The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-22 00:00:00

raised by persons whom he believed either the priests or the
democrats had ordered to attend for the purpose—yet
the astounding facts remained, that animosities
in Ireland were now more virulent, religious distinctions
more marked, the social bonds more split asueder, life and
property less secure, and Protestantism was more assailed
than ever had been since the passing of the Legislative
Union.—( Cheers. ) The Noble Marquis opposite seemed
surprised, the °the- night, when he ( Lord R.) stated that
the method he had taken of makir.g splendid gaol deli-
veries during his toms, had produced great alarm in the
minds of her Majesty's peaceable subjects. He (Lord R. )
bad made that statement from authority and after due con-
sideration, and which he was prepared to repeat.—( Hear,
hear.) A man near his (Lord Roden's) seen house, being
a Protestant, had a political quarrel with a Roman C.tholic.
The Roman Catholic assembled a crowd of persons, and
pursued the Protestant into another man's house, where
they demanded that he should be given up. That demand
was refused, and the house was nearly demolished, and its
contents greatly plundered. A Magistrate committed the
principal delinquent to prison for a month, regretting at
the same time that he had not the legal power to transport
him. A memorial was got up in three weeks afterwards,
and transmitted to the Noble Marquis, who immediately
ordered his discharge. The moment the individual was
liberated he re-assembled a crowd at the house
where he had before committed his assault, and set the
parties atdefiance. Was it possible there could be peace
hi, Ireland so long as such a system as that was pursued.—
( Hear, hear.) He ( Lord IL) was not surprised to hear
the Noble Marquis behind him (the Marquis of West-
meath) move a short time ago for certain memorials that
bad been transmitted to the Noble Marquis for the dis-
charge of certain criminals; nor was he surprised to hear
the production of those memorials refused, because had
they been produced they would have exhibited a most ex-
traordinary catalogue. But he had been furnished with a
return made to the House of Commons from May 1835 to
February 1837, and upon looking over that return he
found that in two years 1,173 convicted prisoners were
discharged before the expiration of their sentences.
Of those 37 were sentenced to deal), 33 to transportation
tor life, and 63 to transportation for seven years—and he
found that in the Noble Marquis's tour of popularity (for
so it was called in Ireland) in 1836, the Noble Marquis
discharged 284 prisoners, 110 of those being by verbal
order.—( Heat, hear.) That was during the lifetime of
his late Majesty, and the Noble Marquis being the repre-
sentative of his Majesty, it could not be considered unfair to
make a contrast between the two. Supposing then, that
his Majesty had made a tour through England. and at
Chelmsford he had discharged 30 prisoners, as the Noble
Marquis had done at one place; at Hertford be had
discharged twenty-four, as the Noble Marquis had at
Sligo; and at York, he had discharged 72, as the Noble
Marquis had done at Tipperary, what would have been the
feeling and state of England ?—( hear, hear). This popu-
lar tour had been described by a Noble Marquis, not now
in his place, rather aptly, as dramatized royalty, making
mercy to appear blindness, instead of justice. That really
appeared to him ( Lord R.) to be the effect of the Noble
Marquis's tours, and there could not but be many points
of law affecting the discharge of those prisoners, which he
trusted some Noble Lord would take up, as he was not able to
grapple with them. The next subject was the existence of
an Association which he was sure was known.by its appellation
and the mischief it had produced, to all their Lordships,
he meant the Precursor Society. It had been brought
into life and carried on for mischief by a Learned Gentle-
man who was the great supporter of her Majesty's Govern-
ment, and who had very recently declared that he had
every confidence in the Noble Marquis. This Society was
not only the child of this individual, but it was supported
and held by the Roman Catholic Priests, by whose spiri-
tual influences all its ranks were filled. The Noble Marquis
might say he had nothing to do with that Society, but he
(Lord IL) conceived that the Noble Marquis in not using
his power to put that Society down as Governor of that
country, became a partaker in its acts—particularly he
felt so when he remembered that the Noble Mar-
quis was a Member of the Government which
a short timo ago suppressed the Orange Society,
which he had the privilege and happiness to belong to—
a Society calculated to promote the welfare of the country,
having for its ends legal objects, and its great foundation
being the upholding of the laws of the country, and the
preservation of the Union of the Empire; whereas the
first great point the Precursor Society had in view was the
annihilation of tithes, and the destruction of the Protestant
Church ; and if their object in that respect failed, then
the repeal of the Legislative Union. So long as the friends
of the Government were the great organs of that Society
—so long as the Government did not taut the Society down
—then they themselves were to be considered the sup-
porters of it. He was unwilling that their Lordships
should take his testimony only in reference to this Society,
therefore he would read to them an extract from a
letter from the Learned Gentleman who was the great
supporter of this Society. The Noble Lord then read
extracts from that letter, in which the Learned writer of it
recommended an adjournment of the Society for a fort-
night ; also of a speech delivered by him at Limerick last
year, in which he commenced—" Agitate, agitate, agi-
tate ;" also of a speech (for the purpose of showing that
the Society was supported by the Priesthood) of a Roman
Catholic Priest at a dinner given to the Learned Gentle-
man at Thurles, as reported in the Morning Register; and
likewise part of an address delivered by Mr. O'Driscoll at
Youghal, to show how much calculated this Society was to
subvert the Protestant Church, root and branch; as also
an extract from a pamphlet published in Dublin, in 1838,
written by a very clever man, who signed himself " British
Jurist," and a perusal of which he would recommend to every
man who wished to become acquainted with the real state
of Ireland. The next point to which he wished to allude
was the existence in Ireland of a conspiracy, systematic,
organized, and secret, against the persons and properties
of all who did not join them. The greatest sufferers from
this conspiracy were the poor farmers in the country.
They were individuals who were- anxious to live in peace,
but if they did not join the conspiracy, they were visited at
night, and treated with the greatest cruelty. The object
of this conspiracy was the same as that of the Precursor
Society—the Repeal of the Union, with the ultimate ob-
ject of the extinction of Protestantism in Ireland. lie
(Lord R.) had stated before that her Majesty's Govern-
ment was acquainted with this Society. That they had in-
formation of it from their own officers, and that the Noble
Marquis on that occasion said he had no knowledge
of it, nor did he believe that any such conspiracy
existed.—( Hear.) It, therefore, became him (Lord R.)
to prove to their Lordships in asking for the appointment
of this Committee, that such conspiracy did exist. He
would, therefore, read :tr. extract from the language of
Judge Burton, in his address to the Jury at Tipperary last
Assizes, where his Lordship stated there were crimes
of
an
nurad-gergravated and heinous character ; thirteen cases
three of which appeared to him to involve the
crime of a previous conspiracy to murder. Also the lan-
guage of the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench
within the last month, wherein his Lordship commented, in
passing sentence upon a murderer, on the awful offence of
conspiring to take away human life for the sake of money.
Nor could he suppose that a clearer case of conspiracy
could be brought before the House than the late
lamentable murder of Lord Norbury, a Nobleman, who,
while he was walking in his park, in open day, in a thickly
populated neighbourhood, was shot by an individual who had
made his escape, and no trace of whom had been disco-
vered, notwithstanding, a reward of 4,0001. and an annuity
of 1001. had been offered to any person who would give
any information upon the subject. Then, in the next place,
he would draw the attention of their Lordships to the Rib-
bon oath, some extracts from which he would read, and
which he thought would afford the strongest proof
of the existence of this conspiracy.—(Hear, hear. )
The Noble Lord then read several of the extracts.
There was one fact connected with the Ribbon system
which he was anxious to state to their Lordships, and which
would convince them of the necessity of a Committee of
Inquiry. Mr. Sims, to whose case he had before alluded,
was a Scotch flour-merchant, who had taken a mill at Col-
looney, near Sligo, which had formerly belonged to two
gentlemen named Kelly. From the time of the attack
upon Mr. Sims' house he could procure no persons to work
for him, nor would they bring any corn to his mill, which
was reduced to a state of inaction. The Messrs. Kelly,
who, for aught lie knew, might be very respectable persons,
required a sum of money from Mr. Sims, which he had re-
fused to pay, and the order of th• demagogues had gone
forth against him ; but when at length he did so, persons
immediately were found to bring corn to his mill, and it
was saon in full work. Now one of these persons, who
were evidently in some way connected with this organised
opposition to Mr. Sims—one of the Messrs. Kelly had
been made a Justice of the Peace by her Majesty's present
Government.—( Hear, hear, bear.) lie thought he had
stated enough to convince their Lordships that an extensive,
organised, and_wide-spread Ribbon conspiracy existed in
Ireland. The last topic, and the most important
of all to which he would direct their Lordships'
attention was the conduct of the Roman Catholic Priest-
hood, who had by their violent and intemperate conduct,
added much to the outrage and disorder that prevailed in
that country. He believed in his conscience, that the
peasantry of Ireland would be much more peaceable and
orderly if they were left to themselves. He (the Earl of
Roden) had been pronounced a bigot, but he yielded
to no man in his anxiety to promote the welfare and
prosperity of his Roman Catholic brethren.—(Cheers.)
He would now read to their Lordships an extract
from the charge of Baron Richards, at the Castlebar
Spring Assizes for the county of Mayo, with reference to
the conduct of the Roman Catholic priests, and the testi-
mony of that Learned Judge should be received with the
more respect, because he had been raised to the bench by
the present Government. The Noble Earl here read an
extract from the charge of Baron Richards, in which that
Judge complained of the prevalence of riots and outrages
in that county, many of which took place when the parties
were leaving the house of God, on the sabbath. The
Noble Earl then read an extract from a work published by
a Dr. Mayles, of Dublin, to the same effect.
He would now call their Lordships' attention
to the prosecution of the Protestants in the
west of Ireland, which would afford them additional evi-
dence of the feelings of animosity and hatred instilled into
the minds of the Roman Catholic peasantry by their
priests. In the year 1831 a famine, as their Lordships
must be aware, took place on the western coast of Ireland
—a Rev. Friend of his went there with a cargo of rice,
purchased in England, and he found on the coast of Achil
a large number of families in a state of the greatest desti-
tution, their minds being equally destitute of all religious
or moral instruction. A colony was established on the
island of Achil by the Rev. Mr. Nangle, and several of
the Roman Catholic converts were received into it, but the
moment they had commenced their operations a regular
plan of annoyance and persecution was established by the
priests, and that persecution was rendered still more vio-
lent by the occasional visits of Dr. Jl' Hale. He would
read to their Lordships extracts from the evidence of wit-
nesses who had been examined before a Committee of that
House, and which would convince them that the priests
had been the instigators of the outrages which had been
then.Do petrated
read upon the colonists. The Noble Earl
extracts from the evidence of Mr.
R eymoborladis, n et, he I neshpief c
ec t orffi
coefr, the Air CoastpNioi t y Guard,ond 0 t
hAol
rr
3.
A Representations had
been
''
agde various acts of outrage.
to the Irish Government, but no notice had
detailing