directly, still preserved them, though not in so palpable a manner, as a burden on the soil. The wisdom of the change from the intention originally announced, is obvious; and we rejoice at being able to render our humble meed of praise to the Government for this return to Conservative principles, even at the eleventh hour. But what shall we say to the rashness which dictated the previous promise of "extinction," and set the Catholic population everywhere on fire, at the prospect of a boon which Government never intended they should receive? Thence has arisen the universal, the unanimous detestation in which the present Administration is held in Ireland. The nation, for the last six months, has been everywhere convulsed by contests for the payment of tithes. Every other subject, how pressing soever, has been lost in the overwhelming interest of that one topic. The peasantry, originally roused by the promises of Government for the "extinction" of tithes, organised and headed by the favourite of Ministers, the great Agitator, find themselves assailed by the military, for doing what these recent allies, these highly rewarded supporters of Government, urged them to do. Blood has flowed profusely in many places; irritation has been widely spread in all, because the people persist in annexing to the word "extinction" its natural and established meaning. The consequences of this deception, of the frustration of these hopes, and the blasting of these expectations, have been dreadful in the extreme, and so Government and Parliament will find at the next election.

To complete the work of political infatuation, the Government next proceeded to pass for Ireland the Reform Bill a bill which at once swept away the incorporations which the wisdom of James I. had established as a barrier against Catholic invasion; and threw the elections of great part of the country at once into the hands of an infuriated Catholic rabble, acting under the dictation of ambitious and able leaders. Of all the delusions under

which party men ever laboured, this is perhaps the greatest. For Ireland, great part of whose people are still almost in a savage state, and all of them actuated by the strongest political passions, they proposed the same electoral institutions as for England. Into its inflammable,

ardent, and penniless population they poured the same fatal gift of political power which was hardly deemed safe amidst the old established freedom, sober habits, and extended property of England. One political constitution was carved out at a single heat for England, Scotland, and Ireland; in other words, one measure taken for a man of forty, a youth of eighteen, and a boy of twelve; for in these proportions, or nearly so, is the capacity of the different portions of the empire to bear political excitation, or duly exercise the political rights of electing citizens. The simple enunciation of this fact is sufficient to convict the Ministry of total ignorance of the first principles of representative governments. It is utterly impossible that the same political institutions can be adapted at the same time to two nations, one of which is in the infancy, and the other in the old age of its political education. If the £10 franchise and the abolition of the close boroughs is adapted for England, it cannot be suited for Ireland.

What would we say to a legislator who should propose the same political institutions for the Bedouin Arabs, the degraded Chinese, and the yeomanry of England? Could anything but anarchy and wretchedness be anticipated from so total a departure from the lessons of experience; so blind a forgetfulness of the difference between such different races and situations of mankind? Yet this is precisely what the Whigs have done. They have given the same sovereign powers to the impassioned Catholic cottar, guided by his priest, and execrating the Protestants, as to the sober English yeoman, inheriting from a long line of ancestors. attachment to his King and country. They have swept away the old bulwarks equally in Popish Ireland as Protestant England. There never was such infatuation. Supposing it to be all true what they have so long and so strenuously maintained, as to the degradation in which the Irish were kept by the Catholic code, that only makes their conduct the more inexcusable, in so suddenly investing them with irresistible sway. If it be true, that they have only ceased within these few years to be slaves, it was surely the height of madness to invest them at once, while still burning with servile passions, with the last and highest privileges

of freemen.

The consequences have already developed themselves, and they have struck with dismay the very authors of the Reform Bill. The Globe tells us that there are sixty-seven members supported by O'Connell, standing for the Irish cities and counties, and that a great majority of them will to all appearance be returned. be returned. Mr Shiel boasts that the Repealers are already forty strong, and daily receiving accessions of strength; a force quite sufficient, by throwing itself into the scale when nearly balanced, to drive any Government into their terms. The Ministerial papers are daily firing signal-guns of distress for the effects of their own healing measure. On their recent allies, the Radicals, they have opened with unexampled fierceness: for them, in gratitude for their past services, they have invented the epithet of "the Destructives," which Tory malignity never yet thought of; and on these their leading journal has lately opened those floodgates of slang and abuse, which a few months ago were bestowed exclusively on the Conservative party. It is Ireland which has produced this consternation in the Ministerial ranks. They were fully warned, a hundred times over, during the progress of the Reform Bill, that this consequence would infallibly result from sweeping away all the barriers of the constitution in Ireland; but to all these warnings they were utterly deaf; with obstinate resolution they forced through the whole dangerous clauses of the revolutionary measure, and they now confess that the empire in consequence is on the verge of dissolution.

So vacillating, contradictory, and yet obstinate, has been the conduct of Ministers in Ireland, that they have contrived to accomplish what would a priori have been deemed impossible viz. the union of Catholics and Orangemen in one common opinion. That common opinion is detestation. of them and their measures. The Protestants, with reason,

look upon them as the worst enemies Ireland ever saw; as the original authors of the fatal admission of Catholic influence into the House of Commons; as the patrons and rewarders of the greatest enemy to the peace of Ireland that time has ever produced. The Catholics regard them as men who have betrayed them into measures which they now punish them for pursuing; as having set the country

on fire by the promised extinction of tithes, which they are now supporting with the whole military force of the empire. In the universal obloquy which they have acquired, the supporters of the Union itself have rapidly and alarmingly decreased, and a portentous alliance of Catholics and Protestants has taken place, to support the severance of the island from British dominion.

O'Connell has treated the Government as all men deserve to be treated who, for party purposes and the maintenance of power, surrender the independence and spirit of freemenhe has turned upon them with indignation. Loaded with their honours, he has spurned them with contumely; rising from their caresses, he has turned from them with vituperation. The English newspapers have been for the most part afraid to print, even in these days of general license, the volley of abuse with which he has assailed those who lately loaded him with honours. The leading feature, says he, of Lord Anglesey's government, has been the immense quantity of blood which has been shed during its continuance; more lives have been lost in one year of Whig rule, than in fifteen of Tory domination.* The present Ministers deserve to be-No! we will not pollute our pages with the filthy abuse which the leader of the Irish bar out upon his loving benefactors. We have always opposed, and fearlessly opposed, the present Ministers; but we should deem ourselves disgraced if we applied to them the epithets which they have received from their revolutionary favourite.

pours

But the matter does not rest here. If their domestic dissensions led only to the exposure of the monstrous alliances which the present Ministry had formed to uphold their fortunes, they would be rather a subject of ridicule than lamentation. But unfortunately, graver and weightier consequences have followed in the train of this monstrous alliance. All Ireland is disgusted; the hatred at the Ministry is not only universal, but it has involved Great Britain in the obloquy. There can be no doubt, that the union of England and Ireland is more seriously endangered

This is exactly what the French say, with truth, of Louis Philippe's government as compared with the fifteen years of the Restoration. It is curious to observe how, in different countries, similar systems produce similar effects.

by the measures of the present Ministry, than by anything else that has ever occurred. O'Connell openly boasts of this. Hear his own words:

"Mr Shiel's conviction, as to the necessity of repeal, was produced by the conduct of the British Parliament; and the administration of Lord Anglesea, Stanley, and the Attorney-General showed that, without repeal, it was impossible to do any service to Ireland. (Hear, and cheers.) He was proud to think that the enemies of Ireland were no longer to be distinguished by their religion, but by their servility. (Hear, and cheers.) Orangemen, Methodists, Presbyterians, can now be ranged amongst the patriots of Ireland; and he was most proud to be able to state this fact, that the first person who tendered a vote to his son in Tralee, was the Methodist preacher of that town. (Cheers.) Amongst the Irish patriots were to be found men of every persuasion, while the vilest and most servile, the veriest lickspittle'-(it was an unpleasant word to use, and which he should not pronounce in a public assembly, if he could find one equally expressive of the class he was describing)-but that filthy word particularly applied to the Catholic portion of the herd of slaves who were the most bitter and malignant enemies of Ireland. (Hear, and cheers.)"

In these circumstances, the salvation of the empire hangs upon a thread. If the Irish members generally support the repeal of the Union, there is no concealing the fact, that, in the present distracted and divided state of parties in this country, they may soon be able to dictate it to any Administration.

One only resource remains to hold together the falling members of the empire. The great and noble Orange party of Ireland are still firm to their duty, and to the integrity of the British dominions. Calumniated, maltreated, injured as they have been by the liberal measures, both of the present and the preceding Cabinet, they are yet firm in their allegiance both to the British crown and the British legislature. But let us not throw away our last chance. This brave and patriotic body may be driven to desperation; a drop may make the cup overflow. They are assailed by a reckless and desperate Catholic faction, strong in numbers, able in guidance, reckless in intention; men whom no bloodshed or conflagration will intimidate, no public suffering deter; who will pursue the objects of their own ambition, careless though the ruins of the empire were to overwhelm them in the pursuit. This terrible body has been headed, patronised, and flattered by the Government of England during the whole struggle on the Reform Bill, and nothing but the triumph of that measure has cooled the

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