The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1846.

A mutiny when the ship is sinking is not a more
pitiable spectacle than the recent secession of the
Young Ireland party from the ranks of the
Patriot and Liberator of Ireland. However
much we may be opposed to Mr. O'CoNNELL in his
agitation for the repeal of the legislative union, we
cannot but recognise in that Honourable Gentleman
the truest friend of Ireland ; we cannot hut recognise
in his long and earnest career the toil of one anxious
to benefit his fatherland; we cannot but recognise
throughout his professional and Parliamentary life
the solicitude of a man, devoted heart and soul, body
and mind, to the moral, physical, and political re-
demption of his afflicted country. Whatever may be
our difference of opinion as to the mode best calcu-
lated to effect the advancement of the Irish popula-
lation, we are satisfied that the Honourable
Member for Cork exhibits this pertinacity
in his favourite project solely from his convic-
tion 'that the attainment of his object would
ensure the regeneration of the community. He is
struggling for the possession of a phantom, but in
those struggles be is riving the chains of Ireland
asunder. He has already emancipated his fellow-
countrymen from many grievous disabilities ; he has
dissipated many of their sorrows ; he has avenged
many of those wrongs which they had suffered during
successive generations. Through the instrumentali'y
of O'CONNELL the character of Ireland has already, to
a considerable extent, been vindicated. By his assi-
duous exertions she has emerged from a misgovern-
ment infinitely more onerous and repressive than the
misgovernment of the Muscovite or the Lithuanian—a
misgovernment not so much of a corporeal character
as of a spiritual, not so much of body as of soul, not
so much of municipalities as of religion. Much, of
course, has remained unreformed, which, with
due attention, might have been effected.
These oversights, however, are more attributable to
the unpropitious nature of circumstances than: to
the lack of any individual sagacity. The power
exercised by Mr. O'CONNELL ill the advocacy of his
native land has been erected upon—what ?—upon the
enthusiasm of his countrymen. But how was that
enthusiasm gained ? Was it gained by the tactics
of a Mohawk ? Was it gained as DANTON gained
his victories, by exciting the passions of the mob, by
goading the people to acts of insubordination, by a
plentiful distribution of pikes and bludgeons ? Was
Catholic Emancipation wrung from the Legislature
by intimidation, or by the dispassionate weapons of
logic ? Was it wrung from Parliament as the fana-
tical followers of Lord GEORGE GORDON endeavoured
to:elicit a " No -Popery" enactment from those august
Chambers ? Has not O'CoNNELL's influence been based
upon the
_solid granite of peace, instead of upon the
capricious quicksands of insurrection? Has he not
throughout his agitation sheltered himself behind the
adamant of the law, and has not that course already
obtained for Ireland an inestimable boon ?
A dreadful visitation afflicts the island—a visita-
tion which, notwithstanding their familiarity with
suffering, has keen hitherto unknown to its inhabi-
tants. Famine and winter, disaase and want of
employment to millions, combine to render the desti-
tution insufferable. The perennial barrenness of
protection in the landlords is accompanied by an extra-
ordinary barrenness in the vegetation. A ban appears
to pervade the land. Ireland is in a state of national
bankruptcy. At this moment of tribulation, when that
strength which is the consequence of unity is more
than ever rcqui,ite, the ranks of Ireland's avowed
leaders are thinned by the defection of certain hair-
brained dissentients. All the world knows upon
what cause this division occurred ; all the world
knows that Mr. O'CONNELL maintained the neces-
sity of striving for repeal only by moral agency
and loyal agitation, and that Mr. 'WILLIAM S3IITII
O'BRIEN insisted upon the Association infusing
treasonous principles into its code, and proclaiming
the rectitude of physical force. Since the first se-
paration of these parties, by a contrariety
of views somewhat more striking than that
of the Big and Little-endians, immortalised
by SWIFT, the public have heard scarcely anything,
and, what is more, have cared scarcely anythingabout
the redoubtable personages 'yclept Young Irelanders.
A casual display of oratorical pyrotechnics in the
Rotunda at Dublin has, at intervals, amused
the more sober members of the popu-
lation. John Bull, however, is blasé in
regard to those spurious specimens of patriotic
enthusiasm. Ile looks at the dissemblers with the
scornful nonchalance of a PCCOCURANTE. Meanwhile
the condition of Ireland has been gradually becoming
more terrible and appalling. Want of employment
and dearness of provisions are greater afflictions
than hitherto from the severity with which the
season has commenced. Murders and outrages are
of more frequent recurrence in consequence. Each
successive week affords a frightful catalogue of deaths
by starvation. Contagious maladies are begin.
oing to affect those constitutions, the vigour o
which has been already undermined by inanition.

At this moment Mr. O'CONNELL makes a final
effort to conciliate those who insulted him by their
vituperations. He swallows all the selfish instigations
of pride, and renders himself liable to every species
of obloquy, because of the existing emergency, and
because he is more than ever persuaded that the per-
petuation of such a quarrel, and its consequent heart-
burnings, can only prove injurious to the national
interests. To 115, there is something admirable in
this forgetfulness of personal considerations for
the sake of a famishing people. There is
something noble in this sacrifice of private
sentiment to public conviction. One gap was still
open in the forum for the salvation of Rome, and
CURTILIS immolated himself for the good of the state
by plunging into the chasm. Mr. O'CONNELL has
dared the jeers and ribaldry of venal tongues and
hireling pens because, by his proposition for a con-
ference with the leaders of the Young Ireland party,
he felt he could alone hope to heel all existing dif-

ferences, and to battle aieinst the troubles of the

country with one unbroken phalanx. Among the

many sacrifices which O'CONNELL has made for

Ireland, this sacrifice of feeling in proposing a con
ference with his traducers is nut the least.

The result of this proposition is what might have
been readily anticipated. The Young Ireland brag-
garts have rejected all offers of a conciliatory cha-
racter. Their wonderful captain—the hero of the
coal-cellar—the victor of the tea-and-dry-toast—Mr.
WILLIAM SMITH O'BRIEN, has emphatically refused
the conference. He has virtually spat upon the offer
of his more noble- minded adversary. It is rumoured
in some quarters that the co-operation of this honour-

able malconterit may be ensured on certain

conditions. Conditions—pshaw !—the Irish don't

care twopence for his co-operation. Mr. WILLIAM
SMITH O'BRIEN IS not the ATLAS upon whose shoul-

ders the fate of Ireland is dependent. He has shown
the obverse side of his character. He Las proved that

as he is without sterling patriotism, so is he without
magnanimity. CGMIOLANUS in the hall of Aurinrus,

and TIIEMISTOCLES asking protection from ARTAX-
ERXES, must be incomprehensible spectacles to Mr.
WILLIAM SMITH OTRIEN. We trust that Mr.

O'CONNELL may be more successful in his generous
negotiations with those whose reconciliation is of some

importance.

We adverted last week to the paramount im-
portance, to every civilised country, of a sound body
of criminal law ; to the reasons that constituted this
importance, and to the duty which men owe to them-
selves to scrutinise, with the utmost jealousy, the ad-
ministrati:n of this branch of their legal code. We
alluded to the vast quantum of ministerial power that
is lodged with the magistracy, who admit or reject