The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

jobbery, the confiscation of Oude. If, on the
other hand, he is unable to do this—and we
are very sure lie will pot dare to attempt it—
then we can only leave the public to judge for
itself of the amount of iniquity exhibited in
the perpetration of this monstrous wrong.
For our parts, we look upon the hypocrisy of
the act is a flagrant addition to the injustice of
it. Inv what nen be more base than to turn
the most'sacred feelings of humanity to such
nefarious ends? The Governor-General would
cover an act of the most shameless spoliation
by a pretended regard for the very classes
who will most suffer by his misdeed ; for the
King will at least have his pension to live
upon, while beggary, misgovernment, and con-
fiscation are the probable blessings that the
extension of our rule will introduce to the
people of Oude.

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR
IRELAND.
Two classes of public reasons compel us to
continue our exposures of the Sadleirites.
We wish, in the first place, that the con-
duct of the agents who overthrew Lord
DERBY'S Administration should be mani-
fest to all, and upon that head we shall
have some facts to adduce which will
astonish those who still believe in the purity
of the Peelites. But we desire, also, that the
enormous social mischief caused by the official
alliance between the Sadleirites and the Duke
of NEWCASTLE'S party should not pass without
redress. Commercial feelings on this subject
have been outraged, and we are not surprised
that on 'Change and in the " City" generally
people eagerly ask, what manner of men were
the Sadleirites in Parliament? Mr. WILLIAM
KEOGH, it is known, was bred to the Bar ; he
was made a Queen's Counsel, and appointed
successively to the two first Crown Offices in
Ireland. A man qualified to hold such pre-
ferment ought to be gifted with the highest
qualities. He ought to have a sagacious
insight into character, and he ought not to be
imposed upon easily.
It is certainly very strange that Mr. WILLIAM
KEOGH, if really qualified for an Attorney-
General (which we doubt), did not see into
the real characters of the Sadleirs, and did not
hesitate about committing his " confidential "
affairs to an EDMUND O'FLAHERTY. Many
other persons, it is true, were deceived by
them ; but then Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH had
eloscr opportunities than other people for
fathoming their real dispositions. and he had
experience as a practitioner at the Bar. He
chose them for his intimate friends; he se-
lected them for his political confederates;
they were not related by ties of blood, though
there were some congenial strokes of charac-
ter in the whole group that a common parent
age might have been attributed to them all.
Yet so completely lulled were the suspicions
of the Attorney-General for Ireland, that,
though living within earshot (so to speak) of
the forgery-factory of SADLEIR and his gang,
he never caught a sound of its muffled ma-
chinery for fraud. He never dreamed that
there were dark chambers in the hideous pile
where horrid deeds were plotted and perpe-
trated. In the whole of the pecuniary and
political proceedings of " the party " nothin4
ever aroused the suspicions of Mr. Attorne3 -
General. If he were qualified to stand by his
talents at the head of the brilliant Bat of Ire-
land, then it is most strange that he should
have been so completely hoodwinked by
his associates; hut if he be not intellectually
fit for such a position as he now occupies,
then the other question remains, why was
such a man ever appointed to so great a post?
We shall proceed to illustrate how far the se-
lection of Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH for his .great
promotion was justified by his professional
antecedents. With his private character we
hive nothing to do. and if we make errors on
facts we arc pen to their correction.
It is right to know how his career has
contrived hitherto to escape public exa-
mination. The fact is, that when the late

SATURDAY,

Mr. LUCAS brought serious charges anin
WILLIam KEOGH, in 1854, the House of
Commons was wearied with the brawls
of the Brigade, and the subject was in-
judiciously enviro tied with sectarian considers-
(reridviempgoesse
Corn.
The Parliamentary jury being tired,
the accused was let oft' on the bail of the Duke
otifienNEb,,s;l to
r. CUABTLIN:.V. ILL BIAU3tacta we
1 xfuoon p
plaint Committee, Report House of Commons,
vol. viii., 1854) which we have a right to quote.
Mr. KEOGH, it seems, was called to the Irish
Bar in 1840. In some qualities lie was well
suited for success as a practitioner before
juries. He was a stunning browbeater,
with a voice of thunder, and a fierce aspect.
Declamatory talents lie unquestionably pos.
sessed, with a great show of personal assu-
rance. But in his speaking there was no va
riety, no strokes of grace, no fille imagination,
and he was deficient in scientific logic. When
opposed to a skilled dialectician, lie could not
unravel secundong artem a coil of sophistry, and
when attempting to cut through it, he often
awkwardly exposed himself. The valuable
faculty of protracted attention he did not
seem to possess, and mental as well as
moral causes perhaps helped to contri-
bute to his mutability. His style was essen-
tially suited for the invective of the platform.
To overpower by bluster was in his eyes to over-
come by argument; and to cow a weak antago-
nist by his air of menace, was to triumph in
debate. In short, he was like a "Bully Egan"
revived, hoping to be mistaken for a Con-
naught Mirabeau.
The first appearance in politics of Mr.
WILLIAM KEOGH was at Claremorris, in the
county of Mayo. It was upon the occasion of
a political dinner given to the Repeal repre-
sentatives for that county, the late Sir WILLIAM
BRABAZON and Mr. DILLON I3ROWNE. On that
occasion Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH made an enthu-
siastic harangue in praise of DANIEL O'CON-
NELL. At that time (1840) the Whigs were
still in office, and Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH praised
Lord MELBOURNE'S Ministry as "the most
" paternal Government Ireland ever had."
He was taunted in 1848 by Sir GEORGE GREY
with having made that display, and called to
account for his inconsistency, when he
pleaded that he was always •a non-Repealer;
yet he went (by his own admission) to a Re-
peal dinner, and lauded to the skies the
fomenter of Repeal!
A few months rolled by. The Whigs were
down, and Sir ROBERT PEEL and the Conser-
vatives came in with their majority of ninety-
one, and the Whig cause seemed hopeless.
"In 1842 or 1843, I really forget which, said
Mr. KEOGH to the Privileges Committee
(Evidence, p. 288, et supra), " I was retained
" by the Conservative party to manage their
" registry in the borough of Athlone." Mr.
WILLIAM KEOGH then came before the world
as a " Conservative Catholic," and took up his
ground with apparent firmness. He drew his
pen against the O'Connellites, and lauded the
Ministry which utterly crushed the political
personage whom Mr. KEOGH had pancgyrised
shortly before; and it will be here ne-
cessary to mark the striking difference
between his conduct at two different periods.
For, if Sir GEORGE GREY, Mr. M. J. O'CON-
NELL, Mr. JOHN REYNOLDS, and other
Members of Parliament, had reasons for taunt-
ing him in 1848, what would they have said if
they could have foreseen that he would have
afterwards led the Pope's Brass Band, and,
after pledging himself to an independentcourse,
would have been one of the first to rush into
office ! When our readers shall have seen
what all the Sadleirites actually did during the
last days of Lord DERBY'S Administration,
they will feel the same difficulty as ourselves
in using appropriate language.
In 1847, Mr. KEOGH was returned for Ath-
lone ; and he has himself made revelations on
the subject which, taken in connection with
subsequent events, are of a startling che-
meter. We shall state them consecutively.
It appears, according to his own account!
that in trying to carry the Conservative elec-
tion at Athlone, lie had expended in 1847„
" two thousand pounds of his own money,.
and he also received "a certain amount of
" pecuniary assistance." The notion of an
Irish barrister quitting his profession and