The Sun. — London, England, 1844-01-29 00:00:00

Ps on tool ise - ;r in . ro- ghly ea' ty of than t.ded tion, gr. the 30 ~ , The Union was carried . by . corruption and by fear. The shrieks of the rebellion still echoes in the nation's o fir 'The H a b eas Corpus Act was suspended, and . martial had been p roc l a i me d. Th e country was an a state „„rge—the Minister had a rod of steel for the people, a purse of countless gold for the senator. He ap- Peered with a crop of Cadmus to the one, and like the t s hower of I)ana^ to the other ; but in the midst of that rliameatary profligacy , at which even Sir Robert t „ a lPole would have been astonished, the genius of the tentry remained incorruptible—Grattan, Curran, and b right of those famous men, whose names cast so Ilt yit a light upon this, the brighest part of _onr . history rr . a . moment yielded to a sordid or ignoble impuls i e r . , e distinguished men of the bar were faithful to the k i - ri nt rY• Sir J ona h B arr i ngton , i n hi s hi s t ory o f t h e R ise 411 of the I r i s h N a ti on , has quoted the speeches of th e e most eminent men of our profession ; amongst which I v i f . e of Mr. G oo ld, w h o argued the question of • ht be e qual equal eloquence and subtlety, Mr. Joy, Mr. ket44lVir. 1 3ushe, and Saurin are conspicuous. Lord Plun fi th ,raied the right of Parliament to destroy itself. Mr. t o pi: 5 •11 appealed to the authority of Mr. Lock; ;to T e h l e o s s a t m so e e was taken by Mr. Bushe, whom CY---Bushe, whom it was impossible fo ' r v t e hose ' by whom N;lieblest eloquence was justly prized, not to admire -I,,ta it was impossible for those by whom the purest t Ir i r s th was justly estimated not to reverence; and wh s om an i ex,i!l_ll,Possible for those by whom a most ot tgoeln(ewreo.o Thed a lto `aq natur e could be appreciated u ril eY-Ge • 1 has stated that the opinions of these emi bett nela the Union, ought khjersons delivered at the time of . al; he ld in no account. lam not surprised that that al!vatiori should be applied by him to . Lord Plun ket, 4DCII recollect he so recently quoted one of his Lordship's Dris nta; when he callang to induce the itititlitt to break through its rules, in order to assist tor th in the 'eagerness of his pursuit. All the fi nesse of a t - w as to ' be thrown down in order to accelerate the ha ter of her Majesty's Attorney-General. But what soi l • th e will he give for not attaching any value to e xt as of Mr. Saurin. He said Mr. Saurin fat his his opinions in mere debate. So that the liat4B",:alportant priniciples solemnly laid down in par tlik'ntttry debate are to be regarded as little better a qk kere for ens i c assevera ti on . I can now account f or 44,,,eeches which I heard in the House of Commons the education question. I think, however, ` 4 4)• such doctrines be propounded in the House of Yo u °us itself, th e y w ould be listened to with surprise. kil l : v. 4 : s "e 'heard, gen tl emen , in the course of th is trial, tl:Zumg of the morality of war, and also something of ' ° ratity of rebellion, which the Right Hon. Gen 11e bwlta• pleased to substitute as a synonyme for ut of the morality of Parliament, I trust you. will `,ll by an estimate from 'the specimen presented to ~asnher Majesty's Attorney-General. But . these „• a ' s were expressed before the Act of Parliament t r ts ed. Surely the truth of great principles does 4r :Pend upon an Act of Parliament. They are not for h at for all time. They are immutable and im akaPable. They are immertal as the mind of man, l e r er ahle of decomposition or decay. The question k i ! You is not whether th es e p r i nc ipl es are we ll or 4 e ) : 11( led, but you must tak e th e f ac t o f th e i r h av i ng 4 e xpress e d i n to nar consideration, where you ha ve h h' N 'taine the intent of the men upon whose motives . t li 4 °e to e;tjudicate. The great authority to which i t a,ler a 4 t .Y e rg.ers appeal gives them a right to a political ,`att your part, andshould induce you to think e•- ille • t It they were led astray, they were . led . astray . Nli t ,: 4l 4hority of men with whom surely it is no dis- N,"l coincide. But whatever we may think of the 1 71; IA validity of the union, you must bear in mind that 711 4 l '-'ennell has again and again stated that the Union a w must , as long as it remains law, bi submitted_ i nn tdl his positions regarding the validity of the 4 9 ,tei 11 ,,,g0e no other object than the constitutional in-, t `att i , - ,, 11 k t of the people to adopt the most effectual means -6• ~g,which the law itself may be repealed or modi- Zaer s T) ,'„ae union was a bargain and sale. As a sale it 244 ° "igate and the bargain was a bad one ; for better 111i ,,ght ;lave been obtained, and may be still 0b ,1.-41,, ,You do not become the auxiliaries of the ,Nll%feY-Lileneval. Three-fourths of the Irish Pro .•k Were suppressed. Not a single'English member a 4l)'ltr acted,and there can be no doubt we stood , 1 • }4 P,1 1 a relation towards the English members, 11' (' th ” e were completely nullified in the House r p er7 4l " llB . But, gentlemen, one could perhaps o .o e i piled to the terms of the union, bad as they l t lle results Of the union had been beneficial -Nt• urs'uuntry. We are told by some that our ma w,. 1 3,kt d -s a t,td our agricultural produce have greatly _a , t b , e- ; out tis the condition of the great bulk of t it lsis4 l e of what country, which is, after all, the con • * - • , t) 1, 11 with Christian statesmen, ought to e most._ie • Thegreater happiness of the greater Zal b W r 's aße h 't ntithesis ; but there is a great i r C ., ll risti n an t it a y mi co e n a densed in it. When travellers "la 'ace from Germany, from America, arrive in ljt eNe v iL, ll4t rY ' e and contemplate the frightful spectacle 8,. 44 11 1 ,7 by the misery of the people, although . pre l/rePared by descriptions of the national misery. ; 14 1 1 8 :" aghast it what they see, but what they could °t4 te ' / ; e imagined. Why is this ? How does this ll'hi,. h o t things arise in a country which Bacon, and ,er n, lbe Su SPenser ' notwithstanding their masterdom e e s l , ish language, seem to be at a loss for er „ fficientl glowing to describe ? If look at and the people in a miserable con in'Twe att r ib ute the fau l t to t h e G overnmen t. A r e t ' s so tt : e latirl to attribute it to the soil, to the climate,,or t tcr ev il genius who exercises a sinister influence ~e,ar destini es ? Th e f au lt, as it appears to me, hi's - 1, 41 1 1 Y in that system of policy which has been ltce()kiln by e th Imperial Parliament, for which, on this tte t i Q t e union is to be condemned. Let me see, th:rtleo,avhether I can make out my case. I shall Tugh the leading facts with great celerity ; but tail a case as this I should not apprehend the int- ON lu ll of being. wantonly prolix. Your time is, in most valuable, but the interests at stake are Ines )ofh:"°ly precious ; and time will be scarce noted by , you t V you bear in mind that the effects of your verdict e t ' ec felt when generations have psssed away—when 1119 heart that now throbs in this great assembly shall t were to p a Ipitate—when the contentions by which tf Catholic once agitated shall touch us no further; and all L 4 acl and Protestant, Whig and Tory, Radical ‘it er "'Pealer, and C onserv ative, shall have been gathered fir stst all at l ast shall go down in peace together. The tr,4t,,, jllea sures adopt e d i n the Imperial Parliament were a the irtatiork of martial law, an extended suspension of ca„as Corpus Act. Mr. Pitt was honestly anxious "ki s -.,43 ' Catholic emancipation, and to make at the same ` 4 , 14 4 Prevision f or t h e R oman C at h o li c c l ergy. Y ou may °l' e l You may —perhaps, think that Catholic . ti You ought never t o h ave b een car l'fi444 Ut " if it was to be carried, how much f`4l. WOUld it have been to have settled thro„..t3,fotir ordealg and without putting the country Pee,:fi r a that of ' excitement through which the Im- It 11 -earliament, by the procrastination of justice, forced ? Mr. Pitt, by transferring the Catholic ques 'ls , w ""ite the Irish to the Imperial Parliament, destroyed 1/I,aejeof Lachninistration and furnished a proof that,. in wing able to place Ireland under the protection I,t!olis.itYwit,.l4enius, he placed it under the . control of 'the pit ti reogious prejudices of the English people. M . h r . . retu r ned to the first place in the Ministry , wit , ft-Fr4fil6thofiefuri:tehle'eenripooblfiecing able to make any stipulations , for his own engagements or the reahsa h e he - felt to be indispensable t'sti ( ;, - Peace policy which Ireland. The Roman Catholic Per• was brought forward in 1805, and was lost in an -4°llse of Co mons Mr. Pitt died after the tllll:,,v,plrethAusterlitz, and m was ' succeeded by the Whigs. 41 .) posed a measure , which the Tories, who drove p" 1 ,1 4 , krt' -" tr,„ l en the "No Popery " cry, carried in 1816, and bj'ile- The ''ueed the new doctrine, that the usefulness of aTires is to be tried far best upon the prinei -1,,Y w h which they were founded, than by the parties L ae 4 1 ,they were accomplished. The expulsion of fo °e e l gs from office in 1806, may, in your judgment, s, tt ati,P a fortunate proceeding ; but fortunate or un- Ji e f re i t i f urnishes - another proof that the Govern )) l' ari • and had b een ma d e over, not so much to i h lament as to the great mass of the people rte that l'arliament . is held under control. aso e found in the portfolio of the Whigs two • tion 1 t h a draft -bill for Catholic Emancipa '3r ) th e - e mike of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Welles -I\ll,hAriii,°,tee,,r,etary for Ireland, ' flung into the fire ; and , c ,'ol eye to which clauses have been recently added ,: !.1 4 1 , n Mr. Shaw declared were " wantonly severe. 1 tots Y i tl e ", ° eivo that an Arms Bill, with all its moles s„kthe be required ; but it is beyond question that, I;,ll.i,"„ear 18 19, when England was on the verge of a 4 4 , 4i ti l st ri .,. ° Such Bill was ever propounded by the Bri aogrgAi„, 'Y; and granting, for a moment, for the sake t a i' l ;asl y - n e l t s , that some such Bill is requisite, how scan re t a country have been governed for almost t r ,`, l- t ?Ir e : ( 1 11 ! 14 1 1 7, if this outrage upon the Bill of Rights be Relit4a. A et ! -a ving passed the Arms Bill and the Insur b pr oe ' n4 appropriate adjunct, the Imperial Parliah hi, 're 4, b 'e,edl to reduce the allowance to Maynoot e ti ° ,ald b e One opinion regarding Maynoeth 7 that tl it 15L'kee ed, "'tally suppressed, or largely and munificently Ep flanalld that an education should be given to the st itifi-Atholic clergy such as a body exercising such th a u t en ,2e ought to receive. There are some who th:Tat e d ;it better that the Catholic clergy were -eyanee. Ido not wish to see a gallo-Hiber- N 'red Ita ` t %t_l in Ireland. Parisian . manners may be re l - N, hit) 0 , 141 test of Irish morality, and own that th ) N a uoeh attached to my sovereign, and to the eon itkes e qz , (4 aIY country with England, to desire that b4duct ors of French ambition, that these instru 41:re_nell. intrigue, should be located in every (! on movision of the country. State to an Enk ,'Niirb'ervative----point out to him the importance of forall pris es © r - intellectual exertion, by holding t kl . tee, genius at Maynooth, and he will sa it is y lk IN? the mess the English Government are . una e to re• Why ? Because the religious ob. tI t e.: ()I• ofto one People of England are in the way. An a ° de • e r esults of the Legislative Union: In 1810, a sl ace th wee r B crab ie c Union had elapsed, the country was in e uti;,, condition —its destitution, its degradation, fisitts•zr,ally.felt, and by none more than the her7fl A requisition was addressed to the of the city, signed by men of the greatest 11i NO" consideration amongst us. A meeting eng Called James Riddle was in the chair. At that fi f . • O'Connell attended. .11e had in 1800 (4 1 „ fu rw. :_ 6 ( ! , ' speech against the Union, and in 1810 he F,i4er e d to denounce that measure. The speech lvh i 'al. t o th y' hull on that occasion was precisely 1 . ost, numerous and most powerful harangues 'Y e ,",,ave been read to yon. He is represented in 1844 140 4 ' t aJestv A Attoniey-n _General as influenced by the They a ono:i guilt' and the most unworthy motives. The pee 11V_°.esea.rre,yed together, in order that at a signal ofd that a sanguinary republic should cell a view ernw m eh rh lyalc i itl e h h a,ltiil D toii rae n eog i v e nhe l srmi, o B t ' e C n e t n t l l h is th t e o m b a e gn t eAliff _ e° torittti illet.genlefratthedeseinatroe thethe s ttei Q s4 l 1844 r ag urn , NN at were th e o bj ects in 1810 ? The 4 1 ;7, veh eta 7° ,B , the same topics of declamation, the 4 1117 't "!lt adjurations, are employed. Ge n tl emen o f Wall " reeid .thitt SPOSCh Lo, you ;•-• " Mr. O'Connell declared that he offered himself to the meeting with unfeigned diffidence. He was unable to do justice to his feelings, on the great national subject on which they had met. He felt too much of personal anxiety to allow him to arrange in anything like order, the many topics which rushed upon his mind, now that after ten years of silence and torpor, Irishmen again began to recollect their enslaved country. It was a melancholy period, those ten years, a period in which Ireland saw her artificers starved —her tradesmen begging—her merchants become bankrupts —her gentry banished—her nobility degraded. Within that period domestic turbulence broke from day to day into open violence and murder. Religious dissensions were ag gravated and embittered. Credit and commerce were anni hilated—taxation augmented in amount and in vexation. Besides the " hangings off " of the ordinary assizes, we had been disgraced by the necessity that existed for holding two Special Commissions of death, and had been degraded by one rebellion—and, to crown all, we were at length insulted by being told of our growing prosperity. This was not the painting of imagination—it borrowed nothing from fancy. It was, alas ! the plain representation of the facts that had occurred—the picture in sober colours of the real state of his ill-fated country. There was not a man present but must know that more misery existed than he had described. Such being the history of the first ten years of the Union, it would not be difficult to convince any unprejudiced man, na all those calamities had sprang from that measure. Ireland was favoured by Providence with a fertile soil, an excellent situation for commerce, intersected by navigable rivers, in dented at every side with safe and commodious harbours, blessed with a fruitful soil, and with a vigorous, hardy, generous, and brave population ; how did it happen, then, that the noble qualities of the Irish people were perverted— that the order of Providence was disturbed, and ibs bless ings worse than neglected? The fatal cause was obvious— it was the Union. That those deplorable effects would fol low from that accursed measure was prophesied. Before the Act of Union passed, it had been already proved that the trade of the country and its credit must fail as capital was drawn from it—that turbulence and violence would in crease when the gentry were removed to reside in another country—that the taxes should increase in the same propor tion as the people became unable to pay them ! But neither the arguments nor the prophetic fears have ended with our present evils. It has also been demonstrated, that as long as the Union continues so long must our evils accumu late. The nature of that measure, and the experience of facts which we have now had, leave no doubt of the truth of what has been asserted respecting the future; but, if there be any still incredulous, he can only be of those who will not submit their reason to authority. To such persons the authority of Mr. Foster, his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, would probably be conclusive, and Mr. Foster has assured us that final ruin to our country must be the consequence of the Union. I will not dwell, Mr. Sheriff, on the miseries on my country ; I am disgusted with the wretchedness the Union has produced, and I do not dare to trust myself with the contemplation of the accumulation of sorrow that must overwhelm the land if the Union be not repealed. I beg to call the atten tion of the meeting to another part of the subject. The Union, Sir, was a violation of our national and inherent rights ; a flagrant injustice. The representatives whom we had elected for the short period of eight years had no authority to dispose of their country for ever. It cannot be pretended that any direct or express authority to that effect was given to them, and the nature of their delegation ex cludes all idea of their having any such by implication. They were the servants of the nation, empowered to consult for its good; not its masters to traffic and dispose of it at their fantasy, or for their profit. I deny that the nation itself had a right to barter its independence, or to commit political suicide ; but when our servants destroyed our existence as a nation, they added to the baseness of assassination all the guilt of high treason. The reasoning upon which those opinions are founded is sufficiently obvious. They require no sanction from the authority of any name ; neither do I pre tend to give them any weight • by declaring them to be con scientiously my own ; but if you want authority to induce the conviction that the Union had injustice for its principle, and a crime for its basis, I appeal to that of his Majesty's present Attorney-General, Mr. Saurin, who in his place in the Irish Parliament, pledged his character as a lawyer and *statesman, that the Union must be a violation of every moral principle, and that it was a mere question of prudence whether it should not be resisted by , force. I also appeal to the opinions of the late Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, Mr. George Ponsonby, of the present Solicitor-General, Mr. Bushe, and of that splendid lawyer, Mr. Plunket. The Union was therefore a manifest injustice; and it con tinues to be unjust at this day ; it was a crime, and must be still criminal, unless it sh - all be ludicrously said that crime, like wine, improves, by old age, and that time mollifies injustice into innocence. lon may smile at the supposition, but in sober sadness you must be convinced that we daily suffer injustice ; that every succeeding day adds only another sin to the catalogue of British vice ; and that if the Union continues it will only make the crime hereditary, and injustice perpetual. We have been robbed, my countrymen, most foully robbed, of our birthright, of our independence; may it not be permitted us mourn fully to ask how this consummation of evil was per fected ? for it was not in any disastrous battle that our liberties were struck down ; no foreign invader had de spoiled the land; we have not forfeited our country by any crimes; neither did we lose it by any domestic insurrection; no, the rebellion was completely put down before the Union was accomplished ; the Irish militia and the Irish yeomanry had put it down. How, then, have we become enslaved? Alas ! England, that ought to have been to us a sister and a friend—England, whom we had loved, and fought and bled for—England, whom we have protected, and whom we do protect—England, at a period when, out of 100,000 seamen in her service, 70,000 were Irish—England stole upon us like a thief in the night, and robbed us of the precious gem of our liberty, she stole from us that which not enriched her, but made us poor indeed.' Re flect, then, my friends, on the means employed to effect this disastrous measure. I do not speak of the meaner instru ments of bribery and corruption. We all know that every thing was put up to sale—nothing profane or sacred was omitted in the Union mart. Offices in the revenue, com mands in the army and navy, the sacred ermine of justice, and the holy altars of God, were all profaned and polluted as the rewards of Union services. By a vote in favour of the Union, ignorance, incapacity, and profligacy obtained certain promotion ; and our ill-fated, but beloved country, was degraded to her utmost limits before she was transfixed in sla very. But I do not intend to detain you in contemplation of those vulgar means of Parliamentary success, they are within the daily routine of official management ; neither will I direct your attention to the frightful recollection of that avowed fact, which is now part of history, that the rebellion itself was fomented and encouraged in order to facilitate the Union. Even the rebellion was an accidental and a secondary cause —the real cause of the Union lay deeper, but is quite ob vious—it is to be found at once in the religious dissensions which the enemies of Ireland have created, and continued, and seek to perpetuate among themselves, by telling us off, and separating us into wretched sections and miserable sub divisions ; they separated the Protestant from the Catholic, and the Presbyterians from both ; they revived every anti quated cause of domestic animosity, and invented new pre texts of rancour ; but, above all, my countrymen, they be lied and calumniated us to each other, and they continued to repeat that assertion until we came to believe it ; they succeeded in producing all the madness of party and reli gious distinctions, and whilst we were lost in the stupor of insanity, they plundered us of our country, and left us to recover at our leisure from the horrid delusion into which we had been so artfully conducted. Such, then, were the means - by which the Union was -effectuated. It has stripped us of commerce and wealth—it has degraded us, and deprived us, not only of our station as a nation, but even of the name of our country. We are governed by foreigners— foreigners make our laws, for were the hundred Members who nominally represent Ireland iu what is called the Imperial Parliament, were they really our representatives, what influence could they, although =bought and unanimous, have over the 558 English and Scotch Members ? But what is the fact ? Why that out of - the hundred, such as they are, that sit for this country, more than one-fifth know nothing of us, and are unknown to us. What, for example, do we know of Andrew Strahan, printer to the King? What can Henry Martin, barrister at-law, care for the rights and liberties of Irishmen ? Some of us may, perhaps, for our misfortunes, have been com pelled to read a verbose pamphlet of James Stevens, but who knows .anything of one Crile, one Hughan, one Cackin, or of a dozen more whose names I could mention, only be- cause I have discovered them for the purpose of speaking to you about them ; what sympathy can we in our sufferings expect from those men? What solicitude for our interests? What are they to Ireland or Ireland to them ? No, Mr. Sheriff, we are not represented ; we have no effectual share in the legislation ; the thing is a mere mockery. Neither is the Imperial Parliament competent to legislate for us ; it is too unwieldy a machine to legislate with discernment for England alone ; but with respect to Ireland, it has all the additional inconveniences that arise from want of interest and total ignorance. ,Sir, when I talk of the utter ignorance in Irish affairs of the 'Members of the Imperial Parliament, I do not exaggerate or mis-state ; the Ministers themselves are in absolute darkness with respect to this country. I under take to demonstrate it. Sir, they have presumed to speak of the growing prosperity of Ireland ; I know them to be vile and profligate ; I cannot be !inspected of flattering them . ; yet, vile as they are, I do not believe that they could have had the audacity to insert in the speech, supposed to be spoken by his Majesty, that expression, had they known that, in fact, Ireland was in abject and increasing poverty. Sir, they were content to take their information from a pen sioned Frenchman, a being styled Sir Francis D'lvernois, who, in one of the pamphlets which it his trade to write, has proved by excellent samples of vulgar arithmetic, that manufactures are flourishing, our commerce extending, and our felicity consummate. When you detect the Ministers themselves in such gross ignorance as, upon such authority, to place an insulting falsehood as it were in the mouth of our revered Sovereign, what think you can be the fitness of nine minor imps of legislation to make laws for Ireland?' In deed, the recent plans of taxation sufficiently evince how in competent the present scheme of Parliament is to legislate for Ireland. Had we an Irish Parliament, it is impossible to conceive that they would have adopted taxes at once oppressive and unproductive, ruinous to the country, and useless to the Crown. No, Sir,. an Irish Parliament, ac quainted with the state of the country, and individually interested to tax proper objects, would have, even in this season of distress, no difficulty in raising the necessary sup plies. The loyalty and good sense of the Irish nation would aid them ; and we should not now perceive taxation unpro ductive of money, but abundantly fertile in discontent. There . is another subject that peculiarly requires the attention of the Legislature ; but it is one which can be managed only by a resident and domestic Parliament—it includes everything that relates to those strange and portentous disturbances which, from time to time, affright and desolate the fairest districts of the island. It is a delicate, difficult subject, and one that would require the most minute knowledge of the causes that produce those disturbances, and would demand all the attention and care of men, whose individual safety was connected with the discovery of a proper remedy. I do not wish to - calculate the extent of evil that may be dreaded from the outrages I al lude to, if our country shall continue in the hands of foreign empirics and pretenders ; but it is clear to demonstration, that no man can be attached to his king and country who does not avow the necessity of submitting the control of this political question to the only competent tribunal—an Irish Parliament. The ills of this awful moment are confined to our domestic complaints and calamities. The great enemy of the liberty of the world extends his influence and his power from the Frozen Ocean to the Straits of Gib raltar. • He threatens us with invasion from the thousand ports of his vast empire ; how is it possible to resist him with an impoverished, divided, and dispirited empire. If then you are loyal to your excellent Monarch—if you are attached to the last relic of political freedom, can you he sitate to join in endeavouring to procure the remedy for all your calamities—the sure protection against all the threats of your enemy—the Repeal of o h f er th h e ar U dy nio aaa n. br the a ye v s e , rioesvtoadreeestofolrcrieslrgiievne Ibtecikr to Irelan d ail you may defy population, and you have nothing to, dread from foreign power. It is useless to detain the meeting longer in detailing the miseries that the Union has produced, or in pointing out the necessity that exists for its repeal. I have never met any man who did deplore this fatal measure which has des poiled his country; ncr do I believe there is a single indi viprdoubaaltiiona t o h f e t i h s l a a t n n d o -e a l s o o r coldeuwould. I b ef found be n d e g v l e a n d t t o o preseetend f a a p c e of the man, or rather of the beast, who could dare to say he thought the Union wise or good—for the being who could say so must be devoid of all the feelings that distinguish humanity. With the knowledge that such were the senti ments of the universal Irish nation, how does it happen that he Union has lasted for ten years? The solution of the question is easy—the Union continued only because we despaired of its repeal. Upon this despair alone has it continued—yet what could be more absurd than such de spair ? If the Irish sentiment be but once known—if the voice of six millions be raised from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway—if the men most remark able for their loyalty to their King and attachment to constitutional liberty, will come forward as the leaders of the public voice, the nation would, in an hour, grow too great for the chains that now shackle you,- and the Union must be repealed without commotion and without difficulty. Let the most timid amongst us compare the pre sent probability of repealing the Union with the prospect that in the year 1795 existed of that measure being ever brought about. Who in 1795 thought an Union possible ? Pitt dared to attempt it, and he succeeded. It only requires the re solution to attempt its repeal. In fact, it requires only to enter tain the hope of repealing it, to make it impossible that the Union should continue ; but that pleasing hope could never exist, whilst the infernal dissensions on the score of religion were kept up. The Protestant alone could not expect to liberate his country—the Roman Catholic alone could not do it—neither could . the Presbyterians—but amalgamate the three into the Irishman, and the Union is repealed. Learn discretion from your enemies—they have crushed your country by fomenting religious discord, serve her by aban doning it for ever. Let each man give up his share of the mischief, lot each man forsake every feeling of rancour. Yet, I say not this to barter with you, my countrymen, I require no equivalent from you ; whatever course you shall take, my mind is fixed ; I trample under foot the Catholic claims, if they can interfere with the repeal; I abandon all wish for emancipation if it delays the repeal. Nay, were Mr. Perceval to-morrow to offer me the repeal of the Union upon the terms of re-enacting the penal code, I de clare from my heart and in the presence of my God, that I would most cheerfully embrace his offer. Let us, then, my beloved countrymen, sacrifice our wicked and groundless animosities on the altar of our country ; let that spirit which heretofore emanating from Dungannon spread all over the island, and gave light and liberty to the land, be again cherished amongst us—let us rally round to the standard of old Ireland, and we shall easily procure the greatest of political blessings, an Irish King, an Irish House of Lords, and an Irish House of Commons." Gentlemen of the Jury, I entreat you to take this speech into your box—to compare it with the speeches read on behalf of the Crown, and by that com parison to determine the course which you ought to take when the liberty of your fellow-subject is to depend upon your judgment. At that a,ggregate meeting, in cluding so large a portion of the Protestant inhabitants of this town, with the High Sheriff of the Dublin Corporation in the chair, a series of resolutions was passed against the union. It was determined that peti tions should be presented to Parliament, and that they should be entrusted to Sir Robert Shaw aad to Mr. Grattan. Sir Robert Shaw, in his answer, stated, that he had supported the union in Parliament, and that his opinions upon the subject were unaltered. The follow ing is the answer of Mr. Grattan, and that answer af fords a proof of the falsehood of an allegation often made, that a great change of opinion had taken place in the mind of that illustrious man with respect to the Le gislative Union : " Gentlemen—l have the honour to receive an address presented by your Committee, and an expression of their wishes that I should present certain petitions and support the repeal of an Act entitled the Act of Union ; and your Committee adds, that it speaks with the authority of my constituents, the freemen and freeholders of the city of Dublin. I beg to assure your Committee, and through them my much-beloved and much-respected constituents, that I shall accede to their proposition. I shall present their pe tition, and shall support the repeal of the Act of the Union, with that decided attachment to our connection with Great Britain, and to that harmony between the two countries, without which the connection cannot last. I do not impair either, as I apprehend, when I assure you I shall support the repeal of the Act of the Union. You will pl ease t o ob serve, that a proposition of that sort, in Parliament, to be either prudent or possible, must wait till it is called for and backed by the nation. When proposed I shall then—as at all times I hope I shall—prove myself an Irishman, and that Irishman whose first and last passion was his ative country. " HENRY GRAWAN." " Backed by the nation!" Mark that phrase. It occurs again and again in the speeches of Mr. O'Connell. Mr. O'Connell again and again declares, that unless backed by the nation nothing can be accomplished by him. And if it be a crime to apply all the resources of It's intel lect, with an indefatigable energy and an indomitable perseverance, to the attainment of the just means de scribed by Mr. Grattan in the phrase, "backed by the nation," then is the son of Daniel O'Connell guilty. But it will be stronger, indeed, if, in the opinion of twelve men of plain sense and of sound feeling, it should be deemed a crime to seek the attainment of Repeal by the only instrumentality by which Mr. Grattan said it could be effected. What is the meaning of " backed by the nation?" What is the nation? We say, the Irish Catholics. The enormous majority of the peo ple are the nation. We say the Irish Protestants, who have the property of the country at large, being in the exclusive enjoyment of great intellectual advantages, and who are united, organised, and determined, are the Irish nation. The high Catholics and the Irish Protest ants are both in the wrong. Neither constitute the Irish nation. Both do. And it was the sustainment of both that Mr. Grattan considered to be indispensable to make the proposition in Parliament either prudent or pos sible. That just object—the combination of all classes and of all parties in this country—Mr. O'Connell has laboured to attain. You may think that he has laboured, and with labour in vain, to attain it ; but you cannot consider it criminal to toil for its accomplishment ; and if you conceive that was his object, and the object of his son—or if you have a reasonable doubt upon the subject, you are bound to acquit him. In 1812 Mr. Perceval lost his life, and efforts were made to construct a Cabinet favourable to emancipation : the project failed, and a State prosecu tion against the Catholic board was resolved on. Mr. Burrowes was the counsel for the defendants, and at the outset of his speech he boldly adverted to the fact that not a single Roman Catholic was upon the jury. He said " that the exclusion of Roman Catholics from the jury was calculated to bring the ad m i n i s t rat i on o f the law into disrepute ; and he expressed his solemn, and I believe sincere, conviction, that the Protestant jury which he addressed resented the office which had been assigned to them, and were indignant at a selection from which so many inferences might be derived. It might at first appear likely that a Protestant jury would take an addre's so bold in bad part; but they gave Mr. Burrowes credit for his manly frankness, and they acquitted the traversers. The Crown resorted to a second prosecu tion; means more effectual were adopted, and a conviction was obtained. Mr. Saurin did not deny that the Ro man Catholics had been excluded. He was of opinion that Protestant ascendency should everywhere prevail, and not least in those public tribunals, which are armed with so much authority, and exercise so much influ ence over the fortunes of the State. I did not blame Mr. Saurin. He acted, in all likelihood, conscien tiously, and whatever were his faults, duplicity was certainly not amongst the number. I saw him in the height of his power and in his fall : he was meek in his prosperity, and in his adverse fortune he was serene. The lustre of adversity shone in his smile; for his faults, such as they were, his home, an almost inevitable inherit ance of antipathy, furnishes an excuse. How much more commendable was his conduct and the conduct of the Government of the day, than if they had been pro fuse of professions they never meant to realise, and had offered an insult to the understanding as well as a gross wrong to the rights of the Irish people ; and yet I shall not be surprised if, notwithstanding all that has hap pened, the same cant of impartiality shall be persevered in, and that we shall hear the same protestations of solicitude to make no distinction between Catholics and Protestants in all departments, but more es pecially in the administration of the law. The screen falls—" the little French milliner" is disclosed— "by all that is horrible, Lady Teazle ;" yet Joseph preserves his self-possession, and deals in senti ment to the last. But if, after all that has befallen, my Lord Eliot shall continue to deal in sentimentality in the House of Commons, the exclamation of Sir Peter Teazle " Oh, damn your sentiment !" will break in upon him on every side. The Government, as I told you, in 1812 succeeded in their State prosecution. What good for the country was effected by it ? Was the Ca tholic question put down, or did a verdict facilitate the Government of Mr. Peel, who was soon after appointed Secretary for Ireland ? He was an Irish Member. You are surprised at the intimation. He was returned for the borough of Cashel, where a very small, but a -very discriminating constituency, under the influence of some very weighty arenas:its, though they had never seen him ' and, I believe, he had never seen tho chapel of St. Cormack, were made sensible of his surpassing merits. It has been remarked, that young statesmen who are destined to operate upon England are first sent to dissect upon this country. Mr. Peel had a fine hand and admirable instruments, and he certainly gave proof that he would give the least possible pain in any ampu tations which he might afterwards have to perform. He was decorous—he. avoided the language of wanton in sult ; endeavoured to give us the advantages of a united despotism, and " dwelt in decencies for ever." Yet, was his Irish government, and he must have felt it, an utter failure—he must have seen, even then, the irresistible arguments in favour of Catholic Emancipation ; but ha had not the moral intrepidity to break.from his party, and to do at once what he was compelled to do afterwards. The Insurrection Act was renewed, the disturbances of the country were not diminished, and Ireland continued to reap the bitter fruits of Imperialiegislation. A new policy was tried after Mr. Peel had proceeded to Eng land, and the notable expedient was adopted of counte racting the Secretary with the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Lieutenant with the Secretary. We had Grant against Talbot, and Wellesley against Goulburn. It is almost unnecessary to say, that a Government carried on upon such a principle was incapable of good. The Roman Catholics of Ireland had been led from time to time to entertain the hope that something would be done for their relief. Their eyes were opened at last by the disingenuous dealing of George IV., who only smothered his laughter with . the handkerchief with which he affected to dry his eyes ; and Daniel O'Connell, feeling that liberty could never be achieved by going through the miserable routine of supplication, founded the celebrated Society, by which results so great were almost immediately produced—the Catholic Association was created by him. He constructed a gigantic engine by which public opinion was to be worked—he formed the smallest wheels of his complicated machinery, and he put it into motion by that continuous current of elo quence which gushed with an abundance so astonish ing as if from a hot well from his soul. A vast or• ganisation of the Catholic millions was accomplished : the Catholic aristocracy the middle classes the entire of the clergy were enrolled in this celebrated confederacy. The Government became alarmed, and in 1825 a Bill was brought in for the suppression of this famous league. Mr. O'Connell proceeded to London and tendered the most extensive concessions to the Government. An offer was made to associate the Catholic Church with the State. If the Catholic ques tion had been adjusted in 1825, and upon the terms pro posed, it is obvious that the fearful agitation that dis- THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29, 1844. turbed the country during the four succeeding years would have been avoided. Not only were the offers rejected, but the Bill for the suppression of the Catholic Associa tion was carried. It was, however, laughed to scorn, and proved ut:erly powerless and inoperative. The energy of Mr. O'Connell now redoubled. The peasan try were taught to feel that the elective franchise was not a trust vested in the tenant for the benefit of the landlord. A great agrarian revolt took place, accom panied, beyond all doubt, with great evils, for which, however, those by whom justice was so long delayed are to be held responsible ; the Beresfords were overthrown in Waterford ; in Louth the Forsters re ceived a mortal gash, and at length the great Clare elec tion gave demonstration of a moral power, whose exist ence had scarcely been conjectured. I remember to have seen the late Lord Fitzgerald —an accomplished, an en lightened man—looking with astonishment at the vast and living mass which he beheld from a window of a room in the Court-house, where that extraordinary contest was carried. There were sixty thousand men beneath him—sober, silent, fierce. He saw that some • thing far mere important than his return to Parliament was at stake. Catholic emancipation was accomplished. And here I shall put two questions—the first is this : Do you think that up to the 13th of April, 1829, the day on which the Royal assent was given to the Catholic Relief Bill, the system of Government, insti tuted and carried on, under the auspices of an Imperial Parliament, was so wise, so just, so salutaff,illo fraught with advantages to this country—so conducive to its tranquillisation and to the development of its vast resources—that for nine and twenty years the union ought to have been regarded as a great legislative blessing to this country ? The second question I shall put to you is this—Does it not occur to you that if the present indictment for a conspiracy can be sustained, an indictment for a conspiracy might have been just as reasonably preferred against the men who had associated themselves for the attainment of Catholic emancipation ? There is not a count in this indictment which, by the substitution of " Catholic emancipation" for " RA peal," might not have been made applicable to the great struggle of the Irish Catholics in 1828 and 1829. Money was collected by the Catholic Association. In America, and more especially in Ca nada, strong sympathy for Catholic Ireland was ex pressed. In the Chamber of Deputies, M. Chauteau briand adverted to the state of Ireland in the language of minacious intimation. Enormous assemblages were hold in the south of Ireland ; but more especially in the county of Kilkenny. Speeches were delivered by Mr. O'Connell, and by others, .fully as inflammatory as any which have been read to you. Yes ; what would have been thought of an indictment for a conspiracy against Mr. O'Connell, against the Even ing Post, the Ireentan'a Journal, the Morning Register, Dr. Doyle, and my friend Tom Steele, WbO was at that time, as lie is now, a knight-errant against oppression in every form? ould it not have been deemed a monstrous thing to have read a very exciting article in three Roman Catholic newspapers,. against the men by whom perhaps they never had been perused ? Such a thing was never thought of. There were, ind ee d, pro secutions. - The individual who now addresses you was prosecuted for a speech on the expedition of Wolfe Tone. The bills were found ; but Mr. Canning declared in the Cabinet that there was not a single line in the speech, which, if spok, n in the House of Commons would have justified a call for order, and he denounced the prosecution as utterly unjust. The prosecution was accordingly abandoned. But, gentlemen, if I had been prosecuted fur a conspi racy, and held responsible not for my own speeches, but for those of others, in hew different and how helpless a position should I have been placed? Have a care how you make a precedent in favour of such an indictment. Dur.ng the last nine months, the Attorney-General had ample opportunities, if his own statement bewell founded, of instituting prosecutions against individuals for what they themselves had written or done. In this proceeding, VI hose tardiness indicates its intent, you will not, I feel confident, become his auxiliaries. A Coercion Bill, if the repeal of the union is to be put down, would be preferable, for it operates as a tempo rary suspension of liberty; but the effects of a verdict are permanently deleterious. The doctrice of conspi racy may be applied to every combination of every kind. It is directed against the Repeal Association to-day ; it may be levelled against the Anti-Corn-law League to-mor row. In one word, every political society, no matter how diversified their objects, or how different their constitution, is within its reach. The Catholic question' having been considered, the Tories were put out by a conspiracy formed amongst themselves. The Whigs came in, and the Reform Bill is carried—how ? A hundred and fifty thousand men assemble at Birming ham, and threaten to advance on London ; a resolu tion not to pay taxes is passed and applauded by Lord Fitzwilliani. Lord John Russell and Lord Althorp become the correspondents of the Birmingham union. Cumber is reduced to ashes ,• Bristol is set on fire ; the Peers resist, and the Whig Cabinet with one voice ex claims "Swamp the House of Lords!" And who are I the men—the bold, audacious men—conspirators, in deed, who embark in an enterprise so fearful, and which ' could be only accomplished by such fearful means ? You will answer Lord Grey ?—Yes. Lord J. Russell ? —To be sure. Lord Althorn ?—No doubt about it. ' But is our list exhausted ? Do you remember Mr. Hatchell asking Mr. Ross, " Pray, Mr. Boss, have you any acquaintance with Sir James Graham ?" It is not wonderful that the Attorney-General should have started up and thrown down his buckler over the Se cretary of the Home Department. Sir James Graham, has Ireland under his control. From the Home-office this prosecution directly emanates. Gamblers denounce vice—druukards denounce debauch—against immorali ties let wenchers revile. When Graham complains of agi tation his change of opinion may, for aught I know, be serious ; nor have I from motives of par tisanship the slightest desire, especially behind his back, to assail him ; I will even go so far, for the sake of argument, as to admit that his conversion may have been disinterested ; but I de say, that he is, of all men, the last, under whose auspices a prosecution of this character ought to be carried on. The Reform Bill becomes the law of the land—the Par liament is dissolved,. and a new Parliament is summoned and called together under the Reform Bill—and the very first measure adopted in that reformed Parliament is a Coercion Bill for Ireland. The Attorney-General read a speech of Lord John Russell's . in favour of co ercion. He omitted to read the numerous speeches sub sequently made by that noble person,_ in which his mistake with respect to Ir e l an d i s honourably con-, fessed. Gentlemen, I shall not go through the events of the last ten years in detail. It is sufficient to point out to you the various questions by which this unfor tunate country has been _successively convulsed. The church question—the tithe question—the Municipal Bill—the Registration Bill—these questions, with their diversified ramifications, have not left us one mo ment's rest. Cabinets have been destroyed by them. The greatest parties in the State have fought for them. Ire land has supplied the fatal field for the encounter of con tending parties. No single measure for the substantial and permanent amelioration of the country has been adopted; and here we are, at the opening of a new session of Parlia ment, with a poor-rate on our estates, a depreciating tariff in our markets, and a State prosecution in her Majesty's Court of Queen's Bench. Such, gentlemen, are the results of the system of policy adopted in that Imperial Parliament, whose wisdom and whose beneficence have been made the theme for such lavish panegyric. Gentlemen, I do not know your political opinions. Ido not know that there is any one man among you favourable to the repeal of the union ; but if • every . one of you are fearful of that measure becoming ulti mately the occasion of a dismemberment of the empire, still its discusssion may not be useless. If the councils of the State were governed by no other considerations than those which were founded upon obvious justice ; or if mea sures were to be carried by syllogism s , and Government was a mere matter of dialectics, then all great assemblages of the people should, of course be deprec a t e d, a n d every exciting adjuration addressed to the passions of the people should be strenuously reproved. But it is not by ratiocination that a redress of grievances can be obtained. The agitator must sometimes follow the example of the diplomatist, who asks for what is impossible; in order that what is possible may be ob tained. It must strike the least observant, that when the Go vernment complained most vehemently of demagogue audacity their resentment is the precursor of their concessions. Take, as an example, the Landlord and Tenant Commission , wh ich there are some Conservatives think will disturb .the founda tions of property, and against which Lord Brougham ad dressed his admonitory deprecation to Sir Robert Peel. For my own part, I think it may lead to results greater than were contemplated; for it appears to me to have been chiefly intended as a means of diverting public attention from the consideration of the other great grievances of the country. The main source of all these grievances I am convinced, is to be found in the colonial policy pursued to this country. The Union never has been carried into effect. If it had, Ireland would not be a miserable dependent in the great imperial family. The Attorney-General expressed great' indignation at the motto at Mullaghmast—" Nine millions of - people cannot be dragged at the tail of any nation on earth." That sen timent is taken from a paragraph in the Morning Chronicle newspaper, and I have no hesitation in saying that I at once adopt it. To mere numbers, without intelligence, organisa tion, or public spirit, I for one attach no value. But a great development of the moral prowess of Ireland has taken place. Instruction is universally dithised. The elements of literature, through which political sentiment is in directly circulated, are taught by the State. Ireland has, if I may so speak, undergone a species of transformation. By one who had seen her half a century ago , she would be scarcely recognised. The simultaneous , the miraculous abandonment of those habits to which Irishmen were once fatally addicted, at the exhortation of an humble friar, is a strong indication of what might be done liy a good Govern ment with so fine a people. Without saying that the tem perance movement affords a proof of the facility with which the national enthusiasm can be organised and directed. I think it is one among the many circumstances which should induce us to think that we have come to such a pass in this country, that some great measures for its security and for its happiness are required. I perceive the great literary organ of the Whig party has recently suggested many hold mea sures, which it represents as necessary for Ireland. There are numerous difficulties connected with some of the propo sitions to which I refer ; but there is one which I consider to be as practicable as it is plain and just. It is recommended that the Imperial Parliament should sit at certain intervals in this great city. I cannot see any sound objection in the Imperial Parliament assembling now, in the+ month of Oc tober, for the discharge of Irish business alone, and that all imperial questions should be reserved until the London session commenced, as it now does, in the month of February. The public departments, it is true, are all located in London ; but during the Irish session a refer ence to those departments would not be required. Such a session might be inconvenient to English Members ; but the Repeal agitation and a state prosecution, like the present, are M T e rie bel a s d c E o l u ig n i t i e sh r. - 'would accrue from die attended with inconveniences far greater than any' which vianntages which crossing the Irish Channel, would .en realisation of this project are of no ordinary kind. The intercourse of the two countries would be augmented to such an extent, their feelings would be identified. National pre judices would be reciprocally laid aside. An English domes tication would take place. Instead of lending money upon Irish mortgages, Englishmen would bring funds to Ireland and live upon them. The absentee drain would be diminished. The value of property would be very nearly doubled. Great public works would be undertaken, and the great natural en _ dowments of the country would be turned to account. This city would appear in renovated splendour. Your streets would be shaken by the roll -of the gorgeous equipages in which the first nobles of the country would be borne to the senate house, from which the money' changers should be driven. The mansions of the aristocracy would blaze with that useful luxury which ministers to the gratification of the affluent, and to the employment and the comforts of the poor. The Sovereign herself would not deem the seat of her Parlia ment unworthy of her residence. The frippery of the vice regal court would be swept away. We should look upon royalty itself, and not upon the tinsel image: we should behold the Queen of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland, in all the pomp her imperial regality, with a diadem—the finest diadem in the world—glittering upon her brow, while her - coon'.: tenance . beamed with the expression of that sentiment which becomes the throned monarch better than the crown. We should see her accompanied by the Prince, of . ifliorn it is the highest praise to say that he has proved himself to be not unworthy of her. We should see her 'encompassed by all the circumstances that associate endeartnent with respect. We should not only behold the Queewibut the mother and the wife, and see her from the hikrjlest station on which a human being could be placed, pliesenting to her subjects the finest model of every conji%gal and maternal virtue. I am not speaking in the lawruage of a fictitious enthu siasm when I speak thus orher. I, am sure that this project is not only featiible, but easy. If the people of this country were to coMbine in demanding it, a demand so just and reasonable eflijd not be long refused. It is not subject to any ono of We : objections which attach to the re peal question. No rupture of the two Parliaments—no dis memberment of the einpire is to be apprehended. Let Irish men unite in putting orth a requisition for a purpose which the Minister would not only find expedient, but inevitable. But if you, gentlemen, shall not only not assist in an under taking so rea.sonable and so safe, but shall assist the Attor ney-General in crtighing the men who have had the boldness to complain 'of the f grievances of their country, you will lay Ireland prostrate.,Every effort for her amelioration will be idle. Every rembhstrance will not only be treated with dis regard, but with disdain ; and for the next 20 years, we may as well extinguish every hope for our country. Gentlemen, you may strike agithtion dumb—you may make millions of mutes ; but beware of that dreary silence, whose, gloomy ta aiturnity is significant of the determination of its fearful pur pose. beware of producing a state of things which may eventuate in those incidents of horror which every good man will pray to avert, and which will be lamented by those who contribute to their occurrence, when repentance, like that of those who are for ever doomed, shall be unavailing, and con trition shall be in vain. Gentlemen of the Jury, I do not deny that strong speeches hays been made by my client, and by the rest of the traversers ; but I deny that those speeches bear, when taken altogether, the interpretation put upon them. To this subject I shall revert. At present I entreat you to consider whether the speeches of Mr. John O'Connell are of a more exciting and inflammatory character than those which are spoken in almost every popu lar assembly, whether it be Whin., Radical, or Conservative. Mr. John O'Connell proposed the health of the Queen in lan guage of enthusiastic loyalty at Mullaghmast, and added that the speech delivered by the Queen was the speech of the Mi uisters, and could not be justly considered as the emanation of her own unbiassed mind. This is, beyond all question, constitutional doctrine ; although the Attorney-General took most especial care not to tell you this. Indeed he made an ultra-forensic endeavour to convey to you the impression that the traversers had spoken of her Majesty in the language of personal disrespect. This is most unfair. Mr. John O'Connell adds, that if the lli- nistry were wantonly to attack the people—in other : words, if they were, without a proclamation, without a no tice, without any form of law, to let loose the soldiery upon a public assembly, resistance would be the result. But he and his father had again and again said, that to the law they would submit; and that if a single' magistrate came into a meeting to disperse it, he should be obeyed. Mr. John O'Connell may have used strong expressions, but he is not indicted for them. He is indicted for a conspiracy, and for nothing else. And even if he were indicted for these strong expressions, in the uniform habit of Englishmen in their public discussions he would find a justification. You probably have read some of the speeches made at the meet ings of the Anti-Corn-law League. They were fully as vio lent as the repeal harangues. The aristocracy is de nounced as "selfish," "sordid,'' and "base-hearted." A total overthrow of the existing order of society is foretold; refe rences are made to the French Revolution ; and the great 14roprietors of the country are warned to beware. But the Anti-Corn-law League, it may be said, is a Radical institu tion. How is it ? The To r i es th emse l v es, when under the influence of partisanship, expressed themselves in reference to the Sovereign herself. lou cannot have forgotten the contumelies heaped upon the head of the Queen upon the resignation, in 1839, of Sir Robert Peel. I will not, gentle men, disgust you by a more distinct reference to those traitorous diatribes, in which even clergymen took part. It is better we should inquire how it is that gentlemen connected with these very prosecutions have thought it de corous to comport themselves when their own passions were excited. The name of the Right Honourable Frederick Shaw is attached to the proclamation. I hold in my hand the peroration of a speech delivered by that gentleman, and reported in the Evening Mail of 9th March, 1835 :—" The Government might make what regulation it pleased; but he trusted the people knew their duty too well to submit to its enactments. We might degrade our mitres; it might deprive us of our properties ; but if the Government dared to lay its hand on the Bible, then we mus t come t o an i ssue. We will cover it with our bodies. My friends, will you permit your brethren to call out to you in vain ? In the name of my country and my- country's God, I will appeal from a British House of Commons to a British public. My , countrymen would obey the laws so long as they were pro- , perly administered ; but if it were sought to lay sacrilegious hands on the Bible, to tear the standard of the living God, , and to raise a mutilated one in its stead, then it would be no tima to halt between two opinions —then, in every bill and every valley, would resound the rallying cry of To your tents, oh, Israel !" I won't ask the Attorney-General of Ireland what he thinks of this, because this speech refers to a subject somewhat embarrassing to him ; and what • his opinions are, upon the Education Board, it is not very easy to conjecture; but I may venture to ask the Solicitor- General, who is himself a commissioner of the Education , Board, whether Daniel O'Connell, in :his whole course of agitation, ever: uttered a speech half so inflammatory as this? With respect to Mr. Sergeant Warren, he, I suppose, agrees in every word of it, and only laments that after so much sound and fury the Recorder of Dublin is the steadfast supporter of the Government, by whom all the misdeeds thus eloquently denounced have - been subsequently committed. Gentlemen, I find in the Evening Packet of the 24th of Ja nuary, 1837, an account of a great Protestant meeting which took place at the Mansion-house, where all the great represen tatives of the Conservative interest in this country were as sembled. Some very strong speeches indeed were made at that meeting. The Earl of Charleville said, " Well, gentlemen, you have a rebellious Parliament ; you have a Lord Lieutenant, the slave and minion of a rebellious Parliament." That speech was heard by the Right Hon. Thomas Berry Cusack Smith. Did he remonstrate against the use of language so unqualified? Not at all. He got up and made a speech, n which he stated that " he was sorry to find that Roman Ca tholic Members of Parliament paid so little regard to their oaths." When the Right Hon. Gentleman had such im pressions, I cannot feel surprised that care should have been taken to exclude every Roman Catholic from the .jury box. Let him not misapp re h en d me. Id o no t refer to his language in the spirit of resentment. Resentment is not the feeling which the conduct of the Right Hon. Gentleman is calculated to produce. The Right Hon. Gen tleman has expressed great indignation at the references made at Mullaghmast to transactions from which the veil of oblivion ought not to be withdrawn. lle said, and justly enough, that men should not grope in the annals of their country for the purpose of disinterring those events whose resuscitation can but appal and scare us. But how does the Right Hon. Gentleman reconcile that position with his having been himself a party to a resolution passed at the meeting of which I am speaking, in which it is stated, that the con dition of the Protestants of Ireland is almost as alarming as it was in the year 1641, when events took place, from whose recollection we ought to turn with horror and dismay. I referred you, gentlemen, to speeches. Permit me now to refer you to the great monster meetings which have taken place in assertion of the rights of the Protestants of Ireland. Mark, Ido not complain of those meetings. Ido not com plain that seventy-five thousand men should have as-. sembled and moved in order of battle ; but I do complain that the men who looked upon those assembleges with so much indulgence, when the purposes of their own party were to be promoted, denounce as treasonable assemblies in which no such demonstration of organised and per fectly dis c ipli ne d p h ys i ca l f orce was ma d e . The following account of the Hillsborough meeting was given by the Even ing Mail At an early hour of the morning (some of them, indeed, over night) the great landed proprietors of the county repaired to the different points on their respective estates at which it had been previously agreed: they should meet their tenants, and march at their head to the general place of as semblage, so that the area in front of the hustings did not pre sent a very crowded appearance, until the arrival of the men in large masses, each having a pride of marching border-fa shion, shoulder by shoulder, beside his neighbour and bro ther, with whom he was ready to sacrifice life in defence of his country and • religion. Shortly after eleven o'clock, a tremendous shout from the town announced the approach of the first party. They were from Moira, and were headed by the Rev. Holt Waring, who was drawn by the people. A flag, the union jack, was hoisted at Mr. E. Reilly's, as the signal of their arrival. In a few moments they were seen descending the steep hill from the town, and approaching the place - of meeting in a close, dark, and dense mass, comprising certainly not less than 20,000 persons. Having escorted Mr. Waring to the foot of the platform, they received his thanks, expressed in warm and energetic language , and having given three cheers, deployed round and took the position assigned them. . . . Amongst those who marched at the head of the largest battalion, if we may use the expression, were the Marquises of Londonderry and Devonshire ; Lord Clanwil limn, Sir Robert Bateson, Colonel Forde, Colonel Blacker, Lord Castlereagh, and Lord Roden. The latter had 15,000 men in his followers. They marched from Dromore. At twelve o'clock, the scene was the most imposing that fancy could conceive, or that language possesses the power of de picting. The spectacle was grand, unique, sublime. There certainly could not have been, upon the most moderate computation, less then seventy-five thousand persons present, exclusive of the thousands who filled the town, or thronged to absolute impediment all the adjacent roads and avenues." From that description, gentlemen, I turn to a re solution, passed by the Irish Orangemen on the 12th Novem ber, 1834, and which I find in the appendix to the report from the Select Committee on Orange lodges :—" And, lastly, we would beg to call the attention of the grand lodge, and through them return our heartful thanks and congratulations to our brethren through the various parts of Ireland, who, in the meetings of three thousand in Dublin, four thousand at Bandon, thirty thousand in Cavan, and seventy-five thousand at Hillsborough, by their strength of numbers, the rank, the respectability, and orderly conduct of their attendance—the manly and eloquent expression of every Christian and loyal sentiment, vindicated so nobly the character of our institution against the asperion thrown on it, as ' the paltry remnant of an expiring faction.' " That phrase, gentleman, is one which Lord Stanley, in one of his variable moods, was pleased to apply to the Orangemen of Ireland. Gentlemen, m the part of the report which I have read to you there are some re markable entries relating to a subject of which you have heard a good deal from the Attorney-General ; and although I deviate, I am aware, from the order of topics which I had prescribed to myself, yet, finding in the book before me matter which seems to me to be exceedingly pertinent to that topic, I shall now advert to it." Gentlemen, the entries to which I am alluding are these—" 15th February, 1833, William Scott, 16th company Royal Sappers and Miners. That the Committee would most willingly forward all documents connected with the Orange system to any confidential persons in Ballymena, as prudence would not permit that printed documents should be forwarded direct to our military brethren." " Ist January, 1834—Resolved that warrant 1,592 be granted to Joseph Mina, of the Ist Royals." "17th December, 1829, moved by the Rev. Charles Boyton, seconded by Edward Cottingham, that the next warrant number be issued to the 66th regiment, and that the Quebec brethren be directed to send in a correct return, in order that new warrants may be issued." Gentlemen, I refer you to these resolutions with no other view than to show you what proceedings men who conspire to establish an in fluence over the army naturally adopt. If it was the object of the traverser to seduce the army from their allegiance, would not expedients have been adopted very different from those imputed to the defendants? Would not .Repeal societies have been formed? Would not a clandestine correspondence haVe taken plaCe With the "mili tary brethren?" Would not money have been distributed to the soldiery? Would not the propagators of mutiny have been located in the public houses frequented by sol- 1 (fiery? Would not Roman Catholic priests, who attend at the military hospitals, have been charged to instil Repeal prin t ciples into the soldiers' cars? Does anything of thi s ki n d 1 appear to have been done? A letter written by the Rev. Mr. Powera Waterford priest, who is not made a defendant—who is not to be punished for his letter — i is.,: ? giN#en , in evidence against my client, although '- he is as ;innocent of its composition as the fore man of you jury. When that letter appeared in the Na tion newspaper, why was not an cx officio information tiled against the . !Rev Mr. Power, whose manuscript would most certair-1‘ Lave been given up? But that would not have answered the purpose of the Attorney-General, whose object it was to ensnare. And, gentlemen, if this prosecu tion shall sikceed, as my Lord de Grey is a patron of the fine arts, he shotild cause a statue of Justice to be erected in com memoration of his achievements ; but the goddess should be no loner represented with a sword and balance, but with a hook in one hand and a trap in the other. What, gentlemen, has been the course adopted by the Government in these prosecutions? Sir Edward Sugden begins by dismissing some of the most respectable magistrates of the country, on , account of something or other that was said in the House 0 - Commons, and because " the meetings have a tendency to outrage." The direct contrary has been proved by every oue of the witnesses for the crown, and Mr. Ross, the clandestine sub-inspector of the Home-office, in the very last words of his examination, stated that he saw no tendency to outrage whatsoever. Lord Cottenham de clared in the House of Lords, that the proceeding of the Lord Chancellor; was utterly. unconstitutional. Let me be per mitted, gentlemen, to contrast the proceedings adopted by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland with the doctrines laid down by Mr. Baron Alderson, in his charge to the grand jury, delivered at the Monmouth summer ass i zes , 1839. It is repotted in 9th Carrington and Payne, page 95 : " There i. no doubt that the people of this country have a perfect rig it to meet for the purpose of stating what one, or even 1 hat they, consider to be their grievances ; but in order 4) transmit that right unimpaired to posterity, it is necessary that it should be regulated by law and restrained lby reason. Therefore, let them meet if they will in len - day, peaceably and quietly; and they would do wisely when they meet, to do so under the sanction of the constituted authorities of the country. To meet under irresponsible presidency is a dangerous thing. Never theless, if! when they do meet under that irresponsible pre sidency, they conduct themselves with peace, tranquillity, and order; they will, perhaps, lose their time, but nothing else. They will not put other people into alarm, terror, and consternation. They will probably in the end come to the conclusion that they have acted foolishly; but the Constitu tion of this country did not, God be thanked, punish persons who mean to do that Which was right, in a peaceable and orderly manner, and who are only in error in the views which they have taken on some subject of political interest." Gentlemen, I do not believe that a single witness was produced by the Crown to prove that by the great assemblies which took place within the last nine months the slightest apprehension was created. But the Attorney-General himself admits the fact, for he does not indict Mr. O'Connell for breaking the peace, but for a conspiracy to keep it. Let us pass to the proclamation. The commentaries of Mr. O'Connell upon the remarkable fact, that that proclamation was delayed until the day be fore the meeting was to take place, although notice for that meeting had been given for three weeks, are most deserving of your consideration. A circumstance occurred connected with that proclamation not undeserving of note. It has been always the usage in this country to summon every member of the Privy Council. Upon this occasion the Chief Baron, al though living in the neighbourhood of Dublin, was not sum moned; . and, Mr. Blake, a Roman Catholic, who was in the habit of attending the Privy Council, who lives also near Dublin, was not summoned. He had been appointed to the office of Chief Remembrancer by a Tory Government ; he had been the intimate friend of Lord Wellesley, the great statesman ; he had never taken any part in any violent pro ceedino; ; yet was he left out, while the Recorder of the City of Dublin, by whom the jury list was to be revised, and in whose department an accident of a most untoward kind has .happened, was summoned to the Council. A proclamation is sues ; it is at once obeyed. Mr. O'Connell had long before de clared that a proclamation should be obeyed. . There was an end, therefore, to these monster meetings. For what purpose, then, did the Crown institute this prosecution? The bills are found ; the traversers apply for the names of the wit nesses on the back of the indictment. One of the judges de clared he thought it matter of right; another of the judges intimated his opinion that it would be advisable for the Crown to furnish the list within a reasonable time. From that day to this the list has never been given. The list of jurors is drawn by ballot ; there are eleven Catholics upon it. They are struck off. The trial comes on. A challenge is put in to the array, upon the ground that one-tenth, or very nearly one-tenth, of the jury list was suppressed. One of the Court expresses an opinion that the challenge is a good one. His brethren differ from him ; but when in a trial at bar, at the instance of the Crown, one of the judges gives an intima- ' tion so unequivocal as to the construction of the jury list, per hops it would have been more advisable for the Crown to have discharged the order for a special jury, and to have directed the High Sheriff of the city to have returned a panel. I mention these incidents, gentlemen, in order that your feeling that the traversers have been deprived of some , of those contingent benefits given them by the law, should ' give theM an equivalent for any loss which they may have sustained in your anxious performance of your sacred duty. At length, i n th e m id st o f profound silence, the Attorney-General states the case for the Crown, and consumes eleven hours in doing so. I was astonished at his ' brevity, for the pleading on which his speech was founded is the very Behemoth of indictments, which, as you see, " upheaves its vastness" on that table. Nothing com parable in the bigness of its gigantic dimensions has ever yet been seen. The indictment in Hardy's case, whose trial lasted ten or eleven days, does not exceed three or four pages • but this indictment requires an effort of physical force to fift it up. Combined with this indictment was a tremendous bill of particulars in keeping with it. Gentlemen, the Attorney- General, as I have already observed to you at the outset of these observations , denounced the traversers at the close of almost every sentence that was uttered by him ; but it struck me that it was only in reference to two of those charges that he broke forth in a burst of genuine and truly impassioned in dignation. The first of those charges was—a conspiracy to diminish the business of a Court of Law. How well might Lord Chatham exclaim—l remember to have read it somewhere but I forget where—" Shake the whole Constitution to the centre, and the lawyer will sit tranquil in his cabinet ; but touch a single thread in the cobwebs of Westminster-hall, and the exasperated spider crawls out in its defence." The second great hit of the Right Hon. Gentleman was made when he charged Mr. O'Connell with a deplorable ignorance of law, in stating certain prerogatives of the Crown. With respect, gentlemen, to the Arbitration Courts, the Society of Friends are as liable to an indictment for conspiracy as the defendants. The regulations under which the Quaker arbi tration system is carried on will be laid before you; and the opinions of Lord Brougham, who has always been the strenuous advocate of the arbitration system, will, I am sure, have their due weight upon you. With regard to Mr. O'Connell's alleged mistake respecting the power of the Crown to issue writs—what is it, after all, but a project for swamping the House of Commons, analogous to that of Fir James Graham and my Lord Stanley for swamping the House of Lords ? The plain truth is this=-the Sovereign has the abstract right to create new boroughs. But the ex ercise of that right might be regarded as inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution. Lord Denman and one of his late Majesty's law advisers in the House of Commons, dis tinctly asserted the right to issue writs ; and although that opinion was reprehended by Sir Charles Wetherell, I believe that of its being strict law there can be little doubt. But the real question between the Attor ney-General and the traversers, and the only one to which you will be disposed to pay much regard, was raised by the Attorney-General when he said that there existed a dangerous conspiracy, of which the object was to prepare the great body of the people to rise at a signal and to erect a sanguinary republic, ,of which Daniel O'Connell should be the head. Gentlemen, how do men proceed who engage in a guilty enterprise of this kind? They bind each other by solemn oaths. They are sworn to secrecy, to silence, to deeds, or to death. They associate superstition with atro city, and heaven is invoked by them to ratify the covenants of hell. They fix a day, an hour, and hold their assem blages in the midst of darkness and of solitude, and verify the exclamation of the conspirators in the language of the great observer of our nature— " Oh, Conspiracy, Where wilt thou find a cover dark enough To hide thy monstrous visage?" How have the repeal conspirators proceeded? Every one of their assemblages have been open to the public. For a shilling, all they said, or did, or thought, were known to the Government. Everything was laid bare, and naked to the public eye. No oaths, no declarations, no initiation, no form of any kind was resorted to. They did not even act toge ther. Mr. Duffy, proprietor of the Nation, did not attend a single meeting in the country. My client attended only three ; Mr. 'I ierney, the priest, attended no more than one. It would have been more manly on the part of the Attorney-General to have indicted Dr. APHale or Dr. Hig gins. He spoke of Dr. lliggins, but thought it more prudent not to include him in the indictment. Gentlemen, an enormous mass of speeches, delivered by Mr. O'Connell within the last nine months, has been laid before you. I think, however, you will come to the conclusion, that they are nothing more than a repetition of the opinions which he expressed in 1810; and when you come to consider them• in. detail, you will, I sin sure, be convinced that these speeches were not merely interspersed with references to peace and order with a view to escape from the law, but that there was through the entire mass of thought that came from the mind of Mr. O'Connell a pervading love of order, and an un affected sentiment of abhorrence of the employment of any other than loyal, constitutional, and pacific means for the attainment of his object. He attaches fully as much im portance to the means as to the end. He declares that he would not purchase the repeal of the union at the cost of one drop of blood. He announces that the moment the Govern ment calls upon him to disperse his meetings, these meetings shall be dispersed. He does but ask " the Irish nation to back him ;" for, from that backing he anticipates the only success to which as a good subject, as a good citizen, and as a good Christian, ho could aspire. But if, gentlemen, it be suggested that in popular harangues obedience to the laws, and submis sion to authority are easily simulated, I think I may fear lessly assert that of the charges preferred against him his life affords the refutation. A man cannot wear the mask of loyalty for forty-four years ; however skilfully constructed the vizard will sometimes drop off, and the natural truculence, the genuine features, of the conspirator must be disclosed. You may have heard many references made to the year 1798, and several stanzas. of a long poem have been read to you, in order to fasten them on Mr. O'Connell. It was in 1798 that the celebrated man was called to the bar, who is destined to play a part so conspicuous on the thea tre of the world. He was in the bloom of youth—in the full flush of life—the blood bounded in his veins, and in a frame full of vigour was embodied an equally elastic and athletic mind. He was in that season of life, when men are most disposed to high and daring adventure. He had come from those rocks and mountains, of which a description so striking has appeared in the reports of the speeches which have been read to you. He had listened, as he says, to the great Atlantic, whose surge rolls unbroken from the coast of Labrador. He carried enthusiasm to romance ; and of the impressions which great events are calculated to make upon minds like his, he was peculiarly susceptible. He was unwedded. He had given no hostages to the State. The Conservative affections had not tied their ligaments, tender but- indissoluble, about his heart. There was at that time an enterprise on foot ; guilty, and deeply guilty, indeed, but not wholly hopeless. The peaks that overhung the Bay of Bantry were visible from Nenagh-hill. What post was taken in that dark adventure by this conspirator of sixty-nine? Did he play Pierre at two-and-twenty, who is ready to play Renault at sixty-nine? Cur ran was suspected; Grattan was suspected. Both were designated as traitors unimpeached, but on the name of Daniel O'Connell, a conjecture never lighted. And can you bring yourselves to believe that the man who turned with abhorrence from the conspiracy of 1798 would now, in an old age, which he himself has called not premature,. engage in an insane undertaking, in which his own life, and the lives of those who are dearer to him than himself, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, would, beyond all doubt, be sacrificed? Can you brine yourselves to believe that he would . • S I blast all the laurels, which it is hiA ..- lgtst - , that :ft i -'75 .. \ has won without the effusion of a singled !'' .41oO&A-.---thati:- . -' - ' ~,A he would drench the land of his birth, of ',iitrention‘--ancl:-:T`as of his redemption, in a deluge of protitl ... ;;' and Mat ::. - ,' 1 ',. ; .);-.41 he would lay prostrate that great moral 1 9 Ii? ment„ which 717::- , ' -- 1 he has raised s o high that it is vi s ible oftVe - : reinotest -- --'. , :'44 4 7 region of the world ? What he was in 1 ' 44'40 1844- :,_ ~._, f , ' ""o - Do von believe that the man who aimed '— ' ' tt......`...." would repudiate French assistance, and deriaftiftcerkkerpre l e I",:im sent dynasty o f F rance ? D o you thi n k th a t th e ``man who' ' aimed at revolution, would hold forth to the detestation of the world the infamous slavery by which the groat trans atlantic Republic, to her everlasting shame, permits herself to be degraded ? Or, to come neare;home, do you think that the man who aimed at revolution would have indignantly re puiated the proffered junction with the English Chartists? Had a combination been effected between the Chartists and the Repeaters, it would have been more than formidable_ At the head of that combination in England was Mr. Feargus O'Connor, once the associate and the friend of . Daniel O'Connell. The entire of the lower orders in the North of England were enrolled in a powerful organization. A league between the Repeaters and the Chartists might have been at once effected. Chartism uses its utmost and its most clandestine efforts to find its way into this country. O'Connell detects and crushes it. Of the charges pre ferred against him, am I not right when I exclaim that his life contains the refutation? To the charge that Mr. O'Connell and his son conspired to excite animosity amongst her Majesty's subjects, the last observation that I have made to you is more peculiarly applicable. Gen tlemen, Mr. O'Connell and his co-religionists have been made the objects of the fiercest and the coarsest vituperation ; and yet I defy the most acute and diligent scrutiny of the entire of the speeches put before you, to detect a single expression —one 'solitary phrase—which reflects in the remotest degree upon the Protestant religion. He has left all the contumely heaped upon the form of Christianity which he professes utterly unheeded, and the Protestant 'Operative Society has not provoked a retort ; and every angry disputant has, with out any interposition on his part, been permitted to rush in " where angels fear to tread." Gentlemen, the religion of Mr. • O'Connell teaches him two things—charity towards those who dissent from him in doctrine, and forgiveness of those who do him wrong. You recollect it is from such incidents that we are enabled to judge of the characters and feelings of men—you remember to have heard, in the course of the evidence, fre quent reference made to poor old Sir Bradley King. The unfortunate man had been deprived of his office, and all com pensation was denied him. He used to stand in the lobby of the House of Commons, the most desolate and helpless look ing man I ever saw. The only one of his old friends that stuck to him almost was Baron Lefroy. But Baron I.efroy had no interest with the Government. Mr. O'Connell etrw Bradley King and took pity on him. Bradley Kin had been his fierce political, almost his personal, antagonist. Mr. °Von nail went to Lord Althorp, and obtained for Bradley King the compensation which had been refused him. I remember havin read a most striking letter addressed by Sir Abraham Bradley King to Mr. O'Connell, and asked him for it. He could not at first put his hand upon it ; but while looking for it he told me that soon after the death of the old Dublin alderman an officer entered his study, and told him that he was the son-in-law of Sir Abraham, who had a short time before his death, called him to his bedside, and said—" When I shall have been buried, go to Daniel O'Connell, and tell him that the last prayer of a grateful man was offered up for him, and that. I implored heaven to avert every peril from his head." Mr. O'Connell found the letter : you will allow .me to read it : " Barnett's HMO, Spring Gardens, 4th August, 1844. " VERv DEAR SlR,—The anxious wish for a satisfactory termination of my cause, which your continued and unwearied efforts for it have ever indicated, is at length accomplished. The vote of compensation passed last night. To Mr. Lefroy and to yourself am I indebted for putting the ease in the right light. To my Lord Althorp, for his Lordship's consequent candid and straightforward act, in giving me mY just dues, and thus restoring myself and family to competence, ease, and happiness. " To you, Sir, to whom I was early and long politically opposed-- to you, who nobly forgetting this continued difference of opinion, and who, rejecting every idea of party feeling or of party spirit, thought only of my distress, and sped to succour and support me, how can I express my gratitude? I cannot attempt it. The reward I feel Is to be found only in your own breast ; and I assure myself that the gene rous feelings of a noble mind will cheer you on to that prosperity and happiness which a discriminating Providence holds out to those who protect the helpless and sustain the culling. " For such reward and happiness to you and yours my prayers shall he offered fervently ; while the remainder of my days, passing, I trust, in tranquility, by a complete retirement from public life, and in the bosom of my family, will constantly present to me the grateful recollection of one to whom I am mainly indebted for so desirable a closing of my life.—Believe me, my dear Sir, with the greatest re spect and truth, your faithful servant, "ABRAHAM BRADLEY KING." You may deprive him of his liberty—you may shut hint out from the light of nature—you may inter him in a dun geon, to which a ray of the sun never yet descended ; but you never will take away from him the consciousness of having done a good and noble action, and of being entitled to kneel down every night before he sleeps, and to ad dress to his Creator the divinest portion of our Redeemer's prayer. The man to whom that letter was addressed, and the son of the man to whom that letter was addressed, are not guilty of the sanguinary intents which have been ascribed to them ; and of this they put themselves upon their country. Rescue that phrase froth its technicalities let it no longer be a fictitious one; if we have lost our representation in the Parliament, let us behold it is the jury -box, and that you participate in feelings: of millions of your countrymen—let your verdict afford a proof. But it is not to Ireland that the aching solicitude with which the result of this trial is intently watched will be confined. There is not a great city in Europe in which, upon the day when the great intelligence shall be expected to arrive, men will not stop each other in the public way, and inquire whether twelve men upon their oaths have doomed to incarceration the man who gave liberty to Ireland ? Whatever may be your adjudication, he is prepared to meet it. Ile knows that the eyes of the world are upon him, and that posterity—whether in a gaol or out of it— will look back to him with admiration ; lie is almost indif ferent to what may befal him, and is far more solicitous for others at this moment than for himself. But the com mencememt of what I have said to you—l told you that I was not unmoved, and that many incidents of my political life, the strange alternations of fortune through which I have passed, came back upon me. But now the bare possibility at which I , have glanced has, I acknowledge, almost un manned me. Shall I, who stretch out to von in behalf of the son the hand whose fetters the father had struck off, live to cast my eyes upon that domicile of sorrow, in the vicinity of this great metropolis, and say, "'Tis there they have im mured the Liberator of Ireland with his fondest and best be loved child ?" No ! it shall never be ! Ton will not con sign hint to the spot. to which the Attorney-General invites you to surrender him. No. When the spring shall have come again, and the winter shall have passed—when the spring has come again, it is not through the windows of this mansion that the father of such a son, and the son of such a father, shall look upon those green hills on which the eyes of so many a captive have gazed so wistfully in vain ; but in their own mountain home again, they shall listen to the murmurs of the great. Atlantic ; they shall go forth and inhale the freshness of the morning air together; " they shall be free of mountain solitude;" they will be encompassed with the loftiest images of liberty upon every side; and if time shall have stolen its supple ness.from the father's knee, or impaired the firmness of his tread, he shall lean on the child of her that watches over bins from heaven, and shall look out from some high place far and wide into the island, whose greatness and whose glory shall be for ever associated with his name. In your love of jus tice—in your love of Ireland—in your love of honesty and fair play—l place my confidence. I ask you for an acquittal, not only for the 'sake of your country, but for your own. Upon the day when this trial ✓ shall have been brought to a termination, when, amidst the burst of public expectancy, in answer to the solemn interrogatory which shall be put to you by the officer of the Court, you shall answer " not guilty," with what transport will that glorious negative be welcomed ! will you be blest, adored, worshipped ; and when, retiring from this scene of excitement and of passion, you shall return to your own tranquil homes, how pleasurably will you look upon your children, in the consciousness that you will have left, them a patrimony of peace, by impressing upon the British Cabinet, that sense other measure besides a State prosecution is necessary for the pacification of your country. At the conclusion of the Right flon. Gentleman's speech, a suppressed murmur of applause ran through the Court, which presented a very excited appearance for some time before he sat down, and several of the auditors were seen to shed tears, and amongst them Mr. O'Connell himself. The Lord Chief Justice intimated, that if it met the appro bation of both parties, the Court did not feel disposed to hear other counsel that day (it was then three o'clock). Mr. MoOre, who was to address the Court the second in • order of the traversers' counsel, said that he felt grateful fur the kindness manifested by the Court in that intimation, as he felt unwilling to address the Court after the speech which had been delivered by his Learned Friend. If it were not tres passing too much on the time of the Court and the public, lie would feel it a great pleasure not to be called on to address the Court till Monday. But, if his Lordship had not thrown out that suggestion, he would not have felt justified in asking the indulgence. If their Lordships thought that they could consistentlywith the discharge of their duty postpone the further hearing of the case till Monday, he should be most happy to avail himself of the indulgence thus accorded. The Lord Chief Justice said, it was now three o'clock, and without unnecessarily infringing on public time, as Mr. Moore's speech could not be finished by the time the Court would rise, if the Attorney-General had no objection, the Court was desirous to afford ()Very indulgence to the Learned Gentleman, if postponing the further hearing to Monday morning would do so. The Attorney-General haying intimated that he had no objection to the course proposed, The Court then adjourned till 10 o'clock on Monday (this day). MR. WEBSTER'S PBIZIS OF 5001.—We have Leen re guested to state that Mr. Charles Kemblo, Mr. Charles Young, Mr. G. P. R. James (the celebrated novelist ), the Rev. A. Dice, Mr. Otley (of the Morning Chronicle), Mr. Ross (of the Morning Herald), Mr. Scott (of the Morn ing Advertiser), Mr. Clarke Searle (of The Sun), and Mr. Moran (of the Globe), have been selected as the members of committee to award the 500/. with contingent advantages," for the best comedy in pros, illustrative of modern British man• ners and customs.— Observer. DRURY-LANE T HEATRE.--The plenditl manner in which Richard the third has been produced here, aided by the reworful acting of Mr. C. Kean, has crammed this theatre each evening of its performance; while, on the other nights, the Bohemian Girl bas continued its successful career, having been already played 41 nights, to the most crowded audiences ever assembled in the theatre. The Second Part of the Marchioness of London derry's Narrative of her Visit to the Courts of Vienna, &e., which will appear in the February Number of " Celburn's New Monthly , lllagazine," will camprise a description of her voyage upon the Danube, from . Vienna to Constantinople, in cluding notices of Pesth, Sembn, ()nova, Galatz, and other plaCes of note, with her adventures in the Turkish Capital ; also a highly interesting account of her visits to the Harems of Reschid Pacha and the Seraskier, when Lady Londonderry was entertained by the fair inmates with all the state and luxury due to so distinguished a guest, and was allowed opportunities of oh' serving the social life of Turkish ladies of rank in their own homes, such as no European lady had ever previously enjoyed TIIE EDINBURGH PROFESSORSHIP OF MUSIC.— The chair of music in this university is again vacant. Several candidates have presented themselves, the principal of whom are, Mr. Donaldson, a member of the Edinburgh bar, bet formerly a teacher of music in Glasgow ; Mr. William Stern dale Bennett, well known as a good pianist and composer; Dr. Gauntlett, the organist ; and Mr. tslainzer, author of the popular system of vocal instruction. From the popularity of the latter gentleman in Scotland, as well as in the south, and from the extraordinary success which has attended his efforts for the diffusion of musical knowledge in the three kingdoms, we are not surprised to hear that he is the favourite with the Scottish public. If it is intended, as we have recently been informed, to organise a plan of general musical instruction in Scotland, we should think Mr. Mainzer eminently qualified fur the place at the head of it. It must be admitted on all hands that be has shown extraordinary talents for communicating a knowledge of his art, and the experience wh i ch he has gained by his public teaching in P ar i s , as we ll as in this country must be of the greatest value i n such a s i tuation. 111 , s labours in Edinburgh will . have given opportunities to the Senate fi)r testing his quali fi cattons. The funeral of Mr. Holder, the clerk at the Man. skin-house for nearly half a century, took place on Saturday at the Highgate cemetery. It was strictly private.