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

the meetings to disperse the assembly, it would spon-
taneously iisperse—and the immediate counter-
mand of the intended ClOntarf meeting so soon as
the proclamation for prohibiting its taking place
was issued by the Privy Council—these facts and
circumstances were urged by Mr. Sheil with zwer-
ful effect, on the consideration of the jury. the yet
unextinguished spirit of religious proscription which
pervades Ireland, supplied Mr. Shell with one of
those fervid appeals for which he is unequalled in
effect, and which on this occasion produced an irre-
pressible burst of enthusiastic feeling from every part
of the Court. To the alleged seditious ten-
dency of passages set forth in the indict-
ment from O'Connell's speeches, Mr. Sheil
opposed passages equally, if not more, violent
from those of the Right lion. Frederick Shaw, one of
the Privy Councillors who issued the proclamation
against the Clontarf meeting, " and other gentlemen
connected with these prosecutions ;" from those of Earl
Charleville, and several other Tory Peers and Com-
moners. The Earl of Charleville, in 1837, at a "great
Protestant meeting" held at the Mansion-house, said—
" Well, gentlemen, you have a rebellious Parliament;
you hal e a Lord-Lieutenant, the slave and minion of
a rebellious Parliament." Other personages of the
Tory party who distinguished themselves by violent
vituperction• against the Queen, her Ministers, and
the Parliament, were also referred to by Mr. Shed.
From the spoken language, Mr. Sheil proceeded to
the newspaper press of the Tory party, and gave some
cho!ce specimens of the manner in which those organs
of exclusive loyalty expressed themselves when their
friends were on the shady side of the Speaker's chair.
To the passages charging conspiracy on the leaders
of the Association, we can only allude in general
terms. Poignant ridicule, and bitter satire, relieved
the serious arguments and forcible appeals by which
the folly of the charge was made manifest. The ex-
pulsion from the jury-panel of every Roman Catholic,
and other instances of reproach and insult to the
great majority of the Irish nation on account of
their creed, were touched upon by Mr. Sheil ; but so
as to avoid offending the most sensitive of the Pro-
testant. party ; while his forbearance must have pro-
duced on the reflective a more powerful and abiding
effect than if he had employed the most furious invec-
tives.

ST ANDA RD.—Another act of the Irish State
trials (it is hard to determine in numerical order the
several stages of this tedious drama) opened on
Saturday with the first speech in defence. The
speech was delivered by the Right Honourable
Richard Sheil, and occupied rather more than
five hours in the. delivery. Many considerations
render it difficult to speak with freedom of this
address, and yet we are unwilling to pass unno-
tice 1 what appears to us the most able effort
of an able man, and of one for whom we have always
entertained a high reTect. The speech of Satur-
day seems to us not only Mr. Shell's best, but
much the best speech of the Grattan school of
eloquence ever delivered by any disciple of that
school, or by its founder. The school is, no
doubt, a bad one, but Mr. Sheil's talents, we
will say his genius, has raised him above its
derects, in the speech which we present this
day. To say that the speech does not even
slightly touch the merits of his client's case would
be, perhaps, to 'say that the case is one which will
not bear handling; and to compare it with the calm,
sedate, and copious, but concentrated, urgent, and
masterly statement of the Attorney-General would
be, in truth, to place- in invidious contrast the respec-
tive cases of the Crown and the traversers. At
present, we must not pretend to say which of the
two speeches ought to be the more successful, in
that which is the proper object of eloquence—
the determination of the judgment -of the third party
—the jury and the public. Upon the line of argu-
ment taken by Mr. Sheil, as well as upon some topics
" beyond the record," we may, perhaps, remark with-
out transgressing the limits which forbid the least ap-
proach to an anticipation of the verdict. A great part
of the Right lion. Gentleman's speech is direct( d
against the law of conspiracy—such an attack may
b judicious in the advocate of persons charged
With the offence, as inspiring in the jury a wish to
acquit. if possible; but the law is the law, and while

it remains the officers of the Government must vin-
dicate its authority when very signally violated, and
sworn jurors must respect it, as they shall answer to
the most solemn of all tribunals. The merits of any
law are not to be canvassed or decided upon in any
Court but. the high Court of Parliament. This
is our reason for not following Mr. Sheil upon
thls poiiit, but we think that we have some
time since satisfied our readers, that without some
law restraining political conspiracy, civil govern-.
ment cannot Le long maintained in any free country-.
Mr. Sheil also attempted to justify the Repeal Ass
sociation—its administration, its institutions, its
affiliated assemblies, its elaborate and wide-spread
organisation, by the analogy of other societies and
meetings ; societies, perhaps, as well organised, if not
as extensive ; meetings as numerous in some instances
as those held in obedience to Mr. O'Connell's fir-
mans. The analogy is, however, fallacious in this—
Mr. Shell was not able to bring the things compared
under a common category, which constitutes the whole
force of analogical reasoning. And 'even were this
possible, acts, all innocent by themselves, may be
in morals, as well as in law, rendered criminal by
the vinculum of a common bad purpose. When,
therefore, we are told of an - organisation un-
connected with any formidable meetings in one
place, and ex tempore meetings, calculated to in-
spire terror, in another; of violent speeches of
isolated individuals here, and of violent writing
in independent newspapers there, We may adin•t
the - propriety of conniving at them separately
without conceding that all of • them united,
concerted, and combined, ought to enjoy an impu-
nity. It is the collected evil that constitutes a public
danger and indicateS an evil purpose. Mr. Sheil's ar-
gument, -in this -re'spec• t, reminds one of the well-
known lines of Pope—
" I cough like Horace, and though lean am short,
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high ;
Such Ovid's nose, and, Sir, you have an eye ;
Go on, obliging friend, and let me see
All that disgraced my betters.meet in me."
But, as we - have intimated, it is not merely in
being collected, as it were, "sparsim, that the ma-
terial of Mr. Sheil's analogy is wholly inapplicable
Its several parts do not come under the same
category • with the Repeal Association. The-
avowed object of that association is to obtain
by some means a change in the laws
and constitution of the country, notwithstanding
manifest proof that such a change cannot be effected
without violence offered to the wishes of the Legisla-
ture, if not without actual war. The object of the
other societies referred to as once tolerated in Ireland,
the object of the Orange institution, for example, was
not to procure a change in the law and the constitu-
tion, Ibut to defend both, and to defend them
by lawful means. Now this surely makes
all the difference in the world between the
Repealers and the Orangemen— as much difference
as exists between the mob which makes a disturb-
ance, to aid the unlawful purpose of a street-
practitioner, and the crowd of honest persons who
join in pursuit of the detected delinquent. The
.Repealers are against the law—the Orangemen
were for the law ; and the law must there-
fore regard them in very different aspects. There
is also, as between these two classes, one very
striking illustration of their opposite relations to the
law, which Mr. Sheil cannot forget. The Orange-
men dissolved their society at 'the very first intima-
tion of a wish on the part of the Legislature. Has
the Repeal Association shown equal promptitude of
obedienc .!? Parliament has more than once intimated
its desire. The Queen's speech and the answering ad-
dresses of the two Houses are now nearly half a year
old; but, if we are not mistaken, the Repeal Asso-
ciation still holds its sittings. So much for the de-
fence from analogy. Mr. Shell complains, in a suc-
cession of brilliant _periods, that the traversers have
been entrapped by the Crown prosecutor's delay.
But 'this, surely, is unjust. Early in the summer
the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel
gave notice of tbeir resolved purpose to put down
the repeal agitation. A like declaration was con-
tained in the Queen's Speech ; but these declarations
were so little heeded, that half a dozen monster meet-
ings were held in the month succeeding the last of
them, and it was not until the nuisance actually in-
vaded the seat of Government—until it was threatened
to traverse the streets of the metropolis of Ireland
by disciplined and regimented bands of the repeal
cavalry--that a Government, reluctant to resort
to harsh measures, was compelled to make its
stand ; this, if we remember rightly, was about
six weeks after the delivery of the Queen's
Speech. Thus, the Repealers had warning,
repsated warning—and they. had ' time, full
time, to profit by that warning—though they
declined doing so; and it is hardly worthy of
Mr. Sheil, even as an advocate, to speak' of their
being in such :circumstances entrapped. •

-The ty'phus. fever rages violentlyabout Grindleford
Bridge.—Derby Reporter.