The Sun.
London, England, 1837-01-10 00:00:00

LONDON,
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 10, 1837.

We direct the serious consideratio❑ of the Spanish
Ambassador in London, and, through him, that cf the
Government at Madrid, to another excellent letter
from our correspondent PEL AGI us. The present com-
munication refers to the late renowned siege of Bilhoa,
and points out what we deem incontrovertible argu-
ments for prompt attention to his admirable and con-
clusively military suggestions.

In a recent correspondence between Mr. WENT-
WORTH BEAUMONT and Mr. O'CONNELL, the
Hon. and Learned Member for Kilkenny pronounced
deliberately the opinion, "that religious animosities are
the sole cause of the present unnatural state of
Ireland." We are disposed to make great allowances
for the unguarded expressions of public men of ardent
temperaments, when addressing congregated masses of
their fellow-countrymen. In the warmth of political
discussions the most temperate orators are often
betrayed into the use of language which in their
cooler moments they would willingly retract, and not
less frequently into the avowal of convictions from
the general correctness of which they themselves, a
moment afterwards, would be obliged in candour to
make large deductions. To no public man in the
United Kingdom have we thought it our duty to
extend this indulgence more largely than to Mr.
O'CONNELL. In the multifariousness of his avoca-
tions we found an ample excuse for the occasional em-
ployment of an intemperate expression, the application
of an unbecoming epithet, and the premature adoption
of political schemes and systems flung aside as extra-
vagant and impracticable before time was allowed to
judge of their operation. To try the public conduct
of Mr. O'CONNELL by the ordinary standard applied
to the acts of other public men would be narrow-
minded and unjust. The position which he occupies,
and the circumstances by which he is surrounded, are
such as would paralyze the faculties of an ordinary
person. What is more wonderful still, his position was
created by himself, and over the circumstances which sur-
round him he has long exercised a controul such as no
single individual ever before dared to exercise in Ire-
land. Mr. O'CONNELL is a man of strong impulses,
and his mind is too vigorous and original to admit of
his wearing the harness of those Parliamentary hacks
who have nothing to refer to but their consistency—
most commonly in doing nothing—during so many
years of public life. Mr. O'CONNELL has done, and
continues to do too much, to do everything faultlessly ;
and he has made, and continues to make too many
speeches upon all manner of subjects, to allow any
reasonable person to expect that he can be always
wholly consistent with himself. But the instant Mr.
O'CONNELL takes up the pen he debars himself that
indulgence which we so willingly extend to any
crudities or intemperate expressions which we may
discover in his declamatory denunciations of the op-
pressors of Ireland. Consistency in his written opinions
is expeCted from every public man. The truth or false-
hood of those opinions is quite another question.
Now we put it to Mr. O'CONNELL himself, whether
he does not remember to have asserted, in his letters
and public appeals to the English people within the
last seven years, that the sole cause of the evils of Ire-
land was entirely removed from the relative conditions
of Catholicism and Protestantism in that country? Did
he not deliberately assert that the Union—" the ac-
cursed Union"—between Great Britain and Ireland,
was the " sole cause" of Irish misery, and that never
till it was dissolved could Ireland become prosperous
and happy ? Did he not assert in 1828—in writing
too--that nothing but the Emancipation Bill could
make Ireland contented and tranquil ; and that that
Bill, as passed in 1829, was amply sufficient for that
great purpose ? Did he not, in 1835, as deliberately
state that Orangeism—apart from Protestantism and
Dissent—was the sole cause of the degradation of Ire-
land ? In a word, is there a measure of any moment
which he has supported which he has not described in
letters, written by him, as all but sufficient for the re-
moval of the "sole cause" of the wretchedness which
preys upon the vitals of Ireland ? In justice to Mr.
O'CONNELL we will here quote from his letter to Mr.
BEAUMONT the passage upon which we bring against
him a charge of inconsistency ;--
" You desire to be publicly informed by me if I coincide