The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-13 00:00:00

l'ltt _Slut

LONDON:

SATURDAY MORNING, JANUARY 13, 184 .

Our own opinion of the consequences, of a Re-
peal of the Union between England and Ireland,
is upon record. We have, over and over again,
declared our deliberate conviction upon this sub-
ject. We have not altered our opinion, we
have not deviated one particle ; we are not
blind to the gross injustice that has been
done to Ireland, nor are we less inclined to
give Ireland equal laws, equal privileges, equal
representation, and full, complete, and perfect
justice,—but we do not think that a Repeal of
the Union, is the means by which such ends can
be attained. We deny the merits of that Repeal,
and we think it a delusion. But no matter what
the merits of the Repeal agitation may be, whe-
ther it be a good to be desired, or an evil to be
avoided,—no matter whether it would prove a
benefit to Ireland, or an injury to England—
one thing is quite certain, that the agita-
tion is one for the repeal of an Act of ,
Parliament, by legal and constitutional means,
and that the attainment of a legal object by le-
gal means, was never, is not now, and so long
as liberty is a substance, not a shadow, will never
be, a crime or an offence.
An Act of Parliament made the Union—an
Act of Parliament can unmake it. The cry for
Repeal, is nothing more than a cry for such an
Act. Where, then, its illegality,—where its Cr-
iminality 7 The power invoked, is the constitu-
tional power of Parliament; the parties invok-
ing, are the people of Ireland, and equally en-
titled to declare their opinions, as the people of
England.
The people of England have met by thousands;
the people of Ireland by hundreds of thousands;
equally peaceable, equally orderly in each coun-
try. The cry in England has been for reform, for
the repeal of obnoxious laws, for the redress
of grievances, for impartial legislation. Where
is the difference in object, between the Irish
agitation of this day, and the English agitation
of former days ? Where is the difference between
the monster-meetings to obtain the People's
Charter, to present the National Petition, and
to procure the repeal of the Septennial Act, and
the Irish monster meetings to procure the repeal
of the Act of Union, which took away the Par-
liament of Ireland, and destroyed its separate
Legislature ? We cannot discover the difference
which makes the one legal, and allows it to pass
without notice, or the other illegal, and worthy
of a prosecution. They are both peaceable ex-
pressions of the minds of the people—they are
both in the spirit and the intent of our British
Constitution, which allows to every man, freedom
of complaint for his grievances, to that power
which the law recognises, and which makes the
law. Meeting after meeting had been held, at
which not a single breach of the peace occurred ;
an entire year had witnessed the grand spectacle,
of countless thousands assembling to call for
the redress of a grievance, which, whether
fancied or real, had enlisted in its denouncement
a large proportion of the people of Ireland,
and the last meeting of the season was
about to be held, when, on the very eve
of its assembling, Government stepped in,
and declared its illegality. Then the arm
of the law was bared,—prosecutions were com-
menced against those who had. taken part in the
peaceable demonstrations, which for months
had been seen and witnessed without a word of
warning or of disapproval, and now, those pro-
secutions are about to be tested by judge and
jury.

How those prosecutions have hitherto been
carried on, by a refusal of every particle of
information as to the mode in which the indict-
ment was found—the withholding of the names
of the witnesses by whom it was to be supported
—the swearing of the witnesses examined (if
sworn at all) in a private room, not in open
Court as by law directed—the suppression of
nearly one-tenth of the jury panel, by accident
or design, matters not—these are all facts, which
speak volumes. In such an affair, as the prose-
cution of Ireland's greatest patriot, to whom
Ireland owes a debt of gratitude which she can
never repay, every attempt should have been
made to strip it of any appearance of harsh-
ness, or of eagerness to ix:rge the law to its
utmost limits, and every indulgen-ce should
have been given to the accused, that could
be hoped for, or requeste d. No' tricks, no
quirks, no sharp practice, no 'pettifogging astute-
ness, should have been shown, or suspected in
such a case—the private visit's of the ATTORNEY-
GENERAL to London, the extraordinary in-
cident of the RECORDER'S visit to the PRE-
MIER, whilst the jury liszt was incomplete,
should not have occurred—th'e stream of justice
ought to have flowed in than a els, free from taint
or from suspicion. Crown soeicitors ought not to
have compelled witnesses to swear to facts which
they found out to be incoierect. Attorney-
Generals' creatures ought 7?:C t to have wormed
themselves, under false cola u:rs, into quarters
where they had no right to -be admitted; and
Secretary of States' implements, ought not to
have disgraced the character of the Press, by
pretending public employment, when in reality
in Ministerial pay. Time will show whether
any, or all, of these things, ba, ve been. If they
have, the shame, the disgrace is on the heads of
the abettors and of the. contrivers, and
punishment must and will follow them.
In such a matter as a I?l:osecution against.
DANIEL O'CONNELL, the Leaning ought to
have been, rather to restrain.. the law than to
stretch it; the man whose gr, .t crime is the de.;
manding of justice for his cow Etry, ought to have
had no reason, to complain of -want of justice to
himself, and moral force would'. have been given
to the proceedings of a Gove n ment, infinitely
beyond that which now attend is them, if a spirit
of fairness and of strict imp: vartiality had been
apparent in their actions.

f f Monstrous at all times, is it Iv try a man for
•
• his intentions—who can tell NV 11 It any man's in-
tentions are ? Just as well In ay it be charged
against the instigators of the -sprosecution, that
they wish to burk the Ebert iel ; of Ireland, by
7:rozopassing the death of O'C ;02.c., NELL in prison,