The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-16 00:00:00

REPEAL ASSOCIATION.

" Darrynane Abbey, Cahereireen, 2d Oct., 1844.
" Sir—l 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 valuable victory that ever was
achieved, by purely moral means. The victory of 'Wa-
terloo was the there 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.

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•

lc was a struggle on the part of our governors to make
le exhibition of the extreme pressure of a grievance sti-

mutating 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 1'
"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 availsourselves 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 Iris►+ 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 wa 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.
vivo 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, our duty—our pleasing duty.
" What is it which prevents the remainder of the Pro-
testants of all descriptions from joining 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 in their
Catholic fellow- countrymen ; and, above all, that they
ought not to retain any jealousy or apprehension. This
is our solemn, unequivocal, and most conscientious con-
viction and assertion, and we are entitled to he believed.
But we will not place the cause of conciliation upon
mere assertion ; we appeal to facts to prove that confi-
dence should be reposed in .the Catholic repealers by
Protestants of all classes.

"The FIRST proof is adduced .from Protestant histo-
torians. It is the historic fact, that the Irish Catholics
were, since the Reformation, three times in possession of
political power—in fact of the government of the coun-
try—yet they never passed one single penal law, nor
persecuted one single Protestant. I have one thousand
times challenged the libellers of the Irish Catholics to
give me the name of any one Protestant who was perse-
cuted by the Catholics while in power—no such Pro-
t,..stant has ever been named, simply because none such
ever existed.
" The SECOND proof arises from the language of the
Catholics during the many years of our struggle for
emancipation. We had tens of thousands of meetings,
in all of which our claims were placed upon the prin-
ciple that conscience should be free. Free for others
as well as for us. And in not one of these meetings,
although guilty of many an indiscretion, yet not one
single word of a bigoted or exclusive nature was
uttered, save upon one occasion, when a phrase, consi-
dered to be: of a bigoted nature having been used, that
phrase was emphatically condemned by the all but una-
nimous vote of two public meetings ; there was, indeed,
but the single neg,: tire of the utterer of the phrase him-
' self—HE STOOD ALONE.
"The THIRD proof arises from the conduct—that is,
the acts of the Catholic people, during the agitation for
emancipation. We had our tens and our twenties of
thousands of meetings. We had our Catholic boards,
and Catholic committees, and, finally our great Catholic
Association. But there was no riot, no violence, no tumult.
No Protestant was injured in person or property by the
Catholics in their struggle for emancipation. No Catholic
associator was ever accused of any crime, committed in
the struggle for relief, with the exception of myself ; and
then the charge of sedition was so frivolous, that the bill
of indictment against me, was ignored by a grand jury—
the foreman and two-thirds of whum were Protestants,
and several of them Orangemen. There was not one
single assault committed in the agitation for emancipa-
tion. I, one of the most prominent among the agitators,
and, probably—may I venture to say it—one of the most
popular, repeatedly declared, that I would abandon the
pursuit of emancipation if it were stained with one single
drop of human blood. And, blessed be Heaven ! no such
stain taints that cause.
"The FOURTH proof is derived from this, that my
principle has been throughout, and is, that' every change
of political institutions should be effected by exclusively
moral and peaceable means and 'that no amelioration,
however in its nature valuable, in the laws or government,
should be purchased by any one crime or sin of ever so small
a degree—and, above all, is not worth the purchase by the
loss of one single lfe:
" This doctrine I have preached anti practised. By the
a-sertion and practice of it the Irish people carried the
emancipation ; and I, who am the original apostle of this
dletrine of peace, possess, it is manifest, the unlimited
confidence of the Irish people. Oh, how idle must be the
jealousies and fears of any of our Protestant fellow-coun-
trymen !
"My FIFTH proof is to be found in the conduct
of the Catholics after emancipation. There was no
insolence of triumph—no insult to our former oppo-
nents. The usual demonstrations of public joy
were forborne. There . were no bonfires—no illu-
minations—no exhibitions of public delight, lest they
should be deemed insulting to the defeated Orange
Party. The active Catholic courted the good-will of the
Orangemen—we entwined the Orange round our Green
rilhon—we did all we could to conciliate. We combined