The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-04-26 00:00:00

At:C.OCW! or U!8 ANCLS7OII4.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

[Continued from the Di :fish Press of Friday.l

One great good that will b. effected by this invaluable
work is, that the attractions of its style, and the exquisite
keenness of its wit, will gain attention everywhere to the
condition of the Irish, and to thy severe and careless sys-
tem of oppression under which they so long anti so severely
suffered ; it will be now known in every corner of England
what are the grounds of those tumults, and of all that
heart-burning, against the eff.ets of which those whose op-
pr....Them here treated if are for ever enacting new laws.
and calling for additional securities. The writer gives a
concise but clear sketch of the system upon which Ireland
has been governed from the time of its conquest in the
reign of Henry 11., a system which treated them as worse
than strargers in their native land, and which unfolded in'
its progress all the frightful features of usurpation. The
sufferers bad no hope of refuge, for they were not per-
mitted to escape to a more hospitable land. They were
kept for Persecution to try its hand upon.
In the Reign of Henry IA . the Irish •• Enemy" (for so the
••nath es Mete styled in all legal documents) showed, naturally
'enough, &disposition to emigrate—But by a refined mixture of
cruelty and absurdity, which is only to be found, gesid.te, in Irish
legislajon, an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent them.
Those whom the English refused to incorporate with subjects, they
would vet compel to remain as rebels or slaves. •• lly an Art of the
Irish Parliament in the eleventh year of Henry IV., it was or-
dained that no Irish enemy should be permitted to depart from the
realm." We have ,heard of a bridge of gold for a fiving enemy,
but an Ac. of Parliament to compel him to stand his ground could
only have been passes) by an Irish Legislature.
In modern times, it must be confessed that oar humanity
has advanced a few steps, and while we have fratutZs
calculated to promote emigration, we have done not to
prevent it. _
. .

The Captain is an admirable commentator ; in proof of'
this, we give his observations on that counteractive system
of policy, which, to the majority here, always involves
thc. affairs of Ireland in a political mist.
Among many minor points of resemblance between our Popish
rulers of dune days and our Reformed ones of the present, may be
counted that quick and distracting change of Lieutenanteies, suc-
ceeding one another like the groupei of a magic lantern, each in its
separate frame or slider, cacti differing from its predecessor in plans
and opinions, and thus remitting the government, like Penelope's
web, a mere system of doing and undoing.
The account given by Spenser of this motley procession of Lord
Lieutenants, is like &picture painted yesterday—so fresh are all its co.
lournand so living its likenesses. ••Thegovernors (says he) ue usually
envious of one another's greater glory which if they would seek
to excel by better goverunient, it would 'be a most laudable emulit-
tion. But they doe quite otherwise. For this is the common order
of them, that who conieth next in place will not follow that course
of government which his prtsiccessors held, either for disdane of
himself, or doubt to have his doings drowned in another man's
praise, but will straight take a way quite contrary to the former:
as if the former thought by keeping under the Irish to reforme
them ; the next, by discountenancing the English, will carry fa-
vour with f..e Irish, and so make his government seem plausible,
as having the Irish at his command. But he that comes after will
perhaps follow neither the one nor the oil Cr, but will dandle the
one and the other in such ..on, as he will aucke sweet out of them
both and leave bitterness to the poor country.'
Our modem plan, it must be confessed, Improves upon the dis-
traction of this, fur not only hare the Governors of discordant poli-
tics succeeding each other, but every new Governor is provided
with a Secretary to differ with him for the time being, and both re-
ceive their instructions from a Cabinet, not one member of which
agrees with another. If this is not sounding the pitch-pipe of dia-
-1 cord, Captain heck has no car for that kind of music.

Can any wrinanent advantages he gained to Ireland
under such a counter-working policy as this ? Is it pos-
sible to imagine a stronger satire upon any Cabinet than is
to be found in such a system ? To send out an enlightened
Vies:sue, whose talents and integrity give every promise
and warrant every expectation of benefit to Ireland, and
appoint as his Secretary an individual who, it is foreknown,
will naverac all his steps, and neutralize all his efforts !
And is it to pay court to that aristocratic faction, who
claim the monopoly of power and place in Ireland as their
palrimony, that our Government consents thus to stamp its
own character with fraud and treachery ? Is it to favour
the exclusive aggrandizement of the Orange aserndants,
that we still cling to this most preposterous and disgrace-
ful system ? Ilow is it possible to transfuse anything of
energy into the administration of an authority so consti-
tuted and so beset, and where the contending powers, like
the angels in Paradise Lori, are now giants, and now
pigmies, according to the momentary triumph of integrity
on the one aide, or of intrigue on the other ?
' But we return to the Memoirs. The writer thus com-
mences the chapter which brings him to the period of the
Reformation:—

Henry the Eighth, who was as fond of theology as of dancing.
executed various &wears in the forme line, through which he,
rather unreasonably, compelled the whole nation to follow him ;
and, difficult as it was to /imp pace with his changes, either as be.
liev?r, author, or husband, or know which of his creeds he wished
' to be maintained, which of his books he wished to be believed, or
which of his wives he wished nut to be beheaded, the people of Eng.
land, to do them justice, obeyed every signal of his caprice with a
suppleness quite wom!crful, and danced the hays with their mo.
narch and his unfortuiate wives through every variety of mystery
and murder, into which Thomas Aquinas and the eseutioner could
lead them.

The lb:formation did but open new sluices of oppression
to the Sister Kingdom : every change in England from bad
to better was to be a change from bad to worse. What is
remarkable, the only respite she received was under the
reign of a Queen, whose bigotry drenched England with
blood.

According to e.e usual rule of contrariety between the two
countries, the reign of :Mary, which was attended with such horrors
in England, is almost the only interval of peace aid quietness, that
the annals of my ;Incest in, exhibit in Ireland. Some local fightiug,
it is true, took place among my relatives the O'Brien*, O'Neal*,
etc. but little more than was absolutely necessary to keep their
hand, in practice against a change of administration.
The last Lord C—n, upon being found one day by a friend,
practising with his sword against the wainscot before dinner, and
being asked the reason of his assiduity at this exercise, answered,
" I have sonic company to-day that I expect to quarrel with"—!
and pretty much in the same manner, the members of my family
are obliged occasionally to rehearse, even in their moments of tran-
quillity, for the reception of any new guests that may be sent them,
ill the shape of governors, from England.
Irith the exception, however, of these trifling interruptions, both
government and people were at peace during the whole of this
reign ; and it is worthy of remark that the only period, in which
the Irish have been left the stomolested exercise of their religion,
was a period of perfect tranquillity and tolerance--such freedom
from persecution being enjoyed at this time, that, according to
Ware, •• several English families, friends to the Reformation. fled
to Ireland, and there enjoyed their opinions and worship without
noise or molestation :"—this, too, during the bloody reign of
Queen Mary ! IVill our rulers *ever read History ?
We trust they will, and that the great interests of Ire-
land, as a nation, will he preferred to that subjection, from
the trammels of which the deserved popularity of our
present Ilinister gives them a chance to disentangle them-
selves. The Oas NG E Iteutxcv has swayed Ireland long
enough. It is high time the league were broken up. It
is among the first and most prominent causes of all the
evils we deplore In the sixth chapter we arrive at the
reign of ELIZAD/Tll. The degrree of wretchedness to
which the long preceding series of wrongs and miseries
had brought this unhappy people is forcibly painted in the
following extract :
The plan of pacifying Ireland by exterminating the Irish—
the only feasible one that has yet been attempted—was tried, on a
grand scale, during the reign of Elizabeth ; and had so nearly suc-
ceeded, that under the government of lazed Only, the Queen was
assured that •• little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign
over but carcases and ashes." ho satisfied, too, with the result of
his mission was another of her agents in this work of desolation,
that the record which he has left behind him of his sanguinary ex-
ploits is entitled " Paeans Hibernia," or •• Hibernia pacified."
Hibernia pacified ! alas, alas, could the shade of Sir O. Carew
but once more bolter over his own region of Munster, he would find
that a new edition of his work of Pacification is much wanted—
he would find that thrciigh the ramie peace-makers, slaughter and
MMtion, have been tried under almost every government since
. the grand object is still unaccomplished—the Temple of
the Anglo-Irish Janus (that "fonts biceps") lies as open as ever.
As I am not writing a history of the English power in Ireland,
but merely tracking Ise course by hasty glimpses, and pointing out
a few foot-marks of the Hercules of Despotism, from which the
rest of his colossal proportions may be estimated, I shall content
myself with selecting front the long reign of Elizabeth a trait or;
two most characteristic of her general policy ; or, rather, of the po.!
hey of these employed by her; as that (peen herself would Lave
been far too wise had her attention been fairly directed to the sub- I
1 jest, to turn thus into a wilderness what nature meant for a garden.'
or make famine and devastation the hand.maids of her power.
There is a memorable saying of hers, preserved by Camden, which
not only shows how feelingly aloe was aware of she perverse wicked.
tiers of the system pursued under her name, but contains as bitter'
a comment on the whole course of policy towards this country as the
most virulent United Irishman ever dared to utter. ...Alas (said .
she, on receiving sonic representation of grievances front Ireland),'
how I fear lest it be objected to us, as it was to Tiberius by Bator
—You, you it is that are in fault, who have committed your flocks
DM to shepherds but to waives !"
And now for our sneciniens of the policy of this reign. Let the
poet Sei:x SEX in the font place, eltscribe the frightful state of ex-

anlation brought upon the people of Munster, by a war into abkb
their lender, the Earl of Desmond, wan driven by the cupidity of the
chief Covernors, who hail loot; looked on his immense poseessions
with a wishful eye, and thinking hint too tempting as an enemy,
to be long suffered to remain a trend las he himself expresses it):
" wrung him into undolifultiess."—" Notwithstanding," says
Spenser, " that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, yet,
ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretchedness, at
that any stony heart would rue the same. Out of every earner of
the woods and elynns, they came creeping forth upon their hands,
fur their legit could not bear them ; they looked like anatomies of
death ; they spike like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did
eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and
one another coon after; insomuch, as the very carcasses they spared
not to scrape out of their graves, and if they found a plot of water.
curses or shamrocks, there they Hocked as to a feast for the time,
yet not able to continue there withal ; that in short space there was
none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country sud-
denly left void of man and beast."
The authors of this calamity reaped from it the expected fruits.
Five hundred and 'weenie-lbw' thousand six hundred nod twenty.
eight acres were forfeited to the Crown, and distributed anions
Englishmen. .

As famine had succeeded so well in Munster, it was adopted sys-
tematically in Leinster and Ulster; and that death which Home,
pronounces to be the most miserable that man can die, was now
prescribed and administered universally as a panacea for all the
evils of Ireland. "The ssels.iers," as we learn from Moryson,
"encouraged by the example of their officers, everywhere cut down
the standing corn with their swords, and devised every means to
deprive the wretched inhabitants of all the necessaries of life. Fa-
mine was judged the speediest and most effectual means of reducingthem. The like expedient was practised in the northern provinces.
The governor of Carrickfergus, Sir Arthur Chichester, issued from
ha Quarters, and fur twenty miles round reduced the country to a
desert. Sir Samuel Bartel, with the garrison of Newry, proceeded
with the same severity, and laid waste all the adjacent lands."
Such was the executive part of the measures of Elizabeth's minis-
ters.—Let us now lift the curtain of her councils, and see what was
passing there. _ „ . _

It appears from the letters of Sir H. Story and Sir J. Parrot (who
to do t hem justice speak of such conduct with the horror it deserves),
that when the death of the Earl of Desmond, and the suppression
of his adherents, had left an interval of tranquillity which it was
proposed to take advantage of, for the long-desired purpose of in-
troducing a system of justice and liberal policy into Ireland, the
Counsellors of Elizabeth opposed themselves to this humane design,
Nod did not blush to assign the following reasons for their oppoes-
non Should we exert ourselves," said they,-" in reducing this
country to order and civility, it must soon acquire power, eons*.
quence, and riches. The inhabitants will be thus alienated from
England ; they will cast themselves into the amis of some foreign
power, or perhaps erect themselves into an independent and separate
State. Let us rather connive at their disorders ; for a weak and
disordered people never can attempt to detach themselves from the
crown of England."
Never Vied the Rocks a fairer harvest of riot than during this moat
productive reign, One of my ancestors, who lived and battled
through the whole of it, has transmitted to his descendants the
high and illustrious distinction, of having been personally engaged
in no less than forty rebellions, making within five of the num.
ber of years that good Queen Bess las he well might call her)
reigned —to say nothing of a multitude of episodical insurrec-
tions, of a lighter nature, with which he amused his summer
months.

On this affecting picture—for with all the enlivening
rdirfof this writer it is still affecting—it is painful to com-
ment. Talk of converting the Catholics ! How can it be
expected that t4c majority of a nation thus treated should
adopt the creed of their persecutors ? After chewing
them for centuries that your religion has no influence in it
to prevail upon you to be just, you demand of them to ex-
change it for their own ! ! All this is wilful guilt, it is
not absurdity : our error has here no apology in our imbe-
cility; it were well if it had, for the remedy would then
be mach nearer at ham!.
(To be continued.)

BRIGHTON, SUNDAY, Aran. 2S.

• MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE.

The fineness of Thursday gave every promise that Fri-
day would be a day of corresponding clearness and calm.
S..vetal active preparations were made to celebrate the
King's birth-day, and the Steine, the Chain-pier, Ireland's
gardens, &c. were expected to present a more gay and
fashionable appearance than on any preceding day of the
Easter holiday.. To the utter disappointment and mortifi-
cation of the numerous visitors as well as the inhabitants,
these fair forebodings were all frustrated, by the day set-
ting in from the earliest dawn with a high wind and heavy
rain. The rain continued to fall in uninterrupted torrents
throughout the whole day, and it blew quite a storm from
the morning until the close of the evening. The appear-
ance of this town was therefore bleak and uncomfortable,
and were it not fur the firing of the guns from the battery,
not a single citeenstance occurred which could tend to re-
mind one, in this his faroutite town, that Friday was the
day appointed for the celebration of the anniversary of the
.King birth.
_ _

I iiltich regret thElt &raves upon me to recount a'
most distressing event—the loss of a boat and three of his
crew, one of the fatal consequences of the storm of Friday.
I say use of the fisted nouryttences, as, from the sails, rud-
ders, pieces of mast, Rm. which have been washed on shore,
it is to be apprehended that the loss is not confined to a
single wreck. The boat which has been lost was a fishing-
boat, belonging to the town of Worthing. The fine wea-
ther that prevailed on Thursday and the preceding days
induced the crew, consisting of five persons, to venture at
a cnnsiderable distance from the shore in pursuit of their
industrious occupation. They were unfortunately over-
taken by the storm on the morning of Friday, and, in en-
deavouring to gain the harbour of Shoreham, were swamp-
ed on the southern sand-batik that lies at the entrance of
that small and intricate harbour. Three of the men, con-
sisting of the captain of the boat, and a father and son, of
the name of Porter, were drowned almost immediately on
the boat's sinking. The other two succeeded in getting on
the keel of the boat when she upset, and, as it drifted to-
wards the shore, were saved by ropes thrown to them by
persons from the land. One of the boatmen who has
escaped is a young man and son of the captain who was
drowned, the other is an old seaman, who has had many
"a hair-breadth 'scape" on his precarious element. Two
of the bodies were picked up immediately after the wreck
of the boat ; the third was not found, however, until twelve
o'clock yesterday, when it was discovered near the chain-
pier at Brighton, a distance of nearly three miles from the
place where the bodies were drowned. The bodies are at
present at the Crown and Anchor public-house in Brigh-
ton. A coroner's inquest was held upon them last night,
when a verdict of " Accidentally Drowned.' was returned,
on the evidence of the two boatmen who were saved, and
'of the persons who found the bodies. It is an aggravation
to the calamity that the persons who were drowned had
large families, whom they have left in a state of exigency
that will probably require some charitable persons to
rescue them from a state of want. Great alarm has been
excited for several other fishing-boats, which have not been
heard of since the storm. This day is delightfully clear
and mild, and the concourse of strangers and visitors is, at
the moment that 1 write, crowding every place of gay and
fashionable resort.

Merchants and Tradesmen are respectfully invited to the
examination of the New Mercantile Assistant General
Cheque Book and Interest Tables, by Mr. 11-right, the
Accountant and Agent, of 63. Paternoster-row. Copious
Tables and Calculations on Irages ; Interest; all goods
bought by Wholesale; Profits; Life Annuities; Public
Funds; IVine ; Spirits; Flour; Corn, &c. &c. are com-
prised in this volume, and the approbation bestowed upon
it has been the most unqualified and general, anti its
real utility, when even used merely as a cheque on calcula-
tions in the hurry of business, will recommend it to general
adoption. A new edition is now ready, beautifully printed,
and strongly half-hound, price Us. It may be seen at most
of the bookseller% about the Exchange, and in other parts
of London ; or the publisher will have much pleasure in
lending a copy for inspection, on a note being addressed to
him (post paid), William Charlton Wright, jun., booksel-
ler. stationer, and publisher, 83, Paternoster-row, London.

- .
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TEMPI.E.—FIeet-street and
the Inner Temple are to be considerably imptoved and al-
tered. At present there is not a good carriage entrance to
the Inner Temple, and those who reside in it are put to
much inconvenience, particularly after the gates are closed
in the evening. The improvements contemplated are, the
pulling down the houses in Mitre-court, Fleet-street, and
Ram-alley, adjoining the west-side of Sergeant's-Inn,
which will make a spacious and handsome entrance to the
Inner Temple from Fleet-street ; the difficulties in making
these improvements arc the proprietors of the houses and
grounds asking large sums for the sale of their property.
The Benchers of the Inner Temple also have it in contem-
plation to throw open to a public and uninterrupted view
the Temple Church, which is celebrated for its ancient
architecture. The difficulties in accomplishing this object
are, also, the purchase of the Chambers, and other build-
ings which surround the Church: in addition to the value
of some Chambers belonging to a public body, fcr which
they demand 9001.