The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-18 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 18, 1841

That servile tool of priestcraft and prime mover of
sedition, Mr. Darnel O'Connell, hats issued a fresh or-
der to his countrymen to " agitate, agitate," now that
a dissolution of parliament is so near at hand. But
we have become so accustomed to this signal, and, in-
deed, to the effects which usually follow it, that it has
ceased to give us any disturbance. Besides, we have,
we may say, chemical authority for not paying much
attention to it. 'Fake a kettle of water, put it on the
fire, and agitate, agitate as you will under it, you can-
not raise the water beyond the boiling point; if you
agitate beyond that, the fluid goes off in steam. Now,
Mr. Daniel O'Connell has kept Ireland, any day within
our memory, in hot water—in water heated to the
boiling point ; and what more can he do if he were to
give fifty orders a day to all the stokers, and pokers,
and fire-enginemen under his command? He cannot
"exaggerate the caloric," and we defy him to produce
any new result unless he adopt some new or greater
power than that which he has hitherto used, and which
he calls "peaceful agitation." Will he order an armed
insurrection ? He has hitherto eschewed that dernier
resort, and repeatedly declared that he never will med-
dle with cold iron, hot balls, or explosive powder in
any shape ; and we commend his prudence. What
then may we anticipate as the result of his present
mandate ? Why, it is just like the word " attention"
upon parade; it intimates that if there has been any
relaxation, it is now to cease ; that mass-house fulmina-
tions, and Captain Rock's police must immediately be
put on duty, and that Popery may keep its ground, all
the usual and well-known arts and artifices are to be
put in requisition.

Popery is now in possession of all that, under ex-
isting laws, it can attain to in Ireland. That "all"
is, we admit, a great deal too much, and ought to be
diminished; but all its capabilities have been fully
brought out, and we are decidedly of opinion that the
force of mere agitation can no further go in extending
its dominion. If we are right in this opinion—and
we think we are—the utmost that O'Connellism and
priestcraft will be able to do at the next general elec•
tion will be to give to Ireland the same number of po-
pish or liberal representativeg (between whom there is
no difference) that she now has—if, indeed, they will
be able to do so much. This is all they can do; but,
even to effect this, they must put on all their steam and
use the most desperate exertions.
The appeal to the country—yes, to the united king-
dom—will be on two great questions : Popery and the
Corn Laws. We say Popery; because, let no man
imagine that Popery is not the deadly enemy of the
national prosperity and happiness, and that it is not, at
this moment, exerting a most baneful influence in the

kingdom.
We have encourged it so much at home that through
Ireland it now rules us. Nor is this all ; it is rapidly
acquiring strength in all our colonial possessions, and
we have given it a sort of legal establishment therein.
Let us look well then to this, that, whilst through its
agency our councils at home are distracted, we do not,
at some future day, become deprived of our colonies
through the same fatal instrumentality.
The Irish Disturber knows well that the No Popery
cry will be raised—nay, must he raised at the ap-
proaching election in Great Britain, and he trembles
at the consequences. These are the remarkable words
in which he makes his confession on the subject taken
from his recent agitating appeal addressed to the seven
millions :

" In the new parliament that will speedily be called, the
anti-Irish, mean, and malignant prejudices of the English
faction will, of course, obtain a triumphant majority in
England against the rights and the liberties of the Irish
people. So far as England goes, Stanley is quite certain of
a decided majority in-the next session in favour of any bill
to annihilate the Irish franchise, even though ten times as
atrocious (were that possible) as the present bill."
If the anti-Popery—the just, enlightened, and the
righteous anti-Popery sentiment shall only effect so
much in this country, we shall have no great fear for
all that Mr. Daniel O'Connell can do with all his
mightiest anti-Protestant "mean and malignant preju-
dices" in Ireland. We do indeed deeply sympathise with
our Protestant brethren in that country, who are grievous
sufferers under a system of rule which seems especially
constituted to favour everything Popish,. and persecute
whatever is Protestant. We are not insensible to a state
of things so truly afflictive and injurious ; but we are
encouraged by the thought that the time of their deli-
verance is approaching, even by the confession of their
arch-foe. The Protestants of Ireland are, we trust,
reserved for better times; but, with ail their sincerity,
staunchness, and stoutness of heart—and we well
know that no men possess more—it is plain that it is
here, in Protestant England, that the battle for Pro-
testantism must be fought and won. And it will be
won ; yes, though O'Connell says it, it will be so; and
then we shall certainly hope better things for Ireland
than she has for a long time enjoyed.

A man who belongs to no party, and has no party
of his own, and thus stands a mere isolated unit in our
national assembly, would require an extraordinary de-
gree of talent or merit to be a very formidable person-
age, especially if he bound himself to strict truth or
fair dealing in his course; but there is a mode of ob-
taining notoriety—an unenviable notoriety—not diffi-
cult in any place, but particularly easy in such an as-
sembly as our House of Commons.
Now that Lord Howick is one of those who are
not very formidable on their own account, either from
talents or statesmanship, is a proposition that few, we
think, will deny—whilst all must allow that he enjoys
a considerable share of notoriety : the only question

that can exist as to the pinnacle of fame on which he
has placed himself is, by what means he has arrived at
it. A London contemporary designates his lordship
as the " Lord Cardigan" of the house—we were going
to say that he was the Ishtizael of the senate—a "wild
man, with his hand against every man, and every man's
hand against him ;" but we deprecate calling names ;
it may be better to content ourselves with merely
scrutinizing his lordship's acts.
On Friday it will be seen, that Mr. W. E. Gladstone,
the member for Newark, felt called upon to complain
of an attack made upon his eminent and excellent
father by the noble lord on a previous evening—and
certainly a more wanton and unprovoked assault we do
not remember to have seen attempted. Lord Howick,
it may be necessary to say, gives the value of his vast
eloquence, immense information, and profound states-
manship, in support of ministers on the sugar ques-
tion. He does this of course like the rest of his corn-
-peers, in the livery of the most unequivocal and shame-