The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-10 00:00:00

PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The last mail froth Ireland brings intelligence
for which the public were no doubt prepared,
namely, that Mr. O'Connell has been returned
by the High Sheriff of Clare as duly elected for
that county. The number of votes appears to
have been,

For Mr. O'Connell 0,057
Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald .. 992

Majority for Mr. 0'C0nne11...1,075
Neither in our feelings of regret for the unjust
treatment experienced by Mr. Fitzgerald, nor in
our opinion of the important consequences to be
looked for as likely, nay certain, to result from
this stroke of Irish Catholic policy, are we sen-
sible of the slightest alteration since this subject
was first noticed in the Times. It is true that
the language of Messrs. O'Connell, Shiel, and
others of their party, when speaking of the late
Member for Clare, was infinitely softened at the
close of the election, compared with its whole
spirit and tendency whilst they were doubtful of
the issue. In raising the opposition to Mr.
Fitzgerald, there was no tale too disingenuous—
. no calumny too foul, for the factious purpose of
nflamiug the multitude against the Right Hon.
Gentleman in his own person. Every expres-
eion, the most furious or contemptuous, by
which they could injure the man who had
assiduously served the Catholic cause in and
out of Parliament, was seized and turned
to the overthrow of his election for Clare.—
It now is confessed, that all such abuse
was but a " rhetorical figure," employed ad
captanditm, and without the least reference
to its justice. We are homespun enough to
think, that the practices thus resorted to were
equally mean and dishonest, though not indeed
of equal enormity, with the blasphemous wicked-
ness of the Popish priesthood, who spouted
forth the terrors of eternal damnation against any
of the peasant freeholders, who, in voting for
Mr. Fitzgerald, should abandon Mr. O'Connell,
and the interests of the Holy Catholic Faith !
Without being strait-laced in our animadver-
sions on the conduct of men whose feelings are
highly excited, we do not scruple to say, that
such an exercise of the influence possessed by
the Catholic Clergymen, sought for and retained
by them under colour of the most sacred objects
--nothing less indeed than the, eternal salvation
of their flocks—that such a perversion, we re-
peat, of spiritual power, is as abominable as the
success of it in this instance has been frightful.
No true or rational religion can exist in a count-
try where such a domination is aimed at by the
priesthood, and such impure lessons are taught ;
nor can any temporal magistrate, legislature, or
civil institution, for regulating on sound prin-
ciples the actions of men in society, co-exist
leith pretensions so immeasurable on the part of
the Catholic clergy. Lot it be observed, that
the power we now cry out against exceeds that
enjoyed by any other hierarchy on earth,—far
exceeds that of the Popish Church under any
Popish monarchy in Europe, or out of it. No-
where can the Popish clergy direct by a nod,
—no, not in Spain or Portugal, much as
we despise them,—the whole labouring po-
pulation of the soil to any given end,
in the presence of, and in defiance of, the
whole property, rank, and education of the com-
munity. Nowhere can 30,000 men he drilled,
not merely into such political order as to act
;against all their ancient habits, as if but one soul
inspired them, hut into such perfect moral dis-
cipline as to forego, with the firmness of an-
chorets, their most cherished indulgencies, and
to restrain their most rooted propensities to
excess. Mr. Slid terms this organization
frightful." We so distinguished it many days
ago. And under what system has this dreadful
edifice been reared, of boundless influence, and
t,ager prostration Why, under the penal laws
—under the much-praised and much-loved
'system of securities to our Protestant Church
and State ! 'This is the effect of our incompa-
rable guarantees to Protestant ascendancy—the
and growth of a despotism over the souls
of our fellow-subjects, which we declare, with-
out circumlocution, is of force to sweep away in
a single moment the strongest temporal govern-
ment that was ever seen on earth. We add
further, that the tyranny now with so much
truth complained of, has not grown up in the
neighbout hood of our Protestant securities only,
and in spite of them. It has been born of them
—the young tiger has been suckled by them ;
they have trained, encouraged—they have then
provoked, and sunk under its fury. For the
hundredth time, it must be asked of the King's
Minister:—Will von let this evil go on ?
Will you suffer a force to beard you, with which
no King, Lord, or Commons, that ever existed
since Great Britain was an island, can en-
counter without .the cerLtinty of defeat ? More
securities !—Penal securities: —Alas, more blood
for the appetite of the raging ager ! Starve
him, we say ; remove his aliment—age lish the
grievances which inflame and fatten him. Cut
Riff' his legs by detaching the laity which sup,
port him, make it no longer the interest of the
Catholic gentry to employ the perilous instru-
ment of the priesthood for working on the ima-
teeLtiations of the poor ; but above all things, do
this, ere the time for entering on a voluntary
course of wholesome action shall have escaped
you—not to return, but in sorrowful and inorti-
fying recollection of opportunities lost for ever,
What the result of Mr. O'ConneiVe experiment
'von the House of Commons and its officers
may be, it seems not diOic4lt to predict. How
his experiment on the people a Ireland is likely
to terminate, we regard as a far 1116.42 awful and
orgea matter. To dispiny to Ireland het- own
strength, and then to refract that fearful spectacle
on the sight of the people of En,ghtud, ought
to be deemod a project worthy ci tlimse whose
stake is nothing less than the existence :if their
native eonntry. To return to Clare—We know
that Mr. Fitzgerald has much reason to regret
an event which, )however in solce particulars
" untoward,- has presented his character in soch
favourable colours to the nation. Seldom has
there been any where exhibited more becoming
dignity, generosity, or manliness or tnind, than
in the demeanour of that Right Hon.. (knee-
man from the outset of the recent contest to the
(lose of it. His speeches on both occasions
were admirable, and his defence of his conthuct
complete.—Tintes.

Mr. O'Connell's return is now no icTer a
matter of doubt. The 'contest closed on Satur-
day. A question was raised by some of the
Freeholders as to the eligibility of Mr. O'Con-
nell, on account of his being a Catholic, and
much argument was expended by the Compel
on ' the point. Mr. Keatinge, the Asses r,
fiOwever, advised the High Sheriff to return iffr,
O'Connell, as he could not know whether be
would or wofild not, take the oaths, none being

prescribed to a Candidate, and Mr. O'Conrieil
was accordingly returned—of the correctness of
this decision there can be no doubt. It is stated

in an account from the place of Election, that
Mr. O'Connell has declared that he will not
take his seat this Session. It is, indeed, but
natural to suppose that he would wish to pre-
pare himself, carefully, before taking the next
important step, which will draw on hint the eyes
of the whole Empire. A little delay will hardly
he of disadvantage to him, in a case of so novel
a kind, where both counsel and industry will be
required. It is rumoured that the question
will be brought to issue in the House, when
Mr. O'Connell enters it, by the Speaker's order-
ing strangers to withdraw. It will then be de-
termined whether Mr. O'Connell can be recog-
nized as a Member without taking the Oaths,
This will be the first stage. If he should be re-
cognized as a Member, then conies the question
as to the sitting and voting without taking the
Oath against Transubstantiation. Morning
Chronicle.
Mr. O'Connell is a Member of the British
Legislature ! At six o'clock on Saturday evening
the polling closed, and the great agitator was
declared duly elected by more than double the
number of votes entered for his • opponent.
During Thursday and Friday several protests
were lodged with the High Sheriff, to the follow-
ing purport :
In as notch as Daniel O'Connell, Esq., is a person pro-
fessing the Roman Catholic Religion, and, as such, cannot
qualify to sit in the House of Commons of the United
Kingdom, even if he were elected; we now, therefore, give
you notice that the election and return of the said Daniel
O'Connell to sit in the House of Commons of the United
Kingdom, under the writ to you delivered, will be illegal
and void ; and we do hereby call on you to return the
Right Hon. Wm. Fitzgerald Vesey Fitzgerald, be being
the only qualified candidate in nomination.
Another document was also submitted to the
Sheriff; namely, the affidavit of an Elector, who
stated that he had read Mr. O'Connell's address to
the Electors of Clare, and that the latter had as-
serted in it that he was a Roman Catholic, and
never could; or would, take the oaths prescribed
to be taken by Members of Parliament. The
arguments of Counsel were heard on Saturday ;
but the Assessor decided that there was a mate-
rial difference between being " qualified to be
elected," and " qualified to sit and vote." Mr.
O'Connell was therefore duly returned ; but the
Assessor counselled the Sheriff
To state on the face of the return, that the writ hav-
ing been duly received by you, you gave public notice of
holding the election—that two electors proposed and se-
conded Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald; that two other electors pro-
posed and seconded Mr. O'Connell ; that Mr. O'Connell
openly avowed himself a Roman Catholic ; that after that
declaration a poll was demanded ; that before the close of
the poll you received a protest, signed by several of the
freeholders ; and that you were called upon by them not
to return Mr. O'Connell, who, they stated, was disqualified
by law to he elected, and to return Mr. Fitzgerald, who
was the only qualified candidate.

Thus the matter stands at the present moment ;
and so it will stand, we presume, until next Ses-
sion of Parliament, when the farce, for farce we
must term it, will be concluded.—Morning
Advertiser.

The Clare Election is over. O'Connell was
declared duly elected on Saturday. The speeches
on both sides will be found in another place.
Ilre have given them at length, not so much
from any great value that they possess, for, like
every other contest in life, much of the interest
has evaporated since the result was known, but
because, for some time at least, we may not
have occasion to recur to the subject. It is very
generally understood—at least his friends say so
—that the new Member for Clare will not at-
tempt to take his seat during the present Session.
In this we admire his tact. Nothing certainly
couil more effectually extinguish the prestige of
the whole affair than for the great O—as Cob-
bett calls him—to be made a Parliament man
one week amid the shouts of twenty thousand
of his countrymen, and the very next to be sent
home stripped of his short lived honours, and
that too without the comfort of a single speech,
motion, or question, on the subject, for seven
long months, until, in fact, all remembra►►ce of
him and his case had been absorbed in the con-
templation of some more recent, if not more
notable, piece of jugglery. Now that the agi-.
tators and their leader have made their bows at
Ennis, and their deluded supporters have be-
taken themselves to their cottages and their po-
tatoes, we think it but an act of common jus-
tice to notice the singularly peaceful demeanour
of the latter, and, not over curiously prying into
motives, the good feeling displayed by the
former, at their parting. The abstinence from
brawling and whiskey is, we admit, rather an ex-
traordinary symptom in so numerous a band of
Irish electors, inasmuch as it proves more forci-
bly than the mere extortion of a vote, the power
which the Priests and the Association possesses
over them. It is generally admitted that it re-
quires more skill to lay the Devil than to conjure
him up ; and we certainly look to the possibility
of that influence, which has charmed those law-
less men to peace axd quietness for the first time
in their lives, being turned to the easier task of
inciting them to riot and bloodshed, with.no very
comfortable feelings. Still, so far as its effects,
in the present instance, have been salutary, we
are thankful. The plan, as we stated yesterday,
to neutralise it altogether, is in the power of the
legislature ; but even if the legislature refuse to
act, the gentry of Ireland have, in their own
hands, a remedy to the greater part of the mis-
chief'. If they make no more freeholders, and
avail themselves steadily, without harshness or
severity, of the power which time and the law
put in their hands, of reducing those that have
been made, tl►ey will have but little occasion to
come to Parliament for assistance. - Let them
thwer forget that the forty-shilling freeholders
are the Legiuning, and the middle, and the end.
of all the humiliation which they have suffered,
and of all the mischiefs that threaten them.—
Those removed, the O'Connells, and Shiels,
and O'Gorinans may rave, and the priests may
excommunicate, a 4 long and as loudly as they
will, and he laughed at for their pains.--New,