The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-30 00:00:00

Qu bvnins ,: Ant

LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1844.

The speech of Mr. SHELL in defence of Mr. JOHN
O'CosisiELL—or rather in defence of all the tra-
versers—is one of the most eloquent, forcible, and
convincing displays of forensic oratory we have pe-
rused for many a long year. It made a strong im-
pression on all who had the good fortune to hear it
—it will make an equally strong impression on all
who read it. The Right Hon. Gentleman left the
Attorney-General literally not a leg to stand on. lie
commented, in cutting and energetic language, on the
miserable policy that had dictated the State prosecu-
tions, and the still more miserable logic by which they
were attempted to be supported ; and, alluding to the
Attorney-General's marked expressions of indigna-
tion at the mischievous designs of the Repeal agita-
tors, said, " if, gentlemen of the jury, his anger was
not simulated ; if his rage was not merely official ;
if he spoke as he felt, how comes it to pass that no
single step was ever taken by him for the purpose of
arresting the progress of an evil represented by him to
be so calamitous ? He told you that the country
was traversed by incendiaries, who set fire to the
passions of the people ; the whole fabric of society,•
according to him, has been in a blaze for the last nine
months ; wherefore, then, did he stand with folded
arms to gaze at the conflagration ?" This is one of
those hits between wind and water which cannot fail
to tell with crushing effect against him at
whom it is aimed. Why did not the At-
torney-General, the instant he saw the blaze
beginning to spread, use his utmost efforts to put it
out ? Why wait till it had spread from county to
county with the rapidity of wild-fire, and, according
to his own account, was daily becoming more de-
structive ? Foreseeing the danger, was it not his duty
to have striven to avert it at once ? Surely, by
allowing it to increase, he made himself in some de-
gree responsible for the consequences ; and, so far from
prosecuting the incendiaries—as he terms them—he
should be tried at the same bar with them, for having
aided and abetted them by his long supineness !
What would be thought of a man who, seeing a hou e
beginning to take fire, and having the means of ex-
tinguishing it, should stand coolly looking on, to all
appearance calm and unmoved, until the flames had
spread throughout the whole building, and then, for
the first time, should send for the fire-engines?
Would he not be considered culpably negligent—or,
what is more likely, incurably mad ? Yet this is the
line of conduct that the Attorney-General has pur-
sued throughout the repeal agitation. Instead of
checking this agitation in its infancy—which he was
bound to do, holding the views he does of its danger-
ous character—he allows it to progress day by day,
week by week, month by month, without the slightest
attempt at opposition or reprobation; and only inter-
feres to put it down at the very period when it has
effected all the mischief it is now likely to effect
If the Attorney-General has the power of interference
now, it is fairly ' o be presumed that he had a similar
power months since ; and we repeat, therefore, our
conviction that he himself is responsible for much of
the agitation which he could, but would not, check.
We dwell on this point because we think it one which
the Hon. and Learned Gentleman will find it difficult,
if not impossible, to answer satisfactorily ; and be-
cause als.) we think it will produce a marked, and
we hope triumphant, impression in the proper
quarter. Mr. SHEIL'S inference from this long
lethargy on the part of the newly-aroused Attorney-
General, is one which can scarcely fail to suggest itself
to the mind of every intelligent and unbiassed man in
the community. " Is there not," observed the Right
Hon. Gentleman, " too much reason to think that a
project was formed, or rather that a plot was concocted,
to decoy and ensnare the traversers, and that a con-
nivance, amounting almost to sanction, was delibe-
rately adopted as a part of the policy of Government
in order to betray the traversers into indiscretions, of
which advantage was in due time to be taken ? The
public prosecutor who gives an indirect encourage-
ment to agitation, in order that he may afterwards
more effectually fall upon it, bears some moral affinity
to the informer, who provokes the crime from whose
denunciation his ignominious livelihood is derived."
This, too, is hard hitting, but who shall say that it is
undeserved? The conduct of the Government,
throughout these injudicious State prosecutions, has
been marked alternately by virulence and feebleness
in a most eminent degree ; and, let them terminate
which way they will—either in a triumphant acquit-
tal of O'CoNNELL, or his consignment to a Kilmain-
ham or Dublin prison—either way, the result will be
equally injurious to the stability of the Administra-
tion. As for stopping the progress of the repeal
agitation, neither one nor a hundred State prosecutions
will be able to do this ; the check must be given in the
House of Commons, by the public, deliberate an-
nouncement of Sir ROBERT PEEL, to concede, without
further delay, such measures as Ireland is justified in
demanding, and has a right to receive.

We take it the new rural associations, founded for
the support of agricultural protection, will prove
themselves most valuable auxiliaries to the very
cause their present patrons design them to overturn.
The prospects of free trade, we are quite convinced.
stand in not the slightest danger from the skirmishing
which the associations in question have a tendency
to compel. On the contrary, they seem to us to
afford an element which has hitherto been a desidera-
tum, and without which, probably, the progress of
truth would have been considerably retarded. The
public, we think, have longt
of capacity
younfodr out that
the Logue were in no want

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