The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1837.

are those ,of a religious, a political, or a criminal nature, we
beg leave to disclaim the two latter only, for we do tint, cannot
believe, that your Lordship's objection to reinstite us in ceir
farrrn and native homes arises from any religious consideration.
" Then, my Lord, us to politics, our defence is as conclusive
as it is brief; we never possessed the franchise; we all were
tenants at will ; we never, mediately or immediately, directly
or indirectly, aided others in the exercise thereof.
" But, if we be charged with crime and moral geilt. we at
once repel the allegation, by a direct reference to our Ceunty
Calendars for the last 60 or 100 years ; to the records of the
Petty Session's Court, held weekly in our district ; to the tes-
timony of the neighbouring Gentry ; and finally, to tU autho-
rity of our Rev. Parish Priest, whose certificate of our moral
conduct during the last 23 years is hereunto appended. We
admit, my Lord. that our neighbourhood had been for sonic
short time disturbed by the illegal deeds of a few vicious indi-
viduals ; but we humbly submit, my Lord, that the peaceable
and well-conducted ought not to be involved in the infamy and
penalty deservedly incurred by the guilty.
" We beg leave to subjoin a thble of reference to the re-
spective Plough Lands on which we live ; the length of our
residence and that of our forefathers thereon ; the number of
acres we hold, and the rents we assumed ; the number of our
families, together with other circumstances that bear upon our

of this House, for any person or persons to impeach, or to wi
fel::: and deliberately call in question, the right or title of any
Member to a seat in th:s House, otherwise than by a petition,
duly presented, according to the existing laws and regulations
of the House.
" 2. That, by the existing laws and regulations of the
House, the fight if petitioning, in cases of controverted elec-
tions, is confined so such persons who may claim to have bad
a tight to vote, a right to be returned, or who may allege
themselves to have been candidates at the election complained
of; and that for any ether person or persons to procure or in-
stigate the presentation or prosecution of any petition against
the return of any Member of the House, or to maintain the
same with money, is contrary to the law, and a violation of the
rights and privileges of the House.
" 3. Thai a confederacy of persons, for the purpose of exa-
mining into the merits of any petition or petitions which may
have been presented, or which it may be proposed or intended
to present, against the return of any member of the House.
and of deciding whether the same are or are not of a just and
desers ing character, and founded upon good grou..vls, has a
direct tendency to intercept, diminish, degrade, and even ren-
der nugatory the powers and jurisdiction of this House, is sub-
rsive of the regular course of public justice, is a contempt
of the House as a court of judicature, and a gross breach of
its rights, privileges and prerogatives.
" 5. That a confederacy of persons, for the purpose of
raising throughout the country public subscriptions in aid of
petition; against the return of any Members of this House,
and the application of such subscriptions, or any part of the
same, for any such purpose, is a high crime and misde-
meanor, an invasion of the freedom of election and the liberties
of the subject, and a violation of the rights and privileges of
this House.
" 5. That it be referred to the Committee of privileges to
inquire into the particulars of a meeting alleged to have been
held at the London Coffee-house, Ludgatehill, on the Oth
of August last, at which Andrew Spottiswoode, Pi inter
to her Majesty, appears to have been in the chair ; and
also to inquire into all the proceedings consequent upon such
meeting, and to report the same fully to the House, and that
the consideration of all petitions affecting the Returns of
Members of this House be deferred, until after the Committee
shall have made their Report."
This is the only constitutional step that has
yet been taken to defeat the SPOTTISWOODE con-
spiracy ; and if the Reform party in the House
of Commons be true to itself and to the country, it
mast be successful. The SPOTTISWOODE conspiracy,
including, as it does, most of the Conservative Mem-
bers of the Home of Commons, is clearly a combina-
tion of the judges who are to try the justice of certain
constitutional proceedings, against the defendants. The
subscription of a single penny to defray the expenses
of any petition against the return of a Member of the
House of Commons, by an .individual unconnected by
any tie but that of faction or fanaticism with
the place for which such Member has been re-
turned, ought at once to invalidate the Petition. We
are, of course, presuming the acceptance of such sub-
scription by the petitioners. Now, what in the world
do the boarding-school misses of London know about
the merits of our Irish Election Petition ? Whence
do they derive a right to contest the legality of Irish
elections ? As for the youths of Oxford and Cam-
bridge, it would be more creditable to' them to pay
their tradesmen's bills than to waste their pocket-
money in an attempt to overthrow the independence
of the House of Commons. In the mean time, we
trust that the Reformers will seriously reflect upon
the condition to which any neglect of duty on their
part must reduce the representation of this country.
The Tories are striking at the very root of the inde-
pendence of Parliament. Were they to succeed they
would themselves be the greatest sufferers; but the
corruptionists are too blind to sec any result but the
immediate prospect of their restoration to the emolu-
ments of office.

case.
"We have done, my Lord ; our destinies are in your
hands ; we confess that hope still mingles in our despondency;
and we, therefore, throw ourselves and our afflicted families,
amounting► to one Ivindred and fifiy six children, cr two hun-
dred and forty seven members of our families, on your Lord-
ship's merciful consideration ; imploring you net to sever a
connexion of landlord and tenant, which has now exi3ted be-
tween your Lordship's family and the families of memorialists
for over a century ; and memorialists will EVER PRAY.
" TESTIMONIAL OF CHARACTER.
" Reference being made to me by memorialists, I feel it due
to their character to certify, that I know each and all of them
intimately well, and that for the last twenty-three years that I
have been Incumbent of this parish, I never had to censure
their conduct individually or collectively ; on the contrary, I
invariably found them to be men of good moral conduct ; of
peaceable, sober, and industrious habits ; and much esteemed
by their late Landlord, Henry Gillman, Esq., of Rork House.
"J. A. O'SULLIVAN, P.P., Kinneigh."
Upon this heart-stirring appeal to the humanity—
the justice of Lord BANDON, we shall adopt tl►e com-
mentary of our able Contemporary- the Southern Re-
porter. It is an appeal which must reach to the heart
of every high-minded gentleman in the United King-
dom, no matter what may be his party, his politics, or

his religion :
" A relation of Landlord and Tenant appears to have subsis-
ted between the 13andon family and the occupants of this tract
of land of six generations ; the tenants are stated to have been
frugal, improving and industrious; the expiration of the te-
nure of their immediate landlord, Mr. Gillman, of Rock-
house, has not been followed with any dilapidation or other
injury, which too often occurs under such circumstances, and
no facts have come to our knowledge which would seem to
warrant the dissolution of a connexion of such long standing.
The tabular statement referred to in the memorial is not ma-
nageable in a newspaper publication, and we are therefore
obliged to omit it ; but facts appear on the face of the docu-
ment which are deserving of notice. Thus, it is mentioned
that one tenant has been 43 years on the estate, his father
having been previously an occupant for 30 years ; another te-
nant is 45 years on the land—his father had been on it 80
years, his grandfather GO years, his great grandfather 70
years ; in short, this tenant is the sixth generation on the pro-
perty. Another tenant has been 44 years the occupant of a
farm, which had been held by his father and grandfather ;
another has been 50 years in possession, his father and grand-
father having both preceded him as tenants; another occu-
pant, now 88 years of age, has been 44 vears tenant on the
estate, on which his father had resided for 80 years, his.
mother for 100 years, and his grandfather for 80 years. We
shall conclude this reference to the tabular statement by men-
tioning, that Maurice Costello,!of Cappeen, has resided 60
years on the property, on which his father lived 60, his grand-
father for a similar period, and that this tenant, who is now
about to be ejected, has made the substantial improvement of
erecting a new house and barn on the farm.
" It is under such circumstances that two hult.‘!red and.forty-
seven'persons of all ages, including one hundred and fifty-six
children, are, it is said, to be expelled from their habitations
and farms at this period of the year; an inclement season ap-
proaching, and thrown houseless and homeless on the country,
in a condition of affliction and despair.
" The whole statement, if not so well authenticated, would
have struck us as utterly incredible. The occupants in ques-
tion were tenants at will, had no electoral franchise, and could
not, in reference to that subject, have incurred the displeasure
of the Noble Proprietor. As to the cause assigned—
that the Noble Lord had formed the determination of " never
letting an inch of ground to Roman Catholics," it must surely
be a misapprehension. A depopulation of the country must be
one of the consequences of large landed Proprietors forming
and acting on such a determination. Other consequences may
arise, fearul to contemplate, and to which ob one can be in-
sensible."

Among the notices of motions for Monday next we
find the following by Mr. BARING, upon the prompt
appearance of which we heartily congratulate the
Government :--

" That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the
present state of the Communication by Railroads, so far as it
affects the regularity and convenience of the transmission of
letters, and the Post-office in General, to ascertain on what
terms mails arc now conveyed by the railroads in operation,
and what measures it may be just and expedient to adopt for
the purpose of securing to the public, in future, the benefit of
the conveyance of the mails by railroads."

Thu next instance of the wholesale ejection of
Catholic tenants by their landlord is detailed in the
Wexford Independent. The proptietor, in this case,
is stated to be a clergyman of the Established Church,
the Rev. Dr. QUIN, of limy, who is reported to
have actually depopulated a whole village because the
inhabitants were Catholics! A correspondent of that
journal thus details the completeness of this horrible
act of priestly extermination :
" Limbric, of North Wexford, has been voted a blank in
the list of villages—the spot on %hich it stood now presents
but the wreck of its existence—its inhabitants, full one hun-
dred souls ! were forced at the point of the bayonet to seek re-
fuge in the neighbouring mountains, because, unhappily for
their temporal interests, they were Catholics 1 So completely
was the system of extermination and persecution in their re-
gard carried into effect, that not one neighbouring tenant on
the estate of the Rev. Doctor could be found, on the night of
their ejection, to afford them, even for that night, the shelter
of a roof! The miseries of those unhappy beings, some of
whom have since perished in the ravines of Croghan mountain,
while the rest are wanderers on the face of the earth, may be
imagined, but not described ; and so heart-rending was the
scene of their ejection, and the consequent and immediate de-
molition of their homes, that even members of the Police
force, who assisted in producing the legal havoc, actually shed
tears while engaged in the stern execution of their duty. But
they were Catholics, and therefore have they been exter-
minated."

It is now so:n.! weeks since a report reached us,
that immediately after the late general election in Ire-
land, a meeting of landed proprietors and their agents
was held at the residence of an Irish Nobleman in a
southern county, at which it was resolved that the per-
sons there assembled would take every opportunity of
ejecting Catholic tenants from their estates, and that
in future they.would refuse to let their lands to per-
sons professing that religion. We could not at first
give credit to such a statement, and we yet believe it
to he greatly exaggerated, although the recent conduct
of a few Irish landlords goes far towards ratifying the
truth of every syllable of it. There may be—rather
there are —in Ireland, a few intolerant bigots in
possession of extensive landed property, who, in the
blindness of their fanatical zeal, would prefer seeing
their estates a waste, to seeing them occupied by a
happy tenantry differing from them in religious opi-
nions ; but the majority of the landlords of that coun-
try can»ot afford to imitate them, were they even not
restrained by worthier and more to:erant motives.
Moreover, it is not always just to echo a cry of op-
pression against a numerous and influential body of
men, without a careful examination of the alleged
grounds upon which it is raised. There are many
instances in which a tenant might be ejected for non-
payment of rent, for neglecting the cultivation of his
farm, and for an invasion of manorial rights, when, in
a highly excited state of public feeling, it would rip-
pear to a cursory observer, that he had been expelled
for the advocacy of certain political or religious opi-
nions. A bad tenant would likewise find it more for
his interest to pass for a martyr among his neighbours,
than to be known only as an idle or dishonest man.
But there are cases of oppression, of which the dry de-
tails substantiate a pre-determination to commit them on
the part of landlords or their agents ; and two such—
we scacely know which to call the more atrocious—are
mentioned in the Irish journals received on Monday,
but to which we found no earlier opportunity of ad-
verting. The first we shall notice is the ejection of
the Catholic tenantry of the Earl of BANDON from his
Lordship's estates in Ireland, the particulars of which
we find in the columns of the Cork Southern Reporter
of the 16th inst., and for the authenticity of which
our Contemporary states that he has the authority of
three Magistrates, of whom two are Protestants. Ac-
cording to the documents published at the instance of
these gentlemen, the Catholic tenants of the whole of
that part of Lord BaNDoN's estate recently held by
:qr. GILLMAN, of Rockhouse, amounting in all to
two hundred and forty-seven persons, have received
notice to quit their farms without delay, as it is the
determination of his Lordship that no Catholic shall
in future occupy an acre of laud under hint I Of the
unhappy peasantry thus about to be cast on the wide
world, in the depth of winter, there is said to be not one
who was not born in the cottage which he now occu-
pies. The following is a copy of the memorial ad-
dressed by them to the Noble Earl, and which would
not have been made public had his Lordship vouch-
safed an answer to it

These acts of cruel oppression—unexampled out of
Ireland—are submitted to the calm consideration of
the people of this country. We cannot believe that
Lord BANDON is himself cognizant of the sufferings
thus about to be entailed on his tenantry. It must be
the work of some heartless agent—some undcrstrapper,
high in the confidence of the Orange Institution. In-
deed we believe that in-nine cases out of ten in which
the Irish peasantry-ere unjustly oppressed, the land-
lord is entirely unacquainted with the injustice perpe-
trated in his name. But is he therefore guiltless ? By
no means. Did he not neglect his tenants—were he
not constantly absent from them—such cruelties dare
not be exercised.

We find in the Augsburg Gazelee of the 18th inst.
a continuation of the correspondence between Sir E.
LYONS, the British Ambassador at the Court of
Greece, and M. RuptiAßT, Minister for Foreign
Affairs. In answer to the declaration of the British
Minister, that the Government of Greece overstepped
the limits of its constitutional authority, and was guilty
of a violation of inter-national law, in ordering M.
USIGLIO out of the country, protected as he was by,a
British passport, M.'lluptiAnT, in his second letter,
says :7--
.6 I have already had the honour to tell you, M. le Chave-
lier, that M. Usiglio was a native and subject of Modena, that
it could not depend on a British mission in a foreign country
to deprive him of that quality and invest bins with another,
which should be of force and value in another State, by the
mere fact of having been pleased to furnish him with a pass.
port ; that this passport, calculated at most to protect the in-
dividual in question from the inconvenience of being without
the necessary papers for undertaking a journey, could not, at
least in Greece, have the force you imagine, nor relieve him
from the immediate action and authority of the police of the
country ; and as to the visa of the Greek Consul in Malta, even
if the functionary who affixed it had not committed a fault in
so doing, that visa, which only facilitated the introduction of
the person, could certainly not have the effect of maintaining
him in the country, contrary to the wishes of the police, who
may have reasons for not permitting Isis stay. s *

‘; The Government has the right not to consent that foreign
subjects, and those moreover expelled from their own country,
should enter and reside in these dominions, under shelter of a
pai-:sport to which they can have n., right, though it may have
pleased a foreign mission, for certain reasons, to deliver it to
-
them."

" TO THE RIGHT HON. JAMES, EARL OF BANDON.
i Ni
iswith the deepest sorrow that we, the
undersigned on that part of your Lordships' Estate,
v
tenants
n
situate in the
Loan—lt It
parish of Kitmeigh, make this appeal to your
Lordship's high-mindcd and honourable feelings ; for we will
not conceal from your Lordship the fact, that a report, emana-
ting from highly Conservative quarters, brings to our cars the
melancholy assurance of your Lordship's determination " never
to let an inch of ground to Roman Catholics." We are also
informed, that charges of tuoral guilt and insubordination are,
ley interested persons, sent forward to your Lordship against us.
" To avert a resolve which would necessarily consign us and
our families to all the horrors of pauperism, we humbly best,ech
you, my Lord, by the charities of human nature, by the sym_
thies of tenancy, which for six generations have linked us and
our fathers with the Bandon Estate, and by the virtues which
ranked your late Noble Father among the best resident land-
lords Ireland ever saw ; by these, my Lord, and by every other
motive which may excite your compassion, we imp ore you, first
to hear our plea of innocence of any charges that may be urged
against us. •
" As the only accusations we can by possibility anticipate

T. this answer the British Minister rep Les
This disposition to undervalue an English passport, to cavil
at its validity, and to limit the sphere of the British protec-
tion, comes with a very bad grace from the first Minister of
Greece, who cannot but know that thousands of Kir.g Otho's
subjects owe their property and existence to English passports
of the same nature as that of M. Usiglio. Really, Sir, if such a
s .ntiment had emanated from a Greek it would have provoked
on the part of herMajststy's Government a revocation of that pro-
tection i but I trust, and feel convinced, that her Majesty's qa4
vernment, tinder OW PPrsuasien that there is not one Greek
who, by participating in such an act, would repay by ingrati-
tude what England was done, in concert with her allies, will
allow this circumstance to pass in silence, as has already been
done with respect to more titan one anti-national act, and will
continuo to hold out the hand of friendship to regenerated
Greece. With respect to yourself, Sir, your gratitude is due
exclusively to Austria and Bavaria ; but you cannot expect