The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-27 00:00:00

g*lnt,

LO) DON, THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1848.

The long-threatened outbreak in Ireland has a'
length commenced in good earnest. The inhabitant!

of Tipperary and Kilkenny are in open arms—co
sions have taken place with the military in severe
districts, and, although there are as yet no account,.
of the state of affairs in Cork and Waterford, the
very absence of intelligence renders it but too pro-
bable that the appeal to arms has taken place in these
counties also. It is more than probable that the
leaders of the movement would gladly have
postponed the insurrection, if any discretion
was afforded to them. No choice remained,
however, as we yesterday stated, but "an
instant outbreak, or an immediate and uncondi
tional eubmission?' The people had been so fearfull3
wrought on by the exciting harangues of ethe ends-
easies of treason, that they could not be induced to
adopt the latter alternative. A new proof has been
afforded how much easier it is to awake the passions
of the multitude, and to lash them into madness, than
to moderate and restrain the parties thus worked
upon—to appease the evil spirit when once it has
been evoked. The Ministerial measures have had
the ;fleet of precipitating the crisis that was inevit-
able, and bringing it on prematurely, when its sup-
pression can be more easily effected with the smallest
loss of life, and the least degree of human suffering.
The simultaneous departure of the principal
leaders of the movement from their usual places 01
resort lias indicative that something decisive would
speedily take place. If the arms were surrendered
'peaceably the sting would have been withdrawn from
the rebellion. These arms, then, were to be buried, or
otherwise concealed in the proclaimed districts, or
wherever practicable, to be removed into localities
which had not as yet been subjected to the operation
of the new Act. In like manner, those who bad
reason to suppose that their names were included in
the lists of the suspected withdrew themselves from
their usual places of resort, and retired into
different parts of the country, where they might ob-
tain temporary shelter and protection, and it was an-
nounced ex'sathedra that the people were resolved to
resist to the utmost the capture of any of their chief
cams. In this state of affairs, the most prompt and
vigorous action was necessary on .the part of the
}executive. They could not allow the "passive re-
sistance" to be contiuued for any period without
enormously enhancing the rebel power and greatly
increasing the intensity of the ultimate struggle.
The ringleaders were therefore followed with energy
and decision, and it would hav9 been abso-
lutely impossible for them long to have escaped
the search of the keen-scented detectives. The
southern counties were the districts in which the
greatest amount of sympathy might be hoped for,
where the insurrectionary fever had reached and
its
height. Thither, there the parties repaired. Mr.
Salim O'BRIEN proceeded through Wexford, Which
in the former rebellion of 171a8 obtained •a bad pre-
eminence for the resistance it offered to the consti-
tuted authorities, and for the cruelties practised upon
the unoffending loyalists who fell into the hands of
the sanguinary miscreants, who, on the bridge of
Wexford and at the barn of Scullabogue, in-
flicted an indelible stain on the Irish character.
Thence he went through the county Waterford,
where he was joined by Mr. Mssenza, in the neigh-