ART. VII.-1. Speech of the Earl of Roden on moving for a Select Committee on Ireland. March 21, 1839. of Parliament, p. 1422.) (Mirror 2. Report of Select Committee on Crime in Ireland, with Evidence and Appendix 4 vols. folio: 1839. T may seem an humble task to contrast Lord Roden's promises I with Lord Roden's performances. But it is less so than it seems, and it will not be an useless one. The noble lord's station amongst public men may not be high, but it is conspicuous; and he wields a power in one branch of the Legislature, which, combined with the fact of his being the champion and organ of Irish Orangeism, entitles his proceedings to considerable attention. The public assurances, too, which he rarely fails to give, that he is one who carries religion into the concerns of life-that he is in all things guided by its precepts and controlled by its sanctions-naturally invest his statements with a solemnity which would not attach to them, if they were considered the mere effusions of a political partisan. Moreover, the occasion to which we are alluding, furnished no excuse for hastiness or intemperance. He had deliberately chosen it himself; his attack had been long premeditated; his statements and charges had been carefully prepared; and it was but charity to believe that one, who warns his hearers that he is always speaking under a consciousness of the presence of the God of truth, would never have uttered the awful charges contained in his speech against individuals, and against large classes of his fellow countrymen, if he were not able fully to substantiate them. Besides all this, the question placed at issue by Lord Roden is that of the principles on which Ireland should be governed ; and this is a question which becomes each year, almost each day, of more importance. The cry of Down with the Ca'tholics!' is once more sent forth, and there is the old storm whistling in the wind in reply to it. But even those who do not object to persecution on principle, may well pause before they begin the momentous struggle, and ask, Can we 'afford it?' Wholesale persecution has always been an expensive amusement; and in Ireland it will now be far more so than ever. Those whom we persecute there have tried their strength, and know, by the experience of fifty years, that they can conquer with it, in spite of all the laws and armies which we can send against them. When, therefore, the Orange party in Ireland denounce the system of government which a liberal VOL. LXX. NO. CXLII. 2 K Ministry has pursued-when they assert that it has led to unparalleled crimes, and to the complete disorganization of the country and when, moreover, in calling for legislative interference to change it, they meet with ready assent from the House of Lords, it is surely a duty for all who would be guided by political prudence, and a sense of justice, dispassionately to consider the Evidence adduced in favour of these charges, and the arguments for a recurrence to Tory principles. To this work we shall now apply ourselves, conscious of the disadvantage under which we labour, in having only to deal with the tedious details of that very voluminous Evidence; yet deeply impressed with the importance of the result to the interests of England and Ireland, and to the cause of liberty, of justice, and of truth. Lord Roden moved for and obtained a Committee of Enquiry into the State of Ireland, as to the Crime and Outrage which had rendered life and property insecure since 1835 ;—that is, since the commencement of Lord Normanby's Government. To vote before enquiry that it had been so rendered, and thus to prejudge the case as regards Lord Normanby, was not such a form of proceeding as might have been expected from the highest court of justice in the realm. It was upon the faith, however, we suppose, of the statements in Lord Roden's speech; and it is the question-how far that confidence was well placed, that we must now examine. Lord Roden asked for the Committee on four distinct grounds, which we will state as nearly as possible in his own words. First, that Ireland was plunged into a state of misery and distress through crime, which in his lifetime had been altogether unknown; or, as he expresses it in another part, that throughout the whole country life and property had never been so insecure, and the bonds and framework of society so entirely broken and destroyed, at any period since the Union. Secondly, that there existed throughout Ireland a systematic, organized, and secret conspiracy, having for its objects entire separation from England, and the annihilation of the Protestant faith; and further, that its members subjected to the greatest cruelties all persons, and especially peaceable farmers, who refused to support their treasonable objects. Thirdly, that it is chiefly owing to the violence of the Roman Catholic priesthood that Ireland is a prey to all this misery and agitation; and that if it were not for the lessons which that priesthood inculcate upon the poorer classes, many individuals from those classes would long since have abandoned their vicious and criminal courses. And fourthly, that Lord Normanby had suffered crime to go on unpunished; that, when he had met with it, he had neither grappled with it nor subdued it; and that upon him consequently rested the responsibility for all those tears of sorrow and streams of blood which had marked the career of his viceregal authority. These are the charges which the House of Lords believed as soon as they were stated, and which Lord Roden undertook to prove upon the faith of a Christian man. We propose to apply the tests of evidence to each, and in the order in which we have placed them. Lord Roden asserts, not only that crime' in its most repulsive ⚫ form' exists in every county of Ireland, but that it does so in a far greater degree than ever before in his lifetime. It is necessary, therefore, before looking into the evidence as to the actual state of the country since 1835-that we should cast a glance back at its condition between that time and the Union; and we would willingly go through the circumstances of each year, taking our view not from the prejudiced and passionate statements of partisans, but from authentic returns, and from the statements of ministers speaking under a sense of official responsibility. We should, however, only tire our readers, and we must content ourselves with briefly calling to their recollection some notorious facts respecting Ireland, during the period in question. In 1801, a select committee reported that a secret and extensive conspiracy existed throughout the country, with definite objects, against the Government; and in 1803, a rebellion broke out; a message from the Throne was brought down to Parliament, and an Act was passed, suspending the Habeas Corpus, and establishing martial law. In 1806, appeared the combination of the Threshers', a most extensive association, for regulating tithes and priests' dues, and the prices of all articles in which the poor are interested; and they effected their lawless purposes by means of the most savage cruelties. In this year the judges could not move through the country without an escort of soldiers. In 1807, Parliament passed another Insurrection Act. In 1811-12-13, the Lord-Lieutenant declared,' that the greater part of Ireland was a prey to the most frightful exArmed bodies of men paraded the country, levying 'contributions-administering oaths-enforcing their regulations "about land-inflicting the most cruel punishments-searching ⚫ for arms-breaking into the houses of respectable people in the open day, and making a stand against the military sent to dis" perse them. During 1814, in one part of Ireland, the Caravats were levying contributions by day and night on all who did not belong to their body; in another, the horrible and revolting eruelties of the Carders, who tore men's flesh from their bones, were practised upon all who disobeyed their mandates. Two coercive measures then passed the legislature. In moving for the second, Mr Peel said, that since he had last addressed the House on this subject, • cesses. he had endeavoured to collect information from every quarter as to the state of Ireland; and that it was with particular pain he had now to state, that the disturbances which existed were of a most alarming description. He regretted to say, that in those parts of Ireland where the laws had been administered with the great'est severity, and where the greatest number of convictions had taken place, the terror arising from these convictions had scarcely 'survived the cause, when new combinations of an extensive and dangerous character had obtained birth; and these combina'tions were carried on with a degree of secresy which defied the ' operations of the law, as it at present existed.' By the Act then passed, power was given to the Lord-Lieutenant to proclaim a district; or, in other words, to put it out of the pale of the British Constitution. Trial by jury might be dispensed with; the military used on all occasions; and houses broken into at the will of the magistrate. In 1816, Sir J. Newport brought forward his motion for enquiring into the state of Ireland, expressly on the ground of the enormous army of 25,000 men, which in a time of profound peace was necessary to secure her internal tranquillity. Mr Peel then also gave a sketch of the state of the country, and maintained that the military force could not be reduced with safety. He said, that formerly tumults and outrages 'could be traced to particular causes; but those which now pre• vailed seemed to be the effect of a general confederacy in crime '-a comprehensive conspiracy in guilt-a systematic opposition 'to all laws and municipal institutions.' In 1817, the Insurrection Act was again argued to be indispensable. In 1821, nearly the whole of Munster, and a considerable portion of Leinster and Connaught, were in a state of insurrection; many districts were proclaimed, and the law executed upon the offenders with the utmost severity. Large bodies of troops were dispersed over the disturbed districts, but with little avail; for we find the next year (1822) ushered in by an announcement from the Throne, that a spirit of outrage, which has led to daring and systematic violations of the law, has arisen, and still prevails in parts of Ireland. The address, in answer to the speech containing this announcement, was moved by Lord Roden, who deplored the agitated state of his country, throughout the greater part of which, as he said, a system of outrage had led to daring and systematic violation of the law. Lord Wellesley in his despatches had thus described its state in its four provinces: In nearly the whole of Leinster and Munster, disturbances of an aggravated kind had ' occurred. In the province of Connaught, the great body of the 'people had taken secret oaths; and in Ulser, strong indications were generally manifested of resistance to the process of the law.' This was the precursor of another edition of the Insurrection Act; and in moving for it Mr Goulburn stated, 'that the system of insubordination, of which the distinctive marks were to be 'found in every part of the country, had been for some time progressively increasing, and had in one district been matured into open insurrection and rebellion, and warfare with the King's troops. It would be most painful for him to state, and for the House to hear, the excesses, the outrages, and the cruelties which had been committed-the violations of property, the robberies, the burnings of houses, the murders which had ' afflicted and disgraced Ireland.' In 1823, we find an earnest recommendation from the Lord-Lieutenant that this same Insurrection Act should be renewed. Law was described as being utterly powerless before the mass of crime which pervaded every part of the country. In 1824, the Government again proposed the renewal of this fatal Insurrection Act; and maintained that it was impossible to keep crime in check, and to protect the peaceful and orderly part of the population, without the extraordinary and unconstitutional powers with which they were invested by it. Each year, however, has presented its own peculiar feature of crime; but our space will allow us to allude but to one more, (1829,) the memorable year in which Catholic Emancipation was carried; and in order clearly to elucidate the justness of Lord Roden's views of the comparative tranquillity of Ireland before 1835 and after it, let us pause a moment to consider the well-known case of one man in connexion with that question. The leading Minister in the House of Commons had signalized the whole course of his public and official life, during twenty years, by an able and uncompromising opposition of the Catholic claims. He had been rendered powerful by the support of the great anti-Catholic party in this country; he was the chosen champion of their cause, and the elevated representative of the seat of Protestant exclusiveness. Implicit confidence was placed in one who had always predicted the downfal of the constitution in Church and State, if once the Catholics were relieved from their civil disabilities. Two years before the time we speak of, his matured judgment, he said, had so convinced him of the soundness of his views, that he resigned his high office, from the fear that Mr Canning's premiership might give a moral and indirect support to the claims of the Catholics. In 1828, he reiterated these opinions in Parliament, and avowed his intention of still acting on the grounds on which he had hitherto acted. Yet, in 1829, we find him not only moderating his feelings and modifying his principles, but veering right round from negative to positive ;-admitting the arguments of his op |