prepared either for his removal or his resignation. He has been recalled; and, while we hail that recall as a blessing to the country, we are more disposed to consider it his misfortune than his fault. His intentions, we believe, were as good as his views were erroneous. His error consisted in not seeing the change which circumstances made in the cause of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. Formerly, many were friendly to emancipation, because they were enemies to Popery. Now, the cause of Popery and that of emancipation are identified, and it is impossible to promote the one without promoting the other. Emancipation now means the establishment of Popery upon the ruins of Protestantism, and the final separation of Great Britain and Ire land. This is a view of the question which Mr Burke would never have advocated, which Mr Pitt would never have advocated, which none of the great names by whom the cause of the Papists has been supported would have advocated, and which can be consistently advocated only by those who are enemies to the connexion between Church and State, and who seek the overthrow of the Constitution.

Lord Anglesea has never been suspected of having a large or a legislative mind. His understanding is, however, not a common one. He is a good man of business, and exceedingly quick, intelligent, and even sagacious, in his observations upon ordinary affairs. He would have been an excellent judge at "Nisi Prius," although he possesses not the depth or the comprehensiveness necessary to constitute a statesman. He came to Ireland ignorant of even the most obvious features of its history. In his reply to the address of the Dissenters, he congratulates them upon the relief which they must have experienced in the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts!!! There are other instances in which his ignorance was most awkwardly apparent; but upon these it is not our purpose to enlarge. His services in the "tented field" are sufficiently important to atone, as well as to account, for even greater deficiencies.

But assuredly he was not a man, in the present most critical emergency, to be intrusted with the government of Ireland. The Noble Duke at the head of the cabinet will find it much easier to justify his recall than his appointment. The Marquis is a gallant

soldier-he is in his proper place at the head of his dragoons; but, called upon to bear the sword of justice in a country which was convulsed and agitated by a faction, with whom he was disposed to make common cause, of whose principles he approved, although he might be pained by some of their proceedings, how could he act with the vigour which could alone be effectual for the suppression of evil-doers, or make the seditious and the insolent man quail before him? It was impossible; and, without such vigour, there can be neither peace nor tranquillity in Ireland. The government must grapple with and subdue the agitator, before the country can be at rest. The wretched peasantry must be protected against the machinations of the unprincipled demagogues, by whom they have been so grossly abused and deluded, and who, if unfortunately they should be stimulated into any acts of outrage which might bring down upon them a visitation of legal vengeance, would be the first to desert them, and leave them to their fate. These audacious and cowardly incendiaries must be prevented flinging firebrands amongst the combustible materials that are so profusely scattered throughout Ireland. They have been too long suffered to drive a profitable trade by practising upon the feelings, and inflaming the passions, of a featherspringed and excitable population. The peace of the country must not depend upon their fiat. As long as it does, they are "de facto" THE GOVERNMENT. They exercise the substantial authority of the state, and may easily relinquish to the Lord Lieutenant and his council a pageant and a name.

Is the Duke of Wellington prepared for this?-for to that complexion things have come at last. The agitators have arrayed themselves in all their terrors, and fairly demand of him that he shall yield to their threats, and legislate for them under the influence of intimidation!! Thank God, they have spoken out-and that not so much by words as by deeds. "Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat." Thus have they set their cause upon a cast, and they must stand the hazard of the die. Although the Parliament has been, on more than one occasion, humbugged by the Jesuits, the Protestants of this great empire feel a perfect assurance that the Duke of Wellington will not be terri

fied by a poltroon. Bully Bottom will never pass with him for the real Monarch of the Woods. He never will take political instructions from any man, or any set of men, at the point of the bayonet. If there were no other objection to the concession of the Catholic claims, an honest and resolute statesman would find an insuperable one in the manner in which they are presented. Agitation is not argument. If it be good for any thing, it is good for every thing. Give the agitator an inch, and he will take an ell. The man who relies on agitation for the advancement of his cause, flies in the face of policy, and renounces justice. Minister who could yield to it would deserve a cap and bells, if an indignant nation could consent to spare the head upon which he might wear them ;he should be sent to Bedlam, to learn wisdom from its inmates.

The

But if in any country to yield to clamour is most unwise, in Ireland it would be the extreme of infatuation. It is needless to say, that the concession of the Catholic claims could be of real benefit to but a very few individuals. A principle would, in that case, be conceded, which would unhinge the framework of civil society. The people would literally gain nothing, or next to nothing; the government would lose every thing, or almost every thing: for they would lose that upon which the conservation of every thing else de pends their authority.

The Irish demagogues, in wielding the energies of the people at large for the accomplishment of Catholic Emancipation, are using the trunk of the elephant to pick up a pin. There is a monstrous disproportion between the means and the end. How aptly has faction been described as the madness of the many for the gain of the few! The definition never was so perfectly illustrated as by the conduct of the Roman Catholic Association. There the orators confess, that their cause must go to sleep but for the continual stimulants which they apply to the people. They tell the Government, that the people are so angry and clamorous, that unless emancipated, they will rebel ;—and they in the same breath tell the people, that unless they shake off their indifference and threaten to rebel, they will never be eman cipated. Thus they make the pros pect of concession the ground of se dition, in order that they may be en

abled to make sedition the ground of concession. We verily believe, there never was a time when the poor Irish peasantry, if left to themselves, were more disposed to be tranquil and contented. But they are an imaginative race, and easily excited by inflammatory harangues to be discontented with their present condition, and resentful of oppressions and injuries which only exist in their over-heated minds. Are they, we ask, with all their fine and dangerous susceptibilities both of good and evil, to be left as the stock-in-trade of the profligate agitator? That were a miserable policy! ""Twere pitiful! 'twere wondrous piti. ful!"

But what is to be done? We ask for no new legislative enactment; we desire no suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; we do not as yet even require that the Roman Catholics should be deprived of the elective franchise, which has been so fearfully abused. We say, try the laws. In the hands of honest William Saurin and a Dublin Jury, we are persuaded they would not be found unavailing. Let the experiment be tried, and we will answer for the result. If Saurin were again invested with the insignia of authority, at the very sound of his venerable name the Pandemonium

would be deserted. How would the arch-agitator O'Connell,

"That dog in forehead, but in heart a deer,"

blench at the very apprehension of encountering his honest eye in a court of justice! These people have had the reins too long. Time it is that they should be checked in their career. They have gained a victory over Plunkett, and they imagine that it was a victory over the law. But they are mistaken. The law is still sufficient to prescribe a limit to their career of violence; and, if vigorously exerted, it will put them down. The reign of anarchy must have an end, or there will be an end to the Constitution!

And this should be preliminary to any consideration of their question. Neither "words nor grass" will do. "We must try what virtue there is in stones." The Protestant Constitution in Church and State is rudely and vehemently assailed; and the assailants have been hitherto encouraged in their violence. Neither the supplications of their "liberal" friends, who scem fear

ful that they are prematurely discovering too much of the cloven foot; nor the feeble and mismanaged opposition of their enemies, have availed to arrest them in their career of sedition. They have now the encouragement of a Lord Lieutenant to persevere in the same course. Under his "macte virtute tua," they may hope to go on and prosper. He has been their stalking-horse hitherto. It is only proper that they should now employ themselves in forging for him the armour and the implements by which he may be rendered invulnerable, and be enabled to be victorious in Parliament. We thank the agitators for having brought their cause "in discrimen rerum." Something now must be done. It is no longer optional with Government to trifle with the tranquillity of Ireland. They must either prove them selves efficient to govern the country, or abdicate their functions. When despondency would settle upon us, from beholding the weakness or distraction that mars the councils of our friends, we are revived by observing something like the overruling providence of God in the infatuation of our enemies. The temper, the language, the measures which were intended for the overthrow of every thing dear and valuable to us as men and as Christians, will prove their preservation.

The question which the Duke of Wellington has to decide, is, not whether, by the concession of a particular measure, he will tranquillize an agitated people; but whether he will treat with agitators who tell him that they will not suffer the country to be tranquil except upon their own terms. The people, if left to themselves, are disposed to be at peace. We are persuaded it is as little their wish as their interest to be turbulent. The Irish people would, this moment, experience a positive relief by being deprived of the elective franchise. They would not, in that case, be ground between the exactions of the priest and the requirements of the landlord; they would not be scared by the fulminations of spiritual censure on the one hand, nor met by the bailiff and the ejectment on the other: Their spiritual would not be made to clash with their civil duties. But they are told that they ought to be discontented with things as they are; and agitators have arisen, whose profession and whose trade it is to madden them

by false and inflammatory representations. Unfortunately these men have been suffered to practise their "rhetorical artifices” until the country is in a flame, and until a wretched and misguided peasantry were driven to the very verge of insurrection. The motto of these miscreants seems to be, "Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo !"

And no one is better qualified than the Noble Duke at the head of the Government, to understand that the distinction is great and practical between agitators who are thrown upon the surface of society by the wrongs and the injuries of a people, whose pressing grievances demand redress,—and agitators who practise upon the passions of an otherwise tranquil and contented people, and disturb their minds and mislead their judgments by a system of factious and wicked declamation. It is in fact the distinction between agitation as an effect, and agitation as a cause. If it be wisdom in the one case to prevent the effect by removing the cause, it is no less wisdom, in the other case, by removing the cause to prevent the effcct. The Duke should tell the agitators But he can speak for himself. Without presuming to anticipate him, we scarcely think he will say to them," For keeping Ireland convulsed and agitated, you shall be rewarded by legislative consideration and indulgence!!!"

Now this is precisely what Lord Anglesea says in the letter to Dr Curtis which closed his administration. It is only for his sake we wish that letter had never been written. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland become an incendiary!!! There, indeed, he appears as Jack Lawless's bosom friend! Alas! poor Marquis, how sadly have you mistaken the vocation to which you were called! How has the spleen of an hour tarnished the lustre of chivalry!-He might have retired from the cares of Vice-royalty, if not with honour, at least with respect, had that unfortunate epistle never been indited;-but now his friends are covered with shame, his enemies are exultant, and he is himself beslavered by the eulogies of "the Association!" This is a spectacle to move the pity of his noble master, even more than the letter could have provoked his contempt.

The Noble Duke says, "Cease to agitate, and I will endeavour to give your case the most favourable consideration." The Noble Marquis says, "Agitate, or you will be unheeded." The Noble Duke says, "Your agitation obstructs,' the Noble Marquis says, "Your agitation must promote, your cause." The one wishes for quiet and tranquillity, that the question may be gravely and solemnly entertained; the other desires excitation and disturbance, that some hasty relief-bill may be precipitated through Parliament.

It is strange that the Noble Marquis, whose old master, Canning, might have taught him so much better, should have taken his ideas of British legislation from the Dublin Corn Exchange. To do that distinguished rhetorician justice, no man more utterly spurned the notion of legislating "upon compulsion." He would have died at any time sooner than bring into Parliament any measure at the dictation of a mob. He could be easily flattered into what was wrong, but bullied never. No; the liberals of the day found their advantage in working upon his vanity-they knew right well that he was unassailable on the side of fear. Artifice was employed to seduce him from courses which terror could never compel him to abandon; and he, who would have

triumphed over their enmity, fell a victim to their friendship!

The Duke of Wellington, without a particle of his weakness, possesses more than his moral courage, and is too right-hearted a British soldier not to meet the threats of the agitators, with the Marquis of Anglesea at their head, as becomes his station and his fame. The question with him should simply be, "Is that to be yielded to violence which would not be conceded to calm deliberation?" There he should make his stand; that should be his Torres Vedras in Parliament. Upon that high and firm ground all the violence of all the agitators will break into foam around him.

But, hush! The Parliament are about to assemble! The eyes of Europe are upon them! The world is interested in their deliberations. Never, since England was a nation, did such awful consequences hang suspended upon her legislative resolves! Hitherto our institutions have been preserved by an almost special Providence. We will not, we cannot believe, that the arm which defended them is now uplifted to destroy! The illustrious deliverer of Europe is their guardian. They are safe under the shadow of his fame.

DUBLIN, 10th Jan. 1829.