what had ministers done with the Jury Bill of last Session? They had pledged themselves to carry it through; but they found difficulties in the House of Lords, and, instead of resigning, they dropped the bill, To the ministers who had been guilty of such a breach of faith, he would grant no new powers. It was admitted that, among 26 stipendiary magistrates appointed by lord Anglesey, there was not a single Catholic. Would it be endured, in this country, if offices were given to Catholics in the same way. And why should it be endured in Ireland? He was only surprised that the people of Ireland had borne with it so long. If disorders and discontent still prevailed, it was because the Irish people were driven to such exhibitions by the acts of his Majesty's government. The Irish people were quiet until the Irish secretary introduced his bill for enforcing the collection of tithes. It was he who was the great agitator, and not the member for Dublin. When the proposition was made for enforcing payment of tithes by compulsory means, it was protested against by parties well able to judge of its effects. Sir John Newport, than whom no man could be a better authority, and Sir Henry Parnell, had joined with the member for Dublin in warning ministers of the evil consequences to be apprehended. They all said that if the bill proposed were carried, it would lead to disgraceful disorders; but the secretary was inexorable. Why should we see the Irish clergy placed in dependence upon the assistance of government in collecting their tithes? Above all, why make the King a tithe-proctor? We had never tried the

effect of conciliation. Looking at the apparent intentions of ministers he should have thought the member for Dublin a dastard, had he failed to denounce them boldly and strenuously. What would the people of England say, if Lord Grey, or any other man, were to tell them they should not meet to petition that House? Yet they knew that the Irish secretary had done that in the case of tithe meetings, when they were, as he might choose to think, too numer

ous.

He recollected no case in which extraordinary powers were demanded by ministers for the purpose of placing any portion of their fellow countrymen beyond the pale of the law, without those ministers having made a case to justify the House in acceding to their request. The House were now called upon to outlaw the whole Irish people. Was that the way to satisfy them and promote peace? Was it not rather likely to induce those who still paid obedience to the laws to rise in disgust? Ministers might calculate too much on the sufferance of the people. He trusted, however, that the House of Commons would not so far forget their duty as to place the people of Ireland under such unmerciful ministers.

Sir Robert Peel was prepared to accede to the address as it stood. He thought that ministers had acted wisely in conforming to long established usage, by forbearing to enter, in the speech from the throne, into any minute details ; not because he did not think that full information should be given to Parliament on all topics of public importance, but because he thought that on all topics on which information was given, it should be more minute and accurate than it

possibly could be in a king's speech. He did not wish to have their debates fettered by an expression of opinion from the Crown, and he deemed it more constitutional that Parliament should have its attention directed in general terms to public measures, than that it should receive such information in such definite terms as would clearly indicate the intention of the government. By the address he was called on to assure his Majesty "that the attention of the House would be directed to the state of the church, and that it would be ready to consider what remedies might be applied for the correction of acknowledged abuses, and whether the revenues of the church might not admit of a more equitable and judicious distribution." Now, if his Majesty's government, of course acting with the authority of his Majesty, deemed it incumbent to propose measures of which the object was to improve the stability of the established church, he could not refuse to enter into the consideration of them; and when they called upon him to accompany that consideration "with a due regard to the security of the church as established by law in these realms, and to the true interests of religion," he inferred, at least he entertained a hope, that the interests, the rights, and the privileges of the church were intended to be maintained in full vigour. Whether he should hereafter, when he saw those measures, consider that those interests, those rights, and those privileges, were so maintained, was a point on which he reserved to himself the right of judging. With respect to the church of Ireland, he thought that the terms used, both in the speech and in the address, were

vague and indefinite. It was stated that "although the established church of Ireland was by law permanently united with that of England, the peculiarities of their respective circumstances required a separate consideration." "Now, the words "separate consideration," were those to which he objected; he did not know what was meant by them. If the expression meant that there were peculiarities in the circumstances of the church of Ireland, which demanded the application of a separate principle, he viewed such a declaration with horror. But the expression might mean, that the government meant to dissociate and dissever the church of Ireland from the church of England in their legislation. Having himself assented to a tithe commutation bill in Ireland, when no such bill was introduced for England,-having also assented to several other measures of ecclesiastical polity for Ireland distinct from England,-be found it impossible to deny that there were peculiarities which made a difference of circumstances in the churches of the two countries. But neither could he fail to bear in mind, that the title of the church of Ireland to its property and its privileges, was the same as that of the church of England. He hoped, therefore, that those who asked him to join in this address, did not mean to sanction the application of a different principle to the church of England, and to that of Ireland. Ministers, he trusted, would never propose, nor the House assent to, the application of the church property of Ireland to any but ecclesiastical purposes, connected with the interests of that church. If long possession, and the prescription of more than three centuries,

was not powerful enough to protect the property of the church of Ireland from spoliation, there would be little safety for any description of private property, and much less safety for that property which was in the hands of lay corporations. In regard to the proper remedies for the civil disorders which prevailed in Ireland, Sir Robert admitted that a certain degree of evil always attended coercive measures. They could seldom fail to widen the breach between the richer classes for whose protection, and the poorer for whose punishment, they were intended. It had been his duty, on more than one occasion, to propose the Insurrection Act; but though he had seen the necessity of passing such an act, he had never expected more from it than the redress of an immediate grievance, and always felt an apprehension that it would leave behind it a rankling wound, of which the soreness would long be felt. Thinking as he did, that the government had acted wisely in not applying at an earlier period for strong coercive measures, and that it was well advised in them to have an accumulation of evidence to negative the insinuation, that they would seek extraordinary powers for the promotion of their own selfish ambition, - avowing the sentiments which he had done as to the objectionable nature of such extraordinary powers,-and, above all, wishing to secure life and property in Ireland under the ordinary law-he could not refrain from saying, that, upon the evidence before the House, there was a strong presumption that such powers were imperiously required by the emergencies of the state. He could therefore assure his Ma

jesty, that he was ready to consider the case which he had no doubt ministers would shortly lay before the House, and, if the necessity was made out, to grant the additional powers for which they applied. There was less evil in interfering to repress such outrages, than in appearing to sanction them by not interfering. It had been said by several Irish members, "We abominate as much as you do, the practices of the Whitefeet." He could not conceive that they could do otherwise, for nothing could be more atrocious than the tyranny which the Whitefeet exercised. It was a tyranny more oppressive to the poor than to the rich. It was not applied to the rich, who could either defend themselves on their estates by barricading their houses, and garrisoning them with parties of soldiers or police, or could quit their estates and reside in safety in some neighbouring town. The real tyranny was exercised upon the poor man, who was anxious to conform to the law, and could not quit his farm, but who, for the allegiance and the obedience which he was ready to pay to the law, had a right to ask protection for his life, if not for his property. If he was exposed not merely to immediate danger, but also to the horrible feeling which must arise from the nightly fear of murder visiting him and his family before morning, he did not see how the House could refuse to succour a man liable to this dreadful species of oppression and tyranny. If any proof were wanted, it might be found in the accounts which had been that day received from Ireland. An old man, who nine months ago had paid 101. for two acres of land, was called upon by a party of White

feet to abandon to them his only means of existence. He remonstrated with them on the injustice of their demand; he refused to give up his little farm, unless the 101. he had paid for it were repaid to him. What was the consequence? His proposition was rejected at once, and for making it he was visited with the usual penalty inflicted by the Whitefeet death. How could the House tolerate an outrage like that? It was not a solitary case: if it were, there would be no necessity for a new law; for he held it better to permit a case of individual outrage to go unpunished than to suspend the constitution. Cases of this nature were upon the increase; and if so, how could they reconcile it to the principles of justice, to let human beings live without protection under such appalling circumstances? Touching the repeal of the union, Sir Robert animadverted on the conduct of Mr. O'Connell in making that question elsewhere the subject of appeals to the ignorance, the passions, and the prejudices of the Irish, while he shrunk back from bringing it to a fair discussion before the legislature. He himself did not support the legislative union because he found it in an act of parliament, though its having become the law of the land, and so continued for thirty years, was not an unfair presumption that it was a measure found to be consistent with the advantage of the two countries. He supported it because (though the government of Ireland had been for a long time one of much misrule and mismanagement, yet, even on that part of the question, the whole of the case at both sides had not been fairly brought forward) he believed the existence of

that union was for the undoubted benefit of both. The question, however, was not what had been the state of Ireland, or what had been the character of its government, before the union took place; the question was, did there exist at the present moment a disposition on the part of England not to do justice to Ireland? He would ask those members who talked of the disposition of England not to do justice to Ireland, what interest had she in doing her injustice? If she were so disposed, it must be from some expected advantage, financial or commercial. In either of these respects, she could gain nothing by having a set of bad magistrates in Ireland, or bad grand jurors. What possible advantage could it be to her, that magistrates should not administer justice fairly, or that grand jurors should misapply or mismanage the money raised for local purposes in counties? If they thought that England expected to gain in a financial point of view, let them call for returns of the present amount of taxation in the two countries, for that was the business-like way looking at the question. Let them call for a return of all the taxes which were imposed in Ireland and not imposed in England, and next for a return of all taxes imposed in England and not imposed in Ireland. Let them call for an account of all the fetters and restrictions that were laid on Irish commerce, which were not also imposed on that of England; let them call for accounts of any exclusive restrictions on Irish trade and manufactures. Call for such returns, and from them prove the fact; and if a case could be made out to show that such injustice existed, he was certain that the

of

House of Commons would not only evince a disposition to remove it, but would suspend its ordinary forms to do it more speedily. But they were told that if Ireland had her own Parliament, she would be enabled to lay a tax of 50 per cent on the property of absentees. What was that but the spoliation of property? Suppose such an act had passed the Irish legislature, would the king of England, he being the head of the executive of both countries, give his sanction to such an act against his English subjects who had property in both countries, and who chose to reside in one in preference to the other? If he should not-and that he would not there could be little doubt then at once would come the conflict between the two countries-the collision in which the dismemberment of the empire would be attempted, and probably the establishment of that country as a republic. Again, it was alleged that the manufactures of Ireland required a protection, and that a local legislature would give it-against what?-against English manufactures. Why, that was nearly the case which now agitated the state of South Carolina. But suppose that a Parliament sitting in Ireland were to endeavour to protect its own commerce, trade, and manufactures by imposing restrictions on those of England, was it to be imagined that England would remain still, and see such attempts to cripple her commerce and manufactures? Would not petitions pour in from all parts of the country praying for similar restrictions on the commerce, manufactures, and produce of Ireland? Should we not soon hear of a tax on Irish corn? Was it not to be expected that if one

commodity was taxed in one country, that it should be followed up by the taxation of some article of commerce in the other? Then, if there were separate systems of finance in the two countries, there would be separate taxation and separate collections of revenue, in which the two countries would be constantly brought into angry collisions; for it was not the mere amount of duties to be so collected, but the angry feelings to which they would give rise in both countries, which were to be dreaded. On these grounds he would repeat his assertion, that England had no disposition to injure Ireland. It was not only not her desire, but it was manifestly not her interest to do so. On the contrary, she had given proofs of her disposition not to press hard on Ireland. He would take the case of the poor-laws. It was not necessary for him to state that the support of her poor pressed heavily on England; and it was equally well known that the burthens of England were greatly increased by the sums she paid for the relief of her casual poor, a large portion of which consisted of Irish. It was, therefore, manifestly the interest of Englishmen that a system of poor-laws should be established in Ireland, yet it was well known that English members in that House had forborne to press the subject, lest it should be supposed that they were imposing a burden on Ireland from motives of their own benefit. On these grounds, he was prepared to maintain the permanence of the legislative union. The amendment of Mr. O'Connell could serve no good purpose. It merely proposed, that the address should be considered in a committee of the whole House, which meant nothing more than