hensions began to be entertained, that the close of the year would witness the repetition of outrages not less numerous and atrocious than those which had disgraced its commencement. These apprehensions fortunately were not realized. Many instances of ferocity and violence occurred from time to time; but the exertions of the magistrates and the military kept the spirit of disturbance within narrow limits.

Some alarm was at one time excited by the apprehension of several persons at Armagh, on a charge of high treason; but they were subsequently liberated without the institution of any proceedings against them.

Upon the death of his late majesty, the lord chancellor of Ireland, in consequence of repeated conferences with the government, entered on a revision of the magistracy, with the view of taking advantage of the accession of Geo. IV. to quash the existing commission and issue a new one. Since that time, the chancellor had been diligently employed in procuring from all quarters the names of persons proper for the magistracy. The completion of the list was a matter of no small difficulty, and required much time and caution.

ment to this system of outrage, rather than to suppress it, and those in particular who have put their tithe out of their haggards after being once brought in, can expect no aid or sympathy from us.

"That we pledge ourselves to give liberal rewards for information which may lead to the detection of persons guilty of such outrages, and to observe the strictest secrecy, if required.

"If any persons entertain an expectation that they will be able to effect their relief from the payment of tithe by these or any other acts of

Before the end of the year, however, it was brought to a conclusion, and the new commissions were issued. The change, which thus took place in the magistracy, was great. In seven counties alone, no fewer than two hundred noblemen and gentlemen had writs of supersedeas directed to them. Lord Wellesley had the merit of this revision attributed to him; but in truth it had been nearly completed, before he entered into office.

His lordship prosecuted the career of what is called conciliation, with which his government had begun; and continued to discourage to the utmost of his power the anti-catholic party. This policy was by no means acceptable to the city of Dublin, which had always been a zealous partisan for Protestant ascendancy. There is in the College-green of the Irish metropolis, an equestrian statue of William III, which it had been the constant custom to deck out in silken trappings every 4th of November. This ceremony had always been displeasing to the Roman Catholics; and in the present year, lord Wellesley, to humour their feelings, forbade the decoration of the statue. The lord mayor co-operated with him

violence, they are grossly mistaken; on the contrary, the commission of such outrages may justly be urged as one of the strongest reasons for refusing to take the subject even into consideration at present; and we should hope it is only necessary to point out these circumstances to the respectable farmers of the county, to ensure their support and co-operation in putting an end to this abominable system."

(Signed by lords Doneraile and

Ennismore, and eleven other highly respectable magistrates.)

zealously, and caused the statue to be guarded by the police, till the ominous day was over. The genius of Protestantism could not tamely crouch under such an insult; and a meeting of the corporation was immediately held, in which a vote of severe censure was passed upon the lord mayor, accompanied by very plain allusions to the lord lieutenant himself. In point of prudence, the corporation and the lord lieutenant seem to have been nearly on a level; with this difference, that the citizens may be excused for taking an interest in an old custom, and in a statue which decorates their metropolis; but that it is scarcely pardonable in a chief governor to intermeddle with such trifles. His interference could lead only to exasperation; and this was, in fact, the sole consequence which resulted from it. In the heat of their wrath, the guild of merchants met, and sagely voted a petition to parliament for the repeal of the Union.

His lordship had shortly after wards a very decisive proof of the animosity, which his line of conduct had excited. On the evening of the 14th of December, he attended the theatre; and his visit was hailed with every expression of dislike. There could be no doubt, that the tumult was preconcerted; for a number of offensive placards were dispersed through the house at the very commencement of the performance, and the entrance of the lord lieutenant was the signal for an immediate barst of hisses. As the play proceeded, the disturbance became more outrageous, until at length a bottle, and a fragment of a watchman's rattle, were flung from one of the galleries, in the direction of the vice-regal box. The peace

officers then interfered, and the most active rioters (including those who threw the missiles) were taken into custody. The whole number of persons engaged in the tumult did not exceed 40. The municipal police were accused of having shown on this occasion a most disgraceful apathy; and eight of them were subsequently dismissed from their offices.

Investigations into the transaction were immediately instituted by the attorney-general, and conducted in a manner which showed more zeal than prudence. Some of those who were apprehended, were very properly committed for making a riot; but others of them were (it seems to us, not a little ridiculously) committed on the charge of having conspired to murder the lord lieutenant. such an intention existed, surely other implements of destruction, than an empty bottle or a broken rattle, would have been employed.

Had

Thus, the only effect of that system of conciliation, from which so much had been hoped, was to raise party spirit to a more than ordinary height. Lord Wellesley's policy, however excellent in its purposes, seems to have been false in its principles, and to have been at variance with the circumstances of his actual situation. He endeavoured to direct the influence of the executive against those who had the influence of the legislature on their side; and it was, therefore, not to be wondered at, if this conflict of wind and tide produced much civil commotion. It might have been well, if those, to whom the law gave all political power, had borne their pre-eminence meekly; but if they were inclined to exult over their opponents, they were not likely to be prevented

from so doing by seeing the chief governor stand forth as the protector of those whom the constitution had placed beneath them.

Indeed lord Wellesley stood in an entirely false position: friendly himself to the Catholic claims, he was to administer Ireland according to anti-Catholic laws, and under an anti-Catholic cabinet. There was, therefore, a constant opposition between his own feelings and principles, and the spirit of the system on which it was his duty to act. The government of

Ireland ought always to be in harmony with the course of legislation pursued towards it; and it is absurd to place the reins of power in the hands of the keen partisans of the Catholics, while the Catholics themselves are excluded from political privileges. Anti-Catholic laws require anti-Catholic, though moderate, functionaries. A contrary course, by raising fruitless hopes in the one party, and anxious, though unnecessary, fears in the other, must keep the country in a state of incessant fermentation.

means of speedy triumph. They could not long be excluded from the city, when once they were allowed to form part of the garrison of the citadel.

It was on the 30th of April, that Mr. Canning moved for leave to bring in a bill to relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the act of the 30th of Charles II. with regard to the rights of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. After adverting very slightly, but with much rhetorical art to some objections which he anticipated, Mr. Canning entered into an historical review of the legislation of the reign of Charles II. towards the Catholics, and into an examination of the circumstances under which the act of the 30th of that king, had been passed. The result of his examination was, that the true intent of the act in question was, to exclude the duke of York, and that, though the provisions of it were general, its real aim was particular; whence he inferred, that it ought now to be repealed, as there was no longer any danger of a Popish successor to the throne. It was passed with great precipitation by the Commons, and urged with almost indecent haste through the Upper House, amid the various terrors, prejudices, and absurdities of the Popish plot. The Lords goaded from day to day by the Commons, assailed as they were by all the horrors of the Popish plot and with Titus Oates thundering at their doors, passed the bill, but with an exemption in favour of the duke of York. It was however, sufficiently comprehensive to exclude the whole of the Catholic Peers from their seats in parliament; not upon any ground of permanent disability, but because

they were then supposed to be involved in a particular plot for a specific purpose. This exclusion could not have been intended for any other purpose, than to calm the alarms and agitation which then prevailed. If then the present motion were rejected, what must be the condition of the Catholic Peers? That the measure, which our ancestors devised as a precautionary security, must be declared, in the face of the world, to be permanently fixed upon the peers and their successors for ever, without the shadow of present justification, or the smallest imputation of crime.

In further support of his proposition, that the exclusion of the Catholic was originally intended to be only a temporary measure, he quoted a standing order of the House, made in 1675, "that no oath should be imposed by bill or otherwise upon the peers, with a penalty, in case of refusal, to lose their places or votes in parliament or liberty of debates therein." From the existence of this order unrepealed down to the present time, one of two things, Mr. Canning contended, must be inferredeither that the lords were at the moment in the possession and exercise of their calm deliberative functions, and, intending the expulsion of the peers to be but temporary, did not revoke the standing order; or that, in the hurry and rage of their proceeding, they forebore to pause and look back at the order, they had just before adopted. The more probable inference was, that acting under the influence of the menaces of the Commons, and under the hazard, if they refused their assent to the measures then demanded, of being involved in the charge of conspiracy to murder the king, and subvert the constitution,