to endure misrepresentation and calumny in parliament, oppression from the government, and from his landlord or his landlord's agent-to bear the pangs of hunger, and the more excruciating pain of seeing his wife and children starving; he is exhorted to bear all this, and at length Mr. Stanley may, in the plenitude of his benevolence, be moved to attend seriously to the Irishman's claims, and perhaps to grant to him some portion of them. Yet intervals of quiet have been granted to British ministers ere this. The result has uniformly been, that nothing has been done, or if any thing, some act prejudicial to the interests of the Irish people.

Another declaration of the planters, that has its parallel among those of the ministry, is, the unfitness of the slave for freedom. Ă favorite and plausible argument against the great measure of right and justice-immediate emancipation-is, that if the opponents of slavery really desire the welfare of the negro, they should at least allow him to be gradually prepared for his new state of existence. It is asserted, that his extreme moral degradation incapacitates him for entering immediately upon that new state. Without pausing to consider what is the proper title by which to designate those whose treatment has unfitted the slave, if he be really unfitted, for resuming his social rights, let us inquire into the method that is proposed to be adopted, in order to render him worthy of freedom. That the mode of treatment was bad, the planters here unwittingly and indirectly confess, by allowing us to infer that, under it, the slave could not be enabled

What then are the measures that are to improve the mental condition of the slave? Alas! here the planters are as backward as they were with regard to the measures for the improvement of his bodily condition. There is a general promise of doing something, but we see nothing defined, nothing tangible. What they have done to attain this end is a miserable mockery; the overseers of their estates are ordered to teach catechism to the slaves-and even this shadow of a measure was not voluntarily adopted. They were urged to it by finding that the Missionaries had commenced the work and were carrying it on with success.

But the assertion is by no means to be granted that the slaves are unfit for emancipation. Is it likely that men will be more peaceable and more contented, when treated in such a manner that death is a relief, not a terror, than when they would be safe from torture, and ensured an adequate remuneration, with a reasonable limit of labour? Experience bears strongly against the planters on this point. Where the emancipation has been partial as well as where it has been general, good results have invariably followed. But, leaving aside the instances of partial emancipation, as in St. Lucia, Sierra Leone, Antigua, and many other places, a splendid instance of the safety and beneficial effects of emancipation on a large scale is to be found in the history of the island of San Domingo, during the last few years of the past century and the two or three first years of this. At an early period of the French republic, the negroes in the French colonies were all freed. The consequence was, rapid and continued improve

ment in commerce, wealth, and internal peace; and it was not until Napoleon endeavoured again to enslave them, that the island was plunged into disturbance and confusion. Its condition since is most unfairly urged as an argument against immediate enfranchisement. The negroes there are freed from all restraint ;-those in the British possessions would still be under the control of the laws; the change in their condition going no farther than raising them to the privileges of British subjects.

Similar to the declaration of the slave's unfitness for freedom, is the opinion frequently advanced, and pretty generally received, that the Irish are unfit for enjoying all the constitutional privileges of Englishmen. Upon this opinion the opposition of many is grounded to the only real penacea for Ireland's evil-the Repeal of the Union. Upon this opinion was grounded much of the ill-treatment that Ireland has experienced at the hands of the British government. Yet nothing can be farther from the truth than that the Irish are thus mentally degraded. They have given strong and repeated proofs of moral elevation. No greater evidences of such elevation can there be, than the exercising of restraint over our passions and inclinations, and the sacrificing of personal and dear, although temporary, interests, for the sake of obtaining a remote, but general good. These proofs have been given repeatedly by the peasantry of Ireland. At the elections of parliamentary representatives for that ill treated country, the people have remained for days under the highest political excitement, without committing one single act of violence or of excess. They have sacrificed every consideration of immediate interest-braved the anger of their landlords, and incurred the almost certainty of ruin and starvation to themselves and their wretched families, in order to vote according to their consciences. In their present triumphant and glorious, because peaceable, combination against the unjust and odious impost of tithes, they have given a fresh and most convincing instance, if such a one were really needed, of their intelligence and enlightenment. They have annihilated the tithe system, without ever having recourse to brute violence, the means that ignorance ever resorts to for the accomplishment of its purposes.

There is a fearful similarity of method observable on the part of the oppressors in the two cases that form the subject of our remarks, whenever it was deemed necessary to check and freeze up the current of public sympathy in favor of the oppressed. On these occasions, the plan adopted by ministers and planters has been the getting up of a rebellion. In the West Indies, that horrible expedient could be resorted to without much trouble. All that was necessary was, to shoot or hang a few inoffensive negroes, and by this simple process, the fact of a rebellion was at once established. Such is the history of the insurrections in Barbadoes in the year 1816, in Demerara in 1823, and in St. Lucia in 1828: such too is the history of former insurrections in Jamaica. With regard to the late occurrences of this nature in the same island, all that can be found on the closest investigation, to give the least grounds for supposing that it was, bona fide, a rebellion, is, the circumstance of a few slaves, while under the influence of liquor, refusing to work upon a day that custom had long sanctioned them

in considering as one to be devoted to recreation. The troops were hurriedly summoned to march against the drunken wretches. The terrified slaves, mindful of former massacres, fled at their approach; those who were too tardy were shot, and a rebellion was proclaimed !

In Ireland the process could not be so simple. The affair taking place so much nearer home would be more under the public eye, and the reality of its existence might be too closely investigated. More exertion of vicious ingenuity was required in this case than in the other; but the reckless spirits that governed Ireland were not to be deterred from their purposes by the blackness of the crimes they should commit in order to effect them. Torture of the men, violation of the women, deliberate and undistinguishing massacre, all these were brought into play, and with these our rulers wrought their ends. The British government were fully aware of the truth of the old axiom, that the rising of the oppressed against the oppressors, tends, if quelled, but to confirm the power of the latter. Fabricated and exaggerated details of the malignity and violence of the rebels, checked all commiseration for their sufferings, and freed the minister from all danger of too close inquiry into the mischievous measures that he had previously inflicted on this unfortunate country, or had yet in abeyance for her. It was under a cover of this nature that the deathblow of Ireland's prosperity was dealt, for thus was accomplished the legislative union between her and Great Britain.

Mindful, as we ought to be, of the injuries inflicted upon ourselves, and determined to procure redress, we, as Irishmen, would be undeserving of the name, if our attention were so entirely engrossed by our own wrongs, as to prevent us from joining in the noble endeavour to restore the negro to his proper rank in the scale of creation. If there be truth in what the poet tells us of the effects of a "fellow feeling," our sympathies should all be engaged in the poor African's behalf. He cannot plead his own cause; he is totally dependant upon the exertions of others. Happily for the credit of humanity there have been found men, and those the most enlightened of the community, to undertake the assertion of his rights :-let it be our proud boast to have our names enrolled along with theirs. The liberty of negro may be delayed for a time; but-and in this one point more is his case similar to ours-he must eventually be free.

IRISH LITERATURE.

FUIT ET ERIT.-Motto of the Irish Monthly Mgazine.

AN able article which appeared in the REPEALER newspaper of the 21st July, has stirred up a controversy between the Dublin bibliopolists and that journal, whose name alone bespeaks its principles, and whose disinterested advocacy of our cause, proves the genuine feelings of nationality and patriotism by which its editors are actuated. In the notice which was given of our third number, the fact of a wholesale bookseller having refused to trasmit the Irish Monthly Magazine to his country correspondents, was dwelt upon in terms of strong and deserved reprehension. In the ardour of his sincerity, the REPEALER impeached the motives of this individual, who, unfortunately for the adopted nationality he endeavours to establish, is applicably designated as a "Caledonian bibliopolist." Were he a native of this country, his defence would not be liable to the suspicion which the avowal of his unionism necessarily involves. When an Irishman is an advocate for the union, there are two causes to account for it-one is, the consideration of a private interest in its continuance; and if he has not this motive to influence him, he must be sincerely and irretrievably stupid and ignorant. We are rejoiced that the controversy has commenced, for like every other cause in which monopoly is opposed to the principles of truth and justice, the discussion must end in the triumph of the latter.

The terms upon which the Irish Monthly Magazine is treated by some of the trade is thus stated by the REPEALER. The story is so truly and forcibly told, that we adopt every part of the following extract, which refers to ourselves :

"Indeed we cannot imagine how any consideration but a disinterested wish on the part of the proprietors of the Irish Monthly Magazine, to promulgate and advance those sentiments, could have induced these gentlemen to enter the field against the numerous English and Scotch periodicals, and the agents of those periodicals in Dublin, whose interest it is to nip in the very bud the establishment of any work of the kind in Dublin-especially if its pages be devoted, like the Irish Monthly Magazine, to promote the real interests of Ireland, or, in other words, to advocate a REPEAL OF THE UNION!' Accordingly, to such a pitch is this base and denationalising principle carried and indeed rendered absolutely compulsory upon the book

sellers of Dublin, by their most lucrative customers, the Bishops, Parsons, and Tory corruptionists, that one of our most eminent establishments in the TRADE (not of Bishops and Parsons, but of booksellers!!) on being offered the agency and publication of the Irish Monthly Magazine, by its proprietors, wrote a letter to those gentlemen, expressive of their sincere wishes for the success of the work and its political principles, but at the same time stating and regretting that the acceptance of such an undertaking on their part was utterly impossible, as it would be the certain signal for the departure of their best buyers. Indeed there appears to be an almost general and systematic disposition in Dublin, among the British, and more especially the Scotch agents for the sale of London and Edinburgh periodicals, to crush any really patriotic Irish work in a similar line, whose politics may be identified with the cause of our national and legislative regeneration. Among these trans-marine monopolists of the Irish market (and more shame to the Irish for allowing such cold-blooded enemies to our domestic literature to acquire the ascendancy they have done,) a certain Caledonian bibliopolist is pre-eminent. In fact, we may safely state, that all, or nearly all, the animals of this genus, who have fixed their quarters in this city since the ever-to-be-lamented year 1800, are naturally opposed to a repeal of the union, on the pelfloving calculation that this great healing measure' to Ireland would inflict a deadly wound on the disposal of their Scotch and English importations, by putting an end to literary, as well as every other kind of absenteeism. However, with the blessing of heaven, and our trusty goose-quills, we will do our best to exterminate any practical manifestation of this base and unjust conduct, if it be persisted in; and 'all and every' of our Caledonian monopolists shall find to their cost (the only way of appealing to their feelings), that we can and will be even more stout and more formidable, because more personal repealers than the proprietors of a well-known morning Journal, whose highly uncompromising, disinterested, and spirited conduct towards the advertising threats of the above-mentioned bibliopolitan worthies, in case the able paper we allude to persevered in agitating repeal, we are well aware of. We do not owe our information to that gentleman himself, but another of just as good authority. We shall keep it as a rod in pickle, should any farther nonchallance or hostility be displayed towards the Irish Monthly Magazine. And as to those Dublin booksellers who affect to preserve their shelves from the contact of its dangerous nationality, we need only state that we know their names. We do not object that an Englishman, or a Scotchman, or any other sort of man, should settle here and pursue his industrious avocations; on the contrary, as advocates of free trade, we think it all the better that they should do so; but we think that any foreigner who does reside here, should not be suffered to discourage and even extinguish Irish domestic literature, in order to make way for the sale of the productions of his own country."

The head and front of his offending was, not that he refused to publish the Magazine with his name impressed upon it, and thus be

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