The Sun. — 1833-03-04 (London, England)

THE PLEAS FOR A TYRANNY. So spake the fiend, and with necessity, The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.  " Undoubtedly," says Mr. Stanley, " his Majesty's 'Ministers have proposed a measure of a very arbitrary and coercive character." " The proposed law is founded on an uncontrollable necessi.y ; and the more its principles are at valiance with the Constitution, the more strongly did it recommend itself to his judgment." This we can all believe ; it is the only part of the Secretary's statement to which we can give implicit credence. Lord Althorp advocates the measure on the same ground ; he takes his stand oti its exorbitance, he makes evil his good, and contends that the very intolerableness of the law is its recommendation, as recourse will not he had to it on less urgent occasion. He says—  " The fact undoubtedly is, that if in measures of this kind we attempt to take a middle course, and to mitigate the excess of power beyond the ordinary law to such a degree as to make men regard it with less dislike than as Englishmen we ought to feel, we do snore mischief than is occasioned by Bills of greater force and effect, inasmuch as we may induce those in power to bring forward their milder plans when the occasion is not so urgent as to demand them. * * * Therefore, I do not consider the dislike it will probably meet with among the people in some respects a disadvanrage ; and for this, among other reasons, I prefer the enactment contained in the Bill upon the table." _ _  The same plea would always warrant the demand for powers enormously exceeding the occasion. The authors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew doubtless pursued the same course of reasoning ; it was of an enormity that would not allow of light repetition. Murder is, by the same rule, better than chastisement. A blow may be struck with the hand on slight provocation, but if we never strike but with a knife we shall have a care of striking, witt.ont those good reasons for murder on which Roderigo insists. When Mr, and Mrs. Moss rubbed red pepper into their slave's eyes and wounds, their coercive measure had the Ministerial recommendation of an enormity which would not be lightly practised by other masters. England has hitherto been a Mother Brownrigg to Ireland; and to temper her hand she is now to take to the sword instead of the whip ; for, as Lord Althurp and Mr. Stanley argue at the prompting of the double.. tongued, double-dyed, arch-apostate himself, instruments of this deadly sort will be more reluctantly taken up in future. And why not improve further on the principle ? Why not make the law less likely to be drawn into precedent by aggravating its heinousness ? Why not declare the Viceroy Bashaw of West Barbary, make his word the law of the land, and the people bow down to it, and reverently. murmur, " to hear is to obey Is" Honest lago had the reasons„which Roderigo ,required for the murder of „Michael Cassia. Honest Lord Althorp has reasons for strangling the constitution of Ireland. Every body.will allow, and no _one more readily than myself, that nothing but the most pressing necessity can warrant the course we rec anmend."  This case of necessityfor suspending the liberties of a people, and sending the sword in mastery among them, he stated in a catalogue of crimes and outrages which it cost him an hour's breath to recite. It is obvious, that such a collection of cases, with an official license for attributing motives and colouring circumstances, may easily be made with very appalling effect, and yet without representing with any truth the state of a people. We have had horrible barbarities in England. Let us for a moment suppose the Government of this country in Ireland, and a Secretary full of Hibernian passion and prejudice reciting the Newgate Calendar, and pointing out with due execration special cases—such as that of the unnatural monster Sheen, who cut his child's head off, but was acquitted, after the clearest evidence of the fact, upon a technicality. The Irishman would argue with as much show of reason as Lord Althorp or Mr. Stanley has yet exhibited, that a people amongst whom such an atrocity could be perpetrated with impunity were not to be intrusted