The Sun. — 1833-03-21 (London, England)

STATE OF IRELAND.  DUBLIN, 111ARcil 16.  It has been frequently stated, and I think history auctions the assertion, that the poor of all nations, and of all times, are easily led to believe that their poverty proceeds from a conspiracy among the rich to exclude them from a fair share of the good. things of this world, and to preserve the monopoly to themselves. Nothing is more easy than to persuade the majori'y of the people that they are wronged, oppressed, and insulted ; and when such doctrines ate for some time inculcated, they become, like religion, a most important and sacred article of belief. How extensively, and for what period :of time these notions have prevailed in Ireland, I shall not stop to inquire, much less discuss the honesty of aggravating a sense of in jury, which all admit his been long suffered to exist, and many wish to see removed from the wretched people of this country. The reflection has been suggested by a recently-perpetrated murder, the leading particulars of which have already reached you. When all the circumstances connected with the atrocious mariner in which Mr. Leonard was made the victim of a ruthless usurpation of the laws •hall have come to light, they will form a graphic exhibition of the feelings and opinions which unhappily prevail among, I fear, a very large portion of our deluded peasantry. That unfortunate Gentleman was a Roman Catholic, of most exemplary conduct, not more remarkable for his amiable manners, and social intercourse wit h every persuasion of men, than for his benevolent and liberal indulgence of a tenantry who had been considerably in arrear to him for rent for some years past. He had for some time resided in New Ross, on the borders of the county of Kilkenny, where he had a small landed property, the tenants on which are suspected of his murder. One of these tenants owed him upwards of 1401., for the payment of which, or a part of it, Mr. Leonard had of late made frequent application., And it is a fact, incontrovertible, that a few days before his untimely end, he offered to take 20/. front this tenant; take his promissory note for such portion of the rem tinder as he might find it convenient to himself to pay at a future period, and thus discharge him from all further claim or demand for money then due. This offer not being complied with, Mr. Leonard threatened to distrain his property; but how far he intended to act upon that threat may be roller ed from the fact of his not allowing the cattle to be seized or driven off the land, up to, or on the very eve of, the day appointed for sale. It is, in truth, alleged by his friends, that he did not intend to sell the cattle, only hoping, by the threat of doing so, to induce them to come to some settlement with him. Such was the man whom an infatuated band of miscreants thought fit to make a sacrifice to their offended laws and violated rights ! The bloody deed has, in fact, answered their savage expectation, for it has diffused a terror, not easily described, among every description of people who have anything to demand, or anything to lose. Whether or not the Coercive Bill will afford, to all, th• protection anxiously waited for, is a problem which, cons dering the state of parry feeling, cannot be at this moment easily solved. The following incidents may illustrate the doubt here intimated : A witness on Mr. Leonard's invest said, " Two policemen were seen near the scene of murder, about the time of its perpetration." And it is asserted that policemen were detected, in the city of Waterford, in the act of seducing and compelling a drunken sailor to fix on a wall a notice not to pay tithes. I have heard both these facts stated by respectable persons, and whether they be true or not, th y tend to show how odious the police are to many of the people, and what angry collisions may be expected to take place between them. I shall only add, for the present, that the people in the neighbourhood where this sanguinary crime has been committed, are really in alarm, and anxiously looking to Government for protection to life and property.