THE REPEAL AGITATION.

From Blackwood's Magazine.

ties, or difficult to bear. To hear an old man, a man whose own approach to the period of physical decay, is the one great No popularity does, or can exist which hope and consolation of all good subjects is not liable to collapses. Twofold infirm- in Ireland, scoffing at gray hairs in the ity, alike for him who judges, and for him Duke of Wellington-calling, and permitwho suffers judgment, will not allow it to ting his creatures to call, by the name of be otherwise. Sir Robert Peel, a minister" vagabonds" or "miscreants," the most more popular by his tenure of office than eminent leaders of a sister nation, who are any whom this generation will perhaps also the chosen servants of that mistress again behold, has not been able to escape that ordinary trial of human prosperity. Suddenly a great cloud of public danger has gathered around him : upon every path there were seen to lie secret snares: no wisdom could make an election amongst them absolutely safe: he made that election which comparison of the cases and private information seemed to warrant: and immediately, of his own supporters many are offended. We believe it to be a truth, one amongst those new truths whose aspiring heads are even now rising above our horizon, that the office of first minister, either for France or England, is becoming rapidly more trying by the quality of its duties. We talk of energy: we invoke the memories of Pitt and of Chatham: "oh, for one hour," we exclaim, of those great executive statesmen-who "trampled upon impossibilities," or glorified themselves in a "vigor beyond the law !" Looking backwards, we are right in our gratitude we do not err. But those times are past. For Sir Robert Peel no similar course is open. Changes in the temper of the age, changes in the constitution of public bodies, absolute revolutions in the kind of responsibilities by which a minister is now fettered, forbid us to imagine that any raptures of national sympathy will ever crowd forward to the support of extreme or summary measures, such as once might have been boldly employed. That style of aspiring action presumes some approach to unity in public opinion. But such unity we shall hardly witness again, were a hostile invader even landed on our shores.

Meantime it will add weight to any thing we can offer in behalf of the Irish policy now formally avowed by Government, if we acknowledge ingenuously that for some weeks we ourselves shared in the doubts upon its wisdom, not timidly expressed by weighty Conservatives. We believe it, indeed, natural and honorable that the first movement of feeling upon cases such as those now proceeding in Ireland, should be one of mere summary indignation. Not that scurrility and the basest of personalities from Mr. O'Connell are either novel. VOL. III. No. III. 24

whom he professes to honor: this might have been shocking in any man who had not long since squandered his own ability to shock. As it is, these things move only laughter or silent disgust, according to the temper of readers. And we are sure that not merely the priests, or men of education amongst Mr. O'Connell's followers, but even the peasantry, must in their hearts perceive how indispensable is a general habit of self-restraint and abstinence from abusive language to the effect of any individual insult. These were not the causes of public indignation. Not what Mr. O'Connell said, but what he did, kindled the general wrath. To see him marching and coun'ermarching armies, to find him bandying menaces with the Government of this great nation, and proclaiming (openly or covertly) that he would not be the party to strike the first blow, but that assuredly he would strike the second-thinking it little to speak as a traitor, unless also he spoke as an European potentate; this was the spectacle before which the self-control of so many melted away, and which raised the clamor for vindictive justice. It quickened the irritation to know, that hostile foreigners were looking on with deep interest, and everywhere misinterpreting the true readings of the case. Weeks passed before we could thoroughly reconcile our own feelings to the passive toleration, or apparent apathy, of the Government. Our sense of prudence took the alarm, not less than our feelings. And finally, if both could have acquiesced, our sense of consistency was revolted by what met the public eye; since, if the weak were to be punished, why should the strong be connived at Magistrates, to the amount of three score, had been dismissed for giving their countenance to the Repeal meetings; and yet the meetings themselves, which had furnished the very principle of the reproach, and the ground of punishment, were neither dispersed nor denounced.

Rarely, however, in politics has any man final occasion to repent of forbearance. There may be a tempest of provocation to

wards the policy of rigor; that policy may had denounced the conspiracy to the najustify itself to the moral sense of men; tion as ruinous; in that they were right: modes even of prudence may be won over but they also it was, who had pointed out to sanction it; and yet, after all, the largest the leading conspirator as an individual to spirit of civil prudence, such as all of us national indignation in a royal speech; and would approve in any historical case re- in that they degraded, without a precedent, moved from the passions of the times, will the majesty of that high state-document. suggest a much nobler promise of success Descending thus abjectly, as regarded the through a steady adherence to the counsels traitor, the Whigs were not unwilling to of peace, than any which could attend the benefit by the treason. They did so. They most efficient prosecution of a hostile in- adulterated with treason during their term tervention. The exceeding weight of the of power: the compact being, that Mr. crisis has forced us into a closer compari- O'Connell should guide for the Governson than usual of the consequences proba- ment their exercise of Irish patronage so bly awaiting either course. Usually in long as he guaranteed to them an immunisuch cases, we are content to abide the so- ty from the distraction of Irish insubordilutions of time; the rapid motion of events nation. When the Tories succeeded to settling but too hastily all doubts, and dis- power, this armistice-this treasonable pensing with the trouble of investigation. capitulation with treason-of necessity fell Here, however, the coincidence of feelings, to the ground; and once again Mr. O'Conheavily mortified on our own part, with the nell prepared for war. Čessante mercede serious remonstrances in the way of argucessat opera. How he has conducted this ment from journals friendly to Sir Robert war of late, we all know. And such being Peel's government, would not suffer us to the brief history of its origin, embittered rest in the uneasy condition of dissatisfied to him by the silent expression of defiance, suspense. We found ourselves almost unavoidably couched in any withdrawal of coerced into pursuing the two rival poli- the guilty commerce, we all guess in what cies, down to their separate issues; and spirit he will wish to conduct it for the the result has satisfied ourselves, that the future. But there presents itself the quesminister is right. We shall make an effort tion of his ability-of his possible resources for bringing over the reader to our own for persevering in his one mode of hosconvictions. Sir Robert, we shall endeav- tility. He would continue his array of or to show, has not been deficient in proper mobs, but can he? We believe not. Alenergy; his forbearance, where it has been ready the hours of his sorceries are nummost conspicuous, is either absolute-in bered: and now he stands in the situation which case it will be found to justify itself, of an officer on some forlorn outpost, beeven at present, to the considerate-or it fore a superior enemy, and finding himself is but provisional, and waiting for contin- reduced to half a dozen rounds of ammunigencies in which case it will soon unmask tion. In such a situation, whatever counitself more terrifically than either friend or tenance he may put on of alacrity and conenemy, perhaps, anticipates. fidence, however rapidly he may affect to sustain his fire in the hope of duping his antagonist into a retreat, he cannot surmount or much delay the catastrophe which faces him. More and more reluct antly Mr. O'Connell will tell off the few lingering counters on his beadroll: but at length comes the last; after which he is left absolutely without resources for keeping the agitation alive, or producing any effect whatever.

The Minister's defence is best pursued through the turns of his own admirable speech in the recent debates on the griev. ances of Ireland. But, previously, let us weigh for a moment Mr. O'Connell's present position, and the chances that seem likely to have attended any attempt to deal with him by blank resistance. It had been always understood, by watchful politicians, that the Repeal agitation slumbered only until the reinstalment of a Conservative administration. The Whigs were notoriously in collusion at all times, more or less openly, with this "foul conspiracy :"* a crime which, in them, was trebly scandalous; for they it was, in times past, who

We use the words of the Chancellor; words, therefore, technically legal, in the debates of July, on Lord Clanricarde's motion for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.

Many fancy not. They suppose it possible that these parades or field-days may be repeated. But let us consider. Already it impresses a character of childishness on these gatherings of peasants; and it is a feeling which begins to resound throughout Ireland, that there is absolutely no business to be transacted-not even any forms to be gone through-and, therefore, no rational object by which such parades

"The king of France march'd up the hill, With twenty thousand men,"

can be redeemed from mockery. Were | own success. Should the priestly order there a petition to be subscribed, a vote to refuse to advance further on a road nombe taken, or any ostensible business to inally national, but from which, at any mofurnish an excuse for the meeting-once, ment, the leader may turn off, by secret but once only, in each district, it might compromise, into a by-road, leading only avail. As it is, we have the old nursery to family objects, universal mutiny must case before usnow follow. The general will of the priesthood has thus far quelled and overruled the individual will; but that indignant recusants amongst that order are muttering followed by his most Christian majesty's and brooding we know, as well from the successful countermarch. The very chil- necessities of human nature, as from actual dren in the streets would follow them with letters already beginning to appear in the hootings, if these fooleries were reiterated. journals. Under all these circumstances, But, if that attempt were made, and in some a crisis is to be dreaded by the central body instances should even succeed, so much of Repealers, which body is doubtless exthe worse for the interests of Repeal. The ceedingly small. And what will hasten effect would be fatal. No device could be this crisis is the inevitable result from a found more excellent for killing the en- fact noticed as yet only for ostentation. It thusiasm which has called out such assem- is this. The weekly contributions in money, blies, than the evidence thus forced upon and their sudden overflow, have occasioned the general mind-that they were inopera- some comments in the House of Lords; on tive, and without object, either confessed the one side with a view to the dishonesty or concealed. Hitherto the toil and ex- apparent in the management of this money, haustion of the day had been supported, and to the dark purposes which it may be doubtless, under a belief that a muster of supposed to mask-on the other, with a insurrectionary forces was desired, with a view to the increasing heartiness in the view to some decisive course of action, service, which it seems to express. It is, when all should be found prepared. The however, a much more reasonable comcautionary order issued for total abstinence ment upon this momentary increase, so ocfrom violence had been looked upon, of casional and timed to meet the sudden recourse, as a momentary or interim restraint. surrection of energy in the general moveBut if once it were understood that this or- ment, that the money has flowed so freely der was absolute, or of indefinite applica- altogether under that same persuasion tion, the chill to the national confidence which also has drawn the peasantry to the would be that of death. For we are not to meetings-viz., the fixed anticipation of an suppose that the faith and love of the peas-immediate explosion. Multitudes in the antry can have been given, either person- belief, suddenly awakened and propagated ally to Mr. O'Connell, or to Repeal, as a through Ireland-that now at length, all cause for itself. Both these names repre- further excuses laid aside, the one great sent, indirectly, weightier and dearer ob-national enterprise, so long nursed in darkjects, which are supposed to stand behind: ness, had ripened for execution, and would even Repeal is not valued as an end-but at last begin to move-have exerted themsimply as a means to something beyond. selves to do what, under other circumstanBut let that idea once give way, let the pre-ces, they would not have done. Even simsent hope languish, let it be thrown back ple delay would now irritate these men beto a period distant or unassigned-and the yond control. They will call for an account. ruin of the cause is sealed. The rural This will be refused, and cannot but be repopulation of Ireland has, it is true, been fused. The particular feeling of these men, manœuvred and exhibited merely as a that they have been hoaxed and swindled, threatening show to England; but, assured concurring with the popular rage on findly, on that same day when the Irish peas-ing that this storm also, like all before it, is ants, either from their own sagacity, or from newspapers, discover that they have been used as a property by Mr. O'Connell, for purposes in which their own interest is hard to be deciphered, indifference and torpor will succeed. For this once, the nationality of Ireland has been too frantically stimulated for the toleration of new delays. Mr. O'Connell is at last the martyr of his

to blow over-if there be faith in human nature, will do more to shake the Repeal speculation than any possible course of direct English resistance. All frauds would be forgiven in an hour of plausible success, or even in a moment of undeniable preparation. But disappointment coming in the rear of extravagant hopes will be fatal, and strike a frost to the heart of the conspiracy.

For it cannot be doubted that none of these times for such emergencies, the leader extra services, whether in money or personal attendance, would have been rendered without express assurances from high quarters, and not merely from fond imaginations founded on appearances, that the pretended regeneration for Ireland was at hand.

would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders. He would have had an interview with the authorities: he would have shown a flaw in the wording of the instructions: he would have rebaptized his assembly, Now let us see how these natural se- and, where no business goes on, any name quences, from the very nature of the showy will answer: he would have called his mob demonstrations recently organized, and "a tea-party," or "an agricultural assofrom the very promises by which they ciation:" the sole real object concerned, must have been echoed, will operate in re- which is the exhibition of vast numbers lation to the measures of the Government; trained and amenable to instant restraint, either those which have been adopted, or would have proceeded under new names. those which have been declined. Had the This would no longer have languished when resolution (a fatal resolution, as we now Government had supplied the failing imthink) been adopted in the cabinet to dis- pulse: and in the mean time to have urged perse the meetings by force, blood would that, merely by its numbers, combined with have flowed; and a plea, though fraudulent its perilous tendencies, the gathering was in virtue, would have been established for unlawful-would have availed nothing: for O'Connell-such as we may suppose to be the law authorities in parliament, right or built upon a fact so liable to perversion. wrong, have affected doubts upon that docHis hands would have been prodigiously trine; and, when parliament will not eventstrengthened. The bloodshed would have ually support him, it matters little that a been kept before the eyes of the people for minister of these days would, for the moever, and would have taken innumerable ment, assume the responsibility of a strong forms. But the worst, ultimately the ruin measure. Or, if parliament were to legis. ous, operation of this official intervention late anew for this special case, the Rewould have lain in the plenary excuse from pealer would then split his large mobs into his engagements furnished to Mr. O'Con- many small ones: he would lecture, he nell, and in the natural solution of all those would preach, he would sing, in default of embarrassments which for himself he can- other excuses for meeting. No law, he not solve. At present he is at his wits' end would observe coolly to the magistrate, to devise any probable scheme for tran-against innumerable prayer-meetings or inquillizing the universal disappointment, for finite concerts. The items would still be facing the relapse from infinite excitement, reported to one central office: the facit and for propitiating the particular fury of would be the same; and it would tell for those who will now hold themselves to the same cause. have been defrauded of their money. Leave this tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely upon it-that a battalion of foot, or a squadron of horse, appearing in aid of the police to clear the ground at Mallow or at Donnybrook, would have seemed the least questionable godsend that has ever illuminated his experience. "O jubilate for a providential deliverance!" that would have been his cry. "Henceforward be all my difficulties on the heads of my opponents!" But at least, it is argued, the fact would have been against him; the dispersion would have disarmed him, whatever coloring he might have caused it to bear. Not at all. We doubt if one meeting the less would have been held. Ready at all

Thus it appears that no fact would have resulted against the Repealers, had the Government taken a severe course. Still, may it not be said that a fact, and a strong one, survives on the other side, viz., against the Government, under this forbearing course which they really have taken? What fact? Is it the organization of all Ireland? Doubtless that bears an ominous sound: but it must be considered-that if the leader cannot wield this vast organization for any purposes of his own, and plainly he cannot so long as he acquires no fresh impulses or openings to action from the indiscretion of his opponents, but on the contrary must be ruined-cause and leader, party and partisan chief, by the very 'lock' (or as in America is said, the 'fix') into which he has brought himself, by the pledge which he cannot redeem-far less can that organization be used by others or for any other purpose. It is an organization not

secret; not bound by oaths; loose and careless in its cohesion; not being good for its proper object, it is good for no other, and we hear of no one attribute by which it threatens the public peace beyond its numerical extent.

peasantry, given for the moment to the cause of disaffection. That disaffection, under its present form, is already, perhaps, on the point of unlocking its union. It cannot be permanent as an organization; for, without hope, no combination can sustain itself, and a disaffection, founded purely upon social causes, can be healed by no Government whatever. But if the Catholic gentry, treated as they now are with fraternal equality, should heartily coalesce with the party promoting a closer British connection, that would be a permanent gain.

But is that true? Is it numerically so potent as it is represented? We hardly need to say, that the exaggerations upon this point have been too monstrous to call for any pointed exposures. With respect to one of the southern meetings-that at Cork, we believe-by way of applying some scale or measurement to the exaggerations, we may mention that a military man, ac- The Irish policy, therefore, the immeditually measured the ground after the re- ate facts of the policy, pursued by the Govtirement of the crowd. He ascertained ernment, if we distinguish it from the genethat the ground could barely accommodate ral theory and principles of their policy as twenty-five thousand men standing in regi- laid down in the speech of the Premier, mental order. What was the report of the has not been what it is said to have been. newspapers? Four to five hundred thou- Summing up the heads, let us say that we sand, as usual. Indeed, we may complain are not resigned negligently to the perils of our English Conservative journals as, in of civil war; those perils, though as great this point, faithfully reflecting the wildest as Mr. O'Connell could make them, are not statements of the Repeal organs. So much by any means as great as Mr. O'Connell strength was apparently given, for the mo- describes them; the popular arrays are ment, to the Repeal interest by these out-ridiculously below the amounts reported rageous fictions, that we, for our own parts, to us: in some instances they have been (whilst hesitating as to other points of the multiplied by 20, probably in all by 15; the Government policy,) did not scruple to tax rumor and the terror of these arrays have the Home Minister and the Queen's Lieu-operated both ways; for us more perma. tenant with some neglect of duty in not nently than against us. Lastly, it is not sending experienced officers of the army to true that the Government has proceeded reconnoitre the meetings in every instance, only by negative steps; the army has been and authentically to make returns of the increased in Ireland, the garrisons have numbers present. Since reading the min- been better arranged, military stations have ister's speech, however, we are disposed been strengthened, and seditious magisto think that this neglect was not altoge- trates have been dismissed. ther without design. It appears that Sir Upon this last point, one word: we have Robert relies in part upon these frightful seen nothing more grossly factious in the falsehoods for effecting a national service conduct of the Whigs, than the assertion, by rousing the fears of the Roman Catholic that these magistrates ought not to have landholders. In this there is no false re-been dismissed. Well might the Chancelfinement; for, having very early done all lor say, that the discussion had been conthe mischief they could as incendiary pro- ducted by petty lawyerlike quibbles. The clamations of power to the working classes, case stands thus: there are two principles the exaggerations are now, probably, oper- concerned in the tenure of the magistrate's ating with even more effect in an opposite office-theoretic amenability to the letter direction upon the great body of the Catho- of the law, and practical serviceableness lic gentry. Cordially to unite this body for his duties. Either furnishes a ground with the government of Ireland would, by of dismissal. To be scandalously indemuch, overbalance the fickle support of the corous, to be a patron of gambling in public places, would offer no legal objection to a magistrate; but he would be dismissed as a person unsuitable by his habits to the gravity of the commission. If you hire a watchman to protect your premises, and you discharge him upon the ground that he has been found drinking with reputed burglars, no man will hold the watchman to have been hardly used, because the

* A more striking neglect is chargeable upon some administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been overlooked at the time, than we understand the process by which modest assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal, pending a state of law, which, upon the whole, justifies the much larger assemblies of" foul conspirators."