The Sun. — 1849-10-30 (London, England)

PRICE SD.  rebels," &c. Now, if we compare the Protestant rebels of this year under Lord Roden and the Messrs. Beers, with the Catholic rebels of last year under Mitchel, Meagher, and O'Brien, there is one remarkable distinction between their cases, whichconstitutes a vast disparity between their crimes. No matter how mistaken, no matter how criminally rash were the rebels of the Confederation, they appeared as the vi et armis advocates of a starving people ; of men who had none of the comforts of life ; and who, until late years, had but few of the privileges of society. Oppression with them was an hereditary grievance. It was an estate—and their only one— handed down from father to son. Few nations have endured what had been inflicted on the Catholic portion of Ireland ; and if a set of young men, stung with the recollection of an embittering part, and seeing its fruits in the squalor and death so thickly strewn around them, were hurried into acts of violence, all we can say is, that both here as well as in Ireland, there was a feeling to this extent in their favour, that the commutation of the capital sentence was hailed with universal satisfaction. But when we turn to the rebels of 1849, we see a very different set of advocates, and a very different race of clients. Whatever was worth having in Ireland was in the possession of these men. The miserable minority of the country, they had the lion's share of its wealth ; they received it from former Legislatures ; they held it by a title of prescription, even admitting the fraud of the original grant; and no man was seeking to dispossess them of their gains, well-gotten or ill. Will any plainsensed Englishman tell us, what cause had these people to rebel? What incentive had they to rise in arms against their Catholic fellow countrymen, from whom they bad nothing to get but their blood ? To turn triumph into insult, and perpetuate the taunt, they assembled in arms, and, after the banquet in Tollymore Park, repaired to their after-feast of slaughter at Doily's Brae. It would be an insult to common sense to pretend that the criminality of the latter case does not greatly exceed that of ' the former. Bat so utterly deficient do the Irish Protestants appear to be in this commodity, that what in England we have denounced,as a day of barbarous murders, they appear to regard as something very virtuous and admirable. They characterize Lord Clarendon's resolution to put down this butchery as an attempt to propagate "error and false doctrine ;" whence we may fairly conclude that the way to propagate sound doctrine i 3 to murder idiots and old women, and turn incendiary wherever a Catholic has a house or a hayetack. Now all this, upon which the disaffected Protestants of Ireland are "grown so great," will not in the end prove the most nourishing food for their party. While they believe that they are acting in a very heroical manner, the quiet people of this country are looking on with as much patience as men can command, who are called to witness the revels of fanaticism. They are measuring the rights and wrongs of that " Protestantism for which the belligerents are so fierce in professions of faith; and they begin to think that this fine word is a mere cloak for something else. We know that religion has always been one of the most successful disguises a bad or an ambitious man could assume. But if the Irish Protestants fancy that they can play over again a game of which every one here is heartily sick, they are mistaken. Nor let it be forgotten tbat these men have brought a bitter disappoint' ment to hopes which had been ardently cherished in England. After bearing, as far as money could bear, the brunt of a famine of five years' duration— in which the Protestant north would have refused us the help of a sixpenny rate-in-aid—we had begun to look for better times; and augured from her Majesty's visit, that they were at hand. But Lord Roden and his friends have put an end to that, unless indeed they aro to sink into the contempt they merit, and Ireland be destined to survive their "loyalty." But whatever is in store for us, in this respect, we repeat the fact, that from north to south the old demon of bigotry has proclaimed his empire, which we trust to the strength of Government, and the good sense of this country, will not be of long duration.