county can accomplish! Waterford owed it to Clare to imitate it, and Waterford should imitate itnor should the scions of Knockloftiness and the paltry Prittieness of another county [Messrs. Hutchinson and Prittie, members for Tipperary] be suffered to prevent the just representation of its feelings -no, the men of that county were too brave to be intimidated. However pure the intentions of the duke of Wellington might be, the designs of his ministry betrayed no symptom of improving the internal condition of Ireland; whom had they, for instance, selected for the administration of justice? Sergeant Lefroy, reeking with expressions with which he would not pollute his lips (for they savoured too closely of high treason), was sent to decide whether Catholics are always in the wrong and Protestants always in the right. The government of Ireland had made another change-Saurin. They had heard of Con of the hundred battles, but there was Saurin of the hundred prosecutions. Saurin, the great enemy of the liberty of the press, and the virulent enemy to toleration-his ancestors were refugees from persecution, they had suffered persecution, but they had not learned mercy. A son of Mr. Saurin had been appointed to a high situation-there was another change. In Ireland Catholics had learned a double distrust a distrust of closed investigation or open trial. They had seen on the jury Orangemen arraved against them in judgment; and, like the wretch who is drawn to the gambling table, where loaded dice await to decide his doom, he had seen the Catholic stand before them in the inauspicious hope of obtaining justice. More than once he

had stood forth to defend the victim, and more than once he had beheld him trampled on, and stained with Orange pollution. What man would not view with suspicion the administration of justice, who had witnessed the late trials in their county?"

We are the more particular in detailing these expressions, both because they form an admirable commentary on the assurances of grateful affection and profound tranquillity, with which the emancipationists had assured Parliament the boon would be received, and because it would be an anomaly to have found harmony or goodwill returning to a country, of whose popular leader these were the doctrines and feelings-doctrines and feelings drunk in with greedy ears and noisy applause by the listening crowds. They were expressly told, that what had been gained, so far from being any cause of peace and repose, was only to be a new source of universal excitement and more ardent activity: they were told that many great changes were still to be effected; among others, nothing less than a legislative separation from Great Britain, their connection with which was pictured to them as "a cursed union," the source of degradation and impoverishment: they were taught, that, while so much remained to be effected, it was to be gained by strenuously following out the same measures which had gained emancipation; that is, by assuming an attitude of organized defiance, which, by its threatening complexion, would compel concession. The administration of justice was held out to them as an object of distrust and detestation; their opponents were still denounced as blood-thirsty

oppressors: the "Tipperary men" were told that they were "too brave to be intimidated"— and could the Tipperary men, or any other Irishmen, under the influence of such exciting representations, do any thing else than have their applauded bravery at hand, ready for use?

It is not wonderful, then, that Ireland very soon presented scenes of as much violence as those from which the Emancipation bill was for ever to relieve her. The hostile feelings of parties continued, and manifested themselves in the same way. To the great body of the Catholics, emancipation had brought no change, except the destruction of their freeholds-a source of discontent rather than of satisfaction. The Protestants felt that they had been deceived, and knew that they were in danger; it could not be expected that they would remain unmoved, when their adversaries were openly threatening a renewal of their organized activity they, too, had recourse to organization; and the heads of the Orange lodges were officially inculcating firmness and union. The slightest accident, the most casual collisions, produced contention, and ended almost uniformly in bloodshed.

In different parts of the country, the Protestants celebrated, or prepared to celebrate, the 12th of July with the usual rejoicings. This the Catholics resolved to oppose by force, wherever they could. Wherever the police or yeomanry interfered, the Catholics viewed them as oppressors, let loose upon them by the partiality of the laws, and formed themselves into armed bands for resistance. Each party blamed the other for all this mischief; but beVOL. LXXI.

tween them the country was armed for civil war; its condition was much more alarming than that which was to have been cured by the Relief bill. Emancipation might be Ireland's ark-but it was sent abroad to float over noisy and troubled waters. The spirit of mutual exaggeration and recrimination which prevailed, rendered it difficult to arrive at the truth, where every account bore the colouring of one party or the other; but though each party blamed the other, both agreed that heart and hand were ready for an appeal to arms. Thus, in the county of Clare, the Orangemen, according to

the Catholic account, had erected a triumphal-arch across the street of a country town, and would not allow the Catholics coming from mass to pass under it. The police interfered and cut it down. Both parties then retired apparently satisfied; but the Orangemen sent notice to their friends in the neighbourhood, to repair to their assistance. The Catholics, having heard of this, were not idle on their parts; a portion of them were well provided with arms and ammunition, but through the influence of some respectable persons they were soon prevailed on to go home. On their way, the Orangemen, who had assembled on the neighbouring hills, called upon the "cowardly Papist scoundrels," to return and meet them. The Catholics did so: one side was armed with muskets and fixed bayonets-and the others principally with scythes, pitchforks, spades, &c. One Orangeman was almost instantly killed, seven dangerously wounded. The slaughter of the Catholics was as great.

"Armagh again furnished ac[K]

counts like these: "While a party of Orangemen were passing a Catholic chapel, the assembled Catholics attacked them, and the contest ended in the death of ten men." The county of Fermanagh assumed the aspect of open war. "A crowd of Catholics having assembled in the neighbourhood of Fermanagh, lord Enniskillen repaired to the spot, but his solicitations that they should disperse were ineffectual; and a false alarm being given to an Orange-lodge, which happened to be assembled, that the police had been attacked, some of the Orangemen sallied forth to assist them. When they approached the crowd, they requested a person, who seemed to be a leader, to make them disperse. This he promised; but instead of doing so, he beckoned the multitude on, when a body of about eight hundred Catholics, armed with pikes, scythes on poles, pitchforks, &c. attacked the Protestant party, killed one man on the spot, who had advanced to make peace, and wounded seven others mortally, three of whom afterwards died. The Catholics, to the amount of some thousands have formed an encampment on Benauglen mountain, and reinforcements are pouring in from the counties of Leitrim and Cavan. The whole country is in a state of alarm. The Roman Catholic houses are left desolate; the milch cattle are going wild with the pain of their milk, and no person to milk them; the military and the police are out continually; the country people are afraid to stir out, and the markets have not been supplied with potatoes for the last two days."

Similar was the state of Leitrim, Cavan, and Monaghan; over a great part of the country, it was

only the presence of the military that prevented open war. The Catholics seemed to believe, to the full, the representation which O'Connell had given them of the administration of justice. In several instances where death had occurred from the interference of the police, or from their resistance when attacked, trials ensued. But an acquittal, though proceeding on the clearest evidence that life had been justly taken from an armed aggressor, was uniformly ascribed by the mass of the Catholics to partiality. Still retaining the idea that the law existed only to be used against them, they took the task of retribution for imagined injuries into their own hands, and assumed arms to gratify revenge, in defiance of the law. Judges, juries, and the government, were equally laughed at by criminals, against whom no witness could dare to communicate what he might know.

In the county of Tipperary matters went to such a length, that a numerous meeting of the magistracy, assembled in the beginning of September, expressed an unanimous opinion, that nothing but the Insurrection-act would restore or secure the peace of the country. The meeting was not composed of jealous Orangemen; the greater number were of a very different way of thinking. Lord Landaff, the chairman, had been a strenuous supporter of emancipation. In the resolutions which they adopted, to be communicated to government, they stated that a large proportion of the community were in possession of arms-that bodies of armed men appeared at noon-day, for the purpose of obstructing the execution of the laws, and threatening the lives and properties of all who

attempted to oppose their illegal proceedings-that it was impossible to obtain information to convict the offenders, owing to a league of false honour, which pecuniary temptation could not conquer, or a system of terror, which served the same purpose, by the dread of a violent death. They resolved to call on government for a renewal of the Insurrection-act; that the Arms-act should be amended, in order to facilitate the discovery of hidden arms; that the possession of arms should be made a transportable offence; and that the number of military posts throughout the country should be increased. The Commander-in-chief, who attended the meeting, declined to accede to this last suggestion, on the ground that he could not prudently break up his force into small parties; however, it was afterwards adopt ed, to a certain extent, on being approved of by the Lord-lieutenant. The Insurrection-act could not be revived; for it had not been suspended, but had expired, and parliament was not sitting.

England, too, presented its scenes of lawlessness, produced, however, by very different causes. The depression in every branch of trade had greatly reduced the wages of the artisans employed in it. They, again, ascribed the reduction, not to the necessities of trade, but the avarice of their employers; and had recourse to their usual correctives, voluntary idleness, and the destruction of property. The example was set by the silk weavers of Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. They refused to work, except at an increased rate of wages; they made their way by night into the shops of workmen possessed of materials belonging to the refractory masters, and destroyed and

mutilated them. The webs in thirty or forty looms were sometimes thus destroyed in the course of a single night. The very persons, to whom the property of their masters had thus been intrusted, were suspected of being accessory to its destruction. Their tale, however, when examined before the magistrates, always was, that a number of people had come to their shops during the night, and by threats had compelled admission. The mischief done had not been equalled for sixty years. In former times, the leaders of such depredators had been convicted and executed: but, on the present occasion, the connivance of the men, in whose hands they destroyed the property, saved them from detection.

The masters, seeing their property ruined without any means of protection or redress, entered into a negociation with a deputation of the work-people. When the latter were asked, what was the cause of such a destruction of property, they frankly answered, "the destruction now going forward is produced by the very low wages paid by certain manufacturers, and the weavers so destroying property have in view revenge towards their employers, and the ultimate attainment of such a price as will fairly compensate them for their labour;" and that price was the price that had been paid in 1824. The masters informed them, that it was impossible to give that rate as a permanent price; but, placed as they were at the mercy of men who had in their powers property to the amount of nearly 150,000l., they acceded to their demands in the mean time; and the fury of the destroyers was appeased.

The same spirit next shewed itself at Macclesfield, the industry.

of which had for some time been extensively employed in the silk manufacture. The majority of the workmen resisted a proposed reduction of prices, and compelled the hands employed in a large factory to leave their occupation. The latter felt the hardship of their situation, and wished to accept of the reduced rates of working, with the prospect of constant employment. But the committees would not permit their brethren to continue to labour on such conditions. They insisted on their leaving their work and starving on charity. Where three or four thousand persons, however, are concerned, patience on 5d. a week, could not long be preferred to constant work at something like adequate remuneration. But just as hopes began to be entertained that the resistance of the weavers was about to terminate, two delegates arrived from Spitalfields, charged with a mission of violence. One of them harangued the workmen and the members of the committees; advising them to stand out, as the only security against degradation. He assured them, that "the destroying angel was the best ally they had." He pressed upon them the necessity of bringing their masters to terms by a continued attack on their pockets,-he described the mode of cutting the silk out of the looms,—and advised them to adopt that means of damage and destruction,-he deprecated any public or riotous proceeding, the consequences of which would be visited on the hundred of which they composed a part, and pointed out to them the peculiar advantages of injuring their masters, either by permitting their silk to be cut, or by cutting it themselves an injury for which

they could find revenge or redress only by expensive legal proceedings.

The manufacturers, upon seeing this London reinforcement, struck their colours, resolving to give the prices demanded for a short time, and then to cease, rather than incur the destruction of their property by holding out for prices at which they could continue.

At Coventry, too, Nuneaton, and Bedworth, similar scenes were exhibited. In these places, enginelooms had been introduced, which enabled a man to produce four times as much as a hand-weaver with a single loom. The consequence of that was, a great reduction in the value of the hand-weaver's labour; and the consequence of that again was, that the hand-weavers refused either to work themselves, or allow other people to work. Occupying the bridges, by which journeymen carrying home the work of their employers must of necessity pass into Coventry, they stopped their march, and seized the property in their keeping. At nightfall they entered the city itself, and, by force, or by intimidation, extinguished all the lights in all the manufactories, and put an entire stop to business. Having framed a list of the prices which they demanded, they marched through the streets, presenting it to the masters for signature. They procured many signatures; for it was the easiest mode of saving property, for which there seemed to be no other protection. On those of their own class, who shewed a disposition to work, rather than starve, the ribband-weavers of Nuneaton and Bedworth inflicted a new punishment, which they termed "donkeying." They mounted the unfortunate artisan upon an ass, and paraded him through the streets,