The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-17 00:00:00

take advarttag, of the loyalty which at p esent prevailed in
Ireland—a heavy resposs bitity testscl upon him--he should
make cences,ionLshe ahould coseede b, fore essais
he useless, and so secere the safety, trasquilli-y, an' teestrity
of the empire.
Colonel CONOLLY tieniei that the •ts atheist et.' she late
Government sossessed the erettiticture ef the It
Ireland. This (notion had been got us bs the Whigs
—the friends of the Irish conspirators to help them
out of their nresent calamitous pesititen ( Great cheering. )
lie should like to know ebat Hutt. Gentlemen opposite
meant by a difference of law and of right? The aristocracy of
Ireland drew a distinction between the admitted wrongs of that
country and those fictitious ones which formed the stuck iu
trade of the agitators. W by, what was the alleged great evil
of that country, according to their account? Why, they said
that all the evils arose from the Established Church, and the
grand remedy which they suggested was its abolition entirely.
But had the Established Church no claims to justice, were
the Protestants of Ireland to be swept away from off the face
of the country ? which would be the case if the proposition of the
Noble Lord opposite were acted upon. He was sure that the
great body of the Irish people were too sensible of the advan-
tages which they derived from the Church ever to
consent to such a proposition. The body of the
Protestants suffered the most galling injuries and perse-
cutions for the last 20 years ; and, according to the views
of the Noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, and the Noble
Lord the Member for the City of London, the Protestants and
Presbyterians of that country were to be treated with greater
violence than they were during the period of the thirty years'
war on the Continent, when every outrage was perpetrated
against them. —( Loud laughter.) When the Noble Lord
talked a good deal of possessing the confidence of the people of
Ireland, he (Colonel Conolly) was astonished at the Noble
Lord's effrontery.—' Renewed laughter.) lie had also talked
of the wrongs of Ireland; but why, if they existed, did he do
nothing to redress them during his long administration ? The
whole of his term of office was one of continued insecurity and
danger to the lives and properties of the Protestants of Ire-
land.—( Ironical cheers.) They had very few of the educated
classes of Ireland along with them, although they might have
the agitators. Although he (Colonel Conolly) would not at-
tempt to vindicate all the acts of the landlords of Ireland. yet
he thought they bad been most unfairly treated by the Noble
Lord's Government, and he could not expect or flatter
himself with the idea that he had had the approbation of the
people of Ireland along with him. He (Col. Conolly) was
ready to give hint credit for bringing in the Grand Jury Bill,
and he also thought that a system of poor-laws would, if pro-
perly framed, be most beneficial to the poor of that country;
but still he was sure that the lives and property of the higher
classes were endangered by that insatiable cupidity which had
been excited by the course fostered by the late Government.
The Noble Lord, the Member for Sunderland, had asked were
they to govern Ireland by force ? He (Col. Conolly) would
answer him, and say they should govern her by the due ad-
ministration of the laws of the country in the repression of tur-
bulent agitation. The Noble Lord, the Member for London,
had not alluded to many of his measures which concerned Ire-
land, but he (Col. Conolly) would do so for him, and tell
him that they were almost held up to universal ex oration—
( Loud laughter)—and that he did not at all enjoy that sole
popularity which he imagined to the exclusion of all other
parties. During his administration he was completely under
the dictation of that agitation which the present Government
had the manliness and courage to repress —(lronical cheers
and laughter.) The Noble Lord's name was connec ed with
the Coercion Bill, which was not very popular with the Irish
people ; it was true he (Colonel Conolly) voted for the Bill as
well as the Noble Lord.--( Loud laughter.) Same Honourable
Gentlemen and Noble Lords connected with the late Govern-
ment might have lost their 2,000/. or 3,0001., whilst others
took care to instal themselves in offices which entitled them to
the receipt of salaries during their lives. Many of them took
d—d good care of that.—( When the Hon. and Gallant Gentle-
man used the above rather expressive adjective, a peal of
laughter rang through the House, and a considerable time
elapsed before he could proceed in his address, owing to the
renewed shouts of laughter with which he was met. ) He
thought much of the unpopularity of the late Government arose
from the number of hungry expectants whom they shook off.
The Noble Lord had raked up a bundle of old stories, which
were-likely to increase that animosity between the two parties
the loudly
_pretended to deprecate.
Mr. WARD rose to explain. He had never said, that
there were Catholics who disliked the Act of Settlement. He
bud 'said nothing of the kind. What he had said was, that at
the time it was passed, after the battle of the Boyne, when the
two religious parties were pithed as it were against each other,
the Act of Settlement was felt as a grievance. But he believed
at present the loyalty of the Catholics of Ireland was un-
doubted.
Colonel CONOLLY had misunderstood the Hen. Gentle-
man, and he was sorry for it.
Mr. Sergeant MURPHY, after briefly stating that in his
opinion, the popularity of the Noble Lord near him (Lord
John Russell) would be unaffected by the attack of the Hon.
and Gallant Member opposite said, he much regretted that
the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Attorney-General for Ireland,
was absent from his place in Parliament ; because on
a former occasion, he (Mr. Sergeant Murphy) had
felt it to be his duty to animadvert On the conduct
that Right Hon. Gentleman during the late State prosecu-
tions in Ireland. He regretted the more that he was absent,
inasmuch as he (Mr. Sergeant Murphy) intended again to
advert to that Right Hon. Gentleman's conduct. With re
gard to the late trials in Ireland, he thought no one could say
that they had been conceived in a spirit of impartiality, or
that they had been characterised by that tone and temper
which the great importance of the E.-cession demanded.—
(Cheers.) There was a degree of captiousness in the conduct
of the Attorney-General which no one could fail to perceive.
Every morning of the trials he was certain to exhibit this cap-
tiousness. If any one of the traversers happened to be absent,
no matter from what cause, the Attorney-General would stop
the proceedings of the Court in order to compel the attendance
of those traverser,. He (Mr. Sergeant Murphy) would now
turn to the trial itself. He would ask, why had there been such
delay in those prosecutions. if such prosecutions were necessary ?
If those meetings, out of which the prosecution had arisen,
were endangering the peace of the country, then, upon their
own showing, the Government were answerable for having
risked the peace of Ireland by the delay they had exhibited in
instituting the prosecutions. On the 9th of May in the last
year, in answer to a question from a Noble Lord, the Right
lion. Baronet expressed his determination of maintaining the
union. The Lord Chancellor, in the House of Lords, on the
same day, declared it as his belief, that the meetings then
being held in Ireland were illegal, arid rendered persons at-
tending them liable to an ineictment. Having this high
opinion as a foundation to go upon, he (Mr. Murphy) asked
why such delay had taken place in the insti.ntion of the
prosecutions? Was it that those who had embarked in
those proceedings should be lured into a further
violation of the law, or was it the intention of the Illght lion.
Baronet to entrap one individual whom he thought his chiefest
difficulty with respect to his Government in Ireland? The
Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department,
the other night, said that they on the Oppo-ition side of the
House need not hug themselves with the notion that the pre-
sent Government coming into power had been the cautte of the
multitudinous meetings being held Ile said that such meet-
ings hail been held in 18-10 and 1841 on the same subject. If
similar meetings had been held before, he (Mr. Sergeant Mur-
phy ) would ask what difference took place in their character
between May and October in 1843 ? The Lord Chief Justice
on the bench had declared that the moment Air. O'OConnell
made the declaration that the Queen in Council with one in.
dividual had a right tq summon the Parliament in Dublin, he
was guilty of an indictable offence. Then, why had the Go-
vernment refit ained f: om instituting the prosecution? Was it that
seven or eight inriividvals might be brought toget her in of der that
that might be tortured into a conspiracy ? If so, that con-
spiracy had lasted for upwards of eight months; and he (Mr.
Sergeant Murphy) would ask whether, during that time, any
person in Ireland had felt the least apprehension. But the
Right Hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Graham) said the indict-
ment was not preferred until after a proclamation had issued
from the Corn Exchange, which c antained words savouring of
military forms. Why those words, it afterwards appeared, had
been introduced by a person of the name of Morgan. They
were afterwards disclaimed by the Repeal Association—they
were disclaimed immediately that they were brought under the
notice of that Association. He now came to the circumstances
connected with the trial itself. He was not going to
bring up the question again of excluding Roman Catholics
from the jury list, but this he would say, that it was
evident, from what had lately taken place, that if any Roman
Catholics should be indicted for anything which savoured of
a political offence, he must be tried before a jury of Pro-
testants. He asked what would be the moral effect of the
conviction lately obtained by the Government ? Would it
have the same moral effect as a verdict obtained from a jury
differently constituted? Did the Government recollect what
had been said by one of the leading journals in Dublin, and
the Government organ, upon the constitution of the jury ?
That journal, when the jury was formed, said :—" We have a
true flock, but there is one black sheep amongst them, but
that one black sheep will not mar the others." Before the
trial took place, Mr. Thompson, one of the jurors, was heard
to say, that "at all hazards, repeal must be put down."
Could there, he (Mr. Sergeant Murphy) asked, be a fair
trial, with such a man as this on the jury ? The Right Hon.
Baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, inquired
if it was likely that they would try a question of tithes, or
trespass, before persons continually in the habit of committing
similar offences ! He (Mr. Murphy) said that was not a
parallel case. Mr. O'Connell had always been the advocate
of the Catholics. The parties before whom he was
tried hated him. What, then, could be the moral
effect of such a trial on the people of Ireland?
If the Right Honourable Baronet compared the case to that of
a reduted poacher tried before a bench of game-preserving
lustices, the comparison would better apply.—(Cheers and
aughter.) The whole inquiry in Dublin was, on the day
that the panel was struck, had they got a good Protestant
jury ? It was so, and the result was what might be expected,
when the man was to be immolated whom they had, for forty
years, regarded as their most hated political opponent.—
( Hear, hear.) What then would be the effect when the six

Million, and a, half, or more, of Roman Catholics saw the exul.

cation of all classes of Protestants in the conviction of their
champion and leader ?—(Hear, hear.) But what would the
people of this country say to the management and result
of the trial? They would say that the trial was unfair
illegal, and unconstitutional, in every part of it. —( Cheers. ) Let
them look at the character of the meetings themselves. It had
been said by gentlemen opposite that they were composed of
untutored savages. The magistrates and the aristocracy had
laughed at them, and had asserted that no arguments addressed
to them could have had any effect, on account of the stupidity
of the mere brutes who constituted them. What then did the
Government do? Did they leave the arguments to be ad-
dressed to these brute multitudes ? No ; they brought the
whole question to be argued in a Court of Justice. It was no
longer an ignorant and untutored rabble that was addressed,
but the discussion was transferred to the solemn arena of the
Court of Justice, where it was carried on with the utmost force
of talent and eloquence by men of transcendant ability and
learning, who had elicited in this country the greatest admira-
tion for their powers. One of those gentlemen, who had de-
clared in that House that he adhered to the union, acknow-
ledged, in his address to the Court, that, after the arguments
which he had heard, he found greater difficulty in finding
grounds on which he could defend the Act of Union.—( Cheers.)
Was that statement calculated to allay the effect which the
Government had produced by concentrating the agitation in
that focus?—( Hear, hear.) He might now be allowed to al-
lude to other circumstances—to the mode in which the trial
was conducted, and to come at last to the summing up of the
Chief Justice.—( Cheers.) He (Mr. Sergeant Murphy 1 lived
in this country, and was a practitioner in its Courts ; and he
believed that nothing lifted Eng and higher in the scale of its
own estimation, and the respect of other nations, than the firm-
ness with which the laws were administered.—( Hear, hear. )
With these feelings, when he read the charge of the Chief Jus-
tice, he thought that, great as was the talent of the Solicitor-
General, he had no hesitation in saying that the
charge of the Chief Justice was, of the two, the better
speech for the Crown.—( Cheers.) The Solicitor-Ges.eral
was obliged to contrast the arguments of the opposite side with
those which he had to offer on his own part; but the Chief
Justice confined himself to one side.—(Hear, hear.) lln
I,e
sneered at the pet meeting of the Rev. Alr. Tie
orney
Tierney,
onnell
sneered at the possibility of the Quests and Daniel
going arm in arm to open a Parliament on College Green.—
sneered, also, at the comparison
(Cheers, and laughter.) He sne
Vt. •
that had been instituted between the Arbitration Courts of
Mr. O'Ccnnell and those of the Quakers; but ho never re-
ferred to one fact or argument relied on by the trayersers.
The undignified conduct of the Chief Justice did, he admitted,
much to obtain the verdict ; but it did also more to take away
all moral effect from that result.—(Cheers.) Nor was he