ceedings prevented their acquiring any considerable actual amount and increase of crime in that country. influence among the better sort of people till 1835. At The Opposition were the more strongly provoked to that time the peasantry were led to believe that a com- adopt this course from the fact that there was no allupact had been entered into by the Ministry with the sion to the condition of Ireland in the speech from the leading agitators in Dublin, which bound the Govern- throne. When the returns were obtained, they were ment, in exchange for the political assistance of those represented as unsatisfactory and illusory, for reasons individuals, to the adoption of their principles. From which it is not now necessary to investigate. Mr. Shaw, this moment the little knots of idle and vicious persons in allusion to the murder of Lord Norbury, a nobleman in each parish succeeded in spreading their demoralis- avowedly so useful and so beneficent, said that if anying influence among the peasantry, with an authority thing were wanting to confirm the evidence of a conalmost equal to that of Government emissaries, and had spiracy against property and the exercise of judgment, been the main instruments in bringing the people into it would be found in that unprovoked and atrocious their present condition." crime. Mr. Garry, the agent of the deceased lord, had received from a poor man a copy of the speech made by Emmet before Lord Norbury, the father of the murdered nobleman. This was printed in Paris in 1835, and had been in circulation previous to the murder. Owing to constant menaces, Mr. Garry himself had been compelled to leave the country. Mr. Shaw contended that all this went to substantiate the existence of a general confederacy. He was forced to believe with most of the land agents of Ireland that the formidable confederations that had been in existence during the last century, under the various names of Whitefeet, Rock

The Earl of Charleville adopted the same view of the subject, and took occasion to animadvert very strongly upon an expression in a letter, in answer to a memorial lately presented by the magistrates of Tipperary, in which Mr. Drummond, the Under Secretary, uttered the celebrated maxim, that "property had its duties as well as its rights." This, under the circumstances of the country, was felt to be little less than a deliberate and unfeeling insult. He did not hesitate to say that the employment of those terms had given a fresh impulse to feelings which had found their legitimate issue in the late assassination. In the course of the meeting, reso-ites, Terryalts, still continued to exist, and were, in lutions were proposed and carried to the following effect: -"That the answer to the Tipperary magistrates by Mr. Under Secretary Drummond has had the effect of increasing the animosities entertained against the owners of the soil, and has emboldened the disturbers of the public peace. That there being little hope for a successful appeal to the Irish executive, they felt it their duty to apply to the people of England, the legislature, and the throne for protection."

These resolutions may be taken as expressing the feelings of the landed gentry as a body against the Melbourne administration and the agitators. But the latter were not idle. O'Connell had then his 66 Precursor Association" in full operation. It received its name from the idea that it was to be the precursor of the repeal of the Union. On the 22nd of January a public dinner was given in honour of the Liberator" in a building then called the Circus, in Dublin, for which one thousand tickets were issued. Two days later, a similar banquet was given to him in Drogheda, and there he made a significant allusion to the murder of Lord Norbury, insinuating that he had met his death at the hands of one who was bound to him by the nearest of natural ties, and had the strongest interest in his removal. Mr. O'Connell volunteered the assertion, that the assassin of Lord Norbury had left on the soil where he had posted himself, "not the impress of a rustic brogue, but the impress of a well-made Dublin boot." These occurrences in Ireland led to hostile demonstrations against the Government in Parliament. On the 7th of March Mr. Shaw commenced the campaign by moving for returns of the number of committals, convictions, inquests, rewards, and advertisements for the discovery of offenders in Ireland from 1835 to 1839, in order to enable the House to form a judgment with regard to the

fact, never in more active operation than at the present moment. Mr. Shaw adduced, as proofs of this, some documents that had been found belonging to a Ribbon Society. "The Ministers," he said, "had encouraged agitation, and were now reaping the inevitable fruits. They have shaken, by the wholesale exercise of mercy, the foundations of justice; they have slighted the judges; they have insulted the magistracy; and when the resident gentry were struggling against the most trying circumstances for the preservation of their lives and property, they made use of that most infelicitous moment to insinuate that their duties as landlords were neglected; they have selected from the ranks of the Precursor Society' the legal adviser of the Crown, and have made lord-lieutenant a nobleman who had avowed his interest in the war which was going on against the Church in Ireland. It is with sorrow," continued Mr. Shaw, the Recorder of Dublin, that I have borne testimony against my own country. I must suffer with her adversity, and can only prosper when she is prosperous. In common with all loyal subjects in Ireland, I implore you to consider the sufferings, the shame, and the sorrow of a sister people, before that unhappy land ceases to be inhabitable, and be blotted out from among the civilised nations of the earth."

Lord Morpeth, afterwards Earl of Carlisle, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, defended the policy of Lord Normanby. He reviewed the history of agrarian outrages in Ireland, and read a statement made by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, which showed that from the period of the Union-when the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office brought into greater prominence the differences of public men in regard to the Catholic question-Ireland had scarcely been governed for one single year according to

rary, to indicate to those who are alone capable of effectual admonition, the quarter from which all danger mainly emanated, with a caution against increasing, by any fresh irritation, the existing evil?" Lord Morpeth proceeded to read a return of the gross amount of ejectments in certain counties, from the year 1833 to 1838, inclusive. In Tipperary, during these six years, there had been 882; in Carlow, 191; in Longford, 172, besides 330 from the Quarter Sessions Court; in Queen's County, 213; in King's County, 152; in Sligo, 180; in Westmeath, 200. There were, upon an average, four families under each ejectment, and five individuals in a family. About 20 persons, therefore, were turned out in each case of ejectment. These returns might not prove much. But he possessed many documents referring to individual cases

memorials stating facts which were calculated to create no very pleasant feelings in the House, or on the public. He would not read them, but be content with observing that Government would fail in its duty were it to confine the voice of warning to one side only. "Many of these excesses complained of," continued Lord Morpeth, were stimulated by a feeling, whether just or not, of personal oppression, and there could be no doubt that the poorer classes were influenced in favour of the

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the ordinary course of law. The introduction of the Coercion Bill, and the forcible exposition of Lord Stanley on the state of the country, in justification of that measure, were sufficient to characterise the remaining interval before the accession of Lord Normanby. It had been alleged that the clergy were special objects of intimidation under the present Government. "But,' asked Lord Morpeth, "how stood the fact? In one year-from April, 1829, to May, 1830-no less than twelve outrages on clergymen had taken place, while only two such excesses were on record during the four years of the present administration." Lord Morpeth then gave a statistical statement, which he premised by the suggestive remark that it was no wholesome state of things, when any party had been brought insensibly to conceive that they had an interest in magnifying the amount of crimes at a particular period, since there was a danger that such persons would never display the same energy in the counteraction of what they had long contended to be the actual condition of things. He showed from the constabulary returns that, beginning at 1837, there had been a decrease of 1,117 outrages in eighteen months, while the committals for forcible possession had fallen in the same period from 1,600 to 930. Not only had the committals increased in proportion to the num-transgressors by the apprehension of being themselves ber of offences, but the amount of convictions had been augmented in comparison with that of committals. The progressive increase of committals upon minor charges, which had taken place of late years, was attributed by the best authorities to the establishment of petty sessions, the prevention of the compromise of crime, and the more effectual pursuit of inconsiderable offenders. Lord Morpeth then, with the greatest ease, swept away the arguments of those who would make the Government responsible for the murder of Lord Norbury, and who objected so strongly to the maxim of Mr. Drummond, giving, at the same time, one of the most admirable and complete expositions of the philosophy of agrarian crime in Ireland to be found in our language. "Mr. Secretary Drummond," he said, has given great offence by asserting, on a late occasion, that property has its duties as well as its rights." It was said that the effect of this expression was to raise a hope of impunity for crime. But unfortunately, at the very moment of utterance the Government was in possession of a clue for the discovery of the murderers in question, who had since been tried and executed. But could it otherwise be supposed that those reckless persons, who were ready, as had been proved, on the slightest prompting of any man with whom they might be connected, either by former engagement, or mere identity of situation, to undertake the execution of the most deadly crimebrood over their purposes for weeks and months with unceasing vigilance, and, at last, accomplish, with calculated accuracy, a deliberate murder-could such a brotherhood, Lord Morpeth asked, be influenced by a common truism from the desk of a Government officer? "And was it, after all," he continued, "so very reprehensible in Mr. Drummond, in reply to a long memorial on the causes of crime from the magistrates of Tippe

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placed in a similar position. Local circumstances were the immediate causes of these disorders, but their remote origin lay in the radically vicious structure of society, which had arisen out of events in Irish history. No sudden change of men or measures could reach this deep-seated malady. In the language of Mr. Lewis, the Whiteboy disposition sprang from the peculiar state of the peasantry, which makes the possession of land a necessary of life. So long as the same causes remained in operation, there was no hope of suppressing these disturbances by the fear of punishment. Every species of legal severity compatible with our form of government and state of civilisation has been tried, and has failed. Pœnarum exhaustum satis est. Upon men who have nothing to hope in their actual state, and little to fear from the consequences of crime, it is vain to attempt to work with the ordinary engines of government. When the heart is past hope,' said the proverb, the face is past shame.'

"Honourable gentlemen," said the noble lord in continuation, "might question the policy of Ministersthey might libel their motives-it mattered not; but this he would take leave to say, that they would never withdraw the opinion deliberately given, that property had its duties no less than its rights, or cease to urge, with even more deliberate warning, upon friends or opponents-all without exception-that there were proceed. ings which, while Ireland continued what it long has been, and long, he feared, must be, would generate resistance. "The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.'.

Without risking a conflict upon the

new Poor Law Bill, or any analogous measure, he could not conclude without the declaration of his own deep conviction, that it was by operating, in the first instance, upon the outward circumstances of the people that they

A.D. 1839.]

LORD NORMANBY'S DEFENCE OF HIS GOVERNMENT.

could afterwards cope with their moral condition, by creating new links between the employer and employed --by planting new hopes and new habits in their bosoms -deepening the channels of industry, and developing all natural resources. By these means alone could they effectually obtain the great ends of civil government and social order."

This Irish debate was distinguished by a speech from the chief agitator of Ireland, which presented the greatest possible contrast to the speech of the Chief Secretary. It created a tumultuous scene, and brought into conflict on the floor of the House the fierce passions of the two conflicting Irish parties. Speeches, said Mr. O'Connell, were made there by Irish gentlemen, who came for the purpose of vilifying their native land, and endeavouring to prove that it was the worst and most criminal country on the face of the earth. "Yes," he exclaimed, "you come here to calumniate the country that gave you birth. It is said there are some soils which produce enormous and crawling creatures-things odious and disgustful. (Loud and continuous cheering from the Opposition.) Yes, you who cheer-there you are. Can you deny it? Are you not calumniators? Oh, you hiss, but you cannot sting. I rejoice in my native land; I rejoice that I was born in it; I rejoice that I belong to it. Your calumnies cannot diminish my regard for it; your malevolence cannot blacken it in my esteem; and although your vices and crimes have driven its people to outrage and murder (Loud cries of Order.') Yes, I say your vices and crimes. (Cries of Chair.' The Speaker interfered.) Well, then, the crimes of men like you have produced these results."

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contained one common topic of congratulation, viz., the comparative lightness of the calendar-a circumstance, the noble marquis argued, which went far to establish his position, however it might fail to prove the extinction of exceptional cases of heinous crime. With regard to the wholesale liberation of prisoners, Lord Normanby distinctly denied that he had set free any persons detained for serious offences, without due inquiry; or that any persons were liberated merely because he happened to pass through the town, who would not have met with the same indulgence upon facts stated in memorials. "No, this measure," he insisted, "had been adopted upon the conviction that, in the peculiar case of Ireland, after severity had been so often tried, mercy was well worth the experiment. It was one which was not lightly to be repeated; but while he had received satisfactory evidence of the success of the measure, it was in his power to produce the testimony of judges with whom he had no political relations, to the pains taken in the examination of each case, and the deference shown to their reports."

Having given proofs of this allegation by a reference to the various classes of cases, Lord Normanby proceeded to say that it might be urged that the lavish use of the prerogative had promoted the presentation of memorials. But how stood the case? In 1824 it was stated incidentally to another question, that no less than 2,600 memorials had been brought before Lord Wellesley in the preceding year, and capital sentence set aside in 400 cases; whereas only 1,600 memorials had been sent to him in fifteen months, and no more than nine capital sentences remitted, all upon the recommendation of the judges. Turning to another charge, the exclusive promotion of Roman Catholic functionaries, the noble lord read a list from which it appeared that in various legal and constabulary appointments the preponderance of Protestant appointments was in the following proportions:-8 to 6, 69 to 37, 27 to 8, 40 to 37. Lord Normanby took just credit for two measures adopted during his administration—the establishment of local prosecuting solicitors, which facilitated the punishment of crime; and the remodelling of the constabulary upon its present efficient system, under a central authority in Dublin. Having defended himself on other points, Lord Normanby concluded by saying that no decision of their lordships could take away the consolation which he should find in the approval of his own conscience, and the gratitude of the Irish people.

The debate was adjourned till the following Monday, when it was resumed by Mr. Lefroy, who was followed by Mr. French, after which the House was counted out, and the question dropped; but it was taken up in the Lords on the 21st of March, when Lord Roden moved for a select committee of inquiry on the state of Ireland since 1835, with respect to the commission of crime. His speech was a repetition of the usual charges, and the debate is chiefly worthy of notice on account of the elaborate defence by Lord Normanby of his Irish administration. "I am fully aware," said the noble marquis, "of the awful responsibility that would lie upon my head, if these charges rested upon evidence at all commensurate with the vehemence of language and earnestness of manner with which they have been brought forward; but they rest upon no such foundation. I am Lord Melbourne defended the Government. He was ready, with natural indignation, to prove now, on the followed by Lord Brougham, who thought this was a floor of this House, that I have grappled with crime case for inquiry, and that too free a use had been made wherever I have found it, firmly and unremittingly, and of the prerogative. Lord Plunket replied to him, and have yielded to none of my predecessors in the successful regarded the speech as a fresh proof of the noble and vindication of the laws." Among the mass of proofs learned lord's political versatility. The motion for a adduced by Lord Normanby, he quoted a vast number of select committee was carried by a majority of five. In judges' charges, delivered from time to time between consequence of this result, Lord John Russell an1816 and 1835, which presented only one continuously nounced his intention, next day, of taking the opinion gloomy picture of the prevailing practice of violence and of the House of Commons on the recent government atrocious outrage. Passing from this melancholy record, of Ireland, in the first week after the Easter recess. he proceeded to refer to numerous addresses of judges O'Connell was exasperated, by the vote of the Lords, delivered on similar occasions since 1835. All of these to extraordinary energy. "It is not possible for us,"