man to which he had just referred. He must repeat, that he positively denied having ever rebuked Mr. Mackesy for his connexion with the National Board; and that his conversation with that rev. gentleman at the visitation referred to his not having, as according to the oath taken he ought to have had, a Protestant school in his parish.

The Marquess of Normanby said, he thought any one who had listened to the explanation of the right rev. Prelate must see that the statements made by the Rev. Mr. Mackesy were substantially borne out. He (the Marquess of Normanby) had stated, that the right rev. Prelate had rebuked the Rev. Mr. Mackesy in the presence of the assembled clergy. Did the right rev. Prelate deny that?

The Bishop of Cashel: Yes, I do deny it.

The Marquess of Normanby said, that if the Rev. Mr. Mackesy was told in the presence of the assembled clergy, that he had done something not in accordance with the oath he had taken, he (the Marquess of Normanby) should consider that a rebuke. The Bishop of Cashel : That had nothing to do with the National Board.

The Marquess of Normanby said, the right rev. Prelate admitted that he found fault with Mr. Mackesy for not having a school. Did the right rev. Prelate mean to say, that because a school was not in connexion with the Church Education Society, it was not a school? The right rev. Prelate seemed to draw some distinction of this kind; for though he admitted that he had rebuked Mr. Mackesy, he said he had not rebuked him for any connexion with the National Society. He confessed that he was unable to understand the meaning of the right rev. Prelate. The right rev. Prelate had, as he conceived, somewhat sneeringly, intimated that Mr. Mackesy had been rebuked for living in terms of friendship with the Roman Catholic priests. Every one acquainted with the state of Ireland must be aware that, wherever it was possible, it was most desirable that the Protestant clergy should maintain a kindly feeling towards the Roman Catholic priesthood; and he had yet to learn that in consequence of acting on such a principle the Rev. Mr. Mackesy had justly exposed himself to the sneer of the right rev. Prelate.

The Marquess of Westmeath never saw
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a noble Lord who was more expert in replying upon another noble Lord than the noble Marquess. The charge which the right rev. Prelate made against Mr. Mackesey was, that he had not a Protestant school in his parish. The noble Marquess said that he rebuked the rev. gentleman for attending the national school; but two things could not be more distinct than were the charge which the right rev. Prelate made, and the construction which the noble Marquess had put upon it. The rev. gentleman stated in his letter that he had taken down the words of the right rev. Prelate; but he did not know how a gentleman could undertake to write down the words of a conversation, especially after dinner, and then aver in a most positive manner that they were the very words that had been used. It appeared that Mr. Homan was by no means certain as to the expressions that had been used.

The Earl of St. Germans wished to remind their Lordships that an oath was taken by every clergyman that a school should be maintained in his parish for the education of the English population, and that the national school was not the English school.

The Bishop of Cashel said, the Rev. Mr. Mackesy was present at the assembly of the clergy by which he (the Bishop of Cashel) was requested to print his charge; and from that request neither Mr. Mackesy, Mr. Homan, nor any one else dissented. It was at their request that he printed and published this charge.

STATE TRIALS.] The Marquess of ClanREPEAL AGITATION (IRELAND) - THE ricarde rose, pursuant to notice, to present a petition from the inhabitants of Clonguish, in the county of Longford, comthat part of the country. The petitioners plaining of the present disturbed state of stated that they looked with alarm and apprehension to the state of lawlessness to which that county had been reduced, the symptoms of which were daily increasing; that outrages and crimes were committed in open day, while the system of intimidation was such that it was next to impossible to bring the guilty parties to justice; and they concluded by praying for the immediate adoption of measures for the protection of the peaceable and well-disposed, and to grant compensation for losses sustained in consequence of those outrages, by

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which the peace of the county was disturbed. The noble Marquess proceeded to say, that the returns from Ireland did not show a greater amount of crime on the part of the people of that county than was found in the same amount of population in England; but, perhaps the worst feature of these outrages was, that they were committed with the connivance of the people, or at least with such an exhibition of apathy on their part, that no endeavour was made by them to aid the authorities to arrest the criminals; that there was more sympathy for those who offended against the law, than for those who suffered for the violation of the law. The instances of that state of things were too well known to require mention. He believed that it would be an amendment of the law if the suggestion which was made in this petition, and which had been referred to in another place by his noble Friend Lord Clements, was adopted. What they wanted was to enlist the people on the side of the law; and there were only two ways of doing that. The one was to give the people confidence that in all matters in which they had been injured, they might depend upon receiving redress from the legal and constitutional tribunals of the country; and the other was to make it their interest to aid one another in sustaining the law. But to prevent the commission of crime, was far better than afterwards to give redress to those who suffered from it. Towards effecting that object there was every reason to believe that the measure recommended by the petitioners would be an important step; for, as was stated by them, there was more respect for property when it was known that its possessors would be compensated for its loss, than when it was unaccompanied by that protection; and there was very little doubt if compensation were guaranteed by law to the sufferers, these outrages would become much less frequent. While on his legs he would put a ques tion to the Government, upon a subject not less important, but perhaps in a tional point of view much more so, than that to which he had just drawn attention; and he should be well pleased could he avoid all preface; but some expressions of opinion that had been made in recent speeches, both in that and the other House of Parliament-opinions which were most fallacious-rendered it necessary for him to make a few observations; for, whether those opinions were sincerely entertained,

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or whether they were put forth without due consideration, they were alike dangerous and mischievous. It had been said on the other side, in the course of the recent debate, that the State prosecutions in Ireland-he spoke as to the general tenor of the speeches of the noble Lords to whom he referred, not as to any particular expressions used-that the State prosecutions in Ireland had had considerable effect; and that the agitation for a Repeal of the Union, and the desire for Repeal in the minds of the Irish people, had been materially lessened since the prosecution, and was still on the decrease. He was sorry to say he considered that a most fallacious statement. He thought he might well be pardoned for adverting to this subject, even by noble Lords opposite; for he well remembered the rebuke which his noble Friend (Lord Melbourne), or his other noble Friend behind him, met with from the noble Duke (the Duke of Wellington) in the beginning of the Session of 1837-8, for saying in the course of a debate that the state of Ireland was not then more disturbed or agitated than it had been at former periods; though the Government of that day had not made the subject of Irish tranquillity a subject of congratulation in the Queen's Speech, or boasted of it in their speeches in Parliament. He was aware of the difficulty which every Government must experience in its endeavours to govern Ireland with justice and with satisfaction to all parties amidst the state of things which had grown up there; but what he wished to impress upon the present Ministry was, that if they had an idea that they had done anything to check the agitation which had been so long going on in that country, and, what he thought more important, to check the anxiety which unfortunately prevailed, not alone in the minds of the ignorant and unenlightened, but of well-informed and able persons, for the Repeal of the Union, they were labouring under a gross delusion. It had been also said by the Members of the Government and their friends, that the steps taken last year to put down agitation

he meant the State Trials-had been most successful; and that the authority of the law had been vindicated, though their Lordships had, by their judgment, ultimately made the issue of those trials favourable to the persons who had been convicted by the courts below. It had been said more than once, and amongst others by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley),

The Marquess of Clanricarde: But that point was pointedly alluded to by the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, when delivering his opinion, and the danger of such a practice was distinctly pointed out.

Lord Stanley: The question did not turn on that point at all.

in the speech he made towards the close of the late debate, that the reversal of the judgment took place upon matters merely technical, and not of substance. That was what he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) denied. He contended that it was essentially on the great merits of the question at issue, that the judgment of their Lordships, reversing that of the court below, had been pronounced. It was so understood throughout the country; it was so viewed and represented in Ireland; and it was so spoken of at almost every meeting in that country. Now what were the grounds of that reversal? As he understood from the debates and from the speeches made by their Lordships on the occasion, there were two points upon which the judgment of the Court of Law was reversed: the one in regard to the counts of the indictment, and the other to the formation of the jury list. Two of the counts were undoubtedly and indisputably bad, and others were disputed. Whether the Court below, in pronouncing sentence, ought to be considered as putting out of view the two bad counts, and relying on the good ones, he knew not. He could not say what was the law (but there could be no doubt that their Lordships, acting upon the high legal opinions they had called in, had decided correctly); but as a matter of common sense, it would seem to be wrong that a man, who was found guilty of some only out of several counts in an indictment, should be deemed guilty of the whole; and in the case of the late State trials, the Judges, n pronouncing judgment, paid particular attention to those counts which were afterwards pronounced to be bad. He, therefore, said, that when their Lordships reversed the judgment of the Court of Law, they acted in accordance with justice and equity, whatever differences of opinion there might have been as to the law. He contended, then, that the reversal of the judgment on the counts was not a mere matter of technicality, but of justice and equity. The other question was of still greater importance-that of the striking of the jury list. The paper containing the names from which the jury was to be struck was avowedly and admittedly deficient of a certain number of names, and the question was whether that was a proper list from which the jury should have been selected-was that a mere matter of technicality?

Lord Stanley But the judgment was not reversed on that point.

The Marquess of Clanricarde was aware the question did not altogether turn on that point; but he was endeavouring to show what were the circumstances of the judgment, and what had been the effect of that judgment in Ireland, and upon the confidence of the Irish people in the tribunals of that country. It was admitted the jury was formed from a defective list. The jury so formed might, it was true, be good in law; but what he contended was, that when the constitution had established certain securities and safeguards to a person put on his trial, and that the jury should be fairly composed, any inroad made upon them deprived the party of those advantages he had a right to look for, and took from trial by jury half its purity; and especially in a country where there was one party adverse to, and the other in favour of a particular class of persons, it was impossible to select a jury from one party exclusively without doing injustice. Their Lordships' decision had shown to the people of Ireland that they could not depend upon the courts of that country for justice; and so far from the result of those trials having given increased confidence to the people of Ireland in the administration of justice, it had weakened that confidence to a serious extent. For what had been the consequence to the accused persons? They had been, he would not say illegally, but they had been wrongly incarcerated in a gaol; he said wrongly, because their Lordships, by passing the Bail in Error Bill this year, had admitted the wrong. Then how far had they succeeded in putting down the agitation? Let them look to what had taken place upon what was called in Ireland, and would be called for many years to come, "Incarceration Day," the 30th of May. He had received many letters from persons who had witnessed the proceedings of that day; and all agreed that never had there been such a meeting as that Mr. O'Connell had upon that occasion-such a concourse of people, all in uniform, had never been brought together in Dublin before. Trade was at a stand still, and the capital was, during the greater part of the day, in the possession of an organized mob.

This was the statement of his correspondents. Could any thing then be more absurd than for the Government to say that they had put down these Repeal meetings? and to say that they had put down the feelings in favour of Repeal was, as he should show, equally as absurd. The whole course of the Government in this matter had been a series of mistakes. In the first place, it was a mistake to remain tranquil spectators of the agitation so long. Then, in dismissing the magistrates on account of certain speeches, they had acted capriciously, and without rule. Their declaration against the Repeal agitation-not the declaration, but the time and manner of it was inappropriate, and the State prosecutions were a greater mistake still. Let them look at the rapid increase of the Repeal rent since those prosecutions: in many weeks he believed it had amounted to more than 1,2001., while in no one week had it fallen below 3001. This was proof sufficient that they had not destroyed the feeling for Repeal; for there was no better test of feeling than the money test. Then look at the immense amount subscribed to defend the accused parties, and to prosecute the writ of error. Again, he believed that even stronger language had been used at the various Repeal meetings since the State prosecutions than before; and that, too, with the full knowledge of the Government. At every meeting of the Repeal Association, now, a Government reporter was admitted, and he believed was present; and a sort of tacit sanction was thus given by the Government, by the presence of their own officer, to the proceedings of those meetings. ["Hear!" So long as they put in no caveat, no injunction against those proceedings, he said they must be supposed to acquiesce in them. A noble Lord referred the other night to the Nation newspaper; that paper, he believed, was the highest authority upon the Repeal agitation; it was the organ of the Repealers, and was circulated throughout Ireland, not only amongst the Repealers themselves - not only amongst those who read it but amongst those who could not read at all, but to whom it was read. With the passionate language to be found in this paper, were also to be read some very beautiful lyrics; and, he must say, that it was a matter deeply to be regretted to see such talents bestowed on such a subject. [The noble Marquess here read some lines of poetry from the Nation newspaper.] Now,

it was not be supposed, that he thought there was any danger of civil war in Ireland. He had never been apprehensive of any such thing. He had no fear at all upon the subject in 1843, when they had heard so much about it, and even when he found English tourists writing in the English newspapers, and endeavouring to demonstrate that a collision between the English troops and the peasantry was inevitable. Even then, he said, he never entertained the notion that they were about to have a civil war. But, saying this, he declared that it was a fearful thing to see the mass of the people arrayed against the Government. He held it, however, that there were, in the present circumstances of Ireland, that which was symptomatic of great danger. They might end in civil war ; they might lead to anarchy; they might eventuate in disorder and confusion; or they might-and he trusted they would— pass away without commotion. But this he did say, that he could not conceive a more fearful state of things than to see the mass of people arrayed in hostility against the Government. He might here refer to an expression which had dropped from the Prime Minister in reference to Ireland, and to which the noble Lord oppo site had alluded the other night; he meant that speech of the Prime Minister in which he made allusion to the danger to be apprehended in the western hemisphere; and that he was therefore glad, looking to that danger, that he had been able to send a message of peace to Ireland. He knew that the words he referred to had been misconstrued; and he thought, on that account, the sentence was an imprudent one, coming from such a person, as it was so likely to be misrepresented. The noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies had explained-and properly explained it-that the decision about Maynooth, and the intention to make the grant, had been come to. Now, though the sentence he alluded to was not a very wise thing to say, it was a most wise thing to think. There was, he said, great danger in the state of Ireland. It was one that ought to be a subject of great anxiety; for that which the Prime Minister had alluded to, he could show, by the Irish newspapers, was a contingency ever present to the mind of those who conducted these newspapers, and of the Repeal Association. Such a sentiment was calculated to produce a great effect upon them; and the consequence was, the agitation was now stronger than ever it