The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-17 00:00:00

REPEAL ASSOCIATION.

" Darrynane Abbey, Caherciveen, 2d Oct., 1844.
" Sir--I am extremely anxious to bring the emphatic
attention of the Association to that which I deem the
most important of all the duties which they have to per-
form at the p resent most auspicious period. We have
obtained the most ♦aluable victory that ever was
achieved, by purely moral means. The victory of Wa-
terloo was the mere triumph of physical force, combined
with military organization ; it was a brutal and a bloody
scene, and much of what are called its glories depended
upon chance and accident.
" Ours, on the contrary, was the triumph of the first
principles of civil liberty, and of the judicial merits of
our glorious cause. That which triumphed was the
great constitutional principle which sanctions the right
of free discussion to the inhabitants of these realms. It
was that principle which battled with, and triumphed
over, the well-arranged conspiracy to extinguish popular
sentiment, and to limit and restrain the efficacy of peace-
able popular exertions.
" The object we had in view was perfectly legal and
perfectly constitutional—the repeal of an Act of Parlia-
ment ; and the efficacy of our struggle ought, in consti-
tutional reasoning, to depend on the numbers of those who
were convinced of the necessity of such repeal. The
effort of Ministerial despotism was, by the prosecution,
to prevent the exhibition of that multitudinous public
sentiment which could alone require or obtain success.
It was a struggle on the part of our governors to make
the exhibition of the extreme pressure of a grievance sti-
mulating multitudes to call for redress, a conspiracy and
a crime. It was the manifest design of the Irish Govern-
ment to introduce a new doctrine into our law—the doc-
trine that numbers constituted crime ; so that when the
oppression of a tyrannic law affected the great majority
of the nation, that very majority should be treated as
essentially criminal, and be used as a legal instrument to
prevent the redress of the grievance. The more univer-
sal the cry for relief, the more impossible would a suc-
cessful prosecution have made it to obtain redress.

" Our triumph on the jury question was, if possible,
still more vitally important. If it were once established
that the jury list might, with safety, be fraudulently
spoliated or arranged, on the ground that the fraud was
not committed by the Sheriff himself, then, indeed, the
trial by jury would become a delusion, a mockery, and
a snare !'

"We have, in truth, gained a great victory. Yet
there has been nothing of the insolence of triumph in
our demeanour. We have borne our success with meek-
ness, and in the fullest spirit of conciliation.
" But we should be guilty of a criminal 'neglect of
duty if we did not avail ourselves of that success in order
to achieve the great object of our desires—the restora-
tion of an Irish Parliament.

" Our business is not to irritate or provoke any por-
tion of our fellow-subjects. Our duty—our sacred duty
—is to conciliate all classes and persuasions; and, if pos-
sible, to procure the entire Irish people to join in the
struggle to obtain the right of Irishmen to legislate for
themselves.

" Upon the subject of the repeal near nine-tenths of
the Irish people are perfectly agreed. They are con-
vinced of its necessity. They have no doubt of its
practicability. The monster meetings have placed be-
yond a shadow of doubt the determination of the over-
whelming majority of the Irish to obtain the restoration
of their own Parliament. If that fact had not been demon
strated by the meetings of last year, we should continue
to hold similar meetings, now that the legality of the
largest possible peaceful assemblages is fully established
by the unanimous opinion of all the English judges. It
was in the 6th and 7th counts that the holding of those
monster meetings was alleged to be a crime; and all the
English judges were unanimous that those counts were
essentially and radically bad. We could, therefore,
hold more monster meetings, if it were at all necessary;
but there is no such necessity. The opinion of the Irish
people was emphatically pronounced in the forty-one
monster meetings we held last year: and as it is not ne-
cessary to hold any more such meetings, it would appear
to be insulting braggadocio to revive them. We will re-
vive them only in the case, that it should with any plau-
sibility be hereafter asserted that the mass of the people
had changed their minds on the subject of repeal, and
were no longer in favour of the Irish making laws for
Ireland.

". Having thus in favour of repeal the overwhelming
majority of the Catholic population—clergy and laity—
and having also been joined by many, very many Pro-
testants—by a large body of Presbyterians, and by some
other enlightened Protestant Dissenters, it only remains
for us to conciliate and combine the residue of the Pro-
testants of every class and description. This, I repeat,
is our task, oar duty—our pleasing duty.
" What is it which prevents the remainder of the Pro-
testants of all descriptions fromoining for the repeal ?
Not any disinclination to have Ireland legislated for by
an Irish Parliament—upon that subject Mr. Porter's
letter is a demonstration that all the Irish, of. every
class, are agreed. But the combination of all is pre-
vented by idle jealousies and unfounded fears.
"It is our business to remove these jealousies and
absurd fears. We should entreat, implore, conjure our
Protestant fellow-countrymen to listen to us. We should
solemnly assure them that the Catholics desire no civil
nor ecclesiastical ascendency ; all they desire is perfect
equality—that perfect equality which the repeal of the
union alone can produce.
" We can most confidently assert that the Irish Pro-
testants ought to place unlimited confidence iu their
Catholic fellow-countrymen sntl ahnva .11 tbnf