The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-15 00:00:00

the Right Hon. Gentleman consisted of two parts ; the
first was a defence of the Government against the
charges preferred against it with reference to the re-
cc nt measures adopted in Ireland. The second part
related to the future policy of the Government with re-
gard to that country. Upon the first of these subjects
he should wish to address, in the first instance, a few

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observations to the House. The Right lion. Gentleman
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feeling. probably, that the administration of justice was
a su!iject in which the House and the country felt a
d,,ep and sensitive interest, and feeling the force of the
observations made in that House and out of it with re-
gard to certain proceedings in the late trials which had
taken place in Ireland, addressed himself, in the first in-
stance, to a defence of the Government with respect to
the exclusion of all Catholics from the jury by which
the traversers, in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland,
were lately tried. Upon that subject he was bound to
state, taking up the question at that point at which the
Crown Solicitor found himself in the room and called on

to strike that jury, he was not prepared to say that he,
acting on the part of the Government, could have adopted
any ,•ther course.—(Loud cheers from the Ministerial
benches. He would say nothing at the present moment
as to the policy of the Government instituting these
prosecutions, which necessarily involved such a result.—
(Loud cheers.) That was a point for future and separate
consideration, but he was prepared to say this, that if,
as se: ned admitted, in eight out of ten Roman
Catholics found in a list of forty-eight, one was a
member of the Repeal Association, and if of the re-
maining two one of them, though not a member of the
Assoitition, was stated or believed at the time to have
sic ;lel a requisition, calling one of those multitu•
dinons meetings which was to be held at Tara—
the pn.ceedings of which were to furnish a portion of
the evidence for the prosecution, he was bound to say
that with regard to nine out of the ten the Crown Soli-
citor would not have discharged his duty had he allowed
them to.remaiw on the jury.—(Cheers.) With regard
to the others, the Right Hon. Gentleman stated, and as
he !).edged his own word to the fact, he was willing to
credit to the statement they were believed to be
Protestants, and for reasons known to the Government,
but hich reasons the Right Hon. Gentleman did not
feel called on to disclose, they were struck off the list
quite irrespective of their being Catholics or Protes-
tants. But if this were a statement of facts, what were
they to say of the admission it involved of the state of
Ireland?—(Cheers.) A great State prosecution was in-
stituted after months of deliberation and observation by
the Government, with all the solemnity which must at-
tend such a proceeding ; the eyes of all England, Scot-
land, and Europe, being fixed upon • it, and it being
one by which the integrity of the empire might
be affected. The trial took place in the metropolis
of a country of which seven-eighths of the inhabitants
were Roman Catholics, and not one Catholic could be
found in the metropolis of that country, whose sympa-
thies were not enlisted on the side of the traversers—on
the side of the men whose crime they were called on to
investigate.—(Loud cheers.) They were not excluded
from the jury because they were Catholics, but because
they were supposed to have feelings in common with
the accused. Such a defence might be a good one for
an attorney in a petty case, but it proved here that the
indictment was not against O'Connell and the other tra-
versers, but against the whole Catholic population of
the country.—(Loud cheering) The Right lion. Gen-
tleman stated that the majesty of the law had been
triumphant, and he gave the Government credit for the
fact, that they were not then asking for military law for
the people, or for a Coercion Act. If they had been
asked fur such measures, he should have been
among their opponents. He was, therefore,
bonnd to give them credit for not taking such a course;
but did not the Right Hon. Gentleman know that under
the forms of law great injustice must be committed ?
Did he not know that the moral effect of a verdict did
not consist in an adherence to the rigid forms of law,
and that there were circumstances in which the moral
effect of a verdict was lost by the apparent partiality of
the tribunal before which the case was tried?—(Loud
cheers.) The Right Hon. Gentleman had illustrated his
case last night, by reference to some actions which
might be brought against the master of a pack of hounds
for trespass, or the case of an individual against whom
a lay impropriator of tithes might bring an action for
the recovery of the amount of his tithes. He (Sir James
Graham) had asked if such a person could be blamed for
striking off the jury list every person who was a lay
impropriator of tithes. But let him (Sir. George Grey)
ask the Right Hon. Gentleman whether, if the action
was tried under circumstances in which, notwithstanding

that the defendant had struck off those lay impropria:
tors from the jury list, the jury nevertheless were at
last composed exclusively of lay impropriators—whether
he, for a moment, believed that, however the verdict
might be according to the evidence—however above sus-
picion the jury might bo in their indidvidual capacity,
or far from any reproach of wrong doing—that that
verdict would carry with it the moral weight it ought,
or ke looked on as a fair decision of the case that had
been submitted to them? But he would not stop to
discuss that illustration, or the other case put by the
light Hon. Gentleman, of a trumpery action of trespass
against a master of hounds. A skilful attorney in such
a case might certainly take every pettifogging advan •
tage—(Cheers)—which his knowledge of the law should
enab!e him to do, and perhaps he would not do his duty
to his client unless he did so ; but let them remember

that this was a great State trial, and that then they
were engaged in a solemn case of the administration of
criminal justice. The Government was proceeding
against traversers who were for the most part Catholics,
on their trial on a charge of the most important nature,
to be adjudicated upon in a country where party feeling
and religious animosity ran higher than in any other
country on the thee of the earth, and yet
the jury who tried them was composed of
men opposed to them in religious opinion, and it might
he supposed diametrically adverse to them in political
Creed. Then as to the course which the Government
had pursued with regard to the great meetings which
were held from time to time, ending with the proclama-
tioLn against the meeting at Clontarf.—(Hear, hear.)
Through a great length of time the Government re-
maintal passive spectators of those meetings.—(Hear.)
The Noble Lord had approved, as no doubt the House
would approve, of the sending troops from time to time
to maintain the public security. But they looked on at
those multitudinous meetings, which the Right Hoa.
GElptleinan said long before the meeting at Clontarf were
held with military array, andunder all the circumstances
which he so forcibly detailed, and which were so calculated
to inspire terror and ereat alarm—they looked on at those
meetings without issuing a single proclamation to warn
those deluded victims of agitation—(as the Right Hon.
Gentleman styled them)—of the consequences of attend-
ing those meetings.—(Hear, hear.) That conduct on
the part of the Government led them to suppose that,
so long as they preserved the peace unbroken—while
no act of violence was committed—while they kept
within the law—the Government would not interfere
with the meetings.—(Hear, hear.) The people thought
that they were doing everything consistent with the
law.—(Hear, hear.) Such was the course (according to
the Right Hon. Gentleman) up to the eventful week,
beginning on the 6th of October—(Hear, hear)—and
the people thought that nothing else would be done with
respect to the meeting at Clontarf, and those other five
or six meetings which the Right Hon. Gentleman told
them were announced to be held—(Hear, hear)—
had not, fortunately for the Government, a sort
of mlitary proclamation been transmitted to
London on the 29th of September.—(Loud cheering.)
It was clear that there had been no intention of inter-
fering with that meeting had not what had been called
the military proclamation appeared, containing the
magic words " half distance," " muster," and " troops."
—(Cheers and laughter.) The Lord Lieutenant and the
Lord Chancellor of Ireland were absent from their posts.
It was clear, therefore, that nothing like any interruption
with this series of meetings had been contemplated, and
that the ClOntarf meeting would not have been inter-
rupted had it not been for this dispatch, which had been
sent to the Right Hon. Gentleman. The Right Hon.
Gentleman, it appeared, had immediately summoned to
the Home-office the law officers of the Crown, the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
That meeting had been held at the Home-office on Mon-
day, and although the Right Hon. Gentleman had not told
them what had taken place at that meeting, he presumed
that there had been discussion, and also some disagree-
ment, for they had come to no decision, but had ad-
journed to Tuesday ; and notwithstanding the serious
objections which many Right Hon. Gentlemen opposite
had to adjourned debates in the House of Comnions,
they had again adjourned that meeting from Tuesday to
Wednesday. Then it appeared that another pro-
clamatien had arrived—the amended proclamation,
relatin; to the Clontarf meeting ;. and the Right Hon.
Gentleman and the Lord Lieutenant, and Lord Chan-
cellor of Ireland, and the Attorney and Solicitor-Gene-
rals, were employed during the whole of the Tuesday and
the Wednesday, in comparing the verbal and literal dis-
crepancies between the two proclamations, and whether
the alteration of " troops," into " groups," and the sub-
stitution of " ward," for wardens," would not make it
too hazardous for them to attempt to stop the
Clontarf meeting.—(Cheers.) If they had been cer-
tain that the repeal proclamation had emanated from
Mr. O'Connell and the Repeal Association, it appeared
that they would have had no hesitation on the subject,
but an amended copy had come over, which, in their
opinion, had rendered it extremely hazardous to in-
terfere with the meeting at Clontarf. The discussion at
the Home-office ended without coming to any decision.
It was determined that the Lord-Lieutenant and the
Lord Chancellor of Ireland should proceed to Ireland
on the Thursday. He would ask why they
had not been instantly sent off if the Govern-
ment had determined on taking any steps with
regard to that meeting ? Why was a moment lost
in making arrangements after it had been determined
to p:Lt a stop to the agitation ; and why was there an
insta:l; of delay in warning the people not to attend that
meeting ?—(Cheers.) He did not know whether the
Noble Lord concurred in the strictness with which the
observance of the Wednesday was enforced in another
place.—(Cheers and laughter.) It appeared that if a
Wednesday intervened when an interesting de•
bate was adjourned, that that debate must be ad-
journed over the Wednesday, in order not to
interfere with the usual mode of spending that
day in social enjoyment.—(Cheers and laughter.) On
Thursday it appeared that the Lord Lieutenant and the
Lord Chancellor of Ireland had quitted London, but
what had they carried with them.—(Cheers and laugh-
ter.) It might have been supposed that they would
have carried with them a proclamation to have been
issued on the instant of their landing, a proclamation
which had been agreed upon previously by the Minis-
ters of the Crowu assembled at the Home-office, warn-
ing the th.ople of Ireland against attending that meet-
ing.—(Cheers.) They were, however, charged with
no proclamation. No! They were only charged with
certain fixed principles upon which said the Right Hon.
Gentleman, they were desired to act.—(Laughter.) It
appeared flint the Lord Lieutenant and the Chancellor,
charged with these fixed principles—(Cheers and laugh-
ter)—had arrived in Ireland on the Friday. A Privy