Star.
London, England, 1830-10-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT O!•' TIIF

CHUONICLE.....it is impossible for us to I are without notice the fol-
lowing passage in the leading article of v steday's riltlet. which Ws
" The armed inhabitants of Brussel:, wet,, invited his (the King's)
troops within their walls to protect tlicnt t.nst the rabble, eag7r for
pillage and conflagration, and then subjeci,•l them to murd.aous a•tacks,
could not be spoken of with any degree ui tavour, as they added • tr..a-
chery to rebellion !' " Now we;liappen abe informed, froat
able authority,that Prince Frederick, in ju ation of his attack, she wed
to M. Pourbaix, the Chief of the Li:go:is, wits went to his Royal i I iga.
nom 'en Parliamentaire during the right of Ibursday (lst day's coai hat)
a bundle of letters from some of the Bourgeois of Brussels,inviting 'inn to
enter the town with his troops, and drive from its walls a ' poign, e J, s
klutins.' At the tint, tieiniet • !linage no, • conflagration' was appre-
hended. Pourbaix and his brave hand of • Ouvricrs' wete ready anved
to twined the city front every internal end external attack. It Was the
• thachery* of a few cowardly Bourgeois of Brussels that exposed the
lives of their noble defender* of the Liegos to the murderous attacl,s'
of th.l Dutch, and cruelly deceived the Prince. The Tinges and Courier
should not be allowed so quietly to said t their ground and slide,
without remark, into their new view of the Belgic question.—
Aided by the representations of Mr. Cartwright and by their Brussels
correspondents, they have blinded ete public mind of England to the
real merits and state of the Belgic cause. The truth, however, has
now been forced upon us, despite their endeavours to keep England in
the dark. As long as a doubt ex:Sted of the Belgians' success, it was
theirs to flatter the feelings of the English Aristocrats, by denouncing
the Belgian patriots as brigands, insurrectianists, and unprincipled re-
bell,. At length these two Papers have turned with the tide, and they
both afford a beautiful specimen of disinterested consistency in the lan-
guage which they now employ, in describing the progress of the
Belgians to the assertion of their nehly-t:quited independence, as a
nation.

Texts.—The proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, pub-
lished in this day's Times, will attest that we have not in former nu-ot-
hers over-rated the importance which might reasonably be sus:heti to
the machinations of a certain Irish party, fur erecting a repeal of ti
Union. The Duke of Northumberland—authorized, no doubt, hr the
Cabinet—has acted upon the law passed in the tenth ye ,r of George IV.
" for the suppression of dangerous associations or assemblies in Ire-
land:* and has used the power vested in his Excellency by that .I t, to
suppress the " Anti-Union Association." Mr. O'Connell tak:s s•red'r,
or receives it from some Irish letters, for calling upon the peorle to re.
spent the Lord Lieutenant's proclamation, and to obey the Lis.
could not very well have done otherwise with regard either to his Nt.
sons! interests, or to those of any public object. As fur the wisdom of
the proclamation itself, unquestionably, if the anti-Union spirit was
to be opposed at all by coercive or prohibitory measures, an early it._
terference on the part of Govemment would teem to be the most hopeful
of success; that iglu, say, in case of a probability that the cause was
likely, when let alone, to grow and spread amongst the people. We
confess that the subject appears to us to be not without many difficulties.
A regularly organised association, meeting not once or twice and dien
dissolving, but adjourned from day to day, and continuing its exisunc.
and consolidating its power, and concentrating the force of opinion
its own hands, or in those of two or three of its leaders, would be :moth:.
Catholic Association, bearding the constituted legislature of the counts ,
and wielding the bulk of the Irish nation at its own arbitrary pleasut...
To those who feel of what enormous value to any political purpose,
whether good or bad, is the habitual and open exercise of Au-
thority over large masses of le, it will be easily intelligible that
the Irish Government should wish to meet this new agitatio4
expedient at the threshhold, and thus close up one vent at least throug't
which mischief might break forth upon society. But will the bptTll
cease to ferment among those to whom public discussion is prohibited '
We fear not. We fear that public discussion itself,—to say nothi ig
firiate and eager confederacy,
_ under circumstances into which no pa-
cevcan petietrate,—will not be stopped or so much as crippled by thl,
resistance to One only amongst the thousand forms through which it
can, by a little dexterity, be promoted. If men are not suffered ta
meet and debate in the morning, they will be apt to do so in the after.
noon. If they cannot debate where discussion is the ostensible business.
they will advertbe for one sat of rneeting,and turn the occasion to
thing different from the avowed object for which they assemble. It
they cannot debate, they may at any rate dine together ;—if they cannot
dine, they will sup -,—if prevented from meeting by public notice, they
will send round whispers intimating when they may see each other by
accident. There is no end to the !varieties of mode by which the std.
mulus of discussion may be administered to a susceptible people, whets
the thing proposed is one in which they feel a rational and substantial
interest. Utterly condemning the *hone of a separation between these
islands, as one which goes at once to the root of the British empire, we are
nevertheless, constrained to ask by what mesas can the semi.
aunt in favour of that project be enfeebled ? To cheek the
expressions of such a feeling is by no means without fur.
thee interposition, to diminish its force. Of the upper l'a.
'holies, and of the gentry of Ireland as a class, it may be taken for
granted that a repeal of the union can have no charms for them. Its
supporters will be found among the priests, who are aware that the
Protestant church must fall as the necessary result of a separation ; the
Dublin shopkeepers, who want the custom of a resident and numerous
aristocracy; an lastly, Mr. O'Connell's peculiar allies, the mob. to
whom change itself, for the love of change, IS a temptation beyond their
fortitude. Let that be as it will, the anti.union mania. if through bad
fortune it should be widely propagated, must receive a pOWIitUI, and
erectual, and final rebuke. The existence of the state cannot be kft fur
Mr. O'Connell and his manteuvring brethren to play with.

Pose.—A proclamation has just been issatd by the laird Lieutenant
of Ireland, prohibiting, by virtue of the powers of an Act of Parliament
passed concurrently with that for the relief of the Rcruan Catholic*, the
intended meetings of the Anti-Union Asspeiatiem. That some imaeure
of this nature had become necessary, no man who has read the recent
accounts front Ireland can entertain the least tinutit We trust this dis-
play of firmness and resolution on the part of the Goren mint will
prove sufficient to put an end to popular agitatien on thy: Plibitet
of a Repeal of the Union, which the recent history and the pre.
leen state of Ireland equally warrant us in aaytng could not long have
'been permitted to continue without conveque nee,' the more ir,jortous to
the peace and welfare of the country. If, however, the mesooty rheuld
not suffice for the purpose 4 has in view. we do not tri•ate
to say that other and more partly' ciirrtetivcs must b,f
ministered. The dernagoguee, who have evinced a 44ot:title to
employ the subject of the Union as tittatis of distort awe
and injury to Iceland. must at all suers Pr .heeled and humbled.
They are the enemies of their country. and to ttlerate thior
Mgs would be to participate in their int dated (lister.
proceedings
requires peace, as the Indtspeaaih!e preliminary to her
prosperity, as the principal condit,cn upon which de r.
the success of whatever efforts have hen, or may he made it,
rescue her from the condition of comparative poreny sod de.
gradation into which she has fallen Of the truth of this prettied:Jen
no doubt is entertained or professed by any honest man, who prelim.*
the ordinary degree of intelligence. The claM: to a repeal of the
Union is believed by all men of this deticripticn to be not rely an
absurd but a hopeless claim. It is plainly teen that it its'dd
to nothing but agitation and disquiet—that its only pie table
result is to deprive Ireland of that internal peace which above all things
is essential to her welfare. What it, such circumstances is the met e.reil
and obvious policy of A Government which wishes to pit re Melt she
friend and protector of Ireland I Precisely that which we
now see nasal to Lope the Irish Rosen:meat has de-
finitively adopted. The entbusiarte mirucates of the eght eti
free and unlimited discussion will perhaps find Mte prised
for censure in the course which the Irish ficvemeneet has pur-
sued upso this occasion. They will vrobably deny that any circum-
stances tan justify an ir.vasion of this right, and contend that
the Irish demagogues should have been kA to pursue without re.
laming their pioject: of agitatiem, inasmuch as its sweets mull
only have been in proportion to the degree of public auntie's and
sympathy it might happen to excite. To this clam of reasoner. we
need only to reply, that the safety and welfare of a nation &reponse/at
considetatioes, which are entitled to the preference over any me.
does of abstract right, supposing the two so be plainly I. competition.
Who, Indeed, would hesitate to samelo an individual hum the
kink of a precipice. doom which he seemed shoot to kap.
hone veneration to the abstract right of personal herdoot P The dir.
mass of the Union mionloo, as it would certainly have been tamed
salty the agitators ia Leland who had aorlertaltra it, could not ham
failed to predate gnat injury is that country. and us the empire at urge
This is emottih
it.p Oto prove that it was the imret he dui: of rrentinea t
to sappers

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