plough by the horse's tail, and to substitute the more enterprising and expeditious process by fire for the cautious but tardy labour of the threshing floor. We are reminded of the introduction of the linen manufacture, of agricultural improvements, of charitable institutions, of an improved administration of justice, and feel emboldened to pronounce that, with hardly an exception, all the measures by which Ireland has really profited, have been devised and accorded in a spirit of good will, and that whatever she has wrung from the fears and embarrassments of her more powerful neighbour, has proved unserviceable or injurious. Let a single illustration suffice. From the unforced good will of England, has sprung the University of Dublin. The Royal College of Maynooth has arisen from her embarrassments. Agreeing, how ever, as we do in a certain sense, with the opinion expressed by the Reviewer, and remembering that we are narrowly limited in space, we feel that an enumeration of benefits freely bestowed by England upon our country, as it is unnecessary to our argument, could be given only by excluding matter more pertinent to the occasion. The system of conceding to fear is abandoned, we are given to understand, by Lord Mulgrave-that is to say, the measures of his Excellency anticipate the menaces which might otherwise be thought to compel them. It is not to be imagined that the noble Earl would act with so much independence of Lord John Russell, as to adopt in his government a principle different from that which the absolute and accomplished Secretary has laid down-namely, that, if the Irish people are not satisfied with the concessions already made, the regimen of concession must be continued and kept up without intermission until repletion has cured discontent. The predecessors of Lord Mulgrave, we are given to understand, were frightened into concession. Concession is now yielded to the fear of being frightened. This is the new system: the people must have what they desire, but (to make it acceptable) before they have expressed a wish for it. The policy of government must be, to keep always in advance of popular opinion, shaping its course by what it is apprehended public feeling may become, in order to avoid the disgrace and disadvantage of complying with what it is; and realising thus the braggadocio of the American Captain, whose fast-sailing frigate had been chased by a stiff gale across the wide Atlantic, and had never, even for a moment, been overtaken. Should Lord Mulgrave remain long enough in command to "make America," he may feel it cheering to know that he can boast a similar achievement. The feats upon which the Edinburgh Reviewer seems most to felicitate the Irish government, are their dismissal of unpaid, and their appointment of stipendiary, magistrates. The gentle men who have been superseded are termed Orangemen their dismissal, accordingly, must have proved acceptable to the people. We do not think it necessary to comment on the unfairness with which the Edinburgh Review asperses the Orange society on all occasions when it seems expedient to allude to that wronged and meritorious institution. A time will come to do it justice; and, in the mean while, we can afford to leave the aspersions of the Edinburgh Review unanswered, because they are the charges of an acknowledged enemy and a false witness. The Edinburgh Review for January, 1836, contains an article on Orange Lodges, which confesses that it is not a representation of the arguments on the question respecting these societies, but a statement of the case against them. The writer, having thus candidly avowed himself an enemy, has shown that he is, also, capable of exercising unscrupulously an enemy's office. The Committee on Orange Lodges was said to have been unfairly constituted, because of the exclusion of partizans on the one side, and the admission of them on the adverse party-it was said to have acted unfairly in declining to examine certain witnesses for the defence. The Edinburgh Review professed to have examined these charges, and the grounds on which it had been sought to rest them. It professed also to give proof that the charges were unfounded; affirming that the last witness examined was Henry Maxwell, Esquire, Grand Secretary to the Orange Insti tution,*-and that Col. Verner, Grand Master of the Orangemen of Armagh, The Committee "closed its labors by the examination of Henry Maxwell, Esq., Grand Secretary to the Institution." Edinburgh Review, January, 1836, page 473. The Committee closed its labours August 6th, with the examination of Mr. O'Connell. was a member of the Parliamentary Committee. These statements were both untrue. The last witness examined was Daniel O'Connell, Esq., M.P.;and Colonel Verner was not, at any time, a member of the committee. The aspersions of a periodical, which can boast its "exactness" while uttering, where truth was so easily ascertained, two direct falsehoods such as these, may wait a convenient season," to be answered. The brief present we must devote to other matters. The instance of dismissal from the magistracy over which the reviewer most exults is that of Col. Verner, who was deprived of his deputy lieutenancy, and commission of the peace, for the crime of participating, at his dinner table, in a toast which, having been drank in good-humour, for more than forty years, the Irish government of the present day have done all in their little power to render offensive. We have dwelt long enough, in a preceding number, on this subject, to relieve us from the necessity of recurring to it, and have little more to say upon it, than this, that if Lord Morpeth can feel thankful for the notice taken of the disreputable shuffle by which an expression in his lordship's letter misrepresents Col. Verner's meaning, there is more resemblance in character between the noble lord and his eulogist, than we could previously have imagined. We have, as has been already observed, little to say on those acts of power over which the reviewer rejoices; but it is well to compare, briefly, the justice meted out to the gentlemen of Ireland, who have, at peril of their lives, without remuneration, dispensed justice, and the stipendiaries by whom it seems desired that the unpaid magistrates should be superseded. We are enabled, by evidence of the most unsuspicious character, to contrast the principles on which commissions are withdrawn from gentlemen who have served without pay, and bestowed on those who are to be receivers of the government bounty. Of the unpaid magistrates in general, the review affirms, that "if they have not ardently cooperated with them," (stipendiaries,)" they have not actually set themselves against them. In two or three instances, indeed, a few hot-headed and foolish men have shown a disposition of this VOL. X. kind, and have provoked dismissal."* Thus we are instructed that the magistrates who would retain their commissions must take care not to render themselves disagreeable to the stipendiaries. We have seen and shown in a former number of our magazine, in the case of Col. Verner, that they must abstain from commemorating events by which the integrity of the empire was secured, and must, “aggravate their voices and speak small" while suffering "the insolence of office," if they are not satisfied to find their post of honor in a private station. We will now show what are the tempers and dispositions which stipendiaries, existent or expectant, are taught that they may profitably cultivate. Three instances, out of many, shall suffice. That their evidence may be indisputable, we take it from testimony given by the parties themselves, or else admitted by their silence, before a parliamentary committee. Wm. John Handcock, Esq. confessed, before the Committee on Orange Lodges, in 1835, [8842,] that he was guilty of the crime of assaulting and striking a clergyman, of the Church of England, in the streets of Lurgan. It was proved against him, [9600,] and not denied, that he had displayed conspicuously before the Orangemen, on two different days, as the decorations of his boat, a green flag exhibiting a harp without a crown, the emblem of separation from England. In our October number, we noticed Col. Verner's dismissal and its cause; we also recorded, in our Memoranda for the month, the severe, and, we thought, unmerited rebuke, addressed by his Excellency to Captain Vignolles, who, in his earnest desire to quell a disturbance, had seized one of the rioters with his own hand, and made him prisoner. Lord Mulgrave, conceiving that such an instance of intrepidity and zeal indicated an absence of self-command, sharply reproved the offender, and removed him from Carlow, where the indiscretion had been committed, to some other station. W. J. Handock, Esq., whose political predilections were exhibited by his adoption of the emblem of more than repeal, and whose self-command was exhibited in his assault upon a clergyman, one who could not consistently return or revenge his blows-was ap* P. 286. 3 A pointed to the office of a stipendiary magistrate by Earl Mulgrave, and relinquished the appointment, merely because it was not one which, on consideration, he found advantageous. Captain David Duff does not appear to have been troubled with any political preferences. For this gentleman's character and qualifications we refer to our number for August. Mr. Duff was promoted to the office of a stipendiary magistrate. If justices of the peace had permitted him, he would, some years since, have thinned the population of Dungannon by a piece of cannon. He armed himself with a pistol, and walked out of his house, with a set purpose to come into the way of a magistrate, and to take his life if he assaulted him.* This gentleman, who would quell the opposition of Protestants to an illegal act, by firing grape shot upon them, and who, when Roman Catholics were conspiring to commit a crime, sought to tranquillize them by illegally arresting an individual who was bent on the extravagance of preaching a protestant sermon-this Mr. Duff is a stipendiary magistrate. The case of Mr. John Gore Jones is the last to which we shall allude. It has become so notorious, that mere allusion is sufficient. The magistrates of Antrim memorialled the lord lieutenant, complaining that he had grossly, and deliberately, and knowingly calumniated them, in his evidence before the committee on Orange lodges. Their complaint was affirmed by the verdict of an impartial jury. If an unpaid magistrate had set himself, as the reviewer informs us, against a stipendiary, "he would have provoked dismissal." Mr. Jones is convicted of setting himself injuriously and offensively against the whole body of the magistrates of Antrim; and he is entrusted with the dispensation of justice, and is paid with the public money.t Hitherto we have been at issue with the censor in the Review, conceiving his arguments to be unsound, and his statements false. We now approach matter in which, although we still dissent from our contemporary's arguments and opinions, we can yet find one statement, in the truth of which we are happy to concur-we mean that which describes the unprecedented power and patronage with which his Excellency Lord Mulgrave has been invested :-" The Lord Lieutenant has obtained the power of fixing stipendiary magistrates, wherever they may be wanted, without the previous assent of the local authorities." Instead of four provincial inspectors, each pursuing a system of his own, there is now but one inspector-general, whose office is in Dublin, and forms a department in that of the chief secretary-an arrangement which brings with it all the advantages of centralization, uniformity, and prompti tude of action. Instead, too, of the former circuitous procedure, under the insurrection act, of first proclaiming a district, and then appointing a police force to it, the executive can now, upon the appearance, or even the apprehension of outrage, instantly move any amount of disciplined force to any quarter where it may be required."|| "The patronage of the men has also been transferred from the local magistrates to safer hands,"§ &c. &c. In short, the patronage of the police is in the hands of the inspector-general, and the Irish government, and to such an extent, as was never at the disposal of any former administration. The powers, too, entrusted to his Excellency, are altogether unexampled. In fact, on his own authority, he can raise an army, and, as he is disposed, can employ his levies and his power in suppressing tumult and treason, or in exasperating, and harassing, and forcing away into foreign lands, the fast friends of Great Britain. It was to this objectionable use the military and police were employed, when they were sent, as the reviewer observes, "to crush the Orange disturbances," (which never broke out, and were never meditated,) "in July • See evidence of Colonel Verner, before committee on Orange lodges. The case to which Mr. Æneas M'Donnell has adverted, is perhaps more remarkable than any of those noticed in the text. It is that of Mr. O'Connell, who, immediately after having pronounced one of his most truculent and stimulating speeches, was made a justice of the peace for the county Kerry. At the hustings, (See our Memoranda for August,) he declared himself "a repealer;" and the government does not appear to have called him to account for the expression, or declared its purpose of expunging his name from the list of magistrates. Edinburgh Review, October, 235. $ Ibid. last."* For a notice of one of these expeditions, we refer to our August number, and of the measures at that time generally adopted by the government, we can truly say that contrivances better adapted for irritating the Protestants in the northern districts, and provoking them to some excess which should furnish an excuse for severities calculated to "crush" not their disturbances, but their spirits and their persons, have rarely fallen under our contemplation. Such was the use to which the powers entrusted to the Lord Lieutenant, were employed in the past summer. To such uses the noble Earl may be frequently required to apply them. The constabulary may be so managed as to be the staff of an army of two hundred thousand men-a staff so considerable, and so well disciplined and equipped, that a few weeks might be sufficient to have the larger organization completed. All this may be employed to suppress or to prevent revolt it may be also employed to render rebellion successful. The police force, even in its less enlarged estate, may be so influenced as to become disaffected and mutinous. It is not subjected to the restraints of military law, although possessing the strength imparted by military discipline. Well chosen, well governed, we believe the force to be good for these times; but it may be so chosen, disciplined, located, and advised,† as to become the most formidable instrument of aggression upon the interests of Protestantism and England, which well affected subjects have yet been called out to contend against. To the present government is due the credit of having introduced the measure, under which these important changes have been made." To the Conservative members, we may add, in both houses of parliament, it is due that the measure was carried. Each party acted in character; and the conduct of both in this single instance, may serve to suggest a solution for a difficulty of some magnitude, in the history of Irish legislation. "From the first relaxation of the penal laws against the Irish dissenters, (writes the Edinburgh reviewer,) upon the appearance of the Scottish Presbyterians 66 in arms, in 1715, down to the final abolition of the whole penal code, in 1829, each change of its objects, each successive mitigation of its severities, has been the consequence of England's alarms." We are willing to admit that this censure, although by no means just, is not altogether groundless. The facts, we believe to be these, confining ourselves, as the reviewer has limited his observations, to the period which has elapsed from the commencement of the 18th century to the present day : The Whigs appear to have consulted always for the ascendancy of their party; the Tories have comprehended, within the objects of their legislation, the interests of their country also. While the Whigs retained power, they took good care that Roman Catholics should not profit by English disaster. On the contrary, whenever danger approached, "execute the penal laws" was the uniform cry. And the cry was not raised in vain; as Roman Catholics felt, who were thus taught, if suffering could instruct them, to pray for the welfare of England. In opposition, the Whig party adopted towards their successful rivals, precisely the same policy as they had previously employed with advantage against those whom they then denominated "papists the common enemy." "Abolish the penal laws," was just as likely to embarrass a Tory ministry, as "execute" them was calculated to alarm the papist population; and the cry was impudently raised, with a flagitious disregard of the national interests in their peril, as it had been formerly uttered to the outrage of all the charities of human nature. Hence the misgovernment of the country-hence those ill-ordered and ill-advised concessions, which served to little other purpose than to encourage discontent, and to strengthen faction, and to destroy that confidence in the government of any country, which is indispensible to the securing the attachment of faithful and resolute retainers. The history of the Tory party, while in power, is therefore marked with records of many an enforced concession-while the Whigs, never conceding, unless their interests required it, and never urged to con * Edinburgh Review, p. 237. The constable, in the county Carlow, who consulted with his confessor before he resolved upon swearing falsely against Archibald Sly, taught a useful lesson, if men would receive it. Edinburgh Review, October, p. 237. || Ibid. 227. cession by their rivals, when to embarrass the minister might prove detrimental to the country, have established a reputation for consistency, so far as an ever-waking and all-predominating selfishness could ensure it. Had Whigs been in opposition when the poor law reform bill was proposed in England, it would not have been passed into a law. Had they been in opposition when measures were introduced into parliament, which have made the Irish viceroyalty a dictatorship for Earl Mulgrave, or his master of the mob, insurrection in the provinces, and factious opposition in the senate, would have rendered them abortive. "Faction fights have been almost entirely put down"*-for this Lord Mulgrave is praised. "Previously to his Excellency's viceroyalty, it was a rule that the police should not attend at fairs"-we have not found the rule recited by the Reviewer-we find him, in some instances, taking for granted that such a rule was made, in one instance inferring that it must have been made and acted on, but we nowhere find him offering testimony to its existence -we leave his assertion as he has left it, uncorroborated, and therefore doubtful-but, now, he assures us the police have become popular-" They can not only attend fairs, races, and the like public assemblages without molestation, but even without particular notice."+ And thus Lord Mulgrave has been enabled to suppress faction fights, and rioting at fairs. If Earl Mulgrave has changed the practice introduced by his predecessors, in employing the police at fairs, he has compensated them by an exemption from a duty to which they had formerly been subject. "It had been the unconstitutional practice, under Tory governments, to employ the constabulary in making distresses and serving civil processes." "The present government determined to change this practice," declaring "that the police or military could not be called out, except in case of actual riot, or breach of the peace." To this should be added that menacing rule, which may be found in our Memoranda for last month, directing that, even where a case of urgent necessity has been made out for the protection of a constabulary guard, the claim shall not be acceded to, unless the party whose life or property is in danger can pay a certain stipulated price for the succour he solicits. And this rule is made at a time when it is acknowledged in the Gazette, that various persons have fallen victims to the violence of illegal combination, and when Mr. O'Connell declares that the Irish government is acquainted with the existence, even in the metropolis, of a secret society, consisting, exclusively, of Roman Catholics, and of a character which must cause many of its obstinate members to suffer transportation or death. It is somewhat remarkable that the name of Mr. O'Connell has not had its houor, in the apology for Lord Mulgrave's administration of Irish affairs. There is no difficulty in perceiving that the exemptions from duty accorded to the police, are favorable to that learned gentleman's opinions and wishes. The houses which would most need protection are those on which the "death's head" has been inscribed, and this symbol is visibly or mentally, set up with an effect the very opposite of protection. That Mr. O'Connell would not approve of the employment of military or police in serving processes, his speeches, passim, on Rathcormac, Carrickshock, &c. &c., furnish abundant evidence. But while he would discourage all such applications of the constabulary force, he would recommend, and has recommended the use of it in quelling faction fights, and the riots which have repeatedly made the fair field a field of slaughter. After, we believe, frequent oral remonstrances, Mr. O'Connell, on August 16, 1836, addressed a written epistle, with the sanction of the general Association, on the subject of these disgraceful conflicts "to the people of Ireland," praying "to Heaven that they would obey, as if it were a command, the advice to abstain altogether, and for ever, from riots at fairs and other meetings;" and declaring that "any man, who, after this solemn warning, engages in any riot or fight at a fair, &c., must be considered as an enemy to Ireland." And thus it appears, that in sending the police to fairs, and in discouraging riots, by appointing "an attorney in every county to prosecute rioters," the Irish government was acting in obedience to Mr. O'Connell's wishes-creating new * Edinburgh Review, October, 249-Ibid 238. ↑ Ibid. |