The Sun.
London, England, 1834-04-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

From the progress already made with the discussion of
the Repeal question, we think there are grounds for con-
gratulating both countries on such an exposure being ad-
ministered to the mingled frauds and follies long palmed
by O'Connell upon the Irish audiences which he has been
accustomed to congregate, as must operate with all but the
veriest brutal rabble to undeceive and settle the minds of
men, with regard to the ruinous consequences towards
Ireland herself which would inevitably follow this breaking
up of the British empire. Mr. O'Connell has placed him-
self in difficulties which no honest man will pity him for
being such that extrication is impossible. He has made
his warhorse of a measure which could have no support in
either country but from violence, and which, had he been
a bold or consistent incendiary, he would have recom-
mended and pushed forward on congenial grounds. Had
he told the people whom it was his business to excite—
Here is a profitable speculation for all of us : the power
of England upholds those laws by which property and
order are to a certain extent protected; the power of England
enforces (though, thanks to my laudable efforts, far from
perfectly) some respect for human life, and some autho-
rity in the civil institutions of the country ; the same
power, in short, it is which restrains me and my tools and
partizans from laying hands on whatever is tangible, and
from turning to our own benefit whatever is productive,
within the Irish territory. Let us shake off that baneful
power, and we may govern as we please, we may confis-
cate as we please, we may banish whom we please. No
Saxon shall dare to show his hated visage amongst us ; no
heretic shall pollute the precincts of our sacred isle ; a
Celtic democracy shall flourish under my protectorate. We
shall league with America, and wage eternal war with
England." Had Mr. O'Connell made this exposition of
his own schemes, and held out frankly these incitements to
his dupes, he would, humanly speaking, have acted with
more wisdom than he has done—he would have proclaimed
to his partisans the ends to which alone his machina-
tions were fitted, and would have harmonized the fruit
with the tree. To explain this a little further, we must
state plainly, that O'Connell's motion is and can be no
other, than by casting Ireland loose from its English moor-
ings, to exercise in his own person over the whole consti-
tuency of that country, the same dominion which he has
already wielded over a large portion of it—to have a Par-
liaMent (or by whatever name he may baptize the new
Milesian legislature) of his own electing—a church of his
own consecrating—laws of his own framing; and, in fact,
to be dictator of the island, with its whole finance and
physical force at his unrestrained disposal. This would be
the real, infallible, and almost immediate (we do not say
the ultimate) result of the repeal of the union between
Great Britain and Ireland ; and besides acting a far more
manly part in the avowal of his motives for the revo-
lution which he advocates, we firmly believe that O'Con-
nell would have gained a larger body of daring and
reckless instruments to assist him in the work, by not
attempting to recommend its accomplishment upon any
false grounds of justice, reason, or national advantage,
which he knows to be ridiculous and untenable. Had
the adventurous and discontented spirits of Ireland placed
any confidence in their leader's resolution, they would have
been more readily converted to a participation in, bold
crimes than to an acquiescence in hollow arguments. But
like other projectors of unacknowledged mischief, O'Con-
nell's hypocrisy has ruined him. He has failed of apply-
ing an adequate stimulus to the passions of bad men, and ,
the intelligent treat his wretched pretences with scorn.
In the House of Commons thc,gourse taken on this
question by O'Connell has been below contempt. Know-
ing that mere vapid declamation would not do with
the united parliament, he shirked and winced from
the question as long as he was able ; and now that he
has been lashed up to it, what an exhibition ! Had
the question been a repeal of the Scottish union, and
had any smatterer in the common-places of history
dragged up old traditions about Edward 1., Wallace
(Ireland boasts no Wallace), Robert the Bruce, and so
forth—or, coming down to the recent days of Elizabeth,
had raised a hoolaloo upon the treatment of the frail and
beautiful Mary, what would any sane politician have said to
such a course of reasoning ? Suppose again, that the un- I
equal distribution of property throughout England and
Wales had given rise to a motion for something like an
agrarian law in this country, what would any man think 1
of him who ransacked the reign of William I. and Henry
for proofs of the confiscations and enormous grants in
favour of the Norman barons ? Even such was the
first division of the long, and feeble, almost drivelling
address of the Repeal champion who has brought on
the present discussion. The old annals or pretended
annals of Ireland were invoked for grievances, now to
be redressed no otherwise than by a repeal of a mea-
sure, in itself a remedial one, which took place thirty-four
years ago. But allow the recall of forgotten centuries
as evidence of English cruelty in Ireland—what then ?
What was Ireland? A kingdom ? No. A state? No
such thing ; each county in Ireland was a separate state.
The tribes were almost as numerous as milestones are
now ; the chiefs were tyrants, the subjects savages.
Shameless treachery, remorseless cruelty—the morals
of banditti—the civilization of New Zealand, charac-
terized the society of Erin. If the English practised
cruelties, they were probably less atrocious, less bar-
barous cruelties than those which the far more bar-
barous native cutthroats perpetrated upon each other.
As the English pale extended, some small traces of
civilization extended with it; but to talk of Ireland,
as a whole, in such times, or of rights appertaining
to the nation, when there was no nation, shows a
knowledge of history worthy of the times to which
such dissertations relate. This was the first part of
Mr. O'Connell's " argument,"—that because the Irish
were torn to pieces, oppressed, and desperate, and
strove, though vainly, to acquire, even by paying
for it, a right to the designation of British subjects,
and to the protection of British laws, now, when they are
actually and completely in possession of both these much-
desiderated blessings, the British Parliament, as a favour
to Ireland, should deprive her of them ! Another large
division of Mr. O'Connell's speech went to prove that the
English parliament never had a full dominion over the
people of Ireland—(well for the latter if they had been
directly ruled over by the British parliament). But to
this it was well answered by Mr. Spring Rice, that the
learned repealer was only saying over again what the Bri-
tish parliament had itself on more than one memorable
occasion acknowledged, and that all the declamation manu-
factured out of it was so much pure " rubbish." We shall
to-morrow or next day resume the thread of this notable
discourse of the would-be Milesian Autocrat, and show,
from the materials brought forward by Mr. Rice, in his
admirable speech, that the use made by Ireland of the pri-
vilege
of self-government was as little beneficial to her as
the possession of that privilege was undoubted.— Times.

The Hon. Captain John Rodney, who has
been restored to the Retired List of Captains ,in the
Navy, is the father of Lady George Lennox. He was
for some years secretary to the government in Ceylon,
and was dismissed the service as far back as when Lord
Sandwich was at the Admiralty, for having taken leave
of absence against the order of that board in order to
visit his dying wife.
CAPTAIN GLASCOCK'S NEW WORK.—
We are requested to state that the second series of
" The Naval Sketch Book," containing Jack at
Oporto, is published this day by Messrs. Whittaker
and Co.

ILLNESS OF THE MARCHIONESS WELLES-
LEY.—We regret much to learn that her Excellency
the Marchioness Wellesley has been indisposed for
several days past.—Dublin Evening Mail.
Lord Blayney, who died at Bilton's Hotel,
in Sackville-street, Dublin, on Tuesday last week,
was left at table on the preceding Saturday evening,
in his usual delicate health, by his agent, who dined
with him, and was subsequenly found alone by his ser-
vants senseless on the floor, with his leg entangled in
the chair, in which it had probably caught in an
attempt to rise from the table. He was carried to
bed as if it had been an ordinary accident, and no
doctor was called in till next evening, when it was
found that the torpor he had evinced the preceding
night was not abating, though he appeared occasionally
in pain. The doctor, on his examination, found that
his thigh was broken near the hip, and every attention
was paid to his very dangerous state. He appeared
to improve a little on Monday ; the same night fell
again into a state of insensibility, which terminated
his existence.

MAKANNA.—That this popular novel should
prove a " Godsend" to the libraries, is explained by
the novelty of its subject and the life-like animation of
its dramatic character ; but as a work of literature its
claims are of a more commanding order. " Makanna"
is not only " a romance of real life," but its personages
are of that high poetic bearing which entirely absorbs
the reader. The author reminds us of Goethe, and
in such scenes as the midnight intrusion on Bertha in
the first vol., and the daring entrance of Laroon into
" the doomed chamber of the bridal," in the third, so
vivid is the impression, that we start as from a present
danger. In a word, when once read, this book will
never be forgotten.
THE DISTURBANCES AT OLDHAM.—At
a late hour last night we received a great mass of evi-
dence given at the inquest since our last report ; but
as this evidence is all on one side, viz., that which is
intended to prove that the fatal shot preceded the riot-
ing ; and as the evidence of the witnesses on the other
side has been effectually suppressed by the Coroner
until the inquest shall be closed, we think it right not
to publish an ex parte report. We shall therefore
only say that on Monday night the inquest was ad-
journed until the following day ; and that on Monday
morning another very numerous meeting of the work-
men was held on the High Moor, at which a resolution
was passed, " That labour shall not be resumed at
present."—Morning Paper.

I POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.
On Wednesday a gentleman applied for assistance
under the following mysterious circumstances :—He
stated that Mr. 'Watson, of Leadenhall-streat, seal-
ing-wax maker ; his wife, to whom he had lately been
married; two children, whom he had by his former
wife ; a charwoman, and the charwoman's daughter,
were all at that momont suffering from the effects of
poison. Upwards of a week ago the family began to
suffer indisposition, which gradually became more se-
vere; and as all the members of it were affected in
the stomach and intestines, they ascribed their attack
to the bilious epidemic now so general. On Wednes-
day last, the servant girl, who had been in the service
less than three months, complained also of illness, and
left the house, in order to go home and get medical
advice. The charwoman, who was attending the sick,
was next taken ill, and was obliged to send for her
daughter. On Friday this young woman was seized
with violent illness, after taking a bowl of beef tea, of
which the family partook, and were also again at-
tacked. A friend, who was sent for, conveyed the
beef tea to Dr. Browne, St. Mary-Axe, when it ap-
peared that arsenic had been mixed with it. The salt
in the cups, which had been in use some days, was also
found to be° impregnated with arsenic. On Saturday
night Mr. Watson's boy was sent with a bottle to a
neighbouring public-house for spirits, when the land-
lord, on smelling it, said it had a disagreeable vitriolic
smell. The boy not making any objection, the gin
was served into the bottle, but upon returning to Mr.
Watson, he mentioned what the publican had stated,
and a glass of the beverage was poured out, and upon
being analyzed, was found to contain a quantity of the
same sort of poison that had been mixed with the salt.
Mr. Watson knew no one on whom to fix suspicion.
He had discharged a person for robbing him about a
month ago, but that individual bad not been near the
house since. Five or six men worked for Mr. Watson,
but there was not the slightest reason to suspect them.
The applicant further stated that the servant returned
on Saturday to Mr. Watson's house (the discovery
having then been made), and resumed her work, but
in the evening she again complained of illness, and
went home.

The LORD MAYOR sent Forrester, the officer, to
inquire into the circumstances.
The father of Mr. Watson, it appeared, happened
to call at the house on the day the beef tea was taken
by the family, and took a small portion of it, but the
portion was large enough to make him extremely ill.