patronage for the benefit of his Association, and laboring to carry into effect his intentions of pacifying the people. We do no more than justice in restoring to him his due share of honor. It seems obvious to any reflecting person, that the tendency of the constabulary regulations, for which his Excellency has been so praised, is to encrease the power of those secret societies, to which Mr. O'Connell's speeches have directed public attention. It is notorious that reconciliations between rural factions have usually preceded a combined insurrectionary movement, agrarian or political. To refuse the assistance of the police, unless a riot has actually broken out, and to give notice that, even in cases of urgent necessity, protection of life and property is to be denied to the poor, and to be indulged only to those who pay-is, in truth, to put out of the pale of the law, every man who incurs the censure of the conspirator-and to warn all such as are defenceless, that they must make friends betimes, by enrolling themselves among the members of some seditious or treasonable society which can defend them. That Lord Mulgrave's government has been beneficial to Ireland, the Reviewer professes to prove, by exhibiting evidence of an improvement in the peace of the country. "The following statement of the number of offences, &c., &c., shows the astonishing decrease which has taken place,"* &c. &c. The following statement!! No doubt, it contains cyphers which if they are correctly stated, indicate a decrease; but it does not contain, it is not prefaced, it is not followed, by a single expression, to show that it is entitled to the least authority. It appears simply as a statement, constructed to serve • P. 246. his purpose, by an anonymous writer in the Edinburgh Review, and we leave it, where its compiler does, unexamined and undisturbed, until he shall have condescended to name the source from which his intelligence has been derived. At the same time we are free to own that a decrease in the amount of crime would not afford to us a sufficient proof that the country was well governed. If Mr. O'Connell, informing the people of the intention "to organise their mighty strength peaceably," &c., &c., require, as a preliminary, that faction shall cease, and, thus, outrages at fairs become far less numerous, the amount of crime might seem diminished, while the danger and the disaffeetion were the same. If the refusal of military aid deterred numbers from the attempt to execute a process of law, positive out rage might be diminished, and the condition of the country not at all improved and if we were told, as we have been, even by Mr. O'Connell, of the virulence, and saw reason to infer the extension, of secret and illegal societies, if instead of the decrease in the number of crimes exhibited by the Reviewer, in the statement in which he alleges that the homicides committed in Ireland were : In the year 1832, 244 1836, 231 it was boasted that the diminution had been, not thirteen but two hundred; we would still be apprehensive that there was more to alarm in the enlargement of the conspiracy than there was encouragement in the decrease of crime. Upon the anonymous returns on which the Edinburgh Review relies, we feel it unnecessary to offer any further comment.‡ It may not be impertinent, however, to notice a very poor and + Letter. The best comment we can offer is that which we subjoin from the Standard :— In the third place, we come to the return with which the Morning Chronicle concludes as so satisfactory. Now, before dealing with that return, we beg to have it authenticated. We do not ask where the Morning Chronicle found it, because we are aware, that our contemporary has taken it from the Edinburgh Review; but where did the Edinburgh Review find it? Assuredly not in any parliamentary document; for it is not only not supported by, it is directly contradicted by the parliamentary returns; by the very returns quoted by the Reviewer himself. Standard, October 31. As we never wish to keep back anything, and would be very unwillingly thought to do so, we shall endeavour to supply the omission, not indeed by adopting the returns, as to the origin, and consequently as to the authenticity of which the Edinburgh Review and the Morning Chronicle are disagreed, but, by a reference to such parliamentary documents as we are at present able to avail ourselves of. The return of the Edinburgh Review, as to the increase or diminution of Irish crime, is otherwise objectionable; inasmuch as though it professes to give a statement from first to disingenuous artifice adopted to render the constabulary reports to lord lieu tenants of counties less available than they had been. Each monthly return formerly contained a recapitulation, under different heads, of the offences it reported, and a comparison also with the report for the month preceding, showing the increase or the decrease of crime within the two intervals. An awkward occurrence had taken place, before these satisfactory appendices were discontinued. Lord Melbourne proclaimed, with no little triumph, in the House of Lords the improved tranquillity of an Irish county, and laid on the table the returns which proved it. The noble Lord's confident manner prevented the returns from being examined on that night-when they were, it was found that they contradicted him, and showed a formidable increase of crime. It appears that he had been misled by his letters from Ireland, and it is probable that, although he took no public notice of the matter, he may have privately complained of the deception put upon him. Good care is now taken that the returns shall not unnecessarily facilitate detection. Industrious and intelligent men will probably examine and digest the information which the returns still continue to afford, but there is not the less reason to complain that useful assistance is withheld, nor is the reason less to suspect why the usage of former years has been abandoned. We earnestly hope, that this change in the form of constabulary returns will not be suffered to pass without observation. The lord lieutenants of counties will, we hope, consult together and ascertain whether the alteration has been partial or general, and they will also, if they are true to themselves, demand of her majesty's government, an answer to the question, whether they have been slighted by the unwarranted impertinence of district constables, or if the omissions in the monthly reports were directed by authority. On this they may rely-if the government has given instructions which have been faithfully followed by the compilers of constabulary reports, the deficiency of which they now complain is but the beginning of denser obscurity. The reports, they may feel convinced, will be more and more mystified, according as the encreasing perplexities of a government, staying, but not strengthening itself by ill, shall leave it fewer intervals from the sharp apprehensions of exposure. In process of time, if the present attempt succeed, the lieutenants of counties will be left without information, as they are now stripped of power, and the state of the country, being known only at the office" of centralization," and, even there known imperfectly, or perhaps misunderstood, through the medium of partial and delusive representations, affairs may be so managed, and matters may make such progress, during the obscurity. last, it does not go back to the first. The first year of Whig government is altogether omitted, for the table begins with 1832. We shall go back, however, one year farther; and we regret that Mr. Porter's collection of the parliamentary tables, which commences its detailed statements with 1831, does not enable us to go still farther back, so as to present a year of what is called Tory government, in contrast with the boasted Mulgrave year, 1836. In 1831, however, the Tory misgovernment may be supposed to have had some influence. We shall, therefore, take that as the term upon which Lord Mulgrave's admirers boast his lordship to have improved This is the palm of Whig administration-this, and we entreat our readers to pause upon it, is the proof of what the Edinburgh Review calls " the astonishing decrease of crime;" a decrease which presents fifty per cent., added to the sum detracted from-fifty per cent. upon the general amount of guilt-nearly 200 per cent. upon the amount of the greatest of all crimes, homicide; and mark, this is faithfully extracted from the parliamentary documents.-Standard, October 27. It will be observed that the number of homicides, as stated from parliamentary papers, by the Standard, is more than double that stated in the anonymous return of the Edinburgh, the one being 244, the other 620. that when light comes at last, Ireland may wonder, as was said of old on another subject, to find itself virtually independent of Great Britain. To effect this consummation, we repeat our solemn belief, the policy adopted by Earl Mulgrave's govern ment, has a direct and downward tendency. The noble lord has been entrusted with power and patronage greater than an Irish viceroy ever enjoyed before, and he has used them for the discouragement of the friends of British connection, and for the aggrandizement of a party which he has neither the art nor the power to propitiate. He induces them to try the experiment of seeking "justice" from an imperial parliament, by surrendering powers which, whenever they think proper to say "not content," will enable them to extort " Repeal." Registering barristers are shifted from place to place, according as their principles and opinions best accord with the interests of the party which, according to Lord Mulgrave, promotes reform, and which, in the judgment of those who know them better, conceals, under the mask of liberalism, the settled purpose, to effect a dismemberment of the empire. A chasm is opened between the Irish government, and the landed proprietary of the country, men whose interests are inseparable from the permanent well-being of the land, while representations from those whose ephemeral prosperity will depart if they offend an official having favor with the visible, or the actual, governor of Ireland, are received as worthy of all attention. The magistrates whose office could be rendered subordinate to their interests only by being made conducive to the well-being of the country, are affronted and set aside for acts in no way connected with their magisterial duties. The magistrates whose subsistence is derived from the wages of their commission, who live by the bounty of the government for the time being, and to whom, accordingly, the government may prescribe the course of action by which its favors shall be recompensed, are those upon whom we are now taught to depend for faithful statements of the condition of the country, and for an impartial discharge of their difficult duties. The result is what should have been expected. The Edinburgh reviewer boasts that the stipendiaries rendered good service at the elections. No doubt they did. One or two appear to have, under difficult circumstances, behaved with integrity and decision, although the interests of the government candidate would be better served by conduct of an opposite nature, and the censures of government, and the suborned persecution of false swearers have taught them to know that their disinterestedness was an indiscretion. Some stipendiaries stand charged with having been active partizans in pro moting, by most culpable practices, the cause which government favoured, and the grateful government has taken care to protect them against the inconveniance of a trial.* Again-a policeman or constable will not be placed in a poor man's house, to defend him from murderers, even "where the necessity is urgent," unless a price be paid for protection; but he will be set as a spy upon the house of rich or poor, without any price, to detect opinions unfavourable to the present government. So much more important is it now thought to ascertain political opinions, than to protect life. It is impossible in all this not to discern the presence of a presiding intelligence, and not to discern also a purpose and tendency calculated to awaken very painful apprehension. To us it appears evident that the mind of Mr. O'Connell pervades and agitates the whole mass of the Irish government, and makes its movements subsidiary to his designs. Certainly, never before was there so strange a union realised as has been effected for that learned and artful gentleman a union of advantages believed to be incompatible. Those millions in Ireland who are inveterately hostile to England, at his disposal; while, at the same time, England gives to his use the whole machinery by which it could be enabled to sustain and suppress the revolt of that great multitude. England makes Lord Mulgrave a despot, but sets Mr. O'Connell as a viceroy over him-this she does, if we are to credit ministers, in order to preserve the integrity of the empire; and Mr. O'Connell, thus invested with power sufficient to counteract the efforts of the masses in this country, is the mover of the masses also, who desire " Repeal," and avows himself a "Repealer."-The conjunction is portentous. See the correspondence arising out of events at Carlow and Sligo in our Memo randa. BY-WAYS OF IRISH HISTORY. CHAF. IX.-WHITEBOY SYSTEM-CHARACTERISTICS OATH. A MOTION was made in the Irish parliament in the year 1762 for the appointment of a committee, to enquire into the origin, cause, and character of the Whiteboy insurrection, and to report fully the result of their proceedings. We concur with the historian* in lamenting that the motion was negatived, feeling that many things have become, by this time, almost inexplicable, which, had attention been early directed to them, would have been placed beyond doubt or obscurity. Instead of a committee, commissioners were appointed, who took evidence respecting the disturbances, in the disturbed districts, and framed a report from which the following extract was inserted in the Gazette:-" That the authors of these disturbances have consisted, indiscriminately, of persons of different persuasions; and that no marks of disaffection to his majesty's person or government have been discovered on this occasion, in any class of people." There is little satisfaction given by an assurance like this, unless to those whose previous apprehensions may have rendered it valuable. It may have been thought useful in discouraging attempts at invasion, and may have been found useful in quieting popular alarm; but it afforded no information respecting the disturbances, by which, either when it was first published, or Gordon's History of Ireland, Vol. 2. at this day, the real plans and purposes of the Whiteboy conspiracy could be detected. The deficiency, thus occasioned, of the highest species of testimony must be supplied by evidence of a secondary order. If it be the best which circumstances place within our power, we shall be pardoned for reasoning from it. The name by which the insurgents were first known, was that of "Levellers" a name descriptive of their professed object. They complained that they were wrongfully deprived of privileges to which they were entitled; and, to regain them, they assembled at night, levelled enclosures which the great proprietors had erected on wastes which had been previously enjoyed as commons, and, under the influence of excited feelings, committed various depredations. Without drawing any inference, we think it necessary to direct attention to the fact, that the meetings of these men were held at night, and that they added to the justice, done themselves (in the removal of landmarks, which they may have thought, excluded them from their own,) many acts of spoil and violence which they must have felt to be unjust as well as illegal. They were entitled, it is said, to a right of pasturage, on certain wastes or commons. They paid, indirectly a price for this right, in the rent of their farms; and they could, accordingly, if justice were done them, ob We have quoted only that portion of the report which Mr. Lewis in his work on Irish disturbances, has thought proper to notice. That gentleman professes to take his citation from the Annual Register for 1762, page 84, and it ought, perhaps, to be observed that his quotation is partial-the passage which the Register extracts from the Gazette, being as follows: "The riots and disturbances lately raised, in the southern parts of Ireland, by a set of people called Levellers, are entirely put a stop to by the vigilance and activity of the Earl of Hallifax. It appears that the authors," &c. &c. If the appearances which satisfied the commissioners that there was nothing political in the disturbances, were as fallacious as those which deceived them into pronouncing that the disturbances were "entirely" suppressed, their report is, evidently, worthless. We think Mr. Lewis should have cited the entire passage, and left his readers to judge how far the proved incorrectness of one averment tended to invalidate the other. He adopted, however, a principle of selection: it was, to quote from the report the sentence which confirmed his own opinion, and to omit the sentence which contradicted him; the report affirms that the disturbances were entirely suppressed in 1762, Mr. Lewis asserting, on the contrary, that having begun "at the latter end" of 1761, they "lasted for several years," notwithstanding the exertions of the military and severities of the martial law. tain a legal redress. We draw no inference; but wish to have the fact noticed and remembered; that, overlooking the just and orderly means of obtaining their rights, without ever instituting a trial at law, the Levellers, in, we believe, the year 1757, complaining of substantial and legally remediable grievances, betook themselves to clandestine and tumultuary courses, in order as they said, "to see themselves righted." In two years after, the Levellers became Whiteboys. The new name was said to be derived from their attire, or uniform, which was, a white shirt worn over their other garments. There was nothing very fanciful in this derivation of the name, yet we are not, therefore, the more persuaded of its correctness. In due time we shall state the reasons why we doubt; for the present, it is sufficient to have mentioned the explanation given of the name which the disturbers assumed, and to add, that it has been, almost universally, received, as adequate and satisfactory. The Whiteboys had another name. They were "Sive Ultagh's children.”* This was a denomination which ought to have provoked enquiry. We have searched Irish vocabularies, and have consulted parties likely to have the power of correcting our impression, if it was erroneous, and we have discovered no other interpretation of the words than this-" the children of General Ulster-man." If this be correct, then, it appears, that the Levellers who arose in Tipperary in 1757, appeared there and in other parts of Munster a few years after, under two appellations the one, Whiteboys, the other, CHILDREN OF GENERAL ULSTER-MAN. "Names are things" is a maxim well understood by the philosophical statesman, and little regarded by the mere "working-politician." The nomenclature of insurrection in Ireland is one of its most remarkable peculiarities, and is, at the same time, the one which has least served to attract the serious notice of those to whose care the interests of the country have been from time to time confided. Indeed, hitherto, it seems to have answered the purpose, only, of the disaffected, covering each manifestation of a trea sonable system with the character of an independent movement, occasioned, solely, by the circumstances in which it seemed to originate. Had the name adopted, in 1757, been bestowed upon the actors in each successive appearance of disorder, the apprehensions of reflecting men would have found more general acceptation; the secure and the suspecting would have changed places in popular esteem; the odium and ridicule cast upon wise men, who gave warning of disaster and peril, would have fallen to the lot of rash or unprincipled partizans who stigmatized them as "alarmists;" and, instead of reading in the neglected predictions of some, to whom experience imparted a prescient sagacity, as we now do, in the reproachful light of their fulfilment, the condemnation of the country by which they were despised, we should have to recount them among the admonitions by which legislation was directed how to shape its course, and the designs of traitors had been made manifest. The frequent change of name and pretext, protected the disaffected from exposure, by preventing or misleading enquiry. To the superficial it seemed to denote an interruption of the continuity of insurrection; and, as the name and the pretext appeared always to be suggested by accident or caprice, by some temporary object or some local grievance, it was argued, that the tumults which disordered Ireland, had their origin solely in the distresses of the people, and the term Agrarian or Prædial disturbance was invented as a spell by which rising alarm was quieted, "Conjuguum vocat, hoc prætexit nomine culpam." To us it appears wholly unaccountable, that the patrons of the agrarian theory seem scarcely to have admitted among the evidences by which their investigations were directed and their conclusion determined, the sworn engagement by which the conspirators, in the Whiteboy insurrection became bound to their cause and to each other. Their sole object, we are told, was, originally, to cast down obnoxious and illegal enclosures; it embraced, at the next stage of disorder, a purpose of obtaining redress from vexations connected with the levying of tithe. The Whiteboys desired no more than this; The name is spelled by some " Oultagh," which may bear the same signification, but also signify "old" or "great." Seward, Col. Pol. |