The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1844.

The calm which has followed the noisy and multi-
tudinous meetings of the members of the Repeal As-
sociation, since the imprisonment of Mr. O'CONNELL
and his friends, is a remarkable feature in the present
times. But a few months ago all Irelind was in com-
motion, nothing but separation was talked of; now we
have only the echo of the mighty sound. The Tories,
of course, rejoice in this. They say, "it is their
thunder," but they are grievously mistaken if they
imagine that the wrongs of that country are to be
hushed by State prosecutions, or the spirit of liberty
which animates the people is to be put down till their
grievances are redressed, and they are placed
on the same footing with Englishmen and
Scotchmen. We have said all along that
Mr. O'CONNELL committed a great blunder in

resting the salvation of his country on the repeal of
the union, and every man who wished well to Ireland
saw with regret that the false policy which he adopted

only belame more ruinous by the attacks which he

made on the Saxons, on almost every man of note: in
England and Scotland, and, above all, on the men
who had done and suffered much for his country.
The Whigs and the Liberal party, and among them
we include many Tories, paved the way for Catholic
Emancipation, and it required only the finishing stroke
of Mr. O'CONNELL to make it complete. But what
would have been the state of the Catholics at

the present time, if the House of Commons had not
been divided against itself, if CANNING and CASTLE-
REAGH, and many others of the same party, had not
fought as manfully for emancipation as the best Ca-
tholics ? Would WELLINGTON or PEEL have yielded
if the Legislature had been as unanimous on that
point as they are on the question of repeal ? Ireland
is a populous country, it contains many brave men—
men fit for the highest offices in the State and the
army—but it is now what it has ever been, only an
appendage of Great Britain, and could not exist with-
out her. To carry a repeal of the union with-
out the consent—nay, we may say, in direct
opposition to, the universal national will in
this country, and in opposition to a vast
majority, too, of the influential classes in Ireland—is
an utter impossibility. Great Britain would sacri-
fice everything to: avert such a calamity. No foreign
war could terrify her into such an act of suicide—
even the French and Americans united against
her, would only rouse the energies of the people,
and make them strive for the integrity of the empire
as they would strive for life. It is true that in times
of difficulty Ireland has obtained a partial redress of
grievances, but the abatement of these grievances was
advocated, not by Irishmen alone, but by many of the
first statesmen, and by a large proportion of the
people of England. Is there one Englishman or Scotch-
man that advocates repeal ? We can make allowances,
for Mr. O'CONNELL. His
cry for repeal was only the
effect of despair. He had tried every legitimate
means in Parliament to raise his country to the level
of Great Britain ; he had made motion upon motion,
and sometimes succeeded in the Commons, but in the
Lords his applications were invariably rejected with
Orangemen
insult. The Tories came into;, power,