The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-21 00:00:00

TilE SUN, LONDON, MONI)1Y, SEPTEMBER 21, 1835.

mulated her wealth ; and I have been cheered on my pas-
sage as if I were a son or a brother, announcing, to them
a mission of peace—(Hear, hear)—but at the same time
expressing a determination to improve their political
being, and to put an end to our oligarchical House of
Lords, mho would endeavour to stifle liberty and to termi-
nate the progress of political improvement. The thought
which animated the men of England, and the thought which
animated me was the absolute necessity of doing away with
the obstacle to peaceable improvement—of abolishing the
body whose existence threatened revolution to Ireland, to
Scotland, aye, and even to England itself.--(Cheers.) And.
even the exaggerated eulogiums which you have heard
passed upon me in the eloquent speech of your excellent
Chairman, violent and unmerited as those eulogiums were
—(No, no)—are symptomatic of the• state of the public
mind; and your very endurance of that over-measure of
praise proves that youdtre deeply convinced that the hum-
ble individual who stands before you is an instrument, feeble
and insignificant in himself, but powerful and irresistible in
your hands, to achieve good for England, Scotland, and
Ireland.—(Loud cheering.) Let our Statesmen read
i the lesson.—(Hear, hear.) We have made great progress
in social and political improvement, within the last few
years—from the time that Wellington was hurled from
the Administration, after the celebrated declaration, that
the British Parliament, as then constituted, was the
acme of perfection.—(Laughter and cheers.) Be declared
that if he were called upon to model what, in his opinion,
should be a perfect legislature, he should not have had the
wit, poor man, to discover any thing . so excellent as the
systeni of representation which at that time existed in
England—so good did it appear in his eyes, that he thought
it must actually have been Providence who framed it—
I believe he meant a Providence of a very dark colour.—
(Laughter and cheeers.) Fortunately, by the course of
events, there had been framed in this country so exquisite
a system 'of legislation, that human intelligence and human
ingenuity, a priori, could never have dreamed of it. Am I
speaking in the spirit of ridicule ?—am I stating what is
not true ? The Duke of Wellington said every word
of it—(Hear, hear)—not quite so flippantly, or in such
good and. plain English as I have repeated it,. perhaps
—(A. laugh)—but not the less doggedly, determinedly,
and distinctly. He said he could not dream of any such
perfect form of legislation as that which existed under
the old rotton-borough system.—(Laughter.) You do
not agree with him.—(No, no,) • Lord Grey's Govern-
ment—honour to them for it—did not agree with him.
The Reform Bill was carried, and the British nation
stood again' in its first rank among the nations of the
earth, as it always ought, and, as I venture to prophecy,
always will.—(Cheers.) The effects of trie Reform Bill—
melancholy, no doubt, to the thirty-three gentlemen who
formerly returned your Representatives for the city of
Edinburgh—(Laughter)—melancholy enough for them, and
more melancholy still for the masters under whose directions
they were wont to act—what iron tears must have run
down their cheeks.—(Laughter and cheers.) The effect of
the Reform Bill was to commence a gradual improvement
of every portion of the institutions of the country—to cor-
rect abuses of the law—to check and control the profuse
and profligate expenditure of the army and navy—to re-
move abuses in the Church of Ireland—and to wipe out
from the Corporations of England all that has made them
the contempt and execration ,of every rational man.—
(Cheers.) I believe you have a sufficient recollection of
your own Corporations to sympathise with England upon
that subject.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") Such was the
first effect of the Reform Bill ; but in the course.of the
peaceful revolution we were effecting we were suddenly
impeded. I do not speak now of the Whig's. I do
not now dwell upon the misfortune of the Whigs in
their quarrel with Ireland. During that quarrel I would
have despised myself, and been unworthy of my country, if
I had remained cool, quiet, and peaceable, in the progress of
the Coercion Bill. I have my excuse in the excellent lan-
guage of the Member for. Aberdeen, Mr. Bannerman, who
said that if such a Bill had been attempted for Scotland, he
would rather have died than supported it.—(Cheers.) It
was a mistake—it was fatal policy. It has gone by. I do
not forget it, but I heartily forgiwa it.—(Cheers.) We had
a dissolution of Parliament, and Peel and Wellington came
into power again. They used the language of delusion to
Scotland and England ; they used the scorpion lash of
bigoted intolerance to Ireland.—(Great cheering.) Under
such circumstances, the Irish Members felt—and they were
joined in the feeling by the honest Scotch Members—that
they owed it to the country to forget all former differences
with the Whigs; and to remember only the enemies with
whom they were then engaged.—( Hear, hear.) We rallied
round Lord Melbourne ; and I am. glad we did, for we
have been rewarded for it by the excellent conduct of his
Government.—(Heir, hear.) From the moment that they
came into office, to the hour at which Fain now speaking.,
the whole of their conduct towards Irchand has been beyond
dl pra.ise. 'Phew have discountenanced party spirit—they
have put down :faction.—(Cries of Hear, hear.) They
have promoted intelligence and independence by the selec-
tion they have made of individuals for the offices they have
had to fill.—(Hear, hear.) In shiort, under their just rule
a new era has opened for Ireland—the dawn of a new day
has commenced.—(Cheers.) But the Tories have deter-
mined to stop the progress of these benefits to Ireland and
to the British Empire ; for Ireland cannot be .peaceable
and prosperous without diffusing her prosperity, and giving
the benefit of her tranquillity in all its strength to the en-
tire British empire.—(Hear, hear.) I am naturally led
eway to Ireland.—(Hear, hear.) I have risen to speak of
this meeting as symptomatic of your determination in the
crisis which has now arrived.—(Hear, hear, hear.) The
Commons arc with the people ; they are the real repre-
sentatives of the people ; but their fidelity to the people is
in vain as long as 170 members of the House of Lords are
ready to stop every improvement.—(Cheers.) I look upon
this meeting as a decisive evidence that 3.0 u are not prepared
to submit to this species of domination—(Never)—that you
arc not inclined to bow your neck to the Dagon of an aris-
tocr:tic dominion.—(Never, never.) The Reform Bill
made this contest necessary. Before the passing of the
Reform Bill the House of Commons was only another
chamber—another instalment of the House of Lords.—
(li ear and S'aughter.) The influence of the Lords always
secured a majority in the Commons, and by no means a
passive one. The majority was a working majority, but
working only to mischief' ; it was a majority which in-
volved the country in bloody and horrible wars, and left
her at last with the terrific load of a thousand millions of
debt.—( Hear, hear.) The Lords, now separated from the
Commons, seek to dictate to the Commons. Are you
prepared to submit to that—(Loud cries of " No, never !")
Your presence here is sufficient to answer the question,
without the expression of your voices. Here am I a mis-
sionary to preach down the House of Lords.—(Great
cheering.) Whilst the House of Lords exists in its pre-
sent form, it is impossible for us to have honesty or justice ;
whilst it continues in its present state, it drives on to revo-
lution, and this is a country not to be driven to revolu-
tion -except by inevitable necessity.—(Hear, bear.) All
the changes in the British Constitution for nearly the last
two hundred years have been effected in peace. But woe
to this land if ever the Lords make it necessary that the
hand of force should be used to deprive them of' a usurped
power, which they have no longer the right to possess, be-
cause it can no longer be of utility to the people.—(Loud
cheers.) The franchise in my opinion is not sufficientlyex-
tended—(Hear, hear.) The duration of Parliaments, on
the other hand, is too much extended,—(Hear, hear.)
The mode of voting is open to too many species of control,
and'to too much -bribery and corruption.—(Hear,. hear.).
There are further ameliorations that we want. Unless we
check the House of Lords we shall not have one of them-
-(Hear, hear)—for they, forsooth, arc the tribunes of the
people, or at least of as many of the people as they can pur-
chase at two pounds a head.—(Laughter.) They carefully
preserve the instruments of corruption, and until they are
Checked and controlled, corruption can never be banished
from British elections.—(Hear.) What a quantity of mis-
chief have they not done in the last session of Parliament !
How many useful measures have they not stopped in their
progress! First, there was the Prisoners' Counsel Bill.
You will be surprised in Scotland to hear that according
to the law of England prisoners chargdd with capital
offences are not allowed to have counsel to speak in their
defence. A man charged with a misdemeanor may have
counsel to speak for him, but if the alleged offence be
capital the counsel's mouth is stopped—he cannot say a
word upon the fact—he may only examine witnesses.
Such is the humanity of the English law. In Scotland I
know it is different. A Bill was brought in to do away
with that cruel anomaly in the English law. The Lords
rejected it.—(A groan.) Then there was a Bill to disfran-
chise the borough of Stafford. There were 521 voters who
voted in the majority for one of the Members who was
returned for that borough. How many of them were
bribed ? 520.(Great laughter and cheering.) There
was just one found faithful, and to his honour be
it said, he was a clergyman of the Church of England.
hear.) But of the 520 laymen who voted, every
mother's son of them was bribed.—(Renewed laughter and
cheering.) What did the Lords do ? They took a very
religious view of the subject, and having found one just
man in Stafford, they forgave the 520 unjust—(Great
laughter)—and, with most exemplary piety, left them to be
bribed again.—(Great laughter and cheering.) There was
another Bill to do away with a kind of absurdity which
exists in England, by which no man as an heir can sue for
a debt, unless he has what is called an administration out
of the Ecclesiastical Court. This is often productive of
great inconvenience and great expense. We brought in
a Bill to effect a remedy. This was held by the Lords to
be too great an encroachment upon the jurisdiction of
the Ecclesiastical Courts, and it was accordingly thrown
out. There were other Bills. Oh ! I should detain you
for the night were I to go through them.—(" Go on.")
There was the Irish Church Bill.—(Hear, hear.) There

was this principle established in that Bill—that the Pro-
testant Establishment in Ireland should be kept up to
the full amount of the wants of the Protestant popu--
lation in that country. That was a recognised principle
of the Bill. Now, for my part, I own it candidly lam for
the voluntary principle.—(Great cheering.) There are
many who differ with me upon that point. I do not im-
pugn them for so doing ; but even those who differ
from me ,ought, at least, to be contented with this—
that as long as a Protestant is found in Ireland spiritual
instruction shall be provided for him out of the funds of
the State:—(Hear, hear, hear.) We did not go to the
length of your own sturdy ancestors, who insisted on hav-
ing the creed of the Established- Church of the same co-
lour with that of the people. There are about 800,000
Protestants in Ireland, while there are six millions of Ca-
tholics. But we offered cheerfully to pay for the religious
instruction of the 800,000, and only asked that the surplus
funds should be appropriated—how ? To the 800,000
Presbyterians ? No. To the 6,800,000 Roman Catho-
lics ? No. But to purposes of moral and religious edu-
cation. Some say that the Catholics of Ireland do not
become Protestants because they are ignorant, benighted,
uninstructed, and uninformed. Then -instruct them.—
(Hear, hear.) If they be in ignorance and darkness, the
way to remedy the evil is to spread abroad the light of
education.—(Cheers.) I do not think we were very un-
reasonable.—(Cheers.) What did the Lords (1o? They
cut off the religious and moral education. That was unfit
for the Lords.—(Laughter.) Their Lordships would have
nothing to do with education.—(Renewed laughter.) Why,
if there were education, there would no longer be Toryism.
(Hear.) There really would not ; and my own opinion is,
that there will not be Toryism much longer, and I will tell
you why—it is especially dishonest.—(Cheers.) What is
the meaning of Toryism ? It is this, whether a man's
father or brother, or uncle or cousin, or any relative in the
nearest or remotest connection of blood, or any friend or
acquaintance, can give him a place in which he may fatten
at the nation's expense.—(Hear.) There are some Tories,
it is true, foolish enough to be contented with a bow from a
a great man, but*these are the silly Tories. The out-and-
out Tory is a different creature. He.- likes the system of
corruption and undue influence, because there is something
to come from it. But this class will soon vanish, for the
day. is at hand, when a man will be as much ashamed to be
called " Tory," as to be called " rogue.'—(Cheers.) The
meaning of the two words is identical, and as the latter
is the shorter, I would recommend you, for convenience
sake, as well as for greater explicitness, to call all the
Tories rogues for the future.—(Great laughter and cheer-
ing.) But lam digressing ; I return to the Irish Church
Bill. The Lords objected to the propositions for educa-
tion, and accordingly rejected the clauses which were to
provide for the religious and moral instruction of the
people. Thus the House of Lords consented to take for
the Irish clergy 721. 15s. per cent., although-we who drew
the clause in the Bill offered them 771. per cent. But
they will get nothing. Why ? Because the people are
determined not to pay tithes. Now, there can be no de-
termination in which a man is so fixed, as in not paying.—
(Laughter and cheers.) The people of Ireland have de-
termined not to pay tithes, and already they have evinced
their determination. They have been carried before the
Ecclesiastical Courts—not a 'farthing has been extracted
from them. They have been carried into the Exchequer
—not a farthing.. They have been tried by process of
Common Law—not a farthing. The police were brought
out—it was of no avail. Then came horse, foot, and ar-
tillery----an idle and profitless expense ; the people would
not pay—not a doit ; and then, to make the controversy
perfectly orthodox, they shot as many Paddies as they
.could.—(Groans.)
,There they lay—nine of them in one
slaughtered heap—at Rathcormac ; but. they would not
pay.—(Cheers.) The Lords took the 721. 155., or would
have taken it, but we would not give it to them ; we said
we would have the Bill entire, Or we would not have it at
all ; and thus there was an end of it by common consent.
I think their Lordships will take less next year. There
were other Bills relative to Ireland. There was one which
attracted very little attention in Britain, North or South,
yet was of very considerable importance to families in Ire-
land. I mean the Roman Catholic Marriages Bill. By the
law, as it new stands in Ireland, marriages contracted under
certain circumstances, between Protestant and Catholic, arc
illegal ; and thus, after years of cohabitation, an innocent
woman may find herself cast off upon the world, branded
with the foulest name that can be.applied to woman, and
her offspring illegitimate. For this there is no remedy. I
have known instances of the most cruel misery resulting trom
this laws We brought in a Bill to correct it. The Commons
passed the Bill. It went up to the Lords. They had the
cruelty, because I had advocated the- Bill, to throw it out,
and to leave the innocent children in Ireland sufferers for
guilt to which they were no parties.—(Cries of " Shame.")
It may be said that this is a small matter ; but it is not—it
bespeaks a great principle, and it shows with what vile perti-
nacity the Lords use their influence against everything that
has the appearance of justice, or that is in conformity with the
wishes of the people. I detain you too long.--(Cries of
" No, no, go on, go on.") There was another Bill to pre-
vent the introduction of Orangemen into the police force.
That Bill Was of great importance to all Ireland, because
in that country we have 7,000 paid . police.—(Hear.)
It was, however, thrown out like the rest, because they
(the Lords) patronise Orangemen, and refuse to do justice
to Ireland. The Dublin Felice, Bill was thrown out on
the same foolish and absurd ground—that I bad supported
it. And, good Heaven ! can anything afford so melancholy
an instance of the injustice of British assembly as that
they thus throw out measures, not on the facts, but simply
because one individual supports, thehl ? Am I calum-
niating their Lordships ? Why, if Iliad not twenty-four
millions of witnesses, I should not deserve to be credited.
—(Great cheering.) They said in the face of the British
nation—they calmly avowed it—that these 'Bills were
thrown out because-there happened to be such a man as one
Daniel O'Connell who had supported them.—(Cheers )
As to the Irish Corporation Reform Bill, they did not
give us that—but we will have it next year, with the help
of England and Scotland. They mutilated the English
Corporation Bill. We went to the limit of conciliation.
I, for one, thought we had gone to an extreme length,
but they, notwithstanding, sent us back the Bill, adhering
to two most mischievous provisions: It then became
a question whether the mischief of the Lords was such that
we could accept the Bill as a small instalment, or entirely
abandon it, and commence a new agitation to make them do
us justice next Session. We preferred to take the instal-
ment. It was 10s. 6d. in the pound which we got from our
fraudulent debtor—(Laughter)—but we have given him no
acquittance, no discharge—( Hear, hear)—on • the contrary,
we have the pledge of the Ministry and the voice of the
House of Commons to begin the next Session with a
louder and further extended demand. Having, in the
meantime, availed ourselves of the instalment, we shall be
better able to secure the rest, and to bring into direct
operation all the force of the public opinion of a great
nation.—(Hear, hear.) I was myself afraid that there
would be a division in the camp of the Reformers, and it
is manifest, from the speech of Peel, at Tamworth, that he
relied more on your divisions than on his own strength.—
(Hear, bear.) That man, to be sure, is one of the most
complete humbuggers that ever lived.—(Laughter.) At
Tamworth, he said how was it possible that Reformers who
said so and so of each other at a former period, could now
concur in action ? But what may be said of Peel himself?
Had he not, in his late Cabinet Sir Edward Knatch-
hull, the man who opposed him (Sir Robert Peel)• on
the Catholic. Emancipation, saying that there was never
such a mixture of depravity and profligacy of public
principle, and that all confidence in public men had fled
for ever—nusquani tuda fides, for after ransacking the
English language for•terms of abuse, Sir Edward Knatch-
bull found it was not enough, and was compelled to resort
to Latin.—(Laughter.) We, reformers, must now form a
phalanx, and our motto must be—Down with Toryism 'and
up with the standard of 'Reform.—(Cheers.) In England
we will have the Corporations, although I was afraid they
would be an°on, with us for our concessions, but I am de-
li ghted to tell you the Bill has been exceedingly well re-
ceived in all the corporate towns of England. And why ?
Because it turns out the thirty-three that elected them-
selves—(Laughter)—and all the old burgesses—the capital
calves, as Shakespeare has it, and they certainly took , ca-
pital care to put all the charity, and all other good things
into their own poekets, those funds being of too domestic a
nature to wander away from themselves. But all that is
gone, and men in their stead will be elected by the people.
To be sure there is one great drawbaCk, I mean the pecu-
niary qualification—is it not qualification enough for a man
that he is selected by his fellow-citizens ; but, above all, if
they put a poor man forward, is it not evident that he must
have some qualification to counteract the circumstance of
his being a poor man—some extraordinary virtue arising
superior to his poverty in the opinions of his fellow-citizens.
--(Hear.) But who proposed it but Sir Robert Peel ?
The more shame for him. His father, to Isis*glory, was a
cotton-spinner, and his son, on that account, ought. to belong
to the order of the people ; but instead of that, he put
virtue, and integrity, and intelligence, and the confi-
dence of one's neighbours in one scale, and threw 1,0001.
into the other ; the good qualities kicked the beam and the
1,000/. sunk the scale.—(Cheers.) That is the man who
had the presumption to call himself a Reformer at Tam-
worth, where there was nobody to contradict him.----(Hear,
hear.) We have contradicted him. We have contra-
dicted trim here, and with the blessing of God we will ring
the bell of contradiction in his ears for some time to come.
Why do I dwell upon this ? It answers -my question—
what brought you here ? To answer Peel of Tamworth.—
(Cheers.) You came to oppose Wellington—(Renewed
cheers)—you came to oppose the Tory rogues and raparees
-.--(Cheers)—you came to oppose all those who resist the
course of liberal and just policy—to oppose all those who
insist on respecting institutions merely because they are an-