The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-12 00:00:00

SPIRT ic a the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—In another column will be found the
accounts which have reached us of the Repeal As-
sociation meeting on Monday. Like the procession
of Saturday, which conducted O'Connell from Rich-
mond Penitentiary to his home, the day closed with-
out any breach of public order. The immense mul-
titudes which the occasion brought together far sur-
passed any previous assembly in the metropolis of Ire-
land, in connection with repeal. We rather choose
to leave the accounts given of the scene, both
within and without the Hall—which are sub-
stantially the same from different sources—to
speak for themselves, than to comment upon
them. O'Connell once more at the head of the
repeal movement—at liberty—and at liberty under
circumstances which obviously imply a signal triumph
over the Government, which boasted of its victory
over him, and its successful mode of dealing with the
agitation of which he is not merely the leader, but the
life—this was in itself sufficient to render the meet-
ing of Monday a new era in the history of the. Repeal
Association. Trace the progress of the movement—
fraught with folly and pregnant with mischief, as it
is, to the vital interests of Ireland—threatening peril,
as it does, to the sources whence the British em-
pire derives the means of supporting its honour, and
Ava 1.P6
from the slumbering and almost expiring elements of
its constitution, through its various stages, from
strength to strength, since the accession of the pre-
sent Government to office ; and what is the infer-
ence which the best disposed towards the Go-
vernment must draw from the retrospection ? What
was repeal then ? What is repeal now ? Three
years since it was treated as a delusion, the emana-
tion of folly, or the concoction of fraud ; the ex-
istence of which was viewed with ridicule or scorn,
and the termination of which was confidently anti-
cipated. But whether it remained floating on the
surface, sustained by the credulity of the simple ; or
whether it burst, as other bubbles have burst, fur
lack of the principles which can alone give stability,
was alike unimportant in a public sense. Repeal is'
now not merely a question of national interest; but
of national alarm. Without one whit more of truth
or reason in its claims, than it had when it was an
object of indifference or contempt to the great body
of the Irish nation, the innate hatred to a Tory Go-
vernment which pervades the mass of that nation,
and the impolicy of the measures which have been
adopted by the Government of Sir Robert Peel,
have imparted to the repeal movement a power and
an influence, derived from its increasing numbers, and
its immense wealth, that now enable it to assume a
position which places the peace of the country, if not
the integrity of the empire itself, at its command.
When Sir R. Peel's Government was installed in
office, repeal, like the infant Hercules, stood upright
upon its feet—in a few months it became a man in
might, glorying in its strength. Sir R. Peel sought to
confine its energies by casting over it the skiliully-
woven net of the law. It broke his bands asunder.
It now walks abroad, exhibiting in triumph the
mutilated monster indictment, with which he sought
to crush it, by confining its leaders in prison, and
holding them in recognisances of several thousands,
to refrain in future from the acts they had performed
and the words they had spoken in furtherance of its
objects. Every week now witnesses new accessions to
its ranks. Members of the highest families in the land
enrol their names on its muster-roll, and subscribe to
swell its revenues. And this will go on ; unless Sir
Robert Peel cease from the attempt to govern Ire-
land, for which he is obviously incompetent ; and
resign the task to those whose previous policy has
propitiated the people of Ireland; whose conciliatory
measures they would accept with readiness ; to
whose rule they would submit as founded in equity;
and whose administration they would hail as a com-
bination of justice, mercy, and truth. This would,
even now, stay the torrent which is hurrying on the
population of Ireland to a crisis that may shake the
empire with commotion, and may saturate the coun-
try with the blood of its sons.
STANDARD.—It would appear from the speech
of Mr. O'Connell in the Conciliation Hall on Mon-
day, that he is not satisfied with the triumphal proces-
sions and Te Deums which have commemorated his
release from prison, but that he contemplates ulte-
rior means of teaching posterity to remember the pe-
culiar indulgence of which be has been the object ;
in short, nothing less than the impeachments of the
judges of the Court of Queen's Bench of Ireland,
who tried him, and, of course, the Attorney-
General, who so ably and efficiently conducted the
prosecution ! 'Why, the felon, humanely reprieved
from death because the rope with which it is at-
tempted to hang him is broken by his struggles,
would have an equally fair title to prosecute the judge,
counsel, and witnesses who had convicted him, and
quite as good a claim to consider the accident a spe-
cial interposition of the Virgin Mary. A part of the
recent idolatrous mummery enacted in the Church
of the Conception in Dublin, had for its ob-
ject to convince the Repealers of Ireland,
that had the plies been ever so strong, the
Virgin Mary would have caused them to snap
asunder like burnt flax ; for that having com-
menced the service of the " Novena," with the view
of obtaining from her a miracle in Mr. O'Connell's
behalf, her compliance followed so immediately on
the appeal that the news of the reversal of the judg-
ment arrived at the Richmond Penitentiary on the
very day on which this religious exercise was con-
cluded. It is therefore the height of absurdity to
blame the judges of the Court of Queen's Bench of
Ireland, or Mr. Smith, or eulogise the surpassing
learning and disinterestedness of the three law Lords
by whom the judgment was reversed; when we have
it on the authority of a dignitary of Mr. O'Connell's
church that they had nothing whatever to do with
the matter. If we are to believe Doctor Miley, it
is perfectly clear that Lords Denman, Cottenham, and
Campbell, were the mere instruments of the miracu-
lous intervention which is declared to have been inter-
posed in his favour, and have no more claims upon
his gratitude than any other involuntary agent of
the dispensers of such marvels. We should have
been glad to have accepted this theory; for, to say
the truth, it is difficult to account for the decision of
the three law Lords, excepting on th® belief.that they