which were binding on Ireland, though they regulated the property of Ireland; but Chief Baron Yelverton stepped in, and, by his Act, declared all laws passed in England to be binding in Ireland, and that they should continue to be so. But it may be said this is inconsistent with our allegiance. I deny it; for this authority exists in the Queen, which can only be exercised through her responsible Minister. It is no derogation of her power; it is rather an increase of that power. And shall I be told this by a country which had made so many irregular successions? Richard II. was dethroned by Parliament; so was Henry VI., so was Richard III., and Henry VII. set up. Where also the royal succession was altered over and over again in the reign of Henry VIII. and settled in nothing; there was another alteration at the time of the Revolution, in 1688; so that there could not be anything illegal in discussing this question. Surely not. There may be a mistake, there may be an error; but there cannot be a crime to discuss the matter publicly, undisguisedly, and with the sustentation of the authorities I have cited. You have Saurin and Plunket, you have Locke, you have Lord Grey giving his opinion in favour of it.

Gentlemen, I draw to a close. I now come back to the evils of the Union, and I would look to every honest man to exert himself for its Repeal. Would it not cure the odious evils of absenteeism? It was calculated by an able man that £9,000,000 a year pass out of this country; the Railway Commissioners reduce it to £6,000,000. Take the reduced amount, and I ask did ever a country suffer such an odious drain of £6,000,000 of absentee money? £6,000,000 raised every year in this country, not to fructify it, not to employ the people of the country, not to take care of the sick and poor, or desolate, but £6,000,000 are transplanted to foreign lands; sent there, but giving no return; leaving poverty to those whom it enriched. Take £6,000,000 for the last ten years. Look now at £60,000,000 drawn from this unhappy country. Take it for the next six years; can you in conscience encourage this? There is a cant that agitation prevents the influx of capital. What is the meaning of that? We do not want English capital; leave us our own £6,000,000, and we shall have capital in abundance. We do not want that left-handed benevolence, which would drain the country with one hand, and let in niggardly with the other. There is another item, the surplus revenue, which exhausts the resources of this country, and that to the amount of nearly £2,000,000 annually; in the last year it was low as £700,000; but whether the one or the other, it is drawn out of the country never to return. There is, again, the Woods and Forests. That department receives £74,000 a year out of Ireland, in quit-rents, &c. How was that expended for the last ten years? Between the Thames Tunnel and to ornament Trafalgarsquare. We want an additional bridge in Dublin-why have we not the £74,000 for that purpose? Have we not as good a right as that it should be expended on Trafalgar-square? If we had the Parliament in College-green would that £74,000 be sent to adorn a square in London? Have we not sites and squares enough in Dublin for the

purposes of public utility? There are other evils attending this continued drain on the country. I remember there having been quoted in Parliament the work of Mr. Young, a political economist, who journeyed in Ireland in '78, who, in speaking of the increase of population, accounted for it by the never-failing bellyfull of potatoes; they had all a belly full of potatoes, and to that he attributed the increase. But is that the case now? Has not the country sensibly declined-is not even one meal of potatoes a treat and a treasure? According to the evidence of the Commissioners of Poor Law Inquiry the people are now in rags. Was this my language? No, Gentlemen, I appeal to yourselves— are they not reduced to misery and wretchedness, frittered away by periodical famine? and there were six or eight since the Union. There was relief from England, while provisions were in quantities exported from this country; provisions were exported while the people were perishing with famine. But the Poor Law Commissioners report the following frightful picture. But first let me tell you that the Population Commissioners' Report shows the aggravation of the evil. The gentleman who made that Report is a military officer-Captain Larcom-a man of science, of integrity, and of honour. He reports the state of the population to be this, that 30 per cent. of the town and city population were in abject poverty, and that 70 per cent, of the agricultural were in abject poverty. These are not my words, they are the words of Captain Larcom. Where, then, are the advantages of the Union, which has thus increased poverty, bringing pestilence, and involving our poor in misery and filth? Gentlemen, why should we not adopt any plan by which we would escape from these horrors? The Poor Law Commissioners go more into minute details. Mind you, Gentlemen, this is evidence made on oath before the Poor Law Commissioners. Allow me to read some of it to you. "One family had but one meal for the space of three days; another subsisted on a quart of meal a day; another lived on a little boiled cabbages without anything to mix with them." Gentlemen, I will not harrow your feelings by reading any more, the book is full of them; and are 2,300,000 of your fellow-countrymen to live in a state of positive destitution, and nothing to be done for them? Is no effort to be made to rescue the country from this state of destitution? Permit me to call your attention to a few passages of a report of a meeting held last Monday week, in reference to the sick and indigent of your city. [Mr. O'Connell read an extract form Saunders, detailing the misery which pervaded the city.] Can any language of mine describe the misery which exists more fully? Gentlemen, another hideous feature of Captain Larcom's Report is, that the population is diminished by 70,000 from the period of 1821 to 1831; and from that to 1841 the population has diminished by the number of 70,000, who would have been all reared up if they had anything to support them. And are we to be hunted down, who are the friends of the poor? Are we, who wish to have industry rewarded-are we, I ask it on every principle of sense and justice, are we to be prosecuted and

prosecuted for seeking the means of relieving this distress? We have the means of relief in our power; we live in the most fertile country in the world; no country is in possession of such harbours, the early historical mention of which is made by Tacitus, admitting that our harbours are the best, and that consequently they were more crowded. The country is intersected with noble estuaries. Ships of five hundred tons burden ride into the heart of the country, safe from every wind that blows. No country possesses such advantages for commerce; the machinery of the world might be turned by the waterpower of Ireland. Take the map, and dissect it, and you will find that a good harbour is not more remote from any spot in Ireland than thirty miles. Why is not the country prosperous? Did I not read for you of the unheard-of magical prosperity that followed her legislative independence? Did I not read extracts from the writings and speeches of men most adverse to Ireland-of men most anxious to conceal her greatness as evidence of her increasing prosperity under her Parliament? What happened once will surely happen again. Oh, Gentlemen, I struggle to rescue the poor from poverty, and to give wages and employment to those now idle; to keep our gentry at home by an absentee tax, after the example of the Government last year, if by no other means, and compel them to do their duty to their country. I leave the case to you; I deny that there is anything in it to stain me with a conspiracy; I reject with contempt the appellation. I have acted in the open day, in the presence of the Government, in the presence of the magistrates; nothing was secret, private, or concealed; there was nothing but what was exposed to the universal world. I have struggled for the restoration of the Parliament to my native country. Others have succeeded in their endeavours, and some have failed; but, succeed or fall, it is a glorious struggle. It is a struggle to make the fairest land on earth possess that bounty and benefit which God and Nature intended.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6TH.

Mr. Moore. My Lords, the counsel for the traversers have availed themselves of the indulgence granted to them yesterday evening. We have gone through the evidence already adduced on the part of the Crown, and we mean to rest our defence on it. We have brought a considerable number of witnesses to town-they are in town at present, and are able to prove a number of facts; but under the circumstances which I have stated, we have come to the conclusion that we should not be warranted in taking up the time of the Court, to establish what has been already proved. We shall therefore examine but very few witnesses.

Mr. FREDERICK WILLIAM CONWAY sworn, and examined by Mr. HATCHell.

I am proprietor of the Dublin Evening Post. I reside at Rathmines-road, near this city, and I was a resident of Dublin in the

year

1810. I was editor of the Freeman's Journal at that time, and in that capacity I was in the habit of attending public meetings in this metropolis for the discussion of questions of importance. I recollect attending in 1810, at the Royal Exchange, at a public meeting convened for the discussion of Repeal. Mr. O'Connell, whom I knew personally at that time, also attended, and spoke at that meeting. Sir James Riddell, the High Sheriff of the city of Dublin, at the time, acted as chairman, and there were also several other persons of respectability and influence present. [The Freeman's Journal of September 19, 1810, was handed to the Witness]. I was present at that meeting myself. I acted as secretary to it. It purported to be a meeting of the citizens of Dublin. I read these proceedings last night, as reported in this newspaper, and I have a perfect recollection of what passed. The meeting was held on the 18th of September, 1810, and a petition, praying for a Repeal of the Union, was adopted. The leading persons at the meeting were, Mr. Shaw, the present Sir Robert Shaw, who acted as second chairman, Colonel Talbot, of Malahide, and many others. I am quite satisfied that the topics of Mr. O'Connell's speech, as reported, are correct; but a second speech appeared in the Freeman's Journal, and I think that was more correct, as the periods and sentences were better rounded. The reason the second report of Mr. O'Connell's speech appeared in the newspaper was, because the first was not very well reported, for we had not at that time so good a corps of reporters as we have at present.

[The Witness then read Mr. O'Connell's speech in support of Repeal. See ante, p. 113.]

I am now connected with the Dublin Evening Post. In the year 1800, John Magee was, I believe, proprietor of that paper. I perceive in the file of the Evening Post of the 4th of January, 1800, now handed to me a report, headed, "The Union-Catholic Meeting." [The report of the meeting, containing a speech of Mr. O'Connell against the Union, was here read by Sir Colman O'Loghlen. The resolutions against the Union agreed to at the meeting were then read, as were also addresses to Mr. Grattan and Sir Robert Shaw, members for the city of Dublin, with their answers, printed in the Freeman's Journal of the 5th of October, 1810. The addresses requested the honourable members to support the prayer of a petition adopted at an aggregate meeting of the freeholders and freemen of the city of Dublin, in favour of a Repeal of the Union, The honourable members, in their answers, promised to support the petition. The requisition, convening the meeting, with the signatures attached, was then also read.]

Mr. Hatchell. Do you remember the Catholic Association previous to 1829? I do.

Were you a member of that Association? I was.

You then were connected with the Evening Post. Was it circulated by the Catholic Association in the same manner as other papers were circulated by the Repeal Association?

The Attorney-General.-This is not evidence. It has nothing to do with the question under discussion.

The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.-I think the objection comes too late, after you have allowed the other documents to be read.

The Attorney-General.-The documents which were read, were speeches made by Mr. O'Connell, and had reference to the present questions, and we did not wish to exclude matters which had a distinct reference to a Repeal of the Union; but this is a distinct class of evidence altogether. The proceedings of the Catholic Association have nothing to say to the issue at present to be tried.

MR. JUSTICE CRAMPTON.-It cannot be received; it is quite outside all the issues on trial in the present case.

MR. JAMES PERRY affirmed, and examined by MR. WHIteside. I am a member of the Society of Friends.

Mr. Whiteside. What are the rules of the Society of Friends, in reference to arbitration?

The Attorney-General. I object to that question.

Mr. Whiteside.-I'submit we are entitled to show what their practice is in reference to arbitration, and that the traversers merely adopted it, and to show by that fact that they had no intention to interfere with or subvert the Courts of Justice.

The Attorney-General.-I entirely object to the rules of the Society of Friends being given in evidence, and I submit that they have no relation to the issue joined upon the charges in the present indictment.

Mr. Macdonogh.-It is alleged that the parties have entered into certain rules with a certain intent and object. We rely on this as evidence that similar rules have been adopted by a most respectable class in the community, to show that the traversers acted with a similar intention, and not with the object charged in the indictment.

Serjeant Warren-Both upon principle and authority this evidence is inadmissible. If these regulations are legal, they do not require to be supported by the rules of any other body of men. If, on the other hand, those regulations are illegal in themselves, whether they have been followed by the Quakers or whether they have been derived from them, cannot affect the criminality or innocence of the traversers in their having adopted them. But it is said, that the Crown having permitted this to be stated, the objection now comes too late, we did not choose to interrupt counsel in his statement, for it is impracticable to abstain from stating something that may not be evidence, but may be considered as a fair line of argument to the jury. The same species of evidence was tendered by Mr. Erskine in Horne Tooke's case, and was unanimously rejected by the Court.

The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.-I am of opinion that this evidence is admissible. The indictment is to this effect, that the traversers conspired to bring into disrepute the Courts of Justice, as by law established in this country, by substituting other modes for the people to settle their differences, in derogation of the Queen's Courts. The animus and intention with which this was done, are the essence of the charge. The question is, whether this was done with a criminal intent; with the intent to bring the Courts into disrepute. Surely, to show quo animo the act was done, it is material to show