hon. 
 gentleman opposite in the face, they came forward with this Bill 
 to destroy fictitious votes. The right hon. baronet, the member 
 for Pembroke, had said that base falsehoods were resorted to 
 for the purpose of getting on the Irish register. Whoever 
 supplied him with that information asserted the basest of false- 
 hoods. But he would go on with his comparison. Bedford- 
 shire, with a population of 88,524, had 3,966 voters ; while the 
 Protestant county of Antrim, with 316,909 inhabitants, had 
 only 3,484. What had the Protestant county of Antrim done 
 that it should not have an equal number of voters with Bedford- 
 shire ? The noble lord was extremely anxious to carry this 
 Bill, and to remedy the abuses which had crept into the regis- 
 tration. Now, he would ask, was there any abuse equal to an 
 abi/oe of principle ? But the noble lord not only suffered this 
 enormous disproportion between the two countries to exist, but 
 
Belfast Orange Lodges. 29 
 
 he came to the House with a proposition for still further limit- 
 iug the constituency of Ireland. But he would proceed. There 
 was Eutland, with 19,000 inhabitants, and 1,296 voters ; Long- 
 ford had a population amounting to 112,391, while tlie number 
 of electors was but 1,294. He knew he should fatigue the 
 House bj going on with these illustrations, but they were 
 powerful for his object, and would operate powerfully on the 
 honest hearts and common sense of the people of England, or, 
 at least, they ought to do so. The noble lord was not acting 
 of himself, but was propelled by others. He supposed the hon. 
 member for Belfast had furnished the noble lord with law, as 
 he had done with evidence. The hon. member came to the 
 noble lord, and his name was put on the back of this Bill ; or, 
 in the phrase which the noble lord had applied in connection 
 with Ireland, the Bill was branded with the names of the noble 
 lord and the hon. member for Belfast, who had come reeking 
 from his Orange lodge, his Orange toasts with nine times nine, 
 the Kentish fire, and " No Surrender." Now, to return to the 
 comparison between the number of voters in England and those 
 in Ireland. In the Isle of Wight, with 228,731 inhabitants, 
 there were 1,167 voters. In the county of Mayo, with 366,328 
 inhabitants, there were only 1,350 ; and in the county of Tyrone, 
 with 310,000 inhabitants, only 1,151. So that Protestant 
 Tyrone and Catholic Galway were mixed up in equal disfran- 
 chisement, not having so many voters as the Isle of Wight. 
 Was he an Irishman and to say nothing on that point ? Was 
 he not bound to respect their sorrows, while more mischief was 
 threatened to them ? He would now take the two largest 
 counties : Yorkshire, an agricultural county, with a population 
 of 913,713, had 33,154 voters ; whilst Cork, with 713,000 in- 
 habitants, had only 3,385. Now, ought that proportion to 
 remain ? Ought they not to struggle to give to the people of 
 Ireland an equal proportion of voters to the population, as there 
 was in this country ? He should be very short in his compari- 
 son of the cities of the two countries ; but even there the same 
 proportion existed. He had forgotten to give the noble lord 
 
30 TJie FrancJiisc in Exetcf and VVaterford. 
 
 credit for having annihilated in the cities of Ireland the votes 
 of joint tenants. Mark how important that was ; for in Ireland 
 no gentleman could have a vote for the premises which he held 
 with his partners, although they might be worth £300 a year. 
 He was told that Exeter Hall had furnished no less than eighty- 
 five votes in the first year of the registration ; while, in Ireland, 
 if premises were of the same value, not a single vote could have 
 been registered if they had been held by partners ; and yet that 
 was one of the things for which the noble lord taunted the law 
 officers on his (Mr. O'Connell's) side of the House, because, in 
 the Bill they had brought in, there was a clause to redress such 
 a monstrous hardship. Ought they not, then, to put the fran- 
 chise on a better footing before they talked of registration? 
 Now, in Exeter, there were 27,000 inhabitants and 3,420 voters; 
 but in Waterford there were 28,000 inhabitants, but only 1,278 
 voters. In Worcester there were 27,213 inhabitants, and 2,608 
 voters; in Limerick, 66,554 inhabitants, and only 2,850 voters. 
 In Cork there were 110,000 inhabitants and 3,650 voters; 
 while, in Newcastle-on-Tyne, with only 42,000 inhabitants, 
 there were 4,952. He had shown, theu, in the towns as well 
 as in the counties, that there was a miserable defalcation of 
 voters in Ireland. And now, having read those Parliamentary 
 documents, he would turn round on hon. members opposite, 
 and ask why they had spoken of that small and paltry number 
 as fictitious voters ? What scope was there for it ? If, however, 
 they succeeded in this Bill, then would Ireland be still more 
 restricted in the number of her voters. Having made these 
 preliminary observations, he would now state his objections to 
 the Bill. He objected, to it in principle, independent of its 
 details. His first objection to it was that which the noble lord 
 had called one of its merits. It was because it was purely and 
 simply a registration Bill. He said that, in the nature of 
 things, there ought first to be an explanation of the doubts as 
 to the franchise before they entered into the question of regis- 
 tration. The great difficulty was the franchise. Nine-tenths 
 of the struggles in the registration courts would never have 
 
The Member for Exeter. 3 1 
 
 arisen if the franchise had been properly defined. They ought, 
 while they defined it, to extend it ; but to talk of registration 
 with an undefined franchise was an absurdity. The great 
 question at present was between the solvent and beneficial in- 
 terest tenant. He knew there were some who contended that 
 they meant the same thing ; but they who were in Ireland 
 knew that the battles in the registration courts chiefly turned 
 on the question between the profit rent made by the solvent 
 tenant and that of the beneficial interest. Some judges decided 
 one way ; some another. Some assistant-barristers held the 
 one opinion, some the other. Now, suppose some assistant- 
 barrister took the profit-rent mode of the solvent tenant, and 
 allowed a vote, and that the judge was of the same opinion, and 
 the oath was registered ; while in another town the barrister 
 took the beneficial interest mode, and the judge decided in the 
 same way. Thus there would be two decisions directly oppo- 
 site. Ought there to be that difference ? 
 
 The hon. and learned gentleman, the member for Exeter, 
 had given his opinion on this point. A more able lawyer there 
 was not in the House, or out of it. A more agreeable, he would 
 say, fascinating speaker he had never heard. But he regretted 
 to find him always in the van when an attack was to be made 
 on Ireland. He would not say that the hon. and learned mem- 
 ber did not adhere to his principles ; but he might be permitted 
 to deplore the way in which they were exercised. When the 
 Spottiswoodes, with their gang of conspirators, threatened to 
 turn out every Liberal member from the House, who was their 
 great and successful advocate ? Who was it who found out 
 particular cases in which similar practices had been pursued on 
 particular occasions, and had drawn this inference from them, 
 that it might be done on a great national scale ? Who, but the 
 hon. and learned member for Exeter ? It was very fit, then, he 
 should be one of the supporters of the noble lord. He was very 
 much surprised, however, at something that had fallen from 
 him. The hon. and learned gentlemen said he had heard of a 
 judgment given by the judges in Ireland, on the question of 
 
32 Political yiidges and Political Partisans. 
 
 test, and said that that ought to be final. How could so able a 
 lawyer have made that mistake ? Where did he find one 
 single clause in one single Act authorising the judges to meet at 
 all on that subject, or that gave any appeal to them ? No ; if 
 they had, then they must have heard counsel on both sides, 
 pronounced their judgment, and given their reasons at large, 
 and the public would have heard what that judgment was. He 
 would not pretend to dispute with the hon. and learned member 
 for Exeter upon a point of law ; but this was a plain and pal- 
 pable matter of fact. No judgment was given by the judges. 
 There was, indeed, a sort of consultation among them, from 
 which the clients themselves were excluded, and from which 
 counsel also were excluded. He need not point out to the 
 honourable and learned member the value of able and 
 learned counsel in assisting judges to form their decision. This 
 could not be called a judgment, it was a mere private con- 
 sultation, and nothing else, and had been considered in that 
 light by the judges themselves. The right hon. and learned 
 member for the University of Dublin might assert that there 
 could be no such things as political judges, that it was impos- 
 sible for judges to be political partisans ; but he (Mr. O'Connell) 
 was of a different opinion, and thought that he who was a vio- 
 lent politician at the bar, would be a politician, more cool, more 
 cautious, perhaps, but on that account more mischievous upon 
 the bench. There stood he who had refused a high judicial 
 office, solely because he would not trust himself to take a course 
 by which there was a possibility of the administration of justice 
 being polluted with political feelings. What were the opinions 
 of the judges themselves, as to the weight to be attached to this 
 decision of theirs, as it was called ? Why, on one point, it was 
 generally said, and generally believed, two of the judges dis- 
 sented from the other ten. Did these two acquiesce in the de- 
 cision of the majority ? On tlie contrary, one of them said 
 afterwards, he did not consider himself bound by such advice, 
 for judgment it was not. On another point, five judges were 
 supposed to have dissented from the rest, and, on this point, the 
 
The Franchise. 33 
 
 Chief Justice of tlie Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of 
 George Pratt, Queen's County, had given judgment in a manner 
 inconsistent with the conclusion to which the judges had come 
 at the private meeting to which he had alluded. So far was 
 the question from heing settled, and settled by judicial decision, 
 it could not be said that it was at that moment settled at all. 
 And yet the noble lord opposite wanted to introduce the Regu- 
 lation Bill, which would leave that important question still 
 open. The noble lord had struggled to get out of his own de- 
 claration in 1829. "IIow should I," said the noble lord, 
 '•' recollect what I said in 1829 ?" But it appeared from what 
 the noble lord said in 1832, that he then had some scant re- 
 collection of what he had said in 1829 ; for then it was that the 
 noble lord himself invented the beneficial interest test, and, 
 having struck out the true principle, proclaimed it manfully. 
 The question afterwards came to be considered in the House of 
 Lords, in the discussions upon the Eeform Bill, and there the 
 principle met with the disapprobation of the Earl of Roden, a 
 man who had never changed his opinion, on which account 
 those who thought with him gave him their confidence, and 
 those who differed from him respected him for his manly bear- 
 ing. The noble lord then said that the introduction of such a 
 principle into the Irish Eeform Bill was efl'ected by his (Mr. 
 O'Connell's) manoeuvres. The noble earl did him too much 
 honour, although he had certainly done his best to help the noble 
 lord opposite in the course which he took. And yet the noble 
 lord attempted to fritter away the effect of what he had done 
 on this occasion, by bringing down some manuscript papers, for 
 the purpose of showing that his (Mr. O'Connell's) opinions had 
 been in favour of enhancing the franchise, when it was well 
 known that he was anxious to lower it as much as possible. 
 Was this question then still to remain undetermined ? Every 
 other bill contained a clause respecting the right of voting in 
 the case of joint-tenancies, and tenancies in common, and 
 another clause defining the beneficial interest to be the tenant's 
 profit, and not the landlord's rent. But the noble lord took a 
 VOL. IT. 4 
 
24 The Irish people refused 
 
 different course ; he was content to leave litigation where he 
 found it. This arose from his anxiety to exclude from the 
 franchise as many as possible. That was a bad principle, and 
 would not long be supported. Chartism had frightened many 
 into the support of such a principle. But the Irish people had 
 refused to join the Chartists. Chartism, he trusted, had passed 
 away ; but while it was at its height, and while timid men 
 trembled at its progress, he reminded the House that the Irish 
 people had refused to make common cause with the Chartists in 
 demanding universal suffrage. And how did the noble lord 
 propose to reward the Irish people for their conduct ? Why, 
 thus : he said, " I find your franchise small and miserable, and 
 I will give you such machinery as will render it impossible for 
 you to realise even the franchise which you possess." His (Mr. 
 O'Connell's) first objection to the bill was, that it contained 
 nothing to define or to enlarge the franchise. 
 
 It was said he had once been in favour of an annual revision 
 and an appeal both ways ; but why might he not change his 
 opinion as well as the noble lord ? He certainly had at first 
 thought that the system which prevailed in England ought to 
 be adopted in Ireland ; but who then opposed him ? Why, the 
 noble lord himself. Who spoke against him on that occasion ? 
 The noble lord. He was then for an annual revision ; but the 
 noble lord was against it. It had changed sides since that time. 
 But the reason why the change had been reciprocal was, that 
 there had been great experience upon the subject ; and how had 
 that experience told ? It showed that there was an organized 
 resistance to an annual registry of the franchise ; and he did 
 not believe that it was practicable. His next objection was, that 
 this Bill would disfranchise all Ireland at once. Every man 
 who registered on the 20th of November last would lose the 
 benefit of that registry. After six weeks' battling in Dublin 
 there were registered in his interest a majority of three hundred 
 votes. The entire registry consisted of from 1,100 to 1,200 
 voters. They went through the ordeal ; attorney, and counsel, 
 and witnesses were brought on both sides ; and now they were 
 
To join the Chartists. 35 
 
 to te deprived at once of their rights, and disfran chised by this 
 Bill ! Where could they find such a sweeping measure of dis- 
 franchisement as this ? Where was there exhibited such a con- 
 tempt of vested rights as this ? Would any one turn upon him 
 and say, *' Were there no such sweeping clauses in the Bill of 
 1835 ?" Why there were in that Bill those redeeming quali- 
 ties which, if they were put in this Bill, would make him con- 
 tent to let it go into committee. But he would never consent 
 in the absence of those or more explicit clauses. Was it reason- 
 able or fair to have this sweeping disfranchisement ? The 
 voters already registered were to come up again to the 
 revising court ; the notices were to be served again ; witnesses 
 were to be examined as to the notices, and as to the facts, and 
 as to the value of the property. Everything was to be tried 
 over again that had been tried within the last year. Was there 
 ever greater injustice ojSered to the electors ? They would have 
 no advantage from their present register; not even b. prima facie 
 case could be made from it for them. They were to be treated 
 just as if they had never been on the register. No man need 
 give notice of objection. Every man was at liberty to come 
 f ( rth and object, without giving the slightest warning. Un- 
 certainty and disfranchisement were to be thrown over the 
 whole register. Oh, shame upon those that would commit that 
 gross, that glaring, that palpable injustice ! His next objection 
 was to a matter apparently of detail, but really of the essence of 
 this Bill. He meant the notice required to be served. Why 
 was it so complicated ? A notice containing so many things, 
 and requiring so much precision, never was yet introduced into 
 any bill of this description. He was unwilling to fatigue the 
 House by going into all the particulars, but he would mention 
 two or three things which appeared to him to be most monstrous. 
 Notice was to be given at the distance of thirty or forty miles, 
 the name was to be written at full length, and the particulars of 
 the nature of the qualification, the parish, and place in which 
 it was situated were to be specified, and its situaliou within that 
 
 parish or place ; there must be the local description of the pro- 
 
 4* 
 
o 
 
 6 Difficulties of Registration. 
 
 perty and the name of the tenant or tenants, and the names of 
 all the lives in the original, and in any renewed grant. Why, 
 the best franchise in Ireland were those that had passed through 
 a century of renewals for life ; for in every one of those leases 
 must be specified every renewal, or else the party, through the 
 omission of one of them, could be defeated. Then, again, the 
 right to the property must be specified, and that in every case, 
 even in cases in which an assignee was concerned, and where it 
 would require a competent lawyer to ascertain the right. Yet 
 all that must be stated, and that the party believed what 
 he stated. He mentioned these details as proof of the noble 
 lord's anxiety not to touch the franchise in Ireland. The 
 very first proof that must be given of the franchise before 
 the assistant-barrister, must be the proof of every one of these 
 particulars. Here was another singular contrast aS'orded be- 
 tween the case of England and that of Ireland. At present a 
 residence in towns and boroughs in Ireland entitled the parties 
 to vote as in England. But in England, if the voter changed 
 his place of residence before the registration, his vote could 
 be retained by him. In Ireland, in the case of a change of 
 residence, the party must begin de novo to recover his votc^ 
 "With respect to the matter of the certificate, he thought the 
 bill of Mr, Woulfe would remove every difficulty. His next 
 objection was to the appeal both ways. He knew that the 
 hon. and learned member for the University of Dublin would 
 quote his speech against him which he made in 1835, wherein 
 he spoke in favour of the appeal both ways. But even then 
 he expressed his mistrust of the judges ; and now he was 
 more impressed with a want of confidence in them ; and that, 
 with other considerations, led him to object to the appeal against 
 votes already inserted on the register, because the franchise was 
 sufficiently curtailed already. He had not exhausted all his 
 objections to this Bill ; but he deceived himself much if he 
 had not stated sufficient to induce the House to reject a 
 measure, which, if it had not been so intended, must practi- 
 cally operate to diminish the franchise of the Irish people, to 
 
Constitutional Demand for Rights. 37 
 
 make less what was now little, to diminish what ought to he 
 augmented, to disfranchise the people, and he another hlow to 
 the liherties of Ireland. He conjured the House, respectfully 
 at once to throw out the Bill, which would perpetuate injustice 
 in Ireland. He feared it was vain to ask either side to do jus- 
 tice to Ireland. But, whether he might he blamed or laughed 
 to ridicule, he would say it was impossible the present state of 
 things should continue. The people of Ireland were too nu- ^ 
 merous not to attain peaceably and loyally, but firmly and con- 
 stitutionally, an increase of rights. This attempt to spoil them 
 would be met with a Orm and manly indignation. They were 
 now carried away by an unnatural excitement. They were ex- 
 liibiting another instance of their high excellence among the 
 nations of the earth. They had, of all others, been the most 
 faithful to what they believed the true creed, amidst war, plun- 
 der, desolation, and blood ; and now they were rising in the 
 might of a giant morality. They were now universally avoid- •/ 
 ing every species of intoxicating excitement. Prudence was 
 marking their steps and their conduct. Indiscreet marriages, 
 formerly a blemish in their character, had altogether ceased. V. 
 The moral lesson was becoming a practical one. Dispose of , ' 
 them as England might; insult them if she chose j in his 
 humble opinion they were her equals in constitutional rights ; 
 he believed them to be her superiors in morality and political 
 integrity. 
 
 Subject, Eegistration of Voters (Ireland) — Adjourned 
 Debate ; Date, May 20, 1840. 
 
 Tlie same subject wiis resumed on the 1 Itli June, and a fiery scene ensued. 
 O'Connell declared in angry tones " tliat this was a bill to trample on the 
 rights of the people of Ireland." Uproar and laughter followed, and he 
 reiterated his woi'ds, adding : " If you were ten times as beastly in your uproar 
 and bellowing, I should still feel it to be my duty to interpose to prevent this in " 
 justice." Sir T. Canning rose to demand a retraction of the word "beastly.'' 
 The unfortunate Chairman was appealed to, but the noise was so great he 
 
^S ''Beastly BcUoivingr 
 
 could not be heard ; when he could, he apologised for O'Connell, saying it 
 was no doubt an " inadvertent expression." 
 
 O'ConnolI replied : " I used the woi'ds bellowing; did you ever hear any 
 other bellowing than beastly? What sounds were they? Were they huiuan 
 sounds?'' Mr. Lambton rose to call attention to the way in which O'Connell 
 had been treated before he used the words complained of. He said, " it was 
 disgraceful to an assembly of English gentlemen to attempt to tyrannize over 
 one individual member.' Mr. C. Butler said that O'Connell was interrupted 
 by whistling, and that those who introduced "the manners of an ale-house" 
 must take the consequences. Lord Clements stood up boldly for O'Connell, 
 and said he was insulted to his face in the grossest manner. Lord Maidstone 
 said lie would not be satisfied until O'Connell retracted, and O'Connell re- 
 plied tliat he was perfectly content with the noble lord's dissatisfaction. Lord 
 John liussell, much as he hated Popery, could not do without Papists, and 
 tluew the balm of an oily speech on the troubled waters. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — Instead of feeling annoyed at the unneces- 
 sary allegation of a fact by the lion, and learned gentleman (Mr. 
 Thesiger) which, if I thought it necessary, I could show to be 
 different, I am ready to concede to him that he has made out a 
 case, to a certain extent, in his attempt to prove, that this Bill is 
 favom'able to members, and to persons petitioning. It is equally 
 advantageous to the £50 freeholder and to the clergy of the Estab- 
 lished Chiu'ch. It is a good Bill for the clergy ; it is a good Bill for 
 the £50 freeholder; it is a good Bill for those who have obtained 
 seats, or those who struggle for them ; but it would be hard to 
 show that it is a good Bill for the poorer classes. Sir, the noble 
 lord under whose patronage this Bill was introduced, exhibited 
 last night a good deal of his excellent resentment against me. 
 He threw it completely away. From the state of the House at 
 present, from the open hostility of the enemies of Ireland, and 
 the lukewarm zeal of her friends, I have no fear that I am safe 
 in adjoui'ning any retaliation I may be disposed to make on 
 the noble lord's vituperative attacks to another discussion- 
 I think it obvious that we shall have opportunities enough of 
 carrying on our disputes before the forty clauses of this Bill 
 are disposed of in committee. I therefore adjourn the quarrel 
 to some future occasion. Before I proceed I must take notice 
 
G Con ncll Misquoted. 3 9 
 
 of one quotation which the noble lord has made. The noble 
 lord has made a statement, attributed to me, out of the Mirror 
 of Parliament, which he read correctly, and in which it is alleged 
 that I favoured £10 franchise in counties. The noble lord 
 states his recollection of the matter being canvassed in 1832, 
 and ]je says I have changed my opinion since that period. 
 Now, I wish just to tell him that, in 1832, that passage was 
 quoted against me by the noble lord's solicitor-general, and I 
 said it was arrant nonsense. To be sure, that was not con- 
 clusive of my not having uttered it ; but I ventured to show 
 Mr. Crampton, who was not very remarkable for his candour, 
 that it was wholly unintelligible, and was a mistake of the 
 reporter which he might have naturally fallen into from not 
 having the Act of Parliament before him. I also asked Mr. 
 Crampton whether he was prepared to deny the accuracy of 
 my recollection of what I had really stated. His answer was, 
 " I have no recollection of the circumstance ; but I make my 
 statement from the records of the period." I asserted in a 
 more solemn manner than, perhaps, was necessary, that the 
 passage had been misstated ; but here, again, it is brought up 
 in judgment against me. I do not blame the noble lord for 
 not recollecting these details, but I hope he will not quote this 
 passage again without bearing in mind the contradiction I gave 
 it in 1832. At all events, this explanation disembarrasses the 
 discussion of that point. One remark more before I go into the 
 merits of the case between the noble lord and me. He accuses 
 me of having unjustly and untruly — I don't mean with any 
 want of courtesy — alleged that no franchises were annihilated 
 in England, and he maintains that there were several. The 
 noble lord instanced burgage tenure. Not being a lawyer, it 
 was not difficult for him to fall into this error ; but if he looks 
 to the 31st clause of the Eeform Act, he will find it gives the 
 franchise to such persons without reference to value or occupa- 
 tion. He also stated that the freemen's franchise was anni- 
 hilated, whereas it remained, the non-residents only being 
 disqualified I am glad I have got rid of these preliminaries. 
 
40 Tenants and Voting. 
 
 \Lord Stanley: "Where do you leave the iwta-alloper^ and scot 
 
 and lot voters .^"] I'll show on a future occasion the amount 
 
 and nature of that loss. I prefer now, if the noble lord will 
 
 consent, going on with an examination of the merits of this 
 
 Bill. I denounce this Bill as one for annihilating the franchise, 
 
 under the pretence of revising it. How is that to he effected ? 
 
 Bj unnecessary trouble — by multiplied vexation — by enormous 
 
 expense — by hazard costs — by inducing a repetition of the 
 
 landlord's power of intimidation and persecution — by throwing 
 
 every obstacle in the way of the elector's registration — in short, 
 
 by a dissolution of all the powers with which the oppressor can 
 
 harass the victim of his wrath, and of all the authority which 
 
 wealth can exercise over comparative poverty. Who will take 
 
 up this Bill and deny that these are its characteristics ? The 
 
 hon. member for Halifax seems to disapprove of every material 
 
 section in it. He is not even satisfied with its title, and yet he 
 
 votes for going into Committee. He is like the man, who 
 
 denied that his knife was a new one, though he had changed 
 
 both the blade and handle. He disapproves of all the details, 
 
 and yet votes for the entire bill. There are some English 
 
 gentlemen here who are ignorant of the machinery by which 
 
 the franchise is opposed in Ireland. They do not know the 
 
 extreme lengths to which some persons go to prevent the people 
 
 from registering. There are two documents I wish the House 
 
 to attend to. They will show the object which the Irish electors 
 
 have to contend with. The first of these is the circular of Mr, 
 
 Nettles, who, it was said last night, bore an opposite name. 
 
 This is the letter : — 
 
 " Nettleville, March 25, 1S39. 
 
 " Sir I have been directed to state to you that the person whose name is 
 
 mentioned on the other side has served notice to re-register his vote at the 
 ensuing Cork sessions, which will commence on the first of April. As our 
 beino- able to return Conservative members for this county entirely depends on 
 our preventing the re-registry of our own tenants, the committee trust that 
 you will exert yourself to eflcct that desirable object, and that you will have 
 the goodness to inform me as soon as possible whether his certificate has 
 
 I 
 
The Franchise in Weshneath. 41 
 
 been forwarded to our opponents, or any authority given to produce it at the 
 sessions, as in such case it will be necessary for us to have a notice served on 
 Lim requiring his presence at these sessions, where, if he does not appear, the 
 re-regislry cannot take place. — I remain, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 " Rob. Nettles, Hon. Dis. Sec." 
 
 Do you understand now, gentlemen of England, the position to 
 which the Irish claimant is reduced ? I will give another 
 Conservative specimen, and I venture to say that no English 
 gentleman would treat voters thus. 
 
 This is the Eeport of the Quarter Sessions in Westmeath, 
 January, 1840 : — 
 
 " County Westmeath The Franchise. — At the quarter sessions for 
 
 this county, which have just closed, there were notices served for upwards of 
 five hundred persons as claimants to register, yet between Moate and Mullin- 
 gar — the two divisions where the sessions were held — only about one hundred 
 answered. Of those, the numbers legistered Avere — at Moate, fifty-two 
 Liberals, six Conservatives ; at Mullingar, eleven Liberals, five Conserva- 
 tives ; and this result affords not an unfair criterion to estimate the relative 
 force of each party in the county. Yet there is a permanent staff of paid 
 witnesses, who attend at every sessions against the Liberal claimants as coun- 
 sel and agent to oppose them at the Moate sessions. One of these witnesses, 
 William Bell, a frieze-coated countryman, was called to disprove the qualifi- 
 •cation of Thomas Brennan, of Rosemount (Brennan being a tenant of Sir 
 Richard Nagle), and Bell having, upon his direct examination, deposed to the 
 iicreable value of the holding far below the amount stated on the part of 
 Brennan, and who Bell admitted to be a respectable and faithworthy man, 
 the following facts appeared upon cross-examination by Mr. Plunkett, 
 counsel : — 
 
 " Counsel : Pray, Bell, what other source of income or liveHhood have 
 you beside the farm you hold r 
 
 " Bell: I have an annuity. 
 
 " Counsel : An annuity ! Is it a ront-charge — who pays it ? 
 
 " Bell : The Conservative gentlemen of the county. 
 
 ''Counsel: "What amount? 
 
 *'Bf.ll: Forty pounds a year. 
 
 " Counsel: For what ? 
 
 " Bell : For this I am doing — valuing votes. 
 
 •"In the case of another claimant, Cormack, of Br.icknahoilo, Jns-cph 
 
42 English Antipathy to the Irish People. 
 
 Murdoclr, who is ivlso one, or, ratlier, the chief of the permanent staff, swore 
 that he viewed and valued the claimant's farm ; and a Mr. William March 
 deposed that he had viewed and valued it, and that it was not worth £10 a 
 year above the rent. Upon cross-examination, and upon confronting Mur- 
 dock and the claimant, Mnrdock said : — I viewed what I think to be his 
 farm, but I don't swear positively, because I do not know it. 
 
 " The Bakristeu : You led me to think that you knew it; or what d» 
 you mean by valuing and viewing the farm of the claimant, if you did not 
 know it ? Let the claimant be admitted. 
 
 " Joseph Murdock, William Bell, George Dickson, and George Eonald- 
 son (the last a Scotchman) are our franchise valuators." 
 
 Is this the system you are to encourage ? Is this the system that 
 incorporates all the honour, all the intelligence, all the religion 
 of the country ; but we will come to that presently. He who 
 valued the man's farm upon oath is contradicted upon oath, and 
 then he admits that he only believes — that he does not know of 
 his own knowledge — that the value of the farm is that which he 
 had stated upon oath. I read this to show that there shall not be 
 the shadow of an excuse for the passing of this Bill. I protest 
 against this disfranchisement in the name and on behalf of the 
 people of Ireland. I protest with as much solemnity as if I 
 was assured that my protest would be received. If you succeed 
 in this disfranchisement, you repeal the Reform Act for Ireland 
 — you repeal the Catholic Emancipation Act — not as relates to 
 the wealthy part of the Eoman Catholic population, but as re- 
 lates to the middle classes. The Irish people bid me tell you 
 that they impute this Bill to two distinct and separate reasons. 
 The first is a national antipathy to the Irish people. Yes, 
 they say so. They say, also, that it has originated in the viru- 
 lence of malignant bigotry. Now, I am bound to show upon 
 what grounds they attributed this Bill to these causes. If 
 those grounds be satisfactory, you ought to reject this Bill ; if 
 they are not, my argument goes for nothing. Have they not a 
 right to say there is a national antipathy ? Are there not 
 multitudes of those on the other side, and their supporters, 
 who, in their speeches, their election tirades, their after-dinner 
 harangues, have expressed themselves in the most vile way of 
 
 I 
 
The ^^ Times' " Insult to the Catholic Clergy. 4;^, 
 
 the Irish people ? I have a bundle of them here, hut I will not 
 disgust myself or the House by reading them. Yes, I say they 
 have expressed themselves thus of the people of Ireland in their 
 election speeches and their after-dinner harangues,where — in vinO' 
 ■Veritas. Then what say you to your Press — your favourite Press- 
 — your pampered press — wealthy because you patronize it — ta 
 the vile Times, and the rest of that gang {laughter). You laugh 
 when I say the " vile Times,^' but was it not that print that 
 designated the priesthood of Ireland, " surpliced ruffians," and 
 her population "shoeless and shirtless vagabonds?" Think 
 you the Irish people know that you receive not this foul slander 
 with condemnation, and that the press which uttered it is under 
 your protection ? Oh ! they have reason to say there is a 
 national antipathy. But have they any reason to doubt that 
 the Bill is founded on motives of religious bigotry ? The hon. 
 member for Londonderry county spoke the other day in high 
 commendation of a meeting, held on the 2nd of May, at Belfast, 
 and in speaking of the wealth and respectability of the gentle- 
 men that attended it, selected one individual for his particular 
 praise, and that was Dr. Stewart, a Presbyterian clergyman. 
 Now, on the objection to this Bill — that its operation would be 
 unequal as between Protestants and Catholics — that rev. gentle- 
 man admitted that such might be the case, but that it did not 
 arise from the principle of the measure, but from other causes, one 
 of which was, that a greater regard existed among Protestants 
 for their oaths than among Catholics. Does the hon. gentleman, 
 in the presence of the Catholic gentry who surround him — does 
 he, I say, presume, in the presence of some of the first gentry — 
 to tell me, with miserable bigotry, that the Roman Catholics 
 have no regard for their oath ? Have not Catholics lost advan- 
 tages and power and honours ? Why, there is not one Roman 
 Catholic, except the young gentleman immediately before me, 
 who has not been excluded from power and dignity for years. 
 The rev. gentleman further said : — 
 
 "If a Catholic committed perjury in aid of the Church, it was held to be- 
 
44 Malicious misrepresentations of Catholic Belief. 
 
 no perjury; and it was not to be doubted that, when a Catholic was driven 
 by the priest to the registry, or to the hustings, he would act upon the same 
 principle, particularly as he had the priest of the parish to give him absolution 
 at his elbow." 
 
 The noble lord may ask, " How do you bring all this home to 
 me ?" I will tell him. Who was the principal orator at the 
 late meeting ? The hon. member for Belfast. And what do 
 you find on the back of this Bill ? That it is brought in by Lord 
 Stanley, Lord Granville Somerset, and Mr. Emerson Tennant 
 (the hon. member for Belfast). These names were selected by 
 the noble lord. Am I wrong in attributing the Bill to a spirit 
 of malicious bigotry ? Then the noble lord, the member for 
 Liverpool, made an eulogium upon the respectability of the 
 signatures to the petition he presented. I have looked at 
 those signatures, and among the foremost I find that of the rev. 
 Hugh M'Neile, of Jezebel notoriety. Here is an extract from 
 his speech : — 
 
 " Some of us have been giving warning to this country for the last ten or 
 twelve years ; we have been telling plainly, and pretty clearly, that the con- 
 scientious members of the Roman Catholic Church are not bindable by an 
 oath administered by heretics. We have been making it plain that perjury 
 is not to be considered a crime, committed by a few individuals belonging to 
 the system, in spite of the system ; but that it is apart, a deliberately orga- 
 nised part of the system itself." 
 
 And that is what is said of the Roman Catholic religion. This 
 is what was said in the presence of some of the most accom- 
 plished gentry on the face of the earth. This is the petition 
 TDrought up from such a meeting. This is the petition which 
 the noble lord, the member for Liverpool, went out of his way 
 to give us an abstract of. But that is not all. The rev. gentle- 
 man quotes a story, and from that story states that a multitude 
 of perjuries were suggested by the priests at elections. He 
 gave the story in detail ; it was met at first with laughter, and 
 ended with long continued shouts of applause. I am told that 
 the Irish people are blunderers ; that they do not understand 
 what you are about. The hon. member for Caithness, amongst 
 
An Appeal to Libcral-mhidcd Evglishuicn. 45 
 
 the ludicrous capers he thought proper to cut, was, at least,^ 
 candid; he called them assassins, and their priests supporters and 
 prompters of perjury. I appeal to all liberal-minded English 
 gentlemen whether they will give their countenance to these 
 atrocious calumniators of the most numerous religious persua- 
 sion in the British empire ; or, if it be disputed that they are most 
 numerous, at least a very large proportion of the Queen's sub- 
 jects. I do believe that there is even yet too much attachment 
 to Ireland left in you, or, at least, too much liberality of feeling 
 to allow you to sanction such calumnies. When Mr. M'Neile 
 said there would be no peace as long as the woman Jezebel 
 lived, I do not mean to impute to him that he meant the Queen 
 {question /) I am speaking to the question — let the followers of 
 Jezebel be silent. It was asserted in the Irisli, and in some of 
 the English newspapers that the expression was so meant ; but 
 I saw the disavowal. And what was that disavowal? He said 
 he meant the Eoman Catholic religion ! Cheer that. That 
 was the explanation given by the rev. gentleman, who is one of 
 your leaders. I appeal to this House, in sight of the Catholic 
 multitudes of the continent, and ask, shall it be said that 
 iloctrines of this kind are proclaimed by your leaders, j^our 
 supporters — those whom you boast of as giving numbers to your 
 petitions. Shall it be said that you countenance men of that 
 stamj) ? If you do, I envy not your feelings ; but this I say, 
 that the people of Ireland are right in believing that malignant 
 bigotry is at the bottom of this Bill. I ask the noble lord will 
 he venture to bring in such a Bill as this for England ? When 
 he does, I will believe his sincerity. He never would attempt 
 it. He is a bold man I know ; but he is not bold enough to 
 make such an attempt at the liberties of England. No ; he 
 reserves his kindness for the people of Ireland. Those who 
 believed that in virulence and injustice there was a binding 
 power, and a strength to unite, might vote for the Bill if they 
 pleased. England and Ireland had now been united forty 
 years. Did not the Union give the people of Ireland rights ? 
 Did it not give them a claim to equality of rights with the 
 
46 Number of Electors in Ireland. 
 
 people of England ? For twenty-nine years of the Union the 
 people of Ireland had been compelled to struggle for religious 
 equality. For twenty-three years of the Union, the constitution 
 was suspended. The people of Ireland assisted the people 0^ 
 England in obtaining the Reform Bill. How were they treated? 
 Did they obtain the same franchise as the people of England ? 
 By no means. Their franchise was more limited ; and now it 
 was sought to contract it further. The rural population of Ire- 
 land amounted to 7,000,000 — the registered electors of the 
 whole kingdom amounted only to 60,607. This was of impor 
 tance — a matter that could not be thrown over lightly. Before 
 the Reform Bill, in January, 1829, the electors of Ireland 
 numbered 216,871, being in the proportion of one to thirty-five 
 of the whole population ; whereas, at the present moment the 
 proportion of electors to the whole population was only 1 to 
 117. Compare the proportion of electors in Ireland to the pro- 
 portion of voters in any of the counties of England, and mark 
 the difference. In the whole of Ireland there were only 60,600 
 electors, whilst in one riding of Yorkshire alone there were 
 33,000, being five per cent, more than one-half of the registered 
 electors of Ireland. How, then, could the noble lord (Lord 
 Stanley) talk of swamping the constituency of Ireland ? He 
 asked was this a Union ? Were these the rights of a Union ? 
 "Was not this a case calling upon the Legislature to give up 
 every other labour lantil it had commenced and completed that 
 which should be a labour of love — the placing of the people of 
 Ireland on an equal footing with the people of England. What 
 was the principle of this Bill ? (asked the hon. and learned 
 gentleman) . 
 
 The Legislature might pay no regard to the inferiority of 
 Ireland, it might pay no attention to that which made the iron 
 enter into the souls of Irishmen, though it had not yet ground 
 them down to be slaves ; but was it thought that the number 
 ■of electors in Ireland was too many ? He had shown that the 
 number for the whole country did not exceed double the num- 
 ber of a single riding of the county of York. What, then, be- 
 
A Committee on Fictitious Votes. 47 
 
 came of the noble lord's allegation that the real and sound 
 constituency of Ireland had been swamped by fraudulent and 
 perjured voters. It was said, that great fraud and much per- 
 jury were committed under the existing system ; and the noble 
 lord (Lord Stanley) read letters that he received, describing 
 undue registries. The noble lord stated this fact about 
 Stephens — that he registered in October, 1832 — that, conse- 
 quently, his registration and his certificate would last till Oc- 
 tober next — that, notwithstanding that fact, in Marcli last he 
 came in before the assistant-barrister with his certificate, and 
 got a renewal of it for eight years, although his title expired 
 that very hour. He did not accuse the noble lord of suppress- 
 ing a fact, but he blamed him for not being more cautious of 
 his correspondents. He had looked into the case of Stephens, 
 and found it to be this : Stephens was a tenant of the Marquis 
 of Lansdowne, and a Protestant ; he came forward at the 
 sessions to register, and when the barristers told him that his 
 former lease had expired, he showed a letter from Mr. Robert 
 Franks, the agent of the Marquis of Lansdowne, giving him 
 a fresh term at the original rent. Let it be remembered that 
 there was a clause in the Reform Bill expressly providing for 
 cases of this description, a clause in which it was distinctly 
 stated that any renewal or new lease should be considered as a 
 continuation of the same qualification. Who was the assistant- 
 barrister who admitted the claim of Stephens to be placed on 
 the register ? Mr. Blacker. This then showed what credit was 
 to be placed in letters which came upon a sudden, and were 
 intended to serve a particular purpose. He wished the House 
 not to be led away by statements of this description, statements 
 that were not authenticated, and which, upon investigation, m 
 nine cases out of ten, turned out to be without foundation. It 
 was said that the object of the present bill was to prevent fraud 
 and perjury, and that the object of those who opposed it was to 
 preserve and perpetrate those evils. A committee of the House 
 upon fictitious votes in Ireland sat nearly two years ago, but it 
 gave no report. Why ? Because a case of fictitious votes was 
 
48 Fictitious Votes in Scotland. 
 
 not made out. Occasional errors might be discovered in every 
 system ; but anything like a systematic creation of fictitious 
 votes was never discovered in Ireland. How difi'erent was the 
 case in Scotland. There was a committee to inquire into the 
 fictitious votes in that country. That committee made a report, 
 and their report showed fiction and fraud to an extent that was 
 horrifying. Four hundred votes were manufactured upon one 
 small property, without a shilling being paid in the way of rent 
 or annuity. Eight hundred votes were manufactured upon 
 another small property. In short, the system in Scotland ap- 
 peared to be general and most extensive. Why did not the 
 noble lord try his hand upon Scotland ? To be sure it was 
 easier to attack Ireland. Scotland had friends, and true friends ; 
 Ireland had enemies— hearty and haughty enemies. The hon. 
 baronet, the member for Caithness (Sir Gr. Sinclair), talked of 
 fictitious votes in Ireland — why did he not look at Scotland ? 
 There was high authority for this recommendation — *' Hypo- 
 crite, first take the beam out of thine own eye, then mayest 
 thou see clearly to take the mote out of thy brother's eye.'"' 
 Then the noble lord talked about the frauds committed upon 
 certificates. He admitted that the facility was great, and that 
 frauds had been committed. But was not the noble lord cau- 
 tioned that it would be so ? Had he proposed the certificates ? 
 No ; he opposed them, and showed the facilities which they would 
 open to fraud and perjury. The noble lord, however, overruled 
 the whole of his objections to the certificates ; and having suc- 
 ceeded in introducing them, the noble lord now availed himself 
 of the evil which he had originated as an engine to operate 
 against the franchise in Ireland. Was that fair? When the 
 noble lord was asked to give the same system of registration to 
 Ireland as had been established in England, his answer was 
 brief but distinct : " I cannot consent to introduce the English 
 system of registration into Ireland as long as doubts exist as to 
 whether it will work well in England." The noble lord had 
 now found out that the system worked badly in England, and 
 thereupon he proposed to introduce it into Ireland. Oh ! if it 
 
Political Bias of yudges. 49 
 
 had worked well in England, it would have been long enough 
 before Ireland got it. But it had worked for evil, and there- 
 fore Ireland was to have it. When he (Mr. O'Connell) pressed 
 upon the noble lord his objections to the certificates, the noble 
 lord gave him an answer which was not distinguished by his 
 ordinary modesty and diffidence. 
 
 " The subject," said the noble lord, " has undergone a great 
 deal of discussion out of the House, and I feel perfectly satis- 
 fied it is the best plan that can be adopted." That was the 
 whole of the noble lord's reply ; curt, certainly he would not 
 say contumelious, but brief enough. The noble lord was " per- 
 fectly satisfied." He had never known the noble lord to come 
 forward with any proposition upon which he was not " perfectly 
 satisfied." The noble lord overruled his objections by an over- 
 whelming majority, and this "best possible plan" was adopted. 
 But now the noble lord came forward, and sought to rid himself 
 of the mischief of his own creation by an instrument to contract, 
 if not to extinguish, the franchise in Ireland. Nobody liad suf- 
 fered more from the abuse of the certificates than he had. He 
 admitted that a remedy was required, but not such a remedy 
 as that proposed by the noble lord. The way in which he 
 would deal with the evil would be to pass a short Bill to do 
 away with the certificates. That would be one remedy ; but 
 there was another. Extend and define the francliise in Ireland 
 as it was extended and defined in England. Give to the jieople 
 of Ireland the same franchise as was given to the people of 
 England, and let them have the same proportion of voters. 
 With respect to the decision upon the question of " beneficial 
 interest," at the present moment the judges, if divided by 
 political feelings, would be six to six ; for there was another 
 Liberal judge who would vote with the five on the former 
 decision. Yes, he would call it voting, for it was putting that 
 to the vote for which the 'statute gave them no jurisdiction. 
 Why did he go into this argument ? Simply to show that it 
 was a question capable of being decided by the judges either 
 way, depending upon the political bias, and certainly upon the 
 
 VOL. II. 5 
 
50 Manufacturing Votes. 
 
 individual opinion of individual judges. Therefore, it was idle 
 for hon. members to talk of this being a settled question. If 
 ever there was a vexata qucestio, this was one. What he wanted 
 was, that the House of Commons, which was the proper tri- 
 bunal for judging of the franchise, should settle it. He wanted 
 the noble lord to give the same franchise as the Reform Bill 
 intended to give. Upon this subject he should move an instruc- 
 tion to the committee to give as full a franchise to the people 
 of Ireland as was given to the people of England. In fine, this 
 was a Bill proceeding from the worst motives. He spoke not 
 of persons in that House, but of persons out of it. It would 
 not be parliamentary to impute motives to hon. members. It 
 was a Bill proceeding from a spirit most hostile to Ireland. It 
 was a Bill widening the space that at present separated the Irish 
 from the English people, and enlarging and aggravating the 
 distinction now existing between them. It was a Bill that 
 branded upon the Irish nation the name of slaves. It was a 
 BiU, in short, to transfer power, and to extinguish the Liberal 
 representation of the people of Ireland, and lay them bound 
 hand and foot at the mercy of the Tories. The noble lord 
 called himself a great reformer, and accordingly he brought in 
 this Bill, and yet he took care to forget the only great source of, 
 fraud on the Irish registry — namely, the freemen. They were 
 preferred in everything, and yet the greatest abuses existed in 
 the nomination of freemen. Every species of deception was 
 practised to get the names of men on the register as freemen. 
 Men, notoriously born of English parents, and in England, 
 had been passed off as the sons of freemen in Dublin, and re- 
 gistered as entitled to their freedom. There was lately in Dub- 
 lin the case of a person who was represented as the relative of 
 a person named Latt, of the city of Dublin, and registered as a 
 freeman by birth, who was born of English parents, and in Eng- 
 land, and whose real name was Coulson. The noble lord, however, 
 proposed to retain his wholesale system of manufacturing votes. 
 If it were not too late, he would show the House that this fabri- 
 cation of votes extended to the amount of thousands in the city 
 
The Elective Power of the People. 5 r 
 
 of Dublin alone. No man could get his freedom in the city 
 unless the Corporation chose it. Before the Reform Bill, they 
 considered birth or service as the two modes of entitling persons 
 to their freedom. A title by marriage was never heard of until 
 after the Reform Bill. But then they said that marriage was 
 a new right conferred by the Reform Bill, and accordingly the 
 son-in-law — that was the husband of the daughter of a freeman 
 — was entitled to be admitted to his freedom. Did the noble 
 lord come forward and require that the freeman should be 
 examined upon oath as to his title, in the manner that was re- 
 quired from the unfortunate householder ? But he would do 
 the noble lord this justice ; he did not believe the noble lord 
 had ever heard of this part of the subject before, or understood 
 it now. At all events, the Bill of the noble lord provided no 
 remedy for this evil. In the cases proposed to be met by the 
 noble lord's Bill, the utmost fraud that could be committed was 
 an over-estimate of the value of the premises claimed by the 
 voter, and the only question would be whether one person had 
 formed too low or too high an estimate of that value, the fraud 
 consisting in giving a higher value than the property was 
 really worth. Now, he would appeal to the hon. and learned 
 member for Ripon (Sir Edward Sugden), from his professional 
 experience in the courts of equity, whether he ever knew a sub- 
 ject upon which there was more contradictory swearing than 
 upon the subject of value. And yet all this battling was going 
 on upon this question of surveying in order to obtain the fran- 
 ohise. If the temptation to over-estimate the value was con- 
 sidered too great, why did not the noble lord increase the 
 franchise ? In order to take from the people the temptation to 
 be dishonest, let the noble lord lessen the value of the vote. 
 By this means he would be accomplishicg two things ; he would 
 do away with the temptation to perjury, and would be increasing 
 the elective power of the people, which was now too strin- 
 gently curtailed. This Bill was favoured by accidental circum- 
 stances. The noble lord had somebody's luck besides his own. 
 [" iVame."] Oh, you know him very well. He could read to 
 
C2 Calumnies on May 7100th. 
 
 the House from the history of Ireland's wrongs, page after 
 page, proofs of the deepest treachery, of the blackest ingrati- 
 tude, of the grossest violation of treaties that could distress a 
 government or impoverish and crush a people. But he would 
 once more call on the House — though he might call in vain — 
 to do towards Ireland that which they would do to England. 
 If they wanted assimilation of the laws, let it be so ; but he 
 exhorted them, at their peril, not to attempt to do that towards 
 Ireland which they would not dare do towards England. 
 
 Subject, Maynooth ; Bate, March 2, 1841. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell would commence what he had to say by 
 stating, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, that he 
 implicitly believed in all that was taught at Maynooth. He 
 would not for a moment shrink from making this avowal in its 
 completest extent ; and he was only checked by his respect for 
 the House from expressing most emphatically his contempt for 
 those aspersions upon that college which had been so shame- 
 lessly uttered by several hon. gentlemen on the other side of 
 the House. It was said that the charges brought that night 
 against Maynooth had already been frequently made in that 
 House ; he had been longer in the House than the hon. gentle- 
 man who had made this statement, and he could tell the hon. 
 gentleman that at least never had any charge against May- 
 nooth been brought in so indecent a manner. Never had any 
 charge against Maynooth assumed a character so reckless, so 
 malevolent, so utterly calumnious. It was said, that such 
 charges had been made elsewhere : they had, in places and by 
 orators exactly in unison with the disgraceful and disgusting 
 slanders poured forth. But it was said that allegiance to the 
 Crown was frittered away at Maynooth. He would fix the hon. 
 gentleman to this daring assertion, and he would prove to him, 
 ■whenever he wished, that never was there a more groundless 
 
Roman Catholic Oaths. 53 
 
 assertion ; never did bigotry instigate a calumny or utter any- 
 thing more grossly devoid of foundation. The hon. member* 
 speaking to gentlemen, his equals, at least, presumed to talk of 
 Roman Catholics disregarding their oaths. He hardly knew 
 in what terms to answer this assertion in the House. Were it 
 said out of the House, the answer that would best fit the state- 
 ment would be that the assertion was false as hell. The hon. 
 member had quoted passages and phrases, but he had carefully 
 abstained from quoting either book, chapter, or verse, for it 
 would have been easy to have sent for the book, and at once to 
 have confuted him. The only two passages for which the hon. 
 member had given the precise authority, consisted of expres- 
 sions which no Christian need be ashamed to utter or avow, and 
 which were perfectly consistent with the charity which belonged 
 or ought to belong to every Church. The hon. member quoted 
 Dr. Slevin, but he had not cited the particular pages, and the 
 reason was, that the hon. member knew very well that if he 
 had done so, he would have been contradicted and confuted in 
 a moment. The hon. baronet, the member for the University 
 of Oxford, had expressed himself on the subject with his habitual 
 good humour, candour, and straightforwardness, but he was 
 not satisfied with the answer which the hon. member had given. 
 The noble lord, the Secretary for Ireland, when he talked of 
 Puseyite doctrines, had not imputed them to the University of 
 Oxford, but to persons, clergymen, and among these, a bishop, 
 who had been connected with the University. For his part, he 
 confessed, he greatly rejoiced to see the advance of those doc- 
 trines. It must be admitted that those were acting contrary 
 to their oaths, in teaching Popery, while they were paid by the 
 Protestant Chui-ch. The hon. gentleman did not deny that, 
 for he could not ; but, blessed be heaven ! the swearing to the 
 Thirty-nine Articles and afterwards evading them was not 
 Catholic. This was a fellowship he did not desire, though the 
 movement was, he was glad to perceive, in the direction of the 
 true Church, and would tend to the triumph of the true religion. 
 There was not a single feeling of ^^eartfelt religion to redeem 
 
54 A Pole^nical Discussion forced on hi7?t. 
 
 the malevolent tirade and abandoned calumny whicli character- 
 ised the speech of the hon. member for Kilmarnock. If the 
 suspicion of thorough hypocrisy could be laid aside, the vitupe- 
 ration of the hon. and learned member would have been amus- 
 ing. He could not help wishing that a few Catholic theologians 
 had been present, as they would have been delighted with the 
 dissertation on the Cisalpine quarrel, and his running commen- 
 tary on it. This was a case in which the State wanted to invade 
 the rights of the Church, and France supported that design. 
 The French Parliament was opposed to the liberties of the 
 Church. "What was the consequence? The infidelity which 
 led to the revolution and the trampling on all Church institu- 
 tions. There was, however, no agreement in religious principles 
 between the gentleman who made the motion and him who 
 seconded it. No Ultramontanist and Cisalpinist could have dif- 
 fered more than the hon. member for Kilmarnock and the hon. 
 member for Elgin. One was an intrusionist, the other a non- 
 intrusionist. He saw the other day a speech in which the hon. 
 and learned member for Kilmarnock spoke with indignation of 
 the attempt of the State to interfere with the Church of Scot- 
 land; but his colleague in attacking the Catholics was a 
 zealous intrusionist — in fact, there was not a single point on 
 which the two hon. members were agreed, except in hatred to 
 the old religion. The one relied upon the authority of John 
 Knox, the other contended for the supremacy of the State over 
 the Church, but they agreed to hunt the couple against Popery. 
 He was sorry for the Church of Scotland. The present quarrel 
 would not be soon over; and really, he must say, it was as pretty 
 a quarrel as he could desire to see. But the Ultramontanist 
 question was now at an end. All Catholics now in every State 
 acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the Pope to its just 
 extent. You could not show a State in Europe, or in the 
 world, where the Catholic religion was not extending itself, 
 or one where Protestantism was on the increase. He (Mr. 
 O'Connell) was sorry to dwell on these subjects, but a polemical 
 discussion had been forced on them, and he should be ashamed 
 
Priests Educated in Frayice. ^^ 
 
 if he did not maintain a reason for the hope that was within 
 him. 
 
 The hon. and learned gentleman talked of getting puhlished 
 the Bulls that had been addressed to the Catholic bishops. He 
 might do so. The Catholics struggled for emancipation in 
 Ireland. It was offered to them if they would give the State 
 the power of appointing their bishops ; but the Catholics would 
 sooner lose their rights than permit an adulterous connection 
 between their Church and a temporal party. But the hon. and 
 learned gentleman talked of a difference between Irish priests 
 educated in Fiance and at Maynooth, and he quoted Inglis to 
 prove his contrast. This reference proved the discrimination of 
 the hon. member for Kilmarnock. Now, Inglis was in Ireland 
 in 1831 and 1832, talking, as he said, familiarly with priests 
 who had been educated in France. But the education of Catholic 
 priests in France ended in 1792. No one could go from Ire- 
 land to France, unless he were first ordained, and he must be 
 then twenty-four years of age. He could not return until he 
 was thirty ; but they must all have returned before 1792 ; and 
 yet Inglis stated that he had been talking familiarly with those 
 priests thirty-eight years after the time when they must have 
 attained the age of thirty. Now, considering the laborious mis- 
 sion of the Irish priests, he (Mr. O'Connell) would put it to the 
 House, how many of those rev. gentlemen could be alive when 
 Inglis was in Ireland ? He had been a great deal amongst 
 the Irish priesthood, and he knew that when Inglis's book 
 came out, there were only four of those gentlemen living, not 
 one of whom that writer had seen, and of the four there was but 
 one living now. But there seemed to be no discriminating 
 faculty in the hon. and learned member, and he could not dis- 
 cern truth from falsehood and error from fact. The hon. mem- 
 ber next told them that the late Lord Castlereagh was an ex- 
 ceedingly great theologian, a faculty which he (Mr. O'Connell) 
 had never before heard attributed to that nobleman ; but he was 
 quite willing to make the hon. member for Kilmarnock a pre- 
 sent of all the benefits of that authoriti^. Then the hon. mem- 
 
56 Catholic Priests and Elections. 
 
 ber came to Emmett, and his evidence before a Committee of 
 the House of Lords, after he had acknowledged himself to be a 
 traitor. lie (Mr. O'Connell) did not mean to speak slightingly 
 of Thomas Addis Emmett, whom he remembered as the accom- 
 plished gentleman, a man of talent, adorned with all the vir- 
 tues of private life, who was rising fast in his profession, and full 
 of the gifts of science. Emmett embarked in the fury of the 
 French revolution ; but he was no authority on Catholic 
 opinions. Scarcely a Catholic gentleman took part in the re- 
 bellion. All those who were executed were Protestants or 
 Presbyterians. So the quotation from Emmett was another 
 instance of the faculty of delusion which seemed to distinguish 
 the hon. gentleman. The hon. member for Kilmarnock next 
 went into a long dissertation on the intimidation of Catholic 
 priests, which, he ventured to say, he had proved to a demon- 
 stration that would admit of no denial : another instance of 
 his faculty of delusion and assertion. But more astonishing still, 
 the hon. member seemed determined to quote anything, except 
 only what was true. Now, there had not been less than thir- 
 teen committees before whom causes of alleged intimidation at 
 elections were tried. Six of these were tried by Tory commit- 
 tees, and the popular candidates were unseated ; but not a single 
 attempt was made to prove misconduct on the part of the priests. 
 The charge had been made out of doors, it was true ; the com- 
 mittee furnished an opportunity to prove it; and he implored 
 the House to attend to him, while he stated that those opportu- 
 nities of sifting the alleged misconduct, upon oath, were ne- 
 glected and flinched from by those who had raised the calumny, 
 and who continued to propagate it. To be sure, the Catholic 
 priests took a part in the elections, and why should they not ? 
 They spoke from the altars against perjury and bribery ; but 
 he defied the hon. member to show that they went further. 
 The hon. and learned member quoted Singleton ; but was 
 Singleton ever in a Catholic chapel, or before an altar ? All 
 his evidence was mere hearsay, picked up from those who 
 stated that they were present at wdiat they described. But he 
 
W/io zvas John Knox ? 57 
 
 turned with contempt from these calumnies on the Catholic 
 priests. Did they imagine that Exeter Hall was the only place 
 where all that was low, filthy, grovelling, and false against the 
 Catholic religion was spoken? It was not. The meanness, 
 virulence, and calumny, which had been so long considered as 
 exclusively congenial in Exeter Hall, were now transplanted 
 into that House. He repudiated those doctrines ; every one of 
 them had been already repudiated and confuted over and 
 over again. His eternal salvation depended upon the sincerity 
 of his belief; and, standing as he did, in the presence of that 
 Ood who was to judge him, he there asserted that he never would 
 abandon one particle of his creed. And he now told the hon. 
 member for Kilmarnock that a more calumnious and more 
 false assertion was never made against any Church than had 
 that night been alleged against the Roman Catholic Church by 
 that hon. member. Of what Church did the hon. member elect 
 to call himself ? — the idol whom he appeared to set up and 
 glorify being John Knox. The hon. member for Newark, had 
 he remained in his place, would hardly allow that the hon. 
 member belonged to any Church at all ; and he would say to 
 the hon. member : " Have you ordination in your Church ? and 
 who was John Knox ?" Had the hon. member read Mr. Tyt- 
 ler's work ? That Protestant-Presbyterian historian proved 
 that John Knox was accessory, before the fact, to two murders. 
 A notable idol for the hon. gentleman. And he talked about 
 the Roman Catholic doctrine inculcating the violation of faith, 
 even to Protestants ! The hon. gentleman's idol, John Knox, 
 indeed, said that no faith was to be kept with Catholics. But 
 to assert that Roman Catholic doctrines, in any place, or in any 
 manner or degree, inculcated the abominable principle that faith 
 was not to be kept with Protestants, was a preposterous and 
 utterly unfounded calumny. It was the doctrine of the Roman 
 Catholics that faith was to be kept with everybody ; and that 
 he violated the faith of God, whatever he called himself, who 
 violated his faith with man. And what was John Knox's first 
 act when he came into power ? He procured an Act of Par- 
 
58 y^^^S^ i^^^ People Cy the Priest^ 
 
 liament to put Roman Catholics to death as idolators. Yet hon. 
 gentlemen opposite, who glorified John Knox, assailed the Ro- 
 man Catholic priests, because, said those hou. gentlemen, they 
 were intolerant. They were assailed, too, because it was said 
 they inculcated the violating the allegiance to the Crown. But, 
 who was so open a teacher of rebellion as John Knox ? The 
 disciples of such a man were to be regarded with feelings of 
 pity, guarded by a large share of distrust. 
 
 He had been unwillingly forced into this polemical discus- 
 sion. His religion had been attacked, and it was his pride and 
 duty to defend it. It is the ancient religion of this land — it is 
 the religion of Alfred and of Edward, of Fenelon and of Sir 
 Thomas More. It is a religion, as had been eloquently said,, 
 which existed during the early persecution of Christians, and 
 has survived the flames and wild beasts of the Roman amphi- 
 theatre, and it will exist when "some traveller from New Zealand 
 shall take his stand in the midst of a vast solitude, and on the bro- 
 ken arches of London Bridge sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." He 
 did not provoke this discussion, but he was sorry it had arisen. 
 Could anything exceed the bigotry of the petitions which had 
 been presented ? Did they not breathe all the rancour of the 
 Early Reformation, as it was called ? And was not that rancour 
 exhibited by the gentleman who gloated over the bigotry of 
 those petitions ? " It was time," said the hon. member, " that 
 the House should respond to the sentiments that had so long 
 existed abroad." He knew there were millions in this country 
 who scorned such sentiments. The hon. member talked of a 
 response in this House, and the hon. gentlemen on the other 
 side cheered the most malignant and unfounded of his assertions. 
 Blessed be Grod ! the people of Ireland knew that bigotry sa 
 foaming and boiling over never polluted that House before. 
 He wished he could prophesy it never would again. It should 
 not with impunity. He would ask them to judge of the priest- 
 hood of Ireland by the people, and the people by their priest- 
 hood. Nothing could be more just than the tribute which the 
 noble lord near him had that evening paid to the Irish- nation. 
 
And the Priest by the People. 59. 
 
 Most true was it, that, of the people of these realms, the women 
 of Ireland were amongst the most pure, her men among the 
 most temperate, the most religious; none were more regular 
 communicants with their Church, none more zealous for their 
 religion, nor of more practical piety. The hon. gentleman said 
 he had been in Ireland ? His visit was not one of mercy and 
 charity, but to discover what he could blame. In his own evi- 
 dence there was no mark of candour, or he would read it for 
 him. He had been there ; and did he know any people on the 
 face of the earth so many of whom are communicants every 
 Sunday in the year ? The altar-rails were thronged with them ; 
 and let hon. gentlemen remember how they regarded the 
 solemn mystery there consummated ; and where, on the face of 
 the earth, was there a people with so much zeal for their religion, 
 with so much practical piety as the poor people of Ireland? 
 True, they had their errors — revenge was perpetrated amongst 
 them, and, under its influence, many were scattered abroad and 
 met with untimely deaths ; vengeance had broken through the 
 restraints of religion and the feelings of humanity ; but he 
 could, with pride, in comparing his country with either Eng- 
 land or Scotland, affirm that in Ireland crime was infinitely less 
 in aggregated amount, and infinitely less in individual atrocity, 
 than in either of the other portions of Great Britain. Never 
 was she dishonoured by these horrible pecuniary murders — 
 those assassinations, committed merely out of a thirst for gold, 
 which were of such dreadful frequency, that cast a foul blot 
 both upon the people of England and Scotland. The Irish 
 were a religious and moral people, and true religion and morals 
 were still spreading through the land. He held in his hand a 
 document from which he would read what the state of the 
 population is. You talk of Protestant Ulster. There are 
 976,088 Protestants of every description in Ulster, but there 
 are 1,092,828 Catholics, giving a majority of 116,740. In 
 Leinster the majority was 1,334,014. In Munster it was 
 1,975,964 ; and in Connaught, 1,166,280, deducting only 
 ♦ 57,750 Protestants. Was it then in that House that the cry 
 
6o The right to Vote of Tenajita-atwill. 
 
 of bigotry was raised and propagated against that country ? 
 It was not wise— it was not prudent — above all, it was not 
 Christian -like. Would to God an end were put to these pole- 
 mical discussions ; and they would be put an end to if the hon. 
 member would mind his own religion more and that of others 
 less. Let him study Presbyterianism — let him study the prin- 
 ciples of the English Church ; it was said he communicates 
 with it. I hope it is a calumny, as he is a Presbyterian. 
 He conjured the hon. member, therefore, to look at his own 
 religion and not to the religion of others — of others, who were 
 no more than himself tainted with any other doctrine inconsis- 
 tent with the pure morality or the precepts of the Divine 
 law, either expressed or implied, and whose ancestors had the 
 courage to sacrifice the last drop of their blood rather than 
 abandon, by deed or word or insinuation, one particle of their 
 faith. He begged leave to support the hon. member in asking 
 leave to bring in his Bill, but he believed the hon. member 
 would never bring it in. 
 
 Same Subject ; Same Date. 
 
 Mr. 0' Council said he hoped the House would allow him 
 to trespass on its attention for a short time, as he had been 
 strongly alluded to by the noble lord and the right hon. gentle- 
 man. He should be sorry that his hon friend, the member for 
 Kilkenny, should persevere in his intention to divide the 
 House. It was totally unnecessary; for if he would look at the 
 clause he would see that it was an affirmative clause, and, 
 therefore, that he might, after the present one, add the clause, 
 giving even tenants-at-will the right to vote, provided they 
 varied the sum by only one shilling ; so that it was totally un- 
 necessary for him then to divide the House. It was not very 
 material whether he took that immaterial division; for an 
 immaterial division it would be, because, as the right hon. 
 baronet and the Government would vote against him, he had * 
 
The Forty'shilling Freeholders, 6i 
 
 no chance whatever of a majoritj. He (Mr. O'Connell) had 
 heard what had fallen from the nohle lord (Lord J. Russell) 
 with great pleasure, yet not without regret. There was in 
 his speech an exposition of some of those principles applicable 
 to the Government of Ireland, which, if carried into effect, 
 would be eminently useful ; but he did not think the noble 
 lord's vindication of the conduct of the Eeform Ministry in 
 1832 was satisfactory. The noble lord went into the history of 
 the 40s. franchise, and of its abolition ; but he was not accurate 
 in saying that the 40s. franchise was abolished on his (Mr. 
 O'Connell's) evidence ; nor was the right hon. baronet quite 
 accurate in sajdng that the 40s. freeholders had been abolished 
 in consequence of the evidence given by the advocates of the 
 Roman Catholic claims, and more especially of that which ho 
 (Mr. O'Connell) had himself given. The right hon. baronet, 
 in referring to the evidence in support of his assertion, had 
 omitted to read the first answer which he (Mr. O'Connell) had 
 given. In that answer, he only spoke of the abolition of the 
 40s. freeholders under leases, and not of those similar to the 
 English freeholders. He stated that with those nobody wished 
 to meddle ; and, so far as the perpetual interest was concerned, 
 he had not said one word to justify the abolition of that tenure. 
 It was material for Ireland that this should be understood. It 
 was now admitted by the right hon. baronet opposite there was 
 no compact between the Grovernment of 1829 and those gentle- 
 men who advocated the Roman Catholic claims in regard to the 
 abolition of the 40s. freeholders ; so far from that being the 
 case, they had now the fact that at a meeting of sixty-three 
 noblemen and gentlemen, the supporters of Catholic claims, 
 held at the Thatched House Tavern, a resolution was unani- 
 mously agreed to to petition Parliament against the Catholic 
 Bill, if the passing of it was to be the sacrifice of the 40s. free- 
 holders. Such a petition was presented by Mr. Spring Rice. 
 The right hon. baronet had called his abolition of the 409. 
 freeholders a measure of Reform. It was the only instance in 
 
62 The Reform Bill. 
 
 whicli he had shown himself to he a Pteformer. He had con- 
 sented to their aholition, not because they were Catholics but 
 because he considered the system a social evil, and his mode of 
 reforming was by totally destroying. This, however, could 
 never be aily reason for refusing an extension of the franchise 
 to a similar class. The abuses in the old system of 40s. free- 
 holders were partial, and did not extend to whole counties, nor 
 did they continue up to the period of their abolition. Between 
 1825 and 1829 every one of the abuses described in the evi- 
 dence had vanished. The right hon. baronet opposite, and 
 those who acted with him, refused to correct the abuses, and to 
 grant emancipation at the proper time. Had they done so, a 
 century might have elapsed before the people of Ireland would 
 have found it necessary to make any further struggle. But the 
 auspicious moment was allowed to pass by. What then followed ? 
 The people of Ireland compelled the Grovernment to grant them 
 Emancipation, unconditional and unfettered by any terms 
 whatever. The 40s. freeholders shared in the battle, but they 
 were not allowed to share in the triumph ; they were annihilated 
 — they were destroyed. Then came the Reform Bill. He had 
 opposed that Bill by reason of the limited nature of the qualifi- 
 cation sought to be established by it. He argued that the 
 franchise was too narrow, and that the number of electors 
 would bear no reasonable proportion to the population. Time 
 had shown that he was not mistaken in this; he had under- 
 rated the number a little, but it was not much beyond his 
 calculation. They had been told that Ireland had got a Reform 
 similar to England. But how stood matters in that respect ? 
 In Bristol any man who rated at Is. was a burgess, while in 
 Dublin no man could be one who was not rated at £10. Why 
 make such a difference ? Why persevere maintaining such a 
 distinction, unless it was their wish to tyrannize over Ireland ? 
 They did, however, persevere in exercising their power in all 
 the plenitude of an insolent domination, without any reason, 
 and in defiance of that principle which said that both countries 
 
Statistics of Voters. 63 
 
 should Tbe identified as one. He would now point out to tlie 
 House an instance of the difference between the proportion of 
 electors to the population in the two countries. The county 
 Galway, containing 685,604 inhabitants, had only 2,085 voters; 
 Donegal, with a population of 298,491, had only 1,462 voters; 
 and Mayo, with 366,000 inhabitants, had only 950 voters. In 
 England, the county of Hertford, with a population of only 
 95,977, had no less then 5,349 voters ; so that this county, 
 with a population of 95,977, had more voters than the three 
 counties of Ireland he had stated, the aggregate population of 
 which was upwards of 1,000,000. Now, would any man, either 
 on the one side of the House or the other, say if the case was 
 reversed — if 95,000 inhabitants of Ireland were represented by 
 5,000 voters, and upwards of 1,000,000 of Englishmen had only 
 4,000 — was there a man among them who would endure such 
 a state of things ? If there was, he despised that man ; and 
 should he not despise him ? he ought to despise himself. 
 He appealed to them for redress. If they refused to grant it, 
 he would appeal from them to the people of Ireland. 
 
 He would only give another instance of this inequality. 
 "Wales, with a population of 305,000 had 36,833 electors, while 
 the county of Cork, with 703,000 inhabitants, had only 3,835 
 electors. There was no equality in this. Now, no doubt, they 
 had the power to continue this gross inequality in the represen- 
 tative system between Eu gland and Ireland. Was it prudent 
 to continue it ? Was it just to continue it? Was it safe ? It 
 might be safe just now, but who could say that it would be so 
 that day three months ? Let them not lay the flattering unc- 
 tion to their souls, that the people of Ireland were regardless of 
 this question, or that they did not understand it. The question 
 of how they were to govern Ireland was a serious one for the 
 representatives of Scotland and England. They had continued 
 the system of exclusion long enough, and they ought now to 
 give way, and treat the two countries as one. He was not 
 contented with the Bill of the Government, and he supported 
 it merely because he would not get a better. He regretted ex- 
 
64 Religious Fidelity of the L'ish. 
 
 ceedlngly tbat Government had departed from their original 
 proposal of a £5 qualification. He had often been obliged to 
 accuse the enemies of Ireland of injustice, but now he felt more 
 inclined to say, Heaven protect her from her friends ! The 
 people of that country were every day more alive to their rights, 
 and better able to maintain them. They had set an example of 
 religious fidelity to every other nation. In spite of persecution, 
 they had had the firmness and integrity to abide by what they 
 believed to be the true religion ; those who thought otherwise 
 ought to remember that an error of faith was no disparagement 
 of virtue in practice. In no other country in Europe were the 
 duties of religion more attended to, and there were more weekly 
 communicants in Ireland than in any other country on the face 
 of the earth. This religious feeling, instead of diminishing, 
 was augmenting. He would put it to the House, whether they 
 ought to tamper with the feelings of such a people, of whom 
 upwards of five millions had pledged themselves never to taste 
 the cup of intoxication. If they wished to further the Repeal 
 of the Union, they could not do so more efiectually than by 
 refusing to conciliate the people of Ireland. If, however, they 
 insisted on the continuance of that union, let them establish an 
 equality between the two countries. Do not allow Ireland to 
 have only 4,000 electors out of a population of upwards of a 
 million, and England to have 5,000 electors in a population of 
 only 95,000. By voting for the Government Bill, they would 
 take the first step, small as it was, to remedy the evil by 
 abolishing such difi'erences between the constituencies of the 
 two countries. There was another advantage attending the 
 measure ; it might be indiscreet in him to avow it. If rating 
 was made the test of the franchise in Ireland, he had no doubt 
 it would soon become the universal mode of ascertaining the 
 qualification. Independently of this, however, he thought the 
 Bill would do much for Ireland. It would get rid of all the 
 charges of perjury which had been brought against the people 
 of Ireland, by destroying all temptation to false swearing by 
 either party. He should, for many reasons, vote for the 
 
 i 
 
Landlord and Tenant. 65 
 
 Government proposition. If for nothing else, he should do so 
 in order that the real question between the two parties might 
 be decided ; naraelj, whether the Government system should 
 be adopted or not. One word as to the extension of the right 
 of voting to tenants-at-will. If made sufficiently extensive, so 
 as to exclude the dictation of landlords, he would have no ob- 
 jection to the franchise being conferred on them. It was 
 because the present motion was not extensive enough that he 
 objected to it ; it would leave the tenant at the mercy of his 
 landlord, from whose tyranny he could never be protected, ex- 
 cept by a widely-extended suffrage, or vote by ballot, neither 
 of which the House of Commons, at the present moment, were 
 inclined to give. He could vote conscientiously for the Govern- 
 ment Bill, because he knew that they were making a struggle 
 in the right cause. If they should fail, it would not be their 
 l^ault; their doing so, through the influence of party, would 
 only give an additional incitement to the people of Ireland to 
 join in a universal struggle, in order to obtain justice for them- 
 selves. 
 
 Suhjecty Landlokd and Tenant (Ireland); 
 Date, June 7, 1841. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell gave notice of a motion for leave to bring in 
 a Bill to amend the laws relating to landlord and tenaut in 
 Ireland. He would take that opportunity to allude to a matter 
 personal to himself. The House was aware that, a few evenings 
 ago, the hon. and learned member for Bandon (Serjeant 
 Jackson) made a very serious charge against him (Mr. O'Connell) 
 of oppressing his tenants in Kerry, by distraining in April for 
 rent due in March. Not having been in Kerry of late, he 
 (Mr. O'Connell) did not know whether some agent of his might 
 not have distrained some of the tenants from malicious motives; 
 therefore, he did not rise at the instant to contradict the state- 
 ment. Since then, however, he had requested his son (Mr. 
 
 VOL. II. 6 
 
66 0' ConneW s Tenants. 
 
 Maurice O'Connell), who had the honour of being acquainted 
 with Mr. Serjeant Jackson, to call upon that gentleman to in- 
 quire the name of his informant, and his authority for the state- 
 ment he had made ; and, with the permission of the House, he 
 would now read the letter he had received from his son, des- 
 cribing the result of his interview. It was as follows : — 
 
 " 16, Pall jMall, Monday^ June 7, 1841. 
 
 " My dear Father — I bave just seen Serjeant Jackson. I told Lim that 
 I came from you, to ascertain the name of the person whom he quoted in the 
 House, the other night, as having stated, that he had known tenants of yours 
 to have been distrained in April for rents due on the 25th of March previous, 
 and also, if possible, the names of the tenants. 
 
 " He said that he did not know the names of the tenants : that a gentle- 
 man called on him some time since, in Dublin, and said he was a Kerryman, 
 and his name Twiss ; that Serjeant Jackson recollected having seen hini on 
 juries in Kerry, but does not know his Christian name or address ; that this 
 man then made allusion to a speech of yours about Irish landlords, and said 
 that you yourself were a bad landlord ; that he had been in Iveragh some time 
 previous, had seen a number of cattle in pound in the month of April, and, 
 on inquiry, that he was told that they belonged to tenants of yours, and had 
 been distrained for the March rent. I asked what year this was in ? Ser- 
 jeant Jackson did not know, but said he had a memorandum of it somewhere, 
 and promised to let me have a copy thereof. According to him, Twiss said 
 he would swear to the facts. — Your affectionate son, 
 
 "Mauricic O'Connell." 
 
 He was able to state that, up to the month of January last, 
 when he was last in Kerry, no such thing had occurred ; and, 
 therefore, up to that period, as well, indeed, as up to that to 
 which the hon. and learned gentleman had referred, he was 
 enabled to contradict the statement in the strongest possible 
 terms. It was not for him to comment on the manner in which 
 the charge had been made against him. The man's name from 
 whom the information was received was not known— his address 
 was not known — the only allegation was, that somebody had 
 told the .hon. and learned serjeant that so and so had taken 
 place. He (Mr. O'Connell) begged to take that opportunity of 
 denying, in the most distinct terms, that anything of the kind 
 had occurred. 
 
 I 
 
Distress of Mamifacturing Classes. 67 
 
 Stibject, Address in Answer to Speech — Adjourned 
 Debate; Date, August 27, 1841. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said — The noble lord has distinctly admitted, 
 beyond controversy, the deep distress of the manufacturiug 
 classes. The noble lord spoke of that distress with becomiug 
 feeling, and said that a most difficult problem to solve was how 
 that distress could be relieved. I will furnish the noble lord 
 with a simple and efficacious remedy ; give the distressed classes 
 a loaf of bread. The noble lord has not leisure to discuss the 
 awful consequences of that distress, but whether the pleasantry 
 which the noble lord has indulged in be good in taste or not it 
 is not for me to say. This is a subject of the utmost importance, 
 and I claim this deference for my opinions on the Corn Laws, 
 that I stand here as the representative of two of the largest 
 agricultural communities in the country. I am the representa- 
 tive of more than one million of the people of the Irish nation. 
 Yes, I have been returned for two counties, without canvass or 
 solicitation, without my personal presence, or my asking for a 
 single vote, and with my opinions on the Corn Laws being 
 well known. My opinions I am not in the habit of concealing ; 
 and no opinion of mine is better known in those counties than 
 that I am for the total abolition of those laws. There is another 
 testimony in my hon. friend the member for Waterford, with 
 respect to the feelings of the Irish constituencies, for he fully 
 informed his constituents that he would vote against those laws. 
 This is a proof that the Irish people do not estimate the advan- 
 tages which the agricultural interest derives from the Corn 
 Laws. Indeed, Ireland illustrates tiie fallacy of some of the 
 topics used by the supporters of these laws. It is said that 
 they increase the rate of wages. If they have that operation 
 anywhere, surely it is in Ireland. Ireland has the full benefit 
 of the Corn Laws, and yet there is the lowest rate of wages in 
 any part of the kingdom. Ireland is an agricultiu\al country ; 
 you have taken care she shall not be a manufacturing country ; 
 but people see distinctly that Corn Laws do not raise the rate 
 
68 Distress in Eno-land. 
 
 <b 
 
 of wages, and tliey feel, and I feel, that it is a robbery upon the 
 operative to make him pay more for his bread than his earnings 
 enable him to pay. Yes, they feel that these Corn Laws are 
 an aristocratic impost upon the food of the poor man. If the 
 Corn Laws did not increase the price of bread to the operative 
 they would not contend for them ; no, they contended for them 
 in order to increase their rents. What is the problem so dif- 
 ficult to be solved as to the mode of relieving the existing dis- 
 tress ? I ask, is there any proposition more clear than this, 
 that having cheaper bread, and a greater quantity of it, would 
 be an immediate mode of relief? But you want to reduce that 
 quantity. You want to increase your rents, and not to give 
 cheaper food, and then you come with your doleful lamentations 
 about the state of distress. The people understand and feel it 
 to be a mockery. They ask for bread and you give them a stone, 
 and then you come and boast of your triumph and your over- 
 whelming majority against ministers who propose an alteration. 
 For my own part, I only agree to the ministerial plan of 
 8s. protection as an instalment of the debt of justice due to the 
 people, with the full determination of getting rid of it ulti- 
 mately. The question between you and the people is, whether 
 there shall be a tax upon their bread, whether there shall 
 be an impost upon their food, and whether you shall in- 
 crease your revenues by increasing the price of that with- 
 out which existence is insufferable? (iVb, «o.) I say, Yes, 
 yes. And you insist upon continuing this plan of starvation 
 in spite of the evidence read by my hon. friend, the member 
 for "Wolverhampton, showing an accumulation of disease and 
 death, following the dearness of provisions and the scarcity of 
 food. You may talk as you please ; you may boast of your 
 triumphs as you like, but you must come round to this. The 
 question between you and the people of England is, whether 
 they shall pay millions more by the year for food than they 
 can get it for from other countries. It has a double aspect of 
 iniquity ; for, while it increases the price of the poor man's 
 food, it impedes the progress o£ our manufacturing interest. If 
 
'* Try Brcadr 69 
 
 you allow foreign corn to be imported, we shall at once find 
 immediate payment for our manufactures and an increased 
 demand. At present you diminish labour by increasing the 
 price of food, and then you come with lamentations about the 
 state of distress, and about the difficulty of solving the problem 
 of how that distress is to be relieved. I recollect a story of a 
 Frenchman, who complained that he never fattened his horse. 
 He had tried a thousand remedies ; he had fed him with spices 
 and tobacco, and different other articles ; when, one day, a 
 friend asked him, " Did you ever try oats ? " He declared he 
 had not. Now, I say to you, by way of experiment, in order 
 to solve the problem as to the best mode of relieving the present 
 distress, try bread. Give the poor man food, and then, if he 
 does not thrive and prosper, go to any quack doctor that chooses 
 to set up, and, for my part, I should not interfere. Everybody 
 knows that the great mistake in the Eeform Lill was that of 
 augmenting the representation of the counties and not giving 
 to the better instructed town population a more adequate share 
 in the representation. I do not ask for a preference. I ask for 
 equality. You, however, gave the preference to the £50 tenant- 
 at-will clause, and I ask how much of your triumph is owing 
 to the fatal policy of having thus augmented the members for 
 the counties of England. Your majority consists almost entirely 
 of them. I complain that the Whig ministers did not go far 
 enough. They halted too soon. They did not answer the just 
 expectations of the people by working out their own measures so 
 as to give the people of Ireland a fair representation. I com- 
 plained because of the unequal preference given over the manu- 
 facturing and commercial classes. The supporters of dear 
 bread, however, succeeded, and they have again succeeded in 
 obtaining a majority. Wliat, then, are the merits of the two 
 great parties who contend for the government of the country? 
 I will contrast them. What fault, I ask, is to be found with 
 the Grovernment for the last ten years? They have done much 
 to increase the franchise. They have almost totally abolished 
 the hideous, uncivilized punishment of death. They have done 
 
70 Value of the Penny Post. 
 
 more— and I speak of my own profession — tliey have wiped out 
 the stain of injustice in the criminal law which permitted the 
 counsel for the Crown to address the jury, shutting out the 
 prisoner's counsel. That is a measure of great importance, 
 although shorn of part of its utility in the House of Lords, 
 where they introduced a clause, giving two speeches to the 
 counsel for the prosecution, and only one to the prisoner's 
 counsel. Although, therefore, there was such an unjust dimi- 
 nution of the benefit conferred by that measure, I think the 
 ministers deserve credit for going so far in ameliorating the 
 law, and merit the gratitude of the country. They have done 
 more. They have increased the circulation of information of 
 every kind, by diminishing the stamp duties on newspapers 
 and periodicals from ^d. to \d. It should not be forgotten that 
 they did these things. There was another great advantage 
 arising from this measure, namely, it got rid of the temptation 
 to a violation of the law by the sale of unstamped publications. 
 Ministers cannot be deprived of the glory of having accom- 
 plished these things, even though their career be about to 
 terminate. There is another measure of great public utility, 
 namely, the penny postage. The reduction of the newspaper 
 stamp duty allowed the circulation of the information. The 
 reduction of the postage duty allowed the circulation of the 
 effect of that information. It keeps up the tie between parent 
 and child, between brother and brother, and for the first time 
 places within the reach of the poorest person the easiest mode 
 of communication. Before that measure the poor man naid 
 one-third of his weekly earnings for a single letter, and was 
 in this painful contrast with the man of fortune — that the man 
 of fortune could hold communication for the ten-thousandth 
 part of his income. Again, the present ministers opened the 
 trade. with India and China. They had also advanced the 
 principles of religious liberty. They have relieved the Catholic 
 and Dissenter from the necessity of bowing before a clergyman 
 whose tenets they did not believe, and whose mission they 
 deny. They have allowed them to celebrate their baptisms. 
 
TJie Slave Trade. 7 i 
 
 and marriages, and to preserve their burial services free from in- 
 trusion. The present ministry have made a great step towards 
 the abolition of tithes in Ireland. They have succeeded in 
 striking off one -fourth of the entire burden. They would have 
 gone farther ; they would have appropriated the surplus, had 
 the Parliament permitted, to purposes of public utility. I do- 
 not reproach them for having given up that clause, for I was one 
 of those who, despairing of carrying it, urged their giving it 
 up. I do not shrink from my share of the blame, but I say 
 that in abolishing one-fourth of the odious impost they have 
 set an example, and established a principle, which may enable^ 
 at no remote period, a future Parliament to abolish it altogether. 
 But that is not their only claim. Were they not the persons 
 who introduced reform into this House ? Did they not abolish 
 115 rotten boroughs in England and thirteen in Ireland? 
 Have they not done more for England, and have they not 
 abolished the restricted, narrow, and self-elected corporations ? 
 Have they not almost identified the electors with their repre- 
 sentatives in the new corporation. They have done so, and it 
 affords a painful contrast to the conduct pursued towards 
 Ireland. They have done more, and let the fact be proclaimed 
 to the world, they have emancipated 800,000 slaves. 
 
 Early in Mr. Pitt's political life, he joined with Mr. Wilber- 
 force in pressing for the abolition of the slave-trade. He succeeded 
 in every other measure he undertook, but in this he was in a 
 minority, and these minorities continued until the Whigs came 
 into office in 1805. They were only eight months in office, but 
 they signalised themselves by the abolition of the slave-trade. 
 They gave a lesson to the nations of the earth ; and the gene- 
 rosity wdth which the British nation made such sacrifices was 
 compensated by the perfect safety which attended their humane 
 experiment. The party which did this deserved popular sup- 
 port. That party had called upon Englishmen to estimate all 
 these valuable and important ameliorations in the law, both as 
 regarded religious liberty and human freedom. I will not dwell 
 upon their conduct in Ireland. They have given ten years of 
 
72 
 
 What have the Tories done? 
 
 almost complete repose to the people of that country. They have, 
 for the first time, taught the people of Ireland that the Govern- 
 ment may select persons, not for their creeds, but for their virtues ; 
 not for tlieir religious opinions, but for their merits ; that exclusion 
 shall no longer be the fate of one party, and that offices of power, 
 honour, and emolument shall no longer be confined to a faction. 
 I thank them, in the name of Ireland, for what they have done, 
 and for what they intended to do. I thank them for the good 
 they have performed, and for the greater good they were pre- 
 vented from elfecting. I ask why a party of this kind should 
 be thrown out of power ? I will not stop to argue upon the 
 question, whether they fall short of their own undertakings. I 
 will not stop to discuss how many of the more ardent friends of 
 Reform have been disappointed and irritated. I will not stop 
 to ask why they did not carry out their own principles, by ex- 
 tending the representation to the operative classes, to whom it 
 must soon be extended. But I say this, that you, at least, 
 ought to be the last to complain of their labours not having 
 been more extensive in that direction. What are the claims of 
 the Tory party on a liberty-loving people ? What has the Tory 
 faction ever done for public liberty ? When were they the ad- 
 vocates of freedom of conscience ? Never. They have been 
 exclusionists from first to last, and only yielded to the impulse 
 of the pressure from without, adhering to the principle of exclu- 
 sion still. I have spoken of a few instances of the benefits con- 
 ferred by the Whig party in ten years. I will give the Tories 
 a century, and I ask them to tell me what they have done for 
 public freedom to put in comparison ? They opposed the eman- 
 cipation of the negro as long as they could. They opposed 
 Parliamentary Reform. They supported the abuses of the old 
 ■corporations. And yet, this is the party, it appears, which the 
 people of England prefer. This was the party that all along 
 opposed religious liberty ; that kept the people of England in 
 chains until their limbs grew too large, and they burst their 
 fetters. When they could no longer keep from the people of 
 England their liberty, they revenged themselves by diminishing 
 
Agitation Powerless if Unjust. 73 
 
 the franchise of the people of Ireland. That franchise was so 
 restricted, that the curse of the noble lord's Bill was scarcely 
 necessary to effect its early annihilation. You gave to England 
 corporate reform, under which every man rated to the poor-rate, 
 however low, became a burgess. You gave Ireland a corporate 
 reform, obtained only after four years' struggle ; but it was at 
 last conceded by the hon. gentlemen opposite. How did your 
 leaders treat the Irish people ? In the city of Dublin there 
 has been an enumeration to the poor-rate, and the number of 
 ratepayers on the books is 15,000. Every one of these, if he 
 resided in Liverpool or Bristol, would become a burgess ; but, 
 happening to be on the other side of the Channel, 5,000 of them 
 are excluded. Heaven help us ! — misery makes us acquainted 
 with strange company. The hon. member for Evesham has 
 condescended to patronise Ireland. But, first, all agitation 
 Tuust be put down. Has the hon. gentleman wit enough to 
 know that agitation is impotent, unless founded on a just cause? 
 And I ask anj^one possessed of the old spirit of Englishmen — 
 a spirit which I believe has considerably evaporated — would 
 you endure that Ireland should have got a corporate reform, 
 giving to every ratepayer the right to be a burgess, whilst 
 England was restricted to one-third ? How would the old 
 spirit of Englishmen prompt him to answer that question ? If 
 he answered that he would bear it patiently, I will not say 
 that I would treat him with contempt, but I should think he 
 deserved to be so treated. If, on the other hand, he said he 
 would not endure such injustice, I would hail him, and say to 
 him, neither will we, the people of Ireland, endure it. I want 
 to know what the Tory party have done to . recommend them 
 to the good will of the people of England ? It was said for- 
 merly that no people in the world were more desirous of public 
 freedom, or more attached to the privileges and the rights of 
 freemen, and they carried them out, in the madness of their 
 zeal for liberty, by dragging one monarch to the scaffold, 
 and driving another a wanderer and a beggar through the 
 nations of Europe. What party was it that supported these 
 
74 SoD'y for Success. 
 
 monarclis in their attempts upon the liberties of the people 'r 
 It was the party that was now coming into power. Their verj 
 name dated its creation from the period of the Eevolution, and 
 from that period until this, what proof have they given of their 
 love of liberty ? They opposed the House of Hanover, as long 
 as they continued attached to principles of liberty ; they op- 
 posed them to the very verge of rebellion, and they became 
 loyal only when they got the Crown into their custody, in the 
 reign of Greorge III. Have the party shown no disposition to 
 return to their ancient disloyalty during the present reign ? 
 They have not as yet the Crown in their custody. Accordingly, 
 the loyalty of the party out of that House is expressed in base 
 calumny, and the vilest, and, need I say, most unfounded 
 slanders. 
 
 One would have imagined that the youth and sex of her 
 Majesty might have awakened some feeling of sympathy and 
 regard. Yet it was you who framed these calumnies against 
 your young and beautiful Queen — you deny that, at your 
 orgies, you insulted her by your marked preferences. What 
 said the reports in the newspapers — your own newspapers? 
 " The health of the Uueen was drunk with the usual honours ;"^ 
 and the health of another person — need I name her ? " with 
 nine times nine, and loud and long continued cheering," ac- 
 companied by that music invented by the saint of Canterbury, 
 and entitled " the Kentish fire." And what is there in you to 
 countervail all this ? What public good have you ever done ? 
 What cause of public liberty have you ever advocated ? I have 
 read your history, and I am astonished that the people of Eng- 
 land should be so fallen as to consent to give you their confi- 
 dence. And how was that seeming confidence obtained ? Never 
 was such gross bribery known since the world began. Take the 
 great leading organ of your party, the Times, which states 
 the fact distinctly, and no other paper has contradicted it. The 
 Times is the authority on the point of bribery ; and some- 
 body belonging to it has tried his chance at elections two or 
 three times, and has succeeded once, and was sorry for it. You 
 
The "" Times ^"^ a Liar of the First Magjiitude. 75 
 
 may boast your majority, but take it witb tbis reflection, tbat it 
 was all owing to gross and unlimited bribery. The Times is 
 a liar of the first magnitude, and yet he admits as much. 
 Another cause of your temporary success is your antipathy to 
 Ireland, and the use you made of it. Look at the late speech 
 of your champion, the Earl of Winchelsea : shame on you for 
 listening to it. This, your hatred of Ireland, was one of the 
 leading topics in all your addresses, from Chester to Canterbury. 
 And yet, with all these foul and hateful means, you could not 
 have succeeded but for the sordid and selfish interests of the 
 owners of land and those dependent upon them. Yes, the 
 farmers were brought to believe that their interests were knit 
 up with those of the landlords, and that the alteration of the 
 Corn Laws would depreciate both; and it was in a sordid, selfish 
 feeling that they combined to obtain a majority against those 
 who proposed the scheme. And with this majority, there you 
 stand the enemies of civil and religious liberty, and hating from 
 your heart that country which, from its heart, returns your 
 hate, despising as she hates. There you stand the haters of 
 your right hand in war ; with respect to whom you delight to 
 make odious distinctions of political and moral rights — denying 
 her the same franchise, the same representation, and the same 
 corporation reform as you 3^ourselves enjoy. You refuse her 
 also that equality in religion, which, if your parchment Union 
 were a real Union, would be hers by right- And now you are 
 going again to govern Ireland. Who is to go over there ? Is 
 the Orange flag again to wave over the Lord Lieutenant's head ? 
 On your last advent to power you sent us a gallant officer — 
 brave as his own sword — and a noble earl, who took tlie first 
 opportunity to exhibit himself in public, when the Kentish fire 
 was set up to greet him, and the Orange flag waved over his 
 head. True, the man who did this was punished. But how ? 
 Three years afterwards the hon. baronet called him in this 
 House a vagabond. He had three years of perfect impunity 
 and enjoyment of office, and at the end of that time he was 
 signally punished by being called a vagabond — and the vaga- 
 
76 A Brute-force Majority, 
 
 Lond holds his office to this day. And now for the future — 
 what is your plan, what is your prospect ? Is it possible to 
 suppose that Ireland can be governed by mere good works ? 
 The county of Cork has a population of 750,000 souls, and a 
 constituency of only 3,000. Of this Ireland complains. I have 
 often gone over statements of this kind {hsar), and on each 
 occasion I have met with the same cries of derision which I now 
 hear. But do you think that, as an Irishman, those cries can 
 have any other effect than to inflame my spirit to defy, and 
 move my energies to oppose and resist the enemies of my 
 country who utter them. Do you think that, because you have 
 got a majority you will put down the spirit of Ireland ? Do 
 you think that, with this bribed brute-force majority, you can 
 reconcile her to a rule of injustice at your hands, or drive from 
 her memory and her affections a Government under which she 
 has made such advances in moral feeling and tranquil hap- 
 piness ? But this tranquillity, which she has enjoyed under the 
 present ministry, is, indeed, in your estimation, her only fault. 
 It is a picture which you cannot bear to contemplate. True, 
 there have been, as there are in all countries, and in all times, 
 some instances of sanguinary outrage in Ireland. But before 
 you make a sweeping condemnation for the faults of a few, look 
 nearer home, I pray you. liook at the fact that, in Liverpool 
 alone, at the last assizes, there were as many offences of a serious 
 nature for trial as in the whole of Ireland. Ireland has calum- 
 niators, and always will have ; and, shame to say it, too many 
 of them men born upon her soil; children thus hating and 
 reviling their country ; and can we wonder at it, when the 
 enemies of Ireland have always received all the rewards of place 
 and favour which power and authority could confer? Will you 
 continue to follow this system now ? You may pretend to ad- 
 minister the affairs of Ireland impartially, without this unfair 
 regard to persons, but if you do, you will find that you will not 
 have a single member of your party voting for you. And if 
 you do not attempt to act impartially, I will not say that you 
 will lose Ireland. God forbid that you should ; but you will 
 
Poivet" in Itself Unpopular. 77 
 
 deserve to lose her, and you will assuredly lose place and power. 
 But can you act impartially — have 3'ou the men and means to 
 do so ? Look at the ranks of your party, and who do we see ? 
 Look at the noble lord opposite, who, as he has made himself 
 most profoundly hated in Ireland, is, I suppose, hy the principle 
 that action and reaction are equal, most beloved in England. 
 How will it be with the noble lord who calumniated the honour 
 and integrity of the people of Ireland, in order that he might 
 deprive them of their franchise ? 
 
 When I reflect what endeavours I have made to purify the 
 stream of justice in Ireland, that I have voted, night after night, 
 in support of a ministry who did not go half as far in the good 
 cause as I did, solely with a view to accomplishing, through 
 their hands, the purifying of the stream of public justice — I look 
 with dread and sorrow to what we may now expect from you. 
 Do you mean to restore the sheriff of Fermanagh ? No doubt 
 you will find means to initiate him ; no doubt you will try 
 means to tranquillize Ireland ; and then you will think you 
 have made all safe. But you will find yourselves wrong ; there 
 is but one safety-valve for a great and sufi'ering people, and 
 that is, to afibrd them the means of giving expression to their 
 distress and their grievances. Your majority will carry you 
 into power ; but how long will you remain there ? Look at 
 the starving and unemployed millions of your fellow-country- 
 men ; your factories desolate, and your cities rendered hideous 
 by squalid misery and thick contagious mortality. Look at your 
 declining commerce, the result of your unjust and pernicious 
 system of legislation. Do you suppose that the people of thi& 
 empire will be long before they form a fair estimate between 
 the friends of freedom and its foes ? You are coming into 
 power ; how long will it be, I wonder, before you will have 
 cause to regret it ? Power is in itself always unpopular, and you 
 will not be long in ofiice before your acts are criticised with 
 severity, and the warmth of your temporary friendships begin 
 to decline. Your alliance with the Chartists will soon be at an 
 end. Anything but the TVhigs for the hon. member for 
 
y8 Importance of the Ballot. 
 
 Wincliester ; and this was precisely the cry of the Chartists, 
 •who said, " Let us bring in the Tories, and we shall soon mul- 
 tiply the number of Chartists." The Tories consider themselves 
 a distinct and superior class, and look upon all the rest of the 
 community as slaves. Seventy-five per cent, of the population 
 of this country is entirely unrepresented ; the people begin to 
 feel this, and see the effect of it in the Corn Law, of which they 
 now so bitterly complain. They begin to see the misery which 
 results from want of freedom and insufficient food. They feel 
 that the Reform Bill has been a failure, and that that measure 
 which would best secure them from intimidation and corruption 
 — namely, the ballot — is denied them. There are abundant 
 -distresses, abundant causes of complaint in the country ; and 
 how do you propose to meet them ? Will you impose new 
 taxes ? I do not wish for evil in order that good may come of 
 it ; but if I could do so I should wish that you should try some 
 of these new taxes. Never did a party come into office sur- 
 rounded with greater difficulties and dangers, and with less of 
 that mens divinier of civil and religious liberty to recommend 
 them ; and I can only conclude by observing, that, " as men's 
 infirmity is God's opportunity," the party now coming into 
 office may be compelled, in spite of themselves, to do justice to 
 Ireland. 
 
 Subject, Party Crimes (Ireland) ; Date, March 7, 1841. 
 
 On the 4tb of March, O'Connell had called attention to the subject of 
 religious intolerance in the army and navy. Only those who had carefully 
 studied his Parliamentary career can estimate the vigilance, the promptness, 
 and the tact with which he dealt with every subject of Catholic interest, 
 with which he defended and protected every individual right, civil, social, and 
 political. 
 
 Lord Elliot replied, and O'Connell, for answer, briefly said, " that the 
 Orangemen were aimed with deadly weapons, while the Catholics were not. 
 He did not know whether they would remain so." 
 
 He could certainly hint significant threats when he considered it necessary. 
 On the 11th of March, when a Bill was brought forward to increase the in- 
 
Religious Equal a y demanded. 79 
 
 come of a Protestant colonial bisliop, lie said the Protestant I'isliop of'Nova 
 Scotia had an income of £2,000 per annum ; the Catholic bishop had only 
 j£75 per annum, and claimed that the spiritual wants of one denomination 
 had as good a right to attention as the spiritual wants of another. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell would take that opportunity of noticing a 
 Tuisrepresentation of his speech, on the conduct of General Espar- 
 tero towards the Spanish clergy, imputing to him the sentiment, 
 that if the cruelties of which he had complained had been visited 
 upon Carlist priests he should care nothing about the matter. 
 He had reprobated the conduct of the present Spanish Govern- 
 ment equally as applied to the Carlist and Christina clergy as a 
 religious persecution ; but he had said that he should not have 
 complained had any Carlist priests been punished according to 
 law for their political offences. He would then proceed, in pur- 
 suance of the notice he had given, to move for a return of tlie 
 names, numbers, and descriptions of persons who had registered 
 arms in the county of Down, Ireland. He was induced to 
 make this motion in consequence of a most deplorable event 
 that had occurred in that county, and which must equally be 
 lamented by both sides of the House. He meant the mui'der 
 of a young man of the name of M'Ardle — one of the most cruel 
 atrocities ever committed. The circumstances of the case were 
 these: — An exceedingly fine youth, six feet three inches in 
 stature, and proportionally well made, of most excellent conduct 
 and temper, having been, on Christmas evening, with a friend 
 called M'Kevron at a public-house at Ballyrany, kept by a man 
 named Copes, a quarrel larose between M'Kevron and an 
 Orangeman, who was also one of the company. M'Ardle inter- 
 fered, put an end to the quarrel, and took his friend out of 
 the house. A person named Tliomas Scott, one of the accused, 
 left Copes' house about the same time as M'Kevron, and pro- 
 ceeded to another public-house, three quarters of a mile off, 
 where were assembled a number of young men who were armed, 
 and had been practising with ball cartridge in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 These fellows, who had assumed the ridiculous name of 
 
8o " Yellow TiUipsr 
 
 *' Yellow Tulips," were drinking in a bam, their arms being- 
 piled up in a corner, and when a messenger arrived, they took 
 their arms, proceeded to the house where M'Kevron had been, 
 and demanded that he should be turned out. On being in- 
 formed ho was gone, they proceeded to search the house, firing, 
 into it, breaking all the doors and windows, and making an 
 indiscriminate attack on such within as were known to be 
 Eoman Catholics. M'Ardle, however, escaped to a house dis- 
 tant about a mile, and owned by a man named Ward. Thither 
 they pursued him, and attacked the house where he had taken 
 shelter. He again effected his escape ; but before he got a mile 
 further, he was overtaken, lying near a lime-kiln, and shot 
 dead. The trial for the murder took place at the last Down 
 assizes, and the result was an immediate acquittal of the 
 parties accused. He did not impute blame where blame did 
 not lie ; but that blame rested somewhere was perfectly evident. 
 "When the verdict was delivered, there was a shout in courts 
 " To hell with the Pope "—the usual Orange cry. Although 
 the Attorney-General prosecuted and the judge charged for 
 conviction strongly, the jury, without hesitation, acquitted the 
 accused ; another jury having convicted the very same men of 
 a riot on the very same occasion. There had been another 
 murder since at Ballyrony, and he had received several letters 
 requesting to know what the people were to do — whether they 
 were to be obliged to protect themselves. He should not dwell 
 one moment on these melancholy facts; but what he complained 
 of was, that the magistrates did not at once prevent such a 
 party from spending Christraas-day in firing ball-cartridges. 
 It was altogether a most indecent occupation. He also com- 
 plained of the shout in court immediately after the acquittal of 
 the accused ; but, without at all entering into these questions, 
 he contented himself now with moving for the return above- 
 mentioned. 
 
 I 
 
An Advocate of Universal Stiff rage. 8 1 
 
 Subject, The National Petition— The Charter ; 
 Date, May 3, 1842. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell— As I do not wish my vote to "be misunderstood, 
 I hope I shall be allowed to state in a word or two why I sup- 
 port the present motion. And first let me say, that I do not vote 
 for it because the petition asserts that the Eepeal of the Union 
 is one of the parts of the objects of those who have signed it. 
 That is a subject on which my opinion is fixed ; but this inser- 
 tion in this petition forms no inducement with me to maintain 
 its prayer. In short, I do not wish to identify my views with 
 all the doctrines promulgated by this document. The ground 
 on which my vote shall be given is, that I am — though I may 
 be mistaken — a decided advocate of universal sufirage; audi 
 rest that opinion on the total failure of every man I ever heard 
 discuss this question, and in that particularly of the right hon. 
 member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), to say where the line 
 should be drawn which determines that servitude should end 
 and liberty commence. I do not think that the noble lord 
 (Lord J. Eussell) was more successful in resisting the claims of 
 the working men, by instituting a comparison between the de- 
 mand of every man of twenty-one years of age to be a juryman 
 as well as to vote for a member of Parliament. There was no 
 analogy between the two cases, because the juryman is called on 
 to decide on the property or personal liberty of others, a voter 
 to defend his own. For my part, I repeat, until some rational 
 line can be proved for stamping certain classes of Englishmen 
 as of a degraded nature, I shall never consent to their degrada- 
 tion by law. The condition of this kingdom is one that inspires 
 awe. I do not wish to draw any d'jclaration from the Secretary 
 for Ireland on the state of things there ; but, if I am not greatly 
 misinformed, she is in a perilous state. There certainly is no 
 security for the continuance of the present orderly and peaceful 
 habits of the working classes of this country ; and if you did 
 
 VOL. II. 7 
 
 y 
 
82 The Ballot. 
 
 nothing more by consenting to this motion than to gratify the 
 wishes of a large mass of your countrymen, you would not go 
 too far by admitting them to your Bar, and hearing their griev- 
 ances under any restrictions you may think fit to adopt. 
 
 ^uhjcd, The Ballot; Baie, June 21, 1842. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — And that was a recommendation of a system 
 generating mean, paltry, dirty, and cowardly conduct. Why, 
 no one could tolerate such a system for one moment. No man 
 can be a party to such a recommendation. Does such a system 
 require discussion or argument — is not conviction immediate ? 
 And yet the right hon. gentleman was conjointly of one of the 
 few who recommended it. Oh, but there was to be full discus- 
 sion ; there was to be deliberation before the ballot was embodied 
 in the scheme. {Mr. Sliiel : ^'AdojjtecV') Was ''adopted" 
 the word — could it be possible? Yes, it was. The words 
 were : " It is suggested that the vote by ballot be adopted." 
 And this was his mean, dirty, paltry, cowardly sj^stem. Oh, 
 yes ! it was easy to use those words ; but he wanted to know 
 this — was it the poor wretch who was forced to give his vote 
 unwillingly ; was it the poor individual who was forced to give 
 his vote to support his family that was all this ? It might be 
 so ; but who made him so ? It might be so ; but who con- 
 tinued him so ? (cheers). Aye ; he was proud of that ironical 
 cheer. He knew they were not the people to stand between the 
 trembling victim and he who would sacrifice him to his love of 
 wealth. They were not the people to adopt the ballot — an 
 honest system (oh! oh!). Yes, he repeated it— an honest sys- 
 tem. Aye, they thought no system honest unless in a commer- 
 cial point of view — to give their money, and get the full value 
 for it. And had they no compunction at the bribery which 
 prevailed under the system ? Had they no horror at the per- 
 jury which followed it ? He had read to them the other night, 
 
Perjury and Bribery. ^t, 
 
 wlien tlie Newcastle case was discussed, how a father took his 
 son to the polling-booth and saw him perjure himself, and 
 when asked why he permitted it, replied, " So many others 
 were perjuring themselves also." That was their system. That 
 was the system that did not engender aught, mean, dirty, 
 paltry, or cowardly. Was it in England that the hideous, 
 horrible, and extensive bribery took place which had been ex- 
 posed before the Sudbury election committee ? They talked of 
 conscience, and refused justice to others who differed from them 
 in faith ; but, fortunately, they were all agreed as to morals ; 
 and yet there were those who would not consent to a measure 
 which would take away from the wetch, who was willing to 
 be bribed, that which gave value td the bribery. There was a 
 plan for doing away with perjury by abolishing bribery ; but 
 the very remedy denoted a foregone conclusion, and showed 
 how extensive was the perjury which was thus to be provided 
 against; but still the corrupt voter would remain the self- 
 degraded wretch, and the same hateful miscreant same as under 
 the present system. The highest value, however, which he set 
 upon the ballot was that if the voter was not to be bribed, the 
 question arose how was he to be influenced ? He could, then, 
 only be influenced by the public worth and services of the 
 candidate, and the consequence would be that in endeavouring 
 to win the suffrage in his behalf, the candidate, instead of en- 
 deavouring to corrupt the public by bribery, would recommend 
 himselfby his virtues, and become noble, generous, and humane. 
 The discussion taking the shape which it had done, spoke in 
 favour of the original principles of the Reform Bill, as it showed 
 that the majority in that House had the modesty, at least, to 
 shun the test of the ballot-box, well knowing what would be 
 the result. The degrading effect of the ballot, he meant of the 
 present system, was well known ; and, indeed, admitted by all, 
 for none stood up to deny the extent of the bribery which had 
 been alleged ; and in the Bill of the noble lord, the member for 
 Dublin, that bribery would be stamped in perpetual record. 
 
34 Distress in Ireland. 
 
 Suhjecf, Distress of the Country; Bate, Jvly 8, 1842. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said that if he thought, in rising so early 
 to address the House, he could influence their determination, he 
 should be guilty of presumption and vanity. He knew well 
 that he could not hope they would do anything when they had 
 resolved upon doing nothing, but meant to repose in the hope 
 that something better might occur hereafter. If lie could hope 
 to excite them to exertion, he might point to the present state 
 of things as sufficient to arouse them ; he could tell them that 
 there was much peril in their present position. He might warn 
 them that the state itself was in danger ; that evil was around 
 them, and a still greater evil impending. There could be no 
 doubt that distress pervaded England. He never knew such an 
 unanimity to prevail upon any subject as upon the allegation 
 of general distress in England. Ireland, too, was suffering ; 
 but that, alas ! was now nothing new« She was, however, suf- 
 fering extremely at present- There were two sources from 
 which sprung the misery of Ireland — one was in its nature 
 temporary, but was constantly recurring ; and the other was 
 more permanent in its nature, and the relief not possible at 
 present. To give relief, however, to Ireland, they must first have 
 prosperity in England. The first species of distress in Ireland 
 was the consequence of the three bad harvests. They had an 
 exceedingly short harvest last year. He had reason, however, 
 to believe, to have the confident hope, that the poor man's har- 
 vest this year was likely to be very abundant. That was in- 
 formation which he received from every quarter. Of course he 
 was sure that there was nothing that he could announce to the 
 House that would give more general satisfaction. He feared, 
 however, that a very contrary intimation must be given of the 
 wheat and oats, which were of the greatest importance to Ire- 
 land, He wished it might not be so ; but he was afraid there 
 was great accuracy in the statements he had received, conveying 
 the intelligence. The other distress which was most permanent 
 
Distress in Gahuay. 85 
 
 in Ireland, was the distress of those engaged in all kinds of 
 trade, and especially the retail dealers. The business of the 
 shojokeepers was diminishing daily, their debts were increasing, 
 their profits disappearing, and their embarrassments continually 
 extending. He did not see the possibility of this state of things 
 being relieved, unless he could find it in the common interests 
 which Ireland had in the prosperity of this country. He had, 
 then, a nation's interest in relieving the distress that now pre- 
 vailed in England. To show the distress that prevailed in Ire- 
 land, he should read an extract from an Irish newspaper. It 
 was to the following effect : — 
 
 " It would appear from the Galway, lloscommon, and Tuam papers re- 
 ceived yesterday, that the sufferings of the destitute have been but slightly, 
 if at all, alleviated by the exertions of the local communities, and for the sim- 
 ple reason, that the wealthy have neither aided them by their personal influ- 
 ence, nor contributed in proportion to their means, the whole weight of tlie 
 burden has, as usual, fallen on the middle classes — the small resident gen- 
 try, the shopkeepei's, and farmers, have subscribed largely and generously 
 towards the relief funds ; but the absentee landlords have done nothing, or 
 next to nothing for the miserable wretches who are literally dying of hunger 
 in the immediate vicinity of their castle gates. ' The distress of the people,' 
 says the Gahuay Vindicator, of Saturday, 'is fiir from being abated. 
 Throughout several districts of Mayo, and in this county, the people are 
 pining under an amount of suffering unprecedented in the annals of even 
 Irish misery. The calamity is aggravated by the heartless brutality of grind- 
 ing and oppressing landlords, who have no bowels of compassion for the poor.' 
 That the people are in the condition described above is unfortunately too 
 true. Famine is stalking over the land, and the calamity, as the Galway 
 paper observes, is aggravated by the heartless brutality of the possessors. 
 On Saturday last, a poor man came before ]\Ir. Brew, the stipendiary magis- 
 trate at Tuam, and voluntarily made oath that neither he, his wife, nor his 
 two young children, had partaken of any description of food since the pre- 
 ceding Monday ; in other words, that, for five days and nights, a whole family 
 had been subjected to the most horrible torture which human nature can 
 endure?" 
 
 There was nothing worse than that in this country, but still 
 there was not the least doubt of the fearful extent of the dis- 
 tress here. Not a town was sjioken of without a description of 
 
86 Relief not given. 
 
 the distress wliicli existed in it. The statistics of misery had 
 been over and over again gone through. This had not been a 
 question of relief, not of hopes of prosperity, not of anything 
 like ordinary or temporary distress ; but it was a question of 
 what places were most deeply afHicted ; what trade laboured 
 under the greatest depression ; what class of operatives were 
 worst off; in which town was the greatest number of families 
 pining under the influence of want and despair ? And this was 
 the way in which this country was spoken of — this great coun- 
 try, which had so long held its proud state, the first among the 
 nations, the first in arts, in science, and in arms ; the first in 
 commercial industry, acuteness, and in that mental power and 
 vigour which had given its skill free scope and field ; which had 
 made it the " envy of surrounding nations, and the admiration 
 of the world." "What was its condition now ? A condition of 
 distress ; of despair ; of people, of families famishing. He felt 
 he could not depict in language strong enough for the occasion 
 the extent of surrounding misery. But were they safe in re- 
 maining thus ? Was the social state safe in remaining thus ? 
 He had listened the other evening with the most profound at- 
 tention to the speech of the right hon. baronet, the Secretary 
 for the Home Department. He had listened with equal atten- 
 tion to the sjoeech of the right hon. baronet at the head of the 
 Ministry, and to that delivered by the noble lord, the Secretary 
 for the Colonies. He had listened to them all with the utmost 
 anxiety, to hear whether they held out any hope to the people ; 
 whether thej^ held out any consideration to come between tliem 
 and despair. The speech of the noble lord was characteristic. 
 It was a reply, and, of course, an able one, but it had no more 
 to do with the distress of the country, or the mode of relieving 
 these distresses than it had with the late cabinet of Shah Soojah, 
 or a convocation of mandarins at Canton. 
 
 The noble lord referred to a whole catalogue of causes, 
 to which different people attributed the distress, and sorry 
 was he to see a smile upon the faces of some hon. mem- 
 bers at the recital ; but the noble lord had given them no cata- 
 
N'o Measure of Relief suggested. 87 
 
 logue of means of relief ; he had suggested no hopes — had held 
 cut no expectations of relief. The noble lord had talked of the 
 causes of distress ; but the question was, the means of relieving 
 that distress. On that head the noble lord said nothing. The 
 right hon. baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, 
 likewise had suggested no measure of relief. He had told 
 them of the impropriety of using language in that House which 
 would have the effect of exciting the people. But if hunger did 
 not excite them, what signified language? Then came the 
 right hon. baronet at the head of the Government. And what 
 did he say ? The right hon. baronet objected to the terms of 
 the amendment with all his great ingenuity ; but out of these 
 objections, supposing the right hon. baronet to have been tri- 
 umphant, could he not have framed a resolution of his own, 
 which the House might adopt. There could be no difficulty in 
 getting ready the words, provided they got the things. But' 
 the right hon. baronet had concluded by stating that the quan- 
 tity of cotton which had been entered for home manufacture 
 this year was as great, if not greater, than last year ; that some 
 mills were about to be opened, and some foundries put in 
 blast. But had any man ever held out a hope of the general 
 distress being alleviated by these means. The right hon. 
 baronet's speech was a mere piece of mystification, not appli- 
 cable to the question, and presenting no consolatory topics. 
 His answer to the mystification was, that the people were 
 starving. The right hon. baronet boasted of his tariff as being 
 superior in conception and extent to the proposed commercial 
 plans of the late Government ; he had entered into the details 
 of the subject, but had they healed the evils in the land ? His 
 answer to the tariff argument again was, that the people were 
 starving. He did not mean to speak of the right hon. baronet's 
 speech or those of his colleagues with disrespect, but they con- 
 tained no matter for hope — no suggestions thrown out with a 
 view of producing even partial relief. And if the Government 
 could not even give them hope, ought not they, for the sake 
 of the people, consent to an inquiry. The fact of the distress 
 
S8 The Anti-Coni-Laiv League. 
 
 was undoubted. It was undoubted, too, that it was not a dis- 
 tress which had suddenly sprung up. It was certain that it 
 had been approaching gradually, that, like the stealthy progress 
 of the in-coming tide, it had been pursuing its gradual course, and 
 year after year, going on increasing more and more until it had 
 now arrived at its acme, a deplorable and unendurable height. 
 This they had on all hands admitted. And was it not most 
 melancholy to think — was it not most deadening to hope, to 
 look back upon the gradual approach of that misery, proceeding 
 by degrees, and overwhelming everything which came in its 
 way ? Day after day more operatives were being discharged, 
 and want was increasing. Nobody denied all this, and yet 
 there were they sitting, talking coolly upon the subject, while 
 the country was starving. He did not know if it was a super- 
 stitious feeling, but he could not divest himself of the idea that 
 there was something fatal — fearful — approaching. Why did ho 
 think so ? It was from this. Did they forget that they were 
 class legislators ? — did they forget that there was a landed class 
 in this House — that there was also a class having great com- 
 mercial wealth ? and did they forget that the people knew it as 
 well as they did ? Did they forget that this House had been 
 thronged with those who had obtained their seats by means of 
 the grossest bribery ? Did they forget that it had been ad- 
 mitted that bribery liad everywhere existed; and did they 
 forget that the people believed that they owed their seats to 
 the worst and foulest means ? They all knew that the Anti- 
 Corn-Law League was at present holding sittings in London, 
 and he supposed there was no man so insensible as not to read 
 the speeches which had been made there [a laugh). Ay, they 
 laughed— they had not thought of doing so. That laugh with 
 which liis words had been greeted strengthened his impression 
 of impending calamity ; for could he entertain other feelings 
 when he saw the misery of the people treated with ridicule and 
 laughter ? But he would read the following extract from one 
 of the speeches delivered at the Anti-Corn Law League. It 
 was this : — 
 
English Opinion of the House of Commons. 89 
 
 " Had not the ■working classes and tlie middle classes reason to speak with 
 unqualified contempt of the House of Commons? Had it not been returned 
 by gross bribery ? Had they not all of them declared such to be the case in 
 the House of Commons? Had not the aristocracy of England, and also the 
 money-bag aristocracy, brought about their consummation? Had they not 
 caused thousands of honest and independent minds, by threats and intimida- 
 tion, to commit mental treason against their country ; and would they not 
 abominate that system that scared men into vassalage, and cursed them with 
 slavery — that maddened them into lunatics, and drove them to acts of incen- 
 diarism, and if they did not die upon the scaflbld, they were sent to foreign 
 lands, or else they were made paupers and buried as such." 
 
 Was it not something new that language like this should 
 be uttered — not by a constant agitator — not by one who made 
 such pursuits his business, and was often therefore stigmatised 
 as a demagogue — but that it should be uttered by industrious 
 persons of the middle and wealthier orders, who, under the pres- 
 sure of grievances, were driven to use language which, in their 
 more calm moments, they would have avoided ? Was not such 
 a state of things pregnant with danger ? The right hon. 
 baronet at the head of the Government had told them that in 
 many towns and districts there were individuals who openly 
 tried to excite the people to acts of violence. The right hon. 
 baronet had told them this, giving them, at the same time, the 
 melancholy consolation that they possessed sufficient military 
 power to put down any sudden outbreak of violence. It was 
 indeed true that they should be glad to hear that the social 
 state had some means of protection. But was it not melancholy 
 that there did exist in society materials of such an inflamma- 
 tory nature that the destruction of property might soon com- 
 mence as a sort of revenge for misery and distress ; and that even 
 in these sviffering districts the people were not left to the mere 
 incitement which hunger or their own bad passions might lead as 
 to acts of violence, but that there were persons among them in- 
 stigating them ani urging them forward. Those great pro- 
 prietors — those who have lived a life of luxury and ease — did 
 they not hear in the groans of the people a voice of prophecy, a 
 threatening voice, warning them that their state was not secure ; 
 
go Yotc are Prospering but we are Starving. 
 
 announcing to them the perils by which thej were surrounded ? 
 Would they wait until manufactories were blazing and farm- 
 steads on fire ? With such a prospect would they stand still — 
 would they do nothing for the people ? Much of the fear, of 
 the forebodings which he felt was founded upon the simplicity 
 which, in political subjects, existed among men naturally 
 humane and generous. He was not accusing them of insensi- 
 bility in their individual characters, but the more kindly and 
 generous they usually were, the more astonished he was that 
 this insensibility should sometimes prevail. Their not rousing- 
 themselves to put some bounds to the country's misery stamped 
 insensibility upon them. 
 
 They (the Opposition) were often asked, what means of re- 
 lieving the distress they would resort to. He would, at all 
 events, make an experiment. The state of the country was 
 such as to warrant them in trying any experiment from which 
 they could hope to reap beneficial results. But there appeared 
 to be a simple plan. The simplest housewife could adopt it. 
 The people were hungry — let them eat. But they said there 
 was no food. Let them tell him no such thing. There were 
 at this moment upwards of 1,500,000 quarters of wheat lying in 
 bond, waiting until higher prices became high enough for the 
 landlords to allow the people to be fed. Let them take care, for 
 a time might be at hand in which no rents would be forthcom- 
 ing. If this was an ordinary time of distress he would not urge 
 them to make the experiment ; but they were in a woeful state ; the 
 whole social state was in danger. Make the experiment, then. 
 It must injure the landholders, but it would hold out some 
 prospect of relief. The people knew that food was within their 
 reach. They knew that it was locked up from them, in order 
 that one class amongst them might prosper. The monopolists, 
 indeed, said they continued the system for the benefit of all ; 
 but the people said they persevered in it for the benefit of 
 themselves. The monopolists said that their object was the 
 prosperity of all classes. The people's answer was, " You are 
 prospering, but we are starving." And their complaint had 
 
The State in Danger. 9 1 
 
 tlie likeness of truth ; nay, it was true. That was the condition 
 of the country. And he addressed the House with a solemn 
 conviction that something terrible was in store if they did not 
 rouse and exert themselves. Yet they stood rigid, immovable, 
 refusing to give relief. Let no man tell him that he had not 
 proposed something definite — something practical. He had 
 proposed a plan which, even if it failed, would enable them to 
 say to the people, " Your distress is not our fault ; as far as we 
 can we have relieved your starvation." But they still perse- 
 vered in even refusing to attempt this. If their minds were 
 not made up upon the effects which the adoj^tion of his plan 
 would produce, let them inquire. Let them inquire into the 
 bearing of the adoption upon the markets. That they could 
 easily find out. He, therefore, in the name of the people, called 
 on the Government to make the experiment. He did so with 
 the conscientious conviction that at this moment the State was 
 in danger, and he could not see how those who allowed the 
 distress to be as deep, as extensive, as it was on all hands ad- 
 mitted to be, could believe that the people could long continue 
 patiently to endure the misery in which they were plunged » 
 Let them remember that this was not the first time in which 
 the country had been placed on the verge of revolution. He 
 remembered the fearful state in which the country was left 
 when the last Tory administration went out of office. The 
 southern counties were in a state of insurrection. Well he re- 
 membered that, night after niglit, houses were attacked ; that 
 lives were lost ; and that a special commission was obliged to 
 be issued ; that the law was disobeyed ; that the judge and the 
 hangman were left to be the sole vindicators of social order. 
 He could remember all that. They had escaped the main 
 danger then ; but would they continue to escape it ? TVas the 
 distress which existed then at all comparable to that which 
 existed now ? No ; the state of things at the period in question 
 was plenty and happiness to what it was now. Did they want 
 to wait until another insurrection should take place ? There 
 was no country which would suffer more from acts of revolu- 
 
9 2 Newfoundland, 
 
 tionarv violence than Britain. The state of society here was 
 so complicated, the different classes so much bound up in each 
 other, that the shock of revolution would produce miseries 
 greater than were or could be contemplated. Surely, this was 
 an additional motive for acting ; the very distress which such 
 an event would entail upon those who brought it about was 
 surely a motive which should not be without its effect upon the 
 Legislature in urging them to take some steps of relief. Were 
 they to wait until the incendiary began his work — until the 
 manufactories were blazing, and woollen and cotton mills 
 spreading abroad their flames upon the night ? They them- 
 selves could not be safe unless they made an effort for the relief 
 of the people. If they stood silent — if class legislators, intro- 
 duced to the House by such means as he had alluded to, refused 
 to give the people relief, he had at all events done his part. 
 He had laid the distress before them ; he had suggested means 
 of relief. If that plan should be found wrong, let those who 
 objected to it make some other suggestion ; if they could 
 not make a better, let them take up his. At all events, let 
 them not close upon the people the door of despair. The 
 ministry had given the people no hope — they had shown insen- 
 sibility to suffering ; but let them retrace their steps, and let 
 not Parliament separate until some effort had been made to re- 
 lieve the suffering millions of this country. 
 
 Suhject, Newfoundland ; Date, July 30, 1842. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell rose to move that the Committee be post- 
 poned for three months, to enable a communication to be had 
 from the parties interested. He contended that no case could 
 be made out for the present Bill. What were the facts ? In 
 1832 there was every reason to expect that the grant of a con- 
 stitution to Newfoundland would be attended with beneficial 
 effects ; and, after inquiries had been instituted, a charter was 
 
A Reward /or Loyally. 93 
 
 granted on the 27tli July of that year, giving them a consti- 
 tution, which consisted of two Houses of Parliament ; one con- 
 sisting of representatives elected by the people, and the other 
 of a legislative council appointed by the Crown, a governor 
 having the power of assenting to or withholding his consent 
 from the measures the two bodies agreed to. That constitu- 
 tion had been suspended, in consequence of some irregularities 
 which it was pretended justified such a proceeding. But what 
 was the state of the colony now ? Upon this point he would 
 refer to a despatch from Sir John Harvey, the governor, dated 
 October 6, ]841, which said : — 
 
 " 1. The inhabitants of Newfoundland appear to be unfeignedly loyal an<! 
 firmly attached to British connection. No material degree of political excite- 
 ment appears at present anywhere to exist, but, on the contrary, an apparent 
 approximation towards a general disposition to bury past occurrences in ob- 
 livion. The trade of the colony is flourishing; its revenues ample and in- 
 creasing; the fisheries of the present year, both of seals and cod-fish, have 
 been highly successful. 2. The apparent suspension of their representative 
 constitution, so recently conferred upon them, upon the ground of their gross 
 abuse of the elective franchise, has evidently created much apprehension in 
 the public mind, and has, I am willing to believe, produced such a moral effect 
 as would exert a salutary influence in repressing any undue violence in future 
 elections, in the event of her Majesty's Government deciding on authorising 
 
 me to convene another assemb'y To some of the causes to- 
 
 which these discordant proceedings may be imputed I may hereafter advert^ 
 at present 1 will merely observe, that all parties are, I hope and believe, con- 
 vinced that moderation in their measures and proceedings will best accord 
 with their true interests ; and all and every individual of every creed, party 
 and denomination who has approached me, and with whom I have held com- 
 munication, has expressed an anxious desire that its constitution should be 
 lestored to the island, with certain modifications." 
 
 The people were loyal and attached to this country, and, 
 how were they about to reward them ? By trampling on them 
 and taking away their constitution. Let them not trust too 
 much to their power to crush the people of Newfoundland. 
 Let them remember that the French had a strong interest in th& 
 island. What were the reasons for seeking to oppress the in- 
 habitants of Newfoundland ? He regretted that he should have 
 
94 T'V/iy the People zvej^e Persecuted, 
 
 to state what those reasons were, but the truth must be told. 
 Thej were persecuting the people of that island, because the 
 majority of them were Roman Catholics. Mark the words used 
 T3J the noble lord opposite in his despatch, in answer to that 
 from Sir John Harvey, from which he had just quoted. The 
 noble lord the Secretary for the Colonies said — 
 
 " So far as my attention has yet been called to the difficulties connected with 
 the administration of the affaii'S of Newfoundland, they appear to me to arise 
 mainly from three causes : — 1st. The interference of the Roman Catholic 
 priesthood with election matters, which has led to feelings of religious ani- 
 mosity, previously unknown in the colony, and to scenes of a scandalous cha- 
 racter, shocking to religious and well-disposed Roman Catholics." 
 
 The grievance that he particularly complained of was, that 
 this Bill was not founded on an investigation in which both 
 parties had been heard. All he required was, that the Bill 
 should be postponed till such an investigation was completed. 
 In connection with this part of the subject, he would read an 
 extract of a letter written to himself by the Bishop of Newfound- 
 land, and dated the 25th of June, 1842 : — 
 
 " My dear Lord IVIayor — Your lordship retains in recollection the com- 
 mittee of last year ; you remember that upon the occasion of that mock 
 inquiry the people of Newfoundland were taken by surprise, and had no op- 
 portunity of being heard either by evidence or by counsel before that body, 
 and that the several witnesses examined — almost all, indeed I believe all, 
 with the exception of Captain Geary — were persons who professedly had not 
 been in that island for several years, Sir Thomes Cochrane since 1834 ; Rlr. 
 Brooking since 1835; Dr. Shea since 1836; and none of them present during 
 the general election, which took place in the latter part of that year, and the 
 occurrences and the returns at which were made the principal subjects of 
 complaint; but the people of Newfoundland were studiously kept in the dark 
 upon the subject of the int ^nded Inquiry, although the Legislature was sittinf 
 at the time, until accident developed It on the very last day of Session. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the House of Assembly had only a few hours of ex- 
 istence before them, however, they appointed four gentlemen of their body 
 to repair to London and assist at the Investigation In the expectation that 
 they would have been examined, and that the country would have the benefit 
 of their evidence ; but upon their arrival in London the Committee was up, 
 the Parliament shortly after prorogued, dissolved, and the ministry changed. 
 
The Alterations proposed. 95 
 
 "Under these circumstances the delegates of the Assembly, appointed by 
 their unanimous vote, were received by Lord John Russell, and invited by his 
 lordship to put themselves in communication with the Government in writing ; 
 and in compliance with this invitation three or four impoi-tant communica- 
 tions were made by them ; and then, finding that there was no likelihood that 
 the affairs of Newfoundland would, during that year, be brought under the 
 consideration of Parliament, they departed from London, and returned to 
 Newfoundland, but not before they had procured from Lord John Kussell, 
 through Mr. R. Vernon Smith, a reply, that no measure should be mooted 
 with respect to Newfoundland without a fair and sufficient notification being 
 previously made to the people of that colony, to enable them to adopt the ne- 
 cessary means of defending their constitution ; a distinct pledge bearing date 
 80th of August, 1841, and signed by R. Vernon Smith, that if the House of 
 Commons shall determine on reviving the committee on the affairs of New- 
 foundland, the Secretary of State will give you (the delegates) due intimation 
 of it ; and a similar pledge was subsequently verbally given by Lord Stanley 
 to Mr. Brown, after the departure of the delegates; and by Lord Stanley, 
 Mr. Brown was disliuctly authorised to communicate that pledge to his 
 colleagues." 
 
 He had a right to say that faith had been kept with the 
 parties who opposed the Bill. There was an absence of all 
 evidence on whicli to proceed to the destruction of the constitu- 
 tion ; on the contrary, the greatest blessings resulted to the 
 people from their having obtained a constitution. A small and 
 insignificant party was interested in the destruction of the con- 
 stitution, because it would advance their own monopolising 
 interests ; but the popular party — the party benefited by the 
 constitution — the party interested in the internal improvement 
 of the colony, desired the preservation of the constitution, and 
 that was the position of the inhabitants whose interest it was 
 now sought to crush. 
 
 But let them see what were the alterations which the noble 
 lord proposed to make in the constitution. The first was to 
 destroy the two Houses of the Legislature, and amalgamate 
 them into one. Why thus mock them with the appearance 
 without the reality of a constitution ? Let the old system be 
 revived. Let despotism be established. Let the people be 
 punished formally for making improvements in the colony, for 
 
q6 Opinions in the Colony. 
 
 building houses, for cultivating the land. Let there be a des- 
 potism which would be responsible, but let them not receive a 
 mockery of a constitution. Let not their legislature be con- 
 verted into a divan. The second alteration proposed was an 
 increase in the qualifications of the members of the Assembly. 
 Sir J. Harvey recommended the increase in the qualification, 
 and he was not adverse to it. The colonists themselves were 
 willing to increase the qualification; but this Bill proposed to 
 take the matter out of their hands. He protested against thus 
 taking the legislation upon this subject from the inhabitants of 
 the colony. He objected also to the change proposed to be 
 made in the qualification of voters, which was to be raised to a 
 £5 franchise for the town districts, and a 40s. freeholder with 
 an occupation of two years. He contended that such an altera- 
 tion would disfranchise a very large proportion of the inhabi- 
 tants, and whom Sir J. Harvey considered as the most valuable 
 part of the community. Sir J. Harvey said in a despatch, 
 dated January 10, 1812 : — 
 
 "I am of opinion that to require any rent qualification whatever, or any 
 property — one, beyond, perhaps, the lowest valve of a log hut (say 40.), and 
 that, in fact, can scarcely be regarded as the property of the squatter, from 
 being erected on ground to which he can have acquired no other title than 
 such as an unauthorised occupancy may be considered conferring upon him — 
 would operate a very extensive disfranchisement in the country districts, 
 without at all improving, or, indeed, materially changing the description of 
 voters ; and, with regard to the towns, the qualification being already re- 
 stricted by an Act of the Local Legislature to one person in each house, 
 namely, him by whom the rent is paid, no further provision would appear to 
 be required upon this subject." 
 
 Sir J. Harvey solicited the opinions of five " highly respectable 
 individuals in the colony," and they all agreed that the effect 
 of raising the franchise would be the disfranchisement of many 
 voters. One of these gentlemen said : — 
 
 "After giving the subject all the consideration in my power, I beg re- 
 spectfully to say, first, with I'egard to voters, that it may be laid down as a 
 general proposition, that a household franchise is most suitable to the pecu- 
 
The Fj^anchise in Neivfoundland. 97 
 
 liar circumstances of the inhabitants of this colony. Under this circumstance, 
 it is my opinion, that a rent or property qualification, to supersede the pre- 
 sent unlimited system of household suffrage, would, in effect, disfranchise a 
 large portion of the inhabitants. I hope it may not be considered presump- 
 tuous in me to state, in conclusion, my humble opinion that, if the present 
 constitution, so generously and liberally granted by his late Majesty, has not 
 been found to answer the expectation formed at the commencement, the fault 
 does not lie in the constitution." 
 
 The second gentleman said : — 
 
 '* I consider, in the present state of Newfoundland, a property qualifica- 
 tion impracticable and unjust; it would have the effect to disfranchise the 
 greatest and best part of the population. In a moral and political point 
 of view, I consider household suffrage the best that has yet been discovered. 
 A householder is, for the most part, a husband and a father, having a fixed 
 locality ; the peace of his community and the prosperity of his country must 
 be dear to him." 
 
 The third expressed his opinion as follows : — 
 
 " I do not think that a rent or property qualification would be productive 
 of much, if any, practical advantage. Household suffrage, guarded by an 
 efficient system of registry, together with simultaneous voting under a new 
 division of the electoral districts, such as I recommended in my communica- 
 tion to the right hon. her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Colo- 
 nies, Lord John Russell, in July last, would, in my humble opinion, go far to 
 render any other qualification unnecessary. In nearly all the other settle- 
 ments, the inhabitants occupy premises which have descended to them from 
 their ancestors, or land which they have themselves redeemed from the wil- 
 derness, for which they pay no rent to the Crown, and on which they have 
 built for the convenience of their families and the purposes of the fishery. I 
 would further remark, that such property is, in a great degree, valuable only 
 so long as it be thus occupied, and that the annual rent of an ordinary house 
 in St. John's would be almost equivalent to the full value of these freeholds, 
 and, in many instances, much more." 
 
 The fourth gentleman admitted that the augmentation of the 
 franchise would deprive of the right of voting a class of persons 
 whom he was pleased to describe as " strangers and raw young- 
 sters recently imported from England or Ireland." The fifth. 
 
 VOL. II. 8 
 
g8 Letter from a Catholic Bishop. 
 
 gentleman who was applied to for information, expressed him- 
 self in a similar strain. He said : — 
 
 " The advantnges which would result from such a regulation or law would 
 be to di>franchise many adventurers arriving from the mother country or the 
 colonies, having no property or stake in this colony, and who have hitherto 
 been allowed to vote from the occupation of a hut of nominal value in the 
 woods, or a room, as under-tenant, in town." 
 
 It had been said, with respect to the subject of the finances, 
 that the Crown ought to have the power of originating money- 
 grants, as was done in this country. Why, according to the 
 Charter, no money could be expended without the Governor's 
 warrant. Some grants, certainly, could be made by the As- 
 sembly, but was that a ground for destroying the constitution ? 
 Everything that was wanted would be done. There w^as no 
 necessity for thus trampling on the liberties of the people. The 
 Catholic bishop of the colony, in the letter from which he had 
 already quoted, stated that the Assembly had never refused any 
 supply ; that they had been always ready to adopt any propo- 
 sition made by the Governor, notwithstanding the Council had 
 thwarted them in every possible way. He would read the pas- 
 te the House : — 
 
 "I might go much further; but that I feel I have already fatigued you I 
 might mention the extraordinary circumstance, that this much maligned 
 House never refused whatever supplies were demanded by the Executive, 
 however extravagant ; and that, notwithstanding this, the Council were eter- 
 nally thwarting them, by refusing the necessary votes for the necessary contin- 
 gent expenses of the House. I might mention, that every measure that was ever 
 recommended by the Secretary of State, or by the Governor, was ever sure, with- 
 out one solitary exception, to be adopted by the Assembly, and reduced to a 
 Bill, and passed ; and I might have shown you, that Bill after Bill of these, 
 notwithstanding such recommendation, was thrown out by the Council, many 
 of them even without amendment, many without reaching to a committal, 
 and some even without a second reading. But I think I have gone far 
 enough, to inform you generally upon the main questions connected with this 
 Bill ; and even this would, probably, have been unnecessary, were it not that 
 the official party here, who are leagued with the merchants, have just now 
 entered upon a most furious erusade against the press, evidently to silence 
 them while this measure is before the House." 
 
Attack on the Liberties of Newfoundland. 99 
 
 He denied that the noble lord had found the constitution 
 suspended. The Session of the Assembly had ended in May, 
 1841, and it was impossible that a new election could have 
 been held before November, because the whole adult population 
 was absent, during the interval, at the fisheries. The deputa- 
 tion which had been over here on the subject had been assured, 
 by Mr, V. Smith, that nothing should be done without due in- 
 vestigation. Now, he asked where that investigation had taken 
 place ? Every principle of honesty, of justice, and of fairness, 
 was in favour of his proposition, and yet he knew that the 
 majority of that House would support the Government in this 
 attack upon the liberties of Newfoundland. If the Bill had 
 been brought forward earlier in the Session, an expression on 
 the subject might have been elicited from the people of England, 
 who would have had generosity enough to ask for a fair trial. 
 "Why did not the noble lord call another Assembly, as had been 
 recommended by Sir John Harvey, and see if that Assembly 
 would not make every necessary alteration in the existing con- 
 stitution ? They had stated their willingness to raise the quali- 
 fication of members, and to give the Grovernment the initiation 
 in the introduction of grants. Under the noble lord's plan, 
 considerable delay must take place in calling together the 
 Legislative Assembly. Under his plan, no such delay would 
 take place. It had been objected that, among the members of 
 the Assembly, there was one who could not read or write, and 
 two who were in menial situations. Had those persons been 
 elected by the popular party ? No. They had been elected by the 
 mercantile party to bring the Assembly into contempt. In 1836, 
 the elections placed the anti-constitutional party in a minority, 
 and the Grovernment declared those writs void, because a little 
 bit of wax had not been attached to them. At the new election, 
 four mercantile men were elected ; they refused to serve, and 
 these persons were elected in their stead ; so that the anti-con- 
 stitutional party first elect improper persons, and then turn 
 round and say, " Look at the improper persons who are elected 
 under this constitution." Could anything be so gross or so in- 
 
:oo Jealousy of the Catholics of the Colony. 
 
 consistent as this ? He had received a letter which gave a 
 history of the transaction. The writer said : — 
 
 " It is a singular circumstance that all the persons who were complained 
 of as being unfit members were returned by Protestant districts. I do not 
 blame the Protestant constituency for this ; it grew out of a combination 
 among the Protestant merchants not to take a seat in the Assembly, even 
 though they should be elected. In the year 1836, during the administration 
 of Captain Prescott, there was a general election ; it was hotly contested in 
 almost every district in the island ; the general result was a majority in favour 
 of the Liberal party. Shortly after this election was declared void, owing, 
 ?,s it was said, to some informality in the writs. When the mercantile party 
 could not acquire a majority, they changed their tactique, they seceded alto- 
 gether — they not alone seceded, but they used their influence to return unfit 
 persons. The person most complained of was a man named Moore ; he was 
 returned for Trinity by the influence of the house of llobinson. Brooking, 
 and Garland, and then, after thus notoriously supporting the return, they 
 charged the disgrace of it on the Catholic constituency. I will now give you 
 the names of Conservatives who were returned in 1836, and who, on a new 
 election, declined to offer themselves : — 
 
 "Kobert Job, merchant, for the district of Bonavista ; Thomas Bennett, 
 ditto, Flogo ; William B. Row, lawyer. Fortune Bay ; John Shea, editor of a 
 paper, Burin. These would have a great influence on a House composed 
 of fifteen members, with a council exclusively Protestant ; but they would not 
 again offer themselves. Our constitution is now suspended. It is rumoured, 
 that Lord Stanley, fortified by ex ■parte evidence of the witnesses before the 
 committee, is about introducing some Act into the Imperial Parliament. If 
 we are punished, it is because we are Catholic. We have, however, some 
 hope that the justice of our cause will protect us." 
 
 The jealousy of the constitution was, in fact, jealousy of the 
 Catholics of the colony. Up to the period of the granting the 
 constitution, Catholics were excluded from every situation. 
 He was perfectly ready to go into any investigation of the facts 
 of the election, during which two outrages did occur, but the 
 accounts of them had been grossly exaggerated. He contended 
 that House ought not to legislate without hearing the other 
 party. Would they give a triumph to one party alone ? He 
 had gone through this case ; he had not gone into a discussion 
 respecting rates and taxes, because other opportunities would 
 
Catholic L iberality. I O i 
 
 occur for doing that. But here was a constitution, with all the 
 regular forms, already adopted. All the American colonies 
 had had such constitutions conceded, and haa derived advan- 
 tage from them. He denied that the Roman Catholics had 
 shown any exclusive spirit, or any wish to ahsorb all the funds 
 of the colony to their own purposes. To prove this, he would 
 read an extract from the petition of the inhabitants of St. 
 John's, Newfoundland : — 
 
 " That in order to meet the charge of the subserviency of the Assembly 
 to the Catholic priesthood, a glance at the records of that body will prove 
 that in no single instance was a measure not only passed for the promotion 
 of exclusively Catholic interests, but such a measure was never once intro- 
 duced or thought of; nay, on the contrary, the only measure that ever passed 
 the Assembly with reference to religion — with the exception of the marriage 
 Act, legalizing the marriage of Catholics and Dissenters — was the granting of 
 a sum of money to assist the Protestants of Harbor Grace in the rebuilding 
 the Episcopal Church, which had been destroyed by fire, which grant was 
 proposed and seconded by Catholics, and was carried by a Catholic majority." 
 
 The Bill was brought forward at a time when it was utterly 
 impossible to give it a fair discussion ; all from whom he might 
 expect a fair hearing, or from whom the inhabitants might 
 expect redress, were absent ; nor had he the slightest hope of 
 convincing those who were listening to him. He put the ques- 
 tion on the foundation of plain common sense. All he asked 
 of the noble lord was to postpone the Bill till the next session, 
 till the House could hear what the inhabitants of Newfound - 
 laud had to say. Their delegates would then be here, and any- 
 tliing that was just and reasonable, they would be ready to do. 
 Bat he did implore the noble lord not to crush the colony with 
 such a measure as this. He concluded by moving that this 
 Bill be committed that day three months. 
 
102 O Con7iell out of Parliament. 
 
 Subject, ^ x2i.rE of Ireland — Adjourned Debate ; 
 Date, July 23, 1844. 
 
 The Whig administration went out at the close of the year 1841. O'Con- 
 nell had supported this administration vigorously, though he had described 
 its men and measures as " base, bloody, and brutal." When the Tory 
 ministry came in with Peel, O'Connell did less work in Parliament and more 
 in Ireland. He had become an adept in evading the law by the formation of 
 associations. The Precursor Society now merged into the world-famous 
 Repeal Association, with which O'Connell occupied himself actively. He 
 was also Lord Mayor of Dublin. In 1843 O'Connell made the great mistake 
 of absenting himself from the English Parliament ; nothing could be gained 
 by such a course. Had it not been adopted for a time by one whose powers 
 of mind outweighed those of his con temporai'ies, it might be called puerile. 
 Ttie object was to gain something ft-om England, but it was by tongue and pen, 
 effectively used in the place where speech would be heard, and where pen 
 could not be refused type, that the real work had been effected hitherto. For 
 Irish members to refuse to represent their country in the British Senate 
 while they had no Parliament of their own was a suicidal policy. English 
 members who might be, and who, to their credit be it said, were convinced 
 by Irish eloquence to redress Irish wrongs, could not be expected to use ex- 
 ceptional means of informing themselves on such subjects. 
 
 The Tara meeting was held and caused great excitement in Ireland, but 
 the echoes of its appeal died away faintly on the English shore. 
 
 The Clontarf meeting was planned and abandoned at the last moment. 
 The crafty tactics which kept back the proclamation till the very eve of the 
 day caused O'Connell agonies of fear lest there should be a breach of the peace 
 in consequence, and a breach of the peace would have meant a deluge of 
 blood, and an unsuccessful rebellion. His foreseeing mind grasped all the ter- 
 rible possibilities, and perhaps his master mind succumbed even then to the fir^t 
 touch of the fell destroyer which was so soon to begin its fatal work on the 
 overtaxed intellect. The meeting was prevented, but not without a victim. 
 Father Tyrrell died from sickness consequent on the over-exertions he, 
 made to avert evil. The state trials were the next great event. They began 
 on the 2nd November, 1843. We have not space to allude further to this 
 subject. They ended early in February, and O'Connell proceeded to London, 
 where a stormy debate was going on. He listened in silence for a while, and 
 then he uttered one of his most remarkable speeches. 
 
 In the debate which followed when the verdict of "guilty" was known 
 Lord John Russell said — 
 
Lord yohn Russell on h'ish Policy. 103 
 
 '* Nominally, indeed, the two countries have the same laws. Trial by- 
 jury, for instance, exists in both countries ; but is it administered alike in both ? 
 Sir, 1 remember on one occasion when an hon, gentleman, Air. Brougham, 
 on bringing forward a motion, in 1823, on the administration of the law in 
 Ireland, made use of these words — ' The law of England estimated all men 
 equal. It was sufficient to be born within the king's allegiance to be entitled 
 to all the rights the loftiest subject of the land enjoyed. None were dis- 
 qualified ; the only distinction was between natural-born subjects and aliens. 
 Such, indetd, was the liberality of our system in the times which we called 
 barbarous; but from which, in these enlightened days, it might be as well to 
 take a hint, that if a man were even an alien born, he was not deprived Of 
 the protection of the law. In Ireland, however, the law held a directly oppo- 
 eite doctrine. The sect to which a man belonged, the cast of his religious 
 opinions, the form in which he worsliipped his Creator, were grounds on 
 which the law separated him from his fellows, and bound him to the endu- 
 rance of a system of the most cruel injustice.' Such was the statement of Mr. 
 Brougham, when he was the advocate of the oppressed. But, sir, let me ask, 
 was what I have just now read the statement of a man who was ignorant of 
 the country of which he spoke ? No ; the same language, to the same effect, 
 was used by Sir M. Loghlen in his evidence before the House of Lords. 
 That gentleman stated that he had been in the habit of going the Munster 
 circuit for nineteen years, and on that circuit it was the general practice for 
 the Crown, in criminal prosecutions, to set aside all Catholics and all Liberal 
 Protestants ; and he added, that he had been informed that on other circuits 
 the practice was carried on in a more strict manner. Sir. M, O'Loghlen also 
 mentioned one case of this kind which took place in 1834, during the Lord 
 Lieutenancy of the Marquis of Wellesley, and the Attorney-GeneraLship of 
 Mr. Blackburne, the present Master of the Rolls, and in which, out of forty- 
 three persons set aside (in a cause, too, which was not a political one), there 
 were thirty- six Catholics and seven Protestants, and all of them respectable 
 men. This practice is so well known and carried out so generally that men, 
 known to be Liberals, whether Catholics or Protestants, have ceased to attend 
 assizes, that they might not be exposed to these public insults. Now, I 
 would ask, are these proofs of equal laws, or laws equally administered ? Could 
 the same or similar cases have happened in Yorkshire, or Sussex, or Kent? 
 Are these the fulfilment of the promise made and engagements entered into 
 at the Union ?" 
 
 Mr. Macaulay said, in the same debate, February 19th, 1844 : — 
 *' I do say that on this question it is of the greatest importance that the 
 proceedings which the Government had taken should be beyond impeach- 
 ment, and that they should have obtained a victory in such a way that that 
 victory sbould not he to them a greater disaster than a defeat. Has that 
 
I04 Macaulay on O'ComieWs Trial. 
 
 been the result ? First, is it denied that Mr. O'Connell has suffered wrong? 
 Is it denied, if the law had been carried into effect without those irregularities 
 and that negligence which has attended the Irish trials, Mr. O'Connell's 
 chance of acquittal would have been better. No person denied that. The 
 affidavit which has been produced, and which has not been contradicted, 
 states that twenty-seven Catholics were excluded from the jury list. I know 
 that all the technicalities of the law were on the side of the Crown, but my 
 great charge against the Government is, that they have merely regarded this 
 question in a technical point of vieAV. We know what the principle of the 
 law is in cases when prejudice is likely to arise against an alien, and who is 
 to be tried de meditate Ungues. Is he to be tried by twelve Englishmen ? 
 No. Our ancestors knew that that was not the way in which justice could 
 be obtained — they knew that the only proper way was to have one-half 
 of the jurymen of the country in which the crime was committed, and 
 the other half of the country to which the prisoner belonged. If any alien 
 had been in the situation of Mr. O'Connell, that law would have been ob- 
 served. You are ready enough to call the Catholics of Ireland ' aliens' when 
 it suits your purpose ; you are ready enough to treat them as aliens, when it 
 suits your purpose ; but the first privilege, the only advantage of alienage, you 
 practically deny them." 
 
 Mr. O'Connell spoke as follows : Sir, I hope that there is 
 not an individual in this House who will suppose that I have 
 risen to say anything about myself, or that there is an indi- 
 vidual in this House who, after I have said what I intend to 
 say, will have discovered — had he not known it by other means 
 — that I have had any personal interest in the late trials. Sir, 
 I arose for another purpose : I am here to make a protest ; I am 
 here to ask a question ; I am here to protest in the name of my 
 country, and on behalf of my countrymen, against the commis- 
 sion of one additional injustice to Ireland ; and I am also here 
 to ask the simple question of how is Ireland to be governed ? I 
 don't ask who is to govern it. I may have my preferences on 
 that point — probably I have — but I ask, how is it to be 
 governed? Sir, there is one fact which no man can deny ; and 
 that is — that there is no one country in the world which ever 
 inflicted so much oppression, which ever committed so many 
 crimes against another, as England has committed against 
 Ireland. That, sir, is an undeniable truth. It did not require 
 
The Act of Union . 105 
 
 the talents of the Hon. and learned gentleman, the memher for 
 Edinburgh, to elicit that fact — every page of history teems 
 with it — every page of history trumpets it forth to the world, 
 that the greatest crimes that had ever been committed by one 
 nation against another have been those of England against 
 Ireland. But I do not mean to go through the history of 
 Ireland to prove this point — I do not mean to go back further 
 than the period of the Union. But for the misgovernment 
 which has existed since the Union to the present day, this Par- 
 liament is clearly responsible. You ought to think of the 
 situation of Ireland at the Union, and compare it witb its 
 present state. If Ireland was then in a condition of distress 
 and destitution, and if it has since arisen to prosperity and 
 comfort, then applaud your Government, talk of your wiscoai 
 as statesmen, and refer to the fact of the transition from want 
 and misery to plenty and comfort as decisive evidence of the 
 wisdom of our councils. But is it so ? Is that the state in 
 which the facts are before the world ? No, sir ; directly the 
 reverse is the fact. At the period of the Union there was con- 
 siderable prosperity in Ireland. For eighteen years before that 
 time it had enjoyed the benefit of self-government, and it is a 
 portion of history that no country in the world ever rose so fast 
 in prosperity as did Ireland during those eighteen years. In 
 the year 1800, when Mr. Pitt proposed the Act of Union, what 
 were his arguments? He did not inform the House that 
 Ireland was in a state of want and misery, and that, therefore, 
 it would be advantageous for it to be connected with this great 
 country, and to enjoy a participation in its commercial and 
 manufacturing prosperity. No, sir; the case he made out, the 
 case which it was his duty to make out, and which the facts 
 only warranted him in making out, was, that Ireland had 
 advanced most rapidly in prosperity for years previously — that 
 she exported three millions' worth of manufactured goods, and 
 imported one million's worth of manufactured goods — that her 
 prosperity had thus accumulated when she was separate from 
 England, and that it was clear that if she were connected with 
 
lOO TJie ''^Times'' on Ireland. 
 
 a country so mucli riclier than herself as England, that pros- 
 perity would be multiplied beyond calculation. 
 
 He admitted, of course — he admitted even against his own 
 interests — tl a' Ireland was in a state of prosperity ; and the 
 same thing was declared by the other side, by one of the most 
 powerful statesmen in Ireland — Lord Clare. Both concurred 
 in the material point ; but not content with letting well alone, 
 not content with allowing that prosperity to go on progressing, 
 they thought they could accelerate its progress by joining 
 Ireland with England. How few there were informed of the 
 fact, that, at the time of the Union, Mr. Pitt thought that Ire- 
 land, prosperous as she then was, would multiply her prosperity 
 in an incalculable degree by the carrying out of that measure. 
 Sir, has the fact borne him out ? Is he justified in his prophecy ? 
 Is Ireland in a state of prosperity ? I am not here to talk of 
 claims for political, and what, in some cases, may be fanciful 
 rights. I am not speaking of the franchise — or of corporation 
 rights — or of municipal rights — or of Parliamentary rights — but 
 I am speaking of material and actual prosperity. Sir, what is the 
 condition of Ireland ? You talk of demagogues having power 
 there. Oh ! see the materials of their power in the poverty and 
 distress of the country ! I suppose many gentleman have read 
 the Time8 newspaper of yesterday. I assure the House that it 
 was not through any influence of mine that it published the 
 paragraph which I refer to. I did not procure it for it ; but if 
 I did, I could not get one better for my purpose. I mean the 
 notice of a work upon Ireland. There is a German traveller, 
 Kohl, who has visited all the countries of Europe, and who has 
 published accounts of his travels. He is unconnected with 
 Ireland, he has no sympathies withPepealers; on the contrary, 
 he showed a distrust towards them. That man, in his book on 
 Ireland, has declared, having travelled through all the countries 
 of Europe, that in none of them did he find distress such as he 
 saw in Ireland. There was no such thing known in other 
 countries ; and this, sir, forty-four years after the Union ! 
 But, I may refer to another witness ; there is a gentleman of 
 
Captain Larcomh Testimony. 1 07 
 
 the very euphonious name of Wiggins. He is agent to Lord 
 Headley ; he was examined before Mr. Spring Rice's commit- 
 tee, in 1830, to show that there then existed a good prospect 
 for the prosperity of Ireland. He said, certainly the Union 
 was not very useful as yet, hut as we are coming to a period of 
 tranquillity, by means of the adjustment of the Catholic claims, 
 he conceived that there was every likelihood of future pros- 
 perity. He even quoted instances of this incipient prosperity. 
 He has now published a book, fifteen years after his prophecy 
 he has published a book ; and, being a man familiar with Ire- 
 land, and with the condition of the people, he has declared that 
 poverty has increased — is increasing — that everything is grow- 
 ing worse — that the sufi'erings of the people are hardly pro- 
 nounceable. Those are the materials on which a popular man 
 in Ireland grows powerful. But I have still further evidence. 
 Look again at what the Poor Law Commissioners state. They 
 enumerate 2,300,000 of the population as being in a state of 
 destitution throughout a considerable portion of the year. 
 Considerably more than one-third of the population were in a 
 state of destitution throughout the year. It is not Kohl, or 
 Wiggins, or any other particular individual alone, but every- 
 one who has examined into it, that has found these facts. You 
 have enumerated the population of Ireland — you did in 1821, 
 again in 1831, and again in 1841. Captain Larcom, of the 
 Artillery, superintended the enumeration in 1841. A Govern- 
 ment report was made not only of the population, but of the 
 state of the country too ; and what facts do I find there ? 
 That out of the agricultural population, 70 per cent, are in a 
 state of poverty, living in cabins having only one room ; and 
 that 30 per cent, of the town population are in a similar state, 
 no family having more than one room ; and in some cases 
 several families in the same room. That is Captain Larcom's 
 testimony. And there is another fact he gives, which will 
 convince every one who reflects, how horrid the state of distress 
 must be. Between 1821 and 1831, the population increased 
 rapidly. Between 1831 and 1841, the ratio of increase was 
 
io8 How do yotc meaii to Govern Ireland 7 
 
 70,000 per annum less than in the previous decennial periods. 
 There was, consequently, 700,000 persons less in 1841 than 
 ought to have been, and could have been found in Ireland, if 
 the ratio had gone on from 1831 to 1841, as it had from 1821 
 to 1831. Can any man who hears these facts— can any one 
 who goes across the Channel and looks for himself, deny them ? 
 And these are the effects of party — this is the situation into 
 which we have been brought by your Government. I have 
 shown that Ireland was prosperous before the Union. I have 
 given you a faithful picture of her at present. Now, how do 
 you mean to govern Ireland ? Tou can, to be sure, take 
 legal proceedings against some of her people ; you have sent an 
 army over. But will that remedy the evils under which she is 
 suffering — will it mitigate them ? Will it ease the deplorable 
 poverty in which the mass of the population is sunk ? 
 
 How little I should care for au3^thing that occurred at 
 these trials, if I could rouse this House, if I could rouse 
 the people of this country to a due sense of the condition of 
 Ireland, and, by inducing you to give up past contentions, 
 I could lead j'ou to ameliorate the state of the people. And 
 for this end the discussion you have had on this motion is 
 not wholly fruitless. I may be permitted to say, that I have 
 felt the effect of it personally. With all my delinquencies on 
 my head, the generous sympathy I have met in this country I 
 shall never forget or conceal. I shall proclaim it from one 
 end of Ireland to the other. This, then, is your time. Rally 
 now for the elevation of the Irish people. Ah ! but what little 
 hope have we that this wise course will be taken ? Is there any 
 expectation of it ? Is it prejudice to deny the probability of a 
 better spirit actuating you ? Has the Union been what it ought 
 to be, the amalgamation of the two countries ? It ought to have 
 been an identification of the two islands. There should have 
 been no rights or privileges with one that should not have been 
 communicated to the other. The franchise should have been 
 the same ; all corporate rights the same ; every civic privilege 
 identical. Cork should have no more difference from Kent than 
 
Emancipation part of tJic Uiiion. 109 
 
 Yorksliire from Lancashire. That ought to have been the 
 Union. That was Mr. Pitt's object. He distinctly obtained 
 the sanction of the sovereign to the measure, on the ground 
 of identifying the people, which could not be done if a dominant 
 religion was to be maintained. Emancipation was, therefore, 
 part of the Union. The moment it was carried, some ill-ad- 
 visers of the Crown, some exceedingly conscientious men, wha 
 deemed their own religion the sole depository of religious truth, 
 induced the King to withdraw his consent. The minister with- 
 drew from office ; but what folly, what absurdity it was not to 
 complete a measure then ripe for adjustment ! Is there any 
 man living who will say the Union was completed ? Is there 
 any man on the other side of the House so besotted as not to 
 admit that the Union was nominal and not real ? See what an 
 opportunity you then had of settling the differences which now 
 beset you. There were eleven or fourteen of the bishops, I 
 do not exactly remember which, who were willing to receive 
 salaries from the State, and to give the Crown of Great Britain 
 the power of nomination. You could have made your own ar- 
 rangements ; everything might have been settled according to 
 your wish. But, unhappily, " the Church in danger" was the 
 cry raised. The Union took place — an identification which was 
 no other than that which Lord Byron speaks of as the shark 
 identified with his prey, by swallowing it. And, what was the 
 first Act of your Imperial Legislature ? An Act for suspending 
 the Habeas Corpus Act ; the abolishing trial by jury. That 
 was the first Act passed by the Imperial Legislature, and it was 
 emblematic enough of the spirit in which it was intended that 
 the Union was to be worked out. In 1805, Mr. Pitt was a 
 party to the rejection of the Catholic petition. He lost his 
 honour, but he reserved his place. Immediately after his death, 
 the Whigs came into office, and carried one great measure. 
 They abolished the slave-trade with the West Indies. They 
 were able to do nothing for Ireland. They brought in a Bill, 
 however, to the effect that the Crown should have the power of 
 raising to high rank in the army and navy, those individuals 
 
I lo The No Popery Cry, and 
 
 "wlio were tlie proper objects of royal appointment. We were 
 in the midst of a tremendous war, our opponent being the most 
 powerful individual that had appeared on the globe for centu- 
 ries. The Bill I have alluded to conferred nothing on the 
 Catholics ; it was a mere prerogative of the Crown. There was 
 no compulsion on the part of the King to appoint a single ad- 
 ditional officer. And here, sir, I cannot help putting it to the 
 gallant officer on the other side (Sir H. Hardinge), how he 
 should have felt, for the bravery which he displayed on the 
 part of his country and the personal sacrifices which he cheer- 
 fully made, if he had had no other hope of reward, because his 
 religion happened to be different from that of his Commander- 
 in-chief. Never forget that there were gallant spirits in that 
 army, whose chivalrous courage must have been depressed, be- 
 cause they were conscious they could never have reaped the 
 reward of their valour on account of their religion. And what 
 a paltry and short-sighted policy was yours not to use every 
 inducement to inflame the public ardour, and to make the love 
 of glory subservient to the interests of the empire. Yet what 
 was the wise and sagacious policy of England ? The No Popery 
 cry was raised to an extent that seems now almost incredible. 
 Some of the Whigs who had been representatives of counties and 
 open towns for half a century before, lost their places. Was 
 ever popular insanity carried to a height so absurd ? You 
 have now an opportunity of acting in the spirit which the 
 Whigs manifested in 1805 ; neglect it and you will exhibit still 
 greater absurdities than were exhibited in 1805 and 1806. Mr. 
 Perceval then came into the ministry. He proclaimed perpetual 
 hostility to the Catholics, and said that the spirit of the Union 
 was to preserve the Protestants, and never to relieve the Catho- 
 lics. Just as now, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Shaw) and 
 the noble lord (Lord Stanley) said that the Established Church 
 is one of the Articles of the Union, and Catholic subserviency a 
 necessary consequence. You have at last, however, outgrown 
 the No Popery cry. Are you very sure that your Church cry 
 is more likely .to stand the test of time ? WiU this discussion — 
 
The Church Cry. 1 1 1 
 
 -^ill the sentiments announced by the noble member for Sun- 
 derlaud, a man of high rank and station, born, I may say, one 
 of the leading statesmen of your country — will the sentiments 
 of the Glasgow meeting, which echoed the opinion of the noble 
 lord, tend to strengthen the position of your Church ? When 
 Mr. Perceval declared that concession could not go further, the 
 Catliolics were determined they would not take him at his word. 
 They saw no chance for success but in their own exertions. Two 
 prosecutions were instituted — one succeeded, the other failed. 
 But the combination went on ; the power of Napoleon increased, 
 and its stimulating influence extended to Ireland. But through 
 that war the Irish went with j^ou. The Catholic priesthood, 
 astounded by the infidelity of France, and seeing how the revo- 
 lution was marked by the hideous progress of crime, which 
 spread its lava over continental Europe, stood by you, gave 
 good counsel to the people, prevented many and many a revolt, 
 many and many an uprising, and demonstrated that over such 
 a population France, with her principles, could never hope to 
 Tule. 
 
 Napoleon committed a great mistake ; he was blind to the 
 Talue of Ireland for his purposes. Let me rather say that a 
 providential care preserved these countries from the frightful 
 spread of revolutionary infidelity. As the career of Napoleon 
 progressed and the English grew wiser, and the battles of 
 Eutzen and Bantzen having been fought, his power was sup- 
 posed to revive ; the House of Commons declared that, in the 
 next session, the claims of the Catholics should be considered. 
 In the interval he fell, and his name became a by-word of 
 contempt. The English nation was safe, and the House of 
 Commons did not hesitate to slight its own pledge. The Catho- 
 lics were again ill-treated. They rallied ; a six years' struggle 
 took place, and the Catholic Association was formed. "We had 
 monster meetings of various descriptions — provincial meetings, 
 general meeting, simultaneous meetings of parishes — all these 
 we had by our Catholic Association. You attempted a prose- 
 cution — there you failed ; but you revenged youi'selves by a 
 
112 A?i Undignified Grant. 
 
 Coercion Bill. That was in 1825. Well, you neglected tlie 
 opportunitj jou then had of conciliating Ireland. Eecollect 
 that all the leading agitators, the bishops, persons of every 
 class influential amoDgst the Catholics, repaired to London. 
 "We threw ourselves upon our knees before you — we begged, as 
 a beggar would ask, that you would take the state of Ireland 
 into consideration. Did you want securities ? Then you could 
 have had them. Could you get them now ? Do you expect 
 the Thames to flow backwards ? Emancipation would then have 
 been received with gratitude. Tou would have been looked' on 
 as benefactors, organization would have ceased, and the elements 
 of opposition would have dissolved in society. Tou had the 
 opportunity, and I was sitting here and heard the right hon. 
 baronet speak of the majority with which he carried the Co- 
 ercion Bill, and but for the House of Lords it would have been 
 carried. No one did more to conciliate Ireland by the hope of 
 Emancipation than I did in 1825. Tou rejected it. We re- 
 turned to Ireland. There was nothing left us but to say — 
 
 " Hereditary bondsmen, know you not, 
 Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow ?" 
 
 That was our motto : we assembled : the people were roused, 
 indignant at this treatment : we made ofi'ers ; and we should 
 have been grateful had they been accepted : they were refused, 
 and Emancipation was carried. Tou attempted to return a 
 supporter to the Government in the county of Clare. The free- 
 holders turned out, they returned me for that county in 1828, 
 by a majority of 1,900. Emancipation necessarily followed. 
 Tou granted it in an undignified way. That which you might 
 have given to entreaty 3'ou yielded to necessity. That which 
 would have been received as a favour was esteemed as a triumph. 
 Perhaps I am wrong in saying we are rejoiced at it, for I am 
 bound to say that not one atom of the insolence of triumph was 
 shown by any of our countrymen. But our Union was full of 
 mischief — a fraudulent — not compact — but it was a fraudulent 
 surrender — terms of capitulation granted by superior force. 
 
 I 
 
Tlie Established Church. 1 1 5 
 
 Tou had 175,000 bayonets in Ireland to carry it ; you ex- 
 pended £275,000, in bribery and corruption, and yet you did 
 it in a spirit of the sheerest dishonesty, taking away 200 repre- 
 sentatives from Ireland, and leaving her but 100, when every 
 calculation that was directed to that purpose demonstrated that 
 she was entitled to at least 150. When you did grant Emanci- 
 pation you did it at a sacrifice of the poorer classes of voters 
 Tou sacrificed the 40,s\ freeholders, and raised the suffrage to 
 £10, and you indemnified yourselves by an act of tlie grossest 
 injustice on the other side, all because the Church was in dan- 
 ger ("/^f^r" and conversation). I understand that whisper. 
 The noble lord is mistaken. I did not consent to give up the I 
 4O5. freeholders. The noble lord will find it in that book. I j 
 will open the book for him. I insisted that the 40s. freelioldeis 1 
 of perpetual tenure should not be meddled with ; but the 40-9. 
 freeholders for a single life or death, as it would be cnlled in 
 Ireland, who were made for an election, I consented to give up, 
 and I wish I could have found the same spirit elsewliere ; bnt, 
 that could not exist on account of this unjust Protestant Cliurch. 
 It is the scapegoat of all your iniquity. You think it niiikes 
 your Protestant Church sure, and the hon. gentleman opposite 
 is ready to die for it, and has surrounded it with lin^s of cir- 
 eumvallation. Every oppression in Ireland, every iniquity 
 perpetrated on the people of that country, every right you de- 
 prive them of — coporate reform — a limited Reform Bill — every- 
 thing is placed outside as a buttress to defend and support tliat 
 Church. And at the present moment what is it that prevents 
 perfect justice to Ireland but the Established Church ? Well, 
 but Emancipation having been carried, the Peform Bill, I tliiuk, 
 "VN'as its necessary consequence, and I take some credit to myself 
 for having assisted in carrying it. But what did the Irisli get 
 by it ? You added to the representation of the counties of 
 England — you gave Scotland eight additional representatives — 
 you gave five to Ireland ; and yet Scotland has only a population 
 of 5,000,000, whilst that of Ireland is 8,000,000. You gave to 
 every one of your English counties, having a population of 
 
 VOL. II. 9 
 
114 Voters in Mayo, Cork, and Wales. 
 
 350,000, on the score of population alone, an increased repre- 
 sentation. When the population was above 100,000, you 
 gave two additional members. To Anglesea you gave two, 
 being an additional one. Tou gave to Cork, with a population 
 -of 700,000, not one member additional. I not only spoke in this 
 House until hon. gentleman were weary of listening to me, 
 but I relaxed from my studies by writing letters for newspapers 
 demonstrating its iniquity. I put them in the shape of a 
 pamphlet, and placed one in the hands of every member of this 
 House. "We remonstrated at the iniquity — we showed the in- 
 justice, and that, considering the species of franchise you were 
 to give us, and the short representation we were to have, it was 
 impossible Ireland should have justice done her ; and if there 
 were 150 members for Ireland in this House, do you think you 
 would be able to get an exclusive scheme of Grovernment in that 
 country ? 
 
 But the noble lord opposite was one of those who were too 
 careful of the Church to do justice to Ireland. His piety 
 exceeded his love for his neighbour ; his principle of doing to 
 his neighbour as he would be done by, did not exceed his 
 attachment to the Established Church. Then we complain of 
 the limited state of the franchise. I am not going into sta- 
 tistics at any length, but in the county of Mayo there are 
 380,000 population, with 900 voters. In Cork there are 
 750,000, an agricultural population, with 1,500 voters. Wales, 
 with 800,000, very little more than Cork, has twenty-seven 
 representatives in this House, and 36,000 voters. Does any 
 man imagine that the Irish are so stupid that they would con- 
 tentedly live under such a scheme of Grovernment as that — that 
 every preference should be made before them, every insulting 
 restriction should be enacted against them ? But this was not 
 enough. We were in this limited state of franchise when, an 
 effort being attempted with the then Government to increase 
 that franchise, out came the noble lord upon us, and he brought 
 in a Bill, the effect of which would have totally annihilated the 
 franchise we had. Though in opposition, he carried that mea- 
 
The Precursor Society. 115 
 
 sure tlirough two readings in this House, and many who voted 
 with the ministry on every other question, voted with the 
 noble lord against Irish rights. Under these circumstances we 
 thought it right to bring the Repeal question before the House. 
 It was debated by the House in 1832; there was a division : we 
 had just one Englishman with us— forty-two Irish and one 
 English ; five hundred and odd voters against us. But there 
 was, at least, this done, there was a solemn pledge given to this 
 House, re-echoed by the House of Lords, and assented to 
 by the King, declaring that, although they were determined 
 to maintain the Union, they would, notwithstanding that, 
 redress all the grievances of Ii'eland. I wish the House to re- 
 collect that, instantly, Hepeal agitation was given up. We 
 accepted that pledge in 1834. An attempt was made to realise 
 it, but the members who attempted it were overruled, partly in 
 this House, and partly in the House of Lords. You redressed 
 no grievance. Will any man show me that one grievance was 
 redressed ? We lay by for four years, still no grievance was 
 redressed. If we commenced agitation it would have been said, 
 " We gave you a solemn pledge, to which the King, Lords, 
 and Commons were parties, having the moral effect, though not 
 the legal effect of an Act of Parliament, all branches of the 
 Legislature being parties to the pledge. You would not believe 
 it, 5^ou refused to credit it, and we therefore have not been able 
 to redress your grievances?" We passed four years without 
 agitation, in the hope that something would be done for Ire- 
 land ; and something, it appears, was done, for the noble lord 
 brought his Bill through two readings in this House. I do 
 not wish to trouble the House by reading documents, but as 
 one, which I hold in my hand, contains a good deal of what I 
 should otherwise have to state in a less condensed form, I shall 
 take the liberty of reading it ; and I implore the House to 
 observe from it what our conduct was with respect to this subject. 
 Before we took any other step to procure a Repeal of the Union 
 we formed what was cnlled the Precursor Society; and I pre- 
 sented this petition from that society, and moved upon it 
 
 9* 
 
Ii6 Petition from Dublin. 
 
 myself in this House. The hon. and learned gentleman then 
 read the petition as follows : — 
 
 '■'■ The petition of the undersigned Natives and Inhalitants, Electors and 
 Citizens of the City of Dublin, 
 
 " Humbly Showetii, 
 
 " AVe, the undersigned, respectfully demnnd the attention of this honour- 
 able House to our claim for full and equal justice to Ireland. 
 
 "Equal justice means a perfect identification of rights, privileges, and 
 franchise for the people of Ireland, with those enjoyed by the people of 
 England. 
 
 "We respectfully, but most firmly, demand and insist upon that identi- 
 fication. The people of Ireland are entitled to, and must have, an equality 
 of political and religious freedom with the people of England. They seek 
 nothing more — they will not be content with anything less. 
 
 " 'J'hey are entitled to the identification and equality of rights. 
 "First : As British subjects, contributing to the extent of their means 
 equally with the British people to the revenues of the State. 
 
 " Secondly : As the associates of the British people in all the perils, priva- 
 tions, and sufferings of naval and military life — contributing, as they do, 
 more than their proportion to the ranks of the army and navy. 
 
 " Tlilnlly : They ai-e empliatlcally entitled to this equalization, by reason 
 of the Act of the Legislative Union, which, to have any rational and equitable 
 meaning, must be construed as intended to terminate all Invidious distinc- 
 tions and preferences between one portion of the British empire and the 
 other. 
 
 " They are also entitled to it by the determination expressed by both 
 Houses of Parliament to perpetuate the Union between both countries. 
 
 " Our present object is to render the Union complete and irreversible, by 
 making it a real Instead of a nominal Union, by changing It from an Union 
 of parchment to an Union of interest and affection, by giving to the Irish 
 people the benefit of the Union principle, and by abolisiiing the monstrous 
 absurdity of considering both countries united only when the one Is favoured 
 and exalted, and the other oppressed and degraded. 
 
 *' That to render the Union complete, and in order to carry out the 
 principles of that measure with practical effect, we respectfully demand the 
 following measures : — 
 
 "First: We demand a perfect equalization of the elective franchise in 
 both countries, by extending the rigiits of voting of each country to the 
 other; and we respectfully, also, submit tliat these rights ought to be en- 
 larged in botli. 
 
Petition from Dublin. 117 
 
 " Secondly : "We demand an immediate Corporate Eeform, equal in 
 every respect with that which England has obtained. 
 
 "Thirdly: We demand an adequate number of Representatives for 
 Ireland in tlie United Parliament, deeming the injustice of the inferiority of 
 Ireland to the other parts of the United Kingdom as one of the greatest 
 grievances imposed by, and as the most unjust part of the Union Statute. 
 
 "Fourthly: We demand an equalization of religious freedom with 
 England and Scotland. The people of Enghxnd are not burdened with the 
 Church of the minority ; the people of Scotland are not burdened with the 
 Church of the minority. In order to place the people of Ireland on a just 
 equality with those of England and Scoland, tliey ought not to be burdened 
 with the support of the Church of the minority ; and our demand is, that 
 they may be disembarrassed of tliat burden, by the application to public 
 purposes — especially to purposes of education and charity — of the tempora- 
 lities of the Protestant Church in Ireland. 
 
 " Such is the extent of our demand — 
 
 " The equalization and extension of the Elective Franchise. The equali- 
 zation of Municipal Reform. The equalization of Representation. The 
 equalization of Religious Liberty. Equalization in every right and privilege 
 — inferiority in none — superiority on our part being out of the question. 
 The basis of our demand is identification. We are one nation, or we are not. 
 If we be not, it is absurd and unjust to call the present political connection 
 a nation. If we be one nation, then it is flagi-antly iniquitous to treat us 
 as aliens, either in blood, in language, or in religion. 
 
 " Should the just prayer of our petition be granted, we who have signed 
 this petition are bound, by integrity and good faith, not to seek the Repeal 
 of the Union Statute. We do not put the case in the alternative. We 
 menace nothing. We threaten no ulterior measure ; but we may venture to 
 prophesy that, if the justice we require be refused us, the social elements of 
 Ireland will never settle into tranquillity whilst the Union is a mere mockery 
 and delusion, insulting and oppressive, by the inferiority which it inflicts 
 upon the people of Ireland. 
 
 "We tell this honourable House that there are elements in the moral 
 «nd physical energy of the Irish people, which will hereafter cause many to 
 regret that they did not avail themselves of the present opportunity of con- 
 solidating the Union. We respectfully inform tiiis honourable House that 
 the Irish people will laugh to scorn the pretences under which justice is re- 
 fused to them. Even if the Protestant Church in Ireland were in danger 
 from the concession of the just right of the Irish people, that danger should 
 Jae incurred. 
 
 "We believe that the real danger to that Church consists in its being 
 obtruded, upon all occasions, a3 the motive for refusing to the people 0^ 
 
1 1 8 The Chmxh of the Minority. 
 
 Ireland the rights and privileges which the people of England enjoy. We- 
 deem those persons false and foolish friends of the Protestant Church, who 
 put forward Protestantism as the shield and protector of corporate iniquity 
 and political oppression in Ireland ; and as there is no other excuse for with- 
 holding the rights of the Irish people, save the alleged danger to the Protes- 
 tant Church, from doing us justice, we do loudly and firmly, though 
 respectfully, call upon this House, not to debase religion, by making it the 
 cloak and accessory of crime, but to act now at length justly, and even gene- 
 rously, towards the people of Ireland, and to indemnify them for past oppres- 
 sion, by giving them full guarantee for future freedom. 
 
 " May it, therefore, please this honourable House to identify the Elective 
 Franchise in England and Ireland — countries in which the tenures of land 
 and houses are similar — and to give to Ireland as complete Municipal Peform 
 as England has obtained, and to give also to Ireland her adequate proportion 
 in the representation ; and, finally, to place Ireland on a footing of equality in 
 religious freedom with England, by allocating the temporalities of the Church 
 of the minority in that country to purposes of charity, education, and public 
 utility. And petitioners will pray." 
 
 I moved, sir, on that petition j for an increase of the Fran- 
 chises in favour of Ireland ; but what success had mj motion ? 
 It was seconded, certainly ; but that was all. It was opposed 
 by the Government then in office— it was opposed by the 
 Grovernment now in office. It was opposed by both sides of 
 the House alike. I will say that reasonable — that fair — offer 
 ought to have been accepted ; or if all the relief I demanded 
 were not acceded, I submit that the House at least ought to 
 have instituted an inquiry into the grievances of Ireland. 
 Something ought to have been done. Nothing was done. 
 We were scouted out of the House with contempt ; and he 
 knows little of the feelings of the Irish heart who thinks that 
 we should not regard ourselves as degraded, if we acquiesced 
 in silence in the injustice thus perpetrated against us, by 
 those who sanctioned every grievance of the Union. Eecollect 
 that I should have been comparatively powerless if I had not a. 
 strong case of physical suffering in the country backing me. 
 The poverty — the destitution of the people of Ireland, might 
 be laughed to scorn in this House, but when you had declined 
 affording us any remedy, was it not our duty to look for that 
 
Arranging v. Packing. 119 
 
 remedy from ourselves, and to endeavour, by our own acts, to 
 mitigate the physical sufferings of the country? I have entered 
 more at length than I intended to have done into the history 
 of the crimes which England has perpetrated against Ireland 
 since the Union. I have but little more to say, but I have, in 
 the name of the people of Ireland, and I do it in their name 
 only, to protest against your prosecutions. In the name of the 
 people of Ireland I protest against the whole of that prosecu- 
 tion. Forty-one public meetings had been held, every one of 
 which was admitted to be legal. Not one of those meet- 
 ings has been impeached as being against law — each made in 
 the calendar of crime a cypher, but by multiplying cyphers you 
 come, by a species of witchcraft, to make a unit. This, that, 
 and the other meeting were each legal, but the three together 
 made one illegal meeting. Do you think that the people of 
 Ireland understand that species of arguing ? I tell you that 
 they do not ; and that though you may oppress them, you can- 
 not laugh at them with impunity. Secondly, I protest in the- 
 name of the Irish people, against the striking out of all the 
 Catholics from the jury panel. There is no doubt about the 
 fact, that there were eleven Catholics on the panel, and that 
 every one of them were struck off. Tlie fact is certain ; it is 
 undisputed. There were excuses, to be sure, offered for it, but 
 there are always excuses made for wrong committed. Oh, but 
 the noble lord said he had a precedent, and he quoted a case in 
 which I had acted in a similar manner. To be sure I did not 
 hear him say the words, as I happened not to be present in the 
 House at the time, but I perceived by those " ordinary chan- 
 nels" througli which matters that take place in this House 
 reach the public ear, that he charged me with having packed a 
 Catholic jury. Perhaps he did not use the word " packed.'* 
 That is not so refined a word as tlie noble lord would employ, 
 but it is equally significant. He said that I had "arranged" 
 an exclusively Catholic jury to try a Protestant gentleman. I 
 admit that to be a very serious charge indeed ; for though I 
 had no public responsibility vested in me on the occasion, I 
 
1 20 C Connell charged with Packing a Jiny. 
 
 had that responsibility which every gentleman at the har feels 
 "to rest with him — namely, that of not outraging decency and 
 justice by any act of his in the discharge of his professional 
 duties. The case to which the noble lord alluded was that of 
 General Bingham, a gentleman who, as a politician, was favour- 
 ably disposed towards the popular party, and who was a very 
 distinguished officer. He happened to enter into an altercation 
 on the high road, and to drive against his opponent. The 
 assault was not very serious, and yet that is the great case — 
 that is the " State Trial " on which I am charged with having 
 packed a Catholic jury. I am literally stating facts, but, per- 
 haps, the hon. gentleman opposite has an objection to facts. 
 The counsel with me in that case were John Bennett, a Protes- 
 tant, and Feargus O'Connor, a Protestant, and it was by them 
 that the proceedings connected with the formation of the jury 
 •were conducted. I am not shrinking from any responsibility, 
 either direct or remote, that may be attached to my conduct ; 
 but the fact was, I happened to be engaged in another court 
 until the moment when the last juror was in the act of being 
 sworn. But, then, was it a packed jury ? There were two 
 Protestant gentlemen on that jury, and as all the jurors must 
 be unanimous before the prisoner could be found guilty, it 
 •could not be regarded as a religiously packed jury. It hap- 
 pened, besides, that after I commenced my statement of the 
 case, Mr. B. Travers, one of the Protestants upon the jury, was 
 seized with sudden illness, and had to retire, and I then 
 allowed Mr. O'Hea, a Protestant magistrate, to be sworn in 
 his place. 
 
 I admit that, if I had the baseness of packing a jury of a 
 •different religion from the prisoner, to try one who had been a 
 violent political partisan : if I had packed a jury of Catholics 
 to try a man who had felt it to be his duty through life to take 
 an active and vigorous part in sustaining what are called Pro- 
 testant principles against the Catholics, there is no possible de- 
 gradation that I should not think myself deserving of. But 
 'General Bingham was not opposed to the Catholics or popular 
 
Catholic Jicrors. 1 2 1 
 
 "Claims, and the jury before wliom Le was tried was not exclu- 
 sively composed of Catholics ; and I think I have, therefore, 
 vindicated myself from the charge which the noble lord thoug-lit 
 fit to bring against me. They have also sent me lists of two 
 other juries along with that which I have just refei-red to. Oue 
 of these was a jury of five Catholics and seven Protestants that, 
 in the year 1838, tried a Catholic priest on a charge of conspi- 
 racy? And what was the verdict of the jury so composed ? 
 Was it an acquittal, or did the jury disagree ? No ; but found 
 the prisoner guilty, without leaving the box. The other case 
 has been sent to me from Midleton. It was a case of sedition 
 that had been tried there. The prisoner was a Catholic, and 
 the jury, which was composed of ten Catholics and two Pro- 
 testants, found the prisoner guilty, also, without leaving the box. 
 I mention these cases to the House, because they enable me to 
 spurn with indignation the base insinuation, that ten or eleven 
 Catholic jurors would perjure themselves in any case in which 
 they would be empanelled. Protesting in the name of the people 
 of Ireland against that accusation, and knowing it, as they do, to 
 be utterly untrue, I leave it as a stigma with you for the mode 
 in which you constituted the jury in the recent trial. They 
 have, also, bid me complain of the diminution of the jury list, 
 which, whatever insinuations may have been thrown out against 
 the man M'Grath, has not been, I think, properly accounted for. 
 A challenge was put into the array, not set forth generally, as 
 in the Welsh case, but averring distinctly that the omission of 
 the names was fraudulently done with intent to injure the tra- 
 versers. I was not here when, as I have been informed, it was 
 said by the very Attorney-General for England — than whom, I 
 do not think any gentleman ever conducted a prosecution with 
 more perfect accuracy and propriety than has been exhibited by 
 him on every occasion in which he has been concerned — that 
 there could not be, as he thought, a reply to that plea, because 
 the names were not set forth. But, surely, he cannot forget, 
 that a man may be tried for murder, where the name of the 
 person murdered is unknown ; and, if the law were otherwise, 
 
122 
 
 TJie EnoIisJi Catholic Charities Bill. 
 
 would not the effect be, that crime would escape with impunitj, 
 if it could not be punished where — though the crime was wit- 
 nessed — the injured party happened to be unknown? But, 
 would it not, I ask, have been prudent and wise, when a fraud 
 of such an intent was set forth as the ground of a challenge, for 
 the Attorney- Greneral for Ireland not to have shrunk from the 
 proof, but to have met it boldlj- and openly ? The Attorney- 
 General did not act well according to his mode of proceeding, 
 in declining to meet that proof, because he knew the case which 
 he had to sustain, and he has claimed credit for having done 
 so. I have but one observation more to make on the subject of 
 that trial. It is one which I would make with some regret if 
 it were not the fact, that I make it with some peril to myself. 
 It is with reference to the charge of the Chief Justice ; and I 
 fearlessly assert that, since the time of Scroggs and Titus Gates, 
 there never was delivered so one-sided a charge. These are the 
 complaints that I have to make on the part of the people of 
 Ireland ; and I now turn from them and ask you, what is it 
 you propose to do for the people of Ireland ? You probably 
 intend to keep an army of some 22,000 or 23,000 men there ; but, 
 can you continue to do so, consistent with the necessary de- 
 mands upon you from the colonies ? But there are some pro- 
 posals of amelioration made, as I have learned through the same 
 channels through which I discovered what the noble lord had 
 said of me. The first of these is the enlargement of the grant. 
 I do not know is it at Maynooth ? ( "iVb, no /") Well, is it for 
 education generally ? and, I have to express my gratification at 
 any aid given to education, as I think you cannot educate 
 people too much ; though you may educate them to a formid- 
 able purpose against yourselves. The next measure of concili- 
 ation is the introduction into Ireland of the English Catholic 
 Charities Bill, known as Mr. Lamb's Bill. I do not know 
 any measure that would do a greater amount of mischief in 
 Ireland than that would effect, though it had been introduced 
 originally for England by myself. The hon. member for Ox- 
 ford, however, took care to be most punctual in his attendance 
 
 I 
 
The Old Statutes of Mortmain. 123' 
 
 •whenever I had it in the list, and I had at length to complain 
 to the then administration of my inability to carry it, and they 
 got Mr. Lamb to introduce it in his own name. The Statute 
 for Superstitious Uses, passed in the reignof King Edward VI., 
 has never been extended to Ireland ; and, even in England, it 
 was a mere retrospective Act; though, singularly enongh, Lord 
 Eldon treated it as being also a declaratory Act. The old sta- 
 tutes of mortmain do not apply to the Catholic clergy in Ire- 
 land, as they are not recognised as corporations, and Catholic 
 charities have accordingly been administered by the Equity 
 Courts in Ireland, at all times, as efficiently as Protestant cha- 
 rities. What I would suggest would be, the introduction of a 
 Bill making the Catholic bishop in each diocese a quasi-corpo- 
 rator, so as to enable him to take any quantity of land, the ex- 
 tent of which you might, if you wished, fix within certain limits,, 
 and give him power to leave it to his successor without the in- 
 tervention of trustees, heirs at law, or executors. There i& 
 another point, that which relates to the fixity of tenure. Now, 
 I say you are doing immense mischief by not acting expedi- 
 tiously with reference to that matter, because you are unsettling 
 the minds of all the actual occupiers. There is a feeling abroad, 
 that all who have been ejected within the last six years will be 
 restored. It is a melancholy fact which cannot be prevented — 
 there is a difficulty in your Government getting credit for any 
 useful measure, and the moment the people see a probability of 
 a change, you unsettle their position. You must act rapidly. 
 What I propose you should do is this: you must first make the 
 law of landlord and tenant similar to the law as it stood at the 
 time of the Union ; you must strike out every statute you have 
 passed from that day to this to benefit the landlord. That can 
 be accomplished ; you have the laws, and the landlords made 
 them; and how can the landlords complain? They even pre- 
 ceded you in passing Acts for facilitating the making distresses 
 in Ireland. The General Replevin Act was passed in Ireland 
 before it was passed in England. In England it was passed in 
 
124 Absenieeisjn a Crime. 
 
 the reign of George II., and in Ireland, in the reign of Anne. 
 This is within your own limits. 
 
 You have much more to do, if you will only try with a spirit 
 and disposition to act fairly for Ireland. You should inquire 
 into the financial arrangements which were made at the Union. 
 I will not trouble you by reading the documents which have 
 been drawn up by the Eepeal Association on the subject of the 
 financial condition of Ireland ; but if jovl will condescend to 
 read them, they will show you that a greater injustice was 
 never committed than that which has been committed since the 
 Union, and in consequence of the Union, by the nature of the 
 financial arrangements in Ireland. I say to you on that sub- 
 ject, do her financial justice. The only grievance that has been 
 redressed is that "of the corporations ; but that is an insult and 
 not a redress. It has thrown out one party from power, and 
 given the shadow of power to the other party, and has dissatis- 
 fied them. Make a corporate reform for Ireland equal to that 
 which you have made for England. We do not ask more. 
 Give us that redress which you have given to others. Eegulate 
 the corporations in Ireland according to the proportion that the 
 Protestant population bears to the Eoman Catholic. I now 
 come to another question — absenteeism ; the cause of increasing 
 poverty and destitution. Look upon absenteeism as a crime in 
 Ireland It ought to be punished as if it were a crime. It is 
 said, how can you get at absentees to tax them ? I say you 
 have done it — you have done it by your income tax. Tlie Irish 
 landlord in England pays the income tax. You have the ma- 
 chinery ; you can compel him to go back to his country and 
 attend to his wretched serfs (a cheer from an Irish member). An 
 Irish landlord cheers me. I am glad of it, for there is not a 
 better landlord in Ireland ; there is no necessity for a law to 
 compel him to attend to his tenants ; send back others, and let 
 them follow his example. I am talking of an evil with which 
 ] am afraid you will not meddle ; it wants a radical cure, for it 
 is an evil too great to be borne. There is another boon I ask 
 
Religious Equality politically necessajy, 125 
 
 for Ireland. Give us an adequate share In the representation. 
 You have rotten boroughs which you can lop off ; there is Har- 
 wick, with 175 voters, returning two members, and the county 
 of Cork, with a population of 750,000, returning two members 
 also. It has been admitted at the commencement of the pre- 
 sent Parliament that there never were instances of greater pro- 
 fligacy than those which occurred at the last election. The hon. 
 member for Bath made disclosures to you; you should act 
 upon them, and give us a fair representation. I come now to 
 the last obstacle of all, and the greatest — the Church. Can 
 tranquillity ever exist in Ireland as long as there is a poor 
 Church, totally unconnected with the State, perfect in all its 
 parts, supported by the majority of the people, and, I am bound 
 to say, insulted by the superiority of a wealthy Church sup- 
 ported by the minority ? No one asks you to deprive any 
 living man in this rich Church of his vested interest. Let not 
 the revenues of the present incumbents be diminished ; only 
 apply the principle to the successor. You should look at Ire- 
 land with the eye of a master, and you will see that till there 
 is religious equality there cannot be political peace. How will 
 you give religious equality ? You are told by some to pay the 
 stipends of the Eoman Catholic Bishops and clergy ; they re- 
 fuse it ; it is impossible for them to accept the money of the 
 State ; they would lose caste if they did accept it. They are 
 convinced that the connection between Church and State is in- 
 jurious to the one and destructive to the other ; that is their 
 thorough conviction, and is also my thorough conscientious 
 feeling. You have not a sufficient treasury to pay them; you 
 could only dole out pitiful salaries, which would excite, but 
 not satisfy them. At whatever point of view you look at it, it 
 is impossible. As to talking of their sitting in Parliament, I 
 would rather see them in any place that was not disreputable 
 than in Parliament. Well, as to the other plan — does the Pro- 
 testant religion require all the money it now enjoys ? Would 
 it fall if the clergy were not paid by the State ? Is it necessary 
 that religious truth should be backed by money ? You tell me 
 
J2.6 Odious Distifidions. 
 
 the Protestant religion would fall if its ministers were not so 
 paid. If that be the ease, what a triumph it must be to me to 
 belong to the Roman Catholic Church ! The Catholics once 
 liad all the livings ; they had been taken away, and that Church 
 has only had some donations since the Keformation. You de- 
 prived the Eoman Catholic Church of Ireland of all her revenues, 
 and hunted her priests into the fastnesses. You set the same 
 price on the head of a wolf as you did on that of a priest. And 
 has the Catholic Church fallen for want of money ? No ; ehe 
 never was in a more triumphant state than at the present 
 moment. She has four archbishops, twenty-three bishops, fifty 
 deans, sixty archdeacons, two thousand parish priests, with two 
 or three curates each. She has an unbroken hierarchy, as re- 
 gular, as orderly, and as perfect as it was the day before Henry 
 YIII. ascended the throne. It is not money, then, that sup- 
 ports her ; she is no disciple of money ; in that respect she 
 gives you a lesson. Hasi^ you not the same faith as we have ? 
 Are not the Scripture truths propagated by the power of argu- 
 ment, by the influence of education, and the talents of the 
 clergy ? Are they nnt sufficient for the defence and the pro- 
 tection of your religion? Why, then, is the country to be 
 divided ? I implore you, then, to look with the eyes of men 
 and statesmen, and cure this anomaly of the Church of the few 
 possessing temporalities, and the Church of the poor possessing 
 nothing but their blessings. I will go back to my country, and 
 carry back your answer. I am afraid it will not be satisfactory. 
 I wish it were. Since the connection between the two countries, 
 nas there not been enough of ill-will ? Is it not time to lay 
 aside all enmity and malice ? Has not the period come when, 
 as Christians, as men, as brothers, we should put an end to the 
 distinction — the odious distinction — between Irishmen and 
 Englishmen, between Catholics and Protestants? Is it not 
 time that all those distinctions, odious in all their relations, 
 should be abolished and done away with, and that there should 
 be a rivalry only in offices of charity and justice ? 
 
A Gigantic Scheme of Godless Education. 127 
 
 Subject, Colleges (Ireland) ; Date, June 16, 1845. 
 
 Tliis was OConnell's first parliamentary speech after his incarceration — 
 ■when the malady, which ultimately killed him, had already begun its ravages. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — I don't mean to agitate the question of 
 Hepeal on this occasion ; and I will, thex'efore, only say that 
 the hon. gentleman who has just sat down is a very bad theo- 
 logian — an exceedingly bad theologian — and being so very 
 bad, it would be well worth his while to inquire a little into 
 the facts before he makes statements on such subjects as that of 
 which he has just been speaking. No Catholic bishop in Ireland 
 could deprive a priest of his functions after a formal induction 
 or a triennial possession. The hon. member for Montrose has 
 spoken of the interference of the Catholic bishops, as if they 
 wished to interfere with a system of education for Protestants, 
 but they have done no such thing. ^ should be happy to hear 
 of Protestant bishops interfering to secure the religious edu- 
 cation of Protestant children — or of Presbyterian clergymen 
 interfering to secure the religious education of Protestant 
 children ; and I claim the same right for the Catholics ; 
 namely, that the Catholic bishops shall be permitted to take 
 •care of the religious education of the Catholic children. I 
 thank the right hon. baronet opposite (Sir R. Inglis) for the 
 admirable description which he gave of this measure when he 
 called it " a gigantic scheme of godless education ;" and as re- 
 gards the alleged success of the system on the continent, so far 
 am I from assenting to that allegation, that I think nothing 
 can be more unsuccessful than the efforts of those who seek to 
 exclude from education religion, which should be the basis of it. 
 I believe that religion ought to be the basis of education ; and 
 I came over from Ireland for no other purpose than humbly to 
 represent the necessity of making religion the basis of educa- 
 tion ; to establish it, not only as a part, but as an essential part 
 of it. I sincerely hope and desire that the discussion of this 
 subject will be carried on with good temper and good feeling, 
 
128 Galileo. 
 
 and that Tve shall not imitate the hou. memher opposite (Mr. 
 Colquhoun) in adopting such a tone, and making unfounded 
 assertions of others who are ahsent. He boasted two or three 
 times that he was a gentleman, and I think it would be far 
 more consistent with the character of a gentleman if he had 
 acted with more courtesy towards the Catholic bishops. He 
 says that he is not in Conciliation Hall. He is not, it is true ;. 
 and I should like to know what business he could have in Con- 
 ciliation Hall, or any conciliation assembly. I must again 
 express a hope that the discussion of this measure will be con- 
 ducted with perfect courtesy and good humour, and I can pledge 
 myself that such will be the case so far as I am concerned. 
 
 Suhjed, Colleges (Irelais'd) — Adjourned Debate; 
 Date, June 23, 1845. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said — Sir, if this debate had not taken a 
 desultory course, and had not avoided the great measure in 
 dispute, I should have taken the liberty to have obtruded my- 
 self much earlier upon the attention of the House, and to have 
 expressed my opinions then in as few sentences as I now mean 
 to address to it. I cannot, however, go on without referring to 
 Sir Philip Crampton, lest it should be supposed that I meant 
 to say anything derogatory to that gentleman, or to insinuate 
 anything that was uuworthy of his reputation. I named an 
 instance which I thought was the strongest that I could have 
 adduced, because the mistake into which that gentleman fell 
 was a mistake deduced from Protestant writers. He himself 
 w-as utterly unconscious that what he was stating was not the 
 literal fact. The Eev. Dr. Miley convinced him that it was 
 not so, and he at once gave evidence of his high character, and 
 the regard which he had for the truth, by retracting the expres- 
 sions which he had used against the Court of Rome. I have 
 half a mind to detain tlie House for a few minutes on the sub- 
 ject of Galileo. The rigiit hon. baronet himself introduced it. 
 The general idea is that Galileo was imprisoned for supporting 
 
Destitution in Ireland, 129 
 
 the Copernican system, and that he was for a length of time in 
 the Inquisition. In point of fact, he was in the Inquisition 
 three days only. Three days constituted the entire length of 
 time which Galileo spent in the Inquisition ; and so far from 
 his being sent to gaol for promulgating the Copernican system, 
 the Pope who was the contemporary of the philosopher was 
 the very man who enabled Copernicus to publish his discoveries. 
 Galileo was imprisoned for quite a different thing. He asserted 
 that the centralization of the sun and the movements of the 
 planets could be proved out of Scripture. He was forbidden to 
 publish that doctrine. He broke the prohibition, and was sent 
 to gaol for three days for a breach of the injunction ; and that 
 was the history of his imprisonment. I regret that the Govern- 
 ment has expressed its determination to persevere with this 
 Bill in its present form, and based upon its present principles. 
 I am not disposed to give any heed at all to the array of 
 motives charged upon the Government for bringing it forward. 
 Almost all our actions proceed from mixed motives. I believe 
 that the predominant motives which actuated the ministers in 
 this matter was to bring forward a measure conciliatory to 
 Ireland. I am quite free to confess, that I believe that such 
 was the leading object of the Bill. I should like to know from 
 the hon. member for Winchester, who paid me a high compli- 
 ment, attributing to me much power, what were the other 
 measures relative to Ireland brought in by the Government 
 which I could support ? The condition of Ireland is now such 
 that no delay can be afforded in the application of a remedy. 
 Ireland is in a frightful state. You have the most decided 
 evidence of that fact in the Eeports of Committees and of Land 
 Commissions. 
 
 In 1830, Mr. Spring Rice spoke of the great distress which 
 then existed, but was full of hope that relief would be speedily 
 afforded. In 1834, the Poor Law Inquiry Commissioners said 
 that there were 2,300,000 persons in a state of destitution in 
 Ireland. You have now a Laud Commission, and what does 
 it tell you ? Why it announces to you the startling fact, that 
 
 VOL. II. 10 
 
130 Are the Gentlemen 0/ England 
 
 4,500,000— that is to say, more than one-half of the popula- 
 tion of Ireland — are in the melancholy condition thus described. 
 They are badly fed, badly clothed, badly housed, and badly 
 paid ; their food potatoes — their drink water — a bed and blanket 
 luxuries to them almost unknown ; in fact, they are suffering 
 more than any other peasantry in Europe. That is the con- 
 dition of Ireland, and is it not a condition full of horror? 
 Forty-five years after the Union that is tlie condition of Ire- 
 land ! Mr. Spring Rice, in 1830, promised amelioration. Mr. 
 Wiggins, at the same period, expected the approach of relief; 
 but in 1844 he writes a letter, declaring that he was convinced 
 that he was totally mistaken, and that the destitution of the 
 people of Ireland had increased. Of what other people can 
 such a description be given as that which can, unfortunately, 
 be drawn of the people of Ireland ? This description is given by 
 Lord Devon's Commission, and there cannot be the least doubt 
 of its accuracy. If it is inaccurate, it is because its colouring 
 is not sufficiently high, and not the least hope of amelioration 
 is held out without the most complete change of measures. 
 Eecollect, also, that the agrarian disturbances in Ireland are 
 accumulating year after year. You hear of more and more 
 murders year after year. You hear with horror, and you should 
 hear with repentance, of the increasing number of those hideous 
 assassinations committed by the friends of ejected tenantry upon 
 those who are instrumental in their ejection. The evil is pro- 
 ceeding north. The disturbances are spreading which now 
 pervade the centre of the county of Roscommon, the entire of 
 the county of Leitrim, and part of the county of Cavan ; and a 
 meeting of magistrates was held the other day in Fermanagh, 
 where no less than two murders have been perpetrated under 
 the present system within a short space of time. Are the gen- 
 tlemen of England — are gentlemen in the House of Commons 
 aware that this is the situation of Ireland? They cannot, if 
 they give themselves leave to think, doubt that it is so. The 
 evidence is of the most cogent character, and no doubt can be 
 entertained of the fact which it but too strongly proves. And 
 
 1 
 
Aware of the State of Ircla?id ? 131 
 
 yet you are talking here of your mighty boon. What is that 
 boon ? The people are starving. Feed them before you educate 
 them. Don't think of such a Bill as I understand has got into 
 the other House of Parliament. Don't mock us with your 
 paltry unfencing of lands. You are calling upon the tenantry 
 •of Ireland — that tenantry of whom I have just given you a 
 description — out of the little capital they have saved, to improve 
 their lands, and if they happen to die within thirty years after- 
 wards, their heirs will get some portion of the value of the im- 
 provements. When I addressed this House at the period 
 between my conviction and sentence, I asked the Groverument 
 what they were going to do for Ireland ? It was no matter 
 what became of me, my desire was that they should do some- 
 thing for Ireland. Though they did nothing for Ireland, they 
 had on hand a scheme of their own which was to suppress in 
 Ireland the expression of its sense of grievance and wrong. I 
 got no response to my question as to what you were going to 
 do. Let me, then, ask what you now will do for Ireland ? I 
 ■call upon the hon. member for Winchester — and I feel exceed- 
 ingly flattered by his attentions towards me — I call upon him 
 to say what can the Government do for Ireland ; what will the 
 Government help me to do for Ireland ? Have the manliness 
 to meet the Irish landlord. One way in which to do good is to 
 make such a change in the present landed system as to afford 
 the people a chance. Do I owe an apology for adverting to 
 this subject ? I think not ; for it is highly important as regards 
 the question before us. If you want to do anything else for us 
 from which we can expect any good at your hands, you must 
 shape this measure in such a way as that it can be received, 
 and come into action. It will not do for you to make admirable 
 find eloquent speeches like the one to which I listened with 
 pleasure but a few minutes ago ; they may sound exceedingly 
 well, but they do no good at all. Your triumphant majorities ; 
 your exclaiming, " hear hear ;" your declaiming against those 
 who differ from you in opinion, are valueless themselves. Turn 
 your majorities to good account ; make them really useful to 
 
 10 * 
 
132 Ld there be Fair Pcay 
 
 Ireland. The present Government is the strongest Grovernment 
 which has been known for a century, and you have everything 
 in your power. Give us then, at least, this measure in such a 
 shape as will enable the people of Ireland to receive it as a 
 boon. You accuse yourselves for not having consulted the 
 ecclesiastical authorities of every description in Ireland before 
 you brought in this Bill. I do not know what harm it would 
 have done you to have so consulted them. You might have 
 told them that you were not to be bound by the opinions re- 
 ceived from them, but it would have assisted yourselves in 
 coming to a right determination to have consulted them. The 
 people of England will not sanction this scheme of godless 
 education, and you must introduce religion into your system, 
 or it will not be received by the people of Ireland. The Irish, 
 are essentially a religious people. Infidelity is unknown in 
 Ireland Act manfully, therefore ; make religion the basis of 
 your proceedings, and fear not. By so doing you will have a 
 better prospect before you — you will have the protection of a 
 higher Power if you adopt proper principles as the foundation 
 of yoiu" scheme ; but do not flatter yourselves with the idea that 
 you are doing anything conciliatory to Ireland if, in a matter 
 of this kind, you exclude religion from your consideration. 
 Let there be Presby terianism for the Presbyterian, Protestantism 
 for the Protestant, and Catholicism for the Catholic. I want 
 nothing for the Catholic which I am not ready to assert for 
 others. Let there be fair play and justice to all. 
 
 One would think that, if you introduced religious instruc- 
 tion into the Colleges, you were afraid that you were intro- 
 ducing for the first time the elements of strife and dissension. 
 By Heaven ! are not these elements in existence at present ? 
 Are men in Ireland not Catholics, Protestants, or Presby- 
 terians, whether you give the instruction or not ? By show- 
 ing fair play to all, by giving the opportunity of a more 
 constant and attentive observance of religious duties, and by 
 giving more religious instruction, you will give a better chance 
 to the development of that which is the predominant quality 
 
Ancf j'astice to All. 133 
 
 in the Christian religion — charity towards each other ; and by 
 thus showing fair play and justice to all, you would have a 
 better prospect, at least, of effecting that reconciliation between 
 creeds which is so desirable. If you fail in your present 
 scheme, won't you be the laughing-stock and the ridicule of 
 the world ? If you fail in the scheme of giving religious 
 education, you would have the consolation of knowing that you 
 had failed in a mighty and a majestic attempt — an attempt 
 worthy of statesmen, and worthy in every way of Christian 
 exertions. Do now make an effort in the right direction, and 
 fear not the result. Let me now remind you that the Catholic 
 bishops of Ireland have met on this subject ; that they have 
 enunciated their opinions, and pronounced your Bill dangerous 
 both to faith and morals. That is the judgment which they 
 have pronounced upon it. You may scorn their decision, and 
 treat with levity their declaration ; but I warn you to recollect 
 that six millions and upwards of the people of Ireland treat 
 their decision with profound respect. Recollect, too, that that 
 decision has gone abroad among the mass of the Irish people. 
 Conciliate the Protestants, and educate the Protestants; con- 
 ciliate the Presbyterians, and educate the Presbyterians ; but, 
 recollect, when you come to talk of educating the Catholics, 
 that you must necessarily pay attention to that to which they 
 pay attention— the decision of their bishops. Already have 
 their bishops told them that your plan of education is dangerous 
 both to faith and morals. When they want, by way of 
 guarantee to them that a number of the professors should be 
 Catholics, it is not meant that a man calling himself a Catholic 
 should be preferi'ed to a Protestant, nor is it meant that a 
 Protestant should be educated by a Catholic professor. Have 
 you not, even in Belfast, two Professors of Divinity ? Have you 
 not there a double set of professors ? And if you want for the 
 protection of Protestants and Presbyterians a double set of 
 professors, are not the Catholic bishops, whose duty is to super- 
 intend the religious instruction of the people, justified in re- 
 quiring the means of protecting the Catholics? You tell me 
 
134 Do you Suspect the Professor of Greek ? 
 
 that you will protect the Catholics. You say, that if a pro- 
 fessor preaches infidelity, you will dismiss him. I am not 
 satisfied with that. I mean you no disrespect, but I will not 
 take your word for it. The bishops insist on having a power 
 lodged in them for finding out the infidelity, and of having 
 some voice, at least, in the dismissal of the professors who 
 might inculcate it. I do not say that in every instance a pro- 
 fessor of one persuasion will insinuate doctrines inimical to 
 another. But they say we will not run the risk — that it is too 
 awful a risk to be run. They want not to interfere with your 
 interests— all they want is to be able to watch over their own ; 
 and they insist upon having the means of ascertaining whether 
 that interest is not sacrificed. 
 
 These are the grounds on which we stand. It is not that 
 the bishops say that Protestantism will mislead the Catholics ; 
 all that they insist upon is, that Protestantism is capable of 
 misleading the Catholics. This has already been exhibited in 
 Belfast. The professors of Unitarian persuasions are accused 
 of introducing into their lectures Unitarian matter. The fact 
 there is already proved ; and really, if it was not so proved, it 
 is in human nature that it should be so, and that the danger 
 apprehended should exist. The hon. member for Newcastle- 
 under-Lyne (Mr. Colquhoun) stated distinctly that the profes- 
 sors there broached infidel opinions in giving their lectures. I 
 think direct allusion was made to the chair of Moral Philosophy. 
 {Mr. Colquhoun : " 7o the Professor of Greek.'') To the Profes- 
 sor of Greek ! Now, speaking of the matter, independently of 
 the fact that it really is so, what excellent speeches might be 
 made in this House, what cheers might be elicited, by its being 
 asked, " Do you suspect the Professor of Grreek ? What has h& 
 to do with religion ? He is only teaching a language ; teaching 
 his pupils to conjugate tvtt<i) and the like." To say that there 
 was any danger from him, would make us only be laughed at. 
 And yet, this very Professor of Greek is caught in the fact of 
 inculcating infidelity upon his scholars. What do the bishops 
 insist upon ? Simply that there shall be no possibility of this 
 
A Bill DangeroiLS to Faith ana Morals. 135 
 
 in future taking place. As to your amendments of this Bill, 
 what in reality have you done ? You have taken more power 
 to yourselves. We want protection against you, against the 
 ministry of the day, whatever and whoever they may be. The 
 Catholics require that they shall not he subject to the caprices 
 or mistakes of the ministry. The ministry have not time to 
 examine Professors of Anatomy and Science — they must take 
 their information from others ; and, in nine instances out of ten, 
 so long as I have been a member of this House, we should have 
 known the political tenets of these professors from those who ap- 
 pointed them. I really believe that future ministers would take 
 as much care of their friends, and be as sure not to promote 
 their enemies as any ministry has ever been. The fact is, to 
 conciliate the people of Ireland, you must conciliate the Catho- 
 lic prelates. To prepare a measure which will be acceptable to 
 the people you must consult the Catholic prelates. The bishops 
 are now assembled, and you are aware of what they would 
 consider a sufficient protection to their religion. At present 
 they have proclaimed the Bill dangerous to faith and morals. 
 That is their present proclamation ; and there is no sincere 
 Catholic in Ireland who does not know that, as far as religious 
 instruction is concerned, he is bound by the decision of his 
 bishop. Scientific instruction is another thing. But, as far 
 as religious instruction is concerned, or rather when a scl e:ue 
 is presented to that people, from which religious instruction is 
 excluded, they cannot consent to receive education based upon 
 such a principle. You may think the clamour gone which was 
 raised in England. The clamour against the Maynooth Bill 
 was the most senseless and atrocious display of calumny, hatred, 
 bigotry, and bad feeling, which ever disgraced any country. 
 That had now exhausted itself. You do not perceive a symp- 
 tom of it remaining. It has gone by, and so has the snow of 
 last winter. You have nothing now to fear from it. You car- 
 ried your Bill manfully. You did it, and it did you great credit. 
 I come not here with overweening expressions of gratitude ; 
 but I am grateful for that measure. I am here to declare that 
 
136 C Connelly a Thorough Radical. 
 
 there never was a measure brought in with more complete fair 
 play and justice, and with a more honest intention of carrying 
 it out fairly for the people for whom it was intended. That 
 measure was perfect in its kind ; equal to any which ever 
 passed through Parliament ; and you are entitled to great credit 
 for having carried it against the senseless and unjust clamour 
 which bigotry, for the time, succeeded in raising against it. 
 Take one step more, and consider whether this Bill may not be 
 made to accord with the feelings of the Catholic ecclesiastics of 
 Ireland. I ought not to detain you. I am not speaking here 
 in any spirit of hostility. I should be most happy to give every 
 assistance in my humble power to make this Bill work well. I 
 have the most anxious wish to have the Bill work well, because 
 I am desirous of seeing education promoted in Ireland ; but 
 even education may be a misapplied power. I admit that at one 
 time I thought the plan of a mixed education proper ; and I 
 still think that, in literature and science, a system of mixed edu- 
 cation would be proper ; but with regard to religious education, 
 I think that each denomination of Christians should be edu- 
 cated by their respective religious instructors. Let the students 
 be put down upon terms of perfect equality in respect to reli- 
 gion, and then you will have a basis laid for an equality of 
 education in literary and scientific pursuits which would gain 
 the cordial assent of all parties in Ireland. Certainly, the Bill 
 as it now stands may seem to confer very formidable powers 
 on the minister of the day in the nomination of the professors, 
 and the degree of control which they will be enabled to exercise 
 over these colleges ; and, more especially, they may appear so 
 to a thorough Radical like myself; but I am not afraid of these 
 powers. The smuggler meets his check in the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer ; and so, in as far as the powers conferred by 
 this Bill are concerned, where the ministers may acquire the 
 means of making one man, perhaps, grateful, they, in all proba- 
 bility, will incur the liatred of fifty. Again, I repeat, I am 
 most anxious for the success of this Bill ; but I fairly tell you 
 it cannot succeed without the Catholic bishops. They have the 
 
Probable Consequences of Disaffection. 137 
 
 faith of six millions of people in their hands. There may have 
 heen harsh expressions in the public papers, but depend upon it 
 great anxiety exists in Ireland to have such a measure, if you 
 will but make it eflfective ; and if you choose to make it effective 
 you have the power. For myself, I am not indisposed to vote 
 with the noble lord, but that is without prejudice to any better 
 mode being considered when we come into committee. But 
 \^i me here express a hope that there will be no persevering 
 wdth the committee this night. A few days' delay may have 
 a most important effect. I am so strongly impressed with that 
 opinion that I do hope that the right hou. baronet will not 
 proceed with the Bill in committee to-night. However, which 
 way soever you may decide in that respect, I trust the House 
 will believe that what has fallen from me has been uttered in 
 the fairest spirit of good faith. My political power elsewhere 
 may be deemed a jest, but here it is a reality. I am ready to 
 join in any measure that may be useful to the people of Ireland, 
 and that may tend to do away with the spirit of disaffection 
 existing in that country. It is not a political disaffection ; it 
 is not a religious disaffection ; but it is a physical disaffection. 
 Tou, gentlemen of England, have no notion of its extent or of 
 its intensity ; and though it may not display itself at this moment, 
 sufficient to alarm you or arouse you, still the time may come, 
 after some of us shall have gone to our graves, when that phy- 
 sical disaflFection may have the most frightful consequences. 
 
 Suhject, Colleges — Ireland ; Date, June 30, 1845. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said he should not consider that he dis- 
 charged his duty if he allowed the Bill to go into committee 
 without offering a few remarks to the House upon it. The 
 right Hon. baronet was perfectly just in thinking that the House 
 ought not to submit to the dictation of any parties, however 
 respectable or venerable ; but they should not forget, at the 
 
138 Br. Mac Hale's Letter, 
 
 same time, tiiat their object in legislating ought to be successful. 
 "What would their waste of money or their appointment of pro- 
 fessors signify, if they afterwards failed in the object which they 
 had in view ? His o23inion was that they would not succeed if 
 they continued to proceed with the Bill, in opposition to the 
 opinions and advice of the Catholic bishops. The right hon. 
 baronet had stated that the Bill had been much altered since- 
 the Catholic prelates had expressed their opinion upon it ; but 
 he (Mr. O'Counell) believed he had authentic evidence that 
 these alterations had made no change whatever in their views 
 regarding the Bill. The following was a letter which he had 
 received within the last few days on the subject : — 
 
 "Maynooth College, June 26, 1815. 
 
 "My dear Mr. O'Conxell — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 kind and respected communication. Thougli my reply has been somewhat 
 tardy, it is most consolatory to me to be able to convey to you, that the sen- 
 timents of the bishops relative to the dangers to faith and morals with which 
 the Collegiate Education Bill is fraught, remain unaltered. It has been re- 
 probated in such terms as became the divinely constituted guardians of the 
 faith and morality of their respective flocks to apply to it. However, though 
 some of the prelates were of opinion that a petition to Parliament, framed on 
 the model of the memorial to the Lord Lieutenant, would aid much in avert- 
 ing the threatened calamity, others thought it not right to encounter once 
 more contemptuous disregard of the just requisitions of the Catholic prelates 
 of Ireland. 
 
 " You can, however, with a confidence, fearless of contradiction, state that 
 the resolutions of the bishops regarding this bad scheme of academic educa- 
 tion remain in full force, and that no ministry can ever hope to render toler- 
 able to the Catholic people of Ireland so penal and revolting an enactment. 
 
 "You have full liberty to make any use you may think proper of this 
 communication. Wishing you and your faithful adherents all your wonted 
 energy and success in combating this anti-Catholic measure, I remain, my 
 dear Mr. O'Connell, your very respectful and devoted, 
 
 " "J- John MacHale. 
 •* Daniel O'Connell, Esq., M.P., London." 
 
 That was the opinion, regarding the measure, of the Arch- 
 bishop of Tuam. It showed ^hoX he still considered the Bill to 
 
Religion the Principal Object of Human Life. 139 
 
 Ld one whicli would hold out temptations to youth to neglect 
 the duty which they owed to the principles of their religion ; and 
 though describing it as a " penal and revolting enactment, "^ 
 might be considered in that House as too strong a condemna- 
 tion of the measure, it was in itself evidence of the feelings 
 which were entertained in Ireland respecting it. The object of 
 the Government in introducing the Bill was to be successful ; 
 but they could not expect success if they met with the decided 
 opposition of the clergy of two- thirds of the Irish people ; of 
 that portion, too, of the people who required additional facilities 
 for education most, and to whom, if properly administered, it 
 would prove most valuable. His objection to the Bill was, that 
 it was an irreligious one : that it provided no means of instruc- 
 tion in religion ; and in this point he did not think it had been 
 improved by tlie alterations that had been made in it ; since in 
 its first introduction originally it left religion out of the ques- 
 tion altogether. The principal object of human life was in it 
 totally disregarded. They now came forward with a Bill in 
 which they condescended to tolerate religion. They were kind 
 enough to permit religion to be taught, but that was all. Now, 
 he did not really think that to be any great concession. If the 
 Catholic people of Ireland thought fit to erect a hall in a town 
 in which one of these colleges was situated, the Government 
 would allow of its existence. But what law was now in force 
 that could prevent the Catholics from founding such an establish- 
 ment ? They did not open any law or confer any benefit not 
 already enjoyed by this Bill ; but they made — to use the words 
 of the Archbishop of Tuam — a penal enactment. They gave 
 dictatorial powers to their Visitors over these halls, while they 
 did nothing towards the founding of them. In a recent case 
 lizard before Lord Chancellor Sugden, it was decided that there 
 is no law in existence limiting the power of establishing con- 
 vents and places of education for the Catholic people of Ireland. 
 The Legislature, therefore, in passing this measure, did nothing 
 affirmatively, but they did something negatively. They would 
 thus, by their proceeding, which he has no doubt was well- 
 
140 Importance of ReCigious Education. 
 
 intentioned, excite jealousies and religious animosities amongst 
 all classes in Ireland. They liad already the animating dis- 
 tinction in existence in that country. They had that " dark- 
 ness," to use the term employed by the right hon. baronet, in 
 which error and bad feeling might be most easily propagated ; 
 but they refused to remove it by giving the genuine light of 
 religious education to the people, religious education to Pro- 
 testants — religious education to Catholics — religious education 
 to Presbyterians. They would promote the charity and the 
 common Christianity of all by giving such religious educa- 
 tion; whereas, by turning religion out of their colleges, or 
 making its existence in them merely persuasive, they held 
 back from the children the advantages of Christian truth, leav- 
 ing matters in their original darkness, and instead of advanc- 
 ing their own views, they, on the contrary, defeated them. 
 Then, again, it should be recollected that the Protestants of Ire- 
 land were the most wealthy class ; and if the Bill merely gave 
 permission to build halls, was it not probable that three, four, or 
 five Protestant halls would be erected for one Catholic hall ? 
 If they wished, instead of allowing wealth to triumph over re- 
 ligious poverty, they should take the subject of providing for 
 religious instruction into their own hands, and thus place all 
 religious persuasions on a footing of perfect equality. It was 
 not his intention, however, to divide the house at that stage of 
 the Bill. He would find it to be his duty to press for a division 
 on one of the early clauses, and having done so, he would con- 
 sider that he had performed his duty against it. He would do 
 so, not with any hope of success, but in order to protest against 
 its provisions ; to protest against it for giving merely a kind of 
 left-handed permission, but no real assistance whatever to the 
 best and most important branch of education — the religious 
 education of the Irish people. 
 
The Fa?nme in Ireland. 141 
 
 Sithject, Famine and Disease in Ireland ; ' 
 Date, February 17, 1846. 
 
 This scourge, long to be remembered in Ireland, was already threatening^ 
 our xinhappy land. Hitherto O'Connell had been sternly demanding moral,. 
 religious, and political freedom for his people ; but now he cried for bread. 
 The whole subject has been so ably treated in a recent work* that, even had: 
 we space for details, they would not be necessary. 
 
 It can now be said that the English Government were fully forewarned 
 of the impending famine. O'Connell prepared a plan to meet the evil,, 
 worthy of his best days. The matter was brought before the Lord' 
 Lieutenant by an influential deputation, but it was received with in- 
 difference, and O'Connell treated with contempt ; he was not necessary to 
 the Tory Government then in power. If O'Ccnnell's plan had been carried 
 out, and it was perfectly possible, the lives of thousands would have been 
 saved. He only wished to have the people employed in works of national 
 utility, to have the ports closed against the export of corn, which was 
 exceptionally abundant, and to forbid the use of grain in distillation. 
 
 The deputation was bowed out, and the usual number of fictitious 
 committees, impracticable plans, and inane suggestions, were offered instead 
 of common sense and prompt action. The Irish people were talked to 
 death. Corn Laws for England and Coercion Laws for Ireland were the 
 stones offered where bread meant life. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell rose to call the attention of the House to 
 the state of famine and disease in Ireland. His intention was 
 to move — 
 
 " That this House will, on Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee 
 of the whole House, to take into consideration the state of Ireland, with a 
 view to devise means to relieve the distress of the Irish people." 
 
 And it was a motion to which he respectfully demanded the 
 utmost attention of the House. The importance of the subject 
 was of itself sufficient to demand attention ; but he should 
 have been spared the whole of his labour had it suited the 
 purpose of the right hon. baronet, in the course of his speech 
 
 * " History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847," by the Rev. J. O'Rourke^ 
 P. P., M. R. I. A. Dublin : M'Glashan and Gill. 
 
142 State of Ireland. 
 
 on the previous niglit to state what were the intentions of the 
 Government with regard to Ireland. That, he begged to 
 remind hon, members, was no party question ; he certainly 
 introduced the subject without any party motive or party 
 ■object. He was moved by no partisan feeling ; nor did he 
 expect that he should be met by any party opposition. He 
 was sure that all parties would agree with him in feeling deep 
 anxiety at the prospect of distress ; and thus the House would 
 come fairly to the consideration of the subject, without bias or 
 prepossession. It was certain that there was a fearful prospect 
 of a most calamitous season before the people of Ireland. The 
 extent of that calamity had been disputed, and there had been 
 a time when there was a prospect of some portion of it being 
 possibly averted ; but he believed that hope had now quite 
 vanished. The calamity was pressing and imminent — more 
 pressing, more imminent, and more fearful than that House 
 was aware of. In order to understand it, it was right that the 
 House should be made aware of the state of Ireland before the 
 calamity had impended. That calamity, they should observe, 
 was not one brought on by any fault of the Irish people. It was 
 not a consequence of the sterility of the Irish soil. The country 
 iad enjoyed an abundant harvest. That calamity was a dis- 
 pensation of Providence, and they should bow to the will of an 
 all-dispensing Power, whilst they fulfilled the duties of chari- 
 table Christians, and endeavoured to mitigate the evils that 
 might arise. But to enable them to relieve the distress, it 
 would be necessary for the House to understand the previous 
 state of Ireland; and he was sorry to have to state in the 
 commencement, that, from the public documents, it appeared 
 for several years past, the population of Ireland, instead of 
 increasing, according to the rules of nature, and as in other 
 countries, had been failing and wasting away. But the condi- 
 tion of the people, especially of the agricultural population, 
 had been long described as ground down by famine and distress. 
 All accounts agreed in describing them as in a state of actual 
 starvation. Now, he did not propose to call upon the House 
 
Decrease of the Population. 143 
 
 to believe any mere assertions of his. He bad no intention of 
 asking tbem to believe anything he did not prove by docu- 
 ments. He meant to show from documents of the most un- 
 questionable character, the increasing misery of the Irish nation. 
 The first document would be an abstract of the Population 
 Eeturns for 1821, 1831, and 1841, by which the following 
 facts were placed beyond a doubt. 
 
 Between 1821 and 1831, the population of Ireland increased 
 nearly a million, viz., 965,570 souls ; but between 1831 and 
 1841, ths increase had only been about one-half that number, 
 or 437,980 souls. Attempts had been made to account for this 
 decrease by the increase of emigration ; but the argument was 
 unsatisfactory. Those who used it, gave no returns of emigra- 
 tion between 1821 and 1831, but confined themselves to the 
 emigration between 1831 and 1841 ; there was no reason at all 
 to imagine that the emigration was less between 1821 and 1831 
 than it had been between 1831 and 1841. This fact, therefore, 
 stared him full in the face, that in ten years the population 
 went back half-a-million ; there was an increase of half-a- 
 million fewer human beings in Ireland between 1831 and 1841 
 than there had been between 1821 and 1831. One of the topics 
 in connection with the state of slavery in the West Indies, 
 which made the strongest impression from the lips of Sir 
 Fowell Buxton, was the circumstance that the black population 
 had decreased ; but his case was not so striking as that of 
 Ireland. The next public document to which he begged leave 
 to refer, was the Eeport of the Commissioners of Poor Law 
 Inquiry in 1835; they had been appointed by the House to 
 investigate the state of destitution in Ireland, and they dis- 
 tinctly stated that 2,300,000 of the agricultural population 
 were in a constant state of destitution approaching to star- 
 vation. For several weeks in the year they lived on the charity 
 of their neighbours. The last Population Eeturns of 1841 
 showed that, out of the whole rural population of Ireland, 46 per 
 cent, lived in a single room ; the entire human family and the 
 pigs occupied the same apartment together. The fact was, that 
 
144 The Earl of DevoiUs Commission. 
 
 of the civil population — that is, of the inhabitants of towns — 
 36 per cent, lived in a single room, and that two or three 
 families sometimes occupied the same room. Perhaps the most 
 important document of all was the Eeport of Lord Devon's 
 Commission ; it had been directed to that noble lord and four 
 others, and perhaps a better Commission was never formed by 
 the hands of any Grovernment. It was impossible to believe 
 that they were deceived themselves, or that they meant to 
 deceive others, and the following were the terms they used, 
 warranted by the evidence they had taken, and their own 
 observations : — 
 
 " That the agricultural labourers of Ireland suffer the greatest privations 
 and hardships ; that they depend upon precarious and casual employment 
 for subsistence ; that they are badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and 
 badly paid for their labour; that it would be impossible to describe 
 adequately the sufferings and privations which the cottiers and labourers 
 and their families in most partsof the country endure; that in many districts 
 their only food is the potato, their only beverage water; that their cabins 
 are seldom protection against the weather ; that a bed or blanket is a rare 
 luxury; and that nearly in all, their pigs and their manure heap constitute 
 ilieir only property ; that a large proportion of the entire population comes 
 within the designation of agricultural labourers, and endure sufferings 
 greater than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain." 
 
 Hon. members would recollect that these were not the asser- 
 tions of demagogues, or even of persons interested in reporting 
 exaggerated scenes of misery ; they were the distinct and em- 
 phatic statements of men above all suspicion, and beyond belief 
 that they could have been imposed upon. The rural population 
 in the last census was calculated at seven millions, and five 
 millions of these were in the condition described in the Eeport 
 of the Earl of Devon's Commission. It was a Eeport made 
 forty-five years after the Union with England — after the Union 
 with the richest and most industrious country on the face of the 
 earth ; and what did the Commissioners say but that the agri- 
 cultural population of Ireland was badly fed, badly clothed, 
 and badly housed — that their food was potatoes, their diink 
 
Lord Devon s Report. 145 
 
 water, and that they endured greater privations than the 
 peasantry of any other country of Europe. He would appeal 
 to hon. gentlemen who listened to him, whether this was not a 
 frightful state of society. They must remember that the Irish 
 did not govern themselves, that there was no Irish Parliament, 
 and that after a government by England of forty-five years* 
 duration, this was the result. He would not enter into all the 
 topics this part of the question presented : he would only put it 
 distinctly to those who heard him, that they were responsible 
 for the present condition of Ireland. If England could not 
 govern her, she ought to abdicate; but if she continued ta 
 attempt it, she was bound to rescue the people of Ireland from 
 their present misery. This Report, too, was not made in a 
 year of calamity, a year of famine, but in 1844, when the 
 harvest was abundant, and comparatively little distress was 
 known in Ireland ; it was made at a period of comparative 
 comfort, if he might use the expression, of comparative freedom 
 from calamity. It might be said that it was the fault of the 
 Irish people ; but Lord Devon's Report did not say so. The 
 Commissioners had reported two points : the first was, that 
 " the patient endurance which the labourers exhibit is deserving 
 of high commendation of Government and Parliament." The 
 Irish people were, therefore, not to blame for their misery, and 
 the Commissioners called upon the Government and the Parlia- 
 ment to give their best attention to their condition, with some 
 confidence that the call would be responded to. Another 
 matter of commendation on the part of the Commissioners, was 
 the habits of temperance of the Irish peasantry. 
 
 '' Up to this period (they said) any improvement that may liave taken 
 place is attributable almost entirely to the habits of temperance in which they 
 have so generally persevered, and not, we grieve to say, to any increased 
 demand for their labour." 
 
 In addressing himself, therefore, to the present distressed 
 state of the inhabitants, he carried with him the hope that he 
 had impressed upon the House the real claims of the sufferers. 
 
 VOL. IT. 11 
 
146 
 
 Not the Fault of the People. 
 
 What had they to fall back upon at this moment ? Potatoes 
 were then' only food — their only drink, water ; and they had 
 neither bed nor blanket to cover them from the cold. It was 
 singular enough that they were threatened now with this 
 calamity ; it was not to be attributed to the population — to any 
 refusal to labour and cultivate the soil. He had two Parlia- 
 mentary documents before him to show how unfounded was 
 any charge of that kind. The first was this : — 
 
 " An account of tlie quantities of wheat, barley, oats, flour, and oatmeal 
 imported into Great Britain, from Ireland, in the years 1842, 1843, 1844, 
 and 1845, distinguishing the quantities in each year. 
 
 Corn of Irish Growth, 
 Imported into Great Britain from Ireland. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Oats. 
 
 Whcatmeal, 
 or yiour. 
 
 Oatmeal. 
 
 1842 
 1843 
 1844 
 1845 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 112,195 
 192,477 
 200,276 
 372,719 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 50,287 
 
 110,449 
 
 90.656 
 
 93,095 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 1,274.326 
 1,561,997 
 1,509.870 
 1,679,958 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 314,311 
 773,463 
 839,567 
 1,422,379 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 1,551,172 
 1,706,682 
 1,150,976 
 1,059,185 
 
 That Return gave this result; that 2,145,772 quarters of 
 grain were imported from Ireland into England, and 2,481,564 
 cwts. of flour meal ; showing that there was an abundant crop 
 in Ireland last year ; that while her people were starving she 
 produced a larger quantity of grain and meal for the consump- 
 tion of England. The second Parliamentary document he had 
 to refer to, was — 
 
 "An account of all cattle, sheep, and swine, imported into Great Britain 
 from Ireland, from the 10th day of October, 1845, to the oth day of January, 
 1846, Oxen, bulls, and cows, 32,883; calves, 583; sheep and lambs, 32,576 ; 
 swine, 104,141." 
 
 These two documents proved an anomalous state of society 
 to exist in Ireland ; for while the country produced such abun- 
 dance the inhabitants were starving. So blessed was she by 
 
Cursed by Mail. 147 
 
 Providence ; so cursed by man ! Others might account for it 
 as they could ; but the fact was indisputable, that the best state 
 of society there was the worst in other parts of the globe. 
 Having shown what Ireland was, even in the best times, he 
 would now advert to the extent and formidable nature of the 
 calamity by which she was now visited. The documents he 
 should first employ for this purpose were such as had been 
 furnished by Government ; and with some of them hon. gentle- 
 men must be familiar; to them the reading might seem tedious; 
 but it was his duty to lay the case of Ireland, in the fullest 
 manner, before the House ; and on this account he trusted he 
 should be excused if he offered a few known details. The sub- 
 sequent passage was contained in the Report of Messrs. Lindley 
 and Playfair, dated November 15, 1845 : — 
 
 *' During our stay in Ireland, we carefully examined such Official Papers 
 as were transmitted to us from the Castle ; we consulted persons acquainted 
 with the facts of the disease ; we visited the district lying between Dublin 
 and Drogheda, and inspected various potato fields and stores in the counties of 
 Dublin, Louth, Meath, Westmeath, and part of KiJdare. Judging from the 
 evidence thus collected, and from what we have seen of the progress of the 
 disease in England, we can come to no other conclusion than that one-half 
 of the potato-crop of Ireland is either destroyed or remains unfit for the food 
 of man. "VVe, moreover, feel it our duty to apprise you, that we fear this to 
 be a low estimate." 
 
 The next extract he would read was from the Report of the 
 Commissioners of Inquiry at Dublin Castle; and the House 
 "^vould observe that it was a remarkable paragraph : — 
 
 " It appears from undoubted authority, that of thirty-two counties in 
 Ireland, not one has escaped failure in the potato crop; of 130 Poor Law 
 Unions, not one is exempt; of 2,058 electoral divisions, above 1,400 are cer- 
 tainly reported as having suffered ; and we have no certainty, until the 
 receipt of the more minute returns, now in the progress of completion, that 
 the remaining 600 have altogether escaped." 
 
 That Commission had corresponded with nearly all the 
 local authorities in Ireland ; and the following was the con- 
 
 11 * 
 
hs 
 
 Misery, Poverty, Famine^ and Disease. 
 
 elusion at which it had arrived, after having written 362 letter* 
 to obtain correct information : — 
 
 Proportion of Potato Crop Last Year. 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 .a 
 
 •a 
 
 .3 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 .EI 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 ■ 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 
 
 
 i: 
 
 A 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 o 
 
 <A 
 
 M 
 
 '3 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 ^• 
 
 a) 
 
 13 
 
 ^ 
 
 t 
 
 o 
 
 CS 
 
 
 a 
 
 d 
 
 S 
 
 
 0) 
 IS 
 
 "o 
 
 
 < 
 G 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 Ph 
 
 H 
 
 M 
 
 o 
 32 
 
 o 
 6 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 6 
 
 o 
 
 E-i 
 
 Ulster, ... 
 
 15 
 
 37 
 
 133 
 
 
 239 
 
 Munster, ... 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 88 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 ... 
 
 1 
 
 ... 
 
 133 
 
 Leinster, ... 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 41 
 
 97 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 ... 
 
 
 184 
 
 Connaught, 
 
 ... 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 49 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ... 
 
 81 
 
 A more authentic document could not be produced ; and 
 the accuracy of its details might, therefore, be fully relied upon. 
 Sir Lucius O'Brien, at first, had been difficult to be persuaded 
 of the extent of the disease in the potatoes ; but he had subse- 
 quently waited on the Lord Lieutenant, and had admitted that 
 he had been mistaken, and that it prevailed to the excess that had 
 been stated. He need not remind the House of the documents 
 read by the right hon. baronet in his speech last night. Hon. 
 members would be convinced how fully, deeply, and entirely 
 they corroborated the representation he had given upon the sub- 
 ject, without any point of mitigation ; misery, poverty, famine, 
 and disease were the features belonging to the present wretched 
 state of Ireland. A committee, called the Mansion House 
 Committee, had been appointed in Dublin, and the utmost care 
 had been taken to collect accurate information. Between the 
 10th December and 26th January, they issued 923 letters, and 
 had received 523 answers ; viz., from Leinster, 141 letters ; 
 from Ulster, 163 letters ; from Munster, 152 letters ; from Con- 
 naught, 67 letters, Of these there were — from ministers of the 
 
Letters on the State of Ireland. 149 
 
 Established Church, 216 letters; from Roman Catholic clergy, 
 195 letters; from Presbyterian ministers, 40 letters; from 
 lieutenants and deputy ditto, 47 letters ; from poor law boards, 
 25 letters. The following was the degree in which they repre- 
 sented that the potato crop had suffered, and was unfit for 
 human food : — Under one-third, 110 ; one-third, 111 ; one-half, 
 148 ; over half, 84. Such was the synopsis of the letters and 
 answers. At one period, when the potatoes were stored, and 
 the calamity not immediately before the eyes of the people, 
 they had hoped that it had passed the crisis : that appeared to 
 be a mistake ; but whether it were true or false that there was 
 at one time a lull in the disease, it was now quite certain that 
 it was making frightful progress again. He had now to tres- 
 pass on the patience of the House while he brought under its 
 view other documents, collected from various parts of Ireland, 
 describing the state of the disease in different localities. Unless 
 the occasion were grave and pressing, he should not have felt 
 justified in taking this course ; but some of the leading journals 
 within the last ten days had asserted positively that the disease 
 bad ceased, and that there was no danger of a want of pro- 
 vision. He did not accuse the writers of party motives, but of 
 having been easily deluded, and willing to delude others. The 
 conviction that the disease was most destructive was not merely 
 local ; it was not confined to a particular district, but from one 
 ■end of the country to the other the cry was echoed of coming 
 famine. Upon this part of his case he would trouble the House 
 with the subsequent extract of a letter from Tralee, dated the 
 2nd instant : — 
 
 " Potatoes, I regret to say, from the progress of the rot, advanced a third ; 
 and this, as I stated a few days past, at a period when the rate of remunera- 
 tion for agricultural labourers is 2f(/. per day, and diet a few wet lumpers. 
 This is low enough, but the tradesmen in this town are not earning that same. 
 The inevitable consequence of this is already manifesting itself Fever is on 
 the increase both here and in Killarney, and unless the most vigorous efforts 
 are made to facilitate public works, and employ those able and willing to 
 exchange their labour for the means of purchasing commodities of human 
 consumption, the pestilence of 1871, also the result of scarcity, will bear no 
 
150 Londonderry and Cork. 
 
 proportion to wbat is likely to ensue shortly. In that year disease did not 
 appear until the approach of summer ; then the poor creatures lay in dozens 
 in the market-house of Killarney, and in other dilapidated ruins with which 
 that neglected town abounds for a long time past." 
 
 The Londonderry Agricultural Eeport for January con- 
 tained the following statement : — 
 
 "The wheat plants have made great progress during the month, and hav& 
 a very healthy appearance, and the grass fields are as forward in their look 
 as we often observe in March. We are sorry to observe so many of the 
 potatoes, which were confidently relied upon for seed, giving way before the 
 disease. Now, after having been subjected to pitting and housing, great quan- 
 tities of them are found to be rotten ; nor are those still in the ground much 
 better, for although apparently sound, a few days after being dry they assume 
 a very different aspect. We still fear the consequences at seed time. Many 
 were disposed to try autumn or winter planting ; but the weather has been, 
 very untowavd for that purpose, and those who tried it report unfavourably 
 of it, the excessive moisture having destroyed the seed." 
 
 A respectable farmer in the county of Wexford wrote 
 thus : — 
 
 "I said in my last that the apple potatoes that were not rotted might be 
 used for food. Our apples were as dry as possible when we pitted them, and 
 we kept them dry by our manner of covering them. We thought we might 
 have some for summer, but we find they are scarcely fit for cattle now, and 
 more than half of them are completely in pulp. We cannot use any apple 
 potatoes this year, and this is a general complaint here. The cups are not 
 very much lost, but there are ten times more of them rotten than when 1 
 wrote last." 
 
 The Rev. J. Fitzpatrick, of Castletownroche, county Cork, 
 on the part of a meeting held there, addressed circulars to all 
 the landlords possessing property in the district, containing a 
 minute description of the state of the population. The result 
 was: — 
 
 ♦' More than half the potato crop is unfit for human food, and the disease 
 is progressing. More than half the labourers are unemployed, and are likely 
 to continue so for the next three months, and during the months of July and 
 August, as the farmers will not have money or food to give them." 
 
 He would now advert to the centre of the country and ta 
 
Down, Armagh, and Antrim. 151 
 
 the state of the disease there. The first quotation he would 
 make was from a letter from Nenagh, dated February 4 : — 
 
 " We continue to receive tlie most distressing accounts of the fearful 
 progress of the disease from various quarters. In the King's County the 
 complaints are universal. In this county the disease has gone on with 
 amazing celerity within the last three weeks ; many persons, on examining 
 their pits, found their potatoes in some instances altogether useless — not even 
 fit for pigs or cattle. In several districts the poor are pining in the utmost 
 misery, but with unequalled fortitude and patience, hoping, even where there 
 is nothing but religion to assuage there wretchedness. The heavy and con- 
 stant rains of the last 'i^w weeks — raining almost without intermission — have 
 done great injury; and the softness of the weather otherwise tends, in a great 
 measure, to produce the fermentation of the potato which causes its destruc- 
 tion as an article of food. Landed proprietors should endeavour to aid them- 
 selves and the people at this tremendous crisis." 
 
 The subsequent letter, from John F. Hodges, M.D., dated 
 Downpatrick, 2nd February, referred to the condition of the 
 counties of Down, Armagh, Antrim, and Monaghan: — 
 
 " During the month of January I had occasion to visit several districts in 
 ilie counties of Down, Armagh, Antrim, and Monaghan, and I carefully in- 
 quired into the state of the potato crop. I found that, though there was 
 considerable difference in the amount of loss in the districts examined, yet 
 that everywhere, with a few trifling exceptions in some moory soils in the 
 county Monaghan, the disease continued its destructive ravages, unchecked 
 by any of the methods recommended to stop its progress ; that in every de- 
 scription of pit — in the moist field and the dry loft — the potatoes were either, 
 as the farmers expressed it, ' melting away,' or ' shrivelling up with a dry roc.' 
 In some districts in Armagh, I was informed that the destruction was pro- 
 gressing with such terrible rapidity that, of potatoes raised, thrice picked, and 
 stored up in pits as free from all taint, not more than one-third was found 
 fit for use some days ago. In the neighbourhood of the city of Armagh the 
 extent of the loss was represented as very great. In the neighbourhood of 
 Markethill and Portadown the loss has also been very great, and will, I fear, 
 be severely felt by the small farmers in that part of the country. In 
 Monaghan I made particular inquiries from several farmers, among whom I 
 may mention the name of Mr. Gowdy, one of the most intelligent agricultu- 
 rists in the district in which he resides, and I found it to be the general per- 
 suasion, that fully two-thii'ds of the crop, at that time (6th of January), had 
 been rendered unfit for food. Along the north-east coast again, in the neigh- 
 
152 Kildare and Galway. 
 
 bourliood of Lame, the destruction has also been great ; and several Antrim 
 farmers, whose names if required, can be supplied, have last week assured 
 me that the stock of potatoes which they have at present on hand is not so 
 large as they were in former years accustomed to have in the month of May." 
 
 The next document he had to offer presented a peculiar 
 feature, well deserving notice. It was an extract of a letter 
 from Tullamore : — 
 
 " A great many robberies are dail}' committed about the suburbs of Tulla- 
 more, from the great distress and poverty arising from want of employment, 
 together with the scarcity of potatoes and the high price of provisions, the 
 unfortunate people having no other remedy to keep them from starvation. 
 Fever and sickness are en the Increase, both in the town and country parts." 
 
 From the parish of Killard, in the county of Kildare, they 
 wrote in these terms : — 
 
 " It contains sixty-six Aimilies, comprising three hundred and seventy-four 
 individuals, having, out of their crop of ten hundred and ninety barrels of 
 potatoes, but one hundred and six barrels fit for human food. That, in the 
 townland of Doonbeg (same parish), there are forty-five families, comprising 
 two hundred and seventy individuals, with but eightyTfive barrels of good 
 potatoes, out of a pit containing six hundred and sixty-six barrels. That, in 
 the townland of Kilfiera (same parish), there are eighty-eight fiimilles, whose 
 total produce of potatoes was fourteen hundred and fifty barrels, of which 
 one hundred and eighty-seven barrels only were fit for human food. That, 
 in the townlands of Dunmore and Doonbeg (same parish), there are tv/enty- 
 nine families, or one hundred and twenty-seven individuals, whose total pro- 
 duce was three hundred and seventy-two barrels, of which there were but 
 fifty-eight barrels fit for human use. That in the townland of Donoughboy 
 at least three-fourths of the crop are lost." 
 
 On the want of food in the county of (xalway they wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The question of famine is no longer one of surmise. Its certainty, in a 
 few months at furthest, is even acknowledged by the Government; and the 
 reports whicli come in every day from the rural districts but too sadly con- 
 flrm the conclusion which has been arrived at from the most carefully col- 
 lected facts. Potatoes bear even now a famine price in the market. White 
 potatoes go at ^i\d. per stone, and cup potatoes hd. AVe believe lOc?. per 
 stone, in times of the greatest famine, was the highest price for potatoes ever 
 
A^o Disturbance in Ireland. 153 
 
 known in Galway ; and when we take into consideration that the potatoes 
 now brought for sale to market are not only diseased to a great extent, but 
 one-third of ihem completely waste to the purchaser in two or three days, 
 the 4|c?. per stone rises in real A'alue to 9f/. or ICc?. When this is the case 
 at present, what will it not be in a few weeks hence when the crop is more 
 exhausted ? At the price which potatoes are even only now, a labourer em- 
 ployed the whole week at lOrZ. per day (ihe usual price of labour in this dis- 
 trict is often lower) has to lay out the entire of his week's wages on thera 
 alone, if he is even so fortunate as to be able to purchase with it a sufficient 
 quantity of this lowest of human food. There is nothing for any other accom- 
 panying article of diet; nothing, unless the belly is stinted of this worst kind 
 of food — nothing for fuel, rent, or clothing; nothing for milk or fish ; meat 
 is out of the question. If this is the case at present with the labourer in full 
 employment, how must it fare with the unfortunate creatures who have it 
 only occasionally, or fare with both when food becomes dearer, and is placed 
 totally out of their reach ? A troop of the loth Light Dragoons, from Gort, 
 arrived here on Tuesday, under the command of Captain Hamilton, for the 
 purpose, it is said, of repressing any outbreak among the people which may 
 arise owing to the exportation of corn from this port. Two companies of the 
 30th are likewise expected — one from Loughrea ; the other from Oughterard 
 — to aid the force in garrison, if necessary. The dragoons and additional 
 military are expected to be stationed here for some time. This increase of 
 troops is said to have been caused by the posting of a threatening notice last 
 week, to the effect that the merchants' stores would be broken up by the 
 people if any further exportation of corn was attempted. Her Majesty's 
 steamer, the Stromboli, arrived at the port of Galway on Monday evening, 
 and anchored at the roadstead." 
 
 It was not less remarkable than creditable, that not a single 
 instance of riot or disturbance of the public peace, owing to the 
 want of food, had yet occurred in any part of Ireland. To the 
 preceding documents he might be allowed to add the following 
 report from the board of guardians at Nenagh : — 
 
 "At the weekly meeting of the Nenagh board of guardians, on Thursday, 
 •29th January, Sir T. B. Dancer said : — 'I am sorry to say, at least of my 
 own potatoes, that the disease is progressing ; out of eight or nine acres of 
 potatoes which were dug last week, I had four cartloads of them affected 
 with the disease ; and, within the last fortnight, nearly all ray cups are fail- 
 ing, the one-third of them, at least. In this month and next, which are ge- 
 nerally soft months, I am of opinion, that the great portion of the potatoes, 
 
154 T^^^ Famine in Tralee. 
 
 now apparently sound, will become rotten or diseased. 1 have also inquired 
 amongst my workmen and tenants, and they all bore the same testimony ; ami 
 to show you as a proof of what I have stated, that ■when I lately found the- 
 disease so prevalent among my tenants' potatoes, I ofTered them 10 per cent, 
 allowance.' 
 
 " Mr. Michael Meagher — ' I am bound to tell you this, that for the last 
 three days I had been in Borrisoleigh ; it is strange to say, that it is not tlie 
 black potatoes are going but the white and sound ones, which were hereto- 
 fore not diseased or affected with the regular rot.' 
 
 "Mr. John Kennedy — ' It is a general complaint, that it is the sound po- 
 tatoes that are failing under the malady, and not the black ones.' 
 
 " Sir Thomas Dancer — ' What do you call " black ones ?" ' ' The pre- 
 viously diseased potatoes?' 
 
 " Mr. Hayes — * There is no doubt but the disease is every day becoming 
 more prevalent.' 
 
 " Chairman — ' I am afraid that the opinions of the guardians are unani- 
 mous on that subject, but, as far as I am concerned myself, I can say to tlie 
 contrary.' " 
 
 At Tralee poor-law union, a meeting had been held on the 
 3rd instant, to present a memorial to the Lord Lieutenant, and 
 the following was a report of what passed on that occasion : — 
 
 " Mr. Trant, introducing his motion, that a committee be appointed to 
 draw up a memorial to his E.xcellency the Lord Lieutenant, on the subject of 
 the expected famine, regretted to say that there was even then more reason 
 for the board carrying out his motion than when he had given notice of it, 
 for he cor.ld assure them that the disease was rapidly extending in his 
 district. 
 
 " Mr. Foran, the poor-rate collector for the barony of Corkaguinny, said 
 he was sorry to be obliged to acquaint them that in some parishes in his 
 barony, one-half of the crop was lost. Potatoes were unusually high in price, 
 too, at one side of Dingle; the minions were 12s. a peck (32 stone). The 
 disease was, in his opinion, decidedly on the increase. 
 
 " Mr. Quinlan thought that out of two f:irms of his he would not have a 
 sound potato on May day. The spread of the disease was frightful. 
 
 " Mr. Rae was sorry to be obliged to corroborate what had been said 
 about the spread of the epidemic ; and, to make the matter still worse, the late 
 high tides had washed away a quantity of the potatoes of the poor people in 
 his neighbourhood, the parish of Keel. 
 
 '* Captain Chute, Mr. Gorham, and other guardians, bore testimony to 
 the spread of the disease. 
 
The State of Youghal. 155 
 
 "Colonel Stokes could state from personal knowledge, that labourers in 
 the vicinity of the Spa were now purchasing potatoes in the market, not having 
 any of their own. Lumper potatoes were selling at 2Js. per peck. At the rate 
 potatoes we;'e selling on Saturday last, potatoes sufficient to support the 
 family of a labouring man for a week, would cost 6s. 2d. more than the entire 
 week's wages of most labourers in employment. He might, in the present 
 season, safely say that two-thirds of the labourers were unemployed. He had 
 paid 12s. a peck for diseased potatoes to feed cattle, in the market, last week, 
 and good lumpers were 24s., and minions 32s. a peck. In conclusion, he 
 urged on the board the necessity of representing to Government that they 
 were willing that a tax should be levied on the properties of gentlemen, both 
 resident and absentee, to provide food for the poorer classes, in the eveut of a 
 famine. 
 
 " Mr. Trant's motion was seconded by Colonel Stokes, and passed, and a 
 committee was appointed." 
 
 At Touglial, a public meeting had been held on the 11th 
 instant, and what passed was contained in the following report 
 of the proceedings : — 
 
 ''The Rev. Mr. Smiddy said — 'Mr. Chairman, as I am in possession of 
 certain documents connected with the state of distress, I shall occupy your 
 attention while making a few observations on the subject. A short time since,, 
 by order of the Poor Law Commissioners, in Dublin, inquiries were made in 
 several parts of the union as to the state of the potato crop, the result of which' 
 was forwarded to the Poor Law Commissioners. This was set on foot here, 
 and inquiries were very accurately and minutely instituted, and the result of 
 that is to convince every person that something must be done, in order to pro- 
 vide for the approaching season of want and scarcity. By this arrangementT 
 we had parties appointed in several districts of the country, to Inquire what 
 supply of potatoes remained on hand, and what amount of labour or employ- 
 ment was available for the people; the result is that, in the country parts of 
 this parish, the farmers have only a supply sufficient for their own consump- 
 tion, with the exception of two or three farmers, one of whom would be 
 able to send twenty barrels to market in case the present supply remains free 
 from disease, and that farmer is from the neighbourhood of Windgap. We 
 have procured accurate information in reference to those persons who are 
 objects of destitution. With regard to the labouring population, many of 
 them are ali'eady obliged to live on the diseased potatoes, and the large 
 body have only a supply which they expect will not last longer than two 
 months (sensation). That is the state of the potato crop in the country, and 
 the amount of employment is very small indeed. Some of them, it has been. 
 
1^6 The State of Towns. 
 
 ascertained, have only employment for nine months of the year, while othei'S 
 a,re only employed for five or six months durinj; that period. The state of 
 things in the towns is even still worse. We all know that a general calamity 
 has befallen the country with respect to the potato crop, and this misfortune 
 must be more generally felt in large towns, as there is no supply of food there 
 as in the country, to relieve or alleviate the lamentable visitation. Inquiries 
 have been made in several lanes in this town, and I am confident this meeting 
 will be appalled and astonished at the result of the investigation.' The Rev. 
 Mr. Smiddy here read an abstract of the condition of the inhabitants of lanes 
 in Youghal who lived by manual labour, showing the number of families and 
 individuals, and the portion of the year, up to six months, to which the em- 
 ployment of more than a moiety is limited. From this return it appeared — 
 
 Familios. Persons. 
 
 That there are living in lanes, 90S 4,579 
 
 Living on charity, 88 356 
 
 Employed only three months, and less, 66 235 
 
 Ditto four months, 72 253 
 
 Ditto five months, Do 453 
 
 Ditto six months, 228 1,2-15 
 
 539 :2,5i2 
 
 So that 539 families out of the 908, and 2,542 individuals out of the 4,579, 
 are limited in employment, all to six months; many of them to three and four 
 months of the year, and the wages in many instances so low as scarcely to 
 give them subsistence, even for the time they are employed. This (continued 
 the rev. gentleman) is a problem for the political economist, and a subject of 
 serious reflection for all who are interested, not alone in the welfare, but in 
 the actual existence of their fellow-creatures. 'And such being the state of the 
 distress, such being the amount of destitution, it is evident that something 
 must be done, and done immediately, to i-emedy the awful circumstances of 
 the people. 
 
 " Mr. Lomaseny, though a resident in the town for thirty- six years, had 
 no idea of the destitution which he saw in Donovan's-lane ; in that place 
 there were six individuals living upon a floor ten feet square ; there was not 
 as much straw for them to lie upon as would be allowed a favourite dog; the 
 ■covering at night consisted of the remnant of one blanket, with clothes which 
 they wore during the day ! In other places similar sights were to be seen ; 
 similar, and perhaps if possible, more frightful poverty was to be witnessed." 
 
 There was no distinct specification of the sufferings of the 
 poor in towns and cities ; but, according to the Report of Lord 
 
Lord Cloncurry's Letter. 157 
 
 Devon, they were most afHIcting. He would trouble tlie House 
 
 with one more letter ; it was from Lord Cloncurrj, and was in 
 
 the following form, addressed to the editor of the Dublin Evening 
 
 Post :— 
 
 " February 9th, 1846. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — I think it right to mention to you that I planted some 
 potatoes last November in lazy beds, the soil rich, maiden, and dry; the seeds 
 of the best kinds, mostly cut, but some whole; the kinds, purple kidneys and 
 pinkeyes. On examining them last week, I find one -third decayed, after 
 making shoots. This is bad news; but it is better to give timely information. 
 It w;\s for this purpose I gave my time to the Mansion House Committee, 
 the members of which appeared to me to have no other object in view but 
 the service of their fellow-creatures. I believe the statement contained in 
 several hundred letters directed to me, contained more true and early infor- 
 mation than all the costly Reports and Commissions of the Government. I 
 believe if some of the measures we recommended were adopted, they would 
 have afforded a cheaper and more effectual relief than any suggested by 
 salaried advisers. There is in the country at this moment corn more than 
 enough to feed our entire population ; by establishing stores or granaries for 
 the poorhouses and other places, into which the farmers could send their 
 corn, receiving in return a note as to the quantity, it would prevent the great 
 loss which takes place every year by want of proper corn-stands or barns 
 through the country ; it wouM be at hand if wanted, and if not, it could be 
 sold in May or June at probably an advanced price, which would pay all 
 expense. 1 have advocated the establishment of public granaries for many 
 years, from a knowledge of their great utility in many parts of the continent; 
 and in no country would they be so beneficial as in Ireland, where almost all 
 the farming classes are unprovided with the necessary corn-stands and stores. 
 It would have been much more becoming of the Government to listen to the 
 advice of the Mansion House Committee, and to profit by the information 
 they could have given gratis, than to desire their understrappers and officials 
 to deny the existence of the danger, and to insist upon it that our accounts 
 were exaggerated, and more political than patriotic — Dear sir, your humble 
 
 servant, 
 
 ' Cloncurry." 
 
 Reluctant as he (Mr. O'Connell) was to continue the dulness 
 necessarily produced by the perusal of a succession of documents, 
 he felt that this was a matter of too much importance not to 
 require the fullest information. He wished the House to- 
 understand that scarcity in Ireland had always been attended 
 
-558 Connection between Fafuine and Fever. 
 
 ■with typlius fever: no matter wliat change of air might be pro- 
 cured, the disease did not seem affected by the atmosphere : but 
 it always ceased when food became abundant. Thus cause, 
 effect, and cure were obvious. The cause was want of due 
 nourishment ; the effect, typhus fever ; and the cure, a supply 
 of the necessaries of life. He would furnish four or five instances 
 of famine in Ireland, showing that fever ceased when the period 
 •of harvest arrived : — 
 
 "1734 — Summer wet, autumn variable, winter mild; harvest bad, much 
 straw and little grain. 
 
 " 1735 — Summer again cold and wet, autumn wet, winter open ; fruits 
 and grains very backward. 
 
 " 1736 — One of the hottest summers remembered, autumn fair, winter 
 open. Pestilential fever appeared in winter of 1734, continued through 1735, 
 became very frequent and fatal through summer of 1736 — and disappeared 
 in autumn of the same year, which brought a most abundant harvest. 
 
 " 1740 — Spring dry and cold, summer dry, autumn unusually frosty, winter 
 frosty. Great dearth of provisions this autumn (1740) which proceeded 
 almost to a famine in winter, the potatoes having failed, while other pro- 
 visions bore double or treble their usual price. Fever appeared in summer 
 of 1740, increased in autumn, and rose to a terrible degree of violence in 
 spring and summer of 1741. 80,000 persons died of fever and dysentery in 
 this epidemic. The fever which had begun last autumn returned in spring, 
 and raged through the summer of 1741. It was computed that one- fifth 
 of the inhabitants died, though probably with exaggeration. 
 
 "1741 — Spring dry, summer dry, autumn variable, winter frosty. Plenty 
 of good corn in autumn of 1741, fruits of the year duly matured, winter con- 
 cluded healthy, and the bills of mortality sunk conspicuously. 
 
 " 1742 — Spring dry, summer hot, autumn variable, winter stormy and 
 frosty. Provisions most plentiful ; bread sold at twenty-one pounds six 
 ounces for a shilling. 
 
 "1743 — The summer and autumn were remarkable for health, as well as 
 for fertility and plenty in large crops of corn of all sorts ; and we had scarce 
 any disease then or in winter, except cold and sore throat from which we are 
 seldom exempted." 
 
 The next period to which he would refer was the year 1798. 
 The hon. and learned gentleman then read as follows : — 
 
 " In 1798 summer and autumn wet, crops scanty, fuel scarce. Gentry 
 flying out of the country, poor out of employment, tillage neglected, conse- 
 
Epidemic Fevers in Ireland. 159 
 
 -quent starvation. Fever prevalent in the spring of 1798, spread in the end 
 of summer to a frightful extent. In 1799 summer wet and cold ; general 
 deficiency in crops. Fever now assumed a most malignant type. In 1800, 
 summer unusually hot, and dry, but followed, like the previous wet summer, 
 with deficient wet crops ; the crops, moreover, of very bad quality ; the people 
 in a state of starvation. Malignant fever continued from 1799. In 1801 
 most abundant harvest ; fever began to decline, and disappeared in the 
 summer of 1802." 
 
 He now came to 1817; tlie following were the character- 
 istics of the period : — 
 
 " In 1817, crops of the preceding j'ear very deficient, did not arrive at 
 maturity ; corn was uncut in November ; much of it lost ; corn saved was 
 green in the husk or matted; potatoes scanty, wet, unripe; no straw even for 
 the beds of the poor ; turf also deficient. This deficiency of food, fuel, and 
 bedding, was felt most seriously in winter and spring of 1816-17, when fever 
 appeared, which became very prevalent in summer of 1817. Spring and 
 summer wet, cold and unpi'oductive as the preceding year. In 1818, spring 
 moist, summer unusually hot, crops good, provisions in abundance. The 
 epidemic which had arisen in spring of 1817, continued to increase at a rapid 
 rate through summer, winter, spring, and summer again, until the autumn of 
 1818, which brought with it a most abundant supply of food, fuel, and straw 
 for bedding. Fever at the very same time began to decline, and soon after 
 disappeared. One million and a half of the population suffered from fever 
 in this epidemic. In 1826, potato crop of the preceding year (1825) very 
 deficient. The weavers in Dublin were, by a sudden reverse of trade, thrown 
 out of employment to the number of 20,000. Fever appeared rising rapidly 
 in the spring of 1826, reached a terrific height in the autumn and winter fol- 
 lowing, declined in summer of 1827, and disappeared in autumn. The 
 autumn of 1827 produced an almost unparalleled abundance of crops." 
 
 There was one other calamity connected with scarcity which 
 had been observed and commented upon by a medical gentle- 
 man in Dublin — one of the very first in his profession— he 
 meant Dr. Corrigan. The following were his remarks : — 
 
 " I cannot conclude without noting a warning circumstance that has had 
 some influence with m^in bringing out these observations at the present time. 
 It has been remarked by all the observers of epidemic fevers ia Ireland — by 
 Rogers, O'Connell, Beatty, Barker, and Cheyne — that smallpox and bad 
 fevers, which ravaged England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 
 I 
 
i6o In no Part of Europe 
 
 have been observed by medical writers. Sydenham has gone so far as to say- 
 that, from their intimate connection, he doubts that the plague and smallpox 
 may not be of the same nature, only with different forms of development. It 
 seems as if the human constitution, under influences which have acted in- 
 juriously on vegetable organization or have predisposed to epidemic fever, 
 had lost so much of its energy as to render it less able to resist infection. 
 Smallpox has been of late very prevalent in Ireland. I subjoin a table of the 
 admissions and deaths from it in the Ilardwicke Hospital for the last four 
 years : — 
 
 
 Total Number 
 
 Number of i 
 
 Smallpox ( 
 
 Jases. 
 
 
 of Admissions. 
 
 Admitted. 
 
 Cured. 
 
 Died. 
 
 1842 
 
 1,553 
 
 22 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 1843 
 
 1,551 
 
 18 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 1844 
 
 1,769 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1845 
 
 2,413 
 
 86 
 
 71 
 
 15 
 
 " This visitation should put us on our guard. It may have come to u» 
 as a warning. Witli our previous ex^^erience we should not neglect it. We 
 know the danger that threatens us. We may combat it, should it come, but 
 ■we can do more : we can prevent its attack. If there be no famines there 
 will be no fever ; and if active and timely exertion be made to afford sufficient 
 employment and wages to our people I believe there will be neither famine 
 nor fever." 
 
 The hon. and learned gentleman continued — I have shown 
 you our distress. I have shown that there are no agricultural 
 labourers, no peasantry in Europe so badly off, suffering such 
 privation, as the great body of the Irish people. In no part of 
 Europe, I repeat, is there such suffering as in Ireland. There 
 there are five millions of people always on the verge of starva- 
 tion. I have shown you from Government documents — from 
 an enormous load of documents, taken from, and referring to, 
 all parts of Ireland, that its people are threatened — that they 
 are in the utmost danger of a fearful famine, with all its con- 
 comitant horrors. I may be asked what I propose ? I answer, 
 that I call upon all the members of this House to join in the 
 most energetic measures to stop the impending calamity. You 
 cannot be too speedy ; you cannot be too extensive in your re- 
 medies. It may be said that I am here to ask money to succour 
 Ireland in her distress. No such thing. I scorn the thought. 
 
Is there such Siiffei'uig as in Ireland I 1 6 1 
 
 I am here to say Ireland has resources of her own. You have 
 a revenue from the woods and forests of Ireland. You spent 
 £74,000 within the last few years on Trafalgar-square. Let 
 that revenue represent a capital of a million or a million and 
 a-half. Why, then, borrow on the credit of that fund. You 
 may borrow a million and have a sinking fund. You may 
 do more — you may borrow money on the rents of the Irish 
 landlords. Borrow money, I say, and bring in an income tax, 
 charging the absentee landlords twenty per cent, and the resi- 
 dent landlords ten per cent. The object is to protect the labour- 
 ing population from an impending calamity. They are even 
 now surrounded by disease and death in tlieir most horrid forms. 
 And it is fitting that we should make the landlords contribute 
 in such a way as shall be effectual. You may tell me of the 
 Poor Laws. My opinion is that Poor Laws may mitigate dis- 
 tress in ordinary seasons, but will not meet a famine. The 
 workhouses would make very good hospitals for the sick. That 
 fever prevails in Cork, Tralee, and Killarney I have proved ta 
 you ; it has raged to a frightful extent in Limerick ; the num- 
 ber of patients in the infirmaries has increased; the lanes of 
 Dublin are full of fever. You are not to be guided in such a 
 case as this by ordinary rules. It is a case beyond every rule. 
 The people are not to blame. It has pleased Providence to in- 
 flict this calamity upon them ; it is your business to mitigate 
 that calamity as much as possible. There are the railroads, for 
 example. Why do you not take strong measures with railroads ?' 
 I should be happy to see the Government authorised to act in 
 reference to these. I should wish to see this House and the 
 other support the Government in that course. I will dispense 
 with the rules and regulations that fancy railway schemes 
 brought before Parliament. Famine is coming on — fever is 
 coming on. This House ought to place in the Queen's Govern- 
 ment powers adequate to such an exigenej^, so that it may 
 have the means of giving the most extensive employment. As 
 to contending lines, I do not know but the Government would 
 decide better; for I don't know a worse tribunal than this. 
 VOL. II. 12 
 
1 62 Great Evils require Great Remedies. 
 
 House. I found myself yesterday voting on a railway question 
 without exactly knowing what I was doing ; I cannot, there- 
 fore, blame others. But wherever £100,000 has been sub- 
 scribed for a railway, the Government ought to have power to 
 give another £100,000, by way of loan, so as to afford every 
 iacility for proceeding with the works, and to leave private indi- 
 viduals at liberty to apply the funds thus left for a time in their 
 hands in such a manner as to give further employment. Lend the 
 money to the railways at one per cent, or two per cent. I know 
 how many objections may be started to such a plan ; but I speak -of 
 a ease which is superior in every objection. Great evils require 
 great remedies ; the remedy ought to be commensurate with 
 the evil ; and I am speaking from the depth of my conviction 
 when I declare that in my conscience I believe the result of 
 neglect on the part of this House in the present instance will be 
 deaths to an enormous amount. On the grounds which I have 
 stated, I request the appointment of a committee of the whole 
 House, if for no other effect, at least for the purpose of convinc- 
 ing the Irish people that the calamities are not disregarded. 
 I don't blame the Government for what they have done, and 
 for what they propose to do. They have had my humble sup- 
 port. I have not been peddling for objections to their measures. 
 I am prepared to give an honest support to any plans which the 
 Government may bring forward for the purpose of mitigating 
 the effects of the scarcity. Yet those which have been pro- 
 pounded are miserable trifles ; they would do for ordinary times 
 and for an ordinary scarcity ; but they will not answer when 
 death is abroad. The details into which I felt it my duty to 
 enter have made my statement necessarily a dry one ; and, for 
 the extreme patience with which I have been heard, I beg to 
 express to the House my own thanks and the thanks of the 
 Irish people. The hon. and learned gentleman concluded by 
 proposing his motiun. 
 
The Jesuits. 163 
 
 Subject, Roman Catholic Relief Bill; 
 Late, Makch 11, 1846. 
 
 Even now, wlienO'Conneirs gigantic strength had begun to fail, he was athis 
 post and as ready to defend his faith as he had ever been to plead for his country- 
 His son, Air. John O'Conneli, rose afterwards and briefly stated that he had 
 been educated at Clongowes College by the Jesuits, " and that he had never 
 heard a word or sentiment from them that was unworthy of a Christian, an 
 enlightened gentleman, and a lo3-al subject." But it was little use to protest 
 or explain to men who were predetermined to uphold a certain thing with an 
 utter and illogical disregard of any foundation for it. Mr. Newdegate fol- 
 lowed, and made the very intelligent observation that " in order to form a 
 correct estimate of the principles of the Jesuits, the House ought to know 
 something of their specific acts, of their members, and where they existed." 
 It might be supposed that gentlemen who had been educated by the Jesuits 
 would be most capable of giving such information, but as the only information 
 they could give was favourable, and as that kind of information did not agree 
 with the hon. gentleman's private theory, he could not accept it. If igno- 
 rance is preferred, and it seems to be only on such subjects that it is pre- 
 ferred, there Is nothing more to be said. 
 
 Mr O'Conneli — The noble lord seemed to have an impres- 
 sion on his mind unfavourable to the Jesuits. This was because 
 he had not had the opportunity or inducement to consult or 
 consider the history of that most illustrious order. He (Mr. 
 O'Conneli) had well considered it; and he was satisfied that 
 there never existed a body of men who were greater benefactors 
 to science and literature as well as to religion. That order 
 had experienced injurious treatment even from some Catholics. 
 He believed that their virtues were made crimes, and that 
 the strict discipline which they enforced operated against 
 them. He would challenge any man to give him time and 
 date, and state any circumstance disgraceful to the character 
 of the Jesuits, which he was not able to refute. No man could 
 be admitted a Jesuit until after twelve years of religious exer- 
 cise and study, and devoting five years to the instruction of 
 youth. Then at the expiration he might or might not be ad- 
 mitted into the order. It could not be disputed tbat many of 
 
1 64 Jesuit Missionaries. 
 
 the most distinguished men of science and literature belonged 
 to this order, notwithstanding all that had been said against 
 them. The authority of Pascal, although an elegant writer, 
 was not of any great weight on this subject. This would be 
 apparent to any one who would look into the facts of the case. 
 His book turned merely on a crotchet. There was another 
 person, however, who had recently made some atrocious attacks 
 upon them. Michelet was not an author to be quoted as an autho- 
 rity either here or elsewhere. He was a writer of romances of the 
 most atrocious nature against the Jesuits. How he succeeded 
 in France was by drawing on his imagination instead of upon 
 authorities. There was not one assertion of crime which he 
 had alleged on the part of the Jesuits, which was not without 
 foundation. The Jesuits were subject to the civil law, like 
 other men ; and if they were guilty of crimes, they could be 
 punished. The truth was, that they had drawn persecution 
 upon themselves in consequence of the purity of their lives. 
 From which countries had they first been expelled and had 
 suffered persecution ? They had first been expelled from 
 Portugal. He was sure that no one would say that tliat was 
 a most piu-e and enlightened country. They had then been ex- 
 pelled from Spain. He was sure no one would rise and say 
 that that was a pure and enlightened country. But, thank 
 God ! thej- had revived again, and had diffused themselves over 
 the face of the earth. They had sent, within a very short time, 
 not less than fifty missionaries to Corea, Cochin-China, 
 Siam, and other places ; and he had no doubt but that they 
 would double the number next year. This was the first time 
 that he had said anythiug in that House in favour of the 
 Jesuits ; but he had done so now because he regarded them as 
 the greatest benefactors of science and literature. 
 
Disraeli on G ConnelL 165 
 
 Siihjcct, Protection of Life -Ireland ; Date, April 3, 1846. 
 
 This may be called OConnell's last speech The one which follows was 
 but a cry for help for his afflicted country — a cry which was the death-wail 
 of Ireland's noblest son. 
 
 On the 23rd of February, 1846, while famine was staring the whole nation 
 in tlie face, a Bill was brought in for "the protection of life in Ireland." A 
 foreigner reading the announcement would exclaim that the English nation 
 were indeed pre-eminent for humanity, antecedents in Ireland and India not- 
 willistanding. But this Bill was not to preserve the lives of the poor famine- 
 stricken people, it was simply a Coercion Bill. A few murders had been 
 committed in Ireland by the despairing people, who, seeing little hope of legal 
 justice, took matters into their own hands, and were by so doing guilty of 
 deadly crime. Such crimes were few indeed compared with the black mass of 
 seething guilt in England ; but Irish sins, however trivial, are visited with 
 the severest retribution. 
 
 The Bill was passed with alacrity through the House of Lords ; it came 
 down to the Commons; but England's danger was Ireland's opportunity once 
 more. The Corn Law question was of more importance, embracing as it did 
 the fate of a cabinet. Ireland could be coerced anytime; but it was not 
 coerced just then. O'Connell defeated the measure, Peel went out, and Lord 
 Jolm Russell came in. 
 
 INIr. Disraeli has noted this as O'Connell's last speech, probably having 
 overlooked his last speech, as it was short, and merely referred to the famine ; 
 possibly because he may have considered this as virtually O'Connell's last 
 parliamentary declamation. But Mr. Disraeli has singularly misrepresented 
 O'Connell. He says that this " remarkable address was an abnegation of the 
 whole policy of O'Connell's cause ;" and he gives this curious rea?on for bis 
 conclusion : It was because he "proved [the italics are our own] by a mass 
 of authentic evidence, ranging over a long term of years, that Irish outrage 
 was the consequence of physical misery, and that the social evils of that 
 country could not be successfully encountered by political remedies."* 
 
 The process of induction in Mr. Disraeli's mind is vicious. The speech 
 being here in evidence, it needs only a glance to see that the whole argument 
 was to prove precisely the reverse. Irish " outrage" was indeed caused by 
 social physical misery, but no man ever proved with such incontrovertible 
 eloquence, thattl)is physical misery was the direct result of the most grievous 
 and inexcusable political misgovernment. 
 
 * " Life of Lord George Bentinck.' 
 
t66 Nothing Sectarian in these Outrages. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said — In rising to propose an amendment 
 to tlie motion of the right hon. baronet, I promise the House to 
 be as brief as I possibly can ; and if I should trespass upon its 
 patience longer than my own inclination would dictate, I trust 
 that the importance of the question will plead my excuse. The 
 case on behalf of the promoters of the Bill, has been stated by 
 the right hon. baronet in a manner which it is impossible 
 should give dissatisfaction to any quarter. I will not say one 
 word against that manner. I never heard a harsh measure 
 more moderately proposed ; and there is, I may say, for us, 
 danger, even in moderation. The only attempts of the right 
 hon. baronet at anything like the colouring of oratory was, 
 when he attributed the crimes to causes out of which they have 
 not arisen. I do not think he has shown in the slightest 
 degree — he scarcely attempted to show — that the evils, such as 
 they are, would be remedied by this measure ; in fact, he only 
 alluded to the Bill just to vindicate the severity of its provisions, 
 by comparing it with former enactments. He did not show, or 
 attempt to show, that this Bill would remedy the existing evils, 
 or prevent the crimes with which we are unhappily menaced in 
 Ireland. There were, however — shall I call them admissible ? 
 — statements made by the right hon. baronet that are highly 
 consolatory. It is consolatory to know, on the authority of 
 Government, that there is nothing political in the crimes charged 
 against Ireland ; above all, that there is nothing religious, or 
 belonging to any sect of religion, in the crimes themselves ; that 
 they are really perpetrated against persons of every species of 
 politics, against persons of each religion; that the Roman 
 Catholic religion is no protection to Roman Catholics, and 
 Protestantism no incentive against Protestants. It is confessed 
 by her Majesty's Government, and it is an undoubted fact, that 
 there is nothing in these outrages which partakes either of secta- 
 rianism or political bias. I will now proceed to notice other 
 statements made by the right hon. baronet. He said distinctly 
 that, out of thirty-two counties in Ireland, twenty-two are free 
 from disturbance ; tliere are five in which it is partial, and five 
 
The Cotinty Tyrone. 167 
 
 more wliere it prevails to a greater extent. Thus, no less than 
 two-thirds of the entire country are perfectly free from any taint 
 of the guilt belonging to others. Then, the right hon. baronet 
 has clearly told us that, even in the counties actually disturbed, 
 the great majority of the inhabitants have not participated in 
 the disturbances. They are confined to a comparatively small 
 minority, which is engaged more or less in outrages. Therefore, 
 a Coercion Bill is utterly unnecessary^ according to the confes- 
 sion of ministers, for the great body of the population of Ire- 
 land. There are, it seems, five counties requiring, as the right 
 hon. baronet contends, harsh measures ; only five counties, and 
 in those the great majority of the inhabitants are free from 
 guilt. Before I proceed farther, again let me remind the House 
 — and I do it, I may say, in the presence of the press of England 
 — that however they may assume that the disturbances have a 
 political basis and a sectarian origin, the Government has de- 
 clared and decided the contrary. I will now notice one or twa 
 of the particular cases alluded to by the right hon. baronet: — 
 First, as to the case of the wife and husband in the county of 
 Tyrone, I did not think it could have been mentioned as a proof 
 that crime calling for this Bill existed in Ireland. The county 
 of Tyrone is as quiet as any county in England, or as any 
 district on the face of the globe. Crime, such as it was, was 
 diminishing, and the horrible outrage referred to was one of 
 those acts of delinquency which are sometimes committed in the 
 best regulated and most civilised communities. It ought never 
 to have been made one of the features justifying this measure. 
 I am borne out most completely by evidence, when I speak of 
 the tranquillity of Tyrone. Next, I will allude for a moment to 
 the letter the right hon. baronet received from Mr. P. B. Eyan» 
 " my faithful friend." Of Mr. Ryan we shall hear more ; but, 
 I must at present read one passage from a local paper, which 
 will serve to show the degree of veracity to be attributed to this 
 worthy gentleman : — 
 
 "Mr. p. B. Rya:n". — We reget being under the nnavoidable necessity of 
 postponing the iible and masterly reply of P. Fogarty, Esq., of Cabra Castle, 
 
1 68 The TJmi'les Bench of Magistrates. 
 
 to an extraordinary letter which has recently been published, with the name 
 of the above gentleman signed to it. Mr. Fogarty says, that ' the Thurles 
 bench of magistrates should be appealed to in relation to ]\Ir. P. B. Ryan's 
 wonderful letter.' " 
 
 So we shall certainly liave full information as to that 
 gentleman's veracity. Before I enter into the subject more at 
 large, I wish to recall the House to the fact of the unhappy 
 assassination of Mr. Pierce Carrick. Now, I think it would 
 be well that the House should distinctly understand that case 
 — not as reflecting upon the character of the unhappy murdered 
 man — not for the purpose of palliating in the slightest degree 
 his murder. It is a crime that no man not fit to be a par- 
 ticipator in the murder would attempt to justify, or even to 
 palliate. I feel almost unwilling to go into the question of the 
 causes of that murder, lest it should have the appearance — it 
 could not have the reality — of palliating it ; but it is necessary 
 that the facts should be known by the House. We are appeal- 
 ing to you — we are appealing to the House ; for the notice 
 I give is a notice of appeal to the House to eradicate the causes 
 of crime — and to enable you to do so, you must distinctly 
 understand why it is that those wretches are tempted to 
 commit — if they cannot be justified in committing— crimes of 
 this description. Now, I have the local newspaper, whicb 
 contains a paragraph relative to the conduct of Mr. Carrick. 
 It states this— but it will be less tedious to the House that 
 I should make this statement with reference to Mr. Carrick. 
 Unhappily he was the agent of a young gentleman under age. 
 He got the tenants to pay their rents by a promise that, as 
 soon as the young gentleman came of age, 25 per cent, should 
 be taken off their rents. The young gentleman came of age. 
 Mr. Carrick did not call upon him to perform his promise ; he 
 sent out a valuer to value the lands ; the tenants thought that 
 a reduction of rent would follow the valuation ; but the valua- 
 tion was higher than the existing rent, and they were obliged 
 to pay that high rent. And when they came to expostulate 
 with the valuator, what did he say ? He said he did not value 
 
Abuses of Property stimulants to Crime. 169 
 
 ilie lands at all; that he got a cut-and-dry valuation— that 
 was the phrase he used— from Mr. Carriek, and he only made 
 a return of that which was dictated to him. Mr. Carriek told 
 the tenants they must take out leases ; and when they came 
 with their rent, the first thing he did was to stop £10 from 
 each tenant for the expense of a lease. They paid £10 each. 
 They were obliged to go home to collect money to make up 
 the deficiency in the rent ; but from that day to the day of his 
 death they never got a single lease. If he had lived one week 
 longer, he would have got an habere, and turned out thirty-one 
 families. And here, again, let me solemnly protest— I am sure 
 I need not — that I do not consider any of these acts as an 
 excuse, or a reason, or even as the slightest palliation of his 
 murder. No, they are not ; it was a horrible murder — it was 
 an atrocious murder — it was a crime that is deserving of the 
 severest punishment that man can inflict, and which causes the 
 red arm of God's vengeance to be suspended over the mur- 
 derer. I want the House to prevent the recurrence of such 
 murders. 
 
 You are going to enact a Coercion Bill against them also, 
 when they attempt to commit those abuses of property. They 
 have a legal right; but I say those abuses of property are really 
 the stimulants to the worst of crimes. Now, the amendment 
 I mean to propose is this : — 
 
 " That while this House deplores the existence of outrage in Ireland, and 
 is sincerely anxious for its repression, it is of opinion that such outrage will 
 be aggravated, not removed, by the arbitrary, unjust, and unconstitutional 
 enactments of this Bill; and that it is the duty of Parliament to adopt such 
 measures as will tend to eradicate the causes which produce those crimes 
 instead of resorting to laws which will harrass and oppress the innocent 
 without restraining the guilty, and which being restrictive of public liberty 
 cannot fail to augment national discontent." 
 
 Sir, my motion, the House perceives, is directed to remedy 
 the evil complained of. It does not controvert the fact of the 
 existence of crime which the Government has stated. There is 
 
lyo Many Iiinoceiit suffer fo7' a few Guilty. 
 
 no doubt that atrocious murders have been committed — there 
 is no doubt that the number of those murders is not diminish- 
 ing. 
 
 The question is, what is the proper method of preventing- 
 the recurrence of these crimes ? If I thought that would b& 
 effected by this Bill, there is not a man in this House that 
 would vote for it more readily than I would. But I solemnly 
 declare that my opposition to it is founded upon this — that I 
 am convinced the words of this resolution are true ; and that 
 this Bill, instead of leading to the amelioration of crime,, 
 will augment it, and increase the number of the victims. 
 Now, look just at the Bill for one moment, and you will find 
 that it is calculated, take it at the best, to inflict a penalty of a 
 most grievous nature upon many innocent persons, with the 
 chance of reaching a few guilty. It certainly will inflict a 
 penalty upon many innocent persons, in the expectation of 
 reaching a few of the guilty ; and even that is an expectation 
 which is not likely to be realised by this process. Now, I 
 shall call the attention of the House to the clauses of this Bill 
 itself. Tou should understand distinctly what it is the Bill 
 contains, and how little applicable it is to the suppression of 
 crime. The right hon. baronet did not distinctly state th& 
 clauses of the Bill in proposing it. He merely alleged former 
 Bills of this kind, and, amongst other things, he attempted 
 to. show that I had formerly assented to this penal clause, 
 for which purpose he quoted Hansard. Now, sir, I am as- 
 ready as any man to have any clause introduced, which, 
 without violating constitutional principle, will have the 
 slightest tendency to repress crime of any kind. The first 
 provision of this Bill is to give to the Lord Lieutenant arbi- 
 trary power. It gives him the power at his will and pleasure, 
 without assigning a reason, without the necessity of proof of 
 any form, to proclaim any part of Ireland he pleases. The 
 allegation that the proclamation is necessary may be unfounded 
 in fact, and, therefore, the proclamation equally unfounded— 
 utterly unfounded in fact ; but no conti^adiction of the allega- 
 
The Habeas Corpus Suspended. 1 7 i 
 
 tion can be received, for there is a clause in the Bill by which 
 the proclamation itself is declared to be conclusive evidence of 
 the fact ; so that the sic volo sic juheo of the Lord Lieutenant 
 is quite enough to authorise the issuing of the proclamation, 
 though the Bill, to be sure, says that he must have some pre- 
 test for so doing — that there shall be some disturbance in the 
 district. The Lord Lieutenant can also add an adjacent dis- 
 trict to a district so proclaimed ; for instance, if the county of 
 Monaghan were proclaimed, the county of Tyrone, or any part 
 of that county, can be proclaimed by reason of the disturbances 
 in the county of Monaghan, and the habeas corpus will no 
 longer be of any value in any such proclaimed district. 
 
 The most unlimited powers are then given to the Lord 
 Lieutenant to charge any of those districts with any sum of 
 money he pleases. There is no limit to it but the possibility of 
 its being paid. He can give any sum of money by way of 
 recompense or compensation to any person that is injured. I 
 do not so much complain of that — the grand jurors have some- 
 thing of a similar power — but what I do complain of is, that 
 by this enactment the power given to the Lord Lieutenant is 
 unlimited. There is no control over him, as in the case of the 
 grand juries, whose presentments may be traversed, and who, 
 having themselves to pay part of the money, would be cautious 
 not to give too much to any suffering person. But the Lord 
 Lieutenant has no limit to his power ; he can give any sum he 
 pleases, and there is no traversing his presentment or con- 
 trolling it. In the next place, he can give a reward to any 
 person he pleases. In short, he has the most unlimited power 
 to reward that it is possible to give. He has next the power of 
 appointing as many stipendiary magistrates as he pleases. He 
 has the power of appointing inspectors of police, and chiefs of 
 police, and sub-constables, and officers, and privates of police, 
 as he thinks fit. Uncontrolled, unchecked, without any legal 
 possibility of preventing it, he has those powers. He has the 
 power of compensation to any extent — he has the power of 
 giving rewards to any extent, and of appointing policemen and 
 
172 
 
 An Accusation asrainsf Human Nature. 
 
 officers of everv description to any extent lie cliooses. The 
 effect of that may not be easily understood in this country, but 
 it is well known in Ireland. I am not accusing any Govem- 
 menl ; it is an accusation against human nature. Persons who 
 are at all likely to get into the police have been known more 
 than once to fabricate outrages, and represent the country to be 
 in a state of disturbance to effect their ovra. purposes. Xow, let 
 me tell the House how this money is to be levied. It is to be 
 assessed by a person to be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. 
 ^0 magistrate, no grand juror, no country gentlemen, or 
 lawyer, or judge, has power to control it. The Lord Lieutenant 
 appoints a person to levy the tax. He is limited only accord- 
 ing to the poor rate, but is not limited by the poor rate. Any 
 person having a holding under £4 yearly pays no poor rate, 
 but he must pay the tax under this Bill. Xo person is so poor 
 as to escape taxation under this Bill ; but if a man be rich, he 
 is secure from it, for the lessor is not to be liable at all. The 
 lessor is quite free, the owner is free, the country gentleman is 
 free for his domain ; he will pay nothing for his domain ; the 
 wretched cottager, or the day labourer, when he gets a day's 
 labour, must pay the tax, but the squire in the large mansion- 
 house pays nothing. The justification of the right hon. baronet 
 was, that the grand jury have the power of charging their 
 counties by previous acts. ^Wliy, they have ; but what is the 
 precaution taken ? No additional force of police could be sent 
 into a county without a demand from the magistrates. The 
 magistrates who were to assess for it were to make the demand; 
 one-half of the money was paid by the Government, and the 
 other half by the county ; and it was levied through the grand 
 jury, who were to present for it. They had an opportunity of 
 investigating the account, and their personal and individual 
 interests induce them to make it as little as they could. But 
 by this BDl, no grand jury or magistrate can interfere: the 
 whole is done at the will of the Lord Lieutenant, who appoints 
 his taxmaster-general to go about and levy contributions. 
 That tax falls upon the poor; and the rich man escapes, and 
 
TJic Landlord has too much Powei\ 173 
 
 yet this 13 called a Bill to make life and property secure in 
 Ireland. How is it to do that ? The wretched man scarcely atle 
 to exist at present — poor as poor can be — scarcely able to pay 
 his rent — will have, in addition, that enormous tax to pay. If 
 he refuse to pay it, you can get a stipendiary to call out the 
 army or the police to go and distrain and sell the goods by 
 force, if necessary ; you give an irresistible force for the levy 
 being made with certainty ; but what becomes of the man 
 against whom the levy is made ? Have you conciliated him — 
 have you rendered him less liable to commit offences ? Will it 
 make him better disposed towards the noblemen and gentlemen 
 who pay nothing ? Nay, in what situation do you place him 
 and his landlord ? One of the greatest grievances of Ireland is 
 the clearance system. See what an adjunct this measure will 
 be to the clearance system. The landlord has additional powers 
 to levy his rent — he has already too much ; but in addition to 
 that, the poor man is obliged to guard the rich man by the 
 payment of taxation. He must give up possession of his hold- 
 ing whenever the remnant of his property is sold, and when he 
 has no property, but is a starveling in the land. What secui'i ty 
 can you have against the wild madness of a wretch of that des- 
 cription ? It is likewise an additional stimulant to clear the 
 land ; because a man must necessarily be a bad tenant when 
 this additional burden is put upon him. When the landlord 
 enters into possession, he has not this additional tax to pay, so 
 that he derives an advantage from clearing it. In addition to 
 other stimulants to clear it, he has the reward in anticipation of 
 not having this tax to pay when he has cleared the land of his 
 tenantry. The next thing I quarrel with is the power given 
 by this Bill to arrest any person found in houses (not being 
 inmates thereof or travellers) within the proclaimed district. 
 It enacts that any person or persons found in any proclaimed 
 district in any house of public resort, licensed or unlicensed, in 
 which malt liquors or spirituous liquors are sold or consumed, 
 or in any house, shop, or other place of public resort wherein 
 tea, coffee, provisions, liquors, or refreshments of any sort are 
 
I J 4- The Innocent Taxed for the Guilty. 
 
 sold or consumed, whether kept or retailed therein, or procured 
 elsewhere (not being there for travellers), after one hour after 
 sunset and before sunrise, shall be deemed guilty of a misde- 
 meanour. I shall be glad to know what houses will escape ? 
 Why, even the consumption of water in a house will authorise 
 them to break into such house, and into every room of that 
 house. If the person authorised to enter a house be delayed an 
 unreasonable time (he is to judge himself of what is an un- 
 reasonable time), he has power to break into the house. The 
 rich man is safe, and liquors, and coffee, and tea may be con- 
 sumed in his house \ but no poor man's house will be, or can be, 
 possibly secure one moment from being broken into. Is this, I 
 <ask, the way to make the people respect the law ? Is this the 
 way for them to look to the law for protection ? This is an 
 Education Bill — this is a new plan of coercion ; but are they 
 likely to be taught any great reverence for the law of the land, 
 when they find armed policemen breaking into the rooms where 
 their wives and daughters are lying, under the pretence of 
 searching for some person not a regular inmate of it ? 
 
 Now, let me remind the House that it stands admitted that, 
 even in the disturbed counties, the majority of the people are free 
 from taint, but they are not to be free from the tax. The entire 
 majority must pay the tax in order to get at the guilty minority. 
 We tax the poorest of the people in the hope of what ? In 
 the hope of educating them to detect persons who commit 
 orime. Do you think you can ever succeed in that? What 
 motive could they have ? You want to intimidate them into 
 exerting themselves to preserve the peace. On what principle 
 are they to do that ? It has been urged in support of this 
 measure that there was an old Saxon law which rendered the 
 vicinage liable for every person in it ; but let it be recollected 
 that at the time the owners were the principal men in the dis- 
 trict ; they were armed ; they had the magistrates, the law, 
 the sheriff, the power of the county with them ; they had the 
 legal authority to arrest every person ; but what legal authority 
 has the Irish peasant, what pos&e comitatus can he command ? 
 
CJiallenge of Jurors. 175 
 
 The tiling is unfounded in principle, and must be most mis- 
 cliievous in practice. I declare most solemnly I think it will 
 be almost impossible to prevent an insurrection if this act be 
 carried into effect. You may have a sanguinary warfare that 
 can only end in ruin and destruction. The Irish people are 
 unarmed, and in your power ; they are weak, and you are strong. 
 I would here observe that, on looking over the returns from the 
 two glorious battles fought in India, I find a great number of 
 names in the list exactly resembling the names of the cottagers 
 who were dispossessed by Mrs. Gerrard. But to return to this Bill. 
 Task, do you hope to succeed in it? Oh, no, you can never hope- 
 to succeed in anything so unjust. Do not seek it, but make it 
 the interest of the Irish people, — their real interest — to keep the 
 peace. They will let others live when they have the means of 
 living. By this Act of Parliament every offence is made a mis- 
 demeanour, only though, in some instances, punishable by 
 transportation. That is done designedly, of course. It is made 
 a misdemeanour, and why ? because there is no peremptory chal- 
 lenge allowed to a prisoner in cases of misdemeanour. If he were 
 indicted for a felony, he is entitled to twenty challenges ; but, 
 though you punish him as a felon, you take away from him the 
 privilege he would have if you indicted him as a felon. It is a 
 curious fact in the history of the law, that in the reign, I believe, 
 of Edward II., it was enacted, that no person prosecuting for the 
 Crown should challenge a juror, except for cause, but the judges 
 have allowed the Crown to set aside jurors; so that the Crown 
 has, in fact, unlimited power of challenge in defiance of the Act 
 of Parliament, of common sense, and of common justice. The 
 next clause to which I will call the attention of the House, is 
 that which makes being out of a dwelling-house at forbidden 
 hours a transportable offence, unless the party proves him- 
 self to be innocent. It is said I assented to a similar clause 
 that will be found in the Statute of 1835. I admit at once that 
 I did assent to the Statute of 1835, and now let us see if 
 it be a similar Statute. The present Statute is put in force at 
 the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, and the Statute of 1835 
 
1 76 I did mo7'e to Prevc7it Crhne 
 
 could not be put in force except by the presentment of a grand 
 jury, finding the district to be disturbed, and which could be 
 traversed, as all such presentments can be. By the Statute of 
 1835, the accusers were bound to prove the guilt of the accused; 
 by this Statute, the accused is bound to prove his innocence. 
 By the Statute of 1835, the punishment was fine and imprison- 
 ment ; by this Statute, the punishment is transportation. It 
 is quite fair in parliamentary warfare for the right hon. baronet 
 to quote " Hansard," as the right hon. gentleman has had it so 
 often quoted against himself ; but " Hansard" ought to be 
 quoted correctly, and it cannot be quoted against me in the 
 triumphant manner it has been quoted against the right hon. 
 baronet. To those who do not know me well — for to those who 
 do it is quite unnecessary — I may be permitted to say that I 
 have done more to prevent the perpetration of crime in Ireland 
 than any man, "When I was at the bar, and was called upon 
 to act as counsel in defence of Whiteboys, I never on any occa- 
 sion made use of one single expression in mitigation of such 
 crime, nor did I ever entertain the idea of doing so. I can 
 produce incontestable proof of this from the testimony of the 
 Crown Solicitor who went the same circuit. I do not deny the 
 existence of those crimes, but I do propose the proper means to 
 put them down. It is curious enough that by the ninth clause 
 for the punishment of those found out of their houses at night, 
 it is enacted that they shall be guilty of misdemeanour, and 
 this clause is much relied on ; but is not crime committed by 
 day as well as by night ? Are not murders committed in the 
 open day ? And yet you propose to leave the day for the 
 commission of crime, and to apply the Coercion Bill only to 
 the night. Nothing ajBQicts me more than the title of the 
 Bill: "An Act for the better protection of life, and 
 to facilitate the apprehension and detection of persons guilty 
 of certain ofi'ences in Ireland." Now, how will it protect 
 life ? No protection is afforded by it by day, but by increas- 
 ing the constabulary force, which can be effected by the existing 
 law. The Bill does nothing to meet the case ; but will make 
 
Than any Man in Irela7id, I'j^ 
 
 the people more discontented ; its only effect will te to create 
 a feeling of exasperation, and make them more intent on the 
 commission of crime. What I call upon the House to do is 
 to insist upon a strict investigation into the causes of these 
 crimes, and tlien to eradicate them by the removal of those 
 causes. It may be said that the Bill is in safe hands, and 
 that abuses of its power will not be allowed. But let me 
 give the House a few instances of cases of abuse under the 
 powers of former Acts, by which a district was proclaimed, 
 and of which the same assertion was made. I may observe, 
 that as for attacks by night by gangs of armed men, the punish- 
 ment of the law for such offences is very severe at present. If 
 any man is found out armed at night in a disturbed district, he 
 is adjudged to be guilty of a misdemeanour, and punished by 
 fine, imprisonment, and whipping. This is not light punish- 
 ment, for I have known instances under this Act where men have 
 been nearly flogged to death. On former occasions I referred 
 to the operation of similar Acts of Parliament to that now pro- 
 posed. I will now refer to evidence on this subject. The 
 following evidence will show that this is no idle apprehension. 
 In the Lords' Eeport, 1842, page 259, William F. Tighe, Esq., 
 county Kilkenny, says : — 
 
 *' I spoke to several of the magistrates, requesting that they would omit, 
 in their application for the Insurrection Act, the barony of Ida and the 
 barony of Gowran, south of Thomastown. 
 
 " You were not aware of any disturbances at that time in the barony of 
 Ida or the southern part of the barony of Gowran ? I was not. 
 
 *' Do you know on what grounds the magistrates recommended the pro- 
 clamation of either? Several of the magistrates told me that if they did not 
 proclaim it the disaffected would take refuge there. The answer I made to* 
 them was, 'When they did so, and when it is disturbed, then, and not till 
 then, apply to have it proclaimed.' .... I have since received a letter 
 from my agent, in Avhich he states that he has seen a notice posted in the 
 town of Innistiogue, by order of the magistrates, prohibiting all persons from 
 being out after sunset, and particularly the fishermen. He further states 
 that it is his intention to appear at the petty sessions of magistrates to request 
 them to exempt the fishermen fi-om that order ; as, if they were prevented 
 VOL. II. 13 
 
178 State of the Country. 
 
 from fishing at night, the principal means of support of their families would 
 be taken away. He informs me that during the summer they can only fish at 
 night on that part of the river (Nore)." 
 
 John Dunn, Esq., Queen's County, page 423, says : — 
 
 "I am particularly acquainted with that part of Kilkenny now under pro- 
 clamation, adjoining the Queen's County. 
 
 " Had there been any disturbance in it at the time the Act was put into 
 execution ? Not in the barony of Innisfadden, adjoining the Queen's County. 
 I am aware of none. 
 
 " Can you state on what ground it was the Insurrection Act was applied 
 for as far as respects that barony, and the circumstances attending it ? I under- 
 stand that some few trees, some two or three, had been felled in the demesne 
 of Lady Ormond, and I am not aware of any other transaction at all that 
 could justify the application of such a measure." 
 
 Eeport of Committee of the House of Commons, 1825. 
 Major-General R. Bourke, J.P., Limerick County, asked, 
 p. 331 :— 
 
 " Do you recollect the introduction of the police in the county of Lime- 
 rick under the Peace Preservation Bill ? I do. There had been a county 
 meeting held, at which it was resolved that the state of the county did not 
 then require the introduction of the police ; and shortly after that county 
 meeting, at the spring assizes following, the grand jury applied to the Lord 
 Lieutenant to place the county under the Peace Preservation Bill. 
 
 "And on that application, notwithstanding the decision of the county at 
 large, the police were introduced ? They were introduced. 
 
 " What description of persons were appointed to that police ? Generally 
 speaking, they were very unfit persons. 
 
 " Was the Insurrection Act enforced in those baronies which continued in 
 a state of tranquillity ? It was. There was a memorial sent up from the 
 baronies of Clanwilliam, Ownebeg, and Croonagh, signed by nearly all the 
 resident magistrates, by most of the proprietors, and by clergymen of both 
 persuasions, stating the good order and tran(juillity that had prevailed and 
 was prevailing in the baronies, and how hard it would be to expose the occu- 
 piers of the land to a very heavy tax under the Peace Preservation Bill ; but 
 the answer received was, that it was in contemplation to send police to the 
 whole county, and that the Lord Lieutenant saw no reason for excepting 
 those baronies." 
 
 lie begged tlie attention of the House (the hon. member 
 
Provisiofis of the Coercion Bill. 179 
 
 ■continued) to the fact that by Lord Stanley's Act the county 
 of Kilkenny was proclaimed ; and it was thought convenient to 
 introduce that Act into the city of Kilkenny, where no distur- 
 bances or crimes contemplated by this Act had been committed. 
 On an explanation of this, the answer was that it was for the 
 convenience of the police that the Act should extend to the city 
 of Kilkenny. So, then, for the sake of the police, the city of 
 Kilkenny was proclaimed, and its inhabitants were exposed to 
 all the severe enactments of this law, and this without any 
 ground whatever. He wanted the House not to place such dis- 
 cretionary powers in the hands of any Government, for the bad 
 use that had been made of them might be made again. It 
 might be said that, in consequence of the commission of some 
 liorrid murders, this was an experiment which should be tried. 
 If no Coercion Act had ever existed before he might listen to 
 this suggestion; if the experiment had been tried on once 
 and failed, he might be induced to try it again ; even if it had 
 failed a second and a third time there might be some reason in 
 asking to try it once more ; but they had had Coercion Acts 
 seventeen times since the Union, and they had uniformly failed. 
 .Such are some of the blessings of the Union. Sometimes the 
 Coercion Bill was divided into two parts; but the list which he 
 was about to read gave an accurate statement on the subject. 
 The hon. and learned gentleman read the following docu- 
 ment : — 
 
 " 1801, two Coercion Acts; 1802, July, two Acts ; 1803, December, two 
 Acts; 1805, February, one Act; 1807, August, two Acts; 1814, July, one 
 Act; 1817, June, one Act; 1822, February, two Acts; 1823, March, one 
 Act ; 1831, October, one Act ; 1833, April, one Act ; August, one Act ; total, 
 seventeen diflerent Acts. Observe, that the first of these Acts in 1801 was 
 intituled, 'An Act for the protection of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland.' 
 The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended from the Union until 1805, when the 
 AVhigs allowed it to revive. Suspended again from 1807 to 1810 ; again 
 from 1814 to 1818 ; again from 1822 to 1828 ; again from 1829 to 1831 ; 
 again from 1833 to 1835." 
 
 By several of these Acts trial by jury was abolished ; regard- 
 ing insurrectionary crimes, a bench of magistrates, with a 
 
 13* 
 
i8o Lord Stanley s Bill. 
 
 King's counsel, were authorised to transport for any such 
 offence. This was not a dead letter. Now, were all these in- 
 stances to be regarded as experiments ? Under these acts all 
 the social guarantees were trampled under foot, trial by jury 
 was suspended, and the powers of the magistracy were increased 
 to a most alarming extent. But did this put a stop to crime ? 
 A lull might be created for a short time, but after it passed 
 there was always an increase of crime. It appeared, then, that 
 this was a process which they were called on to go on with. 
 
 The right hon. baronet (Sir James Graham) said that Lord 
 Stanley's Bill had been carried into effect, and succeeded. 
 Was this so ? Lord Stanley's Bill was not acted upon. It 
 originated in the disturbances respecting the collection of tithes. 
 The Government had taken up the tithe campaign, and had 
 filled the barrack-yards with the crops of the tenantry which 
 had been distrained for tithes. The Bill passed, but what did 
 the Government do ? The first thing was to put an end to the 
 tithe campaign. The distraints for tithes ceased, and the 
 claims of the clergy were bought off, and thus the people were 
 relieved from the payment of tithes. The Government agreed 
 to advance £1,000,000 to pay off the arrears of tithes ; and 
 when it was proposed in that House, the right hon. baronet 
 (Sir R. Peel) called it a vulgar expedient to settle the question. 
 In addition to this, more than £18,000 costs, which had been 
 incurred were forgiven or paid off. Then the Bill for changing 
 the direct payment of tithes into a rent-charge passed, and the 
 people were conciliated to a considerable extent by it. If it 
 did not go so far as it ought, it at any rate showed a con- 
 ciliatory disposition on the part of the Government. He 
 trusted, therefore, that the right hon. baronet would not again 
 impute the change that took place to Lord Stanley's Bill on 
 the rciQ.-^\VLi pod Iwc errjo propter hoc. He was not disposed to 
 speak harshly of the right hon. gentleman ; on the contrary, 
 his wish was to avoid anything of the kind. The first thing, 
 however, the present Government did when they came into 
 office was to adopt a change of system, and the right hon. 
 
Deal with Irelayid as luith E?igland. 1 8 i 
 
 baronet declared that concession to Ireland had reached its 
 limits. He did not now reproach the right hon. baronet for 
 the use of the expression, for it had been withdrawn with 
 great manliness. He did not blame him for inconsistency in 
 changing his opinion. When such a change took place in 
 opinion as happened with the right hon. baronet, it only showed 
 that he was a wiser man to-day than he was yesterday. He 
 would do justice to the right hon. gentleman, and say. You did 
 not shrink from any change of opinion, however it might affect 
 you, when you thought it your duty ; you performed a great 
 duty to England : in the name of Heaven why not do so to 
 Ireland ? Why not try other means with that country than 
 coercion ? He did not wish to dwell on the injustice of Eng- 
 land to Ireland, but still it should not be forgotten that no 
 country had suffered so much from another ; but he would say, 
 let all this be buried in oblivion, and put the people of both 
 countries on an equality, and deal with Ireland as they dealt 
 with England. He would say, Protection to all, injustice to 
 none ; and give equal rights and franchises to the people of 
 Ireland with those which you yourselves enjoy. The various 
 Acts you have passed to tranquillize Ireland have been in- 
 sufficient ; your coercive laws have failed ; the argument, there- 
 fore, was inviting to a conciliatory process. They must have 
 observed what was done in the way of conciliation by the 
 Whigs, and the effect it produced ; but there had been a recoil 
 since gentlemen opposite came into power : crime had dimi- 
 nished during their day, but crime had increased since. God 
 forbid that he should accuse the right hon. gentlemen of this ! 
 but he charged them with not looking sufficiently to the state 
 of Ireland and the crimes thereof. One of them opposite, with 
 a halo around his name, afforded an instance of this, and 
 showed that he was a sadly bad politician. He had read a 
 conversation which had occurred in some other place, and it 
 had appeared in the newspapers, and he saw an illustrious 
 name of one of the parties, to whom sentiments were attributed 
 which must be regarded as being most calamitous, that he 
 
1 82 Begging Eviployrnciit 07i their Knees. 
 
 should talk of the prosperity of Ireland, and that the trade 
 of that country was on the increase, and that its imports and 
 exports were on the increase. Since then there had heen an 
 increase of exports without a corresponding increase of imports. 
 Where could he have been all this time, and not look to the 
 evidence around him ? He could have taken no notice of the 
 reports of the Committee on the state of that country, and of 
 the evidence which had been collected. If these books were 
 consulted, it would be seen that no people in Europe were in sa 
 necessitous a state as the people of Ireland. It appeared that 
 7,000,000 out of the 8,200,000 of the population were engaged 
 in agriculture, and most of them were in a state of distress* 
 He would not proceed. What was the state of the population 
 of that country, from the evidence of Alexander Nimmo, Esq., 
 Civil Engineer. The hon gentleman read the following ex- 
 tract from the Eeport of the Lords' Committee of 1824, to 
 inquire into the state of Ireland, page 226 : — 
 
 " Your professional intercourse with Ireland Las given you the means 
 of general accurate information on the state of the peasantry of that 
 country ? 
 
 "I have seen a great deal of the peasantry-. I have sometimes slept iii 
 their cabins, and had frequent intercourse with them, especially in the south 
 and west of Ireland. 
 
 '* I conceive the peasantry in Ireland to be, in general, in almost the 
 lowest possible state of existence ; their cabins are in the most miserable 
 condition, and their food is potatoes with water — very often without any- 
 thing else — frequently without salt, and I have frequently had occasion ta 
 meet persons who begged of me, on their knees, for the love of God, to give 
 them some promise of emplovment, that from the credit of that, they might 
 get the means of supporting themselves for a few months, until I could 
 employ them." 
 
 The following was the evidence of W. H. W. Xewenham,. 
 Esq., before the Commons' Committee, 1824, p. 300 : — 
 
 " Is the condition of the people very bad in respect to the means of sub- 
 sistence, and houses, and dress? Excepting where a gentleman's own resi- 
 dence is, particularly so. I have seen several countries, and I never saw anj' 
 peasantry so badly off." 
 
 .1 
 
Repoj4s 071 the State of Ireland. 183 \ 
 
 John O'Driscoll, Esq., barrister (same Report, 1824, p. 380), \ 
 gave this evidence : — 
 
 " Will you describe to the Committee, generally, the condition of the peo- 
 ple, and their habits of living ? In the part of the country (county Cork) 
 that I am best acquainted with, the condition of the people is the very worst 
 that can possibly be. Nothing can be worse than the condition of the 
 lower classes of the labourers, and the farmers are not much bettei' (381) ; 
 they have nothing whatever, I think, but potatoes and water ; they seldom 
 have salt." 
 
 Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, Commons' Report, 1825, p. 205 : — 
 
 " What is the state of the lower orders in your diocese ? I can safely state 
 to the Committee that the extent and intensity of their distress is greater 
 than any language can describe ; and that I think the lives of many hundreds 
 of them are very often shortened by this great distress." 
 
 Hon. gentlemen talked of murders, but were not those mur- 
 ders of the worst description ? The witness proceeded : — 
 
 " It also enervates their minds, paralyses their energies, and leaves them 
 incapable of almost any useful exertion." 
 
 ' Page 206, describing the state in which some of the pea- 
 santry exist : — 
 
 ** Thus, he drags out an existence that it were better it were terminated 
 in any way than to be continued in the manner it is." 
 
 R. De la Cour, Esq., county Cork, page 548 : — 
 
 " What is the condition of the peasantry ? Wretched in the extreme." 
 
 Page 549 :— 
 
 " Are the inhabitants of that country exceedingly miserable ? Miserable 
 with very few exceptions." 
 
 The Report of the Select Committee of 1830, states, p. 4 : — 
 
 " That a very considerable proportion of the population (variously esti- 
 mated at a fourth or fifth of the whole) is considered to be out of employment ; 
 that this, combined with the consequences of an altered system of managing 
 land, is stated to produce misery and suffering which no language can pos- 
 sibly describe, and which it is necessary to witness in order fully to estimate.'* 
 
I 84 Lord Devon s Report. 
 
 He begged the particular attention of the House to this, 
 page 8 : — 
 
 " The situation of the ejected tenantry, or of those who are obliged to give 
 up their small holdings in order to promote the consolidation of farms, is 
 necessarily most deplorable. It would be impossible for language to convey 
 an idea of the state of distress to which the ejected tenantry have been re- 
 duced, or of the disease, misery, or even vice which they have propagated in 
 the towns where they have settled ; so that not only they who have been 
 ejected have been rendered miserable, but they have carried with them and 
 propagated that misery. They have increased the stock of labour ; they have 
 rendered the inhabitants of those places which have received them more 
 crowded ; they have given occasion to the dissemination of disease ; they have 
 been obliged to resort to theft, and all manner of vice and iniquity, to 
 procure subsistence ; but what is, perhaps, the most painful of all, a vast 
 number of them have perished of want." 
 
 Such was the effect of the ejectment of tenantry in Ireland* 
 He would not quote individual instances of misery arising from 
 this course, but should refer to general evidence as to the misery 
 of the people, and as to those absolutely dying from want. This 
 was the evidence of Dr. Doyle and other creditable witnesses. 
 He would now refer to Lord Devon's Report, a document from 
 which the Government could not shrink, he was sure, and no 
 one would charge that noble lord and his colleagues with exag- 
 geration. In that Report it was stated : — 
 
 " That the agricultural labourers of Ireland suffer the greatest priva- 
 tions and hardships ; that they depend upon precarious and casual em- 
 ployment for subsistence ; that they are badly housed, badly fed, badly 
 clothed, and badly paid for their labour; that it would be impossible to 
 describe adequately the sufferings and privations which the cottiers and 
 labourers and their families in most parts of the country endure ; 
 that in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage 
 water; that their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather; that 
 a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury ; and that nearly in all, their pig 
 and their manure heap constitute their only property ; that a large pro- 
 portion of the entire population comes within the designation of agri- -.' 
 Cultural labourers, and undure sufferings greater than the people of any 
 other country in Europe have to sustain." 
 
 He would remind the right hon. baronet (Sir J. Graham) 
 
Dealt with as a Nation of Assassins. 185 
 
 that he had stated that the number and atrocity of the murders 
 in Ireland was a blot upon Christianity. Was not such a state 
 of things as he had just described a blot upon Christianity ? 
 This, be it recollected, was forty-five years after the Union, 
 during which time Ireland had been under the Grovernment of 
 this country, which had reduced its population to a worse 
 condition than that of any other country in Europe. That was 
 the work of the British Parliament. They had governed Ire- 
 land ; but what was the testimony borne with regard to the 
 ■character of the Irish people ? There was once an Englishman, 
 Attorney-General of Ireland, who said that the Irish people 
 were the fondest of submitting to impartial justice of any people 
 upon earth ; that they looked not to any advantage to them- 
 selves in going to law, so much as to the strict justice of the 
 case. But he would proceed to more recent times ; he would 
 give the House some specimens of the modern character 
 of the Irish people, from the evidence published with the 
 Reports laid before Parliament on this subject. He need 
 not appeal to the right hon. baronet, who had himself 
 admitted the patient endurance of the Irish people. The Devon 
 Commission also spoke of the same fact, and said that the 
 patience and the endurance of the people deserved the atten- 
 tion of Parliament. But the mere admission of that patience and 
 endurance would not do ; they should have deeds and not words. 
 They had a strong case, and if they desired to serve the people 
 they should recollect that it would require a powerful hand, and 
 a manly tone and temper, he would say a tone and temper 
 dignifying to human nature, to stand over such an amount of 
 human misery, and, as it M^ere by a touch of the wand, to turn 
 that want into comfort and happiness. 
 
 But to enable them to ascertain how they should 
 proceed, he would read some extracts for them in order that 
 they might understand the people whom they had to deal with. 
 They were told that the urgency of the case alone justified 
 the sweeping inroad upon the constitution. The Irish people 
 were dealt with as a nation of assassins whom the ordinary 
 
1 86 Great Anxiety of the People for Employment . 
 
 laws of civilized nations could not restrain. Was that their 
 true character ? Let the evidence on the records of Parliament 
 testify. Major Warburton, upon his examination before the 
 Select Committee of the Commons, 1824 (Report, page 154)^ 
 is asked — 
 
 " Are any circumstances in your knowledge concerning the anxiety of the 
 population to be employed ? I have known at that period (the time of 
 distress) that any person, in fact, that could afford to give the people one 
 meal a day could get their labour for it. 
 
 " One meal of what ? One meal of food of any kind. I believe there 
 were instances of it." 
 
 W. W. Beecher, Esq. (same Eeport, 1824, page 195):— 
 
 ** I think it (submissiveness towards persons in a higher station) is carried 
 beyond proper respect, and that it is more than is justified. I think they 
 have been unused to fair dealing from the upper orders ; and that, if they 
 get it, they are astonished and gratified beyond measure. 
 
 "Is there not, at the same time, a strong attachment on the part of the 
 tenantry towards their landlords in cases where they conceive they have been 
 well used ? Yery strong." 
 
 E. Griffith, Esq., Civil Engineer (same Report, page 
 231) :— 
 
 " Do you conceive that if an English gentleman were to engage in the 
 investment of capital in any commercial or manufacturing speculation in the 
 centre of that very district, or the most disturbed part of it, that he would 
 be in any hazard, personal or otherwise ? I think neither himself nor ^^the 
 property would be in any hazard, provided he treated the people justly,. 
 and paid them fairly." 
 
 John Dunne, Esq., Queen's County (same Report, page 
 284) :— 
 
 " Generally speaking, is their disposition orderly and quiet ? Generally 
 speaking, it is so ; and to the want of employment I attribute, in a great 
 measure, much of our unhappy state. 
 
 "Is there a great anxiety on the part of the people to be employed? 
 The greatf st possible ; the anxiety of the creatures to be employed for any 
 kind of remuneration is wonderfully great. 
 
TJie Irish very Industrious. 187 
 
 " Are they industrious ? Very industrious, indeed, if they can only get 
 employment." 
 
 Rev. John Collins, P.P., Skibbereen, county Cork (same 
 Eeport, 1824, page 337) :— 
 
 " The people feel they exist more by sufferance than by law ; but 
 whenever they are treated kindly they are grateful, because they think 
 the kindness extraordinary, and the result of natural benevolence rather 
 than of the law." 
 
 James Lawler, Esq., J. P., county Kerry (same Eeport, 
 page 439) : — 
 
 " There is no person more amenable to the law than the Irish peasantry, if 
 they are left alone. 
 
 '* When they find the intention is to deal justly and reasonably with 
 them ? They are the easiest in the world to manage, although they are 
 very wretched. 
 
 " Are they industrious do they work hard ? They are the most indus- 
 trious people in the world. 
 
 " Are they kind and charitable towards each other ? Their charity is- 
 unbounded towards each other ; they always give something, more or less, 
 according to their means." 
 
 Archbisbop of Casbel (Lords' Committee, 1825 ; Eeport,. 
 page 278) :— 
 
 " Does not your gi-ace tliink, from the experience you have had of the- 
 common people of Ireland, that they are very grateful for any benefit con- 
 ferred upon them, and disposed to submit to the authority of their superiors,, 
 when treated with justice ? Certainly, their gratitude is great ; they are 
 accustomed to act from immediate feeling and impulse, and very much 
 disposed to receive every favour with a respectful gratitude almost bordering, 
 on excess." 
 
 Colonel W. J. Curry, Agent to Duke of Devonshire (Com- 
 mons' Committee, 1825, Eeport, page 300) : — 
 
 " Do you find the lower orders of the Irish, with whom you deal, in 
 general, a grateful class of persons ? They appear extremely grateful at the- 
 moment, and I have no reason to suppose they feel ungrateful at any time. I 
 think they are, in general, a very grateful people. 
 
1 88 Easily Governed. 
 
 '' In general, do you find them easy to be governed ? Certainly, very 
 •easy to be governed." 
 
 Earl Kingston (Lords' Eeport, 1825, page 431): — 
 
 " Is there a desire to seek employment where it can be found ? A vast 
 ■desire ; they will work for anything, whatever they can get. I have had 
 some offered to me for threepence a day, stout, able men, and glad to 
 
 ^et it." 
 
 J. S. Eoclifort, Esq., county Carlo w, (same Eeport, page 
 
 543) :— 
 
 " No man in Ireland, be he ever so poor, refuses anything to the travelling 
 beggar. 
 
 " Have you observed among the lower classes of Ireland a great feeling 
 of charity and kindness? I believe if they had but one dinner they would 
 share it with a travelling beggar. 
 
 " You conceive that benevolence is a strong ingredient in the Irish peasant? 
 A very strong ingredient." 
 
 That was the evidence of a gentleman of very strong 
 political feelings, which, if anything would have influenced 
 him in giving his evidence but truth and justice, would have 
 inclined him to speak against, and not in favour, of the popular 
 side. The evidence went on to say :— ' 
 
 '* Do you attribute it (viz., any misconduct or lawlesssness) to any defect 
 of national character, or to political circumstances acting strongly on his 
 feelings? Certainly not to his natural character, but to the political circum- 
 stances in which he is placed." 
 
 James Cropper, Esq., of Liverpool, merchant (same Eeport, 
 page 688) : — 
 
 What was the object of your visit to Ireland? To see the state of the 
 country, with a view to ascertain what was the best means of relieving the 
 distress." 
 
 Page 691 :— 
 
 " Did you observe in Ireland whether there was any anxiety on the 
 subject of education on the part of the people ? Yes ; in all my inquiries 
 
Anxious for Education . 189 
 
 I received the same answer, that the anxiety for education was very- 
 great. 
 
 " Which do you consider the English or the Irish peasantry to be more 
 desirous of education ? I should think the Irish peasantry." 
 
 John Wiggins, Esq. (an English gentleman), land agent 
 (Select Committee, Commons, 1830): — 
 
 " 3993. Do yon think there is, on the part of the Irish peasantry, a spirit 
 of industry and an anxiety to improve that can be relied upon as a means of 
 eventually bettering their condition P I certainly do. I think they are ener- 
 getic and industrious whenever they see any prospect of their industry tending 
 to their own comfort. 
 
 "3994, The efibrts I have witnessed are really extraordinary; people 
 bringing manure from the sea on their backs, up extraordinary cliffs, such a& 
 an Englishman would not fancy to be accessible, and I give them credit for 
 infinite perseverance in these ways. I have seen pieces of land cultivated 
 that it would be thought scarcely possible to get at here (in England). 
 
 "4060. Do you recollect the failure of the crop in 1821 ? I do. 
 
 "4061. Was there not a very great pressure upon different parts of Kerry 
 at that time from that failure ? Very considerable, I think out of a popu- 
 lation of 230,000 in Kerry, 170,000 were reported to have been destitute of 
 the means of subsistence for the moment ; and it ought to be remarked, to 
 the credit of the people, that not a single depredation on property took place." 
 
 In his second Report upon Poor Laws, Mr. Nicholls states 
 (paragraph 31) that in Donegal — 
 
 " There was no employment for the young people, nor relieffor the aged, 
 nor means nor opportunity for removing their surplus numbers to some more 
 eligible spot ; they could only, therefore, live on hoping, as they said, that 
 times may mend, and their landlords would sooner or later do something for 
 them. Yet, with all this suffering, no disturbance or act of violence has 
 occurred in Donegal. During the severe privations of last summer, when 
 numbers were actually in want of sustenance, there was no dishonesty, no 
 plundering. The people starved, but they would not steal ; and although 
 their little stock of cattle and movables has been notoriously lessening these 
 last four years, and especially in the last year, which seems to have swallowed 
 up nearly all their visible means, they have yet paid their rents. The occu- 
 pier's share of the produce has been insufficient for his support, yet the land- 
 lord's share has generally been paid in full." 
 
 He would cite again the Devon Commissioners (Devon 
 Eeport, page 12) : — 
 
1 90 Patient in Suffering. 
 
 " Our personal experience and observations during our inquiry have 
 afforded us a melancboly confirmation of these statements. And we cannot 
 forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the 
 labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, 
 than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain." 
 
 And at page 36, already quoted : — 
 
 " Up to this period any improvement that may have taken place is attri- 
 butable almost entirely to the habits of temperance in which they have so 
 generally persevered, and not, we grieve to say, to any increased demand for 
 their labour," 
 
 Such were the people that the House had to deal with — 
 such were the people they had to legislate for. If they treated 
 them with justice, the House might be sure of their gratitude 
 and hearty co-operation ; but he would say, let them not, when 
 they asked for bread, be given a stone or a serpent. He re- 
 gretted exceedingly that he felt it to be his duty to delay the 
 House so long ; but he felt it necessary, in the next place, to 
 refer to evidence in support of the causes of the disturbances 
 existing in Ireland. Francis Blackburne, Esq., K.C, at present 
 Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, appointed to administer the Insur- 
 rection Act (Lords' Committee, 1824, Eeport, p. 4), said : — 
 
 " On the property of Lord Stradbroke, in the county of Limerick, there were 
 forty or fifty families ; the whole of that numerous body, consisting of persons 
 of all ages and both sexes, was dispossessed, and their houses prostrated ; 
 they were, generally speaking, destitute of the means of support, and, unless 
 relieved by people from charitable motives, I do not know what was to become 
 of them. But that circumstance created a good deal of irritation in the 
 country, and we were apprehensive of its effects in endangering the public 
 peace. This is not a singular case ; the same thing, to a greater or less de- 
 gree, is generally prevalent in the whole of the country." 
 
 Page 7 : — 
 
 " Will you state what, in your opinion, is the ultimate source of discontent 
 in Ireland ? The extreme misery and wretchedness of the population ; the 
 great mass of the population is in a state of poverty, destitute of employment, 
 and, generally speaking, destitute of what, in this country, would be consi- 
 
Causes of Outrages. 191 
 
 •dered the comforts and necessaries of life. It is a subject on which an Eng- 
 lishman can scarcely be said to have the materials even for belief" 
 
 The state of Ireland was so bad that the Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice of the Queen's Bench declares it is a subject on which an 
 Englishman can scarcely be said to have the materials of belief. 
 In all this the House would observe that he was not at all alluding 
 to the recent calamity that had befallen the country in the 
 potato disease. All this evidence had been given long before 
 that misfortune had been thought of or known. But he would 
 proceed. Major Thomas Powell, Inspector of Constabulary, 
 Leinster district, said (p. 165) : — 
 
 " In the Queen's County, where the collieries are in full work, there is no 
 instance of any outrage committed in that part of the country. Generally, 
 are there more disturbances where there is most poverty and misery ? Cer- 
 tainly; for instance, in the barony of Galmoy there is not a resident in the 
 whole barony, and that is one of the most disturbed." 
 
 Major-General Eichard Bourke, J. P., county Limerick 
 (Commons' Committee, 1825, p. 313) : — 
 
 " In the event of re-entry (on termination of leases) are you aware what 
 becomes of the surplus population ? I hardly know ; there are instances 
 where they have been sent off the land, and have hutted themselves upon 
 bogs and other uncultivated places ; and some of them go wandering about 
 the country. 
 
 " Have you any doubt that the system of diminishing the number of 
 tenants is generally acted upon, on the termination of all the leases in that 
 part of Ireland ? I should say it is universally acted upon. 
 
 " Does not that produce a great deal of misery ? Yes ; a great deal of 
 misery. It has led to murders, burning of houses, and several other out- 
 rages." 
 
 Matthew Barrington, Esq., Crown Solicitor (same Report, 
 p. 574) :— 
 
 " What do you consider to have been the immediate cause of the outr iges 
 which have taken place in Munster? I think the attachment to land and 
 change of possession has been one cause, the collection of tithes by projtor, 
 and an unemployed population." 
 
ig2 Attachment to Land. 
 
 Eotert Smith, Esq., Clerk of the Peace, County Monaghan 
 (Commons' Committee, 1830, Q. 2,930) :— 
 
 " What becomes of those tenants (evicted on consolidation of farms) ? I 
 cannot inform the Committee what becomes of them ; but in one of the cases 
 to which I now allude, I was informed that upwards of twenty families were 
 turned out, and in the other case more than thirty. The consequence was,^ 
 that the persons so dispossessed did not submit quietly, and in revenge cut 
 the tails off the cattle of the proprietors of the estates, and committed various 
 outrages. In the other case, the people who were turned out mustered a 
 strong armed force, and at night attacked the persons who had been put into 
 possession, whereby some lives were lost. I should here observe, that previous 
 to these occurrences, the county in which this has happened had been 
 peaceable. 
 
 "2931. I think this mischief arises from sending the people upon the 
 world without means of procuring shelter or opportunity of earning money." 
 
 Now tHat was the case in the county of Monaghan, which 
 was in the north of Ireland, and where the House would perceive 
 the same causes led to exactly the same description of outrages 
 as in the south. John Wiggins, Esq., land agent (same Ee- 
 port) in answer to Q. 4027 : — 
 
 " I found in general that three-fourths of the produce are paid often in 
 rent in Ireland ; but certainly, even upon a tillage farm, half the produce is 
 frequently paid in rent — about double the proportion that is paid in 
 England. 
 
 "4030. I conceive the relation between landlord and tenant has given 
 rise to that political commotion which we call ' Whiteboyism.' " 
 
 Matthew Barrington, Esq., Crown Solicitor, Munster Circuit 
 (Commons' Committee, 1842) : — 
 
 ''They (the Whiteboy associations, &c.) have always had objects con- 
 nected more or less with land. 
 
 "5. Be good enough to explain what appears to you to be the cause of 
 those several outrages ? Since I have been Crown Solicitor, I have endea- 
 voured to get at the root of the system by tracing each outrage to its imme- 
 diate cause. ... I have traced the origin of almost every case I prosecuted, 
 and find that they generally arise from the attachment, to the dispossession 
 of, and the change in the possession of land. ... I have never known a 
 ca:se of direct hostility to the Government, as a government, although hos- 
 
State of the Qiieai s County. k^^, 
 
 tility to the law leads to hostility to the Government; but as to direct opposi- 
 tion to the Government, I never knew an instance of that being the object. 
 
 " 14. I knew one instance (of ejectment without provision) which led to 
 a desperate murder on Lord Stradbroke's estate at Bilboa. The farm was 
 out of lease, and during the lease a great number of people had been allowed 
 to reside on it. Mr. Blood, the gentleman who was murdered in Clare last 
 year, took possession of the farm, as agent to Lord Stradbroke, dispossessed 
 the tenants, levelled their houses, and they were all thrown out on the road. 
 The succeeding tenant was immediately afterwards murdered." 
 
 That was the evidence of a gentleman who had been for 
 more than thirty years Crown Solicitor to the Munster circuit. 
 
 This was the evidence of the Rev. Nicholas O'Connor, P. P., 
 Maryborough (Commons' Committee, 1832J : — 
 
 " 3239. Are the Committee to understand that the Whitefeet are con- 
 fined to those ejected from their grounds? It is not confined to them, but 
 they have been the persons that first made it general, and others had an 
 apprehension of a similar fate, and they have joined it from thinking it would 
 be a protection to them to keep them in their land. 
 
 " 3329. I am very sure there is nothing that they would not forgive 
 sooner than the turning them out of their farms. Every string of their hearts 
 is twined round every twig upon them. It is impossible to induce the people 
 to forgive those turning them out of the place where their fathers and grand- 
 fathers lived. 
 
 " 3331. They abandon their clergy, and we can have no influence over 
 them. 
 
 *' 3332. It gathers together all the desperate people ? Yes, they care 
 not if they are taken and hanged for their desperate acts, committed in a 
 state of revenge. Death would be a relief to them — they care not for life." 
 
 Matthew Singleton, Esq., chief magistrate of police (same 
 Eeport, 1832) :— 
 
 " 4101. There is scarcely an outrage committed relative to lands, but 
 what the people assign a cause for, if I may use that expression. In some in- 
 stances the unfortunate people do show one. 
 
 ♦'4102. What are the Committee to understand by showing a cause? 
 Oppression, high rents, low wages, and contracts broken." 
 
 Rev. J. Delany, P. P., Ballinakill, Queen's County (same 
 Committee, 1832) : — 
 
 " 4373. Asked as to causes of disturbances. There have been a great 
 VOL. II. 14 
 
1 94 The County Meath. 
 
 many causes. I will state one that occurred in my own parish. There were 
 three families comprising twenty- three individuals. The heads of those 
 families were accused of having cut scollops or switches, for the purpose of 
 thatching their cabins, or, perhaps, for sale; there were some ash and oak. 
 The parties so offending were summoned, and a fine of £5 recorded against 
 them. The landlord gave them the o[)tion of going out instanter (it was iii 
 the depth of winter, in November), forgiving them the arrears due and the 
 fine ; or to pay the fine, and be served with notice to quit in six months. 
 They chose the first alternative, and went out ; their families were scattere<I 
 over the parish. The next summer, 1830, was one of famine with us. We 
 were obliged to introduce a sort of poor-rate to keep the people from starv- 
 ing and dying in the ditches. Two of these families were thrown upon the 
 parish, and I had to support them myself. One of the poor men lost his cow 
 some time after being turned out. A series of calamities befel him. Hu 
 took ill, and after lingering a long time in a state of the utmost destitution 
 and misery, died of a broken heart. The sons of this man, together with a 
 son of the second family above mentioned, became leaders in this system of 
 Ribbonism ; and, I have reason to believe, were some of the most daring and 
 ferocious among them. One of them, to this day, has held out against all 
 my admonitions, and has not yet surrendered himself. 
 
 " Did any other cases of considerable hardship occur in your neighbour- 
 hood ? There was a vast number of persons in the course of the last seven 
 years ejected from the estate of the late Mr. Crosby; some of them came into 
 mj' parish, and I found them exceedingly troublesome, and disposed to en- 
 gage in those illegal associations." 
 
 Bev. Michael Keogh, P.P., Abbeyleix, Queen's County 
 (same Committee, 1832) : — 
 
 "4336. To what do you attribute these outrages? The poverty of the 
 people, and a great many having been ejected from their lands. 
 
 "4337. State the particulars of the ejectments. [Mentions 174 families 
 on one property, 34 on another, and several others, principally at the expira- 
 tion of their leases.] 
 
 "4654. The disturbance began subsequent to the ejectment of the peoph-. 
 
 " 4670. How do those people who are ejected maintain themselves atler- 
 wards? Very poorly indeed; they throw themselves into tlie towns, and 
 live therein, sti'olling about and trying to get work. 
 
 "4676. There are some of the families ejected in the most wretched state 
 — paupers, going from door to door." 
 
 James Naper, Esq., Loughcrew, County Meath (Commons* 
 Committee, 1832) :— 
 
The Civil Bill Ejectment Act. 1 95 
 
 " 5606. Do you think that the lower orders have any reason to be dis- 
 contented ? I think very just reasons. 
 
 "5607. State what these reasons are. There are many reasons why Ire- 
 land should be in a discontented state ; but one of the principal reasons is, 
 the position of the landlords and the lower orders of the peasantry." 
 
 John Eobinson Price, Esq., J.P., Queen's County (Com- 
 mons' Committee, 1832) : — 
 
 " 6676. On the very borders of the barony of Ossory, on a noble lord's 
 estate, an ejectment was brought against the middleman, an habere issued, 
 possession taken, and the land was re-let to a Mr. Marum, not to the tenants 
 in possession, which is the usual way, for the six months' equity of re- 
 demption. Mr. Marum deluded the tenants with the hope that he took the 
 land for their benefit ; but when the six months expired, he turned out those 
 tenants, and, I am told, he sold the household effects for the six months' rent. 
 The consequence was, his cattle were houghed, and driven from the county 
 Kilkenny to the Queen's County for that purpose. For three years this sys- 
 tem was kept up, and Mr. Marum was shot in the open day, afterwards, in 
 the midst of a dense population. 
 
 " 6677. "Was this transaction accompanied by much general disturbance? 
 It ignited the whole barony of Ossory ; so much so that the barony was put 
 under the Peace Preservation Act, with a resident stipendiary magistrate." 
 
 " 6736. Is it your opinion that the clearing of estates nnd the consolida- 
 tion of farms has been pushed to too great an extent ? I think, under the 
 circumstance, it has. There is no employment for the poor, and a con- 
 viction rests on their minds that a piece of land is necessary to existence. I 
 certainly think that the disposition of the landlord, and the interest of the 
 landlord, were sufficiently active and alive to carry on the work of depopula- 
 tion gradually ; and I do think he was aided, assisted, and enabled to carry 
 on the system with greater velocity by certain Acts of the Legislature, such 
 as the Civil Bill Ejectment Act, which gave a very summary process to the 
 landlord ; the distraining of standing corn ; the Joint Tenancy Act ; the Sub- 
 Letting Act, which, though it did not turn anyone out, it kept them from 
 getting in when out ; and last, not least, the disfranchisement of the 40*. 
 freeholders, which, I am certain, broke the last link of connection between 
 the landlord and the pauper tenant." 
 
 Jolm Cahill, Esq., surveyor and civil engineer (same Re- 
 port) : — 
 
 *' 7251. ^Vere there any other circumstances which contributed to that 
 state of disturbance which has taken place ? There were. 
 
196 State of Leinster, 
 
 7252. "What are they? There were a good many people evicted and 
 turned out of their farms. About four years ago, there was one gentleman wha 
 evicted eighty-nine persons ; another ninety-six ; another ninety-five. 
 
 "7255. Were these cases where the land had fallen out of lease? They 
 were. 
 
 " 7257. Gentlemen have agreed to make the farms, in my opinion, as 
 large as possible, and those people who remained on the lands were evicted 
 and put off, as is the case, which I stated of those gentlemen who turned out 
 the numbers I have stated. 
 
 " 7258. Do you conceive that it has been these individuals who have been 
 so turned out, from want of having proper means of supporting themselves^ 
 who have become wanderers and vagrants, and the source of the Whitefeet 
 association that prevailed in that part of the country ? I do very much con- 
 sider so. There were 1,126 of these poor people who were evicted, with the 
 idle colliers, going about, left idle on a part of two parishes, and all that 
 within six miles of each other. 
 
 " 7260. Do you know them by name ? Yes, 1 have their names. 
 
 *' 7261. Are you able to trace what has become of them in the course of 
 the last four years ? Yes. 
 
 " 7262. State generally what has become of them. Do they continue 
 wandering about ? I have known on one estate, which is near me, and 
 which I regulated for a gentleman, there has been a great many of the old 
 people turned off that became beggars, and a good many of them died of 
 want." 
 
 W. Kemmis, Esq., Crown Solicitor, Leinster Circuit (Lords^ 
 Eeport, 1839) :— 
 
 " 6743. In answer to question, gives account of eleven murders in 
 Tipperary, from 1816 to 18^8, all arising from evictions. 
 
 " 6744. What, in your opinion, has been the cause of the outrages in 
 Tipperary, generally ? Generally on account of land ; the letting and the 
 dispossession of land. 
 
 "6745, What pi'oportion of outrages may be attributed to that cause r 
 The greatest number decidedly. 
 
 " 6746. Two-thirds ? Three-fourths and more. 
 
 "7148. Do the Committee understand you rightly, that Tipperary is 
 more disturbed than other counties? Yes, than other counties on my 
 circuit. 
 
 " 7149. And that the great majority of violent crimes are caused by 
 turning tenants out ? Yes." 
 
 Matthew Harrington, Esq., Crown Solicitor, Munster Circuit 
 (same Eeport) : — 
 
ConnaugJit and Tipperary, 197 
 
 *• From your examination of witnesses, and from other circumstances that 
 must have come to your knowledge occasionally, can you state to the 
 Committee what, in your opinion, has been the cause of those outrages 'i I 
 think the causes have been an anxiety to possess land ; the dispossession of 
 land, and the disputes about land. 
 
 *• 7347. That is, during the whole of that period ? With respect to all 
 the disturbances during the time I have been Crown Solicitor, I could almost 
 trace every outrage to some dispute about land. 
 
 '' 7437. Have any outrages that you have inquired into appeared to 
 arise from hostility to the Government ? No ; I never knew, in twenty-five 
 years, an instance of any outrages directed against the Government, or that 
 had any political object. 
 
 '• 7465. When the causes of outrages have been removed, have you 
 observed that the distm'bances have immediately subsided ? I have, 
 certainly." 
 
 Edward Tiemaj, Esq., Crown Solicitor, North-west Circuit 
 (same Report) : — 
 
 " 7727. Will you have the goodness to state to the Committee your 
 opinion of the cause of those agrarian outrages? I believe it is a great 
 deal occasioned by the letting and dispossession of land, and dispossession of 
 former tenants or occupiers." 
 
 E. C. Hickman, Esq., Crown Solicitor, Connaught Circuit 
 (same Eeport) : — 
 
 '• 84 i6. Have you heard of any case of tenants being turned out because 
 they gave a vote at elections contrary to the will of their landlord ? Yes, 1 
 have heard of that. 
 
 •' 8477. What was the county in which you heard of it ? My own 
 county of Clare." 
 
 Piers Geale, Esq., Crown SoKcitor, Home Circuit (same 
 Eeport) : — 
 
 '• 8605. Will you have the goodness to state to the Committee what, 
 in your opinion, has been the more general and common class of outrage 
 
 of every description on your circuit ? I think it has always some connection 
 -with the taking of land.'' 
 
 J. Tabiteau, E. It., county Tipperary (same Eeport) : — 
 
198 Effects of Atte7npts to Proselytize. 
 
 " 9628. The general groundwork of the outrages in that district you 
 consider to be disputes relating to land ? Yes ; property — land, generally 
 speaking. 
 
 "9720. Is ejectment from land in the county Tipperary synonymous 
 nearly with reduction to destitution and misery on the part of the cottier 
 tenant? Indeed it is; and ejecting throws them altogether out of their 
 grade of life, out of the rank of farmers into that of labourers. 
 
 " 9746. What, in your opinion, has been, generally speaking, the cause 
 of the great number of murders in the county of Tipperary ? I believe 
 the cause of actual murder is generally, ground — something about land." 
 
 J. Howley, Esq., Assistant-Barrister, countj Tipperary 
 (same Report) : — 
 
 " 9992. Are you able to form an opinion whether the ejectments have 
 been more numerous in the county of Tipperary, in proportion to the 
 population, than in other counties ? From conferring with different assist- 
 ant-barristers, it would appear there are a greater number of ejectments in 
 the county of Tipperary than in other counties.'' 
 
 John Barnes, Esq., Stipendiary Magistrate, county Long- 
 ford (same Report) : — 
 
 "11,755. As far as you have been able to form an opinion, will you 
 have the goodness to state what you conceive to have been the causes of 
 these murders ? From everything which has come to my knowledge, from 
 the number of witnesses I have examined, lam inclined to think — nay, I am 
 certain — these murders have occurred in consequence of persons having been 
 turned out of their lands, and those lands having been granted to persons of 
 an opposite religion and character. 
 
 " 11,803. Is there any hostility exhibited towards the Government of the 
 country ? Not the slightest that I am aware of." 
 
 Tomkins Brew, Esq., S. M., Tuam (same Report) : — 
 
 " 12,765. What was the cause of the firing at Mr. Synge, and the 
 murder of his servant ? He had turned several of his tenants off his land 
 that had refused to send their children to his school, and a conspiracy was 
 formed on that account to murder him. He was fired at, and his servant 
 shot." 
 
 In order that they might rightly estimate the working of 
 the ejectment system, he would state a few results. In the 
 
Conduct of yiidges. 1 99 
 
 county of Tipperarj, where there were most ejectments, there 
 were also most murders : and lie would beg to call the par- 
 ticular attention of the House to tliis fact. It appeared by 
 Appendix, Part IV., pages 293 to 302, Land Commission 
 Report, that in the year 1843 there were issued from the Civil 
 Bill Courts 5,244 ejectments, comprising 14,816 defendants ; 
 and from the superior Courts (allowing for the Queen's Bench 
 the same average as 1841, the number for the latter years in 
 that Court not being given), 1,784 ejectments, comprising 
 16,503 defendants ; making a total of 7,028 ejectments, 31,319 
 defendants ; or, within the period of five years— from 1839 to 
 1843 — comprised in the return, upwards of 150,000 tenants 
 had been subjected to ejectment process. Did he deny that 
 disturbances existed in the country ? He never did deny the 
 existence of these disturbances. He never denied that dreadful 
 murders were committed. He never had any notion of con- 
 cealing these horrible facts. He was now placing the facts 
 before the Government, and at the same time showing the 
 causes that had led to these crimes, in order that they might 
 be able to apply a remedy to these causes. He had shown by 
 evidence what was the disposition of the people. He had 
 shown that the causes of the outrages were attendant on eject- 
 ment from land ; and he would next come to a few others of 
 the grievances of which he complained. He complained of the 
 administration of justice in Ireland ; of their being no confi- 
 dence existing on the part of the people in those intrusted with 
 the administration of the law. He did not like to be bringing 
 the names of individuals so often before the House ; but he 
 would appeal to the Grovernment itself whether they had not 
 uniformly appointed to the administration of the law every 
 man who had been most violent in his political feelings, and 
 who had taken the strongest part against the religion of the 
 people of Ireland. He did not mean to disparage the judicial 
 acts of these individuals. He knew of no serious disparage- 
 ment of their conduct on the Bench ; but it was not on him, 
 but on the public, that these things would make an impression. 
 
200 Magistrates atid Repeal. 
 
 Had not the Government made Mr. Serjeant Lefroy a Judge ? 
 Had they not placed Mr. Serjeant Jackson also on the Bench ? 
 An*d had they not made Mr. Litton a Master in Chancery ? 
 Were these men favourable to the people or to the religion 
 of the people of Ireland ? Had they not also appointed Chief 
 Justice Pennefather, who was no friend to the Irish people, and 
 the present Lord Chief Justice, who, while Attorney-Greneral, 
 had deserted one Administration and gone over to another ? 
 He too was no friend to the Irish people. 
 
 He would not go further. He was sorry that he had re- 
 peated even so many names, and he would not continue the 
 controversy further respecting them. He spoke not of their 
 individual character, hut of the impression which the appoint- 
 ment of such men was likely to produce in the public mind. 
 And would the House regard as nothing this fact ? Lord 
 Chancellor Sugden was reported to have said the other day, 
 that the people of Ireland must have the fullest reliance on the 
 administration of justice. But who was to give them that con- 
 fidence ? Who, if not the magistracy of the country ? And 
 could they forget that seventy-four magistrates had been struck 
 off the list for no other reason but that they had advocated the 
 Repeal of the Union ? The people knew that their doing so 
 was no crime ; that not one of them had been prosecuted for 
 advocating Repeal ; that, in point of fact, there could be no 
 prosecution for such a charge. And, he would ask the Grovern- 
 ment, would they now enact this Coercion Bill, while the exclu- 
 sion of these seventy-four gentlemen from the commission of 
 the peace was continued ? If they had committed a crime, if they 
 had disgraced the bench, if they had dishonoured the adminis- 
 tration of justice — well and good. In such case let them, by all 
 means, be removed. But there was not the slightest allegation 
 against them of anything of the kind. Then the State trials. 
 He would not say a single word upon the proceedings of the ■ 
 Solicitor-General ; but how were the parties tried who stood 
 arraigned on that occasion ? Was there the least doubt of there 
 having been a one-sided charge ? Was there the least doubt 
 
The Land Question, 201 
 
 that those privileges which should have been at once conceded 
 to the accused were pertinaciously as well as fatally refused ? 
 He would only say, that these circumstances had made a bad 
 impression upon the people, and that House was bound to make 
 them a recompense. And what had he (Mr. O'Connell) to sug- 
 gest by way of recompense? He had as yet suggested nothing ; 
 but he would not leave the Government and the House without 
 the means of making it. Although there had been some mur- 
 ders committed in Ireland, that were not directly traceable to 
 evictions from land, yet in sum and substance, the whole form 
 and state of society showed it was from evictions of land, from 
 the insecurity of land-holdings, from the difficulties arising 
 through the want of land, that we must seek for the great and 
 primary cause of all these crimes. There were some exceptions, 
 he admitted, but he was sorry to say that those exceptions were 
 hecoming more numerous. The truth was so, and he did not 
 shrink from stating the truth. The great fault, however, was 
 the land question. The fact was, that that House had 
 ■done too much for the landlord, and too little for the occupier. 
 What had been the first measure for the benefit of the land- 
 lords ? The first Statute passed after the Union in favour 
 •of the landlords was the Act 56 George III., c. 88, which 
 gave them additional powers to work out ejectments. Up to 
 that time they had not power to distrain. The Statutes 
 of England were not enacted in Ireland towards landlords ; 
 "but the Act 56 George III., c. 88, gave them powers which 
 were no part of the bargain at the time of the Union. Many 
 parties had taken leases, and made contracts without those new 
 powers being in the hands of the landlords. The Statute gave 
 them the power of distraining growing crops, keeping them till 
 ripe, saving and selling them when ripe, charging upon the 
 tenant the accumulation of expense. 
 
 All these powers were first introduced by this Statute and 
 ■conferred upon the Irish landlord. He did not believe there 
 had ever been a more fertile source of murder and outrage than 
 these powers. Thus, the source of crime was directly traceable 
 
2 02 The Power of Landlords. 
 
 to the legislation of that House ; and it was the imperative 
 duty of that House, and every member in it, immediately, or as 
 speedily as possible, to repeal that Act. Then there came the 
 Act, 58 George III., cap. 39, for civil bill ejectment. First 
 the power was given to distrain upon the growing crop, enabling 
 the landlord to ruin the tenant ; and then there came the fur- 
 ther power to the landlord of turning out the tenant from his 
 holding. The Act 1 George lY., cap. 41, extended the power of 
 civil bill ejectment ; and the Act 1 George lY., cap. 87, enabled 
 the landlords to get security for costs from defendants in eject- 
 ments. Then the Act 1 and 2 George lY., c. 31, gave the land- 
 lords the right of immediate execution in ejectment ; and the 
 Act 6 and 7 William lY., gave further facilities for civil bill 
 ejectments. All these were additional powers to the landlord \ 
 and it was to these Statutes that the late Lord Chief Justice 
 Pennefather referred, when he said their object was to forward 
 the interests of the landlord. The repeal of these laws was one 
 of the remedies which he (Mr. O'Connell) called for, but not 
 the only one. He wanted the House to determine at once to- 
 do justice to Ireland, politically, as well as in relation to the 
 law of landlord and tenant. He would now enumerate the re- 
 medies which would create political satisfaction, and which the 
 people believed would be their best protection. First, they had 
 not an adequate number of members to represent them in that 
 House ; next, an extension of the franchise ; third, corporate 
 reform ; and last, a satisfactory arrangement of the temporalities 
 of the Church. These four general remedies he demanded from 
 that House as a mode of coercing the people of Ireland by their 
 affections and their interests into a desire to continue the Union 
 with England. Then, as to the remedies in relation to land- 
 lord and tenant. He asked the House to repeal the Statutes on 
 this subject since the Union. He asked the House to give a 
 limitation to the landlord's power where there was no lease. Do 
 not allow the landlord to distrain unless where there was a 
 twentj'-one years' lease, nor to eject unless where there was a 
 thirty-one years' lease. He respectfully called on that House 
 
Cause of Ulster Prosperity. 203 
 
 in the next place to give full compensation to tenants for their 
 improvements. Labour was the property of the tenant ; and if 
 the tenant by his labour and skill improved the land, and made 
 it more valuable, let him have the benefit of those improvements 
 before the landlord turned him out of possession. See what a 
 stimulant was here offered to activity and exertion ! A man, 
 who now laboured helplessly, would unquestionably labour with 
 greater energy when he understood he was labouring for him- 
 self. This principle was embodied in Lord Devon's Report^ 
 though it was not worked out. The principle, too, had been 
 introduced by Lord Stanley. It was, therefore, part of the ad- 
 ministration of her Majesty's Government. Let it not be a 
 mockery. Do not encumber it with clauses and provisions 
 which the tenants were neither able to comply with nor to 
 understand ; but act upon it openly and manfully, giving the 
 most practical security to the landlord for his rent, and to the 
 tenant the value for his solid and substantial improvements, 
 and the House would then see a stop put to outrage. The next 
 remedy he called for was, an extension of the Ulster tenant- 
 right. Let that right be extended all over Ireland. In Lord 
 Devon's Report the superior tranquillity of Ulster was traced 
 to the security afforded to the tenant by this right ; for there no 
 tenant could be put out of possession without receiving full and 
 fair value. The evidence on this subject was of some length, 
 but he would read a portion of it to the House. 
 
 Mr. Hancock, agent to Lord Lurgan, counties Armagh, 
 Down, and Antrim (Land Commissioners' Report, p. 483) : — 
 
 " 37, 38. Much of our Ulster prosperity has been the result of this ex- 
 traordinary matter (namely, tenant-right) in connection with tenure ; and no 
 measure would have a greater effect in improving the condition of the south 
 and west than the introduction of tenant-right as it exists in Ulster. I con- 
 sider tenant-right the claim of the tenant and his heirs to continue in undis- 
 turbed possession so long as the rent is paid ; and in the event of ejectment 
 or change of occupancy, it is the sum the new occupier must pay the old for 
 the peaceable enjoyment of his holding. I consider tenant-right beneficent 
 to the community, because it establishes a security in the possession of land, 
 and leads to theimprovementof the estate, without any expenditure of capital 
 
204 State of Monagha7i^ 
 
 •on the part of the landlord. It Hkewise affords the best security for his rent, 
 iis arrears are always allowed to be deducted from the amount the occupier 
 receives for tenant-right. It is very conducive to the peace of the country, 
 for almost every man has a stake in the community, and is, therefore, opposed 
 to agrarian outrage, as well as riots. The laws are more respected ; there 
 are none of those reckless, daring men, who are ready for any deed, under the 
 consciousness that their situations cannot be worse. The liberty of the sub- 
 ject is more respected, and imprisonment has greater terrors, from the fact 
 that almost every tenant can procure bail for his future appearance in court 
 or his future good behaviour. There is never any instance of forfeited recog- 
 nizance. An arrest is, therefore, a much more serious matter in this tlian in 
 any other part of Ireland, for, as there" is less risk (from his stake) of 
 the offender flying, so here the degradation is more keenly felt, and parties 
 often subscribe and bring actions against magistrates for false arrests and im- 
 prisonment, whereas, where no tenant-right exists, the first step is to arrest 
 to prevent escape ; and, secondly, the consideration of the cause. Imprison- 
 ment and contamination with bad characters are thus more frequent. The 
 magistrates cannot have the same respect for the liberty of the subject ; and 
 when acts of oppression occur, revenge is taken, not by an appeal to the civil 
 court for damages, but by combination and an appeal to force, waylaying, 
 and murder. The necessity of distress for rent — a fruitful source of riots and 
 broken heads— is also obviated by the tenant-right, as there is no danger of 
 loss for arrears." 
 
 Then there was the following in another part of the Report. 
 Bohert Smith, Esq., Clerk of the Peace, county of Monaghan, 
 gave this evidence : — 
 
 "80. Do they often sell the tenant-right where there is an old lease? 
 Very frequently. 
 
 " 81. Where the tenant is ejected for non-payment of rent, by his land- 
 lord, is he allowed to sell his tenant-right? I am not aware that any such 
 right of sale is recognised by the landlord; but it is generally known 
 throughout the country that an agrarian law exists, such as to intimidate any 
 of the lower classes of farmers from taking land from which a tenant has been 
 ejected for any cause, without the person coming in making compensation 
 to the party tui'ned out." 
 
 " 82. That applies to the tenant going out under all circumstances ? I 
 think so. 
 
 John Lindsay, Banhridge, county Down (Land Commis- 
 sioners' Report, pp. 883, 584) : — 
 
 " 39. Is the tenant-right or sale of good-will prevalent in the district, 
 and to whom is the purchase money paid ? It prevails in the district ; the 
 
Down, Antrim, and Armagh. 205 
 
 tenants who have held the land think they have a right to dispose of the land 
 when they are going to leave it ; they think they have always a right to da 
 so, and very reasonably, I think. 
 
 " 40. Is it generally recognised by the landlord? Some recognise it, and 
 some do not ; but where they do not recognise it, they set their faces against 
 it ; they are very generally defeated, and have been obliged to do it after 
 risking life, in some instances, in my neighbourhood. 
 
 "41. Is it done behind their backs, without their knowledge ? No ; they 
 have even ejected the tenantry. I have known some of them do it in the 
 parish I live in. One of them put a man out of his farm, and there is no 
 person will take it. He sent down a person to cultivate the form, and he 
 was sent home again. The people gathered that night, and desired him to 
 go home, and not come there again; and the man got leave to sell his tenant- 
 right afterwards. 
 
 "42. How long ago is that? About three years ago. Something 
 similar happened to a man, about two or three miles from my place, last 
 winter was a year. 
 
 " 43. Is the value of the tenant-right increasing or diminishing, and how 
 is it affected by the tenure ? The value of the tenant-right is decreasing in 
 con?e(pence of a scarcity of money, and I suppose it would be regulated also 
 by the price of land at the time the tenant-right would be sold. If it is at 
 a high rent they will give less ; and if at a low rent, they will not get more. 
 
 "44. What should you say was the value of tenant-right of land fairly 
 set and held at will, comparing it with a year's rent, or by the acre ? About 
 four years ago, at a place I receive the rent of, it would have sold for £20 an 
 acre, and now, though the rent is lowered 10 per cent., it would be difEcult 
 enough to get £10." 
 
 Mr. Handcock, Lord Lurgan's agent, Down, Antrim, and 
 Armagh : — 
 
 " 38. The landlords are compelled to recognise tenant-right, as, in severat 
 instances in this neighbourhood, where they have refused to allow tenant- 
 right, the incoming tenant's house has been burned, his cattle houghed, or 
 his crops trodden down by night. The disallowance of tenant-right, as for 
 as I know, is always attended with outrage. A landlord cannot even resume 
 possession to himself without paying it. In fact, it is one of the sacred rights 
 of the country he touches with impunity; and if systematic efforts were made 
 amongst the proprietors of Ulster to invade tenant-right, I do not believe 
 there is a force at the disposal of the Horse Guards sufficient to keep the 
 peace of the province ; and, when we consider that all the improvements have- 
 been effected at the expense of the tenant, it is pei'fectly right that this tenant- 
 
2o6 Ulster Tenant- Right. 
 
 right should exist; his money has been laid out on the faith of compensation 
 in that shape." 
 
 This, then, was the evidence of the north of Ireland, as to 
 ihe value of this tenant-right. How often had he heard all 
 the boast of the superior tranquillity of the north ? It was 
 because they were better treated by their landlords ; and, gene- 
 rally speaking, there was a better feeling there towards the 
 landlords, because the tenants were allowed to sell their tenant- 
 rights. In the county of Tipperary there was an agrarian law, 
 which was the law of ejectment ; in the province of Ulster there 
 was a general law giving the tenant valuable rights. He 
 called upon the House to make their choice between the two. 
 Now was the time for their choice. The country had arrived 
 at a state in which it was necessary for something to be done. 
 This miserable Coercion Bill would do nothing. It would do 
 worse than nothing. There were many excellent landlords in 
 Ireland, and there were numerous bad ones ; numerous estates 
 were in the hands of agents. The remedy which he asked for 
 was, that the tenant-right of Ulster, which had been enjoyed in 
 that province for 300 years, and which was available at this 
 present moment, should be generally adopted throughout Ire- 
 land. He further required that a heavy tax should be levied 
 upon absentees, and the election of county boards instead of the 
 existing system of grand juries. He wanted the House to grant 
 a strong, bold, manly, useful remedial measure. He would not 
 weary the House by going into further details now ; but, having 
 pointed out the remedies, he called upon the British Parliament 
 to grant them at once. "Were they desirous of putting an end 
 to these murders ? Then it must be by removing the cause of 
 murder. You could not destroy the effect without taking 
 away the cause. He repeated, that the tranquillity of Ulster 
 was owing to the enjoyment of tenant-right ; where that right 
 was taken away, the people were trodden under foot, and, 
 in the words of Lord Clare, "ground to powder." The hon. 
 and learned gentleman concluded by saying he had trespassed 
 
The ^^ Times'^ on C Conn ell. lOi'j 
 
 upon the House at greater length than he intended, and he 
 would close by moving the amendment which he had read. 
 
 Subject, State of Ireland ; Date, April 24, 1846. 
 
 Talk was still the order of the day. Presumably honourable members 
 thought that talking would have some mysterious effect in alleviating suffer- 
 ing, that is, if they thought at all. This was O'Connell's last speech, but one, 
 yet even then, with his failing faculties, he was a power in the state, a power 
 to be feared and courted, an instrument to be used, if he could only be 
 cajoled into permitting it. The Times which could always stoop to flatter 
 when convenient, actually denominated O'Connell " the Liberator " in the 
 course of this session, recommended the Government to seek his assist- 
 ance, and owned to the sudden knowledge that " the power of the 
 executive had been felt in acts of harshness, seldom of beneficial or parental 
 interference." Fear is a wonderful quickener of intellectual perception. 
 
 It was, in fact, suddenly discovered that the Irish people would be 
 '' filled with such gratitude, affection, and joy as no people had hitherto 
 shown to their rulers," if the Government would " employ itself in improving 
 the material and social condition of the people." Such discoveries are made 
 occasionally, and put forward with an air of kindness and candour, which 
 would quite deceive any person who was not aware how frequently they 
 had been made before ; as if Ireland ever wanted anything from Government 
 except to have her social and material condition improved. Of late years, 
 certainly, some attempts have been made in this direction, but they have 
 been made too tardily, too grudgingly, and too sparsely, to awaken any warm 
 feelings of gratitude — acts which are only partial justice can scarcely be 
 accepted as munificent gifts. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell — I am sure I have never been churlish in 
 acknowledging the evident disposition of the Government to 
 adopt measures to meet the present emergency. I should have 
 been ashamed of myself had I been so ; but I have now to 
 complain, I have to join in the general complaiut, of the in- 
 activity of the persons employed by Government in Ireland 
 to superintend the distribution of food ; of their unnecessary 
 diplomacy ; their wearisome reference from one to the other ; of 
 the wanton delay in some localities ; the tediousness everywhere. 
 
2o8 Starvation. 
 
 Why, can Government point to one single spot in which 
 effectual relief has been administered ? But while I say this,. 
 I must add that I was very glad to hear the hon. mem- 
 ber for Northamptonshire (Mr, Stafford O'Brien) speak as 
 he did in high praise of Lord Lincoln and his commission in 
 Ireland, and I hope that Grovernment will strengthen theii* 
 hands. But, sir, I think that Government has fallen short — 
 that more money — a great deal more money — will be necessary. 
 I am not asking it as a favour. I am not here in mendicant 
 form, appealing to you for alms for Ireland. Advance money. 
 You have security for it — tax landed proprietors — take a dis- 
 cretionary power of taxation from the Coercion Bill, and 
 employ it better. Send out persons to find out the situation 
 and circumstances of each landlord, and tax him accordingly. 
 Does the landlord, like the hon. member for Northamptonshire,, 
 do his duty— then tax him lightly ; and has he neglected it — 
 then tax him heavily. It may be said these are unconstitu- 
 tional doctrines. Sir, the people are starving — they are dying ; 
 while you are here canvassing constitutional doctrines, they are 
 perishing of hunger. Did you not hear the evidence given 
 in the returns laid on the table of the House ? Did you not 
 hear how this family had but two, that family had but one 
 day's supply — how another family, again, had been eight-and- 
 forty hours without food — and how a further eight- and-forty 
 hours' suffering would land them in their graves. Then, I say 
 to Government, do not delay. Act firmly — act boldly. We 
 have heard from every side declarations of benevolence to 
 Ireland. Act, tlien. The House would not shrink from giving 
 you an indemnity. But let there be no longer unnecessary 
 delay. If you cannot meet my challenge to point out a single 
 place where you have given effectual relief — if it be true that 
 not a shilling has been advanced — then for Heaven's sake 
 begin. Begin to-morrow morning ; strengthen the hands of 
 your officials in Dublin Castle. Let not a day, not an hour, be 
 lost. I may be told that I am throwing out opinions contrary 
 to those I have always entertained on the subject of outdoor 
 
Coerce the Landlords. 209 
 
 relief. I do not shrink from mj old view of the subject. I 
 shall think outdoor relief but anotlier name for the confiscation 
 of property ; but in the present state of Ireland, I prefer 
 confiscation to letting the people die of starvation. Make the 
 experiment for one year — administer for this year outdoor 
 relief; tax the landholder for this — you can relax next year — 
 but this is the time for making the experiment. Don't bring 
 your Coercion Bill against the poorer classes — coerce the land- 
 lords. Compel them to prevent the people dying of hunger ; 
 it is necessary to compel them. I do not disparage the land- 
 lords. There are abundance of good landlords ; and abundance 
 of bad landlord.s ; of clearing landlords ; of destroying (not 
 angels, but) landlords in Ireland. I do not commit myself to 
 the doctrine of outdoor relief. It will be seen that I have 
 very strong objections to it, but none of them apply on this 
 occasion — in this emergency. Sir, I was sorry to hear my hon» 
 frieud, the member for Limerick, so adverse to the total repeal 
 of the Corn Laws. My conviction is that nothing can do good 
 to Ireland but that repeal. The existence of the Corn Laws 
 has done us no good. Can any man contradict that ? They 
 have been concomitant with increasing misery — concomitant 
 with increasing destitution ; and therefore if any man praise 
 the Corn Laws to me, he must draw on his imagination, for as 
 to Ireland the facts of the ca.se are against him. Corn Law 
 repeal would increase manufacturing enterprise; it would raise 
 wages ; agriculture cannot raise them, the Corn Law has not 
 raised them. They say the Corn Bill was passed to keep up 
 wages. Is there any country where wages are so low? 
 Notoriously none. The only chance of raising them is in 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws, and I wish to Heaven you would. 
 set about it at once. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 15 
 
2 lo O* Conneir s last Speech. 
 
 Suljed, De>titute Persons (Ireland) Biix ; 
 Date^ FEBRrARY 8, 1847. 
 
 This was O'Connell's last speech. It was but imperfectly heard in the 
 House as the opening sentences show. His last words are a cry for help 
 for Ireland. 
 
 Mr. 0' Connell was understood to say, that, in the first of the 
 Irish Bills which had been submitted to the House — namely, 
 the Indemnity Bill — he heartily and entirely agreed. Much 
 had been said against the Labour-rate Act, but, he thought, un- 
 justly. That Act had been of immense advantage in many ba- 
 ronies in Ireland, especially in the west, and many of the works 
 effected under it had been exceedingly useful. It had not been 
 of so much use in other parts of Ireland, he believed, where such 
 public works were less wanted ; but where they were necessary 
 it had been very useful. The next Bill was the one for affording 
 temporary assistance to the labouring poor. He could not say 
 he entirely approved of that measure, but he should vote for it 
 nevertheless, as he was ready to support any Bill which would 
 afford one additional means of relief in the present calamity. 
 The next Bill was one for the relief of the destitute poor in Ire- 
 land. He was afraid the House was not sufficiently aware of 
 the extent of the misery ; he did not think the members were 
 sufficiently impressed with the horrors of the situation of the 
 people of Ireland ; he did not think they understood the 
 miseries — the accumulation of miseries — under which the people 
 were at present suffering. It had been estimated that 5,000 
 adults and 10,000 children had already perished from famine, 
 and that 25 per cent, of the whole population would perish un- 
 less the House should afford effective relief. They would perish 
 of famine and disease unless the House did something speedy 
 and efficacious — not doled out in small sums, not in private and 
 individual subscriptions, but by some great act of national gene- 
 rosity, calculated upon a broad and liberal scale. If this course 
 were not pursued. Parliament was responsible for the loss of 25 
 
Fcayful Effects of the Faiiwie. 2 1 1 
 
 per cent, of the population of Ireland. He assured the House 
 most solemnly that he was not exaggerating ; he could establish 
 all he said by many and many painful proofs, and the necessary 
 result must be typhus fever, which, in fact, had broken out, and 
 was desolating whole districts. It left alive only one in ten of 
 those it attacked. This fearful disorder ere long would spread 
 to the upper classes ; the inhabitants of England would not 
 escape its visitations, for it would be brought over by the misera- 
 ble wretches who escaped from the other side of the channel. 
 The calamity would be scattered over the whole empire, and no 
 man would be safe from it. He repeated that two millions of 
 human beings would be destroyed, if relief were not speedily 
 and effectually afforded. It had been asked why the rich Irish 
 did not relieve the poor ? They had relieved them. It would 
 be seen by the reports already before the House, that a large 
 body of the Irish people were always on the verge of starvation. 
 Another report, more recently made, had confirmed this state- 
 ment, and established that in ordinary years great numbers were 
 in destitution. But the destitution of the potato crop had occa- 
 sioned a positive annihilation of food, and the people were 
 starving in shoals, in hundreds — aye, in thousands and millions. 
 Parliament was bound, then, to act not only liberally but gene- 
 roiisly, to find out the means of putting a stop to this terrible 
 disaster. It was asserted that the Irish landlords did not do 
 their duty. Several of them had done their duty — others had 
 not ; and, considering the extraordinary exigency of the case, his 
 plan was to arm Government with more real power to apply to 
 the purpose all the sums they deemed necessary. They ought 
 instantly to carry out the mode of relief they thought necessary, 
 responsible indeed to the House, but not fettered by the strict 
 letter of the law. He wanted to see the House generously con- 
 fiding in ministers, let them be chosen from which side of the 
 House they might. The facts, as he well knew, were more ter- 
 rific than they had been yet stated— the necessity was more 
 lu-gent. He had not said one word to produce irritation ; he 
 had not uttered one word of reproach ; and, without doing so, he 
 
 15* 
 
212 Last Words i7i Parliament. 
 
 called upon Parliament to appoint commissioners to make in- 
 quiries in all parts of Ireland into the circumstances of tliose 
 who were able to give — to specify and to name them, and to 
 assess them for so much as they ought to contribute. A decisive 
 measure of that sort should have his hearty support. Let every 
 man's means be ascertained, and let the tribunal he would erect 
 have the power of inflicting taxation. To inflict taxation with- 
 out representation had not been unusual in Ireland, and the 
 Grand Jury system was one of taxation without representation. 
 The patience of the people of Ireland could not be too much 
 admired. It had been exhibited on all occasions, and the forbear- 
 ance of the lower orders, considering their almost intolerable 
 privations, was wonderful. It was, however, possible that they 
 might be driven from misery to madness ; and as to the levying 
 of rates, it was at present impossible. As to the reimbursing of 
 England for her advances, he contended that she would be no 
 loser at the present crisis any more than she had been on former 
 occasions. He maintained that England had been a gainer by 
 her loans to Ireland. He again assured the House that the 
 lamentably destitute condition of the people, afilicted with 
 poverty and visited by disease, was insupportable ; and he called 
 upon Parliament to interpose generously, munificently — he 
 would say enormously— for the rescue of his country. Recollect 
 how incumbered was the property of Ireland, how many of her 
 estates were in chancery, how many were in the hands of trus- 
 tees. She was in their hands — in their power. If they did not 
 save her she could not save herself. He solemnly called on them 
 to recollect that he predicted with the sincerest conviction that 
 one-fourth of her population would perish unless Parliament 
 came to their relief. 
 
PUBLIC LETTERS. 
 
PUBLIC LETTERS. 
 
 Note to the Earl of Shrewsbury's Letter. 
 
 T may seem strange to those wlio are ignorant how 
 this controversy arose, that I should reply to the 
 second letter of Lord Shrewsbury without taking- 
 any notice of the jfirst. I wish such persons to know 
 the fact. The first letter was on a subject totally different from 
 the second. It related to miraculous marks appearing on each 
 of two pious women in the Tyrol, resembling the wounds our 
 ever adorable Redeemer received in his awful passion. Lord 
 Shrewsbury has in that letter given his evidence in favour of 
 the authenticity of these miracles, and adduced also the testi- 
 mony, to the same effect, of other respectable persons. It is a 
 mere question of fact, depending at present upon human testi- 
 mony ; a matter of fact which every Catholic is of course at 
 liberty to believe or disbelieve according to his own judgment. 
 
 For my own part, I confess I think the evidence quite 
 sufficient to satisfy my mind of the reality of these miracles. 
 It seems to me to require something like habitual incredulity 
 to enable a man to resist the evidence of the persons who attest 
 the fact. But still I must say, I think Lord Shrewsbury much 
 to blame. He ought not to have brought forward these miracles 
 
12 1 6 A Pious Pool. 
 
 tefore the English public, and left them where they are, the 
 objects of much ribaldry and insult. He is, I must say, having 
 -gone so far, bound to go farther ; and to have a farther and per- 
 fectly impartial investigation on the spot. 
 
 What I should suggest is this : that he should endeavour to 
 procure two intelligent gentlemen from the "Tractarians" of 
 Oxford, and two others from the " Evangelicals " of Cambridge. 
 To pay the expenses of their journey ought to be a pleasure to 
 him, Let him lead them to the spot, and there with them 
 investigate each case fully. I do believe that the result would 
 be favourable to his views. But I really think he ought to 
 have some investigation of this kind, as well for the sake of his 
 own character as for that of Catholicity ; though the latter can- 
 not suffer by a mistake of his on such a point, even if it be a 
 mistake. 
 
 Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, &c. &c. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I love the Jesuits — I admire the Jesuits — the greatest 
 benefactors to religion and to literature that the world ever 
 saw. There is a shrewd compactness in the way they embody 
 ■common sense, greatly to be prized. One of their maxims is, 
 "that there is no theologian so dangerous to religion as a very 
 pious fool." The Jesuit who uses this phrase, does not intend 
 personal offence to any individual, nor, certainly, do I ! I use 
 the expression, not as a description or designation : but, admit- 
 ting to the fullest extent your lordship's piety, I give it as a 
 caution. Do, my lord, I implore you, beware how you mix up 
 foolishness with your sentiments of devotion ! 
 
 But whatever course you shall please to take, you have ad- 
 dressed me so often in your pamphlet, and with such scant cour- 
 tesy, that you compel me to reply. My complaints are many, but 
 this is my first grievance. I might bear other evils, but I cannot 
 endure that you should have loudly entered your protest, even 
 
English Catholics and English Politics. 2 1 7 
 
 ■**upon religious grounds," against the abolition of the Corn Laws. 
 You have, for the first time, arrayed Catholicity against a con- 
 cession to the poor and the starving ; you have summoned the 
 English Catholics ; and you have more than insinuated, even 
 by the multiplication of your titles of honour, a call on the 
 Catholics of Ireland, to join with you in the sustainment of 
 those laws, which have been characterised (and I think 
 justly) as "the plunder of the poor for the benefit of the 
 rich." 
 
 I bitterly deplore that you should take such a part. I pay 
 the most unfeigned respect to your motives ; to your charitable 
 disposition; to your animated religiflus feelings; but I am 
 thoroughly convinced that you act most unwisely — that you 
 stain and tarnish, and, I fear, deeply injure the sacred cause of 
 Catholicity. 
 
 The reasons of my convictions are these. For the first time 
 in the modern history of Catholicity, are the English Catholics 
 called upon, as such, to take part in the political pravity of 
 supporting taxation, and of transferring their attachment from 
 statesmen who have ever been their friends to public men who 
 — we are gratuitously told— are to be no longer their enemies. 
 Eor the first time, you introduce politics into the very sanc- 
 tuary. And what politics ? politics whose frightful consequence 
 is to enhance the price of bread to those who have but little to 
 eat! and to sustain in office the narrow-minded haters of Catho- 
 licity — the men who have trafficked on that hatred, until they 
 jobbed on it into power ! 
 
 You would array the Catholics in this most unseemly war- 
 fare ; an inglorious warfare even if successful. Not like the 
 Talbots in their battles of old, you, my lord, with pure inten- 
 tions, but alas ! with perverted ingenuity, would strew your 
 battlefield with the carcasses of starved manufacturers.. 
 
 You have indeed placed yourself in a deplorable position. 
 Because, although it must be admitted by everybody who 
 knows anything of you, that you are reasonably free from ecr- 
 did or selfish motives, yet your position is that of a man who 
 
2 1 8 J^our Poorhousts arc Prisons. 
 
 contends against feeding the poor, in order that he may increase 
 his own means, and augment his own rents, and for the accu- 
 mulation of his own wealth. But bj what modes of action ? 
 gracious heaven ! bj taking from the poor more money for hij 
 bread than tliat poor person would be otherwise obliged to pay 
 for it ! By coming to the table of the wretched widow with a 
 small fixed income, and tilling her and her children that before 
 they taste their bread, there must be a toll paid to your lord- 
 ship and your co- proprietors of the land! and that the crumbs 
 that are greedily devcured upon her table shall be fewer in 
 number, lest your class should not have so much money as at 
 present to put into your landlord pocket. 
 
 This, my lord, is the unhappy position in which you are 
 placed. I unfeignedly assure you, I deplore — I bitterly deplore 
 — that so charitable and benevolent a man as you are should have 
 placed yourself in so unamiable a position. But I ought to 
 weep more bitterly at the position in which you place Catho- 
 licity ; in which you, a moral and religious man, place the faith 
 you profess — the glorious faith of your fathers. Catholicity 
 was ever the promoter of every species of charity. It allures 
 by the brightest reward, it commands under the most awful 
 ssmction, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the 
 prisoner, to assuage the sufierings of the sick. Such are the 
 "good works" which (duly performed) are, according to Catho- 
 lic doctrine, meritorious in the concerns of eternity. 
 
 Yet, in what an attitude do you call upon the Catholics of 
 England to place themselves ? The poor man is sick from the 
 faintness arising from his scanty food ; and the English Catho- 
 lics are to proclaim, under your lordship's auspices, that his 
 bread shall be more scarce to him I The operative is naked, and 
 you call upon the English Catholics to tell him that his bread 
 shall be so dear that all his earnings shall scarce suffice for food, 
 and that there shall be no residue to purchase clothing. As to 
 imprisonment, your poorhouses are prisons ; and, alas ! my 
 lord, you taunt with insult those who, like me, do not relish the 
 imprisonment of a poorhouse. As to the hungry ; why, the 
 
Gloi^ious Example of Irish Catholic Farmers. 219 
 
 Gospel precepts are to be worked out in favour of the hungry, 
 by making their food as scarce and as dear as the suffering mul- 
 titude will endure. 
 
 Had you written and published your pamphlet, as a private 
 individual of ancient family and high rank ; had you published 
 it as a landlord, or as a peer of Parliament ; had you confined 
 it to arguments (such as they are), to statistics (such as they 
 may be), or to political economy (such as it ought to be), you 
 might, my lord, at least I hope and believe you might, as far as 
 I am concerned, have indulged yourself in as many insults 
 and insinuations respecting me as you pleased, unscathed and 
 unanswered. But your trumpet-sounds call Catholicity to 
 battle along with you. 
 
 My complaint ought to be (and my chief complaint is), that 
 you have sought to array Catholicity on the worst side of the 
 worst cause that public penman ever supported ; that you have 
 thrown into the scale of the rich and the lordly, against the 
 lowly and the poor, that influence which your ancient rank 
 and high station, your generous and benevolent private cha- 
 racter, entitled you to possess araojg the Catholics of Eng- 
 land, in order — you have done so, in order to induce them to 
 adopt the worst part, and to be solicitous about bad things. 
 
 This, however, my lord, is too sacred a cause to be aban- 
 doned. There is an awful duty to be performed. You shall 
 not, my lord, you shall not bring Catholicity into the ranks 
 of the ungenerous and the sordid. You may go yourself. 
 You may be found (alas, the day ! ) among those ungenial 
 ranks ! But Catholicity still shall elevate her heavenly ban- 
 ner in her proper station. Even I, ungifted as I am, will 
 wipe off the stain you have flung upou her escutcheon ; and 
 proclaim that Catholicity still is, as she ever was, at the side 
 of the people ; the mitigator of poverty and the comforter of 
 the distressed ; the opponent of aristocratic selfishness; the true 
 guardian of the poor of the Lord. 
 
 See, great earl ! what a glorious example the Catholic farm- 
 ers of Ireland have set to men in higher station. It has often 
 
2 20 Nothing can be Politically Right 
 
 been said that the Irish head is not unfrequently wrong, but 
 that the Irish heart is always in the right. I doubt the former 
 — I know the truth of the latter assertion. The Irish Catholic 
 farmers did not enter into any minute details. They knew full 
 well by the experience of every one of them, that the oft -re- 
 peated allegation that the Corn Laws increase the rate of wages, 
 was totally false ; the wages in Ireland being of the lowest ; 
 they knew that cheap bread does not make wages diminish. 
 They, the Irish farmers, knew full well that " nothing can be 
 politically right that is morally wrong." And they, with cor- 
 dial unanimity, supported the abolishers of the Corn Laws. 
 My lord, I mean not to olfend you, but I glory in the contrast 
 between you and tlie Irish Catholic farmers. 
 
 Permit me, my lord, to cite my own situation as a public 
 man, as one of the proofs that vindicate Catholicity from 
 the selfishness of Corn Law advocacy, I have ever been, 
 upon principle, and for reasons of humanity, the decided advo- 
 cate of the total abolition of the tax upon bread. A fixed duty 
 would, in my mind, be nothing more than a fixed injustice ; and 
 if, having no other choice, I am found voting for the eight-shil- 
 ling duty, it is only as a substitute for the greater and the 
 gambling iniquity of the sliding scale, and as an instalment 
 of that justice, which cannot be complete without a total aboli- 
 tion of all toll or duty upon human food, whether that tax be 
 imposed to relieve the wants of the State, or for the more glaring 
 iniquitous purpose of augmenting the wealth of the landlords. 
 
 Notwithstanding these my opinions, I am at the present 
 moment the representative of two of the largest agricultural 
 communities in Ireland ; a significant proof of their coincidence 
 in my views, and approbation of my opinions. 
 
 If I have been bitterly ashamed of your lordship's attempts 
 to rank the Catholics on the wrong side in this question, my 
 dissatisfaction does not rest there. I blush deeply at the paucity, 
 and I am sorry to say it, the shallow sophistry of what you ap- 
 pear to consider arguments in support of the Corn Laws. The 
 grain of wheat, in the shape of reason, it is scarcely possible to 
 
Tliat is Mo7'-ally Wrong. 221 
 
 sift out of the anomalous heaps of chaff, of the same colour and 
 almost in the same quality, stuffed now in the text and now 
 in the notes with which you have overlaid the subject. 
 
 Your principal argument consists in asking, " Why manu- 
 facturers of various articles should enjoy their protecting duties 
 of from 20 to 30 per cent, against foreign competition, and yet 
 the manufacturer of corn be left without protection ?" 
 
 I cannot conceal my surprise that anything so unfair, so re- 
 plete with mistake of facts, should emanate from your lordship. 
 Are you not aware, surely you must know, that our manufac- 
 turers export from England and sell to foreign nations, probably 
 to the value of sixty millions of pounds sterling per annum of 
 their manufactured goods ? That is, they undersell the people 
 of foreign countries in their own markets to that extent. To 
 talk, therefore, of protection for manufacturers under such cir- 
 cumstances is really, my lord, to talk not wisely. The protec- 
 tion may be in the Statute Book ; but it is as insignificant as 
 if witchcraft were there ! Your argument thus is destroyed at 
 the first blush. There is, however, something worse behind ; be- 
 cause it is impossible but you must know that the petitions of 
 the manufacturers, the resolutions of great meetings in particular 
 localities, and of delegates from many places, as well as the 
 unanimous voice of the Anti-Corn Law League, with that ex- 
 ceedingly able man, Mr. Cobden, at their head, have, with one 
 consent, disclaimed every species of fiscal protection. This dis- 
 claimer of protection has been made so loudly and so often, 
 that you cannot possibly have been ignorant of it. And yet, 
 my lord, you have thought it fair, and right, and honest, and, 
 above all, religious ! to found your reasoning, involving the 
 interests of millions, and, in particular, involving the feeding of 
 the poor, upon the basis of an immaterial fact ; and which, even 
 if it were material, is totally disclaimed by the manufacturing 
 interests, who have called on the Legislature to abolish equally 
 all manufacturing as well as agricultural protection. 
 
 The next thing that resembles argument is your allegation, 
 in substance thus — " that a monstrous proposition is set up on 
 
2 22 *'A Reciprocity all on One Side.^^ 
 
 the plea of religion — namely, that a large portion of our corn- 
 growing land should be thrown out of cultivation, and the 
 labourers thereon thrown upon the towns " (p. 39). 
 
 I have stripped this assertion of some of the poetic imagining 
 with which you have surrounded it. I wish — I heartily wish — I 
 could admit it to be common sense. It is not so ; but it has a 
 still greater defect — it is not true ! Nobody asserts — not even 
 the " sectarian ministers " whom you charge with combination 
 and agitation — that corn-growing land should be thrown out of 
 cultivation. It is not sought for that any land capable of pro- 
 ducing corn, with all the advantages of the home market, should 
 be other than corn-growing land. That which is insisted upon 
 is widely different, and you ought to know it. It is insisted 
 that such land as now grows corn solely by means of an expen- 
 diture, which is prompted and compensated for by the un- 
 naturally high price of corn in England, created by the bread- 
 tax, should not have that stimulant for the misapplication of 
 its purposes, but should be made to produce other articles of 
 consumption, for which that land is naturally adapted. In the 
 healthy state of the agricultural trade, every species of land 
 will be made to produce that which it is best suited by nature 
 to produce. There is no danger of a want of consumers for 
 every species of agricultural produce. In England the popula- 
 tion rapidly increases. You never will want consumers of the 
 produce of any land cultivated as its nature requires. 
 
 In another passage you bring to the aid of exceedingly de- 
 fective logic your Catholic and Christian faith. The passage is 
 this — " That the prosperity of both classes (the agricultural 
 and manufacturing) is a reciprocal benefit cannot be denied, 
 and each ought to look for support from the other." Quite 
 true. It should not only be fair and just, but reciprocal. 
 Your lordship's reciprocity, however, savours of what is called 
 an Hibernian quality, and is " a reciprocity all on one side." 
 You continue — " But the idea of sacrificing the whole landed 
 property of the country to satisfy the mania for commercial 
 speculation is, indeed, anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.'* 
 
'"''For Shame ^ my Lord, for SJiamc /" 223 
 
 No less ! Anti-Catholic and anti-Christian ! 
 
 For sliame, my lord ! Oh, for shame ! How could you 
 combine the idea of Catholic Christianity with the selfish and, I 
 regret to say, essentially sordid notions that were passing through 
 your mind when 3'ou wrote that phrase ? Sacrifice of landed 
 property, forsooth ! Answer me — what landed property, or 
 what luxury arising from your landed property do we ask you 
 to sacrifice ? Not any term or estate in your lands ; not your 
 splendid mansions, or your luxuriant gardens ; not your fisheries 
 or your graperies ; not your pineries or your pheasant preserves ; 
 not your pampered horses or your stall-fed oxen or sheep. Feed 
 and fatten on these, until appetite, provoked by every variety 
 of delicacy, is satiated, or at least wearied. We require not 
 your green crops or tm-nip heaps ; not your hay or your grass. 
 No — not your wheat, not your oats, nor your barley. Send 
 these, as our manufacturers do their produce, to every corner of 
 the globe where you can find buyers. Send them to the home 
 market or the foreign market, as best suits your interest or your 
 fancy, or your caprice. Or, if your wantonness makes you care- 
 less, destroy them if you please ; or consume them, either your- 
 selves or by your servants, or even by 3'our pigs and poultry. 
 In short, you are free to use or to abuse your lands and their 
 produce at discretion or caprice. 
 
 What property of yours, then, is to be sacrificed ? I will 
 tell you — and you ouo-ht to blush that it should be necessary 
 for me to tell you ! The property of which we demand from 
 you the sacrifice is nothing in the world but " the privilege to 
 pillage the poorer classes of the community." What we desire 
 to take away from you is, the powers which the Corn Laws 
 iniquitously give you, to compel the operative to pay for your 
 corn a larger price than that which he could get the same ar- 
 ticle for elsewhere ; and yet you assume the air of an awful 
 theologian, and tell us that to take away that power is anti- 
 Christian and anti-Catholic. 
 
 The wealthy nobleman, " clothed in purple and fine linen," 
 may ciedit you. He may imagine the Catholic religion was so 
 
2 2 4 -^^^ Apostle of Starvation. 
 
 good a thing for the aristocratic classes that he ought to pro- 
 mote it. But the poor, starving mechanic, who, bj reason of 
 your law, has a slice of bread the less to give to each of his 
 children, will despise your reasoning, and may, perhaps, hate 
 that form of faith which you obtrude between his hungry 
 foTnily and a full meal. Should he hear your real character ; 
 should he hear that you really are, as an individual, humane 
 and generous, bountiful and good, may he not on that very 
 account form a loathing against that religion — in itself pure and 
 undefiled — which thus seems to sear your conscience, and which 
 makes j^ou — even you ! — an apostle of starvation and a preacher 
 of monopoly? 
 
 I believe I have now touched upon all that savours of reason- 
 ing in your support of the Corn Laws. You have, it is true, 
 mixed up many details of the statistics of corn and currency. 
 But, even in that mist of figures, with which you so uselessly 
 surround yourself, the natural benevolence of your disposition 
 breaks out. There is not that iron tenacity about you which 
 marks the Dukes of Buckingham and Richmond. You are 
 ready to relax the pressure upon the working classes ; and that 
 poor and paltry concession, which some others also are ready to 
 make for the purpose, by mitigating harshness to continue delu- 
 sion, you, from better and purer motives, are willing to concede. 
 Oh ! how I should desire to make you perceive that even the 
 concession so wrung from others, bespeaks the foregone conclu- 
 sion — that the Bread Tax is in its nature too oppressive to be 
 much longer endured in its present form and pressure. 
 
 I do not reply to your statistics on corn and currency. I 
 would not take the trouble of confuting some conclusions or 
 elucidating some mistakes. I leave you the full benefit of 
 having them uncommented on and unreplied to. Yet, I fear- 
 lessly assert that, even you j'ourself cannot be without some 
 consciousness that the Corn Laws are un-Christian and un- 
 Catholic, because they are unjust and oppressive. The matter 
 lies in a narrow compass. 
 
 Fii'st — The Corn Laws operate to prevent the workmen in. 
 
Good of increased Manufactu res. 225 
 
 manufactories from earning "wages, inasmuch as thej pre- 
 vent the agricultural countries in Europe and America, 
 which want our manufactures, from having a medium of ex- 
 change whereby they would obtain these manufactures. If they 
 were allowed to send corn here, they would exchange that corn 
 (or exchange the price of it, which is the same thing) for English 
 goods. Thus there would be achieved for England a good with 
 a double aspect. First, it would be good for the English to get 
 an increased quantity of manufactures. But you, my lord, stand 
 in the midst. You will not let the increased food come in ; and 
 you thereby prevent the increased quantity of manufactures from 
 going out. And all this mischief you proclaim and sustain, 
 with " religion " dropping from your lips in almost every 
 Sentence ! 
 
 Secondly — The crowning injustice of the Corn Laws consists 
 in this: the operative is indebted to Providence for the strength 
 which enables him to labour, and to his own industry for the skill 
 with which he applies that strength. His property is his labour, 
 composed of two elements — strength and skill. There is not in the 
 world a more rightful property. His title is infinitely beyond 
 that derived from the casualties of modern descent, or the chances 
 of ancient plunder. With his skill and labour he has earned 
 money — a limited sum of money it must necessarily be ; he 
 wants food for his sustentation and support. He comes into the 
 market for food. It would be the greatest tyranny and 
 iniquity to prevent his buying that food in the market. It is 
 a tyranny and an iniquity, less only in degree but the same in 
 principle, to interpose a tax or other impediment which compels 
 him to purchase a lesser quantity than he wants, and than ho 
 otherwise would be able to purchase. The principle is identi- 
 cally the same ; but it would amount in morals to murder, by 
 actual starvation, totally to prohibit him. Nor does it appear to 
 me that the guilt is much mitigated by the fact that the lesser 
 process is more slow in its operation, and does not so imme- 
 diately cause death, and only anticipated the period of his de- 
 mise by the more tedious mode of insufficient sustenance. 
 
 VOL. II. 16 
 
2 26 Protection a7id Prices. 
 
 The provision tax, therefore, is in its nature most criminal. 
 It is murderous. It is the most direct violation of the first prin- 
 ciples of justice. It is not mitigated bj the fact that such tax 
 is applied to the necessities of the State and the maintenance of 
 the laws, and thus confers some benefit, however remote, upon 
 each individual in that State. The thing is in itself so radically 
 oppressive and unjust that it is incapable of moral mitigation. 
 However, this tax, though not to be mitigated in its severity by 
 any circumstance, is yet capable of an enormous aggravation of 
 its criminality. This aggravation arises when the tax is not for 
 the benefit of the State or for any public purpose, but is a favour 
 and a benefit given to a particular class of society ; when it is 
 levied— not for the expenditure of the Government, but for the 
 sole profit of a privileged, and insomuch a plundering class; 
 when, in short, it is a protection to a particular interest. The 
 protected person thus, by the voice of the Corn Law, addresses 
 the workman : " You shall not buy your breakfast, though you 
 have by your own hand earned money to buy it with, until you 
 have first paid me a heavy tax for liberty to purchase ! " 
 
 Bread, my lord, is at this moment, in round numbers, at 
 Paris, fivepence — in reality, fivepence and a fraction — for the 
 loaf. A loaf of the same size, weight, and quality costs in Eng- 
 land tenpence. The charges of bringing over from Paris to 
 England the materials to make that loaf would not increase its 
 price one penny. Thus the English artizan, and every English 
 poor person, is defrauded of fourpence out of ten pence in the 
 price of his loaf. And that fom^pence is the plain and manifest 
 plunder committed by the grower of English wheat, under the 
 sanction and by the authority of the Corn Law. 
 
 I do not mean the least discourtesy to Lord Shrewsbury, but 
 I cannot qualify my terms. This is a robbery — the worst species 
 of robbery. It is the robbery of the poorer classes to enrich the 
 wealthier. You may talk and write about it what you please — 
 it cannot and will not be long endured. 
 
 The English people must not be led away by my Lord 
 Shrewsbmy, or anybody else, to believe that the Catholic reli- 
 
Strange Chivalry. 227 
 
 gion sanctions tliis robbery, or that the great bulk of the Catho- 
 lics, even of England, are favourable to this injustice. Self- 
 interest may delude a great man, here and there ; associating 
 with other Corn Law plunderers, he may familiarize his mind to 
 the injustice ; but the Catholic religion is by no means respon- 
 sible for his errors. On the contrary, those errors are in direct 
 contradiction to the principles of that holy religion — a religion 
 promotive of all good works, and the instigator of every charity. 
 Having thus disposed of your very futile attempt to sustain 
 the hard-hearted iniquity of the Corn Laws, I turn with alacrity 
 to other topics of your pamphlet. I will first take up your soli- 
 citation to the Catholics to forsake the Whigs, now that they are 
 defeated, and to give in their adhesion to the Tories, now that 
 they are in power. You, with much naivete, ask, "Why should 
 we follow the fallen fortunes of the Whigs ?" Strange chivalry, 
 gentle reader, for an Earl of ancient fame ! 
 
 You really overrate your powers of seduction, and your ca- 
 pacity to create wholesale desertion. Even the question of 
 creating political renegades smacks, in your language — pardon 
 me ! — of something like religious pretension. It would seem 
 that you would endeavour to make it a point of conscience that 
 the Catholics should abandon all political gratitude, forsake the 
 fallen fortunes of the Whigs, and adopt, with a servile alacrity, 
 the politics of the Tories. 
 
 Here, again, the Corn Laws seem to obtrude, for it is impos- 
 sible to discover any other assignable motive for the desertion — 
 in its own nature unprincipled — of the friends of your earlier 
 political life ; or for your embracing the malignant foes of your 
 caste and creed, with a rapidity more remarkable for its abrupt- 
 ness than for its delicacy or decency. 
 
 This, indeed, is strange. This whirling rapidity of transi- 
 tion, from the avowed love of gradual amelioration to the de- 
 termined resistance to every salutary change (for that is Toryism), 
 would appear almost miraculous; but for the political creed, 
 which in your second page, you announce, in all the emphasis 
 of italics hashed up with capitals. 
 
 16* 
 
228 A Sltpptry Scale of Politics. 
 
 That creed may well indeed be called the slippery scale of 
 politics. There is no political conscience that it may not 
 exactly suit. It is everything and it is nothing ! Here is 
 your magnanimous profession of political faith ; I give it ver- 
 batim. As a matter of curiosity it deserves to be preserved ; 
 embalmed amidst the no-meaning absurdities of plausible 
 nothingness I You say, " I always was, and I hope I always 
 shall be, a Whig; by which I mean, an advocate for the 
 greatest possible degree of civil and religious liberty, and the 
 greatest possible amount of religious toleration, consistent with 
 the institutions, and the condition of the country." 
 
 There it is — a precious document ! — a document which the 
 monster. Emperor Nicholas, who, in one of his sanguinary 
 freaks, swept the streets of Warsaw of, and bore for ever away^ 
 the children of Polish mothers ; and in another fantastic 
 barbarity, compelled nearly one million of his subjects to apos- 
 tatize from the Catholic religion ; he, even he, might sign this 
 creed, together with the Earl of Shrewsbury. For he, too, 
 will give all the civil liberty, and all the religious toleration 
 which he deems consistent with the institutions and the condi- 
 tion of his country. 
 
 There is no tyrant, no bigot, who may not cry. Amen I 
 to TOUT lordship's creed. They are all ready to go every 
 length for civil and religious liberty, provided they be 
 allowed to qualify and to limit it to that which they deem 
 consistent with the institutions, and, above all, with the 
 condition of the country. Shakspeare says that your "if " is 
 a great pacificator. Your " condition '* is a great neutralizer 
 of aU that is valuable in your first assertion. If any measure 
 .0 promote civil liberty or religious toleration be asked for, 
 the negative reply at once may be, " It is not consistent with 
 the institutions of the country ; the country is not in a condition 
 for such a change." 
 
 Really, my lord, it is surprising how a man of yonr under- 
 standing should give us, with all the pride, pomp, and circum- 
 etanoe of typographical dignity, such a bundle of unmeaning 
 
I reject Toleration. 229 
 
 words. The efRcaoy with which they can contradict each other 
 renders the words devoid of any real meaning. 
 
 Surely, you cannot have forgotten that these were the very 
 same cant phrases, with which we were met and opposed while 
 struggling for Emancipation. "We were met hy the bigots and 
 oppressors then with the declaration of a great wish to satisfy 
 all his Majesty's subjects in their demands ; but how could 
 Emancipation exist with the institutions of the country ? 
 And, then, only think of the condition of the country ! Eng- 
 land was not in a condition io suffer such a change! Such 
 was then the cry of all our enemies. And the very topics 
 with which you qualify your opinions would have kept the 
 Catholics of both kingdoms in thraldom for perhaps a century 
 to come, if it had not been for one of us, my lord — you or I — 
 I give you the choice to say which ! 
 
 I cannot however pass without censure one expression in 
 your creed. Nor can I talk of it with sufficient abhorrence, 
 without violating that personal courtesy which I owe, and am 
 most willing to maintain, towards your lordship, I allude 
 to the word "toleration," Toleration means "permission," 
 " sufferance." He who claims to be " tolerated " gives up his 
 right of self-assertion. He who talks of " tolerating," assumes 
 that he has the right to refuse permission. Now, my lord, 
 I require the permission of no man, I despise the toleration 
 of any man, for my worship of the adorable Creator and 
 Hedeemer, in that pure form in which my conscientious con- 
 viction tells me that the truth of Grod abides. It is my right ; 
 it is your right ; it is the right of every Christian man ! In 
 fact, the word " toleration " admits the principle of persecution. 
 No man can talk of tolerating another, unless in the assertion 
 of the right to persecute. He who admits he has no right to 
 persecute, gives up, necessarily, all title to tolerate. And I, 
 as a Catholic, abhor and repudiate persecution ; and, on behalf 
 of the Catholic body, I reject toleration. Insisting on my own 
 right, at my own awful responsibility to my Creator and Lord, 
 and to Him alone, to worship Him in the fuU sincerity of 
 
230 A Prosperity Friend. 
 
 conscientious belief, I assert for every other Christian man 
 precisely the same right at the same awful responsibility. 
 
 As I have already, I do hope, cleansed the sacred banner of 
 Catholicity from the stain which you had by your bread tax 
 advocacy flung upon it, so again do I brighten up that banner 
 from the obscuration of your odious word " toleration." 
 
 I must not, however, be misunderstood. There is not in 
 this, my assertion of freedom of conscience, the slightest tinge 
 of indifferentism in the matter of religion. On the contrary, 
 no man can be more thoroughly convinced than I am, that it 
 is impossible for anything to be of so much importance as the 
 truth of the Christian faith ; or that nothing can be com- 
 parable in magnitude to the spiritual obligation upon every- 
 body to believe and profess the true faith. But this is 
 a question between man and his God. The obligation of 
 belief is not to our fellow-man, but to the Creator of all. And 
 the awful responsibility of which I speak, relates to an eternity 
 of weal or of woe ; and to nothing that human government can 
 give or take away. 
 
 From this all-important subject I now descend to the 
 ludicrous nature of your profession of political faith. It is like 
 a nose of wax ; it would fit any face. Or perhaps it resembles 
 more the pledge of an anti-teetotaller, who made boast that 
 he never would again get drunk in any man's company, 
 unless he should be a friend, a relation, an acquaintance, or 
 a stranger. 
 
 It is, after all, not so much your political non-opinions that 
 I arraign. It is the ungenerous counsel that you give to the 
 English Catholics. It is, permit me to add, the ungenerous 
 example — in speaking to any other man, I would call it the 
 paltry example — which you hold forth to the British Catholics. 
 Tou took your place among the partisans of the late Adminis- 
 tration, so long as they were in office, so long as they basked in 
 royal favour, and that the Sovereign had it in her power to con- 
 tinue them around her. You were their prosperity friend. But 
 now they have fallen into adversity ; now that the Queen has 
 
Obvious Ligratitude. 231 
 
 been compelled to send them back again into the ranks of pri- 
 vate life ; now that they have no longer ministerial rank, station, 
 or dignity ; now that the winter's gale is upon them ; you — 
 their "friend" in their season of prosperity — clap up your helm, 
 sail in the squadron, and elevate the flag of their fortunate 
 enemies, exclaiming, " Why should we bind ourselves to the 
 fallen fortunes of the Whigs ?" 
 
 This assuredly is not dignified, or generous, or noble. You 
 are disinterested. But, yet, what encouragement does not your ex- 
 ample give to the selfish, to the servile, and even to the treacherous ? 
 
 Believe me, it little becomes the name of Talbot to exhibit 
 an un-Catonian specimen of preference given to the victorious, 
 but worse cause ; and the abandonment of the better, though 
 defeated party ! 
 
 Judging by your conduct to my humble and insignificant 
 self, I should be forced to the conclusion that gratitude was not, 
 in your opinion, one of the cardinal virtues ; at least that it was 
 not an English Catholic virtue ; but was rather a quality de- 
 serving little estimation. I should, indeed, have feared that 
 this was a judgment formed by me in my natural prejudice in 
 my own cause, if I were not iiTesistibly compelled to perceive 
 that ingratitude, dark ingratitude, pervades all that portion of 
 your pamphlet which calls on British Catholics to desert the 
 unlucky Whigs and to join the lucky Tories. 
 
 It is impossible to conceal or to deny this ingratitude. Yes, 
 my lord, it is, I am sorry to say, too obvious. It is, in its na- 
 ture, too discreditable to be endured in silence. 
 
 No man did describe — few men have the ability to describe — 
 in terms of such glowing eloquence, of bitter grief, and even of 
 agony, as you did, my lord, describe the oppressive degradation 
 and contumely which were inflicted on you, the premier Earl 
 of England, and upon the English Catholics in their native 
 land by the iniquitous " Penal Laws." 
 
 Your plaintive cry was this — it bewailed the following 
 grievances ; take them in numerical order, as they have been 
 all since redressed : — 
 
232 Lord Shrewsbury on the Penal Laws. 
 
 1. " A Catholic cannot sit or vote in the House of Peers, and is thus de- 
 prived of his most valuable birthright. 
 
 2. " A Catholic Commoner cannot sit or vote in the House of Commons. 
 
 3. " A Catholic freeholder may be prevented from voting at elections for 
 members. 
 
 4. " A Catholic cannot sit in the Privy Council. 
 
 5. " lie cannot be a minister of the Crown. 
 
 6. " He cannot be a judge. 
 
 7. " He cannot hold any office in any spiritual, equity, or common law 
 court. 
 
 8. *' He cannot become a King's counsel. 
 
 9. " He cannot hold any office in any of the corporations. 
 
 10. "He cannot marry either a Protestant or a Catholic, unless the cere- 
 mony be performed by a Protestant clergyman. 
 
 11. " He cannot settle real or personal property for the use of his Church. 
 
 12. " Nor for the use of Catholic schools, nor for any other purposes of the 
 Catholic rehgion." 
 
 You added this complaint : — 
 
 "From early youth to the last stage of existence, we. Catholics are 
 doomed to bear about us a painful feeling of inferiority and undeserved re- 
 proach." 
 
 In a different passage you justly complained thus : — 
 
 "We are worse than aliens in our native land ; inasmuch as that an alien 
 is under the protection of an equal law, which we are not. If an alien beg 
 delinquent, or a presumed delinquent, he is entitled to a trial by his peers ; 
 and half those peers are his own countrymen, and of his own religion; whereas 
 our delinquency, imaginary as it is, is tried by men who have no fellow-feel- 
 ing with us, and who convict us upon evidence collected, produced, and at- 
 tested by themseves. We are compelled to endure the stings of insult and of 
 calumny, frequently without either the opportunity of reply, or the hope of 
 redress by law. We are denied the privilege of the meanest malefactor • 
 that of being confronted with our accusers. We are excluded from the 
 places in which the most galling and most influential of the calumnies 
 pronounced against us are uttered ; and if we dare to answer them else- 
 where, our calumniators may sit in judgment upon us, and punish our 
 audacity with Imprisonment." — Heasons for not tulciny the Test. Second 
 Edition, p. 13. 
 
 Protesting against that infliction, labouring against tha 
 
The Maji ly Eloquence of L ord Lansdowne. 233 
 
 iniquity, at the period of your unjust degradation and adverse 
 fortune, was to be found Lord Melbourne, the late Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 Advocating the cause of justice and liberality to you, in your 
 then inferior and suffering state, was ranged the manly elo- 
 quence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, another member of the 
 late Cabinet. 
 
 At that dark period of your political history, Lord John 
 Eussell, the late ministerial leader of the House of Commons, 
 sustained with a power of oratory and argument almost un- 
 equalled, 3^our interests, and vindicated your rights. 
 
 Need I remind you, my lord, of the sincere zeal and accu- 
 mulated services in the Catholic cause, of the Ponsonby family ? 
 and in particular of that excellent nobleman, Lord Duncannon, 
 another member of the late Cabinet ? 
 
 Is it necessary to recal to your memory the sincere zeal and 
 power of eloquence of Sir John Hobhouse, another member of 
 the late Cabinet ? Why should I unnecessarily multiply indi- 
 vidual instances ? Was not every man of the late Cabinet, wha 
 had a seat in Parliament before Emancipation, the decided 
 friend, advocate, and supporter of our cause ? The decided 
 enemy of the Tory iniquity under which we suffered ? 
 
 They were your friends, my lord ; your true, your trusty, 
 your tried friends. Tour friends in the day of your need — in 
 the day of your distress. Your friends, when you could not 
 help yourself. They were the enemies of your enemies ; 
 the assertors of your rights ; aye, my lord, they were more ; 
 they were the vindicators of j^our unjustly tarnished honour, 
 and of the principle of your calumniated religion. 
 
 One thought more. So far from the members of the late 
 Administration having supported the Catholic cause from mo- 
 tives of party interest, or from the ambition of attaining the 
 honours and emoluments of office, the fact is, that they actually 
 and voluntarily placed themselves under the ban of the Crown- 
 They, with full consciousness, exposed themselves to the per- 
 sonal hatred, and even malignity of two monarchs, George III. 
 
234 Undying Hatred of Pope and Popery. 
 
 and George lY. They, with full knowledge of the consequences, 
 raised, by their advocacy of Catholic rights, an almost impas- 
 sible harrier against the enjoyment of the favour of the Crown, 
 and the rewards, honours, and dignities of ministerial power. 
 They knew full well that, if circumstances forced them on the 
 King, he would soon find means, as he did on one remarkable 
 occasion, of dismissing them from office. 
 
 They were, in short, my lord, the martyrs of your cause. 
 They were your political martyrs. 
 
 Turn we now on the other side. Let us pass in array the 
 chiefs of those on whose behalf you have now rushed into print, 
 and whose power you have used all your persuasive influences 
 to support and consolidate. 
 
 Let us select one of the leaders of the new Cabinet — the 
 lauded of Lord Shrewsbury, the right hon. Henry Goulburn. 
 Was he, my lord, sensible of the cruelty and injustice under 
 which you and the Catholics laboured? Had he the feeling of 
 the wrong — the sense of the iniquity perpetrated against you ? 
 No, my lord ! no. He rejoiced in that wrong ; he gloried in 
 that iniquity. He would have continued it to the present day. 
 His only regret was that the injustice ceased — that the wrong 
 was alleviated. It is his great regret to the present moment. 
 He actually resigned office — and no man ever loved office, per- 
 haps, so much as Goulburn ; certainly not more. Yes. He re- 
 signed his office when the Cabinet to which he belonged had 
 determined to grant Emancipation. Nor has he ever relaxed 
 his undying hatred of Pope and Popery. Nor has ever one 
 word betrayed him into the disgraceful inconsistency of favour- 
 ing the progress of liberality. 
 
 I will tell you an anecdote of Goulburn, whilst he was the 
 Orange patronising Secretary in Ireland. There is an Italian 
 — you may have heard of him — named Bianconi ; a man of tlie 
 greatest worth and integrity. He came here a friendless and 
 almost penniless stranger. He has acquired a large indepen- 
 dent fortune by opening up all parts of Ireland to very cheap 
 and very expeditious travelling, by maintaining upon the roads 
 
An AlieUy because a Catholic. 235 
 
 what are termed jaunting-cars. He had purchased stations, 
 and built stables for his horses in many localities. In a short 
 time he discovered, from some of the persons in the employ- 
 ment unjustly retaining possession of the buildings, that being 
 an alien and a Catholic, he had no legal power to evict the 
 fraudulent occupier, or to assert dominion over his own 
 property. 
 
 He was a Catholic. Had he been a foreign Protestant, no 
 matter from what country, by landing in Ireland he would 
 have been naturalised, and have possessed all the privileges of 
 a British subject. But he was a Catholic ; and therefore he 
 continued an alien. 
 
 Under these circumstances, he was advised to apply to 
 Goulburn for letters of denization. It was thought he would 
 have got them quite as a matter of course. No man could have 
 a higher character for industry, activity, public utility, and 
 personal integrity. He was, however, a Catholic, and his most 
 reasonable request was refused by your new ally, Goulburn. 
 A second and a third application met the same fate. Nor 
 was the inconvenience and impediment to his business removed 
 until those Whigs, whom you so wisely and so gratefully advise 
 us to renounce, came into office — when at once he was made a 
 denizen. 
 
 You, my lord, with all your titles, birth, and fame, would 
 continue to be denied the privilege of the meanest male- 
 factor, if Goul burn's vote could have kept you in that unen- 
 viable situation ; or if it could at the present moment restore 
 you to it, he would be the most unprincipled of human beings 
 if he did not cheerfully pronounce that vote. Yet you call on 
 us to go over to him ! 
 
 The next of these new allies to whom you vow fealty is Sir 
 Richard Knatchbull : a man whom you must admit to be one 
 of the most unmitigated enemies to the rights of the Catholics 
 in or out of these realms. He never relaxed his hostility. He 
 never avowed, because he never felt, the slightest mitigation in 
 his enmity to the Catholics. He spoke in every debate ; he 
 
236 The Duke of Wellington's 
 
 voted in every division in the House, he exerted all his influ- 
 ence out of the House, to keep us all still slaves. There was a 
 virulence in his hostility, unchanged and unaltered to the 
 present hour. He assailed Peel for yielding to the necessity of 
 granting Emancipation. He it was who, in the excess of his 
 indignation and animosity against the Catholics, taunted Peel 
 with a " nusquam tiita fides." 
 
 What he was on the day when he uttered these words the 
 same is he at the present day. 
 
 I place him second upon the list of your favourites among 
 the present Cabinet Ministers. 
 
 The third shall be the Duke of Buckingham. Pretty much 
 on a par with KnatchbuU in point of talents, he if possible ex- 
 ceeded him in virulence. And like KnatchbuU, he has never 
 relaxed or qualified his hostility. You would still, my lord, 
 *'be denied the privilege of the meanest malefactor" (oh ! how 
 I thank you for the words !) if the Duke of Buckingham's vote 
 in Parliament could have detained you in thraldom, or could 
 now consign you back to slavery. 
 
 But let me not rest with the minor fly of the present 
 Cabinet. Let me proceed to the highest name amongst them 
 all — the Duke of Wellington. Let me confine myseK to your 
 own words, when I speak of him, the most fortunate of the 
 fortunate ! 
 
 Tou, my lord, published two editions of your " Reasons for 
 not taking the Test." The first in March, the second in October, 
 1828. You alluded to the hope which the then preceding Ad- 
 ministration of Mr. Canning- had inspired. In both editions of 
 your book there is this passage : — 
 
 " After many anxious vicissitudes of hope and fear; after passing through 
 a tryingvariety of temperature; the political horizon appeared to have settled 
 in almost unclouded sunshine upon the Catholics of the empire; when, to our 
 dismay and horror, it is now again suddenly darkening around us. We can- 
 not but fear that the appointment of the Duke of Wellington as Premier is a 
 fatal omen to our cause; for hitherto he has but too often ranked amongst 
 the most signal of our opposers." 
 
Hostility to Catholics. 237 
 
 Toil were right, my lord, you were right. He was, indeed, 
 my lord, ranked amongst the most signal of our opponents ; 
 and, I would add, amongst the most ungrateful. You yourself 
 proclaimed his ingratitude. Yes. More dishonouring ingrati- 
 tude was never (at least until very lately) exhibited ; because 
 he was most deeply indebted to the sacrifice of Irish Catholic 
 blood for his elevation to the dukedom. You, yourself, say : — 
 
 " Were it not for his Catholic troops, the Duke of "Wellington had never 
 gathered one solitary laurel ; for all the laurels he wears have sprung from 
 their valour and been watered by their blood. But for the confidence reposed 
 in him by Catholic Governments, he had never been carried forward in his 
 career. But for the honours heaped upon him by Catholic monarchs, his 
 breast had never blazed with half that brilliancy that beams upon it now; 
 and many of those high-sounding titles, which so loudly proclaim his glory 
 to the world, would have been mute." 
 
 Yet the first vote he gave as a duke, the very first and most 
 deliberate vote for which he left his proxy, was a vote to con- 
 tinue the degrading slavery of the Catholics. 
 
 It was, to him, a degrading vote. You may speak of him, 
 my lord, as you please. I will always speak of him as he really 
 is ; as the most lucky of all the ungifted and ungenerous beings 
 that ever were wafted by fortunate chances and accidents to 
 great elevation. 
 
 To the passage which I have first quoted, you add : — 
 
 " If the Duke of Wellington be the bigot which many imagine, our fate 
 is sealed so long as his counsels prevail. But we are willing to hope against 
 hope." 
 
 Whilst you thus avowed yourfears from thebigotryof theDuke 
 of "Wellington, you declared your determination not todespair,"to 
 hope even against hope." And yet I may say, by way of parenthe- 
 sis, that you now come out against me, and bid me to despair 
 of carrying the Eepeal of the Union, although I hope for that 
 event, not " against hope," but with events that cluster hopes 
 around me, whether in Spain, in France, in Africa, or in the 
 East— or in America. For, my lord, the moment the Irish are 
 
238 Our moral Waterloo. 
 
 sufficiently comLined amongst themselves to obtain that respect- 
 ful attention which they will then assuredly merit ; or, mark 
 me, my lord ! the moment that England wants the assistance of 
 the people of Ireland, that moment England will obtain that 
 assistance — hut the Union shall be repealed. 
 
 Eut to return : — 
 
 In 1828, you were quite conscious of the Duke of "Welling- 
 ton's bigoted opposition. You denounced him as the enemy of 
 the Catholics. But you may allege that he subsequently altered 
 his opinions, mitigated ,his hostility, and emancipated the 
 Catholics. 
 
 I admit the last fact. He did emancipate the Catholics; 
 but he emancipated them because (as he himself avowed) eman- 
 cipation was no longer to be resisted. We had our moral 
 Waterloo, my lord, and our victory was more useful, if not more 
 glorious. We chained the valiant Duke to the car of our 
 triumph, and compelled him to set us free. 
 
 But I utterly deny that he altered his opinions or mitigated 
 his hostility. He avowed that his enmity to Catholic rights, 
 that his preference for Catholic degradation, were still the same ; 
 whilst he added the plaintive conclusion, that further resistance 
 was impossible. He declared that his hostility was still unmiti- 
 gated. Nay, he said that the Emancipation would be more 
 useful to the expansion and establishment of Protestantism, by 
 the union of action which would continue amongst Protestants ; 
 whilst the Catholics, no longer kept together by political inte- 
 rests, would tarnish themselves by their feuds, disgrace 
 themselves with their dissensions, and weaken themselves by 
 both. 
 
 Was his soul prophetic ? Good, my lord. 
 
 The Duke changed his politics and emancipated us ; but he 
 never changed his bigoted opinions. He opposed, during the 
 late Administration, every concession to the Irish people, every 
 attempt to assimilate the franchises of the Irish with those of the 
 English. It was he who thrust into the Irish Parliamentary 
 Beform Bill the clause which preserved the rights of the exclu- 
 
English Catholics^ Aliens, 239 
 
 sivelj Protestant freemen. And the express grounds on which 
 he perpetrated these enormities, was to preserve, as far as he 
 could, the ascendancy of the Protestant Church in Ireland. 
 
 He more than once, daring Lord Melbourne's Government, 
 laid it down as a maxim in the administration of Ireland, "that 
 Protestants should be encouraged." By " encouraged " he of 
 course intended, and avowed he intended, that they should be 
 " preferred " to the Catholics on all practicable occasions. 
 
 With that maxim of his, I leave him for the present, under the 
 protection and special favour of the Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 
 The next that I offer to your lordship's consideration is 
 Lord Lyndhurst. Of him, too, you entertain hopes which I shall 
 leave undisturbed, because such hopes are, and must be, intact 
 by any process of reasoning, or any approach of common sense ! 
 They can spring only from that species of sensibility which 
 when translated into words, is familiarly called " twaddle ;" and 
 when confined to mere thought, falls within the category of 
 dotage. Tou are too young and too wise for either twaddle or 
 dotage, and yet I must, in despair, abandon you to your 
 "hopes" (!) of Lord Lyndhurst. He has been guilty of most 
 mischievous discretion — let me call it dangerous, too. It is true 
 that it was only the Irish Catholics on whom he affixed the 
 appellation of "aliens in language, aliens in blood, and aliens in 
 religion." It will be well, however, to recollect, that as an " alien 
 in religion " you — even you — are stigmatized. Though you are 
 emancipated, he still brands alienage upon you ! after having 
 in Parliament exerted all his faculties, and even availed himself 
 of the excellence of his memory, to detain you in a state worse 
 than that of an alien. Nay, he incurred, to keep you in degra- 
 dation, all the odium of being a renegade, and of abandoning 
 all his former liberal opinions, for the vile love of place and 
 promotion. He poured out against you that speech which was 
 " once Toby Philpott's ;'' and ranked himself at the side of 
 bigotry, in a manner which entitled him to be classed among the 
 most unprincipled and the most narrow-minded of modern 
 statesmen. 
 
240 Sir Robert Peefs History. 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, there may he somethmg in the private life 
 of this nohleman which inspires you with hopes and encourages 
 your confidence. If so, I am totally ignorant of it. But, if it 
 be so, I leave you to the full benefit of its influence. 
 
 Let me next point your attention to some of the minor fry 
 of triumphant Toryism. There is Mr. Milnes Gaskell, and 
 there is Mr. Sidney Herbert. The one, it is said, has been 
 liberal ; I do not vouch for it ; but this I know, that at present 
 his disposition is to call you, my lord, a " Romanist." But if 
 he were disposed to an excess of civility, perhaps he might con- 
 descend to call you a " Papist." 
 
 As to Mr. Sidney Herbert, the only way, so far as I can 
 judge, in which he earned office was by a speech in which he 
 most grossly calumniated the Catholic priesthood of Ireland — 
 distorted the evidence before the Intimidation Committee, so as 
 to show that he had some ability, and more inclination, to range 
 himself for life as a No-Popery champion. 
 
 This, however, as addressed to you, is a topic of some deli- 
 cacy ; for you have in your pamphlet, as I shall shortly show, 
 sanctioned some of his charges against the Catholic clergy, and 
 adopted some of his calumnies. But whether coming from him 
 alone, or sanctioned by you, high as you are, it is a subject 
 which forbids mincing delicacy, and compels me to proclaim the 
 charges false as they are foul — unfounded as they are injurious. 
 Yes ! the calumniated Catholic clergy of Ireland can set not 
 only him, but even you, at utter defiance ! 
 
 Last, but not least, comes Sir Robert Peel. And what is his 
 history ? He began his career in Ireland by organising Orangeism j 
 by joining with Saurin in that corruption of the Irish Bar 
 which now promises us a plentiful crop of bigoted, intolerant, 
 and partial judges. He reorganised and armed the Orange 
 yeomanry of the north of Ireland, whose orgies were annually 
 celebrated in the blood of the Catholics ; whilst he proclaimed in 
 the House of Commons, that the only fault of these Orangemen 
 was their " excess of loyalty ;" those very Orangemen who have 
 been scattered by the unanimous condemnation of Parliament. 
 
Peer s Discovery. 241 
 
 He filled every office with their then sworn partizans. He 
 raised himself from obscurity into notice and high station, as 
 the child and champion of intolerance. There was no dirty 
 dexterity of which be was not capable, even upon the most awful 
 of all possible subjects ; but let me give your own charge in 
 your own words : — 
 
 "It was asserted" (by Peel), "with much parade of solemn and momen- 
 tous accusation, against the most unimpeachable prelacy in the world, that 
 they were guilty of the most audacious impiety in cancelling a precept from 
 the Decalogue ; and it was at least insinuated that they did so in order to 
 flatter their favourite propensities to idolatry." 
 
 The charge, of course, was false. You have proclaimed it so ; 
 and shown the miserable chicanery upon which it was founded. 
 But that chicanery was Peel's — that falsehood was Peel's ! On 
 the subject of the Decalogue itself, he was guilty of bearing 
 that false witness against you, and against every one of us, 
 from our highest prelate down to the humblest attendant upon 
 our worship. What was your own description of him ? You 
 began by paying him a compliment which he little deserved. 
 You said — 
 
 "It is astonishing that a man of Mr. Peel's character and reputation for 
 fair dealing should condescend to use misrepresentation when he finds argu- 
 ment fail him. But it only shows the extent of his delusion, and how fitted 
 his mind is to receive impressions contrary to truth, reason, and common 
 sense, when his favourite prejudices are to be cherished. If that delusion only 
 affected the individual we should lament it without presuming to correct him; 
 but when the delusion of an individual stands between the happiness of mil- 
 lions, and that individual is the champion of a party opposed to the best in- 
 terests of the empire, then, indeed, it is a delusion which ought to be exposed 
 to the whole world." 
 
 Has your lordship been seduced by being called " vilely 
 superstitious ?" Or have you been won by the flattery of being 
 termed " an abject idolater ?" 
 
 But you may reproach me with the fact that the "Whigs 
 enacted " a base, brutal, and bloody " Coercion Bill. Pt^collect^ 
 however, that the English Catholics were unafi'ected by that 
 VOL. IT. 17 
 
■242 Graham and Stanley, 
 
 measure. There is, therefore, no English excuse for a treache- 
 rous desertion of your old friends. Push not, then, your sym- 
 pathy for Ireland too far. We are in the habit of suffering, 
 and therefore we can bear it more patiently. We are like the eels, 
 accustomed to be skinned alive. Recollect, good my lord — pray, 
 recollect — that, of two of the most influential members of the 
 present Cabinet, the one, Sir James Graham, was the ardent 
 supporter, and the other. Lord Stanley, was the contriver, fabri- 
 cator, and triumphant advocate of the " base, brutal, and 
 bloody " Coercion Bill for Ireland. 
 
 Now, my lord, make your choice. Show your highminded- 
 ness, your generosity, your noble gratitude for past services ; 
 j^our just indignation against unprincipled hostility. Make 
 your choice — but, alas ! your choice is already made ! The 
 highmindedness is gone; the generous feeling for a fallen 
 friend is obdurated and perceived no more ! The gratitude is 
 obliterated; and your just indignation at iniquitous hostility 
 merges into puerile servility to the minions of place, power, and 
 authority. 
 
 Oh, ingratitude unparalleled ! Oh, preposterous selection ! 
 J^ever was such a choice made as you have made and enforced. 
 
 " Blow, blow thou wintry wind, 
 Thou art not so unkind, 
 Nor is thy tooth so rude 
 As man's ingratitude.'' 
 
 Yes. If the English Catholics follow your lordship, the 
 Taiting, chilling, bitter blasts of ingratitude were never so basely 
 blown and so keenly felt as they will be by every disinterested 
 friend and lover of the generous emotions. 
 
 You have, however, your reasons for this desertion of your 
 friends and selection of your enemies. You endeavour to per- 
 suade the Catholics of England to abandon those friends and to 
 select those enemies. Your business is to justify a mode of 
 action so repugnant to every right feeling, and so derogatory to 
 •every sense of political honour or honesty, that it could be palliated 
 •only by the most overpowering necessity. 
 
W/iigs and Tories. 243 
 
 Such was the task you imposed upon yourself. Heavens ! 
 how miserably have you failed ! Your reasons are to be found 
 in the fourth, fifth, and sixth pages of your letter. I am com- 
 pelled to say there never was anything more flimsy, more fan- 
 tastic. It is with pain I must add that drivelling idiocy or 
 childish folly could scarcely attain to anything so weak — so 
 mawkish. I will endeavour to analyse the puny material. 
 
 First — You allege that " all the great paramount reforms 
 are accomplished " (oh ! most sapient sage !), " and that there 
 is now only a mere distinction without a difference between 
 Whigs and Tories." 
 
 Let me admit your facts — a matter of some difficulty — in 
 order to admire the conclusion you draw from those premises. 
 Your logic is, indeed, of a rare quality. What ! because there 
 is " only a distinction without a difference " between Whigs 
 and Tories, therefore the English Catholics should, according 
 to you, abandon the Whigs, their consistent friends, and sup- 
 port the Tories, their unrelenting enemies ! 
 
 Such a specimen of reasoning is not, I believe, to be found 
 among " the royal and noble authors " of any other century or 
 country. 
 
 Secondly — As your second argument you state — 
 
 "That the Tories have adopted the late reforms as an integral part of our 
 institutions ; and even profess a willingness to concede such changes as the 
 altered circumstances of society might still require.'' 
 
 I cannot concede your facts here ; because you told me just 
 now " that all the great paramount reforms were actually ac- 
 complished." Nor do I believe that the Tories intend in any- 
 thing to ameliorate our institutions. At all events, you must 
 admit that the Whigs are at least equally desirous of political 
 improvement. How, then, can you be so preposterous as to 
 expect that the English Catholics should consider this a reason 
 to abandon their tried friends the Whigs, and to support their 
 known enemies the Tories ? 
 
 Thirdly — Yoiu: third argument insinuates that — 
 
 17 ♦ 
 
244 Good enough for a Jury, 
 
 "The powers of miscliief of a Tory Governicent are sufficiently restrained 
 both by the estat»Iished reforms themselves, and by the continually growing 
 force of public opinion." 
 
 I leave, without a single observation, this third sagacious 
 reason why the English Catholics should desert their tried 
 friends the Whigs, and support their known enemies the Tories. 
 
 Fourthly — Your fourth argument is accurately abstracted 
 thus ; you say — 
 
 " If a larger measure of reform be needed, which it certainly is, in Ireland, 
 the new men, in the joy and generosity of their triumph, may possibly com- 
 promise upon a sound and equitable adjustment." 
 
 There, my lord — there are your words ; not all your words ; 
 but still, as far as they go, ipsisstjna verba. We have it that a 
 larger measure of reform is " certainly needed " in Ireland. 
 But, gently — gently, good my lord ! Told you not me just 
 now that all the great paramount reforms are accomplished ? 
 
 There is a class, indeed, of whom the proverb says, that they 
 have occasion for good memories. You, my lord, are a truthful 
 man ; and therefore you dispense with remembering what you 
 wrote but a short time before. 
 
 Let me now just analyse this last specimen of reasoning: — 
 Because the Tories may, " possibly," in their joy and generosity 
 do some justice to the Irish, therefore the English Catholics 
 ought to grovel in the mire of deep, dark ingratitude to the 
 Whigs ! 
 
 I remember an Irish barrister, who, when addressing a jury^ 
 requested them " not to be carried away by the dark oblivion 
 of a brow." He was stopped by the judge, who exclaimed, 
 "Why, sir, that is nonsense ! " "Oh, my lord," returned the 
 unabashed counsellor, " I know it is nonsense — but it is good 
 enough for a jury." 
 
 Thus, my good lord, your inference that the Tories may 
 possibly in their generosity and joy do something for tlie Irish 
 is stark nonsense. But upon a matter of political treachery, 
 you deem it good enough for the English Catholics. 
 
The gr'mding Bread Tax. 245 
 
 Fifthly — Your fifth and last argument may be condensed 
 thus : you say, " the times are so menacing and so unsettled, 
 that it is a problem for futurity to solve, whether Whig or Tory 
 rule might be better or worse for the country." 
 
 Bravo ! So, because there may be a problem for futurity 
 to solve as to the comparative merits of Whigs and Tories, 
 therefore the living English Catholics are in the interim to 
 decide the point for themselves, by wallowing in the mire of 
 ingratitude and desertion of friends ! 
 
 I rejoice that I have got through these miserable attempts 
 at persuasion. I cannot, however, avoid saying that they fill 
 me with ineffable disgust. Fortunate, my lord, indeed is it for 
 you, that the weakness of your head may detract but little from 
 the goodness of your heart. 
 
 I have thus followed you through the two leading objects of 
 your pamphlet. 
 
 First, your attempt to array the English Catholics and 
 Catholicity itself in favour of the grinding bread-tax. 
 
 Secondly, your attempt to bring over the Catholics of Eng- 
 land, and even to arm Catholicity itself, in the cause of the 
 Tories. 
 
 By the first, attainting the sacred banners of apostolic Chris- 
 tianity with the guilt of starving the poor, in order to satiate 
 the avarice of the rich. In the second, inflicting a black spot 
 upon English Catholicity, by making it exhibit the most pro- 
 fligate ingratitude to high-principled (but now powerless) 
 friends ; and, with the most abject servility, sharing in the un- 
 generous joy of malignant enemies. 
 
 The rest of your pamphlet is really ancillary to those two 
 great objects — starvation and ingratitude. You introduce youi 
 other topics merely to gratify or allure English prejudice and 
 English partiality. You, my lord, know as well as I do, that 
 the English Catholics h^ve in their day of power been as oppres- 
 sive and as contemptuous of the Irish as the English Protes- 
 tants have since been ; and there still remains in the minds of 
 'some of the former as bitter a hostility as ever to the Irish. This 
 
246 The Lion of the Fold of Judah. 
 
 unliappj feeling you have souglit to gratify, in the selectien of 
 your incidental topics. These topics relate — first, to a most 
 important subject —the conduct of the Catholic clergy of Ireland ; 
 secondly, to a subject, trivial politically and personally in im- 
 portance and magnitude — the individual who replies to you — I 
 mean myself. The third relates to a subject of national urgency 
 — the Repeal of the Union. In the foregoing order shall I 
 make a few observations upon each of these topics. 
 
 As to the first — the conduct of the Catholic clergy of Ireland 
 — I really do not know how to restrain myself. I would not 
 wish to use harsh language towards your lordship ; but how is 
 it possible to speak with dignified temper of the audacity with 
 which you presume, in utter ignorance of fact, to censure men 
 in every moral point of view your superiors ? To fulminate 
 your anathemas against the faithful, the enduring, the devoted 
 clergy, the only real friends of the afflicted and poor people of 
 Ireland — the anointed priests of the Most High G-od. 
 
 Perhaps I am the more ready to yield to irritation, by 
 reason of the impertinent intrusion by another English Catholic 
 nobleman — a prattling peer, with some zeal but no discretion — 
 into the concerns of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in 
 Ireland. His most uncivil assault upon one of the meekest^ 
 and gentlest, as well as most pious of human beings, the Eight 
 Bev. Dr. Browne ; his gross and gratuitous attack ujDon the 
 character of that exalted personage, the "lion of the fold of 
 Judah," the Most Hev. Dr. M'Hale ; these attacks seem to me 
 to bespeak this foregone conclusion — that the English Catholic 
 nobility are in the habit among themselves of speaking with 
 indifi'erence, if not with contempt, of the Catholic hierarchy of 
 Ireland ; but let me return to your lordship. 
 
 In page 18, you call the Catholic priesthood of Ireland " a 
 political priesthood" fdid you borrow the phrase from the 
 Times?) — "removed from the meek and peaceful spirit of 
 humanity." And you wish to check their " now uncalled-for 
 interference." 
 
 Yes, my lord. The " now" in italics is yours ; and you are 
 
What would you be without the Irish Clergy? 247 
 
 riglit to mark the distinction ; because there was a time when 
 you lauded the political interference of the Catholic clergy of 
 Ireland. But then you had a personal interest in their conflict. 
 The Irish priesthood were then struggling to free you from 
 political degradation ; to elevate you from a position which you 
 yourself have described as being worse than that of an alien ; 
 " more degraded than that of the meanest malefactor." They 
 were then lauded and bepraised by you. They were struggling 
 for the good of the Earl of Shrewsbury ! They are now cen- 
 sured and vilified — they are struggling for the good of Ireland \ 
 In p. 20, you insinuate that a considerable alienation from 
 Catholicity has been created in the minds of many in England, 
 by what you call delinquencies of a portion of the Catholic 
 clergy in Ireland. 
 
 I would most. mournfully ask your lordship, how you could 
 write such calumnious nonsense ? Delinquencies, truly ! of the 
 Irish clergy ! I thank you for the word. It becomes you 
 highly to use such an expression. It does, forsooth ! become 
 the Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury to presume— I must use the 
 vord — to apply such language towards our clergy. And then 
 — their causing the alienation of English minds from Catho- 
 licity. What would you, English Catholics, be, if it were not 
 for Irish priests and Irish Catholic laymen residing amongst 
 you? But the absurdity of the charge disarms its malig- 
 nity. And there I leave it, in the precious keeping of your 
 lordship. 
 
 You proceed in the same page, by admitting that "persons 
 of all classes justly bestow praises on the exemplary conduct of 
 the Irish Catholic clergy." But this is only meant to make 
 the dagger-stab of the next sentence more fatal. You continue 
 thus : " and while people may with reason be scandalized at 
 some, let us not be unjust to others." 
 
 I crave your mercy. You are " scandalized" in good truth,, 
 at the conduct of some of the Catholic clergy. " Scandalized ! " 
 It is a hard word. But let me implore your lordship to miti- 
 gate the sensitiveness of your piety. "Scandalized" again. 
 
248 Tlie Catholic Clergy Repealer's. 
 
 Who are they among the Catholic clergy who thus give 
 scandal ? You will answer — the Eepealers. And then see 
 how sweeping your vituperation is. Take two of the largest 
 dioceses in Ireland ; those of Westmeath and Ardagh ; there is 
 not a single clergyman in those extensive dioceses, including 
 near one-third of the island, who has not sent in his contribu- 
 tion to the Eepeal Association as a Repealer. I believe that 
 nearly four-fifths of the priesthood are in favour of Repeal. I 
 know but of one priest who has declared himself publicly and 
 in print opposed to that measure. Eleven of the bishops are 
 ■enrolled as Repealers. Do all these scandalize you, good my 
 lord ? 
 
 Heaven help us. Father Abraham — what these English be ! 
 You were yourself, my lord, at one time a Repealer ; and yet, 
 here you are now the ally of the Times and of Exeter Hall, 
 pronouncing the Catholic clergy of Ireland " scandalous ;" be- 
 cause of the Repeal. 
 
 You were a Repealer, when your interests as an aspirant 
 for constitutional equality and political power were likely to be 
 promoted by Repeal agitation. You were actually a Repealer 
 hefore I agitated for the Repeal. The great and overwhelming 
 majority of the Catholic priesthood of Ireland are Repealers in 
 their zealous love for the temporal as well as the spiritual in- 
 terests of the Irish people. They are (as is every honest candid 
 man wno understands the question, and is not influenced by 
 selfish motives) in favour of Repeal ; because they see (as every- 
 body who wishes to look steadily at the subject must see) that 
 the oppressive ascendancy faction is revived, and will be per- 
 petuated by reason of the Union, if the Tories continue in 
 power. Because they see that Orange murders have already 
 recommenced under the regime of your friends the Tories ; and 
 that there is daily more blood on the face of the land shed by 
 the allies and minions of your friends the Tories. Because they 
 practically know that, under the influence of the Union, poverty 
 must increase, destitution must augment, the fiendish spirit 
 of anti-Catholic bigotry must necessarily accumulate. Because 
 
Resolve the Riddle. 249 
 
 they have seen that the justice of equality with Englnnd in 
 rights, privileges, and protection, has been refused not only by 
 the Tories, but even by the Whigs. Because they know, as 
 every rational lover of Ireland must know, that there is no re- 
 lief, no redress for Ireland, save by the restoration of her own 
 Parliament. 
 
 So much for the Catholic clergy of Ireland. 
 I next come to your second alluring topic — alluring to the 
 a.nti-Irish spirit. It is your vituperation of my humble self. 
 
 Your attacks upon me are really curious, and distinguished 
 above all other things by gratitude, sweet gratitude, and by your 
 magnanimous disregard of matter-of-fact. 
 
 There is something comical in the extent of your inventive 
 powers. Take the following specimen. After speaking of my 
 not knowing where to stop in my career, you add : — " Once, 
 indeed has he" (O'Connell) " been most signally discomfited, 
 and bound hand and foot to the chariot wheels of his antagonists. 
 For a time he was politically dead, and the liberties of his 
 country were extinguished in him." 
 
 What the deuce is the meaning of this ? What idle fantasy 
 is careering through your dreaming brain ? What driftless 
 imaginings were playing with, and deluding your inventive 
 power ? Speak, gentle sphynx ; resolve the riddle ! When 
 was I bound either by hand or by foot ? Wiien was I bound 
 to the wheels of chariot, gig, cab, or buggy ; real or ima- 
 ginary ; poetical or actual ? 
 
 I have beaten my poor wits into powder to discover your 
 meaning ; and can scarcely venture, after all, upon a conjecture. 
 Even my conjecture is founded only upon a fact unattached, 
 so far as I know, in any way to your lordship. The fact is 
 this : the Duke of Wellington, a few years ago, asserted in the 
 House of Lords that I had been convicted of a misdemeanour 
 in a prosecution instituted by that silliest of the silly, poor Lord 
 Anglesey. He said I was a convicted criminal. 
 
 In my place in the House of Commons, I refuted the asser- 
 tion, and showed its utter want of truth. So far from being 
 
250 No Irish need apply. 
 
 convicted, I never was even tried ! Wherefore Lord Eldoa 
 came to the aid of the valiant duke, and obtained an order of the 
 House of Lords for copies of all the proceedings in that pro- 
 secution. They were produced and printed by the House of 
 Lords; and you, my lord, must have been furnished with a copy, 
 as I had been the instrument of obtainiug for you the privilege 
 of the peerage. 
 
 Some two or three years after this, the military duke re- 
 peated his confuted calumny. I immediately met him with a 
 letter, published in the London newspapers, in which I proved 
 to demonstration, not only the falsehood of his charge, but that 
 he must have known its falsehood. 
 
 Now, my conjecture is this, that your paragraph may be in- 
 tended to suggest that there was already one triumphant prose- 
 cution, and that there may be at present another, in which 
 the Attorney- Greneral might be able to read from the pamphlet 
 of the Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury (simply as part of his 
 speech) how little of favour I could deserve from Catholic 
 jurors. 
 
 This conjecture is somewhat aided by the very hostile spirit 
 manifested in your attacks on me. It is still but a mere con- 
 jecture. But, if it be not this, why, then, it is a simple inven- 
 tion, which might (if I had the least disposition to be rude,, 
 which I have not) be expressed by a shorter word. 
 
 You are, really, my lord, an imaginative man. 
 
 In the vivacity of your fancy, you have, in the paragraph 
 last quoted, been guilty (however unwittingly) of the suijgi'stio 
 falsi. In the paragraph which I shall next quote, this in- 
 gredient is mixed up with what I do not know how to de- 
 scribe as other than a wilful svppvessio vevi. 
 
 In page 33, I find you allege that I have drawn from an 
 advertisement in the Tablet for a servant, with a reserve, 
 " that an Irish person would not suit," my sweeping proofs 
 of disaffection amongst the whole body of English Catholics, 
 "high and low, great and small." You add, " that it turned out 
 to be a compliment to her " own transplanted countrywomen, 
 
Assertions not Facts. 251 
 
 from a respectable liousekeeping Irisli lady herself." And you 
 conclude thus : — 
 
 " There never was a finer burst of impassioned eloquence than that 
 speech ; but never argument so weak, or provocation so unfounded ; and, to 
 judge from the cheers and groans that accompanied its delivery, never im- 
 pression more profound, or success more complete, in exciting hatred and 
 animosity between the two countries. But where were charity and truth all 
 the while ? Or where the charity, truth and justice of many of the state- 
 ments in the famous proclamation to which it was the prologue ? Now 
 making every possible allowance for a warm temperament and excited feelings, 
 there can be no excuse for so false, so exaggerated, so virulent a denuncia- 
 tion. Even if his premises were true, the deduction had been false. Was 
 not the wish the ""ither to the thought, because it suited the purpose of the 
 moment? Bul, while Mr. O'Connell forgets that violence, and exaggera- 
 tion, and undeserved abuse, defeat themselves, no man ever presented u* 
 with a more signal illttstration of the truth of this axiom than himself; and 
 it is by this prodigal indulgence in the most unmeasured strain of vitupera- 
 tion that he is now reduced to the least enviable of all positions — in which 
 his praise is censure, and his censure praise." 
 
 I wish the reader to peruse that paragraph over again. I 
 will treat it, I hope, with as much coolness as a man so out- 
 raged and insulted can possibly do. At all events, I hope 
 to treat it good-humouredly. In the first place, I will remark, 
 that the assertion, " that the lady advertising for a servant, was 
 a respectable and experienced housekeeping Irish lady," is the 
 pure invention of Lord Shrewsbury's prurient fancy. All that 
 he knew upon the subject was, that an anonymous paragraph 
 appeared in the newspapers, stating that the lady was Irish, 
 I do not believe it. If she were Irish at all, she had certainly 
 resided in England, amongst English Catholics, long enough 
 to have caught prejudices ; and to have servilely imitated their 
 dislike to her countrywomen. This would rather strengthen 
 my case than diminish its force. 
 
 This, however, is not of much importance. But there is 
 that which really is so. You, my lord, say that I made that 
 advertisement my argument of disaffection to the Irish " among 
 the whole body of English Catholics, high and low, great and 
 
252 Ma7iy English Catholics 
 
 small ;" these are your words. Yet you cannot but know 
 that this, your assertion, is totally untrue ; that it is directly 
 the reverse of the truth. You avow that you read my speech 
 (for you describe it), and therefore you must have seen, and 
 especially known, when 3'ou wrote the contrary, that I, in that 
 ■speech, so far from accusing all the English Catholics, great 
 and small, high and low, made large and sweeping exceptions ; 
 that I assert el and boasted that there were very many English 
 Catholics willing and anxious to do justice to Ireland. 
 
 Now, may I not retaliate — and I only retaliate — your 
 saucy question, " Where now is your charity — where is your 
 truth?" 
 
 Neither is this all. In the paragraph thus quoted, your 
 allegation is that my proofs of English Catholic disaffection to 
 Ireland were confined to the advertisement in the Tablet. 
 That is your intent, or your language would have no rational 
 meaning. Yet you must have known that this suggestion of 
 yours was utterly untrue ; because, in page 36, you charge me 
 with an unmannerly attack upon Sir John Grerard for his 
 adherance to Conservativism. 
 
 Now, that " unmannerly attack " was merely the statement 
 of one of my many proofs of English Catholic disaffection to 
 the Irish. You had, therefore, those proofs before your eyes. 
 And yet you have the coolness to assert that I gave but one 
 weak argument to prove the truth of my denunciation. 
 
 Let me once more retaliate your saucy question, " Where 
 now is your charity ? your truth ? your justice ?" I deny 
 their existence. I prove that they do not exist. The language 
 is to be sure harsh — but then it is yours. I use these queries 
 upon great, and totally unmerited, provocation — for I offended, 
 I assailed you in nothing ! 
 
 You used them upon cool, deliberate, written, and printed 
 premeditation ; against a man whom I do not allege, but 
 whom yourself admit, to have been your bountiful benefactor. 
 
 Oh, shame ! ten thousand times shame on that malignant 
 spirit which could thus taint the chivalrous Earl of Shrewsbury ! 
 
Willifig to do yustice to Ireland. 253 
 
 To relieve the tedium of personal conflict, which you hava^ 
 deliberately provoked and commenced, let us by way of paren- 
 thesis decide the matter of Sir John Gerard. 
 
 You accuse me of an " unmannerly attack " upon him. I 
 allege that I did but make a just, a reasonable, and a thoroughly 
 well-founded attack upon that unworthy person. I attacked 
 him only as a public man. And my full justification is this : 
 the Irish Catholics had, by your own profession, raised Sir 
 John Gerard from a situation which you have yourself described 
 as being *' worse than that of alien, and more degraded than 
 that of the meanest malefactor." 
 
 They procured for him the right — that most important 
 right, to vote for members of Parliament. They procured for 
 his tenants that most important right — the right to vote for 
 members of Parliament. And the gratitude of Sir John Gerard, 
 the use which he makes of the franchise we procured for 
 himself and his tenants, is, by the means of that franchise, to 
 return to Parliament a bitter enemy of Ireland ; one actually 
 labouring to extinguish the franchise of the Irish Catholics ! 
 and this conduct of Sir John Gerard's you call by the gentle 
 name of " adhering to Conservativism." Be that so. 
 
 Such, however, is the "political caitiff" over whom you cast 
 the chivalrous shield of the Talbots. Alas, alas ! I fear the 
 client is worthy of the patron ! 
 
 Having thus taken a breathing in the bye-battle respecting 
 Sir John Gerard, let us return to our own personal quarrel— a 
 quarrel which you have, in the wantonness of noble insolence, 
 volunteered to create. But I do not shrink from the contest. 
 The only thing I require — it may be indeed too much to 
 require — is this : that you should not use the poisoned weapon of 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 You allege that I was scant of proof of the English Catholic 
 disaffection to the Irish. 
 
 Do I want proofs now, good my lord ? for, laying aside 
 your lucrative support of the Corn Laws, what but the most 
 contemptuous indifference, or indeed hostility, to the Catholics of 
 
254 
 
 His Pi^aise Censure. 
 
 Ireland, could have dictated sucli a pamphlet as yours ? What 
 hut this hostility could have inspired your calumnious malign- 
 ings of a large hody of the Irish Catholic clergy ? If the 
 spirit had not been as strong as it must be malignant, would 
 not they, at least, have escaped unassailed ? But I cry you 
 mercy. They have " scandalized " ^''ou. 
 
 Let me however ask, what else could have stimulated you, 
 on your mere motion, to assail even me, whom you admit to be 
 the representative of the wishes and of the wants of the Irish 
 people ? What else could have stimulated you to the cold- 
 blooded calumny of the great masses of the Irish Catholic 
 people, who have joined with me in the demand for the Repeal 
 — treating them as separatists, revolutionists, and subverters 
 of the monarchy and of social order ? 
 
 If you, my lord, be well affected to the Irish Catholics, 
 never did mortal man exhibit affection in a manner so 
 strange and so repugnant. A manner indeed "capable" (to 
 use your own words) "of exciting hatred and animosity between 
 the two countries." 
 
 Let us, however, draw somewhat closer. In the paragraph 
 which I have so lately transcribed, you accuse me of declama- 
 tion and false reasoning ; of exciting hatred and stirring up 
 animosity between the two countries. You accuse me of want 
 of charity, want of truth, want of justice. You accuse me of 
 exaggeration, virulence, and falsehood. And to cap the climax 
 of your chivalrous civility, you denounce me as a man " whose 
 praise is censure, and his censure praise." 
 
 My lord, there is assuredly no novelty in the phrase. You 
 have not the malignant merit of inventing it. It is as old at 
 least as the days of Junius, and has been repeated ten thousand 
 times since with as little truth as in the present case. 
 
 But you could not avoid adopting it. It was used by Peel 
 at a moment when I had not the power to rejDly. I had made 
 a speech, showing many of the meritorious acts of the Whig 
 party — showing that all that in recent times had been obtained 
 of amelioration in our institutions — that all the recent measures 
 
What was Peel's Reply ? 255 
 
 fiacred to liberty and humanity had been achieved by the Whigs. 
 I showed that the catalogue of Tory virtues was a miserable 
 blank ; while the effects of their unjust wars, their bigotry, and 
 their crimes, were, and are still this present time, grinding the 
 people in oppression and misery. What was Peel's reply? 
 Did he confute any statement of the Whig merits ? No such 
 thing. Did he vindicate the Tories from my censure ? No 
 such thing. In truth, he could not ; for my arguments were 
 based upon public and notorious facts. He accordingly rose in a 
 rage; made a furious, virulent, and, indeed, ferocious personal 
 attack upon me, which he concluded with the hackneyed phrase 
 you have so gloatingly adopted from him, " that my praise was 
 censure and my censure praise." There was not one single 
 reasonable man upon either side of the House who did not con- 
 demn his conduct in that respect. I have not met any reason- 
 able man out of the House who did not equally condemn it. 
 But it seems to deserve your sanction and patronage. Peel 
 forged the charge as against me ; and you have given it cur- 
 rency with the English Catholics, by endorsing it with your 
 name and titles of honour. 
 
 You have taken up his quarrel against me. You have flung 
 in my face the " dirt and dust " of Peel. You have taken up 
 his weapon to break my head. We have, therefore, a right to 
 inquire what claims the combatants had upon you us an Eng- 
 lish Catholic — the character you boast of — that you should 
 make battle for the one, or treacherously assail the other. Let 
 there be no words of mine. Let me give your own statement 
 of the combatants. You describe me — even in that pamphlet 
 in which I am so virulently assailed — in these terms — 
 
 " O'Connell is undoubtedly the man whom Providence has employed as 
 the dispenser of many blessings both to Ireland and to us. Without him we 
 had laboured in vain ; we had still been the victims of a misguided bigotry 
 and grinding oppression." 
 
 Such, in your most unfavourable moment, was your descrip- 
 tion of me, whom you now with gratuitous virulence assail. How 
 
256 Charge against Peel. 
 
 did you describe — and truly describe— my antagonist ? You 
 said of him — let me repeat it — "that he was a man using mis- 
 representation when he ' found argument to fail.' " You said of 
 him — " that his mind was fitted to receive impressions con- 
 trary to truth, reason, and common sense, when his favourite 
 prejudices were to be cherished." 
 
 Thank God, good English Catholic, for the words 1 You 
 also charged Peel with " making a solemn and momentous ac- 
 cusation against the Catholic bishops of Ireland," whom you 
 then called the most unimpeachable prelacy in the world, " of 
 being guilty of the most audacious impiety in cancelling one of 
 the ten commandments, in order to flatter their favourite pro- 
 pensities to idolatry." 
 
 In short, you proved that he made of the divine Decalogue 
 itself an instrument of forgery and fraud to injure Catholicity \ 
 that the words that were uttered on Mount Sinai amidst the 
 lightnings of Heaven, were distorted by him to bigoted party 
 purposes. You stigmatized him as having lit a torch of those 
 lightnings in order therewith to blast tbe reputation and anni- 
 hilate the hopes of the Catholics. You proved him to be a 
 blasphemer for paltry party purposes, and you declared 
 that he ought to be exposed to the scorn and derision of the 
 world. 
 
 Yet you ape his intemperance, you imitate his virulence, 
 and you actually adopt and employ his scurrility against the 
 man, without whose aid you are forced to acknowledge that you 
 would still be in a condition " worse than an alien, and more 
 degraded than that of the meanest malefactor." 
 
 Proud lord ! I rejoice in the contrast between us. No man 
 with one particle of feeling would, for your honours and estates, 
 malign his friend and embrace his enemy as you, in the purest 
 spirit of gratuitous treachery, have volunteered to do. 
 
 Let me revert to the worst part of your charge against me. 
 You accuse me of " want of charity and want of justice in ex- 
 citing animosity between the two nations." Read the charge 
 over again, and weigh well — for you cannot exaggerate — its 
 
iLngtisIt UptnioJi and hnghsli Prejudice. 257 
 
 severity. And when you have convinced yourself of the enormity 
 of the guilt it alleges, read this passage — 
 
 "The spirit of hostility -which actuates the peasantry of Enghmd against 
 the poor, wandering, expatriated Irish, is the same which has ever governed 
 the higher classes in their treatment of that unhappy country." 
 
 Whose language is this ? Stand forth, Earl of Shrewsbury, 
 Waterford, and Wexford, for these are thy words. 
 
 Are they false ? Then no stigma can be dark enough to 
 brand the man who uttered them. Are they true ? If it be 
 true that the English, the highest classes included, are, and 
 ever have been, governed by the vulgar prejudices and the mean 
 hostility of the lowest peasants in their treatment of Ireland — 
 then what censure can be severe enough to inflict upon the man 
 who in his own controversy published these truths, " exciting 
 animosity and hate between the two countries," and who then 
 turns round upon me and accuses me as guilty of deep crime in 
 exciting that animosity ; merely because I said, not that the 
 majority of the people of England, who are Protestants, but a 
 small minority of the minority of the English people, who are 
 Catholics, were hostile to the Irish ? 
 
 And you — you. Earl of Shrewsbury, thus accuse me, and 
 charge me with the want of charity, of justice, and of truth, 
 though I did not go the one-tenth of the length of uncharitable- 
 ness you yourself proclaimed. 
 
 If it were a crime in me to make the mitigated assertion, 
 what can be the degree of your guilt, your want of charity, of 
 justice, of truth, when you made the sweeping, the all-compre- 
 hensive allegation of ever-enduring bitterness and hostility to 
 the Irish on the part of all classes, *' high and low, great and 
 small," of the English nation ? 
 
 In sad and sober truth, I envy you not your position, noble 
 earl! 
 
 Let me come to another paragraph in which, without copy- 
 ing Peel, you have gone even beyond aught that ever fell from 
 him. In page 30 you have made an insinuation, clearly attri- 
 VOL. II. 18 
 
258 hijicstice to O Connell. 
 
 "buting to me the basest of all possible motives. Your words 
 are, " had not people long surmised that a continuance of agi- 
 tation in Ireland is much more likely to augment the rent than 
 to benefit the country." 
 
 Of course nothing more derogatory to man could be sug- 
 gested than this last charge. It is impossible to exaggerate the 
 intensity of its foulness, if it be true — or the black malignity of 
 its calumny, if it be false. 
 
 This every man must admit. Yet you have so little notion 
 of preserving even the semblance of veraciousness, that you 
 actually say in the next paragraph, that you treat me fairly and 
 even indulgently ! 
 
 Thanks for the fairness ; ten thousand thanks for the indul- 
 gence ! 
 
 And, now, what will inevitably happen ? Why, this — that 
 you who have accused me in express terms of want of charity, 
 of truth, and of justice — you, who have accused me of virulence, 
 vituperation, and falsehood — you, who have accused me of the 
 paltry sordidness of sacrificing the loved land of my birth to my 
 own grovelling pecuniary interests — you who, having exhausted 
 all the resources of your own rancour, have condescended to resort 
 to the hackneyed virulence of mine enemy — you, who have never 
 received any injury from me, and never heard my voice raised 
 respecting you except -for praise — you and your English friends, 
 especially your Tory press, will afiect a saintly horror at the vul- 
 garity and coarseness of my invective. You will prate of my 
 *' abusing " you. You will turn up the white of your eyes, and 
 thank your stars that you are not like this publican ? 
 
 Yes ; I see it as clearly as if I were already reading the 
 phrases of j^our allies. You and they will forget that you have 
 volunteered to accuse me of all that is mean, base, seditious — 
 aye, and revolutionary. They will forget that you yourself, in 
 all the politeness of your chivalry, used the very language in 
 whicli the vulgar express their bad passions. Yes, this (tod, if 
 needful, ten thousand times more) would be forgotten in itself, 
 and forgiven to you ! You will be set down as the essence of 
 
I brought about Emajicipation. 259 
 
 fiweet courtesy ; and I, who merely defend myself, will be — not 
 tried, but convicted of all uncharitableness. Be it so. I consent. 
 But I will not consent that my claim to the " rent " should be 
 misunderstood. That claim may be rejected ; but it is under- 
 stood in Ireland ; and it shall not be misstated anywhere with- 
 out refutation. 
 
 My claim is this. For more than twenty years before the 
 Tlmancipation, the burden of the cause was thrown upon me. I 
 had to arrange the meetings — to prepare the resolutions — to 
 furnish replies to the correspondence— to examine the case of 
 ■each person complaining of practical grievances — to rouse the 
 torpid — to animate the lukewarm — to control the violent and 
 the inflammatory — to avoid the shoals and breakers of the law 
 — to guard against multiplied treachery — and at all times to 
 oppose, at every peril, the powerful and multitudinous enemies 
 •of the cause. 
 
 To descend to particulars. At a period when my minutes 
 ■counted by the guinea, when my emoluments were limited only 
 by the extent of my physical and waking powers, when my 
 meals were shortened to the narrowest span, and my sleep 
 restricted to the earliest hours before dawn — at that period, and 
 for more than twenty years, there was no day that I did not 
 devote from one to two hours, often much more, to the working 
 out of the Catholic cause. And that without receiving or allow- 
 ing the offer of any remuneration, even for the personal expen- 
 diture incurred in the agitation of the cause itself. For four 
 years I bore the entire expenses of Catholic agitation, without 
 receiving the contributions of others to a greater amount than 
 £74 in the whole. Who shall repay me for the years of my 
 buoyant youth and cheerful manhood ? Who shall repay me 
 for the lost opportunities of acquiring professional celebrity, or 
 for the wealth which such distinctions would ensure ? 
 
 Other honours I could not then enjoy. 
 
 Emancipation came. You admit that it was I who brought 
 it about. The year before Emancipation, though wearing a 
 stuff gown, and belonging to the outer bar, my profes- 
 
 18* 
 
26o Offers made to G Council. 
 
 sional emoluments exceeded £8,000— an amount never before 
 realised in Ireland in the same space of time by an outer 
 barrister. 
 
 Had I adhered to my profession, I must soon have been 
 called within the bar, and obtained the precedency of a 
 silk gown. The severity of my labour would have been at 
 once much mitigated ; whilst the emoluments would have been 
 considerably increased. I could have done a much greater 
 variety of business with less toil, and my professional income 
 must have necessarily been augmented by, probably, one-half. 
 
 If I had abandoned politics, even the honours of my profes- 
 sion and its highest stations lay fairly before me. 
 
 But I dreamed a day-dream — was it a dream ? — that Ire- 
 land still wanted me ; that although the Catholic aristocracy 
 and gentry of Ireland had obtained most valuable advantages 
 from Emancipation, yet the benefits of good government had 
 not reached the great mass of the Irish people, and could not 
 reach them unless the Union should be either made a reality, or 
 unless that hideous measure should be abrogated. 
 
 I did not hesitate as to my course. My former success gave- 
 me personal advantages which no other man could easily pro- 
 cure. I flung away the profession — I gave its emoluments to 
 the winds — I closed the vista of its honours and dignities — I 
 embraced the cause of my country! and, come weal or come 
 woe, I have made a choice at which I have never repined, nor 
 ever shall repent. 
 
 An event occurred which I could not have foreseen. Once- 
 more, high professional promotion was placed within my reach. 
 The office of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer became vacant^ 
 I was ofiered it ; or, had I preferred the office of Master of the 
 Holls, the alternative was proposed to me. It was a tempting 
 ofier. Its value was enhanced by the manner in which it was 
 made, and pre-eminently so, by the person through whom it 
 was made — the best Englishman that Ireland ever saw — the 
 Marquis of Xormanby. 
 
 But I dreamed again a day-dream — was it a dream ? — and I 
 
TJic Best- abused Man in the Universe. 261 
 
 refused the offer. And here am I now taunted, even by you, 
 with mean and sordid motives. 
 
 I do not think I am guilty of the least vanity, when I assert 
 that no man ever made greater sacrifices to what he deemed the 
 €ause of his country than I have done. I care not how I may 
 be ridiculed or maligned. I feel the proud consciousness that no 
 public man has made more, or greater, or more ready sacrifices. 
 
 Still there lingers behind one source of vexation and sorrow — 
 one evil, perhaps greater than any other— upon the gratitude of 
 my countrymen. It consists in the bitter, the virulent, the 
 mercenary, and therefore the more envenomed hostility towards 
 me, which my love for Ireland and for liberty has provoked. 
 What taunts, what reproaches, what calumnies have I not sus- 
 tained ? w^hat modes of abuse ! what vituperation, what slander 
 have been exhausted against me ! what vials of bitterness have 
 been poured on my head ! what coarseness of language has not 
 been used, abused, and worn out in assailing me ? what deroga- 
 tory appellation has been spared ? what treasures of malevolence 
 have been expended ? what follies have not been imputed ? in 
 fact, what crimes have I not been charged with ? 
 
 I do not believe that I ever had in private life an enemy I 
 know that I had and have many, very many warm, cordial, 
 afiectionate, attached friends. Yet here I stand, beyond contro- 
 versy, the most and the best-abused man in the universal world ! 
 And, to cap the climax of calumny, you come with a lath at 
 your side instead of the sword of a Talbot, and you throw Peel's 
 scurrility along with your own into my cup of bitterness. 
 
 All this have I done and sufi'ered for Ireland. And let her 
 be grateful or ungrateful, solvent or insolvent, he who insults 
 me for taking her pay, wants the vulgar elements of morality 
 which teach that the labourer is worthy of his hire ; he wants 
 the higher sensations of the soul, which enable one to perceive 
 that there are services which bear no comparison with money, 
 and can never be recompensed by pecuniary rewards. 
 
 Yes ; I am— I say it proudly — I am the hired servant of 
 Ireland, and I glory in my servitude. 
 
262 C Council to blame for all. 
 
 I go back to another paragraph — the last that I shall 
 extract at any length. I select it especially, because it is a spe- 
 cimen of the dexterity of the delusions which you proffer to the 
 English Catholics. Speaking of Irish grievances, you say that 
 they are principally either fancied, or, at least, grossly exagge- 
 rated. You add these words : — 
 
 "There are circumstances Tvhen ignorance is bliss; and I think if the 
 people of Ireland were less instructed in their grievances, they would be 
 much less conscious of them, and live in a happy ignorance of half the ills of 
 •which they now so loudly complain. Were it not for O'Connell we should 
 never hear of Repeal ; should never hear of 50,000 annual murders perpe- 
 trated by cold, famine, and disease, and most charitably divided between 
 the Irish landlords and British misrule ! And this, gentle reader, from him 
 who has ever been the loudest to extol (and I am sure very justly so) the 
 charitable benevolence of his own countrymen, and the most strenuous to 
 oppose the inti-oduction of Poor Laws." (Page 23.) 
 
 This is indeed a specimen oI^'qvlx mvoir fah'c. It condenses- 
 so many faults and follies, that it would be supremely ridicu- 
 lous, if it were not imbued with qualities of a criminal nature. 
 How truly ignorant you are of the people of Ireland ! Or 
 rather, what trouble you take to forget what the Irish people 
 really are ! That shrewd, that sensible people, that people whose 
 tact exc(ieds intellect, are, forsooth, in your opinion so brutally 
 stupid, that of half the ills whereof they now so loudly com- 
 plain they would be unconscious, and in a happy ignorance, 
 if they were not instructed (that is your word) in their griev- 
 ances. Your assertion is, that of the grievances of which 
 the Irish complain, some are grosslj' exaggerated, others are 
 merely fanciful, and the one-half do not exist at all. Accord- 
 ing to you, O'Connell is to blame for all. It is I who have 
 invented them. They exist in my statement, but not in 
 reality. I have '' instructed " the people to believe in their 
 existence ! The Irish, you tell us, ai-e so stupid, that they 
 believe they are aggravated, only because I tell them they 
 are so ; and that they loudly complain of the imaginary 
 grievances, taking them not from realitj', but from my word ! 
 
English Prosperity no advantage to Ireland. 263 
 
 Softly, good my lord. Gently ! Tliere was a time when 
 I was not the best instructor, or even the sole instructor of the 
 Irish people as to their grievances. Let us see, when it was 
 your interest to describe Ireland as she was, and is, how you 
 "instructed" the Irish as to the evils they suffered. Then, 
 my lord, you taught the Irish that their best and only 
 hope was to look for the weakness and humiliation of 
 England. 
 
 "For," said your lordship, " the day of England's prosperity has never 
 yet been a day of grace or justice to Ireland."* 
 
 I now quote from the next page, where you tell us 
 that — 
 
 " Histor\', which is philosophy teaching by example, shows that the 
 monsters whom regenerated England employed to govern Ireland, have 
 mowed down whole generations of Papists at a stroke ; ravaging the field 
 with fire and sword, in the hopeful expectation tliat a harvest of Protestants 
 ■would arise ; when, lo and behold ! in lieu of Protestantism, Popery springs 
 up again ; but only to be cut down once more, and to be cast again into 
 the fire. Still the crop of Protestants never onee grew up. The land was 
 obstinate and impracticable ; and in spite of every new system of experi- 
 mental cultivation, has continued as barren of Protestantism and as fertile of 
 Popery ever since. "f 
 
 Again, in a few pages forward, you refer to the condition 
 of Ireland : — 
 
 " Parliament," you say, " has devised one scheme of emigration after 
 another; has expended thousands in Charter School grants, and thousands 
 in the draining of bogs. But misery still reigns predominant, and threatens 
 the very existence of the country.''^ 
 
 In the next page you describe : — 
 
 " The yearly droves of ragged and hungry Irish peasants , a faint portrait 
 of the still greater misery they leave behind, who traverse England in search 
 of a precarious subsistence.''§ 
 
 'Reasons," &c., second edition, p. xxxix. 
 Ihid. pp. xl., xli. X Ihid. p. li. § Ihid. ] 
 
264 England'' s Prosperity Ireland's Oppression. 
 
 You add the hostility with which those Irish peasants were 
 met by the English labourers ; and you continue thus — I like 
 to quote the passage twice : — 
 
 " But the spirit which actuates this feeling of hostility amongst the 
 peasantry of England to the poor, -wandering, and expatriated sons of Erin, 
 is the same which has ever governed the higher classes in their treatment of 
 that unhappy country."'* 
 
 Such were your " instructions " when you had an interest 
 in teaching the people of Ireland. You were then as ready 
 to admit the existence and reality, and the unendurable nature 
 of these grievances, as I could be I There was then no paltry 
 sneering on your part at miseries w^hich, even when described 
 in your eloquent style, appear much diminished of their sad 
 and sorrowful reality. 
 
 You now accuse me of stirring up strife between the two 
 countries ; of calumniating the English, and misrepresenting 
 their dispositions towards the Irish. But when it suited your 
 own purposes, you emphatically proclaimed that " England's 
 prosperity was Ireland's oppression ;" for that the day of 
 England's prosperity was "never a day of grace or justice to 
 Ireland." You then yourself proclaimed this very sentiment, 
 even more extensively than I did — that the English people 
 " high and low, great 'and small, were equally hostile to the 
 poor sons of Erin." I love to adopt your words. 
 
 There was, however, part of the counsel which you suggested 
 to the people of Ireland at that time, which I condemned then 
 and condemn now. Mark this — mark the disloyal suggestion 
 in the following passage. You say — 
 
 " In wretchedness the Irish outvie those Papists of the East, the very- 
 Greeks themselves, without being equally fortunate in attracting the com- 
 passion or good will of the nation. The Greek dies nobly in the field, and 
 his death is sweetened with the compassionate regard of the whole civilized 
 world, while the victim of English bigotry pines out a miserable existence, 
 
 * "Reasons,"' &c., p. lii. 
 
Fictitious Grievances disposed of. 26"; 
 
 •or sinks tinder the slow, but deadly poison of disease and famine, with 
 scarcely a heart to lament him."* 
 
 You were liurrjing us on a little too fast, Earl of Shrews- 
 l)ury. But we were too wise and too loyal to take your hint, 
 or to believe from you that death would be " sweetened" by 
 sanguinary rebellion. 
 
 Look at the passages I have just quoted from your former 
 work, and then blush for shame. Blush for your falsehood, if 
 you think you have stated untruths. Blush, if you have stated 
 the truth (as you certainly have done), for your malignant 
 ■calumny upon those who continue to repeat your truths. 
 But, above all and before all, sink with shame to the earth at 
 -the absurdity of supposing that the Irish do not know and 
 understand their own grievances ; or that they would be 
 in "happy ignorance" (!) if they were not told of their 
 miseries. Even John Bull himself, who is not the most per- 
 ceptive of animals, is beginning to perceive that an empty belly 
 is, after all, no joke. 
 
 Having disposed of the matter of "the fictitious grievances 
 of the Irish" — (would to heaven that they were fictitious !) — 
 let me revert to another part of the lengthened paragraph which 
 J. have above extracted from your letter at page 23. 
 
 You there sneer at me for my praise of the charity and 
 benevolence of the Irish people ; and in particular for my 
 opposition to the Poor Law. Are you aware that the Irish 
 Poor Law is much more harsh and cruel than that of England? 
 Are you aware that the commissioners are more despotic than 
 in England ? Are you aware that no relief whatever — no ! not 
 to the extent of a single sixpence ! — is, or can be, given out of 
 the workhouse ? Are you aware that the same cruel separation 
 ■of families takes place here as with you ? Are you, above all 
 things, aware that what could have easily been foretold has 
 already occurred — that sectarian prejudice has already made 
 
 * " Iteasons," &c., p. Iv. 
 
366 Reasons for Opposition to the Poor Laws. 
 
 the poorliouse in more than one locality an instrument of 
 vexation, if not of actual persecution, to the Catholics? and that 
 this spirit is naturally, nay, necessarily, fated to increase under 
 the inauspicious reign of the present Administration — those 
 friends whom you cherish and for whom you do battle ? Are 
 you aware that, although from this wretchedly impoverished 
 city upwards of £30,000 in the last year have been expended,. 
 and in this year more than £40,000 must be levied ; yet both 
 our union workhouses are completely full ; not one additional 
 pauper can be received, though the gates are thronged with the 
 imploring destitute! Our streets are crowded with mendicants, 
 and our institutions of voluntary charity feel the pressure of 
 claimants beyond their means of relief, and are struggling in a. 
 precarious state of existence ; whilst the poor-law establishment 
 itself costs as much money as would, if judiciously applied, re- 
 lieve much, very much, of our destitution. 
 
 I thank you, my lord, for your sneer at my opposition to 
 the Poor Law. It was not courteous, but it was useful to me^ 
 I was opposed to the Poor Law. I am so still: Other measures 
 should have preceded it ; measures of utility to the resuscitation 
 of Ireland ; and even then it should have been so essentially 
 different from the present law, as not to be recognisable as be- 
 longing to the same category. 
 
 I assure you, my lord, that I have now most numerous con- 
 verts to my opinion ; and those who vilified me once upon this 
 topic now laud my sagacity. 
 
 Although I have thus received with moderation and temper 
 your sneering insinuation respecting my opposition to the Poor 
 Law, how shall I be able to control my disgust and abhorrence 
 of the contemptuous levity with which you treat the annual 
 perishing of myriads of the Irish people from cold, famine, and 
 disease? 
 
 You treat as something monstrous, my representation of 
 the loss that Ireland sustains in her population, of 50,000 per- 
 sons annually. Cold, cruel, heartless man as you are — how 
 dare you throw the cloak of your protection over this wholesale- 
 
The Depopulating System. 26J 
 
 destruction ? Mine a misstatement ! Mine an exaggeration I 
 Look at the statistics — look at the census for 1821 — then look 
 at that for 1831— then at that for 1841. You will there find 
 that the population of Ireland increased between 1821 and 
 1831, by 965,570; whilst they increased between 1831 and 
 1841 by only 437,980 ; making a difference in the last ten years 
 of 527,590 ; and thus giving for each year of the last ten years^ 
 a defalcation, not of 50,000, as I had expressed it in round 
 numbers, but of 52,729 souls, as actual enumeration demon- 
 strates. 
 
 What has produced this extraordinary difierence between 
 the two periods ? Not emigration ; for there was as much emi- 
 gration in the first ten years as in the last — perhaps more. 
 What has then produced it ? The Depopulating System ; the 
 Irish landlords who cleared their farms of human beings to 
 augment the number of oxen and swine ; and the Tory faction, 
 then, as landlords, now in power, who countenance the exter- 
 minators. 
 
 As you are so anxious to turn the English Catholics over to 
 the ranks of the Tories, in support of the present Administra- 
 tion, you may hear with some not very Cliristian pleasure, that 
 the Irish Tory Government has chosen for its legal adviser at 
 the Castle, a barrister, who has been accused, without contra- 
 diction, of having depopulated his property of 173 Catholics, to 
 make room for four families, of whom three were Protestants, 
 and the fourth differing nothing in politics, and probably not 
 much more in religion, from the Protestants. 
 
 Yes, my lord. You may sneer at me for saying that 50,000 
 of the Irish perish yearly of cold, famine, and disease. But 
 how else can you account for this diminution in our population? 
 You, yourself — I have quoted your words — you have said that 
 the Irish peasants perished by the deadly poison of disease and 
 famine, with scarcely a heart to lament them. You, indeed^ 
 have no heart to bewail them ! If you had, could you assail 
 with ribaldry and with little jests, the man who in sober melan- 
 choly deplores the misery of his fellow-countrymen, and con- 
 
268 Cliarity of the Irish to each other. 
 
 «igns to execration, as murderers, those who cause them to 
 perish ? 
 
 You cannot deny that they perish. In what silken terms 
 .shall you treat their slayers ? — or how will you palliate the 
 •crimes they commit against man and against God? Ireland 
 has not ceased to be fertile and naturally productive. No blight 
 lias come upon her plains. No sterility has visited her soil. 
 The blessings of nature, the bounties of Providence, are as abun- 
 dant in the last decade as in the former. Sneer at me as you 
 please ; be as ribald towards me as you choose. You do well to 
 pass over with flippant and fastidious levity this the depopu- 
 lation of the Irish nation. But how can you account for the 
 wholesale destruction of human life in any other way than the 
 •cruelty of the landlords, and the ungenial rule of the Grovern- 
 ment? 
 
 In 1828, when you published your "Reasons for not taking 
 the Test," in aid of the interests of your order, and in the pro- 
 motion of your own worldly objects, you stated the fact that 
 the Irish Catholics " outvied in wretchedness the unhappy 
 Greeks ; while as victims of England they either pined out a 
 miserable existence, or sank beneath the slow but deadly poison 
 of disease and famine." I have, therefore, your own testimony 
 of the then existing misery of the people of Ireland. 
 
 Since that time, the Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry 
 have ascertained by actual enumeration, that no less than 
 2,300,000 of the Irish poor require charitable relief for at least 
 a portion of each year. I did, m}^ lord, extol, and loudly extol 
 the charitable benevolence of my countrymen ; and, though you 
 taunt and deride me for doing so, I repeat my praise. For, 
 my lord, this multitude of paupers, whilst they may blame bad 
 government for their wretchedness, found, as many of them 
 still find, the means of existence in the benevolence of their 
 fellow-countrymen, though almost as wretched as they were 
 themselves — an instance of charitable benevolence, with such 
 limited means, more extensive than that afforded by any other 
 people on the face of the globe. 
 
Emancipation first. Repeal a/tei\ 269- 
 
 There remains one phrase in the paragraph which I have- 
 last quoted from your pamphlet and commented on, which 
 deserves to stand forth in all the prominence of capitals. Here 
 are your words : — " "Were it not for O'Connell we should never 
 hear of Repeal." 
 
 If I were disposed to use harsh language, might I not ask 
 how you could presume to make such an assertion ? But I 
 will limit myself to asking, whether any man, circumstanced, 
 as you are, ever made so unwise and self-derogatory an 
 assertion ? 
 
 Mark me — until Emancipation was obtained, I postponed 
 all agitation of the Eepeal of the Union. But I would not he- 
 guilty of any deception. I therefore publicly avowed that the 
 Eepeal was 'my ulterior object ; and I declared, and acted on 
 the declaration, that it should remain in abeyance until Eman- 
 cipation was obtained. 
 
 But what was your conduct ? Listen, Earl of Shrewsbury^ 
 to the following paragraph relative to Ireland : — 
 
 " To say nothing of days long since gone by, the bare memory of which 
 harrows up the very soul, let us cast a glance at the history of times so 
 recent as to be within the recollection of all; and when neither ignorance, 
 nor barbarism, nor any fancied provocation to vengeance can plead an 
 excuse, or even offer a palliation for the wrongs we (the English) have 
 inflicted. No details are requisite to illustrate the picture. The shades are 
 so deep, and the general gloom that pervades the whole piece is so profound, 
 as to be visible to all. Goaded into rebellion by the wily policy of a wicked 
 and ambitious minister; then terrified by the atrocities committed in her 
 subjugation ; she was inveigled into a renunciation of her rights and 
 a resignation of her independence. AVhile thus captivated by bribes^ 
 overawed by threats, and deceived by promises, in an evil hour did she 
 consent to throw herself on the mercy of her relentless master. She has 
 never ceased to repent her folly ; for she has been a slave instead of an 
 honourable partner. Though full seven-and-twenty years have elapsed since 
 her marriage articles were signed, and she became legally betrothed to 
 her imperious lord, during which period she has ever most religiously 
 comported herself as a dutiful and submissive consort, she has never been 
 permitted to solemnize her nuptials but by mourning and by sorrow. As 
 yet the note of gladness has never yet dwelt upon her ear, nor happiness 
 
270 
 
 Tlic Marriaore Tie. 
 
 i> 
 
 €ver settled on lier brow ; neither has she been decked in her bridal dress, 
 nor partaken of her bridal banquet. The fruits of a happy union have never 
 vet appeared, neither was it to be expected that they should. For 
 there was too much of fraud and violence necessary to effectuate the 
 niai-riage contract. There was too wide a departure from the principles 
 upon which alone a happy alliance could be founded, ever to allow her to 
 look to other consequences than those which have rendered this union so 
 4ibortive of good, and so prolific of evil. Being only a union of words and 
 not of hearts, deficient in all the qualities necessary for a legal marriage, 
 s/ie kasjitst cause to demand a dissolution of that tie, which could only have 
 been valid and effectual by the free consent of the contracting parties, and 
 by the strict fulfilment of the stipulated conditions." 
 
 Your language becomes too prurient for me to quote more 
 — nor is it necessary. 
 
 But in sober truth it is all but utterly incredible that you 
 should be the author of the paragraph I have now quoted ; 
 that you should, twelve years ago, have written and published 
 so strong a reprobation of the Union, and so ardent an appeal 
 for the dissolution of that tie ; and yet that you should have 
 also published the assertion that " "Were it not for O'Connell, 
 we never should hear of Repeal !" 
 
 It may be accounted for, as some wicked wags assert, you 
 used the pen and the head of some assistant composer, and 
 only graced the composition of another with your name, and 
 the style, title, and dignity of your blushing honours. If that 
 be so (which I do not believe), the individual who wrote in 1828 
 the first paragraph, may have been other and different from 
 him who wrote the charge against me in 1841. Thus you 
 might possibly escape the guilt of plain, palpable, untruthful 
 contradiction. 
 
 If, on the other hand, 3'ou wrote both the first and the last 
 paragraphs ; if you in 1828 wrote that most powerful and 
 eloquent passage demonstrating the fitness of the Repeal of 
 the Union, without ever having had the slightest communica- 
 tion or connection with me upon the subject ; if 3'ou also wrote 
 and deliberately published in 1841, " That were it not for 
 O'Connell we should never hear of Repeal," — mark you, 
 
The Corn Lazvs. 271 
 
 ■"never !" why, in this state of facts, I must say you occupy 
 as unenviable a position as any human being possibly can be 
 placed in, who either possesses or affects a regard for veracity. 
 Would to Heaven that some one would buy a parrot, and teach 
 him to cry in your ear, " That were it not for O'Connell, you 
 should never hear of Repeal !" 
 
 Bead once more your description of the causes and conse- 
 quences of the Union ; and then recollect what it was for which 
 you accused me of " want of charity — of justice — of truth ;" in 
 ■exciting " hatred and animosity" between the two countries ; 
 then, if you have the sentiments of a Christian, or the feelings 
 of a man, retract — repent — amend ! 
 
 Delighted as I may be at this exhibition of a man who, 
 without the smallest provocation save the gratitude he owes 
 me, has assailed me in a tone of such unjustifiable virulence, 
 I must not in the hilarity of my triumph forget the interests 
 of Ireland. 
 
 You alleged in j'our anti-Union paragraph that Ireland 
 *' consented " to throw herself on the mercy of her " relentless 
 master," meaning thereby England. You are mistaken. Ire- 
 land never consented to the Union, as I shall presently show 
 more in detail. Ireland never did — Ireland does not — Ireland 
 will never consent to the Union. She suffers it only until 
 the favourable moment occurs to dissolve it, and by dissolv- 
 ing it to render the connection with the British Crown per- 
 petual. 
 
 There remains much more matter deserving of comment 
 in your letter. Though it is not easy to see what is the drift 
 of your leading idea, the grande pemee of your mind is the 
 sustentation of the Corn Laws. The second object seems to 
 be a preposterous and most uncalled-for attack upon me. 
 The third consists in your endeavour to attach the banner 
 of English Catholicity to the arch of triumph of the Tory 
 Administration. The first of these I have disposed of. On 
 the second I have said more than enough. Of the third, the 
 most ungracious of all, little more remains to be told. I 
 
272 Wellingto7i and Lyndhurst. 
 
 cannot help, however, noticing the fatal facility with which yoit. 
 persuade yourself of the actual existence of that which is only 
 the deceptive creature of your imagination. It is this; in, 
 page 36, you say : — 
 
 " There is abundant proof that the Duke ofWellington, Sir Robert Peel, 
 and even Lord Lyndhurst, from their own solemn and deliberate declarations, 
 did fully and fairly intend to carry out the Catholic Eelief Bill in a spirit of 
 just equality." 
 
 Let me assure you, that, instead of " abundant proof," there^ 
 is no proof at all of any such thing, hut emphatically and 
 directly the reverse. During the discussion on the Catholic 
 Eelief Bill, Peel repeatedly insisted on the great advantages 
 Protestantism would derive from conciliating the prejudices of 
 the Catholics ; this he insisted on as the leading reason of the 
 concession to the Catholics. The Duke of "Wellington proclaimed 
 his intention to give them a legal, as contradistinguished from 
 a practical equality ; and he has been perfectly consistent ever 
 since. He has always declared that the Grovernment should 
 encourage the Protestants. His repeated attacks upon Lord 
 Melbourne's Administration were principally on the grounds- 
 that it did not encourage the Protestants. His cuckoo-cry has 
 always been — " Encourage the Protestants." 
 
 Now, you cannot encourage the Protestants, as such, without 
 preferring them to and excluding the Catholics ; and that, it 
 is, of course, needless to say, is the game which the present 
 Administration in Ireland are playing since they came into 
 office. 
 
 I wish I could make you perceive in what an anomolous 
 situation you place yourself, when you declare that you are the 
 friend, patron, and advocate of the Tory Administration. How 
 bitterly do the people of Ireland feel your cruelty, when they 
 hear that the Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury is the ally and 
 advocate of our present governors ! — when they see the 
 consistent enemy of Catholic education selected for the coif ! — 
 when they see the private legal adviser of the Castle chosen 
 
Ihe '' Bel/ast Vindicator:' 273 
 
 from amongst the avowed depopulators of Ireland ! — when they 
 "behold Serjeant Jackson (for his name, at all events, must have 
 reached you, and therefore description is unnecessary) appointed 
 Solicitor-General ! — when they feel that Dr. Lefroy is raised to 
 the supreme bench of justice ; a man, than whom a more unre- 
 lenting enemy of Catholicity never existed ; he, whose opposition 
 to the Catholic Emancipation Bill was carried to such an extent, 
 as to declare that the passing of it into law would dissolve the 
 duty of allegiance to the Crown ; when they feel that he is to 
 have the disposal of their properties, their liberties, and their 
 lives — when they perceive that the stipendiary magistrates 
 (whose real responsibility made them honest, or, at least, kept 
 them so) are in progress of dismissal ; and when they hear, 
 shuddering, of the augmentation to the magisterial bench of 
 irresponsible persons who are not the friends of Catholic Ireland ; 
 when [they hear, and know, and feel all this, and much more ; 
 and when they learn that you, a Catholic earl, are the advocate, 
 supporter, and ally [upon principle of this ungenial Government ; 
 oh ! with what a hearty execration they will scathe your name, 
 exclaiming, "He may be Catholic, but is he not English?" 
 Blame them not, my lord. You yourself told them that " the 
 feeling of hostility amongst the operatives of England to the 
 poor sons of Ireland is the same which has ever governed the 
 higher classes in their treatment of that unhappy country." 
 
 Your Tory friends and allies have not contented themselves 
 with merely disturbing the sources of justice. They have not 
 been satisfied with selecting partisans for all-important offices. 
 The influence of their deeds has gone infinitely farther than the 
 powers of public functionaries. It has rallied the scattered 
 spirits of Orangeism. The yell of " To hell with the Pope !" 
 is again heard triumphant, and that stream of Catholic blood 
 which the Whigs first checked and then stopped, outpours 
 again. 
 
 Instead of sneering and taunting us. Catholics of Ireland, 
 do but take up some of the honest Irish newspapers ; in parti- 
 cular, take the trouble of reading the Belfast Vindicator; you 
 VOL. II. 19 
 
2 74 Orange Outrages. 
 
 will find the repetition of outrages which mark the action of 
 Toryism in Ireland since its last restoration to power. In one 
 number of that paper in the present month, no less than four 
 atrocious outrages are detailed so circumstantially as to excite 
 that lively interest which the certainty of their truth ought to 
 inspire. 
 
 I mean to inflict them all upon you ; but in order to induce 
 you into the perusal, I begin with the lightest : — 
 
 " CoRNREANY, Dec. oO, 1841. — About nine o'clock, on the night of 
 Monday last, a number of Orangemen were observed walking along the road 
 leading from Lurgan to Bleary, with guns in their hands, singing Orange 
 songs. When they arrived at the residence of a man named Owen M'Kier- 
 ney, they fii-ed three shots at his house, and struck the door violently with 
 the butts of their guns, shouting ferociously, * To hell with the Pope !' After 
 they had wreaked their wrath sufficiently upon this family, they withdrew 
 cheering in a most frightful manner. "When this insulted man thought 
 it safe to open his door, he observed the wadding burning on the top" of 
 the house ; and were it not that the day was wet, thus preventing the 
 thatch from taking fire, in all probability the house would have been con- 
 sumed." 
 
 The second is under the same date, and has features of a 
 peculiar character. You will perceive the artillery soldiers 
 were engaged in it. You may also have an inkling of the mode 
 in which justice is administered to the Catholics. You, who 
 are so hearty a Tory, should, read, meditate, and inwardly 
 digest these facts : — 
 
 " Charlemont. — The Orangemen of this place are never very backward 
 in the work of destruction and riot. "Worse, still, the artillery at present 
 stationed here, are almost in the daily habit of abusing Catholics. A few 
 days ago, one of these gallant sons of iMars went through the streets shouting 
 * To hell with the bloody Pope,' in a most furious manner. He then com- 
 menced an attack on the house of a Catholic named Ternison, who, in self- 
 defence, retaliated, and struck the artilleryman. A few hours subsequently, 
 Ternison and his journeyman were arrested in their beds by some of the Moy 
 police, without any order from a magistrate, kept all night in Moy blackhole, 
 and next day detained prisoners in Charlemont garrison, where they under- 
 went a very lengthened exaniination, which terminated in the sending of Ter- 
 
Orange Outrages. ly ^ 
 
 nison as a prisoner to Armagh gaol, guarded by a party of the 55th regiment. 
 The result of the investigation has had the effect of stimulating the Royal 
 Artillery to traverse nccturnally the streets of Charleniont, and abuse any 
 Catholic who may chance to come in their way. On the night of the 28th 
 instant, between the hom-s of eight and nine o'clock, two bombardiers, when 
 within a few perches of the garrison, commenced shouting, ' To hell with the 
 Pope!' About ten o'clock on Christmas night, the Orangemen of Moy and 
 Charlemont went through the streets of the latter, shouting, ' To hell with 
 the Pope !' when, as Simon, John, and Patrick Ryan, three Catholics, were 
 passing through the town on their way home, they were attacked by a host of 
 Orangemen, who abused them so inhumanly that they could not be conveyed 
 -to Mr. Olphert's, the nearest neighbouring magistrate." 
 
 The third requires no comment. Oh ! how delighted we 
 ought to be with the English Catholic allies of the present 
 Administration ! —that Administration for which you write, 
 and for which the " political caitiff," Sir John Grerard, 
 votes. 
 
 " On Christmas evening a number of the Orangemen of Killyman com- 
 mitted a most savage outrage in that locality. As two men, named Kennedy, 
 were returning home, after accompanying the Catholic clergyman to his own 
 house — the reverend gentleman having had a sick call from his sister-in-law 
 — they were attacked at a place called Loughery's Corner, by a party of 
 vagabonds, who commenced shouting, ' To hell with the Pope,' and throwing 
 stones at them in such a A'iolent manner, that the poor men were compelled 
 to fly for refuge to the house of a Protestant named Fulton. Here the 
 Kennedys did not remain long, on account of the riotous conduct of their 
 opponents, who swore that if Fulton did not turn them out, they would pull 
 his house about his ears. Fulton not being able to protect them, the perse- 
 cuted men took to flight for the house of their brother, when they were again 
 hotly pursued. They reached the place in safety ; but the ruflians coming up 
 immediately, commenced yelling hideously, throwing volley after volley of 
 stones through the windows and against the door, until the latter was forced 
 open. They then rushed in, and tore down the shelves and every other 
 movable article they could lay their hands upon ; never ceasing until they left 
 •the place an entire wreck. In the room lay the dying woman, the mother of 
 seven young children, who were all with their parent at the time. Hearing 
 the noise, the little creatures hid themselves under the bedding, thinking that 
 thus they would be safer; but one of the ruffians hearing their cries, went up 
 to the spot, and thrust a bayonet into the coverlet, plunging it into the head 
 
 19 * 
 
276 The Gold Pinks. 
 
 of a boT Bine rears of age. One of the fello\rs then asked where the price or 
 m cow WIS Aait Kenneov had sold the day before. Notwithstanding all his 
 ■maees, lie fid sot succeed in this. Other?, finding that the Kennedys had 
 Made their escape through a back ^nndow, went to the honse of one of their 
 lsroth«"S-in-laTr. named M'Giliian, and -wrecked his house, tearing his webs, 
 and smashing his weaTing apparatus. Poor M '•Gillian himself, who is a 
 weak, infirm, old man, they forced to rise from his bed, encLrchng his body 
 with the points of their bayonets. They then amused themselves by making 
 him CTT ont, • To hell with the Pope I ' for some time, after which the ruffians 
 left. Their worthy companions did not retire from Kennedy's until after the 
 aost ntgeat Tenoostruices on the part of a respectable Protestant named 
 Wineross. The poor woman and the little wounded boy still remain in a 
 Tery dangerous state." 
 
 There remains no more. It is indeed significant ! I cannot 
 detain vou fixim perusing it : and then I will leaxe you to en- 
 joy the comfortable reflection that this is the power you will 
 consolidate and perpetuate. Aye, and you would do so — 
 sacred heaven! — in the name of religion! — of the Catholic 
 religion! 
 
 ** Tke piil£c w3I natunllT desire to hare the facts connected with the- 
 ■ wiifci of M-Ardle calmly stated, and we give below the desired narratiTe^ 
 as fkmislied by an aatlnaity in erery respect competent to the task : — 
 
 " A mae arid-blooded or atrodoiis murder than that of M'Ardle was 
 never perpetrated. BeeoBect, tfaere was no riot, no drxmken brawl, no proTO- 
 catioa wfa laue%er. The facts are these : — The Orangemen of Shanaghan, 
 vko ill 'MB ill tkemsdres by the sobriquet ' the Gold Pinks,' and others from 
 lie lu w riaife of Monejisland, Ocaddlt, Dnnnadonald, and the neighbour- 
 ing ha^i^ retired afier the shootii^ mat^ji to a pnblic-boase on the road 
 leado^ to Sate^n^e. Four CathoHe boys, scnne of them sons of most- 
 le g pcctah l e faiijj m the nei^tboathood, passed by wheze the Orangemen 
 kod asaeadhled, vaA after passiiig qnetly and peaceably down the road, went 
 ■to tmaAtr pohfic-hoase, kept also by a Protestant. They had scarcelj- 
 mleied , whem word was b rw^fet to the landlord of the bouse that the 
 OmgeaeB were eoning to murder them ; aad that their T^igeance was par- 
 iir Jii lj Jiwtal agmat one of the M'Ardles, son to Brian M'Ardle— a 
 jvodk adhaak ■ ii i elgf yens old, of aMSt gigantic strength. At that age he- 
 ■ ci%hBdfcikjm aadahaK'atOBe,aHl>OBeandgiiew; jet akho^^ of sneh 
 : Btie n gA , he was one of the woA hamless aad iBoftsstre yoong 
 ia the entire eoaaty. It is and iStak he nerer was heard of as b^s: 
 
xae fiea«i, ana >$ sevcTr. 
 
 These extrae:5 !ir:i from a aagle pwUiestiaa of tibs 
 jB^I/oit Viadicato,. I_-;r is just plAced before me tfe iMifc 
 Tabki — that erf SatnrdaT, tiie loth ^f Jar:Tiarr. Tjaok. at p^e 
 40 for an extract from, the sarir z. 7 of a pcerioas dale. 
 
 Head there the appaliiiig f. : r^^tazatiaa of flw 
 
 Orange Tory mle, four i; _1 ^.-ilri _^ , ,.ra popetiatediK 
 -one cc'untT alone, the iiii^rr :: T'l-sn, during the last time 
 months ! Head, if von can. with a dry ere the daarf <rf old 
 M'Aidle, loaming thiM>ngi: - ■ "z*7~ — i:i. hi; n-^Irrrl Sju's 
 <^oat GO. his arm — a ravir r 
 
 Oh, Lord Shrewshnrr! tout frienla. the Tcr - 
 ?rr-ange way of showing the *'joy i:: i rriifrs :^ : . u- 
 triomph." 
 
 Perhaps this is what yon mean:. -^ L 1 - . :^f ::^ . ; : 
 j-age 6, that the '•newii.fii" — as y:- : ^ 
 
 Tory Administration — "woiL^iin tiie **j:y ii, . . . :„:^ 
 
 triumph'" he guided by mc'deraticn ! T:\: r ^f 
 
 permitted to escape condign repr:' . l . _ :L^ :::'xt 
 
 that yon were ignorant of the O: . : ma; _v 
 
 unacquainted with the iniquitous >l_^ - —r ~" r^ iri: .: 
 
 ]: arty. Xo, my lord. I cannot allow y : .: : ; r - / r 7 : - . 1 
 any such pretext- You wrMte a c::k — y: . r 
 
 c-xk. How sagacious was the excl-:_: .:. : . .: i..:. ? 
 
 enemy would write a l-ook!" Minf _ _ 1.-5 — :j.v^_- : 
 my kindly stars — written a took. Lrt me give y: . . _t 11 :t 
 <juotation from it, to seal y:-::r . : r 
 
 •ever and for are. Here it is : — 
 
278 Alas^ for Consistency ! 
 
 '* Ireland is given over to a malevolent faction which, like a raging lion, 
 goeth about seeking whom it may devour — which not only preys, but gorges 
 on its victims : a faction against which innocence is no protection, and a ver- 
 dict of " not guilty" no acquittal ; and to brighten her prospects for the future, 
 her avowed and determined enemies are placed at the head of the govern- 
 ment. Good God ! when will the follies of your rulers cease ? "' 
 
 Was there ever a passage disclosing a more perfect know- 
 ledge of the subject ? It is a passage of perpetual truth and 
 ever-living accuracy. It is the history of the passing day. But 
 what a most monstrous and unnatural alliance is that which 
 subsists between him who wrote that paragraph and the 
 " avowed and determined enemies of Ireland," whom he then 
 described and has now embraced, and amongst whom he is 
 numbered. Alas, for consistency ! 
 
 It is with pain I am forced to declare that it is difficult to 
 calculate arithmetically the number of shapes in which, in so 
 short a pamj^hlet, you have rendered yourself the scoff and scorn 
 of the thinking portion of mankind. And even your attempts 
 to escape from the ludicrous position which you have adopted 
 raise the sense of ridicule to so high a pitch as to cease to excite 
 merriment, and to render you only worthy of commiseration. 
 
 The most ridiculous of all is the effort you make to justify 
 a rebellion, if it had happened in the attainment of Catholic 
 Emancipation. Your classic quotation, " in extremis extrema 
 tentanda stint," goes the full length of revolutionary determina- 
 tion. Pamper yourself with notions of loyalty as much as you, 
 please ; it is a Jacobin, a Chartist phrase, redolent of physical 
 force and sanguinary violence. It seems as if you had preached 
 the doctrine, that the immense good of the end to be achieved 
 justifies any means of achievement. If that be your sentiment, 
 you ought to know that such a maxim directly contradicts 
 Catholic doctrine and morality. You, however, insist upon it ;, 
 you assert, at page 17, that while you were struggling for Eman- 
 cipation the object then was great, distinct, and pressing ; it 
 was worth the risk— aye, the risk of insurrection, rebellion, re- 
 volution. You add, indeed, that the danger was small. You,. 
 
Repeal^ a N^ational Cause. 279 
 
 however, embrace it ; and now avow that you were determined 
 to embrace it in every extremity. 
 
 Good my lord, I do assure you I was totally unaware that 
 so humble an agitator as myself had for one of my colleagues so 
 decided a revolutionist as your lordship. To be sure, I knew 
 full well that there was no danger of insurrectionary violence 
 or rebellion. But, whilst I was arranging my civic forces for 
 Parliamentary victory, you, it seems, had your imagination full 
 of tented fields and glorious deeds of arms. In your martial 
 ardour you dreamt of an Irish Cressy, Poictiers, or Agincourt. 
 Instead of being the Talbot of peaceable and indefensible 
 Towers, you were in your visions of glory converted into another 
 Talbot of a hundred fights — the triumphant vanquisher on the 
 ensanguined field of slain. 
 
 But, in sober sadness, this is precious ! Your personal in- 
 terests were involved in the contest at that time. A question 
 of the utmost importance and value to you, individually, was 
 agitated. The contest involved your elevation from a political 
 state of the lowest degradation to the high rank, privileges, and 
 prerogatives of tlie proudest earl in England. Accordingly, 
 everybody is called upon by you to admit that, in order to win 
 for you this gemmed and glittering prize, no agitation could 
 be too violent, no declamation too inflammatory, no eloquence 
 too overpowering, no constituted authority could be bearded 
 with too much ferocity, no organisation could be too revolu- 
 tionary ! Even if all this and much more had existed, you have 
 justified it all in five words — " It was worth the risk." 
 
 It is necessary for me to contrast the overweening preference 
 which you give to the cause in which were involved your per- 
 sonal interests and privileges, with the contemptuous indiffer- 
 ence with which you treat the more tranquil and more patriotic 
 movement which now animates the peaceful and determined 
 myriads of Irishmen in looking for the Pepeal of the Union. 
 That Repeal is a national cause. It involves a question between 
 legislative independence and entire servitude. I need only 
 appeal to your own eloquent words already quoted, descriptive 
 
zbo 
 
 A Stai?t worse than a Wound. 
 
 of some of the evils that have flowed from the Union. But you 
 have not, my lord, described the one-half of these evils. You 
 yourself have told us that your countrymen, " high and low, 
 great and small," hate us. And they have now an opportunity 
 of working out that hatred. You have described the incessant 
 and unmitigated horrors which England has inflicted on us even 
 before the baleful Union, and which you showed to continue 
 down to your date in 1828. The Poor Law Commission had 
 since brought to light the frightful accession of subsequent 
 misery. The accumulating recurrence of destitution and pesti- 
 lence mark its frightful progress. Another famine is impend- 
 ing; while our "avowed and determined enemies" (how I 
 thank you for the words !) are placed at the head of the Grovern- 
 ment. 
 
 Your pamphlet may be reduced in the language of common 
 sense to a few words ! containing the full scope and meaning of 
 your Irish politics. Whilst your own interest was involved in 
 the political contest in Ireland then it was lawful and com- 
 mendable to incur any risk, to undergo any danger, in order to 
 attain your object. But now it is culpable in the extreme to 
 make any exertion, to continue any agitation for the political 
 rights, the prosperity, or the liberty of Ireland. 
 
 For myself; whilst I was labouring not merely with, but — 
 what is infinitely more important — for you, there was no en- 
 couragement too vivid, no praise too exaggerated to be bestowed 
 by you upon me. Now, when, as I readily admit, nothing can 
 be achieved for you but the giving you in a higher degree that 
 which you already enjoy ; now, indeed, the tables are sadly 
 turned, and no censure can be too severe, no insinuation can be 
 too degrading, no invective too gross to be bestowed on me by 
 you. 
 
 Perhaps these things are consistent with integrity and 
 simple honesty ; but full certain I am that they do not consist 
 with that high, chivalrous spirit which fears to soil its robes of 
 dignity because it knows that a stain is worse than a wound. 
 
 There is something ^^i more distressing in the eontempla- 
 
Despotism not the Protector of Religion. 281 
 
 lion of your falleu estate. It is this. You mix up religion ! — 
 religion ! — the repetition of religion ! in your pamphlet with un- 
 suitable companions until the blood boils with indignant sorrow ! 
 And then you range religion under such strange banners ! You 
 at once disclaim the Liberal party in every clime and country : 
 and you place the most sacred cause of religion under the sole 
 protection of the various despotisms and absolute powers in 
 Christendom ! You declare, or at least you plainly suggest, 
 despotism to be the only protector of the Catholic religion. 
 
 Is this wise, is it j^rudent, but what is infinitely more, is it 
 true ? Here I meet you foot to foot, and dare you to the com- 
 bat. I take my position on this, that the despotisms of the world 
 are unfavourable to religion ; and, on the other hand, that the 
 Liberal opinions in politics, 'mid the party of the bloodless move- 
 ment, are favourable to the culture of all the moral virtues, and 
 to the development of the great truths of religion, and, in par- 
 ticular, to the maintenance and propagation of Catholic verity 
 and of the Catholic Church. 
 
 The real Liberal party almost respect all the sacred as well 
 as profane rights of our fellow-men. 
 
 The absolutism which you cherish is the promoter and 
 patron of every immorality and practical vice. Look at the 
 •courts of all absolute sovereigns, ancient and modern, and, with 
 few and rare exceptions, you will find tliem teeming with every 
 sensual gratification which violates the rules of morality and 
 the laws of God. The total absence of responsibility leaves the 
 bad passions without any liuman restraint, and naturally seduces 
 into the indulgence of the sensual and criminal appetites. It 
 was from the court of France that the practice of domestic pro- 
 fligacy took its abundant source, and deeply inundated the en- 
 tire land with immorality ; that immorality which produced and 
 was punished by the demoniacal horrors of the Revolution. 
 
 The Church, too, suffers grievously from despotic sovereigns. 
 In fact, the far greater part of her history consists in struggles 
 against the encroachments of despotic power. Absolute mo- 
 narchs have, at all times, refused to make the distinction be- 
 
282 Gallican Liberties and yansenisni. 
 
 tween the dominion over temporal concerns (a dominion which 
 is of their province) and autliority in spiritual affairs, which is 
 of a higher order, and belongs to the Church of Grod alone. 
 Uncontrolled in their sway over the lives and fortunes, the 
 laws and institutions, of their subjects, they have, at all times, 
 desired and endeavoured to control the consciences and govern 
 the spiritual concerns of their people. 
 
 Their irregular and wicked ambition has led them to usurp, 
 on every possible occasion, that jurisdiction which the Divine 
 Redeemer has vested in the Head of the Catholic Church. 
 Despotic sovereigns have constantly interfered with the com- 
 munications from the See of Home to the clergy and laity of 
 their dominions ; communications so essentially necessary to 
 maintain the unity of faith and discipline. They have insisted 
 on the direct appointment, or an absolute control over the nomi- 
 nation of episcopal sees, and to important spiritual dignities. 
 They have substituted, wherever they could, the sword of State 
 for the staff of the Great Pastor ; and they have assumed for the 
 tyrants of the earth dominion over the sacred things of God. 
 These are not fanciful statements ; they are practical grievances 
 and crimes illustrated by the history of every Christian country 
 that has been subject to despotic rule. In despotic states, these 
 crimes are practised at the present day as well as at former 
 periods. The greatest despot in Europe is the greatest enemy 
 to religion, and especially of the Catholic Church. The monster 
 Nicholas ought to be the heaii-ideal of your political imagina- 
 tion ; and, accordingly, he is the greatest persecutor of Catholi- 
 city who has lived since the days of Dioclesian. Talk to me, 
 after this, of the danger you apprehend from the Liberal move- 
 ment party ! To go a little back, the monarch of France, when 
 he enjoyed absolute power, was, from the reign of Philip to that 
 of Louis XYL, the tyrant of the Church. Under the name of 
 G-allican liberties, a real servitude was constructed ; and tlie 
 progress, first of Jansenism, and afterwards of infidelity, might, 
 perhaps, be traced to the triply- fettered state of the clergy. 
 In Spain, and in Portugal, too, the kings were no less despotic 
 
The Great Supporters of Literature and Religion. 283 
 
 over the clergy and the Church than thej were over the people- 
 at large. With tlie appearances of much Catholicity, religion 
 suffered from the servitude of the clergy to the state. And it 
 was in despotic Portugal and Spain that the first edicts were 
 issued for the suppression of the great support of literature and 
 religion — the society of the Jesuits. 
 
 But, to turn to the times we live in ; in Protestant Prussia^ 
 where perfect absolutism reigns, the Catholic Church is in thral- 
 dom, and in, as yet, unbroken chains. You may, perhaps, say 
 it is because Prussia is Protestant. I say she works out her 
 Protestantism through her despotism ; and, but for the undying 
 but not tumultuary resistance of the Catholic movement party 
 there. Catholicity would be annihilated in the Prussian domi- 
 nions. 
 
 What will you say to Austria ? the most Catholic monarchy 
 at present in Europe. Yet, I ask you, if the Catholic Churcli 
 is not there in perfect thraldom ? Does not the Emperor claim 
 power and authority over the Catholic Church almost as great 
 as that arrogated by Henry YIII. ? The late Emperor was 
 personally a religious man, most attentive to all acts of pri- 
 vate devotion ; yet he never relaxed the iron grasp which the 
 crafty Metternich made him take of the Church. Nothing can 
 be more painful to a rational Catholic, than to think of the de- 
 grading rule of a temporal magistrate over the spiritual func- 
 tionaries. In the Austrian dominions the clergy and the cor- 
 porals are appointed after the same fashion, and bound alike to 
 the state by the same implicit unreasoning submission. Besides 
 the crime of thus usurping spiritual authority, religion suffers 
 to the core from the disregard and contempt to which a clergy 
 thus appointed and constituted are necessarily subject ; a state- 
 dependent clergy are always detested or despised. It is, there- 
 fore, perfectly clear you are thoroughly mistaken, when you. 
 imagine that absolutism is useful to religion or to the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Here, again, I have reason to complain of your mode of 
 
284 'TJic Liberal Party most favourable 
 
 acting. You endeavour by your advocacy, as a Catliolic, of the 
 Oorn Laws, to stain Catholicity itself with the guilt of that sor- 
 did monoi^olj'. You endeavour, by your advocacy of the pru- 
 dence of deserting the fallen fortunes of the Whigs, to stain 
 Catholicity with the deepest, the blackest, the most causeless 
 ingratitude that ever dishonoured public men. You endeavour 
 b}' your assertion of the utility to religion of despotism, to staiu 
 Catholicity itself with the foul blot of servility and of attach- 
 ment to arbitrary power. My humble endeavour is, to rescue 
 the sacred cause of the Catholic Church from all the defilement 
 of your mistaken advocacy. My conviction thoroughly is, that 
 the real Liberal party — the peaceful movement party — is that 
 which can alone produce salutary results to man, and also, that 
 it most conduces to the good of religion and the just indepen- 
 dence of the Catliolic Church. It is ther efore that I am the 
 humble, but most zealous supporter of that peaceable Liberal 
 party which, for shortness, I shall call the movement party. I 
 cherish it as the best hope of rational freedom. I cherish it, 
 because I am the friend of perfect liberty to every man, of every 
 <?olour, cast, and creed, througliout the world. I cherish it, be- 
 cause, by leaving conscience unscathed by temporal or legal re- 
 strictions, it predisposes man to listen to the sweet soft voice of 
 persuasive truth, and thus give to Catholicity its genuine in- 
 fluence, whilst it secures the Catholic Church itself from the 
 blighting effects of state power, and from tlie tyrannic sway of 
 temporal authority. 
 
 You have one great advantage over me. You dexterously 
 confound the "peaceable liberal party" to which I belong, 
 with the sanguinary wretches who polluted France with blood 
 under the assumed names of " Liberals " and " Friends of 
 Freedom," You confound with us the persons who in many 
 parts of Europe assume the name of Liberals, not because they 
 are the friends of liberty, but because they are the enemies ol 
 religion. Several of these mock Liberals have sought to disturb 
 Italy, and have failed. But their mock liberality is triumphant 
 
To the Catholic ChinxJi. 285 
 
 in Spain, where the vile Espartero revels, amidst his ill-gotten 
 power, in sanguinary persecution of the Catholic clergy and 
 Church. 
 
 I belong not to such parties. I am more their enemy than 
 3'ou are. The party to which I belong has a necessary tendency 
 to promote private morality and the practice of every public- 
 virtue. 
 
 Yes! With a popular Government, private morality is 
 under the guard of public opinion. And a free press has fre- 
 quently more control, is more potential to restrain the enormity 
 of vice, than the influence of much teaching. In a popular 
 Government, legitimate ambition can be best gratified throuo^h 
 the channels of popular elections ; and no man can afford to 
 undergo the ordeal of a democratic election, unless his private 
 character and moral conduct are so correct as to enable him ta 
 defy any serious accusation of guilt or turpitude. 
 
 It may be said that I exaggerate the good effects of demo- 
 cratic institutions. But it cannot possibly be denied, that the 
 efficacy of public opinion in such institutions, must have con- 
 siderable influence in causing men to be really that which they 
 would wish others to believe them to be. 
 
 It is to the Church — to the Catholic Church— that the honest 
 spirit of democracy ought to be, and must be, the most useful. 
 In an honest democracy, there would be no paramount interest 
 to subjugate the Church, or to seek to make it the creature of 
 the state. The respect which each person would claim for his 
 own opinion, would require of him to treat with equal justice 
 the opinions of others ; and the hopelessness of establishing a 
 clerical ascendancy would take away from sectarianism the 
 temptation to turbulence and the temporal reward of bigotry. 
 Under such a Government, the Church would be free ; uncon- 
 trolled by temporal enactments, and totally unchecked by legis- 
 lative restrictions. The intercourse with the centre of unity 
 would be as unfettered as the intercourse by letter through the 
 post office. And the hierarchy would meet no impediment in 
 their arrangements touching spiritual matters, which thus would 
 
2 86 Relio-ion in America 
 
 s 
 
 "be for ever separated from merely political concerns. The 
 differences on matters of belief between various classes of Chris- 
 tians, would be left open to free discussion and tranquil reason- 
 ing. And from contests of that description, the Catholic Church 
 would have everything to hope and nothing to fear. 
 
 That religion and the Church would be left free under a 
 popular Government is not mere matter of theory. Its practical 
 j)roofs abound. And as I began with the effects on religion of 
 despotism in Russia, I will now first refer to the political anti- 
 podes of that country — the United States of America. Here, 
 if anywhere, the democratic spirit exists, and animates the 
 entire Government ; and here religion extends, and the Church 
 accordingly prospers. When the thirteen states were provinces 
 of Great Britain, there was no Catholic bishop in British 
 America. Even after their independence was established, there 
 was but one bishop. Behold how gloriously that Church now 
 stands forward ! There are now in the United States one arch- 
 bishop, and twenty bishops^in all twenty-one. Catholicity is 
 spreading at every side. The English travellers, notwithstand- 
 ing all their paltry prejudices against the Catholic religion, 
 ^dmit— I use their own words — that its increase is "rapid" — 
 " surprising " — " enormous." Some of them, in the excess of 
 their fears, excited by the facts that surrounded them, declare 
 that all the professing Christians of America will speedily be 
 Catholics ; wliilst others, restrained by their prejudice, limit 
 that pleasing anticipation to what are called the Western 
 countries ; that is, the great valleys of Ohio, Missouri, and 
 Mississippi ; immense, almost incalculable tracts of fertile coun- 
 tries, rapidly becoming peopled with myriads of human beings, 
 all destined to be Catholics. 
 
 From America let us pass rapidly to the banks of the Ehine, 
 and there you will find that the protection of Catholicity against 
 the despotism of Prussia, to which I have already alluded, is 
 entirely due to the spirit of the movement among the people. 
 Men imbued, like you, with the apathy arising from Tory 
 opinion, would have submitted, and acquiesced, and permitted 
 
PVe are eminently a CatJiolic People. 287 
 
 the mischief to be completed, whilst you hoped for something 
 good to arise at some future period from the "joy and gene- 
 rosity" of your triumphant enemies. The E-henish people were 
 not of that disposition ; the groundswell of popular discon- 
 tent that presages the coming storm was distinctly perceived ; 
 and the throes of the struggling, though pent-up volcano, were 
 becoming daily more and more perceptible. Then indeed, but 
 not before, the Prussian Grovernment deemed it prudent to 
 recognise the causes of coming mischief, and to promise (and at 
 least in part to perform the promise) to give more freedom and 
 security to the Catholic Church in the Prussian dominions. 
 Thanks to the movement and spirit of the people for this, or 
 perhaps, shortly, a more useful result. 
 
 May you not, my lord, pause for one moment upon Ireland, 
 and see whether her moral condition has not improved during 
 our democratic struggle for extended freedom. 
 
 I might incur again your contemptuous sneer if I were to 
 praise my loved fellow-countrymen as they really deserve. But, 
 without meaning you any offence, I may be permitted to re- 
 mark that the only country in the world capable of exhibiting 
 the moral miracle of upwards of four millions of human beings 
 jiledged to perfect sobriety, is my country — Ireland ! You 
 cannot deny that this result has been produced after the moral 
 elements of political strife were raised into agitation, and kept 
 in commotion longer and more continuously than in any other 
 country in Europe, thus proving that the democratic principle 
 has its tendency to elevate the mind and improve the moral 
 tact of feeling. TVe are, my lord, eminently a Catholic people. 
 Our glorious and unbroken hierarchy — the unclouded jewel of 
 our once national crown, is in perfect canonical submission and 
 in perfect Catholic attachment to the centre of unity — the 
 Holy See. 
 
 We do combine the principle of the fullest civil liberty with 
 the most entire religious fidelity to the faith and doctrine of 
 the Catholic Church. Even I myself cannot resist the impulse 
 that makes me declare, that, whilst no man living is a more 
 
2 88 The Revolution in Bilgiiim. 
 
 ardent and undeviating advocate of the purest principles of 
 democratic liberty than I am, so there is not in Christendom 
 any one human beinj? more submissive to the authority of the 
 Church, or more obedient to the voice of her Chief Pastor. 
 
 My individual opinions on these subjects are, I well know, 
 of no importance or value for being mine. They are deserving 
 of attention and respect only because of their identity with those 
 of the universal Catholic people of Ireland. 
 
 There is much in your pamphlet which has given me pain — 
 bitter pain ; it grieves me exceedingly to see the Catholic 
 Earl of Shrewsbury exhibit such rankling prejudices against 
 the development of the principles of civil liberty. "Why, you 
 carry this envenomed prejudice to so great an extent, as 
 actually to tarnish with your suspicions and doubts the glorious 
 and successful struggles of the Belgian people in the sacred 
 cause of religion and liberty. 
 
 Do you recollect the state of the Belgians before their 
 " glorious and immortal " revolution ? Loaded with an enor- 
 mous public debt, which the Belgians never contracted, never 
 got value for, and did not justly owe ; oppressed by cruel 
 taskmasters, "aliens in blood, in language, and in religion;'^ 
 impoverished to support those oppressors in riot and luxury, 
 they endured all the political evils that misgovernment could 
 inflict. But still worse was the state of their religious sufier- 
 ings. Protestantism has in itself something so foreign from 
 stability or security, that it must necessarily be intolerant of 
 dissent. Besides the scheme' of the late king, whose mantle 
 (rather the worse for the wear) has fallen on the present 
 monarch, his scheme, I say, to form a great Protestant power 
 in the centre of Europe, of which he was to be the chief leader, 
 was eagerly embraced by the King of the Netherlands, under 
 the auspices of the English Tory government. The Belgian 
 Catholics were accordingly persecuted with emaciating rigour ; 
 not the persecution of the sword and the faggot, and of the 
 other cruelties of the Tandermucks and the Sonois of former 
 days, which, though they inflicted the pains, yet conferred the 
 
The Veto in Belgm77i. 289 
 
 glory of martyrdom. No ! the persecution of the Netherland 
 king was of a low, pettifogging, imhonouring nature. It was 
 more like the rancour of an envious trader, and more suited 
 to the malignity of an undersold manufacturer. It was, how- 
 ever, skilfully managed, and admirably contrived for success. 
 The Catholic Belgians were discountenanced in every way. 
 They were discouraged in every trade and branch of industry ; 
 the Protestants, especially Dutch Protestants, perferred to them. 
 They were excluded from all the high ranks, almost without ex- 
 ception in the army ; from all the high stations almost without 
 exception in the revenue and judicial departments. They were 
 admitted only in small numbers and with much difficulty into the 
 lower ranks, grades, and stations from which they could not well 
 be excluded. They were reduced to something like the state of 
 serfs in their native land. Practically, they were a slave class, 
 having a master class ruling them. Even in the legislature, 
 Holland, with one-half the population of Belgium, had as many 
 representatives as Belgium — a most iniquitous, although, my 
 gentle lord, a mitigated copy of what you advocate elsewhere ! 
 
 The attack on the Catholic religion and CathoKc Church was 
 stni more insidious, more artful, and of course, more criminal. 
 The plan was first to leave the several dioceses without 
 bishops, and in the absence of the pastors to corrupt and defile 
 the immediate guardians of the flocks. Accordingly, as the 
 sees became vacant, the king prevented their being filled. In 
 the beginning this was done under the pretext that there 
 should first be a regular Concordat^ or compact between the 
 Pope and the state. The king demanded from the Pope a 
 Veto upon the nomination of the bishops, that is, in other 
 words, a circuitous power of appointment ; for he who has an 
 •unrestricted veto has really the selection of the bishop. The 
 inconvenience was manifest ; yet as see after see became vacant, 
 the Pope, at length, fearing that the Belgian prelacy would 
 be totally exhausted — there were, as I recollect, all the dioceses 
 vacant except one — did in an unhappy hour concede the Veto 
 of the king ; a concession which, I trust, neither the present 
 VOL. II. 20 
 
290 Attempts to Undermine Religion in Belgium^ 
 
 nor any other Pope will ever again make to any other monarch, 
 potentate, or state — Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 The king now expected to be able to fill the vacant episco- 
 pacies with pliant slaves in holy orders. But to the immortal 
 glory of the Catholic priesthood of Belgium not one corrupt 
 priest could there be found to enter into the king's views or 
 to promote his sacrilegious purposes. The consequence was, 
 that although the king had the power of appointment thus in 
 his hands, not one single bishop was consecrated, and there 
 remained but one bishop in the entire Belgian territory at tho 
 epoch of the liberation of that nation. 
 
 The project for the ruin of the parochial clergy was still 
 more crafty, subtle, and disgusting. Education was interfered 
 with at its source. The diocesan seminaries should' not exist. 
 The succession of pastors was to be interrupted. I may 
 include all in one sentence — no priest should be ordained to 
 serve in the Belgian Church unless he should first spend three 
 or four years in the Philosophic College of Louvain ! The 
 young man was thus to be taken from the protection, care, and 
 guidance of experienced instructors of known piety and learn- 
 ing ; he was to be taken from the precept-speaking-by-example 
 of his pious sacerdotal superiors ; he was to be taken just at 
 the period when nature, in the freshness of youth, is most 
 subject to every bad passion, and is most strongly tempted to 
 every vice. At that period the youth was to be taken from his 
 spiritual fathers, teachers, friends ! He was to be exposed to 
 the loose discipline, the lax habits, the sneering infidelity of 
 worthless companions, and more powerfully corrupting instruc- 
 tors. He was to prepare for the awful duties and painful restrains 
 of the priesthood, b}" just that kind of course which would be best 
 calculated to render him totally unfit for that high and holy office. 
 
 The Belgians — blessed be Heaven ! — have flung off the in- 
 cubus of tyranny and bigotry. The people possess their na- 
 tural rights ; the representatives are chosen by most extensive 
 suffrage. The native country of the Belgians is possessed and 
 governed by the Belgians themselves. 
 
The Exemplary aiid Admirable Jesuits. 291 
 
 "Well-regulated freedom affords protection to all — partiality 
 to none. Education is free, the Press is free, conscience is free. 
 The churches are filled with pious pastors of the people. The 
 dioceses boast of their dignified and sanctioned prelacy. The 
 diocesan seminaries flourish. The Jesuits — the exemplary and 
 admirable Jesuits — extend the blessings of education in all arts 
 and sciences to the wealthier classes ; whilst the Brothers of 
 the Christian Doctrine spread useful and, above all, pious 
 knowledge amongst the humbler and lower classes. The sainted 
 sisterhoods of nuns distribute similar blessings amongst the 
 females of every rank and station. 
 
 . Conscience, my lord, is free. In Belgium no legal prefer- 
 ence, no legal exclusion afiects the full freedom of man's con- 
 science. In that eminently Catholic country there exists no 
 coercion or control by the law or the constitution over the per- 
 fect freedom of worship. In that eminently Catholic country 
 the pure democratic principle of representation is successfully 
 worked out to almost its fullest extent. How I rejoiced when 
 the virtuous De Thieux proposed in the Belgian House of Ee- 
 presentatives a grant to build a church for the Protestants of 
 Brussels. The motion for the grant was carried in that Catholic 
 assembly by a large majority — a majority of nearly two to one. 
 There were four Catholic priests in the division ; and if one 
 voted against it, three voted for it, and made part of the ma- 
 jority in its favour. 
 
 How little does the narrow-minded bigotry of English Pro- 
 testantism and infidelity understand these things ! Do you 
 also forget that the punishment of death had been for so many 
 years abolished in Catholic Belgium? The experiment has 
 perfectly succeeded, and humanity is freed from one of the 
 greatest of horrors. 
 
 But you, my lord — you are so horror-struck at popular 
 liberty that you actually question whether the Belgian revolution 
 has done more of good or of evil ! Why, it was you who some 
 time ago deemed it but small risk to peril " blood and blows " — 
 ay, " brains and blood," in a quarrel in which your personal 
 
 20* 
 
292 I Require No Vindication for 
 
 privileges were involved ! — the Emancipation struggle ; and yet 
 you shrink from the results of that goodly, glorious change, 
 which gave cheering, national independence in the room of 
 heartless foreign subjugation, which gave the rule of law in 
 place of the arbitrary will of the oppressor, and substituted for 
 the unconcealed conspiracy to extinguish Catholicity, the bene- 
 volent reign of freedom of conscience, and the consequent- 
 triumphant security of the Catholic religion and Catholic Church. 
 
 In your capacity of a Tory you may embrace despotism in 
 all its forms, and rest all your hopes of the security of rights 
 and the safety of your creed upon the "joy and generosity" of 
 dominant minions of absolute power. 
 
 For my humble part, I will, notwithstanding your authority, 
 continue to believe that the real security to human rights is to- 
 be found in the expansion of popular liberty, and that the best 
 temporal safeguard of religion is to be met with among mea 
 devoted to the amelioration of political institutions, and the 
 redress of allpopular grievances. 
 
 It is true that your antipathy to Liberal opinions in political 
 affairs is especially animated with regard to the Repeal of 
 the Union. The Eepeal is, in your judgment, the great evil — 
 the giant mischief of Liberality. Is it credible that you have- 
 the vanity to believe that the Irish people could be swayed by 
 your lucubrations, put into the shape of a pamphlet, to abandon* 
 or postpone the agitation of that measure ? If that vanity be- 
 yours it will be totally disappointed. You may as well assail 
 a citadel with a pop-gun, as think of staying the course of the- 
 Eepeal struggle by your small logic ! Learn from me that 
 the Repeal is a struggle already canonized in the hearts of the 
 Irish people, and that its attainment is a pure question of time. 
 Casual cu'cumstances may retard it; unexpected events may 
 accelerate it ; but there is no other hope for Ireland, and even 
 if there were, the Repeal is so much preferable to any other 
 relief that its advent is inevitable. 
 
 As for myself, I have no apology to make ; I offer no excuse^ 
 I require no vindication for my agitation of the Repeal. On 
 
My Agitation of Repeal. 293 
 
 the contrary, the pride and boast of my life now is, that I have 
 devoted all my energies, and consecrated all the rest of my ex- 
 istence to the restoration of the Ii-ish Parliament. That this is 
 m}'- solemn and sacred duty I am thoroughly persuaded. My 
 •conviction is deliberate and fixed upon these points — 
 
 Firstly — That Ireland has a clear, indefeasible right to a 
 Parliament of her own ; the Union being in constitutional prin- 
 ciple a nullity ; there having been no competent authority to 
 annihilate the constitution of Ireland. 
 
 Secondly — That even if there had been a competent authority 
 to enact the Union, yet the means used for that purpose were 
 so notoriously unjust and profligately iniquitous that the 
 Union for this cause alone would be a nullity. 
 
 Thirdly — That even if the Union were not a nullity, from 
 the defect of competence, or from the iniquitous mode of 
 obtaining it, yet there is no real Union at all, nor any thing 
 more than an oppressive mockery of a Union. 
 
 Fourthly — That this Union has inflicted injustice, oppres- 
 sion, and misery unparalleled on Ireland ; and there is not, and 
 cannot be, any hope for present redress, or future security, save 
 by a restoration of the Irish Parliament. 
 
 In England, the first of these topics is totally disregarded — 
 the inherent and essential invalidity of the Union. There is 
 a species of robber-conscience made up on the subject. They 
 have gotten the spoil, and deem it superfluous to inquire how 
 the spoliation was achieved. But the rightful owner is knock- 
 ing at the door to demand restitution ; and that demand will 
 become too loud and too multitudinous to be neglected. You 
 must answer for your title to withhold what is justly and law- 
 fully ours. Yes ; it is perfectly clear that there was no autho- 
 rity competent to enact the Union. The right to an Irish 
 Parliament was a right inherent in the inhabitants of that 
 country. It was a common law right, part and parcel of the 
 inheritance of the English people — the right to be taxed only 
 b)y their own representatives — the right to have the laws by 
 which they are governed made by their own representatives. 
 
294 ^^ Irish Parliament. 
 
 The right practicallj exhibited itself in Ireland almost as soon 
 as it became ostensible in England. 
 
 It is true that at first, and for many years, a Parliament 
 "was enjoyed by and confined to persons of English descent. 
 The Parliament was in its origin confined to the English 
 pale, and it expanded or shrunk in its dimensions as the English 
 power extended or was contracted. But the Irish who became 
 subjects participated in the right, showing that it was an essen- 
 tial portion of English freedom — inherent in the natural frame 
 of English policy. At length, in the reign of James L, the 
 English power extended all over Ireland. The remnants of th& 
 Irish nation were admitted to the fellowship of allegiance,, 
 duties, and franchise ; the royal prerogative also expanded, and 
 was employed more abundantly than wisely. All Ireland thus 
 had her rightful Parliament, and continued to have it from 1612 
 to the year 1800. 
 
 The Irish Parliament was thus founded on constitutional prin- 
 ciples, sanctioned by long usage, and sustained by analogy to 
 the English form of government. It was also fortified by the 
 experience of the colonies and dependencies of England. 
 Wherever Englishmen or Irishmen, or both settled, they carried 
 with them the right of representation. The thirteen States of 
 North America, while they were provinces of England, had each 
 its local Parliament. The English subjects in Canada enjoyed 
 and enjoy the same privilege ; so in Nova Scotia ; so in Jamaica 
 — I need not multiply instances. 
 
 A local parliament is the inherent and inefiaceable right of 
 subjects of the Crown of England, wherever they are located in 
 sufficient numbers as to exercise that right. Ireland had not 
 enjoyed this right for centuries. She had as valid a title to a 
 Parliament as England had — perhaps a better ; because Ireland 
 having been left to her own protection during the American 
 war, raised a volunteer army, upwards of 80,000 strong, horse, 
 foot, and militia, levied, clothed, and disciplined, without the 
 expense of one shilling of the public money. She set the foreign 
 enemy at defiance. 
 
The Final Adjustment cf I'jZi. 295 
 
 Ireland might then, without difficulty, have separated from 
 England, and estahlished, after the example of America, a 
 Government altogether national. But Ireland chose, as she 
 still desires, to preserve the connection with England. Ireland^ 
 however, insisted that the conditions of her future connection 
 should be defined. Her just demands were acceded to. Her 
 legislative independence was formally recognised, and was 
 established "for ever." Her judicial independence was formally 
 recognised and established " for ever." Ireland had been thus 
 recognised by England, who declared perpetual her exclusive 
 right of making her own laws, of interpreting her own laws, of 
 administering her own laws; she had the exclusive dominion 
 over her own taxation, debt, and revenue. In short, the result 
 was a recognition in practical effect of all these rights which she 
 was entitled to, and which she had, notwithstanding some inter- 
 ruptions and English usurpations, enjoyed for centuries. 
 
 There never yet was a more deliberate and solemn national 
 compact. It was declared on all sides to be a '' final adjust- 
 ment." That was the appropriate description of this compact, 
 given to it in the King's speech to the English Parliament— in 
 the Lord Lieutenant's speech to the Irish Parliament — in the 
 responding address of the British Lords, and also of the British 
 Commons — in the responding address of the Irish Lords, and also 
 of the Irish Commons. 
 
 But the greatest validity of this compact was its being formed 
 on the clearest inherent right and on the most unquestionable 
 constitutional principle. By its ratification England preserved 
 the brightest, the emerald gem of the British crown ; and Ire- 
 land fondly believed that she had secured for ever her legislative 
 independence. Such was the "final adjustment" of 1782. Ire- 
 land, with her proverbial fidelity, performed her part. England, 
 with her proverbial treachery, violated the " final adjustment," 
 as soon as she found, or rather made, an opportunity for its 
 violation. 
 
 That violation has not, and cannot have taken away the 
 right. Fraud or force, or both together, can never take away 
 
296 The Irish Parliament Incompetent 
 
 the riglit of any property ; still less can they destroy the unal- 
 terable, indefeasible right to self-government. Such is the 
 actual right of Ireland to self-government ; suspended in its 
 operation for the present, but existing in truth, reason, justice, 
 and constitutional principle as fully and as powerfully as if no 
 invasion had been made in its practical working. 
 
 First, there is the clear principle, that the right of the 
 people of Ireland to self-government could not be extinguished. 
 Secondly, the Irish Parliament was totally incompetent to enact 
 the Union. Consider the nature and purpose of its formation. 
 In its nature it emanated from, and was subordinate to the con- 
 stitution ; in its nature it was strictly confined within the limits 
 of the constitution. Its purposes were, within those limits, to 
 do right and justice to all men. 
 
 On the other hand, it was not instituted to destroy the con- 
 stitution or any other part thereof. It could not abolish the 
 kingly office nor the peerage, nor annihilate the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 Let it be recollected that I am now speaking of the rightful 
 authority to do these things, not of the power to do them. Any 
 branch of the legislature may in bad times and by bad means 
 acquire the power of abolition and of annihilation of the rest. 
 But that power does not — cannot — change the right. The Long 
 Parliament abolished the kingly office, and took off the head of 
 the king. They did the one by a formal statute, the other by a 
 recorded judicial proceeding. But no man hesitates to declare 
 that both the one and the other were outrages and crimes, and 
 not a binding law nor an authorised judgment. The statute 
 was admitted to be of no rightful force or effect, and, accordingly, 
 when by the change of time Charles 11. was able to return to 
 England, he assumed the throne at once. It entered into no 
 man's thought that it was necessary to repeal the Abolition-of- 
 Poyalty statute, or to make any law of restoration. The kingly 
 office was at once in full life, and was judicially as well as uni- 
 versally admitted to have been, in point of right and justice, and 
 of constitutional principle, existing all the time of the king's 
 
To Enact the Union. 297 
 
 alDsence ; and historians, statesmen, and lawj'^ers all reckon the 
 years of the king's forced inaction as years of his actual reign. 
 
 So with respect to the peerage; the same Parliament 
 abolished the House of Lords. It was an abolition by power 
 and not of right. And accordingly the House of Lords revived 
 with the restored monarchy, without any restoring law, or any 
 person imagining that it was or could be necessary formally to 
 abrogate the abolishing ordinance ! 
 
 No ; the peerage was judicially, as well as universally, 
 admitted to have been in existence in point of right, of justice, 
 and of constitutional principle, all the time of its apparent anni- 
 hilation. 
 
 So with respect to the House of Commons itself; that was 
 also abolished, and a clumsy " instrument of Grovernment " sub- 
 stituted in its stead. But it was an abolition by power and not 
 by right, and accordingly the functions of the Commons revived 
 with the privileges of the peerage, and with the authority of the 
 monarch, without any restoring law, or any person imagining 
 that it was or could be necessary to abrogate the '" instrument 
 of Grovernment." No ; the right to elect a House of Commons 
 was judicially as well as universally admitted to have been, in 
 point of right, of justice, and of constitutional principle, existing 
 all the time in its apparent annihilation. 
 
 Thus the Irish constitution still lives. The prerogatives 
 attached to her Majesty's imperial crown of Ireland still exist. 
 And the just right of the Irish people, in point of justice and of 
 ■constitutional principle, to representation in the Irish House of 
 Commons, subsists in full and undiminished rightful capacity. 
 
 The prerogatives of the Irish crown have been shorn of some 
 •of their beams by the Union. Yet they are capable of expand- 
 ing again, and of reviving and restoring into pristine vigour 
 and practical operation the entire constitution of Ireland. 
 
 This ground of want of competence in the Parliament to 
 enact the Union was taken at the time the measure was in 
 agitation. It was taken at several meetings, and embodied in 
 •published resolutions and petitions to both Houses. It was 
 
298 Plunket and Satirin on the Union. 
 
 asserted in Parliament, and had, in and out of Parliament, the- 
 sanction of the highest names in the profession of the law, the 
 highest amongst whom was Pliinket. 
 
 Here are his solemn words, in a speech in the House of 
 Commons, against the Union : — 
 
 *'I, in the most express terms, deny the competence of Parliament to do 
 this Act. I -warn you, do not dare to hiy your hands upon the constitution. 
 I tell you that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this Act it will be a 
 nullity, and no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make this assertion 
 deliberately, and call on any man who hears me to take down my words. 
 You have not been elected for this purpose. You have been appointed to 
 make laws, not legislatures. You are appointed to act under the constitu- 
 tion, not to destroy it. You are appointed to exercise the functions of legis- 
 lators, not to transfer them ; and, if you do so, your Act is a dissolution to 
 the Government, and no man in the land is bound to obey you." 
 
 Again, in another passage, he addressed the House thus : — 
 
 "Yourselves you may extinguish, but the Parliament you cannot extin- 
 guish. It is enthroned in the hearts of the people— it is established in the 
 sanctuary of the constitution— it is immortal as the island it protects ! As well 
 might the frantic maniac hope that the act which destroys his miserable body 
 should extinguish his eternal soul. Do not dare to lay your hands upon the 
 constitution — it is above your power!" 
 
 Such was the solemnly-delivered and recordgd judgment of 
 Plunket. Is his authority to be disputed? It cannot be 
 because of any censure he incurred or any punishment he 
 suffered for the promulgation of his opinions. Quite the reverse. 
 He attained and enjoyed the highest station and honours in his 
 profession. He was made Master of the Eolls in England. He- 
 was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. He 
 was made a British peer. He finally filled the office of Lord 
 Chancellor of Ireland for more than ten years. Can his 
 authority be disputed ? 
 
 Plunket was a "Whig. The next is a high Orange-Tory 
 authority — it is that of William Saurin. 
 
 " You may make the Union," said he, " binding as a law,, 
 but you cannot make it obligatory in conscience. It will be 
 
The Abstract Duty of Resistance. 299- 
 
 obeyed so long as England is strong ; but resistance to it will be 
 in the abstract a duty, and the exhibition of that resistance will 
 be a mere question of prudence." The man who proclaimed 
 this doctrine as his solemn, conscientious opinion and advice, 
 was soon after made Attorney- General for Ireland. He con- 
 tinued for more than twenty years in that office, possessing 
 more of the confidence of the English Grovernment — all Tories 
 — than any other Attorney-General that ever held that office. 
 He was the high Orange Attorney- General of Perceval, and 
 Castlereagh, and Peel. Pie was offered, and he refused, the- 
 seat of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. 
 
 Yes. The Union was a nullity. I attest Plunket and Saurin 
 for the doctrine. The immortal soul of the Irish constitution 
 still lives, glorious and perpetual. It is not dead — it only sleeps, 
 to be aroused into active existence once again, " so soon as Eng- 
 land ceases to be strong," and Ireland ceases to be weak in her 
 internal dissensions. Until then the Union is to be obej^ed as- 
 a law, sustained by judicial and military power ; but " the 
 abstract duty of resistance" will be unchanged, and the question 
 of prudence left to coming events ; with this consolation, that 
 when the hour for the peaceful assertion of existing rights shall 
 arise — and I believe it not to be remote — the prerogatives of 
 our gracious Queen will speedily and satisfactorily restore the 
 constitution of Ireland. 
 
 The second position, namely, " That even had there been an 
 authority competent to enact the Union, yet the mode and means 
 of procuring that enactment were so flagitiously iniquitous, as 
 to render the enactment utterly void and of no rightful effect." 
 
 Upon this head I need do little more than quote authorities^ 
 Lord Shrewsbury himself admits that, in order to carry the Union, 
 " Ireland was goaded into rebellion by the wily policy of a 
 wicked and ambitious minister ; then terrified by the atrocities 
 committed in her subjugation." 
 
 But the wily policy of that ambitious minister was still more 
 wicked than Lord Shrewsbury has admitted, for the people 
 were not only, on the one hand, goaded into rebellion, but, on 
 
300 Alilitary Organization of the Presbyterians. 
 
 the other hand, the rebellious proceedings were actually fostered 
 until the organisation was considered sufficiently extended to 
 produce an explosion violent enough to enable the Crown to 
 obtain despotic authorit}^, in order to put it down. The direct 
 evidence of this diabolical fomentation of rebellion is to be found 
 in the fact, that the progress of the military organisation of the 
 Presbyterians of Ulster (the treasonable conspiracy having com- 
 menced with them) was perfectly well known to the Grovern- 
 ment for eleven months prior to the rebellion. It appears by 
 the Eeport of the House of Lords, that during all that time one 
 •of the rebel colonels was a spy in the pay of the Treasury, and 
 that he transmitted to the Castle regular reports of all the meet- 
 ings' proceedings. The Government could, therefore, at any 
 period during those eleven months, have laid hold on the entire 
 of the rebel staff. And, of course, they would have done so, if they 
 had not had in view the ulterior object, to obtain which, they 
 thought any sacrifice of blood cheap. That object was the Union. 
 This wily and wicked minister also promoted the most 
 bitter religious dissensions among all classes of the people. But 
 let me use Lord Plunket's words in his charge against 
 that minister: "I accuse him," he said, "of fomenting the 
 embers of a lingering rebellion ; of hallooing the Protestant 
 against the Catholic, and the Catholic against the Protestant ; 
 of artfully keeping alive domestic dissensions for the purposes 
 of subjugation?" 
 
 This was not all. It should be recollected that during the 
 entire time in which the Union was discussed, Martial Law 
 was proclaimed ; the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; 
 there was in Ireland no species of legal protection for pro- 
 perty, liberty, or life ; the persons of the King's Irish subjects 
 were at the caprice of the King's ministers. The gaols were 
 crammed with victims, unaccused by any species of legal evi- 
 dence ; and the scaffolds were actually reeking with the blood 
 of wretches, untried by any legal tribunal. 
 
 All the time the Union was under discussion, courts-martial 
 had unlimited power over life and limb. Bound by no definite 
 
Lord Pliniket on the Ujiioji. 301 
 
 form of charge, and by no fixed rule of evidence, the courts- 
 martial threatened with death those who dared to resist the 
 spoliation of their birthright, and awarded execution against 
 whom they pleased. 
 
 During that time, the use of torture was familiar. Men,, 
 against whom there was no evidence of guilt, were flogged, very 
 many nearly to death, to extort confessions. Some were actually 
 flogged to death, and died under the excruciating torment. 
 
 There were upwards of 175,000 British bayonets in Ireland.. 
 The officers had recognised power of life and death. The " An- 
 cient Britons " and other private soldiers took that power. 
 Public meetings were called by magistrates and other local 
 authorities, to petition against the Union. They were either 
 prevented from assembling, or were dispersed when they met 
 by military violence. Two prominent and striking instances 
 amongst many may be related : — A meeting of the nobility, 
 gentry, and freeholders of the county Tipperary was duly con- 
 vened by the high sh-eriff to meet at Clonmel, in order to peti- 
 tion against the Union. The meeting was attended by noble- 
 men and gentlemen of rank, fortune, and undoubted loyalty ; 
 yet, the high sheriff had scarcely taken the chair, when a divi- 
 sion of the army marched into the courthouse, drove the sheriff 
 from the chair, and dispersed the meeting. The sacred right of 
 petition was violated by a like military outrage at Maryborough. 
 Although the meeting was convened by the high sheriff of the 
 Queen's County, yet it was dispersed by Colonel Connor, of the 
 North Cork militia, at the head of a party of horse, foot, and 
 artillery. 
 
 I am spared all trouble, however, save that of copying the 
 emphatic description of Lord Plunket of the time and manner 
 of carrying the Union. Here are the woi'ds of Lord Plunket : — 
 
 '* I will be bold to say, that licentious and impious France, in all the unre- 
 strained excesses that anarchy and atheism have given birth to, has not com- 
 mitted a more insiduous actagainst her enemy than is now attempted by the 
 professed champion of civilised Europe against Ireland; a friend and ally in 
 the hour of her calamity and distress. At a moment when our country is- 
 
^02 Lord Shrewsbury on the Union. 
 
 filled with British troops ; when the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended ; whilst 
 trials by courts-martial are carried on in different parts of the kingdom; 
 while the people are made to believe that they have no right to meet and de- 
 liberate, and whilst the people are palsied by their fears ; at the moment 
 -when we are distracted by internal dissensions, dissensions kept alive as the 
 pretext of our present subjugation and the instrument of our future thraldom ; 
 .«uch is the time when the Union is proposed." 
 
 Such was the time and such the manner in which the Union 
 was proposed and carried. Breathes there a man so devoid of 
 all sense of justice as to say, that the Irish could be justly, 
 and as of right, deprived of their native legislature by means 
 such as these ? Even Lord Shrewsbury admits — I quote his 
 own words — " that there was too much of fraud and violence 
 to effectuate the Union ; there was too wide a departure from 
 ihe principles on which alone a happy alliance could be founded, 
 •ever to allow Ireland to look at other consequences than those 
 which have rendered the Union so abortive and so prolific of 
 evil." 
 
 But the direct means of carrying the Union were, if pos- 
 ;sible, more infamous and iniquitous still. It v/as the most open, 
 base, and profligate bribery and corruption that ever yet stained 
 the annals of any country. 
 
 The late Lord Chief Justice Bushe declared, I use his words, 
 " that the basest corruption and artifice were exerted to promote 
 it ; that all the worst passions of the human heart were entered 
 into the service, and all the most depraved ingenuity of the hu- 
 man intellect was tortured to devise new contrivances of fraud." 
 
 The leading feature in the Union was the daring profligacy 
 of the bribery and corruption by which it was carried. They 
 were reduced into a regular system. They were avowed in the 
 House ; acted on everywhere. The minister set about purchas- 
 ing votes. He opened office with full hands. The peerage 
 was part of his stock in trade, and he made some two score of 
 peers in exchange for Union votes. The episcopal bench was 
 brought into the market, and ten or twelve bishoprics were 
 trucked for Union votes. The bench of "justice" became a 
 
The Unioji Effected by Bribery. 303 
 
 •commodity, and one chief justice and eight puisne judges and 
 harons ascended the bench, as the price of votes for the Union ! 
 It would extend beyond my calculation to make out a list of 
 the generals, admirals, colonels, navy captains, and other 
 naval and military promotions that rewarded personal or 
 kindred votes for the Union. 
 
 The revenue departments have long been notorious mer- 
 chandise of corruption. It is not surprising, therefore, that the 
 Board of Excise and Customs, either conjointly or separately, 
 and the multifarious fiscal ofl&ces, especially the legal offices, 
 were filled to suffocation as the rewards of Union votes. 
 
 The price of a single vote was formally known. It was 
 £8,000 in money ; or a civil or military appointment to the 
 value of £2,000 per annum. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh actually declared in the House of Com- 
 mons that he would carry the Union, though it might cost 
 more than half a million in mere bribes ! His words, as re- 
 ported by Grattan, are these: — "Half a million or more was 
 expended some years since to make an opportunity. The same, 
 or a greater sum, may be necessary now." Such was the open, 
 the unblushing, the impudent efirontery of Lord Castlereagh. 
 Grattan added : " He (Lord Castlereagh) had said so in the 
 most extensive sense of bribery and corruption. The threat 
 was proceeded on : the peerage sold — the caitiffs of corruption 
 were everywhere — in the lobby, in the streets, on the steps, 
 and at the doors of every Parliamentary leader : offering titles 
 to some — offices to others — corruption to all." 
 
 Lord Castlereagh went to an extent of corruption far beyond 
 the half million for bribes. The Parliamentary papers, published 
 since the Union, show that no less than £1,275,000 was paid 
 as the actual purchase money for close and rotten boroughs. 
 And the best calculation of the actual bribes, over and above 
 the borough purchase, was no less than £1,500,000. 
 
 Yet, strange to say, all this direct corruption did not avail. 
 The Union was rejected by the Parliament of 1799 ; and was 
 carried in that of 1800, chiefly by the introduction into nomi- 
 
304 Why There is No Real Union. 
 
 nation boroughs of Scotch and English officers, quartered in 
 Ireland, but having no species of connection by birth or property 
 with this country. 
 
 Although every possible opposition was given to the 
 petitions of the Irish people, yet it should be recorded to the 
 honour of that people, that no less than 707,000 of them 
 petitioned against the Union ; whilst all the artifices and direct 
 bribery of the Grovernment could not procure full 5,000 ta 
 petition in its favour. 
 
 Let it be remarked, that no one has ever yet had the 
 audacity to say that the Union was a bargain between the two 
 countries. It stands out in its native deformity, the mere 
 creature of fraud, force, bribery, terror, and corruption ; utterly 
 incapable in its nature of depriving Ireland of her clear right 
 to her own Parliament. 
 
 Having thus shown that there was no authority competent 
 to extinguish the Irish Parliament, and that even had there 
 been such an authority, yet the means of carrying the Union were 
 so flagitious that they could not confer any right upon England, 
 or deprive Ireland of any right, I proceed in my third assertion. 
 
 Thirdly, " That even if the Union were not a nullity, from 
 the defect of competence, or from the iniquitous mode of obtain- 
 ing it, yet there is no real Union at all, nor anything more 
 than an oppressive mockery of a Union." 
 
 There is no real Union, If there were there would be no 
 difference between the franchises, and rights, and privileges of 
 the two nations. A real Union would be an amalgamation 
 of both. Both would be combined. They would be one 
 nation — one people ; not two nations — two people ; the in- 
 habitants of Kent and of Kerry, of Meath and of Hampshire, 
 would be identified, or rather England, and Scotland, and Ire- 
 land would be identified. There would be no preference for 
 one and enmity for the other. The inhabitants of one would 
 be on a perfect equality with those of the others. National 
 jealousies and antipathies would be unknown, for their causes 
 would cease to exist. There is no legal distinction between 
 
Ireland^ the Slave of her Rehntlcss Master. 305 
 
 Englishmen and Irishmen ; there would be no legal distinction 
 between Irishmen and Englishmen. 
 
 But is this so ? Is there such an amalgamation ? such an 
 identification of the two nations? No man is absurd enough 
 to allege that there is ; it is perfectly plain that there is not. It 
 follows of inevitable, irresistible conclusion, that there is no real 
 Union. 
 
 On this point, my lord, your authority is express. You 
 yourself have avowed that the Union made Ireland " the slave 
 of her relentless master (namely England) and not a handmaid ; 
 the servile dependent instead of an honourable partner." You 
 declared, and declared truly, " that the Union was abortive of 
 good and prolific of evil ; being only a union of words, not of 
 hearts; of force, not of affection." 
 
 If the Union were real, the Irish people would have the 
 enjoyment of the same freedom, in matters pertaining to religion, 
 that the people of England and of Scotland have. 
 
 The people of England have this religious freedom ; that the 
 entire English people are not compelled to apply the ecclesias- 
 tical state revenues of England to the support of the church of 
 a small minority of the English nation. On the contrary, these 
 revenues ai-e appropriated to the sustentation of the Church of 
 the great majority of that nation. 
 
 The people of Scotland have their religious freedom ; the 
 entire Scotcli people are not compelled to apply the ecclesias 
 tical state revenues of Scotland to the support of the Church 
 of a small minority of the English people. On the conti-ary, 
 these revenues are appropriated to the sustentation of the 
 Church of the overwhelming majority of that nation. 
 
 The people of Ireland alone of the three nations do not 
 enjoy this religious freedom. On the contrary, they endure 
 this miserable servitude, embittered by the contrast witli the 
 two other countries, that the ecclesiastical state revenues of Ire- 
 land are exclusively appropriated to the Church of an exceed- 
 ingly small minority of the Irish nation. 
 
 Thus, in this most important concern, the Union is 
 vol.. TI. 21 
 
3o6 The Burgess Franchise in Dubli7i. 
 
 a barefaced mockery, and resembles in nothing a real 
 Union. 
 
 This is probably the most unendurable inferiority that could 
 be inflicted on any country, under the delusive pretext that 
 there was a Union with the ascendant nation. Look next at 
 another insulting inferiority. England and Scotland have en- 
 joyed an ample measure of municipal reform for several years. 
 
 Ireland was contemptaously refused any municipal reform 
 during those years, and finally received a restricted, limited, 
 and vexatious measure of municipal reform. 
 
 Is it possible for you to call that a Union ? Can anybody 
 be found sufficiently audacious to assert, that a Union is the 
 right name for such a connection between the two countries ? 
 
 In England every citizen assessed to the poor and borough 
 rate is a burgess, and entitled to vote at all municipal elections, 
 on condition that he pays that one tax. It is immaterial how 
 low an English citizen is rated. He is entitled to his municipal 
 franchise, if rated at all. It is so in Liverpool. 
 
 But in Ireland — in Dublin, for example — it is essentially 
 different. No man is entitled in Dublin to the burgess fran- 
 chise unless he be rated at £10 a j^ear. As the valuation 
 for rating is always much lower than the real value, the Irish- 
 man in Dublin must, in fact, occupy a tenement worth near 
 £20 a year to be entitled to be a burgess. 
 
 Besides this, there is another essential difference. In Liver- 
 pool or Bristol, the resident Englishman is entitled to be a 
 burgess upon paying one tax. In Dublin the Irishman must 
 be, as I have said, rated at £10, and he must pay nine taxes at 
 least, in order to enjoy the franchise. 
 
 What is the consequence ? Why, that in Dublin there are 
 22,000 persons rated to the poor rate. If these persons were 
 English, and living at Liverpool, at least 20,000 of them would 
 be entitled to the burgess franchise. Whereas, in Dublin, less 
 than one-third of them, or only 7,000, are so entitled. 
 
 Can anybody be so absurd and, I will add, so vicious, as to 
 assert that there is a real Union between the two countries, 
 
Do you call this a real Union ? 307 
 
 ■wlien the Englishman in Liverpool has, in point of municipal 
 franchises, three times the advantages which the Irishman has 
 in Dublin ; and while the Irishman has but one-third of the 
 advantages which the Englishman possesses in Liverpool ? 
 
 There is another most important disparagement of the Irish 
 municipal constituency. In Bristol, for example, the munici- 
 pal burgesses are entitled to elect that officer, so important to 
 the protection of life and property, the high sheriff. In Dublin 
 the burgesses are totally deprived of that advantage. 
 
 Is that a Union ? Lord Shrewsbury, I ask you this ques- 
 tion. Or, if it be a Union, is it not the Union which — to use 
 your own language — subsists between a slave and his relentless 
 master? 
 
 Again, my Lord Shrewsbury, if there were a real Union, 
 the people of Ireland would be entitled to as abundant a Par- 
 liamentary franchise as the people of England. The electors 
 would be in the same proportion to the general population in 
 Ireland as they are in England. But how is the fact ? The 
 fact is, that there are not in Ireland quite as many as two per 
 cent, of the male adult population in the agricultural counties 
 possessing the elective franchise ; whereas in England from 
 25 to 30 per cent, of the same class have the franchise. 
 
 Do you call this a real Union ? 
 
 In the county of Hereford the population is 95,977. The 
 voters are only 5,013. 
 
 In the county of Gal way the population is 381,564. The 
 voters are only 3,061. 
 
 Is this a real Union, Lord Shrewsbury ; or is it a mockery, 
 having the name, but not the substance of a Union ? 
 
 Again : the Isle of Wight has 28,731 inhabitants. The 
 voters are 1,167. 
 
 In 'yLo.yo the inhabitants are 366,328. The voters are only 
 957! 
 
 Is this a real Union ? 
 
 Another instance. In Anglesey the population is 33,508. 
 The voters are 4,187. 
 
 21 * 
 
3o8 Cork verstcs Wales. 
 
 In Kerry the population is 265,126. The voters are only 
 1,161! 
 
 Is this, too, a real Union ? 
 
 One instance more. In the county of Cork the agricultural 
 population is now 750,000. 
 
 In Wales the entire population is, in round numbers, 
 800,000. 
 
 In Cork county there are but 3,000 voters. In Wales, 
 36,000 ! 
 
 Can that be called a real Union that gives results of such 
 different magnitude in the enjoyment of the electoral fi-anchise 
 — the most valuable of all ? 
 
 Nor does the degrading inferiority rest there. For, instead 
 of having the least hope of obtaining an extension of the 
 franchise of Ireland, the direct contrary is decreed. Lord 
 Stanley has determined to cut off probably two-thirds of the ex- 
 isting voters. He had a majority even in the last Parliament. 
 He has a most triumphant majority in the present. And that 
 faction which now enables him to trample at his discretion 
 upon the rights of Irishmen is hounded on by Sir John Cerard 
 and the redoubtable Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 
 There is another equally, if not more, potential proof of the 
 deceptive nature of the Union. It consists in the most afflict- 
 ing deprivation of Ireland of her rightful portion of represen- 
 tatives in the House of Commons. 
 
 Ireland has but 105 members out of 658. She ought to 
 have at least 170. 
 
 By the calculations made by Lord Castlereagh himself, at 
 the time of the Union, Ireland was entitled to 108 members. 
 The scale that he calculated upon was as follows: he stated 
 that Ireland was entitled, 
 
 Members. 
 For comparative population, to .. .. .. 202 
 
 „ Exports . . . . . . 100 
 
 „ Imports . . . . . . 93 
 
 lievenue . . . . . . 39 
 
 Total . . . . 434 
 
State of Trade. 309 
 
 The mean of these quantities gave 108 and a fraction. 
 And thus, on Lord Castlereagh's own showing, Ireland should 
 have had 108 members. He struck off eight in the insolence 
 of despotic power. 
 
 This calculation was corrected soon after by Mr. Newenhara, 
 who proved that, upon Lord Castlereagh's own showing, the 
 scale ought to have been as follows : — 
 
 Members. 
 For compai-iitive population . , . • . . 228 
 
 Exports 
 Imports 
 lie venue 
 Rental 
 
 179 
 
 168 
 
 85 
 
 186 
 
 Total .. .. 846 
 
 The mean of these five quantities is 169 and a fraction. 
 
 To simplify, however, the claim of Ireland, or rather the 
 evidence of her right to an increased representation, I will place 
 it upon the joint basis of comparative population and compara- 
 tive revenue only. Taking two periods, the one of 1821, and 
 the other of 1831, I begin with that of 1821. 
 
 The population return of 1821 gives to England twelve 
 millions, and to Ireland seven millions of inhabitants, taken in 
 round numbers for the sake of clearness. 
 
 For the same purpose I take the representation of England 
 at 500 only. 
 
 There is a Parliamentary paper which shows the compara- 
 tive revenue of England and Ireland in the year 1821, by which 
 it appears that Ireland paid in that year more than one-eighth 
 of the entire revenue. Taking it then upon these grounds, the 
 right of Ireland would be — 
 
 Jlcmbers. 
 For population 5 to 12 upon 500, gives .. .. 291 
 
 For revenue, one- eighth gives .. .. .. 62 
 
 , Total . . . . . . 353 
 
 The one-half, or mean, of those two numbers gives Ireland 
 the right to 176 members. 
 
3IO 
 
 Irish and English Revenues. 
 
 I now come to the year 1831. The population returns of 
 that year gives England, in round numbers, a population of 
 thirteen millions and Ireland of eight millions. 
 
 The following is a correct abstract of the revenue produced 
 by both countries in that year — 
 
 Revenue credited to Great Britain . . £48,325,215 
 Deduct teas consumed in Ireland . . 500,000 
 
 Deduct for all other customable 
 
 articles consumed in Ireland . . 1,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 Real revenue of Great Britain . . 46,825,215 
 
 Revenue credited to Ireland . . 4,560,897 
 
 Add the above .. .. .. 1,500,000 
 
 Actual Irish revenue . . £6,060,897 
 
 Now, to avoid all cavil whatsoever, I will take the Irish 
 revenue as only one-tenth of the English ; and even at this 
 most disadvantageous mode of making the calculation, the right 
 of Ireland to increased representation did, at the time of the 
 Eeform Act, stand thus — 
 
 Members. 
 Ireland for population, 8 to 13 on 500, gives . . . . 307 
 
 Revenue, 1 to 10 on 500, gives . . .. 50 
 
 Total .. .. .. 357 
 
 The mean of these two being one-half, entitled Ireland to 
 178 members. 
 
 I recapitulate thus : — 
 
 First — That, according to the detested Castloreagh himself, 
 Ireland ought to have 108 members from the time of the Union 
 Statute. The Reform Act has given us only 105. 
 
 Secondlj' — According to Oastlereagh's calculations, corrected 
 by Newenham, Ireland ought, by the Union Statute, to have 
 169 members. She has but 105. The consequence is, that 
 
Irish Representation. 311 
 
 upon Castlereagh's own principle, Ireland is defraudel of 
 Gi members. 
 
 Thirdly — Upon the combined bases of population and re- 
 venue, taking the return of 1821 for the population, and taking 
 the revenue of Ireland as one-eighth, she ought to have 176 
 members. She has but 105. Ireland is therefore defrauded of 
 71 members upon this calculation. 
 
 Fourthly — Taking the population return of 1831, immedi- 
 ately before the passing of tlie Reform Act, and estimating the 
 Irish revenue as only one-tenth, yet Ireland, at the passing 
 of that Act, was entitled plainly and demonstratively to 178 
 members ; and the Eeform Act therefore defrauded her of 73 
 members. 
 
 Now, if there were a real Union, there ought to be no diffi- 
 culty in obtaining for Ireland at least, 150 members in the 
 House of Commons of the United Parliament. To give the 
 interests of her people due protection, there ought not to be less. 
 I have proved that, on the result of combined population and 
 revenue, she is entitled to much more. But there is such an 
 absence of reality in the subsisting Union, that it is idle to de- 
 monstrate how clear our title is to such an increase of Irish re- 
 presentation. 
 
 Call the connection between the two countries what else you 
 please ; but I conjure you, in the name of common sense and 
 common honesty, do not venture to call it a Union, unless you 
 add some word expressive of how thorough a mockery it is. 
 
 When the Reform Bill was before Parliament, I urged the 
 claim of Ireland for a full representation. I demonstrated her 
 title to it. There was then a fair and ample opportunity of 
 doing us justice, but we were contemptuously refused. And 
 this refusal was aggravated in its insulting nature by the increase 
 that was made in the representation of the English counties. 
 
 Every county in England with more than 50,000 inhabi- 
 tants got an increase of one member. 
 
 Every county in England with more than 100,000 inhabi- 
 tants got an increase of two members. There is but one county 
 
3 1 2 Population and Representation. 
 
 in Ireland with so few as 100,000 inhabitants ; yet no Irish 
 county got any increase to the representation. 
 
 A few instances will make this contrast more striking. 
 
 The population of Worcestershire in 1831, was 211, -306. 
 The Eeform Bill gave tliat shire two additional representatives. 
 It has therefore four members. 
 
 The population of the county of Galway was then 381,407. 
 It got no addition, and has therefore only two members. 
 
 The population of Leicestershire was in 1831, 197,276. It 
 had two members. It got by the Reform Bill two more. It 
 has therefore now four members. 
 
 The population of Tipperary was 380,598. It got no ad- 
 dition. It has therefore but two. 
 
 Northamptonshire had a population of 279,276. The Re- 
 form Bill gave it two additional representatives. It has there- 
 fore got four. 
 
 The population of the county of Down is 307,571. It got 
 no addition. It has but two members. 
 
 The population of Cumberland was 126,681. It got two 
 additional members. It has four. 
 
 The rural population of Cork was in 1831, 713,716. Cork 
 got no addition, It has but two members. 
 
 C )uld these things be, if there were a real Union, and not a 
 mocking servitude ? 
 
 Let it be recollected that the principle upon which the aug- 
 mentation in the English counties took place, was that merely 
 of population. If there were a real Union, the same principle 
 would be applied to Ireland. 
 
 We are laughed to scorn, even by Lord Shrewsbury, when 
 we ask that the same principle should be applied to Ireland as 
 to England. But will you, my lord, after this, presume to say 
 that there is a real Union between the two countries ? If you 
 do, your own decision will be retorted upon you, and your asser" 
 tion will be treated by the Irish nation with contemptuous scorn- 
 It has been foolishly alleged, by way of reply, that there are 
 in England also, anomalies in the representation ; small con- 
 
/ call it a Mockery. 313 
 
 stitueneies returning two members, and large ones that return 
 no greater number. Aye, there are. But they all return the re- 
 presentatives of Englishmen ; all connected with, and obedient 
 to English interests. It is a mere question of distribution among 
 themselves. The Irish nominate none of them. Nor are any of 
 them pledged to their constituents in favour of Irish interests. 
 There would be something indeed in the inference drawn 
 from that fact, if our complaint was against the distribution in 
 Ireland of Irish members. It is not so. "We take Ireland 
 against England, and we thus find that England has in every 
 point the insulting superiority; and Ireland, in every respect, a 
 disgracing inferiority. 
 
 Denominate this a Union, if you choose ; I call it by its 
 proper name, a mockery. I now come to my fourth assertion : — 
 ^' That the Union, such as it is, has inflicted injustice, oppression, 
 and misery unparalleled in Ireland ; and there is not, and can- 
 not be any hope for present redress or future security, save by 
 the restoration of the Irish Parliament." 
 
 In 1782, Ireland forced the English Government to recog- 
 nise her independence. In 1782, Ireland attained self-govern- 
 ment. Wliat ensued ? Peace and prosperity ; the most rapid, 
 the most extraordinary strides in improvement of every kind. 
 Prosperity in every department and in every branch ; commerce 
 fostered and increased ; agriculture encouraged and enriched ; 
 manufactures promoted and extended ; party spirit checked and 
 decaying ; every class daily increasing in wealth and in com- 
 fort ; the labourer becoming a farmer ; the farmer rising into 
 the rank of gentleman ; the gentleman falling into the rank of 
 baronet ; the baronet elevated to the peerage ; commercial men 
 acquiring estates ; towns growing into cities ; population accu- 
 mulating; and cheerful merriment, so congenial to the Irish 
 disposition, gladdening the land at every side. 
 
 No country on the face of the earth ever made so rapid a 
 progress in improvement of every kind as Ireland did in the 
 fourteen years wliich succeeded her legislative independence, 
 and that in spite of the odious incubus of the tithe system. 
 
3 1 4 Abortive of Good aiid P^^oUfic of Hvil. 
 
 I am not speaking of imaginary things. I am not indulging 
 the visions of fancy. I assert only that which every human heing 
 knows to be literally true, and which no man can have the har- 
 dihood to deny, namely, that the uprise of Ireland in all the arts, 
 comforts, and blessings of commerce, agriculture, and civilisa- 
 tion, for the fourteen years ensuing her legislative independence, 
 and produced by that measure, has never been equalled in any 
 other country, in any age or period of time. 
 
 The bankers of the city of Dublin met on the 18th of De- 
 cember, 1798, and entered into these resolutions against the 
 then threatened Union : — 
 
 ''E.KSOLVED — That since the renunciation of the power of Great Britain, 
 in tlie year 1782, to legislate? for Ireland, the commerce and prosperity of 
 this kingdom have eminently increased. 
 
 " Resolved — That we attribute these blessings, under Providence, to the 
 wisdom of tile Irish Parliament." 
 
 The guild of merchants of Dublin met on the 14th of 
 January, 1799, and entered into the following resolution : — 
 
 "Resolved — That the commerce of Ireland has Increased, and her 
 manufactures improved beyond example, since the independence of this 
 kingdom was restored by the exertions of our countrymen in 1782." 
 
 A thousand more such documents might be easily procured. 
 
 There is another fact equally unquestionable; that the Union 
 has not conferred any one benefit on Ireland. 
 
 In the words of Lord Shrewsbury, " it has been abortive of 
 good and prolific of evil." It gave up our national indepen- 
 dence. It handed over our inherent right of self-government. 
 It stultified ourselves, and proclaimed our incapacity. It 
 degraded and provincialized our country. It gave her up to 
 the stranger and the unfriendly. It was treason, against our 
 native land. What value — what consideration have we received 
 in return? None — none — none ! " The wages of sin is death." 
 Such are the wages of the Union. The sin was the crime of 
 others — ours was the punishment ! 
 
The Irish not incapable of Self-Governmcnt. 315 
 
 Tills one truth, I repeat, is indisputable — that the Union 
 has rot conferred upon Ireland any one ad%^antage. 
 
 Having brought the minds of my readers to this one indis- 
 putable truth, I now call on them to turn their attention to the 
 fatal consequences of the Union. If that measure has been un- 
 productive of good, it has, alas ! been most fruitful in evil. Its 
 mischiefs, its miseries, have been multitudinous. 
 
 I place some of them before you in the following order : 
 
 Firstly — It deprived Ireland of self-government. It reduced 
 her into the state of a province from being an independent 
 nation. 
 
 No man can undervalue self-government, but a man of low 
 and grovelling miud ; some person who imagines that English- 
 men, or Scotchmen, or perhaps Frenchmen, are of a higher 
 order of beings than the Irish. If an Irishman be equally fit 
 to govern, to make laws, and to execute them, as the native of 
 any other country, why should we give to others the power of 
 making laws for us, or of executing them ? Is it not evident 
 that no persons can have so great an interest in there being 
 good laws in Ireland as the inhabitants of Ireland ? Having, 
 then, the most deep interest in there being good laws in Ireland ; 
 having our properties, our lives, our comforts, our liberties, all 
 at stake in the good government of our country ; must we not 
 be the most fit persons to take care of those properties by wise 
 laws ; to protect our lives by just institutions ; to attend to the 
 promotion of our comforts by salutary regulations, and to 
 establish our liberties by sound legislation ? Who else can 
 have the deep, the entire, the perpetual interest we have in 
 these things? If this be so — as it certainly is so — is it not 
 the height of wicked absurdity in us to devolve upon strangers 
 the care of these most important concerns, and to deprive our- 
 selves of the natural control and superintendence over our own 
 affairs ? 
 
 This government and management we were deprived of by 
 the Union ; they can be restored to us only by the abrogation 
 of that measure. 
 
316 A Man does his own Business best. 
 
 It is true — familiarly true, even to the triteness of a proverb 
 — that he who entrusts his business to others is sure to have it 
 neglected ; tliat no man's business is well done but the business 
 of a man who superintends it himself. 
 
 What is true of each individual is equally true of the aggre- 
 gate of individuals called a nation. Each nation has a sacred 
 duty imposed on it, to attend to its own affairs ; that duty is 
 also a sacred right, which in our case has been most treacher- 
 ously as well as basely violated. 
 
 This, as I have said, is manifestly an evil inherent in the 
 Union, and for which there can, of course, be no remedy but in 
 the repeal of that measure. 
 
 The second great evil of the union is the financial rob- 
 bery of Ireland which has been effected by means of that 
 measure. 
 
 At the time of the Union, Ireland owed something under 
 twenty millions. England then owed more than 446 millions. 
 That is to say, England owed a debt 23 times and a quarter 
 larger than the debt of Ireland. If the Union had been a just 
 and reasonable compact, the future debt and consequent taxation 
 of both countries should have remained in the same proportion. 
 Ireland was entitled to have the same protection from debt and 
 taxation in the united Parliament, that she had obtained from 
 her own legislature. 
 
 It is so manifestly fair and just that these proportions should 
 be preserved, that if the rule were to be applied to a private 
 partnership, every person would say it was that which common 
 sense and common honesty required. If the estate of A. were 
 burdened with a debt of £20,000, and the estate of B, 0, and 
 D, burdened with a debt of £446,000, A. would be quite mad, 
 if, for the mere sake of forming a partnership, he were to give 
 B, C, and D the power to charge his estate with a greater pro- 
 portion of future debts than that which it bore to the existing 
 debts at the time of the commencement of the firm. He cer- 
 tainly would not do so except in recompense for his getting a 
 greater share of the profits of the concern. Such, however, 
 
Irish Debt at the Ujiion. 317 
 
 was not the case with Ireland. All the profits have gone to 
 her partners, and she is left to abide by the loss. 
 
 It is manifest that, upon a fair bargain, the debt of each 
 country would have remained at the same proportion. The 
 debt of England has about doubled since the Union ; the debt 
 of Ireland ought not to have more than doubled also. 
 
 In that case — the fair and just case — Ireland would at this 
 moment owe at the utmost forty millions; a sum which she could 
 easily pay off within ten years ; contributing her full proportion 
 to the burdens of the state, she might easily be the least taxed 
 country in the world. What is her present state now by means 
 of the Union ? Why, she is chargeable as a portion of the 
 United Kingdom with the entire of upwards of £800,000,000 
 due by England. There can be no sensible diminution of tax- 
 ation in Ireland until the Greek Kalends, that is, until. a sub- 
 stantial portion of the English debt, is paid off. 
 
 If such an injustice were committed between man and man, 
 everybody would cry out against the robber. But when the 
 robbery comes to be committed against a nation, at the rate of 
 hundreds of millions, then there is nobody to exclaim against 
 the plunderer, and it is expected that the plundered nation will 
 tranquilly endure the spoliation. 
 
 I want to know this : what pretext can there possibly be, in 
 point of common sense and common honesty, why Ireland 
 should be chargeable for one shilling of the 446 millions which 
 England owed at the time of the Union ? It was voted by the 
 English Parliament — raised by the English Parliament — spent 
 by the English Parliament — Ireland all the time supporting 
 her own establishments, and instead of receiving money from 
 England, remitting money to that country. Again I ask, 
 whether there ever was so flagrant a violation of honesty and 
 justice, as charging Ireland with one single shilling of that 
 debt? 
 
 The case of Ireland is still stronger on this point, because 
 there was an absolute undertaking that Ireland should have no 
 concern whatsoever with the debt then due by Great Britain. 
 
^ 1 8 British Debt at the Union. 
 
 It will be convenient that I state with precision what the 
 amount of that debt was. 
 
 I have called the British debt at the time of the Union 446 
 millions. It stood accurately thus : — 
 
 Funded d«bt, .. .. .. .. £420,305,000 
 
 Unfunded debt .. 26,080,000 
 
 Total debt, . . £446,385,000 
 
 Annual interest : — 
 
 Charge of funded debt, .. .. .. £15,800,000 
 
 Charge of unfunded debt, .. .. .. 1,021,000 
 
 Total charge, . £16,821,000 
 
 This being understood, we now come to the solemn declara- 
 tion of Lord Castlereagh upon this subject, made on the 6th of 
 February, 1800. His pledge was in these words : in respect 
 of the past expenses, Ireland is to have " no concern whatsoever 
 with the debt of Great Britain." Again, he said, " Great 
 Britain now paid taxes for interest on her debt, ten millions." 
 (Observe here, that he should have said she paid in interest 
 £16,821,000.) His inaccuracy however was not material, 
 because he added, " for any proportion of this, she (Britain) 
 could not call upon Ireland." It was therefore absolutely 
 necessary that the respective debts of the countries should 
 remain distinct. 
 
 The misstatement of the amount of the annual charge 
 upon the then existing debt of Great Britain and the annual 
 charge on it, whatever that charge might be, should be borne 
 exclusively by Great Britain, and she should not call upon 
 Ireland for any proportion thereof 
 
 This created an obligation upon Great Britain to pay 
 taxes, of which no part should be chargeable in Ireland, to 
 the amount, in roxmd numbers, of seventeen millions per 
 annum. 
 
 Has she done so ? I have the finance JMiecunts for the year 
 
Insult and Injustice'. 3 1 9 
 
 1839 before me. The following are the items of the separate 
 taxation of Great Britain : — 
 
 Land and assessed taxes, . ■• . . • . £3,9^9,000 
 
 Bricks, . . . . . . . . . . 463,000 
 
 Soap, . . . . . . . . . . 782,000 
 
 Post-horse duty, . . . . . . . . 224,000 
 
 Total, . . i'o,4O8,000 
 
 In certain stamp duties, and home-made spirit duties, there 
 is a higher rate of taxation in England than in Ireland. Its 
 produce is at present uncertain, but it may be ascertained. 
 Assuming it to add a fourth to the foregoing items, the total is 
 £6,775,000. 
 
 Taking for granted that England has given herself a similar 
 relief — say, in round numbers, ten millions annually for the last 
 ten years, there would thus, without going farther back as 
 we might do, be a sum of one hundred millions of which the 
 English have been exonerated by increasing unfairly the 
 burden on the Irish. 
 
 One strange instance of the mixtm-e of insult with injustice, 
 in matter of finance, since the Union, is to be found in the fact, 
 that the Committee of the English House of Commons have 
 transferred to the charge of Ireland, the £1,275,000 paid by 
 England for the purchase of nomination boroughs — thus com- 
 pelling Ireland to pay the wages of her own degradation. 
 
 There is one more financial grievance that I shall mention, 
 and then conclude this topic. tSince the peace, Great Britain 
 has exonerated herself of annual taxes to the amount of forty 
 millions a year, and exonerated Ireland only to the amount 
 of one million annually. Assuredly I need not follow this 
 subject farther. 
 
 Now, Lord Shrewsbury, what remedy can Ireland have, 
 save by the restoration of her own Parliament? How or 
 where else can the question be fairly discussed ? How other- 
 wise can Ireland get rid of her liability to 446 millions, of 
 which she does not justly owe one farthing ? How otherwise 
 
320 Einancipation retarded by the Union. 
 
 is she to get rid of her liability to an additional 400 millions 
 or thereabouts, of which she does not owe more than, at the 
 utmost, about one-tenth? You now perceive how deeply 
 seated are the evils of the Union ; and how ail-powerfully 
 interested are the people of Ireland in procuring its repeal. 
 
 The third evil resulting from the Union is one that now 
 no compensation can be given for. It was not the less a 
 monstrous mischief. 
 
 It was this : the Union retarded the emancipation of the 
 Irish Catholics for a full quarter of a century. A full gene- 
 ration lived and died in slavery, who would have enjoyed the 
 blessings of equal laws but for the Union. 
 
 It is not probable that any reasonable man can doubt the 
 effect which the Union had in retarding the full eman- 
 cipation of the Catholics of Ireland. If such persons are 
 found, let me ask them to recollect the facts that preceded the 
 Union. 
 
 Emancipation commenced in 1778-79. A considerable 
 instalment, especially as related to the enjoyment of property 
 by the Catholics, was obtained in that year. 
 
 In 1782, a glorious epoch ! another and a large instalment 
 was obtained, creating perfect equality with respect to property 
 in laud ; and, what was yet more valuable, allowing Catholics 
 to open schools and have their youth instructed in science and 
 literature. 
 
 The third instalment was in the latter end of 1792, and 
 opened the profession of the law to Catholics. Another and 
 greater instalment was granted in 1793, which above all other 
 things gave to the Catholics the instrument of full liberation — 
 the elective franchise. 
 
 ' In 1795, another, a complete act of emancipation was 
 carried in the House of Commons, by an overwhelming majority, 
 and would have passed into law but for a change in the English 
 ministry. 
 
 Thus, within the space of fifteen years, four different statutes 
 of relief were passed by the Irish Parliament, in favour of the 
 
A Foreign and Ujifriendly Parliament. 32 1 
 
 Catholics. The English Parliament refused to conc^ede the 
 same extent of rights to the English Catholics The distractions 
 of the year 1798 might be said to retard the progress of 
 Emancipation for a moment, but it could not possibly retard it 
 long. There were in favour of procuring Emancipation, the 
 increasing number of the Catholics ; their increasing v/ealth ; 
 the business habits of the Catholics barristers; the great 
 practical influence of the Catholic attorneys ; an influence 
 which to my knowledge was used with the noblest disin- 
 terestedness, and greatest practical utility, during our struggles 
 for Emancipation. The Catholic attorneys received liltio public 
 honour, and less emolument. But they were eminently useful 
 in bridling the oppressor, vindicating the oppressed, and creating 
 the general co-operation of all classes. 
 
 In the first struggles for Emancipation, the Catholics were 
 obliged to hire Protestant secretaries and managers. Tliey liad 
 now men of their own — accustomed to appear before the public, 
 and capable, as well as ready, to distinguish themselves iu the 
 public cause. 
 
 With all these advantages, and with this still greater 
 advantage, that the votes of Catholics could influence the return 
 of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty members of the 
 Irish House of Commons, it was utterly impossible that; tluee, 
 or at most, four years after 1800, could have elapsed without 
 their full and complete Emancipation. 
 
 But the Union intervened. The Parliamentary influence 
 of the Irish Catholics in the British House of Commons fell to 
 the lowest ebb, and scarcely existed at all. It was scattered and 
 unorganized. We had to go before a foreign and unfriendly 
 Parliament; and even when we thrice obtained a majority 
 in the House of Commons, our bill was as often thrown out in 
 the House of Lords ! I will not further refer lo the history of 
 our struggles; but, acquainted as I am with their details, I do 
 not hesitate solemnly to declare iny conviction — I may almoofc 
 say my certain knowledge —that the Union rcilurdcd ij^maucipa- 
 tion for upwards of twenty -five jears. 
 
 VOL. II. 22 
 
^22 English placed in Irish Offices. 
 
 In fact, no man can deny this — that the Catholics of Ire- 
 land were driven to the necessity of making so formidable 
 (though legal) a combination as to induce, even in England, a 
 constitutional necessity on the part of most unwilling statesmen 
 to yield Emancipation. What a small portion of the same 
 constitutional force would have sufficed to obtain the Emanci- 
 pation Act from the Irish Parliament ! 
 
 The fourth evil resulting from the Union is one of a purely 
 practical nature. It relates to the employment of Irishmen in 
 the various departments of the State and collection of the 
 revenue. 
 
 Before the Union the taxes were raised and collected, and 
 they were also principally expended by Irishmen. All the 
 offices in the law, as well as in the revenue, were filled by 
 Irishmen. The boards of excise and customs were Irish. The 
 stamp departments were filled by none but Irish. The post- 
 office knew no employes but Irish. The influence of the Irish 
 Government was considerable in the army. It was partially 
 felt to an important extent in the navy. There was then no 
 transfer to England of duties which ought to be performed 
 in Ireland. In short, the entire of what one may call the staff 
 of Government was essentially and almost universally Irish. 
 If the Union had not taken place this must have continued, 
 and when there was room for it, it must have augmented. 
 
 How is it now ? Alas, alas ! many of our departments are 
 transferred to England, and all else that can be removed are 
 literally on the wing. If you go into any of the public offices 
 that remain, your ear is shocked with the contented gabble of 
 some stall-fed English invader \ or the harsh, though shrewd 
 remark of some Scotch inspector. Here and there you meet an 
 Irishman ; but they are " rarinantes," and with difficulty keep 
 themselves afloat amongst ungenial superiors. English bar- 
 risters have actually been converted into attorneys, in order to 
 exclude Irish solicitors from the revenue department. We have 
 had five English Chancellors since the Union, and (with the ex- 
 ception of a few months) we have had in fact but one Irish 
 
The Irish Bench opened to the English Bar, 323 
 
 Chancellor ; and I believe it is not intended that we should 
 €ver have another. It has been publicly asserted that the Irish 
 bench was to be opened to the English bar ; and it is not likely 
 that even the assistant-barristerships will be long the exclusive 
 possession of those who may be designated, however inaccurately, 
 as " mere Irish." 
 
 It is quite clear that nothing but the Repeal of the Union 
 can remedy this grievance ; but that would effectually do it. The 
 Scotch cry of "our aiu fish-guts for ain sea-mews" maybe 
 the exaggeration of nationality ; but it is no exaggeration to 
 wish and to insist that the salaries paid by the Irish people 
 should be reserved for and received by Irishmen alone. 
 
 The fifth evil resulting from the Union is one I have already 
 alluded to, and which I may therefore pass over with a single 
 remark. It is the utter inadequacy of the Irish representation 
 in Parliament. 
 
 We have less than one-sixth of the representation ; 105 out 
 of G58 members. Accordingly, whenever English interests or 
 English prejudices clash with Irish rights it would be as well 
 that Ireland had no representatives at all. The present posture 
 of public affairs elucidates this assertion. The English anti- 
 pathy to Ireland ; the English hostility to the religion of the 
 people of Ireland, united with the congenial elements of mono- 
 pol}^ and corruption, have produced a Parliament so inimical 
 to Ireland that we are completely at the mercy of the British 
 Cabinet. They can now dictate to a willing Parliament their 
 own terms of Irish servitudco Would it not be better that we 
 had not one single Irish member in the House than to have us 
 there to be dragged at the chariot wheels of our bitter enemies ? 
 Oh ! for the self-government which the Repeal would ensure ! 
 
 The sixth evil resulting from the Union I have already 
 alluded to. It is the miserably and insultingly restricted and 
 limited state of the Parliamentary franchise in Ireland. 
 
 The statistics upon this subject I have already sketched. 
 
 They give results of the most painful nature to the feelings and 
 
 judgment of every Irishman. 
 
 22* 
 
324 Superior Liberality of the Irish Mevibers. 
 
 The seventh evil resulting from the Union I have already 
 detailed. It is the miserably and insultingly restricted and 
 limited state of the municipal Reform Bill for Ireland. 
 
 I have also specified at some length the iniquitous defects of 
 that Bill. 
 
 Why then do I introduce a second time the restricted fran- 
 chise and the restricted municipal reform ? For two reasons. 
 
 The first is, that they are evils natural by arising from the 
 Union. 
 
 The second is, that it has been asserted that, limited as they 
 are, they still are better than the former system, and therefore 
 are boons conferred on us by the United Parliament. I feel it 
 is my duty to demonstrate the fallacy of that assertion. 
 
 The assertion of their being boons conferred on us by the 
 United Parliament is a mere begging of the question. It takes 
 for granted that the Irish Parliament would not have conceded 
 these, or a greater extent of reform. 
 
 Now, it is perfectly capable of demonstration that this sup- 
 position is totally unfounded in fact. Why ? For two reasons 
 — firstly, because the Irish Parliament before the Union had 
 more frequently taken a liberal part than did the British Par- 
 liament before that measure ; secondly, because this decisive 
 proof was given by the Irish members in the United Parlia- 
 ment of their superior attachment to the principles of Peform. 
 It was tliis —that when the Reform Bill was introduced by Lord 
 Grey's Government into Parliament, there was a majority of 
 English members against tlie Bill — there was a majority of 
 Scotch members against the Bill ; but the majority of Irish 
 members in its favour outnumbered both the English and 
 Scotch majorities against it, and secured the second reading of 
 the Bill. 
 
 The superior liberality of the Irish members is thus estab- 
 lished. It cannot be questioned that, as they did so much for 
 England and for Scotland, they would have done more for Ire- 
 land. The truth really is that, instead of the Union procuring 
 reform for England and Scotland, on the other hand, the English 
 
Enormous Increase of Absenteeism. 325 
 
 and Scotch Eeformers showed their usual unaltered injustice to 
 the Irish. They took to their aid the Tories in the House, and, 
 with an ingratitude unexampled, save in the dealings of the 
 English to the Irish, they flung to Ireland mutilated, restricted, 
 and fettered reforms ! 
 
 Is there any remedy short of the Hepeal of the Union ? 
 Surely, if there ever was a hope of justice for Ireland from the 
 Imperial Parliament, that man must be mad who entertains 
 such a hope at present. 
 
 The eighth and greatest infliction of the Union is the con- 
 tinuance of the ecclesiastical state revenues in the hands of the 
 €lergy of a small minority of the Irish people. 
 
 " The hatred of the Irish people to tithes is as immortal as 
 their love of justice ! " If the Union had not intervened. Catho- 
 lic Emancipation would have been, without doubt or difficulty, 
 and immediately, followed by a definite appropriation of the 
 tithes. Vested interests would have been respected, but the 
 reversion would have been applied to purposes of education and 
 charity. Long and long since, the name and nature of tithes 
 would have been efiaced in Ireland. We owe to the Union 
 their continuance. "We shall owe to the Repeal their annihila- 
 tion. 
 
 The ninth infliction of the Union is scarcely of less magni- 
 tude. It is this — the enormous and accumulating increase of 
 absenteeism. 
 
 Absenteeism has always been the bane of Ireland. It has at 
 every period of her connection with England retarded her pros- 
 perity, as the natural result of the system of English misrule. 
 
 The surface of Ireland has, with very few exceptions, been 
 confiscated three times over ; and many districts much oftener. 
 The distribution of the plunder was generally — indeed, almost 
 universally — made to strangers resident in England. 
 
 The Irish Parliament endeavoured to diminish the mischief; 
 and the English monarchs occasionally, with the assistance of 
 that Parliament, resumed their grants. By the statute 28th 
 Henry YIII., your ancestor, my lord, was thus deprived, by 
 
326 Absentees and Agents. 
 
 reason of his criminal neglect of Ireland, of a large estate in 
 the county of Wexford. Yet the great evil continued, and re- 
 ceived no mitigation, save for the short period of the prevalence 
 of the spirit of 1782, when, for the first time, it received a 
 check. 
 
 Tlie Union, however, restored it to its pristine vigour, and 
 daily decreased its enormity. In 1801, the calculation of ab- 
 sentee rents, and pensions payable by Ireland and spent in 
 other countries, amounted to £1,500,000 annually. There is 
 now no doubt that the absentee rents and surplus Irish revenue 
 transmittted to England amount at present to more than six 
 millions per annum, and have done so for more than the last 
 ten years. 
 
 Here are for ten years no less than sixty millions raised in 
 Ireland, and every shilling of it transmitted out of Ireland, and 
 spent in foreign lands. In the history of mankind there is no 
 instance of such a withering exhaustion of any country ; of 
 such a tribute paid by one country to another. 
 
 When you contemplate this fact, are you — can you be sur- 
 prised at the misery and destitution of Ireland ? 
 
 There is this bitter aggravation of the mischief — that it is 
 daily augmenting ! The tide of absenteeism has set in strongly. 
 There were, first, the natural absentees, as I may call them, 
 who have also estates in England. Next, the Irish peers and 
 commoners. Next, all those — and they are many — who are 
 affected by their example. But why need I enter into details ? 
 All the objects of ambition or self-interest, draw crowds to the 
 seat of government The result is, that scarcely any man of 
 property remains, unless he has some individual tie or obligation 
 on him to remain. 
 
 There is this other bitter aggravation of the evils of absen- 
 teeism — that it leaves the Irish estates in the hands of, generally 
 speaking, heartless agents — but who at all events have no per- 
 sonal interest beyond the collection of each year's rent ; and 
 who therefore have no selfish inducement to look to the perma- 
 nent prosperity or even the future existence of the tenantry. 
 
The Irish Linen Trade. 327 
 
 Have you heard of the clearance system ? of the extermi- 
 nation system? of the multitudinous murders committed on 
 ejected tenants, not hy the sword or the bayonet, but by the 
 more tedious but equally criminal process of cold, famine, and 
 disease ? — of the hideous assassinations, retaliated in the spirit 
 of the wildest justice of revenge ; but not to be excused or pal- 
 liated for any reason, or on any provocation. 
 
 Details are needless. The inevitable effects of an absentee 
 drain of six millions annually, must present themselves to every 
 rational mind. If these six millions were spent in Ireland 
 
 But why should I harrow my soul with the ideal contrast ? 
 It is enough to say that Ireland is subject to a tribute — an 
 annual tribute — of six millions ! 
 
 No country could continue this process of exhaustion ; it 
 must come to an end ! 
 
 There is but one remedy — the restoration of the Irish Par- 
 liament ! 
 
 The tenth evil is that the Union has destroyed the trade 
 and manufactures of Ireland, and filled the land with sorrow, 
 misery, and destitution. 
 
 Let me give a few of the many instances of Irish depression 
 consequent upon the Union. 
 
 The Irish linen trade flourished before the Union, under 
 the paternal care of a national legislature. The exports of Irish 
 linen amounted in value to more than three millions of pounds 
 sterling by the year. They experienced after the Union a re- 
 duction of four-fifths. I believe that they had fallen lower 
 still. Legislative causes could be adduced for the decline — 
 causes which the Irish Parliament would have obviated. 
 
 One word only on the history of the Irish linen trade. The 
 woollen manufacture was in a flourishing state at the period of 
 the revolution. It was openly and avowedly crushed to create 
 a monopoly of that manufacture for England. 
 
 Oh ! how beloved those English ought to be by us wild 
 Irish ! The linen manufacture was promoted by way of com- 
 pensation. It flourished until the annual export of the article 
 
328 We are a Patieiit People. 
 
 readied three millions sterling. Then came the Union, and 
 struck off four-fifths of the trade. "Well — we are a patient 
 people — blessed be God ! 
 
 Tlie linen trade, too, had this great and decided advantage. 
 The only outlay to foreigners was the price of the flaxseed. 
 All the rest of the value of the article was composed of Irish 
 land and Irish labour. It was a manufacture of health and 
 morals. It employed old as well as young — females as well as 
 males. There was no crowding into pestilential manufactories. 
 There was no depravity by reason of improper association. No. 
 The weaver worked at home in the midst of his family. He 
 combined the health and plenty of agricultural pursuits with 
 his labour as an artisan ; and cheerfulness, plenty, and comfort 
 blessed the land when the linen trade flourished. 
 
 There had risen since, in the revolutions of trade, a con- 
 siderable manufacture of linen yarn : but its date has not been 
 long, nor is it likely to be so. Its very existence is threatened 
 by the new tariff of French duties against which it would re- 
 quire the protection of reciprocity of duties which an Irish Par- 
 liament alone could give it. At present, it is probable it will 
 l)e sacrificed to the interests of the cutlers of Sheffield. 
 
 But it is not only in the manufactures of the working classes ; 
 it is equally in the consumption of luxuries that the withering 
 hand of the Union is to be found. 
 
 Before the Union, the annual import of claret into Ireland 
 was 400 tuns. It was reduced to thirty tuns annually, when 
 the last separate account of revenue for Ireland was made out 
 about fifteen years ago. It is probable that it does not exceed 
 twenty tuns annually at present. The drinkers of claret have 
 fled to other countries, and left Ireland in poverty. Their in- 
 comes are spent elsewhere. 
 
 Before the Union, the woollen trade flourished in Ireland 
 in all the articles of coarser texture. It gave employment to 
 thousands in the various towns of Ireland. At Carrick-on-Suir 
 alone it kept in constant work and wages more than 7,000 
 persons, where there were lately not fifty employed ! In short. 
 
Business in Dublin before the Union. 329 
 
 since the Union, the woollen trade of Ireland has literally been 
 annihilated. 
 
 Before the Union, the refining of sugar was a prosperous 
 and lucrative business, giving work and wages to thousands. 
 There were in the city of Dublin alone, nineteen sugar bakeries ; 
 there is not now a single one remaining ! This trade is anni- 
 hilated. 
 
 Before the Union, the glass manufacture was flourisliing in 
 Ireland : it is now all but annihilated. 
 
 Before the Union, the manufacture of tabinets and silks in 
 Dublin gave bread to thousands. It was lately on the verge of 
 'extinction, but has revived in some small degree by the Eepeal 
 movement. 
 
 Before the Union, the business of printing and bookselling 
 — the manufacture of hats — the working in gold and silver 
 plate — watchmaking, and various other branches of trade were 
 in a prosperous state in Ireland, which are now annihilated or 
 in the last stage of an impoverished existence. 
 
 But why should I dwell on minor details, when one astound- 
 ing fact places in the clearest light the increase of poverty, the 
 accumulation of distress, and the fearful extent to which the 
 privation of the comforts of life has been occasioned by the 
 Union. 
 
 The fact I allude to is this : before the Union, Ireland im- 
 ported annually nearly twice the quantity of sugar she imports 
 at present. But as the population of Ireland has doubled since 
 the Union, it is manifest that this falling off amounts, in point 
 of fact, to nearly three-fourths of the entire. 
 
 The more this fact is considered, the more distinctly will it 
 appear to prove the increase of poverty and destitution. 
 
 There is not one article, the consumption of which tends 
 more to health and comfort than sugar. Every person who 
 can afford to do so, consumes as much sugar as he conveniently 
 can ; and that in one thousand different ways. No person 
 abandons the use of sugar but a person who has not the means 
 of buying it. The consumption of sugar increases with wealth; 
 
330 Woollen Weavers^ Trade Destroyed. 
 
 its diminution is the most decisive proof of poverty. Yet here 
 is Ireland, with a diminution of consumption amounting to 
 three-fourths of the entire quantity consumed before the 
 Union. 
 
 Here is a most conclusive and unequivocal proof of the 
 poverty and destitution of Ireland arising from the Union. 
 
 I cannot avoid giving some individual specimens of the- 
 withering effect of the Union on Irish trade and manufactures 
 in several localities. I take them from reports made, some in 
 the year 1834, and others in the year 1840. 
 
 To begin with Dublin : it is ascertained from authentic docu- 
 ments and returns, that in 1800 there were in Dublin ninety-one 
 master manufacturers in the woollen trade, employing 4,938 
 persons. In August, 1840, there were only twelve master 
 manufacturers ; and only 682 persons employed in this trade. 
 
 In the city of Cork, in 1800, there were engaged in the 
 manufacture of woollen goods, forty-one employers, giving con- 
 stant work to 2,500 persons. That trade is now completely 
 gone. The extensive factory of Mr. Lyons — the last in work — 
 is now converted into a bleach green. 
 
 In Limerick, at the Union, there were 1,000 woollen weavers. 
 There are not now seventy ! 
 
 One more instance in the woollen trade. It is the history 
 of the flannel manufacture in a particular locality ; and contains 
 in fact an abstract and brief chronicle of the decay of trade 
 almost all over Ireland. The place is Eathdrum, county of 
 Wicklow. The flannel manufacture flourished there to such an 
 extent, that the late Earl Fitzwilliam was induced to erect, at 
 an expense of £3,500, an extensive market-place called the 
 Flannel HaU. This manufacture gave employment to more 
 than 1,000 looms, and to several thousands of operatives in its 
 various branches. In some years after the Union, the manu- 
 facture began rapidly to decline. 
 
 It is ascertained that the 1,000 looms had in the year 1823 
 deeUned to 400; in 1826 to 300 ; in 1827 to 200; in 1828 to 
 150 ; in 1830 to 100 • and in 1832 to 30 ! And in two yeai's 
 
Other Destroyed Trades. 331 
 
 afterwards, there was not a vestige of this formerly important 
 and remunerative branch of industry I 
 
 To revert to Dublin. There were at the time of the Union, 
 engaged in the cotton trade, fifty-five master manufacturers, 
 employing 14,500 persons, at wages of 40«. a week. They have 
 fallen to twelve employers and 625 operatives, and the wages 
 are now only 15s. a week. 
 
 At the Union, the hosiery business flourished in Dublin, 
 Balbriggan, Cork, Belfast, Lisburn, Clonmel, Limerick, "Water- 
 ford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Portarlington, Maryborough, and 
 several other places. But in all those places, the home manu- 
 facture is now so inconsiderable, that this branch of Irish industry 
 may, in the words of the report "for all practical purposes be ' 
 considered as extinct." 
 
 To enter into these particulars may appear to weaken the 
 efi'ect of the general failure of trade, but they mark more 
 strongly its efiects. It is, however, useful to review the entire 
 manufactures of Ireland ; for thus it appears, that at the period 
 of the Union the number of persons directly deriving employ- 
 ment from the woollen, cotton, and silk manufactures in Ireland, 
 exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand in a population of 
 about four millions. At the present day, the entire number 
 employed in these manufactures throughout the kingdom, 
 in a population of eight millions, does not exceed eight 
 thousand. 
 
 So much for that Union you have well described as being 
 " abortive of good and prolific of evil." 
 
 Before X close my brief sketch of the miseries of which the 
 Union has been so " prolific " to Ireland, let us look into the 
 Poor Inquiry Eeports. For the state of the agricultural 
 labourers, I must be content with a few samples. But I wiU 
 give them in the touching language of the peasantry themselves, 
 taken almost at random from the Reports of the Commissioners 
 of Poor Law Inquiry. The first shall be from the county of 
 Galway. The witnesses speak thus : — 
 
T^^2 Destitutio7i in h eland. 
 
 "County of Galway, — la summer, when unemployed, we live on cab« 
 bage and green herbs, with a few potatoes. We lls-e for three days on tho 
 quantity of potatoes which we would, if we could afford it, use in one. 
 
 " This is the case every summer ; there were two hundred families so in 
 this parish last summer. Those who have a plot of early potatoes dig them 
 before they are half grown. Eating these unripe potatoes causes sickness. 
 Many men are put into their graves by this bad food." 
 
 I next extraofc the following evidence on the state of the 
 poor in Majo : — 
 
 " You would see labourers in summer eating boiled cabbage, and a little 
 meal shaken through it, without a potato to eat along with it. Maybe the 
 women spent two da^'s in spinning a pound of flax, and went another day five 
 miles to the market of Ballinasloe to sell it, and had by it the twopence that 
 bought the meal ; many a shift they make ; all struggling to hold a grip of 
 life. 
 
 " In the mountains of the parish of Cong, when the potatoes fail thera, 
 they bleed their cattle, and eat the boiled blood, sometimes mixed with 
 meal, but often without it. The same beast has beau known to bleed threo 
 times in one season." 
 
 A witness says — 
 
 " He knew a family this last summer (1834) to have during three days 
 but one substantial meal of potatoes." 
 
 He says — 
 
 "They kept life in them by picking up shell-fish on the strand." 
 "They fast all the summer." 
 
 When the Commissioners questioned what the witness meant 
 hy fasting, he said — 
 
 " I count it equal to fasting when a man and his wife and four children 
 had to live on a quart of meal or a stone of potatoes for twenty-four hours ; 
 and I have known them to live on that.'' 
 
 The next that strikes my eye is a description of the state of 
 the labouring peasantry during the scarce months, as they are 
 called, in the county of Longford — 
 
 " They go through the fields and gather the wild weeds ; they boil them 
 with salt, and they live oa them, without even a potato to eat along with them." 
 
Worse treated than Slaves. 333 
 
 The Rev. Mr. O'Brien knew, this summer (1834) — 
 
 "Two families of labourers to remain in bed all day, as they said, 'to 
 stifle the hunger.' They told me that ' several of the neighbours did the 
 same.' " 
 
 The next is from the county of Kildare — 
 
 " "We are often obliged to eat the ' prassagh,' when the blossom is on it — 
 that is, when it is thought most unwholesome. I declare to my God, I know 
 several men who never tasted food for forty-eight hours." 
 
 The next is from the county of Meath — 
 
 «' The only periods in which employment is to be calculated on are, a 
 month in spring, planting potatoes, a month in harvest and a month in 
 autumn digging potatoes ; and during other times the labourers are often 
 without one meal of potatoes in the day. 
 
 " During the unemployed season there are many who cannot get food for 
 twenty-four hours ; and if it was not for an odd bit the Almighty sends from 
 a neighbour, would have died through the mere dint of starvation." 
 
 My next instances are from the county of Clare ; in answer 
 to whether labourers became old and disabled before other 
 people — 
 
 '' We are worked harder and worse treated than the slaves in the 
 colonies. 
 
 "I understand that they are taken care of by their masters when they are 
 sick or old. 
 
 " When we are sick we must die on the road, if the neighbours do not 
 help us. 
 
 " When we are old we must go out to beg, if the j'oung ones cannot 
 help us ; and that will soon happen with us all. We are getting worse and 
 worse every clay, and the landlords are kicking us out of every little holding 
 we have. This last May twenty- eight families were put out, and next May 1 
 am sure there will be as many again within five miles of Kilkea. If some- 
 thing is not done for those who are turned out upon the world, without a rag 
 upon their backs, God knows what will happen this country. 
 
 " When we suffer all these hardships, is it wonderful our spirits should 
 be broken down ? 
 
 " Many is the man who thinks himself well off with one meal a day." 
 
 I may add three extracts more fr'om the counties of Cork, 
 
334 Cork, Donegal, and Tippej'ary. 
 
 Donegal, and Tipperary, as being tlie shortest specimens of the 
 state of those counties, hut not the less emphatic upon that 
 account. County of Cork — 
 
 " Many fiirmers are driven by distress to work themselves, and maketlieir 
 sons work, who would have formerly employed labourers. Such persons often 
 make their children work, who would otherwise be sent to school. 
 
 " The labourers are frequently unable to work for want of sufficient food. 
 It often happens that a labourer has no dinner to go home to." 
 
 My next is from the county of Donegal — 
 
 " In June, July, and August, and after the harvest, they are reduced to 
 fewer and scantier meals in the day." 
 
 I give the following from the county of Tipperary — 
 
 "There is not much work for the labouring classes from May to August; 
 at this time labourers and even tradesmen can scarcely get one full meal in 
 the day ; besides they will often collect cornkail, rape, and nettles, and 
 eat them." 
 
 The state of the people as to clothing is represented through- 
 out the evidence in equally distressing terms. To multiply ex- 
 tracts would be fatiguing — 
 
 " Many have no blankets, but make use of the clothes which they wear 
 during the day for night covering. 
 
 " Their clothes, or rather rags, are entirely insufficient to protect them 
 from the cold. 
 
 " U heir children are all in rags," &c. 
 
 I presume, my lord, that these are they who, you tell us, 
 " would live in a happy ignorance of the evils of which you think 
 they too loudly complain, if they were less instructed in their 
 grievances." 
 
 If I had the keeping of your conscience, I would inflict on 
 you, by way of penance and for atonement, the attentive perusal 
 of the Report of the Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry, 
 signed, amongst others, with the revered name of Most Rev. 
 Dr. Murray, and containing one thousand instances of deep 
 suffering and destitution, of which the scanty extracts above 
 ■copied contain but a faint specimen. 
 
The Repeal of the Union or Poor Laws. 2>ZS 
 
 Mj lord, I attribute all these evils— the decay of trade, the 
 suppression of manufactures, the poverty and squalid want of 
 the operatives, the destitution of the agricultural labourers — all, 
 all to misrule as their principal and abundant source ; the mis- 
 rule of a foreign and ungenial legislature, ignorant of our wants, 
 and without any sympathy for our sufferings. 
 
 It is not possible for you, at least, to deny that the mass of 
 our legislators are totally ignorant of the real afflictions of the 
 Irish people, when you exhibit the strange instance of a man 
 who, in 1828, thoroughly knew and eloquently described the 
 miseries of the wretched Irish; and who yet, in 1841, totally 
 forgot your former knowledge on the subject, declaring that 
 those evils were purely imaginary, and those grievances the 
 mere creations of fanciful description ! 
 
 What a sage legislator have not the exertions of the Irish 
 datholics placed in the aristocratic senate ! 
 
 Tell me not that the Poor Laws aiford a remedy. They 
 have been fairly tried in two localities, and they are found to 
 be a total failure. 
 
 Besides, they were calculated to relieve only 80,000 persons. 
 How then can they relieve three millions ? They have thrown 
 a burden unendurable in our poverty upon all. We are too 
 poor for Poor Laws. The establishment for administering them 
 costs more than the food and clothing given to the destitute. 
 The machinery for relief is more expensive than the relief 
 itself. 
 
 The great burden of the poor-rates falls upon the occupying 
 inhabitants, thus creating more destitution than you relieve. 
 In 1830, I, in a letter then published, foretold what was coming 
 on. These were my words : "The landed proprietors of Ire- 
 land are reduced to this dilemma ; they must either have a. 
 Repeal of the Union or Poor Laws To one or other of these 
 they must come. Poor Laws or a Repeal of the Union. Beyond 
 this alternative there is nothing — the Repeal of the Union or 
 Poor Laws." 
 
 Such was my prophetic warning in 1830, The landed 
 
336 The Piople ivill be driven to Insur7'ection 
 
 gentry then refused to join me in sufficient numbers to obtain a 
 Eepeal of the Union. My prophecy was verified — they have 
 got Poor Laws. 
 
 Let me now prophesy again ; and I do so with a mournful 
 conviction upon my mind, that, if the Union be not repealed^ 
 the burden of the Poor Laws alone upon the occupiers of land 
 and of houses in towns, will drive the people into a sanguinary 
 and, perhaps, a successful insurrection. 
 
 May the great God of heaven forbid that it should occur ! 
 But it will occur, unless good men now calmly and dispassion- 
 ately join with me to obviate so dreadful an occurrence, by 
 taking away its cause. 
 
 Nothing will answer these purposes but a Repeal of the 
 Union. 
 / Let me return. I repeat, that I attribute all the evils of 
 Ireland to the misrule occasioned by the Union ; the annihila- 
 tion of trade and commerce ; the poverty, the destitution, the 
 misery, the starvation. What else can we attribute them to ? 
 Leland has a soil fertile to a proverb ; capable of producing 
 abundant sustenance for four times her present population. She 
 has a genial climate, never parched into barrenness by the sum- 
 mer's sun ; never chilled into sterility by the winter's cold. 
 Her perennial greenness shows a perpetual impulse of vegeta- 
 tion. Nature and nature's God have bestowed on her many 
 other good gifts. She is most favom-ably situated to be the en- 
 trepot of the commerce of the European and American worlds. 
 Situate at the western extremity of Euroj^e, she is the nearest 
 eastern land to the Americas. She is indented with spacious 
 bays and safe harbours, open at every hour of the tide, and 
 secure from every wind that blows. She is intersected with 
 navigable rivers and estuaries, easily bringing her shipping 
 in various directions almost to the centre of the island. Her per- 
 ennial streams, in the fulness and rapidity of their waters, are 
 ct4)able of turning all the wheels of the machinery of the British 
 empire. Her abundant produce consists of all the prime neces- 
 saiiea of life, and of many of its luxuries. 
 
We did 7iot Goverji oil}' 0W7t Country » 337 
 
 Stand out, Earl Shrewsbury, and tell me how you account 
 for such a country being filled with wailing and woe ; with 
 signs of sorrow, and the reality of poverty, destitution, and 
 starvation ? The curse of man has blighted the blessingr of 
 heaven. 
 
 Recollect this truth : we did not govern our own country. 
 
 But, perhaps, these evils might occur from tlie depravity of 
 the people? No, my lord, no. A thousand times, no! Our 
 people have, it is now avowed, a physical superiority amongst 
 the nations of the earth. Scotch philosophy, so often sneered 
 at, deserves immortality for tliis demonstration. The Irish 
 people are brave as the bravest ; they are generous as the most 
 generous. With them all the ties of domestic life are knit 
 together by fidelity and affection. Their domestic morals are 
 exemplary, and lauded even by their enemies. They are indus- 
 trious and patient of labour, and search for wages in every 
 region of the earth. They are moral, they are temperate, 
 blessed be God ! The public-houses are deserted, and the altar 
 rails are thronged. But, above all, and before all, they are reli- 
 gious. Their religious fidelity has no parallel on the face of the 
 globe. They have endured revilings and torturings, impover- 
 ishment and imprisonment, chains, blows, and death ! But 
 they have not apostatised, nor ceased to be faithful to " the faith 
 their fathers held to God." 
 
 Stand forth, Saxon and stranger ! and tell me why the 
 blessings of Providence have been blighted ? Why such a 
 people have been afflicted? Why such a country has been 
 cursed with poverty, destitution, and starvation ? 
 
 We did not govern our own country, Earl of Shrewsbury ! 
 
 I must draw to a close. I am a Repealer, as you once were ; 
 and Repeal, believe me, is not remote nor difficult. In spite of 
 your Tory allies, faction is intrinsically fading in Ireland, and 
 party designations are beginning to give way to the national 
 denomination of Irishmen. Determined as they are upon 
 peaceable, legal, and constitutional courses, and no others; with- 
 out infringing any law of man, or violating any command of 
 VOL. II 23 
 
338 Ireland shall have her Parliament agam. 
 
 God ; in the abhorrence of any violation of property ; and iu 
 the determination never to shed one drop of blood in our 
 contest, we still " bide our time," and watch our opportunity. 
 Attached to the Throne by the tie of duty, and of affectionate 
 veneration for the Sovereign, we still know that the period can- 
 not be remote when England will, for her own safety, want the 
 heart as well as the arm of Ireland. And she shall have that 
 heart and that arm. But Ireland shall have her own native 
 Parliament once again. 
 
 A wise minister may easily advise the exercise of the royal 
 prerogative ; and the Parliament of Ireland which "is not dead, 
 but only sleepeth," may easily awaken in more than pristine 
 majesty, and more than bygone utility. 
 
 Grattan declared that he had watched at the cradle of Ire- 
 land, and followed her hearse. He is reckoned amongst tlie 
 illustrious dead. I live to sound the trumpet of her resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 Daniel O'Connell, 
 
 Lord Mayor of Duhlin. 
 
Ldtcr to Dr. Daly. 339 
 
 Letter to the Rev. Egbert Daly. 
 
 Tarson Daly was a type of character now happily almost extinct. His 
 perseverant iteration of the most absurd calumnies against Catholic faith 
 and practice at last provoked O'Connell's pen. To argue with such men 
 is simply useless ; they are either intellectually or morally incapable of 
 argument. 
 
 It is one thing to disbelieve a certain doctrine which is received by 
 :in opponent as of faith, and it is (juite another matter to invent a doctrine 
 which an opponent does not believe, and emphatically denies believing, 
 and then to turn on him and accuse him of being a blasphemer and idolator. 
 Tiiere is an .absurdity about such a line of conduct which must be patent 
 to every one who is not a victim to it. 
 
 O'Connell's clear logical mind revolted against shams with an intenseness 
 which led him to knock them down somewhat roughly. 
 
 Merrim Square, 22nd of May, 1826. 
 
 Parson Daly, 
 
 You are not polite. You commence your letter to me 
 by a very considerable incivility, as our neigbbours the 
 Americans call it. You cull the choicest flowers of vitu- 
 peration ; you use the lowest slang of Orange violence ; you 
 apply to the Catholic priesthood epithets which are selected 
 by you, simply because they are supposed to be insulting 
 and calculated to irritate ; and you close your inelegant epistle, 
 by giving me a pleasing choice between being a hypocrite or 
 an idolator. Indeed you are not polite. 
 
 Parson Daly you are not discreet. You play your game 
 badly. You should have chosen the language of affected 
 meekness and hypocritical modesty. That was your cue. You 
 should have been as mild in expression as you are malignant 
 of purpose, and you should have cloaked the rage and rancour 
 of your disposition in the sweet and soft accents of pretended 
 charity ; you should not have disclosed the irascibility of your 
 temper. You should have assumed a grace though you have 
 it not, and even amidst the sourness of your most discordant 
 theology you should have made the world believe that you were 
 possessed of the manners of a gentleman. 
 
 23* 
 
340 Parson Daly ^ you are not Wise. 
 
 In truth, you are not discreet. I repeat, it Parson Daly ; you 
 are not discreet. You should have entrenched yourself behind 
 the courtesies of civilized society. But you have rushed at once 
 into the politico- theological arena, flourishing your shillelagh 
 with fierce and vulgar efirontery, forgetting that you are your- 
 self obnoxious to many a hard blow. You are admitted to be 
 a very vain man, but your egregious vanity cannot altogether 
 blind you to the unhappy certainty that you are vulnerable 
 in many points. Therefore, you should not have used plain 
 and blunt virulence of language ; for it is quite true (however 
 reluctant you may be to believe the fact) that plain and blunt 
 language may be quite as well used in favour of justice 
 and liberality as it is employed by you in promoting bigotry 
 and circulating calumny. 
 
 Parson Daly, you are not wise. You have no tact, no dis- 
 tinct perception of passing events. Anxious as you are to 
 wade through every species of religious mire to a mitre, you 
 do not perceive that the season of success for adventurers of your 
 description has gone by. The abuse of Catholics collectively and 
 individually, the foulest calumnies upon the Catholic clergy and 
 Catholic religion no longer insure promotion in your Church. 
 You came too late. The traffic by which many have thriven is 
 almost at an end. Nay, still better times appear to be 
 approaching, and you and I may both live to see the period 
 when the greatest spiritual rascality shall go without any re- 
 ward, and when a man may play the malignant hypocrite for 
 years without any increase to his temporal gains. If that 
 period shall arrive, as arrive I certainly think it will, what 
 then will become of the M'Kittricks, the Murlough O'Sullivans, 
 the O'Phelans, the O'Dalys, and all the rest of the miserable 
 group of that day, who may be ready to sell their souls to 
 perdition for a mess of the sugared pottage of the Establish- 
 ment. Well- a- day ! the renegade will then have no cash 
 bidder for his crime; the calumniator will then have no hope 
 of being recompensed in tithes and oblations for his falsehoods ; 
 the well-paid lie will become not only out of fashion, but out 
 of use ; and journeys to Edinburgh and Loudon, to circulate 
 
Wilful false Assertions. 341 
 
 untruths and stimulate uncharitableness, will no more be 
 thought of than journeys to the moon and seven stars. 
 
 As to yourself, personally, even in the present time, my own 
 opinion is, that unless your liberal, your very liberal brother, 
 the member for the county of Galway, does something for you 
 in the way of a ministerial bargain, you never will be a bishop. 
 I am sorry to announce to you so doleful a prophecy, but it is 
 indeed my serious opinion. 
 
 Having thus given a short summary of your negative 
 qualifications, I shall now, with due deference, proceed to can- 
 vass your affirmative demerits. 
 
 In the first place then, Parson Daly, you are well known to 
 
 be ; but, no, no, I will not imitate your example, or 
 
 adopt your vile phraseology. I will treat you much better 
 than you deserve, and I will describe you thus : Parson Daly, 
 you are perfectly well known to be a very imaginative person ; 
 your vivid imagination deludes you ; it makes you adopt pure 
 inventions for plain truths. I do not, you perceive, accuse you 
 of wilful falsehoods ; but it is perfectly notorious that there is 
 no relying upon any statement of facts that comes from you. 
 You make more mistakes in mere matter of fact than any other 
 living polemic or layman. Whoever is curious to ascertain 
 the quality and nature of your midakes in mere matter offady 
 may refer to the pamphlet lately published by the Rev. Mr. 
 Kinsella, of Carlow. It will be there found that although your 
 assertions were often refuted, and your inaccuracies (I use a 
 gentle phrase for choice) often exposed, yet you never had the 
 oandour to acknowledge your error, although you had some- 
 times the modesty not to repeat a detested untruth. It is, I 
 hope, the morbid constitution of your mind rather than 
 deliberate intent to violate truth, that has led you on. Indeed 
 some persons imagine that you do not so much misstate by 
 design as that you are, by the disordered propensities of 
 your nature, incapable of announcing a truth, even by accident. 
 
 For my own part I shall not incline to this latter opinion, 
 but that your letter to me afi'ords such melancholy, but decisive 
 
342 Falsification of Facts. 
 
 evidence, that this, j'our moral malady has not decreased. 
 You still talk of the riot of Carloic. Yes, after the confutation 
 of your assertion by the Eev. Mr. Kinsella, you talk of the 
 riot at Carlow. Yes ! after the contradiction of your assertion 
 by the solemn evidence of the respected Chaii-man of the meet- 
 ing, Colonel Rochford, you still tal.k of the riot at Car loir. 
 After the publication of that evidence bj- the House < f 
 Commons has made the falsehood known to the entire empire, 
 you still tallc of the riot of Carloic. Oh shame ! shame ! but 
 you are alas ! incapable of a blush, or you would not repeat 
 the assertion. Oh ! how true it is that never was there a 
 rat so fond of rhodium, as you are, at least, of this untruth. 
 
 Having thus settled, I trust, in an amicable way, the pre- 
 liminaries of our future discussions, I come to the pith and 
 marrow of your letter to me. 
 
 Your letter is naturally divisible into two topics, of almost 
 equal magnitude in your estimate, but of very unequal impor- 
 tance in point of common sense and religion. 
 
 In the first, you seek to vindicate j-ourself from the charge 
 of having carried to Edinburgh your Carlow propensity to the 
 falsification of facts. 
 
 In the second, you introduce with indecent and virulent 
 ribaldry, some awful subjects connected with Divine truths. 
 
 I intend to follow you through both these topics ; and, as to 
 the first, I shall treat with a smile of quiet contempt the un- 
 founded, but haughty, insolence of your style and manner. 
 
 And, as to the second, I shall discuss it with an unaffected, 
 but melancholy, sentiment of compassion for your interested 
 attachment to errors of which it is vain to hope to cure you, and 
 I have not the means, if I had the inclination, to lui/ you from 
 your selfish connection with these errors. 
 
 The charge against you at Edinburgh was, after all, a light 
 one, considering that i/ou were the person accused ; it was in your 
 catalogue a mere minor off'ence ; a species of petty larceny in 
 biblical falsifications ; it consisted only of the sitppressio verl, 
 and did not, like the " Riot at Carlow," amount to the positive 
 
Falsehoods stated publicly. 343 
 
 suggestio falsi. It was simply this : tliat you detailed to the 
 Scotch Assemhly the calumny of Butterworth's Irish minion, 
 of the name of M'Govern, against the Catholic clergy, whilst 
 you suppressed tlie fact, that an investigation was publicly 
 demanded by the Catholic priest particularly alluded to ; that 
 such an investigation took place publicly, and that the inventors 
 of the calumny were thus publicly branded with disgrace. 
 
 The charge against you was supported by the evidence of a 
 respectable young gentleman, Mr. McCarthy, a student of medi- 
 cine in Edinburgh, and who gave his name to the public as a 
 pledge for his veracity. 
 
 Now, how do you answer this charge ? Why, by a most 
 improbable statement, a statement of that which may be true, 
 but which is the most unlikely thing in the world to have 
 occurred. You say that the subject of M'Govern's calumny 
 was introduced by a Catholic, a Mr. Mulholland, and that you 
 only read an affidavit of M'Govern's, made in reply to the 
 public vindication of the Catholic priest. 
 
 I confess that I cannot bring myself to believe that a 
 Catholic would be the first to introduce the business of 
 M'Govern at such a meeting. For what purpose should he do 
 so ? With what rational intent could he introduce it at such 
 a meeting ? It is quite true, that if anybody else introduced it 
 in order to calumniate the Catholic body, any Catholic might, 
 and would be bound (ii permitted) to dispel that calumny. 
 But it is grossly absurd to suppose that a Catholic would be 
 the first to introduce that subject at such a meeting. I repeat 
 again — Why should he do so ? 
 
 Your defence, therefore, is totally destitute of probability ; 
 and when your noted character for inattention to fact is taken 
 into consideration, there will be very few, if any, tempted to 
 acquit you. 
 
 The matter stands thus : Mr. M'Carthy makes against you 
 a positive and very probable charge ; your reply puts forward 
 a most improbable version of the story. I know both parties ; 
 that is, I know Mr. M'Carthy to be a young gentleman of 
 
344 
 
 Stranofe Associates. 
 
 i> 
 
 truth and honour. I know you by character — that is enough. 
 Under these circumstances, you may sneer at the name 
 Timothy M'Carthy ; but it is a question of credit between 
 Timothy M'Carthy and Robert Daly, and I confess I must 
 believe the former. This may be very bad taste ; but it is, I 
 am convinced, sound judgment. 
 
 I really do not know what, under these untoward circum- 
 stances, I could suggest to you in a friendly way. Perhaps, 
 you could procure from your brother Biblicals of " The Irish 
 Society," a forged signature or two, or a false affidavit or so ; 
 they have plenty of the commodity at your special service ; or 
 there are the aides-de-camp of Archbishop Magee now quite dis- 
 engaged—the Rev. Murtough O'Sullivan and O'Phelan. They 
 are just the boys to prove "process and case." Their testimony 
 you can readily command ; and even their support may be of use 
 to him who has become a proverb and a by-word for inaccuracy 
 in mere matter of fact. 
 
 But let me cease this trifling, and return to your letter. 
 The next topic I notice in it is the manifest complacency with 
 which you speak of your comrade in saintly virulence — Mr. 
 Townley ; and whom you are pleased to designate as Dr. 
 Townley. Why, was it not Townley, the preacher of the 
 Unitarian Calvinists in Munster, who was your associate ? If 
 so, he of course denies the Divinity of Christ. I presume you 
 believe in it ; and, yet, whether it was such individual or some- 
 body else of the same name that aided your efforts in the Scottish 
 capital, there is one thing certain, that you associate with many 
 Unitarians in the pious work of destroying Popery. 
 
 Nothing comes amiss in so holy a warfare ; difference of 
 opinion (for yours is mere opinion, not faith), difference of 
 opinion upon such a subject as the Divinity of the eternal Son 
 of Grod does not interfere to prevent you from forming a Holy 
 Alliance with the unbeliever, in order to battle against the 
 ancient faith of Christendom. 
 
 I beg to know whether it was because Townley disbelieves 
 the Divinity of our most sacred and adorable Redeemer that you 
 
Disputes about Scripture. 345 
 
 have dubbed him with the title of Doctor ? It is like enough. 
 Suffer me now to suggest another topic. The London 
 Bible Society, to which you belong, have, it seems, quarrelled 
 amongst themselves; the most important results have been 
 produced by this quarrel. The funds of the Bible Society have 
 been diminished by a sum of £10,000 in one year ! You who 
 are probably indifferent to a difference amongst Biblicals on 
 the trivial subject of religion, are sufficiently alive to a difference 
 on the very important point of money ; there is a deficiency 
 of £10,000 in one year, resulting from your biblical dispute. 
 
 The question which has divided your pious forces is stated 
 in the Eeport to be — " Whether or not the Apocryphal books 
 should be circulated by the Society with the other Scriptures ?'* 
 Observe, if you please, that this involves another question 
 namely, " What books are Apocryphal ?" 
 
 The one upon no less awful a subject than the Divini^ of 
 our adorable Redeemer. 
 
 Another upon the quantity of the Apocryphal books. 
 
 A third, again, upon the propriety of circulating these books. 
 
 If Dr. Townley be the man I take him for, then he is bound, 
 or at all events several others of your colleagues, being Unita- 
 rians, are bound upon your own principles to treat you. Parson 
 Daly, as involved in guilt of the nature of idolatry — I mean in 
 the guilt of adoring a mere human being ; that is, always 
 supposing that you really believe what you are paid for assert- 
 ing you do believe. 
 
 Now, how are these questions to be decided between you 
 and your colleagues? But who is to decide? or are these 
 divisions to endure as long as human passions, human interests, 
 and human folly continue ? 
 
 Alas ! there is no other hope of a termination. What unity, 
 then, can ever subsist between you and your late or present 
 -associates? an unity of mischief to assail and calumniate others; 
 but no Unity or Faith can ever subsist amongst yoiirselves. 
 
 Parson Daly, you have no living tribunal to which these 
 questions could be submitted ; each of you founds his own 
 
346 ' OConneWs Creed. 
 
 opinions on the Scriptures. The Scriptures alone cannot there- 
 fore decide the controversy. 
 
 I now ask you, in the name of common sense, do you not 
 feel the necessity of some tribunal, clothed with sufficient power 
 and endowed with sufficient intelligence, to pronounce a final 
 decision between these jarring parties, and so terminate conten- 
 tion ? Are you so destitute of common honesty as to deny that 
 such a tribunal would at least be desirable ? Are you so desti- 
 tute of veracity as to deny that it would be icise, if it were- 
 possible to institute such a tribunal ? Can you dare deny that GTod 
 is tvise, or will you say that it is not, and was not possible for 
 Him to establish such a tribunal ? 
 
 To me, who most humbly and fervently bow beneath the- 
 consciousness of the perfect wisdom and omnipotent power 
 of the Eternal Creator of the universe — whose holy Name be- 
 ever praised and blessed! — to me, the existence of such a tri- 
 bunal is as plain as its necessity. I see it ; I recognise it ; I 
 know it in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded by 
 my Divine Redeemer on the imperishable foundation of theEock,. 
 St. Peter, and] continued in unbroken succession to this hour. 
 
 Tou taunt me with submission to priests. You again seek 
 to delude. I do not submit to this, that, or the other priest ;. 
 but I do submit readily and at once^to the voice of the Uni- 
 versal Church communicated to me by her ministers. 
 
 This is not a vain or idle distinction. I will bring it at 
 once to the test : Suppose any one priest, or several priests wero 
 to announce to me doctrines different from those of the Univer- 
 sal Catholic Church, or tenets repugnant to what has been be- 
 lieved in that Church, semper ubique, et ab omnibus, you would 
 then. Parson Daly, find me reject with unaffected abhorrence 
 such doctrines and tenets. I would fling them from me as I 
 would the sjnrited, although not inspired, rhapsodies of Brim- 
 stone Cooper, or the ribald declamations of Master Robert Daly. 
 
 The next matter in your letter contains a double delusion. 
 Tou accuse the meek and modest, but zealous parish priest of 
 Bray of bigotry, under the elegant sobriquet of a Romish priest. 
 
Treatment of Catholic Servants. 347 
 
 And oh, marvellous ! you praise yourself for liberality ! ! t 
 I leave my respected friend, the Eev. Mr. Doyle, to vindi- 
 cate himself. I am convinced he is perfectly well able to do it ; 
 but I also know his modest and retiring nature, and how unwil- 
 ling he is to appear in print before the public. Yet, indeed, 
 you left him no choice. Your calumny of him is circulating 
 as extensively almost as the English language is known ; and, 
 however reluctant he may be to embark in newspaper contro- 
 versy, he must submit to a most serious imputation, or come 
 forward and give the public such facts as may, and certainly 
 will, vindicate him from your interpretation. 
 
 You boast of your liberality. This, indeed, outdoes your 
 own outdoings. You, liberal ! You ! ! ! Oh, unfeeling and cruel 
 man, how can you taunt and insult, by such senseless boastings, 
 the misery which surrounds you and desolates your neighbour- 
 hood. It is now about twelve years since you got the living 
 of Powerscourt, as it is generally called. When you came to the 
 parish, I am told, the utmost cordiality prevailed between the 
 Catholics and Protestants. Catholic servants served Protestant 
 masters with fidelity and gratitude; Catholic children were 
 educated by Catholic teachers, at the expense of Protestant pro- 
 prietors ; Catholic tenants supported in comfort their Catholic 
 families upon the estates of Protestant landlords, and evinced 
 their attachment to Protestant landlords by the regularity of 
 their payments and the propriety of their conduct ; and, above 
 all, a native spirit of kindness and goodness of heart governing 
 the demeanour of one or two noble families (who shall now be 
 nameless), served to give a mellow sentiment of respect on the 
 one hand, and affection on the other, to the universal peace and 
 good-will of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Biblical Parson Daly, is this the scene now .'' Is there no 
 change ? Alas ! the Catholic servants have been excluded with 
 an iron hand from the Protestant families, and driven out to 
 starve ; or, if a few remained, they have purchased their places 
 at the expense of those smaller apostacies in which a Biblical 
 glories, in default of procuring greater. Apostacies which, 
 by showing their infidelity to duties they deem pleasing to 
 
348 Catholic Teiiants Expelled. 
 
 their Eternal Master, are considered sufficient to warrant 
 their fidelity to their temporal masters! Yain, perhaps, 
 fatal delusion. For the Catholic children, " cunning crafti- 
 ness Jay in ivait to deceive them;" and to defeat that craftiness, 
 it has become necessary, in general, to remove them from the 
 schools supported by Protestants ; and there are now few indeed 
 of the Catholic poor educated at the expense of Protestants. 
 Out of their own poverty, the Catholics in your parish are now 
 compelled to find the funds necessary for education. But the 
 mischief does not rest there. The parents of poor Catholic 
 children undergo a cruel persecution to compel them to consent 
 to have their children taught tenets they abhor. How many a 
 wretched labourer has felt the iron enter his very soul beneath 
 this cruel persecution. I appeal on these topics to the Rev. Mr. 
 Doyle, and I call on him, in the name of that God at whose 
 altar he ministers, to announce the whole truth respecting this 
 vile persecution. 
 
 Again, in your neighbourhood, are not the Catholic tenants 
 expelled, and persons selected to replace them, merely because 
 they profess a Protestant creed of one fantastic description or 
 other, no matter what ? 
 
 If these facts exist, and co-exist with your incumbency, what 
 a cruel and hardhearted man you must be to see those scenes 
 daily, and then to talk of your liberality ! The persons who 
 carry on these species of persecutions certainly did not, as did 
 the ancient French Calvinists, cut the throats of their Catholic 
 neighbours, simply because it is no longer in their power ; but, 
 they evince the genuine spirit of persecution which would, in 
 Spain (if the people had not twice, and authoritatively forbidden), 
 continue the Inquisition ; and which, in Ireland, erected the 
 Orange lodges, and still fondly cherishes the embers of that base 
 and bloody faction. 
 
 I cannot quit the subject of the persecution which the Ca- 
 tholics endure in your parish without declaring my firm con- 
 viction that, if there was in each county in Ireland, one parish 
 where so much virulence and acrimony were exhibited to the 
 Catholic poor, the result would, within six months, be a bloody 
 
A Layman can Defend his Faith. 3 \c^ 
 
 and horrible rebellion, of so desperate a character that it may be 
 difficult to calculate on the ultimate consequences, whilst the 
 immediate consequence would certainly be most melancholy 
 and deplorable. 
 
 I have written so much, that I feel unwilling to lengthen 
 this letter, and yet the most important part of your epistle re- 
 mains unanswered ; I mean the part purely theological. 
 
 It is somewhat strange that you should assail me with theo- 
 logy ; I am a mere layman, whose time is abundantly occupied. 
 You may, perhaps, know that my profession gives sufficient 
 occupation for every hour I can devote to labour, and that my 
 moments of relaxation and amusement are consumed by my 
 capacity of an agitator and demagogue ; and yet, layman though 
 I be, you come forward and assail me with theological argu- 
 ments. Now, I like this. There is, in spite of you, some can- 
 dour in it. You attacked our theologians and divines, and were 
 defeated. It is a pretty clear admission of that defeat, that you 
 now deem yourself only strong enough for a mere layman. 
 Yet a Catholic layman is, perhaps, the just proportion for a re- 
 ligionist of your description. The retailer of a thousand-times- 
 refuted calumny, such as you are ; the repeater, such as you 
 are, of ribald argument, the fallacy of which has been a thousand 
 times exposed, had better avoid divines of the ancient Church, 
 and seek to break a spiritual lance only with laymen. 
 
 I am a layman, occupied with many cares, and yet I am 
 able, I trust, to give a reason for the hope that is in me, con- 
 vinced that truth is in its nature one — that only one faith can 
 possibly be true ; deeply impressed with the certainty that an 
 eternity of happiness or misery is at stake, and that upon such 
 an important subject, unaffected caution in seeking truth, and 
 the utmost and plainest sincerity in the sight of God, in em- 
 bracing and adhering to divine truth at the risk and sacrifice of 
 every worldly interest ; that such caution and sincerity are es- 
 sentially necessary. With these sentiments fully fixed in my 
 mind ; with all the faculties which I possess (such astliey are) 
 habituated to the daily task of weighing evidence and balancing 
 the force of conflicting arguments ; with these advantages to 
 
350 ^'f't' Theological Subjects. 
 
 give maturit}' to my judgment, I can, as I do, declare the cer- 
 tainty with which that judgment humbly but firmly reposes in 
 the faith and doctrines of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Nay, I go further ; I am perfectly convinced, that any man 
 who will look coolly and dispassionately at the subject, who will 
 divest his mind of individual pride, and fling from him all the 
 allurements of worldly interest, and who will get rid of every 
 angry feeling and bad passion, and who will come coolly and 
 sincerely to the consideration of religion, ever}' such man will 
 easily discover in the Catholic Church those plain and distinct 
 marks of truth and authenticity which will lead him to the 
 obvious and inevitable conclusion that Christianity could not be 
 true and Catholicity false ; or, in other words, that Catholicity 
 and Christianity are identical — one and the same. 
 
 That men do not, even upon the most awful of all subjects, 
 endeavour to place themselves in such a temper of mind as I 
 have described, is, alas ! but too plain. There are many obvious 
 reasons why they do not do so ; but there is no reason so power- 
 ful as that spirit of persecution of which, indeed, you yourself 
 axe so brimful, and which excites so many violent emotions as 
 to prevent the still small voice of conscience from being heard. 
 The voice will never be allowed fair play until the professors of 
 Christianity, of every sect and persuasion, shall agree with me 
 and differ with you in the conviction that one of the greatest 
 crimes which a Christian can commit is to persecute any human 
 being on the score of religion ; or to use force or fraud, bribery 
 or punishment, in order to procure proselytism, or to inflict 
 chastisement for what he may deem erroneous opinions. 
 
 Let me now come — it is time for me — to the theological 
 part of your letter. 
 
 The theological topics you chiefly put forward are two. 
 
 The first involves the question relative to the circulation of 
 the Sacred Scriptures. 
 
 The second includes some ribalc ry, which you call argument 
 on the subject of the Eeal Presence, or, perhaps more accurately, 
 that of Transubstantiation, which we Catholics believe to be 
 the necessary result of the Eeal Presence in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
The right of Pyivate Interpretation. 35 i 
 
 As to the first, you do, as your fashion, mistake the questioa 
 hetween you and the Catholic clergy. 
 
 The question is not — and you ought to know it is not — upon 
 the circulation of the sacred writings ; it turns upon the inter- 
 pretations of those writings. The Catholic Church encourages, 
 and has always encouraged, the reading of the Scriptures in a 
 proper spirit and disposition ; but that Church has denied, and 
 always will deny, the right of private or individual interpreta- 
 tion. 
 
 For myself, in order to satisfy me that it is just and proper 
 to deny the right of private interpretation, it is quite enough 
 to know that the Catholic Church denies that right. I hear 
 and obey the voice of the Church; but there are abundant 
 reasons, exclusive of the authority of the Church, to satisfy any 
 rational man of the mischiefs resulting from the private inter- 
 pretation of the Scriptures. 
 
 First — It necessarily creates sects and divisions and various 
 conflicting opinions and persuasions relative to divine truth 
 Look at England and her three hundred and more discordant 
 sects, all springing from and founded on the right of private in- 
 terpretation of the Scriptures. Now, reason tells us, in a man- 
 ner that cannot be mistaken, that truth cannot be variant and 
 different from itself. 
 
 If any one of the three hundred English sects be true, the 
 rest must be false. Private interpretation, therefore, gives just 
 this chance to each sectary — that, out of the three hundred re- 
 ligions, his may be the true one ; but then it marks that chance 
 with this irresistible consequence — that the other two hundred 
 and ninety-nine must be false. In other words, there are the 
 frightful odds of 299 to 1 against each particular sectary in 
 England ; and the result of this private interpretation is, that on 
 the most serious and important of all subjects, the most absurd 
 and, indeed, insane gambling is introduced and sustained by 
 you and your Biblical allies. 
 
 But I will bring this argument more home to you. You 
 and your Unitarian friend, Dr. Townley, probably travelled to- 
 gether in the same carriage through Scotland — at least, you 
 
T,^2 Fatal Ccnscq-itaices of Private Interpreiation. 
 
 travelled on the same errand. No-w, yon believe in the Divinity 
 of Christ. I am sure you do ; for you will allow that you will 
 be not only the vilest of hypocrites, if you did not so believe, 
 but the greatest of knaves, for you have received many and 
 many thousands of pounds for preaching that doctrine. But 
 Townley has discovered that you are in error, and that you are 
 in the error to the extent of adoring a mere human being ! ! ! 
 You are — or, at least, ought to be — shocked. "Will you inquire 
 how Townley made this discovery ? Why, simply, by that 
 easy process, the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures ! 
 Here is one frightful consequence of that right brought hom& 
 to your very door ; and yet you encourage the assertion of that 
 very right, instead of cautioning your friend against the evils 
 of blinding pride, and the advantages of dutiful and rational 
 submission to authority. 
 
 Secondly — The impropriety of private interpretation is 
 pointed out in the written word of God itself. Indeed, it is 
 expressly forbidden. Look at the 2nd Epistle of St. Peter, c. 1, 
 V. 25, and you will find that " no prophecy of Scripture is of any 
 private interpretation." Look at the Epistles of St. Paul to the 
 Ephesians, c. 4, especially the 11th and 12th verses, and yoa 
 will find in the former, the 11th verse, that apostles, and 
 prophets, and evangelists, and pastors, and doctors were given 
 to the Chui'ch, and in the latter, the reason of that gift — namely, 
 that we should not be " children, tossed to and fro, and carried 
 about with every wind of doctrines by the wickedness of men, 
 by the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive.'* 
 Can you read and not see against what species of men it is that 
 we are warned ? Look again at the 2nd Epistle of St. Peter, 
 c. 3, V. 16, where it is said, speaking of the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 " in which are some things hard to be understood, and which 
 the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scriptures, 
 to their own destruction." 
 
 See how consistent with the written word of God is the 
 Catholic doctrine in this as in everything else when soundly 
 co'Q.^trued. That Church knows and teaches that the Scriptures, 
 rea-d with the proper disposition and humble spirit, make men 
 
The Circulation of the Bible. 2)'S2) 
 
 wise viuto salvation ; but that left to be wrested by private inter- 
 pretation, at the fancy of the unstable and unlearned, may lead 
 to destruction, wrest them as tliey may. 
 
 Thirdly— The riglit of private interpretation is quite incon- 
 sistent with that vinity of faith which is so repeatedly com- 
 manded in the written word — that there can be but one true 
 faith is the plain dictate of common sense It is also declared 
 with equal and most emphatic distinctness in tlie Scriptures. 
 Look at the 10th chapter of St. John, the 15th and 16th verses, 
 after speaking of laying down His life for His sheep, He adds, 
 " and other sheep I have that are not of this fold, them also I 
 must bring, and them also shall hear w\y voice, and there shall 
 be one fold and one shepherd." Look at the epistle I liave 
 already quoted, St. Paul to the Ephesians, c. 4, the 3rd, 4th, 
 5th, and 6th verses, where the Apostle bids them be " careful to 
 keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. One body 
 and one spirit, as j'-ou are called in one hope of your calling; 
 one Lord, one faith, and one baptism." Need I cite more? 
 I could fill many pages with references of a similar tendency, 
 but it is unnecessary. Now, let me ask, whether you or your 
 Unitarian colleagues preserve this Unity of Faith ? Is vour 
 and their faith one ? Is your faith and their faitli the Arminian, 
 and Calvinist, and Methodist, and Socinian, and Rapliel, ccc, 
 one; and where has the endless variety of other denominations 
 arisen ? Why, from the private interpretations of Scripture. 
 Indeed, I believe that even you will not deny that private in- 
 dividual interpretation is utterly inconsistent with unity of faith, 
 and productive of the utmost variety in the modes of belief. 
 How consistent that is with the written word of God I leave 
 you, sweet sir, to ruminate upon in charitable and humane 
 leisure. 
 
 Fourthly — You call the circulation of the Bible opening the 
 door of heaven to the peasant. Now, sir, I think the Catholic 
 Church right in preventing the circulation of unauthorized ver- 
 sions of the Scriptures, or any version with a view to private 
 interpretation. So far from thinking tlie circulation a mode to 
 vol,. II. 24 
 
354 Effects of indiscruuinate Circulation of the Bible. 
 
 open a door to heaven, I look to the evidence of facts, and find 
 a melancholy experience of the fatal immorality which has 
 accompanied that circulation in England. I appeal to facts in 
 order to ascertain whether any practical utility has followed the 
 unlimited distribution of the Bible in England. Follow me, I 
 pray you, and mark those facts. 
 
 England is the great theatre of Biblical exertions. It has 
 been boasted of, that every man, woman, and child in England 
 had, or could easily procure, a Bible ; Lord Liverpool, at the 
 head of a Bible Society, made this boast ; and looking to the 
 success of the Bible societies in England for the last twenty- 
 five years, he vauntingly called England a Land of Bibles. 
 
 Now mark this Land of Bibles, and let these few facts attest 
 its morality — 
 
 First fact — There was a Parliamentary Report on the Poor 
 Laws, about the year 1823, and several Protestant clergymen 
 were examined. I can refer you, if you desire, to the very 
 words of their evidence : but the substance was distinctly this, 
 that in the marriages celebrated amongst the working and poor 
 classes in England, there were at the period of the marriage 
 nineteen of the women out of twenty in a state of pregnancy. 
 And I submit to you that a percentage of five virgins out 
 of every hundred married women is rather small for a Land of 
 Bibles. 
 
 Second fact — There have been two pamphlets published 
 recently in England by clergj-men of the Established Church 
 relative to the labourers and poor. One of these clergj-men 
 resides in Gloucestershire, the other in Norfolk. They both 
 detail the state of the morals of the lower classes in England, 
 and concur in describing the villages in the country parts of 
 England as " dens of thieves and prostitutes." Blessed Land of 
 Bibles ! 
 
 Third fact — One of the clergymen I have above alluded to, 
 the Pev. Mr. Brereton, is rector of Walsiugham in Norfolk. 
 It appears that his parish is now something less populous than 
 it was at the time of the Peformatiou ! ! ! Look to the oOth 
 
English Testimony on iliis Subject. 355 
 
 and 31st pages of this pamphlet; 3'ou will find that " in half 
 the cottage families there were cases of bastardy ;" and mark, it 
 appears from a reference to the parish registers, for a period of 
 two hundred and seventy years, that the last twenty-five years 
 contain more illegitimate birtlis than the preceding two cen- 
 turies and a half ! ! ! Compare this with the boasting of Lord 
 Liverpool, and admire the Land of Bibles — and mark the curious 
 coincidence between immorality and fanaticism. 
 
 Fourth fact — This same Lord Liverpool, on Tuesday, the 
 9th of this present month of May, in introducing " the Criminal 
 Justice Imprisonment Bill" into the House of Lords, expressly 
 said *' that crime had greatly increased in England within the 
 last seven years, as compared with the seven years preceding." 
 See, then, the value of all these Biblical exertions, which are 
 so much boasted of by you and your allies. Behold England 
 increasing in Bibles and in crime — and Parson Daly calling the 
 circulation of those Bibles the door to heaven. 
 
 It will be said that I calumniate the people of England, 
 wdiilst I merely collect the testimony of their own clergymen 
 and governors. Be it so —I cheerfully submit to the calumny ; 
 I use these facts for the purpose of showing that, as both reason 
 and religion concur with the Catholic Church in opposing the 
 undue and improper circulation of the Scriptures, so the evidence 
 of facts demcmstrates the wisdom of that Church, to whom it 
 was promised that the Spirit of "Wisdom should abide with her 
 for ever. 
 
 I now come to the last and most important topic in your let- 
 ter. It relates to the Real Presence — I say emphatically the Peal 
 Presence — because any man who believes in the Real Presence 
 is, in my judgment, inconsistent with himself, unless he also 
 believes in Transubstantiation. I do not know, nor can I con- 
 jecture, of what materials your mind may be composed — whether 
 it be, as I suspect, imbued with sour sectarianism, of so bitter 
 and ungenerous a nature that your worship rather resembles 
 the fear-inspired invocation of the demon by the ignorant Indian, 
 ihan that charitable, but humble hope, which I think Christi- 
 
 24* 
 
256 What is Idolatry ? 
 
 anitj was formed to create and foster. If you have iu you any 
 materials for charity, surely you ought, at least, to wish that the 
 doctrines of the Eeal Presence were true. It places our Adorable 
 Eedeemer in so amiable a point of view — it gives to His love 
 for man so active and perpetual an energy— it presents so con- 
 stant a memorial of all He did and said, and suffered for us — it 
 reminds us so strongly, and even by His own presence, of the 
 bitterness of His passion, and the agony of His death for us — 
 that even those who disbelieve ought to wish that so sweet, so 
 constant, so universal a pledge of divine love was given us. 
 For my humble part, he who would tear this belief from my mind, 
 would rend asunder one of the tenderest and most powerful 
 links that bind my soul in humble and tremulous, but strong 
 hope, to my Father and my Grod. Oh, how sincerely do I bless 
 His holy name, that as there is no sweeter tenet of Christianit}", 
 so there is none founded on more clear, convincing, and indeed, 
 demonstrative arguments. 
 
 Let me first rebuke you (I now do it gently) for that sour 
 uncharitableness which makes you accuse of idolatry a mistaken 
 belief in the Eeal Presence. Even if it were a mistake it would 
 not be idolatrous. My adoration is directed to Christ, true 
 God and true man. In the sacrament I adore nothing but 
 Him — my intention is directed to the adoration of Him. If 
 He were not there it would be a mere mistake of fact and not 
 of intent, and could not therefore be idolatry. If, when Christ 
 was upon earth, a man who did not know his person mistook 
 an unbelieving Jew for Christ, and adored him, thinking it was 
 Christ, would he incur the guilt of idolatry ? Certainly not — 
 neither would I be guilty of idolatry even if I were mistaken as to 
 the fact. And your assertion to the contrary is, I hope, a proof 
 only of your ignorance of subjects connected with religion, and 
 not evidence of a spirit unbecoming a clergyman of any per 
 suasion or a Christian of any sect. 
 
 But I am not mistaken — the doctrine of the Eeal Presence is 
 founded on the clearest and most abundant proofs. Listen to 
 the manner in which a mere layman of the Catholic Church, 
 
Reasons for Belief . 357 
 
 amidst tlie pressure of various and urgent occupations, can place 
 those proofs before you. 
 
 I believe in the Real Presence for three reasons : — 
 First — That belief is enjoined by the holy Catholic Church, 
 and both reason and religion combine to assure me that that 
 Church cannot possibly lead me into error. 
 
 Reason tells me that, if Christianity were a mere human 
 institution, its founder, if he were not an entire idiot, must 
 have established some tribunal or authority to which all differ- 
 ences of sentiments amongst his followers should be submitted, 
 tlieir disputes and dissensions terminated, and the entire body 
 iept together in peace and unity- 
 
 Without some tribunal or authority of this description, no 
 society, body, or community of persons could be kept together 
 for any lengtli of time. Particular occasions and temporary 
 motives might keep them together for a season, but there could 
 be no permanence nor continual peace amongst them, unless 
 they changed their natures, and became more or less than 
 men. 
 
 The experience of the present day — the crowds of sectaries 
 which are produced by a rebellion against the tribunal of religion 
 — the marked and most important difference which exists between 
 you and Dr. Townley — the interminable nature of the controver- 
 sies that arise between those who are out of the pale of the Church ; 
 all these feuds add to the force of the strong but obvious reasoning, 
 and convince every judgment, that the Founder of Christianity 
 would not be wise unless he had established such a tribunal. 
 
 But that Founder was not only wise but also all-powerful. 
 lie therefore was able to endow the tribunal Avhich He did 
 establish with sufficient wisdom to render it impossible for that 
 tribunal to lead into any error whatsoever. 
 
 This, of which common sense and reason would alone suffice 
 to convince me, is placed beyond any possibility of doubt by 
 the written testimony of (rod Himself. I will point your atten- 
 tion to some of that testimony — it is easily brought together, 
 and to every unbiased mind it must be conclusive. 
 
358 The Projiiise to Peter. 
 
 First — In the fourth chapter of St. John, in those awful 
 moments which immediately preceded His passion, our Divine 
 Redeemer consoles His Apostles with the following promise — 
 see V. 16, 17 : *' And I will ask the Father, and he shall give 
 3'ou another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever, 
 the Spirit of Truth," &c. ; and in the 26th v., " But the Para- 
 clete — the Holy Grhost — whom the Father will send in my 
 name, he will teach you all things." Now these promises could 
 not have been made to the Apostles as individuals, because, as 
 individuals, they were not themselves to " abide for ever." It 
 must, therefore, have been to them and to their successors in 
 the Church to whom the perpetuity could alone belong — 
 and with whom, therefore, it is plain that " the Holy 
 Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, teaching all things, abides for 
 ever." 
 
 Second — The Gospel of St. Matthew closes with the equally 
 consolatory promise from our Divine Redeemer Himself, ad- 
 dressed to His Apostles — " Go you, therefore, and teach all 
 nations, baptizing them," &c. &c., *''and behold I am with you all 
 days, even unto the consummation of the world." This promise, 
 too, is like the former, unlimited in point of duration, save by the 
 duration of time itself. Thus, then, have we express promises 
 that the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, and our Adorable Re- 
 deemer Himself, would abide and remain for ever with His 
 Church. 
 
 Thirdly — I refer to one passage more, and which, indeed, 
 alone is all-sufficient — it is the 18th verse of the 16th chapter of 
 St. Matthew : " And I say unto thee : That thou art Peter, and 
 upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it." Thus, then, have we the most un- 
 bounded certainty that the Church is founded on the most solid 
 foundation — that the gates of hell have not prevailed, and never 
 can prevail against it — and that the eternal Son of God, who 
 is one with the Father, and also the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of 
 Truth, for ever abides with that Church. Can it be possible, 
 then, the Church so founded, so supported, so directed and 
 
Reasons for his Belief. 359 
 
 taught can err ? "Who shall attempt to say that the gates of 
 hell have prevailed against her ; and if they have not so pre- 
 vailed, how foolish is it to stand in hostility against that Church, 
 and of what value are all the thousands of pounds which you, 
 Mr. Daly, are paid for your hostility to that Church — of what 
 avail are they to you ? 
 
 For my part, allow me to revere authority thus constituted, 
 and to believe promises the most emphatic and explicit that 
 language can convey. Alas ! what a strange creature is man 
 to venture to contradict those solemn promises by paltry and 
 peddling chicanery, and to set up his own individual notions, 
 whether crude or deliberate, against the voice of the Church, 
 which is thus founded and supported. It may and does gratify 
 human pride to shake off authority, and glorify itself in its own 
 miserable conceits, but does it not also exhibit the extent of 
 human folly to see men risk their dearest interests for eternity, 
 upon the precarious presumption that they are wiser than the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 For my part, my first reason — and it would alone to my 
 mind supersede all others — for believing in the Real Presence is, 
 that the doctrine is taught by the one Holy, Catholic, and Apos- 
 tolic Church. 
 
 A second reason for believing it, and one that if I had leisure 
 and ability I would address to every sincere and unbiassed 
 Christian in the universe — no matter to what sect or persuasion 
 he may belong — my second reason for believing in the E-eal 
 Presence is, that it is most clearly and repeatedly revealed in 
 the written word of God. It would, I believe, be difficult to 
 find any one Christian tenet so clearly and repeatedly announced 
 in Scripture. 
 
 The signs and types of the Old Law referred to it. The 
 Pascal Lamb was but a figure of the Holy Eucharist — the 
 priesthood of the order of jMelchisedech, to which Christ for 
 ever belongs, typified in the bread and wine, the elements for 
 the service of the altar, by the priesthood of the New Law. 
 Let me, however, pass over these, and come to some of the pas- 
 
360 Reasoning from Saipturc. 
 
 sages of tlie Xew Testament wliicli relate to this Divine 
 mysteiy. 
 
 Let anj iml)iassed, candid, and sincere man, unclouded by 
 passion or pride, take up the 6th chapter of the Gospel accord- 
 ing- to St. John, and see whether it be possible, without per- 
 versity of some kind, to resist the evidence contained in that 
 chapter. 
 
 Let him, however, recollect, first, that the first miracle with, 
 which oiu' Redeemer announced His divine authority was a 
 miracle b}^ transubstantiation — it was the changing the sub- 
 stance of water into the substance of wine. Let him, secondly, 
 recollect that one of the miracles which was most frequently re- 
 peated by oui' Saviour was the multiplication of the identity of 
 one and the same substance. Let liim then look into the 6th 
 chapter of St. John, and he will find that it begins with pre- 
 cisel}' a miracle of this nature : five barley loaves and two fishes 
 were found sufficient in the hands of our Saviour to feed about 
 five thousand persons. Nay, we find by the 13th verse, that, 
 after this multitude had been fully fed, tlie fragments were 
 gathered up, aud they " filled twelve baskets with the fragments 
 of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to 
 them that had eaten." Recollect that twelve baskets were 
 filled with the fragments of five barley loaves. It is so written 
 — which five loaves could of course have been easily carried in 
 one basket, and yet there were " twelve baskets filled with the 
 fragments!" Where is now the reverend, the very reverend 
 Robert Daly, with his question ? Why does he not now ask 
 how twelve baskets could be filled with " the fragments " of 
 that wliich, whole and entire, might be contained in one basket, 
 or at the utmost in two, but let us say in five ? Alas for his 
 questioning ! Here is the text express against his inter- 
 rogatories. 
 
 One would imagine that the persons who were present at 
 and participated in such a miracle as this, would submit to the 
 authority of Him by whom it was performed. Do we find it 
 so ? Do we find that they who were thus miraculously fed, 
 
Argitmeiit from Scripture. 361 
 
 find saw with their own eyes the fragments exceed, at least 
 nine or tenfold, or probably twelve or twenty times the amount 
 of the original quantity — do we find that they yielded to the 
 Divine authority ? No, there were Robert Dalys amongst 
 them, and the miracle was thrown away upon them who were 
 fed by its means: as, alas ! it is thrown away upon the disciples 
 and companions of Robert Daly in the present day. 
 
 Let, however, the candid and fair men who value their sal- 
 vation beyond every pecuniary interest or triumph of argument, 
 proceed with the sixth chapter of St. John ; they will see that 
 this ajDpears to be just the occasion for the Divine goodness to 
 announce some truth which human self-sufficiency would hesi- 
 tate to receive, and call a hard saying. Accordingly we find 
 that whilst the multitude were, or at least ought to have been, 
 strongly impressed with this miracle, our Divine Saviour availed 
 Himself of that as the fit moment to announce the doctrine of 
 the Real Presence, as it is now believed, in the Sacrament of the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 I should transcribe the whole chapter, if I were to put for- 
 ward all that it contains on this most important subject. I 
 only beg the truth-seeking reader to observe that Christ, in the 
 29th verse, takes care to inform His hearers that " this is the 
 work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent;" and 
 after giving this caution, let the natural and distinct way in 
 which the doctrine of the Real Presence is brought forward be 
 particularly noted — and in particular how strongly and repeat- 
 edly the necessity of explicit belief in Him is enforced. Look 
 at the 35th verse, in which He declares Himself to be the Bread 
 of Life ; and the ensuing passages, at which the Jews murmured 
 and expressed their doubts — but how are these doubts met ? 
 Look at the 47th and the ensuing verses to the 52nd inclusively, 
 which I cannot avoid transcribing — " He that believe th in me 
 hath everlasting life." " I am the bread of life. Your fathers 
 did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread 
 which came down from heaven, that if any man eat of it he 
 may not die. I am the living bread which came down from 
 
362 iVo Snare laid for our Souls. 
 
 lieaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever ; 
 and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the 
 world." Nothing certainly can be more distinct and explicit. 
 Accordingly the carnal question-asking Jews revolted at the 
 plain and obvious meaning. The spirit which now animates 
 you, Mr. Daly, was then quite alive amongst the unhappy 
 Jews. The very trick of arguing by question was then, as it is 
 now, the resource of obstinate and misguided error. Thus we 
 find by the 53rd verse that " the Jews strove amongst them- 
 selves, saying : How can this man give us his flesh to eat? " 
 
 Now you perceive that those who heard our Saviour under- 
 stood His words, as they manifestly ought, in their plain and 
 ordinary sense. If that was a misconception it would of course 
 have been rectified. Our Saviour who had shown his tender 
 compassion for their bodily wants and supplied them with cor- 
 poral food, would certainly have laid no snare for their immortal 
 souls. That charity which brought Him from heaven to die 
 for those unbelievers, and for you and me, would certainly have 
 relieved them from all doubts and difficulties if his words were 
 figurative, or conveyed any other than their obvious meaning. 
 It is impossible, utterly impossible, to suppose that He could 
 have intended to deceive, or that He would leave them in any 
 mistake or error. Attend, therefore, to His reply, and if it 
 does not make your heart burn within you, deplore your misery 
 and seek at the source for true light. 
 
 Attend to the reply to the question — " How can this man 
 give us his flesh to eat ?" 
 
 I will mark the verses of that reply : — 
 
 54 Now Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you : Except you 
 tat of the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have 
 iife in you. 
 
 55 lie that eatetli my flesh, and drinketh my blood: hath everlasting life : 
 and I will raise him up in the last day. 
 
 58 For my flesh is meat indeed : and my blood is drink indeed : 
 57 lie that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and 
 I in him. 
 
Tlie Apostles understood Scripture. 363 
 
 58 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father : so h& 
 that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 
 
 59 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven. Not as your 
 fathers did eat manna, and are dead, lie that eateth this bread shall live 
 for ever. 
 
 Can any fair or honest man now hesitate to say, that this 
 answer, given to persons who murmured in their douhts, was 
 given to put an end to all doubts, and enforce truth by 
 authority ? It of course removed all doubt from the minds of 
 the Jews, who heard our Saviour, and they accordingly with 
 that pert flippancy wliich even now characterises the writings 
 of Mr. Daly, exclaimed, " This saying is hard, and wlio can 
 bear it ?" 
 
 Even the chosen disciples secretly murmured, and their 
 thoughts were read in their inmost souls by our Divine Master, 
 see verse 63. Who will believe that He pretended to deceive 
 them, as well as the Jews ? Who will believe that He would 
 leave them in error? It would have been so easy to have 
 undeceived the Jews, if they laboured under any mistake. It 
 would have been so easy to have reconciled the disciples, if they 
 had any misconception ; it was only to say, you misunderstood 
 me — that is not my meaning. 
 
 But the truth is manifest — they did not misunderstand. It 
 was literally His meaning, that which His words naturally 
 expressed, and "accordingly our Saviour appeals to the greatest 
 of His miracles — His ascension into Heaven — to sustain His 
 authority, even with His disciples, that they may unhesitatingly 
 believe Him when He said that He " would give his flesh to 
 eat, and his blood to drink." His reply contained these re- 
 proachful words: — "Doth this scandalize you? If then you 
 shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before." 
 
 This perseverance in the assertion of the doctrine, that I am 
 
 now, humbly and feebly, but sincerely sustaining, had its 
 
 natural effect on the proud and credulous spirits by whom 
 
 ''e was surrounded. Although they had been fed by His 
 
 i-aculous bounty J although they had heard him appeal to 
 
364 Scriptural Proofs. 
 
 a still greater and transcendent miracle ; j^et we find in tlio 
 67th verse: — "After this, many of his disciples went back, and 
 walked no more with him." 
 
 Let me then close my comment on the chapter, with tlire3 
 Tcrses more, and a few observations : — 
 
 6S Then Jesus said to the twelve: AVill you also go away ? 
 
 69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall Ave go? 
 Thou hast the words of eternal life. 
 
 70 And we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ the 
 Son of God. 
 
 "What course ought we to pursue ? Ought we, becauco 
 there are difSculties in the way of our belief, ought we because 
 we deem these sajdngs as hard, to go back and walk no more 
 with Him ? 
 
 Let Mr. Daly take that course if he pleases ; for us, v/e 
 know that Christ has the words of Eternal Life, and we yield 
 implicitly our faith to His words. 
 
 I have dwelt long upon the 6th chapter of St. John, but 
 I have by no means exhausted the reasonings which it fur- 
 nishes. On the contrary, I have sketched only a few obvious 
 arguments, and totally omitted many powerful topics which 
 that chapter furnishes. I wish that every candid and dis- 
 passionate man would read it, and would also read the 
 miserable cavils by which the innate force of the testimony 
 borne in that chapter to the doctrine of the Real Presence 
 is sought to be eluded; and unless there was some cause 
 for the blindness or the fatuities of the mind of the person 
 calmly considering that chapter, I do not see how he could avoid 
 discovering the truth. 
 
 There are abundant other Scriptural proofs of this doctrine. 
 The institution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist itself. The 
 words used on that occasion are so clear, so strong, so distinct, 
 that it requires some effort to bring oneself to believe that 
 any reasonable being can resist the force of the words. I 
 will quote those to be foimd in St. Matthew, chapter xxvi., 
 verses 26, 27, 28:— 
 
Plain Laiigiiage of Sci'iptm^e. 36^ 
 
 And while they were a^ supper, Jesus took bread and blessed, and broke, 
 and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye and eat, this is my bodj. And 
 taking the chalice, he gave thanks : and gave to them, saying : Drink ye all 
 of this ; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for 
 many unto the remission of sins. 
 
 It is not possible to use words more distinctly calculated 
 to convey their meaning. . How do you resist then ? By a 
 very summary, and very easy, but not very reverential mode. 
 It is simply by contradicting our Divine Redeemer directly and 
 without circumlocution. He saj^s, It is my body. You say, 
 It is not. He says, It is my blood. You say, It is not. In 
 that plain and simple way stands the controversy. Let him 
 who believes the Word of God with me believe in the Real 
 Presence. Let those who directly contradict the Word of God 
 join with Mr. Daly in making that belief a subject of ribald 
 jest and paltry buffoonery. 
 
 I shall notice the miserable sophistry by which the force of 
 these plain words is sought to be eluded. It is by this sapient 
 discovery, namely, that our Saviour occasionally makes use of 
 metaphors. Why, He certainly does, and so does everybody 
 who speaks any human language. But, in the first place, a 
 metaphor is as easily understood, and is as true in its meaning, 
 as any simple phrase ; and, in the next, it is a most gross 
 violation of every rule of common sense and grammar to call 
 this phrase, " This is my body," a metaphor. It is rational, 
 although impious, to say that it is false ; but it is nonsensical to 
 say that it is metaphorical. 
 
 Perhaps on this subject I should not quote any other text ; 
 but there are two passages which bring me in contact with the 
 Protestant version of the Bible, and may therefore be particu- 
 larly noticed. They are to be met with in the first Epistle of 
 St. Paul to the Corinthians, chapter xi., verses 27 and 29. In 
 the first of these the words are : — " Wherefore wliosoever shall 
 eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, 
 shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." Now, 
 in the name of common sense, could anybody be guilty of the 
 body and blood of the Lord unless that body and that blood 
 
^66 Meaning of Scripture. 
 
 were x^esent for men to be guilty of? To what miserable 
 subterfuges are you, Protestants, driven in order to elude a 
 denunciation so plain, so direct, so manifest ! ! ! 
 
 The other passage is this : — " For he that eateth and 
 drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, 
 not discerning the body of the Lord." 
 
 Mark well the phrase. Can it be a crime not to discern 
 what is not there ? If the body of Christ be not in the Sacra- 
 ment, can it be a crime not to discern it there ? And on the 
 other hand, how can the body of the Lord be discerned, unless 
 it can be actually present in the Sacrament ? 
 
 Let a fair and reasonable answer be given to these questions. 
 Let the answer come from a candid mind, divested of the spirit 
 of contention, and disposed to embrace truth ; the result is 
 obvious. Such a man will answer at once, " The body of Christ 
 must be present, in order to be discerned. The body of Christ 
 must be in the Sacrament, else it could not possibly be a crime 
 not to discern it there." 
 
 Let me now, by way of parenthesis, remark that the Pro- 
 testant version of the Bible contains a gross, glaring, and an 
 admitted, but I believe still an uncorrected falsification of the 
 above-mentioned 27th verse. The word or is translated into 
 and, and thus, what is disjunctive in the original is copulative 
 in the Protestant version. It is well known that this falsifica- 
 tion was intended to answer a particular purpose ; and is it not 
 continued till this day ? Yet the falsification circulates tlds, too, 
 as the word of God. 
 
 Let me also remark that in the 29th verse, the word which 
 the Catholics translate "judgment," is rendered "damnation" 
 in the Protestant version. The meaning of both is so nearly 
 the same, if not the same, that I do not quarrel with, perhaps, 
 the more emphatic translation of the Protestant. But I would 
 respectfully and earnestly solicit every candid Protestant who 
 sincerely wishes to be in the right upon a subject of eternal im- 
 portance, to reflect seriously on what it is for which his Bible 
 denounces upon him the sentence of damnation. Is it not for 
 
TeacJiing of the Fathers. 367 
 
 not discerning the body of the Lord in the Sacrament ? Let him 
 then return to the Catholic Church, and he will, with us, dis- 
 cern that Blessed and Adorable Body and reverence it in truth 
 and simplicity of heart. 
 
 I have thus terminated, for the present, my Scripture quo- 
 tations to sustain the doctrine of the Real Presence. I have 
 by no means exhausted these quotations. I have omitted many, 
 because there is not space or time remaining to introduce them 
 for the present. I may, and probably will, be sneered at 
 for dwelling too long on subjects of a purely theological na- 
 ture. I care not My wish is merely to show you that a 
 Catholic layman, even without leisure, can defend his faitli 
 upon grounds which even you ought to respect. 
 
 I have now gone through the reasons which sustain the 
 Catholic in his belief of the Eeal Presence, as founded on the 
 authority of the Church of God, and on that of His written 
 Word. I proceed to another distinct and powerful ground 
 of this belief. 
 
 Thirdly — This belief is sustained by the force of the un- 
 broken tradition or unwritten "Word of God, preserved by His 
 Church. To a Catholic, who equally reveres the unwritten 
 with the written Word, the testimony of tradition is of a 
 decisive nature. By the Protestants, this is considered as 
 mere human testimony. I will not, at present, enter into 
 the arguments by which that notion of the Protestants has 
 been so often and so ably confuted ; but, even as human tes- 
 timony, it ought to have its weight with every rational man. 
 
 Now, the fact is plain, and capable of demonstration, that 
 the doctrine of the Peal Presence has been the doctrine of 
 the Church from the Ascension of our Divine Redeemer to 
 the time of the Peformation, and has been continued by 
 the Catholic Church to the present moment. This is a fact 
 of great importance, and it is easily proved by a reference to 
 all the original writers, in every age and country. All these 
 holy men, who have by consent of mankind been called 
 " Fathers of the Church," have devoutly believed the Peal 
 
368 Protestant Misrepresentation. 
 
 Presence, and unanimously borne testimony to the perpetuity 
 of that belief in the Church, from the days of the Apostles 
 inclusively. 
 
 At first, several Protestant writers endeavoured to dispute 
 this fact, and sought, by the most strange sophistry, to distort 
 the obvious meaning of the ancient Fathers ; but the attempt 
 was too glaring a fraud to have any permanent success; and, ac- 
 cordingly, all the latter divines have been compelled to abandon 
 to us all the "Fathers of the Church;" all the saints and great 
 men who flourished as the lights of religion, and ornaments of 
 humanity, are all now given up to us, as being full of "rank 
 Popery." 
 
 An ignorant man (such as I believe you, Mr. Daly, to be) 
 may not know the fact ; but, if you are acquainted with Church 
 history, even you cannot be so audacious as to deny that all tho 
 Fathers and ancient writers on Christianity, uniformly, and 
 without exception, sustain (wherever they treat the subject) the 
 belief of the Eeal Presence. 
 
 Thus, then, by the confession I will say of all parties, the 
 belief of the Peal Presence has existed since the days of the 
 Apostles. Why do I say by the confession of all ? Because 
 all are reduced to silence, or made to expose their folly by 
 proposing a simple question in plain terms. It is thus you 
 say that the doctrine of the Peal Presence has not subsisted in 
 the Church since the days of the Apostles, but has been intro- 
 duced subsequently, Yery well. Now, pray tell me when it 
 was introduced, and by whom, by name ? This question has 
 been one thousand times asked, but never answered satisfac- 
 torily. Some Protestants have, at first, met it directly, and 
 they named the person and the time. But they were soon 
 driven from the post so taken ; for the moment any Protes- 
 tant named a time as that in which this doctrine was intro- 
 duced, or a person who introduced it, the moment the asser- 
 tion was put in so tangible a shape, that instant the assertion 
 was refuted, and the Catholics were able to show that the 
 belief in the Real Presence existed prior to tlie time thus 
 
Protestant Opinioji on Baptism. 369 
 
 designated, and to the person thus named. The conclusion is 
 triumphant, that this doctrine must have been introduced by 
 Christ and the Apostles, as it certainly has not been intro- 
 duced since that time. 
 
 Every candid Protestant, who has sufficient leisure, should 
 read upon this subject Arnauld's work, called ^'' Poyetuite de 
 la Foiy It should be read by every man who is capable of 
 admiring the powers of human mind of the first order. It 
 shows a depth of learning almost exceeding credibility, and 
 a force of reasoning and of logical and precise argumentation 
 which even an infidel could not fail to admire; and which 
 ought, I think, carry conviction to every unbiased and honest 
 mind. 
 
 Parson Daly, I have, for the present, done with you. I 
 have written this letter almost as rapidly as any person could 
 read it through ; and, although I have exhausted the patience 
 of others, I have not exhausted myself on the subject. 
 
 There is, indeed, one topic more, on which I should have 
 particularly wished to have met you. You have assailed my 
 creed with ribaldry. I should like to have attacked your creed 
 by argument ; that is, if I could possibly discover what that 
 creed is; if you have not made more scanty, the already 
 scanty belief of the Established Church; if you have not 
 thrown one or two more sacraments overboard, after the 
 other five, which it pleased your saintly Reformers totally to 
 annul, amidst their total abandonment of morality and utter 
 contempt of good works ; if you have not condemned the harm- 
 less rite of baptism (was it not so called, without reproof, in your 
 presence ?) ; if you have not gone beyond your Church, and 
 reformed, as is the constant practice, every precedent reforma- 
 tion. If this be not so, and that you adhere to the tenets of 
 the Church, "as by law" established, I should, I confess, like 
 to attack, by some argument, its creed of shifts, and compro- 
 mises, and contradictions. I should like to expose that most 
 melancholy and deplorable system of asserting in Articles of 
 Belief for the mature, and in Catechisms for the young, tenets 
 VOL. 11. 25 
 
370 Contradictory Propositions. 
 
 which are denied in your pulpits and contradicted by your 
 individual instructions. 
 
 Finally, if I had time and opportunity, I think I would 
 satisfy every rational man that, quite independently of 
 the question, whether or not the doctrine of the Catholic 
 Church be true, it is as morally impossible but that the Estab- 
 lished Church must be false, as it is that contradictory proposi- 
 tions should CO- exist, or that black and white should be one- 
 and the same colour. 
 
 I am sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
Letter to the People of Ireland. 371 
 
 First Letter to the People of Ireland. 
 
 London^ 4.th April, 1833. 
 
 " Far dearer the grave or the prison, 
 Illum'd by one patriot name, 
 Than the trophies of all who have risen 
 On liberty's ruins to fame!" 
 
 Fellow-countrymen — This is the first of a series of letters 
 which I intend to publish on the present state and future pros- 
 pects of our country, including the best suggestion I can give 
 for regulating your conduct in the manner most calculated to 
 mitigate the evils of the one and to insure the amelioration of 
 the other. 
 
 Let it, however, be always recollected that the entire scope 
 and object of my political life now is, to advance and secure the 
 Kepeal of the Legislative Union between these two countries, 
 convinced as I am, in the deepest recesses of my conscience, that 
 it is impossible — utterly impossible — to do any permanent or 
 valuable service to Ireland until the restoration of her domestic 
 Parliament. 
 
 This conviction has long been floating in my mind, but it is 
 now fixed unalterably and for ever. The manner in which the 
 Anglesey Algerine Bill was received by the British Legislature 
 — the foolish, as well as false, allegation by which it was sup- 
 ported — the enormous majorities by which it was ultimately 
 carried — the shouts of domination and triumph by which the 
 advocates of Irish liberty were insulted, and the unsuppressed 
 spirit of national hostility which guided and animated our 
 enemies have taught me that it is worse than folly to imagine 
 that the afiairs of Ireland can be attended to with the requisite 
 knowledge of facts and cordial sincerity of intention in any 
 other than in an Irish Parliament. 
 
 I need not dwell on this point. I cannot describe with 
 anything like accuracy the extent of the innate hatred of 
 
 25* 
 
372 Argument and Reasoning are over. 
 
 Ireland whicli I have witnessed in many men since my last return 
 to this country. They hate us — and without avowing it, even 
 to themselves, they fear us. "We must have a domestic Legis- 
 lature, or we can never be safe in our properties, our lives, or 
 our liberties. 
 
 Nay, more — I am thoroughly persuaded that the only way 
 to prevent the final separation of the two countries is, to attach 
 Ireland to the connection, by giving her the protection from 
 insult and injury of a Parliament of her own. 
 
 It is, therefore, my sacred duty to exert every faculty of my 
 mind to bring about that state of the public mind in Ireland, 
 in which every good man will be ready to join with me in the 
 Eepeal of the Union, no matter what may be his party, his reli- 
 gion, his prejudice, or his resentments. 
 
 The Anglesey Algerine Act — so much worse than the "Wel- 
 lington Algerine Law — has left us no alternative. It silences 
 for ever those who bid us look to the justice and humanity of 
 the British Parliament ; the day is gone by for cant and hypo- 
 crisy of that description. There does not live a knave so auda- 
 cious as now to dare to talk of the kindness and care of British 
 legislators for Ireland ; and, if such a knave exists, there breathes 
 not a single dolt so brutally stupid as to give even one moment's 
 credence to his assertions. 
 
 Argument and reasoning are over. The inevitable conclu- 
 sion is arrived at. Before the Eepeal of the Union no good can 
 be done for Ireland — until the Repeal of the Union Ireland can 
 reap but little benefit from British connection. I repeat that 
 those who oppose the Repeal are blindly and ignorantly, but 
 not the less powerfully or certainly, driving towards sepa- 
 ration. 
 
 To us, who are not at present separatists, and never will be 
 so if we can help it — to us who honestly seek the restoration of 
 Irish freedom and the establishment of Irish prosperity, but one 
 ^uty — one great, all-absorbing duty— remains : it is peaceably 
 and legally to effectuate the restoration of an Irish Par- 
 liament. 
 
The Anglesey Algeritie Bill. 373 
 
 There is but one problem to be solved — that is, the mode of 
 legally and peaceably accomplishing our objects. All we want 
 to know is, the manner of doing the thing. The thing itself is 
 inevitable — indeed, the " Anglesey Algerine Bill," instead of 
 retarding the progress of the Repeal, has to a demonstration 
 greatly promoted its ultimate and most satisfactory success. 
 
 This demonstration I will take up a little later. For the 
 present I content myself witli some preliminary topics. 
 
 In the first place, it may be a matter of surprise to some that, 
 with all the madness of slavery upon me, I should write with so 
 much of cool calmness. To those persons I readily acknowledge, 
 that an offence has been committed against all the great prin- 
 ciples of the constitution, and against the people of Ireland, too 
 deep to be forgotten, and too cruel to be ever forgiven. 
 
 The rankling wound caused by national injustice and Whig 
 despotism (oh, the ever odious Whig !) is too excruciating ever 
 to heal. Yet I am cool, and quiet, and deliberate ; no bursts 
 of passion sway my soul — no fervid epithets of execration burn 
 in my description of individual venality, profligacy, or folly. 
 No ; I console myself, and I am consoled by the certainty that 
 the great measure of national regeneration is advanced by the 
 actions of our worst and most malignant enemies in every part 
 of the British empire. Our friends, and the friends of liberty 
 in Great Britain, are up in heart, courage, and generous sym- 
 pathy ; and the very measure which was intended to crush the 
 agitation of the Repeal, actually makes the Repeal irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 I return to the mode of procuring the Repeal — of procuring y 
 it peaceably and without violating any law. 
 
 Attend to me, my countrymen — attend to me ; you have 
 often listened to my voice and taken my counsel. I can once 
 again proudly, because truly, repeat, that no man ever was sorry 
 for observing my advice in political affairs. My object is now 
 to show how we are to Repeal the Union. 
 
 It seems to me that there are these two preliminary measures 
 necessary, before we can arrive at that state of moral and poli- 
 
\ 
 
 3^4 How to Repeal the Union. 
 
 tical organization (under the now existing law) which is requi- 
 site in order to produce the Repeal in the only manner in which 
 we seek it — that is, without crime and without blood. 
 
 The first of these measures is the suppression of " Whitefeet" 
 '^ outrages. I use the word because it is the last name assumed 
 by the miscreant wretches who have in so many shapes, and for 
 so many years, plundered various parts of Ireland in horrible 
 crimes against property, and stained our country with the tur- 
 pitude, the atrocity, and the demoniacal repetition of murder — 
 crimes demanding the vengeance of man, and also bringing 
 down the punishment of God. 
 
 Long and long since would Ireland have shaken off the yoke 
 / of her worst grievances, but that her friends are disheartened, 
 disgusted, and almost silenced by reason of the commission of 
 " Whitefeet " crimes, whilst every enemy of Ireland is 
 strengthened and fortified by the natural and necessary conse- 
 quences of that criminality. 
 
 The present Anglesey Gagging Bill could never have been 
 introduced — base and worthless as the Whigs are, yet they 
 never could have introduced the present despotic Bill, but for 
 the colour and pretext afforded them by the atrocious murders 
 of the villainous " Whitefeet." 
 
 Our first concern, therefore, is to put down " Whitefeet " 
 outrages. In that sentiment every patriotic Irishman concurs. 
 I will in my future letters develop that organisation of the 
 *' Yolunteers," which, without violating the existing "Algerine" 
 Law, must enable us to contribute effectually to terminate the 
 predial crimes now called " Whitefeetism." 
 
 In the meantime it is the duty of every honest Irishman to 
 exert all his faculties and energies to put down " Whitefeetism." 
 Wherever any of us have influence let it be directed to this 
 object. Let each of us in his own sphere redouble all former 
 exertions to this effect — and, above all, let us impress on the 
 mind of everybody within our reach the impossibility of ever 
 giving freedom to Ireland whilst " Whitefeet " crimes contami- 
 nate, degrade, and weaken our native laud. 
 
Bury Dissensions. 375 
 
 The second preliminary is one of more easy attainment — it 
 is to conciliate all classes and persuasions of Irishmen towards 
 •each other. I have the liveliest happiness in being able to state 
 that the approximation of Irishmen — Protestants, Orangemen, 
 •and Catholics — towards' each other is progressing with a rapi- 
 •dity which exceeds my expectations, and almost equals my 
 ardent wishes for entire and universal conciliation. There are, 
 to be sure, some who continue obdurate and prejudiced, but the 
 number is daily diminishing ; and even in the north, the Orange- 
 men are — many of them at least — ^beginning to perceive that, 
 whilst as Protestants they have nothing to fear, they, as Irish- 
 men, have everything to gain from the establishment of a 
 •domestic Legislature in Ireland. 
 
 Fellow-Countrymen— These are now your greatest and most 
 paramount duties : — 
 
 First — To put down, now and for ever, Whitefeet crimes 
 and outrages. 
 
 Second — To reconcile to each other, and to bury in eternal 
 oblivion, the dissensions between Protestants, Catholics, and 
 Orangemen, showing to all that they have a general, as well 
 as an individual and equal interest in the regeneration of our 
 now unhappy, impoverished, and, alas, most grossly insulted 
 and oppressed country. 
 
 I now come to the most interesting part of my subject, the 
 mode of continuing, without any violation of the " Anglesey 
 Gagging Bill," our national exertions to procure the Eepeal. 
 
 We must not violate the law. We must keep within the 
 strict bounds of the statute. But we can, within these bounds, 
 continue, and even extend, our peaceable exertions for the 
 Repeal. 
 
 I know the spirit of Irish patriotism is still " unfading and 
 warm," and so long as that spirit reigns paramount in the 
 breasts of the honest men of Ireland, I will take care that 
 it shall not want the mode, or the means, of working out the 
 political salvation of the ever-loved, and lovely, land of our 
 birth. 
 
'^'j^ Unfitness of Irish Magistrates. 
 
 The Volunteers can aid, but they shall not he the only legal 
 body to advance the interests and the rights of Ireland. 
 
 However, in order to understand fully the safety and 
 security, as well as the utility of my plans for continuing 
 wholesome agitation under the Algerine law, it is necessary 
 that I should point out briefly some of the mischiefs which that 
 law does not perpetrate. 
 
 Let it be recollected, that, in this letter, I am treating of the 
 law in districts not proclaimed in a state of disturbance and 
 outrage, that is, not Whitefeet districts. 
 
 In all other districts, save those contaminated by White- 
 feet, the Algerine bill, as it left the Committee of the House 
 of Commons, and was ultimately passed, has these circumstances 
 of mitigation about it : — 
 
 First— It gives no power to the magistracy over meetings 
 of any kind. Understand the magistrates have no authority 
 whatsoever given them under this Act. A magistrate cannot 
 prohibit or suppress any meeting under this Act. He is just 
 where he was before this law was passed. 
 
 It is most important to observe this point, because it leaves 
 all meetings, which are not prohibited by an express and noti- 
 fied proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant, precisely as legal as 
 they have been hitherto. 
 
 It is indeed comfortable, amidst the gloom of discontent, 
 naturally and necessarily created by this most unconstitutional 
 law, to perceive this one gleam of consolation, that all parties 
 in the House disclaimed the Irish magistracy as unfit to be 
 intrusted with any additional powers. Except amongst the 
 extreme Irish Tories this was the' universal sentiment of the 
 House. Accordingly, no additional power whatever is given to 
 those unlauded animals, the Irish magistrates. 
 
 Secondly — No meeting can be rendered illegal under this 
 Act until it has been proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant, and 
 that proclamation notified to the persons so meeting. 
 
 There are, therefore, under this Act, two ingredients 
 necessary to make a patriotic meeting illegal. The first is a 
 
The Wellington Algerine Act. 377 
 
 proclamation ty the Lord Lieutenant ; the second is a notifica- 
 tion of that proclamation to the persons intended to be afi'ected 
 by it. 
 
 This is clearly a great improvement in this Act over the 
 " Wellington Algerine Act," and I must claim the merit, 
 because I believe it to be mine, of suggesting this im- 
 provement. 
 
 It is, to be sure, melancholy and heartrending to think that 
 notwithstanding this amendment yet the Lord Lieutenant 
 may, under this most unconstitutional law, prohibit and render 
 illegal, by his notified proclamation, the most useful, the 
 most necessary, nay, the most charitable meeting of Irishmen. 
 
 It is, indeed, deplorable, beyond the powers of language ta 
 be obliged to confess, that a pseudo-reformed Parliament should 
 have given such a power as this to any Lord Lieutenant ; 
 for example, to so unwise a person as Lord Anglesey. It is a 
 power which no lover of liberty would give to the wisest and 
 best of mankind ; but the Parliament that gave it is — thank 
 heaven ! — sufiiciently alien fromlrelaud. 
 
 Thirdly — The power of the Lord Lieutenant is confined to 
 rendering a meeting illegal — observe "a meeting;" I say it 
 emphatically. For example, the Lord Lieutenant may issue 
 a proclamation to prohibit any meeting of the Volunteers. 
 After such proclamation, any meetings of the Volunteers 
 would be illegal, and none such will take place whilst this 
 gagging Bill is law. 
 
 But the association of the Volunteers would not, and 
 cannot, thus be rendered illegal. It will be no ofi'ence to 
 continue to be a Volunteer, and so will every other member 
 of that body be who does not actually resign. Indeed, I will 
 always boast of being, and continuing, a Volunteer, until I 
 see that body restored to their pristine honour and dignity by 
 Act of Parliament, and empowered by law, to arm themselves- 
 and become the unpaid police of Ireland. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that the proclamation of the Lord 
 Lieutenant, will of course prevent the Volunteers from meet- 
 
378 The Volunteers. 
 
 ing ; it will render a meeting of tlie Volunteers illegal ; but it 
 will leave the association of the Yolunteers as legal as they were 
 before the Act ; and, although we do not meet in any assembly, 
 we can co-operate as individuals ; we can direct and regulate our 
 conduct by correspondence, especially ^through the newspapers, 
 for we have not, and never will have, any secrets. Thus the 
 Volunteers can, one and all, continue their exertions to eluci- 
 date the evils Ireland has incurred by, and from, the Union ; 
 to keep alive the genial glow of patriotic ardour for the repeal 
 of that most disastrous and fatal measure, and at the same 
 time to use their best exertions to put down all predial out- 
 rages and crimes ; and, lastly, to conciliate and reconcile all 
 classes of their fellow-countrymen, by burying in a generous 
 oblivion all party fueds and religious dissensions amongst 
 Irishmen. 
 
 Let my advice be attended to, and the Yolunteers will 
 again shine forth in Irish history. Let them obey the law and 
 preserve themselves and their sacred cause for better times. 
 To them is the deposit of Irish liberty especially commended. 
 Let this be their watchword and their motto — 
 
 " Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis." 
 
 I will in this mode correspond with* the Yolunteers, and 
 assist them to crush outrages and crimes, and to promote such 
 rational arbitrations amongst the people as may keep them away 
 from the petty and general sessions. 
 
 But these are no more than the outskirts of agitation. We 
 must arrange, under the new state of affairs, our future plan for 
 as general a combination as possible, to attain, by legal and 
 constitutional means, a redress of Irish grievances. 
 
 It will be my business to bring that plan before the public. 
 I will, in these, my public letters, in order to vindicate the 
 confidence the Yolunteers have reposed in me, point out the 
 modes by which the people may be kept from despair, and the 
 enemies of the people prevented from exasperating suffering 
 millions into madness and insurrection. 
 
The Power of the Franchise. yi(^ 
 
 We must teach the people the paths of peace which alone cau 
 conduct them to prosperity and liberty. 
 
 I proceed to open my plan for the liberation of Ireland from 
 her present thraldom, and for the restoration of her domestic 
 legislature. 
 
 The first element, and the leading principle of that plan is, 
 the proper use of the Elective Franchise. 
 
 This is my first position. It is absolutely necessary that the 
 people of Ireland should render the elective franchise as avail- 
 «,ble as possible. 
 
 The first step in the new agitation is to organise the 
 •elective franchise in every county, city, town, and borough in 
 Ireland. 
 
 This species of agitation has these two great recommenda- 
 tions. First — It is perfectly safe. Secondly — It must be 
 ■eminently useful. 
 
 It may be said that we are only in the beginning of a 
 Parliament, and therefore the advantages to be derived from 
 the organization of the elective franchise are remote. 
 
 This is not so. There never was a Parliament so likely to 
 be short as the present. 
 
 In the first place, the age of the King, and the precarious 
 state of his health — matters to be spoken of with respect and 
 regret — enter as ingredients in our calculation of the duration 
 of this Parliament. 
 
 In the second place, the disconnected and heterogeneous 
 materials of which the present ministry are composed, render it 
 next to impossible that they should remain long in office. I 
 anticipate the dissolution of the present ministry, even before 
 the end of the present session. 
 
 In the next place, the total abandonment by the present 
 ministry of their old principles ; the trampling under foot of all 
 those principles in the Irish Despotism Bill ; their sacrifice of 
 the trial by jury, the palladium of the safety and liberty of 
 Englishmen ; their sacrifice of the last resource of the wretched 
 the right to complain ; their sweeping indemnity to the military, 
 
380 The Irish Despotism Bill. 
 
 and subjecting them to no other punishment save by courts- 
 martial ; these, the leading features of the Irish Despotism Bill, 
 sink deeply into the minds of the thinking and reasoning part 
 of the British community, and are silently but rapidly producing 
 such sentiments of disgust and abhorrence of the present minis- 
 try in the public mind of this country, that it is not possible 
 they should continue long in office. 
 
 Add to this, that this ministry has done nothing ; is doing 
 nothing ; promises nothing to the suffering and overburdened 
 people of England, who were led to expect confidently great 
 relief from the Reform Bill, and are now getting none at all. 
 
 But the faults of this ministry are not merely of a negative 
 quality. They have committed actual errors, which the people- 
 of England call crimes ; they have refused an inquiry into the 
 distress of the people. They have refused an inquiry into the 
 practicability of a plan to relieve productive industry from tax- 
 ation, by placing taxation upon property alone. They have de- 
 termined to continue naval and military sinecures ; and, lastly,, 
 they have totally refused to abolish flogging in the army. 
 
 They are the doings of a reforming ministry in the first 
 session of a Reformed Parliament. Well may the people of 
 England ask, "If these things be done in the greenwood, 
 what will be done in the dry ?" 
 
 Believe me, this ministry cannot stand. They will shrink 
 out of office, amidst the shouts of indignation of all parties. 
 This ministry must soon be dissolved. It is impossible to go 
 back to Toryism. "We are one hundred years, as years reckon 
 in political life, beyond the possible restoration of Toryism. 
 Let us, then, be prepared for the event. The dissolution of this, 
 ministry necessarily leads to the dissolution of the Parliament. 
 
 Let us, then, and from this moment, prepare for that 
 event. 
 
 This is my first step in the new agitation. I must be the 
 prime agitator myself. Without co-operation, it is, of course, 
 evident that I should be powerless ; but, with the aid of a few 
 honest and active men in each locality, the people can, and shaE 
 
The Gagging Bill. 381 
 
 be ready for a new election — to promote their friends and to 
 punish their enemies. 
 
 I think I may pledge myself that I will openly and in the 
 face of the day, organise this " agitation," without any infringe- 
 ment of the *' Algerine Act." My second letter shall be de- 
 voted to the details of my plan ; and I, beforehand, invite 
 criticism and remark, friendly or unfriendly. I will weigh well 
 every objection, and yield to those which appear to me to be 
 supported with good reasons or incapable of being obviated. 
 
 The conduct of the Irish members, during the discussions on 
 the Gagging Bill, is fresh in every recollection. There has been 
 a faithful band, true to their every engagement and pledge. 
 There have been instances of violation of every duty, which 
 serve to degrade our very nature, that there should have been 
 found human beings capable of such conduct. All these we 
 will weigh in our coolest moments, when irritation has gone by, 
 and when we can calmly calculate the crime that has been com- 
 mitted, and the political punishment which ought to follow. 
 
 My first step is, therefore, to organise the means of serving 
 and sustaining friends, and of flinging off enemies. 
 
 Let us, then, begin the new agitation with the organisa- 
 tion of the elective franchise. It will require from me minute- 
 ness of detail and great perseverance. I promise to bring both 
 to the task. 
 
 My next letter will develop those details. In the meantime, 
 the patriotic men who intend to co-operate with me, will com- 
 mence by procuring an accurate knowledge of the state of the 
 registry in their respective parishes and baronies. 
 
 For the present, I say no more on this subject, save this, that 
 I begin with a subject quite safe and more useful. I am con- 
 vinced I shall receive abundant assistance. 
 
 I cannot conclude this my first letter to the people of 
 Ireland, enslaved as they are, by the first Act of a Reformed 
 Parliament, without making a passing remark on more recent 
 events. It is true that we have got rid of Stanley, who was, 
 at least, consistent in his opinions; but, then, we have got 
 
^82 Little Cam. 
 
 Ho"bhouse, who has been a ferocious patriot, and is now a 
 complaisant placeman. I do not know that Ireland can have 
 gained much by the change. Hobhouse, however, has one 
 consolation ; he cannot possibly be worse to Ireland than 
 Stanley. 
 
 I am induced to think the less favourably of Hobhouse, 
 from his speech at the hustings. It is attributed to him, to 
 have been guilty of the inconceivable absurdity of making 
 these two assertions : — 
 
 Pirst — " That the Irish people would, within three months, 
 discover that this Bill (meaning the Despotism Bill) was for 
 their good." 
 
 There is a profound statesman for you — for our good ; to de- 
 prive us of the very first principles of the Constitution ! For 
 our good. Poor man ! What a wretched exhibition of that 
 species of vulgar assumption of the superiority of the English 
 over Irish intellect does this assertion exhibit. Poor man \ 
 For our good ; aye, just as the slave-driver in the West Indies 
 uses the lash on the bare back of the expiring negro — for his 
 good. 
 
 The second assertion was — " That, within the same three 
 months, he would so redress Irish grievances, as to be the most 
 popular man in that country." 
 
 See what an adequate idea he has of his own powers on the 
 one hand, and of the eflPects of seven centuries of misgovernment 
 on the other. What a heaven-born statesman we have got 
 amongst us ! Within three months, surrounded by Tories, Con- 
 servatives, monopolists, and the Attorney- General; having, in 
 addition, Lord Anglesey to manage, and Lord Plunket to 
 satisfy, he is to work miracles of conciliation and kindness by 
 the light of his sweet and gracious countenance. Well done, 
 little Cam ! ! ! as Cobbet calls him. Now, I have as good a 
 right to become " Pastorini" as little Cam has ; and I venture to 
 prophesy, that Ireland will not derive any one benefit, or date 
 any one advantage from the secretaryship of Sir John Cam 
 Hobhouse. 
 
No Violence^ no Crime, 383 
 
 But, when the interests of a great nation — its liberties and 
 its prosperity are at stake ; when a generous and long- oppressed 
 people, instead of a relief, are afforded only Algerine Acts and 
 Gagging Bills, it is unpardonable to consume time in comment- 
 ing on the flies that are whirled round on the wheels of the 
 State-machine, although those flies should imagine that it was 
 they that turned the wheel which merely carries them round. 
 
 For the present, I conclude with the repetition of my oft- 
 given advice to the people : No riot ; no violence ; no crime. 
 But, above all things, no despair. We are eight millions ! 
 
 I am, and ever shall be, fellow-countrymen, 
 
 Your devoted, faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
384 Second Letter. 
 
 Second Letter to the People of Ireland. 
 
 London, Uth April, 1833. 
 
 " Wert thou all that I wish thee — great, glorious and free, 
 First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea, 
 I might hail thee with prouder, with happier brow, 
 But, oh ! could I love thee more deeply than now ?'' 
 
 Fellow-Countrymen — I return to tlie pleasing task of 
 <3ommuning with you again. I return to that which the last 
 Algerine act has made an imperative duty — the cheering you 
 during this, the last night of your bondage, and pointing out 
 to you that amidst the dark hour of unmerited slavery which 
 surrounds you, there are to be seen some of the white streaks 
 of the coming light, which promises, with unerring certainty, a 
 morning of mild brightness, and a noontide of effulgent bril- 
 liancy. Yes, we shall — we must bask yet in the full glow of 
 national liberty, and that fervid day-star of freedom, which in 
 •otlier countries has so often scorched into sterility will, in 
 Ireland, shed only genial warmth to invigorate, extend, and 
 mature the full crop of Irish prosperity. 
 
 The present Algerine law will, as I not only hope but 
 believe, prove the last act of British injustice towards Ireland. 
 The strange precipitancy with which Lord Anglesey has com- 
 menced the exercise of the despotic authority committed to him 
 by this law, excites no small astonishment in this country, 
 where his real characteristics are unknown. It was asserted in 
 both Houses of Parliament, and believed by many that " the 
 Despotism Bill" would be a mere dead letter, held out only in 
 ierrorem, but never to be carried into practice. 
 
 We knew better — we knew Lord Anglesey better. We 
 knew how his pride had been wounded and his vanity mortified, 
 by the overwhelming unpopularity with which the people of 
 Ireland justly rewarded his unfortunate Government. We recol- 
 lect the old proverb, " Set a beggar on horseback and he will 
 
Events are crowd hi g upon us. 385 
 
 ride to " The rest is familiar. Yes; "The political 
 
 beggar " has been set on horseback and off he goes. But he 
 has actually proclaimed the city of Kilkenny — the city of Kil- 
 nenny ! ! ! lie is, indeed, on horseback — and on the backs and 
 faces of the Irish people, too — for I defy any man to give me a 
 justifiable reason or even pretext, for proclaiming the city of 
 Kilkenny. There were no disturbances — no outrages in the 
 city. Oh, this proclamation speaks more powerfully to the 
 people of Euglaud, of the folly and injustice of continuing this 
 law than could one thousand regular speeches, or any theoretic 
 arguments whatsoever. 
 
 The law must be repealed. The unwise Anglesey must bo 
 recalled. Events are crowding u[)on us — and amongst them is 
 to be found more than hope for Ireland. 
 
 Europe is threatened with war — that is one. We are eight 
 millions — that is another. "We require no third. Let the 
 people only remember the advice contained in our motto — 
 " Durate, et tosmet rebus servcde semndis.''* The period of this 
 last trial will soon pass away. Even the excesses committed 
 under the " Despotism Bill" will hasten the time when despot- 
 ism itself will be impossible in Ireland. 
 
 I thus briefly notice the audacious measure of outlawing the 
 city of Kilkenny, as one of those which brings with it a salu- 
 tary reaction. I proceed to the more immediate object of this 
 my second letter. 
 
 That object is, the organization of tlie elective franchise in 
 every county, city, town, and borough in Ireland. 
 
 Let it be recollected that my first duty — as concentrating 
 in myself, dui^ing the present calamitous suspension of the 
 common law to the powers of the Volunteers of Ireland — 
 is to put the elective franchise in such a stage that the people 
 shall command the return of really honest men to Parliament. 
 This is my first duty ; and this letter was intended, principally, 
 to commence the development of my plan, for this purjDOse — a 
 purpose which, in the present slate of the political movement, 
 VOL. II. 26 
 
o 
 
 86 Pensioning of the Catholic Clergy. 
 
 not only in these countries but all over Europe, tends directly 
 to the establishment of constitutional freedom. 
 
 But I am interrupted. Another proclamation ! ! ! Tes, I 
 rejoice to see the glorious name of the Irish Volunteers so 
 honoured with being the first in the enmity of the legal autocrat 
 of Ireland. Honour also the mighty Pasha ! — to the extent to 
 which it is deserved. This is also another boon from Earl Grey's 
 ministry. This is another favour from the British Parliament. 
 Let this proclamation be kept among the records of Irish griev- 
 ances for the day of legal and constitutional retribution — a day 
 which I believe to be more near than "the million" imagine. 
 
 I beg leave thus to return my most cordial thanks, in the name 
 of injured Ireland, to the Volunteers for having continued to 
 meet until this proclamation issued. They will, of course, obey 
 this proclamation — but they did well and wisely to assert the 
 natural freedom of British subjects on their part, and to leave 
 it to the dispensers of despotism to exert the powers of arbitrary 
 and most unconstitutional law on the other part. 
 
 This is now part of history — part of Irish history. It stands 
 amongst those annals which tell of England's injustice and of 
 Ireland's sufferings during seven centuries of shame and sorrow. 
 Let us treasure it, then, in our inmost souls, amidst those 
 spirit-stirring incitements to persevere in the paths of peace, 
 and in the absence of crime, but energetically and incessantly, 
 until we attain the sole safeguard of Irish prosperity and Irish 
 freedom — a domestic legislature. 
 
 This digression, however natural, has led me from the more 
 immediate object of this letter — the organization of the elective 
 franchise — and tempts me, before I proceed further with that 
 object, to introduce one or two topics of a more pressing and 
 immediate interest. The "elective franchise" can afford a 
 little postponement, and the other topics require speedy atten- 
 tion, in order to tranquillize the public mind upon them. 
 
 The first relates to the " pensioning " by the State of the 
 Catholic clergy. 
 
Reform in the Corporation. 387 
 
 The second — '■'■ longo intervalle" — relates to the reform of 
 the corporations of Ireland, but in particular of the Corporation 
 of Dublin. 
 
 With respect to the first — "The State pensioning" of the 
 Catholic clergy — it can be despatched in a few words, notwith- 
 standing its awful importance to the liberties and to the religion 
 of the people of Ireland. 
 
 I therefore simplj announce the certainty that there is no 
 danger of any such proposal being brought forward at present 
 — not the most remote. Every person anxious on this subject 
 either from a love of freedom, or from the more serious and 
 solemn respect to religion, may rest in perfect tranquillity. 
 Exclusive of the unalterable confidence reposed in the integrity 
 of the Catholic prelates, there is this additional reason to being 
 secure, that the Cabinet has never agreed even to deliberate 
 upon any such provision. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I do not mean to deny that 
 liints of such a provision being in contemplation were thrown 
 out by certain individuals connected with the Government in 
 Ireland. I believe they were — but I also believe that those 
 hints were received with so decided and at the same time so 
 quiet a tone of rejection that even if the measure itself had been 
 resolved on by the Cabinet it would have been abandoned. 
 
 So far, indeed, from there being any Cabinet scheme of that 
 description, I do not for the present, see the possibility of bring- 
 ing forward with any chance of success my favourite plan — a 
 plan I can never lose sight of — that is to obtain the legal means 
 " of securing in perpetual succession for each Popish priest in 
 Ireland a manse, or parochial residence, and a suitable glebe." 
 This plan of mine does not involve any public burden or any 
 connection whatsoever between the Catholic clergy and the 
 State. 
 
 The second topic upon which the public mind of the people 
 of Dublin requires to be tranquillized relates to the approaching 
 measures of corporate reform. 
 
 As I cannot have the pleasure of meeting my constituents 
 
 26* 
 
388 Reform in the Corporatio?i . 
 
 until the close of the session, I cannot sooner explain to them 
 in person the real state of the question of reform in the Corpo- 
 ration. But the moment the session closes I will repair to 
 Dublin, whatever may then be the state of the law, and canvass 
 all the details of that measure, as applicable to the citizens of 
 Dublin. In the meantime, I perceive that very gross misappre- 
 hension exists on this subject, and that some of those whom I 
 am exceedingly anxious to serve, imagine that their interests 
 are in danger of being forgotten. I therefore proceed to detail 
 the existing state of the facts and the embryo plan for the 
 reform of the Dublin Corporation. I call it the " embryo" plan 
 because it is no more at present; and before it has assumed 
 form and consistency, my constituents shall have ample oppor- 
 tunity to consider all its details and to remedy its defects. 
 
 The facts, as they exist, are these : evidence has been received 
 by the Committee of the House of Commons of the actual state 
 of the Corporation of Dublin. The witnesses were principally 
 members of the Corporation itself — but Mr. Serjeant Perrin 
 Mr. M. Maley, and Mr. Staines have added some very useful 
 information. 
 
 I do not feel myself at liberty to go into the details of the 
 e'\adence — nor is it necessary. Everybody acquainted with 
 Dublin must know that it is not possible to conceal the facts : 
 
 First — That the Corporation of Dublin is a monopoly, even 
 amongst the Protestant inhabitants of that city. 
 
 Second — That it is a bigoted monopoly, exclusive in its 
 nature and essence ; and to the almost incredible extent of 
 bigotry, that during more than forty years it has not admitted 
 one single Catholic. 
 
 Third — That the Corporation of Dublin is thus a double 
 monopoly — first, politically ; second, religiously. 
 
 Fourth — That this double monopoly is rendered at one and 
 the same time more oppressive and dangerous by its having the 
 appointment of the sheriffs by whom the panels of juries for 
 the superior courts of law in Ireland are made out, and the pre- 
 senting grand juries nominated. 
 
Protection of Individual Rights. 389 
 
 Fifth — That the local taxation, and the demand and exaction 
 of various emoluments are all in the hands of this odious 
 monopoly. 
 
 Sixth — The local courts of justice also belong to this mono- 
 poly. Courts of justice — if that be the right term — in which 
 the poorest and most unprotected classes are most interested. 
 
 Seventh — That there is the closest connection between this 
 monopoly and the police of the metropolis. 
 
 Eighth — That practical bigotry has been carried to this 
 frightful extent that actual pledges of a bigoted principle have 
 been exacted, and may be exacted, from the candidates for the 
 office which, of all others, requires the purest impartiality — that 
 of high sheriffs. 
 
 Ninth — That the rights of the minor guilds have been trodden 
 under foot and practically extinguished, and the statute law 
 violated and set at defiance by the existing Corporation. 
 
 It will be thus seen, without entering into further details, 
 that if ever a case was made out for reform this is one. It was, 
 indeed, hoped by some persons connected with the Grovernment 
 that the corporators themselves would see the inevitable neces- 
 sity for remodelling the Corporation, and thus that a Bill might 
 be brought in during the present session for this purpose. 
 
 If I could have found, or could still find, a spirit of i-eason- 
 able concession amongst the corporators, I was and am prepared 
 to meet it half way, or more than half way, and lend my best 
 assistance to prevent the reform from injuring either private 
 individuals or families, or the creditors of the Corporation, as far 
 as I possibly could. But I am sorry to say that I do not per- 
 ceive any such spirit, and I am therefore prevented from res- 
 cuing private families, and, I fear, the creditors of the Corpora- 
 tion from those inconveniences, if not, to speak out, from the 
 ruin which I fear is impending. Let me not be blamed hereafter. 
 I give this solemn and public warning to all the persons who 
 are iu the employment of the Corporation, and to their families. 
 I also warn those to whom the Corporation may be indebted. 
 Much may be done for all these parties, if they will come for- 
 
3 go Plan for Reformed Corporation. 
 
 ward at once and insist upon tlie monopoly party yielding to 
 common decency, and forming a committee empowered to arrange 
 the remodelling of tlie Corporation, so as to satisfy the citizens 
 at large in such a manner as will do the least possible injury to 
 what may be called — but I must say most untruly called — 
 vested interests. 
 
 I am particularly anxious that every person who has a pe- 
 cuniary interest in the existing state of the Dublin Corporation 
 should understand the precise predicament in which he is placed. 
 
 A speedy, that is, an immediate amicable arrangement may 
 be made, which would afford much protection to persons who, I 
 believe, will suifer severely from a sweeping and severe reform 
 — such a reform as must inevitably take place unless my advice 
 be attended to without delay. 
 
 I know, by sad experience, that those for whose benefit this 
 advice is intended will pay but little attention to it. My conso- 
 lation is, that I will have hereafter to refer to it when indivi- 
 dual distress will call upon me for that assistance which I could 
 now, but will not then, be able to afford. 
 
 Having dismissed those whose sufferings I shall regret, but 
 whom I cannot compel or, I fear, persuade to attend to them- 
 selves in time, I proceed to develop the plan for the reform of 
 the Dublin Corporation. 
 
 This is the plan as at present suggested : — 
 
 The Corporation to be constituted, as at present, of one 
 Lord Mayor. 
 
 Twenty-four aldermen. 
 
 In all twenty-five aldermen — the present number. 
 
 Ninety-six common councilmen, as at present, not including 
 sheriffs' peers. 
 
 The aldermen to be elected, as in London, by wards. 
 
 For this purpose the city of Dublin to be divided into eight 
 wards. 
 
 Each ward, by rotation, to return four aldermen, and each 
 in its turn to have the nomination of a fifth. 
 
Plan for Reformed Corporation. 391 
 
 The first election of aldermen to take place within six months 
 after the passing of the Bill. 
 
 The aldermen to be elected for a term of six years. 
 
 Each ward to elect eight members of the common council. 
 This will make sixty-four. 
 
 The Guild of Merchants to elect also eight common council- 
 men. This will bring up the number to seventy-two. 
 
 Then each of the other guilds, being twenty- four in number, 
 to elect one member. The twenty-four thus elected, when 
 added to the seventy-two, will make up the number of ninety- 
 six common council men, in addition to which will be the senior 
 sheriffs' peers, not exceeding thirty in all the whole. 
 
 The Lord Mayor to be elected from the aldermen annually 
 upon the city of London plan. 
 
 The sheriffs to be elected annually from the common council. 
 In every other respect the plan of election to be as in the city 
 of London — that is, perfectly popular. 
 
 The common council to be elected for three years, as at 
 present. 
 
 The electors in the wards to be the ten pound house- 
 holders. 
 
 The guilds to be composed, according to their charters, of 
 persons of the trade of each guild and none other. 
 
 The Guild of Merchants to be composed exclusively of mer- 
 chants resident in Dublin, or, at least, having counting-houses 
 in the city. 
 
 Each other guild to be composed of men of the trade. No 
 other right of admission into the minor guilds but an appren- 
 ticeship of seven years ; but such an apprenticeship to give an 
 absolute right to the freedom. 
 
 It will be objected that by this plan the members of the 
 minor guilds will have the double advantage of having double 
 votes — first as ten pound householders in their respective wards ; 
 and, secondly, as freemen in their respective guilds ; and it is 
 true that many, but by no means all, the regular tradesmen 
 will have this advantage ; but as all the householders of the 
 
392 I detest Anonymous Writers, 
 
 vards equally contribute to elect the ward memlDer, the right 
 should not be taken away from the tradesmen, the more espe- 
 cially as in their own guilds they can have but one representa- 
 tive for each guild. 
 
 I have thus given the outline of a plan which would, in my 
 opinion, make the Corporation of Dublin identical with its citi- 
 zens, and restore to the citizens the rights which have been 
 filched from them by the monopolists who have reduced the 
 Corporation to its present unjust and illegal state. 
 
 Upon this plan I solicit criticism and remark. But I always 
 detest anonj'mous writers, and, indeed, despise them. I cannot 
 bring myself to place sufficient reliance, even on sensible re- 
 marks, made by persons who shrink from giving their names. 
 
 I solicit this criticism through two channels — first, thi'ough 
 the columns of the Filot, and, secondly, through my friend and 
 secretary, the most invaluable and ill- requited servant of the 
 public, Mr. Edward Dwyer. I am proud to announce that he 
 has consented to act as my individual secretary during the con- 
 tinuance of the despotic law and the reign of the chiefs of the 
 Irish pashalics. Until the dominion of the old law is res- 
 tored in Ireland, any communication for me may be best ad- 
 dressed to my excellent friend, Mr. Secretary Dwyer, or pub- 
 lished with real signatures in the F'dot, which I request to give 
 space for such insertion. 
 
 If such a reform as I have suggested had taken place, we 
 should then have a Corporation, competent and willing to 
 look into all the frauds committed on the property which ought 
 of right to belong to the citizens for civic pm-poses, and where 
 the fraud was of too complicated a nature to be unravelled in a 
 Court of Equity ; or, if the expense and delay of that Com-t 
 were too great, the reformed Corporation would be enabled to 
 apply for, and obtain, legislative relief by an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, which would cut the knot of every difficulty, and restore 
 to the citizens all they have been unjustly deprived or swindled 
 out of by means of long continued monopoly. The Metal Main 
 question and the Pipe-water tax would soon be set at rest by 
 
Equal Rights and equal Just ice. 393 
 
 such a reformed Corporation. In short it would contain in 
 itself the power to set to rights all local and municipal griev- 
 ances, and to punish delinquents and civic plunderers; and 
 the popular control over the Corporate authorities would put 
 that power into rapid motion. 
 
 I close this digression with once more assuring my consti- 
 tuents that no step will be taken in this reform without giving 
 them ample time to consider its everj detail, to detect errors, 
 correct inaccuracies, suggest improvements, and render the 
 whole as suited as it is practicable to the wants and wishes 
 of the citizens at large, of every class, sect, and persuasion 
 without partiality or unjust disfavour to any class, creed, or 
 individual. Equal rights and equal justice to all, is the sole 
 basis of my plan. 
 
 This letter has run into too great length to enable me to 
 return with any effect this day to the " elective franchise." I 
 can for the present do no more than to request that gentlemen 
 willing to work with me for the regeneration of Ireland, will 
 aid me in the following manner : — 
 
 First — By sending to Mr. Dwyer, or publishing in theP/Zo^, 
 a list of the baronies in each county. 
 
 Second — Bj^, in like manner, sending the name and address 
 of an individual likely to take upon himseK the trouble of 
 attending to the franchise in that barony. 
 
 "We will not interfere with any proclaimed county. 
 
 Let me thus have, in the first instance, the baronies of the 
 county of Dublin, and an individual named who will attend to 
 the registry in each barony. 
 
 Let me, in the like manner, have the name of each parish 
 in the city of Dublin, and an individual named in each parish 
 willing to look after the registry in that parish. 
 
 I must conclude for the present. I am only beginning to 
 break the ground for future constitutional exertions. Ireland 
 shall never again slumber in the oblivious grave of unavailing 
 discontent. We are too enlightened and too strong to sleej* 
 in the silence of despair. 
 
•^g4 ^^ (^^'^ Eight Millions. 
 
 We are, it is true, at present a pitiful province ; it is but 
 for a passing moment. We will be a great nation, bound to 
 England only by the golden link of the crown, but nationalised 
 and protected by tbe popular majesty of our own legislature. 
 
 I cannot conclude, however, without once again pouring out 
 the vial of my deepest execration of the crimes of the Whitefeet. 
 How ardently do I hope that they will meet due, and, therefore,, 
 most severe punishment. 
 
 The Whitefeet alone stand between Ireland and consti- 
 tutional freedom. Let every man aid to bring them to condign 
 punishment. Let there be no riot, no outrage, no violation of 
 the law, and above all, no despair. We are eight millions. 
 
 I have the honour to be, fellow-countrymen, 
 
 Your very faithful friend and servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
Press Prosecutions. 395 
 
 Third Letter to the People of Ireland. 
 
 {From the 3Iorning Register, Dublin, May 11, 1833.) 
 
 The True Sun has published a letter from Mr. O'Connell 
 ■which no Irish popular journal dare insert without mutilation. 
 It animadverts, in strong and indignant language, upon the 
 prosecutions commenced against the Press, and thus proceeds : — 
 
 In this state of things it is that I once again address my 
 fellow-countrymen. There is one consolation — the ministry 
 who introduced and procured the Algerine law for Ireland 
 have lost all their moral weight and moral power of character. 
 They no longer delude any portion of the English people. 
 They have some partizans — selfish expectants and placemen — 
 enjoying either the sweets and profi.ts or the pleasing prospect 
 of office — but they have not one friend, or if they have, that 
 friendship has reduced the character of their friend, whoever he 
 be, to the wretched level of their own. 
 
 The present ministry are known — more is not necessary ; it 
 is idle to dwell on their inconsistency, their fatuity, their 
 wretched financial and political blundering. They have made 
 them become a laughing-stock and a scorn — they cannot remain 
 long in office — and then, and then, perhaps, the days of im- 
 peachment, long disused and almost forgotten, may be revived. 
 
 In the meantime, I again address you, fellow-countrymen, 
 on the interesting subject of preparation for the ensuing elections. 
 They may be, and I believe are more near than persons in 
 general suppose. But, at all events, recollect that wise men 
 prepare themselves for action whilst there is time, and that 
 opportunity remains. The fool waits always until it is too late, 
 and so is undone. 
 
 There never was a period in history in which it was so neces- 
 sary for honest men to prepare the franchise so as to be ready to 
 elect better men. Let every county, city, town and borough in 
 Great Britain and Ireland, from this moment, commence prepa- 
 rations for sending adrift the base men in each of these counties 
 
396 Importance oj Registration. 
 
 wlio liave betraj'ed and deceived their constituents. There has 
 been a very base desertion of principle in many instances in 
 England, several in Scotland, and still more in Ireland. In 
 plain truth, there never was an occasion on which the conduct of 
 members of Parliament should be watched with more vigilance 
 and severity. 
 
 My plan, you are aware, fellow-countrymen, is to take up 
 each county in Ireland in detail, and to create an electoral 
 oi'ganization in each which will render it difficult in any, and 
 impossible in most, for a bad man to get into another Parlia- 
 ment. Should I receive encouragement, I will visit during 
 the vacation after this session many places in England. At 
 all events, I will pay such visits to Ireland, and exert every 
 faculty of my mind to make such preparations for the next 
 Parliamentary campaign as will free us from the servile and 
 the interested, and give us at length a majority of really honest 
 representatives. 
 
 This is everybody's business — but as such it is apt to be 
 neglected, until it be too late. I, for one, will stimulate others 
 by example as well as by my exhortations, to exert themselves 
 so as to command the election of honest and active men. 
 
 My first object is the county of Dublin. There are nine 
 baronies in that county — I desire to organize the elective force 
 in each of them ; I want one or two more to assist me in each 
 of these baronies. I trust I shall be replied to, either by letter 
 to my friend Mr. Edward Dwyer, or preferably by public letters 
 in the Register, or Freeman, or Filot. Let me have one or two 
 for the barony of Uppercross, a like number for the barony of 
 Nethercross, so for Newcastle, so for Balrothery, a like 
 number for Pathdown. I put forward these five baronies by 
 name in this letter. I hope I shall be answered promptly, and 
 that as well for these as for the other four baronies. I cannot 
 go forward to any other county until the county of Dublin is 
 placed in such a state that every person having any title to 
 vote shall be placed on the registry, and the total force, in the 
 popular interests, shall be ascertained. 
 
Ireland has few Friends. 397 
 
 The interruption I have met -witli in executing this plan 
 makes me only the more desirous to carry it into execution all 
 over Ireland. 
 
 I pledge myself that it shall not be my fault unless it be 
 fully and effectually executed. We want vigilant and honest 
 men in Parliament — men who will aid the " faithful few" in 
 endeavouring to obtain justice for the people of England as well 
 as for their own countrymen — who would sympathise with the 
 people of England in their sufferings, unite with them in their 
 exertions to obtain the amelioration of their institutions and 
 the diminution of their burdens. Let the popular members for 
 Ireland give their best assistance to the English people to abate 
 every monopoly, to correct every abuse, to encourage industry, 
 to promote manufactures, to lessen taxation, to increase the 
 national resources, and to promote the freedom and prosperity 
 of persons of every creed, caste, colour, and country. 
 
 This is what I now desire to effectuate. It is to combine 
 the friends of liberty in England, Ireland, and Scotland in one 
 common cause for the good of the people of every part of the 
 empire. The Whigs and Tories have combined against the 
 people. Upon every occasion upon which the honest and disin- 
 terested men in the House of Commons call for the abolition of 
 useless offices, the reduction of expensive and unnecessary estal^- 
 lishments, or the extinction of burdensome and op^Dressive 
 taxation, we are met and defeated. How ? Why, by a com- 
 bination of Whigs and Tories — by the junction of the specula- 
 tors and oppressors who belonged to the last Administration, 
 with the speculators and oppressors of this Administration- 
 This unholy alliance overpowers us, and the people get no relief. 
 The friends of the people should therefore form, as it were, a 
 species of sacred league, and combine all their exertions and 
 all their numbers to the promotion of the popular cause of free 
 institutions and cheap Government. 
 
 The Irish nation is particularly interested that there should 
 be a combination of this description. Ireland has, alas ! few 
 friends in the House of Commons, and I grieve to say that there 
 
3g8 False-hearted Members. 
 
 are some of those wlio worked their way into that House by 
 the unequivocal professions and pledges of patriotism, who are 
 to be found, as Curran described it, " sleeping in their collars 
 under the ministerial manger," when they should be up and 
 working for Ireland. 
 
 In my next and ensuing letters, whilst I pursue my plan of 
 elective organization, I will at the same time point out to each 
 constituency the contrast or consistency of the votes of each 
 Irish member with the promises and pledges which they gave 
 expressly or by implication, to their constituents. I sigh 
 bitterly to perceive that the Tory members have been in all 
 things consistent in their hostility, whilst the popular, and some 
 Eepeal members have displayed the most melancholy dereliction 
 of duty, of truth, and of principle. More of this subject hereafter. 
 
 The present ministers have promised much to Ireland. It 
 was said that all they wanted was time. " Wait a while " was 
 the cry of ministerial sycophants — " wait a while " and you will 
 seethe great things the Whigs will do for Ireland. 
 
 Well, they have now been in office since the 20th of Novem- 
 ber, 1830 — two long years and a-half. What have they done 
 for Ireland? Just nothing. What have they left undone 
 against Ireland ? 
 
 The base Whigs ! 
 
 They have wrought a Grand Jury Bill; and there were 
 abuses in the grand jury sj^stem. Are more abuses corrected 
 by the Whig Bill ? Alas ! we have now been in committee on 
 that Bill several weeks, and I can safely assure the Irish public 
 that, by the confession of everybody, the bill is utterly worthless 
 — it will do nothing to remedy abuses ; but, if it passes at all, 
 it will increase Government patronage extensively. There is a 
 Whig reform for you. It does nothing for the public, or in 
 ease of the people, but it increases Whig patronage considerably- 
 
 The base Whigs ! 
 
 Yet there is still some comfort. The Whigs have treated 
 the people of England almost as contemptuously as the people 
 of Ireland. The former are beginning to arouse themselves* 
 
Our Loiirse is clear. 399 
 
 The Whigs must yield ; and a day of popular triumph may be 
 a day of justice to both countries, I trust and hope that the 
 hours of despotism are numbered, and that we shall soon see a 
 Parliament and a ministry devoted to the people, and deter- 
 mined to conciliate Ireland by prompt and extensive relief. 
 
 In the meantime our course is clear. We will execrate, as 
 we have ever done, the outrages of the " Whitefeet," and re- 
 joice at their extinction ; but, whilst we seduously keep within 
 the limits of the law and of the constitution, we will not forget 
 that we are eiglit millions. 
 
 I have the honour to be, fellow-countrymen, 
 
 , Your devoted servant, 
 
 Daxniel O'Connell. 
 
400 Letter to his Constituents. 
 
 First Letter to his Constituents. 
 
 Derrynane Ahhey^ September Wth, 1833. 
 
 '• For freedom's battle once begun, 
 Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
 Though baffled oft, is ever won." 
 
 The session is closed, the second proclamation of theministry^ 
 called by courtesy a King's Speech, has appeared — legislation, 
 wholesale and retail, is at an end for the present — the sub- 
 servient minions of ministerial influence have been sent home 
 with the sound of vain boasting — Ireland has been once more 
 subdued ! — positively for the last time of subduing. Curse the 
 slaves that would not spare us that insult ; but British inso- 
 lence has been once again cheered by the voice which has once 
 more but vainly boasted of Irish subjugation. 
 
 There is, however, one consolation. Never yet did there 
 appear so poor and so proud a piece of vain boasting as that 
 " King's Speech " — it is impossible to treat it with all the con- 
 tempt it merits — it sinks beneath the dignity of vituperation, 
 and is readily confined to the manufactory whence it sprung ; 
 a plagiary — a flat plagiary, extracted from the brain of one of 
 the hired puffers of Warren's jet blacking — it covers with ridi- 
 cule those it praises, and gives a triumph to the objects of its 
 futile attack. 
 
 The time for legislation is over — the hour for reflection is 
 come. It is the duty of every honest representative to ofi'er 
 himself and his conduct to the scrutinizing examination of his 
 constituents ; it is the sacred duty of every intelligent consti- 
 tuency to examine scrupulously the conduct of their representa- 
 tives. 
 
 I accordingly come before the electors of the city of Dublin 
 — I challenge and demand the closest examination. I add 
 without afiectation, that if my constituents are dissatisfied with 
 my conduct I am ready to resign. I will jmt the matter on a 
 
Offers to Resign his Seat. 401 
 
 distinct and tangible footing. Near five thousand electors of 
 the city of Dublin voted for me at the last election ; if there 
 can be found one-fifth of these voters who call on me to resign, 
 I will instantly obey that call, and cease to be your representa- 
 tive. 
 
 I have not made this ofier from consciousness of having de- 
 served your censure. I know not any charge against which I 
 could find it necessary to defend myself. On the contrary, I 
 feel it due to myself, as well as to you, to assert, that I have 
 served you faithfully, disinterestedly, and honestly ; and, if I 
 have not served you more efficiently, the defect was occasioned 
 by my want of capacity, not from any want of inclination, of 
 zeal, or of industry. 
 
 I stand before you, my constituents, with a firm and per- 
 haps a proud conviction of having performed my duty at least 
 with fidelity, and I enter into an investigation of many of the 
 topics connected with Ireland, upon which my Parliamentary 
 labours have been exerted, with a feeling free from self-reproach, 
 and even with some of the vanity which excites to boasting- 
 This feeliug is the more naturally indulged, because I trust, 
 with the assistance of God, that a career of further utility is 
 just opened, and that there is a prospect of yet really and sub- 
 stantially serving Ireland. Besides, I respectfully claim the 
 confidence of my constituents, and in doing so, I am bound to 
 state the grounds on which I rest that claim. 
 
 Let this serve for my apology. I am a public servant 
 rendering an account of my stewardship, and it is my duty to 
 bring forward the items of that account, for which I require 
 credit as between me and my constituents. Whatever there be 
 odious in self-exaltation should not be applied to the case of a 
 man circumstanced as I am, who is quite conscious that he was 
 bound by the most sacred duties to perform ten times more than 
 he has done, and who writes with a full conviction that after all 
 he is but an unprofitable servant. 
 
 It also seems to me that I should vindicate you, electors of 
 Dublin, to the Irish nation, for having elected me, as you did, 
 VOL. 11. 27 
 
40 2 The Leather Trade of Dublin. 
 
 not only without anj solicitation on mj part, but actually 
 without having obtained my consent to be a candidate. In 
 thus vindicating you I am naturally led to a portion of my 
 conduct in Parliament, which preceded your choice of me, and 
 which, therefore, served to authorise that choice. I am bound 
 to go into lengthened details, and I do so the more readily, be- 
 cause the investigation of them naturally tends to further im- 
 provement, and points out the means of securing further or 
 other success. 
 
 It is in this view that I begin with one of the first class of 
 my Parliamentary clients — one of the first in whose behalf I 
 had the happiness to be an humble but a zealous instrument of 
 relief. I am not detracting from the merits of others whilst I 
 claim my share, and only my individual share, of the struggle 
 which produced salutary changes. My first claim for conduct 
 is my conduct towards — 
 
 Tlie Leather Trade of Dublin . 
 
 When I first became the Parliamentarj'- advocate of the 
 tanners and curriers of Dublin, and of Ireland generally, their 
 trade was in the lowest state of depression. The pressure of a 
 heavy tax exhausted the capital of the manufacturers, and 
 diminished consumption. But the vexatious and perpetual 
 interference of the excise laws — the harassing villainy of many 
 of the excise officers — tlie impossibility of escaping some of the 
 multitudinous meshes of the excise regulations — the power to 
 expose to fines and penalties that the workmen had over their 
 employers, and the outrageous expenses of legal proceedings, 
 liad brought the leather trade to the lowest ebb of distress and 
 approaching ruin. Failures multiplied in the trade, and there 
 was no possibility of amelioration without a total change of 
 system. 
 
 It was under those circumstances that I felt it my duty 
 to acquire full information of the mischiefs that threatened 
 destruction to the leather trade. It was under those circum- 
 stances that I became one of the most active of those who 
 
TJie Soap Trade of Dublin. 403 
 
 pressed the state of trade on the Parliament and tlie then 
 ministry, and who rejoiced at having persuaded that ministry 
 to abolish the tax upon leather, and, above all, to relieve the 
 manufacturers from the vexation of the excise. 
 
 I can look with complacency on the comparison between the 
 present highly improved state of the leather trade, giving 
 employment to increased numbers, and affording a due reward 
 to skill, industry, and capital, and what that trade was when 
 first I became its humble advocate. I merely claim my share, 
 whatever it be, in the merit of producing this transition. 
 My next claim is found on the state of — 
 
 The Soap Trade of Duhllii. 
 
 Twelve months have not elapsed since the soap trade of 
 Ireland was suffering from a very different but an equally in- 
 jurious oppression, to that wliich weighed down the trade in 
 leather. The evil arose from that which was most likely to 
 produce mischief in Ireland, namely, that there was no tax, 
 and, of course, no excise, on the manufacture of soap in Ireland, 
 and that there were both one 'and the other in England. One 
 would imagine that such a state of things must be favourable 
 to Ireland, but those who think so, know nothing of the work- 
 ings of the Union in its more minute details. The Irish soap- 
 boilers discovered that secret to their cost, and nearly to their 
 ruin. The English duty on soap was intended to be confined 
 to the quantity used in England. There was, therefore, as a 
 matter of course, a drawback on all soap exported. Here the 
 fraud began, and was easily, and I verily believe by the col- 
 lusion of many excise officers, carried to a vast extent. The 
 English manufacturers obtained, without difficulty, a larger 
 sum for drawback than they paid for duty, and this to an extent 
 varying from 15 to 25 per cent. In other words, there was a 
 clear profit of, at the very least, 15 per cent., not on the article 
 itself, but upon the mere duty. This was enhanced in several 
 towns, as, for example, in Liverpool, where, as one would natu- 
 rally expect in a place where the grossest political and municipal 
 
 27* 
 
404 The Soap Trade of Dublin. 
 
 corruption prevails, the greatest frauds were committed. In 
 Liverpool, a soap manufacturer contrived not only to make a 
 profit of at least 15 per cent, on the money he paid for 
 duty, but actually acquired capital to carry on his trade out of 
 the public money. Thus — he exported his soap to Dublin the 
 day after it was made ; in two days after he was paid the entire 
 duty as a drawback, but he was not called on for that duty him- 
 self for sixty-one days. Suppose he made soap on a Thursday, 
 the duty on which amounted to £100 ; on Friday he sent that 
 soap by one of the steam vessels to Dublin. The ensuing 
 Monday he received at the Custom-house in Liverpool £115 as 
 drawback; but he had not to pay £100 for sixty-one days — 
 putting by this means £115 of the public money into his pocket, 
 keeping £15 of it altogether, and returning the remaining £100 
 in two months — of course carrying on his trade with the money 
 in the interval. The consequences were almost total ruin to 
 the Irish soap manufacturers. The English soap could be, and 
 was, sold much cheaper than the Irish in the Irish market. 
 "We lost our home market for soap — we lost all power of compe- 
 tition in the foreign market — our soap manufacturers were re- 
 duced to despondency — the trade was about to be annihilated 
 in Ireland. Who is it that does not see that it would have 
 been impossible to have produced such a state of things, if we 
 were protected by domestic legislature against such glaring 
 fraud ? and we must inevitably have been so protected by an 
 Irish Parliament. 
 
 So soon as I made myself fully acquainted with these frauds, 
 I joined others in bringing them before the British Parliament. 
 It was in the session of 1832. We repeatedly urged the minis- 
 try to have the abuses corrected, and so to regulate the soap-tax 
 as not to afford a bounty to fraudulent manufacturers of that 
 article. We were promised investigation and redress ; but 
 promised in vain. 
 
 Here I may state a circumstance which I have been assured 
 is literally true, and which elucidates the species of delusion 
 which prevails at the British Treasury, whenever Irish interests 
 
Increased Prosperity, 40 ^ 
 
 are concerned. Mr. Spring Eice, I am assured, sent down an 
 excise inspector on a mission to Liverpool, to ascertain whether 
 the frauds we complained of in the soap trade really existed. 
 The inspector went down, called on some of the soap manufac- 
 turers (the persons accused), dined with them, was most 
 hospitably treated ; then, after dinner, asked them whether it 
 was true that these frauds existed. Thej declared, upon honour, 
 that it was totally false. The inspector was too polite to seek 
 for other proofs, made his report, exculpating the trade, and 
 thus Treasury grounds were laid to refuse, or, at least, postpone 
 relief. 
 
 Justice calls on me to add, that, as far as my experience of 
 the British Treasury goes, this is the mode, or something simi- 
 lar, in which all Irish mercantile complaints have been treated 
 since Mr. Spring Eice has been in office. He is full of fluent 
 words ; nothing can be more bland or promising ; but I have 
 not known one single instance of any Irish merchant, or person 
 in the Irish trade of any kind, getting any species of actual 
 relief in any case of hardship or grievance since Mr. Sj)ring 
 Eice has been at the Treasury. He seems to me to have the 
 most decided disinclination to do anything favourable to his 
 countrymen of any badly-disposed Irishman I ever met; and 
 that is saying a great deal for him. 
 
 However, to return to the Irish soap trade. So soon as I 
 became representative for Dublin, I felt it doubly my duty to 
 look for relief for that trade. I was ably assisted by persons 
 connected with the business, and by many Irish members, with- 
 out party distinction. We pressed the case over and over again 
 upon the ministry. At length we obtained redress. ,The 
 English tax has been lessened. The drawback has been put on 
 a less fraudulent footing. For the present, the mischief has 
 disappeared, and the Irish soap trade has already become pros- 
 perous. I look, I own, with some complacency on the present 
 increasing and healthy state of this trade, when I contrast that 
 state with its depressed condition when I had first the honour 
 of becoming: its humble but zealous advocate. 
 
4o6 The Irish Distillery T7'ade. 
 
 Addressing my constituents on my Parliamentary career, as 
 a member of Parliament, I feel gratified in introducing nest — 
 
 The Irish Distilleri/ Trade. 
 
 And, upon tliis head, also, I claim some Parliamentary merit. 
 The frauds committed to an enormous extent in Scotland, by 
 means, principally, of the " malt drawback," enabled the Scotch 
 distillers to undersell the Irish manufacturers of spirits in the 
 Irish market. Labour, and all materials, except coals, were 
 dearer in Scotland than in Ireland. The difference in the price 
 of coals was but small in any part of Ireland ; in some places, 
 they were as cheap as in Scotland. How then could the Scotch 
 distillers, with dearer materials, sell cheaper in Ireland, and 
 that, after paying freight, shipping charges, and insurance, than 
 the Irish distillers, who had none of these latter items to pay ? 
 It struck me at once that it could be accounted for only in one 
 way — by the frauds on the revenue connived at in Scotland, 
 and the excessive rigour of the excise officers in Ireland. I was 
 one of the most active on the committee that brought these mat- 
 ters to light, and obtained some relief. 
 
 Had I not more than enough of topics to address you upon, 
 I could relate some facts which came out on this investigation^ 
 highly illustrative of the total want of protection which the 
 Legislative Union has occasioned to the Irish distillers. But, 
 the truth is, that the Irish distillers are a class of men most 
 grossly injured and defrauded by the direct and palpable viola- 
 tion of the Union, exclusive of the indirect operation of that 
 nation-degrading measure, that Union which we are now told 
 is to be preserved " inviolate." Bless the drivellers who tell us 
 so ! ! The articles of that Union have been for years most 
 grossly violated in the article of Irish spirits, simply and singly 
 because it was for the advantage of the Scotch and English dis- 
 tillers that it should be so. In nothing has the injustice to- 
 wards Ireland of the Imperial Parliament been more frequently 
 or more clearly demonstrated than in their conduct ^o ' the 
 
Sub- letting Act. 407 
 
 Irish distillers for many years. I repeat, that the terms of the 
 Union have been grossly, palpably, and directly violated. 
 I ne xt proceed to the 
 
 > 
 
 Sub-letting Act. 
 
 The history of this Act is curious. It was actually stolen 
 through the House of Commons during the time of circuit — 
 whilst we, who would have endeavoured to prevent .its passings 
 by exposing its horrid and, indeed, murderous provisions, had our 
 attention taken off from the Parliament. It was ingeniously 
 contrived to get it through the House of Commons, and it passed 
 the Lords sub silentio, and, as a matter of course. Thus, like a 
 thief in the night, it was stolen upon the Irish people, and for near 
 six years it exercised its malign influence over them. From the 
 moment that I discovered that such an Act had passed, I as- 
 sailed it with all my might and main, as a law calculated for the 
 gratification 'of the sordid avarice of the rich, by entailing the 
 greatest distress and misery upon tlie poor. I denounced it as 
 a law rendering poverty more destitute, and depriving the 
 labouring classes of the very means of existence. 
 
 It was denounced, also, by one of those men of transcendent 
 talent and unaffected piety, with whom it pleases Grod occasion- 
 ally to bless His Clmrch and people ; a man who, I fervently 
 pray, may be long spared in renovated health and accustomed 
 vigour to that Church and people ; need I name the Riglit Rev. 
 Dr. Doyle ? He denounced the emaciating and murderous 
 cruelty of the Sub-letting Act, and exposed all its frightful 
 effects in producing poverty, nakedness, and actual starvation. 
 His evidence before the Committees of the House of Commons 
 demonstrated all these horrors. 
 
 And, see how his evidence has been confirmed by the facts 
 that appear on the late Parliamentary returns. The population 
 of Grreat Britain increased between the years 1821 and 1831, 
 at the rate of more than 15 per cent. The population of Ire- 
 land, during the same period augmented only about 8 per cent. 
 
 y 
 
4o8 Cause of Decrease of Population. 
 
 Under the natural circumstances of both islands, the increase in 
 Britain baing 15 per cent., that in Ireland ought to have been 
 fallj 30 per cent. It was, in fact, only 8 per cent. Account 
 for the difference. It is easy to do it. The Sub-letting Act 
 counteracted the natural augmentation of a country capable of 
 supporting four times its present number of people. The deso- 
 lating Sub-letting Act actually consigned to the grave its hun- 
 dreds of thousands ; and by that, and that alone, can the 
 strange and unexpected phenomenon of the greater increase in 
 Britain be accounted for. 
 
 Again, another confirmation of Dr. Doyle's evidence is to be 
 found in the comparative estimate printed for the House of Com- 
 mons, of the population of the county of Carlow in the years I 
 have mentioned, 1821 and 1831. In forty-two parishes which 
 I enumerated, there were but fifteen in which the population 
 increased ; whereas there were twenty-seven out of the forty- 
 two, in which it had actually diminished ! ! ! Mark, in twenty- 
 seven out of forty-two parishes, the population within ten years 
 became considerably less. How little is Ireland known to 
 the English people ! How unfit it is to trust the legislation for 
 Ireland to those who know little of us, and, in general, care 
 less. 
 
 Again, I recollect distinctly, that there was in one village 
 in the county of Carlow — I do not at present recollect its name, 
 but I pledge|myself to prove it from the population return — there 
 was one village in that county which was returned in 1821 as 
 containing more than six hundred inhabitants. In the popula- 
 tion return of 1831, there is a distinct statement that the village 
 had ceased to be ; that there was not one single house, nor one 
 single inhabitant on the lands occupied by the village ; they 
 had all disappeared. Such was the desolating massacre of the 
 poor, inflicted by the Sub-letting Act. 
 
 One great reason why I desired to be in Parliament was to 
 urge incessantly the repeal of that most destructive Act. Ac- 
 cordingly, I moved for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal it. I 
 was opposed by most of the Tories, and nearl}^ all the Whigs. 
 
Parliajnentary Conduct of soi-disant Patriots. 409 
 
 Spring Rice, with his usual hcatred of Ireland, opposed me ; so 
 did Sir Henry Parnell. It is instructive to add these two 
 things : — First— That in the first division I took upon this sub- 
 ject, I had but seventeen members to support me ; even some 
 vapouring Irish soi-disant patriots deserted me. I had but 
 seventeen supporters in a full House, and was defeated by an 
 overwhelming majority. Secondly — That, as usual, I perse- 
 vered, day after day, until at length I have succeeded, I will 
 say it, in driving this Administration to abolish almost all the 
 afflicting provisions of that Act ; so that, at present, that whicli 
 was most destructive, became almost inoffensive, and every man 
 •can now sub-let or take a sub-lease without the least impeach- 
 ment as to its validity. 
 
 I am, I own, proud of this success. I claim it as almost 
 exclusively my own. The poor now can procure a habitation 
 and dwell in that habitation without its being in the power of the 
 landlord to treat the poor man as an intruder, and to chase him 
 from the land as if he were a beast of prey. I do claim the 
 principal merit of this change; and I do rest the more tranquilly 
 on the confidence of my constituents for having been the instru- 
 ment to procure this much of good for the poor people of 
 Ireland. 
 
 It is also encouraging to perceive what perseverance will do. 
 On the first division, I had but seventeen supporters. On the 
 second, I had twenty-eight; but before I could bring it on a 
 third time, the ministry found it necessary to take the matter 
 out of my hands, and to bring in a Bill to repeal the provi- 
 sions of the Sub-letting Act ; a Bill which is now law. 
 
 With one remark, now, I close this topic. It is this, and 
 to this remark I request the attention of the writers in the pa- 
 triotic papers of Ireland. By the evidence before the A gricul- 
 tural Committee, it appears that in England, whilst the land- 
 lords and farmers are enduring great distress, the condition of 
 the labom-er is improved. But, as to Ireland, the reverse is 
 the result of the evidence ; some improvement in the dwellings 
 of the farmers, but the condition of the labourers deteriorated. 
 
41 o The I'tstry Cess. 
 
 It has been inquired why the English labourers should have- 
 imp roTed, whilst the condition of the Irish labourers has grown 
 worse. 
 
 Mr. Stanton, the proprietor of the Morning Register, in one 
 of those admirable and transcendentlj useful letters in which 
 he developes with arithmetical science and certainty the gross 
 financial frauds practised since the Union on oppressed Ireland, 
 seeks in vain to discover an answer to the question — why the 
 Irish labourers have become more wretched, whilst the English 
 labourers were beginning to improve ? Alas I he forgot the 
 Sub-letting Act, plainly ; being now repealed, it was no longer in 
 his contemplation. He did not recollect that the Irish labourers 
 are not as yet recovered from the pressure and effects of the 
 misery created by that abominable statute. 
 
 I think I can defy any person to dispute with me the merit 
 of being the principal means of abolishing that law. 
 
 The next topic to whicOi I call the attention of my consti- 
 tuents is — 
 
 The Vesfri/ Cess. 
 
 I here also claim the merit of being the principal instrument 
 of procuring the abolition of that most unchristian burden. 
 
 Its story also furnishes another curious episode in the history 
 of the crimes committed against the people of Ireland in the 
 name and on behalf of the Protestant Established Church. 
 
 The Catholics at the Eeformation left the Irish parishes 
 replenished with churches. The Protestant rectors neglected 
 these churches until they fell, or anticipated the hand of time 
 by strewing them in ruins — having converted to their own use 
 all the wealth of the churches and all the fonds which kept 
 them in repair. This was injustice the first. The second was 
 that they then taxed the Catholics to rebuild, and then to keep 
 in repair, those very parish churches. The third was, that they 
 excluded the Catholics from any control over, or any account 
 of, theii- own money. All this was of course to promote religion 
 and piety. "What fantastic tricks were played during those- 
 
The Systan of Tithes. 4 1 r 
 
 crimes against, and plunderings of, the people, are shown by 
 the Parliamentary returns. In Connaught the Catholics of one 
 parish had to furnish, by vestry cess, the dressing-room and 
 complete toilet of the Protestant bishop. In "Wexford the Pro- 
 testant vestry paid the sexton ten pounds a year for ringing 
 the bell ; and the bell having been broken they raised his salary 
 to twenty pounds a year for this facetious reason that he had no 
 longer a bell to ring. In Drogheda the Catholics were assessed 
 one year for wine for communion. Por what quantity ? For 
 two pipes of port ! Only two pipes of port for communion wiue. 
 What a strange tale is the story of Ireland's wrongs and suffer- 
 ings ; things that would be incredible, if we had them not on 
 the confession of the delinquents, and on the authority of Par- 
 liament, passed over as matters of course in the maintenance of 
 that ascendancy which had so long sat like an incubus on all 
 the energies and all the charities of unhappy Ireland. But 
 "Eesurgam" is the watchword ; and we will, I trust, live to 
 laugh at the memory of existing evils, as we cheerfully smile at 
 the recollection of those which have passed away. 
 
 I need not remind my constituents of my exertions to abolish 
 vestry cess. I need not boast to them of my success, nor of the 
 value of that success. In Peter's parish, alone, we are freed 
 this year from no less than two thousand five hundred 
 pounds. 
 
 The next topic in order, and the last in this letter is — 
 
 The Si/sfcm of Tithes. 
 
 I do claim some merit for my exertions to abolish tithes. I 
 want to have them totally aboKshed — not in name merely, but 
 in substance and reality — " DeJendo est Carthago." This is 
 my maxim as to tithes. They must be abolished or Ireland 
 never will, never can, never ought to be tranquil. The tran- 
 quillity of Ireland depends mainly on the total and immediate 
 abolition of the tithe system root and branch — composition and 
 valuation, and all. The tithe system must go, root and 
 branch. 
 
4 1 2 Religious Support should be Voluntary. 
 
 My principle is— the principle of my public life is — that no 
 one Christian should be compelled to contribute to the support 
 of a Church to which he does not belong, or of a religion from 
 which he dissents. 
 
 This is the principle to be taken up with order and supported 
 with constancy. Every man to support his own religion — no 
 man to be compelled to support another man's clergyman any 
 more than he is another man's lawyer or doctor. 
 
 This principle is gaining ground very fast all over the British 
 ■dominions. The Dissenters of England, a powerful, intelligent, 
 and most influential body, have adopted this principle, and are 
 about to enforce it with energy and with success. Tithes will 
 •clearly be abolished soon in England. In Scotland compulsory 
 assessments for religious purposes are also in jeopardy, being 
 assailed by a people who have always persevered until they 
 have succeeded in extinguishing anything which they felt or 
 ■deemed to be a grievance. 
 
 Ireland, too, has great, very great merits on this score. 
 The passive resistance of the last year was a magnificent spec- 
 tacle, doing honour to the heads that conceived and the hearts 
 that boldly persevered in that system. The time is however 
 -come for more active and energetic measures. The time is come 
 to enable the people of Ireland peacefully, legally, and consti- 
 tutionally to get rid for ever of the abomination of tithes. We 
 are on the point of victory ; if we do not now halt or hesitate, 
 we must succeed. I wish I could rouse every parish in Ireland 
 to the constitutional and legal measures that are necessary to 
 secure the triumph of our great principle. Every experiment 
 has failed to compel an acquiescence in the tithe system by the 
 people of Ireland. Menaces, cajolement, force, horse, foot, 
 artillery — and above all, the resources and chicaneries of law, 
 have miserably failed. You may, to be sure, extort, with the army 
 kept constantly on foot, one or two years' tithes, but the hatred 
 of the system only increases with the increased force which is 
 applied to extort the payment of tithes, and that Government 
 would be neither wise nor even prudent that exhausted the 
 
Stanley's Plan. 4 1 3 
 
 patience of the Irish people, and made them believe there was 
 no resource save in despair. 
 
 Every experiment has signally failed, and it is only matter 
 of astonishment to conceive that any person can be blind to the 
 folly of perseverance. Why, Stanley last year gave the parsons 
 £60,000 of the public money, taking to himself by law all 
 manner of modes of recovering the amount ; distress, arrest^ 
 imprisonment — executions from the superior courts of law — 
 decrees from the civil bill courts — attachments out of chancery 
 — the lands, the goods, the persons of the people were all made 
 legally responsible, and everything that was summary, expe- 
 ditious, and efficacious in criminal as well as civil process was 
 combined to recover back the £60,000. Well, what has been 
 the consequences ? Why, that of the £60,000 only £12,000 
 has been recovered — balance to loss £48,000. That is the first 
 loss. Pretty well, to be sure. But, hurrah for the people of 
 Ireland — is that the only loss ? In good truth it is not, for 
 you must add to the £48,000 these other losses. First, law 
 costs, estimated early at over £14,000 ; other expenses under 
 the proclamations, estimated at one time at £25,000 ; military 
 expenses estimated at £30,000 — add these three together, and 
 you will have £69,000. But suppose some of those estimates 
 overrated — let us therefore strike off £9,000 which, perhaps, we 
 ought not to do, because these estimates were more than once 
 asserted in Parliament and never contradicted. But yet we 
 will strike off the £9,000, and instead of £69,000 we will put 
 down only £60,000, which, being added to the £48,000, will 
 leave a clear loss to the British public of £108,000. 
 
 Here the system manifestly has failed. The Government 
 have wisely desisted, and indeed have taken a vote of credit for 
 one million to enable them to pacify the parsons, and to protect 
 the people from clerical rapacity. 
 
 But the parsons will not be pacified, good sooth. They will 
 not abandon their uttermost penny — they will not abate one 
 shilling of their rapacity. Like Shyloclc, they will have the 
 pound of flesh, and not reduce one grain of the pound ; and 
 
414 I aboviinate every infraction oftJie Laiv. 
 
 then out comes tlie Rev. Somers Payne, and other clerical 
 mao-istrates of the county of Cork — and they are to beard the 
 Government and enforce tithes to the last shilling. 
 
 Well, well, well — we shall soon know of what metal Lord 
 Wellesley, in his old age, and Mr. Littleton, in the vigour of 
 his manhood, are made of. If the Eev. Somers Payne be not 
 swept out of the commission of the peace — a commission which 
 it would have been better he never held — but if he be not swept 
 away from that commission. Lord "Wellesley may, according to 
 the Irish phrase, " Go whistle jigs to milestones," and make up 
 his mind to follow the ill-omened example of Lord Anglesey, 
 and determine to leave Ireland more discontented than he 
 found it, which, indeed, after the beloved Anglesey, would be 
 rather difficult. Yet I do hope better — I really hope better 
 from the recent change. I may be disappointed in my expec- 
 tations ; biit if I see a clerical justice who takes the lead to 
 counteract the benevolence of Government and Parliament now 
 that we have them, as it were, accidentally, and, for once, acting 
 benevolently — I say if I see such a clerical magistrate called to 
 his senses by being deprived of the commission of the peace, I 
 will then auger better for Ireland. 
 
 But, hereditary bondsmen, do I say to the people of Ire- 
 land, you must, after all, act for yourselves ? Would I could 
 trumpet-tongued rouse you to exertion. This ,is the time to 
 strike the blow, whilst the calm lasts. The Government grant 
 ought to secure us from the tithe exaction for twelve months. 
 Now, now in this lull, this calm, is your time for exertion. "A 
 lono- pull, a strong pull, and a pull together," and we shall be 
 free from tithes for ever. 
 
 What do I recommend ? What plan do I suggest ? I 
 abominate every infraction of the law. I despise and denounce 
 every combination of a criminal nature. My plan is peaceable, 
 legal, constitutional ; it is part of that general scheme by which 
 I incessantly contemplate the regeneration of Ireland, and her 
 restoration to national dignity from her present provincial de- 
 gradation, without a crime, without an offence, without a tear, 
 
A?iti- Tithe Petitions. 415 
 
 ^nd, above all, without the possibility of shedding one drop of 
 human blood. 
 
 My plan is, that every parish in Ireland shall, without delay, 
 pi'epare a petition to Parliament for the total abolition of tithes. 
 Those who choose may combine with the tithe petition another 
 for the Repeal of the Union. It would, perhaps, be better to 
 do both at once ; but, at all events, let us have prepared in 
 every parish a petition for the abolition of tithes. Each parish 
 can meet (except in the proclaimed districts) for this purpose. 
 Such a meeting, out of the proclaimed districts, is perfectly 
 legal and safe. Let us show Lord Wellesley and his Secretary 
 the earnestness of our desire to have an end put to the odious 
 tithe system. Let us show them how intense and how universal 
 is the anxiety of the Irish people to abolish tithes for ever. I 
 have thus, in this my first letter to my constituents, thrown my 
 conduct upon some interesting topics before them. I challenge 
 investigation of that conduct. I call for co-operation. 
 
 There remain many other subjects of great interest, which 
 I will discuss in one or two other letters. The Coercion Bill — 
 the outrageous insult offered to Ireland by that Bill — the hor- 
 rible, the ever- execrable state in which that Bill was introduced 
 into the Lords by Earl Grrey, well demand, and, indeed, arrest 
 attention. The baseness of many of the Irish membei"s on that 
 occasion will receive, I trust, its due reward. 
 
 My plan of agitation is this : I will go through the details 
 of the chief measures of the late session, illustrating, as most 
 of them do, the absolute necessity of a domestic Legislature in 
 Ireland. I will then commence, in each county, the organisa- 
 tion of petitions for the Repeal ; and, with the aid of more acti- 
 vity, as we approach the session, and with the increasing claims 
 on Protestant sympathy and support, I trust we will be able to 
 place our right to a resident Parliament beyond doubt, and its 
 restoration beyond danger. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
41 5 The Anglesey- Stanley Adiiiinist} ation. 
 
 Second Letter to his Constituents. 
 
 To my Constituents. 
 
 Derrynane Ahhey, October 8th, 1833. 
 
 " Hereditary bondsmen ; know ye not, 
 Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." 
 
 Lord Anglesey is gone. Blessed be God ! One page more is 
 turned over in the sad story of Ireland. One proud satrap 
 more has fretted his hour on the stage of Ireland's disgrace and 
 degradation. For what want3 our nation these puny minions 
 of a power that springs not from ourselves, nor is directed for 
 our advantage, the only object being to ascertain how far this 
 lovely and fertile island can be made subservient to the wealth, 
 the power, and the pride of the rulers of Great Britain. 
 
 Lord Anglesey is gone ; and never had a more noble oppor- 
 tunity to show the superior mind, the high generosity of spirit, 
 the protecting power, that combination of authority with virtue 
 which would have raised him beyond the common lot of hu- 
 manity, whilst it cheered and vivified everything with its en- 
 livening influence. Lord Anglesey is gone, after having thrown 
 away all his splendid occasions of utility, of goodness, and of 
 glory. He is gone, covered not merely with the hate and in- 
 dignation, but with the scorn and contempt of the Irish people ; 
 nay, the jeer and jest of all who think or talk of his miserable 
 Administration ; or, if the laughter ceases, it is only because the 
 horrible overcomes the ridiculous, and that the scent of blood 
 stifles every emotion of merriment. 
 
 There was more blood shed in Ireland — there was more 
 human blood shed in Ireland during the two years and a-half of 
 the Anglesey-Stanley Administration than during any other ten 
 years of our wretched story. Take out the year of actual open 
 rebellion, and you will find that more human blood lay on the 
 fac3 of the eaith in Ireland during his short government, than 
 
Lord Anglesey s Government. 417 
 
 during the government of any other three Lieutenants. Does 
 that blood cry to heaven for vengeance, or shall the earth cover 
 it for ever ? 
 
 What a strange, and silly, and wayward career has been 
 his. Look back at its commencement ; how much of good was 
 anticipated from his supposed regard for Ireland ; how soon, how 
 sadly, how completely was every anticipation rendered vain. 
 His appointment of Joy to be Chief Baron — was anything ever 
 so foolish ? One Chief Baron was superannuated. Well, Angle- 
 sey seeks the foremost ranks of the enemy, to find out nearly, if 
 not altogether, as old a man to fill the place. Why ? For 
 what ? On what account ? For what reason ? Simply, be- 
 cause he was an enemy — an old enemy. Could he not, at least, 
 have found some man of Whig, or, at least of modern principles ? 
 Easily. Why preferred he the high and bitter orange? Because 
 he was an enemy. O sapient Anglesey ! Then he makes a 
 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. But of this melancholy 
 instance of the party fatuity of Anglesey it is not necessary to 
 speak. He who runs reads its strange folly. If he were to make 
 a tenth-rate man a Chief Justice, why not, at least, select a 
 friendly straggler at the bar ? The answer is obvious ; because 
 if that were done, it would have been a proof of common sense, 
 and of a consistency far below the high vagaries of the self- 
 sufficient Anglesey. 
 
 And then, to select, of all the bar, Blackburne to be his 
 Attorney- General ! Look at the present state of the bar 
 patronage. 
 
 But, no ; my present object is not to write a history of Lord 
 Anglesey's ludicrous, yet ensanguined career. I want to return 
 to the subject of these letters. One reflection more only on his 
 Administration. It has often struck me that the excess of un- 
 popularity which has followed Lord Anglesey's conduct, was not 
 so much produced by his tithe campaigns, his arming the yeo- 
 manry, or his fostering his and the people's enemies, as by hi» 
 fatal and most undignified affection for the chicanery of litiga- 
 tion. There was something so unchivalrous in his love of 
 VOL. n. 28 
 
4 1 8 Be Up and Stirring. 
 
 indictments ; his ardent affection for criminal informations ; his 
 overweening and gloating delight at prosecutions, that he 
 became infinitely more distasteful for these propensities than he 
 could have been rendered by the most direct and oppressive 
 cruelties, had he been guilty of them. The prosecuting Lord 
 Lieutenant must be ever odious. 
 
 Lord Anglesey was the greatest prosecutor that ever came 
 to Ireland, and the most disliked as a governor of any man that, 
 within my recollection, ruled this unhappy land. There is some- 
 thing so low, there is something so mean, in mere prosecuting; 
 there is something so foreign to the nobler emotions of our 
 nature ; something so congenial with the baser portions of our 
 nature in the chicanery of prosecutions, that, of all bad Govern- 
 ments, a prosecuting Grovernment must, of necessity, be the 
 most execrated. 
 
 We shall see what course his successor will steer. Are 
 the instruments who deformed and disgraced the last Grovern- 
 ment to be still confided in and used by the present. We 
 shall see. I expect not much, from what has hitherto happened ; 
 but we shall see. 
 
 In the meantime, hereditary bondsmen, confide in your- 
 selves. Be up and stirring. Begin the war of Tithe petitions. 
 Prepare for the war of Eepeal petitions. 
 
 I love the apparent tranquillity and calm of the moment. 
 An idle observer, or any stranger, would suppose that the Tithe 
 question was postponed, and the Eepeal question extinguished. 
 How little do they know of Ireland. The sense of recent 
 wrongs creates a calm, which is anything but symptomatic of 
 oblivion. But I must return to the subject of my address to 
 you, my constituents. 
 
 I am upon my trial before you. I invite every one of you 
 — I invite my enemies — I invite the enemies of Ireland — I 
 invite the friends of Ireland to investigate my Parliamentary 
 conduct with the most scrutinising eye. I voluntarily place 
 myself at the bar of my country, and challenge investigation. 
 
 I have already specified my Parliamentary conduct, and I 
 
Parliamentary Reporting, 419 
 
 will say my Parliamentary services, on the topics connected 
 with the soap trade, the leather trade, the distilleries of Ireland, 
 with the Sub-Letting Act, the Yestry Acts, and last, but not 
 least, with Tithes. 
 
 These were all subjects immediately and exclusively con- 
 nected with Ireland. There were many — very many — others 
 of a similar character. There was in a former session the 
 attempt, which I defeated, to bring a " Mortmain Act " into 
 Ireland; there were the abuses in Corporations — the Grand 
 Jury Laws — the Special Jury Laws — the Poor Laws. There 
 were, besides, the violation of constitutional principle in the 
 Change of Venue Bill, and, before all and beyond all, in point 
 of frightful and portentous magnitude, the Coercion Bill. 
 
 Before I enter upon these subjects, I would, however, re- 
 spectfully submit my conduct to my constituents on other 
 measures of great importance, such as the East India Bill and 
 the Anti-Slavery Bill ; there was, besides, my battle with the 
 reporters — a battle of which I acknowledge I am not a little 
 proud. I am, I believe, the only man in Parliament who 
 would have dared to attack the miscreant and mischievous 
 power of the reporting Press. I am, it is certain, the only 
 person who ever succeeded against that power. 
 
 These, then, should be the objects of this letter : — 
 
 To present to your judgment my conduct on the East India 
 Bill, on the Anti-Slavery Bill, and in my attack on, and 
 victory over, the present very inferior race of persons engaged 
 in Parliamentary reporting. 
 
 I begin with — 
 
 The East India BUI. 
 
 It may appear surprising how little of attention this impor- 
 tant measure produced even in England. The destinies of more 
 than one hundred millions of human beings were involved in it. 
 It is impossible to exaggerate its magnitude. We legislated for 
 the peace, prosperity, and happiness of one hundred millions 
 of human beings, and yet the Bill attracted but a small share of 
 1 28* 
 
42 o Oppression in India. 
 
 public notice. Mucli of this inattention "was occasioned by tlie- 
 ignorance or gross misconduct, or both, of the reporters. The 
 debates on the East India Bill were all but suppressed. A 
 miserable, inaccurate outline of these debates was all that was 
 given to the public. Discussions of the utmost interest to the 
 people of India were thus, as it were, concealed from view. 
 The professions of the ministry, that their first and greatest 
 object was to prepare the inhabitants of India for self-govern- 
 ment, would have done honour to those who uttered such 
 sentiments, and would have been more than consolatory to the 
 Tory-oppressed population of the vast regions under the British 
 sway. Words, in such a case, are things. They operate to 
 give a new station in the social state to those of whom they are 
 uttered. But, alas, the wretched reporters took efi'ectual cara 
 to prevent the advantages of the publication of such words. 
 The situation of the native inhabitants of India is deplorable, 
 and yet it has been much improved by the conquest or acquisi- 
 tions of the British. The new India Bill does not go to the 
 root of the evil. It does little indeed to ameliorate the state- 
 of the natives. If that state were understood in England,, 
 it would excite much sympathy, and probably, produce some 
 redress. 
 
 But the limits of a letter are unsufficient to explain the 
 vicious and atrocious conduct of the East India Company 
 towards the natives ; the grinding and desolating effects of 
 what is called " the land revenue." It is a system of mon- 
 strous and perfect oppression. It combines all the evils of these 
 five mischiefs : — 
 
 First — A total uncertainty and precariousness in the tenure 
 and occupation of the land by the inhabitants generally. 
 
 Secondly — Rackrents, assessed with some of the forms, but 
 without any of the guarantees, which justice requires. 
 
 Thirdly — Absenteeism of the real landlords, and absenteeism 
 in its worst form. 
 
 Fourthly — These rents collected by the worst possible 
 apecies of agents — persons who have not any interest whatso- 
 
India aiid Ireland. 421 
 
 ■ever in the prosperity of the natives, and whose interest it is to 
 ■extort or collect from the occupiers of the lands the largest 
 possible sums of money in the shortest possible time ; these 
 persons are called collectors of the land revenue. 
 
 And, fifthly — The most defective and multifarious scheme 
 or plan, or rather hotch-potch, of administration of law. Only 
 oonceive, for one moment, all the oppressions of Ireland multi- 
 plied by themselves, and then the total inflicted on countless 
 legions. You have thus some idea of the suff'erings and degra- 
 dations of the people of India ; and what is the excuse for the 
 commission of this outrageous tyranny ? Only this — the pre- 
 cedents set us by the Mahometan powers who conquered a 
 very large portion of India. By the Moslem system of rule, 
 the natives of countries conquered by them were bound to 
 embrace the religion of the conquerors, or to submit to 
 extermination, unless they purchased existence by the pay- 
 ment of one-half the gross produce of their lands, besides other 
 tributes. 
 
 We have inherited the dominions of the Mussulmans — we 
 insist on the right to half-produce. Thus our land revenue 
 ought, by the very terms of its payment, to vary from year to 
 year, as the amount of the crop necessarily varies with the 
 difFerence'of seasons and other circumstances. Who is it that 
 does not perceive what an abundant soiurce of exaction and 
 oppression is thus opened for the practically irresponsible col- 
 lectors of such a revenue. 
 
 Even when a more permanent settlement has taken place, 
 as in the districts of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, the condition 
 of the peasantry is little, if at all, alleviated, and nothing can 
 •demand more of vigilant compassion than the deplorable state 
 of all the cultivators of the land in a population of about one 
 hundred millions of souls. 
 
 There is another strange coincidence between the history of 
 India and the sad story of Ireland. The subjugation of the 
 former was only the enactment on a broader scale of the system 
 of rapacity and deception by which the latter was subjugated. 
 
422 Catholicity in India. 
 
 The support given by the English to the weaker O'Donnell in 
 order to put down his more formidable competitor O'Neill, has 
 been one thousand times imitated in India. 
 
 The East India Company in all disputes between the native 
 powers took part uniformly with the weaker party, and generally 
 with the worst title ; and when their powerful aid placed on the 
 throne the once weaker competitor, they soon taught him that 
 he reigned not for himself but for his allies, and made him feel 
 the full effects of British venality and British treachery. 
 
 There is another point in which a more faint resemblance 
 to Ireland appears in the Indian story. I allude to the state of 
 Catholicity in our Indian possessions. The number of native 
 Catholics is comparatively great. It is calculated as certainly 
 exceeding one million of souls. 
 
 If, indeed, any attention had been paid by the British to th& 
 extension of Catholicity in India, it is probable that great pro- 
 gress would have been already made in the conversion of the 
 great body of the natives. But the English preferred that the 
 natives should cont!nue in the filthy and horrible superstitions 
 of Grentooism to their becoming Catholics. This is the great 
 impulse unhappily of Protestantism to calumniate and to hate 
 what they call Popery, and to attribute to Catholics the horrible 
 imaginings of their enemies, instead of giving them credit for 
 the tenets we really profess, and then to act towards Catholicity 
 as if it really was what its calumniators describe it. There is a 
 curious illustration of this Protestant propensity to act with ab- 
 horrence of Catholicity to be found in the history of the Dutch 
 in Ceylon. They (the Dutch), when they became masters of 
 the sea coasts of Ceylon, found]within their territories about half- 
 a-million of native Christians, all, of course, Catholics, who had 
 been converted principally by the Jesuits, the companions and 
 successors of the great St. Francis Xavier ; but instead of 
 encouraging them, they commenced a most cruel and unrelent- 
 ing persecution of all the Ceylonese Christians who refused to- 
 embrace Calvinism. They invented or adopted part of the Irish 
 penal code, by rendering it impossible for Catholic children to- 
 
Catholic Missions in India. 423 
 
 inherit any of the property of their Catholic parents, hesides 
 using more direct force and personal punishment for professing 
 Catholicity; but without being able to extirpate that religion. 
 They, therefore, resorted to another and still more atrocious 
 proceeding. 
 
 The species of Gentooism professed by the native Ceylonese 
 was the religion of Buddha, an obscene and horrid religion, 
 which had organised itself into a faint resemblance of the Chris- 
 tian hierarchy. In fact, that religion could not subsist for any 
 length of time without the regular graduation of orders of their 
 priesthood. Such, however, was the success of the Jesuits and 
 other Catholic missionaries that the hierarchy of these Budd- 
 hists in Ceylon was broken up, and the religion itself was nearly 
 extinguished at the period of the Datch conquest. 
 
 What did the Dutch do ? When they found they could 
 not put down Catholicity otherwise, they actually entered into 
 an arrangement with the King of Candy, who reigned in the 
 interior of .the island, and lent him a frigate and fitted out for 
 him an embassy, which they conveyed to the Isle of Cava for a 
 fresh college of Buddhist priests. They brought these priests 
 back to Ceylon, and thus actually re-established the Buddhist's 
 hierarchy to preserve the natives from Catholicity. Perhaps 
 nothing in the history of man was ever more revolting. 
 
 The Indian Catholics in the British dominions have no com- 
 plaint to make of any such persecution, but they have been 
 shamefully neglected — even the Bill of the present session, which 
 provided three bishops and a regular establishment of subordi- 
 nate ecclesiastics for some twenty to thirty thousand British 
 Protestants, did nothing for the native Catholics. These Catho- 
 lics are languishing for want of an educated priesthood, and also 
 of schools and churches. Yet they have been unnoticed by the 
 recent Bill. 
 
 It is right I should inform my constituents that I discovered 
 this gross neglect, and complained of it in the House and out of 
 the House. I succeeded thus far, that I got a pledge from the 
 Indian Department of the Government that every possible atten- 
 
424 I belong to the /Radicals. 
 
 tion should in future be paid our Catliolic fellow-subjects in the 
 East Indies, and that the first practical opportunity should be 
 seized upon to give them protection and some support. I do 
 not intend that this pledge should remain unredeemed. At least, 
 I hope it will not be my fault if it be unredeemed. Indeed, 
 I saw and heard enough to make me hope that the Indian 
 Catholics will obtain solid and substantial relief. 
 
 The present plan of Indian Grovernment is a strange anomaly. 
 It allows the East India Company of Merchants to subsist, 
 but it takes away from them all commercial pursuits. It leaves 
 them the power of electing directors, and permits these directors 
 to exercise a considerable degree of Indian patronage, but it 
 absorbs all the real powers of Grovernment in the Board of Con- 
 trol — that is, in other words, in the minister of the day. It 
 thus most enormously increases ministerial power and influence. 
 
 Again, the bargain made with the East India Company 
 was highly unfavourable to the British nation. It has probably 
 added thirty-sis millions to the debt, commonly, but erroneously, 
 called the national debt, because, taking into consideration the 
 great probability — nay, the certainty of the recurrence of war in 
 India, there are no resources adequate in such contingency to 
 defray the debt which the Grovernment has at present guaran- 
 teed to the creditors of the East India Company. 
 
 Again, the Grovernment plan is most absurdly unfavourable 
 to the public in the length of the term of future existence which 
 it has insured to the thing called the East India Company. 
 
 I cannot travel with my constituents through the details of 
 these measures ; but my votes are upon record. I supported 
 the Grovernment plan wherever I found it tending to promote 
 the two great objects I had in view. These two great objects 
 were — first, the diffusion of Christianity ; and, secondly, the 
 establishment of a solid basis for the future liberty and indepen- 
 dence of the inhabitants of India. Having these two objects in 
 view, my votes will, I trust, be found consistent with the principles 
 of the party to which I am proud to belong— the avowed and 
 sincere Radicals of the British empire. 
 
The A^egro Emancipatmi Bill. 425 
 
 Whatever in the East India Bill tended to the emancipation 
 of the Indian people from mental and political despotism had 
 my support. I felt the awful duty imposed on me, and honestly 
 endeavoured to do the best I could for the natives and inhabi- 
 tants of our East Indian dominions. "Would to God that my 
 ■capacity to be useful had been equal to my inclinations and wishes. 
 
 The great defect in the East India Bill is, that it has done 
 nothing directly, and but very little by indirect operation to 
 remedy the evils of uncertain tenures, rack rents, absenteeism, 
 or exacting or oppressive agency. In short, the interests, the 
 comfort, or the prosperity of the people of India have been but 
 little consulted ; and yet, with all its defects, the Bill composes 
 one step in the march of civilisation. 
 
 The next great measure of the last session was the Bill to 
 abolish negro slavery. 
 
 Upon this most important subject so many considerations of 
 all-absorbing interest arise, that they reduce into insignificance 
 the claims of any individual to public gratitude. Yet I do 
 claim the continued confidence of my constituents for the exer- 
 tions I have made incessantly, for many years, to forward this 
 desirable consummation. 
 
 It is, however, necessary to caution the public against be- 
 lieving that, because the battle is w^on, the fruits of this triumph 
 of humanity are certainly to be reaped. It requires vigilance, 
 care, perseverance, to secure those fruits, and to prevent a barren 
 mockery from being substituted in the place of real freedom. 
 
 The Negro Emancipation Bill was carried through under the 
 auspices of that flippant debater, but most unphilosophic and 
 unstatesmanlike being, Stanley — a man whose success in the 
 logomachy of Parliament has puffed up his own natural and ex- 
 orbitant vanity, and procured for him a reputation and a party 
 in the State, both of which he will either speedily lose or employ 
 to purposes destructive of the best interests of the State. The 
 Bill, indeed, as it ultimately passed into a law, was most essen- 
 tially difi'erent from the plan originally introduced by Stanley. 
 The original plan was one utterly impracticable in its details, 
 
426 Stanley s Plan. 
 
 and most unjust had it been practicable. It consisted in a loan 
 of fifteen millions to the planters, to be repaid by the labour of 
 the negroes. This was the first glaring defect in the plan. It 
 ■was worse— it was a gross iniquity. The principle for which 
 the emancipation contended was, that slavery was, and must be 
 in itself, essentially unjust, that one man could not be the pro- 
 perty of another man without a crime. Slavery, according to 
 us, was not a nuisance merely, which might be modified and 
 gradually ameliorated. No, it was and is a crime of enormous 
 magnitude, to be at once unconditionally and for ever abolished. 
 
 It was not by but against the negroes that this crime was 
 committed. They were the victims not the authors of the in- 
 justice. The injustice was committed against and upon the 
 negroes by the planters, who perpetrated, and by the British 
 Government who tolerated, or even sanctioned, the iniquity. 
 But the redemption money, according to Stanley's plan, was 
 not to be paid by the planters, the agents of the crime, or their 
 accomplices, the British Grovernment, but by the unfortunate 
 negroes. Anything so unjust, [so monstrously iniquitous, was 
 never yet heard of — yet such was the morality of the plan of 
 that sublime statesman, Stanley. 
 
 But if there was injustice in the principle it was overborne 
 by the ludicrous absurdity of the details. It is right to take 
 them by stages. 
 
 First — The negroes, men, women, and children, were all to- 
 be forthwith emancipated and declared free, and slavery was 
 to be for ever abolished all over the British dominions. 
 
 Nothing could be better — but 
 
 Secondly — All these free negroes were at once to be turned 
 into apprentices, simply because they were free. These appren- 
 ticeships were to be — oh ! madness — for twelve years. The child 
 of seven and the old woman of seventy were simultaneously to 
 become apprentices at one blow. Society was to be put on a 
 new footing. There was to be a colonial nation, all masters 
 and apprentices ! An idea which had never before entered 
 into a human head — a nation all masters or apprentices ! No 
 
Stanley' s Plan. 427 
 
 art, no mystery, no trade to be tauglit or learned — yet all to be 
 apprentices, save such as were masters. 
 
 Thirdly — The apprentice, being thus a freeman, was to be 
 compelled to work four full days in each week without wages — 
 that is, for nothing or next to nothing — namely, for 40.s. worth 
 of clothing in the year. For four days, in each week, during 
 twelve long, long years, was Stanley's freemen to work without 
 wages, and under the terror of the magistrate's cutting whip. 
 
 Fourthly — The negro, because he was thus to be free, was, 
 in addition to working four days in the week for nothing, to 
 work the remaining two days in each week — for what, think 
 you ? To pay off out of wages to be allowed him for each of 
 these days the sum of fifteen millions. 
 
 Fifthly — But this was not all. The price of the negro was 
 to be calculated by his master — that is, a gross value was to be 
 set on each negro by the master. This gross value was then to 
 be divided into twelve parts, and then again each twelfth was 
 to be subdivided into one hundred and four parts, and one of 
 these parts, that is, the one-hundredth and fourth part of one- 
 twelfth part of the gross value set upon the negro, was to be 
 his day's wages for his two days in each week — that is, by each 
 day's labour of the negro he was to pay l-1248th part of his 
 redemption money— but he was to have only two days in the 
 week applicable to this purpose. He could not by this mode 
 of labour redeem himself in less than twelve long years — but 
 from even this remote and almost delusive prospect of ultimate 
 freedom there was one great drawback. If the negro was pre- 
 vented by sickness or sorrow — by the death of a parent or child 
 — by marriage or mourning — in short, by any cause — from 
 giving six days' labour under a burning sun, the deficiency 
 was to be noted against him, and he was to continue after the 
 twelve years his new servitude, until he should have made up 
 every deficiency. Such was Stanley's plan. It gave the planters 
 nothing. It even diminished their present powers. It gave 
 the negroes nothing solid or substantial. It deluded both — 
 made the ownership of slaves complicated and unmanageable,. 
 
428 O" ConncWs Pla7i. 
 
 and mocked the wretclied negro with the semblance only of 
 freedom. But then it should have given to the mortgagees — 
 to the usurious and grinding mortgagees of "West Indian 
 property — the fifteen millions of sterling money ; and Stanley 
 has, I presume, a similar affection for them that he has for the 
 tithe exactors of Ireland. 
 
 Such was Stanley's plan. It would have produced a uni- 
 versal insurrection had it been attempted to be carried into exe- 
 cution. One convulsive explosion must necessarily have rent 
 asunder the social state in our colonies, and deluged its ruins in 
 blood. But its cruel absurdities and utter impracticability ren- 
 dered its defeat certain. Indeed, it was scouted by universal 
 acclaim. 
 
 In the first place, Stanley was compelled to relinquish his 
 twelve years' apprenticeship. We struck off one-half of the 
 term. 
 
 The absurdity of unlearning, unteaching apprenticeship re- 
 mains ; but one-half — one full half — of its duration is gone. Six 
 years are still a sad long period to procrastinate freedom and 
 sicken hope — but one can see through the darkness, and the 
 dawn of liberty, as it were, streaks in the horizon with purer 
 
 ** The full moon of freedom shall shine round them yet" 
 
 In the second place, the use of the cutting- whip, as an in- 
 ducement to labour, is also diminished. It cannot be employed 
 against females at all. I claim, before my constituents, being 
 the originator of this improvement upon Stanley's plan. It is 
 quite true that, some days after I had placed a notice to this 
 effect on the order book of the House of Commons, Stanley 
 ■declared that he intended to propose it himself ; but it is quite 
 certain that he made no intimation of such improvement in the 
 first instance, and indeed, his bill was read twice, and printed, 
 without any such provision. Certainly some other person would 
 have suggested it, if I had not ; but that does not deprive me of 
 my right to claim for my constituents, that it was their repre- 
 
De77iands Ujiconditioiial Freedom for the Slave. 429 
 
 sentative with •whom originated the exemption of females in all 
 the colonies from the cruel and degrading infliction of the cart 
 whip. 
 
 In the next place, the two days in each week which were 
 "by Stanley's plan to be attributed to the payment of the loan 
 of fifteen millions, are to be at the absolute and free disposal of 
 the negro. Thus, even during the six years of apprentice-servi- 
 tude, the negro has one-third of each year at his own disposal. 
 We have thus further mitigated the horrors of Stanley's plan ;. 
 and, instead of twelve years' servitude with a power and indeed 
 a certainty of an increased duration, we substituted an appren- 
 ticeship terminating certainly with the labour of only four years. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that I approve of even the reduced 
 number — I only speak of it as a comparative, not an absolute 
 amelioration. I always insisted, and do insist, that the negro 
 was, and is still, entitled to absolute and unconditional freedom, 
 and that no further delay should intervene to the enjoyment of 
 that freedom, save just so much as should be necessary to orga- 
 nise the public police in such mode of activity and effect as to 
 meet the altered relations of public society, and secure peace and 
 good order according to these new arrangements of the social 
 state. 
 
 There remains one more most important alteration of Stanley's 
 plan. He began with a loan of fifteen millions. All at once — 
 Presto, pass ! he substituted a gift of twenty millions — a gift of 
 twenty millions of pounds sterling — what a lump ! — one loses 
 breath at the mere thought ; twenty millions of the public 
 money flung away as if it were a china orange — and yet the 
 people of England stand by stupified, and appear careless 
 whether they lend fifteen millions, or give away twenty millions. 
 No wonder that the Grovernment Debt — falsely called National — 
 (and by way of parenthesis, I pledge myself to fix the name of 
 Government Debt upon it preparatory to its just reduction) — no 
 wonder, I say, that the Government Debt should be eight 
 hundred millions — indeed, all I wonder at is, that it is not twice 
 as much. Stanley gives away twenty millions of the public 
 
430 The Reformed Ministry. 
 
 money one fine evening, and " the reformed ministry" concur — - 
 and **the reformed Parliament" applaud the gift. 
 
 Observe, by way of note and comment, that the same "re- 
 formed ministry" equally concurred in the loan only of fifteen 
 millions, and that the same "reformed Parliament" equally 
 applauded the loan and the author of the loan ! ! ! And are 
 the affairs of nations to be for ever consigned to the folly of 
 rulers, and the base subserviency of the minions of, and expec- 
 tants on, power ? 
 
 There was one other trait highly characteristic of " the re- 
 formed ministry" and " the reformed Parliament ;" it was this 
 — Stanle}'' opened the negro emancipation measure with a long 
 speech. It was throughout a violent invective against slavery 
 and slave-owners — it collated and dilated upon the cruelty and 
 political hypocrisy of the planters — it adopted and justified by 
 official authority all the accounts of negro sufi'erings and of 
 West Indian tyranny, detailed for years in the Anti-Slavery 
 Reporter — and then, oh most lame and impotent conclusion! it 
 closed with the absurd and unjust plan which I have already 
 commented upon. The "reformed Parliament" loudly cheered 
 the speech, and as decidedly approved of the plan which directly, 
 and in terms, contradicted the entire spirit and meaning of that 
 speech. 
 
 I opposed in every stage the gift of twenty millions. I 
 voted against it in every shape, and divided the House against 
 it as often as I could. I now, to you, my constituents, protest 
 against it as a cruel, additional burden on the industrious and 
 working classes in these countries, and as bestowed on men who 
 in no possible way deserved it, or were entitled to it. 
 
 They did not desire it by their conduct, because they had 
 perseveringly and audaciously opposed the benevolent spirit of 
 the times, which exhibited from day to day its increased horror 
 of the condition of the negro slave, and with equally audacious 
 pertinacity opposed every effort on the part of Government to 
 ameliorate the condition of the slaves and to prepare them for 
 freedom. On the other hand, the planters are not entitled to 
 
Lord Haivick. 431 
 
 the money as compensation for any loss, because, if they act 
 with common sense and common humanity, the transition of 
 the negroes from slavery to the state of free labourers can be 
 made without any loss of property to the planters ; on the con- 
 trary, there is abundant and most satisfactory evidence to satisfy 
 every thinking man that the property of the planters, instead 
 of suffering by the transition from slavery to free labour, would 
 be much increased in value thereby, provided a just and gene- 
 rous humanity and benevolence presided over the first workings 
 of that transition. The sy stem of free labour would soon right 
 itself and produce the usual fruits of industry, guided by the 
 natural wants, and regulated by the natural propensities of 
 mankind to procure for themselves comfort, pleasure, and 
 distinction. 
 
 Again, these twenty millions are distributable amongst 
 planters, many of whom have distinguished themselves by the 
 most brutal persecution of preachers of Christianity. 
 
 But, after all, the greater portion of these twenty millions 
 will go into the pockets of the usurious mortgagees ; just the 
 persons on whose behalf it is most insufferable to increase the 
 burdens of the laborious classes in these countries. 
 
 I was at my post, as your representative, during the entire 
 of these discussions. I supported every clause that tended to 
 abolish, or even to mitigate, direct slavery, or indirect slavery 
 called apprenticeship. I supported every clause that tended 
 to extend the blessings of education or to promote the know- 
 ledge of Christianity. I opposed every restriction on the 
 human mind, or on the human body, and I gave my most 
 decided opposition to the grant of twenty millions of the money 
 of the people of these countries to persons who had, in my 
 solemn judgment, no right or title to one single farthing. 
 
 I cannot close this part of my subject without offering the 
 meed of my very sincere and lively gratitude to Lord Hawick, 
 for his conduct during the entire of the discussions on the 
 question of negro emancipation, both in and out of Parliament. 
 He had digested a plan for the abolition of slavery much more 
 
432 
 
 The Franchise. 
 
 simple and practical than that which won the approbation of 
 the Cabinet under the dictation of the imperious and unreflect- 
 ing Stanley. He (Lord Hawick) quitted office and respon- 
 sibility when he found his plan rejected and Stanley's- 
 approved of by the Cabinet ; approved of, however, only to be 
 scouted with ridicule by the public. In the House, Lord 
 Hawick sustained, with manliness and talent, his views of the 
 subject ; and much of the ameliorations which were worked into 
 Stanley's plan is properly attributable to the talents and exer- 
 tions of Lord Hawick. 
 
 This letter has run into greater length than I had intended. 
 I cannot close it without again adverting to the state of 
 Ireland. 
 
 I began with my gratulations on the departure of Lord 
 Anglesey ; I conclude with expressing a hope — a fervent hope 
 — that the Administration of his successor may have in it 
 something propitious to Ireland. The Corporation inquiry is 
 working well— extremely well. The total dereliction of the 
 principle on which corporations are alone justifiable, namely, 
 the good of the inhabitants of the city or town, has proved 
 to be complete everywhere in Ireland. A sweeping reform of 
 corporate abuses is inevitable. 
 
 The franchise will be restored — so much is manifest — to 
 the resident householders. Shall it be to the £10 householders 
 only, or shall it include £5 householders ? That is, after all, 
 the only question. It must certainly be as low as £10. Shall 
 it come down to £5 ? I am quite convinced it ought, and I 
 trust it will. Nay, I deem it the duty of everybody to 
 struggle to extend the franchise to the occupier of every house 
 worth £5 per annum. It is comical to see the zeal with which 
 the present race of corporators contend for raising the franchise 
 under the coming Keform Bill to £20 ; although the present 
 community consists in the open places ^of freemen, very many 
 of whom are not householders at all, and amongst whom are to 
 be found the very poorest persons in the country. But thus it 
 is always with the oppressors of the people ; they use the poorer 
 
 I 
 
Decay of Party Spirit. 433 
 
 classes to work their iniquity, when they have that class in 
 their trammels. They exclude the poor when they find that 
 the bad principle is most predominant amongst the more 
 wealthy orders of society. 
 
 I do entertain hopes of the present Irish Administration. 
 There is one advantage which it possesses over any recent 
 Government of this kingdom — it is to be found in the unity of 
 purpose of the Lord Lieutenant and his Secretary. If they do 
 ill, it will not be in opposition to each other, but in concert- 
 If they choose to do well, they will have double power to do 
 good deeds. As yet there can be nothing to complain of, 
 and although there is indeed little to applaud, there is still less 
 to censure. 
 
 The speeches of Lord Wellesley at the Corporation dinner 
 were not models of absolute wisdom ; but still less did they denote 
 anything absolutely hostile to the people of Ireland. Let us, 
 then, hope for better days, and above all things, let us recollect 
 that it is the duty of every one of us to assist the Grovernment in 
 every measure useful to Ireland, and to applaud the Govern- 
 ment, as well as to support it, in carrying into effect every 
 such measure. 
 
 Lord Wellesley does not seem to understand that there 
 are no longer two parties in Ireland. The divisions which 
 existed between the two denominations of the Irish, when Lord 
 Wellesley was here last, no longer exist. There is no longer 
 a Catholic party opposed to a Protestant party. The Catholics 
 have got all they wanted as a particular body or persuasion. 
 The ascendency party, however, continues, or rather its ghost 
 walks abroad in the likeness of human existence. There is no 
 second party. The fading remnant of the ascendency is at the 
 one side ; the universal people at the other. The Government 
 cannot stand neutral without deserting its every duty. It 
 should treat the remnant of the faction with exemplary good 
 temper, with every practicable forbearance, but with perfect 
 firmness and decision, whenever there is occasion to act. The 
 Somers Paynes, as well as the Carters, should be taught that 
 VOL. II 29 
 
434 ^ imirst have Deeds. 
 
 there is no longer impunity for magisterial delinquency. There 
 should he no mock inquiries. No Flinter's restoration acted 
 over again, after getting abundant praise for a dismissal. 
 Words will no longer do. Of these poor Anglesey had, heaven 
 knows, more than enough. We must have deeds. 
 
 It may be said that the support given to Government in 
 measures useful to Ireland implies an abandonment of the 
 great question of the " Eepeal." There never was a greater or 
 more absurd mistake. On the contrary, nothing can tend 
 more to demonstrate the necessity of the " Repeal " than the 
 little good which the best intentioned Administration can do 
 for Ireland under existing circumstances. The " Repeal " is^ 
 winning its way securely and irresistibly. Even the North, 
 where our weakness once lay, is adding daily to our strength. 
 There are now, I rejoice to say it, already two newspapers in 
 the North full of patriotism and talent, supporting on principle- 
 the "Repeal" — the one at Newry, called the Examiner; the- 
 other at Belfast, called the Herald. Then there is the powerful 
 advocacy of Sharman Crawford ; believe me, that, when men 
 of his rank, fortune, talents, and high character, take the 
 lead in seeking for the " Repeal," the national restoration 
 of Ireland is at hand, and we shall achieve national indepen- 
 dence, as a portion only of the Irish nation achieved Catholic 
 Emancipation — that is, without violence or crime, without 
 causing one tear to flow, and without incurring the possibility 
 of shedding one drop of blood. 
 
 Eor my own part, I do not want the stimulus of recollecting 
 that every single individual of my constituents would b& 
 immediately and personally benefited by the " Repeal." It 
 suffices for me to recollect the passing of the Coercion Bill to 
 declare, that no man can possibly love Ireland who can 
 possibly forgive the haughty, the insolent, the atrocious passing 
 of this Bill. It has passed without one single particle of 
 necessity and without any palliation. 
 
 It was the insolent presumption of Stanley, adopted readily 
 towards Ireland by Lords Grey and Brougham. I, for one, will 
 
All Irish Parlianient. 435 
 
 never forgive that crime until I see the Irish Parliament seated 
 in College-green, and the recurrence of such an atrocity towards 
 Ireland rendered for ever impossible. 
 
 In the meantime let us aid the Government in every 
 useful measure, but let us not forget the constitutional agita- 
 tion necessary to carry the Abolition of Tithes and the Repeal 
 of the Union. 
 
 I have the honour to be your faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 29 
 
436 I a7n the Oldest Agitator for Repeal. 
 
 Fifth Letter to the People of Ireland. 
 
 London, July 1, 1838. 
 
 " 'Twas fate, they'll say, a wayward fate, 
 Your web of discord wove, 
 And whilst your tyrants joined in hate, 
 You never joined in love." 
 
 Fellow-countrymen — There is something preposterous in 
 the manner in which the concerns of Ireland are treated bj 
 Irishmen. It would be ludicrous if it were not melancholy. 
 There is a disposition to cavil and to unjust imputation which, 
 I know, has deterred many an ardent and generous spirit from 
 devoting his energies to the cause of his country, and which even 
 to me, who have so much of experience of its working, and en- 
 dured so many, many years of vituperation, sometimes comes 
 over my heart with a sensation of sadness which would drive 
 me for the rest of my life into the shade, did I not reject the 
 temptation, and reanimate my long-upheld spirit of perseverance 
 by the hope that I may yet live to serve Ireland in the restora- 
 tion of her domestic Legislature. 
 
 Upon this point all I claim is seniority. I am the oldest 
 and most continued agitator of the Repeal. I began my public 
 career by opposing the enactment of the Union. The speech 
 I made in 1800 contains my sentiments of the present day. I 
 could wish that those who avail themselves of every adverse 
 gust of wind to insinuate that which they could not openly avow, 
 would read that speech. They would find the great principle 
 -of Irish nationality in it, with a generous confidence in our 
 Protestant countrymen — a confidence which subsequent events 
 often diminished, but a confidence which, I rejoice to say, is 
 now returning with renewed vigour, and, indeed, increased with 
 accumulated force by many a cheering Protestant adhesion to 
 the great object of the resurrection of Ireland. 
 
The Catholic Question and Repeal. 437 
 
 I never deserted the principle of Repeal during the agitation 
 of the Catholic question. I knew full well that there was not 
 the most remote chance of carrying the Repeal until the 
 people of Ireland should be placed on a footing of legal equality. 
 As long as the ascendency of one portion of Irishmen and tlie 
 depression of the other prevailed, it was impossible that there 
 could be that community of interest or exertion which alone 
 could afford a prospect of success in seeking the restoration of 
 our domestic Legislature. I, therefore, felt doubly animated to 
 struggle for Catholic Emancipation. "The Repeal" was the 
 great and glorious object which I had in prospective — it always 
 glittered before my eyes, and left Emancipation as a minor good, 
 most valuable in this, that it should be the means of accomplish- 
 ing my real end and purpose. 
 
 Nor did I conceal these my opinions. It was indiscreet to 
 avow them, because that avowal increased and strengthened the 
 British opposition to Emancipation. But, notwithstanding the 
 indiscretion of doing so— an indiscretion for which several of my 
 present calumniators heartily abused me — I did candidly and 
 honestly avow these my sentiments. I acknowledged myself to 
 be an agitator with ulterior views, which views concentrated in 
 the restoration of a domestic Legislature to Ireland. 
 
 When Emancipation was conceded I refused to abandon salu- 
 tary agitation. I took the post I promised to take so soon as 
 that measure should be carried. I stepped out at first almost 
 alone to raise the voice of Repeal. The Leinster declarationists 
 met me on the threshold, and the unwise portion of these silly 
 men were induced by some base designing knaves to pronounce 
 upon themselves a judgment of servility, and upon the unhappy 
 country which had the misfortune to give them birth, a sentence 
 of perpetual and provincial degradation. 
 
 But I did not despair. I continued to agitate the question 
 with doubtful success, chilled by the despair of those who though^ 
 that Ireland was destined for perennial slavery. The revolution 
 of 1830 shone forth in Paris. The hopes of the friends of 
 liberty all over the globe beat high. Belgium dissolved by 
 
438 The Malignant Genius of Stanley. 
 
 force, and, alas ! in blood, her legislative union with Holland. 
 The moment was come to rally the slumbering spirit of " Eepeal." 
 I, accordingly, aided to revive that spirit, to reanimate public 
 confidence in the destiny of Ireland, and to organise that peace- 
 able and legal combination of Irishmen of every class and of 
 every persuasion, which must sooner or later result in the rege- 
 neration of our native land ; soon, if we adopt wise and prudent 
 counsels; late, if any considerable portion of us shall be led 
 astray by honest folly or by the artful machinations of malig- 
 nant knavery. The Reform Bill arrested our progress. The 
 Tories desired that we should embarrass the ministry whilst 
 that ministry were struggling to extinguish the rotten boroughs. 
 But we were then too wise and too honest to listen to the sug- 
 gestions of our enemies ; although then, as now, aided by the 
 restless murmurs of some honest but mistaken Bepealers. We 
 felt also that Ireland owed all her misfortunes and miseries to a, 
 ijovernment supported by an unreformed Parliament. It was 
 possible that a reformed and democratic Parliament even in 
 London might cure all the evils inflicted on Ireland by the 
 sordid oligarchy which had preceded them ; it was just possible 
 that avowed reformers, although British, might reform all Irish 
 abuses and redress all Irish grievances. It was, to be sure, 
 highly improbable, but as it was possible, and as that possibility 
 would be proclaimed to be a certainty until tried, it became 
 prudent to pause and give the spirit of British reform a fair 
 trial. This course, however, like everything else, had its re- 
 vilers at the time. But I look back with satisfaction to the 
 course I then advised, and I am quite convinced that we are 
 now much farther advanced towards the Repeal than we 
 could have been had we adopted a different course, and refused 
 to give Reform a fair trial. 
 
 That trial did not last long ; it soon, indeed, became appa- 
 rent that it was utterly hopeless of redress. 
 
 The malignant genius of Stanley, countenanced as it was by 
 the astounding vanity and unwise egotism of our unwise and 
 Orange-led Lord Lieutenant, prevailed. 
 
Plans for Repeal. 439 
 
 The Irish Reform Bill, brought in uuder their auspices, was 
 not only a grievous injustice to Ireland but a most daring 
 insult to our rights. We were provincialized even in our 
 Reform Bill, and, whilst England and Scotland were cherished, 
 Ireland was treated with restriction and insult. I, for one, 
 flung aside procrastination. We raised again the standard of 
 " Repeal," and under that banner fought all the elections in 
 ■every county and place where there was no danger of increasing 
 or exciting by an election constant religious animosities between 
 Protestants and Catholics. 
 
 We succeeded in almost all the counties in which the popular 
 spirit prevailed. Of such counties Wexford alone gave us not 
 one pledged Repealer, whilst it treated us, for county members, 
 to two determined enemies of constitutional liberty in Ireland. 
 By one of those strange vagaries of the public mind which are 
 apt to disgust inexperienced politicians, it would appear, that 
 Wexford — which has not given us even one pledged Repealer — 
 has become more impatient for a fruitless contest on the Repeal 
 question than the counties which did their duty and all their 
 •duty to the cause of Repeal. 
 
 The present session of Parliament approached under what 
 appeared to be favourable prospects for Ireland. As the then 
 apparent leader of the Repeal, I made my arrangements for an 
 early bringing forward of that measure. My plan was this — I 
 determined to try the reformed Parliament for the redress of 
 the most prominent of our grievances. I accordingly, so soon 
 as the order book of the House of Commons was opened, put 
 upon it notices of motions for bills — 
 
 "First — To remedy the evils of our Jury Law in all criminal as well as 
 civil cases, and not only in the superior courts in Dublin, but at the assizes, 
 and in all inferior courts, by introducing the principle of ballot in all cases, 
 and taking away from the Crown all right of challenge, except for cause." 
 
 This would have purified the sources of justice. 
 
 " Second— To remedy the oppressions of our Grand Jury Law by creating 
 grand juries on the principle of representation — that is, by having the grand 
 jurors elected by the cess-payers in each parish.'' 
 
440 Refor7}i Bill and Sub-letting Act. 
 
 "Third — To remedy the scarcely-endurable despotism of our justices of 
 the peace, by making the office of justice of the peace elective, one justice at 
 the least to be elected in each parish to serve for three years only, unless re- 
 elected." 
 
 I need not dwell upon the advantages of this measure. 
 Under my system the magistrates, instead of being the haught}' 
 rulers of the people, would be their friends and protectors. 
 Perhaps there is not one point of practical utility which would 
 ensure so much of quiet and comfort to the Irish people as the 
 power to elect their own magistrates. 
 
 "Fourth — The extension of the suffrage, and the facility of registration of 
 voters in our towns as -well as counties, and an adequate increase in our repre- 
 sentation." 
 
 Without a measure of this description our Eeform Bill is a 
 mockery. 
 
 " Fifth— A thorough and entire reform of all abuses in our corporations, 
 so as to identify the corporate body with the inhabitants, without any re- 
 ligious or political distinction." 
 
 The obvious effect of this measure would be to destroy, at 
 once, the odious domination in our towns and cities of a pecu- 
 lating and besotted monopoly, and to give to every householder 
 his due share in the management of the corporate funds and 
 expenditure, and of all the affairs relative to the good govern- 
 ment, to the protection of the poorer and working classes, to the 
 police, peace, and good order of all the inhabitants. 
 
 " Sixth — The total and unequivocal extinction of tithes and vestry ce.«s." 
 
 I need not dwell on these measures ; they are of that nature 
 without which there cannot be permanent peace or tranquillity 
 in Ireland. But I grow tedious. I will, therefore, only add 
 upon this part of my case, that I had included in my notices 
 the abolition of the remaining part of the Sub-letting Act, so- 
 as totally to extinguish that most oppressive and unprincipled 
 statute. 
 
A^o Bloodshed. 441 
 
 It is, however, beyond my present purpose to proceed fur- 
 ther with my projected measures of relief. It is sufficient to say, 
 they were all intended as trials of the spirit and good disposition 
 towards Ireland of this Reformed Parliament. If I had been 
 successful ; if that Parliament had given me those measures 
 honestly, substantially, and practically, although I acknowledge 
 it would damp the ardour for Repeal, yet it would have done 
 much good to the people of Ireland. If, on the contrary, those 
 measures were rejected, then the necessity of the Repeal 
 would appear too obvious to be controverted by any honest 
 Irishman. Such was the speculation with which I commenced 
 the present session of Parliament. My experiment would have 
 been complete in a few weeks. I easily anticipated that, in 
 that period, the Reformed Parliament would show itself, and 
 prove its incapacity to redress the evils of Ireland. Alas ! it 
 did, indeed, so show itself, not only by refusing to redress our 
 grievances, but by that most astounding act of cruelty and in- 
 justice which one country ever exercised over another — the 
 Coercion Bill. I was then satisfied that I had all the argument, 
 all the reasoning with me in favour of the Repeal. One 
 only duty remained : it was, and is, to concert the means of 
 effecting the restoration of the Irish Parliament without blood- 
 shed ; my political creed being, that the best possible political 
 revolution is not worth one single drop of human blood. 
 
 People of Ireland, this is the capacity in which I now stand 
 before you. I am the oldest, the most continuous and constant, 
 the most solemnly pledged, and, may I add, the most anxious 
 of the honest Repealers belonging to Ireland. 
 
 I candidly confess, it may be vanity and weakness, but, at 
 all events, I do confess that I am desirous to be left for some 
 time longer the management of the Repeal question. I am 
 anxious to follow up the plans I have devised to efiectuate- 
 Repeal. I wish, strongly wish, to be permitted to develop my 
 means of obtaining the concurrence of Irishmen, of every 
 sect and persuasion, to the restoration of Irish nationality and 
 the destruction of the provincial degradation of Ireland. 
 
442 Willingness to Resign the Leadership. 
 
 My only motive for deserving the management and leader- 
 ship of this great question ought to be, and must be, that is if 
 I am honest, a conviction that in this capacity I can be useful. 
 
 I do most solemnly declare that, if I knew any man likely 
 to be more useful to the cause of Eepeal ; nay, if I knew any 
 man likely, at the present moment, to be equally useful to that 
 cause, I would readily, cheerfully, and gratefully resign into his 
 hands that management and leadership. 
 
 But this is the period of the utmost difficult}'^ to that cause. 
 Fettered, gagged, and controlled, as public opinion and public 
 spirit are in Ireland; deprived as we are of the greatest of con- 
 stitutional rights by the Coercion Bill ; with a Lord Lieutenant 
 under the most absolute control of a bigoted and anti-national 
 Attorney-General ; at such a moment as this I cannot surrender 
 my station in the cause, without seeing that I am to be replaced 
 by some person more competent than myself to regulate the 
 mode of attaining national freedom for Ireland. 
 
 But, if I have lost the confidence of my brother Repealers 
 in Ireland ; if men equally honest, truthful, and more wise than 
 myself, deem it right to hand over the conduct of the Repeal 
 cause even to a Repealer of yesterday — even to a man without 
 more talent and with less services than mine — even to one, if 
 he can be found, whose first step in the cause of Repeal may be 
 the creating of dissension and distracting by division — even 
 to one whose proceedings may be cheered by the most bitter 
 and unrelenting enemies of Ireland; still, I repeat it, I am, 
 if the people of Ireland desire it, ready and most willing to 
 resign my pretensions to utility, and to abandon the manage- 
 ment of the Repeal cause to him whom the people of Ireland 
 honour, and in whom they think they ought to confide. They 
 are better judges than I am, and in their decision I will, at once, 
 and, I hope, cheerfully acquiesce. 
 
 But, in order to enable the people to judge between us, I 
 proceed to state my plan " for procuring the restoration of the 
 domestic Legislature of Ireland, without an offence or a crime, 
 without violence or bloodshed." When I have developed that 
 
Plan for Advancing the Cause of Repeal. 443 
 
 plan, I will state as fully as it readied me the counter-project 
 of the new managers. 
 
 Let me, by way of preface, just state that, although it may 
 be decided that I am unworthy to manage "the Repeal cause," 
 yet, even that decision shall not diminish my anxiety for the 
 Repeal, nor prevent me from endeavouring, in my individual 
 capacity, to discover and adopt the best means I can to forward 
 that great cause ; and, although not confided in by others, I will 
 not be the less unremitting, individually, to look for, and seize 
 on the fit and proper times and modes of attaining the consti- 
 tutional independence of Ireland. My efforts shall not be re- 
 laxed at any suitable occasion to attain that object. 
 
 After this preface, I proceed to develop my plan for advanc- 
 ing the cause of " the Repeal" : — 
 
 First — I propose to procure from as many parishes in Ire- 
 land as I possibly can petitions for the Repeal of the Union. 
 This I do intend to be the great work of the ensuing recess. It 
 will require, in the present state of the law, and with the uncon- 
 stitutional impediments which the Coercion Bill interposes, 
 much and persevering exertions in order to obtain these peti- 
 tions. It must consume months before they can be all collected. 
 Perhaps I may obtain them from every parish in Ireland . Cer- 
 tainly I shall be able to procure them from the far greater part 
 of the parishes. 
 
 Secondly — For this purpose, I intend to take each county 
 in alphabetical order. I have, in Parliamentary Returns, the 
 names of all the parishes in Ireland. I will follow up from 
 parish to parish my exertions for petitions. 
 
 There were petitions presented this session for the abolition 
 of negro slavery, signed by about one million three hundred 
 thousand persons. I hope that, before the first day of the next 
 year, there will be petitions signed by two millions of Irishmen 
 for the Repeal of the Union. 
 
 Thirdly— My principal study, and that to which I will de- 
 vote most time and attention, will be the procuring as many 
 Protestants as possible to sign these petitions. There are already 
 
444 Hoiv to Conciliate Protestants. 
 
 several Protestant Repealers ; but we want more ; we cannot 
 — I shall go further and say — we ought not succeed in the Repeal 
 of the Union as the work of any one sect or persuasion. It can 
 he done only by a combination between all Irishmen. In fact, 
 at present, it wants nothing but that combination to ensure 
 success. The Protestants of Ireland have it now in their power 
 to restore a domestic Parliament. Let them but join the rest of 
 the Irish people, and the thing is done. No ministry could re- 
 sist the unanimous prayer of the people of Ireland. We are 
 eight millions. 
 
 Fourthly — It is a principal part of my plan to conciliatethe 
 Protestant population of Ireland, not by cunning or deceit, 
 which, indeed, would be impossible, but by the gradual disclo- 
 sure to, and perception by them of this great truth: that wdiilst 
 as Protestants they have nothing to lose as Irishmen, they have 
 everything to gain by the restoration of a national Legislature, 
 in Ireland. 
 
 Fifthly — This part of my plan necessarily requires time to 
 develop it fully and with efficacy. The Bills which are in pro- 
 gress this session, though not in themselves of much value, will, 
 however, destroy much of the delusion under which Irish Pro- 
 testants labour. Some of them still imagine that it is possible 
 to revive Protestant ascendency. Cherished as that ascendency 
 has been for centuries by the British Government, the Irish 
 Protestants of the present generation cannot, as yet, believe 
 their own senses that it is gone, and gone for ever. Many of 
 them still cling to the fond hope of its revival, and it is this de- 
 lusion which prevents them from becoming Repealers. When 
 they become convinced that they have no chance of advantage, 
 as a faction, all their energies will be combined with ours to 
 obtain benefits as a nation. A little time is all that is now 
 wanting for the purpose. 
 
 Sixthly — Even the Church Temporalities Bill, if carried 
 into a law, will aid in bringing many Protestants to become 
 Repealers. That Bill does little indeed for the people, but it 
 tramples under foot many darling prejudices of the Irish Protes- 
 
Acts of the Ministry. 445 
 
 tants. They never can expect that a Parliament which, at one 
 blow, and, as it were, bj a pure fantasy, exterminates two 
 Protestant archbishops and eight Protestant bishops, can be ever 
 brought to dream of re-establishing Protestant ascendency. 
 This is so plain and palpable that I look upon this Bill as a 
 great stimulant to the Eepeal, especially as it never was called 
 for by the Catholics or Dissenters of Ireland. We do not want 
 to put any gratuitous insult on the Protestants of Ireland ; what 
 we want is to lessen to the people the intolerable weight of the 
 Protestant establishment in its temporalities. The ministry 
 give a bill which does not, in any useful degree, lessen that 
 weight, but which, to an enormous and impertinent extent, 
 interferes with the sj)iritual arrangement of the Protestant 
 hierarcl)}^ in Ireland. The ministry thus displease one pa,rty 
 and do little to gratify the others ; but they effectually recruit 
 for the " Eepeal" by proving the utter hopelessness of the 
 restoration of "ascendency." This naturally drives the most 
 inveterate of the Protestants to look for another restoration, in 
 which we are equally interested — the restoration of the Irish 
 Parliament. 
 
 Seventhly — My plan embraces the giving time for the 
 working of events ; events now inevitable. The steps which 
 the Whigs have taken — slowly, to be sure, and undecidedly, as 
 is the manner of the Whigs — for the destruction of corporate 
 monopoly ; the commission about to issue to inquire in both 
 countries into corporate abuses — the irresistible impulse given 
 to the spirit of amelioration in all municipal institutions, leave 
 no rational doubt that the ascendency monopoly which has 
 hitherto prevailed in the Irish corporations is drawing to a 
 close. This conviction of the approaching termination of the 
 monopoly which subsists in the corporations in Ireland will 
 disengage another considerable class who are detained in the 
 ranks of the anti-Eepealers by the advantages derived from 
 that very monopoly which is thus about to be extinguished. 
 Before the next session we, Repealers, will thus procure a con- 
 siderable accession to our numbers of active and intelligent 
 
446 EnglisJi Reporters and Irish Debates. 
 
 Protestants, kept from us at present only by a selfish because 
 purely personal interest. 
 
 Eightly — My plan thus embraces every means, between this 
 and the next session, of increasing the number of Eepealers, 
 and then, as early as possible in that session, the making a 
 demand on the Legislature in the name of universal Ireland of 
 the restoration of our domestic Legislature. 
 
 Ninthly — For this purpose I intend to combine the pro- 
 curing of parochial petitions, with the ascertainment of the 
 number of voters or persons capable of becoming voters in each 
 parish ; and the procuring every such voter to pledge himself 
 not to support any but a Eepeal candidate of tried integrity. 
 
 Tenthly — According to my plan a full and complete oppor- 
 tunity will be ensured for a deliberate discussion of the great 
 national question. I intend to bring it on at that period of the 
 session when there will be no excuse to refuse sufficient time- 
 for fully considering a measure of such vital importance. It 
 will, of course, require four or five days' debate for this purpose ; 
 I must, therefore, have everything arranged to bring on that 
 debate early in the session. I know, by experience, that it is 
 more difficult to get a discussion of five hours in the closing 
 part of a session than five days in the commencement. It is 
 in human nature that it should be so. 
 
 Elevently — Part of my plan includes arrangements to have 
 a full report of the debate on " The Eepeal" in some English 
 papers. Some expense must be gone to for this purpose. The 
 English newspapers have no interest in reporting matters purely 
 Irish. The reporters either are directed not to report them, or 
 their reports are cut down into nonsense, or converted into false- 
 hood by the editors. I am as well treated, when I speak on 
 English business, as any man of my calibre in the house ; but it 
 is quite ludicrous to see how I am treated when my topics are 
 Irish. I will give two instances. The one of the grossest 
 neglect ; it is this. The most persuasive speech I made in the 
 present session — and, I believe, what indeed was not difficult, 
 the best — was upon the subject of Poor Laws for Ireland. I am 
 
Repeal does not viean Separation. 447 
 
 convinced, from what I saw and heard, that I made an impres- 
 sion on the House, and I was deeply anxious that speech should 
 have been fully reported. Well, it was completely burked. A 
 speech of an hour was despatched in half a dozen lines. The 
 other instance is more recent, and exceedingly absurd. The 
 newspapers during the last week have actually gone the length 
 of making me say that I am not pledged to the Repeal of the 
 Union. 
 
 Only think !— me — the most pledged man that ever was 
 pledged to a national measure — made to say that I am not 
 pledged to the Repeal. 
 
 After this I need not add how necessary it will be for us to 
 have a complete arrangement made with one or two Englisli 
 newspapers, so that a full report of the debate on the Repeal 
 may be given — an arrangement which will require time and 
 money. 
 
 Twelfthly — Care must be taken, and I intend to take care 
 to prepare the popular mind, in England and Scotland, for the 
 discussion of the Repeal, by showing them that Repeal does 
 not mean separation, but directly the reverse ; Repeal being in 
 truth and in fact the only means of preventing a fatal and san- 
 guinary struggle, which in the present state of the world must 
 necessarily terminate in a separation ruinous to both countries. 
 They should also be shown that the people — I say, emphatically, 
 the people — in the agricultural, manufacturing, and industrious 
 classes in Grreat Britain are, if possible, more injured by the 
 emaciating effects of the Union than the people of Ireland. 
 Irish labour, owing to the poverty of Ireland, created by the 
 Union, can be had so very cheap, that it brings down in the 
 English and Scotch markets the wages of the English and 
 Scotch operatives, in manufactures as well as in husbandry. 
 If, by having a domestic Legislature in Ireland the Irish 
 labourers were employed — as they would be employed — at 
 home, their claim would diminish, and the British operatives 
 would have still greater reason to bless " the Repeal," than 
 the Irish themselves. 
 
^48 Conciliation and Combination. 
 
 It is my intention to spend some weeks in a tour through 
 Scotland and England, immediately before the next session 
 commences, explaining and inculcating these matters, and pro- 
 curing as many British petitions as I can in favour of a measure 
 which I do, in my conscience, "believe to be essential for the 
 preservation of these realms in the high, exalted, and happy 
 station which they ought to occupy amongst the nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 Such, fellow-countrymen, is the outline of my plan. It 
 includes the conciliation of, and combination with, Irishmen of 
 every sect, party, and persuasion. It embraces the strength- 
 ■ening of our cause by the good sense and patriotism of Great 
 Britain. It may not succeed in one session ; but I have per- 
 suaded myself that it will lay in a rational, dignified, and well- 
 considered manner, the sure foundation upon which the super- 
 structure of the democratic and constitutional liberty of both 
 countries can speedily and securely be raised. 
 
 Such are my plans, fellow-countrymen. "Whether will you 
 aid or baffle me in giving them a fair trial ? They are too 
 important to be mixed up with paltry or personal squabbles ; 
 they concern the rights and liberties of millions ; and if acted 
 upon with the energy and the perseverance which I intend to 
 bring to them, will, I think, enable me to write my name 
 proudly on the page of Irish History, as one of the restorers of 
 the national and constitutional independence of my native 
 land. 
 
 In my next letter I will trace and assail the project of those 
 who deem themselves better qualified to manage the workings 
 of this cause than I can be. Probably they are so ; and that 
 even the vanity which blinds me to my own deficiencies pre- 
 vents me from fully appreciating the talents, and, above all, the 
 judgment of others. 
 
 But the project does not require much ingenuity to discover. 
 It is nothing more than this — to insist on a discussion, on this, 
 the closing period of the present session. That is the entire of 
 the sapient plan ; it has neither preliminary means nor subse- 
 
The Extinction of Tithes won without Cri?ne. 449 
 
 quent resources. It is the unwise man's bolt in one respect ; it 
 is soon sliot off once and for aye. 
 
 I will assail it in my next letter and show its inutility — 
 indeed utter hopelessness, and I must say its absurdity. I sin- 
 cerely give credit for the best of motives and the most pure in- 
 tentions to those who urge it, but I do not think it the less 
 unwise on that account. 
 
 Every man who believes me to be an honest Repealer will 
 give me credit for this : that if I thought the Repeal cause could 
 be promoted by any further discussion this session, I would 
 most heartily and most readily join in bringing it on. 
 
 Nay, if I were not convinced that any attempt to discuss in 
 this session that great measure with deliberation or calmness 
 must be utterly unavailing, and, indeed, that such attempt, 
 besides being fruitless, would be actually mischievous, I should 
 certainly bring it on without any delay. 
 
 But, confining myself in this letter to the announcement of 
 my plans, I will reserve for the next my view of the inutility 
 which seems obvious, and the mischiefs which are likely to flow 
 from the vain attempt to discuss, in the manner it ought to be 
 discussed, this great national question, in the few, the crowded, the 
 hurried, I may say the overwhelmed days which remain of this 
 session, amidst impatience, lassitude, and pre-occupied minds. 
 
 Do you, my countrymen, decide. For my part I do not 
 despair ; on the contrary, my heart swells high with hope for 
 the future destinies of Ireland. I may be thwarted for a 
 moment in my views of serving my country, but, with the 
 natural elasticity of my disposition, I will return to the charge. 
 I will devote all the faculties of my mind, all the energies of 
 my soul to make Ireland a nation once again — once again and 
 for ever. 
 
 I fondly anticipate that her hour of trial and degradation is 
 fast passing away, and that the period of her freedom and pros- 
 perity is fast approaching. She won the constitution of 1782 
 without a drop of blood or a tear — she won the extinction of 
 tithes without a crime on her part. Her sense of justice has 
 
 VOL. IT. 30 
 
450 A Passing Cloud. 
 
 triumplied over that odious system, and titlies are no more. 
 The cloud of despotism settles now on her brow, but it is a pass- 
 ing cloud — 
 
 " The nations have fallen, but thou still art young, 
 Thy star is but rising, whilst others have set, 
 And though slavery's gloom round thy morning hath hung, 
 The full moon of freedom shall beam round thee yet." 
 
 I have the honour to be, fellow-countrymen, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
Invitation to Cork. 45 1 
 
 Letter to the Citizens of Cork. 
 {From the Cork Chronicle.) 
 
 September 9, 1833. 
 
 The following answer to a letter, inviting him to a public 
 dinner in this city, was received Thursday afternoon from the 
 Liberator. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell's reply has been submitted to the dinner 
 committee, and we understand that they have left the time to 
 his own choice, only requesting of him to name as early a day 
 in November as will suit his convenience. Come when he will, 
 he is welcome ; and we are satisfied the reception he shall meet 
 with here will be a gratifying proof of our increasing regard and 
 unabated confidence : — 
 
 Derrynane Abbey. 
 
 Sir — I beg leave respectfully to acknowledge the invitation 
 to a public dinner, which a meeting of the citizens of Cork have 
 done me the honour to transmit to me through you their chair- 
 man. 
 
 If anything could enhance the value of such a compliment 
 it is the channel through which it has been communicated. 
 But, in j)lain truth, nothing can increase to my mind its im- 
 portance. I receive that invitation not only with pride and 
 pleasure, but with sentiments of, I trust, a more exalted and 
 patriotic nature. 
 
 I accept it as a proof that the patriotic and independent 
 citizens of Cork sympathise with me in the exertions that I have 
 humbly but zealously made not only to advance the best interests 
 of our beloved native land, but also to protect her from the wanton 
 and unnatural injury and debasing insult of being deprived of 
 the first and greatest of all constitutional rights, at the atrocious 
 caprice of the mock Reformers, ministerial and legislative. 
 
 Your invitation proves that you concur with me in the just 
 
 30* 
 
452 His Home at Derryiiane. 
 
 and inextinguishable indignation that every lover of liberty and 
 of Ireland must feel at this, the greatest and, I trust, the last 
 outrage that has been perpetrated upon unhappy Ireland by the- 
 insolence of British power, combined with British falsehood and 
 folly. The shouts of barbaric domination with which the Coer- 
 cion Bill was cheered still ring in my ears and enliven my deter- 
 mination to render a repetition of such a scene impossible, by 
 that which alone can secure the liberty of Irishmen and the con- 
 stitutional connection of the two countries — the restoration of 
 our domestic Legislature. 
 
 I accept, therefore, your invitation, containing as it does the 
 evidence of your hearty concurrence with me in the deep convic- 
 tion that Ireland can never expect safety for her liberties, en- _ 
 couragement for her commerce, the stimulant and universal 
 advantage of a domestic market and a domestic consumption for 
 her agriculture and manufactures, and, greater than all, free- 
 dom from paltry and vile insult, without a peaceable, a constitu- 
 tional, but a complete Repeal of the Union. 
 
 But, although I must accept your invitation as I would obey 
 an honoured command, yet I trust you will allow me to name a 
 distant day for that purpose. 
 
 After nearly seven months of the most close and unremitting 
 labour, I want the calm and quiet of my loved native hills — the 
 bracing air, purified as it comes over " the World of Waters." 
 The cheerful exercise, the majestic scenery of these awful moun- 
 tains, whose wildest and most romantic glens are awakened by 
 the enlivening cry of my merry beagles, whose deep notes, mul- 
 tiplied one million of times by the echoes, speak to my senses, 
 as if it were the voice of magic powers, commingling as it does 
 with the eternal roar of the mighty Atlantic that breaks and 
 foams with impotent rage at the foot of our stupendous cliffs. 
 Oh ! these are scenes to revive all the forces of natural strength 
 — to give new energy to the human mind, to raise the thoughts 
 above the grovelling strife of individual interests, to elevate the 
 sense of family affection into the purest, the most refined, and 
 the most constant love of country, and even to exalt the soul to 
 
The Protestant Patriots of Cork. 453 
 
 ilie contemplation of the wisdom and mercy of the all-seeing 
 and good God, who has been pleased to afflict Ireland with cen- 
 turies of misrule and misery, but seems now to have in store for 
 her a coming harvest of generous retribution. 
 
 Permit me, then, to postpone for some — shall I say consider- 
 able — time the day on which I am to meet my friends and the 
 friends of Ireland in Cork. Do not tear me from this loved spot 
 until I have enjoyed some of its renovating effects. If you think 
 I deserve the sweets of this loved retreat, give me time to taste 
 them more at leisure after my fatigues and vexations ; and allow 
 me to mention a distant day for that on which I am to meet 
 jou at the festive board, consecrated in my humble name to the 
 welfare of Ireland. 
 
 Believe me, it is with regret I seek this postponement. I 
 prize the patriotism of the citizens of Cork as of the highest im- 
 portance. There is this in your patriotism that makes it of in- 
 €stimable value — namely, that it is not confined to one sect or 
 party. You have not only patriotic Catholics, as elsewhere, 
 but you have what is wanted, alas ! in too many places, patriotic 
 Protestants of several religious denominations, who rival the 
 best friends of Ireland in the energy, the intelligence, and the 
 pure sincerity of their love of country. 
 
 Would that the Protestants of the rest of Ireland would 
 imitate the patriotic ardour of so many highly distinguished, 
 respectable, and religious Protestants in Cork. Then, indeed 
 Ireland would be too strong for oppression ; and peace, prosperity, 
 and freedom would flourish under the protecting influence of a 
 domestic Legislature. 
 
 I cannot conclude without again expressing to you my gra- 
 titude for the kind manner in which you have conveyed to me 
 this proud invitation. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 Your very obedient, faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
454 -^ Refo7'ming Parliament. 
 
 To THE Patient and Brave People of Ireland, 
 
 " Hereditary bondsmen, know you not, 
 Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." 
 
 Fellow-Countrymen — I dedicate these letters to you; 
 they were written to assert your rights, and to expose your 
 enemy. 
 
 It was one object of mine to show the British nation how 
 much we are wronged. It was, and is, another object of 
 mine, that every one of you should know and feel that a 
 majority in the Imperial Parliament are ready to treat Ireland 
 with injustice and insult. 
 
 Convinced as I am of the value of the connection between 
 both countries, and of the necessity of re-establishing that con- 
 nection on the basis of separate Legislatures, in order to make 
 it permanent, I have felt it my duty to demonstrate, by the 
 irresistible evidence of facts, how alien from Irish rights, and 
 regardless of Irish interests, a foreign Parliament must in- 
 evitably be. This is certainly the fittest moment to make the 
 conclusive experiment; because this, in the first place, is a 
 reforming Parliament — a Parliament warm in the pursuits of 
 political justice. In the second place, all Peformers in this 
 country must admit that a debt of gratitude is due by them 
 to their Irish fellow-labourers. In the third place, the House 
 of Lords, who are supposed to entertain an hereditary hatred 
 to Ireland, were never so weak and impotent as they are at 
 this moment. They have dragged their honours through the 
 mire with a dexterity of filthiness which has exceeded the- 
 hopes of their worst enemies. They were never less capable 
 of resisting, although many of them may be as ready as ever 
 to resist a popular and beneficial measure for Ireland. 
 
 This, then, is the time to demonstrate the truth of my 
 theory : — " That the British Parliament, even under the most 
 
Parliamentary Feeling against Ireland, 455 
 
 favourable circumstances, is incompetent — utterly incompetent 
 — to do justice to Ireland." 
 
 They are, I repeat, utterly incompetent. Intrigues at 
 Court ; old jealousies of Ireland newly revived ; the natural 
 distaste of the Peers to look on us in any other point of view 
 than that which combines hatred with contempt ; and even in 
 the House of Commons, almost a total want of sympathy, save 
 from one generous spirit here, and another there, thinly scat- 
 tered through the House. But, without entering into further 
 details, I again pronounce the moral incompetency of the British 
 Parliament to do us justice. 
 
 I hold the proof of it in my hands — the Irish Eeform Bill. 
 Here it is, with its paltry endeavour to keep from the people 
 of Ireland all participation in the franchise of the British 
 Constitution. Here it is, perpetuating, in the name of Eeform 
 and concentrating all the foul injustice of the Peel- Wellington 
 disfranchising measure, and giving us a machinery of registra- 
 tion, almost too audacious for the bold, bad men who perpe- 
 trated, as they imagined, the total annihilation of the popular 
 spirit in Ireland — a machinery rendered still worse by the 
 Eeform Bill ! ! ! 
 
 I have not written these letters with the vain and foolish 
 hope of obtaining justice for Ireland; I totally disclaim that 
 folly. 
 
 But I did write them to prove my candour, to show that 
 I would not employ the insulting insufficiency of the Irish 
 Eeform Bill as an argument for the Eepeal of the Union, 
 without first emphatically warning those who now have our 
 destinies in their hands, that, unless they deprive me of that 
 argument, it will be my sacred duty to use it with all the 
 energy of my mind, and all the earnestness and perseverance of 
 a character whi'ch has been formed by love for that country 
 in whose cause I have already contributed, in some degree, to 
 the achievement of a bloodless, stainless, but most important 
 victory. 
 
 Surely, after it shall have been, by the adoption of this 
 
456 Party Dissensions should be Banished. 
 
 Eeform Bill, demonstrated that the Parliament in this country 
 is not in a position to do us justice, there will not be found 
 one Irishman who has ever professed patriotic feeling, so 
 recreant to his country's cause as not to join me in seeking, 
 by all legal and constitutional means, for the Repeal of the 
 Union. 
 
 People of Ireland ! you have passed through a gloomy period 
 of oppression. Your business now is, to be reconciled, the 
 one to the other. Party feuds — religious dissensions — ancient 
 animosities — modern quarrels — should all be buried in one 
 common oblivion. 
 
 The time is come when we should no longer divide from 
 each other, under any nicknames or peculiar appellations. 
 We have one common country — we have one common interest 
 — the peace, prosperity, and freedom of that country. These 
 cannot be attained, save by, and through, a resident Legis- 
 lature. 
 
 The moment is fast approaching when we will forget our 
 reciprocal injuries and injustices to each other — and, at that 
 moment, our constitutional independence must be restored; 
 and no longer the serf or the bond slave of Britain, but 
 combined with her in interest and affections, and united only 
 by the golden and cherished link of the Crown, we shall be 
 the best customer and consumer of Britain in peace, and 
 her firmest support, and ready partner, in the dangers and 
 victories of war. 
 
 Let no despair come over your minds. It is well that 
 this proof should be given of the impossibility of obtaining 
 justice for Ireland in this Parliament. This will secure a 
 combination and community of exertion in Ireland, and place 
 us, Eepealers, beyond the reproach of the wise and good in 
 this country. 
 
 There were many men who told me that they would not 
 look for the Repeal of the Union, because they believed that 
 a reformed Parliament would attend to the wants and wishes 
 of the people of Ireland. This class of persons would now see 
 
We are Eight Millions, 45 7 
 
 that not only was their expectations unfounded on any known 
 fact or circumstance, but that Ireland is actually refused any- 
 thing approaching, in the most remote degree, to common 
 justice. She is, in truth, refused a Reform Bill, because the 
 name does not constitute the thing. She gets one in name — 
 she is refused it in reality. 
 
 I am just informed, by authority of a very high description, 
 that care has been taken by the Commissioners of Division in 
 Ireland to manage matters so that the Duke of Devonshire is to 
 have no less than three close boroughs — Dungarvan, Youghal, 
 and Bandon ; and, mark this particularly — Stanley has not, up 
 to this moment, published the details of the population returns 
 in Ireland, nor the maps of the new boundaries of boroughs — 
 and yet, to-morrow, we are to go into Committee on this very 
 BiU!!! 
 
 Men of Ireland — Catholics ! — Protestants ! — Presbyterians ! 
 — and Dissenters of every Christian denomination ! — this Bill 
 is insulting and injurious to us all — we are all its victims. A 
 haughty and contemptuous perseverance by the ministry in 
 wrong includes and involves us all in one common contumely. 
 The struggle to hand over to an absentee oligarchy the repre- 
 sentation of Ireland equally oppresses the inhabitants of Ireland, 
 of every class and of every creed. Irishmen of every class and 
 creed, hoard this injustice in your inmost souls ; and recollect 
 that you have only to will the remedy, in order to be certain of 
 -attaining it. 
 
 We are eight millions. 
 
 I have the honour to be, fellow-countrymen, 
 
 Your most devoted, faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 Parliament-street, London, 
 I2th June, 1832. 
 
458 A?i Appeal to tJie Rcforviei's of Great Britai7i. 
 
 To THE EeFORMERS OF GllEAT BrITAIN. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 London, May 22, 1832. 
 
 Brother Reformers — I appeal to you from the contem- 
 plated injustice of the Irish Department of the British Ministry. 
 I respectfully solicit your aid to prevent another act of gross 
 iniquity, another vile insult from teing inflicted on the people- 
 of Ireland. 
 
 My cause of complaint is this : — the Reform Bill prepared 
 for Ireland by the present Administration is defective, partial^ 
 oligarchical, unjust, and daringly insulting. 
 
 My object is twofold: — first, to prove the truth of these- 
 assertions ; and, secondly, to solicit your assistance, in order to 
 prevent the consummation of this iniquity. 
 
 But, as a preliminary, you have a right to know what species- 
 of Reform Bill I require for Ireland. I do not hesitate one 
 moment to give you that information. I ask, in the name of 
 the Irish, people, for just such, a Reform Bill for Ireland as 
 you have obtained for England — that is all. Is my demand 
 unfair or unjust? I anticipate a universal reply in the 
 negative. 
 
 I ask, then, for Ireland, a Reform Bill which shall be iden- 
 tical with the English Bill, wherever an identity of institutions 
 and other circumstances allows it to be identical. I then de- 
 mand that the Reform Bill for Ireland should as closely resemble 
 as possible the English Act — that it should be as similar in its- 
 provisions as possible, and that the extent of Reform in Ireland 
 should be equivalent to, and equally satisfactory with, that in 
 England. 
 
 I ask for the people of Ireland the same measure of Reform 
 which the people of England receive. I will not be — I ought 
 
His Opinion 0/ the Irish Tories. 459 
 
 not to te — content with less. In other words, I look for as com- 
 plete an equality of Eeform in both countries as possible. 
 
 But the MinisteriarBill for Ireland is directly the reverse. 
 It is, I repeat it, partial, restricted, unjust, and insulting. It 
 is constituted to sacrifice the Irish I\eformers to the Irish Tories 
 — who, by the by, constitute the very worst class of Tories in 
 existence. 
 
 I proceed to point out the principal particulars in which 
 the Irish Eeform Bill differs from the English. They are 
 these : — 
 
 First — The English^Bill greatly enlarges the elective fran- 
 chise in the counties of England. The Irish Bill, on the 
 whole, diminishes the number of voters in the Irish counties. 
 The Bill for Scotland exceedicgly increases the number of voters 
 in Scotch counties. The Irish Eeform Bill diminishes the 
 number. 
 
 Secondly — The Irish Bill creates too high and too aristo- 
 cratic a franchise in the Irish towns and cities ; it alters the 
 present law to the prejudice of the people and in favour of the 
 oligarchy. 
 
 Thirdly — Although the Irish Eeform Bill destroys the indi- 
 vidual and direct power of nomination in sixteen boroughs, it 
 substitutes so exceedingly narrow a basis of franchise as effec- 
 tually to render those boroughs close boroughs, and to make 
 them liable to the most gross and profligate corruption. 
 
 Fourthly — It renders the registration of a vote almost 
 impossible for any but a rich man, and thus deprives the middle 
 and poorer classes of their votes. This is effectuated by compli- 
 cation of detail in the registry, and by the pressure of great 
 delay and enormous expense. 
 
 Fifthly — It leaves the registry of the votes to a set of 
 persons, who, taken in the aggregate, are, from want of suffi- 
 cient aptitude, and also by reason of their zealous Tory prin- 
 ciples, the most unfit to have that power. 
 
 Sixthly — It continues all the enormous expense of delays of 
 contested elections; which in England, under your Eeform 
 
460 The Irish Refo7-in Bill a Blunder. 
 
 Bill, must be over in two or three days — but in Ireland, by our 
 Reform Bill, may last full fifteen days as before. 
 
 Seventhly — The Irish Reform Bill does not give Ireland 
 her due and fair proportion of representatives in Parliament. 
 
 Eightly — The Irish Reform Bill glaringly, and I may say 
 gratuitously, insults the people of Ireland by giving an addition 
 of only five members to all Ireland, while it allocates one out 
 of the five to a single college— the College of Dublin ; a College 
 having already one member, without any adequate or just right 
 to any representation. 
 
 Upon the whole, my decided and deliberate conviction is, 
 that, with the exception of throwing open the representation of 
 Belfast, Cork, Galway, and Dublin, the Irish Reform Bill will 
 make matters worse than they are at present in Ireland with 
 regard to the right and power of the people to choose represen- 
 tatives. In short, that it should be entitled, "An Act to restore 
 the power of the Orange Ascendency in Ireland, and to enable 
 that faction to trample with impunity on the friends of Reform 
 and of constitutional freedom." 
 
 Such is the plan matured at a third attempt by Mr. Stanley, 
 for the Reform in Ireland. He is, I know, determined to per- 
 severe in his measure. I also know that he will be supported 
 by all the Tories in the House, and by a vast and overpowering 
 majority of the Whigs. Indeed, I have greatly to complain of 
 the total disregard to Ireland — I believe I ought to call it con- 
 tempt for Ireland — exhibited by the English Whigs and Re- 
 formers in Parliament, with some, and but few exceptions. 
 
 I proceed now to prove the truth of my assertion. I take 
 up my eight heads of complaint seriatim ; and if the Reformers 
 of England and Scotland will condescend to read these Letters — 
 for I must extend them to at least three or four — I pledge my- 
 self satisfactorily to demonstrate that every one of my objections 
 is M;ell-founded, and that the Irish Reform Bill is a Reform 
 Bill only in name — that it is a practical blunder, such as Irish- 
 men never commit — that while it purports to reform, it renders 
 matters worse ; and, in short, that it is one of those base 
 
It ivill Diminish the Number of Voters. 461 
 
 delusions which could originate only in the brazen audacity and 
 cold heart of an English Tory, ■who found himself placed in the 
 attitude of an English Whig, with control over the present for- 
 tunes of unfortunate, long oppressed, much insulted, but, thank 
 heaven, no longer weak or powerless Ireland. 
 
 My first complaint is, "that Stanley's Eeform Bill for 
 Ireland ought to augment, but will, in fact, diminish the 
 number of voters in Irish counties." 
 
 Now the great principle of the English Eeform, as, indeed, 
 of all reforms is, " enfranchisement" — that is, to increase the 
 number of voters. The principle of the Irish Eeform Bill is 
 disfranchisement — that is, to diminish the number of voters. 
 This principle of disfranchisement, I must say, is not confined 
 to counties. I shall show, before I have done, that it applies 
 to some of our boroughs. 
 
 This complaint is still more strong than any Englishman 
 not acquainted with the details of Irish aS'airs could possibly 
 conceive ; and for this reason — when the veracious Wellington 
 and candid Peel were compelled by the people of Ireland to 
 concede religious freedom to the Protestant Dissenters of Eng- 
 land and Catholics of Ireland, they exerted a vicious ingenuity 
 to make that concession as little valuable to popular liberty as 
 possible. Accordingly, they annihilated — they totally annihi- 
 lated the 40s. franchise in Ireland, not only where it depended 
 on a freehold of a life or lives subject to a heavy rent, and 
 therefore capable of being abused, but also where it arose from 
 a fee-simple estate, not subject to any rent whatsoever. 
 
 This was not all : they raised the franchise to what is an enor- 
 mously high valuation in a poor country — that is, to ten pounds 
 annual value over rent and cliarges ; and that, I repeat, in a 
 very poor country, where ten pounds a year is certainly of three 
 times the importance of that sum in this country. But even 
 this was not all : they rendered actual residence and occupation 
 of the entire freehold — mark, of the entire freehold — necessary 
 to constitute a vote. But even this was not all : they super- 
 added a most tedious, vexatious, expensive, and, in many 
 
462 The Peel- WellingtoJi Disfranchising Bill. 
 
 instances, totally impracticable mode of registry of voters, as a 
 preliminary to the right of voting. 
 
 I wish to dwell upon this point, that the British Reformers 
 may clearly comprehend how outrageously unjust it is still to 
 augment the difficulties in the way of the right to vote in Ire- 
 land; and still further, positively and directly, to diminish the 
 number of Irish voters in Irish counties. 
 
 I will illustrate the atrocious working of the Peel-Welling- 
 ton Disfranchising Bill by some instances of its practical opera- 
 tion. Most of these instances are taken from the counties in 
 which the Orange interest prevails. For example: — 
 
 In Armagh there were 8,419 voters on 40.s. franchise. These 
 were replaced by 1,087 £10 voters — that is, seven-eighths were 
 unuihilated. In Cavan, 5,195 replaced by 781 ; in Down 
 10,775 replaced by 1,902 ; in Donegal, 2,310 replaced by only 
 ■66 ; in Dublin county, the metropolitan county, 2,490 replaced 
 by 109 ; in Londonderry, 4,457 replaced by 839 ; in Monaghan, 
 12,452 replaced by 946 ; in Mayo, 23,672 replaced by 335 . 
 Eoscommon, 7,777 replaced by 470 ; Sligo, 4,551 replaced by 
 303 ; in Tyrone, 6,468 replaced by 701 ; in Galway, 3,205 re- 
 placed by 1,812. 
 
 I need not continue the catalogue. These numbers show 
 that the Peel- Wellington measure took, in twelve counties in 
 Ireland, their votes from 110,612 voters, and replaced them by 
 only 9,351. Thus, in little more than one-third of that country, 
 -destroying the franchise to the extent of more than 100,000 voters. 
 The results of the lists of voters in the remaining counties would 
 be found not to differ materially from those I have above enume- 
 rated. 
 
 I now appeal to every honest and candid Peformer in Great 
 Britain, whether the first step to a real and not mock or delusive 
 Peform in Ireland should not be to increase, not diminish, the 
 franchise. INIany of our counties were reduced to the station of 
 close boroughs. The popular rights were nearly destroyed. 
 If Stanley intended to give us Peform — real Reform, honest 
 Reform — would not his first effort be to increase the franchise, 
 
No Country Treated so Badly as Ireland. 463 
 
 to augment the voters, and to give, at least, a reasonable portion 
 of the people a voice in the choice of representatives ? 
 
 Judge, then, honest and manly Eeformers of Great Britain, 
 of the grief and indignation with which your equally honest and 
 determined brother Reformers in Ireland receive the Stanley 
 Reform Bill, the operation of which is not to augment, but still 
 further to diminish the number of our county voters. 
 
 Reflect on this, which is the literal and plain fact, that the 
 Tories contrived, under the shadow of the Catholic Relief Bill, 
 to render as oligarchical, as close, and, of course, as corrupt as 
 they possibly could all the Irish counties, and that the only 
 county reform to be given us by Stanley is to make those coun- 
 ties more oligarchical, more close, and, therefore, more liable to 
 corruption. 
 
 Let any one of you after this ask, why is Ireland discon- 
 tented ? Why is Ireland disturbed ? Alas ! do you not per- 
 ceive the principle on which Whigs and Tories, with indiscrimi- 
 nate recklessness, govern Ireland ? — the principle of never doing 
 us, in any instance, justice, lest we should become so strong as 
 to be able to put an end to our other oppressions. 
 
 What I assert, and insiston, is — that the Irish Reform Bill 
 ought to augment the franchise and increase the number of 
 voters in our counties, as the English and Scotch Reform Bills 
 have augmented the one and increased the other. It would be 
 unjust to leave us stationary when the other parts of the empire 
 increase the quantity of human freedom. It is doubly unjust 
 to leave us stationary while we are suffering under a recent and 
 most iniquitous diminution of our franchise, and when there is 
 an increase in the other divisions of the empire. But it tran- 
 scends in injustice, when the other parts of the empire are aug- 
 mented in franchise, to have an actual diminution take place in 
 Ireland. No country in the world was ever treated so badly 
 by an unnative G-overnment as Ireland has been by the Govern- 
 ment of England. I could demonstrate that Poland had never 
 so much reason to complain of Russia, nor Greece of the Turks 
 but I confess that the conduct of this reforming Administration 
 
464 It is your hitcrest to Govern Ireland Well. 
 
 towards Ireland fills me with more of resentment than all the 
 past. 
 
 Eeformers of Great Britain, you have no interest in Ireland 
 being ill-governed. On the contrary, your interest is, that we 
 should be well-governed and prosperous. I, therefore, but much 
 more readily, relying on your generous sympathies, appeal to 
 you from the injustice and insult now oflFered us. 
 
 EecoUect that there wHl be by your Eeform Bill the follow- 
 ing rights of suflFrage — the following franchises established in 
 England : — 
 
 1. The franchise of 406\ freeholders for a life or lives. This 
 franchise requires occupation of the freehold by the freeholder. 
 
 2. The franchise of 40s. freeholders in fee-simple. This 
 franchise is to continue in England, and does not require actual 
 occupation. 
 
 3. The fi-anchise of £10, clear yearly value for any freehold 
 estate, whether for life or in fee. This franchise does not require 
 actual occupation by the freeholder. 
 
 4. The franchise of similar value to copyholders. This fran- 
 chise is, for the first time, given by the English Eeform Bill, 
 and introduces a numerous class of new voters. 
 
 5. The original lessee, or the assignee of a term originally 
 of at least sixty years, of the clear yearly value of £10. This 
 is a new franchise, and does not require actual occupation. 
 
 6. The original lessee, or the assignee of a term originally 
 of at least twenty years, of the clear yearly value of £50. This 
 is a new franchise, and does not require actual occupation. 
 
 7. The sub-lessee or assignee of a sub-lease of a term 
 not less, originally, than sixty years, with a clear profit of 
 £10. This is a new franchise, but requires actual occupation. 
 It is the first franchise in England which is encumbered by the 
 necessity of actual occupation. 
 
 8. The sub-lessee or assignee of a sub-lease of a term 
 not less, originally, than twenty years, of the clear annual value 
 of £50. This is a new franchise, but it requires actual occu- 
 pation. 
 
The Franchise. 465 
 
 9. Any tenant whatsoever, liable to a bona fide rent of £oO 
 a-year. This is a new franchise, and requires actual occupation. 
 
 Such is to he the state of the elective franchise in England. 
 It consists altogether of nine different classes of voters, and is 
 an augmentation of former rights by no less than seven classes, 
 and some of these classes are multitudinous in their nature — 
 that is, capable of giving rights of voting to many individuals 
 out of one property. How melancholy and miserable is the 
 oontrast which the state of Ireland is destined to afford. 
 
 In Ireland we are to have but four classes of voters : — 
 
 First — The existing one, a freehold of £10, clear annual 
 value. This franchise requires actual occupation. 
 
 Second — The existing right of freehold of £20, clear annual 
 value. This does not require actual occupation. 
 
 Third — The lessee or assignee of a term of originally not less 
 than fourteen years, of the clear yearly value of £20. This is 
 ii new franchise, and does not require actual occupation. 
 
 Fourth — The sub-lessee or assignee of a sub-lease of a term 
 of not less, originally, than fourteen years, of the clear annual 
 value of £20. This is a new franchise, and requires actual occu- 
 pation. 
 
 These are all ; and thus England has at present two fran- 
 chises, and acquires by the Reform Bill seven] additional fran- 
 chises. Ireland has at present two franchises, and acquires by 
 the Reform Bill only two more. 
 
 England, a rich country, has two franchises of 40-s., multitu- 
 dinous in their nature, and only one requiring actual occupa- 
 tion ; four franchises of £10, one only of which requires actual 
 occupation ; besides two franchises of £50 annual value, one 
 only of which requires actual occupation ; and one franchise of 
 mere payment of £50 a-year rent. 
 
 Mark the contrast with Ireland : Ireland, a poor country 
 has no 40.s. franchise, has only one £10 franchise, and even that 
 franchise requires actual occupation. Ireland has then but 
 three franchises of the enormous value to us of £20 annual 
 value, and one of these three requires actual occupation. 
 
 VOL. 11. 31 
 
466 The Franchise. 
 
 To put this matter in a still more clear point of view : let 
 me take in England a single estate worth £50 a- year, and in 
 the hands of an occupying tenant who pays that rent for it. 
 Now, such a property as that could, in England, qualify no less- 
 than twenty-six persons to vote ; while, in Ireland, such a pro- 
 perty could not possibly qualify more than three persons to vote. 
 
 Thus, then, the English are to have the advantage, and I 
 heartily rejoice at it, of seven new classes of voters ; of nine- 
 classes in all. Ireland is to have but four classes, two only 
 being new classes — that is, in new classes, the English Bill is to 
 the Irish as seven to two ; in classes generally, as nine to four. 
 But this approximation in the general classes, is proved to be 
 quite delusive when you recollect that, in point of valued pro- 
 perty, England has an advantage equal to twenty-six against 
 three, or more than eight to one. 
 
 Thus, in new franchise, the English Bill is seven to two 
 better than the Irish. In popular character, as arising from 
 property, it is more than eight, very nearly nine, to one better 
 than the Irish Bill ; and, let it alwaj^s be recollected, that this 
 difierence is enormously aggravated by the fact, that Ireland is 
 beyond comparison the less wealthy country. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood — I do not in the least desire 
 to diminish the advantages which England possesses. On the 
 contrary, I say it with the utmost sincerity, my ardent desire- 
 w^ould be to augment these advantages. I am a Eadical Re- 
 former, and, on principle, think every Englishman ought to 
 have a right to vote. I quote, therefore, the advantages of the 
 English Eeform Bill, and they are very great, only to show 
 how defectively the Irish Bill is, as I firmly believe, wilfully 
 and designedly, made. 
 
 This letter has run into such length, that I must pause, and 
 reserve the residue of this my first complaint for another 
 letter. 
 
 I have hitherto confined my attention to show the necessity 
 that exists to augment the number of voters in our counties, 
 and to prove that no sensible augmentation can take place under 
 
The Franchise. 467 
 
 the Irish Reform Bill. I have shown that, to us, insulting con- 
 trast of the increase of franchises and of voters given to England. 
 In my next letter I will prove that the practical effect of the 
 Irish Bill will he to diminish the numher of voters, although an 
 increase is so imperatively required by every principle of justice 
 and common sense. 
 
 Reformers of Great Britain, recollect that we have honestly 
 and zealously stood by you in the contest for Reform. "When 
 your Reform Bill was in danger, we flung overboard our own 
 grievances and our first resentments—nay, more : had Welling- 
 ton found any set of men mad enough to join him in attempting 
 to govern the country to the exclusion of Earl Grey, and had a 
 resort been made to Polignac ordinances instead of Acts of 
 Parliament, you would have found your constitutional liberties 
 supported by one million of Irishmen in arms, true to your 
 sacred cause to the last of their blood and their breath. British 
 Reformers, do not we deserve your peaceable but determined 
 assistance to compel tha Administration and to induce the Par- 
 liament to give us a Reform Bill equally satisfactory with that 
 of England or Scotland ? 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 Daniel O'Coxnell. 
 
 31 * 
 
468 An Appeal to British Reformers. 
 
 To THE Reformers of Great Britain. 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 " This -is essentially a Conservative measure." — Speech of Crampton, 
 Solicitor-General for Ireland, on the Second Reading of the Irish Reform 
 Bill. 
 
 London, May 29, 1832. 
 
 Brother Reformers — Look to my motto — see liow it has 
 verified my worst fears. The candid, but indiscreet, avowel of 
 the Irish law officer, by whose hand the Irish Reform Bill was 
 ■drawn up, placed beyond a doubt the real intentions of the 
 Irish Government, and the real nature of the Irish Reform 
 Bill. 
 
 It is a " Conservative measure," English Reformers ; mark 
 that, I must earnestly implore you. If you have any sym- 
 pathy for Ireland ; if you regret her wrongs, and the compli- 
 cated injustice which she has for centuries endured at the hands 
 of the British Government, and which she never endured with 
 more of harshness and of contumely than from the Anglesey- 
 Stanley Administration, now inflicted on that unhappy country ; 
 if, I repeat, you have sympathy for her sufferings, or indignation 
 at the injustice done and intended towards Ireland, rouse, I 
 entreat you, now, and rescue us from the fatal effects of this 
 ^' Conservative measure." How I thank the Solicitor- General 
 for the word ! ! ! 
 
 Shall I despair of co-operation from the British Reformers ? 
 Alas, I fear that the complaints of the miseries inflicted on 
 Ireland, and of the insults now offered her, will fall on the 
 dull, cold ear of British apathy, as the complaints and groans of 
 former periods have wasted themselves in useless attempts to 
 rouse attention and to procure redress. 
 
 I, however, shall have done my duty ; and although I may 
 
 I 
 
The Wellington -Pee I Adniinistyation. 46^ 
 
 do it here in vain, I am not witliout resources ; nor shall any 
 sickness of the heart come over me. I am one of those who have 
 taught the " hereditary bondsmen " of Ireland, that they 
 who contend for freedom must principally rely on their own 
 exertions. 
 
 I return with heaviness and sorrow to the Irish Heform 
 Bill, and proceed to justify Mr. Crampton, and to show how 
 well that Bill merits the appellation he gave it of a " Conserva- 
 tive measure." 
 
 In my first letter, after stating the eight distinct topics of 
 great magnitude on which the Irish Eeform Bill falls glaringly 
 short of the rights and privileges which Eeform will give to 
 England and to Scotland, I proceeded to develop the first of 
 them — that which related to the most important of all — namely, 
 the extension of the elective franchise. 
 
 It will be recollected, that I insisted that Ireland had 
 peculiar claims for a great extension of franchise, on account, 
 principally, of the gross injustice inflicted on her, in the spolia- 
 tion of that right by the "Wellington-Peel Administration. 
 
 Let me remind my readers that I showed, by a reference 
 to twelve counties only, that the votes in these counties were 
 diminished by the Wellington-Peel measure, from 110,612 to 
 the comparatively small number of 9,351. I produced the 
 details, in order to justify the conclusion that the reduction of 
 voters was equally great all over the entire country. I owe 
 to myself to add that Mr. Stanley, in his speech on the second 
 reading of the Irish Eeform Bill, has shown that I have 
 understated the argument and underrated the calculation of my 
 own prejudice ; for he distinctly admitted that the £10 voters 
 who replaced the 40s. freeholders did not exceed 20,000. 
 
 Now, the 4O5. freeholders were admitted to be more than 
 200,000. 
 
 This, therefore, may be taken as a conceded and un- 
 doubted truth, that we come to the consideration of the Irish 
 Eeform Bill with the fact unquestioned and unquestionable 
 that Ireland has recently suffered this injustice — namely, that 
 
47 o The Irish Reform Bill. 
 
 her voters have been diminished from 200,000 to 20,000— a 
 sacrifice at once of no less a number than 180,000 voters ! ! ! 
 
 Add to this, that England, where the voters are not for the 
 present diminished in anything — I mean in counties — gets seven 
 additional classes of voters, and Ireland gets only two classes. 
 
 I refer to my former letter for these details. I mention 
 them now only to show how imperative it is in point of justice, 
 honesty, and common sense, to give Ireland an increase of 
 franchise. 
 
 I have, however, asserted, and I will soon proceed to prove 
 that the Irish Reform Bill, instead of increasing, as it plainly 
 ought, our county electors, actually diminishes their number ! ! ! 
 
 Let me, before I go into that proof, place the injustice done 
 to Ireland in another and, I think, a strikiag point of view. I 
 complain with the more bitterness of lessening our county 
 voters, because England gets a very great addition to her county 
 voters, and Scotland gets an enormous increase to hers. 
 
 England, as I have already shown, in addition to her present 
 two classes of voters, gets seven multitudinous new classes. 
 Scotland profits still more extensively in the change. Her 
 present county voters do not exceed 1,100; her new county 
 constituency will exceed 30,000. This fact I have from the 
 men in Scotland best suited to ascertain its perfect accuracy. I 
 do not hesitate, therefore, to pledge myself to its truth. Scot- 
 land multiplies her county voters by nearly thirty times her 
 present number. She has 1,100 ; she gets more than 30,000. 
 
 But, if such be the case of England, as it certainly is, with 
 her voters multiplied by at least four, and if such be the case of 
 Scotland, with her voters multiplied by thirty, what ought to 
 be the case of Ireland ? I ask whether I am unreasonable when 
 I say that Ireland ought to have her voters multiplied, not by 
 thirty — I do not ask that — but at least by four. I do ask and 
 insist on that addition. 
 
 But, in point of fact, the number of county votes is to be 
 diminished by the Irish Eeform Bill. I proceed to prove the 
 truth of this assertion. 
 
Errors in Stanleys Calculations. 471 
 
 I take up, in order to avoid all cavil or dispute, the calcula- 
 tions made by Mr. Stanley himself. I will do nothing more 
 than correct these calculations where they are manifestly and 
 beyond controversy mistaken — mistaken, not wilfully, on his 
 part, but by reason of his ignorance of the details. • 
 
 Mr. Stanley calculated the Irish voters thus : £50 freeholders 
 at 22,000, and he is borne out by the Parliamentary returns ; 
 £20 freeholders at 9,000, and he is also borne out by the Par- 
 liamentary returns ; and £10 freeholders at 20,000, and he is 
 borne out by the Parliamentary returns. 
 
 This would give for Ireland 52,000 voters, and so Mr. 
 Stanley stated it. But 52,000, in a population of eight millions, 
 is exceedingly small. However, I do not rest for the present on 
 this point. I proceed to show the error in Mr. Stanley's calcu- 
 lations, though it is drawn, I admit, from Parliamentary returns. 
 
 Let me just allow that the calculation of £10 freeholders is 
 accurate ; there are of them 20,000 in round numbers. But the 
 returns show the £50 freeholders to be 22,000 in round numbers^ 
 and the £20 freeholders to be 9,000, making together 31,000. 
 
 Here lies Mr. Stanley's mistake ; he did not know that the 
 reason of the accuracy of the return of the £10 voters is, that it 
 comprises a space of only three years, and, therefore, that the list 
 of casualties is small; few liave died off in that period; few 
 have disposed of their freeholds. But the return of the £50 
 freeholders comprises the space of forty-one years, beginning so 
 long ago as the year 1790, and including grandfathers and 
 fathers, as well as persons of the present generation ; in short, 
 including many who were dead ten, twenty, thirty, and more 
 years. 
 
 The return of £20 freeholders is pretty much in the same 
 predicament ; it goes back in all cases eight years, and in many 
 to the year 1795. It includes a multitude of persons who have 
 been dead many years. The practical result of the late elections 
 has been, that the £50 and £20 voters have never been found 
 to equal one-sixth of the number of names on the registry-roll ; 
 not near one-sixth, in many cases ; perhaps, not one-ninth. I, 
 
472 Opinions of Voters. 
 
 who have been elected for three counties, can speak with confi- 
 dence on this subject. We shall now see what the amount of 
 voters in Ireland is by taking up Mr. Stanley's calculations, 
 corrected only where his ignorance of Irish subjects makes that 
 correction necessary : 
 
 The ultimate and accurate result will be thus : — 
 
 Of £10 freeholders, 20,000. 
 
 Of £50 and £20, less than one-sixth of 31,000 ; 
 
 say one-sixth of 30,000, 5,000. 
 
 Total registered voters in Ireland, 25,000 
 
 But to this is to be added a formidable list of voters of 
 another description — namely, the clergymen of the Established 
 Church, who have a right to vote out of their benefices. They 
 amount to, at the lowest computation, 1,100 ; but, as I take 
 everything in the most unfavourable way to my argument, I 
 will write them down only 1,000; making altogether for Ire- 
 land, 26,000 voters; of whom, however, four per cent, are par- 
 sons — men who, with very, very few exceptions, vote for anti- 
 Reformers, Tories and Orangeists. 
 
 This, then, is the state of Ireland at present. There are 
 26,000 voters, of whom 1,000 are violent enemies of popular 
 rights and liberties. 
 
 These 26,000 are all that are entitled to vote out of a popu- 
 lation of seven millions. I will show presently why I say seven 
 millions. 
 
 When the Union was established between England and 
 Ireland, the representation of the latter was based on a fran- 
 chise which was, in 1829, found to comprise near 220,000 voters 
 of all classes. If Ireland now got, as England gets, seven new 
 classes of voters, surely our voters ought to be 370,000, at the 
 least. Lord Althorpe has repeatedly declared that the new 
 franchise given to England would bring in half-a-million of new 
 voters. Of these, take but 300,000 for the counties; then the 
 case would stand thus: — The English counties, as compared 
 tvith the Irish, in point of population, appear, by the returns of 
 
Scotland under tJie Reform Bill- 473 
 
 1821, to be as twelve to seven, but take them to be as twelve to 
 six. Observe, now, I sink and diminish the case of Ireland in 
 every instance, that no man should by possibility say I am un- 
 reasonable ; but taking it to be six to twelve, instead of seven to 
 twelve, yet England getting 300,000 new votes in her counties^ 
 Ireland ought to get 150,000, which being added to her former 
 220,000, on the basis of the Union, would give her 370,000' 
 county voters. 
 
 Mark, British Reformer ! — honest British Reformer I — that 
 Ireland has but 26,000 voters instead of 370,000, an injustice to 
 the extent of 344,000 voters. But what ought to be my sen- 
 sations of disgust and indignation, when I know, as I shall 
 prove, that the 26,000 existing voters, instead of being increased 
 by the Reform Bill, are to be actually diminished ? 
 
 Take this injustice in another point of view : Scotland, with 
 a population of only 2,365,807, has an agricultural popvilation, 
 certainly not exceeding one million and a-half. The cities of 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow alone have — the former, 162,156, and 
 the latter, 202,426 inhabitants, making together 364,582. I do 
 not, therefore, underrate the agricultural population of Scotland 
 at one million and a-half. 
 
 Now, the exceedingly defective and avowedly partial 
 enumeration of Ireland gives a return of 7,734,365 inhabitants. 
 
 In the almost total failure of trade and manufactures in Ire- 
 land, I am confident no man will accuse me of exaggerating the 
 agricultural population of Ireland at seven millions. 
 
 Now, contrast Scotland, under the Reform Bill, with Ireland. 
 
 Scotland, for one million and a half of her inhabitants, will 
 have a constituency of 30,000 voters. 
 
 Ireland, for seven millions of her inhabitants, will have a 
 constituency not exceeding, as I shall presently show, 25,000 
 voters. I implore every man who values justice and fair deal- 
 ing, to look at that picture, and at this: If we were Scotch, 
 we should have 140,000 voters; we are Irish, and we are 
 allowed, in all, only 25,000. 
 
 If we were English, we should get 150,000 additional voters- 
 
474 Loss of Voters. 
 
 —that is, mark, 150,000 in addition to 220,000. We do not 
 get one additional voter, because we are Irish — not one. Nay, 
 our present number is to be diminished. 
 
 Follow me in this last point, and I think I will make it 
 demonstration that this Bill will diminish the votes in our coun- 
 ties. Thus, at present, every qualified person, in twenty-five 
 boroughs, having representatives in Parliament are entitled to 
 vote in county elections ; they are so entitled, whether they 
 have votes for the borough representatives or not. These county 
 voters are persons in trade, or of independent means, residing 
 in the towns, and are, beyond any comparison, the most patriotic 
 and liberal portion of the constituency ; they were, and are, 
 Whigs and Reformers almost to a man ; they are, accordingly, 
 to be struck out of the county constituency by the Conservative 
 measure of the Irish Reform Bill. 
 
 Let me, for example, take my own county — the county of 
 Kerry. The £10 registered voters in my county are only 
 178, aud of the voters, more than 80 are in the town of Tralee. 
 These 80 voters will be struck out of the county by the Irish 
 Reform Bill, and thus the county constituency, in its popular 
 shape, will be reduced to 99 ! ! ! 
 
 In the county of Clare, there will be a loss in the town of 
 Ennis of near 100 voters to the county. In the county of 
 Cork, the county will lose the independent voters of Mallow, 
 Bandon, Kinsale, and Youghal. Tipperary will lose the voters 
 of Cashel and Clonmel. In short, in twenty-five towns, voters, 
 on an average of at least the number of a hundred in each town, 
 will be lost to the independent county interests. I understate 
 the loss of the entire at 2,500 annual voters. 
 
 On the other hand, there will of course be some increase, by 
 reason of the two new classes of chattel voters. But taking all 
 Ireland, as it really is, at 25,000 freehold votes, I defy any 
 man seriously to assert, that the chattel voters will, at £20, 
 •clear profit (for that is the qualification) amount to 1,250. Yet 
 I will go beyond any possible exaggeration, and I will suppose 
 the chattel voters will amount to 1,500. Yet, as the counties 
 
I Appeal to the Refonncrs of Gi'cat Britain. 475 
 
 lose on the borough towns 2,500 voters, as I have already 
 «hown, it will have an ultimate loss of county voters, amount- 
 ing to 1,000, on a total of 20,000, reducing our county constitu- 
 •ency to only 25,000. 
 
 Of these 25,000, full 1,000 will be beneficed clergymen- 
 leaving all Ireland but 24,000 county voters — and the clergy 
 of the Established Church four per cent, on the entire. 
 
 Yes, this is indeed a Conservative measure. It places 
 Ireland in a state of degradation and contumely, not to be 
 thought of without pain and disgust. Scotland changes the 
 •county constituency from 1,100 fictitious voters to 30,000 real 
 and substantial voters. 
 
 England adds 300,000 to her county voters, whilst Ire- 
 land, struck down by Wellington and Peel to 26,000 county 
 voters, receives, for her only consolation, a shifting of scenery, 
 and a real and substantial diminution of 1,000 county 
 voters. 
 
 I confess I cannot bear this injustice ; it exceeds my endur- 
 ance ; but I will not waste my breath in idle anger. In the 
 first place I appeal to the Reformers of Grreat Britain. In the 
 House of Commons, the Reformers have little sympathy for us 
 Irish — plenty of lip service ; but, upon every division, vote with 
 the ministry for the restriction of the Irish right of suffrage? 
 and against us. "We will struggle to the last to obtain for 
 Ireland as good a Bill as is to be immediately the law in 
 England. Against Ireland the ministers will command many, 
 very many, of the Whigs, and all the Tories, to the last 
 man. 
 
 In conclusion, I demand those things for Ireland ; I refuse 
 to accept, with satisfaction, anything less ; I will take any instal- 
 ment of public liberty, but I will not release one particle of my 
 entire claim. 
 
 I ask for the counties of Ireland these franchises : — 
 First — The restriction of tlie 406'. franchise in fee, and per- 
 petual freeholder. 
 
47 6 We ask your Aid 
 
 I ask this franchise, because it is preserved and made per- 
 petual in England. 
 
 Second — I ask for Ireland, that the £10 franchise, on termi- 
 nable freeholds, should be reduced in Ireland from a £10 quali 
 fication to one £7 annual value — £7 in Ireland being a larger 
 qualification relatively to all the necessaries of life than £10 in 
 England. 
 
 Thirdly — I demand a similar £7 franchise in Ireland in 
 chattel leases of fourteen years, being the usual occupation tenure 
 on extensive tracts in Ireland, and that term being recognised 
 in the Act relative to the qualification of Deputy Lieutenants 
 in Ireland, and also in the Irish Reform Bill. 
 
 Fourthly — I demand that no freeholder in towns should be 
 disfranchised in the counties of which such towns have been 
 and are parts. No town in Ireland gets a member either original 
 or additional. Why should the existing right be taken away? 
 This was one of the principles of representation on which the 
 Union was formed. Why should it now be unjustly, as well 
 as capriciously taken away ? The Reform Bill will be both 
 unjust and insulting if it interferes with this right. On behalf 
 of the people of Ireland, I respectfully, but firmly, insist on its 
 continuance. 
 
 Reformers of Great Britain, we deserve your co-operation. 
 We seek nothing but what is just and reasonable; we will not be 
 content with less. If Stanley's Conservative measure is carried, 
 the people of Ireland, wounded in their just pride, and aSected 
 in their national interest, will feel it necessary to counteract 
 Stanley's plans of oligarchy by increased and continued agita- 
 tion and excitement. In short, we will not be insulted and 
 done injustice to with impunity. 
 
 Reformers of Great Britain, it is not to jou, but in aid of 
 your liberties, that we make those declarations, which may be 
 called threats. We ask your aid ; we deserve your good will. 
 We have stood by you, and we are ready again to share 
 your battle ; but we should not deserve your co-operation, if 
 
 1 
 
i Because ive Dcsei-ve your Aid, 477 
 
 -n-e did not feel a confidence of ultimate, and, perhaps, more 
 •complete success by our own means, and from our own 
 resources. 
 
 Aid us, then, because we deserve your aid. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Brother Eeformers, 
 
 Your most faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
478 Dimi7iutio7i of Voters. 
 
 To THE Reformers of Gtreat Britain. 
 
 Letter III. 
 
 "This is essentially a Conservative measure." — Crampton, SuUcitor- 
 General for Ireland. 
 
 London, 3Iaij 31, 1832. 
 
 Brother Reformers — I proceed in the painful task of 
 developing the injurious and insulting nature of the Reform 
 Bill intended for Ireland. 
 
 Of the eight objections which I stated to that Bill, I have 
 already fully canvassed but one. It was that which related to 
 the franchise in counties at large. 
 
 I undertook to show, and I have shown, that — " Whilst the 
 English Reform Bill greatly enlarged the elective franchise in 
 the English counties, and the Scotch Bill exceedingly increased 
 that franchise in Scotch counties, the Irish Reform Bill does 
 not increase the county franchise at all ; but, on the contrary 
 diminishes the number of county voters." 
 
 The abstract of my argument is fit to be repeated. It is 
 this: England acquires for her counties at least 300,000 
 additional voters; Ireland will acquire no increase. Scotland 
 converts her 1,100 fictitious and parchment county voters into 
 30,000 substantial voters; Ireland actually diminishes the 
 number of her county- voters. 
 
 I attempted to calculate the amount of diminution. I esti- 
 mated it at 1,000 — that is, Ireland, having at present 26,000 
 voters, I draw this inference, that there will be a diminution of 
 1,000. I draw that inference, rather from local knowledge than 
 from Parliamentary documents. Xay, the Parliamentary docu- 
 ments are framed more to weaken my calculation of the precise 
 amount of loss than to confirm it. But the maps which would 
 point out the errors in those documents are not as yet printed. 
 
Alterations to the Prejudice of tJie People. 479 
 
 It is, therefore, impossible for me to be certain as to the in- 
 tended contents of each of our future boroughs, particularly 
 whether or not they comprise entire parishes, or only portions 
 of parishes. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I prefer running a risk of inac- 
 curacy, and I, therefore, abandon the calculation I had made of 
 an absolute loss of 1,000 voters, and leave the amount of the 
 diminution of voters unascertained. It must be large, because 
 no less than twenty-five towns are to be deducted from our 
 county constituency. Yet, as the exact loss is disputatious, I 
 consent to give Mr. Stanley this advantage, namely, that it 
 may be smaller than I have stated it. But, at all events, it 
 must be considerable. 
 
 This result, however, is inevitable, that whilst Ireland, with 
 an agricultural population of seven millions, is to have a con- 
 stituency of only 26,000 voters, Scotland, with an agricultural 
 population of only one million and a-half, is to have a county 
 constituency of 30,000 voters. 
 
 Having dismissed the county constituency, I now proceed 
 to that of the cities, towns, and boroughs. Mj^ assertion is, and 
 this is my second objection to Stanley's Bill — " That the Irish 
 Reform Bill creates too high and too aristocratic a franchise in 
 the Irish towns and cities. It alters the present law to the pre- 
 judice of the people, and in favour of the oligarchy. 
 
 I proceed to prove this my second objection. To perceive 
 the force of my proofs, it is necessary to understand the present 
 situation of our boroughs. 
 
 They consist of eight cities and towns that are counties of 
 themselves, and twenty-five towns that are now portions of the 
 surrounding counties. 
 
 Of these, the eight first are what, under the existing system, 
 may well be called open places. Of the twenty-five boroughs, 
 ten, and only ten, are pure nomination boroughs, by means of 
 their original constitution. Eight more have become nominal 
 boroughs by mere usurpation, having been originally free ; and 
 seven are, or rather ought to be, open and free. There is, be- 
 
^ So IrisJi Opoi Boroughs. 
 
 ■sides these, one other, the rottenest and worst of the entire — the 
 •College of Dublin. 
 
 In the open boroughs in Ireland are to be found, at present, 
 a constituency, not exactly the same in all, but between them 
 are to be found a constituency of this description in the follow- 
 ing classes : — 
 
 1. Freeholders of 40s. and upwards in fee. 
 
 2. Freeholders of 40.s. for terminable freeliolds. 
 
 3. Freemen by birth, servitude, or marriage. 
 
 4. Freemen by grace especial. 
 
 5. Householders of £5 annual value. 
 
 Now these five classes are to be swept away by the Reform 
 Bill ! that is, they are to be allowed to drop off until the entire 
 shall be extinct, and in their place there is to be substituted an 
 immediate and continuous franchise of householders of £10 an- 
 nual value. 
 
 The five classes which belong to the operative and humble 
 classes are to be extinguished, and the higher and more aristo- 
 cratic right is alone to remain. The £10 franchise, besides, is 
 far too high for our towns. Let any man only think that this 
 £10 qualification is that which is to subsist in London, and also 
 in Portarlington, and also in Ennis. Is it not plain that the 
 ■class of persons who thus will have a right of voting in London 
 (and nobody rejoices more at the extent to which it is carried in 
 London than I do), but is it not plain that the right in London 
 will extend to the poorer classes, whilst in Portarlington, Ennis, 
 Kinsale, &c., &c., the occupiers of £10 houses excluded the 
 poorer classes, and are, beyond any comparison, of a more 
 wealthy, at least comparatively wealthy class ? The £10 house 
 franchise shuts out from the right of voting very few in London. 
 It will shut out from that right nearly four-fifths of the inhabi- 
 tants of the smaller towns in Ireland. 
 
 But why should the £5 householders be disfranchised ? Had 
 this been an enfranchising, that is, really a Reform Bill, would 
 it strike off the ancient rights of the £5 householders, to sub- 
 stitute the more narrow right of £10 householders '^ Why 
 
Alas ! for Irelayid. 481 
 
 does this Eeform Bill at once double the amount of the qualifi- 
 cation ? It would' operate in directly the reverse manner if it 
 were really a Eeform Bill. It is, therefore, idle to call it any- 
 thing else than a "Conservative" — that is, an Anti-Eeform 
 measure. 
 
 Alas for Ireland ! How little of sympathy or support does 
 she obtain from English Eeformers. Here is a Bill purporting 
 to increase our popular privileges. It strikes off five popular 
 rights. It takes the highest of the pecuniary qualifications in 
 these rights, and it doubles that qualification ; and then Stanley 
 says that this is a Eeform Bill ; and the Eeformers of England 
 are satisfied with his high and haughty dictation, and leave us 
 to our own fate. 
 
 But I persevere — I continue to demonstrate the iniquity of 
 treating Ireland thus. I stop to point out some of the atrocious 
 consequences. Take Downpatrick; the present number of 
 resident voters is 493 ; the Eeform Bill will reduce the number 
 to 220 : that is, by way of reforming Downpatrick. Mr. Stan- 
 ley strikes off at a single blow more than one-half of the resi- 
 dent voters. He strikes off 273, leaving only 220. At Newry, 
 he reduces the resident voters from 935 to 700 ; only 235 struck 
 off. In Mallow, he finds a constituency of 524, whereupon, by 
 way of reform, he reduces them to 200. In Dungarvan, he 
 finds 871 voters, and he reforms them, by his usual process of 
 reduction, to 210, striking off no less than 661. 
 
 Now, this is called a Eeform Bill for Ireland ! ! and it is 
 thus that the honest Irish Eeformers are to be treated by the 
 contemptuous iniquity of the Irish side of the British ministry. 
 
 Having thus established my second objection, and shown 
 that the Irish Eeform Bill is, in our towns and cities, a mere 
 filching of the rights of the humbler classes, in order to vest the 
 power of election in an exclusive and excluding oligarchy, I 
 proceed to my third objection : — 
 
 That, although the Irish Eeform Bill takes away the direct 
 power of nomination in from ten to eighteen boroughs, yet it 
 substitutes so narrow a basis of representation, as effectually to 
 VOL. II. 32 
 
482 Differences 0/ Incojne in England and Ireland. 
 
 render those boroughs close boroughs, liable to the most gross 
 and profligate corruption. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind, that the only permanent franchise 
 in our towns is to be the £10 house franchise. 
 
 In a poor country, like Ireland, this is an enormously high 
 rate of franchise. I have already observed on the difference be- 
 tween £10 in London and £10 in Tralee. They are, to be 
 sxire, the same in nominal and legal amount ; but, the man with, 
 an income of £10 a-year in London, is next to a pauper. With 
 such an income in Tralee or Ennis, he is in rather comfortable 
 circumstances. But I do not leave the matter in theory, I come 
 to the practical working of the mock Eeform BiU. 
 
 Under the new Bill, the permanent constituency of Athlone, 
 for instance, is set down in the Parliamentary Return as arising 
 from 220 houses. Now as, amongst the occupiers of such houses, 
 there will be of course women and minors, it is not too little to 
 take off ten per cent., so as to find the actual returns — thus, 
 Athlone will have but 198 voters. Bandon has 240 houses to 
 confer votes; there will, on this scale, be only 226 voters. 
 Cashel, on a similar calculation, will have about 180 voters ; 
 Coleraine, 170 voters; Dungannon, only 145 voters; Portar- 
 lington, 167 voters ! 
 
 Let this paucity of voters but be looked at, and then let me 
 ask, whether this is not just the species of constituency most 
 exposed to corruption? In England, fatal experience has 
 shown that the most profligate bribery and corruption have 
 prevailed in boroughs ranging from 150 to 250 voters. This 
 number, however, is to be the Eeform constituency in very 
 many towns in Ireland. In such boroughs as these, the briber 
 has only to buy a simple majority. He then commands his 
 return. Three or four thousand pounds will, therefore, com- 
 mand the return after the Reform, as it does under the present 
 system — with this deplorable difference, that at present the 
 transaction of the sale of these boroughs is one of great com- 
 parative innocence. It is simply a sale between two indi- 
 viduals : the one merely pays his money, and the other merely 
 
Stanley, you aj^e Warned. 483 
 
 fills up on parchment a return to Parliament duly signed ; and 
 so the business closes. There is neither riot, drunkenness, 
 perjury, or other immorality, save the sale of the right of legis- 
 lation. But in the half open boroughs, it is quite different. 
 The voter must get liquor as well as money. Liquor for weeks, 
 perhaps months, before the election. Then, there is the direct 
 bribery, and then there is the Bribery Oath ! 
 
 But I will not go further. I will simply taunt the High 
 Church Stanley. I will ask him, is this your Protestantism ? 
 Is this your veneration for religion ? How can you dare to 
 call that a Eeform, which, while it takes away from one indi- 
 vidual the unlawful power to name a legislator, throws before 
 one hundred the strongest temptations to make that nomination, 
 through the horrible and God-offending means of drunkenness, 
 bribery and soul- destroying perjury ? 
 
 Stanley, you are warned. On you there will be the guilt 
 of opening the door of crime, unless you consent honestly to 
 enlarge the town constituency. But there is one way to 
 •dissipate the temptation, and to counteract the tendency of this 
 Eeform Bill. It is by rousing the higher impulses of patriotism 
 and virtue ; and this, I inform Stanley, we will do in Ireland. 
 It will be necessary, to be sure, to continue public excitement, 
 and to increase the resources of patriotic agitation. Excite and 
 agitate we will, because it will be our bounden duty thus to 
 shut out bribery and perjury. 
 
 Yet what a statesman is this Stanley, who leaves us no other 
 alternative, but either to submit to the consequences of public 
 ■corruption, or to keep alive that higher tone of political feeling, 
 which it is often difficult to manage, and oft times dangerous to 
 attempt to control. 
 
 Lord Grey ought to understand, that the people of Ireland 
 are as determined to insist on, and to exercise, constitutional 
 privileges, as the people — the triumphant people — of England. 
 Let him reflect on this question — whether it would not be 
 better to allow the Irish to enjoy those privileges in the 
 quietude of the ordinary tide of affairs, rather than to make it 
 
 32* 
 
484 I demand, then, these Franchises. 
 
 necessary for them to raise the storm of political passions, in 
 order to enforce and secure that enjoyment ? 
 
 I have now to ohserve, that in few of the towns in England 
 is there to be any diminution of the existing resident voters^ 
 In many of the towns in Ireland there is to be great reduc- 
 tion of resident voters — and this by what is called a Reform 
 Bill ! ! ! 
 
 I have next to observe, that in all the borough towns in Scot- 
 land an immense increase will take place in the resident voters. 
 
 Alas for poor Ireland ! Behold the melancholy, the heart- 
 sickening contrast in Ireland — there is in many towns to be a 
 great diminution of resident voters ! ! ! — and this by what is 
 called a Eeform Bill ! ! ! 
 
 Why — why, in the name of common sense, not send Lord 
 Anglesey as Grovernor- General to India, and make Stanley 
 Commander-in-Chief of the Army ! He is really more fit for 
 that than for Ireland. 
 
 I conclude, by stating my demands on behalf of the Irish 
 people, with regard to our cities and towns. 
 
 I demand, then, these franchises : — 
 
 First — The perpetuation of the franchises of all resident 
 freemen, entitled to their freedom as of right, by birth, servitude,, 
 or marriage. 
 
 I ask for this franchise because it is in substance preserved 
 in the English borough towns, and is reasonable in itself. 
 
 Secondly — I ask that, in our towns and cities, being counties^ 
 in themselves, the occupying freeholders in fee, or perpetual 
 freeholders of 40s. and upwards, should be preserved as they are 
 in England. 
 
 Thirdly — I ask that in such towns and cities — that is, being- 
 counties in themselves — the £20 freeholders, though not 
 occupying, should be allowed to vote. 
 
 Fourthly — In the towns, not being counties in themselves^ 
 occupying freeholders of 40s., seized in fee, or of perpetual 
 freehold, should be allowed to retain, as in England, the electivft 
 franchise. 
 
Is this Just? Is this Fair? 485 
 
 Fifthly — I ask, that the occupiers of houses of £5, annual 
 value, instead of £10, should he allowed to vote. This is the 
 old, long recognised right of householder suffrage in Irish 
 towns. It ought not to be destroyed, or infringed upon ; and, 
 least of all,'should it be wantonly destroyed by a Bill, purporting 
 to be a Eeform Bill. 
 
 There is only one alteration more that I seek in this section 
 of the Eeform Bill — it is, that it should not annihilate the 
 right of any freeholder in towns, not being counties of them- 
 selves, to vote for the county at large. This right at present 
 exists only in occupying freeholds of £10 clear value, and in 
 all freeholders of £20 and upwards, clear value. Why should 
 their rights be destroyed under the pretence — the false pretence 
 — of a Eeform ? 
 
 Eeformers of England — recollect that I have thus demon- 
 strated these two things : — 
 
 First — Stanley's Eeform Bill will keep the constituency of 
 a,ll the counties in Ireland (having an agricultural population 
 ■of at least seven millions) as low as about 26,000 voters ; and 
 this while England greatly increases her county constituency ; 
 and Scotland, for a million and a half of agricultural popula- 
 tion, will have 30,000 voters — that is, Scotland will have about 
 five times a greater relative number of county voters than 
 Ireland, and England about twenty times a greater number. 
 Is this just ? Is this fair ? Why are the people of Ireland to 
 be thus insulted and outraged ? Is it because Wellington and 
 Peel most unjustly deprived the Irish people of one right, that 
 Stanley shall be empowered by Earl Grey to perpetuate and 
 increase the outrage ; and, by contrast with England and Scot- 
 land, to add insult to injury ? 
 
 Must not the Irish perceive — are we so stupid as not to per- 
 ceive — that the giving an enlarged and liberal Eeform to Eng- 
 land, and an enlarged and liberal Eeform to Scotland, and then 
 flinging to Ireland a stingy, limited, restrictive, and almost 
 mock Eeform Bill, can originate only in one of two feelings — 
 •either a deliberate judgment that the people of Ireland are unfit 
 
486 We are Eight Millions. 
 
 for, or unworthy of, equal constitutional privileges with the 
 people of England and of Scotland ; or a deliberate, base, con- 
 temptuous, insulting hatred of Ireland and of the Irish people ? 
 
 Let Earl Grey and Mr. Stanley take their choice of these 
 excuses. It is nearly immaterial to us whether they undervalue 
 or despise us. 
 
 We are not disposed to submit to either injustice or con- 
 tumely ; we will not submit to either the one or the other, 
 
 Reformers of England, I say it not in vain boasting, much 
 less in the spirit of mere vain threatening, but we are — 
 we are eight millions — eight millions of brave but patient, re- 
 solute but combining beings — eight millions who already com- 
 pelled Wellington and Peel to strike their ascendency colours, 
 and to liberate the Protestant Dissenters of England as well as. 
 the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, and that without 
 violating any law, or injuring either person or property. 
 
 We are eight millions, who have again, peaceably and with- 
 out violating any law, rendered abortive the tithe system, and 
 set the example to Great Britain of each man paying only his 
 own clergyman. 
 
 British Eeformers, what is it we require ? Why, nothing 
 more than an equal measure of reform with England and Scot- 
 land. Shame upon the Irishman that would be content with 
 less. 
 
 I have the honour to be, brother Eeformers, 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
/ Write with a heavy Heart. 487 
 
 To THE Reformers of Great Britain. 
 
 Letter IY. 
 
 Parliament-street, June 8, 1832. 
 
 Brother Reformers — It is my duty to commence this 
 letter, as I did my last, with a retraction of part of my former 
 letters. I do so with a heavy heart. 
 
 I have said, and repeated more than once, that what the 
 people of Ireland demand is a Reform Bill for Ireland, similar 
 in its concessions of popular rights to that obtained by the 
 people of England. 
 
 Alas ! I was mistaken. I greatly exaggerated the extent of 
 our demands. We do not ask for a Bill equivalent to the Eng- 
 lish Bill, or anything like it. We do not ask for the English 
 franchises, or for anything near in extent or number to those of 
 England, Ours is a beggarly solicitation of some feeble approach 
 to the English Bill. We, with " bated breath " and humble 
 demeanour, ask only a faint, a distant resemblance to the Eng- 
 lish Bill. 
 
 That Bill passed the House of Commons with great and 
 extensive franchises newly bestowed on the people of England, 
 but those franchises have since been much extended, and the 
 right of voting enormously increased by the House of Lords. 
 
 This has been done in two ways — first, by perpetuating the 
 right to vote of 40s. freeholders for terminable interests ; and, 
 secondly, by making the pecuniary qualification in almost all 
 the new classes of franchise depend on the value of the estate, 
 not on the income of the voter. Thus, if the freehold estate be 
 of the value of £10 and 5s., there may be at least two voters 
 qualified by that property — the one having an income of 5s., and 
 the other of £10. 
 
 In fact, it is almost incalculable to what an extent the right 
 of voting may be carried under the English Reform Bill, in pur- 
 suance of the amendments made in it by the House of Lords. 
 
488 Welshnmi versus Irishnen. 
 
 It is certainly somewhat singular that the popular franchises 
 should have been rendered more extensive by the House of 
 Lords than they were by the Commons. I hope it is not to be 
 accounted for by this, that the franchises are rendered by the 
 Lords so extensive and comprehensive as to give room for the 
 creation of very many fictitious and paper voters. 
 
 I return from this digression to the Irish Eeform Bill. I 
 have already pointed out its gross, glaring, and contumelious 
 defects with reference to the voters in Irish counties, cities, and 
 boroughs. These defects were the subject of my three first 
 objections to that Bill. The three next ensuing objections relate 
 to the mode of registering voters, and of taking the poll in Ire- 
 land. I will postpone these for the present, and in this letter 
 take up my seventh objection, and show its accuracy and force. 
 The seventh objection is, " That the Irish Reform Bill does 
 not give Ireland her due and fair proportion of representatives." 
 The number of Irish members under the Irish Reform Bill 
 is but one hundred and five, an increase of only five. Now, 
 "Wales, with a population of only 805,236, gets an increase of 
 four members. Ireland, with a population of eight millions, 
 gets an increase of only five. That is, in other words, eight 
 hundred thousand Welshmen are within one-fifth of being as 
 valuable as eight millions of Irishmen. We humbly thank the 
 English ministry for this flattering compliment ! ! ! And there 
 are men who believe that the people of Ireland will tranquilly 
 bury in oblivion an insult of this overgrown magnitude. 
 
 Again, Scotland, with a population of 2,365,807, gets an in- 
 crease of eight members ; Ireland with a population of eight 
 millions gets an increase of only five. Who will condescend to 
 take the trouble of calculating the exact ratio of insulting prefe- 
 rence ? Not I, truly. It is written with a pen of fire on hearts 
 of adamant, and it will become legible in its own good time. 
 
 But this comparison is still more outrageous, more debasingly 
 insulting, when we look at these relative proportions in another 
 point of view. Wales has already twenty-four members. Wales 
 obtains an additional one to every six. Scotland has already 
 
And /, an Irishman, live to write all this. 489 
 
 forty-five members. Scotland obtains an addition of one to 
 every five. Ireland lias already one hundred members. Ireland 
 obtains an addition of one to every twenty ! ! ! 
 
 Mark — ■'Scotland increases one to five ; "Wales, one to six ; 
 Ireland, one to twenty ! And I, an Irishman, live to write all this 
 — and to write it without one particle of hope of present redress. 
 
 I may, however, defy any person to point out, in the history 
 of any country in the world, instances of such flagrant injustice 
 — of such deep, studied, malignant contumely — I mean of any 
 country in the world, Ireland alone excepted. But in Ireland, 
 the instances are not few, nor rare, nor far between. They 
 have been oft and oft repeated : from the treacherous massacre 
 of Mullaghmast, where the Irish chieftains were invited to a 
 feast, and assassinated as soon as they had laid aside their good 
 swords, down to that eternal stain on English annals — the pro- 
 fligately disgraceful breach of the Treaty of Limerick. Yes, in 
 the records of English domination in Ireland, there are many 
 and many transactions of equal turpitude. I will not, there- 
 fore, accuse Stanley of more than he merits. He is only the 
 administrator de malis non — the executor of the stored, and, as 
 yet, unapplied malignant mischief, treasured up for future use 
 by former chief governors, chief secretaries, and English managers 
 of Ireland. 
 
 It may be said, that this invidious comparison might be, if 
 not justified, at least palliated, on the ground that the former 
 proportion of Irish members exceeded, or even equalled, what 
 Ireland was fairly and justly entitled to. I do readily admit, 
 that, if Ireland had already a more ample proportion, or even 
 an exact proportion of members with Wales or Scotland, we 
 should have little or no right to complain. But the fact is, un- 
 happily, the other way. Ireland, instead of having a fair pro- 
 portion of members at present, is already sufi'ering great and 
 unmerited injustice in that respect. The Union did not give 
 her anything like a due number of representatives. 
 
 This will appear quite clear, if we look to the manner in 
 -which the representation of Ireland was managed at the Union 
 
490 Statistics, 
 
 The parricide Castlereagh, a name ever odious to the Irish ear, 
 settled the proportion of Irish members on a comparative ratio- 
 of population — exports, imports, and revenue, with England. 
 The materials of his calculation were naturally exaggerated in 
 favour of England, and understated for Ireland. This was to 
 be expected ; but even on his most unfavourable calculation the 
 matter stood thus. He allowed Ireland — 
 
 For Population, . . .202 members 
 Exports, . . . .100 
 Imports, . . . .93 
 Hevenue, .... 39 
 
 434 
 
 The mean of those four quantities being 108^. 
 
 Such was Castlereagh's calculation, interested as he was to- 
 diminish, as much as possible, the rights of Ireland. It will 
 be seen that he left out a most important ingredient, namely, 
 comparative rental. 
 
 No matter ! Let us take Castlereagh's own calculation. 
 Thus it is — it gave Ireland, after all imaginable reductions of 
 calculations, 108;^ members. Now I do not mean to quarrel 
 about the half of an Irishman. But what did Castlereagh do ? 
 Why, without any plausible pretext, he at once, and without 
 ceremony, cut down his own proved right, and struck off at 
 once eight members, giving to Ireland only one hundred mem- 
 bers. And why ? — precisely, because he could and would. 
 Nothing more. It was indeed — Sic rolo, sic jubeo, stat pro 
 ratione voluntas. 
 
 Mark — British Reformers — if anything Irish can command 
 your attention — mark, I pray you, this fact : — That Ireland 
 was, at the Union, spoliated of eight members, proved by Castle- 
 reagh to be her due. 
 
 Now, if Stanley, and Lord Althorpe, and Lord John Rus- 
 sell, had one single particle of respect for decency, where Ireland 
 is concerned, they would, at aU events, have given us these 
 
The Castlereagh Eight. 491 
 
 eight members. They may now prate about the Union as long 
 as they like; Ireland despises such chattering. Here is tbe 
 test of their regard for Ireland — the claim to eight members is, 
 in reason, common sense, justice, and decency, irresistible. 
 They condescend to give her five, while they transfer the eight 
 to Scotland, who had no such claim. 
 
 Is there any reason in the world why we should not get the 
 eight — the Union eight — the Castlereagh eight ? 
 
 I have, however, said, that Castlereagh designedly omitted 
 one ingredient, namely, the comparative rental of both countries. 
 His omission was supplied, and the gross perversions by which 
 he diminished the rights of Ireland to an adequate representa- 
 tion, were fully exposed in a valuable book, printed by Mr. 
 Newenham, a gentleman who had been many years a member 
 of the Irish Parliament, an accomplished scholar, and a patriot. 
 
 The following was the result of Mr. Newenham's demon- 
 stration. It showed that Ireland was, in truth, entitled to- 
 representation in the following ratio : — 
 
 For the comparative Population, 
 Exports, 
 Imports, 
 Revenue, 
 Rental, . 
 
 228 members. 
 
 179 
 
 168 
 
 186 
 
 846 
 
 The mean of these five quantities is 169^. Again I throw 
 off the half — but thus I show that the fair proportion of Ireland 
 was, at the Union, 169 members. We, therefore, did not get 
 two-thirds of our proper proportion of representatives, when the 
 deplorable Union was forced on Ireland by the combination of 
 fraud, bribery, and blood. 
 
 We ask at present only 125 members. High as our rights 
 are, we merely ask to be put into a situation of comparative 
 liberality. Perhaps we deserve the neglect we experience from 
 English Reformers, and the contempt with which the ministry 
 
492 The Revenue. 
 
 ■deal with us, for being so mean and pitiful as to accept of less 
 tlian justice. 
 
 But it has been said, and repeated, and re-ecboed, tbat the 
 representation in England has a double basis, namely, popula- 
 tion and revenue. This is by no means universally or gene- 
 rally true ; but I will consent to take it so. Let us then see 
 what the result of the calculation will be, taking for ingredients 
 nothing more than population and revenue. 
 
 I wish to impress this part of the case of Ireland as strongly 
 as I possibly can on the ' minds of British Reformers ; and 
 for this excellent reason : that this has been supposed to be the 
 weakest part of our case ; although, in fact and truth, it is quite 
 the strongest and most irresistible. 
 
 EecoUeet, my present basis consists of population and 
 revenue. 
 
 I will take care that there shall be no cavil, nor any dispute 
 about the data I go upon, either with respect to population 
 or revenue. I will take the revenue in the most palpably un- 
 favourable way for Ireland, and I will take the population 
 separately, on the returns of 1821 and of 1832. In short, I 
 defy any man to controvert either my endeavour or the certainty 
 of my data. 
 
 Now, upon the population returns of 1821, the population of 
 England was, in round numbers, twelve millions ; of Ireland, 
 seven millions. But the twelve millions in England have 500 
 representatives. The seven millions in Ireland are, therefore, 
 on the score of comparative population, entitled to 291 repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 However the revenue must be taken into account. I will, 
 in the first place, refer to the report drawn up in 1830, by Mr. 
 Eice, as chairman of the Irish committee, and printed by the 
 House of Commons, in three volumes. It appears by the details 
 -of that report, that the Irish pay a full one-seventh of the re- 
 venue. Take the principal items of wine, sugar, coffee, and 
 -tobacco ; the revenue from these articles was, in the preceding 
 year, in England, £11,576,713, while it was in Ireland, 
 
English and Irish Revefiice. 493-, 
 
 £1,665,718, being more than one-seventh. I am content, how- 
 ever, to take it at one-eighth. It will be seen that this is a 
 most moderate demand. The entire revenue of Great Britain 
 last year was, according to the finance account published by 
 Parliament, £48,325,215, while that attributed to Ireland was- 
 only £4,560,897. But this estimate is egregiously and palpably 
 fallacious, because Ireland does not get credit for the far greater 
 part of the duties of customs which are paid by her inhabitants 'y 
 neither for teas, nor for any other, the produce of the Eastern. 
 world, such as silks, spices, drugs, &c., none of which are im- 
 ported direct into Ireland ; neither does she get credit for the 
 amount of duty on timber, sugar, cotton, coffee, paper, glass, 
 wine, and various other articles which are imported into Ire- 
 land from England. Now, it is ascertained by the last separate 
 account kept for Ireland, that for teas alone Ireland paid duty 
 to the extent of half-a-million annually ; and, as scarcely any 
 one article liable to customs duty is now imported direct into 
 Ireland, surely it is not too much to say, that the inhabitants 
 of Ireland actually contribute on all those articles, exclusive of 
 teas, to the amount of one million sterling. This will bring 
 the amount of comparative revenue to this exact state : — 
 
 Revenues credited to Great Britain, . . . £48,325,215 
 Deduct teas consumed in Ireland, £500,000 
 Deduct for all other customable 
 
 articles consumed in Ireland, £1,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 Eeal revenue of Great Britain, £46,825,215 
 
 Eevenue credited to Ireland, £4,560,897 
 
 Add duty on teas consumed in Ire- 
 land, £500,000 
 
 Add duties on all other customable 
 
 articles imported from England, 1,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 Total Irish revenue, £6,060,897 
 
^.04 Statistics of Population. 
 
 It is thus plain that Ireland pays more than one-eighth of 
 the revenue paid by Great Britain. Let it not be forgotten, that 
 I make these calculations in so unfavourable a way for Ireland, 
 that I gave England (with her 500 members) credit on the 
 score of revenue for, at least, two millions paid by Scotland. 
 Taking, therefore, the population return of 1821, and this esti- 
 mate of Irish revenue at one-eighth ; the right of Ireland to re- 
 presentation will stand thus : — 
 
 For population, on 500, 291 
 
 For revenue, on 500| 62 
 
 358 
 
 The one-half as the medium, 176 
 
 So that taking the population return of 1821 as giving seven 
 miUions in Ireland to twelve millions in England, and the Irish 
 revenue so low as one-eighth of the English, I make a clear case 
 for no less than 176 members for Ireland. But it may be said 
 that there are errors in my estimate of the revenue, and that, 
 therefore, my conclusion is fallacious. This assertion is true 
 only to this extent — that my estimate is erroneous to the loss 
 and disfavour of Ireland, and that my conclusion is fallacious 
 because Ireland is really entitled to many more than 176 mem- 
 bers. 
 
 However, I defy any person to cavil with another at the 
 last estimate that I shall make on this subject. 
 
 I take up the population return of 1832. England has, by 
 that return, a population of thirteen millions ; Ireland a popu- 
 lation of eight millions. On a representation of 500 members 
 for England on thirteen millions, Ireland would be entitled for 
 her eight millions to, at least, 307 members. 
 
 Now, come back to the revenue : Grreat Britain, £18,325,215 ; 
 Ireland, £4,560,897. Credit Ireland with the duty on teas 
 alone. Parliamentary evidence shows that to be, at least, half-a- 
 million ; add that half million, as you are bound to do, to the 
 
Deficiency of Representation. 495 
 
 Irish revenue, aud you raise it to £5,060,897. You must, at 
 the same time, deduct that half million from the British revenue, 
 and you sink it to £47,825,216, though it will be seen that 
 this deduction is by no means necessary to my argument. 
 All I claim for Ireland is one-tenth of the revenue of Grreat 
 Britain — that is all. 
 
 Look at the foregoing specifications of the revenue, and see 
 whether it be possible for anyone to deny that Ireland pays 
 one-tenth of the revenue — one full tenth. I have shown that 
 she pays much more, but I rest on one-tenth. 
 
 Eesume with me the calculation, and you will find that 
 Ireland, on the combined basis of population and revenue, has 
 the following rights : — 
 
 Population, 8 to 13 on 500, gives 307 
 
 Eevenue, 1 to 10 on 500, gives 50 
 
 357 
 One-half as the medium, 178 
 
 If justice were done to Ireland, if anything approaching to 
 justice were done to Ireland, she would have 178 members ; 
 and the case, on the combined basis of population and revenue, 
 is quite irresistible to the mind of every fair and just man. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be amusing to recollect that, on the 
 return of 1821, the proportion of Irish population, capable of 
 bearing arms, was 1,664,437, and that of Great Britain, was 
 2,928,951. The proportions are still more favourable to Ire- 
 land on the last returns, and thus Ireland has a large claim for 
 increased representation, as sustained by physical force. 
 
 I recapitulate these points : — 
 
 Eirst — According to the vilest of the vile, Castlereagh, 
 Ireland ought to have 108 members. We get but 105. Ire- 
 land, therefore, in this, the most abject and degrading view, is 
 defrauded of three members. 
 
 Secondly — According to the view of the documents on 
 which Castlereagh made his calculation, as corrected by Newen- 
 ham, we ought to have 169 members. "We get but 105. Ire- 
 
496 I restrain my Indignation. 
 
 land, is therefore, defrauded, in this view, of no less than sixty- 
 four members. 
 
 Thirdly — According to the combined basis of population 
 and revenue — taking the return of 1821 — and the revenue of 
 Ireland as one-eighth, Ireland ought to have 176 members. 
 She gets but 105 members. She is, therefore, defrauded to the 
 extent of seventy-one members. 
 
 Fourthly — According to the combined basis of population 
 and revenue, taking up the population returns in 1832, and 
 estimating the Irish revenue so very low as one-tenth, Ireland 
 is entitled to 178 members ; as we get but 105, we are thus 
 defrauded of no less than seventy-three members. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the most recent and most in- 
 controvertible data give us the highest claim to an increase 
 of members. We are entitled on the basis of population and 
 revenue to 178. We ask only for 125. We give up fifty-three 
 of what we are entitled to, and thereupon we are scouted by the 
 British Legislature — we are neglected and abandoned by the 
 British Reformers, whom we assisted at their need — and we are 
 left to our resources, to our own unconquered and unconquerable 
 determination to obtain justice for Ireland. 
 
 Take up the calculation in any way — population, exports, 
 imports, rental, revenue, fighting-men — view it in any way, 
 or in any mode, and the wrong perpetrated in Ireland is 
 the most gross and glaring. Since the world began there 
 never was so unjust a proceeding. The British Minister has a 
 strong majority of real and mock Reformers ; and in the 
 plenitude of his strength, it pleases Mr. E. Gr. Stanley to 
 perpetrate these outrages in Ireland, and they are perpetrated 
 accordingly. I restrain my indignation, my honest indignation, 
 and merely state facts. 
 
 In distributing the increase of members in England, the 
 ministers have acted, on the scale of population alone. Now, 
 Ireland, on that scale, would be entitled to no less than 307 
 members. 
 
 But let us go into some details, which will serve to plaoe^ 
 
Population and Representation. 497 
 
 the contrast between the favour done to one country, and the 
 injustice done to the other, in a still more striking light. 
 
 Mark this enormous preference : — 
 
 The county of Cumberland, with a population of only 
 169,681, gets two additional members — that is, it will in future 
 send four members to Parliament. 
 
 The county of Cork, with a population of 807,366 does not 
 get one additional member. It will continue to send two 
 only. 
 
 That is just saying, in so many words, 169,681 people in 
 Cumberland are of twice as much value in Parliament as 
 807,366 in the county of Cork. Ask for a reason : Oh, the 
 smaller number are English — the greater are Irish. — Q, E. D. 
 
 Northamptonshire gets two additional members. Another 
 Cabinet Minister sits for it. Its population is only 179,276. 
 It will send four members to Parliament. 
 
 Down has a population of 352,571. It gets no increase of 
 members. 
 
 Leicestershire has 197,276 inhabitants. It increases its 
 representatives from two to four. 
 
 Tipperary has 402,698 inhabitants. It must be content with 
 two members. I, however, doubt much whether Tipperary will 
 be satisfied. 
 
 Worcestershire, with a population of 211,356, is to have 
 four representatives. 
 
 Galway county, with a population of 427,407 remains 
 with two. 
 
 Wiltshire, with only 239,181 inhabitants, is to command 
 four representatives. 
 
 Tyrone, with 302,943 inhabitants, is to have but two. 
 
 Nottinghamshire has 225,320 for its population, accordingly 
 it is to have four members. 
 
 Antrim county has 323,306 for its population, accordingly 
 it is to have but two representatives. 
 
 Derbyshire has a population of 237,170 — it will have four 
 members. Stanley is at home here, I suppose. 
 
 VOL. IT. 33 
 
498 Ought Ireland to be Coiitent ? 
 
 Dublin county has a population of no less than 386j964» 
 Not one additional member — not one ! 
 
 But why should I pursue the painful, the humiliating- 
 contrast ? I cannot avoid noticing just one instance more. 
 
 Monmouthshire gets a third member, though its population 
 is but 98,130. 
 
 Mayo, with 367,953 ; Limerick, with 300,080 ; Clare, with 
 258,862; Kerry, with 219,989; Donegal, with 298,104— not 
 one of them gets any increase — not one ! 
 
 There is but one county in Ireland, that is the county of 
 Carlow, the population of which is so low as that of Monmouth- 
 shire. The population of the other thirty- one counties all 
 exceed Monmouthshire ; yet it gets an additional member, and 
 Irish counties, with a population of one and a-half to nine times 
 the population of Monmouthshire, are left without any addition. 
 
 Is this fair ? Is it just ? Is it reasonable ? Ought 
 Ireland to be content ? Ought the Irish people to be satisfied ? 
 Yes, provided they be the very basest of slaves that ever crawled 
 on the face of the globe. 
 
 I cannot close without one honest burst of indignation at 
 the injustice, and, I will add, ingratitude of the British Ee- 
 formers to their fellow-labourers in Ireland. 
 
 I have demonstrated the contumelious injuries inflicted on 
 us by this Reform Bill. My letters are long before th& 
 public. They have been unrefuted, uncontradicted, in any one 
 of their details. And with this case of atrocious injustice to 
 Ireland placed before the reformers of Britain, what assistance, 
 what sympathy do we receive ? Why, I have got some half 
 dozen drivelling letters from political unions, and political 
 characters, asking me whether I advise them to petition or 
 bestir themselves on our behalf! Bah ! 
 
 Reformers of Great Britain, I do not ask you either to 
 petition or to be silent. I do not advise you to petition, or 
 to do any other act, in favour of the Irish. Tou will consult 
 your own feelings of justice and generosity, unprovoked by any 
 advice or entreaty of mine. 
 
/ Never Despaired of Ireland. 499 
 
 For my part, I never despaired of Ireland ; I do not, I will 
 not, I cannot dare to despair of my beloved country. She has, 
 in my view, obtained freedom of conscience for others as well 
 as for herself. She has shaken off the incubus of tithes, while 
 silly legislation was doling out its folly and its falsehoods. She 
 can and she will obtain for herself justice and constitutional 
 freedom ; and although she may sigh at British neglect and in- 
 gratitude, there is no sound of despair in that sigh, nor any 
 want of moral energy, on her part, to attain her own rights of 
 peaceable and legal means. 
 
 One word more. My fifth and last letter will demonstrate, 
 that all the iniquity of the Irish Eeform Bill, in its refusal of 
 franchise, and narrowing of elective rights, sinks into com- 
 parative insignificance when compared with the expensive, 
 tedious, vexatious, unjust, and almost impracticable modes of 
 registration of votes prescribed by the Irish Eeform Bill. With 
 that letter I will close. 
 
 I have the honour to be, Brother Reformers, 
 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 33 
 
500 Mode of Registering Voters. 
 
 To THE Reformers of Gtreat Britain. 
 
 Letter Y. 
 
 Parliament-street, June 11, 1832. 
 
 This letter closes my commentary on the infamous Reform 
 Bill for Ireland. I hope no honest man in England, or in 
 Scotland, will insult the Irish people by including, in their re- 
 joicings, the Irish Bill. Let them, as they ought to do, rejoice 
 heartily, rejoice at the overthrow of the sordid oligarchy in 
 England and in Scotland. Let them rejoice, heartily rejoice, 
 that in England one hundred and twelve Swiss are flung out of 
 Parliament by the magic of the Schedule A, and that all Scot- 
 land is put into a similar glorious schedule. This is, indeed, a 
 most just cause of triumph, and the people of Ireland will join 
 in that rejoicing, and will heartily concur in the shouts of 
 triumph at the achievement of English and Scottish liberty. 
 
 But I do most earnestly implore of the Reformers of Great 
 Britain to abstain from offering so gross, so unmerited, so pro- 
 voking an insult to the people of Ireland, as it expresses joy for 
 that which will be to us a cause of the bitterest affliction, the 
 passing of Stanley's mock Reform Bill for Ireland. Let 
 British Reformers recollect, that it is avowed to be a Conser- 
 vative measure. 
 
 I now come to my fourth and fifth objections to the Irish 
 Bill ; they relate to the registry of votes — they are these : 
 
 Fourth — The Irish Reform Bill continues a mode of registry 
 of voters, complicated in its details, extremely dilatory and ex- 
 pensive, and almost impossible to be complied with by any 
 person but a man of fortune. 
 
 Fifth — It leaves the registry of votes in the hands of persons 
 totally irresponsible, and who, taken in the aggregate, are most 
 unfit for that purpose ; first, from want of sufficient aptitude ; 
 and, secondly, by reason of their zealous Tory principles. 
 
Difficulties of Registration. 501 
 
 Before I proceed, I -wish to state explicity to the English 
 Eeformers, what it is the Irish want in relation to the registry 
 of their votes. 
 
 We desire the mode of registry enacted for England, that is 
 the precise amount of our demand. As far as the registry is in- 
 volved in the Eeform measure, our institutions are either precisely 
 the same, or preferable to those of England ; we want, therefore, 
 the same machinery for registration of voters, and entitling the 
 voter to vote as is adopted by, and enacted for England. 
 
 "We want a registry of voters as cheap and as effectual as 
 the English registry — why should this, our reasonable demand, 
 be refused us ? 
 
 Eor no other reason than this — that our rulers are deter- 
 mined to disfranchise Ireland, under the name of Eeform ; and, 
 therefore, they keep on foot, and even aggravate considerably, 
 and seek to perpetuate a system of registry, introduced by the 
 Peel- Wellington Administration, with the undisguised purpose 
 of converting every county in Ireland into a close borough. 
 
 I solemnly and conscientiously declare, that if the Irish Ee- 
 form Bill had given the people of Ireland the same liberal and 
 extensive franchises, which the English Bill preserves for or 
 nearly grants to the people of England, the effect of even so 
 liberal a Bill would be almost totally lost, if the machinery for 
 registry and taking the votes, which is inserted in the Irish 
 Bill, were to become law. 
 
 In short, the machinery of the Irish Bill is bad to so extra- 
 ordinary an extent, that it would neutralize the benefits of a 
 Eeform Bill, most liberal in its franchise. Judge, then, what 
 a bill this is — that has only two faults. First, it restricts popu- 
 lar rights ; and, secondly, it gives the worst possible ma- 
 chinery ! ! ! 
 
 To prove this to demonstration, I will now proceed to point 
 out the details of the registry and mode of voting in the 
 English counties, and then contrast with these the provisions, 
 which I again deliberately call infamous and atrocious, of the 
 mock Eeform for Ireland. 
 
502 Facilities of English Registration. 
 
 In England, the register of persons entitled to vote is to be 
 made out thus : — 
 
 First. — The overseers of every parish in England are, on 
 every 20th of June, to affix on all churches, chapels, and public 
 places in the parish, a notice, calling on every person claiming 
 a right to vote to send in his claim in writing. 
 
 Secondly. — A full month is given to send in such claim ; 
 and if the claim be lodged on the 20th of July, it is quite 
 sufficient; it may be lodged any day during such entire 
 months. 
 
 Thirdly — Each person claiming to vote, has no other trouble 
 than to hand in his notice in his own parish to the overseer, 
 and pay him one shilling. The shilling is the entire expense, 
 and no loss of time is incurred. 
 
 Fourthly — The overseer is then to make out an alphabetical 
 list of the persons so claiming to be voters. He is to put th e 
 words, " objected to," opposite the name of any person he has 
 reason to believe not entitled to vote. The list is then to b e 
 printed, and published by affixing it on all churches, chapels, 
 and public places, and a copy to be kept by the overseer, which 
 is to be open for public inspection for two weeks, without pay- 
 ment of any fee. 
 
 Fifthly — Any person claiming a right to vote is at liberty 
 to object to the claim of any other person in the list ; but he 
 must give notice in writing of his objection, not only to the 
 overseer, but to the person objected to ; and a separate list of 
 persons thus objected to is to be printed and published. 
 
 Sixthly — The lists are then to be transmitted, through the 
 high constable, to the Clerk of the Peace ; and the lists of the 
 persons objected to, including a statement of their respective 
 residences, are to be transmitted to the registering barrister, in 
 order that he may fix proper places for holding courts to con- 
 sider the objections. 
 
 Seventhly — Every person not specially objected to by the 
 overseer, or by some other elector, is put on the register, and 
 becomes entitled to vote without more trouble or expense. 
 
Facilities of English Registration. 503 
 
 Let it be observed that, unless any elector be specially ob- 
 jected to, he thus has his right to vote ascertained, without any 
 consumption of his time, or any expense, save one shil- 
 ling. 
 
 If he be specially objected to, he will have the satisfaction 
 of knowing who it is that objects to his right to vote ; and he 
 -can, as I shall presently show, examine that person upon oath 
 as to the motives and reason for such objection. 
 
 Eightly — A barrister is to be appointed to decide the claims 
 thus objected to; his appointment is to be made thus — the 
 senior judge on each circuit, at the summer assizes, is to name 
 a barrister for each district or locality. Now, this is just as it 
 should be, in point of responsibility. One judge makes the 
 appointment ; he is responsible to the public for its fitness ; no 
 other person shares that responsibility with him. The trial of 
 the objections is to take place before one barrister. No other 
 person shares that responsibility with him ; and it will be seen 
 that this responsibility is not merely formal, but is directly, 
 personal, and, indeed, pecuniary. 
 
 Ninthly — The barrister thus appointed is to give notice of 
 the times and places for holding courts to decide the claims ob- 
 jected to. It will be his duty to hold these courts as near the 
 residences of the persons objected to as possible. 
 
 Tenthly — The barrister is to decide in favour of the claim 
 of any elector objected to by a third person, unless that third 
 person attend the court by himself or his agent to sustain the 
 objection. The elector in this case is put to no trouble, nor is 
 any investigation gone into of his qualification, unless such 
 third person attend the court. 
 
 Eleventhly — It is only in the case of objections made by the 
 overseer, or by a third person who attends the court, that any 
 investigation of the claim of the elector becomes necessary, or 
 takes place. But it then takes place by the barrister calling on 
 the elector simply "to prove his qualification ;" these are the 
 words of the act. If the elector proves his qualification, then 
 ihe barrister is bound to throw upon the objector the proof of 
 
504 Duties of the Revising Barrister. 
 
 incapacity ; and, unless that proof be given, the voter is put on 
 the list or register, and his right to vote is established. 
 
 Let it be observed that there is no direction to investigate 
 title, or to produce any deed by or under which the elector 
 claims to vote or derives title. 
 
 Twelfthly — The barrister is empowered to examine on oath 
 the overseer as to every matter connected with the list, and 
 with his objections to peculiar persons. This is a most impor- 
 tant and valuable power, as it will manifestly deter overseers 
 from making malicious or frivolous objections. 
 
 Thirteenthly — The barrister is entitled to]|correct all mistakes 
 and omissions of name, residence, or description of tenures, and 
 all other errors in the list. He then signs the list, which is to 
 be printed and published ; and from that roll the electors are, 
 without further trouble, entitled, without the production of any 
 other document, to vote at each ensuing election. There is 
 great simplicity and certainty in this mode, and it tends to the 
 greatest facility and expedition in polling at a contested 
 election. 
 
 Fourteenthly — A barrister is thus annually to revise the list ; 
 but an elector once on the list is not bound to give any fresh 
 claim, or to pay a second shilling, or to take any trouble, unless- 
 he shall be formally objected to in any one year, and notice of 
 such objection given to him ; and the lists are to be printed 
 annually, and sold to any person willing to buy. 
 
 Lastly — And this is the most important of all. The respon- 
 sibility of the barrister is real and substantial, because if it is 
 proved that any overseer, barrister, &c., shall willingly contra- 
 vene or disobey that Act with respect to any matter or thing^ 
 which he is thereby required to do, he becomes liable to be sued 
 in an action of debt by any candidate, elector, or other person 
 aggrieved, and a sum of £500 may be recovered against him ; 
 and if a verdict be had against him for only one shilling, he 
 will be bound to pay " full cost of suit " also. 
 
 This is a clause of inestimable value. It is the surest and 
 most ejfficient check of misconduct. Where is the barrister who 
 
Machine7y of the Irish Bill. 505 
 
 will venture to misconduct himself, when lie knows that a ver- 
 dict of a jury may punish his delinquency by a heavy penalty 
 and a total loss of character for life ? 
 
 Such is the plain and simple plan of registry — such is the 
 cheap, expeditious, and well-guarded plan of registry adapted 
 to England, No Englishman can be, by wantonness or folly, 
 deprived of his right as an elector ; he cannot be wilfully de- 
 layed or postponed for an hour, without having an immediate 
 and easy appeal to a jury, and abundant redress from, and 
 abundant punishment for, the delinquent. 
 
 Let us now see what the machinery is under the Irish Bill. 
 It is, however, fit to be observed that this machinery is new — 
 that is, has been in existence only about three years. It was 
 introduced to make the Catholic Eelief Bill as valueless as pos- 
 sible to the people of Ireland. It is introduced to exclude from 
 the right to vote as many persons as possible. It, of course, 
 has had that effect ; and by means of this machinery and the 
 other enactments of the anti-popular accomplishment to Eman- 
 cipation, the number of voters in Ireland was brought dowa 
 from 200,000 to less than 20,000. 
 
 Now, if our Irish Reform contrivers had been sincere, they 
 would certainly have, at all events, abolished the machinery of 
 delay, vexation, and expense, invented by the Wellington Ad- 
 ministration to punish the Irish people for having extorted 
 Emancipation. The Whigs are continuing that punishment. 
 
 I put these questions by themselves : — If our machinery- 
 were good, as it had been tried for three years, and its practical 
 effects ascertained, why, instead of inviting new, was not this- 
 tried machinery introduced into England ? It could be so by 
 the single alteration of a temporary or limited for a general or 
 permanent barrister. Why, I say, if it were good, was it not 
 introduced into England, instead of inventing a new and 
 quite different machinery for England ? The reason to me is 
 obvious, because no man would dare to propose such machinery 
 to the people of England. 
 
 My next question is — why, as this machinery is so loudly 
 
5o6 Complication of Irish Arrangements. 
 
 and universally complained of by all the Irisli people, except 
 the Orange or Conservative party — why, I say, is it not got rid 
 of, and the plan in the English Bill, which we demand, conceded 
 to us ? Let this also be observed, that all the anti-Heformers of 
 Ireland are zealous advocates of Stanley's Registry plan — all 
 the real Reformers detest it ; and we, the Reformers, are at 
 once sacrificed by Stanley, by Lord Althorp, and Lord John 
 Russell, to the wishes of the Irish Tories. 
 
 That we most justly complain of the machinery of Stanley's 
 Bill will appear from the following analysis : — 
 
 First — No person can register as a voter in Ireland without 
 first giving to the acting Clerk of the Peace a notice in writing 
 of his claim twenty clear days before the first day of each regis- 
 tering session, to be appointed by the assistant-barrister. 
 
 Now, observe, that the Irish elector will thus be obliged to 
 travel, or to send a messenger, with the notice some distance, 
 varying in our counties from one mile to fifty or sixty. Twenty 
 miles is not an unreasonable average distance from each voter. 
 Thus, two days are lost in Ireland in merely giving notice of a 
 claim to register ; one day going and one day returning. Two 
 minutes will suffice in England. In Ireland, the voter is put 
 to the expense and labour of travelling during two days. In 
 England there is no labour and, of course, no expense of travel- 
 ling. 
 
 Secondly — In Ireland the notice to be served is extremely 
 complicated, and such as will require, as it does require, the aid 
 of an attorney to draw up — an aid not always to be had gra- 
 tuitously. 
 
 In England the notice is extremely simple ; any person can 
 draw it from the schedule of the Act. It requires the elector 
 to set out only his name, place of abode, the situation of the 
 freehold or franchise land, and such a description of the property 
 as may serve to identify it. These are the words in the Eng- 
 lish Act. 
 
 In Ireland, on the contrary, besides the elector's name and 
 place of abode, he must also specify " the right in respect of 
 
Facilities in Englmid and Difficulties i?i Ireland. 507 
 
 which he intends to apply, and the nature and particulars of 
 the qualification relied upon by him, as entitling him to be re- 
 gistered ; the description of the property, with the names of 
 the barony, townland, or place where situate ; the nature of 
 his interest in the property ; the date of the deed giving title ! ! ! 
 The parties names thereto ! ! ! and the yearly value ! ! ! ! and the 
 yearly rent! !! !" 
 
 In England the barrister is entitled to correct, and is bound 
 to correct any mistakes in the notice or list of claims ; and s o 
 the elector is set right and is entitled to vote, notwithstanding 
 any blunder or mistake in matter of form. 
 
 In Ireland, on the contrary, the assistant-barrister has no 
 such power. A mistake in so complicated a notice is a ground 
 of rejection ; and the elector, after incurring great trouble and 
 expense, has to begin over again. 
 
 Thirdly — The next important step in Ireland is the attendance 
 at the session. The list of claimants is to be read over by the 
 acting Clerk of the Peace. What day ? Whatever day or 
 hour the assistant-barrister chooses ! The sessions last from 
 three to ten days — the elector may be there from the first to the 
 last day before the list is called over ; he may thus be kept 
 absent many days from his business and his family ; he has 
 to sustain at least the loss of two, or, indeed, three days, per- 
 haps six ; and if he should by accident be out of court when his 
 name is called he loses all his labour, and has to begin over 
 again for a future session. 
 
 In Ireland every elector must attend the sessions, I have 
 said already, at an average journey of twenty miles in most 
 counties. Every elector must attend, no matter how well known 
 his right may be. 
 
 In England no elector need attend, save an elector especially 
 and by name objected to. 
 
 In Ireland the attendance at sessions is the general, indeed, 
 the universal rule. 
 
 In England it is only the exception. 
 
 In Ireland the place of session is fixed for other purposes, 
 
5o8 Registry of Deeds. 
 
 and without any possible reference to the residence of the 
 elector. 
 
 In England it is the duty of the barrister, and he has the 
 power, to bring the court to try the disputed claims as near to the 
 residence of the elector interested in the trial as he possibly can. 
 
 Fourthly — In Ireland each elector, so soon as he is named, 
 is called upon to go on, and prove his entire case, although no 
 one objects to his right of voting ; he is required to produce his 
 lease, or other title deed, and to show it to be duly stamped ! ! ! 
 A mistake committed in the stamp duty will, after perhaps 
 fifty years' possession, be fatal to him. He must either produce 
 his title deed, and expose it to all possible adverse discoveries, 
 down to the amount of the stamp duty, or lose his right 
 to vote. 
 
 I ask, would the people of England submit to such an 
 odious inquisition ; and, above all, would they allow any human 
 being to call that a Eeform Bill, which required every 
 Englishman to enforce his title, or to forfeit his right to vote ? 
 Why, the great objection of the landed interest in England to 
 the measure of a general registry of deeds (the value of which, 
 in the abstract, every rational man must admit) — the great 
 objection to the registry of deeds is, that it would expose men's 
 title deeds to public inspection ; and yet you will not allow a 
 single individual in Ireland to establish at sessions his right to 
 vote, without submitting to scrutiny all the muniments of his 
 title ; and this is called the Irish Reform Bill ! ! ! 
 
 Fifthly — "When the deed, or lease, is produced, then the 
 trial commences ; the elector is put to prove his case, as if he had 
 brought an ejectment ; and, although in possession, an eject- 
 ment is actually tried, the assistant-barrister is required to 
 make the elector show the nature of his tenure, and he is to • 
 decide on the validity, or invalidity, of the elector's title ; and 
 to examine, in support, or in opposition, to his claim ; and any 
 person in the community is at liberty to come forward, and, 
 without any previous notice, to controvert, by evidence, the 
 elector's title. 
 
Contrast England with Ireland. 509 
 
 In Ireland, in addition to all these particulars, every 
 elector is bound also to produce evidence of his qualifications in 
 point of value. 
 
 Thus, in Ireland, there is a double trial in every individual 
 case of a registry under a Reform Bill — a trial of the title, 
 and a trial upon the value — with liberty to anybody, or every- 
 body, to take the elector by surprise, and give any contra- 
 dictory evidence he may please, to destroy the title, or lessen 
 the value. 
 
 Besides, the unfortunate elector has no process allowed him, 
 to compel the attendance of witnesses, neither can he enforce 
 the production of any of the title deeds of the persons under 
 whom he derives. He is, in short, tied hand and foot, and 
 bound to show the weakness of his title, and disabled from 
 proving his strength, unless, indeed, he be a mere tool in 
 the hands of his landlord, or his agent; and then indeed, 
 he may, with some greater facility, register for them, and 
 not for himself. 
 
 Can anybody now be surprised that, in the county of 
 Kerry, with a population of upwards of 240,000 persons, there 
 should be but 178 electors at £10, entitled to vote ; that is, 
 in the single popular franchise, only one person out of every 
 one thousand three hundred and forty-eight is entitled to 
 vote ! ! ! 
 
 I do venture to ask Lord Althorpe, whether he really 
 thinks it honest to insist on continuing such a system as this ; 
 and, next, whether he thinks it consistent with truth, to call the 
 Bill which continues such a system a Reform Bill ; and if it 
 be inconsistent with honesty and truth, what shall I call it ? 
 Why, something so coarse as to shock *' ears polite," but which 
 ill be re-echoed throughout Ireland. 
 
 Now, contrast Ireland with England — the Irish with the 
 English plan. In England, no elector is at all called on to 
 prove his qualification, but an elector, specially and particu- 
 larly objected to in writing. In England, therefore, the case 
 of such an elector is the exception. 
 
5 1 o Contrast between English and Irish Voters. 
 
 In Ireland, on the other hand, every elector must make that 
 proof. It is the general — the universal rule. 
 
 Should this be so ? Should anybody in Ireland be called 
 on to prove title, and nobody in England called on to 
 prove qualification, save a person specially and particularly 
 objected to ? 
 
 There are a thousand other forcible points of view in 
 which I could place the contrast in this respect, but I fear to be 
 too tedious ; and, besides, the facts speak for themselves, and 
 show that the English system is intelligent and considerate,. 
 favourable to the elector, and reasonable, in point of trouble and 
 expense ; whilst the Irish system, if intelligible, is only so 
 by reason of its distinct [^harshness and atrocity. It is inquisi- 
 torial and tyrannical to the elector, It is most unreasonable^ 
 in point of labour and trouble. 
 
 In England no elector has any occasion to employ a pro- 
 fessional man to secure his right of voting. It is quite 
 obvious that it would be perfect insanity in any elector in 
 Ireland to trust himself into the Session Court to register a 
 vote, without the aid of a skilful attorney. 
 
 This, alone, would create such an expense as to preclude 
 the far greater number of persons from attempting to register 
 their votes but that there are, in most of the counties of 
 Ireland, a class of independent and patriotic attorneys, who 
 volunteer their services in aid of the electors ; and thus, in 
 this, as in so many other instances, Irish public spirit counteracts 
 the evils of British misgovernment. 
 
 I will pursue the contrast between the Irish and English 
 Bill only in one case more. 
 
 Take an English elector, whose right to vote is clear. Sup- 
 pose an Irish elector of the same class. 
 
 The English elector consumes two minutes of his time in 
 drawing up and handing to his parish overseer his notice by 
 claiming a right to vote ; he pays one shilling, and there is at 
 once an end to all expense and to all trouble 
 
 The Irish elector has an equally clear right to vote, yet he 
 
Contrast of Expenses. 511 
 
 must either first venture to draw a very intricate notice himself, 
 which will cost him much time, or employ an attorney to draw 
 up that notice, which ought to cost him not less than ten 
 shillings at the very lowest. 
 
 Secondly — He must transmit that notice, ten, twenty, 
 thirty, or forty miles, say on an average twenty miles,''to the 
 acting Clerk of the Peace. Thus are two days' time, and the 
 expense of near two days' travelling, expended. 
 
 Thirdly — He must attend in person at the session. Here 
 is at least a loss of three days, consumed, or spoiled, in going, 
 remaining at session, and returning home. There is also the 
 actual money expenditure during these three days. 
 
 Fourthly — He has his title ransacked in open court, and 
 is harassed by, in fact, two trials, of title and of value. 
 
 Fifthly — He has next to pay a stamp duty of two shil- 
 lings and sixpence in order to obtain evidence of his right to 
 vote. 
 
 Now all this vexation and expense takes place in ^y^rj case 
 in Ireland ; even in a case most free from doubt or difficulty. 
 The Englishman, for one shilling, and in less than three minutes, 
 completes his title to vote. It will cost the Irishman, at least, 
 five entire days, and, at the lowest possible calculation, one 
 pound in money to complete his title to vote. 
 
 But, mark this distinction. The English elector pays one 
 shilling, and no more ; he can earn that shilling by half-a-day's 
 labour. He pays no stamp duty. 
 
 The Irish elector pays in stamp duty alone two shillings 
 and sixpence ; he cannot earn these two shillings and sixpence 
 by less than five days' labour. Thus, what the English elector 
 pays for by half-a-day's labour, the Irish elector must consume 
 five days' labour in tax alone. 
 
 But the greatest advantage to the English elector is still 
 unexpressed ; it is this : if the barrister in England shall 
 presume to contravene, or to disobey, in any one particular, 
 the English Eeform Bill, the English elector need not complain 
 to any great man, or to any public body. He has a remedy in 
 
5 1 2 Responsibility of Barristers. 
 
 his own hands ; he brings his action, he appeals to a jury, he 
 obtains compensation, and full costs of suit. 
 
 In Ireland, what a melancholy contrast ! The Irish elector 
 has no remedy whatsoever against the assistant-barrister, 
 who may harass the elector, who may detain him, and 
 postpone him, and dismiss his claim to register, upon the most 
 idle, the most frivolous, the most vexatious pretext. This the 
 assistant-barrister in Ireland can do with the most perfect 
 impunity ; no action lies against him — no compensation can 
 possibly be obtained from him — no recourse to a jury — perfect 
 impunity awaits him. 
 
 The barrister, under the English system, is deeply, imme- 
 diately, personally, and pecuniarly responsible. 
 
 The barrister, under the Irish system, is completely ir- 
 responsible. 
 
 To be sure, if he were fool enough publicly to boast, or to 
 admit that he acted from corrupt motives, he might be 
 punished ; but it is in the impossible case of any man being so 
 insane as to make such an avowal alone, that any punishment 
 could follow ; yet, even then, the elector could get no com- 
 pensation. 
 
 In England, the rights of the electors are secured, and the 
 performance of the duty of the barrister is insured, by a perfect 
 and complete responsibility. 
 
 In Ireland there is no security for the rights of the elector, 
 or for the performance of the duty, because the barrister is 
 perfectly and completely irresponsible. 
 
 One more extremely great advantage is possessed by the 
 English elector — the evidence of his right to vote is put 
 upon record — it consists of the county roll. He has only 
 to point out his name on the list, and then his right to vote 
 accrues. 
 
 Hitherto, the Irish voter had something of a similar privi- 
 lege. When an elector succeeded under the present law in 
 getting his vote registered, his affidavit of registry remained 
 among the records of the county ; and, at the election, that 
 
 \ 
 
Stanley s Refor77i Bill. ^ 1 3 
 
 affidavit was referred to, as the primary and perfectly sufficient 
 evidence of the elector's right to vote. The elector could thus 
 vote without entering into any controversy or personal alter- 
 cation with his landlord. The evidence of his right was pre- 
 served for him on the public record. 
 
 Now this advantage Stanley takes away from the elector 
 by his Eeform Bill. It is believed that this flagrant injustice 
 is the contrivance of the very decided and not a little virulent 
 Tory that fills the influental office of Attorney- General in 
 Ireland under the present most liberal and Whig Administra- 
 tion. Who is it could imagine it possible that this advantage 
 should be taken away by Stanley, and that by a Eeform Bill ? 
 The affidavit is still to be made, and filed, and preserved in the 
 county records, but to no purpose, for no object ; because it is 
 no longer the evidence of the voter's right to vote. 
 
 The result is this : an elector in Ireland may have the good 
 fortune to go through the gauntlet of the Session Court, 
 through all the trials, all the journeys, and all the expense of 
 registering. His right may have been adjudicated upon in his 
 favour ; his name placed in the county book ; his affidavit of 
 registry duly signed by the Court of Quarter Session, filed, and 
 preserved on record. All this evidence is forthcoming ; under 
 these circumstances, he, as the law now stands, can vote at once, 
 without difficulty. 
 
 But here is Stanley's knack at reforming. He, by the new 
 Bill, destroys the force of all this cogent and conclusive evidence. 
 He takes away its cogency — he annihilates its conclusive 
 nature — and, by way of reform, he substitutes for his evidence 
 of record — what ? a certificate of registry, signed by the Assis- 
 tant-Barrister, and by the acting Clerk of the Peace ! ! ! This, 
 indeed, is reforming with a vengeance ! 
 
 Yet this change, which at first sight seems to be mere folly 
 and absurd drivelling, is not so in reality. It has an object — 
 Stanley, like greatjCsesar, " ne'er does wrong without just cause." 
 He had an excellent reason of his own for this strange altera- 
 tion. It is simply this : he intends to put into the hands of 
 VOL. II. 34 
 
 i 
 
514 -^ shabby Delusion. 
 
 the landlord an absolute power of preventing his tenants from 
 voting at all, unless they vote as he pleases. 
 
 It cannot be, as he rather unblushingly pretends, to secure 
 the payment of the stamp daty of two shillings and sixpence ; 
 because that duty might, with greater propriety, be attached to 
 the affidavit of registry. No, no ; his object is purely and 
 simply to take away all self-will from the voter, and to make 
 his vote the property of his landlord. 
 
 This he intends to effectuate thus : he knows full well that 
 the Irish landlords have hitherto been in the habit of holding 
 the custody of such certificates as have as yet been used only 
 as an additional mode of facilitating the proof of registry. It 
 is exceedingly difficult for a tenant to register without the 
 aid of his landlord; and he has no chance of keeping his 
 certificate from the custody of his landlord, unless he is pre- 
 pared to quarrel with his landlord, and to set him at defiance, 
 three, four, or five years, before an election, and at a time when 
 no political excitement may exist — when, at all events, no 
 candidates are, or can be, named — when no interest is roused 
 as to the mode of voting. Stanley knows that thus the landlord 
 will easily get possession of the certificates; they will thus 
 have in their power the evidence on which alone the tenant can 
 vote — the consequences are obvious — the tenant must vote as 
 the landlord chooses, or not vote at all. 
 
 I observed very strongly on this piece of trick and dexterity 
 in one of my letters in the Political Union. Stanley, in his 
 last edition of the Irish Bill, has attempted a delusion on this 
 point. He provides for the case of the certificate being with- 
 held from the voter, by allowing him to procure a duplicate — a ' 
 stamped duplicate — mark that ! two shillings and sixpence more, 
 on payment also of a fee of one shilling. 
 
 But this is a pure — I should call it, a shabby — delusion, for 
 at what time is the certificate likely to be withheld ? Why, at 
 or immediately before a contested election ; and, I ask, where 
 is the assistant-barrister then to be found. An obvious motive 
 of delicacy would remove him from the county during a poll- 
 
Stanley s Concessions to Orangemen. 5 1 5 
 
 tical contest. But we need not give him so high a motive. 
 His personal and professional interest will take him to Dublin 
 when the session is not sitting ; the duplicate certificate will be 
 of no value without his signature ; and even if a journey to 
 Dublin were to be taken by each voter — rather an expensive 
 thing from the more distant counties — yet the barrister would 
 not be warranted, or least, could not be required, to sign the 
 duplicate certificate without having the county book before 
 him, which he could not have out of the county itself. 
 
 This piece of delusion is almost on a par with the introduc- 
 tion of a £10 chattel franchise, on terms of sixty years, in 
 Stanley's Bill after my first letter. But he certainly had the 
 candour to admit, that he made that concession in favour of the 
 Orange counties of the north of Ireland, where alone he alleged 
 he had evidence that tenures of that length of years existed. 
 I restain my natural indignation on this topic. It only proves 
 how truly I described Stanley's Reform Bill as an Orange or 
 Conservative measure, calculated solely to advance the interests 
 and increase the power of the Irish Tories and virulent Anti- 
 Reformers, and to offer every species of injustice, insult, and 
 contumely to the Irish Reformers and the magnanimous Irish 
 people. 
 
 British Reformers, I have not described many and many 
 of the defects which the Irish Reform Bill displays. I have, 
 therefore, shown you that its franchises are restricted and 
 aristocratic ; its details insulting and injurious ; its machinery 
 contrived to annihilate all independence, and to reduce the 
 electors of Ireland to the station of the burgage tenants of your 
 late most rotten boroughs. 
 
 I now conclude ; I have done this much, and this much only 
 of my duty. British Reformers, what is yours ? 
 
 I have the honour to be, Brother Reformers, 
 
 Tour very faithful servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 \ 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 1 6 Letter to Mr. Crean. 
 
 Coercion Bill, Ireland. 
 
 British Hotel, Jermyn-street, London, 
 15th February, 1846. 
 
 My dear Sir — I enclose you the following subscriptions 
 for Eicpeal Eent for the month of February : — 
 Daniel O'Connell, M. P., ... £1 
 
 Maurice O'Connell, M. P., ... 1 
 
 John O'Connell, M. P., ... 1 
 
 Daniel O'Connell, Jun., ... 1 
 
 I beg to call the immediate attention of the Association to 
 the reports in the newspapers of this day of the alleged pro- 
 ceedings in the House of Lords. You will see that we are 
 menaced with a Coercion Bill. The English Parliament does 
 not dream of converting the parchment Union into the sem- 
 blance of a real Union, by giving to the Irish nation equal 
 franchises, equal representation, equal rights, equal religious 
 freedom — in short, equal laws with those enjoyed by the people 
 of England. A union, if it means anything distinct, must 
 mean perfect equality between the inhabitants of the united 
 countries. Ours is a servitude, and not a union ; yet, there is 
 not the least chance of the British Parliament placing us on a 
 footing of equality with the English and Scotch nations ; but 
 they will have little hesitation in depriving Ireland even of 
 the legal and constitutional right she at present possesses. 
 
 You will have seen by the papers, the line of conduct at- 
 tributed to Earl Crey. You will have seen it without any sur- 
 prise ; he naturally vindicates his hereditary right to hold in 
 contempt and unmitigated hatred the people of Ireland. He 
 cheerily rejoices at the very mention of a Coercion Bill, and he 
 ofiFers the Government his ready services in promoting that 
 measure. To be sure, he accompanies that offer with the ex- 
 pression of a demand for some measures of legislative relief to 
 follow the Coercion Act ; but all that is mere verbiage and 
 
Let Coercion give ivay to Conciliation. 5 1 7 
 
 trash. The G-overnment will readily give the Coercion Bill, 
 but no identification of political rights ; and that Government 
 will plead his father's example for treating the people of Ire- 
 land as an inferior race, unworthy of political equalisation 
 with the people of England. 
 
 It is perfectly true that frightful murders have been com- 
 mitted in Ireland ; murders by the people, and murders upon 
 the people ; murders which, of course, cannot be justified, and 
 which it is utterly impossible to palliate ; murders that deserve 
 the utmost penalty man can inflict ; and murders which justly 
 raise the red arm of God's vengeance upon the perpetrators. 
 
 There is no law to punish the murders inflicted by the clear- 
 ance system ; the landlords legally claim the right to do what 
 they please with their own, regardless of the moral duties which 
 ought to be necessarily attached to the rights of property. As 
 to the just punishment of those who commit assassination, there 
 is no legal power wanting to work out that punishment. 
 
 What should be sought for and desired most anxiously by 
 •everybody is, to discover and firmly to obviate the causes which 
 produce these frightful crimes, by taking away the temptation 
 to commit them. We desire to suppress assassination, by sup- 
 pressing every motive that may instigate to such a diabolical 
 *rime. The law should protect the people, and the people will 
 then obey the law. 
 
 Coercion has been tried often enough, and long enough ; it 
 may occasionally create a lull for a time, but by tracing the 
 history of Coercion Acts since the Union, you will find that the 
 temporary suspension of Whiteboy outrages has been always 
 followed by a recurrence of crimes of a deeper dye than those 
 perpetrated on former occasions. 
 
 Let coercion give way to conciliation ; let not the Parlia- 
 ment attempt to re-enact coercion laws, without first doing all 
 that legislation can do to remove the causes of Irish discontent. 
 Belief Bills — not mere temporary shifts and expedients — but 
 political and permanent Relief Bills, what should be called 
 Equalisation Bills — let such Bills precede, if it were even 
 
 \ 
 
^ 1 8 Try yustice First. 
 
 merely as an experiment, the enactment of any unconstitutional 
 or coercive law. I say to the Parliament : try first — justice, 
 equality, assimilation of political rights ; and, above all, repeal 
 all the formidable powers given by the British Parliament to 
 Irish landlords by several statutes passed since the Union. 
 Take the relation of landlord and tenant into immediate con- 
 sideration; above all, give to the occupier some security of 
 tenure by, at least, allowing the tenant the full benefit of all the 
 capital and labour expended by him in the improvement of the 
 lands, and preventing his being dispossessed until he is recom- 
 pensed in full for all valuable improvements. 
 
 Take up the principle of Lord Stanley's Bill in the last 
 session, disembarrassed from its vexatious restrictions and foolish 
 details ; let the Parliament, I say, legislate in this spirit for 
 Ireland ; let it give a sacredness to the tenant-right, before it 
 dares to touch any of the constitutional rights which the people 
 of Ireland now possess ; those rights are not many, but they are 
 valuable and protective. Let no ministry dare to think of in- 
 fringing them by a Coercion Bill until they have first tried the 
 experiment of justice, equalisation of civil rights, and protection 
 to the honest and improving tenant. 
 
 I respectfully submit to the Association, that it ought im- 
 mediately call on all the Irish Eepeal members to attend in their 
 places to meet the Coercion Bill as it comes from the Lords, • 
 and to meet it with the most decided and unequivocal hostility. 
 There must be no compromise, no bartering of present rights, 
 either for the promises or for the reality of future political liber- 
 ties. Let us, if we can, drive the minister to try the only cer- 
 tain or rational preventative of crime, namely, the concession of 
 conciliation, to be limited only by an equalisation with England 
 or Scotland. Let us see the practical efiect of such a plan, be- 
 fore we give the slightest assent to any coercive measures. Ours 
 is the only effective plan — try justice before you enact despotism. 
 Above all, I repeat, let there be nothing in the shape of com- 
 promise. 
 
 What a melancholy exhibition of political depravity it is 
 
Words or Deeds ? 519 
 
 that men should be found ready to make any experiment of 
 coercion, and most reluctant to try conciliation to arise from the 
 concession of the equality of civil and religious rights. 
 
 I have been under the necessity of postponing my statement 
 respecting the famine and pestilence which menace Ireland 
 until Tuesday next. On that day, I think I may promise to 
 bring the case of Ireland fully before the Parliament and public. 
 We shall, no doubt, get abundance of kind words and warm 
 expressions of solicitude for the people of Ireland ; such shall 
 be the words — what will be the deeds ? I augur unfavourably- 
 I think the measures necessary to preserve Ireland from the 
 horrors of famine and pestilence, are too bold for the timidity 
 of the ministry and the inclination of the House. 
 
 One thing alone is certain, that there is no substantial re- 
 medy for Ireland except in the restoration of her domestic 
 Parliament. 
 
 Believe me to be, yours tuly, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 Martin Crean, Esq., 
 Acting-Secretarif, Loyal National Hepeal Association. 
 
520 The Coercion Bill. 
 
 British Hotel, Jermpi-street, London, 
 Friday, Feb. 27, 1846. 
 
 My dear E.AY — I was very much pleased to find tliat t he 
 Association had, under the auspices of Mr. Smith O'Brien, 
 taken the initiative in denouncing and opposing the new Coer- 
 cion Bill. 
 
 It is an atrocious measure. It should be opposed by every 
 means the constitution leaves open. It is, I repeat, a very 
 atrocious measure ; and whereas all former Coercion Bills were 
 merely temporary, and held out the consolation that, though 
 they were oppressive and derogatory to constitutional rights, 
 they were in their nature transitory and of short duration ; they 
 held out] the certainty that the constitution would revive again, 
 and that whatever of political rights and liberties the Union 
 left to Ireland should be once more brought into action, and 
 afford, against lawless invaders, some protection to the people 
 of Ireland. 
 
 It is not so with this Algerine Act. It holds out the fiendish 
 intention of being perpetual. It announces distinctly that, 
 as long as the Union statute is law, this Coercion Bill shall be 
 the charter of Irish slavery and degradation. It thus presents 
 abundant reasons why every honest politician in Ireland should 
 become a Repealer. It is the crowning measure of that degra- 
 dation and injustice which is made to insult and oppress Ireland 
 under the name of a Union. Shame ! eternal shame and scorn 
 to those who stand by in base apathy, or baser neglect, and see 
 their countrymen trampled under foot by the hoofs of unconsti- 
 tutional coercionists. 
 
 The first great objection, therefore, to the intended Coercion 
 Bill is its perpetual nature. No minister would dare propose 
 such a Bill for England — no minister would dare propose such 
 a Bill for Scotland. It is only poor, trampled-down, and 
 oppressed Ireland that is obnoxious to measures of this kind. 
 
What a Consiuiimation of the Union, 521 
 
 It is only Ireland, with which it is calculated there will be no 
 sympathy or support. It is only wretched Ireland that can be 
 crushed with perfect impunity. 
 
 Gracious Heaven ! what a consummation of the Union. 
 Scotland will continue to have a constitutional guarantee for 
 person and property. No man can have his property taxed in 
 Scotland by the capricious will of a single individual chosen by 
 Government. No Scotchman can be arrested or imprisoned 
 without legal process, and legal evidence of crime, nor without 
 the means of legal redress in case of any abuse of the existing 
 laws. Long may the people of Scotland enjoy the benefit of 
 such protection. 
 
 England will continue to have a constitutional guarantee for 
 person and property. No man can have his property taxed in 
 England by the capricious will of a single individual chosen by 
 Government — no Englishman can be arrested or imprisoned 
 without legal process and legal evidence of crime, nor without 
 the means of legal redress, in case of any abuse of the existing 
 laws. Long may the people of England enjoy the benefit of 
 such protection. 
 
 But, alas ! for Ireland, the sacredness of property will exist 
 only at the discretion — that is, the caprice — of Government. 
 Proclamation may issue without cause, with nothing more than 
 the allegation of a pretext — I may say with the allegation of 
 the vicinity of a pretext — and behold at once all the property 
 in the district is at the mercy of a single officer appointed by 
 Government. Such officer may make any rate he thinks fit ; 
 he may levy any rate he thinks fit ; he may seize on, by way of 
 ■distraint, all the property of every occupier in the district, and 
 sell off the distress so made to whom he pleases, and at what 
 price he pleases. 
 
 Neither is the personal liberty of the Irishman more secure. 
 He may, if this Bill passes into law, be arrested, or held to bail, 
 or sent to and kept in prison at the caprice of every officer, 
 superior, or subordinate. No legal evidence need be adduced — no 
 legal protection is given — no habeas corpus can issue, or, if it do, 
 
522 A Bill to rendei' Property and 
 
 the ^^sic volo, sicjiiheo," of a policeman concludes the question, 
 and leaves the Irishman without relief. 
 
 And this is called a Union, and the Irish are to believe they 
 are united to Grreat Britain. Yes, Lord Byron was right. It 
 is a Union — a Union between the shark and its prey— between 
 the devourer and the devoured. 
 
 But to return. I have said that my first objection to the 
 Act was its perpetuity. 
 
 My second objection is to the title of the Bill. It is entitled, 
 " A Bill for the better protection of life, and to facilitate the 
 apprehension and detection of persons guilty of certain offences 
 in Ireland." 
 
 This title is totally misapplied. It should be entitled, "A 
 Bill to render property and life more insecure in Ireland, and 
 to stimulate the people of that country to the commission of 
 outrages and the perpetration of rebellion." 
 
 Should the proper time ever arrive for moving the insertion 
 of the proper title, I would certainly move a title such in sub- 
 stance as I now describe to be prefixed to the Act. 
 
 Having thus given my first objection to the Act— namely, 
 its perpetuity ; and my second objection — namely, its false- 
 title, I proceed to my third objection, which is the miserably 
 slight excuse which would authorise the Lord Lieutenant to 
 place any part or parts of Ireland under the provisions of this 
 Algerine Act. The process by which the country is made sub- 
 ject to the Act is by proclamation, and such proclamation may 
 issue if any person commit murder, or even manslaughter, 
 in any county, or part of a county, or shall shoot at, or stab, or 
 cut, or wound anybody, or shall by any meaus whatsoever cause 
 any bodily injury dangerous to life. In every such case, wide 
 and extensive as it is, and trivial as may be some of such 
 offences, yet, if any of them be committed, the Lord Lieutenant 
 is by this Bill authorised to proclaim, not only the county 
 where the offence was committed, but also any such part of any 
 adjoining county as he may think fit. And he may then hand 
 over not only the county in which the offence was committed 
 
Life more visecurc in Ireland. 523 
 
 but also any adjoining innocent county, to as many resident 
 magistrates, to as many sub-inspectors of constabulary, to as 
 many head constables, to as many constables, and to as many 
 sub-constables as he may think proper — all, all of whom are to 
 be supported, clothed, paid, maintained, and provided for at 
 the expense of the occupiers of the districts or counties included 
 in the proclamation. 
 
 But still further. It is not necessary that any offence 
 should be committed in or adjoining to any such proclaimed 
 district. A county and an adjoining county may be pro- 
 claimed, -without any offence having been committed in either; 
 for it is precluded to inquire into the cause or pretext of issuing 
 the proclamation. The people may be able to prove that no 
 offence whatsoever was committed ; yet that will not avail \ 
 the proclamation is itself, by the fifth section of the Bill, made 
 conclusive evidence of its own validity. 
 
 There it is, the absolute and uncontrolled power of a Lord 
 Lieutenant to proclaim any part of Ireland at his will, pleasure, 
 or caprice. No inquiring into the facts he alleges — no proof 
 allowed to prove the untruth of his reasons for acting. He 
 wishes it ; he chooses and he does it ; the country is outlawed, 
 and his fiat is fate. 
 
 If this be not despotism, I know not what is. "We used 
 to call these coercion acts " Algerine Acts," but since the French 
 have introduced law and order to parts of Algeria, the name 
 no longer applies. 
 
 Let us then, in future call these Bills Eussian ukases, in 
 honour of Nicholas ! I ! 
 
 I cannot conclude my remarks upon this Bill by this post. 
 There are other matters which require my immediate communi- 
 cation with the Association. 
 
 Before I proceed, let me remark, and state my thorough 
 conviction, that Ireland cannot have greater enemies than the 
 Whigs among the peers. Nobody can be surprised at the line 
 of conduct adopted by the Marquis of Lausdowne, or by Earl 
 Grey. Some persons expected better from Lord Clanricarde \ 
 
524 ^0 remedy for the Crimes 0/ Landlords. 
 
 but I really do not see that there were the least grounds for such 
 an expectation. He has no claim to be considered an Irishman 
 that I know of. 
 
 I am now anxious that the Association should distinctly 
 -understand the position we are placed in. The Association is 
 most anxious to have the country free from the horrors of the 
 wholesale murders of the clearance system, and of the often 
 retaliatory and hideous assassinations. The Coercion Bill does 
 not even purport to give any remedy for the crimes of the 
 landlords, and it is more likely to provoke additional assassina- 
 tion than to check the progress of crime, or bring to punish- 
 ment those who are already stained with the guilt of perpetra- 
 ting those crimes. 
 
 What we allege is this : — 
 
 Firstly — That we are more anxious than the Grovernment 
 io prevent the commission of every kind of crime, and above 
 all, the horrible crime of murder, whether perpetrated by land- 
 lord or tenant, occupier or proprietor. 
 
 Secondly — All former Coercion Acts have, after a short 
 time, lost their force, and become, in truth, stimulants to addi- 
 tional atrocities. 
 
 Thirdly — That it is time to reverse the order of proceeding, 
 and to begin with such conciliatory measures and laws as will 
 place Ireland on perfect equality in civil, religious, and political 
 rights with England and Scotland. 
 
 Fourthly — That the state of the Irish agricultural popula- 
 tion should be taken into immediate consideration, with a view 
 to relief, and to have the system of landlord and tenant 
 ameliorated, so that there should be stability given to the 
 occupation of the tenant, without prejudice to the landlord's 
 right to an adequate rent. 
 
 Fifthly — That the emaciating evils arising from the Union, 
 and the consequent absenteeism of our great proprietors, may 
 be mitigated, by allowing to the tenant all the money, and 
 the value of all labour expended by him in the improvement of 
 the land in his occupation. 
 
 1 
 
A Russian Ukase against Ireland. 525, 
 
 This, especially, we insist upon — that these measures of 
 justice, conciliation, and peace, shall be carried out in legal 
 and active operation, before any minister of the Crown shall 
 dare bring into the House of Commons any Coercion Bill, 
 or, in more appropriate phrase, any " Russian Ukase," against 
 Ireland. 
 
 It is true, that it has been said, that Sir Robert Peel has 
 pledged himself, in answer to my questions, to bring in Bills on 
 the part of the Government, to extend the franchises, and 
 ameliorate the condition of the people of Ireland. 
 
 He has been reproached with this as a crime, by many of 
 his former supporters. He is not guilty of any such crime. 
 He is pledged to no such measures. 
 
 What has occurred is this : I gave notice of four questions 
 to be put to Sir Robert Peel, giving him full opportunity to 
 consider his replies. My questions related to Bills to be brought 
 in by the Government. 
 
 My first question related to any Bill for the extension of the 
 franchise in Ireland. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel's answer was most unsatisfactory. He 
 said, he hoped that the Government would be able to bring in 
 a Bill regulating the registry of voters in counties in Ireland, 
 and also for altering, in some degree, the franchises. He said 
 nothing of extension of franchise. He said nothing of regula- 
 ting the registry in towns and cities, where a new regulation is 
 most wanted. 
 
 It is quite clear, therefore, that he pledged himself to 
 nothing — not even that he would positively bring in any such 
 BiU this session. But when it is recollected that Lord Stanley's 
 Bill, which went to annihilate the franchises in Ireland, was 
 entitled, " A Bill to Regulate the Registry of Voters," it will 
 be seen how very chary Sir Robert Peel was to pledge 
 himself to anything useful to Ireland, or, in fact, to anything 
 definite. 
 
 My second question related to an augmentation of Irish 
 members in a just proportion. 
 
 I 
 
526 The Evils of the Union a7id Absenteeism. 
 
 To this question he gave no answer; he was totally 
 silent. 
 
 My third question related to an equalization of franchise 
 and powers in the municipal corporations. 
 
 To this question his answer was nearly satisfactory. As 
 I understood him, he promised a Bill for equalization, with, 
 however, some reservation. What this reservation was to be 
 he did not state. I am, however, afraid of him ; the word 
 "reservation," allows him to omit the most material franchise. 
 It may mean much less ; but at all events it is an ugly word, 
 and I am afraid of it. 
 
 My fourth question related to a Bill to give to the tenants 
 the full value of all their improvements. 
 
 To this question his answer was vague and unsatisfactory. 
 He, however, gave a hope of bringing in a Bill on that subject ; 
 but his description of the intended Bill would answer such a 
 Bill as Lord Stanley brought into the Lords last year. The 
 tendency of what he said pointed at some such Bill as Lord Stan- 
 ley's. He said nothing that could in any respect show his in- 
 tention to bring in a Bill sufficiently extensive in its operations 
 to be satisfactory to the tenants. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, it will be seen that Sir Robert 
 Peel is guilty of no deceit. He has given no distinct pledge or 
 promise, and what he did say was not by any means satisfactory. 
 But the truth is this — promises, however distinct and em- 
 phatic, could not be accepted as any mitigation of, or compen- 
 sation for a Coercion Bill. 
 
 What we reasonably insist on is, before any Coercion 
 Bill should be brought in, that a new system should be actually 
 acted upon. Franchises should be equalized, representation 
 should be made more just and adequate, civil and religious 
 rights should be equalized, and the law of landlord and tenant 
 mitigated, to meet the evils of the Union and of absenteeism. 
 
 Let these things be done before any man talks to me of a 
 Coercion Bill. Let no man dare to talk to us of a Coercion 
 Bill until he has tried the experiment of justice. It is quite 
 
Let the People Beivai'e^ 527 
 
 c-lear that, until the causes of the murders are done away with, 
 •coercion cannot be a preventative, and can scarcely produce any 
 but unavailing punishment. It will, however, produce more 
 irritation and greater desperation. 
 
 But, let the people beware — let them recollect that the re- 
 bellion of '98 was got up, and fomented, and fostered into ex- 
 istence, to carry the Union. Let them be convinced that there 
 are enough of evil-disposed persons ready to foment another 
 rebellion, in order to prevent the Repeal of the Union. 
 
 There never was a period when it was so incumbent on the 
 people of Ireland to be perfectly peaceable, and to keep within 
 the strictest limits of the law. 
 
 It is in our peaceable exertions alone that we can hope to 
 defeat this atrocious measure. The Bill is not as yet law, and 
 we are entitled and bound to denounce it to the opposition and 
 hatred of our country. 
 
 There is one comfort : the attempt to continue the govern- 
 ment of Ireland by the means of coercion, with a refusal to do 
 us justice, is an additional stimulant to augment the numbers 
 and increase the zeal of the Repealers. The demonstration is 
 complete. There is no peace, no tranquillity, no prosperity for 
 Ireland, save in the Repeal of the Union and the restoration of 
 Irish nationality. 
 
 Believe me to be, yours very faithfully, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 T. M. Ray, Esq. 
 
r28 First Objection to the Bill. 
 
 British Hotel, Jermyn-street, Lcmdon, 
 Gth March, 184G. 
 
 My dear E.AY — In my first letter on the recent ukase of 
 the British Minister, I stated only three of my objections to 
 that oppressive and afflicting measure — the new Coercion Bill 
 for Ireland. 
 
 My first objection consisted in the contrast between this and 
 every former Coercion Bill. They were each and all of them 
 temporary enactments ; they were limited in duration. 
 
 This alone is a perpetual law. 
 
 This is to form part and parcel of the perpetual constitutioa 
 of Ireland. It has the hellish perfection of perpetuity of pain 
 and infliction. ; 
 
 It will save time and trouble to every future minister. 
 Despotic power will always be ready to their hands. 
 
 Ireland must exist, with her constitutional rights and liber- 
 ties held by the sufferance, and with the evanescent permission 
 of her despot for the time being. The Governor may be a violent 
 partisan ; he may be what is still worse — a well-intentioned, 
 weak-minded being ; a fit instrument to be used in the hands of 
 irresponsible knaves. He may be a priggish formalist, who 
 may think highly of technicalities and forms, and may have a 
 sovereign disregard for substantial justice and truth. 
 
 In short, no matter what manner of man the Grovernor 
 shall be, there is by this Bill to be vested in him the 
 uncontrollable power to annihilate every vestige of constitu- 
 tional liberty, and to enact irresponsible despotism. 
 
 His power is to be perpetual. ■ 
 
 My first objection to the Bill, therefore, is its perpetuity. 
 
 It may, indeed, be said that, if the period shall arrive when 
 murders shall totally cease in Ireland ; when there shall no 
 longer be any manslaughter committed ; when no person shall 
 be shot at, or stabbed, or cut, or wounded, nor any grievous 
 bodily harm done to anybody ; when such millenium arrives, 
 then that this law will be repealed. 
 
A Bill to stiviulate Crime. 529 
 
 I don't believe it. I don't believe that the English Govern- 
 ment will ever voluntarily give up any povt'er or dominion they 
 may have over Ireland. 
 
 The case of 1782 is not, as we lawyers say, a case in point. 
 England had just lost America by refusing to conciliate. She 
 preserved Ireland by rational conciliation. 
 
 The causes that induced England to conciliate Ireland at 
 that period are part of history. It is matter of prophecy, and I 
 firmly believe, almost unerring prophecy, that causes of a similar 
 nature will produce effects not dissimilar. 
 
 For the present, my first objection to the Bill is— its perpe- 
 tuity. 
 
 My second objection consists in the absolute falsehood of its 
 title. 
 
 It is not " A Bill for the better protection of life, and to 
 facilitate the apprehension of persons guilty of offences in Ire- 
 land." 
 
 It really and in truth is a Bill for rendering more insecure 
 life and property in Ireland, and stimulating to additional 
 crime. 
 
 My third objection is, the absolute and unlimited power, on 
 any excuse, however trivial, or upon any pretence, however 
 untrue, to place the inhabitants of districts, and counties, and 
 provinces in Ireland out of the pale of the law, and beyond the 
 protection of any constitutional right. 
 
 I have said so much on these three points in my first letter 
 that I shall now consider. 
 
 My fourth objection to this Bill consists in the unlimited 
 power given to the Government over the persons and proper- 
 ties of the Irish people. 
 
 Let it be recollected that a proclamation under this Bill will 
 be equally valid, whether it be founded on the assertion of a 
 falsehood or the suggestion of a truth. In other words, truth 
 or falsehood in the allegation of the proclamation is totally im- 
 material. The proclamation is of equal validity with the one 
 as with the other. 
 
 VOL. IT. 35 
 
530 • Powers given by the Act. 
 
 "Well, the proclamation having issued, my fourth objection 
 consists in the extent of powers vested in the Lord Lieutenant 
 bj means of his own proclamation — true or false. The powers 
 are these : 
 
 First — The power of appointing as many resident magis- 
 trates, inspectors of constabulary, head constables, petty con- 
 stables, sub-constables, and constables, as the Lord Lieutenant 
 shall think fit, such persons to reside in the proclaimed districts, 
 and all of them to be clothed, fed, maintained, and paid at the 
 expense of the occupying inhabitants of the proclaimed dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 The second power is that of compelling the inhabitants of 
 such proclaimed districts to remain within their respective 
 places and homes from sunset to sunrise. 
 
 The third power, that of allocating any sum of money to 
 any amount the Lord Lieutenant chooses, as a reward for the 
 apprehension or discovery of any persons being guilty of any 
 oflFence in the proclaimed districts. 
 
 The fourth power is to allocate any sum of money the Lord 
 Lieutenant pleases to the relations of any person murdered in 
 the proclaimed districts, or to any person permanently injured 
 in that district. 
 
 The fifth power given in the Act is, that which makes the 
 former power of allocating money to injured parties and their 
 relations afilictive and grievous. There would be no objection 
 to a reasonable allocation of money to compensate injured per- 
 sons and their relatives ; but that should be done in a consti- 
 tutional way, out of funds voted by Parliament by annual votes. 
 The objection to the fifth power is its totally unconstitutional 
 nature. 
 
 This fifth power the Lord Lieutenant, by his proclamation, 
 invests himself with is, that which enables him, if he thinks fit, 
 to levy the most enormous sums of money from the occupying 
 inhabitants of the proclaimed districts merely at his will and 
 pleasure, without control, without check, without any legal re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
All Oppressive Bill. 531 
 
 The sixth power enables the Lord Lieutenant to appoint "such 
 person" or "officer" — these are the words of the Act — '* as he 
 shall think fit, with full authority to make such rates as the Lord 
 Lieutenant may deem necessary on every occupier whatsoever 
 within the district." There is no limit to the Lord Lieutenant's 
 ■caprice. The rate may amount to the entire value of the pro- 
 perty of each occupier ; no matter ; a valid rate to the full extent 
 of the last shilling the occupiers are worth may be made, and 
 there is no relief, no remedj^, no traverse, no appeal. 
 
 Mark, my countrymen, such a Bill as this is called a Bill 
 for the protection of property ! 
 
 The seventh power which the Lord Lieutenant acquires by 
 his own proclamation is, that of levying and collecting such 
 capricious rate, though it were, as I have said, to the full value 
 of all the property in the district, and such collection or levy- 
 ing is to be made ,by the constabulary and other force in the 
 •district, who are authorised to distrain furniture, goods, chattels, 
 cattle, corn, hay, potatoes, and, in short, all the property of the 
 occupants, and to sell the distress for payment of the rate. 
 
 There is then a provision of a most oppressive nature — that 
 is, that the entire rate shall be payable by, and levied on, the 
 actual occupiers ; and whereas the rate is based upon the poor 
 rate, yet the Bill contains this provision, that, although persons 
 holding lands under the value of £4 a year are considered too 
 poor to be charged with poor rate, yet these wretched paupers 
 ; are chargeable to the proclamation rate to be made pursuant to 
 this Bill. 
 
 Another provision of the Bill is equally emphatic— it 
 
 I exempts (oh, let this be held in perpetual recollection) the 
 
 landlords ! — that is, the rich, from the payment of any part of 
 
 t the rates, and expressly provides that the tenant or occupier 
 
 ! shall not deduct from his landlord any part of the rates. 
 
 There have been already manj^ Coercion Bills for Ireland, 
 but none of so unconstitutional a nature as far as relates to 
 levying money off the subjects. In that respect this Bill stands 
 pre-eminent in its unconstitutional atrocity. 
 
 35* 
 
532 Opinion of Lord Devon's Commission. 
 
 But, to crown all, and, as if it were in utter contempt of the 
 Commons of what is called the United Kingdom, this Bill, 
 with such enormous powers of taxation, is made to originate in 
 the House of Lords, which House, all constitutional authority 
 tells us, has no power whatsoever to originate any taxation. 
 
 We say, with sorrowful respect for our masters. Lord St. 
 Germains and others, that they ought not to carry their power 
 of insulting the people of Ireland to quite so great an extent. 
 A little moderation would become them, were it ever so little. 
 
 Let me, however, in the exercise of my duty, remind our 
 worthy lords and masters, that Lord Devon's Commission 
 has told the world the astounding fact, that the agricul- 
 tural population of Leland, being more than four millions, 
 endure greater privations and suffering than anj^ other people 
 in civilized Europe. 
 
 Would it not be better to devote time, attention, and legis- 
 lation to ameliorate, in some degree, the condition of so miserable- 
 a population, instead of devoting time, attention, and legisla- 
 tion to devise modes of unconstitutional coercion for that un- 
 happy people. 
 
 There are many other horrible clauses in this Bill which I 
 shall recur to again. But I wish to pause for one moment to 
 call the marked and deliberate attention to the most important 
 and absorbing consideration of one simple fact. 
 
 That matter of fact is this— that the entire scope of the Bill 
 treats with indiscriminate and undistinguishing severity the 
 innocent as well as the guilty, and more especially that in the 
 attempt to detect a comparatively small number engaged in 
 crime, punishment is not inflicted alone on the guilty smaller 
 number, but is equally inflicted on the innocent great 
 majority. 
 
 Thus, for example, a crime is committed, for it is all the 
 same, in one district or county, and immediately a proclamation 
 may issue of outlawry, not only against the district or county 
 in which the crime was committed, but also any adjoining 
 district or county. The number of criminals in such case 
 
A JMcdlcy of Legislation. S'^^'}^ 
 
 woukl, at least, in all probability, not exceed six or eight ; the 
 number of persons effectually punished in their property, would 
 amount to ten thousand, twenty thousand, or perhaps, one 
 hundred thousand, or even more. 
 
 It is a maxim in our law, and often quoted by the best of 
 our judges, that it is better that one hundred guilty should 
 escape than that one innocent should suffer. This Bill, how- 
 ever, goes on a directly opposite principle. It punishes one 
 hundred innocent, upon the chance of inflicting chastisement 
 upon one guilty. 
 
 And all this medley of legislation is facetiously called a 
 Union between Great Britain and Ii-eland. 
 
 I reserve the consideration of the other and most hideous 
 clauses for my next letter. 
 
 For the present I have only to observe, that it is reported 
 that Lord St. Germaius has graciously condescended to limit the 
 duration of the Act to about four years. I hope and trust the 
 firmness displayed by the Repeal Association has made him 
 shrink from the more atrocious enactment ; but the little lord 
 is not to escape in that way. He formed, fostered, and 
 matured the Bill, with all the odious tyranny of a perpetual 
 law. If Ireland shall ever have justice done her, the iniquity 
 of the project will, I trust, be adequately punished. 
 
 For my own part, I will not spare him a single observation 
 "What a miserable estimate he must form of our love of con- 
 stitutional rights. Freedom reckons by the hour — liberty is 
 counted by the day ; and he who would acquiesce in one day, 
 one hour of servitude, is as despicable a miscreant as the base 
 tyrant who imposes the chain. 
 
 My fifth objection to the Bill is the unlimited power it 
 gives over the persons of the Irish people. 
 
 By the 15th and 16th sections, any person who happens to 
 be out of his place of abode, at any time from one hour after 
 sunset until sunrise, may be arrested by any constable or 
 policeman, that is, by anybody, and transported for fifteen 
 years. Mark the offence, and mark the punishment ! Gracious 
 
534 ^ ^^^^ >^^'^^' ^/ ^^^^^ Bill. 
 
 heaven ! fifteen years' transportation for being out of a man's, 
 house for five minutes. 
 
 It is not necessary to give any proof against him but the 
 fact of his being out in the open air. It is not necessary ta 
 prove that he was out for any unlawful purpose. I repeat, the- 
 only proof, under this Bill, to enable the court, whatever it be, 
 to condemn to fifteen years' transportation, is the mere fact of 
 his being in the open air within the prohibited hours. 
 
 The prosecutor in such a case is bound to no proof of guilt ; 
 but the unhappy prisoner is told he will be allowed to prove his 
 
 innocence 
 
 ! ! ! 
 
 See what a total violation of the first principles of our crimi- 
 nal law this is. Our criminal law declares emphatically, in the- 
 language of all the judges, that every British subject is to b& 
 deemed and taken as innocent until his guilt is proved — proved 
 on the oath of witnesses. But this Bill reverses the maxim,, 
 and declares the man guilty unless he is able to prove, on the^ 
 oath of witnesses, his innocence. 
 
 Fifteen years' transportation upon an accusation, unless, 
 innocence be proved ! ! ! 
 
 I have often spoken harshly of the Emperor Nicholas, but I 
 will do him the justice to say, that I do not believe he ever 
 issued such a ukase as this. 
 
 The sixth objection to the Act is another frightful power. 
 It is one enabling the magistrates to issue a warrant to enable 
 any person to break, by force, into any house in which, liquor 
 of any kind is sold, in a proclaimed district, and to arrest any 
 person in the house not being an inmate or traveller ; and such 
 person, for the mere fact of being in such a house within the 
 prohibited hours, is liable to fifteen j^ears' transportation. 
 
 Mark this : a man is found in a house, where liquor is sold, 
 at night, unarmed, defenceless, and for that offence — offence ! — 
 he is liable to be transported for fifteen years. 
 
 I am sick of this Bill. There is a group of other offences — 
 some not punishable at all at common law, and the others 
 punishable only by fine or imprisonment — which are made 
 
What should be done. 535 
 
 liable, in proclaimed districts, to transportation for jfifteen 
 years. 
 
 Two topics more, briefly touched, will bring me to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 Tlie first relates to the imperative necessity of every Ee- 
 pealer exerting himself to prevail on the people to keep the 
 peace, and not to violate the law. There never was a period 
 when it was so emphatically true — " That whoever commits a 
 crime strengthens the enemy." 
 
 The next topic relates to what fills my mind with the bitterest 
 anguish, namely, the hideously mistaken and unconstitutional 
 course that the Ministry adopt in respect to Ireland. "We, Re- 
 pealers, are most anxious to put an end to crime, and to see the 
 country tranquillized. We know that it can be done by adopt- 
 ing the proper course. Let the Irish people be conciliated, 
 instead of Coercion Bills. 
 
 Firstly — Bring in Bills to equalize in Ireland the elective 
 franchise with that in England. 
 
 Secondly — Give Ireland her equal proportion of representa- 
 tives in the House of Commons. 
 
 Thirdly — Give Ireland equal municipal rights with Eng- 
 land, and give them without reservation. 
 
 Fourthly — Above all things immediately amend the law of 
 landlord and tenant. Give the landlord his adequate rent, but 
 secure to the tenant possession of the land until he shall be repaid 
 for all actual improvements made by him upon the premises. 
 
 Fifthly — Place the law of landlord and tenant upon the 
 same footing with the law respecting all other contracts, and 
 take away all the relics of the feudal superiority of the landlord. 
 
 Sixthly — Impose, without delay, a heavy absentee tax in 
 Ireland upon all non-resident landlords, and apply the produce 
 to lighten the burdens of county cess and poor rates on the 
 occupying tenants. 
 
 Let the Government do all these things before it presumes 
 to bring into the House of Commons a Bill to trample down 
 all constitutional rights and liberties. They may deem it a 
 
536 Let them avoiv their Incapacity^ 
 
 shorter and easier course to abrogate the constitution than to 
 concede constitutional equality. 
 
 Is the Parliament of Britain only competent to coerce, and 
 not to equalize, the franchises and rights of both countries? I 
 believe so. 
 
 Still there is one course open to them — it is that of abdicating 
 a power which they abuse, and cannot apply to useful purposes. 
 
 Let them avow their incopaeity, and restore to the people of 
 Ireland their domestic legislature. Let them thus establish 
 tranquillity and prosperity in Ireland, secure the stability of the 
 Throne, and the permanence of the'conneetion between both 
 countries. 
 
 Believe me to be, very faithfully yours, 
 
 Daniel O'Coxxell. 
 
 To T. M. Ray, Esq. 
 
 I 
 
And restore Domestic Legislature. 537 
 
 Bntish Hotel, Jermijn-sfreet, London, 
 2Qth March, 1846. 
 
 My dear Eay— The atrocious Bill has been brought into 
 the House of Commons from the House of Lords, This more 
 than Eussian ukase is now before us in a still more unconstitu- 
 tional shape than it assumed when it was brought into the 
 House of Lords. 
 
 I have already detailed many prominent objections to the 
 Bill. Objections accumulate, however, as one goes along, and 
 more overpowering disgust is excited and, indeed, required by 
 the additional unconstitutional enactments now contained in 
 the Bill. 
 
 One would have supposed that the violation of every consti- 
 tutional principle was exhausted in the parts of the Bill which 
 I have already commented upon, but that is a mistake. The 
 framers of this Bill have found out another constitutional prin- 
 ciple to be violated, and they have taken care to give the Bill a 
 vicious perfection by outraging that principle. 
 
 The principle to which I allude is that which prohibits the 
 enactment of an ^^r^jos/f/ac/o law, so that no punishment shall 
 be inflicted for any action which was not penal at the time of 
 its being done. 
 
 Look to this Bill for an illustration of that rule, and for its 
 gross violation, and you will find the section, now marked No. 
 2, which was introduced into it for the express purpose of 
 punishing bygone alleged crimes — that is, crimes alleged to 
 have been committed heretofore. Take, for example, the occu- 
 piers of land in a particular district. The Lord Lieutenant was 
 empowered by a former statute to proclaim a district, as re- 
 quiring an additional constabulary force, for being in what he 
 may call a state of disturbance ; but the innocent occupiers of 
 that district were not made liable by the then existing law to 
 the enormous mulcts and pecuniary fines (for they are such in 
 substance) contained in the present Bill. But what is done at 
 
538 And this, forsooth, is Merciful ! 
 
 present by this Bill is, that it transfers the pecuniary punish- 
 ments under this Bill, and gives tJiat punishment by reason of 
 the issue of a proclamation and of disturbances that existed 
 eighteen or twenty-four months ago, or perhaps still further back. 
 
 No matter how far back the former disturbances or procla- 
 mation may be, they are all hooked in ex pout facto by the pre- 
 sent Bill, and the punishment for them may be the forfeiture 
 of the entire property of the occupiers of the district, or at least 
 of some of them, probably of many. 
 
 There is an insulting affectation at humanity in lessenings 
 the punishment of being absent from the dwelling-house within 
 prohibited hours from fifteen years' transportation to only seven. 
 Mark the crime, and mark the humane punishment. The crime 
 is, being five minutes, or even less, out of the dwelling-house at 
 night; the punishment is only seven years' transportation. And 
 this, forsooth, is merciful ! And this is boasted of as being a 
 great concession ; the former punishment being fifteen years' 
 transportation, just as if the term made any difi'erence to the 
 unhappy Irish peasant. How is he ever to come back from 
 New South Wales ? And '^then the severance of his dearest 
 
 affections — the tearing of his heart-strings But I 
 
 must desist ; it almost maddens me to think of such a punish- 
 ment for such a crime, and especially when the proof of inno- 
 cence is thrown upon the accused, and not the proof of guilt 
 upon the accuser — a most manifest perversion of law and justice. 
 
 There is another perversion of law and justice incidentally 
 introduced into the eighth section ; it is this — it is provided by 
 the section that, in the first instance, when a person is arrested 
 for being out of his habitation at night he shall be brought 
 before the magistrates at petty sessions, who are to investigate 
 the case ; if the majority of the magistrates are against him, he 
 is to be committed to gaol as a matter of course. Suppose the 
 magistrates equally divided, one would imagine that the accused 
 would have the benefit of that division, especially for so trivial 
 an ofi'ence ; but no such thing. Equality on the bench is equi- 
 valent to a majority against the prisoner. 
 
This Iniquitous Laiv. 539 
 
 This iniquitous law comes in with a casting vote against the 
 unhappy prisoner, and thus, in every tiling, great and small, 
 tramples upon constitutional liberty. 
 
 The eleventh and twelfth sections are ludicrously verbosa 
 and atrociously severe. 
 
 Referring to proclaimed districts, the eleventh section enacts 
 the punishment of transportation for any person who may ba 
 found in a house of public resort, licensed. 
 
 Secondly — In an unlicensed house. 
 
 Thirdl}' — In any house in which malt liquors are sold. 
 
 Fourthly — In any house in which spirituous liquors are sold. 
 
 Fifthly — In any house in which malt liquors are consumed. 
 
 Sixthly — In any house in which tea, oricoffee, or provisions,, 
 liquors, or refreshments of any sort are sold. 
 
 Seventhly — In any house in which tea, or coffee, or provi- 
 sions, liquors, or refreshments are consumed. 
 
 Eighthly — Or in any shop wherein tea, coffee, provisions, or 
 liquors, or refreshments are sold. 
 
 Ninthly — In any shop wherein tea, coffee, provisions, liquors^ 
 or refreshments of any sort are consumed. 
 
 Tenthly — Or in any room wherein tea, coffee, provisions^ 
 liquors, or refreshments of any sort are sold. 
 
 Eleventhly — Or in any room in which tea, coffee, provi- 
 sions, liquors, or refreshments of any sort are consumed. 
 
 I have thus been minute in analyzing the eleventh section, 
 in order that there may be no disguise practised by reason of 
 the A^erbose nature of the Act. Dissecting the section, as I 
 have done, that it might run in these words, for this is its 
 meaning : — 
 
 "Be it enacted, that any person not being one of the family, 
 or a traveller, found within any house in the proclaimed dis- 
 trict, within the prohibited hours, is liable to seven years' trans 
 portation." 
 
 The crime consists in being in any house but one's own in 
 the district. I say, emphatically, in any house ; for, surely, in 
 every house malt liquor, or spirituous liquor, or tea, or coffee. 
 
540 Alas ! for the Poor Teetotallers. 
 
 or provisions, or liquor generally, including water, or refresh- 
 ment of some sort, is consumed. 
 
 It is, therefore, totally idle to enumerate the particulars. 
 The words, " any house," supplies the same meaning, and would 
 be more simple in expression, if simplicity were not a thing 
 carefully avoided by the framers of the Bill. 
 
 Under this section, therefore, if a gentleman dines with his 
 neighbour — if a farmer takes a glass of punch in a friend's 
 house — even, if a lady takes a cup of tea with any of her ac- 
 quaintances in the district — the gentleman, the farmer, and the 
 lady are, each and every of them, guilty of a misdemeanourj 
 and liable to be transported, unless they return home before one 
 hour after sunset. 
 
 Behold what ludicrous and absurd legislation ! It includes 
 in guilt, everybody, and every house, and every liquor, includ- 
 ing water. Alas for the poor teetotallers ! 
 
 Let me here remark another peculiarity in this penal section. 
 Any person found in another person's house within the pro- 
 hibited hours, is liable to transportation by the very fact, and 
 is not allowed the miserable privilege of proving the negative of 
 crime, namely, that he was there on a lawful occasion. 
 
 The reason of concealing the real meaning of the eleventh 
 section, by smothering that meaning with verbiage, is discovered 
 by the twelfth section. 
 
 For, mark, the twelfth section authorises any justice of the 
 peace, or anyone having a warrant from him for that purpose, 
 to demand admission into any such house as is included in the 
 eleventh section ; and, in case admission is not given in what 
 such person shall deem a reasonable time, to break open the 
 door, and enter by force into the house ! In England, every 
 man's house is his castle, until some offence is charged upon him 
 by oath. In Ireland, neither oath nor crime is necessary ; all 
 is left to the discretion of the magistrate, or his deputy. And 
 this is the way that the Union is worked out. 
 
 A few words more, and I shall have closed. 
 
 The fourteenth section, among other things, enacts that if 
 
The Misery of Ireland unequalled. 541 
 
 any person shall, by any means howsoever, endeavour to deter 
 or intimidate any person from appearing or acting as a witness, 
 he shall be guilty of a transportable offence. 
 
 Now, nobody should be intimidated from appearing as a 
 witness ; but it may be quite justifiable, and even a duty, to 
 deter a false-witness from appearing as a witness, by represent- 
 ing to him the horrid guilt of perjury, and the extreme iniquity 
 of accusing an innocent person. This would be a duty and not 
 a crime ; and yet, for the performance of this duty a man may 
 be punished by seven years' transportation. 
 
 There is one important observation more : In general, a 
 transportable offence is made a felony. By this Act, there is no 
 felony created, all the offences are misdemeanours. 
 
 Would you wish to know the reason ? Would you wish to- 
 understand the secret ? Listen ! 
 
 At present, every man who is tried in Ireland for a felony has 
 twenty peremptory challenges to the jurors. He can set aside 
 twenty jurors without assigning any cause. Any man tried in 
 Ireland for a misdemeanour has no peremptory challenge. 
 
 Do you understand ? 
 
 I have now gone through many clauses of the Bill. There 
 are others which, in a Bill of less atrocious features, would de- 
 serve a marked reprobation. But I have done. I am wearied 
 and disgusted with this preposterous attempt to legislate for 
 Ireland. 
 
 Thus punishing the effects, and taking no care to remove 
 the causes. 
 
 "Misery in Ireland, unequalled in any other country in 
 Europe," says the Devon Commissioners. Not one particle of 
 alleviation of the causes of that misery. No Coercion Bill for 
 the landlords who exterminate by the clearance system. No 
 mitigation of the facilities for working out that most sanguinary 
 system. Coercion, and no remedy for the innumerable evils 
 that produce the maddening misery of the Irish peasant. 
 
 Let me, however, be distinctly understood. There is no excuse 
 for murder ; nothing can excuse it. There is no palliation for 
 
542 " Vengeance is viinc^'' saitJi the Lord. 
 
 murder ; nothing can palliate it. There is no mitigation of the 
 diabolical crime- of murder. 
 
 Whoever commits the infernal crime of murder deserves 
 justly all the punishment the law of man can inflict. Against 
 the murderer the red arm of God's vengeance is bared. " Ven- 
 geance is mine," saith the Lord, " and I will repay." Yes, the 
 vengeance of God will, sooner or later, meet the murderer, and 
 his unatoned-for crime will plunge him in eternal reprobation. 
 
 Every honest man, every good man, every Christian should 
 assist in detecting and bringing to punishment] the murderer. 
 Every man who does not assist in the detection and punishment 
 of the murderer, participates in the horrible guilt of his crime. 
 
 Ireland can never prosper as long as those crimes continue. 
 The curse of heaven is upon those crimes. 
 
 Would to heaven that Government were wise enough to re- 
 move tlie causes of our miseries and crimes ; but, alas ! it would 
 require all the knowledge, and all the interest and anxiety of a 
 domestic Legislature, to procure such blessed results. 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 To T. M. Hay, JEsq. 
 
OConnell on the Young Ireland Secession. 543 
 
 The. following letter explains O'Connell's most piivate feelings, and we 
 may add, reveals his keen, and too little appreciated, sufferings in con- 
 nection with the " Young Ireland " question. 
 
 Letter to the Eight Rev. Dr. Blake, Lord Bishop of 
 ■ Dromore. 
 
 Merrion-sqimre, Dublin, Xoremher 21st, 1846. 
 
 My ever Revered and Venerated Lord — For the fifty 
 years that I have been engaged in politics, I never received 
 «o deep and heart-rending a pang as by the receipt of. your 
 letter of the 20th instant. Oh, how unhappy I am that you, 
 my loved and venerated lord, should not more distinctly 
 behold the real cause of disunion between us — between us, 
 sincere Repealers, and those who have seceded from us. You 
 ■do, indeed, my dearest lord, wrong me, if you think that I 
 am not most intensely anxious to heal tlie dissension that 
 has arisen in our body. There is no practicable sacrifice 
 that I would not make for the purpose of reconciliation. 
 I would consent to any personal disgrace or ignominy for 
 that purpose. I would suffer any infliction for that purpose. 
 I would consent that seceders should spit in my face, 
 instead of shaking hands, for that purpose. Do not, my 
 ever venerated and loved lord, doubt my perfect sincerity. 
 But there are things which I cannot do, and which you are 
 certainly the last man living to advise me to do — namely, 
 to sacrifice principle, and to risk and put in jeopard}'" 
 the liberties and even the lives of all the members of the 
 Association. 
 
 The point hinges upon this. We, the sincere Repealers, 
 have placed the basis of our exertions on this : the carrying the 
 Repeal by peaceable, legal, and constitutional means, and by 
 none other. The seceders, on the contrary, insist that, in case 
 
544 Dangerous position of the Scceders. 
 
 we do not succeed by peaceable and legal means, we should 
 reserve to ourselves the use, in any favourable opportunity, of 
 the sword. 
 
 Now, my venerated lord, I solemnly, as a lawyer of many 
 years' standing, assure your lordship, with the most perfect 
 truth, that the plan of the seceders would, if we were to accede 
 to or even tolerate it in the Association, involve every mem- 
 ber of the Association, including your lordship, in the guilt 
 of high treason. 
 
 I do not, my dearest lord, deceive you — I am incapable of 
 doing it — and I most emphatically tell you, that, if we were 
 to-morrow to admit the seceders upon their own principles, we 
 should either dissolve the Association or render ourselves,. 
 in point of law, liable to at least imprisonment, with the- 
 greatest risk of incurring actual execution on a scaffold. 
 
 I now, my venerated lord, conjure you to withdraw your 
 letter, and not to require it to be read in the Association. If 
 I were in your presence, I would go on my knees to ask this 
 favour. I do pray you not to refuse me. 
 
 Such a letter, coming from you, and making light of 
 the difference between us and the seceders, would be con- 
 sidered by the public, and made use of by the seceders, as- 
 an approval of their physical-force principles ; as an approval, 
 in short, of the illegality and treasonable nature of their 
 principles. 
 
 I know full well that no man living would be farther than 
 you, my lord, from intentionally giving the slightest sanction 
 to the doctrines of the seceders. 
 
 I have received much and many acts of kindness from 
 your lordship. No man can revere you more than I do. 
 In one thing alone can I compete with your lordship, and 
 that is, in the knowledge of law; and I solemnly assm-e 
 you as a lawyer, that allowing the seceders to return to the 
 Association without disavowing physical force, would involve 
 us all in the guilt, and many of us in the punishment, of 
 treason. 
 
 I 
 
Conclusion. 
 
 545 
 
 Permit me, then, my dear lord, once more to ask you to 
 withdraw your letter. I shall not call at the Post-office for the 
 £3 until I hear from you again. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with the most profound respect 
 and veneration, 
 
 My ever dearest Lord, 
 
 Your ever devoted humble servant, 
 
 Damel O'Connell. 
 
 VOL. II 3ft 
 
54^ ReteuL Poucy. 
 
 O'Connell's Repeal Policy. 
 
 Letter to the Right Rev. Dr. Blalce, Bishop of Dromore. 
 
 Derrynane Ahhey, Sejitembei' 18th, 1840. 
 
 My dear and revered Lord — I cannot describe the 
 pleasure which your lordship's letter of the 3rd inst. gave 
 me. I was beyond expression delighted at the sanction which 
 your deliberate and calm judgment confers on my now exclu- 
 sive plan for the amelioration of Ireland — the restoration of our 
 domestic Legislature. But that satisfaction had, I trust, a higher 
 and better foundation than anything personal to myself could 
 have. Yes, my cordial gratification at its contents was founded 
 on this — that such a letter coming from a Prelate of your lord- 
 ship's retiring and unobtrusive habits, and of — I must say it — 
 your high character for learning and piety, is actually part 
 of our means of success — assuring as it does the timid that 
 under such auspices as yours the Repeal of the Union agita- 
 tion must be carried on, and its triumphant result secured, 
 by means exclusively moral and peaceable, without the viola- 
 tion of any law — human or divine — and without injury to 
 person or to property. 
 
 Your letter is also of inestimable value by the declaration it 
 contains of your adhesion to this now demonstrated truth — that 
 there is no possibility of the people of Ireland obtaining the 
 redress of any of their multitudinous grievances from the British 
 Legislature. Whatever may happen with respect to the " Eepeal" 
 {sic.) this, at least, is certain ; that the present House of Com- 
 mons will do but little indeed for us, whilst the House of Lords, 
 by an overwhelming majority, ostentatiously and insultingly 
 proclaims a determination to do nothing beneficial for Ireland, 
 
Anszvers to Objections to Repeal. 547 
 
 and to take away as much from us as they can ; a determina- 
 tion also evinced with respect to the elective franchise the most 
 precious of all existing human rights, by six majorities of the 
 House of Commons, in no less than four of which the ministers 
 themselves and all their supporters were defeated. After this 
 my lord, you are justified in thinking that our domestic legis- 
 lature is the only source from which we can possibly derive 
 redress or relief. 
 
 I should, of course, have felt it my duty to acknowledge, as 
 I now do in the most respectful manner, the honour of your 
 ordship's letter ; but this acknowledgment is now dictated firmly 
 by the command of a body destined, I believe, to engrave its 
 name on the brightest page of Irish history — "The Loyal 
 RejDeal Association of Ireland." 
 
 Your letter was manifestly intended to be laid before that 
 I)ody ; I accordingly and proudly laid it before them, and they 
 liave, by a formal resolution, commanded me to reply to the 
 statement so clearly and so distinctly made by your lordship, 
 of the principal objections raised by the " Unionists " to the 
 restoration of the Irish Parliament. I proceed to do that with 
 all tbat sincerity which is due to the revered prelate whom I 
 address, and to the gravity and vital importance of the subject 
 of which I treat. 
 
 The first objection, in point of order, which is stated in your 
 lordship's letter, as made " under the form of supposition," is 
 this — "/n the event of England declaring tear, might not the Irish 
 Legislature differ in opinion from her, and refuse the supplies of 
 men and money ?" 
 
 My answer is unequivocal ; certainly, my lord, such a case 
 may arise. The difficulty may arise. The fact is not to be denied ; 
 the amount of evil arising from the possible existence of 
 such a fact, or even from its actual existence, is really the 
 matter to be discussed. 
 
 I contend, that the possibility of such a fact would be no 
 evil. I contend, further, that its actual occurrence, if it sliall 
 
 36* 
 
548 The War Question. 
 
 y 
 
 occur, would be no evil, but one of the greatest advantages and 
 blessings to be derived from the Repeal of the Union. 
 
 Let me first observe, that there is an inaccuracy in talking of 
 England going to war. It is not the English nation that 
 goes to war ; the prerogative of making peace or declaring 
 war belongs exclusively to the reigning monarchy. If the 
 monarch of England declared war, it would also be a decla- 
 ration of war by the monarch of Ireland. Ireland would, there- 
 fore, be equally at war as England ; the monarch of both being 
 at present, and of right continuing always one and the same 
 person. 
 
 Now, the objection really exists with the same theoretic 
 force, and has the same solution if England stood alone in the 
 world, and Ireland were, as the late Sir Joseph York wished, 
 sunk in the bottom of the ocean. 
 
 Our Constitution is not formed to run in all things together 
 smoothly — that is the principle of a despotism ; but one of checks 
 and reciprocal control in which consists, if not the principle, at 
 least the practice of free institutions. 
 
 If England, as I said, stood alone, the objection above stated 
 applies to her. En gland — that is, the monarch — may be at war, and 
 the English House of Commons may refuse the supplies of men 
 and money. Nay, further, England may be at war, and the Com- 
 mons may vote the supplies of men and money, but the House of 
 Lords may refuse both, and resist altogether supplies voted by 
 the Commons. This objection, therefore, already exists in the 
 English. Constitution, is inherent in that Constitution, and is- 
 one of its advantages and not matter of censure. The just cause 
 of censure is, that this constitutional advantage has not been 
 more frequently made available by either House, and profligate 
 wars more frequently prevented or terminated. 
 
 The real strength of the objection is this : that it is more 
 probable that one Parliament should grant supplies, than that 
 two would concur in granting them. 1 admit that such proba- 
 bility exists ; but what a paltry objection it is to do so great a 
 
 i 
 
What is War? 549 
 
 national measure as the giviug Ireland the iueome of her own 
 soil to spend, and the protection of her own Legislature, that 
 forsooth one thing is more probable than another. But there is 
 still more : is it at all probable that if the war were in its nature 
 just and necessary, and engaged in to promote or to vindicate 
 the essential interests of these countries, that the Irish Parlia- 
 ment would, any more than the English, refuse the supplies. 
 Alas ! the contrary is the fact, and all history proves it : that 
 popular assemblies are more ready to approve of and support 
 wars, than monarehs themselves ; and Irish history shows that 
 the Irish Parliament, during its separate existence, more parti- 
 cularly from the days of Charles I. to the Union, and especially 
 at the glorious era of 1782, equalled, if not exceeded the means 
 of this country in the liberality of the supplies of men and 
 money. 
 
 The former history of the Irish Parliament is, therefore, an 
 additional answer to the supposed objection. 
 
 But I will banish the supposition, and take for granted the 
 reality. "Would not such reality be a blessing — I would say 
 almost a celestial blessing ; because it would be an additional 
 obstacle placed in the way of going to war at all. Can there be 
 anything more desirable than another impediment to going to 
 war ? What is war ? The multiplication and congregation of 
 all human sufferings and all human immoralities ; all these 
 crimes which disgrace individuals, and render them obnoxious 
 to punishment by human law and bring down the vengeance 
 of God. All these crimes are the daily occupation of the state 
 and existence of war. Besides the occasional occurrence of such 
 horrors as the 15th regiment perpetrated in Canada, and as 
 were enacted on a larger scale upon our allies, the Spanish in- 
 habitants of Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajos, and St. Sebastian. It 
 is not, my lord, possible to describe in language of suitable 
 horror, the plunderings, the vileness, the violations, the multi- 
 plied murders that were committed with perfect impunity upon 
 the Spanish people, our allies and friends, by the glorious heroes y 
 as they are called, who captured these towns. 
 
550 Examples of War. 
 
 Yes, I do hope the Irish Parliament will stop supplies when 
 required to carry into effect such atrocities. I do confidently 
 address you, my lord, for you are a minister of peace. I con- 
 fidently address you and your colleagues in the ministry of the 
 God of charity, in favour of that Irish Parliament, which might, 
 and I hope, would, render war less frequent, and would prevent 
 the recurrence of all the enormities of that horrible state. 
 
 But I put the matter on another footing. Let any rational 
 man look back to all the wars in which England has been en- 
 gaged for more than a century. Let men look at their causes 
 their mode of being carried on, and their results, and tell 
 me what interest had the people of England therein. But I am 
 now on the Repeal, and will confine myself to Ireland. I there- 
 fore, ask to be shown what interest had the people of Ireland in 
 any of these wars ? 
 
 The two latest, for example, the American war of Pevolu- 
 tion and the French war. What had the people of Ireland to gain 
 by these wars ? What interest had they in them ? The first 
 was a war against American liberty. The interest of the Irish 
 people was against, not for that war. Yet what oceans of Irish 
 blood was shed in that accursed quarrel, and we are groaning 
 still beneath the burdens it has created. So, likewise, of the 
 French war. What was it] to the people of Ireland what form 
 of Government the French nation might choose to adopt ? Yet 
 this quarrel, in which Ireland was no more interested than 
 Lapland, costs myriads upon myriads of Irish lives, and pressed 
 so hard on the Irish poor that taxation became actually unpro- 
 ductive by reason of the magnitude of its pressure. 
 
 My opinion decidedly is, that there never should be war 
 — that what is called national honour is a sanguinary cruelty 
 when it stimulates to the cutting of mankind, and that 
 national interests are capable of being maintained in the present 
 state of society, by reason, justice, and the power of opinion, 
 as well as by peaceable retaliation for injuries, without the 
 universal use of the sword or the sins and crimes of warfare. 
 
 With these opinions, for which I respectfully claim 
 
The War Question and Repeal. 551 
 
 your countenance, I insist that, if the supposed objections 
 were well founded, and that the Irish Parliament refused Irish 
 supplies to carry on a war which that Parliament disapproved 
 of, it would be a great blessing and an additional motive to 
 desire the Pepeal of the Union, and not any argument against 
 that measure. I am the more anxious to express these senti- 
 ments at a moment like this when England appears to be on 
 the very verge of a war, to promote, as I think, the interests of 
 and an alHance with one of the most sanguinary, and coldly 
 unrelenting of the persecutors of Christian truth that lived 
 since the days of Dioclesian — I mean, of course, the Emperor 
 of Russia. 
 
 Again, my dear and venerated lord, I turn to the objection 
 of the Irish Parliament keeping the Irish people free from the 
 burdens of an English war, and on my part I beg to put a case 
 equally, " under the form of a supposition." Suppose, then, that 
 England were to engage again in war — suppose that war to be 
 totally unnecessary, most unjust, unreligious, and cruel, at the 
 same time directly adverse to the commercial, manufacturing, 
 and agricultural interests of Ireland. Now, this is not an ima- 
 ginary case, for it was actually the case of the American war 
 of the Revolution. Suppose England once more engaged in 
 such a war. I now turn, my lord, on your objectors, and ask them, 
 indignantly, is not Ireland now, with the Union, and by reason 
 of tlie Union, liable to have her supplies of men and money 
 drained from her in such a war, without her consent, against 
 her will, as against her interests. If every man of her one 
 hundred and five members voted against such a war, what are 
 they to the five hundred and fifty-three Scotch and English, who 
 might once again grant supplies for such a war ? Place the 
 supposition of the Unionists alongside of mine. Mine has the ad- 
 vantage of being supported by historic facts of recent occur- 
 rence. Compare the results of both our systems of Government 
 of Ireland. Mine would give protection to Ireland, and save 
 her efi'ectually from such a war. Their system leaves Ireland 
 bound hand and foot to be dragged at the wheels of England's 
 
55^ 
 
 Would Catholics Persecute ? 
 
 car of war. But, alas ! your Unionists have the forms, without 
 the hearts, of Irishmen, and every country is to he preferred by 
 them to their own. 
 
 My lord, I have disposed of this objection I have shown 
 the improbabilities of its occurrence. But, better still, I 
 have shown that, if it did occur, in point of fact it would be 
 beneficial and protective to Ireland, and also repulsive of the 
 ■crimes and horrors of war. I claim it as an argument not 
 against, but for the Bepeal of the Union — that Repeal which 
 would be surrounded on every side with blessing to Ireland. 
 Permit me, then, to make my triumphant conclusion — Hurrah 
 for the Repeal ! 
 
 I come next to the second objection, "under the form of sup- 
 position," which the Unionists make to the Repeal, they ask, 
 you say — ^^ Might not the Catholic majority exclude their fellow- 
 subjects of other religious conimunionsfroin jjlaces of trust and emo- 
 lumentT^ 
 
 I am ready, as you, my lord, anticipate, to answer this ques- 
 tion, so as to make it impossible that any fair or just man of 
 ordinary capacity should not admit that the objection raised 
 upon it has not any, even the smallest, foundation. I do, indeed, 
 my most esteemed lord, thank you for giving us the opportunity 
 to banish the fears of the timid and satisfy the doubts of the 
 reasonable. 
 
 There are two ways in which after the Repeal Protestants 
 may be excluded from offices of trust or emolument — firsty by 
 legislative enactments or the interposition of religious tests in- 
 €onsistent with their belief, as the Catholics were excluded by 
 the penal laws ; or, secondly, by the practice of an adverse 
 Grovernment, as the Catholics were by the Wellington and Peel 
 Government during the time of the Emancipation that they re- 
 mained in office. 
 
 I will take up each of these modes, but begin with the first, 
 which would be in its nature a great grievance to the Protes- 
 tants, and one against which if there were a rational apprehen- 
 sion of its occurrence every precaution should be taken. 
 
Would Catholics enact Pe7ial Laws ? ^^2> 
 
 The first embraces this question — could or would the Irish 
 restored Parliament enact penal laws against Protestants ? 
 
 I utterly deny that it u-ould. I am able to demonstrate that 
 it COULD NOT enact any such laws. 
 
 The Catholic majority supposing — a supposition which is 
 somewhat gratuitous — a Catholic majority, I assert, would 
 not enact any such laws, and the reasons which I submit 
 in support of such assertion are these: — 
 
 First — The Irish Catholics of the present day have been 
 brought up in the assertion of the principle of freedom of con- 
 science. One of the most powerful arguments in favour of that 
 principle was made by your lordship at the last public dinner 
 which I attended at Newry. Laymen, priests, and prelates, all 
 the Catholics now living have appealed. It was our grand ar- 
 gument in favour of Emancipation. We urged it, we insisted 
 on it, we succeeded upon it ? Is it possible to suppose that we, 
 Catholics, would abandon our own doctrines, renounce our own 
 priDciples, or expose ourselves to the mockery and derision of 
 the world, and especially could we be so silly as to arm those 
 we might now seek to persecute with a damning proof of our 
 insincerity, falsehood, and turpitude, as our violating that 
 principle would inflict upon us. No, it would not be in 
 human nature that sucli depravity should exist, or in human 
 folly to exhibit that depravity, if (which is impossible) it did 
 -exist. The Protestants, therefore, could not possibly apprehend 
 any violation of that principle from the present generation of 
 Catholics, and it would be absurd to suppose that we are to pro- 
 duce a generation to succeed us with principles worse than our 
 own. No ; an objection to what the next generation may do — 
 an objection thus in the jjaulo post-futurum — would be laughed 
 at by all reasonable men. 
 
 Secondly — But the principle we thus professed and profess 
 has nothing in it simulated or unstable. The events which have 
 occurred since the Peformation, as those which we have our- 
 selves witnessed, all show the futility of persecution. Besides, 
 the doctrines of Catholic truth, in which we believe, all have 
 
554 '^^^^ Time of Persecution has gone by. 
 
 their foundation in that universal henevolence, and all-compre- 
 hending charity which makes us see in every fellowman a 
 brother, and teaches us that to use force or fraud towards him 
 is a crime, cruel in its nature, unjust in its principle, and inca- 
 pable of being productive of any but the worst consequences 
 of crime, and impart unjust punishment towards him. 
 
 Thirdly — The time is gone by when any species of per- 
 secution would be endured by the more exalted reason and 
 education of any persuasion of Christians. Hideous but 
 salutary example, has shown us all, that one may make 
 hypocrites but cannot make converts by any kind of persecu- 
 tion. That the low but vexatious intolerence, which gratifies 
 itself and teazes, rather than torments, others, by the exclusion 
 of persons of a different persuasion from offices of honour and 
 emolument, for their dissent, has no tendency to diminish that- 
 dissent or to create conversions ; but, on the contrary, is sure 
 to make those who are thus unjustly excluded more tenacious 
 of their own opinions, whilst they detest the religion of the 
 persecutor, and adhere with a feeling of pride, as well as of 
 perseverance, to their own. The time is gone by when good 
 men could in any way sanction intolerance, and when crafty men 
 could think it a means of increasing the number of their sect. 
 
 Fourthly — Is it not perfectly clear that if a Catholic 
 majority in the Irish Parliament were to evince in that Parlia- 
 ment a disposition to enact restrictive or exclusive laws 
 against Protestants in Ireland, they would thereby not only 
 stimulate, but justify, and even require, the Protestant majority 
 in the English Parliament to pass similar and, perhaps, more 
 severe laws against the English and Scotch Catholics. It 
 would indeed be inevitable that the British Catholics should 
 be persecuted if we were directly or indirectly to persecute the 
 Irish Protestants. 
 
 Fifthly — It is impossible to imagine that there should be 
 found one Catholic in Ireland so base, as by joining or allowing 
 any kind or species of Protestant persecution or exclusion to 
 give a triumph to, and justify, the calumnies of the M'Grhees^ 
 
Catholics Asserted the Rights of Conscience. 555 
 
 the Stowells, the Butts, the Todds, and the M'Neills. The 
 very anticipation of the savage shout of exultation which that 
 gang would justly and properly raise, would deter every Catholic 
 from, for a single moment, participating in or tolerating any one 
 bigoted law or practice. 
 
 Sixthly — You know well, most esteemed lord, that all the 
 great examples of assertion of the rights of conscience have 
 been afforded by Catholics. It was Catholics who first, after 
 the Reformation, passed in the Diet of Poland comprehensive 
 emancipation laws in favour of the Protestants of Poland. It 
 was an unanimous law because every one member of the Diet 
 might have stopped it by means of his veto ; and there were 
 numbers of Roman Catholic Bishops in that Diet. 
 
 Seventhly — You know well, most respected lord, that the 
 next great example of Christian liberality after the Reformation 
 was given by the Parliament of Catholic Maryland in America ; 
 when a comprehensive Emancipation Act of their Protestant 
 brethren was unanimously passed ; having been drawn up by one 
 of the most meritorious, but most calumniated, Order — the Jesuits. 
 
 Eighthly — You know well, most excellent lord, that another 
 great instance of similar Christian benevolence was exhibited 
 by the Diet of Hungary, who, in 1792, passed a thoroughly 
 satisfactory and complete Emancipation law for the Protestants 
 of Hungary, not only giving them complete equality of civil 
 rights, but actually exempting them from the payment of 
 tithes. That Act, indeed, deserved to be called an Emancipa- 
 tion Act. 
 
 Ninthly — But why should I dwell on foreign instances or 
 examples, when I have the Catholics of Ireland to refer to — 
 triumphantly and proudly to refer to— the Irish Catholics 
 who were, since the Reformation, three times restored to power 
 after suffering the most cruel and sanguinary persecution ? 
 
 Yet, they never retaliated, they never persecuted one single 
 human being ; but I prefer using the language of a living 
 Protestant historian to my own. Here they are — speaking of 
 the reign of Mary, in England, Bloody Mary — he says : — 
 
55 ^ ^^ /^<2^;^ always Repudiated Religious Persecutio7i. 
 
 " The restoration of the old religion was effected without violence; no 
 persecution of the Protestants was attempted; and several of the English 
 who Jled from the furious zeal of Marifs inquisitors, found a safe refuge 
 amoMjst the Catholics of Ireland. It is but justice to this maligned body to 
 ^idd, that, on three occasions of their obtaining the upper hand, they never 
 injured a single person in life or limb, for professing a religion different 
 from their own." 
 
 This passage is found at page 169, of tlie first volume of the 
 *' History of the Civil Wars of Ireland," by W. C. Taylor. 
 
 And we, my Lord Bishop, we are as good as our ancestors; we 
 have always repudiated, and always will repudiate and condemn 
 religious persecution in every shape, mode, or degree — neither 
 (may I say it by way of parenthesis) do any one of us believe 
 that our pure and holy faith requires the aid of profane law, or 
 iniquitous enactments, to fortify in their belief its votaries, or 
 to augment their numbers. 
 
 We have, my venerated and beloved lord, a generous and 
 not a vain confidence in tlie power of truth and the efiicacy of 
 Catholic piety, and scorn any base or unworthy auxiliary, as 
 persecution must ever be. 
 
 I have dwelt with pleasure but at quite unnecessary 
 length on to me the cheering andjconsoliug proofs that the Irish 
 Catholics would not persecute if they could. But there remains 
 b)ehind the conclusive proof that no Catholic majority in the 
 Irish Parliament could, even if it woidd, persecute or exclude 
 from office any Protestant. The proof is this : — 
 
 First — The King or Queen of Ireland must be the same as 
 that of England and consequently must be a Protestant. It is 
 impossible to suppose that such monarchs would assent to any 
 bill ofi'ered by the Irish Houses of Parliament for the purpose 
 of persecuting in any way the Protestant subjects of any part 
 of the realm. 
 
 Secondly — A very large proportion of the House of Com- 
 mons of Ireland will necessarily be Protestants. So that no 
 Protestant persecution Act could reasonably be supposed to 
 pass the House of Commons against the natural and vigorous 
 
Repudiation of Bigotry in Appointing to Offices. 557 
 
 opposition of such a number of Protestants, fortified by every 
 liberal Catholic in the House, and with all the liberality of the- 
 entire nation at their side. 
 
 Thirdly — But suppose such a Bill to. pass by a Catholic- 
 majority in the House of Commons, there is the House of Lords^ 
 full nine-tenths of whom are Protestants — a house whose mem- 
 bers can be increased only by the Crown, winch is Protestant. 
 So that it is, on the part of the Unionists, ridiculously absurd 
 to imagine that any Protestant persecution or exclusion Bill 
 could by any possibility pass the Irish House of Lords. 
 
 It is utterly impossible. 
 
 I have, my lord, taken more pains than were at all neces- 
 sary to show that by a Repeal of the Union it is impossible 
 that any such Protestant restrictive law could be passed by any 
 Catholic majority — a majority which, though it may exist in 
 one House of Parliament, could not possibly be found in both ; 
 besides, the monarch must continue a Protestant. 
 
 The third objection which you, my lord, have stated maybe 
 now easily dismissed, as I have anticipated a reply to the 
 only formidable matter it contains. It is this — " Might we not 
 see offices filled by persons selected, not on account of their 
 superior fitness for them, but by that fallacious and very corrupt 
 rule that each religious denomination should be represented 
 according to its numbers." 
 
 I do admit that such a rule would be both fallacious and 
 corrupt. It would also be absurd and indefensible. But 
 I deny that it would arise or be brought into action after the 
 Repeal. Why should we anticipate so profligate a conduct on 
 the part of the executive ? I have already shown that it could 
 not be the result of any anti-Protestant law. Neither is it cal- 
 culated in any respect to be the subject of legislative enact- 
 ment. 
 
 It is put forward by Unionists with a view rather to 
 suggest some desire for Catholic ascendency — or rather the fear 
 of such an ascendency. I have also demonstrated the futility 
 
1558 One Great Object of Repealis 
 
 of any such fears, and after that we are entitled to dismiss their 
 objection without much ceremony. 
 
 Besides, one great object of the Repeal is, to secure good and 
 rational Government. Its natural tendency must inevitably 
 be to secure that species of administration of the affairs of 
 Ireland ; and therefore it is as clear as noon day that the effect 
 of the Bepeal is utterly inconsistent with the ^\fallaciotis and 
 corrupt rule " which the objection suggests. Instead of adding 
 one, we should by the Repeal be able to abolish every existing 
 fallacious and corrupt rule, and govern the country by maxims 
 of justice, equity, honesty, and common sense. 
 
 Permit me, then, to repeat our watchword of peace, con- 
 cord, and fraternal affection — " Hurrah for the Repeal." 
 
 I cannot conclude this letter without appealing by its means 
 to the Protestants of the land to dismiss foolish fears, idle 
 jealousies, past animosities, and present prejudices, and to rally 
 forth, with their Catholic fellow-countrymen, for the peace, 
 prosperity, and constitutional freedom of their native land. 
 
 Why, oh, why ! should the love of fatherland, the inevitable 
 attachment to the land of their birth, the exalting impulses 
 of liberty, be banished from their minds and affections ? Are 
 they not Irishmen as well as we are ? Is not Ireland their 
 country as well as ours ? Why should not their country once 
 again take its station amongst the nations of the earth ? Why 
 should they and their country be depressed and left in the atti- 
 tude of a grovelliug inferiority ? 
 
 You, ray loved lord, and men like you, prove the safety, 
 the sanctity, the integrity of our struggle. You prove that, in 
 a contest which you countenance, there can be nothing of force 
 or violence, of injustice or injury — that no property will be in- 
 jured—no life sacrificed. Innocent and holy is our strife. 
 It is for the protection and prosperity of Ireland— to extinguish 
 grinding opposition, to banish withering poverty, to increase 
 manufacturing industry, to extend commercial activity and 
 wealth, and to promote agricultural interests — to give to Irish- 
 
To Secure Good and Rational Government. 559 
 
 men a country, and to Ireland a name amongst nations, to 
 spread abundance and comfort amongst the people, and to 
 crown them with prosperity and constitutional freedom. 
 Surrah for the Repeal ! 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 My beloved and most respected Lord, 
 
 Your most faithful and obedient humble servant, 
 
 Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 To the Right Rev. Dr. Blake, 
 JBishojj of Bromore. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 We append the following letter of the Right Eev. Dr. Nulty, 
 as an important addition to contemporary history. It is much 
 to bo regretted that public opinion in Ireland is not more gene- 
 rally heard in England ; if it were much misapprehension 
 would be saved, and, possibly, grave political blunders, if not 
 worse, would be averted : — 
 
 THE COERCION ACT IN WESTMEATH. 
 
 To the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli. 
 
 SiK— You were a distinguished member of the committee appointed hy 
 the House of Commons in 1871 to inquire into the outrages alleged to have 
 been committed in Westmeath at that time ; and I distinctly remember with 
 what punctuality you attended all the tedious sittings of that committee, ft-om 
 its opening to its close. The appointment of the committee itself, its compo- 
 sition, the character of its members, and the principle on which it was to 
 ■carry on its inquiries— all gave rise to considerable excitement and to the 
 interchange of heated party recriminations. While the committee was occu- 
 pied merely with preliminaries, and before it held any of its regular sittings, 
 we all felt that our liberty and independence were inevitably doomed. But 
 it was of the witnesses summoned before the committee that the people ar- 
 raigned before it had the greatest reason to complain. If it were assumed 
 that Parliament, having resolved to annihilate our freedom, sought to discover 
 VOL. II. 37 
 
562 Appendix. 
 
 some colourable pretext to justify to the world the coercive legislation it con- 
 templated, then the witnesses called before the committee would be in perfect 
 harmony with the theory. Of all the witnesses summoned there was only one- 
 who could have the smallest sympathy with the people whose liberty was^ 
 about to be immolated. I therefore stood all along alone. My testimony 
 was exceptional throughout, and I differed on vital points with all the other 
 witnesses. I deprecated coercion throughout ; they all clamoured for it — all 
 except Mr. !Mooney and another ; the latter, speaking from experience, pre- 
 ferred jury-packing. Yet nothing could be more natural than this essential 
 divergence between us, for, with the exception of Sir Ralph Cusack, who gave 
 his evidence with singular moderation and respect for our rights, they were 
 all in the employment and pay of the Crown, or the avowed enemies of the 
 people. Even if I had not positive certainty that the evidence given by them 
 was substantially unsound, I should, for this reason alone, always maintain 
 that on the question at issue it was not trustworthy or reliable. These wit- 
 nesses were marvellously unanimous in proving the existence of a widespread, 
 well-organised, and thoroughly-disciplined Ribbon confederacy, with recog- 
 nised leaders, and with a code of laws, bound to each other by the sanction of a 
 most awful oath,holdingtheir meetings and maturing theirplansin impenetrable 
 secrecy, and spreading terror and dismay among her Majesty's peaceful and loyal 
 subjects. And yet not a single witness examined could give direct testimony 
 to the existence of this formidable confederacy that so alarmed them. They 
 argued : you felt yourself confronted with this wicked conspiracy everywhere. 
 And yet it was everywhere shrouded in darkness ; its power was everywhere 
 acknowledged ; its authority everywhere obeyed ; its vengeance everywhere 
 dreaded ; yet it was itself something invisible and impalpable. Its members 
 were banded together under a fearful oath, and yet (if we except a piece of 
 dirty paper found in the tap-room of a pubHc-house) no one ever saw that 
 oath. Of course, that oath must, in their theory, have been administered to 
 thousands 5 yet no one was ever found to testify that it had been administered 
 to anyone. Hundreds of the most degraded, the most needy, and most un- 
 principled of men must have been enrolled in the ranks of this confederacy ; 
 yet no reward, no amount of money, ever induced any of them to turn ap- 
 prover, even to the length, I will not say of bringing them to justice, but of 
 giving a rational account of any of their proceedings. 
 
 To convince the committee, therefore, of the veritable existence of this 
 confederation, your witnesses had to rely entirely on inferential or circum- 
 stantial evidence. The disturbed state of the county, they argued, the terror 
 and dismay of peaceful men, the special character of the outrages perpetrated 
 and the murders committed— all pointed evidently to the existence of a fear- 
 ful Ribbon conspiracy, and could not be satisfactorily explained on any other 
 hypothesis. I have read through the evidence taken before the committee 
 
Appendix. z^^t^ 
 
 quite recently, and I cannot find there a single remark worthy of notice that 
 is not substantially reducible to this argument. Unfortunately for us, this 
 argument convinced the committee, and Parliament proceeded at once to the 
 enactment of that precipitate, passionate, and penal legislation, whose galling 
 and exceptional severity you yourself, sir, in your scathing philippics against 
 Mr. Gladstone's Government, have so eloquently proclaimed. It was in vain 
 tiiat Mr. Seed, a Crown Solicitor, with an experience of more than forty 
 yearsof our county— and with sympathies so avowedly hostile to us that his 
 testimony was beyond all question— assured your committee that the out- 
 rages on which your witnesses relied were far less numerous and less criminal 
 than those of former times, when no one thought of coercion. It was in vain 
 that the Catholic clergy of Meath and Westmeath and King's County indig- 
 nantly repudiated and denied, through me (as I conveyed to the committee), 
 the existence of that Ribbon confederacy as afoul calumny, both injurious and 
 unfounded. It was in vain that they referred the five murders, on which your 
 witnesses principally relied, not to the operation of a Ribbon society, but to 
 what everyone now knows to have been their true cause — the acts of per- 
 sonal, private revenge, the murderers being, in each case, isolated individuals, 
 carrying out their designs with a secrecy and skill that precluded the possi- 
 bility of detection. Parliament, after holding us up to the execration of all 
 honest men in the empire as assassins or the abettors of assassins, as a commu- 
 nity of miscreants, devoid of honour and humanity and religion, proceeded 
 straightway with that penal legislation which strangled our liberty, despoiled 
 us of our property by fines and penalties wantonly enacted, and then con- 
 demned us — robbed of reputation and of honour — to a degrading slavery. If 
 Mr. Rochfort-Boyd correctly interpreted the wishes of the party which he is 
 commonly supposed to represent, they would have felt satisfied, in 1871, with 
 our enslavement for tv:o years ! They have now enjoyed the gratification of 
 witnessing our slavery for nearly four years ! Yet the same fierce instinct 
 which then influenced them — instead of being appeased — now clamours to 
 perpetuate our degradation indefinitely. And now, sir, it is time to inform 
 you that her Majesty's subjects in this part of the empire have been arraigned 
 again, and again put, for a second time, upon their trial. The magistrates 
 of Meath, Westmeath, and King's County constitute the tribunal before 
 which we now stand, with fear and trembling. 
 
 Your committee in 1871 was composed of distinguished, experienced, and 
 lionourable men— commissioned by the highest authority in the empire — who 
 published their inquiries, and the result of their inquiries, fearlessly to the 
 world. The magistrates, before whom we now stand accused, needed no 
 commission from higher authority, and asked none. They authorised and 
 commissioned themselves ; they set themselves up to judge and arljudicate on 
 our liberties, and— for aught we know— on our properties and very lives. We 
 
 37* 
 
564 Appendix, 
 
 objected to the credibility of the witnesses produced before your committee, 
 on the ground that, notwithstanding the high personal character of some of 
 them, all seemed profoundly and manifestly prejudiced against us. But it is 
 the suhlime prerogative of the tribunal before which we are now arraigned to 
 require no witnesses ; to dispense with tlie vulgar requirements of all other 
 tribunals, and that the magistrates themselves should discharge at once the 
 {wwciions 0^ Judge, Jury, Witnesses, Accusers. The presence or absence of 
 the accused is quite immaterial in the fndings of this tribunal. Men mav be 
 impeached and condemned here, not only without a hearing, but without a sus- 
 picion that any action has been taken againstthem. Your committee summoned, 
 at least, one witness whose sympathies were notoriously on the side of the 
 accused ; and though you declined to follow my advice or carry out mv pro- 
 posals, you listened to them with respect and attention. But I was not sum- 
 moned by the tribunal of the Westmeath magistracy. I did not apply to be 
 admitted— for I felt sure that I should not be admitted — to give my people, 
 in defending them, the benefit of the experience acquired before you. Now, 
 sir, I do not intend to say one word disparaging to the private character of 
 any magistrate in these three counties. Speaking from personal knowledge, 
 I affirm that some of them, with whom I am acquainted, are as honourable, 
 as just, and as kind-hearted as any men living ; and having said this I will 
 not even insinuate what I think of others. But, speaking of their public acts, 
 what right had these magistrates to gather themselves together thus into 
 secret conclave ; to erect themselves into a Star-chamber tribunal ; to sit in 
 judgment on us, and listen to the defamatory declamation of stipendiary ma- 
 gistrates, accusing us, behind our backs, of crimes of which we had not the 
 slightest knowledge or warning ? "What right had they to impeach us in 
 our absence ; to deny to us the privilege of defending ourselves ; to condemn 
 us in the dark, without judge or jury, and then pass us on to Parliament for 
 punishment ? These magistrates, therefore, with their secret tribunals — with 
 their neglect of the essential forms of justice ; with their refusal to the accused 
 of the right to be heard ; with their cruel and unjust findings against innocent, 
 honest men ; but, above all, with their deep-laid schemes and organised con- 
 spiracy against the liberty and constitutional rights of a large number of her 
 Majesty's subjects— are certainly the nearest approach that I can find to the 
 description that they themselves give of that pestiferous confederacy that 
 spreads dismay among the peaceable inhabitants of these counties. And such 
 is the impenetrable secrecy in which this Star-chamber tribunal held its deli- 
 berations, that it Is only by the merest accident that we have recently dis- 
 covered our accusers or our crimes. ^Ir. Marlay, of Belvidere, in an excess 
 of Zealand loyalty to his party, has, unintentionally, I suppose, revealed both 
 to us. Mr. Marlay assures us that the magistrates in other counties as well 
 as those in Westmeath were unanimously of opinion that the great Ribbon 
 
Appendix. ^65 
 
 c-oiifederacy ofl871 existed still in full force and vigour, ready to hurst forth 
 as soon as the checks that held it in restraint were removed ; and, conse- 
 (juently, that the same reasons that rendered the imposition of coercive leo-is- 
 lation necessary in 1871 render a continuance of the same legislation neces- 
 sary now. 
 
 Magistrates very often support their opinions by very loose and illoo-ical 
 arguments; but the magistrates of Westmeath did not leave themselves open 
 to that imputation — for they advance no argument at all. The statement 
 they make plainly contradicts itself. In 1871 the disturbed state of the 
 county, the character of the outrages and of the murders that had been com- 
 mitted, proved unanswerably the existenceof a formidable Ribbon conspiracy, 
 and could not possibly be accounted for on any other hypothesis. And nou\ 
 the absence of all crime, the cessation of every form of outrage, the profound 
 peace and universal respect for law and order, prove exactly the same thing— 
 the existence of this same confederacy! In 1871 we were murderers and 
 rebels because we were Ribbonmen ; and now we are peaceable and loyal 
 subjects for precisely the same reason ! In 1871 we were blamed and 
 punished for our criminal acts, and now we are reproached and upraided — ■ 
 and the Legislature is called on to punish us — for our criminal intentions ! 
 Our criminal intentions render us as culpable as our criminal acts, and merit 
 for us exactly the same amount of punishment. Thus the magistrates of 
 Westmeath have the glory of having invented and of having added a new 
 species of crime to the criminal jurisprudence of mankind. They have arro- 
 gated to themselves a right which no human tribunal ever claimed before, 
 because it is one of the exclusive prerogatives of the Deity. Human tribunals 
 take cognisance of, judge, and punish criminal free acts; God alone judges 
 and punishes ^JMreZy criminal intentions. That this pestiferous principle was 
 a recognised maxim of Westmeath magisterial juiisprudence is proved by a 
 resolution unanimously adopted at a meeting of magistrates held at Mullingar 
 in the year 18G9, and which Mr. Rochfort-Boyd informs us was the largest 
 meeting of magistrates ever held in Westmeath. This meeting was convened, 
 of course, for purely coercive purposes ; for when did the magistrates of these 
 counties ever meet for any other object? After calling on the executive for 
 the extension and aggravation of the penal enactments then existing ; after 
 demanding the suspension of the Habeas Corpus ; after requiring that the 
 magistrates and police should have the right to pay domiciliary visits, make 
 arbitrary arrests, and establish a detective force in the several districts of 
 tiie county— the Westmeath magistrates coolly wind up by demanding that a 
 liberal grant of the public money be made for the purpose of establishing and 
 subsidising a band of Informers who will hunt up such information as will 
 enable them to detect and bring to justice the perpetrators of intended as well 
 Jis of actual crime ! Here are the very words of the resolution : — 
 
^66 Appendix. 
 
 " That a detective force for the several districts be organised ; and, further, 
 that the resident magistrates should be entrusted with funds for the purpose 
 of acquiring information of intended as well as perpetrated crimes." 
 
 An intended crime is simply a future free act, and a future free act is 
 simply nothing at all, and suggest even nothing reprehensible, except a 
 purely criminal intention. Just fancy a gang of informers let loose among a 
 people with express instructions to hunt up and bring to justice all those 
 wiiom they might suspect of harbouring criminal intentions! Verily^ the 
 justice which the Westmeath magistrates would dispense Is precisely the 
 justice meted out at the fountain by the wolf to the lamb. " How dare you, 
 suTiih, muddy my drink?" "That is impossible, sir," meekly replied the 
 lamb ; " for the stream flows down from j-ou to me." *' Well, If you did not 
 muddy the stream," quoth the wolf, "you Intended to do so, and that makes 
 you just as culpable." " Whj^ do you murder her IMajesty's subjects and 
 disturb the peace and order of her Majesty's shires?" " Why, gentlemen," 
 we reply, "that is impossible, as no murder has been committed anywhere, 
 and everywhere a scrupulous observance of law and order prevails." " Well, 
 if you do not do so, you intend to do so, and that makes you just as culpable." 
 Need I add that the people as well as the lamb go to the wall In the sequel. 
 The local magistrates, having no reason of their own, rely entirely on the 
 reconmiendation of the resident magistrates; as far as one can glean from 
 Mr. Marlay's letter, that is the only rational ground they allege for tlie coer- 
 cive legislation they recommend. The whole question, then, hinges on the 
 weight and importance that a rational, experienced man would attach to the 
 authority of these functionaries. A resident magistrate — as far as our ex- 
 perience enables us to judge in this locality — is, as a rule, a gentleman by 
 birth and education ; and I may add, too, a gentleman in his habits, his man- 
 ners, and his style of living. He does not forfeit his rank by accepting this 
 situation ; he is recognised as a gentleman, and enjoys the privilege of associ- 
 ating with gentlemen everywhere. Tlie power annexed to his office secures 
 to himself personally the influence and respect that always attach to autho- 
 rity, whilst the liberal salary he draws enables hitn to provide the luxuries 
 and comforts enjoyed by the highest and most respectable. As long as you 
 keep him to the routine of his ordinary, recognised duties, he may be — and I 
 am happy to testify that resident magistrates, as a rule, are — honourable , 
 just, and conscientious; I may add, too, reasonable and kindly-hearted. 
 But, if you take him out of the natural sphere of his usefulness, and put him 
 in the face of a hotly-contested political question, in which the Governmen t 
 has taken a side, and has interests involved ; or one in which a local magi s- 
 tracy, having much influence with the Government, think themselves seriously 
 compromised — to expect, in these circumstances, that a resident magistrate, 
 through a romantic affection for abstract justice, would express dissent , is 
 
Appendix. 567 
 
 tantamount to expecting him to commit suicide. He would soon feel the 
 penalty of his rashness in the loss of his situation ; and that would imply 
 the loss of position and influence, and sometimes, perhaps, involve the ruin 
 of his family besides. It was, therefore, not only inconsiderate, but exces- 
 sively unkind, to invite the resident magistrates to take part in a controversy 
 to which their authority could add no weight, and in which they could hardly 
 avoid compromising themselves ; still worse, to shift on them the entire 
 odium and responsibility of a resolution demanding the continued sus- 
 pension of the constitutional rights of a large community. This hardship 
 was largely aggravated by the fact that, as we learn from ^Ir. Rochfort-Boyd 
 {Question 1,527), local magistrates have hitherto "denied the right of the 
 stipendiary magistrates to attend any meetings of this sort." 
 
 But, painful and humiliating as is the position in which Mr. Marlay'.s 
 letter has placed the resident magistrates, they can hardly expect much sym- 
 j)athy from us. They have, without provocation, arraigned us before a tribu- 
 nal composed of the hereditary and, in some cases, the avowed enemies of our 
 civil rights. They have accused us there of grave crimes of which they 
 lijive not given us the slightest intimation or warning. They have accused 
 us in our absence, where we could not be heard, and where we could not 
 possibly defend ourselves. They have put into the hands of our enemies the 
 only tangible arguments on the strength of which they could have the hardi- 
 hood to ask for a continuation of our bondage. Grave charges, such as 
 these — charges vitally affecting the dearest interests of a whole community — 
 ought never to be alleged, even if they were clearly true, except with pain 
 and reluctance, and always under the pressure of an overwhelming sense of 
 responsibility. But when these charges are doubtful, or cannot be clearly 
 ■established — nay, when they are positively untrue as well as unjust — then the 
 responsibility of those who make them is great indeed. Now, it is my painful 
 <luty to attest that these allegations are utterly untrue. The Catholic clergy 
 of Westmeath, after most careful inquiry and patient consultation with each 
 other, have certified to the world, in a resolution published in the Freeman^ 
 that not a single trace of any Ribbon confederacy exists now, or has existed 
 for years, in any part of the county. The statement, therefore, in which the 
 resident magistrates affirmed the existence of such a confederacy, though made, 
 no doubt, in good faith, did grievous injustice and wrong to the people of 
 Westmeath. 
 
 And now, sir, this letter has become so unexpectedly long, that I promise 
 to close it very briefly. The evidence taken before your committee was so 
 ■conflicting on so many vital points, that it is (juite refreshing, on reading it 
 through, to find all your witnesses unanimous on the existence of one im- 
 portant fact, and to that fact all testified unhesitatingly— namely, that the 
 vast majority of the people of these counties were peaceable, loyal, and in- 
 
568 Appendix. 
 
 dustrious; and that the miscreants who were the real responsible contrivers 
 of the outrages that disgraced us were a mere handful, not numbering more 
 than a dozen. The committee itself adopted that view in its " report," when 
 it describes these men as "a few individuals who may be looked upon as the 
 heads of the society, and are alleged to be known as such to the local authori- 
 ties." Further, all the witnesses unanimously certified that these few leaders- 
 were notorious to the magistrates, to the police, in fact to everyone in the 
 district. Some of the witnesses strongly impressed on the committee that the 
 arrest and imprisonment of these men was the only means of restoring peace 
 and tran(juillity. It was argued, and with much force, that the people them- 
 selves would cheerfully consent to their own enslavement, and to the tempo- 
 rary suspension of their constitutional liberties, for the purpose of being 
 relieved from the alarm and terror with whicli these few ruffians inspired 
 them. The temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was recom- 
 mended, and only as a lesser evil. Ko coercive witness ventured to suggest 
 the perpetual suspension of this Act ; and Mr. Rochfort-Boyd (Quest. 1,549) 
 declared that such a demand would be " repugnant to any man's ideas and 
 feelings." These, sir, are the only intelligible grounds on which the Legis- 
 lature could have enacted the penal legislation passed four years ago, and of 
 which the magistrates of these counties now demand the indefinite prolonga- 
 tion. Immediately after the passing of this Act, several of these leaders 
 Avere arrested and cast into prison. Now, sir, if a brigand or a highwayman 
 whose excesses and outrages had filled an entire community with mortal fear, 
 had at length, at an immense cost and sacrifice to that community, been 
 captured and conveyed to prison, what would be thought of a man bearing 
 her Majesty's commission of the peace, who would sympathise with that ruf- 
 fian, mature such plans, and take such steps as eventually succeeded in get- 
 ting him free ? Now, sir, that is exactly our case against a section of the 
 very magistracy that are now clamouring for a continuation of our bondage. 
 Among the " leaders " thus imprisoned there were two — primi inter primos — 
 who were believed by every witness examined to have been the fons et oritjio- 
 of at least all the principal outrages perpetrated in one entire county. What 
 has been the history of these men since their arrest? That after having en- 
 dured a short and tender imprisonment, they have been set free, and are now 
 at large and in the very midst of us. Tlie fact cannot be denied — I have it 
 on high authority — that gentlemen holding her Majesty's commission of the 
 peace, signed a memorial and presented it to the Executive, petitioning for 
 the release of these " notorious leaders,'' and the Executive; in compliance, 
 I presume, with the prayer of the memorial, as a matter of fact set then> 
 free. 
 
 Now, sir, let me repeat what I said before — that we know of no Kibboii- 
 ism in these counties, save that which seems to be thus fostered and encou- 
 
Appendix. 569 
 
 raged, and, I suppose, subsidised by a section of cux- magistracy. Perhaps- 
 you may remember the indignant incredulity with which this statement was 
 met when I first made it, in that now famous pastoral of 1871, and in support 
 of which I appealed to fiicts in my examination. I stated in that pastoral 
 what I now repeat — that the Ribbonism I then denounced — 
 
 " Was got up by hired traitors for the sole purpose of enabling extermi- 
 nating landlords to carry their projected clearances through with increased 
 security and confidence. It is a matter of notoriety that two of the most cruel 
 and extensive exterminators in this diocese had been Centres of Ribbonism 
 in their respective districts, whilst carrying their inhuman clearances through. 
 I have before me what I cannot but regard as solid grounds for believing that 
 the relations still subsisting between exterminating landlordism and Ribbon- 
 ism are the very reverse of unfriendly. . , . We fear that before many 
 days we shall witness those secret societies co-operating with a weak and 
 pusillanimous Executive in handing over the people to the tender mercies of 
 a party that was never yet known to exercise absolute power with modera- 
 tion, or with a due sense of the responsibility accompanying it." 
 
 These, sir, were my deliberate opinions then, and they have since ripened, 
 by observation and reflection, into mature firm convictions. And 1 confess, 
 in looking back at the events of the last five years, I feel astonished how tin; 
 Legislature could have been led into the enactment of harsh and exceptional 
 laws against honest, loyal men, at the cry of a party, amongst whom were to 
 be found the very men who, above all others, countenanced and encouraged 
 the outrages which all good men deplore. And now, sir, let me add one 
 word about Mr. Marlay, who moved the resolution adopted by the ma- 
 gistrates of Westmeath, and to which we have taken such serious objections. 
 Mr. Marlay's character as a landlord stands very high with the people of this 
 neighbourhood ; and, therefore, they regretted bitterly that he should have 
 lent his influence and his name to a movement so unfair in itself and so hostile 
 to them. But, let me assure him that, though he saddened them much, they 
 are not angry with him, for they^believethat though he did them this grievous 
 injury, be did it in good faith ; and that the moment he discovers his error^ 
 he will promptly make ample and suitable reparation. 
 
 I have the honour to be, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JU Thomas Nulty. 
 
 Mullingar, February 18th, 1875, 
 
570 Appendix. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 The following note, wMch has been communicated to us by 
 a literary friend, will be of interest : — 
 
 " The first time I saw Mr. O'Connell was in Dublin, in 1822, after my 
 return from London, at which time I was introduced to him by Charles 
 O'Connor, Esq., of Merrion-square. Mr. O'Connell was then working hard 
 for Catholic Emancipation. I remarked to him that I thought he never 
 could bring it about ; his reply was — ' No matter ; we will persevere, and no 
 doubt but we shall one day or other carry it.' His determined manner and 
 appearance struck me forcibly, and I could not help thinking that it was a 
 pity he was not brought up as a military man, for he would have made an able 
 general-officer. His zeal for his country, and his exertions in favor of civil 
 and religious liberty, will hand his name down to posterity ; while his private 
 character, which is so exemplary as a husband, a father, and a friend, endear 
 him to the recollection of all who have the pleasure of being acquainted with 
 him in his domestic circle." — The Veteran; or Forty Years' Service in the 
 British Service. By Caiitain John Harley, late Paymaster, ^7th Reyt. Lon- 
 don : 1838. Chap, v., voL ii., 148. 
 
 END OF VOL. II. 
 
Htnmim ISxtWuatbns. 
 
 APPKOBATIO^^ OF THE EIGHT REV. DR. MORIARTY. 
 
 " The Palace, Killauney, June 20, 1875. 
 
 " My dear Sister in Christ — I learn tliat you are issuing some new works, 
 and some new editions of those already published; your literary labours reflect honour 
 on your Convent, on your Order, and on this Dioc>?se. 
 
 " But I rejoice much more in this, that you are contributing to supply one of our 
 greatest needs — a Catholic Literature. I know, too, that the funds realised by the sale 
 of your works are exclusively devoted to the service of religion. 
 
 " Praying God to bless you, and to preserve your health and strength, 
 " Yours sincerely in Christ, 
 
 " .J, D. MORIAKTY. 
 
 " To Sister M. Francis Clare (Cusack), 
 
 " Convent of Poor Clare.^, Kenmare, Co. Kirnj.'"'' 
 
HISTORICAI. -WORKS. 
 
 THE LIBERATOR. HIS LIFE AND TIMES: POLI- 
 TICAL, SOCIAL, AND RELIGIOUS. New Library Edition, Seventh Thou- 
 sand. Two Vols., 12s. eacli VoL 
 
 Tlie illustrations in this work are executed in the very highest style of art, and 
 conijirise portraits, engraved expressly for this work, which manifests throughout Miss- 
 Cusack's extensive research, biograpliie skill, and literary talent. By the way, the 
 frontispiece, ' O'Connell's Last Look at the Irish Shore,'— a mere sketch— would form 
 a tine subject for an Irish historical picture. 
 
 " The finest work of a vigorous mind, a loving heart, an enthusiastic soul, and a 
 genius matured and mellowed by exercise and training." — Cork Exatniner. 
 
 '* The style of printing and illustration is really superb. We understand that an 
 intense rivalry exists at the other side of the Atlantic to get the advance sheets." — 
 Freeman' s Journal. 
 
 " We can truly bear testimony to the ability of the author, the admirably well- 
 conceived plan with which she treats her subject, and the artistic brilliancy of the typo- 
 g niphical part of the work." — Dublin Evening Post. 
 
 " The writer is en gaged in a work which will rival those of her religious prede- 
 cessors who, also under the shadow of the cloister, gave to the country those 
 chrcnitles by the light of which we can still live in the past." — Catholic Times 
 (Liverpool). 
 
 THE LIFE OF ST. PATRICK, APOSTLE OF IRELAND, 
 
 Seventh Thousand, Magnificently Illustrated, with a Translation of the Ancieiii 
 Irish Tripartite Life of the Saint, from a MS. over a thousand years old. Large 
 4to, 660 pp., 35 magnificent illustrations, cloth, richly gilt, 30s. 
 
 " To our Beloved Daughter in Christ, Mary Francis Clare, of the Sisters of St.. 
 
 Clare, Ken mare. 
 
 "Beloved Daughter in Christ, Health and Apostolic Benediction. We congratulate 
 you, belived daughter in Christ, on having completed a long and diflicult work, which 
 getmed to be above w ('man's strength, with a success that has justly earned the applause 
 of the pious and the learned. We rejoice, not only because you have promoted by tiiis 
 learned and eloquent volume the glory of the illustrious Apostle of Ireland, St. Patrick, 
 but also because you have deserved well of the whole Church ; for, in recording the 
 actions of to great a man, you have placed before the eyes of the world the benefits- 
 received tlirough the Catholic religion so clearly, that they can no longer l)e 
 questioned." — Eatractfrom the Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pius IX. approving 
 this work. 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 " Well may the Bishop of Kerry— himself a scholar of the highest order— fake pride 
 in the successful efforts of tlie Nun of^Kenmare, and when giving his episcopal approba- 
 tion to her works, say : ' Your literary labours reflect honour on your Convent, on your 
 Order, and on this Diocese.' "—Cork Examiner. 
 
 Pope Piirs anb the Pooe Clares. 
 
 *' In the midst of his troubles Pope Pius has found time to send an Apostolic letter 
 to our countrywoman, Miss Cusack, known in religion as Sister Mary Francis Clare, 
 Author of the ' Life of St. Patrick.' ... He compliments her on having 
 completed ' a long and difficult work, which seemed to be above woman's strength, 
 with a success that has justly earned the applause of the pious and the learned.' 
 We believe this is the first time the Holy See has congratulated a woman on the 
 success of her literary labours. And the compliment was never more deserved. . . , 
 His Holiness does not forget the ' Island of Saints,' which now so keenly sympathises 
 with his sufferings. The letter is a charming summary of the benefits conferred on 
 Ireland by the Apostle, and a tribute to the learning and sanctity of his successors, 
 ^yho, in the sixth and seventh centuries, as Apostles and Missionaries, illumined 
 the darkness of Pagan Europe with the light of Divine truth. The Poor Claras, 
 in their seclusion in Kerry, must be delighted at this testimony to the genius and 
 services of one of their community. The rarity of the tribute vastly enhances its 
 value."' — Freeman's Journal. 
 
 " It is wortiiy of note, as not a ver^' frequent occurrence in the literature of the 
 nineteenth century, that a religious lady, a nun in the * sister island,' has been 
 turning her time to such good account of late j'ears that she has produced quite a 
 crop of literature, and that of no mean order, including, besides a host of lesser works, a 
 ' History of Ireland,' and a ' Life of St. Patrick,' both in quarto, the one containing 
 six hundred, and the other a thousand pages. Miss Cusack is Hibernian — Irish of the 
 Irish — and her name is well known in her native country, and especially in Dublin, 
 as a painstaking, accurate, and able writer ; and we are glad to learn that she 
 has made the name of the community of Sisters at Kenmare a ' household word ' 
 tlirough the length and breadth of Ireland. She has devoted herself heart and soul 
 to works of charity and mercy, and she has been able to combine with those works 
 a devotion to the Muse of history and of facts, which we do not often see realised 
 except in such persons as Miss Strictland, Mrs. Everett Green, and Mrs. Cowden 
 Clarke. Miss Cusack is not overstating her case when she claims for herself the 
 credit of having written the first life of the great ' Apostle of Ireland,' which has 
 ' given full details of his acts and missionary labours,' as it is certainly the first 
 in which a real practical use has been made of the materials at hand." — Illtistratcd 
 Review (London); 
 
 " As a literary work it can scarcely be lauded too highly. Every source of infor- 
 mation has been thoroughly exhausted and collated, so that iu the line of research 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 it is complete. The theological views and reflections, which are occasionally called 
 forth by the subject, are so lucidly stated as to be clear to every intelligence, while at 
 tlie same time rendered highly interesting by a fascinating style." — The Marning Star 
 (New Orleans, United States). 
 
 " It is this Life, never before fully written for modern readers, that Miss Cusack, 
 the nun whose fame as an authoress now stands almost too high for encomium, has 
 undertaken to recount. The execution has been a wonderful success. For all that a 
 graceful and flowing pen could do in giving expression to the results of unwearied 
 diligence we were prepared, but we own we were astonished at the extent of this lady's 
 scholarship." — Irish Times. 
 
 " Next after the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolical writings of the Fathers of the 
 Church, no productions of Christian authors are of greater importance and value than 
 the writings of the Saints. They have served to stir up the faithful to deeds of deep 
 devotion and Christian heroism, and to plant the seeds of virtue and grace in many a 
 fruitful soil. Whenever, therefore, a fresh attempt is made to describe and illustrate 
 the life of one of the sanctified servants of God, we rejoice, if the work be well done and 
 calculated to profit the immortal souls of those who may read it. 
 
 " The volume before us is very handsomely got up and illustrated, and consists 
 of no less than G.56 pages, and is in many respects a very important publication. In 
 some respects it is an indirect reply to a recent treatise of the late Eev. Dr. J. H. Todd, 
 who discussed at great length the subjects collaterally connected with St. Patrick. In 
 other respects, its author has avoided controversy, trusting most wisely to a plain 
 statement of undoubted facts for the results produced and the aim gained. The 
 ' Preface,' occupies exactly twelve pages, and contains a terse and lucid defence of the 
 principle on which the book has been written, incidentally referring to the archaeological 
 discoveries of Mr. W. Hennessey, the Eev. J. O'Laverty, and others, which have 
 notoriously thrown so much light on Irish Ecclesiastical antiquities. Most touchingly 
 and beautifully is every detail in his important life dealt with in this volume. It is 
 thoroughly Christian from beginning to end. It aims to be a standard work on the 
 subject, and those aims are justly and deservedly satisfied. Learning, investigation, 
 patience, careful criticism, and hearty devotion have all combined to render this book 
 full of value. The style is pleasing, the information sound, and the conclusions solid 
 and just." — 77/e Church Herald (London)., 
 
 THE ILLUSTEATED HISTOEY OF' lEELAND. 
 
 Tenth Thousand, demy 8vo., 700 pages, IO5. cloth ; gilt, 12*. 
 
 " We have already introduced Miss Cusack, in a late number, to our readers as 
 
 eminently the literary nun of the age; and we told them that her cell in the convent 
 
 of Poor Clares, at Kenmare, is no place of indolent repose, hut a genuine place of 
 
 study, a literary workshop of no common merit, as proved by her 'Life of St. Patrick.* 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 To-day we have to bring before tbeir notice the same lady, not as a biographer, but as 
 an historian. We do not, of course, agree with her views ; but we can desire to see 
 them fairly and fully stated, and can pardon a woman, and an Irishwoman, for giving 
 expression to them in elegant and feeling terms. "We may not agree with her politics, 
 but we recognise in the Nun of Kenmare a writer of no mean order upon political 
 questions, so far as they affect her country, her people, and her reWgion."— Illustrated 
 Review (London), 
 
 THE STUDENTS' MANUAL OF lEISH HISTORY, 6s. 
 
 " Miss Cusack has demonstrated that she possesses the higheft capacity for works of 
 this kind." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 "Much of the nonsense which has been spoken and written regarding Ireland for 
 tlie last two years has arisen from ignorance of Irish history. Miss Cusack's volimie 
 will help to remove this." — Examiner. 
 
 " Miss Cusack's work will repay a perusal." — Evening Standard. 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF CORK. 
 
 Demy, 8vo., magnificently illustrated. 
 
 Some of the first topographical, antiquarian, and philological writers of the day have 
 assisted in this undertaking, and the Eev. Maxwell Close, a member of the Royal Irish 
 Academy, has most generously furnished a geological map of the county at his own 
 expense, and has added a valuable chapter on the Geology of the county. A chapter 
 on the Fauna has been written by Dr. Harvey, the well known and respected late 
 President of the Cuvierian Society. Mr. Isaac Carroll has contributed to the Flora ; 
 and Sir Ralph Cusack has added a list of High Sheriffs from archives in the Dublin 
 Record Office. A number of other gentlemen have contributed unpublished documents, 
 making the work of more general interest than a county history. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 From the Cork Examiner. 
 
 " It is impossible for a thoughtful person to see, wherever he passes, the testimonies 
 to a former existence so full of life and activity and variety without wishing forsome 
 more accurate information of the men and women who watched and fought and praj-ed, 
 who lived their lives, and spent their passions, and carried out their loves and hatreds 
 in these vehement times. It is the object of this book to afford the necessary informa- 
 tion for this purpose — it is designed to re- people the remote past, to set the fighting 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 ■shepherd again upon his rath, to place the mailed warrior once more behind tlie loop- 
 hole of his tower ; to furnish a picture of the monk, and to give an echo of the hymn of 
 praise which went up from Kilcrea and Timoleague, from Benedictine and Franciscan, 
 from pious men and hoi}' women. Such a task, it is needless to say, is one of great dif- 
 ficulty. It involves long and patient research, most diverse and often very profound 
 study. The mere amassing of materials, however, is only a part, and that the subordi- 
 nate part of the task. It is onl}' the quarrying of the stones which the builder has to 
 fashion. The capacity of the historian has to be exhibited in causing order to reign 
 llirougli the chaos, in so arranging the stuff in the loom that a distinct pattern shall run 
 through it, in so ordering the telling of events and people that the story sliall read as a 
 tolerably continuous narrative without break or trj'ing back or confusion. This task 
 flieNun of Kenmare has accomplished with characteristic ability, producing a iiistory 
 tliat must be read with deep interest as well for the vivacity of its story as the importance 
 of the events and circumstances with which it deals. 
 
 " The history is traced back to the earliest or pre-Christian period, and the author, 
 without placing excessive reliance on the legendary portion, still gives so much of it, 
 imder due reserve, as may be considered worthy of a certain amount of credence. As 
 there is little doubt that Ireland was first peopled in Munster, the history of Cork natu- 
 rally involves something of the early history of the whole island ; and we are therefore 
 furnished by the author with a striking picture of the manners and customs of the Irish 
 before the Conquest, not as the barbarians they were long represented to be, but, as is 
 shown abundantly by the discoveries of O'Curry, a people fully abreast of the European 
 civilisation of tlie day. This early history was honourablj' distinguished from that of 
 other nations at the same period by the number of men of sanctity who adorned its 
 annals and refined its morals b}' their example, and left to it, probabl}' as their blessing, 
 that traditionary attachment to the faith which has made Ireland deserve the glorious 
 title of the ' Martyr Isle.' Such a theme could hardly be uncongenial to such an 
 author, and we find naturally due prominence given to the ecclesiastical portion of our 
 history, from the foundation of the City of Cork, down to the latest exemplification of 
 bigotry under tlie penal laws. But no such prominence is given to this portion as to 
 absorb the secular historj'. We have, indeed, in these chronicles, an epitome of Irish 
 history at large. We have all its leading features set out. The quarrels of the septs, 
 the English invasion, Perkin Warbeck's insurrection, Henry the Eighth's introduction 
 of the royal Supremacy which is called the Reformation, the wars which took place 
 when Ireland was being pacified bj' Elizabeth's pirates, Cromwell's butclieries, the 
 struggles of the Irish Catholics under the silly and ungrateful Stuarts, the insurrection 
 of '98, and the political consequences whicli followed, are all told in stirring strain 
 uhich keeps the reader's attention absorbed, while it is so explicit as to its connection 
 with the general history of the country as to render the student of this book fairly 
 acquainted with the history of the whole." 
 
 "Much of the nonsense which has been spoken and written regarding Ireland for 
 the last two years has arisen from ignorance of Irish history. Miss Cusack's volume 
 will help to remove this, as well as for educational purposes." — London Examiner, 
 
 " Jliss Cusack's work will repay a perusal." — Evening Standard. 
 
r 7 ) 
 
 " A great many points in a small compass. The narnitivd, thoii^Ii comleineil, is 
 not reduced to dryness." — Daily News. 
 
 "Moderate, clear, and purposeful.'' — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "A very valuable book." — Catholic Opinion. 
 
 " The research, the care, the intelligence necessary to the production of sucii a work 
 as that before us are remarkable, and Miss Cusack has demonstrated that she possesses 
 the highest capacity for works of this kind. We are sure th;U amongst the many 
 student's histories now^ published, Miss Cusack's History of Ireland will deservedly 
 occupy a high place." — Ciiil Service Gazette. 
 
 "A very useful and desirable work." — Literary World. 
 
 " Tliis lady has contributed more than one book of note to our libraries, one of which, 
 a ' Life of St. Patrick,' we lately reviewed at length. The present volume is one 
 ■which will not lower her literary character. As a compilation it is terse and well con- 
 structed, and in that part of the history which deals with the actions of William of 
 Orange in Ireland, she is far more generous in her tone than could have been expected.' 
 — Church Times. 
 
 MISCEIiIiANEOUS -W^ORKS. 
 
 SPECIALLY SUITED FOR PRIZES AND LENDING LIBRARIES. 
 
 New Edition in preparation. 
 
 NED EUSHEEN : A TALE. Beautifully illustrated, and 
 
 handsomely bound. 6s. 
 
 " Told with great vigour. Almost as sensational as the best novel of the day." — 
 Westminster Gazette. 
 
 HOMEHURST RECTORY. Two volumes. Published 
 
 only in America. New York : D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 
 
 "The appearance of a work of fiction from this distinguished writer will be an 
 agreeable surprise to her numerous admirers in this country, who have read with so 
 much pleasure and profit her graver historical and biographical works. ' Honiehurst,' is 
 
 VOL. n. 38 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 an English tale illustrative of the movement in the ranks of the English Church towards 
 Catholicity, inaugurated some forty years ago by Dr. Newman and tiie Tractarians. 
 Tiie cliaracters throughout are well drawn. 
 
 " This work is from the pen of the novv world- renowned Nun of Kenmare. 
 
 " The versatility of this lady's literary talents is now fully proved ; she is as much 
 at home in writing fiction as in history and biography, and ' Homehurst Rectory,' is a 
 gf m of its class. 
 
 " She then paints in strong but delicately shaded colours the beauties of the one 
 true faith ; contrasting with the failure of the denominational systems its power to 
 alone touch the heart and satisfy the cravings of the soul, for those best and perfect 
 gifts ' coming down from the Father of lights' The pathos of the book is simple yet 
 most touching, while the humour, with which it is so finely blended, is always refined 
 and inoffensive, though the significant names of some of the characters would be more 
 appropriate to a satire than in a standard novel. It is decidedly ' a tale of the times,' 
 and it is perhaps not too much to say that it approaches nearer to the immortal 
 ' Comedy of Convocation ' than any work that has yet appeared." — Catholic Recard 
 (New York). 
 
 " We are gradually returning to the ancient order of things. The Chronicles and 
 other literary productions of our early Christian times were written by reflective men 
 who had made choice of the monastic state. There has since been no period during 
 which the manuscript room of monasteries has been unjccupied ; but in our times 
 religious women seem disposed not to let the men have the whole merit of such good 
 as can be wrought by the pen and the printing press ; and within a few years 
 there has issued a profusion of excellent works, large and small, from the Convent of 
 Poor Clares at Kenmare. Among these we may particularise the richly got-out 
 and illustrated ' History of St. Patrick,' the ' Illustrated History of Ireland,' and the 
 ' Illustrated History of Kerry.' For schools there are the ' Patriot's History of 
 Ireland,' and the 'School History of Ireland,' wiiich, with the cheap 'Life of St. 
 Patrick,' are admirably adapted for premiums, as well as most of the under -named. 
 These are presented in that interesting and attractive style and form so well calculated 
 to arrest attention, and excite and maintain pious feelings. These devotional works 
 are called ' Jesus and Jerusalem : or, The \Va_v Home,' ' Tlie Child's Month of May,' 
 I Visits to the Altar of Mary,' ' The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude,' ' The 
 Spouse of Christ, Her Privileges and Her Duties,' ' The Life of St. Joseph.' All, we 
 believe, are from the pen of the gifted authoress of the ' Life of St. Patrick,' Sister 
 Mary Francis Clare. 
 
 "Serious reflection on the mischief wrought in the minds and hearts of the young, 
 who have access to the unhealthy fictional literature of the day, has induced this lady 
 to issue some works of fiction also. These works were written by the special request of 
 a priest of the Society of Jesus." — Wexford Independent. 
 
 "Kenmare is now and for ever chiefly celebrated for its Convent of Poor Clares — 
 the peaceful home of the world-renowned Sister Mary Francis Clare. Who has not 
 heard of the ' Nun of Kenmare,' whose brilliant genius and prolific pen have thrown a 
 halo not only around Kerry, but around the name of Ireland? 
 
 "Truly has John Francis Maguire styled her the 'wonder of the present day, 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 while ia America a leading man of letters, though a Protestant himself, speaks of her 
 thus : ' She (M. F. Clare) would make all men fit for heaven and worthy of Ireland — 
 ever faithful to native land, and in pious preparation for the rest that remains for the 
 children of God.' 
 
 " There, away in her lonely convent home, among the wild ' Kerry Reeks,' she 
 toils for Faith and Fatherland with unflagging zeal and indomitable energy : sending 
 forth, with a rapidity unprecedented, the glorious fruits of her prolific pen. And such 
 works — only let us glance at the names of a few, ' The History of Ireland ' (the best 
 ever written according to John Mitchel, no mean judge), 'The History of Kerry,' 'The 
 History of Cork,' ' Life of St. Patrick,' &c. What patience, what profound research 
 and what wading through old musty records and black-lettered tomes, to compile 
 such stupendous works as those named above. And yet, amid all this labour, the 
 good nun can spare time to write for the columns of an American Journal (the 
 Boston Pilot) one of the .cleverest and best-sustained stories of Irish life written in 
 modern times." 
 
 Dublin : MoGla.shan & Gill, 50, Upper Sackville-street. 
 
%. 
 
 
 o 
 
 S-1 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
/ . 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 3 9031 01211234 8 
 
 500379 
 
 DA 
 950.22 
 
 V. 2 
 
 O^COMRIiL. 
 
 Bapst Library 
 
 Boston College 
 Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167