Star.
London, England, 1830-04-15 00:00:00

LONDON.

THURSDAY, APRIL 15.

We cannot suffer the letter of " An Occasional Cor-
respondent" to go forth to the world unaccompanied by
a few remarks :—and in the first place, we are bound, in
justice to ourselves, and in vindication of our own con-
sistency, to show that in our reprobation of Mr. O'CON-
NELL'S projects for the renewed agitation of Ireland, we
do but follow up the precise line of conduct and ob-
servation which was adopted in the columns of the STAR
upon the first announcement of O'CoNNELL'd design to
" agitate" the Repeal of the Union.—ln " the STAR"
of November 10th, 1829, the following comments were
elicited by the speech which the "Agitator"—for as
such we shall henceforth denounce him—had just before
delivered at Youghall :—" As an asserter of religious
equality, the Honourable Gentleman accomplished a
glorious mission—he ran a splendid career ; but with
all his affectation of liberal sentiment—for it was an af-
fectation with him—he never convinced us that he was
really liberal. Neither will it be going too far, to say
that he never convinced the country : by the country,
e mean the Protestant mass of the Empire, who
mistrusted O'CONNELL from the first, and mistrust
him doubly now. Throughout the long " agitation" in
which lie was engaged, the cloven foot of his papistical
partisanship stood out conspicuously from beneath the
mantle of his Irish patriotism. • • • • While they
were yet unemancipated, they talked of the injustice of
ineligibility to public honours and offices on account of
flick religion ; it was a brand—they complained—of civil
inferiority. Remove this, by putting us upon the same
footing—in point of law—with our Protestant fellow sub
jects, and it is all that we desire : surely nothing can be
fairer; we do not want the places themselves, but only
eligibility to them: eligibility is not election. Such
was the language of the unemancipated agitators : the
disabilities are repealed—they are made equal to the Pro-
testants in law—and immediately their tone is altered, and
their demands rise. °TON N ELL has carried emancipa-
tion, and he now calls for a repeal of the Union : if he
could carry that, he would propose next a declaration of
Ireland's independence upon England. It is that—and
that alone—at which, in the intoxication of his popu-

larity and self-astonishment at his own successes, the
lion. Disturber aims." • • ' ' In the leading article
of the Srs n of Nov. 11, it was observed, " He says he
wants, and he must have, a repeal of that cursed measure,
—phraseology in which deep disaffection struggles fur
mastery with indecent egotism." ` * ` * And
again, in the leading article of the STAR for January 5,
" We must take leave to remark, that the Honourable and
Learned Agitator is indebted in a great measure to his own
extravagant views and pretensions, for the diminution of
his popularity. If Mr. O'CoN NELL have been sincere in
many of his latter vehemencies about a native Parliament,
and repealed Union, he is a man of dangerous opinions;
one from whom it is incumbent—alike on personal and
public grounds—that all his friends should hasten to se-
parate, if they desire to avert anarchy from their country,
and destruction from themselves. If, on the contrary,
these fierce declamations of the Honourable Gentleman
have been employed only as a stalking-horse, and a screen,
to cover his private purposes, the pernicious hypocrisy
was not less calculated to ignite again the elements of an
extinguished !rebellion, rsince the people to whom they